Democratic NY State Senate Majority Would Make SSM a Priority

From "Eliot Spitzer's Phoenix-Like Resurrection," Gay City News, February 28, 2008:

...Senate Democrats remain one seat shy of wresting the majority from the Republicans for the first time in 40 years...

Winning control of the Senate of course carries its responsibilities. At the Empire State Pride Agenda's 2007 fall dinner, Malcolm Smith, who last year became the Senate Democratic leader, pledged that if his party won a majority, marriage equality for same-sex couples, already approved by the Assembly at Spitzer's behest, would be at the top of the agenda...

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:52 AM | link

Reproduction and Public Discourse

From "Reproduction and Public Discourse" by Ryan T. Anderson, First Things, February 28, 2008:

Benedict XVI recently asked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to turn its attention to the ethical challenges that new biotechnologies pose...

To help direct the congregation’s reflection, he offered two principles: “(a) unconditional respect for the human being as a person from conception to natural death; (b) respect for the originality of the transmission of human life through the acts proper to spouses.”...

Benedict’s principles are obviously correct—and yet they point to a problem that serious ethical thinkers, especially Catholic thinkers, have not really faced up to. They have given us good public arguments on embryo destruction and abortion, all the death topics. But they seem not to have given us persuasive public arguments on reproduction and parenthood, all the creation topics...

What we need is to build robust, publicly accessible arguments about procreation and the moral norms that govern it. We need to develop deeper discussions about the meaning and nature of parenthood, gender, and biology. And to the arguments we already have about the killing of embryos, we need to add arguments about the conditions under which we may bring those embryos into existence in the first place.

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:37 AM | link

OP-ED: NJ Civil Union Commission Has Wasted Taxpayer Time and Money

From "Still no need to redefine marriage" by Toni Meyer, The Record, February 29, 2008:

AS EXPECTED from a panel stacked with same-sex activists, the Civil Union Commission issued a report last week saying that its members believe civil unions are a failure.

What is their conclusion based on? Seven substantive complaints -- from among the 2,400 same-sex couples who have entered into civil unions in New Jersey...

This New Jersey commission has wasted taxpayer time and money to move its political agenda. Now, it hopes to hijack public dialogue on civil unions by confining continued public discussion to a biased report replete with emotional and anecdotal appeals.

But the real issue must remain paramount: There is still no need to redefine marriage. Only 0.3 percent of all those who have entered civil unions have filed complaints. The fact is, the civil union law has succeeded in legally providing same-sex couples with all the state rights and benefits of married couples...

posted by Imapp Staff at 4:59 PM | link

His Brain, Her Brain

A new Scientific American article says emerging research on brain disease confirms that men's brains and women brains differ. (Like, duh?)
posted by maggie at 3:22 PM | link

New Report: Married People Have a Lower Risk of Suicide Than Non-Marrieds

Link to UK National Statistics News Release: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/hsq0208.pdf

Link to UK Health Statistics Quarterly No. 37, Spring 2008: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/HSQ37.pdf

From "Being unmarried 'makes a woman a higher suicide risk,'" Daily Mail (UK), February 29, 2008:

Single and cohabiting women are increasingly much more likely to commit suicide than married women, a Whitehall report showed yesterday.

It found that those who do not marry were killing themselves at three times the rate of wives.

This is a much higher rate than 25 years ago, when single women were twice as likely to commit suicide as those who were married.

The findings, in a study by the Government's Office for National Statistics, suggest that cohabitation has made a high proportion of young women more vulnerable to depression.

They undermine Labour's dogma that all family relationships are equally good...

posted by Imapp Staff at 10:51 AM | link

Woman Challenging Quebec's Common-Law Marriage Rules

From "Canadian Woman challenges marriage laws," Canadian Press, February 28, 2008:

MONTREAL — A Montreal woman is seeking $50 million from her wealthy ex-partner in a case that seeks to challenge Quebec’s laws on common-law relationships.

The Globe and Mail reports the woman, who can’t be identified under Quebec law, enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle with her former partner, a businessman. They lived together for 10 years and have three children.

As a result of the split and court proceedings that started in 2002, the man already pays considerable child support, but the woman is now seeking $56,000 a month in alimony in addition to the $50 million.

The result of the case could have major implications in Quebec, where 35 per cent of couples live together without being legally married. The rate in the rest of the country is 13.5 per cent.

Quebec’s Civil Code doesn’t allow live-in partners who separate the same financial benefits as married couples who split.

One of the woman’s lawyers argues the law renders common-law spouses as being second class in Quebec. The man’s lawyer contends the couple had the choice not to get married, and their client is simply acting in accordance with the law.

posted by Imapp Staff at 10:36 AM | link

Plurality in AZ Support Marriage Amendment

From "Plurality in poll support marriage amendment," Arizona Republic, February 26, 2008:

Nearly half of Arizona voters back an amendment to the state Constitution that would define marriage as being between one man and one woman, according to the [latest poll]...

Forty percent of those surveyed said they opposed the amendment, and 11 percent said they were undecided...

posted by Imapp Staff at 11:03 AM | link

Can State Laws and Religious Laws Co-Exist?

From "The future of marriage" by John Witte Jr., Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 24, 2008:

Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams set off an international firestorm this month by suggesting that some accommodation of Muslim family law was "unavoidable" in England...

The archbishop was not calling for the establishment of independent Muslim courts in England, let alone the enforcement of Sharia law by state courts. He instead wanted his nation to have a full and frank debate about what it means to be married in a growing multicultural society. What forms of marriage should citizens be able to choose, and what forms of religious marriage law should government be required to respect? These are "unavoidable" questions for any modern society dedicated to protecting both the civil and religious liberties of all its citizens...

These are quickly becoming "unavoidable" questions for America, too...

A number of religious couples [in the U.S.] now choose to arbitrate their marital and family disputes before religious courts and tribunals rather than litigate them in state courts. Courts generally uphold the judgments of Jewish and Christian tribunals in these cases. Muslims, Hindus and other religious minorities are now pressing for equal treatment for their systems of religious arbitration of marriage and family disputes.

Granting Muslims and others equal treatment in these cases does seem "unavoidable" if the parties have freely consented to this method of dispute resolution. To deny Muslims divorce arbitration while granting it to Jews and Christians is patently discriminatory...

posted by Imapp Staff at 10:55 AM | link

Asian Men Seek Brides From Poorer Nations

From "Asian men seek brides from poorer nations," USA Today, February 27, 2008:

INCHON, South Korea — Changing attitudes about love and marriage in rich Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea are pushing many desperate bachelors to seek out brides in other, poorer nations around the region.

Many Asian men, particularly those in rural areas, tend to seek traditional wives who will stay home, doing chores and raising children...

[T]he men increasingly seek [such] women from countries such as China, Vietnam and the Philippines, where income levels are much lower...

The trend marks a significant shift in countries that have long been ethnically homogenous. Some local South Korean governments, eager to improve the birthrate in an aging country, even subsidize trips abroad for men seeking foreign wives.

In South Korea, the number of marriages in which one spouse is non-Korean tripled from 2001 to 2006, the U.S. State Department reports. Overall, one in eight South Korean marriages involve a foreigner, according to the Korean Statistics Office. In rural areas such as Gyeonggi, along the North Korean border, the figure rises past 30%.

In Japan, the percentage of mixed marriages rose from 1.88% in 1986 to 6.1% in 2006, according to the government's population survey that year...

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:37 AM | link

Lesbian law suit threatens the private sector

I may exaggerate, but not by much. In New Mexico, a photographer is being sued by a lesbian couple, angered that she refused to photograph their commitment ceremony. She refused to film their ceremony because of her religious beliefs.
In The Meaning of Marriage Seana Sugrue argues that same sex marriage is not a spontaneously emerging institution, as man woman marriage is. Same sex marriage can ONLY be a creation of the state, whereas man woman marriage is a pre-political institution that has emerged in virtually every time and place in human history. Therefore, the state will have to support and "coddle" same sex marriage in order to assure its survival. The state will arrogate to itself the right to regulate and control everything associated with parenting and marriage. Including wedding photographers.
Read my commentary on this case at my blog.
posted by Jennifer Roback Morse at 9:40 PM | link

Tilda Swinton's complex household: From the Daily Mail (of course!)

here
posted by Eve at 8:44 PM | link

Spain’s Skyrocketing Divorce Rate

From "How Spain Became Splitsville," Time, February 26, 2008:

...The rate of broken marriages has risen steadily since Spain legalized divorce in 1981, but a recent reform allowing couples to accelerate the divorce process has caused those numbers to skyrocket. Spain now has one divorce for every 2.3 marriages — an increase of 74% in the past two years alone...

By removing obstacles such as the mandatory year-long separation, the 2005 reform — which some have dubbed 'express divorce' — has not only made it easier to end an unhappy marriage, but has made the country's divorce rate one of the highest in the European Union...

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:29 AM | link

NY Judge Allows Gay Divorce Case

From "In First, N.Y. Judge Allows Gay Divorce," ABC News, February 26, 2008:

In what appears to be the first ruling of its kind, a New York judge will allow a lesbian couple who married in Canada to sue for divorce.

Though New York does not allow same-sex marriages, [a] state Supreme Court Justice...refused to dismiss a divorce and child custody suit brought by a woman..against her former partner...

[The woman] had argued that her 2004 marriage should be invalid in New York because the state doesn't allow same-sex marriage, but the judge found that the out-of-state marriage could still be recognized under New York law. Her ruling appears to be the first divorce case in New York from a same-sex marriage...

The state's highest court last year declined to create a constitutional right to same-sex marriages, saying it was an issue for the legislature to decide. That case did not address out-of-state same-sex marriages...

posted by Imapp Staff at 4:39 PM | link

MS Legislature Considers Marriage Bills

From "Marriage bills among proposals before Legislature," AP, February 24, 2008:

Mississippi lawmakers this week could decide whether to say “I do” to bills that would make it easier to get married and harder to get divorced.

A bill awaiting House consideration would remove the three-day waiting period to get a marriage license and would allow couples to get their premarital blood tests out of state.

A bill in the Senate would create covenant marriages, which would require couples to undergo premarital counseling and would put tighter restrictions on the grounds for divorce...

Arkansas, Louisiana and Arizona have the option of covenant marriage. Oklahoma is among the states considering legislation to create it this year...

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:40 AM | link

MARRYING TRADITION AND MODERNITY: WSJ

Catholic young adults place great importance on marriage but have turned away from church-based ideas of how to make it work, according to a study released last week by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

For Catholic members of the "millennial generation," men and women born between 1982 and 1989, marriage is not to be undertaken lightly. ...

The Georgetown study shows that some 69% of Catholics age 18 to 25 believe "marriage is whatever two people want it to be," while just over half of their parents' and grandparents' generation agreed with that statement.

more
posted by Eve at 7:14 PM | link

PAIRS WITH SPARES: Washington Post on polyamory conference

...What you really want to know, after spending a weekend with triads and quads and V's and other combinations of mostly happy-looking people, is this: What does it mean to have a healthy relationship?

Is polyamory the look of modern love? ...

The compartmentalization of affection: It's completely at odds with today's Disney Princess/Coldplay-lyric view of marriage, in which your spouse is your lover, best friend, therapist and Wii buddy, and you also have identical taste in movies.

But as people are increasingly expected to self-actualize clear to the grave, what are the chances that they'll pair up with someone who is on the exact same path of discovery?

Thought: Maybe you can have it all. You just can't get it all from the same person.

It's the thought that illustrates a paradox in polyamory: Its practitioners have astonishing optimism for humans' endless capacity to love, to share, to forgive, to grow, to explore. But that optimism seems rooted in a cynical belief that the monogamous are stuck in a myth, one that leads to cheating, unhappiness or divorce court. They believe, as do some evolutionary biologists, that most humans do not have endless capacity to be faithful to just one person. ...

It's less about them wanting to fulfill personal desires, they say, and more about needing more people to meet the daily requirements of 21st-century life. As in, if it takes two incomes to keep up with the modern mortgage and school fees, then who is going to provide the kids with a stable environment at home? "Five hundred years ago," says James, " 'family' meant mom, dad, grandma, aunt, great-grandma -- everyone."

more
posted by Eve at 7:12 PM | link

AMERICA'S FUTURE FOUNDATION ROUNDTABLE PODCAST: IS MARRIAGE OUTDATED?

me, Jamie Alan Aycock, James Poulos, and Jonathan Rauch
posted by Eve at 7:06 PM | link

Contracts and the Abolition of Marriage

I posted a comment on the conservative/libertarian site Maggie referenced in her previous post.
If marriage were only about an agreement between adults, this post would be more applicable than it actually is. Conservatives and libertarians like contracts, because contracts are a method for free and equal people to relate to one another. However, the point of marriage, and for that matter, the point of family law, is to protect chidlren, who are inherently unequal to adults. This is why family law is not a subset of property or contract law. The historical point of marriage has always been to attach fathers to children and mothers and fathers to each other, for the sake of children.

Viewed in this way, the presence or absence of information assymetries alluded to in the post, are not as important. The issue is: how can we induce mothers and fathers to cooperate with each other over the lifetime of their children? The move toward easy dissolution of marriage has largely undermined this purpose of marriage, much to the detriment of children, and we might add, to the overall fertility rate.

The extent of the government's involvement or concern with marriage is not to ensure specific performance of all the behaviors necessary to keep a household functioning. In my book Love and Economics, I argued that marriage shoudl be considered a partnership, not a contract, for some of the reasons Chris mentions. The govt's only interest historically has been the policing of the most basic norms of the marital relationship: sexual fidelity, child support and spousal violence. Even then, the most involved the state would get was to treat some forms of infidelity as civil offenses, meaning that only the aggrieved party could bring an action. The police never went around peeking in bedroom windows looking for adulterers to arrest.

I did an article a couple of years ago called Marriage and the Limits of Contract, which deals with some, though not all of the issues raised in this post.
posted by Jennifer Roback Morse at 5:31 PM | link

The Abolition of Marriage (cont.)

In the mid-Nineties, I wrote a book called "The Abolition of Marriage: How We Destroy Lasting Love." Ten years later, a Maryland legislator has introduced a bill abolishing marriage as a legal status, and replacing it with civil unions for all. Below are two pieces, one on the right, one on the left, endorsing the idea of getting government out of the business of enforcing marriage contracts.

"Privatizing marriage" used to be understood as the desire of Marxists who deplored the role of marriage in sustaining property, etc. as well as conventional sexual norms generally. Now many free market/libertarians are joining.

Why? As our right-wing blogger below suggests, gay marriage raises the most fundamental questions about the purpose of marriage as a social and legal institution.

One thing is becoming clearer and clearer: if (as gay marriage advocates argue in court) marriage has nothing to do with procreation--with regulating the sexual unions that produce children so that children have their own mother and father--then the logical conclusion is not gay marriage, but separation of marriage and state. Because why get the government involved in private declarations of love?:

"The Role of Contracts in Society & Marriage
Market Contracts and Marriage Contracts....are they the same?
by Christopher Espinal

The recent debate on Gay Marriage at University of Chicago got me thinking of the fundamentals of contracts and its role in society.

Contracts allows for individuals to engage in basic to complex transactions, anywhere from market transactions to social agreements.

The problem with contracts is that some third party must exist to enforce the details of each contract, to ensure that all parties meet all requirements. . . .Countries that don't have developed institutions to enforce all or most contracts eventually fail, because this mechanism of agreements serves as a foundation for varying facets of society. . .

This brings me to discuss the most important form of capital in society: human capital. . .

Families with the grandest of social bonds essentially produce children with the finest of human qualities: contributions to society. We can now shed light on the family structure.

What brings couples to marry each other is most likely this complex concept of an affectionate appreciation between each party. Thus, does this type of social agreement require some external actor for enforcement? Can government, enforcing exchanges of monetary value in the market place, enforce a social exchange in marriage like love?

There are numerous differences between exchanges in the marketplace and those exchanges between couples. Markets need enforcement of contracts because they comprise of two or more parties with a large asymmetry of information between each party. Enforced contracts by a third party ensure exchange security in the market place. Couples who seek marriage most likely have intimate relationships prior to their decisions, thus a lack of asymmetry of information exists, at least relative to that of the market place. A trust must have formed between both parties making a complex decision like marriage. We can agree that security already formed.

Security is what creates the incentive for engaging in contracts. This important facet of agreements is achieved much differently between marriage and markets. Thus, it seems that government or some third party doesn't have a role in enforcing marriage contracts.

However, I built this model of marriage contracts using various assumptions, or is true ceteris paribus. The definition of marriage varies according to religious and cultural standards. This model assumes that there are no differences. Another interesting assumption is that a couple can form a bond strong enough to account for security in this contract on their own. Can they really trust each other enough to know that each will uphold their responsibilities: such as rearing the children and sustaining a cash flow for basic family operations? Do people really make complex decisions accounting for all major and relevant pieces of information? It is complex because so many variable qualities must be taken into consideration. I should add that those taking a minimalist position on this issue would ask another complex question: can government ensure all of these specific details? They would say that people are the most aware of their situation, although with imperfect information,
and on average can make the best decisions themselves.

In a place like the United States, I'm not sure if this model even exists because there are so many confounding factors. People do marry because of monetary gains and not for love. My classical model of marriage based on classical definitions probably wouldn't even work in this country because of the numerous additional variables in play, such as tax rights and other weird incentives to marry. Disincentives may even exist. Perhaps if there were no government involvement, these problems wouldn't even arise. I don't know enough about the topic to judge.


***************************************************
Let's Leave 'Marriage' at the Altar

The bill in the Maryland General Assembly that would eliminate the term "marriage" for all and replace it with domestic partnership deserves serious consideration ["Bill Would End Civil Marriage, Create Domestic Partnerships," Metro, Feb. 5]. More than semantics are at stake. . . .

There's precedent for breaking with past family law terminology. About a dozen states no longer have "divorce." Instead couples end their legal relationship through a process called dissolution. Divorce was historically a nasty business, with one "innocent" spouse, the other at "fault" and both subject to social stigma. "Dissolution" is less value-laden and contentious. It is also a term associated with ending partnerships, so the choice of "partnership" to signify the commitment that two people make to each other is consistent with the modern trend.

Similarly, numerous states have eliminated "alimony." For centuries its definition was sex-specific; only men could pay alimony and only women could receive it. Even after modern reform made alimony gender-neutral, the old connotation of a man's lifelong obligation to support his wife remained. So new terms such as "maintenance" or "support" replaced "alimony," signifying a shift in thinking. Some states have also abandoned the terms "custody" and "visitation" when referring to the post-dissolution placement of children, preferring "parenting time" or "parental responsibility." The old words implied that one parent "won" control of the children and the other "lost." The new words remove the implication that one parent matters more than the other.

Those who enter domestic partnerships in Maryland would be free to say they are married, just as those who dissolve their unions in California, Florida, Connecticut and the other states with dissolutions probably say they are divorced. The state does not police people's vocabulary. It does, however, signify modern ideals through official nomenclature. For that, the state should use the language of partnership and leave marriage to religion.

-- Nancy D. Polikoff"

posted by maggie at 9:51 AM | link

Tax Due on NJ Boardwalk Pavilion

From "$20G due in tax on boardwalk pavilion," Asbury Park Press, February 23, 2008:

The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association [in New Jersey] will have to pay about $20,000 in rollback property taxes for the boardwalk pavilion, the township tax assessor has determined.

Assessor Bernard Haney said Friday that he calculated the pavilion's taxes to be about $6,500 a year for 2005, 2006 and 2007...

Rollback taxes are usually paid when a property comes off the state's tax abatement rolls. The rollback taxes are usually for a period of three previous tax years.

The pavilion had been part of the association's boardwalk and beachfront property that was part of a state Green Acres tax abatement program. The association has not paid property taxes on the property since the program was established.

But controversy last year over the association's refusal to allow two lesbian couples to have their civil union ceremonies in the pavilion led the state Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the Green Acres program, to re-evaluate the association's application this year.

DEP commissioner Lisa Jackson decided that because the pavilion was apparently not open to all on an equal basis — a requirement of the tax abatement program — she would not allow the pavilion to be included...

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:22 AM | link

New Study: Changing Public Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage: The Case of California

"Changing Public Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage: The Case of California" by Gregory B. Lewis and Charles W. Gossett, Politics & Policy, February 2008:

Abstract:

Though public opposition to same-sex marriage seems reasonably stable nationally, support in California has grown substantially in the past two decades. Using data from six Field Polls of Californians since 1985, we explore the roots of that growth in individual attitude change and population changes. Cohort replacement can explain half the growth. Although all groups of Californians say that they have become more accepting of homosexual relations since they turned 18, the pattern is strongest for liberals, Democrats, and the less religious. These groups have also become much more supportive of same-sex marriage, while conservatives, Republicans, Protestants, and African-Americans appear at least as opposed today as they were two decades ago.

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:43 AM | link