Hailing a Death Cab for the Wisdom of the Ages
Ben Gibbard is best known for being the lead singer of the indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie. This past week Gibbard cowrote an editorial for The Daily Beast about a same-sex marriage proposition on the ballot in his home state of Washington. The piece focuses primarily on his sister’s recent lesbian wedding and the familial and societal implications of the event for him, his parents, and the rest of us.
A few excerpts:
In June 2009, [my sister] got married to her then-girlfriend. After the event happened, I remember talking with my parents, who are of a generation where, when my sister came out, everything they thought about what their daughter’s life was going to be like was now different. That takes some readjusting, especially if you’re from a generation that’s more used to “traditional” family. The first thing my parents thought was, “We’ll never have a white wedding!” because they weren’t thinking far enough in advance to where a gay wedding would be an eventuality.
He continues:
The fight for marriage equality bears many similarities to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. We can now look back at a generation of people who are parents and grandparents who were not in support of this, and now have to look their children and grandchildren in the eye and explain why they weren’t for equal rights for all. . . . There are these ads that are running now in Washington State that say, “You can be pro-gay and be anti-gay marriage.” No you can’t! That is a bigoted position.
All of this talk regarding the “backward way things used to be” in the generation Gibbard’s parents were raised–the Baby Boomers–got me thinking about the topic of wisdom and respect for people and ideas that came before us.
A straight-forward reading of Gibbard’s op-ed makes it sound like the generation his parents came from was fairly unenlightened.
But wait, I’m confused! On one hand we’re supposed to understand that the Baby Boomers were cultural and moral Neanderthals who wouldn’t know tolerant values if they were glitter-bombed in their faces.
Then on the other hand–in the same piece–we’re supposed to look to the inspiration, clarity, and wisdom of the Civil Rights movement that took place way back before time began in the 1960s.
Aren’t the 60s supposed to be when Mad Men is taking place? What did those dolts with nothing but their African-American-and-Caucasian colored TV sets and AM radio dials know about morality anyway?
But things get even more complicated for Gibbard’s “parents just really don’t understand” position from there.
One might posit that Gibbard was simply referring to the undeniably courageous Civil Rights leaders–led by prominent black voices such as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.–who fought for something when it wasn’t popular. The only problem there is that even liberal-voting blacks today are still overwhelmingly opposed to the re-definition of marriage.
So what, precisely, is Ben Gibbard’s point?
Apart from a touching story about his sister, his point is simple: we know better. I know better. And anyone foolish enough to voice opposition must immediately be labeled a “bigot.” You can make up for it later by coming around to our side, but you will come around.
For just a moment, forget how you feel about gay marriage and reflect upon my larger point here.
How important is the “wisdom of the ages” to you personally? How readily do you dismiss or ignore what your parents and grandparents say, let alone a group of individuals like the founding fathers? When it comes to making important decisions regarding our personal lives or whom we will vote for or whom we will marry, do Millennials make “emotions” or thoughtful investigation and inquiry of trusted mentors a top priority?
How can one be a mentor to the entire culture without ever having sought the counsel of one himself?
It is my joyless contention that pride and ignorance, not tolerance and discernment, inform more of my generation’s decisions and positions than we’d care to admit.
————-
“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”
-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
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“Wisdom of the ages” is Leviticus 20:13, which says homosexual acts are a capital crime.
If there are good reasons for heeding such wisdom, the reasons themselves should suffice. Without justification in the form of a cogent argument, such wisdom is nothing more than argument from authority, and earns no more weight when making life choices than a horoscope in the daily paper.
One can read the founding fathers’ reasons for writing what they did in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Congressional Record can be consulted for every amendment written subsequently, to provide the reasoning behind each change.
You and Dennis Prager blocked me on Twitter for pointing out how un-wise the counsel in Leviticus 20:13 is in light of modern understanding. Dennis Prager has said on his radio show that calling for the execution of practicing homosexuals is “Taliban-esque” and “disgusting”. I guess there’s a little cognitive dissonance going on there.
It was bigotry which said that women didn’t belong in the workplace or in the polling booth. Expanding the definition of “liberty and justice for all” to make a place for them there didn’t cause the collapse of society. Expanding the definition again to make a place for homosexuals in a state-recognized marriage will not threaten my heterosexual marriage, but it will make the country a little more fair toward all its citizens. What possible (non-bigoted) reason could there be to oppose it?
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So their daughter is having a lesbian wedding, and their son fronts a disposable hipster band. Those parents have to be so, so disappointed.
Marriage is and always has been a contract between the state and a union of a man and a woman. The deal is society legitimizes your union, you produce children within that union and bring them up as part of a stable unit within that society. This produces incentives for stable family formation as well as serving as the bedrock for the next generation of that society.
Gay marriage is fundamentally about trying society to legitimize sexual (“romantic”) unions, not child bearing unions. But marriage has never been about legitimizing sexual unions. Why should we extend marriage rights to couples that aren’t going to be producing offspring and perpetuating our society?
“Ideas”, we have always legitimized romantic unions, because we allow women who are past child-bearing years and women who have had hysterectomies to marry. Couples who cannot conceive children themselves can still adopt children. Even if they remain childless, they still contribute to a stable society by supporting each other emotionally, financially, and in other ways.
No zeggman. There’s a big difference between legitimizing romantic unions and simply not distinguishing between fertile and infertile couples. The notion of “marriage” was established well before the first hysterectomies were performed… Before people even had a word for hysterectomies. And societies do not distinguish between age of partners because it is impossible to distinguish with any sort of broad rule when women are fertile or infertile. Some women may be fertile well into middle age, some women are barren their entire lives. Ancient societies did not have the medical expertise to deal with this issue.
So, under your reasoning, an elderly couple shouldn’t be married because they’re not going to produce children, right?
And infertile couples shouldn’t be allowed to get married either.
What about gay couples who adopt? They should be allowed to get married, right?
Under the reasoning that most societies have used for marriage for thousands of years, elderly women are not generally considered to be marriage material. Your snide remarks about infertile couples is also invalid because most infertile couples do not know they are infertile until they attempt to have a child. Determining this medically would require prohibitively expensive fertility tests on every couple attempting to marry. That is not practical.
I don’t oppose individuals seeking comfort and companionship with each other but there is no social benefit to sanction partnerships of non-reproductive couples. There are innumerable personal relationships that people may have, it isn’t the state’s function to legally recognize “Best Friends” or “Fuck Buddies” or “Blood Brothers” or “Roommates.” The emotional content (or lack of emotional content) in the relationship is irrelevant to the overarching concern of producing and raising the next generation.
As far as I can tell, the arguments for homosexual marriage work just as well for polygamy. So I would imagine that the Ben Gibbards of the future will be demanding to know why the bigoted Gen-Xers and the Millennials weren’t out in the streets in 2012 insisting on equal rights for all, including polygamists.
“rightklik” the arguments for same-sex marriage don’t work just as well for polygamy. A marriage is reciprocal, with two people making an equal commitment to each other.
Polygamy is traditionally exploitative, with women required to devote themselves to only one man, while the man is dividing his devotion among more than one woman. This arrangement is inherently unequal, to the detriment of the women involved.
Nonsense, a multiparty agreement can be as reciprocal as any other. Also you seize upon the strict definition of polygamy to make your argument, but ignore the fact that there would be no such restriction on gender ratio within any modern notion of plural marriage.
But it is interesting that you are willing to deny certain women the freedom to choose their own marriage relationships out of your own presumably ‘superior’ ability to determine what is or is not to their ‘detriment.’ Yet you are unsurprisingly opposed to anyone else’s attempts to do the same.
You’ve come a long way baby. Or, maybe not.
Paternalism, how the hell does that work?
A multi-party agreement can be “jointly and severally” reciprocal, but in practice polygamy never has been. You are correct that polygamy is a subset of plural marriage, which could theoretically include all sorts of numbers and gender ratios. I believe any such arrangement would be exploitative for at least one of the participants.
There are valid reasons for society to limit marriage to two people. If (as seems inevitable) this comes to include two people of the same gender, there is nothing which would mandate that it be expanded further to include more than two people. Those who advocate legalizing same-sex marriage do not advocate legalizing polygamy. The attempt to link the two is nothing more than a straw man.
The “wisdom of the ages” as found in the Bible certainly encourages polygamy. Perhaps there was a reason for it at one time — near-constant wars for territory could eliminate most of the male population, leaving women (often with children) with no available partners. Polygamy was one solution to that problem. Since that particular problem has been eliminated, other reasons should be offered if one wants to justify polygamy.
This underscores the need to consider the REASONS behind “wisdom of the ages” rather than just accepting it as revealed truth. By understanding some of the reasons polygamy might have been encouraged in other times, we can see whether or not those reasons are still applicable.
What, exactly, is your point? Are you pro or con SSM?