Drama Over Obama Inaugural Prayer

[ParanoiA]

No intelligible response, just more whining that you can't support?

 

Good, argument over.

 

Actually Mokele, everyone reading this thread knows exactly who's doing the whining and throwing the temper tantrum here.

 

While you were gone, the quality of these threads have soared, since we stick to criticizing ideas, not people. We don't really engage in post-wars where the focus morphs into who can come up with the best insults - there's AOL and Yahoo chat rooms for that.

 

I suggest revisiting the forum rules to reacquaint yourself with the restriction of ad hominem and trolling, and the myriad of fallacies associated with using insolence as your weapon of desperation.

 

There's no reason to be shitty with me. I respect everyone's views and genuinely enjoy logical arguments that flex the critical thinking component, and I'm sorry if that offends you.

 

Much love,

 

Para

[iNow]

A well written rebuke of Warren by Christopher Hitchens some might find interesting.

 

http://slate.msn.com/id/2207148/

 

Nice find, waitforufo. I've always enjoyed the writings and dialogs of Hitchens.

 

 

I especially liked these bits:

 

As Barack Obama is gradually learning, his job is to be the president of all Americans at all times. If he likes, he can oppose the idea of marriage for Americans who are homosexual. That's a policy question on which people may and will disagree. However, the man he has chosen to deliver his inaugural invocation is a relentless clerical businessman who raises money on the proposition that certain Americans—non-Christians, the wrong kind of Christians, homosexuals, nonbelievers—are of less worth and littler virtue than his own lovely flock of redeemed and salvaged and paid-up donors.

 

This quite simply cannot stand.

It is an event that belongs principally to the voters and to their descendants, who are called to see that a long tradition of peaceful transition is cheerfully upheld, even in those years when the outcome is disputed. I would myself say that it doesn't need a clerical invocation at all, since, to borrow Lincoln's observation about Gettysburg, it has already been consecrated. But if we must have an officiating priest, let it be some dignified old hypocrite with no factional allegiance and not a tree-shaking huckster and publicity seeker who believes that millions of his fellow citizens are hellbound because they do not meet his own low and vulgar standards.

[waitforufo]

Thanks. Hitchens always makes you think. Also, you did capture my favorite bit.

 

But if we must have an officiating priest, let it be some dignified old hypocrite with no factional allegiance and not a tree-shaking huckster and publicity seeker who believes that millions of his fellow citizens are hellbound because they do not meet his own low and vulgar standards.

 

I went to Catholic school through the 8th grade. I recall a very old a very frail nun teaching my religion class how easy it was to pick out Christian hypocrites. She said it would be obvious that they had never read the epistle of James. James includes the following.

 

So speak and so act as people who will be judged by the law of freedom. For the judgment is merciless to one who has not shown mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. - James 2:12-13

 

and

 

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you realize that we will be judged more strictly, for we all fall short in many respects. - James 3:1-2

 

So as Hitchens points out, Warren fails even the Christian test and is indeed a true hypocrite.

[Sisyphus]

I haven't read too carefully through this thread, because flame wars just make me tired. But skimming, I see some interesting points all around, both about Warren and the issue of gay marriage generally. I personally don't believe the government should be involved in marriage for anyone, so if I were in charge it would be a moot point. Just offer civil unions to everyone, and in your personal/religious life you can call it whatever the hell you want. I think there’s a real chance that will end up being the situation, since it seems to be a situation most people on both sides can accept, if you frame it wisely. The liberal appeal is true equality and a secular government, and the conservative appeal is (or should be) “the government can’t tell me what to do” and the fact that gays still can’t be “legally married,” whatever that means. You’d probably still get opposition from diehard Christian conservatives, but they’re a smaller minority than they would have you believe. And also, **** them.

 

That said, I'm still quite sympathetic to the normal liberal position, and I find the usual conservative arguments to be very weak and often disingenuous, if not necessarily the boiling cauldron of hate they're typically accused of being. The whole "marriage has meant this thing for thousands of years" argument seems especially silly. The popular notion of what marriage means has changed in my lifetime, and a lot more so in my parents'. The transition from the "father knows best" mentality to widespread acceptance of it as an equal partnership is that recent. And that’s hardly the only example. I suspect more cultures have accepted polygamy than have condemned it. And I didn’t know that about gay marriage (or something like it) in the early Christian church. That’s hilarious.

 

But the heart of this argument isn’t about gay marriage, it’s about the value of unity vs. the value of refusal to compromise core principles. I don’t know the answer, since I think you’re both right. In the long term you can do much more good with patience and compromise than insults, but on the other hand, many (though not all) of these people deserve those insults, and there’s real injustice happening right now.

 

Ultimately, I think I’ll side with Obama and unity over “keeping it real.” A good historical example is Abraham Lincoln himself, a man Obama is obviously trying to emulate in a number of ways. Lincoln’s position on slavery was very interesting. He spoke with great fire and eloquence against it, and was famous for quotes like “if slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” And yet, in running for President, he went to great pains to stress that the abolition of slavery was of secondary importance to preservation of the United States. He said that if he had to choose between a unified country that included slavery and a divided one that ended it, he’d choose the former. Of course, the southern states didn’t believe him when he said this, and didn’t give him a chance to prove his word. But still, that was his position.

 

Although the situation today is not as dire as it was in 1860, it’s still pretty dire, and the Bush years have been incredibly divisive. What Obama seems to believe (and what I agree with) is that what this country needs is not just another attack dog in the opposite direction, but a fundamental change in the style of government. In order to truly accomplish anything great, you can’t just have 52% helping to punish 48%. You need to convince those 48% to help you move forward, and to do that you have to compromise, and be forgiving, and show respect to those you disagree with and learn to speak their language.

 

(Incidentally, whoever said it made a good point that Obama and Warren pretty much have the same public position on gay marriage. I’m aware of that. I personally do believe that Obama was probably just pandering in this, but I don’t know that for sure, and so I’ll take him at his word. As far as I’m concerned, he’s against gay marriage. But the larger symbolism of reaching across cultural and ideological divides still stands.)

[Pangloss]

Nice post, Sisyphus. As Edward Everett said after Lincoln followed him on the speaker's podium at Gettysburg, I wish I could come close to saying in two hours what you can say in two minutes.

 

Hat's off.

[Reaper]

I've been standing on the sidelines for a while, because personally I really could care less about what goes on in this and most other threads in the politics forums in general. But are you seriously suggesting that granting the right of marriage to same sex couples will lead to another civil war? Or some other dire consequence akin to the universe blowing up?

 

First of all, things were vastly different back in 1860; the military wasn't nearly as centralized and loyalties among them were divided. The sense of nationalism back in the 1860's wasn't nearly as strong as it is today. As well, it was the onset of the Industrial Revolution, so the means of production weren't as of yet exclusive to the factories; as such the advantage provided by industrialization wasn't yet large enough for the North to just simply squash the South...

 

In contrast, any state stupid enough to try to secede from the union today would mostly likely get blown off the face of the Earth; there is just simply no way for any state to get anybody of military importance on their side. In fact in this day and age the SWAT team and the National Guard is much better armed than the armies of the 1860's....

 

 

If anything, abolishing anti-gay laws will probably just be like the abolition of Jim Crow laws; you will certainly get a lot of whining from the conservatives (indeed, they have whined about everything ranging from granting women and minorities more rights to the teaching of evolution in schools), but ultimately 10-15 years down the road everybody will just move on and live with it.

 

 

I mean seriously guys its not that bad. The U.S. won't collapse, galaxies won't explode, and most of all the backlash isn't going to be as dire as you all are making it out to be. I can't see why we just won't simply abolish all anti-gay/lesbian laws and just get over this trivial non-issue already....

Edited December 23, 2008 by Reaper

[Pangloss]

If we didn't split up over abortion I can't imagine splitting up over gay marriage. Anger over this is mainly in the province of activists and those directly impacted by the limitations of the law, which is a relatively small portion of society. Revolutions are the province of large-scale social groups.

 

Unfortunately for emotional advocates, the public at large is not highly motivated on this issue. That could well be a factor in polling, by the way -- people tend to support the status quo when the status quo isn't hurting them. Once they start to realize that it's hurting someone else, and that changing that won't hurt them, opinion tends to come around. I believe that's what's happening on this issue, and that that's supported by the polling data, though I have no sources handy at the moment.

[ParanoiA]

Sisyphus - I don't know what happened to the rep scales, but that was a great post.

 

I personally don't believe the government should be involved in marriage for anyone, so if I were in charge it would be a moot point. Just offer civil unions to everyone, and in your personal/religious life you can call it whatever the hell you want. I think there’s a real chance that will end up being the situation, since it seems to be a situation most people on both sides can accept, if you frame it wisely.

 

Interesting too, because other people think this is entirely the other way around, as the most unrealistic option. It does seem to appeal to each particularly interested group. I would also think it should be forced onto the states to legally recognize it.

[Pangloss]

The reputation link is now in the lower-left area of the post region, just to the right of the reputation meter (the word "add"). If you can't see it please let us know.

[Sayonara]

So you show neo-nazi's how not to hate by not hating - starting with them.

Can you give an example where this approach has worked?

[Pangloss]

Doesn't matter. MLK wasn't wrong just because he was shot.

[Dak]

everyone knows WWII could have been avoided with more hugs.

 

ParanoiA: out of interest, would you describe your views as: a free-market/anarchistic approach will, ultimately, grant liberalism better than legislative methods?

 

if so, i'd be interested in a thread about it so i can probe your views, iff'n you want?

[Mr Skeptic]

Same thing. "I'm not against black people, I just don't think they should have their freedom!"

 

How about, "I know, we can eliminate discrimination against black people by calling them white."? If the government had redefined black people as white, then it wouldn't have needed the new amendment to grant them equal rights. This is what the current pro-gay movement is trying to do -- not grant them equal rights by law, but redefine them so they have equal rights under existing laws. Why you think this is a good idea is beyond me.

 

Allow me to make it simple for you: What damage would it do to your goals to allow gay marriage? Regardless of your philosophic position, allowing it would temporarily solve the situation until you can gain enough political clout to implement your ideas.

 

Actually, allowing gay marriage to be recognized, without passing new laws to that effect, would cause permanent damage to my goal that laws need to be passed via the legislative process. For example, they might classify people as weapons, and forbid people from leaving the country based on laws regarding export on weapons. Or pretty much anything. I recall reading that you can't grow your own marijuana (despite not selling it) because of laws on interstate commerce. This kind of thing is a danger to a free society. If laws are allowed to be made on a whim via unintended processes, it will end in disaster (or rather, more disaster).

 

Terms, and societies, evolve. We can and do change terms. Remember when "voter" meant "white, rich male over 21"?

 

Remember when they passed a Constitutional Amendment to change that? They didn't just say, "Well, the word voter means something new now." They passed a Constitutional Amendment. Remember?

 

---

For that matter, does anyone have an example where a law has been changed by a fundamental change in definition? What about by a minor change in definition?

[Sisyphus]

But are you seriously suggesting that granting the right of marriage to same sex couples will lead to another civil war? Or some other dire consequence akin to the universe blowing up?

 

No, of course not. But it might unnecessarily spend huge amounts of political capital that could be better used elsewhere, perpetuate a bitter, partisan atmosphere, and ultimately end up being counterproductive to the intended goal.

 

Can you give an example where this approach has worked?

 

Well, we've never legally persecuted Nazis in this country, but they're still pretty damn unpopular. Aside from that, the most obvious example is the civil rights era. Who ultimately did more to help the plight of blacks in America, Martin Luther King, or the Black Panthers? (And yes, I realize there was the Civil Rights Act, etc. I'm not inherently against unpopular legislation. But I'm talking about the respective goals of a post-racial America and "**** whitey.")

[Sayonara]

I'm asking ParanoiA for a practical example of a society removing a category of hate through the power of being nice.

[npts2020]

I'm asking ParanoiA for a practical example of a society removing a category of hate through the power of being nice.

 

Isn't that what Mahatma Ghandi did?

[ParanoiA]

I'm asking ParanoiA for a practical example of a society removing a category of hate through the power of being nice.

 

Yeah, see the Ghandi example, MLK, etc.

 

I'll admit it's probably more of an idealogue position driven by principle. I don't believe it to be consistent to hate while preaching against hate. It's the whole lead by example routine. Love your enemy. Nothing new, it's just that most people leave the movies feeling all jolly about that kind of message, then turn right around and bigot someone else for their belief system.

 

And you know my whole "deal" with bigotry, I simply don't believe it should be institutionalized. No matter how noble we seem think our current moral code plays out. And I think the only way to truly avoid that, is to remove as much subjectivity as possible from our legal system.

 

However, don't confuse "being nice" with "sit down and shut up". I would never advocate that folks be a doormat and take inequality. All I'm really arguing for is a more civil discourse so we can more aptly persuade folks to change. Persuasion is the key in my little libertarian-ish world.

 

ParanoiA: out of interest, would you describe your views as: a free-market/anarchistic approach will, ultimately, grant liberalism better than legislative methods?

 

Well, sort of, but similar to how democracy works better with a constitutional check, in my opinion, the free-market of societal morality obviously has to have their boundary. I would describe them as an attempt to maximize diversity and individual liberty so that society can evolve without the drag of static laws that institutionalize some kind of moral conclusion - even if it appears noble and just by present standards.

 

In short, my view is that government should legislate ethics, leaving morality up to individual choice. I realize the inherent problem with parsing those two words, but I feel it necessary. It's unethical to deny unions to same-sex couples, triples, familials, etc. Morality, however, is up to those individuals. If you want to spread your morality, then it should require persuasion of the free mind, not institutionalized for efficiency.

 

It's my belief that had we objectively applied the words "all men are created equal", then we could not create laws that determined slaves were 3/5ths of a person. Either that, or those words should have been removed. In other words, only subjective prejudicial reasoning allowed us to wriggle around that principle and institutionalize bigotry on such a shameful scale. Our country will suffer from this for centuries to come.

 

If we force ourselves to be objective with our creation of laws, then we disallow ourselves the chance to "accidentally" or "incidentally" institutionalize a prejudice, and hurt some class of people, or other life form.

 

Not sure if I answered your question. I hadn't really thought about it quite like you're putting it, so I'll be thinking about this more. It's quite interesting.

Edited December 23, 2008 by ParanoiA

[iNow]

Actually, allowing gay marriage to be recognized, without passing new laws to that effect, would cause permanent damage to my goal that laws need to be passed via the legislative process.

 

If marriage recognition by the state was already inherent to be between a man and a woman in the existing law (as you and many others continue to suggest), then why did a new law have to be passed seperately defining it as such?

 

There clearly would have been no reason or need for Prop 8 had the existing definition already been so clear and straight forward about being between one man and one woman as you (and others) suggest.

 

The very fact that Prop 8 was needed at all seriously deteriorates the merit of that suggestion/assertion, and I suggest you and others either a) recognize this inherent contradiction and stop arguing on that basis, or b) demonstrate more fully that the existing definition was clearly to suggest one man/woman only, and explain why Prop 8 was needed at all if that was the case.

[Sisyphus]

I'm asking ParanoiA for a practical example of a society removing a category of hate through the power of being nice.

 

Isn't that a bit of an unreasonable demand, though? Has any category of hate ever been completely removed through the power of anything? Plenty have been marginalized, though.

[Pangloss]

If marriage recognition by the state was already inherent to be between a man and a woman in the existing law (as you and many others continue to suggest), then why did a new law have to be passed seperately defining it as such?

 

There clearly would have been no reason or need for Prop 8 had the existing definition already been so clear and straight forward about being between one man and one woman as you (and others) suggest.

 

The very fact that Prop 8 was needed at all seriously deteriorates the merit of that suggestion/assertion, and I suggest you and others either a) recognize this inherent contradiction and stop arguing on that basis, or b) demonstrate more fully that the existing definition was clearly to suggest one man/woman only, and explain why Prop 8 was needed at all if that was the case.

 

Then why can't gays get married right now?

 

This particular aspect of this discussion is somewhat pointless, because human/societal laws aren't physics or math -- ultimately such laws are subject to human interpretation. If the humans in charge of doing the interpreting decide that X means Y, then that's what it means, and he best you can do is replace the humans in charge of doing the interpreting. You can re-write the law to be less ambiguous, but ultimately if you have poor people in place then they'll probably find some way to distort it.

 

Instead of haggling over the meaning of some subtle point of law, what we need to do is decide that we're going to handle the larger issue in a certain way, and then get everyone on board with that approach. That's why it's foolish to browbeat people into submission on this issue -- you actually challenge the losers to look for legal hairs to split.

Edited December 23, 2008 by Pangloss

[ParanoiA]

I'm asking ParanoiA for a practical example of a society removing a category of hate through the power of being nice.[/quote'] Isn't that a bit of an unreasonable demand, though? Has any category of hate ever been completely removed through the power of anything? Plenty have been marginalized, though.

 

Maybe another question might be for a practical example of a society removing a category of hate through the power of hate, or even force...like militarily...like in Iraq....like what GWB has us doing....that we all claim we're against, and how stupid it is, and how it creates more terrorists.

 

Isn't that what we've been pluralizing around here?

 

So why do we endorse that backwards battle tactic with Warren and his followers? (for those who advocate militant discourse that is).

[iNow]

This particular aspect of this discussion is somewhat pointless

 

I quite disagree, and I continue to wait for an answer to the questions I posed toward those who are using the "marriage has always been defined as between one man and one woman" as the foundation of their argument.

[ParanoiA]

I quite disagree, and I continue to wait for an answer to the questions I posed toward those who are using the "marriage has always been defined as between one man and one woman" as the foundation of their argument.

 

I hope you don't mean that. I have no intention of defending that ban any more than I would defend a ban on breaking the speed limit. It's not my fault if they're letting their fears override their common sense.

[Sayonara]

Isn't that a bit of an unreasonable demand, though? Has any category of hate ever been completely removed through the power of anything? Plenty have been marginalized, though.

See below!

 

 

Yeah, see the Ghandi example, MLK, etc.

I personally don't think that the Ghandi and Martin Luther King examples do the job. Sure, they influenced the degree to which society allowed that hate to dictate public policy (marginalisation), but they did not remove or "fix" the people with the hate problem.

 

Or is that not what you meant ParanoiA? I may have taken your comment a bit literally.

[Pangloss]

I quite disagree, and I continue to wait for an answer to the questions I posed toward those who are using the "marriage has always been defined as between one man and one woman" as the foundation of their argument.

 

Then why can't gays get married right now?

 

I personally don't think that the Ghandi and Martin Luther King examples do the job. Sure, they influenced the degree to which society allowed that hate to dictate public policy (marginalisation), but they did not remove or "fix" the people with the hate problem.

 

I'm asking ParanoiA for a practical example of a society removing a category of hate through the power of being nice.

 

Sure, you just need to step back from the problem a bit and widen the field of view. They may not have eliminated a single category of hate, but they've drastically reduced the overall power and influence of hate.

 

We no longer live in a world in which hate is accepted as a dominant motivating force. But we did live in that world up until very recently (in human historic terms).