It has been interesting to watch the debate back and forth between those obsessed with the purity of the process and those more concerned with achieving a just outcome on the issue of same-sex marriage. I count myself firmly among the latter – I applaud the legislators who were willing to stand up for equality and civil rights against prejudice. I do not believe we are obligated to blindly apply a process that leads to an unjust result.
It’s worth recalling the ideas of the political philospher John Rawls in this context. Rawls was concerned about the way historical critique has undermined social contract theories. In practice, constitutions have tended to protect the social position and property rights of entrenched elites. Rawls sought to restore the idea of the social contract as the foundation of a just society through introducing the notion of an “original position”. Rawls envisioned parties who did not know who they would be or what status they would occupy in society. The social contract would be established by rational beings in this “original position” – and the rights and framework they would establish would be fair for all.
I have only caricatured Rawls’ philosophy in these few sentences here, but I would suggest that those who feel they are on a slippery slope if they defend the procedural defeat of the marriage amendment rather than an up and down vote, but who share my profound disgust at the content and motivations behind the proposed amendment, might want to consider Rawls’ ideas. Would rational beings who did not know if they would be straight or gay (black or white, able or disabled, rich or poor, atheist, fundamentalist or unitarian etc.) consent to a social contract in which gay citizens were demeaned and relegated to lesser rights? Should any minority group be subject to having a secondary and lesser status imposed on them by the majority? This reasoning would not provide justification for procedural defeat of all amendments, but it does provide principled grounds to stand against the discriminatory amendment a majority of the legislature properly declined to advance last week.
…and even if gays were the majority, it would still be unsafe and unethical to attempt to conceive a person by any means other than an egg and a sperm. If I were gay, I would probably want to make same-sex conception safe and affordable, but hopefully there would be enough rational people who looked objectively at the issue and the consequences of developing same-sex conception who would tell me “sorry, but that’s just crazy.”
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If the fact that it is unethical to have children with someone of the same sex relegates same-sex relationships to lesser rights, then so be it. That’s the way it should be. The individuals still have the full right to have children with someone of the other sex.
…the ‘egg and sperm’ guy that hangs around with the sign at Harvard Square.
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Pushing the debate forward is one thing, but this is so fringe it’s hard to know what to make of it. I think we have enough to debate without going into hypothetical bioethics.
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You seem like an respectful and rational guy, and the hypothetical point is interesting.
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I’m worried about your single-minded, demonstrated obsession with the subject though — I don’t think it’s a sexual thing, but to my mind borders on obsession / compulsion. If you are really really focused on this, please talk to with a therapist (I know this sounds derogatory, but I tell you this not to brush off your arguments but out of honest concern)
I am forced into being obsessed about this because everybody else is steadfastly ignoring it. There is also an organized news blackout, a careful program of self-censorship, such that most people don’t even know that anyone is insisting on a right to genetically engineering children for same-sex couples. So I am hoping that my brief foray into raising conceiousness of this issue will result in people talking about it, and force the news media to take up the story. I can’t think of any other way to force the debate to come around to this than to get out there and tell people about it. But so far I am only becoming convinved that my foray is too important to give up on because of the concerted effort to ignore it or wish it away.
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The doctor who said (last year) that it will happen in three to five years is a real doctor, and many other people work overtime year round, and spend lots of money, in order to be able to create children for same-sex couples. They can do it because people are in a state of ignorance, diverted and neutralized by things like shopping in Harvard Square, or whatever it is you do all day. I can’t wait until people realize that this is real and start talking about it so I can get on with my life.
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The marriage issue can only be resolved by dropping all the old arguments and looking at conception rights. Should we have them with people of our same sex, or not?
Would you similarly justify denying freedom of speech to conservatives? After all, their freedom of speech often leads to unjust results. So, according to your rationale, we would be justified in ignoring the Constitution (or as you term it, a “procedure”) to deny them their First Amendment rights. You can’t honor the constitution only when it suits you. That is not a social contract I doubt anyone — including Rawls — would agree to.