Townhall.com Janet M. LaRue December 22, 2006
Homosexuals continue to push for marriage equality but ‘resist’ polygamy.
In 1972 the National Coalition of Gay Organizations demanded the “repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex or numbers.” So why aren’t homosexual activists leading the battle to legalize polygamy?
Maybe they’re smart enough to understand the visceral reaction most of us would feel if we knew their goal and playbook. Maybe the rest of us would get our backs up if we stopped believing it’s just about equal treatment of “two loving and committed same-sex couples.”
Alejandra Aguilar (L) and Antonieta Jimenez take part in a symbolic homosexual matrimony in a public square in Concepcion city, some 500 km (319 miles) south of Santiago, October 28, 2006. Gay rights activists gathered at the square to demonstrate against discrimination and to demand equal rights for homosexuals. REUTERS/Jose Luis Saavedra (CHILE)
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Maybe a whole lot of us need to care more about morality and the greater good of society and children in particular than we do about our self-centered obsessions about how “fair” and “loving” we’re perceived to be.
Consider just a few tidbits from major players:
At a [1999] conference at the University of London called “Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage: A Conference on National European and International Law,” one of the main themes of discussion was whether marriage should exist at all. The attendees laid out strategies to circumvent each nation’s democratic process via the judicial system to force governments to sanction and accept same-sex marriage. There was open talk about ultimately abolishing marriage so adults could be free to pursue any sexual relationship they want with no legal restrictions whatsoever. (Alliance Defense Fund, “The Homosexual Agenda: Excerpt 2”: http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/issues/traditionalfamily/default.aspx?cid=3483).
It is also a chance to wholly transform the definition of family in American culture. It is the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statutes, get education about homosexuality and AIDS into public schools, and, in short, usher in a sea change in how society views and treats us. (Michelangelo Signorile, “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,” OUT magazine, May 1996, p. 30).
“Generations of radicals have imagined a world in which the norm-making rules of matrimony are suspended. … Down the road, we might see groups of people sharing the custody of children. …” (Richard Goldstein, “The Radical Case for Gay Marriage,” Village Voice, Sept. 3-9, 2003, p. 34).
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I think the Domestic Partner laws vary by state, but obviously any ploy that would work for two men to get insurance would also work for a man and a woman.
On this we agree: neither doctors nor parents are qualified to decide the “gender” of an ambiguous child. I happen to think it’s child abuse for parents to amputate any healthy part of a child’s anatomy (such as testicles, breasts, clitoris, etc.) but I think I’m in the minority on that one too.
I think what probably bothers many who support marriage rights for gay couples is what is seen as a double standard. As it stands now, the government expresses no interest in why two people of opposite gender are seeking to obtain a marriage license. They could be marrying so one partner could obtain a green card (I have a friend who was offered $1 million for this by a very wealthy Asian man – she declined). In fact, C.S. Lewis’s initial marriage to Joy Gresham was to extend his British citizenship rights to her. One could also marry for purely financial gain and to move up in social caste. A man could legally marry a waitress from Hooters whom he’s known all of 8 hours. It also doesn’t bar couples from marrying where one partner has undergone medical sterilization due either to choice or medical necessity. Really, none of these situations would be approaching the Orthodox ideal of marriage.
Despite the lax attitude of the government, people still view marriage in an idealized manner. Even people who rarely set foot inside a church will not view their marriage as “official” until they’ve stepped outside the church doors after having said their vows in front of a congregation and a pastor or priest. Modern weddings are frequently grand affairs, and people expend serious efforts in finding someone they wish to spend their lives with, using websites, dating services, etc. If anything, marriage is viewed in an even more idealized way than it ever has been. My point is that the government definition of marriage (or its lack of it) seems to be having little impact on the cultural ideal of what marriage is. If you ask most people, they will tell you that they enter into marriage with the intent of sticking it through. Divorce rates have risen in the last century, it is true, but had women in the early 20th century been as financially independent as women are today, there probably would have been an equal number of divorces then, and given the number of brothels available in early America, I’m betting that more American men cheated on their wives than we would like to believe.
So, honestly, I don’t see how extending certain benefits to certain couples is going to harm society, given that granting these benefits to couplings that fall far short of the Orthodox ideal bears such little impact. Maybe I’m missing something.
I still support the ability of the Orthodox (or anyone, for that matter) in critiquing such arrangements. I have never been a fan of political correctness. Europe HAS gone way too far in this regard, I fear, if all reports are accurate.
The actual quote from Malcom Muggeridge on materialism and sex is:
He made the comment on a 1965 BBC broadcast.
Note 101. Phil writes:
Really? This assertion is true only if you believe gender extends no deeper than the genitals, but as any parent will tell you that gender actually resides much deeper. Give the child time. Again, if you don’t have children, or if you are confused about your own sexual identity, some of this might lie beyond your experience.
As for your acknowledgment that marriage laws should be extended toward the bisexual who wants to marry both a male and female at the same time, it becomes increasingly clear that the agenda here is not just homosexual marriage, but polygamy, bi-sexual polygamy, probably even homosexual polygamy. You are not arguing here for homosexual “rights”, you are arguing for the abolition of heterosexual marriage.
Phil will have to speak for himself, but the fact that sex extends way deeper than the genitals was my point. Some children are born defective in that their biology is mixed up. Or, some boys have ended up castrated and have been re-assigned to female ‘gender’ because of accidents with circumcision or because they had a ‘micro-penis’ which the attending physician judged too small or because they had only one testicle, or because they had ‘ambiguous’ genitalia.
The practice has become normal for doctors and parents, often under durress, to make decisions about what ‘gender’ such children should have. This is clearly beyond the scope of anyone save God to decide. Given time, even chromosonally mixed children will gravitate towards one gender or the other. The problem is that doctors, believing that ‘gender’ is culturally assigned (sometimes being eager to even prove this fact) have butchered these children.
Sometimes parents go along, and sometimes it is done without their consent. A recent case involved a boy with one testicle and a partially developed penis who was castrated without his parents’ consent. The parents were forced to leave him in the hospital after birth, and the doctor did the procedure to try and force the parents to make the boy into a girl.
Inter-sexed children are a sad fact in a fallen world. I can’t see making public policy regarding other people on the basis of such an extreme case. At the same time, every effort needs to be made to protect these children and allow them to develope as God has seen fit to render them.
I happen to agree with that.
Again, you are absolutely right. Even a well-informed or “expert” doctor could make a decision which does not align with the way the child will see themself, both physically and emotionally, years down the line.
Parents accede to mutilation, or even request it, because in most cases, the notion of an “intersex” child never occurred to them. They fear their child will be socially stigmatized, and they seek a quick “solution.”
Note 104–
No, Jacobse, I thought I was pretty clear both times when I explained that: I don’t support the creation of a new structure in which three persons can marry. The state should treat all three-person “pairings” the same, and “not allowing multiple-partner marriage” is indeed equal treatment for all citizens. As I said upstream, many of the arguments against polygamy are unique and not applicable to same-sex marriage.
I appreciate that you oppose polygamy, but the only person in this discussion who has made anything close to a pro-polygamy argument thus far has been you.
Note 106. Phil writes:
Not really. The reason the mutilation occurs is that the notion that gender is solely a matter of genitalia afflicts some doctors as well. If it didn’t, you would not see “sex reassignment surgery” either.
Well, if you have, it still is a bit slippery. What does it mean that “the state should treat all three person ‘pairings’ the same”? Does this mean polygamous relationships should not be recognized as a legal marriage?
If so, isn’t this discriminatory? On what basis would you outlaw polygamy?
That’s because the criteria you propose for homosexual marriage applies to every other kind of relationship as well.
It would help me if you quoted that criteria.
I seem to recall saying that a woman has the right to marry a man, but that same right is denied to a man.
I don’t see how that applies to polygamous relationships at all, since no woman has the right to marry two persons. I support equal rights for all, and that means if the speed limit on U.S. highways is 65mph for whites and Aleutians, it should be 65mph for blacks and albinos as well. It does not follow that I therefore think the speed limit should raised to 70mph.
If the drinking age were 21 for right-handers and left-handers just weren’t allowed to drink, I’d argue that the drinking age for left-handers should be 21 as well. You would then argue repeatedly that what I really want is not equal treatment of left-handers and right-handers, but for there to be no drinking age at all, leading to chaos and drunken preschoolers in the streets.
Who does it discriminate against? Discrimination requires you to treat one person differently than others.
Note 108. Phil writes:
A man does not have a “right” to marry a man. A man does not have a “right” to marry two or more women. Why should your “right” trump the polygamist’s?
The creation and application of law always requires discrimination. Just law should discriminate on behavior rather than personhood or lack thereof. Further, the discrimination of behavior should be founded on a culturally recognized hierarchy of values consistently applied. In the United States that hierarchy of values has been largely drawn from the Judeo-Christian tradition. To survive as a country, those values that are written in to law must be enforceable by the state. Those values that form part of the unwritten social fabric must be enforceable through societal pressure, disapproval and sanctions of various types.
It is interesting that Phil makes statements that initially imply that all sexual behavior except forcible sex is equivalent and the law ought to reflect such equivalence. He denies that the long held hierarchy of values embodied in our law has any meaning. Amazingly he then goes on to imply that changing the hierarchy of values that is the foundation of our law and our culture will have any effect beyond his specific concern. However when faced with types of sexual behavior that he is uncomfortable with, he suddenly says he didn’t really mean what he was implying. In fact only certain types of sexual behavior are equivalent. The sexual behavior beyond his own personal comfort level most is most certainly not equivalent and therefore should be sanctioned.
Phil denies the collective wisdom of a variety of different cultures informed by a wide variety of different faiths over centuries and replaces that wisdom with his own personal preference. I could be reaching here, but that seems arrogant to me.
Yes, but a woman has the right, and thus the state denies that right to a man on the basis of his gender alone–no other factor.
The reason that this is unfair discrimination is because it isn’t based, as Michael says, on “behavior.” Gender is an intrinsic quality. And while I, and you, and in many cases the state, agree that gender is difficult to define, you persist in believing that this undefinable trait is sufficient to deny men a right that is granted to women.
If we’re to base law on gender difference, there must be some trait that all women possess that no man possesses, and vice versa. But there isn’t–there are no emotional traits that all women have that no man has. One could even argue that there are no physical traits that all women have that no man has. (Not all women menstruate, etc.) We don’t even restrict marriage on the basis of genitals, since some women have penises or testicles, and some men do not.
Your arguments about fertility don’t work, because the law doesn’t ban infertile marriages. Your arguments about “culture” don’t work; since no one in this country seriously wants to return to a pre-medieval culture of forced marriage and subjugation of women. (Or if they do–is that seriously what you’re advocating?) The way that Western culture understand marriage has undergone major changes periodically throughout its history; there has not been one “definition” of civil marriage, there have been dozens.
Instead, you’re left with a straw man: “Same-sex marriage advocates must be secretly advocating polygamy because their worldview forces them to accede to every sexual whim that humans can conceive.” But that’s just silly. There’s no logical link to get from “A man should have the same rights as a woman” to “A man should have any right he wants.”
None of this is to say that the state should presuppose that the Orthodox church is wrong in its teachings on gender. The state should, in fact, act as if the teachings of the Orthodox church might be right, and ensure that no one is prevented from living according to those beliefs. But you exhibit large-scale schadenfreude: it’s not enough for you and your church to enjoy the benefits of state marriage; others must be suppressed so they don’t get all “uppity.”
Note 111. Phil writes:
Why the quotes? Those aren’t my words.
But you still haven’t answered my question: On what basis would you deny polygamy, either heterosexual or homosexual?
Look, basically you are arguing that the biological distinctions between male and female (we’ll overlook the psychological and emotional components of gender for the moment) don’t really matter. Of course we all know they do, but we can pretend they are of no consequence because of some tragic birth defects or medical neglience where the genitals are deformed.
Why do the distinctions matter? One simple reason is the plumbing. Male to male plumbing just doesn’t fit. The anal canal is not made to receive a penis. It is not a vagina. Sure, some of the plumbing doesn’t function properly in all cases, but broken plumbing is a whole lot different than pieces that don’t fit.
Now if this is discriminatory, take it up with God, Mother Nature, Darwin — you get to chose this one. No matter how fervent your appeal however, I don’t think it will change.
You say its not fair that homosexual men don’t have the same rights as women because men cannot marry men.* Well, when it comes to lesbian women, they don’t have the same rights as men. Call it a draw if you want. Of course they really are free to marry, but not members of their own sex.
*(Why men would take women as role models in this way reveals some of the gender confusion lurking behind the debate. Are homosexualized men the flip side of radically feminized women?)
No, that’s not it at all. The moral tradition of western culture (which is Judeo/Christian at its foundation) does not separate marriage from family. Since homosexual relationships are unformly infertile (it’s the plumbing again), they are biologically closed from creating life. It’s a problem I know, that men cannot possess wombs (they don’t have the “rights” a woman has) but that is just the way it is.
So I, and many others won’t turn over marriage to homosexuals. You are free to enter into homosexual relationships if you want. No one will stop you. You can act like man and wife if you want. Fine by me. But I don’t think you will have success getting a whole lot of people behind the program. It’s that gut thing. Most people sense that there is something intrinsically disordered in the whole enterprise.
Frankly, I think homosexuals sense this too. That’s why the homosexual lobby pushes so hard for homosexual marriage even though, if passed, most will ignore the option. In Europe only 7% of homosexuals get married. (Don’t know what the divorce rate is.) Part of the push, in other words, is really an attempt to quell some internal discomfort.*
So, let’s return to the question: On what basis would you deny polygamy, either heterosexual or homosexual?
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*Phil, no need to comment on this. It is directed toward the lurkers. Everytime I write on the topic of homosexuality, someone contacts me who is struggling with same-sex desire. I don’t buy into the idea that sexuality is the foundation of personal identity. I don’t see people in terms of their struggles, sins, or sexual orientation. I’m am vocal in the public debates against the cultural agenda of the homosexual lobby, but very sympathetic toward people struggling with it one on one. I need to say this to anyone who might be considering contacting me.
Michael writes: “It is interesting that Phil makes statements that initially imply that all sexual behavior except forcible sex is equivalent and the law ought to reflect such equivalence.”
I don’t think that same-sex marriage is primarily about marriage but about attraction. Likewise with heterosexual marriage. I mean, sex is a part of it, but people don’t get married in order to “have sex.” That is accomplished quite easily outside of that institution.
Rather, I think that people get married primarily because they want companionship, not just “visits,” and because of the ideal of romantic love — “you are the only one for me, fate brought us together,” etc., even if it doesn’t always turn out that way.
When I married my wife, I would have married her even if I knew that after one day of marriage we’d never be able to have sex again, for some awful reason. I’m just crazy about her. I love her good moods and I love her bad moods. I love all of her many problems. And God knows why she ever married me. My guess is that there are many same-sex couples that feel the same way about each other. So I have a real problem with the idea that same-sex marriage is all about sex. It’s about love. Sex is nice, but compared to love — forget about it. The gospels teach that love always involves sacrifice. If two people — gay or straight — are willing to enter into that joint sacrifice, I say more power to them.
Fr. Hans writes: “Male to male plumbing just doesn’t fit. The anal canal is not made to receive a penis.”
This might be an argument against same-sex male couples, but it certainly isn’t an argument against same-sex female couples. By the way, it seems that a significant number of heterosexual couples, around 25 percent according to one survey, have engaged in anal sex at some time or other. Not my style, but some seem to enjoy it.
Note 110. Michael writes:
From Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard Address that describes Phil’s thinking on the law:
From the same address remaking on the inability of moderns to perceive things beyond their own experience (and thus discount the value and relevence of tradition):
Some of the social context to which Solzhenitsyn spoke has changed, but the spiritual warnings are still relevant, even moreso today perhaps than in 1978 when the speech was given.
Note 114. Female to female sex suffers from problem plumbing too. It’s just different plumbing. As for sodomy, homosexual or heterosexual, the principle is the same. In fact, in medical terms, the anal canal is traumatized during sodomy since it was not designed to be penetrated. The cellular and muscular structure is different than the vagina. :ROUGH STUFF ALERT: Here is some detail: The Health Risks of Gay Sex