Mountains Made Low

I’ve been thinking about this issue for a couple of months, and I’ve commented on at least one blog post concerning it elsewhere, but I’ve still pondered whether to write about it at all, here. Those on one side of this issue who cry that they “didn’t get to vote on [my] marriage” seem to think that I should not be entitled to an opinion. But to me, it’s bigger than that; it’s not the “gay-marriage issue”; it’s the “marriage issue.”

Those who are familiar with my libertarian politics (i.e., my relatively liberal social views), and with my Lutheran religious background, will probably not be too surprised by what I have to say here. Some might be, though.

The “gay marriage” issue has been a hot-button issue in the past two major election cycles in the US. To me, this has been relatively surprising, in no small part because all four major party candidates in those two cycles (George W. Bush, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and John McCain) have held very nearly the same view on the issue: No to marriage, yes to civil unions. How activists on both sides of the issue have managed to make it a major issue in years where there’s no measurable difference between the candidates, and in consecutive election cycles when there’s no measurable difference among the candidates…well, in terms of sheer power of will, my hat’s off to all of them.

But they’re going about it all wrong.

California’s Proposition 8 in 2008 is a prime example. Most of us watching, particularly those watching outside of California, would have given Prop 8 about a snowball’s chance, quite honestly. California is one of the bluest states there is, it is notably liberal in all its policies, and—in fairness—its Republican governor would likely be more closely aligned with Democrats in most other states. How did Prop 8 pass?

The opponents of Prop 8 would have us believe that it’s about the “religious right”—conservative evangelical Christians and Mormons, primarily—exercising their hatred of gays and lesbians by passing this prejudicial and unfair law. And they’re not entirely wrong in thinking that: the law is unfair and prejudicial, and evangelical and Mormon conservatives did play a part. But that’s not the whole story. Do we really believe that these groups, alone, in the State of California, could have passed this law, given the general flavor of California politics?

The 2008 election cycle presented a “perfect storm” against which it proved impossible for opponents of Prop 8 to prevail. Barack Obama’s candidacy energized Democrats nationally, to be sure, but—like their presidential candidate—many of these voters hold the position “Marriage, no; Civil unions, yes”; and they voted to quash the labeling of gay unions as “marriage” (right or wrong). Furthermore, Mr. Obama’s candidacy energized not only traditional Democrats, but also minority populations, again nationally. This brought a great many African-American and Latino voters to the polls—voters who might not have otherwise participated, feeling that no candidate on offer represented them (and, historically speaking, who can blame these voters for feeling this way?).

In these groups, however, there is a tendency to take a dimmer view of homosexuality; gay African-American men, for example, are often forced by community and social pressures to keep their sexuality “on the down-low.” Certainly this is not true of all African-Americans, nor all Latinos, and certainly there are gay and lesbian members of these communities who are out and proud. But taken as a whole, though the motivation and participation of these groups helped Mr. Obama to win California by a wider margin—if possible—than expected, it seems to me that this also contributed to the passage of Proposition 8.

Whether Proposition 8 passed or not, and why, really isn’t the issue here, though it’s interesting to consider the reasons in their complexity. The issue is that both supporters and opponents of Proposition 8 in California, and activists on both sides of this issue in a broader sense, have framed this issue incorrectly. And our politicians (particularly the four presidential candidates mentioned previously) have not helped. “Marriage, no; Civil unions, yes” is nothing but a retread of the “Separate but equal” legal doctrine that our courts, and broader society, have resoundingly rejected when it comes to the rights of any other group in the United States that you care to name.

We do not, that is, need to decide what to call it when gays and lesbians affirm a long-term commitment to one another. We need, instead, to comprehensively reform the legal institution of marriage in the United States. And that reform must be based on another American legal tradition: Separation of Church and State.

Let me be perfectly clear, here. I believe that the doctrine of the separation of Church and State offers protection in both directions: it protects the Church from persecution by the State, and it protects the State from domination by the Church. The framers of the Constitution were very clear in establishing this bi-directional protection, saying that “Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of a religion” (protecting the State from the Church) “nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (protecting the Church from the State).

What we need on this issue is a legal (State) definition of marriage apart from that term’s religious definition, and recognition of the Church’s fundamental and guaranteed prerogative to practice only its own definition of the term, in a purely spiritual sense.

Specifically, this requires:

1. The state definition of marriage should included any solemnized, long-term commitment between any two consenting adults, by the State’s definition.
2. Such commitments should be legally solemnized before an agent of the State and in the presence of witnesses.
3. Any religious, spiritual, or other ceremony affirming that commitment should be in addition to the State’s legally-recognized procedure.
4. Ordained, rostered, or otherwise recognized clergy should not serve as agents of the State for the purpose of solemnizing marriages (unless, as in the case of Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, they are both ordained clergy and otherwise a recognized agent of the State).
5. The State should not dictate which unions religious organizations may or must consecrate; this decision should be left to individual clergy, congregations, or other religious bodies, as each religion or denomination chooses.
6. All the State (and Federal) privileges, rights, and responsibilities pertaining to marriage (visitation, inheritance, taxation, benefits, etc.) should apply to any commitment solemnized by the state, and to no commitment not so solemnized.

If this comprehensive legal reform, applying to hetrosexual, gay, and lesbian couples, were adopted, it would, first, solve the fundamental problem that the battle here seeks to address: legal recognition of the commitment between two individuals, by the State. It, furthermore, addresses the concern of some religious groups about the potential that a member of the clergy might be compelled to perform a ceremony against his or her conscience, as well as removing from the clergy the obligation of serving, in weddings, as an agent of the State, but in no way hindering the religious celebration of marriage.

The only remaining objection I foresee, here, is that homosexual behavior is considered sinful in many religious traditions, and many members of those traditions would argue that the State should not sanction or condone such behavior in its laws.

But there are many things in our culture, and addressed by our laws that religious groups consider sinful: drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, premarital sex, and adultery come to mind, as does what is perhaps a more direct analogy—what used to be called “miscegenation,” interracial marriage. Many religious groups consider all of these things sinful, immoral, or just plain wrong, but, as the saying goes, there’s no law against them. The most orthodox of Jewish Kosher laws, in fact, still consider eating shellfish sinful. Under this proposed reform, though, no religious group would be obligated to consecrate any union that goes against their conscience; just as the ready availability of alcohol and tobacco in our society does not obligate anyone to partake, just as Churches are now quite free to preach abstinence and fidelity as virtues.

Keep in mind that I’m suggesting this reform for all marriage in the United States—not only for gay marriage. Marriage should have a legal definition that can apply equally to every adult in this nation, quite apart from the ways in which our religious organizations define marriage. The State, it seems to me, has the obligation to ensure this equality among its citizens, to make sure that privileges, rights, and responsibilities of marriage are equally available to all, all the while safeguarding the individual, corporate, and collective right of the People to freedom of religious expression as well. The State must refuse to say to gay and lesbian couples, “You may not,” while also refusing to say to religious organizations, “You must.”

Only by wholly separating the legal aspects of marriage (the province of the State) from the spiritual aspects (the province of the Church), and not allowing the two to overlap, can equality for all in the eyes of the law and a balance of all freedoms we are guaranteed be achieved.

The skirmishes in the courtroom and at the ballot box on this issue could continue forever. Each side may, indeed, claim small victories in those clashes. But in every case, without comprehensive reform of all marriage, of the very definition of marriage, no matter which side claims each of these small victories, freedom and equality lose.

I was out running errands on Sunday afternoon, and I saw something shocking. The price of gasoline all over this little town I live in is $3.099 a gallon.

That’s right, not $3.999, as I saw a little more than a month ago, but $3.099.

Here we are, a month beyond the date we were given early in the summer for $6/gallon gas. And we’re back, it seems, for the moment, to half that. Quite honestly, this is a number that I did not believe we’d ever see again on our gas station marquees. Rarely in life have I been so glad to be wrong.

But as I saw this, the obvious question it begs came into my head: Why?

And I can only come up with one answer. The presidential campaign and the candidates’ proposed energy policies.

Let’s check the score cards on this issue. While the candidates’ positions and proposed policies differ, they share some key factors, and the differences are, in many ways, a wash in terms of this particular issue. Here’s what I mean.

Senator Obama has committed firmly to research and development of alternative energy sources. Nuclear, solar, wind power, and transportation powered by fuel cells and electricity (where all these other sources figure in). In short, the falling price of gas we’ve seen in the past month can, in part, be attributed to one candidate who is committed to bringing market forces to bear on transportation costs by, over the span of years, reducing demand.

Senator McCain, while sharing Sen. Obama’s vision for alternative energy if not the strength of his commitment, also favors off-shore drilling by the United States. Beyond this, Sen. McCain’s running mate, Governor Palin, is in favor of drilling on US soil, particularly in ANWR, and while Sen. McCain is against this, it’s clear that Gov. Palin continues to provide her position and insights (as governor of Alaska) on this issue. The McCain campaign, then, has made its position clear: attack fuel costs, through market forces, from both directions; increase supply in the short term, and decrease demand in the long term.

This is the part of the candidates’ positions that I think is basically a wash. The long-term results are similar, though they get there by different routes, but bringing market forces to bear on the issue through strategic application of the principles of supply and demand is clearly part of each candidate’s position on the issue.

There is, however, one place in which the candidates agree on this issue, and I believe that this place has more to do with the 90-cent decrease in the price of gas over the past month than do their plans to use understanding of market forces in the long term. And it seems to be viewed as a greater threat in the past week, with the government’s intervention in the Wall Street crisis.

It seems that no matter who is in the White House or who controls the Congress, the message has been sent this past week that the government, while perhaps not owning its own complicity in the creation of the problem, has had enough of corporate greed driving the manipulation of the markets in this country. At its root, the mortgage crisis was an over-inflation of values and credit in the housing sector. An inflation of those values and the credit issued based on them beyond the means of the market to bear. Executives and, to some extent, share-holders made a lot of money under this set-up, and the government, both parties (and, yes, during the build-up to this collapse, each party controlled both the White House and the Congress at some point), looked the other way, enjoying the ability to point to the prosperity that this boom brought to our markets taken as a whole.

And both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama, along with Gov. Palin and Senator Biden, have promised greater regulatory pressure on the United States’ oil industry alongside the long-term market pressures that they intend to bring to bear. Both campaigns seem to acknowledge here, as with the mortgage bail-out, that market forces and government regulation can work in tandem. Both candidates, here, are threatening the oil industry with windfall taxes on the grossly excessive profits they’ve been enjoying for the past several years. Profits, by the way, which are not being reinvested in infrastructure for producing or refining.

With both campaigns calling for wind-fall taxes, the oil industry (which is, though made up of many companies and corporations, effectively a monopoly—like I said before, the gas prices were the same all over town today; there is no competition here: they all raise and lower their prices together) is forced to reduce its profits to more reasonable levels. Not to make no profit—no one would deny them the opportunity to profit from the sale of their product; but to not make all the money they can, just because they can.

And again, both campaigns have discussed this. Taxation of windfall profits will be a strategy considered and likely implemented by the next administration, no matter who the president is.

So, in anticipation, gas prices are lower than I ever thought we’d see them again.

I’m glad I didn’t write immediately in response to Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night. I’m happy that I waited until John McCain had also spoken, last night, to write my response. Because I think that, in order to respond appropriately, I needed to hear both speeches. Or, really, both halves of the speech.

Before I dig into what I’m thinking about, I’ve got to say that I may or may not have thought about it—or thought as deeply about it—if not for the blatant sexism of some of the pundits on Wednesday following Palin’s speech. I mean, think about it. When a man—any man—delivers a good speech, you never hear the pundits pointing out that someone else wrote that speech for him, or giving credit to that speechwriter by name. Indeed, if not for Aaron Sorkin, we might not be aware, in this country, on the general, subconscious level that we are that every speech, delivered by every politician is written by someone else. Certainly, during the DNC last week, no one was telling us who wrote the speech that Barack Obama delivered so eloquently. And prior to Palin’s speech at the RNC, there was no mention of the writer behind Mitt Romney’s, Mike Huckabee’s, or Rudy Giuliani’s words. But there was lots of need to point out that Sarah Palin did not write her own speech.

Okay. Duh! Let’s move on.

But a funny thing happened last night, after McCain’s speech. The writer was named; perhaps because another of the pundits pointed out on Wednesday precisely that we don’t do this for men. (Of course in the case of McCain, the speech writer was not cited as the person who composed McCain’s words, but as McCain’s “co-author,” but such semantic quibbles are a matter for another day; the point is that for McCain, as for very few before him, the speech writer was mentioned in the analysis.)

The most interesting part to me, though, was that, if I’m not mistaken, which I might be because I don’t remember the name, the writer named in connection with both speeches was the same. Having watched both speeches, and enjoyed both, and as someone who teaches the use of words and examines the use of words for a living, I think, if the writer was in fact the same, that he not only stayed “on message” in both speeches, but he actually had Palin and McCain delivering two parts of the same speech, with touches of their distinct personalities in place along the way.

If we take them as a whole, the two speeches were structured as according to the rhetorical strategy of chiasmus. Palin’s speech began with her biography and family, praised small-town values and virtues, highlighted differences between the McCain campaign and their opponent’s campaign (pointing out, by the way, that there is much to like and admire in Senator Obama and his ideas, though not naming him). She delineated a skeletal version of the McCain campaign’s positions on issues like energy, the economy, the war in Iraq, and other elements of foreign policy. And she turned, at the end, to a piece of John McCain’s biography. In the only instance in which she named the campaign’s opponents, Governor Palin said:

[...] both Senator Obama and Senator Biden have been going on lately about how they are always, quote, “fighting for you,” let us face the matter squarely.

There is only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you … in places where winning means survival and defeat means death … and that man is John McCain.

In so doing, she tied the issues to McCain’s biography—the campaign to the man, and brought her speech to a raucous close. Without gushing too much (I think I’ve gushed over Sarah Palin enough already), and pundits from all parts of the spectrum have pretty much already made this point, she nailed the speech, and stuck the landing!

Last night, then, Senator McCain took the stage. We all know that speaking from a prepared text is not John McCain’s forte. He generally seems like he would be much more comfortable talking to and with people than he is talking at them. And he opened on the issues. He took the structure that Governor Palin had sketched the night before and fleshed out what the McCain campaign believes and what he hopes to do as president. This part of his speech was necessary, and it’s delivery was workmanlike. There was nothing in this part of McCain’s speech to get terribly excited about, and the crowd did seem, actually, to not know where to be excited. He stated positions on energy-independence, on terrorism, on the war, and—perhaps most surprisingly to me—on education. He stressed, at every opportunity, the link between freedom and responsibility, and stressed the need for both.

And Senator McCain addressed his commitment, both personally and on behalf of his party, to all Americans. He cited specific examples of Americans he has met on the campaign trail, and talked about those Americans’ joys and sorrows. Granted, this is a time-honored tradition among candidates—everyone does it. But I would point out that John McCain did it in an almost understated way: he cited three families from different parts of the country, facing different issues, and pledged his efforts on those issues; he did not, however, in including the “average American” (is there such a thing?), resort to creating a cutesy and cheesy sound-bite (how long did the Obama campaign have to look for an appropriate “Barney Smith” to trot out, anyway?)

But then the senator turned to his own story. How a selfish, cocky, arrogant young naval aviator learned to believe in something bigger than himself, and how that man came to fall in love with America. Senator McCain ended his speech with his story, just as Governor Palin’s speech had begun with her own. And he ended by saying, “We’re Americans. We never give up; we never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.”

The last third of Senator McCain’s speech was anything but workmanlike. The words were inspired and their delivery was inspiring.

And the inspiration of the words is what I’m talking about here. The two speeches delivered by the bottom and top half of the 2008 Republican ticket were not only unified in content, theme, and message, but by their structure as well. They mirrored each other almost perfectly. Over the course of the two speeches, the audience was moved from the personal, to the issues, to the politics, back through the issues, and back to the intensely personal.

Though we might never have thought about them, if Governor Palin’s spot on the ticket had been filled by, and the non-personal portions of her speech delivered by, say, Governor Romney or Mayor Giuliani instead, the writers (because let’s face it, even if one name was named, there was a team at work) of these speeches deserve perhaps the loudest accolades of all for the speeches’ success.

Governor Palin nailed the whole speech; Senator McCain started slow, but even more than his running-mate, I think, he stuck the landing. And the arc described by both speeches together did exactly what needed to be done. Overall, these speeches’ delivery was very good, bordering, I think, on excellence.

But the writing… My God, the writing…. So impressive to me. So very well done.

I promise. But not tonight. For now, I want to get some sleep and let what I saw from St. Paul tonight wash over me and marinate in my mind.

But, tomorrow, I promise.

Still lovin’ Sarah Palin, though. Let that be enough for now.

With the whole Bristol Palin thing. I thought. But I’ve been watching more and more snarkiness from the left unfold—on Facebook of all places. Really not surprising, since my professional circles do not include all that many people who share my political beliefs. Just one of those things.

What I’m finding the most interesting is the assumption that Bristol’s pregnancy is the result of abstinence-only sex education, and that Sarah and Todd Palin have somehow not taught their children (Bristol in particular) how to be “sexually responsible.”

Here’s the thing: We don’t know. We don’t know how these two young people were taught sex ed at school. We don’t know what their parents told them outside of school. We don’t know if they used contraception or not (but let’s face it, contraceptive failure is not unheard of). We don’t know a lot about the circumstances surrounding the conception of this baby. We just don’t know.

And I, for one, don’t want to know. I don’t support abstinence-only sex ed. I think everyone should be educated on contraception, its proper use, and its success rate. But to assume that these two kids didn’t use contraception—didn’t exercise “sexual responsibility”—just because they’re having a baby is a definite leap in logic.

Beyond this, though, let me pose this question. Even if these kids are, in your opinion, way too young, they have taken responsibility for their actions. Raising a child is the ultimate in responsibility, one that, I honestly believe, no one is ready for until they have to be, and these two—again with the love and support of their families—have chosen to take that on.

In the only part of this story that we have knowledge of, that we have real evidence (as opposed to political spin) for, “sexual responsibility” has been taken and exercised.

Wake up, people!

In the time (has it been two hours? three?) that has passed since I posted earlier about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, someone has arrived on my blog by searching for, I kid you not, “bristol trig second pregnancy”—really!

Let it go, people! It’s over! You can’t spin this into an even bigger cover up, and you’re only making yourself look idiotic trying. Really!

And, beyond the Down Syndrome statistics I alluded to earlier, here’s another piece of math that means it just ain’t possible: Trig Palin is 4 months old. Bristol Palin is 5 months pregnant. Now I’m these loonies will be watching the calendar, trying to prove that it’s possible, no matter how unlikely.

It’s just not so…. No matter how much you might want it to be….

And since I assume much of the feeding frenzy surrounding Bristol’s pregnancy is coming from supporters of Barack Obama, please listen to your candidate, who said today that the news of Miss Palin’s pregnancy is irrelevant to the campaign, and that candidates’ families are off limits.

The two party-system is most of what is wrong, I think, with American politics. And I’m not saying this from the perspective of political science, where the arguments might range from better representation of the views of the electorate to the necessity, in a multi-party legislative process, of forming a coalition government and listening, in that coalition, to views that are different from your own—in short where “reaching across the aisle” is the rule, not the exception and a cause for celebration and astonishment (or cries of “Traitor!”).

No, what I’m talking about here is the fact that many, if not most, Americans have internalized the two party system, and have accepted that the parties’ established views—and the parties’ combinations of views, their platforms—are the only valid ways of political thinking. Republicans are conservative, on issues both fiscal and social; Democrats are liberal on both sets of issues. The GOP is anti-tax, pro-life, pro-business, pro-death-penalty, tough on crime, pro-war, tough on immigration, pro-English-only, and against social welfare programs. Their opponents, as a group, hold the opposite views. Republicans, that is, think the government should keep its hands off money, but dictate and enforce the best way of living a moral and ethical life. Democrats, by contrast, think that legislating morality (beyond what’s necessary for civil society) is wrong, but that they know better how to spend the people’s money than the people themselves do.

And when members of other parties begin to talk, a lot of people respond to their ideas as “wishy-washy” or incompatible or lacking a cohesive identity. “They will only have success when they figure out who they are,” I’ve recently heard it put.

As a matter of pragmatics, in our two-party system, I am a registered Republican. By those same pragmatic principles, in the forthcoming election, I fully intend to vote for John McCain (though in recent weeks, I’ve said, and meant, that if Hillary Clinton managed to pull out the Democratic nomination—by what would certainly have taken a miracle—I would vote for her; still would, but it’s looking like I’ll never have to make good on that). My views, however, are not those of the Republican party. Nor are they those of the Democratic party. Nor are they, truly, those of any minor party in our system.

I am a libertarian. I do not align myself with the Libertarian party, in our system, though that party’s views are probably closest to my own.

Politically, I believe in personal freedom and personal responsibility, on issues both social and fiscal. Which makes me a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. Or, as some might have it, someone who doesn’t know who he is.

I was going to give my positions on a number of issues. But that’s not the point here—after all, I’m not running for anything, here. But it seems to me that it’s a problem in the tissue of our body politic when wanting to be allowed to spend or save my money in peace, not wanting to be told what to say or how, not wanting to be told whom to fuck or how, believing that people’s bodies and minds are their own, wanting to be able to care for my family and my community with my own means as I am able, and wanting to be able to exercise my freedoms as citizen of this nation and a human being, until I demonstrate that I cannot do so responsibly mark me as somehow “not knowing who I am.”

It pisses me off.

I am neither conservative nor liberal. I am both conservative and liberal. I believe that individual freedom is paramount, but that it must be tempered by individual responsibility.

And dammit, I know who I am and what I stand for!