"The secular arguments against gay marriage, when they aren't just based on bigotry or custom, tend to be abstract in ways that don't find purchase in American political discourse. I say, 'Institutional support for reproduction,' you say, 'I love my boyfriend and I want to marry him.' Who wins that debate? You win that debate."
Ross Douthat is both right and wrong about who wins that debate. Yes, we win it in the long run. But to get to the long run you have to go through the short-term. And we definitely didn't win the debate in California -- or 29 other states.
What Douthat describes is the simple humanity of our appeal. We aren't asking for anything abstract at all. What is esoteric or obscure about connecting love and marriage? Who doesn't understand that? But look at the lengths our opponents go to to counter that simple truth.
So why do we lose debates, in the concrete form of very consequential (to us) elections? Because of what Douthat buries in a subordinate clause. What secular arguments against gay marriage are anything other than ". . . just based on bigotry or custom"? There are certainly arguments about children and religion, but they aren't arguments against gay marriage, they're arguments against homosexuality in the common world. The most vocal opponents of same-sex marriage find homosexuality an intrusion into a worldview that has no place for anything other than heterosexuality. That's a worldview that used to be all but universal, but it isn't any more. Marriage is the only respectable arena left where people can express their distaste for lesbians and gay men who don't have the good taste to pretend they are straight. The closet is closed for business; lesbians and gay men are on television and in government and business and sports; some of them live right there in the neighborhood and their children go to school and play soccer. All of that is done.
Marriage is the only part of the civil law where prejudice still has some hold, where ancient misunderstandings retain their bite. Every time someone has the conversation Douthat describes, we can win another voter or two. But if he has any doubt about how hard our task is (and has been for decades), he should ponder this thought, which he expressed to the Observer:
"Mr. Douthat indicated that he opposes gay marriage because of his religious beliefs, but that he does not like debating the issue in those terms. At one point he said that, sometimes, he feels like he should either change his mind, or simply resolve never to address the question in public."
How many lesbians or gay men can even imagine what a luxury it would be to be able to avoid addressing this question in public? As a heterosexual in good standing, Douthat has that option. But every heterosexual who exercises it casts a potent kind of vote in favor of the status quo, which works for them but not at all for us. Having all of those conversations, all of those debates, is no easy thing for us, or for heterosexuals. But we have no other tool to achieve the simple equality that we deserve.
(H/T Andrew)
2 Comments for “Ross Douthat On Winning Debates”
posted by TS on
The Douhat article is brilliant. I think you missed one of the less explicit points, which is that for SECULAR political actors, the for arguments are generally direct-impact rational axioms or emotional appeals that should easily trump the abstract, confusing, and just plain bad secular agaisnt arguments. Which is why secular humanists show up consistently on political charts as the most tightly integrated group with LGBTs.
Everybody with a tenth of an intellect hosts some kind of internal discourse when confronted with a dilemma. Most straight people react with distaste to the notion of homosexuality. But, if they went through the above SECULAR internal discourse, for should win easily and gay marriage would have been in the Code of Hammurabi. Which is the handy role of RELIGION for these people.
Religious people are secular most of the time. A 100% religious person would volunteer for every hazardous church task available, or perhaps simply go to church and stop eating, eager to accelerate their trip to heaven. In everyday life, they must behave secularly just to survive. So, feeling revulsion to the notion of gay marriage but unable to explain to themselves why, they have the handy backup system of religion, which allows them to replace the secular self-discourse producing the anomalous result with “God doesn’t like it. No wonder I don’t either. The end.”
Douhat understands this.
posted by Gillian on
Most straight people react with distaste to the notion of homosexuality
Really? not in my experience. Which is that of a straight woman. So I should really shut up.
But really? is that your experience? Weird (not that that’s your experience, but that straight people should etc.)