[Industrialblog,
May 2, 2006]
Peeves
One thing that irritates me is the phrase, "ban gay marriage." As in, "Evangelicals want to ban gay marriage." Like "reproductive rights," the phrase is so misrepresentative of the actual position that it can only be considered a lie.
No one wants to "ban gay marriage." People may make whatever lifelong commitments they want, and if they want to find a minister or whatever to claim a blessing on it, bully for them. The real issue is twofold: It's about changing the definition of marriage so that gender is not a factor, and imposing that change on everyone else. Marriage is a legal contract supported by the state, that is, us. The movement toward gay "marriage" is an offensive, not a defensive, movement. Homosexuals and liberals want to impose their definitions on the rest of us.
But of course the propagandists need to cover up the offensive (as opposed to defensive) nature of their program. So they make it sound like gay-marriage proponents are on the defensive, you know, casting them as the brave defenders of rights against the hidebound forces of theocracy and traditionalism. It's a lie, and a clever trick. Professional journalists should know better that to permit this kind of propaganda to seep into their writing. The problem is once this kind of loaded term is accepted, it changes the terms of the debate. And people don't see the rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
Garbage in, garbage out. If you do not think in precise terms, using the proper words for things, you end up being tools for propagandists. And if lots of people permit it, what you end up with is cultural rot.
Don't get me wrong. Same-sex marriage is only the latest symptom, not a cause, of existing cultural rot. By "culture," I mean thought. Just as a dysfunctional person will have thought distortions, a dysfunctional society will have group thought distortions. That is, the terms of the debate will be such that they produce absurd results. The job of the professional writer is to use language in a precise way that helps protect readers against propaganda and innoculate others against its use.
If a culture is seriously considering two men as "married," then the group thought distortions and the cultural rot is very deep already. "Civil union" or "domestic partnership" are the proper terms. "Marriage" is not. "Ban" is wrong word, "impose" is the right one. So the correct phrasing would be, "resist a change in the definition of marriage" or "preserve the traditional definition of marriage." (By the way, one hallmark of the Left is to call its efforts to impose its values on the rest of society a "defensive" movement.)
After all, even if a constitutional amendment passes, gay people will still be able to go to the Unitarian Church and conduct a marriage. They'll still be able to live together and in peace with their neighbors. No one will care. They just won't be able to force us to call it a marriage, and somehow, support its monogamy. (BTW, I have no idea why its in society's interest to support the monogamy of homosexuals; whether they are "faithful" or cheat in their affairs are none of our business and irrelevant, for the most part, to the social order, except in the most intrusive of senses.)
People who will accept same-sex "marriage" must necessarily consider all definitions contingent and unstable, and thus tend to take an intellectual and abstract approach to life. They will find it difficult to make any distinctions whatsoever, and that's no way to run a railroad.
To move in a different direction, this is not to say that the current definition of marriage is all right. It's not. It's currently a mess. From a civil standpoint, it's a legal contract — except one side can break the contract at any time and enforce its terms. Huh?
No one wants to "ban gay marriage." People may make whatever lifelong commitments they want, and if they want to find a minister or whatever to claim a blessing on it, bully for them. The real issue is twofold: It's about changing the definition of marriage so that gender is not a factor, and imposing that change on everyone else. Marriage is a legal contract supported by the state, that is, us. The movement toward gay "marriage" is an offensive, not a defensive, movement. Homosexuals and liberals want to impose their definitions on the rest of us.
But of course the propagandists need to cover up the offensive (as opposed to defensive) nature of their program. So they make it sound like gay-marriage proponents are on the defensive, you know, casting them as the brave defenders of rights against the hidebound forces of theocracy and traditionalism. It's a lie, and a clever trick. Professional journalists should know better that to permit this kind of propaganda to seep into their writing. The problem is once this kind of loaded term is accepted, it changes the terms of the debate. And people don't see the rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
Garbage in, garbage out. If you do not think in precise terms, using the proper words for things, you end up being tools for propagandists. And if lots of people permit it, what you end up with is cultural rot.
Don't get me wrong. Same-sex marriage is only the latest symptom, not a cause, of existing cultural rot. By "culture," I mean thought. Just as a dysfunctional person will have thought distortions, a dysfunctional society will have group thought distortions. That is, the terms of the debate will be such that they produce absurd results. The job of the professional writer is to use language in a precise way that helps protect readers against propaganda and innoculate others against its use.
If a culture is seriously considering two men as "married," then the group thought distortions and the cultural rot is very deep already. "Civil union" or "domestic partnership" are the proper terms. "Marriage" is not. "Ban" is wrong word, "impose" is the right one. So the correct phrasing would be, "resist a change in the definition of marriage" or "preserve the traditional definition of marriage." (By the way, one hallmark of the Left is to call its efforts to impose its values on the rest of society a "defensive" movement.)
After all, even if a constitutional amendment passes, gay people will still be able to go to the Unitarian Church and conduct a marriage. They'll still be able to live together and in peace with their neighbors. No one will care. They just won't be able to force us to call it a marriage, and somehow, support its monogamy. (BTW, I have no idea why its in society's interest to support the monogamy of homosexuals; whether they are "faithful" or cheat in their affairs are none of our business and irrelevant, for the most part, to the social order, except in the most intrusive of senses.)
People who will accept same-sex "marriage" must necessarily consider all definitions contingent and unstable, and thus tend to take an intellectual and abstract approach to life. They will find it difficult to make any distinctions whatsoever, and that's no way to run a railroad.
To move in a different direction, this is not to say that the current definition of marriage is all right. It's not. It's currently a mess. From a civil standpoint, it's a legal contract — except one side can break the contract at any time and enforce its terms. Huh?
adultery is still grounds for divorce. but divorce law at this point is a mess and i have no idea how to fix it.
I don't mean escape clauses. I mean non-performance clauses (though I guess that they're functionally equivalent). In everything but real estate (and maybe one or two other things) you can't compell specific performance anyhow.
As to divorce, I know that adultery is still grounds for divorce, but what does that mean when whim is also grounds for divorce? Obviously virtually no one gets divorced on a whim, but that's a matter of who does it, not what's permitted. If you can divorce for any or no reason, what's the use of pointing out that adultery is still grounds for a divorce? Eating chocolate icecream is currently grounds for a divorce if one of the parties dislikes it sufficiently. Depending on local laws they may have to phrase it as something like "irreconcileable differences", but it doesn't make any practical difference that you have to give your reasons a fancy name.
When all abuses are permitted, even if they remain uncommon, then the use is not at all enforced. There is obviously some inherent enforcement in that divorce is expensive, but that doesn't sound like it's true by design. I mean, who believes that divorce should be expensive?
the reason it matters that adultery is grounds for divorce is that it demonstrates the state considers fidelity part of the contract. the fact that there are other elements doesn't change that the state considers this one very important.
(I thought that saying, "though I guess that they're functionally equivalent" was admitting that I was probably splitting hairs.)
I would agree with you about the state considering fidelity important as a historical matter. Does anyone even use the infidelity ground for divorce any more? I thought that it was more one of those things that's still there because no one has any good reason to take it off, rather than because anyone would put it there now. How many young people, say those 20 and under, even know that there used to be only some grounds for divorce, and that infidelity was one of them?
Many cultures don't require grounds for divorce. For example, in Islam for a man to divorce his wife, all he has to do is say to her, "I divorce you". (He can take her back up to three times, but after that he can only take her back if someone else marries and divorces her. The flip side is much harder; women have to pettition some court (I forget which) to divorce her from her husband.)
I would be surprised if most people under 20 didn't think that divorce was essentially like that, only with more paperwork and less sexual assymetry.
You will probably be amused to find that I agree with you about the language being used. What is going on is that one sector is looking to 'redefine' marriage. Up until recently, it could not be said that there was a 'ban' on gay marriages, because the thing was a contradiction in terms.
But I have no problem if gay people want to enter into the civil contract called marriage, or enter into a marriage-like contract and call it 'marriage', however you slice it. I understand their arguments that they deserve the rights that accrue to married people entering into this contract, and see no reason why they should not be able to enter into this 'marital' contract if they feel so called.
But, I hope they also understand the burdens that come with the contract. It's a very expensive, intrusive, and insidious thing. Once 'marriage' becomes the meme for a gay couple, palimony and common-law marriages follow, and suddenly, every time two people of the same gender live together, it will be possible for one to sue the other for support, claiming that they were married in everything but the contract.
But maybe, just maybe, we will fix marital law before that happens. And maybe I'll sprout wings and fly around my desk.
I don't mean that people under 20 don't get the idea of infidelity. Of course they do. What I'm asking is if you really believe that they think that marriage is supposed to counter-act the practice of infidelity.