Scalia isn't the only one, with an evidence free belief system (moral code) . Just sayin.

I notice how carefully, polygamy was left out of the criticism, because of course, that domino is the next to fall in this equality of marriage chase. .

I don't see any name calling here, except on the part of Duncan Hosie.

I'm an atheist, and maintain my right to be critical of any value system that I find reprehensible no matter what culture or religious belief system it stems from.

that includes, single parents who get divorced for trivial reasons, and people who demand that the government and the Supreme Court recognize (and approve of) their very own Disney Specialness, as Crid so eloquently put it.

Duncan Hosie, and the rest of us do not have a right "not to be offended". Thank god, the Supreme Court hasn't found that gem in the penumbra of the Constitution yet.

And Princeton Freshmen are now writing op eds for the LA Times?

Not someone with enough academic gravitas to criticize Scalia's fashion choices, let alone his academic writings.

It's never a good idea to think with your emotions...

Oh, you mean like the Connecticut legislature did when they passed the new gun laws? Only, guess what? The didn't follow procedure!

That said, this debate about gay marriage is really getting tiresome. Most clear-thinking people get that what two consenting adults do behind closed doors isn't anyone else's beeswax.

Bottom line, and we all know this to be true, is: You cannot legislate morality! They try and try and try. Can't be done. People are gonna do what they're gonna do, regardless.

Polygamy, when something people voluntarily participate in, is their business.

The notion that marriage is a slippery slope is ridiculous. Everyone should have one person they can have recognized under the law and taxes. As long as straight people get this right, gay people should.

The gay marriage debate is getting "tiresome" because there needs to be one. See above.

Regarding this from Isab: "Princeton Freshmen are now writing op eds for the LA Times? Not someone with enough academic gravitas to criticize Scalia's fashion choices, let alone his academic writings."

I think he did just fine, Isab's snobbery and error in reasoning ("We should only care what important, trained people think!") notwithstanding.

Oh and regarding the boohoo that Hoisie is "name-calling," where?

Also, more spurious arguments from Isab -- as if he's saying he has a "right to not be offended." He's not saying that.

Just piles of specious stuff packed into two comments, Isab!

Sadly, this kind of "thinking with your emotions" is as old as mankind is, both those on the left and the right do it.

Even more sadly, I don't see it changing anytime soon.

The real question (which I really don't have an answer to) is how to we get more folks to think outside their emotions? Or, at least, recognize that their emotions might be clouding their thinking?

> Logic Lightweight Scalia Weighs In On Gays And What's Moral

First off: we may disagree with Scalia about all sorts of things, but that doesn't make him a logical lightweight. He's a very crisp thinker with a first class-mind.

> Regarding "moral disapproval" of murder or cruelty to animals, there is a victim here.

Absolutely true.

You've done a good job of explaining the moral foundation you share with most libertarians.

Scalia did not say "I have considered basing morality on the presence of victims and rejected it". He - effectively - asked "on what basis is morality founded?".

There are multiple different answers.

Victims / harm is one basis. It's a pretty common one these days. It's the moral basis I appeal to for all sorts of things, like arguing against drug laws, etc.

...but large numbers of people use other moral basis.

Scalia is aware of this, and by posing the question, he's asking both what do humans, in general, think, and what should the law be.

These are valid and interesting questions.

Again, please note: I am a libertarian, and in practice I imagine that you and I agree almost entirely on how the laws should only prevent actions where there are clear victims.

> Because your particular evidence-free belief system stands against that isn't reason to name-call.

Yes, conservativism's ethical system is evidence-free.

...and so is the ethical system we libertarians use.

WHY should harm be something we care about? Why should it be wrong to rape or steal?

In any system of think at some point we reach the axioms, where there is no further regress. I (and, I think, you) think that rape is wrong because it's an example of initiating force. But why is that wrong? "Because".

That "Because" is good enough for me, and it's good enough for you. But it's not based on evidence. It's a moral intuition.

The foundation of our ethical superstructure is just as evidence-free as a conservative ethical superstructure.

If there is a moral disapproval of someone having moral disapproval, then I guess it's quid pro quo. But the astonishment that someone might not morally approve of ANYTHING you do is quite naive...actually a gross ignorance. I have a moral disapproval of many things. That is because I am me, an individual, one who is free to think what I like. It does not mean I JUDGE these people, or that I think they should be prohibited from their actions or that they are less worthy of the freedoms and privileges that I enjoy. It means I have my own moral compass and it works. You may not like it, but that is irrelevant.

I'm surprised this is not every Libertarian's vehement stance.

Most clear-thinking people get that what two consenting adults do behind closed doors isn't anyone else's beeswax.

Until someone asks, "Why two?"

The gay marriage debate is getting "tiresome" because there needs to be one.

There does need to be one. This is not something a court can rule on and we all go home equally satisfied and dissatisfied.

Society must argue its way into consensus - whether through one side bludgeoning the other into submission or both sides finding some form of common ground. Attitudes are already changing due to the ongoing debate. Gay marriage will prevail in the end; and it needs to prevail in this way rather than through an arbitrary court decision.

Gay marriage will change the fundamental expectations society has of marriage and the relationship society has with married couples ... to some degree.

Society's relationship with marriage has been changing over the past several decades already - no-fault divorce, palimony, pre-nuptial agreements, etc. - so this is really another battle in an ongoing war, a war that has already turned marriage from a "sacred bond" into "a prison" into "an instrument of patriarchal oppression" into "just a piece of paper" into little more than a legal arrangement.

I have to agree with most of the people here: surely you cannot believe that it should not be permissible to express moral disapproval unless there is a victim. Are there really no victimless acts that you don't think are good ideas? I find that hard to believe. Not that I would want to ban those, but that doesn't mean that I think that it is a good idea to do everything that I think should be legal. I don't think that it is Scalia's logic (or emotions) that are the problem here.

Constitutional amendments are the way to address and change long standing traditions. Cases in point:
Women's Right to Vote: The Equal Protection Clause was a Civil War amendment meant to protect former slaves. Women did not have the right to vote for the next 60 years and had never had the right to vote. It would have been easy for a Supreme Court to conclude that the Equal Protection Clause protected women in the right to vote. Yet someone decided the a Constitutional Amendment was necessary to give the vote to women, and thus we have the 19th amendment with the benefit that no one has questioned the right of women to vote since. The reason is a super majority wanted that right. And we do not fight each other over the issue.
Abortion: Roe vs Wade gave the right to abortion. The result is the pro's and anti's have been fighting ever since. And just because 9 guys, no smarter than you or me, decided it. A Constitutional Amendment, similar to the 19th Amendment, might have made the difference and kept us from fighting each other.
Gay Marriage: We have not had legal gay marriage
in this country ever. The proposal for gay marriage is a recent thing. If you want Gay Marriage applied equally across the USA with acceptance by most, you should argue for a Constitutional Amendment allowing it. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage, then, just like abortion, the pro's and anti's will be fighting each other for the next 50-100 years.
Gun Control: Same logic. If you favor gun control that applies equally throughout the USA, argue for a Constitutional Amendment that repeals the 2nd Amendment.
Amending the Constitution is hard, I admit. But the idea is simple: to alter longstanding traditions, legislation or Supreme Court decisions aren't enough and only anger a large segment of society. To unify the country in a huge shift in the way of thinking, use the Constitutional Amendment as the correct way to go.

Amy: Regarding "moral disapproval" of murder or cruelty to animals, there is a victim here. In gay marriage, two people have decided to make a lifetime commitment to be there for each other.

Exactly. I'm always dumbfounded when people compare homosexuality to something like murder. It's amazing that they can't understand the fundamental difference between one person harming another, doing something bad to them without their consent, and two people consenting to express their love and/or physical attraction for each other.

Scalia: Surely that is the only sort of 'animus' at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct."

I wonder what kind of homosexual conduct get Scalia's moral diapproval gland all inflamed. Just sex? Or does he morally disapprove of, say, two lesbians strolling in a park hand-in-hand?

Also, I suspect he morally disapproves of some heterosexual conduct as well. I can't believe Antonin morally approves of a straight couple having anal sex, and perhaps not even oral sex.

He's a very crisp thinker with a first class-mind.

That may also have been true of Savonarola.

For Scalia, I am sure there is a huge space between his personal moral beliefs and what he thinks belongs in the criminal code. .

You are making a leap here that doesn't exist.

Scalia may personally find all sorts of sexual behavior as morally suspect, and at the same time be unwilling to criminalize it.
I am unwilling to criminalize a lot of stupid behavior, and the jails and probation offices of my home town are filled with people who barely blew a .008 on a breathalyzer, which in my opinion is a travesty.

I don't find anal sex all that wholesome either. for one thing, it spreads disease, much more effectively than regular intercourse.

Just because I am not in favor of putting people in jail for their private sexual activity doesn't mean that I think the next Federal holiday should be National Butt Fuck day.

see the difference?

[JD:] I'm always dumbfounded when people compare homosexuality to something like murder. It's amazing that they can't understand the fundamental difference between one person harming another, doing something bad to them without their consent, and two people consenting to express their love and/or physical attraction for each other.

Scalia: Surely that is the only sort of 'animus' at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct."

Male homosexuality operates without female sexual restraint. It should come as no surprise that gay men have the opportunity be far more promiscuous than heterosexual men.

Unfortunately, promiscuity isn't a simple matter of individual choice, because those freely taken individual choices can lead to one person harming another: AIDS.

That is a harmful consequence of promiscuity which is a component of male homosexuality.

Given the death toll, why is moral disapproval of conduct unique to male homosexuality entirely out of bounds?

Jeff Guinn;

Let me see if I understand you correctly:

Gay men = promiscuous

promiscuous = AIDS

AIDS = murder

Therefore gay men = murderers

Does that about sum up your ignorant statement?

As a famous man once said; "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Charles:
No, you don't understand me correctly. What translated my argument into is a false syllogism, whereas I was taking a consequentalist approach: the consequences of an action are the basis for making moral judgments about the action.

For example, if I get knee-walking drunk at home, and when I go to bed have to keep a foot on the floor to stop the room spinning, there is no room for moral disapproval, because there are no consequences. Well, aside from the self-critique that is called a hangover.

But if I get in a car and drive then get caught, I will be subject to rather strong moral disapproval because of consequences.

Which leads to …

> [Amy:]Because your particular evidence-free belief system stands against that isn't reason to name-call.

[TJIC:] Yes, conservativism's ethical system is evidence-free.

...and so is the ethical system we libertarians use.

Amy mistakes the evidence-free imprimatur [i.e., there is no evidence for on account of god says so] for moral judgments with an evidence-free basis for the judgments themselves.

Conservatism's ethical system is not evidence free. It is not always right , but it is based upon society's store of knowledge. Conservatives say infidelity is bad because of its consequences, and therefore it should be societally demonized, regardless of individual circumstances. Similarly, polygamy is bad because solely because of its consequences (google "lost boys").

Various changes over the last forty or so years have made infidelity far more common. Is society better off for it? The problem libertarians face (speaking as someone who is temperamentally libertarian) is that they have no basis for ethical judgments where the consequences are societal.

My assertion that it is possible to morally disapprove of homosexuality — while completely understanding it is innate and not chosen, and that therefore gay sex has no more inherent moral component than straight sex — is based deductive reasoning from readily verifiable facts to awful consequences.

That doesn't make gay men murderers, but it does mean that the combination of promiscuity and anal sex — neither of which has an inherent moral component — has led to a horrible epidemic.

Unless you are willing to abandon consequentalist arguments for ethical decisions — and I very much doubt that you do — then you must acknowledge that there is a sound basis to morally disapprove of homosexual behavior.

Perhaps you should think things through a little more before labeling others statements as ignorant.

That is a harmful consequence of promiscuity which is a component of male homosexuality.

Given the death toll, why is moral disapproval of conduct unique to male homosexuality entirely out of bounds.

Jeff, I'm sure that Scalia -- and most* religious conservatives like him -- morally disapprove of any physical expression of same sex love and/or attraction, not just gay male promiscuity.

* I say "most" and not "all" because I'm certain there are some male religious conservatives who are all squicked out by two guys having sex, but who have a big ol' stash of lesbian porn.

My assertion that it is possible to morally disapprove of homosexuality — while completely understanding it is innate and not chosen, and that therefore gay sex has no more inherent moral component than straight sex — is based deductive reasoning from readily verifiable facts to awful consequences.

It's possible to morally disapprove of anything. A lot of (if not all) religious conservatives disapprove of any sex before marriage. I'm sure that many religious conservatives morally disapprove of oral sex (even between a married man and woman) and some probably morally disapprove of masturbation. Saudis morally diapprove of single women and single men being alone together in public. The Taliban morally diapprove of girls being educated.

Hey Jeff Guinn! You bring up the problem of gay promiscuity. We should do something about that. Maybe encourage gays to make a lifetime commitment to one other person. You know, marriage.

JD: I was specifically talking about making ethical judgments because of consequences. I'd be astonished if you don't do so, yourself.

So then it is up to you to explain why it is so reprehensible to make a consequentalist ethical judgment in one case, but not another.

Is Scalia a religious conservative, or a conservative who is religious?

clinky: Fine. But then I take it we agree that moral disapproval of promiscuity is OK?

But then I take it we agree that moral disapproval of promiscuity is OK?

Jeff, if religious conservatives want to morally disprove of all aspects of homosexuality, that's their right. What should not be their right is to deprive gays and lesbians of the same rights they have.

I morally disapprove of people who cheat on their spouses but I don't think that if someone cheats and their spouse divorces them because of it, that they should be forbidden from remarrying.

JD: I was specifically talking about making ethical judgments because of consequences. I'd be astonished if you don't do so, yourself.

Nothing wrong with making ethical judgments based on consequences, or potential consequences. Everyone from the most extreme lefty to the most rabid righty, probably morally disapproves of people driving drunk because of the potential negative consequences of that behavior.

Having sex with a lot of people, especially if protection isn't used, is risky behavior, for straights as well as gays. You could, sort of, compare that to driving drunk. The deal with religious conservatives is that they're not just opposed to gay men driving drunk. It's that they morally disapprove of gays and lesbians driving at all. Their moral disapproval isn't based on the potential negative consequences. It's not based on reason. It's based on what's in their "holy" book.

The deal with religious conservatives is that they're not just opposed to gay men driving drunk. It's that they morally disapprove of gays and lesbians driving at all.

I don't doubt there are some religious people out there who condemn homosexuality solely on account of their religious book says so.

However, there are many conservatives who, by definition, are bound to be suspicious of revolutionary change in major social institution, because doing so ignores a society's embedded knowledge, and therefore runs the risk of unintended consequences.

In Western society, the only one we need care about here, the reasons marriage exists in the first place are strategic (which has fallen by the wayside in favor of companionate marriage), the protection of the property rights of women and children, and civilizing men by binding them to women and children.

Note well those last words: rapid changes in our society, all justified as freedom of choice, have practically destroyed the ethical disapproval illegitimacy and abandonment.

Anyone want to say that has been good for society?

I'm not saying that allowing gays to marry will result in societal disaster, but then, unlike progressives, I don't claim to know everything.

If it was up to me, I would restrict the privileges of marriage to those who have children, regardless of sexual orientation -- it is in society's interests to greatly restrict access to the institution and to ensure that the incentives are great enough to help women insist upon it.

Society has a de facto interest in children raised in sound families.

It has no institutional interest whatsoever in childless couples, regardless of orientation.

Oh, Jeff Guinn...

Society very much has an institutional interest in childless couples. Think of it like the buddy system when you used to go on a field trip for school. It's really simple. If you've got two people watching out for each other, society has to do a whole lot less work watching out for individuals. A wife taking care of her invalid husband, instead of a state-run hospital. A husband loses his job, but doesn't have to go on welfare because his wife has a job. A husband who can make medical decisions for his husband instead of 50 bureaucrats having to process 75 different forms.

And by the way, you're idea of restricting marriage to those who have children, that is a severely revolutionary change in a major social institution. But I bet that guy who raped my daughter would make a great son-in-law. (Hypothetically, I don't have a daughter...)

And by the way, you're idea of restricting marriage to those who have children, that is a severely revolutionary change in a major social institution.

No, it isn't.

Within my lifetime, and I'm only 58, virtually all women got married, and, except where physical reasons intruded, all married women had children.

I would simply require what, except for the last few decades, has always been the case.

Society very much has an institutional interest in childless couples.

No, it doesn't. If all couples were childless, the society would be dead within 50 years. If all women raised children on their own, the society would probably kill itself before then.

Congratulations, Jeff Guinn, as with your promiscuity argument, you've provided another argument in favor of gay marriage. Folks say that they don't want to change "the definition of marriage," but if what you say is correct, it's already changed. In your utopian view of the 1950s women were basically just breeding stock, and nowadays, we see women as actual human partners in marriages.

Oh, and I think you may be misunderstanding how allowing gays to get married would work; straight people would still be allowed to get married too.

I don't doubt there are some religious people out there who condemn homosexuality solely on account of their religious book says so.

Some?

What I find interesting is that, as heinous as religious conservatives think homosexuality is, it wasn't heinous enough to warrant a spot in their Ten Commandments. On the other hand, what sexual behavior did warrant a spot? Adultery. Yet religious conservatives get far more hot and bothered about two people of the same sex kissing than people fucking around on their spouses and you don't hear them clamoring to "defend marriage" against people who are cheaters.

However, there are many conservatives who, by definition, are bound to be suspicious of revolutionary change in major social institution...

I won't disagree with you there. I highly doubt it was conservatives who were leading the fight for abolishing slavery or giving women the right to vote or allowing interracial marriage.

If it was up to me, I would restrict the privileges of marriage to those who have children,...

So they would have to have children -- and, therefore, presumably sex -- before marriage in order to qualify for marriage?

[clinky:] Congratulations, Jeff Guinn, as with your promiscuity argument, you've provided another argument in favor of gay marriage.

A valid point, if in fact I was talking about gay marriage.

But I wasn't.

In your utopian view of the 1950s women were basically just breeding stock ...

What I described was reality as it existed. Please try a little harder to stay on the page.

So they would have to have children -- and, therefore, presumably sex -- before marriage in order to qualify for marriage?

I wasn't aware the gays were prohibited from adopting, or surrogate pregnancies.

I highly doubt it was conservatives who were leading the fight for abolishing slavery or giving women the right to vote or allowing interracial marriage.

I highly doubt it was conservatives who were leading the fight for a lifetime entitlement to welfare, either.

Be a little less selective when considering the track record of "progressives."