The Stupidest Taboo

Jesse Taylor, as you probably know, is under conservative fire for his indisputably correct observation that mobilizing homophobia was a decisive factor in the presidential elections because of the way the electoral map played out. To first emphasize Jesse’s point, with respect to the Jon Henke “not everyone who disagrees with gay marriage is a homophobe” strawman, 1)of course Henke is correct, and 2)so what? There were surely supporters of Jim Crow who really convinced themselves that it was about states’ rights, or that everyone wanted segregation. Nonetheless, Jim Crow policies were in fact racist, and the overwhelming majority of the people who support them are racist. Similarly, gay marriage amendments are discriminatory on their face–they deny a group of people benefits accorded to most other people–and most of the people who oppose them are certainly homophobic (as I’ll explain next.) At any rate, is perfectly fair to point out that such amendments are discriminatory, and doing so does not require the belief that every single supporter of such amendments is motivated bi irrational animus. However, given the fact that such amendments are discriminatory on their face, the burden of proof is on supporters to justify the discrimination as being rational, not on those who accurately describe their discriminatory nature. A few more comments:

–One would think, based on some of the reactions, that John Kerry was continually browbeating people who opposed gay rights or abortion rights as bigots and hicks. Of course, he did no such thing. He soft-peddled gay rights as much as he could. Did he bring up Bush’s support for a Human Life Amendment, a position which is both stupid and unpopular? No, he didn’t. The lesson of Kerry, contrary to that drawn by some self-flagellating liberals who place too much emphasis on the power of framing, is that if you generally support tolerant, pluralist social values you will be labeled an “out-of-touch elitist” no matter how you frame the issue. Indeed, you will be called an elitist even if you openly adopt reactionary positions.

–Henke, in comments at Pandagon, argues from tradition in trying to say that opposition to gay marriage isn’t really based in homophobia. I don’t have much use for claims that traditions are self-justifying, but just to be clear these arguments are only available to people who think that Loving v. Virgina was incorrectly decided, or that states should be allowed to chose bigamy. There was an almost unbroken tradition of banning interracial marriage in the United States, and the oldest traditions of marriage tended to be based around multiple female partners. Marriage is not a static institution; it has changed greatly across time, which makes arguments from tradition fatally vulnerable to inconsistency and cherry-picking. This not to say that it is impossible to support interracial marriage and oppose gay marriage and bigamy, but simply to say that if you hold this position it’s not tradition that’s doing the work. You need further justification, which (as the fact that most arguments so frequently rely on the from-tradition tautology suggests) tend not to be very strong.

–For those who think that opposition to gay marriage is basically unrelated to animus toward homosexuals, please explain the Senate races in SC, OK, and KY. Here, arguments about gay rights don’t even conceal their homophobia: DeMint arguing that gay people shouldn’t be allowed to teach in schools, Bunning sending his surrogates out to call his opponent “limp-wristed”, and Tom “The Sterilizer” Coburn yammering about “rampant lesbianism” and arguing that homosexuality represented a social crisis. Now, do you think people running for state-wide office are less moderate than the median voter of their base? Of course not. Gay marriage is a codeword for broader issues of opposition to gay rights and gay people, and everyone knows it.

–The bad faith of the contention that opposition to gay marriage is about nothing more than “preserving traditional marriage” can be plainly seen in the massive changes in divorce laws. No-fault, less-restrictive divorce laws are, from a traditional standpoint, much worse than gay marriage; they go against traditional arrangements with what (according to traditionalists) are devastating consequences for children, and affect vastly more people. But there are no significant movements for referendums to make divorce laws more restrictive. When asked to choose between their own liberties and traditional values, social conservatives suddenly become much more “elitist.” To deny freedoms that cut against tradition when small, unpopular groups are involved but not when it affects you is the very definition of unjust discrimination, and it also reflects the animus that underlies most opposition to gay marriage.

The taboo against calling homophobic policies homophobic is absurd, and as Dave and Lindsay Beyerstein point out, it’s not even good politics. You’ll never out-homophobe the Republicans. You just have to hope the inevitable demographic changes alter the political dynamic sooner rather than later.