At Fannie’s Room, discussing the courts’ most recent dealing with the issue of whether the tapes of the Prop 8 trial should be publicly released, Fannie writes:
 What this opinion says, if you read it, is not that the recordings must remain sealed because the witnesses in support of Prop 8 are so very scared of same-sex marriage supporters. Indeed, as key Prop 8 witness David Blankenhorn admitted to me in conversation at Family Scholars Blog, he “never felt physically threatened” because of his testimony and he didn’t even seem to be aware that the Prop 8 legal team was putting forth the narrative that witnesses like him were Too Scared To Testify. (Fun Fact: Check out Page 18 of The American Foundation for Equal Rights’ brief! (PDF) I love that part of a blog conversation that I provoked is part of the official Prop 8 record! #bragging).
What the 9th Circuit opinion says, if you read it, is that Judge Walker said that he was only going to use the recordings in his own chambers and that he should therefore be held to that. To not hold Judge Walker to his assurance would, in fact, harm the integrity of the judiciary. What do I think? I think the tapes should have never been sealed in the first place, and that the US Supreme Court erred in saying that the trial could not be broadcast live, because I strongly question the accuracy and truthfulness of the claim that the broadcast had to be hidden from the public in order to somehow protect the Prop 8 witnesses, who were already relatively-public figures in the anti-SSM movement. I also think many professional opponents of same-sex marriage are petrified of the recordings going viral, mostly because their arguments, witnesses, and substantive points were pretty well walloped by the pro-equality attorneys and experts.
Just a couple of comments.   First, I’m not really following this issue, and, personally, don’t really have a dog in the fight. (Fannie says, apparently with surprise, that I “didn’t seem to be aware … “ Well, that’s because I wasn’t aware, and am still today pretty much, not aware. I don’t even particularly want to be aware.) Â
Second, it’s true, as I said to Fannie on the Family Scholars blog, that I never felt physically threatened or intimidated, prior to, during, or after my testimony. Never, not all.Â
Third, I know first-hand that a number of tenured professors who have published in peer-reviewed journals, etc., etc. had agreed to testify at the trial about their work and about their conclusions on this issue, and were set to do so, but then backed out when Judge Walker said that (in violation of his court’s own rules) he was going to put the whole thing on TV. Why did they withdraw? I don’t know. Maybe they just lost their nerve. Maybe they were worried about their jobs, or about the reactions of their peers, or about being harrassed on the Internet. Maybe they just didn’t want to be part of a TV circus, reminiscent of the O.J. trial. I did not ask and really do not know.Â
Bu I do know that the consequences of this development were non-trivial, since as a result, Boise and company were then able to tell anyone who would listen (and trust me, plenty of people listened) that no “real” experts were testifying on the marriage issue, only the untenured  half-wit David Blankenhorn. This mattered. And yes, I knew all of this ahead of time, but I testified anyway, because I don’t believe in allowing oneself to be coerced or frightened into silence, or in backing down from doing what you think is the right thing because it might cause you some problems. Â
Finally, Fannie implies that people like me are “petrified” of the public being able to know what was said at the trial because knowing what was actually said would show that David Blankenhorn and the other witness got “walloped” by Boise and company. I will just say, speaking personally, that not only is this thesis inaccurate, it is the exact opposite of the truth.  I am not here going to do what Boise has done — run around, after the fact, telling everyone how well he did and what a big hero he is — but will simply say that, on the (only) issues that have ever mattered to me, which are the questions related to “What is marriage,” Boise in my opinion did not “wallop” or discredit anything I said. Not one thing. Yes, he called me a lot of names, and he got plenty of journalists and advocates to join in on the fun. But on substance — on what he actually asked me about marriage and what I actually said in response — I am absolutely satisfied with what happened; in fact, it’s nearly the only thing in this entire business that I AM satisfied about; and thus I am absolutely content to let all of it, on a SUBSTANTIVE level, speak for itself. The word “petrified,” in other words, at least in my case, is about an inaccurate a word as it would be possible to use, when it comes to anyone, and in particular anyone of good will, knowing what he and I actually said to one another during those two days.Â
P.S. In any case, do people really need to wait for tapes? Isn’t a transcript available? (I’m not sure, I’m just assuming — as I said, I am not following this dispute among the lawyers.) And also, for entertainment, there is always the play, isn’t there, and I guess, eventually, the movie?
Categories: Marriage
David, First of all, the man’s name is Boies, not Boise, you’ve been misspelling it for months and it makes me wonder how much you paying attention – you must have seen and read his name over and over in the news and in legal documents. One thing you fail to understand here is that this isn’t about your stance being wrong, it’s about the fact that your stance conflicts with the case the lawyers you testified for are making, for instance they would say that we would not be “more American” after marriage equality passes. You were not drubbed by Boies, but the case against equality was drubbed by your honest testimony which made you a very odd choice as the only substantive witness. Moreover, you neglect to mention that the otherwitnesses dropped pit after being deposed and realizing the very uncomfortable cross examination they were up against, the high burden of proof that would expected, and the weakness of the case against equality and the strength of the case for it.
Christopher: Do you know where the “more American” bit that you and so many other people have such fun with, comes from?
Also, there are several misspellings in your post — makes me wonder if you are paying attention.
Of course David, it comes from your book – yes I’ve read it – you simply don’t understand that you nuanced argument in part conflicts with the argument that the Yes on 8 lawyers were making. You I’m fact made several of the plaintiffs point for them in your testimony and in your previous work. Even here on one of Barry’s post after marriage equality passed in NY, you told Barry – in 20 year when marriage has declined further that he wouldn’t be able it wasn’t because of marriage equality and you wouldn’t be able to prove that it was but that “my concern, my fear”. We all, myself included, have concerns and fears about society but they are not a legal basis to deny groups of people equal treatment or due process in civil law. Further, depositions of the witnesses who dropped out have been on YouTube for more two years; easy to find. As for spelling, I’m typing on a phone with auto correct, for that I apologize. I can tell you that if I thought someone portrayed me as a half wit and was an opponent of mine in court, I’d certainly make it a point to find out the correct spelling of their name. Back to your argument and performance in court, was that your argument ceded too much ground to the plaintiffs, the shock was that they put you on the stand knowing what the cross would be. Btw, the witnesses who dropped out had similar crosses in their depositions, and gave similar answers. The shock was that when pressed to provide evidence of harm to society, the Yes on 8 people couldn’t produce it under oath in a court of law. They provided conjecture and opinion but those don’t stand up to the rules of evidence. Since you bring attention up, may I ask you this? On 11/11/11 I asked if you thought DOMA should apply to marriages like Jonathan Rauch’s, i.e., should his marriage not be recognized by the federal gov’t as DOMA requires. You told me then that were “not aware of that” – it made me wonder how someone wrote a book on same sex marriage could not be aware of the basic laws affecting gay people I’m this country and particularly a gay friend with whom he’s written two op-eds on the subject – anyway, have you thought about that? As I’ve said before, I have respect for you. I think in thus case your arguments cut both ways and putting on a witness who will though his intelligent analysis will concede points the plaintiffs want to make is not good lawyering.
PS: I ask this with respect as I do believe you have good will. You didn’t know the scope of DOMA and reading your book their are no voices from and no research with gay people. The only gay person who appears is Evan Wolfson who you recount as “tearing up” makong you think what, and every gay couple, must want is respect or dignity. My question is, have you done primary rezearch with gay couples? Families headed by gay couples? Or are your conclusions about gay people conjecture? I’m prompted to ask because the DOMA ban on federal recoginition is a huge issue for gay couples
- as well as a frequent news story – and as you weren’t aware of it until we exchanged comments I wonder how aware of the lives of and issues facing these families.
Christopher: Thanks for your comements. I don’t want, in this thread, to re-argue all the points you bring up. I said what I said in my post mainly to respond on a personal level to Fannie’s “petrified” thesis — not to re-live or re-argue the Prop 8 case as a legal matter, much less to debate with you whether the lawyers’ strategy (which I was not in charge of) was good or bad or in between. I also don’t feel the need to audition for you at this point, in this thread, regarding whether I know or care about gay people.
You do bring up one point that, since it relates at least indirectly to the “petrified” thesis, I would like to respond to. You suggest, or at least seem to suggest, and I agree, that in our adversarial legal system, what is expected and what is almost always rewarded is arguing a case in the starkest possible black and white terms — “my side is 100 percent correct on all issues, and the opposing side is 100 percent wrong on every single point.” Anyone on either side who deviates from that posture is likely asking to get clobbered. That appears to be what happened to me on the “more American” quote that everyone on your side loves so much. If you read my book (and thanks for having done so), then you know the context in which I wrote that sentence; and so therefore you know what I was actually saying in that part of the book; and so therefore you also know (or at least I hope you do) that the lawyers’ using that phrase a punch line, simply as just a “gotcha” kind of thing, is cheap and dishonest and misleading. But what you seem to imply, and I agree, is that what you call “nuance” usually doesn’t have much of a place in a setting such as this one, in which the expected strategy all around is to engage in rigidly one-dimensional and extremely polarized argumentation. Anyway, for what it’s worth, faced with exactly the same choice again, I’d do exactly the same thing.
P.S. Evan Wolfson is not the only gay person whose argument or voice is presented in my book. Not even close. Nor did I write anywhere in the book that Evan Wolfson “teared up.” I’m tempted to trot out the “are you paying attention?” query at this point, but maybe it would be better for both of us to drop that line of inquiry.
David, I don’t care to and don’t want to audition you, nor would it be productive. Whether youve done actual research or have a knowledge of the lives of gay couples has a huge baring on your expert witness credibility in a court of law. You don’t seem to understand that the witnesses provided by your side, you particularly did what was asked of them, testified honestly and truthfully, and blew the rational bases for Prop 8 out of the water. The law is nothing but gotcha, haven’t you noticed? Mr Boies was taking a statement by an expert witness for the opposition and using it against them – that’s his job. I do think Jonathan Rauch and other gay married people deserve your considered opinion on DOMA. My goal in addressing you isn’t to embarrass you or scold you or even to change your mind particularly. But I have some suggestions for you if you are serious about addressing gay rights, as you’ve told in past year or so you are. I’d like to address it offline with you instead of here. I’d appreciate an email. Elizabeth has my email address if you want to contact me or can givee yours. A thumbs up or down on that would be appreciated. Thanks.
To your point about Fannie’s post, of course you aren’t afraid that people see (or read) your testimony – what you said os what you’ve written, etc. You are as you sometimes say a “party of one” in your thinking. The thing is that the NOM/Yes on 8/etc folks dont want to see you someone from their side agreeing with equality proponents in a court of law. It undermines their arguments. Fannie was certainly wrong about you but not about the large majority of people who run the orgs on your side.
To correct the record it’s Amdrew Sullivan whose “eyes filled with tears”, at a public debate where was on the panel. Wrong gay guy crying, sorry.
NB, that’s page 172.
David says:
“Fannie implies that people like me are ‘petrified’ of the public being able to know what was said at the trial because knowing what was actually said would show that David Blankenhorn and the other witness got ‘walloped’ by Boise and company.”
No. I actually wasn’t implying or explicitly saying that about you. I was making that claim about some of the groups who, in my opinion, make livings off of vilifying LGBT people and presenting themselves and “marriage defenders” as victims of LGBT people. I should have been more clear about that in my post. Sorry.
I believe that you believe you presented a good substantive case for opposing same-sex marriage and aren’t embarrassed about your arguments. But thinking you’ve presented a good substantive case is different than actually presenting (or failing to present) a good legal case.
Also, just out of curiosity, you claim that Boies called you a “lot of names.” I don’t remember that. Do you have any documentation of when and where this happened, or what names he was calling you? I seem to remember that he mostly just objected to you being qualified in court as an expert witness. That happens in lawsuits all the time and is hardly “name-calling.”
“First, I’m not really following this issue, and, personally, don’t really have a dog in the fight. (Fannie says, apparently with surprise, that I “didn’t seem to be aware … “ Well, that’s because I wasn’t aware, and am still today pretty much, not aware. I don’t even particularly want to be aware.)”
When you say you’re not following this issue and that you don’t have a dog in this fight, are you referring to the video recordings issue or the larger same-sex marriage issue?
Because, to me, it’s difficult to separate the two. The video recording issue was part of a larger narrative, in my opinion, to present LGBT people as Very Scary Monsters Who Are So Mean To “Marriage Defenders” For No Reason At All And Therefore Don’t Deserve Equality.
In any event, this is now several times where you’ve expressed explicit ignorance or lack of awareness to me, on this blog, about the narratives and arguments that prominent organizations and people who oppose SSM are perpetuating.
Without going back and digging it up, I remember another time you said you hadn’t even heard of Alliance Defense Fund(!), a group that I believe has taken some pretty anti-LGBT/bigoted stances (look up their “Day of Truth”), and that has been involved in the Prop 8 trial that you participated in.
I don’t know, I just find this ignorance really troubling and evidence of some real privilege.
You are part of the anti-SSM movement, and you present yourself as a Nice Guy (which in my interactions with you, you have been). But, I am concerned about the way you and your arguments are used by those who…. might not have the civil, sincere motives that you have.
Barry said it well in a post from a while back.
The way SSM and marriage gets talked about here, especially by you, just isn’t the way it’s largely talked about by many groups and laypeople in the anti-SSM movement.
Fannie:
Thanks for the comments. Overall, I can’t find much to disagree with in what you say.
Here’s one reflection. It hadn’t really occurred to me to think that me not knowing about, say, the Alliance Defense Fund — and you are right, I know absolutely nothing about them — should reasonably be viewed by others as troubling and as a sign of “privilege” … I’ll have to think about that thesis … I had not viewed it one of my responsibilities, by virtue of having taken a position (which is my own; not a group position) on ssm, to also be deeply versed in the activities and positions of every visible group out there who says things about gay people … Rather, I’ve always felt as if I had enough on my plate just trying to be clear and have some integrity about my own position (which includes of course stating my disagreement forthrightly whenever in the course of things I encounter views that I think are wrong, uch as, for example, attacks on ssm that are in fact at least in part attacks on gay people) … but I have never really viewed it as some kind of affirmative responsiblity on my part to know about, for example, the Alliance Defense Fund, or (as Christopher would have) the ins and outs of DOMA.
I’m tempted to ask you rhetorically, do YOU know what every visible pro-ssm advocate in the country is doing and saying at any one time? … but then, I’m guessing, based on the breadth of your posts, that maybe in large, reasonable measure you DO!! … so lemme think about that one, and I promise to do it.
P.S. You say that I am part of a particular “movement.” I’ve never thought of it that way. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never been to a meeting that was organized to develop strategies, raise funds, etc etc, on this issue. I’ve never joined a group or signed a petition on the issue; I’ve never donated money; I’ve never tried to intervene in elections with respect to this issue. My own organization has no group position on the issue (some within in disagree with me). I could go on, but you get the point. I wrote a book on the subject; I’ve written some articles; I testified as an expert witness; I’ve given some speeches and had some debates — but in each of these cases I have represented no one but myself, and have always tried to make that clear; and I have frequently found myself intellectually essentially to be a party of one, when it comes to this topic. I love social movements and have studied them and perhaps have even been a part of one or two; but in this case, as I say, I’ve never thought of it that way.
As an “expert witness” on the subject of gay marriage, you don’t feel you should know the details of DOMA? You don’t think you should be informed about the very subject you are paid to discuss? Wow.
David,
Thanks for your reply, I really do appreciate the chance to interact with you and hear your thoughts.
I don’t know that I’d say you have a responsibility to be informed about what anti-SSM groups are doing or who they are. I was just pretty surprised that you don’t know ADF, because you have referenced knowing other prominent actors in the SSM debate, and because ADF is prominent.
Based on action alert emails, blogs, and news articles that I read, I would say that I know the basic strategies of not only the prominent pro-SSM groups such as Lamba Legal, National Center for Lesbian Rights, the ACLU, HRC, and various state-level groups, but also the basic strategies and messages of anti-SSM groups like Alliance Defense Fund, NOM, and the Ruth Institute.
You said earlier that you don’t have a dog in this fight and that you don’t necessarily need to be aware of all the ins and outs of this debate.
I do feel like I have a dog in this fight and that’s what inspires me to remain informed, not only because I am denied specific rights because of anti-SSM policies, but because the messaging that some anti-SSM groups purvey does problematically frame LGBT people in a negative, unfair light. So, when I said that maybe it’s a sign of your privilege that you don’t know a group like ADF, I meant that as a heterosexual person, it would make sense that you wouldn’t know ADF, because they’re not saying problematic things about heterosexuals.
As for whether or not you’re part of a movement, I don’t know. It depends upon how being “part of a movement” is defined. It does seem like you are a relatively prominent voice against SSM and that many people might see you as part of the movement, but I can see how you see yourself as a “party of one.” Your book The Future of Marriage holds a unique position, I think, in the discourse as being an argument that recognizes the basic human dignity of gay people in a very explicit way while also opposing SSM.
If your voice were more representative of the anti-SSM movement as a whole, I daresay the movement would be more successful than it is- largely due to the bigotry issue, and lack of calling it out, that we have discussed before on this blog.
David, You really don’t think publishing an op-Ed in the LA Times a week before the Prop 8 election counts as intervening? Or being the only witness to say under oath in the Perry trial that gay people marrying would have a destructive effect on marriage doesn’t make you part of the movement? You are not a bystander. Your active efforts have directly harmed me and my family in very personal ways. I am aware that you didnt intend that, but you feel that is acceptable, though regretable; it is harm nonetheless. In fact, judging from history, this activity will be part of your story forever, it is hard to understand now and it will get harder and harder to understand as years go by. The decline in homophobia has that in common with the decline in racism and misogyny.
Your formulation of this issue and your work are being used now to deprive gay couples of civil unions in North Carolina, to repeal local nondiscrimination laws in Tennessee, to bar gay couples from adopting in Virginia, and take away EXISTING domestic partner benefits in Michigan and Arizona – and of course upholding the federal recognition ban in DOMA.
Yes, you most certainly have a responsibility to know how that rhetoric is used. You’ve said you favor all the things being barred/rolled back and yet while you’ll speak up against gay people marrying you’ve yet to speak
out against any of these laws that use your thinking as part of their justification, directly or indirectly.
Again, I have a few ideas for you that I would like to respectfully suggest to you in an email or phone call. I hope you’ll be willing to hear them.
Fannie: OK, I see what you mean by “privilege.” In that sense, it seems clear that you are right.
snowe: I was not “paid,” as you choose put it, to express an opinion on DOMA, and the subject did not come up at all during my testimony.
Christopher: I don’t appreciate being lectured about the “direct harm” that I am causing people, and in general, your hectoring, aggressive self-righteousness is something that makes me less, not more, eager to hear all the advice that you want to give me.
You were not paid at all as an expert witness in the Prop 8 trial?
I am not lecturing you and of course you don’t appreciate it – you don’t even want to acknowledge the harm. I am telling you my experience. You may not want to acknowledge that experience but it exists, and that harm exists. As I’ve said I dont bear you I’ll will, but you can’t expect me or other gay people/couples to suffer harm, which you had a hand in, in silence. I’d agree with Fannie that you perceive polite challenges as hectoring, be they regarding facts, law, or philosophy. Self-righteous? Well, I don’t have the luxury of looking at the denial or roll back of civil rights to gay people as a academic issue. It’s bread and butter and breath for me and mine.
I’ve suggested to you in the past in the nicest possible language that you speak out on your professed progay rights positions, since you speak out about taking rights away from gay people or denying them. I’ve seen people approach you here for years about those same issues, but though you say you support them as a good you don’t seem interested in doing anything to help. Or even to familiarize yourself with what the movement you’re part of uses your work for – see the state bills and laws above. Is it hectoring you to ask you very civilly bit plainly to respond to those laws/bills? Would you rather not know? As I said, I have respect for you, but if you don’t want to be aware of these forthcoming laws, that they can’t even be acknowledged here by you, then I am at a loss.
To Snowe’s point, you are one of the foremost experts in the US on marriage. You’ve written a book (2007) about the history of marriage whuch specifically addreses same sex marriage. Doesn’t it seem reasonable to expect you to be aware of the basic provisions of the federal “Defense of Marriage Act”? It has been unchanged since it was enacted in 1996.
This blog is an interesting thing.
I draw comic books for a living. But what I do, and what the people who create Batman do, is actually very different. We have different markets and different audiences and different publishers. But very few people who aren’t in the comic book industry would have any reason to know that those big differences exist.
David and Elizabeth are not THE leaders of the mainstream anti-SSM movement; although David and Elizabeth have relatively prominent voices compared to most Americans, they are not Brian Brown, Robert George or Maggie Gallagher. They’re not on the board of NOM; they don’t decide what goes in the (often homophobic) anti-SSM commercials; they don’t allocate millions of dollars to various state elections. As David says, they’re not in the room where the strategy is worked out.
That’s a difference, like the difference between me and the guys who draw Batman, that’s probably more obvious to David and Elizabeth than it is to most casual observers.
That said, David and Elizabeth are prominent voices and, in their own way, leaders; they get taken seriously, they’ve had editorials arguing against SSM published in major newspapers, David has written a book, testified at trial and even been played by Rob Reiner. (How surreal that must feel!)
One of the continuing frustrations in the SSM debate, from my perspective, is the lack of accountability. Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown have more-or-less dedicated their careers to making sure that the interests of lesbian and gay Americans are sacrificed for an (alleged) benefit to heterosexual marriages. But because Gallagher and Brown are elites, they don’t regularly deal in respectful conversation with people who disagree with them, and in particular with lesbian and gay people who they harm. The closest they come is on TV “debates.” I wonder, if they had to sit down to dinner in a lesbian or gay family household once or twice a week, would they feel as comfortable with their rhetoric and commercials?
On the other hand, unlike those folks, David and Elizabeth do participate in a forum (this blog) where they regularly exchange views with ordinary, non-elite proponents of same-sex marriage, including lesbian and gay folks. I think it’s fair to say there’s a sort of sustained relationship going on here; for David, Fannie and Chris aren’t just random unnamed internet critics, they’re particular people who he recognizes from past exchanges, and probably expects to have exchanges with again.
This is a strange and rare thing in the US, isn’t it? And it’s something I wish more of our intellectual and political leaders would do. (How much contact do the folks leading the movement for harsher measures against undocumented immigrants actually have with the people they’re talking about? If I could, I’d force them to sit down and have dinner with undocumented immigrant families at least twice a week.)
The conversation is visibly frustrating for almost all participants. But that it’s happening at all is sort of a miracle. And that’s actually part of what I want to get out of participating in this blog; I think that being here helps me fight against my tendency to demonize those who disagree with me.
(I also get the obscure satisfaction of thinking that perhaps people like Robert George, Brian Brown, or Maggie Gallagher occasionally read my posts, and Fannie’s posts, and are perhaps even disquieted for a moment now and then.)
David complained in Fannie’s thread, with some justice, that these discussions are very repetitive. But considering that SSM is an issue where we keep having the exact same fight, over and over — in 2008 in California, last year in New York, this year in Washington state — is repetition unavoidable?
Years ago, when I first started trying to engage with opponents of same-sex marriage, I literally could not imagine what they were thinking. Why would anyone be against THAT? It made no sense to me.
Now — thanks in part to forums like FSB — I think I understand better. It’s still wrong, in my view, but it’s a more comprehensible wrong than it once was.
But can a forum like this do more than just increase understanding and let us “humanize” rather than demonize opposition? I don’t know. What would “more” be? On another thread, David, you said that you didn’t think that Fannie’s post advanced the discussion; but what would a more advanced discussion look like?
Anyhow, forgive the long 3-am-ish rambles on your thread, David.
Barry said:
“Years ago, when I first started trying to engage with opponents of same-sex marriage, I literally could not imagine what they were thinking. Why would anyone be against THAT? It made no sense to me.
Now — thanks in part to forums like FSB — I think I understand better. It’s still wrong, in my view, but it’s a more comprehensible wrong than it once was.”
That has been my experience as well, and I’m very appreciative of it and of having my voice welcomed in this space.
It’s interesting. When I visit different blogs and forums now, it’s pretty easy to identify whether those speaking have any real exchange with “the other side.” Those who don’t tend to speak in broad, sweeping terms about their opponents (eg- the bigots this, the Leftists that, the homosexualists this, the Christianists that, the SSMers this), as though everyone on the “other side” is a monstrous caricature.
It’s entertaining, but also kind of sad, because these misconceptions often stand unchallenged, especially because many political blogs moderate away dissenting voices or categorize even civil challenges as “trolling.”
A while back a commenter here asked if we could please not have another conversations about “civility” on this blog, but without having those regular conversations about what does/doesn’t constitute civility, I think it’s really difficult to have an exchange with ideological opponents that is fair, non-accusatory, and productive.
Barry and Fannie:
Thank you so much for those comments. They mean a lot to me, and I am grateful to both of you.
I’ve been kicking around an idea in my head for the past several days — I don’t know if it’s feasible or affordable, and I don’t know if anyone else (including Elizabeth) thinks it has any merit or practicality all, but let me just toss it out there and see what if anything anyone has to say.
What if 6 or 8 of us got together in person for a few hours to talk face-to-face about the marriage issue as we’ve been debating on this blog? A kind of jump from the written blog post/comment to face to face interaction, and just see what happens? About half and half pro and anti, self-moderating or with a moderator we all agree to, informal and free-wheeling in style, and just a few questions put in formal terms to get the conversation going. We could video the conversation and put in on this blog and on various websites, either in real time (streaming) or not, and then let people (us included) continue the conversation afterward online, in the regular way.
Anyway, I’m not trying to be overly specific — I’m just tossing out a rough idea.
It came into my mind as a possibility, I think, for several reasons. First, as Barry says, it’s harder to stereotype someone with whom you have an actual relationship. Second, I think there really is something interesting going on here, and I’d like to build on it. And finally, we might find that talking, rather than writing, actually advances the converstion in some ways. (Or we might not, but maybe it’s worth a try either way.)
Do others see this, even theoretically, as worth doing, or would it make more sense just to keep developing the conersation (perhaps with more and more voices) online?
Great idea David. Elizabeth and I have been talking like that informally. Let me tell you clearly. Dialog with you here is a privilege, because though we disagree about something that, quite frankly, is fundamental to the well-being of my family, and though I wanted to dislike you, I find you here and through your writing to be very decent in a way that is absent in the rest of the “professional opponents of ssm” (Fannie’s phrase and btw I feel the same about EM). Ive invested a lot of time thinking about your position and reading your writing.
The reason I would ask more of you than I would of others, and be frustrated at a what I see as a slow pace, is because I think highly of you.
You are (with E) alone in this movement intellectally but yet sweep
along with it. It’s often the fate of nuanced thinking nowadays.
A conference is a very good idea and certainly it can be accomplished through video conferencing/Skype, or part of it can, if nothing else. I am very willing to travel to NY (from LA) to meet you; Elizabeth and I have been planning for awhile to have a drink together. Cheers and kudos for the suggestion.
I don’t think I could justify traveling for something like that, either financially or in terms of my drawing schedule. (My next book has to be done in August, so I’m only going out of town between now and then for business stuff.)
But do people have webcams? Maybe we could try scheduling a google hangout. (Which enables small groups to talk face to virtual face on the web, in case anyone doesn’t know).
Personally, I think an advantage of writing is that it allows me to edit out my lack of civility — often the largest difference between my first drafts and when I hit the “submit” button is that I remove a lot of angry snark. OTOH, face to face does have the humanizing element you’re talking about.
You again refer to “advancing the conversation.” Again, I’m not sure what advancing would mean. Do you have any idea what you mean by that — or is it just a sense that something more is possible, even if you’re not sure what it is?
I crossposted with Christopher, obviously. But I agree with what he said.
I’d favor trying it informally, at least the first time, and self-moderation. An advantage of doing it via the internet is that it would require relatively little investment from anyone, so there might be less pressure to create something that could be posted online (thus making the whole thing productive).
Interesting proposal.
I would have to think more about it, as I am generally better at and more comfortable with expressing myself in writing rather than orally (the blessing/curse of an extreme introvert!)
I like the idea of some sort of collaboration though.
You know, that sounds like so much fun. Online would be more practical for a trial (and not only because I might be able to participate: as far as in-person meetups go, except under the unlikely circumstance of them being held near to central Massachusetts, I would not be able to attend).
I love this idea. And it’s very gratifying to hear Barry and Fannie say what they’ve encountered at this blog and why it feels useful, if frustrating.
Fannie, I’m an introvert too. Strangely, a lot of people with strong opinions are. It would be interesting to get us all in a room together : )
Barry, you’re better than Batman.
Christopher, I know I kind of dropped the thread on that discussion we were having. And Ralph and I have been talking about doing something on the question of how/if mothers matter.
Lots of great ideas here.