{"id":1890,"date":"2005-10-21T05:24:33","date_gmt":"2005-10-21T12:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/10\/21\/ssm-opponent-predicts-end-of-western-civilization-due-to-sexual-disorganization\/"},"modified":"2005-10-21T05:24:33","modified_gmt":"2005-10-21T12:24:33","slug":"ssm-opponent-predicts-end-of-western-civilization-due-to-sexual-disorganization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1890","title":{"rendered":"SSM Opponent Predicts End of Western Civilization Due To Sexual Disorganization"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maggie Gallagher, one of the leading intellectuals of the anti-SSM movement, has done a truly remarkable crash and burn while guest-blogging on the prominent right-wing blog The Volokh Conspiracy. (Here’s a link to all her Volokh posts<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I should mention that Maggie and I have had a couple of polite exchanges, and although I disagree with her about virtually everything but the color of the sky I think she’s eloquent and smart. So I was genuinely surprised at how poorly she defended her views, given a conservative (albeit libertarian-leaning) forum and seemingly unlimited space. Kieran at Crooked Timber<\/a> describes what happened:\n\n

Maggie Gallagher’s guest appearance at the Volokh Conspiracy has taken a rapid turn for the worse. She keeps putting up scattershot posts that resolutely fail to engage with any of the reasonable questions and criticisms an increasingly exasperated group of commenters have repeatedly offered her. It irritates the commenters no end that she begins posts with phrases like “Let me clarify”\u009d and then doesn’t clear anything up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The primary “reasonable question” Maggie won’t (or can’t) address coherently is this: How, specifically, will civil recognition of same-sex marriage alter heterosexual couple’s decisions to marry and\/or divorce? (This is, of course, a question that no SSM opponent has ever answered with anything but hand-waving.)<\/p>\n

The low point<\/a>, I think, is when – stretching to demonstrate an actual harm to heterosexuals caused by SSM – Maggie suggests that same sex marriage will destroy Western Civilization within two centuries:<\/p>\n

When anthropologists in the thirties went out into the vanishing world of human diversity, the reason they found marriage everywhere is that societies that do not hang onto the marriage idea do not survive very long.<\/p>\n

But marriage in a particular society is not inevitable; death by sexual disorganization is always an option. Happens quite a bit actually. cf. Roman empire.<\/p>\n

So in one sense I’m not worried about marriage. In spite of the progressive mythology that the drive to gay marriage is the irresistible wave of the future, I’m quite confident that 200 years from now, we’re not going to be living in a world where gay marriage is the norm.<\/p>\n

I’m just not sure of the place of Western civilization in that future world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Henry at Crooked Timber<\/a> comments: “‘Explaining’ the collapse of Rome seems to be one of those historical Rorschach tests in which quack amateur sociologists stare into the inkblots and see their own prejudices and crackpottery staring back out at them.”<\/p>\n

For those who don’t want to wade through the 16,000 often painfully embarrassing words Maggie has written on Volokh so far, Orin Kerr<\/a> provides a Cliff Notes version:<\/p>\n

The argument is that extending marriage to include same-sex couples would not just give rights to a small subset of the population, but would radically transform what marriage is. So long as only opposite-sex couples can marry, the thinking goes, marriage is linked to procreation; if same-sex couples can marry, too, then marriage is transformed into something else entirely. Adding same-sex marriage would ruin the old institution and create a new one, and the new institution would not longer retain a focus on having and raising children. Viewed in that light, same sex marriage is a threat to society: by redefining the institution, it will kill off its most important feature.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maggie agrees<\/a> that Orin’s summary is “basically” accurate (although I think Orin ought to have written “procreating” rather than “having and raising children,” since Maggie’s argument de-emphasizes the raising of children).<\/p>\n

That’s it – that’s the very best case the anti-SSM folks have. No wonder the Volokh commenters are pissed.<\/p>\n

Maggie’s argument, taken in it’s best light, can’t support anything except the idea that SSM will lead to a slight marginal acceleration in the trends she’s worried about (and even that is giving Maggie’s case more credit than it merits). And – to paraphrase Volokh commenter Kate:<\/a><\/p>\n

Staving off a slight accelerating effect isn’t worth denying a class of citizens the dignity of having equal rights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s worth scanning the comments following Maggie’s posts – some of Volokh’s comment-writers provide smart rebuttals to Maggie’s arguments. Also, watch Volokh next week, when SSM-advocate Dale Carpenter will guest blog. Call me a crazy pop-eyed optimist, but I bet that Carpenter will be able to make a coherent case for his views – and do so without <\/em>predicting Western Civ’s downfall.<\/pracut>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maggie Gallagher, one of the leading intellectuals of the anti-SSM movement, has done a truly remarkable crash and burn while guest-blogging on the prominent right-wing blog The Volokh Conspiracy. (Here’s a link to all her Volokh posts). I should mention … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}