Stand to Reason Blog

Now We Wait for the Ruling

If you’d like a quick primer on what the Supreme Court will be deciding in the next few months, this New York Times chart on how the justices could rule on Prop 8 and DOMA is clear and helpful.

Over at First Things, Glenn Stanton comments on some good questions the Justices asked. I tracked down one of the quotes he cited from Justice Sotomayor to get more of the context:

SOTOMAYOR: Mr. Olson, the bottom line that you're being asked—and it is one that I'm interested in the answer: If you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what state restrictions could ever exist? Meaning, what state restrictions with respect to the number of people…the incest laws, the mother and child…I can accept that the state has probably an overbearing interest on protecting a child until they're of age to marry, but what's left?

OLSON: Well, you've said in the cases decided by this court that the polygamy issue, multiple marriages, raises questions about exploitation, abuse, patriarchy, issues with respect to taxes, inheritance, child custody, it is an entirely different thing. And if you—if a state prohibits polygamy, it's prohibiting conduct. If it prohibits gay and lesbian citizens from getting married, it is prohibiting their exercise of a right based upon their status.

The first mistake Olson makes here is that he thinks people are being denied marriage because of their sexual orientation (i.e., “their status”). This has never happened. There is no test whatsoever for sexual orientation when a person applies for a marriage license. There is no class of people being told they’re not eligible for marriage. In fact, the exclusion of same-sex couples (that’s same-sex couples, not homosexual citizens) from marriage isn’t about prohibiting something on the basis of bad conduct or the status of a group, it’s about the definition of marriage.

As Justice Roberts pointed out:

When the institution of marriage developed historically, people didn’t get around and say let’s have this institution, but let’s keep out homosexuals. The institution developed to serve purposes that, by their nature, didn’t include homosexual couples.

If marriage is a particular thing, then everyone has a right to take part in that institution as it stands, regardless of their personal characteristics. But to be part of the institution, they must be part of the institution. They don’t have a right to change that institution into something different simply because they don’t want to be part of it the way it is.

Imagine a public park builds a tennis court so that people can come to play tennis. Nobody should be denied the right to play tennis games there. Period. It’s a public park, open to all. One day, a group of basketball players comes to the park, wanting to play a game, but they find they can’t play basketball on a tennis court. They immediately go to City Hall to complain: “Everyone has the right to competitive exercise with a ball on that court! We’re being denied our rights based on our status as basketball players!” Can you see the problem? The fact that they don’t want to play tennis doesn’t give them the right to demand that the government build a different court at the park. Their right isn’t to “competitive exercise with a ball” (tennis shares that in common with basketball, but it can’t be reduced to that), their right is to play tennis on that court, just like everybody else.

Please don’t take that illustration farther than it’s intended to go. I’m merely trying to show that rights aren’t being denied simply because a person (or group of people) doesn’t want to take part in something. The park promises the same thing to all. It doesn’t promise “competitive exercise with a ball,” it promises tennis. And tennis excludes basketball—not out of prejudice, but by nature. One could certainly argue over whether the park ought to change that court into something different, but as things stand, no rights are being violated. Neither justice nor equality demands that the park change its court to accommodate the desires of the basketball players to play a different game in that space. The same is true for marriage.

Secondly, even if it were legitimate for Olson to make the argument that homosexuals are being denied the right to marry “based upon their status,” I don’t see why one couldn’t equally say that polygamists are being denied their rights based upon their status as people who prefer to have many marriages. Isn’t that class of people being denied their right to define marriage for themselves, if Olson’s way of looking at this is correct?

Another problem: Olson says polygamy is an “entirely different thing” from same-sex marriage because it “raises questions” about legal, social, and moral harms, and that’s what prevents it from being a right. But in making this distinction, he’s merely assuming what he needs to prove. Those defending traditional marriage also have arguments explaining the harm that will be caused by removing the core principle of sexual complementarity from the definition of marriage (including the legal difficulties resulting from surrogacy, sperm and egg donors, etc.—difficulties that will inevitably result because a third person outside the family must always be involved in the creation of a child for same-sex parents).

If Olson is correct that the harm that would result to society from changing the definition of marriage is grounds for not changing the definition to accommodate a particular group’s desires, then same-sex marriage can be disallowed if it causes harm.

But if Olson is correct that same-sex marriage is not merely a desire, but actually a right that can’t be disallowed, even if it raises questions of harm, then Sotomayor’s question stands: If defining marriage for yourself is a fundamental right, what state restrictions could ever exist?

Olson can’t have it both ways.

You can read more quotes from the proceedings in Stanton's article, “Supreme Court Finally Asks the Tough Questions on Same-Sex Marriage,” and on the Huffington Post.

It's Not About Equality

The term “marriage equality,” if it means “the right to marry whomever you want,” is simply not an accurate term for what same-sex marriage supporters are advocating—not if they favor any restrictions whatsoever (age, number of people, incest, etc.). The truth is that nearly everyone does favor a definition of marriage that has boundaries and thereby denies “marriage equality” to some category of couple (or group).

As you’re likely to hear this term often this week while the Supreme Court is reviewing Prop 8, below is a reposting of “We’re Arguing Definitions, Not Rights” that can help you move your conversations past the charge that you want to deny people equal rights to the real question: What is marriage?

And for a collection of links to more posts and resources discussing this issue, see “Three-Judge Panel Strikes Down Prop 8.”

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We're Arguing Definitions, Not Rights

One common misconception in the same-sex marriage debate is the idea that the traditional legal definition of marriage is a violation of equal rights. Since this is an extremely emotionally charged accusation, it's difficult to get past it into a real discussion of the issue.

Here's the approach I usually take:

1. Nearly everyone who thinks the government ought to issue marriage licenses favors defining marriage in some way. That is, they favor excluding some combinations of people (polygamy, incest, etc.), not individuals, from the definition. Even judges. Even you!

2. You can't consistently argue that by excluding certain combinations of people, traditional marriage violates equal rights—unless you also argue to remove every single boundary from the definition of marriage and say anyone can marry anyone, in whatever combination of numbers they like.

3. If you're not willing to argue this, then you're for having a definition with boundaries, which puts you on equal footing with the traditional marriage supporters.

4. So the question is, which definition should we use? It's fine for you to argue that your definition of "two people who love each other" is better than my definition of "one man, one woman," or someone else's definition of "one man, multiple women," but we need to start off by understanding that we're arguing definitions, not rights.

It's not unconstitutional to adopt either my or your definition, as long as it's applied equally to every individual. Remember that the Constitution doesn't recognize rights for combinations of people; rights only belong to individuals. So one can't say that a man and five women have a right to get married; one can only say that each individual man or woman has the right to enter into marriage (no individual is excluded). This right is then acted upon according to the boundaries set by the state's definition of what marriage is—boundaries which are equally applied to every individual. You would like to equally apply the boundary of "two people who love each other" (excluding some other combinations), and I would like to apply the boundary of "one man, one woman" to each individual equally.

But I agree that the boundaries we place on marriage need to be relevant to the institution of marriage in order to be legitimate, so why don't we sit down and talk about the reasons why we each think the country should use our definition?

This definition-vs.-rights issue needs to be clarified. Otherwise, if you're arguing for the boundaries of traditional marriage, you'll enter the argument having already been unfairly declared an unconstitutional bigot before any of your reasons are explained (despite the fact that your opponent also favors certain boundaries), and anyone would be unlikely to listen to the reasons why you're an unconstitutional bigot. We have to get past this first barrier if we want to be given the chance to make our case.

Embracing the Absurd

About a year ago, the Journal of Medical Ethics published an article arguing that “what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

Instead of reasoning, “A) It’s wrong to kill a newborn, B) there are no significant differences between a newborn and a preborn, C) therefore it’s wrong to kill a preborn,” they followed the logic in the opposite direction: “A) It isn’t wrong to kill a preborn, B) there are no significant differences between a newborn and a preborn, C) therefore it isn’t wrong to kill a newborn.”

When their view that it’s okay to kill a preborn child forced them into the absurd (the nicest word I can put to it) conclusion that it’s okay to kill a newborn, instead of recognizing the mistake that led them there, they merely embraced the absurdity in order to consistently maintain their first premise.

Now I’m seeing this kind of opposite-direction logic play out in the area of same-sex marriage. I’ve often used the fact that our society has separate bathrooms for men and women to illustrate the idea that it’s appropriate to discriminate on the basis of sex when sex is relevant to the situation.

But now it seems that may not be a useful illustration for long:

British Council Rules Toilets Gender Neutral

LONDON: The council in Brighton, England, is scrapping male and female public toilets in favour of "gender neutral" facilities so as not to "alienate the transgender community".

Facilities are to be built that are designed to be shared by adults and children and that do not feature the words "Men" or "Ladies" but instead will show symbols indicating they can be used by people of any sex or age….

Brighton and Hove city council disclosed in emails that it wished to promote the term "gender neutral" and build facilities that were open to all, regardless of sex. It believes such facilities will be more accessible for those who do not identify with the "male-female binary".

And there are other recent stories of gender-neutral bathrooms from the University of Central Florida, from Massachusetts, and from Colorado where the parents of a six-year-old boy (who feels he is a girl) are suing the school for discrimination because he’s being denied the use of the girls’ bathroom:

"For many transgender people, discrimination is a daily part of life. Unfortunately for Coy, it has started very early," lawyer Michael Silverman said.

"The world is going to be looking at the school [to] send a message to the world and teach tolerance, fair play and equal rights."

In other words, in order to be non-discriminatory, we should no longer separate people into bathrooms according to sex. Instead, our choice of bathroom ought to depend on what we feel—or better yet, we should move to gender-neutral bathrooms altogether.

As in the case of “after-birth abortions,” people are following the logic of the arguments in the wrong direction. Instead of saying, “A) It’s okay to discriminate on the basis of sex when sex is relevant to the situation (as is the case with bathrooms), no matter what a person feels, B) sex is relevant to marriage, C) therefore it’s okay to discriminate on the basis of sex when it comes to marriage,” they follow the logic this way: “A) It’s wrong to discriminate on the basis of sex, including in the case of marriage B) sex-specific bathrooms discriminate against people—excluding and including them—on the basis of sex, C) therefore it’s wrong to have sex-specific bathrooms.

Both lines of reasoning follow logical paths to internally consistent positions. Unfortunately, a growing number of people can no longer recognize which of these paths leads to an absurd conclusion.

Ryan Anderson: What Is Marriage?

The book What Is Marriage? argues that only if marriage is defined as a conjugal union between sexually complementary spouses is there a reason for the monogamy, sexual exclusivity, and permanence that marriage entails. When we remove the key component of sexual complementarity from the definition, none of these other aspects will logically hold. And weakening marriage in this way will cause much harm to our society.

In a recent radio interview with Dennis Prager, Ryan Anderson (one of the authors, along with Robert George and Sherif Girgis) summed up the four main points covered in his book:

1. What is marriage? “You have to answer [this question] before you can say whether or not a marriage policy is just or unjust and is treating citizens equally or inequally. The problem has been that a lot of the rhetoric is ‘we’re for marriage equality,’ but they don’t say what marriage is. The reason that we title the book (and the [Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy] article that the book really grows out of) ‘What Is Marriage’ is that that’s the central question.”

2. Why does marriage matter for policy? “Why is the government in the marriage business? The government’s not in the business of promoting my romantic life just for the sake of romance; the government’s in the marriage business because the sexual act that unites a man and a woman also creates new life, and the government needs to make sure that that new life is reared to maturity responsibly.”

3. What would be the harms of redefining marriage? “If you redefine marriage to exclude the norm of sexual complementarity, all of the other traditional norms associated with marriage—monogamy, sexual exclusivity, and the pledge of permanency—they don’t make any sense.”

Monogamy: “There’s nothing magical or special about the number two. The reason we got to monogamy was that it was one man and one woman [that complete the union].”

Sexual Exclusivity: “There’s no reason that if marriage is just an intense emotional relationship for spouses to pledge sexual exclusivity. But marriage isn’t just an emotional relationship if you understand it as a conjugal union between sexually complementary spouses [i.e., the kind of union that unites mind, heart, and body, creating new life].”

Permanency: “If marriage [as an institution] isn’t a fruitful union…if it’s not meant to result in kids, there’s no reason beyond just sheer preference for why it should entail a pledge of permanency.”

The Harm: “The harm of redefining marriage isn’t so much that this or that lesbian or gay couple is going to do something that causes harm, it’s that it’s going to redefine, in the public understanding, what marriage is, and that law shapes culture, culture shapes belief, and belief shapes practice.”

4. What would be the consequences for the least of those among us? “As the marriage culture has collapsed, we’ve seen a host of social ills: increases in crime, decreases in graduation rates, increases in poverty, decreases in social mobility, increase in the growth of the welfare state, increase in the growth of the judicial system, prison system. So anything that you would care about—if you care about limited government and if you care about social justice—depends on a strong marriage culture. But if the government redefines marriage and it brands people like you and me bigots because we hold on to an “unfair, unjust” vision of marriage because you and I think kids need moms and dads, then it’s going to be really hard for marriage to do the work that the government needs marriage to do.” 

For the detailed arguments, purchase Anderson’s book here.

An Economist Argues for Sex-Selection Abortion

In an article titled “Why Indian parents should be allowed to choose whether to have girls,” economist Atanu Dey reacts to the situation in India of “tens of millions” of “missing girls” by saying that the recent laws against sex-selection abortion are the wrong way to go:

Government interference in the personal lives of people is nothing remarkable or new for India. After all, Indians endured British colonial rule until 1947 and following that, socialist governments took over which continued to enforce the rules inherited from the colonial period. So the denial of reproductive rights to women in India should not come as a surprise. This, however, is a particularly heartless move. It condemns too many girls to lives of great misery and to some to a death penalty for the crime of being born a girl.

Let me get this straight…leaving aside the fact that we don’t kill people to prevent them from having difficult lives, according to Dey, it’s a very bad thing for a girl to be “condemned” to death for being born a girl, and it’s “heartless” for the government to cause this situation to occur. However, allowing the parents to save her from this fate by giving her the death penalty for the crime of being conceived a girl is compassionate…to the girl…because it saves her from the death penalty.

I’ve seen some seriously confused pro-choice arguments before, but I can’t imagine anything ever topping that one. He continues:

Parental rights, one assumes, includes the freedom to decide when and how many children to have, and if possible, the freedom to choose the sex of their children. Forcing people to have children of an undesired sex is an infringement of those rights. The parents have the responsibility of bringing up their children, not the government.

What on earth is he talking about? What is this right to choose the sex of your child? You have no control over the sex of your child. "Designer baby” statements like this one are always said in a way that makes it sound as if parents can pick and choose the characteristics of their child. Please, never forget: When it comes to designer babies, there is never just one child involved whose genes are being chosen. No, there are many children who are being killed until the “right” child comes along. Genetic selection involves killing.

Second, I agree that the parents have the responsibility of bringing up their children (or at the very least, protecting those children while they’re under their care). That’s exactly the point. This responsibility would seem to be in opposition to their desire to kill the children they don’t want, so I’m not sure how this helps Dey’s case.

Technology provides tools which are always neutral although economic agents using them are motivated by ends to which one may attach moral values. Those who want to use technology to limit human freedom are naturally opposed to those who use it to increase their choices.

It’s astounding to me that Dey can’t recognize the monstrosity of his own language. Imagine technology had been invented in Germany in 1940 that would locate all the Jews who were attempting to hide their identity, and that technology was being used successfully to support the Nazis’ choice to raise only Aryan citizens. Would one label the objectors to this as those who "want to limit human freedom,” who are “naturally opposed to those who use technology to increase their choices”? Doesn’t the choice being made make all the difference?

Using the emotionally-laden terms “freedom” and “choice” while glossing over the nature of the choice actually being discussed does nothing but create obfuscatory rhetoric. The government limits all sorts of choices. There is no freedom to steal, or freedom to assault, or freedom to kill, no matter how much technology exists to assist those choices.

By restricting information which may be useful for parents to make an informed choice whether or not to have a female child, the government is sacrificing the right of a child to a decent life in order to protect the “rights” of a fetus. If people cannot avoid having girls that they do not want, they will be forced to have more children to reach their desired number of sons, and to ration their resources to the detriment of girls….

In the end, in the contest between the people and the government, the drive for freedom proves to be stronger and eventually overcomes the forces that seek to limit freedom. The government will fail in this case as well—as it must for the sake of the girls.

So there you have it. Killing girls because they’re girls is now being spun as a compassionate act being done in the best interest of girls.

Disgusting.

British colonial rule did indeed interfere in personal lives by preventing the killing of women. And it seems to me that this tradition is one India should be proud to continue.

Race, Sex, and Marriage

You may have already seen Rev. Dr. Phil Snider’s two-minute speech to the Springfield City Council in support of adding “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the categories of protected people in the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.

Snider began by giving religious arguments against the ordinance. Then, in a surprising twist, he revealed that all of his comments were quotes from white preachers in the ‘50s and ‘60s; he had merely used the phrase “gay rights” instead of "racial integration." Snider closed by saying, “I hope you will not make the same mistake. I hope you will stand on the right side of history.”

The video has been viewed over two million times and is being used to argue that opposing same-sex marriage is analogous to opposing interracial marriage. Tom Gilson of Thinking Christian had this to say about Snider’s video:

I wish he hadn’t called his skit an argument. It wasn’t one. It was a play, a set piece with a surprise ending that generated emotion where reason is called for; a drama play-acting as reasoned discussion. It had a powerful effect, but that’s a poor substitute for honest communication.

You can see the video of the speech (which Gilson calls “reason steamrolled by emotion”) and read Gilson’s full analysis of Snider’s argument and why it fails over at Thinking Christian.

But what about the charge that traditional marriage supporters are making the same mistake as the racial segregationists? In a Public Discourse article, Francis Beckwith explains why anti-miscegenation laws are not analogous to opposing same-sex marriage. In fact, he says, it’s the opposite. It’s the same-sex marriage advocates who are making the same mistake as the racial segregationists:

The overwhelming consensus among scholars is that the reason for these [anti-miscegenation] laws was to enforce racial purity, an idea that begins its cultural ascendancy with the commencement of race-based slavery of Africans in early 17th-century America and eventually receives the imprimatur of “science” when the eugenics movement comes of age in the late 19th and early 20th centuries….

Anti-miscegenation laws, therefore, were attempts to eradicate the legal status of real marriages by injecting a condition—sameness of race—that had no precedent in common law. For in the common law, a necessary condition for a legitimate marriage was male-female complementarity, a condition on which race has no bearing….

[T]he fact that a man and a woman from different races were biologically and metaphysically capable of marrying each other, building families, and living among the general population is precisely why the race purists wanted to forbid such unions by the force of law. And because this view of marriage and its gender-complementary nature was firmly in place and the only understanding found in common law, the Supreme Court in Loving knew that racial identity was not relevant to what marriage requires of its two opposite-gender members. By injecting race into the equation, anti-miscegenation supporters were very much like contemporary same-sex marriage proponents, for in both cases they introduced a criterion other than male-female complementarity in order to promote the goals of a utopian social movement: race purity or sexual egalitarianism.

This is why, in both cases, the advocates require state coercion to enforce their goals. Without the state’s cooperation and enforcement, there would have been no anti-miscegenation laws and there would be no same-sex marriage. The reason for this, writes libertarian economist Jennifer Roback Morse, is that “marriage between men and women is a pre-political, naturally emerging social institution. Men and women come together to create children, independently of any government.” Hence, this explains its standing as an uncontroversial common law liberty. “By contrast,” Morse goes on to write, “same-sex ‘marriage’ [and same-race-only marriage] is completely a creation of the state…” [emphases mine].

We don't have separate bathrooms for white people and black people. We do have separate bathrooms for men and women. This is because men and women are different in ways that are significant enough for society to acknowledge and take into account when those differences are relevant. And while differences in race are not relevant to marriage, differences in sex are relevant to creating and raising children. The important thing to note here is that the government is merely acknowledging an already-existing institution (one based on biological realities) when it recognizes male–female marriage. The public effect of the male–female union is unique, and therefore, the government is uniquely interested in it.

Mr. Candidate, How Does Religion Inform Your View on Abortion?

In the vice presidential debate last week, this question was asked of the candidates:

I would like to ask you both to tell me what role your religion has played in your own personal views on abortion. Please talk about how you came to that decision. Talk about how your religion played a part in that. And please, this is such an emotional issue for so many people in this country, please talk personally about this, if you could.

The two candidates focused on the idea that life begins at conception, but I don’t think that's where the true controversy lies. Here’s how I would love to hear a pro-life politician answer this question in two minutes:

Saying that life begins at conception isn’t a controversial statement. It’s a question of science. Ask any embryologist and he can tell you that what’s growing in the mother’s womb is a whole, living, human boy or girl at his or her earliest stage of development, with his or her own unique DNA that will remain the same through all stages of development, from conception to death.

What’s controversial is that I think every human being is valuable simply because he or she is a member of the valuable human race. I don’t think human beings have to earn their rights by having certain characteristics like the “correct” race, or gender, or size, or ability, or age.

In other words, it’s the fact that I think we ought to be upholding universal human rights that’s the controversial position.

Now as a Christian, I do believe it’s my duty to protect the natural rights of human beings—to protect universal human rights—because human beings are the kind of being that’s valuable. But one doesn’t have to be a Christian to agree with universal human rights. There are many people of other religions, or no religion, who also want to uphold universal human rights.

The idea that we’re all created equal and equally possess unalienable rights regardless of our differences (race, size, age, ability, etc.) is a founding principle of this nation. Sadly, in the past, we allowed the government to define some human beings out of the human family by requiring they have certain preferred characteristics (like white skin) in order to qualify for protection.

Our failures in the past to hold our government accountable to our professed principle of unalienable rights for every human being led to serious human rights violations. I don’t want to repeat that same mistake. Instead, I would like to hold us to that founding principle.

You asked for a personal answer, and I agree that there are many emotions involved on all sides of this question. But I don’t want to confuse the issue by giving the impression that this is a matter of personal preference. Regulating subjective preferences is not the role of government, so answering as if the abortion issue were merely personal wouldn’t clarify what’s at stake. The issue of human rights is a public issue, and the protection of the lives of human beings is an area of public life that requires the government’s involvement.

Medical Equipment Determines Human Value?

The Telegraph in the UK reports that the new women’s minister favors lowering the abortion upper limit from 24 weeks to 20 weeks:

Maria Miller told the Telegraph it was "common sense" to lower the legal limit at which a pregnancy can be terminated in order to "reflect the way science has moved on".

Thanks to advances in care for children born very prematurely, it is now possible for doctors in some cases to save the lives of babies born before 24 weeks.

The medical advance raises the moral dilemma of whether it is right to end pregnancies which could result in a healthy child, or to lower the window and rob some women of the right to make their own choice.

Of course the writer means “pregnancies which could result in a healthy child if it were developing outside of the womb.” My guess is he wouldn’t have a problem with ending “a pregnancy” that could result in a healthy child if allowed to develop naturally in the womb. So the argument is, if we have the medical equipment necessary to remove a child from a mother’s womb at a certain age and keep that child alive, then that’s the point at which it becomes morally problematic for a mother to remove her child. How does that follow?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with their lowering the age to 20 weeks; if we can save younger human beings, great! But this whole line of thinking is just bizarre. The argument might make sense if one were to say, “In order to preserve the woman’s choice to not continue a pregnancy and preserve the life of the unborn child, let’s disallow abortion and instead remove the child from the mother when medical advances allow for this.” That conclusion would at least follow.

But the argument is not saying, "Since medical science can sustain the life of a child after 20 weeks, therefore, after that time, a woman ought to be able to remove her child and connect it to life support." Instead it’s arguing, “Your child could live outside you, therefore you’re not allowed to take him out.”

This non-sequitur conclusion shows that this whole argument is really about determining human value. The unspoken premise here is that if a child can live outside his mother with the help of medical equipment, then that child has value and a right to life, whether or not he’s actually outside of his mother at the time.

But how on earth do advancements in science outside of a mother change the value and rights of the human being growing inside a mother? Isn’t it an odd and arbitrary measure of human value to say that if equipment exists somewhere in the world that could keep a child alive outside of his mother, then any child that age has a right to live inside his mother, and abortion shouldn’t be allowed after that time?

A related article asks a question:

Although the odds remain stacked against survival at that age, it’s true that the onward march of science is saving some babies born before 24 weeks…. Is it right that we terminate pregnancies which might, with the medical care now available, result in healthy babies?

If the presence of life-sustaining equipment determines the right of a child to live inside his mother without the threat of abortion (or at least “raises a moral dilemma”), then this is bad news for pro-choicers, because mothers already have the equipment necessary to sustain that child’s life not just at 20 weeks, but at ten weeks, or even one day. So why not ask, “Is it right to terminate human beings which might, with the natural environment now available to them, result in healthy babies?” According to this existence-of-life-sustaining-equipment principle, every child has a right to live inside his mother.

Of course, this is not how I argue for the rights of unborn human beings. I’m merely pointing out the absurdity of determining human value by the existence of medical equipment. But notice that the writers of these two quotes are on the right track in this: They recognize it’s morally problematic to allow women to abort unborn human beings that “might result in healthy [born] babies.” That is, they see that the being in the womb is the same being who will be born, and that we have an obligation to help that being make it through this process, if it’s physically possible.

For some reason, they're aware of this obligation only when thinking in terms of available medical equipment. But if they can see the problem with aborting a child when medical equipment could sustain him, surely we can help them see it’s equally morally problematic to abort when the mother has the ability to complete the pregnancy. Might not the pregnancy result in a baby in either case?

Same-Sex Marriage Won't Be Enough

Last month, at a Sydney Writers Festival panel discussion on the question, “Why get married when you could be happy?” Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen had this to say about same-sex marriage:

It’s a no-brainer that we should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist [cheers from the audience].

That causes my brain some trouble. And part of why it causes me trouble is because fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there—because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist. And I don’t like taking part in creating fictions about my life. That’s sort of not what I had in mind when I came out thirty years ago. I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally….

[After my divorce,] I met my new partner, and she had just had a baby, and that baby’s biological father is my brother, and my daughter’s biological father is a man who lives in Russia, and my adopted son also considers him his father. So the five parents break down into two groups of three…. And really, I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality. And I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.

This just illustrates the fact that the institution of marriage is inextricably connected with children and reflects an unchangeable reality: One man + one woman = children. The reproductive system is divided in half—the man has one half, the woman has the other—and when they come together, the result is a whole, functioning system that creates children. Therefore, the state protects the union between a man and a woman. By doing this, the children are legally protected.

Gessen wants to fight for marriage to legally include different types of relationships because she wants the government to declare there is no difference between a heterosexual union and a homosexual one. But there is a difference. A very important difference based on the unchangeable realities of biology. A difference that’s relevant because it’s at the very heart of the institution of marriage. A difference that justifies the government treating the different unions differently.

So Gessen is conflicted. She wants the unions to be treated the same, but she recognizes that, by nature, they create fundamentally different situations. And since the institution of marriage can’t accommodate a union that has only one woman and one woman (because another person—a man—is needed somewhere in the picture in order for a family to be created), she understands that an entirely new legal system must be created in order for the government to be able to address her situation.

So here’s the thinking (a summary in my words, not hers): “I want all unions to be treated the same, but since we’re not the same, due to biological realities beyond our control, and since marriage can never work for the union and children I have, we need to drop marriage and come up with a new idea so we can all be the same under that new system.” Or even more succinctly stated, “You shouldn’t have marriage because we can’t have marriage.”

Marriage can’t be separated from biological realities. And that’s why this upheaval won’t end when same-sex marriage is accepted—why Gessen’s ultimate goal is the end of marriage.

I’m glad to hear her honesty about this.

[HT: John Sandeman (click to see more quotes from the panel)]

Where Was God?

In light of the horrific event in Colorado last night, we thought we’d point you to a transcribed radio commentary by Greg from back in 1999, given in response to the Columbine shootings:

I will tell you, though, on a personal note, I was in the gym stretching to get ready for a run close to my office on Tuesday afternoon when I first got wind of the problems. I laid on the floor stretching my hamstring watching the TV monitor and crying to myself, frankly, choked up watching the drama unfold in Colorado. There is really no one in this country who could have watched the events of those terrifying hours and not have their heart and their prayers go out to the residents of that town, the people in that high school, the parents represented by the children in the school, indeed the whole state of Colorado who mourned this tragedy in their midst.

I just want you to know my prayers were there for you. And when I say my prayers, for those of you who are listening from Colorado, I'm not talking about just talking about emotional sentiments that I cared. No, I was beseeching a powerful God who is capable of answering prayers, who is fully aware of everything that was happening to respond to prayers and to do something in the midst of this tragedy. I believe those prayers were heard....

I am going to drop back just a little bit and try to answer this question that was asked: Where is God? I don't think that is a simplistic question. I don't think the answers are simplistic either, but I do think the answer matters.

One answer that came from the Reverend Gary Hall of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena is an answer that is not going to work. He was quoted in the L.A. Times as having said, "I think God is broken-hearted. I don't think God was in control of these events. I think God will be found in the healing." This is a view of God that is very similar to a rabbi who wrote a very important book about the problem of evil and the existence of God. Basically, his answer is that the problem of evil is bigger than God and that God is not capable to stop evil. He weeps with us at a world out of control.

That can't be the Christian's answer because the Bible that Christians follow teach something different about God. Frankly, I don't know that a God like that, a God who is equally victimized with us as He watches history and the evil in history unfold, is a God worthy of praising, praying to, and trusting oneself to. This is a God who basically has our weaknesses, only on a grander scale. It seems to me that the God who the Bible is appealing us to trust in is Someone who is capable at least of dealing with these kinds of issues.

Of course, this raises a dilemma, doesn't it? How does anyone who believes in God make sense of this kind of thing?

Read Greg’s thoughts here.