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 Monday, October 31, 2005
Andrew's Actual War Whoop/Maggie Gallagher
I can't figure out (see post below) whether this is pure bad faith on Andrew Sullivan's part or willful blindness. No-one who knows anything about David's work could possibly imagine he invented an emphasis on the importnce of fathers and marriage because he suddenly wanted to be mean to gay people: THE SHIFTING DEFINITION: At the same time, the opponents of marriage rights for gay couples now argue that child-rearing is the central purpose of civil marriage, that such child-rearing must include a father and a mother, and that therefore the current exclusion of even committed gay couples with children is justified. (They do not fully explain why childless heterosexual marriages nevertheless qualify, except that they "symbolize" the ideal and so get a pass. In fact, of course, childless heterosexual marriages represent the exact opposite of the ideal. They represent a heterosexual couple fully capable of the ideal - but choosing to go against it. Gay couples have no such choice.) But as this blogger points out, making procreation and child-rearing the sine qua non of civil marriage has not, as Blankenhorn would have it, always been the main argument of the gay marriage foes. A few weeks ago, Blankenhorn argued that Talking about heterosexual intercourse, child bearing, and child well-being is not something that some of us just thought up five minutes ago in response to a political controversy. Instead, you simply can't talk accurately about marriage without talking about these very things ... Hmmm. Blankenhorn's own Institute put out a "Statement of Principles," only five years ago on what marriage is. It has "six important dimensions." Five of them do not mention children at all. The one dimension in which children do appear - the sixth and last dimension listed - says the following: Marriage takes two biological strangers and turns them into each other's next-of-kin. As a procreative bond, marriage also includes a commitment to care for any children produced by the married couple. Notice how children are optional, not essential. In the statement, the first definition is that "marriage is a legal contract." Five years later, Blankenhorn is insisting that it is a "trans-legal" institution. Maybe this new argument is a product of five years of deeper thinking. Or maybe it is indeed "something that some of us just thought up five minutes ago in response to a political controversy." |
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No-one who knows anything about David's work could possibly imagine he invented an emphasis on the importnce of fathers and marriage because he suddenly wanted to be mean to gay people
Given that David appears to be using his work as an attack on equal civil rights for same-sex couples, it's hard for anyone to see it as anything else.
The whole shifting definition of marriage that the anti-marriage crowd use - suddenly it's all about procreation (but we have to let mixed-sex couples who can't procreate get married, and we can't have same-sex couples with children get married, oh yes) keeps moving until it finally settles on one thing that you can definitely say, right now, same-sex couples can't do:
(and you spent a lot of time on Volokh explaining that this was your view of marriage)
-that marriage is exclusively and only for couples who can produce children together who are biologically related to them both.
I know that both you and Eve hate being called on the logical consequences of this extremely narrow definition of marriage; that it's not about joy or love, it's not about rearing children, it's not for couples who have children via AID or who adopt; but that's your problem. You picked this definition of marriage, and it certainly looks as if you did so because that way you could claim that same-sex couples can't get married. (It excludes a fair number of mixed-sex couples from marriage, too, but hey...)
Notice how children are optional, not essential.
I guess one thing I would like is acknowledgment of a middle ground between "optional" (what, like children are accessories?) and "essential" (marriages that do not result in children are nonetheless real marriages). That's what I was trying to get at with my post on _expectations_ surrounding children, here. Perhaps "expected" is the best word?
But then, I would also like a life-sized chocolate Sophia Loren riding a chocolate pony, so I'm not holding my breath.
E
But I am! Such a wish as that!
Eve said, I guess one thing I would like is acknowledgment of a middle ground between "optional" (what, like children are accessories?) and "essential" (marriages that do not result in children are nonetheless real marriages).
Eve, I think that my description here provides that middle ground, because even childless and "sterile" marriages help meet society's goal for marriage:
Marriage is about responsible procreation, which is NOT the same thing as making more babies. What it means is that marriage increases the proportion of children born into homes with mothers and fathers. There are two different ways to accomplish this goal. FIRST, Marriage increases the number of children socialized in a stable home with a mother and a father. SECOND, just as importantly, marriage decreases the number of children born into situations where they won't have a father and mother to socialize them.
1: In older couples it's almost always the woman who is infertile, and by encouraging f/m monogamy through marriage, the state makes it less likely that the fertile old man will beget children on younger women. This decreases illigitimacy.
2. Among younger "sterile couples," usually it's only one party that is sterile. If the woman's sterile, the marriage makes it less likely that the fertile guy is going to be going around impregnating other women. Here again, a "sterile" marriage decreases illigitimacy.
3. Even in the rare case where both parties are infertile, a sterile member of an f/m married couple is less likely to develop a romance with a married mother or father, thereby putting the stability of a family in danger. Here, this increases the chance of children growing up with the same mother and father.
4. Additionally, in either situation 2 or 3, having an infertile marriage around increases the chance that an illigitimate or abandoned child might be adopted and given a father and mother.
5. Finally, the f/m model of marriage celebrates gender diversity, driving home the social lesson that a child needs a mother and a father. The more married couples there are, the more power marriage has as a norm. And this norm benefits almost everyone, since it functions as a model to be sought or at least approximated. Three examples: The marriage model (a) motivates single parents to marry, (b) motivates single mothers to at least to seek out some sort of godfather figure for the kids; (c) motivates widowers and other single fathers to at least to seek out some sort of godmother figure for the kids; (d) the marriage model even encourages many same-sex couples to find an opposite-sex godparent. So even if the kids don't get an actual mother and father, the marriage norm encourages their parents to get them some sort of substitute for the missing role. A substitute may be better than nothing.
The same principle applies to the states that allow 1st cousins to marry if they prove their sterility. It's irresponsible for cousins to procreate, so if two cousins get the hots for each other, society is better off bribing the couple with maritial status if they get snipped. When it comes to inbreeding and illigitimacy, responsible procreation means no procreation. That's good social policy, policy that reduces the population of our prisons and mental hospitals. The Goodridge ruling posits marriage as something that somehow protects children by getting tacked on after the children are born. Blended families happen, and they deserve our protection and support, but it strains credulty to pretend that marriage was designed to help blended families, well, blend. If Joey's mom divorces his dad, and then marries Roger, does Mom's marriage to Roger turn Roger into Joey's father? Nope. That might happen, but it's called adoption. It's not a function of marriage. Marrying after you've had kids with someone else does not convey the main benefits of marriage onto your kids, i.e. to give your kids a father and a mother, a stable financially independent home, etc. An acrobat gets the most benefit from a net, if you mount the net before the acrobatics. Once the acrobat has fallen, she probably doesn't need a net. At best, she needs a hospital. At worst, she needs a morgue. Similarly, a marriage that is in place before the child is born, is more likely to help the child.
I think that answers Goodridge's "Sterility Straw man" as I call it, and in every likely scenario that I can think of, explains why MF marriage is marriage, while other types of relationships are not and cannot be marriage.
All that's missing from this argument, is proof that a child actually receives a unique and irreplaceable benefit from being raised by a father and a mother, and that's fairly obvious, and Maggie's made a great deal of headway there.
All that's missing from this argument, is proof that a child actually receives a unique and irreplaceable benefit from being raised by a father and a mother, and that's fairly obvious
Several other people have recently claimed it's "common sense" that a child must benefit from being raised by a mixed-sex couple instead of a same-sex couple, but that "fairly obvious" or "common sense" conclusion is borne out by no study on that subject published in a peer-reviewed journal.
and Maggie's made a great deal of headway there.
Where? Her main focus in her attack on marriage has been trying to whittle the meaning and importance of marriage down to both parents being married when the child is conceived/born. She's argued that it makes no difference to adopted children if their adoptive parents are married: no difference to children conceived via AID if their legal and birth parents are married: no difference to step-children if their parent and step-parent are married: and she's uninterested in any benefits that marriage brings to the couple themselves.
If she's written anything about the benefits of marriage for child-rearing, it's been somewhere other than this blog or Volokh, at least recently.
She's argued that it makes no difference to adopted children if their adoptive parents are married: no difference to children conceived via AID if their legal and birth parents are married: no difference to step-children if their parent and step-parent are married: and she's uninterested in any benefits that marriage brings to the couple themselves.
What are the direct legal benefits to the child-adult relationship is those scenarios?
See:
Children and the legal incidents of marriage.
Chairm: What are the direct legal benefits to the child-adult relationship is those scenarios?
Are you arguing that there are none? That children do not benefit from marriage? You share Maggie's viewpoint, that marriage is exclusively and only about conception/birth, not at all about child raising?
Did you read the link? Please, to facillitate an open discussion, read the post. It is not a trick or a trap. It is an invitation to take what Maggie has said seriously; and to take your questions in stride, together.
Chairm, I'm asking you for a yes/no statement: do you believe that children benefit from marriage?
And if you do, why do you feel that the children of same-sex couples ought to be deprived of these benefits?
Maggie deals with this problem by claiming that children don't benefit from marriage.
I have not said there are no benefits, I have not said any are denied, but I have asked you to provide your baseline for your claim about the law of marriage:
Please state clearly what legal benefits the child-parent relationship gets from the legal incidents of marital status.
If there are none that you can identify, say so. If there are some, say so.
I take you have not bother to read the link I've provided. If you can not provide your baseline, then, your response amounts to a concession.
Silence.
SSM is not marriage.
What legal incidents of marriage are desired by the couples who lack one of the sexes required for a conjugal relationship? The specific list. Explain without piggybacking on marriage. You have a blank slate, write your list.
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