Maggie Gallagher reflects on David Blankenhorn's decision to "accept" gay marriage:
"...here’s what I want to say to David and to you: a comity that is bought by surrendering principle is submission, not comity at all. The truth about something as important as marriage cannot be the price we pay to live with each other.
The challenge of our time—and it is a deep challenge, not an easy one—is to find new ways to combine truth and love. Giving up marriage is too high a price to pay. And it is not the last good we will be asked to surrender, unless we find the courage to stand."
Read her entire article in The Public Discourse.
24 Comments
Another quote from Maggie:
"The lessons gay marriage advocates will take from David Blankenhorn’s “conversion”? They will learn what they know: stigma and hatred directed at people who disagree with them work."
And:
"What lessons should we take? What lessons do I take? The first is that no one can fight alone. To stand up to the wall of hatred directed our way, we need each other. And we need the larger sense of community that faith uniquely provides. The second is that as we fight for the good, we must never respond to hatred with hatred, to exclusion with the desire to exclude."
The SSM campaign, particularly those SSMers who have recenty become guest-bloggers at Blankenhorn's blog, Family Scholars Blog, have contributed to poisoning the public discourse on marriage. He has been generous, to a fault, and has been rewarded with what?
The SSM side has lousy arguments and even worse cultural and politics tactics and strategies. The SSM campaign depends on ways and means that are bigoted (pro-gay bigotry is something they ought to reflect on very deeply -- at least as deeply as Blankenhorn and Maggie have reflected on the charges of bigotry that SSMers have routinely levelled against them). The SSM idea is an anemic notion; it is not worthy of the preferential status of the marriage idea. SSMers do not depend on sound reasoning but rather on favoritism of the gay identity group.
SSMers: SSM supporters. One need not be gay identified nor leftist nor a relativist to voice support for the SSM idea. But one does need to skip over the sound moral and legal argumentation in favor of the marriage idea if one is to stand against the marriage idea and in favor of the SSM idea. That much has been made clear even in the example of the treatment that SSMers have dished out to Blankenhorn.
I have followed David's arguments from the moment he started making them. I have read most of his books. He was always strong on liberal comity and short on moral resolve.
His current stance retracts nothing of his worldview about the damage & unacceptabilty of same-sex "marriage".
Instead he has posited that a tactical retreat that surrenders on "marriage" can (somehow) cause the cultural left to embrace intact married childbearing for heterosexual couples.
That the cultural left and its mainstream media denizens will embrace a agenda of bringing down the rates of divorce and illigitamacy.
The idea is laughable...
I suggest we embrace his experiment at face value and watch to see the crickets chirp around his new strategy. They will take the concesion and steamrole over his plea's. These are the same people who watched the bottom drop out of the black family and did not miss a beat. Instead of concern about family breakdown we got same-sex "marriage".
His crumbled new agenda will stand as testimony to the false comity he purports exist.
Fitz -- what do you mean when you say "watched the bottom drop out of the black family"? Also, I'm not sure why you think it is "laughable" that the cultural left would support an agenda of bringing down divorce rates. If the tactic were to make divorce illegal, then sure, the cultural left would be opposed. But promoting intact families? I think that's something we can all agree is a good thing. For me, I see SSM as promoting families, for NOM supporters you see SSM as a corruption of family values. That doesn't mean we can't agree that divorce is often very tough for children.
Chairm, it is gays in this country who grow up facing a wall of hatred their whole lives. I am not gay. I do not "favor" gay people. I just support treating them equally, rather than as second-class citizens.
I do not see how my view is based on "gay favoritism" or my self-identification with the "gay identity group". I just believe that two consenting adults should be able to get married and start a family. If that means adopting children, then great. If that means having biological children together, then great. In either case, marriage promotes intact family units in our society. I don't care what kind of sexual interactions the married couple is having behind closed doors. It is not my business nor the government's business.
Fitz, I agree that his tactical retreat will likely be unproductive.
He had attempted such a tactical retreat with Jon Rauch regarding Civil Union. Rauch, whose own so-called conservative case for SSM has long been repudiated, openly lauded the tactic even as he restated his rejection of the marriage idea in favor of the SSM idea.
On his own blogsite, Blankenhorn made his assertion about "homosexual love' but has not backed that assertion with sound moral argumentation. (If a reader can cite such argumentation made by Blankenhorn, please do so). The guest SSMers on his blogsite piled on to insistently demand that he accept the consequences, as they saw them, for his moral assertion about "homosexual love". They did as Rauch had done earlier -- patted Blankenhorn on the head for conceding so much for so little and openly derided the marriage idea in favor of the SSM idea.
That Blankenhorn was considerated, generous, and civil to a fault with them, only encouraged their hostility toward his public pro-marriage stance. They have worked hard to marginalize others and they have worked doubly hard to push Blankenhorn to the sidelines.
@ Fitz
Well said. I didn't know who he was, nor know his arguments. But it is clear to me now that he has no longer anything to say on the subject of marriage that could be of help. Quietly leaving the discussion altogether would have been a more honorable, helpful, and less damaging thing to do rather than his smoothy change of position (whatever you call it, I never heard anything like it before. A type of flip-flip flipity-flip). He is now, whether he wants to be or not, on “their” side. Its so embarrassing to witness. And if he lives, breaths and is warmed and validated by the recognition of his viewpoints, than I could only predict that he will be more and more coming out on their side in the future. A real evolution.
And another one bites the dust. That is not said with any joy.
""The lessons gay marriage advocates will take from David Blankenhorn’s “conversion”? They will learn what they know: stigma and hatred directed at people who disagree with them work."
Let's face it, Maggie. Chuck Cooper made a big mistake with this guy, and I am afraid everyone else did too.
It ust have sounded good on paper- get a liberal, a Democrat, to show that marriage is not just a right/left issue.
Strategies which cede the grounds on which the battle will be fought to the opposition's choosing are losing strategies.
Ah, well.
At least we know- I hope- that the opposition is relentless, implacable, and committed to a worldview which is demonstrably insane.
Let us pray that we will show as resolute a commitment to the truth, as the pseudo-marriage movement shows to a lie.
"Giving up marriage is too high a price to pay. And it is not the last good we will be asked to surrender, unless we find the courage to stand."
Excellent quote, as expected from Maggie.
I'd just say God bless David Blankenhorn. I hope he finds peace; and I appreciate his work on the issue of ssm-- work which he hasn't repudiated, by the way.
Blankenhorn has false hope. By retaining his past (correct) beliefs about marriage, he has probably opened himself up to even more ridicule and hostility. I was reading a pro-ssm website that heaped a lot of abuse on him because he defected "for the wrong reasons" and clings to his past arguments.
While reading Mark Oppenheimer’s interview with Blankenhorn (linked to in Maggie’s article), I got to the part about how Blankenhorn was unwillingly thrown into the ssm fight years ago, and that part made me all the more confused about his recent endorsement.
Does he not realize that all of his marriage-related work is now compromised by this decision?
All of us know that charges of “animus” and “bigotry” are leveled at marriage supporters, not because SSMers truly believe that marriage has been practiced worldwide for thousands of years as a means to harm gay people, but because the charges are attempts to stifle disagreement.
We also know that this stratagem goes beyond ssm, and is used to silence opponents of*any* LGBT policy goal or ideology, and further, *any* goal or ideology of some on the left.
So it’s not clear why Blankenhorn thinks that he can embrace ssm, and continue talking about the value of mothers and fathers, the troubles of donor-conceived adults, etc. without drawing some sort of hostility. Any discussion of these issues will be construed as “anti-gay” or animus-driven, regardless of his support for ssm.
SSM is part of a cultural narrative spreading in this country where people believe that all of their choices must be validated by society; every lifestyle practice has merit. This narrative is definitely not limited to ssm.
If Blankenhorn can’t stand the heat from SSMers—for simply saying that he opposes ssm—how can he expect to reduce fatherlessness when we have hordes of narcissistic heterosexual women demanding that everyone praise their decision to *purposefully* conceive and raise children fatherless?
Blankenhorn said in his book that he is caught between what he considers to be two goods: marriage as a pro-child social institution, and the “equal dignity of homosexual love.” In the book he decided that the second “good” must be subservient to the first.
Now he’s flipped. Why? Because he’s tired of culture wars, and he hasn’t seen improvement in the institution of marriage during the past 15 years.
Unfortunately, Blankenhorn has lost his usefulness, and I don’t say this with malice. At this point, he’s the epitome of Mark 5:13. He has lost his saltiness, and is no good except to be trampled upon by men.
He has no power to do what he claims that he wants to do, because all someone will have to do is accuse him of hatred, or put the heat on him somehow, and he’ll cave.
He’d better be prepared to dispense of talking about any family values that he holds dear, because he doesn’t have the resolve.
The rest of us, however, will keep fighting.
Interestingly enough, I posted the same post I wrote above over at his site "family scholars" and it was removed after about ten minutes.
Apparently David and his followers are not prepared to be subject to any criticism for his decision..
If anyone can tell me how my post above is (somehow) beyond repectfull criticism I would like to know. I believe it is a harsh but fair post.
@ Fitz (I commented to your post a few minutes ago but it did not get throught tricking system. Lets try again.)
Well said. I did not know who he was, nor know his arguments. But it is clear to me now that he has nothing to say on the subject of marriage. Quietly leaving the discussion altogether would would have been a more honorable, helpful, and a less damaging thing to do rather than his smoothy change of position. Whatever his move can be called, I never heard anything like it before, pathetic. A real flip-flip flippity-flip that amounts to a floppity-flip, or other wise stated - absolutely nothing. He is now, whether he wants to be or not, on “their” side. Its so embarrassing to witness. And if he lives, breaths and is warmed by recognition of his viewpoints (and earns a living from it; than I can only predict that he will be more and more coming out on their side in the future. A real evolutionary proses. Some people would have been better off staying home and weather coating the back deck, or tending the vegetable garden while listening to the birds and distant brook.
Thanks for nothing.
(Your post Fitz is... logical and clear - that poses a problem these days.)
Fitz, Blankenhorn's own blogsite has become yet another example of good things being corrupted by the SSM campaign's means and ways.
I hope that your comment will reappear but do not expect it. You can make inquiries directly to Blankenhorn.
Jon (asks)
Fitz -- what do you mean when you say "watched the bottom drop out of the black family"?
I mean that when the sexual revolution started the illigetamacy rate for Black families was in the 10% range and basicly the same as the population as a whole.
That throughout the sexual revolution it skyrocketed to 70% & that was not enough to slow down their revolution or stop it.
Jon (asks)
"I'm not sure why you think it is "laughable" that the cultural left would support an agenda of bringing down divorce rates."
Watch...they wont do anything to bring down divorce or even purpose that bringing down divorce is a good idea.
This is a struggle between to competing worldviews. It is the difference between the "pure relationship theory" & "the conjucal model".
Under the pure relationship theory, marriage is only about the adults involved and not about the children or society as a whole. The wishes of even one partner to disolve a marriage is enough to warrent divorce. This ideology will not surrender its dogma's simply because David Blakenhorn hopes they will..
Fitz
I didn't think your post unfair, but IAV's blog seems to have a very arbitrary civility policy.
@Fitz
Okay Fitz, maybe you are the one to ask.
1) Is (or how much is) the homo movement just a tool used by the feminist movement?
2) Is (or how much is) the feminist movement just a tool used by a larger ideology?
*) That the power and energy of sex is being used to manipulate the people at this time in our civilization goes without saying.
3) Can a criticism of the liberal left be used to counter this movement of our civilization when it is the free market, capitalist, money loving, (Wall Street), religious Christian based ideas of free market, and power system that is looking to benefit from these changes as much as the “immoral”, “atheist” “anything is goes” crowd?
4) Is there any hope that can come from within this civilization itself at this time that might bring back a level of health to our community? Or has the fat lady sung her song?
Thanks for your insights. Sorry for the side track on this blog.
Good News..
#1. In my estimation - very much
#2. In my estimation - very much
I analysis gives great weight to Frankfurt School Marxism as taking root in the 1960's and being largly responsible for the countercultural revolution.
#3. Yes, Although I do appreciate your insight that much of the right is dedicated to buisness interests and that certain aspects of a capatalist economy help aid in family breadown and hedonism...and the like.
#4. Yes, I beleive we can still win. Multiple possibilities remain but one that has the most immediate help would be a change in the Supreme Court...and the fith vote needed to accomplish many aspect crucial for society.
We have not come this close to having a majority of SCOTUS since FDR. We are one vote away from finally having power again. Judicial activism (breaking the law) has been the most potent of weapons in the cultural lefts arsenal. Without it we could not have arrived at this moment.
Depriving them of this allows both a more effective defense and the potential for a new offensive.
Would he have felt welcome here?
Good News
Good questions.
It sure does seem like the forces that embrace a radical view of autonomy- from the social(left) and economic(right) -are converging in ways that are socially destructive.
@Fitz
Thanks for you effective notes. And thanks for a little hope. I'll take all I can get. But you will excuse me, if I have to wait and see it, before I believe it.
A for now I'll keep spilling this sour milk on the table of political correctness until someone takes notice, and gives me something else to drink.
@AM
You said it. (Wish I could do as well in so few words. And now I will look up 'autonomy' to get the full effect.)
Good News (writes)
"And thanks for a little hope. I'll take all I can get. But you will excuse me, if I have to wait and see it, before I believe it."
I agree with you...I wont believe it until I see it myself. Thats why Im so adament about finally getting and effective conservative majority on SCOTUS..
If they turn out to have sold us out -(as they have in the past) then we at least know if the powers that be are leading us on. If they actually reverse decisions, then we win.
But I have to know....the worst nightmare is that Kennedy retires and is replaced by a liberal and We as a country never know if we could ever have actually won.
I gat ya.
One way or another. Whatever it be. Let me see the truth.
Maggie: On behalf of all of NOM's supporters we stand behind you and Brian in this worthy cause. It is a fight well worth fighting. So we had a traitor. Did one traitor Benedict Arnold stop Americia from becoming Americia? Same thing here. We have too many supporters to allow one act of treason to affect our movement.
This is a perfect example of the homosexual agenda, brow beating good people into submission. I suspect to hear next, that he has chosen the homosexual lifestyle.
Jon in your comment you indicated that favoritism for the gay identity group would be something you'd oppose. Please confirm or clarify your intended meaning.
Jon said: "it is gays in this country who grow up facing a wall of hatred their whole lives."
That is irrelevant to marriage law. Absolutely irrelevant.
But given the SSM campaign's gay emphasis, and your own gay emphasis, it appears to be relevant somehow to marriage law in your view. You have not shown the supposed connection exists.
You said: that you are not gay. Also irrelevant.
Meanwhile the marriage law does not have a gay criterion for ineligibility. Individuals are treated equally regardless of the gay identity that you emphasized.
You also said something you probably do not actually believe:
You said: that you "just believe that two consenting adults should be able to get married and start a family."
Consent is not a trump card for those ineligible to marry. The lines for eligibility are drawn around the core meaning of marriage.
See David Blankenhorn's book on the subject.
The SSM idea is an outright rejection of that core meaning.
A child is eligible to be adopted when that child's family is no longer intact. This is so for two-sexed scenarios. Why you imagine otherwise for one-sexed scenarios is really something you need to explain without contradicting yourself.
You said:
"I don't care what kind of sexual interactions the married couple is having behind closed doors. It is not my business nor the government's business."
Whether or not you care is irrelevant to the marriage law which entails the sexual basis for consummation, the sexual basis for annulment, the sexual basis for adultery, and the sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity. That sexual basis is the same in each of these examples.
Now, I doubt that you do believe what you just said, anyway, because you see SSM issue via the lens of your gay emphasis. If there is no sexual basis for such an emphasis, then, please explain your meaning without contradicting yourself.
Again, you might read David Blankenhorn's book on the matter. He has some weak points regarding "homosexual love" but you might learn something by absorbing the substance of the marriage idea and comparing it with your own stated (though dubiously stated) beliefs on this.
Hahahahah! Someone on this blog is puzzled that a respectful yet disagreeing statement isn't allowed? Puhlease. This blog is notorious for blocking people all the time.
Blankenhorn is accountable for the comment policy and its implementation on his own blogsite.
Cutting people out of the discussion there has been prompted by politically motivated complaining SSMers. Big assumptions have been asserted by SSMers on that blogsite but have remained unchallenged due to this policy of cutting people out of the public discussion there.