There are two ways to defend gay marriage (Empathy or
Rights)
How to approach the dialog?
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Nature
of the article itself
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Explore the
Relationship of empathy and rights
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Empathizing with Charles
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what are his underlying values?
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what is the
role of empathy for you?
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Does Charles Krauthammer, support building a culture
of empathy?
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There is no core value of empathy in society. Charles
seems to say the empathic approach, were people dialog about the issue
of gay marriage and come to some sort of an empathic understanding is
the way to go. However, there is not a social structure to foster this
dialog in a highly empathic way. The current media discussion is very
polarized,
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Says; Obama has initially proposed to use empathy to
use bring people together around this issue. Now he is appealing
to rights. The legislatures that are enshrining anti-gay marriage.
Using the coercive poser of the law.
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Need to first set the social value as empathy. We
need to all agree that we want a culture of empathy.
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I think the gay movement would have been more effective
if they had appealed to empathy rather than equality.
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Charles Krauthammer
Same-sex marriage: Empathy or right?
There are two ways to defend gay marriage.
Argument A is empathy: One is influenced by gay friends in
committed relationships yearning for the fulfillment and acceptance that
marriage conveys upon heterosexuals. That’s essentially the case President
Obama made when he first
announced his change of
views.
Barack Obama, "Meeting people like Judy Shepard, and not only
hearing the heartbreaking tragedy of Matthew but also the strength
and determination she brought to make sure that never happens to
young people anywhere in the country again ... those stories made me
passionate about the issue." |
No talk about rights, just human fellow feeling. Such an argument is
attractive because it can be compelling without being compulsory. Many
people, feeling the weight of this longing among their gay friends, are
willing to redefine marriage for the sake of simple human sympathy.
At the same time, however, one can sympathize with others who feel great
trepidation at the radical transformation of the most fundamental of
social institutions, one that, until yesterday, was heterosexual in all
societies in all places at all times.
The empathy argument both encourages mutual respect in the debate
and lends itself to a political program of gradualism. State by state,
let community norms and moral sensibilities prevail. Indeed, that is
Obama’s stated position.
Such pluralism allows for the kind of “stable settlement of the
issue” that Ruth Bader Ginsburg once lamented had been “halted” by Roe
v. Wade regarding abortion, an issue as morally charged and politically
unbridgeable as gay marriage.
Argument B is more uncompromising: You have the right to
marry anyone, regardless of gender. The right to “marriage equality” is
today’s civil rights, voting rights and women’s rights — and just as
inviolable.
Argument B has extremely powerful implications. First, if
same-sex marriage is a right, then there is no possible justification
for letting states decide for themselves. How can you countenance even
one state outlawing a fundamental right? Indeed, half a century ago,
states’ rights was the cry of those committed to continued segregation
and discrimination.
Second, if marriage equality is a civil right, then denying it on
the basis of (innately felt) sexual orientation is, like discrimination
on the basis of skin color, simple bigotry. California’s Proposition 8
was overturned by a 9th Circuit panel on the grounds that the
referendum, reaffirming marriage as between a man and woman, was nothing
but an expression of bias — “serves no purpose . . . other than to
lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians.”
Pretty strong stuff. Which is why it was so surprising that Obama, after
first advancing Argument A, went on five days later to adopt Argument B,
calling gay marriage a great example of “expand[ing]
rights”
and today’s
successor to
civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights and workers’ rights.
expand[ing] rights
"The announcement I made last week about my views on marriage
equality -- same principle. The basic idea -- I want everybody
treated fairly in this country. We have never gone wrong when we
expanded rights and responsibilities to everybody. That doesn’t
weaken families; that strengthens families. (Applause.) It’s the
right thing to do."
Barack Obama
Remarks by the President at Rubin Museum of Art New York, New
York |
today’s
successor
"What young generations have done before should give
you hope. Young folks who marched and mobilized and stood up and
sat in, from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall, didn’t just do it
for themselves; they did it for other people.
That’s how we achieved women’s rights. That's how we achieved
voting rights. That's how we achieved workers’ rights. That's how
we achieved gay rights. That’s how we’ve made this Union more
perfect."
Barack Obama
President at Barnard College Commencement Ceremony |
Problem is: It’s a howling contradiction to leave up to the
states an issue Obama now says is a right. And beyond being
intellectually untenable, Obama’s embrace of the more hard-line “rights”
argument compels him logically to see believers in traditional marriage
as purveyors of bigotry. Not a good place for a president to be in an
evenly divided national debate that requires both sides to offer each
other a modicum of respect.
No wonder that Obama has been trying to get away from the issue
as quickly as possible. It’s not just the New York Times poll showing
his new position to be a net loser. It’s that he is too intelligent not
to realize he’s embraced a logical contradiction.
Moreover, there is the problem of the obvious cynicism of his
conversion. Two-thirds of Americans see his “evolution” as a matter not
of principle but of politics. In fact, the change is not at all an
evolution — a teleological term cleverly chosen to suggest movement
toward a higher state of being — given that Obama came out for gay
marriage 16 years ago. And then flip-flopped.
He was pro when running for the Illinois Legislature from
ultra-liberal Hyde Park. He became anti when running eight years later
for the U.S. Senate and had to appeal to a decidedly more conservative
statewide constituency. And now he’s pro again.
When a Republican engages in such finger-to-the-wind political
calculation (on abortion, for example), he’s condemned as a
flip-flopper. When a liberal goes through a similar gyration, he’s said
to have “evolved” into some more highly realized creature, deserving of
a halo on the cover of a national newsmagazine.
Notwithstanding a comically fawning press, Obama knows he has
boxed himself in. His “rights” argument compels him to nationalize
same-sex marriage and sharpen hostility toward proponents of traditional
marriage — a place he is loath to go.
True, he was rushed into it by his loquacious vice president. But
surely he could have thought this through.
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