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 Friday, August 05, 2005
SSM OPPONENTS FILE NEW BALLOT INITIATIVE IN MASS.: From the Associated Press
Gay marriage opponents filed a ballot initiative with the state on Tuesday that, if passed, would amend the state Constitution to ban gay marriages. The move, which was expected, casts doubt on the future of another ballot initiative pending in front of the Legislature. ... The initiative would define marriage as between a man and a woman. It is part of the effort to overturn same-sex marriage, which the Supreme Judicial Court legalized in 2003. Massachusetts is the only state to allow gay and lesbian marriages. After the 2003 ruling, lawmakers hammered out a compromise ban, which would allow Vermont-style civil unions. That version passed in a joint session of the legislature, called the Constitutional Convention, but must still be approved a second time. ... Supporters of the new amendment drive pledged in June to actively seek the defeat of the earlier version. Mineau did so again on Tuesday, saying the pending amendment is "degrading to the institution of marriage." ... Gov. Mitt Romney withdrew his support for the compromise ban, and is backing the new proposal. He said the compromise "muddied" the issue of gay marriage by legalizing civil unions. After the new initiative is approved by Reilly's office, proponents must gather about 66,000 certified signatures. Then the measure must be approved in two Constitutional Conventions in a row, before it would be put to the voters in 2008. more posted by Eve at 3:46 PM | link 0 comments 
SSM AND POLYGAMY: Mark Barton replies to Maggie Gallagher
Maggie: What is the principled argument to be made for breaking up these existing families, or even for failing to recognize the adult relationships among people raising children? Mark B.: I don't know--is there one? The strongest argument I know of against polygamy is that if a minority of men are allowed to corner the market on wives, the large number of remaining men will tend to fight over the small number of remaining women. But I'm inclined to fix that not by outlawing polygamy, much less breaking up polygamous marriages contracted in other countries, but by giving women better economic opportunities so that they're not driven to prostitute themselves to wealthy men in the first place. posted by Eve at 3:38 PM | link 0 comments
PLANNING MY WEDDING AND SEARCHING MY SOUL: Kristin Glenn
..."Well," Father laughs, "we have a lot of work to do. You two have very little agreement in all of the categories." More than 50% of our FOCCUS tests contained red flags--areas that either need to be resolved or accepted. I tense up, and I immediately think: Maybe Michael and I have been on our own--calling our own shots--for too long? There are so many differences between us. We have issues in every category: religion, sex, extended family, finances, children.... My problem is that I'm a bundle of fears. Sometimes they're so bad I can't think or see straight. I feel caught between two opposing nightmare scenarios: an unhappy marriage, or living a barren life alone (after all, Sophie will leave me someday). This creates an unsettling dichotomy within me. Part of me is happily ordering invitations, calling caterers, and picking out bridal attire; the other half is analyzing all of the potential pitfalls of my relationship with Michael, and contemplating the haunting advice of my well-meaning mother: "Don't get married. Marriage is hell." ... Incidentally, the FOCCUS test was very accurate. Everything that was highlighted as a problem has not been magically erased by our wedding vows. What has changed is my attitude. The permanent commitment that I vowed to make acts as a reminder each time things don't go my way. Before opening my mouth--often with great effort--I ask myself, "Is this pile of his dirty clothes (which he refuses to let me touch) festering in our closet worth an argument?" Most of the time it's not. Soon there will be a new member of the family. Knowing that this baby growing inside me is ours has only strengthened the marital bond for Michael and me. I've found that marriage is definitely not hell--it's a lesson in joy, love and self-sacrifice. more posted by Eve at 3:01 PM | link 0 comments
BEYOND CIVIL UNIONS: From Bay Windows
Anti-gay extremists have long argued that civil unions are only a steppingstone to same-sex marriage, and over the next couple years, activists in Connecticut and Vermont hope to prove them right. Gay marriage proponents in Vermont, after years on the defensive from the anti-gay backlash that resulted from their first-in-the-nation civil union bill in 2000, hired Robyn Maguire, former field director of the Massachusetts Freedom to Marry Coalition, to rebuild the state's grassroots network in preparation for a new legislative push for full marriage rights. In Connecticut, where civil unions passed last April and go into effect Oct. 1, activists hope a combination of legislative advocacy and a lawsuit filed by Boston's Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) will move the state beyond civil unions. Openly gay Connecticut state Representative Mike Lawlor (D-East Haven) said a same-sex marriage bill could be viable in the legislature as early as 2007. ... It took Vermont activists five years to recover from the backlash to civil unions, but in Connecticut the push for marriage is going full steam ahead. Connecticut activists, led by the coalition Love Makes a Family, have long focused on lobbying and grassroots activism rather than on legal challenges to marriage laws, and their work bore fruit when the state became the second to legalize civil unions and the first to do so without a court order. Yet the most high-profile effort to win marriage rights in the state is a suit filed on behalf of eight plaintiff couples in New Haven Superior Court by Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), whose Goodridge suit in Massachusetts led the state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004. GLAD filed briefs in the suit, known as Kerrigan-Mock v. Department of Public Health, July 28, and GLAD attorney Bennett Klein said he expects the court to hear arguments by the end of the year. more posted by Eve at 2:31 PM | link 0 comments
AUSTRALIAN FAMILY GUIDE CHALLENGED: From the Herald Sun
CHILDCARE staff are using taxpayer-funded booklets to teach toddlers about gay families. A booklet called We're Here, used in more than 2000 children's centres, encourages staff to use stories, books, posters, games and dolls to actively challenge homophobia. Suggestions include: CHANGING Father's Day to "A Day for Someone Special". USING the terms Partner A and Partner B on forms instead of Mum and Dad. TELLING children that "some families don't have dads". In one suggested role playing scenario, children are introduced to Toby, a doll which has "two mums, June and Alice". The booklet has been slammed by the Australian Family Association and the State Opposition as an assault on parents' rights. The We're Here booklet was funded by the City of Darebin through a community grants scheme. It is distributed by FKA Children's Services, which is funded by the State and Federal Governments. More than 2000 copies of the booklet have been distributed around Victoria in the past year. more posted by Eve at 2:29 PM | link 0 comments
Thursday, August 04, 2005
POLLAGE: Paul Brewer
Clyde Wilcox and I have written a Public Opinion Quarterly article that summarizes results from a wide range of polls on gay marriage and civil unions. It won't appear until late this year or early next year, however, so here's a preview: First, a majority of Americans consistently report seeing same-sex marriage as undermining the traditional American family or clashing with their own religious beliefs. For other recent efforts at summarizing trends in public opinion about same-sex marriage and civil unions, see this report (PDF) from the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and this report from the American Enterprise Institute. link posted by Eve at 11:45 PM | link 0 comments
POLLAGE: MODEST INCREASE IN GAY MARRIAGE SUPPORT: Pew Foundation press release
Public support for allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally has rebounded a bit after declining between 2003 and 2004. Today, 36% of Americans favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry, up from 32% in December 2004. The percentage favoring gay civil unions has risen as well. Currently, 53% favor allowing gays and lesbians to enter into legal arrangements providing them with many of the same rights as married couples; that compares with 48% last August. Support for gay marriage and gay civil unions has increased slightly among most religious groups. However, support for civil unions has increased significantly among white evangelical Protestants, from 26% in December 2004 to 35% today. This increase, however, is concentrated primarily among low-commitment evangelicals, a majority of whom now support civil unions. There remain substantial divisions in views of gay marriage and civil unions across political groups. Nearly seven-in-ten liberals support gay marriage and eight-in-ten support civil unions, up from 59% and 70%, respectively in 2004. Among conservatives, however, support for gay marriage stands at 14%, and support for civil unions has actually declined slightly (from 35% in 2004 to 31% today). Similarly, Democrats and independents are more supportive of gay marriage and civil unions today than they were a year ago, and remain much more supportive of both proposals than are Republicans. In line with these findings, there has also been a slight decline (from 35% in August 2004 to 29% today) in the number of Americans expressing support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. link (scroll to last item) posted by Eve at 11:44 PM | link 0 comments
SSM AND POLYGAMY: Mark Miller replies to Maggie Gallagher
You seem to be saying that it is inconsistent or 'unprincipled' to support legal acknowledgment of gay couples but not polygamous couples. This is not the case. Why can't I draw a line between giving legal acknowledgment to one form of family over another for, in this case, moral reasons? In my case, I believe that we should not give legal acknowledgement to polygamous families because, in my view, the practice of polygamy should be discouraged. Or put another way, I see the process of 'legitimizing' homosexual relationships as a positive thing for society as opposed to 'legitimizing' polygamous ones. I am drawing a moral line between polygamy and homosexuality. I also feel it is appropriate for the law to draw moral lines in the context of legal acknowledgment. No one wants to break up existing families. I am against polygamy but do not wish to remove children from their polygamous parents. You are against children being raised without both a mom and dad but I doubt you support removing children from all homes where that is not the case. My argument in support of legal acknowledgment of gay couples is not because those couples already exist and are raising children with love and care. I support it because I feel that gay couples should have the same legal protections and acknowledgment as opposite sex couples. posted by Eve at 11:39 PM | link 1 comments
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
MOTHERLESS CHILD: Elizabeth Marquardt
It's funny, I feel a lot more comfortable banning surrogacy than I do banning sperm donation. Maybe because I find it incomprehensible that a woman could intentionally bear a baby and carry it in her body for nine months in order to sell it to somebody else. While sperm donation sadly mimics the all too common practice, throughout history and now, of a man depositing his sperm and moving on. I feel worse about saying that a woman who wants to carry and love a baby shouldn't have access to clean, safe sperm in a clinic. I understand and feel sympathy for her motivations. I feel as disgusted by the sperm donor as I do by any man who fathers children he doesn't care about. I question the mental health of surrogate mothers. And I question the goodness of men who would intentionally conceive children who they plan to keep forever from their mothers. Put it this way: For a long time, everybody knew that mothers were important, it was just the importance of fathers that was up for grabs. Sadly, a lot of us, even me, have become somewhat used to the fact that it's quite common for children to grow up without their fathers. Now, though, we're sitting here debating whether mothers are important. That breaks my heart. link posted by Eve at 2:32 PM | link 0 comments
SSM AND POLYGAMY, PART 2: Maggie Gallagher
The reporter describes the French as attempting to "break up" polygamous families by offering second and third wives their own apartments. Of course it is not uncommon at all for polygamy to take place across multiple households. Our assumption that the core of marriage is the common household is another ethnocentricity, or unexamined cultural assumption based on our own tradition. Once you start deconstructing these cultural assumptions as illegitimate impositions on human freedom, I wonder how much of marriage will be left as a concept? posted by Eve at 12:24 PM | link 0 comments
SSM AND POLYGAMY: Maggie Gallagher
France, it turns out, has even more polygamous families than America (despite our larger population) has gay couples raising children together. What is the principled argument to be made for breaking up these existing families, or even for failing to recognize the adult relationships among people raising children? For SSM advocates I mean. I'd like to hear it. After all these families exist, whether we like it or not. They are based on love and caring for children. How can we deny them their right to marry? posted by Eve at 12:23 PM | link 0 comments
GOLF CLUBS AND DONOR INSEMINATION: From The Advocate
...Until this week, California's Unruh Act did not prohibit discrimination on the basis of marital status. On Monday the California supreme court ruled in a separate case that the Unruh Act, cited by attorneys in Benitez's case, protects registered domestic partners from discrimination (PDF). Benitez and her partner are registered domestic partners. Benitez's lawyer said Monday's ruling will make it more difficult for the doctors to argue that their refusal to inseminate Benitez was protected by their right to religious freedom. "This is yet one more reason why this argument is a nonstarter," said Jennifer Pizer, senior counsel for the Western regional office of Lambda Legal, a gay rights advocacy group. An attorney for the doctors said Monday's ruling does not address constitutional claims that compete against the Unruh Act, such as freedom of religion. "It's a very interesting development, but it doesn't address this whole case or make it one way or the other," said Gabriele Prater. more posted by Eve at 12:18 PM | link 0 comments
WHO'S YOUR DADDY?: Eve
For those in the DC area: Tomorrow evening (Thursday), I'll be speaking at a Heritage Foundation panel on contemporary fatherhood. It'll be Pat Fagan on how fathers shape their children's future relationships, Brad Wilcox on his 2004 Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands, and me on "how marriage makes men." The panel starts at six, in the Lehman Auditorium of the Heritage Foundation, 214 Massachusetts Ave NE, and it's free and open to the public. (Heritage is at Union Station metro, right on Capitol Hill. So convenient!) After the panel and audience q & a, THERE WILL BE FREE FOOD!, so you really have no reason not to go. RSVP to me if you can, just so we get a decent head count, but if you just want to show up that's cool too. posted by Eve at 11:14 AM | link 0 comments
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
FRANCE'S POLYGAMY PROBLEM: From Deutsche Welle
Between 150,000 and 400,000 people live in polygamous households in France, in which a man is married to more than one woman. The French state is trying to change the situation -- with mixed results. The government argues that living in polygamy prevents immigrants from becoming integrated into French society and that it goes against the principles of gender equality enshrined in the constitution. Polygamy was made illegal in France in 1993. Those who still live in polygamy have either been doing so since before the law was passed or they married abroad. Though polygamy isn't very common in the northern Paris suburb of Cergy, most people in the African community there seem to know at least one polygamous family, usually with roots in Mali. "I'm against polygamy, even though I'm African," explained Kofi Jumeau, who, along with his 43 brothers and sisters, could speak from first-hand experience. "My father had between nine and 11 wives. And unfortunately it really hurt us kids, because there was no family cohesion. It was really bad for us." The French authorities employ a strategy they call "de-cohabitation" to reduce the numbers of polygamous households. It involves social workers helping second and third wives move into separate apartments with their children, breaking up the polygamous arrangement. ... She said that things worked out wonderfully until her children became older. But three adults and 10 children in a three-room apartment grew increasingly more difficult to handle. Camara finally moved into a six-room apartment she was assigned in the spring of 2004. But she continues to live in semi-polygamy; her husband and the children belonging to his first wife come over every day. And she's happy with the set-up. "I like living in a polygamous family. We aren't alone. We can discuss our problems. There are a lot of things I like," she said. ... There are no official national statistics on the number of polygamous families who have been separated. But a government agency that oversees housing in the Paris region says that of the roughly 500 families known to be living in polygamy in the area, only 81 women have moved out in the past five years, and 24 of them have divorced their husbands. Many more polygamous families are thought to be living in the shadows. more posted by Eve at 4:29 PM | link 0 comments
Monday, August 01, 2005
CA SUPREME COURT IN GOLF-CLUB DECISION
"Domestic partners registered under the California Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act of 2003 (the Domestic Partner Act), the current version of the domestic partnership law, are the equivalent of spouses for the purposes of the Unruh Act and a business that extends benefits to spouses it denies to registered domestic partners engages in impermissible marital status discrimination." more (PDF) posted by Eve at 3:45 PM | link 0 comments
POVERTY AND THE FATHER FACTOR: William Raspberry
I first heard the numbers from sociologist Andrew Billingsley: In 1890, 80 percent of black American households were headed by husbands and wives. That's just 25 years after the end of the Civil War. In 1900, the percentage was mostly unchanged, and so it remained -- between the high 70s and the low 80s -- for 1910, 1920, 1930, for every decennial census report until 1970, when it was down to 64. For the 2000 Census, the percentage of black families headed by married couples was 38. The only good news is that it was also 38 percent in 1990, suggesting that the trend may have stopped getting worse. Now consider this: Fatherless families are America's single largest source of poverty. The Annie E. Casey Foundation's "Kids Count" once reported that Americans who failed to complete high school, to get married and to reach age 20 before having their first child were nearly 10 times as likely to live in poverty as those who did these three things. Poverty, it goes without saying, is associated with poorer academic outcomes, which, in turn, are associated with poorer job prospects. That means, among other things, reduced ability to choose neighborhoods to bring children up in safety. Non-marriage has consequences. more posted by Eve at 3:42 PM | link 0 comments
Sunday, July 31, 2005
REPLIES TO PAUL VARNELL'S "A THEOLOGY FOR GAY MARRIAGE": Various
Derek Santos: ...If, perhaps, the posited theology came with stipulations, or rules, or boundaries, wherein certain types of relationships were acceptable while others were not, then other religious people may be more willing to consider our offered theology. But gays, for good or for ill, are generally not in the business of labeling and condemning certain types of behavior, let alone certain types of relationships. As a result, all that other religious people see in our offered theology is a carte-blanche acceptance of homosexuality qua homosexuality. Not even heterosexuality has such a stamp of approval among religious people; it comes with numerous stipulations that must first be met in order to render the resulting relationship acceptable. What, after all, does gay theology have to say about premarital sex? Divorce? Do we value monogamy to the exclusion of non-monogamous relationships, or is marriage just one type of homosexual relationship, all of which are acceptable under our theology? John Stamper: ...Once you establish that one part of the Christian tradition can be radically revised to meet your current sexual needs, it becomes that much easier to do it again and again and again. Watching porn at home? A "loving and committed" threesome? Even having sex with strangers becomes open to theological defense: it was in my own participation in the Metropolitan Community Churches that I learned about the MCC doctrine of the Holy Hospitality of the Body, how sex can be used as a form of radical welcoming of the Stranger. (In UFMCC's defense, it is not an official part of all or even most MCC churches, but it is part of some and is a direct consequence of UFMCC's lack of rootedness in tradition coupled with its core identity of sexual revisionism.) It may be that God really wants gay marriage in the church; but activists need to understand why people are rightly skeptical about their arguments. Understanding that skepticism, and not attributing it in reflexive rainbow robothink to "homophobia," is critical if God's will is to be truly discerned. more (scroll down) posted by Eve at 7:13 PM | link 0 comments
ADOPTION DEAL QUESTIONED: From the Indianapolis Star
When Stephen F. Melinger visited the newborn twins he was adopting at Methodist Hospital in April, health care workers became alarmed. On one occasion, the New Jersey man showed up with a live bird in his pocket. On another, the shoulder of his shirt was stained with bird feces. After Melinger, a single, 58-year-old schoolteacher, indicated he was planning to drive the infants back to New Jersey by himself, child welfare authorities were called. He was unprepared to parent, hospital workers believed, and didn't even seem to realize the babies would need feedings every three hours. Melinger's actions prompted a child welfare case in Marion Superior Court that has raised questions about Surrogate Mothers Inc., the Indiana company that arranged the infants' births to a married woman from South Carolina, and about the legality of the Hamilton County adoptions, which the company also handled. ... This case could test Indiana's lack of regulation of surrogate births and laws governing the strict confidentiality of adoption records that prevent even judges and social workers from gaining access. In an unusual order this past week that opened the Melinger proceedings to the public, Marion Superior Court Judge Marilyn A. Moores wrote that the adoption transaction could constitute felony "child selling." ... Melinger has filed paperwork with the adoption court suggesting he is the biological father. Moores will decide what happens to the Melinger babies, saying that until she's assured the children will be safe, "they're not going anywhere." The twins, Kathy Zee and Karen Zaria Melinger, are in a foster home, under the supervision of the state's Department of Child Services. One of the babies, Kathy Zee, is on oxygen full time. The court has granted Melinger weekly supervised visitation. ... Two Indiana adoption agencies say Melinger would have had difficulty securing a traditional adoption. "I couldn't say that in our history we've ever placed with a 58-year-old single man," said Julie Craft, founder, president and administrative director of the Adoption Support Center in Indianapolis, which has been in business 19 years. ... Melinger's infant daughters, whom court records indicate are white, were born April 8 to Zaria Nkoya Huffman, a 23-year-old black woman with two children of her own. Melinger hired her through Surrogate Mothers, which recruits clients, surrogates and egg donors on the Internet. The source of the eggs is unclear. ... In Indiana, surrogate births occupy a gray area where anything goes because family law has not kept pace with reproductive technology. Surrogacy contracts are not illegal, but they cannot be enforced in court. Critics have said the contracts constitute "child selling" or "profiting from an adoption," both of which are felonies. These charges never have been brought against anyone in Indiana in connection with surrogate births. Litz once criticized a Marion County judge who had suggested he was facilitating criminal activity. ... "He said he was looking forward to retirement very soon, and he could not imagine not having children in his life," said Thurston, who asked why a bachelor in his late 50s would want to adopt infants. "He said he thought he had at least 20 years to give them." ... The surrogate mother, Huffman, is following developments from afar. After the births, she and her husband signed away any rights to the children. Still, she proudly displays their photos in her South Carolina living room, along with pictures of her own family. "I would rather take them myself than see them in foster care," said Huffman, who feels a sense of responsibility for the twin infants' fates. "If I had not done what I did, they would not be here." more posted by Eve at 6:57 PM | link 2 comments
MORE ON "FRENCH FAMILY VALUES": Reihan Salam
...Have the French struck the right balance? I tend to think they haven't. That said, I do favor "family-friendly" interventions of a different kind--finer-grained interventions that focus on parents and would-be parents, including tax and tuition credits for full-time caregiving parents. Such an intervention would increase the relative attractiveness of remaining in the home for some transitional period, yielding over time a wide array of spillover benefits. ... What's More Important--Marriage or Staying Together?: An unusually smart friend wondered if French fertility and marriage rates are higher than ours, which would bear on whether or not the French have hit upon a superior social model. Marriage rates in France are low and declining at a rapid clip, thanks in no small part to the proliferation of the Civil Society Pacts (the French "civil unions") Fertility rates, while lower than those found in the US, are, as the also extremely perspicacious Patrick points out, are very high for Europe--second only to outlier Ireland. So it could be that fertility rates would be even lower in the absence of the current labor regime. As for marriage rates, and here I'll indulge in a little bit of heresy, I consider them less important than statistics concerning the proportion of disrupted families, i.e., families in which children are not living with both biological parents. The number of children living in disrupted biological families is, according to Ellwood and Jencks (PDF), much higher than the number in single-parent households, and it's been growing at a faster clip. What does this have to do with France? I'll leave that to Ellwood and Jencks. (I actually have to transcribe this, so be grateful, loyal readers.) It is true that out-of-wedlock births are as common in many European countries as in the United States. But the estimated percentage of fifteen year olds living with both of their biological parents is far lower in the United States than it Western Europe. Even in Sweden, where nonmarital births are almost twice as common as in the United States, most unmarried parents raise their children together. As a result, two-thirds of all Swedish fifteen year olds are expected to live with both of their biological parents--a figure comparable to that in Germany and France. It seems that our higher marriage rates are the tribute vice pays to virtue. When it comes to the really damaging kind of social change, namely the rise in disrupted families, we have Western Europe, France very much included, over a barrel. more posted by Eve at 6:54 PM | link 0 comments
MAKING BABIES FOR FRANCE: From the International Herald-Tribune
France's women have always enjoyed a reputation for bold and seductive elegance, and for intelligence, but now they have added to that evidence of a new willingness to combine work and motherhood, and a currently unparalleled ability to do so. Their envied ability to eat what they want and stay slim thus is not the only paradox they present to their contemporaries in a Europe that, overall, confronts a grave demographic decline. Frenchwomen are now having as many babies, proportionately, as mothers in Catholic Ireland. Both countries have the highest birthrate in the European Union: 1.9 children per woman, as against an EU 25-nation average of 1.4 (a figure implying sharp population decline). At this rate, France would become the most populous country in the EU by midcentury. France at the same time has the EU's highest female employment and professional activity. ... It began in the 1970s, in a typical French government technocratic concern for developing the service sector, for which women seemed a prime labor source. Therefore free, full-time municipal creches, or nurseries for the very young, were expanded. Free public pre-kindergartens and canteens were vastly increased in number, as well as subsidized vacation camps during school holidays. Competition for places in these institutions remains high, and is increasingly subject to means tests, but this has simply pushed the development of cooperative creches organized by better-off families. This had an important psychological as well as practical effect, legitimating the decision of young mothers to go back to work. There are also state financial incentives--family allowances, support for the volunteer creches formed by groups of mothers, and family tax benefits, many of which increase significantly with a third child. The result is that more than in any other European country, French families now have three or more children. Germany and Switzerland also give generous family benefits, and in Sweden 77 percent of the children under 6 are in creches, but birth rates stay well under that in France. ... After the 1968 social revolution, the rate of births outside marriage increased dramatically, even though the parents often either stayed together or formed new but relatively stable relationships. Today nearly half of French children are born outside marriage, but increasingly in "recomposed" families, largely free from social disapproval, and continuing to receive state benefits. more posted by Eve at 6:48 PM | link 0 comments
NYTIMES MAG "ETHICIST" ON ADULTERY
I've been happily married for 21 years. Ten years ago, my husband suffered a debilitating disease that keeps us from making love. Four years ago, I bumped into an ex-lover, himself married, and began a sexual relationship, reawakening my sexual feelings. Neither of us would ever divorce. I'm sure I can keep this relationship secret, so my husband will not get hurt. My devout Catholicism forbids such an affair, but does secular ethics? Anonymous Secular ethics notwithstanding, this secular ethicist is surprised that, in the decade since your husband became ill, you two have not discussed the demise of your sex life. You might also have talked about the many ways people make love, some of which might still be possible for him. Professional advice could be helpful here. If your sex life with your husband has indeed ended, you may honorably consider other alternatives. A fulfilling erotic life is an important part of marriage, indeed of human happiness. Many religions enumerate conjugal duties. (Doesn't it sound joyful put that way?) Some states make the failure to fulfill them grounds for divorce. Although your husband has not broached your seeking an erotic life outside the marriage, surely he has considered that you might not simply soldier on, going quietly sexless to your grave. To raise this matter now is, alas, tantamount to a confession, or at least it risks forcing a confrontation your husband seems not to want. You have entered the realm of don't ask, don't tell. It is dicey territory. If you continue to pursue an extramarital relationship, you must strive to avoid hurting your husband. You can not eliminate all risk -- when the clothes come off, emotions can be unpredictable -- but you can be prudent. This may be less difficult than you imagine. It is not unknown for one spouse to avert his glance from what any outsider would regard as evidence of infidelity. In this sense, your husband may have tacitly acquiesced to your sub rosa sex life. There remains the conflict between this path and your religion's strictures, but that is something millions of Catholics face each time they employ contraception, for example. Few practitioners of any faith adhere to each of its dictates. Update: Anonymous decided to end the affair. link posted by Eve at 6:45 PM | link 0 comments
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