It is no longer true that a coalition of orthodox or bible-believing Christians can form a governing majority in America. It may have been true within living memory, and it may well still be true within certain states, but the idea of a national coalition of Christians gaining and exercising, through representative institutions, the decisive governing authority in the Republic, is now an illusion fit only for illusionists and their audience, most of whom are the enemies of Christianity.
Necessity, therefore, compels orthodox Christians to seek out active political alliances with Americans outside the faith. A political rhetoric which finds its purpose in civic persuasion short of conversion, cannot be inherently disreputable for Christians, unless all action toward the common good short of conversion is disreputable.
It is of course true that conversion to the Creed of the Cross is part of the common good of all mankind; but it is not true that by declining to embrace that Creed, a man ceases to have a common good, which is set before him in such a way as to be intelligible.
According to these postulates, I judge it impossible, as a matter of right reason, for Christians to leave off the work of persuading non-Christians to join their political efforts toward the common good. Reasoning rightly, a follower of Christ cannot endorse political quietism or withdrawal from politics. He must join with the rest of America in the rough and tumble of coalition politics in a federal republic.
For instance, soon the state of Tennessee votes, in a massive state-wide plebiscite, on the question of whether Tennessee’s constitution permits any restrictions on the slaughter of the unborn. Under the logic just laid out, I say that every last Christian in Tennessee, without exception, must vote for Amendment 1; and furthermore attempt, according to his best lights, to persuade his neighbors of all faiths and of none, to likewise vote the measure in. He cannot leave off the obligation, no matter how unwise he may think a state-wide plebiscite, representative assemblies, or popular government themselves to be.
In other words, our Volunteer State Christian may well say, with sound though not definitive reasoning, that plebiscites on that scale are pernicious and perilous instruments. He may say, again with sound reasoning, that representative assemblies are very far from sagacious modes of ruling and being ruled. He may even say that popular government itself partakes of far too many evils and distempers, to recommend itself to the mature Christian mind. He may say all this, and be right as rain; but still he must work to vote in Tennessee’s Amendment 1.
The same thing I have just said by stern prosaic logic, may also be said, as it were, by poetic inference. The inference lies in the plain fact that passage of this Amendment is strongly encouraged, in Tennessee, by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention; and the poetry may be rendered colloquially as, Any measure that unites both Catholics and Southern Baptists can’t be wrong, because one thing about Catholics and Southern Baptists is that, historically, they are not characterized by extensive collegiality and agreement. They have, in this uncommon circumstance, been pushed into political alliance by the manifest inequity of the alternative to passing Tennessee’s Amendment 1 — defeating it; which means establishing by implication that Tennessee’s constitution requires abortion on demand.
This latter approach — the poetic one — may seem better calculated toward persuading friendly non-believers: it is suggestive rather than syllogistic. It neither presupposes shared Christian theological principles nor requires sympathy with them. It invites historical curiosity and insinuates important details about the opposition to Amendment 1. A variation on the poetic approach, again with an eye toward persuading nonbelievers, would be to call attention to the base dishonesty of that opposition: how they must constantly rely on elisions and lies, alleging that Amendment 1 would ban condoms and suchlike.
(Such inferences ramify rapidly. In a Colorado Senate race, a vulnerable incumbent Democrat, in desperation, has resorted to lies of a similar character, accusing his opponent of conniving to ban birth control, when in fact his opponent’s policy would make most birth control an over-the-counter medication, thus untangling the snarl of health insurance and religious liberty. These distortions achieved such an egregious depth of infamy that the Denver Post, the state’s leading liberal newspaper, shocked everyone [even that delicate flower Gary Hart] and endorsed the Republican.)
Few political conditions admit of the kind of prosaic or poetic clarity afforded by Tennessee’s Amendment 1. Thus the proper posture of the Christian citizen is in most cases ambiguous. It is not manifest to even perspicacious eyes what best might form the foundation of a coalition toward the common good.
For instance, how should Christians go about defending marriage? This question is fraught with difficulties. In my opinion, it is unwise to scorn the efforts to marshal data in a utilitarian fashion, even though it is dangerous to let mere utility appear to comprise the full basis for marriage. That stable marriages usually result in sound family finances, avoidance of drugs, crime, and bastardy, sound education for children, and sound generational prosperity, while hardly exhausting the benefits of marriage, unquestionably supply powerful arguments for policy defenses of marriage. It is no exaggeration to say that the debasement of human sexual relations, of which the deterioration of a marriage is but a symptom, lies at the very root of social and economic inequality in America.
Do you care that your countrymen of this past decade, while in aggregate have mildly prospered, as a class of the less privileged, have inexorably privated? Is America better when the idle rich gain while the hardworking poor get jobbed? Do you care about inequality? Then you must care that traditional marriage be preserved.
Poetry and rhetoric. The arts of persuasion. Ballots over bullets. Happy Election Day.
Comments (29)
Please pray for TN tomorrow. Early vote looks fairly good for Amendment 1 as far as I have heard, but it's going to be close, I fear. The tv ads against it are hugely deceitful and very well done; I can see uninformed believers falling for their message. But the ads for it are also good, and there are signs everywhere in favor of it; they line the streets between our home and my workplace. Tonight I'm seeing ads every 15 minutes on both sides, so it's intense.
Lord have mercy on the least of these.
Posted by Beth Impson | November 3, 2014 9:59 PM
The Tennessee situation is worse than Mr. Cella implies: it's not just insinuation from a negative vote that the State faces, but the continued imposition of the position in question (that the constitution mandates an unregulated abortion license) by the State Supreme Court.
Posted by Titus | November 4, 2014 1:16 PM
Here's a very good example of the utilitarian approach to defending marriage:
http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/04/the-top-five-reasons-marriage-and-children-benefit-working-women/
Posted by Paul J Cella | November 4, 2014 1:54 PM
I don't mind a utilitarian approach to defending marriage, because I think the truth about the human person has real-world consequences. Unfortunately, if someone has swallowed the kool-aid he simply will not care. "This is a civil rights issue" and damn the consequences. I mention that not merely to be a downer but to point to the odd spectacle of people convinced by homosexualist rhetoric who have suddenly turned into moral absolutists overnight. When it comes to, say, taking innocent human life they are committed relativists. But when it comes to destroying marriage, this is to them a necessity of justice which no considerations of prudence must be allowed to block. I suspect that this sudden discovery of their "inner deontologist" on the part of the left will mean that we can make progress only by producing conviction at some deeper level than the utilitarian level, though that as well is extremely difficult.
Posted by Lydia | November 4, 2014 2:43 PM
AMENDMENT ONE PASSED! Thanks be to God!
Posted by Beth Impson | November 5, 2014 7:59 AM
This reminded me of a point some pundit made about Ethanol. An economic policy which gathers nearly the same vehement opposition reasoning from both the Cato Institute and Fidel Castro should be simply repealed with debate by Congress.
Posted by Mike T | November 5, 2014 12:26 PM
Paul, your writing really shines in this post. Very nice.
I would take your theme one step further in terms of the general obligation of a Christian: in my opinion, the governing order here is of such a nature that a Christian must pursue the common good within that framework. That is, he may neither 'check out' from the political order altogether and simply say "a pox upon all their houses", nor may he pretend that this order is so gravely disordered, so degenerate and evil, that merely using it's existing structures to attempt to ameliorate things is tantamount to wrongful cooperation with evil.
It's funny how some in a fairly extreme camp think that even attempting to work within the system is wrong, but at the same time others are of the opinion that even discussing the theoretical parameters in which civil war or revolution could be morally legitimate is a wrong thing to do. These two camps would be like a powderkeg and a match, if put in the same room together. They can't both have their heads screwed on right. In my opinion they are both importantly wrong: to give up on the existing polis without trying to fix it, is the mistake of those childish, imprudent, unhistorically educated types who think everything we have that is bad is already the worst conditions can get, who cannot tell the difference between ill (or even ailing and getting worse) and dead. But to not give up on the polis just yet is not the same as refusing to recognize the danger, the illness, the possibility that the gangrene will get after all.
Posted by Tony | November 5, 2014 7:17 PM
Statistics showing the desirability of marriage on various metrics are an argument for gay marriage, not against it. Gay marriage is an expansion of marriage and doesn't stop anyone else from getting married.
Posted by Matt | November 7, 2014 10:53 AM
Matt, are you going for the trivially true, deceptive, and irrelevant interpretation of that comment, or the false but politically correct interpretation which serves as a bludgeon against Christians standing up for marriage?
Posted by Erik | November 7, 2014 12:19 PM
The obviously true one.
Posted by Matt | November 7, 2014 2:15 PM
Matt,
I'm not sure where you wandered over from, but in case you didn't realize it, the authors of this blog take it as "obviously true" that there is no such thing (from a metaphysical standpoint) as so-called "gay marriage". Just as there is no such thing as a square circle or a round triangle.
You are welcome to comment on this blog, but please try and keep your comment relevant and try to display at least a basic understanding of the issues involved. Feel free to browse older posts to get up to speed, or open up a Bible and/or read some basic theology and/or philosophy.
Thanks.
Posted by Jeffrey S. | November 7, 2014 2:26 PM
Relevant to what? The post didn't mention gay marriage specifically, but what else could "defending marriage" refer to? You protest too much.
Gay marriage doesn't exist? Then what is going on in all these states? In any case, expanding the number of people who can marry straightforwardly increases the number of people who might marry. If conservatives think it non-straightforwardly decreases the number of people who might marry, then they have to make that argument. Thus far, they haven't. It's quite baffling, how coy conservatives are about what harm gay marriage is supposed to bring about. All we've heard so far are moral arguments--gay marriage is not the right thing to do. Like most moral arguments it only works if you accept the premises, which people increasingly don't.
There's no such thing as gay marriage? Well guess what, now there is. What then?
Posted by Matt | November 7, 2014 9:51 PM
Matt,
Now it is clear -- you thought this was the literature class you've been taking and you wanted to impress the professor that you finally figured out what Lewis Carroll was up to:
Posted by Jeffrey S. | November 7, 2014 10:29 PM
Rulings like Diosdado v. Diosdado, where the court granted a no-fault divorce to an adulterous man against the wishes of his wife,
and against the contract the two of them had signed previously swearing to be at fault and pay the other spouse's legal costs in the event of unfaithfulness,
and said a couple more things underlining the crazy nature of marital law in the United States, such as "evidence of specific acts of misconduct is improper and inadmissible in a pleading or proceeding for dissolution of marriage", and
Implied: No ability to bind yourself. No ability to make promises. If you swear to be faithful, California judges will have the gall to release you from your oath on the grounds that marriage is important and valuable, therefore people must be free to dissolve and leave it if they don't like it any more.
Absurdity and insanity.
Posted by Erik | November 8, 2014 4:21 AM
expanding the number of people who can marry straightforwardly increases the number of people who might marry
Why, then surely we should drop all regulation and restrictions on marriages, legal, social, moral, right? Already the gig is up on polygamy, with numerous liberal law professors (but I repeat myself) allowing now that the logic of gay marriage does indeed entail legalized polygamy. Moreover, as Andrew Sullivan quietly admitted some years back, gay marriage will dispense with monogamy, "forsaking all others" being just as antiquated as male-female complementarity.
Basically, Matt's still playing the tired tune from a decade ago; that low dishonest taunt, "how does gay marriage hurt your marriage?" Well, since I swore vows under the institution of traditional marriage, compassing the sexual nature of human beings, man and woman made one-flesh and committing to the nurture and upbringing of their natural offspring; and since this traditional institution is now, according to all gay marriage supporters, nothing but reanimated Jim Crow, it is plain that gay marriage has already done serious damage. Unless you think that the social stigma attached to Jim Crow is not damaging to the reputation of an institution.
Next I predict a very abrupt shifting of the goalposts. "Gay marriage will not harm you or your beliefs" quickly becomes "Of course it should do harm to your beliefs, because they are the beliefs of a dirty bigot."
Posted by Paul J Cella | November 8, 2014 6:12 AM
" Gay marriage is an expansion of marriage and doesn't stop anyone else from getting married."
Gay marriage is an expansion of marriage in the same way that a fish is an expansion of a bicycle, to turn the oft-used feminist analogy on its head.
Gay and marriage are in two mutually exclusive sets. No judge (acting the part of an idiot) can change what ontology demands. Marriage is a natural relationship ordered according to the complementarity of male and female for the primary purpose of reproduction in a stable environment where this complementarity can be made manifest to the children in a natural process of maturation. Homosexual marriage is a bastardization of both reason and nature. It is an oxymoron. Just as one can say the words, "dry water," sure, one can say the words, "gay marriage," but it is the worst type of superstitious appeal to word magic to assume that just because you can say the words that the object will appear. This is, sadly, the type of magical thinking that proponents of gay marriage would have us substitute for clear thinking.
While I am glad that Tennessee passed the amendment, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it got challenged and overturned by some silly appeal. I wish I could locate the person who started the idea that tolerance was a sacrament, because I would like to yell at them. Indeed, as the Ven. Bishop Sheen stated, in his essay, A Plea for Intolerance:
The full text can be found, here:
www.northamericanmartyrs.org/pdf/Plea-for-Intolerance.pdf
The Chicken
Posted by The Masked Chicken | November 8, 2014 11:55 AM
Jeffrey S, what do you think happens when two people go to the courthouse and get married? What happens when two men do it?
Only if there are no major negative consequences to doing so. Which brings us right back to the endlessly asked and never answered question: What are the negative consequences of gay marriage? Take it from someone who is at least somewhat sympathetic to you: start thinking of a really good answer to this question or you might as well give up.
And on polygamy, the reductio there only works so long as people are prejudiced against polygamy. As we saw with gay marriage, prejudice will only carry you so far. Better get some actual arguments. It's not as if there aren't any.
It's arguments like these that make the interracial marriage comparisons write themselves.
The reason that "low, dishonest taunt" is so common is because it has never been answered. Not just not answered satisfactorily, but not even answered at all with anything other than evasions or appeals to prejudice. You guys have been getting pummeled by this simple question for a decade and have still come up with nothing in response.
Posted by Matt | November 8, 2014 2:07 PM
The devaluation of the type of marriage that makes history and makes families by making babies.
The encouragement of unfaithfulness as a marital value. (Homosexual activists, as Paul indicates above, are actually rather pleased about redefining "monogamy" to mean something distinctively other than the dictionary definition.) See here:
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/open_monogamy/
The deconstruction of the very concept of marriage, encouraging an entirely sentimental and emotional concept, by downplaying the biological complementarity which was the only real basis for the government to give special recognition to sexual relationships in the first place.
The further exposure of children throughout the society to perverse sexual relationships and the encouragement of children to approve of them.
More children being raised in homosexual households.
The further imposition upon those who do not wish to endorse homosexuality of contexts in which they are required to endorse it.
The furtherance of gender confusion and sexual confusion in children and young people, both through the homosexual movement and through its even crazier cousin, the transgender movement.
The undermining of normal male friendship, including confusion among boys about their feelings in normal male friendships.
Discouragement of marriage among the unmarried heterosexual young, especially young men, through the devaluation of the meaning of marriage mentioned above.
The explosion of exploitative surrogacy contracts between male homosexual "couples" and destitute women in third world countries and here in the U.S. (but especially in third world countries).
The further breakdown of the concept of parenthood and of biological parental relationships with children through the proliferation of various bizarre and perverse "parental" relationships including surrogacy, artificial insemination of one of a lesbian couple, with parental rights given to the other member of the couple, egg-buying, sperm-buying, and so on and so forth. The identity confusion and dissociation of children regarding their origins by these practices, many of which are in essence the purchase of persons.
Increased difficulties for homosexuals and lesbians who discover that what they are doing is wrong and wish to leave the lifestyle but face custody problems with children whom the courts have declared to belong both to themselves and to their former perverse sexual partners.
The spread of health problems associated with gay sex by the continued juggernaut of societal approval of gay sex.
I guess that'll do for a start.
Posted by Lydia | November 8, 2014 3:41 PM
Only if you haven't actually, you know, read the arguments. Query: by what possible logic does "the institution of traditional marriage, compassing the sexual nature of human beings, man and woman made one-flesh and committing to the nurture and upbringing of their natural offspring," exclude interracial couples?
Posted by Paul J Cella | November 8, 2014 3:52 PM
The fact is, one can _write_ "interracial comparisons" for anything. One can compare pretty much anything to racial animus if one feels like doing so. Not being allowed to legally marry one's mother, for example. Not having one's emotional and sexual relationships with four other people recognized as marriage. Whatever. People can say anything. Liberals in particular are good at playing the racial analogy wherever and whenever it happens to pop into their heads. That doesn't make an analogy a _good_ analogy.
Matt also doesn't seem to understand Paul's point. Paul, forgive me if I put words into your mouth and get it wrong, but let's try this again. Why did Paul bring up Jim Crow? Because the *racial analogy itself* means that traditional beliefs about marriage are being treated as nasty and irrational bigotry. Now, think about this: How can it not be harmful to traditional marriage if an adherence to traditional marriage as real marriage is believed in society at large to be nasty and irrational bigotry? This is pretty straightforward. Homosexual "marriage" is _intended_ to change society's concept of marriage. Much of the time homosexual activists are very open about this. But when it serves their purpose, they play dumb. "What? How can this possibly hurt marriage?" Uh, by redefining it radically and saying that those of us who hold to the old view of it are bigots. Isn't this obvious?
Matt almost willfully misunderstands when he appears to take Paul's reference to Jim Crow as some kind of admission of guilt. But Matt's _own_ haste to invoke the racial analogy illustrates the very point Paul was making about the demonization of supporters of traditional marriage and the radical change this makes in society.
Posted by Lydia | November 8, 2014 4:20 PM
I'm not familiar with the software underlying WWWW, but might it be possible to have a dedicated thread or two linked in the sidebar in which to confine certain eternally recurring topics and standard points, so that the argument doesn't have to be done from scratch every single time a new Matt comes in and says it's totes possible to redefine marriage and anyone who objects is racist?
Posted by Erik | November 8, 2014 4:50 PM
Matt is playing concern troll. "There are arguments you guys could make, and I'm sympathetic to you, but darn it, you never make them. What a shame, what a shame. Meanwhile, I'll just sound totally sympathetic to your cultural enemies and ask you to take it on faith that I'm sympathetic to you." Classic concern-trolling. It's just a question of how long we feel like playing along.
Btw, there is nothing remotely original in the answers I gave above to his question about the bad consequences of homosexual "marriage." Well, okay, maybe the one about exploiting Indian surrogates is a _little_ unusual, but one could have run into it elsewhere.
In the main, though, what Matt says to the effect that conservatives just refuse to answer the question about the harm of homosexual "marriage" is just silly-false. We say this stuff until we are blue in the face. The nice-guy conservatives say some of the things I said, and the "haters" like Massresistance.org say some of the others, but all of this has been said by someone or other. It's just that the leftists don't _agree_ with us and think some of our reasons scandalous in themselves. That just shows the depth of the rift in America--when the appeal of the wonderfulness of "love" based upon homosexual sodomite acts that should not be described in the hearing of children and ladies is so deep in some sectors of the populace that to base any public policy whatsoever on the self-evident fact that those acts are perverted is considered a mark of something akin to mental illness in the one making the argument. Talk about shooting the messenger.
The fact is that our society has embraced insanity on these topics and therefore, in the classic saying, considers the sane man insane because he does not agree with them. What common ground can be found? Precious little, when it comes right down to it.
But are there true and relevant things we conservatives can say and have said in answer to the question, "What harm does it do?" Of course.
The liberals just hate us for giving the true answers. C'est la vie.
Posted by Lydia | November 8, 2014 6:41 PM
I think we can probably chalk up this very digression from a needed conversation as part of the damage done already by gay marriage. A post (as Matt himself noticed) that never mentioned gay marriage was instantly plunged into the most fatiguing vat of decade-old nonsequiturs concerning gay marriage. Brave folks of integrity had portions of their valuable hours absorbed by a commenter who appears to think it's 2003 and the MA Supreme Judicial Court has just struck the first blow.
But for parting analysis let us note the peculiar fact that a liberal who declares his sympathy appears to think that an argument getting "pummeled" in popular and political life is a strike against the argument. Like it was on race in Georgia circa 1870. Like it is under rule of Islamic State. Surely the sympathetic liberal can understand that we're not going to abandon our arguments because they are disfavored in the tyrannical reflex gestures of popular sanctimony? Especially since the arguments are never actually taken up dialectically but rather treated only with patent rhetorical impostures.
One hopes that the sympathetic liberal, at least, does not suppose we hold our principles so cheap and popularity so dear.
Posted by Paul J Cella | November 8, 2014 10:31 PM
Well the first thing to note is that I'm not a liberal. Just because I'm not on your team doesn't mean I'm on theirs. It's OK, it's the internet and I get this all the time, but just for the record and all.
Lydia's list of reasons contains not one single instance of direct, tangible harm resulting from gay marriage. It's a lot of "people might think differently about this thing and I don't think they should." Fine if you think that, but you'll have to convince other people to care and so far you've failed miserably.
It is you who missed my point. If "traditional marriage" has been tainted by mere comparison to Jim Crow, then how much more tainted was it when it literally was Jim Crow, with all the nasty and irrational bigotry that implies? This logic means you opposed interracial marriage 50 years ago, no way around it.
For the record, I'm not at all sure there are winning arguments you could make about gay marriage. Polygamy, yes, but most conservatives seem interested in that only out of spite.
Well you know, you can strike the pose of the principled prophets if you wish. I like self-flattery too. But sometimes it does actually help if people like you.
Posted by Matt | November 10, 2014 10:40 PM
If "traditional marriage" has been tainted by mere comparison to Jim Crow, then how much more tainted was it when it literally was Jim Crow, with all the nasty and irrational bigotry that implies? This logic means you opposed interracial marriage 50 years ago, no way around it.
Anyone make sense of this?
For the record, I'm not at all sure there are winning arguments you could make about gay marriage.
Maybe not, but they can make, and have made, arguments that are true.
Posted by William Luse | November 11, 2014 6:36 AM
Whatever that means. So now psychological harm to children, the proliferation of exploitative contracts and baby-selling, the totalitarian coercion of conscience to force approval of one's lifestyle, and the spread of physiologically unhealthy behaviors conjoined with the requirement that society approve of them, to re-name but a few, are not even the *types of things* that ought to be relevant to public policy matters? Yeah, that kind of shallow libertarianish slogan is a really great way to debate public policy. I guess if nobody uses force and nothing blows up, it's mere bigotry to have a problem with it.
What silliness.
As if liberals themselves did not _constantly_ advocate policy on the basis of harms that are no more "direct and tangible" than those I have adduced.
And indeed, policy cannot be made and a society run solely on the basis of preventing "direct, tangible harm," thus narrowly construed.
Posted by Lydia | November 11, 2014 9:50 AM
Paul:
Matt's response is a classic non-sequitur:
Matt, let me give you a anecdotal rejoinder. Lo some many years ago (well before this gay business reared its ugly head, though not so many as 50 years ago) I had a discussion with a person of my parent's generation. A dyed-in-the-wool conservative. Also, a person raised under Jim Crow - era bigotry, and a racial bigot in some measure himself. Somehow the issue of issue of inter-racial marriage came up, and he stated the usual "I have nothing against blacks but I wouldn't want one of my kids marrying one." I took that up, and forced him to re-examine it from the standpoint of the Church's teachings. After a while, he accepted that according to Christian principles, there is nothing in principle wrong with inter-racial marriage (though prudential issues do have their influence), and reversed himself on the original comment that started off the discussion. And agreed that conservatism didn't require one to object to inter-racial marriage as a matter of principle either. That, historically speaking, the slow and gradual mixing that occurs with inter-marriage is one of the usual social forces that generationally reduces tensions between disparate cultures and separate groups, that promotes peace and fruitful interaction between peoples, that helps overcome or sidestep the hatreds of outright hostility or war that is otherwise common.
Matt, Christianity didn't oppose inter-racial marriage from the beginning, and conservatism doesn't demand it either.
Posted by Tony | November 11, 2014 1:43 PM
Matt adopted precisely the shift-of-goalposts tactic I predicted. Conciliatory gestures and reassurances of no negative consequences are superseded immediately by "you opposed interracial marriage 50 years ago, no way around it" -- those are his own words, a veiled accusation of racism.
In truth, as Tony has indicated, the comparison to anti-miscegenation laws mostly comes down to a particular American hang-up. Many Americans, in prior days, so succumbed to fear and loathing of blacks, and guilt about the reason for their presence in America, that it warped everything about their thinking. Today many Americans, perceiving the greatness of the Civil Rights victories, some fifty years ago, but bereft of a felt sense of such greatness in modern times, elevate faddish innovations in sexual couplings, to the level of Civil Rights. The extreme disproportion of this comparison is matched only by the extraordinary sanctimony of those who make of it a slogan and marching banner. Someone in Massachusetts calls a distant religious chapel in the mountains of Idaho, in order to trigger a legal dispute that will (it is hoped) repress a business that believes in traditional marriage, or maybe even throw its proprietors in jail. Houston's city attorney orders local pastors to produce their sermons for hostile legal scrutiny. The inquisitors are scouring the country for dissent. Soon they'll have the NSA surveilling every Catholic parish or Baptist chapel and the IRS hounding the seminaries with little Cromwells on their shoulders.
So Matt, like most proponents of this social disorder, having been shown the negative consequences of gay marriage, proceeds directly to "the dirty bigots deserve those negative consequences."
Posted by Paul J Cella | November 12, 2014 7:58 AM
I don't even know what is meant by "you opposed interracial marriage 50 years ago." I didn't exist 50 years ago, unless one believes in pre-existence of souls. Is the "you" here supposed to refer to some spiritual or biological ancestors of mine for whose sins I'm deemed to be corporately responsible? Or is this just the same-old same-old--"*if* you don't think homosexual couples can be married then you *would* have opposed interracial marriage fifty years ago, and this is logically required by your position"? Which is just silly and which conservatives have answered repeatedly. And which is an insult to black people, while we're at it.
Posted by Lydia | November 12, 2014 9:46 AM