The number isn't two. It's one. You commit to one person, and that person commits wholly to you. Second, the number isn't arbitrary. It's based on human nature. Specifically, on jealousy.An obvious problem with Saletan's idea is that it relies on nature, which has long been a favorite source of argument for opponents of gay marriage. What do you say to the people who claim not to share what is the predominate characteristic that appears in nature? Most people are heterosexual, and most people are jealous if their partner isn't monogamous. Gay marriage proponents need to be able to say that the minority condition deserves respect.
***
By the way, in the third episode of "Big Love," polygamy is compared to homosexuality more than once: We're like homosexuals. Why was I able to watch Episode 3? For some reason, it was on HBO on Demand -- by mistake, I assume.
Hey, Margene -- the youngest wife on the show -- has a blog!
Thumbs Down. Was "Pirates of the Caribbean" supposed to be funny or not? It wasn't. It was annoying.And I know this is a device to get bloggers to link and give them publicity, but I'm constantly giving them publicity anyway, and I think it's nice that HBO is speaking to us bloggers in our own language.
Panda bears or Koala bears? Who's cuter? A debate for the ages...
पोस्ट्स
१६४ टिप्पण्या:
The thought that the difference is the number one, instead of the number two, is cute, but unpersuasive. On the TV special I saw recently on polygamy, they showed the marriage of a third wife. First the guy and the girl fell in love. Then, the other wives and the girl fell in love. And then you had a wedding ceremony where all four are comitting together.
And the theory that it is all about money also fails with polygamy. There, much of it is about kids, and, in particular, one guy fathering a lot of them, and then all of them raising this multitude. Yes, some do get government support. But it is mostly about kids.
Yes, gay marriage is apparently much about money. But to extrapolate from that to plural marriages is not legitimate here.
Bruce, I didn't say anything was "all about money." I said that the economic difference is the place to make the distinction so that accepting gay marriage wouldn't require accepting polygamy. And I'm only talking about the official legal recognition of the marriage, not whether the living arrangement should be criminalized or whether private organizations can perform ceremonies and call things marriages.
I also think concern for the welfare of children transcends any of these other things.
GJ: Well put.
GJ: that's the best argument against legalizing polygamy that I've yet heard.
Saletan argues compelling that polygamy fails among typical Americans. But what's the divorce rate among devout Muslims practicing polygamy? And what's the divorce rate among those families along the AZ/UT border (like Tom Green)? Saletan ignores the hard-core practitioners and focuses on the dilettantes, giving an impression of polyamory that is skewed.
GJ: that's the best argument against legalizing polygamy that I've yet heard.
But it's not much of one. All it takes is the addition of one more clause in the authorising law and you won't have that objection to lean on. Something to the effect of "the above provisions shall have effect only with respect to marriages entered into after the effective date of this statute."
It doesn't nullify your existing marriage. How does that affect your marriage contract?
It affects the marriage contract because the prior understanding of the parties was that they had entered into an exclusive relationship. It's not entirely clear to me in what dimension modern law leaves it exclusive -- certainly not sexual or emotional, given the relaxation of anti-adultery and alienation of affection enforcement -- but at least the forms of marriage have maintained exclusivity. The abrogation of that exclusivity (as could be expected under polygamy) is a significant revision of the marital contract.
Saletan's reliance on "nature" is no more persuasive than Ann's on economics. The existence throughout history of societies that tolerated, and even honored, polygamous marriages is a complete answer to the "nature" argument, if by "nature" Saletan means some immutable characteristic that supposedly inheres in the definition of "human." If that's not what he means, then "nature" here is just an oddball term meaning, more or loess, just "majoritarian." That is unhelpful for many reasons, not least because it would also rule out gay marriage. Since the point of this exercise is to inquire whether there is some persuasive distinction that would validate gay marriage but not polygamy, Saletan's argument isn't going to do it.
In addition, for those whose "nature" precludes a successful polygamous relationship (like mine, and probably like most people's), the easy answer is: You Don't Have To Do It. No one is talking about making polygamy mandatory.
Nor does GJ's argument get you anywhere. If I understand the argument correctly, it is that, if the legal definition of marriage is changed, then existing marriages may be changed as well in that currently married people may be able to force changes in their marriage contract that their current spouse dislikes. The distinction is that gay marriage is still just two people, and thus permitting gay marriage doesn't impact on existing marriages in the same way as polygamy might.
But that argument is just never-never land stuff, and ultimately fails on its own terms. In most places, existing marriages today must be between a man and a woman. The recognition of gay marriages, like polygamy, creates new legal options for currently married people just as polygamy does, and thus that change in the legal definition of marriage may impact on existing marriages. To the extent there is a formal difference -- that a currently married person would have to go through a divorce before exercising the new option created by recognition of gay marriage, while that step might not be required depending on the legal requirements for entering into polygamous marriages were set up --is neither an immutable result of recognizing polygamy, nor is it of any practical significance in the real world. If polygamy were recognized, the law could stipulate that currently married persons could not enter into polygamous marriages without obtaining consent from the current spouse. And in the real world, if one spouse in a current marriage objected to a polygamous relationship, the result would be either a prompt end of the discussion or an immeidate divorce.
Ann's economic distintion between gay marriage and polygamy fails because there nothing about polygamy that requires any particular economic or financial arrangements to go with it. All of Ann's concerns focused on the distribution of social goods of various kinds -- health and retirement benefits, tax treatments, etc. There is no reason why all of that could not be addressed to accomplish whatever "fairness" might be deemed to demand with respect to such matters. Nor is there anything to show that, on a purely economic analysis of the efficiencies in the distribution of such social goods, that polygamous arrangements are necessarily less efficient than other possible forms of marriage.
What it all comes down to, at least for me, is the need to recognize that marriage is a product of a particular social and religious tradition that has excluded gay marriage and polygamy as inconsistent with that tradition's concept of what is right, just and holy. Because that tradition has been so strong, and has lasted in the West basically unchallenged for millenia, proposals to change the definition and understanding of the institution of marriage result in strong reactions. That fact that this topic has generated hundreds of comments -- far more than anything I have seen in quite a while -- is a testament to taht fact. Yet nothing requires us as a society to remain faithful to that tradition, either in the context of the definition and understanding of the particular institution of marriage or in any other context. And in the public square it may well be improper to give weight to the "holy" part of the tradition. But there are definite costs associated with throwing it out. Then continuing turmoil on the subject of abortion, and how it has completely deformed the judicial confirmation process, is proof enough of that fact.
Ann clearly feels that tradition in that sense has only a weak demand on our loyalties in today's world and that the benefits of maintaining those traditions are far outweighed by the reasons to change (at least in the case of legally recognizing gay marriage). Many agree with her. Like Krauthammer (whose piece got this whole string going), I'm more on the fence. But however one comes out on that issue, rather than offering unconvincing distinctions as to why that tradition should be rejected in one case (gay marriage) but not another, I think it better to recognize the more intractable problem here and deal with that.
A prime reason for that conclusion is that the kinds of distinctions Ann, Saletan and others offer are an implicit invitation to courts, already too involved in our national life in imposing fundamentally moral views on a deeply divided nation, to wade in on this issue as well, and impose whatever notions they deem "fair" on an unwilling public. If change is to come in the legal definition of marriage, then these are all changes that should evolve slowly and as the result of a process that allows messy compromises and still ends up commanding broad acceptance. In short, any change here must result from legislative, not judicial, action.
Ann Althouse said...
I said that the economic difference is the place to make the distinction so that accepting gay marriage wouldn't require accepting polygamy.
Several commenters in the previous post on this topic have pointed out that that isn't necessarily so. In any case, the tax code is already so complicated that adding a few adjustments for polygamous marriage is no big deal. The tax code is designed to take account of the institution of marriage, not the other way round.
gj said...
But if it suddenly became legal for me to add a second wife or for her to add a second husband, the nature of our marriage contract would be seriously altered!
No, it wouldn't. A polygamous marriage requires the consent of all partners, so if either you or your wife objected, your marriage would be unchanged.
It's amusing to see the tendentious rationalizations people will employ to reach the required PC result: gay marriage good, polygamy bad.
Ann, I think you have identified what has always been the at the root of this issue and what makes it so intractable: the question of "nature". The difficulty is this: if certain characteristics are said to be "natural" to human beings or human nature, then it follows that the lack of such a characteristic in a person is "unnatural". And though such a person deserves respect because of his or her inherent human dignity, their condition remains "unnatural" the minds of many of those who do not lack this characteristic.
The only way to avoid this mode of argumentation is to reject the dichotomy between "nature" and "natural" along with the notion of a fixed human nature. But the problem with this approach is that the concepts of "nature" and "natural" seem to be so much a part of the mind that they cannot easily be eliminated. That is, they appear to be ingrained concepts, like that of causality, by which human beings structure reality. Hence the impasse.
No, it wouldn't. A polygamous marriage requires the consent of all partners, so if either you or your wife objected, your marriage would be unchanged.
Does it for all flavors of polygamy? I confess some fair ignorance on the topic of polygamy -- not in my nature I guess -- but I guess that would make sense. Otherwise, a polygamous man could not divorce his wife, just add on a new one, and ostracize the old.
I never read about polygamy from the standpoint of multiple husbands. Why is that?
Smiling Jack wrote" "the tax code is already so complicated that adding a few adjustments for polygamous marriage is no big deal."
You're right that the tax code is very complicated but there is no obvious and certainly no easy way to take polygamous marriage into account. If the tax code changes to recognize same sex marriage, all the rights and responsibilities the apply to an opposite sex spouse will then apply to a same sex spouse. Period. Easy.
Accommodating polygamous marriage is a whole other ballgame. There are no obvious ways that rules designed for couples would extend to groups. If that were ever to come to pass, which I very seriously doubt it will, it would require extensive debate over how to deal with boring but critical things like joint and survivor retirement annuities and the estate tax exemption for spousal transfers.
No one ever wants to engage in judgment about these things. Sigh. Is it really so hard to say "homosexuality is okay, so I approve of gay marriage, but polygamy is oppressive towards women, so I don't approve of polygamy"?
Is it really so hard to say "homosexuality is okay, so I approve of gay marriage, but polygamy is oppressive towards women, so I don't approve of polygamy"?
Oh, it's easy to say. And people say it all the time, actually. What's hard is persuading other people A) that your characterisation is accurate, and B) it isn't just a covert manifestation of bigotry against those cultures where polygamy is sanctioned.
Strictly speaking, (A) is the only relevant issue there, but an awful lot of the gay marriage debate has centred around denouncing people who oppose gay marriage as "homophobes," so well-poisoning accusations of bigotry are a well established part of the rhetoric surrounding marriage debates in this country.
Polyandry is a subset of polygamy.
Polyandry = one wife with multiple husbands
Polygyny = one husband with multiple wives
Polygamy = multiple spouses in any arrangement
"But what's the divorce rate among devout Muslims practicing polygamy?"
The honor beheadings probably keep the rate pretty low.
First, I have no principled opposition to polygamy (though I might have some situational opposition, for example as a way to override immigration laws).
But it's my understanding that in most polygynous groups, the man is married to each woman but the women aren't married to each other (the tendency is for the women to not live together but rather each has her own household which may or may not have much contact with co-wife households. If two women have the same husband and he dies the women aren't married to each other, they're unrelated widows. Indeed I can see some people attracted to polygamy who would be horrified at the prospect of finding themselves in a same-sex marriage after the death of a common spouse. In other words, it's not a reciprocal arrangment, which makes it very different from same sex marriage.
I suppose some legal provision for some kind of polygamy will have to be made eventually, if only to deal with people who enter into such arrangments on their own. The only alternative is to enforce cohabitation laws, which I don't think most people want to do.
word verification: iborg, somehow very appropriate.
Re: GJ
It was based on equal protection, and the requirement that the same set of rules apply to everyone.
That argument clearly cannot be extended to require polyamory.
There are multiple arguments for polyamory, though, and multiple structures of polyamory. If we take the simplest, in which there are multiple marriages contracted by a single party (as opposed to a single marriage including >2 parties), then the equal protection grounds are clear: discrimination on the basis of marital state.
Re: The decision was not based on a concept of "freedom" or "liberty" or "being able to marry anyone who you love."
The Goodridge decision offers some support for such a view, though. Characterising out-of-circuit precedent on the subject of marriage and the limitations thereon, the court said:
As both Perez and Loving make clear, the right to marry means little if it does not include the right to marry the person of one's choice, subject to appropriate government restrictions in the interests of public health, safety, and welfare.
But more generally, the Goodridge decision is also one which is, I think, difficult to analogise to other states. For example, the court states, while attempting to exclude procreation as a primary rationale for marriage:
While it is certainly true that many, perhaps most, married couples have children together (assisted or unassisted), it is the exclusive and permanent commitment of the marriage partners to one another, not the begetting of children, that is the sine qua non of civil marriage.
There are some obvious rejoinders here. E.g. civil marriage is obviously not a "permanent" commitment any more, now that divorce is legal. Massachusetts does have a particularly strong position w/ respect to the exclusivity of the commitment, since MA has unusually strong adultery laws (even if they're rarely enforced), in that adultery is apparently still a felony there. So they might be able to argue exclusivity, for the duration of the marriage. But either way, even if you accept the MA court's reasoning here, in most other jurisdictions, to consider either permanence or exclusivity a "sine qua non" of marriage would seem awfully unpersuasive, in view of what marriage has now become, under statute, and in society. That is, the argument may have a leg to lean on in MA, if you ignore widespread social acceptance of adultery and even "open marriages" in some places, but I don't think it has one much of anywhere else.
I'm not saying you're ultimately wrong on the issue, but that specific argument won't fly.
We're in equal protection territory here, though, and remember that under equal protection jurisprudence, not all classifications are equal. Race is a suspect classification, and even gender (e.g. for gay marriage) gets heightened scrutiny. I think there's a colourable argument for marital status and equal protection, but to my knowledge, it's just rational basis scrutiny, and that hurdle is easily cleared. The argument may not be good enough for race or gender, but still pass muster under rational basis.
But what's the divorce rate among devout Muslims practicing polygamy? And what's the divorce rate among those families along the AZ/UT border (like Tom Green)? Saletan ignores the hard-core practitioners and focuses on the dilettantes
Read the end of the essay; he doesn't ignore that. Instead he notes the change in Western culture regarding how we view patriarchy. As he says, once women start to have a choice, polygamous cultures change to monogamous ones. Polygamous Mormons and Muslims exemplify patriarchal cultures, where women share a husband because it's expected of them.
The number isn't two. It's one. You commit to one person, and that person commits wholly to you. Second, the number isn't arbitrary. It's based on human nature. Specifically, on jealousy.
Saletan's argument is just another strained attempt to reach the required PC result. I can make a much stronger argument along the same lines against marriage itself:
The number isn't one. It's zero. You cannot commit to one person, and no one can commit wholly to you. The number zero isn't arbitrary. It's based on human nature. Specifically, on selfishness.
But selfishness isn't an argument against marriage, just a reason why a lot of them won't work. Doesn't mean people shouldn't be allowed to try.
I don't know if this has been brought up, but if we're talking about equal rights, and therefore about courts deciding gay marriage is legal...
Gays have the EXACT same rights as heteros- to marry a person of the opposite sex. Neither heteros nor gays may marry members of the same sex.
I think gay marriage should be legal, but it should be made legal through legislatures. It isn't an issue of rights.
Copying a comment here that I left on Donklephant, on Alan Stewart Carl's "Case Against Polygamy" (another post worth reading):
My eye was caught by a phrase in one of Alan’s comments — “the culture we wish to nurture.”
That is of the essence. We have a choice here. We are not at the mercy of gravity. This slope is not slippery. Every step “down” it (and some of them may be “up”) is optional and can and must be weighed and considered.
The culture I wish to nurture is one in which homosexuals are recognized to exist as a fact, not a problem, and encouraged to live a good life like anyone else, rather than shoved into the closet, shamed, and made to feel that there’s no point in aspiring to a stable, open, loving life since they’ll be despised anyway.
The culture I wish to nurture is also one that encourages the face-to-face intimacy of two people. I was thinking yesterday, “Marriage is really the only relationship in which you come to see and know and love another person a little bit the way God does — that is, as he or she is.” I don’t mean the word “love,” there, as a good feeling. I mean it as knowledge and profound acceptance regardless of your own tastes and annoyances. That’s such hard work and it can really only be done one on one, or it is diluted and provided with escape hatches (which of course we tend to find anyway).
-- Or as Tom Strong said it better, a few comments later:
"[T]he thought of actually being in a polygamous relationship, at this point in my life, just makes me tired. Especially after watching the first episode of Big Love."
I don't know if this has been brought up
It has, last time around (See Ann's link).
Re: Geoduck2
Balfegor,
same-sex marriage = gender as a classification = heightened scrutiny
polygamy = marital status as a classification = rational basis.
Indeed -- I said as much above @ 2:06 (does time show up the same for us all?).
All the state has to do is argue that polygamy isn't in the interest of the state.
The state could argue anything under a rational basis test.
My recollection is that actually, the state doesn't have to argue anything at all -- the court will make up justifications on its own. (Behold the power of Roosevelt and tremble!)
That said, I think the situation with gender is somewhat more complicated, insofar as it interfaces with marriage. Craig v. Boren does establish the new intermediate standard, but it is not at all clear to me that a test for substantial relatedness or ends/means won't allow a bar on gay marriage -- I don't find the Goodridge reasoning at all persuasive (as is pretty clear from the quotes I pulled above).
That's not really at issue here, though, since rational basis will allow us to do pretty much whatever we like to anyone else.
On the other hand, as CB suggests above, there's probably a possible due process argument too. You can pull out language suggesting that marriage is a fundamental right (I don't think there's any Supreme Court precedent saying this, but the Goodridge court and other state courts have hinted strongly that marriage may be so), and to the extent that the exercise of a fundamental right is burdened, strict scrutiny may be triggered. I think this is a pretty hard sell at the moment, though, in the absence of precedent that establishes any actual "right to marry," as opposed to the more general right to take advantage of particular statutory benefits (i.e. marriage) without regard to your gender or race.
Also, re: rational basis vs. heightened scrutiny, the court in Goodridge doesn't apply heightened scrutiny, even, but rational basis:
The department argues that no fundamental right or "suspect" class is at issue here, [FN21] and rational basis is the appropriate standard of review. For the reasons we explain below, we conclude that the marriage ban does not meet the rational basis test for either due process or equal protection. Because the statute does not survive rational basis review, we do not consider the plaintiffs' arguments that this case merits strict judicial scrutiny.
Needless to say, I think this decision is plain error. But there it is. If you attacked a ban on polygamy under their version of rational basis, I'm not so sure you'd lose. On the other hand, as I noted above, Massachusetts (on paper) penalises adultery pretty heavily, so the contention that "exclusivity" is a "sine qua non" of marriage is more defensible there than it might be in most other parts of the country, and in MA, therefore, a polygamy challenge would still have hard going.
I had a big long discussion here, but looking at the case CB cites, wow -- it turns out Griswold does create a right of privacy extending even to marriage, and I was completely 100% wrong! Cor. That case is here for anyone else interested.
On the other hand, although they're talking repeatedly about a "right to marry," it's more in the vein of the "decision to marry" (i.e. part of the life-decisionmaking covered by the zone of privacy introduced by Griswold). And I think it's arguably a right to marry that grows independently from the source right of privacy rather than being contingent on a right to procreation (in which case the abolition of anti-fornication laws would seem to have eliminated a corresponding right to marriage). The court says, after all:
Surely, a decision to marry and raise the child in a traditional family setting must receive equivalent protection [to the right to abort]. And, if appellee's right to procreate means anything at all, it must imply some right to enter the only relationship in which the State of Wisconsin allows sexual relations legally to take place.
The right to procreate thus seems like a secondary justification.
Anyhow -- Based on the way it's applied in Zablocki, attacking polygamy on parallel grounds doesn't actually seem all that far-fetched. The first step, of course, would be clearing out criminal penalties for bigamy. But there, the analogy seems quite clear. Whether it would be persuasive or not is a different matter, but the basic elements of the parallel seem to be lined up pretty well.
The court does say:
By reaffirming the fundamental character of the right to marry, we do not mean to suggest that every state regulation which relates in any way to the incidents of or prerequisites for marriage must be subjected to rigorous scrutiny. To the contrary, reasonable regulations that do not significantly interfere with decisions to enter into the marital relationship may legitimately be imposed. The statutory classification at issue here, however, clearly does interfere directly and substantially with the right to marry.
Similar statements in Griswold were to no avail, though, so I'm not sure that carries all that much weight. On the other hand, the current court has been much less willing to stretch the bounds of interpretation.
But hey -- I guess there is an excellent due process argument for polygamy. And gay marriage and incest besides.
balfegor:
but it is not at all clear to me that a test for substantial relatedness or ends/means won't allow a bar on gay marriage
But wouldn't you like to find out - that is, put the state interest in limiting marriage to 1M-1W to the test?
In any case, I agree with geoduck's point. The current definition of marriage should be subject to intermediate scrutiny based on gender discrimination because with respect to marrying a man, men are selectively (as opposed to women) disabled by the government. with respect to marrying a woman, women are similarly discriminated against.
The argument presented by Abraham:
The law in question applied perfectly equally to everyone. Everyone was equally prohibited from marrying a person of the same sex. It's just that this particular law burdened homsexuals more.
is analogous to separate but equal. Except, because the separateness is defined along gender lines, the judicial scrutiny is more relaxed, and a strong explanation by the state as to how Traditional marriage promotes public welfare will suffice to let it stand.
That's the argument I would like to hear, i.e. put up or shut up.
But wouldn't you like to find out - that is, put the state interest in limiting marriage to 1M-1W to the test?
. . .
I'm sorry, are you propositioning me?
er, if you'd be willing to agree that it would be an interesting (and the proper) argument to see the state make, that would be quite enough, thanks.
And a multi-partner marriage sounds very un-stable. Particularly in a society that is industrialized.
(Meaning people can leave the marriage and survive economically.)
Oddly enough, isn't this something people say about monogamous heterosexual marriage too? I mean, in view of our extremely high divorce rate? A lot of the anxiety about how "complex" polygamy is going to be, or how "unstable" it is are simply not persuasive to me. I honestly am not seeing how these are significant concerns for the state, sufficient that they justify depriving people of the freedom to join in solemnised relationships in the patterns they want.
If the state is deciding on a rational basis - they can use any sort of stupid reason they want. I mean, all sorts of nonsense could apply.
Well, there's two species of objections that are coming up here, I think. One is legal objections.
Getting "right to marry" to be a general and continuing right to marry at any time to any person isn't particularly difficult; I think an anlogy to Eisenstadt establishes the framework of the argument -- in particular:
Yet the marital couple is not an independent entity with a mind and heart of its own, but an association of two individuals each with a separate intellectual and emotional makeup. If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.
Or get married. That would raise the bar high enough that concerns like "the marriages will fall apart even faster than monogamous marriages already do!" or "dealing with polygonal relationships is hard!" or "people will be jealous!" are probably not going to be sufficient to overcome the level of scrutiny triggered.
On the other hand, that's a boundary-stretching argument (much as Eisenstadt itself was, and much that came after) and one unlikely to succeed in a modern legal environment. At least as I see it. But if the marriage right doesn't reach that far, then it's rational basis, and throwing up legal objections is just an intellectual exercise, because polygamy will lose no matter what. Those particular arguments may work, but any number of arguments, no matter how silly can work.
I was considering (just then) the "polygamous marriages will collapse" argument and the other arguments there as pragmatic arguments -- arguments why the state should not extend legal recognition to polygamous marriages. And there, I don't find them persuasive at all.
"I was considering (just then) the "polygamous marriages will collapse" argument and the other arguments there as pragmatic arguments -- arguments why the state should not extend legal recognition to polygamous marriages. And there, I don't find them persuasive at all."
I think the most convincing argument for the time being is that polygamy (and grouping more of more than 2) is very undefined. Same sex marriage has the benefit of changing only one feature of current heterosexual marriage (both spouses belong to the same sex instead of one of each).
Polyamorous arrangements change the number and kinds of bonds between the members, a legal minefield (this may make lawyers dance with glee, I don't know).
Anyway, the smallest number of a polyamorous group is 3 and there (apparently can be two 'configurations', all three are married to each other, or two are married to one but not each other).
With 4 people you get a _lot_ more possibilities (I'm too lazy to count) but at least
diamond: 4 married to each other
N: a chain of three marriages with two people married to two partners and two married to one.
It's going to take a long time to figure out the legal complexities of each of these arrangements.
Plus, should there be an upper level limit? Should that be different for all-married-to-each other groups and those where some married to each other and others married to only one person? Shnould it be different for groups with at least one male and one female vs all same sex groups? I don't know, it will take years of social practice to work these things out.
Another advantage of same-sex couples is that a fair amount of such couples have been living together as married in practice (if not legally) for some time and the polyamorous (except for some who practice polygyny) don't have that kind of record AFAIK.
Brylin: "You either score with a couple of females or you don't mate at all."
Don't worry, the polygamy scenario only arises AFTER we've legitimated homosexuality.
It is fascinating to watch those demanding gay marriages so quickly adopt the very arguments defending traditional marriage for use against polygamy. And without the merest sense of irony, either.
It proves the point of those predicting a slippery slope: the anti-traditionalists use the words and ideas of the the very culture they so soundly reject in support of their own aims. It leads me to ask: why so bigoted against polygamy?
What's it to you if three or six or nine wish to wed? Why ban marriage between siblings, or father and daughter? Between brothers, or perhaps a priest and his altar boy? And why does age have any purchase? Do we not teach children about condoms in school, cannot they make their own decisions? Were not Romeo and Juliet just 14? What possible ethic can you rely on, when all ethics appear to be merely relative, based on nothing more than prejudice and useless shame?
Why, when you cannot cede any reasonable basis for concern on the part of traditionalists that putting asunder the very societal pattern that led to our communal success will eventually destroy us, refusing us even that such a worry is not based in bigotry or malice, why should I now grant you leave to criticize polygamy? How ignorant and hypocritical.
It is only via the family that civilization is passed from one generation to the next. Part of creating the social structure that favors men who wed in order to sacrifice their own interests in favor of their children is the unique social status it offers the married male. Like it or not, expanding the definition of marriage will make an already unappealing (to men) institution seem even less necessary. If marriage means whatever you choose it to mean, ultimately it means nothing at all.
And just like the unintended consequences of identity politics in college creating a dearth of boys and balkanization (not communion) of the student body, the unintended consequences of gay marriage will be the slow dissolution of traditional marriage. Women will bear children increasingly alone. Men will roam free, their ugly ids unbound. And we will be the worse for it.
So far, I have seen not a single SSM proponent admit that their might be even the smallest downside to gay marriage. As a result, I find the rest of their discussions dishonest, hypocritical, and repellant.
Let's talk about slippery slopes.
First they ban gay marriage. Then they start imprisoning gays. Then they start killing them.
I'm sorry - but if people are going to make the slippery slope argument that gay marriage will lead to polygamy and marrying your dog, I'm perfectly capable of making the slippery slope argument in the other direction.
And let's not forget that the BIBLE calls for the execution of gay people.
Let's talk about slippery slopes.
First they ban gay marriage. Then they start imprisoning gays. Then they start killing them.
Talk about strawman arguments!
Banning gay marriage is not a step on a slippery slope...it's the status quo.
Re; "I'm sorry - but if people are going to make the slippery slope argument..."
I'm sorry - but that could have been the single goofiest comparison ever. Yes, I suppose you could make that argument, but then it would be openly mocked. And rightly so.
Now go away before I taunt you a second time.
No one ever wants to engage in judgment about these things. Sigh. Is it really so hard to say "homosexuality is okay, so I approve of gay marriage, but polygamy is oppressive towards women, so I don't approve of polygamy"?
That is precisely the point, restrictions on marriage are based on judgements. What about those who say homosexuality is not OK, so I disapprove of gay marriage? They are told they don't have the right to make that judgement.
Once you tell them they cannot make their judgement, why should you be allowed to make yours?
Pogo, wittingly or unwittingly, has suggested a solution to this whole problem. Get the state out of the marriage business altogether. Free individuals should be allowed to hook up with whomever they choose to. If any two individuals (m&f, m&m or f&f) want to consider their arrangement a marriage, let them. So what? If more than two individuals want to consider their arrangement a marriage, more power to them.
Ah, you say, but what about the children? Sparta and Plato had the solution to this: the state should assume the responsibility for raising children. The upside to this is that we will finally achieve equality of circumstances. No more will children of the verbal class have a distinct advantage over others because their parents read to them, introduced them to art and took them to museums.
As Plato suggested, this solution should be welcomed with open arms by all egalitarians.
Historically polygamy isn't rare. Saying that it's rare here and rare now seems a bit narrow sighted.
How about polyandry? If I've gotten that right. Polyamory? Why *shouldn't* three or more people, of whatever combination, form an economic domestic union?
Heinleinesque group marriages? Why not?
Matriarchal sister groupings to raise children concieved by short term matings? Would that really be so bad? We've got the short term matings *now* so why not the long term domestic cooperation of heterosexual women?
What blows my mind isn't that religious conservatives are crying, Polygamy! but that social liberals fall for it. So many are scrambling to show that polyamory (polyamoury?) is not going to happen and has nothing to do with gay marriage.
I'm for gay marriage because it is the basic element of social welfare. But so are other pairings... even ones that aren't a "mating" but a partnership in life... who takes care of you when you are sick, who takes care of your affairs when you die, who you share domestic expenses with.
I wish that people would separate the religious sacrament from the civil version, but I honestly *don't* see how a man being free to marry a man doesn't equate to a man being free to marry a man and a woman. There's no logical reason to say two, but never three.
Why the heck not three? Rather than get all concerned, face it squarely. Why not a three person domestic unit? This certainly has FAR more historical legitimacy than does a homosexual pair.
I *do* think that polygamy is often very bad for women and that (often) young girls have little authority over their own lives. I *do* think there are practical difficulties to trying to get along with more than one other person, because getting along with one is hard enough.
But if this is about economic support, I think that more is better than less and can see no reason to claim that three is unthinkable.
Ah, you say, but what about the children? Sparta and Plato had the solution to this: the state should assume the responsibility for raising children.
Please tell me this is satire.
Or perhaps it is just a (il)logiocal extension of Sen Clinton's village.
Either way, this is the biggest prescription for disaster that I have ever read on the internet.
Geoduck said: "I don't think there is a downside to gay marriage."
And this is my point. The proponents of SSM here have thus far been been unable to point to a single adverse side effect of perhaps the most massive change to our culture since it began. Although lacking sufficient insight to critique their own position (even if only to better defend it), they demand that we who oppose them have the burden of proof against their goal. (That's chutzpah.)
Radical feminists, Marxists, Foucauldian theorists, and leftists of other stripes have repeatedly documented how they sought to undermine and eventually destroy the family. And I have to admit that, unlike communism, thus far it has been a successful revolution.
First it won among the blacks, then the Europeans. Marriage has begun to disappear among their members, replaced by the primacy of the single mom, an arrangement no serious scientist can claim is superior to traditional marriage.
Now the intelligentsia are becoming successful in redefining what marriage has meant for millenia, one tailored not to the raising of the best next generation possible, but designed for the maximization of the individual. Quite a feat; one can only marvel at the ability to beat down centuries of civilization's code with a few mere words.
The very fact that no SSM supporter can admit a downside exists suggests a poorly considered rationale, and in this case, a dangerous approach. I suspect my belief will not ultimately prevail in the US. As a result, I fear for my grandchildren, and for their children as well. For they will have lost the recipe by which we knew how to transmit our cultural ethos to them. Soon it will be something else, something I think not only a lesser thing, but one that will be unable to defend itself against a stronger society.
I pray the people that overtake us are kind, but I doubt it.
Re: "be careful with that cane Pogo you might hurt someone"
And that's about the level of discourse I've come to expect from the left: the sneer of the perpetual adolescent.
Contending that civilization might be in danger when its very basis is attacked is laughed away as the dmented rant from some dismissable old person. Because ..get it? Old people are stupid and funny! Hah!
Fine, go play marriage dress-up. Just get off of my damned lawn.
Re: "It's laughable to think that a bunch of literary [sic] theorists convinced a population of 300 million to change their family and sexual habits."
It took a mere few years to do so in China and Cambodia. Total dead: 50 - 60 million. In Russia, When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917 they hated the family as "bourgeois", and set out to destroy it. Stalin reintroduced marriage, but by the 1970s, the USSR experienced low birth rates, frequent divorce, and among the world's highest abortion rates. The Soviet Union is now gone. It took several decades to degrade family and marriage in Denmark and Sweden; now the father for many kids is the State.
And the results aren't very funny in in any of these cases. (Except in the "old geezer with a cane" kind of way. And man, gotta go with you on this: old people are a laff riot.)
Re: "Why is there a movement for single sex marriages?"
After this statement, you merely list changes in fecundity for heterosexuals. What's that got to do with gay marriage?
Is your argument: "Marriage has changed and their are fewer kids, and divorce and stuff. Ergo, gays should marry!"? Because that argument is ludicrous.
It's the "underpants gnomes" method of planning:
Step 1: Traditional marriage has declined.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Gay marriage!
Re: "BTW I think if you go back and look, when the whole SSM debate began there were a number of people in the gay community who were against the notion..."
And what a bunch of wacko crotchety sky-is-falling nut-job bigots they were.
Re: "You don't see many proponents find problems because there don't seem to be any real issues with it."
Since I cannot see problems with it, therefore there are no problems. Solved. Next!
And once again, I agree with you that the elderly are "funny, but in the borderline creepy way". Hah! Buncha cranky fossils, griping about the decline and fall. "Wisdom" with aging? WTF? They can't even dance.
Pogo said:
"Part of creating the social structure ... is the unique social status it offers the married male. Like it or not, expanding the definition of marriage will make an already unappealing (to men) institution seem even less necessary. If marriage means whatever you choose it to mean, ultimately it means nothing at all."
Unique social status vis-a-vis who? Unmarried males? (All) women? Be clear here please.
And perhaps you'd choose to remind us what it is you think that marriage is for and how same-sex marriage will threaten/destroy that. The short version should do nicely.
A principled distinction can be made between gay “marriage” and polygamy. The problem is: what’s the principle? In your post you have relegated it to a mere economic one. Will this be sustainable politically?
Is this line as defensible as the present reproduction/ family formation centered line? What other principled argument would be surrendered along with gay “marriage” that would make arguing against polygamy more difficult? I believe these are valid questions based on your distinction.
Furthermore I believe the argument for Polygamy is actually a stronger argument than the one for same-sex “marriage".
1. The potential market for polygamy/polyandry/“polyamory” is vastly greater than for ss “m”
2. Polygamy has a historical & cultural heritage that ss “m” does not.
3. Polygamy can make authentic religious rights claims that ss “m” cannot.
4. Polygamy avoids the strongest arguments against ss ‘m’. It provides children their natural parents living together.
5. Polygamy’s children receive equal gender representation & would not be separated from their biological lineage.
Same sex “marriage” does two things necessarily (a..) Separates marriage from procreation. (b.)Androgynizes marriage.
1. Natural parents are not vital in raising healthy children.
2. All family forms are inherently equal.
3. Marriage in its traditional form is outdated. Any form is now acceptable.
It’s a question of the purpose of the institution and its importance to society. Government does not sanction marriage because it makes people feel better. Marriage wasn’t created to make homosexuals feel excluded. I and others don’t defend the institution to punish homosexuals or polyamorists.
The government has an interest in encouraging man & women to marry in order that their natural children are brought up in intact, married households. Gay marriage & polygamy undermines this norm. It locks in and reinforces the notion that all family forms are inherently equal. They are not.
University academic arguments for ss “m” always leave open the possibility for Polygamy or more precisely “polyamory”. That is: The serious law and humantites professors and their organizations (like the ALI) do not endorse so called “conservative” case for gay marriage.
They want to de-privilege the privileged
(i.e. – traditional marriage)
And privilege the de-privileged
(i.e. – anything but traditional marriage)
Indeed: Gay marriage and its natural cousin polyamory, are the synthesis of a long attempt to androgynize society and its laws. Feminists, anti-traditionalists, anti-religionists, sexual liberationists, gay theorists.. radicals of all stripes have a stake in undermining traditional marriage norms.
Far from being the exceptions, the make up a powerful cadre of activists and scholars openly pursuing this agenda. They are well placed in Universities and Law Schools. (my own family law professor was a polyamorist & her colleges in the department both lesbians)
Below is just a small sampling of what they continue to produce. (the list couls be much longer) These are important and influential works, advocated by mainstream respected organizations and institutions.
Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution, published
in 2002 by the American Law Institute (ALI).
http://www.divorcereform.org/ali.html
you will want to examine the work of scholars such as Judith Stacey, Martha Ertman, and Martha Fineman.
(or)
Emens's 2004 article, which appears in the Volume 29, Number 2 of The New York University Review of Law and Social Change, is called, "Monogamy's Law: Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous Existence."
Here are recent Canadian Government reports recomedations on Polygamy.
http://www.un-instraw.org/revista/hypermail/alltickers/en/0120.html
http://www.un-instraw.org/revista/hypermail/alltickers/en/0120.html
No I’m afraid the connection between Gay “marriage” & polyamory (while distinctions remain) is not a speculation.. But an empirical reality.
Re: the “Bolsheviks”
Lenin did say he wanted to: “make sex no more important than drinking a glass of water”
The antagonism toward the traditional family by such famous dialectical materialists like Frederick Engels, and Simone de Beauvoir is well documented.
Re: "Unique social status vis-a-vis who?"
Girls become women primarily via a biological shift. Boys are deemed "men" only by other men (and other married couples); it's a social phenomenon. Married men are accorded a higher status than unmarried men (among men and women). To remain long unmarried was always a lesser or suspect condition.
Marriage tames the male id, steering the aggressive and competitive impulses into useful child-rearing. If marriage loses further status, men will have fewer reasons to marry. And then there goes the neighborhood. Literally. No longer a hopeful enclave, it's become the 'hood, as in hoodlums in hoodies.
The short version? Michael Farris doesn't know what gay marriage will do to heterosexual marriage, and he doesn't care; he just wants his free ice cream and he wants it now.
Re: "Good Lord, Bolsheviks?"
Let me see if I got this straight. Geoduck brings up colonial times to trace the arc of the modern family, and that's cool. I bring up something that happened less than 100 years ago, and now we're violating Godwin's law.
You had better arguments when you were mocking the aged.
I never cease to be amazed that the left seems unable to defend their position against the most important argument from those opposing gay marriage. They simply cannot stomach discussing it, preferring the juvenile responses of mockery and rolling the eyes.
They take for granted that because copulation will continue, and babies will yet be born, that our civilization will persist. Their pride in unexamined assumptions are sufficient reason to reject their view. The nuns used to call it "invincible ignorance".
"The short version? Michael Farris doesn't know what gay marriage will do to heterosexual marriage"
No, not especially. As far as I'm concerned, as a proponent of same-sex marriage, it's not my role in the debate (maybe the rules of debate are different where you're from). Similarly, it's not your role to point out benefits of same-sex marriage or how denying it might negatively affect any gay children or grandchildren you may have.
Believe it or not, I think social conservatives do have a valuable role to play when big changes come up (with same sex marriage I think we're past the big change and into the little ones)* in pointing out possible dangers people hadn't thought of etc. So far, though, they haven't done that regarding same-sex marriage. They've said God doesn't like it or they don't like it (neither is a good basis for legislation in the US) or it might destroy or cripple heterosexual marriage without ever explaining how. That being the case, I see no realistic option but to go ahead and see what happens. If it's truly awful enough (a real but _extremely_ remote possibility IMO) then we can figure out what to do about it.
*The big change has been allowing and accepting gay people to live together in common-law type marriage conditions. Once that's accepted (and I assume even you're against trying to put that toothepaste back into the tube) the rest is small change. How are you going to stop gay people from publicly pair-bonding?
My own feeling is that vocal and legislative opposition to same-sex marriage hurts the institution more. It's a tacit admission that marriage is a trap for men and women who get 'respect' as a booby-prize for sacrificing their happiness to raise up the next generation of saps who'll sacrifice theirs (that's not my feeling about heterosexual marriage at all but it seems to be lurking behind the arguments of lots of people).
Pogo
Your arguments with your fellow posters vis-a-vie their use of history compared to your own: remind me of a book I read recently By Stephine Coontz about marriage’s changing dimensions.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067003407X/104-3425104-8145552?v=glance&n=283155
Stephanie Coontz basic approach is fundamentally flawed. In her book (Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage) she collapses thousands of years of human history into 448 pages of agenda driven obfuscation. It is standard operating procedure for scholars in the contemporary academy to elevate the particular over the universal. By examining the institution of marriage through this lens, Coontz distorts its core meaning and value.
Of coarse marriage has always served a variety of social functions; this or that culture or class has sought to harness its power for this or that end. At this particular time, it is the agenda of gay & feminist activists to harness its power to normalize homosexuality, promote androgyny, and (in many cases) weaken marriages normative power.
None of this says anything about marriages essential purpose. She continually ignores its primary function of bringing men & women together in stable households for the successful rearing and education of their children. By focusing instead on the particulars of everything from the 16th century aspirations of romantic love, to feudal landed aristocracy’s ambitions of greater wealth and power, Coontz is able to distract the reader away from these universal timeless truths. In much the same way Coontz previous book (The Way Never Were: American Families and the nostalgia Trap) was able to use the straw man of 1950,s Ward & June Clever imagery to convince her audience that marriages essential features are a fanciful shibboleth of mere nostalgia.
Feminists assertions to the contrary, marriage has never failed to promote this core normative function.
Coontz has dismissed intellectual integrity and moral vision by using her work to foment an evolutionist paradigm that views progress as whatever happens next. She is merely another apologist for contemporary family breakdown. Coontz attempts to shift attention from the grave problems of modern society in its struggle to bring men and women together in lifelong monogamy; for the good of themselves, for the good of their children, and for the good of all society.
eg
(you wrote)
"I try to base my beliefs on evidence, and so if you can bring in specific problems and evidence, you'll get a more traction here. But I think you'll have trouble doing that because, as far as I know, it doesn't exist."
We are talking about social science here. Obviously Massachusetts is all to recent to draw any direct conclusions. Also, as I assume your aware; the variables that go into marriage/divorce rated are numerous and complex.
You may want to look at studies done by Governments and Individuals in Scandinavian countries. (they have had forms of gay marriage for the longest periods)
As far as studies of gay households go, that evidence is rather sparse and still disputed. However there is plenty of social consensus that children fare by far the best in a home who their own married natural parents.
I’m sorry that last bit is addressed to gj
Re: "I try to base my beliefs on evidence..."
Ah, an empiricist. An oven isn't hot until you get burned.
Civilizations that tried to destroy the family and their fate:
Soviet Union: Gone.
Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime: Gone.
Mao's Cultural Revolution: Gone, being transformed.
It is useful to study how civilizations decline and fall. To persist, a society must -at a minimum- pass the mechanism for its success from generation to generation. Parents must rear their children to be dutiful and unselfish citizens who follow the morality, manners, customs and traditions of their community. When the people abandon custom for convenience and selfish goals (especially common when opulence is common), they reject the old ethics and traditions. This pattern progresses from one generation to the next, with each succeeding generation discarding ever more customs, manners, and mores. As previous restraints are discarded, the fulfillment of private impulses becomes elevated above the demands of virtue as an appropriate object of pursuit. Each successive generation becomes increasingly selfish and uncontrolled, and ultimately it fails, overtaken either by conquest or absorption. (For example: Rome, ancient Greece)
Though you seek proof, the multi-generation time frame does not permit one to say "In June, gays married, in July the world ended." No, because the staus quo ante cannot be regained once gay marriage is introduced, the only proof of deleterious effect will be through historical autopsy.
What's weird to me is that what i have posted above was common knowledge, even as recently as 'the greatest generation'. How very quickly that wisdom has been lost.
Re: "It's a tacit admission that marriage is a trap for men and women who get 'respect' as a booby-prize for sacrificing their happiness to raise up the next generation of saps..."
Well stated; exactly my point. And when this become the dominant view, who will elect to be a sap and stick around to raise kids? What's in it for me?
Re: Heterosexuality is now a choice.
I see. But homosexuality is genetic. Balderdash; not even worth a rejoinder.
...literary theorists did not cause divorce to sweep the nation in the 19th century
Sort of. The Enlightenment paved the way well before this, you forget. Similar destruction of the family has occurred under capitalism, communism, feudal societies, and tribes. "Follow the money" is often a useful reporter's dictum, but over-much reliance on it just produces silly scholarship.
geoduck2 (wrote)
"Again - the key is ECONOMIC NECESSITY & SURVIVAL. If mere survival is taken out of the picture - then stuff changes."
You remind me of the methodology Stephanie Coontz uses in her book. The one I critique up thread…. (look up 10 comments under Fitz)
I wrote…
"Stephanie Coontz basic approach is fundamentally flawed. In her book (Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage) she collapses thousands of years of human history into 448 pages of agenda driven obfuscation."
You do the same thing… There is a lot more going on over these periods than economic necessity. Culture matters quite a bit, to that end factors like religion, natalism, the honoring of motherhood, sexual morality and a healthy respect for institutions like marriage matter quite a bit.
Couples haven’t needed “10 to 12” kids to work the farm since the industrial revolution. Yet birth rates were well above replacement levels, divorce was low, and women relished domestic life.
Along those lines I recommend this recent piece from Foreign Policy review.
The author manages to discuss historical changes without simplifying or collapsing them to fit his thesis.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3376&page=0
Re; "If people didn't want to get married and have 2 or 3 kids, they wouldn't do it, because it's not economically necessary to their survival"
Exactly. Since kids are now seen as "unnecessary" for your own survival, then they have kids only because they want kids. (However, I reject that reproduction was ever seen as ensuring personal survival, howevermuch it may have helped in agrarian economics.)
Strange how this line of thinking has become quite popular of late! "Having fewer kids" eventually results in a marked decline in reproduction. Across the EU, progeny are produced at less than replacement numbers. The populations of many Western nations are in decline. Will decline continue as Muslims out-reproduce them? What then?
Redefining marriage deletes the focus on kids, and the very basis of civilization goes with it. On the other hand, Elton John will now feel "fulfilled". So we've got that going for us.
Re: "Economic necessity and survival does NOT dictate hetero-sexual marriage."
Given that being a single parent (usually female) is one of the highest risk factors for predicting the risk of poverty in a family (and then when those children grow up), the statement is false.
Re; "The human race is not going to become extinct because of two guys shacking up in West Hollywood."
Of course not. Western civilization is another matter, and was the subject of my post. Your response is therefore immaterial.
Intentional Distortions
(someone wrote)
""In fact, Stanley Kurtz, one of the most inveterate enemies of same-sex marriage, has recently switched to the issue of bisexuality as his ultimate weapon. Perhaps he realized that his favorite argument from a few years ago -- that heterosexuals will stop procreating if gays are allowed to marry -- was patently absurd and was not convincing anyone."""
It always bothers me when people distort other peoples arguments in an effort to downplay their significance. I for one have been readily convinced by Kurtz arguments, as have many others. That argument of is Not that hetersexuals will stop reproducing but rather …
(I will Quote Mr. Kurt Directly)
“More precisely, it has further undermined the institution. The separation of marriage from parenthood was increasing; gay marriage has widened the separation. Out-of-wedlock birthrates were rising; gay marriage has added to the factors pushing those rates higher. Instead of encouraging a society-wide return to marriage, Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.”
(That article & others can be found here..) http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp
Of coarse that reasoning is buttressed by other scholars including Jan Latten of the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics.
The Netherlands has had legalized Registered Partnerships since 1997.
http://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/D479F5BA-87B2-4C6E-BCCD-8306450AF908/0/2004k4b15p046art.pdf
(I’m afraid it is, naturally, in Dutch)
Perhaps you can find an English translation somewhere?
geoduck2 (wrote)
“I said economic survival and I meant it quite literally.
Social Security?? Medicare?
Think about old age in Colonial America if you don't have any kids. What are you going to do? What if you get sick? How are you going to feed yourself?
It was a matter of economic life and death in the colonial period.
What would an elderly couple do wiothout grown kids? Who would chop the firewood? Who would fix the roof? How would they keep from freezing in the winter?””
But geoduck2? Have things really changed that much?
When I say economic survival I (& Pogo) mean it quite literally…
Social Security?? Medicare?
Who’s going to pay into that?
(it’s a direct pay as you go system)
Along those lines I must once again recommend this recent piece from Foreign Policy review. (for any/and all who comment here.. its very instructive)
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3376&page=0
Re: "Economic Survival - we used to have to take it seriously."
On this point we agree. Now that we can fall back on the nanny state as the "other spouse" for economic survival, there is less need to marry. Patrick Moynihan noted this disturbing fact when he discovered that The Great Society resulted in fewer men marrying, and a rise in single motherhood. And that explains the decline in urban black civilization.
Re: "So this is a glaring contradiction in the arguments against SSM."
You missed it by a mile, friend. No one is arguing the general population will fall, I am arguing that the children born of traditional marriages will become ever fewer in number, and the basis for our American form of Western civilization will be undermined. Eventually, and soon in the EU, it will fail, and be overtaken by another patriarchal society. The population won't fall much, so you misunderstand the argument.
Re: "the numbers of white unwed mothers far exceeds that of non-white unwed mothers."
The percentage is far higher among blacks, but the same process is in fact happening to whites. When the calculus of reproduction becomes a mere personal economic strategy, unrelated to marriage, the civilization declines. Gay marriage and polygamy just push it even further toward failure.
"the staus quo ante cannot be regained once gay marriage is introduced, the only proof of deleterious effect will be through historical autopsy."
The old status quo cannot be regained at present, the real change has aleady happened. Legal recognition of same-sex unions is more about being honest about the current status quo - those attracted to their own sex also want to pair bond and settle down and are already doing so without legal recognition and will continue to do so with or without legal recognition unless actively prevented (do you want to actively prevent it? how?).
"Re: "It's a tacit admission that marriage is a trap for men and women who get 'respect' as a booby-prize for sacrificing their happiness to raise up the next generation of saps..."
Well stated; exactly my point. And when this become the dominant view, who will elect to be a sap and stick around to raise kids? What's in it for me?"
Why do you have such a low opinion about the power of marriage and bringing up children to be fulfilling? Do you really think that people have to be either tricked into it or decevied about what's going on until it's too late. We'll have to agree to disagree about that.
Men have conflicting drives (as do women) about fooling around and settling down. Most settle for some period of fooling around (or trying to) and then settling down (or trying to). You have to work very hard to keep them from doing that.
Low birth rates are primarily about women having more choice about how many children to have. When women are mostly in charge of how many children they have some will have more, some will have less but the overall birthrate will go down. If you want to tackle that, then figure out ways to make having and raising kids of more short term value, but short of drastic measures most women don't want to be brood mares turning out as many as some man thinks necessary.
CatoRenasci
(you wrote)
“As I said in an earlier comment, I remain somewhat agnostic on the question of whether homosexuality is an innate behavior or a behavioral choice (which may be the result of nurture or may be a conscious choice), because I think the evidence is ambiguous””
Along those lines, perhaps this paper by the following individual will help your query, and bring you up to date.
JEFFREY B. SATINOVER, Ed.M., M.S., M.D., A.B.P.N.
Presently conducting research in complex physical and economic systems in the department of physics and the condensed matter physics laboratory at the University of Nice, France. The present work reports on research conducted while teaching constitutional law in the department of politics at Princeton University and physics at Yale University, and consulting to groups writing briefs in various state and
federal Supreme Court cases.
S.B., Humanities & Science, M.I.T., 1971
Ed.M. Clinical Psychology & Public Practice, Harvard University, 1973
M.D., University of Texas, 1982
M.S., Physics, Yale University, 2003
http://www.narth.com/docs/TheTrojanCouchSatinover.pdf
CatoRenasci, we have a lot in common, we’re both attorneys & both live in tony suburbs.
Re: "Do you really think that people have to be either tricked into it or decevied about what's going on until it's too late."
You misunderstand. I pointed out that devaluing marriage from its ideal state of duty, virtue, and sacrifice into a selfish calculation of personal economic utility is dangerous to us all. But the idea is fast gaining a foothold, and explains the drift of heterosexual men away from marriage ("afraid to commit") among whites, or the siring of numerous kids by numerous women, unmarried, as among blacks. Neither scenario is conducive to societal longevity.
And geoduck, you metnion that "ten kids" was not uncommon in colonial times, but neglect to say that the mortality rate was extremely high, such that survival was somewhere less than half. And the wife often died in childbirth. Few families had the majority of births survive to adulthood.
Edward:
(you wrote)
“Most famously, Stanley Kurtz makes this argument. And look at Fitz's posts in this thread. Fitz says that he agrees with Stanley Kurtz that the population will fall. Stanley Kurtz also insists that polygamy will become commonplace after legalized SSM.”’
Now you are intentionally distorting, Kurtz, mine & Pogo’s arguments!
(does this make you fell accomplished)
Its called a strawman argument: That is when you ascribe a false,and weak argument to your opponents, only to knock it down for effect.
(your not the first person to come up with this tactic)
I have provided the link to Kurtz arguments (that I do in fact subscribe to)
They have much more to do with family formation & childrearing than overall population.
To this end I will provide a link to ALL of Kurtz’s work
(This way you can re-familiarize yourself, & others can objectively judge for themselves)
http://nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz-archive.asp
(as for this)
“Yet a growth in polygamy should increase, not decrease the population.”
That’s your own weird conclusion, as is the silly contradiction you posit from it.
Ann,
I think you missed the mathematica rebuttal of your economic argument that you made the first time, so here it is again:
The total number of people being eligible for benefits is the entire population, were they to get married (however marriage is legally defined). So in a 'worst case scenario' economically, one hundred percent of the adult population might get married, while about sixty percent of those eligible are now married (down from about 75% a couple of generations ago), so in a 'worst case scenario' you would less than double the total spent on benefits.
But in fact, other than the increase caused by maybe classifying more people as 'married' if you broaden the definition, there is zero economic impact. Here is why:
Suppose for example, that you have 100 married people in a community. Now, if they all get married in groups of two, then each group gets 1/50 of the total benefit, and there are fifty groups of two. If they got married in groups of four, then each group gets 1/25 of the total benefits, while there are only 25 groups of four. If they got married in groups of ten, then each 'marriage' would each get 1/10 of the total benefit, but there would only be ten groups.
Your economic argument is a mathematical fallacy which centered only on the impact of larger groups taking a larger share of the pie, while ignoring the fact that the pie is sliced into fewer pieces. Hence the pie (the economic benefits) remains the same size.
A pizza is the same size whether you cut it into six, eight, or twenty pieces, and even if the pieces themselves may vary within each partition.
Marghlar said: "I live in one of the best neighborhoods in Chicago."
So rich and intelligent, yet you failed to read much of this thread or the last. I am not arguing that gay marriage will be deleterious in the next two months or next year, but in a generation, and over time. Your current neighborhood only proves that it is far more lucrative to care only about your own needs, and forget entirely raising kids.
Plus, you get to free-ride off of the efforts of others who did waste their time creating the next generation, instead of shopping and fine dining and vacationing in fabulous opulence. Those brats will pay your medicare and Social Security, if someone got around to making enough of them, and they were trained with a sufficient work ethic to generate the kind of income you can confiscate to care for your aging self.
Pogo:
You are missing Marghlar's point about the characteristics of his neighborhood (which evidently resembles my neighborhood in Houston). As he notes, its desirable qualities are partly the product of a substantial gay population which has been in place for some period of time and which at this point is forbidden to marry. Allowing them to marry will not change the neighborhood for the worse, nor will it reduce the percentage of residents who have offspring.
"Can we call it even for me supporting putting them through school for twelve years? I was happy to help pay their way."
Well no..
Girls become women primarily via a biological shift.
Oh, the old women are bodies, men are social structures argument. To be a woman, one must simply menstruate. To be a man, one must earn the distinction.
And this means we must stave off gay marriage, because through some unexplained mechanism it will cause men not to want to be tamed. Pogo doesn't have to prove the mechanism by which this will happen, only point to the imaginary specter of it. And anyone who doesn't believe in things that don't exist are selfish, and want their "ice cream."
Cranky and illogical. That's not a dig at old people, just an evaluation of this "argument."
I am not arguing that gay marriage will be deleterious in the next two months or next year, but in a generation, and over time.
More fevered imaginings. Someday, in some manner that I can't actually articulate nor prove through any rational means, civilization will crumble if we allow gays to marry.
Re: Edward's comment:
I would also recommend that you investigate the research of Richard Florida. His two most famous books are The Rise of the Creative Class, and Cities and the Creative Class. He demonstrates that the presence of a significant gay population in a community provides powerful economic advantages by encouraging innovation.
I think Florida's ideas are worth looking into. On the other hand, for a dissenting view, see here, in City Journal.
Re: geoduck2
I'm playing with the idea that the soul and the concept of a direct relationship with God feeds into our concepts of natural rights and also our concept of romantic love.
I'm not sure if it predates your area of speciality, but where do you see "romantic love" emerging as the major justification behind marriage in Western (or at least Anglo-saxon) cultures? My impression is that it wasn't part of the general understanding of marriage in the middle ages, where there were apparently notions about romantic love being attainable only outside marriage, but I think by the early 19th century (e.g. Jane Austen), the notion that marriage requires love seems to be there, at least in an aspirational sense. Was this a Restoration thing? Earlier?
If I was rich I'd consider having a huge family. Ten kids isn't that many.
It's most important that the childbearer in a couple feels this way.
More fevered imaginings. Someday, in some manner that I can't actually articulate nor prove through any rational means, civilization will crumble if we allow gays to marry.
I think the real weakness in the argument you're characterising unsympathetically there is that no civilisation in all history has, to my knowledge, had something we would recognise as legal gay marriage. So we can't draw links between state recognition of gay marriage and any historical consequences proposed.
But part of this, of course, is a kind of trick of language. When we encounter a foreign culture, we are presented with a problem of translation -- what relationship in that other culture is the analogue of marriage in our culture. And naturally, in forming the comparison, we will pull out what we consider the essential characteristics of marriage, and find "marriage" analogues among the Indian peoples, among the Mahometans and the Africans, among the Chinese and the Japanese, and so forth. If they do have things modern man might consider a marriage-analogue, we just don't recognise them as marriages, and would call them something else, I suppose. Like brotherhood ceremonies. Or something.
But that difficulty of classification suggests -- to me, at least -- that if there are consequences to gay marriage, they shouldn't be following from what we call it, but from its substance. Similarly, with many problems people think will appear with polygamy -- jealousy, for example, or a shortage of wives among young men, who will then turn to the seductive and all-consuming darkness of revolution -- these aren't actually dependent on legalising polygamy. They can arise perfectly well quite independent of state recognition of polygamy.
If there are any novel evils to arise from gay marriage, they will arise anyway, once gays enter into commited long-term relationships, as some already do. For broader social effects, outside of gay and lesbian communities, I think one ought to keep in mind that the state's forcing people to recognise gay marriages as full "marriages," in the legal sense does not actually determine what the social meaning of a gay marriage will be. Millions of people will still go on thinking that gay marriages are a bit of a joke, no matter what some law says they ought to think. There is no lever, in the machinery of the state, that can be pulled to alter peoples' opinions.
Good argument Marghlar.
Perhaps Pogo could explain how gays can move into the most desolute neighborhoods in a city, and then turn them into the most desireable neighborhoods in less than a decade.
See Chelsea and Hells Kitchen in New York for a couple of examples. Or South Beach for another example.
Doesn't seem like the end of civilization to me.
Nothing, and I repeat NOTHING, is a better indicator of a real-estate upswing than gays moving into a neighborhood.
But I do admit that I get a rush that Pogo is attributing all of this power to me. Gays, only 10% of the population, have the power in their hands to DESTROY THE ENTIRE WORLD!!! Cool. And I'm Jewish to boot, which means that I control the media and finance as well. I guess that makes me SUPER DUPER POWERFUL!!!
BOO!
I said quite clearly that some of these people were rearing children, and doing it quite well. My wife was raised by a single mother (after her mother divorced her abusive horror of a father), and turned out to be a splendid person. One of the best parents I know personally is a single mom by choice. I also know plenty of people raised in two-parent households who are screwed-up in the extreme.
I think the problem here, Marghlar, is that this is proof by anecdote. Unless Pogo's position is absolutist -- to wit, All children raised by nontraditional families will be screwed up, and No children raised by traditional families will be screwed up, your anecdotal evidence doesn't rebut his argument. I am too lazy to read the entire thread, but my guess is that his argument is something like:
Incidence of screwed-up-ness among children of non-traditional families is higher than the incidence of screwed-up-ness among children of traditional families, to a statistically significant degree. Therefore, to maximise the mental health of the next generation, and to minimise the rate of up-screwing, we should promote traditional forms at the expense of non-traditional forms, so that marginal decision-makers opt for traditional forms in the highest rates attainable.
Now, you can quibble with the argument, based on whatever the rates are, or by quibbling with the proposed causal nexus, but in terms of its form, it seems sensible enough to me.
Balfegor,
I agree with you that legalization won't change the attitudes of many. But I know that it will matter to me, and to my partner of 13 years. Some of that meaning will be practical, and a relief in terms of our duties to one another in the legal realm. But I think there will be another dimension as well, and it matters not to me what people who oppose our marriage think. I believe that public ritual is transformative. I wouldn't take Communion if I did not believe that. I don't think being married could make me love my partner any more than I do now, but I am open to the idea that we might experience greater depths still, and feel more fully a part of the society we inhabit.
downtownlad said...
Perhaps Pogo could explain how gays can move into the most desolute neighborhoods in a city, and then turn them into the most desireable neighborhoods in less than a decade.
Let me try: gays, being excluded from bourgeois society, have been forced to work harder and more creatively to achieve even a modicum of success. But if they are socially absorbed into the middle class (through e.g. gay marriage) they'll become humdrum middle class drones themselves...and there goes the neighborhood. Sound like a good argument against gay marriage to me!
P.S. Not sure what a "desolute neighborhood" is...but many would say a desolate neighborhood isn't necessarily dissolute until the gays get there....
Marghlar:
i do understand that the evidence offered is anecdotal -- but it is representative of my experience, and hence goes to why I think what I think. I haven't seen any evidence offered to support Pogo's belief that civilization will decline if gay marriage is accepted. I'm not sure what such a study would look like. But, until someone cites some well-performed and reasoned statistical evidence on this subject to me (hard to do, since the legal recognition of gay marriage is very new), I think it is fairly reasonable to argue from anecdote.
I think we can unpack that. Yes, I agree anecdotal evidence is reason for skepticism, particularly if he's failed to supply statistics. Indeed, I consider love-matches inferior to arranged marriages largely on the basis of anecdotal experience, even though I know that statistically, they succeed and fail at about the same rates.
The other thing is that re: gay marriage, I suspect Pogo is conflating the substance of gay-marriage and state recognition of gay-marriage, which is really just a cherry on the top, as it were, and doesn't much affect the substance of the relationship. It may carry psychic benefits for Elizabeth and her committed partner, but whether we call it marriage or cohabitation makes little difference, I think.
But then, I also think traditional marriage is broken, and, as a good little social darwinist, think that if we just let things sit for a century or two, maladaptive patterns of family organisation will naturally drop out of society without our having to lift a finger.
Edward:
To avoid repeating ourselves and to make sure this debate advances rather than turns around in circles, maybe we should all look it over.
But it's soooo loooong. -_-
It may carry psychic benefits for Elizabeth and her committed partner, but whether we call it marriage or cohabitation makes little difference, I think.
I mean, as far as the destruction of civilisation is concerned. Naturally, Elizabeth is rather better positioned than I to evaluate the effect on her life.
Re: "Then you'll understand my lack of concern about the burden my old age puts on said "brats"."
1. You do not pay enough in taxes to recompense what they will be forced to pay for your old age. In addition, you contributed no labor to their raising. Hence "free-riding" on heterosexual marriages.
2. However, my kids may feel differently, when their taxes hit over 60%. We'll see about your concern over their burden then.
Re: "...because through some unexplained mechanism it will cause men not to want to be tamed.
...Cranky and illogical. "
You must have taken "logic" in one of them newfangled Foucauldian schools, I'll bet. I put it pretty simply; I think you can get it. Men are not generally known for commitment to marriage, so communities have created traditions that favor this arrangement. Children raised in such families are more likely to transmit the ideals of society. Weaken marriage and you weaken families. Weaken families, and you weaken society. Decrease the status of marriage, and there's one less reason to get married. This has already occurred in the EU and among black men in the US. Gay marriage will simply accelerate the decline.
Re: "He's simply scared of same-sex marriage..."
Scared as in frightened? Yup, the Queer Eye marriages have me quaking. That's pretty funny. The left has no means by which to discuss this except to mock, belittle, demonize, and otherwise emotionally engage their opponents here. And then, while posing a massive change in Western society, they demand their opponents prove why it should not be undertaken.
re: "until someone cites some well-performed and reasoned statistical evidence on this subject to me"
Such chutzpah. No; You prove your results to me that gay marriage is safe for society.
Re: "I just don't buy it, and you've adduced no evidence to show it."
I don't care. prove to me why I should support such a huge change in the meaning of marriage. You haven't done so. So prove it.
Re: "your fantasy of a bunch of crazy welfare queens and champagne drinking selfish millionaires"
Say what? Welfare queens? Whaaa? You readin' with crazy glasses agains?
You brought up your tony neighborhood, and the lack of crime. I noted how this can only last one generation, being given over to indulgence of the self, and not remotely concerned with the task of raising the best next generation possible. It's inward-looking, self-indulgent even, no matter how nice the people.
Re; "Nothing, and I repeat NOTHING, is a better indicator of a real-estate upswing than gays moving into a neighborhood."
Gosh! So if everyone became gay, we'd be rich beyond our wildest dreams, and the next generation would, um, uh, ....
Ed said "Many of my own best posts appear there, too."
Blogatory onanism.
It's time that we gay people gave up on gay marriage. It will never happen.
Let's start taking the alternative approach. Convincing our heterosexual friends that marriage is a bigoted institution, one in which they shouldn't partake.
Now THAT approach, would certainly lead to the end of marriage. And it certainly stands a good chance of success.
Last time I checked, Massachusetts (the only state in the country where gay marriage is legal) had the LOWEST divorce rate in the country.
The states that have Constitutional Amendments against gay marriage happen to have some of the HIGHEST divorce rates.
It's Friday. Time to go and have a drink and bring an end to civilization once and for all. :)
Re; "We just have to keep making the case for it intelligently and be patient. Trying to convince everyone to abolish marriage instead is just ridiculous."
Not to mention redundant.
Interracial marriage was equally not part of the "traditional" concept of marriage.
Really? Unlike with gay marriage, there's plenty of historical examples of interracial marriage. I don't know when the anti-miscegenation statutes came into play (my recollection is that they were part of the post-Reconstruction legislative changes that introduced segregation, although I may be wrong, as I am not an historian), but in the 18th century, in the Raj, plenty of European men took native women to wife. I suspect the same was true among the American colonists and the Native Americans.
Anyways, in the 17th century Virginian slaveholders outlaw interracial sex and marriage in a serious of laws in their developing slave code.
South Carolina has the same issues, although they adopted the slave code from Barbados.
Indeed? Well, I suppose racialised slavery would have implicated the same concerns, so it's not all that surprising.
But those are post-Enlightenment developments. I don't think a claim that interracial marriage is incompatible with traditional marriage is sustainable. One might claim it as a distinctive tradition of the American colonies (the English parts at least -- didn't the French population intermarry with the native population?) but it certainly lacks the universality of the traditional 'ban' on gay marriage. For another example of interracial marriage (from the 17th century), see Pushkin's ancestor, Ibrahim Petrovich Gannibal.
Edward - I was being sarcastic.
Well, sort of.
I do think that there is a very good chance that the next generation will come to view marriage as a bigoted institution, if archaic Constitutional amendments (which will be VERY difficult to overturn - 3/4ths majority, etc.) stay on the books.
Do not be surprised to see straight people start to boycott marriage when they realize that their gay friends are being denied their rights.
I don't make my straight friends feel guilty for getting married. But if I don't get my rights in 10 years, I might very well start to do so. And why shouldn't I? It's no different than a black person making a white friend feel guilty for joining a country club that bans blakcs.
Just how old is the tradition of secular marriage? I suspect not very old. In that case, I think the tradition arguments aren't as strong.
Well, what do you mean by "secular marriage?" I mean, the tradition in the West is clearly interrupted by Christian marriage (at least among the aristocracy) throughout the Middle Ages. But there was a kind of secular marriage co-extant with Christian marriage during the Roman Empire.
Re:
How old are statutes setting out who can get married? Wasn't this just the church doing what it wanted for a long time?
The Codex Justinianus (535 AD) sets out marriage laws. And I think many of the Roman marriage laws actually date back much earlier, to the Twelve Tables, putting the date back at least 2000 years ago. On the other hand, checking wikipedia, it looks like the marriage law of the Twelve Tables establishes only that marriage between patricians and plebians is forbidden.
Edward - The civil rights movement in the United States happened because of the courts.
You are simply not going to get that with the Courts going forward in regards to gay rights. If anything, expect the courts to PUSH BACK gay rights.
Anti-gay judges will soon reach a majority on the Supreme Court once Stevens dies. Lawrence is just one vote from being overturned. I expect that anti-gay majority on the Court to last for at least 30-40 years. But heck, anti-gay Presidents have the elections, so what are you going to do. That is how our country works.
Honestly - I don't see states like Alabama overturning their anti-gay amendments for at least 70 years, even if the people of Alabama come to endorse the concept in 10-20 years time. It's going to take 70 years before you can get 3/4ths of Alabama legislators to overturn the concept.
I don't think I'm being pessimistic here. I'd call it realistic.
People will be embarrassed by these laws in a generation hence. As they should be. And a rational response to this might very well be a rejection of marriage altogether.
No wouldn't that be the height of irony? Marriage destroyed by those who claim to "save" it.
Balfegor: You seem troubled by the fact that no culture in history has legalized same-sex marriage before the recent trend started in Europe, but you also seem open-minded.
Let me suggest this to you: the status of gay people is closely connected to the status of women.
You don't actually need to persuade me -- I don't oppose gay marriage. Largely because, as you may get from what I've been saying, I think it's an irrelevancy. I don't think it's cause for worry, because I don't think it will (or can) destroy society. Even if sexual license and the destabilisation of the family cause our present civilisation to rot away, I can trace my ancestors back over a thousand years, past war, revolution, occupation, and worse. I have perfect confidence that regardless of what happens to the world without, if we do not fail in my generation, our line may yet endure a thousand years more. My vision of marriage and family is apocalyptic.
You'll probably have some difficulty convincing me that gay marriage makes sense, though (so to speak), because my vision of marriage is centered around children and continuation of family, not romantic love.
On the other hand, checking wikipedia, it looks like the marriage law of the Twelve Tables establishes only that marriage between patricians and plebians is forbidden.
I should not trust Wikipedia alone -- other sources indicate that there are further laws from what we know of the Twelve Tables establishing a procedure for getting married. I did not see it, but I vaguely recall there was an analogous procedure for divorce.
Thanks for speaking slowly, Pogo. I put it pretty simply; I think you can get it. But it's not the simplicity, it's the lucidity that's missing. You keep making the assertion that gay marriage will "devalue" marriage, slipping it in with your bastardized Rousseau (men hate marriage! They only do it because they must! Women ought to make it very, very appealing for them, or they'll just stop doing it!) as if there's some provable, logical cause and effect going on.
You do not demonstrate a reason to believe that gay marriage will cause heterosexual men to reject marriage. You simply assert that they will. It is not an a priori fact. It is an assumption, and assumptions must be explained in order to be used in an argument.
That's just your every day, boring old logic. No fancy French faggot version designed to obfuscate the straight, conservative mind.
Elizabeth, here's the rest of the quote from Pogo you dismissed as lacking lucidity: Men are not generally known for commitment to marriage, so communities have created traditions that favor this arrangement. Children raised in such families are more likely to transmit the ideals of society. Weaken marriage and you weaken families. Weaken families, and you weaken society. Decrease the status of marriage, and there's one less reason to get married. This has already occurred in the EU and among black men in the US. Gay marriage will simply accelerate the decline.
Which of these simple declarative statements do you find opaque? Let's see:
Men are not generally known for commitment to marriage, so communities have created traditions that favor this arrangement.
Since a huge amount of rom-coms and all sorts of entertainment center on the idea of the male "fear of commitment," I'd be surprised if anyone would dispute the notion that men by nature are not predisposed to settle down, and so our society has created incentives for men to do so.
Children raised in such families are more likely to transmit the ideals of society.
We learn to parent from our parents. There is skads of research showing higher incidences of risky behavior from kids from single-parent households, and such kids do less well overall than kids from 2-parent households. Evidence of the success of children from 2-same-sex-parent households does not rise above the level of anecdote, at least as far as I know.
Weaken marriage and you weaken families.
Yes? No? If no, please defend your position. Evidence from poor black communities buttresses Pogo's statement.
Weaken families, and you weaken society.
Again, we have only to look at the higher illegitimacy rates and higher incarceration rates among poor blacks to see this effect in action.
Decrease the status of marriage, and there's one less reason to get married.
Human nature -- but I'm sure this is where you'd protest that redefining marriage to include gays would not devalue it.
This has already occurred in the EU and among black men in the US.
Plenty of empirical evidence from the EU, already linked up-thread.
Gay marriage will simply accelerate the decline.
Another statement you disagree with, but that you can't argue why, exactly, we (Pogo and those who agree with him) are wrong.
You claim his statements are non-sensical, but I don't see that. I see statements you don't want to agree with, but that doesn't mean the statements themselves lack lucidity.
Joan: No one on your side of this debate has responded to my post from earlier today that welfare is the real cause of family breakdown in Europe and in the black community.
I would quibble with calling it the cause, but I do think it's one of the most significant causes. For those of us chilled by the memory of Eternal Rome, there's parallels there too. Bread and circuses and whatnot.
On the other hand, I don't think we can discount independent changes in social mores, which came in roughly in parallel with a broad expansion of welfare. It's not only the Black urban community in America that is experiencing the breakdown of the family, after all. They just have suffered the most total devastation.
What are you concerned about? Or am I misreading you?
I think you're misreading slightly. My understanding of what marriage and family are about is "apocalyptic" in the sense that it is eschatological, romantic, and somewhat fatalistic -- a desire that at the end of the world, my family, and the memory of my ancestors, will be there to face oblivion.
There's also a certain humdrum neoconfucianism in it, though. And tribalism and overweening family pride mixed through as well.
Yes. The statutes themselves are not new. Rather the legal practice of having all of one's ducks lined up is new. Through the first half of the 19th century there was more frequency of informal marriage arrangements; or people neglecting to get legally divorced before re-marriage; or actually registering before a Justice of the Peace.
Isn't this really just a uniform enforcement issue? Because my sense is that enforcement of any law was pretty uneven throughout the 19th century.
Regardless, secular regulation of marriage is not some novel invention of the 20th century, but has antecedents stretching back well into antiquity.
Edward, if you linked to hard data -- not anecodotes -- that supported your position, I would read it. If you have linked to such studies before and I missed them, I'm sorry. To date, however, all of the evidence points to changing definitions of marriage leading to declines in the number of children growing up in traditional families.
I do not think I'm close-minded. Rather, I think I'm a realist, and I'm extremely nervous about social engineering. Out of the sexual revolution have come some positives, including expanded horizons for women, but the unintended consequences of the "free love" era have been plentiful and very painful. At the time when people were agitating for widely available birth control (not just for married couples), the Catholic Church among others warned against the type of society this would lead to, and lo and behold, they were right. Having separated sex and procreation, we as a culture have also abandoned the ideas of personal responsibility and respect.
You could not possibly change my mind about gay people, because my feelings about gay people is that they are more or less the same as any other people. I've known, lived with, and worked with gays since the day I moved away from my parents' house to go to college. My husbands only business partner is gay. I don't view them as second class citizens (although I will never understand that particular type of lesbian who introduces herself thus, "Hi, I'm K. I'm lesbian." It's on par with the guy who stares at your breasts when he's talking to you.)
While I wish my gay friends and gay former colleagues the best, I am still opposed to gay marriage. Marriage, by its very definition, is instituted by society for the getting and raising of children, not for the personal satisfaction of the couple. (I won't even get into sacramental marriage, since the idea of a same-sex sacramental marriage is a complete non-starter.)
So, don't talk to me about how wonderful and affluent and loving gay couples are. I'm sure some are, just as I'm sure some aren't. Yes, some gay couples want children, but many don't. Where's the data, where are the surveys that show what percentage of the gay population actually wants to get married, which is a separate question from how many want to see gay marriage legalized? I would be interested to know.
I admit that I am less than persuaded that homosexuality has a genetic base. A genetic predisposition, that I'd buy. But I've seen too many college-age homosexuals grow up to marry to believe that everyone who participates in a homosexual relationship is destined to be homosexual forever. And it's that fungibility of orientation that makes legislating for gays as a group so tricky.
As for what's happening today with rising illegitimacy rates: Continued welfare reform will fix most of the problems you identify.
I don't think so. As balfegor said, welfare is one of the contributing factors -- the State as father/head of household, in lieu of an actual male -- it is not the only cause. While teenage pregnancy rates are dropping, we're now seeing a rise in women in their 20s and 30s opting for single motherhood. They've given up looking for a suitable mate, and have decided to go it alone. It's not just that men have been socialized into thinking they're superfluous as anything more than a sperm donor, it's young women who have bought into this as well. And this is happening among whites as well as blacks.
Last, I must address these ideas:There is nothing inherent to gay marriage that will teach irresponsibility and aversion to marriage to young heterosexuals.
On the contrary, gay marriage will will teach that family and personal responsibility are expected of everyone.
I must disagree with you, particular among the blustering macho young men of the inner cities: anything adopted by gays is immediately mocked by them. If you've been around teenagers at all, you'll know that a more harshly judgemental group does not exist. By far the majority of young straight men would find the phrase "That's gay," a pejorative. There is no way that legalizing gay marriage would make it more appealing to the young men who are already most likely to reject marriage.
It's a really sweet idea that gay marriage will teach that everyone needs to be responsible to future generations, but it's a non sequitor: gay marriages can't, by definition, produce a future generation. I know, you can adopt, but are you seriously arguing that every gay couple -- or even the majority -- wants to marry so they can raise children together? I don't believe that. The sentiments you've expressed display a level of naivete that is surprising given all that you've expounded here.
Balfegor: I'm all for neo-confucianism, but I don't buy the argument that gay marriage (or gay relationships) disrupt it. Confucianism tolerated female homosexuality quite comfortably (within polygynous family units). And notions that we have filial duties to our family needn't dictate who our family can be (gay/straight/numbers) unless we are slavish about such things. I think a neo-confucianist need not be.
Gay marriage doesn't disrupt relationships in a Confucian framework -- it's just pointless in a Confucian framework. Marriage is many things, but under Confucianism, it has mostly been about children, especially a son. What's the point of marrying another man (or another woman, if you're a woman)?
There's no uniform Confucian position on homosexual relationships themselves, though. That I know of.
I have read the most contributing factor to poverty is single motherhood. Are these families poor because they are unstable, or are they unstable because they're poor? Single parent families are poor and stay poor because they are single parent families. The most surefire way to avoid poverty is to avoid single parenthood.
This article at the Heritage Foundation has many links and footnotes to source data (including charts) that show the increase in out-of-wedlock births over the period from which same-sex marriages were legalized in the Netherlands.
I apologize for my sloppy wording earlier: there is no direct evidence that same-sex marriage is the only factor causing this phenomenon, and I did not mean to imply that it was. As discussed in the article, the legalization of same-sex marriage is yet another step in the disintegration of marriage overall; it's the continuation of a trend there. But while same-sex marriage is not the only causative factor, it is seen as a contributing factor. There are statistically significant changes that are observable over the period in which legalization was under discussion, and further changes after legalization took place.
Whoa, hold on Marghlar, drug dealers in poor black communities are extremely wealthy by middle class standards and they routinely father many children by many different women. Your "poverty" explanation doesn't wash.
As to the child rearing: modern homosexual couples can have a son by adoption or by the assistance of a third party (whether donating sperm or an egg + gestational services, depenidng on the gender of the gay couple). What's anti-confucian about that?
Am I being unclear here? -- What's the point of the marriage if you're just going to adopt, or get your heirs through a concubine or somesuch? If that was the way it worked, there would be no filial obligation to marry at all. Marriage would be an irrelevancy under Confucian thought.
Basically, the issue comes down to this: Why on Earth would the elders arrange a marriage with another man? It makes no sense.
Joan, your protests over my the use of the word "lucid" would be more credible if you likewise were concerned about his patronizing reply to me, which ignores my argument and instead essentially calls me stupid.
Simple, declarative statements do not make an argument. For those statements to work as premises in the argument, they need to be explained, supported with evidence and reasoning. Your reasoning that romantic comedy plots prove that men marry out of social pressure only is not very persuasive. Can you offer evidence from some the real world, and not fiction? And how would you respond to the really good romantic comedies, the Shakespeare comedies, wherein men and women alike resist the pressure to marry?
It doesn't matter whether you or Pogo can prove that assertion; the other problem is that a series of simple, declarative statements fails as an argument on other terms. What is the connection from one premise to the next?
The key problem is the one you and Pogo try to toss off as minor. You state that gay marriage will devalue marriage such that heterosexual men will not want to marry. Prove it.
You instead want others to prove the negative. We are under no obligation to do so. You cannot assert a causal argument without proof and expect it to be persuasive. Your whole argument rests on that one point. Everything else is window dressing. Why will straight men decide there's no reason for them to marry, once gays can marry? What exactly will be lost in terms of motivations for marriage? If you can't explain that, you've got nothing to stand on.
You're right; simple, declarative statements are lucid. But without adding up to anything, they're vapid.
Abraham, Joan's and Pogo's argument is no more than "Well, I think same-sex marriage will devalue the institution." No why, no how, just "it will." How does that somehow strike you as more persuasive than seeing no reason to believe it will? You're choosing to be persuaded by a weak argument based on a speculation that has no evidence in fact.
Elizabeth said:You instead want others to prove the negative. We are under no obligation to do so. You cannot assert a causal argument without proof and expect it to be persuasive. Your whole argument rests on that one point. Everything else is window dressing. Why will straight men decide there's no reason for them to marry, once gays can marry? What exactly will be lost in terms of motivations for marriage? If you can't explain that, you've got nothing to stand on.
It is not speculation that many (I would say the majority of) young heterosexual males, particular those from poor neighborhoods with few male role models, abhor anything having to do with gay culture. "What're you, queer?" is the kind of question teenage boys who are friendly toss around, but it's very close in meaning to "What're you, stupid?" These same young toughs are exactly the ones who will be (or have already begun) fathering children without marrying their children's mothers. These are the boys who need to learn that being a man means being an in-residence father. These are the boys who, if gays co-opt marriage, will have yet another reason to cite for not getting married.
Will the legalization of gay marriage deter older, more responsible, less homophobic males from marrying? No, but those are most likely the guys who grew up in intact families, who expect to get married. Do I have any proof of this? Of course not -- but I think that there is reason to believe that different segments of society would have a different reaction to the legalization of same-sex marriage, just as polling data now shows there are different attitudes about it among different communities. Blacks overall still haven't budged from their overwhelmingly negative view of gay marriage, whereas the population in general seems to be shifting more in favor of it.
Also, You cannot assert a causal argument without proof and expect it to be persuasive. Well, neither can you, then. You say there won't be any deleterious effects. I say, prove it.
Marghlar asked, Where is the evidence that Dutch culture is in "decline?" I don't know, I didn't go looking for that, and it's much too late to do it now. What I have seen, and I'm sure you have too, is the data that shows the impact of things such as out-of-wedlock births, here in America. We've seen the negative effects of the societal changes we're struggling with already; if the changes accelerate to the levels the Dutch are experiencing, what's to reverse those negative trends and flip them over to positives? Is it suddenly going to become a good thing, coming from a single parent home? I don't see any mechanism by which such a change could take place.
There may be structures in place in the Netherlands that allow such huge changes to be absorbed and the culture to continue as before, and to thrive. But we already know that the U.S. does not have any such structures, and more to the point, we have no intention of implementing them. We are not going to become a cradle-to-grave socialist state, at least not any time soon. We don't have to call back to Pogo's citations of those totalitarian states, we have ample recent historical data which demonstrates that the State can not adequately substitute for the male head of the house.
Joan, so, by your own argument, the young men who right now don't get married, still won't if gays are allowed to, and the guys who do, still will. So gay marriage changes things how?
And appeasing the homophobia of the "that's so queer" guys isn't a reason to deprive gays of anything. That same argument is used to keep gays out of the military.
Abraham, all the arguments you offer have been refuted in this discussion. And the upshot still focuses on the belief that gay marriage will, more than any other host of factors, loosen the connection between producing children and marriage. You can't say why that will be the case. Allowing infertile people to marry doesn't do it. Allowing people past child-bearing years doesn't. I'm really aghast at this cyncial belief that people have to be socially pressured to form loving relationships and to have children. This magical transformation by which gay marriage will cause heterosexuals to abandon marriage, and reproduction, in sufficient numbers to doom civilization and the human race remains unexplained, and unconvincing.
Abraham,
Let’s get past the theoretical for a moment and answer me this honestly.
Would you choose not to have children if SSM was legal?
Marghlar:I doubt that being raised by one or two parents outside of a marriage, independent of other factors (like family income, social status, etc) has anything to do with how well the kids turn out.
You may very well doubt it, but some excellent research has been done on this topic, and controlling for all the other variables, it is true that children from single-parent households do not fare as well as those from two-parent households. See here, more recent data here; this paper shows that kids in blended families (stepkids) have similar outcomes to single-parented kids; this 5 page pdf from the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy gives a good overview of the current state of research into family structure, including a discussion of research on the outcomes for children raised by gay parents (summary: there is no good research on that topic).
Here is a translation of a Dutch article from 2004 (I think) talking about trends there and what they foresee in terms of marriage, divorce, single-parent homes, etc.
And especially for Elizabeth, here is a very long (39 pp, but tons of footnotes) discussion of how same-sex marriage will harm society. Maggie Gallagher brings up all the arguments we've been hashing through on this thread, and systematically addresses them. I found her discussion of the economic "benefit" of marriage to be very interesting.
Elizabeth, again: And the upshot still focuses on the belief that gay marriage will, more than any other host of factors, loosen the connection between producing children and marriage.
I'm sorry, but are you insane? Gay marriage doesn't just "loosen the connection between producing children and marriage", it severs it completely. A gay couple can not, without outside assistance, reproduce. The fact that some hetero couples can not or choose not to reproduce does not affect the underlying reality that, as Gallagher says, "when men and women have sex, they make babies." For specific individuals, it may not be true, but it holds for the group as a whole, and it will never be true for same-sex couples.
I don't believe it's an either-or situation, either we live in an idyllic world where every child is raised in a 2-parent home, or we're all going to hell in a handbasket. I do believe that our society is properly interested in fostering the most effective methods of procreation and child-raising. All of the data points to children being raised by their own biological parents as having the best outcomes. Even kids from loving blended families do no better than those from single-parent homes. If that's the case, why should we believe that children raised in loving same-sex households are going to do as well?
After reading through Gallagher's extensive discussion, I think I can answer the question "what harm will it do?" Widening the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples changes what marriage is. It's either about procreation and parenting, or it's not. Including same-sex couples means that it's not anymore. If "marriage" is just some way to say "I(heart)u4eva" well, why bother with it all? (Which is, by the way, what's been happening in the Netherlands.)
You know, there's a lot of data showing how beneficial being married is for men and women. Men live longer, they're healthier, they're happier. Personally, I have no problem believing this, because I think marriage solves the "Fight Club" problem. If you're not married, if you don't have kids, it's a lot harder to feel fulfilled. "It's not having stuff that makes us happy, it's being a part of things." I believe as humans we all need to feel useful, like we're making a contribution to something bigger than ourselves, to be truly happy. Becoming a parent makes being a part of something larger easy, but of course you can get that same sense of contribution and satisfaction from a job. I understand homosexuals wanting in on all the good things marriage provides, but changing the definition of marriage to include them isn't going to give it to them, because they are not and can never be the same as a heterosexual couple. Hetero marriage looks to the future. Same sex marriage is for the now.
Re: "I believe as humans we all need to feel useful, like we're making a contribution to something bigger than ourselves, to be truly happy. Becoming a parent makes being a part of something larger easy..."
Joan has, I think, laid out the arguments against changing the definition of marriage quite beautifully. I am grateful for her point of view, not merely because I agree, but because they explain with grace what I had so clumsily attempted.
I do owe Elizabeth an apology, for I indeed inferred she was stupid, something clearly untrue, and I knew to be false. Elizabeth, I am sorry.
I would hope to be granted the same favor, that being dismissed as afraid, an aged crank, or a bigot are similarly unfair and untrue.
What I have learned from these last two Althouse posts on gay marriage is that there is a clear dichotomy of belief on what the basic definition of "marriage" is. If marriage is a fluid concept, one that can be expanded to accomodate the desires of individuals as they see fit, SSM is no big deal. If marriage remains primarily for raising children in the most ideal setting, SSM is anathema. All arguments flow from there.
Second, asking for "proof" here is simply evidence of scientific ignorance. Human behavior is far too multifactorial to ever be able to dissect "proof" as to cause of any outcome, however defined. A few folks do know this, and ask for proof to cloud the issue. History is society's only proof of concept. Communism, for example, is an abject failure as an organizing principle. it was widely criticized for its risks prior to implementation, but lacking "proof", their warnings were ignored and mocked. 100 million died as a result. And yet bringing this subject of the folly of human social experimentation is considered illegitmate, and mocked itself. "Of course it was stupid. What's that got to do with SSM?"
Can the two definitions be reconciled? No. It's not unlike the abortion debate. Where you stand depends on where you sit, here on the definition of human life. Each side thinks the other is wrong, or even evil.
From my standpoint, I would likely become less combative should I gather the merest hint that the concerns laid out were paid some heed, rather than simply dismissed out of hand. And the proponents of a new social mechanism would also do well to recognize that for most people, those advocating a radical change bear the burden of proof in demonstrating its need, utility, safety, and efficacy to society as a whole (and not just the intended recipients), not the other way around.
RE: Centering the Debate
Why Same-Sex “marriage” relates to Polygamy (“polyamory”)
Those of us who have been to law school… (or any serious time spent among intellectuals) realize that the driving force behind ss “m” is & has always been a cadre of like minded academics and their activist supporters.
Indeed, without their pressure from family law departments and groups like the American Law Institute ss “m” would be no more than a fanciful outlier in the marriage debate.
On the contrary, law review articles and the opinions of an elect few academics can persuade Judges like those in Massachusetts to catapult causes like ss “m” to impossible to ignore stature in the public/political debate.
To this end, why should they not (when they decide to) do the same with “polyamory”?
Who’s Afraid of Polygamous Marriage? Lessons for Same-Sex Marriage Advocacy from the History of Polygamy
By Cheshire Calhoun, Colby College
“Attention to polygamy can strengthen the case for same-sex marriage. Both the historical debate on polygamy and the current debate on same-sex marriage concentrate on finding the best social response for the failure of conventional marriage to serve its purpose. The argument for traditional marriage conflicts with the Judeo-Christian tradition and a liberal democracy. Contrary to traditionalist arguments, polygamy and pluralistic relationships are a part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Additionally, a liberal democracy is designed to protect an individual’s right to pursue a pluralistic way of life. Under a liberal theory, the state should remain neutral and allow individuals to devise whatever marriage contract they wish. Instead, the state accepts or rejects different forms of marriage based on which relationships contribute to the social good. This article contends that the state should move toward a pluralistic conception of personal relationships and marriage that encompasses a definition of marriage that suits a liberal political society. Instead of supporting only one form of marriage, the state and advocates for polygamy and same-sex marriage should support pluralizing marital and family forms. Because the fear of polygamy, based in the idea of gender inequality, is unnecessary, the author concludes that polygamy offers same-sex marriage advocates a reason to reject the claim that there is a long tradition of defining marriage between one man and one woman. “
Thinking about Polygamy: Some Reflections
By Sanford Levinson
“The prohibition of same-sex marriage is no more defensible than the prohibition on other marital forms. This article enhances Professor Calhoun’s proposal for polygamy by offering another reason to advocate pluralistic conceptions of marriage. If marriage is an institution focused on child-rearing and taking care of ailing partners, then polygamy offers a strong argument for state advocated pluralistic marital forms. The author concludes that Calhoun provides a necessary broader concept of marriage by suggesting a pluralistic approach as to what should count as a legally recognized marriage.”
As I stated up thread in a series of comments, the movement to deconstruct marriage has many adherents and ideological benefactors on the cultural left. As a practical matter one should take them at their word concerning their designs on our society and its laws. Indeed 5 to 10 years ago the idea of ss “m” was laughable. Why would “polyamory” not be on a similar trajectory, given its enthusiasts?
Its amazing what a few well placed Judges can accomplish!
Fitz, I am compelled to comment on one line from Cheshire Calhoun: Contrary to traditionalist arguments, polygamy and pluralistic relationships are a part of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Calhoun needs to go back and study up. Of course there is polygamy in Jewish history, but in Christianity, sacramental marriage is between one man and one woman, only. Perhaps he was just being sloppy in the use of the common descriptor, "Judeo-Christian," but there's really no excuse for that.
Joan, thanks for asking, but no, I'm not insane.
Gay marriage doesn't just "loosen the connection between producing children and marriage", it severs it completely. A gay couple can not, without outside assistance, reproduce.
This is ridiculous. The fact that two people of the same sex cannot reproduce does nothing to sever the reproduction of heterosexuals from marriage; you're trying to argue that because same-sex couples can't reproduce, straights won't or will without marrying. Again, you do this without explaining how or why straight people would change their behaviors--behaviors that are beneficial for them--based on same-sex couples' marrying. You come up empty; it''s just another assertion, with no support other than your fear.
I've read that Gallagher piece, along with other of her writings; there's nothing there that isn't already in this thread, and it's no more sensible than what you and Pogo keep repeating.
Abraham wonders why we SSM proponents don't at least acknowledge his worries; I think he's missing just how venal this argument is. What Joan and Pogo do is seek to blame SSM for the problems in heterosexual marriage. It's a nasty thing, a cheap argument. Too many straight marriages end in divorce now? Well, just wait till the gays can marry! No one will stay married then. Straight men abandon their children? Woah, buddy, once the gays can marry, what man in his right mind will want to be a father?
Once conservatism had something to say about personal responsibility. Lately, it's all about blaming someone else.
Pogo, I appreciate your apology.
I also concur with your description of the dichotomy we face. I will join you in stepping back a notch from the tone at which this discussion has been pitched.
You have the high ground; SSM is not legal, and in our attempts to win that legality, we face arguments that we are destructive and selfish. That makes it hard to go for common ground. From my viewpoint, while I attack your arguments, you attack my essence. It's a situation where civility easily is lost.
Abraham, I understand what you mean when you distrust marriage as a vehicle solely for romantic love, which is passing. Marriage is certainly more than that, even without children involved. Marriage offers a structure, a foundation, for two people to bolster one another through life, to be a reliable force in their communities, and to make it through those times when the romance isn't first and foremost. It's a bulwark against the vagaries of romantic love, a committment to do more than hang out together as long as things feel good. That's important for raising children, but it's also an expression of more than self-fulfillment. It's committing to the fulfillment of another.
Elizabeth:The fact that two people of the same sex cannot reproduce does nothing to sever the reproduction of heterosexuals from marriage; you're trying to argue that because same-sex couples can't reproduce, straights won't or will without marrying.
I'm not arguing that at all, and it's disingenuous of you to keep throwing up these strawmen points. My argument is that
marriage now is intended to foster reproduction in the most beneficial environment for future generations. If you change the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples, then the definition of marriage changes for everyone. Or are we at the point where you'll say, "It depends on what the definition of 'is' is"? Marriage is marriage is marriage. If homosexual marriages are allowed, the very definition of marriage is changed. You can't change it for some people and not for others. If it's meant to do one thing for one group of people, and another for a different group of people, you are talking about two different things and should be using two different words.
Proponents argue that because heterosexuals do not have to reproduce in marriage, that somehow disconnects the idea of reproduction from marriage. As I said above, just because the importance of reproduction is not applicable for individual cases does not mean it invalidates the importance for the entire institution. The overwhelming majority of marriages produce children. Men and women, in the aggregate, produce children when they have sex. Homosexual couples do not, and can not without outside assistance.
What Joan and Pogo do is seek to blame SSM for the problems in heterosexual marriage.
That is blatantly false. We recognize that marriage is already deteriorating, with many negative consequences for our society. We say that further redefinition of marriage will not strengthen it, it will instead weaken it even further.
Marghlar, you continue to harp on the causation/correlation issue, and I concede it is an important point. What you are not conceding, however, is that there are studies which show that, even when controlling for the factors you feel are more significant such as income, "involved" parents, etc, the correlation between "broken" families and poor outcomes for children still persists. IOW, you want to say, "all other things being equal, the kids outcomes will be the same," when the data clearly does not support that position. Is it possible that there is some other external factor, unaccounted for in the studies, that could explain the poorer outcomes? Yes, it's possible, but is it probable? Occam's Razor says no.
Joan, your insistence is that marriage is defined by reproduction. Conveniently, that doesn't stop any heterosexuals who marry for other reasons, but because for you, it's about that single definition. And if a tiny, tiny percentage of individuals are permitted to marry who cannot reproduce with one another, then the whole definition changes.
The definition you insist on is by no means recognized by consensus. Many examples of how the concept of marriage has changed, is changing, and might continue to change have been offered. All the obvious exceptions among heterosexuals are dismissed, again conveniently, not by force of reason, by your definition.
Because your definition is in dispute, because of the weakness in your convenient allowance that it's fine for people who don't or can't reproduce to still marry so long as they look like people who could, your argument still fails. You insist that there will be a transformation of the value of marriage, but the reasons you offer aren't supported by the reality that marriage has faced any number of challenges to that very definition, and still survives. Marriage will continue because people like to be married for many reasons. The institution doesn't rest on one shaky pillar.
Abraham, I concede change, not damage. I believe you equate the two, while I do not, and not just in the context of SSM. Most advances for women in the public sphere since the late 1700s have changed their status in the home as well. These changes have likewise changed marriage and family. And we survive; in fact we do more than endure, we live in a better, more equal society.
Edward:Since you seem so willing to let bigoted, barely socialized young people determine this nation’s marriage laws...
This is ridiculous! I gave the homophobic young men of the inner city as an example of how legalization of gay marriage could affect one group, and in the next paragraph I gave an example of a different group that would not likely be affected. From that, you extrapolate that I'm basing public policy decisions on the emotional responses of the one of the most irresponsible and lawless groups of society? It's tactics like this that make having any kind of discussion with you nearly impossible.
You think that the best way to improve overall society's opinion of homosexuals is to legalize gay marriage? Why, when gay marriage initiatives have been trounced at the polls, would you think that? As Mickey Kaus noted, Americans may or may not like gay marriage, but they really hate having gay marriage crammed down their throat by self-righteous, unelected liberal judges! What the poll shows is that the gay marriage cause is only now finally recovering from the damage done to it by Anthony Lewis' wife.
Americans, by and large, are live-and-let-live kind of people. As long as you're not being overtly obnoxious in your private behavior, whatever floats your boat. But if you start (and keep) getting up in our faces over these issues, you're not doing yourselves any good.
Regarding all those previous structural changes, I could probably draw a trend line starting with emancipation for women, leading straight through Prohibition on to the Great Society and the sexual revolution of the late 60's and early 70's. I've got other stuff to do shortly, so I don't have time to look up the dates on everything. Generally I'd say that bringing that stuff does more to prove the opponents' point than it does to bolster the proponents. Most of the doom and gloom predictions have panned out. I'm not saying we should go back to oppressive treatment of women, and I'm not saying there haven't been substantial benefits as well. But the strength of our social fabric has been damaged by all this experimentation. Looking at all the changes you cited, it's clear that it take two or three generations for those changes to start to bear fruit. So even if Abraham doesn't change his mind about marrying or procreating, chances are that his grandkids might, if the definition of marriage is now changed.
Elizabeth, again: You insist that there will be a transformation of the value of marriage, but the reasons you offer aren't supported by the reality that marriage has faced any number of challenges to that very definition, and still survives.
Marriage has faced challenges to its stability, not its definition. Making it easier to get a divorce doesn't change the fundamental nature of marriage (one man+one woman, as the best environment in which to raise children). And marriage has survived, in spite of these changes, and it's certainly not thriving.
You say there's no consensus on the definition of marriage. That's certainly true. By far the majority of opponents to gay marriage believe as I do, and those in support of gay marriage believe as you do. However, we have the weight of history behind us. You have wishful thinking and revisionist philosophies on yours.
Edward: Maybe they'll tell us that we've convinced them to change their minds about same-sex marriage.
Sorry, no. All of you proponents continue to dismiss our concerns as, as Elizabeth said, "venal" or worse ("sick, Nazi-like" etc.) I've been quoted out of context and had such ridiculous things attributed to me that I can't possibly answer them all. And when I do attempt to answer them, someone else come along and picks up another thing to twist, shred to ribbons, and discard.
An useful debate requires both honesty and respect. I haven't seen any of the proponents concede a single point -- that the social experimentation of the late 20th century has had many deleterious effects, for example, so that maybe we want to move cautiously before we do anything else to screw things up. This is complicated stuff, but that doesn't mean that it's completely unknowable, and to dismiss out of hand the difficulties that we are struggling with now as irrelevant just shows that it's bootless trying to advance this discussion by any meaningful measure.
I'm trying to understand an argument here. But it's not easy because there are so many ricochets and side issues (along with a few personal insults). While freely admitting to drawing some inferences from various posts , here's my best shot at what I think the two sides are arguing over:
The pro-traditional marriage side:
1) The proponents of traditional marriage take the position one's biological sex and one's gender are identical and that one's sex/gender is determined by nature. They also claim that there is a natural erotic attraction between males and females and that this erotic attraction is directly related to the continuation of the human race and, consequently, civilization.
2) Proponents of traditional marriage argue that a child is much more likely to develop healthy psychological traits and is much more likely to grow into a well-grounded adult if the child is raised in a traditional intact marriage unit consisting of a father and a mother.
3) Because of 2), proponents of traditional marriage see it as an institution that is, and ought to be, legally privileged and protected in any rational political community. It merits this priviledge precisely because of its critical importance in ensuring that the next generation can take their place in that political community as well-grounded citizens.
The same-sex marriage side:
4) The proponents of ssm appear to draw a distinction between one's biological sex and one's gender. They claim that, while one's biological sex is a fact like one's height, one's gender is a social construct. Consequently, erotic attraction should not be understood in terms of a male/female dichotomy but rather as an attraction between two autonomous selves who are either inclined towards one gender or the other or who freely adopt one gender or the other or, in some cases, both. Erotic attraction, therefore, is entirely independent from procreation.
4) Based on 4) above, the proponents of ssm see traditional marriage as a discriminatory institution that, by law, mandates that marriage consists only of one male-sex self who has adopted a male gender and one female-sex self who has adopted a female gender.
6) The proponents of ssm argue that marriage, as traditionally understood, is incompatible with modern (or more correctly, post-modern) notion of the autonomous self and should be disengaged from the idea that it is inextricably linked with child rearing. Because it involves two autonomous beings, it has nothing to do with potential third-parties, i.e. children. Given this understanding, it is obvious that the restriction of marriage to only one male-sex self who claims a male gender and one female-sex self who claims a female gender is unfair and arbitrary, just as it would be arbitrary to restrict marriage to selves only of a certain height.
It seems that for the proponents of ssm to successfully make their case, they ought to be able to demonstrate two things:a) that the post-modern notion of an "autonomous self" that stands outside of nature is a coherent philosophical concept and 2) that the distinction drawn between sex and gender is plausible. Until this is done, it is unlikely that their arguments will be accepted by the proponents of traditional marriage.
Opponents of SSM say that homosexuality is “unnatural” and therefore SSM should not be legalized.
Homosexuality is incompatible with the continuation of the species. As a matter of fact, homosexual couples can not reproduce without outside assistance.
Yet supporters of SSM say that Nature is more diverse that opponents admit. There is more than just one sexual orientation in nature. Nature creates both heterosexuality and homosexuality, and our marriage laws should recognize both of them.
You'd best not take this path. Really: "Nature" also creates pedophiles and necrophiliacs. Do we have to legally recognize them, too? Is adult-child marriage going to be the next hurdle to be legislatively cleared? Don't scoff, you know that the notion of de-classifying pedophilia as a psychological disorder has been bandied about in serious publications, just as the notion of murdering neo-nates has been discussed as being morally neutral. There are all kinds of horrifying ideas out there bolstered by the "what Nature intended" argument.
Left in our "natural" state, we are all pretty horrid, selfish, violent creatures (witness the average toddler). The "nature" argument fails because we are not dumb animals trapped and unable to do anything but follow an instinctual code handed down from generation to generation. We get to choose, in fact we must choose, what our destiny will be, as individuals and as a society.
I'm not advocating discrimination against gays. But there is a difference between accepting a behavior and encouraging it with legislative support.
I can't possibly keep up with 4 or 5 people throwing stuff at me simultaneously. More to the point, I don't want to. Still, I'll take one last stab at it before I retire:
You're right, Edward, bringing up pedophilia was incendiary, but the "Nature makes all types, and we must recognize them" argument is specious: No, we do not have to recognize all types. We get to decide which behaviors we wish to encourage as beneficial to society.
Marghlar said: Homosexuality, by contrast, is a consensual practice between adults. It does not cause the sort of external harms that arise out of the practices you listed.
Homosexuality is emphatically not always a consensual practice between adults. I know at least four people who were drawn into same sex relationships with older, more experienced partners when they were in the early teens. They were gay for a while, but they grew out of it and later married and had kids. For some people, sexuality is more fungible than it is for others, but the "recruiting" phenomena definitely exists, especially on college campuses. You may think that kids who were "recruited" but later decide they are not gay haven't suffered any harm, but I do.
You all don't believe there's a slope, much less that it's slippery. I'm saying that, looking back, we can see where the nay-sayers were right about the impacts of societal change. We should be cautious about making further changes, because there are always unintended consequences. You want me to identify them and quantify them now, and because I can't back up my concerns with rock-solid data, you dismiss them out of hand.
If you had asked me 20 years ago about this question, I would have unquestionably agreed that same sex marriage should be legal. What happened between then and now? A lot, but it comes down, essentially, to this: I grew up.
Marghlar, I appreciate your appreciation. However, I think it's too easy to dismiss the relationships I described as pedophilic or pederasty. Is it pedophilia when an 18-year-old picks up a 15- or 16-year-old? I don't think so, nor do I think it's pedophilia when a 20-year-old picks up a naive 17- or 18-year-old college freshman.
Regan: You're sliming me, and I wish you'd stop. I am compelled to defend myself against your slurs.
Joan's comment reminds me of the sort of people who allow a single remote incident, or at least a few to give them permission to acquire or retain prejudice.
You think that relaxation of divorce laws, the Great Society, and the Sexual Revolution are "single remote incidents" that have not had very negative effects on our society? Why do you equate recognizing that there have been negative consequences of these societal changes as "permission to acquire or retain prejudice"?
Perhaps that statement referred to my personal knowledge of some predatory homosexual relationships. I am fully aware of the gamut of relationships among both heterosexuals and homosexuals. I was not implying that all homosexual relationships are pedophilic. I was countering Marghlar's point that homosexuality was always between consenting adults and therefore never inflicted any harm on the participants.
For her to believe so readily and easily the homosexual=pedophile prejudice... For you to assert that I hold this prejudice is ridiculous and insulting.
We are simply calling her on her selective prejudice and she cries uncle. Statements like this, and those above, make me doubt your reading comprehension level. I said that it is impossible to answer every point from 4 or 5 opponents. It's not that I find your arguments particular hurtful, insightful, or compelling, it's that I can't keep 5 different conversational threads going here. The structure of the comments thread does not facilitate that kind of discussion.
I will not accept any more excuses from marriage equality opponents.
Thank you for saying that so directly. You've just validated my feeling that I've been wasting my time talking to you. The only thing that has been keeping me in this thread is the knowledge that there are other people reading it who want to hear both sides discussed. I've suspected from the outset that you are impervious to reason, and now you have confirmed it.
The damage to gay lives and those who love them, gives ME permission to change things, to defy what's easy and simple and challenge prejudice.
Here you demonstrate a basic misunderstanding of "the way things work" here. You have every right to speak up, demonstrate, agitate for new laws, whatever. But it's not up to you to write the laws, or to pass the laws, or to enforce the laws (unless you're an elected legislator, or someone in law enforcement, of course.)
I encourage you to continue agitating for change, but this idea you have that you, personally, can implement change by shoving it down the throats of everyone who disagrees with you, or even those who may not disagree but are saying, "Wait a minute, let's think about what we're talking about here,' is a non-starter.
This discussion is representative of the larger discussion of this issue in society. If you can't support your cause without resorting to attacking your opponents on a personal level by accusing them of being prejudiced, sick, and generally evil, you'll never be able to sway anyone to your side of the argument. Just keep on preaching to the choir, if that's what you want to do.
Regan (wrote)
“Jeez, Fitz-you gave you game away referring to Jeffrey Satinover.
He's anti gay from go. His stance is religion based.”
I’m sorry ReganI don’t quite know what “anti gay from go” actually means?
{I suspect it means merely someone who disagrees with the breadth & depth of gay advocacy}
If you have any evidence of pronounced prejudice or inhumane treatment by the Doctor I think you should present it. He seems to me to be quite knowledgeable and well qualified. He also seems unafraid of modern shibboleths, and eminently trained to comment in this area.
But I suppose I’ll give readers (and yourself) the opportunity to reappraise his work.
JEFFREY B. SATINOVER, Ed.M., M.S., M.D., A.B.P.N.
Presently conducting research in complex physical and economic systems in the department of physics and the condensed matter physics laboratory at the University of Nice, France. The present work reports on research conducted while teaching constitutional law in the department of politics at Princeton University and physics at Yale University, and consulting to groups writing briefs in various state and federal Supreme Court cases.
S.B., Humanities & Science, M.I.T., 1971
Ed.M. Clinical Psychology & Public Practice, Harvard University, 1973
M.D., University of Texas, 1982
M.S., Physics, Yale University, 2003
http://www.narth.com/docs/TheTrojanCouchSatinover.pdf
(caution pdf file)
I also don’t know were you come up with “His stance is religion based”
Firstly it most certainly is not. In the article linked above there is not a single instance were the Doctor quotes any religious text or even employs religious nomenclature.
Secondly, If you are simply referring to the idea that he may (or may not-I’m not privy) practice this or that religion; well that would be quite unfair.
Could one not maintain that homosexual behavior disqualifies someone from commenting authoritatively on the subject? Does any religious affiliation make a person’s research and scholarship moot?
I would not think so myself.
Regan (also wrote)
“Stanley Kurtz's examinations of Scandinavian marriage trends, easily scapegoated gays and lesbians, but left out the real reason for the unpopularity or lack of necessity of marriage: the Swedish government subsituting for it and other support that would otherwise be done by family.”
I don’t believe the term “scapegoat” is appropriate given the breadth of Kurtz scholarship in this area. Nor do I find you qualified to state the “real” reason for marital decline in Scandinavia. You do as Edward did above…You are intentionally misrepresenting Kurtz thesis.
In an effort to correct this misrepresentation I will provide you with Kurtz thesis in his own words as well as a link to his work..
(I will Quote Mr. Kurt Directly – this is his thesis)
“More precisely, it has further undermined the institution. The separation of marriage from parenthood was increasing; gay marriage has widened the separation. Out-of-wedlock birthrates were rising; gay marriage has added to the factors pushing those rates higher. Instead of encouraging a society-wide return to marriage, Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.”
(That article & others can be found here..)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp
The Netherlands has had legalized Registered Partnerships since 1997. Kurtz's reasoning is buttressed by other scholars including Jan Latten of the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics.
http://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/D479F5BA-87B2-4C6E-BCCD-8306450AF908/0/2004k4b15p046art.pdf
(In Dutch & translation here)
http://www.marriagedebate.com/up/trends.php
All Concerned
The problem with the argument from analogy is it is merely that; an analogy.
Equating homosexuality to the struggle for black civil rights fails on multiple counts. One thinks it merely a crude attempt to co-opt the moral authority of a people who were ripped from their native culture, imprisoned and relocated, and forced into chattel slavery.
Race (is not) Sex (and neither is) whom one has sex with.
Of coarse the weakness of this argument from analogy is further buttressed by the sentiment of the descendents of those very slaves I mention above.
“Many black Americans are understandably offended when gay activists, who have never been relegated to the back of a bus, equate their agenda with racial discrimination. In a statement supporting traditional marriage, several black pastors wrote:”We find the gay community’s attempt to tie their pursuit of special rights based on their behavior to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s abhorrent.”14
A majority of Black Americans reject the facile comparison of sexual behavior with an immutable characteristic such as race, and disagree with the oft-heard contention by gay activists that homosexuals are “born that way.” A Pew Research poll found that by an overwhelming 61 to 26 percent margin, Black Protestants believe sexual orientation can be changed.15 The same poll reported that Black Americans oppose homosexual marriage by a 60 to 28 percent margin” . 22,23
14 Cheryl Wetzstein, “Blacks Angered by Gays’ Metaphors,” Washington Times (March 3, 2004): 3. 22 “The Gallup Poll: Homosexual Relations” The Gallup Organization (February 9-12, 2004). 23 “Gay Marriage a Voting Issue, but Mostly for Opponents,” The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (February 27, 2004):
Marghlar
You seem to have flown past my post rather quickly in an attempt to rebut it. You managed to conflate the works of Stanley Kurtz with the work of Dr. Satinover. These are two different authors, writing about two different subjects, in two different publications. How are you abler to conflate them?
Kurtz work has been both criticized and applauded. It is also backed up by the Dutch demographer Jan Latten of the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics & others.
Just calling the man a "hack" seems to merely buttress you own prejudices and then you dont substantiate anything.
(Please read again more carefully)
As for your slur of African Americans as “homophobic” I must claim to be at a loss. I hope you understand that there is no such thing as “homophobia”. In the original Greek it would mean literally “fear of sameness”. It’s a made up word that I watched enter the lexicon during my lifetime. I believe activists hope to use it to the same effect one can use racist or to a lesser degree sexist.
Its an unfortunate term however. It seeks to brand those who disagree with aspects of the cultural lefts approach to homosexuality as mentally unstable or pathological. (I wonder if you can see the irony in that?) Never the less no credible psychiatrist or physiologists maintain that large swaths of the population suffer from some irrational fear of homosexuals. (ala, claustrophobia or arachnophobia)
I think a better term for what you are trying to say would be anti-homosexual bigotry. Why do you feel blacks in particular subscribe to this bigotry? I believe the numbers I posted (and polls I site) show merely an opposition to gay “marriage” & the belief that homosexuality is innate. I find it telling if you ipso facto see this as anti-homosexual bigotry. There are any number of explanations why African Americans would oppose such an agenda without being bigots. Large percentage’s of the population at large support these views, are they all bigots?
Am I a Bigot? (what about Kurtz or Dr, Satinover?)
Marghlar, as your blogosphere appointed attorney, I would advise you not to concede that the propositions in paragraph 6) are false. Were you to do so, you would run the risk of conceding that the propositions in paragraph 1) are true. And this would undercut your argument. With Fitz fine tuning his counter- arguments, I urge caution.
Do you people take the time to read the replies of your opponents? Do you ever read what you yourself have written?
Marghlar: It seems to me that the commenters that are concerned about legalizing Same Sex Marriage want to promote a particular type of gender & sexual relationships. This ideal relationship seems to be a father (head of household) and a mother who bears children. It seems? How many times have we said explicitly that marriage is promoted as the ideal relationship for the raising of children? There is no "seems" about it -- unless you are accusing us of obfuscation, of putting forth rationals that are false. I don't think that was your intention, but your use of "seems" -- twice! -- was irritating, whether it was intentional or not.
Edward: no one in this thread needs to read a 20-paragraph explanation of bigotry. The fact that you felt that we did is just more evidence of your own narrow-mindedness.
Historical ramblings: homosexuality has been with us as long as there have been people. People like having sex, and people are attracted to their own sex in varying degrees. But whether we're talking about Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, or 19th century America, the practitioners of homosexuality understood it was about their own personal pleasure, and nothing to do with marriage or the continuation of society. It cannot, by its very nature, be about those things, since homosexual relationships are closed off to the possibility of child-bearing.
I don't care who other people have sex with, but I do care what kind of relationships our society chooses to promote. I know, "the kids are all right," but there's a difference between surviving and thriving. Humans are amazingly resiliant and persistent, especially kids. But the idea here is not to promote "good enough" environments, but to promote the best environment.
There is a raft of data -- whether or not you want to believe it -- demonstrating the negative effects of single-parent homes on kids. Does that mean we're going to ban divorce and make everyone stick together? No, there's no putting that genie back in the bottle. But at least we're making the effort to get the word out there, that divorce isn't as consequence-free as we had been lead to believe.
Regarding the issue at hand here, we're supposed to blithely accept that single-sexed 2-parent households are going to be just as OK for kids as male-female 2-parent households. Anecdotally, everyone says the kids are all right, but there is no data at all to support this supposition. For male children raised in lesbian households, especially, I wonder why they shouldn't have exactly the same problems as boys raised exclusively by their moms, without a strong male role model in the house. Does the presence of two parents somehow magically negate the absence of a strong role model of the opposite sex? I can't see any mechanism by which that can happen.
The longer this thread goes on, the more revelations we see regarding the mind set of the proponents of gay marriage. There's a lot of pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking (Edward: The gay community will grow into marriage as marriage becomes available to them. The gay community has great potential for contributing to mainstream American society -- even in terms of parenting and raising the next generation – if only the legal and social climate were made more hospitable. Legalizing gay marriage would be the best way to improve this climate.) but no explanation of the mechanisms by which these great changes would take place, while remaining wilfully oblivious to the reality that the electorate has a very negative view of having the legalization of gay marriage forced upon us.
You accuse your opponents of bigotry and close-mindedness, while displaying your own version of those traits. The more you talk, the more we see. It's not pretty.
Edward & Marghlar
Edward (wrote)
“Fitz: I'm sorry to say this, but you are a bigot, at least on gay issues. To support depriving any minority group of its fundamental rights is a clear sign of bigotry.”
Your premise (that I am a bigot) rest on presumption you make in the second half of this sentence. That is, any one who support depriving a minority group of its fundamental rights = Bigotry (clearly no less)
I’m afraid you beg the question with this construction.
The argument is whether or not gay “marriage” is a “fundamental right.”
That’s what we are arguing, is it not?
What you are now saying is anyone who disagrees is ipso facto a bigot.
How convenient for your side.
Edward (wrote)
“The fact that many Americans agree with you – along with a few scholars and researchers who publish papers that support your prejudice – only shows how entrenched anti-gay bigotry is.”
Once again, your circular reasoning consistently brings you back to your desired conclusion. (the following is a Merriam Webster definition)
Main Entry: big•ot
Pronunciation: 'bi-g&t
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French, hypocrite, bigot
: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices
- big•ot•ed /-g&-t&d/ adjective
- big•ot•ed•ly adverb
Note the wording, obstinately or intolerantly. This wording is quite strong. I don’t believe I, nor Dr. Kurtz or any of the other links I have provided can be demonstrated as bigots. One could just as easily level the charge at you Edward, Mythogo, and other pro-ss “m” proponents that you are the bigoted parties. That you are obstinately & intolerantly devoted to you own opinions. Note also, no mention is made of minority group status, one can be a bigot of both groups and groupings of opinion.
Edward (wrote)
“The only way to work one’s way out of bigotry is through education and a lot of difficult thinking. Having an open heart and mind also helps.”
I’m afraid I am (all too) versed in both the arguments and counter arguments to everything same-sex “marriage”. I make it a point of personal & professional pride to always weigh all the evidence and both sides of an argument. As a lawyer one is required by the code of ethics to always weigh arguments even when presenting a claim or brief on behalf of a client. This professional training has instilled this habit into my thinking and research techniques. Indeed, one presents a better argument if one fully familiarizes oneself to an opponents argument.
Along these lines I have thoroughly read and digested the work of William N. Eskridge, Andrew Sullivan, Boswell, Darren R. Spedale, Stepheny Coontz, M.V. Lee Badgett and many others. (I could go further and talk about the deep personal relationships I share with practicing homosexuals but that would be rather emotive & anecdotal to this discussion)
In order to prove my balance let me link to the best work I have found that undercuts Kurtz’s thesis. {this scholar questions the statistics themselves and therefore undercuts Kurtz main pillar for his thesis}
http://www.contemporaryfamilies.org/media/same%20sex%20marriage%20briefing%20paper.htm
I must also link to this article by Dr. Kurtz, that begins with a explanation of his qualifications in this field. {I must again defend this man as NOT a bigot = “obstinately or intolerantly devoted” }
http://www.apa.org/releases/gaymarriage.html
Geoduck2, I appreciate the historical perspective that you bring to this subject. Most of your analysis I agree with. However, I’m afraid we are talking past each other. You seem to be arguing what is called a “fate accompli” . That the argument is essentially useless, because historical forces are driving the separation of the traditional family and we must bend to the weight of history. This smacks of “historicism” to my ears. There is nothing foreordained about changing the definition of marriage. There is also nothing keeping from lowering divorce rates, illegitimacy rates, and increasing birth rates and securing a more natalist culture.
geoduck2 {wrote}
“However, legalizing SSM is very small (if at all) causal factor in the changes in U.S. heterosexual family structures.”
I agree, Indeed how can it be causal in this culture when it has yet to arrive/manifest itself as a causal factor. It is not however very small in the all important philosophical sense. By attacking the very definitional foundation same sex “marriage” necessarily (a) androgyniezes marriage (b) separates it from a necessary connection with childbearing.
This is in no way a very small change.
Yor main point was --
"To those who want to return to "traditional" family relationships that revolve around the production of children in a pre-modern way. The cow's out of the barn. Long, long out of the barn. Divorce and birth control is a WAY bigger threat to these "traditional relationship."
Yes they are, and have been. Many of us want to ameliorate these phenomena in order to build a stronger marriage culture. Especially concerning the underclass and illegitimacy’s dire consequences. Toward this end we appose ss “m” as a larger step toward separating Marriage from procreation.
While history, technology, urbanization ect have all had both positive and negative effects on family structure. Only gay marriage goes the length of actually changing the definition, basic meaning of the institution. This is precisely what concerns us. While many work diligently to bring down divorce rates and illegitimacy rates and restore our culture of marriage. The Massachusets supreme court and activists have thrust this battle into our unwilling hands. (and those of the American people)
Marghlar, I'm sorry I attributed geoduck's words to you; it just so happened that when I was scrolling up, your brief post just before geoduck's was at the top of the page. I didn't notice the separation between the replies -- I was careless.
Nevertheless, the use of the word "seems" was borderline inflammatory, given that there was no need to "put words in our mouths"; geoduck could've quoted any one of us from several different replies.
Edward: devolving into the personal for a moment, but what the hell: Can you say one nice, positive thing about gay people at all[?] I've known some delightful gay people, in fact, as I said before, my husband's only business partner is gay. I've also known some really irritating gay people, like the lesbian I worked with who insisted on bringing up the fact that she was lesbian in all kinds of inappropriate situations. When I was in college, I lived off-campus in a co-ed fraternity and several of my housemates were gay, both male and female. They are all extraordinary people and I'm glad I know them. All but one of them has gone on to marry and have kids. Overall, I'd say my personal experiences with gays has been more positive than negative.
Growing up, I can't remember anyone saying anything to me about homosexuality one way or another. I was quite sheltered, in fact, and didn't know anything about it until I picked up a copy of "Our Bodies, Our Selves." Later I was exposed to all sorts of sexualities through reading science fiction, particularly Heinlein. The stuff I read portrayed homosexuality as an alternative, and while acknowledging that homosexual prejudice exists, these sources themselves did not portray homosexuality in a pejorative light.
I realize the futility of trying to portray myself as not a bigot to someone who has convinced himself that I already am. You don't want to acknowledge that legalizing same sex marriage is not going to be the solution to ending eons of prejudice. If gay marriage is legalized by fiat, instead of through the legislative process, you'll have to endure decades more turmoil over the issue. Reference Roe v Wade and the abortion debate for an inkling of what I'm talking about.
Marghlar: Is your concern about the two-gender household strong enough that you'd prefer kids get left in foster homes, rather than get adopted by a gay couple? Would you rather the child not be born than be adopted by a gay couple (as would sometimes be the case)?
If I get to spin hypotheticals, I'd prefer that no child was born unwanted. I can say that yes, I would prefer a child to stay in a m/f (natural biological parents) household, provided the parents are loving and supportive, no matter what the economic situation of the family is.
Gay adoption is an entirely separate issue from gay marriage. I do favor such "lost" children being brought into loving households. I do not recognize a same-sex couple, regardless of income, as an ideal situation for raising a child, but I do see that it is better than being shunted from foster home to foster home. Surprise: I don't have a problem with gay couples adopting such children.
Surprise, again: I do have a problem with gay couples conceiving their own children. But then again, I also have a problem with single mothers using sperm donors to get pregnant (notwithstanding my own sister's attempts to get pregnant via this route -- believe me, I've been through the mill on that one). Children are not accessories, and should not be pursued just because someone wants a pet.
I have three children of my own, and while they are all healthy, I've had a more than typical share of behaviorial issues to deal with. I know a couple who adopted a brother and sister from a drug-addict mom, and both kids suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. Those children, through no fault of their own, were complete sociopaths. No matter what the couple did to try and help the kids understand things like "actions have consequences" and the Golden Rule, nothing worked. Their marriage was destroyed, and the kids both ended up in the custody of the state. All this is to illustrate that I know having your own children is enough of a gamble -- you don't know what you'll end up with -- and my admiration and respect for people who adopt any child knows no limits. It's a huge sacrifice, and I honestly can't imagine doing it myself, especially after what I'm going through with my own kids. So I would not stand in the way of letting gay couples adopt -- but I still am opposed to same-sex marriage.
Marghlar (wrote)
“I'll also say that there are deep logical flaws in Satinover's piece. In general, he seems to rely on a few studies showing correlation (but not causation) between homosexuality and depressive disorders and/or suicide, as a reason to criticize the failure to categorize homosexuality as a disorder in the DSM.”
Satinovers piece does not primarily concern with the mater you refer. Rather it is a critique of historical scholarship that led to the de-listing of homosexuality as a disorder. Further more he critiques the current work being done that presents strong evidence that homosexuality is not innate. Rather its flexible with the majority of practioners reverting to heterosexuality over time. He also discuusses the pervasive efects of enviroment on shaping gay identity and encouraging both identity and behavior.
“Kurtz's work wouldn't survive Satinover's critique of exisitng psychiatric scholarship on homosexuality. At least not the work you linked us to.”
I don’t know what you mean by this; if you read satinovers piece thoroughly you will notice the two scholars work dovetail it certain repects. But ulltamently Santinover makes no specific referance to gay “marriage” nor the Netherlands. I don’t think you can draw the parallel you are drawing. I meant no parallel other than scholorship generally disagreeing with gay activists.
“You need to deal with the fact that the lexicon changes. Homophobia is in the OED. Defined as "fear or hatred of homosexuals or homosexuality." Just because a word is new, and doesn't exactly conform to its greek roots, doesn't make it not a word.”
I believe my strongeest critique was the quasi medical nature of this term. Phobia’s are real and debilitating illnesses. I still maintain (and will defend) that this termis meant more to stigmatize than to inform. No one maintains that those who disagree with certain aspects of the the culktural lefts agenda are phycologically imbalanced or suffer from and diagnosed phobia. Yet this is what the term refers to. Yes it has entered popular usage. But this I believe was an expresss political act, rather than a natural linguistic accurance.
Edward
I must concur with many of the posters on this thread. Your worldview is not unique. Indeed, it prevades many departments of the modern academy. Furthermore (and due to the former) it prevades the worldview of most gay activists. I submit for your consideration, that this worldview is deeply rooted in dialectical materialism. Your consistant use of words like homophobia, bigotry, patriarchy, the talk of race, class, sex, and sexual preferance based rights are part and parcal in the nomeclature of this ethos. Now dialectical materalism is hard to break out of. But it would help if you took your opponents arguments at their face value. Try not to attribute domenering or oppresive motivations to peoples concious or unconcious reasoning.
INMA30: let me clarify for you.
My former college housemates who were homosexual then and married with kids now, are in heterosexual marriages. This fact, however anecdotal, shows that for some people, at least, homosexuality is a phase. I would not call stable, multi-year relationships "experimentation." While in gay relationships, these people professed that they were gay. It was only when they were out of college for several years that they drifted away from their same-sex partners. By various routes they all found opposite sex partners and married. I am not privy to their private lives, nor do I wish to be, it's none of my business. So I don't know if they have same-sex relationships on the side or whatever. But from what is visible to all, each of these people sought and found normal married life, even after being in homosexual relationships -- some for as long as 10 years.
I am opposed to single mothers using sperm donors to get pregnant, in spite of the fact that my sister embarked on that road. My reason for opposing artificial insemination for single mothers is the same reason I oppose gay couples using artificial means to produce children: children deserve both a mother and a father.
I support gay couples adopting children out of foster care.
Oh, if I bring up issues and problems that we're seeing with child-raising in single-parent households, it's because structurally there are similarities to same-sex married households. If there is no father at home because there's a single mom or two lesbian moms, it doesn't change the fact that there's still no dad at home.
Regan: back off, will ya? Do I discuss gay marriage with my gay friends? No, because they're liberal and we're conservative and we agree to disagree on all things political. We have a lot of fun when we get together, all the same.
I'm not sure who brought this up, but this is an important point I want to address: I do NOT think the State can control human relationships. I don't think it should try, other than to prevent harm from occurring to those who can't protect themselves. At the same time, though, I think the State should decide which relationships it wishes to encourage. For raising children, the stable 2-parent m/f household is the ideal that the State encourages, and I think this is right and proper.
It is not necessary to legislate against the less-than-ideal. It isn't, in fact, necessary to legislate our encouragement of the ideal. But we've done it for time immemorial and I don't see us discontinuing it any time soon. The point is not to legitimize every possible choice, or to de-legitimize every choice besides the ideal. The point is to support what we hold up as the ideal.
Edward, you keep asking why we don't want to go back to the attitudes towards homosexuality frommm decades ago, and I've been ignoring you because frankly, I've felt it isn't worthy of a reply. The fact that you're asking the question shows that you really do believe the worst of us. We do not wish you harm. We've just already seen so many negative effects on our society because of the breakdown of the family that we are understandably hesistant to undermine it even more.
Joan (wrote)
“This fact, however anecdotal, shows that for some people, at least, homosexuality is a phase. I would not call stable, multi-year relationships "experimentation." While in gay relationships, these people professed that they were gay. It was only when they were out of college for several years that they drifted away from their same-sex partners. By various routes they all found opposite sex partners and married.”
I don’t know if you had an opportunity to read the link to the report by Dr Santinover, Ed.M., M.S., M.D., A.B.P.N.
http://www.narth.com/docs/TheTrojanCouchSatinover.pdf
The Dr. claims in this article that the most current scientific research to date; buttresses the phenomena that you have experienced anecdotally. (I qoute)
“But the reality is that since 1994—for ten years—there has existed solid epidemiologic evidence, now extensively confirmed and reconfirmed, that the most common natural course for a young person who develops a “homosexual identity” is for it to spontaneously disappear unless that process is discouraged or interfered with by extraneous factors” p 25
It is also the claim of Dr. Santinover that the perception that this is not the case has been papered over by politicized elements of the Medical establishment. The effects of this conclusion has obvious ramifications for the inclusion of homosexuality as a suspect class for civil rights purposes. It is on this basis that briefs submitted by the APA & other organizations sought to obscure this consensus or obviate it with older, less reliable studies.
Edward (wrote)
“In summary: According to your rationale, almost any social acceptance of homosexuality (well short of marriage) should harm the image of the family, decrease the marriage rate and the birthrate, and cause other kinds of social dysfunction.
Why doesn’t your logic suggest this? Finally, what logical reason can you give for not turning the clock back on all social acceptance of gay people to the way things were thirty, forty, or fifty years ago?”
Yes Edward, according to my rational, and if you followed my logic to conclusions you seek – I could very well support public stoning of homosexuals. (and justify it as a public good)
But as a matter of fact, I have never advocated any such position. On the contrary, all I am seeking is to not recognize homosexual marriages as on par with traditional marriage. You know the arguments I marshal on behalf of this argument. You have no reason to believe (or even suspect) I would go beyond such means to this end. As a matter of degree I think anti-sodomy laws are unnecessarily evasive means of public policy (but do not find them unconstitutional) Perhaps that is helpful in discerning my stance, perhaps not, but try not and assume to much. I agree with Joan when she states…
“The fact that you're asking the question shows that you really do believe the worst of us. We do not wish you harm. We've just already seen so many negative effects on our society because of the breakdown of the family that we are understandably hesitant to undermine it even more.”
Allow me to demonstrate what you have done. According to your logic Edward, and following your rational,….
…. current marriage law is the moral equivalent of the segregated south. Were will this logic end? Must all adoption agencies treat homosexuals, single or partnered the same as married couples with a Mother & Father?
Are academics and scholars who find “reparative therapy” for homosexuals to be practicable and successful; engaging in unethical medicine? Should they have their licenses revoked?
Are religious and other organizations that appose homosexual acts as sinful, the equivalent of the Klu-Klux-Klan? Should they have their tax exempt status removed? Should they be treated as social pariahs? Is their speech hate speech? Would you prosecute them as such?
Should public schools be required to teach homosexual practice as a normal human derivation? At what grade level should young people be taught to resist the dictates of a “homophobic” society? Should those who refuse such inculcation (& their parents) be treated the same as racists would be today?
Edward, I could demand you answer all these question (and am vary curious to know the answers). Until you answer I suppose I will assume the worst of your intentions.
To Regan
and Edward
I find it disturbing that you seek to box Joan into a corner regarding her (perceived) beliefs toward those who engage in homosexuality. You all may have fully adopted a Hegelian master/slave dialectic stance visa-vie Homosexuality vs. Heterosexuality. Joan and many, many others reject this simple minded, politicized approach to the subject.
I have gay friends and do bring up the subject quite often. (I’m rather famous for it actually) That fact that Joan does not merely reflects her sense of decorum & social tolerance. Nothing more.
Regan, I asked you to back off because you are making this discussion personal, as in, attacking me as a person. At least Edward (mostly) attacks all opponents as a class. For the record, no, you don't "have to wonder at the weightless relationships [I] have with gay people." I spend my days ferrying my kids around to and from their schools. You don't run into a lot -- any, actually -- militant gay rights activists at the typical pre-school or elementary.
Edward: I'm not a lawyer, so your insistence on a "legal answer" is baffling to me. I have said before, it is not necessary to legislate against the ideal. We, as a society, tolerate all sorts of less-than-ideal situations. We're not going to start ripping kids away from their single moms, for example, even though we know it's not an ideal situation for them. When I accuse you of thinking the worst of us (not me, specifically, us, the opponents of same sex marriage), it's because you keep coming back to this point, you wonder why we don't want to shove you all back in the closet, with strict laws and enforcement to make sure you never come out.
Would such a regime be consistent with promoting traditional marriages and families? Sure. But, assuming such legislation would even pass, which is a huge assumption, it would fail. As we discussed before, the State can not control human relationships. Heck, the State couldn't even keep us from drinking alcohol back in the days of Prohibition.
Last: your most recent reply to Fitz demonstrates how completely you missed his point. You failed to answer any of his questions. I, too, am interested to hear how you think religious organizations who preach against homosexual behavior should be handled. Do you propose outlawing Catholicism? Or do you intend to force Catholic priests to perform homosexual marriages, should they be legalized?
Edward
(and all concerned)
I’m afraid you have overextended yourself.
First of all, if you review my comments on this and the previous blog you will have noted that I say implicitly (concede in your words) that ss “m” does not necessarily lead to polygamy.***
Secondly, I have yet to make any substantive legal case for anything on this blog. A legal argument is very specific, requiring statutes, case history, text, precedent and so forth. No, I’m afraid we are just engaged in a social-political argument here. (sometimes bringing forth medical & sociological opinion)
Thirdly, Just as gay “marriage” will not necessarily lead to polygamy. Not adopting ss “m” does not lead to public stoning of homosexuals. In fact (I would argue) there are many more lines, moral and legal- like battery, human rights, proportional response, bodily integrity that separate inhumane treatment of homosexuals from advocating traditional marriage. (This seems obvious)
***{the argument for the slippery slope from ss “m” to polygamy is that the rational for preserving traditional marriage vs same-sex “marriage” is an infinitely more defensible line than the rationales for defending a regime of same-sex marriage against the argument for polygamy}
Indeed our host Ann Althouse agrees, saying they are mostly mere economic rationales. (Rather than constitutional, genetic, familial, social justice, or sociologically based)
Missed one from earlier.
Edward: Don’t you at least agree that same-sex marriage will make the lives of gays and lesbians much safer and more comfortable in many different ways?
No. I think those pursuing same-sex marriage are chasing an idea that sounds good on paper, and the reality would be something else entirely. For couples in which both are working, getting married will mean they get hit with the marriage penalty. I had seen an article recently, unfortunately I can't find it now, that discussed how gay couples were deciding not to get married, when they thought it through and realized what the fine print would mean.
You still cling to this idea, that legalization of same sex marriage will mean a bright new world for everyone. Just as getting married doesn't fix the problems of hetero relationships, I don't see getting married as solving all gay couples' problems, either.
Joan said: No. I think those pursuing same-sex marriage are chasing an idea that sounds good on paper, and the reality would be something else entirely. For couples in which both are working, getting married will mean they get hit with the marriage penalty. I had seen an article recently, unfortunately I can't find it now, that discussed how gay couples were deciding not to get married, when they thought it through and realized what the fine print would mean.
But, it should be a choice for them to make, yes?
In an earlier post, I argued that two critical premises for the proponents of SSM are that gender is a social construct and that free (autonomous) selves pick and choose between genders. Marghlar disagrees and takes issue with the truth of these two premises. He thinks they are unnecessary to his argument. In taking this position, he breaks with Queer Theory and one of its most important theorists, Judith Butler. (See J. Butler, Gender Trouble.) He also undercuts his own argument. Here's why:
By denying the truth of these two premises, he necessarily commits himself to the view that there is no difference between one's sex and one's gender and that one's gender is given by nature. Given that one's gender is given by nature, it is also true that the overwhelming majority of males and females, by nature, have an erotic attraction towards each other. This mutual attraction, again by nature, is inextricably linked to the reproduction of the human species.
Since the great majority of males and females have a psychological erotic attraction towards each other, and since this attraction, as a general matter, is a necessary condition for reproduction to take place, this psychological trait is deemed "normal" for the species. On the other hand, an erotic attraction towards a member of the same sex, since it cannot possibly facilitate reproduction, is deemed "abnormal" for the species.
This mode of argumentation derails any equal protection argument for SSM because the two classes (heterosexual and homosexual) are not similarly situated.
There are two ways to deal with this kind of argument. One is to deny the distinction between "normal" and "abnormal". But this leads to nihilism. The other is to follow the lead of Queer Theory and reject the identification of sex with gender. This is why Butler's theory is able to sidestep the normal/abnormal argument.
If Marghlar's argument is to be persuasive (assuming he rejects nihilism), he must adopt Butler's theory of gender and its related notion, that of a completely free (autonomous) self. And then, of course, the argument moves to the next level: whether Butler's theory is plausible and whether the notion of an autonomous self makes sense.
So many wilful misinterpretations, so little time!
Since you all so staunchly believe you're right, let's pretend that you are for now, and move on to the immediate consequences:
Assuming that same sex marriage is made legal, what happens to religious organizations that are opposed to homosexual relationships? Are Catholic priests going to be forced to preside over same sex "marriages"?
In Canada, speaking out against homosexuality is now a crime. Do you think we should have a law like that in the US?
Edward asked several times how far conservatives wanted to go in their opposition to gay marriage. I would like to know how far you proponents would like to go with your agenda.
Esk: no.
AlaskaJack: Better you than me, re-initiating that particular discussion.
INMA30: It's not a fallacious argument, it's a question. I'm sure you know the difference. It is a serious issue. Will priests who refuse to perform same sex marriages be stripped of their legal authority to perform m/f marriages? I'm not saying that would be good or bad, just wondering what the proponents think should happen.
I know in many European countries, you have to have a civil ceremony to be legally married. Couples who want a religious service do that in addition to the civil ceremony, but as far as the government is concerned, the religious ceremony is superfluous. Do you think we'll move in that direction? Just curious.
(For those wondering, there is zero chance the Catholic Church will ever administer a same sex sacramental marriage.)
Marghlar: thanks. I wonder if Edward and Regan agree with you, though.
INMA30:This argument is really just more fearmongering from opponents and it is truly a red herring.
As Europe goes, so goes the US... eventually. And there are plenty of hate-crime statutes limiting free speech in Europe and especially in Canada. Those countries don't have First Amendment protections, but we've already seen attempted erosions of those freedoms in the "speech codes" that have been successfully implemented on college campuses, and in the "politically correct" "tolerance" movement, which is in reality just code for intolerance towards ideas that some people don't agree with.
This is something that I worry about. I hope the Constitutional protections we have hold fast, but I see them being attacked constantly. FWIW, I don't think that religious officials have the "right" to perform official legal marriages, but it is a convenience and a convention that we've held in this country for seeming ever (I'm not sure of the details and don't want to make an assumption there). Splitting civil marriage from religious marriage would seem inevitable to me if same sex marriage is legalized. I imagine there would be some resistence to this idea, but it doesn't have to be that big a deal.
Edward:If anyone in Canada was punished simply for disapproving of homosexuality out of religious convictions, then that was a travesty of justice and will be fixed through appeals, etc.
Sounds reasonable, but unfortunately, in Canada, that's not happening. (scroll down to the section subtitled "Canada" for specifics there.)
Edward, while I'm at it, could you please be more careful in your writing? In your reply to me, you said, Joan quotes some Canadian case that supposedly shows that homophobia has been “outlawed” there.
I did not, in fact quote any Canadian cases, nor did I say that 'homophobia had been "outlawed" there'. Here's what I said: [T]here are plenty of hate-crime statutes limiting free speech in Europe and especially in Canada.
Can you see the difference? I mentioned hate-crime statutes limiting free speech. I did not cite a specific law or case, and I did not say that homophobia had been outlawed. Your use of the word "quote" is particularly troubling. It's one thing to do this kind of rhetorical smoke-and-mirrors with the ideas that I've expressed (it's obnoxious, but as ideas are open to interpretation, not completely inexcusable), but to say that I quoted a case when all I did was mention a law is a stretch. I know this is a minor point, but this kind of sloppy debating provides even more incentive to your opponents to just ignore you. (I know I haven't ignored you, but I've had a bit of time on my hands these past few days. If I hadn't that extra time, I certainly wouldn't have been here.)
Edward: Concerns about free speech really should not be used as an excuse to continue opposing same-sex marriage.
I view the push for same-sex marriage as only part of an agenda that includes the degradation of free speech protections among other troubling goals. Incidents like this contribute to that view.
I could psychoanalyze your non-apology, but I won't. I will say it does rather make you look like a jerk:I suppose I have been a bit sloppy here and there in some of my posts. Left unsaid, but implied: You don't like it? Too bad! Not a great way to win friends and influence people, and just one part of the reason I continue to find your arguments unpersuasive.
I'm pretty relaxed about the whole "gay marriage" thing. I just want an opportunity to vote up or down on it.
And, if you take a look at every referendum on the issue in American states, the results of these votes have been resounding and homogeneous.
Given that, once all 50 states have put this up for vote in their state constitutions, the issue will no longer be cogent, nor will it be necessary to amend the US Constitution.
Gay marriage will simply be against the law.
paul a'barge,
You say you're relaxed about the same sex marriage issue, but you "just want an opportunity to vote up or down on it" and then there will be no more gay marriage.
Two points. First, even if we took a vote today and the majority of the voters in, say, 47 states rejected same sex marriage, it would still be an issue because there would still be millions of gay couples living as "married" couples and there would still be millions of kids living with gay "married" parents. It doesn't go away just because people say they don't like it.
Second, a referendum in one sense is the ultimate democratic forum, but if you put every issue up for a popular vote, I bet you'd find some issues with popular opinion. For one, strict gun control laws and liberal abortion laws would pass by very wide margins. You'd also find people eager to apply the death penalty to all kinds of offenses, willing to use the volunteer military to invade whatever country you ask them to invade, wipe out all affirmative action programs, especially those sacred rules giving preference to (rich white) legacy college admissions, and health care for all Americans would become the law. In some ways leaving everything to a popular vote is fair, but there are pretty good reasons to let legislators and courts intervene to decide what is really best for the country.
i agree with marghlar's criticism of joan in that its unfair to conflate all people political views that in some ways overlap. For example, I assume you don't want to have Pastor Fred Phelps be automatically associated with everyone who opposes same sex marriage: http://www.godhatesgays.com
Joan wrote: Edward:If anyone in Canada was punished simply for disapproving of homosexuality out of religious convictions, then that was a travesty of justice and will be fixed through appeals, etc.
Sounds reasonable, but unfortunately, in Canada, that's not happening. (scroll down to the section subtitled "Canada" for specifics there.)
The link you provided neglected to mention that Bill C-250, which was passed in Canada, just added ‘sexual orientation’ to the current hate propaganda laws that already protect identifiable groups – those being: colour, race, religion, ethnic origin (I believe gender & disability are also covered here but, I don’t see it in this text http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/2004/14/1086.html.
I don’t really think this impedes free speech. And, if free speech is such a big issue to you wouldn’t you be more concerned about the recent FCC rulings?
Esk: [1]I don’t really think this impedes free speech.[2] And, if free speech is such a big issue to you wouldn’t you be more concerned about the recent FCC rulings?
1: You don't think that statute limits free speech!? [speechless]
2: Recent FCC rulings? I consider myself fairly well-read, and at least familiar with hot topics as they appear, but I haven't heard anything about the FCC recently. My most recent free speech concerns have had to do with so-called campaign finance reform laws seeking to control political content on the internet, but it looks like for now that has been averted. (Did you mean the FEC?)
Marghlar: Please don't judge a movement by the least responsible of its members.
Unfortunately, the people who get the most publicity are the ones that folks will remember. The gay community has a problem in that the people who represent it are extremists, and there are no moderate gays who stand up and tell them to shut up and sit down when they're making fools of themselves. (Should I count the editors of the SF Chronicle as part of the gay community? I don't think so.) Consequently, people who have little or no contact with gays in their day-to-day lives will form their opinions of gays, and the gay agenda, based on things like that protest of a group of Christian teenagers.
When some right-wing nutjob like Pat Buchanan gets up and makes a major fool of himself, you'll see hundreds of conservatives piling on his case and demonstrating how much of an idiot he is, and how he hurts conservatives in general. It's a free country and Pat can say whatever he wants, but that doesn't mean that everyone else has to just sit back and take it -- we're going to get out and do damage control as best we can. I don't see anyone from the gay community doing damage control when incidents like the one in the Chronicle happen. Yes, the assemblyman did take back some of his more fiery rhetoric, but what about all those counter-protesters? What were protesting against, anyway? Christianity? Teenagers? Christian rock?
Didn't anyone have the sense to tell them how idiotic they were being? Did they know how stupid it was? Would they care if someone pointed it out to them? Apparently not.
Like it or not, Marghlar, those counter-protester types in San Francisco represent the gay rights movement and the gay agenda, to me and to millions of other Americans like me.
Edward: Now I'm doubting your reading comprehension (again). I didn't say I think you're a jerk, I said your non-apology made you appear jerk-like. Was I too subtle? Here, I'll spell it out for you: when you misrepresent what someone says, the appropriate response is an apology, usually in the form of the words, "I'm sorry," or at the very least, "I'll be sure not to do it again." Using both phrases is very good form indeed.
Another point:...the compromise and the moderate position for the issue we are discussing is to legalize gay marriage...
Since when is complete and utter capitulation considered a "compromise"? You think by using some rhetorical sleight-of-hand, bringing in that emphasis on retaining religious freedom and free speech rights, that suddenly we'll blink and hand the issue over to you? Not a chance.
Joan: 1: You don't think that statute limits free speech!? [speechless]
Does it limit it anymore than before this bill?
You do understand we're talking about hate crimes, correct? They were already in place well before the 'gay agenda' you mentioned. Bill C-250 added 'sexual orientation' as another protected group - nothing else. This may give you a better understanding of what the issue is.
And, for the record, no - I don't believe it limits free speech.
2: Recent FCC rulings? I consider myself fairly well-read, and at least familiar with hot topics as they appear, but I haven't heard anything about the FCC recently. My most recent free speech concerns have had to do with so-called campaign finance reform laws seeking to control political content on the internet, but it looks like for now that has been averted. (Did you mean the FEC?)
No, I meant the FCC. This guy seems to think it is an issue.
Joan, all I'm trying to say is don't play the alarmist card that free speech will be taken away because of this 'elusive gay agenda'. People get offended over pretty much anything these days and try to shut others down. I would hope you don't really equate free speech to gay marriage. I could be wrong though.
Joe said: "... if we took a vote today and the majority of the voters in, say, 47 states rejected same sex marriage, it would still be an issue because there would still be millions of gay couples living as "married" couples and there would still be millions of kids living with gay "married" parents."
A couple of responses: first, certainly some people out there would still have their issues. They didn't get what they wanted in the democratic arena. In every case where the society democratically chooses, there are winners and losers. In this case, gay marriage is a clear and historical loser. It simply is going to be voted into illegality consistently. Second, regarding children of gay "marriages", I assume you are talking about gay adoption. If my assumption is correct, my point then is that once elections in virtually all American states outlaw gay marriage, there are going to be elections to outlaw gay adoption. And, my predition is that the result will be just as homogeneous and resounding. These adoptions will be outlawed.
Skipping over the middle portion of your statements, most of which make very little sense (strict gun control: flies in the face of the relentless success of concealed-carry permits; the volunteer military invading whatever country "someone" wants invaded: please), I come to this:
"there are pretty good reasons to let legislators and courts intervene to decide what is really best for the country"
Leaving legislators aside for the moment, you're making our points for us. Nothing is less democratic than taking decisions about fundamental, central and important issues such as "what is marriage" out of the hands of the people who must be governed by their own laws and putting responsibility for those laws into the hands of a small, unaccountable and in many cases unelected officials (judges).
Obviously, you want this issue left to judges. It's the only chance you have of getting your way. And getting your way in this manner is the very definition of unfairness.
Let's go back to those legislators, and note that in most of the states where gay marriage has failed, and has had prohibitions against it encoded in the constitutions of American states, those constitutional changes began with votes by legislatures to put the constitutional changes before the people.
Look. The American people do not want gay marriage. By an incredible margin, they are willing to change their state (and federal, I predict) constitutions to make gay marriage impossible.
Carrying on about this isn't changing anyone's minds. The movement to outlaw gay marriage is not stoppable and it is relentless. And every state with an unelected judge willing to make up laws in support of gay marriage is just the next state that is going to queue up a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
It's just a matter of time.
Esk: I hadn't seen the Jarvis piece -- none of my regular reads in the blogosphere picked up on the issue. Frankly, I'm much more concerned that some idiots in Congress will try to get extra "patriotism points" by banning flag burning (which is truly protected political speech) than the FCC deciding it needs to fine anyone who says "bullsh!t" on public airwaves. As many commenters over there noted "sh!t" has been on the FCC's sh!tlist (heh) for time immemorial, so I don't really see the difference. One downside: Comedy Central will probably never run that hilarious "curse words" episode of South Park again.
Regarding the hate crimes laws, you really should go back and read what I wrote. Here, I'll help: As Europe goes, so goes the US... eventually. And there are plenty of hate-crime statutes limiting free speech in Europe and especially in Canada. It is irrelevent that sexual orientation was only recently added to the Canadian law; the point is, the law exists and is being used against people who express negative opinions about homosexuality. Laws in Austria have landed Holocaust denier David Irving in jail. If I had to peg someone as evil, it would be David Irving, but even his speech should be protected if he is not encouraging violence. The recent uproar over the Mohammed cartoons has led to consideration of laws banning discussions of Islam in the press.
Here in the States, there's no mainstream movement towards actual laws that curtail speech, but there is a large and vocal movement that would like to see such laws passed. It includes those gay anti-Christian protesters, and everyone who stands behind campus speech codes.
I would hope you don't really equate free speech to gay marriage. Again, what I said was: I view the push for same-sex marriage as only part of an agenda that includes the degradation of free speech protections among other troubling goals.
Not everyone who supports gay marriage has bought into the whole gay agenda, as Marghlar and others participating here have shown. But I think I have good reason to believe as I do that there really is such an agenda, and legalizing gay marriage is only part of it.
I think it's interesting that Paul a'barge thinks it's only a matter of time before gay marriage is completely outlawed, and Edward thinks it's only a matter of time before gay marriage is legalized. I can see it going either way. If courts keep trying to impose gay marriage, I think that Paul is right and there will be more resistence to the idea. But I think that in a generation or so, if the moderates in the gay community can wrest control from the radicals, and they can demonstrate that their desire for marriage rites is not part of an agenda that seeks to destroy religion and tradition in the US, then it could very well become legal. Recent poll numbers have shown shifts in the general population in favor of gay marriage. Is that because there haven't been any high-profile cases of judicial activism? I'd say yes -- it has fallen off most people's radars, and they don't bother to get upset or even be negative about it. On the other hand, when no one is agitating for gay marriage, there's no one actively agitating against it, either -- so maybe we should just enjoy this lull.
"Would you feel safer living for a week as an openly gay (or lesbian) person with a partner in one of this country’s most conservative towns (such as in Utah/Texas..."
Let's compare, say Austin, TX and San Francisco, CA. I've lived in both, so I can at least speak from experience. Unless only the most hypothetical examples will make you happy.
I'm sorry to rain on your parade, but it would be Austin, TX in a heartbeat.
The recent anti-Christian bigotry displayed recently in the San Francisco incident is nothing compared to the bitter, vile hatred of anyone not leftist/liberal in San Francisco. It's even worse in Be[z]erkeley, CA.
On the other hand, picking Austin, TX (or even Houston and San Antonio, other communities in Texas _WITH WHICH I HAVE EXPERIENCE_), to be gay and to be out is a big yawn.
Now, what this has to do with the right of a majority of Americans to legally and fairly invalidate gay marriage is another fish of a different odor. But I suspect we all realize that by now.
By the way, the original thread challenged us to compare and contrast polygamy and gay marriage and the agenda-connection between the two.
Can we do that now?
"America isn't, and never has been, a pure winner-takes-all democracy."
Show me a codicil in the federal Constitution that enumerates the right to get married.
Now then. There are enumerated rights and there are "I want 'em" rights. The right to gay marriage is not enumerated, nor can it be argued in any sense of the term as deriving from G-d (as in "We hold these truths to be self-evident...").
Not one amendment to one state constitution outlawing gay marriage has been found unconstitutional. And, it won't be. And, if it were, there would be forthwith an unresistable rush to amend the US Constitution.
In other words, it's against the law (in many states), it will be against the law in virtually all states, and it will never happen in America.
I just don't see how you argue against the inevitability of that.
This will probably be my last comment here today -- too much going on in the real world.
Edward: I agree that threat of physical violence is greater for gays than it is for Christians. It's deplorable, and illegal. Already. As for your refinement of this "thought experiment", I laughed, because any gay man in his right mind would know better than to proposition a straight guy in a straight bar. No doubt there are some conservative Christians trying to bring the word to the gay community in SF, and they have a hard road ahead of them. There's a big difference, though, in trying to persuade someone to engage in behavior they find personally repulsive (first scenario) and trying to persuade someone not to engage in behavior another person finds immoral. The first is likely to provoke a violent reaction, the second is most likely to provoke no reaction at all, or mocking laughter.
Marghlar: No, I don't have a specific quote regarding the aims of the protesters in SF. But I did look at several sites around the web trying to find out what happened before and after the event, and I ran across alot of rhetoric that was warning against the impending theocracy, and repeatedly stated things like "these people don't belong in SF, they shouldn't be here."
I saw similar statements made by protesters to the West Coast Walk for Life, which was particularly amusing since that walk was organized by a 4th-generation SF native. If the protesters had their way, neither the Christian teen concert nor the West Coast Walk for Life events would have taken place. That's ample demonstration to me that they are trying to infringe on others' free speech.
Regan said:After all, the opponents keep procreation and child care at the forefront of their argument.
As if those who don't reproduce are of no service or merit to the human race as a whole.
As if not having children reduces another person to outside the 'norm' of what most people's goal is.
Not only is this is a gross over-simplification of the arguments against changing marriage laws, it demonstrates that you lack the most basic requirement for honest debate: accepting that your opponents are arguing in good faith, and not out of irrational fear and hatred.
You consistently fail to recognize that our concern is for future generations and the ongoing transmission of our culture. I could say more, giving examples of recent changes that have had catastrophic unintended consequences -- but I've already done that, and you've already dismissed those concerns as fear-based, without once acknowledging that social engineering is risky business. What it comes down to, I think, is our divergent views of American culture.
I think that America's unique culture of freedom relies heavily on its citizens to be mature and responsible, and I think our culture is worth perserving. I think you and others like you regard our culture as a creaky old relic of antiquated ideas that needs to be ditched asap, with no thought as to what is going to replace it -- or what is already displacing "old fashioned" ideas like hard work and responsibility. Maximizing individual personal happiness may be the most important thing to you, but there are a lot more important things IMO than making sure everyone's "happy."
Edward, the "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence doesn't mean following your heart. It's directly from John Locke, who described the most important rights as life, liberty, and property. (See brief discussion here.) Jefferson et al, in writing the Declaration, substituted "pursuit of happiness" for property because they didn't want people without property to interpret the Declaration as saying they were entitled to property. The point is, we are entitled by right to the benefits of the properties we own: the State keeps its hands off private property.
It's quite a stretch to read the right to same sex marriage into the Declaration of Independence.
In Great Britain your battle has already been won? And how are things working out in the old UK these days? Fine, I suppose, if institutionalized socialism and rampant unemployment are things you enjoy. Our legal tradition and our language may have originated in the UK, but comparing our societies now is pretty much apples to oranges.
Look: societies change, and I'm not arguing in favor of stagnation. But your idea of "orderly evolution" is my idea of inviting additional chaos into an already chaotic milieu.
You may well be right, Edward, and it may only be a matter of time before same sex marriage is the law of the land here. But I'm not as sure of that as you are, especially given the disparate birth rates between conservatives and liberals...
Regan, clearly there is no point in my continuing any conversation with you. If you were offended by my statement that you are not arguing in good faith, then perhaps you understand my feelings when you continually insist that I am an ignorant bigot.
There were so many statements in your last reply that cry out for rebuttal, but I'll limit myself to this one:
There will be no change in the basic principle of modern marriage, but a redefinition of the couple involved.
How can you say that there will no change in one clause, and then in the very next say that there will be a redefinition? You are contradicting yourself, you just won't admit it.
I haven't "finally" come to the social experiment 'defense', that's where I started out: we need to be cautious about social experimentation, because there are always unintended consequences. Or do you think that the proponents of making birth control freely available knew about the resultant increase in the illegitimacy rate, and thought that would be just fine? Or that the proponents of widely available abortion knew that it would contribute to an increase in single-mother families, but thought that would be OK, too?
I don't think it's right that legal documents drawn up by gay couples should be challenged on the basis of their homosexuality. But the solution to that is to strengthen the legal instruments so that doesn't happen, not to throw over the institution that has been the basis of our culture and civilization for millenia.
Marghlar, while I respect the sources you cited, please note that they both cite 2005 data, with the information for the UK being an estimate.
More recent data shows a more positive picture, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting unemployment in the US at 4.8% for February continuing a positive trend, and National Statistics reporting unemployment at 5.0% in the UK, which continues a trend of worsening conditions.
The point was not to throw statistics around, the point was that the UK is culturally different from the US, even though we share the same language. I think Australia would be a more valid comparison.
Yes, Marghlar, and we all know how fervently we wish to be adequate. (I couldn't resist.)
I agree that it is difficult to make comparisons to what's happened in other countries, because our culture is unique. We have a very loosely woven "safety net" that lets all sorts of people fall through, wrt social services, so the effects of a strongly paternal state are missing.
On the other hand, while our individual attitudes towards sexuality are bipolar, the mainstream culture pushes the idea of sexual fulfillment at every opportunity, for everyone, damn the consequences. So in that way, our culture (if not necessarily Americans as individuals) is similar to what you'd see in, say, the Netherlands.
So I can see why Kurtz looks at the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries for indications of how same sex marriage could effect us, but I also know that we should not view that data as perfectly predictive of what could happen here.
One reason I bring up previous social changes as examples of reasons we should be cautious is because we can examine those changes and the effects on our own population. The birth control and abortion influences touched on the same areas that legalizing same sex marriage does: they changed the way people thought about sex and relationships, by separating sex from procreation. Changes in thinking led to changes in behavior. There's nothing in saying "hey, anyone can have sex without getting pregnant now!" that necessarily should have led to the increases in illegitimacy and single-mother homes, but because sex was devalued to something merely for pleasure and not for procreation, that's what happened. (I'm not saying the devaluation of sex was the sole reason for these changes, but it was a big contributing factor.)
I think legalizing same sex marriage will change how people think about marriage -- it's for pleasure, not for procreation, or it's for personal fulfillment now, not the continuation of our society/culture. I know you disagree, but I don't think it's completely off the wall for me to think that.
Changing how people think will eventually lead to changes in behavior. You think that any changes will be slight and benign; I disagree.
At this point, there's not much else to say.
A final clarification, if I may: I also have some doubts that the State either A) ought to be or B) is in a good position to control the reproductive behaviors of its citizens.
I have no doubts whatsoever that the State should not control the reproductive behaviors of its citizens. What I think is happening here, and I don't have a problem with it, is the State encouraging certain behaviors through incentives. Whether or not those encouragements work, and how well, depends on a lot of things.
I'm not sold on the necessity of this legal persuasion -- if all the legal "benefits" of marriage disappeared tomorrow, people would still want to get married. I'm sure I've said this before, but I'll say it again: the State doesn't need to encourage certain behaviors, even those it sees as contributing to the general welfare. But it's something that has been done for eons, and I don't see us stopping that anytime soon.
Thanks for an excellent conversation.
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