Category: Attitude

Craftsmanship, Worldview & Coercion

One upon a time, yours truly thought he might want to become a professional photographer. It didn’t hurt that I was in some demand on campus by comely co-eds who wanted to send glamorous photos to their current boyfriends (soon to be replaced by me, I fancied) in Vietnam.

“Glamorous,” by the way, isn’t a euphemism for nude. Sexting hadn’t been invented yet, and in any event, these campuses were pretty conservative.

Still, if some guy had wanted me to do glamorous photos for his girlfriend, the W.A.C. Nurse in ‘Nam, I’d have been at a bit of a loss for a photographic vocabulary. I probably could have learned in time how to photograph a guy so as to fill women with at least vague admiration or longing, but I never decided actually to go pro. I’d be a poor photographer of football, or NASCAR racing, too, as I have no enthusiasm of them and don’t feel obliged to learn how to fake it.

Coincidentally, but in a similar vein, I turned down this week a professional engagement by a desperately needy human being with a real problem – several of them. Our initial failure to mesh expectations warned me that an attorney/client relationship would end up disappointing both of us.

So I sympathize particularly with the photographer who declines engagement for an event that he cannot imagine portraying in a way that would both meet his artistic standards and please the event organizer. I’ve watched the Food Channel just enough to recognize the expressive element in custom cakes, too. And I’ve heard a florist vehemently assert that there is a real artistic element in floral arranging, though on my own, I can’t fathom it.

For a number of craftsmen, though, the first thing that pops out of their mouth (and so, presumably, the first thing that came to mind) when asked to contribute to a same-sex “marriage,” is something like “I can’t do that. It would violate God’s commandments.”

The legalism of that baffles me (though it just occurred to me that “legalism” in this context is really Nominalism, in contrast to the Realism of what follow).

How better, it seems to me, if they said (and if this truthfully were in their hearts) something more like this:

I’ve thought about what to do when this day came. You’ve been my customer for years, and I value you as a human being as well as a customer.

But, like you and everyone else, I have a worldview. It’s not something I superimpose on reality, but is simply how I perceive reality, how I see things interrelating. That I see things differently than others would, in most situations, be celebrated as “diversity.”

But in my worldview, two people of the same sex can’t marry each other. Not “must not,” but “cannot.” It’s not in the nature of “marriage” as a natural institution, however much that institution may have varied over the millennia. I know that “diversity” today seems to have little room for the consequences of my view.

My worldview is certainly shaped, though not dictated, by my religious tradition. It’s not dictate partly because the Scriptures I revere say nothing about same-sex “marriage,” as such a thing was not even imaginable. And it’s not dictated because, believe it or not, when my clergy preach about sin, as they sometimes do (though they preach of grace more), they tend to focus on sins that affect all of us, like pride, rather than maybe 2% of us.

But back to my being shaped by the Christian scriptures. There are no “child-free” couples in those pages – only (1) parents and (2) barren couples who were grieved by their barrenness – grieved sometimes to tears. Our wedding rite is chock-full of blessings for fertility, even for marriages between aging folks, as it is unequivocally assumed as one end of marriage. And we haven’t forgotten Abram and Sarai.

Even in my former tradition, it was a given that married couples made babies if possible. They might delay a few years for various reasons (I wasn’t Roman Catholic), but sooner or later they threw caution to the wind, expecting the blessing of baby burbles in due course.

These “religious” things inform my worldview along with – let me be frank – an incoherent jumble of enlightenment rationalism, “Right Liberalism,” Natural Law thinking, philosophical Realism (versus Nominalism), years of public school homogenization, mass media transgressivism for titillation and heightened viewership, a bit of libertarianism that’s suspicious of government dictating to us or handing out goodies for the sake of votes rather than for any enduring public good, and the kind of secularism that James K.A. Smith writes about, whereby I see my tradition as but one option.

The tradition of the Church in which you’re holding your ceremony apparently is otherwise. Civility is one of my secular sacraments. So is tolerance for a religious tradition that baffles me. But there are limits to what I can do.

My profession involves expression, and I’ve had no epiphany that enables me to express joy and delight in the “marriage” you’re entering, which will never produce baby burbles and looks nothing like one that ever could have. You’d be better served by someone who’s had such an epiphany or is willing to give it a shot anyway.

I’m flattered you asked, and I’d like to think you asked because you admire my work. But I’m going to have to decline this commission. I don’t think I’d be happy with the result if I tried, and I doubt that you would be, either.

Yes, that’s too long and preachy. It could use some distilling. But the distiller should be the religious (probably Christian) photographer, baker or florist to whom I’m primarily writing:

  • If you couldn’t say something like what I wrote without being disingenuous;
  • if you’d feel as if you were just positioning yourself more sympathetically for a Court or Human Relations Commission hearing;
  • if the real, bedrock basis of your refusal is that you think it would violate God’s commandments to photograph a same-sex wedding (or to bake a cake for the reception or to make floral arrangements for the affair) but it would not interfere with your artistry in celebrating a SSM to believe that;
  • if you’re really and truly thinking “I could do a wonderful job of this, and you’d be thrilled at the result, but I’m scared of hellfire if I do;”

then I’m still rooting for you in the Court or Human Relations Commission, but I do not understand you, and I support you mostly to avoid bad precedent.

And if you’re really and truly thinking

  • “I won’t sell you that cake from my ready-made bakery case;” or
  • “I won’t sell you this bouquet in the refrigerator;” or
  • “I won’t sell you this picture frame on display;

because you’re going to misuse it,” then you’ll have to muddle through without my support at all.

* * * * *

“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)

These remarks are an expression of decades of reflection, and more than a bit of legal and religious knowledge, about religious freedom, free speech, expressive speech, protected class status, and the distinction between discrimination simpliciter (i.e., discernment) and invidious discrimination. I may be wrong – I was wrong once before – but not because I’m shooting from the hip..

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Sentimental Journeymen

There are two essential harms from [physician-assisted suicide]. First: Once doctors agree to assist a person’s suicide, ultimately they find it difficult to reject anyone who seeks their services. The killing of patients by doctors spreads to encompass many treatable but mentally troubled individuals, as seen today in the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.

Second: When a “right to die” becomes settled law, soon the right translates into a duty. That was the message sent by Oregon, which legalized assisted suicide in 1994, when the state-sponsored health plan in 2008 denied recommended but costly cancer treatments and offered instead to pay for less-expensive suicide drugs.

…

We’d be dour folk indeed if we did not respond in some way to the Brittany Maynards. But, surely one can ask, is poisoning her the best response on offer? And, since Hippocrates, most thoughtful doctors have said, “No.”

Thinking about the place of sentiments in our actions might be helpful. G.K. Chesterton addressed this issue in a 1901 essay entitled “Sentimental Literature”: “If sentimental literature is to be condemned,” he wrote, “it must emphatically not be because it is sentimental, it must be because it is not literature.” We all can immerse ourselves happily in tales of the loyal, courageous or romantic. The sentiments aren’t bad; it’s the literature—hackneyed, contrived, simplistic.

Physician-assisted suicide is sentimental medicine. It’s not the sentiments that are bad; it’s the medicine—bad because when assisted suicide is legalized, the sick don’t get more choices for their care; they get fewer.

(Paul McHugh, Dr. Death Makes a Comeback)

PAS isn’t the only sentimental medicine around.

The current standard of care for people with gender dysphoria begins with nonjudgmentally accepting the reality of the patient believing—knowing—that he was “assigned” (in the parlance) the wrong body at birth. Then, the patient is treated for any underlying anxiety or depression. He or she may also receive gender reassignment treatments, such as hormone therapy and/or sex change surgery. Dysphoric children may be prescribed puberty blockers to prevent their bodies from developing secondary sex characteristics, which can facilitate more-successful future gender reassignment.

(Wesley Smith) We all lead pretty busy lives these days, and we can’t stop and reflect on everything that crosses our paths. I had begun adopting the parlance “GLBT” just to avoid fights over terminology, but I’m thinking I was giving away too much with T and maybe with B.

Let’s back off a bit for perspective.

Dennis Avner never considered himself human. He related to the world as a cat.  And he found, over the decades, obliging doctors, to the tune of some $200,000.

Then he committed suicide.

There are a lot of shitty comments on here about how he was obviously disturbed and unstable, and while I can’t speak for his mental health at the time of his death, he only pursued what made him happy and came by it honestly. He told the class his earliest memory was wondering where his tail went. The world lost a really kind, gentle guy and the body mod world lost a pioneer who did a lot for people seeking to identify themselves as more than their physical bodies allowed. Rest in peace, Cat.

(Mollymerly commenting at the Gawker, emphasis added)

Did the sundry plastic surgeons do Dennis Avner any favor by obliging his obsession as if it were no more remarkable than asking for peanut butter on your hamburger? Shouldn’t they have steered him to someone who might straighten out what was in his head?

Or how about sufferers from BIID (body integrity identity disorder), who find physicians willing to amputate healthy limbs, or sever a spinal cord, to conform the body to the psyche’s reported “identity” as an amputee or paraplegic?

A 2009 article published in the journal Neuroethics argued:

When faced with a patient requesting the amputation of a healthy limb, clinicians should make a careful diagnostic assessment. If the patient is found to have body integrity identity disorder, amputation of the healthy limb may be appropriate after a trial of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and after careful consideration of the risks, benefits, and unknowns of all possible treatment alternatives. . . . Sufferers of BIID might be relieved to know that members of the medical profession will take their concerns seriously, and that, after careful deliberation, elective amputation of their troubling limb is a real possibility.

How does gender dysphoria – the conviction that you’re a woman despite your male body or vice-versa – differ from thinking, despite your human body, that you’re a cat, or that despite your intact body, you’re really an amputee?

I’m still intoxicated with the epiphany-by-analogy, so maybe I’m missing something.

Wesley Smith has given me these examples, but someone else had already planted the seed. Smith thinks of it, for one column at least, as involving a “a fundamental right to (let’s call it) personal recreationism.”

The current controversies surrounding gender dysphoria seem to be leading toward the establishment of a fundamental right to (let’s call it) personal recreationism. I understand why many see this as the most humane and liberating course. But nothing happens in a vacuum. Once that principle is accepted, there will be no limits.

I think of it more as a matter of doctors with no moral core, no sense that you are what your body is, regardless of what’s going on between your ears. They become, in the process, sentimental journeymen, forfeiting the right to be considered members of a learned profession however much we may admire their technical skills with scalpel and silicone. Or with a prescription pad for those whose tragedy is impending death on nature’s terms rather than their own.

No doubt many – most– of these cases are tragic, as evidenced by cat man’s suicide. There may be no real solution to the afflicted folks’ problems. I wish I had a more thundering response than to say “GLBT” is out of my vocabulary now.

* * * * *

“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)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

On refusing to take “yes” for an answer

[W]hether the top marginal federal income-tax rate is 39.5 percent or 34 percent, life will go on. Life goes on, except when it doesn’t. I never went through any naturalization ceremony — if I wasn’t an American the minute before I was born, I don’t see how I became one the minute after. If I’m to live under a government that considers my life nothing more than an accounting entry, then there are any number of states that might claim my allegiance. The Swiss at least know how to keep a proper ledger.

The House of Representatives and its Republican leadership had a chance to take a vote on the question of extending the protection of our nation’s laws to people like me, at least to some of us. The bill was, strangely enough, essentially identical to one the House had already passed. I do not expect that, even had it passed, the bill would have become law. Senate Democrats would have filibustered it, and though that filibuster might have been overcome, President Obama, who should know better, would have vetoed the bill. But it would have been something to have the House of Representatives at least take the vote on the question. I could respect the “No” voters, in a way. At least they’re willing to say what they think. But pulling the bill because Renee Ellmers and Jackie Walorski don’t have the guts or the principle to vote one way or the other? That is — let us all acknowledge the plain fact — cowardice. Ellmers told her voters she planned to vote for the bill at the very moment she was maneuvering to escape doing so.

This is especially shameful considering that the vast majority of voters support the provisions in the bill. This bill was not a problem for Republicans, but for a handful of House members. Majorities of men support these changes, as do majorities of women—for that matter, only 17 percent of the people who describe themselves as “pro-choice” support the current anything-goes abortion regime. On a question that really matters, the House of Representatives had a rare chance to take “Yes” for an answer.

I can only conclude that that was not the answer you want.

(Kevin D. Williamson on the Stupid Party spiking a major prolife Bill on the very day of the national March for Life in D.C.)

Note that Jackie Walorski had Right to Life endorsement. I supported Michelle Bachman for her first Congressional run (i.e., her attempt to prove The Peter Principle) because Feminists for Life affiliate Susan B. Anthony List endorsed her eagerly.

Do you wonder why I’m politically burnt out on this issue, about which I still care a great deal?

* * * * *

“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)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.