What can I say here that hasn't already been summed up brilliantly elsewhere in the media and online?
Anyone who hasn't seen Keith Olbermann's emotional response to the passage of Prop 8 must: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/10/keith-olbermanns-prop-8-s_n_142862.html
I have such a hard time wrapping my mind around this. I feel like no words that I use, no matter how inflammatory or bombastic, can adequately summarize my thoughts. In the spirit of politics, I'll give it a shot anyway.
The holier-than-thou, moralistic imperative demonstrated by the passage of Proposition 8 is the single greatest threat this country is facing. The people who crusaded (pun intended) to pass this loathsome piece of policy are a greater threat to the well being and enduring success of our nation than any terrorist, rogue state, or foreign leader.
I'll explain.
This attitude of smug moral confidence, the sense that we have the God-given authority, right, or OBLIGATION to impose our conscience upon other human beings has divided our country and undermined our status in the game of global politics. It is this moral Manifest Destiny that sends our troops overseas to bleed for their country, in a baffling attempt to bomb, shoot, and otherwise bludgeon a democracy into being. This desire to mandate morality has split a rift between religion and science that is jeopardizing our role as the world's technology and innovation leader.
In the smaller, but nonetheless reproachable, case of Proposition 8, a craven and despicable majority has flexed its might upon a brave, oppressed minority. The compulsion to impose morality upon others has once again risen in gross affront to the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence.
I think that's why I have such trouble understanding this issue. That ironclad sentence, those immortal words that are supposed to define our nation. All men are created equal, and are endowed with the same unalienable rights. I, like so many of my countrymen, hold these truths to be self evident.
Those of you who voted Yes on Proposition 8, don't argue with me. Your beef is with Thomas Jefferson.
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4 comments:
Dear Rob,
I love this:
"This attitude of smug moral confidence, the sense that we have the God-given authority, right, or OBLIGATION to impose our conscience upon other human beings has divided our country and undermined our status in the game of global politics."
I think what is particularly important here is that you use the word "conscience" rather than "morality," which cuts the standard argument - that our morality is in some way derived from religious texts, thus making the faithful better equipped to dictate the morality of others - off at its knees.
One's conscience is both unique and personal while simultaneously linking each of us to others by virtue of its necessity to being human. Thus when one person takes action to overpower the conscience of another, it becomes a matter of not just infringing on, for lack of a better term, personal space, but also of doing so in a way that attempts to undermine the very humanity of the other.
-AVH
(Oh, and I love Keith Olbermann so much, all the more so for his willingness to sometimes not be all about yelling and all about politics.)
"It is this moral Manifest Destiny that sends our troops overseas to bleed for their country, in a baffling attempt to bomb, shoot, and otherwise bludgeon a democracy into being."
WOW. Well put!
Proposition 8 should never, never have been put to vote to begin with. When you put the civil rights of a minority group up for a public vote, the majority group can easily deny other people their rights. INSANITY.
If we had put the Civil Rights Act up to a freakin popular vote, how long would black Americans have had to wait to be treated like equal citizens???
There are constraints on marriage that we tend to accept. Siblings normally can’t marry. There is often a minimum age to marry. Children normally can’t marry a parent. The parties should be living. A person shouldn’t simultaneously have more than one marriage partner. All these constraints are placed by society on marriage, even if the parties truly ‘love’ each other. So, let’s assume most people accept these constraints on marriage. Why then is the constraint that marriage be defined as a male-female contract anything other than a societal constraint?
(Other than the rare occasion, two persons of the same sex can live their lives together without prosecution from the state. They can live in peace for the rest of their lives.)
Prop 8 says two persons of the same sex can’t enter into a marriage contract. They care because of the (mostly) financial benefits that society attaches to marriage. For the sake of simplicity, let’s pick two big ticket items, taxes and health insurance. There are definite tax consequences of marriage, including Social Security benefits that we all care about. Providing health insurance for a spouse is certainly an important benefit.
So the answer is simple. This is a societal norm. These ‘norms’ are constraints that we all live with when 51% of our neighbors agree. You know, constraints like: alcohol is good, drugs are bad, guns are good, let’s bomb Iraq, cigarettes are good, kids going to war aren’t old enough to drink. The answer is -- constraints are arbitrary and capricious. Don’t go looking for a higher morality or an ethically consistent logic when none exists.
Here’s an exercise that might help. Imagine three people who love each of the others as much as any two people loved each other. Why can’t they marry?
If you can put yourself in the position to understand how this isn’t any different than same sex marriage, you now understand the real issue. Convince 51% of the voters and you can have same sex marriages, or just about anything else.
In response to Dad...
Prop 8 doesn't just say same-sex couples cannot marry... it repeals a right they already had. To me, that is different. Prop 8 has rendered 200,000+ marriages null and void. As I said in my previous comment, I feel that civil rights should not be up for public debate. We all have the same rights. Period.
Actually, the majority of same-sex couples cannot live together peacefully. Hate crimes against gays and lesbians are sky-rocketing, not declining. Shouldn't it be the government's job to protect the rights of those discriminated against?
Do you truly believe that marriage is nothing more than arbitrary financial benefits?? I'll go out on a limb and guess that your marriage, for example, is not in existence simply for the purposes of gaining a tax cut. It's a little insulting to insinuate that gay couples desire marriages only for those reasons.
Side note, three people are allowed to marry. It's called Mormonism. Personally, I'm completely fine with that. Who cares? It has no effect whatsoever on my own rights. (What scares me about Mormons is the fact they rope in some of these wives at very young ages. Different issue.)
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