ARIZ. GOVERNOR VETOES BILL ON DIVORCE PROPERTY SPLITS: From the Associated Press

Governor Janet Napolitano today vetoed a bill to let judges consider marital misconduct when deciding how to resolve financial issues involving divorcing couples.
The bill would have affected divisions of community property, calculations of spousal maintenance and determinations of child abuse.

Napolitano says in her veto letter that the bill would have clogged family courts with new issues to be considered in divorce cases.

She also says that current law already protects innocent spouses against criminal conduct by their spouses.

Bill supporters claim the measure would have given judges more leeway to make decisions that affect innocent spouses.

But legislative critics say the bill created the potential for confusion and conflicting rulings because the term "marital misconduct" was not defined in the bill.

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RELIGIOUS FREEDOM UNDER SIEGE IN CANADA: Janet Epp Buckingham

...Let me give you the short list of who is facing some sort of legal action right at this moment in defence of their religious freedom in relation to the redefinition of marriage:

1. Bishop Henry is facing two human rights complaints in Alberta for comments he made in a pastoral letter on the marriage issue.
2. Kevin Kisilowsky has made a human rights complaint in Manitoba to be allowed to continue acting as a marriage commissioner, providing civil marriage services, even though he refuses, on the basis of his religious beliefs, to solemnize a same-sex marriage.
3. Claude Eliot the mayor of Gander, NF, resigned his marriage commission because solemnizing same-sex weddings is contrary to his religious beliefs.
4. A Knights of Columbus group is facing a human rights complaint in British Columbia for refusing to rent its hall, on property owned by the Archdiocese, to a lesbian couple for their wedding.
Bill C-38 does not protect these people. Just think about the list of people potentially impacted by the redefinition of marriage:

Teachers who will be forced to teach about same-sex relationships and validate same-sex marriage to their students without accommodation for their deeply held religious beliefs. See the Chris Kempling case.
Students who will not have their religious beliefs respected but will be forced not only to learn about theses issues but also to reproduce what they have learned on tests.
Politicians will be required to give congratulatory certificates on significant anniversaries of same-sex couples.
Printers will be required to print invitations for same-sex weddings. See the Scott Brockie case.
Halls, caterers, florists, musicians, etc. will all be required to provide their services without discrimination to same-sex weddings.
This requires many, many people to validate same-sex weddings. It is not just a private matter between two people, it impacts all of society. Gunter rightly argues that religious freedom is under siege in this country.

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posted by Eve at 4:32 PM VOTE 0 comments

GROUP FILES LAWSUIT SEEKING BENEFITS FOR GAY LONG ISLAND COUPLE: From the Associated Press

An organization that advocates for gay rights filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of a homosexual couple from Long Island who married last year in Canada, but were denied spousal health benefits from the Uniondale Union Free School District, an attorney said.

"New York law is clear that when couples get validly married somewhere else, their marriages are recognized in New York," said Alphonso David, an attorney at Lambda Legal, which filed the suit in state Supreme Court in Mineola.

"It doesn't matter that same-sex couples can't get married in New York right now--if they were married legally somewhere else, the law says they're legally married here."

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posted by Eve at 4:28 PM VOTE 0 comments

TWO PATHS DIVERGED IN THE LIBIDO: Justin Katz

...But these are distractions. The main reason that heterosexuals, generally speaking, don't require extended inner dialogue about the meaning of sexuality is that a plain observation of biological reality provides the essential: procreation. (Frankly, when I was an atheist, I would have argued that the single most objective "meaning" to life is procreation.) As pleasurable as sex may be, and as much as the provision of pleasure can rightly become a secondary meaning, the fact that procreation remains central can be seen in the lengths that heterosexuals must go to deny it. Even all of the contraptions, the changing of body chemistry, and the dismemberment of unborn progeny do not fully succeed in permitting denial.

For homosexuals, on the other hand, not only is that denial allowed, but it is required if they are to formulate "what sexuality means" in a way that doesn't mire their sex lives in the secondary. Even conservative gays (among whom Michael counts himself) must take a radical view of sex or else admit something in which there is neither sin nor reason for shame: that their sexual attractions are, in the Catholic phrasing, "objectively disordered."

Whether they like it or not, denial of this conclusion--which is not meant to be belittling--is inherently subversive. Witness Michael's insouciant response to the

question "Will gays androgynize marriage?":
I dunno. Probably. But that's a good thing. Not that men and women are completely interchangeable, but that men and women can feel free to fulfill the roles they're good at fulfilling.

In one swoop, the meaning of sex has not only engulfed the significance of gender, but also installed the individual as the definer of roles in a relativist process of blending what one wishes to do and be with a self-assessment of what one is "good" at doing and being. The denial is, in St. Paul's language, of what can be "understood and perceived in what [God] has made." We do well to consider his explanation and admonition, not as an insult, but as the advice of one concerned with our individual and collective well being--lest while claiming to be wise, we become fools. Even inner dialogues require more voices than one's own.

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posted by Eve at 4:23 PM VOTE 0 comments

DAUGHTERS AND FATHERS, GIRLS AND MEN: Hugo Schwyzer

here
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WHERE'ER UPON LIFE'S SEAS WE SAIL: From the Yale Daily News

...And in that park, tears freezing halfway down her cheeks, half-sobbing and breathlessly reassuring worried passersby that she was okay, Hagan made a pact of her own, and was transformed from girlfriend to fiancee.

That was more than a month ago, and aside from the occasional excited message from her older sister -- "Stephanie, I have six ideas for your wedding, call me back!" -- her senior essay has pushed Hagan's wedding plans to the back burner.

Such are the challenges of tying the knot -- or promising to -- while a student. Considering that the average age of marriage has been gradually climbing since the middle of the century, it's not hard to imagine the reactions the small number of engaged Yale undergraduates have received from their peers. The proportion of their lives women will spend married has decreased dramatically, and a study by the Center for Disease Control shows that 56 percent of women are unmarried at 25, Theresa Kirby of Rutgers University's National Marriage Project said. ...

Hagan's friends have reason to be worried, Kirby said: women who marry before they are 25 are significantly more likely to experience marital disruption. But though Hagan worries about a lot of things -- planning the wedding ceremony, for example -- her decision to marry is not one of them. ...

Sylvia Glassco '05 said the full impact of her commitment to fiancee Carolina Oster '05 is registering gradually.

"The other day I was in the train station, standing in line, and it just hit me," she said. "Oh my god, I'm getting married, and that means I'm a lesbian, and that means I'm never going to be with anyone else, and oh my god! I have moments like that all the time." ...

History professor emeritus Gaddis Smith '54 GRD '61 said that when he got married as a freshman in college, it was significantly less of an anomaly. Thanks to an influx of married veterans returning to school after World War II, including former president George H. W. Bush '50, marriage as an undergraduate was increasingly common.

"I couldn't go out to frats and stay up drinking all night," he said, "but other than that, things were pretty normal."

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posted by Eve at 4:16 PM VOTE 0 comments

DC WARNED ON GAY MARRIAGE: From the Washington Post

A leading Senate Republican warned Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) yesterday that a move to recognize gay marriages in the nation's capital would trigger a sharp backlash from Congress, and the mayor acknowledged that the District could jeopardize its budget agenda and domestic partner benefits if it mishandles the issue.

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback (R), the new chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the District, said he wanted to hear more from Williams but opposed a statement by the city's attorney general that "validly married same-sex couples" may file joint D.C. tax returns.

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posted by Eve at 4:13 PM VOTE 0 comments

MAJORITY BACKS FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: Steve Koval

The timing of the election of Pope Benedict XVI yesterday and the "all Pope -- all the time" news coverage probably worked out well for gays. It hid some disturbing Gallup Poll numbers released yesterday on gay marriage:

"[P]ublic support for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as 'being between a man and a woman, thus barring marriages between gay or lesbian couples' has now risen to 57 percent in a recent Gallup poll, the highest measured across the seven times the question has been asked using this wording since the summer of 2003. The poll, conducted March 18-20, shows that 37 percent of Americans oppose such a constitutional amendment. Support has ranged from a previous high point of 53 percent in February 2004 to a low point of 48 percent last July to the current 57 percent"

Here is the breakdown by party favoring/opposing a constitutional amendment barring gay marriages: Republicans support the amendment 71-24 percent, Independents back it 51-45 percent, and Democrats oppose it 45 to 47 percent.
Despite the increase in support for a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage, the combined support for gay marriage and civil unions is still slightly greater than the opposition to these.

The most recent poll asked:

"Which of the following arrangements between gay or lesbian couples do you think should be recognized as legally valid: same-sex marriages, civil unions, but not same-sex marriages, or neither same-sex marriages nor civil unions?"

Same-sex marriage and civil unions were favored by 47 percent (20 percent for same-sex marriage and 27 percent for civil unions), while 45 percent were not in favor or either. In a November 2004 poll, 53 percent favored same-sex marriage and civil unions.

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posted by Eve at 4:08 PM VOTE 0 comments

TEXAS HOUSE PASSES GAY FOSTER CARE BAN: From Southern Voices Online

The Texas House voted 81-58 late Tuesday to approve an amendment to foster care legislation that would ban lesbians, gays and bisexuals from serving as foster parents. The legislation also authorizes the state to conduct investigations into the sexual orientation of current foster parents. ...

"I think it is important that children ought to be able to establish their own sexual identity without being in a biased environment," Talton said during debate on the measure. "That's what I'm trying to prevent." ...

Senate Bill 6 now goes to a conference committee, where activists say they hope representatives of both houses will vote to exclude Talton’s amendment. From there, it goes back to both houses for a final vote.

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THOUSANDS RALLY IN MINN.: From the St. Paul Pioneer Press

Thousands of Minnesotans rallied today to show their support for what they see as crystal clear: marriage should only be between one man and one woman.

Those gathered on the state Capitol lawn said they simply wanted to be able to vote on a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as only the union of one man and one woman. The amendment would make constitutional the current ban on same-sex marriage in law. ...

The Minnesota House approved placing the marriage amendment on the 2006 ballot late last month. The full Minnesota Senate has not yet voted on the issue but last month it refused to pull the amendment from committee to the floor for a vote.

To add an amendment to the Minnesota constitution both the House and the Senate must first approve of putting it on the ballot. It then has to be approved by a majority of Minnesotans voting in a general election. The next general election will be in November 2006.

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posted by Eve at 12:01 AM VOTE 0 comments

CT APPROVES CIVIL UNIONS FOR SAME-SEX COUPLES: From the Associated Press

Connecticut on Wednesday became the second state to offer civil unions to gay couples--and the first to do so without being forced by the courts.

About an hour after the state Senate sent her the legislation, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed into law a bill that will afford same-sex couples in Connecticut many of the rights and privileges of married couples. ...

Vermont is the only other state to allow civil unions. Massachusetts allows gay couples to marry. But those changes came about after same-sex couples won court battles. ...

Roman Catholics and pro-marriage activists plan a big rally Sunday in opposition to the bill.

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posted by Eve at 11:44 PM VOTE 0 comments

COSBY'S CALL AND OUR RESPONSE: Robert Franklin's blog!

...blog about the black family, from an Emory U professor. (Via Family Scholars.)
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UK LESBIAN SEEKS TO GIVE BIRTH TO PARTNER'S BABY: From 365Gay.com

A lesbian is hoping to make British history by becoming the first in the UK to give birth to her partner's baby.

"We want a baby that has truly come from both of us," said Hayley Marlow, 29.

She and partner Vicky Hill, 22, have applied to the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority to have an egg from Hill impregnated through in vitro fertilization and then have the egg planted in Marlow's womb.

The HFE which oversees IVF procedures says there is no law prevented it. The procedure has been done in other countries, including the US, but has never before been done in Britain. ...

But, even if the procedure is successful there will remain some legal hurdles. Under British law the baby would belong to the birth mother, not the one who supplies the egg.

The HFE said that the only way the women could become equal parents would be if the mother who gave birth were to renounce her claim to the baby and then they could adopt it.

Marlow and Hill have been together for just over a year. Marlow already has a five-year-old daughter from a previous heterosexual relationship.

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posted by Eve at 6:47 PM VOTE 0 comments

CALIF. DEMS ENDORSE SSM: From 365Gay.com

California Democrats have wrapped up their annual convention with a resolution supporting same-sex marriage. ...

The resolution calls for civil marriage to be extended to same-sex couples. It passed unanimously and as the vote was being taken many delegates displayed signs that read "AB 19" in support of an assembly bill that would extend civil marriage to same-sex couples. The legislation was recently introduced by Assemblyman Mark Leno, an openly-gay Democrat from San Francisco.

The vote makes California the fourth state Democratic party to officially call for marriage equality. The Democratic parties of Massachusetts, New York and Washington State have all expressed support for marriage equality, either by resolution or through a state party platform.

The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, authored by Leno, is expected to pass through the Assembly Judiciary Committee on April 26.

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posted by Eve at 6:43 PM VOTE 0 comments

COLLEGE TAUGHT HER NOT TO BE A HETEROSEXUAL: Dennis Prager

Perhaps the most important argument against same-sex marriage is that once society honors same-sex sex as it does man-woman sex, there will inevitably be a major increase in same-sex sex. People do sexually (as in other areas) what society allows and especially what it honors.

One excellent example illustrating this is an article recently written in the McGill University newspaper by McGill student Anna Montrose. In it, she wrote:

"It's hard to go through four years of a Humanities B.A. reading Foucault and Butler and watching 'The L Word' and keep your rigid heterosexuality intact. I don't know when it happened exactly, but it seems I no longer have the easy certainty of pinning my sexual desire to one gender and never the other." ...

I interviewed Anna Montrose, a bright and articulate 22-year-old woman, on my syndicated radio show. She is a fine example of the type of thinking and behavior a homosexuality-celebrating culture -- such as that at our universities -- produces.

The following are selected excerpts, edited for reasons of space, from that interview. The full transcript, the audio and her original article are all available on my website, www.dennisprager.com.

DP: Prior to attending university you had your 'rigid heterosexuality' intact. Is that correct?

AM: I think that that's pretty fair to say.

DP: So you and I both believe that how people behave sexually, including which sex they will engage with sexually, is largely determined by society and not by nature.

AM: Yeah, I completely agree.

DP: Gay rights activists say the opposite. They say that whether you act homosexually or not is fixed; and I don't believe it's fixed necessarily at all and neither do you.

AM: But I think that [the activists'] argument has a political purpose, which is to counter the argument that heterosexuality is fixed.

DP: I agree with you. But we both think that they're not telling the truth for the sake of making a political argument.

Since we both agree that largely whom we have sex with and sexual behavior generally are culturally determined, the only question is: Would we like culture to determine [these things] one way or the other? I think 'yes' and you think 'not'. I have a heterosexual preference because my values tell me that male/female love is the ideal. You don't think it's the ideal. Is that fair? ...

AM: Well, hope [for marriage] would imply that that would be ideal. But I'm not going to say that getting married would be ideal. But I'm also not against marriage; I mean you get insurance benefits by getting married so I can definitely see a case where I would get married.

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posted by Eve at 6:29 PM VOTE 0 comments

COUNCIL ON CONTEMPORARY FAMILIES MEDIA AWARDS: Press release

The Council on Contemporary Families [CCF] will present its Fourth Annual Media Awards on May 13th at 12:15 at the Embassy Suites Hotel at Boston's Logan Airport. The winners are writer, editor and speaker Peggy Orenstein and John Cloud, a leading young journalist at Time Magazine.

The awards will be followed by a luncheon at which Stephanie Coontz, Professor of History at The Evergreen State College, will preview her forthcoming national book tour for "Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage," and Steven Mintz, CCF Co-Chair and Professor of History at the University of Houston, will discuss his new book "Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood." Complimentary copies of each book will be available to the press.

The 2005 Award for Outstanding Coverage of Change in America's Families will be awarded to John Cloud, reporter for Time Magazine, for his article on "The Battle Over Gay Marriage." This award reflects the committee's recognition that in the past year a multitude of important family-related issues have played out against the backdrop of gay marriage: the way families are valued, the boundaries between public and private life, and the tension between fundamentalist ideologies and fundamental fairness. Jurors were impressed by the scope of Cloud's research and his balanced approach to an enormously complex and nuanced topic.

The 2005 Award for Outstanding Coverage of Family Diversity will be awarded to Peggy Orenstein for her article in The New York Times Magazine: "The Other Mother". As the article's subtitle recounts, "K. Provided the Eggs, Her Lover the Womb and for Nearly Six Years the Two Women Raised the Twin Girls Thus Conceived. But When the Women Broke Up, K. Learned How Fragile the Definition of Motherhood Could Be." Orenstein's moving portrait of this family is drawn against a deeply thoughtful analysis of parenthood as a cultural [rather than biological] construct and the legal and emotional hazards confronted by parents in this fast-changing arena.

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posted by Eve at 6:25 PM VOTE 0 comments

2 (ok, 3) LINKS FROM FAMILY SCHOLARS:

"Divorce Rate: It's Not As High As You Think"

and "Married With Problems? Therapy May Not Help," to which Elizabeth Marquardt adds a link to "How Therapists Threaten Marriage."
posted by Eve at 6:12 PM VOTE 0 comments

CHASTITY GROUP AT PRINCETON: From the NY Times

Yet another alternate sexual lifestyle is being promoted by a group of Princeton undergraduates: one of chastity and abstinence outside of marriage.

Members of the Anscombe Society maintain that campus life has become so drenched in sexuality, from the flavored condoms handed out by a resident adviser to the social pressure of the hook-up scene, that Princeton needs a voice arguing for traditional sexual values. Traditional, at least, from the days before their parents went to college.

Their aim is not to pass moral judgment, they say, only to inform.

"Even though morality does factor into it, we want to enrich the discussion of sexual issues and family," said Cassandra Debenedetto, a sophomore from Stow, Mass., who was one of the founders of the group last fall. "So we also present sociological data and medical research. We want to bring all of those issues in."

The group is named after Elizabeth Anscombe, the Cambridge University Anglo-Catholic whose 1977 essay "Contraception and Chastity" is famous among conservative Roman Catholics for setting out a philosophical defense of the papacy's strictures on sexual behavior. She died in 2001. ...

Ms. Debenedetto, who is co-president of the Anscombe Society, says the group has about 80 members, judging by its e-mail list. The university has also accorded the group official recognition, which gives the society the use of university rooms for meetings and a page (princeton.edu/~anscombe/) on the university Web site.

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CONSIDER "RECIPROCAL BENEFITS": Tim Nashif

...First, marriage was never intended as a means to access rights. I believe that degrades the institution. The rights and benefits associated with marriage are a byproduct, designed to recognize and encourage the contribution and strength traditional families make to society.

Second, same-sex civil unions grant rights based solely on sexual orientation. Many family arrangements that don't qualify for marriage are no less deserving of the benefits as are gay families. For example, two sisters living together, or two widows. Or a single man living with his aging mother. Should we extend special benefits to some citizens because they're gay, but exclude others because they're not?

I'm not unsympathetic to the challenges of non-married families. But I don't believe sexual orientation should be the litmus test for legal rights. Defense of Marriage is working to introduce a bill on reciprocal benefits.

It's similar to a law Hawaii adopted and several other states are seriously considering. It makes available helpful benefits, such as making medical decisions and automatical inheritance rights, to any couple that can't legally marry. Ultimately, the Legislature must decide what benefits should be included.

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posted by Eve at 10:16 AM VOTE 0 comments

WHAT NEXT IN OREGON: From The Oregonian

...The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, which filed the case rejected by the Supreme Court last week, will file another lawsuit within the next few weeks seeking civil unions for same-sex couples, said David Fidanque, executive director.

"In case the Legislature doesn't act," he said, "we have to move forward with a new lawsuit."

A civil union law would give gay and lesbian couples the same property, inheritance and medical rights that married couples have. If the Legislature passes such a law, groups opposing it say, they, too, will file a lawsuit.

The Senate plans hearings within a couple of weeks on Senate Bill 1000, which would provide civil unions and prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians in employment, housing and other areas. ...

In place of civil unions, the Oregon Family Council, a group that publishes a Christian voter guide, will push a "reciprocal benefits" bill modeled after a law adopted in Hawaii, said Tim Nashif, political director. ...

A reciprocal benefits law would allow same-sex couples or other adults who cannot marry -- for example, two sisters -- inheritance and burial rights as well as the ability to make medical decisions for one another. ...

Some gays and lesbians, however, oppose civil unions as an unacceptable compromise that gives them second-class status.

Love Makes a Family, a group for gay and lesbian families, will not fight SB 1000, but neither will it support it, said the Rev. Cecil Charles Prescod, director.

"We feel it may, in fact, limit the possibility of gaining full marriage equality," he said.

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posted by Eve at 10:12 AM VOTE 0 comments

MORE ON OHIO MARRIAGE AMENDMENT AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE STATUTE: From 365Gay.com

A county prosecutor is appealing a judge's ruling that unmarried people cannot be prosecuted for domestic violence because of a new law banning gay marriage. ...

In Cuyahoga County, dozens of cases have been thrown out. In Athens and Columbus, prosecutors have said they won't change the way domestic violence cases are handled. "The purpose of (the amendment) was to prevent gay marriage and civil unions," Hutzel said in a statement. "The purpose of the domestic violence laws are to provide additional protections to victims of violence from relatives or intimate partners. These are different concepts, and there is no reason that both goals should be seen to be in conflict."

In one case, a Cuyahoga County judge cited the amendment in reducing a felony domestic violence charge to a misdemeanor assault charge.

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posted by Eve at 10:01 AM VOTE 0 comments

PUSHING FOR POLYGAMY: Megan Basham

...On March 3, Utah attorney general Mark Shurtleff and Arizona attorney general Terry Goddard held a joint summit in St. George, Utah, to deal with allegations of abuse, molestation, incest, and fraud coming from within the twin border cities of Hildale and Colorado City. Approximately 10,000 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) reside in the country's largest polygamist communities and for decades (thanks to a disastrous police raid in 1953) have remained largely beyond the short appendages of local law. The government offensive on the area that was then called Short Creek turned out to be a public-relations nightmare in which the press depicted the state as a malicious invader that ripped screaming children from the arms of their parents and separated loving husbands from their devoted wives. The event was defining enough that even 52 years later Goddard made a point of opening the conference by calling the Short Creek raid a "shameful mistake" and asking polygamists present to "let the past be the past." From that time on, both Utah and Arizona's tacit polygamy policy remained "don't ask, don't tell."

Recently though, reports of child brides giving birth in county hospitals, absconders seeking legal restitution, high rates of deformity resulting from incest, and rampant welfare and tax fraud have become too great for authorities to ignore. Now, as the attorneys general's offices seek to "build bridges" that will provide victims of the polygamist system the means to report abuse, they are making it clear they have no intention of indicting an "alternative lifestyle choice" even if it is the breeding ground for all manner of crime. ...

David Chambers, a professor of law at the University of Michigan, wrote in The Michigan Law Review that those who support plural marriage ought to also support gay marriage. He argued that rather than reinforcing a two-person definition of marriage, gay marriage would make society more accepting of further legal changes: "By ceasing to conceive of marriage as a partnership composed of one person of each sex, the state may become more receptive to units of three or more." Similarly, Alternatives to Marriage Project activist and University of Utah law professor Martha Ertman noted in The Harvard Law Review that legal and social opposition to polygamy is decreasing and that increasing acceptance of homosexual partnerships is slowly (and, to her mind, rightly) resulting in the final destruction of the traditional marriage ideal.

The primary tactical difference between polygamist communities and gay-marriage activists is that the former have traditionally neither sought nor desired government recognition or even government involvement (with, of course, the exception of public assistance). But as the ideology of those on the frontlines of the gay-marriage debate trickles down to cloistered FLDS communities, they too are beginning to push for unqualified endorsement in the eyes of the law. And why shouldn't they, now that gay couples are starting to make great strides in the same direction? They may not be progressive lawyers authoring treaties in law reviews, but Hildale and Colorado City residents certainly understand the logic of their case.

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posted by Eve at 9:38 AM VOTE 0 comments

BROOKS' PARADOX: Andrew Sullivan

David Brooks, in another smart column, points out that from the beginning of the 1990s, we have seen a sharp decline in all sorts of anti-social behavior: crime, abortion rates, teen pregnancy, and so on. At the same time, the last fifteen years have been marked by the high watermark of gay visibility and activism. If the assumptions of many social conservatives are true--that there is a direct relationship between culture and society, and that gay visibility is a sign of moral decline--then none of this should have happened. But it did. In fact, I think the two phenomena are linked. At the same time that teen pregnancies and abortion rates were falling, the gay rights movement moved toward the goals of social responsibility, i.e. the right to serve one's country and the right to marry the person you love, with all the responsibility that entails. If any other formerly liberal minority group had embraced those goals, conservatives would have rejoiced. But gays cannot win. If we embrace counter-cultural leftism, we are a threat to society and the family. If we embrace conservative social values, like marriage and military service, we are a threat to society and the family. The bottom line social policy toward gay people embraced by social conservatives is that gay people simply shouldn't exist. And if they do exist, society has to pretend they don't. When was the last time you read an essay in, say, the Weekly Standard or National Review, making a case for how gays actually should fit in to society? Or how gay culture could be improved? David Brooks is one of those conservatives who actually asks himself what a sane conservative social policy should be toward homosexual citizens and family members. (The obvious, glaring, simple answer is: encourage stable relationships.) That's why Brooks is a real conservative. And why those who want simply no social policy toward gays--except a vague disdain and loathing--are better understood as reactionaries and soft bigots rather than as actual conservatives.

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posted by Eve at 9:32 AM VOTE 0 comments

SSM DEBATE AT BOWLING GREEN STATE U: From the BG News

...The panel included Andrew Koppelman, professor of law at Northwestern University; Judith Stacey, professor of sociology at New York University; Jennifer Roback Morse, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University; and Laura Sanchez, associate professor of sociology at the university, who took the place of Katherine Spaht of Louisiana State University. ...

According to Morse, the ability to create and raise a stable family is a premier argument against same-sex marriages.

"It is a well-established fact that children that grow up with their biological parents that are still together are better [at] growing up," she said. It is better, because those children who grow up in other-than-heterosexual families consume a lot of consumer resources and are overcompensating for what's not going on at home.

During the first 30-minute question-and-answer session by audience members, Wendy Manning, professor of sociology at the university, rebutted Morse's claim.

"There are no studies showing the comparison of same-sex and heterosexual couples. There is not an appropriate comparison group," she said.

Furthermore, the traditional notion of a child's biological parents staying together and raising him or her in a conflict-free environment is no longer reality, she said.

"Is the children growing up better a legitimate argument against same-sex marriage?" Koppelman asked rhetorically. "Well, a large number of convicted child molesters are step-fathers -- does that mean that widowed or divorced women should not be allowed to remarry?"

Koppelman, a published author of "The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law," simply stated that as the same-sex marriage controversy continues to evoke emotion on the federal and state fronts that the nation as a whole will have to learn to agree to disagree.

"There are 40 states clearly against same-sex marriage -- both sides want nationwide recognition. Neither side is getting what it wants. What we need is a way to live together in disagreement," he said.

From an economic standpoint, Koppelman said that the nonrecognition of same-sex couples between the states keeps those individuals out of the state altogether -- creating a loss of revenue.

"The loss of rights [to gay couples] is a reason to stay out of Ohio," he said. "It is a burden to interstate commerce."

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posted by Eve at 9:18 AM VOTE 0 comments

CAN WE MAKE BOYS AND GIRLS ALIKE?: Stanley Kurtz

...Sociologists have thought long and hard about the cultural "reproduction of society"--the transmission of deeply held cultural attitudes across the generations. Some social thinkers focus on the conscious transmission of cultural messages through religion and custom, while others highlight the influence of deeper social structures, such as economic organization or family forms. The most sophisticated feminist theories of gender--those that offer the most plausible alternatives to biological explanations--take the latter view. To explain the reproduction of gender differences, they zero in on family structure, especially during the first months and years of life, to a time when the way we care for children is far more important than the words we speak. ...

Chodorow hypothesizes that the differences between the sexes simply derive from the contingent circumstance that women happen to be the primary caretakers of children. The special, "feminine" empathy required for rearing children, she suggests, becomes indelibly associated in our minds with people who just physically happen to be female. Identifying with their daughters, moreover, mothers tend to stay tightly connected with them for years, drawing them into a circle of mutual dependence and empathy that is the essence of femininity. So it's not television ads or Barbie dolls that turn little girls into caring women, who themselves want to be mothers. It's the emotional closeness of mothers and daughters that perpetuates the conventional female sexual role for generation after generation.

Boys learn their gender lessons early, too, Chodorow maintains. Since traditional mothers assume that boys are different from girls, early on they tend to encourage their sons to be independent. As mothers begin to push their sons out of the warm circle of empathy, boys get the message that people with Daddy's kind of body should act differently from the way Mommy acts. If they want to be men, boys learn, they've got to overcome the qualities of emotional empathy of people like Mom. Masculinity thus finds its ground in a rejection of "feminine" qualities.

If we could just break the association between gender and child care, thinks Chodorow--if men as well as women could "mother" children--then we might vanquish gender. Men and women would still have a few distinct body parts, of course, but "masculine" and "feminine" personality differences would no longer have anything to do with bodily equipment. No one would assume that only people with a certain kind of body should be caring and empathic. The speed with which a child became independent would no longer depend on whether it was male or female. A new era would dawn.

Yet even if this understanding of gender as learned behavior is right, androgyny proponents quickly run into a problem. As Chodorow herself underscores, mothering by women produces women who themselves want to be mothers. The mechanism at work may be social and psychological, rather than biological, but it's no less real for that. How, then, do you get women to mother less and men to mother more, especially when, according to Chodorow, everything in a typical male's early rearing makes him wrong for the job? ...

But what if a society actually existed--not just a theoretical utopia--whose inhabitants yearned for androgyny? What if a society existed whose citizens, motivated by a burning passion for perfect justice, committed themselves to a total reorganization of the traditional family system, with the express purpose of eliminating gender? Such a society has existed, of course: the early Israeli kibbutz movement. The movement wasn't just a precursor to modern feminism, it's important to add. The kibbutzniks were utopian socialists who wanted to construct a society where the ideal of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" would govern the production and distribution of goods. It was as part of this larger socialist vision that the kibbutzniks set out to wipe away gender.

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PUBLIC HEDONISM AND PRIVATE RESTRAINT: David Brooks

...The fact is, sex is more explicit everywhere--on "Desperate Housewives," on booty-quaking music videos, on the Internet--except in real life. As the entertainment media have become more sex-saturated, American teenagers have become more sexually abstemious.

Teenage pregnancy rates have declined by about a third over the past 15 years. Teenage birth and abortion rates have dropped just as much.

Young people are waiting longer to have sex. The percentage of 15-year-olds who have had sex has dropped significantly. Among 13-year-olds, the percentage has dropped even more.

They are also having fewer partners. The number of high schoolers who even report having four or more sexual partners during their lives has declined by about a quarter. Half of all high school boys now say they are virgins, up from 39 percent in 1990.

Reports of an epidemic of teenage oral sex are also greatly exaggerated. There's very little evidence to suggest it is really happening. Meanwhile, teenagers' own attitudes about sex are turning more conservative. There's been a distinct rise in the number of teenagers who think casual sex is wrong. There's been an increase in the share of kids who think teenagers should wait until adulthood before getting skin to skin.

When you actually look at the intimate life of America's youth, you find this heterodoxical pattern: people can seem raunchy on the surface but are wholesome within. There are Ivy League sex columnists who don't want anybody to think they are loose. There are foul-mouthed Maxim readers terrified they will someday divorce, like their parents. Eminem hardly seems like a paragon of traditional morality, but what he's really angry about is that he comes from a broken home, and what he longs for is enough suburban bliss to raise his daughter.

In other words, American pop culture may look trashy, but America's social fabric is in the middle of an amazing moment of improvement and repair.

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posted by Eve at 3:36 AM VOTE 0 comments