Today I got the chance to listen to a lecture by Chai Feldblum, a professor at Georgetown Law School. The lecture was geared primarily to addressing the need to restructure the political debate on sexual orientation in terms of moral discourse. I'll summarize the lecture's critical points:
1. Moral bracketing is the current method for addressing issues of homosexuality in political discourse. An example of moral bracketing is a religious person who is opposed to homosexuality on religious grounds, brackets that belief to allow for the law to provide some protection for homosexuals.
2. Solely relying on moral bracketing weakens the moral arguments that the homosexual community currently has access to. Relying just on an argument that government should stay out of the bedroom, prevents arguing about the actual moral issues.
3. Gender or sexual orientation is a morally neutral, while lack of gender equity is morally bad.
4. The moral argument is then restructured so the debate is focused on the morality of pleasure, the morality of tolerance, the morality of behavior and the morality of government imposing religious ideology (if religious grounds are the only reason you have for abhorring a behavior, then the imposition of penalties for that behavior is an unconstitutional establishment of religion by the State).
I went and checked out the Morals Value Project website and I was hoping for more information, but the project was only introduced officially about a month ago. I will be interested to see how it develops. The website does have some good information on federally mandated abstinence only sex education policies, but that is for another day.
I listened to the lecture and tried to restructure the arguments in a Mormon setting. Obviously when discussing morality within a religion, you don't have the secular constitutional arguments, but I like Professor Feldblum's idea of not seceding the moral high ground so easily. Mormon doctrine is so filled with contradictory messages about sexuality that it fucks up or unfucks anyone who comes in contact with it. Yet, a discussion of ethics and morality relating to sex has relevance, regardless of past, present or future religious affiliations or sexual orientations.
My very first post on this blog was just the kind of moral discussion that I think Professor Feldblum has in mind. What is moral when it comes to sex? What is ethical? What causes harm? What creates pleasure? What creates joy?
4 comments:
Hey, T.,
Moral bracketing sounds like a narrower application of the media propaganda issue of framing -- as in how a debate is framed and what viewpoints on the spectrum are per se excluded as "unreasonable."
What it sounds like he is saying, more simply, is that we (secularists, GLBT allies, etc.) have let them frame the debate in terms that presume their worldview, and let them arrogate the term "morality" solely to themselves.
The solution is to go on the counter-attack, reframing the issue as an issue of enforcement of religious morality vs. protection of individual rights and separation of church and state.
Not a new idea by any means, and one I pound on a regular basis in terms of resistance to the dominant ideological paradigm, but it is a good point to bring up, if a little esoterically done.
And it's a particularly important point, given the lame apologetic stance establishment "liberals" have taken in response to conservative demonization and triumphalism, that letting religionists claim the moral high ground, as you say, cedes the highest ground on the field of battle before the battle begins.
Karl Rove is a bastard and propagandist of the worst sort. BUT, he is right about one thing. When you are attacking a strong opponent, you do not focus your attack at his weakness; you focus on his strength. Or his claimed strength.
Dishonorable opponents (people who will argue disingenuously and unreasonably) will never fight a fair political battle, and fighting defensively can only encourage such an enemy. You have to turn it around, take the moral high ground, and show where religionists fall into fallacy, deceit and hypocrisy, thereby withering their strength (i.e. the supposed moral high ground) at the root.
By the way, thanks for the comments on my blog! I'm slowly reading through your stuff, but I thought I'd give you a big right-on on your author list. Any man who considers such authors as Chomsky, Zinn, Vonnegut, Huxley, Orwell and Kafka in his favorite reading list has already got an A in my book. (Any woman? An A+.)
Just out of curiosity, have you read What's the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank?
Cheers to you from a fellow newbie to Outer Blogness!
At least on the subject of gay marriage, I think the primary moral question is the fact that it is selfish and wrong for the majority to deny civil rights to a minority.
I haven't talked about this issue much (yet) on my blog, however there's been some good discussion over on Hello Waffles:
Put your money where your mouth is
The subjunctive
As for sexual expression in general, it can be good or bad. It is harmful when irresponsible or involves coersion, otherwise it is often good.
As I've argued before, I think encouraging positive, responisble sexual expression is a good way to decrease harmful sexual expression. Also I think lust is "the virtuous vice" in that sex is one pleasure you can treat yourself to without sqandering scarce resources.
Who really gives a shit who anyone is fucking. For that matter why do we promote such a victorian view of sex in America. Sex is only good if it is in a monogomous, heterosexual, marriage sanctioned union? PLEASE! I have enjoyed sex with both genders and my orgasmic experience had no effect on anyone else. Although, maybe the screams of delight could be construed as disturbing the peace. Morality legislation is destined to lead us back to the time when free-thinking women were considered to be witches and birth marks were signs of the devil!! :)
Gluby,
Actually Professor Feldblum is a female -- just thought I'd clarify that point. Your analysis of my synopsis is right on, however. I should have spent more time studying propoganda techniques, but she is definitely advocating a counter attack.
The need is obviously present within the national political discourse, but I'm most intrigued by the possibility of formulating moral arguments in the context of the religion and out of the religious doctrine -- maybe because I'm a subversive and a heretic at heart. I tire of the traditional anti-Mormon rhetoric, because it attacks from the outside and cedes a perceived moral high ground to those in the religion (at least from their perspective).
Avoiding a "lame apologetic stance" on whatever issue one is arguing, makes the argument a hell of a lot more exciting and a lot more passionate.
Rather than just speak theoretically, I would apply Karl Rove's theory to the church, an obvious weak point that is perceived as a strength is the church's elevation of the family. Forget Native American DNA and focus on the pain and agony in families created by the "Families are Forever" religion's doctrine. You address this with your wife in your blog and so does Sister Mary Lisa on her blog at : http://sistermarylisa.blogspot.com/
The moral argument is that familial bonds should be fostered and strengthened and that Mormon practice, if not the doctrine, weakens family bonds. I know there are countless others, but that argument is simple and effective one.
Carol Lynn Pearson (although she seems to still be operating within the Mormon universe) is one of the most effective at making this argument in terms of homosexuals inside the religion. Her stance creates the electrical currents in an active Mormon's brain to short circuit. Paradox is a bitch.
I haven't read What is the Matter with Kansas? yet, but I have heard about it. I'm currently reading two books by Christopher Hitchens right now and I bet you would like his stuff, given your adoration of some of my other favorite authors.
I'm glad to already have found some kindred spirits here in the one, true Blogosphere.
Thanks for your well thought out comments, Gluby.
And c.l.,
I haven't had a chance to get over to Hello Waffles, but will do so and see what they had been saying. You are exactly right in stating that sexual expression in general is morally neutral.
In your comment you said, " lust is 'the virtuous vice'" and I think this is exactly the direction a post-Mormon erotic blog needs to go, although I would change the phraseology and argue that lust is the natural imperative driving a morality of pleasure. The experience of pleasure should be a moral virtue that we demand.
Thanks c.l. and here is to the morality of pleasure.
Finally, just one of many:
My smart ass response is I don't care who anyone is fucking as long as I get to watch, but in a more serious vein, a lot of people seem to care about not only who you are fucking, but how. Sodomy (gender doesn't matter) is still a crime in Utah. Dildo's are illegal in Texas. You have to make the political arguments or you surrender ground that was won by free thinking women (and men).
You did illustrate one weakness in the liberal point of view and that is the attempt to separate morals from the law. Morality is legislated daily. Our entire criminal code is based on a secular/religious legislated morality. When you are tricked into saying all "moral legislation" is bad, you've denied yourself the right to demand as a citizen, legislation that codifies the morality of equality or the morality of pleasure.
Thanks for joining in the discussion, "just one of many."
Thank you all, and I hope we can continue this dialogue -- I find it invigorating for myself and it helps me clarify my own position.
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