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06/07/2010

Maggie & Eve: Is celibacy the 'ask' in their shared Eden?

by Jeremy Hooper

Both went to Yale. Both discovered a deepening Catholic faith while there in New Haven, and both were involved with the Party of the Right student political union. Now post-college, both can be found on record weighing in on *CIVIL* MARRIAGE by saying (Catholic) faith-based stuff like this:

Marriage should be reserved for heterosexuals, whose “relationships can be either uniquely dangerous or uniquely fruitful,” ...“Thus it makes sense to have an institution dedicated to structuring and channeling them.”

So it's no surprise that Maggie Gallagher would be a fan of writer Eve Tushnet:



@nomtweets [Twitter]

But here's where it gets concerning: Ms. Tushnet is not only a same-sex marriage opponent. As hinted in the above tweet: Ms. Tushnet is actually a lesbian. A lesbian who genuinely thinks that her fellow gays and lesbians should go through life sans orgasms:

As the hundred or so daily readers of eve-tushnet.blogspot.com, and a larger audience for her magazine writing, know by now, Ms. Tushnet can seem a paradox: fervently Catholic, proudly gay, happily celibate. She does not see herself as disordered; she does not struggle to be straight, but she insists that her religion forbids her a sex life.



“The sacrifices you want to make aren’t always the only sacrifices God wants,” Ms. Tushnet wrote in a 2007 essay for Commonweal. While gay sex should not be criminalized, she said, gay men and lesbians should abstain. They might instead have passionate friendships, or sublimate their urges into other pursuits. “It turns out I happen to be very good at sublimating,” she says, while acknowledging that that is a lot to ask of others.



Marriage should be reserved for heterosexuals, whose “relationships can be either uniquely dangerous or uniquely fruitful,” she explained in an e-mail message. “Thus it makes sense to have an institution dedicated to structuring and channeling them.”

A Gay Catholic Voice Against Same-Sex Marriage [NYT]

Yup, this is the kind of openly gay writer who earns Maggie Gallagher's approval. Who earns not one, but two, weekend tweets. Who earns a "remarkable" label, even.

All of which leads to the question: Is the kind of future for which Maggie and NOM are truly fighting: One that is less about "protecting traditional marriage" and more about protecting gays' genitalia with government-mandated chastity belts? Because while we've heard Maggie give soft praise to gay people's intellect, humor, temperament, etc., we're not sure we've ever heard her praise a gay person's views as "remarkable." So since she is so enamored with Eve, isn't it fair for us to assume that it's the SEX part in same-sex marriage that is really Maggie/NOM's big sticking point?

We actually kind of hope that Maggie/NOM do recruit Tushnet to be their new poster person. The new Carrie Prejean, if you will. Because while NOM might still hold a (slight) majority in terms of public opinion polling on the word "marriage" itself, we're fairly certain that a much greater majority would be shocked by the suggestion that large swaths of the population can and should channel their love and romantic lives into a non-consummated buddy system. In terms of the Moral Monopoly on which Maggie Gallagher has built a career, a card that says gays' journey should be a "bored walk" wherein no same-sex-loving thimble passes "Go" without collecting 200 condemnations would (hopefully) be a card overplayed!

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