By this time it should be obvious to anyone who is not living under a rock that the left's LGBTQ!%!@#% agenda is a zero-sum game. And many people are saying as much. The attempt to pass SB1146 is further evidence. Moral traditionalists, even those with an explicitly religious rationale, are not going to be left alone to "do their own thing" as long as they leave the homosexuals and transgenders alone to do theirs. You must affirm. Ask the baker, the florist, and the photographer. Ask the employers and businessmen in New York City who are having their speech micromanaged by the civil rights commission to insure that they call a man by his "preferred pronouns" if he identifies as a woman. Ask all the colleges who almost had their California funding pulled because they wouldn't house homosexuals in married student dorms and affirm that a man can turn into a woman.
But some people are still playing the tired, old card, raggedy and fraying around the edges by now and instantly recognizable from any angle as a failed trick: If Christians would just be nicer to homosexuals, we could all get along.
The latest example thereof is this article on the web site of The Atlantic.
The author, Alan Noble, thinks SB1146 was a bad idea and is glad it failed. (See here for a previous post of mine that mentioned a post by Noble, who was at that time a graduate student at Baylor University.) His reasoning is that this would have penalized poor and minority students. (A variant on the old gag, this one would go, "Religious freedom under heavy attack. Women and minorities hardest hit.") To be fair, this somewhat liberal-ish argument was used by the schools themselves, so I suppose it's fair game for Noble.
But Noble explicitly sets himself up to offer advice to Christian schools as to how they can effect a compromise with their persecutors.
Both conservatives and liberals tend to approach the issue in absolute and uncompromising terms, but there are ways to resolve this conflict that will allow for both religious freedom and protections for LGBT students while minimizing further litigation. By increasing transparency about Title IX exemptions and codes of conduct, easing the transfer process for students who cannot abide by the codes of conduct, and taking a strict stance on bullying and abuse, religious schools can retain their distinctive mission while protecting students.
Actually, there is no way to "resolve this conflict," because the left is bringing this battle to us and will accept nothing less than complete and unqualified surrender.
But what "resolution" does Noble suggest? His first recommendation is that schools be clear about their standards. Schools should
be very open about their values and codes of conduct. Students should understand the kind of religious community they are joining when they enroll so that they can make a prudent decision about what is best for them.
Noble must know that any self-identified Christian school will have a student handbook and that, if the school is self-consciously conservative on the matter of homosexuality, the handbook will address these issues explicitly. It's a bit puzzling that he would talk as if this is some new advice that schools aren't taking. Does he actually know of Christian schools that are unclear about whether you're allowed to have homosexual sex or be housed as a member of the opposite sex but that, in fact, have traditional moral standards in practice? (See below on Baylor. It is not at all clear that Baylor does have traditional sexual standards in practice.) I find that highly implausible. The criticism of Christian schools arises in large measure because the schools are clear about this matter. So why bring up such a piece of advice? Indeed, a separate Atlantic article, linked from the one I'm currently writing about, complains all the more about schools that forbid homosexual expressions of couple-hood or dating. Perhaps clarity isn't all that valued by the compromise-makers after all.
If anything, it's precisely the schools who try to be extra kind and "supportive" of homosexual students and to oppose "bullying," as advised otherwise in Noble's article, that are likely to create cognitive dissonance. If the letter of the law (student handbook) states that you're not supposed to be having homosexual relations, but if an admissions officer assures you sweetly that the school is opposed to "hate and bigotry of all kinds" and has very strong codes to "make LGBT students feel safe and welcome," that could create a sense of a bait and switch if the student is later told that he can't be having sex with his boyfriend, much less "marrying" him, and remain a student at the school. So Noble's advice is, if not strictly inconsistent, unlikely to be applied consistently in real life. It's the very schools that are clearest and most consistent about their moral standards that are most likely to be accused of being unkind, unsafe, and "bullying."
Perhaps Noble's concern here is directed toward Baylor University (his alma mater) which removed its policy forbidding homosexual acts from its student conduct requirements but refuses to say whether such acts are allowed or not. But then again, Baylor could easily say that it did so in an attempt to make Baylor seem less hostile and more welcoming to homosexual students. Its spokeswoman said pretty much exactly that: The changes "were made because we didn’t believe the language reflected Baylor’s caring community."
Gotcha. Or maybe not. Would Noble be happier if Baylor had retained its policy against homosexual acts and applied it consistently? Permit me to express some doubt about that.
Noble's second piece of advice is to the dispensers of aid: He thinks they should go on giving it to Christian schools, at least to those that follow his other advice.
His third point returns to the schools:
Third, religious schools should help students who enroll and later decide they can no longer attend in good conscience. These students should be able to transfer to another school with the administrative, emotional, and practical support of the religious school. In addition, religious schools must be vigilant about dealing with bullying and abuse and create an environment in which students who have suffered feel safe to report these incidents without fear of expulsion or retribution. Many religious schools are working toward these kinds of practices; the challenge for all of them is to go beyond policies and rhetoric to ensure the safety of all students.
Earlier in the article he states the same point like this:
By...easing the transfer process for students who cannot abide by the codes of conduct, and taking a strict stance on bullying and abuse, religious schools can retain their distinctive mission while protecting students.
Words like "bullying" and "abuse" and "taking a strict stance" sound nice in generic terms, but anyone who has been around the block with this issue even one time knows full-well that what is meant by the left by taking a strict stance on bullying and abuse is banning any statements that are going to hurt the feelings of homosexuals, even active homosexuals, and those who are gender-confused. We are way, way, way past forbidding contentless, vicious, anti-homosexual slurs. At this point it's considered "bullying" and "hateful" to affirm that homosexual acts are contrary to nature, to read Romans 1 out loud, much less to preach clearly on the homosexual reference in that chapter, to state that Bruce Jenner is a man but is a badly messed-up and partially mutilated man, and so forth. As for questioning whether people with same-sex attraction disorders ought to be housed with those to whom they are sexually attracted, I find it difficult to imagine that that wouldn't count as "bullying" or "abuse." Can you imagine what would happen to a student at a school, even a Christian school, with a strong "anti-bullying" code who posted on social media that he would not want to have a homosexual roommate in the dorm because of privacy issues? Boom!
Either Noble knows these code meanings of "bullying and abuse" and is pretending otherwise or else he is so immersed himself in left-speak that he really believes that it is only reasonable and kind for a Christian college to make its campus gay-friendly and to come down hard on anybody who uses phrases like "unnatural acts."
But now let's turn to all this talk of "easing the transfer process" and "helping" students to transfer with "administrative, emotional, and practical support." I admit frankly that I don't know for sure what cash value that is supposed to have. Transfer credits are transfer credits. It's not as though a student who is asked to leave because he insists on violating the school's sexual conduct policy is going to have his transfer credits poisoned so he can't use them at another school that will take them! What could Noble be talking about? Well, he clearly thinks it is extreme to kick students out for homosexual acts, as seen in this sentence:
While Christian universities may not go so far as to kick students out, many prohibit same-sex relationships or sexual activity, which some LGBT students believe are intrinsically tied to their identity.
He's also clearly talking about students who insist upon engaging in homosexual acts. One can see that from the above sentence and also from this:
The school may believe it is enforcing the agreed-upon values of the community. But from the student’s perspective, this may seem confusing or hypocritical: They are being told by some schools that they can “be” gay, so long as they don’t “act” gay.
Then, too, there is his phrase "students who cannot abide by the codes of conduct," making it clear that he is talking about students whose conduct (not just their private feelings or "orientation") violates the school's rules.
I note, not merely in passing, the use of the word "cannot." Really? A student literally cannot refrain from homosexual acts? Talk about determinism.
So Noble has some idea of a school's "easing" the transfer process and offering "support" in transferring to students who flout the school's sexual conduct rules. What kind of "easing" does he have in mind? He doesn't say. Here are a few possibilities, by no means mutually exclusive.
--At a minimum, Noble seems to be talking about some generic implication given by the school that they really like the homosexual students who are flouting their rules, that they sympathize with them, that they aren't angry at them or punishing them, and that they are merely helping them to move to a school that is a "better fit" for them. So, non-judgemental rhetoric. Indeed, it is hardly extreme to think that Noble wants the schools to adopt his own talk of students who are somehow impelled to have homosexual sex, who "cannot," poor things, abide by the school's code of conduct.
--Since he clearly thinks kicking students out is extreme, he may be suggesting that the students should never be expelled, even if they are openly living the homosexual lifestyle. At the most, it might be suggested to them that they leave of their own free will because they are, you know, not really abiding by the school's standards.
--If not quite that, perhaps Noble is suggesting that students be allowed to lengthen the time that they remain enrolled in a Christian college while flouting its rules. If you're going to ask a student to leave, give him the option to complete the semester or even the school year, even if meanwhile he's engaging in sexual relations with a member or members of the same sex
Noble simply doesn't bother to be clear as to which of these he has in mind or whether he has in mind something else that I haven't been able to think of. But it seems safe to say that anything like summary, mid-term dismissal of a student who "comes out" as homosexual and tells everyone proudly that he's having sex with his lover or has gotten "married" to the person he loves would be contrary to Noble's idea of "easing the transfer process" and offering the fullest practical, administrative, and emotional support to students who "cannot" abide by a school's code of conduct.
Now, why is it incumbent upon schools to do any such thing? Why is it anything other than a disastrously bad idea? Would we apply this to anything else? If a student "identified" as polyamorous and openly held multi-person sexual encounters in his apartment or dormitory, claiming that this was a necessary expression of his deepest identity, that he "cannot" abide by the school's code of conduct concerning orgies, and that he would be a "hypocrite" if he didn't act on his inclinations, would we really say that he shouldn't be kicked out effective immediately? What if he identified as a thief and insisted on acting "honestly" in line with his identity? What if several heterosexual males and females at a Christian college claimed that they would be "hypocritical" if they didn't go to bed with one another in the dorms, because acting on their sexual identity is part of being themselves? Should the school sympathize with their open flouting of its rules? Should it treat them as sensitive plants and do everything possible to "support" them in their transfer to another school? Should it give them plenty of time, while meanwhile tolerating their refusal to abide by codes of conduct?
So what is so special about homosexual acts?
What Noble is asking for is that schools pretend that homosexual sin isn't really sin, that flouting a school's clearly stated rules in this area is something one cannot help, unlike a zillion other potential rule-floutings, and that the school's requirements in this area, unlike in others, are just unimportant peculiarities, strange, tribal things that many people can't really be expected to abide by.
The funny thing is that actual sectarian rules are such that one actually could abide by them and should be expected to do so if one previously agreed to do so. If you agreed to eat kosher in order to attend an Orthodox Jewish seminary, would anyone be impressed if you insisted on bringing ham sandwiches into the cafeteria and said that you were "unable" to abide by the school's rules? If you were required to wear a special uniform to classes at a military academy, would it make sense to insist on wearing shorts and a T-shirt as part of your "identity" while asking the school to give you plenty of time and lots of emotional support while you made the transition to another school?
And yet these really are ceremonial or customary rules. How much the more ridiculous is it to imply that a student should be able to flout rules about homosexual sex acts, tell the world that he's doing so, and be treated with the utmost sympathy and deference during a leisurely transition out of a school at which he is thumbing his nose while availing himself of their educational services?
It's possible that Noble will say that that isn't what he meant, but what in the world did he mean? Would anyone ever use the kind of language he uses about students who break the rules I listed above? The answer is an obvious no. And if someone did, it should go without saying that he would be suggesting not actually enforcing the rules, at least for a while, in order to "ease the student's transfer." Noble is free to make up something, either vaguer or other, than the interpretation I've suggested here. But I maintain that the article would be ludicrous as applied to any rule-breaking that hasn't yet achieved the status of a cultural mascot.
Christian college administrators would be fools to try to figure out some way to enact Noble's injunction to "be more empathetic." They are already doing far too much of that kind of thing--student support groups for "LGBT" students, insistence that they don't discriminate on the basis of mere orientation (despite the fact that that undermines the privacy of other students in residence halls), constant harping on the idea that we Christians need to be more accepting of homosexuals. This would just be one more confusing step.
But as long as requirements to abstain from homosexual acts even remain on the books at some school, even if they become an increasingly dead letter, the left won't be satisfied anyway.
Christian school administrators, don't listen to the people telling you that there is a way to "resolve the conflict" between what you stand for and the "LGBT" agenda. There isn't. Be clear about what you stand for, by all means. And be proud of being clear. And then kick out at least the unrepentant sinners and the fifth columnists who are blatantly trying to change the nature of your school. Don't ease their transition. Do it right away. And do it because you know exactly what is really going on.
Comments (14)
"As for questioning whether people with same-sex attraction disorders ought to be housed with those to whom they are sexually attracted, I find it difficult to imagine that that wouldn't count as "bullying" or "abuse." Can you imagine what would happen to a student at a school, even a Christian school, with a strong "anti-bullying" code who posted on social media that he would not want to have a homosexual roommate in the dorm because of privacy issues? Boom!"
I would think a same sex attracted student who really did understand their attractions were disordered and should not ever be acted on would not want to room with others of the same sex because they would not want to put themselves in a position to be tempted. On top that, they would not want to put their roommate in an uncomfortable/unsafe position. If the openly same sex attracted student demands the same accommodations as other students, it seems more than fair to question their sincerity.
Just in case, it seems that it would be fine for the school to accommodate the student with their own room (and bathroom). It is not a reason to push a kid away who is understands what is right and is trying to do right.
"Christian school administrators, don't listen to the people telling you that there is a way to "resolve the conflict" between what you stand for and the "LGBT" agenda. There isn't. Be clear about what you stand for, by all means. And be proud of being clear. And then kick out at least the unrepentant sinners and the fifth columnists who are blatantly trying to change the nature of your school. Don't ease their transition. Do it right away. And do it because you know exactly what is really going on."
Sadly, I doubt many administrators understand that their schools are facing legal extinction and this is the only stance that has any shot at letting them survive. Any sort of accommodation is just a step on the way to the demise of the institution. Granted, even standing firm and fighting is hardly a guarantee of victory, but it's the best shot there is.
Posted by DR84 | August 19, 2016 1:46 AM
Having failed to shove the most offensive parts SB 1146 down people's throats, they want the equivalent of the Surgeon General's warning on a pack of cigarettes. You can almost imagine going to the college and having a pop-up window saying: "Warning! The site you are about to enter is full of Fisher bigotry. Continue?"
Posted by Scott W. | August 19, 2016 6:32 AM
Bah. Auto correct. Should be "...full of cishet bigotry."
Posted by Scott W. | August 19, 2016 6:33 AM
DR84, I would be fine with accommodating same-sex-attracted students with individual rooms and at least bathrooms with locks and non-shared showers. Plus they can't be on any athletic team that requires them to travel together and use a shower room with other members of the same gender.
Practical problems could arise if you had so many people claiming to be same-sex-attracted that you ran out of single rooms. Residential colleges don't usually have tons of one-person rooms. Building dorms is expensive.
Plus, if the student is mature enough that he's trying to be discreet (highly unusual in this day and age, but desirable), housing him alone could be in some tension with this, as it would be a kind of marker. But yes, it does seem like the best solution if possible.
If not possible, e.g., if there is not enough single-person housing, then...the school may have to turn students down on the basis of "mere" orientation. It's a residential college, and that imposes certain constraints. That's life.
Do you have any idea how "hateful" we would be thought to be, even by a large number of evangelical Christians?
Scott W.,
Definitely, it's meant to be a Scarlet Letter, and the reporting requirements are meant to provide data for reintroducing the worse parts of SB1146 later.
Noble at least _presents_ himself (cough cough) as friendly to the religious colleges and ask merely asking them to do reasonable things, not as trying to harm or brand them.
But in that case, I have trouble figuring out what the heck he's talking about as far as "transparency" or the lack thereof. Does he have *no idea* that Christian college student handbooks usually spell all this stuff out explicitly? He *must* know. He must be aware of the controversy over taking it out at Baylor. And seeing his obvious left leanings, it's hard to believe that he thinks Baylor should have *kept in* the prohibition on homosexual acts in the name of "transparency."
In the other article he linked (which doesn't appear to be by him) one of the complaints is that homosexual students aren't really sure whether they will be kicked out for "mere" orientation. But if a school were really _clearer_ about that (a la my remarks to DR84), would the Atlantic authors prefer that? The other article also complained that the students sometimes weren't sure if they would get in trouble for "dating" as homosexuals even if they didn't actually have sex. But the article _also_ complained about schools that are explicit about that because that means having (God forbid) different rules for heterosexual and homosexual students--heterosexual students can date and present themselves as couples but not have sex before marriage, homosexual students cannot do either. Again, is Noble's complaint that there aren't _more_ schools that are _explicit_ that homosexual students cannot "date"? Would his supposedly benign call for more transparency be satisfied if schools spelled that out as well, and would he then approve of the schools? I find this implausible.
To be quite frank, I think Noble doesn't have clear ideas on this matter. I think he likes to think of himself as some kind of moderate. It is hardly difficult to conclude that he thinks homosexual acts are _not_ wrong and would prefer that schools just ditch their opposition to them altogether. But he also wants to present himself as supporting "institutional diversity." So he tries to write something that makes it sound like the conservative schools have more work that they need to do in order to reach that perfect place of moderate reasonableness and thus to earn toleration from the surrounding culture. Given the compromises they have already made (which IMO they should not have made) this is not only incorrect but laughable. And Noble doesn't apparently want to come right out and say that, for example, schools need to print in their student handbooks that people repeatedly and unrepentantly having homosexual sex will nonetheless be given a full year (or whatever) to "ease their transition" to another school and then will leave without any stain on their character! (While anyone who says that they are perverts will be dismissed so fast his head will spin, because "we take a strict stance against bullying.") He doesn't want to say in concrete terms precisely what his vague phrases mean. But somehow or other he's going to keep on playing the "both sides need to compromise" song over and over again while the conservatives are (metaphorically speaking) hunted out and shot, because that's how he rolls.
Posted by Lydia | August 19, 2016 8:55 AM
Lydia,
Great post -- I don't have much to add except for the fact that I find this kind of discussion about marriage (especially from a so-called 'reasonable moderate') really annoying:
"In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, marriage between men and women is a sacrament. For conservative evangelicals, it is instituted in the sacred scriptures by Christ himself and has been taught by the church for thousands of years."
Yes, that is true -- but how about common-sense and the natural light that teaches us all the true telos of marriage! Guys like Noble have to throw in language like this to make it seem as if the orthodox Christian position on marriage is exotic and strange -- whereas it is our current secular culture's position on marriage that is the exotic and strange position (seen from the natural light.)
Posted by Jeffrey S. | August 19, 2016 10:44 AM
Exactly. But that's clearly how he looks at it--the morally traditional requirements are exotic, strange, and even unendurable for some people. As witness all this nonsense about easing the transition. It's like he thinks it's *so* bizarre that they require students to refrain from being active homosexuals that the students who "find" themselves homosexual at the school can't be expected to *hold off* on homosexual behavior until after they have transferred out of the school. So the school has to go all gooey and practically apologize for their own existence while giving the students all this special "support" to make a transition out. And he doesn't even bother to give an argument as to why this should be treated differently from any other refusal to abide by codes of conduct. He apparently thinks it's obvious that "being gay" is different from "being polyamorous" or "being sexually bonded to your heterosexual girlfriend" or "being a kleptomaniac" or even "being homophobic." (After all, I find it laughable to imagine that he'd say the same thing about how a school needs to provide all possible practical, emotional, and administrative support to a student who goes around saying "bullying" and "hostile" things about homosexuals and needs to "make a transition" to a more conservative school from a less conservative school.)
Posted by Lydia | August 19, 2016 11:14 AM
Two things I noticed. First, when you try to transfer credit, the receiving institution decides if they accept the credit, not the college you are transferring from. If there is a problem, it is not the Christian college.
Second, many Christian colleges prohibit students from having sex period. It doesn't matter if it is homosexual or heterosexual. Heterosexual students would have the same prohibitions.
Posted by Dan Perry | August 19, 2016 12:44 PM
Yes, the way that transfer credit actually works makes it all the more mysterious what Noble has in mind as far as "easing the transition" but I have a few ideas, as given in the post. Also, I wonder if there is some way that it becomes part of the record that a student was dismissed by disciplinary action and if Noble is suggesting that a school must never do that for a homosexual student. Of course, at most secular schools or even more liberal "Christian" schools, such a dismissal on a homosexual student's record would be a badge of honor! But I'm betting FERPA prevents sending such disciplinary records to another school anyway.
In general I think he's blowing smoke. He wants homosexuality to be *even more* normalized and destigmatized on Christian college campuses and uses this phrase about "easing the transfer" as a way of seeking that.
As far as prohibiting unmarried students from having sex, *to some degree* that would apply to both heterosexual and homosexual students. Hence I asked the question about "easing the transition." If a sexually normal student just decided that his "orientation" required him to be having regular, unmarried sex, would a school also be required to "ease the transition" for him to a new school? Why or why not? Noble never troubles to address such a question.
But we should recognize (and I'm proud to say it) that there *would* be distinctions. The policies wouldn't be exactly the same. For example, now that homosexual "marriage" is imposed throughout the U.S., the Christian school would be treating real married students as not violating their code for having sex with their spouses but homosexual "married" students as not really being married. Well, so it should be. But that is an asymmetry.
Similarly, as I mentioned in the comment above, homosexual students should also not be allowed to call themselves "boyfriends" or "girlfriends" and "date" each other, which openly denies the school's position on the moral issue, even if they are (allegedly and/or really) not engaging in sexual acts. But normal students certainly can date, and in fact it's a good thing that Christian colleges often allow Christians to meet their future spouses. So that again is a real asymmetry that should apply on a Christian college campus.
Posted by Lydia | August 19, 2016 12:55 PM
>> In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, marriage between men and women is a sacrament. For conservative evangelicals, it is instituted in the sacred scriptures by Christ himself and has been taught by the church for thousands of years.
Well, “instituted in the sacred scriptures by Christ himself” doesn’t make marriage sacred any more than turning water into wine made it sacred.
Luther had a harsh judgment on treating marriage as a sacrament. Aside from the fact that it can't be on par with other sacraments, in that not all marry and spouses don’t die simultaneously, he considered it unbiblical. Moreover, he thought it led to the vast corruption, immorality, and plight of orphaned children that was witnessed during his life. I’m an unlikely one to advance Reformation pieties, but I do think he was right on this one, and the Lutheran Reformation dramatically changed marriage thankfully for us all.
All to say, I don’t think marriage is a sacrament, and I think the sacralization of marriage is no more a solution to immorality than it proved to be by Luther’s day. Then it was celibacy that was glorified, now I suspect single motherhood is it’s idealized equivalent today. We no longer have orphans, but we've removed fathers from its original meaning in newspeak fashion to achieve this.
In any case, in the last few years we’ve seen a dramatic shift in the arguments of the gay lobby. They’ve caught up to the sacred game and now they and highly visible Christian leaders in conservative institutions have aligned their rhetoric in arguing that the union with a soul mate is true happiness, and it is cruel to deny their loneliness when they could have this sacred entrance to happiness. There is no answer to this without repudiating a a long history of bad but very popular ideas, which will never happen.
I think the positing of conflict resolution is a means to an end here. It's a head fake for those making this argument. The real debate has moved on to higher ground, unsurprisingly.
Posted by Mark | August 20, 2016 12:40 AM
Personally, I am uninterested in a continued obsession with "orientation". It doesn't need to come up on housing, room selection, etc. I do not see it as worth talking about. Otherwise, Lydia's approach makes much more sense that whatever this man is coming up with.
Posted by Anymouse | August 20, 2016 1:52 AM
Then it's a good thing we don't worship Mark. :)
Posted by Scott W. | August 20, 2016 9:11 AM
>> Then it's a good thing we don't worship Mark.
No clue what is your intended meaning here Scott.
Posted by Mark | August 20, 2016 1:46 PM
Srsly? It doesn't seem that hard.
Primary meaning: That he disagrees with you about whether marriage is a sacrament and is therefore glad that you are not regarded as God by a large number of people, because he thinks it's better if your incorrect view is not widely followed.
Bonus connotational meaning: That he's registering disagreement briefly and lightheartedly to signal (maturely) that he isn't trying to start a 247+ comment debate with you on the point of disagreement.
Moving on.
Posted by Lydia | August 20, 2016 2:47 PM
Um yeah, I got that it was registering disagreement. I thought perhaps to glean why taking a Protestant line should be wrong.
My "incorrect view is not widely followed"? Please. Jeff correctly went out of his way to avoid saying that Protestant theology has marriage as a sacrament, though it seemed to me immediately following it as "instituted in the sacred scriptures" blurred that. It's probably worth clarifying that most Protestant denominations recognize only the "evangelical" sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper.
The history to this change in marriage in the Lutheran Reformation has a history that is worth remembering, especially when history seems to be repeating itself.
http://www.johnwittejr.com/uploads/5/4/6/6/54662393/a9.pdf
There was no need for a "247+ comment debate" Lydia. Fear not. I thought Scott wanted to make a point that I didn't get. I thought it would seem dismissive to just ignore it as entirely insubstantial, as it seemed to be, and I was curious too. I'm sure you don't believe any of this, but I don't say this for your benefit.
Debates can get verbose and long I think when the main point of disagreement isn't formed, so the interlocutors keep working at it to try to work out their own thoughts. The same debate by the same people a year later might well be a couple of sentences each, since as time goes on people seeking wisdom develop a greater capacity for articulate expression, and in the end most debates end up in making position statements and agreeing to disagree. Ideally, one would get there in one shot and be done. That's what happened here, and it's no surprise I hit a nerve.
Posted by Mark | August 20, 2016 6:36 PM