Box Turtle carries a lengthy back-and-forth centering on David Blankenhorn's Jesuitical use (introduction?) of anthropology in the debate over marriage.
Another "endowed chair", Glen Stanton, this time of the Focus on the Family, has a 2008 tomb out exploring (i.e. "making hay over") what an invented class of "classical anthropologists" say about the definition of marriage and what some prominent, "classical gay", marriage-advocates have said. (The official anthropology statement is here). [That's right, Andrew, you are part of the "classical gay" period of marriage-rights struggles in America, unless you re-invent yourself, Madonna-like. LOL-I crack myself up.]
I AM THE BLACK KNIGHT - LOOK, I'VE CUT OFF YOUR ARM - IT'S ONLY A FLESH WOUND, COME AT ME
As before, the match-up is between two people, fully funded by Foundations to take on multi-year projects, almost full time at critical points versus a few, very clever marriage-advocates, only one of whom enjoys the freedom from earning a basic living doing something else.
If you had to predict that the thought-wars over items of this import might be waged this way, is that what you would have thunk?
Anyway, if this iteration of debate has merit (beyond the knock-out blow some had pretended to themselves, perhaps), it is to prompt marriage advocates to re-think their definitions of marriage, to the degree that definitions matter (and rightly so, yes?).
What's more, "the debate" now has an anthropological dimension, trumped up or otherwise, so anthropological interpretation is yet another field over which to gain some familiarity, if not mastery.
More later: It may be true that the marriage advocates do not produce "univocal" or peer-reviewed material; but, if it is fair to criticize them by making lists of differences, who is going to make a list of all the exaggerated claims of the other side, also not peer reviewed?
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Spawn of Blankenhorn, Part I - The Classical Gay Period
