The kids are home; the chaos begins. I will be soon bumped off my computer so that one of the savages can get on the Cartoon Network website. But first I must pass on a few links to a massive and interesting and disturbing discussion about the Mormon role in the passage of Prop 8 in CA.
First link is to Andrew Sullivan.
I strongly support civility in this struggle. Religious services and
practices should be scrupulously respected. But when a church, like the
Mormon church, makes a concerted effort to enter the public square and
strip a small minority of basic civil rights, it is simply preposterous
for them then to argue that the Mormon church cannot be criticized and
protested because they are a religion. I have never done anything – nor
would I do anything – to impede or restrict the civil rights of
Mormons. I respect their right to freedom of conscience and religion.
In fact, it is one of my strongest convictions. But when they use their
money and power to target my family, to break it up, to demean it and
marginalize it, to strip me and my husband of our civil rights, then
they have started a war. And I am not a pacifist.
He writes that that the Mormon church has a horrid record of dealing with gays in their own congregation.
I should add that I dated a Mormon man for a few months a while
back. What he told me about the LDS church’s psychological warfare on
their gay members, the brutality and viciousness and intolerance with
which they attack and hound and police the gay children of Mormon
families, would make anyone shudder.They
hounded my ex for having HIV and for being gay. They followed
him secretly, outed him to his family and persecuted him for his
illness. When he was diagnosed with HIV at Brigham Young, he had to run
out of the college clinic to escape those who wanted to sequester and
punish him. He died a few years ago. Most of his Mormon family didn’t
show up for
his funeral. You want me to love these people? Let me say it’s my
Christian duty to try.
I know something about this, she says vaguely.
And then from the other side: Ron Dreher, Nate Oman, Russell Arben Fox, and Hugo Schwyzer. They are concerned that backlash will hurt religious freedom.
Apt. 11d 
RAF also has post on Prop 8. http://inmedias.blogspot.com/2008/11/personal-thoughts-on-proposition-8.html
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Thanks for the reference, MH. I should also note that Hugo Schwyzer has discussed this at some length on his blog here.
But when a church, like the Mormon church, makes a concerted effort to enter the public square and strip a small minority of basic civil rights, it is simply preposterous for them then to argue that the Mormon church cannot be criticized and protested because they are a religion.
Gay marriage is not an issue I care strongly enough about to turn into a culture warrior in regards to, but in the end I probably would have voted for the proposition, and yes, the support given to it by my church leaders would have been a factor in my thinking. And I think that would have made me–and my church, of course–a legitimate target of protest. Many of the arguments pushed by my church’s money and activism were, frankly, paranoid falsehoods; that’s not enough to make me recant my (very moderate) support for the proposition–there are other matters involved in the desicion-making process, thank goodness, besides simply the ethics and intelligence of the others on one’s “side”–but it is enough to make me recognize the legitimacy of the anger directed against us. If a church chooses to play hardball, then it ought to accept people playing a little hardball back.
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Oops, I see you already got them. Thanks, Laura! (Though Hugo definitely is on Andrew Sullivan’s side in this argument.)
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Pre-election, there was a pretty nasty ad with a dramatization showing two Mormon missionaries forcing their way into a cute lesbian couple’s house, ransacking their papers, and shredding their marriage license.
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I enjoyed your thoughtful post, Russell, even if I just can’t seem to understand why anyone would have a problem with gay marriage. I also don’t share your enthusiasm with the propositions. They aren’t as democratic as they seem. Propositions politics are notorious, because money and advertising seems to play a major role in outcomes. In this case, a lot of money came from outside the state. The wording was confusing. If you voted no, then you were for gay marriage.
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” forcing their way into a cute lesbian couple’s house, ransacking their papers, and shredding their marriage license. ”
Isn’t that what happened? Now, I don’t know that all the lesbian couples were cute. But the two to get married first in San Francisco,the 87 year old couple who have been together over 50+ years sure brought copious tears to my eyes when they were finally able to marry in June.
The Mormon church, the Catholic church, and their followers have the perfect right to their opinion and to state it publicly, but not with immunity from opprobrium.
I used to be one of those folks who would have said “it’s not an issue I want to be a culture warrior about.” (of course, on the other side, in favor of gay marriage). But, I now see it as the civil rights issue of this era.
I do have two qualms about the antagonism. The first is whe it’s directed at Mormons and not Catholics. The Catholic church was also very active in opposition. When Mormons are targeted more strongly, I fear that it’s a form of profiling that relies on their minority religion status (though some say that it’s the money, but I’ve heard that one before and it’s scary, too).
The second qualm is when antagonism turns into veiled threats. It’s one thing to picket a church, another to picket a private home, and another to send scary threatening powders to individuals you disagree with.
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“The wording was confusing. If you voted no, then you were for gay marriage”
I kept getting confused about that, when talking about the proposition. I’m sure that at least some voters had the problem as well.
And, I agree quite strongly on propositions. We’re also a proposition-prone state, and it’s just not the right way to make law. And, I just don’t get a constitution that one can change with a simple majority vote. I guess the proponents are going to have to keep putting a pro-marriage initiative on the ballot every year. If 52% opposed it, surely that can change with time?
(and, yeah, I think that being pro-gay marriage is being pro-marriage).
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The same people who did the Mormon missionary ad also produced one entitled “Gender Auditors” in which a heterosexual couple that wants to get married is subjected to a rubber-gloved gender check because of Proposition 8.
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I just can’t seem to understand why anyone would have a problem with gay marriage.
It’s weird feeling a need to respond to this, because I don’t have a particularly strong problem with gay marriage; of all the traditionalist itches I have, that’s among the ones that I feel compelled to scratch the least. The best I can do is to say that in my own perfect world, we wouldn’t be so hung up on “equality”–as a legal concept expressed through the courts, in particular–that we couldn’t recognize that gays and straights are different, and that therefore there ought to be different categories for their relationships, complete aside from the given that gay and straight relationships ought to have essentially the same bundle of rights attached to them. Why bother trying to make a distinction when I’m willing to acknowledge that, as free citizens, gays and straights ought to be treated the same? Because I’m enough of a “conservative,” if you want to use that term, to believe that marriage is about more that “rights”; that there is cultural work being done through the norms of marriage, and saying that marriage is the same regardless of gender makes that normative work harder. But that’s a deep cultural argument, and hard to make briefly…especially when you are–again, like me–not exactly sold on it.
I also don’t share your enthusiasm with the propositions. They aren’t as democratic as they seem. Propositions politics are notorious, because money and advertising seems to play a major role in outcomes.
I agree. That’s something that’s come out in the comments on my post, in exchanges with Nate Oman, David Watkins from LGM, and a couple of others. I don’t mean to say I like propositions and referendums; I like the activism they engender, and I like the democratic involvement they presume, but I shouldn’t allow my political-science-sympathy for increased engagement to paper over the problems with this particular set of laws. Just because I’m suspicious of judicial review doesn’t mean I should be willing to accept just any alternative. I’ve been suspicious of California’s mostly fake “power to the people” provisions for a while (I thought the recall that put Arnold in power was a complete charade); these kind of mass plebiscites rarely provide for the kind of education in participation which democracy is supposed to provide. I suppose that, if I actually had lived in California at the time of the vote, that’s one more thing I would have had to take into consideration: on the one hand, being able to democratically strike back at courts, but on the other hand, being a player in one was really, on a certain level, a mug’s game.
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There are three reasons I would have supported Prop 8 if it were on my ballot. First, I don’t support the ‘rights’ or ‘equality’ arguments for gay marriage. Even with Prop 8, everybody has the right to marry one person of the opposite gender. Many people won’t use that right for a variety of reasons of which homosexuality is only one. This is a relatively minor point for me.
Second, I am largely opposed to swift social change. My own position (civil unions) has gone from being seen as moderately liberal to denounced as troglodyte conservatism within 15 years or so. That sort of speed makes me want to see how quickly I can dig my heels in the ground.
Third, and for me the big point, is the involvement of the courts prior to Prop 8. The way gay marriage has been achieved through the courts instead of the other two branches sets off my “Roe v. Wade” alarm bells.
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Was I reading right that half of the anti-marriage funding came from LDS sources?
And boy howdy, the top-down approach here does make me think twice about Mormon officeholders. This really does look like the orders to jump came from Salt Lake and a large portion of the flock said how high. What else will elected Mormons be taking orders on?
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Was I reading right that half of the anti-marriage funding came from LDS sources?
Depending on how you crunch the numbers, Doug, actually as much as 70% or 80% of the funding for Proposition 8 may have come from my church. Another thing that makes me very squeamish about it; it’s one thing to be a member of an actual coalition, to to essentially carry the whole message of a plebiscite from beginning to end…it’s unseemly, to say the least.
And boy howdy, the top-down approach here does make me think twice about Mormon officeholders. This really does look like the orders to jump came from Salt Lake and a large portion of the flock said how high. What else will elected Mormons be taking orders on?
This is something Damon Linker, myself, and a bunch of Mormon friends of mine have been arguing about via e-mail for a week or two. There is a good argument that can be made the effect that Salt Lake was only giving orders (or only “asking”–as vain as it may be to do in practice, I insist on maintaining at least the nominal distinction there) to its members in regards to a matter where the votes were already present. For a variety of theological and demographic reasons, the great majority of American Mormons are already committed to the Christian/cultural conservative agenda as it has been articulated in the U.S. over the past thirty years; hence, all Salt Lake managed to do is increase activism and donations, not turn out the vote. For myself, though, I wonder if that’s too easy; I’m beginning to suspect that, in some vaguely “official” sense, my church in turning theocon. Which, of course, will have huge complications for people like myself who don’t agree with that agenda. But some of my friends say I’m overtheorizing things. I hope they’re right.
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Seventy to eighty percent? Yowza.
To be fair, it’s hard to picture a Mormon running for office as a Democrat, so there’s little chance I’d be voting for one.
The difference between orders and requests, at least as I see it from the outside, is in the amount of compliance. I don’t know the percentage of Mormons asked who donated, but when one denomination’s organized efforts yields such a large share of the funding for a political proposition, it starts to look less like the Sunday collect for the local homeless shelter. I wonder, though, if the LDS church had mobilized against civil rights forty years ago (they didn’t, right?) the way they’ve mobilized against gay people, what would we say about the church’s role in American society?
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“My own position (civil unions) has gone from being seen as moderately liberal to denounced as troglodyte conservatism within 15 years or so. That sort of speed makes me want to see how quickly I can dig my heels in the ground.”
Hey, isn’t your position roughly Obama’s position, too?
I’d add that there has been some bad stuff going down in Canada. As early as the 90s, a print shop owner turned down an order from a gay and lesbian organization and was fined thousands of dollars for not taking their business. A Canadian pastor has been banned from stating his views on homosexuality or complaining about the human rights process, and for some time it has been a dicey question whether one can quote parts of Leviticus. (Eventually the Canadian human rights establishment started aiming for major writers and publishers, and the wheels started coming off the enterprise, but as long as they were just going after nobodies, they got away with it.) We may say, this is the US, it can’t happen here, but there has already been a lot of non-governmental weirdness after Proposition 8 with the invasion and disruption of a church service, a theater director being hounded out of his job for having donated to proposition 8, and a restaurant owner basically being extorted because of a small donation to proposition 8. This shouldn’t be the kind of country where donating to the wrong cause means that you hear “Nice business [or job] you got here. Shame if something happened to it.” Isn’t that basically McCarthyism? It’s beginning to look like small donors need anonymity to protect them from organized bullying and extortion.
Beyond that, parents have valid concerns with regard to school instruction. Just before the vote, there was a news story about a Bay Area public school charter first grade class being taken to City Hall to celebrate their teacher’s wedding to her female partner. Apparently, a couple families kept their children back from the field trip, but the situation has got to be a very uncomfortable one for the opt-out families. If kiddies aren’t going to be singing “Silent Night” because it might offend or exclude some, they sure as heck shouldn’t be celebrating their teacher’s gay wedding during school hours.
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“To be fair, it’s hard to picture a Mormon running for office as a Democrat, so there’s little chance I’d be voting for one.”
You have heard of Harry Reid, I believe. He can’t be the only one.
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Here’s a piece from 2005–at the time there were four LDS Democrats in Congress.
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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_/ai_n11497725
WASHINGTON — They are not large in number, but the Mormon Democratic Congressional Caucus is determined to dispel the perception that the words “Mormon” and “Democrat” cannot be used to describe the same person.
Under the direction of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Nevada, three of four members of the caucus met earlier this week to discuss issues relevant to the LDS community and to discuss how to raise the profile of Mormon Democrats.
Joining in the meeting were Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M. Rep. Eni Faleomavaega, a nonvoting member of Congress from American Samoa, was not able to attend but plans to participate in the future.
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Doug,
I wonder, though, if the LDS church had mobilized against civil rights forty years ago (they didn’t, right?) the way they’ve mobilized against gay people, what would we say about the church’s role in American society?
The LDS church didn’t mobilize against civil rights–there were church leaders who said, on the record and off, that they were suspicious of it, thought it was all a communist front, etc., and to be sure that trickled on down to much of the rank and file. The fact that my church held to a racist (or, if one wants to be particular, “racialist”) understanding of priesthood authority at the time, banning those of African descent from holding it, meant that such hostility to the civil rights movement was easily absorbed. But organized opposition, counter-demonstrations, funding for reactionary groups and the like? I have no knowledge of anything like that.
I’m not sure that if they had, however, it would change much of what Americans already say and think about church and state. Southern Baptists played a major role in organizing all sorts of white resistance leagues throughout the South in the 1950s and 60s, and that history hasn’t seemed to have changed the debate much.
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As early as the 90s, a print shop owner turned down an order from a gay and lesbian organization and was fined thousands of dollars for not taking their business. A Canadian pastor has been banned from stating his views on homosexuality or complaining about the human rights process, and for some time it has been a dicey question whether one can quote parts of Leviticus. (Eventually the Canadian human rights establishment started aiming for major writers and publishers, and the wheels started coming off the enterprise, but as long as they were just going after nobodies, they got away with it.)
My understanding of these matters, Amy, was that the harrassment and expense was real, but that not one of these rulings by various human rights commissions, when challenged in court, have been upheld. Am I wrong about that?
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“This shouldn’t be the kind of country where donating to the wrong cause means that you hear “Nice business [or job] you got here. Shame if something happened to it.” Isn’t that basically McCarthyism?”
Not really. It’s more like harassment and extortion via organized crime, though I don’t suppose that the most virulent and violent objectors to Prop 8 are all that organized.
@Russell, it seems to me that even if the rulings were eventually overturned, that the process of getting the correct result, especially in the U.S., would be ruinously expensive.
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” Even with Prop 8, everybody has the right to marry one person of the opposite gender. ”
And, how is this different from the laws that said that “everyone has the right to marry one person of the opposite gender and the same race?” Some folks, including those who just happen to fall in love with someone of the wrong race, just chose not to exercise that right.
All of the arguments that you guys are making to oppose marriage, if it isn’t between people of the right gender, can and were used to oppose marriage between people of different races (arguments that marriage between people of different races was intrinsically different, social normative values, teaching in schools, opposing change that is “too fast.”). For those who look in horror on someone celebrating a teacher’s wedding to another woman, you can count on there being just as many people who looked on horror at a teacher marrying someone of the wrong race (or frankly, religion). But, neither of those “horrors” is or should be prevented by the state.
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” “Nice business [or job] you got here. A shame if anything happened to it” is completely unacceptable, of course. One is not allowed to threaten.
But, “nice business you got here. I’m never going to shop here again” is perfectly acceptable.
I’m waiting for Sundance to announce that they’re moving from Utah. And, I’m not going to buy Boy Scout coffee anymore. Probably won’t make that a political statement to the neighbor kid who asks, but I’m certainly not going to give money to the organization.
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“It’s beginning to look like small donors need anonymity to protect them from organized bullying and extortion. ”
What’s “small” going to be?
I’ve wondered about the ease of publicly searching donation records for a while. Even if you’re not being harassed for the cause you’ve donated to, right now, donations, of any size, in many instances mean that both your name and address can be publicly found on the web. That creates a real concern for people who worry that they might be harassed for reasons completely independent of their donations (for example, prosecutors, who often keep their addresses/phone numbers private, people who work in controversial fields that result in threats, etc.).
I think this is a broader issue that needs to be discussed — whether giving money to political causes requires the loss of privacy that it currently does. But it needs to be balanced against the need to know who is giving money to political campaigns (for the bribery/influence peddling concerns).
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The first case is correct. It is vaguely similar to refusing to serve blacks at one’s restaurant I guess, at least to my mind. Here’s a link about it:
http://www.egale.ca/index.asp?lang=E&menu=91&item=380
And the second is correct as well, but Russell is right in that the role of the Human Rights Commission(s) in regulating hate speech is definitely in flux – it was only added to the Alberta mandate, which is where the Boisson case was heard, in the late 90s.
However it’s not really a gay rights issue and decidedly NOT linked to same-sex marriage; it’s a broader issue to do with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and how it’s enabled – writing critical of Muslims, for example, or Holocaust deniers. Because we do have freedom of expression entrenched in the Charter, but it doesn’t override the other aspects of the Charter (anti-discrimination). So unlike the US there are more limits on freedom of speech; the debate is a) where are those limits and b) where should that be enforced.
However I did want to say that despite same-sex marriage being legal here, no churches are required to perform it. It’s the same with the Catholic Church not being required to allow divorced people to marry. (Government officials, however, are required to as part of their job in granting civil licenses.)
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I guess I have an extreme view on this. I, too, am unconvinced by the “equality” and “rights” case for same sex marriage.
The case that convinces me is the conservative case; monogamous marriage makes available to people very great goods, which is why the government is justified in establishing it as an institution. I see no reason at all why same-sex couples should be excluded from access to these goods. I don’t count the unconsidered prejudices of other people as reasons in this case; if you are going to give a reason it cannot be “because it offends against the religious convictions of X Y and Z”, but it has to include the reasons why those convictions are true (that is, in this case, reasons either why homosexual sex is significantly more immoral than heterosexual sex, or why same-sex couples are unable to get at those very great goods even if they are allowed to marry). If you can give reasons for thinking that allowing same-sex couples to marry endangers the ability of opposite-sex couples to maintain successful marriages, that might count, too, but if that is your worry I suggest that you worry about the real enemy of traditional marriage, viz, divorce. (I’d love to see the pastors who attack same-sex marriage as an unacceptable redefinition of marriage attack their own congregations by saying that remarriage after divorce is an unacceptable redefinition of marriage, but then the coffers would dry up, of course).
So, like bj, I am willing to be something of a culture warrior about this, despite my general hostility to culture war.
But is there any point in being a culture warrior? Just about every political commitment I have has been eroded seriously or defeated during my adult life (I’m 45). Except that when I was 20 I didn’t support same-sex marriage because I didn’t support things that were so obviously not only not feasible, but not even being talked about. How wrong I was. In 30 years time same-sex marriage will be legal in almost all States, and will be considered completely normal. In 50 years time, the social consensus against the bar on homosexuality on same sex marriage will be as strong as the consensus against slavery was 50 years after the end of slavery. And that is the one real piece of social progress that will have happened in our lifetimes. Prop 8 is a vicious piece of legislation, and I feel for its victims. But it is a blip on the screen.
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I just came out of my political theory class where I was discussing Madison and Fed. Paper #10 and factions. Oh so relevant.
It is 100% valid to boycott businesses that support policies that you find abhorent. It is not permissable to be rude to Mormon friends or to go beyond peaceful protests. Since this policy was officially endorsed by church leaders and large sums of money came directly from church heirarchy, it really does green light all sorts of peaceful protests.
But RAF and others know that. And they are worrying that this particular issue may not be worth the fight and the bad feelings and really bad backlash. There may be another issue down the road that is more important.
The Catholic Church has been very wary about getting involved in politics for that very reason.
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Large sums of money did not, in fact, come directly from the Mormon Church hierarchy. Their in kind donations amounted to under $5000, according to the official Secretary of State’s report. The millions which poured in came from individual members at the Church’s request, but like many Church members, I never gave a dime to the Proposition. (I don’t feel comfortable stumping for an out-of-state effort, beyond free discussions.)
Thus, no tithing came from the Church for the campaign, and there is no tax consequence for the Church, since their contribution is nowhere near the IRS’ thresholds for significant participation in politics, and since the effort was non partisan and not party driven, may not even be under the purview of the IRS at all.
Free speech cuts both ways; if the law is followed the Church won’t even be given an investigative audit, I think. (IANAL)
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In 30 years time same-sex marriage will be legal in almost all States, and will be considered completely normal. In 50 years time, the social consensus against the bar on homosexuality on same sex marriage will be as strong as the consensus against slavery was 50 years after the end of slavery.
This is almost certainly true, Harry, and it is one of the reasons another Mormon friend of mine, someone who is much more orthodox in his beliefs and practice than I am, strongly opposed the church’s involvement in Proposition 8: on simply pragmatic grounds, it was a loser, an effort that will have negligible historical significance and which therefore won’t be worth the (arguably deserved!) backlash that many Mormons in California will feel. I couldn’t disagree with him there.
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“Large sums of money did not, in fact, come directly from the Mormon Church hierarchy. Their in kind donations amounted to under $5000, according to the official Secretary of State’s report. The millions which poured in came from individual members at the Church’s request..”
I feel like we’re splitting hairs here. If the church leaders tell their congregation to give the money and tell their congregation that they will be booted out of the community if they disagree and the congregation makes its decision on this matter largely based on the opinions of the church leaders, then this was hardly a grassroots effort.
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Laura: One quick correction. Little if any money came from the Mormon Church hierachy or out of Church funds. Rather, the Church hierarchy encouraged individual members to make donations, which they did in large numbers. Sorry to get persnickity, but I’m a lawyer and the legal consequences would be quite different, for example, if the Church spent $20 million of Church funds.
As I’ve said before, I am about where RAF is at on the merits, which is a bit odd as I generally disagree with RAF about virtually everything. As a Mormon I am particularlly worried about the fact that the backlash on this comes on top of a rather nasty strain of anti-Mormonism that emerged during Romney’s run, as well as the publicity surrounding the State of Texas’s move against polygamists over the summer and the widespread equation of these groups with ordinary Mormons. It is not just that the Church invited political retaliation by becoming involved, but it invited political retaliation at a time when the old historical meme of Mormons as sinister and dangerous was enjoying a renessiance. The main reason that the backlash has been directed against Mormons is because of their prominence in the Prop 8 battle, but I think an important, albeit secondary, reason is that given public perceptions Mormons make a better villian than Catholics because one can tap into an already existing rich vein of suspicion about Mormonism.
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I would add that there is also, of course, a strain of anti-Catholicism that sees sinister clerics bent on subverting America for the good of Rome, but since 1960 I think this kind of stuff has been in steep decline. I did a long post on anti-Mormonism and anti-Catholicism last year when Damon Linker was sounding the alarm about the Mormon menace. Here’s a link for those who might be interested.
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Nate, see comment above about the $$.
I think you’re right to be worried about anti-Mormon sentiment. I’m not sure if it’s worse than anti-Catholicism, but it may be. You could probably argue that Andrew Sullian and others should also be writing posts about African-Americans and Catholics since they also voted for Prop 8. On the other hand, they could argue that the role of church leaders in the politics of Prop 8 makes them much more responsible for the outcome of this proposition rather than the other groups.
Of course, this is neither here nor there for me. I think that Mormon leaders should not have gotten involved in Prop 8, not because of backlash, but because it was a bad law.
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“tell their congregation that they will be booted out of the community if they disagree”
To my knowledge no one was booted out of any congregation for disagreeing about Prop 8. Indeed, there were letters from the First Presidency read in meetings in which members were called upon not to judge those who did not support the effort. There may well have been incidents on a purely local level, but there certainly wasn’t any sort of a “donate to Prop 8 or you will be subject to church discipline” kind of thing.
Your larger point is, however, correct if by grassroots you mean something like “spontaneously organized without direction from leaders.” On the other hand, the hairsplitting is extremely important for legal purposes.
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Harry, being a culture warrior in favor of ending discrimination is not futile (i.e. because the result is “inevitable”). It’s the “culture warriors” who make it inevitable. And, I’ll add, because I see it more clearly in this issue, an issue that does not effect me personally, my involvement matters. It spreads the case beyond those who have a personal interest.
I raise as comparison the fascinating conversation between MLK & LBJ reported in the Times earlier this year. I paraphrase the conversation as MLK saying — if we (blacks) can vote we will help you win. LBJ listens to this, but answers with show the world examples of blacks, educated, respectable blacks, who are not permitted to vote. Eventually, even the redneck in Texas will see the irrationality of excluding that individual.
That’s where we are now in this issue. I am a convert — I never thought we should discriminate against gays, but I never thought I would care so much. But, I’m a hopeless romantic about marriage, and seeing examples of people in love, people just like me, has made me a warrior.
When Clinton said LBJ was necessary for the civil rights movement it created a big hullabaloo. But, the end stage of the winning of these wars is the conversion of those to whom the issue doesn’t really matter, the ones who could vote anyway, didn’t have to sit at the back of the bus, or can get married. Once we see the light, the opposition becomes futile. That’s why our testimony is particularly important.
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From RAF –“Does that mean I would have gone against the preferences of my community casually? For myself, no–I value not just my membership, but also my affectivity for, my belonging to, that community too much.”
Perhaps booted out was too strong. Certainly going against the will of the community is of great concern of Mormons. (As a Catholic, I don’t have any of those worries and pay zero attention to what my bishop thinks about politics. Of course, I am not a model Catholic, so that might not be relevant.) This was just to the point that the Mormon church is responsible for the views of its members and that it has to accept some of the heat now.
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The Catholic Church does not get a by on opposition to Prop 8. The money appears to have come from Mormons, but various Catholic organizations, including the “Executive Committee of the California Catholic Conference.”, the Catholic League, . . . have taken very public political positions on the issue.
Biden, who has stated clearly that he would have voted “No” on Prop 8 has gotten quite a bit of flack around the internet for his position, too.
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Certainly going against the will of the community is of great concern of Mormons….This was just to the point that the Mormon church is responsible for the views of its members and that it has to accept some of the heat now.
I agree on both counts. I suspect, when all is said and done, that Nate is perhaps being a little naive about what is happening on the “local level” in California; while I concur that there has not been, to my knowledge (and I’d like to think I’m networked pretty well into informal Mormon news sources), a single instance of anyone having their continued membership in the church challenged on the basis of their going against church directives in regards to Proposition 8, there have been people called in to “discuss” their lack of support for, or their opposition to, the proposition by their local church leaders; there has been social ostracism; there has been real dissension. And, of course, there is realy frustration and not-entirely-inaccurate accusations of bigotry which have followed. Anyone–on either side–who thinks that such things are “unbecoming” or “unjustified” ought to wake up and realize what dwelling within 1) an authoritarian church (which the Mormon church certainly is; another friend of mine, in reference to Proposition 8, stated that our church is masterful at issuing the “veiled command”) in the context of 2) a contentious, divided, democratic society must really mean.
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“Certainly going against the will of the community is of great concern of Mormons.”
Absolutely. The point is important because I think that the theological stakes would be higher for Mormons like RAF and myself if it was made clear, for example, that opposition to Prop 8 would make one liable for excommunication, the loss of priesthood, and the cancellation of temple blessings. I didn’t mean to suggest that there wasn’t social pressure at the local level, or that the Church didn’t make its own position clear. I just thought it rather striking that the Church publically counselled members to be charitable toward internal dissenters, which is a rhetorical shift. Ordinarily the hierarchy’s response to internal dissenters is to “leave them severly alone” to use Brigham Young’s phrase.
As for RAF and the authoritarian nature of the church and then tension that creates in a liberal democracy, I don’t think that I am niave about this. I’m the guy who wrote the long academic articles about authority and Mormonism after all.
FWIW, I would like a Mormonism that is someplace between indifference that most American Catholics show towards their Magisterium and that now dominant strand of Mormonism that sees any questioning of the hierarchy as a hairs breadth away from joining the apostate mobbers bent on burning down the temples, although even my ideal Mormon culture would tilt authoritarian in Russell’s terms.
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Laura: Apologies, btw, for the extent to which my comments have veered away from your original topic to internal Mormon stuff that is probably of less interest.
I’ll return to my cave and get back to editing my 13th amendment article now.
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I shouldn’t have used the word “naive,” Nate. I just meant to say that there was a lot going on that didn’t make it into your original comment, which I suppose is probably obvious.
[E]ven my ideal Mormon culture would tilt authoritarian in Russell’s terms.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with authoritarianism–I’m a big booster of community and borders, after all. But the risks of authoritarianism shouldn’t be elided, and especially, those who accept authority shouldn’t be suprised at the vehemence they encounter when they run up against an ideology of “rights” above all.
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Don’t apologize, Nate. Great discussion. Thanks for giving us your two cents.
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RAF,
I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of all the Canadian human rights/free speech cases, but my impression is that the small fry suffered first and worst. I believe the big fish (Steyn, Levant, etc) have been able to muster the cash and publicity to fight off the HRC, but Levant and Kathy Shaidle are still fighting off various lawsuits. It’s a horribly expensive business. $50,000 in legal fees may not sound like much at a time when we are dumping at least $700 billion into saving the banks, but for most of us, $50,000 in unexpected expenses would be ruinous.
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The unfortunate HRC cases in Canada have very everything to do with the fact that they have a very different approach to freedom of speech than we in the US do. If there’s some reason to believe SSM would singlehandedly change the longstanding approach to 1st Amendment speech rights, Amy, by all means let us in on the details.
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djw,
I gave a list of post-election bad behavior from Prop. 8 opponents upthread. I would also point out that American free speech rights aren’t as robust as we would like to think–there’s McCain-Feingold cutting down on political speech, plus the government can compel speech (for instance from cigarette manufacturers). There are definitely fissures in the First Amendment.
Speaking of rights, I also think that the government has no business compelling any two people to do business with each other. I think a business has the right to turn away anybody they please for whatever reason. If you don’t feel that you are being served, start your own bank or restaurant, or whatever. (If that sounds pie in the sky, consider that Bank of America was started in the US in the very beginning of the 20th century as “Bank of Italy” to serve working class customers, particularly Italian-Americans.)
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So Amy, you’d be fine with, say, United Airlines refusing to fly black passengers?
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Doug,
Yes. It’s their funeral–they’re the ones turning away business, both from black passengers and people offended by their policy.
By the way, Eharmony has just been sued into having to accept same-sex personals ads. So much for freedom.
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It really amazes me when people like Amy have so much faith in the market as the arbiter of, well, anything, when it has exploded so spectacularly right in front of their faces.
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Same views on hiring people? What if, to continue the example, United Airlines said starting tomorrow we’re not hiring any black people? Should that be within the company’s management’s rights?
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Wendy,
The market is like gravity. Like it or not, it’s there, and it cannot be ignored. We can’t defeat it, any more than we can make water run uphill indefinitely without providing constant inputs of energy to keep it going. Trying to fix the market (for instance with subsidies) leads to messes like ethanol and our venerable US custom of sending not-farming checks to non-farmers.
Doug,
Sure. But you don’t have to fly United, do you?
If a business owner wants to hire only relatives, Wiccans, jazz lovers, Jews, Goths, ABDs, Latin Americans, women, body-builders, or free-will Baptists, why not? Why should we stand in their way? If their choice is really so stupid from a business point of view, they will pay for it.
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I’m guessing the same logic applies to banks not making mortgage loans to black people?
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“It really amazes me when people like Amy have so much faith in the market as the arbiter of, well, anything, when it has exploded so spectacularly right in front of their faces.”
Why did it blow up? There are half a dozen plausible theories. One of the more likely that I’ve heard points to the fact that as the Clinton-era tech-bubble was bursting, the Bush administration fought off the looming recession by making borrowing money very, very cheap in order to encourage consumer spending. If we accept the theory that that intervention caused the debt bomb, then the ongoing economic collapse has government fingerprints all over it. There’s also the issue of the government’s making large mortgages appealing via mortgage interest deductions, as well as a fairly recent change in the tax code that made it possible to pocket something like $500,000 in appreciation on a personal residence tax-free after two years of living there. I’m not totally sure about the details on that last thing, but the housing bubble guys say that that tax advantage over other forms of business income is part of what made flipping a national sport in recent years.
On the other hand, I have no idea what caused the late 90s tech-bubble. Maybe that one was the free market run amuck.
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Doug,
Do you have to ask?
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It’s the customary way of getting an answer… I could assume, but we both know what that does.
The next one was probably going to be my last, though: restrictive covenants on sales/rentals of real estate. Allowable, in your view, as part of a contract that both parties are free not to enter into, or not allowable, as an unwarranted restriction on a purchaser’s subsequent rights?
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Lucky, aren’t we (and me especially), that Amy, and her belief that the free market can correct rampant discrimination (or, alternatively, that if it doesn’t, that’s just something for minorities like black folks to deal with) doesn’t control our world.
‘Cause, Amy, you’re taking the easy way out here, of not actually supporting discrimination, by arguing that the “market” will correct it because irrational discrimination is economically irrational. But, we know that the market did not correct discrimination. When there were no laws preventing it, black people had to ride at the back of the bus, ride in separate train cars, attend segregated schools, go to segregated hospitals, and sit in segregated waiting rooms. This segregation also meant they had uniformly poorer services. That’s the world without civil rights laws.
I’m looking forward to seeing how eHarmony’s application of research based couples-matching works for same sex couples. I’m also not at all horrified if the law requires airlines to serve homosexuals as well as blacks.
If you believe discrimination by private individuals is legal, I presume that you also believe that if the outcome is a segregated society in which minorities have poor access to vital services, that’s OK?
(And, it would be interesting to hear your analysis of restrictive covenants; the legal rational for invalidating them was that courts refused to enforce them. Should courts be required to enforce restrictive covenants?)
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“I’ve heard points to the fact that as the Clinton-era tech-bubble was bursting, the Bush administration fought off the looming recession by making borrowing money very, very cheap in order to encourage consumer spending. If we accept the theory that that intervention caused the debt bomb, then the ongoing economic collapse has government fingerprints all over it.”
I think you have a strange way of defining “government intervention.” The intervention was to *decrease* the previous interventions by the government, i.e., deregulation of previously regulated transactions.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Greed is good. And now deregulation is intervention.
Love. It.
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Wendy,
Greenspan’s forcing down the interest rate (to a level not seen previously in my lifetime) in order to stimulate consumer spending is a government intervention. There’s nothing at all Orwellian about pointing that out. On the other hand, while I do not dispute that deregulation may have contributed to bad lending, I have yet to see the smoking gun. People treat “deregulation” as some sort of bogey-man, without explaining exactly which regulations were involved, and what was the fatal sequence of events. That story has yet to be told in much detail (although certain hints have emerged with regard to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Barney Frank, et al). It is certainly the case that lending standards were much stricter in the 80s. (I remember my dad saying at the time that to get a loan, you had to prove you didn’t need the money.)
bj,
You’re forgetting Jim Crow. It wasn’t just racist private parties being evil–there was a lot of state machinery involved. In the US case, a benevolent federal government intervened, but there is no law of nature that says that the US government is always going to be on the side of the angels in these situations. It might equally be the case that the federal government is swooping down to extrajudicially imprison and expropriate a couple hundred thousand Japanese-American men, women, and children for several years. We have to go with legality and individual rights, even if it doesn’t take us directly where we want to go as fast as we want to go.
“(And, it would be interesting to hear your analysis of restrictive covenants; the legal rational for invalidating them was that courts refused to enforce them. Should courts be required to enforce restrictive covenants?)”
Should courts uphold scholarships or internships directed exclusively at Swedish-Americans, Boy Scouts, Native Americans, or girls?
With a restrictive covenant, the home seller is tied down and disadvantaged–if an African American doctor outbids a white homebuyer by $40,000, the homeseller has to take the low bid. This is not a very attractive position to be in.
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