My response to George Wiegel’s “The Marriage Debate: The Nature of Things,” in Catholic Exchange, 2/1/13:
George Wiegel
Mr. Wiegel, if you hadn’t explained that Cardinal Francis George is an intellectual superstar, I would have thought his remarks about same-sex marriage were just blather. Here’s why:
- Dr. Professor George sets up a straw man so that he can knock it down. No one is claiming that same-sex relations are identical to different-sex ones. If that were the claim, then gays would not be attempting to marry other gays.
- It is not self-evident why same-sex marriage is analogous to a repeal of the law of gravity. The Cardinal is using a rhetorical trick to legitimate his views.
- To say that same-sex marriage is “physically impossible” flies in the face of observable reality.
Then you create your own straw man: SSM advocates believe everything is “fungible, plastic, malleable: anything can be changed by an act of will.” This characterization is extreme. While there are few remaining Platonists in our modern world, neither does anyone any longer believe that copper can be transformed into gold. We do recognize, however, that institutions such as marriage and the family are, and always have been, somewhat malleable. In 10 states and 14 countries, they have recently become more inclusive as well.
The rest of your article consists of threadbare talking points and outright misrepresentations. Your framing of homosexuality as a chosen and willful contravention of “human nature” reflects a profound and willful ignorance of human nature as it is now understood throughout the natural and social sciences. You information about adoption rights in France is simply false. There is not and never has been a “right to adopt” there.
February 8, 2013 at 8:00 pm |
I wholeheartedly agree! And, confound it, I have nothing to add. Superb; though considering George Weigel is a fraud, merely “posing” as an intellectual, I am not suprised.