Comments for Same-Sex Marriage and Surprises for Liberals at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 13 out of 13 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Fri, 24 May 2013 09:21:29 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-9214 This statement caught my eye: "What hasn’t quite dawned yet, even on good liberal citizens, open to novelties in the law, is that same-sex marriage is not the ultimate, culminating end for gay-lesbian activists. It is only an intermediate end, on the way to the state of things even more devoutly to be wished. " ... in light of the first five words of "The Overhauling of Straight America," which I just read for the first time this evening. Those words are, "The first order of business..." which I found very telling, as I wondered what the other orders may be. - Gwenevere Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:42:40 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7470 Here in Europe, we are seeing more opposite-sex couples opting for Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships, which offer greater flexibility. In France, where the courts decisively rejected demands for SSM on equality grounds, by arguing that the presumption of paternity and its counterpart, the obligation of marital fidelity was what set marriage apart from other legal unions and made it irrelevant to same-sex couples, no obligation of fidelity is required of civil partners. After all, apart from merely emotional reasons, why should it be, where there is no risk of the imposition of a spurious issue? - Michael PS Fri, 22 Jul 2011 04:52:59 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7466 Next on the docket: polygamist marriage. Where are all the voices that ridiculed Scalia's warnings? See the recent (7/20) story by Jonathan Turley in the New York Times:"One Big, Happy Polygamous Family." - Patrick Deneen Fri, 22 Jul 2011 04:09:40 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7462 Dean, Being "behind the times" is hardly a criticism when the times are degenerate. Should we all simply be men of our times, whatever those times may become? This would be a willing slavery. While we are contingent beings to a degree, we may also deliberate and choose. We live in our times, but we can also be fighters against those times. This is the path of freedom. - Friedrich Thu, 21 Jul 2011 08:04:45 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7461 Dean, that's a tempting thought, but I'm afraid it's not true. Companies aren't driven by pure economics in these matters but by prevailing public opinion - or, more accurately, what the companies understand as the prevailing public opinion, which is often a loud minority. Read what de Tocqueville said about the inability of the average citizen in an egalitarian age to resist the power of majority opinion. At the same time, these companies are also driven by their own idea of justice, regardless of public opinion. If your proposition were true, then Hollywood production companies would have been making thousands of decent movies for families, and thousands of religious movies as well. The market for those sorts of movies is immense. But they have made pitifully few; almost all their output is pro-feminist, pro-promiscuity, and pro-"progressive." Likewise, the top 100 law firms embrace homosexual "marriage" because they worry they would come under fire from various groups if they did not, and also because a large number of lawyers actually believe that homosexual marriage is required by justice. You could say that there is an indirect economic interest here - the wish to avoid bad publicity brought on by protests from leftist groups and newspapers - but it's not a matter of simply increasing profits. Companies could do quite well in attracting talent without making special appeals to certain groups over others, just as Hollywood studios could make billions of dollars making more movies like The Sound of Music - but they choose not to for reasons apart from money. - Grandpa Thu, 21 Jul 2011 07:53:23 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7456 There is another way of looking at this question: that companies tend to act in their economic interests, neither out of "liberal conviction" nor purely to quiet criticism. Companies offer benefits to talented, skilled and creative employees in order to attract and retain them. In the absence of prejudice to the contrary, it makes economic sense to offer benefits to employees with same-sex partners so as to remain competitive in a cultural landscape in which gays and lesbians are no longer willing to remain closeted or mistreated. Though they assert different opinions, both Franke and Arkes are behind the times with regard to marriage equality. Recently, some companies have seen a cost savings in standardizing human resource practices where marriage equality is now legal. To assert that such companies will eventually find themselves extending benefits to multiple, long-term sex partners of employees assumes a gratuitous altruism on the part of such businesses that is hard to imagine. However, were such relationships to become the norm, perhaps they would not be likely to burden businesses any more than monogamous heterosexual couples who produce a large number of dependent children. - Dean Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:11:43 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7452 I am still undecided about Kennedy. Is he really that stupid, or was he just feigning ignorance of the consequences of his high school philosophy level musings that pass for legal opinion? - c matt Wed, 20 Jul 2011 08:19:01 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7443 Might I recommend a recent essay by Dr. Peter Kreeft: "The New Paganism"? He carries on the "hows" and "whys" of the discussion brilliantly. Excellent essay, Prof. Arkes. Thank you. Didn't anybody learn anything from Cain and Abel all those millennia ago? Cain cannot live with Abel. If Truth lives anywhere in the same universe, it convicts Cain's soul, and must be destroyed. So what else is new? - Louise Tue, 19 Jul 2011 09:47:29 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7442 Small point - in aviation the death spiral is fatal because the person in command does not realize the danger. Flying by feel rather than by instruments the pilot is fooled into believing everything is OK. A nose dive is obvious. We are in a death spiral. It is an apt metaphor. - Other Joe Tue, 19 Jul 2011 07:44:16 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7441 Well done Professor. Good judgement seems increasingly difficult to come by these days and our society seems increasingly averse to making any kind of judgement on the conduct of others. Case in point: the Casey Anthony jury, but there are many other examples.Unless we pull out of this nose dive, we are in a death spiral. - Ray Hunkins Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:26:52 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7440 Aeneas: I think that the reason why Sullivan thinks he's a Catholic, is probably because most of the Catholics (Bishops, clergy and laity) surrounding him in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. (and formerly his native England) think he is too. - Chris in Maryland Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:16:06 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7439 Mr. Arkes, nice legal argument but such articles only serve to validate and legitimize the "debate" over what constitutes marriage, which would have been ludicrous 50 years ago when I was a teen. Legally, of course, one can make a case for just about any vice or bad behavior (smoking, prostitution, drugs and alcohol abuse, etc.), but morally, there can be no arguments worth pursuing. You're waging a losing battle, professor, against the tide of depravity that is washing over America as she sinks further into an immoral swamp of decadence and decay. Spengler was right. We're in the winter of the life of this nation. - Grump Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:11:16 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/same-sex-marriage-and-surprises-for-liberals.html#comment-7437 This whole thing is disgusting. Once again, hats off to Hadley Arkes for another important article. Gay 'marriage' is not the end, oh no, there will be much more in the future...and I'm probably young enough to see it all transpire within my lifetime. Also: "Activists like Andrew Sullivan have long insisted gay marriage must be “open,” without constraint, to sexual encounters with many others, including strangers." How that man ever considered himself to be a Catholic and at the same time, hold perverse opinions like that, is beyond me. - Aeneas Mon, 18 Jul 2011 21:10:28 +0100