Proposition 8
The sad story of yesterday’s election seems like it’s going to be California voting for Proposition 8, declaring that marriage is between a man and a woman, thus striking down the state’s Supreme Court ruling. This to me seems like obvious discrimination and I couldn’t be more against it. I just read a great piece that put it into perfect perspective for me (via techno.blog(“Dion”)). The basic thesis is that if you can’t find anyone within the group a piece of legislation is effecting that’s in favor of it, it’s discriminatory.
The entry gives three examples: “I have met many women who are pro-life. They’ve traded one value (personal choice) in favor of another (sanctity of life). … I’m in favor of women having voting rights, even though I’m a man. … There are Silicon Valley zillionaires who are voting for Obama. If Obama is elected, they will pay more in income and capital gains tax as a result.”
While I expect there may be holes in this theory, and that you’d have to specify the type of legislation it works for (like specifically “values” legislation), what struck me was it’s similarity to Karl Popper’s definition of science (which I wrote about in January): “Philosopher Karl Popper has argued for decades that the primary criterion of science is the falsifiability of its theories. We can never prove absolutely, but we can falsify. A set of ideas that cannot, in principle, be falsified is not science.”
I haven’t put this through the ringers yet, but it seems to me like this statement is scientific: Legislation that can not be supported by anyone in the effected group is not values, it’s discrimination. Now let’s try and throw things against it that prove it wrong. The first thing I think of is laws that punish criminals, which theoretically they would be against. However, those same laws also protect criminals as citizens from other criminals. Anyone else?
Hi, I'm 
“…if you can’t find anyone within the group a piece of legislation is effecting that’s in favor of it, it’s discriminatory.”
“anyone” seems over-arching. I’m sure there are gay couples that may be for prop 8. To the same extent, there were likely blacks that were against Loving v. Virginia or Brown v. Board of Education (both cases outlawing practices that were clearly discriminatory).
You bring up a good point and certainly one I thought about. While that does break down the objectivity of the statement, we all know it’s not really true that those people support those things. So how can the statement be amended to deal with it? And, really, are there outspoken gay critics of Proposition 8? I mean, have you read anything? (I certainly haven’t read everything on the subject, but haven’t seen that.)
Hey Noah,
This reminds me a little bit of a concept that the philosopher John Rawls developed called the veil of ignorance.
” The veil of ignorance criterion is as follows: a rule is just if everyone would agree to it given that they were made ignorant of their position in society. That is, the just society would be chosen by people who had set aside considerations of their own gender, wealth, race, parentage, ect. Ideally this rule eliminates personal bias from the choice and thus guarantees the fairness of rules.”
If some of these people who voted for proposition 8 went behind the veil things might have been very different.
I discussed this with a few friends. Here’s what we came up with:
1. “within the group a piece of legislation is effecting” is ambiguous. For Prop 8, the intuitive group effected are gay couples. But this is isn’t true. In fact, the legislation could effect heterosexuals to a varying degree. Most laws will effect the entire population; isolating a specific group seems arbitrary.
2. Many laws are general, and do not intend to target a specific group of people, but still adversely affect them.
- Do marijuana laws discriminate against Native American peyote users?
- Do helmet laws discriminate against Sikhs?
- Do Blue laws discriminate against Jews?
Many pieces of legislation affect groups that are unanimously not it favor of it, but this does not make it discriminatory. Perhaps it’s more a question of intent…
Matt’s observation seems to be where many of the pro/ anti Prop 8 voters disagreed. Those in favor thought that gay marriage would affect everything from school curricula the meaning of their own heterosexual unions, and saw it as an assault on their values. To them, gay couples would not be the only ones affected. Those opposed (myself included) wondered why something as personal as marriage was even being put to popular vote, and couldn’t fathom why others found this threatening. Disagreement about gay marriage’s reach seemed to be the dividing line.
As a very new Californian, I was sad to see this one pass.
Laws affecting minors is another big one. When I was in high school, I knew few people among my peers in favor of laws that set the minimum age for buying alcohol and tobacco, and not many were in favor of the age limits for getting a driver’s license.
I think it’s a valid argument you put out but it’s hard to make a set rule around it.