Reader Commentary
Bitch, bitch, bitch, that's all you are.
Chris Fenison — November 04, 2004 @ 4:46 PM
Is this the time where we shake hands and say good game?
Greg — November 04, 2004 @ 9:01 PM
Sure, why not? I’ve enjoyed reading your posts, even if I’ve disagreed with pretty much everything you’ve ever written.
I’m a little frightened by the attitude you have towards gay people in your post election article, but it’s not exactly surprising. It’s apparent from this election that your views are shared by many. I continue to believe that you are on the wrong side of history, much like those against civil rights, but we’ll see.
It’s easy to say that Bush and his “values” were given the thumbs up by a popular vote that exceeded Reagan’s, but that would be ignoring a complete reading of the numbers. Bush also received more votes against him than any president in history, and those votes (for Kerry) also exceeded those of Reagan.
The country remains split, and it will continue to be because it’s almost impossible to compromise on issues like abortion and gay rights. It’s important that the left make an effort not to refer to the right as close minded idiots, but it’s difficult when conservatives consider restricting the rights and happiness of others to be some sort of moral responsibility.
Clay — November 04, 2004 @ 10:10 PM
Hmm. Biting my tongue. I think that it’s important to make a clear distinction between Neoconservative and Republican values. Bush is a Neoconservative – ‘compassionate conservative,’ in his own words. Bill Frist and Arlen Specter are Republicans. But, this isn’t my blog and not my battle. Sorry to intrude.
Greg — November 04, 2004 @ 10:52 PM
I’d be interested in hearing what you have to say Clay. Of course, if you have something positive to say about Bill Frist, I might have to gouge out my eyes.
Clay — November 05, 2004 @ 7:22 AM
I had a guest lecture with Nils Daulaire two days ago – he was a senior advisor with USAID and is President and CEO of the Global Health Council (at globalhealth.org). He was also a senior health advisor to Clinton and was the reason why removing the Mexico City gag rule was the first act of Clinton when he was in office. He also works very closely with the current senate and administration. That said, he’s very liberal, and was quite upset that Bush won the election.
He had quite a few good things to say about Bill Frist (who was in his class at Harvard Med School). In fact, one of his only real problems with him is his stance on abortion. Evidently, Bill Frist is quite attuned to supporting global health initiatives, including massive oral rehydration therapy campaigns, immunization, etc… So, from a public health and global health perspective, he’s not the worst person that you could have in there.
Daulaire also spoke somewhat highly of Bush, with whom he has been in a number of long meetings, to discuss the dispersal of the $15 Billion of AIDS funding that he promised in his State of the Union speech in 2003. While the funding is inproportionately directed towards treatment and not prevention, according to Daulaire, Bush is very knowledgable regarding the issue and personally involved and invested in making sure that the program is brought through to fruition.
So, that was a surprise to me, I guess. I don’t have first hand experience with these guys, but I was reassured that this rabid liberal, Daulaire, was not overly critical. He said that there are a lot of top appointees that are pro-choice, though they hide their views from the administration in fear of political retribution.
Of course, my views regarding all of these guys go much further than this stuff. But this made me feel about 1% better about the results of the election. A true republican agenda is not about spreading christianity… it’s about financially responsible and small government. Abortion is an issue that will never go away. However, I’ll take 10 Bill Frists over a single Tom Coburn, and I will applaud any senator who refuses to allow a supreme court nominee against abortion to be appointed.
I think you’re beginning to see the point where moderate republicans stand up for their ideals and not those of the administration. Wasn’t it F.D.R. who said that anybody with too big of a majority is in an incredibly dangerous situation?
Chris Fenison — November 05, 2004 @ 11:03 AM
You lefties keep trying to throw gay rights in the same arena as civil rights and the women’s movement. That’s a big mistake. I think the primary reason a huge majority of America voted against gay marriage is that the huge majority realizes the difference. Of course, I would point you to the absolute truth of the Holy Bible to see why, but I doubt you’ll see a reason to make decisions on law that are founded in a religious book. But, I assure you that us on the right see a man born black and a man born gay as completely different. In recent times being born gay has been adopted as a reason for it to be counted as a right. Even if you are born gay, I don’t see a way to reconcile a gay lifestyle with any kind of morality, and therefore any right that should be protected or promoted by the government. To use basic human logic (and not scripture), using “I was born with it” to excuse a gay lifestyle is like men saying it is our right to be polygamous. In reality, as men we have a natural desire to sleep with multiple partners, and at the same time (especially one we are married). But, our society has decided that for the good of the society, we must put away our natural desire and be bound in monogamy through marriage to one woman. Not everyone agrees with it, but society has decided that’s just the way it has to be. Now society has decided being gay must not be a right to marriage. For the good of our society and our kids, being naturally gay does not give you any right to the sacred institution of marriage. Will I be on the wrong side of history? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be on the right side of the issue.
Clay — November 05, 2004 @ 12:35 PM
I think that you miscontrue the argument. Supporting gay rights is not the same as understanding, practicing, or believing the gay lifestyle. It is merely supporting a policy of non-discrimination. Given that our constitution specifically prohibits recognizing the establishment of any religion, there is no Biblical reasoning that holds legal weight in American society; rather, by law, there shouldn’t be.
Where, then, is the source of this ‘morality’ that should govern our country or sexual practice? A gay lifestyle is no more or less offensive to me than a evangelical lifestyle. Just because you believe in the truth of The Bible doesn’t mean that your sense of morals derived from The Bible can be used to promote discrimination — that is illegal, since it would establish Christian morals as law.
Please, then, how do you explain discrimination against gays from a legal standpoint? Are gays breaking into your house and trying to violate your person? Are they offending your lifestyle? Because you’re offending mine — does that make you worth discriminating against?
Chris Fenison — November 05, 2004 @ 1:56 PM
There’s two things I think you misunderstood about my comment. First, I do not understand, agree with, or care to think about the gay lifestlye. But my attitude toward the lifestyle and my attitude toward the person practicing the lifestyle are completely different. I love gay people. I want to understand the person that is gay. Not that person’s sexuality, but that person as a whole. The problem is, liberalism uses too many labels. In no way should your sexuality define you as a group or minority. A gay person is so many other things than a gay person. I guess what I’m saying is having sex with another man is just as much who that man is as not sleeping with my dog is a part of me. In Norway (I think, I’d have to check), they’ve allowed gay marriage for years. In the last year there have been several court cases in which a man has filed for a marriage license with his dog/horse/bird. The court has been forced to consider it because of it’s past ruling on gay marriage. I’m fairly certain that you and Greg would both agree that having desire for sexual relations with a dog does not entitle you to hold a marriage license or have any other right with the dog.
The second point you misunderstood was the place the Bible has in our government and society. Interesting that your point is that moral law has no place in government. If the government is to stay away from all sorts of morality, and then the people decide what is moral, how long before marrying a dog, molesting a child or committing murder is acceptable because we were born with those desire? You advocate a policy of non-discrimination. I advocate the same, but only for classes of people who’s class is defined only by a behavior. Do murderers deserve rights? Should we discriminate against theives? What about abusive husbands? You know, an abusive person is usually abusive because of some past abuse suffered. So it’s who that person is to be abusive, they can’t help it. And who are we to impose our morality into their situation and deny them certain rights? I’m not saying we should ban gay marriage because the Bible says so. But, I am saying that all of our current laws were founded in the Bible, and we should approach any new issue in light of that fact.
To say I am advocating discrimination is misrepresenting my views. I am advocating discernment. Don’t deny gay people any human rights. There’s no reason they should not be allowed to have the same jobs, ride on the same bus, drink out of the same fountain… but let’s have some discernment about weather or not we want the government to protect and/or promote (with marriage) a lifestyle that is morally wrong (Bible), naturally wrong (science) and otherwise wrong (history, logic, tradition).
Chris Fenison — November 05, 2004 @ 2:02 PM
I just realized I said something wrong above. Instead of “You advocate a policy of non-discrimination. I advocate the same, but only for classes of people who’s class is defined only by a behavior.”
It should have read: You advocate a policy of non-discrimination. I advocate the same, but not for classes of people who’s class is defined only by a behavior.
Clay — November 05, 2004 @ 4:25 PM
Well, let’s look at it from a legal standpoint.
Article 16 section 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the United States has ratified, states
Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
Nowhere, there, does it claim that a marriage has to be between a man and a woman. Furthermore, Article 12 states:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Surely a person’s sexuality is an issue of their own privacy — in fact, our military respects sexuality as private and demands that it be kept private in the case of homosexuals. Article 12 provides protection against laws that interfere with that privacy. Once again, this is how our military functions.
Then we have the ratification of the United States on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states in its preamble, “…recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…” and later, in Article 23, section 2, “The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognized.”
Well, I guess if we want to deny homosexuals the right to marry, then we’re countering the ‘inalienable rights of all members of the human family” and thereby refusing to recognize that they are the “foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” Our current administration hasn’t shown to believe that.
As for your polygamy example, there is no equality in the dissolution of marriage between a man and his multiple wifes, or a wife and her multiple husbands. Equality of dissolution of marriage is also a guarantee of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Then we have the Chairman of the Human Rights Committee who, in March of this year, stated,
[t]hough culture, tradition and religion very often offered comfortable explanations for practices like polygamy and female genital mutilation, they were an attack on the dignity of women and offended all human individuals.
There was notable discussion of this with the delegations from Uganda and Libya. It’s worth noting that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which is not ratified by the US, states the following, in Article 16 (1):
States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women:
a) The same right to enter into marriage…It is difficult to conceive of a polygamous marriage wherein the multiple wives experience and enjoy the same rights as the husband, if for no other reason than the fact that it is impossible for the husband to have intercourse with more than one woman at a time.
While there may not be any specific language in these charters supporting the establishment of gay marriage, there is a quite a bit of marriage that admonishes and illegalizes (by our ratification) discrimination against anybody. Homosexuality is not a criminal activity. In fact, being homosexual requires no activity at all. The concept of marriage usually brings with it monogamy. In that there is more risk associated with anal intercourse than with vaginal intercourse, thus increasing the risk of disease transmission between homosexual men, from a practical standpoint, it seems appropriate that society would do whatever possible to create legally binding homosexual relationships to encourage monogamy.
Don’t want to call it marriage? Fine. My personal opinion is that our government has a right to ajudicate civil unions, but that marriage, in that it is truly a concept and construct of religion, should be the domain of the church, and not of the state.
The advent of oral contraception brought with it, for the first time in history, the ability for humans to reliably separate sex from reproduction. To claim that homosexual sex is not natural is to forget that we possess the ability to have heterosexual sex with good guarantee against pregnancy. Sex for fun (hetero- or homo-) isn’t quite ‘natural’ either — it’s a trait seen only in human, dolphins, and a few species of ape. If the purpose of sex is entertainment and not procreation, how can you claim that it is not natural for two men to have sex? Or two women? It was never their desire to conceive in the first place.
Or, would you claim that every time you have sex you are trying to procreate? The last group of humans to do that were the Hutterites, and they’re now used as the gold standard for maximum possible fertility. In fact, in order to increase the amount of children they could have, they had specific wet nurses to take care of babies so that stimulation of the mammary glands wouldn’t extend postpartum amenorrhea.
It wasn’t until 1992 that the Catholic Church completed their rehabilitation of their stance against Galileo, admiting that his support of Copernican heliocentrism was not in err. It wouldn’t surprise me if it takes established religion another 500 years to reneg policies regarding homosexuality. Admiting otherwise is to lose power.
Clay — November 05, 2004 @ 6:17 PM
Chris: Yeah, I wasn’t really trying to convince you, anyhow, but thanks for the kind words.
I have a few quibbles with your argument:
1) As you pointed out yourself, “Marriage is the bond that allows a number of financial and legal benifits, all of which are the result of two people who claim they have become one for the rest of their human lives.” I would argue that homosexual couples have the same right to those financial and legal benefits as heterosexuals, if not through marriage, then at least through legally-recognized unions.
2) I agree with you that children prosper most in a household with a mother and a father. However, marriage between heterosexuals has done nothing to protect this aspect of childrens’ lives. In fact, marriage between heterosexuals has provided the one and only precedent for the failure of marriage, as an institution, to protect children. Therefore, any argument that marriage is an institution meant to protect children is both counter to your point that I quoted above and also mere speculation, since there is no precedent of the treatment of children in homosexual marriages.
3) The United States signed but did not ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Somalia is the only other country in the UN that did not ratify this convention. So, if you want to talk about protecting the rights of the child, maybe you should first look to the government and ask them why they didn’t ratify the convention. Frankly, children and gay marriage is an issue a layer deeper than the fundamental rights of children, which the US does not officially recognize. This includes Article 6 section 1, which states, “States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life.” Seems strange coming from a pro-life government, doesn’t it? Further relevant Articles are:
Article 10 (2)
A child whose parents reside in different States shall have the right to maintain on a regular basis … personal relations and direct contacts with both parents.Article 19
States Parties shall take all appropriate … measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s)…You’ve got the cart before the horse here. Gay marriage is unlikely to add to the burden of neglect imposed by the governments refusal to ratify this treaty and the poor precedent set by heterosexual marriage. If you’re truly interested in protecting children’s rights, I suggest that you contact your local senators and representatives and urge them to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to then put into effect measures that ensure that heterosexual couples will stop abusing the status of their marriage at the expense of children.
You don’t need to be married to have a happy family and thriving children.
Chris Fenison — November 05, 2004 @ 5:47 PM
Clay, I appreciate all your diligent work in gathering the various quotes and putting the time into your words. You laid out an excellent argument for your side using many great sources. I’m sure you had to know you would not persuade me just as I am sure I would never persuade you. And because this is true, I’m not willing to put the time and effort into proving my opinions further. For now, we’ll both have to let the President, Senate, House and American people take us where they see fit.
Greg — November 05, 2004 @ 7:17 PM
Something in the content of the comment caught the word filters I’m using and WP held it for moderation. It’s been approved and is published above your previous comment.
If anybody is wondering why I haven’t commented, it’s because I’m banned at work. I’m sure I’ll have something to say later, which will probably be a much weaker version of what Clay had to say.
Greg — November 06, 2004 @ 1:53 PM
Well, I don’t think I can expand on what Clay has already said, since he argued my side more effectively than I probably could have.
That said, I do have a few comments…
It’s hilarious how certain members of the right always use that “marry an animal” theory to defend against gay marriage. I guess gay marriage is just a gateway drug that leads directly to bestiality. How didn’t I see that before?
One of the first things we were taught to accept as debaters is that the goal is not to persuade others (as if that could happen in such a short time), but to present the best case possible, with the best evidence available. In that respect, you would have to agree that Clay makes a far more compelling (and rational) case.
All of our laws were founded on the bible? That’s news to me. I guess the Methodists use a different version then you guys.