There’s a teapot tempest going on over this Washington Post column.
I basically agree with Conor Friedersdorf when he says “There Probably Isn’t Any Neutral Way to Report on Homosexuality.” A person who complains that the Washington Post’s “Date Lab” – a fluffy blind-date series that almost never includes lesbian or gay couples – is biased towards gays, is a person who objects to same-sex couples ever being presented in a neutral light. (How is the Post supposed to “balance” a “Date Lab” article, anyway – should the reporter alternate describing the date with quotes from John Piper on how gay marriage means America has lost its soul?)
But I thought “Nathan” in the comments of Rod Dreher’s blog, made a good point (I’ve added paragraph breaks and corrected typos):
And while we’re on the topic of biased accounts of marriage (and sex), it’s worth noting the traditionalists’ own biases. There is a tendency for traditionalists to paint the modern conception of marriage as motivated largely by individualism and hedonism run amok. America got rich and then America got immoral. And there is, to be fair, some of that. People do like that they can indulge their sexual peccadilloes (or perversions, as some traditionalists would have it) so long as they can find a consenting partner.
But it is not as if the traditionalist conception of marriage was never tried. It was tried and abandoned. And it was abandoned, in large part, not for reasons of hedonism but as a response (and admittedly, perhaps an overreaction) to genuine injustices abetted by the traditionalist understanding of marriage. Arranged marriages resulted in poor pairings or marriages for the wrong reasons. The unavailability of divorce resulted in much mistreatment of women. Homosexuals suffered grinding persecution. These are not small problems.
It is not clear to me, for example, how you safeguard against the abuse of women in bad marriages in the absence of permissive divorce laws. Nor is it clear to me what sorts of lives homosexuals can have in a resurgent traditionalist society. The modern conception of marriage is the answer to a set of questions. What are we to do with someone trapped in a marriage not of her own choosing? What are we to say to a woman who is badly mistreated by her husband? What are we to do with homosexuals? If traditionalism is to have any chance in the marriage debate, it has to compete with the modern conception. It has to answer these questions more compellingly than the modern conception does.
It’s not clear to me that traditionalists have met that burden. And if they don’t, then the victory of the modern conception is justified, is it not?
To that last question, I suspect that many cultural traditionalists would say “no.” I think many cultural traditionalists are simply indifferent to the fate of lgbt people, and don’t see anything wrong with that indifference. It’s not that they lie awake in bed shaking clenched fists in the air and going “grrr, grrr, gays, how I hates them!” in the manner of Gollum hating Baggins. It’s that as long as they get what they want – in this case, no legal recognition for same-sex marriages – they genuinely aren’t interested in what that does to lgbt people.
In their eyes, this indifference makes them neutral. In my eyes, it means they’re prejudiced against lgbt people. Prejudice isn’t only overt hostility; refusing to treat the interests of lgbt people as fully legitimate and equally important is also a form of prejudice.
Similarly, sexism doesn’t require someone to overtly hate women (or to overtly hate men). I’m sure that most traditionalists love and hold dear many women in their lives. That doesn’t change that permissive divorce laws give abused women a better shot at leaving bad marriages, and getting rid of permissive divorce laws will be harmful to those same women. And indifference to this outcome isn’t something I can sign on to.
I think of myself as pro-marriage. I want marriage to be stronger. I’m convinced by the evidence I’ve read that many people want but can’t find happy marriages; that marriage makes many people happier and healthier; and that for many people, marriage is a good way to form a family (including raising children). We’d be better off if fewer people decided they’d be better off divorced.
But I’m not and will never be indifferent to what’s best for lgbt people, and for abused women. If being pro-marriage means accepting laws that hurt those folks, then I can’t be pro-marriage. And I’m not alone in that view.
Categories: Marriage
In their eyes, this indifference makes them neutral. In my eyes, it means they’re prejudiced against lgbt people.
Indeed, we cultural traditionalists are prejudiced against LGBT people in the same way that you are prejudiced against polygamists. I suspect you don’t lie awake at night wondering about the fate of polygamists who aren’t allowed to marry who they choose, are you? Why are you indifferent to them? And what are you offering them?
Bravo! Bravissimo!! You certainly aren’t alone in that view.
(I suspect you don’t lie awake at night wondering about the fate of polygamists who aren’t allowed to marry who they choose, are you? Why are you indifferent to them? And what are you offering them?)
I would argue that marriage equality advocates give extensive head space to this question. Balancing the restriction of the rights of women and children in traditional religious polygamist families against the rights of people to form more egalitarian polygamous families is something most marriage equality supporters have at thought about. Start a thread and see. Expanding rights while protecting the vulnerable is our thing. What we offer polygamists is a chance to make their case and have it debated on it’s merits. we are no more indifferent to their outcomes then we are to gay peoples.
Newspapers cover stories that are newsworthy, and these days, gay and lesbians topics are newsworthy: DOMA, same-sex marriage, celebrities coming out of the closet, a president mentioning gay and lesbian citizens in an inaugural address, citizens having strong opinions about the topic, etc. There’s a lot going on and articles about these topics never fail to generate interest, judging by all the comments that follow them.
There is an enormous difference between reporting and advocacy. Anti-gays consider any non-judgmental treatment of gays and lesbians as advocacy, because, in their minds, you’re either with us or against us: if you’re not condemning gay people, you’re going to bat for them. George Bush famously said, of other countries’ role in the global war on terror, “You’re either with us, or against us.” I think he was wrong: there’s a middle, neutral ground for nearly any issue.
Look at the reaction the small Mississippi town when its newspaper published the region’s first same-sex wedding-like ceremony: much anger, and revenge. The newspaper didn’t say “this is great this is happening” to my knowledge, but merely reported the kind of event that makes the news anywhere: something new, something novel, something out of the ordinary.
Joe, I’m not sure if you mean your polygamy comment to be a “gotcha!” comparison, but I don’t think it works … because a) if someone IS prejudiced against practicing polygamists, they probably would acknowledge that as a bias, and b) not everyone who is a supporter of same-sex marriage is categorically opposed to polygamous marriages. I won’t speak for Barry on this point, but for myself I would say that while there are many red flags about current day polygyny practices (what we’re mostly talking about when we talk about “polygamy” these days) — including coerced marriage, underage marriage, abuse of women, and the marginalization of less-powerful men — the cause is not necessarily plural marriage per se but how we have chosen to practice it — including our decision to push it underground, where those abused within such marriages feel pressure to hide their relationships, rather than seek help above-board.
Thanks for sharing the comment from “Nathan,” Barry. He’s made a really perceptive and articulate point, I think, about the failure of certain less inclusive, less egalitarian marriage models to win popular support in the positive sense — popular support that’s about increasing peoples’ happiness and well-being rather than simply about excluding certain groups of people from the “in” group.
Like, if your positive experience of marriage is based on excluding me, as a bisexual woman with a wife, from the marriage club, then that feels an awful lot like high school cliques meets country club membership … and, like, really? It’s perpetuating a type of social hierarchy I find distasteful and also unnecessary … marriage will stay meaningful as a social and personal institution even if I am allowed into the club (like, at least on the state level, I already have been!), and even if I carry on living my radically egalitarian feminist lifestyle with my wife!
This one sentence is a big issue for me as a gay woman opposed to ssm, right now. I struggle with it quite a bit. If traditionalists right now can’t offer alternatives for gays that are their allies, some meaningful place at the table of life, and they have not done so; quite frankly, I suspect it would be a return to we’re deviant persons. It’s a short step backward from saying “your attractions are disordered” to “your disordered“, and what that has meant forever.
Awful grammar in my last sentence above. Should read:
It’s a short step back from saying “your attractions are disordered” to “you’re disordered”, and what that has meant forever.
I think it’s important to note that it is not biased to support equal legal rights and treatment for gay and lesbian people. That is the neutral position! The two polar positions are: gay people should have more rights than straight people, and, straight people should have more rights than gay people.
It’s not “media bias” when newspapers or TV shows portray gay families in the same way they portray straight families, flatteringly or unflatteringly. It may contribute to creating social and legal equality, which anti-gays don’t want to happen, but that reflects their bias, not the media’s.
Kevin wrote:
“It may contribute to creating social and legal equality, which anti-gays don’t want to happen, but that reflects their bias, not the media’s.”
Can one immediately conclude that being opposed to ssm is ‘anti-gay’, as persons? In my opinion, anti-ssm does not equate to anti-gay. There is no equivalency in that statement, at least in my eyes.
Because ssm is such an important social issue, so contrary to long held tradition belief on marriage, I think the press should be more open to articles coming from the anti-ssm viewpoint. I, also, think the press should have a major discussion on the whole issue of ‘equality’: what it means, what it entails for social policy.
The press is one avenue of education. It is, also, a prime avenue for social discourse on important topics. Discourse means having variant points of view understood and discussed as they pertain to a healthy society. The press has no right to decide for society what should and shouldn’t be discussed prior to social consensus. The press is the town hall of opinion, not the propaganda arm of a totalitarian view.
At the moment, in my opinion, the press is acting as censor, eliminating voices that have every right to be heard. And, more than that, it is denigrating any opposing views with linguistic slurs. It is painting, broad-brush, those that oppose ssm as bigots, anti-gay, gay haters, etc.; and, that is simply not true.
Given that polygyny is the traditional form of marriage throughout human history, I’m surprised Joe and other “traditionalists” would be opposed to it. But of course most “traditionalists” want actual, traditional marriage about as much as SCA members really want a society exactly like the 15th century; which is to say they want to cherry-pick the good parts and overlay it with a modern sensibility.
I suspect a few people will argue that reactionaries do in fact consider the needs of abused women, because fault-based divorce would permit them to leave their marriages. In my experience, reactionaries have an unrealistic view of what things they don’t like entail, and really think that getting a divorce is as quick and easy as getting a pedicure; they don’t seem to understand how difficult and humiliating it is to force an abuse victim to try and prove in court that the abuse was sufficiently bad in order to allow her to leave.
Joe,
“I suspect you don’t lie awake at night wondering about the fate of polygamists who aren’t allowed to marry who they choose, are you? Why are you indifferent to them? And what are you offering them?”
A more informative and productive approach than this line of questioning, and pre-emptively assuming you know his answers, would be to simply ask Barry what his opinions are in a sincere manner.
But, since you’re here representing a cultural traditionalists (and thus far, indifferent) viewpoint, do you have anything to say, substantively, about the indifference many cultural traditionalists have with respect to the fate of LGBT people?
At the moment, in my opinion, the press is acting as censor, eliminating voices that have every right to be heard.
Oh, please. This reminds me of the old Christopher Buckley joke about a TV show where [paragraph-long list of conservative commentators and pundits with national audiences] discuss the liberal bias in the media. “The press” is not silencing you or your allies, unless by “silencing” you mean “failing to treat with the utter deference we feel is our due”.
Well, it has been reported 50% of gay marriages are open.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/us/29sfmetro.html?_r=0
A quote: (“The Gay Couples Study has followed 556 male couples for 3 years–about 50% of those surveyed have sex outside their relationships with the knowledge and approval of their partners”)
The study can be found here from the Center of Research on Gender and Sexuality: http://crgs.sfsu.edu/
Well, it has been reported 50% of gay marriages are open.
Setting aside what ‘has been reported’ (interesting use of the passive, there), the two-year-old link you cite does not say that half of gay marriages are open. For one thing, nothing is said about whether the “couples” are married, and the study is of men only..
Interestingly, if one takes time to track down the original study instead of relying on the NYT’s reporting, it appears that while the study overall has focused on 556 male couples for various types of longitudinal research, the particular portion of the study about open relationships only looked at 39 couples.
I suppose we could waste time looking at and comparing adultery and ‘open relationship’ rates among heterosexual couples, but really I don’t see the need, given that the actual conclusion of this study is that, in a group of 39 gay male couples in the San Francisco area who volunteered to participate in a study, half of them had open relationships.
If, as conservatives argue, marriage civilizes men, isn’t that precisely what these men need to change their wayward behavior?
zztstenglish, could you explain how this study is relevant to the discussion of what “traditionalists” might offer woman and GLBT people?
I’d also point out that a study of 500 Bay Area gay male couples is hardly representative of a) all gay male relationships, nationally, or b) all same-sex marriages. Historically-speaking, gay men and lesbian women and bisexuals in same-sex relationships all show different types of relationship patterns; you can’t conflate a narrow study of a particular gay male demographic with “gay marriage” in its entirety, any more than you could conflate statistics about Chicago-area heterosexual swingers with statistics about heterosexual marriages as a broader category.
annajcook, you’ve probably heard it before also, but there’s an argument against same-sex marriage that says “gay men are naturally and shamelessly promiscuous, therefore we shouldn’t permit them to marry as they’ll make a mockery of the institution.” Lesbians, as ever, do not exist in this worldview, and the view that marriage is a natural and appropriate check on men’s inborn tendency to tomcat around is temporarily set aside.
@Mythago says “‘open relationship’ rates among heterosexual couples”
http://students.law.drake.edu/lawReview/docs/lrVol58-allen.pdf
See page 1070 -1071 (“A number of studies have found gay couples to have explicit open-marriage agreements in about fifty percent of unions. These agreements tend to break down about thirty percent of the time. However, according to the research, the couples more often report extra sexual partners improve their relationships. This type of behavior contrasts significantly with heterosexual relationships in which open marriages are extremely rare“) See footnote 104.
@Anna – Because I’m challenging Barry’s false notion that including gay marriage somehow strengthens marriage when, in fact, their understanding of marriage is different. Not to mention the evidence I submitted states the opposite. Marriage is suppose to be a closed union.
Well, so far, the cultural traditionalists in this particular conversation have offered LGBT people a false equivalence to polygamy, a sketchy application of a study about 39 Bay Area gay male couples, and a claim that opponents of SSM are being “censored” and “slurred” by the media.
I thank Barry for raising the question, because it’s one I wonder as well. What place do LGBT people have in cultural traditionalists’ “ideal” society? Do we even have a place? Because, in my experience, this approach of talking about pretty much everything other than what LGBT people are asking for or need is not unusual.
I think we have good reason to be wary of what else many cultural traditionalists have to offer LGBT people.
When we’re not offered indifference, what is offered does not often address the actual needs and actual lives of LGBT people.
@zztstenglish, let’s start from the beginning; you claimed that ‘it has been reported’ that half of gay marriages are open. That is not even what ‘has been reported’; what the NYT article you linked to described was a study of a group of gay male relationships, not marriages, ignoring gay women entirely, and the study cited by the source actually said that a group of 39 San Francisco-area gay men in relationships found half of those relationships were open.
The second article you linked to is a law review article which, despite claiming rather broadly that ‘a number of studies’ find gay men have explicit open relationships half the time, cites to two studies in support of its arguments. The first study examined a small group of gay male couples in the San Francisco area and examined “how the process of making those agreements, and their perceived quality, varies depending on couple serostatus”; the abstract does not in fact say that half of those relationships were open and that a third of those agreements broke down, as suggested by the law-review article. The second citation, curiously, is simply to a scholarly book, not to any page or chapter of that book where one might look to find the source of the law-review author’s claim. It also is something of a strange argument; the law-review author is contrasting unmarried relationships with married ones, so that even if we assume his assertion that open marriages among heterosexuals “are extremely rare”, we’re still comparing apples to oranges.
zztstenglish, thank you for elaborating.
I’d like to ask that you think about what you mean when you say “their understanding” … whose, exactly? Not all gay people think alike, or think about marriage in the same way — they are as varied in their opinions on the matter as straight people. There are open marriages between heterosexual couples, yet no one is arguing that because of that straight people should be barred from marriage because “their understanding of marriage” fails your litmus test.
when, in fact, their understanding of marriage is different
But you have offered no evidence of this. Your “evidence” consists of 1) a study of a group of 39 gay male relationships (not marriages), half of which are open and half of which are not, and 2) a badly-sourced assertion in a law review article which claims that open marriages (not relationships) among heterosexual couples “are extremely rare”.
From this, we are suppose to extrapolate that gay men and lesbians as a group, if allowed to marry, will predominantly have open marriages, thus weakening the institution.
Teresa, I somewhat agree with you, but I don’t understand your view that voices against marriage equality have been cut out of the press. Obviously, such voices abound in the conservative papers and magazines. But even in The Washington Post, you can find anti-SSM voices speaking for themselves, in letters and point/counterpoints but also in op-eds:
Why I oppose gay marriage – Washington Post
The pope’s consistent position on gay marriage – Washington Post
In the gay marriage debate, stop playing the hate card
Same-Sex Marriage: Opposing Views
On gay marriage, is Obama ‘imposing his religion’? – Guest Voices – The Washington Post
Well, SOME of those who oppose SSM are prejudiced against lgbt people; do you really deny that?
I am interested in what you’re saying here, and open to the idea that there’s a pattern of unfair treatment of SSM opponents. But I think your argument would be strengthened if you could link to a couple of specific examples of mainstream newspapers like the Post denigrating SSM opponents in a way you find objectionable.
Zztstenglish:
Nowhere in this post did I argue that “including gay marriage somehow strengthens marriage.” That might be an argument I’d be willing to make another time, but it’s not an argument I made in this post. This post has a subject, and it is a subject you are rudely ignoring.
I request that from now on, you please post regarding the topic of this post.
@Barry – This is what you said “I think of myself as pro-marriage. I want marriage to be stronger” and then follow it up later with “If being pro-marriage means accepting laws that hurt those [lgbt] folks, then I can’t be pro-marriage.”
What did you mean by that exactly? Please explain. Because it sure sounds like it.
@anna – In accordance with the law.
(Well, SOME of those who oppose SSM are prejudiced against lgbt people; do you really deny that?)
People who complain about features type coverage of gay relationships and social events confuse me. I’d be interested to hear any defence of
this particular complaint as other than straight up bigotry.
@Teresa
“Can one immediately conclude that being opposed to ssm is ‘anti-gay’, as persons? In my opinion, anti-ssm does not equate to anti-gay. There is no equivalency in that statement, at least in my eyes.”
I tend to use “anti-gay” as a descriptor for people who oppose or at least accept diminished treatment of gay and lesbian people.
But if you are aware of the hardships that gay and lesbian people face by not being granted equal legal status as straight people, then you, at least implicitly, accept marginalized status for gay and lesbian people. Does that amount to hate? Maybe not on the level of fear and loathing, but it represents negative feelings towards gay and lesbian people on some level, it seems to me. Unless you disagree that gays and lesbians are harmed by being denied access to civil marriage, then you are willing to accept the harms that befall them. That may not be your prime motivator for opposing same-sex marriage, but your willingness to accept those harms, especially in the absence of supporting a viable alternative (if there is one), suggests to me some kind of negative feelings towards gay people, if only indifference to the sufferings of others.
I’d also add that a blanket, collective rejection of same-sex marriage, regardless of any gay couple’s particular circumstances (long time commitment or raising children, for example, or a lack of access to health insurance extended only to an employee’s spouse) earns you the right to similarly be lumped together with others who oppose same-sex marriage, and it’s well documented that dislike of gay people is an enormously popular motivation among legal same-sex marriage opponents. If you’d like nuanced and individual consideration for your anti-gay marriage position, perhaps you’d be willing to extend that treatment to gay and lesbian couples. So I’ll ask: would you be willing to at least support legal marriage rights to same-sex couples raising children? Or if the same-sex parenting thing is a problem for you, what about same-sex couples who have been together at least five years?
“Because ssm is such an important social issue, so contrary to long held tradition belief on marriage…”
We agree, then that it’s important. But same-sex marriage is actually a new concept, and phenomenon, as is the existence of committed, open same-sex couples. It is not a long held tradition to exclude same-sex couples from marriage. That’s like saying that it’s a long-held tradition to not call hybrid vehicles “cars.” It can’t be long-held if something didn’t exist to be considered within the tradition. Not letting women vote was a long held tradition: women existed but were specifically denied the right to vote. Holding slaves was a long held tradition. Not letting same-sex couples who want to marry do so is a new phenomenon, and not yet, in my opinion, at the critical mass required to call it a tradition.
I’d support Civil Unions for same-sex couples, whether or not they are raising children, that gave all the rights but not a right to make MORE children. I think 3PR (aka intentional pregnancy using unmarried progenitors, aka sperm and egg donation) and surrogacy should be prohibited, for heterosexual couples too. It is anti-gay to oppose 3PR, and pro-gay to demand 3PR be legal. It’s OK to be anti-gay because it’s OK to be opposed to 3PR and human trafficking and wanting to preserve human rights and equality and dignity.
Barry asked:
“Well, SOME of those who oppose SSM are prejudiced against lgbt people; do you really deny that?”
Barry, I do not deny that at all. In fact, I agree that some of those (perhaps many ?) have prejudice against lgbt persons. Further, some of those who oppose ssm use linguistic slurs against us: perverts, deviant, abominations, fags, etc. I should have made that clear. I was remiss in not doing so.
I say along with Nathan the commenter the following: “Nor is it clear to me what sorts of lives homosexuals can have in a resurgent traditionalist society.” I find this very troubling to me as a gay woman. The traditionalists have never given any inkling they give a tinkers dam about this, at all.
I was wrong, Barry, in not including the conservative press in my prior posted comment. They, also, have a duty to be open to pro-ssm arguments, in my opinion. This should be an open town hall meeting with the press acting as that space on this important issue: that includes the conservative press.
As to your suggestion: “But I think your argument would be strengthened if you could link to a couple of specific examples of mainstream newspapers like the Post denigrating SSM opponents in a way you find objectionable.”
Good point, and I will tend to that and comment a little later.
Manny, I think you need to substantiate (or at least expand on) your claim that “It is anti-gay to oppose 3PR … [therefore] it’s OK to be anti-gay because it’s OK to be opposed to 3PR and human trafficking.” Since when is it “anti-gay” to be against assisted reproductive technologies? It would only be anti-gay to oppose such technologies only when used by same-sex couples. As long as the laws and ethical standards are applied equally, it does not equate that being opposed to certain reproductive decisions as unethical is anti-gay.
To give a counter-example, it IS anti-gay to oppose adoption by same-sex couples if, in identical circumstances were the couple heterosexual, the adoption would be approved. This is why Catholic adoption agencies in places like Chicago are being told that — if they are using state money — they need to abide by state anti-discrimination laws and not refuse to work with same-sex couples (because they ARE working with hetero couples).
Well, that would be even more anti-gay, but it is obviously anti-gay just to oppose 3PR in general, for all couples, because it would completely rule out gay couples making children and mean that only straight married couples could make children. Basically, biology is anti-gay, and 3PR is gay, even when used by straight people.
And it is also anti-gay to say that adoption agencies should give priority to morally straight married man and woman over a gay couple, but also totally justifiably so.
I guess you and I have vastly different definitions of the word “gay” and its relation to physiology and reproductive capacity. And I think we should leave it at that for now, given Barry’s wish that we cleave close to his discussion topic of what “traditionalist” views of marriage and family life might offer women and queer folks.
I suppose in light of that question, your answer would be “certainly not the opportunity to parent!” (unless, I suppose, you had procreated with an other-sex partner in a previous relationship?).
Wow, more than 30 comments and no conservatives have bothered to counter that they care at all about the wellbeing of lgbt folks and victims of domestic violence.
I am saddened and surprised. Well, slightly surprised.
Shalom,
Absence of proof is not proof of absence. The fact that no conservatives have said that they care (in this thread, which they may not have seen) doesn’t mean that they don’t. Probably some of them feel like they’ve said that they care a lot and that they haven’t been heard.
That said, since it bears repeating, I care a lot about lgbt folks and victims of domestic violence. Maybe I don’t count, though, since I’m very liberal in addition to being conservative.
Zztstenglish,
Regarding this:
Following this:
Actually, you are quoting Nathan, who Barry quoted in his post.
Also, Nathan says that he is for strengthening marriage, and also challenges those who identify as “traditionalist” to answer some difficult questions about what they can offer LGBT americans and women who have experienced abuse. I did not catch where he or Barry posed the argument that that gay marriage directly strengthens marriage.
It’s an argument that could be made, but I haven’t seen it made in this post, by Nathan or Barry.
Oops, my mistake. Barry did say this.
He still did not make the argument you’re inferring, Zztstenglish.
[I will slowly step away from my computer.]
The failure of arranged marriages is a result of a more individiualistic culture. In cultures where mostly everyone conforms to the community norms and expectations, has pretty much the same lifestyle and so forth, there is quite a large pool of compatible marital candidates.
My siblings had arranged marriages, and very successful ones.
What’s a traditionalist marriage? a patriarchal one?
Zztstenglish, as Hammerpants (eventually :-p ) correctly said, I did not make the argument you’ve inferred.
Schroeder, as I recall, you’ve said that you’re a fence-sitter, neither opposing nor supporting SSM. If that recollection is correct – and I’m not sure it is – then you’re not an opponent of SSM, which is really the group my post was addressing.
For those people who do oppose SSM and liberal divorce laws, my question would not be “do you care?,” but “what does the traditionalist view have to offer lgbt people and victims of spousal abuse?”
Teresa:
Thank you for saying that. I don’t think enough opponents of SSM acknowledge that this is a real issue, and I’m glad you did.
Ki Sarita, in the Hasidic community, arranged marriages are often very successful, but the cost to those who are in unsuccessful marriages that they need to leave is extraordinarily high.
I don’t know what “a traditionalist marriage” is, but no one here has used that term (other than you in your question). A “traditionalist,” in this thread, is a shorthand term being used to mean “someone who opposes both legal same-sex marriage, and ‘liberal’ divorce laws such as no-fault divorce.”
Barry,
I appreciate your questions about what culture traditionalists offer to those who feel marginalized or victimized by restrictive views on sexual ethics and marriage. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately – because I think too much of my own tradition’s response is rhetorically framed negatively instead of positively, and I think there actually is a positive answer to your question that is lost as a result.
I’d actually like to write a long form response, but it may have to wait until after the March 5th CPC live-stream event (which everyone should watch and participate in!).
Well, I think you have to separate questions about no-fault divorce laws from questions about same sex marriage. The reasons to be for or against them are quite different.
“I’m sure that most traditionalists love and hold dear many women in their lives. That doesn’t change that permissive divorce laws give abused women a better shot at leaving bad marriages, and getting rid of permissive divorce laws will be harmful to those same women. And indifference to this outcome isn’t something I can sign on to.”
I don’t think you have to be a traditionalist to oppose no-fault divorce laws. You just have to be someone who thinks that people are now getting divorced too fast or too easily or too often.
And you don’t have to be for or against women. No-fault divorce laws may hurt some women by making it easy for their husbands to dump them; that’s why you find a woman leading the campaign to reform the laws.
To me it looks like you are arguing that in order for abused women to be able to escape, you have to make it so that you don’t need any reason at all to divorce someone.
I have a heard time with that. I think we need to figure out a way to balance the needs of other women or men who are hurt by no-fault divorce with the need to get abused women or men out of their relationships immediately.
@Barry Deutsch “Ki Sarita, in the Hasidic community, arranged marriages are often very successful, but the cost to those who are in unsuccessful marriages that they need to leave is extraordinarily high.”
But having an arranged marriage doesn’t have to go with having no divorce.
@Barry Deutsch – I disagree with the guy you quoted here:
“Arranged marriages resulted in poor pairings or marriages for the wrong reasons. The unavailability of divorce resulted in much mistreatment of women.”
I don’t think there’s any evidence that arranged marriages result in worse pairings than our way of doing things. We moved away from them because we prefer the freedom of choosing our own partner. And personally, I wouldn’t give up that freedom!
In terms of mistreatment of women, I don’t think the problem was unavailability of divorce. I think it went much deeper than that. It’s hard to believe now that in the 1970s it was a completely radical thing when Ms had an issue about domestic violence. There were no shelters for victims of abuse. The law tended to stay out of domestic abuse and many people had the attitude that it was between the couple and probably the woman asked for it.
And I don’t think the changes in divorce laws had absolutely anything to do with concern for victims of abuse. At the time, divorce lawyers didn’t like the nastiness of divorce cases as each party tried to show why the other one was to blame. The movement to get rid of the laws seems to have pretty much come for them. As I understand, there wasn’t really any lobby of ordinary people asking for no-fault divorce.
There was also some sort of cultural idea that people should be able to follow their dreams and be happy, not stay in a troubled marriage, but I don’t think anyone was therefore campaigning to make divorce itself easier.
@Anna Cook – Well, I’m sure you won’t be surprised that I disagree with you on this:
“I would say that while there are many red flags about current day polygyny practices (what we’re mostly talking about when we talk about “polygamy” these days) — including coerced marriage, underage marriage, abuse of women, and the marginalization of less-powerful men — the cause is not necessarily plural marriage per se but how we have chosen to practice it — including our decision to push it underground, where those abused within such marriages feel pressure to hide their relationships, rather than seek help above-board.”
I don’t think the problems are caused by pushing it underground. If you look at other cultures where polygyny is accepted, you also find marriage at a young age and generally low status of women.
There was a study recently that found in cultures with polygyny, there is more violence in general, possibly because some men are left without wives.
To me this sounds like it might be possible for it to be differently, but in practice it never has been. That’s a good argument against allowing it.
In addition, there are some logical reasons why polygyny leads to these problems. When one man marries multiple women, eventually you have a shortage of women and have to start marrying younger and younger women. And some young men end up without wives and this causes problems in the community.
I think we also have to look at the fact that feminists in many of these countries work to get rid of polygamy.
@Barry – Well, you know what? You never explained what you meant and Hammerpants doesn’t speak on your behalf….or does he? Those quotes I mentioned by you sure make it sound that way. The evidence is crystal clear. Sorry.
@Anna says “[I]t IS anti-gay to oppose adoption by same-sex couples…”
I thought you might find this article interesting:
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/same_sex_adoption_is_not_a_game
Well, here we are, approaching the 50-comment limit, and still no substantive responses from the anti-SSM side of the discussion in answer to Barry’s question.
Schroeder has said “I care”, and Matthew Kaal has said that he’s got a response that he’ll tell us all about later after we tune into his live-stream event that involves his tradition framing their response in a more rhetorically positive manner.
Schroeder, I do understand your statement that the absence of proof is not proof of absence, but the silence on that question is deafening — and not just in this thread. It’s a question that most opponents of SSM consistently avoid.
I think it’s a large part of why the consensus on this issue is changing so rapidly.
zztstenglish,
I’m not sure what your point was in sharing the opinion piece you linked to. If it was meant to refute my assertion that being against same-sex parenting while supporting heterosexual parenting is a form of anti-gay prejudice, then in fact the article does nothing to support your case. It is published at a website that, while non-partisan on politics, has a definite position on sex and gender (the “about us” page asks, for example, “How do we define human persons? They are men and women (that’s right, nothing in between) “). And the article you linked to regurgitates a number of dangerous and unsupportable myths about homosexuality — among them that queer people are “promiscuous,” that same-sex relationships are unstable, that gay and lesbian adults are more likely than straight adults to suffer from diseases and mental health issues. While LGBT populations are often more vulnerable on a variety of measures (poverty, access to healthcare, mental health issues, homelessness, etc.), much of the statistical difference can be attributed to negative attitudes toward these groups — based on stereotypes such as those that this article perpetuates — rather than the person’s sexual desires and relational affections.
Finally, the argument that children need both a father and mother is probably one which you and I will never agree upon, since you seem more wedded to binary gender roles than I am. However, I will point you toward Michael Shelton’s Family Pride (Beacon Press, 2013) as one recent book which surveys the social science literature on same-sex-headed families and sees no pattern of deprivation due to lack of a hands-on male or female parent, per se. Many same-sex couples who care for children go out of their way, in fact, to surround their children with positive role models of all genders and sexual orientations.
I feel I have given your drive-by linking more energy and time than it really deserves, given our previous interactions on this blog. I’d appreciate it if, in future, you would bother to actually make your argument(s) in your own words, supported as you deem necessary by appropriate references, rather than letting your links do the talking for you.
I am willing to engage, but only if I feel my debating partner is equally willing to give time and attention to the discussion — listening and articulating responses as well as throwing down links as some sort of definitive “proof” of a supposedly winning argument.
Diane M.,
Without wending my way into a conversation too far away from Barry’s original discussion topic, I just wanted to acknowledge your push-back on the polygyny issue and affirm that there is, indeed, much to question about the inequality and abuse that seems to correlate with patriarchal cultures that practice polygyny. I am not an expert on the issue, and could not say whether its correlation or causation. But I absolutely agree with you it is a concern central to many feminist and human rights activists.
I hesitate to conflate the practice of polygyny as a social structure (i.e. a society built around patriarchal leaders, such as Mormon fundamentalist enclaves) and polygamy or polyandry as a relationship model (either the more-than-two marriage /more-than-two relationships OR the one-person-married-to-multiple-people model). I feel in this instance that we may be confusing the neutral form for the problematic function.
As a comparison, some feminists and queer activists would argue that marriage as a social and political institution is hopelessly tangled up with oppressive gender roles, the oppression of women, and the marginalization of sexual minorities. They have a persuasive case to make, I grant them — and I think their arguments should be seriously considered. However, I ultimately believe that marriage is a human creation that we can mold and remold to facilitate human thriving. And I believe that polygamous or polyandrous marriages and relationships can likewise be remolded. Like dyadic marriage, a legacy of oppression does not necessarily indicate that we need reject the form completely. Perhaps I am overly hopeful for both dyadic AND plural marriage on this score!
@Anna
1. “drive-by linking” I’m supplying you EVIDENCE not conjecture something to which you don’t seem to appreciate.
2. “binary gender roles” And yet, the state does not inquire about other genders on your tax returns or your marriage license. Hmmm….
3. “children need both a father and mother” And yet, the state has ruled numerous times that it IS better for a child to be raised by their father and mother. See Equal Protection v Bruning.