Reality-based conservatism

[nancylebov]

David Frum concludes that same sex marriage doesn't damage heterosexual marriage.

Is there anything else in American politics which is dependent on as weak an argument as opposition to same sex marriage? The war on drugs is based on a wild over-estimation of government power, but it doesn't quite have that weird "I'll make up a definition and insist that it's realer than what can be observed" quality.

Link thanks to nwhyte.

Comments

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Arguing that sodomy is wrong inherently requires making a RELIGIOUS argument for law, which means you begin your argument by admitting you're wrong on First Amendment grounds.

So they don't do that. The argument is still reilgious, and it's still wrong for the same reasons, but now it's got a patina of legitimacy. Like "intelligent design" rather than "creationism".

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've heard it argued on the basis of "spreading disease".

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Except that explanation doesn't actually address what they want to do. It's like arguing that "marriage is about chilll-druuuun" without complaining about childless straight couples.

If they were ACTUALLY concerned about disease, their position would be different. Their position is not different, therefore "we're concerned about disease" is a lie.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

*nod* I've only heard that one from non-religious people who want to give their ook a rational sounding excuse.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

That sort of analysis applies to a lot of laws about sexual conduct.

* Laws against bestiality are often explained on the grounds of "cruelty to animals" or "animal rights." But consider: Granted that a man who forces sex on a woman ought to be punished; if instead he killed her, cut her body up, and ate it, he would be punished much more harshly. But killing animals, cutting them up, and eating them is an entire industry in the United States! The majority of people don't see it as abusive; even some people who do find our current slaughterhouses appalling want them to convert to more humane methods.

* There is also the argument that animals are incapable of consent. But that argument doesn't apply only to sex with humans! If a mare is incapable of consenting to sex with a man, she is surely also incapable of consenting to sex with a stallion; and yet stallions are not forbidden to mate with mares, or human owners to aid and abet their doing so. Indeed, I've read that dog breeders sometimes find that a bitch dislikes the dog they've picked to father her pups, and that a common expedient is to put her in restraints; if "consent" meant anything that would be a criminal offense.

* Incest is argued against as likely to produce reinforcement of bad recessive genes. Well, I knew a woman who was a carrier for a genetic condition that would make any son she bore at 50% risk for an incapacitating and life-shortening condition; she was not legally forbidden to get pregnant or to bear sons. A couple can have one child with birth defects that indicate that they are at risk for more such children; they are not forced to break up, or punished as criminals for failing to do so.

In all these cases, the supposed "reasons" for banning the conduct aren't applied to similar conduct. So those reasons don't actually explain the laws; they're after-the-fact rationalizations. There may be explanations in terms of cultural or even genetic evolution, but the proximate mechanism seems to be that many people saw "EWWW!" about the conduct in question.