Response to Laura part 1

To my friend Laura,

I hope your would recognize the respect I have for your response at least from the fact how much time I have put into my response. This response has three goals; the first is to defend my own position. I believe that this will be the least agreeable to you but also the least open to criticism because it is not and does not try to be a rational position. Secondly, I will be presenting the most rational defense for the defense of marriage. This will be the least agreeable to me but is a response to your passionate belief that this position is indefensible and incompatible with any moral person. Lastly, I will respond to specific questions and points in your letter to me. I will do this first because I hope it will facilitate the second goal.

Part one

You pointed out the large amount of time spent on evaluating the word “prejudice” specifically. You later said " I think you are getting hung up on the words I am using, language can be a tricky thing and I find myself being hindered by it more than being helped by it.” This preoccupation with specific words is not an accident but particular to the method of philosophy and also becomes very important when engaging in legal matters. We often hear about “the spirit of a law” but in most legal proceedings it is “the letter of the law” which rules absolute. Really, the spirit of the law only becomes legally relevant at the upper court level (State Supreme Court). Therefore it matters a great deal which specific words we choose. If you feel inclined take a look at what is the most accessible part of the State Constitution (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/.const/.article_1). In this we quickly sense how specific even the most general portion of the law strives to be.

In terms of a philosophical nature it is also important to spend time defining and choosing terms so that we can be certain that the other receives the intended meaning. For example when someone says “this is a right” because of my own world view will often unconsciously interject “this is a God given right” and then sometimes their statement comes across as nonsense. As a thoughtful thinker I do have a responsibility to filter my own interpretation of a statement with my understanding with the paradigm of the speaker but a philosophical method is used to help both sides in this task. Another benefit of such formal methods is that it forces us to cool our passions which may be appropriate but are not helpful in building understanding.

As to regarding the use of the term “homosexual,” I was very intentional in selecting that word. I had never hears that it had a negative connotation but wanted a word that was as accurate as possible. You used the term “gay” but specifically only speaks of men who are homosexual. Certainly in casual conversation it might be acceptable to use that term more generally but for the reasons stated above. I am familiar with the designation of “gay/lesbian/bisexual/queer/transgender” but this is unwieldy even as an acronym “glbqt.” This is also does not work when specifically dealing with homosexual marriage which does not relate to bisexual or queer or transgender in the same degree. I don’t imagine there will be any superior designation but I am open to suggestion.

When I said that “the state or the voting population decides…” you objected saying ”the state had decided…” I think both of us wrote incorrectly. The way it worked is that the court specifically decided and as such it became the official position of the state (the law) but then the voting population changed the constitution and the official position of the state changed. It is an issue of balances and checks. The court’s power is limited by the people’s ability to change the constitution and the people’s power is limited by the courts rulings and both powers are limited by executive branches ability to not enforce certain laws. My only objection to this situation is that it is too easy to change the state constitution. All that is needed is a minimal majority of the voting population on a given election year. The requirement to change the US Constitution is much more difficult and I feel this is better. But this won’t be changing any time soon since it would essentially be taking power away from the people to the courts and executive office. But in our democracy there is no absolute unchangeable statement with the possible exception of the first ten amendments to the Constitution (the Bill of Rights).

When I said "To those who believe the two are equally beneficial to society this is disappointing but it is not oppression." you asked for a clarification. I believe that it is disappointing in the same way that a tax increase is disappointing but not oppression because as I stated earlier that the benefits of marriage are not a right recognized by the state but a gift for perceived merit. Certainly you disagree but recognize that not receiving a gift though disappointing is not oppression.

You said “Once again, whatever you or anyone else believes or feels, when it comes to the law, the law can't discriminate. It’s in our constitution.” I agree and even will provide the actual text of the state constitution which supports the statement: “Sec. 7 (b) A citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens. Privileges or immunities granted by the Legislature may be altered or revoked.” In an earlier letter I had missed this text and criticized the Court’s ruling as a poor reading of the state constitution. The central question to the later rational argument for the definition of marriage as specifically is concerning the nature of homosexuality is whether or not that it constitutes a “class of citizens.” But as for your statement I am in agreement as clearly said in the state constitution, though the passing of Proposition 8 changes the legal nature of marriage.

This leads to the difference between the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. Defenders of marriage believe that the lobby for homosexual marriage is corrupting the spirit of marriage whereas the lobby for homosexual marriage believes that the defenders of marriage are corrupting the spirit of the constitution. But at this moment the letter of the law is clear, but not unchangeable.

The last specific point of yours I have not yet addressed is your repeated mention of the idea of gender not being so clear cut. Though there are examples of xyy (or is it xxy?) from a biologist’s perspective there is no question of two clear cut sexes. The biology of mammals is not political or socially constructed. The sexual organs serve a particular purpose: reproduction. But we do not live in a purely biological world, thank God. However if a person is born with a weakened immune system, or eyes that do not work we do not say that it is a new kind of person. Instead we say that something happened which made it so that their body is incomplete or faulty. As a Christian I can and do believe this does not make them any less valuable but just afflicted by the messed up nature of this universe.
There is a tendency, for social reasons, to highly emphasize our identity with our gender. This makes the examples of intersexed persons troubling to some, but from a Christian perspective male and female is exactly equal in our identity as a person loved fully by God. If a person is born with uncertain genitals or if they destroy their genitals through accident or surgery it does not and can not change this essential identity.

As for the question of who they may marry. If I were in charge of that policy I would probably legally classify them with the gender they were originally classified with at birth. If gender is socially constructed then it is arbitrary what gender they are designated and there is not danger of making the wrong choice. If we have a true gender I can think of no current method to discover this and as a policy maker would make the decision which is most efficient.