UPDATE
Dreadnought whitewashes the Spanish Inquisition as follows: "many of the most outrageous figures claimed, and most of the more gruesome images of torture and stake-burnings, derive from Northern European, Protestant, and Anglo-Saxon propaganda." "The same individuals who would not have hesitated to burn a Catholic for 'Popish superstitions' often also wrote anti-Inquisition propaganda." "The mostly nationalistic Spanish Inquisition was actually put down by Rome". The latter point at least is incorrect. One need look no further than the old Catholic Encyclopedia: "King Joseph Bonaparte abrogated it in 1808, but it was reintroduced by Ferdinand VII in 1814 and approved by Pius VII on certain conditions, among others the abolition of torture. It was definitely abolished by the Revolution of 1820."
Wikipedia has:
"The Inquisition was abolished during the domination of Napoleon and the reign of Joseph I (1808–1812). In 1813, the liberal deputies of the Cortes of Cadiz also obtained its abolition, largely as a result of the Holy Office's condemnation of the popular revolt against French invasion. But the Inquisition was reconstituted when Ferdinand VII recovered the throne on July 1, 1814. It was again abolished during the three year Liberal interlude known as the Trienio liberal. Later, during the period known as the Ominous Decade, the Inquisition was not formally re-established, although, de facto, it returned under the so-called Meetings of Faith, tolerated in the dioceses by King Ferdinand. These had the dubious honour of executing the last heretic condemned, the school teacher Cayetano Ripoll, garroted in Valencia on July 26, 1826 (presumably for having taught deist principles), all amongst a European-wide scandal at the despotic attitude still prevailing in Spain... The Inquisition was definitively abolished on July 15, 1834, by a Royal Decree signed by regent Maria Cristina de Borbona liberal queen, during the minority of Isabel II and with the approval of the President of the Cabinet Francisco Martinez de la Rosa. (It is possible that something similar to the Inquisition acted during the First Carlist War, in the zones dominated by the Carlists, since one of the government measures praised by Conde de Milina Carlos Maria Isidro de Borbon was the re-implementation of the Inquisition to protect the Church)."
As to the death toll: "the Inquisition had burned at the stake 2,000 people and reconciled another 15,000 by 1490 (just one decade after the Inquisition began)." "the annual relations of all processes between 1560 and 1700. This material provides information about 49,092 judgements... only 1.9% of those processed - approximately 933 - were burned at the stake." "the Inquisition was most active in the period between 1480 and 1530, and that during this period the percentage condemned to death was much more significant than in [1560-1700]" "García Cárcel estimates that the total number processed by the Inquisition throughout its history was approximately 150,000. Applying the percentages of executions that appeared in the trials of 1560-1700—about 2%—the approximate total would be about 3,000 put to death. Nevertheless, very probably this total should be raised keeping in mind the data provided by Dedieu and García Cárcel for the tribunals of Toledo and Valencia, respectively. It is likely that the total would be between 3,000 and 5,000 executed. Other documents, discovered in the Vatican Archives in 2004 put the toll of heresy cases tried by the Spanish Inquisition between 1540 and 1700 at 44,647, of which 1.8% (804) led to an execution, while another 1.7% were burned in effigy because they had somehow escaped before the sentence was carried out. However, it is impossible to determine the precision of this total, and owing to the gaps in documentation, it is unlikely that the exact number will ever be known."
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UPDATE:
I see that Dreadnought is up to his libelous smear tactics again, this time against a priest of his own diocese: http://johnheard.blogspot.com/2008/07/dreadclarity-peter-confeggi-priest.html
I see that Australians have perfected the art of fisking Dreadnought and resisting his fascist ideology:
andrewmpotts 02/06/08 7:13PM
Hi John,
Briefly, my response –
“self-appointed activists, on the extreme fringe of the wider community, have hijacked the "gay marriage" debate to manufacture a false sense of grassroots support.”
Your claim in your Herald Sun was that self-appointed activists on the extreme fringe of the gay community had hijacked the debate, not the wider community. This was quite obvious and consistent throughout- if not why was the article titled “Gays don’t want marriage”?
“He then cited, apparently against my contention, the findings of two surveys set-up, paid for, administered and disseminated by "gay marriage" lobby groups.”
One of these, the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby “Not Yet Equal” survey was conducted by the very same people (Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria) who collected the information for the La Trobe “Private Lives” study from which you so often quote and respondents were sought through the same avenues in both cases- how then is one valid and the other corrupted?
“the Sydney Star Observer- a gay rights publication with an avowed "gay marriage" agenda.”
We are not a gay rights publication- we are a CAB audited newspaper serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community in New South Wales and elsewhere. We have published articles and letters from those both for and against the idea of gays getting married- though we do not get nearly as many from those against and very few of those who have written that they see no value in marriage have suggested this is a reason that others should be prevented from marrying as you have.
“His article cannot, therefore, rebut my Herald Sun piece” –
My article rebutted your Herald Sun piece by showing step by step that you had misrepresented the data that your case relied on and that your having next to nothing in common with the majority of gay men and lesbians undermined your credibility in attempting to speak for a supposed silent majority amongst them. It did this quite successfully.
You seem to have a great deal of difficulty understanding this sort of data as you are currently misrepresenting another poll on your blog from the DNA Magazine website which you claim shows, “89% of respondents said that "marriage is not for me”.
In fact that poll (still open) shows that 68% of respondents think marriage is for them, and of the 32% who say it’s not for them 88% (your 89%) said they still supported its legalisation and only 12% said gay marriage should not be legalised.
That you truncated the quote (the full quote from the second set of questions being “marriage is not for be but I believe same sex marriage should be allowed- 89% [now 88%]) suggests something more sinister- that you are willfully and deliberately misleading people.
“My actual statements on transsexuals are, as one would imagine, less about stigma, and denigration, and more about the need for understanding”
Comments you make in responding to readers on your website are as “actual” statements by you as ones you make elsewhere. You twice referred to transgendered people as suffering “serious” mental disorders in that discussion. It is entirely valid for me to quote you.
“The first mainstream article I had published was actually a pro Brokeback Mountain opinion editorial in The Australian and the second was an opinion editorial in the same paper decrying homophobia [defending conservative commentator Alan Jones].”
I never claimed that you would have never published an article in a mainstream publication without latching onto this issue. However I do believe this issue has given you a higher profile than you would have otherwise attained were it already settled, and if gay and lesbian Australians were already equal in all areas of the law, your opinion as a non-practicing gay man on gay issues would be of little interest to a mainstream audience other than as a contrarian oddity.
“In an earlier version of his piece, Potts called me a "Catholic robot"
That article was published on another website where you will also be publishing a reply- how about you deal with what has been written here, here and what has been written there, there?
“Comments elsewhere have suggested that I might be HIV positive (I am not), someone who has experienced child sex abuse at the hands of a priest and enjoyed that abuse (I have not been abused, and the suggestion is highly offensive/insensitive), and/or that I have regularly been seen at sex-on-site venues, picking up male prostitutes (again, untrue).”
I made none of those comments, nor would I make such comments, and have no knowledge of who did. Why bring them up here other than to paint yourself as victim where you have not been so attacked by me or by anyone else on New Matilda? You might also note that when one such suggestion was made in the comments section of the SameSame article I let that person know it was inappropriate.
That being said, when you actively work against the rights and aspirations of the community you claim to belong to, does it surprise you that other members of that community are affronted and offended?
“If I were as isolated and opposed as Potts claims, I’d never get a hearing. I wouldn’t deserve one.”
Many fringe opinions get a hearing in this society- often attaining a novelty value because they are so isolated and opposed- for example you may have seen a father-daughter couple plead for understanding of their incestuous relationship through a range of media not so long ago- if they can get a hearing, I’m quite confident that you as a gay man who doesn’t believe in gay men consummating their relationships can too without being representative of anything other than yourself.
“Certainly it is - to counter Potts’s most earnest claim - difficult to argue that people who oppose "gay marriage" are somehow rare, obscure types”
It is quite difficult to argue that those in the wider Australian community who oppose gay marriage are rare (though they are now a minority- albeit a very large one). Arguing that those who oppose gay marriage are rare in the gay community is not difficult- because they are rare.
Regards,
Andrew M. Potts
johnheard 03/06/08 10:21AM
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to respond to messages here. If readers have any remaining (genuine) questions about my writing, and ideas - or they want to constructively discuss any point further - please send me an email direct.
andrewmpotts 03/06/08 5:34PM
Hi John,
It’s a pity you’re not prepared to take the time to engage with New Matilda readers through the comments section as most other writers for this site choose to do so.
Some might find it interesting to hear you acknowledge your deception in quoting the DNA poll, or hear you explain why the La Trobe study is valid while the VGLRL study is contaminated despite both being conducted by the same people.
Perhaps you’re more interested in obfusciation and painting yourself as a victim than actually answering valid criticisms?
Regards,
Andrew M. Potts
RodneyCruise 03/06/08 9:00PM
John
Andrew Potts provided a well thought out response to your Herald Sun piece. Unfortunately, you have not done similar in response. Generally, your writing is convoluted and lacking in any real substance. You constantly fail to address critical comments but rather attack the writer. When someone questions your use of statistics or polls rather than rationally deal with the criticism you make a comment like:
"Finally, Potts’s interpretation of the findings of the Private Lives report is not convincing. The report is online for anyone to read"
Hardly, a rebuttal!
In one sense I am thankful that you have entered the arena in this debate because in my opinion you will convince less people of your position than you will convert. However, on the other hand I hope you are not given too much oxygen as a so called writer as it can divert attention away from the real issues of equality.
I am happy that you are catholic and love your god. Just please don’t seek to impose your choice on me. I certainly don’t want to impose mine on yours. Yes, that is right, you don’t have to get married if you don’t want too….and I think that is fine! But I DO want to get married and I DO want my son to have his fathers both legally recognised. It wont harm you one iota. So please John, keep your oppression and your religion away from my family.
Regards
Rodney Cruise
andrewmpotts 05/06/08 6:30PM
DNA Magazine have now published a notice on their website alerting readers to Heard’s misuse of their poll data and confirming that his interpretation of what they meant was factually incorrect.
DNA: "We recently ran two polls on the DNA website asking two questions about gay marriage, with the results of both showing a large majority were in favour of gay marriage – for themselves and for society. The polls were run in response to a newspaper article by ‘conservative Catholic gay writer’ John Heard, claiming “ordinary, same sex-attracted Australians” are not behind the push for gay marriage."
"Our polls were then cited by Heard on his blog, with him concluding that 89 per cent of our respondents had said marriage was not for them. Whether he inadvertently or deliberately misinterpreted the results, Heard is mistaken in his analysis of these DNA polls."
"The results showed that 68 per cent of respondents would marry their same-sex partner if they could, while the remaining 32 per cent would not, even if they could.
We then asked only that minority of people who said they would not marry if they could if they supported the idea of gay marriage for others – with 88 per cent saying they supported the idea for others."
(http://www.dnamagazine.com.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=5735&c=51210)
Heard also planned to publish another rebuttal on SameSame.com.au- a gay community website that also published my New Matilda article. He has now declined to do so.
Bren 05/06/08 6:52PM
Which means pretty soon he’ll be disparaging DNA and SameSame as "homoactivist" forums where different points of view (in other words, homocontrarian dogma that bears no resemblance to the hopes, dreams, needs and wants of GLBT Australians) are "silenced". He really is that intellectually shameless. Just wait and watch.
andrewmpotts 05/06/08 8:49PM
Having been made aware of his error, Heard is now claiming on his website that DNA misunderstood their own poll data.
EARLIER UPDATES:
Listening to Dreadnought talking to an enchanted audience on being "eunuchs for the kingdom", I note he is most hard pressed when faced with the question of predominantly gay men marrying women. The doctrine that gays must be eunuchs of course will push many gay men into marriage in search of an approved sexual life as well as an approved social role.
On the Inquisition Dreadnought says that it was a Spanish nationalist phenomenon which the Vatican put a stop to. On the contrary, the Inquisition was REOPENED at the behest of the Vatican after the Spanish Government shut it down in the early 19th century. The Inquisition, notably the Roman Inquisition set up in the Counter-Reformation, was a central pillar of Catholic theology, law, polity, spirituality for seven centuries. Happily, Dreadnought sees it as evil, unlike many other Catholic apologists.
"Insert your penis into a digestive tract" is a phrase that rolls off Dreadnought's tongue again and again, and no one in the audience challenged this phenomenology of homosexual sexual interaction.
"There won't be a gay gene... There isn't a theft gene... if we focus on the act, not the general feeling, I find it implausible". His talk about genes as altering chemical structures shows that he should not be talking about biology at all. In fact it is the orientation, or general feeling, that is the most profound aspect of homosexuality, not the acts to which Dreadnought bizarrely seeks to reduce it. He says God does not make people gay, but only original sin and one's own weakness. He finds no closeness, intimacy, or affective complementarity between gay couples because of the lack of procreation. "It's all about sodomy" he chuckles. "The Church cannot be wrong about human nature. The Church says that homosexuality's psychological genesis remains unexplained but that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, since they close the sexual act to the gift of life and do not preceed from genuine affective complementarity. You can't rationally choose sodomy because it's not good for you. The inclination itself doesn't make sense in what God wants for us. We can't ignore the things that make us fully human." He is awfully sincere, awfully confused, and one feels, poignantly, that he is yet another young victim of undeveloped and abusive church teaching. He charmed his audience to bits. He is on a roll, just like the Ex-gay ministers who have since issued public apologies to their gullible followers, whom they damaged so much; see http://www.beyondexgay.com/artic...e/ busseeapology and http://a_musing.blogspot.com/2008/05/former-ex-gay-leaderinterviwed-on-gcn.html. The latter interview, with Ann Philips, tells of the joy she experienced when she thought she was helping gay people, and how she basked in their love. John Heard is in that phase now.
http://johnheard.blogspot.com/2008/04/dreadtalk-eunuchs-for-kingdom.html
Dreadnought had a piece recently in an Australian newspaper assuring the public that gays don't want to marry. He boasts that his article is the "most discussed", oblivious of the fact that the discussion is mostly a deluge of protest from gay men and particularly women, who claim that they would very much appreciate legal recognition of their relationships. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/comments/0,22023,23687597-5000117,00.html and http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23690162-5007146,00.html. The letters his article provoked do great credit to the common sense and indeed the courtesy of the Australian public.
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Here is a useful corrective of the views of Courage, an organization greatly admired by Dreadnought: http://catholicactionnetwork.org/dec05/documents/CourageFactSheet_001.pdf. Courage may differ from NARTH more than this article suggests, however. Dreadnought has written an eloquent piece on Newman as patron saint of what he calls same-sex attracted Christians: http://johnheard.blogspot.com/2008/05/dreadpublishing-being-heard-john-heard.html. (I understand that Newman was not buried in the same grave as Ambrose St. John, but in a parallel grave; the Oratory ignored his wishes on this. Digging up his bones now for the purposes of piety seems to me in horrendous bad taste.)
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Less happy is a recent sample of Dreadnought discourse: "Plain procreative sex is, in various ways, still good - even if it is neither cerebral nor particularly romantic. The trouble with homogenital acts, however, is that the procreative, the properly conjugal end of the sex organs is subverted. It doesn't matter how much you love your buddy, he's not going to fulfil his telos by virtue of you inserting your penis in his digestive tract." I am surprised that a gay man can write in this wooden way as if he were the most imperceptive of heterosexuals. Indeed, it is hermeneutically quite instructive, since it allows one to hypothesize that some of the many other people who write in this way may also be, in fact, gay. It is surely a weakness in his case for purely celibate gay relations that he has to discuss non-celibate ones in such a denigratory and falsifying fashion.
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Dreadnought's overriding passion would seem not be a sexual one but rather a craving for authority. He drools over the infallibility of the Church's teaching on homosexuality. Yet that teaching is not at all as clear and constant as he imagines. The Church has spoken of the homosexual orientation as distinct from sexual acts only recently -- Persona Humana in 1975 is the earliest document specifically addressing the issue. In the 20th Century the Church valorized sexual love for its unitive value in a way that it had never done before, and now it seems that an irrepressible development in Catholic thinking is extending this valorization to homosexual love as well. This does not please authoritarian personalities, who want the Church to be firm and stiff (so perhaps there is a sexual dimension to their passion after all?).
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I note that Dreadnought (with encouragement from Philip Blosser and Clayton Emmer) has been writing letters to bishops all over the world – with scant regard for their busy schedules – in a bid to have me silenced (so much for Australian commitment to freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, and academic freedom; it is all very reminiscent of D. H. Lawrence’s Kangaroo). Apparently he has started up an entire correspondence with Cardinal George Pell. Here again there is unconscious comedy as Dreadnought expresses horror at receiving replies to his dogmatic utterances: "Yes, replies. Sometimes up to twenty or thirty long comments awaited anyone foolish / charitable enough to attempt to engage Father O'Leary in orthodoxy." I recall that in typical young-fascist style Dreadnought quickly cut off the replies and closed down all debate.
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Heard accuses me denying the resurrection on the basis of my defence of one of John Paul II's favorite theologians' views on the subject. He falsely claims that I talked about his sexual life in a way unbecoming to a priest. What he means, as a link he gives explains, is that I queried the consistency between the louche rooftop photos of “gay dad couchant”, still accessible on his website, and the radical diatribes against “gay” culture that he feeds to his adepts. “The sexual innuendo I mentioned relates to his ad hominem attacks… regarding pictures I’ve posted here of my friend Gay Dad." Even Heard's admirers on Philip Blosser's site found those pictures to be pornography; I do not agree with them, but would rather categorize them as harmless erotica. This is a category alien to Heard -- pictures of naked men must be either works of art or pornography; he has no middle range of sexual perception. He seems to have no sexual categories except "sodomy" in the crude terms he uses above and "chastity" understood as total surrender to an absolute authority. He should attend more to the middle ground of relaxed sexual interest and affection. This is a rather serious scotoma and it explains a lot about the psychology of authoritianism and homophobia.
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In his comments on the US papal visit Dreadnought talks of people who “complain of being ‘burnt out’ by, and /or ‘chewed up and spat out’ of ‘the gay scene’.” Again, in his social vision of homosexuality, Dreadnought knows only two extremes: a totally promiscuous gay scene and a self-flagellating isolation. The vast majority of homosexuals live at neither extreme, but Dreadnought's sociology seems oblivious of their existence. The burn-out people experience from the gay scene could count as an argument for, not against, stable unions, but Dreadnought never addresses this, as if he were unable to understand it. He writes: “While a few homoactivists think that ‘gay marriage’ is a human right, and a most pressing issue, most good people disagree. Instead, the Pope spoke in very powerful terms about the transcendent nature of the human person”. Again two extremes are opposed, and there is no consideration of the possibility that the dignity of the human person is enhanced in the dignity of a loving relationship between two persons. He tells us of “a gay man who has been disenchanted with his church” but who was touched by the Pope: “When he looked at me, it felt like I was part of the church, like we are all part of the church, and that we all are important, no matter who we are.” This is taken to prove “how wrong homoactivists and others are when they claim that the Pope and bishops, those who exercise teaching / pastoral authority in the Catholic Church, are necessarily aloof from the lives of same sex attracted men and women.” Apart from the completely sentimental basis of the argument, this obscures the issue, which is not that of an alleged aloofness. No one would say that the great moral theologian Paul VI was aloof from married men and women. The issue is simpler: a doctrine that is unworkable and damaging in practice. Very patronizingly, indeed rather hilariously, Dreadnought asks us to “note also, the maturation in the Pope’s statements about marriage and the family. Moving from a focus on once-pressing particular threats to the institution, ‘gay marriage’ for instance, the Pope and the Vatican are broadening out the defence of marriage to include much more worrying phenomena, like the increase in non-marital, sexual cohabitation generally.” Well done, Pope Benedict, you are learning fast -- soon you will be as wise as Dreadnought! The Vatican has been thinking about marriage for a thousand years; a further maturation of Vatican discourse on homosexuality is something that might well be desiderated however, and that is slowly but surely taking place.
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MAIN TEXT
At a meeting of the NSW Law Society, Young Lawyers, in Martin Place, Sydney, on February 8, 2008, John Heard, aka Dreadnought, addressed the question: “Is Gay Marriage a Human Rights Issue?” as follows, http://johnheard.blogspot.com :
“It seems ‘gay marriage’ has become a human rights issue, but not because it is a human right. Rather, all this talk might actually harm the progress of human freedom.
“Why? The topic for discussion IS SAME SEX MARRIAGE A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE? Provides us with a quick answer.
“That question mark, right at the end, certainly alerts us to the fact that people are uneasy. No one, not even its loudest advocates and careful, sympathetic bodies like the Young Lawyers, seems to be convinced that ‘gay marriage’ really is a human right.
“That doesn’t go down well.
“Did good people ask Barack Obama, the black US presidential candidate, whether racial equality was a human rights issue? No! Anyone in his or her right mind, listening to the inner voice of conscience and compassion, knows that it is.
“Human rights are irresistible.
“Would the venerable Law Society of NSW have asked the millions who suffered in the past under tyranny and those who continue to cry out today for freedom of association, of religion, for the right to free speech, would anyone dare to ask these people if their precious freedoms are real?
“Absolutely not.
“Human rights are unmistakeable.
“If a vast majority of serious and compassionate people still doubt whether or not ‘gay marriage’ is a human right, then the answer is no. If all the major social institutions, both major political parties and every mainstream religion condemns ‘gay marriage’ then the answer is no. We wouldn’t be up here – G-d forbid – arguing about whether or not anti-Semitism were okay.
“It is not.
“So the fact that we are gathered here today under this banner indicates, right from the start, that no one really believes that ‘gay marriage’ is like racial equality, it is not a human right like freedom of association or free speech. Good people are right to doubt; it is not any kind of human right at all.”
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COMMENT: This argument of John Heard’s is a sophism. Moreover its premise is refuted by the facts of history. Very often things that most people today would regard as unquestionable, evident, irresistible human rights were not so regarded in the distant or even the recent past. The UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights, a postwar document, identifies such rights as freedom of expression, freedom of opinion, freedom from coercion in religion, freedom to propagate one’s religious beliefs. The Catholic Church did not recognize these rights historically, and in fact actively infringed them. Far from being self-evident and above question, these rights were not recognized by the foremost body of moral reflection in the Christian West. Even the right to personal freedom was not recognized, for as late as 1866 the Holy Office taught that slavery is not at all incompatible with natural and divine law (the declaration bears the papal signature). The right of people not to be imprisoned for adult consensual sex is still not recognized by the Catholic Church (Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual People, 1986) and was certainly more than questioned when it came up in legal struggles in Ireland and other countries.
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Since the Catholic Church recognizes the natural right to marriage, it should actually be an easy step to recognize that gays and lesbians have a right to partnerships that allow the human flourishing and constructive living that marriage allows heterosexuals, whether or not these partnerships are called marriage. This right is indeed being established and vindicated at the highest levels of European law and governance at this very time, and a great many Catholics approve of this. For the Vatican there is “no conceivable right” to legal protection of immoral actions, and moreover any equiparation of samesex relationships with marriage is seen as a threat to marriage itself; it is on this basis that a fierce, and largely successful, crusade is being conducted against civil partnership legislation in Italy, while the Spanish bishops are emerging as the foremost political opponents of the Zapatero government; if it falls, they may push for repeal of the gay marriage legislation in Spain. The hierarchical Church in these countries has shown itself willing to cast its lot with anitdemocratic forces or with the likes of Silvio Berlusconi (against the admirable Romano Prodi, perceived as a dangerous liberal).
Who would dare ask those released from oppression ‘if their precious freedoms are real’?, asks Heard. Now of course gays and lesbians who have taken advantage of civil partnership legislation would certainly have no doubt of the reality of the freedom now secured. That “Young Lawyers” in Sydney, probably sympathetic to the idea that gay marriage is a human right, put the idea forward in a dubitative form can hardly be read as a confession that they know it is not a human right. If I had never thought about it and someone asked me, “is there a natural right to marry?” I would hesitate before replying. Rights issues are never the knock-down unquestionable matters that Heard thinks they always are. The Rights of Man secured in the French and American Revolutions were innovative and consested. The Human Rights asserted by the UN were not recognized in the various fascist and communist regimes of the previous decades. To think that everybody knew in their hearts what these rights were is very naïve.
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John Heard continues:
“However, ‘gay marriage’ seems to have become – sadly – a human rights issue.
“Certainly, it distracts us as a community from more urgent problems.
“Because, as we come here today to debate a half-forgotten topic that the vast majority of Australians reject, in a city where Mardi Gras shrinks and HIV/AIDS infections too often rise in a world that faces many serious, pressing challenges, these other problems go untouched.
“What is worse, I’m concerned that by dragging the name of human rights into the midst of the so-called culture wars, ‘gay marriage’ events like this one do nothing to help real human rights advocates.
“The conflict between ‘gay marriage’ and the advancement of human rights is enough to make anyone wonder. Indeed: “it is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if ‘gay marriage’ is not perhaps part of a new ideology…insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man.”
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COMMENT: Sadly, this last quotation comes from John Paul II, whom John Heard calls “Pope John Paul the Great.” JH has developed and propagates a rather disturbing spirituality of total “surrender” to papal authority, and it is this which essentially motivates the “concern” he expresses. Curiously, JH tones down the papal quote, from the book Memory and Identity (2005), based on the Pope’s conversations with philosopher friends in 1993 and later with some of his aides. Restoring the elided words, we get: ‘It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man.” Perhaps JH feared that his legal audience would find the “ideology of evil” a little over the top, a little Bush-like. One may be permitted to feel that, coming from a Pope who in his effort at the “purification of memory” never thought of referring to the Church’s centuries-long role in the torture and execution of those it labelled “Sodomites”, rhetorical flourishes such as these may ring rather hollow.
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Returning to JH’s whataboutery, his blunderbuss technique would consign the vast majority of legal and ethical concerns to the dustbin, in view of more pressing issues. Why should we make such a fuss about our children’s dental hygiene, when there are children dying of hunger in other countries? Such whataboutery can even lead to something worse, the suppression of what are seen as superfluous rights. Why make a fuss about the freedom of the press, or about habeas corpus, when we are engaged in a War on Terror? JH engineers a “conflict” between gay marriage and “the advancement of human rights,” in a dangerous corruption of language, the sort of thing clever lawyers may like but that can be poisonous when taken up by demagogues.
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JH continues:
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“There’s also the bullshit factor. Rather than a debate on the merits of competing ‘climate change’ policies or the plight of the long-suffering first nations and how Australia might apologise to the Stolen Generation, we’ve been gathered instead – and at great cost - to talk about whether or not Elton John can ‘marry’ his boyfriend.”
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COMMENT: The whataboutery here is transparent. The insinuation that if you care about a fancy issue like human rights you must lack concern about more serious matters is a type of argument that has often been used to undercut budding rights movements – as those labelled “Jew-lovers” and “nigger-lovers” in the past know to their cost.
“We can do better.”
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COMMENT: The lofty moral tone struck here is reminiscent of Tony Blair at his most starry-eyed. And we know what obscenities that ushered in. JH plays moral uplift like the banjo and casts his spell on hundreds of idealistic young people, making them feel part of a community, a “we,” that they did not find on the streets of Sydney.
“Today, if we put aside our minor differences and embrace a more humane vision, this becomes a space where peace begins to make sense. Where hope reigns.”
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COMMENT: Who would have guessed that lawyers were prone to such effusions! Agree with me, and we’ll have peace, is what he is really saying. Free debate and calls for legislative innovations are somehow found incompatible with peace and based on false hope.
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“Imagine if [the homoactivist speakers] used their talents to save the lives of same sex attracted men sentenced to hang in Iran?”
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COMMENT: That is not hard to imagine. Those whom JH disparagingly refers to as “homoactivists” have been to the fore in protesting against such atrocities, even at a time when most in the West turned a blind eye to the Taliban stonings of gays. .
“Imagine if Christian conservatives and ‘gay rights’ activists worked together on teen suicide, drug addiction and HIV/AIDS? Imagine, my friends, if all the effort wasted on ‘gay marriage’ were channelled instead into strengthening personal relationships? In ensuring that the ‘gay’ community is no longer a place of ridicule and division, but a true family characterised by compassion, solidarity and hope.”
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COMMENT: The underlying logic of this at first sight meaningless dichotomy is that advocates of gay marriage are seen as encouraging not just stable and deeper personal relationships (as indeed they are, though JH never acknowledges this), but relationships that may include sexual activity of some kind, and of this JH profoundly disapproves. Though himself gay, or as he prefers to say, “same-sex attracted”, JH never speaks of gay sexual expression except in crude accounts of anal intercourse intended to make it ridiculous and repulsive.
“Perhaps then the understandable longing some people feel for acceptance and legal recognition would find a better target than ‘gay marriage’. Real love, not mere tolerance, would be available.”
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COMMENT: Again the dichotomy between “acceptance and legal recognition” and “gay marriage” makes little sense, unless you factor in the idea that gays should be recognized as human beings but physical expression of their sexuality should not. Since the legal recognition is supposed to be a matter of “real love, not mere tolerance”, JH is not talking about decriminalization of homosexual acts, but perhaps some legal arrangements favouring gays who lead chaste lives. For a lawyer, he has been remarkably unsuccessful in making clear what he is referring to.
“After all, human rights belong to people because we’re human beings. Our humanity does not ask for permission, rather it demands recognition and dignity.”
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COMMENT: Again a strange dichotomy. If the law refuses one permission to think, express oneself, and act freely, then one must demand that permission in the very name of recognition of one’s human dignity.
“The question mark over this entire event – organised by a serious and compassionate group like the Law Society of NSW – demonstrates neatly, why ‘gay marriage’ has, unfortunately, and dangerously, become a human rights issue.
“And also why it is not, indeed, a human right.”
COMMENT: This is a mere pirouette, leaving question-marks in abundance hanging in the air over John Heard’s own specious half-argument. There seems to me to be a fundamental lack of seriousness in JH’s preference for flighty soundbites over substantive debate. He regards the debate as already completed in the summary church documents he loves to quote, including Cardinal Grocholewski’s one on gay seminarians (http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/12/vatican_instruc.html) and the recent one by the US Bishops which appears to buy into controverted ideas of homosexuality as a psychological disorder (http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/11/neocaths_and_ga.html). His own contribution is to add distracting flimflam that keeps people from reopening the debate in an adult and serene manner. Certainly JH is “on a roll” and his eloquence and enthusiasm sweeps people along, but he would do well to admit that the issue on which he pronounces are, as Luke Timothy Johnson notes, a quaestio disputata, in which ridicule and caricature of his opponents (which he provokes them into returning in full measure) are not the most helpful way to proceed. (http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/06/quaestio_disput.html)
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UPDATE
John Heard spoke to the Melbourne Catholic Lawyers’ Association on March 11, 2008: http://johnheard.blogspot.com/2008/03/dreadtalk-relationship-registers-what.html. Here are some extracts, with my comments:
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“Marriage and the family, so central to and productive of the culture of life, are threatened by attempts to force ‘gay marriage’ laws, extreme forms of civil union and various sorts of radical relationship registries upon an otherwise apathetic, if not overwhelmingly opposed, general population…
“Catholic lawyers, Catholics and people of good will everywhere, can make a powerful difference.
“Indeed, many times, when homoactivists appeared to have scored some victory or other in the ‘gay marriage’ debate in Australia, quick, decisive and humane activity by various notable and other less obvious leaders, writers, politicians and others of goodwill, helped to raise a groundswell of public awareness…
“Instead of meeting homoactivists and others on a phoney playing field where the terms of debate are rigged against us, Christians and others - Catholic lawyers certainly - can speak instead to peace, order, hope and justice; the unbeatable language of love…
“On three occasions, such action has led directly to the defeat of ‘gay marriage’ proposals in Australia. The first two times were when the Commonwealth Attorney General disallowed backdoor ‘gay marriage’ legislation in the ACT and the third time was more recently when the newly elected Labor Prime Minister, who seemed to waver momentarily, later recalled and reiterated – to his great and abiding credit – pre-election promises made to Christians and others across the nation.
“Prime Minister Rudd… found many of the arguments advanced by homoactivists less than convincing in light of the solid, well-researched and compassionate arguments put by those (including those who lead Australia’s largest Trade Union – the SDA) who work for the protection, expansion and edification of the family.
“This is the best possible outcome.
“It is proof of how Christian ideas are incredibly persuasive, especially when buttressed by academically rigorous arguments open to the latest empirical research…”
COMMENT: If this is true, it shows how wrong are those who said that John Paul II’s views on the legalization of morality would have no influence beyond Catholic circles. It seems that Catholic Spain has been more successful in recognizing the rights of gays than Australia has been, thanks to the more adroit tactics of Australian Catholics in resisting social progress. However, John Heard goes on to offer a Catholic model for recognizing civil partnerships, one that, if the Church in Italy and Spain had put it forward would perhaps have greatly lessened the Church-State tensions now rife in those countries.
“To ensure that the Brumby Government’s hasty Partnerships Legislation achieves the best possible outcome for the people of this State, you must sit up… You must resolve to become involved, then, to share your G-d-given talents in a great common pool to build a force, an irresistible force, that draws along the best and brightest elements of our society and catches the interest of everyday voters…
“The first thing that needs to be said in this context is that the Brumby Bill is not ‘gay marriage’. Indeed, as far as these things go, the proposal on the table is relatively modest. It is far from the ideal, but we are not facing the worst-case scenario.
“While Catholic lawyers cannot advocate for any change that would further wound the position of the family or dilute the importance of marriage, we cannot simply throw up our arms and refuse to get involved when things don’t go our way. This is one of the key challenges that come with living in a liberal, plural democracy. When we lose the initial battle of ideas, to misguided government activism in this case, if not voter apathy, we must still offer advice on how any proposal might be, if not totally defeated, then at least improved…
“It is important to point out the least offensive aspects of the current Brumby legislation, before demonstrating how the whole package can be improved.
“It is better, for instance, that this current Bill recognises, rather than creates, a relationship at law; that it excludes – for the moment – ‘gay’ adoption; and, in contrast to the thrice-defeated ACT model, that it does not seek to introduce marriage mimicking ceremonies.
“However, there are a number of problems that should be, at the very least, ironed out if the Bill is to become law. These include:
“1. The fact that the current draft appears to include a sex test for same-sex domestic relationships;
COMMENT: I wonder what a “sex test” means.
“2. The concomitant and unfortunate narrowing of the definition of relationship, so as to exclude stable, worthy interdependent relationships, such as those between a carer and her charge, or two un-wed, perhaps elderly cohabiting sisters; and
COMMENT: Yes, civil partnership legislation gives public recognition to the specific nature of a gay couple’s commitment. To class such relationships in a miscellaneous ragbag of associations is to keep them in a limbo.
“3. The need to signal that this is as far as good people are willing to go. We need to indicate now that this is not the first step in some incremental journey that will inevitably end in full-blown ‘gay marriage’…
“There are problems with giving any de facto relationship the same standing as marriages. Such attempts weaken the family..
“The campaign against ‘gay marriage’ is, then, part of the broader campaign for an increase in marital stability and family cohesion in the Western world. It is, rightly, at the forefront of many good people’s attempts to bring about a new culture of life. It is not, in this context, a movement based on fear, rather an outpouring of love – a chance to right some of the more tragic wrongs brought about by the so-called ‘sexual liberation’.
COMMENT: Champions of sexual liberation, such as Dennis Altman quoted below, are often against gay marriage, seeing it as an effort to curb sexual freedom by forcing gays to comply with the monogamy model as well.
“The good news is that, unlike in that broader struggle, we need not wait for a radical transformation of culture to make a lasting impact for good. Catholics and other good folk can engage with the debate on marriage now.
“If there is to be a relationship register, it simply should not have an explicit or even an implicit sex test. We must insist on that.
COMMENT: The mystery deepens -- what on earth is an “implicit sex test”?
“Rather, why not open the thing up - at the highest levels - to all worthy interdependent relationships (carers, old friends, long-term cohabiting brothers and sisters, etc). This would help deal with concerns about any further dilution of the meaning of marriage, for the Bill currently opens registration up to opposite-sex couples as well. Instead of becoming yet another way for de facto couples to avoid marriage, the legislation would then move to separate and distinct, less hazardous ground.
“Currently, Brumby’s proposal does not even rely on cohabitation, rather it asks for proof that the parties form a ‘couple’ providing ‘financial support of a domestic nature’.
“This is a mistake that must be resisted, not least because it is ridiculous. It cannot be claimed, for instance, that such a lax standard is derived from a desire to recognise and solidify real, stable interdependencies. How real, stable and worthy are these relationships if the putative parties cannot even live together?
“But a sex test must also be rejected because it is not what most same sex attracted men need.
“Because, at a basic level and for whatever reason, sexual encounters between self-identified ‘gay’ males simply do not often correlate with long term, relationship-forming behaviour. Sure, some forms of homosexual partnership – especially lesbian – might approximate the longevity and exclusivity of marriage, but these partnerships are statistically very rare and would likely find relief under the more humane test I’m proposing anyway. There is also no evidence to support a claim that all or even most same sex couples desire ‘gay marriage’ or partnership registration of any kind, quite the contrary.
COMMENT: If the possibility of gay marriage is held out to people, it is amazing how many opt for it. Promiscuity is a second-best that they desert in droves. There might be a danger of people being pressed into marriage, as of course happens in the heterosexual world too, but it could be argued that from a lofty moral point of view such pressure is a salutary challenge to selfish bachelors.
“The truth is that most same sex attracted men, while often sexually active, are not in fact in any kind of companionate relationship at all and the vast majority of those who are do not indicate any plan to formalise these relationships. A sex test is, then, not even tailored to the express interests of the target demographic. It is more likely the product of a peculiar form of extremist ideology. Such notions, and the anti-human, anti-family outcomes they encourage, should have no place in Victorian or Australian law…
COMMENT: This claim is not based on solid research. It is hard to reconcile with the huge numbers who have sought marriage or civil partnership in Britain, the Netherlands, Spain and France.
“In an age when HIV infection rates are on the increase, most alarmingly among inner city, ‘gay’ identified male populations in Victoria and Queensland – and drug use remains a serious, shocking problem, there are certainly more pressing, ethical and practical issues that face ordinary same sex attracted men and women than whether or not John Brumby ‘registers’ their sexual encounters and properly private financial arrangements.”
COMMENT: This whataboutery is a red herring.
“Indeed, many same sex attracted men and women find the very notion of ‘gay marriage’ and relationship registration irrelevant, if not deeply offensive. LaTrobe’s Professor Dennis Altman, one of the founders of the ‘Gay Liberation Movement’, sharply criticised a few homoactivists’ fixation on ‘gay marriage’ and described the whole push as ‘self indulgent crap’…
COMMENT: Many a heterosexual bachelor would say the same thing about the fuss about heterosexual marriage.
“As it stands, Brumby’s proposal certainly seems to militate, in a most hurtful way, against the flourishing of same sex attracted men and women. It serves the interests of a slim minority of the tiny same sex attracted minority; and even then seems to serve only a dwindling homoactivist fringe. It is a highly divisive change, one that is completely unacceptable to most Christians and other ordinary voters. Depending on how the definition of ‘couple’ is to be decided, it might also mark a new, regrettable entry in Victorian law, the first time that sodomy or other non-procreative sex has been celebrated in our courts and Parliament.
COMMENT: Non-procreative sex is celebrated by every Church or State that recognize the marriages of aged or infertile couples. Talking about gays as a tiny minority is rather insulting.
“Thus, the deletion of a sex test would remove these most serious objections to a relationship register in Victoria. The resulting legislation might then be something that the wider community, serious same-sex attracted men and women, and even some Catholic lawyers could, in good conscience, support.
“Writing about a similar impasse in San Francisco in the 1990s, an American Vatican news specialist explained that, rather than forfeit government funding to the Bay Area’s Catholic Charities: ‘the city’s then-archbishop pushed to have the benefits extended to “any legally domiciled member” of a household. The city signed off on the idea, and a crisis was averted.’ …
“This politically moderate, socially compassionate and apparently orthodox model has since been urged by Catholic bishops and groups in Seattle, New Jersey, San Juan and even Adelaide, where Archbishop Philip Wilson lent his support to the 2006 South Australian, so-called Partnerships Legislation that recognised a whole range of worthy, interdependent relationships.”
COMMENT: It is perhaps in this sense that Archbishops Martin (Dublin) and Zollitsch (Freiburg) can be seen as supporters of civil partnerships.
“It is a model that goes some way to meeting the legitimate needs of real same sex attracted men and women without reducing their relationships to sex acts and properly private financial arrangements. It also does not fail to celebrate and protect worthy relationships wherever they may be found, widening the franchise and promising to transform homoactivists’ sometimes selfish rhetoric into real-life, justice-bearing, inclusive reform. It is, therefore, the most practical, humane and acceptable model on offer.
“It is the only model Catholic lawyers and other people of good will should support.”
COMMENT: I never noticed that such legislation reduces peoples’ relationship to sex acts. Indeed, it is less concerned with sex than ordinary marriage legislation is, because of the absence of a procreative dimension. To say the financial aspect should remain properly private sounds dangerous. (Perhaps one of the reasons gay marriage is not so popular is that it brings in some of the heavy financial implications of heterosexual marriage.)
UPDATE: Here is a useful corrective of the views of Courage, an organization greatly admired by John Heard: http://catholicactionnetwork.org/dec05/documents/CourageFactSheet_001.pdf
I note that Heard has been writing letters to bishops all over the world --with scant regard for their busy schedules -- in a bid to have me silenced (so much for Australian commitment to freedom of opinion and freedom of speech). Apparently he has started up an entire correspondence with Cardinal George Pell. One statement that borders on libel is his allegation that I talk about his sexual life in a way unbecoming to a priest. But as he explains on one of his own links, all this means is that I queried the consistency between the louche rooftop photos of “gay dad couchant” and the radical diatribes against “gay” culture. “The sexual innuendo I mentioned relates to his ad hominem attacks (please do not think I assail anyone on personal grounds without provocation) regarding pictures I’ve posted here of my friend Gay Dad. Fr Joe frequently returns to these when his wider arguments fail. He describes them - again, here and on other sites that he thinks I don’t read - as examples of my apparent interest in BDSM. This is outrageous.” It is true that I gave the link to these photos, which are in the public domain, to Dreadnought’s fans at the Pertinacious Papist website, where they were instantly identified as pornography -- something I would not say myself.
In his comments on the US papal visit Dreadnought talks of people who “complain of being ‘burnt out’ by, and /or ‘chewed up and spat out’ of ‘the gay scene’.” This surely counts as an argument for, not against, stable unions? He writes: “While a few homoactivists think that ‘gay marriage’ is a human right, and a most pressing issue, most good people disagree. Instead, the Pope spoke in very powerful terms about the transcendent nature of the human person”. How does the dignity of the human person contradict the dignity of a loving relationship between two persons? He tells us of “a gay man who has been disenchanted with his church” but who was touched by the Pope: “When he looked at me, it felt like I was part of the church, like we are all part of the church, and that we all are important, no matter who we are.” This is taken to prove “how wrong homoactivists and others are when they claim that the Pope and bishops, those who exercise teaching / pastoral authority in the Catholic Church, are necessarily aloof from the lives of same sex attracted men and women.” But the issue is not an alleged aloofness. No one would say that the great moral theologian Paul VI was aloof from married men and women. The issue is simpler: a doctrine that is unworkable and damaging in practice. Very patronizingly, Dreadnought asks us to “note also, the maturation in the Pope’s statements about marriage and the family. Moving from a focus on once-pressing particular threats to the institution, ‘gay marriage’ for instance, the Pope and the Vatican are broadening out the defence of marriage to include much more worrying phenomena, like the increase in non-marital, sexual cohabitation generally.” It is rather presumptuous to praise the Vatican for the maturation of its views -- the Vatican has been thinking about marriage for a thousand years. A further maturation of Vatican discourse on homosexuality is something that might well be desiderated however.
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MAIN TEXT
At a meeting of the NSW Law Society, Young Lawyers, in Martin Place, Sydney, on February 8, 2008, John Heard, aka Dreadnought, addressed the question: “Is Gay Marriage a Human Rights Issue?” as follows, http://johnheard.blogspot.com :
“It seems ‘gay marriage’ has become a human rights issue, but not because it is a human right. Rather, all this talk might actually harm the progress of human freedom.
“Why? The topic for discussion IS SAME SEX MARRIAGE A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE? Provides us with a quick answer.
“That question mark, right at the end, certainly alerts us to the fact that people are uneasy. No one, not even its loudest advocates and careful, sympathetic bodies like the Young Lawyers, seems to be convinced that ‘gay marriage’ really is a human right.
“That doesn’t go down well.
“Did good people ask Barack Obama, the black US presidential candidate, whether racial equality was a human rights issue? No! Anyone in his or her right mind, listening to the inner voice of conscience and compassion, knows that it is.
“Human rights are irresistible.
“Would the venerable Law Society of NSW have asked the millions who suffered in the past under tyranny and those who continue to cry out today for freedom of association, of religion, for the right to free speech, would anyone dare to ask these people if their precious freedoms are real?
“Absolutely not.
“Human rights are unmistakeable.
“If a vast majority of serious and compassionate people still doubt whether or not ‘gay marriage’ is a human right, then the answer is no. If all the major social institutions, both major political parties and every mainstream religion condemns ‘gay marriage’ then the answer is no. We wouldn’t be up here – G-d forbid – arguing about whether or not anti-Semitism were okay.
“It is not.
“So the fact that we are gathered here today under this banner indicates, right from the start, that no one really believes that ‘gay marriage’ is like racial equality, it is not a human right like freedom of association or free speech. Good people are right to doubt; it is not any kind of human right at all.”
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COMMENT: This argument of John Heard’s is a sophism. Moreover its premise is refuted by the facts of history. Very often things that most people today would regard as unquestionable, evident, irresistible human rights were not so regarded in the distant or even the recent past. The UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights, a postwar document, identifies such rights as freedom of expression, freedom of opinion, freedom from coercion in religion, freedom to propagate one’s religious beliefs. The Catholic Church did not recognize these rights historically, and in fact actively infringed them. Far from being self-evident and above question, these rights were not recognized by the foremost body of moral reflection in the Christian West. Even the right to personal freedom was not recognized, for as late as 1866 the Holy Office taught that slavery is not at all incompatible with natural and divine law (the declaration bears the papal signature). The right of people not to be imprisoned for adult consensual sex is still not recognized by the Catholic Church (Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual People, 1986) and was certainly more than questioned when it came up in legal struggles in Ireland and other countries.
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Since the Catholic Church recognizes the natural right to marriage, it should actually be an easy step to recognize that gays and lesbians have a right to partnerships that allow the human flourishing and constructive living that marriage allows heterosexuals, whether or not these partnerships are called marriage. This right is indeed being established and vindicated at the highest levels of European law and governance at this very time, and a great many Catholics approve of this. For the Vatican there is “no conceivable right” to legal protection of immoral actions, and moreover any equiparation of samesex relationships with marriage is seen as a threat to marriage itself; it is on this basis that a fierce, and largely successful, crusade is being conducted against civil partnership legislation in Italy, while the Spanish bishops are emerging as the foremost political opponents of the Zapatero government; if it falls, they may push for repeal of the gay marriage legislation in Spain. The hierarchical Church in these countries has shown itself willing to cast its lot with anitdemocratic forces or with the likes of Silvio Berlusconi (against the admirable Romano Prodi, perceived as a dangerous liberal).
Who would dare ask those released from oppression ‘if their precious freedoms are real’?, asks Heard. Now of course gays and lesbians who have taken advantage of civil partnership legislation would certainly have no doubt of the reality of the freedom now secured. That “Young Lawyers” in Sydney, probably sympathetic to the idea that gay marriage is a human right, put the idea forward in a dubitative form can hardly be read as a confession that they know it is not a human right. If I had never thought about it and someone asked me, “is there a natural right to marry?” I would hesitate before replying. Rights issues are never the knock-down unquestionable matters that Heard thinks they always are. The Rights of Man secured in the French and American Revolutions were innovative and consested. The Human Rights asserted by the UN were not recognized in the various fascist and communist regimes of the previous decades. To think that everybody knew in their hearts what these rights were is very naïve.
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John Heard continues:
“However, ‘gay marriage’ seems to have become – sadly – a human rights issue.
“Certainly, it distracts us as a community from more urgent problems.
“Because, as we come here today to debate a half-forgotten topic that the vast majority of Australians reject, in a city where Mardi Gras shrinks and HIV/AIDS infections too often rise in a world that faces many serious, pressing challenges, these other problems go untouched.
“What is worse, I’m concerned that by dragging the name of human rights into the midst of the so-called culture wars, ‘gay marriage’ events like this one do nothing to help real human rights advocates.
“The conflict between ‘gay marriage’ and the advancement of human rights is enough to make anyone wonder. Indeed: “it is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if ‘gay marriage’ is not perhaps part of a new ideology…insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man.”
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COMMENT: Sadly, this last quotation comes from John Paul II, whom John Heard calls “Pope John Paul the Great.” JH has developed and propagates a rather disturbing spirituality of total “surrender” to papal authority, and it is this which essentially motivates the “concern” he expresses. Curiously, JH tones down the papal quote, from the book Memory and Identity (2005), based on the Pope’s conversations with philosopher friends in 1993 and later with some of his aides. Restoring the elided words, we get: ‘It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man.” Perhaps JH feared that his legal audience would find the “ideology of evil” a little over the top, a little Bush-like. One may be permitted to feel that, coming from a Pope who in his effort at the “purification of memory” never thought of referring to the Church’s centuries-long role in the torture and execution of those it labelled “Sodomites”, rhetorical flourishes such as these may ring rather hollow.
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Returning to JH’s whataboutery, his blunderbuss technique would consign the vast majority of legal and ethical concerns to the dustbin, in view of more pressing issues. Why should we make such a fuss about our children’s dental hygiene, when there are children dying of hunger in other countries? Such whataboutery can even lead to something worse, the suppression of what are seen as superfluous rights. Why make a fuss about the freedom of the press, or about habeas corpus, when we are engaged in a War on Terror? JH engineers a “conflict” between gay marriage and “the advancement of human rights,” in a dangerous corruption of language, the sort of thing clever lawyers may like but that can be poisonous when taken up by demagogues.
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JH continues:
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“There’s also the bullshit factor. Rather than a debate on the merits of competing ‘climate change’ policies or the plight of the long-suffering first nations and how Australia might apologise to the Stolen Generation, we’ve been gathered instead – and at great cost - to talk about whether or not Elton John can ‘marry’ his boyfriend.”
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COMMENT: The whataboutery here is transparent. The insinuation that if you care about a fancy issue like human rights you must lack concern about more serious matters is a type of argument that has often been used to undercut budding rights movements – as those labelled “Jew-lovers” and “nigger-lovers” in the past know to their cost.
“We can do better.”
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COMMENT: The lofty moral tone struck here is reminiscent of Tony Blair at his most starry-eyed. And we know what obscenities that ushered in. JH plays moral uplift like the banjo and casts his spell on hundreds of idealistic young people, making them feel part of a community, a “we,” that they did not find on the streets of Sydney.
“Today, if we put aside our minor differences and embrace a more humane vision, this becomes a space where peace begins to make sense. Where hope reigns.”
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COMMENT: Who would have guessed that lawyers were prone to such effusions! Agree with me, and we’ll have peace, is what he is really saying. Free debate and calls for legislative innovations are somehow found incompatible with peace and based on false hope.
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“Imagine if [the homoactivist speakers] used their talents to save the lives of same sex attracted men sentenced to hang in Iran?”
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COMMENT: That is not hard to imagine. Those whom JH disparagingly refers to as “homoactivists” have been to the fore in protesting against such atrocities, even at a time when most in the West turned a blind eye to the Taliban stonings of gays. .
“Imagine if Christian conservatives and ‘gay rights’ activists worked together on teen suicide, drug addiction and HIV/AIDS? Imagine, my friends, if all the effort wasted on ‘gay marriage’ were channelled instead into strengthening personal relationships? In ensuring that the ‘gay’ community is no longer a place of ridicule and division, but a true family characterised by compassion, solidarity and hope.”
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COMMENT: The underlying logic of this at first sight meaningless dichotomy is that advocates of gay marriage are seen as encouraging not just stable and deeper personal relationships (as indeed they are, though JH never acknowledges this), but relationships that may include sexual activity of some kind, and of this JH profoundly disapproves. Though himself gay, or as he prefers to say, “same-sex attracted”, JH never speaks of gay sexual expression except in crude accounts of anal intercourse intended to make it ridiculous and repulsive.
“Perhaps then the understandable longing some people feel for acceptance and legal recognition would find a better target than ‘gay marriage’. Real love, not mere tolerance, would be available.”
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COMMENT: Again the dichotomy between “acceptance and legal recognition” and “gay marriage” makes little sense, unless you factor in the idea that gays should be recognized as human beings but physical expression of their sexuality should not. Since the legal recognition is supposed to be a matter of “real love, not mere tolerance”, JH is not talking about decriminalization of homosexual acts, but perhaps some legal arrangements favouring gays who lead chaste lives. For a lawyer, he has been remarkably unsuccessful in making clear what he is referring to.
“After all, human rights belong to people because we’re human beings. Our humanity does not ask for permission, rather it demands recognition and dignity.”
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COMMENT: Again a strange dichotomy. If the law refuses one permission to think, express oneself, and act freely, then one must demand that permission in the very name of recognition of one’s human dignity.
“The question mark over this entire event – organised by a serious and compassionate group like the Law Society of NSW – demonstrates neatly, why ‘gay marriage’ has, unfortunately, and dangerously, become a human rights issue.
“And also why it is not, indeed, a human right.”
COMMENT: This is a mere pirouette, leaving question-marks in abundance hanging in the air over John Heard’s own specious half-argument. There seems to me to be a fundamental lack of seriousness in JH’s preference for flighty soundbites over substantive debate. He regards the debate as already completed in the summary church documents he loves to quote, including Cardinal Grocholewski’s one on gay seminarians (http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/12/vatican_instruc.html) and the recent one by the US Bishops which appears to buy into controverted ideas of homosexuality as a psychological disorder (http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/11/neocaths_and_ga.html). His own contribution is to add distracting flimflam that keeps people from reopening the debate in an adult and serene manner. Certainly JH is “on a roll” and his eloquence and enthusiasm sweeps people along, but he would do well to admit that the issue on which he pronounces are, as Luke Timothy Johnson notes, a quaestio disputata, in which ridicule and caricature of his opponents (which he provokes them into returning in full measure) are not the most helpful way to proceed. (http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/06/quaestio_disput.html)
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UPDATE
John Heard spoke to the Melbourne Catholic Lawyers’ Association on March 11, 2008: http://johnheard.blogspot.com/2008/03/dreadtalk-relationship-registers-what.html. Here are some extracts, with my comments:
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“Marriage and the family, so central to and productive of the culture of life, are threatened by attempts to force ‘gay marriage’ laws, extreme forms of civil union and various sorts of radical relationship registries upon an otherwise apathetic, if not overwhelmingly opposed, general population…
“Catholic lawyers, Catholics and people of good will everywhere, can make a powerful difference.
“Indeed, many times, when homoactivists appeared to have scored some victory or other in the ‘gay marriage’ debate in Australia, quick, decisive and humane activity by various notable and other less obvious leaders, writers, politicians and others of goodwill, helped to raise a groundswell of public awareness…
“Instead of meeting homoactivists and others on a phoney playing field where the terms of debate are rigged against us, Christians and others - Catholic lawyers certainly - can speak instead to peace, order, hope and justice; the unbeatable language of love…
“On three occasions, such action has led directly to the defeat of ‘gay marriage’ proposals in Australia. The first two times were when the Commonwealth Attorney General disallowed backdoor ‘gay marriage’ legislation in the ACT and the third time was more recently when the newly elected Labor Prime Minister, who seemed to waver momentarily, later recalled and reiterated – to his great and abiding credit – pre-election promises made to Christians and others across the nation.
“Prime Minister Rudd… found many of the arguments advanced by homoactivists less than convincing in light of the solid, well-researched and compassionate arguments put by those (including those who lead Australia’s largest Trade Union – the SDA) who work for the protection, expansion and edification of the family.
“This is the best possible outcome.
“It is proof of how Christian ideas are incredibly persuasive, especially when buttressed by academically rigorous arguments open to the latest empirical research…”
COMMENT: If this is true, it shows how wrong are those who said that John Paul II’s views on the legalization of morality would have no influence beyond Catholic circles. It seems that Catholic Spain has been more successful in recognizing the rights of gays than Australia has been, thanks to the more adroit tactics of Australian Catholics in resisting social progress. However, John Heard goes on to offer a Catholic model for recognizing civil partnerships, one that, if the Church in Italy and Spain had put it forward would perhaps have greatly lessened the Church-State tensions now rife in those countries.
“To ensure that the Brumby Government’s hasty Partnerships Legislation achieves the best possible outcome for the people of this State, you must sit up… You must resolve to become involved, then, to share your G-d-given talents in a great common pool to build a force, an irresistible force, that draws along the best and brightest elements of our society and catches the interest of everyday voters…
“The first thing that needs to be said in this context is that the Brumby Bill is not ‘gay marriage’. Indeed, as far as these things go, the proposal on the table is relatively modest. It is far from the ideal, but we are not facing the worst-case scenario.
“While Catholic lawyers cannot advocate for any change that would further wound the position of the family or dilute the importance of marriage, we cannot simply throw up our arms and refuse to get involved when things don’t go our way. This is one of the key challenges that come with living in a liberal, plural democracy. When we lose the initial battle of ideas, to misguided government activism in this case, if not voter apathy, we must still offer advice on how any proposal might be, if not totally defeated, then at least improved…
“It is important to point out the least offensive aspects of the current Brumby legislation, before demonstrating how the whole package can be improved.
“It is better, for instance, that this current Bill recognises, rather than creates, a relationship at law; that it excludes – for the moment – ‘gay’ adoption; and, in contrast to the thrice-defeated ACT model, that it does not seek to introduce marriage mimicking ceremonies.
“However, there are a number of problems that should be, at the very least, ironed out if the Bill is to become law. These include:
“1. The fact that the current draft appears to include a sex test for same-sex domestic relationships;
COMMENT: I wonder what a “sex test” means.
“2. The concomitant and unfortunate narrowing of the definition of relationship, so as to exclude stable, worthy interdependent relationships, such as those between a carer and her charge, or two un-wed, perhaps elderly cohabiting sisters; and
COMMENT: Yes, civil partnership legislation gives public recognition to the specific nature of a gay couple’s commitment. To class such relationships in a miscellaneous ragbag of associations is to keep them in a limbo.
“3. The need to signal that this is as far as good people are willing to go. We need to indicate now that this is not the first step in some incremental journey that will inevitably end in full-blown ‘gay marriage’…
“There are problems with giving any de facto relationship the same standing as marriages. Such attempts weaken the family..
“The campaign against ‘gay marriage’ is, then, part of the broader campaign for an increase in marital stability and family cohesion in the Western world. It is, rightly, at the forefront of many good people’s attempts to bring about a new culture of life. It is not, in this context, a movement based on fear, rather an outpouring of love – a chance to right some of the more tragic wrongs brought about by the so-called ‘sexual liberation’.
COMMENT: Champions of sexual liberation, such as Dennis Altman quoted below, are often against gay marriage, seeing it as an effort to curb sexual freedom by forcing gays to comply with the monogamy model as well.
“The good news is that, unlike in that broader struggle, we need not wait for a radical transformation of culture to make a lasting impact for good. Catholics and other good folk can engage with the debate on marriage now.
“If there is to be a relationship register, it simply should not have an explicit or even an implicit sex test. We must insist on that.
COMMENT: The mystery deepens -- what on earth is an “implicit sex test”?
“Rather, why not open the thing up - at the highest levels - to all worthy interdependent relationships (carers, old friends, long-term cohabiting brothers and sisters, etc). This would help deal with concerns about any further dilution of the meaning of marriage, for the Bill currently opens registration up to opposite-sex couples as well. Instead of becoming yet another way for de facto couples to avoid marriage, the legislation would then move to separate and distinct, less hazardous ground.
“Currently, Brumby’s proposal does not even rely on cohabitation, rather it asks for proof that the parties form a ‘couple’ providing ‘financial support of a domestic nature’.
“This is a mistake that must be resisted, not least because it is ridiculous. It cannot be claimed, for instance, that such a lax standard is derived from a desire to recognise and solidify real, stable interdependencies. How real, stable and worthy are these relationships if the putative parties cannot even live together?
“But a sex test must also be rejected because it is not what most same sex attracted men need.
“Because, at a basic level and for whatever reason, sexual encounters between self-identified ‘gay’ males simply do not often correlate with long term, relationship-forming behaviour. Sure, some forms of homosexual partnership – especially lesbian – might approximate the longevity and exclusivity of marriage, but these partnerships are statistically very rare and would likely find relief under the more humane test I’m proposing anyway. There is also no evidence to support a claim that all or even most same sex couples desire ‘gay marriage’ or partnership registration of any kind, quite the contrary.
COMMENT: If the possibility of gay marriage is held out to people, it is amazing how many opt for it. Promiscuity is a second-best that they desert in droves. There might be a danger of people being pressed into marriage, as of course happens in the heterosexual world too, but it could be argued that from a lofty moral point of view such pressure is a salutary challenge to selfish bachelors.
“The truth is that most same sex attracted men, while often sexually active, are not in fact in any kind of companionate relationship at all and the vast majority of those who are do not indicate any plan to formalise these relationships. A sex test is, then, not even tailored to the express interests of the target demographic. It is more likely the product of a peculiar form of extremist ideology. Such notions, and the anti-human, anti-family outcomes they encourage, should have no place in Victorian or Australian law…
COMMENT: This claim is not based on solid research. It is hard to reconcile with the huge numbers who have sought marriage or civil partnership in Britain, the Netherlands, Spain and France.
“In an age when HIV infection rates are on the increase, most alarmingly among inner city, ‘gay’ identified male populations in Victoria and Queensland – and drug use remains a serious, shocking problem, there are certainly more pressing, ethical and practical issues that face ordinary same sex attracted men and women than whether or not John Brumby ‘registers’ their sexual encounters and properly private financial arrangements.”
COMMENT: This whataboutery is a red herring.
“Indeed, many same sex attracted men and women find the very notion of ‘gay marriage’ and relationship registration irrelevant, if not deeply offensive. LaTrobe’s Professor Dennis Altman, one of the founders of the ‘Gay Liberation Movement’, sharply criticised a few homoactivists’ fixation on ‘gay marriage’ and described the whole push as ‘self indulgent crap’…
COMMENT: Many a heterosexual bachelor would say the same thing about the fuss about heterosexual marriage.
“As it stands, Brumby’s proposal certainly seems to militate, in a most hurtful way, against the flourishing of same sex attracted men and women. It serves the interests of a slim minority of the tiny same sex attracted minority; and even then seems to serve only a dwindling homoactivist fringe. It is a highly divisive change, one that is completely unacceptable to most Christians and other ordinary voters. Depending on how the definition of ‘couple’ is to be decided, it might also mark a new, regrettable entry in Victorian law, the first time that sodomy or other non-procreative sex has been celebrated in our courts and Parliament.
COMMENT: Non-procreative sex is celebrated by every Church or State that recognize the marriages of aged or infertile couples. Talking about gays as a tiny minority is rather insulting.
“Thus, the deletion of a sex test would remove these most serious objections to a relationship register in Victoria. The resulting legislation might then be something that the wider community, serious same-sex attracted men and women, and even some Catholic lawyers could, in good conscience, support.
“Writing about a similar impasse in San Francisco in the 1990s, an American Vatican news specialist explained that, rather than forfeit government funding to the Bay Area’s Catholic Charities: ‘the city’s then-archbishop pushed to have the benefits extended to “any legally domiciled member” of a household. The city signed off on the idea, and a crisis was averted.’ …
“This politically moderate, socially compassionate and apparently orthodox model has since been urged by Catholic bishops and groups in Seattle, New Jersey, San Juan and even Adelaide, where Archbishop Philip Wilson lent his support to the 2006 South Australian, so-called Partnerships Legislation that recognised a whole range of worthy, interdependent relationships.”
COMMENT: It is perhaps in this sense that Archbishops Martin (Dublin) and Zollitsch (Freiburg) can be seen as supporters of civil partnerships.
“It is a model that goes some way to meeting the legitimate needs of real same sex attracted men and women without reducing their relationships to sex acts and properly private financial arrangements. It also does not fail to celebrate and protect worthy relationships wherever they may be found, widening the franchise and promising to transform homoactivists’ sometimes selfish rhetoric into real-life, justice-bearing, inclusive reform. It is, therefore, the most practical, humane and acceptable model on offer.
“It is the only model Catholic lawyers and other people of good will should support.”
COMMENT: I never noticed that such legislation reduces peoples’ relationship to sex acts. Indeed, it is less concerned with sex than ordinary marriage legislation is, because of the absence of a procreative dimension. To say the financial aspect should remain properly private sounds dangerous. (Perhaps one of the reasons gay marriage is not so popular is that it brings in some of the heavy financial implications of heterosexual marriage.)
