GOTTA RUN

I'm off to a conference on marriage at Catholic University. Will post a report from that conference tomorrow, and will finally post on marriage and gender--sorry, have been running around like the proverbial chicken with its proverbial head cut off! Monday, we will start talking about same-sex parenting, I promise.

--Eve
posted by Eve at 11:36 AM VOTE 0 comments

EVE ON THE FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: Replying to Mark Miller and Andrew Sullivan

OK, I should know better than to drop a quick two-line statement on a complex issue! Here are my reasons for supporting Chuck Colson's version of the Federal Marriage Amendment--and why Miller is (understandably, b/c I was unclear) misconstruing my position.

Colson's FMA does three important things about as well as the political realities allow. In order of importance:
1) protect marriage
2) expand freedom of contract
3) acknowledge the importance of close personal relationships that are non-sexual

1) is by far my biggest concern; 2) is something I'm also very big on; 3) is something I really want the culture to do, and getting the law to do it is "extra credit."

Colson's FMA does 1) by protecting the marriage ideal: one man, one woman. We're being ahistorical and rationalist (rather than literary-minded or attuned to the reasons of the heart) if we confuse marriage with a particular package of benefits and privileges extended by a particular society at some point in time. Marriage existed long before Social Security and it will exist when Social Security goes bust. Both supporters and opponents of SSM know in their hearts that the word is important, because the word signifies the ideal, the aspiration.

Colson's FMA does 2) and 3) by allowing states to delink certain benefits from marriage if they choose. One example that comes up often is hospital visitation.

I dig this. Why is hospital visitation a benefit we should extend only to sexual, romantic partners? I'm single; does that mean I should have no ability to choose who makes medical decisions when I'm incapacitated?

In other words, it's not about denying legitimacy to homosexual relationships. (See comments here and here on whether we really want to conceive of marriage as the Uncle Sam Seal of Approval on our romantic lives.) It's about enabling people--even people whose closest chosen relationships are not sexual--to gain various specific protections or benefits if their state chooses to allow that.

I agree with Sullivan that civil unions and domestic partnerships are bad ideas, for exactly the reasons he gives: CU's and DP's will be taken up by opposite-sex couples. I want states to allow people to link particular benefits to particular people one by one (extended freedom of contract), but I don't want there to be a named "package deal" that people would think of as "marriage lite." I would love to bar these things in the FMA.

However, I can't figure out how to do that. Previous attempts to phrase the amendment so that it barred CU's and DP's got wildly complicated and foggy. Trying to pass an amendment that barred CU's would be even more quixotic than trying to pass an amendment that doesn't. Given those realities, I'm okay with fighting the CU battle on a state-by-state level. I trust that if Colson's FMA passes and we do end up fighting over CU's on the state level, I can count on Sullivan to help me oppose them.
posted by Eve at 11:28 AM VOTE 0 comments

MARK MILLER ON THE FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT

[Replying to Eve, here:]

Just to clarify, this amendment that you support would allow state legislators to extend some of the specific legal privileges of marriage to any two people who share the same residence. For example this could apply to unmarried couples, siblings, friends or a parent in the care of their children.

And you feel this amendment is in the interest of "protecting the institution of marriage." The government can give the benefits of marriage to any two people who share the same household (which, ironically, is not a current requirement of marriage).

This amendment succeeds in making your point. It makes absolutely clear that there will never be any legal recognition of gay relationships. It sends the clear message that a same-sex couple who wish to commit to themselves is the legal equivalent of two roommates sharing a home with a one year lease. And given the choice between providing the privileges of marriage to any two people who share a home and limiting those privileges to those who make a commitment but then having to recognize gay relationships, the
government would rather provide the privileges of marriage to anyone.

I have said it before and this proves it in my mind: This debate is not about "protecting the sacred institution of marriage" at all. It is about denying gay relationships legitimacy.

Is my view correct?
posted by Eve at 11:03 AM VOTE 0 comments

ANDREW SULLIVAN ON THE FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: From AndrewSullivan.com

[I don't know how to create a permanent link to a post on Sullivan's blog, so you'll have to go here and scroll down to "More Thoughts on the FMA."]

"To re-cap: The new amendment would therefore allow any kind of non-sexual relationship in the same household to be a civil union or domestic partnership. Two brothers; aunt and niece; co-workers; law partners; college room-mates; etc etc. The privileges of marriage would thereby be extended to almost anyone in French-style fashion. (This model, by the way, was considered and soundly rejected in Vermont and California and seems far more fitting as a piece of elaborate, social-engineering legislation than as an amendment to the Constitution.) The only exception to this would be any gay couples who presented themselves as gay couples, i.e. loving, intimate and occasionally sexual partners, like straight married couples. And the rationale for this is to "protect" the institution of marriage. But the more you think about it, the clearer it is that it does the opposite. It wrecks the special status of marriage in ways only the far left alone would support--by extending its benefits to almost anyone in even the most formal or casual relationship. Straight couples would be able to shack up easily and get benefits without any of the full responsibilities of marriage--exactly what the social right purports to oppose."
posted by Eve at 10:57 AM VOTE 0 comments

WHAT DO THEY WANT TO TALK ABOUT AT U-MD LAW? From Eve

Yesterday I attended a panel discussion at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore. The discussion was put together by Margins: Maryland's Law Journal on Race, Religion, Gender and Class. It focused on the legal issues surrounding SSM--the current state of the law, upcoming court action, and the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. Here are my admittedly scattered and biased impressions:

Karen Czapanskiy, a professor at the law school, described the recent string of court cases in which same-sex couples have tried to get courts to impose SSM. (And, in Hawaii, succeeded, leading the voters to amend the state's constitution.) She pointed out that the most recent cases may show state courts becoming more cautious, unwilling to be trailblazers, and more amenable to anti-SSM arguments. However, most of these cases are still wending their way through the courts.

Peter Sprigg, director of the Family Research Council's Center for Marriage and Family Studies, hammered on the fact that SSM is a form of marriage that has not been seen in history.

He asked what I think is a really good question: If marriage is not in some essential way linked to reproduction and childrearing, why on earth do we let government mess with it? If marriage is about government picking and choosing which intimate relationships it likes and which ones it disses, isn't that kind of... creepy? We explored that theme on this blog--start here and scroll up.

Sprigg cited two studies claiming to show that children raised by same-sex couples were more likely to identify as gay themselves, and girls raised by gay couples were more likely to experiment sexually ("less chaste" is the term he used, which I would take to mean having sex with more people at an earlier age?).

He argued that because male-male couples are less likely to insist on sexual fidelity, SSM would weaken the general understanding that sexual fidelity is part of the marriage ideal. I tend to agree with him on that.

And he argued that sodomy is unhealthy. I don't think the SSM argument needs to go there, frankly.

Joshua Baker, of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy a.k.a. the people who bring you this weblog, discussed the Federal Marriage Amendment. He noted that the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas took a hard line against government involvement in sexual/intimate relations, and again noted that if marriage is the way government picks which intimate relationships it likes, that looks a lot like government involvement in sexual and romantic relations. And so we might want to come up with a more robust understanding of marriage that is not based on getting my romantic life USDA-Approved.

Baker said he didn't think the FMA was currently necessary to protect marriage, but that it could become necessary soon if courts move to impose SSM.

Elizabeth Seaton, senior counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, started off by recounting a conversation she'd had that morning with her young child, who had wanted to know why Seaton was getting agitated about the speech she'd have to give at this panel. I can't recall the exact exchange, but it was something along the lines of, "Well, honey, there are going to be mean people there."

Child: "How are they mean?"

Seaton: "They say they're in favor of families, but they're not really" or maybe "but they're only in favor of some people's families--not ours."

Child: "Well, why don't you just tell them to take off their masks?"

Ohhhkay, everyone who disagrees with you is a bad person. Sigh.

More substantively, Seaton was the only one to discuss religion, noting that the First Amendment meant that no church would be required to perform or approve of same-sex marriages even if they became legal. I assume she was responding to events in, for example, Britain, where an Anglican bishop was briefly threatened with prosecution for hate speech when he said people with homosexual inclinations could change. Still seemed a bit of a non sequitur.

She pointed out (accurately) that it's not like same-sex couples caused opposite-sex couples' problems--the divorce rate, cohabitation, men who abandon their children, etc.

She also listed particular benefits provided by marriage. More on this in a moment.

Finally, Mina Ketchie, a lawyer in Virginia who specializes in (among other things) alternative family law, described the Sharon Bottoms case; pointed out that opposite-sex couples can be major disasters (she told a funny/sad story about a man who tried to get three divorces in three years via her office); and argued that the best interests of children are not dependent on the sex or number of the parents. (I didn't totally follow that part, to be honest--I wasn't sure if she meant that single parenting was as likely to be beneficial as married parenting, and gay couples were as likely to be beneficial as married mom 'n' pop, or if she just meant that it's better to leave a child with his single mother or lesbian mother rather than snatch him away.) Finally, she noted that although homosexual couples can patch together many of the benefits of marriage with contracts, these contracts are often contestable.

From conversations afterward, I gathered that students were strongly affected by the lists of benefits not granted to unmarried partners, and by the comparison to Loving v. Virginia and laws prohibiting interracial marriage. I'd like to focus on the latter question on this blog soon, since it comes up all the time.
posted by Eve at 10:49 AM VOTE 0 comments

WHAT DO THEY WANT TO TALK ABOUT AT YALE?: From Eve

Hi all. A few weeks ago, I saw Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry speak at the Yale Political Union in favor of same-sex marriage. He gave a good basic speech, pointing out that same-sex couples are already raising kids, and that marriage law in the US has already changed significantly in the past 100 years.

In response to a student's question, he defined marriage as a relationship between two people who commit to care for one another "in sickness and in health," etc., reinforced by legal obligations and protections. (This is what Jonathan Rauch said as well, and it's a version of Gabriel Rosenberg's description of marriage as essentially a vow to care for another person.) I note that this is a weirdly non-sexual and non-erotic understanding of marriage, but what can you do.

What interested me most was the fact that the student speakers and questioners seemed to want to talk a lot about the role of religion in politics. The Catholic Church was everybody's model for the religion/politics nexus, too: Is it appropriate, given the Constitution's prohibition on establishment of religion, for a senator to vote based on a document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith? If that isn't OK, how can a faithful Catholic serve in the Senate? etc.

My take-home lesson from that discussion is simply that secular arguments against SSM are not being heard. I don't think we need to drag Cardinal Ratzinger into this, no matter how much fun it is to say his name.
posted by Eve at 10:00 AM VOTE 0 comments

MASSACHUSETTS LAWMAKERS POSTPONE VOTE ON MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: From the Associated Press

Beacon Hill lawmakers decided Wednesday to postpone a vote on an anti-gay marriage amendment.

The House and Senate met briefly in a joint session to debate a handful of proposed changes to the Massachusetts Constitution, including an amendment that would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

As soon as they opened the session, lawmakers immediately voted to postpone any debate until February. ...

At the same time, lawmakers are trying to draft compromise legislation that would expand the legal rights of gay couples while outlawing gay marriage.

more, but the gist is all above
posted by Eve at 9:31 AM VOTE 0 comments

WISCONSIN DOMA FAILS BY ONE VOTE: From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

After a long evening of rancorous debate, the Assembly failed by one vote late Wednesday to override Gov. Jim Doyle's veto of legislation intended to define marriage as strictly a union between a man and a woman.

The action effectively kills the measure for this session of the Legislature.

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posted by Eve at 9:29 AM VOTE 0 comments

Marriage and Gender: Maggie v. Sam

So you say marriage is organized around women's sexuality (note: not their interests, or their their choices, but their sexuality and/or sexual interests).

One wonders why men do it, really. Masochism?

I think what is radically unlikely in your theory is the utterly one-sided nature of it. How and why could such an institution attract and sustain men? How do you explain why, even in a sexual revolution to the vast majority of men marry?

Let me suggest two non-utilitarian, or to use your language ":primal" sexual goods of marriage for men: a. It gives them fatherhood. A male and sexually affirming role which men can only really achieve through the bodies of a woman married to them. b. It gives them at least one woman who belongs to them. For the men, the principle of "at least one" woman willing to sleep with them is deeply important. And men too prefer to think a woman is sleeping with them because she loves them.

How do you explain men's willingness to marry in a sexual culture that allows men many other outlets. And how can you explain the defection of women from marriage (primarily through divorce) if this is the institution organized around their sexual needs? Are they blind? Un-womaned?

What?









posted by maggie at 11:35 PM VOTE 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND GENDER: Sam Schulman responds to Mike Pignatello

I don't argue myself that gay marriage will harm children--I say I tend to credit the arguments of those who think so, and note that the harm that they project is as much from the damage SSM will do to marriage as would actual families with gay parents (which of course have existed for eons).

Children might be substantially better off in conventional marriages than SSM (as they are in two-parent marriages rather than divorced households) but we must recognize that the APA will never release any data that might show such a thing, were it to be measurable.

Monogamy and stability are not fundamental to marriage--although marriage tends to increase the level of both qualities--but the connection of the two sexes is. (I don't care if the sexes are regarded as "opposite" or some other term.) Same-sex tension may well be beneficial--but I'm not recommending preserving marriage because it is beneficial or it is the sole path to "beneficialness" (indeed, many marriages are enormously destructive).

I say that marriage is about women, that marriage is the opposite of incest, and that we as a species cannot maintain the incest taboo without marriage as a unique institution, defined, in all its variations, as involving a connection between men and women that transcends (but may include) sexual intercourse and the making of children. All other relationships are not marriage.
posted by Eve at 11:43 AM VOTE 0 comments

CATHOLICISM AND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: From Commonweal Magazine

The current issue includes four pieces on SSM:

Paul Griffiths argues that although the Church is right about the nature of marriage and human sexuality, nonetheless same-sex marriage can't and shouldn't be stopped in our "profoundly pagan" society: "In cases of this sort, public argument cannot resolve disagreement. This is not to say that there is no truth of the matter, or that there are no good arguments about it. It is only to say what’s also true, which is that public argument will not succeed in producing consensus in this matter. To think that it could is to overestimate its capacities. Catholics should not, therefore, advocate the embodiment of the orthodox view in U.S. marriage law because we think there are persuasive public arguments about the question. There aren't."

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels replies to Griffiths: "Thus, Paul Griffiths seems to me mistaken in his claim that the Catholic view of marriage is so markedly different from that of others that political prudence counsels that Catholics not insist it be reflected in civil law. ...Withdrawal from public debate on the definition of marriage, or any other publicly contested issue is the gesture of sectarians--a perennial temptation of certain Protestant groups, and now of some Catholics, both right and left, as well as the newly self-styled "orthodox Catholics.'"

Edward Collins Vacek writes on "essentialist" vs. "postmodern" views of marriage: "It would be easier to decide whether there is such a thing as 'gay marriage' if one could establish the 'purposes' of marriage. Unfortunately, over the centuries there has been considerable waffling on this issue."

And Daria Donnelly interviews children's author Gregory Maguire about his experiences raising three adopted children with another man: "Questions of sexual complementarity--of what would be ideal for a child--are well worth asking. Certainly, Andy and I are in the vanguard of this (we hope noble and not morally dubious) experiment of charity: a family headed by same-sex partners. As such, we feel a profound interest in making explicit the value of women, of mothers, aunts, neighbor ladies, grandmothers, nuns, and godmothers (each of our children has three godmothers). But since we haven’t the capacity to change our genders--nor would we if we could--the more significant question to us is: Given where Andy and I are, capable adults in need of loving children in a world where children are in need of capable loving adults, how much might be sacrificed if we placed the idea of sexual differentiation and complementarity above all other concerns?"
posted by Eve at 8:51 AM VOTE 0 comments

NATIONAL REVIEW ON FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT

[Not online yet, but here are excerpts from Ramesh Ponnuru's piece in the current issue about divisions within the "social Right" over FMA:]

...Bill Bennett, Rios, and the Family Research Council, among others, argued strongly that
it would be pointless to fight for an amendment that allowed gay marriage in all but name. The amendment had to "protect an institution, not a word."

...It fell to Chuck Colson, the leader of Prison Fellowship and perhaps the most unifying figure among social conservatives today, to find a solution. On October 15, he succeeded in getting more than 20 groups to come up with a common position. They agreed that the amendment would prohibit gay marriage. It would also prohibit the states and the federal
government, including both the courts and the legislatures, from providing any benefits to people that were contingent on their being involved in a sexual relationship outside of marriage. The amendment would, however, allow state legislators to extend the particular privileges of marriage to gay couples -- just not as gay couples. People not in gay
relationships would also have to be eligible.

Say, for example, a state had made co-signing for loans a privilege of marriage. The state legislature could decide, under the amendment, to extend that privilege to any two people who share a home: a lesbian
couple, or an unmarried heterosexual couple, or two sisters who share the rent, or whoever. The legislature could come up with a bundle of
privileges formerly reserved to married couples -- bereavement leave, hospital-visitation rights, the ability to make joint adoptions, and so on -- and provide them more widely. ...

[Eve says: Wow, on first glance Colson's version sounds pretty much exactly like what I'd want. If people who support an FMA have objections to his position, I'd be interested in hearing them.]
posted by Eve at 12:22 AM VOTE 0 comments

NEBRASKA SSM LAWSUIT OK'D: From the Omaha World-Herald

Opponents of Nebraska's gay-marriage ban won the right Monday to go to court.

A request by the state to have a lawsuit against the ban dismissed in its infancy was rejected by U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon of Omaha.

Bataillon ruled that the amendment was ripe for a legal challenge.

...Attorney General Jon Bruning said the state still expects to win despite the day's setback.

"More than 60 percent of Nebraskans supported this amendment. And, they have a right to change the constitution as they see fit," Bruning said.

In 2000, voters in Nebraska approved a constitutional amendment on gay marriage. The ban also prohibited the recognition of civil unions, domestic partnerships or any other "similar same-sex relationships."

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posted by Eve at 12:06 AM VOTE 0 comments

GENDER AND MARRIAGE: Sam Schulman replies to Lynn Gazis-Sax

My statement that marriage exists to protect women from rape is not invalidated by her perfectly correct point that, marriage notwithstanding, women are raped. Rape is all too common, but it would be virtually universal were it not for marriage. And my perhaps "tragic" view of marriage comprehends that to some degree, in order to protect women from concubinage, marriage exposes some, alas, to inhuman relationships with a single man--relationships from which only the 19th century "invention" of divorce has mercifully made anything other than completely hopeless.

Nor does it invalidate my idea of marriage as female-centered that men also benefit from marriage (although my guess is that men who are already likely to be successful, happy, reliable and healthy gravitate towards marriage--rather than are made to be so by marriage). I agree that in modern, sociological terms, marriage benefits both sexes more-or-less equally. But the dissolution of the idea of marriage threatened (in my view) by the establishment of gay marriage would harm women more.
posted by Eve at 11:02 AM VOTE 0 comments

GENDER AND MARRIAGE: Sam Schulman replies to Eve

To your first point--I am not saying something new when I point out that marriage enables a woman’s sexuality--but I think it has tended to be forgotten, because women are hugely more sexually able outside of marriage than ever before. The larger point I was trying to make is that marriage is more consequential and essential to a woman's identity in a sexual relationship than it is to a man's.

To your second – how does gay marriage "break my leg or pick my pocket"? – it is precisely because I think that that question is a good one, and that the brilliant and impassioned arguments made against gay marriage by Maggie and her allies attempt to answer that question specifically--and do not quite succeed--that I wrote my piece. Gay marriage doesn’t--provably--cause harm in those measurable ways--but it does have more profound effects.

To your third point--I was not trying adequately to describe the comparative dynamics of same-sex relationships--a subject on which my opinion is worthless--so much as I was saying that in a gay "marriage"--not a true, loving relationship but a "marriage"--one partner must play the "bride," the other the "groom"--because marriage is something that is formed between men and women. And this is possibly distasteful and--I'd venture to say, agreeing with you--not relevant to what you propose as differently-structured relationships that occur between lovers of the same sex.
posted by Eve at 11:01 AM VOTE 0 comments

GENDER AND MARRIAGE: Sam Schulman replies to Maggie

Yes, I think I would say that your formulation is just--that marriage is in some essential way dictated and shaped by the conditions of female sexuality, and that men--in choosing marriage--do surrender to the conditions of female sexuality--although our friends Eve and Lynn Gazis-Sax will hasten to point out that many men marry and use the occasion to impose their will--sexually and otherwise--upon women.

A point I haven’t made adequately is that marriage is dangerous--it allows a man and a woman to put themselves in one another’s power--and, human nature being what it is, this will create the opportunity to commit many a crime in secret. This, I think, is a further argument one could make to gay people who wish to obtain the privilege of marriage: Marriage between people who are not and cannot be kin, but merely lovers and friends, will even more often aspire to the married state of Terri Schiavo--become an opportunity for the young and strong ruthlessly to loot and victimize the old and weak who are sexually needy. Between men and women this condition is still the exception--dear Mr. Schiavo and Anna Nicole Smith are notable rarities.
posted by Eve at 10:58 AM VOTE 0 comments

GENDER AND MARRIAGE: Matt Taylor

[Matt Taylor is a computer programmer in Minneapolis, MN.]

Here is my take on why Sam Schulman opposes same-sex marriage:
1. SSM would alter the age-old definition of what it means to be human, maybe changing humanity beyond recognition.

2. SSM threatens the process of procreation necessary to the survival and well-being of our species.

Though I lean toward supporting same-sex marriage, I found myself agreeing with Sam in two key ways.

1. I agree that SSM would alter the definition of what it means to be human. Replacing "the union of one man and one woman" with "the union of two people" asserts that men and women are interchangable, at least for this one very important social institution. This alters the historical understanding that gender is at the core of one's being. In answer to the question "what are you?", most present-day people are far more likely to say "I am a man" or "I am a woman" than "I am a person".

2. I agree that the future of our society rests in large part on the extent to and manner in which we procreate. By procreation I mean not only the biological process by which male and female produce offspring, but also the cultural process whereby mother and father raise children and teach them how to live.
posted by Eve at 10:56 AM VOTE 0 comments

GENDER AND MARRIAGE: Mike Pignatello replies to Sam Schulman

Schulman claims that gay marriage will harm children: "Those analysts who have focused on how children will suffer from the legalization of gay marriage are undoubtedly correct."

Where is the proof? Tens of thousands of children are already being raised in gay families across the U.S. Many studies (such as those conducted by the American Psychological Association) do not show any demonstrative difference between children raised in same-sex parent homes and those raised in opposite-sex parent homes.

Schulman writes, "Some of our fellow citizens wish to impose a radically new understanding upon laws and institutions that are both very old and fundamental to our organization as individuals and as a society."

But it is hardly "radical" to support the notion that there are male-female relationships other than monogamous marriage that sustain societies. Based on what we can observe in other cultures, monogamous male-female marriage has not had exclusive claim to the throne of family structure.

Finally, Schulman positions SSM outside the realm of possibility by claiming that,"...by definition, the essence of marriage is to sanction and solemnize that connection of opposites which alone creates new life. (Whether or not a given married couple does in fact create new life is immaterial.)"

So marriage has to be "opposites." Is that sexual opposites? Gender opposites? Personality opposites? Eve has mentioned "tension" between the sexes, which can be healthy for parenting. But how do opponents of SSM know that same-sex tension is not the same as opposite-sex tension, or is not as beneficial?
posted by Eve at 10:53 AM VOTE 0 comments

WHAT CAN CONTRACTS DO?: DaleA

[DaleA is an antiques dealer who has gone through the experience of trying to enforce partnership powers.]

I have been in the situation where armed with contracts and powers of attorney I tried to make decisions that these clearly empowered me to make. When the response from the medical providers was "sue me," I soon realized the limitations of what I could do. And what anything short of actual marriage accomplishes.

To suggest a contractual arrangement is to deny reality.
posted by Eve at 10:40 AM VOTE 0 comments

MAINE COURT RULING ON SAME-SEX PARENTING: Gabriel Rosenberg

[Answering Eve's question about what the court decision said about same-sex parenting as vs. a mother and a father.]

The opinion of the Maine SJC is available here.

It is not long. The only question it truly answered was whether an anonymous sperm donor needs to be given notice of a hearing to appoint guardians. (No.) The other question asked of the court was whether the probate court had the power to appoint a co-guardian with a natural parent. The court said this question was never in doubt. The answer is
yes. In determining whether to grant a guardianship the court must decide what is in the best interest of the child. So in short, the answer to Eve's question is (a) there could potentially be some cases in which a
particular child might be served best by having two particular co-guardians of the same sex.
posted by Eve at 10:30 AM VOTE 0 comments

WISCONSIN GOVERNOR VETOES STATE DOMA: From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Two days after the Legislature sent him the bill, Gov. Jim Doyle on Friday vetoed a measure to define marriage as strictly a union between a man and a woman, calling it redundant and unnecessary.

"This bill is just another example of the Legislature focusing its time and energy on divisive, mean-spirited bills," Doyle said in a statement announcing his veto.

Assembly Majority Leader Steven Foti (R-Oconomowoc) immediately promised that the Assembly would try to override Doyle's veto, perhaps as early as next week.

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posted by Eve at 10:25 AM VOTE 0 comments

GENDER AND MARRIAGE: Maggie v. Sam

Dear, dear Sam:

Whether or not marriage is about emotional satisfactions is not of course the issue between us. I certainly would not say that the reason marriage is a universal human institution is because it is so emotionally satisfying.

Here is your argument as I understand it: Marriage is "about" women, in some sense, you deny to be emotional but prefer the word primal. So in order to be marriage, one of the male partners would have to "be" the woman who is being protected by the act of marriage. If I follow your argument. And one of the women in a lesbian couple would "be" the male who is commiting the act of protecting women we call marriage.

Marriage is the act of male surrender to the conditions of female sexuality, for the purpose of protecting women?

Let me pause here and see what you think about this formulation.

Maggie
posted by maggie at 5:18 PM VOTE 0 comments

GENDER AND MARRIAGE: Eve replies to Sam Schulman

I agree with Sam that marriage is a necessarily gendered institution--an institution that unites men and women, not "persons." That said, there are several things about his Commentary piece that I don't get. I'll ask my questions in this post, then briefly sketch my own sense of how gender and marriage relate in a separate post.

1) Picking up on Maggie's and Lynn's comments: It seems like Sam is arguing that in societies structured to give women sexual and parental control only within marriage, women attain a degree of sexual and parental control by marrying. I'm not sure how this is a) news or b) relevant to a society like our own, which extends some degree of sexual and parental control to unmarried women.

2) Maybe "same-sex marriage" is a contradiction in terms. But how does it pick my pocket or break my leg? (This is why I tend to talk in terms of "why society honors marriage," rather than "what marriage is"--the former gets much more directly at how Smith's redefinition of marriage would affect Jones.)

3) This might be a tangent, or it might not: What does Sam mean when he says, "In a gay marriage, one of two men must play the woman, or one of two women must play the man"?

This sounds like a claim that same-sex unions will replicate opposite-sex roles. I would argue that same-sex relationships are generally structured differently from opposite-sex relationships precisely because of gender differences. (There are some obvious implications here for discussions of different standards of fidelity in same-sex couples and discussions of same-sex parenting.)
posted by Eve at 11:01 AM VOTE 0 comments

NOTES FROM A SAME-SEX MARRIAGE CONFERENCE: From David Wagner's blog, Ninomania

David Wagner is a law professor at Regent University.

"...More interesting, among the morning panels, were the presentations by European law profs who have recently been active in various forms of SSM/civil union legislation in Western Europe. Overall, I sense that Europeans are less passionate about this, on both sides. It seems France, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries have all created some form of civil union for same-sex couples; some benefits traditionally associated with marriage go with these, others are still reserved for marriage. Good old European urbanity: not much principle, but not much venom-spewing either. ...

"And what did most of us at the Boston Radisson's 6th floor conference room that day want [marriage] to be? The answer was very clear: benefits. ...

"Are certain reasonable benefits (such as the right to be with a loved one in the hospital, or the right to designate one's partner as executor of one's estate) available without legal marriage? SSM advocates are constrained to say no--yet at one of the afternoon panels, Scott M. Donohue, Esq., a practicing attorney who clearly supports SSM somewhat embarrassed his allies by detailing the numerous ways in which, with a smart lawyer like himself, same-sex couples can in fact secure many of the legal benefits of marriage."

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posted by Eve at 10:40 AM VOTE 0 comments

GENDER AND MARRIAGE: Lynn Gazis-Sax replies to Sam Schulman's Commentary piece

Lynn Gazis-Sax is a quality assurance engineer in southern California.

If I'm looking at what is ancient and unfailing and unwritten (to use Schulman's own adjectives) about marriage, if I try to find *that* fundamental good, then it can't possibly be that women get to regulate
who has sex with them, and certainly it can't be that marriage protects us from rape.

Given that marriage exists in societies where women are subject to honor killing for being raped (while their rapists get off scot free), societies where women are forced to marry their rapists, and a whole lot of societies where husbands can, if they want, rape with impunity, I don't think protecting women from rape has a whole lot to do with it.

Besides, Schulman's way of framing things sounds as if marriage is primarily a good for women. And from what I understand, married
men are, on average, healthier, happier, and do better in their careers, while married women, on average, are happier, better off financially, and have more support for raising their children. It looks to me as if marriage is a benefit for both sexes. Maybe a benefit in slightly different ways for both, on average, but a benefit about equally for both, all the same.
posted by Eve at 10:11 AM VOTE 0 comments

GENDER AND MARRIAGE: Sam Schulman replies to Maggie

Responding to Maggie's comments:
I wouldn't say that marriage's "essence" is about respecting women's freedom to choose fathers -- but about making possible the ability of, initially any, now most women's freedom. The nature of humanity for most of history was unspeakably awful, and of course most women and children--and men too--were unprotected.

If you were to substitute for "women's freedom of choice" the bare possibility of maintaining her integrity within a choice usually imposed upon her, and for "psychological well-being" the basic precondition of existence as a human being, you'd get closer to what I was trying to
say. Marriage exists in every society -- even those that radically degrade women.

I also agree that your formulation is more emotionally satisfying than mine--but part of my point is that marriage is not about emotional satisfactions, but about something more primal.

You're absolutely right, Maggie, when you say that sex makes babies and babies need mothers and fathers. But...if it were merely biological tools to help childrearing we were concerned with, we could dispense with them as easily as we have dispensed with the biological tools necessary to hunt. And the arguments of the gay marriage/gay parent advocates take precisely this line--"we can use our minds and circle-of-friends and Internet tools etc. to do a good-enough job of parenting, even if we're the same sex." I
think that what propels most of us who think as we do is something deeper than the arguments which take place on this level can reach.
posted by Eve at 10:04 AM VOTE 0 comments

GOP SEES '04 ISSUE IN GAY MARRIAGE: From the Boston Globe

[Eve says: Oy, another one in the parade of such articles, as we twiddle our thumbs waiting for the MA Supreme Judicial Court decision....]

Republican strategists are planning to make gay marriage an issue in the 2004 political race if the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules that same-sex couples can legally wed in the Commonwealth, a decision as eagerly awaited in the capital as in the Bay State. The
court could make Massachusetts the first state to allow gay and lesbian marriages -- which other states eventually might have to honor,
opponents say.

Under pressure from social conservatives who want President Bush to campaign against gay marriage in 2004, GOP officials say they are studying battleground states where same-sex unions could be a wedge issue in national and state races, and they are weighing endorsement of a proposed federal constitutional amendment sanctioning only heterosexual marriage. ...

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posted by Eve at 9:55 AM VOTE 0 comments

139 BELGIAN SAME-SEX WEDDINGS IN SIX MONTHS: From 365Gay.com:


In the six months since Belgium became the second country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, 139 gay couples have tied the knot.

The figure was released today by the Flemish LGBT group Holebi. It based its figure on the number of registered weddings up to September in six Belgian cities.

...About two-thirds of the couples were men.

...Gay couples now enjoy most of the same rights as heterosexual married partners, apart from those related to adoption -- meaning that in a lesbian couple the biological mother would remain legally a single parent.

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posted by Eve at 9:50 AM VOTE 0 comments

GAY EPISCOPALIAN BISHOP: From a letter to the Los Angeles Times, 8/16/03:

"The actions taken by the New Hampshire Episcopalians are an affront to Christians everywhere. I am just thankful that the church's founder, Henry VIII and his wife Catherine of Aragon, his wife Anne Boleyn, his wife Jane Seymour, his wife Anne of Cleves, his wife Katherine Howard, and his wife Catherine Parr are no longer here to suffer through this assault on traditional Christian marriage."
posted by Eve at 9:47 AM VOTE 0 comments

NH SUPREME COURT: GAY SEX NOT ADULTERY: From the Associated Press

For those following the "legal definition of consummation" discussion:

If a married woman has sex with another woman, is that adultery? The New Hampshire Supreme Court, ruling in a divorce case, says no. ...

Part of the problem in New Hampshire is that adultery is not defined in the state's divorce laws. So the court looked up "adultery" in Webster's dictionary and found that it mentions intercourse. And it found an 1878 case that referred to adultery as "intercourse from which spurious issue may arise."

Other states, including Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, have defined adultery in broader terms -- beyond intercourse -- to include gay sex.

"I think the majority opinion is unintentionally trivializing same-sex relations and violating modern notions of the sanctity of marriage," said Marcus Hurn, a professor at Franklin Pierce Law Center.

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posted by Eve at 9:40 AM VOTE 0 comments