Let’s Do Away With Demonology on Both Sides of the Gay Marriage Question
Is it possible to have a forthright but respectful disagreement on the question of gay marriage?
Recently the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, put forward an argument against gay marriage on the ground that “redefining marriage to include same-sex couples would benefit nobody”.
However one views the quality of his contribution, it is evident that he was seriously struggling with issues such as equality, individual rights and justice.
Yet the comments responding to his statement were an exercise in demonology. Sentamu was described as a bigot, homophobe, sophist and scaremonger, and his article was dismissed as “utterly sickening”. And that was just the first response on the blog.
Others denounced his cold heart, his culpability, the poison was preaching and described him as a “figurehead for a deeply misogynistic, sexually repressive, grossly hypocritical global death cult”. Theis is a small sample of the vitriol directed at him.
Sectarian and hysterical denunciations are not monopolised by the “behind every critic there is a homophobe” brigade. Zealous advocates of traditional marriage sometimes adopt the language of the Inquisition. Talk of a corrupt gay union conspiracy or of a satanic gay conspiracy to corrupt children is by no means confined to a small number of unpleasant zealots. When the attitude “if you are not with us, you are against us” prevails, it is difficult to have a serious public deliberation.
Concepts such as bigoted homophobia or the rhetoric of spiritual corruption serve highly moralised narratives aimed at shutting down discussion rather than encouraging it.
The sectarian posturing driving this debate is underpinned by two diametrically opposed principles, that of absolutism and relativism. The first upholds the socially conservative ideal of traditional marriage and unthinkingly rejects the possibility of other alternatives. The second celebrates gay marriage and dogmatically rebuffs any attempt to make judgments of value about the status of different forms of union between two adults. From the standpoint of social conservatism only one way of living is right, whereas from the standpoint of relativist identity politics the very act of making a moral judgment represents an insult to its recipient.
The present sectarian exchange on gay marriage carries on where the previous debate on family life left off. In that discussion, the advocacy of the traditional family was culturally overwhelmed by the claim of moral relativism, which suggested that not only was there no longer a single model of the family but that there should not be one. Whereas traditionalists targeted choice, relativist identity entrepreneurs sought to demonise anyone attempting to make a judgment on the moral status of family life.
The cultural ascendency of moral relativism means that difference enjoys cultural affirmation to the point that it is deemed inappropriate to publicly state a moral preference for one form of family arrangement over another. One of the first lessons children learn in schools is that it is their duty to celebrate difference. The duty to accept difference is advocated with a vehemence no less dogmatic than a fundamentalist religious doctrine.
Yet as is the case with most controversies focused on competing claims for rights and justice, both an absolutist and a relativist approach fail to do justice to the complexities at stake.