Culture Wars… now and forever!
Okay, let’s concede a point to Planet Janet, Bolta and the rest of the defeated culture warriors - we still need your voices in our national conversation! John Quiggin suggests:
With no share of political power anywhere in the country, the culture warriors can’t do any actual harm, except to the conservative side of politics. So, there’s an argument that they should be encouraged, rather than persuaded to give up the struggle.
In a long post about the culture warriors, Quiggin correctly argues that there’s no constituency for most of the moralising mendacity of the punditariat:
As regards the policies themselves, the idea that Australians are brimming with conservative fervour, or any kind of fervour, on these topics is silly in most cases. Most people are vaguely in favour of a republic, but aren’t in any hurry. As regards legal recognition of gay relationships, only a handful of people are aware of the fine distinctions between civil unions and registered relationships, and even fewer care.
Precisely. Which is why, aside from the comedy value, I’d be quite happy for Christopher Pearson and his ilk to go on with their “battlers hate teh gay!” denialism about the fact that the fast eroding economic credentials of the Coalition and WorkChoices were the key factors in swinging the “Howard battlers” away from the Dear Leader. If they’d prefer to believe that sanctimonious posturing about family values is going to be the bbq stopper that reinvigorates the Libs and hurtles them towards electability, so be it. And if the Libs buy it, we’ll be laughing all the way to the next election, fellas…
Ps: Of course, the culture warriors claim they’re vital because they vigorously fight the battle of ideas. Taking the civil unions will be an electoral liability for Labor ”argument” as a case study, the problem with that thesis (as enunciated by John Heard) is, that as Andrew Norton demonstrates, their arguments aren’t arguments and don’t make any sense.
Hi Kim.
Just quickly, I wrote:
“Rather than a referendum on John Howard’s leadership and a chance to register anger at the ill-conceived Work Choices legislation, it’s now [wrongly, as it happens] claimed the voters had some other more pressing gripe.”
and then I went on to attack the very ‘denialism’ you accuse me of:
“Indeed, if Howard had listened to social conservatives in his own party room, including the sometimes helpless gaffes of Tony Abbott, he might have come to some reckoning of how far Work Choices had stretched his government’s credibility with the very people who formerly supplied its electoral dominance.”
We actually agree on some of the reasons (the main ones) for Howard’s defeat.
Whose arguments aren’t arguments, therefore, and don’t make any sense mate?
- JH
Comment by DREADNOUGHT — December 18, 2007 @ 12:06 am
Oops, my bad, John, I was too quick to rope you in with Christopher Pearson. Sorry about that! So I’ve amended the post accordingly. Your version of the argument, though, completely fails to demonstrate that having deserted the Coalition on economic issues, any putative outrage about civil unions would send the battlers running away from Rudd, if we make the assumption that he will look after the economy to their satisfaction. So I still think Andrew Norton’s points hold.
Comment by kimberella — December 18, 2007 @ 1:10 am
Thanks Kim.
My original title was ‘It’s the Family, Stupid’.
I guess we’ll see about outrage and elections, etc. but the PM’s ‘re-commitment to Christian voters’ was up before I was this morning.
Someone found the general arguments credible.
- JH
Comment by DREADNOUGHT — December 18, 2007 @ 1:25 am
The shifting sands. Walk, don’t run to Mungo MacCallum on Perspective on the wireless today:
“John Winston Howard was Australia’s second longest-serving Prime Minister, presiding almost unchallenged over the political landscape for well over a decade. His time in government can not be dismissed lightly. However it can be dismissed heavily, so here goes….”
Comment by anthony — December 18, 2007 @ 1:54 am
Orrrr, WHAT “intellectuals”!?
A bunch of conceited pathologues whose major intellectual acheivement is to remember to say it’s a “socialist plot” and muddy the waters in the interests of who or what they know not, regardless of what has actually happened. How intelletual is it to wilfully blind yourself to the actual condition of the world, as they did with ecology, science and climate change, when any who raised doubts about the mode of production was automatically slandered as a greenie leftist anarchist.
As for their “family values” tripe; what’s that all about?
The meaningless life of the Man in the Grey Flannel suit? Sex through gritted teeth on Saturday night in a spirit of enobling self-sacrifice for wifey?
The organic society, as in “vegetable”, where true to teh “Republic”, every one knows their place, which is all they need to or should know apart from their jobs, while the status quo for wealth and power remains unyeilding to even serious changes in the condition of a real world such a starched, unyeilding social order is embedded within.
Comment by paul walter — December 18, 2007 @ 3:55 am
Claiming there’s no constituency is retarded. The libs got close to half of the vote in the last election and a great deal of people who voted Labor did so because it was “time for a change”. Howard had been in power too long already.
Acting like the left somehow won the war of ideas is a little presumptuous.
Comment by Sam Ward — December 18, 2007 @ 8:18 am
JH wrote:
Funniest thing I’ve read this month.
John Heard, for some bizarre reason, thinks that Kevin07’s christian values will be exactly the same as his own (i.e. ghey is bad, ghey marriage leads to inevitable breakdown of hetero marriage, you can catch teh ghey from touching a toilet seat sat on by a ghey etc.)
Obviously irrelevance isn’t a comfortable place for these people.
Comment by David Rubie — December 18, 2007 @ 9:51 am
I can’t see the problem for Labor. The register for same gender unions has been introduced by Bracks in Victoria and there hasn’t been a ‘battler revolt’.
And isn’t this a state right issue anyway? I know that the ACT comes under the Territories responsiblities of the Federal Government, but if the citizens of the Capital aren’t happy with this legislation they will vote the ACT government at the next election.
Comment by Guido — December 18, 2007 @ 10:27 am
John Heard’s continued hankering for fighting the Culture Wars and the standard that he wishes conservatives to rally around are embedded in his language:
1. “Mainstream” is often conflated by the right wing culture warrior with “traditional”. In fact, all of the polling I’ve seen on the issue of gay unions is that the respondants are overwhelming (approx 70/30) in favour of it. “Mainstream” is itself a Howardesque neologism of 1996 vintage. It described a temporary emotion of contempt for Paul Keating rather than a long-term return to “traditional values”. Like in a powerful river, the mainstream is a fast-moving, dynamic thing. It is not a stagnant pond of dead tradition.
2. “Families” don’t vote. Individuals over the age of 18 vote. Very often, individual members of the same household vote in different ways. The “family” vote is uncountable because it does not exist.
3. The spurious implication that to recognise gay civil unions is to withdraw recognition from heterosexual marriage. This is nonsense. Just because we recognise France doesn’t mean that we don’t recognise Germany. The only case I know of this kind of argument is by Communist China. The Chinese government forbids the world from recognising Taiwan. On the issue of gay unions social conservatives are behaving like Chinese Communists.
Once Heard’s dogwhistles are (well) heard, their logical content evaporates.
Comment by Katz — December 18, 2007 @ 10:45 am
The culture wars will be with us always, as they have been, well before Bush/Howard. Reading the opposite side’s diatribes and snark are important, so those more open to change can always know what we’re up against.
Comment by Greg — December 18, 2007 @ 12:09 pm
Indeed, Katz. I suggest Mr Heard go back and read what Rudd had to say about Christian values in The Monthly.
That’s odd, Sam, because whenever I used to point out pre-election that Labor got 47% of the vote, I was told that this was irrelevant, the voice of the people had spoken in their endorsement of the Dear Leader, people like me were inner city elites, etc.
The truth is, as Katz points out, that all the evidence is that Australians overwhelmingly couldn’t give a toss if people choose to couple off with others of the same sex. There may be a tiny constituency of religious zealots who’ll change their vote on these sorts of issues, but I’d suggest Messrs Pearson, Heard, Ward, etc. compare the census figures for Buddhist and Pentecostal affiliation (hint - it’s the first that’s bigger). Even then, there’s no particular evidence that the manly Brigadier is capable of swinging any votes.
It’s difficult to say whether the “culture wars” have been won because the notion is so incoherent - as Quiggin points out with admirable clarity in the post which is linked from this one.
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 12:09 pm
Sam, do you really think the 47 per cent who supported Howard are all authoritarians like yourself? Howard’s support rested much more on his claims to superior economic management than on his opposition to gay marriage. As Katz notes, there’s ample evidence, beyond election results in every Australian jurisdiction, that you’re on the losing side here. PDF link.
Comment by John Quiggin — December 18, 2007 @ 12:36 pm
The Family First vote is a good indicator of how electorally salient issues like civil unions really are. They barely topped 2% in their best states and fell below 1% in some. They’re just very noisy.
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 12:45 pm
Mark, when you’re assessing the Christian Right parties across the country, you’ve got to account for the CDP/Fred Nile Group in New South Wales, which soaks up a lot of votes that would otherwise go to FF. They’re not identical, but they appeal to an equivalent constituency.
It is indeed a shrinking one, as one of their State MLCs acknowledges.
Comment by Liam Hogan — December 18, 2007 @ 12:57 pm
This is the first time that Yobbo has been called an ‘authoritarian’, surely. And for getting the Libs’ constituency a little wrong!
BBB
Comment by Bingo Bango Boingo — December 18, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
Kimberella says to Janet A and Andrew B, “we still need your voices…”
What a magnificent concession to the values of free speech. Sir Henry may well approve.
Would that such tolerance be extended to those who blog hereabouts, rather than labelling someone a ‘misogynist’ on scanty evidence and saying he might get turfed out. (It was not me.) That heated exchange I found perplexing.
cheerio
Comment by Ambigulous — December 18, 2007 @ 1:46 pm
labor 83-96 led the charge to decriminalise homosexuality at federal and state level, tackled AIDS as successfully as any country in the world, let gay servicemen and women serve their country honestly with no ill effects, introduced a raft of antidiscrimination measures
none of these things hurt labor electorally and they did not lose in 96 because of ‘teh gay’
and there was no mass rush by the general population to take up homosexuality, the sky didn’t fall in, god didn’t strike gays or labor dead, in fact if anything the deity - assuming it exists, and is an interventionist deity - ended the drought in ‘83 and looks like doing so again.
john heard, and all the others, are just trying to amplify the fading echoes of the howard era.
Comment by Rogs — December 18, 2007 @ 1:48 pm
Liam, yep the CDP compete for the tiny vote of the same constituency. Hence in NSW, the CDP got 1.97% of the Senate vote while FF got 0.60%.
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/results/senate/nsw.htm
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 1:53 pm
The culture wars will be with us always, as they have been, well before Bush/Howard. Reading the opposite side’s diatribes and snark are important, so those more open to change can always know what we’re up against.
Nope. I don’t agree with you. If the opposite side’s diatribes are either repetitious or wrong (or more or more often both), then it is a waste of time to read in full detail what they have to say. Take an cherrypicked example from the United States, where the Culture Wars are still raging: Liberal Fascism. (”Liberal” as in centre-left, not as in Menzies.) If that is the best Culture Warriors come up with, it’s better to ignore them.
Comment by Down and Out of Sài Gòn — December 18, 2007 @ 1:54 pm
Yobbo was over at my site defending refugee detention camps not long ago, then trying to weasel out of it with a non-denial denial. And as part of the 47 per cent 2PP support for Howard, if he was on the other side in the culture wars, he’s contradicting himself in his own comment.
Comment by John Quiggin — December 18, 2007 @ 1:55 pm
Paul Walter
Man in the Grey Flannel Suit? That’s not a culture war! How petit bourgeois! Let’s have a REAL culture war. I’ll see your flannel are raise a Man in a POLYSTER suit anyday!
http://www.artphotogallery.org/02/artphotogallery/database/mapplethorpe08.jpg
Comment by John Greenfield — December 18, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
We see you’re not for turning.
2. “Families” don’t vote. Individuals over the age of 18 vote. Very often, individual members of the same household vote in different ways. The “family” vote is uncountable because it does not exist.
No such thing as families now? Jesus, we lost “society” with The Lady, now you’ve vapourised families, leaving us with “individuals.”
Who surely ARE all Thatcherites now.
Comment by John Greenfield — December 18, 2007 @ 2:02 pm
I remember watching an election debate in New Zealand for the last election, it included Helen Clark, the Nationals, NZ First, ACT, whatever the Christian party is called over there, and the Progressive party.
Winston Peter’s made a big speech about social engineering and gay marriage and the worm plummeted right to the bottom, which I think reflected how little protest there was in the air following Labor introducing civil unions in NZL. What I got from this was that the TV viewers couldn’t give two hoots about the legislation and wanted Peters to talk about something more pressing. And I remembering seeing on the news the volumist protests from the church groups the days after the legislation was enacted, but which after all the bluster fell into a whimper once the election was called. It’s just not a hot-button issue, it basically affects a couple of percent of gay people, and it annoys a couple of percent of the population who are not particularly tolerant of gay people.
Comment by Stephen Hill — December 18, 2007 @ 2:04 pm
Way to over-interpret, dude. Katz is making a statement of fact. It’s also not uncommon for members of the same family to vote differently…
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 2:13 pm
Do they hang out with those feminists in “Presybterian boilersuits” you’re always telling us about?
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 2:14 pm
Only if they are Patti Smith.
Comment by John Greenfield — December 18, 2007 @ 2:16 pm
Rogs @ 17,
I’ve been telling people for years that the drought was a sign that Howard had lost the Mandate of Heaven. Didn’t realise that about the drought breakingin 83. Interesting.
Comment by Paul Burns — December 18, 2007 @ 2:19 pm
The weather is always better under Labor governments, Paul!
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
“The weather is always better under Labor governments”
John Howard in a speech during the election claimed divorces would be higher under a Labor government, it might be something in the rain to quote those errant philosophers Milli Vanilli
Comment by Stephen Hill — December 18, 2007 @ 2:25 pm
Stephen Hill,
Its all those Liberal voters getting divorced because they can’t cope with Labor’s generosity of spirit.
More seriously, how disgusting of Howard, wishing more divorces on marriages just so he could win.
Comment by Paul Burns — December 18, 2007 @ 2:32 pm
Oh Greensleeves.
You are a silly sausage!
Comment by Katz — December 18, 2007 @ 2:36 pm
I’m still amazed that anyone gives a toss about who marries who, although I’d probably draw the line at inter-species-anyone who wants to marry a sheep is seriously disturbed, although I guess when you tired of the spouse you could always eat it. Hmmm. And allowing gay marriage or civil union has had absolutely no effect on my marriage, or anyone else I know and likely quite a lot of people I don’t know. Is there anything in the bible that prohibits same-sex marriage, I wonder?
Comment by Jane — December 18, 2007 @ 3:38 pm
No, but there are rules against eating sheep, unless they are killed in the right way.
So, it appears that it is easier to marry an ovine bedmate than to terminate gastronomically the relationship.
Comment by Katz — December 18, 2007 @ 3:42 pm
Thought there was something in the Bible about burning gays alive? And that JC was pretty heavy about it too? But plesase,LP-ers, don’t go quoting Bible verses to prove I’m right, or wrong.
As I commented on another post on cultural warriors, we are too secularised a society for this even to begi8n becoming a political issue.The mad right are simply living out their hellfire fantasies.
Comment by Paul Burns — December 18, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
Jane wrote:
There’s a few ambiguous passages about not lying with a man as with a woman, Leviticus is reasonably definitive (”it is disgusting” in some versions of the bible, up there with rooting your sister) but who knows how to interpret the new covenenant in that context.
Adultery is right out (although using prostitutes inside marriage is apparently OK according to Proverbs). However, Jesus modified it a bit and suggests you pull out your eye if you look lustfully at a woman who isn’t your wife (although, again, didn’t mention whether that just applied to married men). Not sure what women who look lustfully at men should do, or men who look lustfully at men.
It seems reasonable that the biggest no-no is adultery (albeit usually defined as having sex with another mans wife). Given that, you’d think the nutball anti-gay-marriage christians would be jumping all over themselves to allow gay marriage, since it removes a metric butt-load of adultery from the relationship. Then again, interpreting the bible is something only the brave or foolish do with any certainty.
Comment by David Rubie — December 18, 2007 @ 4:03 pm
Civil unions with attendant equalisation of financial rights and responsibilities for gays is a must. Marriage is nonsense as are rights to adopt non-biologically-related children, and all the rest of the Breeder-copying crap some of them go on with.
Comment by John Greenfield — December 18, 2007 @ 4:04 pm
Who gives a tinker’s cuss about fricking Leviticus? I’ll see your Old Testament and raise you a St. Augustine.
Comment by John Greenfield — December 18, 2007 @ 4:11 pm
DOSG @ 19, while I find the op-ed musings of Piers et al. to be poorly reasoned and badly written (which isn’t to say I’m not finding similar problems on the other side of the editorial divide), they represent the mind-set of a substantial portion of the electorate and wield some measure of influence. It may give me a stroke someday, but I’ll continue to read even the Terrorgraph with substantial frequency.
Comment by Greg — December 18, 2007 @ 4:15 pm
Greg
I am no fan of Hackerman, but Andrew Bolt is clearly the best columnist in Australia.
Comment by John Greenfield — December 18, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
Well done Jane, for rescuing the thread. A bit of common sense and encourages a flow of sensible comments in its wake.
Gay, bestiality and ( much )incest simply doesn’t appeal and never will for most folk- sound biological and cultural reasons for it. Pheremones play a part and are an evolutionary factor that has alowed the species to survive. Gays apparently fit into the evolutionary model, as to social cohesion ( otherwise we wouldn’t be here now ).
Adultery, both heterosexual or gay, is self-explanatory as to breach of trust, although probably often inevitable given the failure of partners as to fulfillment in other aspects of the contract, such as love and unselfishness.
Overall, am reminded of an old desert proverb once told me:
” For children, a woman,
for pleasure, a lad”
For paradise, a goat! “.
Now watch the posts start rolling in.
( no, am one of these odd people who doesn’t prefer livestock or lads; but perfumed sanctuary locked within the arms of the “better half” ).
Comment by paul walter — December 18, 2007 @ 4:59 pm
What none of you LP exiles seems to have noted is that Rudd doesn’t underestimate Jim Wallace’s Battalions (as Stalin foolishly did the Pope’s). On Sunday Rudd told a Brisbane press conference that Fed Labor had no plans to recognise gay unions. He clearly resiled from his previous non-intervention stance on Stanhope’s Bill and was congratulated by a Christian Lobby spokesman on Monday (Aust p.6). None of you seems to think doing otherwise would have had significant electoral consequences in newly marginal seats where there’s an unusually high Christian vote : Bass, Braddon etc.Call me a battle-hardened old culture warrior,if you like, but it seems plain to me that Rudd’s electoral arithmetic is more accurate than yours.
Comment by Christopher Pearson — December 18, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
Christopher Pearson wrote:
So what? Rudd also said (december 6th):
i.e. he won’t be intervening like the ex-Rodent did.
It’s over Christopher. You can quit hiding in the jungle and come out now, hand in your rifle and go home.
Comment by David Rubie — December 18, 2007 @ 5:35 pm
“Call me a battle-hardened old culture warrior,if you like, but it seems plain to me that Rudd’s electoral arithmetic is more accurate than yours.”
Amen to that! The comments here like the comments ref Aurukun,should leave no one in any doubt that the left is lost on matters of the “cultural warrior”.
All those boring middle class farts out in the burbs don’t give a flying fuck about rape,pillage,plunder, and gays getting wed.Yea like fuck they don’t.
And Rudd knows it.He is well aware the thought processes of the politically correct left, which = political defeat.
Comment by Gaz — December 18, 2007 @ 5:42 pm
David, a quick one: what about recognising gay unions for the purposes of Commonwealth law? That’s a serious question; I haven’t been following this debate, but surely the same issues arise in relation to Commonwealth policy? What does Rudd propose there, if anything? I mean, heralding the fact that an apparently (to some) left PM won’t seek to prevent State governments from continuing to discriminate against homosexual couples is setting the bar a little low, isn’t it?
BBB
Comment by Bingo Bango Boingo — December 18, 2007 @ 6:05 pm
One would underestimate any reactionary at one’s peril. With nothing to offer more themselves, their last ploy would inevitably a anxious attempt to drag down the culture wars voices of reason with themselves. Quite right,Christopher. Rudd should Wallace, as one watches an adder.
Comment by paul walter — December 18, 2007 @ 6:16 pm
“Bargaining with Stanhope - a stubborn, vain and ideologically driven man who wants to make history - may not work, no matter how large the inducements on offer.”
Christopher Pearson as a giant in the judgement stakes, that one part of your namesake, always seemed to condemn, consider this. In between your hyphens, there is a chance for introspection, because people always just talk about themselves.
Comment by joe2 — December 18, 2007 @ 6:38 pm
Aw, damn, Katz, did you go and get y’self a gravatar? I thought you’d still be one of the kool old-timey hold-outs. Now who will I sneak cigarettes with around the corner by the pizzeria, when I cut class? “Oh! Un rhinoceros!”
“The “family” vote is uncountable because it does not exist.”
This is merely playing with language; you must know perfectly well that that is not what the “family” vote means (unless there’s something I’ve massively misread in Australian political kultcha, which can always be the case), whether you agree with the notion or not. If you must play games like this, well why do it out on the street? Here, I’ve got a perfectly good wide-screen hi-def surround-sound system hooked up in me living room. Come on over, and have a drink and the waste of an hour or four.
“The spurious implication that to recognise gay civil unions is to withdraw recognition from heterosexual marriage. This is nonsense. Just because we recognise France doesn’t mean that we don’t recognise Germany.”
Och. Whatever else one might think about gay civil unions (and I confess to not having given it much thought, or much care), this is, intellectually speaking, nonsense of the ripest kind. It doesn’t follow that an anti-gay-marriage conclusion must be reached, merely that this is a childish line of thought. I leave it to you to figure out why; if you can’t, I’ll explain it over cocktails when you come to my place to play “DestruKKKtion!!! 5″ on tha krazy plasma video thingy in the front room, that I can barely understand. Speaking of which, has anybody else seen the trailer for “Cloverfied” on YouTube?
Comment by j_p_z — December 18, 2007 @ 6:51 pm
The analogy might be tongue in cheek but there is simply no intellectually respectable argument to oppose gay civil unions (or marriages for that matter - except the intellectually respectable argument that the state should get out of relationships altogether - het or homo). So as Andrew Norton demonstrates, and numerous commenters on this thread elaborate, all we get is emotive blather, or as in the new Pearson/Heard line, dire warnings of electoral retribution.
Though how CP squares his comment here with his column I have no idea.
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 6:56 pm
Mark: “but there is simply no intellectually respectable argument to oppose gay civil unions…”
Dunno bout that. I think there are plenty such arguments that are, as it were, intellectually “respectable.” I don’t mean to say that it follows that these arguments should be confirmed, merely that they can be entertained with a straight face. (I have no firm opinion on the issue, as I can see persuasive arguments on all sides, but I do lean a little towards making a distinction between “civil union” and “marriage” which would encompass full gay participation from a legal point of view.) It’s an interesting question, intellectually speaking (and I really don’t mean to slight any gay persons for whom this is an important concrete issue).
But still, all the different sides of the issue do matter, so I don’t see why it can’t be at least discussed in earnest without dismissals of people’s sincerity.
Comment by j_p_z — December 18, 2007 @ 7:12 pm
I’m not dismissing people’s sincerity, I’m just suggesting that opposition to it is emotive rather than rational. There is no evidence that two people of the same sex getting married or united or whatever diminishes or otherwise impacts on the “institution of marriage” or leads to its “breakdown”. None. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 7:19 pm
I’d like to know in which alternative universe Stalin was imperiled by the Pope’s battalions because it sure wasn’t this one.
Comment by Zarquon — December 18, 2007 @ 7:20 pm
“…and I really don’t mean to slight any gay persons for whom this is an important concrete issue).”
jpz, the family vote expectation has been tried bigtime in OZ and has been proved a spectacular failure. This import has failed to capture the popular imagination unlike McDonalds.
Might I just mention that when people say things like “I am not racist, but”…the eyebrow tends to go up.
Comment by joe2 — December 18, 2007 @ 7:32 pm
David Rubie tells me that I can check in my rifle and prepare to be de-mobbed because the war is over.Not so fast. If he looks at Monday’s Australian, p.6, he’ll see that Rudd has in fact backed down… or at least that’s what he’s saying now and that’s what the Christian Lobby is congratulating him on. His previous commitment not to block Stanhope’s civil unions legislation is now inoperative, as they say.
LP readers would do well to try and understand the motivations of participants on the other side of the culture wars a bit better. For those of us opposed to gay marriage,for example, it’s not a proxy war about advancing the interests of the Coalition. It’s a concern that civil unions are a Mickey Mouse arrangement, terminable at no cost by either party by saying so in writing to the registrar general. As such, they debase the coinage of lifelong commitment and openness to having kids –along with the emotional freight of the distinctive symbols — which are part and parcel of marriage.Gene Robinson, the American Episcopalian bishop who divorced his wife and lives openly with a male patner epitomised the problem, the other day, talking about his forthcoming marriage, when he said “I’ve always wanted to be a June bride”. I’m no stranger to the attractions of a certain kind of camp wit (see Susan Sontag) but in this case my instincts are with the married people who find such remarks gut-churning and a profanation of things they hold sacred and for the sake of which they’ve often sacrificed a great deal.
Most of the culture warriors I known tend to the view that marriage is also a rather embattled institution and that, because it’s the best way known to socialise the young, it deserves institutional support by the enabling state rather than Stanhope-esque subversion.
Comment by Christopher Pearson — December 18, 2007 @ 7:35 pm
I’m not sure the example of Gene Robinson displays what you think it does, Christopher.
Is the institution of heterosexual marriage strengthened in any way by closetted gays and lesbians hiding behind it?
Comment by Liam Hogan — December 18, 2007 @ 7:41 pm
Mark: “There is no evidence that two people of the same sex getting married or united or whatever diminishes or otherwise impacts on the “institution of marriage” or leads to its “breakdown”. None. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.”
That’s a perfectly valid point of view; but one, I’d add, that springs from a distinctly social-scientific background (”there is no evidence…”). All well and good, except that in the Western democratic political tradition, people don’t tend to come to broad-reaching socio-political decisions based on the charts and graphs of social science, just as they also don’t reach these agreements based on the findings of dentistry, or falconry. Some other quality is important here, a sort of “well, when it really comes down to it, who the hell ARE we?” kind of quality, that is in play in these cases; just as in primitive times a war council might conceivably take a decision based on existential principles rather than strictly utilitarian ones. Those other qualities, if they can be shown to exist in the given instance, should be given full voice and opportunity to be fairly debated; otherwise the public’s ultimate decision will always be quietly derided in private, which leads to a general weakening of confidence in the public (wow, here’s an old-fashioned word for ya) weal.
There are very good civic arguments that support the idea of gay civil unions, just as there are good civic arguments contra; all I’m saying is that the question should ideally be heard and argued fully and fairly within the civil arena, so that when a final decision is rendered, everyone on all sides can acquiesce to it with a straight face.
Comment by j_p_z — December 18, 2007 @ 7:45 pm
Christopher Pearson,
You have an admirably economic way with the English language - so many fallacies and errors of argument packed into so few words. To do them all justice I’d have to write a comment almost as long as Kim’s post, if not longer.
The basis of your case seems to be that the ACL has a lot of members, who will prove to be as doughty as the Swiss Guard in defending - with the help of a volunteer militia largely drawn from the Curia - the Vatican against Stalin’s tanks and those katyusha thing in the much overlooked Vatican Siege of - when was it? Some time towards the end of the Second World War, obviously. And that these ACL members live in various key electorates the ALP needed to pick up to win the last election, that the ALP needs to keep them onside to win those electorates and that therefore the ALP better be jolly nice to these people if they want to win the next election.
Piffle. First fallacy - the assumption that because there are a lot of voters in Bass - or wherever - who oppose gay marriage it follows that any concessions to the gay community that look like gay marriage will outrage so many of them that en bloc they’ll switch their vote to Family First 1, Liberal Party 2. You can assume that Rudd’s winning margin in Bass was composed entirely, or mostly of ACL members if you wish, but it’s a demonstrably stupid assumption when you consider the total number of voters in any electorate, and all the possible permutations of which individual voters voted for whom.
Second fallacy - that this assumed situation will remain stable over the next three years. None of these ACL members will die, or move to other electorates, no new voters will come onto the rolls etc. None of these anti-gay marriage voters will have a change of mind, or heart between now and 2010 - they’re rusted on moral conservatives or something. There won’t be any other issues - economic or political - that might come along in the next three years to shift significant blocs of other voters towards the ALP.
Third fallacy - that because (you think) these people havbe significant electoral influence, and because you agree with their imputed view on gay marriage and gay civil unions as being “anti-family” you’re prepared to ignore that any concession to their views is merely pragmatic policies. You’ve gone in a neet circle round Hume’s is-ought fallacy - these people have the power now, so we’d better do what they think is right because it is right because that’s what they want. How cogent. But it’s goiung to leave you in an awkward position, when your fallacious assumptions crash. As they will.
(Damn, I really will have to work on developing a more persuasive, less antagonistic, style of argument).
Comment by Gummo Trotsky — December 18, 2007 @ 7:45 pm
Christopher Pearson
I find the whole notion of a self-described poof who doesn’t root because he reckons a bloke born to a sheilah who also didn’t root to be presumptuous, macabre, obscene, and just too ridiculous for words. You have absolutelty no credibility on issues of sex, sexuality, let alone marriage. In fact, you would do well to get a jolly good seeing to. How News Ltd. can waste space with such psycho garbage is beyond me.
Comment by John Greenfield — December 18, 2007 @ 7:50 pm
That previous comment from me was in reply to CP’s comment 41.
Don’t know if I can be bothered with the more recent one.
Comment by Gummo Trotsky — December 18, 2007 @ 7:52 pm
…
All class, Gummo.
Comment by Liam Hogan — December 18, 2007 @ 7:57 pm
Well said Gummo, dear chap. Anyone who feels their marriage threatened because a few pairs of gay boys want a piece of paper recognising their relationship clearly have, ahem, issues.
As does La Pearson. WTF does he know about heterosexual marriage? He doesn’t even like girls.
Comment by CK — December 18, 2007 @ 7:59 pm
Good Heavens! Look what the cat’s dragged in. Probably didn’t recognise him without the beard.
Comment by Enemy Combatant — December 18, 2007 @ 7:59 pm
Gummo Trotsky: “as doughty as the Swiss Guard in defending - with the help of a volunteer militia largely drawn from the Curia - the Vatican against Stalin’s tanks…”
The Swiss Guard and the Curia’s, um, militia(?!) ultimately proved unnecessary, as did NORAD’s arsenal*, for the defense of genuine Christian righteousness against Stalin’s godless tanks, as history has, um, shown. (Remember history? It’s a song about history. And the restaurant.) Maybe the Pope had better battalions than you counted on, but just not in the traditional style. Ah, that asymmetric warfare, so beloved of lefties, except of course when it’s waged against lefties…
* — not perhaps entirely needful long-term; but certainly making matters a whole lot easier in the short term.
Comment by j_p_z — December 18, 2007 @ 8:07 pm
Christopher , just get over it, the conjugals are not under threat to anyone who is not a complete bastard. Since, as yet, teh war on marriage, has not even been declared, officially.
Let gay marriage rip, in the spirit of competition, if you must.
We can show those buggers what “forever” means!
Comment by joe2 — December 18, 2007 @ 8:12 pm
bwa ha ha ha ha
You might want to look at who saved more Nazis, Stalin or the Pope
Comment by Zarquon — December 18, 2007 @ 8:18 pm
Hey Godwin’s Law! It really works.
Comment by Zarquon — December 18, 2007 @ 8:26 pm
Zarquon — well, OK. But this is from the gospel of our lord, though I can’t really remember the chapter and verse (I’m not that sort of a Christian)…
“A man had two sons. He said to them both, Go out today, and work in my vineyards. The first son angrily said, I will not!, but later he thought better of it, and so he went to work. The second son said, Yes father, I will do exactly as you ask!, but later on he became distracted and wandered away from the vineyards.
Now: which of the two sons did his father’s will?”
Comment by j_p_z — December 18, 2007 @ 8:36 pm
And this is relevant to what point? Did I miss something?
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 8:39 pm
Hmm, perhaps JG is seeking to disprove John Quiggin wrong and taking an unexpected tack in the culture wars at 57?
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2007/12/17/the-culture-war-time-to-mop-up/#comment-203251
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 8:41 pm
Christopher Pearson wrote:
Well, lets examine that one in the context of gay marriage:
How does gay marriage detract from the “embattled” state of het marriage? Are there a limited number of licenses or something? Does the availability of being gay and married make the het and married population smaller somehow? How many people leave het marriages to have a gay relationship vs. leave het marriages to have another hetero relationship? Are there people in society unaware of “gay” until somebody gets married, then suddenly leave their hetero partner? It’s codswallop.
The simple facts are these: those marriages that don’t end in divorce end in the death of one partner. It’s death you need to fight against Christopher. Take it up with whoever is responsible for death, he’s ending 100% of the marriages that don’t end in divorce, and that is an awful lot.
Comment by David Rubie — December 18, 2007 @ 9:03 pm
“The truth is, as Katz points out, that all the evidence is that Australians overwhelmingly couldn’t give a toss if people choose to couple off with others of the same sex.”
I think that this is true Mark. And I think it was true in the 1950s when, despite John Howard’s “white picket fence” view of history, Australians began to show a very decent and laid back view about their gay neighbours who were also often their family and their friends. They are a pretty decent people, though not without imperfections.
However they are very conservative. It wasn’t until in the nineteen-nineties that they were prepared to recognise equal economic rights (eg in property and superannuation) for gay people, often their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, when they came to realise, after the decriminalisation of homosexual sex, when gays could come out, that gays are their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters uncle and aunts and just people like them but, with a different orientation, a different set of life choices and with that a different life destiny.
I think however the concept of gay marriage may be a bridge too far at this time. But in ten years perhaps it will be entirely uncontroversial to them.
I could be wrong though.
Comment by GregM — December 18, 2007 @ 9:21 pm
The only comments I think really warrant a reply are Gummo Trotsky’s and j_p_z’s.
Gummo,I said on Saturday that there’d be a whole lot of other issues swaying electors in those marginal seats in the next three years, but that this one was totemic. Now whether you like it or not Rudd seems — by his actions in resiling from his previous position –to be subscribing to my analysis of the electoral realities. In fairness, there’s quite a high likelihood that he’s also cheerfully making concessions to a culturally conservative bunch of electors because he shares some, if not all, of their presuppositions.It’s also often forgotten how deeply Catholic in its culture the NSW Labor Right (his preferred faction, when all’s said and done) is. Not to mention how much more culturally conservative than LP exiles most of the denizens of the western suburbs of our major cities are.
j_p_z, it’s good to see that some of the people on this blog, unlike Zarquon, understand asymmetrical power. Catholic Poland responded to Pope JPII’s invitation to get behind Lech and get rid of Communism, which was the beginning of the end of the Eastern Bloc. General Jaruszelsky took the Pope’s legions very seriously indeed.
Comment by Christopher Pearson — December 18, 2007 @ 9:25 pm
Christopher Pearson wrote:
Yes, run away brave sir robin.
From your execrable article in the Australian:
It’s offensively stupid. Luckily, you offer a wonderful panacea just in case of accidental catching of gay: a cup of tea. I always wondered why I didn’t turn gay after listening to Alan Jones, it was the cup of tea afterwards that set me right. Better not have an Iced VoVo though, they are pink.
Count yourself amongst the damned Pearson: your own tiny closed mind is a prison, with no hope of a pair of shoelaces to bring sweet release. Rot in it.
Comment by David Rubie — December 18, 2007 @ 9:31 pm
Liam Hogan also asks the reasonable question, re Gene Robinson, of whether the fact of there being closet gays can really advance the cause of heterosexual marriage. My take on GR divorcing his wife and living openly with a man is that it was a betrayal of everything his oath as an Episcopalian priest and bishop committed him to uphold. Whether he was open then or now about his orientation is a secondary consideration, since his predisposition (as opposed to his acts)ought properly to be no-one else’s business and the question of orientation would never have arisen if he’d been a monastic or a celibate batchelor.
When I talk to married friends about the “June bride” joke, they say that he couldn’t even be bothered hiding his contempt — and weird envy — for values he’s supposed to have spent a lifetime passing on to his flock and instead is determined to mock and trivialize.
Comment by Christopher Pearson — December 18, 2007 @ 9:46 pm
Well at least we now know where those Catholic battalions who defeated Stalin were and when the defeat occurred - in Poland with the rise of Solidarity, long after Stalin was dead.
Still, I suppose it was fitting retribution for Stalin’s demolition of the church of St Sofia, to create Lubyanka Square. A fine ecumenical gesture from the Catholic Poles to the Russian Orthodox Church.
That is, I wrote a column advancing my views, Rudd took the sort of position I’d expect him to take if he agreed with my analysis - ergo Rudd agrees with my analysis. You really do have a talent for sloppy reasoning, old son.
Comment by gummotrotsky — December 18, 2007 @ 9:58 pm
Passions certainly run high on this blog. While I was posting, David Rubie worked himself into a lather about the mind-forged manacles of man and my supposedly damned state. But I guess most observant adults must have come across people in the gay metier who have pretty obviously been persuaded to make premature judgements about their nature and their needs — decisions they openly regret — and who would have been happier if they’d made different decisions. Why are their life choices sacrosanct and immune to critique? Should their suffering be discreetly veiled, for ideological reasons? Why should the lavender Mafia escape the blame for messing in self-interested or manipulative ways with people’s heads and their lives? Just wose interests does that serve?
Comment by Christopher Pearson — December 18, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
Cheers for the response Christopher.
That doesn’t really address the question I was trying to raise: that if monogamous marriage is such an important institution, why is it being kept from people who are serious about it—gay and lesbian long-term couples—and preserved as some kind of institution for people like Robinson, who, as you say, can’t have been very serious about it?
Like you, I think sexuality ought to be entirely a secondary consideration in marriage, and nobody’s business but the couple’s.
Also, re: your comment #71, I work with and know the NSW Labor Right fairly well. They’re a lot less capital C and far more small c Catholic than they used to be even ten years ago, and it’s only a smallish minority who take any notice of Rome, the Bible, or any other set text. When the PM’s office eventually come out [ahem] in favour of civil unions, they’ll jump on the issue as if they’d never opposed them.
Comment by Liam Hogan — December 18, 2007 @ 10:04 pm
I’m still waiting for someone to explain why electors who voted for a national policy of registered relationships are going to switch if a territory where they don’t even live (obviously Labor isn’t going to lose the ACT seats) allows civil unions instead.
Comment by John Quiggin — December 18, 2007 @ 10:08 pm
GregM, you may be right - but then, no one is advocating same sex marriage, as far as I’m aware. I think Stephen Hill’s point about the phlegmatic response of New Zealanders to civil unions is probably right, and I also haven’t noticed much carrying on in the UK or Canada, if we’re to confine ourselves mainly to English speaking countries for comparison.
I’ve reread CP’s column and I note that the objections to ceremonies and celebrants are ascribed not to him but to “conservative-minded Christians”. Although it then seems to slip into his own opinions (I’m not sure that “conservative-minded Christians” spend all their time decrying “the latte Left” or “the lavender Mafia”). But Andrew Norton is still right. There are no serious objections which would support any argument that civil unions would somehow damage matrimony. The bizarre argument that young people whose sexuality is “fluid” would decide that “their lifestyle is officially recognised as being as normal as any other” is just that.
So if the only objection is that a tiny minority of Christians would be offended, I can’t see any just reason why a liberal state should take that into account.
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 10:17 pm
I’m glad Pearson took my advice and started wallowing in his own intellectual bog of imagined conspiracies. The Lavender Mafia, no less. Just because I feel sorry for him, I will fix his ridiculous paragraph:
Free Alex Hawke! Can we get a t-shirt campaign going? Surely under that subverted, nasty exterior there is a sensitive young man who needs re-awakening?
Comment by David Rubie — December 18, 2007 @ 10:19 pm
There’s a serious flaw in this claim.
It seems to assume that the normative force that heterosexual marriage has would be paralleled by a similar normative force if civil unions were to be approved. That’s most unlikely. Heterosexual marriage hardly needs any encouragement - it’s still held up culturally and socially as the summit of everyone’s aspirations - particularly those of girls, with all the “princess” imagery of the bridal industry mafia whose existence is far better documented than that of the alleged lavender mafia! In fact, it’s not something that’s proposed to young people as a norm, it just is a norm, and it’s those with “fluid sexuality” who are often trying to escape its clutches. Unless, as Liam says, they should make loveless and hypocritical marriages of convenience or just go hide in a closet somewhere lest some lavender waft their way from Oxford Street (which was looking very whitebread last time I went for a stroll there, but then I wasn’t born when apparently the Sopranos of the Swinging Sixties colonised it…).
The spectre of young people with “fluid sexuality” suddenly deciding to enter into civil unions at say age 19 or whatever is risible. It’s likely to be a long time coming, as contra CP, it takes a lot of courage and work on the self to adopt a non mainstream sexual identity. It’s far more likely that straight folk who marry at an age when their characters aren’t fully formed are likely to make a mistake in doing so.
Nor, I’d suggest, is there any compulsory “one-size-fits-all, ready-made gay identity” around these days, if I’m correct in my observations. CP should get out more.
Comment by kimberella — December 18, 2007 @ 10:26 pm
“But I guess most observant adults must have come across people in the gay metier who have pretty obviously been persuaded to make premature judgments about their nature and their needs — decisions they openly regret — and who would have been happier if they’d made different decisions.”
Yes I have, and the persuaders were overwhelmingly conservative straights urging if not threatening people in the gay metier to deny or hide their sexuality.
“Why are their life choices sacrosanct and immune to critique? Should their suffering be discreetly veiled, for ideological reasons? Why should the lavender Mafia escape the blame for messing in self-interested or manipulative ways with people’s heads and their lives? Just wose interests does that serve?”
Yes indeed, why? But what has that go to do with making available the option of state recognition for same sex unions?
Frankly Chris, it sounds like you’re more interested in working out a few personal issues with this “lavender mafia” than you are in mounting an ideologically and logically coherent argument against formally recognising sex same unions.
Also if marriage as we know it now is so threatened now by the possibility that less than 0.1 of population might get a Government certificate for shacking up in one of the many ways not approved by the Bible, then it must be a pretty feeble institution. In fact it, and the classic nuclear family it’s supposed to nurture, seems far more under threat for economic reasons in a climate now where being middle class takes two incomes and massive bites out of relationship and family time.
Comment by Nabakov — December 18, 2007 @ 10:54 pm
Liam : it’s a definitional thing…not chop logic but a case of an institution that seems to correspond to abiding, universal human values. Marriage is the characteristic model for heterosexual union. That’s obviously not in any sense to dismiss enduring gay relationships as unimportant but to recognise the distinctive character and procreative possibilities inherent in the former and conclude that apples and pineapples are, as the proverb has it, categorically different. As to NSW Right, don’t underestimate the influence of Cardinal Pell,the Shoppies, JohnMcCarthy QC and Tony Burke.
John Q. (a courteous interlocutor who’s noted my arguments about unemployment targets over the years) : Voters will switch if the ACL kicks up a fuss over a broken promise made precisely in the context of Stanhope threatening to wait for a Rudd Govt and then reintroducing the bill. Rudd’s undertaking was to oppose such legislation and ACL’s support base would take a very dim view of that undertaking being broken. As well, the danger is that Stanhope’s model would go much further than registration and in effect become the national paradigm, because all the other jurisdictions would first have to legislate to varying degrees to recognise ACT unions. The collapse of the dam wall.
Mark B. : Forgive me for saying so, but I think you run rather too legislative a line in your blog. “There can be no serious objections civil unions could somehow damage matrimony”. I’ve mounted some — from the well established precept (even in sociology, cf Peter Berger) that the law is a great teacher and changes young people’s perceptions of what marriage is, for example. You don’t respond, as if only the empirically quantifiable mattered. Speaking of the empirical, you need to kiss goodbye to the idea of “a tiny minority of Christians”. By any reckoning it’s a significant minority of us who’ve just sung the Gaudete introit (with or without rose-coloured vestments) or its Protestant Advent equivalent, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’. Jim Wallace says potentially more than half a million and I don’t imagine he’s lying. Do you?
Comment by Christopher Pearson — December 18, 2007 @ 11:12 pm
Christopher Pearson wrote:
Why aren’t you opposed to infertile couples getting married then? Is that not some kind of equal abomination? Every argument you’ve forwarded here is incoherent.
Comment by David Rubie — December 18, 2007 @ 11:17 pm
David, there’s a lot of other Christian theological tradition which recognises other purposes for marriage, of course, which is why infertile couples can contract valid marriages in the Catholic church. This “only for procreation” thing is very recent and something of a mid twentieth century distortion. I’m sure Pope Benedict has a richer view of the sacrament of marriage than CP.
CP, if you read the rest of this blog, you’d note that I’ve just sung the Gaudete introit myself!
http://larvatusprodeo.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/lazy-gaudete-sunday/
Most Catholics might not agree with me but the great majority aren’t going to change their votes because of what happens in the ACT. And I’d associate myself with Kim’s argument about the normative significance of the law. But in any case, as to a “legislative line”, not being a conservative, I don’t see the role of the law as being to inculcate moral norms as such (note the qualifier - if we had a big discussion about the role of law, things would get more complex). As a liberal social democrat, I think that the state has no business whatsoever interfering in people’s choices, if they don’t harm others. I don’t believe that harm extends to the giving of unintended offence. If it did, you’d be very hard pressed to make an argument for free speech.
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 11:25 pm
And just on a pragmatic level, I don’t think this objection has any particular merit. Unless civil unions in the ACT created additional duties or rights to those of relationships registered in other states (and it’s hard to see how they could), there’d be no problem. This sort of “slippery slope” argument appears to be imported from the US where - in a very different constitutional context - courts in some states recognised marriage as able to extend to same sex couples, which would then mean other states had to recognise their validity. Since no one is arguing for same sex marriage in Australia, and in any case the Marriage Act has already been amended to exclude any extension, this doesn’t arise, and it’s another sign that the talking points being employed in the antipodean version of this culture war, as John Quiggin argues, are just imported from America regardless of relevance or cultural fit here.
Comment by mbahnisch — December 18, 2007 @ 11:29 pm
mbahnisch (78): “The bizarre argument that young people whose sexuality is “fluid” would decide that “their lifestyle is officially recognised as being as normal as any other” is just that.”
Even beyond kimberella’s excellent critique (80) of said bizarreness, there lies the implicit axiom that there exist lots of impressionable young people with fluid sexualities, who can be conditioned into becoming Teh Evil. Frankly, this sounds like a projected fantasy. In real life, only a tiny minority really don’t know who they really fancy.
But to return to David Rubie’s quote at (69) of CP at (53): “Most of the culture warriors I known tend to the view that marriage is also a rather embattled institution and that, because it’s the best way known to socialise the young, it deserves institutional support by the enabling state rather than Stanhope-esque subversion.”
Talk about muddled thinking.
1. Legally, marriage is a contract. If people want to enter into it, they should be able to do so. “Embattledness” is not a relevant concept.If there are few takers, so what?
2. Whether or not some folks believe that marriage is also a sacrament is entirely irrelevant to the majority who do not believe this, so if this is a hidden assumption, it should be exposed and discarded.
3. What on Earth is meant by “socialisation” here? To me, it means the communication and social behavioural skills that enable productive participation in society, and which should have been inculcated by family and school at an early age. I suspect that CP is using it euphemistically to mean something involving either formal transfer of ownership of the female from father to husband, or legitimisation of behaviour which is otherwise considered to be Teh Evil,ie, marriage as a (hetero) shagging licence.
All of this is obsolete bollocks, and if there are such nutty hidden assumptions, they should again be exposed and discarded.
4. I still fail to see how straight marriage is in any way subverted by official recognition of gay coupledom (cf. Mark B at (50)). The people who believe that it is should really think very hard about what exactly they mean by “marriage”, and how exactly the private arrangements of one couple of people are supposed to destabilise the private arrangements of others. The non-totalitarian public are owed convincing explanations, not woolly assertions.
More generally:
5. The country does not deserve to be held hostage by perception of a need to pander to a few antediluvian nuts in marginals. Leadership can entail telling such people when to pull their heads in and leave everyone else alone.
6. Official recognition of stable, happy relationships, including whatever mix of contracted next-of-kinship, hospital access, super access, finance sharing, etc is desired, is good. Whether CP, culture warriors, wingnuts or deadmeats think the couple should be together or not is absolutely none of their business.
7. The same goes for big ceremonies and parties to celebrate said relationships.
8. There is evidently a need to promulgate the message that it is not acceptable in a free society to inflict totalitarian antediluvian worldviews on others who are doing no harm.
Comment by Andyc — December 18, 2007 @ 11:38 pm
It’s obvious nobody’s going to convince you about the concept of a liberal State or of the negligible electoral presence of the ACL, Christopher.
I can’t help but rise to the bait over the NSW Right, though:
Heh. Of the four, only the last has any serious commitment to the Labor cause, the two non-Parliamentarians are open Tories, and the trade union would sell its own birthright for a sweetheart shopfloor deal with a percentage kickback.
Cardinal Pell a serious influence on the NSW Right? Not after trying to pull spurious rank on Catholic members of Parliament this year over stem cells.
Comment by Liam Hogan — December 18, 2007 @ 11:41 pm
Yep, and what sort of electoral retribution did the RU486 vote bring in the marginals? Nada. Russell Broadbent, one of the Libs who voted against Abbott and his crew, was a rare Lib to increase his vote.
The serious incoherence of the Pearson/Heard argument comes in that it implicitly privileges social engineering as the normal job of the state - to inculcate these “normal” values because we couldn’t have us queer people thinking our “lifestyle” is normal. Like all conservative views, it rests not on reason but on emotion and assertion and some sort of assumption that those in power know what’s best. Sorry, dude, we had something called the Enlightenment. And then something called liberal democracy. You know, what you claim we’re fighting for against the terrsts. It’s a mark of the standard of public debate in the Howard era (from which all this stuff is a hangover) that the proponents of conservatism don’t even seem to understand that we live in a liberal democracy, not a guided theocratic democracy.
Comment by kimberella — December 18, 2007 @ 11:45 pm
Oh no. I just saw Molly Meldrum, notorious Capo of the Lavender Mafia on the TV. Quick, bring me a cup of tea!
Comment by David Rubie — December 18, 2007 @ 11:52 pm
Is Molly gay?
And is it just me who’s thinking that the punditariat got the catchphrase “fluid sexuality” from one… Missy Higgins?
Comment by kimberella — December 18, 2007 @ 11:57 pm
And what’s wrong with fluid sexuality anyway? Certainly sounds a lot more comfortable than dry unlubricated sexuality.
Comment by Nabakov — December 19, 2007 @ 12:09 am
Mark B. : 1)Like the main Churches, I’ve never argued that marriage was “for procreation only” and agree with you about BXVI’s richer, more traditional view of the sacrament.
2) My reference to Gaudete was intended as an allusion to your previous post.
3) I beg to differ when you say no-one’s proposing to legislate for gay marriage in Australia. Stanhope is attempting to pay lipservice to the Fed. Marriage Act while proposing what in law is constructively a new connubial category. Hence all the fuss.
Comment by Christopher Pearson — December 19, 2007 @ 12:09 am
Since when do gay people choose to be gay? Gay people are born gay.
Comment by silkworm — December 19, 2007 @ 12:23 am
It seems like a bit of terminological angst to me, Christopher. In any case, if it’s not called “marriage” I’m sure the priests and pastors will be able to distinguish it adequately from marriage as such if that’s what they want to do in the privacy of their churches!
Comment by mbahnisch — December 19, 2007 @ 12:26 am
” Since when do gay people choose to be gay? Gay people are born gay”- Silkworm.
OK, can we get this small matter at least, sorted before the rest of the muddle becomes too thick.
Gay is cultural, biological or some mix of the two?
Mark, Kimberella, Rubie, CP so forth- any help?
If gayness is biological in origin or so deeply culturally inscribed as to create the same situation, what’s wrong with gays reacting to other gays in the way hetero people react to each other?
Do we have “fluidity” as to this proposition?
Or is their some well-thought-out refutation for above.
C’mon, you’re supposed to be intehlectuals! Reduce above to comprehensibility for us witch drowning cornpones.
You in particular, CP. And without snideness, even though you may not be happy with some of the harsh comments directed your way here.
There’s got to be a better reason for suss of gay than the hostility of the church: WHY is the church opposed to these forms of behaviour?
Because it is merely another form of self-indulgence or selfishness? ALL sex is a bit selfish, surely. Otherwise we’d all gay or straight, just get up with a yawn and walk away bored within 4 seconds of climax, rather than “finishing off”, yeah?
Or is it simply because it’s a bit “iccky” for the blokey successors to St.Paul.
Perhaps it’s a normal thing for many heteros to react to Gay with a certain distaste? I don’t know.
I’m not a skinhead with nothing better to do than lurk around public dunnies waiting to bash someone I don’t know or understand. But yes, overt gay behaviour has made the writer slightly uncomfortable once or twice. The thing is, with hopefully improving enlightenment, I’d have enough “consciousness” to have something better to do than outwork subjective feelings in such a crude manner.
Live and let live?
Comment by paul walter — December 19, 2007 @ 1:12 am
Mark, I’m disappointed in you. Terminological angst, indeed…Either it’s an open and shut case of a new connubial category or it isn’t. Can you imagine what St Thomas More would have had to say in reply to such an argument? And what do you have to say by way of considered response to what the sociology of knowledge tells us about the law, plausibility structures, universes of discourse and perceptions of the normative? I’m assuming that Berger & Luckmann’s Social Construction of Reality was on your syllabus as a student. And Mary Douglas?
Comment by Christopher Pearson — December 19, 2007 @ 1:14 am
Paul Walter, thanks for the invitation to respond. Christianity has some structural features which militate against an attitude of wholehearted accomodation with gayness, especially in its distinctively modern form as an ideology rather than just one sexual tendency among others, to be prudently managed. Consider an all-male Trinity for starters, and God the Son begotten by His Father Before All Worlds Were Made and the Paraclete as the infinite love that binds them. Mary may well be considered “our fallen nature’s proudest boast” and the Theotokos, the earthly Mother of Christ who is both man and God, but there’s no getting away from the fact we are talking about a patriarchal conception of the Divinity.I hasten to add that that’s not to say it’s a mistaken notion and I accept its truth.But you can see why the Early Fathers might have wanted to discourage Gnostic human attempts to imitate the relationships of the divine persons of a triune God, in favour of Adam and Abraham and fruitful unions.
I suspect that the Church has always understood what Norman Mailer meant when he said that no-one deserved to be described as gay if he’d resisted the urge to behave that way. In other words, it’s not by whatever fluid or vagrant fancies cross their minds but by what acts people emblematically choose to define themselves that they must be judged.
Another consideration in understanding the attitude of the major denominations is the figure of St John, often described as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and who rested his head on Christ’s breast at the Last Supper. It’s not that the Church didn’t approve of loving affective relationships between men, but that it believed in the need to patrol the boundaries relentlessly for fear that Platonic ideals of disinterested affection might degenerate into something else.
Comment by Christopher Pearson — December 19, 2007 @ 2:02 am
I’m not at all sure that’s the message that one should be drawing about the beloved disciple! Most of the sexual boundary policing came in with St Paul and other redactors of the Gospel message - and if you want someone who’s actively anti-family values, it was old St Paul - marriage was a reluctant concession to human weakness but it was better for people to stay chaste in anticipation of the approaching eschaton. Jesus also seemed to think that families were far less sacred than some other things!
And strictly speaking God has no gender so I don’t know what “an all-male Trinity” means - though obviously thinking that way is a consequence of a “partiarchal conception of the Divinity” which is by no means the only one that can be legitimately taken from tradition. There are others who’ve written much more eloquently than I am on the whole topic of same sex love and Christianity, but suffice it to say things are, ahem, a little more complex than you suggest, CP.
As the very many gay and lesbian folk worshipping in Catholic and Anglican churches in Brisbane this weekend might tell you… who was it who said early in the thread that Kevin Rudd’s conception of Christian values might be different to John Heard’s? His articles in The Monthly certainly suggest that, and I’m sure his views have been appropriately formed in the Christian fellowship over the river at Bulimba!
As to nature or nurture, Paul, I think it’s a false dichotomy. I haven’t kept up with whether there’s now thought to be some genetic basis for same sex attraction (the concept of a “gay gene” having been discredited by what’s now known about human DNA), but it doesn’t matter, in my view. Humans don’t exist and can’t exist in isolation from culture and anything that might be described as natural (for instance sex! … but it may as well be eating) can only be expressed through cultural forms. Sociobiology and other forms of reductionism appear to be popular at the moment, but they lack explanatory value, and it’s very difficult to identify any anthropological universals with respect to sexual and coupling behaviour. The institution of marriage has radically shifted its meaning over time, as has the cultural meaning and the influence on personality of same sex attraction.
But strictly speaking, all are irrelevant from the point of view of a liberal state - as is Christopher’s Durkheimian sociology, or at least the Durkheimian habit of worrying endlessly about the dissolution of social order in the face of modernity and dissonance over values. Kim is quite right to suggest - in effect - that heterosexual marriage is a social fact in Durkheim’s terms. I’ve had the rather unhappy experience of trying to suggest to someone close to me that they might be making a mistake by getting married - on pragmatic not ideological grounds, I hasten to add - and it was a very interesting object lesson in how strong the mystique and force of the invocation of marriage is. In fact it’s quite easy for people with a bit of objectivity to see which marriages just aren’t going to last - and these choices I’ve witnessed are by mature people in their 30s and 40s, and while I don’t wish for obvious reasons to discuss them, I think that many decisions to marry are in fact less well considered tban they might ideally be because they’re shaped within a mythos about romantic love and indissolubility as an aim and all the rest, while ignoring quite practical things that might mean that it can reasonably be predicted they will fail. Now, it may well be that same sex couples might be more aware for a number of reasons of the gravity of these decisions (and I think that’s much more likely to be the case than some sort of civil union craze among the sexually fluid yoof), but it really isn’t for anyone but the parties concerned to judge. That’s the point of a liberal regime where individuals are trusted to make their own judgements about their own good, and restrained by the state only insofar as others are harmed by their choices. As I’ve already suggested, the fact that others may disapprove morally does not constitute a direct or a sufficient harm to prohibit such choices being made.
It would be much better to consider what Weber had to say about the impossibility of reconciling the warring Gods of values, and how a liberal politics can and should step out of the ring and proceed according to substantive as opposed to value rationality (which is not quite the same thing as public reason as understood in the post-Enlightenment sense, but therein lies another diversion…
Comment by mbahnisch — December 19, 2007 @ 2:35 am
Paul, back in 2005, when we used to do a lot more theological disputation at LP than we do now, there was an interesting discussion on the Vatican’s policy on gay priests which is - for all intents and purposes, “don’t ask, don’t tell”.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2005/07/18/dont-ask-dont-tell/
Comment by kimberella — December 19, 2007 @ 2:48 am
Yep! See the Gospel of Luke:
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/luke/luke14.htm
Theologienne has an interesting reflection on this passage:
http://theologienne.blogspot.com/2006/02/on-jesus-call-to-hate-your-family.html
It doesn’t take much reflection on the Gospel to conclude that some 50s happy patriarchal family model - which is the “normal lifestyle” being championed by the culture warriors - is very very far from being what Christianity is actually about.
Comment by kimberella — December 19, 2007 @ 2:57 am
I can’t quite work out what that means. Abraham’s two wives, Sarah and Rebecca, were both unable to conceive without divine intervention, and Sarah’s conception of Isaac is in fact prophesied by a couple of incognito angels who receive hospitality in his tent on their way to Sodom, which they also mention doesn’t have a happy future. So it’s a most odd example to choose in this context, particularly since according to Jewish tradition the “fruitful union” apparently led to Sarah dying of a broken heart shortly after Abraham decided to sacrifice their son Isaac.
Getting back to the Trinity, the Spirit is often identified with Sophia, the Wisdom of God, from the Jewish Bible. She’s in Job and Proverbs. Now, you can get all gnostic about that identification, but it’s there, and even if you chose for whatever reason to ignore it, you’d be drawing a very long bow to ascribe masculine gender to the Spirit.
That, I think, defines far more about what Christopher Pearson thinks than anyone else. No, we’re not allowed to love - it’s all just some devilish temptation. Why anyone would agree that this sort of thinking should underlie the law of the land is beyond me.
We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it, sweetheart. As we used to say back in the early 90s.
Comment by kimberella — December 19, 2007 @ 3:09 am
And I’m really intrigued by how often this word “fluid” is popping up in Mr Pearson’s writing about this issue. Just sayin…
Comment by kimberella — December 19, 2007 @ 3:10 am
Thank you gentlemen, both.
Am aware at least of Plato using Socrates to set limits as to older blokes and young lads; of feeling deeply concerned about the problem of exploitation against a more conventional idea of mentoring friendship.
Gay, of course, is not the same thing as paedophilia; at least with gay is consenting adults. For the rest, I loosely understand the conceptual frameworks used by Christopher Pearson to explain a background to his beliefs are normal academic mechanisms for considering history, philosophy and metaphysics, veering to theology.
Obviously CP must have brainpower in reserve if he has gone through some of the material involved. For my part, I’ll just say the last book I read concerning these issues was a paperback by John Carroll, concerning what he felt to be the demise of the Enlightenment project; fascinating in parts, rancorous in others ( as with his emotive wholesale dismissal of Marx ).
Mark’s reply, also easy in tone, was a beaut corollary. Reminded me of the epistemological and
ontological difficulties involved beyond a certain point in making definitive pronouncements about things difficult to prove.
Off for another try at Kant’s “immanence” and “transcendence”. Aquinas, Luther, Descartes and Spinoza through to Neitzsche and Heidegger.
Last time I was in this neighbourhood was when trying to nut out the salient difference between Newton/Clarke and Leibniz as to the Universe. All seems to go back to Plato and Aristotle, any way unless you want to include the presocratics, for contrast. Gave up, in the end (as to Universe). Enough for now.
Comment by paul walter — December 19, 2007 @ 3:35 am
post scriptum.
Whilst otherise occupied Kimberella added a number of thoughtful contributions to balance out the conversation and its conclusions.
Enjoyed “Theologienne’s” take on offer; an alternative reading to one K herself was suggesting in dismay, concerning misogyny, cultism and cultural inscription. I’ve always read that tract, though, as meaning what Theologienne is suggesting and it’s an interesting comment in itself as to demonstrating the relationship between good faith and “consciousness”. It’s a neat example of K’s elaboration concerning Sophia and Wisdom- quite beautiful, in the sense that “Symposium” is beautiful. Wisdom is the correct use of knowledge mediated through love.
BTW, think I grasp the “mountain man ” connotation CP is making concerning fluid” exchanges and gnostics. If so its a dark one, but mellow, as is K’s contrib.
Comment by paul walter — December 19, 2007 @ 4:20 am
Just a quick glance at LP, 2005. Certainly blundered into a fruity one here, haven’t I?
Comment by paul walter — December 19, 2007 @ 4:35 am
This is an interesting tangent:
“There are others who’ve written much more eloquently than I am on the whole topic of same sex love and Christianity, but suffice it to say things are, ahem, a little more complex than you suggest, CP.”
Certainly, Christopher and me as same sex attracted men (among, I imagine, few others here) might know a little more about the way the thing operates than other self-appointed experts. We might not always be eloquent (although I think Christopher has given it a good stab, and weathered some fairly awful name-calling at the same time) but we are at least approximating authenticity. I wonder how many white LPers would feel comfortable lecturing Koori writers on what it is ‘really’ like to be black.
It’s always like this with ‘gay marriage’. The only people who seem to want the thing are those (straight) people who can’t get one.
And then this:
“As the very many gay and lesbian folk worshipping in Catholic and Anglican churches in Brisbane this weekend might tell you… who was it who said early in the thread that Kevin Rudd’s conception of Christian values might be different to John Heard’s?”
I can tell you, given the masses of feedback I receive from all over the world, most of the same sex attracted men in churches in Brisbane and most other places adhere, if they are still attending, to a view of human sexuality and the value of the family more in line with the Papa Ratzinger’s than with Shelby Spong’s.
I cannot speak for the PM, but it wouldn’t make sense to me to listen to heterodox Christians on ‘Christian values’, because they - by definition - get their values somewhere else and don’t vote by Christian values anyway.
- JH
Comment by DREADNOUGHT — December 19, 2007 @ 4:39 am
Interesting discussion.
Here in the Castro, the results of an unfettered Lavender Mafia are plain to see. Teh Gay slaps me in the face like a tumescent organ wherever I look.
A few things puzzle me though. It seems not to have been razed to the ground. People seem pleasant and well adjusted. My hetero sister, her husband and two kids have not yet been lynched.
What gives, Christopher?
Comment by FDB — December 19, 2007 @ 7:12 am
Christopher Pearson:
This is a valid concern.
However, persons on CP’s side of the Culture Wars need to be much more full and frank about what they mean by “debasement”. For example, was passage of the Family Law Act in 1975 a “debasement” of marriage? Which combattants in the Culture Wars would like to see the end of no-fault divorces? Which combattants in the Culture Wars would like to see divorce abolished altogether as a legal termination of marriage bonds?
Many of us have lived through all of these changes in marriage arrangements in the course of our ever-lengthening lives. At every stage along the way proto-typical culture warriors have clanked to the fore in the armour of their faith and proclaimed solemnly that “the coinage of lifelong commitment” is being debased.
But what is this “coinage” of which CP speaks? As you can see, it’s not a coin at all. No, it is a dog-tag. In the days before divorce it was held in place with indestructable fetters. It could be removed only by death. People don’t trade in dogtags. Dog-tags aren’t coins. Dog-tags signify ownership. In the case of marriage these dog-tags signify that the state owns the relationship. The relationship cannot be dissolved without the consent of the state.
But most of us know that a loving, mutually sustaining, relationship can exist without dog-tags of any kind. Indeed dog-tags themselves do little to nourish a relationship.
So CP isn’t defending the nourishing aspects of marriage. No, he is defending the power of the state. And at the same time he is bemoaning the weakening of that power in relation to marriage.
Paradoxically, proponents of gay civil unions are asking the state to take some dominion over gay relationships. Quite apart from the celebratory aspects of making public one’s commitment to another, this quest is a pragmatic recognition of the power of the state in rewarding stable relationships and in punishing transient relationships.
It is up to CP to come clean on how heavy and unmovable he wants marriage’s dog-tag to be.
Comment by Katz — December 19, 2007 @ 8:45 am
paul walter wrote:
Nobody knows and it’s basically irrelevent. These things are only of interest to those who think they can “cure” it or suppress it. As Heard and Pearson have ably demonstrated, self hatred about your sexual orientation is far more destructive than acceptance. They spend most of their time projecting their self loathing onto the rest of the population, and they wear it like some strange badge of honour amongst a set of culture warriors. They’re like a pair of prized poodles, shown at Crufts as successful examples that “gay” is a lifestyle choice and nothing more. You can’t be honest to anybody else until you start being honest with yourself boys.
Paul, react any way you please, but don’t ascribe your reaction universally.
Comment by David Rubie — December 19, 2007 @ 9:45 am
Mark
My dear, on THIS particular subject I AM an expert!
While choir-boy Pearson may have some eloquent and perspicacious positions on other Culture War battles, on this one he is embarrassing - actually ridiculous - and irrelevant. He would do well to confine his effusions to more vanilla positions. 
Comment by John Greenfield — December 19, 2007 @ 10:10 am
Kimberella
Do you have Missy Higgins’ email address? I think she should adjudicate this debate!
Comment by John Greenfield — December 19,