Indiana has the dubious distinction of having entertained, but not passed (at least in the second house), a bill the implication of which was that the mathematical constant π equaled 3.2. This was not, unlike the mythical 1998 Alabama effort to define π as 3, the doing of real or fictitious religious fundamentalists, but of an amateur mathematician who caught a legislator’s ear.
But the mythical Alabama law was supported by one very visionary argument:
Lawson called into question the usefulness of any number that cannot be calculated exactly, and suggested that never knowing the exact answer could harm students’ self-esteem.
(Emphasis added) The mythical 1998 Alabama debate thus anticipated the vital modern legislative principle that self-esteem, and the potency of positive law enacted by majority will (or judicial fiat), outweigh stupid quibbles about anything having a fixed nature and meaning, like the obscurantist “mathemetician” attacking the new mythical Alabama law:
Prof. Kim Johanson, a mathematician from University of Alabama, said that pi is a universal constant and cannot be arbitrarily changed by lawmakers.
It is not known whether anyone also supported Alabama’s excellent-if-mythical law by asking “how does redefining π affect your marriage?”
What we have come to call the gay marriage debate is not directly about homosexuality, but about marriage. It is not about whom to let marry, but about what marriage is.
The authors of What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense consistently follow through on that introductory remark. I’ve finished the book and agree thoroughly with its Editorial Reviews. No honest reviewer can dismiss the authors as religious bigots or homophobes.
The book is full of subtleties, some of which I no doubt missed, while others have missed, in their friendly reviews, nuances that I caught.
For instance, it is a considerable oversimplification to say, as did one friendly review, that the authors “support civil unions” as that term is used today. Rather, they are at pains to emphasize that whatever interest the state has in non-conjugal pairs – be they spinster sisters, bachelor brothers, college roommates who somehow never stopped rooming together, or erotically-involved same-sex couples – has nothing to do with whether the pairs engage in sex, and accordingly civil unions cannot justly be premised on the assumption of sex lest equally deserving pairs be excluded. “To these ‘sex-neutral’ civil unions, we have no objection in principle” is their conclusion (with my emphasis added).
This book is a “must-read” for anyone:
- who recognizes that tinkering with a foundational social institution like marriage is at least potentially a really big deal, with major unintended bad consequences as likely as the claimed good consequences; or
- who for whatever reason has begun to doubt that there’s enough harm in marriage redefinition for it to be worth resisting.
One customer review is worth briefly engaging for its claim that “What is Marriage? will not be persuasive to those who do not already agree with its conclusions.”
I recommend it precisely because of my conviction that it will change some minds, and stiffen some spines. I believe it will be persuasive to many intelligent readers who take it up, however critically, if only they will engage it honestly. It is a tour de force, covering in one way or another every argument I know on either side, and reaching some startling insights, which I had previously overlooked, about unintended consequence of marriage redefinition.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 