Comments on: ROGERS: But Is It Inevitable?

By: yoda

yoda — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:12:18 +0000

noah, don’t be so sure of others your age as you are of yourself. many in my generation ferociously promoted free love and communal living. once they had their own daughters, their minds became closed to such a “new way” that focuses only on personal belief and ignores traditional wisdom garnered over hundreds of generations before them. your’s is not the first generation to suggest that the old ways are stupid, bigoted, not intellectually defendable. examine the quote above from MLK. he was a very wise man. culture’s rarely change as quickly as one generation. the changes that occurred in the last half of the 20th century and have now been accepted do not mean the pace of that change will continue. you can’t predict the future, you can only wonder about it. that is what conor is doing.

here’s my quote – “a broad mind and a narrow waist change places as you grow older”

By: Jesse-Justin Cuevas

Jesse-Justin Cuevas — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:10:22 +0000

Conor, I often wonder how my opinions will fare over time. As Bout Time pointed out, many of us have staunch opinions and decisions about our futures that we really can’t expect to hold on to. I for one don’t like the idea of marriage as an institution and “swear” that I won’t sign a legal document, but truth be told–I will get married and sign the contract and let the government give me a break even though I have some problems with the arrangement in principle. But, for some reason I think there is something different in the case of gay marriage/gay rights/sexual equality etc etc etc and the “conservativation” that may come with age. I think I’m far more likely to become fiscally conservative than socially conservative as I grow older, and I wonder how much that has to do with our generation’s separation from the traditional values of the nuclear family. I don’t mean to say that we don’t believe in family anymore–not at all–but rather I think it’s fair to say that there is a definite disparity between our parents’ visions of the family and our familial realities. Divorce is hardly taboo these days, for example. I don’t know…perhaps there is a real structural change, an actual shift in paradigm when it comes to how we view family arrangements.

By: Old & Decrepit

Old & Decrepit — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:21:36 +0000

Whoa, Peter, wait a little now. We should stop to consider, in a post concerning gays and gay marriage, the import of you metaphor “A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.” I’m not sure you wanted to employ that particular imagery!
Noah: I’m so proud! The O & D handle, well cared-for and fashioned over these many months, has been raised to an icon, a force, a constellation of associations, stands and values: I’m up there with the Band-aid, the kleenex, the Coke, I’m a brand name that has taken over the identification of the category!
I think I might cry. My cup runneth o’er!

By: Peter W. Fulham

Peter W. Fulham — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:22:56 +0000

I really enjoyed this column, Conor.

I remember once coming across this quote, from Martin Luther King, Jr., which perhaps answers the question you raise in the headline of your article: “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.”

By: Noah Baron

Noah Baron — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:11:14 +0000

Conor,

I’m saying that the idea that our generation will grow more conservative with regard to same-sex marriage is nonsensical. Obviously, if we give up and stop trying, the O&Ds of the world will drive us back to 1890, where they want society to stay.

Additionally, as with the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s (and in contrast to the abortion movement), there is a natural constituency for gay rights – gay people. As bigotry against gay men and women decreases nationwide, I suspect that more and more people will come out of the closet. And when people come out of the closet, the people around them become more accepting of gay people and supportive of equal rights.

Furthermore, it should be noted that acceptance of homosexuality has increased nationwide despite a massive resurgence of religion in American society, and especially extremely conservative religion.

By: Conor Rogers

Conor Rogers — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:22:47 +0000

Noah,
This article *does not* imply that our generation will get more conservative — it simply asks the question. Regarding your point about people getting more conservative “relative” to the younger groups….that completely ignores the points I made about abortion. This group of Women was once 2/3 pro choice..now they’re split. That’s not a relative change, that’s an actual change.

By: Noah Baron

Noah Baron — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:19:59 +0000

This article implies that our generation will get more conservative relative to today’s context, which is absolutely ridiculous. Indeed, as age cohorts get older they appear to become conservative — BUT ONLY IN RELATION TO YOUNGER AGE COHORTS. Thus it is not surprising that we see gradually rising percentages of non-bigots in younger cohorts rather than a sharp magical dividing line between those 18-29 and everyone else.

Conservativism and liberalism are, as I implied earlier, relative measures, not absolutes. A social conservative today would be a social liberal even twenty or thirty years ago. The social issues that defined our parents’ generation — civil rights and anti-miscegenation laws, for example — are now non-issues because our parents’ generation was socially liberal for its time (though, as we see today, not as liberal within a more modern context).

By: Old & Decrepit

Old & Decrepit — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:44:37 +0000

Dear Bout Time: Thank you. Just as they can’t conceive of the nature of a lifetime bond that produces offspring because they haven’t been in one, they haven’t paid taxes or a mortgage either–they haven’t owned, and had to defend, property. So all of these arguments and “sophisticated”(liberal) political stands lack real experience. When they’ve been passed over for a job by the gay guy/gal; when the gay people up the street: two incomes, no kids, live high on the hog and put it in their faces, when the “gay marriages” break up and recombine with the same, or more velocity as the hetero marriages, then the real consequences of this risible social dream, that a marriage can be “gay” will be understood. And then they might say “What have we wrought?!”

By: 'Bout Time

'Bout Time — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:41:51 +0000

It’s about time someone raised this question. I’m of the older generation and I think it’s quite silly all you kids have basically “decided” what you’re going to do with Marriage and redefining it, and not a single one of you is married. I’d say its near impossible to understand a marriage without having been in one.

I understand the civil rights argument, I understand civil unions and domestic benefits, but I don’t understand the arguments re: children, family and redefinition…there’s a good chance that when your generation gets married up you might change your minds a bit about what it all really means – substantively, not rights-wise.

By: Matt Wilson

Matt Wilson — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:51:20 +0000

probably my favorite article you have written great job! I’m wondering if perhaps there will be things we choose not to accept when we get old. That was a dumb sounding statement, so an example I shall provide. After some time, a generation began accepting (or at least pretending to accept) mixed race relations and yes they became more socially conservative more directed at some more “modern” ideas. Not saying gay marriage is modern but its like the today topic, and hopefully it will make it through our descent into curmudgeondry because therell be something else to take its place. This point may make no sense, but it may provide a small sliver of hope