If you want to characterize my position as “gays should adopt only in an emergency, but we’ve been in an adoption emergency in America for at least 100 years” I guess that’s true, but it hardly seems like an emergency if it’s lasted that long.

You claim that if a teacher “preaches the view of one particular religion (and she’s a public school teacher) she’s in breach of church/state separation and should be disciplined.” Well, in 1999, before there were any legal gay marriages anywhere in the world, GLSEN published curriculum that told teachers to tell their students that mariage is “a relationship of emotional and financial interdependence between two people in love who make a legal and public commitment to each other.” Now, every single legal definition in the world at the time insisted that marriage was between a man and a woman – not “two people.” Yet I have seen no evidence any teacher was every disciplined for teaching the gay definition of marriage when it was inconsistent with the law. Yet you think teachers should be disciplined for teaching the traditional definition of marriage when it is inconsistent with the law.

In other words, if voters want teachers to be able to continue to teach whatever they believe about marriage, the only fair-minded vote on the California Marriage Protection Act is yes.

Marriage unites the sexes AND provides contingency for responsible procreation. This is a coherent combination. Regulation of the parameters of the relationship status would be unjust if merely an arbitary act of government. Children should not be misled. The government recognizes, but does not create and own, civi society’s foundational social institution.

While there are nonmarital alternatives, and tolerance is usually meritorious, it is still perfectly okay for a teacher to describe marriage recognition as minus the identity politics that some would press into the discussion — such as the racist kind, the ethnic kind, the religous kind, or as in this case the gaycentric kind. Marriage entails preference for its essentails, not for identity politics of any kind.

You keep harping back to some false dichotomy. The man-woman criterion is not a purely religious basis for marriage. Your view is highly misleading. Even where there is a localized SSM merger, you’d be wrong in your assertion.

You might hope to see the teacher coerced into promotion of your brand of identity politics, but that would make you the sectarian with a religous-like bias, not the teacher.

Err, that’s what I meant by “emergency”.

‘I have spoken to several “marriage equality” advocates who think a journalist should face libel suits if he says a “married” gay man is actually a bachelor, [...]‘

Someone’s being silly. If the man is civilly married in say Massachusetts, then I see pistols at dawn and a dressing down from the editor but not libel. It’s a calculated insult to the man’s relationship and (given the way I confidently expect the usage to evolve) a willfully misleading way of describing his status to the readers, but it’s not defamatory. Bachelor is a perfectly honorable status, it just won’t be idiomatic to describe a man married to another man that way and so it will be misinformation.

‘[...] and that a teacher should be fired if she tells her students marriage is the union of a man and a woman.’

This one depends. If she specifies that she’s talking about say, marriage in the view of most religions and keeps it descriptive, she’s fine. But if she preaches the view of one particular religion (and she’s a public school teacher) she’s in breach of church/state separation and should be disciplined. And if she doesn’t qualify that it’s religious marriage then she’ll be willfully misleading her students in the same way as the journalist and should be disciplined.

But that does not preclude an Article V convention. Neither does it preclude the use of referenda as I described to support the amending process.

If the FMA is the center piece of the compromise you proposed, then, moving it to the state-by-state ratification stage is the key to that compromise being implemented.

How do go about that?

Well there is a decisive minority of federal representatives who hesitate to support the FMA even though they support the man-woman criterion. They have concerns about state rights and federalism. As do a significant minority of our fellow citizens who have supported state amendments and DOMAs.

Now your proposal asks them to support the FMA and at the same time asks them and the supporters of the FMA to plan on the repeal the state marriage amendments.

To do the latter you will need direct votes. To do the former, you need to move the FMA to the ratification stage of the amending process and win that campaign.

I think, to do both, you will need to encourage referenda in many states to answer the federal question first. Your own blogpost strongly suggests that the FMA is the linchpin.

If a majority of the state assemblies resolve in favor an Article V convention for the purpose of proposing the FMA, then, concerns about state rights ought to be put aside. Some state assemblies may need the prodding of direct votes of some sort — clearly in favor of the FMA. But these would not count as direct ratification of the FMA which at that point would not have entered the ratification stage.

The completion of referenda in all states, or even a majority of states, may not be needed. Perhaps such direct votes — advisory or binding — are needed only where support for the FMA, in the judgement of either marriage defenders or state assemblies, is deemed too close to call. Citizens can initiate such votes in most states. But how these are setup will vary.

On the other hand, an Article V convention might be the very setting for hashing out the sort of compromise you proposed. For it includes a federal amendment, inter-state uniforming of beneficiary provisions, and repeal of state amendments, as well as federal legislation on unique social policy programmes.

I don’t mean that a convention can knit all that together. It would not have that mandate. But a convention might set the stage for advancement of the interlinks you envisaged. While the states deal with their proposed federal marriage amendment, Congress could be working on the other pieces, and state assemblies could be t-ing up the machinery for repeal of state amendments.

The prospect of an Article V convention could prompt Congress to act on most of your compromise — so as to avoid letting the states take the lead. But it might be best for the states to take the lead, given that marriage has been regulated by the states and they’d be injecting federal authority into that.

Your compromise is not easy to forge but referenda would certainly add impetus to the enterprise. Referenda could add clarity on some of the key decisions.

The marriage issue challenges the principles of good governance in any case. Direct democracy is far from anti-thetical to our republican form of government and it may be a big part of the solution to the erosion of social consensus on this foundational social institution.

It would have the additional advantage of reminding the judiciary and the executive branches of our state and federal governments that The People have a government, not the other way around.

You’re just incorrect in terms of the process for amending the Constitution. In my study of American history (and I’m getting a Ph.D. in the subject) I’ve never come across an amendment that was approved the way you describe.

Mark-

I never said gays should adopt only in an emergency. I wish we had that luxury! But there are far too many children who need parents, and it is far better for an orphan to have two Dads than no parents at all. On the other hand, a policy like that in Massachusetts that an agency cannot favor families with both a mother and a father when all things are equal is not right either.

What you claim “doesn’t follow” certainly follows. I have spoken to several “marriage equality” advocates who think a journalist should face libel suits if he says a “married” gay man is actually a bachelor, and that a teacher should be fired if she tells her students marriage is the union of a man and a woman. I recognize that you “don’t care” because that journalist and that teacher are “bigoted.” I just plan to make sure every Californian knows that the only way each side of the debate can continue having the right to express its viewpoint is to pass the initiative. Under the old system, gay newspapers called same-sex couples “married” all the time and were never sued for libel. GLSEN has been promoting curricula for years that suggests that same-sex couples can marry, and no GLSEN educator has ever lost her job. But if we don’t pass the initiative, people on my side of the debate will have to fear libel suits and teacher firings. So a vote for the CMPA is a vote for fairness.

Your willingness to sacrifice the ability of same-sex couples in deeply homophobic environments to have any sorts of protections because of your fear that someone will find my arguments have “merit” rather than being “nonsense” and “gibberish” is scary, selfish, and cruel. I am confident that gay and lesbian scholars looking at this debate in 100 years will be amazed that my attempts to provide as many protections to as many same-sex couples as possible was viewed as homophobic nonsense while the preference of people like you to do nothing for the urgent needs of LGBT people while you focus on defending a purely semantic achievement by those in already safe environments was treated as “pro-gay.”

Your fervent belief in your cause might be commendable if it were not for the complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from your own on this issue. Such a bias is based on an embraced prejudice, or prejudgement, that to disagree with you is itself an act of hatred or bigotry.

The irony stands there, rebuking you, even as you impatiently demand submission.

So there is no merit in argument against your pet project, you say, with the certainty of one in the grip of identity politics and moving away from reason, logic, and common sense.

It is tragic that the totalitarian impulse of many (but not all) SSMers lurks just beneath the surface of their claims that logic, reason, and justice are on their side and entirely absent from the side they disagree with.

The compromise that David put up for discussion here, in good faith, is not beyond discussion just because you claim to have gazed into your crystal ball and have prophesized your quasi-religious victory over all of society.

Of course, any of us, yourself included, may count himself out of the discussion of such a compromise. But one who claims to have reason and justice in his corner, might depart from such a compromise with more than an appeal, a false appeal, to emotivism.

You claim there are “long-term negative impacts” of passing the FMA on gay people, but give no specifics other than the denial of custody to gays because of sodomy laws. If you can show a serious likelihood (as opposed to theoretical possibility) of harm to gays and lesbians such as the loss of their children or the shutting down of gay bars or the return of sodomy laws because of the passage of the FMA, I would be willing to refuse to support any FMA that does not contain a clause clarifying that it cannot be used for any of the purposes you have shown to be a likely result. Personally, I just don’t see any such ramifications, but if they exist, I will work with you to prevent them.

I never said all gay people’s desire to be married was symbolic. I said that of California is symbolic. Given that gay couples in California will have no fewer rights the day after the CMPA passes than they had the day before other than the word “marriage,” I think it’s self-evidently clear it is symbolic.

You say “The societal recognition that accompanies marriage (beyond any legal rights) is not symbolic. It’s tangible and the lack of that recognition creates real harm.”

Can you give me, say four concrete examples of real harm? Wounded self-esteem doesn’t count. I’m willing to address self-esteem as outlined in my compromise. You say it isn’t symbolic, it’s tangible, and it causes real harm. What harm? If you can show me real harms, I might change my position.

As for the negative effects of same-sex marriage, it’s been about four years. I don’t think it’s reasonable to conclude so quickly that there have been no harms. Under your reasoning, we should let kindergartners view pornography and let priests molest choir boys, because there have been no double-blind longtudinal studies revealing concrete harm to the children involved. There are some changes you just don’t make whether there are documented scientific harms or not.

If the gay community doesn’t need self-esteem, why is it spending millions of dollars to retain the word “marriage” when there are much, much more pressing needs by gays and lesbians in real distress? Clearly, gay marriage in California is intended to make gays feel good, as opposed to addressing any actual needs faced by same-sex couples.

You’re concerned that the group trying to block same-sex marriage will next try to stop domestic partnership benefits. I don’t agree with that. But whose fault is that? There were no ballot initiatives to stop domestic partnership benefits before gays started suing for marriage in the mid-1990s. If your side stops suing, I am certain my side will stop trying amend constitutions.

When did I say marriage is really about procreation? I don’t believe I ever said that.

I am more than happy to respond to arguments that object to things I say, even really, really solid arguments. But please don’t ask me to respond to things you imagine I say. It’s just not productive.

John Howard-

Your persistent efforts to engage me on your theory of same-sex procreation are admirable. But they’re not going to work. I have limited time and energy and I am going to spend them primarily responding to people I disagree with on this blog. You and others who oppose same-sex marriage are welcome to use any argument on this site that you wish, no matter how repetitive. If someday I get interested in same-sex conception, I’ll visit your Web site and we can discuss it there. For now, I’m going to focus on responding to the arguments and questions of people who want to change the definition of marriage.

“The appropriate policy is to allow all kinds of couples to adopt, but to give preference to families with both a mother and a father, whatever their sexual orientation.”

I’m sorry, I’m not mollified by a compromise. The evidence is not that same-sex couples are not so dreadful that they can’t be considered in an emergency, the evidence is that they are not inferior at all.

‘Because no lesbian has ever lost her job, her assets, or her freedom for running her business, writing for her newspaper, or teaching her students consistently with her belief that marriage is a union of any two people who love each other, fair-minded people are bound to realize that in order to keep the most freedom to the most number of people, the California Marriage Protection Act must pass. ‘

Doesn’t follow. You’re conflating the right to believe or preach ideas with the right to have them implemented or impose them on others. If SSM is upheld in California, it will be no imposition at all on religious people’s right to believe or assert that marriage should be opposite-sex or that “real”/religious marriage is opposite sex and that same-sex civil marriages are invalid for strictly religious purposes. I’m sure it will suck for them that civil marriage doesn’t align with their religious ideal, but I don’t acknowledge they they have any right of remedy under freedom of speech or religion. And I certainly don’t care because I think the religious ideal is bigoted. Like I said, implementing SSM is a win/lose situation and I intend you guys to lose.

“You say “we need to be fighting for really basic protections in places like Alabama” which is of course correct, but you cannot have them because fear of the gay community’s marriage lawsuit caused the people of Alabama to react in the most extreme way possible. ”

Certainly that’s a perfectly real negative and not an insubstantial one, but in my judgement it’s offset by the fact of actual same-sex marriages happening in Massachusetts and, hopefully, California. The importance of facts on the ground in changing opinions can’t be oversold.

Equally, while passing an FMA might conceivably give cover to Alabama moderates who are prepared to vote for workplace protections but baulk at SSM, it also has the very real negative of tending to send a message that anti-SSM arguments (and anti-gay arguments more generally) actually have some merit. I don’t concede that, and I don’t think the gay rights movement should either. I don’t think your arguments are weak, I think they’re literally nonsense – masterful rhetoric but gibberish as logic. I’m confident that, in the long term, every argument you’re making here will be universally regarded with embarrassment and tossed down the same memory hole as Biblical defences of slavery, and I’m very hesitant to slow that process down for short-term advantage.