THAT will never happen!

I recall how, a year or so ago, when there were discussions of LGBTQ rights on blogs, the defenders of each new "step forward" would mock religious freedom concerns, saying things like, "Come on, it's not as though anyone is going to try to force clergy to perform gay weddings."

Oops! The lizard-person governor of Virginia just vetoed a bill that had the sole purpose of asserting that clergy could not be forced to participate in gay marriages. While doing so, he declared religious freedom "an oxymoron."

Comments

  1. The level of twisting of logic here is incredible!

    A law which simply states that a particular penalty or punishment will NOT be passed is somehow a discriminatory law? What?

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  2. Gene, the bill did not have that as its sole purpose; the bill says "No person shall be:
    1. Required to participate in the solemnization of any marriage; or
    2. Subject to any penalty, any civil liability, or any other action by the Commonwealth, or its political subdivisions or representatives or agents, solely on account of such person's belief, speech, or action in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman." The second line is broader than just solemnization, and it opens the door to other forms of discrimination. And Mcauliffe's other objection to the second line is that it only offers protection to one particular belief as opposed to others.

    And Terry Mcauliffe did not say that the very concept of freedom of religion is an oxymoron. He said that the types of bills that typically go by the name "religious freedom laws" are really nothing of the sort, but rather a fig leaf to legalize discrimination and encourage stigmatization. Also, Mcauliffe's veto notes that any actual protection of religious freedom that this bill would have done is already covered by the First Amendment and by Virginia's Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

    Mcauliffe also argues that the way this bill is worded, it implicitly suggests that religious groups that believe in traditional marriage are currently being persecuted at the hands of the LGBT community, and that they're in special need of legal protection. It would be like passing a bill saying "Teachers shall not be penalized for teaching evolution, even if it conflicts with the Catholic Church's belief that God was involved with creation." Would the Catholic Church be wrong to come out and say "We really do not have a problem with teachers teaching evolution, in fact we're open to the theory ourselves. But we're opposed to this bill, because it makes it seem like school teachers are being persecuted by the Catholic Church."?

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    1. "Mcauliffe also argues that the way this bill is worded, it implicitly suggests that religious groups that believe in traditional marriage are currently being persecuted at the hands of the LGBT community"

      And, of course, they are!!

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    2. "Persecuted": certainly, "under attack from."

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  3. You know, if this was posted by anyone other than you, I wouldn't be able to take it seriously (not that I think SSM actually poses any threat). It id likely my younger self would've been entirely dismissive of you (as I would be most conservatives that talk about this sort of stuff like your Nisbet quote). Perhaps I never swapped out what was actually in front of me with my archetypes of conservatives (think Phyllis Schlafly and her degenerate offspring). Indeed, the recent post on culture from you would have made younger me recoil and your views on feminism would have made me lump you in with the Schlafly-types.

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    1. The goal of all of these moves is the destruction of the family and the leveling of the last institution standing in the way of the total state. So it might be good to take it seriously.

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    2. Wow ... if you're being sarcastic, you should at least throw in something about the Jews or the freemasons or how jet fuel can't melt steel beams so people will know you're being sarcastic. Otherwise, they might think you actually believe that nonsense.

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    3. As you stand alone facing the totalitarian state, it will give me little comfort that you will be thinking, "Holy crap, Gene was right."

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    4. Know of any prediction markets where I can invest heavily in "no" on the likelihood of either of those things ever happening?

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    5. What is curious here is that decades ago, the left very explicitly set out a program of "the long march through the institutions," with the goal of destroying bourgeoise institutions like the family. They have been busily caring out this publicly declared program. And the very things they promised to destroy, are being destroyed.


      Yet Tom thinks that any mention of the fact that the left is doing what it quite openly declared it would do makes one a conspiracy nut!!!

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    6. This is what the phrase "Useful idiot" was coined for!

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    7. Remember how I told you a while back that everyone in your area would be walking around staring into smart phones in a few years? I'm just three or four years ahead of you on the curve, Tom!

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    8. "The goal of all of these moves is the destruction of the family and the leveling of the last institution standing in the way of the total state. So it might be good to take it seriously."

      Um, wow. This is awkward. Where did that come from?

      "As you stand alone facing the totalitarian state…"

      The era of totalitarianism seems to be over and I don't see anything that looks like totalitarianism in the United States (or any western country).

      "What is curious here is that decades ago, the left very explicitly set out a program of "the long march through the institutions," with the goal of destroying bourgeoise institutions like the family."

      How is "the family" a "bourgeosie institution"? Who in the oogie boogie "left" set this out? If I recall, Stalin, one of history's quintessential "leftists", tried to "strengthen" (might be a category error) "the family". I'm not saying that there weren't people who set out to do this, it's just that most, if not all, of the things people pointed to as "the state" or whatever destroying "the family" were nothing of the sort.

      "They have been busily caring out this publicly declared program."

      In what forms?

      "And the very things they promised to destroy, are being destroyed."

      Like?

      "Yet Tom thinks that any mention of the fact that the left is doing what it quite openly declared it would do makes one a conspiracy nut!!!"

      Well, Fabian socialists existed at one point, but a lot of references to them now are part of conspiracy theories.

      "This is what the phrase "Useful idiot" was coined for!"

      Well, at least we're useful! (I'm not saying you're not "useful"—that would the wrong way to view any human—I just really wanted to use that response.)

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    9. "I'm just three or four years ahead of you on the curve, Tom!"

      I'm on a four-and-a-half dimensional manifold.

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    10. Samson,

      I disagree. There are discernible totalitarian impulses on both the left and the right.

      The flaw in Gene's argument is treating "the left" as some kind of monolithic conspiracy a la "the Jews" in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

      Treating the ravings Marcusian/Frankfurt School Critical Theory as the authoritative voice of "the left" is like treating the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) as the authoritative voice of "Christianity."

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    11. The flaw in Tom's thinking is that he mistakes functional explanations for intentional explanations.

      I have said REPEATEDLY that one does NOT need to posit "conspiracies" to recognize that classes can act in their class interest.

      Yet some people are too dull to get this point, and instead stoop to "Protocols" type smears.

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    12. Gene,

      It wasn't intended as a smear. It was just the best descriptor I could think of offhand (and I hate to spend more than a couple of minutes on a blog comment).

      There is considerable disagreement on "the left" as to both the interests and composition of its associated classes.

      That a Marcusian approach is relatively ascendant on "the left" at the moment is both interesting and disturbing. Whether or not it is likely to be decisive or enduring are different questions, though.

      As an extremist political sectarian myself, I understand that extremist sectarianism tends to defeat itself through a splintering effect. By the end of the 60s, the student left was split into more factions than you could shake a stick at, and the prevailing wing ended up being not especially leftist, but more centrist. So when I see Black Lives Matter activists at a Pride parade chewing out LGBTQ activists for deviationism, I'm not seeing momentum, I'm seeing disintegration.

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    13. "It wasn't intended as a smear. "

      OK, thanks, but you can understand how it comes across as one?

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    14. Of course. I apologize for that. When I reached into memory for monolithic treatments of large groups, that was the first and most obvious one that came to mind. I should have taken time to come up with a better one.

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  4. I don't remember anyone saying "it's not as though anyone is going to ..."

    I do remember quite a few people saying "don't be ridiculous, WE (by which they presumably meant themselves and whatever group they were associated with or considered themselves part of) don't want to ..."

    And some of that latter group seem to have been lying.

    On the other hand, no law is required for the purpose of "asserting that clergy could not be forced to participate in gay marriages" for the perfectly good reason that we already have one (it's called the 1st Amendment). If the judicial system works, the matter will eventually be decided on those grounds.

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    1. 'I don't remember anyone saying "it's not as though anyone is going to ..."'

      Well, then you never read the comments section of Rod Dreher's blog, where this was said hundreds of times!!

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    2. True. I occasionally read Dreher's stuff at The American Conservative, but I didn't even know he HAD a blog. Guess I'll go look at it.

      I generally put a heavy discount on statements like "nobody wants" or "nobody's say." There's always at least ONE guy who wants or says this or that, no matter how stupid or evil the this or that in question might be.

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    3. 'I generally put a heavy discount on statements like "nobody wants" or "nobody's say." There's always at least ONE guy who wants or says this or that, no matter how stupid or evil the this or that in question might be.'

      All I said was that people were SAYING "nobody is going to force clergy..."

      I didn't say they were right: clearly, they weren't!

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    4. His blog is at TAC. That's what you have been reading I imagine.

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  5. Odd, I never heard a peep out of those supporting "religious freedom" laws vis a vis marriage now, back when e.g. Missouri law mandated a $500 fine and two weeks in jail for clergy who conducted same-sex weddings.

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    1. This is like water off my back: I don't give a hoot about "religious freedom": I am interested in truth. "Religious freedom" is simply a club the winning side in a political dispute can use to beat the losing side, OR a shield the losing side can use to fend off the blows.

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    2. "'Religious freedom' is simply a club the winning side in a political dispute can use to beat the losing side, OR a shield the losing side can use to fend off the blows."

      Interesting. Would you mind doing a post just on this? It sounds like an exotic view.

      Delete
  6. Did my comment about "the oogie boogie 'lect'" get reject or thrown in the spam folder?

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