July 2011 - Page 2 of 2 -

What’s wrong with The Marriage Vow

July 11, 2011 Gretchen 6 Comments

This is not a marriage. No matter what
it might look like. No siree-bob. If they have
kids, they will not be a family. Nope.
This message brought to you by a lot of
organizations with the word “family”
in their names, so they know what
they’re talking about.

So far, Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann are the two presidential candidates (wow; it’s still strange to say that) who have signed something called The Marriage Vow. What is this vow, you ask? Well, it’s a pledge conceived by a Christian organization called The Family Leader, based in Iowa and associated with Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. Because by golly, you don’t care about families if you don’t have “Family” right there in your name.

And the word “family,” of course, means something very specific: a church and state-authorized union of two people who were born biologically male and female respectively, who were virgins until marriage and maintain a strict monogamous relationship, would never divorce unless perhaps one of them beat the other to a pulp, and whose sexual relations (which involve no consumption of pornography) have produced at least one child containing their shared genetic lineage. Or to use the Vow’s terms, “innocent fruit of their conjugal intimacy.”

Having clarified that, let’s get to the Vow itself. The purpose of this pledge is to outline a set of stances a presidential candidate will promise to support and uphold in defense of the Institution of Marriage, which is critical to maintaining that of Family (TM) outlined above. If a candidate refuses to sign, then of course we need no more evidence whatsoever to conclude that he or she is anti-Marriage and anti-Family (TM) and therefore presumably in support of every brand of debauchery, perversity, and hedonism that you can imagine. He/she probably holds nightly screenings of Caligula for the neighborhood children during which they are encouraged to suck on vodka-flavored phallus-shaped lollipops. Or worse, he/she supports gay marriage. Which is not Marriage, regardless of what the government might say. Unless the government agrees with The Family Leader and passes a federal prohibition on gay marriage (support for which is included in the Vow) in which case the law is presumably binding and just.

So. Let’s fisk The Family Leader’s Marriage Vow for candidates, shall we?

Therefore, in any elected or appointed capacity by which I may have the honor of serving our fellow citizens in these United States, I the undersigned do hereby solemnly vow to honor and to cherish, to defend and to uphold, the Institution of Marriage as only between one man and one woman. I vow to do so through my:

Personal fidelity to my spouse

This goes to hypocrisy. It’s typical for conservatives to accuse everyone else of hypocrisy for not properly upset about the dalliances of people like John Edwards, Bill Clinton, or Anthony Weiner, but the reason why we aren’t is because those aren’t the politicians who were going on about the sanctity of marriage as an inviolate institution which no one deserves but people like them. That is, they’re not hypocrites. The number of Republicans, on the other hand, who have made precisely such speeches and advocated legislation in “protection” of this institution? Caught red-handed all of the time. So often it has become a joke– identify the ones speaking most loudly about the sanctity of marriage, and they will be the next one caught cheating. Sexting, hiking the Appalachian Trail, affecting a wide stance in an airport restroom….I can understand why advocates of The Marriage Vow would want to ensure that such embarrassments are not recruited to their cause. I am also skeptical that they can attract anyone else.

Respect for the marital bonds of others

…unless they’re gay, or their marriage is otherwise not officially condoned as supportive of Family (TM).

Official fidelity to the U.S. Constitution, supporting the elevation of none but faithful constitutionalists as judges or justices

This one struck me as out of place, considering that the Constitution says exactly nothing about marriage. Then I read the footnote to this provision:

It is no secret that a handful of state and federal judges, some of whom have personally rejected heterosexuality and faithful monogamy, have also abandoned bona fide
constitutional interpretation in accord with the discernible intent of the framers. In November, 2010, Iowa voters overwhelmingly rejected three such justices from the
state Supreme Court in retention elections. Yet, certain federal jurists with lifetime appointments stand poised, even now, to “discover” a right of so-called same-sex
marriage or polygamous marriage in the U.S. Constitution.

Aha! Yes, that pesky 14th Amendment. The reasons for eliminating that bothersome guarantee of the equality of all American citizens to be protected at both state and federal levels just keep adding up, don’t they? After all, it has been used as justification for ending segregation and legalizing miscegenation. First the blacks got to marry whites, and now the gays are getting to marry each other. Clearly this amendment must be eliminated. In order to protect the Constitution from those who would change it, we must…change it first, before they can get to it.

Vigorous opposition to any redefinition of the Institution of Marriage– faithful monogamy between one man and one woman– through statutory-, bureaucratic-, or court-imposed recognition of intimate unions which are bigamous, polygamous, polyandrous, same-sex, etc.

Or, conservatives from 1967 would like to note, mixed-race.

The definition of the Institution of Marriage used here strikes me as odd….it uses a non-legal concept of marriage (faithful monogamy not being a requirement) to enforce a legal prohibition. If the authors of the Vow want non-monogamy to be outlawed, they’ve chosen a very roundabout way of expressing that. As it is, the mention of monogamy here is superfluous at best. Certainly it wouldn’t be a surprise to find that they would like to lock up adulterers, but perhaps refrained from including that because it would be impossible to find anyone willing to sign off on it. After all, it’s one thing to pledge to be true to your spouse– it’s quite another to agree to your own arrest and prosecution if you fail.

Also, including both polygamy and polyandry is redundant, polygamy being the word for multiple spouses in general and polyandry for multiple husbands specific. Bigamy is okay to include as to my knowledge it refers to duplicitously marrying multiple spouses. But that goes to the issue of consent, and people making this argument generally don’t seem to factor in consent at all. That’s how they can compare gay marriage not just to polygamy but also pedophilia and bestiality, as signatory Rick Santorum has done.

Recognition of the overwhelming statistical evidence that married people enjoy better health, better sex, longer lives, greater financial stability, and that children raised by a mother and a father together experience better learning, less addiction, less legal trouble, and less extramarital pregnancy.

The footnote to this rather startling claim cites Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-Six Conclusions From the Social Sciences, a 2005 report from the Institute for American Values. As its sole evidence. This report is also entirely about comparing the welfare of children raised by two parents as opposed to a single parent, rather than those raised by married straight parents as opposed to married gay parents. An omission about as subtle as a freight train.

Support for prompt reform of uneconomic, anti-marriage aspects of welfare policy, tax policy, and marital/divorce law, and extended “second chance” or “cooling-off” periods for those seeking a “quickie divorce.”

Well, I suppose making it harder for people to get divorced certainly supports the goal of marriage as an end unto itself. In the same way that opposing assisted suicide for terminally ill patients who are in great pain supports the goal of preserving life as an end unto itself.

Earnest, bona fide legal advocacy for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) at the federal and state levels.

Of course. Even rabid states’ rights advocate Ron Paul (whom The Family Leader supports) has abandoned that position to advocate for a federal ban on same-sex marriage. I am not a states’ rights supporter myself and in fact consider the notion to be abhorrent, but it’s particularly sad to see a libertarian abandoning principles in favor of personal prejudice. When your entire claim to legitimacy is based on the fact that you stick to your principles come hell or high water, and can at least be consistent if nothing else, and then you take a stance like this, well…you’re no longer even a stopped clock, are you?

Steadfast embrace of a federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman in all of the United States.

Yes, yes….and a big banner across the White House that reads “Adam and Eve; not Adam and Steve,” and a formal repudiation of rainbows, triangles, and the color pink to be included in the presidential oath of office, and the establishment of internment camps for anyone found to be in possession of a Barbara Streisand album, and a national ban on mullets for women. We get it already.

Humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy– our next generation of American children– from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution, infanticide, abortion, and other types of coercion or stolen innocence.

The mind boggles on how a provision such as the above could be enforced. I wonder if The Family Leader even know(s)? The footnote to this plank doesn’t specify– it just contains a very thorough and detailed rejection of abortion and infanticide. Okay, so the latter is already illegal and we’ll outlaw the former. Then what? Human trafficking is already illegal. Slavery, sexual or otherwise, also illegal. Prostitution is illegal. How do you ban pornography and “seduction into promiscuity”? At least, without turning into Saudi Arabia?

And what counts as “stealing innocence”? Can I bring charges against George Lucas for bringing the first three chapters of Star Wars into the world? How about the creation of Garfield, the movie?

Support for the enactment of safeguards for all married and unmarried U.S. Military and National Guard personnel, especially our combat troops, from inappropriate same-gender or opposite-gender sexual harassment, adultery or intrusively intimate commingling among attracteds (restrooms, showers, barracks, tents, etc.); plus prompt termination of military policymakers who would expose American wives and daughters to rape or sexual harassment, torture, enslavement or sexual leveraging by the enemy in forward combat roles.

But not, presumably, when such acts are committed by our guys.

Rejection of Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control.

…such as laws banning abortion, pornography, adultery, prostitution, and gay marriage. All of which Sharia Islam also forbids, does it not? What a coincidence.

Recognition that robust childbearing and reproduction is beneficial to U.S. demographic, economic, strategic and actuarial health and security.

Clearly the most controversial and divisive plank by far. With their record on emphasizing the importance of raising children properly and healthily, Democrats would never sign off on something like this.

Commitment to downsizing government and the enormous burden upon American families of the USA’s $14.3 trillion public debt, its $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities, its $1.5 trillion federal deficit, and its $3.5 trillion federal budget.

Smaller government = happier families. Umm, okay? I suppose that means happier advocates for smaller government, and therefore they will be kinder to their spouses and children, and so….wait a minute; this argument could work for committing to anything at all that will make anyone with a family happy! By that rationale all presidential candidates should commit to legalizing marijuana, because Willie Nelson has seven kids who could sure use some bonding time with Dad. Get on it!

Fierce defense of the First Amendment’s rights of Religious Liberty and Freedom of Speech, especially against the intolerance of any who would undermine law-abiding American citizens and institutions of faith and conscience for their adherence to, and defense of, faithful heterosexual monogamy.

Great! Fantastic. I’m glad to hear that The Family Leader and all signatories of The Marriage Vow are fully behind protecting freedom of of expression for everyone who agrees with them on everything. Now let’s hear how they feel about those who don’t.

“All great leaps forward in liberty and equality”

July 8, 2011 Gretchen No Comments

Ed Brayton has a very moving (to me) post today about the progressive acceptance of equality in the face of absolutist proclamations that the faith of the majority rejects it. Using an argument from Southern Baptist Al Mohler which appeals entirely to tradition and biblical exegesis as an example, he notes that advancements in equality for virtually every minority have been faced by the objection that a person who takes his/her Christian faith seriously could never accept this “moral inversion” in which what was formerly considered sinful is now acceptable, and those who object considered the immoral ones:

The same thing always happens when society struggles to leave behind a traditional prejudice and embrace equality instead. In a remarkably short period of time in this country, slavery went from being a God-ordained institution that had existed from the earliest human civilizations with little to no doubt about its moral standing to being viewed as perhaps the single most inhumane thing one can do to another person, the greatest immorality of all. In a remarkably short period of time in this country, miscegenation went from being viewed as a great moral evil — preached as such by the very same Southern Baptist church that now stands against same-sex marriage — that society had outlawed for centuries, to being declared a protected right by a unanimous Supreme Court. And guess what? The same exact arguments were used against that ruling as are used against same-sex marriage today. The constitution itself is a perfect example of this dynamic in many ways. Prior to the constitution the norm was for all governments to be built upon a religious foundation. All written charters or constitutions prior to that time were expressed as covenants with God, complete with punishments for blasphemy and heresy. All of the colonies with the exception of Rhode Island had official churches prior to the constitution and forbid and punished even the preaching of other Christian denominations. In Massachusetts, one could be arrested, banished and even put to death (and many were) for preaching the Baptist or Catholic brand of Christianity, much less preaching Judaism, Islam or — God forbid — atheism. In Virginia, Anglicanism was the official religion and Baptists were thrown in jail. And nearly all of them had religious tests for office, requirements that one be of the right brand of religion in order to hold public office. The constitution rejected all of those things. It guaranteed freedom of religion and outlawed religious tests for office. Instead of a covenant with God, it forbid all such establishments of religion. It guaranteed freedom of speech, including the right to blaspheme and preach what others might consider heresy. and in a remarkably short period of time, everything changed. One by one the states did away with their religious establishments and adopted new constitutions without religious tests and protected free speech. This is the way it is with all great leaps forward in liberty and equality, what was previously seen as terribly immoral was legalized and legitimized — leaving conservatives making the same old arguments from tradition that Mohler is making now.

Pareidolia of the day: Holy sh!t!

July 6, 2011 Gretchen 2 Comments

Today’s incidence of pareidolia is a doozy. Or a doo-….no, I’m just not going there. The title for this post was enough. For the record, pareidolia is

a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse.

Or in this case, bird poo. From Bryan, Texas:

Image Of Virgin Mary Appears In Bird Dropping On Area Family’s Truck The image that came in an unlikely form of a bird dropping appeared on Sunday. That was the first time Salvador Pachuca had been back to the home since having an accident there four months ago. “I told my brothers come over here and see what this is and they say this is the Virgin,” he said.

Family members made their way outside to see the image on the truck’s side mirror. Cristal Pachuca said she took pictures and began making calls to invite others to see, what she describes as, a miracle. “We just all feel protected. It’s a blessing to our family and to everybody that comes to see it,” says Cristal Pachuca. Cristal says the truck doesn’t get much use, but last weekend her husband decided to take it out of their garage and wash it.

A few moments later the image appeared. Since Sunday, a steady stream of family, friends, neighbors and strangers has stopped by to pray and take pictures of the image. The Pachuca’s say the image is more than a coincidence especially since it happened on the 12th. The family says in Mexico, Dec. 12 is celebrated as the day of The Virgin Guadalupe.

Onlookers say the image is a miracle because the distinct colors and outline of the image on the truck match the image of Virgin Guadalupe. The Pachuca’s say they will continue to welcome anyone who wants to see the image, because the image isn’t going to go away anytime soon. “I think we’re going to just put it on a shelf outside, probably take off the mirror and keep it there cause its something special to us. I’m not going to wash it off,” says Cristal Pachuca.

First Amendment quiz

July 5, 2011 Gretchen 1 Comment

Reading all of the commentaries yesterday about how little Americans appreciate the significance of Independence Day (or the 4th of July, if you’re feeling generic) made me wonder how much of that is actually true and how much is cynicism. Do people really not know what yesterday was originally intended to celebrate?

I laughed at more than a few tweets from people saying things like “400 years ago today Jesus, George Washington and Martin Luther King Junior chased the Russians out of America and made this a great nation!” But really….do people not know what the word “independence” is referring to? You know, the signing of the Declaration of Independence? Being endowed by….something or other with unalienable rights which means we should throw off governmental powers which do not acknowledge and protect those rights, and so on? Just in case, Ed Brayton explains what the deal is:

It was originally supposed to be written by Benjamin Franklin, the elder statesman of the founding fathers, but he was in ill health and didn’t feel he would be able to do undertake the task. It then fell to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, with each arguing that the other should write it. Adams eventually prevailed in the argument and Jefferson was assigned the task of writing the Declaration. When he finished the first draft, it was then circulated to three others — Franklin, Adams and Robert Livingston. Franklin and Adams did most of the editing, suggesting deletions, additions and changes to wording in many places. Then the final draft was prepared and circulated among the whole group for their agreement and their signatures. We forget today what a revolutionary document it was. The assertion that each individual had rights that were unalienable and that the principal job of government is to secure those rights had never before been declared so boldly. The fact that the men who ratified that document so often failed to live up to the principles they declared only testifies to how novel those concepts were — perhaps still are, at least in practice. It is to those principles — liberty, equality, justice — that I swear allegiance. Not to governments, which so often offer those principles as justification while actively subverting them in any number of ways. Not to a colored piece of cloth. Nearly every political question can — must — be answered in reference to those basic principles. The answers aren’t always easy, of course, but the questions cannot be correctly analyzed, in my view, except by using those axiomatic reference points.

The ten original amendments that comprised the Bill of Rights were not ratified on that day….not for many more years. But because I firmly believe that the rights described in the First Amendment are unalienable and yet also poorly understood, I think it’s fitting to mention this 20 question quiz on it here. See how you do. If poorly, hey…you get to learn something. If well, it’s still good to be reminded of all of protection of freedoms packed into that brief passage.

“….Seriously?” Part: the end

July 3, 2011 Gretchen No Comments

…and cue the inevitable “Can’t we all just get along?” post.

Hemant Mehta does a good job of summarizing the whole very high-school situation, though I’m not sure what the point is with the whole “Female 1” and “Female 2” thing. If you’re interested, read.

Interest in attending any future skeptic/atheist conferences: pretty much nil.

“…Seriously?” part 2

July 2, 2011 Gretchen 7 Comments

Somebody purporting to be Richard Dawkins apparently made some rather idiotic comments on Pharyngula of the “people have it worse than you, so how dare you complain about your own situation” variety, and Jen McCreight rightly excoriates him (or his impersonator) for it. For reference on these remarks, see this.

Whether that was actually Dawkins or not, I think there’s a pretty obvious take-home lesson: nobody, however fiercely they might like to proclaim it, is on the side of rationality and immune to bigotry simply because they might be a loud proponent of skepticism on a subject where most people reject it. Their courage and eloquence on such matters does not make them infallible. They’re as susceptible to bias as anyone else, only they come pre-packaged with an iron-clad resistance to any suggestion of non-objectivity and therefore become, ironically, decidedly anti-skeptical about their own skepticism. Humility should be skepticism’s best friend, not its nemesis.

Links!

July 1, 2011 Gretchen No Comments

Pat Robertson declares that just as every other country to accept homosexuality and gay marriage has failed, so shall the U.S. One wonders exactly how Robertson defines failure, given that Denmark legalized civil unions in 1985 and many other countries have embraced gays as equal to a similar or greater extent since. They seem to be doing all right…
Rich Swier of Tea Party Nation declares that anti-gay bullying is simply peer pressure of the helpful variety also used to discourage immoral behavior such as drug abuse. Because all of us look back with fond memories on those helpful schoolyard bullies who guided kids away from developing addictive habits via tough love. Or as Ed Brayton put it more succinctly, “What an asshole.”
51 floats had their tires slashed before Chicago Pride Parade on Sunday. Almost all, however, were repaired in time and made it into the parade anyway. So sorry, vandals…the show must go on.
Thoughtful piece from Brian Palmer at Slate asking why, in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling that laws banning the sale of violent video games to children are unconstitutional, we are so much more willing to expose children to images of violence than sex.
Elizabeth Weingarten, also at Slates, is cautiously optimistic about the fact that heroine Merida of Pixar’s upcoming Film Brave has curly hair, but notes that generally curly-haired women in films tend to be of the nerdy variety who (if they are major players) inevitably seem to get some makeover that involves a serious encounter with a flat iron by the end of the film. I hadn’t considered this as I was too busy being over the moon about how well Pixar had rendered said curly hair. But she has a point– let the curly girls stay curly. Some of us actually (gasp) prefer it that way!
PZ Myers is less than impressed with a recent Salon article touting health benefits as offering legitimacy to male circumcision. Have to say, so am I. This is a practice that is on its way out in the United States, so that eventually hopefully even the “But he will wonder why he doesn’t look like his dad!” argument will die a natural death due to public bafflement and derison.
All Star Trek series are apparently going to be streaming on Netflix starting in July. Wow….I might have to work through the entirety of TNG, just because.

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