South Dakota Politics

Is Kranz Irrelevant?

Todd Epp ponders whether the blogosphere has made the Dave Kranz's of the world obsolete.  Let's hope not, because then what will we whine about here at SDP. 

The Case Against South Dakota

Of all places, National Catholic Register features an editorial against the South Dakota abortion law.   Unfortunately the editorial is not online (at least not yet).  The piece is written by Mark Stricherz, who blogs at In Front of Your Nose. Stricherz has practical objections to the law, not categorical ones.  In essence, he thinks it's bad politics.  His major points.
1. Since Americans don't support banning abortion in the "hard cases" (rape and incest), this bill makes it harder for pro-life candidates.  "Saddling pro-life candidates to support such unpopular standards will only hurt their chances of getting elected or re-elected."  He uses relatively pro-life Senator Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) as an example.  Representing a pro-choice state, Smith will undoubtedly face harsher scrutiny of his pro-life position because of this bill. 
2. "What's more, the South Dakota bill needlessly energizes the other side."
3. "Nor is the South Dakota legislation likely to succeed in the courts."
4. "Losing at the ballot box and in the courts is simply not what the right-to-life movement needs." 
5. "The reason the movement starting winning [in the 1990s] was that after Casey, pro-life leaders made a conscious choice.  They ditched their radical strategy, such as a trying to pass a human-life amendment.  In its place they adopted an incremental strategy, one that limits abortion but does not ban it."  This put the pro-abortionists on their heels and forced a slow change in opinion on abortion (i.e., most people look on abortion unfavorably, however they think it should be dealt with legally). 
6. "Those advances were made not by a radical strategy, but by an incremental one.  And more incremental steps need to be taken.  Congress ad the states should fund sonogram machines, pass laws mandating parental involvement, and prohibit abortion for all health and economic reasons.  Those are battles pro-lifers can win." 

I find it interesting that a conservative Catholic publication publishes a piece against a ban on abortion.  To be sure, next week, the paper announces, they will publish a piece entitled "Defending South Dakota," but here is a movement with self-reflection and able to tolerate disagreement.  Good for them. 

Comedy Revelation

Speaking of comedy, the funniest season of Saturday Night Live, in my opinion, was the 1984-1985 season.  Cast members included Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Jim Belushi, Julia Louis-Dreyfus,  Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer.  The funniest sketch was of Harry Shearer and Martin Short as two brothers who gave it all up to become the first male synchronized swimmers (you'll have to remember that the 1984 Olympics had featured the premier of synchronized swimming).  Christopher Guest is hilarious as their effeminate choreographer.  This season of SNL has been impossible to find because this is one of only a few years that Lorne Michaels, the show's creator, was not the producer of the show.  So Michaels has refused to release those seasons on DVD.  But now I see that Harry Shearer is releasing a DVD of his own which includes the synchronized swimming bit as well as another "mockumentary" from that season of SNL, this one featuring Shearer as Mike Wallace busting a discount gag gift company run by Martin Short.  Mike Wallace, keeping us free from low quality plastic vomit!  Thank you Harry Shearer, for America deserves to see these classic SNL skits. 

South Park Chronicles

Jim Lindgren nicely chronicles the foibles at South Park over Isaac Hayes's sudden departure. Hayes, who voices the character "Chef," has left the show because he is a Scientologist and a recent episode mocks that belief system.  Matt Parker, one of the South Park creators, responds:

This has nothing to do with intolerance and bigotry and everything to do with the fact that Isaac Hayes is a Scientologist and that we recently featured Scientology in an episode of 'South Park.' In ten years and over 150 episodes of 'South Park,' Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons and Jews. He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show.

This goes to the heart of the "South Park" problem.  I have something of a love/hate relationship with South Park.  It is undeniably funny, and it appeals to my third-grade sense of humor.  It also is one of the few entertainment industry products that is not afraid to skewer liberal sacred cows along with the conservative holy bovines.  Finally, I found out last summer at a family reunion (in Lemmon, SD of all places) that I have a distant cousin who is an animator on the show.  Talk about a  brush with greatness! 

But the problem with South Park is exactly what Parker and other of the show's defenders say is its strength.  Whenever I question South Park's vulgarity to students, they defend South Park by saying that South Park is insulting to everyone, as if that makes it better.  This is essentially Parker's defense against the charge of religious insensitivity.  Hey, we make-fun of all religions.  But this is the problem.  I like irreverent humor as much as the next guy, maybe even more.  But when you are irreverent toward everything you are reverent toward nothing.  And some things deserve our reverence.  A society full of Matt Parkers and Trey Stones (the other South Park creator) ultimately believes in nothing.  We call that nihilism, and that's bad.  But it is sometimes really funny. 

What Is Marriage?

I direct readers to Prof. Schaff's excellent post below on polygamy and marriage.  I tend to approach this issue from the point of view that Professor Larry Arnhart describes as Darwinian Natural Right.   According to this view, some things are just and others unjust by nature.  That premise of course Arnhart and I share with Lincoln and Jefferson.  But here nature is understood in light of the Darwinian dynamics that shape and preserve human nature.  I think that this view provides richer and more reliable answers than any previous approach, though it is largely consistent with thinking that goes all the way back to Socrates.

Professor Schaff's links provide me with a good example.  Maggie Gallagher presents the Canadian argument for gay marriage:

IN ORDERING GAY MARRIAGE on June 10, 2003, the highest court in Ontario, Canada, explicitly endorsed a brand new vision of marriage along the lines Wolfson suggests: "Marriage is, without dispute, one of the most significant forms of personal relationships. . . . Through the institution of marriage, individuals can publicly express their love and commitment to each other. Through this institution, society publicly recognizes expressions of love and commitment between individuals, granting them respect and legitimacy as a couple."

What this fails to explain is why "expressions of love and commitment between individuals" needs public recognition.  If a man and a women, or two women, have a loving relationship, why does this relationship need to be legitimized by the state?  Is it illegitimate in the absence of such recognition?  Does a relationship have to be sexual to require public expression and legitimacy?  What about two guys who are just really good chums?  What about a woman who, in the eyes of the Church, is married to Jesus? 

Here is Gallagher's opposing view:

What is marriage for? Marriage is a virtually universal human institution. In all the wildly rich and various cultures flung throughout the ecosphere, in society after society, whether tribal or complex, and however bizarre, human beings have created systems of publicly approved sexual union between men and women that entail well-defined responsibilities of mothers and fathers. Not all these marriage systems look like our own, which is rooted in a fusion of Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian culture. Yet everywhere, in isolated mountain valleys, parched deserts, jungle thickets, and broad plains, people have come up with some version of this thing called marriage. Why?

Because sex between men and women makes babies, that's why. Even today, in our technologically advanced contraceptive culture, half of all pregnancies are unintended: Sex between men and women still makes babies. Most men and women are powerfully drawn to perform a sexual act that can and does generate life. Marriage is our attempt to reconcile and harmonize the erotic, social, sexual, and financial needs of men and women with the needs of their partner and their children.

This is much clearer.  Surely the universal institution of marriage has something to do with procreation.  But again, it is not quite clear why the biologically procreative relationship needs this public sanction more than other ambiguous and complex human partnerships.  And it needs it so much that almost all societies have had to bring such social pressures to bear. 

Darwinian Natural Right gets at last to the bottom of the question.  Marriage exists because, unlike women, men don't know who their children are.  In most mammalian species, male parental investment ends with the sexual act.  Females bear all the responsibility for raising the offspring.  But in a few species fathers do stick around to invest their time and resources in the young.  Wolves stand out.  So do we. 

But this is a risky strategy.  How does he know that these offspring are in fact his?  The social science think tank known as the Grateful Dead put it this way:

Got a wife in chino, babe, and one in cherokee
The first one says she’s got my child, but it don’t look like me.

Evolution solves this problem for different animals in different ways.  Wolves, for example, are often locked together for hours after intercourse.  This ensures that the male does not disengage until his mate is safely pregnant, and before some johnnycomelately can pollute the nursery.  Among human males, sperm count rises whenever the male is separated from his mate for long periods of time.  Who knows whose sperm he has to compete with?

Marriage is a social construct.  Its essential purpose to ensure the husband that her children are his children, and so to encourage him to invest in their care.  It is undeniably one of the most successful social constructs in the history of our species, and forms the foundation of every society.  Whenever we think about marriage and especially about reforming marriage, we need to keep this in mind.

When we think about gay marriage, the first thing to recognize is that it would extend the institution of marriage to include a relationship that has no connection with its original, biologically inspired purpose.  But that hardly means that the extension is unwise.  Many human inventions are constantly adapted to new purposes.  Fire was originally a means of warmth and a deterrent to predators.  Then we discovered cooking.  Later, we used it to transform metals into more useful forms.  The most compelling argument for gay marriage is that it would encourage male homosexuals to become less promiscuous, thus reducing their vulnerability to STDs.  I am skeptical, but these arguments are worth considering.

But if we wish to take this step, we need to get away from the Canadian idea that marriage is liberating.  It isn't.  It is all about exchanges and obligations.  It gets social support at the cost of social responsibility.  This ain't Woodstock, man.  Its Leave It to Beaver.