Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Sloppiest Argument for Gay Marriage, Evah!

Posted on | August 3, 2010 | 31 Comments

“Nationalism is, for good or ill, at my core. Thus I see the fight for marriage rights not as a fight for a squishy, gauzy ‘tolerance,’ but as a fight for gay self-determination. . . . Thus gay marriage is, to me, not about relieving homophobes of their burdensome ignorance but about the right of gays to defend themselves against that ignorance.”
— Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Race And Gay Marriage In Perspective,” the Atlantic Monthly

If you’ve followed the rhetoric of the gay-rights movement a while, you’ve long since become jaded to bad analogies — homophobia-as-Holocaust, etc. — and inured to pretzel-logic efforts that present same-sex marriage as the ultimate cause for which Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney died. To read the above-quoted essay, however, is to plumb new depths of wordy incoherence that even Andrew Sullivan has never yet reached.

Gay-rights nationalism? The lazy self-serving presumption that political opponents can only be motivated by ignorance and pathological “phobia”? Is there no one on the Left who has the courage to tell Coates that he never should have pressed the “publish” button on this embarrassingly gushy nonsense?

UPDATE: A gay guy accidentally scores a near-miss on the truth: “The presence of a vagina apparently counts for everything.”

If that vagina were a snake, it would have bitten him. The derogation of nature — the blithe assumption that we can and should substitute our will for that which is self-evidently transcendent — is one of those ideas that has consequences.

Category: Gays

Comments

31 Responses to “Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Sloppiest Argument for Gay Marriage, Evah!”

Kojocaro
August 3rd, 2010 @ 8:32 pm

Typical gay rights advocate disagree and your a homophobe i’am sick and tired of having to suppress my opinions to satisfy these fascists
Kojocaro
August 3rd, 2010 @ 4:32 pm

Typical gay rights advocate disagree and your a homophobe i’am sick and tired of having to suppress my opinions to satisfy these fascists
Ben (The Tiger)
August 3rd, 2010 @ 9:36 pm

Bah.

I’m pro-gay civil marriage, but anti- almost everyone promoting it…

Speaking of strengthening the institution of marriage, Bristol has apparently dumped Ricky Hollywood again…
Ben (The Tiger)
August 3rd, 2010 @ 5:36 pm

Bah.

I’m pro-gay civil marriage, but anti- almost everyone promoting it…

Speaking of strengthening the institution of marriage, Bristol has apparently dumped Ricky Hollywood again…
Kojocaro
August 3rd, 2010 @ 9:48 pm

Oh jeesh why did you have to bring up that hypogonadic Whore……….i apologize for slandering whores
Kojocaro
August 3rd, 2010 @ 5:48 pm

Oh jeesh why did you have to bring up that hypogonadic Whore……….i apologize for slandering whores
Anne Galivan
August 3rd, 2010 @ 10:35 pm

I recently had two “discussions” – one on Twitter, one on a CONSERVATIVE forum…concerning the homosexual lifestyle and the homosexual agenda (which the woman on Twitter believes doesn’t exist).

They weren’t just defending the lifestyle, but also children being exposed to gay sites.

And silly me, but I thought conservatives intuitively get that the homosexual lifestyle is damaging not only to those involved in it, but to society as well. I had an education this week, let me tell you, and I was NOT encouraged…except for those couple of people who stood up to defend my statements.
Anne Galivan
August 3rd, 2010 @ 6:35 pm

I recently had two “discussions” – one on Twitter, one on a CONSERVATIVE forum…concerning the homosexual lifestyle and the homosexual agenda (which the woman on Twitter believes doesn’t exist).

They weren’t just defending the lifestyle, but also children being exposed to gay sites.

And silly me, but I thought conservatives intuitively get that the homosexual lifestyle is damaging not only to those involved in it, but to society as well. I had an education this week, let me tell you, and I was NOT encouraged…except for those couple of people who stood up to defend my statements.
Chris is RIGHT
August 3rd, 2010 @ 10:36 pm

This is what I hate about minority movements in general, and the gay rights movement specifically. One isn’t allowed to disagree without being labeled some demonized epithet.

As a gay man, I can assure you I’ve heard witnessed more racism, sexism and orientation intolerance in the gay community than I have in any other. No, I’m not saying all LGBT folks are bigots, but there are quite a few.

To deny someone a right to disagree by virtue of undercutting the argument and labeling it “homophobic” is stupid.

And, yes. Many gay men do get grossed out by female body parts. If a straight man were to raise similar objections about male body parts in a gay man’s presence, he would be labeled a “closet case” and told “he protests too much.”

One has to wonder.
Chris is RIGHT
August 3rd, 2010 @ 6:36 pm

This is what I hate about minority movements in general, and the gay rights movement specifically. One isn’t allowed to disagree without being labeled some demonized epithet.

As a gay man, I can assure you I’ve heard witnessed more racism, sexism and orientation intolerance in the gay community than I have in any other. No, I’m not saying all LGBT folks are bigots, but there are quite a few.

To deny someone a right to disagree by virtue of undercutting the argument and labeling it “homophobic” is stupid.

And, yes. Many gay men do get grossed out by female body parts. If a straight man were to raise similar objections about male body parts in a gay man’s presence, he would be labeled a “closet case” and told “he protests too much.”

One has to wonder.
I Am Woman
August 3rd, 2010 @ 10:50 pm

I find female-faced drag queens as offensively bigoted as black-faced Hollywood entertainers.
I Am Woman
August 3rd, 2010 @ 6:50 pm

I find female-faced drag queens as offensively bigoted as black-faced Hollywood entertainers.
Robert Stacy McCain
August 3rd, 2010 @ 10:51 pm

Anne, I think the Burkean response is best: Those who advocate revolutionary change bear the entire burden of justifying the change they propose. The defenders of tradition bear no such burden, as ancient usage lends to tradition the presumption of social value. Keeping in mind Lord Falkland’s dictum — “Where it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change” — we therefore confront the gay-rights advocates and ask, “Where is the necessity for the change you propose?”

Some fairly small number of people are inconvenienced, and a rather larger number feel themselves disparaged, by the special legal status accorded to traditional understanding of marriage. Yet the status quo has endured for many centuries, even millennia, and the gay-rights assault upon that tradition is scarcely four decades old. Why must such an ancient custom automatically yield to such a recent complaint? Why must defenders of tradition stand accused of an irrational “phobia”?

The radical argument takes a familiar form: “We want what we want and we want it now — or else!” This is not persuasion, but extortion.
Robert Stacy McCain
August 3rd, 2010 @ 6:51 pm

Anne, I think the Burkean response is best: Those who advocate revolutionary change bear the entire burden of justifying the change they propose. The defenders of tradition bear no such burden, as ancient usage lends to tradition the presumption of social value. Keeping in mind Lord Falkland’s dictum — “Where it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change” — we therefore confront the gay-rights advocates and ask, “Where is the necessity for the change you propose?”

Some fairly small number of people are inconvenienced, and a rather larger number feel themselves disparaged, by the special legal status accorded to traditional understanding of marriage. Yet the status quo has endured for many centuries, even millennia, and the gay-rights assault upon that tradition is scarcely four decades old. Why must such an ancient custom automatically yield to such a recent complaint? Why must defenders of tradition stand accused of an irrational “phobia”?

The radical argument takes a familiar form: “We want what we want and we want it now — or else!” This is not persuasion, but extortion.
Kojocaro
August 3rd, 2010 @ 11:35 pm

i like what your bringing to the table chris is RIGHT your not a militant gay and so therefore i respect you
Kojocaro
August 3rd, 2010 @ 7:35 pm

i like what your bringing to the table chris is RIGHT your not a militant gay and so therefore i respect you
Rhymes With Right
August 4th, 2010 @ 12:05 am

Actually, what it is about is reliving the majority of their burdensome right to make public policy in our representative democracy.
Rhymes With Right
August 3rd, 2010 @ 8:05 pm

Actually, what it is about is reliving the majority of their burdensome right to make public policy in our representative democracy.
Kojocaro
August 4th, 2010 @ 12:15 am

RWR your not wrong gotta go now
Kojocaro
August 3rd, 2010 @ 8:15 pm

RWR your not wrong gotta go now
24AheadDotCom
August 4th, 2010 @ 2:04 am

It’s good that he keeps pressing the publish button (and that his guests do): it degrades The Atlantic even more. Of course, if you point out at his blog how he’s wrong, he’ll probably ban you:

http://24ahead.com/n/10135
24AheadDotCom
August 3rd, 2010 @ 10:04 pm

It’s good that he keeps pressing the publish button (and that his guests do): it degrades The Atlantic even more. Of course, if you point out at his blog how he’s wrong, he’ll probably ban you:

http://24ahead.com/n/10135
Family Values Magic | The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
August 4th, 2010 @ 6:58 am

[…] getting married even though they don’t, and can’t, love one another. That word is transcendence. Apparently he recommends it. “Ideas,” he huffs, “have consequences.” […]
dhex
August 4th, 2010 @ 1:55 pm

the blithe assumption that we can and should substitute our will

piffle, we do that every single day. it’s called “modern medicine”.
dhex
August 4th, 2010 @ 9:55 am

the blithe assumption that we can and should substitute our will

piffle, we do that every single day. it’s called “modern medicine”.
Kojocaro
August 4th, 2010 @ 10:38 am

I would tolerate the gay rights agenda even more if they supported israel’s rigt to live and call out iran or other muslim majority countries on their homophobia but i’am not holding my breathe on that one
Kojocaro
August 4th, 2010 @ 2:38 pm

I would tolerate the gay rights agenda even more if they supported israel’s rigt to live and call out iran or other muslim majority countries on their homophobia but i’am not holding my breathe on that one
Kojocaro
August 4th, 2010 @ 2:38 pm

right*
Kojocaro
August 4th, 2010 @ 10:38 am

right*
Live Free Or Die
August 4th, 2010 @ 9:27 pm

Words matter; redefining words, so as to make them worthless is what all ‘progressives’ do
best. If ‘gays’ do to marriage, what they did to the word gay, society will just abandon that word(marriage) to them, and society will use a different word to define one man and one woman promising to stay united together for life.

And don’t be surprised if gay clergy start trotting out partial scripture to say God approves of gay ‘marriage’. “Marriage is honorable in all, and the (marriage)bed undefiled…”—-“See, God said it’s honorable, and undefiled!”
Live Free Or Die
August 4th, 2010 @ 5:27 pm

Words matter; redefining words, so as to make them worthless is what all ‘progressives’ do
best. If ‘gays’ do to marriage, what they did to the word gay, society will just abandon that word(marriage) to them, and society will use a different word to define one man and one woman promising to stay united together for life.

And don’t be surprised if gay clergy start trotting out partial scripture to say God approves of gay ‘marriage’. “Marriage is honorable in all, and the (marriage)bed undefiled…”—-“See, God said it’s honorable, and undefiled!”