OK I know I'm coming pretty late to this issue. The "firing" of adjunct BYU philosopher teacher Jeffery Nielsen has been all the talk of the various LDS blogs the past week or so. But hey, I've been rather busy. I thought though that perhaps I had at least one or two unique comments to make that perhaps others haven't. (At least that I can see - I don't claim to have followed all the discussion) So here are my thoughts along with a brief summary of the issue for those readers who might not be up on the controversy.
The controversy started when Nielsen wrote an op ed piece for the Salt Lake Tribune criticizing the Church's position on gay marriage. He actually went a step further than just criticizing though saying, "I say anyone who disagrees with Gay marriage is immoral." Needless to say that caused a bit of an uproar. There was an extended discussion on LDS-Phil about it. Various other LDS oriented blogs like Messenger and Advocate chimed in. (That's but one example of many) I'll not go through all the discussion. I think that many felt that one could disagree with the Church. Indeed some prominent LDS bloggers had come out in favor of gay marriage. But I think most felt that some of the public criticism of the Church was a bit over the line.
Four days after the op ed, the Philosophy department let Nielsen know that he wouldn't be asked back to teach next year. (See the Trib and Des News stories) Now it's important to note that Nielsen wasn't a full time employee and was hired on a year by year basis to teach a single class. Some suggested that this was less an issue of academic freedom than it was akin to a temp worker insulting his boss and expecting to have a contract renewed. Others felt it was more an assault on academic freedom. I'll not go through all the blog discussions. There were plenty. Two of the better ones were BCC's discussion about disagreeing with the brethren and then DMI's discussion with many links. M&A had several discussions as well.
At that point even the national news got involved. Probably the most interesting discussion were from KUER's RadioWest. They had one show with an interview with Nielsen and an other with various professors from Notre Dame, BYU, and the University of Utah on the issue of academic freedom. Both are worth listening to. BYU then put out a story and then an editorial on the issue giving what one might perceive as their side of the issue.
OK, now on to my comments.
First off I know many people are comparing Nielsen with the Larry Summers issue from Harvard. I don't think that a terribly good parallel. For one there was a lot more involved in the Summers issue and arguably questions about how well he could do his job of managing professors who clearly didn't like him. Secondly Nielsen wasn't a full time employee. The situation is more akin to a grad student getting a part time job teaching a class, offending the department head and thus not being asked to teach that class the following semester. That's not to say there aren't academic issues involved. Just that most of the parallels I've seen offered don't fit.
Allow me to note what I take to be a much more interesting parallel. And one probably of interest to readers. Bloggers. It's been oft discussed by various bloggers the risks of blogging if one wants an academic career. Indeed numerous bloggers blog anonymously precisely because they fear the consequences if people in their university knew their positions on various political issues. Some even fear the consequences of publishing in "popular" media as opposed to more hard core academic journals. That is there is the perception that one isn't a real academic and are wasting ones time by these side issues. (Typically political)
Now this isn't just an occasional thing. There have been some significant bloggers who haven't received tenure. Many suspect their blogging was to blame. The issue got a lot of discussion. (At John Hawks, Slate, Savage Minds, the Chronicle of Higher Education and elsewhere.) I'll not repeat the controversy. It just seems, however, that for people without tenure the academy is pretty fickle. Anyone claiming that folks can say anything, especially political comments in popular venues, is being a bit naive. BYU is more the rule than the exception. Further given the transitory nature of Nielsen's particular job, one can't really draw too big a conclusion regarding academic freedom.
The second thing is, as many noted, that the way it was discussed seems a bit more relevant than the content. Lots of people had made similar points. I think it was the criticizing of the leadership and the calling them immoral for what was a fairly doctrinally conservative position that really was the deciding issue. Some draw comparisons to Notre Dame, but I think Notre Dame has simply decided not to make religion a big deal at the college. (Much to the consternation of some) So I'm not sure most want BYU to go the Notre Dame model.
You might get the award for funniest typo of the month in the 'naccle. In you rsecond paragraph: "I say anyone who disagrees with Gay marriage is immortal.�
Personally, I don't think that Nielson's accusation of "immorality" was really aimed at the church leaders, so much as at anybody who disagreed with what he saw as being the moral choice. Of course this includes the church leadership, but I think it was aimed primarily at the average Mormon reader in general.
Yeah. I made that same typo in the comments at BCC as well. I fixed it.
Jeff, while that may be true, I think the problem was that in the key paragraph had one sentence about the leadership and then the following sentence was the one I quoted. If Nielsen didn't realize people would make that connection then he is indeed a very sloppy writer. From the KUER interview though it appeared he pretty well knew the consequences. So I think it was done intentionally and not back accident as you suggest.
My own view is that no one particularly cares what anyone thinks on these issues. I think that even Nielsen's piece probably wouldn't have caused an uproar had he just changed a couple of sentences here or there. It's that perception of an attack on the legitimacy of a Prophet that I think gets many people's feathers in a ruffle.
The legitimacy of the Prophet to legislate non-Mormon love lives?
Could you expand? I don't think anyone is arguing that an LDS leader has the right to legislate anything. But clearly in a democracy any religion has the right to rally the support of its adherents. This is frequently done by all religions on many, many issues. If anything the LDS Church rarely does this. (Although it has been more politically involved under Hinkley from what I can see: on issues of gambling, abortion, gay marriage, and nuclear waste in Utah)
Clark:But clearly in a democracy any religion has the right to rally the support of its adherents. This is frequently done by all religions on many, many issues
I guess that's the part that confuses me.
I mean, what could anybody have against gay marriage, except for Leviticus? And if the goal is to legislate Leviticus, why 18:22 and not 19:19 or 11:3, for example?
So, what we are talking about is the right of a religion to rally the support of its adherents to enforce a selected subset of their dogma as legally binding on non-adherents.
If certain religious groups want to believe that God/Allah/Vishnu doesn't want them to eat Cheeseburgers/Pork/Beef, that's cool with me. But if those folks want to legislate my access to Bacon Cheeseburgers on the basis of religious doctrine, well, that's a whole other thing.
I don't think the issue is imposing moral law on others. At least very few people I've seen argue for that. Most Mormons I've encountered are pretty willing to give all the practical civil rights and feel that gays ought be left alone. The "mind your own business" issue.
My personal opinion is that the strength of argument is clearly on the homosexual marriage side (I know Blake disagrees) except for the issue of symbols. That is the fundamental problem is State involvement in marriage at all. That entails a co-option by the State of a particularly important religious ceremony.
The answer, as I've argued many times, is to separate out the State from marriage. I should add that on general principles I'm opposed to the State being involved in social engineering, which is what the main anti-gay marriage arguments entail. (i.e. the State determines marriage so as to promote certain limited social practices)
Clark:The answer, as I've argued many times, is to separate out the State from marriage
I agree completely, and this is more or less the solution that Norway has taken. Folks here have to register where they're living, and people registered as "living together" get all of the same benefits and protections as people who are married.
I find this type of discussion fascinating. Here are some comments I would like to contribute.
CE_Digger: “The legitimacy of the Prophet to legislate non-Mormon love lives?”
I find these kind of statements irrelevant. I find no relationship between ‘love lives’ and ‘marriage’. People can have wonderful love lives and not be marriage. Married people can have terrible love lives. The one has nothing to do with the other.
Michael Dorphman: “I mean, what could anybody have against gay marriage, except for Leviticus? And if the goal is to legislate Leviticus, why 18:22 and not 19:19 or 11:3, for example?”
The goal is to legislate moral laws. It is not the goal to legislate Leviticus. Leviticus is simply appealed to as an authority. By the way, notice the law does not legislate against being gay. The law doesn’t legislate against who you are but, rather, what you do. Under the law I need to love a guy person just as I would a straight person. This does not mean that I must be OK with his behavior.
Michael Dorphman: “So, what we are talking about is the right of a religion to rally the support of its adherents to enforce a selected subset of their dogma as legally binding on non-adherents.”
Dogma, an interesting word. In Latin it means ‘opinion’. All ways of life, including atheists, have their dogma. Each citizen brings their own dogma to the polling booth. There is no difference between religious organizations preaching their ‘truths’ and secular organizations preaching theirs. Each try to make their ‘truths’ legally binding on non-adherents. It’s called democracy.
Clark: “I don't think the issue is imposing moral law on others.”
Of course it is. The real question is which moral laws to legislate and which not to legislate. As the Jeffery Nielsen affair shows: "I say anyone who disagrees with Gay marriage is immoral." With Nielsen (and those who agree with him) it is a moral issue. Now why should Nielsen’s morality be imposed upon me?
Clark: “My personal opinion is that the strength of argument is clearly on the homosexual marriage side (I know Blake disagrees) except for the issue of symbols. That is the fundamental problem is State involvement in marriage at all. That entails a co-option by the State of a particularly important religious ceremony.”
Nearly all societies regulate marriage, even Norway. That just happens to be the way they regulate it. If the state said nothing about marriage, then marriage would be unregulated. The reason all societies regulate marriage has little to do with social engineering. Marriage helps insure a society’s future. Married couples are separated out from other members of society and given special privileges because their issue and the raising of that issue is the best method yet found for a stable future for that society. This is true for every society, except for the most primitive perhaps. Gay unions provide no issue. There is no future for a society with gay unions. There is no rational reason, in the eyes of a society, for it to provide the same benefits for gay unions that it does for unions of a man and a woman. Society does not receive the same benefits from a gay union that it does from a union of man and woman.
Clark: “The answer, as I've argued many times, is to separate out the State from marriage.”
This is very impractical. Societies have regulated marriage for thousands of years. It is done either through formal laws or through taboos. Societies have too much at stake in the success of marriage to allow it to be totally unregulated. Nearly all societies have laws/taboos against brother/sister marriages, father/daughter marriages, mother/son marriages. Here in the US we have laws about how many wives a man may have and how many husbands a woman may have. They also have laws about who has the authority to perform marriages and how marriages are dissolved. Marriage is encircled with societal laws/taboos.
Clark: “That is the fundamental problem in State involvement in marriage at all. That entails a co-option by the State of a particularly important religious ceremony.”
If you take the state out and have marriage simply a religious ceremony then religions will regulate marriage. They will be able to determine who gets married and who doesn’t. Will the LDS Church recognize Catholic marriages? They don’t recognize the religious authority of the Catholic priesthood. What about Catholic recognition of Protestant marriages. Then there is the issue of recognizing Jewish marriages, Buddhist marriages, Shamanistic or Islamic marriages. Then there is the issue of what is a religion and what is not. It will deny atheists, who belong to no religion, the opportunity to marry. In the resulting chaos, the state will have to step in anyway. There is simply no way around state regulation of marriage. The real question is what form will that regulation take. This is a moral issue and should be decided by the moral sensibilities of the society’s citizenry.
Rich, I think by "moral issue" we have to narrow things down. The problem is that you are using the term so broadly that basically everything is a moral issue. That waters it down to the point that it becomes meaningless.
By moral issue I suspect what most people are saying is, "is the opposition to gay marriage because homosexuality intrinsically is wrong and ought be banned." Put an other way, would you favor arresting people for engaging in homosexual acts in their own privacy? I suspect you, and most Americans, would not. Put an other way I'm not at all convinced one can make a strong argument against gay marriage due to one's view of the ethics of homosexual acts. Some do of course, but I don't see too many Mormons doing this. (Perhaps you are the exception to the rule - I can't say)
As to re-regulating marriages. If one separates out the religious aspects of marriage from the legal contract issues then the question of recognition becomes much less important. Say Catholics don't recognize Mormon marriages. So what? It has no legal impact. I also don't quite see how this would ban atheists or anyone else from marrying. At it would do would be to mean the state isn't involved in the marriage. But they could marry to their heart's delight in what ever form they wish.
So I suspect you misunderstand what is being asserted.
What it seems you basically are arguing is a thorough-going democratic principle where whatever the majority want they should have. That is if I think something is wrong we should ban it. I understand that perspective even though I'm quite opposed to it. I think there are many things that we might find objectionable and highly immoral but which I think ought be tolerated. For instance I consider adultery one of the more serious ethical infractions. But I don't think the state should be involved in such issues.
"The reason all societies regulate marriage has little to do with social engineering. Marriage helps insure a society’s future"
You do see that the second sentence contracts the first sentence? Don't you? All you are saying is that you think some social engineering is good if you view it as beneficial to society. But you can't say it isn't social engineering simply because you like it.
Clark: “Rich, I think by "moral issue" we have to narrow things down. The problem is that you are using the term so broadly that basically everything is a moral issue. That waters it down to the point that it becomes meaningless.”
I’m sorry Clark but I can’t agree. Look at the two arguments listed on the blog. Nielsen: If you disagree with me you are immoral. And, homosexuality is evil (wrong) and must be banned. They are opposing moral stands over a moral issue.
To acknowledge that we are discussing a moral issue, doesn’t mean the next step is to send in the jack-booted storm troopers. What it means is that each side has taken a moral stance and that each stance should be looked at and discussed. Neither of these approaches do that. It seems to me that any discussion must begin with the assumption that each party has honest beliefs. The attempt to demonize the other side leads no where.
There is the need to be clear about what is being discussed. You mention anti-gay marriage and a ban on gay marriage. This obscures the real issues. Gays can get married. They can go to a minister sympathetic to their life-style, stand before an alter, pledge their vows to one another, exchange rings and receive the blessings of that church. The state plays no role in their marriage. It is precisely the kind of state involvement I assume you are advocating.
Clark: “If one separates out the religious aspects of marriage from the legal contract issues then the question of recognition becomes much less important.”
Perhaps you didn’t read what I wrote but my whole argument was based on the issue of legal recognition of gay unions. The issue is not really over gay marriage. They already have this opportunity. The real issue is over bringing in the state to recognize and validate their marriage. This is what the gay agenda is about. Now I don’t have to demonize them in order to oppose this agenda. In the other post I laid out my opposition based on the fact that guy unions do not provide benefits for societies the way heterosexual unions do. Therefore they have no claim on the benefits society provides married couples.
Clark: “”I'm not at all convinced one can make a strong argument against gay marriage due to one's view of the ethics of homosexual acts.”
I hope I’m old enough to know that no one can be convinced that does not want to be convinced. However, I think I can lay out a reasoned argument against the legalization of gay marriages on the basis of ethics. And, I think I can do so without demonizing gay people. However, we need to be clear about what is being said. For example your statement earlier that some may think homosexuality is wrong. Homosexuality is a state of mind. It entails the sexual desires for one’s own sex (at least so it says in my little red dictionary). The last time I checked the Church did not employ thought police. In other words you are not going to be excommunicated for having these thoughts and feelings. You can be excommunicated for acting on these desires. As I mentioned in the other posting, in his scriptures God condemns the act not the person. The homosexual is a child of God like the rest of us. It is incumbent upon me to treat him with respect and love as I would any other child of God. This does not mean that I must condone his lifestyle. The highest form of love is to help others and myself enter the Celestial Kingdom. A person will not gain access to the Celestial Kingdome living a homosexual lifestyle. For me to condone it is to condone activity which will bar that person from the Celestial Kingdome. I won’t do that. There is another thing I won’t do and that is to take away that person’s free agency. I will do nothing that tries to force that person into any other lifestyle than the one he has chosen for himself. So no jack-booted storm troopers. Recognizing his free agency does not require me to condone, legitimate, or recognize as normal activity I know will keep that person from the Celestial Kingdom.
Therefore I am against the recognition and legitimization of gay unions by the state. I am in favor of keeping the state completely out of the issue. If I am true to myself I must act upon what I believe to true. To do anything else is to betray that gay person and to be dishonest with myself.
So to summarize.
* I am against state recognition of gay unions on the basis of revealed religion: God has defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
* I am against state recognition of gay unions on the functional basis that while heterosexual unions provides the state with a stable future, gay unions do not.
* I am against state recognition of gay unions because to do so is to betray the love I’m obligated to show them as a child of God. Love does not mean giving people what they want simply because they want it.
Clark: “What it seems you basically are arguing is a thorough-going democratic principle where whatever the majority want they should have. That is if I think something is wrong we should ban it. I understand that perspective even though I'm quite opposed to it.”
No. What I am saying is that members of that society should have the say as to whether accepted standards of marriage should be changed in order to accommodate the wishes of a small segment of that society. Evidently, three different state supreme court rulings support that idea.
Rich, regarding your first point, just because folks on both sides of the issue portray it in absolutist terms doesn't mean they are right. The very notion that there are but two sides seems intrinsically problematic and no doubt prey to the fallacy of the false dichotomy.
Regarding your other comments. I see there being two separate albeit related issues. One, should the State be involved in marriage and the corollary of what limits it should put on it if they are involved. As I've said I see the second issue as ultimately moot since I don't think the state should be involved. That said, if the state is involved then I see it as ultimately an issue of public desire and not personal rights. (i.e. I don't see marriage recognition as a right, rather a reflection of the desires of society)
While there are obviously moral overtones to each, I don't see either as significant moral issues as such. The former is more just an issue of the limits of government which I see primarily as a practical not ethical issue. The second I see as more a gauge of belief and relatively indifferent to why individuals hold the beliefs.
Regarding your later argument the issue of legitimization seems to be more complex than you portray. Certainly I agree with almost all you say. However if legality implies acceptance (which your argument requires) then we have the state legitimizing all sorts of unethical things. It seems that your claim that allowance implies legitimacy requires further evidence. I don't think everyone will buy that.
I should add that I find that premise to be involved in a lot of arguments. I recall people opposed to Chinese human rights violations making a similar claim when the US accepted China as a trade partner. Their argument fundamentally depends on allowance or acceptance implying legitimacy. I just don't buy it.
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