BARR ON FMA: Craig Cardon

[Craig is a Lucius N. Littauer Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard]

To use Bob Barr's descriptive language, issues involving public morality also used to be "quintessential state issue[s]" until Lawrence v. Texas, but no longer. Accordingly, an activist judiciary is the focus of the FMA. Same-sex marriage is the vehicle, but reigning in a run-away activist judicial system is the destination. A constitutional amendment is drastic and must be considered carefully, but confidence in DOMA has waned in the reality of the ever waxing "penumbra" of the court.
posted by maggie at 1:27 PM VOTE 0 comments

BARR ON FMA: Jim Woodhull

[Jim is a venture capitalist and family man in Connecticut]

I knew little of Bob Barr before reading this other than he was involved in the Clinton impeachment (right thing to do, but our side had the wrong charges, in my view). I am impressed.

I agree with Mr. Barr, especially the part about gays seeking to marry having nothing to do with the problems of heterosexual marriage. And this week I came across an anecdote that I would like to run by you. My accountant is out here in Del Mar, California this week to do due diligence on a woman's clothing boutique whose purchase I am likely to finance. She happened to tell me the story of two gay male friends of hers in Houston who have been together "forever" who have a 4-year-old boy they plucked out of a wretched Russian orphanage when he was two. When they got him, he had severe speaking problems as a consequence of hearing problems. One of the two men is a speech therapist, and has worked with his new son so now the boy is doing great. The kid calls one "Dad" and the other "Papa".

Can a Christian really object to this poor boy being rescued from likely doom, no matter who did the rescuing? Can we have any serious doubts that this boy will grow up to be a taxpayer? These men are more deserving of being acknowledged as a "married couple" than an awful lot of conventional, selfish, me-generation couples I know.
posted by maggie at 1:24 PM VOTE 0 comments

EDITOR'S NOTE: From Maggie

There has been a heavy stream of commentary from the right today, which I think reflects the fact that as a former GOP congressman and current GOP pundit, Bob Barr has sparked something of a GOP intramural on the issue. Comments from others welcome, too.
posted by maggie at 7:20 PM VOTE 0 comments

BARR ON FMA: Katherine Kersten

[Katherine is a senior fellow at the Center of the American Experiment in Minnesota.]

Bob Barr is right. The states should be free to define marriage and Americans should not meddle lightly with the Constitution.  But the in Lawrence v. Texas, the Court ruled that consensual sodomy is constitutionally protected.  Many observers -- including dissenters in that case -- have signalled that the Court's next step may well be a declaration that same-sex marriage is also a right under the Constitution.  If, in coming years, the Court rules that homosexuals have a constitutional right to marriage, it will in essence declare the federal Defense of Marriage Act (which Barr authored) unconstitutional, and at the same time will remove the ability of states to define marriage for themselves.  Only a new constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman can prevent this occurrence with certainty.
 
Barr quotes Dick Cheney as saying that "people should be free to enter any kind of relationship."  The fact is, today Americans ARE free to enter the relationships they choose, and churches are free to decide what they mean by marriage. The question is which relationships the state should privilege and protect. Given the Supreme Court's leanings, if the American people wish to continue to protect traditional marriage, they will have to amend the Constitution in a way that precludes the Supreme Court from removing their ability to do so.



posted by maggie at 7:19 PM VOTE 0 comments

BARR ON FMA: Stephen Crampton

[Stephen Crampton is chief counsel for the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, here.]

I appreciate Bob Barr and his thoughtful commentary. And while I usually agree with him, this is one time I think he is flat wrong. A constitutional amendment is an extreme remedy, to be sure, and should not be undertaken lightly. The battle to save traditional marriage, however, is a battle to save Western civilization itself. It demands no less than a constitutional amendment.

As a great American recently observed, "The question is not whether this is a battle we can win, but whether it is a battle we can afford to lose." (Maggie Gallagher, "The Stakes," National Review Online, July 14, 2003.) Bob Barr would have us leave the issue of same-sex marriage to the states. But such a solution is in reality no solution at all, for once a single state confers legal recognition to same-sex marriage, it creates utter chaos for every other state. As a highly mobile society, same-sex couples who relocate from the legally-sanctioning state to another state carry the marriage certificate with them. The second state must then determine whether to grant official recognition to the union, as the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution requires (Art. IV, sec. 1), or to deny official recognition on the basis of strong public policy against the act. If the latter, and the same-sex couple has adopted children, then an additional dilemma arises as to how to treat the children. This situation grows increasingly complex the greater the number of same-sex couples and the greater the number of states conferring official recognition. In the end, the only way any semblance of uniformity can be maintained among the several states is by recognizing the "marriage" in all states, and the nuclear family that serves as the building block for all ordered society is utterly decimated.

No, Bob Barr is wrong this time, dead wrong. I, for one, will do everything in my power to see that a constitutional amendment becomes a reality.
posted by maggie at 7:06 PM VOTE 0 comments

THE BARR POSE: Maggie responds

I don't recall ever defining family values Mark. The point is not that in political debate we use code words. But that for both dems and repubs (but in the case repubs) certain issues are not really defined as political issues (i.e. actions worth working towards) but values issues--used to strike poses voters find attractive and so get political power to use on "real" political issues (i.e. legislation worth working towards).

For many on the right, marriage is attractive as a values word and not as a political issue.


posted by maggie at 3:33 PM VOTE 0 comments

THE BARR POSE: Mark Miller responds

[Mark Miller is, "a statistician in Cleveland, Ohio looking to be a freelance writer."]

Maggie, the truth is that "family values" IS simply a convenient code word for getting more voters into the 'conservative' or 'Christian' coalition so they can obtain more power. The phrase 'family values' is just as meaningful as the same type of phrases liberals use such as 'tolerance', 'diversity' or 'civil rights'. Is it possible that one could have 'family values' and still support gay-rights ? I guess not. Then I can just as easily define you as being 'intolerant', 'anti-diversity' and of course, 'anti-civil rights' - but why not use the tern 'racist', as it speaks so much louder. Sound unfair ? It is and it's the exact same thing you're doing when defining 'family values'.

My next proposal is to push for a constitutional amendment preventing any state from passing legislation against same-sex marriage. Sort of a Roe v. Wade for 'same-sex marriage' or more appropriately, like the anti-miscegenation laws.

As you feel it is necessary to have an constitutional amendment to prevent the courts from forcing 'same-sex marriage' on everyone and thus, destroy the institution of marriage, I feel it is necessary to have an amendment to prevent the legislatures from making laws that are based on prejudice and are immoral at its core regardless of public opinion.

I guess the bottom line is .... we all have our agendas.

posted by maggie at 3:28 PM VOTE 0 comments

BARR ON FMA: Ron Crews

[Ron is president of the Massachussetts Family Institute, which is leading an effort to amend the state constitution to define marriage as one husband and one wife, here.]

Maggie, I agree with everything Bob says about state rights. However, he misses the point that we currently have a federal judiciary that appears to have little regard for the rights of states. It is true that the federal DOMA has not yet been challenged. However, it will be challenged as soon as a state (Massachussetts?) opens the door for homosexual marriage. Bob fails to mention the full faith and credit clause of the constitution. It is for this reason that I reluctantly support the FMA.
posted by maggie at 2:14 PM VOTE 0 comments

BARR ON FMA: Elizabeth Marquardt

[Elizabeth is an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values, who often blogs on their fascinating weblog on marriage, here.]

Bob Barr doesn’t seem to recognize that marriage--unlike a business contract--is much more than just a signed agreement between two people or entities. It is an ontological shift in identity that cannot and must not be denied by anyone, anywhere. It is naïve to think that some states could recognize same sex marriage without challenges eventually being successful that require other states to recognize those marriages. (If for no other reason that heterosexual philanderers would love to able to argue that if gays can be married in some states but not others, then they should not have to be legally married in every state they go. To parrot the argument of gay rights advocates, why should the sex of the person you're having sex with make any difference in how your relationship is treated?)

Personally, I do not support a constitutional amendment on marriage. What I do support is an open and lengthy national discussion on the meaning of marriage, on why it is much more than just a nice affirmation of love between two people and set of legal goodies. Only as a result of that discussion would otherwise well-informed people like Bob Barr understand that marriage isn’t just a private arrangement that each state can decide for itself without significant social turmoil resulting.



posted by maggie at 1:28 PM VOTE 0 comments

IS MARRIAGE GENDER DISCRIMINATION? Gabriel Rosenberg

[Gabriel teaches mathematics at Yale University]

Maggie says, "No-one one [sic] really believes it is gender discrimination."

I believe it is. I know Andrew Koppelman, a law professor at Northwestern, believes it is. Courts in Hawaii and Alaska believe it was. We will know shortly whether the Massachusetts SJC thinks it is. As you've pointed out gays can get married (as long as it is to someone of the opposite sex). As you and Eve pointed out, the danger of SSM is that the act of marrying a woman will no longer be perceived of as a masculine thing to do. The whole idea behind prohibiting gender discrimination is that we should not exclude a woman from something just because it is a masculine thing to do. If it is gender discrimination to prevent a woman from being a policeman, then it is also gender discrimination to prevent her from being a "husband."


posted by maggie at 12:24 PM VOTE 0 comments

BARR on FMA: James Q. Wilson

[James Q. Wilson is a professor emeritus at UCLA, and recently received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.]

In my view, marriage, like abortion, ought to be decided by each state, not only because these matters fall within the states' police powers, but because different state approaches might tell us something of value. Barr's argument against the constitutional amendment is a good one, PROVIDED that the Supreme Court does not require, by judicial fiat, that every state have the same policy. Because of its decision in the Texas sodomy case, every state must still respect something vaguely called "privacy." The Court could have struck down the Texas law on the perfectly reasonable grounds suggested by Justice O'Connor: by distinguishing homosexual from heterosexual sodomy, it violated the equal protection of the laws. That would leave each state free to pass a full-bore anti-sodomy law (no state would, I suspect) or abandon its homosexual-only anti-sodomy law.

So a better constitutional amendment would be one that assigned to the states complete authority over domestic social arrangements, confirming their police powers. Such an amendment would be difficult to draw up and very difficult to pass. Or a constitutional amendment might modify what kinds of cases the federal judiciary can hear, another tough (but useful) task.

Otherwise, we are stuck with the worst kind of judicial activism.
posted by maggie at 12:06 PM VOTE 0 comments

BARR ON FMA: Glen Lavy

[Glen Lavy is with the Alliance Defense Fund]

Homosexual activists have been pursuing same-sex "marriage" for more than 30 years, and appear to be finding increasingly sympathetic judges. Apparently no number of judicial defeats will persuade them that there is no constitutional right to same-sex "marriage."

Leaving marriage to the individual states sounds fine--if we could. But when the U.S. Supreme Court is willing to eviscerate states' rights by imposing its view of morality on the entire country in one fell swoop, as in Lawrence, the only sure way I know for states to protect their right to define marriage is the federal marriage amendment.


posted by maggie at 11:58 AM VOTE 0 comments

THE BARR POSE: Maggie responds

When I say that marriage in general is not an ideological or partisan issue, I would offer Bob Barr as exhibit A. Bob is clearly representative of a species of conservative that views "family values" as a convenient code word for getting more voters into the GOP coalition so they can obtain power to deal with really important, manly issues, such as money and war.

Anyone who views marriage as a truly critical social institution could not say both that they oppose gay marriage and are indifferent to whether or not the judiciary imposes it on people in a given state.

The trick here is in saying that "states can have gay marriage if they want," and posing as a champion of state's rights.

There is not a single state legislature that is going to pass gay marriage in the conceivable future unless ordered to by courts. Bob knows this. His position is not that people in states can legislate as they want, but the courts can remake marrriage as they choose and it is not the people's business to intervene. The only way the will of the majority can make itself heard when courts take on these social re-engineering roles, is through constitutional amendments.

posted by maggie at 10:55 AM VOTE 0 comments

BOB BARR OPPOSES FMA

In the Aug 21, Washington Post, excerpts below, full op ed here. By Bob Barr

"Marriage is a quintessential state issue. The Defense of Marriage Act goes as far as is necessary in codifying the federal legal status and parameters of marriage. A constitutional amendment is both unnecessary and needlessly intrusive and punitive.

No less a leftist radical than Vice President Dick Cheney recognized this when he publicly said, "The fact of the matter is we live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody. . . . And I think that means that people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to
enter into. It's really no one else's business in terms of trying to regulate or prohibit behavior in that regard. . . . I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."

Restoring stability to . . . families is a tough problem, and requires careful, thoughtful and, yes, tough solutions. But homosexual couples seeking to marry did not cause this problem, and the Federal Marriage Amendment cannot be the solution."

posted by maggie at 10:36 PM VOTE 0 comments

WHAT THEY DID FOR LOVE: Maggie, again

Here, for example, are findings from a 1983 study of 66 gays and lesbians in Portland, Oregon who either were or had been married, and who had children. "Love of spouse" was the second most common reason lesbians gave for marrying a man and the most common reason gay men listed for marrying women. Three out of ten lesbians considered their marriages satisfying, compared to 56 percent of gay husbands.

Norman L. Wyers, 1987. "Homosexuality in the Family: Lesbian and Gay Spouses," Social Work (March-April): 143ff.



posted by maggie at 12:10 AM VOTE 0 comments

ARE CIVIL UNIONS THE ANSWER? Fred Turner

A reader forwarded this from a column, here, excerpts below. Readers of Andrew Sullivan's Same-Sex Marriage Pro and Con may recognize this as the Camile Paglia argument.

"The honor and beauty of homosexual love is itself as much under attack by academic leftists, neo-Marxist Gramscians and deconstructionists as is the superior nobility and sacrifice of heterosexual love. It is the propaganda in favor of a narcissistic psychological formation that is at fault. Our enemies don't want to make us all homosexuals; they want to make us all so selfish that society can no longer operate by promises and voluntary cooperation, and must be controlled by a tyrannical socialist elite. Homosexuality is just a useful weapon for breaking down the language of commitment and morality -- a way of authorizing evil behavior in general, whether heterosexual or homosexual.

One solution to the whole "gay marriage" problem might be this.

Legal civil union between men and women serves the legitimate interests of the State in two ways: the reproduction and nurture of the population, and the creation of a fundamental social bond that has huge economic and moral benefits. . .

But the word "marriage" is an ancient religious term, and for the State to appropriate it or seek to warp its meaning to cover homosexual unions would a flagrant violation of the separation of church and state -- it would be Newspeak. Thus I would support "civil unions" for gay couples . . .But leave the word "marriage" and its sacramental meanings to civil society and common usage and churches to define."

posted by maggie at 11:50 PM VOTE 0 comments

ARE MIXED MARRIAGES IMMORAL AND DEVIANT? Maggie v. Ben

I guess Ben the answer to my question, "could you for one second, imagine that unisex marriage IS a radical transformation that WOULD have serious consequences for marriage?" is no, thank-you. But even if you refuse resolutely to even entertain this idea for a second, you know Ben it could still be true. If it is true, I am not a cultural hegemon, but an advocate for a common good that both you and I need.

I do not think the fact that gay and lesbians people CAN and DO marry is an answer to Jonathan's query about how to bring the goods of commitment more broadly to gay men. I am not trying to trivialize your question about how to bring the good of love to gay men. But it is an answer (secular and logical) to the charge that the normal definition of marriage is the legal equivalent of anti-miscegenation laws.

Technically speaking if you want to make that argument, you have to (like the Hawaii court) conclude that cross-gender marriage is gender discrimination, not sexual orientation discrimination. This argument is (lawyers welcome to affirm or contradict) more or less dying out in these cases because it satisfies neither opponents of SSM, nor most proponents, who are primarily interested in gay marriage because in the words of former Lambda president, Thomas Stoddard, "marriage is. . .the political issue that most fully tests the dedication of people who are not gay to full equality for gay people. . ."

No-one one really believes it is gender discrimination.
posted by maggie at 11:25 PM VOTE 0 comments

ARE MIXED MARRIAGES IMMORAL AND DEVIANT? Ben responds

Maggie, I enjoy the irony of you being for orientation mixing and me being for separatism! But seriously, the question is mixing of what and separation of what. We should allow people to get married regardless of gender (mix), but not insist that gay people marry straight people (separate).

The anti-miscegenation laws did indeed uphold a racist regime. But on this issue it's not that different: denying certain people a fundamental institution packed with key social, moral, and financial goods, unless they agree to join it with people they don't have the relevant types of interest in. The key is "relevant": Not convenience, or shame, or mere benefit-seeking, or mere friendship, or like the wife who decides to cope when her husband comes out, or from the belief that avoiding same-sex symbols will inspire deadbeat dads to go back to their girlfriends (Eve). Coping after the fact (like the book you're reading) is way different from consciously designing things like that from the start.

So my objection to your gays-marrying-straights situation doesn't come from personal repulsion. It's a moral objection. Idiosyncratic decisions by this or that couple may be silly or wise, but at the institutional level it would be immoral. It would institutionalize misery. It would encourage extramarital sex. It wouldn't prevent all the other ad-hoc arrangements you're already against. And it bans happy, strong same-sex couples from getting in on everything that's good about marriage. It's even worse when it's justified by telling a class of people that genuine equality (not ersatz-equality like gays marrying straights) will bring ruin, and that they are ingrates anyway for not appreciating all they've been graciously given. Fine words and intentions don't change the fact that defining gay involvement in marriage in happiness-preventing terms, is immoral.

posted by maggie at 11:08 PM VOTE 0 comments

SSM and POLYGAMY: Another Canadian makes the case

Thanks to Eve for forwarding this story "Why just two spouses?" here. Excerpts below.

by Michelle Maloney Leonard / Xtra! Jun 26 2003

"Over drinks, my friend describes her son's confusion about and upset over a family tree project he was asked to complete at school. He didn't know how to squish his father, mother and his mother's long-time partner into the two boxes for "parents." He came away from the assignment feeling uncertain and acting strangely toward his mom's lover.

I nod knowingly. As a kid who didn't know my biological father, but later gained an adoptive one, I remember dreading a similar assignment. I feared that it would out me as the product of an unconventional home.

Our culture is uncomfortable with the idea of having more than two parents. Not surprising, considering the discomfort conventional-minded folks feel about the idea of having more than one romantic partner.

At one point in my life I was maintaining relationships with three women simultaneously. I still remember the awkward silences at dinner parties with straight friends when they realized they weren't confused, but rather, I had more than one lover.

Over the course of a year and half, I realized the extent to which folks with multiple partners are socially stigmatized. My relationships were never considered fully legitimate. People assumed that I could only be playing around and certainly not making a serious life choice.

posted by maggie at 11:03 PM VOTE 0 comments

IMMORAL AND DEVIANT MARRIAGES: Maggie just can't give it up

In this small, totally non-representative body of research on gays and lesbians who have married members of the opposite sex, the number one reason gays and lesbians gave for marrying someone of the opposite sex, was "love."

(Give me a day and I will pull up the cites)

So either gay men can fall in love with a woman, Jonathan and Ben, however rare, or sexual orientation fluctuates sometimes, however rarely.

Which one is it?

I leap to no conclusions at all about what this means for the same-sex marriage debate. But when certain facts are relentlessly repressed, there is usually something interesting to learn from them.


posted by maggie at 6:32 PM VOTE 0 comments

DID GAYS MAKE DADDY LEAVE HOME? Ben responds to Eve

Eve, I wholeheartedly agree with you about the epidemic of fatherless homes. But opposing same-sex marriage won't send deadbeat dads back home or oversexed boys into responsible men. Men abandon their families for reasons like irresponsibility and fear. They look at the women they've
gotten pregnant, think of years of hard work and childrearing, and take off. Shotgun weddings were invented for reasons having nothing to do with gays.

Cultural symbols (like a loving husband, wife, and kids) do guide and inspire. And if only people were wholly passive, they'd know only what information and symbols we gave them, and remain ignorant of what we withheld. Then we could rest assured that as long as we never mentioned
those gay people, no one would ever be "confused" by them. But it doesn't work that way. There's no quick and easy causal relationship between symbols and behavior. We can't just play out a battle in the symbolic realm (evil gays intrude on precious family) and project real human history
from it. What's more important is how our heroes and peers instantiate those norms in our daily lives. It's at that level that people do see gay couples are not out to destroy the world.

So wanting to strengthen marriage is fine. But opponents of equality always make demonization look nice by saying, "We're shutting you out because...we're full of love [for our own]! And you'll ruin everything." It's an old story. You don't get moral credit when nice-sounding declarations obscure the nasty reality of oppression.
posted by maggie at 6:28 PM VOTE 0 comments

SEXLESS MARRIAGE AS A SOCIAL IDEAL: Maggie's two cents

No, I am not talking about mixed-orientation marriages, but unisex (or genderless) marriage as an ideal. I think Eve is right that one of the social consequences of gay marriage will be a neutering of marital and parenting language in the public square. We won't speak about husbands and wives, but spouses and partners. We won't talk about mothers and fathers any more, but committed parents.

Now the bonds between women and our children will not I think be much affected by this. The maternal bond is the strongest known social tie in nature or culture. It can take some linguistic hits.

But I think it is true that if you take a previously masculine activity and make it unisex, it is harder to get men to do it, esp. if it involves sacrifice on their part. Men will do less to be good spouses than good husbands, good parents than good fathers.


posted by maggie at 12:38 PM VOTE 0 comments

IS UNISEX MARRIAGE GOOD FOR MARRIAGE? Eve v. Jonathan

How could Bob and Jim's marriage possibly affect Bill and Suzy?

The first and quickest argument that same-sex marriage will have no negative effect on heterosexual couples is simply that homosexual couples are such a tiny minority, and only a minority of that minority would choose to marry. How can a tiny minority affect a majority?

Maggie has already pointed out that the same claim was made about divorce: "How will making it easier to end an unhappy marriage affect anyone's happy marriage?" And yet, a generation or so later, it's obvious that there have been consequences: more children of divorce, who often have a harder time trusting, finding good partners, and forming good relationship habits; greater reluctance on spouses' parts to make major financial or career commitments to a marriage that could dissolve; more children who, due to seeing friends' parents' marriages break up, fear that every parental fight signals divorce; lessened willingness to stick it out through rough patches; etc. etc.

But the symmetry between the divorce/same-sex marriage arguments is just a suggestive parallel. I give a more direct reply to the "tiny minority" claim here, in several (short!) segments. Here's the first, let's call it, "Roles, ideals, and the search for a self"

Humans live by roles. We need them. We seek them out. Roles help us figure out what we should do, who we should be; and, once we've agreed to take on these roles, knowing that we're living up to our roles often provides a degree of solace when the role proves difficult. Providing roles to play is one major way a society compensates for the necessary suffering I talked about earlier.

Some of the deepest and most important roles we seek are a) sexual roles (or persona), and b) roles that help us to be heroic--that help us do the right thing when it's hardest. I believe that same-sex marriage will make both these kinds of roles, as they pertain to marriage, harder to find--especially for men. As a result, more children will be left with, at best, a severely attenuated link to their fathers; and more women will be left raising children without the help of a husband. (I should note here that gay men, specifically, need strong relationships with their fathers. I've known many homosexual and bisexual men who had such relationships, and many who lacked them. And it's kind of obvious that lacking a strong relationship with one's father makes it harder to love and trust men, and to develop a healthy sense of oneself as a man.)

So, let's take these two claims one at a time. First, how will same-sex marriage affect sexual roles--specifically, masculinity? How can a male prove that he's a man? He can do all kinds of things, some deeply destructive, some fruitful and loving. He can join a gang (fatherlessness is a major recruiting tool for gangs). He can join the Army. He can express his hatred of men he deems insufficiently masculine, harassing or even attacking "queers" in order to prove he's not like them. He can impregnate many women to prove his potency, becoming a "player." Or he can marry.

Same-sex marriage is unisex. Marrying a woman would become significantly less proof of one's manhood--after all, a woman could do it! And when cultural signifiers become unisex, men move away from them fast. Because men's uncertainty about gender is greater than women's, they work harder to establish their gender. Thus women can be named Mackenzie or Ryan, but you'll be hard-pressed to find any newborn boys named Leslie, Evelyn, or even Madison. Once a masculine name becomes a "girl's name," parents of boys drop it fast.

In 2000, one third of all births in the U.S. were to unwed mothers. Men don't need any additional reasons to forgo marriage. Making marriage unisex will make it less attractive to men and, therefore, less effective in forming families. Men won't consciously think about their decisions in terms of gender. But the desire for gender drives many of our decisions, somewhere just below the surface of thought.

We've already managed to make marriage less attractive to men by pretending that men are expendable, that fatherless families are just "alternative family forms." Jennifer Hamer's What It Means to Be Daddy: Fatherhood for Black Men Living Away from Their Children found that many low-income black women bought into this idea, pushing away men who wanted to be more involved in their children's lives and setting up all-female households--where "same-sex parenting" means a baby, a mother, and her mother. So men have sex with multiple women, form multiple unmarried families, and simply don't have the resources to support any of them very well. (Oddly, Hamer herself treats her work as support for the "alternative family form" theory--even though, to anyone who grew up with a married, regular-old father, the families she describes sound frighteningly chaotic and half-formed.)

In a time when masculinity is (even) more contested than usual, and men's ties to their children and to the women they sleep with are (even) shakier than usual, "de-gendering" marriage is a terrible idea.

posted by maggie at 12:33 PM VOTE 0 comments

IS SSM GOOD FOR MARRIAGE? Rev. Winston Boyd

A column by a Church of Christ minister who has performed over 20 commitment ceremonies for unisex couples. Excerpt below, column here.

"The claim that same-sex relationships and the social and religious endorsement of them will somehow diminish the strength of male-female relationships is completely contrary to my experience as a Christian pastor and as a husband and father. . ."

posted by maggie at 12:00 PM VOTE 0 comments

GAY MARRIAGE OR NO MARRIAGE?: Jonathan responds to Eve

Warm welcome to Eve Tushnet. She edited me in a forum once. Impeccably fair and competent. And what a refreshing voice.

Two things in generalized response to Eve.

I grant that many--no, make that a few--heterosexual marriage-defenders are willing to support measures that inconvenience heterosexuals. I also grant that heterosexuals face various marriage-related burdens and tragedies. But homosexuals are asking to bear all those same burdens and tragedies. However, no heterosexual faces anything like a prohibition on marriage
altogether, or a requirement that marriage be detached from love. Only homosexuals are asked to grow up without the single most essential element of the pursuit of happiness.

If conservative opponents of SSM were saying, "OK, let homosexuals marry, but with certain conditions attached," that would be one thing. They would be taking gay welfare into account. Or even if they said, as some do, "OK, give homosexuals the appurtenances of marriage, just don't call it marriage." Then they'd be balancing costs and benefits. The moral blind spot is when they just say, "No matter how much harm alienation from marriage does to gay lives, that's not our problem. All that matters is not to risk making anything any worse the people who have marriage already."

So there's really a double burden on homosexuals. One is the burden of growing up without any hope of ever marrying anyone you love (and believe me, this is not good). The second is the burden of having to prove that same-sex marriage will never hurt any heterosexual ever, regardless of how many homosexuals it helps. The first is destructive, the second unfair.

And all of the above assumes that same-sex marriage will indeed be bad for America's families or children or marriage itself. Eve seems to take that for granted, as many people do. At some point we should hit this topic head on. My thesis is that same-sex marriage is good for heterosexual marriage and thus good for children, especially compared with the alternatives. By throwing their bodies on the tracks in front of SSM, conservatives are taking a terrible risk with marriage. They assure the proliferation of legally and socially recognized alternatives to marriage, which will be open to heterosexuals and which will win gradual acceptance. Then children will come along in domestic-partner households and--guess what?--their parents will not be married. And to the extent that conservatives just say, "Then let homosexual couples just shack up," they will turn homosexual couples into poster children for cohabitation.

The best thing for marriage is to preserve the two rules it depends on for its essential uniqueness and universality. No, not "male-female." 1: "If you want the benefits of marriage, you have to get married." 2: "Marriage is for everyone. One person, one spouse, no exceptions." By contrast, insisting that marriage be tied to procreation-potential for homosexuals but not for heterosexuals just undermines the institution's legitimacy, by building it on a double-standard whose unfairness will only become more apparent with time.

What I am saying is that there has been a bend in the river of history. Conservatives can defend either marriage's exclusivity or its status as a norm, but they have to choose. Get this right, guys!
posted by maggie at 11:51 AM VOTE 0 comments

LOGIC AND HISTORY: Maggie

Ken argues we should all rush to on the right side of history to avoid the terrible fate of posthumous condemnation. This history argument is interesting. Ken, people also said the divorce revolution would have no negative effects on marriage, only positive ones too. The problem with the work of people like E.J. Graff, who use past predictions of disaster for marriage as evidence marriage is infinitely durable and can never be hurt, is that marriage is in profound, structural crisis all over the developed world: high rates of divorce, unmarried childbearing, high rates of nonmarriage, and in Europe a collapse in marital fertility. Ben, you talk about my inability to grasp your point of view. Can you imagine, just for the sake of argument, for one teeny second, that in fact societies really do need marriage, that the way culture die out is they become sexually disorganized and fail to sustain what might be called the systems of reproduction?

If Europe becomes part of the Islamic block in 100 years, because Muslims are the only ones maintain traditional marriage codes and reproducing successfully, will that be good for gay and lesbian people?

I am not asking you agree that this IS true, but merely to see that, if it WERE true, marriage would really be our common interest here, not my special interest---it would not be grounded in cultural hegemony but just shared real need.
posted by maggie at 8:44 AM VOTE 0 comments

ARE MIXED MARRIAGES DEVIANT AND IMMORAL? Maggie replies

I would freely concede that mixed marriages are rare and certainly high-risk. But immoral and deviant?

It would be immoral to lie about such a thing, of course, but Stephen Daldry did not lie. Is he immoral and deviant for deciding he wanted a wife and a baby? Is that a good reason to marry or not? To me, it seems perfectly understandable. And you know Ben and Ken, women are funny. A nice guy who is successful, and funny, and loves them and hey, actually wants to have a baby instead of having to be begged into it, like so many Manhattan metrosexuals. . .I can see his wife's point of view too. Are they sexually fulfilled? I don't know. But really this is not something we insist on in married couples. Married people like it, no doubt, but it is just not the community's business if people place other priorities higher.

As to wives being in pain on discovering their husbands are gay, what actually seems to happen at least as often is that wives are crushed and distressed to find their husbands are leaving them and the kids because they are gay, or insisting on their right to cheat because they are gay. Society, including the gay community, now tells such husbands that they are not REALLY husbands, they are REALLY gay and encourages them to leave these "false" relationships and explore their sexuality.

Here, for example, is one wife's description of her marriage to a gay man (From Husbands Out of the Closet): "We had the American Dream! We had a big wedding, big, close families, a nice house, and a beautiful baby. I considered myself very fortunate. We had a good sex life, but we were best friends and playmates as well as lovers. We were very close. Sometimes we could sit up all night just talking."

Here is another: "We had ups and downs from the beginning. We'd married because of pregnancy, but our love quickly became very strong. Our sex was just okay at first, but then became great. But as the kids got older, he'd yell at them, and about every 6 months we'd have terrible fights about them, not about ourselves."

Of course one of the real problems here is deciding or defining whether or not these men were gay when they married or only became gay later when they began identifying with sexual feelings they had repressed. But either a) some gay men make great husbands or b) sexual orientation fluctuates or c) both.
posted by maggie at 8:33 AM VOTE 0 comments

MARRIAGE AS A CIVIL RIGHT: Ken Darling

[Ken is an executive in Minneapolis.]

You are missing the point, Maggie:

1) Mixed orientation marriages ARE deviant and immoral...they are based on a lie of false love, a lie that has done great damage to heterosexual women over the ages. Do you really think Will-and Grace-style, gay-straight marriages are a real option for the people involved? That is nothing but rhetorical posturing; it has no basis in the real world, where finding out one's mate is gay causes heartbreak, not a subtle re-evaluation of the meaning of male-female relationships.

2) You also miss the point on anti-miscegenation laws...yes, at their base, these laws were about underpinning a racist state and culture, but "protecting" white marriages was precisely the mechanism used to achieve that broader goal. Supporters of such laws claimed, just as you do now, that the laws were needed to protect the traditional family and the sanctity of marriage. They saw no distinction between protecting traditional marriage and maintaining a racist state -- the former was essential to the latter. We have history on our side on this matter. Racists opponents of mixed-race marriage predicted the demise of the family and of the institution of marriage if marriage were allowed to honor love that crossed racial barriers; they were wrong. The same will prove to be true for gay marriage. In a generation, you will be as embarrassed by your opposition to gay marriage as southern whites are oftheir earlier opposition to inter-racial marriage.

3) Ben does not argue, as you imply, that ALL religious people know where they stand. He argues that religious opponents of gay marriage --Christian fundamentalists and biblical literalists -- at least have a basis for their believes, unlike secular opponents of gay marriage like you. Ben's point was that your arguments are collapsing under the rulesof logical debate.


posted by maggie at 8:06 AM VOTE 0 comments

MARRIAGE AS A CIVIL RIGHT: Ben Dykes

Yes, I think the bottom line--as with all civil rights issues--is that people with the civil right want the others to go away. The question is why. I think people are genuinely shocked and resentful when they're accused of being unfair, and especially if they're told their arguments/attitudes are identical in form to positions they reject, like old race arguments. We tend to think that people pretty much fall into the place in society they deserve, and it's unpleasant to think that our attitudes and laws are actually inhibiting others.

When people are used to thinking of their own situation as the universal one, they are doubly shocked because they can't imagine what the alternative is. It's like men refusing to accept women as managers because they can't imagine that women could do a "man's" job. No, it's a manager's job. Men and women may have different styles, and you could even argue that management is better when both styles are represented. But the generic category "manager" is not the same as "male manager," even if to be a manager means having either male or female styles.

This debate is like coming out to one's parents. You watch them convulse and weep over the fantasy life they had planned for you, and over what they assumed you'd gratefully do for them. It's a very self-involved process, and genuinely uncomfortable for them. Like bewildered parents asking, "why are you rejecting us, don't you love us anymore?" opponents of gay marriage say, "why do you want to hurt us, don't you appreciate the civilization we've provided?" We're not rejecting anything, but it takes time to digest that and incorporate gay children/citizens into their worldview. Until then, they'll keep returning to their familiar images of themselves as good and holy, and assume you want to hurt them. This debate is especially hot because nothing pokes you in the nose and speaks in as many volumes about social ties as much as the insistence on getting married. I have hopes the period of patient hand-holding and smoothing ruffled feathers will soon be over.


posted by maggie at 3:01 PM VOTE 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND MORAL PASSION: Maggie responds

Jonathan and Dale, it is not possible not to be moved by the depth of your honest moral passion on this issue, and the call that we share it. I have let days pass, because I wanted to reflect on it, and really to figure out the deeper sources of our disagreement. I know that you two do care about marriage, I don't doubt it. I also know that the things I have said so far touch you hardly at all. Dale in particular is looking for the reasons behind the reasons, because what I say makes no sense to him. This I regard as a great failure on my part. One of the things I am good at is making people see how someone could hold my point of view, even if they do not themselves agree.

It suddenly occurred to me that one of the thing Andrew seeks, and certainly Ben, and possibly you two as well, is to expose my underlying views about homosexuality. Well, you know you could have just asked me what I think.

And the answer is that, as a matter of sexual ethics, I support the Christian tradition. I am under no illusions that there is any kind of social consensus on sexual morality at this point and I do not think this is the main issue on the gay marriage debate at all. As I have pointed out before, I can find many, many human cultures that reject the Jewish and Christian view of same-sex sexual acts, some subcultures that even elevated gay sex above cross-gender sex (mere nature and breeding you know), but none heretofore that confused unisex relationships, however glorified, with marriage. I really do see the unisex marriage question as separate from the question of homosexuality.

But there is no denying that when it comes to alternative institutions, it plays a role: Is it better for two men to try, through sworn vows and legal instruments, to keep their beloved in a gay relationship? I don't know. Then there is Ben, for example, who is not only personally repulsed but morally outraged by the idea of a gay man choosing to marry a woman. He claims the gay community has strong sexual norms stigmatizing such people. Deviants! Perverts! Keep the sex in the community! This is a sexual norm based not on protecting children but on protecting group identity, clearly but it is a sexual norm.Certainly the hysterical reaction to the claim that any gay man anywhere has ever successfully made this transition in a reasonably satisfying way is deeply suspicious to me. Gender is socially constructed but homosexuality is essential! Some pretty deep buttons are being pressed, or repressed. But I digress.

I have more sympathy than you know, or than I can express to the underlying issues here which I think have nothing to do with legal benefits and everything to do with how men, in particular, can achieve a sense of masculinity that is pro-social outside of marriage and outside of any relationship to the feminine and to fertility (marriage-and-family). For single guys in general this is a difficulty, given (as Paul Nathanson has written) the absence of any real positive vision of what masculinity means in a post-feminist world where androgyny is the officially approved norm. One deep unacknowledged substratum of successful masculinity is of course sexual: to win the approval and love of a woman. To find oneself outside this circle, is to suffer the burdens of achieving masculinity virtually alone, without social signs or support, in the context of intense male disapproval of your sexual desires. It sounds very hard to me.

I don't know the answers, particularly because I think living in a social world in which men have normally have to win the sexual approval of women gives women enormous underlying social power, which I wholeheartedly support. You cannot explain the overthrow of "patriarchy" and the surrender of men (at least formally and publicly) to feminist demands in just a few years without recognizing this as a key source of women's power.

But as for my language in The Divorce Diversion, I stand by it Jonathan, shamelessly if you want to call it that. It is morally reckless to propose at this moment of crisis redefining marriage to make it better suit certain adults (any adults) better. If you think this is directed at gays and lesbians you are wrong. I find it more forgivable in gays and lesbians because of course when people's personal interests are directly at stake they tend to focus on that. That is human nature. But what about the other third of the population, the powerful elites, patting themselves on the back for how progressive they are on the gay marriage issue? These are the same people who look at poor, fatherless kids and say "oh, family diversity, isn't it wonderful? Aren't I wonderful for being so compassionate and progressive?" If you doubt me check out the statement on family by the Presbyterians.

Gay marriage is part of a general move towards embracing the principle of adult choice as the highest good in intimate relationships, regardless of who gets hurt. The general absence of any sense of risk and the prioritizing of adult sexual interests among most advocates is callous and indifferent and yes, Me-Decade adult narcissism par excellence.






posted by maggie at 9:37 AM VOTE 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: Eve Tushnet

A few contributors here have said that it seems cavalier for opponents of same-sex marriage to simply decry one form of same-sex relationship without saying what we would prefer. I've tried to work out my thoughts on this question, and have blogged here about friendship as a possible model and here about civil unions. But to be honest, I feel much more tentative about these posts than about the rest of what I've said so far about same-sex marriage.

And I'm not convinced that the political discussion of legalizing same-sex marriage has all that much to do with the search for alternative structures for homosexual relationships, anyway. Marriage is a political (legal) issue, not solely a cultural issue, precisely because when a man and a woman have sex they often produce a child, and that child needs to be protected. The political structure of civil marriage arose around that fact and in response to that fact. Marriage is not a political issue because the state has a compelling interest in making sure that its citizens have fulfilling relationships, or feel that their romantic choices are honored--how is that the state's business? It's a political issue because of all the, you know, kids.

In my volunteer job at a crisis pregnancy center, I see a world without fathers. I speak with pregnant women who literally know no-one who is married with whom they could discuss marriage and dating. I see the despair, the poverty, the crushing of hopeful teens' best aspirations.

And it isn't "just" the poor who suffer from fatherlessness and the weakening of marriage. I've talked with a lot of friends of mine whose (non-poor) parents divorced or never married. There too you can see the transfer of suffering from parents to children. I've seen how hard, and how honorably, my friends have striven to make good marriages, to trust, to date well, to have faith--in spite of family backgrounds that made those acts harder.

To my mind, opposing same-sex marriage is one component of a larger social-justice struggle, the renewal of marriage and fatherhood
posted by maggie at 9:06 AM VOTE 0 comments

THE DIVORCE THING: Andrew May Have a Point

A number of social conservatives are rather concerned about Randall Terry's attempt to emerge a leader in the same-sex marriage issue. Excerpt below, Full story here,

"He's no viable voice," said the Rev. Flip Benham, national director of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America. "What does he have to say about marriage, the one who divorced his own wife for a trophy wife? Randall Terry is an unrepentant sinner."

But Terry insists his past marital problems don't disqualify him from speaking with moral authority. "The Bible doesn't condemn divorce, but it does condemn homosexuality."

Hmm, must have a different translation from mine.

posted by maggie at 10:00 PM VOTE 0 comments

A NEW CASE FOR GAY AND STRAIGHT MARRIAGE: Maggie congratulates

Jonathan, it is always exciting to be present at the conception of a book, congratulations and I look forward to reading your latest.

As to your question "what is the evidence marriage itself matters," of course Linda Waite wrote the book on that one and I helped her do it. I assume you are focussing on adult well-being here. The long answer to your question is in The Case for Marriage. The short answer is that of course absent randomized experiments we cannot absolutely prove anything. But the evidence that the intrinsic benefits of marriage (as opposed to the chimerical legal ones) are not mere selection effects are quite strong. The first line of evidence is the numerous attempts by social scientists to control for confounding factors. The second, even stronger line of evidence, are longitudinal studies on say mental health, that have measures of mental health before entering marriage and then follow people as they marry, divorce, stay married or stay single. Plus of course we have strong theoretical reasons to believe that marriage itself changes people's lives in ways that leave them off, from settling down, to adopting longer time horizons, to some of the benefits that come from specialization and exchange.

Look forward to hearing more about your venture. I do note, for the record, that this is what the seventh book making the case for gay marriage (although yours sounds like it is quite original), while there is not a single full-length book making the case against. Wonder why!
posted by maggie at 9:42 PM VOTE 0 comments

A NEW CASE FOR GAY AND STRAIGHT MARRIAGE: Jonathan Rauch

Folks, it is time to announce that I am writing a book on same-sex marriage. "The Case for Gay (and Straight) Marriage." To be published by Times Books/Henry Holt in the spring. The book will be about marriage, not just gay marriage. So I am trying to think, write, and learn about how marriage works (and why it fails).

Proponents of same-sex marriage argue, of course, that marriage has welfare-enhancing effects and that these effects would carry over into same-sex marriage at little or not cost to the original article. The second statement is controversial on this blog, but the first isn't. However, in the real world I often hear the first statement challenged by people who say that marriage's alleged benefits are unproved.

The point they make is that marriage is indeed associatedwith improved welfare, but that there is no research demonstrating which way the causality runs. Life's "winners" have an easier time getting and staying married, etc.

Do these skeptics have a point? How much, if anything, do we really know about which way the causality runs? Short of controlled experiments on randomized populations, what can we say rigorously about the effects of marriage-qua-marriage on durability of relationships, welfare of married
couples vs. cohabitants vs. singles, etc.?
posted by maggie at 9:35 PM VOTE 0 comments

THE CASE FOR GAY AND STRAIGHT MARRIAGE: Jonathan Rauch

Folks, it is time to announce that I am writing a book on same-sex marriage. "The Case for Gay (and Straight) Marriage." To be published by Times Books/Henry Holt in the spring. The book will be about marriage, not just gay marriage. So I am trying to think, write, and learn about how marriage works (and why it fails).

Proponents of same-sex marriage argue, of course, that marriage has welfare-enhancing effects and that these effects would carry over into same-sex marriage at little or not cost to the original article. The second statement is controversial on this blog, but the first isn't. However, in the real world I often hear the first statement challenged by people who say that marriage's alleged benefits are unproved.

The point they make is that marriage is indeed associated with improved welfare, but that there's no research demonstrating which way the causality runs. Life's "winners" have an easier time getting and staying married, etc.

Do these skeptics have a point? How much, if anything, do we really know about which way the causality runs? Short of controlled experiments on randomized populations, what can we say rigorously about the effects of marriage-qua-marriage on durability of relationships, welfare of married couples vs. cohabitants vs. singles, etc.?



posted by maggie at 9:33 PM VOTE 0 comments

IS MARRIAGE A CIVIL RIGHT? Maggie ripostes

Ben, I think the operative term here is not so much "fails to grasp" as "disagrees." We should spend some more time on the whole Loving v. Virginia question. But I personally would like to do it in a crowd that is not so totally white.

Let me say that the logic goes the other way. I am proposing sexual-orientation mixing, not sexual-orientation separation. I think mixed marriages are fine, you think they are immoral and what was that word you used before? Ah, yes, deviant. The purpose of anti-miscengenation laws, which have no very old history btw in this country, was to uphold a racist regime not to further the fundamental purposes of marriage. You would have to believe, and hey Ben maybe you do! That laws about marriage arise in every known culture out of animus against homosexuals. Even cultures that ritualize and embrace homosexuality. They just don't confuse it with marriage.

As to religious people knowing where they stand, which religious people were you talking about--Episcopalians, maybe?
posted by maggie at 5:26 PM VOTE 0 comments

IS MARRIAGE A CIVIL RIGHT? Ben Dykes

Maggie's response shows she still doesn't grasp gays' complaint, and only comprehends marriage in her own terms. She says unmarried gay and straight people are in the same boat. If they do not like it, they should get married--to someone of the opposite sex.

Maggie, this is the old race-mixing argument. It goes, "Everyone can get married -- to someone of the same race. Therefore the law is the same for all. What's the problem?" Nowadays we shake our heads at that sort of logic. Is this where you want to be?

So again Maggie, you and other opponents cast marriage in your own image, equating characteristics of opposite-sex marriage with marriage as a whole. That's why you conclude the marriage case is just like social security for the elderly. But social security applies equally to all because aging is a universal human characteristic. Being attracted to and fulfilled by the opposite sex isn't. It's not like social security. Opposite-sex marriage for gays is a non-starter. It would be immoral.

Gays have done enough hand-holding over the irrational fears of utter destruction and endless 'polygamy!' refrains. We've politely acquiesced to the insulting demand that we be grateful for civilization. You can't say you are for general human well-being and against discrimination, but define basic institutions in ways peculiar to you and shut a whole class of people out. Purely
religiously-motivated opponents know where they stand. What do the rest say?

posted by maggie at 5:22 PM VOTE 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND SUFFERING: Eve Tushnet responds to Jonathan

[Eve is a young D.C.-based writer who has a column with National Catholic Register. But she is perhaps better known to the blogosphere as the author of EveTushnet.com, here.]

I guess what I'd like to talk about is suffering. Jonathan Rauch argues that opponents of same-sex marriage wish to impose a burden of suffering on homosexuals that we would not impose on heterosexuals. Rauch writes, "many conservative opponents of same-sex marriage apply a double standard and treat the welfare of gay people with a cavalierness that they wouldn't dream of applying to heterosexuals. ...We're asking you and your colleagues to take gay lives and welfare seriously. Why should that be so hard?"

But many of us oppose things that currently exclusively affect heterosexuals, such as abortion and divorce. I'm not sure where my copy of Maggie's "Abolition of Marriage"  is, but I recall a couple apposite moments from the book: Maggie takes to task pastors and politicians who focus on homosexuality while ignoring the far more prevalent and (to them) personal issues such as divorce and adultery (issues Maggie has never in her career ignored or downplayed!).

This is not someone who is binding burdens onto others that she is unwilling to lift herself.

In the long run, I do believe that both abortion and most divorces are harmful to the adults involved. (And in fact, I think there are some ways in which same-sex marriage will be harmful to gay men and lesbians as well--more on this briefly later.) But I don't think anyone can deny that carrying a child to term when you don't want to, or remaining in a lonely marriage, hurts. Sometimes it hurts a lot.

It may be hard certainly, to find openly lesbian, gay, or bisexual opponents of same-sex marriage, but they (...we) do exist. I'll steal a line I used on my weblog: "C'mon, even my ex-girlfriends don't think I hate gay people!"

The logic of what I suppose you could call the "social conservative" position (lame term) is that in every society, there is an unavoidable and rather high level of suffering. A healthy and just society seeks not solely to reduce suffering, but also to shift the burden of that suffering wherever possible, so that adults receive more of it and children less. Therefore, a healthy and just society doesn't make responsible fatherhood and strong family formation less likely in order to make gay adults feel like society honors their sexual and romantic choices.

Of course none of this answers the question of whether and how same-sex marriage would hurt marriage, from my point of view. But first I wanted to clear away the underbrush--the notion that opponents of same-sex marriage are singling out gay people for a burden of suffering they would never impose on heterosexuals.

posted by maggie at 4:03 PM VOTE 0 comments

LISTENING CLOSELY: Maggie responds to Dale

Before I respond to both your and Jonathan's obviously sincere moral passion on this issue Dale, I would like to point out that I never said, or believed that "marriage is only for procreation." When you take what I do say, and reword it in that familiar fashion, you are not listening closely. The core public purpose of marriage is to channel the sexual energy and relationships between men and women so that they are not harmful to the children their bodies may produce in making love i.e. so that children have mothers and fathers, and that society has enough babies to reproduce itself.

Nor have I ever said that gay men are just too nasty and promiscuous for marriage. Like virtually every other public commentator, gay or straight, has observed (until it has been deemed incovenient for the marriage issue), what I have said is that a large chunk of gay couples can and do tolerate occasional infidelity on the partners. I said this not in order to say that gays should not be allowed to marry, but to explain why I did not think a legal status with benefits was going to succeed in the goal both Dale and Jonathan have articulated of creating social norms of commitment in gay communities.

I think marital norms are deeply rooted in and grow out of heterosexual bio, social and sexual experience. Because I think this is true, I do not know how to make your project succeed.

Heterosexuality per se is no virtue. If you need more proof than the suffering caused by the breakdown of marriage in America, check out this NYT story today "For Ugandan Girls, Delaying Sex Has Economic Costs":

"The other young women as Lillian's school say they are propositioned just about every day by older men who offer them a chance of a better life in exchange for sex.

The abstinence clubs are popular, with most students prodded into joining by their parents. But many young people, as young as 12 or 13, have already begun sexual relationships. . .

'These big men will say, "Come, get in the care and I'll give you a life," said Ruth, who is 16.

The older men wave cash and cellphones, a sign of prestige in poor communities, and they talk about lives far more glamorous than the ones the girls are living. They do not bring up their H.I.V. status."

posted by maggie at 12:51 PM VOTE 0 comments

ARE ALL COUPLES ALIKE? Dan responds to Dale

Dale suggests that my critique of the proposed redefinition of marriage is based on the assumption that "there's nothing very noble or socially productive in gay relationships?" I have never made such a claim and would be reluctant to do so. Human relationships are too complex and multi-layered for such global judgements. I have observed specific "gay relationships" that I would describe as "redemptive" not just "socially productive."

Dale suggests that the failure to extend marriage to same-sex unions constitutes, in effect, a public declaration that gay relationships are "unworthy". This line of argument was central to the Canadian debates. The Beyond Conjugality report of the Law Commission of Canada noted that for same-sex couples this exclusion "represents a rejection of their personal aspirations and the non-recognition of their personhood."

In the Ontario decision Justice Harry LaForme stated, "Excluding gays and lesbians from marriage…declares an entire class of persons unworthy of the recognition and support of state sanction for their marriage." Judge Lemelin concured citing the "appalling" separate but equal doctrine. In the words of an applicant in the Quebec case, "Marriage is the gold standard in terms of social respectability."

To speak of marriage as the "gold standard" for close relationships skews social reality. First, entering into marriage does not indicate any form of public approval of the "worthiness" of the particular relationship. All kinds of people enter into marriage including rapists and pedophiles. They enter into an institution geared to certain broad but distinctive social purposes. A marriage is marker of a journey begun; their ability to engage the purposes of the institution, to walk the walk, remains to be seen.

Second, worthy human relationships are far too diverse and too complex to be contained within the single category of marital unions. They cluster in many different classes of relationships: friendships, collegial relationships, professional relationships, sibling relationships, domestic partnerships, sexual relationships, spiritual relationships, same-sex relationships, and more. In many traditions there are forms of human relationship that are ranked above marriage (e.g. celibate or "consecrated" life in the Catholic tradition). While marriage has a unique and indispensable place in human existence, nevertheless it is neither necessary nor good that every human person should enter into this particular form of social union. The distinctive role of marriage can be affirmed without prejudice to the fact that there are other forms of close personal relationships that have their own distinct dignity and purpose.

The misleading view that marriage is the benchmark of social recognition for close human relationships may be due to the fact that marriage is the only form of close personal relationship that has been granted national legal status in most jurisdictions. With the evolution of society there is an argument that there is a need to clarify the legal status of alternative forms of adult close relationships, other than marriage, in law. The state should not be restricted and constrained to operate within the single category of marital union. The confusions caused by the failure to recognize such relationships within a national legal framework are evident in the numerous jurisdictional problems posed by "civil unions" enacted by the state legislature in Vermont. There are also questions about the breadth of such alternative "close relationship" categories. The Canadian report, Beyond Conjugality, suggests a big tent to embrace the wide variety of interdependent close relationships in contemporary society that do not receive adequate legal recognition.








posted by maggie at 12:38 PM VOTE 0 comments

CANADIAN PROTESTANT GROUPS SUPPORT SSM:

Full story here, excerpt below:

"Weeks after Canadian high courts ruled to allow same-sex marriage in two provinces, delegates from Canada's largest Protestant community passed a motion calling on the federal government to endorse same-sex marriage throughout the country.

The 38th General Council of the United Church of Canada, representing Methodists, Presbyterians and the Congregational Union of Canada, passed the motion after just 45 minutes of debate at its annual conference in Nova Scotia last week."

posted by maggie at 9:13 AM VOTE 0 comments

YOUR TURN: Reader's Roundup:


Dale: It is not clear to me that gay men are less monogamous about extra-marital adventures. My own suspicion is that gay men are simply more honest about flings. My other impression is that gay male couples put a much higher emphasis on honesty than monogamy. It is much safer for a gay man to have a partner who will tell him of outside adventures than to live with a myth of monogamy protecting from disease.


Peter: Forgive my naive intrusion into these proceedings, but doesn't the question of gay marriage come down to a simple question of constitutional rights and fairness? I'm no scholar, but I find it pretty hard to believe that a fair reading of the Constitution doesn't bestow the same rights on all citizens, promiscuity and other issues aside. If we are going to deny gay people the rights that straight people enjoy, there has to be a basis in law for denying them those rights. Is there such a basis? Whether we believe gay marriage is a desirable social institution or not, isn't the Constitution the last word on the subject?

Adeke: I'm just a simple child of God,worshipping with a church(Pasture of Life Discipleship Ministries,Nigeria) with a focus on discipleship and mission.I work with GS-Telecom Nigeria Ltd as Operation Engineer. I'm praying that this ungodly move will be crushed because America has always been a model to Africa/the world.Success of this move in America can only make it spread like wild-fire. I want to remind America that what they are enjoying today is the labour of good Christian leaders that lay the foundation of America on the Rock-- GOD

Reader: I was not aware that the purity of one's citizenship depended on his marital status. I don't know any single heterosexuals who go about complaining of their second-class citizenship. They don't generally behave like aggrieved members of a victim class, demanding that the state supply them with what nature, luck, and the moral sensibilities of their fellow citizens will not. Embedded within Mr. Dykes' objection ("second-class citizens") is the supposition that he has a right to that condition which will elevate him to first-class, which right is the very question at issue.

Even the expressed wish for an "alternative arrangement" again assumes the "right" to such a thing. And, again, not even heterosexuals make this demand. What a lot of them do is shack up together, as do homosexuals, but they don't then demand that the state recognize such a union. (They will, though, as homosexual civil unions spread across the country.) But even if the state does recognize such unions, it will not be enough. What the agitators want is society's moral approval, and only the right to marry will confer that.

We know something about the old and its benefits for society. We know nothing about what the effects of this new kind portend, although we can make some pretty good guesses. Those who would have us embrace the new dispensation for marriage are asking us to consent to a giant experiment upon the moral foundations of our society, and I'd like more than their word that the effects will be salutary and not subversive. Your efforts are heroic, Ms. Gallagher, but based upon the arguments I've seen coming from the other side, I just don't think the minds of your main interlocutors are subject to change. Which is no good reason to stop, of course, because I do think you will cement the loyalty, perhaps even the conversion, of many readers. Who knows? Maybe even Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day are reading.

Reader: In this debate I am finding articulate people from mostly the radical left and a few from the more standard left ( Maggie, etc.) I'm not reading contributions from the center as I understand these demarcations. Prior to 1973, one could speak out against war, advocate respect and opportunities for minorities and disadvantaged people, rail against the military industrial complex and corporate America, and retain a strong sense of dignity in identifying with liberal Democrats. That is where I was at and pretty much remain.

When it came to our views on homosexuality, liberals and conservatives near the center agreed that in no way should homosexuals be persecuted; Their practices were not condoned but were tolerated. The vast majority of humanity still retains a similar understanding of the homosexual condition.

Nevertheless, through the breakdown in marriage laws, the constant invasions from the fantasy world of movie-land and TV, the horrendously inordinate obsession with sexuality, the commercial trashing of modesty and moderation, the concomitant greed of consumption and gluttony with its accompanying eating disorders, and, most importantly, through the workings of a cadre of elite intellectuals hell-bound to deconstruct, to dismember all of the unifying societal forces that work towards the maintenance of healthy family structures that facilitate the development of individuals capable of approaching their real potential as human beings, we have now arrived at our present state in which the unthinkable and the utterly absurd is heralded as a great social good.

People imagine it is their right to not only be allowed to practice any number of bizarre sexual activities but to have our government officially sanction them, bless them! In the city of Portland, Oregon, the mayor issued a proclamation honoring the contributions of the leather fetish sado-masochists. With respect to society and family we are moving in the wrong direction. We need to strengthen the institution of marriage not debase it further.

Reader: So, Maggie, you lament about the state of heterosexual marriage previous to the quotation above, then lambast equal marriage rights advocates for pressing for equal marriage rights, because, as you say, the problems facing heterosexual marriage are more important than same sex marriage at this point.

Now, really, isn't this a bit hypocritical of you? Same sex marriage advocates should be trying to fix heterosexual marriage, otherwise they're "narcissistic" and selfish, but somehow it's acceptable for you to spend all of your time and efforts working against same sex marriage, rather than trying to fix heterosexual marriage?

Perhaps it's time for you to take some of your own advice. Rather than spending so much time and effort trying to keep committed people from getting the benefits of civil marriage, maybe you should put your money where your mouth is and concentrate your efforts on fixing the problems of heterosexual marriage. Otherwise, you're being entirely hypocritical.
posted by maggie at 1:06 AM VOTE 0 comments

THE WORTH OF GAY RELATIONSHIPS: Dale responds

Maggie and Dan, I care about marriage as an institution, including its underlying purposes and its future. This is why I have written publicly against those on the gay left who would like to abolish it. We need to debate this issue carefully, point-by-point, not avoid it with a back-of-the-hand to lawyers or "legal casuistry." Part of debating, as you well know, is trying to understand whether your opponent is defending a coherent idea and in a consistent way. That means if someone tells you, "marriage is for procreation and is not reducible to mere love," you have every right to ask whether, in practice and normatively, that is so. And if there are literally millions of non-procreative marriages already out there, you need a convincing answer for why this small additional increment of non-procreative unions will bring a plague of locusts upon the land.

Here's a hypothesis, which I cannot prove. I suspect the opposition to gay marriages has little actually to do with protecting heterosexual marriages. The threatened harms from this tiny number of gay marriages are just too implausible. This is why, I think, gay-marriage opponent John Derbyshire recently wrote in NR that it's best not to "think too much" about marriage because the arguments for keeping gays out aren't very persuasive to others. Very revealing.

Instead, many who oppose gay marriage seem to do so mainly because they think marriage is a beautiful and noble and socially productive thing, which it is, but they see nothing beautiful or noble or socially productive about an intimate relationship between two people of the same sex. Is it your view, Maggie, that there's nothing very noble or socially productive in gay relationships? Did it ever occur to you, Dan, that gay couples might have something valuable to contribute to a positive "vision of social goods"?

Every day in this country gay people are raising the unwanted and discarded fruits of heterosexual ecology. They sacrifice for each other and their communities. They seek another person to share an intimate life with, and are disappointed. They love deeply and suffer loss. When my partner was in the hospital, near death, he was so stricken by high fever that I put my body around his to keep him warm so he could sleep. When his mother was brain-dead and they were about to cut off her life support, I pulled him from her bedside and held him and felt a pain so deep inside me it has never left. When I was out of job, he supported me. When I felt unworthy or dumb, he made me feel like a god in his arms. If some advocates of gay marriage have little understanding or appreciation for the richness and depth of marriage, as Dan suggests, it's also true that some opponents of gay marriage have little understanding or appreciation for the richness and depth of gay life.

Instead, we get offered a cartoonish view of gay couples as hyper-promiscuous, disco-era selfish, incapable of real commitment, unfit to raise children. Many gay-marriage opponents seem to think of gays as beings on a separate continent, screwing themselves into extinction. This defamatory view would be humorous if its consequences were not so harsh. And gays get all this criticism simply for wanting to make a civilized public commitment to each other. I wonder what they would be saying about gays if we weren't pressing for the right to marry.


posted by maggie at 1:38 PM VOTE 0 comments

IS MARRIAGE A CIVIL RIGHT? Maggie responds to Ben

So Ben throws the narcissism charge right back at me, while Jonathan is appalled at my language in the NRO piece "The Divorce Diversion." Mostly this is a reply to Ben, will reply more fully to Jonathan separately.

Ben, what you are assuming is precisely what is under debate here: Are laws defining marriage as a cross-gender institution discrimination, or are they more like laws that restrict Social Security to old people, or public school to kids under 18?

Your references to Gentiles are suggestive here. If I follow your civil rights logic, it is religious discrimination to prevent Muslims from marrying four wives, Orthodox Jews are being discriminated against when courts refuse to accept Orthodox teachings on divorce, or when Catholics such as myself are denied to right to form indissoluble marriages. Everyone has the right to pursue marriage as they define it, excluding anyone's definition is the equivalent of racism, which means either no law or such a multiplicity of laws as to fragment the public meanings of marriage. Social institutions require shared meanings or they are no longer social institutions but private acts. (Jonathan, I realize my line of argument here does not fully respond to yours, which as I understand it is premised on the good and not just the right being denied.)

There are not two categories of people being included and excluded, one heterosexual and one homosexual. Some gays and lesbians do marry, many heterosexuals do not. Where do gay people who do not choose marriage stand in the eyes of law? With everybody else who does not choose marriage, or cannot find someone to marry, pursuing precious relationships of various kind that are private, not public, finding public honor for their achievements in other realms and roles: workers, citizen, neighbor, brother, son, intellectual. . . . Most of these folks who are outside of marriage are heterosexual. The number of heterosexuals who live outside the goods and burdens of marriage is enormously greater than the number of gays and lesbians: About 15 percent of Americans will not marry, about half of marriages will not last. The proportion of divorced people who go on to make a second, stable marriage is probably less than half (I will spare you the social science that lead me to that estimate here). Meanwhile of course millions of widows and widowers have to figure out how to live a good life for many years outside of marriage. (Then, Jonathan, there are those who while married, must choose marriage over the love you think is cruel to deny anyone, or their marriage would not last, and their children will grow up in fragmented homes.) Just taking the permanently single alone you are talking about about 33 million Americans, while the number of gays and lesbians (at any one time, people's identification as homosexual varies over time) is probably less than 10 million people (5 percent of adults).

At the risk of being called a cultural hegemon, Ben, I would once again assert that you have just as much an interest as I do in sustaining culture of marriage, because I assume you love this country and the civilization that it carries and thus care about whether or not it continues. If marriage is just a set of legal benefits attached to coupledom, then fairly distributing them is the main thing. (BTW most of what are being propagandized about as benefits are more accurately described as differences in legal treatment between married and unmarried people. Most of the legal benefits are pretty illusory. For example, lately I see gay advocates emphasizing the Social Security benefit available to surviving partners. But in almost every case, if you work at all, your personal Social Security benefit will be higher than the widow's pension, which was designed to offer some extremely pitiful minimal sustenance to women who have been full-time homemakers). But if the reproduction of society is the main point of marriage, then it is not a me versus you, it is us versus the forces of sexual disorganization, commercialization, narcissism, and short-sightedness that threaten the wider marriage culture.

posted by maggie at 12:31 PM VOTE 0 comments