John's Blog: March 2004

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An old joke revisited

Sunday, March 21, 2004
You have maybe heard this story by now, such as reported by CBS News/60 Minutes:
After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.

"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."
Reminds me of the old joke, circa Jr. High, where someone's looking for some lost change under a streetlight. His friend helps him look for a while, then finally asks where he lost it. When the first guy says "over there", pointing to somewhere in the dark, his friend asks "Then why are we looking over here?", and the first guy says "Because the light's better!"

Enough said.

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Marriage vs. Civil Union

Friday, March 05, 2004

In my other post on the gay marriage topic, I explained why I support it, and what I think the limits are to the governments role in the debate. In this essay, I want to investigate more fully the differences in meaning between the terms "marriage" and "civil union". Among other reasons for thinking about this, it is an area in which I would like John Kerry to be a lot clearer on.

Let me lay out an example to illustrate this. Suppose, in Kerry's ideal world, that I (a straight man) take a trip to my local courthouse, with my fiance "Stacey" (all names but mine are made up), and our two friends "Amy" and "Jenn", a lesbian couple. Stacey and I obtain a marriage license, and Amy and Jenn obtain a civil union license. We then proceed down the hall to the Justice of the Peace, who "solemnizes" (I think that is the legal term?) my and Stacey's marriage, with Amy and Jenn as our witnesses. The JP then solemnizes Amy and Jenn's union, with Stacy and I as their witnesses. No religious institution involved anywhere.

At the end of the day, so to speak, what rights and benefits do we all have with our respective partners? Are Amy and Jenn's benefits identical to Stacey's and mine, or are they fewer, greater, or just different?

If identical, why make the distinction? Not only is it a legally useless one, but it is fiscally senseless to maintain two different systems that do the same thing. On the other hand, if it will satisfy people who are "against gay marriage but tolerable of civil unions", then okay, whatever.

However, I don't imagine that that's what most people who say that have in mind. And if not, then won't this amount to a two-class, "separate but 'equal'" system? Will this stand up in court? Is "sexual orientation", as a group designation, qualitatively different (not including from a religious viewpoint) from "race", on which basis "separate but equal" has already been found unconstitutional? (Which is probably why the MA Supreme Court said essentially the same thing.)

So my specific questions for Kerry (and others who make this distinction) are:

  1. When he says civil unions, does he mean with all the same rights and benefits as civil marriage, just a different name? Or a separate set?
  2. When he refers to "marriage", does he mean a civil status which will (presumably) have more civil rights and privileges than civil unions, or is he referring only the cultural and religious meanings of the word? If the latter, he needs to clarify that, to avoid people getting the mistaken impression that the government has any say in those definitions. He is entitled to his religious conviction, but if he's bringing it into the political debate, it needs to be more clearly labelled as such.

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Gay Marriage and the Constitution

First, a bit of humor.

Let's be clear on one thing. "Marriage" is a very ambiguous term. Therefore, in this essay, I concern myself primarily with civil marriage, meaning when you are married by a Justice of the Peace instead of a religious clergyperson. No one's going to be forcing any religious institutions to perform same-sex marriages, whether they are civilly legal or not. Civil and religious marriage are pretty much separate issues, except that a religious clergyperson can be licensed by the state to represent the state during the ceremony. This enables the single ceremony to be have both the religious and civil significance, rather than requiring a separate ceremony for each.

One thing that I sense a lot of disagreement on in this whole issue is, what is is the government's proper role in defining marriage? In a government which in which church and state are separate (at least officially), what's the government's justification in defining marriage at all, and what are the its limits in doing so? The answer to this question has varied widely in different times and places throughout history. In 21st century America, the current consensus seems to be that the government's justification for maintaining a marriage institution is to encourage stable relationships. Many people would link the raising of children to that, although we can probably all agree that having more stable relationships is a better situation for society even without the addition of children.

So why limit this opportunity to heterosexual couples, when homosexuals also tend to fall in love and/or have sex, and/or raise children for that matter? All defenses of "traditional" (opposite-sex) marriage that I have heard ultimately derive from the moral and/or religious views of the person making them. To approve even of civil union, from what I can discern from the conservative viewpoint, amounts to condoning the homosexual orientation. (Note that I refuse to call it a "lifestyle", because I do not believe that it is.) And that, they cannot bring themselves to do.

While I support their right to their theology, I hope that we can all agree that it is not necessarily the government's role to protect the religious sensibilities of any one religious group, and indeed most conservatives do not go quite that far. They appeal instead to a "general" notion of morality, or "traditional" cultural norms. But is it even the government's role to "protect the general morality"? On the conservative side, it is true that the government has always had laws which are certainly informed by morality: laws against murder, theft, rape, pedophilia, etc. So does that mean the government *does* have some business legislating morality, maybe up to a point?

When asking about a government's proper role, the ultimate answer has to lie in the constitution of that government, the document by which the government has agreed to abide. Here's the preamble to ours:
We the People of the United States, in Order to
  • form a more perfect Union,
  • establish Justice,
  • insure domestic Tranquility,
  • provide for the common defence,
  • promote the general Welfare, and
  • secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Under which of these points would making legislation concerning morality fall? (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer; these are my own subject interpretations.)
I think we can easily justify the traditional morality-based prohibitions on murder, etc. with the "general welfare" clause. It's clearly not in a society's interest, either collectively or individually, to allow these things to go on. Following that reasoning, perhaps government may also have a role in the decision whether or not to allow gay civil unions based on the "general welfare" argument. However, the justification is far less clear one way or the other, in my view.

Looking through the "general welfare" lens now, we have on the one side proponents of gay civil unions, who can argue, quite rightly I believe, that lack of the same rights and benefits afforded to straight couples severely limits their particular welfare, and therefore that of the society collectively. On the other side, opponents claim all sorts of problems for general society if gay civil unions are allowed, which if they are correct, would undermine the general welfare. So the "general welfare" clause could both sides have valid constitutional claims.

Now, the impact of gay and lesbian couples of being denied the rights and benefits of civil union is easily imagined, and what's more, real and well-documented. In my view, the doom-and-gloom predictions put forth by opponents are less proveable and much less documentable. Nevertheless, I think this is at least a legitimate constitutional frame for the central conflict in America right now: Whether the "general welfare" will be better served by allowing gays and lesbians the rights of civil union (thereby improving their own welfare), or by continuing to deny them (thereby avoiding any supposed costs to society).

So where does the the debate go from here? I don't know how to convince people who are certain that the sky will fall if gay civil unions are allowed that it won't. But I don't think it will, and that's why I'm in favor of extending to gays and lesbians the same civil marriage rights as heterosexuals currently enjoy. If you disagree with me from a moral or spiritual standpoint, I respect that, but I also believe that the only justification the government has in determining this question is as it relates to the civil "general welfare", not what our opinion of the morality of it is.

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Distributive Justice (Part 1 of 2)

Thursday, March 04, 2004

The following essay is a guest article from my friend Mark Tesny in Cleveland. He wrote it (paraphrasing The God We Never Knew, by Marcus Borg) as an email message to a bunch of us, and I am posting it here with his permission.

I'm wondering why I have no faith in American politics. I'm trying to. Oh, and Happy belated Super Tuesday. I voted for Dennis Kucinich because he supports a national health care plan and equal education for all. I thought he had the most passion for social justice and he would not be influenced by the elites of our country. We have an elite driven social and economic policy. I believe in a different political vision. I believe in the dream of God for a just society. Even though we will never reach it on earth it is an ideal to strive for. The fact that we cannot perfectly embody it does not mean that it should cease to be an ideal. The prophets understood God's dream for us:

The dream of God is basically a vision of shalom, a hebrew word often translated as "peace" but meaning much more than the absence of war. It means well being in a comprehensive sense. It includes freedom from negatives such as oppression, anxiety, fear, as well as the presence of health, prosperity, and security. Shalom thus includes a social vision: the dream of a world in which such well-being belongs to EVERYBODY. It has it's roots in the Exodus and in prophetic theology which is concerned about working toward a just society.

How did the dream of God come about?

Basically, it was because of the enormous economic gulf between the urban elites and the rural peasants. In pre-industrial agrarian societies, elites and their retainers (together, less than 10 percent of the population) acquired about two-third of the society's annual production of wealth, with about half of the total going to the top 1 to 2 percent. Rural peasants (90 percent of the population) made do with the remaining one-third. No need to say the cumulative effect on peasants was dreadful. Peasant existence was vulnerable to subsistence diet, drought, illness, war, even the death of an animal. Life expectancy was very low.

In societies like these, religion most often functioned to legitimate the existing social order: God had ordained that it be this way. At least the religion of the elites did, as it has come down to us through their retainers of priests and scribes. By the time of ancient Israel's origin, this type of society was firmly entrenched in the ancient Middle East. In the social world of the Bible, such societies, ruled by elites, were intrinsically hierarchical, economically exploitative, and politically oppressive.

Enter prophetic theology. The prophet Micah cries out that the Lord requires that we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. I have come to realize that the passion we see in the prophets is a protest against systemic evil. Systemic evil is an important notion: it refers to the injustice built into the structures of the system itself. Embedded in oppressive and exploitative social structures, systemic evil is a major source(perhaps the greatest cause) of human suffering.

Importantly, the issue is not the goodness or wickedness of elite individuals. Elites can be good people: devout, responsible, courageous, kind, gentle, charming, intelligent, committed to family, friends, and so forth. Moreover, systemic evil is not necessarily intended even by some who benefit from it. So the issue is not character flaws among the elites. The issue, rather, is a system in which some people sleep on beds made of ivory while others end up being sold for the price of a pair of sandals.

The passion for social justice does not focus on individual change but on structural change. Of course, individual persons can be converted to a passion for justice (and such conversion is important), but when they are, their concern is not to maximize charitable giving within the existing structures but to change the structures themselves. The prophets were not simply saying to the elites, "Be good people, more charitable to the poor, and worship the right God." They said in Amos's words, "Seek justice, and live." The problem was not individual sinfulness but a social system in which the poor of the land were brought to ruin. The prophets wanted a just society where everyone could benefit.

That, is the dream of God. It's a social and political vision of a world of justice and peace in which human beings do not hurt or destroy, oppress or exploit one another. The prophets understood the relationship between the individual and the community. They knew that God is concerned about us as individuals. The prophetic voices of the tradition show a deep awareness of how individuals are victimized by society. Passion for the well-being of individuals and passion about the shape of the community go hand in hand. Because individuals matter to God, political structures matter to God, because political structures impact the lives of individuals in a profound way. Thus the dream of God combines an emphasis on the value of the individual with a passionate concern for a just society.

Needless to say, the dream of God has not fared well throughout history. And it has been submerged by the the individualism that characterizes much of our culture. The dream of God is quite different from contemporary American dreams. The dream of God--a politics of compassion and justice, the kingdom of God, a domination-free order--is social, communal, and egalitarian. But our dreams--the dreams we get from our culture--are individualistic: living well, looking good, standing out. One need only look at "American conventional wisdom." Our quest--in our work, relationships, families, ambitions, organizations, often our religious practices--is the personal fulfillment of the individual, however we define that fulfillment.



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Distributive Justice (Part 2 of 2)

The following is the second part of a guest article from my friend Mark Tesny in Cleveland. He wrote it (paraphrasing The God We Never Knew, by Marcus Borg) as an email message to a bunch of us, and I am posting it here with his permission.

Consider the messages that we get from our culture, you know, contemporary American proverbs, slogans, advertising lines, etc.
Be all you can be, Whoever dies with the most toys wins, Work hard and you'll succeed, Plan for retirement, Government is bad, Life is about having and consuming, Be slender, Enjoy yourself.

None of these is a community value. Once in a while someone will suggest as a slogan the Golden Rule or love your neighbor as yourself, but that's about it. There are no messages about working for a just society, or having an obligation to future generations, or building the kingdom of God on earth. Everything is concerning the individual.

For many of us, significant religious issues concern the individual as well, whether those issues are of salvation in an afterlife, or individual righteousness, or peace of mind, or personal spiritual development in the present. Individualism leads to individualistic interpretations of the Bible. Passages such as "the poor you will always have with you" or "whoever does not work shall not eat" are much better known than prophetic passages about justice. "Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's" is frequently understood as establishing two separate realms--a public one of politics and economics and a private one of religion and God.

When contemporary American Christians become political, they tend to remain individualistic in their thinking. Among the "religious right," the most visible form of Christian politics today, the central political issues concern individual behavior. Many issues involve sexuality: abortion, pornography, homosexuality. The issue of "welfare mothers" often becomes an issue of sexual morality, and the welfare debate becomes a debate about family values. The political vision of the religious right is for the most part an individualistic politics of righteousness, not a communal politics of compassion.

Beyond Christian circles, our ethos of individualism pervasively affects our political life. When we think about politics, we think individualistically, The reason the poor are poor is because of individual failings, not because of social and economic policy. The solution is individualistic as well: the poor need to develop a work ethic and embrace family values. Antigovernment sentiment and the tax revolt also reflect the triumph of individual values over community values: we think we shouldn't have to pay taxes for the well-being of the community as a whole.

Our ethos and politics of individualism affect our economic life, generating a society with increasingly sharp social boundaries based on wealth. There are other important social boundaries as well, including race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical ability. But we have made progress in all of these areas in the second half of this century. Though all require continued attention and vigilance, I do not know anybody who would say we are worse off now in these areas than we were at mid-century.

But social boundaries based on wealth have become sharper. The U.S. over the last thirty years has seen a growing gap-indeed, a deepening gulf-between the rich and the poor. The gap is significantly greater than in any other developed nation. During the 1980's 90 percent of the total increase in income went to the wealthiest 20 percent of the population. The bottom 80 percent made do with the remaining 10 percent increase. In 1963, the ratio of CEO salaries to average worker salaries in a company was 41:1. Now, the ratio is 225:1. Moreover, the gap between the rich and the poor is the result of social and economic policy, not because some people have worked harder and others have slacked off over the last thirty years (all of us, according to most studies, are working harder). The difference among countries generate the same conclusion: social policy, not simply individual effort, is responsible for the distribution of wealth. Our recent social policy may not have intended to produce this result but it has. The consequence is increased suffering and desperation among the poor and potentially grave consequences for the society as a whole.

Moreover, many people in the middle, who are most often struggling financially, support the individualistic ideology underlying our social policy-namely, the notion that we each have worked hard for what we have and ought to be able to keep all of it, that government is bad (or at least inefficient and wasteful-and hungry for our tax dollars), and that things will be better for all of us if we let the wealthiest people in our country make and keep as much money as possible. Many of us seem not to realize that the people who benefit the most from our politics and economics of individualism are the wealthiest 10 percent, especially the top 1 percent. People will support a tax cut that saves them $300 a year, without considering that the same tax cut will save the very wealthy tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands a year, with significant damage to the social fabric, including not only decreased help for the poor and disadvantaged but also cuts in services such as public schools, road repairs, parks, libraries, and so forth.

Thus our culture's ethos of individualism generates a political ideology of benefiting elites in particular. It legitimates their place in society: if you have prospered, it's because you have worked hard and made good use of your opportunities; you deserve what you got. It legitimates social and economic policies that increase private wealth and generate public poverty. It legitimates blaming the poor.

The conclusion is that we have an elite-driven social and economic policy.

I noted that Borg points out that the indictment of an elite-driven social policy is not an indictment of the American middle class. The point is not that there is something morally wrong with a middle-class standard of living. Rather, the issue is the political values and attitudes that are widespread in our culture (including among the middle class) and the need to change our politics of individualism to a politics that recognizes the indispensability of community. The appropriate response is not "feeling guilty about what I have" but a different political vision.

The solution:

I don't know. Can any political theorists or economists come up with a different political vision that is more communal? Or change the existing political structures?

As far as voting goes, I do know that I will not be supporting President Bush who caters to the elites of this country at the expense of everyone else. I will be voting democratic.



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