Princeton is not only a prestigious Ivy League university, it’s also the employer of Professor Robert P. George, one of the most anti-LGBT figures of our time. He works there as Professor of Jurisprudence and lectures on constitutional interpretation, civil liberties and philosophy of law. But one LGBT activist wants him out.
In his article entitled “Hold Princeton Accountable For Enabling A Major Political Gay Basher,” LGBT writer and activist Scott Rose explains George’s anti-LGBT background and what he would like to see LGBT people do to get him booted from Princeton:
Professor George [is a past chairman] of the so-called National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which incessantly promulgates documentable untruths about gay human beings intended to demonize them in a political context. He was one of the authors of the notoriously anti-gay “Manhattan Declaration.” From the tweedy confines of his Princeton University office, Professor George is a main instigator of a huge quantity of malicious anti-gay-rights propagandizing and political gay-bashing. He is the founder of the American Principles Project. That site’s “Innocence” tab includes links to articles that [condemn school anti-bullying measures as a way to promote “LGBT lifestyles.”]
I recommend 1) raising awareness of George’s anti-gay hate and political influence, with a mind towards influencing young people not to attend Princeton; 2) organizing divestiture campaigns against Princeton University; 3) writing to Princeton University officials to voice disgust over the institution’s enabling of Professor George’s anti-gay hate speech; (Princeton University President Shirley M. Tilghman’s email address) 4) encouraging current Princeton University students to organize “Occupy Equality”-style events at Princeton to demand an end to the University’s enabler of a monster political gay basher.”
Rose’s plan might not be so easy though because it turns out that George is kinda a big deal on campus:
George is an award-winning teacher at Princeton, where his courses are heavily subscribed and, according to the Princeton University Undergraduate Course Guide, are among the most highly rated in the university. Since 2007, George has been teaching with his Princeton colleague Cornel West… [lesbian] Supreme Court Justice and former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan praised George as “one of the nation’s most respected legal theorists”, saying that the respect he had gained was due to “his sheer brilliance, the analytic power of his arguments, the range of his knowledge”, and “a deeply principled conviction, a profound and enduring integrity”
He’s also earned honorary doctorates of law, letters, science, civil law, humane letters, ethics, and juridical science from a handful of different universities and received tons o’ awards. So ejecting George will prove difficult as he’s got quite the impressive curriculum vitae.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
We’ve reached out to Princeton’s LGBT Center to hear their thoughts on Mr. George’s presence and Mr. Rose’s plan to eject him. Let’s see if the pressure builds.
Fodolodo
Robert George is very smart, his work is often quite interesting and thought-provoking, and he’s been pretty influential. Princeton should retain him. The fact that he is horrifically, egregiously wrong about homosexuality and same-sex marriage ought not to alter that judgment, especially given the importance of academic freedom. And there are some things he does that ought to be emulated by other opponents of gay rights: for example, though he’s a serious Catholic, his moral conclusions, on the subject of homosexuality and more generally, are defended in terms of secular reason, not religious decree.
His views ought to be considered, challenged, and rejected. They should not be a firing offense.
Zac
I am embarrassed to see LGBT activists following in the footsteps of the far Right by placing their own ideological agenda above academic freedom (which includes the freedom the hold controversial and misguided views).
Craig
@Fodolodo: ” … his moral conclusions, on the subject of homosexuality and more generally, are defended in terms of secular reason, not religious decree.
His views ought to be considered, challenged, and rejected. They should not be a firing offense.”
I’ve yet to hear a sound secular argument in favor of discrimination against LGBT people.
akn
I’m sorry, but this (Rose’s proposed campaign) is going too far. This is like the leadership seminar teacher who Cisco fired when they were made aware of his anti-gay writings. From what we know, Robert George is a highly accomplished scholar who the students themselves rate highly. There is no evidence (or even accusation) that he attempted to inculcate his mistaken beliefs about homosexuality in the students he teaches, and it doesn’t appear that he led or advised any sort of anti-gay student advocacy group on campus (although that’s somewhat mooted by the national scope of his policy recommendations, in that they would affect gay people everywhere). I have read some of his writings on marriage and/or homosexuality and he does not identify himself as a Princeton professor, usually naming his affiliation with NOM or some other “marriage institute”-type organization.
I highly encourage criticizing Robert George for his cold and demeaning arguments against gay equality, but demanding that the private university that employs him give its institutional weight to social censure strikes me as imperious and not a little bratty.
Ogre Magi
Sounds like Robert George is a typical christian turd!
TampaZeke
I wish our opponents were as quick to defend the rights of people on our side with whom they disagree as we are to defend those who attack us with vicious and dangerous lies.
Matt
People are quick to bring up academic freedom in cases like this which is a valid point but I find it hard to believe that people would be making that argument if he was blatantly racist or anti-semitic. Why is there a double standard that being a homophobe is somehow “less bad” than being a racist and therefor not something that someone should lose their job over?
jj
He’s Catholic. So, he’s not only a turd he’s also a cult member.
Steve
The university should retain the tenured professor.
The students should boycott his courses.
The dean should not assign any further “required” courses to Professor George.
(And, should recruit a new faculty member, if needed, to cover the hole in the curriculum.)
The peer-reviewed journals should not publish his articles, if they have any suggestion of discrimination.
(Legitimate “research” results, of course, should be published. There won’t be many.)
He can retire without students or new publications.
That’s how this is done in universities…
Both the professor and the university get to save face.
The cost to the university is much less than litigation that would result over revocation of tenure.
And the academic mission, both research and instruction, are able to continue with minimal disruption.
...
“He’s Catholic. So, he’s not only a turd he’s also a cult member.”
You’re a bigot.
Fodolodo
@Craig: That’s because there are no such arguments. There are, however, unsound secular arguments in favor of a view of sexual morality and marriage that excludes same-sex relationships. Robert George is a particularly skilled and intelligent proponent of such arguments.
@akn: In fairness, George’s academic work (including his academic work on homosexuality and same-sex marriage) clearly identifies him as a Princeton professor, and I’d be very surprised if he never expresses or defends his moral views in the classes he teaches.
@Matt: In all honesty, I have no answer to your (perfectly fair) question that I’m entirely happy with. I’d say at least this, though: however obvious we may find it that homosexuality and heterosexuality are morally equivalent, there are lots of Americans for whom this is not obvious at all, including more than a few who are well-educated enough to be influenced by the work of Robert George and those like him. Such Americans will not be reached by exiling people like George from universities: they may, however, be reached by rational engagement with his views. When it comes to racism or anti-Semitism, I think we are long past the point where rational engagement would do any good.
Scott Rose
Hi Dan:
I’d like to clarify that my plan is not aimed at “ejecting” Professor George from Princeton, though that would be a desirable end result of my recommended campaign of protests.
Rather, the chief aim is to get Princeton to take a stand against George’s irrationality, and his anti-gay bigotry.
George’s idea that heterosexuals married in love constitute a single organism when they have vaginal intercourse is ridiculous and false.
George and his wife, for example, could be having vaginal intercourse, he could have a heart attack and die and she would still be alive.
No matter how poetic it might seem to say that intercourse makes people *feel* like they are joined as one, they are, scientifically viewed, still two separate organisms.
George takes his notion even further, though; he declares that gay couples can not become a single organism the way heterosexual couples can, and therefore, they must not be given marriage equality.
The baseline problem in this is Princeton’s intellectual integrity. Were a professor saying and teaching that water is three parts hydrogen, the professor would have a credibility problem and so would the university — if it weren’t even willing to have officials say that water is two, not three parts hydrogen.
With George’s faleshood about the “one flesh union” possible for heterosexuals (but not for homosexuals), George is saying something as documentably untrue as “water is three parts hydrogen.”
The reasons that, apparently, nobody in the Princeton academic community is willing to publicly contradict George’s “one organism” argument remain to be discovered. Is he steering some huge amount of money to the institution? The Catholic Governor Chris Christie is against marriage equality, and is also an Ex Officio member of the Princeton University Board of Trustees. Could there be political pressures on Princeton not to contradict Professor George in any of his anti-gay lies? I notice you say that you tried to get a comment from the Princeton LGBT Center — that LGBT Center is administered by Princeton employees, not students, and they say that all media requests must go through Princeton’s Communications Department. My guess is that the Communications Department will not allow the LGBT Center to make a comment to Queerty critical of Professor George. I would be pleased to be proven wrong in that, but I suspect I’m correct. And if in fact, you can’t get the Princeton LGBT Center to go on record with a quote about Professor George’s anti-gay lies, then the question becomes, why will Princeton not permit the LGBT Center to make a public comment critical of Professor George’s political gay bashing?
Further, gay rights are profoundly at stake in the 2012 elections – not just the presidential elections, but all 2012 elections. I wonder how many people realize how determined Professor George is to see LGBT Americans oppressed. He favors the criminalization of anal intercourse. The NOM pledge, which he certainly had a hand in writing, and which the major Republican presidential candidates have signed, if carried out would have *all* state-level marriage recognition for gay American couples ripped away. It also would have a federal constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. Professor George has drafted the federal consitutional amendment against marriage equality. The NOM pledge also commits the signer to appointing anti-gay-rights federal judges. And on top of that, it calls for the establishment of a presidential commission to “investigate” harassment of organizations like NOM and people like Professor George. The criminal justice system already allows for reporting and prosecuting criminal harassment. So why a presidential commission, to “investigate” those who want equality, a commission set up coincidentally at a time when all gay rights are being rolled back? You have to be extremely naive not to understand that the aim of that “presidential commission” is to have a McCarthy-like panel intimidating gay Americans, the better to rip their rights away from them.
NOM has inserted itself very aggressively into the 2012 elections. George’s fingers are in everything NOM does. He is openly exploiting the prestige of his Princeton University professorship to make his anti-gay lies appear to be documentably true. But his lies in reality are documentably false. And Princeton if it won’t even state in public that a heterosexual married couple having vaginal intercourse is *not* literally a single organism, as George claims, is ABETTING George in his malicious anti-gay politicking nationwide.
The immediate goal of my proposed protests is not to have George fired but rather to have Princeton University officials 1) go on public record saying which of George’s scientifically determinable falsehoods are false and 2) take a stand against George’s ignorance-fueled anti-gay bigotry.
Scott Rose
Scott Rose
@akn: Hi Dan:
Thanks so much for posting about my Robert George piece.
I’d like to clarify that my plan is not aimed at “ejecting” Professor George from Princeton, though that would be a desirable end result of my recommended campaign of protests.
Rather, the chief aim is to get Princeton to take a stand against George’s irrationality, and his anti-gay bigotry.
George’s idea that heterosexuals married in love constitute a single organism when they have vaginal intercourse is ridiculous and false.
George and his wife, for example, could be having vaginal intercourse, he could have a heart attack and die and she would still be alive.
No matter how poetic it might seem to say that intercourse makes people *feel* like they are joined as one, they are, scientifically viewed, still two separate organisms.
George takes his notion even further, though; he declares that gay couples can not become a single organism the way heterosexual couples can, and therefore, they must not be given marriage equality.
The baseline problem in this is Princeton’s intellectual integrity. Were a professor saying and teaching that water is three parts hydrogen, the professor would have a credibility problem and so would the university — if it weren’t even willing to have officials say that water is two, not three parts hydrogen.
With George’s faleshood about the “one flesh union” possible for heterosexuals (but not for homosexuals), George is saying something as documentably untrue as “water is three parts hydrogen.”
The reasons that, apparently, nobody in the Princeton academic community is willing to publicly contradict George’s “one organism” argument remain to be discovered. Is he steering some huge amount of money to the institution? The Catholic Governor Chris Christie is against marriage equality, and is also an Ex Officio member of the Princeton University Board of Trustees. Could there be political pressures on Princeton not to contradict Professor George in any of his anti-gay lies? I notice you say that you tried to get a comment from the Princeton LGBT Center — that LGBT Center is administered by Princeton employees, not students, and they say that all media requests must go through Princeton’s Communications Department. My guess is that the Communications Department will not allow the LGBT Center to make a comment to Queerty critical of Professor George. I would be pleased to be proven wrong in that, but I suspect I’m correct. And if in fact, you can’t get the Princeton LGBT Center to go on record with a quote about Professor George’s anti-gay lies, then the question becomes, why will Princeton not permit the LGBT Center to make a public comment critical of Professor George’s gay bashing?
Further, gay rights are profoundly at stake in the 2012 elections – not just the presidential elections, but all 2012 elections. I wonder how many people realize how determined Professor George is to see LGBT Americans oppressed. He favors the criminalization of anal intercourse. The NOM pledge, which he certainly had a hand in writing, and which the major Republican presidential candidates have signed, if carried out would have *all* state-level marriage recognition for gay American couples ripped away. It also would have a federal constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. Professor George has drafted the federal consitutional amendment against marriage equality. The NOM pledge also commits the signer to appointing anti-gay-rights federal judges. And on top of that, it calls for the establishment of a presidential commission to “investigate” harassment of organizations like NOM and people like Professor George. The criminal justice system already allows for reporting and prosecuting criminal harassment. So why a presidential commission, to “investigate” those who want equality, a commission set up coincidentally at a time when all gay rights are being rolled back? You have to be extremely naive not to understand that the aim of that “presidential commission” is to have McCarthy-like panel intimidating gay Americans, the better to rip their rights away from them.
NOM has inserted itself very aggressively into the 2012 elections. George’s fingers are in everything NOM does. He is openly exploiting the prestige of his Princeton University professorship to make his anti-gay lies appear to be documentably true. But his lies in reality are documentably false. And Princeton if it won’t even state in public that a heterosexual married couple having vaginal intercourse is *not* literally a single organism, as George claims, is ABETTING George in his malicious anti-gay politicking nationwide.
The immediate goal of my proposed protests is not to have George fired but rather to have Princeton University officials 1) go on public record saying which of George’s scientifically determinable falsehoods are false and 2) take a stand against George’s ignorance-fueled anti-gay bigotry.
Scott Rose
Andy
@akn: i am stunned that such an accomplished person with so much knowledge would endorse such bigotry and mis informed prejudice. Incidentally, the cisco guy, frank turek, was not a victimhere. he was fired for inciting conflict in his place of work. The story of his firing was given by him to the media. He is a liar and a fraud who deserved to be fired.
B
No. 11 · Scott Rose wrote (among other things), “The reasons that, apparently, nobody in the Princeton academic community is willing to publicly contradict George’s “one organism” argument remain to be discovered.”
Well, I can make a pretty good guess: most people take that “one organism” phrase (or the traditional religious term, “one flesh”) as poetry with no factual basis, with the Biblical term having its roots in the creation myth in Genesis. As such, they realize that this character is expressing a personal religious viewpoint that has nothing to do with his work at the university.
Since he hasn’t been booted out, we can assume that he can compartmentalize his religious viewpoints and not let those interfere with his academic career, although he may talk about his religious beliefs informally. Also, since his field is law, his alleged activities on behalf of NOM can be rationalized as representing a client.
BTW, you can read a description of his course (partly an interview with him) at
http://www.princeton.edu/admission/whatsdistinctive/facultyprofiles/george/ for whatever that is worth (he doesn’t seem to mention homosexuality, but does mention other social issues). For a more impartial description of his opinions about homosexuality, read http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/magazine/20george-t.html?pagewanted=all (a 2009 NY Times magazine article) – you may not like him and certainly won’t agree with him, but he is intellectually well above people like Maggie Gallagher.
Regarding the Manhattan Declaration, the NY times article describes his statement about it as follows:
—- start quote —-
George noted that many evangelicals had signed the Manhattan Declaration despite the traditional Protestant skepticism about the corruption of human reason. “I sold my view about reason!” he declared. He was especially pleased that, by signing onto the text, so many Catholic bishops had endorsed his new natural-law argument about marriage. “It really is the top leadership of the American church,” he said.
“Obviously, I am gratified that view appears to have attracted a very strong following among the bishops,” he went on. “I just hope I am right. If they are going to buy my arguments, I don’t want to mislead the whole church.”
—- end quote —-
At least, unlike Maggie, he seems to understand that he might be wrong (although he clearly hopes he isn’t).
Cam
@Zac: said..
“I am embarrassed to see LGBT activists following in the footsteps of the far Right by placing their own ideological agenda above academic freedom (which includes the freedom the hold controversial and misguided views).”
________________________________-
Oh give me a break, if he had been a board member of the KKK or a group advocating to take the vote away from women they would boot him.
It’s only because it’s still ok to be an anti gay bigot that Princton isn’t looking at this.
B
Re B. No 14 — just found the following link:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Public+reason+and+political+conflict%3A+abortion+and+homosexuality.-a019540336
This is an article by Robert P. George entitled, “Public reason and political conflict: abortion and homosexuality.” You might want to read it so see what he is actually saying. At least he points out that others (particularly liberals) may find the opposing argument more compelling.
Regardless, you don’t have to agree with him, but knowing what the smart guys on the other side are doing is useful, particularly for students who might want to become LGBT activists after they graduate – if they can handle the sort of arguments Robert George can throw at them, countering people like Maggie Gallagher will be a piece of cake. All of us are better off if activists learn how to do that in a classroom, rather than in the middle of a political campaign where losing means some repressive anti-LGBT initiative becomes law.
BillJ
For those who are saying this is going to far, would you feel the same way if this man was saying the EXACT same things about blacks or jews or any other minority group?
If you would not and you are gay, you are basically saying that you belive you are less of a human than others and that this man should be excused for his attacks on our lives.
We would not tolerate in society any kind of attacks like this on any other minority besides LGBT citizens.
So we must not accept less. Because we are not less.
Scott Rose
@B: The New York Times Magazine’s Public Relations-like profile of Robert George was written by a long-time acquaintance of George. So much for impartiality. That long-time acquaintance did not bother to ask any of the victims of George’s beliefs and politicking what they think of it. As for George’s “one flesh” argument against gay rights having nothing to do with his academic career, he co-authored an article “What is Marriage?” published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. As somebody noted in these comments, George’s field is law. Therefore, the paper he published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy is a part of his Princeton-related academic endeavors. The article is a scandalous anti-gay hate tract couched in academic terms. The remark in a comment above about George’s “alleged” activities for NOM and the thought that NOM is a George client is laughable, as George founded NOM and is its Chairman Emeritus.
Scott Rose
@B: I believe I understand your problem, commenter identified only as “B.” I believe that when you pulled your head out of your ass, your head fell off, and all that was left was a talking asshole.
Fodolodo
@Scott Rose: Usually, when the views you attribute to a person are so obviously absurd that it’s hard to see how someone could possibly hold them, that’s a good reason to believe that you’re wrong about the views they actually hold. That is the case here. Robert George obviously does not believe that a couple having penile-vaginal sex is a “single organism” in the sense that one partner’s heart attack could kill both of them. His argument is narrower: he argues that a man and a woman having penile-vaginal sex organically unite their body parts via their body parts’ mutual coordination toward the common end of procreation. There are many difficulties with this argument, with probably the biggest being that it’s quite unclear why it matters either morally or legally, but it is not even remotely “documentably untrue” in the same sense as saying that water is three parts hydrogen.
It does not reflect well on your argument that you misunderstand him so badly. If we reject Robert George’s arguments (and we should), we should do so for good reasons, not bad ones. And if we want to challenge him and those who rely on his arguments, we will be maximally effective only if we first take them seriously and try to understand what it is they are saying. It seems to me that getting Princeton to dismiss Robert George, or even just to treat him as a pariah, would not serve these ends and would probably impair them.
Scott Rose
@Fodolodo: In his Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy paper “What is Marriage?” George says that when having vaginal intercourse in the context of marriage, two heterosexual bodies become “one.”
Scientifically viewed, those two bodies are not “one” they remain two bodies.
George is saying something that can be scientifically documented as untrue.
Were this only a poetic notion he were applying to love making, that would be one thing. But, he is using this scientifically untrue statement . . that two heterosexual bodies having vaginal intercourse become “one,” in order to go on to say that homosexuals can not possibly become “one” during (anal) intercourse.
For that reason, it is urgently important to get leading academic figures at Princeton to acknowledge to the public that two heterosexual bodies having vaginal intercourse do not literally become “one” as Professor George claims.
And I dare say that George *should* be treated as a pariah. He actively pushes the notion that gay American public school students shouldn’t have anti-bullying protections. A Florida Republican influenced by George says that anti-gay bullying is a “healthy” form of peer pressure.
Scott Rose
@Fodolodo: PS to @Fodolodo: Your sickness, Fodolodo, is that of believing that equality is debatable. You can still find millions of very vicious anti-Semites in the United States. What happened to make public expressions of that bigotry less acceptable, though, wasn’t that Jews debated with vicious bigots . . what happened was that Jews put their foot down and said “We’re not taking this any more” and then they organized to show that they really were not going to take it any more. That is how the Anti-Defamation League and similar organizations were born. It isn’t that there’s no anti-Semitism in America today – it’s that the Jews in their majority refused ever to debate their equality with bigots. Debating with vicious bigots lends to vicious bigots an unwarranted appearance of acceptability, as if their views were not so outrageous as to violate human decency.
Scott Rose
@Zac: Academic freedom does not mean that you can say an untrue thing and expect not to be challenged with definitive proof that the untrue thing said is untrue. Princeton’s Professor George says things that can readily be proved, by scientific method, as untrue.
Scott Rose
@akn: You should research things better, akn. You claim that George’s anti-gay marriage papers don’t identify him as a Princeton Professor. However, for example, Professor George’s maliciously anti-gay paper “What is Marriage?” identifies him as McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University.
Scott Rose
I recommend that people having doubts about whether Princeton should be pressured into taking a stand against George’s vicious anti-gay bigotry do two things. 1) Make an in-depth study of how influential George is politically, and, an equally in-depth study of what Republicans have in mind to do to LGBT Americans if they gain more power in 2012. 2) Read all of George’s paper “What is Marriage?” Among other things, he says that gays shouldn’t be given marriage equality for the same reason that a person shouldn’t be allowed to marry an inanimate object.
TxHeat
BillJ
“For those who are saying this is going to far, would you feel the same way if this man was saying the EXACT same things about blacks or jews or any other minority group?
If you would not and you are gay, you are basically saying that you belive you are less of a human than others and that this man should be excused for his attacks on our lives.
We would not tolerate in society any kind of attacks like this on any other minority besides LGBT citizens.
So we must not accept less. Because we are not less.”
I agree 100 percent and I am shocked how many in here want to excuse it.I would think this kind of self hatred would only come from Go proud or the Log Cabin Gays.
Pete n SFO
If Princeton is going to retain a bigoted advocate of discrimination, they should be prepared to take the heat.
Students, who become alumni, many whom head public companies, should absolutely be aware of what they are supporting. Princeton is a brand, just like Harvard, just Walmart & Target. When a company takes a position by funding bigotry in whatever form, in today’s world that means they deal with the fallout as well.
I’m sure the guy is bright- big deal, lots of people are bright. It doesn’t earn you a pass for bigotry & discrimination. All this bullshiz masquerading as religious fervor is no excuse; there’s plenty of crap they ignore even within their own religious doctrine.
Were I an alumni of Princeton, I would withhold any donation while this guy is on-board. Give people the info & let them decide… nothin’ wrong with that.
WillBFair
This is laughable. And hopelessly stupid. Another bigot in a big University. Please.
Selfish low culture has been in control of academia since forever. It’s too boring.
Jaye Scoefield
I actually had Professor George as an undergrad about six years ago. He was the best professor I ever had and his class was eye opening. I find it disgusting that my fellow community members would want to destroy such a brilliant man. Sure, his activities with NOM are reprehensible, but his business outside of school does not effect his ability to teach. As a young closeted student, I never felt threatened or uncomfortable in his class. I even went to several office hours and was enlightened by his ideas. It makes me sad to think that so many future students might not get the chance to take his class. Princeton is a very liberal school, but Prof. George is still considered by both the faculty and students to be one of the top instructors.
Scott Rose
Here’s something else you have to understand about Professor George. He thinks that all forms of non-marital sex should be illegal. And, he thinks gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry each other. In other words, Professor George thinks that if gay people aren’t willing to enter heterosexual marriages and have heterosexual sex, they shouldn’t have sex at all, and if they do have gay sex, then if apprehended, they should be prosecuted, convicted and punished. That is what this Princeton Professor believes, and he is working towards making that a legal reality in the United States.
WillBFair
@Jaye Scoefield: I’m sorry. You seem to live in the academic, ass kissing world. There’s another Universe for serious people. Basic smartness is light years ahead of low class Princetom.
WillBFair
This person has a fabulous chin and cheek bones. Typical of low mass culture looks obsession pretending to be the intellectual world. What a laugh.
Scott Rose
@Jaye Scoefield: You stupid asshole. You fuckwad. You jerk. Even as Professor George is working to ruin gay human beings’ lives all over the country, you find “disgusting” that gay adults want to try to protect gay Americans from the psychological violence that George wants to wage against them, and the accompanying physical violence of anti-gay bullying in the schools and on the streets. What a repugnant asshole you are. You say his work with NOM doesn’t impact his teaching, and again I am telling you that you are a stupid, stupid, stupid asshole. One of George’s co-authors on his paper “What is Marriage?,” . . one of the most vicious gay-bashing documents ever penned . .. was a Princeton Ph.D. candidate. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT, YOU FATUOUS MORON? Not only does George’s NOM activity impact his teaching — he is at Princeton University cultivating another generation of academic anti-gay monsters who will carry on with his attempts to perpetuate sexual orientation apartheid and to torture gay Americans. Yes, to say that all gay sex should be illegal and that gays should not be permitted to marry each other is a plan, with malice aforethought, to torture gay people. You have no respect for yourself if you defend this monster and that’s why I am telling you that you are a stupid asshole. Have more respect for yourself than to defend an influential academic who would have you thrown in jail for having gay sex.
Fodolodo
@Scott Rose: “He thinks that all forms of non-marital sex should be illegal.” Where exactly did he make this claim? (He certainly thinks they’re all immoral, but that’s not the same.)
WillBFair
I’m sorry. I live in a world unimpressed by a straight nose, strong chin, and high cheek bones. Mary, if you’re going to pose as the academic elite, at least you should not kiss up to a pretty face.
WillBFair
@Scott Rose: Thanks dear. Dealing with low class academia is always upsetting. But you’ve done a good job.
Fodolodo
@Scott Rose: The ADL, whose example you say you want to emulate, has a nice set of responses to common Holocaust-denier claims here: http://www.adl.org/holocaust/response.asp
Why do you think they bother?
Fodolodo
@Fodolodo: To be clear, I don’t think Robert George’s views are the equivalent of Holocaust denial, and I certainly don’t think that Princeton or any other university should tolerate Holocaust denial among its faculty. The point is that the sort of categorical rule Scott Rose is proposing–never debate, just pressure and shame–is much too simple. It is appropriate in many contexts. But not always, and not, I think, in this case. Sometimes it is better to take people’s arguments at face value and respond to them seriously–especially when their views have wide currency, much too wide to simply suppress, and especially when you might learn something from them (which I think you can from Robert George’s, though not, perhaps, what he would like you to learn from them.)
Ivy
Without respect to their ideological commitments, people on the short list of premiere intellectuals in the US alive today inevitably place Robert George on the short list of premiere intellectuals in the US alive today.
Scott Rose and the other knuckle-draggers who live in a little gay bubble reveal much more about themselves–to wit: they are knuckle-draggers living in a little gay bubble–than they do about Robert George, on whose radar they will never register, and whose social contribution they will never even begin to begin to match.
Cam
@Ivy: said…
“Without respect to their ideological commitments, people on the short list of premiere intellectuals in the US alive today inevitably place Robert George on the short list of premiere intellectuals in the US alive today.”
_______________________________-
You can always spot the liars and bigots because they make comments like this.
If this were true they would have no problem providing links to prove their statement. They aren’t doing that because either there aren’t any, or the people he is referring to are rabid ideologues who would prove our point of bigotry.
Nice try liar. You are no different than some drunk hillbilly trying to claim the Klan does charity work.
Hephaestion
Princeton needs to be shamed for retaining such an evil idiot professor. Princeton won’t allow anyone at the university to speak out against him, so it is up to us outsiders to shame the university for supporting this evil bastard.
Hephaestion
Robert George’s views ARE the equivalent of Holocaust denial. Good and innocent people are dying as a result of Robert George’s views. Death and human misery are the same whether caused by homophobia or anti-Semitism.
Gay people are suffering worldwide… MILLIONS of us in the US alone. The dehumanization of gays taught by Robert George is pure evil, destroying lives worldwide.
jason
Professor Robert George has gayface.
sinkiller
@Fodolodo: Dicks are for pussies not for tushies.
Lefty
@sinkiller: You make sex with cats??? Eeeew taht is teh gross. *vomits* ja you is filthy blood jejejeje…
Mr. Enemabag Jones
@Jaye Scoefield:
As a young closeted student, I never felt threatened or uncomfortable in his class.
And as an older, out gay adult, do you feel threatened, or uncomfortable with the fact that ideas this professor is presenting, will be used to limit your freedom, and equality?
Cam
@sinkiller:
This “Straight” guy has been all over GAY blogs. Sorry dude, but actual heterosexuals have better things to do.
Anybody anti gay like you is obviously a closeted gay. You’re no different then all those anti-gay preachers who get caught having sex with guys.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
@Ivy:
and whose social contribution they will never even begin to begin to match.
You’re quite correct. People like Scott Rose aren’t using their using Princeton positions to undermine, limit, and flat out remove equality from a certain segment of society.
Zac
@Scott Rose:
I’m afraid that I misunderstood your original post and took you to be calling for George to be fired (a difficult process for a tenured professor). I apologize if I was being uncharitable. I would certainly support an organized boycott of his courses by students along with a call for progressive instructors like Cornel West to stop teaching courses with him. I am less certain about your call for Princeton to disavow his remarks as it seems inappropriate for a university to take a direct stance against the views of particular faculty members. Certainly the university can (and should) take other measures to make its support for LGBT equality known.
I am not sure what you mean by “scientific method”, but if his claims can be falsified then the place for that is in the same peer-reviewed journals that publish his work and other public forums where his ideas appear. Unfortunately, it sounds like his primary objections to homosexuality are rooted in a idiotic version of natural law theory, a philosophical position that cannot be directly refuted through empirical means. Certainly we can engage these arguments and point out the fallacious and specious reasoning that they involve but we cannot scientifically demonstrate that they are false. On the other hand, I would not be surprised to learn that he also peppers his arguments with dubious sociological data about the gay community and, in the instances where that data is demonstrably false, it is up to other academics, journalists, public intellectuals, etc. to call him out on it.
So, in the end, I’m not sure that our views on this matter are too far off even if we don’t see entirely eye-to-eye.
tookietookie
as an ivy league grad myself, i have no problem with what scott is proposing. more power to you, man. to starf-ckers who think bigots like this are just fine, stop punching yourself in the face.
Miguel
Curiosity got the better of me and I read several of Prof. George’s articles — get to know your enemy and all that… I now am actually more outraged that someone so mediocre is taken so seriously.
Maybe he is brilliant on narrow technical legal questions, but on broader questions, even not related to gay rights, it was painful and even embarrassing reading his writings. The basis of his thought seems to be natural law theory, taken directly from the 12th century Thomas Aquinas, overlaid with trite evangelical mantras. This guy would already have been laughed out of the room in European intellectual circles 300 years ago — what am I saying, even Montaigne would have found him laughable. That is how obsolete, derivative, and ridiculous his thoughts are.
The pomposity with which he dresses up the most egregious nonsense has to be seen to be believed. His stuff isn’t even piffle; it can only aspire to piffle status.
Here is a brilliant take down of the dreck that this “brilliant” mind produces:
http://www.memoryhole.net/kyle/2006/01/robert_p_georges_essay_samesex.html
The substance of his anti-gay views aside, Princeton should get rid of him just for the embarrassingly low quality of his ideas. I am still cringing.
Beetlejuice
I am stunned that people are stunned that this guy is homophobic. The majority of Americans are homophobic, sexist, and racist. Some are just more open about their prejudices than others and for some their hatred run deeper. Many just keep it to themselves. The culture has only begun to be more accepting of LGBT people in the last few decades.
Look at California and Prop 8. All those Mormons who organized, raised money, and voted against Prop 8. They did so under the banner of their church. (Irony is that Mormon Mitt Romney is facing serious push back from Evangelical Christians who don’t consider Mormons Christians and only want to vote for a “real Christian.) Look at all the other states that have passed anti-gay legislation or anti-affirmative action referendums.
This is what it is. It’s sad. But it is not stunning.
From an academic stand point, the man may have repellent views to some, but his tenure is there to allow him to express his unpopular beliefs. As long as he does not discriminate against people at his place of work, then tenure protects him.
Continuum
I wonder how long Princeton would keep this guy if he were a past president of the KKK, or a member of the Aryan nation who despised blacks and jews.
Would the fact that his reasoning was secular and not religious make any difference?
Would his sharp intellect, and grasp of history excuse his current bigotry?
Scott Rose
@Ivy: You gay-bashing asshole. Fuck yourself!
the crustybastard
@Miguel:
I followed your lead and read some of his writing. Your analysis of Professor George’s dreck was altogether too charitable.
It would seem that Prof. George’s entire existence is predicated on the idea he can create a “sciency” justification for making the Catechism the whole of the law.
That Prof. George is featured prominently at The Ratzinger Fan Club site is a hilariously ringing endorsement of George’s fringe credentials.
People who would be impressed by this sort of dumbshittery are the same ones who believe Justice Scalia is a really profound thinker despite all evidence to the contrary.
j.
Fodolodo:
What, exactly, do gay rights supporters need to learn from this man?
Bryan
What this just shows is that being homophobic or anti-gay is still seen as a “lesser” form of discrimination that being racist or anti-semite.
jack
@sinkiller:
Try facts over fear and loathing:
A 2006 study by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that “38.2 percent of men between ages 20 and 39 and 32.6 percent of women ages 18 to 44 engage in heterosexual anal sex”.
B
My opinion of Scott Rose has gone in the obvious direction after the following missives
from him:
1. No. 18, “@B: The New York Times Magazine’s Public Relations-like profile of Robert George was written by a long-time acquaintance of George. So much for impartiality.”
This statement by Rose is a classic ad hominem argument. Scott, try again – show where this person’s opinion is biased and why this author would risk angering his boss by whitewashing George’s opinions.
2., No. 19 “@B: I believe I understand your problem, commenter identified only as “B.” I believe that when you pulled your head out of your ass, your head fell off, and all that was left was a talking asshole.” … it seems that Scott Rose has a problem with seeing facts, and didn’t like the fact that I cited http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Public+reason+and+political+conflict%3A+abortion+and+homosexuality.-a019540336 – an article that contains George’s own text stating his position. Rose’s adolescent language is a clear indication that he knows he does not have a valid point and, like many people who lack maturity, he can do no more than figuratively foam at the mouth – after all, I did not say that George was right, but merely provided some links and summaries of what he seems to have actually said.
3. In No 21, Rose misrepresented George by saying “Were this only a poetic notion he were applying to love making, that would be one thing. But, he is using this scientifically untrue statement . . that two heterosexual bodies having vaginal intercourse become “one,” in order to go on to say that homosexuals can not possibly become “one” during (anal) intercourse,”
In fact, if you read http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Public+reason+and+political+conflict%3A+abortion+and+homosexuality.-a019540336 (which contains George’s own words), you’ll find that he said, “Professor Bradley and I defend an alternative conception of marriage–one which we believe to be reflected in traditional American and British marriage law, especially in the law governing consummation of marriage. We argue that marriage is a one-flesh (i.e., bodily, as well as emotional, dispositional, and spiritual) union of a male and a female spouse consummated and actualized by sexual acts that are reproductive in type. Such acts consummate and, we maintain, actualize the intrinsic good of marriage whether or not reproduction is desired by the spouses in any particular marital act, or is even possible for them in a particular act or at all.” He provides links for “consummation of marriage” and “actualized” to make the sense in which he is using these words clear. He also states that “Disagreements over public policies regarding homosexual conduct and relationships certainly reflect different, incompatible understandings of sexual morality connected to different “comprehensive views.”
So, we can certainly disagree with him, but accusing him of literally suggesting that two distinct individuals become a single organism (as opposed to producing an organism sharing both partners’ genes) is just plain silly – he obviously does not mean that.
As a hint to Scott Rose, I should point out that sections of the text above are in quotes. That means they are what someone else said and do not reflect my personal opinion. Before flying off the handle again, I suggest that Mr. Rose read the comments several times, note what was quoted, and compare that to the original material – I’ve provided the links.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
@B:
B, when you’re finished directing others to read links you’ve provided, why don’t you take a moment and read the link provided by Miguel in comment #52? I appreciate that it will disagree with your defense of Robert P. George, but I’ll assume you’re an adult, and can handle it.
That said, you wrote:
but accusing him of literally suggesting that two distinct individuals become a single organism (as opposed to producing an organism sharing both partners’ genes) is just plain silly – he obviously does not mean that.
But then you contradict your own interpretation of George’s words, by quoting him:
We argue that marriage is a one-flesh…union of a male and a female spouse consummated and actualized by sexual acts that are reproductive in type.
Clearly, Professor George believes that a man and women become one being during heterosexual sex.
B
No. 61 · Mr. Enemabag Jones wrote, “@B: B, when you’re finished directing others to read links you’ve provided, why don’t you take a moment and read the link provided by Miguel in comment #52?”: Miguel produced a link to a hit piece. I provided a link to the original material. If you want to evaluate what George said, then you should read what he said and think for yourself, as opposed to reading what someone else said, sprinkled with out-of-context quotes.
As to “But then you contradict your own interpretation of George’s words, by quoting him:
We argue that marriage is a one-flesh…union of a male and a female spouse consummated and actualized by sexual acts that are reproductive in type. Clearly, Professor George believes that a man and women become one being during heterosexual sex.”
You are completely wrong – there is no contradiction. Prof. George did not write the cited article for the general public – his argument is too technical. The intended audience consists of educated people who know that the term “one flesh” is a Biblical one and is not meant to be taken as a medical statement. What he actually said is that “We argue that marriage is a one-flesh (i.e., bodily, as well as emotional, dispositional, and spiritual) union of a male and a female spouse consummated and actualized by sexual acts that are reproductive in type.” Note the term “actualized” – the term “one flesh” is possibly related to the processes that lead to birth – of offspring that contain genetic features of both parents – but in any case is a reference to the creation myth in Genesis. It is obviously not to be taken literally, and Prof. George would quite reasonably assume that an educated reader would know that this phrase is a stock phrase with a Biblical origin.
Instead of the adolescent trash talk that Scott Rose has engaged in above, a legitimate counter argument would point to the original Biblical text in Genesis: Genesis 2:23 cites the myth of Eve coming from one of Adam’s bones (hence the “one flesh” idea). Genesis 2:24 then states, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife, …” Now, if you look at http://bible.org/netbible/, follow links to Genesis Chapter 2, and click on footnote 71 for the word “why” in Genesis 2:24, you’ll find the following statement: “This statement, introduced by the Hebrew phrase ???????? (’al-ken, “therefore” or “that is why”), is an editorial comment, not an extension of the quotation. The statement is describing what typically happens, not what will or should happen. It is saying, “This is why we do things the way we do.” It links a contemporary (with the narrator) practice with the historical event being narrated. The historical event narrated in v. 23 provides the basis for the contemporary practice described in v. 24. That is why the imperfect verb forms are translated with the present tense rather than future.”
So, the actual Biblical statement is essentially that the contemporary (at the time of the writer) practice of marriage was a custom intended to mirror an event in a creation myth. It’s like saying that turkey is traditionally served on Thanksgiving to commemorate a story (true, false, or exaggerated) about the first such dinner, supposedly shared by English settlers and the local tribes. That may be an interesting item in a historical context, but it is not a valid rationale for public policy.
Finally, your claim that I was “defending” George is a lie – I was merely pointing out what he actually said. If you think students should respond by not taking his course, however, you just might want to ponder what would happen if Prof. George was asked to testify in a Senate hearing about repealing DOMA. I’ll give you a hint – you will not get DOMA repealed by countering the arguments someone like Prof. George might present with the sort of adolescent name calling that Scott Rose has repeatedly used in the comments above. Rather, you better have someone who can make arguments that are better than the one’s Prof. George can make, and taking his course would be a good start on doing that for any Princeton undergraduate who might want to become a gay-rights activist after graduation. If you need some case studies, read the transcripts of the Proposition Eight trial and see how poorly it went for the (homophobic) defense when they trotted out one inept “expert” witness after another (at least one of whom ended up making statements that supported the plaintiffs).
Daniel Villarreal
@Scott Rose: Quit with the abuse of other commenters like Jaye Scoefield. While I respect your work, calling Jaye and any others an asshole and a fuckwad is uncalled for and in direct violation of Queerty’s comment policy.
Caliban
I can’t view attitudes like his without thinking there’s a MAJOR logic gap missing.
Can you name a human civilization where homosexuality didn’t exist, as evidenced by their art, myths, laws, or graffiti?
So in fact it’s just part of the human condition and any pretense that it’s “new” or “controversial” is silly, isn’t that right?
Given that it’s part of the human condition, a fact of life, then legislating it or discouraging it out of existence will not work, is that correct?
SO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WHINING ABOUT?!
Shannon1981
If he were a known racist, he’d be canned. This should be no different.
Miguel at 52 is right
@Miguel: You are correct, Miguel. Robert George, John Finis, and a few others are leading proponents of natural law theory. They have some influence among social conservatives.
To extend your remarks, Aquinas was an anti-semite, a misogynist, a defender of slavery and monarchy as a legitimate form of governance, and his entire body of work was devoted to defending the church and the kings who ruled Europe. Aquinas also held idiotic views about the natural world such as life can spontaneously appear and that women were “defective and misbegotten” from birth.
“The production of woman comes from defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence; such as that of a south wind, which is moist,” he wrote in one document.
Supposedly, Aquinas’ great contribution to philosophy was to argue for the application of reason to matters of faith. Aquinas applied his puny intellect to his faith and boldly endorsed the status quo. Robert George has done the same thing and, of equal importance, George has not challenged or explored Aquinas’ positions, the basis of his thinking, in any serious way. The people I admire are those who challenge us and the society in which we live. We don’t need more sycophants who seek favor with the powerful.
Mr. Enemabag Jones
@B:
Miguel produced a link to a hit piece.
So, when someone posts a well thought out, and articulate rebuttal, it’s a “hit piece”? Clearly, you didn’t bother reading the posted link, and have simply dismissed it with a sniff, and a clucking tongue.
If you want to evaluate what George said, then you should read what he said and think for yourself,
That’s funny–Scott Rose, and several others here did just that. But rather than accept that those people thought for themselves, you went on the attack defending the indefensible. Clearly the only critique you accept, B, are critiques of those who do not support yours, and Professor George’s opinions.
as opposed to reading what someone else said, sprinkled with out-of-context quotes.
It’s clear no sensible evaluation, or reading of this person’s writings will satisfy you, unless it agrees with you. You want others to think for themselves, but obviously Professor George is doing your thinking for you.
You are completely wrong – there is no contradiction. Prof. George did not write the cited article for the general public – his argument is too technical.
Right here is where your entire argument, and defense of George falls apart. When you claim that some writings are too “technical”, advanced, cerebral, or just plain difficult to explain, or understand, you admit that the person’s argument is invalid. An argument should be formulated so that all people can understand it, professional, and lay person. If the only defense for George’s writings you have is that it’s “too technical” to “the general public”, then it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.
I know you’re trying desperately to make yourself seem far more intelligent than the rest of us, B, but all you’ve done is present yourself as a boor, and a pompous ass.
Finally, your claim that I was “defending” George is a lie – I was merely pointing out what he actually said.
One simply has to read all the comments you’ve posted here to see that you’ve defended George’;s writings, his position at Princeton, his arguments, and debate skills. You’ve done nothing but defend Professor George. And that’s the truth.
...
@Miguel at 52 is right:
Needless to say, these claims are ridiculous.
Aquinas is universally regarded as among the most significant philosophers in the Western Tradition. At Columbia–not known as a bastion of conservatism–we read him at length.
To rebut the idiocy of the assertions I reply to, simply look up Aquinas in any mainstream source, such as Wiki.
Jeez, Miguel at 52 is right, you are a very troubled lil guy.
Scott Rose
@B: Here’s what I suggest to you, “B.” First off, use your real name when commenting, so that people know the name of the talking asshole who is posting gay-bashing horse shit on a gay-interest website. Secondly, go fuck yourself. Third, go fuck yourself again. Fourth, equality is not debatable. Have you got that? Equality is not debatable. Fifth, in ANOTHER SOURCE, George most definitely did write that married heterosexuals having intercourse “become one.” The statement was written in a prestigious academic journal and George’s academic credential were given. Had he made a similarly absurd statement in a physics paper on some matter not involving an apparent “moral” judgment, he would be an academic laughing stock for having written such a thing.
Scott Rose
@Daniel Villarreal: This certainly shows something interesting about your comments policy. An alleged gay commenter defending a kingpin of political gay bashing in America hasn’t done anything that violates your commenting policy. Somebody who makes a point to that alleged gay commenter about self-respect as a gay person . with swears included . . .. violates the policy. I just Googled “Jaye Scoefield” with “Queerty” and it appears that “Jaye Scoefield” has never previously commented on Queerty. This investigation is of course not conclusive, but I do wonder about the veracity of “Jaye Scoefield’s” alleged identity in commenting on this site. Another interesting investigational aspect is this; “Jaye Scoefield” claims to have attended Princeton. Yet, if you Google “Jaye Scoefield” and “Princeton,” the only results are those involving the Queerty comments on this thread. Again, this investigation is not complete, but the appearance is that “Jaye Scoefield” has fabricated a story in Professor Robert George’s defense. Do you have “Jaye Scoefield’s” e-mail address, to write to whoever it is and to see whether they are willing somehow to document the alleged experience with George at Princeton? If somebody is fabricating stories in George’s defense, why are they doing it?
Miguel
@…:
As you probably know, there are a lot of thinkers in the Western Canon that are still read for their historical significance in an academic context. That doesn’t always mean they are relevant nowadays on many of the questions they explored.
I would defend that Aquinas is just one such thinker. Maybe you could take a few of his ideas on ethics or aesthetics and adapt and build on them, but if your whole world view is based on adopting wholesale and uncritically the philosophy of Aquinas I really can’t take you seriously as a thinking person.
To start with, Aquinas was more of a theologian than a philosopher. He himself didn’t like to be called a philosopher, because he considered them impious. Theology is difficult to take seriously. Like someone once said it is like “looking in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there.”
Since Aquinas put his intellectual powers at the service of religious dogma and interests during a period when an appalling degree of religious tyranny was accepted, a lot of his thought is risible: the proofs for God’s existence, not to mention his concrete policy prescriptions of secular rulers needing to take care of the execution of all people who deviated from church dogma.
And did you know that Aquinas was said to be able to levitate while praying…? Kant and Hume couldn’t ever pull off cool stunts like that!
And this doesn’t just have to do with any aversion to religion. A lot of philosophy in the canon is given way more respect than it deserves. A lot of it is nothing more than highly speculative nonsense. I would have a similar reaction to a contemporary thinker who based his views on social policy on Plato’s Republic (there’s some scary stuff in there) or on Nietzsche’s existential ideal of the Übermensch, or on Thomas Moore’s Utopia (no civil rights for atheists, I am sure Prof. George would find that right up his alley).
It is actually no surprise that Prof. George takes to Aquinas’s ideas so wholeheartedly: they both put their whole intellectual powers at the service of lending legitimacy to unprovable and irrational dogmas with no basis whatsoever in empirical reality through a thin veneer of “reason”.
Scott Rose
@Miguel: Thank you. Queerty very seriously misrepresented my original reporting on Professor George when it made this post. I did not call for Professor George to be “evicted” from Princeton. I understand about tenure. I rather called for Princeton to take a stand against Professor George’s ignorance-fueled anti-gay bigotry. I also call for increased awareness of George’s gay bashing political influence, so that young people will think twice before going to Princeton and so that potential donors will think twice before abetting Princeton’s enabling of George’s political gay bashing. George has an anti-scientific view of homosexuality, yet attaches Princeton’s academic prestige to papers published in academic journals that attack gay human beings and argue against their inalienable rights, on the basis of things known by science to be untrue. If he published similarly untrue things on topics not involved with perceived “moral judgments,” he would be an absolute laughing stock. The only reason he isn’t, is that vicious bullying non-acceptance of gay human beings is still a strong political force in the United States. Princeton must be pressured into taking a stand. Writing as George has in academic journals that homosexual intimacy is “beneath the dignity of a human being” is not different in type from WWII era professors in Germany explaining the inherent racial superiority of the Aryan. Malicious op-eds smearing minorities are not “scholarship,” even if they are published in academic journals.
Steve
@B: Having read the quote it seems clear to me that George does indeed say that man and woman become one, which is why he drags in the old procreation red-herring to exclude gay unions.
But more to the point, I’d like to remind us all that there are TWO creation myths in Genesis, one right after the other. Though they are almost always conflated they do in fact contradict each other. In the first version, God creates both Adam and Eve from dust at the same time, breathes life into them, and tells them to go forth and procreate: i.e., have sex. In the second version – which is the one that you’re quoting – Adam is created from dust, names the animals, and has enough time to watch the animals, realize that he has no companion, and grow lonely. Whereupon God puts him to sleep, extracts a bone, creates Eve from this, and warns them against having sex.
So anyone basing any kind of theory of law on Genesis needs to actually read the book and understand it.
Scott Rose
@Steve: An academic argument either does or does not have intellectual integrity. Here is what Princeton Professor Robert George’s Harvard Journal article “What is Marriage?” says about heterosexuals engaging in vaginal intercourse: “their bodies become, in a strong sense, one”
Now, can it be scientifically determined that even during vaginal intercourse, a man and woman’s bodies constitute two bodies, not “one”? (Duh).
George is writing in an academic journal whose editors have accepted and published in place of serious-minded scholarship an anti-gay smear op-ed. For the purposes of a medical science journal article, no writer would be able to claim that two bodies during heterosexual vaginal intercourse “become, in a strong sense, one” and that same academic rigor should be applied to Princeton’s Professor Robert George. Of course, even if you got George to exercise greater precision about this particular point, he would still be a malicious gay-basher, but at least he would in this instance have been held to a true scholarly standard in formulating his arguments instead of being allowed to just throw any old manure at the barn door to see what sticks.
Fodolodo
Some replies.
First, many people have suggested that to tolerate George while excluding white supremacists or anti-Semites amounts to stating effectively that homophobia is less bad than racism or anti-Semitism. I don’t think that’s right. For one, it discounts the tactical argument that, given the social power views like George’s still have, attempting to marginalize them without doing any work of convincing beforehand is unlikely to work. For another, it ignores an important difference between a view like George’s and the views of a white supremacist or an anti-Semite. George’s opposition to gay sex is part of a comprehensive theory of sexual morality that also condemns masturbation, contraception, divorce, pre-marital sex of all varieties, and oral and anal sex between even a married different-sex couple. It can hardly be said that his moral judgments single out gays specifically. I think this sexual morality view blinds him to importantly analogous features of same-sex and different-sex relationships, and in that sense it is meaningfully discriminatory and heterosexist, but it is not the moral equivalent of a flat statement that African-Americans or Jews or gays count for less.
Second, for what it’s worth, when George states that a man and a woman unite in a bodily way during sex, he does not mean what Scott Rose (or the critic linked to in Miguel’s comment 52 above) think he means. Scott Rose accurately quotes “What is Marriage?”, but does not quote the entirety of the sentence in question. Here it is:
“Thus, their bodies become, in a strong sense, one—they are biologically united, and do not merely rub together—in coitus (and only in coitus), similarly to the way in which one’s heart, lungs, and other organs form a unity: by coordinating for the biological good of the whole.”
Everyone, including George and his co-authors, understands that a man and a woman do not cease to have individuated bodies when they have sex. That is not their point. Their point is that, in penile-vaginal sex (and, they claim, only in penile-vaginal sex), the bodies of a man and a woman, via their genitalia, are coordinated toward a good that is common to both of them (procreation), while in other kinds of sex, the bodies are not coordinated toward a common bodily good, but merely “rub together” as a means of producing various individual sensations. The point is further clarified in a reply they wrote to Barry Deutsch here. There are several compelling criticisms one could make of their argument that same-sex relationships cannot be real marriages—obviously, I do not think the argument is successful—but this is not one of them.
Third, as far as what people can learn from Robert George, I think it is generally useful to have intelligent opposing voices around. There is the tactical consideration I already mentioned, but there is also the fact that views that are challenged tend to improve and come closer to the truth even if the challenges do not succeed. People not already sympathetic to George’s view of homosexuality are unlikely to be convinced by his arguments, and I do not think they should be (I certainly was not). But they might come to a better understanding of why he is wrong, of the grounds for asserting the essential moral equality of same-sex and different-sex relationships, and of the nature of sexual morality and marriage more broadly. That doesn’t mean we should spread his work far and wide, and it certainly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t loudly oppose his public advocacy of anti-gay discrimination (which is often even less defensible than his philosophical work on the subject), but it does mean that we should think twice about engaging in the kinds of actions Scott Rose proposes.
Miguel at 52 is right
@…: You obviously haven’t read any Aquinas your claims to the contrary notwithstanding. I have. There is no question that he was anti-semitic, that he was a misogynist, that he supported slavery, and that he was an unthinking defender of the church and the prerogatives of royalty. My cites at 66 come from his writings. Your source is Wikipedia. (I didn’t know that Wikipedia was a textbook at Columbia.)
Read his “Letter on the Treatment of Jews” if you wish to see his anti-semitism. Read his Summa Theologica for his views on women, his support for slavery, and his endorsement of monarchies.
The next time you presume to pick a fight with me, you’d better bring more than your uninformed opinions and your vague memories of something you think you were taught at Columbia.
Steve
If this was a brilliant professor and he wrote detailed, researched and well thought out ideas, but the subject was the inferiority of the Jewish race, there wouldn’t be an issue. One can be brilliant – Hitler and Stalin were brilliant but they were wrong. Pity the world for that. It’s like saying murder has the same moral weight as not to murder. Where are the defenders of anti-semitic or anti-black professors who moonlight writing and supporting bigoted organizations that live only to deny people their basic humanity and civil rights.
There is no secular argument against same-sex relationships any more than there is an argument for people having relationships with multiple partners before selecting the one they want to remain with. What is his take on the “one organism” as relates to non-married people who have sex? What about Newt, Bob Barr, David Vitter and all the other religious righteous who violate their own claimed “moral” center?
Bill
No. 67 · Mr. Enemabag Jones wrote (incorrectly), “@B: Miguel produced a link to a hit piece. So, when someone posts a well thought out, and articulate rebuttal, it’s a ‘hit piece’.” …. you are simply 100% wrong. You can find the link in question at http://www.memoryhole.net/kyle/2006/01/robert_p_georges_essay_samesex.html and nothing deserves to be called “a well thought out, and articulate rebuttal” when it contains statements like the following (the second paragraph in Miguel’s link):
“This [George’s] essay is extremely dense and hard to read. After wading through it several times, though, I got the distinct impression that much of this was the result of the author trying to make his argument sound more impressive than it really is.”
In fact George’s article is not particularly hard to read, at least given a suitable level of education. The link’s author had essentially admitted that he was in over his head in trying to critique what George had written, a conclusion one would also arrive at in comparing George’s article with this “critique”. If this author had been able to understand George (and George’s article was quite evidently not written for the general public), he would not have referred to George’s alleged “weighty-sounding and difficult language,” nor would he have written, “(I’m reasonably confident I’m not misunderstanding him, though it’s possible).”
Let’s see, you have some guy trying to criticize something that he himself claims he might have misunderstood because the level of language used was difficult for him, and you have the nerve to call this guy’s attempted critique “a well thought out, and articulate rebuttal.”
Then (further along in No 67) you lied by saying, “That’s funny–Scott Rose, and several others here did just that. But rather than accept that those people thought for themselves, you went on the attack defending the indefensible.” You mean you think I should accept what some random character said rather than reading the original material?
In fact, I never once “defended” George’s viewpoints. I simply provided links to the original article, and included a few quotes, and pointed out that you need gay activists who can argue at the same level. Do you perchance think that suggesting that he’s not a completely blind ideologue like Maggie Gallagher is somehow defending him? Maggie’s a joke. Prof. George is not – he’s talented enough to convince a senator.
Bill
No. 73 · Steve wrote, “@B: Having read the quote it seems clear to me that George does indeed say that man and woman become one, which is why he drags in the old procreation red-herring to exclude gay unions.”
He’s using the “one flesh phrase” in basically a poetic sense, but is tying it to procreation for several reasons. One is that the biological process that might justify the term “one flesh” is procreative – offspring get genes from both parents. He also, however, talked about existing law as part of his justification. Regardless, he most certainly does not think that a man and a woman literally become a single organism when they marry, which several people above accused George of saying.
It’s not a question of agreeing with him. It’s a question, rather, of not misrepresenting what he said. If you ever got to debate him, he’d make mincemeat of you if you can’t even get the facts straight as to what he actually said. After all, he’s basically a lawyer, and lawyers are good at doing just that.
B
No. 69 · Scott Rose wrote, “@B: Here’s what I suggest to you, “B.” …”
Here are my suggestions for you Scott. First, take an anger management class as you sorely need it. Second, try to act like an adult instead of like a 13 year old boy who just learned some new “dirty” words.
I’m going to ignore the rest of your comment – you are acting like a child.
B
No. 77 · Steve wrote, “If this was a brilliant professor and he wrote detailed, researched and well thought out ideas, but the subject was the inferiority of the Jewish race, there wouldn’t be an issue.”
If you read http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Public+reason+and+political+conflict%3A+abortion+and+homosexuality.-a019540336 you’ll find a section entitled “HOMOSEXUAL ACTS, MARRIAGE, AND PUBLIC REASON.” George never says one word about inferiority as applied to individuals. Nothing he wrote could be taken as supporting housing discrimination, bashing, employment discrimination, hospital visitation rights, etc. He does, however, have some issues regarding sex and marriage.
It’s reasonable to criticize his views on marriage and sex (and he seems to admit that people with different basic assumptions will find opposing opinions more compelling than his), but he is not making blanket statements about inferiority with respect to gays and lesbians.
...
@Miguel at 52 is right:
Lord.
The views you attribute to Aquinas were typical, if not universal, in his day. You are the victim of what educated people refer to as the poverty of historicism. You might consider reading the book of the same title. A book is a right rectangular solid containing what we call words, which…never mind.
Aquinas is among the dominant figures of medieval moral and political philosophy, and of theology, if not the preeminent one, not because of the parergons which you hold up as definitive, but of his synthesis of Christianity with Aristoteleanism. That project secures his place in the canon, and that place is not going to change–and if it is, it certainly won’t be because of the efforts of someone who thinks philosophy should be read through the lens of “Golly, what would I like to be true? What would make me happy? I’ll start with that and just reason (sorry…wrong word) backwards until I can dismiss the people I don’t like and elevate the ones I do. Then I’ll go on blogs and try to act like a badass!”
You are the reason educated people generally avoid commenting on blogs. Just about anyone is allowed in, and, well, look what you get. It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
And yeah, they taught me that at Columbia.
Miguel at 52 is right
@…: Excellent, ellipsis. (You used an ellipsis to identify yourself so I will call you that.) After asserting that my statements about Aquinas were “ridiculous,” you now concede that they are true. You wrote “The views you attribute to Aquinas were typical, if not universal, in his day.” It is reassuring that even an “educated” person, such as yourself, ellipsis, can be educated and this disproves your assertion that “It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.” Apparently, it just takes a little brow beating. Let’s go to the next step.
At what point do the views of any individual on some topics become so noxious as to make their views on all topics without merit? Do Aquinas’ anti-semitism, his misogyny, his support for slavery, his support for monarchy and a corrupt church disqualify him entirely as a source of philosophical wisdom? The answer is a self-evident yes. Just those views alone tell us that Aquinas never explored the values and ethics of the age he lived in nor did he ever challenge the values and ethics of that time. On the contrary, as you wrote, Aquinas’ views “were typical, if not universal, in his day.” Aquinas was a lap dog.
You clearly admire a man who goes along to get along, ellipsis, or who thoughtlessly seeks the approval of those who he perceives to be his betters, or his Intro to Philosophy 101 professor at Columbia. I don’t. I do not admire this in Aquinas nor do I admire this in Robert George. As Aquinas did in his time, Robert George has not made any serious investigation into the origins of natural law theory. George has not wrestled with Aquinas’ anti-semitism, his misogyny, his support for slavery, or his support for monarchy. George has not explained to us why we should not dismiss Aquinas out of hand and natural law theory as well. Like you, George assumes that because some people believe that Aquinas belongs to the “Canon of Great Western Philosophers,” we should ignore Aquinas’ vile and idiotic views and look at a few things that he had to say. I look at his entire body of work and that says Aquinas and natural law theory should be ignored.
Steve
@B: Uh uh. We have two Steves.
I’ve been reading the comments with a good deal of interest. I’m neither lawyer nor philosopher, not even a student.
My question – and it is a question, perhaps someone can enlighten me. It’s perfectly possible I’ve mis-read the book in question – was about Genesis which, from what I’m reading here, would seem to be the basis for the idea of natural law as regards men and women. I remarked that there are two versions of creation in Genesis that contradict one another. Also, if one is making an argument based on the Old Testament shouldn’t that more properly be regarded as theology?
Bill: Can one make a legal argument via poetry? I didn’t know that. Are real estate laws based on Bleak House? You’re quite right about my arguing abilities and I fully believe you on the subject of George’s expertise. However, were I to find myself in such a situation, I’d start by pointing out a fundamental contradiction in his ideas. He argues from the Bible – which we don’t do – and then, it seems to me, doesn’t understand his source. In the first creation there is no Fall, no Original Sin. That creation is ignored by the Catholic Church. There are also two trees in the garden. One is the tree of knowledge, the other is the tree of immortality. That’s the one God doesn’t want his creations to get to since, should they become immortal, they would be able to challenge him. So he throws them out. Not unlike an employer finding out some of his workers are trying to form a union and firing them. Genesis is a very old book and was revised and edited many times. That anyone in 2011 is basing legal arguments on it seems to me peculiar in the extreme. He might very brilliant as regards the law but he doesn’t seem to know much about theology beyond standard Catholic teaching.
Robert in NYC
I wonder what this man’s view would be of heterosexual couples who choose not to or cannot procreate, via vaginal intercourse? I suppose in the case of the infertile couple it would not be construed as being “one” organism since vaginal intercourse would be futile in producing anything.
Miguel
Regarding the discussion on Aquinas I just found this penetrating summation in Bertrand Russell’s “History of Western Philosophy”. Much the same could be said about Prof. George’s intellectual output:
“There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading.”
Fodolodo
@Steve: It might be fair to say that George’s argument is inspired by Genesis (certainly it consciously attempts to echo the language of Genesis 2:24), but George doesn’t justify it with Genesis. He thinks he can justify his conception of marriage even without presuming any authority of the Bible.
B
“Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth” Kind of like disliking George, and then being lucky enough that you “just found” a “penetrating summation” by a nonspecialist notoriously hostile to organized religion. You know, back in the old neighborhood, we used to call that irony.
Scott Rose
@B: No, when a gay basher comes onto a gay-interest web site to defend one of the major political gay bashers in the country today, I will bash back, including with curse words. Princeton Professor Robert George thinks that gay human beings should be thrown in jail for having intimate relations with each other.
Scott Rose
@B: Who are you? Why are we looking at gay-bashing idiocy from a person identified only as “B”?
Scott Rose
@B: George “is not making blanket statements about inferiority with respect to gays and lesbians.” The hell if he isn’t, given that he thinks all same-sex intimate relations are “immoral” and should be outlawed.
B
No. 84 · Steve asked, “Bill: Can one make a legal argument via poetry? I didn’t know that.”
A Supreme Court justice, William Douglass, was known for using phrases that were poetic (e.g., the use of metaphors).
Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_O._Douglas : “Douglas wrote the lead opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut, finding a “right to privacy” in the “penumbras” of the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights.”
Also http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/penumbra which describes how a term used by Johannes Kepler to describe the shadows of the moon that occur during a solar eclipse was used metaphorically in legal opinions.
Keep in mind that we were talking about the use of a single phrase, which hardly constitutes a full legal argument. My objection is simply to the claim made by some that George literally believes that two individuals become a single organism instead of producing a new organism that shares genes from both.
BTW, I inadvertently used my real first name in a couple of comments – normally I abbreviate it to a single initial.
B
Re Scott Rose’s comments No 88, 89, and 90:
First, in No 88 you dissembled by saying, “@B: No, when a gay basher comes onto a gay-interest web site to defend one of the major political gay bashers in the country today, I will bash back, including with curse words.” What gay-bashers? People disagreeing with you merely are pointing out that you are either overreacting or not representing George’s opinions accurately.
Then you claim that “Princeton Professor Robert George thinks that gay human beings should be thrown in jail for having intimate relations with each other.” Really? Where? I didn’t find such a statement in http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Public+reason+and+political+conflict%3A+abortion+and+homosexuality.-a019540336 (he refers to violations of natural law, but you don’t go to jail merely for violating “natural law” but natural law is not criminal law, something Prof. George should understand quite. If you have a link to some original material, not some rant written by some third party, why don’t you produce it? If you are going to make those sort of claims, you should have no trouble backing them up.
Second, you seem obsessed with my real name. Why should I give it to you when your modus operandi seems to be more geared towards “opposition research” than a rational discussion of an issue? You obviously did a google search on one person by your own admission (see No. 70), and you seem to think “gay basher” means “someone who doesn’t agree 100% with Scott Rose”.
Third, in No. 90, you wrote, ‘@B: George “is not making blanket statements about inferiority with respect to gays and lesbians.” The hell if he isn’t, given that he thinks all same-sex intimate relations are “immoral” and should be outlawed.”
What I actually wrote was, “It’s reasonable to criticize his views on marriage and sex (and he seems to admit that people with different basic assumptions will find opposing opinions more compelling than his), but he is not making blanket statements about inferiority with respect to gays and lesbians.” Plus, the preceding sentence of mine had pointed out that he is not arguing for discrimination in employment, housing, etc. In addition. George did not seem to use the term “outlawed” but rather suggested that there should be no legal recognition.
For some reason, you lack the integrity to quote a full (and fairly short) sentence and instead quote part of a clause in a way that changes its meaning. Why is that?
Miguel at 52 is right
@B: Robert George wrote the US Supreme Court brief in Lawrence v. Texas filed by the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family that argued that Texas could and should make sex between consenting same sex couples a crime. George has said and written that Romer v. Evans was wrongly decided. That 1996 US Supreme Court case struck down a Colorado law that was enacted by ballot initiative that barred local jurisdictions in that state from enacting laws that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. George has also written that he believes that it is immoral for heterosexuals to use contraception during sex. And, of course, he opposes abortion.
George pretty much believes that the government can and should be authorized to march into your bedroom and make inquiries into who you are having sex with, what sort of sex you are having, and whether or not you are using contraception. He wants the government to act like the kings that Thomas Aquinas was so fond of.
Miguel at 52 is right
@B: And I should have written that in 2006 George was a co-founder of a religious coalition that supported an amendment to the US Constitution that would ban recognition of same sex marriage.
Scott Rose is certainly correct in pointing out that Robert George is gunning for the LGBT community, if I understand Scott’s overarching point.
Scott Rose
@Miguel at 52 is right: Hi Miguel: To clarify my “overarching point.” It is this: Princeton University must be pressed to take a stand against Princeton Professor Robert George’s anti-gay hate speech and anti-gay hate politicking. George’s statement, oft repeated, that homosexual relations are “inconsistent with human dignity” is hate speech. Because George is so well-connected in the Republican Party and the Catholic Church and other anti-gay religious organizations, even those at Princeton that disagree with George’s anti-gay hate speech are afraid to take a public position against his insane bigotry. Remember, George says that homosexuality is “inconsistent with human dignity” and yet his Princeton friend and colleague Dr. Cornel West tells the New York Times that George is “a good brother.” George publishes op-ed hate speech against gay human beings, with Princeton’s name attached, even though the “scholarship” is fraudulent. In his essay “What is Marriage?” for example, he says that “Throughout history, no society’s laws have explicitly forbidden gay marriage. They have not explicitly forbidden it because, until recently, it has not been thought possible.”
Here is some of the scholarship that contradicts George’s claim: The first recorded mention of the performance of same-sex marriages occurred during the early Roman Empire. These same-sex marriages were solemnized with the same ceremonies and customs which were used for heterosexual marriages. Cicero mentions the marriage (using the Latin verb for “to marry”, i.e. nubere) of the son of Curio the Elder in a casual manner as if it was commonplace. Cicero states that the younger Curio was “united in a stable and permanent marriage” to Antonius. Martial also mentions a number of gay marriages. By Juvenal’s time, gay marriages seem to have become commonplace as he mentions attending gay marriages as if there were “nothing special.”. These gay marriages continued until Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. A law in the Theodosian Code (C. Th. 9.7.3) was issued in 342 AD by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans. This law prohibited same-sex marriage in ancient Rome and ordered that those who were so married were to be executed
So even though Robert George is a Princeton professor, he can get published in academic journals ANTI-GAY HATE SPEECH that tells documentable lies about human history. Doing that is counter to the entire mission of a university. The unethical scholarly practices are exacerbated by the fact that Princeton’s Professor George is one of the most powerful and well-connected of political gay bashers in the country. He isn’t just producing his hate speech and his fraudulent scholarship off in a vacuum with nobody paying any attention to him.
Scott Rose
@B: The reason I want to know your name is because I believe you are a shill for either Robert George, NOM or some other organization connected with him.
Steve
B. Thanks. Miguel, too. I am making a serious point about this person’s reasoning which seems to me to be flawed in a very serious manner. He is arguing for ‘natural law’ is he not? He does claim that the model for marriage is Genesis (I must say, that’s one of the silliest arguments I’ve ever heard and betrays a distinct lack of seriousness) does he not? Then his understanding of that grim old book becomes very much the issue. He is understanding it according to Catholic teaching not as the book is written. Penumbra’s a good word. I know what it means. But the metaphorical use of an adjective is not quite the same thing as going off into ‘poetical’ conceptions of how men and women fuck.
But great thread. Very interesting: bomb-throwing and more rational heads, all essential to the discussion.
Scott Rose
@B: What I said about you previously, I knew then to be true, and is most certainly true, yet bears repeating; your whole problem is that when you pulled your head out of your ass, your head fell off and all that was left was a talking asshole. I’m an investigative reporter, but you’re going to reproach me for investigating. I investigated . . or if you will, fact-checked a claim made by a commenter here . . and the appearance is that that commenter was lying. Then, after all your talking assholisms, the evidence has been presented for you by another commenter that Princeton’s Professor Robert George does indeed want for homosexual intimate relations to be criminalized. You as a talking asshole will never acknowledge that that point is true. You will ignore that the documentation verified the prior statement and you will continue to defend the indefensible, Professor George’s ignorance-fueled, bullying non-acceptance of gay human beings. That is what makes you a gay-basher. Gay bashing can be psychological, physical and/or political in which case it often is both psychological and physical. You are gay bashing in the sense that you are propagandizing with lies in defense of a major political gay basher. You are arguing against the humanity of gay human beings with an intent to keep them oppressed in a system of sexual orientation apartheid. That constitutes gay bashing.
B
No. 96 · Scott Rose wrote, “@B: The reason I want to know your name is because I believe you are a shill for either Robert George, NOM or some other organization connected with him.”
Scott, please get professional help for your paranoia. BTW, if you search QUEERTY’s comments, you’ll find that I’ve posted a fair number, and that sometimes I’ll cross check what others are claiming and point out areas where I find inaccuracies. While it’s not always readily accessible, I consistently prefer original sources rather than someone’s spin on it. It seems you have a habit of jumping to unwarranted conclusions and then spouting infantile insults when you don’t hear what you want. You really need to get some help for that issue.
Your whole belief is idiotic – shills don’t go around pointing out that their guy can be legitimately criticized (which I did say in Prof. George’s case – I just happen to think we should criticize him for what he actually said, not some made up rubbish such as the claim that he believes a man and a woman literally become a single organism when they are married.)
Scott Rose
@B: Thank you for acknowledging I was correct when I said that George believes homosexual intimacy should be criminalized. Oh, wait. You didn’t acknowledge that. Why didn’t you acknowledge that? Because you are a talking asshole.
B
No. 93 · Miguel wrote, “@B: Robert George wrote the US Supreme Court brief in Lawrence v. Texas filed by the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family that argued that Texas could and should make sex between consenting same sex couples a crime.”
Non-response, Miguel – In No 92, which you referenced, I specifically said, “If you have a link to some original material, not some rant written by some third party, why don’t you produce it?” It may be hard for some to understand, but there are some of us who are not satisfied with less than factual evidence – at a minimum, a link to something Prof. George actually wrote, not someone else’s claim about it.
You claimed, without proof, that “Robert George wrote the US Supreme Court brief in Lawrence v. Texas filed by the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family that argued that Texas could and should make sex between consenting same sex couples a crime.” But, if he wrote a brief, he was acting as a lawyer pepresenting his client(s) and his professional obligation as a lawyer is to produce the best argument he can in his clients’ favor. A brief he writes does not necessarily reflect his personal views.
It works both ways, I might add – Vaughn Walker (the new retired judge who overthrew Proposition Eight, with his decision under appeal) had trouble getting confirmed because some people thought he was prejudiced against gays. The reason? He once represented the U.S. Olympic Committee in a trademark suit over the term “Gay Olympics”. Walker probably treated it as a simple trademark-infringement case, but others made erroneous assumptions about him. A lawyers’ clients are simply a poor indication of that lawyer’s personal views.
Then you say, “George has said and written that Romer v. Evans was wrongly decided.” So what? Even if true, you did not provide a link. There are many reasons besides homophobia for not liking the Romer v. Evans decision, some of which simply reflect a conservative view on “state’s rights.” Without the links so we can see what he actually said, all we have is the word of someone who is possibly biased. If you have the links, why didn’t you provide them? It’s not hard – a few seconds of copy and paste. The only reason to not include the links is that the source would be embarrassing to show (e.g., due to all-to-obvious bias).
It’s rather telling that neither you nor that Scott Rose character are producing citations to original material.
B
No. 98 · Scott Rose acted again like an adolescent by writing, “@B: What I said about you previously, I knew then to be true, and is most certainly true, yet bears repeating; your whole problem is that when you pulled your head out of your ass, your head fell off and all that was left was a talking asshole. I’m an investigative reporter, but you’re going to reproach me for investigating.”
You may call yourself an “investigative reporter” but your behavior in these comments suggests to me that you are a mere muckraker, hence the repeated adolescent language and your obvious inability (so far) to produce a single citation to original material.
If you are a real investigative reporter, you’d have all those links available to you and it would have been easy for you to provide them. You’ve failed even though you’ve been asked, probably more than once. The only question is “why”.
I might ask that the request for original material is no more than you should expect to get from an editor at a legitimate news source such as the New York Times, and if you can’t document your claims, why would you expect anyone to take them seriously?
Scott Rose
@B: You are a real genius for calling the Family Research Council a George “client” when he is one of its board members.
B
No. 100 · Scott Rose again made a fool of himself with his adolescent language by writing, “@B: Thank you for acknowledging I was correct when I said that George believes homosexual intimacy should be criminalized. Oh, wait. You didn’t acknowledge that. Why didn’t you acknowledge that? Because you are a talking asshole.”
In fact I didn’t claim that (“acknowledge” is the wrong word) because I didn’t find a link to original material showing Prof. George saying that. It’s rather telling that you are making assertions about what he said (or seem to be making assertions about what he said) without any documentation to back up your claims. Why is that? You’ve been asked to produce such links multiple times and nothing is showing up. It’s really not asking for a lot – if you want to say Prof. George said X, then provide a link to something written (or transcribed if it was during a conversation) where he actually said X.
Your over-the-top reaction to such requests says a lot about you, and none of it is complementary.
demandequality
@Fodolodo: Robert George teaches law, not classes on sex, and how would he know if men who make love to men or women who make love to women do not become “one organism” he had never made love with a man? Piled Higher & Deeper George is like Porno Pete, who types with one hand about gay men having sex while whacking off with his other hand.
Fodolodo
@B: Here’s the amicus curiae brief: http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/briefs/02-102/02-102.mer.ami.frc.pdf Note that both George and the brief’s co-author, Gerard Bradley, are and were at the time primarily academics and would be unlikely to get involved in a legal fight unless they were personally committed to the cause they were supporting.
Here’s a link to Robert George criticizing Romer v. Evans: http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/romer-v-evans-the-supreme-courts-assault-on-popular-sovereignty
Make of them what you will. I doubt, for what it’s worth, that George would advocate a state policy of arresting people for private, consensual sexual acts, and nothing in the links I provide changes that. But his reasons for opposing such a policy would not be that people have a moral or constitutional right to same-sex sexual intimacy, but rather prudential limitations on the state’s capacity to effectively enforce morality in that context. (John Finnis, who is a major influence on George and discussed this issue explicitly in an article titled “Law, Morality, and ‘Sexual Orientation'”, argued for a conclusion along those lines, on the grounds that the state’s role in the enforcement of morality is subsidiary next to that of families, churches, and other private organizations.) Further, given what he and William Saunders write in the second article, he might well support the retention of sodomy laws as a way to block gay rights progress. By the time they were overturned in Lawrence, their primary effect was not prosecutions, which were very rare, but rather their legitimation of other kinds of state discrimination against gay people—many forms of which, at least as applied to gay people who don’t abstain from sex, I suspect George would approve of.
Fodolodo
@demandequality: I’m not really familiar with the specific courseloads George takes on at Princeton, but his academic work is primarily in the articulation and defense of a modern form of natural-law theory, including the application of that theory to questions of sexual morality. I don’t know if the one-organism argument itself requires empirical demonstration. But there is something to what you say, in this respect: it is hard to imagine anyone in a committed, loving same-sex relationship, or even anyone who has a lot of experience with other people in committed, loving same-sex relationships, dismissing their worth, and their capacity to encompass the good of marriage, in as categorical a way as George does.
B
No. 103 · Scott Rose wrote, “@B: You are a real genius for calling the Family Research Council a George “client” when he is one of its board members.”
Scott Rose apparently is incapable of a civil discussion. Aside from that ….
Being a board member is irrelevant – if he writes a brief for them, he is representing them just as he would represent any other client (he just may have done it pro bono). Being one of its board members does not mean he is in favor of each any every policy the board institutes – boards usually work on the basis of a majority vote.
No. 106 · Fodolodo wrote, “@B: Here’s the amicus curiae brief: http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/briefs/02-102/02-102.mer.ami.frc.pdf Note that both George and the brief’s co-author, Gerard Bradley, are and were at the time primarily academics and would be unlikely to get involved in a legal fight unless they were personally committed to the cause they were supporting.”
Thanks for the link. It’s cover page indicates that an amicus Curiae brief was being filed by the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, with Gerald Bradley and Report P. George acting as counsels. In case you don’t know academics are known to take on outside contracts, and they were not involved directly in a legal fight – they were not representing plaintiffs or defendants and their brief was only 33 pages long, including the perfunctory cover page. That’s 15 pages apiece if they split the work equally. Also, you really don’t know what “cause” they might have been trying to support (see below).
They did not argue that various sexual practices should be criminalized, but rather that Texas had the right to criminalize those practices of it chose to. There’s a subtle but important difference but regardless of that, as counsels, the views they are expressing are not necessarily their personal opinions as to what the law should be.
With regard to your link to George’s comment about Romer v. Evans, one of his arguments against the decision is, “The Court appears to have decided that it is the proper arbiter of moral disputes. In doing so, it throws out the window one of the sure guarantors of our liberty –the principle of self-government. To put it simply, on matters of sexual morality and other issues of moral import on which elite and popular opinion are in conflict, the Court does not trust the people or the political process. The justices are prepared to enforce elite views by pure fiat.” Following up on that statement, he wrote, “At the same time, we would do well to reflect upon the limits to tolerance: If the tolerance and goodwill shown by American citizens in legislatively repealing anti-sodomy laws is to be seized upon by the Supreme Court as an excuse to raise homosexuality to protected status, perhaps such conduct should not be decriminalized in the first place.”
Obviously he is not arguing against the repeal of sodomy laws, but against using the repeal as a rationale to declare homosexuals to be a protected class, which makes legal arguments opposing same-sex marriage more difficult. If he really opposed decriminalization, he would have used a phrase such as “shortsightedness” rather than “tolerance and goodwill” to describe decisions in various states to repeal anti-sodomy laws.
Keep in mind too that conservatives typically want limited federal involvement in state decisions. A lot of what he said in the links you provided are consistent with that. You have a lot more to do if you want to show that he really is homophobic on a personal level.
Fodolodo
@B: As far as the amicus curiae brief, I agree with you that the constitutional arguments he and Bradley make are not themselves policy arguments for sodomy laws.
As for the article about Romer, we may just have a disagreement of interpretation. I think it is perfectly normal to say that a decision expresses “tolerance and goodwill” while still doubting its wisdom. Given that he and Saunders write the sentence in question in a paragraph that begins by asking “What are we to do about such judges?”, I am inclined to take the words at face value as a practical recommendation to be hesitant about supporting such repeals. Again, I do not think this means that George would support a policy of widespread prosecutions under such laws. I doubt he would, though I don’t have direct evidence on that point.
B
No. 109 · Fodolodo wrote, “Again, I do not think this means that George would support a policy of widespread prosecutions under such laws. I doubt he would, though I don’t have direct evidence on that point.” Oh, we can agree on that – where I disagreed with some others is that I’m not going to accuse George of something without credible evidence.
Miguel at 52 is right
@B: I see that Fodo has responded. I will say that you and Fodolodo have gone well beyond splitting hairs. The claim that Robert George wants the sodomy law on the books, but would not support its enforcement is preposterous. We don’t have symbolic criminal laws on the books and the facts in Lawrence prove you wrong. The two men in that case were arrested while having sex in their bedroom by police who arrived on the scene in response to a call about some other crime being committed. Obviously, he does support having the government arrest people for having sex with a partner of the same sex while having that sex in a private home.
You demanded to see George’s brief in Lawrence and Evans v. Romer and then you and Fodo promptly reached conclusions about what George believes, thinks, or would support and provided not so much as a shred of evidence to support your views. Your assertions came after you were presented with a record showing George’s antigay views date back nearly two decades. I think you two had better cough up some evidence now.
B
No. 111 · Miguel wrote, incorrectly, “@B: I see that Fodo has responded. I will say that you and Fodolodo have gone well beyond splitting hairs. The claim that Robert George wants the sodomy law on the books, but would not support its enforcement is preposterous.”
The links you provided clearly indicated that Prof. George was arguing (while acting as a lawyer for groups he and another lawyer were representing) that states had a right to enact anti-sodomy laws, a point of view that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected. Neither the U.S. constitution nor any U.S. state constitution has a clause that says, “passing bad or misguided laws in general is not allowed.” Some bad laws are unconstitutional and some are not, and the constitution merely prevents certain types of abuses. It’s not surprising – there is no formal procedure for determining that a law is a bad one.
None of the documents you provided showed that Prof. George is personally in favor of states passing anti-sodomy laws, but he does think that states have a right to do that if they choose.
When you said, “You demanded to see George’s brief in Lawrence and Evans v. Romer and then you and Fodo promptly reached conclusions about what George believes, thinks, or would support and provided not so much as a shred of evidence to support your views,” you were dissembling – we stated that the links you provided contain no text indicating what George believes regarding anti-sodomy laws or persecuting gays. If there is such text (as opposed to a statement that states had a legitimate reason for passing laws prohibiting some forms of sexual expression between unmarried couples, which George did make), then you should have no problem quoting it (give the link and for a PDF file the page number, and enough text so that we can search for it and check it in context). Do you want us to cut and paste each document in its entirety? Why should we – it would clog up QUEERTY’s comment section and is pointless when people can just use the two links you provided. Do you want us to intersperse each of George’s sentences with a comment, “nope, didn’t say X”? That would make the comment even longer. Your complaint is just plain silly.
Finally, if you think this is all “well beyond splitting hairs,” you need to get a grip on what lawyers do when they present an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Scott Rose
@Fodolodo: My best advise is that you shouldn’t talk with headless assholes, not even on internet comments threads, if you genuinely are interested in promoting gay rights causes.
Miguel at 52 is right
@B: Come on, B. Either you have debated yourself into a corner and feel you have to make these silly arguments or you are actual or philosophical buds with Robert George and are here to defend him. Robert George is widely known to be a social conservative and there is no question that the views he expressed in the Lawrence brief are his views as well as those of the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.
He described himself this way — “those of us who dissent from the prevailing liberal orthodoxy on questions such as abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and human cloning” — in a 1997 Journal of American Jurisprudence article.
George wrote this in a 1995 Georgetown Law Journal article “In an article marked by the intelligence and fairmindedness for which his work is widely–and rightly–admired, Stephen Macedo has argued against our view that sodomy, including homosexual sodomy, is intrinsically nonmarital and immoral. His goal is to show that ‘new natural law’ theorists, such as Germain Grisez, John Finnis, and the two of us, have no sound argument for drawing moral distinctions–which would, in turn, provide a basis for legal distinctions (particularly in the area of marriage)–between the sodomitical acts of ‘devoted, loving, committed homosexual partners” and the acts of genital union of men and women in marriage.'”
He wrote this in a 1997 Yale Law Journal article — “No principle of equality is violated, however, if, in truth,
homosexual sexual acts and relationships cannot realize the constitutive value or values of marriage – if marriage truly is, as Bradley and I contend, a bodily communion of persons consummated and actualized by sexual acts which are reproductive in type.” — in defending the exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from marriage.
He has repeatedly cited John Finnis’ argument that legislatures can and should outlaw sodomy. Finnis is another natural law theorist.
Now. If you have info showing that George’s positions are not as I have proven then produce it. You were insisting on proof before. Where is your proof?
Let me point this out. I didn’t provide those links to George’s writings, Fodo did. Obviously, it is very easy to do that. You did not have such reservations when you were demanding evidence. Let’s see yours.
Miguel at 52 is right
@B: And on that US Supreme Court brief. If you think the only argument George made was that states could make gay sex illegal, you are quite wrong.
George wrote — “The State is authorized by the Constitution – and required by the common good – to promote marriage by respecting the privacy of the marital bedroom. The State is also within its constitutional authority – and required by the common good – to discourage sexual acts outside of marriage. The State’s discouragement of fornication, homosexual acts, and other non-marital sexual activity may and commonly has (as Justice Harlan said) included making crimes of some, or all, of those acts. Justice Harlan indicated why treating the deviate acts
of unmarried persons as crimes does not impose an arbitrary, majoritarian morality upon an oppressed minority.
The discouragement arises not from a paternalistic desire to correct and punish persons for their sexual misbehavior,
for the sake of their moral improvement. Much less does it arise from a dislike for the persons who would engage in
deviate acts, same-sex or otherwise. The State’s discouragement of non- and extra-marital sexual acts is a requirement of the great common (and thus objective) good of marriage.”
Got it? States are required, REQUIRED, by the common good to make gay sex illegal. So don’t try and tell me George doesn’t want sodomy laws on the books again.
B
No. 109 · Fodolodo’s statement, “As for the article about Romer, we may just have a disagreement of interpretation. I think it is perfectly normal to say that a decision expresses “tolerance and goodwill” while still doubting its wisdom. Given that he and Saunders write the sentence in question in a paragraph that begins by asking “What are we to do about such judges?”, I am inclined to take the words at face value as a practical recommendation to be hesitant about supporting such repeals.
The problem (and this is in deciphering Prof. George’s motives) is that “tolerance and goodwill” describes the repeal of anti-sodomy laws, whereas “what to do about such judges” refers to judges who declared a law passed by the legislature or an initiative as being unconstitutional. Conservatism at this point in American history consists of limited-government / libertarian / pro-business / anti-regulation conservatives and the so-called “social conservatives.” They basically married each other in an unholy alliance: the pro-business types need to find people who will vote against their self-interest, and what better target is there than religious people who believe the word was created in precisely 7 days. Unfortunately, for us, the conservative Christians are mostly homophobic in their theology. So the question is which type of conservative Prof. George is. Since Princeton professors are generally not fools, I would presume he is in the limited-government camp, with a bent towards morality biased somewhat towards Catholic theology (while there is a theological distinction between sin and sinners that a Princeton law professor would have no trouble understanding, in the world most people live in, “hate the sin but love the sinner” becomes “hate the sinner unless he’s into the same sins that you are.”)
You can make semi-plausible arguments about Prof. George either way, but to reliably determine his personal attitude towards gays is a lot harder. Complicating the matter is that, to oppose same-sex marriage in court, it is much easier if gays are not a “protected class” where “strict scrutiny” applies. Some of the things he brings up in these briefs or articles could simply reflect an attempt to make his opposition to same-sex marriage more defensible in court – if you can show that strict scrutiny does not apply, it is easier to argue that states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages.
So, without proof – an explicit statement indicating that gays should be persecuted – my opinion is simply that we do not have enough data to make a definitive statement. A certain individual will foam at the mouth and issue obscenities and various other adolescent insults when he hears that, but from a purely practical aspect, you do not defeat your enemies by making erroneous assumptions about their motives, tactics, and strategy. It’s important to get the details right, self-proclaimed “investigative reporters” notwithstanding.
B
No. 114 · Miguel tied again by saying, “@B: Come on, B. Either you have debated yourself into a corner and feel you have to make these silly arguments or you are actual or philosophical buds with Robert George and are here to defend him.”
You know, in several comments I requested links showing that Prof. George’s said what you claimed. The one or two links you did provide did not prove what you claimed. In No 114, you made still more claims about Prof. George and provided no citations of any kind – you mentioned some articles with dates but provided neither a link nor a citation adequate for looking up the article at a library. So, we can’t tell if you are quoting Prof. George as opposed to some hit-piece written by some non-entity who is misrepresenting what Prof. George said.
Previously, I pointed out, quite explicitly, that Prof. George seems to have some issues regarding same-sex marriage and sex in general, but that there was no credible evidence of homophobia on a personal level as much of what he said fit the “limited government” model. Furthermore, some of his statements are not consistent with traditional social conservative views – he used the phrase “tolerance and goodwill” to describe the repeal of anti-sodomy laws, whereas your typical social conservative would call that the work of the devil.
You simply have not made your case. There is no reason for me to believe anything you assert, all the more so since you’ve misrepresented statements in the past (inadvertently, I presume/hope). If you want to be taken seriously, provide proper links, citations, and quotes. I’m not interested in what others said about Prof. George. I want facts.
Why don’t you rewrite No 114 with proper quotations, citations and links to back up what you are claiming? If you won’t or can’t, I simply will give zero credibility to what you are saying.
The same goes for No 115 where you have an additional problem – showing which statements reflect what Prof. George thinks the law should be from statements regarding what laws Prof. George thinks the legislature can constitutionally pass.
Miguel at 52 is right
@B: Those aren’t “semi-plausible arguments.” Those are quotes, B. I quoted a brief that he wrote in which he asserted that states are “required” to have sodomy laws on their books for the common good. Additionally, he wrote that brief in a case in which he defended a law that the government used when it entered a private home and arrested two consenting adults who were having sex. They were arrested because they were the same sex. And you think he’s a limited government conservative?
I offered other quotes in which Robert George describes himself and his positions. Any reasonable person would describe those positions as socially conservative.
Miguel at 52 is right
@B: “Why don’t you rewrite No 114 with proper quotations, citations and links to back up what you are claiming? If you won’t or can’t, I simply will give zero credibility to what you are saying.”
Because debating you is a waste of time, B. That’s why. You believe what you believe and you’re not going to change your mind.
Miguel at 52 is right
@B: “The same goes for No 115 where you have an additional problem – showing which statements reflect what Prof. George thinks the law should be from statements regarding what laws Prof. George thinks the legislature can constitutionally pass.”
This is from the US Supreme Court brief that Fodo provided above. So after insisting that it be provided, you didn’t bother reading it? This is why debating you is a waste of time.
B
Re No 18, where Miguel makes the false claim, “@B: Those aren’t “semi-plausible arguments.” Those are quotes, B. I quoted a brief that he wrote in which he asserted that states are “required” to have sodomy laws on their books for the common good.”
The brief in question can be found at http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/briefs/02-102/02-102.mer.ami.frc.pdf and a PDF file can be searched.
When searching for the phrase “common good”, you will find the following sentences (each in a different part of the brief), and they show that your statement is simply false no such statement appears in the brief. In fact, Prof. George explicitly states that a reasonable legislator could decide to “leave all deviant sex acts alone,” although he also believes a reasonable legislator could make decide that those sex acts should be illegal.
Here are the relevant quotes:
—————————-
The State is authorized by the Constitution – and
required by the common good – to promote marriage by
respecting the privacy of the marital bedroom. The State is
also within its constitutional authority – and required by
the common good – to discourage sexual acts outside of
marriage. (Part of a discussion of Justice Harlan’s dissent
in Poe v. Ullman).
The State’s discouragement of non- and extra-marital sexual acts is a
requirement of the great common (and thus objective) good
of marriage. (Part of a discussion of Justice Harlan’s dissent
in Poe v. Ullman).
The State’s discouragement of fornication,
homosexual acts, and other non-marital sexual activity
may and commonly has (as Justice Harlan said) included
making crimes of some, or all, of those acts.
Texas legislators could reasonably conclude that, though these couples’ deviate
sex might be immoral, criminal prosecution would disrupt
these potentially or incipiently marital relationships.
Texas lawmakers evidently have concluded that the
common good, including the good of marriage, is better
served by allowing all these relationships to proceed
unmolested.
Faced with these difficulties and problems reasonable
legislators who wished to promote marriage, and who
believed sex outside marriage to be wrong, could reasona-
bly conclude that the common good was better served – or
less ill-served – by permitting/tolerating deviate acts
between men and women.
A reasonable legislator could surely decide to leave all
deviate sex acts alone. But a reasonable legislator could
instead decide that, where marriage is not and cannot be
present, incipient, or remotely in view, the common good is
better served by prohibiting deviate sex acts.
———–
Instead of trying to ineptly cherry pick phrases to justify your
existing opinions, you need to learn to look for things that can
disprove your beliefs. Failing to mention those when you know about
them is intellectually dishonest.
Quite frankly, you can’t be trusted. For whatever reason, you are
unable or unwilling to tell the truth about what others have said.
B
No. 120 · Miguel wrote, “This is from the US Supreme Court brief that Fodo provided above. So after insisting that it be provided, you didn’t bother reading it? This is why debating you is a waste of time.”
I did read it. The point was that you can’t produce a suitable length comment showing that something was not said in a 33 page document, as you can’t show that with a short
quote. Miguel is trotting out an intellectually dishonest argument – a sure sign that he does not have a valid point, knows it, and is trying to cover up by shifting the blame.
I already shot down one claim of Miguel’s as to what was in this document because he provided a short phrase that one could search for and thus list a relatively small number of sentences. Of course he’s ignoring that – it shows he is wrong and he won’t admit it.
Also, in No. 121 there was a typo at the start – I referred to No 18 by accident instead of the intended No 118.
B
Just testing whether it’s possibly all these inflammatory posts aren’t from the Scott Rose who wrote the article, but someone adopting his name.
B
Re No. 123 · B —- someone else posted that and apparently is trying to attribute it to me. I’ll leave it to readers to decide who might be responsible: I’ve better things to do than to guess.