A belated response to Rich Lowry’s accusation that I am an intolerant, preachy moralist. His main points:
1. Santorum, he argues, is not in favor, as I argued, of direct application of Vatican principles to the civil law. Give me an example. On what issue does Santorum dissent from Vatican teaching on civil law? And by what principle would he draw that distinction? Please show me where Santorum has upheld secular values over theological ones.
2. Lowry then denies that the Allard-Musgrave amendment would bar civil unions and domestic partnerships. So why the second sentence that on its face bars not just marriage but all the “legal incidents”? And, yes, I do believe that there is disingenuousness on this. The religious right doesn’t want to go to the lengths of a constitutional amendment purely for the word “marriage.” The drafter of the amendment, Robert George, has said that it would effectively end any civil arrangements that mirrored marriage. Am I crazy to believe the guy who wrote it? Many Republican senators can read as well – and that’s one reason the vote against Allard-Musgrave would have been so devastating. If the backers of the FMA wanted to make sure that it allowed for civil unions, they could have drafted an amendment saying exactly that. They don’t and they didn’t.
3. Again, there is no reasonable dispute about the Virginia law. It was rooted quite clearly in animus against gay couples, was passed in a welter of furiously anti-gay rhetoric and is viewed by everyone except water-carriers for the far right as the equivalent of a new Jim Crow. But Lowry won’t criticize it or touch it. No enemies to the right.
4. Lowry then accuses me of bigotry, because I have described fundamentalists as a bloc motivated by anti-gay animus. Actually, I’m relieved that so many evangelicals are uncomfortable with this measure. But the leadership is foaming at the mouth about this. If Lowry were to watch Christian television lately, I’d love to see how he could believe otherwise. If he read my email in-tray, he might get a better idea. But I have long defended the fundamentalists’ religious freedoms, support their civil rights in every respect, would fight for their right to marry, to serve in the armed forces, be protected against discrimination and on and on. But they would deny all of that to gay people. So who’s the real intolerant here?
5. Lowry continues:
He says he supports my civil rights and I oppose his. Is Andrew capable of writing anything on this topic that’s not question-begging? Opponents of gay marriage like myself don’t believe that a civil right to marry someone of the same sex exists. We obviously aren’t for denying to gays the rights to speak, vote, own guns, etc. If Andrew reformulated the point in neutral, non-question begging terms, it would be something like: Lowry and I disagree about the definition of civil rights in this instance.
Yes: but it has long been a tactic of those who oppose civil rights to argue that they don’t. Those opposed to education integration denied that they were against black civil rights – they just wanted separate but equal education for both blacks and whites. Those who opposed inter-racial marriage said exactly the same thing – since blacks and whites were equally constrained by the anti-miscegenation laws, there was no discrimination, etc. It wasn’t that Bull Connor opposed civil rights. It’s just that he had a different conception of civil rights than his opponents! What cannot be denied, however, is that Lowry does indeed oppose a gay person’s right to enjoy the same rights he has – the right to marry, the right to serve your country, the right to be protected from workplace discrimination, and so on. It couldn’t be starker. Lowry believes that heterosexuals have civil rights as citizens and as heterosexuals. But gays should have no rights as homosexuals at all. He is defending his own privilege, while posturing as someone who believes in equality. It’s an old gambit. But it is as transparent as it is intolerant.
The Dish 