Very interesting post. I have a specific question about one point:
What is the conservative response to this argument – If marriage is fundamentally and principally a sacred institution, then it is a violation of the establishment clause for the government to have anything to say about marriage at all. If you want marriage to be a sacrament, then there should be no laws – state, local, or federal – regarding marriage. Then each church can decide on its own who can get married and under what circumstances. The government can then create a civil union registry. After a religious couple goes through the requirements of marriage as defined by their faith, then they can go to the courthouse and sign the civil union registry. In fact, I believe this is the way it works in many countries.
Actually, it hasn’t always been there. It was added in the McCarthy era for explicitly religious reasons. But what I find depressing is that this fact probably doesn’t matter with regard to what you are saying, because, in the end, facts and reason don’t matter – it’s all about feelings and fear. And from my point of view, that’s exactly the wrong place to base your notions of freedom, liberty, and democratic government.
It’s even more exemplary of paranoia, because kids don’t get kicked out of school for mentioning god. It doesn’t happen and no one wants it to happen. The liberal point of view is that kids can say whatever they want about god, but the school (= government) should not express a preference with regard to any particular religious belief or between belief and non-belief.
I have to dispute the last part – “… and for good reason.” It’s not actually for good reason at all, or any reason; it’s again an argument based on fear and feeling instead of facts and reason. The actual fact is that Christian conservatives are upset not by the fact that their own beliefs are being tampered with, but that their power to impose their beliefs on everyone else is being tampered with.
Sam, thank you for starting this thread. It helps me understand many things that I have struggled with. In many ways our political views are similar. The difference is that as a social liberal I cannot accept the culturally conservative wing of the Republican party. I would be a good GOP voter if it was made up of Giulianis, McCains, and Warren Rudmans.
At the end of the day extremism terrifies me. The extremists on the right have much more power than those on the left, and advocate positions that I cannot support, even if I support their economic and foreign policies. Jesse Helms enjoyed many terms as Senator in North Carolina, and I don’t think anyone can argue that he was a racist and a demagogue. The teaching of creationism as science is a very real phenomenon, and is repugnant to me. I don’t view gay marriage as being as important as protections against discrimation for gay and lesbians, but hey cultural conservatives are against both of those things. I believe that the separation of church and state was made explicit in the Constitution, and support any effort to maintain that separation.
The point is that I could easily be one of the posters celebrating the Bush win in the Pit. I have a similar political philosophy as yourself and Debaser, among others. What is different is how I choose to weigh the issues. My utter lack of identification with the culturally conservative wing of the GOP leaves me unable to vote for their candidates.
I think you describe a type of voter that exists, and that I can co-exist with, but you downplay the more extreme end of the spectrum that is very real, and increasingly powerful. Do you see evidence of this? At what point to socially liberal conservatives decide that enough is enough. How much further right does the party need to go on the social issues before you can no longer identify with them?
People who are uninformed or misinformed are easy targets of demogogs playing into their ignorance, fear and bigotry. Both sides do it.
The last couple of decades the right has done more of it than the left and have therefore been more successful because of greater focus and experiience.
And this is exactly what most liberals believe. The fact that you think that this is a defining characteristic of conservatives illustrates conservative misconceptions about liberals more than anything else.
I think that conservatives really need to take a serious and realistic look at their own lives. Urban people are liberals are not more likely than conservatives to have premarital or extramarial sex and are not more likely to get divorced.
And I yours, and I hope now the election is over, the tone in GD goes back up. And I hope I can contribute to that.
Yes, I believe it is. And I think the perception of where the push for control is coming from depends on where you are standing.
You are perfectly correct that the “under God” phrase not added until 1954. Still, that is fifty years, long enough to become traditional. And in the last few years, there has arisen controversy over children being forced to say the phrase. And in reaction to that controversy, the guideline has become that children should not be forced to repeat that phrase. They can stand with the rest of the class, and stay respectfully silent when they come to that part.
But, according to a good deal of the rhetoric, that is not a good enough compromise. It is not enough to allow the minority to refrain from joining in. It is necessary (according to some) that the phrase be removed altogether. Thus something the majority wants (in many of the communities most concerned with the issue) has to be prevented, because a minority doesn’t like it.
The control, in other words, is coming from the government sticking its nose in and telling the good people of Smalltown, USA, that they cannot do something they want to do, and have done for the last fifty years, because some snooty atheist hippy outsider doesn’t like God.
This attitude may or may not be accurate, obviously, and I am not saying I hold it. But that is how it seems to many on the social conservative side of the issues.
Michael Kinsley wrote a very funny article some years ago, called “On Manger Patrol with the ACLU”, where he described the efforts of the ACLU to scour the countryside for instances where there were manger displays at Christmastime in some town. They would then almost literally go door to door to try to find someone to object to it, so they could try to get it removed. They weren’t always successful in finding someone, either.
I am sure we can all understand the motivation in trying to be sure that there is no violation of the First Amendment anywhere. But perhaps we can also understand how it might be resented that a gang of strangers comes to your town and tries to tell you that you cannot do something that is important to you, and on which (rightly or wrongly) there is perceived to be a consensus that this is a good thing to do.
Public prayer is a somewhat diifferent issue.
The first distinction, apparently, lies in how each side perceives the issue. Those advocating school prayer talk about allowing it. The opponents seem to assume this means mandating it.
I think much of the disagreement lies in a general perception from religious conservatives that the other side wants to ban any mention of God, or any public expression of religious faith, from public discourse altogether. I participated in a long thread about John Ashcroft participating in Bible studies at his workplace, before business hours. It seemed to me that a lot of Dopers couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea that this was an innocent practice. They wanted (as far as I could tell) to stop a government official from practicing his religion completely, at least in public.
I think that attitude is perceived to be widespread on the other side. It is not enough simply to not be forced to participate in worship. It is necessary to prevent others from doing so, at least as far they do so where other people can see it.
It is not simply that students are not forced to pray. Teachers cannot have Bibles on their desks where students might see them. Students cannot lead prayers at their events, even if they want to. Students cannot express religiously-based opinions, especially if these are not politically correct.
It seems to the socially conservative that religion is being defined more and more as thought crime.
Again, I am not necessarily agreeing with this (at least, not completely), but I am trying to explain it.
And the idea of gay marriage is another example of a core, definitive issue.
I think proponents of gay marriage are being somewhat disingenous in saying that gay marriage is a question of live and let live. For better or worse, if our society recognized gay marriage as an institution, all members of the society would be required to recognize it as well. I cannot imagine gay marriage proponents being satisfied with a situation in which everybody else could decide whether to extend or withhold the benefits of marriage to gay couples at their own whim.
I am not saying this is right or wrong, I am saying that is how it is.
Therefore, in a real sense, social conservatives feel that they are being asked, or indeed required, to extend recognition to gay relationships. And, since they often see such relationships as inherently sinful and wrong, they feel they are being asked to compromise their beliefs, and by government fiat as well.
Yes, I know there are lots of other instances where this is true as well. And it might even be valid - I am not arguing it one way or the other. What I am saying is that in a very real sense, it is not true to say “It doesn’t affect you at all if I want to marry my boyfriend”. It does affect me. You are asking me to do something - and I cannot decline.
That’s one thing. The other, in my opinion, is this.
Part of the answer to the question “How does gay marriage detract from existing marriages?” is twofold. One part is, if gay marriage is just the same as straight marriage, and they are equally valid, and most social conservatives find gay relationships to be wrong inherently, then straight marriage is being (in social conservative eyes) denigrated by making it equivalent to a gay relationship, which is perceived as being both fleeting and vaguely disgusting. Gay couples are seen (rightly or wrongly) as having more in common with Britney Spears or Elizabeth Taylor than with, say, their Aunt Martha and Uncle Fred who just celebrated their golden anniversary. If you see what I mean.
There’s more to it than that, of course, and it also ties in with the idea of inherent differences between men and women that go beyond the physical, but the above is a big chunk of it.
The second chunk has to do with the resistance to calling it gay marriage instead of civil unions. It took me a while to figure this one out.
I think a lot of social conservatives resist the idea of civil unions because of an idea I have heard bandied about a lot on the SDMB. The suggestion is often made that we should give up the idea of marriage, for anybody, altogether, and have only civil unions. Straight marriage and gay marriage alike - both are called the same, both work the same, and both are contracted the same. And that last is a red flag for social conservatives.
The fear is that the state will withdraw recognition of “marriage” altogether. Thus, the state will cease to recognize marriages/civil unions performed by a priest or minister, and only recognize civil unions performed by the state.
This feels and sounds much more like a Roman Catholic annulment to social conservatives than it should. Not only will the marriage they have been perfectly happy in for the last fifteen years be, in some sense, invalid and their children bastards, but it also relegates the religious ceremony they have been dreaming of for their daughter since she got her first Wedding Day Barbie to second-class status. Some sterile oath before a justice of the peace is recognized above pledging your troth before God Almighty? And can be dissolved in a flash, like that odd Johnson boy and his “boyfriend” did after only eight months?
Not a chance! I want a real wedding!
And all the assurances that this could never happen ring a little hollow, given (it is perceived) the general unwillingness of the government to let us do what we have been doing since I was a little boy at Grandma’s house at Christmas.
Again, and for the last time, I am not necessarily arguing that all this is valid. I am trying to present the point of view of the other side. I am not myself all that good a social conservative, but I know many of them.
It might be useful to understand the point of view, if you are at all interested in persuasion. If not, ten for ten bans on gay marriage are not a good precedent for the way things have been handled to date.
[Dennis Miller]Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.[/Dennis Miller]
[QUOTE=Zoe]
Just because Sex and the City portrayed a different lifestyle does not mean that it was sneering at more Conservative lifestyles. Was the Waltons sneering at the people in Dragnet? Are murder mysteries sneering at comedies? No one has to watch Sex and the City.
[quote]
Ah, but you miss part of what has been explained: we, the urban liberals, developed this lifestyle and adoped its values as a form of pragmatic adaptation to modern life. So if they sneer at us, we sneer back, and we’re even-steven. But the cultural conservatives do not see their values as a pragmatic adaptation. They see them as fundamentals, as the default. Media or political culture that disregards their value system can only possibly be a deliberate act of proselytizing on our part.
I mentioned this in another thread, and Sam has further explained the roots of it. Cultural conservatives, of whom currently there ARE MORE than social liberals, have over the last 40-some years had to deal with a massified, mobilized culture – TV, air travel, the Net, etc. – that confronts them with the different lifestyle of the urban cosmopolite right in their home and community. In the past, Smallville was Smallville, Metropolis was Metropolis, and they were safely at opposite ends of a long train ride. Not any more.
And it scares them. Because, as Sam suggests, it becomes a question of: “will I be able to raise my children the way I see fit?”. And I’ll tell you, people will abandon all reason when that becomes the question.
I grew up in rural Indiana and I don’t agree with most of your views on why people are liberal or conservative. I think the major factor is exposure to multiculturalism. Many small town people do not get any exposure to ‘the world’ outside of the TV which portrays a very biased and extremist view of the world with beautiful people having sex all the time and tons of war. I still live in a moderately sized Indiana town (70k people) but at least here i’m exposed to multiculturalism. The internet also goes a long way to exposing people to different cultures and value systems.
I think that is the major factor in things like gay rights, the fact that most people who voted for banning gay marriage don’t know any openly gay people outside of TV. People who are exposed to homosexuals probably have a different view. Also because its a small town the government is not really ‘present’ in daily life. Then again it may be the same in large towns. In small towns you just pay taxes and go about your life.
Of course multiculturalism can work against liberalism too. Some people, when they visit the ghetto and find out that some of the minority groups they have wanted to protect and help are violent, racist assholes. Some go to San Francisco and see really, really, really exaggerated gay lifestyles (instead of gays just living normal lives whil having a different sexual prefernce which is what most gays do). These things will make people more conservative. But I think some exposure will make people more liberal while too much will make people conservative.
This really concerns me the more I think about it. Change is here. The modern borderless economy is not going away, but the conservative values being described by Sam in this thread are not, as far as I can tell, capable of dealing with the consequences of that economy on their own, as they stand today. But I don’t see cultural conservatives trying to engage the unintended consequence of progress on their own terms. Instead, I see them scapegoating those of use who are trying to deal with those consequences.
If this communication gap isn’t breached, sooner or later those changes are going to steamroller both camps.
Both my parents remember being forced to participate in prayers that included Jesus, at public schools. This isn’t an arbitrary issue.
Rewmoving strikes me as the tolerant thing to do. And I am religious. I believe in the G-d of Abraham. I’ve accepted Him into my daily life. I ask him for help and thank him for bounty (abundance, not the paper towels.) I don’t think any student should be forced to pledge their faith to Him, or be made to risk exclusion or prejudice because they will not so pledge.
[QOUTE]It’s always been there, why pick up that fight and alienate vast swaths of people? Why not compromise on school prayer and allow a moment of private silence?
[/QUOTE]
Because having a ‘moment of silence’ is about as transparent as claiming ‘seperate but equal’?
I ask this seriously, is that a typo? Did you mean to say “I don’t want evolution NOT taught as science.”?
Cites? My high school banned hats in the dress code. My yarmulke was exempt due to my first amendment rights. There was a Christian club. AFAIK they had a faculty advisor like all the other clubs. Their meetings and events were announced over the PA system like every other club.
What good reason? When my sister had mom call the principal over the lack of any recognition of Judaism in the school’s holiday display, the man was shocked anybody would even be offended. I can’t count how many times I had to have that conversation over the years.
The state doesn’t recognize marriages performed by clergy now, unless that person is certified by the state to perform marriages and the proper paperwork is filled out and filed. Unless the couple gets a marriage license, blood tests, etc the government doesn’t recognize any ceremony as valid.
I will freely admit that, while I have no problem with socially conservative individuals keeping to their old traditional values and ways and patterns, I don’t want their children to be deprived of the chance to make a choice to the contrary.
They teach their sons and daughters to abstain from sex until marriage, to extend to the male the authority of head of family and head of the marriage, to gestate any pregnancy to fruition if it occurs? Fine, absolutely no problem.
They make birth control information and technology unavailable to their sons and daughters, make abortion services unavailable, and structure their laws and policies so as to directly support paternal authority within families? Now you’re oppressing people. This is evil. This is not good. This is not of God. This is wrong.
And the fear is that this will go further, to the point that the state will not recognize “marriage” at all. Only civil unions, and only if performed in an entirely secular way.
So that religious marriage wouldn’t even be separate but equal. It would be denied altogether. Another instance (in the eyes of the social conservative) where religious speech and religious practices are marginalized.
“The fact that you mentioned God in the ceremony means it wasn’t valid”. That is what they are afraid of, in large part.
I missed that the first time. I’m pretty sure he meant, “I don’t want creationism taught as science.” Otherwise, I don’t understand the gist of the paragraph in which it appears.
This is a position that just doesn’t seem consistent to me. Do social conservatives believe that baptisms are “denied” or “marginalized” by the fact that the state doesn’t recognize them?
I have a hard time accepting this as anything other than a belief that the state has always favored their religion in this aspect, and that it should continue to do so.
When I was a child in a pre-dominantly Roman Catholic area the teacher led us in reciting the RC version of the Lord’s Prayer out loud. I was a very religious Protestant and this made me very uncomfortable. I was relieived when the SCOTUS ruled against prayer.
Sam: great OP. I think that much of the problem is around how to phrase the issues. For example, the US is the most church-going developed country in the world. I think one can argue that is because of separation of Church and State, not despite it.
The state never recognized baptism, which is a purely religious rite with no government-recognized benefits. Marriage is.
Not really. The option of non-religious marriage has always been available, so there has been no favoring of one religion over the other. What social conservatives fear is for the government start favoring secularism over religion, by denying the validity of religiously-based marriages.
I beg to differ. One of the consequences of our borderless economy is that small businesses can save a bundle by hiring illegal aliens instead of full citizens. I’d wager that culturally conservative business owners had little problem engaging that consequence.
That fear is only slightly less ill-founded than the fear that gay marriage will become mandatory. How hard do we have to shout that no one is trying to take anything away from straight people or churchgoers before conservative stop misunderstanding liberals on this?
The parents weren’t involved in the fucking ! Why should they be in the abortion ! I agree with Kerry on that… if Daddy was the raper… its hard.
Question: If these conservatives don't like government meddling... why do they so easily support the US invading others ? Why the love of military power ?
Okay, but a proposal that would get rid of state-sponsored marriage, replacing it with civil unions, gives everyone the same government-recognized benefits. If social conservatives are quibbling over the word at the top of the certificate, I consider that to be just as petty as anyone else’s quibbling over that word.
Again, a civil-unions-for-all proposal doesn’t “deny” marriage, doesn’t “marginalize” marriage: it leaves it in the hands of private people.
It seems to me that people on both sides of the SSM issue really want the government to legislate their own feelings on what the word marriage means, although neither side admits it for the most part. Social conservatives want the government to give them, uniquely, the approval of being married; this is an injust position.
Heck, if social conservatives dislike government intervention, why are they all getting lined up behind these “the government must protect marriage” laws? Having the government dictate who can and cannot get married is in complete opposition to this position.
And similar arguments can be made for other aspects of the social conservative agenda. If you really believe in individual responsibility and minimal government interference, you should also support the FCC tossing out its “indecency” laws and letting broadcasters air whatever they want. Stop whining about excessive sex and violence on TV and shut the damn thing off…
I agree with Kerry on that… if Daddy was the raper… its hard.