Gay Marriage, Pedophilia and the Overton Window

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges legalized gay marriage in all 50 states of the United States and its territories. It was a controversial decision with supporters of gay marriage celebrating it as the civil rights victory of our time.  Critics cited it as another example of judicial overreach and legislation by judicial fiat.

I found the fight for gay marriage ironic.  Marriage rates have been in decline for some time while divorce, with the corresponding decline in living standards, is becoming more prevalent.  A gay person demanding the right to marry seems like demanding the right to board the Titanic while it's sinking.

The remarkable issue is that the case illustrates how powerful framing is as a means to persuade and influence groups or populations.  When marriage is framed (or defined, if you will) as a legal union between a man and a woman then gay marriage is an absurd idea. However, when gay marriage was reframed as a civil rights issue, public support for it sky-rocketed.  The reframe also allowed supporters of gay marriage to label the opposition as bigots or relics from a more prejudiced past.  Today's cultural meme equates support for civil rights to being a good person, ergo, opposition to civil rights means that you aren't.  Since opposition to gay marriage came from conservative sectors of the American public, it's conservatives enduring the vitriol from gay marriage supporters.

What is Conservatism?

I regard myself as a conservative in the classical sense, which differs from modern conservatives somewhat.  Edmund Burke would probably be the best source of what it means to be conservative.

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue. 

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. 

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

Being mindful of consequences of our actions is what it means to be conservative.  Practicing restraint is key to this.  We do not advocate a course of action until we consider and manage the consequences of the action.  We can't simply have the right to do anything that we want because our actions have an effect on others.  In other words, rights should be granted based on our ability and need to fulfill our obligations.  It's freedom to do what we must, not what we desire.  From a moral perspective, one cannot argue that he has a right to do something unless he is duty-bound to accept the consequences of his actions--not society, but him alone.

But gay marriage isn't harming anybody, right?  

Wouldn't it actually be immoral to deny this right to them?

I'm glad you asked.

Being a conservative means that I don't want somebody to be tearing down barriers without knowing why they were put up in the first place.  There could have been a very good reason.  Yes, those barriers can place a limitation on us, but liberty can have no virtue without restraint and the lack of such restraint can have unforeseen consequences. This idea of restraint doesn't seem to occur to liberals and progressives.  As far as they're concerned, if they want to do something that isn't permitted, they declare it a right and use the assertion to push for legislation or a court case to strike down the barrier.  As far as a liberal is concerned, any costs that are associated with the newly acquired rights are expected to be born by society for the sake of compassion.

 The importance of strong and intact families to a culture has been known since the time of the ancient Greeks--or even Confucious for that matter.  So we should ask ourselves what impact gay marriage has to families? Today's opposition to same sex relationships are deeply rooted in Christianity and Judaism.  So pursuit of homosexual relationships in these cultures tended to happen in the shadows while the people involved still lived normal lives within a traditional nuclear family.  However, it's interesting to note that in societies that were more tolerant of homosexual relationships such as the ancient Greeks, men and women were still required to take on a spouse of the opposite sex and raise a family.  Something about the traditional nuclear family was considered either desirable or essential to a culture.

Most assuredly, the idea of such families consisting of two parents of the same sex would be considered an absurd idea to these cultures.  So why is it considered so acceptable now?

The Overton Window

The Overton Window describes a range of ideas or concepts that the public is willing to accept.  Such ideas are often reflected in public opinion polls and a politician uses this knowledge to promote policies that are likely to achieve a broad consensus and increase his likelihood of remaining in public office.  Proposing or advocating for ideas outside of the Overton Window tends to be met with controversy and could be damaging to his political career because the public would consider him too extreme or on the fringes.

The Overton Window isn't static and can be quite dynamic.  We can imagine that economic or global factors can influence peoples tolerance to ideas so the Overton Window can shift or change size over time.   Current events can even shape the Overton Window.  Do you think the American public would have been as tolerant of invading Afghanistan or Iraq if the 9/11 terror attacks never happened?  How tolerant would you think the public would be towards entitlement benefits during an economic recession?

Considering that the Overton Window can vary, a lot of effort from extremists on both sides are invested into shifting the window so that their ideas are included as acceptable and not fringe.  We can see this in any contemporary discussion in America.  People that support abortion rights are rightly suspicious that a partial birth abortion ban may one day lead to an outright ban of abortion across the board if given enough time to shift the Overton Window.  Gun owners can also see an assault weapons ban leading to a ban of all guns.  The rich oppose tax increases because they know that the tax hikes may never stop once they get started.

Social Consensus

Today, most philosophical or political theory is rooted in the idea that social consensus should dictate policy.  This philosophical concept meshes very well with what most people consider democracy to be.  Unfortunately, people have a short memory.  Social consensus enslaved an entire group of people based on the color of their skin.  The institution of slavery was a concept that fit very well within the Overton window for a significant time in America's history, because it achieved broad consensus.  Certainly there were abolitionists during this time period, but they were considered a fringe position.  Social consensus also seems to consider female circumcision to be acceptable in some areas of the world.  It should be obvious that social consensus may sound nice if you're in the majority, but if your not, it can be a living hell.  The problem with social consensus is that it lacks morality. I often get criticized for making slippery slope arguments, but the slippery slope is real, and the mechanism for it is the Overton Window.

So what does the Overton Window have to do with gay marriage?  Quite a bit.  Proponents of gay marriage have spent the last couple of decades raising awareness, advocating for it and effectively shifting the window to a point where gay marriage as an institution is considered acceptable.  However, it's important to note that for gay marriage to even become a possibility, the whole institution of marriage needed to be debased and stripped of any meaning or social function.

The Debasement of Marriage

Marriage as institution was used for creating and raising families.  It created a sense of stability in society because the commitment was intended to be until death of one of the spouses.  Divorce wasn't unheard of, but it was rare and only granted under extenuating circumstances.  The only other way to get out of a marriage was to literally abandon it but it would be a horrendous ordeal for anybody who did so.  Problems within the marriage were often resolved locally or through the extended family.  For the most part, this description reflected the idea of marriage in America prior to World War II.

Then changes were made.  The Overton window was widened by allowing more exceptions to justify divorce.  The government got involved making divorce extremely easy to get, and even enabled it with lucrative divorce settlements.  Cultural revolutions deemed other types of relationships such as cohabitation and one night stands as acceptable.  Feminist influences even succeeded in framing marriage as a patriarchal institution that oppressed women and encouraged women to sow their wild oats like men (allegedly) did.  Women started having children out of wedlock, and so on.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Certainly, the people who pushed such changes in marriage didn't have much of a clue that it would eventually lead to gay marriage.  There may have been people who predicted our social problems when we started tinkering with such a prized institution, but they were shouted down or ignored by the social consensus of the day.

So should we let the gays marry anyway?  Marriage has been made so dysfunctional that they can't make it any worse.  It's not much of our business now anyway, right?

Au Contraire!

Remember the slippery slope.  Remember that there are people still wanting to move the Overton Window to even more extreme positions and since we legalized gay marriage, we've made it easier for them to succeed.

Polygamy

It's not much of a logical leap to predict that legalizing polygamy may be the next lifestyle choice to be legalized and gain the blessings of our liberal overlords on the same grounds that we used to justify gay marriage.  For one thing, the lifestyle is already being practiced.  We simply call it different names depending on context: open marriage, swinging, serial monogamy, serial dating, hooking up, polyamory etc.  Polygamy is technically illegal in the USA but rebranding it has effectively neutered laws against it.

Polygamy is also a lifestyle that is prevalent in the gay community.  It's a topic that is frequently discussed in literature that study gay relationships.

“An important difference between gay men and heterosexuals is that the majority of gay men in committed relationships are not monogamous. Some of these men are polyamorous.… Monogamy is a morally neutral subject within the gay male community” (Bettinger, 2006).Bettinger, M. (2006). Polyamory and gay men: a family systems approach. In Bigner, J.J. (ed.), An Introduction to GLBT Family Studies. New York: Hawthorne Press

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...Nor does polygamy seem to be condemned within the gay community:

“a distinctive feature of relationship [advice books] for gay men is the presentation of (non-) monogamy as a matter of choice and negotiation… Manuals for gay men usually contribute significant space to the question of non-monogamy…” (Klesse, 2007).Klesse, C. (2007). ‘How to be a Happy Homosexual?!’ Non-monogamy and Governmentality in Relationship Manuals for Gay Men in the 1980s and 1990s.The Sociological Review, 55(3), 571-591.

It's not unreasonable to suggest that since gays can legally participate in the institution of marriage (such as it is) they will start importing their values into the institution--values like polygamy.  What will this do to the children involved?  They certainly are unable to conceive their own, so they will need to adopt.  Are we, as a society, willing to allow children to be exposed to such an environment?  What effects will this have on their development?  Since, they are raised in an environment where polygamy is normal, how will this effect their relationships with the opposite sex? 

So how long do you think it would take once polygamy gains ground in gay marriages for heterosexual marriages wanting to participate in polygamy?  Attempts to do this in the free love counterculture in the 60's ended in disaster.  Remember those communes where everybody could have sex with anybody else? They eventually devolved into a couple alpha males monopolizing all the attention of the ladies in the commune.  Great for the alphas, but sucks for everyone else.  Now take that experience and scale it up by a factor of a million. That's the worse case scenario.

But hey, love is all that matters, right?  It's human nature, right?  Other cultures, now and in the past, have practiced polygamy so why not us?  This is just like how everybody rationalized gay marriage.  So why not nudge that Overton Window a little further to the left and  move us further down the slippery slope.  The legalization of polygamy is already being discussed in some circles it's simply being rebranded as polyamory. I have a feeling that many people that advocated for gay marriage would have a problem if their spouses started insisting on bringing other partners into the marriage like gay and lesbian marriages might.  But in another couple of decades it'll seem normal and nobody would care.  But it would be naive to assume that it won't have an impact on the next generation and a lot of it will not be good.

 Pedophilia

Pedophilia can also be legalized on the same grounds that gay marriage was.  I'm pretty sure that "love" is a factor there too.  Advocates can also cite cultures that have practiced pedophilia (aka: child brides).  People that are sexually attracted to children were born with this orientation--it's not their fault.  While most of us would balk at adults having sexual relationships with toddlers, the marriage age in some jurisdictions is only 16 years.  It wouldn't harm anybody to lower it to 14 years, would it?  What's a couple of years.  Heck, puberty starts even earlier than that.

And we move the Overton Window a little more and slide down the slippery slope even further.

That's preposterous! you say?

Can't happen here! you say?

Nobody would take legalizing pedophilia seriously!  you say?

I hate to break this to you, but it's already under discussion.  You might want to pull your head out of your echo chamber and look around.  According to this article in USA Today the question of whether or not sex with minors is actually harmful to the minor has been under discussion by some scholars since at least 2002! 

They suggest that the age of majority being 18 is a rather arbitrary distinction and ignores biology.  Biological determinism suggests that a person is ready to conceive children shortly after puberty.  Currently, the onset of puberty can occur as early as 9 years of age. So who are we to say that teenagers having sex with adults is harmful to them as long as they consent?  Are they being abused simply because we call it child abuse. Much of it is a semantic argument about where we draw the line, but then again, so was marriage and the Supreme Court ruled that the classical definition of marriage was unconstitutional.

Pedophiles are already getting their day in the limelight with some people coming forward to seriously discuss the issue. Consider an article in Salon: I'm a Pedophile, But Not a Monster by Todd Nickerson.  Nickerson makes it a point to state that he hasn't committed pedophilia (yet), but admits that he is sexually attracted to children and denies that any traumatic events in his childhood made him this way.  As far as he's concerned he was born this way.

Gay people make the claim that they were born this way also.  They also deny that any trauma has made them this way.  Yet, the successfully argued that to be excluded from the institution of marriage was unjust.

I haven't seen The New York Times advocate for pedophilia rights yet, but they recently published this editorial about encouraging parents to let underage girls wear sexy costumes for Halloween.
If we are to be mindful of consequences then pushing parents into letting girls wear sexy costumes for Halloween, while preaching tolerance for pedophiles, seems to be a disaster in the making.

Yes, It Can Happen Here!

This outcome strikes me as entirely predictable.

These articles didn't come from the dark reaches of the blogosphere.  They came from USA Today, New York Times and Salon, the modern-day bastions of the liberal left!  If conservative opposition to gay marriage made us intolerable bigots, then where does lending voice, ear and comfort to pedophilia rate on your moral scale?  It's easy to mock a conservative's intolerance.  It has made people like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher and John Oliver very rich men.  But all this talk about about pedophilia, gay marriage and sexualizing our under-aged children is coming from the left.  Conservatives don't talk about this crap.  Liberals do! 

Let this discussion marinate a few decades and then we'll see the media report on pedophilia being an "emerging new trend" or "a lifestyle that is growing in popularity".  Well see glossy magazine covers of adults embracing children with captions saying "Don't judge our Love!". I can already see carefully scripted debates and interviews with "experts" advocating for it while condemning those who oppose it as intolerant old fogies.  Social consensus changes and The Overton Window shifts. Very quickly laws against pedophilia will be challenged in court and struck down, eventually making it to the United States Supreme Court where they will have to strike down laws against pedophilia as unconstitutional because of the precedent established by Obergefell v. Hodges...And it's all because of the Overton Window.  Your guess will be as good as mine in regards to what family units will look like and what this will do to the children involved.  That is until we can grow a moral spine and enact some moral principles into law.