Right, but the point of the adversarial mode is that you have a clash of ideas instead of just dismissing a proposal because the person putting it forward doesn’t like you, or because they’re biased. Sometimes biased people have good ideas, and dismissing an idea because of suspicion of bias rather than because the idea fails a cost-benefit analysis is negligent.
You seem to believe that such a cost-benefit analysis is possible when there is a level of bias that is that pervasive. It is often not possible. The full costs will simply never be recognized. The US court system is supposed to work on the adversarial model, and yet only one non-Christian group has ever won a free exercise clause case at the Supreme Court. Why would anyone play a basketball game when they’re sure the refs are crooked?
numbers-based public discussion
The number that the 1980s American public would put on a gay man’s freedom of movement, is much less the number that the 2012 public would put on that same man’s freedom. That difference is, at least in large part, caused by the strategy chosen by 1980s gay men. It’s hard to argue that the 1980s number is more likely to be correct, given the high level of bias in the 1980s (see the GSS for details on this bias). So, the strategy chosen by 1980s gay men seems to have paid off in producing a more rational discussion.
In favor of the “sport” decision is that it uses rational-sounding terms like “cost-benefit analysis”. But using rational-sounding terms does not actually make any guarantee of a more-rational discussion.
yet only one non-Christian group has ever won a free exercise case at the Supreme Court.
The linked article, posted in 2009, cites Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 501 U.S. 520 (1993) as the “only one” example, but fails to notice Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006).
Like Lukumi Babalu Aye’s Santería, the União do Vegetal is syncretic with some Christian influence, though.
That looks like a RFRA case, not a free exercise clause case. (I’m going to edit my comment above to add the word “clause”, since that is what I had intended to refer to, and what the article probably intends with its initial caps on the first occurrence of the term).
So, the strategy chosen by 1980s gay men seems to have paid off in producing a more rational discussion.
You haven’t shown this. You’ve shown it achieved their aims, so might have been instrumentally rational for them, and that it was vindicated by subsequent value change/drift, but not that the new discourse is more rational. It can be instrumentally a good idea to make discourse more irrational in some specific way, or to change others’ values, against their will.
I was assuming that everyone agreed that the 1980s discourse about homosexuality was nuts, since it was strongly influenced by Christianity—I guess if you take Christianity seriously, we would need to have a different discussion, but the assumption is that almost nobody here does.
It was nuts, simply by virtue of being strongly influenced by christianity? The abolishion of slavery was (very) strongly influenced by Christianity—was it also nuts for the same reason?
I can think of other good arguments for the 80s being nuts, but “being more strongly influenced by Christianity” is not.
Are you intentionally picking the stupidest possible interpretation of what I wrote? Surely you can think of a more charitable interpretation than that.
[edit]
The abolition of slavery was (very) strongly influenced by Christianity—was it also nuts for the same reason?
Yes. Abolition was a good thing; but it’s insane to think that it was good because the Bible opposes slavery.
You seem to believe that such a cost-benefit analysis is possible when there is a level of bias that is that pervasive. It is often not possible. The full costs will simply never be recognized. The US court system is supposed to work on the adversarial model, and yet only one non-Christian group has ever won a free exercise clause case at the Supreme Court. Why would anyone play a basketball game when they’re sure the refs are crooked?
The number that the 1980s American public would put on a gay man’s freedom of movement, is much less the number that the 2012 public would put on that same man’s freedom. That difference is, at least in large part, caused by the strategy chosen by 1980s gay men. It’s hard to argue that the 1980s number is more likely to be correct, given the high level of bias in the 1980s (see the GSS for details on this bias). So, the strategy chosen by 1980s gay men seems to have paid off in producing a more rational discussion.
In favor of the “sport” decision is that it uses rational-sounding terms like “cost-benefit analysis”. But using rational-sounding terms does not actually make any guarantee of a more-rational discussion.
The linked article, posted in 2009, cites Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 501 U.S. 520 (1993) as the “only one” example, but fails to notice Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006).
Like Lukumi Babalu Aye’s Santería, the União do Vegetal is syncretic with some Christian influence, though.
That looks like a RFRA case, not a free exercise clause case. (I’m going to edit my comment above to add the word “clause”, since that is what I had intended to refer to, and what the article probably intends with its initial caps on the first occurrence of the term).
You haven’t shown this. You’ve shown it achieved their aims, so might have been instrumentally rational for them, and that it was vindicated by subsequent value change/drift, but not that the new discourse is more rational. It can be instrumentally a good idea to make discourse more irrational in some specific way, or to change others’ values, against their will.
I was assuming that everyone agreed that the 1980s discourse about homosexuality was nuts, since it was strongly influenced by Christianity—I guess if you take Christianity seriously, we would need to have a different discussion, but the assumption is that almost nobody here does.
It was nuts, simply by virtue of being strongly influenced by christianity? The abolishion of slavery was (very) strongly influenced by Christianity—was it also nuts for the same reason?
I can think of other good arguments for the 80s being nuts, but “being more strongly influenced by Christianity” is not.
Are you intentionally picking the stupidest possible interpretation of what I wrote? Surely you can think of a more charitable interpretation than that.
[edit]
Yes. Abolition was a good thing; but it’s insane to think that it was good because the Bible opposes slavery.