I think polyamory has been a problem in the EA (and rationalist) communities for a long time and led to both some really uncomfortable and concerning community dynamics and also just a lot of drama and problems. Multiple high-profile women have told me that they felt pressured to be polyamorous by men in the community and/or felt that polyamory was bad but they didn’t feel comfortable speaking up against it, and I’ve faced some degree of community social backlash myself for speaking out (even informally!) against polyamory.
In general I think this has been kind of an ongoing issue for quite some time, and I wish we had resolved it “internally” rather than it being something exposed by outside investigators.
I am very bothered specifically by the frame “I wish we had resolved [polyamory] “internally” rather than it being something exposed by outside investigators.”
I am polyamorous; I am in committed long-term relationships (6 years and 9 years) with two women, and occasionally date other people. I do not think there is anything in my relationships for “the community” to “resolve internally”. It would not be appropriate for anyone to tell me to break up with one of my partners. It would not be appropriate for anyone to hold a community discussion about how to ‘resolve’ my relationships, though of course I disclose them when they are relevant to conflict-of-interest considerations, and go out of my way to avoid such conflicts. I would never ask out a woman who might rely on me as a professional mentor, or a woman who is substantially less professionally established.
There are steps that can be taken, absolutely should be taken, and for the most part to my knowledge have been taken to ensure that professional environments aren’t sexualized and that bad actors are unwelcome. Asking people out or flirting with them in professional contexts should be considered unacceptable. People who engage in a pattern of coercive, harassing, and unwelcoming behavior should be unwelcome as a result. People should have trusted avenues to report misconduct. People should not ask out their employees or anyone they have substantial direct power over.
We should talk openly about it when these incidents occur, in order to improve, and we should be fine with those conversations being “external” because the insistence that we resolve things “internally” is to me incredibly inappropriate and associated with handling things badly.
But outside those steps, what would it mean to “handle” my polyamorous relationships? What would “resolving polyamory” look like”? Are we talking about statements from formal organizations about which relationship styles are permissible? Informal social sanction aimed not at misconduct but at anyone in a nontraditional relationship? Why is that something that the ‘community’ should do?
I’m concerned that Davis’ comment was not interpreted in good faith.
I imagine a comment criticising a culture of alcohol consumption in a community, leading to higher rates of violence. I reply stating what will the community do to stop me safely and legally consume alcohol, ban me from drinking it?
This “personalised oppression” framing is seems obviously fallacious if you substitute polyamory for any other behaviour.
Hmm, if Davis had said “I think pressure to be polyamorous has been a problem in the community...” or “I’ve received backlash for speaking out against dynamics surrounding polyamory” then I think I would have reacted differently.
But he said “I think polyamory has been a problem” and “I’ve received backlash for speaking out against polyamory”. He has indeed long been outspoken against polyamory—not against dynamics in polyamory that make the community unwelcoming or unprofessional, against the practice under all circumstances. He has told me at other times that polyamory is inherently immoral and wrong and that no one should ever be polyamorous, which inclined me towards the broader interpretation of what he was trying to say.
I agree many people in the comments do not object to anyone practicing polyamory, but to pressures and dynamics it can create, and those comments did not give me the same reaction. But Davis in particular does think, and has said to me, that my relationships are inherently immoral and that polyamory is never acceptable and I think the wording of his comment reflected that belief of his, and that’s why his framing bothered me when the framing in these other comments (which was focused on specific potential harms) did not bother me.
Thanks for writing this! I think there’s a lot of knee-jerk anti-poly sentiment in the comments and humanizing polyamory is valuable. I agree with you that most of the problems people are ascribing to polyamory are actually not specific to polyamory at all.
Before I continue, I want to be clear that I think your relationships are positive and I’m glad you have them. And I also think this about poly people in general.
But outside those steps, what would it mean to “handle” my polyamorous relationships? What would “resolving polyamory” look like”? Are we talking about statements from formal organizations about which relationship styles are permissible? Informal social sanction aimed not at misconduct but at anyone in a nontraditional relationship? Why is that something that the ‘community’ should do?
Imagine that we had strong evidence that powerful people having multiple simultaneous relationships is more likely to lead to interpersonal harm. The harm would only happen through actions that would still be bad in themselves (coercive propositioning etc), but their being poly could magnify that harm by offering more opportunities and making them generally bolder. Personally, I think this is more likely than not, but also not a large enough effect to outweigh the benefit of they and their partners getting to enjoy their preferred relationship style. And also that the evidence that pushes me in the direction of thinking that it makes interpersonal harm more likely is very weak and speculative. So I don’t think something “should be done”.
But if the evidence were there, the harm was large enough, and I thought this was a serious issue for the EA community, I might try to discourage polyamory. This could look like writing up the evidence, talking privately to high-status poly people that I thought might be on the fence, and encouraging people to talk about their decision to go mono.
That seems basically reasonable to me, though it feels operative that you would be acting in your independent capacity as a person with opinions who tries to convince other people that your opinions are correct. I’d be much more uncomfortable with an EA institution that had a ‘talking people out of polyamorous relationships’ department.
I think there are some forms of social pressure which are fine for individuals to apply but which are damaging and coercive if they have formal institutional weight behind them, so calls for “people who agree with me polyamorous relationships are damaging” to advocate for that stance don’t make me uneasy the way calls for “the community” to “handle” those things make me uneasy.
Yes, I’m not sure this needs to be said but just to be clear—I also don’t think CEA or whatever should have a “talking people out of polyamorous relationships” department, and this would seem like a bizarre overreach to me.
I’m thinking of things much more along the lines of “discourage the idea of polyamory as ‘more rational’ and especially polyamory pressure in particular”, not “make EA institutions formally try to deconvert people from polyamory” or whatever.
To be clear, the thing I was wishing we had resolved internally was much more the widespread pressure to be polyamorous in (at least some parts of?) EA rather than individual people’s relationships; as you say, it would not be appropriate for the EA community to have a discussion about how to “resolve” your personal relationships. What would that even mean?
However, I think that this is far from the first time that major cultural issues with polyamory and unwelcome pressure to be polyamorous have been brought up, and it does seem to me that that’s the kind of thing that could have been handled earlier if we were more on the ball. In the article, Gopalakrishnan mentions having raised her concerns earlier only to be dismissed and attacked, told that she was “bigoted” against polyamorous people, etc. -- and she is not the first one to have raised such issues either!
Ideally, I’d like to see an EA culture that doesn’t promote polyamory over monogamy or use it to pressure people into unwanted romantic or sexual relationships, and I think that can be accomplished without community organizations overstepping their bounds.
In the article, Gopalakrishnan mentions having raised her concerns earlier only to be dismissed and attacked, told that she was “bigoted” against polyamorous people
The article has “One commenter wrote that her post was ‘bigoted’ against polyamorous people.”
While Gopalakrishnan has deleted the post and the comments are no longer visible, my memory is that the comment describing her as saying something bigoted was reasonable?
I completely agree that OP raises totally legitimate points that are worthy of being taken seriously.
However, I am grateful for you initial comment and really disagree that the issue here is being emotional and impressionistic. The problem with the post is that it is bigoted. OP makes a central issue of people not respecting one’s “poly/mono” choice and then proceeds to suggest that women in poly relationships are unhappy and that poly men are uniquely likely to be sexual predators. This is all framed as a matter of OP’s experience, and I have no reason to doubt the truthfulness of it all. But that doesn’t excuse framing the issue as a matter of one’s choice to be poly or not. Imagine if this framing was done for any other group. Even if you have legitimate negative experiences with members of a certain group, framing the issue as relevant to membership in that group without any evidence whatsoever is unfair to say the least. This is especially true for something like sexual pressure, which monogamous people have been engaging in far and wide since the dawn of time. In any case, it is a really tired trope to paint anyone who does not fall very neatly in line with conventional ideas of relationship structures as a sexual predator.
It’s also frankly quite hypocritical in that OP seems to be the one not respecting others “mono/poly” choice.
None of this is to say that OPs experiences are not real or that they are not a problem. Of course they are! But that does not make this a fair or productive post and it would have been much better received if OP didn’t make it about something irrelevant.
I was the original commenter and will add that I have never suggested that polyamory is for everyone or that it is inherently more rational or superior. I merely ask that people mind their own business.
I stand by my original claim that the post was bigoted.
To clarify, I do not think it is bigoted to think that polyamory is unwise or that it creates unhealthy dynamics (I disagree, but that’s a different matter). I do think it is bigoted to claim without solid evidence that people who practice it are more likely to commit assault. I also think that regardless of what dynamics it creates, it is wildly inappropriate to suggest that the mere prevalence of polyamory should in any way be”addressed by the community” (Kelsey explained this better than I could, so I will leave it at that).
I do think it is bigoted to claim without solid evidence that people who practice it are more likely to commit assault
I agree that this would be bigoted. But as far as I can tell, the linked post never claimed this?
All I can see is the OP recounting cases of her own experience with predatory behaviour within the EA community, where several people tried to pressure her into becoming polyamorous.
The post literally states that “this is not a criticism of polyamory itself”. I think the characterization of the post as bigoted is completely out of line.
I think that relevant context for backlash against Davis Kingsley’s anti-polyamory views is that he is an orthodox Catholic. His anti-polyamory views are part of a set of fairly extreme views about sexuality, including being opposed to homosexuality, masturbation, contraception, premarital sex, and any sexual intercourse other than PIV. He has also expressed the viewpoint that polyamory should be socially stigmatized and people should be pressured into monogamy. I believe that much, perhaps most, of the backlash he has faced is due to the overall set of his beliefs and that it was disingenuous for him not to include this context.
Obviously, I am opposed to sexual harassment and to pressuring people towards any relationship style.
[Note: comment edited to use Davis’s preferred terminology for his style of Catholicism. The first sentence originally said “traditional”. I’m sorry for using terms for his beliefs that he doesn’t identify with.]
Yeah, I was surprised to see Davis claiming in this comment section that he merely thinks we should combat inappropriate pressure to be polyamorous (which of course we should do!) and of course I want to create space for his views to evolve if they have evolved, but the views he is expressing here are not the views he has routinely espoused in the past, and “I’ve faced backlash for my views” without explaining what the views were does seem disingenuous to me.
I am a Catholic—though I would not call myself a traditionalist—and I believe what the Church teaches, including on matters of sexuality. Bringing my religion up in this way feels like a character attack that ought to be below the standards of the EA Forum though, and I’m grieved to see it.
My posts here are not saying “Polyamory is a sin, convert to Catholicism.” They are not saying “you should be pressured into monogamy.” Those things seem much more contentious than what I’m going for here. Instead, I am saying that there has long been in fact the exact opposite pressure in at least parts of the EA community, with people being pressured away from monogamy and towards polyamory, and this has had negative consequences.
I don’t think this is an issue that requires people to accept Catholic teaching on sexual morality to see as an issue—and indeed the TIME article critical of EA norms here certainly does not seem to have been written from a traditionalist Catholic perspective!
My posts here are not saying “Polyamory is a sin, convert to Catholicism.”
No, but if you say “polyamory has been a problem in the EA (and rationalist) communities for a long time” and people know that you do in fact believe polyamory to be immoral, it’s completely reasonable for them to respond as Kelsey did?
If you want people only to respond to the more limited “people should not be pressured into polyamory” perhaps you should say that explicitly?
No, but if you say “polyamory has been a problem in the EA (and rationalist) communities for a long time” and people know that you do in fact believe polyamory to be immoral, it’s completely reasonable for them to respond as Kelsey did?
Most people don’t know that and I wasn’t asserting it here—that would be much more controversial and much more of a debate than I wanted to have, and further one that I don’t think is very appropriate for the EA Forum! My hope is (was?) that even people who quite disagree with me—including many polyamorous people—would have common cause in opposing the pressure to be polyamorous that has been prevalent.
I think veganism has been a problem in the EA community for a long time and has led to some bad dynamics where people have been pressured to go without food that meets their nutritional needs, including residential multi-day events where only vegan food was served.
If someone, knowing my views on animals that are probably about as well known as your views on sexual morality, responded as if I was saying animal welfare doesn’t matter, I think that would be pretty reasonable. And if I didn’t want that interpretation I’d need to drop the “veganism has been a problem” bit and just talk about the particular bad dynamics I was opposed to.
It’s also worth noting that I am an adult convert to Catholicism and was involved with the Bay Area rationalist and EA community (and uncomfortable with the “polyamory pressure” in that community) for years before joining the Church, including some time when I didn’t take religion seriously much at all. Claiming or implying that I hold my views (or faced backlash against them) just because I’m Catholic does me a disservice.
I note also that others in the community who are not (as far as I know) Catholic have faced backlash for their views against polyamory or the related pressure, that as I understand it there are several who are afraid to speak up publicly even now, and so on.
As such, ozymandias’s comment feels like a really unfair way to summarize the situation.
I also think it’s quite reasonable for a religious person to give secular arguments for worldviews which also happen to be held in their religion.
For example, if Davis was making a humanistic argument for why people should take Giving What We Can’s 10% pledge, then accusing him of disingenuously trying to sneak in the “Catholic agenda” of giving a tithe to the poor doesn’t seem fair.
Or imagine if a Jain was giving a humanistic argument for why people should be vegetarian, and they were accused of disingenuously trying to sneak in the “Jain agenda” of animal welfare.
Clarifying for forum archeologists: “traditionalist” in Catholicism refers to people who consider the theological claims and organizational changes in Vatican II to be illegitimate, or at minimum taken too far. Catholics who consider the Church to have divinely guided authority over religious and moral truths will sometimes call themselves “orthodox” (lowercase) Catholics, to distinguish themselves from those who don’t accept this & from traditionalists who accept everything up to Vatican II.
So, ozymandias intended to indicate “Davis accepts the Vatican’s teaching on sin, hell, sexual mores, etc”. Davis objected to an adjective that implied he rejects Vatican II.
Minor side point, not to distract from what you’re actually trying to say:
Davis’s views were endorsed by most of the Western world for thousands of years, and continue to be endorsed by billions of people today, including a substantial portion of the Western population. Thus, I don’t think the word “extreme” is an accurate characterization of his views.
I think polyamory has been a problem in the EA (and rationalist) communities for a long time and led to both some really uncomfortable and concerning community dynamics and also just a lot of drama and problems. Multiple high-profile women have told me that they felt pressured to be polyamorous by men in the community and/or felt that polyamory was bad but they didn’t feel comfortable speaking up against it, and I’ve faced some degree of community social backlash myself for speaking out (even informally!) against polyamory.
In general I think this has been kind of an ongoing issue for quite some time, and I wish we had resolved it “internally” rather than it being something exposed by outside investigators.
I am very bothered specifically by the frame “I wish we had resolved [polyamory] “internally” rather than it being something exposed by outside investigators.”
I am polyamorous; I am in committed long-term relationships (6 years and 9 years) with two women, and occasionally date other people. I do not think there is anything in my relationships for “the community” to “resolve internally”. It would not be appropriate for anyone to tell me to break up with one of my partners. It would not be appropriate for anyone to hold a community discussion about how to ‘resolve’ my relationships, though of course I disclose them when they are relevant to conflict-of-interest considerations, and go out of my way to avoid such conflicts. I would never ask out a woman who might rely on me as a professional mentor, or a woman who is substantially less professionally established.
There are steps that can be taken, absolutely should be taken, and for the most part to my knowledge have been taken to ensure that professional environments aren’t sexualized and that bad actors are unwelcome. Asking people out or flirting with them in professional contexts should be considered unacceptable. People who engage in a pattern of coercive, harassing, and unwelcoming behavior should be unwelcome as a result. People should have trusted avenues to report misconduct. People should not ask out their employees or anyone they have substantial direct power over.
We should talk openly about it when these incidents occur, in order to improve, and we should be fine with those conversations being “external” because the insistence that we resolve things “internally” is to me incredibly inappropriate and associated with handling things badly.
But outside those steps, what would it mean to “handle” my polyamorous relationships? What would “resolving polyamory” look like”? Are we talking about statements from formal organizations about which relationship styles are permissible? Informal social sanction aimed not at misconduct but at anyone in a nontraditional relationship? Why is that something that the ‘community’ should do?
I’m concerned that Davis’ comment was not interpreted in good faith.
I imagine a comment criticising a culture of alcohol consumption in a community, leading to higher rates of violence. I reply stating what will the community do to stop me safely and legally consume alcohol, ban me from drinking it?
This “personalised oppression” framing is seems obviously fallacious if you substitute polyamory for any other behaviour.
Hmm, if Davis had said “I think pressure to be polyamorous has been a problem in the community...” or “I’ve received backlash for speaking out against dynamics surrounding polyamory” then I think I would have reacted differently.
But he said “I think polyamory has been a problem” and “I’ve received backlash for speaking out against polyamory”. He has indeed long been outspoken against polyamory—not against dynamics in polyamory that make the community unwelcoming or unprofessional, against the practice under all circumstances. He has told me at other times that polyamory is inherently immoral and wrong and that no one should ever be polyamorous, which inclined me towards the broader interpretation of what he was trying to say.
I agree many people in the comments do not object to anyone practicing polyamory, but to pressures and dynamics it can create, and those comments did not give me the same reaction. But Davis in particular does think, and has said to me, that my relationships are inherently immoral and that polyamory is never acceptable and I think the wording of his comment reflected that belief of his, and that’s why his framing bothered me when the framing in these other comments (which was focused on specific potential harms) did not bother me.
Thanks for writing this! I think there’s a lot of knee-jerk anti-poly sentiment in the comments and humanizing polyamory is valuable. I agree with you that most of the problems people are ascribing to polyamory are actually not specific to polyamory at all.
Before I continue, I want to be clear that I think your relationships are positive and I’m glad you have them. And I also think this about poly people in general.
Imagine that we had strong evidence that powerful people having multiple simultaneous relationships is more likely to lead to interpersonal harm. The harm would only happen through actions that would still be bad in themselves (coercive propositioning etc), but their being poly could magnify that harm by offering more opportunities and making them generally bolder. Personally, I think this is more likely than not, but also not a large enough effect to outweigh the benefit of they and their partners getting to enjoy their preferred relationship style. And also that the evidence that pushes me in the direction of thinking that it makes interpersonal harm more likely is very weak and speculative. So I don’t think something “should be done”.
But if the evidence were there, the harm was large enough, and I thought this was a serious issue for the EA community, I might try to discourage polyamory. This could look like writing up the evidence, talking privately to high-status poly people that I thought might be on the fence, and encouraging people to talk about their decision to go mono.
That seems basically reasonable to me, though it feels operative that you would be acting in your independent capacity as a person with opinions who tries to convince other people that your opinions are correct. I’d be much more uncomfortable with an EA institution that had a ‘talking people out of polyamorous relationships’ department.
I think there are some forms of social pressure which are fine for individuals to apply but which are damaging and coercive if they have formal institutional weight behind them, so calls for “people who agree with me polyamorous relationships are damaging” to advocate for that stance don’t make me uneasy the way calls for “the community” to “handle” those things make me uneasy.
Yes, I’m not sure this needs to be said but just to be clear—I also don’t think CEA or whatever should have a “talking people out of polyamorous relationships” department, and this would seem like a bizarre overreach to me.
I’m thinking of things much more along the lines of “discourage the idea of polyamory as ‘more rational’ and especially polyamory pressure in particular”, not “make EA institutions formally try to deconvert people from polyamory” or whatever.
To be clear, the thing I was wishing we had resolved internally was much more the widespread pressure to be polyamorous in (at least some parts of?) EA rather than individual people’s relationships; as you say, it would not be appropriate for the EA community to have a discussion about how to “resolve” your personal relationships. What would that even mean?
However, I think that this is far from the first time that major cultural issues with polyamory and unwelcome pressure to be polyamorous have been brought up, and it does seem to me that that’s the kind of thing that could have been handled earlier if we were more on the ball. In the article, Gopalakrishnan mentions having raised her concerns earlier only to be dismissed and attacked, told that she was “bigoted” against polyamorous people, etc. -- and she is not the first one to have raised such issues either!
Ideally, I’d like to see an EA culture that doesn’t promote polyamory over monogamy or use it to pressure people into unwanted romantic or sexual relationships, and I think that can be accomplished without community organizations overstepping their bounds.
The article has “One commenter wrote that her post was ‘bigoted’ against polyamorous people.”
While Gopalakrishnan has deleted the post and the comments are no longer visible, my memory is that the comment describing her as saying something bigoted was reasonable?
While she deleted her cross-post, the original post is still up: Women and Effective Altruism.
The comment calling the post “bigoted” is listed on https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/users/monica if you scroll back to comments from three months ago. It was:
Thank you for adding context, Jeff.
I was the original commenter and will add that I have never suggested that polyamory is for everyone or that it is inherently more rational or superior. I merely ask that people mind their own business.
I stand by my original claim that the post was bigoted.
To clarify, I do not think it is bigoted to think that polyamory is unwise or that it creates unhealthy dynamics (I disagree, but that’s a different matter). I do think it is bigoted to claim without solid evidence that people who practice it are more likely to commit assault. I also think that regardless of what dynamics it creates, it is wildly inappropriate to suggest that the mere prevalence of polyamory should in any way be”addressed by the community” (Kelsey explained this better than I could, so I will leave it at that).
I agree that this would be bigoted. But as far as I can tell, the linked post never claimed this?
All I can see is the OP recounting cases of her own experience with predatory behaviour within the EA community, where several people tried to pressure her into becoming polyamorous.
The post literally states that “this is not a criticism of polyamory itself”. I think the characterization of the post as bigoted is completely out of line.
I too have (consistently) seen this, so I am grateful to hear it being brought up publicly
I think that relevant context for backlash against Davis Kingsley’s anti-polyamory views is that he is an orthodox Catholic. His anti-polyamory views are part of a set of fairly extreme views about sexuality, including being opposed to homosexuality, masturbation, contraception, premarital sex, and any sexual intercourse other than PIV. He has also expressed the viewpoint that polyamory should be socially stigmatized and people should be pressured into monogamy. I believe that much, perhaps most, of the backlash he has faced is due to the overall set of his beliefs and that it was disingenuous for him not to include this context.
Obviously, I am opposed to sexual harassment and to pressuring people towards any relationship style.
[Note: comment edited to use Davis’s preferred terminology for his style of Catholicism. The first sentence originally said “traditional”. I’m sorry for using terms for his beliefs that he doesn’t identify with.]
Yeah, I was surprised to see Davis claiming in this comment section that he merely thinks we should combat inappropriate pressure to be polyamorous (which of course we should do!) and of course I want to create space for his views to evolve if they have evolved, but the views he is expressing here are not the views he has routinely espoused in the past, and “I’ve faced backlash for my views” without explaining what the views were does seem disingenuous to me.
I am a Catholic—though I would not call myself a traditionalist—and I believe what the Church teaches, including on matters of sexuality. Bringing my religion up in this way feels like a character attack that ought to be below the standards of the EA Forum though, and I’m grieved to see it.
My posts here are not saying “Polyamory is a sin, convert to Catholicism.” They are not saying “you should be pressured into monogamy.” Those things seem much more contentious than what I’m going for here. Instead, I am saying that there has long been in fact the exact opposite pressure in at least parts of the EA community, with people being pressured away from monogamy and towards polyamory, and this has had negative consequences.
I don’t think this is an issue that requires people to accept Catholic teaching on sexual morality to see as an issue—and indeed the TIME article critical of EA norms here certainly does not seem to have been written from a traditionalist Catholic perspective!
No, but if you say “polyamory has been a problem in the EA (and rationalist) communities for a long time” and people know that you do in fact believe polyamory to be immoral, it’s completely reasonable for them to respond as Kelsey did?
If you want people only to respond to the more limited “people should not be pressured into polyamory” perhaps you should say that explicitly?
Most people don’t know that and I wasn’t asserting it here—that would be much more controversial and much more of a debate than I wanted to have, and further one that I don’t think is very appropriate for the EA Forum! My hope is (was?) that even people who quite disagree with me—including many polyamorous people—would have common cause in opposing the pressure to be polyamorous that has been prevalent.
Imagine I wrote:
If someone, knowing my views on animals that are probably about as well known as your views on sexual morality, responded as if I was saying animal welfare doesn’t matter, I think that would be pretty reasonable. And if I didn’t want that interpretation I’d need to drop the “veganism has been a problem” bit and just talk about the particular bad dynamics I was opposed to.
It’s also worth noting that I am an adult convert to Catholicism and was involved with the Bay Area rationalist and EA community (and uncomfortable with the “polyamory pressure” in that community) for years before joining the Church, including some time when I didn’t take religion seriously much at all. Claiming or implying that I hold my views (or faced backlash against them) just because I’m Catholic does me a disservice.
I note also that others in the community who are not (as far as I know) Catholic have faced backlash for their views against polyamory or the related pressure, that as I understand it there are several who are afraid to speak up publicly even now, and so on.
As such, ozymandias’s comment feels like a really unfair way to summarize the situation.
I also think it’s quite reasonable for a religious person to give secular arguments for worldviews which also happen to be held in their religion.
For example, if Davis was making a humanistic argument for why people should take Giving What We Can’s 10% pledge, then accusing him of disingenuously trying to sneak in the “Catholic agenda” of giving a tithe to the poor doesn’t seem fair.
Or imagine if a Jain was giving a humanistic argument for why people should be vegetarian, and they were accused of disingenuously trying to sneak in the “Jain agenda” of animal welfare.
Clarifying for forum archeologists: “traditionalist” in Catholicism refers to people who consider the theological claims and organizational changes in Vatican II to be illegitimate, or at minimum taken too far. Catholics who consider the Church to have divinely guided authority over religious and moral truths will sometimes call themselves “orthodox” (lowercase) Catholics, to distinguish themselves from those who don’t accept this & from traditionalists who accept everything up to Vatican II.
So, ozymandias intended to indicate “Davis accepts the Vatican’s teaching on sin, hell, sexual mores, etc”. Davis objected to an adjective that implied he rejects Vatican II.
Minor side point, not to distract from what you’re actually trying to say:
Davis’s views were endorsed by most of the Western world for thousands of years, and continue to be endorsed by billions of people today, including a substantial portion of the Western population. Thus, I don’t think the word “extreme” is an accurate characterization of his views.