Hothouse flowers

Last updated on: November 7, 2005 at 3:46 pm by Fred Clark

102 Comments

Hothouse flowers 2005-11-07T15:46:00-05:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

John Rogers, of Kung Fu Monkey, has some shrewd fun with the logic of the self-proclaimed "defenders of marriage."

For the sake of argument — or at least, as the set-up for a good joke — he accepts the logic of their "sociological approach." This is the argument that the institution of marriage must not be weakened or tinkered with, lest society collapse. Accepting this premise, Rogers points out that same-sex couples do not seem to pose a serious threat to the institution of marriage — certainly not when compared to another, far more serious threat, which he proposes a constitutional amendment to protect us from:

If we want marriage to continue as a viable societal tradition, then we have to teach our young 'uns that marriage has value — but how are we to do this when their role models treat marriage so shabbily? Move past the prevalence of divorce in modern society and look at the glamorization of it by those most craven of cultural beasts — celebrities. …

What makes a stronger impact on the perceived value of marriage as an institution: skads of people lining up desperate to join in it despite great opposition; or people not only discarding their marriages, but discarding multiple marriages as if they were Dunkin' Donut cups? …

When prioritizing our threats against marriage, widespread rejection of the sanctity of marriage by our cultural icons propogated relentlessly through 24/7 media saturation is unarguably a greater threat against marriage's status as a societal value than the efforts of a few thousand malcontent high-school drama teachers standing in lines outside City Hall in two states of the Union.

So how do we stop this cultural plague? Well, we'll never win the fight to just out-and-out outlaw divorce: far too many powerful politicians and pundits depend on it as a way to mark their rise in power and income through progressive wife trade-ins. No, the roundabout solution here is to ban the marriage of celebrities in the first place, to keep them from spreading their disgusting guerrilla free-love meme when they eventually, inevitably dissolve these shams perpetrated in the Kabbalah ceremony of their choice. We at Kung Fu Monkey are proud to make the Defense Against Celebrity Marriage Amendment our first political cause.

There's a good deal more to Rogers' post, and you should read the whole thing because the excerpt above leaves out some of the funniest lines.

The interesting thing here, though, is that Rogers actually takes the logic of the marriage-defenders' "sociological approach" more seriously than they do themselves. He disagrees with it, and he ridicules it, but he also — despite the joking — seriously attempts to engage it:

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, gay marriage neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. Two gay people getting married in my general vicinity do not change my legal rights. They do not affect my earning potential, they do not raise my taxes, they do not infringe on either my rights to certain freedoms or opportunities to practice such freedoms. They do not, in a negative way, affect the legal status of other marriages. Divorce case law and evolving property law defines my legal relationship with my wife far more than any other factor. The "slippery slope" argument will always be there, but again — case law, people. Legal Armageddon has been predicted from pretty much every sociological and technical advance in the last two centuries. We've limped along. If you can skate past the idea that it's legal in Georgia for a 60 year old man to have sex with a 16 year old girl but not cool for two 30 year old men to share a life insurance policy — good for you.

One may oppose gay marriage from a religious standpoint, but one's religious rights are not abridged. If one belongs to a religion which opposes gay marriage, then odds are there will not be any gay marriage in your church. Gay people will not paratroop in and occupy your vestry. You will not have to worship with them, change the personal nature of your relationship to God, or even like them.

Rogers' paraphrase of Jefferson, I think, gets at the crux of the disagreement. The MDs believe that same-sex marriage does, in fact, pick their pocket and break their leg because they believe that refusing to deny the human right of marriage to same-sex couples would — somehow — erode and weaken the institution itself.

That "somehow" is rarely articulated clearly. It is, rather, just implied as something intuitively, viscerally self-evident. When pressed on this point, some of the most vocal opponents of same-sex marriage begin rambling about box turtles and hot man-on-dog action. This makes it rather difficult for those of us who disagree with them to engage their argument. It's easy to lampoon their argument (Adam Felber's version is a classic), but not so easy to engage it.

I think the main reason that the MDs disagree with Rogers' paraphrase is that they also disagree with Jefferson's original statement, "But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

In the terms of the First Amendment, the MDs seem to believe that their own free exercise of their religion requires a minimal establishment of that religion and its "family values." Without such a protective canopy, enforced by the state, they believe their own religion, their own way of life, is threatened. This protective canopy is eroded when other citizens with other religious perspectives — those neighbors who may believe in "20 gods or no God" — are allowed to freely exercise their religion.

We see a similar, if more extreme, dynamic playing out in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. Certain devout, fundamentalist Muslims believe that their religion requires that women wear a head-to-toe burkha while in public. It does them little good if this practice is left as a matter of the free exercise of religion, because allowing pluralism would mean allowing those women who do not share their beliefs to appear in public without the burkha. This would be perceived by the fundamentalists as an assault on their own religious freedom — which they believe requires a public square devoid of temptresses flashing their sultry ankles and wrists. They thus see their own right to the free exercise of religion as requiring the legal establishment of their own religious values.

This argument for the religious hegemony of Sharia law has a certain logic. It almost certainly would be easier for fundamentalist believers to practice their religion freely in a homogenous society in which everyone believed — or was forced to act as though they believed — the same thing. But this logic is anathema to the whole idea of religious freedom.

It also presumes that the faith of the fundamentalist hegemonists is extremely fragile. Worse than that, it nurtures and reinforces this fragility — ensuring that their faith is a flimsy hothouse flower that cannot survive in the outdoor climate of a pluralist society.

This same logic is at work here in America. The more overtly religious "defenders of marriage" argue this explicitly, but it is also implicit in the supposedly secular "sociological" argument against same-sex marriage.

The real motive at work here, I suspect, has far less to do with any actual or perceived threat to the "institution of marriage" than it does with the terrifying suspicion that their own fundamentalist faith is too flimsy to survive in a pluralist public square. Their faith is so weak, so fragile, that the mere existence of other viewpoints — and the public acknowledgment of them — is as frightening as the idea of "gay people paratrooping in to occupy the vestry." Such timid faith can only be exercised freely under the canopy of legally established religion.

evangelicals

Previous Post

November 4, 2005

Rock Bottom

Next Post

November 10, 2005 Unprofessional

Recent Comments

102 Comments | Leave a Comment

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does Hebrews say we have as an anchor for the soul?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The word of God Faith Love Hope