I would like to sincerely congratulate my friends and family who see a moral victory in the recent Supreme Court decision legalizing same sex marriage.
But I am prevented by two considerations. First, this ruling has come at the cost of discarding the possibility that government recognizes marriages for the well-being of children. This essential purpose has been understood for millennia. I understand it is practically ineffective while we have no-fault divorce, and a culture that doesn’t value commited relationships. I would have these changed. Government recognition of marriage really should be about the couple’s responsibility to the broader community, particularly in raising their own biological children. It’s a reasonable norm with reasonable exceptions, that don’t entail the logic of the Court’s ruling. As nice as it is for two (or more?) people to express their desire to commit to each other, that is a matter for private communities, not the government. If we construe government to be in the business of affirming the validity of personal relationships, then that is effectively instituting a deeply held religious belief called progressivism.
Second, I am sad that people seem to think that human dignity and moral worth are secured by political activism and legislation. This is not the case. All human persons have intrinsic moral worth due to their being created in the image of God. This is not a particular evangelical belief, or a conservative belief. It is a reasonable, public, and humane belief. It is a justified, true belief. I know it to be true, and I bet you do, too. It was true before Friday’s ruling, it is true after the ruling, and it will be true no matter what other political developments happen in the future.
For good reason my conscience prevents me for celebrating this decision. It is my firm but not-at-all-certain hope that there remains tolerance and goodwill in this country toward dissenters.
“And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”
Matthew 5:41 (ESV)
The above passage has recently been used to suggest that Christian bakers, if asked to bake a gay wedding cake, should bake two instead. Does this prescription necessarily follow from Jesus’ very own words? Consider this application:
“And if anyone forces you to go to the back of the bus, go twice as far back.”
Anyone who knows the history of the American civil rights movement also knows this is dead wrong. It is a mistaken application of moral reasoning. This is because we know that sometimes, it is right to stand firm in the face of injustice. One thing we know of Jesus is that he always stood for moral truth; he was faithful to and never abandoned it. Even when people misjudged his intentions, to the point of crucifying him. Can we all at least concede the possibility that business operators are trying to make a similar stand?
It has been advised that a Christian should bake a cake to avoid hurting another’s feelings. But following Jesus seems to be more about being faithful to truth than aoviding hurting other’s feelings. Jesus did not swerve from truth when rebuking Pharisees, moneychangers, or even when interacting with the rich, young ruler. Even beyond what scripture says, it is common sense knowledge that we can’t control how others react to us. Avoiding hurting other’s feelings should not trump faithfulness to truth.
The current moment presents a dilemma for bakers, florists, and others who hold to conscience. Today, litigiious activists would force them to appear as if they are affirming and celebrating same-sex marriage as identical to natural marriage. To say nothing of scripture, there is a very real, natural, biological difference beween same-sex and man-woman relationships. The practical difference has been virtually obliterated for the sake of a coarse political agenda, built on mistaken premises. Activists seem to want to compel speech to the effect that, “I approve of you as a human being.” But I believe most of these business owners, like Washington state florist Barronelle Stutzamn, already approve of, and indeed truly love, their LGBTQ customers as human beings. It has been a long held truth that equal dignity comes from all of our being made in the image of God, imago Dei. Lawsuits and vitriolic compulsion do nothing to add or subtract from anyone’s dignity. Rather, they call into question the judgment of activists and progressive supporters who think such moves are justified.
It is a remarkable irony that as the voices of compulsion grow louder, people of conscience have all the more reason to take a stand for truth. And for Christians particularly, being misunderstood is not something to avoid, but to patiently endure until the truth prevails. As the U.S. civil rights movement itself illustrates, sometimes, it is the right thing to refuse what others demand of you.
[it] will come down to a debate about granting a new right to a group of people, or confirming a right that is historically contained in the Constitution.
Denniston doesn’t consistently name the views, so for sake of reference let the former view be “invented rights” and the latter “discovered rights.” The Ninth Amendment seems to provide a justification for discovered rights:
“The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
That very promise, at least in one interpretation, set America and its institutions on a more or less continuous journey of discovering what those unspecified rights might be.
I’d like to draw out the ontological implication of discovered rights. Or rather, a paleontological implication. It would seem on this view that constitutional rights are always existing, like some fossils that lay hidden, waiting to be dug up at the right moment in history. It would seem to invite a type of metaphysical Platonism. It might be like the Augustinian doctrine of traduccionism, the idea that you, me, and all descendants of Adam were actually present within him at the Fall of Man. What one thinks of traduccionism theologically is one thing. But constitutionally, wouldn’t it be a little absurd to posit that all future rights were somehow actually embedded in the document at the time of the Founders, waiting to be unpacked in a more progressive time? Could I now be writing words that contain new, untold rights of future generations? It seems quite absurd.
I find the alternative view better. Rights when enumerated, are spoken into being as new creations. Metaphysically, they would seem to be constructs. This does not make me a rights nihilist, but it might make me a rights nominalist.
Denniston frames the driving question of the more skeptical view this way:
What gives a new group, seeking constitutional protection, the right to ask that it get a new right all of its own?
But for those who would unpack preexisting rights, the question is, “Why should guarantees of equality of fair treatment be frozen in constitutional time?”
Notice the language: “equality of fair treatment.” The meaning seems under-determined, but to me the phrase looks redundant. Doesn’t fair treatment already imply an equality of consideration?
Take potential U.S. presidents Arnold Schwarzenegger and Madonna. It may be that the Constitution on procedural grounds fairly prohibits foreign-born Arnold from assuming the office of presidency but permits Madonna for the job. In this case, both persons can be equally and fairly considered, while the outcome is unequal but fair.
Denniston presents a final juxtaposition of discovered rights versus invented rights:
Is it a sweeping right to choose one’s life mate without interference by government? Or is it a right that is fundamental only because it has deep roots in the traditional definition of one-man, one-woman marriage?
The first alternative is deeply twisted logic. The failure of government to affirm one’s very personal life choice does not constitute “interference.” This again confuses the positive right to receive something from government with the negative right to be left alone by government.
Denniston’s second alternative of rooting an individual right to marriage in tradition doesn’t sit quite right, either. The third, unpresented alternative is, why think marriage is a right at all? It seems to me that marriage, especially on the child-centered natural law view, is not anything more than a privilege or duty done for the public good. Let legal marriage bet distinct from personal, theological, and cultural conceptions of marriage.
Just as a childless individual pays taxes for and obtains the general benefits of public education, so we all generally benefit from stable child upbringings that obtain when men and women fulfill the obligations and responsibilities entailed in a marriage covenant. On this overlooked view, if there is a right to marriage, it does not belong to individual citizens, couples, or throuples, but to society as a whole.
This is why I find it especially alarming when attorneys general choose not to defend state constitutional amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman. Protecting an arguable public interest should not be left to personal whim!
If marriage is a policy in the public interest, we should consider that individual rights may not be able to expand forever. It should be becoming clear that digging up or inventing new rights is at best an absurd exercise, and at worst, damaging to the nation.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
-The Friends of Voltaire (1906)
Tolerance in the face of disagreement, even incredibly odious disagreement, has been a hallmark of American civil discourse. The idea as we know it today crystallized with Voltaire, although Jacques Barzun informs us that it was the English Puritans who first gave it to us.
Today, it seems tolerance is gone. I was watching this Red Eye clip just yesterday, where Reason‘s chief editor Nick Gillespie was marveling that, in America’s post-scarcity economy, consumers can afford to make political statements by boycott. This in response to news that dating website OK Cupid blocked Mozilla Firefox users from its service because Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich gave a $1,000 political donation to California’s Proposition 8. That was the overturned state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
Gillespie was right; boycotts are a luxury of those fortunate enough to be able to choose how to spend their money and time. They are a possible solution to the first-world problem of having to live with someone who makes you uncomfortable by virtue of their seeing the world differently from you. Some progressives seem to be very good at wielding this blunt, destructive, stigmatizing tool of social ostracization and economic isolation. Recall the Oregon bakers whose painstakingly-built business was shuttered by boycott and intimidation in 2013.
On Thursday, after just a few days of pressure, Mr. Eich stepped down because some of his employees simply did not like how he spent his own money. They did not like his political speech, so they cut short his career. He happened to be a Mozilla co-founder. Oh, and he only invented javascript. That kind of tearing down of someone who makes things for a living, transforms the way we live our lives, but just happens to see things differently from you, that’s what I call progress.
It would seem an apology is in order to Mr. Eich, but as it turns out, the apology went the other way around. The Wall Street Journal reports:
In a blog post Thursday, Mozilla’s executive chairwoman, Mitchell Baker, apologized for Mr. Eich’s appointment, writing, “We have employees with a wide diversity of views. Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public…But this time we failed to listen, to engage, and to be guided by our community.”
Amazing. Baker’s apology was not for Mozilla’s being intolerant of Eich’s views, but for his alleged intolerance to the company. On what evidence? Now that he’s gone, everyone can feel safe “to share their beliefs and opinions in public.” Orwellian. Chilling.
Maybe Mr. Eich was hateful. I don’t know. How does one determine that? According to the Journal, he made conciliatory moves. But even if he were a hateful, smoldering homophobic imp, I will have to make the point as I have a few times before by asking, why think that it is inherently immoral, blameworthy, or hateful for government to restrict the kinds of relationships it recognizes?
The week after Arizona governor Jan Brewer’s vetoed “anti-gay” bill SB 1062, The Atlantic ran this headline on its story feed: “How Religious-Freedom Laws Could Come Back to Hurt the Faithful.” Jonathan Merritt lays out a hypothetical turning of tables, where a Unitarian refuses service to a Baptist. Then he asks:
Would conservative Christians support this storeowner’s actions? Because if not, they better think long and hard about advocating for laws that allow public businesses to refuse goods and services to individuals anytime they believe the person’s behavior conflicts with their sincerely held convictions.
The moral lesson seems simple and airtight:
If you are able to discriminate against others on the basis of religious conviction, others must be allowed to do the same when you are on the other side of the counter.
But was the bill really about legally enshrining anti-gay discrimination? The actual text makes no reference to sexual orientation. Read the bill, it’s short. Neither does it say anything about discriminating against a customer on the basis of the customer’s religious belief.
It is very easy to imagine a criterion where a business owner may refuse service: when the requested service violates her conscience. This can happen when an artist is forced to render service to an event she personally finds unconscionable. Maybe she is a florist, photographer, or baker; these people have already been sued and boycotted for refusal of service.
Consider if a caterer, who is a strict vegan by conviction, were forced to serve meat to carnivores. That would be a clear violation of conscience, unjustified and wrong. Some would argue that she should not be in the catering business in the first place, but that’s illiberal and hard-hearted.
However, if the caterer were forced to provide a vegan meal to carnivores, that would pass muster according to the correct understanding of equal protection.
Refusal of service based on an immutable trait of the customer is one thing. But refusal of service based on the impact the service would have on the producer is one possible rational basis for the right to refuse service.
Why hasn’t the mainstream media picked up on this?
Here are the final five posts that should have been in 2013.
5. Neuroscience and the Soul. This year I mentioned a peer-reviewed philosophical journal put out out by the Evangelical Philosophical Society, Philosophia Christi. If you have ever felt uneasy about the certitude with which neuroscientists, naturalist philosophers, and science populizers have pronounced the nonexistence of the soul, the irrelevance of essences, or the fully deterministic nature of human behavior, then the Summer 2013 issue of Philosophia Christi is for you. It features ten or so excellent articles, by contributors who take time to interact with the work of prominent philosophers of science and mind, including Jaegwon Kim, John Searle and Daniel Dennett.
Mouse neurons, or Piers Morgan’s? (Wikimedia)
Eric La Rock draws deeply from scientific facts to propose a fuller account of consciousness called “emergent subject dualism.” J.P. Moreland undermines the foundation of naturalistic top-down causation, and commends interactionist-dualism. Daniel Robinson situates the stakes of neuroscience well within contemporary culture. Be warned though, this is heavy reading! If you proceed, it will acquaint you with the top Christian thinkers who are addressing metaphysical naturalism, materialism, and all those ideas which have subjected people alternately to despotism, decadence, or despair.
4. Two posts from 13.7: Cosmos and Culture. This NPR-hosted forum is my favorite popular science blog to “pick on,” so to speak. I discovered it this spring while googling in the aftermath of the epic William Lane Craig versus Alex Rosenberg debate. Any references to substantive Christian metaphysics or perspectives on science are pretty scarce. Some contributors are self-professed atheists, but all I think are at least deeply committed to keeping science divorced from traditional theism, even if they flirt all the time with spirituality.
Adam Frank wrote a post called, “Let’s Get Creative And Redefine The Meaning Of Religion.” Reflecting on it, I realized that Thomistic ontology can be overlaid onto anyone’s worldview. If one thinks that “science,” Captain Crunch, the material world, or any other thing is the maximally greatest being (MGB) in all possible worlds, then I would suggest that that is their conception of “God.” Then, I would commend adding the quality of agency, that is the capacity for intentionality, to that MGB. Then we’re having a discussion about theology.
Digging back to 2012, I discovered that Alva Noe reviewed Alvin Plantinga’s book Where the Conflict Really Lies. And while I haven’t read the book, I have a sense enough from other reviews and interviews to say that Noe didn’t engage it adequately. Particularly, he offered an illustration comparing the necessity of an epistemic warrant for science to the need to justify improbable theories as to why a “check engine” light is on. Basically he’s saying there is no need. This dodge falls flat. The facts that the mechanic exists, that the car exists, and that the mechanic knows how to go about fixing the care are in need of explanation! The dismissal seems to be another instance of equivocating “I don’t need God to do X,” where it’s not clear whether Noe intends the need to be epistemic or ontological.
Despite the disappointment, writers like Frank and Noe offer provocative reflections on the nature and limits of science. I’m still hoping they will one day successfully engage with thoughtful theism.
3. Francis Beckwith’s Politics for Christians: Statecraft as Soulcraft. I read this book in the first half of the year, and writer and apologist Kurt Jaros has reviewed it chapter by chapter at Values and Capitalism. The big take away for me comes from Beckwith’s brief discourse on moral ecology, the idea that a citizen of a democracy has a vested interest in policy that shapes her surrounding culture’s morality. This is because even if she is able to model good morals to her children, an overwhelming presence of moral degeneracy among her neighbors will still adversely impact her and her children. It’s the kind of rousing call like in The Lord of the Rings film, where Merry and Pippin convince the apathetic Ents to go to war, because their fate is tied to the world around them.
One chapter provides an invaluable reference on the origin of the idea of the separation of church and state. That phrase itself is not explicitly in the Constitution; rather it comes from a private correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists, that was conscripted for jurisprudence in the 1940s. Every proponent of religious freedom should learn the facts contained therein, given that groups like Freedom From Religion Foundation use the wall of separation to intimidate and silence public exercise of religious freedom.
Another chapter, detailing the history of religious freedom in America, draws heavily on the Catholic experience. There is an analogy between Catholics in the past and evangelicals, broadly defined, today. Each have been persecuted minorities in their respective times. Lovers of freedom would be wise to learn from the relevant history Beckwith provides.
2. Ryan T Anderson withstands Pierce Morgan and Susie Orman’s bigotry.
From Merriam Webster:
Bigot : a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance
I discovered this phenomenal YouTube video months after it first aired in the spring. For an extended segment of The Piers Morgan Show, Ryan Anderson, editor of The Public Discourse and co-author of an academic and a popular work defending traditional marriage, endures lame challenge after lame challenge, and booing from the audience to boot. Susie Orman serves as an unfortunate prop to make the same sex marriage issue personal.
Toward the end, Morgan accuses Anderson of being on the wrong side of his age demographic. At the tender age of 31, he is in the minority among his peers in his opposition to government recognition of same sex marriage. All told, Anderson’s appearance is a perfect study in composure and sticking to the facts in the face of ad hominems and vitriol. Mr. Anderson, you are the real deal. I salute you!
1. William Lane Craig featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Dr. Craig garnered unprecedented attention in the world of academia when he was highlighted in a major story in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The piece opened by introducing him as the man who at the mere mention of his name makes New Atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, snarly and defensive. “Why are you publicizing him?” Dawkins demands. The story goes on to detail, in a fairly balanced way, the ambitious long range intellectual project first undertaken at Biola University to disseminate scores of thoughtful, committed, first-rate Christian scholars into the ranks of universities around the world. The author notes that this kind of effort is simply unparalleled by other communities.
*****
And so it is with great excitement, as we head into 2014, that I myself will be partaking in some of that Biola goodness as I start earning a Master of Arts in Christian Apologetics. I’ll be busier come January, and I can’t say for sure what things will look like at this blog. Dear reader, God bless you in the new year!
Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision on Windsor v US is remarkable on a number of levels. It’s an exceedingly rare instance where liberals celebrate an old, rich white person getting huge tax break. In this case, it is to the tune of $363,053. I wonder what principled reason leads the Left to applaud rather than object to the outcome.
In writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy supplies that principled reason. It seems on his view that President Bill Clinton and a sweeping majority of the 104th Congress were bigots intent on inflicting “injury and indignity” on gay couples, a “politically unpopular group.” Does this sound a bit . . . judgmental? It’s hard to believe that gays and lesbians are “unpopular” in 2013, a mere 17 years after the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) came into effect. Flipping on any random television sitcom, reality show, or talk show indicates the contrary.
So what has changed in that brief span of time in America, in the hearts of Harry Reid, Joe Biden, and Chuck Schumer, high-profile Democrats who voted for DOMA but now celebrate its demise? Perhaps there was something akin to President Obama’s “evolution.” A subjective, personal premise for legislation.
This would explain why, when politicians and media throw about “equality” or “discrimination” in the public square, candor and lucidity seem to be in short supply. President Obama merely asserts that DOMA was “discrimination enshrined in law.” What is the condition where discrimination obtains? I didn’t see Justice Kennedy supply it. If I were to guess, that criteria likely hinges on what the Critical Race Theory professor at Harvard Law had for lunch.
The SCOTUS Windsor ruling is anything but assuring for the integrity of our democratic republic. Especially in light of growing irresponsibility in the Executive. California Governor Schwarzenegger shirked his duty to defend Proposition 8 without consequence. Likewise, President Obama and Eric Holder were rather . . . discriminating when it came to whether or not the Justice Department would defend DOMA in court. This is not the rule of law. What happened to impartiality and professionalism, let alone charity in disagreement?
There’s a rational basis for government to recognize and enforce marriage as a commitment between a man and a woman. As a class, heterosexual relationships tend to produce children, and those children need to be protected against the parents’ inclination to terminate that commitment. To make marriage an issue of equal protection of benefits undercuts that indispensable reality. Inheritance issues, visitation rights, and so on–there’s an app for that. It’s called civil unions.
Neither should government dole out marriage as a way to validate feelings or affirm dignity. Sure, there were real dignity issues in the Jim Crow era. That was half a century ago.
Sometimes people complain about “legislating morality.” Never mind the incoherence of that critique; what are laws supposed to be if not moral? But I get the point; some legislative pushes come off as offensive, judgmental, and needlessly intrusive. Here we have not just “legislating morality,” but legislating from the bench.
When it comes to making distinctions, it seems we have a one-way street, a double standard in effect today. Judge not, unless you’re liberal.
Polling last week revealed increasing public support for same-sex marriage. CNN affixed a sleek label, the “Rob Portman effect,” to the positive correlation between 1) personally knowing someone close who is gay or lesbian, and 2) support for same sex marriage.
This explanation reminds me once again of my days studying political science. One class I took, under Dr. Scott Gartner, featured the professor’s own research on American public opinion during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Popular memory attributes Walter Cronkite’s post-Tet offensive commentary as having soured opinion against the latter war. President Lyndon Johnson lamented at the time, “If I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” This sound bite helped fueled the notion that television coverage decisively turned the public against the war.
But Gartner’s research unearths a sturdier explanation of changing opinions on Vietnam. His multivariate analysis of wartime opinion polls shows “proximate casualty” as bearing the strongest positive correlation to opposing the war. That is, opposition is most likely when the respondent knows someone from nearby who died in the war relatively recently. Sound familiar? Regardless of era, the public assesses policy not with the brain but with the gut. Then and now, feelings trump facts.
English-speaking students of the Spanish language never forget the two forms of the verb “to know,” conocer and saber. The first applies to people, and the second applies to facts. Just as there is a distinction between knowing someone personally and knowing a fact logically, there is a distinction between the person proper and the circumstances pertaining to him. When we think of our loved ones, it’s natural to want peace and equality to be the prevailing and rightful state of affairs. But there’s tremendous value to acknowledging the uncomfortable truth that, in many respects, they are not. The sooner we stop deceiving ourselves about reality as it relates to the ones we love, the sooner we can turn the corner and work for the kind of peace and equality that we can actually attain.
Cogitating Duck 