Craig describes SSM as 'a sort of legal fiction'

William Lane Craig has revealed some homophobia in the latest Q&A on his Reasonable Faith site, as well as recommending some seditious behaviour. In answer to someone questioning the Supreme Court's decision on SSM, and what Christians should do about it, he says:

[Same sex] marriages are a sort of legal fiction which we must respect.

He thinks there is an essence to marriage that resists legal re-definitions, just as horses and chairs could not be re-defined. This shows a curious blindness to the complexity of social institutions, which, by their very nature (one may say 'essence'), are defined by their social milieu. Simply perusing the Wikipedia article on marriage presents a bewildering variety of types, many of which do not feature just one man and one woman (WLC's preferred flavour). Of course, to describe the marriage of two people in love as any sort of fiction is deeply offensive to those involved.

Craig says:

The Supreme Court did not legalize, nor is anyone advocating for, gay marriage. What it legalized was same-sex marriage, regardless of sexual orientation.

...and he is right, strictly speaking. But let's not pretend that Craig is railing against two heterosexual men getting married; it is the homosexuality he is prejudiced against, and his language shows his prejudice:

Suppose you are a baker who is approached to make a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding or that you are a wedding photographer who is hired to photograph a same-sex ceremony. It’s hard to see how you can justifiably resist legal authority here and refuse to comply, regardless of how distasteful it may be to you, since your activity is not sin on your part.

Craig supposes it may be 'distasteful' to provide a service for a same-sex marriage; why 'distasteful'? Sin is not a matter of taste, after all. Plainly it's the homosexuality that is not to Craig's taste, rather than some contravention of his definition of marriage. If somebody redefined a horse as a chair, no-one would find that 'distasteful'; simply incorrect.

As for government authority, he says:

...we should and must resist authority if it requires us to act contrary to God’s will. 

So, he thinks it's necessary for Christians to impose God's will over and above the law of the land. As at least one study suggests, what God wants tends to be the same as what the individual believer wants. This is a recipe for insurrection, or at least civil disobedience à la Kim Davis, even if one has some sympathy for conscientious objectors in general.

It's nice to see that Craig can see the way the wind is blowing, though:

As our secular culture becomes more and more accommodating to same-sex marriage, the pressure upon Christians to compromise and conform will be heavy and unrelenting.

Yes, the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws delivered legal justice and, as a consequence, generated social pressure on racists to drop their prejudices; so too, now, will the pressure build upon the homophobic to drop their prejudices now that equality before the law has been granted to those of every sexual orientation.

Craig's response reveals the problem with a morality embedded in the aspic of ancient mores; they give the prejudiced ammunition in their fight against overwhelming reason and evidence. Just as many sensible practices and beliefs have arisen through our genetic and cultural history, so too has prejudice. We need the freedom to challenge our practices and beliefs to sort the sensible from the insensible, and religion, amongst other things, hinders that process.

Read more »

Unfair Discrimination Ruling Upheld

The Christian guesthouse owners who advertised their double bedrooms as available only to “heterosexual married couples” have lost their appeal to the Supreme Court. The BBC reports the following reactions:

Lady Hale, deputy president of the Supreme Court, said: "Sexual orientation is a core component of a person's identity which requires fulfilment through relationships with others of the same orientation."
Mike Judge, from the Christian Institute, said after the hearing: "What this case shows is that the powers of political correctness have reached all the way to the top of the judicial tree, so much so that even the Supreme Court dare not say anything against gay rights."
Gay rights group Stonewall said in a statement: "We are pleased that the Supreme Court has defended the laws protecting gay customers that Stonewall fought so hard to secure.
"Some might suggest that, rather than pursuing this case, a far more Christian thing to do would be to fight the evils of poverty and disease worldwide."

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, so the following is a layman's interpretation of what has been reported. 

This is good news for all supporters of equal rights, and confirms that the religious consciences of those who offer services to the public cannot be used as an excuse to discriminate unfairly. The press release does note, however, that "The Court’s judgment does not favour sexual orientation over religious belief: had the Respondents refused hotel rooms to the Appellants because of the Appellants’ Christian beliefs, the Appellants would equally have been protected by the law’s prohibition of discrimination". The appellants claimed that they were not discriminating on sexual orientation but on the couple's married status (they were not married, in their Christian eyes), but in law since civil partnerships must be treated as marriages, there is nothing else on which the couple can lawfully discriminate:

Regulation 3(4) [of the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007] provides that for the purpose of the provisions defining whether discrimination has taken place, when comparing the treatment of two people, the fact that one is a civil partner and the other is married is not a material difference in the circumstances.

The appellants also claimed freedom to manifest their religion under Article 9 of the ECHR. To this, the Court said:

EASOR’s interference with those rights is justified as a proportional means of achieving a legitimate aim: the protection of the rights and freedoms of people such as the Respondents.

Obviously there is a trade-off of rights necessary when applying the law, and thankfully the Courts are dismissing attempts to unfairly discriminate on the grounds laid out in the legislation. This can result in indirect discrimination, against the bigoted, but also against those who unfairly discriminate on religious grounds. I assume that even though religious conscience is protected by the legislation, it is deemed subsidiary to the discrimination against the gay couple because in this circumstance the first is deemed indirect discrimination and the second direct. By the same logic, a gay couple who refused to allow Christians to stay in their guesthouse on the ground of their religious homophobia would also find the courts ruling against them.

So this ruling is not evidence that sexual orientation is given priority over religious conscience in the hierarchy of rights (if this reading is correct). Nevertheless, I do fully expect believers and religious leaders to claim persecution based on this result!

The full judgement is here.

Read more »

The Wrong Side of History II

(Opposition to Same Sex Marriage)

We have a massive collapse of marriage ongoing, a collapse that is rooted in our cultural inability to address the ways in which gender matters.

The next generation’s endorsement of gay marriage is going hand in hand with a massive retreat from connecting marriage and childbearing. Almost six in ten women with only a high-school diploma now become mothers out of wedlock. It’s the new normal.

[If the Supreme Court overturns DOMA and throws out Proposition 8] the Supreme Court takes away the core civil rights of 7 million Californians to vote on the marriage question. 

And the Left cares only about gay marriage.
(Maggie Gallagher on Marriage)

Since all the legal rights of marriage are already available to homosexual couples, it is clear that this proposal is not about rights, but rather is an attempt to redefine marriage for the whole of society at the behest of a small minority of activists. (Keith O'Brien)

The same would happen if same sex unions were defined as marriages, further aberrations would be taking place and society would be degenerated further than it has already degenerated into immorality. (Keith O'Brien)

In saying this we are not arguing that the current legislation on civil partnerships should be
repealed. That is a route that the State has chosen to go down and it is not the issue at
stake here. Indeed there are those who wonder what all the fuss is about – given that civil
partnerships already give all the same legal rights as marriages.

We do not however think that instigating gay marriage and thus undermining even further the Christian foundations of this society will lead to a better or fairer nation.   Indeed in our view, it will lead to further social disintegration, sexual confusion and greater intolerance, where any in public life or service, who dare to uphold the Christian view of marriage, will be ostracised and discriminated against. (Gordon Wilson and Rev. David Robertson)

See The Wrong Side of History I.

Read more »

In Bad Faith

Gordon Wilson, of Solas

Eric MacDonald has written an insightful piece on the religious motivations behind political stances. He notes there are a number of issues where politicians base their views on their religious beliefs rather than their expressed arguments. He cites Matthew Parris's article in yesterday's Times (“Religion does not belong in the small print“) recounting an exchange Parris had with Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester, on the latter's opinion of homosexuality (Nazir-Ali hummed and ha-ed, but refused to say that his antipathy was based on his religious beliefs).

Now, to be fair to the faithful, they should not use religious doctrine in the public forum of a secular society, which does rather put them between a rock and a hard place. Secular government must not be based on religious ideals, but most theists feel they must argue for their religious beliefs. In the end, they are reduced to putting forward poorly-supported prudential arguments based on little evidence and no principle. They try to avoid overt moral arguments, aware that their morality is founded in the divine. This, in principle, should disallow these arguments from the secular debate, although in practice a certain amount of latitude is granted to the faithful. The weasel words 'a matter of personal conscience' are wheeled out to protect their dogmatic morality.

I think this amounts to arguing in bad faith, because the religious are not plainly stating the reasons for their stance, but instead are offering arguments in which they don't really believe. By this I mean that if the secular arguments they put forward could be shown to be false, by, you know, reason and evidence, they still would not change their stance on the issue, because their religious convictions override any prudential arguments they might offer. But, we must concede, they are simply operating as they must in a secular democracy, and that is surely why religion and democracy are incompatible, as Eric discussed in a previous piece. The rather illiberal conclusion might be that religion has to be eliminated before democracy can be fully implemented. I think we may be tending toward that state of affairs, but in the meantime I'm happy not to pursue elimination  of religious belief in the overriding interest of plurality. And even in the long term I think an argument from plurality could be produced to outweigh the incompatibility of certain views to democratic processes. But everyone should be made aware of the status quo, and participants' dogmatic beliefs, for the sake of transparency.

Another example of this problem has just appeared on the BBC website: Ex SNP leader Gordon Wilson attacks gay marriage. Wilson's religious beliefs are not mentioned in the piece, but without even looking one knows that he is almost certainly attacking same sex marriage because of them. And sure enough, he's the Chairman of Solas - Centre for Public Christianity. (Solas also appears to be the soap box for David Robertson, a minister of the Wee Frees - the Free Church of Scotland - who has often argued for the sinfulness of homosexuality on the old RichardDawkins.net front page discussions.) Given his organisation's title, you would think Wilson would make it clear that his opposition to same-sex marriage is not based on anything other than his Christian beliefs.

Well, I say nothing other than his Christian beliefs, but, as if to prove my point above, Solas also parade some pretty dreadful secular arguments against same sex marriage, in their submission to the Scottish Government Consultation on Civil Partnership and Same-Sex Marriage. They are:

Stirring up Dissension: "By opening up this minefield on behalf of a tiny minority, as evidenced from the numbers from the Registrar General for Scotland mentioned above, the Government cannot be unaware that the same-sex issue affecting the clergy in our largest church is causing distress. Equally, we believe the gay rights lobby will not rest until all religious bodies, be they Christian, Muslim or other be compelled to conduct same-sex partnerships (or marriages) under equality law."

Causing distress to clergy is irrelevant if the action being considered is to implement equality delivering legislation. We would not consider the distress caused to racists of anti-racist legislation, because we recognise that equality takes priority. And slippery slope scare-mongering is also irrelevant to the argument for or against same-sex marriage. The document continues:

Despite the proclaimed desire of both the Scottish and Westminster governments to ‘consult’, we are concerned that there will be little consultation, because the presuppositions of the gay rights lobby have already been accepted by the cultural and political elites of our culture.  It is assumed (rather than rationally argued) that evidence of a tolerant ‘liberal’ society is that one is for gay marriage.  The conclusion has been predetermined before the consultation has even been had.  This is hardly the action of a mature, reflective and tolerant democracy. It is little wonder that there has been little civilised and tolerant discourse.

I don't see any 'presuppositions of the gay rights lobby' (the homophobia oozes from these phrases) other than one - equal rights. It's ironic that in a document devoid of rational argument the accusation is made that the pro-equal rights lobby assumes rather than rationally argues for their position, but in fact little argument is needed for same-sex marriage. It flows naturally from principles of equality, just as the Solas position flows naturally from their anti-homosexual Christian doctrine. I don't agree with their prejudicial doctrine, and they don't present any arguments why anyone should. They continue:

Same-sex Marriages Versus Opposite Sex ‘Marriages’: "Whilst politicians might like to talk about how tolerant and liberal they are, thinking that there is little of consequence for them in going along with this headlong rush to ‘redefine’ marriage, we would encourage them to stop and reflect that in fact this is a major step which has potentially extremely destructive consequences."

There's lots of this sort of evidence free alarmism - "The Government’s perceived wish to give same-sex couples the same status and rights ... is ill thought out and ultimately harmful."; "We again ask if there is minimal demand for same-sex partnerships, where then will come the numbers to warrant such a revolutionary change in society."; "2% is not a solid foundation for tinkering with something that has been the foundation of British and Scottish society for over 1500 years.  You do not mend ‘Broken Britain’ by breaking its very foundations." (my emphases). But no evidence is produced to show that letting two men marry, or two women, is going to lead to the undermining of Scottish society. How could it?

Nature of Marriage in Society: "The meaning of marriage is straightforward.  It is the union between one man and one woman, for the threefold purpose of mutual companionship, the procreation and upbringing of children in a secure environment, and the good of society."

But, once again, simply making an assertion does not an argument make. The meaning of marriage is not straightforward. There; I've gainsaid them. If they don't support their contentions I can dismiss them that easily.

Now, to be fair, throughout the submission, mentions of Christian morality and 'foundations' abound, and the defence of some supposed definition of Christian marriage (™)  is presented as a reason for their opposition to same-sex marriage. This reason would be bad enough, since it's simply dogma, but the actual conclusion we should draw is that these are not the reasons for their opposition; the true reason is that they believe that homosexuality is sinful. This belief is notably absent from the document. And the reason it is absent, I'm pretty sure, is because Christians know that the doctrine is homophobic. We should know this about them; they should declare that they believe in a homophobic doctrine.

Human Rights to Same-sex Marriage: "There is no human rights entitlement to same-sex marriages." 

They cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights, and, because they don't mention same-sex marriage, conclude that the provisions don't support same-sex marriage rights. This does not follow, any more than their not mentioning marriage between people of different colour means the provisions do not support that.

However, they do go on and present something resembling an argument:

The generating and rearing of children is essential to the survival of the human race, and vital in Scotland which has an ageing population. Marriage is essential to the human condition; same-sex unions are a biological cul-de-sac.

But, setting aside the fact that same sex couples can raise families with assistance, this is irrelevant to the question of same-sex marriage. Allowing same-sex marriage is not going to decrease the rate of procreation in Scotland! Then, contrary to their assertion. the very existence of same-sex unions in the present day suggests that they are not 'biological cul-de-sacs', but even if they were, why should that count against them? We don't disallow heterosexuals from choosing to have no children.

Religious Celebration of Same-sex Marriages: "If unrest is anticipated over religious celebration of civil partnerships, then the comments made earlier on behalf of Solas apply with even greater force. By issuing this Consultation, the Scottish Government has effectively lit the blue touch paper. It should let well alone and leave the status quo in place, before causing needless stress to itself and its successors. It is the beginning of wisdom to recognise that you attack the essential building block of society at your peril." (my emphases)

The prophets of doom strike again. This overreaction to such a modest proposal is simply laughable. No evidence to support their assertions is presented. Much more spreading of despair and despondency follows, including the idea that extending marriage to same-sex couples somehow destroys marriage. Go figure.

Conclusion: "We do not however think that instigating gay marriage and thus undermining even further the Christian foundations of this society will lead to a better or fairer nation.   Indeed in our view, it will lead to further social disintegration, sexual confusion and greater intolerance, where any in public life or service, who dare to uphold the Christian view of marriage, will be ostracised and discriminated against."

But nowhere is there any evidence presented to support these assertions. In this respect, the document is a microcosm of religious thinking.

I have no doubt that if evidence was produced to show that same-sex marriage would have none of these consequences, Gordon Wilson would still oppose it, because of his Christian beliefs. That is why I call these 'arguments' from Christians in the public sphere (however much they are driven to it in secular democracies) bad faith arguments.

UPDATE: Take a look at John Danaher's discussion of the new natural law argument against same-sex relations, which suggests it's a religious argument masquerading as a secular one.

Read more »

William Lane Craig advises Gay Man to stay on the Straight Path

A gay Catholic has written to William Lane Craig asking: What Should Homosexual Christians Do?

I'm not sure if this is an example of WLC's humour, but he includes in his reply that:

You [Haydn, from the UK] need to stay on the straight and narrow path to avoid disaster.

He distinguishes between the desire, which is not sinful, and the act, which is:

I agree with you that it’s no sin to have a homosexual orientation. That’s probably something you didn’t choose and aren’t responsible for. But you can choose and are responsible for how you act.

But he then appears to contradict this concession that Haydn didn't choose his orientation nor is he responsible for it:

Second, I’d encourage you to seek Christian counseling to help you deal with your homosexual orientation. You may never completely shed your homosexual desires, but the testimony of many persons like yourself who have sought help is that one can reshape one’s orientation to a considerable degree. There is hope of change.

Well, is he responsible for his orientation or not? Advocating change to something as fundamental as one's sexual orientation is a reprehensible thing to do, and perpetuates the view that there is something wrong with homosexuality. WLC's homophobia is confirmed after he advises Haydn to find a Christian girl to marry and have sexual relations with:

Forget the unbiblical idea of finding some other man with whom you can build a monogamous love relationship. Not only is that a fantasy that will lead you only to heartache and profound disappointment, but, more importantly, it is contrary to God’s will for your life, as we know from Scripture.

It's a terrible thing to say that a homosexual monogamous love relationship is a fantasy that will lead 'only to heartache and profound disappointment'. I personally know gay couples who are very happy in their monogamy. I certainly see no evidence that they are any more likely to lead to disappointment than heterosexual couples and, more importantly, I see no reason to even assess this difference, to deny them marriage, just as I wouldn't assess it for different races, religions or social classes.

I hope Haydn sees the error of his ways and re-considers his religious beliefs in the light of their effect on the harmless lives of so many.

Read more »

Do Catholics want their Children to Grow up Bigots?

I ask because that is what the Catholic Church want, and I don't believe any of my Catholic friends would agree with them.

Cardinal Vincent Nicholls has sent a letter to parishioners urging them to oppose gay marriage:

We have a duty to married people today, and to those who come after us, to do all we can to ensure that the true meaning of marriage is not lost for future generations.

The 'true meaning'? Well, according to Catholics:

The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, by its nature is ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring...

So because someone once, in a far off age, wrote down that marriage is between a man and a woman, for the procreation of children, so it has to be for ever, regardless of facts and changes in mores. This sort of brutish intransigence is a perfect demonstration of the evil of religion.

And now they want to infect children with the same despicable bigotry; the Catholic Education Service has sent this letter to all Catholic secondary schools, where it has been read out in assembly in at least one school, and the pupils urged to sign a petition against gay marriage.

This is the reality of faith schools, as Andrew Copson highlights in today's Guardian:

But, with the evidence mounting, the government should be investigating not just the incidents of the last fortnight, but also the whole principle of allowing such discrimination within our state education system at all.

I cannot stop grown-ups from being bigots (and believe me, I've tried!) but faith schools deliver in-built discrimination to our children, by definition, even before we consider the bizarre and irrational tenets that can infect each individual faith. Discrimination should not be state-funded, if we want a society which values equality for all.

Read more »

Notpologetics

This has really got to stop, says Eric Macdonald, about believers arguing for particular views without admitting their real, religious based, grounding. This is something I've noticed frequently; believers will say they are arguing on prudential grounds, for example, when arguing for abstinence in combating AIDS. It's legitimate to point out these arguments, but by using them believers are not arguing in good faith if they don't make it clear that those arguments do not bind them. Since, if the prudential argument went against them, they would not change their mind, because of their moral (religious) views. Eric also mentions Andrew Brown's latest humiliation, after a particular clueless article, denying the pope was being homophobic in a recent speech which was reported as anti-gay.

Brown's original piece said that the pope "didn't say gay marriage threatens humanity". This was in response to some reporting of the speech, in which the pope said:

In addition to a clear goal, that of leading young people to a full knowledge of reality and thus of truth, education needs settings. Among these, pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman. This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.

Now, to me, and surely anyone with half an eye on modern mores and the ways of the Catholic Church, this is clearly linking gay marriage to a threat to human dignity and the future of humanity itself, so Philip Pullella's headline is not an unreasonable contraction. Despite this, Brown insisted, about Pullella's headline:

So far as I can see, Pope Benedict just didn't [say gay marriage threatens humanity]. He did speak in favour of the family "based on the marriage of a man and woman". He did say that "policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself". But there was no suggestion that gay marriage was the most important of these and he didn't mention it at all, whereas he did take up several other sexual issues.

The pope has to actually say "gay marriage" for Andrew Brown to consider it a mention of gay marriage, presumably. In fact, he practically confirms this in a comment:

But the point is that there are lots of things which the Vatican regards as being "an attack on the family" and Benedict deliberately mentioned two, neither of which had anything to do with gay people, or with marriage. He also mentions the economic crisis as damaging to families. That was all. And when you're dealing with a rather Kremlin-esque bureaucracy like the Vatican, these shifts of emphasis really matter. The Pope's speeches are an expression of coherent policy. And, if this one means anything, it means a shift away from seeing gay marriage as a threat comparable to all the ones he did mention.

Yikes; he thinks the pope is saying practically the opposite of what he is in fact saying. Commenters were unimpressed. Muscleguy said:

For goodness sake Andrew, do you have to be so dense and obtuse? If he was so unconcerned with the gay marriage issue then why did he feel the need to insert the apparently redundant words "between a man and a woman" into the bit about marriage? Since the church recognises no other forms of marriage, it would normally have not been necessary to define something twice.
By using that phrasing he is dog whistling to the faithful while trying desperately to Jesuitically claim that 'he said nothing about gays'. I never took you for a Jesuit Andrew, I may now have to reassess that.
If you truly do not understand about dog whistle politics then you are too clueless to be a journalist, so I can only conclude that you are being deliberately obtuse. To what end I'm not sure. I would have thought that as an avowed agnostic you would not hold a candle for pontifical bigotry, but I may be wrong.

Of course it's obvious to non-believers and, more importantly, believers, what the pope means when he says "between a man and a woman". Anthropoid Ape said:

This is an unambiguous reference to gay marriage. What other policy undermining "the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman" could have been exercising the pope's religiously demented brain here, i.e. other than the current world-wide trend to legalise gay marriage which the Vatican has been resolutely opposing? Are you seriously suggesting that the pope was not intending to allude to gay marriage as one of the policies undermining "the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman"?

Quite. AB responded:

No. He does believe that it is one of the policies which threaten the family. But I don't think he is such a fool as to suppose it is the most important threat, and nor was it one he selected for explicit mention. I might be wrong about this. Perhaps he does lie awake at night thinking that the elimination of gay rights is a necessary step on the way to setting everything else right that's wrong in the world. But I doubt it.

Yes, the pope is famously philanthropic and not at all concerned with Catholic dogma! We should be grateful that at least Brown shows some doubt in his own judgement here, but he still is not conceding the obvious, and he didn't in his remaining comments on the thread, despite many people pointing out what was staring him in the face.

Now, suddenly, when Philip Pullella himself writes to him and points out the obvious, the penny drops, sort of: he titles the piece "Why I shouldn't have been upset about the reporting on the pope's speech", but offers no apology for his apologetics. Pullella simply states what most the commenters said:

As one of your own readers (metalvendetta) points out in one of the comments ("Seems pretty clear to me"), when the Vatican uses the phrase "marriage based on the union between a man and a woman" it refers to gay marriage. It has used it many, many times before, particularly in cases where countries were preparing legislation allowing gay marriage (Spain, the Netherlands). Otherwise, it would have just said marriage is under threat, and the connotation there would have been heterosexual cohabitation or divorce.

Brown has admitted he was wrong (good), but not apologised for the bone-headedness of his original piece (bad!). Why does he misrepresent the pope to his readers? Perhaps because he is in denial about what the pope really believes and preaches? He cannot be ignorant of it, surely.

We must all examine our motives, but the motives that lead decent human beings, believers and non-believers like Brown, to cover up the evils of the Catholic Church really need to be exposed. Some self-examination of AB's motives might help us all to understand this damaging notpologetic phenomenon.

Read more »