You’ve lost that “Loving” feeling
CommentsSupporters of same-sex marriage frequently make racial analogies in their attempts to argue that gay marriage is the defining civil rights movement of the 21st century. Most often, these arguments refer to Loving v. Virginia the 1967 Supreme Court decision that declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional, thus ending all race-based restrictions on marriage in the United States.
I find such analogies unpersuasive and unhelpful. Here are five reasons why:
1) The racial analogy is frequently needlessly insulting to African-Americans. Certainly some blacks like Coretta Scott King and Mildred Loving have approved of the analogy. But they would likely get behind any liberal cause. I think it’s important to pay attention to non-elite African-Americans, too, such as the woman who posted the following about same-sex marriage at the Huffington Post blog: “Please stop desecrating and insulting the history of African-Americans by trying to compare racial issues with sexual orientation issues. They aren’t even CLOSE to being the same.”
2) The civil rights movement of the 1960s was fighting real injuries to African-Americans, whereas the California “marriage equality” movement is focused on the purely symbolic and semantic issue of whether the equal rights granted to same-sex couples is called a “domestic partnership” or a “marriage.” If Virginia gave interracial couples all the rights of married couples except the name, I am certain that civil rights activists in the Old Dominion would have focused their energies on the real harms to African-Americans, such as still-segregated schools, courts that treated black defendants unfairly, and the barriers to the election of African-Americans to local, state, and federal offices. The notion that they would have spent millions of dollars on a word when blacks were suffering every day from real discrimination, poverty, and injustice is ludicrous.
3) Loving v. Virginia was decided under the federal Constitution, particularly the Fourteenth Amendment. I am certain that amendment does not guarantee the right of same-sex couples to marry each other, just as many “marriage equality” advocates are certain that it does. When there is a substantial disagreement about the meaning of the Constitution that deals with an important issue in American life, the proper arbiters are not people like me or people like the marriage equality crowd, but the United States Supreme Court. I have repeatedly said I would like the Washington Nine to hear a same-sex marriage case and decide this issue once and for all. However, LGBT activists have shot down promising federal lawsuits by same-sex couples arguing that they have a constitutional right to marry. It is not reasonable to claim that a federal right to marry exists while refusing to let the people whose job it is to determine whether it exists do their jobs.
4) I believe discrimination against interracial marriage is wrong. I believe discrimination in favor of man-woman marrige is right - and necessary. I understand that some people disagree with me. But saying, “Well you’re like a racist” is utterly unpersuasive to me, since I agree that racism is wrong, while I think privileging relationships that form the best environment in which children should be raised is right. I could easily point to kinds of relationships you would think are wrong - like parent-child or brother-sister marriages - and suggest that since you want to redefine marriage maybe you want the state to privilege those unions too. But I’m smarter than that. I know that you (probably) think those relationships are wrong, and same-sex marriages are right, so the analogy is unlikely to persuade you. And I am more interested in persuading you than making you look bad.
5) If Loving v. Virginia means there is a right to marry, that it insufficient to prove that same-sex couples have a right to marry. American law is based on individual rights, and gays and lesbians absolutely have a right to marry. I know many who have done so. I plan to marry some day. What gays and lesbians do not have is the right to redefine marriage to fit their minority idea of what marriage is. If they did have that right, then I would surely have the right to re-re-define marriage to fit my majority idea of what marriage is. And where would it end?
There are other reasons, but I think five is a good start.
It’s important to remember that the issue was whether a black person and a white person could “mix their genes” - that’s what “miscegenation” means - and conceive children together. That’s why the decision rests on the finding of Skinner that procreation is “a basic civil right of man”. Fornication laws prohibited unmarried people from conceiving together, and at the time these laws were actually somewhat the rule, even if certainly out-of-wedlock births happened frequently. Marriage allowed -everywhere, always - the couple to conceive children together. This is why same-sex marriage wouldn’t “redefine” marriage unless same-sex conception were to be prohibited: if that happens, then marriage is redefined to not protect conception rights.
If Virginia gave interracial couples all the rights of married couples except the name, I am certain that civil rights activists in the Old Dominion would have focused their energies on the real harms to African-Americans, such as still-segregated schools, courts that treated black defendants unfairly, and the barriers to the election of African-Americans to local, state, and federal offices.
Perhaps, but that never would have occurred to anyone, since the word for having all the rights of marriage was “marriage”. The more interesting thought-question is, if Virginia gave them the name marriage, but prohibited them from attempting to conceive children together, would anyone have thought that was fair or good enough or made any sense whatsoever? Of course not, the whole point, the entire question, was should people have the right to have children with someone of their same sex, or could a state prohibit conception of inter-racial individuals. The whole purpose of the law was to preserve distinct races, and that is why the court found it unconstitutional.
They did however imply that there could be supportable basis on which to limit certain relationships from marrying each other, and again, it is clear that the basis are based on the ethics of conceiving together, not of living together or loving each other or inheriting or anything like that.
‘The racial analogy is frequently needlessly insulting to African-Americans.’
I’m sure some of them feel insulted. So? As the saying goes, “Honi soit qui mal y pense” - shame to him who evil thinks. There’s a disproportionate amount of homophobia in the black church and the black community. The fact that black people have had it very hard and continue to do so doesn’t excuse it. Martin Luther King wasn’t a homophobe - his right hand man for many years, Bayard Rustin, was an out gay man and a gay rights campaigner.
Moreover, even if we’re talking cynical real-world politics, pandering to black homophobia is a bad idea. First, if you confront it, and sell black people on the very real analogies between gay and black civil rights, you’ve got an extra 5-10% of votes for gay rights generally including SSM. Second, even if you don’t, the black community is going to get its act together before long anyway because not to do so will literally be a death sentence. Having a large proportion of gay black men living “on the down low” is a major contributor to skyrocketing rates of AIDS in the black community.
‘The civil rights movement of the 1960s was fighting real injuries to African-Americans, whereas the California “marriage equality” movement is focused on the purely symbolic and semantic issue of whether the equal rights granted to same-sex couples is called a “domestic partnership” or a “marriage.”’
Yes and no. If we’re talking analogies to black civil rights, SSM is a mixture of Loving vs. Virginia (interracial marriage bans won’t do) and Brown vs. Board of Education (”separate but equal” won’t do). In CA indeed it’s mostly Brown, because nearly all of the substantive aspects had already been granted legislatively. But Brown was not unimportant.
‘Loving v. Virginia was decided under the federal Constitution, particularly the Fourteenth Amendment.’
So? What does this have to do with analogies between race and sexual orientation?
‘I am certain that amendment does not guarantee the right of same-sex couples to marry each other, just as many “marriage equality” advocates are certain that it does.When there is a substantial disagreement about the meaning of the Constitution that deals with an important issue in American life, the proper arbiters are not people like me or people like the marriage equality crowd, but the United States Supreme Court.’
I’m not sure what your point is. The US is a federal republic. State legislatures are sovereign. They are historically and authoritatively prior - the federal government is an afterthought. They can do everything less what the state and federal constitutions say they can’t do, as interpreted by the State and Federal Supreme Courts. If the California Supreme Court interprets the California constitution to say the California legislature can’t restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples, then short of a constitutional change or a major bit of court stacking, that’s the end of the matter in California. The US Supreme Court might or might not interpret the federal constitution to say that _all_ state governments are prohibited from restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples, but there’s no prospect of it overturning the situation in California. How all this makes race versus sexual orientation analogies unhelpful when the Federal and California Supreme Courts are interpreting broadly parallel provisions of the respective constitutions escapes me.
“But saying, “Well you’re like a racist” is utterly unpersuasive to me, since I agree that racism is wrong, while I think privileging relationships that form the best environment in which children should be raised is right.’
Sure, but such remarks aren’t aimed at you so much as the people who see you turning a blind eye to the testimony of every adoption agency on the planet and might with a bit of suggestion see you as like one of the people who defended miscegenation laws with lame rationalizations. This analogy stuff is all well and good but it can only work on people with a mustard-grain’s worth of self-awareness.
‘What gays and lesbians do not have is the right to redefine marriage to fit their minority idea of what marriage is.’
Of course we do. Civil marriage is what the government says it is. (Religious marriage I don’t presume to speak for or concede to be governed by.) If the government has no rational basis for restricting civil marriage to opposite-sex couples, which is what I believe and most people who have adopted an evidence-based approach have concluded, then, according to basic fairness we have the moral right to be allowed to be allowed to marry civilly. Moreover, in the US, this moral right corresponds to the legal right of due process, and several state supreme courts have backed us up.
Mark, it’s not the race-orientation analogy that is offensive, it is the race-sex analogy. The idea that black and white people are as different as a man and a woman, or that inter-racial conception is comparable to same-sex conception, is absolutely disgusting. Interracial conception is entirely a racial social construction: there are no distinct “races”, and a man of any heritage can conceive with a woman of any heritage, they don’t need to go to a lab to have their genomes tweaked and fiddled with and hope that the baby won’t have two heads the way a same-sex couple would. To those who make such analogies, shame to them who evil thinks.
Hey Mark, if I recall correctly, you feel that same-sex conception should not be prohibited, right? You feel that people should have the same right to attempt to conceive with someone of either sex? Isn’t it interesting that you apparently agree with David about that?
Mark-
I think it’s legitimate for you not to care if you insult African-Americans with your racial analogies. I think most LGBT people agree with you. It’s just that I do care, and that’s why I think most racial analogies are unhelpful. The fact that you blame the habits of gay black men for spreading AIDS in the African-American community is both racist and homophobic, and reflects poorly upon your entire argument. But I’m glad you feel comfortable expressing your bigotry publicly. In the California marriage debate I hear analogies to Loving much more than analogies to Brown. Neither analogy is compelling to me. The black schools in the south were most certainly not equal, by virtually any measure. I have never heard details of how Domestic Partnerships in California are not equal to marriage in any non-semantic, non-symbolic way. Also, gays have an equal right to marry, and straights have an equal right to enter into a domestic partnership. Gays just don’t have a right to call something a marriage that is not a marriage. I’m sure there are Latino advocates in California who think “illegal immigrant” status is separate from “citizen” status and therefore unequal. They might like the Supreme Court to redefine “citizen” to mean anyone who’s lived in California for more than five years. But that’s not what citizen means. Citizen already has a well-defined definition that has a broad social consensus. There is no “right” to redefine what a citizen is, just because the current definition means more Latinos have fewer rights.
My point in mentioning Loving is that it refers to the federal constitution. If the advocates of same-sex marriage think the Fourteenth Amendment does not provide same-sex couples with the right to marry each other, why do they keep bring up Loving? Yes, state constitutions can give broader rights than the federal constitution. If you believe the California constitution contains a right to same-sex marriage, cite some California case law. But as soon as you bring in Loving, it’s legitimate for me to ask why gay groups have consistently opposed federal lawsuits on the right to marry.
There you go again with “every adoption agency on the planet.” According to the Evan B. Donaldson study I cited in the “lesbian father” section, 29% of American adoption agencies reject out of hand the applications of lesbians and gay men to adopt children. If every adoption agency on the planet agreed with you that there is no difference in same-sex versus opposite-sex parenting, why do nearly three in ten agencies (wrongly, I think) refuse to even consider gay and lesbian potential parents?
I think it’s interesting that you apparently admit that the race analogies have little merit, but they’re effective in convincing foolish people so your side might as well use them.
Your arrogance in claiming not that your side has more of the truth than my side, but that the government has “no rational basis” for maintaining man-woman marriage is stunning. Have you, like read all my posts on this Web site? Of course there are rational bases for maintaining man-woman marriage. The question is if they are outweighed by the interest in satisfying the desires of lesbians and gay men.
It’s so interesting how when it suits you you will talk in the language of morality, but you consider it illegitimate when my side talks in the language of morality. You wrote “we have the moral right … to be allowed to marry civilly.” Well, I think our side has the moral right to keep the government from declaring as “married” couples who by definition cannot marry. So we’ve got two competing moral claims. Somebody has to win, and as you always say, somebody has to lose completely. Why don’t we have a vote - say, this November - and let the people decide whose moral claim is more compelling? And the other side will have to accept that the winning side’s claim is the law of the land.
‘I think it’s legitimate for you not to care if you insult African-Americans with your racial analogies. I think most LGBT people agree with you. It’s just that I do care, and that’s why I think most racial analogies are unhelpful.’
I don’t care that you care. If you care because of the hurt feelings per se, then I don’t care because anybody who would take offence at the comparison (or like you, take offence on behalf of others) is a homophobe and I don’t care that homophobes have hurt feelings when called out on their homophobia. And if you care because you think it’s bad political strategy then I don’t care because I think your political judgement is lousy. Black people who are offended by the comparison after a bit of reflection were never going to vote for any sort of gay rights in the first place, let alone SSM. But others will have an “Oh… I see” moment and come around. Many non-blacks will also be persuaded.
‘The fact that you blame the habits of gay black men for spreading AIDS in the African-American community is both racist and homophobic, and reflects poorly upon your entire argument.’
Hey, I’m just going on what black gay activists consistently tell me, and they’re frantic about it. I don’t mean to suggest that gay men are the only vector of HIV (sharing needles is also important in all communities and worse in the black one), but it’s well-established that they’re a significant part. Black men on the down low are harder to reach with safe-sex information and if they do get HIV they’re like to transmit it to a wife or girlfriend that they’re keeping up appearances with.
‘In the California marriage debate I hear analogies to Loving much more than analogies to Brown.’
Whatever. Together the two cases stand for full substantive and symbolic equality and that’s what we’re shooting for. They also stand for equality asserted against hateful and/or irrational prejudice. I’m sure that there are a lot of centrists who want to believe that, for example, anti-sodomy laws were hateful and irrational but opposition to SSM is enlightened social policy. Possibly we could achieve short-term games to pandering to such people. But I don’t buy it - I think it’s all fruit of the same poisoned tree and I think Loving/Brown is a helpful way of dramatizing that.
‘I’m sure there are Latino advocates in California who think “illegal immigrant” status is separate from “citizen” status and therefore unequal. They might like the Supreme Court to redefine “citizen” to mean anyone who’s lived in California for more than five years. But that’s not what citizen means.’
Poor analogy. It’s rather as if there was a statute that said blacks could never be full citizens, in support of a social consensus that the US was a white nation. And early on that essentially _was_ the social consensus - the original constitution equated slaves with three fifths of a person, and slave was pretty much equivalent to black. “Social consensus” is not synonymous with “great wisdom” - sometimes it is and sometimes it’s just petty and malicious, as with anti-miscegenation laws and opposite-sex-only marriage. A good constitution is a judicious mix of democratic and antidemocratic provisions. For example, free speech is good for democracy but in and of itself it’s antidemocratic: even if there’s an overwhelming social consensus that your speech is invidious and should be suppressed, the legislature may not enforce it. The 14th amendment sought to put a stake through the heart of racial inequity by not only defining citizen but by introducing two more cheerfully anti-democratic fairness principles: due process and equal protection. That way if a state government tried to implement a state consensus that there should be de facto classes of citizens on racial grounds, people could petition the Federal Supreme Court to override that consensus. Indeed, Loving was decided on exactly that basis. Moreover, I presume by design, the due process and equal protection clauses aren’t specific to race, so any other minority that thinks it’s getting picked on can try its luck. If you don’t like your rapidly fraying social consensus being rejected as irrational, by all means protest, but don’t insult our intelligence by suggesting that giving courts discretion to override irrational or malicious social consensus wasn’t the whole point of those clauses.
‘But as soon as you bring in Loving, it’s legitimate for me to ask why gay groups have consistently opposed federal lawsuits on the right to marry.’
It’s so obvious that I can’t believe you don’t already know: a run of good luck for the Republicans with the timing of vacancies and timidity by the Democrats has left the SCOTUS stacked with extreme conservatives, so it would be foolhardy to try any time soon.
‘There you go again with “every adoption agency on the planet.” According to the Evan B. Donaldson study I cited in the “lesbian father” section, 29% of American adoption agencies reject out of hand the applications of lesbians and gay men to adopt children.’
Sorry, I should have said every adoption agency on the planet that has actually tried or been allowed to try the experiment and therefore is not reflecting idle prejudice but actually has an opinion worth taking notice of. A more representative illustration might be that Catholic Charities in San Francisco _had_ been placing children very successfully with gay couples and when the Archdiocese decided to shut this down on doctrinal grounds it was over the vociferous objections of the people with actual experience.
‘Your arrogance in claiming not that your side has more of the truth than my side, but that the government has “no rational basis” for maintaining man-woman marriage is stunning. Have you, like read all my posts on this Web site?’
I haven’t read all your output but I’ve read pretty much every post on marriagedebate.com for eight years and I imagine I would have been exposed to most nominally secular arguments.
‘It’s so interesting how when it suits you you will talk in the language of morality, but you consider it illegitimate when my side talks in the language of morality.’
You’re more than welcome to talk in the language of morality. For example and in particular, the welfare of children is a very important moral good. I just don’t see that you’ve established the slightest connection between the welfare of children and SSM.
‘You wrote “we have the moral right … to be allowed to marry civilly.” Well, I think our side has the moral right to keep the government from declaring as “married” couples who by definition cannot marry.’
Well you _would_, if you had legitimate interests in the status quo which would be impacted adversely by admission of same-sex couples. I just deny that you do. I think the only interest you (collectively) have that would actually be adversely affected is a sense of self-righteousness and superiority from being in a different club and I don’t view that as legitimate.
‘So we’ve got two competing moral claims. Somebody has to win, and as you always say, somebody has to lose completely. Why don’t we have a vote - say, this November - and let the people decide whose moral claim is more compelling? And the other side will have to accept that the winning side’s claim is the law of the land.’
Your bravado is hollow. What you mean is, “Why don’t we have a vote as soon as possible and lock in the status quo, so that when my side collapses as it very obviously will in only a few years, it will be difficult to reverse.” Well it looks as we’re going to have a vote in November whether I’d like it or not, but I’m philosophical. On the one hand I give it even money of failing, and on the other I’m _very_ confident that it will eventually be reversed.
to John Howard -
I’m at work so I have to be quick - I will read more of your stuff later - but why you and so many others are putting so much effort into opposing same sex marriage is a mystery to me.
1. Why is it your business?
2. Stop already with the “marriage has always been between a man and a woman.” the vast majority of the time it has been anything but a man and a woman, at least the way contemporary culture defines it. Man and woman married to protect assets, but sexually the man could do just about anything he wanted. That is NOT how we define marriage today, that a woman is property etc. Slavemasters in this country routinely had sex with slaves, for only one recent example….
3. We also understand human sexuality, brain patterns, hormones, and all kinds of things that were never ever part of the knowledge base until a century ago or much less. Would you as a working person like to regress to the past laws where you have almost no rights or do you agree we understand how to treat employees better now and certain rights are necessary?
So to pretend that everything in the marriage and relationship game is static and to pretend we haven’t learned anything since the Bible was written is to confess that you don’t read, you don’t understand anything scientific or have much knowledge of history. Just for one really good example - St. Thomas Aquinas thought female (babies? I can’t remember) didn’t get their souls for twice as long as males. There was a debate on a similar topic during the middle ages and the Church fathers weren’t even sure women had souls at all.
I could go on, but you either get it or you don’t.
Bottom line, you can’t make a case for banning same sex marriage outside religion. Or if you can, I’d like to hear it.
The real insult is the history of such movements. We fought a civil war and have three separate Constitutional Amendments protecting the rights of African Americans. So Plessey v Ferguson a racist and unconstitutional Supreme Court decision maintains de-facto apartheid for another 150 years.
After multiple enabling legislation including the 1957 civil rights act, the Supreme Court finally interprets the constitution in lawful manner, returning to the original intent and text of the amendments designed to secure full citizenship.
To compare marriage as traditionally defined as tantamount to slavery & segregation is an insult to African –Americans & reasonable men everywhere.
To catapult such a wrongheaded agenda into national prominence through the subterfuge of judicial tyranny makes a mockery of the law and the African American struggle.
Walter Fauntroy-Former DC Delegate to Congress, Founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Coordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s march on DC
To respond briefly to Fitz -
I’m not going to get into the racial aspects of your post, but your quote of Walter Fauntroy needs a little analysis -
Marriage does not guarantee children fathers - while I applaud and appreciate the institution (which is why we Gays are trying to get in it), I think many fathers care for their children without marriage and many who are married don’t care for them or pay child support.
If you have a problem with society, blame drugs, promiscuity, no fault divorce, lots of things but there is NO WAY you can’t pin this on Gay marriage or claim that Gay marriage is the culmination of “privatizating and de-institutionalizing marriage”. - - - Gays who are married or civil unionized have less than 3% divorce rate compared with more than 50% for straights.
If you really want all children to have mothers and fathers, what do you propose to do with all the unwed and single mothers that we have always had - through illegitimacy, war, famine, death of males…..are you going to take them away and give them to for profit male and female parents? I guess the goal should be mothers and fathers primarily but to say or imply that Gay men or women can’t do a good job of raising children?
Don’t you think the quality of the person or their motivation counts at all? Gay men never wake up and say “honey, OOPS I think I’m pregnant!” If we have children, we want them and go through all kinds of testing and hoops to get them. Are you going to institute a test for straight people before they can have children? Lots and lots of straight people I know say they had awful childhoods. Also, Gay people adopt children no on else wants - mentally retarded, Downs etc.
Finally, and I said this in a different topic on this site - I don’t think society has the right to take taxes from everyone and then decide only certain relationships are valid or only certain people qualify for social security, health insurance or recognition of their relationships. Many many Gay couples have been together for decades without any societal reinforcement whatsoever and indeed have been subject to all manner of just the opposite.
And as for the purity of marriage and relationships, blood typing studies way back in the 1940’s proved there were a whole bunch of babies being born that could NOT belong to the male spouse in the relationship. Should people be faithful, should that be the goal? Of course. But please stop pretending Gays are going to ruin that which never truly existed in the first place.
Jaroslaw said: “Gays who are married or civil unionized have less than 3% divorce rate compared with more than 50% for straights.”
I think both statistics are off but maybe you can provide your source(s) and some context such as where and when these statistics originated.
On the other hand, participation rates in same-sex householding in the USA, let alone registered partnership or SSM where it is available, is very low among the homosexual population. You raised the issue of divorce rates so I expect that for you participation rates would provide highly relevant context.
And to quote an Opine Editorial blogpsot:
“The American Community Survey reports that about two-thirds of same-sex partners in same-sex households have been married: 57% male and 66% female. [...] The General Social Survey indicates that 40% of those who had a sexual partner of the same sex in the past 12 months had been married. Younger marriages experience more adultery but as marriages mature there is less of it. Also, as age cohorts grow older, fewer engaged in recent homosexual behavior and fewer self-identified as GBLT. That is supported by surveys across a couple of decades.”
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2007/03/f-rottles-on-calling-in-tact-marriages.html
* * *
To quote another Opine blogpost which analyzed the available data from the Census Bureau and from the pro-gay Human Rights Campaign’s review of the census stats on same-sex householders:
“Most homosexual adults (89%) do not reside in same-sex households; and most homosexual adults (97%) do not live in such households with children. According to the pro-SSM statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics, “The majority of these children were born in the context of a heterosexual relationship.” Note: All statistics from US Census 2000, except for estimate of adult homosexual population. The 5% estimate was used by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in their analysis of the 2000 Census data on same-sex households.”
Also see “Children in Same-sex Households”
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2008/01/children-in-same-sex-households-2000.html
* * *
Jaroslaw said: “If you really want all children to have mothers and fathers, what do you propose to do with ……”
The point of marriage is to integrate the sexes; to unite fatherhood and motherhood, for example. You seem to be pointing to nonmarital scenarios rather than to the core of the most pro-child social institution we have.
When you spoke of adoption, on what basis did you assert that “Gay people adopt children no on else wants”? You appear to be exagerating the contribution of gay people to the adoption of children in the fostercare system and understating the contribution of husband/wife adoptors.
* * *
As for your assertion about “the purity of marriage”, could you elaborate and provide your source(s) for the part about “babies being born that could NOT belong to the male spouse in the relationship”?
Contrary to what you said, the consensus on the subject appears to be that for upwards of 97% of children born to marriages the husband is indeed the father of his wife’s children. Not all of the remainder is the result of adultery.
On the other hand, each and every one-sex-short scenario — double-dad or double-mom — must look outside of the relationship to attain children.
Most children, by far, living in same-sex households migrated there with one or the other parent of a previously procreative relationship (i.e. a both-sexed relationship). They already have both moms and dads. Maybe 5% were attained by adoption — including second parent adoption — and another 1-2% were attained by third party procreation via labs using IVF/ARTs. Both adoption and third party procreation require 1) parental relinquishment and 2) state intervention to estabish a parental substitute. That is the inverse of the marriage presumption of paternity which cannot apply to the all-malle or the all-female scenario.
The marriage presumption is one of our strongest laws and is vigorously enforced. It is entailed in the legal requirement that people are competent to consent to what marriage is; and it is also based on the integration of the sexes signified by the legal requirement of man-woman criterion.
Affirming the essentials, the core, of marriage does not mean banning nonmarital alternatives such as the one-sex arrangement (gay or not).
None of the above is religous-based argumentation and facts. Now, I’d challenge you to present an argument for merging SSM with marriage — without relying on identity politics and without excluding the most of the rest of the nonmarital category.
Jaroslaw,
“Marriage does not guarantee children fathers.”
Exactly- it’s simply the best society can do in promoting this extremely important norm.
Lesbian households say the exact opposite – Fathers are not essential, gay male households that Mothers are not. Same-sex “marriage” itself says that neither is essential and multiple family forms are acceptable.
“NO WAY you can’t pin this on Gay marriage or claim that Gay marriage is the culmination of “privatizating and de-institutionalizing marriage”.
Well I don’t – this seems to be the main objection homosexuals have to this obvious and important argument, that it is somehow scapegoating. It is not. No sensible person would think that somehow the idea that same-sex retroactively went back in time and contributed to family breakdown.
“or claim that Gay marriage is the culmination of “privatizating and de-institutionalizing marriage”.
This I do assert, and I believe the assertion holds. It is the final step down that road. It reinforces the idea that all family forms are inherently equal at that we cannot prefer one form over another including single parenting.
“Gay men never wake up and say “honey, OOPS I think I’m pregnant!”
Exactly, this is a more important point than you realize. Male female couples often have children without wanting or trying to have them. In fact it’s a certainty that many, many will.
That is why marriage is so important. We attempt to get people married before they ever conceive. As you point out, for gays and lesbians this eventuality is impossible, therefore reinforcing why marriage is a heterosexual institution.
“But please stop pretending Gays are going to ruin that which never truly existed in the first place.”
I don’t pretend this. What the Rev & I are trying to explain is that it would lock in reinforce the destruction that has accompanied the sexual revolution.
Marriage rates were much higher, illegitimacy rates & divorce rates much, much lower . The sexual license of the 60’s and it ideology of personal choice & androgyny are at the heart of these destructive trends. As the reverend says It would set in legal stone some of the most destructive ideas of the sexual revolution :
Fitz -
what are you doing in your response above? I took the points made in YOUR post and you are refuting in many cases what YOUR post says. YOU are the one who said Marriage guarantees fathers…..
If you are not going to stand behind what you say or explain it better than you have so far, there is no point to dialogue.
You also might try reading some more posts on this Blog - Mark Barton does far better than I at explaining both concepts and legal issues but I just have to say -
The overarching point is I am not suggesting change for change’s sake. But we got over the fact women are not property of men anymore, woman are not punching bags for their husbands, rape can occur even in marriage and Black people are equal to Whites. Concepts that were almost unthinkable just 100 years ago.
You may not like the idea of same sex marriage but there is no evidence that I can see that because two guys have kids it somehow makes your family worth less. You really need to think about this.
If you think that same sex parenting couples are grossly inferior to the heterosexual model, then you bettter push for legislation taking away children from single parent households.
Mark-
You need to do more reading on the three-fifths clause. The people who wanted to count blacks as whole persons were racist Southerners. Northern anti-slavery forces didn’t want to count blacks at all, since that would give more economic and political power to slaveholders. Complaining that the Constitution was racist because it only counted blacks as three-fifths of a person ignores the facts that only the racists wanted to count blacks as whole persons.
As I’ve said before, it is not legitimate to claim that Constitution supports same-sex marriage while agreeing with the gay groups that won’t let the people whose job it is to answer that question do their jobs. If there’s a constitutional right to “marry” a member of the same sex, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and John Roberts and their colleagues will tell us that. If you won’t let them rule on it, you can’t claim such a constitutional right exists.
Marriagedebate.com has some good stuff on it, but I’m in general dissatisfied with the quality of the argumentation favoring man-woman marriage. I think I’m doing a better job at GaysDefendMarriage of making a solid, civic, non-homophobic case for keeping marriage between a man and a woman.
I would not have favored a ballot initiative in California on marriage if the gay movement were not working through the courts and the legislature to implement same-sex marriage. This initiative is the fruit of the gay community’s labor, not conservatives’.
Jaroslaw writes “the vast majority of the time [marriage] has been anything but a man and a woman.” I hear this all the time from LGBT advocates, but when I press for specifics, I get zip. What culture or society had same-sex marriage before the 21st century? Can I see some links? Thanks.
Jaroslaw cites the tired, baseless statistic that more than 50% of marriages end in divorce. That’s an urban legend with no basis in research. Divorce rates have been falling for decades. Even snopes.com has debunked that one. Next?
Oh, and citing a low divorce rate for quasi-marriage structures that have been around for only a few years, including some states like Vermont I think where you can’t get divorced if you don’t live in Vermont and comparing it to marriages that have lasted decades is comparing kumquats to oranges.
I would support allowing non-married people to designate any one person to receive their social security benefits. But there are ways to do that without destroying a building block of society.
David - I said marriage has not been between solely a man and woman as OUR culture defines it. That is what I said. You said you get zip for evidence to counter this: you don’t even have to dig through thousands of years of history - and hundreds of varied cultures worldwide. The Bible in the Old Testament clearly shows men had more than one wife AND concubines. How many wives and concubines did King Solomon have?
Roman and Greek laws were clear about who the wife was, I’ll grant you that - but it was to ensure that the assets transferred from the husband to his sons. Would your definition of the “sanctity of marriage” in our society include having sex with slaves, other males (as long as the older male had the active role), male prostitution was taxed in certain ancient empires etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc…………………….
Many primitive tribes have initiation rituals between older males and younger males or older males/young girls and vice versa. Quite a number of Native American Tribes even had the male Berdache - one even visited the White House in the 1900-1909 era. Mi Wha? How many or what specifically is not the main point here - but rather how many people have ever heard this, ever ever ever? Even a hint of this? Very few.
OK David, I’ll give you the low divorce rate for Vermont - as you may not be able to get divorced there, but the same would be true for Straight couples…..now what?
And even if the 50% divorce rate for straights isn’t exactly kosher, I work in child support in my state - considering the fact that 50,000 births YEARLY occur here and most of them NEVER get married - it seems logical that for a group to be denied something for so long and then get it, at least intitially, it would be a treasured right. So either way, the divorce rate for Straights is WAY higher than it is for Gays, at least now.
The point being marriage has not been anywhere near close to one male, one female exclusively bound to each other sexually and spiritually as defined in our culture.
Jaroslaw- When someone in Biblical times had two wives, that wasn’t one marriage with three people in it. It was one person with two separate marriages. The definition of marriage as being a union of a man and a woman has stayed the same. But let me grant you for the sake of argument that marriage has a long and varied history. It sounds like you’re willing to grant me for the sake of argument that never in that history have two men or two women been considered married. So my point still stands - the LGBT movement has been demanding a redefinition of marriage that is unprecedented in world history.
There’s no need for you to lecture me on gay history. I have written a book and countless articles about the gay past, including berdaches (a French word, not a Native American word). Berdaches were closer to what we call today “transgender” than gay.
You’re simply wrong about divorce in Vermont. Married people have no problem. People with civil unions, 85% of whom are from out of state, are having lots of problems. http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05/20/findlaw.analysis.grossman.civilunions.txt/
It is simply deceitful to compare divorce statistics from Vermont civil unions with married divorce statistics given the obstacles to same-sex divorce in that state.
Marriage has always been male-female. Always. If you have evidence from other societies and cultures that treated two men as married or two women as married, please provide it. Otherwise, please admit that the LGBT movement is proposing a radical redefinition of marriage.
“YOU are the one who said Marriage guarantees fathers…..”
Well, the good reverend is the one who said it. I just quoted him.
He is actually correct. Inasmuch as marriage is between a man & a woman, than any child born of that union will have a Father (as apposed to being illegitimate)
A-lot more heavy lifting is required by society to get men and women
A) married/stay married
B) be active fathers.
Never the less, it is the institution as traditionally defined that makes Fatherhood necessary. Same -sex marriage expressly undermines this standard.
Jaroslaw said to Fitz: “You may not like the idea of same sex marriage but there is no evidence that I can see that because two guys have kids it somehow makes your family worth less.”
Upthread I described how children are attained by same-sex households. Such households are a much broader category that those which have registered with the government as civil unions, domestic partnerships, or SSM.
I also hyperlinked to a blogpost about the disparagement of some marriage as mere shams which far too many SSMers say should be abandoned.
If the same-sex combo is to be treated exactly the same as the both-sex combo, then, that means you expect society to treat all unions of husband and wife as if they lack either husbands or wives. Maybe, as in Massachusetts, they’d have Party A and Party B — and no marriage presumption of paternity.
I’d also ask Jaroslaw to describe the essentials of “the idea of same sex marriage” such that society could identify with definitive legal requirements the relationship type.
The purpose of such requirements, as per SSM arugmentation, is to enable the government to enforce the essentials of “civil marriage”.
If a requirement is not enforced absolutely, then, it must be stricken from the list. If it designate something that occurs outside of the relationship type, it must be stricken. If it excludes some people arbitrarily, then, it is impermissable discrimination.
If society is not able to identify the relationship type by legal requirements that pass these rules of SSM argumentation, then, how do SSMers propose that society ensure that the relationship type is the appropriate vehicle for delibery of the benefits and protections of families in need?
Don’t make the relationship type over-inclusive or over-exclusive for the purpose you have set for it.
Thanks.
Chairm, I am not saying this sarcastically, but I have no idea what you are trying to say above, overall - and your first sentence were you trying to say “ideal SSM” instead of “idea?”
Now, I am a reasonable person, I’m not pushing an agenda other than fairness, and being reasonable - with the main factors being in a pluralistic society which recognizes religion is important but to respect all, one religion’s precepts cannot exclude another’s in the formation of laws and acknowledging the simple fact that our lives and concepts have changed over time. (eg women vote and are no longer property).
If this is not comprehensible or acceptable, I’m bowing out of the debate.
As to my facts and figures, (A) I have neither the time nor inclination to cite facts and figures on here - all information I assert is readily available and (B) most other posters are not citing sources either and (C) I get my facts from reputable sources - The American Pediatric Assn says same sex parents pose no problem for example. have subscriptions to “The WEEK” , Newsweek and Time - these are considered mainstream periodicals no? I don’t believe everything I read verbatim even in them - but if a number of national adoption agencies or studies show Gay people adopt children no one else wants - is that not reasonable on its face? We can’t marry legally, and it stands to reason that we would get the kids no one else wants via the agencies. I also know this is true because there was a big brouhaha about two parent adoption law in Michigan and a lot of these facts and figures came out. By the way, for those of you who are so excitable about “activist judges” which is the claim so often made by conservatives, Mich Supreme Maureen Corrigan opened up the two parent adoption issue on her own initiative. Washtenaw county (liberal for sure) was giving Gay people adoptions no problem and the Republican majority here couldn’t stand it. Finally, I was not trying to portray Gay people as saints but if they adopt otherwise unadoptable children moreso than others, hurrah for the kids who get out of insitutions and into a regular home.
And as everyone should know, even true facts and figures can be misleading. I forget the author of “Homosexualities and the Politics of Truth” but he was a physician - he started off writing a very understanding chapter about the plight of homosexuals and how much they can suffer at the hands of their families, society and with AIDS etc. Then he gradually shifted - read the book if you want to know all the details but one of a few points that really got me that is totally relevant to this discussion is how he quoted a book written in the 80’s to “PROVE” Gay men cannot be monogamous. So I went and got this book through interlibrary loan. The preface is 4 or 5 pages long. The authors acknowledge that Gay men finally had some freedom after decades of repression, the fact anything same sex was illegal and you could find yourself without a job, in jail etc. And so many of the statistics they were reporting were even prior to the 80’s. Finally they acknowledged they had a very small geographic area from which there data was culled AND the fact that many Gay men were certainly closeted and not even responding to surveys.
SO, the final analysis - to use such flawed data to make a blanket statement that Gay men cannot be monogamous in my opinion is exactly equivalent to a lie. Can Gay men truly be monagamous? Lets give them the same societal support we give traditional marriage and see. Until then, be quiet about it.
Fitz - if it is in your post, I’m addressing YOU about it. It is splitting hairs to say you were quoting someone else.
David- I’m not lecturing you nor have I read every post or article you have written. I give the examples of the Berdache to offset what I consider to be the slanted tone of some of your articles or posts and so that readers of these posts who like me have not read everything will have other points of view to consider.
Finally- MARK HELP!
PS - I have also read many many books - The construction of Homosexuality by David Greenburg is most interesting - it is about 500 pages. He is or very recently was a professor at City College in New York City (I may have the exact name of the instituion incorrect) he is straight and no apologist for the Gay movement. Indeed, his disputes probably 3/4 of what John Boswell has to say…..
Sorry - one last comment - I work in Child Support - so I find it very hard to believe that 97% of children born in marriages belong to the spouses. However, unlike most conservative voices, I’m willing research that and be proven wrong. But if I’m wrong so was the source I used - the 1940’s blood typing study was from a sociology text book used by Wayne State University which cited several studies to back that up…….
And another thought just came to me - back then they didn’t have all the confidentiality requirements we do now. So, if someone just went in and did the testing, anonymously, and didn’t report names or the results the parents - then the 97% official stat would work. I mean, husbands in those days would not defy the societal norms of the day and accuse their wife of being unfaithful but still he would not be the BIOLOGICAL father. Get it?
Jaroslaw-
You say the American Pediatric Association “says same sex parents pose no problem.” They say that based on existing research, which they admit is quite limited. Specifically, they say: “Unfortunately, the research to date has limitations, including small sample size, nonrandom subject selection, narrow range of socioeconomic and racial background, and lack of long-term, longitudinal follow-up. The impact of children of ‘never-married’ gay or lesbian couples who create their families after ‘coming out’ is even more limited.”
So the group you cite admits that most of the gay parenting studies have been done on kids who have both a mother and a father. Are you willing to wait until we have sufficient studies of kids with two mothers (only) or two fathers (only) before declaring that the research supports your position that it doesn’t matter if kids don’t have both a mother and a father? If not, why not?
You’re right about Jeffrey Satinover, the author of Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. He’s a fraud and his book is deeply deceptive.
I think Dr. Greenberg is at the University of Michigan. Boswell has virtually no academic defenders anymore.
David- the problem with these debates is from the conservative point of view, they are seemingly always either/or. The fact of the matter is there are thousands of children in foster care who will never be adopted because they are “undesirable” for one reason or another, including being too old as most people want a baby. There are hundreds of thousands of single parents if not more, nationwide. Outlawing same sex marriage does not change a thing for any of these children. It is has been illegal all this time up to now and what has been gained? To say we should encourage marriage as the only solution is a hollow platitude; otherwise to be serious you have to ban all children born out of wedlock. And genetic testing should be a requirement at birth - I think YOU would be shocked and stunned and it would put all this dancing in circles to an end.
Another problem which the religious right is keenly aware of is that without legal status (of marriage), Gay people in their mind don’t exist. They don’t have to think about it. They won’t persecute us per se, (or do they? The Briggs initiative in California that sought to ban Gay teachers in the 70’s for but one example) but neither do they have to acknowledge us; or they can totally dismiss us as homosexuality is an “unnatural” choice. The fact of the matter is we do exist and the point of the historical information in my posts is to say simply one cannot expect any different thinking from the vast majority of the public if this information is deliberately kept from them.
“Normal” often means nothing more than what the majority accepts or expects. I wanted to be married to a guy when I was 8 years old - didn’t even know what it meant to be “gay” but I knew I was different than the other boys. Normal should mean that our culture is not irrevocably threatened by the fact that 2 or 3 or 5 or even 10% of its citizens are outside the “norm” We are not advocating eating children for breakfast after all!
As for your main question about “am I willing to wait for same sex parenting research” to show that it doesn’t harm children - I think I’ve made it clear that Same Sex parents still have to go through many hoops to be found worthy - I don’t think we’re in any great danger here. But what do studies really have to do with it? We know how to have better prisons, better military, better drug treatment programs with almost absolute certainty and we don’t do anything with it. I am going to say again Gay people have to make a very deliberate effort to have kids - I think the quality of the parent cannot be overlooked. Most of the people who are “so concerned” would well address their efforts to the plethora of problems we already have and know in uncertain terms how to fix.
And I will make this a separate paragraph here - what exactly are you afraid of with two male or two female parents? To echo my first paragraph, it is not as if this is an either/or discussion. No matter what laws you pass or how you try to influence societal behavior it is not like we now have or ever have had the choice between “The Waltons” and “Hell.” It is not as if 99% of parents spend at least 2 hours of quality time with their children every day.
Now am I wrong again when I assert that my reading and newswatching indicates Gays in the military is no problem in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Israel? Prior to the actual practice of allowing or in Israel’s case, REQURING everyone to be in the military, what would the “research” of prevailing social attitudes show? That it would never work and yet homosexuals do not cause a problem NOW.
Dr. Greenberg is most certainly from some University in New York, I live in Michigan! I don’t know if Boswell has any defenders - I was trying to point out that Greenberg most assuredly takes a much more objective and in depth look at homosexuality than almost anyone at the time he wrote his book (1980)? and to prove my point I was saying he didn’t rubber stamps most anything Boswell wrote.
Sorry, I guess what I should have said to directly answer your question - we allow many many many things in this society without a second thought.
You are asking more of ‘Gay people than any other group to ask me “if I am comfortable waiting for irrefutable proof” that there is no harm to children in a same sex relationship.
I would suggest that there are other studies other than the “limited” APA studies, but even if not common sense says most people love their children and the limited data showing Gay parents do a good job indicates giving approval until we can prove harm.
Isn’t that in general what all laws say? That the state cannot limit the rights of the people without compelling evidence?
Anecdotal evidence - a friend of mine was an employee at world headquarters at one of the Big Three Auto companies in the 70’s - it was accepted at the time women weren’t good in math, science, computers such as existed at the time. The program was set up at such a fantastic pace they were almost guaranteed fo fail, which they did. Playing into existing prejudices is common practice - you can always find what you are looking for if you try hard enough.
Jaroslaw-
I’m a conservative, and I’m not either/or. I want gays to be able to adopt children, but I also want adoption agencies to be able to favor homes with both a mother and a father. I’m in the middle on same-sex parenting.
I really don’t understand your fascist suggestions that I should favor “banning” children out of wedlock (what - should we kill them?) and requiring genetic testing at birth. I’m a conservative. It’s liberals who want more government involvement in people’s private lives.
I am clearly part of the religious right. Do you seriously mean to suggest that without gay marriage, gay people won’t exist in my life? Half my friends are gay. Most of them date and have sex with members of the same sex. How will that change no matter how the California vote ends up?
I fail to see how the Scandinavian military is relevant in any way to what the American military should do. The cultures are completely different. I might add, the American military has a much better track record at fighting and winning wars than the Scandinavians do. If it wasn’t for the American military, there probably wouldn’t be a Scandinavian military, because Scandinavia would be part of Greater Germany. It is the job of the U.S. military to fight and win wars, not to stroke the egos of various American subcultures. If the military determines Don’t Ask Don’t Tell harms the military mission - which it might - the policy will quickly come to an end, just as it took the Korean War - and not Truman’s desegregation order - to racially integrate the military.
I googled him and was shocked to find that David Greenberg is a professor at the university where I’m pursuing a Ph.D. - NYU. I was thinking of David Halperin, who also does gay studies, at the University of Michigan.
Jaroslaw-
I am pleased to hear you say that the state cannot limit the rights of the people without compelling evidence. There is no compelling evidence that gays make bad parents, but there is no compelling evidence that same-sex parenting is absolutely equivalent to mother-father parenting, either.
So will you agree with me that Florida’s ban on gay adoption must be overturned, along with Massachusetts’ ban on adoption agencies that give preference to families with both a mother and a father?
I think we’re making progress!
Jaroslaw, I meant idea since I quoted back to you a part of your earlier comment.
You said: “a number of national adoption agencies or studies show Gay people adopt children no one else wants - is that not reasonable on its face?”
No, that is not a reasonable claim. It at least requires further elaboration if we are to understand what the assertion might mean.
You made this point for me when you suggested good reason for people to read a book you mentioned.
If you can’t be bothered to cite your sources, then, okay. But it may be that you have mistaken the meaning of what you read. Or that it was misreported.
I’ve a lifetime of experience in adoption services. The assertion you made earlier is absurd, on its face. The contribution of gay people in adoption from fostercare has been wildly exagerated and the contribution of others has been unfairly diminished by activists. The contribution exists, but it is not fairly described in your comment.
You said: ” We can’t marry legally, and it stands to reason that we would get the kids no one else wants via the agencies.”
Unmarried people can and do adopt children. How are you connecting this with your previous assertion?
If you want to use the popular press, okay, but then it would seem that there reportedly is a growing trend whereby gay adoptors choose international sources to find children who certainly would not fit the profile of “children no one else wants”. Likewise with the reported (and over-hyped) trend of using surogates to attain children.
Second-parent adoption is a court-based innovation that over-stretches the practice of step-parent adoption. While the latter is based on integration of fatherhood and motherhood (or, rather, the re-integration) in marriage, the former is not even based on marriage much less the principles of responsible procreation. When the practice excludes either mothers or fathers, it is an example of segregating fatherhood and motherhood. Second-parent adoption points outside of, and away from, marriage, even when both-sexed couples use it.
* * *
The Lovings sought to have their marriage recognized as within bounds because, among other things, the marriage presumption of paternity applied to them but the anti-miscegenation system said otherwise. In addition to this affront to responsible procreation, that system also selectively segregated the sexes for the sake of pressing identity politics into the marriage laws.
Marriage integrates man and woman — it unites fatherhood and motherhood — and ought not become the tool of any form of identity politics whether based on race, religion, and so forth — including gay identity politics.
* * *
My comments about legal requirements are meant to challenge the pro-SSM side to use their own rules of argumentation to test their “idea of same-sex marriage”. How often have you heard SSMers declare that procreation is not required? Of course, they drop the responsible part of responsible procreation, but the rules they say must apply are those I listed earlier. They basically declare that the lack of a legal requirement, absolutely enforced (i.e. no exception, no apparent exceptions to boot), is decisive.
That is unreasonable, sure, but it is how SSMers have attacked the nature of marriage. And they do so by attacking the requirement of both sexes and by deeply discounting, if not dismissing, the marriage presumption of paternity which cannot apply to an all-male or an all-female scenariio.
That approach is unreasonable because the pro-SSM rules are absurd. Surely this is illustrated by using those rules on SSM itself. Yet this must be explained, point-by-point, to most advocates of abolishing the man-woman criterion of marriage.
I work closely with the courts and who is the father biologically is a huge issue. I am not in love with the idea of more government involvement in our lives (re genetic testing at birth) but I’m not going to accept assertions that “upwards of 97%” of children biologically belong to the married spouses if you guys aren’t willing to put your ideas to the test. The fact is we simply don’t have the data but anecdotal evidence from my work with the court certainly makes it clear it is not 97%.
What I’m saying about “banning children born out of wedlock” is not that we should really do that, but you are imposing your morality, your worldview by advocating Gays cannot legally marry and I say you are “punishing” them so I dont’ see how you can morally ignore out of wedlock births. That is my main point.
I feel like I’m spoonfeeding sometimes here on this post - whether or not the US military wins more wars has nothing to do with this issue. I thought you could connect the dots - but apparently not - STUDIES showed people thought black people were inferior and there were even scientific studies at the turn of the last century to “prove” it. But in the final analysis, principle won out over social consensus. I mentioned the military only to say that studies of people’s opinions which in this country are very anti-gay so of course you can say it is a problem. But it isn’t a problem in other countries. So what is the difference here? Their goverments won’t allow prejudice much the same as our military desegregated by force, not by popular opinion.
Chairm - it is hard to know what the facts are. I will accept that you work in Adoption and know more than I if you will accept my feelings after years of working the courts! But I will say this - I have read very recently in secular, non Gay sources of various testimonies given by people at various state hearings that say Gay people are unfit to parent and they spout every stereotype and misinformation that has been debunked for years and often legislative bodies make determinations on this misinformation. I have never said that Gay people have made more contributions than any others on the subject of adopting children that no one else wants. Of course Gay papers are going to trumpet the accomplishments of Gay people but I’ve been reading about this stuff for years…… the names and literature cited in them seems to be reputable. Again I will acquiese if I’m wrong, but then I have the option of not believing anything you read either. How can we ever know what the truth is?
Not sure what point you are referring to when I made the suggestion about reading books.
Who is suggesting abolishing m/f marriage? I say over and over it is not the government’s job to decide who is worthy of benefits using EVERYONE’s tax dollars.
Procreation is not required for marriage - no state asks if people are going to have kids or tests to see if they are even capable of it. We know 90 year old’s can’t and they still get married. I don’t know what the point of this is.
I find it fascinating that some of the most rabid anti gay legislators, psychologists and conservative social activists have gay children themselves. And I read plenty, and there are more than enough lies to go around on all sides. but I feel the conservatives are leagues above gay activists in the quantity and severity of their lies.
Did you know that if you search the documents of groups like Concerned women for America, Focus on the Family etc. They have thousands of documents with the word Gay in them and less than 50 with the words “divorce” and child support? Stuff like this hardly makes me think that major, influential elements in the conservative movement are objectively concerned about the welfare of children.
Jaroslaw-
I have no idea what percentage of children do not belong to their father biologically. I don’t really care. One of the benefits of marriage is it provides a father to all children born in wedlock, no matter who they belong to biologically.
If the military brass agreed that racial integration would make it harder to win World War Two, would you have advocated overruling them for the sake of principle? Of course segregation was wrong. But Nazism and Japanese fascism were more wrong. You would have risked an Axis victory (which would have been *really* bad for African-Americans!) because of your belief in integration?
David - I have said repeatedly I think Marriage is best for children (SSM or OSM) but you keep ignoring the facts that many many people are not married and take care of their kids and many people are married and don’t.
As for what our Military Brass thinks - well, the military is an interesting proposition all the way around. While I realize the military is not a tea party; I don’t know anyone who learns algebra or chemistry be being screamed at and degraded like they do in the army. Or maybe that is all in the past. But the Brass thinks that Gay is incompatible and yet they don’t (for the most part) expel wife beaters, adulterers, even drug addicts. Finally, we just had a general retire and admit he was Gay all along and was a distinguished General at that.
As for your second paragraph - there are many many stories in and out of the military that indicate when the chips are down and it is life or death, people really don’t care who is riding in the squad car with them, what race their doctor is or who is in the foxhole with them.
Societal attitudes seem to be the rationale for many of conservative arguments and too bad! Attitudes are changing. Young people do not care who is Gay by and large.
Finally, it is helpful to look at real people. Since you are so fond of hypotheticals, would you rather grow up with a male and female parent with 4th grade educations in the trailer park or two gay guys, one of whom is a pilot and the other is a doctor? They profiled that exact Male couple on NBC Datelinea few years ago and the children were doing great!
Jaroslaw-
I don’t ignore “the facts that many many people are not married and take care of their kids and many people are married and don’t.” I support man-woman marriage in part because that’s the best environment for the raising of children. As with most generalizations, there are exceptions. I think U.S. Presidents should have solid educations. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t prefer Mike Huckabee, with his 2.5 years of Bible college (and that’s it) to be president over some leftist with a Ph.D. from Harvard.
As for the military, I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but servicemembers get dishonorable discharges for adultery, positive drug tests, and spousal abuse all the time. And some gay people are allowed to serve when circumstances warrant, especially in wartime. But the decision-makers about who should be able to serve openly should be our elected representatives, acting with the advice of military leaders - not gay activists.
As for your hypotheticals, of course there are wonderful same-sex couples that provide a better home than terrible opposite-sex couples. The question is which configuration overall is best for children.
Jaroslaw,
From the WebMD Health News:
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/510514
New British research is rattling the roots of the family tree, citing paternity “discrepancy” in perhaps 4% of fathers studied. [...] Bellis and colleagues checked studies from the 1950s through 2002 that mentioned paternal discrepancy. The studies came from the U.K., U.S., Europe, Russia, Canada, South Africa, South America, New Zealand, and Mexico.
Over the years, few studies directly tackled the topic. For instance, some researchers set out to screen for multiple sclerosis or cystic fibrosis, noting paternal discrepancies along the way.
Some studies were large; others included a handful of people. Paternal-discrepancy estimates varied wildly, from less than 1% to more than 30%.
But those numbers don’t tell the whole story.
Some research centered on paternity disputes. Daddy discrepancies were probably overrepresented in those studies, writes Bellis.
Setting those studies aside, the remaining research showed an average paternal discrepancy of 3.7%, or a little less than one in 25 dads, write the researchers.
[...]
Because the researchers extrapolated some information from studies involving topics other than paternity, they say that the percentage is not a true indication of paternal discrepancies in the general population. However, “it does suggest the widely used (but unsubstantiated) figure of 10% paternal discrepancy may be an overestimate for most populations,” write the researchers.
In other words, paternal discrepancy might be rarer than commonly thought.
[Cited source: SOURCES: Bellis, M. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Sept. 2005; vol 59: pp 749-754. News release, BMJ.]
* * *
Also reported at Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,165356,00.html
* * *
And the British Broadcasting Corporation:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4137506.stm
The current level in the UK is somewhere between 8,900 and 20,000 tests per year.
About 5,000 of these tests are instigated at the demand of the Child Support Agency to resolve who should be paying child maintenance.
Others are done to investigate inherited health disorders and others for social reasons.
The Liverpool team found that rates of cases where a father was not the biological father of his child ranged from 1% in some studies to as much as 30%.
Experts have generally agreed that the rate is below 10%, with a 4% rate meaning that about one in 25 could be affected.
However, increasing use of genetic testing is likely to boost the rates of paternal discrepancy, say the authors.
[...]
Professor Bellis said the consequences of a man finding out that he is not the biological father of a child could be devastating.
It can lead to relationship breakdown, mental health problems for both partners and even domestic violence, while the children involved can experience low self-esteem and anxiety.
[...]
The NSPCC said fathers who find out they have been raising another man’s child should remember that however angry they feel, they should not take this out on the child in any way.
“The child will still regard the parent as their father. Rejection could be a devastating double blow for the child, ” said a spokeswoman.
* * *
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
http://jech.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/59/9/749
* * *
Note that the marriage presumption of paternity protects the particular marriage (and its children) as well as the social institution of marriage.
David said: “I have no idea what percentage of children do not belong to their father biologically. I don’t really care. One of the benefits of marriage is it provides a father to all children born in wedlock, no matter who they belong to biologically.”
There is a legitimate issue of proportionality since the presumption is based on a sexual relationship type and this points to the core of marriage.
As your comment indicated, the presumption is strong — one of our strongest legal provisions in our legal system — and society should be very reluctant to intrude into the particulars of a couple’s conjugal relations. Because, for the far greater part, such intrusion is superfluous and is not needed to ensure procreative justice. The presumption is very useful because it teaches and informs the culture as well as guiding the application of Law. It protects children as the study above indicates; it protects the marriages; it protects the social institution and its special status in society.
In instances where the presumption is rebutted, the integration of fatherhood with motherhood is protected via a sort of overflow effect from the usefulness of the presumption. Married couples have consented to what marriage actually is and this entails the unity of man and woman. Without this families would be disturbed by intrusions outside of the marriages, not all of them based on a legitimate dispute of “biological paternity”.
Still, in applying the law we don’t say the government “knows” with 100% certainty, but upwards of 97% makes the presumption very, very, effective. If we did the opposite, and presume non-paternity until proven, then, there would be increased chaos in the lives of children.
The precise measure of the ratio is not really the underlying point, but the question was raised by Jaroslaw, and is raised by SSM argumentation, to yet again claim that apparent exceptions should dictate the rule.
More, that “paternity discrepancy” in the both-sex relationship of marriage is the equivalent of discrepancy in the all-male or all-female relationship types. And, yes more, as Jaroslaw asserted (mistakenly), the discrepancy among husbands and wives is usually, or mostly, about sexual infidelity between married couples. This then is used to suggest hypocrisy among defenders of marriage — that the monogamous basis for marriage is highly suspect — even as SSMers claim not to attack the binary nature of marriage.
Likewise with procreation — most married women, by far, will have babies, and most, by far, will do so with their husbands. Even in the relatively small proportion of children born of IVF/ARTs, more than 92% of the mothers use the sperm and eggs of their spouses. Proportionality is a legitimate issue especially when 100% of all-male or all-female users of such medical interventions depend on the sperm and/or eggs of third parties. This is the virtual inverse of the marriage presumption of paternity.
Where the presumption is pre-emptively rebutted — as in the use of 3rd party procreation by married people — the husband’s express agreement is usually required — and paternity can be challenged if that agreement is merely implied or is withdrawn.
Clearly this can not reasonably apply to the all-male or the all-female scenario. There is no applicable presumption of paternity based on the one-sex relationship type — sexualized or not. Nothing to rebut.
However, express agreement may be a point of contention that could be pre-emptively cleared away through a requirement that the non-parent adopt the child. This still means that parental relinquishment is a pre-requisite and depends on definitive intrusions by the government.
Individually, and as a whole, these things point away from the core of marriage and, at the same time, are not definitive of the relationship type that SSMers seem to have in mind when they promote a merger of nonmarriage and marriage.
Jaroslaw said: “Not sure what point you are referring to when I made the suggestion about reading books.”
You cited a specific book even as you shrugged off my request for your source.
Jaroslaw said: “Who is suggesting abolishing m/f marriage?”
That’s not what I said in my comment. You advocate the abolition of the man-woman criterion of marriage.
Would you have society treat all unions of husband and wife as if they lacked either husbands or wives? For that is the meaning of gender-neutralizing the relationship type that would be called “marriage” after a merger with SSM.
* * *
As for adoption, the facts are available. But here you might simply explain your own understanding of the assertion you made.
When you said that foster children are not wanted, did you mean a profile of children who, as a category, are unwanted by people other than gays and lesbians?
Attitude surveys, and actually practice, demonstrate that there are more married couples prepared to adopt children than there are children in the fostercare system across the country. The hindrances for “special needs children” are resolvable without depending on exagerated claims about gay adoptors or prospective adoptors.
* * *
Jaroslaw said: “Procreation is not required for marriage - no state asks if people are going to have kids or tests to see if they are even capable of it.”
That illustrates the absurdity of the SSM rules which I described in an earlier comment.
The contingency for responsible procreation is not about a government which intrudes on each and every marriage to force people to procreate. The government does not unilaterally dissolve valid marriages or put newlyweds on probationary status. To do so, as your comment suggests we would do if only procreation was at the heart of marriage, would be to undermine the marriage idea itself.
Contingency. Responsible. Procreation. The contingency for responsible procreation is combined with sex integration and this combination makes of marriage a coherent whole — that’s what a social institution is.
Is love a requriement? Nope. Is same-sex sexual behavior a requirement for SSM anyplace wher eit has been imposed? Nope. So your rule destroys the claims of SSMers when they try to equate such requirements with the basis for marital status.
Chairm - I don’t think there is a lot of information in your post that I don’t know. I never made a claim that most marriages suffer from infidelity or that because there is infidelity that makes the binary nature of marriage less than desirable because of some hypocrisy. Your voluminous information (and thanks for all the work too) says that sample sizes varied widely as well as the percentages. And they weren’t looking for paternity, they were screening for diseases. So it seems there is a lot of info we don’t know. As for “experts agree” type comments, and I’m not saying you, but religious right literature is full of long debunked experts who as stated often have Gay children of their own!
And as an aside, it is not that you or David or anyone here who may disagree with some or all of what I say is not aware of the lies, but I can’t help but think a lifetime of exposure to negative thoughts tarnishes the starting point of hopefully objective thought.
The question here that Gay activists (and I shouldn’t use that term as if all Gay activists are on the same page - some don’t want marriage at all) - raise is not that the hypocrisy issue taints all marriages or that marriage isn’t desirable for the raising of children - it is the fact that conservatives claim to be championing children and the family while seeming to say Same Sex marriage threatens the family but adultery (or any number of other factors) doesn’t.
Really now, if 95% of the USA is heterosexual - and 4% of the births of billions (or would it only be millions since we have 35% of births to single mothers now) of married unions would seem to pose a much greater threat to the family than a few thousand SSM’s and even most of those will probably not have children. THAT is the hypocrisy that I’m talking about.
“More, that “paternity discrepancy” in the both-sex relationship of marriage is the equivalent of discrepancy in the all-male or all-female relationship types”
What are you trying to say above?
Then you go on to say paternity discrepancy was “mistakenly asserted by me” to be the result of infidelity. Well, if the child doesn’t belong to the husband, then are we talking immaculate conception?
As to the book I cited, well, I was trying to indicate I read a lot of things and to show I wasn’t only reading “Gay friendly” sources or “Gay authors.” I have a mountain of papers and books here and if you are truly interested I will try to find them and issue a reply with sources cited.
I keep saying I don’t understand what you find absurd about procreation as a marriage requirement and that you referenced it previously. Or how “my rule” invalidates the claims of SSM advocates. Perhaps I’m just stupid on this point but I don’t get it. I won’t put words in your mouth, but I hear people say marriage is for children constantly in debates.
Finally, I know you know this, but it keeps getting shoved aside in the quest to “prove” your arguments and I’m guilty too - but
Can we agree that marriage has changed a LOT over the centuries? Do you think for example that rape can occur in marriage? Do you think women should have the right to vote? Should women be the property of their husbands? That these things have changed is I hope absolutely indisputable. Would these things have changed if people solely relied on the absolutely true facts that “marital rape” has never been abolished anywhere else at any time? Women have never voted at any time in any other culture so we can’t change ours? That the “studies” which would have been done at that time proved changing these norms was impossible or “against the prevailing consensus?”
I admire your wish that all children have a loving home, with a mother and father - maybe that is the norm for most people. But configurations other than that, from the limited research we have do not threaten it. Many things do as I already said - drugs, unemployment from jobs moving overseas, companies closing, lack of health insurance etc. But SSM does not.
And finally even if you disagree with me for religioius reasons or any other - you should not be allowed to make a law limiting my choices. I don’t decide for you, extend the same courtesy to me.
goodness, I think way faster than I type - what I meant to say about “experts agree” comments is that without knowing all the parameters of the studies involved, we just have to leave it at ‘we don’t know.” And then I was going to add on the part about the deceptions and lies perpetrated on the public “negatively” color our thinking and that many of “their experts” have long been debunked and yet they keep citing them.
As for hypocrisy -again, poorly worded incomplete thought - how can “traditionalists” spend millions to amend state constituions to ban SSM while not outlawing single parenting or adultery if one of the main prerogatives of marriage is the stable home for children?
Another reason I think I personally get so worked up about this stuff is that the goalposts keep changing. And that people who don’t even think they know a Gay person (but they do) hate them without any rational thought. Just because their church says so, or society says guys are supposed to hate fags….”real men” don’t act that way etc.
Gay people are medically ill, then morally ill, then psychologically ill. At the turn of the last century we could be jailed, lose our jobs, put in mental institutions against our will, experimented on (and yes I realize we were not the only ones). Thousands of us were exterminated at Oswieciem by the Nazis - not just Jews. Gypsies and the retarded too.
Everyone on this blog keeps saying how the traditional family is best etc. Then how come Evelyn Hooker’s studies of men in the 60’s couldn’t distinguish any differences between the straight men and Gay men?
Jaroslaw said: “Then you go on to say paternity discrepancy was “mistakenly asserted by me” to be the result of infidelity. Well, if the child doesn’t belong to the husband, then are we talking immaculate conception?”
For a full answer re non-infidelity, read the materials that have been hyperlinked.
Also, if you can make the time, at least skim through the discussion provided in the exhaustive review of the available documentation on parental discrepancy which places the ratio at about 3.7% and does not lend great credence to the much higher estimates produced by those studies with the severe limitations you just mentioned.
There is a legitimate issue of proportionality.
100% of all-male or all-female scenarios go outside of the relationship and deliberately segregate fatherhood from motherhood. That is the inverse of the marriage presumption of paternity.
Reflect on your questin (quoted above) and ask yourself if all such one-sex scenarios attain children via infidelity.
* * *
Jaroslaw said: “I have a mountain of papers and books here and if you are truly interested I will try to find them and issue a reply with sources cited.”
I doubt that readers here need an exhaustive list of citations but it would be helpful to provide specific sources for some of the specific assertions you have made. Otherwise, an illustrative source or two on the general meaning you intended would be enough. We are in a comment section, afterall, not writing scholarly papers.
* * *
Re the SSM rules of argumentation, your complaint about moving goalposts applies.
You say, no legal requirement to procreate. You say, procreation occurs outside of marriage.
Now, people will use shorthand and that can lead to misunderstandings.
For example, SSMers will equate infertility — which is a disability — with the lack of the other sex. Or equate old age with sexual orientation. Infertility is both-sexed; as is fertility. Old age is the product of the maturation of the human being and thus is variable, not constant like the non-fertility of the one-sex scenario.
On the other hand, it is common parlance to say that this or that individual is fertile. But what is said, silently, is the inescapable understanding that one is fertile *with the other sex*. No lone individual, no same-sex twosome, and no parade of person of the same sex, can be fertile. Not without the other sex. So this is an example of a false equivalency that is the common trade of SSM argumentation — based on the normal practice of using a shorthand descriptor.
I would think it best to give people more credit and generally assume that people understand that fertility, like infertility, is both-sexed. But this sometimes needs to be spelled-out to keep feet on the ground and in reality.
As for the significance of the lack of legal requriements: there is no sexual attraction requirement and can and does attraction occur outside of marriage. Minus that, what’s the basis for claiming an equivalency between marriage and SSM?
Likewise with “love” (what kind of love anyway?) and with same-sex sexual behavior (what would apply to the all-male and the all-female at the same time?) and with any other feature that SSMers claim would be definitive.
So there is much lacking on the SSM side when it comes to legal requirements. But we do have legal requirements in the defence of man-woman marriage. I’ve discussed here just two which are obvious and vigorously enforced; these are clearly definitive of the social institution across time, geography, religions and cultures.
Can you tell us what you think are the essentials of the type of relationship you have in mind when you use the word, marriage? I suspect you must depend on very recent and novel innovations and not on legal requirements. Certainly not on some general rule that would withstand the pro-SSM rules of argumentation.
Sorry, I missed a thought I meant to include above.
People use shorthand when they speak of marriage and procreation. What is left unsaid, but is very strongly provided for in our laws, is that marriage entails the contingency for responsible procreation.
Not procreation of any and all kinds. Our laws reflect that too.
Responsible procreation is a set of principles and is not limited to the mechanics of conception and childbearing. I think I’ve explained this in an earlier comment in this discussion. Please take a look.
Contingency is compulsory, but procreation is not compulsory. Marriage unites the man and the woman for their sake but *also* and *intrinsically* for the sake of providing this contingency. Some would even say that marriage *is* the contingency. That’s how closely combined it is with sex integration.
Now, this is not an anti-gay thing. It is simply the essence of the social institution we speak about when we refer to marriage.
Granted, it is increasingly clear that SSMers refer to some other thing. Maybe you are different. Is marriage first and foremost a social institution? Is it an instution owned or is it recognized by the government?
It is also a private relationship, sure, but that cannot be severed from the social institution into which people enter when they commit and consent to forming their own marriages.
So either the social institution is both-sexed, and pro-child for the reasons I think should be clear to you now, or it is entirely neutral about man and woman and is pro-child, if it is pro-child, for reasons that point outside of the relationship type. Either toward attainig children via adoption or extramarital procreation.
Marriage laws are supposed to protect both the private aspect the public interest in the social institution. These may appear to overlap, or even to contradict, when a society experiences pervasive nonmarital trends — which in turn reflect increases in sex segregation (divorce being a good example) and procreation that lacks the contingency of which I have spoke.
The SSM-merger would either abolish the boundaries around the essence of marriage or if done via some status like civil union (joined to the hip of marital status) lock-in the false equivalencies whereby sex-segregation is the new sex-integration and where procreation is moved to the sidelines.
Jaroslaw-
What exactly do you mean when you say that if Chairm or I disagree with you “for religioius reasons or any other,” we “should not be allowed to make a law limiting my choices”? Do you mean we should be completely disenfranchised? Or that we should be allowed to vote on everything but same-sex marriage? Should we be allowed to vote for legislators who support only man-woman marriage? Should we be allowed to lobby the state legislature or Congress to encourage laws that limit marriage to men and women? If not, what should be the punishment if we do anyway? A fine? How big? Jail time? How long? Should I be allowed to blog in favor of the California Marriage Protection Act? Can I write op-eds in favor of them? If not, do you favor a “prior restraint” or should I be punished only after I commit the crime of writing about things you disagree with? And again, what exact punishment should I face?
I really want to know.
You say it’s “hypocrisy” for traditionalists to “spend millions to amend state constituions to ban SSM while not outlawing single parenting or adultery if one of the main prerogatives of marriage is the stable home for children.” Well, no. It would be hypocrisy for traditionalists to marry a same-sex person while trying to outlaw same-sex marriage. But you don’t get to decide what your opponents’ values or priorities are, your opponents do. I’m pretty sure adultery is already illegal in most states. But my religious, political, and moral belief system doesn’t think single parenting (or gay parenting) should be outlawed. Why should I try to pass a law I think is wrong because you think I’m being inconsistent?
If you’re going to mention the Holocaust to an expert at gay and Jewish history who’s currently writing a book on the Holocaust, please try to get your facts somewhere close to the truth. The vast majority of gay men killed by the Nazis died in German concentration camps, not Polish death camps like Auschwitz. No one knows for sure how many pink triangles were killed at Auschwitz, but it wasn’t thousands (no more than 10,000 pink triangles were killed in the entire Nazi system). Also, I’m pretty sure the official euthanasia program against the retarded had only German victims, and thus there would be no point for them to be killed in Poland. But I may have missed something.
Many of Evelyn Hooker’s subjects were gay men living in traditional families. That’s actually an argument against same-sex marriage, not in favor of it.
Each of your main points is inherently flawed:
1. Whether or not a particular African American thinker is offended by the comparison of gay right to civil rights is irrelevant; it has no bearing on whether or not the comparison is valid.
2. Gay couples in domestic partnerships cannot file federal taxes together, are denied many rights offered to married couples through employers, and suffer a variety of other inequities, not to mention the sheer indignity of being relegated to “second-class” pseudo-marriage. How any one cannot see this as harmful and discriminatory is beyond me.
3. The California Supreme Court, whose opinion often guides the rest of the nation’s courts, has decided that denying gay couples marriage is discriminatory and unacceptable. It seems strange that you would deny them the same respect you so blindly and unconditionally give the Supreme Court; it is clear you do so only because the Cali. justices’ opinion happens to differ from your own.
4. Your opinion about what is moral again has no bearing on what rights are guaranteed to gay individuals by the Constitution; our court system was created specifically to protect groups like gays from biased individuals like yourself. Further, every valid scientific study shows that children of gay couples are no more disadvantaged than children of straight couples, so your argument about “the best environment for children” holds no weight whatsoever. Incestuous relationships and the like, however, have been deemed scientifically harmful, and thus the comparison of those to gay relationships is completely off the mark.
5. Marriage is a union between two individuals who have chosen to share their lives together. No “redefinition” is taking place; it’s that simple. Just because you deem homosexual unions to be “wrong” does not mean that marriage between two men is different than marriage of any other kind. Your personal religious beliefs and opinions–even if shared by the majority–have no authority to decide whom I or any citizen can or cannot marry. Again, the courts were created to protect social minorities such as openly gay and lesbian individuals from members of a bigoted majority. Fortunately, the California courts have taken a landmark step towards equality for gays and lesbians–and they have rightfully determined that what closed-minded people like you find “moral” or “right” has no bearing on the rights of others to live their lives as they please.
All of your opinions rest on the inherently religious opinion that gay relationships are immoral. While you are welcome to your opinion, unfortunately for you, such religious beliefs have no place in government.
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