The Prop 8 Trial and the New Theory of Politics
The Prop 8 Trial and the New Theory of Politics
“They reject the political determination of will by the people… the idea that the act of voting is an act of national will is decisively rejected. The plebiscite is to express and enforce the concordance between the objective will of the people embodied in the (leader) and the subjective convictions of the people. The plebiscite is a declaration of loyalty…, not an announcement of an individual’s will.” From The New Science of Politics, by Eric Voegelin.
Since the beginning of my involvement in the same sex marriage debate, I have tried to explain the wider ramifications of removing gender from marriage. Ted Olsen, attorney for the plaintiffs in the Prop 8 trial, claims that he can see no rational reason for restricting marriage to opposite sex couples. Since he can’t imagine any reason, he supposes that there are no reasons. Hence, he concludes, that animus against gays and lesbians is the only possible explanation for the adamant opposition to redefining marriage. Poor Mr. Olsen seems unable to imagine this entire line of argument that looks beyond the immediate consequences of same sex marriage, to the wider sociological and political ramifications.
The advocates of same sex marriage are in fact, bringing into being something much more extensive than “marriage equality,” or “opening marriage to all.” In fact, redefining marriage will put into place a whole series of incentives, which will in turn put into motion a far-reaching set of changes. The advocates of same sex marriage have been distinctly unwilling to take this seriously. (You would think that after losing election after election, they would make an effort to address the arguments of their opponents. The fact that they have not, is an arresting fact, which requires an explanation in and of itself. More on that later.)
Let’s start with the changes to the political order that are coming in the wake of the movement for “marriage equality,” and indeed, of the Prop 8 trial itself. Advocates of same sex marriage do their best to wrap themselves up in the American flag, and try to connect their movement with the traditional ideals of our people. However much they may attempt to do this, they are in fact initiating political ideas that have no precedent.
They cite the Civil Rights movement that brought voting rights to African Americans and ended legally sanctioned segregation. It is instructive to note how few African Americans share this view. Look back at the roughly 70% of African American voters in California who voted Yes on Prop 8. Look now to the efforts in the District of Columbia to preserve the gendered definition of marriage. That effort is led by African American pastors against the political classes of the District.
But the original (and real) Civil Rights movement succeeded because people were really persuaded that race is an irrelevant characteristic for full participation in the political, economic and civic life of the nation. By contrast, no one can seriously maintain that marriage is a necessary condition for participation in civic life, or that an unmarried person is a second class citizen in any meaningful sense. No one can believe that individuals with same sex attraction are unable to participate in the economic, political and civic life of this country, with or without the redefinition of marriage. The vast majority of Americans are persuaded that sex is in fact relevant to marriage and its purposes. They believe that marriage without gender or sex is an institution without purpose or meaning. This is why so many people are reluctant to strip sexual differentiation from the legal institution of marriage. The American public is persuaded that the demands of fairness and decency are satisfied by legal provisions that solve the practical problems same sex couple may face.
Hence, Civil Rights movement utterly fails as a precedent.
The advocates of same sex marriage have completely failed to convince the American public that redefining marriage is a civil right. Rather than try to persuade people that sex is an irrelevant characteristic for marriage, the advocates of same sex marriage berate their opponents and dismiss their arguments. And this is where they are in the process of redefining the political order itself.
Advocates of same sex marriage are so convinced of the rightness of their cause, they believe they only have to accept elections when they agree with the outcome of the elections. This trial itself is not just a trial of Proposition 8. The voters of California themselves are on trial, for having the temerity to vote in favor of natural marriage. When Ted Olson calls the campaign managers of Prop 8 to the witness stand, he is, in effect, calling the voters of California on to the stand. It is every person who voted yes on 8 who is on trial here. Make no mistake about that.
Perhaps now you can see why I chose the quotation from Eric Voegelin for the opening of this column. Let me give you the full quotation, without the elipses, and note that Dr. Voegelin wrote this in 1938.
They (the theorists of German National Socialism and Italian Fascism, both drawing on the vocabulary of German Romanticism) reject the political determination of will by the people– again especially in the German theory, where the Fuhrer is the only carrier of the people’s will. In the teaching on the plebiscite, the idea that the act of voting is an act of national will is decisively rejected. The plebiscite is to express and enforce the concordance between the objective will of the people embodied in the Fuhrer and the subjective convictions of the people. The plebiscite is a declaration of loyalty to the Fuhrer, not an announcement of an individual’s will. … The god speaks only to the Fuhrer, and the people are informed of his will through the mediation of the Fuhrer. (66-7)
Voting invalid unless it conforms to the “national will:” this is not the kind of political system we want to live under.
From The New Science of Politics, Eric Voegelin, originally written in 1938, reprinted in Modernity Without Restraint, Volume 5 of The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, edited with an introduction by Manfred Henningsen (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2000).
Loading ...
Very well said, Dr. J! Some will strongly object to your reference to the methods employed by the founders of the Third Reich, but I think a review of the tactics used by Same-Sex “Marriage” supporters in opposition to Prop 8 will show that the comparison is warranted:
It was early in the Prop 8 campaign indeed, when it became obvious that we were not “merely” fighting for marriage anymore – we were fighting for the right to participate in our own democracy. Tens of thousands of “Yes on 8″ yard signs were stolen. People demonstrating on the sidewalks in favor of Prop 8 not only had curses, but also (sometimes dangerous) objects thrown at them – even at their children – from passing cars. People’s homes, cars, businesses, and churches were vandalized. In at least one case a family was besieged in their own home for several days by an enraged lesbian couple who painted slurs such as “Hate Mongers Live Here” on their own car, parked it in front of the unfortunate family’s house, and proceeded to shout obscenities and insults at anyone going in or out of the driveway. (The family had dared to post a large “Yes on 8″ sign on the second story of their house where vandals could not reach it…) It could have happened to me. When I found my own “Yes on 8″ poster in my front yard torn in half, I hung it high in a tree by the street with a sign attached to it saying what I thought the tactics being used by Same-Sex “Marriage” advocates implied about their values and intentions. (“This is what Same-Sex “Marriage” advocates call tolerance. This is what they think of free speech and civil discourse.”)
Of course, all this was even before the results of the election became apparent. The behavior of Same-Sex “Marriage” supporters after the election says everything about what they consider the best use of “democracy” to be. All the assaults on the democratic process that they used during the election were employed again, but even more ferociously than before. This time people actually started losing their jobs for having supported Prop 8! (By the way, has anyone ever heard about even one person who lost a job for opposing Prop 8? Do you think anyone could have ever gotten away hounding someone out of their job for contributing to the “No on 8″ campaign?) These are all classic “storm-trooper” tactics. Such are the methods used throughout history by those who intend to subvert and destroy a democracy in order impose their own will on a society.
Forgive me for posting such a long comment. But we truly are at a crossroads in our nation’s history. Prop 8 did not just stop (what at the time appeared to be) a Same-Sex “Marriage” juggernaut in its tracks, it gave us a second chance to preserve democracy for the next generation of Americans. Thank God that courageous, competent, hard working people like those at Ruth Institute are on the walls to defend us at this time.
Battle on Believers!
I agree that the racialist analogy that the SSM campaign touts is profoundly flawed. In fact, the analogy runs the other way.
Racialist identity politics was pressed into the marriage law but this assertion of supremacy was repudiated. The SSM campaign would press gay identity politics into the marriage law — into our constitutional jurisprudence — and assert supremacy over our civilization.
The anti-miscegenation system selectively segregated the sexes through a racialist filter. The SSM argumentation would selectively segregate the sexes through a gaycentric identity filter. The racialist filter deeply undermined responsible procreation; the SSM argumentation would marginalize responsible procreation. And all this under the auspices of the foundational social institution which unites the sexes, provides for the solidarity of fatherhood and motherhood, and is not defined by the primacy of group identity.
The SSM cammpaign, like the racialist predecessors, would use marriage for a decidely non-marriage — indeed anti-marriage — purpose. When Government falls hostage to this sort of thing, the consequences are far-reaching.
Chairm: what do you mean by this comment: “The racialist filter deeply undermined responsible procreation?”
Hi Jennifer,
Please forgive me if some of the following is plodding.
The anti-miscegenation system selectively segregated the sexes — not just in terms of marriage, of course — and this necessarily and deeply discounted the solidarity of fatherhood and motherhood.
At a time when legitimacy was still a very big deal in legal terms, the system barred “white” people from marrying non-white people. If such a marriage occured, it was punishable as a crime.
Sexual relations — even dating — was criminalized. The racialist thinking actually recognized marriage as a public sexual relationship which, as a type of relationship, looked backward to ancestory and forward to descendants. The conjugal union was unflinchingly understood to be a procreative model for forming families across generations.
A child born to a ‘white’ man and a ‘non-white’ woman, for example, could not be legitimized. This was a time in our history when bastard children experienced severe disadvantages. The marital presumption of paternity was not available to the couple because they were not eligible to marry and, thus, not permitted to protect their children. The solidarity of fatherhood and motherhood was deeply discounted because marriage was seen through this racialist filter.
The children of such ‘mixed marriages’ suffered indirectly from the criminalization of the sexual relationship of their parents, the outlawing of the marriage, and the continued government imposed inferior status of the children themselves throughout their lives — starting from conception onward. These children, under the anti-interracial marriage laws, were assigned to a lower caste and could not marry into their ‘white’ parent’s so-called racial identity group. This perpetuated what the social institution is designed to resolve.
Responsible procreation is a coherent set of principles and practices. The first principle of which is that where babies are created, each of us, as part of a procreative duo — even before conception — is responsible to our mate and to our children (barring dire circumstances or tragedy). This is the social basis for the marital presumption of paternity. And that presumption’s sexual basis is the same for consummation, provisions for annulment, adultery-divorce, and so forth. This is where the sexual aspect becomes public: the societal significance of the principle that for each child there is a birthright to a mom and dad; that the mother who gives birth is the presumed mother of the child, and sexual partner of the child’s father; that the married father is not merely a biological parent — not merely a sperm supplier — but sticks around to be his child’s social parent and the co-equal legal parent; the father is bonded with the mother and her children in a very public and socially coplicated manner and this arises from the very private and intimate union of coplementary sexually embodied beings.
The responsible thing to do is for the man and the woman to commit themselves, one to the other, before, during, and after the arrival of children. They are deeply responsible and accountable, one to the other, because they’ve made each other parents of unique individuals.
That last point is often lost in the SSM back and forth. The mother has made the man a father; the man has made the woman a mother. They have transformed each other into members of two of civlization’s most socially significant institutions: fatherhood and motherhood.
The racialist filter purposefully undermines all of this. It forces an irresponsible procreation merely because of an intermixing of genes (i.e. miscegenation).
While responsible procreation arises from the two-sexed nature of humankind, from the opposite-sexed nature of human procreation, and from the both-sexed nature of human community, the racialist filter imposes the false formulation that there are subspecies of humankind which may not mix genes. Marriage, as a social institution, teaches civlization that there is one human race and its two-sexed nature imposes responsiblity on each generation. The racialist filter subverts that responsiblity for the sake of the assertion of supremacy of this or that particular ‘race’ or caste.
The anti-miscegenation system could not ignore the societal significance of the core meaning of marriage. It abused the social institution for an explicitly nonmarriage purpose. Looking to the past, it used ancestory — and bizarre notions such as bumps on the head, size of noses, and skin color — to segregate women from men, mothers from fathers, wives from husbands, and children from their birthright.
Does that answer your question well-enough? I’ll try to elaborate if you have other questions on this.
Jennifer, I should hasten to add, that you and your readers probably already possessed solid knowledge of the anti-miscegenation system. I did not mean to imply that readers and yourself would need a primer on that stuff. In my plodding way I was just trying to cover the basics as well as shed some light on my intended meaning for the sentence you asked about.
Chairm
this answer was very helpful indeed. thank you.
Jennifer, you are welcome.
At the NOM blog’s comment sections, this has been discussed on-and-off. Based on some of the pro-SSM comments, it looks to me that we’ve had a “trial run” (pun intended) of Olson’s courtroom arguments.
http://nomblog.com/627/#comment-11065
I went into further detail regarding the meaning of the phrase, responsible procreation, and challenged the SSMer to explain her ‘homosexual version’ of responsible procreation. See, she had added the qualifier, heterosexual, to the phrase responsible procreation, as if there were other versions.
See here
http://nomblog.com/627/#comment-11084
and here
http://nomblog.com/627/#comment-11085
My counterpoint is just that the sexual basis for responsible procreation does not apply to any one-sexed arrangement — gay, lesbian, regardless of sexual orientation — but it does apply to the conjugal union of husband and wife, again regardless of identity groupings and sexual orientations.
The racialist analogy with the core meaning of marriage is so distant as to be untenable, I think. However the racialist analogy with SSM argumention’s utter dependance on identity politics makes it a very close analogy, I think. SSMers may think their version of this racialist-like argumentation is more benign than white supremacy, and they may be right simply as a matter of historical record (so far), but it possesses the same profound flaws, injustice, and anti-constitutional bent.
Cheers,
Chairm
The “Ruth’s Institute’s” perspective on this issue is not only extremely non-objective, it sits outside of the rule of law in this country.
For one thing, they repeatedly refer to this as an “election”. Proposition 8 was not an election. It was a vote taken by people to alter the California state constitution to take rights away from a class of citizens. It was voted on by people who are unaffected by its outcome, whichever direction it had taken. No one was “elected” to any office.
Furthermore, this whole notion that the “political determination of the will of the people” has been rebuffed is utter nonsense. Our constitution provides that the rights of the majority are protected from the tyranny of the majority; i.e. civil rights issues are not put to a vote in America.
These are not “activist judges” making unilateral decisions. They are doing their jobs and interpreting the law of our land which provides for equal protection to all United States citizens, even the gay ones.
Even if you don’t like or “agree with” same sex marriage, you should be in favor of its legalization anyway, as our judicial system is one based largely on precedent. If people can vote to take away the rights of this group of people because they simply don’t agree, though they suffer no damages from it, you will be next. When a group of racists brings forth a referendum on the rights of blacks to marry, it may be brought. Black people could lose their rights to marry as well as inter-racial couples.
Women’s suffrage? Let’s vote on that, too. Why should women have the right to vote? They’re not as smart as men and shouldn’t be allowed the privilege (sarcasm intended for anyone on the slow side).
How many of you would like to be subject to the “vote” of 100 million strangers before you are allowed to marry the person of your choice? You can feel free to be against gay marriage for whatever reason but, in the end, it’s none of your business if 2 people decide to enter into a personal, legal contract.
And yet you fight and fight and money is spent, tens of millions of dollars that could be feeding hungry children or saving people from losing their homes or creating jobs because you are so offended by the 2 gay guys down the street who want to get married and mostly on religious grounds.
Who is this god of yours who propones hatred over charity?
sorry, the rights of the “minority” are protected from the tyranny of the “majority”
Steve: you are begging the question. The question is precisely whether genderless marriage is a right. The analogy with race does not work. Race is not relevant to marriage. Gender is relevant to marriage. If you say that gender is not relevant to marriage, you are redefining the core of what marriage is and has always been. This is precisely the issue that deserves to be discussed, and which we are trying to discuss.
And BTW, “2 people can decide to enter into a personal, legal contract.” Domestic partnerships solve all the major practical problems of same sex couples, and nobody does care. nobody is stopping you.
Going from a domestic partnership system to the redefinition of marriage is changing the definition of marrige for everyone, and changing teh incentives for everyone, not just for a handful of people who currently define themselves as gay or lesbian, AND who want to get married.
Jennifer,
Same-sex marriage is not “genderless”, it is simply the marriage of 2 people of the same gender. The California state legislature determined, as the judiciary is entitled to do, by way of interpreting the laws and the constitution, that same-sex marriage was indeed a right. It was a vote on Proposition 8 that took this right away.
The gist of my argument was that civil rights of a disadvantaged group of citizens are not subject to a popular vote in this country. It is the obligation of lawmakers, as stated in the Constitution of the United States, to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. If we put civil rights to a vote we would, arguably, still have slavery. Who would expect those in a position of power of others to voluntarily give up that position? This is precisely why we don’t put civil rights issues to a vote.
I agree that race is not relevant to marriage. However, there was a time when our laws MADE it relevant to marriage by disallowing people of different races to marry. In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. The issue was not put to a vote. Similarly, the law currently does make gender relevant to marriage; because that is the law does not make it “right” and it is exactly what we are debating, here and in the courts.
Domestic partnerships do not solve all of the problems of same-sex couples because they do not provide for the same FEDERAL protections that heterosexual couples enjoy; they are discriminatory. For example, same-sex couples receive only half the capital-gains tax exemption that heterosexual couples receive and they do not enjoy the inheritance tax exemption that a heterosexual couple enjoys. There are many other examples.
This would not be the first time marriage is redefined.
How, exactly, does allowing same-sex marriage change the definition of marriage for anyone else? Please elaborate – I have heard this argument before but, to date, I have never heard a cogent argument as to how same-sex marriage affects anyone in a traditional marriage. Perhaps you can explain it to me.
COPYRIGHT VS GAY MARRIGE 1-23-10
It’s truly sad and bizarre that we have copyright/ intellectual property laws that can protect a song and dance cartoon, but doesn’t guard the sanctity of our marriage ritual. Even with a thousand years of evidence and ownership that clearly demonstrates heterosexual monopoly by creation and invention the system fails us. Obviously we need to upgrade.
The venomous attacks by the gay community, by taking advantage of the loopholes in our laws could have been avoided by following in the paths of such greats as L. Ron Hubbard, who created his own religion, and the Afro Americans that created Kwanzaa. You gays should have invented your own mating ritual system instead of infringing on the copyrights imbedded by thousands of years of culture.
Steve: the redefinition of marriage from the union of a man and a woman, to the union of any two persons removes the dual gender requirement from marriage. that is the point. instead of being a gender-based institution that is child-centered, marriage will become a gender-neutral institution that is adult-centered.
some of us think that this is a significant enough difference to warrant public discussion, rather than simply assuming ill-will on the part of opponents.
as for your last question: “how does allowing same-sex marriage change the definition of marriage for anyone else? Please elaborate – I have heard this argument before but, to date, I have never heard a cogent argument as to how same-sex marriage affects anyone in a traditional marriage. Perhaps you can explain it to me.” Watch this space. Actually, I bet people who have been subscribing to my newsletter probably can explain it to you. But I will be taking up the question again in coming days….
Thanks for your comments.