This morning, President Bush announced his support for an amendment to the United States Constitution "defining and protecting marriage as a union of man and woman as husband and wife. The amendment should fully protect marriage, while leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage."
Over at his blog, Yale Law School's Professor Jack Balkin notes that the President is "attempting to shape the issue in terms of what states may officially term 'marriage,' as opposed to preventing states from effectively giving same sex couples the bundle of rights enjoyed by married couples. This means that he cannot endorse the proposed FMA in its current form, because, as I have noted previously, it would also prevent states from passing civil unions or domestic partnership legislation. His strategy is to make the fight about semantics and symbolism rather than substance."
It is not clear to me that Professor Balkin's interpretation of the proposed FMA (the "Musgrave Amendment") is correct. (Here's the text). In any event, the President's action raises (again) the question posed by Rob a few days ago (and many others): In light of the Church's social teaching, but remembering also the fact of pluralism, how ought we to regard an amendment of the kind endorsed today by the President? What about this language (taken from the President's statement):
"Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society. Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all. . . .
America is a free society, which limits the role of government in the lives of our citizens. This commitment of freedom, however, does not require the redefinition of one of our most basic social institutions. Our government should respect every person, and protect the institution of marriage. There is no contradiction between these responsibilities. We should also conduct this difficult debate in a manner worthy of our country, without bitterness or anger."
Can we, for example, take seriously the claim that American governments generally act so as to "protect the institution of marriage"? Is it true that a "commitment [to] freedom . . . does not require the redefinition of one of our most basic social institutions," if it is the case that that "institution" -- as it is generally defined in positive law -- is difficult to square with our generally atomistic morality and its attendant understanding of "freedom"? Is Professor Griffiths right to observe (see below) that "in cases of this sort, public argument cannot resolve disagreement. This is not to say that there is no truth of the matter, or that there are no good arguments about it. It is only to say what is also true, which is that public argument will not succeed in producing consensus in this matter. To think that it could is to overestimate its capacities. Catholics should not, therefore, advocate the embodiment of the orthodox view in U.S. marriage law because we think there are persuasive public arguments about the question. There aren't"?
Rick
Monday, February 23, 2004
Earlier today I attended Fordham Law School’s Conference on Religious Values and Corporate Decision Making, put together by co-blogger Amy Uelman. The first panel was an all-star lineup of Russ Pearce, Brad Wendel, Steven Resnicoff, and our own Mark Sargent. They tackled the question, “Does Corporate Decision-Making Allow Room for Religious Values?”
A couple of themes might be of special interest to readers of this weblog:
First, Dean Sargent looked at lawyers’ moral complicity in the corporate scandals of recent times, emphasizing that the moral consciousness of lawyers must be understood sociologically. Building on the thesis of Robert Jackall's Moral Mazes, he argued that the social context of a corporation drives lawyers (and others) to pursue their own self-interest through the prevailing rules of the game, bracketing their own moral codes in the process. The dominant ethos of the corporation is pragmatism, with questions of right and wrong relegated to the sidelines, and, I think Mark would conclude, this ethos was responsible for the scandals much more than the lack of a personal moral code on the part of the primary corporate decision-makers.
Second, Professor Wendel expressed misgivings about the injection of religious values into corporate decision-making, taking a Rawlsian approach to the corporate context. Like the state, he identifies the corporation as an institution with a pressing need for coordinated action, and thus it must justify its action through widely agreeable reasoning. In response to (my) questioning, though, he clarified that, to the extent religious values are brought to bear on corporate decision-making in a transparent manner, there is no danger of coercion, as the investor can take her money elsewhere. In this regard, he would not see a problem with the explicit and open embrace of religious values by corporate decision-makers. Since Wendel seems to have been the designated naysayer on the panel, perhaps the gap between those who see a role for religious values in the corporation and those who do not is not so wide.
Or perhaps those who object to religion's entry into the corporate sphere see no reason to participate in a conference devoted to such a topic. I'm not familiar enough with the area to know what their argument would be. Provided that religious values are brought to bear in a transparent fashion, what is the objection to their entry? I can see why religious values may be inefficient or otherwise ill-suited to the corporate context, but is there any good-faith basis for precluding them categorically?
Rob
Amy Welborn has posted, at her excellent blog, a blurb about a "40 page booklet" issued by the "Catholic Church in Wales and England" called "Taxation for the Common Good." Here's a link to an article about the booklet. The article includes the following: "Taxes are very much based on the principles of solidarity, which is based on the commandment to love your neighbour," former Bishop Howard Tripp, Chairman of the Church's Committee for Public Life, told Reuters on Monday. Here's another article.
The Iowa Catholic Conference issued a similar statement a few months ago.
I'd welcome Professor Bainbridge's reactions!
Rick
On the sidebar, I have added a link to my article, Kulturkampf in the Backwaters: Homosexuality and Immigration Law, which looks at a) the attempts to gain "family reunification" immigration benefits for same-sex partners and b) the granting of asylum to those who have been prosecuted/persecuted on the grounds of sexual orientation and/or homosexual conduct. This article does not explicitly contain a Catholic perspective (and there are no citations to Catholic sources), but it implicitly proceeds from a Catholic anthropology. Even though this article is silent on religion, some in the immigration scholar's community who liked my bibical reflection in Who is My Neighbor? (also linked on the right), cautioned me that publishing it would damage my attempt to get religious viewpoints taken seriously in the field.
To my fellow bloggers: Any thoughts on when the Catholic viewpoint ought to remain implicit and when it ought to be made explicit?
