Gaming, Violence, and the Supreme Court

I am, without question, a gamer.  Just about every evening, I kick back with my PS3 and play.  This has completely taken the place of watching television.  I'm not particularly into sports, and while I can enjoy a good football game or a rousing match of futbol, it's not something I make time for.  I have no patience for reality TV, and most scripted drama is too formulaic to hold my attention.  There are some great shows out there, stuff that's well written and worth watching, but I tend to approach those things as I would a movie...meaning I stream them, and watch them with my wife and/or kids.  If I'm left to my own devices, I just don't watch.

I prefer to game. Gaming is more interactive, more engaging, and if you get the right game, it's just as well acted and scripted.  For gamers, things get interesting tomorrow, because the Supreme Court is taking up a California law that bans the sale of violent video games to minors.  Specifically, they ban sales to minors of any game that involves, and here I quote:  "...killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being."

As a parent and a pastor, I understand the impetus behind this law.  Gaming is...well...it's not what it was when I started gaming as a kid.  I'm a regular player of Battlefield Bad Company Two, for instance.  I checked my stats recently, and found that I'd sent about 1,600 other players to meet their virtual maker.  It's a pretty intense game.

But I don't let my kids play it.  Not because it's violent, mind you.  They are, after all, boys.  But they understand the difference between simulated combat and real combat.  It's not that great a moral leap.  As my big guy puts it, "I'd never want to go to war.  There's no respawn, and you have to watch your friends really get hurt and die."  Instead, I limit their access because the vocabulary of the game is...well...appropriate to a war zone.  And I don't really want that sort of language in my house.

There are other games, like Grand Theft Auto or the brutally ultraviolent and hypersexualized Bayonetta, that I simply will not let in my house.  They may be well put together, but they go beyond just paintball-esque war games into a darker place.  Some inputs are to be avoided.  I won't play those games.  They're not good for ya.  Kids should not play those games...but they're already rated M, and not sold to minors.  I'm pretty intentional about placing boundaries around what my boys are allowed to play.  And watch.  It's called being a parent. 

In terms of blocking access to games that involve "..killing..an image of a human being.."  I think California has overreached.  The metric they're laying out doesn't just apply to some of the more extreme games out there.  It goes far beyond that.  Simulated combat is a central component of gaming.  Pretty much every Teen-rated Star Wars game, which are remarkably popular with boys, would need to be restricted.  As would many button-mashing fight games.  As would Outlaw for the Atari 2600, which is presented in all its brutal gun-blazing glory above.  It is killing, after all. 

This functionally removes California from the gaming marketplace.

I can't see how that definition provides a meaningful metric for what is and is not an acceptable game for kids.  If you're playing a game like Lego Batman, or Lego Indiana Jones, do you "kill" an image of a human being?  It's a Lego Minifigure, sure, but it looks like a human being.  What about games like, say, Dummy Never Fails, a physics game in which you hurl mannequins into objects?  That's definitely human-looking.

I'm not sure how California is going to regulate sales.  The gaming industry is rapidly moving from distributing games through physical media to distributing games via download.  Is California going to block access to gaming downloads over XBox Live or the PlayStation Network?  Or to downloads of games over iTunes?  My boys often get gift cards that allow them to access those games...if they did so directly in California, would that constitute a violation of this law?

Another often ignored but growing area of the gaming industry is free online flash gaming.  Through sites like miniclip or Candystand, you can play an amazing array of games that are paid for by ad placement.  Many of those games are superior to the console games of 10 years ago, and many contain simulated combat.  Unless California is prepared to become China, and to block access to large swaths of the internet, I just can't see how this law will be meaningful.

This seems, quite frankly, like one of those "what about the children" laws.  They're impossible to meaningfully enforce, and only serve to make Californian legislators feel better about themselves.  It's not just that it seems to fail the First Amendment test.  It's that the law seems painfully overwrought and fundamentally unrealistic. 

California needs to just pass Prop 19 and, like, chill, dude.

Proposition 8, Gay Marriage, and the Challenge for Conservatism

As the dust settles from Proposition 8's overturn by a Reagan-nominated federal judge, it is settling in some anticipated ways. Those who support gay marriage are heartened by the vigorous and far-reaching character of the ruling by Justice Vaughn Walker. Opponents are falling back and retrenching, and likely hoping that the conservative Supreme Court will choose to overturn the ruling.

The challenge for the conservative position, unfortunately, is that it is clearly and objectively weaker. That weakness comes because in the public arena, the literalist interpretation of Scripture that is the basic foundation of most opposition to gay marriage has no purchase. You cannot argue an effective constitutional case from a few snippets in Leviticus and Paul. Honestly, you can't make an effective scriptural case, either, but that's a topic I've explored elsewhere. In the absence of the literalist framework, the argumentation comes across as fundamentally shallow. Take, for instance, three current pillars of conservative argumentation.

1) Gay marriage threatens marriage. This stance, which is a standard position, has the unfortunate character of being self-evidently wrong. Anyone who is married knows this. My heterosexual marriage is not impacted in any way by gay marriage. Period. If the state chooses to extend those rights to another class of citizen, that does not in any way abrogate my own rights. No matter where you stand on the issue, that remains true. It also in no way impacts the sanctity of a covenantal union. If you believe that marriage is fundamentally a covenant between a man and a woman, bound together by the grace and power of their Creator, then the extension of legal and civil rights to gays and lesbians can in no way impact those covenants. One is an action of the state, and the other is an action taken from within the framework of faith.

2) Proposition 8 was overturned by a judge who was defying the will of the people. This is materially correct. Justice Walker did overturn a referendum. Problem is, that's the entire purpose of the judiciary in the American Constitutional system of governance. The judiciary exists to serve the law...and the Constitutional liberties of all Americans...over and above the will of the majority. That is its purpose. If a justice is doing his or her job, their fealty is first and foremost to the Constitution. Unfortunately, the case for Proposition 8 has little foundation in our Constitution. Its clear purpose was to deny a particular minority class of citizens a right held by the majority.
3) The overturn of Proposition 8 decision threatens religious liberty. This argument plays directly into the culture of self-entitled aggrievement that seems to define so much of American life. The argument goes like this: I believe, from my faith, that homosexuality is sinful. If I am required to provide benefits to gays and lesbians or tolerate their unions, the requirement that I be tolerant is a fundamental violation of my religious freedom.

This argument seems not to grasp the nature of freedom. Within our constitutional republic, the rights of every individual are protected, in so far as they do not impinge on the rights of other individuals. That's the purpose of the Constitution. There is no evidence that permitting same sex marriage in any way impinges on the rights of conservatives to believe that homosexuality is sinful. This ruling has no impact whatsoever on the proclamation or teaching of that particular approach to faith.

What might be limited is the right of a small business owner to deny health care benefits to same-sex partners, or to refuse to hire/rent or sell to/serve individuals who they view as basically evil. Here, conservatism faces within itself a clear ideological conundrum. Within our republic, freedom is not without limits. If an individual acts in such a way as to restrict the liberty of another, they are using their freedom in a way that undercuts the freedoms of others. Again,the purpose of the government in a constitutional republic is to balance the liberty of all, at the least possible cost to liberty.

Against that metric, the conservative position falters. Gays and lesbians who seek legally recognized marriage are not meaningfully limiting the religious or personal liberty of those who view their behavior as undesirable. It does no harm to the liberty of a conservative, to the life they choose to lead, or to the faith they choose to practice. That's not the way it's going to be played, of course. But it is, nonetheless, true.

What will be interesting is seeing how the Supreme Court handles this. Having read the ruling in some detail, it's striking how deeply founded it is in precedent and "original intent" of the Constitution.