Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell posed this question to hundreds of people across the nation as part of a research project. He was curious to see if what people say actually matches the legal arguments being made to justify bans on same-sex marriage. The legal arguments are rooted in public policy considerations. The public responses decidedly were not.
From his survey results, published recently in the sociological journal Social Currents , here's one response that reflected the majority of opposition to same-sex marriage: "Because I don't believe God intended them to be that way.
Powell acknowledges there is nothing wrong with showing moral disapproval. People have a right to their beliefs and values.
But, if public opinion — either through pressure on lawmakers or directly at the ballot box — drives public policy, Powell's research suggests that the real motivation for banning same-sex marriage is moral disapproval over homosexuality. And that, he says, could present a particular challenge for supporters of traditional marriage: Moral disapproval doesn't make a valid legal case. In fact, same-sex marriage proponents argue that would be unconstitutional.
That's why the longstanding courtroom debate over same-sex marriage has begun to address a particular legal term: "animus. Animus is the notion that a law has no compelling public interest and is driven merely by a moral disapproval so strong that it causes harm to a group that's viewed as inferior.
In the case of same-sex marriage, proponents argue that harm is to deny gays and lesbians the basic right to marry. Sanders is co-counsel on an amicus brief from the Human Rights Campaign that claims state bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional because they're based on animus. Senator Wong goes on to appeal to Obergefell , the United States Supreme Court's decision holding that states must extend the status of marriage to same-sex couples.
For the majority in that decision, Justice Kennedy stated, "the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy. A right is linked to the "liberty It thus serves the underlying goal of what others have referred to as self-actualisation, self-fashioning, or facilitating different lifestyles.
Equality consequently means equal regard or respect for a person's at least intimate choices. Rights-talk is often characterised as a neutral language, transcending different religious and non-religious views. It appears well-suited to the reality of no single view achieving universal acceptance. But I suggest that rights-talk of the kind just described, arguably a dominant strand, can engender conflict and inhibit dialogue.
A person may argue that a choice is not conducive to human flourishing, personally and socially. However, if rights are directed towards equal respect for an individual's freedom to cultivate his or her understanding of the good life, then this moral claim may be characterised as imposing an "external preference" to borrow from the late Ronald Dworkin upon the ethical preferences of another individual. Such claims then register in public discourse, and legal decisions, as statements that the other is of less worth because an ethical choice is not being respected.
Framed in this way, rights-talk can contribute to what Steven Smith has called a "discourse of denigration. Thus the prevalence of "bigot" in public discourse. Of course, such bigotry and denigration does exist - homophobia is real, as is animus against religious persons. But the label is frequently extended to an opposing view as such. The person arguing marriage is a union between persons of the opposite sex is not simply raising a definitional or ontological argument, but is rights-limiting, imposing a preference on the freedom of another, and thus denigrating another's identity.
In return, this precipitates a counter-claim of bigotry, sourced both in the original claim - labelling one's opponent a bigot is itself a form of bigotry - and any attendant denial of the right to religious liberty.
Unsurprisingly, then, much of our current political argument registers as claims of offence and protest. By this I do not mean protest necessarily linked to a shared good - for example, care of the planet or a cessation of war. Rather, what we now increasingly see in a debate like this is the potential for an almost wholly "negative" phenomenon of protesting against offence occasioned by the rejection of one's own ethical choices.
Solidarity is found - and votes marshalled - in mutual offence at, for example, someone believing that children are ideally raised by a biological father and mother or questioning the influence of a person's religious beliefs. This is deeply ironic. Rights-talk of the kind I am discussing is grounded in equal regard for another's identity. And yet what we actually have much of the time is mutual disrespect.
Indeed, if rights-talk refers to respecting an individual's self-actualisation or ethical freedom, then we arguably do not need to engage the substance of the person's actual argument. Rather, each claim is simply a matter of respecting, as far as possible, self-defining.
This presents questions of law: how do we "balance" what are arguably structurally similar claims, if our concern is ethical freedom, namely same-sex marriage and religious liberty? But we are arguably beyond respecting - by, in fact, engaging - the other person's substantive view.
The alternative is to understand our conversation as a shared endeavour. I have argued that our current debate has two features: politics as simply an interest in securing one's base to win, and a focus on a rights discourse that reflects arguments of personal autonomy and private choice. In contrast, focusing together on the substantive moral question what is marriage?
Participants may not agree on a particular conclusion - here, whether marriage can extend to a same-sex couple. Nevertheless, they may agree in part, agree on the moral vocabulary, or agree that the differing party is conscientiously pursuing a real human good.
This would contribute to what the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, calls "good disagreement. A conversation of this kind can be fruitful. Here, I am drawing from the structuring of debates within parts of the Anglican Communion.
Some churches have grappled with what it means to disagree, while nevertheless seeking and affirming a "right" position. While these debates are not perfect, I think they offer potential insights for our political communities. Consider, first, how the argument of "traditionalists" argument clearly points to two matters that may make a "revisionist" pause: the status of objective goods in our common life, and the importance of marriage to a civil society independent of the sway of government and market.
Traditionalists argue marriage points to a fundamental unity-in-differentiation. Marriage draws together the two halves of the human race as the typical cases in a union that gives positive meaning to gender difference: we need each other, which is then most centrally expressed in the common endeavour of procreation and child-rearing.
On this account, marriage is fundamentally "traditional. Framed in this way, the traditionalist argument clearly points to genuine, desirable human goods. Indeed, importantly, it typically contends that marriage is an objective good purposed towards particular ends. This raises a fundamental question in our debates: are there goods whose nature or shaping is not simply a matter of individual will? Liberal-egalitarian rights-talk in this field can be construed as respecting the choice to enter into a status marriage.
However, there is also more than a hint that this respect extends to the individual's own understanding of what that status is. Such a determination is part of a person's capacity to "define one's own concept of existence.
For the traditionalist, this is rank individualism. Religious affiliation Religious attendance. Support for same-sex marriage has remained largely stable among both men and women since Support for same-sex marriage also has remained steady among whites, blacks and Hispanics over the past two years.
The increase in the share of adults who favor same-sex marriage over the past 15 years is due in part to generational change. Younger generations express higher levels of support for same-sex marriage. About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world.
0コメント