Third day in a row I’m harping on the whole Prop. 8 thing. I apologize. But I think this issue is a pivotal one, and it may well be a turning point in how our nation and our world define bedrock principles that matter a lot more than union rules or the minimum wage. I think it’s worth a post or two.
Let me preface this by saying I have 352 Facebook friends. About ten of those are fake names created to expand my MobWars mafia, but the rest are real people from every corner of my life – from family, high school, college, church, my mission in Scotland, graduate school, and my professional world. The election has been a very awkward time to visit Facebook, because by my rough estimate, 75% or so of my friends are on the left side of the political spectrum, and the things they write and post on the site reflect that strongly. For the most part, unless it’s PJG who I enjoy getting into scraps with, I leave politics on Facebook alone. I don’t want to pick fights or pick friends based on how they vote.
Yesterday, Keith Olbermann produced one of his trademark “Special Comments” on the subject of Prop. 8 and gay marriage. At last count, 6 of my Facebook friends posted a link or referenced the video. Probably more to come. Most of those friends are gay themselves, and the comments they add to support the video are heartfelt and intense.
“This is the heart of the matter,” writes the first. “Stop listening to all the ‘noise’ and BS and listen to this.”
Here’s another: “Thank you, Keith Olbermann, for speaking up so eloquently about Proposition 8 – and its ilk – and for expressing my feelings 100%. Well done and well said.”
Another writes “WATCH THIS VIDEO IF YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS AT ALL ABOUT PROP 8!!!! Please view this no matter what side of the Prop 8 debate you fall on. Please see this video to understand where many of us are coming from. This is not about hating. This is an issue about allowing love in a scary, cold world. I thank you for your time.”
I usually break out in hives while watching Olbermann, but I felt it my duty to honor my friends enough to see what the guy had to say. So I watched it. You probably should, too, especially since I want to review at length what he said.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xfMisqab8&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1]
I’m not sure where to begin. I cannot question Olbermann’s sincerity on this issue, which is beyond dispute. Indeed, that’s really the whole point here. Olbermann effectively reframes the underlying question so that the emotional authenticity of his position is the only thing that matters. “You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight,” he says, his voice trembling, near to tears. “You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.”
Oh that it were that simple.
Because if that really were the only question here, then the response would be unanimous. There isn’t a human being on the face of the earth hardened enough to say, “Love sucks. It must be stopped at all costs.” That’s the sentiment of comic book villains, not real people. And by squarely siding with the Forces of Love, Olbermann implies that anyone on the opposite side of Prop. 8 is Anti-Love. And honestly, who wants to be Anti-Love? Who is opposed to “allowing love in a scary, cold world?”
Everyone who hates love, please raise your hand.
“If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand,” Olbermann begins. “Why does this matter to you? What is it to you?”
These are rhetorical questions. Olbermann doesn’t believe there is any valid answer to them, nor does he want anyone to attempt to provide one. He is correct in that he does not understand those on the other side; he is being artfully disingenuous by implying that he wants to understand them. After 9/11, those who wanted to “understand” the terrorists were rightfully dismissed as namby pambies. Understanding evil is not nearly as important as defeating it. Olbermann, who would reject that kind of reasoning when applied to detainees at Guantanamo, has finally found a villain worthy of such scorn – the Proposition 8 supporter.
It is apparent, then, that Olbermann is being emotionally authentic at the expense of intellectual honesty. By painting himself as the angel, I must, as one who opposes him, necessarily be a demon. You don’t have to understand demons. You have to kill them. Burn them. Exorcise them. I’ve never been to an exorcism, but I’d be willing to bet big money that most of them are emotionally authentic affairs. Indeed, I’d bet that bigots who think black people are subhuman can summon up a wellspring of genuine passion in support of their racist cause.
Can we not, in the clear, cold light of day, recognize that depth or sincerity of feeling do not automatically make one right?
The racism example is pertinent in light of Olbermann’s comments, which rely heavily on an analogy drawn between Proposition 8 and interracial marriage.
“I keep hearing this term: ‘re-defining’ marriage,” Olbermann says. “If this country hadn’t re-defined marriage, black people still couldn’t marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967.”
Olbermann milks this for all it’s worth, reaching back to slavery days when marriages between slaves were until “death or distance do us part.” This is the one part of his argument that appeals to reason instead of solely to emotion, yet it’s still fallacious.
The issue in interracial marriage was race, not marriage itself.
Think about it. In 1967, a black person may not have been able to marry a white person in certain backward pockets of the country, but if they married another black person, nobody suggested that the black couple wasn’t married. The same is true for anyone of any ethnicity. Asian marriages and black marriages and Arabic marriages and Eskimo marriages were all still marriages, even in the eyes of bigots. Regardless of race, the nature of the institution always called for one man and one woman. Society has now wisely determined that the color of that one man or one woman’s skin has no impact on the institution of marriage.
Yet Olbermann, perhaps without realizing it, is using a flawed analogy to persuade us to discard the institution of marriage itself.
He certainly goes to great lengths to avoid defining it on those terms.
“They don’t want to deny you [your marriage],” he says. “They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.”
You see? All he’s asking is for people to have “a chance to be a little less alone in the world.” I can think of a number of ways to make that happen legally. Should we throw a big party? Or send a singing telegram? Does someone need a hug? Such sophistry. Marriage is far more than just “a chance to be a little less alone in the world.” It is the fundamental unit of society, the basic building block of civilization. It is far weightier than just an expression of love, and it should not be altered lightly.
Olbermann is right, however, when he says, “they want what you want.” They want us to say that a loving relationship between two men and two women is exactly the same as one between a man and a woman, when it isn’t.
That’s not a moral judgment. It’s a statement of fact.
If that fact offends you, then consider this one: men and women are not exactly the same. Does anyone really disagree with that? You can argue that men and women have equal value in society, or that women should have the same opportunities men have, or even that one gender is superior to the other. But you can’t possibly maintain that a woman is indistinguishable from a man. Some political movements have tried to make that case, but you can only go so far in pretending that everyone has a penis. Pretty soon, the facts – among other things – get in the way.
So please understand that I’m not trying, at this point, to argue the relative merits in the differences between same-sex couples and heterosexual ones. What I’m saying is that there is a difference. Once we recognize that, we have to determine whether or not that difference matters.
Going back to Olbermann’s interracial example, one must concede that there is a difference between a white man and a white woman getting married and a white man and a black woman getting married. But does the difference matter? How will varieties in skin pigmentation affect the ability to be a wife or a mother, a husband or a father? There are often difficult cultural differences in marriages, but those arise regardless of race. If the only differential is the color of your skin, then I have yet to see persuasive evidence that the differential has any bearing on the institution itself.
Olbermann is saying, however, that removing a mother from the marriage equation and replacing them with a second father will yield an identical sum. He’s saying that gender in marriage is as irrelevant as race. And I think he’s probably right to a point. I can think of no significant difference between gay and heterosexual couples who choose to build a life together that should matter to society at large, provided that the equation is always one plus one.
But marriage usually isn’t one plus one. Baby makes three. Marriage is the first step toward the creation of a family. That’s where this becomes far more problematic than just a “question of love. “
Thousands of years of human history have demonstrated that the best way to raise children is with a mommy and a daddy. To ask my own rhetorical questions – How can anyone believe that this is not true? That the only difference between a mom and a dad is what’s in their pants? That removing a dad from the equation and putting another mom in his place will make no difference, or at least, no difference that matters?
If you have answers, I actually would like to hear them.
I’m all for love. Sex is pretty good, too. I’m a big fan. I don’t want the government to stand in the way of grown-ups who choose to do with themselves and each other whatever they will. In this, I agree with Mr. Olbermann, who said, “You don’t have to help it, you don’t have it applaud it, you don’t have to fight for it. Just don’t put it out. Just don’t extinguish it.” I agree when the antecedent to Olbermann’s “it” is “love.” But to appeal to the better angels of our nature, Olbermann is blurring as many lines here as he possibly can. He’s saying “it” is “love” is “marriage” is “two gay people who insist what they have is exactly the same as a marriage and want the state to recognize it as such.” That last line doesn’t fit Olbermann’s romantic template, but it’s what he’s really trying to say.
Never before in human history, even in times and places where homosexuality has been widely accepted and embraced, has society tried to pretend that homosexual relationships are exactly the same as heterosexual ones. What kind of consequences will that have? Once you begin to dismantle the foundation of civilization, what will be left standing when you’re finished?
We are playing with fire here.
I conclude with a story by Dennis Prager, who got a call on his radio show from a single woman named Susan who wanted to be artificially inseminated and have a child without a husband. (This story can be found in the book Think a Second Time, beginning on page 50.) Prager told her that he believed that children deserve the benefit of having both a father and a mother, and deciding to have a child with no father was not in the child’s best interests.
“The issue is,” Prager says, “why start a child out in the world without a father?”
“I don’t have an answer for that,” Susan says, “but I’m not comfortable accepting your answer that because I haven’t had found a husband, I can’t have a child.”
“I know,” responds Prager, “and I appreciate it, and I’m not comfortable saying it.”
This comes as a surprise to Susan, who states that the first time she’s heard Prager express that kind of discomfort.
I now quote Prager at length:
But the fact is it’s not easy for me to say to a perfectly decent woman, “Don’t have a baby.” I would have to be a rock, to have a heart of stone, to say that with comfort… The fact is that it kills me to say that to her. Every ounce of me wants to say to Susan, “I hear you – I hear your pain. I know you wanted to find the right guy, and you just couldn’t; and God knows, I know the desire to have a child. It is, for some of us, the deepest desire in life. So go to it.”
Every part of me wants to say that. What stops me is not my heart or my feelings. What stops me are values. When I talk to kids around the country about values, I define a value as that which you consider more important than your feelings. My feelings are, “Susan, go to it.” My values are, “Kids need daddies.” They’re in conflict. So, of course, I wasn’t comfortable…
There is nothing easier than to say, “Oh, yes. I hear your pain. Go to it.” Then the person likes you, but it’s not right.
That’s where I find myself on the gay marriage issue. I admit that Olbermann’s case pulls hard at my heartstrings. How could it not? I am not comfortable telling 75% of my friends that I think they’re wrong, that love, no matter how genuine or committed, does not justify remaking marriage. I don’t enjoy being presumed to be a bigot by people I love and respect and admire. I would like nothing more than to go with the flow, live and let live, to let the issue go away.
But the issue won’t go away. And Olbermann, as heartfelt, sincere, and compassionate as he is, is also wrong, as are 75% of my Facebook friends. They’re, hopefully, still my friends after reading this, but that doesn’t make them right.
Good night, and good luck.