David Bernstein writes at the Washington Post‘s Volokh Conspiracy blog:
“Many religious Christians of a traditionalist bent believed that liberals not only reduce their deeply held beliefs to bigotry, but want to run them out of their jobs, close down their stores and undermine their institutions. … I hope liberals really enjoyed running Brendan Eich out of his job and closing down the Sweet Cakes bakery, because it cost them the Supreme Court.”
I think there’s truth to that. LGBT progressives along with gay libertarians and center-right conservatives worked to achieve marriage equality. Then the left, instead of accepting victory and seeking to live (and let live) with those of differing views, went the authoritarian route and decided to use the power of the progressive state (federally and in in left-leaning localities) to force Christian conservatives to provide creative services for same-sex weddings, among other assaults on religious liberty.
Bernstein points to, as a turning point, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli saying during the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in Obergefell that religiously affiliated schools might lose their tax exempt status if they refused to recognize same-sex marriages. I’m not sure that particular statement “cost his party the election,” but it was part of a larger culture war attack strategy that did.
Bernstein also cites a recent column by Megan McArdle at Bloomberg, The Left’s Doomed Effort to Coerce the Right, that notes:
Over the last few years, as controversies have erupted over the rights of cake bakers and pizza places to refuse to cater gay weddings, the rights of nuns to refuse to provide insurance that covers birth control, the rights of Catholic hospitals to refuse to perform abortions, and the rights of Christian schools to teach (and require students and teachers to practice) traditional Christian morality, some Christians have begun to feel that their communities are under existential threat. …
I’ve heard from a number of evangelicals who, despite their reservations about the man, ended up voting for Donald Trump because they fear that the left is out to build a world where it will not be possible to hold any prominent job while holding onto their church’s beliefs about sexuality. Discussions I’ve had in recent days with nice, well-meaning progressives suggest that this is not a paranoid fantasy. An online publisher’s witch hunt against two television personalities — because of the church they attend — validates the fears of these Christians.
And Tammy Bruce writes at the Washington Times:
“As a gay woman, I find it embarrassing to watch gays publicly harass individuals simply for who they are. For several years now we have watched so-called gay leadership and their affiliated activists target Christians and their businesses to either punish them and send a message to everyone else — either conform to the liberal narrative or suffer grave consequences.”
For the past few years I’ve been raising these issues and warning the LGBT left of how counter-productive its attacks on people of faith were. The response was typically to mock me for not recognizing the new order in which there would be no tolerance of religious exemptions from government-mandated behavior. The brewing backlash was evident to all, excepting those who have eyes but could not see, and ears but could not hear.
48 Comments for “How the LGBT Left Lost Its Way”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
IGF is certainly turning into a one-pony circus, I’ll say that for it..
posted by Throbert McGee on
Well… Sierra-Tango-Foxtrot WHAT?
Even if IGF is just the “Stephen H. Miller Show,” it’s competing in the Free Marketplace of Ideas with Towleroad and Joe.My.God. and Queerty and The Advocate and I-dunno-how-many-more.
Evidence? See Kosh III’s droolingly misinformed attempt at Biblical exegesis, in a thread below — something that can only have gotten applause on a site like Towleroad.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I was refering to the paucity of topics on IGF of late, not to the fact that Stephen is the sole remaining contributor.
I don’t pay much attention to Christian exegesis of the Hebrew Scriptures, to be blunt. Christian reading/understanding is so filtered/mediated through the lens of Christian theology that it is of little or no value except to Christians. I understand, as well, that any reading other than a Christian reading is irrelevant to Christians and of no use to them. So there doesn’t seem to be much point in my joining the discussion or commenting on it.
posted by TJ on
A Republican wins by a few percentage points in key states and now Fox and company and Stephen are singing a similar narrative.
posted by Kosh III on
“Then the left, instead of accepting victory and seeking to live (and let live) with those of differing views,”
Because the GOP/Teanut/Conservatives REFUSED to live and let live. Instead they increased their hateful attacks. See the thrice divorced clerk in KY, see Ted Cruz, adulterous Trump, Pence, Falwell………
and of course the self-loathing quisling who wrote this piece from his comfy liberal enclave.
posted by TJ on
Well, “the right” has not been much into “live and let live “. Their is a difference between being a doormat and live and let live.
Just about every slow legal advancement or improved cultural trend, came despite people that did not want to live and let live.
I offer a way to protect religious freedom and civil rights. How many on the political right have backed it? How many gay Republicans living on safe zones have backed it?
posted by Jorge on
“The presidential election was so close that many factors were “but-for” causes of Donald Trump’s victory.”
Fine.
“I’ve heard from a number of evangelicals who, despite their reservations about the man, ended up voting for Donald Trump because they fear that the left is out to build a world where it will not be possible to hold any prominent job while holding onto their church’s beliefs about sexuality. Discussions I’ve had in recent days with nice, well-meaning progressives suggest that this is not a paranoid fantasy.”
Hold a job? How about keep your freedom? I asked my best friend (a progressive and incredibly wise man) his opinion on the Kim Davis’s arrest, committing mentally not to say anything. His answer filled me with horror for many weeks afterward. There are many “but for” causes for why I decided late in the campaign to give money to and vote for Donald Trump. That was a big one.
Hillary Clinton is many good things, but she was not the answer to this problem.
“See the thrice divorced clerk in KY”, what is this BS? What does the fact that she married three adulterous, slanderous, disrespectful cretins years ago have to do with anything? I’ve never married anyone in my life, does that mean I’m not really gay?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
What does the fact that she married three adulterous, slanderous, disrespectful cretins years ago have to do with anything?
Actually, Davis, ChristianMartyr™, married one of the “adulterous, slanderous, disrespectful cretins” twice. Fool me once, shame one you; fool me twice, shame on me.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Kim Davis, ChristianMartyr™, was jailed because she refused to obey a lawful order of a federal judge, and remained in custody until she complied with the order.
posted by Kosh III on
Jorge
Hypocrisy. She committed adultery, she practiced divorce but that’s fine and dandy for her “values” but gay??? cf “I hate divorce, says the Lord” Mal. 2:16
How do you know it was the man’s fault? She sounds pretty awful herself as she refused to abide by her solemn oath of office.
posted by Jorge on
Oh what a load of crap.
I am not going to give you permission to question my assumptions. The mere fact that you question instead of rebut her history tells me that you’ve got nothing but your own biased and ill-informed assumptions about someone you do not know.
(And how do I know this? Well, read Tom’s post above. People can’t resist going for the low-hanging fruit.)
I do not know if you are judging out of ignorance or spite, but it shows a rather ugly side to your character.
posted by Throbert McGee on
It’s just possible that Kim Davis thought her solemn oath of office was to serve the will of the citizens of Kentucky, and not the will of five SCOTUS justices.
posted by JohnInCA on
Not really. She knew the decision was possible (even if she didn’t think it likely) before she took office, and one of the first things she did in office was contact her representative saying she didn’t *want* to have to give gay couples licenses.
And if you recall her legal arguments, it was never that the SCOTUS decision didn’t apply, just that they wanted her religion to be a “get out of work free” card.
And it gets better! As you may recall, one of her arguments was that a license was *only* valid of our had *her* signature, which is why she couldn’t just let one of her employees sign. But whataya know? Looking at her own marriage licenses, granted by the same office, she didn’t get the top dogs signature.
So not only was she sufficiently warned of the coming decision, not only did she not dispute that the SCOTUS decision applied to hwy office, she also didn’t hold herself to the same legal standard as she was holding gay people.
Find a better martyr. This one stinks.
posted by Jorge on
But whataya know? Looking at her own marriage licenses, granted by the same office, she didn’t get the top dogs signature.
Well, that only serves to show that day one at the office was probably the first time she learned that she has to sign or affix her name on every single marriage certificate herself and is prohibited by state regulation from delegating or abdicating that bit of manual dexterity. If I had suffered a bait-and-switch like that (and it does happen; I’m very by the book) I’d have contacted an advocate my very first day of office, too.
In the end she wasn’t smart enough to realize that she didn’t need a federal judge to tell her that state law was unconstitutional, she had the legal authority to ignore it (believe you me, that’s a lesson I took to heart). Why should she have gone to jail for having an IQ below 120?
posted by JohnInCA on
“Why should she have gone to jail for having an IQ below 120?”
Seeing as you haven’t believed anyone that’s corrected you on why she went to jail, I’m not sure why I should treat this question as a “good faith” question.
posted by Kosh III on
“because they fear that the left is out to build a world where it will not be possible to hold any prominent job ”
You mean they were afraid it would be done unto them as they have done unto gays for centuries? Fake fear. No one cares what they believe, just what they do-which has been to cram THEIR religious opinion onto others.
posted by Houndentenor on
“…want to run them out of their jobs, close down their stores and undermine their institutions”
Why does that sound familiar? Oh right, because that’s what the religious right tries to do to gay and gay-friendly people. This argument might have some legitimacy if there weren’t constant calls for boycotts against businesses that support gay rights. If these tactics are wrong, then why do they use them?
posted by Mark Peterson on
I don’t understand the Bernstein post. The only election this year that gay rights seemed to play a role in was the North Carolina governor’s race, and there an anti-LGBT position hurt the Republicans. So it seems a long way to go to argue that the anti-gay cause actually helped Republicans. Were there anti-gay Christians in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania who wouldn’t have voted for Trump but for this issue? If there were any, why doesn’t Bernstein cite polling data on that point? Did Trump even mention this issue anytime he campaign in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, which turned out to be the key states?
posted by JohnInCA on
“Then the left, instead of accepting victory and seeking to live (and let live) with those of differing views, went the authoritarian route and decided to use the power of the progressive state (federally and in in left-leaning localities) to force Christian conservatives to provide creative services for same-sex weddings, among other assaults on religious liberty.”
Seriously?
2003 – New Mexico passes it’s non-discrimination law.
2005 – Elane Photography gets sued for violating said law.
2013 – New Mexico gets marriage equality
2008 – Oregon passes it’s non-discrimination law.
2013 – Sweet Cakes by Melissa gets sued.
2014 – Oregon gets marriage equality.
2006 – Washington passes it’s non-discrimination law.
2012 – Washington gets marriage equality.
2013 – Arlene’s Flowers get sued for violating the state’s non-discrimination law.
2008 – Colorado passes it’s non-discrimination law.
2012 – Masterpiece Cakeshop violates the state’s non-discrimination law.
2014 – Colorado gets marriage equality.
Any other cases you want to actually check the dates on? Most of these infamous cases were started *before* the state had marriage equality. In *every* case the state had non-discrimination laws before marriage equality.
posted by Throbert McGee on
In a thread downstairs, Lori Heine wrote:
I basically agree, but I would add: “Or, conservatives might possibly listen a little bit to gay liberals who are fluent in the conservative dialect.”
In other words, do not be like the idjits who take one year of high-school Spanish and then go to South America and shout in a loud, slow voice, “¿Como mucho dolares norteamericano do you quieres for this figura ceramico of la Santa Maria de la Blessed-Virgin-of-Guadalupe-riding-a-llama, mi pendejo?”
posted by JohnInCA on
It’s a nice myth, but there’s no support for it.
Why? Well for one thing, because conservative gays have been trying to change the party since before I was born. And whataya know, as much as the party has gotten “better”, the #1 reason is knowing a gay person, not being persuaded by any “conservative argument”.
I mean face it, conservative gays were making “the conservative case for gay marriage” back in the 90s. It didn’t work on conservatives. Honestly, it didn’t work on anyone. What did work? Emotional arguments about wanting to marry for the same reasons you did: love, commitment, family, and so-on.
And this isn’t just marriage, that’s just an easy example. But we saw and see the same thing across the board: insofar as gay conservatives are actually convincing anyone, it’s simply by being out. But making “conservative arguments”? Um, no. You guys proved over multiple decades that you can’t do that.
posted by Lori Heine on
The case conservative gays have been making worked on some, and not on others. That’s how life works in the real human world.
I’m going to issue a challenge. Not that I expect any of the leftoids here to respond to it. What, exactly do YOU think it would look like if gay conservatives met with success?
Surely you don’t think that ALL anti-gay conservatives would magically evaporate into the ozone.
If you understood anything about how human beings really react to change, you’d realize that the anti-gay right wing is behaving exactly the way losers do, before the game is over. They get louder, and more extreme, because that’s human nature.
You’ve bought into a lie. And you’ve done so willingly. Were you to ask the people you regard as experts what they think it would look like if opinion on the political right began to change, they couldn’t tell you without sounding totally absurd.
The anti-gay forces on the right are going to do as much damage as they possibly can. They will get louder and louder. The devil has but a short time, as Scripture says. He’ll make the very most of it.
I know this, and so do gay conservatives. That’s why we’re not impressed by the sobbing of the gay leftist sheeple.
posted by Lori Heine on
Furthermore, gay conservatives don’t believe in the leftist agenda–period. So when your yardstick is that they should make the political right do the bidding of the left of every issue, even every gay-related issue, you’re just being stupid.
I am no longer a leftist because I have come to despise almost everything the left stands for. After this election season, those views have crystallized. I am so disgusted by leftism that I no longer want anything to do with it. If you’d whore yourselves out for Hillary Clinton, you’re nothing but frauds.
I don’t want the right to capitulate to every nutty demand the Democratic Party, or the left in general, happens to make.
But it’s becoming pretty clear that when you claim that gay conservatives have failed, that’s the standard to which you are holding them.
posted by Throbert McGee on
Possibly they get louder and extreme because when Prop 8 temporarily ended “same-sex marriage” in California and reverted things to the previous status quo — namely, “all but the M-word” domestic-partnership legislation with legal teeth — the reaction from the left was OMIGOD, H8 H8 H8, YOU ARE DESTROYING OUR LIVES AND GAY FAMILIES ARE BEING TORN APART BY HYENAS!!!
P.S. And to anyone who wants to say “Oh, but domestic-partnerships and civil unions weren’t recognized by the federal government”…
…put a f*cking cork in it, morons, same-sex marriages using the word “marriage” weren’t recognized by the federal government either. Indeed, that was kind of the point of Windsor.
posted by JohnInCA on
Go read Judge Walkers decision in the prop 8 case. He did a pretty good job of enumerating the ways “civil unions” were less-then without bringing the Fed into it. New Jersey had a similar case about the failings of “civil unions”.
That said, there was a path to get the Fed to recognize marriage (Windsor). There was no comparable path to hwy Fed recognition of civil unions.
So fed recognition of civil unions was dependent on getting the 20+ states that had banned them to amend their constitutions (again) and then sign onto a pro-LGBT law aw in Congress.
posted by JohnInCA on
Can you meet your own challenge? What do *you* think “success” is supposed to look like?
Me? Widespread acceptance of “I don’t like it, bit that doesn’t mean there should be a law against it”. Instead they fought to force everyone to abide their twisted ideas of “morality”. Adoption law, DADT, sodomy law… These were only controversial because conservatives were unswayed.
Heck, civil unions! Theres a big one. Simply not naming “civil unions” in 20+ states would have been a sign that conservatives were open to compromise. But they didn’t, because they weren’t, because gay conservatives weren’t persuasive.
posted by Throbert McGee on
Right, it can’t possibly have been because conservatives had a sneaking suspicion that civil-unions were NOT the end game, but only a stepping stone towards “redefining Marriage.”
And all the language about “civil unions are an undignified sham that condemn gay people to 2nd-class citizenship and Rosa Parks did not sit in the middle of the bus, blah-de-blah, plz stop teh H8″ may have tended to confirm to conservatives that their suspicions were correct.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Right, it can’t possibly have been because conservatives had a sneaking suspicion that civil-unions were NOT the end game, but only a stepping stone towards “redefining Marriage.”
It didn’t take much to pierce the veil, given that support for “civil unions as stepping stone” was a popular theme among homocons. Look back in the IGF archives, searching first for “civil union” and then for “domestic partnership”. You’ll find at least a dozen posts by various IGF contributors making the case that progressive gays and lesbians were pushing marriage when they should have been taking an incremental approach, first civil unions, then, when the dust settled, marriage.
posted by JohnInCA on
@Throbert
Do you ever get tired of blaming the inefficacy of conservatives gays on democrats?
That said, you do realize you basically just argued that conservative gay arguments were incapable of being successful?
posted by Throbert McGee on
You say “emotional”; I say “bathetic and lugubrious.”
posted by JohnInCA on
What’s it say that more conservatives have been swayed by whatever that typo was supposed to be, then by “conservative arguments”?
posted by Lori Heine on
As a libertarian, I travel all over the political landscape. This means that I visit all the various little bubbles, and I know what goes on there, but I don’t stay in any of them.
Many of the left-leaning comments on IGF threads are from deep inside the gay-left bubble. They get almost everything wrong about how conservatives think. Conservatives do the same when they rave on and on about “baking the damn cake” as if most gay people really give a rat’s patootie about making people who don’t like us bake our cakes or provide any sort of service to our weddings.
The issue is largely artificially-contrived, and therefore bogus. If there was ever an industry in which gay people were widely represented, it is the wedding industry. Caterers, florists and photographers? Puh-leeze! Most of us would have to travel far and wide to find vendors who would NOT serve us.
Just a few weeks ago, I attended the wedding of two men. At the reception, they had two delicious cakes: one probably from Safeway, and the other baked by one of the Dignity priests. They most likely did it this way to save money. But if they’d wanted to spring for expensive cakery, they would undoubtedly have gone to the Gay Yellow pages, or the Pride Guide, and found a superabundance of bakers available to them.
We don’t need legislation–either to force people to bake our cakes or to protect “Christians” who don’t want to bake them. Reality can be clearly seen when one doesn’t live in a bubble.
posted by TJ on
يىثااتنممممالثثرسسقبلتنمخعغبثزننهاااتننتعليل
posted by Throbert McGee on
I’ll bite — what does that say? (Or did you just switch to Arabic input and run your fingers over the keyboard? That string of four M’s in a row makes me suspicious.)
posted by Paul Bourgeault on
Google Translate. It seems like it’s just gibberish posted for attention.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
What, exactly do YOU think it would look like if gay conservatives met with success?
Looking at the issue of marriage, had gay conservatives met with success:
(1) Platform The Republican Party’s 2016 Platform would have a statement on marriage, directly or indirectly reflecting (a) the social conservative (not conservative Christian) case for marriage (see Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America) and (b) the libertarian/constitutional case for equal treatment under the law (see 2016 Libertarian Platform and Ted Olson’s writings on marriage). A draft amending (entirely by omission of anti-equality “traditional marriage” language, consisting of three sentences and another couple dozen words, om the “Marriage, Family and Society” section, and adding the words “sexual orientation” in the “We the People” section) the actual language of the 2016 Platform:
Now, obviously, other sections of the 2016 Platform (e.g. “Defending Marriage Against an Activist Judiciary”) would have to be eliminated or greatly modified in order to effectuate the intent of the “Marriage, Family and Society” and “We the People” sections quoted and amended above, but that is a detail.
(2) Republican Embrace of Conservative PrinciplesThe Republican Party would have (as predicted by Stephen and many others in the 1990’s and early 2000’s) embraced same-sex marriage contemporaneously or before the Democratic Party because the “societal stability” case for is essentially a conservative case.
I want you to notice something important: The “Marriage, Family and Society” language almost perfectly corresponds to the conservative argument made on behalf fo “marriage as essential to societal stability” that Jonathan Rauch made in his 2004 book, “Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America“, which I assume you have read at some point, and if you haven’t, you should.
Rauch makes a very strong case on behalf of marriage as the core of societal stability, and makes a very strong case against lessening “marriage as the gold standard” by denying marriage to gays and lesbians. It is a conservative argument, and it was the single most important factor in bringing me over from the “marriage equivalent” side of the argument to the “marriage equality” side of the argument. I grew up in an age when “If you want to live together, get married, and if you have children, stay married.” was the cultural norm and cultural expectation. Marriage was “the gold standard” in that time, and I think that it still should be.
I taught that to my children, and I have worked hard to help a handful of close friends work through serious difficulties in their marriages and stay married. I believe in marriage, and I believe that marriage is the cornerstone and keystone of a stable society. And I believe that marriage equality is essential to a stable society at a time in our history when many/most gays and lesbians are forming long-term relationships and raising children.
Conservative Christians will always be with us, and I suspect that same-sex marriage will be anathema to 25-30% of our population for a long time. I don’t think that it is our (those of us outside conservative Christianity) business to try to change conservative Christian theology about same-sex marriage, and I don’t look for that to happen.
What I do want to happen, and what I think would have happened had gay conservatives met with success, is that both major political parties would reflect the majority American opinion on marriage equality, that is, support marriage equality.
As the experience of the Democratic Party demonstrates (the Democratic Party has, as a major constituency, a significant body of conservative Christians) that a conservative Christian minority can (and should) preach, teach and proselytize without taking over a major political party’s platform and positions, and without forcing a major political party to pander itself into untenable political positions, positions that are harmful to society as a whole.
Had gay conservatives met with success, the Republican Party would not have followed Bush/Rove/Mehlman down the anti-marriage amendment rabbit hole, but instead would have been making an affirmative, conservative case of marriage. If gay conservatives had met with success, the Republican Party would not be digging in its heels on the issue, fighting against demographic and societal changes accepted by a significant and increasing majority of Americans.
posted by Lori Heine on
All those words — and you still miss the point.
I will tell you why they have not changed. You aren’t going to like it, but since you can’t figure it out for yourself I will tell you.
Politics have become an opposition-for-its-own-sake, team sport. Everyone is told to choose one team or the other. And in their own bubble, they are made scared to death of the other side.
Conservatives have been given good reason to fear “progressives” in general and Democrats in particular. They hate a lot of what the left, under the auspices of the Democratic Party, are doing. It has been drilled into them for years that the opposition really wants to destroy both them and the country.
And of course, the other team’s little minions are told a different version of the same. With hero and villain merely reversed. This is why people like Doug get so hysterical, and go off on boilerplate recitations of the catechism, when faced with opportunities to think outside the bubble.
The Democrats, and the “progressives,” would need to change–and significantly–in order for the GOP or the conservatives to do much in the way of accommodating any suggestions their dreaded opponents might make.
The team-sport system is not set up, at present, to accommodate that. Coming over to IGF and haranguing Stephen Miller about this state of affairs is just stupid.
Of course when a libertarian stands to the side and calmly explains what is going on and why it is the way it is, we get shouted down by people who scream that we’re crazy.
You lost the election. You will lose many, many, many more. You’ve lost the entire country. Deal with it. Either you learn why, or you don’t.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
All those words — and you still miss the point. I will tell you why they have not changed. You aren’t going to like it, but since you can’t figure it out for yourself I will tell you.
Thanks. It is always a pleasure to be enlightened.
Listen up. You asked a question. I answered it.
posted by Lori Heine on
Your answer presumes that the Democrats are overall the better of the two big-corporate-state parties. I believe that you are mistaken. They are a tandem act, and not really in opposition to each other at all.
Lofty words about the Constitution are meaningless when we are faced with two parties, neither of which cares about the Constitution.
I will not be voting for Democrats anymore. Like a growing number of former progressive Democrats, I am lost to them. They have dealt so mendaciously with us that they will never regain our trust.
Your pious words are based upon the delusion that voting gay-gay-gay will bring about any sort of meaningful good for LGBT Americans. It will not, if the party that panders to us destroys this country.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
You asked “What, exactly do YOU think it would look like if gay conservatives met with success?” I answered in detail, and that is the end of it. You don’t like the answer, but I see no point in arguing with you about it.
posted by Lori Heine on
The things you enumerated are happening. They’re just not happening fast enough to suit you.
I suspect they couldn’t possibly, given the realities of human nature.
We are simply going to have to disagree, and leave it at that.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The things you enumerated are happening.
Interesting. I see no evidence that the 2016 Platform is any closer to embracing same-sex marriage than 2012 or 2008 Platforms. If anything, the 2016 Platform moved in the opposite direction, becoming more strident in opposition to same-sex marriage.
They’re just not happening fast enough to suit you.
Speed isn’t the problem; direction is the problem.
posted by Lori Heine on
I am talking about CULTURAL CHANGE. A change in attitude, in individuals, at the grassroots. You are talking about political strategy. The big-boy billionaire crony game.
No, the party platform has not changed yet. As Jorge might say, “Yawn.”
You measure progress by how many crony capitalists who run a major political party change their minds. I measure differently.
Now that difference is clear to me, so I won’t argue with you about it anymore. It would do no good.
posted by Throbert McGee on
In other words, Rauch would have us believe that the Culture Of Monogamish does not exist. When conservatives opposed to same-sex marriage said that gay and lesbian couples are “just playing house,” it was an overstated generalization, but not an outrageous lie.
On the other hand, one thing I’ve long been willing to criticize my conservative Christian friends for is the fact that, while upholding “procreative heterosexual marriage” as the Gold Standard, they are unwilling to accept “monogamous same-sex couplehood” as some kind of Bronze Standard.
Instead, they view it as a “Mud Standard,” and are too often unwilling to make a conceptual and moral distinction between bathhouse promiscuity and the spiritual discipline of staying monogamous with your same-sex partner.
But this is exactly the sort of language I use in challenging them — not “Oh, you hypocritical bigot, don’t you know that Jesus wuvs evwybody?!”
posted by Throbert McGee on
Also, I’ve been on conservative forums where some same-sex marriage opponent accused gay and lesbian couples of “just playing house,” and my answer was always:
“If they’re truly ‘just playing house’ and their love is a sham, God will judge them. But in the meantime, gay and lesbian citizens are getting SHAFTED by a government that their TAXES help to support, since they have to spend two or three times the cost of a marriage license and do more paperwork and more footwork in order to get a lower degree of legal protection.”
THAT is how you argue with conservatives.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
But in the meantime, gay and lesbian citizens are getting SHAFTED by a government that their TAXES help to support, since they have to spend two or three times the cost of a marriage license and do more paperwork and more footwork in order to get a lower degree of legal protection.” THAT is how you argue with conservatives.
Which feeds right into the tired old “All they want is the government benefits …” nonsense. But I’ll take your word that it is an effective argument among conservatives; certainly it was the primary argument made by GOProud, so it must be.
posted by JohnInCA on
“THAT is how you argue with conservatives.”
Which is why, of course, conservatives lined-up behind the Windsor decision.
Oh, wait, that didn’t happen.
posted by Throbert McGee on
I hear what you’re saying, but sometimes a non-Christian can change their minds. Example: The KJV uses “sodomites” in rendering Deuteronomy 23:17, but more modern translations use a phrase like “male temple prostitutes” — and quite a few Evangelicals suspect the latter of being “liberal revisionism”!
But in my experience, many are willing to reconsider their position if you say, politely, “It’s not liberal revisionism, because even the most strictly traditionalist Orthodox Jewish rabbis would insist that ‘sodomite’ is not a very good translation of the original Hebrew, and here’s why….”