Obama Comes Out - Romney Hides Out -UPDATE

President Obama came out in favor of same sex marriage.  Good for him.  Mitt Romney, on the other hand, said he doesn’t support same sex marriage.  When asked why he doesn’t support same sex marriage, he repeated the oft stated “I believe marriage is between one man and one woman.”

I know I am repeating myself, but I feel compelled to point out, once again, that “I believe marriage is between one man and one woman” is neither an argument nor a reason – it’s a statement of preference.  At best it is a statement indicating an unusually strong commitment to an unexamined Platonic “form.”

Consider the interpretive options for this statement.  First, the proposition “marriage is between one man and one woman” is the relevant assertion - anyone who makes this statement can be assumed to believe it.

But what does someone who asserts “marriage is between one man and one woman” believe?  As a statement of fact, the proposition is demonstrably false.  There are thousands of legally valid same-sex marriages in existence in numerous countries, including the United States.  There are also many legally valid polygamous marriages in various parts of the world.   No one in their right mind could be advancing this proposition as a factual assessment of actual legal marriages.

Those familiar with Plato’s theory of the forms might recognize an implicit appeal to the eternal unchanging idea of “marriage.”  Plato believed that each particular thing (is what it is because it) partakes of an eternal “form” or idea.  The form itself is unchanging and complete.  It exists in a realm accessible only to the intellect.

According to Plato, particular men are men because they embody the form “man.”  Embodiment of the form “man” is what distinguishes men from women.  Conversely, particular women are women because they embody the form “woman.”  Embodiment of the form “Woman” is what distinguishes women from men.

In other words, things are what they are because they embody an eternal unchanging “essence” that is common to all things of that type. 

Many opponents of same-sex marriage have something like this in mind when they insist that “marriage is between one man and one woman.”  They are appealing to (what they perceive is) an eternal unchanging idea – an idea defined by God in the process of his creation.  On this theory, same sex marriage is an absurdity because “marriage,” by inalterable definition, is between one man and one woman.

Unfortunately, this is not a proper application of Plato’s epistemology.  For Plato, a form is intellectually grasped through a process known as the “dialectic.”  The dialectic involves an attempt to articulate the essence of a thing, based on what can be observed about particular things of that type, followed by a critique of the articulated essence, followed by a refined articulation of a thing’s essence, etc., until a stable and workable definition emerges.

In other words, Plato would not start with an eternal unchanging definition of “man” and then use it to distinguish particular men from particular women.  Plato would instead examine particular men, in an attempt to isolate what they all shared in common, particularly in contrast to women, and then subject his idea to rational scrutiny so as to refine his idea of “man,” until it provided a stable and workable insight regarding the essence of “man.”

This is precisely what the opponents of “same-sex marriage” refuse to do.  Like Plato, they subscribe to a theory of “forms.”  But unlike Plato, they insist upon a definition of marriage that they will not submit to the dialectic process.  Their invocation of Plato’s theory, to the extent that they realize they are invoking Plato, amounts to their insistence that marriage be defined so as to exclude gays.  They are not trying to grasp the essence of marriage by examining particular marriages.  They are attempting to prevent proposed “gay marriages” from being considered relevant to our understanding of the institution.

This indicates that the proposition “marriage is between one man and one woman” is best translated as “I prefer that marriage be defined as between one man and one woman.”  And this proposition translates fairly straightforwardly to the proposition “I prefer that gays be excluded from the institution of marriage.”

Okay.  Fine.  But then I have to ask, “why do you prefer that gays be excluded from the institution of marriage?”  And it won’t do to simply assert that “marriage is between one man and one woman.”

Joe H.

 UPDATE

This is a pretty fair assessment    of Mitt Romney's response to the revelation that he gang assaulted a weaker boy in high school.



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