CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRAINT: Matt Taylor replies to Mark Barton

On the MA civil union proposal, Mark Barton writes: "a near-majority of [anti-gay] legislators ... have voted for it--as a second choice. ... So the remaining issues are, did any significant number of the moderates have a genuinely neutral intent...?"

Matt T: In Mark's opinion, civil union is intended as a slap at gays, and he may be right, but this is a hunch, not a demonstrable fact. There exist good faith arguments for civil union that don't rely on anti-gay bias, therefore animus is not the only reasonable explanation for the proposal.

Mark B: "...the court found, I think correctly, that civil marriage didn't reflect any of the things that the state claimed were distinctive and important about traditional marriage..."

Matt T: Maybe the state made a poor argument in favor of the civil union proposal, but cases shouldn't be decided on the skill of each sides' lawyers. There are legitimate reasons to prefer civil union over SSM, whether or not the state made reference to those reasons.

Mark B: "...some people in the South got some really severe cognitive dissonance following Loving v. Virginia. Why should I even care? ... why should I be magnanimous? ... why should the [SJC] presume to be magnanimous on my behalf?"

Matt T: It's understandable that we would resent the majority straight culture which for so long has marginalized and oppressed gays. Yet dwelling on that resentment may be a barrier to greater acceptance. No straight person alive today invented anti-gay bias; they inherited it from prior generations, and for them to change their attitude requires effort on their part for which they see little reward. Anything gays can do to make straights' attitude change easier is ultimately in our own interest.
posted by Eve at 7:51 PM | link 0 comments

DOES HISTORY MATTER?: R.K. Becker replies to Mark Miller and Arturo Fernandez

Mark asks what I mean by "devastating." In a broad sense, by "devastating" I mean cultural collapse, which can take place in a number of different ways.

But I perceive a belief among many SSM proponents (though certainly not all) that the very idea of "cultural collapse" is merely a chimera; a meaningless scare tactic cooked up by anyone who is resistant to change. Human culture is resilient and malleable by any new thing that comes along. And even if there is such a thing as cultural collapse, it's not the worst thing in the world, certainly not like nuclear war or anything like that.

I'll be glad to give examples of what cultural collapse entails, but rather than do that now, I'll ask Mark what he thinks it entails. I know that he doesn't believe SSM will lead to it, but I'll save that argument for later. I'm just asking--does he believe there is such a thing as cultural collapse? And if so, what is it?

Mark asks me to give specifics as to how SSM might have such a devastating effect on culture. And I will examine some of the possibilities in a longer post shortly. But is he saying that if I do give him examples of some serious possible negative effects of SSM, he will then consider the idea of waiting to see what happens in countries that have already adopted it before advocating it be adopted everywhere? Or will his response be "Nothing but speculation. Prove it!" Well, nothing cause-and-effect related can be proved without a test, can it?

The inherent problem with Mark's approach to the whole issue of change and burden-of-proof is that it assumes we know so much more than we do.

Mark also argues: "One of the issues in this debate is *whether* same-sex marriage does indeed go against the universal definition of marriage. The reality is that it does not change the rules for opposite-sex partners in any way. It does allow for other relationships that were previously not legitimized by law to be included."

The problem, as I see it, is that it does more than just that. It doesn't just extend marriage, it androgynizes it. This does indeed change the rules, though not as much for those currently married as for those growing up in the future. If Gabriel Rosenberg is right (and I believe he is) that allowing sibling marriage would weaken or damage sibling relationships, by the same token couldn't SSM weaken or damage other very important cultural relationships, especially for the young? And I'm not talking just about business contacts as Gabriel was--that's where I believe he was wrong. More on this later.

Arturo Fernandez's argument is essentially that SSM should be adopted without a test period because 1) we know it's fair and right, and 2) because we are the first enlightened generation in human history, all previous ones being just stupid and bigoted. This generation-centric view of human history ignores not only the intelligence of past generations but also the great variation among cultures of the past in their attitudes toward homosexuality, with many quite tolerant or approving of it, yet none going so far as to androgynize the concept of marriage, at least not for any long-term period. Given the diversity of human cultures, this absence is puzzling indeed and suggests something more than such a simplistic explanation.
posted by Eve at 7:49 PM | link 0 comments

SSM AND PARENTING: Ben Bateman replies to Lucia Liljegren

Lucia Liljegren has commented on a thread that started with Gabriel Rosenberg's syllogism on SSM: Parents ought to be married. Gays are parents. Therefore gays ought to be married. I objected to the way he used the word "parents." My objection was confusing to him, so I attempted to clarify it. In his responses to me and Mary Catelli, he has started using the clearer term "adoptive parents," which I appreciate.

Lucia has proposed a revised version of the syllogism:

1 Parents who take on the legal responsibility to care and raise children ought to be married.

2 Some gays have taken on the legal responsibility to care for and raise children.

3 Therefore, some gays ought to be married.

In this much clearer revised form, I have two substantive objections to it:

First, it restricts gay marriage to those couples who have adopted the same child. That form of SSM would certainly be far less objectionable than what is being proposed, but I doubt that SSM supporters would agree with it. Mr. Rosenberg doesn't.

Second, the first premise is still ambiguous. It could mean either:

a) if two people jointly adopt a child and the law allows them to marry, then as a moral matter they should marry, or

b) the law should be changed to permit marriage among all those who jointly adopt the same child.

Option (a) is unobjectionable, but (b) produces some weird results. If marriage should be open to everyone who jointly adopts a child, then a single mother should be able to marry anyone who will help with the child's care and support: her sister, or her mother--or her brother! And if her sister, mother and brother are all willing to commit to raising the child, then the whole family should be able to marry as a group.

Encouraging people to commit to childraising isn't a bad idea. And perhaps there should be some legal recognition of a "joint committed childraiser" status. But that's not marriage.

Marriage is properly about procreation--the making of babies. A woman can't marry her sister or her mother because they can't produce a child together. She can't marry her brother because they shouldn't produce a child together. We limit marriage to two people because that's the minimum number our species needs to make a child. Marriage brings exclusivity: You can only marry one person at a time, and you're supposed to have sex only with that person. That way, the father can be confident that his wife's children are genetically his, and the mother can become pregnant knowing that she and her children will have his financial and emotional support during her pregnancy and while the children grow up.

But if we shift the point of marriage from procreation to childraising, then none of those features of marriage make any sense:

If the point of marriage is childraising, then we should prefer that single mothers marry their parents and siblings, as their genetic bond with the child may impel them to provide better care.

If the point of marriage is childraising, then we should encourage marriages of the largest groups possible. The more people who join in the marriage, the better collective job they'll do in caring and providing for the child.

If the point of marriage is childraising, then there is no reason for sexual fidelity. The child won't really care who is having sex with whom. And there is no reason to require one marriage at a time. Bill Gates could afford to adopt hundreds of children. If he chose to do that, why wouldn't he be entitled to marry the natural or adoptive parents of all those children?

Encouraging adults to commit the raising of children seems like a noble goal, and perhaps we should lobby our legislatures to better reward those who do it. But why call it marriage when it's so completely unlike what we've always understood marriage to be?
posted by Eve at 7:37 PM | link 0 comments

SSM AND PARENTING: David Barnes replies to Gabriel Rosenberg

Gabriel's Syllogism

(1) Parents ought to be married.
(2) Gays are parents.
(3) Therefore, gays ought to be married.

This is clearly a valid argument, because (3) follows from (1) and (2). However, I think that looking at the different uses of the term "parent" will lead people to reject (1).

(1) is not even obvious when you think that a "parent" is a biological parent, as Lucia pointed out here. "Parent" also cannot mean anyone who wants to care for a child. For example, if a father dies and the mother's mother moves in with her to care for her daughter's children, the grandmother and mother should not get married. I believe that is uncontroversial. Furthermore, sometimes a nanny will take on a lot of the childrearing duties. Should a nanny/live-in housekeeper marry a single mother? I think it's safe to say "no."

Therefore, unless you can find some way of explaining how a child's grandmother who lives with a single mother is not just as much a parent as a cohabitating boyfriend or girlfriend, then (1) is false. We can try to save Gabriel's syllogism and replace (1) with this:

(4) Parents who sleep together or plan to eventually sleep together ought be married.

However, I think that using (4) would be extremely difficult, because it's pretty close to saying "people who sleep together ought to be married" and I seriously doubt that most SSM supporters would endorse that principle.
posted by Eve at 7:34 PM | link 0 comments

SSM AND PARENTING: Mary Catelli replies to Lucia Liljegren

Lucia Liljegren offers: "'These critics would disagree with: "Genetic parents ought to be married to each other." They would agree only with: "Parents who take on the legal responsibility to raise and care for children ought to be married.'

"Imagine! Now, I find I do not agree my statement 1! I agree in a statistical sense. However, in some cases, I disagree vehemently. For instance, suppose a 14-year old-girl were to be raped and impregnated by an unmarried male neighbor. These two genetic parents ought not to be married to each other. I would, in fact, support laws forbidding the marriage of any 14 year old girl to anyone!"

Actually, let us amplify her first interpretation of "Parents ought to be married."

How about, "People who conceive children ought to be married"? This, of course, means, "People who are not married -- and especially those who ought not to get married -- should not conceive children." Whereupon one looks at her case, and sees it is not a counter-example to "Parents ought to be married," but an example of it. Raping and impregnating a fourteen-year-old is not just fine as long as the rapist and the victim don't marry. The act that conceived the child ought not to have happened. And a part of the crime he committed was fathering a child who must be provided for while being kept from him.

Lucia states that she supports laws forbidding the marriage of fourteen-year-olds. I would be a little surprised if she supported decreasing the age-of-consent laws simultaneously.

Because a homosexual couple can not, of course, conceive a child, this interpretation can not apply to them.

Which leads into Mr. Rosenberg, who states, "First, marriage make this legal responsibility automatic and immediate for children born into the marriage." Basic biology shows that children are not, in fact, born into any homosexual marriages. A person in such a union could use artificial reproductive techniques to conceive a child and, unlike someone married to a heterosexual, would have to use donor gametes, or could adopt. Which leads to three points.

First, "Gay people are parents" is not exactly "Homosexuals might, theoretically, use reproductive technologies or adopt."

Second, homosexuals in couples are not the only people who might, theoretically, use reproductive technologies or adopt. Literally anyone could. Should anyone who wishes to do that someday and would like to secure another parent now be permitted to marry?

In Anne of Green Gables, to offer a fictional example of a real-life happening, a brother and sister adopt Anne from an orphanage. Should siblings be allowed to marry on that grounds? Any siblings, not just those who intend to adopt right now.

In real life, the Shakers adopted children -- as a community, not as individuals. Should polygamous marriage be allowed on that grounds? After all, if one other parent is good, would not two, or three, or four be better? He informs us, "the child may benefit immensely by being covered by her parent's health insurance," and the more parents you have the less likely it is that none of them will have insurance. He also tells us of "its immense value in helping a family to raise children," and I have heard of an polygamously married woman telling that it is of immense value to her career, because her co-wives look after her children when she is too busy -- real-life nannies who will not walk away.

I should add that some homosexuals have formed foursomes, in which the men in one couple have donated sperm to inseminate the women in the other. Polygamous marriage may be the next demand.

Third, the children that Mr. Rosenberg later describes as "brought into the marriage" presuppose that heterosexuals will be irresponsible. Even gamete donation --sperm donors are not chiefly young men because their sperm contains fewer defects; it is also because young men do not think seriously about many things, from beer to cars to sperm donation. This is not a random jab; when sperm donors were surveyed decades, many who had grown up and, especially, married and fathered children, regarded their own actions as foolish. But artificial reproduction for homosexuals relies on men who will be willing to walk away, and women who will be willing to donate eggs and, as surrogates, carry the child to term (even if the egg donor and the surrogate are not the same woman, there must be both functions filled), and walk away.
posted by Eve at 7:31 PM | link 0 comments

MORE POLLAGE: SSM, CIVIL UNIONS, AND FMA

[Polling Company poll, commissioned by the Home Schoolers Legal Defense Association, of 800 registered voters. Lots of questions, including different versions of a federal marriage amendment.]

...Question: "Traditional marriage between a man and a woman should be protected because it is a cornerstone of our society." (PROBE: And do you strongly or only somewhat agree/disagree?)

81% TOTAL AGREE (NET)
69% STRONGLY AGREE
12% SOMEWHAT AGREE

16% TOTAL DISAGREE (NET)
6% SOMEWHAT DISAGREE
10% STRONGLY DISAGREE

2% DON'T KNOW/DEPENDS/UNSURE (VOLUNTEERED)
1% NEITHER (VOLUNTEERED)
* BOTH (VOLUNTEERED)
* REFUSED (VOLUNTEERED) ...

In fact, a majority of nearly every demographic and psychographic group was opposed to allowing same-sex marriage in their state, including unmarried people (61%), political Independents (59%), Democrats (57%), those who know gay people (64%), and Blacks (78%).

Remarkably, very few people (roughly 4%) volunteered that they are still undecided or ambivalent on this issue, and more than three-quarters of those who did respond (77%) held their opinion "strongly." ...

...Voters in the survey, however, were wary of the civil union "solution." When read descriptions of the California domestic partnership law and the Vermont civil union law, a majority of respondents said in each instance that they would not support the creation of such laws in their own state. ...

It appears that a fair amount of American voters intuit that the issue of marriage is of such commonality, if not importance, that within the current environment, it cannot be handled on a state-by-state basis. In fact, a majority of those surveyed (52%) believe the issue must be addressed at the national level, as opposed to 31% who feel that each state should be free to decide for its own citizenry. ...

A solid majority of voters currently support a federal marriage amendment that simply defines marriage in traditional terms (61% total support/35% total oppose). As demonstrated below, the intensity is remarkable. Twice the number of people strongly support FMA (54%) than strongly oppose it (26%).

more
posted by Eve at 5:48 PM | link 0 comments

REVIEW OF JONATHAN RAUCH'S NEW BOOK: Christopher Caldwell

...Some people may support same-sex marriage only as a roundabout means to recognition for gays. Not Rauch. Gay himself, he seeks it because he wants to get married, and thinks everyone should. His idea of marriage is old-school, even sentimental. (''I mean two souls bonded in each other's eyes and together clasped to their community's bosom.'') Of those gays who fear that marriage will force them to trade in a libertine lifestyle for a bourgeois heterosexual one, Rauch says, ''I believe that they are largely right, and that gay integration into the mainstream would be, on balance, a good thing.''

Marriage has a ''special power'' to bind people into communities and into other families, Rauch thinks. Its two primary purposes are settling young adults into a web of commitments and providing caregivers to the old and infirm. Since homosexuals can and do carry out the responsibilities of marriage, they deserve to accede to its rights. ...

So while traditionalists complain that marriage is embattled, and while gay activists complain that marriage is unfair, Rauch insists that marriage is embattled because it's unfair. When gays can marry, they will appear in a new light -- as allies, not interlopers; relations between gays and straights will improve, because what makes homosexuals appear most ''grotesque and threatening'' is not their sexual orientation but the outlawry against convention to which the unavailability of marriage consigns them. For Rauch, the best way to defend marriage is by letting gays in, not keeping them out. ...

And yet he commits an important error of emphasis, which is not fatal to his case for gay marriage but damages his case that gay marriage can be traditional marriage. It concerns the importance of childbearing. ''I hope I won't be accused of saying that children are a trivial reason for marriage,'' he says early in the book. ''They just cannot be the only reason.'' It is true that marriage has historically served many purposes. But alongside that of providing a nonanarchic context for producing children, they all look like moons against Jupiter. Rauch hates this argument. He finds it ''incoherent, incorrect and antimarriage.'' He is happy to speak of the welfare of children, but skirts the production of children, dismissing it as a ''sex-centered view.'' ...

... Traditional society never had any reason to marry gays, even in periods of relative tolerance, because it never had any need for homosexual sex. Nor does it today. What has happened to render gay marriage suddenly more logical is society's waning need for married people's sex. Sex, childbearing and childrearing -- which marriage once bound as tightly as an atomic nucleus -- have been disaggregated. This has happened partly through law (on divorce and adoption), partly through technology (contraception, abortion and artificial insemination), partly through convention (cohabitation) and partly through knowledge (on the innateness of homosexuality, for instance).

Rauch may have too high an opinion of the sort of marital club that would have gays as members. It seems unlikely that marriage could simultaneously be flexible enough to admit homosexuals and rigid enough to offer them the same protection and rights (and discipline) it offered heterosexuals in the old days. But it seems even less likely that, as Rauch hopes, the gay-marriage movement will be able to shore up an institution that has for decades been undermined legally, socially, medically, theologically, philosophically, psychologically and politically. Gays will soon accede to marriage, but only because marriage is losing its old set of purposes and is becoming, irrevocably, something else.

more
posted by Eve at 5:37 PM | link 0 comments

NEW POLL ON SSM, GAY RIGHTS: From the Associated Press

Most Americans oppose gay marriage and many believe homosexuality is "against God's will" but otherwise consider themselves tolerant of gays, according to a Los Angeles Times poll published Saturday.

By a margin of 55 to 41 percent, those surveyed agreed with the statement that "if gays are allowed to marry, the institution of marriage will be degraded." About half favored a U.S. constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman, while 42 percent were opposed, according to the poll published on the newspaper's Web site. ...

Only about a quarter of those polled felt that homosexuals should be allowed to legally marry, although another 38 percent believed they should be allowed to form civil unions. About a third said that neither type of union should be permitted.

While about six in 10 people felt that homosexual relationships are "against God's will," a similar percentage felt that legal recognition of same-sex marriages was inevitable.

At 42 percent each, people were split over whether, in general, they approved or disapproved of homosexual rights. At the same time, 72 percent favored laws to protect gays against job discrimination and 74 percent favored protections against housing discrimination. ...

On the other hand, six in 10 said they would be upset to learn their child was gay.

About six in 10 also felt that a gay person can be a good role model for a child, but people were split over whether they would permit a homosexual to baby-sit and more than half opposed allowing gay couples to adopt. ...

The telephone poll of 1,616 adults was conducted from March 27-30. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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posted by Eve at 5:32 PM | link 0 comments

RECALL EFFORT IN SAN JOSE: From the San Jose Mercury News

Bowing to a new political reality, San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales said Friday that he is taking ''very seriously'' a possible recall attempt spurred by his support of same-sex marriage rights, and is prepared to meet the challenge head-on. ...

Gonzales cast the possible recall effort as a narrow referendum on the city council's March decision to extend benefits to same-sex couples who work for the city and were married elsewhere.

Recall proponents, however, contend their fledgling campaign is being constructed on a much broader political foundation.

''It's always been about more than same-sex,'' said former San Jose Councilman Larry Pegram, who is helping organize the recall effort. ''Frankly, people are trying to characterize it as a one-issue deal, but that's not the case -- same sex was the catalyst.''

Recall supporters have opened a Santa Teresa headquarters and have raised more than $40,000 in contributions, Pegram said. The group has hired GOP political consultant Sal Russo, who helped drum up support for the Davis recall. ...

To recall Gonzales, organizers would have to serve a written notice of intent. They then would have 160 days to collect about 46,000 signatures -- or 12 percent of the city's 382,494 registered voters -- to qualify the recall for the ballot. ...

Political consultants and some council members said that with faith-based, grass-roots support, it's possible that recall proponents could gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.

''There's a strong current out there,'' said Councilman Forrest Williams, whose South San Jose district encompasses several so-called ''mega-churches'' with several thousand members each.

On Sunday, about 2,000 Evangelical Christians gathered at a South San Jose church to rally against the same-sex decision, and a larger demonstration is being planned for later this month. The city's decision to recognize same-sex marriage has affected only one city employee so far, but religious leaders say the move struck at the definition of marriage and has affected every city resident.

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posted by Eve at 5:30 PM | link 0 comments

STUFF TO DO IN D.C.: Jonathan Rauch et al.

1) DATE: April 15, 2004

ORGANIZATION: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) holds a discussion on "Should Conservatives Favor Same-Sex Marriage?"

TIME: 3 p.m.

LOCATION: AEI, 1150 17th Street NW, Wohlstetter Conference Center, 12th Floor, Washington, D.C.

CONTACT: Veronique Rodman, 202-862-4871; e-mail, vrodman@aei.org; http://www.aei.org

PARTICIPANTS: Jonathan Rauch, National Journal; Michael Novak, Charles Murray and Christopher DeMuth, AEI

TYPE: Discussion

2) DATE: April 15, 2004

ORGANIZATION: Politics and Prose Bookstore holds a book discussion on "Gay Marriage."

TIME: 7 p.m.

LOCATION: Politics and Prose Bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.

CONTACT: 202-364-1919, books@politics-prose.com, or http://www.politics-prose.com

PARTICIPANTS: Jonathan Rauch, National Journal and author

TYPE: Book discussion
posted by Eve at 12:21 AM | link 0 comments

CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRAINT: Mark Barton replies to Matt Taylor

Matt Taylor: "But as I already said, someone who doesn't want gays to have prestige (Family Research Council et al.) is most likely against civil union too."

Mark B.: And as I believe I allowed, I'm sure they would vote against it--as a first choice. At the same time, it appears that in Massachusetts, a near-majority of legislators of that mindset have voted for it--as a second choice. The fact that they'd have preferred something even more punitive doesn't subtract from their contribution to the "intent" of the legislature being strongly deprecatory--it adds to it. So the remaining issues are, did any significant number of the moderates have a genuinely neutral intent, and how neutral (or positive) would it have to have been cancel the large initial negative? I suggest the answers are, respectively, hardly any and quite a lot.

Taylor: "A more likely reason to prefer 'civil union' is simply that a committed same-sex relationship and a straight marriage aren't the same thing."

Mark B.: But the court found, I think correctly, that civil marriage didn't reflect any of the things that the state claimed were distinctive and important about traditional marriage. If nobody took the differences seriously enough to implement in the substance before there was a challenge, why should we suddenly start taking them seriously now that there's a last-ditch effort to at least keep the name?

Taylor: "For many people (especially straights) the term 'gay marriage' creates cognitive dissonance, since they are so used to taking for granted that 'marriage' means a male-female union."

Mark B.: I'm sure it does. I'm equally sure that some people in the South got some really severe cognitive dissonance following Loving v. Virginia. Why should I even care? To the extent I care, why should I be magnanimous? And to the extent I'm magnanimous for myself, why should the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court presume to be magnanimous on my behalf?
posted by Eve at 11:32 AM | link 0 comments

SSM AND PARENTING: Lucia Liljegren

Recently, we have seen complaints that Gabriel Rosenberg's syllogism regarding gay marriage is logically flawed and lacks clarity. I am writing to suggest two possible alternative syllogisms.

Here is Gabriel's syllogism: 1 Parents ought to be married.
2 Gays are parents.
3 Therefore, gays ought to be married.

The syllogism has obviously upset those who oppose SSM.

It is my impression that those opposed to gay marriage might prefer the following, aka "Lucia's syllogism": 1 Parents ought to marry.
2 If gays marry, the fraction of fertile heterosexual couples who copulate outside marriage will increase. Some will procreate. Because gay marriage is legal, some fraction of these couples who might otherwise have married will not marry. So it is a "fact" that legal gay marriage will prevent the marriage of some genetic parents to each other.
3 Therefore, gay marriage ought to be prohibited.

Many supporters and opponents of SSM agree with my major premise, #1, in some sense. However, many supporters of SSM would deny my minor premise, #2; the existence of legal gay marriage will not inhibit the marriage of any genetic parents.

The other criticism might be that I snuck the adjective "genetic" and inserted the words "to each other" into statement #2, thus narrowing the definition.

These critics would disagree with: "Genetic parents ought to be married to each other." They would agree only with: "Parents who take on the legal responsibility to raise and care for children ought to be married."

Imagine! Now, I find I do not agree my statement 1! I agree in a statistical sense. However, in some cases, I disagree vehemently. For instance, suppose a 14-year old-girl were to be raped and impregnated by an unmarried male neighbor. These two genetic parents ought not to be married to each other. I would, in fact, support laws forbidding the marriage of any 14 year old girl to anyone!

Let me now examine the statement my pro-SSM critics tell me they thought I meant: "Parents who raise children ought to be married." I always agree with this! (However, to be clear, I mean "ought to" in the sense of "are advised to.")

Having evaluated "Lucia's syllogism," I conclude that it is pitifully flawed.

May I suggest this revision to Gabriel Rosenberg's syllogism, which unfortunately, lacks the brevity of the original:

1 Parents who take on the legal responsibility to care and raise children ought to be married.
2 Some gays have taken on the legal responsibility to care for and raise children.
3 Therefore, some gays ought to be married.
posted by Eve at 11:24 AM | link 0 comments

PARENTS AND PROCREATORS: Mark Barton replies to Mary Catelli

Mary Catelli: "The current treatment of heterosexual vs. homosexual couples is indeed rather broadbrush. That is not proof that it should not be made. Consider three men, all twenty when World War II broke out. [...] This is because the effort of sorting out the deserving vs. the undeserving -- once you've defined who is who -- would be many times the cost of providing for all veterans, but the effort of sorting out the veterans from the non-veterans is much simpler."

Mark B.: Certainly it can be defensible to adopt a crude but bureaucratically practical criterion over a fairer but impractical one. However the case of veterans benefits is not a good example of this principle, or a good analogy to the case of SSM. The problem is that veterans benefits are only partly a reward for serving. As much or more, they're an inducement to enlist. All enlistees are making the same dangerous gamble: they may get a cushy desk job, but they may get sent to the most dangerous of combat zones and they have little or no choice in the matter. If enlistees got to unilaterally opt out of that risk, one wouldn't be so generous with the benefits in retirement of those who did.

According to statistics, of order 40% of couples are childless, and at a guess, probably half are readily identifiable as permanently so, either through lack of interest or fertility. If marriage is such a costly reward in terms of resources or symbolism that it's worth amending the constitution to avoid wasting it on the 3-5% of couples who will never be breeding pairs because they're same-sex, it smacks of hypocrisy (not to mention homophobia) not to be lifting a finger against a rather larger population of almost as readily identifiable non-breeding couples.

And of course, the above allows for the sake of argument that marriage is a reward for being a breeding pair, but that's not true either. Nobody in their right mind thinks things like (it's hard to find a non-ridiculous example), "It would be good to be able to visit someone in the hospital, let me go and marry someone, so I can visit them." Rather they think things like "It would be good to be able to visit N. in the hospital...", where N. is their particular, already chosen, significant other. Marriage used to be a reward because people would think, "It would be good to have sex; let me go and marry someone, so I can have sex with them." As I was suggesting, I'm coming more and more to suspect that whether it's consciously articulated or not, Elizabeth and others are necessarily more for stigmatizing the sexually active unmarried than for rewarding the married. To the extent the problem they see with SSM is really that it somehow gets in the way of punishing the unmarried, they might want to have a go at formulating the argument explicitly in those terms because it's falling between two stools at the moment.
posted by Eve at 11:14 AM | link 0 comments

DOES HISTORY MATTER?: Arturo Fernandez replies to R.K. Becker

R.K. Becker writes that the idea of marriage between opposite sexes is universal over all time and all cultures. The reason for that is that in every
culture in history those attracted to the opposite sex have been a vast majority of the population. How can a tiny minority, two percent (let's say), contend with
what 98 percent of the population decides? Until today, when we've learned to respect individual freedom and minority rights, it's been impossible. One of the things that 98 percent of males can do is, well, whatever they want, including denying rights to those they feel don't meet their standard of masculinity.

Becker says he agrees that culture is complex but states that "a complex system depends on all its component parts." One of the parts that have contributed to the "traditional" idea of marriage is prejudice. That is a part that is not needed. A good marriage doesn't depend on it, because it's a merely a product of a vast majority's "natural" tendency to discriminate against a small minority, in this case a tendency to discriminate that evolves from heterosexuals' insecurities about themselves. That is why waiting 30 years is no good. It's discrimination now.
posted by Eve at 11:02 AM | link 0 comments

STRUCTURING THE DISCUSSION: Ben Bateman replies to Gabriel Rosenberg

Mr. Rosenberg asks several interesting questions in responding to me and points out several important areas I did not discuss. In this post I'd like to address a more important topic: the structure of the SSM discussion itself.

In discussing SSM here and elsewhere, I've been amazed at how far apart the two sides are. A hypothetical contributor (let's call him Ted) might say "X and Y, therefore SSM." (Or not-SSM. It doesn't matter for this discussion.) Ted thinks about X and Y quite a lot, and he is thoroughly convinced of their truth. In fact, he doesn't see how any reasonable person could dispute the truth of X and Y. So he assumes X and Y in his post, and then explains why they combine to support his view on SSM.

What Ted doesn't expect is that those on the other side don't agree with X or Y as premises, and certain aren't interested in whether they combine to form some SSM conclusion. The other side may not even understand what Ted means by X and Y, because he didn't take the time to explain them, or didn't have room to do so. Or the other side may interpret X and Y to mean something completely different from what Ted intended. In any case, confusion results. After Ted's post has been read and responded to, the two sides are just as far apart as before--perhaps even farther.

Ted's mistake is in trying to end each argument with a direct conclusion about SSM. The sides are too far apart for that. They don't share enough premises. Instead of trying to convince the other side on SSM generally, Ted's time would be better spent trying to convince the other side of the premises X and Y, or even discussing the vocabulary and sub-premises that go into demonstrating the truth of X and Y. He should move backwards this way to smaller premises and more basic definitions until he finds common ground with the other side, and then build up from there. He should focus on small areas of agreement, rather than large areas of disagreement.

So I suggest that we put the big SSM issue to one side for now. We know we disagree on that. Let's look at smaller related questions on which we might agree, or at least understand each other.

In the current conversation, I think we've agreed that the word "parents" has two possible meanings: genetic parents and upbringing parents. I've also proposed a distinction between the single-mother Fantine situation and the egg or sperm donor situation. In both cases, Mr. Rosenberg isn't sure what the purpose of such a distinction is, but perhaps we've agreed that one could draw such a distinction, and he is aware now that I consider it important.

We may also agree that in general genetic parents should marry before they produce children, though that may require further discussion in egg/sperm donor situations.

If we keep building sub-premises and clarifying definitions like this, if we strive for small agreements rather than repeating large disagreements, then we may actually accomplish something in the SSM debate.
posted by Eve at 11:00 AM | link 0 comments

MORE ON PARENTS AND ADOPTION: Gabriel Rosenberg

A syllogism I proposed here has sparked an ongoing discussion over whether aoptive parents are parents in the sense that "parents ought to be married". If the answer is "yes", then my syllogism "Parents ought to be married; Gays are parents; Gays ought to be married." holds. ... The latest response in this discussion came from Mary Catelli at MarriageDebate.com. ...

Unlike the previous paragraph, in this one Ms. Catelli does seem to acknowledge here that adoption does make some difference, just not enough to justify marriage. Her reason is that the marriage itself does not secure any responsibility towards the child that adoption does not already secure. This misses two important points, though. First, marriage make this legal responsibillity automatic and immediate for children born into the marriage. In addition to saving parents thousands of dollars in adoption fees that could better be spent on the child's health and education, the immediacy can be extremely important for the child in those early critical months. To give just one example, the child may benefit immensely by being covered by her parent's health insurance. More importantly, marriage does much more than just establish the legal responsibiliities of a parent. If that were the only benefit of marriage to children, it wouldn't matter if parents remained married. Once paterninty was established the marriage would have served "its purpose". This view of marriage ignores its immense value in helping a family to raise children. And of course, if marriage only mattered for children it wouldn't matter if a couple without children--or whose children were raised--remained married.

So no, I wouldn't require someone in a same-sex couple to adopt their stepchildren as a condition of marriage, just as we don't require this of oppoiste-sex couples. I would expect that both parents would take legal responsiblity for any children brought into the marriage, though. And as we have seen, a same-sex couple does not necessarily consist of a parent and stepparent. So I respectfully submit that my argument does indeed still stand.

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posted by Eve at 10:41 AM | link 0 comments

GAY COUPLES SUE NY: From Reuters

Thirteen same-sex couples sued New York State on Wednesday for the right to obtain marriage licenses, opening another front in the politically charged battle over gay marriage during a U.S. presidential election year.

Denying marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples "deprives us of due process and equal protection" under the New York state constitution, said state Assemblyman Daniel J. O'Donnell, a Manhattan Democrat who is the brother of comedian Rosie O'Donnell. ...

New York has a domestic partner law that grants some rights to same-sex couples, but they lack "more than 700" rights married couples enjoy, according to the complaint filed at the state Supreme Court in Albany by the American Civil Liberties Union and its New York chapter.

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posted by Eve at 3:24 AM | link 0 comments

KIDS RAISED BY SAME-SEX COUPLES SAY SSM WOULD MAKE THEIR FAMILIES OFFICIAL: From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Like many children of divorce, Erin and Muriel have a mom and a stepmother.

But in their case, the two women live together.

"I think it's cool," says bubbly fifth-grader Erin. "There's always a mom there." ...

Patrick Fitzhugh, whose parents divorced when he was very young, feels lucky that he was rarely teased as a child for being raised by two lesbians. Yet, he said he always felt that people viewed his family as incomplete because his mom and her partner of 15 years weren't married.

"Without the marriage, you're not understood in society to have a family that loves one another completely," said the Kansas State University sophomore.

Fitzhugh, 21, said he didn't realize how deeply he cared about what other people thought until his mother's marriage ceremony two weeks ago at a very public event in Kirkwood. That the marriage is not considered legal in Missouri makes no difference to Fitzhugh, who has waited nearly all his life for such an event.

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posted by Eve at 3:22 AM | link 0 comments

POLYAMORY LINKS AT FAMILY SCHOLARS BLOG

Unitarians

parenting

Unitarians again
posted by Eve at 3:19 AM | link 0 comments

"CIVIL UNIONS FOR ALL, MARRIAGE FOR NONE" BILL TO BE INTRODUCED IN NY ASSEMBLY: From the Gay City News

Civil marriage in New York would be abolished, and replaced by civil unions for all, whether gay or straight couples, under a bill to be introduced shortly by New York Assembymember Deborah Glick (D-Greenwich Village).

Some advocates working for marriage equality are troubled by the measure and call it "confusing." Others, however, see it as just one more option for protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered families.

"Marriage comes with a whole lot of baggage and has a negative history for women in particular," said Glick, the first out gay or lesbian person elected to the New York State Legislature (in 1991). ...

Glick said many of her friends "don't want to ape a heterosexual cultural model, but they want the rights and responsibilities." She also said she is concerned that "the line is being blurred between church and state" in the current debate over same-sex marriage. Religious agents would play no role in legalizing civil unions under her bill, but could continue to perform religious marriages for their congregants as they always have. At present, certified religious leaders are among those who can marry couples after they have obtained a license from the state. Some couples just have civil marriage ceremonies.

Glick's bill would go through the domestic relations law, striking the word "marriage," and substituting "civil union" in every instance. If passed, it would be the only option for same-sex and straight couples to unite.

"To some extent," she said, "it is a little bit more radical" than fighting for same-sex marriage, "telling the straight community that the state is going to get out of marriage and into civil unions."

Glick's proposal is not novel and has been floated by newspaper columnists and activists around the country. But she is the first legislator in the nation to introduce such a measure. ...

As radical as Glick's proposal may sound, those who obtain civil unions will be bound by all the rights and responsibilities currently in the marriage law. Is it just a change in the name?

"Lots of things start in one place," she said. "It eliminates the religious connotations in the law. Lots of things we do legally in legislation have other ramifications that take time to percolate."

Doesn't it continue to privilege couples over singles?

"Some suggest that," she said. "I'm approaching it from the point of view that same-sex couples are disadvantaged in a number of ways."

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posted by Eve at 2:12 AM | link 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIAGE BE A SOCIAL NORM?: Rob Hunter

Tuesday at the Union, authors Jonathan Rauch and Maggie Gallagher squared off in an exchange that mirrored what will likely be one of the defining national debates of our time.

Rauch, a journalist, prominent free-speech advocate and proponent of gay marriage, is the author of books ("Kindly Inquisitors" and "Gay Marriage") on both topics and is an opinion writer for the National Journal. In supporting gay marriage he has not been shy about his belief that "same-sex marriage [would] work for gay and straight Americans alike."

Gallagher, the president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and co-author of "The Case for Marriage," is a leading opponent of gay marriage and maintains the Web site www.marriagedebate.com.

The debate was surprisingly cordial, informed and cogent. Both debaters acquitted themselves admirably in front of a packed house, particularly Gallagher, who faced a largely unsympathetic audience. Nevertheless, both of them were wrong, which is particularly unfortunate given that their impassioned but reasoned exchange was probably the best serious discussion of marriage policy we'll hear in Madison for some time. ...

Both speakers did agree on one main area, though: Rauch stated that states should be allowed to take their own stands on gay marriage where they see fit, whereas Gallagher stressed resisting what she characterized as a concerted effort by "legal elites" (the federal courts) to foist gay marriage upon America -- but in essence, they both agreed that marriage is a social norm that should be reinforced through acts of legislation.

And this is where both of them got it wrong. To suggest that marriage is a social norm that should send "messages" to couples about desirable behavior implies that Americans as lovers and families are unable to make family decisions on their own. The central question in the gay-marriage debate is not how government should determine the nature of committed relationships but whether the government will extend the same liberties, responsibilities and privileges to one class of citizens that another already receives. It is in the spirit of civil rights (and responsibilities) that we should extend the right to marry to same-sex couples, and not in the spirit of incremental change proposed by Rauch, in which states adopt same-sex marriage in order to strengthen a norm.

We should recognize the commitment of same-sex couples by celebrating their freedom to choose that commitment, rather than adopt same-sex marriage through the logic of social coercion. True advancement for the cause of gay marriage should come about through a broad consensus for the recognition of the rights of same-sex couples, and not the piecemeal implementation of norm-strengthening legislation.

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posted by Eve at 2:06 AM | link 0 comments

SSM DEBATE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: From the University of Wisconsin Badger Herald

...Jonathan Rauch, author of "Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights and Good for America," spoke on behalf of same-sex-marriage proponents. He argued prohibiting gays from marriage excludes them from fully participating in the cultural norm of adulthood that links sex, love and commitment into a formal, societal institution.

"My name is Jonathan Rauch, and it is illegal for me to marry anyone I love," he said, telling the audience it is a "scalding deprivation" for him, and for the nine to 15 million other gay Americans, to be kept from marrying. ...

Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, presented the other side of the debate.

"Marriage is about giving children mothers and fathers," she said. "This is not about homosexuality. This is about marriage."

In particular, she focused on the prevalence of "fatherlessness" as a reason why alternative families in any form are detrimental to families and children.

"I think lesbian mothers can be very good mothers," Gallagher said. "I don't think they can be fathers for their children."

Although she acknowledged the high regard many gay couples have for marriage and family, Gallagher said society must keep traditional marriage intact because it serves as the basic social institution, linking mothers and fathers together for the sake of their children. ...

Rauch, however, argued that allowing same-sex couples, several thousand of which are parents, to marry could never be construed as an attack on marriage.

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posted by Eve at 2:04 AM | link 0 comments

SAME-SEX CUSTODY CASE IS DECIDED: From the Portland Press-Herald

[You can read the court decision here.]

A gay woman from Freeport is a "de facto parent" of her former partner's biological child and has full parental rights and responsibilities, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court decided Tuesday.

The court ruled that "adults who have fully and completely undertaken a permanent, unequivocal, committed and responsible parental role in the child's life" can in some cases be recognized as legal parents, regardless of their sexual orientation or family relationship.

Their role in raising children can last, the court said, even if the adults' relationship ends. ...

[The decision] puts Maine in a small group of states whose courts recognize a bond between an adult and a child that does not result from a biological relationship or legal adoption. ...

According to the decision, the two women started living together in 1992 and agreed that C.E.W.'s partner would conceive a child through artificial insemination.

The women took each other's last names and signed a joint parenting agreement. The boy was born in 1994.

In February 1999, the couple separated when the biological mother left their home. They signed a second parenting agreement sharing the parental costs and decisions, and agreed that the boy's primary residence and visitations would be determined by the courts.

In November 2000, the biological mother filed a complaint in Superior Court arguing that C.E.W. should not be considered a parent. ...

A group of professional organizations and child welfare providers, including the Maine Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers and the Maine Children's Alliance, filed a brief in support of C.E.W.

They said research showed that children in families with a non-biological parent form the same kind of bonds they have with a birth parent.

"Families with same-sex parents function virtually identically to families with opposite sex parents," the brief said. "Children of same-sex parents fare as well as children of heterosexual parents in mental health, psychological and social adjustment, and all other measures of adjustment and well-being."

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posted by Eve at 2:00 AM | link 0 comments

OKLA. AGREES TO ISSUE JOINT-ADOPTION BIRTH CERTIFICATE: From 365Gay.com

Two-year-old Vivian is like most kids her age, curious, active and loving. That love is directed at her two dads. The tot has lived with her parents, Gregory Hampel and Edmund Swaya, in Seattle, Washington since shortly after she was born in Oklahoma.

To ensure Vivian is cared for properly should anything happen to either of her dads, Hampel and Swaya requested a vital birth record showing the couple as joint parents. Despite a legal direction which permits co-adoption the Oklahoma Health Department refused.

After nearly two years in a legal tug of war, Hampel and Swaya turned to Lambda Legal which today released a letter to the department urging it to follow the law. "The Health Department does not have authority to decide who gets a birth certificate or who is a legal parent," said Brian Chase, Staff Attorney for Lambda Legal.

Within hours the department said it had begun issuing the birth certificates to same-gender couples in other states who adopt children in Oklahoma. "Because same-sex adoption is illegal in Oklahoma, we were uncertain how to address an out-of-state adoption," said Timothy Tardibono, assistant general counsel for the Health Department.

But that is disputed by Lambda Legal, which points to an advisory issued by Oklahoma State Attorney General, W.A. Drew Edmonson, at the request of the former health commissioner. The advisory states that under the federal Constitution and Oklahoma laws, the state is required to issue accurate birth certificates for children legally adopted outside of Oklahoma including to children adopted by same-sex couples.

Tardibono said because the format used for birth certificates has not been changed, the document will list Hampel as the father and Swaya as the mother.
But the decision has upset some Republican lawmakers. Rep. Thad Balkman (R-Norman) said he is working on legislation to block same-sex couples from jointly adopting.

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posted by Eve at 4:06 PM | link 0 comments

RAMESH, MAGGIE, HATCH, FMA: Ramesh Ponnuru replies

It is very hard to debate someone who persists in making comments such as the following: "I think (Ramesh disagrees) that if marriage really is a key social institution, defining it in the Constitution is no more anomalous than the many property guarantees, and the guarantee of democratic government, already in the document. (Ramesh must be one of the few Constitutional observers not to see property and other economic guarantees in the Constitution)."

I have never said that it would be "anomalous," or in any way improper, to define marriage in the Constitution. I have never said word one about the existence of economic guarantees in the Constitution (unless Gallagher is counting one column last year on the abuse of eminent-domain powers). The rest of her attempted refutation of me is similarly off-point. I'm open to the idea that my arguments are incorrect. But that has to be demonstrated through attention to the arguments I've actually made, not ones of Gallagher's imagining.

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posted by Eve at 3:59 PM | link 0 comments

"TAKING AWAY RIGHTS": Mark Barton replies to David Benkof

David Benkof: 1) SSM isn't a "right," it's a redefinition of an institution in society.

Mark B.: It could easily be both. In Massachussetts SSM was found to be a radical change from tradition and a right by the institution whose job it was to make such findings. The Georgia legislature apparently feared that it might be found to be a right in Georgia or it wouldn't have acted.

David Benkof: 2) Even if there was a such thing as a right to marry a same-sex partner, the Georgia constitutional amendment wouldn't be taking it away from any Georgians because that state has never had SSM.

Mark B.: Even if people had been successfully intimidated from attempting to exercise it by unconstitutional acts of the Georgia legislature that purported to make marriage opposite-sex only, it could still have been a right.

David Benkof: 4) If Smyre indeed supports keeping the present definition of marriage, what does he propose to do if not amend state and federal constitutions?

Mark B.: Very possibly he proposes to do nothing. He's probably for bringing murderers to justice as well, but against amending the constitution to allow police to torture suspects, even though that would undoubtedly lead to more well-deserved convictions. Sometimes one principle trumps another.

David Benkof: The gay community's leadership made a tactical decision in the mid-1990s (and there were dissenters) to sue for marriage through the courts. They knew at the time (I know, because I was there) that they were risking a constitutional amendment if they lost. This is how the game is played, you can't cry "unfair" halfway through.

Mark B.: If this is just a big game of political chess then of course it's not unfair. A supreme court challenge is one perfectly legal gambit--a constitutional amendment is another. But this is about people. Gay and lesbian people can't get government facilitation of their relationships of the sort that's taken for granted by the majority. That's transparently unfair, not only according to common sense but according to high-sounding principles that people have seen fit to write into constitutions and that many courts have upheld. Not all the tradition and all the sincere religious conviction in the world can make it fair.
posted by Eve at 3:10 PM | link 0 comments

CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRAINT: Matt Taylor replies to Mark Barton

Mark Barton writes: "If an explicit attempt to lower the prestige of civil unions without changing the substance is actionable, so surely is a thinly disguised intent to lower them without changing the substance....the only alternative possibility I can see is that it's just terminological variation for precision's sake"

Some people may prefer the term "civil union" to "same-sex marriage" because they believe it implies less prestige. But as I already said, someone who doesn't want gays to have prestige (Family Research Council et al.) is most likely against civil union too.

A more likely reason to prefer "civil union" is simply that a committed same-sex relationship and a straight marriage aren't the same thing. That doesn't mean one is better than the other; they're just different, and for some it makes sense to call them different things. For many people (especially straights) the term "gay marriage" creates cognitive dissonance, since they are so used to taking for granted that "marriage" means a male-female union.

Admittedly, this cognitive dissonance is a temporary phenomenon. Even if civil union laws stay on the books indefinitely, people will likely start using the same words for same-sex and opposite-sex couples as they learn that the similarities outnumber the differences, at which point this discussion will be moot.
posted by Eve at 3:06 PM | link 0 comments

DOES HISTORY MATTER?: Mark Miller replies to R.K. Becker

R.K. Becker accuses me of dismissing the possibility of the devastating effect same-sex marriage could cause.

To an extent, he is correct.

So I will ask him to clarify what he means by "devastating." What are the potential effects of same-sex marriage that would result in the poisoning of or the collapse of our culture?

My argument is that while I can understand concerns over the advent of same-sex marriage, I do not understand how it is "something which aims directly at the root or foundation of a universal institution." One of the issues in this debate is *whether* same-sex marriage does indeed go against the universal definition of marriage. The reality is that it does not change the rules for opposite-sex partners in any way. It does allow for other relationships that were previously not legitimized by law to be included. As I've said, there is a legitimate debate about whether this inclusion is appropriate and also whether this inclusion should fall under the word 'marriage' or some other term.

Yet I believe in order for R.K. to use the what I call the 'sky-is-falling' argument--that same-sex marriage may result in devastating, poisonous, or the total ollapse of culture--then I'd like to hear some specifics on that harm done since that is a rather serious accusation.

R.K. writes: "And I'm sorry if you think that my saying that means that there's 'no use even furthering the debate.'"

My exact quote was, "but if you believe that same-sex marriage may have the same effect as injecting a possible poison in the air then there is no use even furthering the debate." I stand by it. But I can be clearer. Are you arguing that allowing same-sex marriage to the citizens of a town may be just as harmful as dropping a nuclear bomb on the town?

R.K. wrote: "But, again, I am willing to 'test' SSM in the Netherlands over the next thirty years. (I expected some to argue that that is simply too long, surprised no one did). Other than 'because we can't wait' and 'did you advocate the same for racial integration, etc.?', what's the argument against this?"

The argument against that is .... why should we? What is the value of holding off on an appropriate legal and civil right? I'm not asserting that same-sex marriage is that. But if you want to say that a long-term test is necessary, then you must explain what specific adverse outcomes you are fearful of. All I've heard up to now is assertions that same-sex marriage WILL devastate the institution. I have heard few specifics on how that would occur.
posted by Eve at 3:05 PM | link 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN: Michael Sierk replies to Mark Barton

[Michael Sierk is a postdoctoral researcher in biochemistry at the University of Virginia.]

It seems to me that Mark Barton is granting the premise of Stanley Kurtz's
argument in his piece on marriage in Scandinavia when he says, "What is [Elizabeth Marquardt's] talk about making marriage a 'norm' if not a hankering for social if not legal pressure to get married? And if I thought she had the slightest hope of success at making marriage back into a licence to have sex, I'm sure I'd be glad to be excluded. As it happens, I'm asking for marriage as it actually is, in 2004, not as Elizabeth would like it to be."

That is, that gay marriage would not be possible if the connections between sex, childrearing, and marriage had not been significantly weakened already. That being the case, all of Barton's detailed arguments about how same-sex couples are really the same as opposite-sex ones notwithstanding, it seems that it is inevitable that gay marriage can only further weaken those connections. At best it could have minimal effect, but there is no way that it could actually strengthen them, as some claim.
posted by Eve at 2:58 PM | link 0 comments

PARENTS AND PROCREATORS: Mary Catelli replies to Gabriel Rosenberg

Gabriel Rosenberg writes, "Actually, I did use the word 'parent' to denote someone with responsibilities toward a child. I do not mean someone who is having sexual intercourse with a genetic or adoptive parent. I have no idea what gave Ms. Catelli this idea."

I got the idea from the fact that his statement "Gay people are parents" is unintelligible without it. His claim that there is a difference between one's gay lover and one's nanny does not hold water. He claims "The differences are enormous, but perhaps the most significant is that either can walk away at will. A parent cannot (legally and/or ethically) just walk away from a child." -- but so too can one walk away from one's (heterosexual or homosexual) lover's children or, for that matter, one's stepchildren.

Rosenberg: "Perhaps she does not realize that in many same-sex couples both spouses have the same legal (and moral) responsibility to the child."

I do not think that adoption changes the matter so enormously as to justify marriage -- particularly as marriage does not secure any legal responsibilty toward the child. What is needed is adoption, which is not required by marriage. I doubt Mr. Rosenberg would require all homosexual couples to agree to adopt each other's children as a condition of marriage, which is the only way his "Gay people are parents" argument for marriage would stand on its own.
posted by Eve at 12:05 PM | link 0 comments

DOES HISTORY MATTER?: R.K. Becker replies to Mark Miller

Mark Miller interprets my argument as that "the possible effects of even testing something as 'radical' as the legitimization of same-sex relationships may be so devastating to the culture that we should not even take a chance on it." Though, actually, I quite clearly stated that we should wait and see what happens in the Netherlands (and, by extension, Belgium and Ontario) over a generation. Let them be our laboratories. Let them be our test cases. But until we see how the next generation in those countries grows up with an androgynized definition of marriage, my argument is that other countries should hold off on it. ...

Mark acknowledges that there is a legitimate debate over how SSM will effect the culture, but categorically dismisses the possibility that the effect could be a devastating one. I'm sorry, Mark, I cannot dismiss that possibility at all. And I'm sorry if you think that my saying that means that there's "no use even furthering the debate." I almost feel the same way about your putting the word 'radical' in quotes as such in reference to SSM, but in fact I'm quite willing to debate that aspect and hear why you think that something which aims directly at the root or foundation of a universal institution, without any real precedent in any culture in history, is not radical.

When people categorically dismiss the possibility that an effect on culture could be devastating, or resort to the all too common 'boy who cried wolf' references to very different past social changes and the fear of cultural collapse that did not occur in those cases, are they not basically saying that culture is so resilient that NOTHING can 'poison' it? Is this what Mark feels? He agrees that culture is very complex, but a complex system depends on all its component parts. An effect on one part can affect the whole system, and sometimes, yes, it can cause the whole system to break down. Please explain how we know beyond a doubt that our culture cannot possibly break down, or how we already know beyond a doubt just which changes will cause this and which will not. Given the unprecedented nature of SSM, to say that we know it will not be devastating to society requires a big leap of faith.

As for the other social changes which Mark mentions, none involved anything as universal to human culture as the idea that marriage is between opposite sexes. Slavery has been with us throughout history, but definitely not in every culture; there have always been many that did not practice it. Cultures have also integrated with other races and ethnic groups (there is no qualitative difference between the two categories) throughout history. As for women's suffrage, yes, that's been a recent advance for the most part (though not historically unprecedented), but then, in most of the world, voting for everyone has only been a recent change, historically speaking. The argument that "because these changes did not damage culture, therefore we know SSM won't either" is a classic example of the boy-who-cried-wolf fallacy I mentioned above.

But, again, I am willing to 'test' SSM in the Netherlands over the next thirty years. (I expected some to argue that that is simply too long, surprised no one did). Other than "because we can't wait" and "did you advocate the same for racial integration, etc.?", what's the argument against this?
posted by Eve at 11:56 AM | link 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN: Mary Catelli replies to Mark Barton

Mark Barton offers: "But no one asks whether a prospective bride and groom intend to bear children or even can bear children."

The current treatment of heterosexual vs. homosexual couples is indeed rather broadbrush. That is not proof that it should not be made. Consider three men, all twenty when World War II broke out. John Doe was drafted and served in the infantry, suffering crippling injuries. Richard Roe was drafted and served as a file clerk. James Poe was not drafted and worked in a clothing factory for uniforms, suffering crippling injuries in an industrial accident. Unfair though it is, Doe and Roe are veterans, and no one asks if they were shot at when handing out the veteran's benefits. This is because the effort of sorting out the deserving vs. the undeserving -- once you've defined who is who -- would be many times the cost of providing for all veterans, but the effort of sorting out the veterans from the non-veterans is much simpler.
posted by Eve at 11:51 AM | link 0 comments

CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRAINT: Mark Barton replies to Matt Taylor

Matt Taylor: Mark is really talking about the legislature's motive, personal or political reasons for supporting a bill, rather than their intent, how they meant for the law to be interpreted in specific cases. The legislature does not intend for civil unions to be treated unequally in any case at all, since they have made it legally equivalent to marriage in all but name.

Mark B.: But Matt just finished arguing that an explicit statement of prejudice would have been constitutionally objectionable. How can that be if he meant, as I assume from the context, that the slap was an add-on to a law that established civil unions as strictly parallel to marriage? If an explicit attempt to lower the prestige of civil unions without changing the substance is actionable, so surely is a thinly disguised intent to lower them without changing the substance.

Matt Taylor: It's also questionable whether the civil union proposal is just a cover for prejudice.

Mark B.: I allow that opinions may differ, but the only alternative possibility I can see is that it's just terminological variation for precision's sake, and for me that just doesn't pass the giggle test.

Matt Taylor: The recently proposed MA constitutional amendment also includes a civil union provision, thanks mostly to the efforts of left-leaning, pro-gay legislators. There certainly are people, including some MA legislators, who would like to deprive gays and lesbians of prestige, legal recognition and just about everything else, but those people do not support civil union.

Mark B.: They do if, through strategic voting by the left-leaning, pro-gay legislators, all the more punitive options have been taken off the table. There is a near majority of MA legislators who would like to withhold all recognition. That's been the whole talk of the last few weeks. There is a near majority that would like to give full recognition. There is a group in the middle that wants to do something (or to be seen to be doing something), but is content to withhold prestige. Is the glass half full or half empty? There's a minority in favour of really
vindictive prejudice, but still a majority in favour of some sort of prejudice.
posted by Eve at 11:27 AM | link 0 comments

WHAT BENEFITS DO S.F. LICENSES PROVIDE? From the San Francisco Chronicle

When Kory O'Rourke called her car insurance company and asked that her spouse be added to her plan, the representative on the other end of the phone "didn't blink" -- even when it became clear that O'Rourke meant her same-sex partner, whom she had just married in San Francisco.

"Oh, congratulations," the representative at the Progressive Group of Insurance Companies said. "I'm going to issue you a $78 credit, so you guys be sure to go out and have a nice dinner on us."

O'Rourke was thrilled -- but it turns out the exchange should never have taken place. In changing O'Rourke's coverage, the representative apparently violated company policy. Progressive is not officially recognizing marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples, although it is investigating whether to change its policy, said spokesperson Todd Morgano.

Confusion and discrepancy are all too common, as gay newlyweds have returned home from San Francisco and other wedding-positive cities and started to demand a few of the benefits that come with marriage. The federal government has compiled a list of 1,049 rights and responsibilities contingent on marriage -- from survivor's rights to Social Security benefits. Many gay couples have begun with simple steps: asking their employers and insurers to offer them the same health care and car insurance coverage extended to married heterosexuals. The results have been decidedly mixed. ...

In the legal chaos the same-sex marriages have produced, some major health and car insurance companies have taken positions as follows: Kaiser Permanente, the health care provider, and AAA of Northern California, which provides auto insurance, are recognizing same-sex spouses and will continue to do so unless the state Supreme Court rules that the licenses are invalid, spokespeople said.

But State Farm Insurance, which offers car, home, health insurance, is taking the opposite [tack]-- the company is waiting for the court ruling this summer before changing its spousal policies, according to spokesperson Bill Sirola.

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posted by Eve at 11:20 AM | link 0 comments

RAMESH, HATCH, MARRIAGE & ME: Maggie Gallagher

Sen. Orrin Hatch is on record supporting an FMA defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. I certainly did not intend to trash him. I do think the merits of the alternative language deserve a thorough airing.

Ramesh and I simply disagree on the cultural, political, and legal implications of shifting the Constitutional debate from "save marriage" to "leave it to the states." Ramesh's certainty in how the Hatch language will be interpreted by courts (a.k.a. what it "really" means) is touching, but I just don't share his faith. I think he is just plain wrong in describing, for example, questions raised about how Hatch language would interact with federal jurisprudence on marriage (such as Loving v. Virginia) as the spreading of "false" ideas. The actual reality is the legal consequences are uncertain, given the complexity of marriage as a legal idea and especially given the judiciary's flagrant lack of regard for framers' intent. The uncertainty and the complexity of the Hatch proposal legally will make is far less politically viable ultimately than an FMA with a clear and simple message, like: Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.

All the time we will have to spend combating the "false" ideas generated by the Hatch language is time not spent talking about marriage, which is the issue which actually motivates voters.

I think (Ramesh disagrees) that if marriage really is a key social institution, defining it in the Constitution is no more anomalous than the many property guarantees, and the guarantee of democratic government, already in the document. (Ramesh must be one of the few Constitutional observers not to see property and other economic guarantees in the Constitution).

I think (Ramesh disagrees) that changing the topic from marriage to federalism naturally implies that federalism is the more important issue, marriage is the less important one. When political leaders are talking about the states' right to disagree about the definition of marriage, and not the need for a shared, common culture of marriage, that' will be the natural conclusion.

Moreover on some issues, the house really won't stay divided. If marriage matters, a highly visible group of people can't be married in Massachusetts and unmarried (or charged with bigamy for marrying again) in South Carolina. The same internal logic that produced almost identical divorce laws in all 50 states, will produce a common national definition of marriage.

The question remains: which one?

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posted by Eve at 11:17 PM | link 0 comments

POLYAMORY: Elizabeth Marquardt

Still think POLYAMORY is just a wacko idea, clearly fringe, has nothing to do with current debates on the family?

The Alternatives to Marriage Project, which a cohabiting hetero couple started as an advocating organization for other cohabitors, is frequently called by the mainstream media -- MSNBC, USA Today, etc. -- to weigh in on issues like cohabitation and increasingly same sex marriage. They include "polyamorous families" as one among many alternative family types that need support and recognition. The home page of their website has a "hot topics" polyamory link right near the top. They offer this warm and fuzzy definition:

"Polyamory means different things to different people... but it generally involves honest, responsible non-monogamous relationships. This could take the form of an "open" relationship, or a group or three or more adults who are "monogamous" within their group (sometimes called polyfidelity), or a limitless set of other situations."

But no mention at all about kids.

It's "honest," it's "responsible," it's what adults are choosing to do. Yet our society maintains so many "irrational" and "bigoted" opinions about people like this. They need our support, if for no other reason than because their kids are stigmatized at school. Gee, what can we do to help them?

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POLYAMORY, WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS? "Poly" parents speak out, some highlights in their own words:

Says one mom:

"Polyamory is what my kids know. They know some people have two parents, some one, some three and some more. They happen to have four.

"Honestly? Kids and polyamory? Very little of it effects them unless you're so caught up in your new loves you're letting it interfere with your parenting."

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posted by Eve at 10:26 PM | link 0 comments

GAYS GROWING UP AND MOVING ON: Emily Bazelon reviews Jonathan Rauch's new book

..."Much of what is unique about gay culture--not all, but much, and particularly at the extremes--is an artifact of marginalization and infantilization," Rauch writes. Marriage will benefit gay people by pushing them out of protracted adolescence. "How can a culture fully grow up if it lacks any hope of marriage?" he asks. "For gay culture and gay self-image, marriage is the last and by far the greatest step toward maturity. Within a generation or so, marriage will mean the end of gay culture as we know it." No misgivings here about donning the straitjacket of the straights.

Yet there's something disconcerting and a bit sad about Rauch's stance. Is marriage, with all its strains and constraints, really so superior that gay people should celebrate the demise of the alternative lifestyles that some of them pursue? Rauch acknowledges that many gay couples won't be rushing to line up at the altar (though San Francisco records show there were nearly 4,000 same-sex weddings in the month before the state courts stopped the ceremonies).

Rauch thinks the central purpose and value of marriage is to ensure that each partner will take care of the other, come what may. He approvingly quotes the 17th century vows in the Book of Common Prayer, with their promise of commitment "in sickness and in health" and "so long as ye both shall live." He worries that civil unions and domestic partnerships, both of which he calls "marriage-lite" will serve only to undermine the institutional core that he seeks to protect and defend.

Close to a dozen states, the District of Columbia and at least 140 cities and local government agencies already offer some type of domestic-partner benefits. Seventy percent of such programs are available to straight as well as gay couples, according to Rauch. These halfway measures provide shelter from certain legal perils by offering benefits such as inheritance rights. But they fail to impose all the useful burdens of marriage. For example, some domestic partnerships can be dissolved at one partner's say-so. That's a bad thing, societally speaking, because the impetus of marital responsibility remains our best bet for domesticating young men and for ensuring that children grow up in two-parent families. "However close a domestic-partnership program may come legally, it is no substitute for the genuine article," Rauch writes. Marriage "adds value by bringing to bear the weight of social expectations that to marry is to commit." ...

Then there's the argument that gay marriage will be bad for kids, because children are best off in a home with a mother and a father. Maybe, maybe not. The empirical evidence about kids raised in gay households is sketchy. But because gay couples are already raising hundreds of thousands of children--those they give birth to and those they adopt--it hardly helps to exclude their parents from marriage. "The relevant point is that children will be more secure and happy with married gay couples than with unmarried gay couples," Rauch observes.

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posted by Eve at 4:58 PM | link 0 comments

RAMESH PONNURU REPLIES TO MAGGIE GALLAGHER ON FMA

Over the last month, some conservatives have been debating how, precisely, to try to amend the Constitution to keep the courts from redefining marriage to include same-sex couples. The dominant camp has favored a Federal Marriage Amendment that would define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Senator Orrin Hatch has floated the idea of instead amending the Constitution to remove this issue from the courts. While he favored the FMA, he thought this idea was more narrowly targeted at the problem at hand and more likely to be enacted. For this idea, he was subjected to some fairly harsh attacks on his motives from the likes of the Family Research Council.

For the time being, the opponents of Hatch's idea have won this battle. They continue, however, to lose the war. It still seems highly unlikely that the Congress will vote for the FMA by the necessary two-thirds margin. If the FMA crashes on the Senate floor, Hatch's idea may well be resurrected. It is therefore worthwhile to address the arguments that the conservative opponents have marshaled against it.

Maggie Gallagher made some of these arguments in an article for The Weekly Standard. I replied to her arguments on NRO (scroll upward from here). Gallagher then had a rejoinder on NRO.

Gallagher makes, by my count, nine arguments against the Hatch proposal. I'll list them with my responses.

One: Judicial activism is not the only problem the amendment ought to address; the attempt to redefine marriage involves mayors, attorneys general, and ministers rather, not just judges. It is true that the Hatch amendment would not block Unitarian ministers from conducting same-sex marriage ceremonies. Neither would Gallagher's preferred FMA. The mayors and attorneys general to whom she refers are making constitutional claims that ultimately depend on activist judicial decisions. The Hatch amendment would obviate those claims and stop those decisions.

Two: "The problem, both legally and politically, with the Hatch language is that [it] changes the topic from marriage to federalism." Both topics are already part of the debate over the FMA. If we were debating a Hatch amendment instead, the force of the federalist objection would be considerably weaker. The pro-traditional marriage argument, on the other hand, would be stronger. It would be possible for backers to say, with more clarity than before, that a vote for the amendment is a vote to let the people keep marriage as it is--and a vote against it is a vote to let judges redefine the institution. Opponents would not be able to hide behind (or even sincerely make) the claim that they oppose same-sex marriage but want to let states decide the issue. ...

Eight: "By creating a complicated debate over federalism, rather than a simple and clear debate over the meaning of marriage, the Hatch language will provide multiple 'hatches' for political officials who either secretly support or don't care about gay marriage to escape the political consequences of their views." What Gallagher is saying here amounts to this: The Hatch amendment would win the support of people who would not support the FMA. That's a good thing, not a bad one! If the escape hatch is to stop the courts from imposing same-sex marriage, she ought to welcome it.

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posted by Eve at 4:54 PM | link 0 comments

AMEND CONSTITUTION TO LEAVE IT UP TO THE STATES: Michael S. Greve

...As things stand, a sophisticated litigation campaign will produce court-imposed same-sex marriage, coast-to-coast, in a few years. So we seem to have a choice between two uniform policies: either no same-sex marriage ever or anywhere by constitutional amendment, or same-sex marriage soon and everywhere by judicial decree.

There has to be a way out. Same-sex marriage is precisely the sort of issue that should be approached state-by-state, with plenty of room for experimentation, observation, compromise, adaptation, and correction. But we cannot enter into this blessed state without a constitutional amendment of another kind--structural rather than moral, aimed at protecting state discretion by keeping the courts at bay and, in particular, by keeping one state's policies from being imported by litigants and judges into other states. The time to consider and enact such an amendment is now. ...

Fourth, federalism permits the gradual diffusion of social innovation and learning from mistakes. According to its advocates, same-sex marriage will do no harm to traditional marriage, or at least no harm that has not already been done by divorce and cohabitation. In fact, they say, same-sex marriage will strengthen the institution, because it will domesticate homosexual men. Perhaps so. But one can also envision adverse consequences. For instance, existing rules of common property division raise husbands' costs of exiting a marriage that has become inconvenient and, in the event of divorce, partially compensate ex-wives and mothers for years of lost earnings and career advancement. These rules make perfect sense against the background expectation of a traditional marriage, where the costs of childbearing and early childrearing fall chiefly on women. But that expectation and, hence, the rules of common property division seem odd in the context of same-sex marriage. Here, the better default rule seems to be that the partners' proceeds from divorce should stand in proportion to their contributions to the marriage over time. But if a marriage is a marriage is a marriage, we must have a single rule. Same-sex marriages may effect a rather dramatic change in marriage rules across the board--in this instance, a change that may well make married or marrying women worse off.

We have no idea how large that or any other effect of same-sex marriage may be. But that is just the point: when we (as a society) do not know what we are doing, it is best not to do it all at once. Let states experiment--and let us learn from what goes right or wrong. ...

To guard against the judicial imposition of same-sex marriage from sea to shining sea, a constitutional amendment must guard both against the invention of a federal constitutional right and against the undesired exportation of same-sex marriages from one state into another. Such an amendment might read as follows:

(1) The United States Constitution shall not be construed to require the federal government, or any state or territory, to define marriage as anything except the union of one man and one woman.
(2) The United States Constitution shall not be construed to require any state or territory to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of another state or territory.

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posted by Eve at 4:33 PM | link 0 comments

AGENCIES PREPARE FOR GAY SPOUSES: From the Boston Globe

State agencies have launched preparations for the likelihood that gay couples will marry in Massachusetts, reviewing rules on insurance, retirement benefits, tax filings, and even lottery winnings to determine what must be changed if the Supreme Judicial Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage goes into effect May 17. ...

Cahill, who oversees the State Board of Retirement, Abandoned Property and the Lottery Commission, said many of the rules already refer to gender-neutral "spouses," clearing the way for an easy transition. Once gay marriage is allowed, for example, same-sex spouses would be eligible to receive lottery payments after the death of the original winner, since the rules for such payments follow Massachusetts estate law. ...

Cahill noted, however, that things could get much more complicated if same-sex couples are allowed to get married on May 17 and then are barred from doing so later on.

Last week, the Legislature approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage and establish civil unions.

But lawmakers must pass it a second time next session, and voters must approve it before the constitution can be amended. The earliest the measure can appear on the ballot is November 2006, though gay-marriage opponents are determined to prevent same-sex marriages from taking place between May and that date. ...

Though some retirement benefits for state workers, such as accidental death benefits, are paid to a beneficiary chosen by the employee, others go specifically to a "spouse" or other immediate family members, according to Favorito.

That means, for state employees, a ban on gay marriage enacted in November 2006 might take away certain survivor benefits from same-sex spouses who got them after May 17.

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posted by Eve at 4:22 PM | link 0 comments

OHIOANS VS. SSM: From the Columbus Dispatch

...Respondents to a new Dispatch Poll are all over the board on the volatile issues surrounding gay unions in this presidential election year.

Ohioans are unquestionably against outright legal recognition of gay marriage; poll respondents oppose it by more than a 3-to-1 margin.

However, support for a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage drops to a 3-to-2 margin.

And civil unions, giving gays some rights of married people, are opposed by an even smaller majority.

The poll of 3,344 randomly selected Ohio voters from March 23 through Wednesday has a margin of sampling error of 2 percentage points.

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posted by Eve at 4:19 PM | link 0 comments

EVANGELICALS RALLY AGAINST SSM: From the San Jose Mercury News

Evangelical Christians convened at a church in San Jose Sunday to rally against city leaders' recent decision to support same-sex marriages, while outside, gay and lesbian activists gathered in a small counter-protest.

About 2,000 people, mainly members of the city's largest evangelical churches, gathered at Calvary Chapel to voice their opposition to same-sex unions and applaud the efforts of national organizations fighting such marriages.

''Why we're here today is not to prove a point that we are better than anybody else. It's to prove that God was right,'' Bill Buchholz, pastor of San Jose's Family Community Church, told the gathering. ''Marriage is between a man and a woman. Sometimes you have to take a stand.''

The rally was part of a larger effort to fight the city's stance on same-sex marriages.

San Jose emerged as a touchstone for the national debate over same-sex marriages last month when it became the first city in California to recognize San Francisco's controversial same-sex unions. The city council voted 8-1 in support of a resolution to extend marriage benefits to gay and lesbian workers.

Last week, the churches said they are joining forces to bankroll a ballot measure to reverse San Jose's new policy.

Evangelical church leaders have also threatened a recall effort to oust Mayor Ron Gonzales and seven other council members who passed the resolution in support of San Francisco's same-sex marriages. The group last week hired a consultant to study the issue and collected $10,000 to fund the campaign.

Carrying signs that said ''We will not be silenced,'' about a dozen gay and lesbian advocates shivered in the cold outside the gathering to send their own message. ''I need to express myself also,'' said David West, 39, of San Jose. ''I was scared coming here, but I was more scared not to.''

San Jose's religious rally was one of two such events over the weekend organized against gay unions. In San Francisco on Saturday, about 1,000 Catholics led by the city's archdiocese marched through several downtown blocks to protest San Francisco's same-sex marriages.

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posted by Eve at 4:16 PM | link 0 comments

BIGOTED, SCHMIGOTED: Matt Taylor replies to David Benkof and Arturo Fernandez

In reply to Arturo Fernandez, David Benkof writes: "As an Orthodox Jew, I guess I could be accused of being obstinately (although not blindly) attached to the values, beliefs, and rituals of my faith. ... But what you're saying to me, when it comes right down to it, is that people with strong religious convictions should ignore the teachings of their faiths if today's scientists and scholars contradict them. That attitude effectively disenfranchises huge swaths of the American public."

America should not only tolerate, but embrace the practice of all faiths by its citizens. Every effort should be made to accommodate, for example, David's keeping a kosher diet, obeying the sabbath, and, yes, abstaining from homosexual acts. People should also be completely free to discuss and promote their religious beliefs.

Religious freedom, however, does not include the right to forcibly demand observance of one's own beliefs from others. Denying legal recognition to same-sex couples on religious grounds is no more permissible than a law forcing all restaurants to serve kosher food, or forcing all business to close on the sabbath.

This rule is not reserved only for conservative belief systems. Radical feminist attempts to ban pornography, environmentalist efforts to ban genetically modified crops, and insistence on politically correct language (such as "same-sex marriage" rather than "civil union") are in the same category.
posted by Eve at 3:34 AM | link 0 comments

"TAKING AWAY RIGHTS": David Benkof

Georgia State Representative Calvin Smyre (chairman of the state's House Rules Committee) told the New York Times he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman "but never have we amended the Constitution to take away rights... I'm wondering today what the nation is thinking. This is a step backwards for the state of Georgia."

Aaaaaaargh. Sorry, but his comments frustrate me on a number of levels:

1) SSM isn't a "right," it's a redefinition of an institution in society.

2) Even if there was a such thing as a right to marry a same-sex partner, the Georgia constitutional amendment wouldn't be taking it away from any Georgians because that state has never had SSM.

3) "Never have we amended the Constitution to take away rights" sounds like a slick slogan thought up using a focus group or two. The federal government--and especially the states--have amended constitutions for all kinds of reasons. The most recent federal constitutional amendment had to do with congressional pay. Surely the definition of marriage is of constitutional importance.

4) If Smyre indeed supports keeping the present definition of marriage, what does he propose to do if not amend state and federal constitutions? The gay community's leadership made a tactical decision in the mid-1990s (and there were dissenters) to sue for marriage through the courts. They knew at the time (I know, because I was there) that they were risking a constitutional amendment if they lost. This is how the game is played, you can't cry "unfair" halfway through.
posted by Eve at 3:33 AM | link 0 comments

CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRAINT: Matt Taylor replies to Mark Barton

On the constitutionality of the MA civil union proposal, Mark Barton writes, "To concede that an explicit statement of prejudice would be unconstitutional is to concede the whole argument. ... It's standard to take the intent of the legislature into account in determining what disputed passages mean. ... the intent of the legislature was to award a less prestigious name."

The legislature's intent regarding the social prestige of civil union is irrelevant, because the bill does not legislate prestige, whereas an explicit statement of prejudice would attempt to do just that. Mark is really talking about the legislature's motive, personal or political reasons for supporting a bill, rather than their intent, how they meant for the law to be interpreted in specific cases. The legislature does not intend for civil unions to be treated unequally in any case at all, since they have made it legally equivalent to marriage in all but name.

It's also questionable whether the civil union proposal is just a cover for prejudice. The recently proposed MA constitutional amendment also includes a civil union provision, thanks mostly to the efforts of left-leaning, pro-gay legislators. There certainly are people, including some MA legislators, who would like to deprive gays and lesbians of prestige, legal recognition and just about everything else, but those people do not support civil union.
posted by Eve at 3:32 AM | link 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN: Mark Barton replies to Elizabeth Marquardt

Elizabeth Marquardt: -Remarriages do attempt to secure their mother and father for any new children who may be born into the union. [point from later taken out of order]

-Many people who marry and initially plan never to have children, or who discover they cannot have children, eventually do have biological children when they change their minds, have a surprise pregnancy, or are helped by reproductive technologies.

Mark B.: But no one asks whether a prospective bride and groom intend to
bear children or even can bear children. Thus while the above might make sense as an argument for why same-sex couples should not be forced to get married, it's complete nonsense as an argument as to why they
should not be "allowed" to get married.

Now of course, Elizabeth would undoubtedly like to move in the direction of making marriage compulsory, at least for any people wanting to have opposite-sex sex. What is her talk about making marriage a "norm" if not a hankering for social if not legal pressure to get married? And if I thought she had the slightest hope of success at making marriage back into a licence to have sex, I'm sure I'd be glad to be excluded. As it happens, I'm asking for marriage as it actually is, in 2004, not as Elizabeth would like it to be. But regardless of how anyone would like it to be, I don't see that my being allowed to get married adversely affects any program of Elizabeth's for getting sexually active opposite-sex couples to marry. If children being raised by their biological parents is as important as Elizabeth makes it out to be, then nothing more need be said. It makes no difference what gay people are doing--there's an
absolute moral imperative on anyone at the slightest risk of becoming a parent: they ought to be in a permanent relationship with the person that they're at risk of becoming a parent with, which may as well be formalized as marriage.

Elizabeth Marquardt: -Remarriages involving existing children are formed only after an earlier attempt to secure the mother and father for the child has failed, whether due to divorce or single parent childbearing.

Mark B.: So what? It's still rewarding failure. If the stability of marriage is as important as all that, we oughtn't to be making concessions.

Elizabeth Marquardt: Society allows and welcomes marriages among those [especially, old people] who clearly will never have biological children. In this case society shows its value of marriage for the mutual dependence, caring, and committed sexual/love relationship that it offers to any couple. But enough SS couples say they want marriage precisely because they plan to bring children into the union that a comparison to this group of couples seems largely irrelevant.

Mark B.: On the contrary, this is the key point, but Elizabeth has no answer to it, and worse, it's apparent she knows she has no answer to it, and so she changes the subject. Recently my partner's grandfather remarried. He was 81 and his new "teenage bride" was 68. I suggest it's a fair bet that everyone at the wedding celebrated because they were affirming the couple's "mutual dependence, caring, and committed sexual/love relationship." I suggest it's a fair bet that no one at the wedding came within a million miles of despairing because of how lousy a poster couple they made for the beleaguered institution of marriage as Elizabeth sees it, as an institution primarily for ensuring that kids are raised by their biological parents. And this is crucial. Through keeping marriage opposite-sex only, Elizabeth wants to send a message. But the message that gets sent depends on what people understand by marriage, not what Elizabeth means by it. The message that Elizabeth is actually going to send, whether she intends to or not, is that gay people are second-class people with second-class mutual dependence, second-class caring, and second-class commitment.
posted by Eve at 3:31 AM | link 0 comments

THE CASE AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE: Manuel Lopez

...It seems to me undeniable that the potential for reproduction constitutes something unique about the union of one man and one woman. Science may eventually change that, but sexual reproduction is sure to remain the easiest and manifestly most natural way. Even if some marriages are childless, it surely makes a difference that all marriages are between men and women. Marriage as we know it is bound up with, even a product of, natural sexual differentiation, whose most massive and undeniable feature is the potential for reproduction. This gives rise to a feeling that marriage is part of the natural order, an order bigger than our desires and ourselves. To be sure, widespread divorce has weakened this feeling over the past 30 years; but it remains a powerful force in people’s lives, one that we perhaps take for granted precisely because of its ubiquity. Permitting marriage between people of the same sex would make marriage a different thing--and not a better one. It would fatally weaken the arguments against polygamy and lead to its eventual legalization (which the American Civil Liberties Union has argued for since 1991).

More than any other institution, marriage provides guidance that helps people live their lives. One need only think of the times in one’s youth when one wondered whom one would eventually marry. (I can attest that even young homosexuals wonder about this--though with a certain ambivalence.) Those youthful daydreams, which are so important in shaping and coloring the rest of one’s life, would not be possible in a world without marriage, and would not be easy in a world where marriage was merely one choice among many. Our youthful (and not so youthful) daydreams presuppose marriage as a touchstone, a choice that isn't simply a choice but is somehow the choice.

Disconnecting marriage from procreation would make it seem less bound up with a world larger than we are. Marriage would seem more like a commitment we make, an act of the will, and less like an acceptance of or conformity to the fundamental order of things. Perhaps such a change would, to some extent, constitute greater realism. However, I don't think it would produce greater happiness, either in itself or in its consequences--which would include people taking their marriages less seriously, considering alternatives more readily when the going gets rough, and seeking guidance more often in desire, whim, and fashion. This is not a religious argument, nor is it "homophobic." ...

In my view, instituting homosexual marriage would indeed provide guidance to some young homosexuals, and would thereby improve some people's lives. This is a serious argument; however, I don’t think marriage could be as crucial to us as it is to other people. Marriage has developed over many centuries to meet the needs of heterosexuals. Gay marriage would inevitably be a kind of imitation. Like most imitations, it couldn't wholly succeed, and would therefore result in more or less self-conscious parody.

Widening marriage to include people of the same sex means stripping it of much of its meaning and diminishing it for everybody. This would have a relatively small effect on the lives of people who are already married, and whose notion of marriage is already largely settled, but it would have a profound and harmful effect on future generations of Americans.

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posted by Eve at 3:20 AM | link 0 comments

PARENTS AND PROCREATORS: Gabriel Rosenberg replies to Ben Bateman

...As for his second point, the premises in my syllogism both used the word "parent" in the same sense. Now, Mr. Bateman can disagree with the first premise. He believes that it is not true that parents ought to be married, if parent is used in the sense of one who has the legal and/or moral responsiblity to raise and care for a child. He believes the statement is only true if parent is used in the sense of one who "begets or brings forth offspring." I question why someone would disagree with the premise that parents ought to be married. In fact why would someone go so far as to say that the parents should not be married. Nor does Mr. Bateman in his entire post ever explain this. Instead he merely claims that people should abstain from sex until marriage, as if this view somehow conflicts with the view that parents ought to be married. ...

First of all these children to which I refer do have two-parent homes. And I believe marriage will help reduce the number of those children who end up without a two-parent home because their parents split up. So I see allowing same-sex marriage as reducing the number of children who have this problem. I should point out, though, that I believe we can also do more to help children in single-parent homes. In any case, the answer to Mr. Bateman's question is yes we take steps to reduce this number, and allowing same-sex marriage is one of those important steps. ...

Mr. Bateman here encourages one to avoid premarital sex. That's a great message, but he does not explain why allowing same-sex marraige would weaken it in any way. In fact, it seems to me it strengthens it. Right now the message is "No sex until marriage, unless you're gay. In that case have all the sex you want with as many partners as you want. It doesn't matter." To me this sends the dangerous message that the only problem with promiscuity is that it could lead to babies. Also the issue of marriage is not just the father committing himself to recognize and support his wife's children. If that were the case, divorce would be no big deal once paternity was established. I object to this view of marriage as merely a paternity test. Mr. Bateman does say we should encourage them to stay married once the children are produced, but why? If marriage has nothing to do with childrearing, and only childmaking, it shouldn't matter. If on the contrary, Mr. Bateman believes marriage is also important for childrearing why should same-sex couples, who Mr. Bateman praises and admires, and their children be denied this valuable protection?

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posted by Eve at 3:00 AM | link 0 comments

PARENTS AND PROCREATORS: Gabriel Rosenberg replies to Mary Catelli and Elizabeth Marquardt

...Actually, I did use the word "parent" to denote someone with responsibilities toward a child. I do not mean someone who is having sexual intercourse with a genetic or adoptive parent. I have no idea what gave Ms. Catelli this idea. Perhaps she does not realize that in many same-sex couples both spouses have the same legal (and moral) responsibility to the child. For example Hillary and Julie Goodridge are both the legal parents of their lovely daughter Annie. For a quick overview of second parent adoptions see this page from the National Center for Lesbian Rights. I used the word "moral" in addition to "legal" for two reasons. One is to emphasize my belief that is not only the law that creates responsibilities, but we have ethical obligations as well. The second is that there are a few states where second parent adoptions are not allowed. In this case, if the couple has jointly committed to raising a child together with equal responsibilities, I still recognize those obligations even if the law does not. In a similar manner I see many same-sex couples taking on the same ethical obligations to care for each other, only the law refusing to recognize this. In these cases I will refer to them as spouses even if the law does not.

In any case, I am not referring to somebody helping to raise somebody else's child. That was a phrase used by Ben Bateman to refer to all non-genetic parents. So I generally make no pronouncement on whether a person should marry his or her nanny or roommate. As to why roommates and nannies are not "parents" in my parlance, they do not have the same legal responsiblities to care and raise for the child. And it is not simply a matter of them taking on the same responsiblities, but the law refusing to recognize it. A roommate is doing a favor for a friend. A nanny is hired for her services. The differences are enormous, but perhaps the most significant is that either can walk away at will. A parent cannot (legally and/or ethically) just walk away from a child.

UPDATE: Elizabeth Marquardt also seems to think that I'm defining parent as somebody who has sex with your parent. Was it something I said, or do people just assume that this is all a same-sex spouse is. We are talking about legal parents here. These are couples who decided jointly to raise a child, generally after making a commitment to one another. ...I know Elizabeth works to highlight the benefits of marriage, and strives to prevent divorce. I believe same-sex couples and their families are worthy of this same effort on their behalf.

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posted by Eve at 1:53 AM | link 0 comments

THE MEANING OF "PARENTS": Elizabeth Marquardt replies to Gabriel Rosenberg

Over at marriagedebate.com, a debate between Gabriel Rosenberg and others on the meaning of the word "parents." See here and here.

I contributed my two cents this morning, writing this:

I've followed the "parents" debate with Gabriel Rosenberg with great interest. My own parents were married three times each by the time I was nineteen years old. My mother also had one live in boyfriend between two of her marriages. Growing up I had two stepfathers, two stepmothers, and one live-in mother's boyfriend.

Gee, a profoundly dysfunctional family, you say? Not really. Because my parents divorced when I was two years old, with a lot of years of my childhood yet to be lived out, and because the divorce rate for remarriages is much higher (60%) than for first marriages (43%), it's not that uncommon.

Were all those people my "parents"? Heck no. My first stepfather functioned as a loving parent until they split when I was nine years old. Their divorce ended his role as a parent in my life. The rest are nice people and some of them really put themselves out for me at times (and some did not), but it was always clear why they entered the family: primarily out of love and interest in my biological parent, not because they were taking up any grand moral obligation towards me. And really, how many people look at a snot-nosed ten year old they have no relation to and say to themselves, "gee, I want to commit myself to this kid forever?"

Certainly, non-genetically related adults can and do commit themselves to a child's parent and over time become a loving "parent" to the child as well. But, as a child, that does *not* mean that any adult who comes into the home and starts having sex with your parent suddenly become your other "parent," either in your eyes or in theirs. This was true in my experience. I highly doubt that if either my mother or father had been lesbian or gay it would have been profoundly different.

In my unscientific observations, the people who welcome endlessly fluid and optimistic definitions of the word "parents" almost universally grew up with their own, married mother and father.

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posted by Eve at 1:49 AM | link 0 comments

ADVOCATE'S TALKING POINTS ON MARRIAGE, PART TWO

How can I respond to individuals who argue that marriage is solely for procreation? ...

The notion that gay and lesbian relationships do not produce children is simply a lie. In the same ways that single heterosexuals may have children without entering into a marriage, gay and lesbian couples are rearing thousands, if not millions, of children in the United States: biological children of one member of the couple, adopted children, foster children, and so forth. The last U.S. census found that one quarter of all gay male and a third of all lesbian households were raising children under age 18. What would those who argue against marriage equality say to all those children? Is it healthy and beneficial to society to tell young children that their families are not as good as their friends' families? ...

Whatever you think of certain parents, don’t all families deserve equal legal protections?

Furthermore, the argument that marriage should be accessible only to two people who can, without outside assistance, produce biological offspring would bar many more people from marriage than just gays and lesbians. It would also prevent infertile heterosexuals from marrying, including all postmenopausal women, the elderly, and many mentally or physically disabled people. All of those people can marry under current law. Are opponents of same-sex marriage also proposing to deny these people the right to wed based on the procreation argument?

The argument that gay couples are unfit parents and will raise their children to be gay is also scientifically baseless. Children raised by gay parents have the same chances for happiness and success as children raised by straight parents. And same-sex parents do not create gay children any more than heterosexual parents create only straight children. If the myth that children are severely handicapped without a male and female role model in the home were true, then single parents would be forbidden to raise children. ...

Does the sanctity of marriage need to be protected because it has been around for a long time and hasn't changed?
This is a loaded question and it's based on a false assumption: Marriage has changed throughout the centuries. As recently as the 19th century in the United States wives could not own property--everything they had belonged legally to their husbands. As recently as the mid 20th century marriage between different races was illegal in most places. ...

Does marriage need to be protected? From what? What is the danger that is presented by same-sex marriage? No one has yet been able to answer that question except with vague threats like the dissolution of the family and the destruction of society. Yet isn't it more likely that allowing more citizens to enter into civil marriage would stabilize rather than destabilize society? If heterosexual marriage is in danger, it is not in danger from same-sex marriage, but rather from divorce, abuse, poverty, and infidelity. Should the government also judge which heterosexual marriages are likely to endure and provide benefit to society?

The fact is, these arguments are really talking about protecting a particular religious definition of marriage, not about protecting the civil institution itself. And the U.S. government shouldn’t be setting a religious definition of marriage if there is truly a separation of church and state. Nor should the government compel any religious organization to perform marriages to which it is opposed. In that sense the separation of church and state already "protects" marriage.

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posted by Eve at 1:47 AM | link 0 comments

SSM TO BE ISSUE IN MASS. ELECTION: From the Associated Press

[Mostly boring, but there's something interesting toward the end, which I've excerpted. --Eve]

...After the state's highest court said Massachusetts couldn't ban such marriages, the Legislature adopted a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban them but also would legalize civil unions for gay couples.

It was adopted by only a four-vote margin, and lawmakers who will be elected this fall must pass it again--in the exact same form--during the 2005-06 legislative session before it can go to voters on the November 2006 ballots.

Advocates on both sides have started surveying voters, analyzing lawmakers' records and recruiting candidates. ...

In a state where a third of the 200 legislative seats weren't contested in the last elections two years ago, the gay-marriage debate--combined with Republican effort to make inroads in the predominantly Democratic Legislature--could lead to a level of competition not seen for decades.

"This year the exception to the rule will be the incumbent who doesn't have a challenger," said Jane Lane, spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party.

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posted by Eve at 12:50 AM | link 0 comments

ABOUT 1,000 CATHOLICS MARCH AGAINST SSM IN S.F.: From the Associated Press

Catholic opponents of gay marriage led by San Francisco's archbishop held a prayer march Saturday, criticizing city officials who have licensed thousands of same-sex weddings and calling for a federal amendment to ban the unions.

A crowd of about 1,000 celebrated morning Mass at Saints Peter and Paul Church with Archbishop William J. Levada and afterward held a rally that was frequently interrupted by screams of "shame" and "equal rights" by gay rights counter-protesters.

Clutching rosaries and chanting prayers, the mass of gay marriage opponents then marched a several-blocks loop back to the church. Many held signs with pictures of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.

"Marriage is between a man and a woman," said Madeleine Veneklase, 44, of Napa, who is pregnant with her fifth child. "That's how God made us and that's the way to true happiness in a relationship."

San Francisco generated worldwide attention earlier this year when Mayor Gavin Newsom authorized city officials to start issuing same-sex marriage licenses. Nearly 4,000 couples were married here between Feb. 12 and March 11, when the California Supreme Court suspended the policy pending legal challenges.

"In the long term what (Gavin) Newsom did is irrelevant because it doesn't have any logic and won't stand," said marcher Tom Greerty, 57, of Martinez.

Newsom spokesman Peter Ragone said Saturday the Catholic mayor has "respectful disagreements" with the church.

"Some Catholics disagree with the mayor but there has been overwhelming support for ending discrimination against same-sex couples in Northern California," Ragone said.

Ron Schmidt, a former Catholic seminarian who said his faith led him to hide his homosexuality, stood behind a police barrier clutching a rainbow flag alongside dozens of other counter-protesters. He said the march was hypocritical given the church's nationwide sex scandals.

"I'm deeply offended by this," said Schmidt, 67, of San Francisco. "This is a church that is rife with corruption that is trying to stop of us from loving who we want to love."

The rally and march were sponsored by Your Catholic Voice, a nationwide organization that says it has roughly 250,000 members. San Francisco police monitored the march but reported no trouble.

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posted by Eve at 12:46 AM | link 0 comments

NOT WEDDED TO MARRIAGE: From the Chicago Tribune

Jessica Halem and her partner, Tara Vaughan Tremmel, live together in a cozy Andersonville apartment with a cat in the window and book-lined walls. They have been together for eight years and expect to continue for many more.

But they have no intention of getting married.

"The idea that my entire worth can be found as a wife and a mother is something I've been opposed to since age 9," Halem, 31, said with a shudder. ...

"Expressing any reservations against marriage has become the unspoken taboo of the gay and lesbian community," said Frederick Hertz, a gay lawyer in Oakland, Calif., and author of "A Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples." "We've been fighting for this right for so long that there's a feeling that everyone should do it--whether it's right for them or not. It's about making a political statement."

The fact that so many gay couples have wed in the states or cities that have permitted it--more than 4,000 couples in San Francisco alone--has helped normalize attitudes not just about same-sex marriage but about homosexuality in general, advocates say.

"The message of doing it for the numbers is an important one," said Ron Podolnik, a social worker who has many gay and lesbian clients. "If just a few are interested, what's the point? It's important to make that statement, especially if [legalized marriage] ever comes to Chicago." ...

Dorothy Allison, author of "Bastard Out of Carolina," said her commitment ceremony 11 years ago dredged up all kinds of emotional baggage and she was hard-pressed to see any advantages to it. "It just means that we're responsible for each other's debts," she said.

But her own experience as a child born out of wedlock ultimately persuaded her to take the plunge.

"I don't need anyone to legitimize my relationship between me and my lover, but my son? That's a different story," said Allison, who lives in Sonoma County, Calif.

The fight to marry "is totally being driven by children and the middle-class alignment of the gay community," she said.

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posted by Eve at 12:43 AM | link 0 comments