Month: February 2016

Let me know what you think 

Presumed Problem

If gays are allowed to marry, that will destroy the whole institution of marriage.

Conservative writer Phyllis Scholarly saw the threat of same-sex marriage as a threat to Western Civilization.

Knowing how at odds same-sex marriage is with our legal and cultural traditions, we should not be surprised that some homosexual activists are trying to get rid of marriage all together. Same-sex marriage isn’t about granting equality of human rights. Gays are not denied any human rights. Same-sex marriage is about getting rid of the traditional values and institutions that have guided the Western world, including America.

In the same vein, Kansas Representative Tim Huelskamp said the ultimate goal of same-sex marriage was  to “destroy the institution of marriage altogether by diminishing it to whatever type of contract people sign on to. . .”

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Solution

Limit marriage to heterosexual couples.

 

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Narrative

I’ve been unable to find state laws limiting marriage to monogamous heterosexual couples; it would seem that gays knew better than to ask. However, in the mid-1990s, there was a flurry of state Constitutional Amendments that limited marriage to opposite-sex couples.

Then, in 1996, the U. S. Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as a federal prohibition of same-sex marriage. There was more than a little irony in the naming of the law. Certainly the institution of marriage has threats it might be defended against–divorce, adultery,
incest, desertion, and spousal abuse to name a few–but DOMA was not intended to address any of those marital problems. Representative Bob Barr (R-GA) was the author and primary manager of DOMA in the Congress. At the time, Barr was on his third marriage, and Washington insiders joked about which marriage the Congressman was defending.

DOMA, like the state amendments that preceded and followed it, had one intention: to guard against the specter of same-sex marriage.

The wide-spread prohibition of gay marriage began to unravel in 2000. Vermont broke the ice by instituting a new institution: the “civil union,” which would grant gay couples many of the same rights as heterosexual couples; it just wouldn’t be called marriage. In 2004, Massachusetts broke the ice further by legalizing same-sex marriage. Period. Other states followed suit. There were limits to how much individual state laws could achieve, however, since a marriage performed in one jurisdiction might very well not be recognized in others.

The federal restriction, DOMA, was increasingly challenged in court. In 2011, the Obama administration announced that they regarded DOMA as unconstitutional and said they would not defend it in court.

This all came to a head in 2013, when the U. S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of United States v. Windsor. Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer had married in Canada in 2007 and subsequently lived in New York state. When Spyer died in 2009, her estate went to Windsor, her spouse. Had they been a heterosexual, married couple, Windsor would have enjoyed the federal tax exemption granted to a surviving spouse. Since they were not of different sexes and thus were not regarded as “married” by the U. S. federal government, Windsor was charged hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal tax. Two federal courts ruled in Windsor’s favor, and the Supremes finally agreed as well. More specifically, five of the justices favored Windsor’s case and that was enough to overthrow the Defense of Marriage Act.

By the time of the Supreme Court’s DOMA decision in 2013, more and more states had legalized same-sex marriages, as legally no different from opposite-sex marriages.  Eventually, 37 states, the District of Columbia, and an assortment of counties welcomed same-sex marriages. It was difficult to calculate how many same-sex marriages have been formed, due to differences in the way the fifty states compile and report marriage statistics. However, in June 2013, the Pew Research Center gave a conservative estimate of over 70,000. It is certainly well beyond that number today.

This pattern of gradual change was dramatically altered on June 26, 2015, when the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not ban same-sex marriage, and gay marriage became legal +, letting the USA join 20 other nations in that respect. To be precise, again, five of the nine justices ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, while the other four dissented with varying degrees of outrage.

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Was the Problem Real?

We began with the expressed fear that legalizing same-sex marriage would destroy the institution of marriage altogether. By now, there have so many legal, gay marriages that we are in a position to assess the damages wrought by this dramatic social experiment with equality.

The most direct threat to the institution of marriage, ironically, has come from politicians and county clerks who were so deeply opposed to same sex marriage that they attempted to bring a halt to the issuance of any marriage licenses, regardless of the applicants’ sexual orientation. Thus far, those attempts have failed, and couples, both straight and gay, are still tying the knots.

My research allows me to provide the following list of heterosexual marriages that have been tragically destroyed by the legalization of same-sex marriage:

1. ______________________?
I should acknowledge the rumor about a baker who had to work so many late nights to meet the expanded demand for wedding cakes that his wife left him. I cannot confirm that story, however.

I think the best diagnosis of the perceived threat appeared on a web poster: “If your marriage is threatened by marriage equality, then one of you is gay.”

 

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Negative Consequences

I’ve already touched on some of the negative consequences of the ban on gay marriage above. Loving couples committed to each other were denied the many benefits of marriage. Once they began requesting permission to formalize their relationships in marriage, the refusal was often served up with insults, hatred, and humiliation.

Even when gay identity became more common and marginally more acceptable, the citadel of marriage remained unavailable. Gay couples lived together and sometimes formed life-long commitments, but they were “significant others,” “partners,” “longtime companions,” or “special friends”—not spouses. Some degree of embarrassment over second-class citizenship was inevitable.

While same-sex couples could have public “commitment ceremonies” in front of family and friends to declare their lifelong devotion to each other,
they typically were denied benefits accruing to “married” couples. Such benefits included inheritance, coverage on a spouse’s health plan,
receiving death benefits, and other economic entitlements. In a medical emergency, they might be denied the right to visit an ailing partner in the hospital.

Although same-sex marriage is now the law of the land in America and many other countries, legality does not necessarily imply acceptance. Anti-homosexual prejudice is not susceptible to a Supreme Court ruling, but the Court’s action helps to erode the remaining disapproval and hate. Those couples first seeking same-sex marriages, ironically, were reminiscent of couples in earlier times who sought approval for mixed-religion or mixed-race marriages. One can only guess at what the exclusionary urge will forbid next.

 

© Earl Babbie 2016, all rights reserved  Terms of Service/Privacy

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Sources

Artwork from ShutterStock.com

“Schlafly: Gay Marriage Will Ruin Western Civilization,” Right Wing Watch, October 15, 2014 — http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/schlafly-gay-marriage-will-ruin-western-civilization#sthash.rApCpCm5.dpuf — accessed July 31, 2015
Lauretta Brown, “Huelskamp: Final Goal of Gay ‘Marriage’ is to Destroy the Institution of Marriage,” cnsnews.com, June 20, 2014 — http://cnsnews.com/news/article/lauretta-brown/huelskamp-final-goal-gay-marriage-destroy-institution-marriage — accessed July 31, 2015

 

 

 

Let me know what you think 

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(Revised September 20, 2016)

Presumed Problem

Some believe that the acceptance of homosexuals as worthy members of society will spell the downfall of Western Civilization, Culture and Values.

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Solution

Anti-sodomy laws, outlawing oral and anal sex, have been intended as an indirect method of outlawing homosexuality.

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Narrative

Technically, sodomy refers to oral sex, anal sex, and bestiality–all of which are outlawed by anti-sodomy laws. The first of the trio would apply to gays, lesbians, and heterosexual couples. The second pretty much exempts lesbians, and the third doesn’t usually figure into the attempt to prohibit homosexuality.

Some have feared that the open acceptance of homosexuality will lead to its spread, especially through the indoctrination of youth, and will destroy “everything we hold dear.” However, the problem has often been expressed in terms of sexual practices rather than sexual orientation. Those defending Louisiana’s anti-sodomy law called sodomy “dangerous, unhealthy, and immoral,” illustrating the mixture of concerns.

While many opponents of same-sex relations often claim a Christian basis for their actions and concerns, the specific justifications are elusive. Jesus had nothing to say about homosexuality as far as we know, and the few Old Testament condemnations of homosexuality are outnumbered by the justifications of slavery, polygamy, and the mistreatment of women. In the New Testament, we find the Apostle Paul speaking against homosexuality at times, but he was equally concerned with wives surrendering to the authority of their husbands. In other words, while it is possible to find Biblical injunctions against homosexuality, it’s not a major theme. It didn’t make the Ten Commandments, for example, though adultery did.

In pursuing this issue, it is useful to distinguish between having homosexual sex and identification as being a homosexual. The former has been reasonably common throughout history. In both Greek and Roman societies, for example, wealthy men could claim the right to have sex with young boys to augment the sex they had with their wives and their concubines. No one called them names or questioned their masculinity.

In some societies, same-sex sexual encounters have been ritualized as rites of passage. Some societies mark passage to male adulthood with a ritual deflowering of boys by older men. When I was a university professor, one of my female students introduced me to the term, LUG: Lesbian Until Graduation. The number of people having same-sex sexual encounters has always exceeded the number being identified or self-identifying as solely homosexual or even bisexual.

All states in the United States have had anti-sodomy laws in the past, but
in 2003, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled such laws unconstitutional. Today, 12 states still have anti-sodomy laws on the books, but they are rarely, if ever, enforced. As of this writing, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Kansas have anti-sodomy laws prohibiting oral sex, but necrophilia—sex with a corpse—is legal. (Between consenting adults, presumably.)

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Was the Problem Real?     

Let’s examine some of the “problems” that led to the “solution” of anti-sodomy laws. First, let’s consider oral sex.

In December 2013 the National Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyle (NATSAL)
survey announced that in all age groups except the over-65s, the majority of people now say that they have oral sex sometimes.

For instance, 71 per cent of young adults (age 16 to 24) reported that they’d had oral sex in the last year. And 80 per cent of 25 to 34 year olds said the same thing.

So this is hardly the behavior of a tiny, perverted minority. It’s certainly
not limited to gays. As to being “unhealthy,” experts do not completely agree, but the general conclusion is that oral sex is safer than vaginal or anal sex when it comes to the transmission of disease. Moreover, the risk of pregnancy is, well, pretty slim.

Most would regard vaginal and anal sex as more disease-risky, particularly when tissue lesions occur. (The same would be true of oral sex, but it’s much less likely.) And in all cases, the risks of disease are radically reduced by the use of condoms. There is no agreement that anal sex is more dangerous than vaginal sex.

Since morality is in the eye of the condemner, I’ll leave the question of whether oral and anal sex are “immoral” to the moralists. However, I think we can gauge the danger of homosexuality taking over in America. Not really. If it seems as though there are more gays than there used to be, that is probably because it is safer for them to “come out.”

But has the growing acceptance of homosexuality in America produced the feared breakdown of Western Civilization, Culture, and Values? To answer, we need to specify what is meant by that august phrase. Here’s one statement:

The great ideas of the West—rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of conscience and expression, human rights, liberal democracy—together constitute quite an achievement, surely, for any civilization. This set of principles remains the best and perhaps the only means for all people, no matter what race or creed, to live in freedom and reach their full potential.

The above quotation is from Ibn Warraq, a self-described “Muslim Apostate,” challenged in a London debate to describe Western Values in no more than eight minutes. This excerpt is how he began. It is worth noting that his full presentation largely contrasted Western Values with those of other societies around the world, including those operating under Sharia Law.

Warraq’s description would fit well with the American Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights in the U. S. Constitution. Whether we reflect on the development of “Western Civilization” broadly or limit our view to the United States, I would suggest the civilizing process rests fundamentally on (1) replacing brutality with civility in social relations and (2) broadening the definition of who is a worthy member of society.

When the American Founders declared that “all men were created equal,” they actually meant men. It was too obvious. perhaps, for them to specify that they meant all white men. Over time, however, we have seen the definition of equal Americans to include people of color and women. The process has often been slow and sometimes violent, but the direction of change has been steadily toward inclusiveness.

Ironically, the exclusion of homosexuals from full membership in American society is a reflection of the older exclusivity that once barred women and racial minorities. The anti-sodomy laws were actually a challenge to our fundamental values rather than a protection. The greater acceptance of homosexuals represents a further realization of those fundamental values.

 

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Negative Consequences

Gays and lesbians have suffered everything from humiliation and discrimination to arrest and imprisonment and even violence and death. The early Commonwealth of Virginia prescribed death as the maximum penalty for homosexuality. Thomas Jefferson, evidently thinking that too harsh, proposed in 1779 that the maximum punishment be changed to castration. However, the state legislature refused that bleeding-heart, liberal proposal, preferring to keep death on the table.

While the official sanctioning of death for homosexuality is a thing of the past in the USA, things are grimmer for gays elsewhere in the world. Homosexual acts can be punished by death in:

Yemen
Iran
Iraq
Mauritania
Nigeria
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Somalia
Sudan
United Arab Emirates

You may notice a pattern in this list of countries: they are all African or Middle Eastern and predominantly Muslim. In several cases, outlawing homosexual relations is a part of that country’s version of sharia law. There is a special irony in this, since I would assert (without hard data) that those Americans most opposed to homosexuality are also the most worried about the prospects for sharia law in the USA, a topic addressed elsewhere in this website.

As we’ve seen, there are still places in the world where people can be executed simply because they are gay. They have not stolen from or assaulted anyone. They haven’t revealed state secrets or yelled “fire” in a crowded theater. They can be officially executed for no ‘crime’ but their sexual orientation.

Even where homosexuals are not being executed by the government, even today, they may be killed by extra-legal actions. Matthew Shephard is a name that should never be forgotten. On October 6, 1998, the young University of Wyoming student was at the Fireside Lounge in Laramie, when two other young men pretended to be gay and lured him outside with the intention of robbing him. Once outside, their greed turned to rage and they began beating and torturing Shephard. Eventually, they tied their comatose victim crucifixion-style to a fence and left him there to die. He was discovered 18 hours after his beating and was taken to a hospital where he died six days later.

Matthew Shephard’s brutal murder was so ugly that it attracted wide attention from the media and the public. Almost everyone who learned of the murder was horrified, though some celebrated it as God’s will. And Matthew Shepard was not the first nor the last gay to be killed by homophobic thugs in America.

On June 11, 2016, the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was the filled with merriment as a gathering of over 300 predominantly Hispanic gays and lesbians enjoyed each others’ company. Then, in the early morning hours of the 12th, a lone gunman, armed with a semi-automatic rifle and semi-automatic pistol, entered the club and opened fire. By the time he finished, 49 were dead and another 53 wounded. Wikipedia summed it up thusly:

It was the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter, the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in United States history, and the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Death is perhaps the most dramatic negative consequence of the “solution” of stamping out homosexuality. Gays have been and still are discriminated against in a variety of ways: in employment, commercial service, and just about anywhere people interact with one another in society. The persisting reflection of the anti-sodomy mentality still treats gays as second-class citizens, somewhat similar to the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities.

© Earl Babbie 2016, all rights reserved  Terms of Service/Privacy

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Sources

Leviticus 18:22 says it’s an abomination for a man to lie with another man, as with a woman. He is silent with regard to lesbians, though women are not to have sex with animals.

For example, Romans 1:26-28. Paul prescribes death for such acts, but he prescribes the same for slanderers, gossips, and many other miscreants.   I Corinthians 7:2-16.

Terri Ruper, “Here are the 10 countries where homosexuality may be punished by death,” Washington Post, February 24, 2014 — http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/02/24/here-are-the-10-countries-where-homosexuality-may-be-punished-by-death/ — accessed August 1, 2015.

Wikipedia, “Sodomy laws in the United States,” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States — accessed August 1, 2015

Adam Weinstein, “Here Are the States Where Blowjobs Are Illegal But Necrophilia’s Cool,” Gawker, April 16, 2014 — http://gawker.com/here-are-the-states-where-blowjobs-are-illegal-but-necr-1563878569 — Accessed August 5, 2015.

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Matthew_Shepard

Ibn Warraq, The Superiority of Western Values in Eight Minutes

http://www.wikiwand.com/en/2016_Orlando_nightclub_shooting