59 Comments

1. Michael J. Totten:

Yep.

And anyway, whatever reservations (some) conservative Republicans may have about Rudy today will surely go away after he wins the nomination and he’s paired with Hillary instead of Mitt Romney.

I also agree with you and Rudy about these issues, and so I’d be open to the possibility that you and I are projecting by assuming he’ll win. But the polls show we aren’t just projecting. The conventional “wisdom” about Rudy Giuliani does not match the data, at least not at this time.

Mar 4, 2007 - 12:23 pm 2. markus:

I’m not sure why the social conservatives are whining about the Republican candidates. They should be whining instead about how the unfettered capitalism they have bought into encourages the decadence and secularism they abhor so much.

Instead they’re against Giuliani, who promised to appoint appoint only “strict constuctionist” judges. This is code for overturning the right to privacy, i.e. Roe v. Wade. Doing this will allow New England states and California to let teenagers have abortions without parental consent, and let Oklahoma or Kansas to electrocute abortion doctors. Quite an accomplishment for the pro-lifers, and by my math all they need is one more Supreme Court seat to get there. Barring John Paul Stevens living to be 93 or 94, or a member of the conservative bloc dying young, I can’t see a scenario in which any Republican is elected in 2008 and Roe is still left standing in 2013, stare decisis be damned.

On gay marriage, what are we up to, 40 states with laws on the books banning it? No Supreme Court is going to overturn those laws anytime soon. Meanwhile, young people will grow more and more tolerant, sitcoms will have more and more gay characters, and “civil unions” will become institutionalized in most states.

Mar 4, 2007 - 12:24 pm 3. Mike Silverman:

I appreciate your optimism, but not every place is New York (or Portland)

Mar 4, 2007 - 12:30 pm 4. Terrye:

markus:

I think the point to Roger’s post is that many of these social conservatives are not against Gulliani.People like you expect them to be, and certainly some will be…but overall he is getting far better numbers than many expected. Now if the Democrats could support someone who did not sound like the typical 60’s flower child liberal they might have a better chance of winning. But it seems they can’t do what the Republicans are showing signs of doing.

Mar 4, 2007 - 12:46 pm 5. Buddy Larsen:

Markus, what is this “unfettered capitalism” which has “encouraged decadence and secularism”?

What fetters should we add to capitalism that will create less decadence and more spiritualism?

Honest question.

Mar 4, 2007 - 1:08 pm 6. Jamie Irons:

In the end my views are of no consequence, but I do object to the use of the word marriage for the union of same-sex couples. I don’t object to the fact, I just object to the word’s being used in this way. As far as I’m concerned, gay couples can raise children and all the rest (and of course they already do), and I wish them the best, but please, leave me “my” word.

I know this sounds terribly reactionary and illiberal, but I believe it is deeply liberal to preserve the deep meaning of the language. If in time, all of us came naturally to this extension of the word’s meaning, I would have no problem with it. It’s the appropriation, or misappropriation, of language by fiat that irks me.

Jamie Irons

Mar 4, 2007 - 1:12 pm 7. Jamie Irons:

Just after posting the above remark, I came across this from Glenn Reynolds:

Punctuating a fundamental change in American family life, married couples with children now occupy fewer than one in every four households — a share that has been slashed in half since 1960 and is the lowest ever recorded by the census.

As marriage with children becomes an exception rather than the norm, social scientists say it is also becoming the self-selected province of the college-educated and the affluent. The working class and the poor, meanwhile, increasingly steer away from marriage, while living together and bearing children out of wedlock. . . . Marriage has declined across all income groups, but it has declined far less among couples who make the most money and have the best education. These couples are also less likely to divorce.

Hmmm…

Maybe those of us who support the institution are going to need all the recruits we can get…

Jamie Irons

Jamie Irons

Mar 4, 2007 - 1:20 pm 8. chuck:

I’m not sure why the social conservatives are whining about the Republican candidates. They should be whining instead about how the unfettered capitalism they have bought into encourages the decadence and secularism they abhor so much.

Oh, yeah. Tell conservatives what they should believe, then call them hypocrites if they don’t. Classic left wing bigoted asshattery. And no, we don’t live in a theocracy.

Mar 4, 2007 - 1:52 pm 9. Dan Panorama:

The biggest thing about Giulianni (and Obama and Romney as well) is that the vast majority of voters don’t really know all that much about them, just the conventional media image. In Giulianni’s case it’s “hero of 9/11!” and that’s about it for now. I doubt many of those polled even know about his positions on some of the social issues – they just assume since they like him that he must have similar views to theirs. In addition, even fewer know about the horrifying (and public and well-documented) way he’s treated his multiple wives and his children, who apparently are not on speaking terms with him. This is similar to McCain with independents – because he has this “maverick” and “straight-shooter” media image everyone assumes he agrees with them until they now learn more about him and decide he’s actually not so great after all. It’s well documented that pro-choice and pro-life independents frequently believe McCain represents their position just because it’s what they want to believe.

Mar 4, 2007 - 2:30 pm 10. ricpic:

Would it be asking too much of the gay “community” and its educrat allies that innocent little seven year olds not be exposed to the love practiced by Bruce and Steve? Or does advancing the progressive agenda take precedence over the protection of innocence? I think we all know the answer.

Mar 4, 2007 - 3:31 pm 11. Barry Dauphin:

I think that Rudy stands a chance in the Republican Party because of post 9/11, pure and simple. He was brilliant at a time of immense crisis and danger. He was calm, strong, reasonable, determined, compassionate, effective, etc. He was under the public microscope throughout the most stressful of circumstances, and it was as if he didn’t strike a sour note. I think nearly everyone in the country would say, “that’s what I want in my mayor (or president) in a time of crisis.”

Subsequently we have watched disasters, and can compare. Let’s look at Rudy following 9/11 and compare that to say…Nagin following Katrina. You can stop laughing now. American watched Rudy running the largest city in the country 24/7 and liked what they saw.

Voting for president is always a shot in the dark except when re-electing an incumbent. Many Americans can sense how Rudy would govern, especially if there were important/monumental decisions to make. Who else in the field could anyone have as much confidence in? It’s not that others couldn’t be great, but we won’t know until they hold the job. Rudy likely feels like a safe choice for many in the post 9/11 world.

Also, although Rudy does not support all of the usual Republican social issues, he is seen as a pragmatist and not a firebrand…he doesn’t have “religion” and is not a fanatic. He’s a guy people can do business with.

Having said that, there is a long time until the primaries and general election. Rudy has nowhere to go but down. Keeping himself aloft will be enormously challenging. In fact it will be impossible. But Rudy could very well be nominated by the Rep Party, but only at this moment in history I think.

Mar 4, 2007 - 3:36 pm 12. Paul:

Look, Rudy took on the Mafia and the crooked liberal welfare machine in the biggest city in the nation before he showed his real time crisis leadership on 911. We’re talking some pretty formidible challenges here folks.

Who in the entire pantheon of politicians in the country can match that?

Here’s a man who doesn’t need a manufactured persona to be sold to the American public, like just about every other candidate you can think of.

Of course Republicans like him. Even many conservatives, who understand that we all have flaws, even presidents, but more importantly than a man’s flaws are his strengths, especially leaders.

Especially the leader of the most powerful and important nation in history.

Especially at this supremely critical juncture in history.

He has the left scratching their heads because they actually believe their two dimentional caricature of what Republicans and conservatives are really like.

And he has the left very nervous.

Barring some unforseen event, which is harrowingly always looming over us these days, he will win the Presidency, and deservedly so.

Mar 4, 2007 - 3:41 pm 13. Sam Alexander:

Roger, I enjoy your blog, but I find your comments here almost insulting.

So, people like me who find open homosexuality and abortion morally abhorrent just should “get used to it?” This is the attitude that social conservatives find so infuriating.

We have abortion-on-demand imposed on us by a Supreme Court decision that lacks ANY basis in the Constitution, and we are supposed to just accept it?

We see repeated, equally baseless attempts by other courts to create homosexual “marriage” as a constitutional right, and we are supposed to “get used to it?

Not likely.

Mar 4, 2007 - 4:08 pm 14. markus:

Buddy –

>what is this “unfettered capitalism” which has “encouraged decadence and secularism?

A very quick and dirty answer: unbridled capitalism, hell-bent on the single virtue of economic efficiency, fuels insatiable consumerism, “creative destruction”, and the need for ever increasing labor productivity. Result –families and communities are disrupted as jobs disappear and working people become more insecure and stressed out about their economic livelihoods. Both parents work long hours, maxing out their credit cards in order to pay for that new LCD TV, leaving their young children spending hour upon hour at home alone, getting fat, playing video games, and discovering pornography. Junior erases the cache on the family computer just before Dad gets home, Dad does the same thing before hitting the sack six or seven hours later. On Sunday, the whole family gets in the SUV to drive to the mega-church, to listen to Joel Osteen types preach that material prosperity God’s way of blessing the righteous.

Read Christopher Lasch. Started out as a leftist, grew disenchanted with the Left in the seventies (particularly its hostility toward “bourgeois” values, like strong nuclear families in which one parent stays home to take care of the children), helped Jimmy Carter write his “malaise” speech (the truth is always unpopular), and ended up calling himself an “anti-capitalist conservative.”

Or just read this overview of his life and work, published in the very conservative journal The Modern Age: http://www.mmisi.org/ma/47_04/beer.pdf

>What fetters should we add to capitalism that will create less decadence and more spiritualism?

Tough, good question. Policy wise, I would seek welfare and trade policies that make people’s economic lives less unstable, while at the same time encouraging self-reliance rather than government dependency. A very tall order that I’ve come nowhere near to figure out. I do notice that some people on the “Right” are just as likely to be interested in addressing these matters as people on the “Left.” Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons, comes to mind.

Mar 4, 2007 - 4:42 pm 15. Mike Silverman:

We see repeated, equally baseless attempts by other courts to create homosexual “marriage” as a constitutional right, and we are supposed to “get used to it?

Yes, get used to it.

Not because of the actions of courts, who usually end up creating more backlash, but rather because of the actions of society, which is inexorably moving towards acceptance of same-sex “marriage” (whether it be called civil unions or whatever).

The courts can either be ahead of the curve (and cause a backlash) or be way behind the curve (and ratify what society has already done on its own), but in the end, the courts have very little power compared with the force of societal change.

Mar 4, 2007 - 4:45 pm 16. Buddy Larsen:

Markus, your hypothetical family is indeed in trouble, and part of the reason is indeed the range of liberties with which it has been unable to cope. Okay, so let’s start restricting. Where and what, for starters?

But if you don’t think Victorianism will come back, or if you are familiar with the results of morality-legislation (such as, say, Prohibition), then you could also look at this same type of family (ambitious without much virtue, energetic without much discipline) at other times and places. If you do this, you’ll find just as much and usually more, or much, much more, fear, dread, insecurity, neuroses, etcetera.

It’s the condition of mankind. We are all in trouble, all the time, and have been since we became self-aware (probably somewhere around the time of Lucy, the little four-foot tall four-million year old Australopithecus lady).

I know I’m reducing the argument; you do make some piercing points. it’s just that your miserable family probably laughs a pretty good bit, too, in between bouts of misery, and is in any event glad to be here–at least if voting-with-feet has any meaning.

Mar 4, 2007 - 5:23 pm 17. Buddy Larsen:

I would seek welfare and trade policies that make people’s economic lives less unstable

Two questions, one “unstable” compared to what, and, two, since free trade lowers prices, how many thousands of little folks are helped, for every union boss hurt?

…while at the same time encouraging self-reliance rather than government dependency

Well, here you have joined the basic foundational theory of conservatism. Welcome to the jungle. The ‘free’ jungle, that is, as opposed to the ’slave’ jungle.

Mar 4, 2007 - 5:45 pm 18. Luther McLeod:

What do you name it when you are uncomfortable with your own beliefs? What do you call it when your elemental gut reaction is at odds with recently discovered societal norms, but yet in keeping with your beliefs. I want to call it relativism, which I think will kill us all. And of which I am guilty. But I do realize I am not smart enough to make that call.
How do I reconcile personal belief with societal norms. Who is it that decides these societal norms. Why do they get precedence over me?

Mar 4, 2007 - 5:45 pm 19. A B:

I 50 percent agree with you, Roger.

Basically, you have to understand the social conservatives. Although I am not one of them, having grown up with both Orthodox Jews and Progressive 60’s Liberals in my family, I feel that I have a good handle on how conservatives think and how liberals misunderstand them.

Basically, conservatives don’t care how you live your life in *your community*. They want the right to set up their own communities and live their lives the way they see fit. If that includes raising their kids to suppress any homosexual tendencies, get married and have 12 kids, well, that’s their own business, not yours. The Left simply doesn’t get it– they think that reaching out to a Southern Baptist 14 year old kid with gay feelings is the modern version of the underground railroad.

By promoting States Rights and original constructionism, Guiliani is promising conservatives that they can have their communities.

As far as Gay Marriage is concerned, the issue for conservatives is the word and the support. The issue will *not* go away and is more explosive than abortion, because it comes down to the basic iron triangle of society needing children, children needing mothers, and children needing fathers. Conservatives, far far more than Liberals, value childbearing and childrearing for societal continuity. That means tying sex to marriage to pregnancy to child-rearing. Which means that putting a man and woman together is inherently more valuable to society than putting two men together or two women together. Hence, State support of marriage.

And Conservatives, along with most middle-of-the road people, will simply *not* give that up. They understand that they marriage creates more value than gay marriage and that it needs to be recognized as such. Dave and Steve can go live together, but the moment that they say that they can raise a kid as well as Dave and Bonnie, watch out.

Mar 4, 2007 - 6:27 pm 20. Mike Silverman:

Basically, conservatives don’t care how you live your life in *your community*.

So let me get married in my own community (call it a civil union if you want, I don’t care) and leave me alone. In return, I promise to let you raise your own kids however you want.

Can we make a deal?

Mar 4, 2007 - 6:42 pm 21. Barrett:

First, I am about to tune out Markus. He is a socialist, a moral relativist with an incoherent world view and contradicts himself on a regular basis if you have read his posts over time. Feel free to debate with him for sport, but people of his mind set are rarely interested in the truth and are unwilling to accept it even when they see it.

Second, Roger your view espouses moral relativism. We have pursued policies beginning with FDR and culminating with Johnson’s Great Society that has undermined the nuclear family, which is the fabric of society. Jamie cites this with his discussion of marriage.

So more and more children are born out of wedlock with no concept of the family and why it is important. This is a tragedy. And we wonder why society is violent.

What is right and what is wrong? In your world view, it can be anything.

America has aborted 50 million babies since Roe v. Wade passed. This makes the Holocaust and the 20 million killed by Stalin pale by comparison.

Roger, you mentioned that you have a gay son. You love him and accept him. And we should all do so. But that does not mean that we should say that homosexuality is not immoral. I have friends who are gay and they know I have no interest in destroying their lives. But I don’t want it pushed on me either. Is essentailly live and let live and not a legal battle.

So is the rampant promiscuity that threatens the ability of our young people to form meaningful long-term hetero-sexual marital relationships. This is just the free love generation of the 1960s speaking.

I am all for privacy and personal responsibility. However, Judeo-Christian morality is the foundation of our laws. Read the 10 Commandments.

As we move away from this, we get abortion and euthanasia and more. Someday, someone may decide that you are not worth being kept alive after some cost-benefit analysis. We are on a slippery slope.

Having said that, I don’t oppose abortion for the 1% of horror stories and to save the life of the mother. Unfortunately, most abortions are about convenience.

My wife and I tried to adopt in the US. We supported two women who skipped right before the baby was born. Yes, they were all to willing to take my money. I hope the children are okay. The third time, we had the baby home for about two weeks. Right before the court date, the mother changed her mind and we had to give the baby back. An experience I can only liken to a funeral only the baby was still alive. Again, I can only hope. We finally adopted a little girl from overseas. The point is that there are families who want children and are driven elsewhere to adopt.

Rudy may get a pass from conservatives because of the challenges we are facing. We need someone who can deal with the Islamists and foreign policy issues. Someone who is tough enough and articulate enough to get it done. Rudy may be the guy. While I don’t agree with him on social issues, I would vote for him before Obama or Hillary in a heartbeat.

However, the key two issues before us are the Isalmists and our own lack of financial discipline.

We are being attacked by Islamist who want to destroy us. They are effectively recruiting an endless supply of suicide bombers using the Internet. If we do not get this right, the fight will move to our shores. Regardless of your moral persuasion, we better get together and get this right or no one will have any freedom. You would think that the Left would get this, but they do not.

Second, we are on the path to national bankruptcy driven by immoral politicians who refuse to ackowledge that at the current rate, we will only be able to pay interest on the debt – forget about anything else – unless we do something. This is a pretty educated crowd. We could debase the currency like a banana republic or cut spending now, but that would require personal responsibility – something we have little of today.

If we don’t get these right, not much else will matter, but moral relativsim in the long-term will sink our society too.

Mar 4, 2007 - 7:08 pm 22. Barrett:

A B says it well too.

Thanks for being more practical than I was.

Mar 4, 2007 - 7:11 pm 23. A B:

Mike Silverman:
Yes, I think that would be broadly acceptable.

Barret:
I agree with a lot of what you say. I think that one thing that being Mayor of NYC teaches you is to figure out how to make a lot of different communities work and succeed together. Which is why Rudy may be having such success with different groups right now.

Mar 4, 2007 - 7:26 pm 24. Jamie Irons:

This Noemie Emery article in the Weekly Standard is quite pertinent to our discussion. (I am a subscriber, and I’m uncertain whether this piece may be behind a subscription firewall, so I’ll quote the first two paragraphs):

Next year may see the party of the Sunbelt and Reagan, based in the South and in Protestant churches, nominate its first presidential candidate who is Catholic, urban, and ethnic–and socially liberal on a cluster of issues that set him at odds with the party’s base. As a result, it may also see the end of the social issues litmus test in the Republican party, done in not by the party’s left wing, which is shrunken and powerless, but by a fairly large cadre of social conservatives convinced that, in a time of national peril, the test is a luxury they cannot afford. For the past 30 years of cultural warfare, there has been only one template for an aspiring president of either party with positions that cross those of its organized activists: Displeasure is voiced, reservations are uttered, and soon enough there is a “conversion of conscience” in which the miscreant–Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, George Bush the elder, even the hapless Dennis Kucinich–is brought to heel in a fairly undignified manner, and sees what his party sees as the light. The Giuliani campaign seems to be departing from this pattern. And this time, a pro-life party, faced with a pro-choice candidate it finds compelling on other grounds, is doing things differently. It is not carping or caving or seeking a convert. Instead, it is making a deal.

One has to wend one’s way back through the litmus test saga to see just how big this could be. In 1980, the parties
for the first time took radically opposed views, with a plank in the Republican platform calling for a constitutional amendment to ban all abortion, while the Democrats (over the protests of President Carter) insisted abortion should be not only legal, but funded by taxpayers. Four years later, these planks, and the lobbies that backed them, were fully entrenched. By 1988, top tier candidates in both parties had undergone forced conversions; and in the 1990s, both sides attacked their dissenters full bore. In 1992–The Year of the Woman–Democrats famously silenced pro-life Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey at their New York convention, parked him up in the bleachers where no one could see him, and gave his slot to a pro-choice Republican. Four years later, pro-life groups pulled Republican nominee Bob Dole through a knothole, torturing him for a week before denying his suggestion that an expression of “tolerance” for those who dissented be inserted into the plank. As late as 2003, the Democratic candidates began their campaign season with a joint appearance at a NARAL fiesta, all eight of them tugging their forelocks before the group’s leader and pledging allegiance, while a repentant Gephardt begged her forgiveness for the pro-life views he had been so ill-advised as to utter two decades before…

Jamie Irons

Mar 4, 2007 - 7:41 pm 25. John Norris Brown:

Gay rights is essentially over as an issue, and those of us under 40 will most likely see gay marriage is nearly every state in our lifetimes. People will look back at these anti-gay marriage amendments and their supporters with the same contempt that people look back at George Wallace with today. Demagoguing the issue may score a few political points now, but those that do will find themselves on the wrong side of history.

Abortion, I’m not so sure about. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

Mar 4, 2007 - 7:48 pm 26. Roger:

“But that does not mean that we should say that homosexuality is not immoral.”

I guess that’s the crux of our disagreement, Barrett. I don’t think it’s immoral at all. I have no idea how many homosexuals there are in the world, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was in the hundreds of millions. To consider them to be immoral for that is to me absurd. I also am convinced – from my own experience, observing others and from scientific studies – that our sexuality is largely determined from chemical means before birth – DNA, baths in the womb, etc. Therefore, those who condemn others for their sexual orientation are condemning people for something over which they have no control. That, to me, is morally dubious.

Mar 4, 2007 - 8:25 pm 27. JB:

“Therefore, those who condemn others for their sexual orientation are condemning people for something over which they have no control. That, to me, is morally dubious.”

Roger, not to compare the two morally, but do pedophiles have more “control” over their sexual behavior than homosexuals, and is it “morally dubious” to “condemn” them for it?

Even if homosexuality holds special status as the only congenital non-normative sexuality, which is hardly a given, do environmentally caused sexual behaviors allow a person any greater degree of control?

Mar 5, 2007 - 2:16 am 28. Fai Mao:

Roger

I am no longer a US citizen but I would vote for Giuliani if I could and I would be considered very Conservative.

Presidents don’t make domestic policy. They can either sign or veto legislation that is on their desk but that’s it. If the Congress doesn’t give Rudy a bill he can’t pass it. He could control foreign policy and he understands the WOT. So vote for a more conservative representative and and Rudy at the top of the ticket and you are still waaaay, waaaay better off than Republican congress and Bill Clinton.

I disagree with you on believing the social issue have ceased to matter. I just think that many people see the absolute disaster that another Clinton or less than one term Senator would be for the US at this time.

Mar 5, 2007 - 3:57 am 29. TheManTheMyth:

Markus would just LOVE North Korea or Iran. None of that nasty “unfettered capitalism” to stop him from living with his lover—oh, wait a minute……

Mar 5, 2007 - 4:17 am 30. TheManTheMyth:

Roger—its not about (at least to we libertarians –note the small “l”) whether gays should be able to live together. Its about whether I should have to PAY MORE TAXES to support their decision to live together. Its bad enough that I get screwed paying more taxes so Adam and Eve can pay less taxes—I will take up arms if I have to start paying for Adam and Steve (and yes, I believe Adam and Eve shouldn’t get a tax break either—why the heck am I subsidizing other people’s lifestyle choices??????)

Mar 5, 2007 - 4:29 am 31. Barrett:

“Therefore, those who condemn others for their sexual orientation are condemning people for something over which they have no control. That, to me, is morally dubious.”

Roger, this to me is just an argument for moral relativism.

Your hypothesis is that there is a biological basis for homosexuality versus it being a chosen lifestyle. I know the gay community is anxious to try to “prove” this to justify their lifestyle. My view is that this is a choice and not a biologically driven outcome.

As JB notes, are pedophiles free to do as they please? Pedophiles claim to have no control over themselves. A moral relativist would say yes if one wants to be logically consistent. I don’t think it is morally dubious to call pedophilia immoral.

Mar 5, 2007 - 8:44 am 32. Steven Mitchell:

Markus wants us to live like Sweden, where the middle class has a lower standard of living than the poor in Mississippi (per Sweden’s own studies). But hey, it’s very stable!

Back on topic.

I’m against gay “marriage”, but I also agree with TheManTheMyth. We’d all be better off if the state was out of the tax break part of it. Heck, the main reason that I don’t get worked up about civil unions or “head of household” or any other contractual agreement only tangentially related to marriage is that I think rampant divorce did more to destroy marriage as an instutition than gay anything ever can or did. (We’d be better off with insurance not so closely tied to where you work, as well, but that’s another tangent.) When the government gets involved in social issues, it messes things up for everyone.

I’m against gay “marriage”, but at the end of the day I really don’t care that much one way or the other about it. I’ll not vote to support it, but I’d be lying if I said I’m going to waste a lot of time fighting it. The only way that would change would be if: 1) It was really in my face all the time, along with publically funded indoctrination (aka “public schools”) of my kids, or 2) Courts once again legislating from the bench something that they know won’t pass (yet) in the real legislatures. Or in other words, the more expansive the federal government, the harder it will be for us *all* to tolerate what others do in their own communities. It really is that simple.

Giuliani has a chance because he is solid on the things that matter right now.

Mar 5, 2007 - 8:49 am 33. Buddy Larsen:

Pedophiles have victims, alternate lifestyles don’t. That was Roger’s point, i think.

Mar 5, 2007 - 9:06 am 34. Buddy Larsen:

I know, one could say that alternate-lifestyles do victimize (the self, society, etcetera), but that is certainly not comparable to the direct victimhood of the pedophile-attacked.

Mar 5, 2007 - 9:12 am 35. Always right:

To ask the same question from a different angle, for those practicing gays/lesbian lifestyle. Most people and communities have accepted their choice, they have been enjoying increasing “recognition” plus social benefits, why is it so important to stuff the word “marriage” onto the rest of the populace?

I do disagree with the commenter younger than 40 that it is a done deal. Depends on what kind of society you want the future of your own country to be. Some of us think it is still worth fighting for a “traditional” value. If majority think nothing of the western european (anything goes) style, why even uphold the Constitution?

This is the educational brainwashing for the past decades.

Mar 5, 2007 - 9:59 am 36. dclydew:

Luthor,

How do I reconcile personal belief with societal norms. Who is it that decides these societal norms. Why do they get precedence over me?

It can be tricky, particularly in todays society wherein every detail of life in one town can be broadcast and shoved down the throat of every other citizen. The biggest issue is one, I think, of labeling. “Societal Norm” for example, seems a silly term. The United States doesn’t really appear as a society, at least not anymore. I think it could better be discussed as a meta-society (or a society made up of many different societies).

So your “society” may be made up of Christian conservatives, Gen X libertarians and Realist Anarchists, gay liberals, straight liberals, gay conservatives, straight conservatives, liberal Christians or good old redneck American Country Boys. All of these societies exist, all of them have norms and in most cases those norms don’t match the norms of the other groups.

In the study of anthropology we tend to find two types of ‘taboos’ that get legislated by “societal norms”. The first, which exists in most (but not all) societies is a taboo against murder. The other usually tends to be some sort of societal taboo about sex. Not a matching taboo, heck most societies have (or have had) very different types of taboos when it comes to the issue of sex… but in almost all cases, a society believes that it has the right to define the taboos for their “societal norms”. When societies were small, or when they were tribal… managing this sort of thing was simple. As the tribe changed, the taboos changed. In today’s America, we have several variables that didn’t exist before.

1) No single religious mythology.
2) All power rests with the society, not in an authoritarian group of ‘tribal elders’ or leaders.
3) An extremly large geographical area that is connected together in ‘real time’, with several societies spread across the area, often intermingled with other societies.

These three issues mean that we suddenly have a war of societal norms. The tribe of Christian Conservatives believe that they understand societal norms, when they really understand their societies norms. The same for all the other groups mentioned above.

I think that we will soon come to a decision point for this nation. I see three possible outcomes of this decision.

1) The larger societies will crush the smaller societies and create an authoritarian leadership of some sort to enforce their view of ‘norms’.

2) Societal groups will begin to recoginize that societal norms can exist within their ‘tribe’ and other ‘tribes’ can have different societal norms and there’s not any reason to try to correlate the two.

3) The country will fracture further than it already is and we will either see Civil War, or a physical separation of ‘tribes’. Sort of like the Mormons going to Salt Lake, or the early communes that existed in the US that were based on religious groups.

I personally hope for number two, or number three. Number one would probably spell the end of the United States as we know it and the foundation of a new type of nation, democracy would probably be seriously restricted or removed in such a situation.

At least, if history is a guide, this may be what were faced with.

Mar 5, 2007 - 10:28 am 37. Gary Rosen:

markus:

“unbridled capitalism, hell-bent on the single virtue of economic efficiency, fuels insatiable consumerism, “creative destruction”, and the need for ever increasing labor productivity. Result –families and communities are disrupted as jobs disappear and working people become more insecure and stressed out about their economic livelihoods.”

The horror, the horror! Gimme a good ol’ Stalinist workers’ paradise any time.

Mar 5, 2007 - 11:56 am 38. Mike Silverman:

To ask the same question from a different angle, for those practicing gays/lesbian lifestyle. Most people and communities have accepted their choice, they have been enjoying increasing “recognition” plus social benefits, why is it so important to stuff the word “marriage” onto the rest of the populace?

AlwaysRight,

I’m not sure what you mean by “practicing” the “gay lifestyle” (my “lifestyle” seems to consist of the drudgery of a 40 hour workweek and nothing more exciting on the weekends then an occasional movie or trip to the bookstore), but I do not care too much about the word “marriage”

I am fine with civil unions…as long as the legal benefits are the same, you can keep your word. Ironically, my own friends and family use the term “marriage” for my (civil union) relationship with my partner, and their recognition is much more important to me then what the State says…and also not subject to any kind of constitutional amendment either!

I believe in live and let leave and “leave me alone” — as I said upthread somewhere, I don’t care what you teach your kids or what your church says, I will not interfere…just give me the same courtesy, let me live me life how I want and allow me the legal contractual protections so I can take care of the person I love.

Mar 5, 2007 - 12:05 pm 39. markus:

Rosen — Steven is right, I prefer to live in a workers paradise in which I can drive a Volvo. Although the Israeli welfare state is pretty good too.

Mar 5, 2007 - 12:14 pm 40. Terrye:

markus:

I think you got caught in a time warp, it is not 1969 anymore and even then your fantasy was just that, a fantasy.

And btw, the Israelis are capitalists.

Mar 5, 2007 - 12:46 pm 41. markus:

Terrye — the Swedes are capitalists too.

Mar 5, 2007 - 12:49 pm 42. Steven Mitchell:

“I prefer to live in a workers paradise in which I can drive a Volvo.”

British Air is ready when you are.

(With apologies to Lewis Grizzard and Delta airlines.)

Mar 5, 2007 - 12:51 pm 43. Buddy Larsen:

When socialism really gets going, you don’t get your Volvo, you get a washing machine maybe, by the time you’re 50 or so.

Mar 5, 2007 - 1:00 pm 44. markus:

Half of my bloodline lives in Finland, they’re upper middle class, they work hard, they give half of their money to the government, and live good, free, productive lives. The European welfare model needs tweaked for two reasons: too many old people living healthy retired lives, and too few births.

To bring this OT issue together w/ the main one a least a little bit: check out William Jennings Bryan: like most evangelical Christians in those days, he took seriosly the Biblical injunction against serving God and Mammon.

Mar 5, 2007 - 1:22 pm 45. Larry J:

As for Roe V. Wade, I’m not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV. However, I’ve read commentary by many qualified constitutional lawyers who say that Roe is bad law. Based on their arguments, I’m inclined to agree. Repealing the Row decision wouldn’t outlaw abortion. Instead, the matter would revert to the states where it belongs. Of the 50 states, how many would completely outlaw abortion? Odds are, it’d be less than five. Anyone living in those states would still have the freedom of movement to go to where abortion is legal.

I would love to live long enough for abortion to be a rare exception to pregnancy rather than something that happens about a million times each year in the US. However, that’s unlikely. It would require a change of heart on the same order of magnitude of that when people learned to see slavery as an abomination – in short, I’m talking about a generations long process, if ever.

Mar 5, 2007 - 1:51 pm 46. Buddy Larsen:

Ok, who set up the choice between God & Mammom? And who says WJB wasn’t interested in the worldly realm? He built his entire career on advocating soft money, in order to help small farmers–his constituency–get credit.

Mar 5, 2007 - 2:16 pm 47. Richard Nieporent:

Rosen — Steven is right, I prefer to live in a workers paradise in which I can drive a Volvo.

Marcus, too bad Ford owns Volvo! Bon voyage.

Mar 5, 2007 - 2:26 pm 48. Bostonian:

Speaking as a member of the decadent capitalist masses, why is it that Marxists worry so much about the state of my soul?

They comment on my “decadent” lifestyle more often than a televangelist.

Mar 5, 2007 - 2:54 pm 49. Buddy Larsen:

That’s what Berlin Walls and Cuban Shore Patrols are for, Bostonian–to keep all the decadent westerners from getting in.

Mar 5, 2007 - 2:59 pm 50. Buddy Larsen:

But, it’s easy to see why someone would appreciate the Scandinavian countries. Except for the odd pathology (lots of hard-core porn, extremely high suicide rates) the small populations, each around the size of a single USA major city, are more-easily governed and administered than this sprawling land.

As far as fettering capitalism, here’s an idea.

Mar 5, 2007 - 4:03 pm 51. stu:

Markus-how much of Finland’s economy is driven by its export of technology and products which are demanded by and consumed by the globalized economy, the engine of which is that decadent capitalist behemoth,Amerika? Markus tell me when you discover the socialist millenia or repeal human nature.

Mar 5, 2007 - 4:09 pm 52. rosignol:

But, it’s easy to see why someone would appreciate the Scandinavian countries.

Dunno. I was over there last spring.

Any country where it makes sense to drive for an hour to cross a border to buy groceries is a little bit messed up.

And a government that will take away your driver’s license if you get caught with any alcohol in your system while driving- not ‘enough alcohol to impair you’, I mean any alcohol at all- is a government that doesn’t trust it’s citizens to be responsible adults.

I don’t want to live in a country like that.

Mar 5, 2007 - 7:05 pm 53. TomTom:

Markus’ last post (Scandinavia needs tweaked…too few births) brings us full circle, back to homosexuality, abortion also. How will you tweak the Scandinavians to engage in procreation? Perhaps by banning abortion so the-ahem-civilly united couples will have adoptables available?

Mar 5, 2007 - 8:52 pm 54. Sandy P:

Via Shrinkwrapped:

http://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2007/03/hookingup.html#more

Harvard Dean of Freshmen Advertises “Scintillating and Sexy” Talk

[Travis Kavulla]

All Harvard College freshmen received the e-mail below yesterday, and a fair number thought it must be a prank.

It isn’t, as it happens. And this must be the first time a Harvard dean has used the dubious term “sexxxxxy” in a mass e-mail to his wards.

***SPECIAL EVENT***

Hooking Up: Hot Hints For Making Your Harvard (or Future) Sex Life Great

Thursday, March 1 7:00 PM Ticknor Lounge

Want to know more about how to access pleasure, how to communicate your desires and how to make sure that you’re getting what you want and need from your partner? Do you have questions about sex or sexuality that you’ve never had answered? You won’t want to miss this!

…

Then there’s Rutgers.

$40g/yr for this?????

Mar 5, 2007 - 11:35 pm 55. Buddy Larsen:

I can’t imagine worse advice for incoming freshmen. Harvard should be ashamed. Not over sex, but over such an obvious and easy Gramsci ploy. What’s next–where to get good dope? Care & maintenance of the AK-47? Career opportunities in the Jihad?

Mar 6, 2007 - 7:25 am 56. Steven Mitchell:

“How will you tweak the Scandinavians to engage in procreation? ”

Why bother? If our politics here offends some people enough, they can emigrate to the workers’ paradise of their choice. The immigrants get the thing they asked for. The Scaninavians get people. We don’t have to listen to such nonsense anymore. Yeah, we all go home happy!

Maybe the Scandinavians should be subsidizing one-way moving expenses…

Mar 6, 2007 - 8:23 am 57. newscaper:

Not to beat a dead horse but…

I am against “gay marriage” for non-religious reasons, though not *absolutely* so, for reasons similar to some of Roger’s reasoning.

Virtually every society has some form of “marriage” between a man and a woman for the sake of raising families and transmitting culture as its foundation.
More specifically, it exists to easily define paternity, child support, and inheritance.

Couples who do not intend to have children [a pretty much modern aberration] may still have them anyway so it is proper that they can be “married.”

BLetting those who may turn out to be infertile but are desirous of children… well that is an exception which still supports the central importance of the institution.

Here is a commonsense observation I read somewhere online: straight couples have to resort to extraordinary measures to *not* have children whereas g/l couples have to resort extraordinary measn to *have* them.

In other words, wrt to the underlying social function of the institution, the stakes are not the same. Gay marriage smacks of “playing house.”

[I will grant the phenomenon of g/l couples with children, assisted by technology or adoption puts tension in this argument (leaving the wisdom of such progress to another argument -- as Roger says, it is largely a fait accompli).]

Given the existence of g/l families, I think some form of “civil union” to streamline various benefits is reasonable.

But the fact is many (most?) g/l advocates of gay marriage DO want to arrogate the M-word for the precise reason of seeking it as the ultimate stamp of social approval.

They want to redefine the meaning of the term.

One may as well redefine the concept of “driver’s license” so it does not exclude the blind because, hey, everyone has equal rights, right?

The larger problem I have with the typical liberal mindset with these issues is that it’s all or nothing. It’s ever enough that a particular behavior is now legal which used to be persecute din the past, now it must then be celebrated and actively indoctrinated as a “good” thing. Those with the temerity to still disapprove are guilty of thought-crime. It’s the old attitude “that which is not forbidden is compulsory.”

Too many conservatives think that something which is “bad” should be illegal rather than left to the private sphere (and social pressure against it).

But too many liberals want to act like because something is legal (or no longer illegal) that it is “good” and should be forced down people’s throats (e.g. gay marriage).

FWIW I consider myself a libertarian-conservative and NOT a member of the dreaded ‘religious right”.

P.S. I consider homosexuality to be a complex phenomena — how else to explain temporary prison homosexuality and college LUGs as well as the more obvious stereotypical queens and butches?

To me it is clear that many g/l people are “born” that way, that some homosexuality is congenital (whether from genetics or in utero brain chemistry), yet it is also clear to me that there are some, shall we say, “psychologial” homosexuals at the margin, for whom “choice” might be possible. [My social worker sister has worked with many otherwise troubled women who considered themselves lesbian who had also been sexually abused by a man when younger -- yes, that's purely anecdotal.]

All of that said, homosexuality (of the more innate kind) is clearly, objectively, a flaw, a glitch. In evolutionary terms it is behavioral sterility. And just because it (the truly congenital kind) is “natural”, even occurring in other animals, means nothing. Plenty that is natural is non-normal, or normative.
To return to an earlier analogy, take congenital blindness for example. It is a flaw — and we can say that without anyone suggesting that making the observation means we are somehow denigrating the worth of blind people, or ‘phobes or haters.

Which brings up the ethical problem of a possible cure some day for congenital homosexuality — what if it works but the treatment can only be performed in utero before certain brain wiring is locked in, or before other wiring is set during puberty, before the age of reaon, much less consent? Now that’s a thorny one for those who sought refuge in the “we canlt help it” defense.

All that said, i think Roger is partly on to something wrt Giuliani.

Mar 6, 2007 - 8:06 pm 58. markus:

newscaper –
“Couples who do not intend to have children [a pretty much modern aberration] may still have them anyway so it is proper that they can be “married.” Letting those who may turn out to be infertile but are desirous of children… well that is an exception which still supports the c
entral importance of the institution.”

What about a heterosexual couple that knows it is infertile and are not desirous of having children? Are you willing to give them a pass?
Then why not give the same pass to a gay couple that wants to get married and adopt, or use a donor egg, or doesn’t want to have children?

If in fact homosexuality is not entirely normative, if it is some kind of a defect, like having six fingers or non-opposable thumbs, then it seems to me that marriage is a very reasonable way of dealing with this problem, of getting by and making do within the confines of the “handicap.”

And that should be allowed, especially since NO ONE can explain how gay marriage undermines the institution of the traditional family (heterosexual, with children) in any way. On the other hand, all sorts of things we tolerate — adultery, sex without marriage, divorce, children out of wedlock — obviously do so much to undermine those institutions.

Mar 7, 2007 - 1:04 pm 59. Demosophist:

Roger:

If there’s anything that can put a brake or Rudy’s growing popularity it’s making the kind of points you’ve made in this post. Those issues are only decided if those who’ve opinions like yours don’t crow too much. And history is replete with reversals on these kinds of issue, once rage is awakened.

BTW, I don’t care if gays live together in families. All I care about is the brand dilution of the institution of marriage, and you have no guarantees to offer. Also, I’ve been pro-choice nearly all of my life. What may have changed my mind is that National Geographic special on “Multiples”. If “fetuses” play with one another cannily in the womb then killing them, at least at some point, has to be murder. The bubble has been burst.

These issues haven’t been decided, by a long shot. But they may have turned a corner, which is why folks are giving Giulliani some latitude. He can change his mind, just like the rest of us.

Mar 7, 2007 - 8:38 pm

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