Showing posts with label Andrew Sullivan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andrew Sullivan. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
HOME AND DRY: Hello and welcome, if you got here via Andrew Sullivan. You want this post. And now the promised follow-up, in which I talk about what I think the most beautiful argument is in favor of gay marriage: It gives gay people a home.
Sullivan's written about this quite a lot, of course. Both he (in Love Undetectable, I'm pretty sure) and Jonathan Rauch (in Gay Marriage) have described, briefly and without self-pity, really intense childhood exchanges with their mothers. I don't recall the exact wording of Rauch's story off the top of my head, but I do remember Sullivan's. From memory, thus possibly a bit off: He asked his mother if God really sees everything, and she said yes, at which point he replied, "Well then there's no hope for me."
I mean... a little kid.
And I've written before about how I experienced some fairly intense childhood alienation of basically exactly that kind. I felt like I had no place in the world and couldn't have one--shouldn't have one, hadn't earned love or self-respect. Becoming Catholic, I should say, was in part about accepting that I could be loved by Someone who genuinely knew everything about me. In order to be really Catholic you have to accept healing and love, and there are times when that's very hard for me, still; it's still somewhat baffling to think that I might be made in the image of God. (I mean, what does that make God?)
I have no real sense of why I associated that sense of alienation with my sexual orientation. One obvious possibility is homophobia; I certainly don't remember ever hearing anything antigay until I was in junior high, and my parents had gay friends etc etc, but it's impossible to prove that I wasn't somehow affected by subtler and pervasive cultural bigotry. Anyway, point being, I've said many times that it was such a relief to come out to myself because it seemed like I could finally explain that alienation in toto; and because being gay wasn't something I thought anyone should be ashamed of, I could finally put all of that unhappiness and sense of homelessness behind me! I don't know that this relief is especially common for gay teens, but I do think a lot of gay people did have that childhood sense of intense separation, of being cast out.
And since virtually all gay people are raised by heterosexuals, the home in which we grew up doesn't provide obvious models for the kind of relationships we want to form. It's hard for us to know how our own love stories can fit in to our family story, the family model we grew up with. (Yes, I realize that a lot of straight people can say the same thing, but walk with me here for a moment.)
Gay marriage promises that, for those of us lucky enough to grow up with parents in a loving/good-enough marriage, we truly can fit our own futures and dreams into the family story we grew up with. We can step into our parents' shoes. You all know that I think this promise is based on some really false beliefs about sex difference and family structure, but believe me, I feel the power and attraction of the promise.
And this longing for home is one reason the Church's silences, clinical language, and general lameness w/r/t speaking to actual gay people is so frustrating. Because the truest and best alternative to the home promised by gay marriage is precisely the home promised by Christ, the loving embrace of the Holy Family. When I say that the cure for alienation is in kneeling at the altar rail, this is not especially believable if the actual Catholics you've known were clueless at best and bullying at worst.
Anyway, I continue to believe all the stuff I've said in prior posts about gay marriage, but I thought it was important to throw this out there as well. The longing for home is even more powerful to me, and even more beautiful, than the longing for honor which also animates the gay-marriage movement.
Sullivan's written about this quite a lot, of course. Both he (in Love Undetectable, I'm pretty sure) and Jonathan Rauch (in Gay Marriage) have described, briefly and without self-pity, really intense childhood exchanges with their mothers. I don't recall the exact wording of Rauch's story off the top of my head, but I do remember Sullivan's. From memory, thus possibly a bit off: He asked his mother if God really sees everything, and she said yes, at which point he replied, "Well then there's no hope for me."
I mean... a little kid.
And I've written before about how I experienced some fairly intense childhood alienation of basically exactly that kind. I felt like I had no place in the world and couldn't have one--shouldn't have one, hadn't earned love or self-respect. Becoming Catholic, I should say, was in part about accepting that I could be loved by Someone who genuinely knew everything about me. In order to be really Catholic you have to accept healing and love, and there are times when that's very hard for me, still; it's still somewhat baffling to think that I might be made in the image of God. (I mean, what does that make God?)
I have no real sense of why I associated that sense of alienation with my sexual orientation. One obvious possibility is homophobia; I certainly don't remember ever hearing anything antigay until I was in junior high, and my parents had gay friends etc etc, but it's impossible to prove that I wasn't somehow affected by subtler and pervasive cultural bigotry. Anyway, point being, I've said many times that it was such a relief to come out to myself because it seemed like I could finally explain that alienation in toto; and because being gay wasn't something I thought anyone should be ashamed of, I could finally put all of that unhappiness and sense of homelessness behind me! I don't know that this relief is especially common for gay teens, but I do think a lot of gay people did have that childhood sense of intense separation, of being cast out.
And since virtually all gay people are raised by heterosexuals, the home in which we grew up doesn't provide obvious models for the kind of relationships we want to form. It's hard for us to know how our own love stories can fit in to our family story, the family model we grew up with. (Yes, I realize that a lot of straight people can say the same thing, but walk with me here for a moment.)
Gay marriage promises that, for those of us lucky enough to grow up with parents in a loving/good-enough marriage, we truly can fit our own futures and dreams into the family story we grew up with. We can step into our parents' shoes. You all know that I think this promise is based on some really false beliefs about sex difference and family structure, but believe me, I feel the power and attraction of the promise.
And this longing for home is one reason the Church's silences, clinical language, and general lameness w/r/t speaking to actual gay people is so frustrating. Because the truest and best alternative to the home promised by gay marriage is precisely the home promised by Christ, the loving embrace of the Holy Family. When I say that the cure for alienation is in kneeling at the altar rail, this is not especially believable if the actual Catholics you've known were clueless at best and bullying at worst.
Anyway, I continue to believe all the stuff I've said in prior posts about gay marriage, but I thought it was important to throw this out there as well. The longing for home is even more powerful to me, and even more beautiful, than the longing for honor which also animates the gay-marriage movement.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
I'VE GOT MY OWN IDEAS ABOUT THE RIGHTEOUS KICK: A couple lightly-sketched points about the exchanges between Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan on marriage, in which my Busted Halo interview was quoted and discussed. I've only read the one post of Sullivan's, so if he has already replied to the points made below, I apologize and would love to be pointed to the relevant posts--I've been out of town and he posts so much that I have a hard time keeping up!
1. Sullivan argues that in order to accept my or Douthat's understanding of marriage, you have to accept the entirety of Catholic teaching on sexuality, and therefore our opposition to gay marriage is narrowly sectarian and unavailable to those who don't share our entire set of religious beliefs.
I disagree! I mean, I get that both the New York Times and Busted Halo juxtaposed my beliefs about God and my beliefs about marriage. That was their framing. It has never been mine. When I actually lay out my own beliefs about marriage, I don't use religious language. While I'm skeptical that any moral claim can be made in entirely secular terms all the way down--in other words, eventually you do have to discuss your fundamental metaphysical beliefs and deepest loves/loyalties--I think the case against gay marriage is about as secular as the cases against, say, torture or the death penalty. In other words, I think we can talk for a while before you get to God, and that's what I try to do. (Similarly, when I talk about being gay and Catholic, I try to open up some space in the discussion for people who are themselves celibate for religious reasons but nonetheless support gay marriage.)
Sullivan really can't just assert that my argument can only be accepted by those who accept the entirety of Catholic sexual morality. He has to offer an argument or evidence to that effect, beyond the argument ad celibatem.
A clunky postscript: Obviously, I also disagree with the idea that Catholic celibacy requires people like me to "cease to exist, really, as sexual beings," but you all know that already because I am constantly saying it! But that really is a sectarian discussion, so bracket it, me lads, bracket it....
2. Sullivan and I may have more common ground than he realizes. I do think we need to find some way of acknowledging and even honoring the good work done by gay couples in supporting one another and the children many of them are raising. I do not think that cultural project requires pretending that men and women, or gay and lesbian and heterosexual relationships, are fungible. I certainly do not think that cultural project requires pretending that only bigots think gay relationships aren't the same as marriage, or that only retrograde Vatican lackeys think that gay activists should not attempt to remove sex difference from our understanding of marriage and the cultural norms surrounding marriage.
And so what's interesting to me about Sullivan's post is that he agrees that the future is really wide open and we don't know what comes next. Neither he nor I has a really super clear, ten-point plan for how our society can do better at supporting all families without pretending that two men are the same as a man and a woman or two women. So I wonder why he is so adamant that while norms of monogamy may or may not shift in various complex ways, any legitimate future must include gay marriage. Why is that the (one?) non-negotiable?
I know my position raises more questions than it answers. So does Sullivan's! (And mine has, you know, millennia of art, popular songs, philosophy and yes, theology and liturgy behind it. But who's counting?)
I have no idea how much of this particular post Douthat might agree with. But with any luck it will at least open up a bit of space in the dialogue. I thought Douthat's Times op-ed was really good given the length restrictions, a refreshing break from the stale repetition and uncharitable misreading which characterizes much of the gay-marriage debate, and I'm encouraged by the openness with which Sullivan engaged with him. More please!
More on gay marriage, gay people, and the Church tomorrow.
1. Sullivan argues that in order to accept my or Douthat's understanding of marriage, you have to accept the entirety of Catholic teaching on sexuality, and therefore our opposition to gay marriage is narrowly sectarian and unavailable to those who don't share our entire set of religious beliefs.
I disagree! I mean, I get that both the New York Times and Busted Halo juxtaposed my beliefs about God and my beliefs about marriage. That was their framing. It has never been mine. When I actually lay out my own beliefs about marriage, I don't use religious language. While I'm skeptical that any moral claim can be made in entirely secular terms all the way down--in other words, eventually you do have to discuss your fundamental metaphysical beliefs and deepest loves/loyalties--I think the case against gay marriage is about as secular as the cases against, say, torture or the death penalty. In other words, I think we can talk for a while before you get to God, and that's what I try to do. (Similarly, when I talk about being gay and Catholic, I try to open up some space in the discussion for people who are themselves celibate for religious reasons but nonetheless support gay marriage.)
Sullivan really can't just assert that my argument can only be accepted by those who accept the entirety of Catholic sexual morality. He has to offer an argument or evidence to that effect, beyond the argument ad celibatem.
A clunky postscript: Obviously, I also disagree with the idea that Catholic celibacy requires people like me to "cease to exist, really, as sexual beings," but you all know that already because I am constantly saying it! But that really is a sectarian discussion, so bracket it, me lads, bracket it....
2. Sullivan and I may have more common ground than he realizes. I do think we need to find some way of acknowledging and even honoring the good work done by gay couples in supporting one another and the children many of them are raising. I do not think that cultural project requires pretending that men and women, or gay and lesbian and heterosexual relationships, are fungible. I certainly do not think that cultural project requires pretending that only bigots think gay relationships aren't the same as marriage, or that only retrograde Vatican lackeys think that gay activists should not attempt to remove sex difference from our understanding of marriage and the cultural norms surrounding marriage.
And so what's interesting to me about Sullivan's post is that he agrees that the future is really wide open and we don't know what comes next. Neither he nor I has a really super clear, ten-point plan for how our society can do better at supporting all families without pretending that two men are the same as a man and a woman or two women. So I wonder why he is so adamant that while norms of monogamy may or may not shift in various complex ways, any legitimate future must include gay marriage. Why is that the (one?) non-negotiable?
I know my position raises more questions than it answers. So does Sullivan's! (And mine has, you know, millennia of art, popular songs, philosophy and yes, theology and liturgy behind it. But who's counting?)
I have no idea how much of this particular post Douthat might agree with. But with any luck it will at least open up a bit of space in the dialogue. I thought Douthat's Times op-ed was really good given the length restrictions, a refreshing break from the stale repetition and uncharitable misreading which characterizes much of the gay-marriage debate, and I'm encouraged by the openness with which Sullivan engaged with him. More please!
More on gay marriage, gay people, and the Church tomorrow.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
UPDATERY: Ratty has more on famous authors' texts from last night; and Andrew Sullivan reminds me of the best thing he's ever written!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
EVERY DAY IS LIKE SUNDAY: So a chain of events led me to read a lot of reviews of Andrew Sullivan's various books. Here are some comments on the reviews. For reference, I think Virtually Normal is his weakest and Love Undetectable is brilliant; LU's third section, about friendship, I think is genuinely life-changing and beautiful, whereas its middle section, about psych theories of homosexuality, is really weak. Apparently this places me at odds with pretty much everyone who got paid to review these books.
So... Margaret O'Brien Steinfels reviews Virtually Normal in Commonweal. On the one hand, it's adorable to see a time when Commonweal could challenge gay-lib without three thousand disclaimers. On the other hand, "homosexual or lesbian" is slightly hilarious.
On the more serious tentacle, I really like how Steinfels draws out the contradiction here: It's really hard to argue for gay marriage if you have the good taste to find homosexuality interesting. One of the more depressing features of the pro-gay-marriage arguments is their tendency to act as if any differences between men and women, or between straight and gay relationships, are banal and beneath notice. This seems like an excellent way to make yourself stupider.
And on a fourth tentacle, I'm fascinated by how little work Steinfels had to do to feel as though she'd successfully refuted Sullivan's arguments. I think her argument is anorexic; and yet at the time, of course, this sort of dismissal was thought "progressive." Sullivan can measure his success by the degree to which Steinfels's arguments on marriage now seem wafer-thin.
[EDITED--that was unclear to the point of appearing self-contradictory. What I mean is that Steinfels's earlier "arguments against" gay marriage are naively dismissive, and really privileged--she isn't even trying to look at the world through Sullivan's eyes, and she isn't even considering that that's something she should do. She is normative and thus gets to judge him, and that's obvious to her. But the later paragraph in which she uses his own words against him, and asks why what he wants should be called marriage at all, strikes me as persuasive and even a possible way to open up new options for gay couples. Without the insistence on banal sameness, maybe we can come up with new models for love--some of which will be Catholic, some of which will be really-not-Catholic, but all of which will be more sublime and honest than the usual love-is-love-is-love oatmeal.]
And, especially: Steinfels's review makes me wonder what aspect of Sullivan's famous "We Are All Sodomites Now" essay isn't "liberationist." He more or less made his name as an anti-liberationist gay man; yet his essay shows all the most striking characteristics of what he described as liberationism, e.g.: a focus on acts vs. identities; a dissolution of boundaries between heteros and homos; the deployment of homosexuality to undermine heterosexual self-understandings; the absolute moral equivalence of intercourse and sodomy.
I mean, Sullivan's essay is wrong on its face, and it only takes one night at a crisis pregnancy center to figure that out; but I'm not super interested in that right now, more interested in whether the "gay conservative" position always collapses into liberationism if you push.
(To which the obvious response is, "Yeah, Sullivan's probably a closet liberationist. But Jonathan Rauch is actually a gay conservative, so you should take up your fight with him." That's fair, but no fun; Sullivan is the Kate Bornstein to Rauch's Julia Serano. The fact that I learn more from Rauch and Serano is probably related to the fact that Sullivan and Bornstein are much more open to the aesthetic and religious dimension of life.)
Norah Vincent reviews Love Undetectable for the National Review. First, I like Vincent, and I'm glad to see this extremist getting her praise from NR! But more substantively, this is not a good review, largely because it isn't even attempting empathy. I mean... AIDS memoirs are not inherently worthless, so I don't get why Vincent thinks she can dismiss Sullivan's book by making the obvious point that it's basically an AIDS memoir.
I also think she's deploying faceless AIDS-stricken Africans against Sullivan--she's weaponizing racism in a way I find really distasteful. Her review has nothing to do with AIDS in Africa except insofar as it's a stick with which to beat Sullivan. I can't respect that.
Gilbert Meilander reviews Love Undetectable for Commonweal. Once again, someone thinks the section about dumb psych theories is the best part! I don't even know what to make of that.
On the other hand, Meilander's critiques of Sullivan's essay on friendship are very well taken.
That's just lovely, and hardcore and challenging. I think Sullivan's essay is an amazing beginning for an investigation of friendship. Meilander's review--like all the works Sullivan actually cites, and recommends--takes it further.
So... Margaret O'Brien Steinfels reviews Virtually Normal in Commonweal. On the one hand, it's adorable to see a time when Commonweal could challenge gay-lib without three thousand disclaimers. On the other hand, "homosexual or lesbian" is slightly hilarious.
On the more serious tentacle, I really like how Steinfels draws out the contradiction here: It's really hard to argue for gay marriage if you have the good taste to find homosexuality interesting. One of the more depressing features of the pro-gay-marriage arguments is their tendency to act as if any differences between men and women, or between straight and gay relationships, are banal and beneath notice. This seems like an excellent way to make yourself stupider.
And on a fourth tentacle, I'm fascinated by how little work Steinfels had to do to feel as though she'd successfully refuted Sullivan's arguments. I think her argument is anorexic; and yet at the time, of course, this sort of dismissal was thought "progressive." Sullivan can measure his success by the degree to which Steinfels's arguments on marriage now seem wafer-thin.
[EDITED--that was unclear to the point of appearing self-contradictory. What I mean is that Steinfels's earlier "arguments against" gay marriage are naively dismissive, and really privileged--she isn't even trying to look at the world through Sullivan's eyes, and she isn't even considering that that's something she should do. She is normative and thus gets to judge him, and that's obvious to her. But the later paragraph in which she uses his own words against him, and asks why what he wants should be called marriage at all, strikes me as persuasive and even a possible way to open up new options for gay couples. Without the insistence on banal sameness, maybe we can come up with new models for love--some of which will be Catholic, some of which will be really-not-Catholic, but all of which will be more sublime and honest than the usual love-is-love-is-love oatmeal.]
And, especially: Steinfels's review makes me wonder what aspect of Sullivan's famous "We Are All Sodomites Now" essay isn't "liberationist." He more or less made his name as an anti-liberationist gay man; yet his essay shows all the most striking characteristics of what he described as liberationism, e.g.: a focus on acts vs. identities; a dissolution of boundaries between heteros and homos; the deployment of homosexuality to undermine heterosexual self-understandings; the absolute moral equivalence of intercourse and sodomy.
I mean, Sullivan's essay is wrong on its face, and it only takes one night at a crisis pregnancy center to figure that out; but I'm not super interested in that right now, more interested in whether the "gay conservative" position always collapses into liberationism if you push.
(To which the obvious response is, "Yeah, Sullivan's probably a closet liberationist. But Jonathan Rauch is actually a gay conservative, so you should take up your fight with him." That's fair, but no fun; Sullivan is the Kate Bornstein to Rauch's Julia Serano. The fact that I learn more from Rauch and Serano is probably related to the fact that Sullivan and Bornstein are much more open to the aesthetic and religious dimension of life.)
Norah Vincent reviews Love Undetectable for the National Review. First, I like Vincent, and I'm glad to see this extremist getting her praise from NR! But more substantively, this is not a good review, largely because it isn't even attempting empathy. I mean... AIDS memoirs are not inherently worthless, so I don't get why Vincent thinks she can dismiss Sullivan's book by making the obvious point that it's basically an AIDS memoir.
I also think she's deploying faceless AIDS-stricken Africans against Sullivan--she's weaponizing racism in a way I find really distasteful. Her review has nothing to do with AIDS in Africa except insofar as it's a stick with which to beat Sullivan. I can't respect that.
Gilbert Meilander reviews Love Undetectable for Commonweal. Once again, someone thinks the section about dumb psych theories is the best part! I don't even know what to make of that.
On the other hand, Meilander's critiques of Sullivan's essay on friendship are very well taken.
Moreover, the classical notion of the friend as "another self" may, in fact, cut against Sullivan's claim that one must first love one-self in order to be capable of friendship. We need the friend as "another self" so that we may come to know who we really are. Hence, an attempt first to know or love oneself, to suppose that I must first be a person capable of friendship, may be self-defeating. Something must first be risked in friendship if we are ever really to become "selves" capable of sustaining deep personal bonds.
That's just lovely, and hardcore and challenging. I think Sullivan's essay is an amazing beginning for an investigation of friendship. Meilander's review--like all the works Sullivan actually cites, and recommends--takes it further.
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