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Saturday, November 22, 2003
"Trading Places Over Gay Marriages": It took conservatives about two minutes to call for Congress to outlaw gay marriage across the land after the Massachusetts high court's decision last week making way for same-sex unions. Liberals, on the other hand, congratulated the state court for boldly doing its own thing. In other words, the right and the left quickly swapped sides in the debate over when federal power should give way to state sovereignty. "Republican governors ended their annual meeting Saturday with a pledge to support an amendment to the Constitution to block same-sex marriage." CHRISTMAS, CHILDREN, AND DIVORCE: "She gets the kids Christmas Eve this year, and he gets them Christmas Day. If you're a divorced parent, we want to hear from you about how you and your ex have worked out holiday visitation and what traditions you've planned for the time you have with your children. Do you exchange Christmas gifts early? Do you postpone the celebration until the new year?" Editorial from New Hampshire's The Telegraph: "The civil union option, however, is adequate to correct that injustice and more closely reflects the social consensus needed to bring about meaningful change." In the Weekly Standard, a long, interesting piece by my friend and colleague Maggie Gallagher on marriage, marriage law, civil unions, and a federal marriage amendment. She and I disagree, or at least have different points to stress, on some of these issues and perhaps even on the ultimate policy conclusions, but if there is someone out there doing more sustained, serious thinking about this matter than she is, I haven't met her. THE POWER OF: In today's NYT, David Brooks offers a moving reflection on the power of commitment. We live in a society that often undermines it; it is good and ennobling; and it's as important for homosexuals as it is for heterosexuals. The problem, however, is that Brooks' article is a call for SSM and is called "The Power of Marriage." But what exactly, apart from the idea that commitment is good, does Brooks say about marriage? Not a single word. For example, what about the idea that marriage, by bringing together into enduring sexual union the male and female of the species, makes it likely that a child will be raised by her mother and father? Not a word. In Brooks' ode to the power of marriage, children do not even exist. Do you know how anthropologists commonly define marriage? They say that's it's socially approved sexual intercourse between a male and a female. That's the nub of it. That's why, typically, you are not married unless you have had intercourse with your spouse. The next thing the anthropologists usually say is something about procreation and child rearing. And the next thing is often something about intimacy, companionship, and yes, commitment. Talking about heterosexual intercourse, child bearing, and child well-being is not something that some of us just thought up five minutes ago in response to a political controversy. Instead, you simply can't talk accurately about marriage without talking about these very things, since they are what might be called the "power of mariage," Brooks' highly abstract, sentimental, relentlessly de-sexualized commentary notwithstanding. None of this, of course, in my mind at least, proves definitively that SSM is a bad idea. I have the same soft spot for commitment that Brooks has, and that most of us have; and my policy prescription, insofar as I have one at this point, is civil unions. But please, if we are going to talk about marriage, can't we at least do it? Friday, November 21, 2003
FROM BOSTON: "Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly yesterday said he believes the Supreme Judicial Court's decision on gay marriage does not require the state to issue traditional marriage licenses to gay couples, and suggested the Legislature should test the ruling with a bill that offers same-sex couples full protections and benefits without allowing them to marry." BODIES MATTER: In the excellent article that Tom wrote and cites, he tells the story of Claire, a young woman whose single mother used a sperm donor to conceive her. Upon her eighteenth birthday, Claire took advantage of the opportunity to meet him. Why? She says, ��I'd like to kind of have an idea in my mind of what half of me is, what half of me comes from." What half of me is, what half of me comes from� This is not window-dressing on the identity quest that we all must go through. This is central to the quest itself. It could only look like window-dressing to people who�ve never had to ask themselves the question, because their parents� presence was so constant it often seemed invisible. In my study of adult children of divorce I found that many agree they grew up feeling like a different person with each of their parents (twice as many as those from intact families). They felt like, inside, they had a �mom self� and a �dad self.� The physical characterisitics they shared with each parent were their starting point when they questioned what inside them came from each half of their origins. When parents are married, their marriage itself knits together the two halves of the child�s identity, even though many differences remain between the parents. When parents are divorced, nothing helps the child to knit those two sides together. It�s up to her, alone, to figure it out. Every one of us is grounded in a body and we look to that body for clues about who we are. Biology and identity are two separate things, but they are powerfully connected. If Claire�s mother had a lesbian partner who helped to raise Claire from birth, Claire would surely look to her second mommy for some of the clues to her identity. But would plenty of love from her two mommies ever make her able to forget half of her body? Is this recognition alone enough to make a case against same sex parenting methods that draw upon reproductive technologies? Perhaps not. As David said, perhaps we'll all decide that equal human dignity, or another worthwhile principle, is most important. That the powerful desire to have a child is one we all have to be deeply sympathetic to. But to ignore the complicated identity quest that is handed to children like Claire is dishonest and unjust. Our principle of equal human dignity for the parents becomes a sham if we insist the children are fine without even bothering to ask them. BLAH, BLAH: This morning I was on a program on Minnesota Public Radio, talking about SSM with Dale Carpenter, a law professor. I just finished an interview on the same subject set to run tommorrow morning on NPR. THE CAT AND THE HAT, AND THE CREEPY BOYFRIEND? Barbara Dafoe Whitehead writes in an email that recent reviews of the new �Cat and the Hat� movie mention but do not comment on an added plot twist that does not appear in the original book. In the movie, the boy has a single mother with a creepy boyfriend who is trying to send the son off to military school (Whitehead muses, �To get rid of the male rival in the house? To reduce the mother's time and attachment to her kid?) �Of course,� Whitehead writes, �there is nothing in Dr. Seuss' Cat and the Hat on family structure. It's about the classic theme of childhood freedom from adult supervision and rules. Leave it to Hollywood to add on the theme of a single mom and her bad boyfriend. Kind of a �Home Alone� Meets �Mrs. Doubtfire.�� In Whitehead�s 1996 book The Divorce Culture, she devotes a chapter to the children�s literature of divorce, noting that classic children�s literature turns on adventure and freedom from the adult world, while divorce bibliotherapy for kids seems claustrophobic, taking place in interiors, caught up with adult feelings and needs. Are movies following? HOW MUCH DOES THIS ALL MATTER ANYWAY? Excellent questions Tom raises, and I�m glad he did. I ask myself the same questions. 1) Do we really know what children of gays and lesbians say about their experiences? We don�t know very well how children of gays and lesbians talk about their experience. The early studies are small and contradictory. Permit me a comparison. Many advocates of SSM compare it to the interracial marriage issue. That�s a false comparison, because interracial marriage did not require that a child grow up from birth in a home automatically lacking his mother and father, and it did not weaken our legal or cultural understanding that children need their mother and father. It strengthened marriage. I think the more apt comparison with the budding SSM revolution is the divorce revolution. In the early years of the divorce revolution adults claimed it was an important step for adult freedom and rights. When children were mentioned at all advocates said they�d be �fine,� that all that matters is a loving household. Early studies, conducted mostly by advocates, interviewed little kids about their experience and, surprise surprise, the kids said they loved their parents. The adults said this proves that divorce is fine. Then years pass, children grow up, longer, better studies are done, and we know a lot more now about the downsides of divorce. The problem is that children are dependent on their parents and they are not verbally articulate like adults. I have no doubt whatsoever that children of gays and lesbians love their parents, but I just can�t imagine that homosexuality sprinkled on a household makes these children magically different from children in every other altnerative family structure, who tell us that they love their parents but that the absence of a biological parent causes them pain. When this first generation of the SSM revolution grows up and tells us, then we�ll know. I would really like to be wrong. 2) Even if they have some �father issues,� isn�t this better than growing up in poverty, with bad parents, etc.� I think this is a false choice. In terms of policy, we should be thinking about how to prevent children from growing up in poverty, with bad parents, and with father issues. Law and policy use punishments, disincentives, and incentives. The law should punish abusive parents. It should support policies that help families stay out of poverty. And when it comes to family forms that are definitely not abusive but are demonstrably harder for children � divorce, single parenting, and I suspect same sex marriage � it should broadly encourage the biological two parent family but should tangibly support all families. 3) At what point does supporting the ideal overlook and harm children in other situations? When we criminalize or stigmatize those families that are different. I�m not interested in doing either for same sex parent families. But in the same way that I argue our society needs to get more honest about the real experience of children of divorce, I also argue that we need to be willing to at least consider how the structure of same sex parent families might impact children. The Masschusetts decision was notable in not giving a hoot about children. The decision affirmed, point blank, that marriage is all about the adult commitment. 4) Even if we agree that children, such as those conceived with the use of sperm donors, agonize about this, what should we do about it? Ban the practice? I think there should be a lot more regulation on radical reproductive technologies, those that borrow or buy eggs, sperm, or wombs from other people in order for a couple � straight or gay � to have a child. Many European countries have no problem regulating these industries and they are hardly a hotbed of religious activism. I favor civil unions. They will provide the legal and social protections that same sex couples need. But legalizing gay marriage requires us to change the definition of marriage in a way that makes our law unable to say that children need a mother and a father. Many children, not just those of gays and lesbians, will ultimately suffer unintentional harm because of that. WHAT DO CHILDREN SAY (CONT.): Below, Tom questions the degree to which the absence of the two-bio-parent married-couple home "truly affects" child well-being adversely, and suggests that our commitment to this family structure as a social norm has to be balanced by a recognition that many situations involving children won't reflect that norm and that those children matter too. Fair enough. But here's what is, for me, an important distinction. It's one thing to recognize complexity and acknowledge that, in real life, due to tragedy and human frailty, many situations depart from the norm. It's another thing collectively to degrade the norm itself -- to lower our very defintion of what is generally desirable or even to say that the norm itself is the problem. To me, a divorce is an example of the former, and erasing gender complimentarity from the definition of marriage is an example of the latter. Neither is good for (most) children. But to me, we have to be especially careful -- there has to be a VERY compelling reason -- to dumb down, at the level of definition, society's most pro-child institution. Maybe, in this case there IS such a compelling reason. (Let's call it equal human dignity, or the principle of love of neighbor.) But that's the argument we need to have. And if, in the name of that centrally important principle, we are willing to increase, even slightly, the risk to which we will collectively expose our children, then we ought to say honestly, without fudge-words and excuse-making, what we are doing, and why. What upsets me most in the pro-SSM argument is the blithe, cocksure insistence that the only thing we stand to lose is our bigotry. If only that were true. WHAT DO CHILDREN SAY?: Elizabeth, do we really know what children raised by gay and lesbian couples tend to say about their experiences? (see below.) I'm fascinated with the question, and of course I'm inclined to agree with you, but I'm curious if there's any kind of empirical data. While children in same-sex unions must wonder about their biological parent(s) to some degree, to what extent does this truly affect their development? Allow me to compare apples and oranges, but even if a girl raised by a financially secure, nurturing lesbian couple has some "father issues," that's probably preferable to many other childhood settings (growing up in poverty, with authoritarian or permissive parents, etc.). I wonder if we're placing too much priority on the ideal. Yes, of course two bio, married parents is the ideal. Yes, our society should hold up that family structure as the ideal. Yes, our policies should support that family structure as the ideal. But at what point does supporting the ideal because it's the ideal overlook--and harm--children in other situations? There's obviously some sort of balancing test required. For example, the girl in this story, a self-described "sperm bank baby," has deep questions about who her father is--about who she is. But based on this, are we supposed to prevent single women from having children through artificial insemination? Are these "who's my daddy?" questions so inimical to a healthy childhood that she would have been better off not being born? Thursday, November 20, 2003
At Slate, Dahlia Lithwick asks, "What's really undermining the sanctity of marriage?" Lithwick is a clever writer, but she caricatures some concerns over same-sex marriage. For example, she asserts that the Goodridge dissenters think that childrearing is the only purpose of marriage. It may be the fundamental purpose of marriage, but I doubt any seriously argue it's the only purpose. But, overall, she makes some fair points. The state has no business declaring what types of relationships are "sacred." Talk of how same-sex marriage would destroy the "sanctity" of marriage pushes me further into the pro-ssm camp, because the debate is over civil marriage. Certainly, religiously grounded arguments should be welcome in the public sphere, but a purely religious argument against same-sex marriage should carry little weight. Churches are free to decide whether or not to bless same-sex marriages. The state should not be blessing anything. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN �A WOMAN AND A MAN� VS. �A MOTHER AND A FATHER� At the MarriageDebate.com blog, a convoluted and unnecessary debate between two bloggers. One argues that same-sex marriage is bad because children need �opposite sex role models� in the home, another predictably replies that you can�t control how individual men and women will model their gender for the child, and suggests that a gay man and a lesbian, or two oppositely attracted bisexuals, etc., would also fulfill the opposite sex requirement. This is nonsense. This is what happens when we say that children need �two parents� or �a man and a woman in the home.� All those formulations are too vague and advocates of SSM are enjoying blowing them open at the moment. The child needs two very specific people in the home and, ideally, married to each other: The child�s mother and father. Not just any two �parents,� not just a man and a woman, but their mother and their father. We can say this because children everywhere who are not raised with their mother and father in the home grow up and almost universally tell us that lacking one of them caused tremendous emotional pain. This is why someone raised as a liberal feminist, like me, feels compelled to question divorce, single parent childbearing, radical reproductive technologies, and yes, same sex marriage. It�s not anti-gay. It�s simply trying to voice what children say. FROM BRITAIN: Columnist Andrew Gimson thanks Wade Horn and predicts that marriage will become a big issue in the UK sometime over the next eight years. "Store offers divorce specials": A Belgian furniture shop is offering special packages for divorced men who hate shopping in a country where half of all marriages end in a divorce after five years. The packages, which go for about $3,550 apiece, include a living room, a complete bedroom, a dining room and a television set, including a DVD player. "I always tell them . . . `You have to put an end to this part of your life and start a new one,'" Paul Dierckx, the owner of the shop, who is twice divorced, told Reuters Television. WATCH OUT FOR "PARENTS" -- In the coming SSM debates, watch how people use the word "parents." Do they mean "mother and father," or are they using "parents" as an all-inclusive term that may also involve stepparents and mother's and father's boyfriends, girlfriends, and partners? Some, like the opponent I argued against below, say that those concerned about SSM object because the "two parents" are "of the same gender." That's not why I object. I really don't give a fiddle about homosexuality. I grew up surrounded by it in my culture, it's fine with me. However, because of my experience as a child of divorce and because of the years I've spent studying children of divorce, I do get very angry when people lie about children's experiences. "Parents" is a frighteningly malleable word in today's culture. Adults like to suggest that almost anybody can be thrown into the mix and called a child's parent. Children don't feel that way. Children feel, first and foremost, an unimaginably deep connection to their mother and father. If they are raised by their mother and father this connection is one they take for granted and almost never think about. But if that mother or father does not live in their home, this connection becomes a powerful pull, a hurt as deep as just about any you can imagine. Yes, given time and trust children can come to feel that another adult is their parent as well. But they never forget about that mother and father that they see reflected back at them every time they look in the mirror. Those who dismiss us who question SSM as bigots, I ask you this: How did you grow up? Did you live with your mother and father? Have you known or loved anyone who grew up differently from you? Consider that those of us who appear radicalized on this issue don't engage in it because it's fun to be labeled a right wing homophobic bigot. Consider that we're drawing upon our own reason and experience in a painful effort to figure out what is the right thing to do. CONFLATING "MOTHERS AND FATHERS" WITH "PARENTS": At the MarriageDebate.com blog Mike Pignatello writes: Let's clarify what's at stake with Goodridge by taking a look at another family arrangement that the anti-SSM camp finds unacceptable: the single parent home. � This is my response to Pignatello, and to many like him who make the same serious mistake: In making the comparison between gay parents and single parents Mike Pignatello conflates "mothers and fathers" with "parents." He is correct that people concerned about SSM are also often concerned about single parents too, but the solution is not to add in any other parent -- gay or straight -- so that the child has two parents. The point is that children need and yearn for the mother and father who *created* them, unless that mother or father proves unfit and loses parenting rights. Children need their mother and their father, not just any two "parents." When a single hetero mother brings a new man into the house her child does not have two "parents" in the home. The child has a mother and a mother's boyfriend, as well as a father floating somewhere on the margins. If her mother marries the guy the child has a mother and stepfather, and a father somewhere else. With the passage of years and the building of trust the child might come to feel that the stepfather is her parent as well. But nothing in law or in the child's perceptions makes the man her parent just because mom brings him home. Similarly, when a single lesbian mother brings her new partner into her home, her child does not suddenly have two "parents" in the home. She has a single mother, a mother's girlfriend, and a father floating somewhere on the margins. With the passage of time and the building of trust, the child might come to see her mother's girlfriend as a "parent" as well. But legalizing same-sex marriage does not make the mother's girlfriend trump the child's father either in law or in the child's perceptions. These are precisely the kinds of reasons that I am concerned about same sex marriage. When a same sex couple has a baby the baby comes from *somewhere* but the child's two biological parents are not and will never be married to one another. The child begins life as a defacto child of divorce. Gays and lesbians are as good or bad at parenting as the rest of us, but same sex parenting of necessity takes a less satisfactory child raising model -- divorce or single parenting -- and makes that the starting point of the child's life. Then it adds in a parent's partner and hopes the whole thing will gel. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won't, but even when everybody gets along great the child will always wonder, as all children do, why that father or mother floating out there on the margins didn't want her. PS -- You might ask, well, what if the lesbian mother doesn't start out single? What if she and her partner are together before the child is born and they are the only two caregivers the child ever knows? Yes, the child will in all likelihood see them as her parents. But parenthood isn't like a tank of gas, you fill it up with any two parents and you're ready to go. There's still that pesky father out there on the margins. Yes, you and I and those lesbian mothers would definitely like to forget about that guy. The problem is that the child can't forget. As she grows up she will, like almost all adopted children, children of sperm donors, and fatherless children do, routinely confront the question, "Who am I?", look in the mirror, and wonder what in that image gazing back at her came from the father she never met. PPS � You might also, ask, well, what if those lesbian mothers keep the guy around? What if the child sees him once a week or even visits at his house now and then? Well, now we�ve completely replicated a child of divorce arrangement. The �perfect� solution for gay and lesbian couples, the way to keep their child from wondering all her life about that lost biological parent, is to reproduce a decidedly imperfect childrearing arrangement. As I argue in a forthcoming book based on a national study of young people from divorced and intact families, the �good divorce� in which a child stays in contact with both parents is demonstrably, quantitatively much worse from the child�s point of view than a happy marriage of her mother and father, and is even much worse in many cases that if her mother and father were in an unhappy but low conflict marriage. Handing children of gays and lesbians a divorced family at birth unfortunately does not fix the problem either. "Cambridge is poised to become the first municipality in Massachusetts to take advantage of Tuesday�s decision by the state Supreme Judicial Court giving gay couples the right to marry." Richard Cohen has nothing serious to say on the topic of SSM, and says it in today's WaPo: The odd thing about the opposition to gay marriage is that if the opponents were not so blinded by bigotry and fear, they would see that gay men and lesbians provide the last, best argument for marriage: love and commitment. There is scant reason for marriage anymore, which is why it has become a dicey proposition -- and why 86 million adults are unmarried. Women don't need men to support them or defend them from saber-toothed tigers -- and they can, I have read, even have babies on their own.Oh, I see. People who worry about legally redefining marriage are just scared bigots. The only thing worth noting about SS couples is that they love each other and will do more to boost marriage than heteros. And of course, as everyone knows, there is "scant reason" for anyone to marry at all. The article contains several other observations equally as profound -- none of which, however, touch upon the subject of children. There is a serious case to be made for SSM, but you won't find it here. My advice to Mr. Cohen: Pick another subject, you are embarassing yourself. RELIGION AND HOMOSEXUALITY: In Slate, Beliefnet editor Stephen Waldman looks at why religious people tend to oppose gay marriage. The first [argument] is that homosexuality is wrong because it involves sex that doesn't create life. In the case of Judaism, a key Bible passage is the story of Onan, who sleeps with his dead brother's wife but, to avoid giving his brother offspring,...he "spilt the seed on the ground." God slew him, which some might view as a sign of disapproval. Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Jeffrey Rosen and Jonathon Rauch debate Goodridge at The New Republic Online. An excerpt from Jeffrey Rosen (with credits to marriagedebate.com): "� I think [the decision] was unusually weak, and so cavalierly executed that it is likely to anger opponents even more than necessary. Whether the Constitution requires gay marriage has always struck me as one of the hardest legal questions, and although I've never been persuaded by the leading arguments, I can imagine any number of opinions that would have been more convincing than the Massachusetts Supreme Court's long awaited but disappointingly superficial effort." I agree wholeheartedly with Rosen's characterization of the decision. One of the things that surprised me in reading the majority opinion was how blithely and confidently it stated that marriage is all about the adult's commitment, not about children; that opponents of same sex marriage intentionally isolate the one difference about same sex couples -- that they can't procreate -- and make that the core definition of marriage; that to question same sex marriage is to peddle in "stereotypes;" that same sex couples face onerous burdens in second parent adoption, as if these burdens are not in place to protect the child whose relationship with an already existing parent is being severed, and more, including showing no interest or curiosity about a huge body of social science evidence on family structure. The tone at times sounded juvenile to me, more like a smart high school kid who is first dallying in the family diversity debates and not like state supreme court justices. A quiz suggesting that today's opposition to SSM is the same as yesterday's opposition to interracial marriage. JON RAUCH ON GOODRIDGE: A big supporter of same-sex marriage expresses concern about the decision: Marriage isn't just a package of legal benefits. Its deeper power is in the special community standing that goes with it--a standing that does not just confirm a relationship but helps sustain and deepen it. Same-sex marriage will work best, for gay couples and for everyone else, in states that welcome rather than despise it. And I believe that, in a decade or so, one or more states will enact same-sex marriage the old-fashioned way--by legislation. "Making divorce better. Speaker: Sometimes split is best for family": The article is based on a talk by Constance Ahrons, whose big idea is "the good divoce." If there is more intellectually unserious person working in this field today than Constance Ahrons, I have not met that person. Here's some of my evidence. You can also read the article, which tries to be sympathetic, and see if you think any of it makes any sense. One small example, selected almost at random. In this article, Ahrons states that one reason for high divorce rates today is increased longevity. To illustrate the point, she tells this anecdote: "A colleague of mine got a divorce at 70, after 45 years of marriage," Ahrons said. "She said, 'I may have 20 more years left. I would like to live them peacefully.'"But the whole argument is rediculous. First, as Tom Sylvester and I have argued at much too great a length, there is no evidence that divorce is increasing among older couples. More generally, and more importantly, there is no reason to believe that living longer is an important cause of higher diovrce rates. As a recent report puts it: Extended longevity can account for only a tiny fraction of the increase in divorce from 1965 to 1980 and very little of the increase before then.Only a decline in age-specific death rates among young adults could have much actual effect on divorce, because a large majority of divorces occur among young adults. Those death rates have changed very little since mid-century. Furthermore, the increase in life expectancy due to a decline in age-specific death rates among older adults has been accompanied by an increase in the typical age at marriage, leaving the "natural" life span of marriage (excluding divorce) only moderately longer than it was earlier in the century. Between 1940 and 1990. for example, life expectancy from the median age at marriage increased by only 4.5 years for men and 6.6 years for women. From 1960 (before the modern divorce boom began) to 1990, the increase was only I year for men and less than 5 months for "women. Does it really make sense to suppose that a young person in a struggling marriage will think to himself: "Since I have about 50 years left to live, I will get divorced, but if it were only 45 years, I would stay married!" "Marriage Promoted as Cure to Social Woes" -- from Fox News, not very well done, but with some interesting quotes. Last night, at 4am, it really hit me: in Massachusetts, marriage will no longer be defined as the union of one man and one woman. What an incredibly radical change. It's redefining a bedrock social institution to open it up to a small percentage of individuals that have been excluded. In some ways that's troubling; in some ways that's great. I'm not yet sure what to make of it. FROM BRITAIN: The government is planning a publicity campaign to warn unmarried couples that there is no such thing as common law marriage in England and Wales and that they have limited rights if the relationship breaks down. For a round-up and analysis of conservative/religious reaction to Goodridge, see this piece in Christianity Today and this piece in Slate. STANLEY KURTZ looks at the implications of Goodridge. He argues that it's a tactical error for the gay rights movement, because it's going to create a hugely divisive culture war. Gay marriage has arrived in Massachusetts at a point when the larger public is opposed to the reform. What's more, three quarters of the states and the federal government have put laws or constitutional amendments in place that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Once it becomes apparent (and it will) that a judicial decision in a single and notably liberal state threatens to sweep all of those laws aside and impose gay marriage on an unwilling nation, all hell is going to break loose. The conflict between public opinion and high-handed judicial and media elites is about to be exposed with unprecedented clarity.He may be right. DEMS GET INVOLVED, because marriage promotion is not "rehashed, right-wing dogma." From the piece David blogged below: "Two incomes are better than one," Armstrong said. "There's an economic presumption, no doubt about it."-- -- -- Armstrong, who describes himself as a Democrat, is diving into the world of marriage promotion knowing full-well that critics see the Bush initiative as rehashed, right-wing dogma and warmed-up leftovers from former Vice President Dan Quayle's sermons on family values.Right on! Fortunately, most conservatives involved in the marriage movement don't want to hijack the debate. They want liberals to get involved, because supporting marriage should not be a political wedge issue. (Same-sex marriage, on the other hand,....) "Marriage touted to fight poverty" The theory will be put to the test here thanks to the Rev. Darrell L. Armstrong, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church. As co-founder of a coalition called New Jerseyans for Healthy Marriages, Children & Families, Armstrong hopes to snare federal grants for programs that will help individuals and couples form and sustain healthy relationships and marriages. On yesterday's Jim Lehrer Newshour, Kevin Cathcart and Maggie Gallagher debated SSM and the Goodridge decision. You can listen or read; here's the link. Here is Maggie Gallagher's op-ed on the topic. EXCERPTS from a response I'm writing to the GOODRIDGE DECISION: I support civil unions, though I do have some concerns about them, but I am much more concerned about same-sex marriage. In the Goodridge decision the justices say: �It is the exclusive and permanent commitment of the marriage partners to one another, not the begetting of children, that is the sine qua non of civil marriage.� (p. 24) Their lack of curiosity about where the ideal of marital commitment might have come from in the first place is quite surprising. The short answer is that commitment exists first to protect children, and only secondarily brings benefits to adults. After many other surprising statements that show a lack of knowledge or interest in family structure and children, the justices then proceed to their remedy, which is this: In Massachusetts the legislature must now construe gender-specific family terminology as gender-neutral. The English common law definition of marriage, that marriage is �the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others,� is now interpreted to mean, �the voluntary union of two persons as spouses, to the exclusion of all others.� (pp. 35-36) Thus the remedy that will extend full legal rights to gay and lesbian couples is to change the language we use to talk about all of us. We are not men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. We are persons, spouses, and parents. The problem is this: In recent decades the courts and our culture have at various times construed all kinds of people to be �parents,� including stepparents, adoptive parents, surrogate mothers, sperm donors, and mother�s and father�s boyfriends and girlfriends. In varying instances, children accept, reject, question, or are deeply confused by these formulations of who their �parents� are. The fact is, to children�s ears the two words that mean the same thing, all the time, and that mean everything, are �mother� and �father.� Do today�s children of gay and lesbian parents love their parents? You bet they do. Do those conceived by artificial means, or adopted, or abandoned by a divorced parent long to know why these absent mothers and fathers wanted to give them up? If they are like other children, they do. Do we do these children, or any others, a service by washing �mother� and �father� out of our language and arguing only that children need two �parents� instead? If we are truly concerned about the best interests of children, and really listening to the pain that children express when they are parted from a biological parent, the answer is no. Gay and lesbian couples are already raising children and those children need legal and social protections. Civil unions will achieve that goal. But gay marriage will make us unable to say that every child needs a mother and a father, not just �parents,� and when children tell us otherwise, the law will be silent. NEW PEW POLL: While younger people in general were more apt to approve of gay marriage -- those between ages 20 and 30 were about evenly split on favoring or opposing -- the poll found that among those in their 60s and 70s, opponents outnumbered supporters by more than four to one.My guess is that the backlash has only begun. Virginia Postrel comments: [S]aying that homosexuality is wrong has increasingly become the defining public characteristic of evangelical Protestants. Publicly disapproving of gays separates them from popular culture--and, hence, reinforces religious commitment--while exacting little personal toll. When I was a kid, evangelical churches disapproved of dancing, of rock music, of working women, of divorce. Now they incorporate all of those elements in their church programs. (They still don't like divorce--who does?--but today's evangelical churches not only have programs for divorced members, they even arrange their buildings' security so non-custodial parents can't swipe the kids.) What's left? Gays. That's why pastors tend to talk so much about them.I'll admit that's been my theory. But maybe I'm missing something. Tuesday, November 18, 2003
MARRIAGE OR CIVIL UNIONS: I disagree with Tom�s suggestion that civil unions will lead to a marriage menu. Actually, I think it is gay marriage that will more likely lead to a marriage menu, for this reason. Gay marriage is much more controversial than civil unions and is unlikely to be made the law of the land in one fell swoop. It is much more likely, as many have argued before me, to arrive piecemeal, first in Massachusetts, then gradually in other states that Massachusetts-married couples challenge to recognize their marriages, or in states where advocates are pursuing same-sex marriage. It will be a battle in each state and states will vary in how they handle it. Some may create same-sex marriage, some civil unions, some more stringent domestic partnership laws, some may ban some or all of the above. Some may avoid addressing same-sex marriage but will begin instituting laws governing how same-sex partners break up and what their obligations are to one another. In various ways a patchwork quilt of marriage law will spring up. Moreover, as Tom suggests, and as I worry, we don�t know to what degree these new marriage-like institutions will be made accessible to heterosexuals. When civil union-type laws were passed in France and the Netherlands, heterosexual couples took advantage of them in much greater numbers (because they are a much greater percentage of the population) than gay and lesbian couples did. The million dollar question is this: Do heterosexual couples who have a child behave more like cohabitors or married people if they opt for a civil union rather than marriage? We won�t know for some years to come, but if it turns out that they act more like cohabitors (breaking up at twice the rate of married couples, weaker ties between father and child, etc.), then we will have already witnessed a generation of children of straight couples � for now in Europe � who are unintentionally hurt by the passage of legislation intended to protect the (much smaller) numbers of children of gay and lesbian couples. Yes, I agree that same sex couples need protections for their relationships and for their children. I�m not fully convinced that existing legal options don�t already fill that void, but if more is needed, then civil unions are the way to go. The major social changes of the past several decades that were intended to bring adults more freedom � widespread no-fault divorce on demand, more social support for cohabitation, less stigma for single parent childbearing � have caused greater distress, as a whole, for children and poor people, especially young mothers. Redefining marriage in a way that further weakens our shared legal and social understanding of what marriage is may secure some rights for some gay and lesbian adults, and it may help to protect their children, but the long term consequence is likely to be more unintended suffering once again largely born by children and the poor. For instance, as I�ve suggested before, who is likely to take advantage of a patchwork quilt of marriage laws across the country? Well, one likely group are wealthy straight men in the midst of nasty divorces who would be delighted to ask the courts why their marriage, affirmed in say, Iowa, is enforced in every state in the land, while their gay friends �get� to have their marriage, and its obligations, recognized in some states but not others. How quickly would the gender discrimination argument get turned around? I have some thoughts specifically on the decision which I�ll post in a moment. WWJD? David Brenner responds: It takes real courage to direct venom toward the religious right, the cultural untouchables of our day, as does the writer of the excerpt from CCM that Tom has blogged. But more bothersome that this ugliness, is the way the writer carelessly exploits the Bible.Yes, one has to be wary of arguing that the Bible would or would not support a particular social policy. Yet I do think many Christians draw upon the Bible in their political opposition to abortion, comprehensive sex ed, same-sex marriage, and so on. I don't see why Christians can't do the same thing regarding poverty. For some reason, I don't think the commandment "Thou shall not steal" translates into mega tax cuts for the rich. And if the Bible instructs that workers are entitled to the fruit of their labors, why, that sounds downright Marxist! Seriously, certainly acts of charity that are personal and local are wonderful. They just aren't enough to address poverty and inequality in the United States in 2003. P.S. I posted that piece because it also talked about the importance of promoting and supporting stable, two-parent married families. Brenner has a point that the author of the piece follows the easy, oft-used triangulation formula (some left-wingers are wrong, some right-wingers are wrong, but both liberals and conservatives make valid points). I just think that formula, as trite as it can be, often points to the truth. GOODRIDGE: I just got out of my Contracts class, and our Professor discussed Goodridge for an hour. It seems that civil unions won't suffice, so Massachusetts has three options: 1) amend their state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage, 2) get the state out of the marriage business, or 3) allow same-sex marriage. I like option 3. Option 1 offends both liberty and equality. It's just not a good idea to put discriminatory writing in a Constitution. You'll regret it. (See the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 2, Clause 3: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States...according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons...and...three fifths of all other Persons. ") There are some reasonable concerns about redefining marriage in this way (I've discussed some on this blog), but a constitutional amendment the purpose of which is to exclude a class of people strikes me as repugnant. Option 2 closes the swimming pool, so to speak. After civil rights rulings that prohibited racial segregation at public pools, some towns in the South closed the pools because racist whites would rather have no pools than share them with blacks. I doubt the vast majority of heterosexuals are so hateful towards gays that they'd start refusing to marry. Gay marriage won't "destroy" marriage, but getting the state out of the marriage business would powerfully weaken the institution. Option 3 allows gays and lesbians in committed relationships to make a state-recognized lifetime commitment to the person they love. There is a lot to celebrate there. This decision could turn out to be one of the great civil rights moments in my lifetime. Also, Option 3 bypasses the whole civil unions morass. Yes, perhaps civil unions are a compromise (do you want to compromise with equality?) but civil unions, or "domestic partnerships," may lead to an expanding and confusing menu of quasi-marriage options. Can heteros get CU'd? Need civil unions be conjugal relationships? And so on. This excerpt of the opinion gets to the heart of the matter: Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society. For those who choose to marry, and for their children, marriage provides an abundance of legal, financial, and social benefits. In return it imposes weighty legal, financial, and social obligations. The question before us is whether, consistent with the Massachusetts Constitution, the Commonwealth may deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry. We conclude that it may not. The Massachusetts Constitution affirms the dignity and equality of all individuals. It forbids the creation of second-class citizens. In reaching our conclusion we have given full deference to the arguments made by the Commonwealth. But it has failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples. THE MASSACHUSETTS DECISION HAS ARRIVED: Massachusetts' highest court ruled 4-3 Tuesday that the state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and gave lawmakers 180 days to fix the problem�. More articles here, here, and here. Stay tuned for what I'm sure will be a flood of opeds and talking heads on TV. Monday, November 17, 2003
NEW STUDY: "Women whose second child is fathered by a different man than the first have double the risk of a having a preterm or small baby, Norwegian researchers said in a study released Friday." MARRIAGE AND POWER: Writer Diane Middlebrook�s thoughts on marriage, blogged below by Tom, strike me the same way they do him. Someone who has a �script� rolling in her head the whole time she�s engaged in a relationship with someone else sounds pretty powerless, not powerful. It reminds me of something Maggie Gallagher once said. She remarked that women who said they left their marriage because their husband �wouldn�t let them� get a job, go back to school, advance in their career, etc. didn�t sound like feminists, they sounded like women who were pretty cowed by a man. Sure, if the man beats you, leave. But if the husband you love is going to pitch a fit and pout for a while if you go back to school, do you have to leave him? Or do you explain why it�s important to you, go ahead with your plans, and let him adjust? Some of the strongest women I know are ones who are accomplished in many things, who�ve been married many years to the same man, and who have together with their husband nurtured a marriage in which each of them tolerates their differences, sticks together through the rough times, and knows and appreciates each other better than anybody else does. For this Gen-X feminist, they�re my role models. IN KOREA: If a new survey from a women's university is to be believed, the growing concern over South Korea's rock-bottom birthrate is well founded. The article doesn�t say whether the 200 students were randomly selected or volunteered for the survey, which might certainly influence the results. IN BRITAIN: Barristers fear an attempt to harmonise European divorce laws could upset the property rights of British wives on divorce. IN SOUTH AFRICA: People are queueing up in record numbers to get divorced - and a magistrate described the scenes of milling crowds at the Southern Divorce Court in the city as "like a day hospital". COMMON LAW ISN�T SO COMMON: A letter to a financial advisor, reflecting a perhaps common misperception that living with someone for a few years makes you common-law married, and entitled to legal protections as such. Also in the December Atlantic, Margaret Talbot muses on the movie remake of The Stepford Wives, due out next summer and starring Nicole Kidman. She notes: One of the most striking things about the original Stepford Wives, both the novel and the movie, is how small a place is occupied by children. � None of the wives�is busy schlepping her kids to afternoon activities � or, indeed, to anywhere� THE BETWEEN BOYFRIENDS BOOK, just out by Cindy Chupack, an executive producer of Sex and the City, is reviewed in the December Atlantic Magazine by Caitlin Flanagan: What I did find surprising about The Between Boyfriends Book was that mixed in with the megapacks of condoms and the one-night stands were some of the most traditional attitudes about dating I�ve seen in a long while. Complaining about the tendency of men to break up with her without much fanfare or remorse, Chupack muses that she would �like to feel like more than simply a notch in somebody�s bedpost.� The phrase itself is so old-fashioned that I assumed she was setting us up for a laugh, but she is dead serious. She informs us several times that the overall intent of her energetic sexual program is not the zipless f--- of yesteryear; rather, the poor thing turns out to be in search of The One. NEW BLOG by David Throop at Men's News Daily. I've found some good links there, including a link to this article in a Canadian Christian magazine on the duty of Christians to combat poverty. Excerpt: One can be committed to the conservative bedrock values of personal and moral responsibility, marriage and family values without resorting to the kind of mean-spirited scapegoating of women, single mothers, and gays and lesbians that some on the Religious Right have engaged in. ... But liberals are right in saying that personal behavior is not the only issue in poverty. The Bible holds kings and rulers, employers, landlords and judges responsible for injustice. Good family values don't insure you of a job that pays a living family wage. Overcoming poverty also takes some responsibility on the part of private business to see the common good and not just the bottom line; it entails different corporate and banking policies, and effective government action where the market has failed to address fundamental issues of fairness and justice. Most of our values suggest that a good society should provide a 'safety net' for those who really need it, enabling them to live in dignity and security.. Do we live in a Heterosexual Dicatatorship? Was Clinton the "First Gay President" because of his adultery? David Ehrenstein in the LA Weekly says yes and yes, quotes Foucault, but misspells Laura Kipnis's name. IS IT JUST ME, OR DOES SALON LOVE INFIDELITY?: In a Salon interview about Sylvia Plath's marriage, writer Diane Middlebrook avers that "promising to be sexually faithful is folly": [Interviewer:] But in [Plath's] mind they'd also contracted to be faithful to each other sexually [through marriage].What baloney. Middlebrook's belief would come across as shocking news to most husbands. Women today reject such a sexist double-standard. Just because a marriage ends doesn't mean it's a failure.I've noticed this tendency a fair amount among bohemian artist-types. Resistance to marriage doesn't stem from real concern about the status of women, but the fear that one loses some of his or her rebellious bona fides by conforming to social norms. Get over it. If someone is really a strong individual, he or she isn't overly obsessed with flouting tradition. In fact, Middlebrook's answer reflects a slavish devotion to a cultural "script"--just that of the "counterculture." There's some notion that a monogamous, rule-bound marriage is not functional for artists.Well, if it's such a dysfunctional standard, why did it develop? (Here's my guess.) Unless Woodbridge can step out of her narrow "Look at me, I'm a feminist rebel!" mindset, she won't bother to contemplate children's interests in all this. MORE NAME GAMES: The fairly unbalanced Fox News reports on the "trend" towards hyphenated surnames and husbands who take their wives's last names. What's their evidence of a "trend"? One quote from a "New Jersey wedding expert." And is this supposed "trend" in hyphenated names really "so new"? It seems like relatively old news to me. (In fact, a Salon article suggests, with some evidence, that brides are increasingly taking their husbands' names.) Unsurprisingly, not all family members are happy when a man takes a woman's name: Naylor said such criticism comes mostly from older relatives who aren't up on modern marriages. "It�s kind of a half-teasing thing, like 'What, does she own you?' she said.And, this, of course is why many women are hesistant to take their husbands' names in the first place. The "half-teasing" reflects the reality of a patriarchal past. Taking a man's name did often mean ceding "ownership" of the self. Today, fortunately, such joking about "ownership" is, well, just joking. |
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