Marriage Trendlines

Kevin Drum looks at the trendlines in growing support for gay rights and concludes that a gay marriage referendum in California is likely to be a close-run thing. But of course whatever happens this November, this is essentially a fight the right has already lost. Individuals' views are evolving in a more pro-equality direction, but perhaps more importantly pure cohort replacement effects doom the conservative position on gay rights questions with equality enjoying overwhelming support among younger Americans.

And then of course there's the Ellen DeGeneres factor, as these days an openly lesbian woman can regularly attract a large audience of very middlebrow people and announce her engagement to a cheering studio audience.

Comments

What about the very real danger that legalizing gay marriage will make more and more kids decide to be gay?

Posted by Bill | May 16, 2008 2:29 PM

In 20 years, does anyone doubt that gay marriage will be widely accepted in the view of the law, regardless of how many people advocate for referenda banning it?

I suppose the true-believers really think that their opposition can stop gay marriage from happening, but well-informed opponents of gay marriage must realize that, at best, they're only forcing a longer public debate on the issue before it's finally aceded to.

Posted by Tyro | May 16, 2008 2:35 PM

The last thing we need is a bunch of homo fascists kidnapping our kids and turning them into Nazis! (http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/9438.html)

Posted by lfv | May 16, 2008 2:38 PM

...make more and more kids decide to be gay

Go take a hard look in the mirror, Bill, because in twenty years what you see there is going to be on the wrong side of history.

Posted by Mark | May 16, 2008 2:41 PM

Tyro= I think even more opponents of gay marriage know they're just exploiting a wedge issue for short term political gain. The cultural right often does very well for themselves fighting retreat.

Posted by AJ | May 16, 2008 2:45 PM

Mark, Bill is just trolling. At least I fucking hope he is, or I'll lose even more faith in humanity.

Posted by Persia | May 16, 2008 2:45 PM

I am surprised at how moving this is to me. I mean, I truly feel a sense of pride and happiness knowing that my country is, at least once in a while, doing the right thing and operating in a way that truly makes life better for people. That's what it's all about.

Posted by abject funk | May 16, 2008 2:47 PM

Oh, Lindsay Bluth, I miss you!

Posted by Chris | May 16, 2008 2:53 PM

Yep, there is nothing quite like being exposed to the manifest normalcy of gay people on a daily basis (e.g., by watching Ellen) to counteract the feeling that gayness is taboo.

Posted by DTM | May 16, 2008 2:53 PM

These cultural war issues get feet moving in the boonies on election day but in an era of growing populism that doesn't necessarily benefit the Romney set.

I've said for a while now that gay marriage is the canary in the conservative coalition coal mine. Fiscal righties in the suburbs are likely to have gay neighbors, retailers, accountants, and so on and are embarrassed by the controversy. They donate all the money to the Party, so watch the issue go away.

Posted by Roboticghost | May 16, 2008 2:58 PM

Mark, Bill is just trolling. At least I fucking hope he is, or I'll lose even more faith in humanity.

Lighten up people, it was sarcasm.

Everyone knows kids don't "decide" to become gay, and that God just makes Satan go live inside of certain people whether they like it or not.

Posted by Bill | May 16, 2008 3:05 PM

Wonderfull.

Mathews to prong point seems to be
#1. Young people go were their led.
&
#2. Hollywood is leading them were it wants to go.

The fate accompli agrument saysc nothing about the merits of the argument.

The much larger social trend is twoard family fragmentation and its corallary of social breakdown.

With 42% illigetimacy rates the question for the youth should be "ought we redifine the foundational social institution of marriage?"

Posted by Fitz | May 16, 2008 3:06 PM

Wonderfull.

Mathews to prong point seems to be
#1. Young people go were their led.
&
#2. Hollywood is leading them were it wants to go.

The fate accompli agrument saysc nothing about the merits of the argument.

The much larger social trend is twoard family fragmentation and its corallary of social breakdown.

With 42% illigetimacy rates the question for the youth should be "ought we redifine the foundational social institution of marriage?"

Posted by Fitz | May 16, 2008 3:08 PM

Wonderfull.

Mathews two prong point seems to be
#1. Young people go were their led.
&
#2. Hollywood is leading them were it wants to go.

The fate accompli agrument saysc nothing about the merits of the argument.

The much larger social trend is twoard family fragmentation and its corallary of social breakdown.

With 42% illigetimacy rates the question for the youth should be "ought we redifine the foundational social institution of marriage?"

Posted by Fitz | May 16, 2008 3:08 PM

"I've said for a while now that gay marriage is the canary in the conservative coalition coal mine. Fiscal righties in the suburbs are likely to have gay neighbors, retailers, accountants, and so on and are embarrassed by the controversy. They donate all the money to the Party, so watch the issue go away.

Posted by Roboticghost | May 16, 2008 2:58 PM"

Good point. Plus, if their kids aren't gay, then their godchild is gay, or their best friend's kid, or their cousin or somebody is. It's just rather amusing these days watching young Republicans try to explain why they vote Republican to their gay friends: "Umm, it's not that I hate you or think you shouldn't have equal rights, but I just don't want to have my taxes raised 5% over 10 years to pay for this war I cheerlead without actually fighting."

Posted by Reality Man | May 16, 2008 3:08 PM

(sorry for multiple posts above)

"I've said for a while now that gay marriage is the canary in the conservative coalition coal mine. Fiscal righties in the suburbs are likely to have gay neighbors, retailers, accountants, and so on and are embarrassed by the controversy. They donate all the money to the Party, so watch the issue go away."

Yep - there's the defining trend, I have gay friends & retailers (I'm not sure about my accountant though.

I have seen a million different analogies toward this issue, from women's suffrage to the segregated south. The more proper an apt analogy would seem to be abortion.

The issue will continue to have real political and social resonance with succeeding generations as long as children need to know & be known by their mothers & fathers.

The importance of family formation for women, children, the poor & society will continue to resonate. The maintenance of standards will only be proved correct in the wake of marital redefinition.

As much as the left insists on framing this issue as a straw man "civil rights", the deeper more sophisticated principle will have the moral and intellectual high ground.

Posted by Fitz | May 16, 2008 3:22 PM

(sorry for multiple posts above)

"I've said for a while now that gay marriage is the canary in the conservative coalition coal mine. Fiscal righties in the suburbs are likely to have gay neighbors, retailers, accountants, and so on and are embarrassed by the controversy. They donate all the money to the Party, so watch the issue go away."

Yep - there's the defining trend, I have gay friends & retailers (I'm not sure about my accountant though.

I have seen a million different analogies toward this issue, from women's suffrage to the segregated south. The more proper an apt analogy would seem to be abortion.

The issue will continue to have real political and social resonance with succeeding generations as long as children need to know & be known by their mothers & fathers.

The importance of family formation for women, children, the poor & society will continue to resonate. The maintenance of standards will only be proved correct in the wake of marital redefinition.

As much as the left insists on framing this issue as a straw man "civil rights", the deeper more sophisticated principle will have the moral and intellectual high ground.

Posted by Fitz | May 16, 2008 3:22 PM

Fitz,

Many people, including me, view gay people wanting to get married, and in fact actually getting married, as a positive development for the institution of marriage. That is because we don't think gay people are taboo, and therefore we don't think gay people will magically corrupt whatever they touch. And that is why we don't see a need to defend marriage from gay people, and indeed see their participation in the institution of marriage as positive.

Posted by DTM | May 16, 2008 3:28 PM

I have seen a million different analogies toward this issue, from women's suffrage to the segregated south. The more proper an apt analogy would seem to be abortion.

Isn't this demonstrably false? Decades after Roe v. Wade, a talk show host wouldn't have gotten an ovation if she had announced she was getting an abortion. Yet already, gay marriage is cheered on day time talk shows. Furthermore, you don't see the sort of cohort differentiation on the issue of abortion that you see on gay marriage.

It won't do to claim that the gay marriage debate will mirror the abortion debate in the future because it already doesn't in the present and the trend lines show it only getting worse for social conservatives.

Posted by WillieStyle | May 16, 2008 3:29 PM

Fitz, since gay marriage does not in any way affect the ability of men and women to get married, you don't seem to be making much of a point.

Basically, there's lot of sound and fury now, but in the future, gay marriage will be something that in the future, people might not personally be thrilled with, but there will be little political dispute regarding its legality. And it's different than abortion because the anti-abortion movement can point to a tangible "victim" that needs to be defended by the act of changing the abortion law (the unborn child and/or the mother, depending on whom you ask).

Your claims only make sense if a gay couple marrying in any way hurts the marriage of a straight couple.

Posted by Tyro | May 16, 2008 3:32 PM

Don't know about elsewhere, but in California - old-fashioned 90 year-olds and up are pro-gay marriage. I had a neighbor, a hale and hearty woman born in 1904 who came to SoCal from Kentucky when she was a baby in a covered wagon and she was angry that gays were denied the rights that straight people have come to expect. This was a woman who thought prescription drugs were a hoax, who disdained doctors, and was about as "modern" as a ball of calico yarn.

Posted by Trevor | May 16, 2008 3:35 PM

"And that is why we don't see a need to defend marriage from gay people, and indeed see their participation in the institution of marriage as positive."

No doubt that is the line of reasoning.

But you mistakenly refer to their "participation in the institution of marriage" without realizing or conceding the fact that this changes the definition and therefore the social meaning and understanding of the institution itself.

Men and women are members of a class that can produce children. While any member of that class may not or cannot produce a child, they remain members of a class that can produce children. Same sex pairings can never produce children. They are members of a class that always and everywhere are incapable of producing children. Therefore same sex “marriage” necessarily severs marriage from procreation. It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing.

The homosexual movement affirms that gender is a deeply important human category. Sexual orientation as a concept presumes that gender exists and is an important category for human relationships. It would be odd to presume that gender is all important to adult romantic relationships, yet retains no significance beyond that.

Posted by Fitz | May 16, 2008 3:37 PM

WillieStyle,

Right, but the problem is that people like Fitz can't just come out and say being gay is an abomination (not anymore, at least). So, they try to recast gay people as somehow being a threat to children, since people generally believing in protecting children from harm.

The problem for people like Fitz is that gay people aren't a threat to children, nor are gay marriages, or so on. So if you untease their arguments to that effect, they always end up relying on some essentially magical ability of gay people to corrupt things.

But that is just the same sort of thinking that is behind calling gay people an abomination (taboo logic). And so with people increasingly not believing gay people are taboo, they also are becoming increasingly skeptical about these magical corruption arguments.

So, these arguments really are only a delaying tactic, and indeed are unlikely to survive much longer (from a historical perspective) than the more straightforward abomination arguments.

Posted by DTM | May 16, 2008 3:41 PM

this is essentially a fight the right has already lost.

Hm. While I take your point, Matt, I think that if you were gay you would not be so sanguine about this. My partner of 8+ years and I are frequently reminded that our relationship is second-class in this country, e.g., I'm on my partner's insurance plan but we pay taxes on my benefit because I'm "only" a domestic partner, not a spouse. There are, of course, myriad other tangible discriminations which make it clear that though progress is certainly being made, the game is not over yet, not by a long shot.

And in particular, what's scary about things like this CA referendum is that the bigots, though gradually dwindling in number (as they die off, mostly), still may have the bare majority to cement their bigotry by way of constitutional amendment and create a situation where, through the hurdles and inertia that face any legislative initiatve, it may be many years before the enactment can be overturned. Meanwhile, that's a lot of years to ask us to wait patiently for full citizenship.

Posted by Glenn | May 16, 2008 3:42 PM

The much larger social trend is twoard family fragmentation and its corallary of social breakdown.

The overwhelming social trend seems to be that the ability to write a couple of sentences without making an equal number of spelling mistakes is becoming a rare talent in the US.

Posted by novakant | May 16, 2008 3:45 PM

"It won't do to claim that the gay marriage debate will mirror the abortion debate in the future because it already doesn't in the present and the trend lines show it only getting worse for social conservatives."

We will have the considerable moral authority that comes with upholding the natural family. Of saying that children have a right to and society thrives when children are born into household with their own married Mothers & Fathers.

The opposition will have to explain how saying that "All family form is inherently equal" has not and does not undermine the standard of intact married childbearing.

Saying that two "mothers" or two "fathers" doesn’t undermine the idea that responsible procreation requires intact married childbearing & the rights of children to know & be known by their own mother & father.

Posted by Fitz | May 16, 2008 3:47 PM

Fitz, most people view marriage as a form of love and companionship and see children as a potential outgrowth of the relationship, not a means of having children.

My parents got married because they wanted to be married. While they also liked the idea of having children, eventually, if they were unable to conceive, then I'm sure they'd still be married and be living quite happily as a childless married couple. It doesn't strike me that such a situation would in any way demean the marriages of others.

Instinctually, most people understand this dimension of their own marriages and that children are a ppotential outgrowth of marriage, not the starting premise. That's why gay marriage, over time, gains acceptance.

I don't know why I keep arguing with people like Fitz, but part of the reason, I think, is because I have such a hard time understanding where people like him are coming from that I really want to see him flesh out his thought process so that I might understand it better. For the most part, his arguments just don't make much sense.

Posted by Tyro | May 16, 2008 3:48 PM

For example, see Fitz's 3:37PM post for a typical variation on the magical powers of corruption argument. Of course, it makes no real sense that gay people getting married will somehow sever the link between marriage and procreation, to the extent such a link already exists (of course, marriage has always been about regulating the relationship between the spouses as well, right back to the Code of Hammurabi). But Fitz has to come up with something like this, since again he can't just come right out and say gay people are an abomination.

Posted by DTM | May 16, 2008 3:51 PM

It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing.

Why is this link necessary?

...responsible procreation requires intact married childbearing & the rights of children to know & be known by their own mother & father

Huh?

Are you saying that adoption is immoral, because it violates the rights of the children to know and be known by their own mother and father?

Are you saying that if two gay men become married, I will forget who my parents are?

I don't understand the causal link between same-sex marriage and the inability of children to know who their parents are. Can you explain?

Posted by Brad L | May 16, 2008 3:52 PM

It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing.

Plenty of people get married, and stay married, without ever having any children. My parents, for instance.

Not having any invisible people bonds myself, I feel unqualified to make any statements on the fundamentals of marriage. But according to a stat I read on The Corner of all places, 30% of Americans support a constitutional ban on gay marriage. So it seems the theory about whether or not married gays will spoil it all for the rest of us will be tested empirically.

Posted by Roboticghost | May 16, 2008 3:54 PM

Men and women are members of a class that can produce children. While any member of that class may not or cannot produce a child, they remain members of a class that can produce children. Same sex pairings can never produce children

Because obviously such outré phenomenae such as adoption and sperm donation should be forbidden to The Gays, too! Gay people have produced children since the dawn of the human species, Fitz, get a clue.

Posted by Persia | May 16, 2008 3:56 PM

When countering the "your a bigot!" "your a bigot!" "your a bigot!" line of reasoning its important to center peoples minds on the very real change that is being proposed.

As Justice Cordy wrote in dissent,(and multiple S.C. dissents & majorities have stated) the majority of the court had -

“transmuted the "right" to marry into a right to change the institution of marriage itself.”1

"only by assuming that 'marriage' includes the union of two persons of the same sex does the court conclude that restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples infringes on the 'right' of same-sex couples to 'marry'.”2

"[i]n context, all of these decisions and their discussions are about the 'fundamental' nature of the institution of marriage as it has existed and been understood in this country, not as the court has redefined it today.” 3

Maintaining that marriage's - “'fundamental' nature is derivative of the nature of the interests that underlie or are associated with it” -and that a an - “examination of those interests reveals that they are either not shared by same-sex couples or not implicated by the marriage statutes.”4

1,2,3,4, - Goodridge v. Dept. of Pub. Health,798 N.E.2d 941, 955 (Mass 2003)
(Justice Cordy dissenting)

People schooled in this debate typically refer to this as the difference between two distinct concepts of marriage.

That is:

the "Conjugal Conception of Marriage" VS the "Pure Relationship Theory"

The pure relationship theory only reaffirms adult romantic feelings and cannot speak to the realties of procreation, kinship, parenthood, nature, biology, or a call for self sacrifice and the maintenance of elemental social standards.

Posted by Fitz | May 16, 2008 3:57 PM

"Therefore same sex “marriage” necessarily severs marriage from procreation. It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing."

What has childbearing has to do with marriage? If that is the only rationale for legal marrriage, then couples should only marry when they have a kid, then divorce when the kids are legal adults.
I'll bet you'll get alot of pushback from the reichwingnuts on that one - means Daddy Dobson, Smitin' Pat Robertson, Pres Bush, all those bobblehead pundits have no legal right to be married anymore (ain't got no kids at home).

Posted by CParis | May 16, 2008 3:58 PM

Fitz said: Men and women are members of a class that can produce children. While any member of that class may not or cannot produce a child, they remain members of a class that can produce children.

If, as you say, someone cannot produce a child, how do they remain part of a class that can produce children? So men with testicular cancer shouldn't be allowed to marry? Women with ovarian cancer? In the end you end up splitting hairs about men or women having the meta-ability to procreate. DTM's right. You have no argument except gays are icky.

Posted by eriks | May 16, 2008 3:59 PM

30% of Americans support a constitutional ban on gay marriage

The same people who still think G.W. Bush is doing a great job, no doubt.

Posted by Persia | May 16, 2008 4:00 PM

Tyro,

From long experience, you really aren't going to get anywhere trying to make sense of their arguments, because they are just rationalizing magic.

Fitz at 3:47,

Well, since you have previously defined gay people as nonprocreative, then where is the problem? No children will be born to these people, and hence no children will be denied the right to know one of their natural parents.

Of course gay spouses might adopt, but that is also not a problem since in that case the child already has lost the ability to know their natural parents.

Posted by DTM | May 16, 2008 4:02 PM

"Because obviously such outré phenomenae such as adoption and sperm donation should be forbidden to The Gays, too! Gay people have produced children since the dawn of the human species, Fitz, get a clue."

Take a class in elemental biology Persia.

Yes gay "people" can produce children but a gay "couple" manifestly cannot.

In order for gay couples to raise children together they need to deprive those children of an intact married household bereft of either their natural mother or father.

To obviate this manifest reality and maintain it doesn’t do obvious and great damage to the public standard of intact married natural families is self delusional.

Posted by Fitz | May 16, 2008 4:04 PM

Can anyone name a couple more mismatched in terms of looks than Portia and Ellen? Billy Bob and Angelina, maybe?

Posted by Michael Bluth | May 16, 2008 4:05 PM

Fitz, then your problem is not with gay marriage per se, but the legality of gay couples (married or not) to raise children together. That is a different argument. However, it is an argument that was already lost before the gay marriage issue became a prominent one.

You haven't yet explained how it does damage to heterosexual marriages, except to simply claim that this is "obvious." Many people are quite secure in their own marriages and do not see the ability of gays to get married as hurting them. There may be some people who are annoyed that the social acclaim of being "married" may be accorded to gay couples, but that is looking at things as a zero-sum game.

Posted by Tyro | May 16, 2008 4:12 PM

Predictably, when pushed to defend his magical claims, Fitz is getting closer to just saying gay people are an abomination.

For example of course gay marriages entail the same "self sacrifice and the maintenance of elemental social standards" as straight marriages. That is unless, of course, one of your "elemental social standards" is about gay people being an abomination. Gay marriages certainly do violate that particular "social standard," which of course is the real problem here, even if Fitz won't admit it.

Posted by DTM | May 16, 2008 4:17 PM

"Men and women are members of a class that can produce children. While any member of that class may not or cannot produce a child, they remain members of a class that can produce children. Same sex pairings can never produce children. They are members of a class that always and everywhere are incapable of producing children. Therefore same sex “marriage” necessarily severs marriage from procreation. It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing."

(This statement again: this can be reduced to formal logical proof) The “necessary link” between childbearing and marriage, is that the later is exclusively limited to the only class of couples capable of bearing children. Once that link is broken it is the institution itself that has no necessary link to childbearing. If it (as a hypothetical) was granted ONLY to same-sex couples then it would have “necessarily no link” to childbearing.

With 42 percent illegitimacy rates I (along with supermajorities of Americans) find this to be more important standard to maintain than publicly reaffirming gay couples.

Most people are heterosexual and only opposite sex pairs can conceive children. Your standard explicitly states that a child’s natural Father (or Mother) is non-essential to marriage, that any combination of adult is sufficient. It further reinforces and locks in the notion that all family forms are inherently equal. They are not. Yes, there is a philosophical maxim that reads – “If it’s everything it’s nothing”. We can’t defend what we can’t define. You are attempting to severe marriage from its historical and biological heritage. The effect is to say that marriage is outdated and any family form including single parenting is acceptable.

As a legal matter the New York Superior Court's

Judge Graffeo noted….

“To ignore the meaning ascribed to the right to marry in these cases and substitute another meaning in its place is to redefine the right in question and to tear the resulting new right away from the very roots that caused the U.S. Supreme Court and this Court to recognize marriage as a fundamental right in the first place.”2

2 - Andersen v. King County (J. Graffeo concurring)

Posted by Fitz | May 16, 2008 4:20 PM

Fitz, reproduction is a component of marriage, but the central feature. Many straight couples never have children. Do you feel that their marriages are illigitimate?

And how is a gay couple adopting a child "depriving" that child of a mother and a father? If the child didn't have those gay parents, it would have a rotation of foster homes, or better yet nobody. Would that be more acceptable to you?

I can't believe any sentient human would write that "In order for gay couples to raise children together they need to deprive those children of an intact married household bereft of either their natural mother or father." Right, gay couples are raiding the homes of happily married straight couples, stealing their children, and depriving those children of their parents. No, actually, they're compassionately raising kids that wouldn't otherwise have a stable home.

Posted by greg | May 16, 2008 4:21 PM

After reading about how they're going to have to change the forms which currently have a place for the "bride" and "groom" to fill in their names, I've been thinking that not only is gay marriage not going to ruin the institution of heterosexual marriage as the critics claim, but it's also going to be beneficial by making us less constrained by traditional gender roles.

Personally, if I'm going to enter into a legally binding relationship with someone else, I'd prefer not to enter into the contract as a "woman" or a "bride" in the eyes of the government. My gender shouldn't have anything to do with my role in the agreement. I'd rather just enter into it as a human being.

Posted by former deaniac | May 16, 2008 4:21 PM

In order for gay couples to raise children together they need to deprive those children of an intact married household bereft of either their natural mother or father.

Holy shit. Life must be nice in Candyland. Let us know if you make it out to America, Fitz.

What is the percentage of American children being raised in a household with both biological parents? 50%? Maybe?

But I think your point is clear, friend. As long as divorce is illegal, gay marraige should be too. I support you 100% on that. I hope you will agree with the converse as well. Godspeed.

Posted by scythia | May 16, 2008 4:25 PM

Fitz, please explain this supposed link between gay rights and out of wedlock births. So straight people see gay people getting married and...what? Decide they don't want to anymore?

Posted by greg | May 16, 2008 4:29 PM

By the way, I want I note I fully support laws prohibiting gay couples from just stealing children from their natural parents. And everyone else in fact--no child stealing, please.

Of course, that isn't how gay couples typically end up raising children, and it should indeed be obvious that in cases such as adoption, one cannot blame the gay couple for the natural parents being unavailable for the adopted child.

I will grant, however, that when it comes to something like sperm donation or a surrogate mother, the gay couple is participating in the creation of a child that will not be raised by its natural parents (although it would be nice if people like Fitz made it clear that they thought sperm donation and surrogate mothers were abominations for straight couples too). But even then, it comes down to this question:

Would the child in question actually be better off never existing at all, rather than being raised by a gay couple (presumably including one nonnatural parent)?

Again, I think to answer "yes" to that question requires believing on some level that gay people are an abomination.

Posted by DTM | May 16, 2008 4:31 PM

"Your standard explicitly states that a child’s natural Father (or Mother) is non-essential to marriage ..."

Actually, gay marriages only imply that the married couple having natural children together is non-essential for the marriage to be valid.

Which was already true (married couples do not need to have natural children together in order for the marriage to be valid), so gay marriages don't change anything about that.

Posted by DTM | May 16, 2008 4:38 PM

Also, Fitz, I'll be sure to pass along your best wishes to my uncle. See, after my aunt's first husband skipped town, my uncle stepped in and helped raised two children he wasn't even biologically tied to.

What an abominable human being! Thinking only of himself, and the woman he loved, and two small children, while totally failing to consider the larger sociological impact of his actions on the institution of marraige!

Why, if he's not rebuked, who knows how many others will follow down his path, raising children they didn't sire, and in doing so destroying the foundations of our very way of life?

Better to throw these bastard progeny into the ocean--where they belong!!!

Posted by scythia | May 16, 2008 4:42 PM

I bring up this particular quote in order to reinforce the point I am trying to make, the status & moral authority of the author is beside my main point. It is perhaps the single most concise and well articulated understanding concerning the potential of redefining marriage.

"Marriage is neither a conservative nor a liberal issue; it is a universal human institution, guaranteeing children fathers, and pointing men and women toward a special kind of socially as well as personally fruitful sexual relationship. Gay marriage is the final step down a long road America has already traveled toward deinstitutionalizing, denuding and privatizing marriage. It would set in legal stone some of the most destructive ideas of the sexual revolution: There are no differences between men and women that matter, marriage has nothing to do with procreation, children do not really need mothers and fathers, the diverse family forms adults choose are all equally good for children. What happens in my heart is that I know the difference. Don't confuse my people, who have been the victims of deliberate family destruction, by giving them another definition of marriage."

Walter Fauntroy-Former DC Delegate to Congress, Founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Coordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s march on DC

Re Adoption
- When encountering such debates it is important to note….

According to statistics provided by both the National Survey of Family Growth and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute there are approximately 120,000 children in the United States waiting to be adopted each year. About half of these children are adopted by family members, leaving about 60,000 children who are waiting to be adopted by non-related adoptive parents. By contrast, each year there are anywhere between 70,000 and 162,000 married couples in the United States who have either filed for adoption or in process of filing. That means that in any given year, there are between 1.2 and 2.7 married couples per waiting child. In other words, there is no child-centered need to open up adoption to homosexual couples.

"Fitz, please explain this supposed link between gay rights and out of wedlock births"

Gay 'marriage" reinforces the notion that all family forms are inherently equal and society & the state has no legitimate interest in promoting intact married childbearing.

Re: “abomination” – note: ( I have not used this word)

Posted by Fitz | May 16, 2008 4:44 PM

I eagerly await the wretching stories of these poor, stolen children, deprived of their opposite sex parents and condemned to the well-appointed dens of debauchery that those homos live in.

Posted by greg | May 16, 2008 4:45 PM

Yes gay "people" can produce children but a gay "couple" manifestly cannot.

Didn't I read recently that researchers had successfully created a mammalian embryo using two ova? If so, I'd say that the above argument is full of fail.

And anyway, one of the findings of the CA SC was that inability to procreate is not reason enough to deny someone the right to marry the person of his or her choosing. After all, we don't ban septuagenarians (or other infertile people) from marrying one another, even though they almost certainly won't be having any kiddies.

Posted by Anne | May 16, 2008 4:48 PM

The “necessary link” between childbearing and marriage, is that the later is exclusively limited to the only class of couples capable of bearing children. Once that link is broken it is the institution itself that has no necessary link to childbearing.

It should go without saying that this is a completely circular argument.

You have said: Marriage belongs to people that can bear children. Therefore, only people who can bear children should get married.

But there is no indication of why marriage should only belong to people that can have children (this is the "necessary" part that I was questioning), except for some vague reference to gay marriages creating a rise in illegitimacy (the causation here remains unexplained).

Posted by Brad L | May 16, 2008 4:49 PM

This is great news for divorce lawyers. For everyone else? Time will tell.

Question for lefties here: Is your grasp of nuance sufficient for you to understand that

1) You can think it's a bad idea to change the definition of marriage and

2) Not hate gay people?

I'd be all for civil unions for gays, giving them the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples, but the potential gains from changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions don't seem worth the potential downsides. Judging from the acceptance of gay celebrities like Ellen and the defeats referendums to legalize gay marriage routinely suffer at the polls, most Americans are in this "against gay marriage but don't hate gays" category. Why not have some respect for their opinion?

Posted by Fred | May 16, 2008 4:54 PM

Fitz,

So is every single straight couple seeking to adopt better qualified to be parents than every single gay couple seeking to adopt?

That is an absurd claim, even if you believe that all things being equal, a male-female couple is preferable to a male-male or female-female couple, because of course all else won't be equal when considering the full range of straight and gay couples seeking to adopt.

Again, I know you won't admit it, but this is typical taboo logic.

Posted by DTM | May 16, 2008 4:58 PM

The same people who still think G.W. Bush is doing a great job, no doubt

And the 30% that think the world is 7000 years old.

It seems the debate point here "Beware the gay cooties! They're after yer younguns!" and its just not playing well.

Fitz the 42% illegitimacy rate you're throwing around has a lot more to do with poverty than it does with what the exact rules of marriage are. It might behoove you and yours to tackle that first. Poor folks tend to have more kids in the first place, and economic uncertainty is more conducive to aberrant behavior, to the extent that producing kids without a government stamped marriage is aberrant.

Posted by RoboticGhost | May 16, 2008 5:01 PM

Fred--in 1948, when the CA SC struck down the ban on interracial marriages (Perez v. Sharp), popular opinion in the state was overwhelmingly against interracial marriages. Does that mean it would have been right to keep interracial couples from marrying?

(Hint: no.)

Posted by Anne | May 16, 2008 5:01 PM

I'd be all for civil unions for gays, giving them the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples

That's exactly what the CA decision does:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/15/california/index.html

It forces the gov't either to grant marraige rights regardless of sexual orientation, or remove "marraige" from the gov't vocabulary altogether.

Choice #2, IMO, is the better option, as it not recognizes conservative discontent, but further pushes gov't away from interference in private lives, and more towards its rightful role (in this case) as guarantor of contracts.

Posted by scythia | May 16, 2008 5:02 PM

Fred, I don't necessarily think that all people who oppose gay marriage hate gays. I do think that most of them are unable to justify their arguments against gay marriage. Because the justification seems to be "I just don't like it," over time people will become more accepting of the idea, and in the long term, opposition to gay marriage is a losing battle.

My main opposition to civil unions is just that it's a "compromise" position meant to appease the anti-gay bigots who do make up a significant fraction of those who oppose gay marriage, and it is better NOT to give them any concessions.

Posted by Tyro | May 16, 2008 5:04 PM

*as it recognizes, sorry.

and "marriage" is spelled like this.

Posted by scythia | May 16, 2008 5:06 PM

I'd be all for civil unions for gays, giving them the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples

California law already does this. The court found that the separate-but-equal construction did not pass muster under Equal Protection.

I'm with Scythia: leave "marriage" to the religious sphere, to be defined however a religious institution chooses, and keep civil unions as the legal version, open to all (all consenting adults, of course).

Posted by Anne | May 16, 2008 5:08 PM

it is better NOT to give them any concessions.

Totally disagree, and I was thinking of this in the shower, so I'm glad you brought this up.

I think meaningless concessions are a pretty good thing to give. It allows your opponent to save face, and significantly reduces resentment and the actions that arise therefrom.

But that being said, the point is the time to hold your ground is when you're WEAK, as the stronger party will likely take advantage of their position to push you as far back in negotiation as possible--as we've seen from 2001-06.

By contrast, when you're strong it's smart to make concessions, as you can generally control where they fall, and such magnamity will siphon the zeal of your opponents.

As I said, the Dems have gotten this 100% backward so far this decade. We're about to enter into a period of supermajority status, and it will be interesting to see if we can maintain it.

None of this should be read to mean that I support seperate-but-equal horsehit. The appropriate compromise, as I stated above, is the removal of "marriage" as a gov't sacrament.

When necessary. In CA, I'm not convinced it is...but I guarantee you Republican pollsters are looking at the Central Valley and salivating for 2020, so I'd prefer not to push those people into their arms as much as possible over the next decade.

Posted by scythia | May 16, 2008 5:16 PM

remove "marriage" from the gov't vocabulary altogether

Exactly. As far as a democratic government is concerned, marriage is a shortcut for a broad set of contracts between two individuals. The particulars concerning the individuals are none of the government's business. In a strange way, saying who can and cannot enter into a contract because of gender particulars is a kind of global sexism. Everybody loses.

Posted by RoboticGhost | May 16, 2008 5:18 PM

"That's exactly what the CA decision does"

"California law already does this."

Did either of you read the second clause of my sentence?:

"but the potential gains from changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions don't seem worth the potential downsides."

The CA decision means that, if marriage is going to remain a state institution, the definition of it needs to change to include same sex marriages. What I was referring to above was keeping the status quo for "marriage" (i.e., still between a man and a woman) and allowing civil unions with the same legal rights for gays.

Posted by Fred | May 16, 2008 5:18 PM

Question for lefties here: Is your grasp of nuance sufficient for you to understand that

1) You can think it's a bad idea to change the definition of marriage and

2) Not hate gay people?

Well, my grasp of nuance is just fine, thanks, but no, I don't understand the proposition. You think it's fine for us to have all the rights (you say), but think it's nonetheless important for the state -- not churches or religions, the state -- to publicly label our relationships as something different from different-sex ones. Maybe "hatred" is a strong word, but there is no escaping that the only reason to do so is to publicly brand our relationships as lesser ones. This "definitional argument" is something that a 5-year old would argue, if it was meant to be taken seriously. But it's not, it's just a means of rationalizing the bigotry.

And yes, I'm sorry for feeding the pigheaded troll. But forgive me, this is personal.

Posted by Glenn | May 16, 2008 5:24 PM

Question for lefties here: Is your grasp of nuance sufficient for you to understand that

1) You can think it's a bad idea to change the definition of marriage and
2) Not hate gay people?

The problem here is in the details. Why it is a bad idea almost always seems to devolve into a set of basic judgments that homosexuality is, at core, immoral.

Until someone can articulate what the bad thing is that is going to happen if we give gay people marriage rights. That's a vital component of a reasonable argument, without which it is hard to find the "nuance" that you are looking for.

I'd be all for civil unions for gays, giving them the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples, but the potential gains from changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions don't seem worth the potential downsides.

Honestly, this would probably be a compromise that most folks could happily live with. But what is the potential downside of the semantic difference?

(Personally, I would just as soon have it that the government recognizes only unions, and it is up to your religion to certify your marriage.)

Posted by Brad L | May 16, 2008 5:25 PM

Question for lefties here: Is your grasp of nuance sufficient for you to understand that

1) You can think it's a bad idea to change the definition of marriage and

2) Not hate gay people?

Well, my grasp of nuance is just fine, thanks, but no, I don't understand the proposition. You think it's fine for us to have all the rights (you say), but think it's nonetheless important for the state -- not churches or religions, the state -- to publicly label our relationships as something different from different-sex ones. Maybe "hatred" is a strong word, but there is no escaping that the only reason to do so is to publicly brand our relationships as lesser ones. This "definitional argument" is something that a 5-year old would argue, if it was meant to be taken seriously. But it's not, it's just a means of rationalizing the bigotry.

And yes, I'm sorry for feeding the pigheaded troll. But forgive me, this is personal.

Posted by Glenn | May 16, 2008 5:25 PM

What I was referring to above was keeping the status quo for "marriage" (i.e., still between a man and a woman) and allowing civil unions with the same legal rights for gays.

Yeah, well...not gonna happen, bro. Cf. Brown vs. Board of Education if Greenwald's post doesn't do it for you.

Just out of curiosity, what are these "potential downsides" of which you speak?

Posted by scythia | May 16, 2008 5:30 PM

I also think it's important not to pile on Fred, for a couple of reasons:

1. He's engaging in dialogue with us about his beliefs, and not just cutting-and-pasting legal documents to confuse and belittle ours.

2. We don't know where he's coming from, geographically. I live in CA, and I can state pretty unequivocally that the decision today was nt only legally and morally correct, but good for the state in general (as will be seen when it is reaffirmed in November--I would put the initial line at 55% in favor of same-sex marriage).

But if you live a state without civil unions, with few openly gay people, and thus few visible same-sex domestic partnerships, to take the position Fred's staking may in fact be quite progressive--especially for a conservative such as himself.

Remember, our larger job is to shift the Overton window, and we do that through engaging in dialogue with our opponents, not slamming them every time we score a point.

Magnamity in victory. All in together.

Posted by scythia | May 16, 2008 5:39 PM

The only reason I hate Ellen is because she's closing the door on me ever hooking up with Portia.

(Not like I ever had a chance, since I'm a dude, but that's just details :P )

Posted by sherifffruitfly | May 16, 2008 6:12 PM

We will have the considerable moral authority that comes with upholding the natural family.

The 'natural family' as characterised by conservatives (mother/father/dad/kids/dog/lawn) is a relatively recent and ephemeral creation, bound up with the creation of the suburban single-family dwelling.

Look at census records, and you actually see how people lived, rather than Fitz's projection of Leave It To Beaver fantasies back into time immemorial.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 16, 2008 7:02 PM

(Obviously, to Fitz, the 'father/dad' thing isn't a typo, but proof that Teh Ghey has infected my mind.)

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 16, 2008 7:04 PM

As a side note, it's always fun to watch all these people like Fitz, so pure & uncompromising in their civil & reasoned defense of the (perennially unrealized) ideal of marriage as institution and bulwark of civilization, instantly switch to their best "live-and-let-live" Spiel whenever the controversial issue under review happens to implicate one of their own natural preferences.

Posted by Bill | May 16, 2008 7:16 PM

the potential gains from changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex unions don't seem worth the potential downsides.

Strictly in terms of political expediency? Possibly not.

But if you get married in a drive-thru chapel in Vegas with an Elvis impersonator singing '(I Can't Help) Falling In Love With You' in the background, the officiant is likely an ordained Christian minister. Heck, there's a chance that your Elvis impersonator is a Baptist pastor too.

They make movies about it. And yet, it appears that the quickie wedding doesn't cause the same kind of palpitations.

I'd be glad to see a separation of church and state, in which civil and legal partnership is bestowed by a civil officiant, after which you can go to the religious or non-religious venue of your choosing for the rest. The CA decision offers that prospect.

If states collectively don't want to do it, they don't have to do it. (Utah still sells watered-down beer, after all.) But for those states that do, the issue obvious rises to the federal level, when dealing with interstate and international recognition.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | May 16, 2008 7:23 PM

Probably worth noting that there is a class of heterosexual couples who marry that is incapable of having children -- couples that include a member that is known to be sterile (vasectomies, hysterectomies, elderly, etc.). If procreation is that critical to the institution, it'd be a simple matter to weed out these folks. Yet no one thinks of doing it.

Posted by demisod | May 16, 2008 7:28 PM

I have been thinking about Fitz's argument and though he spends some time focusing on a "right to an intact married couple of natural parents", his sidetrip into the statistics of adoption make pretty clear that he is o.k. with non-natural parents raising children so long as they are opposite sex. The real obstacle for Fitz and his friends appear to be the concept of a child growing up relatively happily and healthfully in a family with only one parental gender instead of two.

(Parenthetically, this concern is mostly hypothetical and hypocritical since it is the rare child where there actually is any choice. Setting aside those never born because a gay couple is prevented from using artificial conception, the other children might be a gay mother or father who is forced to stay in a marriage with someone they do not love, so as to prevent them from raising a child with someone they do. I doubt whether any law would do much to keep parents from divorcing in that circumstance. And as for adoptions, how often are two otherwise qualified couples really gunning for the same child)

It might be a good time to dust off those studies tending to show that two caring parents are significant to raising a healthy child, but their gender is not. The main difference in the study I have heard of is that children raised by gay couples are more flexible regarding accepting minority sexual orientations as normal. Calling that a burden is kind of circular.

And, as many have noted, couching all arguments re marriage in terms of procreation is also inappropriate. Fitz and friends don't mind that many infertile or uninterested married straight couples don't have children because they think that we must put great effort into propping up the idea of marriage = procreation. And that idea, which apparently can survive married infertile straight couples, can't survive married gay couples. I don't find the argument compelling.

Oh and in case we are doing a head count, I am a straight man in Washington state. Good luck guys!

Posted by glennn | May 16, 2008 7:39 PM

I have been thinking about Fitz's argument and though he spends some time focusing on a "right to an intact married couple of natural parents", his sidetrip into the statistics of adoption make pretty clear that he is o.k. with non-natural parents raising children so long as they are opposite sex. The real obstacle for Fitz and his friends appear to be the concept of a child growing up relatively happily and healthfully in a family with only one parental gender instead of two.

(Parenthetically, this concern is mostly hypothetical and hypocritical since it is the rare child where there actually is any choice. Setting aside those never born because a gay couple is prevented from using artificial conception, the other children might be a gay mother or father who is forced to stay in a marriage with someone they do not love, so as to prevent them from raising a child with someone they do. I doubt whether any law would do much to keep parents from divorcing in that circumstance. And as for adoptions, how often are two otherwise qualified couples really gunning for the same child)

It might be a good time to dust off those studies tending to show that two caring parents are significant to raising a healthy child, but their gender is not. The main difference in the study I have heard of is that children raised by gay couples are more flexible regarding accepting minority sexual orientations as normal. Calling that a burden is kind of circular.

And, as many have noted, couching all arguments re marriage in terms of procreation is also inappropriate. Fitz and friends don't mind that many infertile or uninterested married straight couples don't have children because they think that we must put great effort into propping up the idea of marriage = procreation. And that idea, which apparently can survive married infertile straight couples, can't survive married gay couples. I don't find the argument compelling.

Oh and in case we are doing a head count, I am a straight man in Washington state. Good luck guys!

Posted by glennn | May 16, 2008 7:39 PM

It might be a good time to dust off those studies tending to show that two caring parents are significant to raising a healthy child, but their gender is not. The main difference in the study I have heard of is that children raised by gay couples are more flexible regarding accepting minority sexual orientations as normal. Calling that a burden is kind of circular.

You got it. And what about Iraq war widows? Are they also abominations if they choose not to marry again? What if female widows move back in with their moms, or male widowers share an apartment with their brothers? Is that a fate worse for their children then death? People have been living as single parents or in same-sex households, by accident or design, since humans first existed.

There's no special alchemy you get by putting a woman and a man together.

Posted by Persia | May 16, 2008 8:32 PM

There's no special alchemy you get by putting a woman and a man together.

I think Barry White may take issue with you there, Persia...

Posted by scythia | May 16, 2008 8:50 PM

Fred,

The problem is what you called the "potential downsides" of gay marriage (without specifying them). From long experience, people who fear there are significant "downsides" to gay people getting married are in fact depending on taboo logic--that somehow if gay people get married, it will corrupt marriage in general. And it is not like the idea that people view gay people as taboo came out of nowhere: that is a notion that has long been promoted, and is still being promoted, by many people. So this isn't really a major surprise.

Anyway, the bottomline is that we don't place these requirements on most couples wanting to get married: they don't have to want to have children or even be capable of having children, they don't have to demonstrate that they would be ideal parents in every single way if they did have children, and so on. So the sudden appearance of these requirements for marriage just when gay people want to get married is a pretty transparent double standard, and therefore unpersuasive to people not predisposed to fear gay people getting married.

Posted by DTM | May 16, 2008 8:56 PM

I think acceptance of the Sullivan-Yglesias-McArdle plural marriage is just around the corner.

Posted by millenials | May 16, 2008 9:15 PM

By the way, I do want to note that I don't think all people who oppose gay marriage are in fact using taboo logic. Specifically, for some of them this is just a matter of being good team players, with their perception being that people who favor gay rights are on the other team (Democrats, liberals, Leftists, hippies, etc.), and therefore that they should oppose gay rights.

Posted by DTM | May 16, 2008 9:40 PM

Well if marriage is only about procreation, my grandfather and his second wife were undermining marriage. I can't imagine that's true because I saw the very opposite -- folks were spurred on by their example to take their own marriages more seriously. My folks' marriage is no longer important because my brother and I are grown. Heck, my sister is illegitimately raising two children who she didn't give birth to. My cousin is raising 4 children who aren't his (while fighting in Iraq).

So Fitz, thanks for insulting multiple members of my family and their marriages. Thanks for insinuating that they're incapable of providing "the best environment" for their children. While I spend some time wondering how to be a member of a family that doesn't "undermine the institution of marriage" maybe I'll watch some Leave it to Beaver so I can see what REAL families are like.

Posted by James Hare | May 16, 2008 10:11 PM