On Proposition 8
Some well-meaning people have been filled with passionate intensity in trying to defeat the now passed Proposition 8, which, in response to a finding of the California Supreme Court, sought to amend the California Constitution by defining marriage as between a man and a woman and thereby removing the Court’s argument that the Constitution implied a right to same-sex marriage.
As an example of the heat that the issue has generated, I have received the following comment from a former student of mine, who berates me for linking to Richard Kirk’s blog (“Musing with a Hammer”) at mine. My student writes: “Shame on you . . . for linking to Kirk's page, which prominently displays a heinously ignorant, shortsighted, indefensible diatribe condemning gay marriage for its lack of a contribution to reproduction. Fill the orphanages Kirk. And continue to attach your name, Rap, to a viewpoint that represents misled intellectualism and blunt hate. Bravo.”
This attack only underlines Richard Kirk’s point about the overheated ad hominem attacks of some Prop. 8 opponents. In fact Kirk’s post is neither ignorant, nor shortsighted, nor indefensible, nor is it a diatribe, nor does it condemn, nor does it represent “misled intellectualism” or “blunt [or any other kind of] hate.” These accusations are absurd, a pertinent example of how easily the political disagreement of those who pretend to be for equality and fairness may decline into irrational insult.
Kirk’s argument is perfectly rational given the assumption that the millennia-old institution of marriage is a valid social form. One may choose to reject that assumption, but holding it is no evidence of either irrationality or hate. Neither in person nor on paper nor online is Richard Kirk either unreasonable or bigoted against anyone. And unlike my student, Kirk has actually worked as a social worker among real orphans and hence speaks with some authority about the effects of the lack of mother or father or both in the upbringing of children. By contrast, the abstract orphanages that glide so easily off my student’s keyboard are a function entirely of polemic.
I am honored to link at my own blog that of so passionately moral a thinker and so careful and honest a writer as Richard Kirk. I urge my readers to read his post called “Hate Thy Political Neighbor” at Musing with a Hammer together with the comments it has generated and his responses to them. You may then decide for yourselves whether or not my student’s own diatribe is called for.
It is unfortunate that, in order to defend the (in my opinion untenable) idea of same-sex marriage, opponents of Prop. 8 have had recourse to characterizing the legalization of same-sex marriage as a civil rights issue and the proponents of the proposition as bigots. In doing so, the partisans of this change, which was confirmed by the legal opinion of four members of the California Supreme Court, have tapped the fervor of all those who support the rights of same-sex couples to be free of persecution, to live undisturbed with whom they choose, to provide health care, visit the sick, and bequeath property as they wish. The fervor itself is not ignoble, nor are these unreasonable rights to demand. But California law already secures all of them. (See Domestic Partnership in California in Wikipedia.) Hence the argument is really about whether four judges, or even a majority of citizens, can force the entire society and its future to repudiate so ancient and fundamental an institution of civilization as marriage by altering the definition of the word.
I have heard it argued by opponents of Prop. 8 that the word “marriage” is merely a term for a civil contract and need not imply anything about the genders of the partners. This argument is simply false, a product of ignorant wishful thinking if not of intentional misrepresentation. A society may want to legalize or even consecrate same-sex unions, but there can be no etymological justification for using the word “marriage” to describe them.
The words “marriage” and “matrimony” are synonyms. The former is from the Latin maritus, meaning husband, from mas, maris, a male. The latter is from the Latin matrimonium, marriage, from mater, mother. Since ancient times, both words have meant the union of man and woman as husband and wife. With Proposition 8 the California voters have voted to preserve the correct and ancient meaning of the word “marriage” and nothing else.
There may have been some anti-gay bigots who voted for the proposition and some anti-religious bigots who voted against it, but no civil rights have been limited, no prejudice perpetuated, no bigotry enshrined in the California Constitution by its passage. In a future post I may address the underlying causes of the passionate attempt to alter our shared language in this way. For now, I simply want to maintain that one may have supported Prop. 8 without being a bigot.
Finally, even if there were rational arguments to be made for altering the denotation of a word that has retained the same essential meaning for several thousand years, no sign of such an argument is evidenced by the words, tone, and attitude of the attack quoted above. Such spluttering, even in the name of combating injustice, whether real or illusory, not only leads to the maligning of men of good will but poisons rational discourse. Let us all calm down and try to be both honest and clear, even—or rather, especially—when we disagree. Not only we but our society and our world will be the better for every effort we make in that direction.
As an example of the heat that the issue has generated, I have received the following comment from a former student of mine, who berates me for linking to Richard Kirk’s blog (“Musing with a Hammer”) at mine. My student writes: “Shame on you . . . for linking to Kirk's page, which prominently displays a heinously ignorant, shortsighted, indefensible diatribe condemning gay marriage for its lack of a contribution to reproduction. Fill the orphanages Kirk. And continue to attach your name, Rap, to a viewpoint that represents misled intellectualism and blunt hate. Bravo.”
This attack only underlines Richard Kirk’s point about the overheated ad hominem attacks of some Prop. 8 opponents. In fact Kirk’s post is neither ignorant, nor shortsighted, nor indefensible, nor is it a diatribe, nor does it condemn, nor does it represent “misled intellectualism” or “blunt [or any other kind of] hate.” These accusations are absurd, a pertinent example of how easily the political disagreement of those who pretend to be for equality and fairness may decline into irrational insult.
Kirk’s argument is perfectly rational given the assumption that the millennia-old institution of marriage is a valid social form. One may choose to reject that assumption, but holding it is no evidence of either irrationality or hate. Neither in person nor on paper nor online is Richard Kirk either unreasonable or bigoted against anyone. And unlike my student, Kirk has actually worked as a social worker among real orphans and hence speaks with some authority about the effects of the lack of mother or father or both in the upbringing of children. By contrast, the abstract orphanages that glide so easily off my student’s keyboard are a function entirely of polemic.
I am honored to link at my own blog that of so passionately moral a thinker and so careful and honest a writer as Richard Kirk. I urge my readers to read his post called “Hate Thy Political Neighbor” at Musing with a Hammer together with the comments it has generated and his responses to them. You may then decide for yourselves whether or not my student’s own diatribe is called for.
It is unfortunate that, in order to defend the (in my opinion untenable) idea of same-sex marriage, opponents of Prop. 8 have had recourse to characterizing the legalization of same-sex marriage as a civil rights issue and the proponents of the proposition as bigots. In doing so, the partisans of this change, which was confirmed by the legal opinion of four members of the California Supreme Court, have tapped the fervor of all those who support the rights of same-sex couples to be free of persecution, to live undisturbed with whom they choose, to provide health care, visit the sick, and bequeath property as they wish. The fervor itself is not ignoble, nor are these unreasonable rights to demand. But California law already secures all of them. (See Domestic Partnership in California in Wikipedia.) Hence the argument is really about whether four judges, or even a majority of citizens, can force the entire society and its future to repudiate so ancient and fundamental an institution of civilization as marriage by altering the definition of the word.
I have heard it argued by opponents of Prop. 8 that the word “marriage” is merely a term for a civil contract and need not imply anything about the genders of the partners. This argument is simply false, a product of ignorant wishful thinking if not of intentional misrepresentation. A society may want to legalize or even consecrate same-sex unions, but there can be no etymological justification for using the word “marriage” to describe them.
The words “marriage” and “matrimony” are synonyms. The former is from the Latin maritus, meaning husband, from mas, maris, a male. The latter is from the Latin matrimonium, marriage, from mater, mother. Since ancient times, both words have meant the union of man and woman as husband and wife. With Proposition 8 the California voters have voted to preserve the correct and ancient meaning of the word “marriage” and nothing else.
There may have been some anti-gay bigots who voted for the proposition and some anti-religious bigots who voted against it, but no civil rights have been limited, no prejudice perpetuated, no bigotry enshrined in the California Constitution by its passage. In a future post I may address the underlying causes of the passionate attempt to alter our shared language in this way. For now, I simply want to maintain that one may have supported Prop. 8 without being a bigot.
Finally, even if there were rational arguments to be made for altering the denotation of a word that has retained the same essential meaning for several thousand years, no sign of such an argument is evidenced by the words, tone, and attitude of the attack quoted above. Such spluttering, even in the name of combating injustice, whether real or illusory, not only leads to the maligning of men of good will but poisons rational discourse. Let us all calm down and try to be both honest and clear, even—or rather, especially—when we disagree. Not only we but our society and our world will be the better for every effort we make in that direction.
posted by G.Rap | 7:56 AM
8 Comments:
I don't buy the argument from semantics.
Since when does anybody sincerely champion linguistic inertia over civil rights? (And yes, this is a civil rights issue.) Since when do people who can't pronounce the word "nuclear" care so much about lexical continuity?
In any case, anyone who opposes gay marriage for strictly semantic reasons is fighting a battle that has already been lost. Words mean what people use them to mean, and the word "marriage" is already commonly used to describe unions between same-sex couples. A Google search for "gay marriage" returns over 10 million hits.
Proposition 8 is powerless to change that. Not withstanding its passage last Tuesday, when Bill gets on his knee to propose to Larry, he will not ask: "Will you form a domestic partnership with me?" When Lisa pops the question to Tina, it will not be: "Will you join me in a civil union?"
In their everyday language, Californians will continue to refer to gay marriage as marriage. The semantic battle was over before the legal battle began.
Proposition 8's passage means only that the state will not share the vocabulary of its citizens. It will instead maintain its own separate-but-equal marital terminology that will become more antiquated with each passing year.
That's a shame -- although in the broader battle for civil rights and equality, it is a relatively minor setback.
Etymology does not exhaust meaning. Why not follow Wittgenstein in describing the ways in which a word like “marriage” is used rather than legislating a single “correct” definition? Marriage has had and has a variety of meanings and contexts and has described a variety of practices. Your fixing a particular meaning of marriage as the correct one is just as much if not more an active act of “defining” the word as advocates of gay marriage who hope to change its legal meaning in the US. Besides being about rearing children, as Kirk would have it, marriage has other associations and connotations, for instance, of the culmination of love, of life-long commitment, of community recognition, of legal rights and responsibilities, etc.
As I’ve pointed out on Kirk’s blog, this assertion of a timelessly historical but in reality ahistorical and transcendent definition of marriage has the ironic consequences of hiding real history: the resemblance (not to say the identity) of anti-gay marriage rhetoric with its more noxious predecessors that aimed to treat homosexuals as abject, to marginalize them socially and legally, etc. But far better to focus attention away from real history to a fantastical one so as to claim the guise of innocence and avoid the thorny issues of how evangelical churches, etc, which just a few years ago were ruing the Supreme Court’s decriminalization of sodomy (see the opinion of Scalia himself!), have severed themselves from that legacy.
Those who view homosexuals or their sex as a threat to civilization and society (which is certainly not all of prop 8s advocates) should proclaim it openly rather than narrowing their public rhetoric to the issue of child rearing for the purpose of political efficacy. You and I both agree that the debate should be “honest and clear.” Those who “hate the sin,” or think that homosexuality even outside marriage is a threat to a healthy society, could have the courtesy of being honest and open about it rather than cloaking their vitriol under the guise of a specific concern about marriage.
In any event, even if such a normative definition of marriage were true to the history it claims – when most major historians of the family, gender, and emotions will tell you it is not – so what? Similar claims were made to defend anti-miscegenation laws. And tradition, if it is our ultimate judge, would sanction much else, including racism, sexism, social stasis, non-democratic governments, slavery, prostitution, etc.
The argument about the traditional definition of marriage is, of course, a distraction.
What is really meant is the Conservative claim that family structure and male-female gender relations are organic to society – that is, have evolved to fulfill a certain and necessary social purpose -- and need not be tampered with except under the most pressing circumstances. This claim is, for the religious and some secularists, intertwined with beliefs about homosexuality being unnatural, an abomination, worthy of excommunicating your child over, etc (1).
Those are the grounds opponents of prop 8 should advance upon such that we can have the honest and clear debate you call for.
(P.S. So that there is no confusion: I am not arguing that the history of discrimination is proof of the rightness of gay marriage. I aim here only to clarify the terms of one-side of the debate.)
(1) http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/public-issues/same-gender-attraction
In response to Maurile:
Maurile does not buy the argument from semantics, then resorts to mere rhetoric to counter it. I can pronounce “nuclear” correctly and have always done so, so I’m not sure why that irrelevance comes up. My point was not to champion linguistic inertia but to assert that words refer to things and that things can’t be changed merely by altering the usage of words, though thoughts about things certainly can. Words do mean what people use them to mean, but that only supports my point: The vast majority of people in this country and in the civilized world use “marriage” as it has almost always been used, and the willful attempt to alter its meaning, though in time it may succeed, has not succeeded yet. If it ever does, I believe that more will be lost than gained.
I don’t see how “the state will not share the vocabulary of its citizens” is justified, considering that a majority of “its citizens” has voted to keep the original meaning of the word “marriage” intact for legal purposes. The state will not share the vocabulary of a minority of its citizens.
Most important, the sentence “and yes this is a civil rights issue” is no argument. There is no civil right of minorities to force fundamental changes in foundational cultural matters upon majorities without overwhelming moral imperative to retrieve majorities from profound error (as in the case of slavery, for example). There is no profound moral error in asserting that defining the nature of marriage is the prerogative of the society rather than of an interested minority.
A gay friend, who announced his recent “marriage” before the Governor’s suspension of state marriage licenses for same-sex couples, writes, “we will call it what we like, thank you.” Fine. You have freedom of speech and may may indeed call it what you like. But I reserve the equal right of free speech to call it what I like without being slandered with bigotry. I also maintain the right of the majority to determine state law on the subject where there is no infringement of anyone’s actual rights by doing so.
There is a grain of truth in Maurile’s saying “The semantic battle was over before the legal battle began.” The real battle cannot be won or lost at law. It is a societal debate, and once a shared societal vision is breached, no mere law can restore it. But since our society has established a government of laws rather than men, such social debates often play out in legal terms. In any case, the notion that this semantic debate is over is premature. It may be, but it is too soon to tell. The fact that a majority, even in a liberal-leaning state like ours, has voted for the traditional side of the semantic argument, suggests that the end is not yet in sight. Nor is it clear that the semantic triumph of the minority would be an unalloyed social good.
At some point we shall have to address as a society the contrary assumptions about the nature of man that underlie this semantic debate. In the absence of a clear discussion of that subject, all argument about the word is merely provisional.
In response to Anonymous:
I do not deny the claim of Anonymous that the present is not the only time in which people have tried to impose other meanings on the word “marriage.” Apparently the emperor Caligula claimed to have married his horse Incitatus to a mare named Penelope. But Wittgenstein’s path leads to despair of all meaning, and I will not go down it. I admit that my argument is an act of definition too. What I am arguing is that the vast majority of our civilization and of its best thinkers is on the side of this definition, and that the breakdown of words foreshadows a breakdown of things.
Anonymous is right that “Besides being about rearing children, as Kirk would have it, marriage has other associations and connotations, for instance, of the culmination of love, of life-long commitment, of community recognition, of legal rights and responsibilities, etc.” But the fact that marriage has these “other associations and connotations” does not justify the divorcing of some of them from the others, of the heterosexual union of opposites, reproduction, and child-rearing from commitment, recognition, and legal ties.
The attempt to “fix” a meaning to the word “marriage” is indeed an effort at more than semantics. It is about disambiguation in the name of truth. Same-sex relationships may be fully loving, committed, legal, moral, and socially accepted. I think they should be all those things. But so long as human beings generally come in two genders, same-sex unions will never be the same thing as heterosexual marriage, no matter how vociferously it is claimed that they are.
The one good point that Anonymous makes is that “Those who ‘hate the sin,’ or think that homosexuality even outside marriage is a threat to a healthy society, [should] have the courtesy of being honest and open about it,” though his assumption that that opinion is a form of “vitriol” reveals Anonymous’s own prejudice. It is perfectly possible to wish to preserve the idea and definition of marriage without being bigoted about homosexuality. What is the conviction that it is not possible but prejudice of an equal if opposite kind? Do the words of Anonymous not imply a contempt for traditional religious believers?
The worst of Anonymous’s arguments is this: “In any event, even if such a normative definition of marriage were true to the history it claims – when most major historians of the family, gender, and emotions will tell you it is not – so what? Similar claims were made to defend anti-miscegenation laws. And tradition, if it is our ultimate judge, would sanction much else, including racism, sexism, social stasis, non-democratic governments, slavery, prostitution, etc.”
Here he reveals the kind of contempt for the past that for decades has clouded the reason of the educated at least as thoroughly as fundamentalist religion is thought to have clouded the reason of believers. I do not say that tradition is our ultimate judge. God is. Tradition has given us, as it has every age, both good and bad. It is our perennial human duty to make distinctions and to embrace the good and reject the bad. If racism and sexism and slavery have been sanctioned in the past, so have justice and kindness and chastity and charity and honoring one’s parents, and so have liberty and democracy and human rights. The new may be better or worse. That we have successfully thrown off the burden of slavery and are working to throw off that of racism is no evidence that every claim of social injustice is equally legitimate.
It is an outrage to put the traditional definition of marriage in the same category as race hatred, slavery, or prostitution. Indeed, over the history of our civilization it has been the increasingly humane laws of marriage that have preserved women from injustice and abuse. To treat the traditional idea of marriage as if it were a form of sin to be purged by legal equalities is an insult to the past and to human intelligence. This argument by false analogy is both specious and offensive.
Finally, Anonymous argues for guilt by association: “What is really meant is the Conservative claim that family structure and male-female gender relations are organic to society – that is, have evolved to fulfill a certain and necessary social purpose -- and need not be tampered with except under the most pressing circumstances. This claim is, for the religious and some secularists, intertwined with beliefs about homosexuality being unnatural, an abomination, worthy of excommunicating your child over, etc.”
This supposed “intertwining” is at the root of Anonymous’s position. The first sentence is a fair assertion of the reasonable conservative position, and it would be interesting to hear a discussion about how “organic to society” could possibly be refuted. But in the second sentence Anonymous reveals his willingness to treat anyone who makes such an argument, along with all religious believers, as bigots. There are of course such bigots. But it is an outrage to imply that those who take the conservative position—who believe in an order of nature and society that cannot be violated without serious consequences—are the moral equivalent of a lynch mob. It seems that both sides in this debate can be guilty of the “cloaking of vitriol.”
Finally, Anonymous says “You and I both agree that the debate should be ‘honest and clear.’” I hope we do. But before a debate can become honest and clear, it must address agreements and disagreements on fundamental assumptions about the nature of man, society, history, and progress. In the absence of that discussion, all debate based upon contrary assumptions will decay into fallacious arguments and name calling.
I hope soon to address the question of modern confusion on the subject of nature and society. For now, I will end by saying only that equality is not identity, and that though such prejudice does exist, the desire to preserve the traditional definition of marriage is no necessary sign of prejudice against homosexuality.
A crucial flaw in your argument is that you've overlooked the fact that Prop 8 isn't about gay marriage at all. Prop 8 isn't about whether gays should get married; it is about whether the government should attempt to impose a specific definition of marriage on Californians.
It's very possible to strenuously object to gay marriage, yet oppose Prop 8 on the grounds that it isn't a rightful function of government to define who can or cannot get married.
Defendants of Prop 8 must defend not only their position that gay marriage is indefensible, but also their position that government should intrude so far into peoples' lives as to prohibit a large number of people from what is a legal right for others.
If the government can rightfully intercede to outlaw gay marriage, why not interracial marriage? Arguments can be found to support legally banning the marriage of any group to any other group. Why not legislate who can have sex with whom?
I'm unsure about the wisdom and rightfulness of gay marriage, but I'm reasonably sure that government should not be in the business of legislating which couples can marry.
I'll close by paraphrasing what I recently heard a Holocaust survivor say: "I'm very suspicious and fearful of any laws which restrict rights for one particular minority."
I can pronounce “nuclear” correctly and have always done so, so I’m not sure why that irrelevance comes up.
It wasn't aimed at you; it refers to my observation that people who oppose gay marriage tend to be less educated, on average, and correspondingly less concerned about linguistic matters generally, than people who support it.
Nonetheless, it was admittedly irrelevant and therefore distracting -- an example of poor writing on my part, for which my highschool English teacher bears no responsibility. ;)
To Maurile:
Thanks for the clarification about “nuclear” (and for absolving your English teacher ;) ). The assumption that those opposing Prop. 8 are “less educated” sounds like prejudice to me. It is not unheard of that people highly educated in some ways may be benighted in others, and people less educated have been known to be wise, even about words. Of course the converse may also be true. So I guess we should argue each case on its merits.
To B. M. McManus:
The State of California already defines who can or cannot get married and issues licenses to that effect. There are many categories of persons from whom it is in the interests of the state, because it is in the interests of the society, to withhold marriage licenses. (See California Family Law codes--http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/calawquery?codesection=fam&codebody=Marriage&hits=20.) Prop. 8 is no more an intrusion than the marriage license itself. It is an effort to record in law what the majority of the society has always taken for granted without previously having had to spell it out in the Constitution. If it were not for the demand that the state recognize same-sex unions as marriage, Prop. 8 would never have come to be.
As Richard Kirk points out, to equate gender with skin pigmentation as fundamental to the nature of social relationships is perverse. And the state already does quite properly legislate who may “have sex” with whom: An adult may not “have sex” with minors, close relatives, or other adults if they are not consenting. The state also limits heterosexual marriages: licenses may not be issued if one is already married, underage, impaired, intoxicated, etc. All such “intrusion into people’s lives” is founded upon the most basic shared concepts of civilized society, of which the traditional definition of marriage is one.
Prop. 8 does not restrict rights. California has gone as far as almost any state in securing the rights of minorities. And why, if one is opposed to the state’s interceding in marriage, would you not have been opposed to California Supreme Court’s decision, by a one-judge margin, to do just that? The argument that the state has no business in defining marriage would have to work both ways. The irony is that in making this argument you seem to be content that judges representing the state should intercede in defining marriage but the majority of the citizens of the state should not. What does that say about your commitment to the rights of the people?
Lastly, the state is not outlawing anything. The state’s definition of marriage as between a man and a woman merely makes explicit a shared understanding of the nature of man-in-society that has almost always been implicit in our civilization until recent attempts to alter it. No one has outlawed the committed love relationships of same-sex couples or infringed upon their actual rights. The majority of the voters of the state have simply declared their understanding that the term “marriage” does not include such relationships, and I cannot see any good reason in justice or in law why they do not have the right to do so.
I have received a variety of comments to this post, including one belligerent expression of annoyance that I was not quick to post a previous comment.
It is true that I have been too busy to address all the comments immediately. But let me also clarify my policy: I am the writer and editor of this blog, which exists as a medium in which I can articulate my thoughts and share them with the interested. I reserve the right to publish or not publish comments, either as received or quoted in my responses, as I wish, though of course I will strive not to misrepresent the intentions of the comment writer. I will publish the ones I feel it useful to address. I will not publish as they stand any comments that include personal information either about the writer or about me or comments I consider to be either scurrilous or to contain merely rhetorical grandstanding. This blog is not and never was meant to be an open forum for any and all opinions expressed in response to my postings. Readers who object to this policy are free to establish their own blogs.
Many of the responses to this posting, though not unreasonable, were arguing points that I have taken up in a more recent posting. Rather than post arguments against what I did not mean, I have labored to clarify what I do mean. Responses to the later posting will be considered as they come in.
A few particular points: One anonymous commenter made the point that exit polls show those who voted for Proposition 8 are less educated than those who voted against it. I have devoted my professional life to education, and I think good education is crucial to democratic society. But to me this comment smacks of pure snobbism. Are we to understand that equality between same-sex and opposite-sex couples is a value but the equal validity of the votes of the less educated is not? Where has equality gone in this argument?
Evander writes “I'll go with Olbermann's argument, which I find hard to disagree with” and sends me a You Tube link. I could bear to listen to only the first half of the speech, which was overheated rhetoric empty of reason. Olbermann says “This is about the human heart,” confirming my opinion that the arguments against Proposition 8 are driven mainly by unexamined feelings. He sets up the straw man of “these people just want to be together in a loving relationship,” as if Prop. 8 did anything to prevent that, and promotes the canard that California’s preservation of the definition of marriage is like certain now abolished state laws against inter-racial marriage and the splitting up of the marriages of slaves in the 19th Century. This is rhetorically dramatic but moronic. As I keep saying, no one is reducing the rights of same-sex couples to committed loving legal relationships. We are talking about the term and concept of “marriage.” It is an outrage to the sufferings of the slaves and of all victims of racism to equate the wrongs they suffered with the vote to preserve the definition of marriage.
Mark’s comment I have posted because it is a kindly meant expression of the best that the anti-Prop. 8 people have to say. I cannot fault his kind and generous feelings. The fault in his reasoning I’ve expressed in my new post.
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