LINKMANIA

Crescat Sententia: The word "marriage": "Alright, so let's assume that the 'marriage is for heterosexuals' folks concede to a system of civil unions for homoseuals, with the same rights, responsibilities, and divorce codes as traditional marriage. ...The people who say marriage is by definition a man-woman thing have temporarily won.

"But what happens when these couples take their civil union licenses, show up in front of their pastor/preacher/priest/what have you, and ask to be wed in front of God, their friends and family, and in their church's eyes? ...I'm imagining a world where it's not only the Unitarian Universalists who will be so inclusive, but also more traditional Protestant denominations--the Lutherans, or the Episcopalians.

"Now John and Tom have a civil union from the state and a marriage from the church. Are they married? The government might still say no. But when John and Tom talk about themselves, do they say 'I am united to him' or 'I am married to him'? I predict the latter.... For how long will people who support gay civil unions but not gay marriages persist in considering John and Tom not married?"

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Maggie Gallagher profiles Elizabeth Marquardt: "Elizabeth is a 33-year-old mother, wife, feminist and lifelong Democrat. 'I've always known gays and lesbians--school, workplaces, neighbors. I find really repellent those who think it is a sinful lifestyle, and I don't want to be identified with them,' she says.

"She is a child of divorce, so she certainly knows marriage is not perfect. ...

"Elizabeth Marquardt supports civil unions, but draws the line at redefining marriage. ...

"To Elizabeth, it is all too reminiscent of the divorce revolution in the 1970s, when, based on enthusiasm for adult choice (and a handful of preliminary social science studies), 'experts' concluded that divorce was fine for children. It took 30 years of painstaking research and a whole generation of adult children of divorce revealing their own experiences to reverse that adult consensus about what children need. Our culture of marriage has not yet fully recovered."
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Gay ambivalence toward possibility of SSM.

You should all head over to MarriageMovement as well, but especially if you're interested in black Americans' views of SSM.

And now, happy Thanksgiving! I'll be back Monday.
posted by Eve at 3:07 AM | link 0 comments

MOTHERS... FATHERS... GENDER ROLES: Eve replies to John Jakala

I think the easiest way to see the point I was trying (probably clumsily) to make is just to spend a lot of time talking with people who grew up in intentionally fatherless or motherless households. (= households where a mother or father was absent not due to death, but to choices made by the parents.)

Elizabeth Marquardt has been writing powerful, eloquent pieces about children's need for the mother and father who created them; I'll add, though, that children's needs are gendered. They talk in gendered terms when they're talking about what they missed out on.

For obvious reasons, I know more about fatherless households, so I'll stick with those: Sons say they never learned what it meant to be a man. (And they often try to find other, destructive roads to masculinity--like gang membership.) Daughters say they never learned what to look for in a man. Sons have a hard time learning how men fit into a family, why and how men are needed in the family. Daughters have a hard time learning how much they can ask of men--they often set their standards way too low and get taken advantage of. ...I think it would be bizarre if for some reason similarly powerful emotional effects were not felt in intentionally motherless households, although, like I said, I know a lot less about that because it's less common.

So this is not at all about whether Johnny likes knitting and ballet, or whether Suzie wears combat boots. It's about how we learn what men and women are, how they relate to each other, and what their places are in the family.
posted by Eve at 9:43 AM | link 0 comments

THE RELEVANCE OF GAY PROMISCUITY: Eve replies to Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh writes, "I don't, by the way, think the argument against gay marriage based on gay promiscuity works either. That argument, with which NR readers are doubtless familiar, holds that gay promiscuity will undermine marriage rather than vice-versa. ...Why should a committed, monogamous gay couple be refused marriage simply because other gay couples would be less faithful than they?"

I disagree that higher levels of gay (male) promiscuity are irrelevant, even though I don't think claims about promiscuity even come close to settling the question.

We can take structural features and tendencies of relationships into account when trying to figure out which kinds of relationships society and government should honor.

You can see this by looking at the arguments against polygamy. To my knowledge, nobody tries to argue that no polygamous families are ever sweet or loving or caring. Instead, people talk about structural problems and societal effects: polyg. families tend to manage conflict via authoritarian male control; they tend to divide societies into sexual upper class (lots of wives) and underclass (no wives at all); they make resource allocation more difficult; etc. etc. Are these claims, too, irrelevant? Should we not discuss structural flaws and societal effects when we talk about polygamy vs. monogamy? Conversely, if it's OK to discuss effects and tendencies w/r/t polygamy, why not w/r/t SSM?

Again, I don't think this settles the question; I just think it is relevant to talk about.

Finally, in re lesbians, here's a post I wrote a while back on lesbian couples and sexual fidelity.
posted by Eve at 9:31 AM | link 0 comments

BIOLOGY, PARENTS, AND MARRIAGE 101: Elizabeth Marquardt replies to Mike Pignatello...

...at MarriageMovement.org. Some excerpts:

...Of course, if same sex couples want to have a baby of "their own," they have to borrow or buy sperms, eggs, and/or a womb, in other words, use what I call radical reproductive technologies. I am troubled by straight and gay parents doing this, for the reasons I've already stated: children tell us that growing up with little or no relationship with a biological parent opens up a tremendous set of questions in the development of their own identity. Should their complicated identity development alone persuade us to make all of this illegal? Maybe not. But should we ignore what they say, insist they're fine, and feel good about ourselves for supporting adults' rights to happiness? I have serious problems with that.

Pignatello then conflates adoption with every other alternative family form, but it's clearly not the same thing. Adoption is a special case when children's own biological parents prove unfit and society places them with other parents for their own best interests. Adoption is child-centered, not adult-centered. I personally feel that it's fine for same sex couples to adopt, and I especially admire and feel humbled by gay and straight couples who adopt special-needs children.

The problem is that changing the definition of marriage, as the Mass. court did, to make marriage gender-neutral implicitly supports gay couples using radical reproductive technologies to form their families, and thus creates a socially-approved new alternative family form that is dependent on this technology to have their "own" children, something we have never seen before. The Mass court now affirms that children only need "parents," but not a mother and father, so by the court's logic there is no moral argument against children being created intentionally fatherless or motherless. ...

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posted by Eve at 9:09 AM | link 0 comments

DO CHILDREN NEED A MOTHER AND A FATHER? John Jakala replies to Eve

I don't understand your position. You say "I'm not advocating for rigid, cliched gender roles" but you insist that gender can only "properly" be taught/learned within an opposite-sex parental structure. Why? Wouldn't boys and girls raised by same-sex parents still emerge as male and female? Sure, their particular manifestations of male and female might look different from others', but don't children from different opposite-sex marriages exhibit different flavors of maleness and femaleness? I can agree (with the proper qualifications, of course) that "gender is real and we want it"; I just can't buy into the limited options you seem to be offering.
posted by Eve at 9:05 AM | link 0 comments

WHAT DO THEY TALK ABOUT AT THOSE CONFERENCES ANYWAY? David Wagner reports from several law conferences on SSM--part two

[David Wagner is a professor at Regent University School of Law.]

This semester I've taken part in three conferences on SSM. The first two--one in August at Brigham Young University, one in October at New England Law School in Boston--were undoubtedly scheduled on the assumption that Goodridge would come down shortly before, or perhaps that very day. Ironically, the third conference, at the University of Richmond Law School, was nominally on a slightly different topic: privacy rights after Lawrence v. Texas (the Texas sodomy-law case). And when was it held? November 18, the day Goodridge came down. Go figure.

The points I've been making start with whether Lawrence requires SSM. Logically it does. There’s not much constitutional reasoning in Lawrence, but it says at least this: Morality, by itself, is never a rational basis for legislation (ask me some time about the ramifications of this: if taken seriously, it would go way beyond quaint old sex-offense statutes), and legislation that "demeans" anyone's intimate associations is suspect. By these rules, as Justice Scalia points out, marriage would be only the first of many legal institutions to need radical revision.

OTOH--the Court left itself numerous rhetorical escape hatches. When the question of SSM is squarely presented, if for any reason the Court doesn't feel like going that far, it can always point to these dicta and say, well of course, we never meant Lawrence to be taken that far.

So far the latter view is winning. Goodridge was based on Massachusetts law, not on Lawrence. Meanwhile, between Lawrence and Goodridge, the question of whether Lawrence requires SSM has been considered by state courts in New Jersey and Arizona, and both have decided that it does not.
posted by Eve at 9:04 AM | link 0 comments

WHAT DO THEY TALK ABOUT AT THOSE CONFERENCES ANYWAY? David Wagner reports from several law conferences on SSM--part two

So much for the constitutional hydraulics. Then I move on and talk about what marriage is for, drawing openly from James Q. Wilson, George Gilder, Maggie and Eve. It's for tying men to the children they sire, and to the women who will have to take care of those children alone if the men aren't tied to them in some way that law and society will respect, enforce, and valorize. Men are the problem: marriage is the solution.

At the U. of Richmond event, an opposing panelist spoke up at this point and said (I'm quoting from memory, but as precisely as I can): "You conservatives are in a hopeless contradiction on this. You're full of sympathy for that poor unwed mother and her poor child when it's a matter of protecting traditional marriage, yet you don't support the government programs that could also help them."

"Well yes," I said, "if she can't marry the father, she can at least marry the government. This is why the pro-marriage argument has a libertarian angle: If husband-fathers aren’t there, the government will have to be. The decline in the ability of marriage to fulfill its traditional role means the growth of government."

Those who see nothing wrong with the growth of government were presumably unimpressed, but I was just glad that this point--usually a hard one to get across--had in effect been made for me by an opponent.

Inevitably, someone wanted to know how, precisely, SSM would diminish the ability of traditional marriage to fulfill the benevolent role that I have sketched for it.

SSM is not the only threat that marriage faces. Divorce is another one. So is adultery. To the extent that these have increased, or that the social stigma against them has weakened, these are also setbacks for marriage. Preventing SSM is only one part of a broad effort to restore a marriage culture. It's necessary, but not sufficient.

What's more, without the mainstreaming of divorce, and the partial relaxation of our condemnation of adultery, the present SSM movement would be unimaginable. Straights have turned marriage into something gays would want. Procreation, permanence, and sexual fidelity are seen today as either irrelevant to marriage, or at most mere ancillaries to it. Before the SSM movement came along, straights had turned marriage into a mere social celebration of a presently existing love-relationship, plus a great many legal benefits.

So SSM would undermine the traditional purposes of marriage--which focus on that mother and child and how to get the father involved, not just as a source of money (though that's important too), but as a source of love and willing protection as well--but divorce and other changes in modern marriage undermine it too. That's why nearly all of us who are currently making the case against SSM are also veterans of (and/or current combatants in) the struggle to curb divorce.
posted by Eve at 9:03 AM | link 0 comments

GOODRIDGE AND GALLAGHER: Mark Miller replies to Mark Tardiff and to Maggie

Mark Tardiff's argument against SSM is based on the graphic (and philosophical?) definition of heterosexual sex--the literal joining of man and women. But that is not and can never be a winnable legal argument. Why ? Because marriage is not "legally" linked to procreation. Never has been. Never should be. There are examples of legal marriages where that "physical joining" cannot occur. Are those marriages invalid? Yet if is your argument, then the next step is that "marriage" should be redefined further to exclude relationships where "procreation" does/can NOT occur. Not that I agree that should be done but your support of that would give extra weight to your argument because it is then really about linking "marriage and procreation."

Replying to Maggie Gallagher in the Weekly Standard:
I think what gays and lesbians are saying is that those good things you describe can also happen when same-sex people are joined. The basis for this debate is that you feel the joining of a same-sex relationship is totally
different from the joining of an opposite sex relationship. And I respectfully disagree.
posted by Eve at 8:54 AM | link 0 comments

SAME-SEX PARENTING: Michael Brazier replies to Mark Miller

Miller writes: "Justice Scalia was correct. If you begin to accept homosexuals as people who have the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexuals, then the slippery slope does lead to the right to have your relationship acknowledges the same way heterosexuals do."

To point out the obvious: marriage is not, and never was, reducible to having "your relationship acknowledged." The civil rights argument for SSM works only if marriage can be so reduced.

Miller: "Does [David Bianco] feel that a child with one parent who dies should be taken away and given to a two-parent (opposite-sex, of course) home. Or should the remaining parent be allowed to keep his/her child?"

Elizabeth Marquardt gave the answer to that rhetorical question: "children need and yearn for the mother and father who *created* them." Obviously it's wrong, if a child's father has died, to rob him of his mother also. But it's also wrong to ensure that children never know their father; wrong, even if their mother is the one who ensured it.

Every child has by nature a mother and a father; the point of the state's recognizing marriage is to encourage each child's natural father and mother to discharge their duties to the person they brought into the world. Adoption is a backup, meant for children whose natural father and mother will not or cannot do their duty. When the natural parents fail, any decent citizen may choose to
substitute for them (hence we allow single people to adopt.) But reasoning from adoption policies to marriage is judging the normal by the exceptional.
posted by Eve at 8:49 AM | link 0 comments

SAME-SEX PARENTING: Mark Miller replies to Ben Bateman

This debate is not about the "ideal." It is about the law.

If the laws were based on the ideal, then divorce would against the law, consuming alcohol would be against the law, single parenthood would be against the law, and--to use Ben's own example--smoking would be against the law. To use his specific framing: Shouldn't the law recognize these principles ?

Also, the comparison between using drugs and same-sex parenting is hardly applicable--unless it is your view that homosexuality is the moral equivalent of using drugs.

The argument for criminalizing an activity needs to be that there is a clear state interest for prohibiting a specific activity and that state interest must be stronger than the "freedom to pursue happiness" which is guaranteed in the Constitution.

Therefore, it is the "laws must recognize the ideal" argument that is fundamentally absurd.
posted by Eve at 8:45 AM | link 0 comments

DO CHILDREN NEED A MOTHER AND A FATHER?: Mark Miller replies to Justin Katz

Who is missing what distinctions?

Mr Bianco said the following: "Ask yourself: If a child's parents were killed in an accident, all other things being equal, would it be better for that child to be raised by an aunt and an uncle, or by two aunts? If a little boy's mother
died in childbirth, would it be better for him to be raised by his father and aunt or by his father and uncle?"

I responded by asking if he feels that a child with one parent who dies should be taken away and given to a two-parent (opposite-sex, of course) home.

This is the point I was trying to make: The question/debate is not whether children are better off being raised by opposite-sex parents. The answer is irrelevant to this debate. The question is whether same-sex parenting should be prevented by law. There is a very big difference. Furthermore, you are arguing against same-sex parenting on the
grounds that children do need a mother and father. I was trying to point out that the same logic you used against same-sex parenting can also be applied to single parents--regardless of how that situation comes about.

The questions remain: Do children need a mother and father? How far are we willing to go to make sure that every child has a mother and a father ?
posted by Eve at 8:43 AM | link 0 comments

BLACK CHURCHES AND GAY MARRIAGE: From the Washington Post

...A survey conducted last July by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 64 percent of black respondents opposed gay marriage. A Pew Research Center poll released last week shows that opposition has grown since July among Democratic-leaning voters, including blacks. Like Triette Reeves, many blacks who have spoken out against gay marriage often cite religious beliefs as their motivation.

The central role of religion in the lives of most black Americans explains why so many of their leaders arise from historically black churches. But it sheds little light on the philosophical divisions emerging among some of its foremost spokesmen. Walter Fauntroy, a pastor and veteran civil rights activist whom I often admire, opposes gay marriage. Al Sharpton, a pastor and veteran civil rights activist whom I often do not admire, supports gay marriage. I find him quite sensible too when he posits the issue as a matter of privacy and individual rights. He told NBC's Tim Russert, "Whatever the lifestyle, people should have the right to choose their own life." ...

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posted by Eve at 8:34 AM | link 0 comments

THE IRRELEVANCE OF GAY PROMISCUITY: Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review's blog

David Brooks's argument for gay marriage begins with a characterization of sexual promiscuity as spiritually deadening. Gay marriage is worth supporting, on his view, either because it would actually reduce promiscuity or because it would make a symbolic statement against it (I'm not sure which). I wonder whether there are other cases in which Brooks believes the government should adopt policies to combat spiritually deadening practices simply because they are spiritually deadening. I also wonder how solid the spiritual, or even moral, case against promiscuity is. ...

I don't, by the way, think the argument against gay marriage based on gay promiscuity works either. ...Why should a committed, monogamous gay couple be refused marriage simply because other gay couples would be less faithful than they? ...
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[Eve notes: Wow, I can't remember another time when I've disagreed with every paragraph of a Ponnuru post! More soon....]
posted by Eve at 5:07 PM | link 0 comments

DO CHILDREN NEED A MOTHER AND A FATHER? Justin Katz replies to Mark Miller

(at Katz's blog. Eve notes that it's hard to excerpt this post due to inevitable formating issues, so you might want to just go read it.)

...Unfortunately, I think the post by Mark Miller on Marriage Debate that I just came across misses a few central distinctions. Indeed, it seems to me to point to some shifting of logical threads that is endemic in this debate.

...Obviously, the damage done by tearing from one parent a child who has already experienced the loss of the other parent would dwarf any benefit that there might be to placing that child in a two-parent home. Frankly, I'm a little surprised that Mr. Miller would even think this comparable to Mr. Bianco's examples.

...Bianco's comment has to do with whether children whose parents are in stable gay relationships are more likely to be gay, which is an outcome for the child that, to the extent that it is a possibility, may or may not be related to other factors of the child's well-being (all of which are relative to their probable state in different circumstances, such as an orphanage). The studies mentioned by Miller have to do with the actual stability of the parents' relationship, which is an entirely separate (and probably more important) factor.

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posted by Eve at 5:04 PM | link 0 comments

SAME-SEX PARENTING: Ben Bateman replies to Michael Triplett and Mike Pignatello

[Ben Bateman is an attorney in Amarillo, Texas.]

Michael Triplett criticizes the "utopian fantasy" of every child being raised by a mother and father, then uses its impossibility as an argument for SSM. Mike Pignatello makes essentially the same argument by comparing childrearing by single hetero parents to childrearing by gay couples.

The argument in essence is, "Ideal X is unattainable, therefore we should not hold X as an ideal." This syllogism is an attack on the very concept of a moral ideal, and ultimately on the idea of morality itself.

Those who propose this fallacy do so selectively. Will they argue that we can't stop people from smoking, therefore we should stop discouraging them from smoking? That we can't stop people from using drugs, so we shouldn't try to stop them?

Many people have their favorite versions of this argument, but no one applies it universally because it's fundamentally absurd. It's only a useful way to destroy the other fellow's moral ideals.

Here is my moral ideal: It's best for children to be raised by their own parents, who are married to each other. It's second best for them to be raised by one parent married to an opposite-sex step-parent. It's not as good for them to be raised by gay couples. It's also not good for them to be raised by single parents. The law should recognize these principles. If SSM supporters are going to destroy these ideals, they need a better argument than pointing out that the world is an imperfect place.
posted by Eve at 4:58 PM | link 0 comments

SAME-SEX PARENTING: Gabriel Rosenberg replies to Mark Tardiff

Father Tardiff writes that it is "not argument but manipulative rhetoric" to contrast "the worst heterosexual situation with the best homosexual situation." The reasonable approach he figures is to compare "the best
with the best, and the worst with the worst." This echoes similar claims he made earlier
(http://www.marriagedebate.com/mdblog/2003_10_12_mdblog_archive.htm#106642318207837180).

I fear he may me not be understanding the argument, though. The idea behind equal protection is that people should be treated as individuals, not as members of some group. For example, men are generally faster than women. Would it be justified to exclude all women and include all men any time speed is a desired characteristic? Of course not. I could just imagine, "Yes, Miss Hammon, you are much faster than Mr. Dole, but he's a man and the fastest man is faster than the fastest woman. Sorry."

Of course in determining whether a same-sex couple should be allowed to marry, we are not even choosing between placing a child with same-sex parents or opposite-sex parents. The child has (or will have) same-sex parents and we should consider whether it would be better for the child if those parents were married instead of cohabiting. The court in Goodridge detailed at length how it could be much better for the child if the parents were married.

What about children of opposite-sex parents? Does prohibiting same-sex marriage help them in any way? Maggie and others claim that it does because without the prohibition men would no longer want to marry, or would view marriage or even fatherhood as unnecessary. There is absolutely no evidence of this. Suppose, however, twenty years from now John Doe does walk away from his responsibilities to his family. I would lay the blame squarely with John Doe and not with some court decision that merely said it was okay for others to take responsibility for their families.
posted by Eve at 4:54 PM | link 0 comments

DO CHILDREN NEED A MOTHER AND A FATHER? Mike Pignatello replies to Elizabeth Marquardt

[You can find Elizabeth Marquardt's posts on this topic by scrolling down from here.]

Elizabeth's issue appears to be with methods of procreation other than married intercourse--methods that allow for families where one of the biological parents will never be present.

Why do people choose reproductive technologies? Because a single, unmarried woman wants babies. Because a husband is infertile. Because a lesbian wants her best gay friend to be the daddy. And people have the freedom to make these choices. If a lesbian woman wants to raise a baby, she has every right to do so. Elizabeth is correct in writing that legalizing same sex marriage wouldn't make the second parent the automatic "biological" parent (of course!). But we don't place similar restrictions on heterosexual single parents' relationships--the other parent can get married and become a legal guardian of the child. Yet when it comes to single gay parents or same sex couples, some argue that there should be limits--limits that apply only to single gay parents/same-sex couples and not heterosexuals or opposite-sex couples.

Elizabeth also mentions that kids raised by a biological parent plus an unrelated parent will always seek out their biological family. As they should. Adopted children also look for their real moms and dads. So, by Elizabeth's logic, any totally parentless kid who can't be given a "satisfactory" mommy-and-daddy household should neither (1) be adopted or (2) be brought into existence in the first place. How about kids that don't have, or never had, a mommy or daddy to grow up with--is that an acceptable situation where same-sex adopting parents are better than no parent at all?

That a child wonders who her biological parents are has nothing to do with the sexual orientation or marital status of the parents involved. It's a result of an adult's reproductive and family choices that the adult is at liberty to make.
posted by Eve at 4:51 PM | link 0 comments

MASSACHUSETTS NEWS ROUNDUP

Two polls find about 50% of Mass. residents support Goodridge ruling

Gov. Romney still supports state constitutional amendment against SSM; also supports civil unions bill as way of accommodating court decision without SSM

Also, the Boston Herald reported (I don't have a link) that Cambridge has backed off--it won't issue SSM licenses early.
posted by Eve at 4:27 PM | link 0 comments

DAVID BLANKENHORN ON SSM: On National Public Radio

Listen here!

Excerpts from the transcript:

SIMON: And is there such thing as a universal definition of marriage?

Mr. BLANKENHORN: Yes. Generally throughout human cultures in history has meant the socially approved and encouraged sex bond between the male and the female with the encouragement and expectation of bearing children and of being caretakers for one another.

SIMON: Does this debate that's going on now about the state of marriage, the institution of marriage pit some equal moral regards against one another?

Mr. BLANKENHORN: Yes. This issue is about what the philosopher Isaiah Berlin called goods in conflict. One good thing is the notion of equal human dignity and that we should treat one another with equal respect and regard. And it's a universal moral idea and it is deeply a part of the American founding and experience. And in that respect, were we to institute same-sex marriage, I think in that way we would be more American the day after we did it.

On the other side of the ledger, we have another very important social good which is: What helps children thrive? And we humans have determined almost universally that children strongly need mothers and fathers to love and nurture that child and love and nurture each other hopefully always, and that is the ideal that is reflected in our current definition of marriage. ...

Mr. BLANKENHORN: I think it [a civil-union-type thing] would be a good solution. ...Unfortunately, I think that the strong partisans on each side of this debate, neither side is willing to settle for this....
posted by Eve at 4:24 PM | link 0 comments

ARRANGED MARRIAGE AND SSM: Daniel Moloney

[Daniel Moloney is a writer living in Indiana.]

I'm wondering whether there's a definition of "marriage" that's big enough to include both gay marriage and arranged marriage.

As many as two billion people are in arranged marriages, mostly in Asia and Africa. Perhaps as many as 90% of marriages in Pakistan are arranged, and even in contemporary Japan, some people estimate that between one-quarter and one-half of marriages are arranged. The details don't matter so much as
the fact that arranged marriage is an extraordinarily common form of marriage.

Supporters of gay marriage claim (1) that marriage is not essentially ordered towards procreation, but (2) it is essentially about being allowed to make a permanent commitment to the person you love. Most of the fights center on the first claim; arranged marriages seem to be a counter-example to the second.

Some people think that marriage is something we ought to define by looking at actual marriages and then discerning something about the nature of the practice of marriage. The advocates of gay marriage often take this tack--certainly this was the approach of the Massachusetts court in Goodridge.

The argument looks something like this: if marriages were primarily about having children, then the infertile would not be allowed to marry. So marriage must not have a necessary link to procreation.

If we're going to take this empirical approach to the definition of marriage, we ought to examine what arranged marriage tells us about marriage. The assumption in AM is that marriage is not based on love, but on a willingness to work together towards the common ends of marriage. Love follows often enough, but it is married love, which seems to be quite different from the "dating" love that is the topic of rock music.

I have no direct evidence for this claim, but I
would be surprised were there large numbers of gay men who would willingly allow their lifelong partners to be chosen for them. Yet hundreds of millions of straight men do just that.

This seems to be a difference betwen gay and straight approaches to marriage. What should we make of it? One might draw the conclusion that in heterosexual marriage, the sort of love associated with dating is optional, while in
gay marriage, it is essential. I could imagine that being an important difference.
posted by Eve at 4:18 PM | link 0 comments

GOODRIDGE IS NO GOOD, part one: Mark Tardiff replies to Mike Pignatello

Mike Pignatello responded in a couple places to my last point, but did not touch my main point, to which I return.

The fact that the law is a teacher means that it does not just reflect changes in society but promotes them. Now so many kids suffer the tragedy of a broken home and so many marriages are a mess because far too many couples have bought into the idea that "marriage is for the happiness of adults." Not unsurprisingly, when they find themselves unhappy, they divorce and the kids are
expected to cope.

The argument for SSM depends significantly on this assertion. Jonathan Rauch and Andrew Sullivan most prominently make the argument on the basis of happiness: marriage is for the happiness of adults; my happiness is as
important as anyone else's; therefore I have a right to marriage too. To the extent that
Goodridge adopted this reasoning, it will codify and promote the very
understanding of marriage that has led to the present levels of family disintegration and social chaos. The only solution for the present mess is to move marriage back to the understanding that includes an intrinsic relation to procreation. The introduction of SSM would add a further dimension of the teaching power of the law to those forces opposing the recovery of a marriage culture.
posted by Eve at 4:09 PM | link 0 comments

GOODRIDGE IS NO GOOD, part two: Mark Tardiff

The Goodridge decision assumes that marriage has no intrinsic relation to gender.

The philosophical implication is an untenable mind-body dualism in which my body is simply instrumental to my consciousness. The problem with this is that it decomposes the person and makes nonsense of our lived experience.

There is no longer any subject to posit actions since 'I' cannot be identified with either my body or my consciousness. In genital sex between a husband and wife, on the other hand, we see not one person decomposed into two but two who become one flesh. Husband and wife separately can perform the bodily functions of eating and digestion. But the reproductive act can only be performed
by the two of them acting as a single reproductive principle.
posted by Eve at 4:07 PM | link 0 comments

GOODRIDGE IS NO GOOD, part three: Mark Tardiff

The justices in the Goodridge decision overstepped their authority and have threatened the rule of law. It is safe to say that the drafters of the Massachusetts constitution shared the conviction (uncontested until about ten years ago) that
marriage meant the union of one man and one woman. Hence the justices imposed upon the
constitution a philosophy alien to that held by the writers themselves. This is closer to re-writing the constitution than to applying it. In
addition, it becomes difficult to see how we can speak of a rule of law. If the text itself as the framers understood it no longer has any normative force, then it is no longer the law which is the rule but whatever ideology is
dominant among the majority of the justices.
posted by Eve at 4:06 PM | link 0 comments

THE POWER OF THE WORD "MARRIAGE": Maggie Gallagher in the Weekly Standard

...Are civil unions, then, no different from gay marriage itself? Is granting the legal benefits of marriage to same-sex couples the same thing as giving away marriage? And--the most pressing question of all--what is the point of defending marriage "in name only"? It is a serious question. It deserves an answer.

...When family scholars and marriage advocates speak of the benefits of marriage for men and women, for children, and for society, we are talking about the good things that happen when husbands and wives are joined in permanent, public, sexual, emotional, financial, and parenting unions. ...

By contrast, when gay-marriage advocates talk about the benefits of marriage, they are usually referring to a set of legal goodies--which they often argue account for the material advantages married families display. This focus on the "legal benefits" of marriage allows them to make one of their strongest arguments: Withholding legal benefits is a form of immoral discrimination. ...

Surprisingly, many supporters of marriage seem to agree with this framing of the matter, constructed by opponents of marriage: Marriage is a legal arrangement giving rise to legal "benefits." Therefore, giving same-sex couples the "benefits" is giving them marriage itself. ...

Do not mistake me: In the long run, I believe that creating legal alternatives to marriage is counterproductive and wrong. But civil unions are one unwise step down a path away from a marriage culture. Gay marriage is the end of the road.

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posted by Eve at 3:57 PM | link 0 comments

GOVERNMENT LOVE? David Blankenhorn

[from MarriageMovement.org:]

If it were really true, as [Gregg] Easterbrook says, that the core definition of marriage is "the expression of love," then humans almost certainly would never have created marriage as a social insitution in the first place, and there would be no marriage laws for us to argue about today.

Societies do not build social institutions to define "the expression of love." States have never, through legislatures and courts, declared a compelling state interest in "the expression of love." In order to figure out why we have marriage at all, you have to look to sexual embodiment, heterosexual intercourse, child bearing, and child rearing. I'm sorry if that sounds too earthy and too specific, compared to fluttery abstactions like "the expression of love." But if we care about what marriage is, we have to care about these things.

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posted by Eve at 3:47 PM | link 0 comments

MARRIAGEMOVEMENT.ORG has an absolutely enormous amount of SSM links and discussion right now, in case this site is not enough for you.
posted by Eve at 11:27 AM | link 0 comments

RESPONSES TO DAVID BROOKS

Some really interesting stuff here, replying to Brooks's pro-SSM New York Times piece:

Yale law professor Jack Balkin: "...Liberals have not been pushing gay rights as 'a really good employee benefits plan.' They have been pushing it as a civil rights issue, but that is because a central feature of equal citizenship is and should be the ability to solemnize one's most precious, intimate and long lasting commitment to another person through marriage. Slaves could be prohibited from marrying in the antebellum South. With freedom came basic rights of citizenship, which included the right to marry.

"...I reject his insinuation that if you love another person you must also want to marry them or else you don't really love them. Marriage is not for everyone. The notion that everyone must conform in lock step to the same set of social practices is the darker side of Brook's so-called conservative case for same-sex marriage, and it conflicts with the view of many conservatives (and liberals too, I might add) that individual choice about the most important matters in one's life should be respected." more

David Blankenhorn: "...But what exactly, apart from the idea that commitment is good, does Brooks say about marriage? Not a single word. For example, what about the idea that marriage, by bringing together into enduring sexual union the male and female of the species, makes it likely that a child will be raised by her mother and father? Not a word. In Brooks' ode to the power of marriage, children do not even exist." more

Peter Robinson: "...The view that men and women are profoundly different--distinct from one another in the very depths of their beings--is implicit in Genesis, finds support among the most profound minds the world has produced, including Augustine and Aquinas, and was so interwoven into the mores and habits of cultures around the world that until no more than a few decades ago it was everywhere taken for granted, a given aspect of reality. To dismiss this understanding of the sexes as mere 'biological determinism' betrays ignorance of one of the great themes of history. ...The legend of 'Beauty and the Beast' first appeared in print in the eighteenth-century, and it contains elements of 'Cupid and Psyche,' which was committed to writing in the second century. David is of course free to dismiss it. But first he needs to tell us why the legend of a man who was tamed and fulfilled by the love of woman has resonated for at least 19 centuries." more
posted by Eve at 11:27 AM | link 0 comments

DAVID BROOKS: CONSERVATIVE CASE FOR SSM?

Anybody who has several sexual partners in a year is committing spiritual suicide. He or she is ripping the veil from all that is private and delicate in oneself, and pulverizing it in an assembly line of selfish sensations.

But marriage is the opposite. Marriage joins two people in a sacred bond. It demands that they make an exclusive commitment to each other and thereby takes two discrete individuals and turns them into kin.

...You would think that faced with this marriage crisis, we conservatives would do everything in our power to move as many people as possible from the path of contingency to the path of fidelity. ...

...Some conservatives may have latched onto biological determinism (men are savages who need women to tame them) as a convenient way to oppose gay marriage. But in fact we are not animals whose lives are bounded by our flesh and by our gender. We're moral creatures with souls, endowed with the ability to make covenants, such as the one Ruth made with Naomi: "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried."

...We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage....

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posted by Eve at 11:19 AM | link 0 comments

GOODRIDGE LINK ROUNDUP OF THE MORNING:

Because of the enormous pile of stuff written about the Massachusetts decision over the weekend, today's blogging will likely be somewhat less orderly than usual. But I will do my best to sort wheat from chaff so you can get the best of the discussions without slogging through 500 variants on the same two op-eds.

Charlotte Allen in the LA Times: "There are reasons why formally and publicly recognized unions of men and women constitute the world's oldest and most enduring social institution. By keeping, or at least attempting to keep, sexual activity and procreation within the family, marriage fosters the stable emotional and financial conditions that are best for the raising of children; parents focus their energy and resources upon their offspring and each other. Marriage also protects women financially and emotionally after their years of childbearing and peak sexual attractiveness have passed. It creates powerful kinship networks that transcend personal feelings--witness 'The Sopranos'--and provides incentives for the accumulation and orderly transmission of property. ...

"...The decision also promises to widen the social fissure, mostly class-based, between those who still take marriage seriously and the professional and intellectual elite that believes the Massachusetts ruling is long overdue. (It is hardly coincidental that the 14 gay and lesbian plaintiffs who joined the suit all seemed to be lawyers, investment bankers, therapists and educators.)" more

Tamar Lewin in the New York Times: "A little bit married"? --roundup piece on alternate forms of marriage or marriage-lite, shifting historical views of marriage, etc etc. Nothing desperately new, but a decent everything-in-one-place piece.

Republican Governors Association pledges to support FMA.

Dalia Lithwick in Slate: "Here's my modest request: If you're going to be a crusader for the sanctity of marriage--if you really believe gay marriage will have some vast corrosive, viral impact on marriage as a whole--here's a brief list of other laws and policies far more dangerous to the institution. Go after these first, then pass your constitutional amendment...." more--Eve adds that this piece strikes me as much more point-scoring and cheap than challenging, but your mileage may vary....

Jacob Levy: "Yesterday I asked whether, according to the jurisprudential theories of those opposed to the Massachusetts marriage decision, it would be constitutional for a state to ban nonprocreative heterosexual marriages." He got several replies, including this one from Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review. You can find Levy's responses here.
posted by Eve at 11:16 AM | link 0 comments