[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] Dueck Dissected
Dec. 11th, 2004 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldIt's suiting that, on the page after Lorna Dueck's article "Why? It's the family stupid?" on page A23 of the Friday issue of The Globe and Mail, Michael Kesterston in the "Social Studies" miscellany on the main section's back page summarizes Thomas Gruter's arguments, in a recent issue of Scientific American, about the necessary elements of conspiracy theories.
Recently, Pearsall Helms has written about the ways in which American Christian and Middle Eastern Muslim conservatives have reacted to the intrusion of an unsettling modernity--particularly, Helms suggests, people from the lower-middle classes of their respective societies, people who are trying against great odds to achieve some measure of success in the face of a threatening and alien modernity. Their response is to try to construct an alternative vision of modernity, one founded on religious principles and marked by the sentiment that they are under attack by people form the outside, people who have been compromised fatally by their interest in foreign ideologies and cultures, people who lack the same profound attachment to tradition as themselves, people who are fundamentally dishonest in a conspiratorial method. Canada's not American, of course, but there is more than enough American influence on Canadian religion to give Helms' observation some measure of credibility in the case of Dueck and her article.
There are a fair number of interesting passages in her article. For instance, the opening:
Well, at least she's not condemning him for being a Jewish corruptor of youth.
As the article continues, she makes it fairly clear that she has a very specific and exclusive definition of "family," and of family-related issues. For instance, towards the end, she argues that
Apart from conflating a variety of unrelated social and economic issues (childhood poverty, low family incomes, criminal law, national daycare) which are, in fact, receiving significant attention from the mass media and the general Canadian public, Dueck assumes that the attention being paid to the issue of same-sex marriage deprives other issues related to the family--or at least seemingly more closely related to her traditional definition of the family--of like attention. That's a dubious proposition, not least because of its implicit opposition of same-sex marriage to the issue of family generally (as opposed to what she defines as family). Just to make it clear what she's about, she tosses in some completely unrelated issues.
It's interesting to note that Ms. Dueck apparently shares the beliefs of Islam regarding the impermissibility of adoption, and unsurprising that she doesn't mention other methods (open adoption, say, or surrogacy). I suspect that she'd be no more receptive to the idea of a same-sex couple adopting a child under terms which would allow the child's mother to visit frequently than she would be to a closed adoption. You see, that would threaten the traditional model of the Canadian family being threatened, presumably by non-traditional foreign models. Or something.
She then goes on to talk about how the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms refers to God, and then talks about how she chatted with Preston Manning who said that the Supreme Court ruling threatened to cut off the living tree of Canadian constitutional law off from its roots in Judeo-Christian ethics, since presumably (though perhaps not the signers of the Charter) the founders of the Dominion of Canada wouldn't even have conceived of same-sex marriage. Apart from the question "whose God?" (if the God in question is Quetzilopochti, I will look forward to the televised spectacles of the ritual sacrifices of convicted criminals on Parliament Hill), constitutional law is dynamic. For instance, since 1929, Canadian women have been able to serve as Senators thanks to the decision of the Privy Council in London, despite centuries of prior tacit agreement that no woman would ever seek to escape her natural position as a non-political animal.
Arguments from tradition are notoriously weak. I'd like opponents of same-sex marriage to come up with stronger ones, if only because arguments founded on good strong principles would be fun to analyze and take apart. I'd like to be able to take Ms. Dueck seriously, I really would.
I don't think that I would ever be able to, though. Just one page column over, Rick Salutin in his column makes an observation of his own:
Salutin's suggestion makes as much sense as anything else I've heard.
- Doubt that anything in the world happens by chance.
- Take seemingly unrelated events and give them a new meaning.
- Name an enemy.
- Expose evil intentions, the more common the better.
- Discredit authorities, politicians and officials as stupid or as being paid by the enemy.
- Establish a club of perpetrators and cite it as proof of your theory.
- Shield yourself from detractors.
- Issue warnings of looming evil acts.
- Call for people to be alert and for financial contributions.
Recently, Pearsall Helms has written about the ways in which American Christian and Middle Eastern Muslim conservatives have reacted to the intrusion of an unsettling modernity--particularly, Helms suggests, people from the lower-middle classes of their respective societies, people who are trying against great odds to achieve some measure of success in the face of a threatening and alien modernity. Their response is to try to construct an alternative vision of modernity, one founded on religious principles and marked by the sentiment that they are under attack by people form the outside, people who have been compromised fatally by their interest in foreign ideologies and cultures, people who lack the same profound attachment to tradition as themselves, people who are fundamentally dishonest in a conspiratorial method. Canada's not American, of course, but there is more than enough American influence on Canadian religion to give Helms' observation some measure of credibility in the case of Dueck and her article.
There are a fair number of interesting passages in her article. For instance, the opening:
Justice Minister Irwin Cotler is a brave man.
Universal moral law is his battleground, and he's eager to defeat its boundaries with boldness and speed.
Well, at least she's not condemning him for being a Jewish corruptor of youth.
As the article continues, she makes it fairly clear that she has a very specific and exclusive definition of "family," and of family-related issues. For instance, towards the end, she argues that
There are enormous issues affecting the family in Canada, yet these issues never seem to make the headway this individual rights issue has. Children in poverty, the increase in single-mother usage of food banks, disabled children's right to treatment, the 65-percent rise in the number of children entering foster care, the growth in the number of grandparents having long-term care of their grandchildren, the child-porn bill stuck in legislative limbo, deliberations on national daycare--all point to great vulnerability for our family structures. They are issues we're loathe to see take a back seat to political wrangling over gay marriage.
Apart from conflating a variety of unrelated social and economic issues (childhood poverty, low family incomes, criminal law, national daycare) which are, in fact, receiving significant attention from the mass media and the general Canadian public, Dueck assumes that the attention being paid to the issue of same-sex marriage deprives other issues related to the family--or at least seemingly more closely related to her traditional definition of the family--of like attention. That's a dubious proposition, not least because of its implicit opposition of same-sex marriage to the issue of family generally (as opposed to what she defines as family). Just to make it clear what she's about, she tosses in some completely unrelated issues.
Some of the objections to the morality of redefining marriage is because of the enormous puzzle it presents to our social fabric. Do children have the right to know their biological origins or do we create a new type of Canadian who has to be content with being a product of donation into a fertility pool?
It's interesting to note that Ms. Dueck apparently shares the beliefs of Islam regarding the impermissibility of adoption, and unsurprising that she doesn't mention other methods (open adoption, say, or surrogacy). I suspect that she'd be no more receptive to the idea of a same-sex couple adopting a child under terms which would allow the child's mother to visit frequently than she would be to a closed adoption. You see, that would threaten the traditional model of the Canadian family being threatened, presumably by non-traditional foreign models. Or something.
She then goes on to talk about how the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms refers to God, and then talks about how she chatted with Preston Manning who said that the Supreme Court ruling threatened to cut off the living tree of Canadian constitutional law off from its roots in Judeo-Christian ethics, since presumably (though perhaps not the signers of the Charter) the founders of the Dominion of Canada wouldn't even have conceived of same-sex marriage. Apart from the question "whose God?" (if the God in question is Quetzilopochti, I will look forward to the televised spectacles of the ritual sacrifices of convicted criminals on Parliament Hill), constitutional law is dynamic. For instance, since 1929, Canadian women have been able to serve as Senators thanks to the decision of the Privy Council in London, despite centuries of prior tacit agreement that no woman would ever seek to escape her natural position as a non-political animal.
[T]he five men of the Privy Council decided, "the exclusion of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours. And to those who would ask why the word 'person' should include females, the obvious answer is, why should it not?"
Arguments from tradition are notoriously weak. I'd like opponents of same-sex marriage to come up with stronger ones, if only because arguments founded on good strong principles would be fun to analyze and take apart. I'd like to be able to take Ms. Dueck seriously, I really would.
I don't think that I would ever be able to, though. Just one page column over, Rick Salutin in his column makes an observation of his own:
[I]n an interview by CTV's Mike Duffy with Charles McVety of Canada Christian College[,] Mike asked why it should bother him if someone down the street married a person of the same sex. Are you married? asked the minister. To a woman? shot back Dr. McVety. Mike seemed startled but said yes--with two kids. You'll have to redefine all that, said Dr. McVety starkly, seeming to imply this is a zero-sum game, not a case of win-win. What others gain is deducted from what you have, as if sense of self is a scarce, diminishing resource among us. For years, disadvantaged groups like Jews, blacks or aboriginals chose this route, fiercely affirming a unique self-affirmation when much else was lacking. Perhaps in our globalized, downsized, terrorized era, when everyone is expected to cut back, many others are driven to their unique sense of self as a source of solace--and then feel they are being told to share that out too!
Salutin's suggestion makes as much sense as anything else I've heard.
