When facing defeat, some retreat to the hills and vow to fight on unto the 12th generation, while others angle to achieve the most advantageous terms of surrender. Chunky Bobo signals his affinity for the former group but urges them to be open to the tactics of the latter:
Unless something dramatic changes in the drift of public opinion, the future of religious liberty on these issues is going to depend in part on the magnanimity of gay marriage supporters — the extent to which they are content with political, legal and cultural victories that leave the traditional view of marriage as a minority perspective with some modest purchase in civil society, versus the extent to which they decide to use every possible lever to make traditionalism as radioactive in the America of 2025 as white supremacism or anti-Semitism are today.
And I can imagine a scenario in which a more drawn-out and federalist march to “marriage equality in 50 states,” with a large number of (mostly southern) states hewing to the older definition for much longer than the five years that gay marriage advocates currently anticipate, ends up encouraging a more scorched-earth approach to this battle, with less tolerance for the shrinking population of holdouts, and a more punitive, “they’re getting what they deserve” attitude toward traditionalist religious bodies in particular.
If religious conservatives are, in effect, negotiating the terms of their surrender, it’s at least possible that those negotiations would go better if they were conducted right now, in the wake of a Roe v. Wade-style Supreme Court ruling, rather than in a future where the bloc of Americans opposed to gay marriage has shrunk from the current 44 percent to 30 percent or 25 percent, and the incentives for liberals to be magnanimous in victory have shrunk apace as well.
[Paragraph breaks added because…damn–Ed.]
Douthat couches the debate in the “religious liberty” framework, which is pure bullshit. No one is trying to force Cardinal Dolan to sanctify same-sex marriages. On the contrary, it is the pro-marriage equality side that requires the “religious liberty” to tell a celibate man in a dress and red beanie to stop trying to control our sex lives and secular social commitments.
But I think Douthat may be right about how the loss of this battle in the larger culture war will play out. Will they retreat to the jungles of Guam and hold out for decades or accept the victory of the godless and move on?
Steve M.
Unfortunately, a few isolated people probably will get that wrong and yell “discrimination” if the local minister won’t hitch a gay couple. And then Fox News will spend a week and a half doing wall-to-wall coverage of that, with special Orff-esque “War on Religion” music and fire-and-brimstone graphics. And then w’re the fascists.
Cermet
No; the thugs will retreat to their bunker like Hitler did and do the honorable thing – try to kill everyone including their own people … wait, I made a Nazi reference. Damn, I lose.
kindness
I love the smell of reichtwingnutz brains frying in the morning.
It smells of…..Freedom.
BGinCHI
It’s religious liberty to oppress others or to exclude them based on what some tribes prescribed a few thousand years ago in the Middle East?
It’s called “intolerance” and they know it.
scav
How have Catholics and other hardliners ever survived all these years with the up-front grievous assault to their religious liberty and matrimonial traditionalism such as the existence of civil-sanctioned divorce?
and clever of those god-bothers to co-opt a social relationship that pre-dates their book by millennia and trademark it as “Bible-based”. The patent-squatting little dears.
malraux
@Steve M.: The same way a few churches in the south won’t marry interracial couples. Churches are free to be bigoted if they want.
cleek
it’s called “democracy”, shitbird. love it or leave it.
BGinCHI
@Steve M.: And then 3-5 years later no one will think any of this matters as it will have become clear that it was all just baseless fear.
JWR
Ross Douthat, angling hard for the coveted David Brooks seat at the NYT.
Shakezula
Oh look, it is the “reasonable” version of “THEY’RE COMING TO TAKE ME AWAY (AND TURN MY CHURCH INTO A GAY ORGY STADIUM WHILE MY KIDS ARE FORCED TO WATCH)!
You may substitute rights for blacks or women or gays in the military for equal marriage with minimum editing because it is the same thing.
So Chunks talks in vague but ominous terms about religious life under the dainty boot of gay marriage without ever offering proof that the boot will be applied. Unlike civil rights and to a large extent, women’s rights he could have looked at what has happened in other countries when equal marriage is legalized. (This was a big problem for people shrieking about DADT towards the end. We had too much evidence that openly gay service members do not cause militaries to implode.)
But proof or reason isn’t the the point, the point is that something has changed and therefore we must be afraid and defensive. And so we come to this:
What punishment, what dessert? How knows, but be afraid. Be very afraid!
nastybrutishntall
Doubthat’s pearls are getting worn. He’s one reason I block their cookies and read for free.
SatanicPanic
@Steve M.: Good! Churches can change too. It used to be a big deal to get a divorce, now look where churches stand on that. I know a Catholic who is on his third marriage, somehow managed to get the first two annulled. The man is barely 30 years old. That would have never flown 100 years ago.
PeakVT
A moronic, trollish column. Nobody that I know of – or am willing to associate with – wants the government to force religious organizations to perform gay marriage. Of course, a lot of people want to change various religious organizations so that they perform gay marriage, but that’s a private matter. Not being religious, I don’t care one way or another what they do.
I suppose there is the matter of religious organization-controlled entities like hospitals being forced to extend benefits to non-hetro couples. But they can either follow any such non-discrimination laws, like they do with other non-discrimination laws, or not offer benefits, and see how that works out.
cvstoner
I suspect this will play out using pretty much the same playbook as interracial marriage. After all, its pretty much the same group of haters.
Al
I just wish we could agree on when to can the “the world will soon end in hellfire!” bullshit. I vote for 5 years. Got to give ’em a little breathing room to adapt to reality.
Cassidy
I like scorched earth. Then we can drive them before us into the river turning the water red with….oh, he meant metaphorically. I guess that’s okay too.
Biscuits
I think they’ll just vent their rage elsewhere. Us womens are gonna hafta hang tough. They are coming for us next.
Betty Cracker
@SatanicPanic: The willingness of the church to dole out annulments seems to correlate directly to the willingness of the petitioner to fatten the church coffers.
Santa Fe
The more sensible (um, I can think of a couple at least) SSM opponents who are concerned about religious liberty aren’t concerned about churches being compelled to marry, but that various church organizations and ministries will be compelled to employ people who are in same sex marriages. The method of compelling that is typically cited is the potential removal of tax-exempt status, with the case of Bob Jones U. cited as a precedent. (They lost their tax exempt status due to their ban on interracial dating.)
Eric U.
I’m trying to figure out what sort of thing we are going to be able to do to these bigots once we win. The truth is that tolerance won, and the tolerant majority will not tolerate draconian reprisal against the bigots.
Poopyman
@SatanicPanic: OTOH, maybe the Catholic Church should implement a three strikes rule, hmmm?
Poopyman
@Al:
That shit’s been around since at least Revelations, and probably millenia before. There’s always a group somewhere pushing that.
Same as it ever was. So shall it ever be.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Santa Fe: Well, they aren’t exactly practicing religious liberty themselves, are they?
jayjaybear
Well, government benefits = secular rules. As long as they don’t try to take advantage of government subsidies (tax-exemption, for example) they can hate on anyone they want. Nobody’s stopping them and most non-discrimination laws exempt religious organizations, anyway. But if they want to stick their hands in the taxpayers’ pockets, they have to follow the rules of a secular government.
Napoleon
OK, that is Savage as MacArthur, right, but who is the other party (the Japanese signor)?
Ramiah Ariya
White supremacy and anti-semitism are not “radioactive” today because of attitudes or political correctness. They are actually WRONG, morally. Somehow Ross does not seem to realize that.
Cassidy
@Santa Fe: That’s only reasonable if you accept that religous organizations should have a tax exempt status. Ex: here in Jacksonville, the big megachurch (Southern Baptist, mostly white) in downtown is a tax free institution taking up several city blocks with their church and parking garages. They use tens of thousands of dollars in municipal services (electricity and water) and they don’t pay a dime. When members of city council proposed charging them for water usage they went apocalyptic! No shit, hellfire and brimstone and 1st Amendment and persecuted Christians and….you get the point, all over having to pay for the water they are using.
They may be able to state their case in a reasonable way without saying “fuck the n******, f***, and b******”, but they still mean the same thing.
scav
@Betty Cracker: I”m sure their loss of tax-status will be a jewel in their crown in heaven. Jebus and the martyrs went to their deaths for their beliefs (and minority beliefs at that) while now their spiritual children are screaming and doing their rending act about being crucified with Caesar’s coin and seeing actually visible people that don’t believe as they do and worse are happy!.
shawn
They could just stop giving a shit about gay people, and their lives wouldn’t change one bit. Actually, it might change, letting go of all that meaningless anger and hate would actually make them happier people.
Betty Cracker
@Napoleon: Brian Brown of NOM.
MattF
Douthat is posing a straw man. What is there to negotiate? The problem is not with Cardinal X or Pope Y. You can assume they mean what they say, and that they are not interested in negotiating. Glenn Beck will continue to demonize homosexuals as long as he finds it profitable. Again, he is not interested in negotiation.
beergoggles
As long as religion and bigotry go hand in hand, they’re going to keep losing. So I don’t expect any surrendering – they’ll be losing forever and we’ll keep refighting these battles like voting rights and abortion for the foreseeable future while they circle their wagons.
quannlace
Well, just take a lookie over at the NewsMax headlines (to your right) Nearly all have the ususal suspects (Reed, Donohue, Limbaugh) do their hyper-ventilating best to scream that the sky is falling. (And all those gays are raining down on them)
Cassidy
@quannlace: So, are you saying that Reed, Donohue, Limbaugh, etc. are singing It’s Raining Men? I’m not surprised.
gocart mozart
Bobo does realize that gay marriage is not mandatory doesn’t he?
Napoleon
@Betty Cracker:
Thank you
Shakezula
@Santa Fe: If they sensibly read BJU v. US they’ll see they are tussling with a straw man.
Eric U.
@Cassidy: giving a church water/sewer free is a bit too much, you pay for these in your taxes?
Shakezula
@gocart mozart: Oh sure it isn’t today, but what about tomorrow? Or the day after that?
And what about the trauma experienced by people who don’t like the idea of equal marriage? Why must they be forced to possibly see two men or two women skipping into a car with Just Married written on the rear window?
scav
@Shakezula: The’re already wrestling with the trauma of seeing all those wimminz not walking a demure two-steps behind their husband and sometimes even talking back to him, ungracefully non-submitting to their husband in full view of others!
dedc79
Here’s my favorite freakout so far today, although it might be more aimed at immigration developments than anything else:
Baud
@gocart mozart:
Don’t tell him. The results will be hilarious.
MomSense
They never stop to consider the religious denominations who believe that being able to love the person of your choosing in dignity and fairness. There are many religious people who are denied freedom of religious expression because marriage equality is illegal in their states.
gelfling545
I think that there is a real likelihood that the more intolerant religions will suffer damage as marriage equality becomes more and more the norm and their members become acquainted with married gay couples who just want to live their lives like everybody else gets to (and as they realize how many gay folks they have always known without being aware). Some of their members may begin to note that all the predicted evils their clergy ranted about did not materialize and may be inspired to wonder just what else they have been wrong about perhaps even leading to some beneficial examination of the tenets of their particular persuasion and a disinclination to participate any longer.
handsmile
@quannlace:
One should extend a measure of charity towards the paranoiac ravings of Messrs. Donohue, Douthat, Scalia, and Cardinal Dolan. Flamboyant Anti-Christs are looming all around them.
Why even Francis the Talking Mule recently confirmed the existence of a “Gay Lobby” in the Vatican! Apparently, no washroom there is safe for a prelate with a wide stance.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/12/gay-lobby-exists-vatican-pope-francis_n_3426055.html
And this Sunday, hundreds of thousands of these degenerates will be sashaying by Cardinal Dolan’s pile on Fifth Avenue! Repent, the seals are breaking!
kindness
@quannlace:
It’s raining men? Oh my. Wide stance righties, wide stance.
Warren Terra
Surely his whole metaphor must fall apart on the simple basis that WTF is there to negotiate? Unless of course what he really means is that he wishes the Right could take back the last ten years and start over accepting Civil Unions. But that horse has flown.
catclub
@Eric U.: Important if true. I have my doubts. Link, Cassidy?
Jado
@Shakezula:
“If they sensibly read…”
I think I see the sticking point…
Shakezula
@MomSense: Those aren’t “real” religions to Ross and his partners in slime. However, they’re aware that the U.S. inconveniently recognizes religions such as U.U. so they aren’t even sincere when they say churches should get to decide who can get married.
catclub
@Eric U.: I found this from 2007.
It is an exemption from the tax, not paying the whole bill.
“THE PROPOSAL
There are two taxes now charged to utility customers in Jacksonville:
PUBLIC SERVICE TAX
Amount: 10 percent
Charged by: City
Charged on: Water and electric (although part of the electric bill is excluded)
Exemptions: Federal, state and local governments, including school districts. Another exemption is for church properties used “exclusively for church purposes.”
GROSS RECEIPTS TAX
Amount: 2 1/2 percent
Charged by: State
Charged on: Electricity sales
Exemptions: City government
There would be one fee added under Mayor John Peyton’s proposal:
FRANCHISE FEE
Amount: 3 percent
Charged by: City
Charged on: Water, sewer and electric
Exemptions: City government”
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/072507/met_186736215.shtml
Comrade Dread
Well, if we could all agree to respect one another and treat one another with empathy, understanding, and kindness, we could probably just accept one another as being different and learn to live in harmony realizing that your beliefs or your choices don’t really affect me so long as neither of us tries to impose them on one another.
And I think there are many people pro and against SSM who will react like that.
Unfortunately, I think they were be overshadowed by the few individuals out there who will want to prove a point or stick it to the other side, because the media loves to play up culture wars and treat every incident like that as a war.
Anyway, good luck to any couples out there planning on getting hitched now.
Jado
@gelfling545:
There are some improbables in your thesis. I think i see them here:
…their members become acquainted with married gay couples… they realize how many gay folks they have always known …begin to note …inspired to wonder …some beneficial examination of the tenets
People of this ilk do not strive to understand. Those that strive to understand are not of this ilk. There is a self-selection process at work that prevents such curiosity from blooming within the group.
LittlePig
@dedc79: Shorter Peter Kirsanou: Whatever I think is EARTHSHATTERING by definition!
Shakezula
@Jado: Right. I find it hard to square the description of these people of sensible with the load of ignorant required to believe BJU is precedent for loss of TE status when an organization discriminates against non-opposite sex couples.
gelfling545
@Jado: There a few rebels in every group. It may not be many and it may not be quick, but there will be some.
Gex
This is one where the death of the old haters is a more effective vector for social change than others. Again, it is easy to avoid growing up and knowing all kinds of others, but gay people are born in all those different populations. Knowing a gay person has a strong effect on people’s beliefs on this issue and it will only keep getting easier and easier for gay people to be out and for straight people to know they know and love someone who is gay.
However…Americans bought the “protecting marriage” wordsmithing. Many people who were gay friendly did not see that as an attack on gays. These “religious protections” will work the same way. Many Christians and cultural Christians who are gay allies will see “religions protections” and be all for them.
There was a hospital in MO that kicked a guy’s husband out of the hospital room. Obviously, to MO they weren’t married. But the couple had a Power of Attorney contract. The hospital was able to kick him out legally because the hospital has “moral belief” protections. I.E. These laws give every two bit wanna be dictator the ability to invalidate state and federal law so long as they say they have a moral belief at stake.
I’m very afraid Americans won’t think these protections through. The conservative Christians will assert that florists, bakers, and printers shouldn’t have to work on gay weddings. People will agree. They won’t think, gee, if the florist can refuse service, can the only grocery store or gas station in town do so too? A Republican state legislator has already argued that gays can grow their own food if the grocer won’t serve them. Now think about all the Catholic hospital purchases with respect to the idea that you can refuse to serve gay people.
And a lot of suffering will have to go on before it comes to the attention of the middle. But not until after the usual “if it doesn’t affect me, why bother really understanding the issue” complacency that will allow these to laws to spread like the marriage amendments did.
Cassidy
@catclub: I can’t find a link right now. I’m not really sure how much coverage it got locally outside of our alternative papers like the Metro Jacksonville, etc. which lean pretty liberal. I can say, as to how it happens, the FBC of Jacksonville is consistently ranked as one of the most inlfuential churches in the country and a very significant portion of NE Florida Republicans attend it, both city and state, and many have started their political careers from the support of that church. They routinely boast the attendance of state legislators, city council members, Soil and Water Commissioners, etc.
SatanicPanic
@Betty Cracker: Letting the market decide, it’s the American way
celticdragonchick
@Cassidy:
I remember when FBC went after a gamestore in Jacksonville that I used to go to called Wardogs. A local tv station did a story about the live action role playing vampire crowd that was there on Friday and Saturday nights. Next thing, the FBC folks were screaming about satanism and teens. The local fire marshal kept trying to shut the store down .
Comrade Dread
@Jado: Not necessarily.
My own gradual evolution from someone staunchly against SSM to someone who accepted that the law should allow it started with meeting actual gay people in school and at work and talking to them about the topic, where I quickly realized that all of my arguments against it were theological and I could find no legitimate secular argument against it.
Cassidy
@celticdragonchick: I used to game at Wardogs! That was during our White Wolf/ WOD phase. I was there when all that was happening and I had some friends who LARPed there. Good times.
Completely unrelated, the older guy who owned Wardogs sold it to two younger guys who tried to “modernize” it and ran it into the ground. The former owner opened a strip joint.
MomSense
@Shakezula:
Does that mean that some of our founding fathers who were Unitarians were not practicing real religion??
Cassidy
@Cassidy: The last anecdote is based on what my HS friends told me when I moved back. One of my first questions upon reconnecting was “where the hell is Wardogs?”.
Cassidy
@celticdragonchick: Hehehehe…as much as we’ve argued in the past, wouldn’t it be funny to realize we know some of the same people?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Cassidy:
You know, trying to figure out what the splats are censoring is starting to get tedious. If ad usum Delphini is necessary, can’t one come up with something more creative than splats, or “the -word”?
Cassidy
@Comrade Scrutinizer: So would “n&$@@^, f)!^&, and b%#$!*@” be preferrable?
DanF
Ross, baby-cakes, gay folks want to get married. Have a house with a mortgage. Raise some kids. Probably get a dog and a cat. Sounds pretty normal – if not slightly conservative – to me.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@gelfling545:
Nah, they’ll just go on to other stuff. Laws against “the shameful mixing of races” were invalidated, but that didn’t change the haters, nor did it harm the sects that promoted it. They just adapted and moved on to other things.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Cassidy: Creative, I said, creative!
patroclus
We tried negotiating with civil unions and the gay-haters refused to even consider it. Now, there should be no negotiations with these terrorists. Equality under the law is non-negotiable. Equal protection is right there in the 14th Amendment, as the Kennedy opinion points out.
catclub
@patroclus: The contrast between the criticisms of the DOMA decision and the criticisms of the VRA decision are striking. Equal protection is right there in the constitution and the critics never seem to bring it up. ‘Equal Sovereignty’ is NOWHERE in the constitution, Roberts just made it up. gaaah.
Shakezula
@MomSense: That’s not the same as Unitarian Universalists, correct?
A Ghost To Most
@MomSense:
And there are many non-religious people who are sick (to the point of contemplating violence) to death of people conflating THEIR religion with OUR government.
Barney
It seems to me Douthat was going for Civil War phrases, not the Japanese surrender:
“drawn-out and federalist march to “marriage equality in 50 states”” = “March Through the South”
“a large number of (mostly southern) states hewing to the older definition” = southern states clinging on to slavery
“a more scorched-earth approach to this battle” – March Through the South, again
“more punitive, “they’re getting what they deserve” attitude toward traditionalist religious bodies” = “oh noes, the poor, polite, ‘traditional’ Southern way of life that just happened to be based on discrimination will be punished by this
gayNorthern aggression – there’ll be carpetbaggers in the pews”“negotiations would go better if they were conducted right now, in the wake of a Roe v. Wade-style Supreme Court ruling, rather than in a future where the bloc of Americans opposed to gay marriage has shrunk from the current 44 percent” = “If we’d negotiated after Gettysburg, maybe the Thirteenth Amendment would never have been passed”
patroclus
@catclub: Regarding the VRA, that’s covered by the 15th Amendment. Very clearly. Congress shall have the power to enforce the law. The Roberts 5 ignored the explicit terms of the 15th Amendment, to their everlasting shame.
Villago Delenda Est
This is, in and of itself, full justification for a tumbrel ride for Douchehat.
Villago Delenda Est
@patroclus:
As if the three of them who voted to install the deserting coward into the Oval Office had any shame.
Barney
@Barney: and I swear I hadn’t read Charles Pierce’s title before I posted.
A Ghost To Most
@handsmile:
No. They have NO intention of extending a measure of charity to those who don’t believe in their sky fairies. Fuck them with a lit-up Saturn 5.
bcinaz
It’s interesting and maddening that Conservatives don’t trust Free Market principles when one of their oxen is gored. I don’t see much support for forcing anti-marriage equality churches to perform ceremonies against their beliefs. What seems more likely is that those who wish to worship with a congregation that is supportive are more likely to change churches.
Dave
@Ramiah Ariya: But you gotta love the fact that Douthat himself equates them with the “traditional marriage” camp! With friends like him, do they need enemies?
Villago Delenda Est
@MomSense:
You’ve been propagandized by the secular humanists. All the Founding Fathers were holy-roller evangelicals who were bible-believing literalists and God fearing men.
I know this because James Dobson told me.
catclub
@Barney: Yours was better than his.
Villago Delenda Est
@Santa Fe:
Too motherfucking bad. If you want to be an asshole, you need to pay for it. Through the nose.
Jamey
If Douthat ever needs further proof of God’s existence, it’s in the fact that he hasn’t had his ass kicked by strangers more often.
SFAW
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
See, your problem is that you’re using an incorrect definition of the term “religious liberty.” The proper meaning is: “We’ll do whatever the fuck we want, and YOU-all will do whatever the fuck we want you to do – and if you don’t do as we wish, you’re taking away our religious liberty!”
Or, as Michael Palin might say: “Help! I’m bein’ oppressed!”
A Ghost To Most
@Jamey:
If Douthat ever needs
furtherproof of God’s [non-]existence, it’s in the fact that he hasn’t had his ass kicked by strangers more often.Ftfy.
Ben Cisco
@A Ghost To Most:
The game, it has been upped.
JoyfulA
@Steve M.: Local clergy have always married only those couples that meet their criteria, typically that they’re members of the denomination and/or congregation and that they’ve had premarital counseling.
My minister has been blessing such unions, gay and straight, for years and will be delighted to officially marry gay couples under state law, when state law permits. I’m sure he won’t be willing to perform weddings for whatever couple shows up at the door to demand it, and I wouldn’t criticize any fundamentalist pastor with the same criteria for doing the same.
Villago Delenda Est
@JoyfulA:
Which damn sure had better be his inviolable right. The criteria you mentioned are to me perfectly reasonable for any church or pastor, and the state should butt the hell out of that…it has no business in any way interfering with those religious practices.
The problem always seems to be when some advocate imposing those religious practices on others. They never seem to understand the linkage.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You need to learn Theocraft code Betty
Religious Liberty = the right to use religion as an excuse to be an asshole to other people
Really, how is the attitude towards gays by the right and different than anti-antisemitism or racism?
Jay C
@Gex:
Won’t they? I mean. I’d also like to think that most Americans, in the main, wouldn’t be so sunk in bigoted attitudes that they would bother to think this way, but I guess that, unlike you, I don’t have as optimistic an assessment. Never underestimate the capacity of the prejudiced (especially where their prejudices are bolstered by the color of religion) to put their hates into action. I would imagine that in too many places in this country, more-or-less overt “shunning” of gays will become a new sort of “community standard” – backed up, in the classic American fashion, by conformist pressure and the threat of actual violence – and any attempt to ameliorate the problem will be met with hysterical opposition: probably backed by a less-sophisticated version of Douthat’s inane “religious liberty” argument.
A Ghost To Most
@Villago Delenda Est:
This. I was married by a Lutheran minister (wife’s minister), who knew what my beliefs were, and still chose to do so. It was his choice.
burnspbesq
@JoyfulA:
It would suck if someone who had their heart set on walking down the aisle of the church they grew up in and being married by the priest who baptized him/her was denied the opportunity to do that, but in the end you’re just as married if the county clerk (or an Elvis impersonator in a drive-through chapel in Vegas) does the deed.
mclaren
Because with global warming and Peak Oil and an out-of-control police state surveillance society and runaway inflation in medical costs and college tuition costs and an economic system that’s broken down and no longer works for anyone but the top 1%, our most pressing problem remains gay marriage.
Give me a fucking break.
All these assholes who get paid to write op-eds about the alleged dangers of partial birth abortion and flag burning and gay marriage should be fired from their cushy editorial jobs and forced to work at the local Carl’s Jr. for minimum wage for a year. After spending that time living in their fuckin’ car because the aren’t making enough money to pay for first month + last month + deposit on an overpriced apartment, their perspective on America’s serious challenges may change.
floridafrog
@shakezula – Unitarians hail from eastern Europe in the 1600s and spread from there – at least a few of the founders were Unitarians. Universalists are a home-grown American tradition that sprang up (I think) in the 1700s. One signer of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Benjamin Rush, was a Universalist. The two traditions merged in the 1960s ‘ cause they had so much in common – tolerance, cool with science and reason, etc.
SFAW
@mclaren:
Just like the Rethug staffer who said he’d do that (i.e. live on SNAP-only funds), then complained that some airline wouldn’t let him bring his specially-selected-and-healthful-not-like-theT-bones-the-strapping-young-bucks-buy food on the airplane without paying a $50 charge for oversize/overweight luggage, so therefore he WAS PREVENTED from sticking to the “rules,” so fuck the moochers and takers anyway, because Jeebus.
The only Rawls those motherfuckers know about is Lou.
giantslor
@PeakVT: Forcing religious organizations to perform gay marriages? No way would I endorse that. I’m for forcibly dissolving existing straight marriages and forcing everyone to get gay-married.
Gex
@Jay C: I have just typically found, in discussing gay issues, that most people do not stay very informed, do not understand the issues very well, do not read up on the issues, and tend to talk out of the gut more than knowledge. Not unlike anyone else on any other issues, true.
But there were a lot of well meaning, pro-gay people who had no problem with “protect marriage” simply because they did not think deeply enough through the issue to see what the real harms were. As the visibility of those harms rose, so too did their understanding and their rejection of the position.
I don’t see why these Luntz phrasings “religious protections” won’t work the same exact way.
How does that situation in Missouri happen if not for the rise of these protections? How DO we have people publicly arguing that gays can grow their own food if no one will sell to them? These are new things gaining steam. These are laws that Republicans ARE proposing around the nation. Some have already passed. Unless you think Americans really want these laws passed knowing the intent and approving of it.
The fact of the matter is that those bakers, florists, and printers are getting a LOT of support and sympathy. And they are the cases put forth for a reason. It is very easy to make people do a gut check and say that there is no harm in allowing those businesses to refuse to serve gay people. They don’t think hospitals, ambulances, or the like. These obvious arguments, like the obvious arguments against marriage bans will take time to reach the public consciousness.
JoyfulA
@burnspbesq: In Pennsylvania, you don’t have to do even that. With a special form from the courthouse, and two witnesses, a (straight) couple can marry themselves without an officiant.
When our minister told us, after premarital counseling, to get busy writing our vows and our guest lists and he’d marry us when he came back from medical leave, we (hating formalities and ceremonies and definitely opposed to a wedding of that sort, as well as not wanting to wait around) called the justice of the peace, whose clerk said he was too busy for that kind of stuff and people should get married in a church anyway.
So here’s where marrying a lawyer pays off: He got busy on the Internet and and found this loophole in state law. The courthouse clerk said it’s there for the Quakers or maybe the Amish, as far as she knew, but she gets little call for it. (She knew us pretty well by then because she’d sent my groom 1,000 miles to search for a 10-year-old divorce certificate he hoped his ex-wife had signed and sent it in, because she’d gone back to Glasgow long before; he could see himself flying overseas and trying to track her down.)
AnonPhenom
“Will they retreat to the jungles of Guam and hold out for decades or accept the victory of the godless and move on?”
Really?
I’ve got 2 words for you.
Birth.
Control.
Another_Bob
Jeez, I thought that Douthat at least had the image of being a sober and respectable conservative commentator. I read the quote at first without realizing who had written it, and was surprised that Douthat could have churned out such a whiny bit of self-pitying melodrama. It’s so laughable and pathetic I would have thought it had to come from Pat Robertson or Bill Donohue or some other buffoon of that ilk.
Jebediah
@Betty Cracker:
A friend of my mom works in the local (Catholic) annulment office. This statement is exactly correct.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Has anyone pointed out to Chunky Bobo that the Episcopalian church is cool with gay marriage, and that the celebrated at the National Cathedral after yesterday’s ruling was announced? I’m pretty sure Episcopalianism counts as a religion. Why is it only religious freedom if it’s what the Catholics want?
SFAW
@Another_Bob:
Seriously, where did you come up with that idea? Certainly not from here (or kos or Atrios or take-your-pick).
You must be new ’round here.
SFAW
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Because they’re an oppressed minority. Didn’t you know that? Why, just in my small town, every day, I see the Paisleyites beating up Catholics of all ages, I see Chinese nationals fly in from Lantau and go looking for Catholics to go all “36 Chambers” on their asses, I see roving gangs of Henry VIII impersonators looking for Thomas-More-look-alikes to behead – I tells ya, it’s hard out here for a Catholic.
The rest of the world, not so much.
jafd
@SFAW:
Note that today is Henry VIII’s birthday (announced on local classical station this morn, he was patron of musicians, etc). Also Richard Rogers (played “Guadalcanal March” for 7:15 Sousalarm.)
Have great weekend. everyone!