Log Cabin makes its case:
LGBT rights leaders flunk Trump on first 100 dayshttps://t.co/o0zzpuqQCK pic.twitter.com/YNdMC46POi
— DCHomos (@DCHomos) April 27, 2017
Trump can be criticized on many grounds but all those “F”s from LGBT activist “leaders” is pure partisan progressive hackery.
Plus this charming cover.
And widespread disdain for both parties—by those who identify as party supporters:
COLUMN | Voters Learn There's Little to Love About Either Party
>@WashBlade:https://t.co/QzvvrDK7rS— Mark Lee (@MarkLeeDC) April 28, 2017
Finally, Andrew Sullivan detests Trump but makes some pertinent observations.
Trump’s first 100 days have proven that the Constitution can, so far, keep his worst impulses in check https://t.co/5IhHsxEBCr
— Daily Intelligencer (@intelligencer) April 28, 2017
66 Comments for “The Trump Divide”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Native Americans in my neck of the woods have a word, “ishnala” loosely alliterated, meaning “by itself alone”. The word pretty much describes Angelo’s and LCR’s fawning.
posted by TJ on
Thus far, President Trump has decided to stop any federal progress with regards to transgender people, but has been much more discrete in opposing gay rights.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
As an aside, the Washington Blade cover is a knock-off of a photograph, not sui generis.
posted by Houndentenor on
Yes, Trump deserves an F. I can’t believe any gay person can argue otherwise. Almost all his appointments are strongly anti-gay and he’s been a complete failure at just about everything. I would give him an F, only because there’s no such grade as F-.
posted by JohnInCA on
Well, at least they stopped trying to defend him as *pro*-lgbt, just not *anti*. They point about Kennedy weird though. Kennedy is from before being anti-LGBT was part of the conservative judge litmus test.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The point about Kennedy weird though. Kennedy is from before being anti-LGBT was part of the conservative judge litmus test.
Justice Kennedy has, apparently, been sending subtle hints about retiring at the end of this term. I wonder how the homocons will try to spin his replacement. Hint: Justice Gorsuch’s opinions have been to the right of Justice Scalia’s opinions. We can expect that if Justice Kennedy retires, the “swing” vote will be Chief Justice Roberts going forward. A dismal prospect.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The point about Kennedy …
… seems to be, although not explicitly stated by Angelo, is that you have to go back 29 years to find a Republican Supreme Court appointment that didn’t put a solidly anti-equality Justice on the Court.
posted by Jorge on
“It has been a catastrophe,” said Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality and a leading strategist behind a string of legal and policy victories the community achieved during the Obama administration. “Every twitch we’ve seen from the administration has been anti-L.G.B.T.”
(Lol)
Your editorial closes by saying “for the foreseeable future, the federal courts are likely to be the only avenue of progress.” That may be true, but the last three times the Supreme Court issued landmark rulings in support of L.G.B.T. equality, it was Justice Anthony M. Kennedy who wrote the opinions.
Justice Kennedy was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, who was unfairly derided for being anti-gay.
(Ummm, murky is right.)
If these trends continue, coupled with broadening disenchantment toward both major parties, no presidential candidate is likely to win a majority again anytime soon.
Probably a good thing as far as I’m concerned. I wouldn’t like this Republican party to inspire lockstep loyalty. Or the current Democratic party.
To me all those Fs tell me that these rights organizations and leaders are delicate wallflowers who aren’t satisfied unless literally everything goes their way.
I would give President Trump an A- on LGBT rights (but I’m a little embarrassed the Log Cabin Republicans would grade him so highly, too). Overall, I give him a B.
Trump must learn how to do more than pull out Deus Ex Machina instant victory moves. He must learn how to fight and win the long battle. So far the only two issues on which he has clearly begun a long campaign are building the wall and fighting sanctuary cities–and only the former has included a role for Congress. Those are the right issues to play the long game on, but he must develop and demonstrate his skills elsewhere.
In policy, I agree everything his administration has done or tried to do except for free trade. I am still a little concerned he might try to overthrow or purge Congress, but less so than I used to be. The defeat of the health care reform bill was very revealing: the President and Congress still need each other.
Yes, Trump deserves an F. I can’t believe any gay person can argue otherwise.
***
Well, at least they stopped trying to defend him as *pro*-lgbt, just not *anti*.
Neutrality in the face of fanaticism is a noble act that demonstrates political courage.
posted by Jorge on
In policy, I agree everything his administration has done or tried to do…
I agree *with* everything his administration has done or tried to do except for free trade.
posted by Lori Heine on
Trump is, basically, a moderate Democrat. He’s roughly where Bill Clinton was back in the Nineties. To get the vapors about how right-wing he is, people really must be drinking the Leftist Kool-Aid.
Bill Clinton was NOT a friend to the LGBT community. All efforts to scrub his record clean of this taint are dishonest. It’s partisan hackery, to be sure.
Donald Trump is an authoritarian bully. I didn’t vote for him because I knew he’d be that way. Hillary Clinton would have been one, too. That’s why I didn’t vote for her, either.
Partisan hacks are weaklings. I have no respect for that sort of crap. This isn’t the Patriots against the Broncos, people. Grow the hell up already.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Well, at least they stopped trying to defend him as *pro*-lgbt, just not *anti*.
President Trump isn’t going to move the ball forward at all. His actions so far have made that as easy to see as a goat’s ass. The only question is how much of what we’ve gained to date will be left when he leaves office.
LCR seems to think that he won’t do too much damage, and it could be that they are right. I certainly hope so, but my guess is that his underlings are going to chip away at us as much as they can, and I have no confidence at all that LCR is going to swoop in like Mighty Mouse and save the day.
posted by John in Chicago on
Some of Trump’s best friends are gay (and It’s really true!). George W Bush was also cool as can be on the subject in terms of his personal relationships; no anti-gay bigot nicknames a gay friend “Skippy”, after all …and Bush won a second term by placing our right to marry on the Ohio ballot. It’s not as if the Republican party with its plutocratic agenda were utterly beholden to anti-gay Christians voting against their own economic interests, is it? In fact, in that light, it was one of the few promises Trump has ever made that could be relied on, when he promised last summer to nominate federal judges pleasing to those who dream of returning us gays to our former nightmarish pariah status in this country. No coincidence either that Trump chose Pence, a gay-hating evangelical theocrat, as his running mate and has populated his “administration” with more of his kind since. I’m a gay man less than entirely enthusiastic with liberalism and our place in it, but that hasn’t made me delusional about any elected official who ties his fortunes to the Republican party. Our situation basically sucks. We can be celebrated as “queers” by heterosexual liberals, confused with the transgendered of whatever sexual orientation, have our psychological sicknesses born of bigotry, such as camp, praised by them and be used by them to promote mores that place sex above genuine love and commitment or we can pretend that we’re not loathed by the right.
posted by John in Chicago on
…forgot to mention gay people being regularly erased by liberals in so far as we’re all supposedly sexually fluid.
posted by John in Chicago on
…and then there’s “Islamophobia”. Come on, gays, get with the program. Muslims are your friends!
posted by Lori Heine on
Oh, but of course the Muslims are the Left’s shiny new toy. We’ve been thrown over. Not as many of us, and votes are what matter.
But as long as the pathetic dupes on the Left can keep pointing at the pathetic dupes on the Right, they don’t need to look in the mirror.
posted by TJ on
Objecting to homophobic prejudice or violence, isn’t Islamaphobia.
Assuming that LGBT Muslims don’t exist is.
Assuming that the concept of religious freedom and due process don’t apply to muslims is.
Turning a blind eye to other forms of prejudice or violence- justifed by religion, is.
posted by Lori Heine on
And TJ, libertarian “expert” that you are, surely you also know that bombing the living crap out of them, meddling endlessly in their countries’ affairs and fricking making refugees out of them in the first place is causing the problems we have over here.
I don’t need yet another sanctimonious lecture from you. Neither, probably, does anyone else.
posted by Jorge on
…No coincidence either that Trump chose Pence, a gay-hating evangelical theocrat, as his running mate and has populated his “administration” with more of his kind since.
You need to learn not to overreach.
…forgot to mention gay people being regularly erased by liberals in so far as we’re all supposedly sexually fluid.
Now that I finally think of it, this idea Mr. Miller referenced in another post that my sharply binary reactions to male and female genitalia make me something less noble is really bizarre.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Our situation basically sucks.
Politically, that’s nothing new, at least during the 40-odd years that I’ve been involved with the fight.
Politicians respond to carrots and sticks. We can support those who support us and oppose those who oppose us, using campaign contributions, volunteers, endorsements, and positive/negative campaigning. When we use those tools — the more ruthlessly the better — we make progress. When we don’t, we don’t. It is that simple.
Politicians respond to clout. Anyone who thinks that politicians from either party is going to advance our cause out of altruism is a twice-baked fool.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Oh, but of course the Muslims are the Left’s shiny new toy. We’ve been thrown over. Not as many of us, and votes are what matter.
LGBT 3%, Muslim 2%. The left can’t count, votes or otherwise.
The right can count, though.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
… forgot to mention gay people being regularly erased by liberals in so far as we’re all supposedly sexually fluid …
The extent of sexual fluidity — and what is meant (behavior, attraction, identification) by the term — is an interesting topic, in the early stages of exploration. To me, anyway, it seems that insistence that sexuality is immutable is as dogmatic as insistence that sexuality is fluid. It might make sense to continue gathering data and doing more analysis, rather than cut it off because of politics.
posted by JohnInCA on
“It might make sense to continue gathering data and doing more analysis, rather than cut it off because of politics.”
Sure, if your only interest was in furthering of knowledge.
If your goal is moral and political acceptance, however, then eh, not really. For
good orill, folks in the “homosexuality is morally wrong” crowd latched onto the idea that it was a choice, and as a choice, it could be sinful. But for a lot of moral systems if something is innate, unchangeable, and so-on, then it’s really hard to justify it being “sinful”. And so began the great “born that way or alternative lifestyle” debate.“Born that way” has mostly won out. Which has been a victory for people seeking moral/political acceptance (IIRC, survey have shown that coming to believe that it’s a “born that way” trait correlates strongly with moral acceptance).
So sure, if your only interest is knowledge/academia, then it’s “better” to not get politics involved. If you actually want to change the world however, then the “born this way” mantra has been pretty powerful. Me? I’m an engineer. So while I think pure science is a neat toy, what I really like is what I can do with it. So while I can sit back and recognize the nuance and complexities of human sexuality, I also recognize that the simplified grade-school version has done a lot to help real folks over the years, even if it’s not 100% accurate.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
If your goal is moral and political acceptance …
My goal is equal treatment under the law. Political acceptance is a means to that end, but only a means to that end. Moral acceptance may help achieve equal treatment under civil law, but it is not necessary (moral approbation is not an acceptable basis in which to deny citizens equal treatment under the law, cf Lawrence), and, it seems to me, a bridge too far. In my view, we are wasting our time trying to get conservative Christians to change their theology of sexuality, and not something that we have a right to demand or expect in any event. We do have the right to insist that the common good, not theology, form the basis for our laws.
[F]olks in the “homosexuality is morally wrong” crowd latched onto the idea that it was a choice, and as a choice, it could be sinful. But for a lot of moral systems if something is innate, unchangeable, and so-on, then it’s really hard to justify it being “sinful”. And so began the great “born that way or alternative lifestyle” debate.
Yes, but conservative Christian insistence that “homosexuality is a choice” was a logical trap born of ignorance about what conservative Christians believe, and it seems to me that many gays and lesbians fell right into the trap.
The “homosexuality is morally wrong” crowd equates “homosexuality” with “homosexual behavior” (read and consider how conservative Christians define homosexuality, and that will become clear, I think), and argues that homosexual behavior is both a choice and sinful. It makes no difference to that crowd whether homosexual inclination is inborn (although most deny that for other theological reasons) or chosen– either way, homosexual behavior is sinful and (in their eyes) civil law should not decriminalize, recognize, encourage or condone homosexual behavior or relationships in which that behavior is present. Because it is homosexual behavior that is forbidden, our arguments that homosexual inclination is or may be inborn miss the mark.
“Born that way” has mostly won out. Which has been a victory for people seeking moral/political acceptance (IIRC, survey have shown that coming to believe that it’s a “born that way” trait correlates strongly with moral acceptance).
True enough, but that’s not enough. If we base our case on something that might or might not turn out to be factual in the long run, we have built a case on nothing. What do we do when the full complexity of sexual orientation is better understood by science and “born that way” turns out to be a simplistic, largely false, proposition? Far better, it seems to me, to base our case on equal treatment of all citizens under religion-neutral auspices.
If you actually want to change the world however, then the “born this way” mantra has been pretty powerful. Me? I’m an engineer. So while I think pure science is a neat toy, what I really like is what I can do with it. So while I can sit back and recognize the nuance and complexities of human sexuality, I also recognize that the simplified grade-school version has done a lot to help real folks over the years, even if it’s not 100% accurate.
I’ve been involved in the politics of LGBT rights for 40-odd years, inside the workplace (working to bring a large international law firm to a 100% HRC rating) and outside in the world of political knife fights, both in Chicago (1975-2005) and rural Wisconsin (2006-2016). While I think that the “born that way” argument has power, it has power primarily among those who have no strong views about homosexuality other than the usual straight aversion to our sexual acts. It doesn’t lay a glove on the arguments of religious opponents or their theology, and isn’t necessary among the “live and let live” crowd. We’ve probably picked up just about everyone we are going to get through the “born that way” argument, and, in my view, we’ve taken the “born that way” argument just about as far as it will go politically.
Whether or not that is true, it seems to me that science, pure or applied, is something we should embrace, and be careful not to lock down our arguments in political mantra, however convenient.
Look at the “inborn” question as an example.
Two decades ago, science on the subject was scant, and most adopting the “inborn” model argued that homosexuality was a matter of genetics. A decade ago, that shifted, because genetic predisposition was shown likely to be indirect, at best. The best current explanation is that the predisposition is based on chemical changes in the fetus during early pregnancy, and scientists are able to trigger homosexual predisposition in sheep and other mammals by changing the chemical environment during fetal development. It is probably just a matter of years before scientists have the ability to “correct” the chemical factors that lead to homosexuality, along with other “birth defects”.
That doesn’t change the “born that way” argument, exactly, but it may mean that homosexuals do not necessarily have to be “born that way”. If — when is more likely — we get to that point, what happens to “born that way”?
I take a simple view. Facts matter, and knowledge helps.
I’m not shocked at all by the “sexual fluidity” research that is ongoing. I suspect that scientists will uncover that sexual orientation among some gays and lesbians, not to mention bisexuals, is more fluid that we have suspected. What of it?
posted by JohnInCA on
“My goal is equal treatment under the law”
How many cases can you think of where that happened before moral and political acceptance? Fact is, you can’t legislate equality. It just doesn’t work. Laws are enforced by people, and people carry their prejudices with them, into the police uniform, into the judges robes, into the prison guard uniform, into the halls of the Supreme Court. So even when you try to say people are legally equally, if they aren’t socially equal it just won’t work out that way in practice.
Think about it: the same constitution† was used to justify Baker v. Nelson as Obergefel v. Hodges. If “legal equality” was all that mattered, and not cultural/moral acceptance? Then sodomy laws would have been struck down way before Lawrence v. Texas.
So yeah. You want legal equality? You gotta win the hearts and minds first. The rest… legal, scientific, theological, philosophical… that doesn’t actually matter. That’s how people justify and explain their biases, but they’re rarely what actually forms people’s biases.
That said, I realized this argument doesn’t matter. Because fact is, the “born this way” argument came up to counter a specific line of attack that’s rarely used these days. It’s probably gonna stop being used terribly often as a consequence. That’s kind of the natural life-cycle of political arguments.
But my original point was that if you have practical goals, not all research is going to be good. You want your pure research that’s going to lead to the eradication of gay people in first world countries in a hundred years‡? Then your best bet is to change the culture such that no one is personally invested in the answer anymore. Until no one has a personal stake, you face an uphill battle.
________
†With the exception of the 27th Amendment.
‡Seriously. We’re probably within a decade of very rich people being able to choose the “best” possible genes for their kids. Within a hundred years we’ll probably have artificial wombs, gene selection, and so-on. If the epigenetics theory is on the right track, then gay folk will only exist if people make a point of having a gay kid. So unless the culture radically changes where bisexuality is preferred over all-others, gay folk in first world countries are facing extinction within a hundred years.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Tom: My goal is equal treatment under the law.
John in Chicago: How many cases can you think of where that happened before moral and political acceptance? Fact is, you can’t legislate equality. It just doesn’t work.
Loving v. Virginia, for starters, which overturned bans on mixed-race marriage at a time when a clear and strong majority of Americans felt that mixed-race marriage was unacceptable. I can probably come up with 50-100 other examples of the courts going against majority opinion without even breathing heavy.
That’s because equal treatment under the law is a constitutional mandate, not a legislative matter. It helps when the majority is coming around, but it is the nature of constitutional decisions to hold the will of the majority in check, and the courts do that relatively frequently.
posted by JohnInCA on
To your “Loving v. Virginia (1967)”, I offer Pace v. Alabama (1883). The constitution didn’t change in any relevant ways ion the 84 years between those cases. But public opinion did. Things had gone from nearly every state having enforced miscegenation laws in 1883 to only seventeen (of fifty) states having them in 1967, following two decades of them being repealed around the country.
At best you have an example of people opting for “I don’t like it, but live and let live”. What you don’t have is an example of the court taking action ahead of the curve.
“That’s because equal treatment under the law is a constitutional mandate, not a legislative matter. “
Funny thing about that, in all the cases I know enough to talk about, the courts assured legislators that there wasn’t a constitutional mandate on the topic for years before they reversed themselves and said there was.
So even if you’re right… it doesn’t matter. Because that constitutional mandate won’t be revealed until after public opinion has changed on the topic.
posted by JohnInCA on
Also, I’m not John In Chicago. While I was (about six years back) JohnInNM, I haven’t moved out of California yet.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
To your “Loving v. Virginia (1967)”, I offer Pace v. Alabama (1883). The constitution didn’t change in any relevant ways ion the 84 years between those cases.
What changed was judicial understanding of what the Constitution demanded, following developments in legal precedent between those two points.
But public opinion did.
I invite you to look at Gallup’s trend line on the question “Do you approve or disapprove of marriage between blacks and whites?” When Loving was decided in 1967, 80+ percent of Americans disapproved. It wasn’t until 30 years later — 1997 — that a majority approved.
posted by JohnInCA on
“What changed was judicial understanding of what the Constitution demanded, following developments in legal precedent between those two points.”
And you think that stuff precedes folks changing their opinions?
Pace v. Alabama (1883)
Loving v. Virginia (1967)
Baker v. Nelson (1971)
Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)
Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
Windsor v. United States (2013)
Obergefel v. Hodges (2015)
Heck, just look at Perry v. Hollingsworth (2013) and Obergefel v. Hodges (2015). You really think there was some new legal argument between those? That the court was only swayed by some new legal twist? No. The court wasn’t on board with gay marriage in 2013, but by 2015 had come around to the idea. There was no legal development, no new precedent, no nothing. They just hoped they could dodge it in 2013, and bit the bullet in 2015.
Legal understanding and precendent happens because people decide the status quo is unacceptable, and make a new status quo. It doesn’t happen on it’s own.
“I invite you to look at Gallup’s trend line on the question “Do you approve or disapprove of marriage between blacks and whites?””
Making it one of the few examples where people’s moral approval is discordant of their legal approval. But the trend line is still the same, and the SCOTUS was still behind the 33 states that had already legalized such unions.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Heck, just look at Perry v. Hollingsworth (2013) and Obergefel v. Hodges (2015). You really think there was some new legal argument between those? That the court was only swayed by some new legal twist? No. The court wasn’t on board with gay marriage in 2013, but by 2015 had come around to the idea. There was no legal development, no new precedent, no nothing. They just hoped they could dodge it in 2013, and bit the bullet in 2015.
Perry was decided on the issue of standing***, not the merits:
I know that standing*** is an issue that appears arcane to non-lawyers, but it is an important issue and is taken seriously by courts, for two reasons: (1) standing is a filter that prevents any fool and his monkey from swamping the courts with litigation, and (2) standing is a restraint on judicial activism, preventing judges from deciding matters just because the judges think the matter should be decided.
The standing issue in Perry was a close call, and was heavily commented upon both before and after the decision (see the extensive commentary on ScotusBlog, for example). But it is clear from the composition of the majority/dissent (Majority = Roberts, Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, Scalia; Minority = Alito, Sotomayor, Thomas) that the issue was not decided along ideological lines, because Justices from both sides of the Obergefell decision were part of both the majority and the minority on the standing issue.
Two circumstances were different in Obergefell: (1) the issue of standing was not present in Obergefell because the parties seeking redress all had a “direct stake” in the outcome; and (2) between the time Perry was decided (legalizing same-sex marriage in 9th Circuit states), the Court had denied review of decisions in several Circuits (legalizing same-sex marriage in the states covered by those Circuits), and a split among the Circuits had developed after the 6th Circuit upheld a lower court decision denying same-sex marriage (effectively prohibiting same-sex marriage is 6th Circuit states). When Obergefell was presented, the Court, as you point out, had no option but to decide the matter on a national level.
In a sense, I think that it is fair to say that the Court would have ducked the issue if it could have done so. The fact that the Court denied review of several Circuit decisions legalizing same-sex marriage indicated to me that the Court would have been content to let the Circuits, one-by-one, legalize same-sex marriage over the period of a few years rather than swoop in and issue a national decision. The 6th Circuit decision made it impossible to duck the controversy.
You asset that public opinion changed between Perry (2013) and Obergefell 2015. True, but not by much. Gallup polling indicates that 54% of Americans thought same-sex marriage should be legal in 2013, and 58% of Americans thought same-sex marriage should be legal in 2015. That’s a difference, but not much of a difference.
*** Standing is the ability of a party to bring a lawsuit in court based upon their stake in the outcome. There are three constitutional requirements to prove standing:
(1) the party seeking relief must have suffered or imminently will suffer injury; (2) the injury must be reasonably connected to the issue being decided in the case; and (3) a favorable court decision must be likely to redress the injury. Common law (court decisions) impose two additional requirements: (A) a party may only assert his or her own rights and cannot raise the claims of a third party who is not before the court; and (B) a plaintiff cannot sue as a taxpayer who shares a grievance in common with all other taxpayers.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Pace v. Alabama (1883)
Loving v. Virginia (1967)
Baker v. Nelson (1971)
Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)
Lawrence v. Texas (2003)
Windsor v. United States (2013)
Obergefel v. Hodges (2015)
It is interesting how you jump from Pace to Loving, ignoring the long development of the “right to be left alone” precedent that resulting in Griswold, which in turn provided the foundation for Loving, Zablocki and, in time, Obergefell.
Supreme Court decisions do not spring forth from the cabbage patch, sui generis. The decisions are the result of a complex interplay of law, culture and economics, but are shaped (in terms of direction and scope) by precedent, that is, the holdings and reasoning of prior cases.
Common law (that is, case based legal development, as opposed to legislation) moves forward one case at a time, applying the holdings of prior cases to the fact situation at hand while distinguishing others, little by slowly changing the common law. What is true of common law is also true of constitutional interpretation. Jumping from Pace to Loving ignores the way common law (and constitutional interpretation) develop.
If I may, let me recommend a book to you, The Bramble Bush: The Classic Lectures on the Law and Law School, a collection of lectures by Carl Llewellyn on legal reasoning, legal precedent and other sundry matters. The book was used as the “introduction to law” text for many years at the best law schools, and because it was intended to serve as an introduction to law, it is accessible to laymen.
It isn’t wrong to note that law doesn’t get too far out in front of public opinion most of the time. Usually it moves slightly ahead or behind cultural developments (if for no other reason than cases and controversies arise out of cultural developments), but often courts do defy the majority opinion, most frequently in civil liberties cases.
I wasn’t kidding when I told you that I could come up with 50-100 cases in which the Supreme Court defied majority opinion without even breathing hard. If you want to test that, tally up Supreme Court decisions resulting from ACLU lawsuits brought 1920-1960. Well over half of those decisions put a check on majority opinion, and many of those decisions remain kicking-dogs of conservatives.
The idea that courts follow public opinion is too simplistic to be accurate. Don’t turn an often-accurate observation into a mantra.
posted by JohnInCA on
You either really don’t understand my point, or you really don’t like it.
You’re also not at-all persuasive to me.
So let me try one final time. This time without concrete examples, since that’s just turning into a smoke screen to obfuscate the point.
Laws of Nature are real laws. They exist whether we like it or not, they cannot be broken or interpreted, they can only be further understood and applied.
Laws of Man are not real laws. Absent humans, they’re meaningless. With humans, you need people tasked to enforce, interpret, apply, decide. With a cunning argument, you can take something that once broke a Law of Man and make it permissible, or take something that was once permissible and make it a violation.
Laws of Nature are constant. They exist with or without us.
Laws of Man are inconstant. They are a mirror, a distorted reflection of who we are.
And that is why I say the law cannot get terribly disjoint from people as a whole. Best case scenario? You get the law-as-written saying one thing, but the law-as-applied something else. If the sheriff won’t arrest someone for violating a law, then it doesn’t matter. If the district attorney won’t press charges, then it doesn’t matter. If the jury won’t convict, then it doesn’t matter. If the judge won’t give a worthy sentence, then it doesn’t matter.
The Law of Man cannot exist without Man, and it cannot be something that Man is unwilling to enforce. When it is, it stops being a Law, and becomes just words on a page.
So you want to change the law? Then it’s not enough to change the words on the page. You must change the people. Because from start to finish, it’s people that make the law.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
You’re also not at-all persuasive to me.
Isn’t my job.
posted by JohnInCA on
True. But until my patience runs out and I let loose the snark unfettered, I like to think it’s the goal.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
But my original point was that if you have practical goals, not all research is going to be good. You want your pure research that’s going to lead to the eradication of gay people in first world countries in a hundred years‡?
We can’t control what scientific research is being done, and we can’t control the findings. Of course not all of the findings will be favorable to us. We can, to a limited extent, control results, in the sense that we can legislate what is and what is not legal.
The issue of “designer children” has been discussed seriously for at least a decade by medical ethicists, scientists, theologians and other thoughtful people, as have the issues presented by therapeutic intervention in fetal development. The questions are not simple, do not lend themselves to simple answers, and the discussion is just beginning. Our ability, as is so often the case, exceeds our wisdom.
As science, medical and technology advance — and I think you are going to find your timetable foreshortened into a decade or two, not a century — we are going to have to find answers to those questions. And I do understand that there is a significant risk to the future of homosexuality, particularly gay male sexuality, which seems to be more conducive to therapeutic intervention than female homosexuality.
We can’t control that risk, or the outcome, except to the limited extent noted. But that is no reason not to seek out the answers.
posted by JohnInCA on
Eugenics called. It wants it’s clean conscience back.
But you can’t do that. Because of all the innocent blood. Buckets and buckets of blood, enough to drown a nation.
But either way, you’re ignoring my point: based on objectives, not all research is good. If your objective is pure knowledge? Then you’re going to have buckets and buckets of blood on your hands sooner or later. Nobel can tell you about it.
If your objective is to make the world a better place? Then you need to think carefully about what you’re doing and whether the world will be better or worse for your work.
Pretending that scientific research is somehow neutral and innocent is naive and foolish.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
But either way, you’re ignoring my point: based on objectives, not all research is good.
Objectives do not determine facts, and although limiting/banning research “based on objectives” is common enough (e.g. the suppression of government-held data about the role of carbon dioxide emissions in climate change, or defunding of government-sponsored research that might uncover facts contradicting Bible truth), it is just another way of imposing totalitarianism.
If your objective is pure knowledge? Then you’re going to have buckets and buckets of blood on your hands sooner or later. Nobel can tell you about it.
Einstein and Bohr can tell you about it. Goddard can tell you about it. Turing can tell you about it. Without the work done by those scientists, North Korea would not have the capability of developing and delivering nuclear bombs.
Everything invented or understood by the human mind since the beginning of time has been used for both good and ill, because everything invented or understood by the mind of man is used by human beings, good and ill.
It is a story as old as the Garden of Eden myth, and it is not going to change. The Garden of Eden hasn’t existed since human beings became sentient, and that is the point of the myth.
posted by JohnInCA on
“Objectives do not determine facts […]”
I think there’s a guy called “constitutional mandate” that disagrees.
Snark aside, I never claimed it did. What I said is that your “all research is good” mantra is naïve and idealistic that ignores consequences. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
posted by Jorge on
We can’t control what scientific research is being done, and we can’t control the findings. Of course not all of the findings will be favorable to us. We can, to a limited extent, control results, in the sense that we can legislate what is and what is not legal.
Replace “legal” with “moral” and you have my position.
For about fifteen years, “born this way” was an argument.
For the past six it has been a warblely refrain set to techno music, at once a paean and a cry of despair. I much prefer the latter. If people get that much, it is enough.
Sub-communities don’t like it when “others” make decisions about them in law and culture, but social responsibility demands it. What is needed is not to eradicate, reduce, silence, or convert religious conservatives. That would have the same effect as men trying to do the same to women or vice-versa: too many things would break. One of the many things that must be done is to instill in public a responsibility for the best interests of their fellows, and in a way that is as cooperative as possible. That doesn’t require moral acceptance.
posted by John in Chicago on
Give me a break. If we can’t know that basic sexual/romantic orientation – heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual – is fixed either before birth or perhaps in some cases in earliest childhood, then we might as well re-open the debate whether the earth revolves around the sun. Anyone remember grade school? You know, how kids typically have an unerring sense in this regard, at least where boys are concerned, and recognize many of us gays? Anyone not had the experience of correctly identifying a gay person by distinctive, if usually subtle, facial features? Then there’s the most fundamental truth concerning human motivation, that we all seek happiness and the fact that for most human beings there is no greater source of joy than romantic love. Yet some people choose homosexuality even in the face of rejection and condemnation by family and friends and even at the cost of the most severe legal punishments and monstrous dehumanization by officialdom? This makes absolutely no sense, unless it’s homosexuality that is the natural human sexuality, ironically enough. No, this topic is only a matter of debate, because anti-gay bigots, who claim the moral high ground, want it to be debatable; if a characteristic, that is not inherently harmful, is not chosen, then it cannot be an object of moral judgment. (See also the “question” of biological evolution and climate change caused by human activity in this regard.)
Finally, as someone who knows more about biology and genetics than most, there’s no need to worry that, if sexual orientation is genetically based, it may lead to gay embryos and fetuses being aborted. It won’t happen, if for no other reason than that it’s vastly too complex to be predictable. We’re not talking about predicting the color of a person’s eyes.
posted by Lori Heine on
We may never be able to predict exactly how sexual orientation forms. When anyone asks me “why” I’m bisexual, I ask them why they are whatever they are. It’s really none of their business, and it sometimes takes that question, turned back at them, to get them to recognize this.
I think it’s degrading to be asked that question. Moreover, I think it is asked for the purpose of degrading us. Which is why, when we turn it back toward them, they react as if we’ve committed some horrible breach.
If we got to choose, my first choice would be heterosexual. Whose wouldn’t? Second choice would be homosexual. Monosexuality is always easier, because people are kinder to us when we’re easy to categorize. I got what would have been my last choice.
When we come to terms with biphobia, we’ll have solved the problem of how to deal with homophobia. Many people who identify as monosexual (either gay or straight) are really closeted bisexuals. This is why straight homophobes so often get the notion that we can choose. In a sense they did, because they closed off half of the options they would have desired.
There’s really no other plausible explanation for why the claim that “it’s a choice” dies so hard. That most of the people who think this are really closeted homosexuals does not make sense. There are just too many of them. It might make us feel good to think that they’re all miserable little liars, but it’s more likely that many of them actually do believe it’s a choice. Again, because it appears to have been a choice for them.
Bisexuals, however, can never stop being attracted to both sexes. Any more than heterosexuals can stop being attracted to the opposite sex, or homosexuals to the same. That’s not only why closeted bisexuals are so often adamant that sexual orientation can be chosen–but so obsessively fixated on gays.
Genuinely heterosexual people just don’t find us all that interesting. They’re too interested in themselves.
posted by John in Chicago on
Thank you for your serious comments,and but it’s simply beyond me how anyone can compare bisexuality to homosexuality. By definition you can fall in love with someone of the same sex and that makes all the difference. Politically, the only complaint that bisexual people can have is a complaint against monogamy. That’s the only thing that makes sense and I’m not sympathetic as a gay man. Frankly, I don’t think that bisexuals have a clue about what gay people experience, who are insistent on our integrity. To have the choice that you have seems like a luxury to us.
posted by Lori Heine on
You are presuming that bisexuals never fall in love. If we happen to fall in love with someone of the same sex, then our experience becomes identical to that of homosexuals.
You’re merely revealing your ignorance about bisexuality.
posted by Lori Heine on
I will attempt to make my point one more time.
It would benefit gays and lesbians just as much as bisexuals if people learned more about bisexuality.
Think about it. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that if supposedly-straight people are getting the notion that homosexuality can be chosen, at least a fair number of them are drawing this conclusion based on their own, personal inner experience.
They think that because they have chosen to exclusively date or marry people of the opposite sex–when they know deep down that they could just as easily want someone of the same sex–that means that everyone must be able to do this.
What else are we implying when we respond to someone who tells us that we’ve “chosen” our orientation by asking “Did you choose to be straight?”
They splutter and stammer, or get angry, or coldly refuse to answer. We’ve very likely hit a nerve.
But though they would sooner be skinned alive than admit it, they really do think that if they could “choose the right way,” then everyone else must be able to do that, too.
If they understood the concept of bisexuality, I believe that at least some homophobes might be able to get over this idiotic assumption. People who are merciless toward other people are very often no kinder to themselves.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Good observations, Lori, and sexual attraction to either/both genders is common enough.
Even Kinsey’s studies indicated that a significant number of men/women had sexual experience with both genders, and, one would assume, that meant (presumably) that sexual attraction wasn’t binary.
The Kinsey scale, luckily, allowed for non-binary experience reporting:
I would only add one thing to your observations: I suspect that bisexual attraction in males, anyway, is more common than is typically acknowledged.
I’m not at all sure what John is talking about when he says “Politically, the only complaint that bisexual people can have is a complaint against monogamy. “, but I can recommend a book I read about 20 years ago that was an interesting look at bisexual attraction/behavior: Dual Attraction: Understanding Bisexuality
. It is a dry as dust, but full of information about the nature of bisexual attraction, and the mutability of attraction. It might provide an interesting perspective.
posted by JohnInCA on
“It won’t happen, if for no other reason than that it’s vastly too complex to be predictable.”
Sorry, but if the best you have is “too complex”, then I’m gonna have to side with the computers here. Solving increasingly complex problems when humans could no longer do it by hand is literally what they were invented for. Maybe it won’t happen today. Maybe it wont’ happen in a hundred years. But complexity is a surpassable barrier.
posted by John in Chicago on
Acquaint yourself with chaos theory, which is a fancy way of saying that infinitely minute differences can lead to a cascade of causation that results in utterly different outcomes. It’s the reason why weather prediction has barely advanced despite all the advances in computer technology. This fear of gays in the womb being aborted is completely unrealistic. Nix that one and let’s hope that it’s only a 10% chance next time! We’ll sooner have same-sex orientation being seen as similar to left-handedness than that and it is fundamentally similar to left-handedness.
posted by JohnInCA on
Your argument didn’t change. You’re still simply saying “it’s really complicated” and hoping.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I’m gonna have to side with the computers here.
You’re going to side with those Satanic instruments of destruction?
posted by JohnInCA on
You’re going to side with those Satanic instruments of destruction?
“It’s too complicated, no one can solve it” is a common refrain. And 99% of the time, all that’s needed is more time. Someone either figures out a new method that skips the complexity, or someone makes a better calculator that can brute-force the complexity.
And seeing as our calculators keep getting better and better? Yeah. I’m gonna bet on the satanic machines. “Too complex” just means “not today”. It doesn’t mean “never”.
posted by Jorge on
f a characteristic, that is not inherently harmful, is not chosen, then it cannot be an object of moral judgment.
The same is logically true of a characteristic that is inherently harmful.
And I have a very hard time distinguishing something that is “inherently” harmful from something that is harmful “because…” it’s associated with STDs, social ostracism, childlessness, or mental illness.
Bisexuals, however, can never stop being attracted to both sexes.
B-b-b-b-but, neither can married monosexuals stop being attracted to one sex!
posted by John in Chicago on
Well, talk about blaming the victim in the case of social ostracism. What an absolute absurdity, Jorge. No acceptance of gay people, because they’re not accepted! Sexually transmitted diseases among gay people? Many of us don’t have any and fact is that their incidence is increased by anti-gay bigotry; people who have been conditioned to regard their sexuality as shameful are much less likely to take precautions in this regard that come with an acceptance of it. Mental illness? Gay people are no more likely to be mentally ill than the general population and the distortions of personality, that some of us exhibit, are directly attributable to the social message that we are wrong to be what we are by our very nature; it’s immensely frustrating and angering to feel that you are morally inferior no matter what. Childlessness? Leaving aside the fact that many of us do have biologically produced children as result of our attempts to conform with heterosexual social expectations or have adopted unwanted children procreated by irresponsible heterosexuals, why is bearing children a good in itself, when so many heterosexuals more than compensate; failure to reproduce is definitely not one of mankind’s problems. Sorry, but there is no inherent harm in homosexuality and same-sex love. Not only that, but same-sex love was actually considered more noble and beautiful than common heterosexuality in ancient Greece, the summit of human civilization in many people’s estimation.
posted by Lori Heine on
I see my reply to Jorge is being positioned under someone else’s comment. Weird.
Anyway…
“B-b-b-b-but, neither can married monosexuals stop being attracted to one sex!”
Bingo, Jorge! That’s exactly what sexual orientation is all about — for everyone.
posted by TJ on
1. In the 1990s we had a choice between a presidential candidate who supported several gay rights concerns, versus a presidential candidate who hoped gays would go away or didn’t want to upset traditional families.
President Bush and Senator Dole were probably personally quite toletant people, but when it came to the gay rights concerns that could actually get addresses, they almost always sided with the Leviticus crowd.
If you don’t like the choices, work more on changing the election law. The occasional protest vote isn’t going to cut it.
2. President Trump hasn’t said much directly about gay rights. He has other people oppose transgender rights overtly, and oppose gay rights a bit more discreetly.
posted by Kosh III on
More fabulous Conservative/GOP/Religionist Values:
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/gay-man-sues-funeral-home-refused-his-82-year-old-n753856
Miller? You ready to put your money where your mouth is and move to this Paradise?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Well, here we go. Stephen will be thrilled, others of us not.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Greg Angelo, LTE New York Times: “He intends to preserve an executive order maintaining L.G.B.T. nondiscrimination in federal contracting.
We’ll find out more about President Trump’s good intentions tomorrow, I suspect.
posted by Jorge on
More fabulous Conservative/GOP/Religionist Values:
I cannot imagine someone being bold enough not to tell a funeral home the body they’re being asked to work with is that of the infamous terrorist Tamerlin Tsarnaev and then complaining when, once the home found out, they said NOOOOO WAY!
How, then, can I sympathize with this situation in which similarly relevant background information was withheld?
(Did you just…?)
You bet I did!
Fair. Next.
Well, here we go. Stephen will be thrilled, others of us not.
About effin’ time and snowflake splat if you’re right. Next.
Greg Angelo, LTE New York Times: “He intends to preserve an executive order maintaining L.G.B.T. nondiscrimination in federal contracting.
I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
How, then, can I sympathize with this situation in which similarly relevant background information was withheld?
How is the sexual orientation of a dead person relevant to a cremation?
posted by Jorge on
It’s not. (Well, that’s the Catholic in me speaking.)
Whether or not they have been in an intimate relationship with a same sex partner, however, is highly relevant to the moral judgment of a majority of religious faiths in this country. One of the most important rites in most religions is that of the disposal of the dead.
And we are here talking about a business that specializes in religious disposal of the dead–a funeral home, not morgue.
The very act of disposing a body publicly, in a manner identical to that with which one disposes every other body, is a statement of affirmation, that that person belongs. It is not a politically or religiously neutral statement. It is more than a little presumptuous not to disclose to a prospective funeral home that the person you are asking them to assist with religious rites on is someone who will be seen as apostate by many people who perform such rites.
posted by JohnInCA on
Shoving a corpse in an oven is only religious if you say rites or perform some other ceremony.
And that’s something I neither paid for our was disclosed to me by the funeral crematoriums that have handled my family’s remains.
So I’m gonna call BS. If you’re performing religious rites on my dead without permission or notification, you can’t be upset that I don’t tell you about something irrelevant to the services I *actually* paid for.
posted by Lori Heine on
That is probably the most logical way I’ve ever heard that presented. Were the husband and the other loved ones informed up front that this was a specifically religious exercise on the part of the funeral home? Of course not. And when people are grieving, they shouldn’t be expected to simply figure details like that out.
posted by Kosh III on
“I cannot imagine someone being bold enough not to tell a funeral home the body they’re being asked to work with is that of the infamous terrorist Tamerlin Tsarnaev and then complaining when, once the home found out, they said NOOOOO WAY!”
total BS again. Tsarnaev was a murderer, this man was just an ordinary citizen. Being gay is NOT a crime, major or minor except in the minds of useful idiots like you.
posted by Jorge on
…except in the minds of useful idiots like you.
I must pose question that you may take as frivolous but which I am very serious about. How do you know that the world you live in is anymore more than a figment of your imagination?
What you call a murderer, others call a holy warrior. It is in fact, because some people hold passionately to a positive view of certain murderers that they inspire others to visit greater indignity on them. It is no different when some people call someone a sodomite and others call him an ordinary citizen. The only difference is the accident of you being on a different side.
posted by Lori Heine on
Thanks, Tom. I will look for that book.
I didn’t understand bisexuality at all when I was younger. I knew about gay and straight–and felt like an oddball because in my heart of hearts, I really didn’t feel like either.
When I first came out of the closet twenty years ago, I came out as a lesbian. It felt better than telling everyone I was straight–which I knew was a lie–but it still didn’t seem like it fit quite right. I thought I was just weird. But in the research I’ve done since, and in talking with other bisexuals, I have come to see that for bi’s, instead of bisexuality being a phase we move through on our way to realizing we’re homosexual, quite a number of us move through a homo phase before we realize we’re bi.
Closeted bisexuals who are very conservative, and who don’t want to accept their orientation, may genuinely not understand it. I really do think that’s the problem for a lot of them–they’re really confused. There’s an attraction to the opposite sex, which they feel good about because they think it’s “right,” but there’s also this same-sex attraction they can never really get to go away.
I think it’s why some of them get so mean. They think everyone experiences attraction the same way they do, because they don’t know what bisexuality is. So they see gay people happy and living open lives, and they think, “I had to do the right thing…so why don’t they?”
They don’t understand heterosexuality any better than they do homosexuality. Maybe a lot of heteros are able to accept us now because they do realize that they didn’t choose their orientation, either.
I agree that the subject is very interesting. I will read the book you recommend, and learn more.
posted by Kosh III on
Whooopeeeee. Another freedom to hate law passes in a Conservative Paradise.
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/05/bill_allowing_adoption_agencie_1.html