REACTIONS TO "BIGOTRY AND THE GAY MARRIAGE QUESTION"

My friend Scott wrote me this email:

"Relating to consent, you write: "Those who ask, seriously or ironically, why promoting same-sex marriage won't open the door to legal incest, interspecies marriage, child rape, and the like are not merely committing a slippery slope fallacy of the worst kind. Nor are they only guilty of a failure to consider the difference between agency and non-consent, or in the ability and inability to communicate that consent in the public forum." Gay marriage critics may be guilty of the failure to differentiate as you do. But their understanding of consent is probably closer to our legal and cultural traditions than yours. You may readily grant that (and even consider it a root of the problem). But, if so, then the burden should be upon you, rather than them, to articulate and defend your theory of consent.

"As for the slippery slope, let me add some other considerations. Let's grant that there are "effective consent" problems with incest, bestiality, and statutory rape. Assume that in each of the following scenarios (a) there is effective consent between the parties and (b) no third party is directly harmed. Should unregulated boxing be legal? How about dueling? Assisted suicide? (In the assisted suicide category, include cases such as the recent one in Germany where a man responded to a cannibal's classified ad and consented to be slaughtered and eaten.) Prostitution? Suttee? Sado-masochism? Why or why not? My point isn't to provide an alternative slippery slope. (I'm no opponent of gay marriage.) It's to get you to think about and clarify your theory of consent."

And re-think consent I certainly will. In reality, my own theory of consent (if I have one) is much more grounded in materialism than liberalism. Russell Arben Fox, whose link is on this page, says my arguments for gay marriage have a strong liberal tone, and it's true that I am appropriating Rawls and applying a liberal interpretation of both Habermas and even Marx in trying to find a language justifying equal access to state-sanctioned partnerships. In an email, Russell reaches similar critical agreement with me, but is, as always, honest about his caveats:

"I'm critical enough to secularist conception of the public square to distrust the Rawlsian lines you invoke to distinguish private belief from public reasons. That being said, it isn't as though "private beliefs" can't and shouldn't themselves be subjected to public critique; they should be, and in my view, most of the "private" conceptions, such as those employed by OSC above, have a serious lack of support. He goes on to say that accepting a "redefinition" of marriage to include homosexual declarations would be at "the expense of the common language, democratic process, and the facts of human social organization." Strong claims, but I doubt there is anything substantive there backing them up. The "common language" of marriage? The common language of marriage, as anyone can see, is exactly what you assume it to be: a public declaration of attachment and commitment. The "democratic process"? This actually holds some weight for me, since I don't like judicial fiats...but I'm not sure I like constitutional fiats any better. And "the facts of human social organization"? How can a "human social organization" which allows for no-fault divorce, adultery without sanction, and a powerful notion of a right to "privacy" possibly articulate an argument against the recognition of homosexual affection?

"In other words, in the Western world today, there simply isn't a readily available and widely accepted philosophical or moral framework which would treat homosexuality the same as tree-love. We don't talk that way, don't act that way, don't vote that way. One of the reasons that so many opponents of same-sex marriage have scrambled to appropriate traditionalist Catholic reasoning about marriage is because that line of argument does have some substance behind it--it really does treat marriage as something other than a public declaration of attachment and commitment. For orthodox Catholics, marriage--and the sexual act in marriage--is a sacrament which has everything to do with God's relationship to creation and a telos for humankind; that is why Catholicism denies the validity (not to mention the morality!) all forms of contraception, the act of divorce, and many other modern innovations which are taken for granted today. In other words, against truly believing, pious, anti-modern Catholics, and few other believers like them, I would say that your ascription of "bigotry" fails, because they honestly reject the premise of "competent consent." But for anyone who does not embrace that whole line, who does in fact think marriage is about love (but, er, just not that sort of love), I'd say your ascription of bigotry would be a difficult to reject."

Somewhat more skeptical is Nick Zukin, who responded:

"I don't care if you use the word "bigot" really. The effects of such
language are yours to live with, and that's the real problem with throwing
it around. But I think "tangible state interest" phrase is an interesting
bit of libertarian rhetoric that could unravel the argument. Why is the
search for a "tangible state interest" any less based in "private,
metaphysical beliefs" that those who just say the law should be God's law or that laws should be based on communal beliefs, traditions, etc?"

I think many thinking conservatives collapse into relativism as a reaction to strong spiritually-based arguments in favor of same-sex marriage. They say "see--you're being dogmatic too!" An interesting and troubling strategy.