The Opine Editorials

Marriage Neutering: State-Level Battles and Biased Media Language Continue

2012-01-28T19:42:00.000-05:00

Battles continue in several states over whether or not state licenses will be neutered so that state can pretend that relationships that aren't marriage are marriage.

This Associated Press article by Dadi Crary was headlined "Gay Marriage Returns to the Political Spotlight". I could say my marriage is a gay one. This terminology by the AP and other media is a diliberate manipulation for their bias. They are referring to granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples. A homosexual orientation is not required, nor is homosexual behavior.

In Maryland, New Jersey and Washington, bills to [neuter state] marriage [licensing] have high-powered support and good chances of passage in the legislature.

So much for the "powerless minority" status.

[People who understand marriage unites the sexes] in Maryland and Washington would likely react by seeking referendums in November to overturn those laws, while New Jersey's Republican governor, Chris Christie, says he'll veto the bill if it reaches him and prefers that lawmakers OK a referendum so voters can decide.

In all three states, polls suggest voters are closely divided on whether gays should have the right to marry, so there's a chance one could emerge as the first state to support [neutering] marriage in a statewide vote.

Gay people already have the "right to marry". Nobody, gay or straight, should be able to get a marriage license with a union that excludes one of the sexes.

Maine voters also may have an opportunity to vote for same-sex marriage in November; an announcement by [marriage neutering] activists about a ballot-measure campaign is set for Thursday. Proposed amendments for constitutional bans on gay marriage will be on the ballots in North Carolina on May 8 and in Minnesota on Nov. 6.

It's... not... a... ban... on... "gay"... marriage.

In New Hampshire, Republicans who now control the legislature are mulling whether to repeal the 2009 law [neutering] marriage. Their state is one of six with such laws, along with Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia.

Marriage neutering advocates would have people believe that means it is sweeping the nation, and only old fuddy-duddy squares are not hip to it. They use more current language sometimes, more often hateful language, but you get the idea.

Added together, the state-level showdowns will likely raise the prominence of the marriage issue in the presidential campaign, even though it's not a topic that the leading candidates tend to broach proactively.

Right. Snotty college students who plan to live off of their parents and/or taxpayers for the next seven years, rude activist plants, and biased news personalities bring it up, and then the Republican candidates who respond are presented as obsessed.

Three of the remaining Republican presidential contenders, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, have signed a National Organization for Marriage pledge opposing [neutering] marriage and endorsing a federal constitutional amendment to ban it.

There's the "ban" language again. The pledge is more comprehensive than that. Go read about it for yourself.

NEW JERSEY: Thanks to a change of heart by Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a [neutering] marriage bill is now seen as having a strong chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled legislature. Christie, a Roman Catholic who has long opposed [neutering] marriage, says he'd veto the bill if it reaches him, but on Tuesday he urged lawmakers to put the issue before voters in a statewide ballot measure.

Good idea.

Sweeney rejected the suggestion, saying, "Civil rights is not to be placed on the ballot."

Hmmmm, a civil right, eh? How come the Reverend Marting Luther King, Jr. never mentioned this? Was he some sort of bigot? Civil rights have been voted on in this country ever since the Constitution was adopted. The Bill of Rights was voted on. The civil rights legislation of the 1960s was voted on. Judges essentially vote when they issue their decisions. One way or another, this is subjected to a vote. Don't want that? Don't press for it.

MARYLAND: In contrast to Christie, Maryland's Catholic governor — Democrat Martin O'Malley — supports [neutering] marriage. Unlike last year, when a marriage bill stalled in the House of Delegates, O'Malley is now making the issue one of his top legislative priorities...Public opinion could be crucial, because [defenders of] marriage are expected to seek a referendum in November to overturn a [counterfeiting] bill if one passes in the legislature.

The people need to stand up.

WASHINGTON: Like O'Malley, Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire has strongly endorsed a pending [marriage neutering] bill, which received its first legislative hearing this week. Based on public commitments from lawmakers, the bill has enough votes to win passage. However, as in Maryland, opponents are poised to petition for a referendum challenging the law.

Again, the people need to stand up.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A bill pending in a House committee would repeal the state's [counterfeit] marriage law and replace it with civil unions for any unmarried adults. It would not invalidate the [marriage licenses issued to brideless and groomless couples] since 2009. The fate of the bill is uncertain, facing possible revisions before a vote and a promised veto by Democratic Gov. John Lynch if it does pass. If it gets that far, and lawmakers override a veto, the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union has indicated it would challenge the new law in court.

Why haven't the libertarians in that state removed government from marriage entirely? Hmmmm.

MAINE: [Marriage neutering advocates] in Maine have spent several months assessing whether they would seek a referendum in November to [neuter] marriage...Its lawmakers approved a [marriage neutering] law in 2009, but it was overturned months later by a statewide referendum.

Good for the people of Maine.

NORTH CAROLINA and MINNESOTA:

Voters in 30 states have approved constitutional amendments aimed at [protecting] marriage; Minnesota and North Carolina could join those ranks if measures placed on the ballot by Republican-controlled legislatures win approval later this year.

Every state needs to clearly answer the question. Despite all of human history, activists want to replace marriage with a counterfeit. Is that acceptable? About 80% of the states have specifically, recently, answered "no!" Of the handful of states where the answer has been "yes", the answer has mostly come from judges rather than a vote of the people or legislature.

As always, the Los Angeles Times has been all over this urgent, outside-of-California issue.

Amy Hubbard reported...

The Washington state Legislature appears to have all the votes it needs to approve a gay marriage bill.

Again with the sloppy choice of words.

After the first public hearing on the contentious issue, held Monday in Olympia, Democratic state Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen announced that she would support the measure, becoming the 25th necessary vote to ensure passage of the same-sex marriage bill.

Keep that in mind, people of Washington.

Haugen's statement stressed her "very strong" Christian beliefs. "I have always believed in traditional marriage between a man and a woman. That is what I believe, to this day.

“But this issue isn’t about just what I believe. It’s about respecting others, including people who may believe differently than I. It’s about whether everyone has the same opportunities for love and companionship and family and security that I have enjoyed."

What about respecting marriage? What about respecting all of the people who are against neutering marriage? Neutering marriage does NOT provide anyone with more opportunity for love, companionship, family, and security. Security comes from a personal commitment, and perhaps a pre-nup.

No surprise, Karin Klein offered an opinion about this. She posits that perhaps 2008 was just "bad timing" in California (you know, there was that huge conservative sweep of California in 2008, after all). She, of course, used the "ban" language.

The more the movement spreads in the nation, the more opinion will shift toward recognition that it is discriminatory to withhold the joys and privileges of married life -- though sometimes that life can seem a little short on the privileges -- from gay and lesbian couples.

The thing is, since no state issued marriage licenses to brideless or groomless couples ten years ago, a single state doing so means it is "spreading". Most states have recently affirmed the bride+groom requirement, but somehow the she doesn't portray that as spreading like wildfire. The biggest reason stated issue marriage licenses, which do carry certain legalities (most of them responding the license, rather than directly attached), is something that is not present in brideless or groomless couples, who are already free to share their lives.

Ricardo Lopez had coverage of the New Jersey developments.

“This issue that our state is exploring -- whether or not to redefine hundreds of years of societal and religious traditions -- should not be decided by 121 people in the Statehouse in Trenton,” Christie told an audience in Bridgewater, N.J., on Tuesday. “Let’s let the people of New Jersey decide what is right for the state.”

Amen. Say, where's last list of all of the states that have removed their bride+groom requirements throug a direct vote of the people?

Bigotry and the Conflict of Ideas

2012-01-28T12:41:00.001-05:00

As a proponent of the marriage idea I find myself confronted with the charge of bigotry. This charge is something that, in all my years on the marriage issue, has not been pressed against me by adulterers and unwed cohabitors and fornicators.

But SSMers take the default position that being in favor of the marriage idea and opposed to replacing it with the SSM idea is grounds for such a charge. This arises not from the marriage idea but from the SSM idea.

It is exceedingly rare for an SSMer to express a substantively different default. Sure, there are SSMers who publicly play the part of Skeptic but even then it comes off as cynical rhetorical tactic that would place the onus on the accused to earn a sort of temporary reprieve and grant of probation.

One is reproached for not playing along with the default as part of the bargain.

At Family Scholars Blog (FSB), Fannie presented a query to supporters of the marriage idea. Her blogpost was answered by Fitz and by RK (both familiar to Opine readers) and I encourage you to take a looksee.

http://familyscholars.org/2012/01/3/on-hatred-and-bigotry-again

I left a comment but my comments of late have not been showing up in the comment sections of FSB so I will post it here add will add more later.

* * *

Fannie, RK's comment was well-answered your blogpost. It merits being reposted as a blogpost of its own.

I will comment on this further at Opine Editorials in my own blogposts. Your remarks are contradictory and seeded with the very flaws you would assign to others.

Phil's remarks typify the accusation of bigotry that is central to the SSM campaign. It is an accusation that defies reason and defies your own pose as one seeking a civil discussion on SSM.

* * *

Also see:

Family Scholars Blogger Says:
Curse them because they don't deserve any respect at all.
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2011/1/family-scholars-blogger-says-curse-them-because-they-dont-deserve-any-respect-at-all

And:

Bigotry [defined]
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com//202/01/bigotry

And please read my comment at the end of the discussion under this blogpost (and then read the whole thing for the context):

Bigotry and the SSM project
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2006/04/bigotry-and-ssm-project.html

And please read the discussion that followed this blogpost:

Nuts and Dolts
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2006/03/nuts-and-dolts.html

Neutralizing the word "Family"

2012-01-27T18:12:00.000-05:00

Katie Miller at the Huffington Post writes three reasons why recognizing same-sex marriage by the military is a good idea:

3) Same-sex marriage recognition in the military reclaims (and possibly neutralizes) the term "family."

It's far too often that we hear Republican candidates (can you guess which GOPer this hyperlink goes to?) toss around the word "family" as a euphemism for anti-gay sentimentality. If the military -- as one of the most family-oriented institutions in American society -- recognizes same-sex families as legitimate, then others will inevitably do so, as well. Again, families are "the strength of our nation." If gays are included in this military definition of family, I would consider that a step up from the classification of "pervert" and "sexual deviant."

Pushing for same-sex partner recognition and family benefits in the military may appear to be a narrow goal in the wide scheme of LGBT issues, but it's part of a larger agenda. It's about reclaiming and eventually neutralizing the terms "family," "spouse," and even "patriotism" so they can't be placed in opposition to everything the LGBT movement stands for.

It was, admittedly, a bit painful to read. But then again what I feel reading that is probably the same feeling that motivates Miller to write it.

To me, family is like a very choice spot out in nature. It is beautiful, but fragile, and I wish people would appreciate it for what it is before leveling it to build something. It needs to be protected and looked after, and in turn, provides some of the greatest joy and connection to the world that we may ever feel.

To read in such curt terms that family needs to be neutralized sounds to me like taking a bulldozer to it.

Yet on the other hand, she sees it as a place of pain, of hurt, and general meanness. It is a sort of code word for "gays not allowed". While having participated in this debate for over a decade, I'm still left to question, "how did family become that"?

Every now and again we need to re-evaluate what we know. Sometimes we can learn more about things we already think we know very much about.

When we hold up the intact family, the one where the parents and the children they created together live in mutual support, it is as an ideal. It is the only way, I continue to argue, that all of the rights and responsibilities associated with a child being born can be fully realized. That is important enough to pause and take notice.

But being an ideal family doesn't make it the only family. We need neither tear down the ideal, nor make it exclusive, to appreciate the full landscape.

Speaking of full landscape, it is probably an oversight that Miller limits her article to same-sex couples when there are many other non-married or unrecognized family situations out there? Just saying.

No one is specifically barred from the ideal we try to hold up when we talk about family values. And support and recognition are not exclusive to the ideal either. Or in other words, "family" does not need to be neutralized away from its expression of an ideal, nor does that neutralize the needs of other families.

In fact, recognizing the ideal behind family can give importance to other family forms. Consider adoption, that is not the intact ideal. Yet who can deny that in its attempt to restore to a child the tragedy of the neglect, abuse, or death of their natural mother and father? The value we place on the former is directly correlated with the value we put on the latter.

Same sex marriage arguments show similar correlations. They argue how same-sex couples are committed, loving, and devoted care givers to children. The argument itself says that recognizing their closeness to the the ideal doesn't diminish it, it gives it more value.

But, alas, there is still a difference, no? Difference isn't in itself bad, it is what brings about variety. Difference is also a means to care for differing situations. One size does not fit all. But even more important the difference here is rooted in our very humanity, and to neglect it diminishes our value in our humanity.

Our heritage makes up part of our identity, it is our gift from our parents. Our identity and personality is also contributed to by our parents. Perhaps no one is better positioned to teach us the good of our identity, how to do the best with it, than the people who we share it with -- assuming they've lived their lives to develop it in socially beneficial ways. And isn't that what marriage is all about? Where else can that be seen so clearly and so naturally? It can be seen many other places, but to me it can't be seen in any more pristine condition than there. Being able to fully recognize and realize the rights associated with each child birth is a wonderful thing to preserve.

It's okay. It really is. "Speaking words of wisdom, let it be". Let marriage be marriage, and let their families be families. We can do this in a way that everyone gains value.

Family Scholar Blogger's Sneers Met with Civility and Charity

2012-01-27T03:26:00.000-05:00

In reaction to the thorough argument in favor of the core meaning of marriage made by Robert George in, "What Is Marriage", Barry Deustch who has guest-blogged at Family Scholars Blog wrote an immature and embarrassingly inept critique. It is a wonder that he still has blogging privileges at FSB or that he got them in the first place.

See:
http://www.

Crossposted:
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2010/12/21/what-is-bodily-union-a-response-to-what-is-marriage/

Robert George and his co-authors have invited and have responded to critiques from some notable pro-SSM scholars. Deutsch does not perform as a scholarly blogger despite his presence at FSB as a guest, however he has used FSB as a platform from which to take on the argument presented by Robert George. And his critique was dissected with philosophic and scholarly discipline combined with considerable civility and charity.

Deutsch did not engage the actual argument with intellectual and moral seriousness, the co-authors observed. While mistakenly claiming that George's argument is a non sequitor, "Deutsch's claim against us is itself a non sequitor."

(It has been my own observation that Deutsch is in the habit of doing the very thing he imagines his opponent doing. Too often his complaints are based on misunderstanding or outright misrepresentation upon which he makes glaring errors. As in this case.)

The co-authors state the obvious about Deutsch's poor excuse for a critique:

"Ridicule is the last resort of desperate arguments. [...] A sound objection would have sufficed. But a dozen sneers do not make an objection."

Read the exchange for yourself.

See: Real Bodily Union
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/12/2277

And don't miss Deutsch's admission that he does not respect those who disagree with him on marriage and on SSM. See his comments under his blogpost at Amptoons where he crossposted with FSB.

Also note that amidst the sneers Deutsch continues to flog the infertility strawman, which is among the favorites of the SSMer's collection of manufactured misrepresentations of the actual argument. He has been at this for years and seems unwilling to improve his understanding of the content of the disagreement.

True Marriage? And, Related How?

2012-01-25T12:10:00.002-05:00

Here is a comment I left at Amptoons.

www.amptoons.com/blog/2011/02/23/will-legal-same-sex-marriage-lead-to-incestuous-marriage-no-it-wont

Ampersand, your comment indicates that you agree with myca's comment in it entirety.

[See the comments at the above link.]

Did you invoke the count of cultures? Yes you did. That is no misconception. You sought to quantify for the sake of rendering an accurate definition of your own.

In the breadth of known human cultures, the practice of men 'marrying' men, or women 'marrying' women, does not count in huge numbers or majorities nor does it even qualify for the descriptor, many. The count would need to include, as confirmed, all the speculative exceptions and include the smattering of present day anomalies to quantify the practice as a tiny drop in the sea.

But since the count clearly favors the two-sexed relationship, as even polygamy demonstrates, it would be counter-intuitive, as you put it, and dubious, as you put it, to define marriage as other than two-sexed. Or to claim that all these known cultures had it wrong in the aggregate and it is only the smattering of present day portions of western culture that now finally has it right.

But you did.

Moving forward, please confirm, correct, or clarify: You reject the notion that marriage has an independent reality. [You think] that there is no true marriage [core definition] despite your offered core definition.

Such a rejection would render inapt Myca's beetle analogy since the decisive stuff of marriage would not be something intrinsic to the type of relationship but rather something extrinsic.

The stress on practice is presented in lieu of a principled basis for something classifed as marriage. That would mean recasting the thing endlessly maleable and thus not actually definable by stuff integral to it.

By the by, while you made a prediction about the future of incestuous marriage, George did not. His query - and the challenge he set forth - is about the principled basis for something like marriage. Your remarks about incest demonstrate that your proposed definition is incoherent and incomplete.

* * *

Update:

The exchange at Amptoons has already indicated that the SSMer has an inkling that marriage can be reasonably defined based on features found amidst the great variety of the great bulk of human cultures.

Ampersand thought he could reduce the core to 'making unrelated people closest kin'. (Read his blogpost and the exchange for his carefully worded definition of marriage across human cultures.) His reference to polyandry and polygny - the practice as opposed to the concept and its principled basis, mind - backfires as my subsequent comments there will demonstrate.

I'll crosspost here if the comment section is still open to my participation there. Otherwise I'll continue here what Ampersand started there (with his own blogposts, but not his comments, crossposted at Family Scholars Blog where my comments have been hindered arbitrarily.) The fragility of his pose calls out for a gentle if frank response from defenders of marriage.

SSMers try to mimic the promarriage arguments but their distortions depend very much on leaving stuff out. This has led to misconstruing the challenge that Robert George put to them. This is evident in Ampersand's use of the phrase "core definition" and his claim that the definition that Robert George presented is not representative of marital relationships across cultures. Ampersand counted polygny and polyandry as counter examples to the one-man-one-woman basis but Robert George did not neglect polygamy in his argument. Meanwhile his point (which Ampersand actually quoted but skipped past) is that human cultures regulate the natural connection of mom-children-dad (to paraphrase).

If the unrelated man and woman become related each to the other, how would it be possible? If they do not actually become physically related how are they more closely related than those already related by birth?

Bodily union integrates the male and female persons comprehensively since each person is a body and a personality. This procreative type of relationship is orientated toward the sexual type of behavior which itself commonly makes mom and dad related through birth - the birth of their children. Bodily union is essential to this type of relationship.

This comprehensive union arises from the two-sexed nature of humankind, the complementarily-sexed nature of human procreation, and the both-sexed nature of human community. It is far more than a concept or theory or abstract definition. Human cultures respond to this, as described by Robert George.

This comprehensive union extends beyond the particular husband and wife; it qualifies marriage as an organic social institution that is recognized rather than created and owned by Government. Through its sexual ecology on the personal level but also on the cultural level, the marital relationship integrates the sexes and provides for responsible procreation.

This is how the man is transformed into husband and the woman is transformed into wife and thus becomes each other's close kin; this is basis for societal response, for recognition by governing authorities, and both for the special place of marriage and for the boundaries drawn around it. They aren't just close kin; they are a particular kind of kin. That is, the marital relationship is different from other types of relationships (of related people or unrelated people) both in kind and in degree.

Thus united, the wife and husband become the closest that two unrelated embodied personalities can come to being blood related. Ampersand may faintly percieve this for he talks of closest kin without identifying how the unrelated become closet kin. Through marriage but how?

This cannot be so for a same-sex scenario which would depend entirely on a legal fiction rather than comprehensive union via the procreative type of relationship. Each insance of SSM is sex segregative and nonfertile as a type of relationship. It lacks the intrinsic features that classify a human relationship as marital.

Ampersand's attempted core definition is designed to suite his SSM idea but, in terms of marriage across the historical and anthropological records, it is incomplete and thus insufficient.

He had used the count of cultures to make the claim that his offered definition is more accurate. That mimickry of Robert George's argument backfired on Ampersand.

#marriageequality Defined...

2012-01-25T12:07:00.002-05:00

Marriage Equality the way I think it can be recognized in a way that endorses the most responsibility towards the most important and the greatest number of our human rights.

The equal recognition of the rights and responsibilities of the man, woman, and children they potentially have together.

Children have a right to know their parentage and to be raised by them wherever possible. And spouses (the people we create a child with, or in other words the people who shared their identity to create the child) deserve the love, support, and tolerance of each other to help fulfill their responsibilities towards the children.

Many of these rights can be recognized in many different situations, which is why I support recognizing them (such as recognizing Same Sex Marriage or Gay Marriage in a way that recognizes all mutually trusting and committed households.

However, we should all recognize that just like the only way a door can be opened is when the lock and key are together, the only place all of our children's and our spouses rights can fully be realized is in a committed household where they look after each other's rights together. Nothing else is equal to full recognition of everyone's rights, nothing is equal to integration. And that is the lesson that Marriage has been trying to teach humanity, likely, for millions of years through all cultures and societies.

Only when the complementary parts unlock all of our human potential, and with it our human rights and obligations, is that really what marriage is fully about.

Footnote no more

2012-01-24T06:44:00.000-05:00

What we've been saying all along, thank's Carey Goldberg for putting it so well...

What happened to me? What happened to the independent woman who, by the time she married for the first time at age 44, felt no particular need for a piece of paper from City Hall?
It is this. Day in and out, through lunch-packing and play date-making and bath-running, I am struck by a surprising truth: Though the raising of our children constitutes the central activity of our family, it is the love between Sprax and me that constitutes its ineffable core.

That sounds like a traditional religious point of view, but we are not religious. I've come to this understanding simply as an observer of my own heart and the family dance. It is, apparently, just an emotional fact of life -- at least, of our life.

The story of how their relationship went from sperm donation to marriage is very endearing. But think about it this way, the father went from a potentially interesting note in history for their child to a living person she could interact with and get to know -- personally. Imagine how an engaged husband, a fully realized family, has brought the love between the two spouses to fruition in such real and tangible ways.

The Government Angel

2012-01-23T06:39:00.000-05:00

I offer this money line by Ross Douthat as my thought for the day, hattip to NOM...

There is no government program that can guarantee a happy childhood or a devoted spouse. (If you replaced Clarence from “It’s a Wonderful Life” or the Angel Gabriel of the Gospels with a Health and Human Services bureaucrat, those stories would probably have a much grimmer ending.)

Does Marriage Really Make People Happier?

2012-01-20T04:43:00.000-05:00

"Marriage has long been an important social institution, but in recent decades western societies have experienced increases in cohabitation, before or instead of marriage, and increases in children born outside of marriage," said Dr Kelly Musick, Associate Professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University's College of Human Ecology. "These changes have blurred the boundaries of marriage, leading to questions about what difference marriage makes in comparison to alternatives."

[...]

"We found that differences between marriage and cohabitation tend to be small and dissipate after a honeymoon period. Also while married couples experienced health gains -- likely linked to the formal benefits of marriage such as shared healthcare plans -- cohabiting couples experienced greater gains in happiness and self-esteem. For some, cohabitation may come with fewer unwanted obligations than marriage and allow for more flexibility, autonomy, and personal growth" said Musick.
"Compared to most industrial countries America continues to value marriage above other family forms," concluded Musick. "However our research shows that marriage is by no means unique in promoting well-being and that other forms of romantic relationships can provide many of the same benefits."

As an advocate for marriage, I'd love to show that marriage has great benefits for the health and well being of the adults involved. That would make for a great political rallying cry to encourage more recognition of marriage to the very people it would benefit. However, this study doesn't show that. Come to think of it, we've covered a number of reports that say marriage is over-rated from the standpoint of adult happiness.

But is that really odd? I can just as easily point to a number of studies that show how beneficial marriage is above and beyond co-habitation for children. Leaving the merits of this study aside, it is clear to see that marriage's best value is seen in how it effects the environment the mother and father create together with the children they create together. Even when the benefits for adults who "have blurred the boundaries of marriage" are so unclear.

That isn't a conceit, how children play the central role in what defines marriage has been our message since our first post.

If someone is given a gift that they don't really like, it is not likely going to make them happy. The real success of a marriage, the happiness we get from marriage, must be rooted in a job well done. Its rooted in responsible procreation fulfilled. The fewer people get that message from the beginning, the fewer that will find the treasure at the end of the hard work.

Black pastors join pro-family groups to condemn Southern Poverty Law Center for ‘bigotry’

2012-01-19T09:04:00.001-05:00

Black pastors join pro-family groups to condemn Southern Poverty Law Center for ‘bigotry’ via LifeSiteNews

The comments are more interesting then the article itself!

Into the mind of a Neanderthal

2012-01-19T04:21:00.000-05:00

Its just a quick little blurb, but think for a moment. What would you look for that would indicate marriage in a society long since gone, and with no historical record?

Many Neanderthal sites have rare pieces of high-quality stone from more distant sources (more than 100 kilometres), but not enough to indicate trade or even regular contact with other communities. A more likely scenario is that an adolescent boy or girl carried the material with them when they attached themselves to a new community. The small size of Neanderthal territories would have made some form of "marrying out" essential.

We can also assume that Neanderthals had some form of marriage because pair-bonding between men and women, and joint provisioning for their offspring, had been a feature of hominin social life for over a million years.

From this article.

The Nasty Politics of Parenting Research

2012-01-18T05:12:00.000-05:00

The Nasty Politics of Parenting Research from National Review Online

It’s a straightforward family-research story; a helpful, but not surprising finding: the type of homes kids come from has a huge impact on their educational success. Larger even than type of school they attend. But findings like this have been understood since the celebrated 1966 Coleman Study and before.

So I commented that this finding “supports over three decades of consistent research showing that kids who grow up in a home with their married parents tend to do better in all measures of educational attainment than their peers being raised in single, divorced, and cohabiting-parent homes,” Then I concluded by explaining, “Moms and dads both matter here, as well as the type of relationship between them.”

Why is it important to establish parentage in Vermont?

2012-01-18T05:00:00.000-05:00

From the Department of Children and Families in Vermont

Why is it important to establish parentage?

Finances: Children need and have the legal right to receive child support; parentage must be legally established in order to receive it.
Health: Children need and have the right to know their family’s medical history. In addition, it might be possible to obtain health insurance for a child through the father’s employer, union, or military service.
Survivor Benefits: If the father dies before parentage is legally established, children may not qualify for certain benefits that would otherwise legally pass on to them (e.g., Social Security, pension, inheritance rights, veterans’ benefits, and life insurance).
Identity: Children have the right to know who their parents are.

Polyandry and polygny and human cultures

2012-01-17T17:36:00.000-05:00

I left a comment at Amptoons under a blogpost by Ampersand aka Barry Deutsch who guest blogged at Family Scholars Blog (FSB). He had posted the same blogpost at both Amptoons and FSB but comments are closed at FSB while still open at Amptoons. So I added to the discusion at Amptoons.

For the moment I want to put my comment on the record at Opine just in case Ampersand deletes it at Amptoons (or attempts to obstruct my further commenting as he has endeavored to do at FSB).

I'll add an introduction to this bogpost and some aditional thoughts later.

* * *

The exchange was about Ampersand's reaction to the following from Robert P. George's article, "What Is Mariage?":

"Marriage's independent reality is only confirmed by the fact that the known cultures of every time and place have seen fit to regulate the relationships of actual or would-be parents to each other and to any children they might have."

* * *

See my comment at
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2011/02/23/will-legal-same-sex-marriage-lead-to-legal-incestuous-marriage-no-it-wont/#comment-224520

You have used the count of cultures to argue against the man-woman criterion of marriage. Readers who have agreed with you might fairly expect that if this backfires on you, Ampersand, you will not flip-flop to abandon such a count as insignificant.

Your assertion is quantified: "huge numbers", "probably the majority", "many or most" human cultures.

You would be hard-pressed to come up with a count that justified such descriptors for polyandry.

Likewise for the SSM idea. You necessarily seperated SSM from the expanse of human cultures across the historical and anthropological records and necessarily used a different quantifying descriptor,"increasingly", which effectively conceded that the SSM idea does not provide a result that justified the other quantifying descriptors.

Polygny does have a much higher count. It, like polyandry and unlike SSM, is two-sexed. Multiple marriage is a series of husband-wife unions.

For instance, the second wife does not marry the first wife; they have a husband in common. A third wife does not marry the other wives. In each marriage the spouses become kin (if not already kin) and the prioritization of kinship is bound by cultural protocols; the sexual basis for consummation, adultery, and paternity is two-sexed and not sex-neutral nor one-sexed. The limits on multiple marriage in such cultures derives from the core meaning of marriage. Multiple marriage is a response, albeit a flawed response, to the core meaning of marriage.

The SSM idea is a response, too, and that takes the form of outright rejection of the marriage idea i.e. the core meaning of marriage which is deemed bigoted and hateful and harmful. Thus SSM cannot be counted with polyandry and polygny as counter examples of marriage as the union of husband and wife.

If you would rather point at exceptions, rather than many if not most human cultures (or even present day human cultures), fair enough. But best not to mischaracterize that as something else. You may have mischaracterized inadvertently or out of a hurried flub you had not comprehended. But you can correct yourself anytime.

While your count of polyandry is in error, your count of polygny is more plausible even as that count contradicts your remarks against George et al.

Confusion of categories is a profound weakness of SSM argumentation.

If you meant to count (or to include a count of) two-sexed groups rather than series of twosomes, then, the count still does not favor your opening remarks about marriage in human cultures.

But your conflating the twosome limit with the limit on number of concurrent twosomes, if indeed that was your intended meaning (please clarify), would be instructive both in terms of your argument aganst the man-woman criterion (an argument that has been made with the rhetorical emphasis on homosexuality) and in terms of drawing lines of eligibility based on kinship or relatedness and based on the twosome.

* * *

Please confirm, clarify, or correct:

1) You think that it is extremely counter-intuitive to say that there is a core definition of marriage, an objectively true definition, which many or most human cultures have gotten wrong.

2) You feel it seems dubious to claim such a definition while at the same time defining marriage in a way that contradicts how marriage has been defined in many or most of these known cultures.

I'll add more later.

Is George Clooney Making a Promise?

2012-01-17T14:48:00.004-05:00

Marriage expert George Clooney - who has something like four or five years of marriage experience from the early 1990s and has said he'd never marry again (but of course women will still throw themselves at him) – if he was quoted accurately, said of neutering marriage:

“This really is the final leg of the civil rights movement.”

Really? Do you promise, George?

Does this mean you are stating for the record that there is no right to polygamy or to a lower age of consent?

Does this mean you are stating for the record that any push for any other new "civil right" will be erroneous?

Does he think crossdressers and people who undergo surgical mutilation to appear to be the opposite sex already have all of the rights they should?

I just want to be clear on this.

We hear over and over again that this is it. Neutering marriage is the last unrealized civil rights issue. However, I have a hard time believing that for some of those who advocate neutering marriage, this statement is sincere or will prove true. Some – not all – marriage neutering advocates appear to be motivated at least part by such things as:

1) Trying to get everyone to believe that there's no difference between marriage and brideless or groomless pairings
2) Esteeming homosexual behavior in public opinion
3) Devaluing masculinity and reducing a child's right to a father
4) Devaluing femininity and reducing a child's right to a mother
3) Devaluing marriage
4) Breaking down the natural family
5) Breaking down moral standards
6) Encouraging dependence on government
7) Changing or reducing the strength of certain religions and religious organizations
8) Giving some organizations a reason for continuing to exist and thus keep their leadership employed

Yes, neutering marriage would help with most of those goals, but they won't be fully reached. There would have to be another line of attack formed, through some other issue. Also, by claiming 1) this is a matter of civil rights, and 2) it's all about equality, the matter would continue for many decades after nationwide neutering of marriage laws. Just look what has happened with legitimate civil rights. Federal laws were passed well over forty years ago in regards to certain actual civil rights, and we still "need" federal programs and offices and activist organizations and lawsuits and on and on it goes. Affirmative action programs are still "needed" and when proponents are asked when it will be enough, they can never provide a clear answer. (Why provide their own retirement date before they want to?)

Then there are strange things that seem to go against what the movement fought for so many years ago. There used to be law-imposed segregation by skin color, and that was done away with (thankfully), but what we do have now? We have things like college dorms set aside for people of certain skin colors or ethnicities. It is segregation, but since is being done by the "minority," it is somehow okay. It would not surprise me if the same thing were to happen with state-labeled marriage, whereby special privileges and programs are created specifically for brideless or groomless "marriages," especially if data were to note the inevitability of an inequality of outcomes between the three kinds of relationships.

It's a great racket for the activists and lawyers, because things will never be equal in outcome. Just one example: with the neutering of marriage, data would reveal how much more expensive it is for the average "married" same-sex couple wanting to have children to become parents than the average sex-inclusive couples wanting to have children. Does that seem silly? Well so is creating a whole new set of "civil rights" based on private psuedosexual behavior.

Someone who has homosexual feelings already has the same rights as anyone else (as they should). Calling the neutering of marriage the last civil rights issue may turn out to be an effective political tactic, but it is a dishonest one, because either it isn't really a matter of civil rights or there will inevitably be more "rights" discovered that are somehow being denied. Nationwide neutering of marriage would only make the advocates more bizarre and annoying as they would wield a powerful new tool to smash down what they see as "heterosexism" and "gender stereotypes", which means just about anything they don't like.

Let the parents be good parents. and let's support them.

2012-01-17T08:34:00.000-05:00

As I've mentioned I live in a more at-risk neighborhood, where many children live without both their mother and father in the home, and if so they're unmarried and technically dad lives somewhere else. Due to the practical reason that it doesn't pay in Massachusetts to be low-income and married, ultimately you lose out on benefits ranging to all forms of utilities from heat to internet connection.

I ran across this article in England proposing that mothers and fathers receive texts on parenting tips. Yes, I think it may be a good idea and very non-intrusive. Every week I receive an automatic phone call on school announcements from the principal of the local elementary school. She adds positive reminders on how to be a good parent. It's not a big deal!

Especially younger parents are more likely to utilize text as a form of communication, even myself have adjusted to texting. And yes, family structure for them is broken and at times very disorganized. Many conservatives may claim, this is the e nanny state, but any public policy the empowers a mother and father to parent their own child ultimately isn't nannying. It's the state giving up control, and reaffirming the obligation is of the parent to raise their children and their children have the right to have both mom and dad in their lives.

Marriage Right, explained

2012-01-12T11:29:00.000-05:00

I just want to take a moment and discuss the Civil Rights of Marriage and Marriage Equality. This is something that needs some clear cut understanding from everyone who wishes to be involved in helping people get married.

The right to choose someone to live with, sharing mutual domestic responsibilities and reciprocal trust, is a freedom of association. There is a right to protect such associations, and we acknowledge that they are effective and beneficial to recognize as a society. Same Sex Marriage and Gay Marriage, even when you read the most poetic and flowing explanations of what they see their relationship as being, are perfectly described with nothing more, and nothing less, than what I just described. I've debated this subject for over a decade, and I've never heard anyone describe their same-sex marriage as anything more than this. You can prove me wrong, but after all this time I don't think it will be likely.

But they aren't the only ones who describe their relationships in that same way. I've known sisters, male friends, young single parent with elderly benefactors they live with, who could describe their relationships with the same dependence, trust, community, commitment and care. What they don't have is the romance, or sex.

And why should they? Romance, lets be honest, is just a reason to have commitment and mutual trust (and even then it happens relatively rarely). If you recognize the mutual trust and commitment, you recognize the romance that generates it. Yet with all the one night stands, infidelity, it is clear that romance is not a perfect indicator of mutual trust, but mutual trust and commitment is the reason we need to recognize a couple as a domestic partnership, or civil union, or reciprocal set of beneficiaries.

But that is different than the right to marry. Although there are many people who feel that is all marriage is, real marriage and the right associated with it is more than that.

Our rights are rooted in our human capacities, we have a right to be whatever it means to be human. We have a capacity to love and share mutual trust, so we recognize that as a right. We also have a capacity to create a human, who in turn has rights associated with their humanity. We also have a natural capacity to create children, who in turn have rights to be recognized.

If we aren't recognized for our capacity, responsibilities, and rights for how we are born and how we give birth to children, we aren't being recognized for what our relationship really means. Our rights are being taken away and no longer recognized if marriage is neutered to just mean the same thing as the freedom of adult association I mentioned above.

Again, in all the years I've debated this topic, I've only seen the loss of that right confirmed time after time by those advocating we neuter marriage of its reference to a man and a woman. Some go so far as to say marriage was never about procreation. Some say it simply isn't about procreation in our new enlightened age. In their mind logically proving there must be no such right, but in reality just confirming that is the very recognition they wish to remove. And removing recognition of rights is not enlightened at all.

Then there are "conservative case" neutered marriage advocates who only wind up apologizing for the loss, and promise that even if government doesn't recognize it we can still live it personally in our own hearts. They openly acknowledge the need, for which I greatly appreciate, but are eventually on a fools errand to remove government recognition of it in any case.

But marriage is a right, it is a right to join with someone in a life long union to express our natural capacity to create children. Marriage is socially the best preparation and guardian of the expression of that right. It is something more than what we recognize as same-sex marriage. And it is something that we need to preserve for the sake of all of our rights.

Sunday Boston Globe (Ideas Section)

2012-01-10T04:00:00.000-05:00

On the back page of the Ideas section in the January 8th edition, titled under 'Uncommon Knowledge' it cited an upcoming report from the Journal of Labor Economics. (You must be a registered subscriber to read online)

The impact of unilateral divorce on crimeby Eugenio Giolito | Papers by Eugenio
With Julio Caceres-Delpiano, forthcoming in The Journal of Labor Economics

Using data from the FBI´s Uniform Crime Report program and differences in the timing of the reform’s introduction, we find that unilateral divorce caused an increase in violent crime rates of approximately 9 percent during the period 1965-1996.(my emphasis) When we use age at the time of the reform as an additional source of variation, our findings suggest that young adult cohorts, who were children at the time of the reform, were particularly affected. Finally, we show evidence that a potential channel behind our findings is an increase in poverty and inequality among mothers who were “surprised” by the reform

Because er care about poverty and violence in my community, why does the Boston Globe labeled us 'grumbling social conservatives', rather then concerned citizens?

Why was it neccessary to bring up same-sex marriage, in this research?

And why does the Boston Globe use the term correlation, when the journal cites causation?

From Saturday Night's GOP Debate

2012-01-08T18:00:00.000-05:00

The President's Fatherhood Pledge

2012-01-08T09:39:00.001-05:00

The President's Fatherhood Pledge

Fatherlessness is a growing crisis in America, one that undergirds many of the challenges that families are facing. When dads aren't around, young people are more likely to drop out of school, use drugs, be involved in the criminal justice system, and become young parents themselves.
President Obama grew up without his dad, and has said that being a father is the most important job he has. That's why the President is joining dads from across the nation in a fatherhood pledge – a pledge that we'll do everything we can to be there for our children and for young people whose fathers are not around.

And yes, I signed it.

Renee Aste
Lowell Massachusetts

Preventing Youth Violence BEFORE it Starts: Youth, Families, and Faith-Based Partners

In the sessions that titled, “Preventing Youth Violence BEFORE it Starts: Youth, Families, and Faith-Based Partners,” Joe Jones, President of the Center for Urban Families drove home the importance of engaging fathers. In addressing the role that father absence plays in Youth Violence, Joe described his programs efforts to train fathers on how to engage with their children and the mother of their children. Joe shared how the Center for Urban Families works with a number of young dads through the Baltimore Responsible Fatherhood Project.

Meanwhile all ThinkProgress can do is make personal attacks as conservative homophobic rhetoric to strong public policy that fathers equally matter.

UPDATE Here is the actual paper written, "The Trouble with Boys: Social Influences and the Gender Gap in Disruptive Behavior". I'm guessing the idea of 'intact family' meant biological mother and father residing under one roof was offensive???

The State of Washington and the Bias of Reuters

2012-01-07T21:56:00.000-05:00

Reuters, ever biased towards neutering marriage, demonstrated that bias in this article by Laura Myers (with writing by Bill Rigby; Editing by Greg McCune and Cynthia Johnston), "Washington Governor Supports Gay Marriage Law".

Time and time again, it has been demonstrated that while it is one thing for pundits to use the term "gay marriage", it is quite another for professional news reporters to do so. I'm a husband. That means I have a wife. Our marriage could easily be described as "gay". Of course, Reuters is using "gay" instead of "homosexual". If by "gay" they mean a homosexual orientation, then the legislation in question has nothing to do with that. Issuance of state marriage licenses has never been denied based on sexual orientation, nor will there be a requirement, should Washington go ahead and replace marriage with a counterfeit, that two men getting a marriage license actually have or claim a homosexual orientation.

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire announced her support for [neutering state marriage licensing] on Wednesday, potentially putting the state on track to become the nation's seventh to fully recognize same-sex unions.

It's not recognition. It is pretending that brideless or groomless unions are the same as a bride+groom union, when they are objectively different.

Gregoire, a Democrat in the final year of her second term, is backing legislation to be introduced before the Washington state legislature, which reconvenes next week.

That's no accident. Such courage, waiting until lame duck status.

"It is time in Washington state for marriage equality," Gregoire told a news conference in the state capital of Olympia.

Brideless and groomless pairing are inherently unequal to marriage.

"It is time, it's the right thing to do."

How did this "right thing to do" escape the attention of all of the great civil rights and religious leaders throughout history, and every US President?

More than 40 U.S. states have outlawed same-sex marriages, while six states explicitly allow it: New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Iowa. Gay marriage is also legal in the District of Columbia.

Lies. You are LYING, you who manage Reuters. You can't pretend to be ignorant anymore. You are deliberately LYING in you attempt as social engineering. There may be a few states left that "outlaw" homosexual sodomy, but those laws aren't enforced. They have been effectively overturned. There's not a single US state in which law enforcement will disrupt a "wedding" ceremony, prevent people from exchanging rings and living together, or anything else that same-sex couples have been doing for years now. Six state's don't "allow" it. They ISSUE the neutered "marriage" licenses and they FORCE their residents to recognize those licenses. It is the rest of the states that "allow" these "marriages".

Although Democrats hold majorities in both of Washington state's legislative chambers, a bill is not certain to pass because some conservative Democrats have sided with Republicans on the issue.

And that also means siding with history, the people who wrote and adopted the Constitution, and billions of other people.

Rep. Matt Shea, a Republican from Spokane Valley and a House minority floor leader, said homosexual couples in Washington state already have the same rights as heterosexuals under a domestic partnership law.

Yes, the Trojan Horse.

"The budget crisis needs to be our focus," Shea said.

You'd think. But everything must be sacrificed on the altar of esteeming homosexual behavior and feelings.

Gregoire's move comes a month after she joined forces with Rhode Island's governor to ask the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to allow doctors to legally prescribe marijuana as a medical treatment.

Interesting that Reuters included that. Are they insinuating dope-smoking has promoted such fuzzy thinking?

Gregoire, a Catholic, has not always been a public supporter of gay marriage, but moved the issue to the fore in May 2009 when she signed a bill granting domestic partners the same rights as married couples so long as they did not conflict with federal law.

Wait, doesn't that make Gregoire a bigot? After all, we keep hearing now that domestic partnerships are an insult.

"Our gay and lesbian families face the same hurdles as heterosexual families -- making ends meet, choosing what school to send their kids to, finding someone to grow old with, standing in front of friends and family and making a lifetime commitment," Gregoire said.

Same-sex couples can do all of that right now, without neutering marriage licenses. Couples excluding one of the two sexes that comprise all of society do NOT face all of the same challenges as sex-inclusive couples - no man has ever come home to his male partner to find out they have an unplanned pregnancy, and had to sit down and ask, "How are we going to handle this?"

"We're supporting the legislative effort," said Zach Silk, campaign manager in Seattle for the group Washington United for Marriage, which includes gay rights, civil liberties, labor and religious leaders.

Do you know where your union dues are? Hey, and I thought we were supposed to keep churches out this?

Of course LATimes.com covered this story. Rene Lynch reported...

Gov. Chris Gregoire announced Wednesday that she would introduce legislation granting gays and lesbians the right to legally marry.

Gays and lesbians already have the same right as anyone else. Yes, I'll say it as often as these reports make it necessary.

Once again, we see the same pattern. Same-sex couples in domestic partnerships already have the same treatment from the state as bride+groom couples, but marriage neutering advocates aren't happy until they change the term "marriage" - they don't want us to even have a word that describes something that is obviously and objectively different from other kinds of relationships. But no matter what they do, it won't change the fact that in reality, it isn't marriage without a bride or without a groom. If the state called water "milk", it would neither make water milk nor make it "equal" with milk, it would rather make the state look foolish. With marriage, they are striking at the very foundation of society.

"Divorce can be disastrous. But where children are involved never getting married is far worse"

2012-01-04T11:35:00.002-05:00

Divorce can be disastrous. But where children are involved never getting married is far worse

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2082085/Divorce-disastrous-But-children-involved-getting-married-far-worse.html#ixzz1iVZ19kdX

But the comparative sociology of marriage tells us we jettison it at our peril. Across its various forms and rules it is a human universal and with good reason. Marriage everywhere is the bridge between affinal and kin relationships a bond integral to the functioning and survival of human society. It defines social relationships, social and economic responsibilities.
It establishes genealogical connections and confers 'belonging' and social identity. It prevents incest now more prevalent in our underclass than we know (something of deep concern to the more thoughtful of our politicians and social workers). No other set of relationships or connections whether through friendship, work, sport or volunteering - replicate the function of marriage.

Bigotry

2012-01-03T17:41:00.003-05:00

Bigotry:

The tenets or actions of a bigot; obstinate or blind attachment to a particular belief system or to certain tenets; unreasoning zeal; intolerance.

Note that in one sense to define 'bigotry' it is necessary to define 'bigot'. That means identifying actions or tenets that delineate bigotry.

The quality of the attachment is also a measure of bigotry.

Bigot:

A person obstinately and unreasonably attached to a particular belief, opinion, or practice; a person blindly attached to any opinion, belief system, or group, and bitterly intolerant of those who believe differently.

Note that in this sense the definitive aspect is not this or that particular belief or viewpoint. The defining characteristics are unreasoning zeal or blind attachment and bitter intolerance.

Thus there is the sense of bigotry defined by certain tenets. And there is the sense of bigotry defined by characteristic behavior including how one responds to a different tenet. Likewise with an opinion or an action or a practice or a group.

At times the quality of the attachment is bigoted but is also distinct from that to which the attachment has been formed. At times, vice versa. And, at times, the distinction is one without a difference.

Belmont Club: If Tomorrow Comes

2011-12-27T20:48:00.002-05:00

Richard Fernandez over at Belmont Club finds that the inverted family tree of the western world is "baked into socialism from the beginning". And it reads as a fitting epitaph for marriage if it turns into nothing more than an equally protected welfare channel.

And that is precisely what the welfare state consisted of. Living for today. Social security is a perfect example. It was never a “fund”; it was never anything more than a payroll tax moving money from young workers to old workers. For it while it seemed to work, but only because the West was running on the legacy of a generation that believed in tomorrow and had sacrificed its life and youth in World War 2 to secure it. The “living for today” lifestyle resulted in the spectacular party some may remember at the end of the 20th century: an era that valued unlimited sex, unlimited welfare, and sacrifice for God and country not at all.

Taxes and Marriage (Why the poor are penalized)

2011-12-27T09:41:00.000-05:00

Despite what you may have heard, when it comes to taxes and benefits, it generally pays to be married. But that's not true for all couples from MSNBC November 2010

51% of married couples paid less tax jointly than if they had not been married, according to a 1996 Congressional Budget Office analysis. The average amount these couples saved: $1,300.
42% of married taxpayers paid more by filing jointly than they would have if they'd remained single, the office said. The average penalty: $1,380.

The people who faced the most egregious penalties, as a portion of their income, were the working poor, according to tax expert Edward McCaffery, a law professor at the University of Southern California and the author of "Taxing Women." A husband and wife who each earned $10,000 could end up with a marriage penalty of more than $4,000.
Those low-income couples still face the potential for a tax penalty, said Mark Luscombe, a principal analyst for tax research firm CCH. That's because the earned-income credit, a tax break designed to keep the working poor out of poverty, can be less for a two-earner household than for singles.

Family Scholars Blogger says: Curse them because they don't deserve any respect at all.

2011-12-24T21:43:00.013-05:00

Corruption of public discourse, part 2.

Barry Deutsch has been guest blogging at the Institute for American Values' Family Scholars Blog. He is also known as the blogger, Ampersand, and has crossposted blogposts at both FSB and his own blog, "Amptoons", and comments under his own blogposts at both sites. He also moderates those discussions.

Here is his stated view of those with whom he disagrees in the conflict between the SSM idea and the marriage idea:

"There is no reason any particular person needs to be polite to them if they don't want to be. I treat them with respect 1) because my personal preference is for conversations in a respectful tone, 2) because I think some lurkers are more likely to find a respectful tone persuasive, and 3) I have a talent for maintaining a respectful tone.
"But that's just me. If someone else, on their own blog space or whatever, wants to curse people like Mr. [Robert] George out in every way they can, I don't object to that. Especially if that person is lgbt, then I think it's entirely understandable if they don't accord Mr. George or his fellow thinkers any respect at all"

[Comment by Ampersand, December 21, 2010 at 7:47 PM on his blogsite, Amptoons. ]

www.amptoons.com//2010/12/21/what-is-marriage/comment-page-1/#comment-196297

Here Mr. Deutsch has excused ad hom attacks. He clearly invoked gay identity politics as superseding civility.

Mr Deutsch also happened to overstate his preference for a respectful tone. His heavily biased performance as a moderator speaks louder than the sound of his patting himself on the back. He also plainly states that the appearance of a respectful tone in his blogposts, comments, and efforts at moderating amounts to a merely superficial display and thus an insincere ploy that is used to thinly disguise true animus. Whatever talent this bespeaks, it is not one conducive to productive civil discourse in which disgreements are aired, where opponents seek common understanding of one another's views, and where misunderstandings or misrepresentations are generously and thoughtfully reconsidered. It encourages bad faith commentary and the impugning of motives of those who'd disagree with Mr. Deutsch's barely-under-his-breath disrespect for fellow commenters and bloggers.

With his excuse making and promised support, he has, in effect, invited his fellow SSMers, especially in the name of the gay identity group, to make the personal attacks that his precious tactical pose supposedly guards against.

Just because Mr. Deutsch admittedly acts in bad faith and disguises his animus with an admittedly thin veneer of respect does not mean that Mr. George and other like-minded citizens do as Mr. Deutsch would and does. This is an example of the SSMer who imagines himself above reproach even as he encourages disrespect and incivility. He'd smear or have others do it for him and then stand back, arms folded across his chest, his chin thrust upward, nodding approvingly.

Perhaps that is the best that Mr Deutsch is prepared to do. His devotion to the cause and his reliance on gay identity politics might have shackled his hands and his mind. Or perhaps not. I invite him and his fellow SSMers to do better. Much better. I invite people on all sides of this contentious conflict of ideas to do much better. I will endeavor alongside those who'd accept that open invitation. Here at Opine or elsewhere.

Our Opine motto is one that may be tough to adopt and even tougher to live up to in the heat of the contest but it is our guiding light.

"Defending marriage on the firm ground of reason and respect for human dignity."

To those SSM supporters who believe and think that they defend marriage, thusly, the invitation ought to be irresistable.

* *

The motto of the Family Scholars Blog is very compatible with ours: "Engaging the key debates."

See: FamilyScholars.org

The priorities in the District of Columbia?

2011-12-23T09:11:00.001-05:00

D.C. divorce bill for same-sex couples set for vote in ‘early’ 2012

Mendelson’s bill states that “An action for divorce by persons of the same gender, even if one or neither party to the marriage is a bona fide resident of the District of Columbia… would be eligible for a divorce in the city if the following circumstance apply: “The marriage was performed in the District of Columbia; and neither party to the marriage resides in a jurisdiction that will maintain an action for divorce, provided that it shall be a rebuttable presumption that a jurisdiction will not maintain an action for divorce if the jurisdiction does not recognize the marriage.”

Wonder if someone will challenge it? I guess to solve the problem, it should allow any couple to be eligible just not one of the same gender.

Meanwhile according to an article from the New York Times in 2009, the District of Columbia's out-of wedlock birth rate is upwards of 59%, the highest in the nation.

Also in the District of Columbia, a father may not be on the birth certificate unless he is married or established by other legal means.

"5. Why should I establish paternity?If you are the child’s biological father, the reasons you should establish paternity include the benefits it will give your child:
Father’s name on the birth certificate. If the parents are not married, the father’s name cannot be on the birth certificate unless paternity is established.
Identity. When a child knows who he or she is, and has the sense of belonging that knowing both parents can bring, it gives the child a head start.
Medical history. Knowing the medical histories of both parents can help doctors better treat the child.
Inheritance and financial benefits. If paternity is established, a child can inherit from both parents. The child can also receive money or other benefits through each parent from programs such as Social Security, veteran's benefits, pensions and health care.
Support. A child has the right to food, clothing and a home. A child supported by only one parent often does not have enough money to meet his/her needs."

14. My child’s mother and I are not married or in a registered domestic partnership, but we are getting along, and I help to pay for things the child needs. Why should we establish paternity?
...paternity needs to be established because without it neither you nor the child will have the full benefits of being father and child.
You will not be seen as the child’s father by the outside world. You will not be identified as the father on the child’s birth certificate, and the child will not be able to have your last name. Schools and hospitals will not provide you with information about the child. The child will not inherit from you, or receive benefits through you such as retirement benefits. You cannot go to court to ask for visitation or custody of the child.

Positive Images in the Community

2011-12-22T18:49:00.000-05:00

"5 Reasons Why and 3 Reasons Why Not to Get Married" from BlackandMarriedwithKids.com

#4 OUR COMMUNITY NEEDS YOU

There are children now who don’t know what healthy marriages look like because they don’t know anyone who’s happily married. When these children don’t see successful marriages in front of them they are forced to lean on the negative depictions offered by the media. These images that are laced with age-old stereotypes wouldn’t lead anyone to choose marriage so they instead leave our children with thoughts of no hope when it comes to having great relationships because they think this is just, “how it is.”

I'm not black, or a minority, I'm white. See my post on Suburban Progressives though, to understand why I relate.

Blood is thicker than water

2011-12-22T14:15:00.001-05:00

Blood is thicker than water.

But how are blood relationships made?

The SSMer as Burden Shifter

2011-12-22T01:17:00.005-05:00

In a comment section at FSB a pro-SSM commenter made the following very weak response to a problem created by his own SSM argumentation.

Chris said that SSM is inevitable and -

"Eventually you will have to adopt an argument for why incestuous marriage should be banned even while SSM is legal. I suggest you start working on that argument now."

Putting aside the lack of self awareness displayed in that comment, consider the sheer stupidity of the arrogant attempt to shift the burden from the SSMer to the marriage defender.

The argument in favor of societal regard for the core meaning of marriage has long-been an excellent argument against incestuous marriage. Marriage is two-sexed and not sex-neutral. Its core meaning: 1) the integration of the sexes, 2) the provision for responsible procreation, and 3) these combined as a coherent whole. The boundaries of eligibility and ineligibility are drawn around this core which sustains and justifies the societal preference or special status for the union of husband and wife. Relatedness is clearly entailed in the two-sexed nature of marriage and that has been coherently expressed in marriage law. The line drawn against incestuous marriage is not arbitrary.

The SSMer's goal of inducing societal disregard for that core (the marriage idea) can only mean that the SSMer by dint of insisting on an alternative idea (the SSM idea) must assume the burden of the would-be reformer or agent of change. The SSMer carries the burden of justifying the SSM ban on some same-sex scenarios. If he shirks that responsibilitity then he has belied a lack of faith in the capacity of the SSM idea to provide its own argument against incestuous SSM.

Thusfar SSMers have asserted an arbitrary imitation of the marriage boundary and have failed to show how such a copy-paste arises justly from within the same-sex scenario; that copy-paste is from something the SSMer has rejected as unjust so he needs to make an independent attempt to justify the SSM ban based on relatives - which of course is subject to the pro-SSM terms of argumentation. If those terms are good enough to make SSM inevitable then they are good enough to legalize incestuous SSM. It is up to the SSMer to differentiate the eligible same-sex scenario from the ineligible before imposing a ban. Not after. Before.

The SSM idea is not my idea. Chris cannot fairly shift his burden to me. But he has just admitted to his hoping to kick the can down the road. It was a feeble attempted kick that has left the can untouched and unmoved. The SSMer will keep tripping over it. That is his problem, not mine. It is a profound problem he would knowingly dump onto society and so make it someone else's problem. That exemplifies the arrogant stupidity of SSM rhetoric and argumentation. Perhaps Chris will show that his reasoning can be better than that. I hope so.

It is reasonable to ask the SSMer to justify special treatment for that subset that he'd favor. Given the homosexual emphasis that Chris has insisted upon, he is on the hook for justifying that bias. Most of the same-ex category is not gay and not homosexual. Most of nonmariage is populated by types of relationships that are not homosexual and not gay. Why would he decenter these people from his agumentation and rhetoric?

Removed from consideration, part 3

2011-12-21T14:12:00.005-05:00

In an earlier blogpost I observed that SSM argumentation provides the best arguments against SSM. This irony is something with which the SSM campaign has yet to come to terms.

Unknown, a pro-SSM commenter in our comment sections, made comments recently that effectively dismissed from consideration the mutual attraction between those who'd SSM. Instead Unknown has brought up conduct and societal approval and disapproval of conduct.

That switch from attraction to conduct is tut-tutted by the typical SSMer who objects to civil discussion of the argument that same-sex sexual behavior is immoral behavior. The SSMer conflates attraction with behavior and places group identity above and beyond the reach of public morality. The difference between feelings and conduct and between group identity and conduct must be obscured, deliberately and belligerently, according to the SSMer. This blindness, the SSMer insists, must be imposed by government.

This is not because the SSMer has won the moral argument. Refusal and inability to engage substantively is the retreat itself. But then the SSMer claims victory behind the facade of neutrality. The retreat is real but the SSMer shifts to an attack on the person who would dare observe the fact of retreat. Then with open disregard for the actual moral argument, the SSMer, having chosen to flee rather than make a counter argument, proceeds to declare that the moral argument has been run out of town and those who refuse to submit or at least appear to submit must not be welcomed in the public discourse on marriage. Submission is the price of admission.

All this posing and fleeing and ad hom attacking is because the SSMer is not equipped with a counter moral argument -- one of approbation of same-sex sexual behavior. While it is undoubtedly a tactical retreat from a moral battle that the SSMer must fear to lose, the SSMer would rather shift ground from marriage to something else anyway. Hence the homosexual emphasis.

While the SSMer will flee engagement on the moral argument, the defense of marriage does not depend on the moral argument against same sex sexual behavior. Instead it hinges on the justness of societal preference for the congual relationship of husband and wife. But the SSMer will strike the pose of one who defeated the moral argument against same sex sexual behavior; supposedly the retreat to moral neutrality is recast as bold charge up to the moral high ground from which the SSMer can claim to have rose above pesky disputes of morality. The effort to brazen it out follows a script that features the assertion of the supremacy of gay identity politics.

These tactics are meant to remove from consideration the moral basis for laws and policies that express the societal regard for the core meaning of marriage. Marital status is a special status in our culture and in our legal tradition. SSMers have conceded as much in courts in which the pro-SSM arguments have been made.

Prominent among those arguments is the attempt to assert a moral equivalence between the man-woman basis of marriage and the racist basis for the defunct laws against inter-racial marriage. This is used as "moral dynamite", as FSB blogger David Blankenhorn has put it. That is indeed the way that SSMers consider it and, thus, they hurl the 'bigot' and 'hate' bombs from ground they claimed as morally neutral.

The racist analogy is presented by the SSMer with the pretense of a moral analogy but it fails in terms of moral reasoning. It fails in terms of plain legal reasoning. But it provides tactical cover - like a bombardment - that distracts from the lack of a moral argument in favor of same-sex sexual behavior.

SSMers invest much import in the notion of "the same sex couple". When asked what they mean by this turn of phrase, the typical SSMer will become agitated and insist that it is self-explanatory. Other than the count of two, what is meant by 'couple'? Not romance, surely, since romance is not a legal requirement. Not mutual attraction of a sexual kind for that is not a legal requirement for SSM.

It means just a count of two. And that is an arbitrary count since the same-sex scenario is not intrinsically limited by the number two.

Also it is not intrinsically a sexualized type of relationship. Unknown has already acknowledged that much in his understanding of the law he envisages for SSM.

This stands in contrast to marriage law which is based on the sexual type of relationship between man and woman. The lines of eligiblity are drawn around that which is intrinsically two-sexed because it is sexual and around that which is sexual because it is two-sexed. The union of husband and wife is not sex-neutral in marriage law.

And so the SSM argument depends on injecting into the discussion an emphasis on homosexuality or more pointedly an emphasis on the group identity they would prefer society to refer to as 'gay'. Indeed the SSMer will use "same-sex couple" in lieu of the more obvious "the homosexual couple" or "the gay couple" and makes repeated comparison with "the heterosexual couple".

But two heterosexual persons of the same sex are ineligible to marry. Two homosexual persons of the opposite sexes are eligible to marry within the boundaries drawn around the core of marriage. Some two-sexed scenarios are ineligible because of societal regard for th man-woman basis of marriage. Societal regard for the core meaning of marriage justifies and sustains both the special status of the union of husband and wife and the limits on eligibility. The SSM idea is based on societal disregard for that.

The SSMer wants society to regard gay identity rather than marriage itself. But gay identity is not a window into the social instutution of marriage. It is something extrinsic to marriage.

The marriage law is already neutral on homosexuality. But the SSMer insists that society regard homosexuality with favoritism and, on that basis, remake marriage law.

Once again there is the pose of having retreated to neutral ground in which favoritism is removed from consideration. Yet despite the lack of a homosexual criterion for eligibility to SSM, the SSMer will insist that the basis for SSM in law would be same-sex sexual attraction and same-sex sexual romance and, indeed, the societal approbation for acting on those feelings.

But the legal arguments in favor of establishing SSM in law contradict such a basis.

And so the SSMer dodges the actual disagreement regarding the marriage issue and instead returns to the homosexual emphasis. The issue of gay identity is outside the marriage issue. But gay identity is central to the pro-SSM issue of licensing of - and governmental preferential treatment of - same-sex sexual attraction, same-sex sexual romance, and same-sex sexual behavior - i.e. the conflation that is gay identity.

The pro-SSM song and dance is assert-retreat-smear-ellide-deny. The issue of marriage law is the core meaning of marriage. The issue of SSM law would be gay identity politics. The arguments in defense of marriage reference marriage but the arguments that push SSM reference gay identity and little else. Along the way the SSM cause attacks the marriage idea, promotes double standards, and would remove from consideration the moral basis for marriage law.

Removed from consideration, part 2

2011-12-21T10:41:00.004-05:00

In a previous blogpost I noted that the proffered reasoning of an SSMer, Unknown, regarding eligibility to SSM had readily removed from consideration the feelings of mutual attraction that would differentiate the friendship type of relationship and the homosexual type of relationship.

There would be no legal requirement for such feelings, not for ineligibility and not for eligibility, and so attraction could not provide a legitimate basis for establishing SSM in law.

However, Unknown thought that there must be more to it than mere feelings of attraction. Perhaps it would be acting on such feelings? That is, when it comes to related people --

"Simple disapproval of the conduct might even uphold the law [against incestuous marriage]."

But what conduct? It cannot be the act of showing up to SSM, surely.

It must be something that would be approved for both the friendship and the homosexual type of relationships but disapproved for the type of relationship that Unknown had in mind when considering the example of sisters.

It cannot be the act of feeling attraction. It cannot be the conduct that defines friendship nor can it be the conduct that defines the homosexual relationship.

Here Unknown referred to standards of constitutional analysis, as he understood them to apply to the explicit prohibition on some related people who'd show up to marry; and that this understanding would supposedly extend to those who'd SSM.

And this is where SSMers struggle to differentiate the example of the SSM ban on two sisters and the homosexual emphasis in the pro-SMM arguments. Before trying to reason against eligibility to SSM, Unknown needed to justify the establishment of SSM in law.

In comments Unknown has not yet specified the definitive conduct that might justify a ban. But he did specify disapproval of conduct as sufficient. Unknown must state the conduct that would justify the SSM ban on some same-sex twosomes and which, at the same time, would justify establishing SSM in the law in the first place.

Removed from consideration, part 1

2011-12-20T23:22:00.007-05:00

Not for the first time, an SSMer has left comments that demonstrate that the best arguments against the SSM idea are the arguments for SSM.

Unknown is a pro-SSM commenter (aka Christopher, from the comment sections of FSB, I think) who said that friends would be eligible to SSM because the male friend and female friend --

"have been able to [marry] in the past. Same as it has always been. So this scenario is removed from consideration"

That is, marriage and SSM would be governed by the same lack of a prohibition against friendship.

Accordingly, the mutual feelings of attraction that bring together the male friend and the female friend and which define the relationship as friendship would neither disqualify nor qualify those who'd show up to marry. Likewise, feelings of attraction that define the homosexual type of relationship would not be subjected to a feelings test (nor an attraction test) in the law that would set eligibility and ineligiblity for those who'd SSM.

This precludes establishment of SSM in law based on criteria that might differentiate feelings of platonic friendship from feelings of sexual friendship. Feelings of attraction could not provide legal justification for eligibility nor for ineligibility - not on a case-by-case level and not on the level of the type of relationship.

Unknown went on to demonstrate that the argument for the SSM idea relies on the group identity - 'gay'. There is this homosexual emphasis which conflates attraction, behavior, and group identity.

History of Genealogy and Finding Your Roots

2011-12-20T08:37:00.001-05:00

History of Genealogy from Family Chronicle

A nice overview of different cultures and the manner they record family ancestry, through church records and oral traditions.

Also Henry Louis Gates Jr. is producing another series on ancestry in America, titled 'Finding Your Roots'. There was a recent profile of him in the NYT Magazine.

Gates’s belief in the complexity of American culture has only been reinforced by the genetic research that has informed his recent books and television programs. In them, Gates explores the lineage of Americans like Chris Rock, Meryl Streep, Yo-Yo Ma and Tina Turner. Using genealogical and historical resources, he traces their family stories as far back as he can. When the paper trail runs out, he resorts to DNA tests.

"They fear divorce."

2011-12-19T08:39:00.000-05:00

Fear of Divorce Keeps Young Couples from Marrying from PsychCentral

Demographers at Cornell University and the University of Central Oklahoma surveyed couples who live together and found that two-thirds, or about 67 percent, of the respondents admitted to concerns about dealing with the social, legal, emotional and economic consequences of a divorce.

Why Not A Marriage Tax?

2011-12-19T06:44:00.001-05:00

Why Not A Marriage Tax? from the blog Discriminations

h/t Instapundit

A good read, and a healthy discussion in the comment box there.

In case anyone still cares what marriage can prevent

2011-12-16T13:43:00.002-05:00

From Wikipedia 'Poverty in the United States'

Income levels vary along racial/ethnic lines: 21% of all children in the United States live in poverty, about 46% of black children and 40% of Latino children live in poverty.[38] The poverty rate is 9.9% for black married couples and only 30% of black children are born to married couples (see Marriage below). In 2007,11% of black women aged 30–44 without a high school diploma had a working spouse.[39][copyright violation?] The poverty rate for native born and naturalized whites is identical (9.6%). On the other hand, the poverty rate for naturalized blacks is 11.8% compared to 25.1% for native born blacks suggesting race alone does not explain income disparity. Not all minorities have low incomes.

Devastation of divorce

2011-12-15T09:11:00.000-05:00

"Devastation of divorce" from Deseret News (Utah)

The Census Bureau found that 28.3 percent of all custodial parents live with incomes that qualify as below the official poverty level. But as sobering as this is, it is more alarming to consider that parents who undergo divorce see their chances of falling into poverty double. Those custodial parents (most often women) who do fall into poverty tend to rely on child-support payments for 62.6 percent of their income, on average. This makes the failure to receive these funds devastating.....Even children who are not poor before a divorce find their incomes dropping by 50 percent after the divorce as parents establish their separate homes.

"I'm Headed For Divorce -- Even Though I'm Not Even Married Yet" by Natasha Burton (Huffington Post)

My aforementioned divorced parents (a.k.a the people who've made me unmarriageable) didn't have the kind of split after which birthdays and holidays were jointly observed. Whether I switched off or celebrated twice, for most of my life I've chosen one place -- one parent -- over the other. My mom and dad each created their own, very separate lives, which I assume is pretty standard operating procedure when you're no longer married.

I don't want to copy the past and copy the whole thing, it is so worth the read. Trust me.

They Seem To Have Skipped Over Something

2011-12-14T15:33:00.000-05:00

Currently making the social networking rounds is the graphic found at this link. Supposedly, it is "How to Explain Marriage Equality to an Idiot"

Tired of hearing the rightwing nutjobs claim that if gays and lesbians can get married, soon people will be marrying their dog or their toaster? Here's a handy dandy chart to help you patiently explain the obvious differences.

Good use of "handy dandy", too. Extra points for that.

Notice what's missing?

The common question asked by people who, like every great civil rights leader in history, like every major religious tradition, like every person involved in writing and adopting the Constitution, and like every President up through this writing, understands that marriage unites a bride and a groom, is "If we change marriage laws to include homosexual relationships, why not polygamous relationships, incestuous relationships, pedophiliac relationships, relationships with animals, and relationships with inanimate objects?"

The text and the graphic completely ignore polygamous and incestuous relationships. I can only guess as to why. Here are my guesses:

1. These people want those relationships to get marriage licenses, too.

2. They realize the same justification they use for neutering marriage licenses also applies to polygamous and incestuous relationships.

Of course, we all know it is ridiculous to compare same-sex relationships to heterosexual polygamy and incest. After all, the latter two kinds of relationships have been historically recognized as valid marriages.

Oh, and by the way, homosexual people can get married, whether they want to or not. What we're opposed to is equating nonmarital relationships, including brideless or groomless relationships, to marriage, not "gays getting married".

Regarding adults marrying children: There are organizations pushing to lower the age of consent, and organizations that advocate the "rights of children" in a way that would also support a child being legally able to consent to marriage over the objections of their own parents.

Regarding "marrying" animals: There are governments seriously considering recognizing some (non-human) animals as persons. Why wouldn't such persons have the right to marry other persons?

And yes, some people have "married" inanimate objects.

The point is, the marriage neutering activists, like the marriage defenders, believe that marriage means something and that whatever doesn't fall into that category isn't marriage. It is a dispute of definitions, not a matter of hatred. The definition that marriage unites a bride and groom has been the universal definition through all of the cultural differences. Two men can't consent to marry each other any more than they can consent to an ash tray being food. Without both a bride and a groom, it isn't marriage, and that some governments have recently said otherwise only shows those governments to be defective, along the line of a government that would label water as cow's milk. One bride, one groom IS marriage equality.

We have our own graphic for people having a tough time understanding this.

The meaning of marriage in context

2011-12-14T11:41:00.001-05:00

The context of my support for marriage is how hard marriage can be, but how important it is to work at the marriage.

Someone in my circle of acquaintance recently asked, when the magic is gone what can a child expect the adults to do? I remember when things were really difficult with my wife, everything seemed so out of control. Nothing I did seemed to work, and I couldn't compromise anymore.

But when I looked at my children, I knew they felt the same way I did about my parents. I knew they wanted us to be in love again. I also knew they didn't ask for this, they were our relationship right there. I can see my wife in their faces and in their personalities just as much as my wife could see me in their faces and personalities.

Because they lived on as our relationship, our relationship needed to live too. It all deserved to be kept intact. And sure enough the answer was the right application of love, tolerance, and responsibility for each other. The only reason things felt out of control is (I'm sad to say) we just never learned how to do that properly, I guess.

I'm glad I Iearned that lesson, its changed a great many things about my life and how I live in it. And I think that is what people mean by marriage as a great institution of civilization. For me the only thing that had the undeniable reality that like a rock could not be worn away with all of the storms our lives were going through was my children and considering who they are, and our relationships.

And it is because I've found that rock, that I want everyone to build their marriages on that rock too. That is, I'm convinced, what marriage really means. That is its real context. While first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage, its what that event will mean for the rest of your life that is the real context of marriage. It is the love people will find even when the magic is gone, and then the magic returns.

That won't save every marriage because not all marriages can be saved by just one person's effort. Luckily my wife saw the same need I did, and it will save every marriage where both people see it and work towards it.

Romney Asks About a Veteran's Service, Gets Marriage Neutering Plea

2011-12-12T22:02:00.000-05:00

The "mainstream media" continues to give an unwarranted amount attention marriage neutering advocacy. See this article by Maeve Reston in the Los Angeles Times.

New Hampshire voters pride themselves on vetting and testing their candidates, and Vietnam veteran Bob Garon waited for more than two hours at a Manchester diner Monday to get Mitt Romney's views on the proposed repeal of New Hampshire's law [neutering] marriage.

I appreciate all who have served honorably, but has Romney made a secret of his positions?

Eventually Garon, who is 63 and [has a "marriage" license with another] man, got his chance for a one-on-one exchange. Noticing Garon's black Vietnam veteran cap, Romney sat down beside him and tried to strike up a conversation about his military service as reporters and cameramen crowded around the booth.

"I've have a question for you," Garon said, cutting off the former Massachusetts governor’s attempt at chitchat. "New Hampshire has some legislation kicking around about the repeal of [neutering of state marriage licensing]... All I need is a yes or a no."

But he wanted more than a yes or a no; he went on to talk about benefits, completely ignoring the fact that spousal benefits were set up to aid in the formation of sex-inclusive families that naturally created the next generation of citizens in a way that recognized the fact that there would usually be a division of labor between the spouses. Specifically with military personnel, it was expected that the wife would be taking care of the children while the husband was off at war or training or anything else related to being in the military.

Garon talks about equality, but his argument appeals to military service. Not all people do or are even able to serve in the military, so Garon supports, apparently, treating people differently depending on what they do – which is exactly what the bride+groom requirement in marriage licensing or federal recognition of marriage does.

A Gay Reader Writes… (not from Opine)

2011-12-11T17:02:00.001-05:00

I'm a regular reader of 'Bad Catholic', a blog by a Catholic. The blog recently had several posts on the subject of marriage, in regards to defining between two people of the same sex.

This one is a short essay, 'Why Gay Marriage is a bad idea". Touching not upon any religious teachings, but the social science that individuals do very well when raised by their mother and father in a healthy committed relationship (marriage). It's heavily cited, from scholarly articles pointing that both a person's mother and father are vital to the well being of the individual. Hence the reason for a government's interest in marriage.

Another is a response, 'A Gay Reader Writes',

I am a gay man, who would desperately love to have children (God has given me a great love for kids, which is why I’m a teacher), but I refuse to allow myself that privilege, because I firmly believe a child needs a biological mother and father raising them. My 14 years experience of working with children confirms your conclusions: kids need both biological parents raising them! Yes, obviously there have been exceptional circumstances where single or divorced parents produce fairly well adjusted kids, but that takes a great deal of hard work, something I don’t often see in parents of any kind

Once you let go of all the name calling, it becomes apparent marriage defenders aren't basing their values on bigotry or hate.

The Generous Marriage

2011-12-10T10:52:00.001-05:00

Is generosity better than sex? That was at one time the title considered for this article.

Generosity helps all relationships, that part of the story isn't new or surprising. At the heart of the report is probably my favorite overall marriage scientist, John Gottman. I'm convinced there is no one on earth who's studied, or knows more about marriage relationships than him.

But marriages aren't all relationships. There is something more about marriage that makes an investment in that relationship mean even more to everyone around you...

The responses went right to the core of their unions. Men and women with the highest scores on the generosity scale were far more likely to report that they were “very happy” in their marriages. The benefits of generosity were particularly pronounced among couples with children.

Make parents happy, and the children are happier and feel more self-worth. Happier children make their friends happier, and grow up to be better socialized adults. For you causality buffs, you'll no doubt think, is happiness a product or a cause of generosity? Well, its both. Its like a nuclear breading reactor (the pun is not my own) where the more you let the reaction take place the more fuel is available for the reaction.

The noted marriage researcher John Gottman has found that successful couples say or do at least five positive things for each negative interaction with their partner — not an easy feat.

“In marriage we are expected to do our fair share when it comes to housework, child care and being faithful, but generosity is going above and beyond the ordinary expectations with small acts of service and making an extra effort to be affectionate,” explains the University of Virginia’s W. Bradford Wilcox, who led the research. “Living that spirit of generosity in a marriage does foster a virtuous cycle that leads to both spouses on average being happier in the marriage.”

And where that reaction is fostered in the chamber of our natural relationships, the more powerful and efficient it is in socializing children.

Social scientists are now wondering if this virtuous cycle extends to children too. In a study of 3-year-old twins, Israeli researchers have identified a genetic predisposition toward generosity that may be further influenced by a parent’s behavior. Preliminary findings suggest that children with more-engaged parents are more likely to be generous toward others, which may bode well for their future relationships — and their parents’ too.

A Bad Idea Delivered With a Slick Presentation is Still Bad

2011-12-09T13:55:00.000-05:00

A response to Zach Wahls' fallacious appeal in Iowa...

A comment was left in response to the video:

You bigot!

Why won't you support legitimizing my particular eating fetish by redefining food to include cinder blocks?

People think I'm weird for what I eat, because they don't consider cinder blocks to be legitimate food.

By law, cinder blocks cannot be labelled as food. This is codified discrimination against those of us who like to eat cinder blocks! If the law included cinder blocks as food, then people would have to accept that me eating cinder blocks is exactly the same as them eating other kinds of food. But as it stands, I am being denied my basic civil right to call what I love to eat, "food" and have the state sanction it as such. Where is the equal protection under the law?

How does me eating cinder blocks affect you and your eating preferences? Why should it matter to you whether or not the definition of food includes cinder blocks? Nobody is going to force YOU to eat cinder blocks.

Why should the law stigmatize me and others like me because it doesn't include what we love to eat into the category of food? I demand the laws be changed so that food includes cinder blocks!

Look, I have a good job, I'm articulate and intelligent and I'm a productive member of society. I turned out pretty good, didn't I? Therefore, my particular eating fetish should be legitimized by redefining food to include cinder blocks, because it obviously hasn't hurt me!

The decline of fatherhood and the male identity crisis

2011-12-07T10:49:00.001-05:00

"The decline of fatherhood and the male identity crisis" by Ray B. Williams in Psychology Today

Overwhelmingly, the portrayal of men and the male identity in contemporary western societies is mostly negative. Men today are extensively demonized, marginalized and objectified, in a way reminiscent of what happened to women. The issue of the male identity is of crucial importance because males are falling behind in school, committing more suicides and crimes, dying younger and being treated for conditions such as ADHD more than females. There has also been a loss of fatherhood in society as artificial insemination by anonymous donors is on the rise. Further, medical experiments have shown that male sperm can now be grown artificially in a laboratory. There has been a rise in divorce rates where in most cases, child custody is granted to mothers. Continuous negative portrayal of men in the media, along with the feminization of men and loss of fatherhood in society, has caused confusion and frustration in younger generation males, as they do not have a specific role model and are less able to define their role in society.

We didn't have to swing the pendulum to the other extreme. A woman's relevance and importance isn't dependent on making a man irrelevant and unimportant.

Looking for the primary source of homeless children and fatherless homes

2011-12-06T09:33:00.000-05:00

I keep reading this factoid that cites the U.S. Census Bureau that "90% of children who are homeless or runaways come from fatherless homes."

Any help finding the primary source on that?

Where to start in neighborhoods with low rates of marriage and high rates of father absenteeism

2011-12-06T09:24:00.001-05:00

Metro invests $4.8M to teach how to be dads

The theory is simple: Give kids a stable father, and they’ll stay in school and out of jail. But building fathers isn’t cheap. In North and East Nashville — neighborhoods with the highest rates of single parenting in the city — it’s going to cost $4.8 million over three years.

In many communities families are already fractured, and for my progressive friends realize stability is a big issue for children and emotional support can be limited in families.

“Most men build a better relationship with their children within the first 60 to 90 days,” said Gilbert Coleman, the program’s director. “If we keep our guys out of incarceration from not paying child support, we save the city about $28,000 a man per year.“Most social services have always been for the mother and the child, but when you look at the statistics, we are leaving the men out of the picture.”

A lot of damage is done over the decades, we can't always reunify each family, but we can still do a lot for men if marriage is not an option. We can't strengthen marriage without stopping the hemorrhaging.

Is parenting classes really the most ideal public policy to get men to be fathers? Of course not. It's valuing marriage!

Why then are we so afraid to say it, ahem, to make good judgment of what is just?

Well I just said it.

Renee Aste

Lowell, Massachusetts

"Non sexually integrated" is not the opposite of "integration of the sexes"

2011-12-05T20:37:00.005-05:00

In a recent discussion, a commenter referred to the "non sexually integrated" marriage.

This was an earnest attempt to represent what I had actually said. But it was a misrepresentation -- even if in error rather than deliberate calculation.

Integration of the sexes is at the core of the social institution of marriage. It does not standalone. It is combined with the provision for responsible procreation. Both are essentials of the marriage idea. This is what gives marriage its coherency -- as a social institution of civil society.

Splintering that core into bits and pieces may be useful for those who'd replace the marriage idea with something else, as SSMers are wont to do, but, as with dissecting a frog, it tends to kill the living thing under the knife.

An individual can, on his own, become sexually integrated. That is, he can integrate his sexuality (and here I am not limiting sexuality to talk of sexual orientation) into his personality as a whole. Yes, there are mature adults who are not sexually integrated. But that is not what I was speaking about.

But we can start there and make a point: To become sexually integrated is to become a whole person. The marital relationship, as a type of relationship, it is made whole by integrating the sexes (and here I am not limiting integration to sexual behavior).

Marriage, as a type of relationship, unites the sexes -- that's understood by enforcement of the legal requirement for participation by both sexes in each conjugal union. That is an essential from which much else follows. And this is not a standalone, as I said, for it is intertwined with procreation: the set of principles and practices that comprise reponsible procreation begins with the first principle that each of us, as part of a procreative duo (again a whole procreative unit), is responsible for our offspring. Uniting the sexes in a sexual type of relationship is part and parcel of the societal preference for the unity of motherhood and fatherhood.

SSMers would rather search for exceptions (and dwell on apparent rather than actual exceptions) instead of seeing the coherency of the whole. The way that social institutions become undone is through the loss of coherency. Put simply, if marriage is made to mean everything, then, it would mean nothing.

Yet the exceptions rule SSM argumentation.

Some marriages do not beget children. Ahah! The provision for responsible procreation is not an essential, they declare. Some marriages use third party procreation technologies. Ahah again! The unity of fatherhood and motherhood is not an essential, they assert. Some marriages are sexless. Ahah once more! Integration of the sexes is not an essential, they announce.

But when discussing the marital type of relationship we are not pecking through the millions of grains of sand that comprise the beach; or the countless drops of water in the sea. We are not defining marriage on a case-by-case basis. For to approach it that way is to treat marriage as something other than a social institution. It is missing the forest for the trees. It is not how reasonable lawmaking is done, either. It is not how one conducts a rational exploration of a social good and the potential for a conflcit of goods.

When it comes to sex, the SSM campaign's argumentation and rhetoric makes it irrelevant -- except for the arbitrary emphasis on homosexuality and gay identity.

The marital type of relationship is not accorded its special status because it is definitively heterosexual. Categorizing sexual orientation is not a consideration: there is no homosexual criterion for ineligiblity and no heterosexual criterion for eligibility. Marriage is neutral, already, on this aspect of the SSMer's complaint against marriage law.

Yet SSMers demand that the homosexual type of relationship be granted a special status on par with marital status precisely because of the homosexual emphasis. Not because of equality of persons but rather because of a demand that gay identity politics -- elevating group identity -- must take precedence over the core meaning of marriage itself.

SSMers try to dodge this problem in their approach. They work slavishly to make marriage mean less and less. They trivialize marriage. They heap scorn on the very notion that we are discussing a type of relationship that entails a core meaning, essentials, that differentiate the it from other types of relationships -- before labels are attached and before a licensing scheme and special status are accorded it.

No, marriage is just what the law says it is. And the law is wrong to say it requires the man-woman combination. That's the extent of their thinking, really. They smother this with generous servings of homosexual emphasis and identity politics.

When husband and wife unite sexually, they become a single unit -- a procreative type of unit -- and thus are related one to the other. When, as is customarily happens, they conceive children together, they are clearly related as mother and father of their offspring. If unconsummated, the marital relationship is subject to annulment; if the unity is infringed upon, it is subject to adultry as grounds for dissolution; if extramarital procreation occurs, the marital presumption of paternity is subject to a legitimate challenge. These are connected by the same two-sex sexual basis of marriage.

The nature of human procreation is two-sexed, not sex-neutral. The fact of relatedness has a bearing on eligilbility. Societal concern for integration of the sexes (and thus the natural formation of the family) and provision for responsible procreation (and thus showing preference for the natural family as a simple matter of justice for children) justifies, however imperfectly some may claim it to be, the boundaries of eligiblity based on degrees of consanguinity and affinity.

No man can impregnate another man. No woman is impreganted by another woman. No one-sexed arrangement can sexually consummate as a marriage with coital relations. Same-sex sexual behavior is irrelevant to the marital relationship. The lack of the other sex is highly relevant, however, regardless of what an all-male or an all-female arrangment might do, or not do, sexually.

But the search for exceptions is what SSMers do when they are uncomfortable dealing with the actual disagreement that is at the heart of the conflict between their SSM idea and the marriage idea.

Infertile couples! Marriages that do not produce children! Besides, there is no legal requirement that the husband and wife engage in sexual behavior together! These exceptions and that lack of compulsion can only mean that fertility is not an essential and that children are not essential and that sexual relations is not essential.

Ooops. If the sexual embrace is not essential, whence arises the homosexual emphasis in the pro-SSM complaint against the marriage law?

SSMers routinely treat marriage as a sexual type of relationship. And they assume, against their own guidance, that SSM would be a sexual type of relationship. Well, marriage is a sexual type of relationship as per the sexual basis for consummation, annulment, adultery, and the marital presumption of paternity. These are coherent sets of legal expressions, and cultural expressions, of the core meaning of marriage; the two-sexed sexual basis justifies the marriage law and justifies the boundaries drawn for eligibility.

But SSMers will shrug and say that most SSMs would be sexual even though there is no legal requirement for that. And not requirement for homosexual orientation, to boot. But by saying "most" they concede there must be exceptions. They just don't care about the exceptions. And yet exceptions destroy the general shrug -- or rule -- according to pro-SSM guidance on how to think about these things. Their own argumentation would contradict their emphasis on homosexuality.

Either this guidance is profoundly flawed and ought to be discarded, as I think most reasonable people would agree, or it is intrinsic to the case against the marriage idea and for the SSM idea. Well, SSMers will attack the marriage idea with unreasonable notions, left right and center, and think themselves very competent in guiding society on how to regard the marriage law. I do not think most of them have the intellectual honesty to concede how unreasonable is their approach, since that has rewarded them in some jurisdictions. So they'd rather be expedient and stick with the unreasonable guidance that brought them to the dance.

However, that would render SSM a nonsexual type of relationship, at law. It destroys their supposed objections to SSMs between consenting related adults -- for same-sex sexual behavior is deemed an illegitimate basis for lawmaking on marriage. They couldn't make it mandatory even if they wanted to. And sexual orientation is also deemed an illegitimate basis for lawmaking -- so the SSM law cannot be shaped to favor this or that sexual orientation and yet that is what the SSM campaign demands on behalf of homosexuality and gay identity.

SSM is a sexual type of relationship, obviously, SSMers will insist; but the lack of a legal requirement and the many exceptions that do not fit "most" SSMs stands against treating SSM as a sexual type of relationship, at law. The tradition of romance does not save their homosexual emphasis on same-sex sexual romance; pro-SSM guidance has rejected tradition as a legitimate basis for lawmaking on SSM.

In a future blogpost I will discuss how the SSM idea is segregative both in terms of sex and in terms of sexual orientation. For now I will close by observing that the defense of a social institution is inherently more challenging that the attempts to deconstruct it. To destroy coherency, and then to announce the gates are busted down, that's the strategy of the SSM campaign. Some of the more common attempts are immature repetitions of "why not?" and others are earnestly and radically reductionist. Given the many contradictions and splits within the pro-SSM side, it takes mountainous heaps of gay identity politics to cover up the cracks in the SSM idea itself. The SSM idea lacks coherency in the first place.

But if marriage, at law and in the culture, were to lose its coherency, what would replace it? Well, the SSM idea, shorn of its homosexual emphasis and its heavy reliance on gay identity politics, is simply a call for instituting provisions for designated beneficiaries. That is not defined by sexual orientation; it is not definitively sexual either; and it is far more just than bending the law to the demands of identity politics. And, not unsurprisingly, it is a form of nonmarriage that can exist, and has long-existed, concurrently with the special status accorded the marital type of relationship.

Yet, for the SSM campaign, what gives the SSM idea at least the superficial appearance of coherency is something extrinsic to the call for treating various types of nonmarital relationships with equal compassion and assistance in their own right. The assertion of the primacy of gay identity politics is the thing that glues together the incoherent bits and pieces that comprise the argumentation and rhetoric of SSMers in courtrooms, legislatures, and other public forums -- including those in the blogosphere.

A "non sexually integrated" person can become sexually integrated outside of marriage -- and without engaging in sexual behavior for that matter; but the marital type of relationship cannot remain "marriage" without integration of the sexes.

The SSM idea

2011-12-03T18:47:00.004-05:00

When SSMers propose an alternative to the marriage idea, they also assume that they can appropriate the word, marriage, to name the alternative idea and, thus, they hope to make it impossible for society to talk about, think about, and show preference for the social institution of marriage.

They seek to appropriate all that arises from that foundational social institution; they do not show how their SSM idea has the merit for souch a blatant switch; they do not feel they need to justify the replacement of the marriage idea with their SSM idea. They just arbitarily claim the word, marriage, and its special status; but they do not offer the reasoning that would sustain that special status, much less justify the status in the first place.

They hope, I suppose that society will be hoodwinked long enough to lose the very thing that SSM would piggyback on. Once it is lost, the SSM idea will be all that is left to support the special status of marriage; and the SSM idea is just not up to the job.

When the ability to name something is taken away (in this case through the heavy hand of Government moved for the sake of identity politics), we lose the ability to even think about that now un-named thing.

This is a deliberate strategy of the SSM campaign, of course. Hence their desperate and angry and intolerant demand that they and only they control the language of the contest between the marriage idea and the SSM idea. Indeed, they balk at the very notion that there is an SSM idea. Apparently this same-sex type of relationship has always been a type of marriage and society did not know it until now.

The absurdity of the homosexual emphasis is plain as day. As absurd as that emphasis is, it is far more absurd to lose marriage to it. The hawkers of gay identity politics are not really looking at marriage for they are motivated by the gut-level desire to assert the supremacy of gay identity politics over all of society -- marriage being the current political and cultural vehicle they'd hijack.

My head hurts...

2011-12-03T08:57:00.001-05:00

From Eatliver.com

The corruptive influence of SSMers on public discourse, part 1

2011-12-01T21:58:00.005-05:00

In the comment section of a blogpost by Barry at FSB I have left the following remarks:

David Blankenhorn and Maggie Gallagher who have written extensively on the social institution of marriage have each used the supposed jargon, “the marriage idea”. It is one and the same as “the core meaning of the social institution of marriage,” as a fair reading of their work shows.

The SSM idea is simply the idea set against, and thus in conflict with, the very thing that David and Maggie have articulated. David has referred to the conflict of goods, for example.

Maligning me unfairly is not good form, Barry et al. Your blogposts and your comments are filled with jargon and so you expect to frame the discourse to suite yourselves. That, too, is poor form on your parts.

I made those remarks in response to the attempt of SSMers there, including Barry and Fannie (two pro-SSM bloggers guesting at FSB), to belittle the observations I made regarding the conflict between the marriage idea and the SSM idea.

Barry would brush me off with the following:

Chairm, FSB has a rule: “Please limit your comments to 3 per post to help foster conversation among all readers.” I habitually waive that rule for all comment-writers on my posts, but I don’t waive it for you.

In my experience, as we’ve seen on this thread, you tend to dominate the discussion to such a degree that it becomes difficult for other discussions to flourish. Furthermore, your comments are long and so full of opaque jargon that I worry your comments may discourage other people from participating.

Please do not post any further comments on this thread, and in the future please limit yourself to no more than three comments on any of my threads.

It is his comment section so he can do as he likes, of course. However, readers will note that there are pro-SSM commenters there who have already left more than three comments. La Lubu, Christopher, and Barry.

Jargon-filled? Dominating? Discouraging participation? The SSMers there, particularly Barry, might take a look in the mirror at themselves and reconsider their abuse of language, their reliance on misrepresentations, and their belittling and mocking attempts to dismiss the real argument that stands against their SSM argumentation.

Sometime ago, Barry wrote a "gotcha" type blogpost in which he brought up "cis-gender" theory as somehow debunking the writings of Robert George et al on marriage's core meaning. That blogpost of Barry's is a startling example of the jargon-filled, domineering, and dismissive approach that features prominently in SSM rhetoric, far and wide. He was answered with a proper dressing-down.

I'll look for the links to that exchange. No doubt Barry is most proud of his part in it. Heh.

The Marriage Idea, part 6

2011-12-01T21:24:00.002-05:00

Gene Edward Veith writing in World Magazine, 2004:

Homosexual marriage has contributed to the dissolution of marriage as a significant institution in Scandinavian cultures primarily by contributing to the notion that marriage need have nothing to do with having children.

[...]

Today’s gay activists in Scandinavia, having gotten everything they wanted., now admit that their case for homosexual marriage—particularly that allowing gays to marry will encourage a monogamous lifestyle—was only a tactical argument. The goal, says Mr. Kurtz, citing two prominent gay thinkers, “was not marriage but social approval for homosexuality.”

They achieved that goal, but now there is little social approval for marriage.

The Marriage Idea, part 5

2011-12-01T21:17:00.002-05:00

David Blankenhorn writing in First Things, 1997:

It would be hard to exaggerate the symbolic importance of this shift toward self-composed vows. The old vows were created by society and presented to the couple, signifying the goal of conforming the couple to marriage. The new vows are created by the couple and presented to society, signifying the goal of conforming marriage to the couple. The two approaches reflect strikingly divergent views of marriage and of reality itself.

In one view, the vow is prior to the couple. The vow exists on its own, exerting social and sacred authority that is independent of the couple. In this sense, the vow helps to create the couple. For in making the same promise that others before them have made, and that others after them will make, the couple vows on their wedding day to become accountable to an ideal of marriage that is outside of them and bigger than they are.

In the new view, the couple is prior to the promise. The vow is not an external reality, like gravity or the weather, but instead a subjective projection, deriving its meaning solely from the couple. From this perspective, the couple approaches the vow like a painter approaches a canvas. Rather than the vow creating the couple, the couple creates the vow. As a result, each marriage becomes unique, like a painting or a snowflake.

[...]

A reality in which the marriage is larger than the couple is replaced by a reality in which the couple is larger than the marriage.

Of course, many of the motivating ideas behind the new vows are understandable and even admirable. Couples want to avoid hypocrisy. They want the ceremony to be dramatic and personally meaningful. In part, the new vows represent a practical response to the growing phenomenon of mixed-tradition marriages.

But the essence of this change reflects a dramatic shrinking of our idea of marriage. With the new vows, the robust expectation of marital permanence shrinks to a frail, often unstated hope. Marriage as a vital communal institution shrinks to marriage as a purely private relationship. Marriage as something that defines me shrinks to something that I define.

Finally, as the idea of marriage gets weaker, so does the reality. In this sense, the new vows are important philosophical authorizations for our divorce culture. They are both minor causes and revealing results of a society in which marriage as an institution is decomposing before our eyes.

The Marriage Idea, part 4

2011-12-01T21:11:00.003-05:00

Maggie Gallagher, Weekly Standard, 2003:

Marriage is the fundamental, cross-cultural institution for bridging the male-female divide so that children have loving, committed mothers and fathers. Marriage is inherently normative: It is about holding out a certain kind of relationship as a social ideal, especially when there are children involved.

Marriage is not simply an artifact of law; neither is it a mere delivery mechanism for a set of legal benefits that might as well be shared more broadly. The laws of marriage do not create marriage, but in societies ruled by law they help trace the boundaries and sustain the public meanings of marriage.

In other words, while individuals freely choose to enter marriage, society upholds the marriage option, formalizes its definition, and surrounds it with norms and reinforcements, so we can raise boys and girls who aspire to become the kind of men and women who can make successful marriages. Without this shared, public aspect, perpetuated generation after generation, marriage becomes what its critics say it is: a mere contract, a vessel with no particular content, one of a menu of sexual lifestyles, of no fundamental importance to anyone outside a given relationship.

The marriage idea is that children need mothers and fathers, that societies need babies, and that adults have an obligation to shape their sexual behavior so as to give their children stable families in which to grow up. Which view of marriage is true? We have seen what has happened in our communities where marriage norms have failed. What has happened is not a flowering of libertarian freedom, but a breakdown of social and civic order that can reach frightening proportions. When law and culture retreat from sustaining the marriage idea, individuals cannot create marriage on their own.

The Marriage Idea, part 3

2011-12-01T21:01:00.003-05:00

From the US Supreme Court case, Meister v. Moore, 1877:

For, certainly, no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth, fit to take rank as one of the co-ordinate states of the Union, than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guaranty of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement.

The Marriage Idea, part 2

2011-12-01T20:52:00.004-05:00

From a New York Post interview of David Blankenhorn, 2007:

QUESTION: What is your central thesis?

ANSWER: The primary purpose of marriage is to ensure that the male and female, whose physical union made the child, are the social parents for the child, are there for the child and there for each other.

In every case of children in same-sex couples, that child is by definition missing either a mother or a father. Gay marriage would require us to move away from that birthright - not just for the children in gay and lesbian households, but for all children.

Gay marriage moves away from marriage as a coherent institution that has public purposes. Marriage becomes a word that we give a private committed relationship - sex doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it, or procreation or bridging the male-female divide.

[...]

QUESTION: How should we approach use of third parties in procreation - surrogates and donors?

ANSWER: I think we should walk away.

We seem to be headed in the direction of the individual adult right to a child, which takes us very close to the notion of children as commodities. That couldn't be more different from the traditional religious notion of children as a gift; or a more direct violation of the principle that marriage is based on. Only adoption is consistent with the marriage idea and the idea of children's rights.

The Marriage Idea, part 1

2011-12-01T20:06:00.006-05:00

Maggie Gallagher writing in the Louisina Law Review, 2002:

Every known human society has some form of marriage. In every complex society governed by law, marriage exists as a public legal act and not merely a private romantic declaration or religious rite.

As Kingsley Davis summed up the anthroplogical evidence: “Although the details of getting married—who chooses the mates, what are the ceremonies and exchanges, how old are the parties—vary from group to group, the principle of marriage is everywhere embodied in practice . . . .”

As a practically universal human idea, marriage is about regulating the reproduction of children, families, society. While marriage systems differ, marriage across societies is a public sexual union that creates kinship obligations and sharing of resources between men, women, and the children their sexual union may produce.

[...]

Yet a distinguished legal scholar in a major family law journal simply assumed that the functional equivalence of cohabitation and marriage was self-evident, once the cocoon of sentiment was stripped away by a hardheaded rationalist like himself—so deeply ingrained in certain circles has the idea become that marriage is no more than a piece of paper that delivers certain legal benefits.

In the larger sweep of history, despite significant countercurrents, this view of marriage-as-emotional intimacy is gaining ground. One view of marriage is that it is a personal right of the individual, created by the individual, for purposes which the individual alone defines. When two individuals happen to have desires and tastes for each other that coincide for a lifetime, that is beautiful. If not, it is simply no one else’s business.
[...]

Marriage as a universal human institution is, as I have stated, consistent with a variety of attitudes towards alternative intimate and sexual relations, from stigma to tolerance. But if we lose the idea that marriage is, at some basic level, about the reproduction of children and society, if our law rejects the presumptions that children need mothers and fathers, and that marriage is the most practical way to get them for children, then we cannot expect private tastes and opinions alone to sustain the marriage idea.

[...]

Marriage is an institution in crisis. Close to half of new marriages end in divorce. A third of our children are born out of wedlock. The majority of children, at current estimates, will experience a fatherless or motherless household. Making substantial progress in reversing the trend toward family fragmentation will require that law and society reject the deepest presumptions driving postmodern family as an ideological and legal construct: the idea that marriage is essentially a private choice created by and for the couple; that children do just fine in whatever family forms their parents choose to create; that babies are irrelevant to the public purposes of marriage.

[Footnotes removed.]

Winning which argument?

2011-12-01T09:58:00.003-05:00

Here are a few of Barry's ill-considered thoughts from his latest blogpost at FSB.

There’s a big split between the intellectuals and non-intellectuals on the anti-equality side of the debate, but not so much on the pro-equality side.

And:

Well, I think it has a great deal to do with why the pro-equality side is winning this argument. The core argument against marriage equality isn’t the secular argument skillfully articulated by David and Elizabeth; it’s that God doesn’t want gay people getting married. That’s an argument that has less and less salience with each new generation of Americans.

* * *

How tiresome of Barry.

SSMers can't win the religious argument; and SSMers can't win the moral argument. That is lost ground for the likes of Barry. So he turns to the ground he thinks he can find his greatest advantage.

But the intellectual argument destroys the SSM argumentation quite readily. This explains Barry's exagerated attempt to marginalize the secular case against SSM.

I left comments with other observations there. I may add more here when I have some time.

What? It's not irreconcilable differences or incurable insanity?

2011-12-01T04:24:00.001-05:00

Kris Humphries Seeks Annulment from Kim Kardashian, Claims 'Fraud'

"There's a clear conflict if one spouse is seeking a divorce, but the other wants an annulment," says family law attorney Scott Weston, who is not involved in the case. "A judge will have to decide which to allow, which could take many months."
"She always wanted an annulment but attorneys were against it so she's happy that both parties agree now," says the source.
In his Superior Court filing, Humphries marks the box reading "nullity of voidable marriage" and checks as the basis the box saying "fraud."

2011-11-30T09:53:00.001-05:00

Parents of children with Down syndrome are beginning to wonder whether the services and accommodations they've fought hard for could fade away if kids like theirs are slowly weeded out of the population. "You want a perfect baby, and the easiest thing to do is to eliminate a child that won't fit into that mold," says Theresa Howard, a N.J. ad copywriter who found out after her daughter, Lydia, was born in 2006 that she had Down syndrome.

We've had some discussion on this site in the comment section about promoting favorable parenting to children who have a different sexual orientation than expected. But when we review this problem we see there are many ways that children can turn out different than expected, some with the prospect of early death.

The question isn't whether or not you are lucky enough to have the children you have. The question is are the children you have lucky to have you as a parent? Yes, if you care about them and are the best parent you can be they are very lucky to have you as a parent. So much about your children may not be fixable, but they can be helped greatly by your love and support. And then the things that are fixable will respond to that support and work out for the better.

Marriage, rooted in the commitment to an uncertain future, is readily understandable to people who understand it as a mooring for responsible procreation. Procreation, more than any relationship you can choose is, uncertain. And the child who is a product of your relationship deserves your best support and guidance. And marriage, rooted in that understanding, will benefit everyone and even go along way to solve homelessness for all children.

Adolescent boys more prone to delinquency without a father

2011-11-30T04:30:00.001-05:00

Adolescent boys more prone to delinquency without a father from Physorg.com

The study, undertaken by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the Faculty of Business and Economics, found that the presence of a father figure during adolescence was most likely to have a preventive effect on whether male youths engage in risk-taking and deviant behaviour...
Using American data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, three factors were studied in the role of fathers influencing youth delinquency: parental involvement and interaction, contribution to household income and engagement with a father figure by simply being present at home.

I found this key to low-income families.

Additionally, higher family incomes were found to have little effects on solving the problems associated with youth delinquency.

The working paper from the Melbourne Institute here.

Mum, Dad, we are still hurting from your divorce

2011-11-29T10:15:00.001-05:00

Mum, Dad, we are still hurting from your divorce

By divorcing, you made our lives harder. Imagine this, how would you want to go to a different home every few days because it suits someone else’s schedule? How would you like to remember at which house you left your wallet, your laptop, your workout bag, your briefcase? How about sleeping in a different bed and using a different toothbrush every other day, how would that make you feel?

Dad, might it have been the mid-life crisis or boredom or drifting apart? We do advocate for abusive marriages, but we have racked our brains and cannot remember any emotional or physical abuse in your marriage. To us, you appeared to be functioning well even just a few months prior to the divorce. The divorce was therefore unexpected, inexplicable and unwelcome to us, and an act of selfishness on your part.

Challenge to Chris and other SSMers: what does "same-sex couple" mean?

2011-11-28T21:33:00.004-05:00

Chris commented in the FSB comment section:

"I didn’t even mention sexual orientation in my argument for why SSM should be legal."

The comment section closed so I'll respond here instead.

* * *

Chris made his remark, the one I quoted above, when he reacted to the following comment of mine:

"The best that you [Phil], Chris, and other SSMers have offered is an emphasis on gay identity politics."

Chris would like to limit the scope of his objection to just his comments made in that particular brief comment section. But, even at that, he did not make an actual argument there, although he did do other stuff there.

Since he referred to his having made an argument, we can be charitable and broadened the scope of his objection to encompass other discussions -- at FSB and perhaps elsewhere.

For now we can put aside a search for his actual argument and instead consider Chris' complaint that what he has called his argument would have no emphasis on sexual orientation. Taken at face value, his complaint is a promise that he would not make a pro-SSM argument that relied upon sexual orientation and/or gay identity politics.

That would be something refreshing in these debates and we might hold him to that.

Within that particular discussion at FSB, Chris used the phrase, same-sex couple, and gave it significance. See here and twice here.

What does that denote?

Far and wide, SSMers mean it to denote the homosexual couple. This is made most obvious when an SSMer compares the same-sex couple to the heterosexual couple.

However, in his comments in that particular discussion, Chris sought to compare the same-sex couple and the opposite-sex couple and, as he said, he did not explicitly mention sexual orientation. But he offered a description of the SSM idea that strongly suggests an emphasis on sexual orientation.

I had made the point that there is nothing to the SSM idea that can justify treating the same-sex twosome as eligible to SSM and the same-sex moresome as ineligible to SSM.

Chris brought up polygamy:

Basically, our argument is that marriage, as a legal institution, is set up to allow two unrelated adults to become each other’s closest legal kin. It is not set up in such a way that it can only accomodate opposite-sex couples; same-sex couples fit this legal arrangement just as well. Polygamous groups do not.

That is not an argument. But even taken for what it is, it does not do what Chris might have imagined.

Note that Chris speaks of "our argument" and so does not standalone; he countsd himself among the SSMers who have blogged or commented at FSB and who have emphasized homosexual orientation in their argumentation. He has not set himself apart from that.

As for what he has called an argument: right off the top, some related adults can and do SSM where SSM has been imposed or enacted. Being unrelated is not an essential of the SSM idea. Where the line of eligiblity is drawn varies; the basis for drawing that line relies on an emphasis on homosexuality.

If the proposed ban on related same-sex couples is due to a desire to ban the incestuous same-sex relationship, then, he'd run afoul of SSM argumentation on several fronts.

For one example, the ban is far too inclusive. A concern about incestuous sexual behavior does not fit the ban on the nonsexual same-sex relationship of related heterosexual adults. Nor does it fit the ban on the nonsexual relationship of related homosexual adults. These are same-sex twosomes who are banned for being related and nothing more. Most are born related; others are related due to no choice of their own. Sound familiar?

Further, adults are free to consent to sexual relationships. What is the government's business in banning some same-sex sexual relationships from SSM but not others?

As SSMers are happy to declare when it comes to their attack on the core meaning of marriage, if an essential is not a legal requirement that makes it mandatory for each and every SSM, then, it must not remain on the list of proposed essential(s). There is no legal requirement that would make same-sex sexual behavior mandatory for those who'd SSM. There can be no sexual basis for banning some people from SSM.

Chris cannot say that being unreleated is an essential when related people can and do SSM. He cannot say that same-sex sexual behavior is an essential when that is not compulsory. He cannot say that a ban on incestuous sexual relationships is essential to SSM while banning related people in nonsexual relationships. He cannot say that prioritization of kinship is essential to the SSM idea when he'd deny that to some same-sex twosomes -- and to the same-sex moresome. He cannot rely on the phrase, same-sex couple for that includes a wide swath of those he would ban. He cannot deny an emphasis on sexual orientation if his proposal depends on sexualization of the type of relationshiph he has in mind.

Well, sure, he can keep on saying things that are false -- even according to his own argumentation -- but that does not make an argument in favor of SSM.

Meanwhile, sure, the proposed SSM relationship would deal with special level of kinship. But that's the very thing he'd deny some people while he'd demand it for others. If his argument for SSM depends on favoring some people over other people, then, the basis for that favoritism is very important needs to be stated explicitly.

Polygamous-like SSM would be a series of SSMs, not a single group SSM. But since Chris brought polygamy into the moresome we can proceed on that basis.

According to Chris' proposal, prioritizion of kinship is an essential of the SSM idea. A series of SSMs could establish closest kin, next closest kin, and so forth. Why must the prioritization stop at just one same-sex couple? Chris needs to fine tune his proposal and offer strong justification for banning some same-sex couples from SSM.

And to repeat, he appears to have invest in the phrase, same-sex couple, more than just a count of two persons. He needs to bring that to the surface and justify it.

* * *

The marriage idea, the core meaning of the social institution, provides justification for for society drawing lines of eligibility. Societal regard for sex integration and responsible procreation is far more significant than societal regard for whatever an all-male or an all-female arrangement might do sexually. SSMers claim they want the law to be indifferent and yet their emmphasis on homosexuality and gay identity politics is hard to miss in their own argumentation.

Challenge to Phil and other SSMers: State the Essential(s) of SSM.

2011-11-28T19:50:00.007-05:00

In a brief discussion at Family Scholars Blog, I made the point that

“SSM argumentation has cited no essential of the SSM idea that must be accorded same-sex twosomes but must be denied ‘same-sex’ moresomes.”

Phil frequents the comment section of that blog; he is known to the readership here as well. He reacted to my comment:

"Now, it sounds like that claim, in plain English, means that SSM advocates have never, ever, cited an essential feature of same-sex marriage that applies to couples but cannot be applied to groups of three or more."

The bit Phil quoted from me actually said it better than Phil did.

Here it is restated: SSM argumentation cites no essential of the SSM idea that must be granted to two but denied to more than two.

Note that Phil has failed to cite such an essential. Not in that discussion and not anywhere else he has offered his pro-SSM opinions.

Sure, he has claimed he can do so. He has claimed that it has been done by others. He has thus put his own credibility on the line. He might surprise and come up with something new. I'd welcome that.

The challenge to Phil (and other SSMers who might throw him a lifeline) is to state the essential feature(s) of SSM idea such that it fits the twosome but not the moresome.

It is insufficient to merely assert the limit of two. SSMers have insisted that mere assertion cannot suffice when it comes to the man-woman criterion of marriage law. Likewise they have insisted that just because it may be the status quo, or just because it has always been so, cannot suffice. They demand more of marriage defenders.

But they expect less of themselves.

When their own SSM idea is tested with their own rules of argumentation, they must do better than make a bald-faced assertion and then pretend they've made an argument by repeating the assertion.

The man-woman criterion exists in the law. They have demanded justification. And so the limit of two cannot stand without justification that arises from the SSM idea alone (and not from the core meaning of marriage which SSMers have rejected as an unjust basis for limiting eligibility). They can offer nothing about integration of the sexes; nothing about responsible procreation; nothing about the social institution for they have placed all their emphasis on the governmental shadow of that social institution of civil society.

Their justification for the two-participant criterion cannot be borrowed from the two-sexed sexual basis of marriage law, for SSMers have rejected that sexual basis as an illegitimate foundation for limiting eligibility to marry. They have claimed that the same-sex scenario is just like the two-sexed scenario; so much so that the two scenarios must be treated as one and the same. In that case, they can start by restricting their justification to the same-sex scenario, alone, and we can look forward to seeing how they'd apply it justly to the man-woman combination.

Eligibility to SSM cannot be limited based on stuff that is not mandatory, according to SSM argumentation.

For instance, SSMers have insisted that procreation is not mandatory and therefore is an illegitimate basis for limiting eligilbity to marry. Same-sex sexual behavior is not mandatory for those who'd SSM so that can't be the basis for restricting eligilbity to SSM. There is no sexual basis for presuming a man to have impregnated another man so they can't borrow from the sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity. That sexual basis is the same for sexual consummation, annulment provisions, and adultery/divorce. All of that is put aside until a new basis can be found. So SSMers must come up with something else that fits the same-sex twosome but not the same-sex moresome.

They have insisted on 100% certainty, when it comes to ability to procreate, as a condition for even entertaining the possiblity that procreation is central to eligibility to marry. So any justification they'd offer for limiting eligibility to SSM must come with the same 100% certainty and thus enforced with no exceptions, apparent or actual; otherwise the offered justification cannot stand as an essential of the SSM idea.

Further, SSMers have insisted that justification for a limitation be written into the law; the limitation cannot stand alone. If the moresome is to be denied all that the SSMers demand for the twosome, then, SSMers have to do a lot better than repeat the two-participant criterion.

SSMers made these rules when it suited them to hack away at the marriage idea. Now, they must play by those rules when their SSM idea is tested.

Their own pro-SSM argumentation cannot allow them to escape the challenge they have given themselves and of which they are now reminded.

Their crediblity is on the line. They are invited to do better.

United Methodist bishops say they'll uphold ban on same-sex unions

2011-11-25T14:48:00.001-05:00

United Methodist bishops say they'll uphold ban on same-sex unions from The Boston Pilot

The United Methodist Church's Council of Bishops said in a Nov. 10 letter they would continue to uphold the denomination's ban on blessing same-sex unions.
"As the Council of Bishops we will uphold the Book of Discipline as established by General Conference," the denominational assembly that meets every four years and is the church's highest policymaking body, said the letter, which was addressed to all Methodists...
While acknowledging "the deep disagreements and divisions within the church" on an issue that has caused "deep pain" throughout the church, "at times like these we call upon each other to remember and renew our covenant with God and with one another as United Methodist Christians," the Council of Bishops said. "As bishops chosen, consecrated and assigned by the church, we declare once again our commitment to be faithful to this covenant we have made."

Ignorance is bliss when it comes to challenging social issues

2011-11-23T10:25:00.001-05:00

ScienceDaily (2011-11-21) -- The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed, according to new research.

What you don't know won't hurt you? "Ignorance is bliss" is a great title for a category of arguments that I've seen used both in the marriage debate, as well as drug legalization debate.

But focusing on each other's ignorance really just breads ignorance. Its not that one can't learn from the mistakes of ignorance, it is just that there is an all to easy rut to get into where you compare yourself to the ignorance you see in others. It doesn't promote you to learn any better, it just makes you content enough to be smarter (in your mind) than someone else that you quit learning. Why upset the apple-cart of your self-declared intellect?

However, it is my firm belief that when we move past our own ignorance that we'll all discover definable and dependable ground that we all agree to stand on together. When we've charted and surveyed all of the correlations, a map will appear that helps us see the big picture also.

To simply say that a fundamental right of equality demands we remove the reference to "a man and a woman" from marriage is itself removing recognition of rights involved in the unique capacity of that relationship.

We can pretend we are isolated into garages of life, completely unrelated to what the crack addicts do in their garage, or how other people call a marriage between them, we can pretend that what we don't know doesn't hurt us.

Yet if we are to take Martin Luther King Jr's advice that sticking up for injustice somewhere is sticking up for injustice everywhere, then how is removing the recognition of equality in marriage ultimately equality? If marriage can no longer directly reference the man and the woman together, then how can it promote equal recognition of the rights and responsibilities of the man, woman, and child they potentially have together?

How does removing recognition of my rights as a father and husband, and my responsibility to recognize the rights of my wife and the children we create together, benefit equality? How can we encourage the government to become more ignorant of rights and claim we are becoming more enlightened?

If recognizing everyone's rights equality is a zero sum game, then how come I'm losing my rights to give what others consider to be their rights?

The answer is obvious. What many claim to be "equality" is really not equality. The true equality is found only in putting away ignorance and accept that we need to recognize more of what makes up our humanity, not less. Marriage may be more than procreation, but it certainly isn't less than that. Marriage rights may be more than recognizing the relationship created when a child is born, but it certainly isn't less than that.

Ignorance is bliss, it can make very simple people feel empowered and intelligent. But in this debate, lets increase our ability to value those relationships that make a difference individually and socially. Lets understand their value, and protect them. Lets understand where these relationships need to be guarded the most. That is a good goal for all relationships, and it means we have to understand them for their uniqueness as well as their commonality.

How we see family resemblance in faces

2011-11-22T18:58:00.001-05:00

ScienceDaily (2011-11-21) -- Whether comparing a man and a woman or a parent and a baby, we can still see when two people of different age or sex are genetically related. How do we know that people are part of a family? Findings from a new study increases our understanding of the brain's ability to see through these underlying variations in facial structure.

If you pay me, I can get you a brand new baby.

2011-11-22T03:42:00.001-05:00

Massachusetts Fertility Specialist to Present Webinar for Gay Male Couples

In addition to treating heterosexual couples challenged by infertility, Dr. Pang has specialized in helping lesbian and gay couples have children through assisted reproductive technologies (ART) since 1989.

Notice it doesn't say he treats gay couples, there is nothing to medically diagnose. By Massachusetts state law, gay couples do not fall under the definition of infertility. Heterosexual couples must 'try' for one year, before their health insurance covers infertility.

For gay men, ART involves in vitro fertilization (IVF) using donor eggs and a gestational carrier. Assisted reproduction for gay men also requires medical management of this process, preferably from a Reproductive Endocrinologist who is without bias and culturally sensitive to the needs of gay couples.

Dr. Pang isn't a doctor, he is a broker. He brokers in babies. He can pay a woman for her eggs, and another for her body up to nine months, and medically manage her until birth. He's not medically caring for her, he is using her body to pump out a child, like pimping sex to paying third parties.
He has no problem with the cultural exploitation of woman's bodies or denying a child a birth right to their own parents and kin. Babies and mothers aren't human beings in his view of infertility and prenatal medicine. They're a product to be managed, custom built to order for paying customers.

What gay marriage can't solve...

2011-11-21T09:33:00.001-05:00

NPR recently covered the issue of gay teens and homelessness in New York City, and the failure of social services in a state that has recently passed gay marriage.

Young, Gay And Homeless: Fighting For Resources
by MARGOT ADLER

There are only 250 beds for 3,800 homeless kids in New York City; waiting lists are huge. Facing a $10 billion deficit, Gov. Andrew Cuomo made compromises with the New York state Legislature. Budget cuts would have taken 100 of those beds away. The city council restored monies cut from both the city and state budgets, so no beds have been cut. A spokesperson said Cuomo asked all local governments to take more responsibility for their budgets by eliminating waste and prioritizing vital programs.

When you view the gay lobby, like any other lobby, they begin to look like a fat-cat special interest. They influence politicians by filling up the campaign coffers and not on progressive ideals.

In Massachusetts, there has been an initial study on homeless gay teens. There are striking differences between, straight homeless teens who are more likely to be accompanies by at least one parent, and teens who identify themselves as gay who are homeless on their own.

The initial sample of 6,653 students was narrowed to 6,317 who gave full information on their sexual orientation and homelessness status. Less than 5 percent of students overall identified themselves as GLB, yet they accounted for 19 percent of those who identified themselves as homeless.

Pretty striking isn't it.

Everyone talks about gay couples adopting, but getting anyone gay or straight to foster cute babies and children under ten is easy. Teenagers in need of services is a big problem. I hope the study can go further and see what types of homes these teens grew up in before becoming homeless. Are they originally from out of state, like in the NPR piece, and came to Massachusetts? Did they leave homes that had both their biological parents, single parent led homes, or homes with a step-parent or boyfriend residing?

Massachusetts: Casinos and euthanasia doesn't solve our declining population..

2011-11-18T12:56:00.001-05:00

Massachusetts, we're in one ugly demographic hole.

As someone who has given birth to four children here, each time I answered a survey for the Department of Public Health. A real long survey, because they wanted to know absolutely everything me, because I'm a mom. Massachusetts cares about the maternal outcome for myself and for my children. They use this personal information as data for better public policy.

My age, education, ethnicity, planned or unplanned pregnancy, when did I start prenatal care, was my pregnancy covered by private insurance or MassHealth, and if there was a husband and not just a father was asked of me. Each time as I was suppose to resting and bonding with my newborn, I spent a good 30 minutes filling out this paper work so each child could be registered for a birth certificate issued by the state.

What is fascinating is the choice of image Massachusetts uses for their yearly report on births. A masculine figure cradling an image of a pregnant woman. The same types of images people who defend marriage with, and not with signs of hatred.

Recently due to the recession, there has been a drop in birth rates nationwide. Women are unsure of their stability for the future makes them uneasy to have a child. This is a typical pattern in depressions and recessions. Why hasn't any state lawmaker blinked an eye at the fact that since 1990, Massachusetts number of births has dropped 19%? There were 74,966 birth in Massachusetts 2009, in 1990 there was well over 90,000. Massachusetts isn't growing, it is only stabilized by a consistent wave immigration to replenish it. With the number of births declining, how can we have a future? Massachusetts has decided to solve the problem with casinos and legalizing euthanasia.

I live in this dual reality, one can speak in terms of public health or social services all about the family, in what is coined as traditional and natural terms marriage. In some affluent suburbs, 95% of all children are born to married parents, while in isolated city ghettos only 30% have married parents.

Public policy wants maternal support, paternal participation, and stable home for healthy and safe outcomes of our children. But we can't give public policy a legal term, like marriage, defined as one man and one woman without the gay lobby placing the pressure to falsely stigmatize fellow citizens as bigots. We have some great government services (liberal concept), but we don't have either the economic revenue or work-force demographic (conservative concept) to support it.

Meanwhile the demographic reports have a twist, "Study: (Massachusetts) Migration Out Of Mass. Plummets Post-Recession" from the local Boston NPR station, reports that people are stuck here due to the recession. The problem is "“This has been a sobering experience, especially for young adults who have had their lives delayed. They haven’t married as much. They haven’t had children…" NPR said it, not me.

Renee Aste

Lowell Massachusetts

Insanity and More Coverage of Court Opinion on Proposition Backers

2011-11-17T16:03:00.000-05:00

The LATimes.com coverage of the California Marriage Amendment is being updated constantly, thanks mostly to Maura Dolan. Let’s look at some of it, shall we?

From this update, which goes into the details of the court’s opinions:

State officials do not have the right to veto a voter-approved initiative, the California Supreme Court said in its ruling Thursday that recognized the right of Proposition 8 backers to defend the state's [duly amended constitution] in court.

“Neither the governor, the attorney general, nor any other executive or legislative official has the authority to veto or invalidate an initiative measure that has been approved by the voters,” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakueye wrote for the court.

She said that doing so “would exalt form over substance” and permit public officials who opposed an initiative to invalidate a measure simply by refusing to defend it.

This update has reaction from marriage neutering advocates:

"While a disappointing ruling, this case is now back in federal court, where we expect a quick victory," Lambda Legal's Jon Davidson. "The ruling addresses only a procedural legal question. The key question underlying this case is whether the U.S. Constitution permits a state electorate to treat one group of people unequally to everyone else by depriving them of what the state's high court has held to be a fundamental right.”

It is Constitutional, moral, practical and often necessary to treat different kinds of voluntary associations differently. Everyone has the same access to state marriage licenses, whether they want to use that access or not.

And more reaction from the marriage neutering advocates:

“We disagree profoundly with the California Supreme Court’s holding that a handful of unelected initiative sponsors have the power to represent the interests of the entire public and to override the decisions of the state’s elected executive officers,” said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

More…

Another gay rights group, Love Honor Cherish, said it had also hoped that the court would decline to give the backers of Proposition 8 standing.

“This ruling means that it may be years before loving gay and lesbian couples will again be able to marry in California," said Love Honor Cherish Board Chair Tom Watson.

Following the positions and actions of the marriage neutering advocates over the years, it is apparent that they decide whether something is good or bad based primarily and almost entirely on whether or not it immediately facilitates or celebrates their quest to orgasm with someone of the same sex. Legal procedures, religions, economic philosophies... whatever they are... if they esteem homosexual behavior then they are good, and if they provide a hindrance to instant gratification or whatever the marriage neutering advocates wants, then they are bad.

They would applaud the death of the California initiative system, even if they liked so many of the past initiatives, if it meant that one of their own could be successful in overturning a duly adopted state constitutional amendment. They don't care right now that it would prevent them from implementing voter initiatives in the future. What matters to them is now, now, now. They're like what you'd have if toddlers went through puberty. Everything must be sacrificed on the altar of their orgasms, even though nobody is stopping them from having them right now. It isn't enough to have freedom unless they can take away the freedom of others to not celebrate their orgasms.

This update had reactions from the backers of Proposition 8.

This update is about how the opinion of the state court is "likely" to persuade the federal courts.

Legal experts said the California Supreme Court's ruling Thursday giving Proposition 8 sponsors the right to defend the anti-same-sex-marriage initiative was so strong that it would likely persuade a federal appeals court and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court.

"It's a gangbusters opinion," said Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen, an expert on the state high court. "This makes such a strong case that the sponsors represent the state and can represent the state's interests that it pretty much seals the deal.”

UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky agreed. He said the U.S. Supreme Court could rule on the case no earlier than 2013.

Getting back to what I said about how their outlook on everything is put through the filter of their genitals, this is demonstrated on the very same blog in this unrelated update from Tony Perry. The title:

“San Diego Paper to be Sold to Same-sex marriage Foe, Ex-radio Exec"

Got that? Douglas Manchester is defined by the paper by his support of Proposition 8. Like billions of other people alive together and throughout history (the vast majority), Manchester believes that marriage unites a bride and groom. That's hardly a distinguishing characteristic. He's not identified in the headline by his name, profession, hometown, or any other factor. Only as "foe" to an oxymoron.

The San Diego Union-Tribune will be sold to a local developer and a longtime radio executive, the newspaper's owner announced Thursday. Terms were not disclosed.

Platinum Equity, which bought the newspaper in 2009 from Copley Press, announced the sale to developer Douglas Manchester and former radio executive John Lynch.

Is this merely keeping in line with California's new law to insert someone’s homosexuality or gender confusion into school history curricula? "John Doe, who was attracted mostly to men, is seen in this old photo selling produce to Jane Jones (eventual Prop 8 backer), who was known as a regular shopper at this historic grocery store."

Accepting Gay Marriage, but not Transgender Rights

2011-11-17T15:47:00.001-05:00

I had an interesting conversation over on Ann Althouse's blog. There is new legislation here in Massachusetts to protect transgendered individuals. Something, I personally agree with.

Here's the link to Ann Althouse's post on transgender rights, in the discussion I ask about those who support gay marriage, but not protections for transgender individuals. Interesting thoughts, considering people may accept gay marriage but not polygamy. So why only two person configurations, whether it be heterosexual or homosexual have special rights, but other configurations are denied such rights?

California Supreme Court: Prop 8 Backers Do Have Standing

2011-11-17T13:46:00.000-05:00

In a victory for California's direct democracy check on government power, the California Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the backers of the constitutional amendment voted in as Proposition 8, do have standing to defend the amdendment in court. This is consistent with the court's earlier actions. The federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals asked California's court for an opinion on the matter, but they can ignore that opinion if they choose. The state constitutional amendment is being considered by the federal court because marriage neutering advocates claim that it violates the federal Constitution as it reserves marriage licenses for bride+groom couples. (Never mind that the people who wrote, adopted, and amended said Constitution would laugh hysterically the claim of the marriage neutering advocates, before asking a doctor to check their sanity.)

Maura Dolan reports at LATimes.com, using the usual biased language.

The California Supreme Court decided Thursday that the sponsors of Proposition 8 and other ballot measures are entitled to defend them in court when the state refuses to do so, a ruling likely to spur federal courts to decide the constitutionality of [defining marriage as marriage].

So we can look forward to half-heart "defenses" in the future to get around this ruling?

California Supreme Court to Issue Proposition 8 Opinion

2011-11-16T16:46:00.000-05:00

To recap, the court neutered state marriage licensing in 2008 by overturning a 2000 law that reinforced existing laws and a universal tradition of marriage uniting the sexes. They did that despite knowing that the people were going to be voting on a state constitutional amendment on the matter. The amendment was added to the state constitution when the California voters approved Proposition 8. The court heard arguments, including from the backers of Proposition 8, and agreed that the new amendment was a duly adopted constitutional amendment. Then the matter went on to the federal courts. One of those courts has asked the state's high court to decide whether or not the backers of Prop 8, the people that very court allowed to argue before it, should be allowed to argue before the federal court. This could be a stalling tactic designed to keep the matter from the Supreme Court of the United States until President Obama gets a chance to get more of his nominees on that bench, Anyway, our friend Maura Dolan reports at LATimes.com that the California high court will issue its opinion on the matter tomorrow.

The California Supreme Court has announced it will issue a written opinion Thursday on whether conservatives who sponsored Proposition 8 are entitled to defend the measure that overturned the 2008 same-sex marriage ban.

The duly adopted state constitutional amendment is not a “same-sex marriage ban”.

The court's ruling, which will be made public at 10 a.m., will determine whether all initiative sponsors in California are legally entitled to defend their measures in state court when the governor and the attorney general refuse.

If not, then the initiative process is essentially pointless, since it was instituted as a check by the people on the state government.

The League of Women Voters has urged the California court to deny standing to initiative sponsors, as has Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris.

Is any of your money going to the League?

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals asked the California Supreme Court to clarify whether state law gives initiative backers special status to defend measures in court, but the appeals court won't be bound by what the California court determines.

Interesting.

It is constitutional, moral, practical, and often necessary to treat different kinds of associations differently.

Elizabeth Marquardt's Get Ready for Group Marriage

2011-11-16T12:03:00.001-05:00

Elizabeth Marquardt's Get Ready for Group Marriage on The Huffington Post

While the column is short and sweet, there is great conversation in the comments. Many people foresaw the confusion if our laws promoted and recognized group marriage, and saw the logistics of it all not to work. I thought one of interesting responses came from a single person who didn't think it is fair that married people had tax breaks.

“I dont care what people do but they really need to ditch the tax break for married people. If anything single people who have no children should get a tax break. We pay for things we don't even use (schools etc). If people want to have an orgy marriage fine but don't come to me for financial support.
In Response
Without other people doing the best they possibly can to raise well-socialized children that contribute to their communities, our country would fall apart. And because you didn't have children of your own, it's likely that you'll expect assistance from the government (i.e. those grown-up, tax-paying former children-of-other people), because you won't have a family of your own to take care of you.

Also, did you go to public school? Are you not thankful for all those years of education that other childless people helped pay for to make you so damn smart?"

I agree with the argument, but not the conclusion

2011-11-15T15:05:00.001-05:00

The last two posts of mine have been filled with frustration. For that I apologize. The frustration is real though.

I understand the need of recognition for non-marital relationships. The problem lies with language. Since there are few options and limited expression for these relationships, the closest possible words may seem to call it marriage. The solution is something else though.

If our society wants to progress and accept homosexual relationships, it can only be done by means of developing its own word and special meaning.

We still live in a society, where it is common to attack a person's orientation. It's the first way to hurt and try to dominate over a person in a social setting. Terms I will refrain from posting, that are used as homosexual slurs need to be erased from our vocabulary.

Many people, if not gay, have gay friends and family, who they deeply care for. For them supporting gay marriage is simply a nice gesture with the best of intentions. I sympathize and respect that point of view. Marriage is not the venue to express that need. Instead we must create a new venue, that stands on its own merit. I believe that could be done, if there wasn't push for the redefining of marriage and marginalizing the defense of marriage with ad hominem attacks.

Renee Aste

Lowell Massachusetts

Googling "How does a woman get pregnant?"

2011-11-15T08:56:00.001-05:00

As mentioned on Sunday I’m not mocked by individuals I disagree with in face to face interaction , as I can be online. If I was the idiot or ignorant bigot that is mostly stated by dissenters on other blogs, I truly would be publicly shamed on the streets of Lowell. It's just that we disagree without dehumanizing one another.

Instead after any possible knee-jerk reaction and a pause, everything I’m really talking about are anti-poverty and pro-woman issues in respect to motherhood. The ability to be a mother is a part of being female. It can’t be ignored and shouldn’t be lowered in status in the name of feminist liberation.

Men, as a father and as a husband, play an important role in the empowerment of women. The support and flexibility these roles have for women are vital. The same can be said of a mother’s and a wife’s role can play in a man’s life. Family is not the enemy; rather it’s the answer to the resources a pregnant woman needs to survive and succeed. Even for the non-religious, the biology and reason is there. One can not simply dismiss it, because it’s in the Bible so it must be wrong. Disagreeing, solely because a Christian supports it is rather irrational and lacks independent objectivity or logic.

Two weeks ago, The Harvard Crimson published in op-ed, Reclaiming Marriage in defense of the institution. I was happy to see that there was a conversation still happening on Ivy League campuses. Despite a well stated column, the comment section was littered with mocking hecklers. Very few of the dissenters wanted to touch the subject of marital breakdowns and the affects on children, mothers, and fathers. One post in all capital letters of course, screamed “CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION”.

So I googled "How does a woman get pregnant?" looking for a cause. Wiki Answers sponsored by Planned Parenthood agrees with me and Opine. A woman gets pregnant from sex with a man! Science has verified a clear answer on the matter. As the young-ins would say, "No sh!t, Sherlock.*"

It also states a woman should be in a stable relationship with the father of the unborn child! What should we call that relationship? Something specific, it sounds real important? Could we give it a name in our vernacular language for later reference?

But is there another way a woman could get pregnant without a man, if sex with a man isn’t the causation of a woman getting pregnant? Well unless you have faith that a virgin can be impregnanted by the Holy Spirit, then we’re talking about a whole different subject.

As always trying to put my name on it,

Renee Aste

Lowell, Massachusetts

* I apologize for the reference with profanity, but since we've lost sense of what is obvious it felt warranted.

Suburban Progressives Throwing Stones from their Cul-de-sacs (Personal Story)

2011-11-13T18:54:00.001-05:00

Suburban Progressives Throwing Stones from their Cul-de-sacs (Personal Story)

The good majority of people I know in life are in favor of gay marriage, they tolerate me. We disagree, but they don’t treat me like a bigot or an idiot. Due to local politics we tend to be Democrats, and just simply follow party lines. Maybe I will get ribbed at most. Still these people let me in their homes and they don’t taunt me or isolate me. I always keep that in my heart and on my mind, whenever I’m provoked online.

In many ways I still see myself as a democrat in regards to the poor and environmental issues, even though I’ve refrain from voting for that party. I also agree with many of their sentiments and concerns regarding protection of sexual orientation, but not at the risk of losing the laws that promote individuals to have stability in their childhood; meaning to have a relationship with their mother and father. You know… that thing we called marriage.

Something gets me, emotionally. I live in a city with the typical problems that affect cities both socially and with infrastructure. People are mobile and it’s easy to move off from the suburbs to avoid all of the problems that do exist here. I can’t fault people for wanting to live in ‘a good neighborhood’. Still I love living in this city, I can’t imagine moving anywhere else. I get defensive, this is home. I want my city to be ‘a good neighborhood’, just without major gentrification.

Second Chances: Reducing Divorce

2011-11-11T11:54:00.001-05:00

An article focusing on the work at the Institute of American Values, done by Professor William Doherty and retire Georgia Supreme Court Justice Leah Ward Sears.

Second Chances: Reducing Divorce from The Christian Post

First, they recommend a one-year waiting period before a divorce is granted. The decision to divorce is often made when emotions are hot. Once the papers are filed, couples find themselves on what Justice Sears calls “the divorce superhighway.”
As a result, couples find they don’t have the time, the tools, or the space to reconsider. A slower road, especially for couples with children, will allow couples to consider the consequences of divorce against other options.
Second, they recommend a mandatory early warning letter from the spouse intent on filing for divorce. It’s a way of putting the other spouse on notice that, “we have a problem” before the legal wheels begin turning. And it would trigger mandatory pre-filing education for parents of minor children.

Yes, we care not just about the definition of marriage, but also making sure marriage is working.

Words and meaning

2011-11-11T11:15:00.001-05:00

It's interesting how the meaning of words change. Words can become something else by legal decree, or be used incorrectly enough in regular conversation.

I read a blog entry today using the term 'gay nuptials'. True, nuptial is a synonym to marriage, but the word nuptial is also a common term for biologists. Nuptial describes the mating habits of animal breeding in nature.

Someday, probably not in our lifetime, a new word will be created. In that future civilization, they will have language to describe a relationship described as one man and one woman in a committed healthy relationship with the intention of raising their children together mutually.

CLASP on the importance of biological parents staying together

2011-11-10T09:49:00.001-05:00

CLASP stands for Center for Lawn and Social Policy, and they've been around since the '60s. I don't know their stand on neutered marriage, but reading through this publication, there is a lot I agree with them.

The following is a series of quotes from that article, and the sources they site for those thoughts, just to whet the whistle with. But you should really read the whole thing. Among the items of note are statements that support the notion that parental irresponsibility (divorce, abandonment, etc...) has more of a negative impact on a child than the death of a parent. And after making the case that divorce is damaging, it shows that researchers believe a same-sex couple is most comparable to a divorced step-family situation. And above all, the best environment for raising a child is when the two bio-parents understand and fully commit to a marriage ideal of responsibility and preparation in raising their children.

McLanahan and Sandefur reported that single-parent families had a much higher poverty rate (26 percent) than either two-parent biological families (5 percent) or step-families (9 percent). They also found that the risk of dropping out of high school for the average white child was substantially lower in a two-parent biological family (11 percent) than in a single-parent family or step-family (28 percent). [McLanahan & Sandefur (1994); and Lerman, R. (2002a). How Do Marriage, Cohabitation, and Single Parenthood Affect the Material Hardships of Families with Children? Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Available at www.urban.org.]

Research shows that, on average, children of divorced parents are disadvantaged compared to children of married-parent families in the area of educational achievement. [Jeynes, W. (2002). Divorce, Family Structure, and the Academic Success of Children. New York: The Haworth Press; and Zill, N., & Schoenborn, C. (1990). Developmental, Learning, and Emotional Problems. Health of Ou Nation’s Children, United States, 1988. Vital and Health Statistics. Advance Data No. 190. Washington, DC: National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services]

Children of divorce are more than twice as likely to have serious social, emotional, or psychological problems as children of intact families—25 percent versus 10 percent. [Heatherington, E.M. (2002). For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered. New York: W.W. Norton and Company]

Research suggests that children in cohabiting families are at higher risk of poor outcomes compared to children of married parents partly because cohabiting families have fewer socioeconomic resources and partly because of unstable living situations. [Manning, W. (2002). The implications of cohabitation for children’s well-being. In A. Booth & A. Crouter (Eds.), Just Living Together (pp. 121-152). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc]

The average cohabiting union lasts about two years, with roughly half ending in marriage. Once married, formerly cohabiting parents have a much higher dissolution rate than couples who did not live together prior to marriage. One study found that of children born to cohabiting parents who later marry, 15 percent will have their parents separate by the time they are one year old, half will not be living with both parents by age five, and two-thirds will not live with both parents by age 10. In comparison, 4 percent of children born into marital unions experience the breakup of their parents by age one, 15 percent by age five, and about one-third by age 10. [Manning, W., Smock, P., & Majumdar, D. (2000, November 11). The Relative Stability of Cohabiting and Marital Unions for Children. Presented at the National Council on Family Relations Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota]

Children living with cohabiting parents—even if the parents later marry—are thus likely to experience considerable
instability in their living situations. However, there is some evidence that cohabiting African American parents who marry may achieve the same level of stability for their children as African American couples who marry prior to having children. [Manning, W. (2002). The implications of cohabitation for children’s well-being. In A. Booth & A. Crouter (Eds.), Just Living Together (pp. 121-152). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc]

In spite of their better economic circumstances on average, children in step-families face many of the same risks as children of never-married or divorced parents. They are more likely to have negative behavioral, health, and educational outcomes, and they tend to leave home earlier than children who live with both married biological parents. However, the effect sizes are small for many of these differences. [Dunn, J., & Booth, A. (1994). The evolution of marriage and the problem of stepfamilies: A biosocial perspective. In A. Booth & J. Dunn. (Eds.), Stepfamilies: Who Benefits? Who Does Not? (pp. 3-27). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates]

Since many children raised by gay or lesbian parents have undergone the divorce of their parents, researchers have considered the most appropriate comparison group to be children of heterosexual divorced parents. [Patterson, C.J. (2000, November). Family relationships of lesbians and gay men. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 1052-1069.]

Children of gay or lesbian parents do not look different from their counterparts raised in heterosexual divorced families regarding school performance, behavior problems, emotional problems, early pregnancy, or difficulties finding employment. [Wald, M. (1999, December). Same-Sex Couples: Marriage, Families, and Children. Stanford, CA: The Stanford Institute for Research on Women and Gender and The Stanford Center on Adolescence. Available online at:www.law.stanford.edu/faculty/wald/] [...] However, as previously indicated, children of divorce are at higher risk for many of these problems than children of married parents. [emphasis mine]

CLASP goes on to conclude in two different sections...

If the negative effects of single parenthood on child well-being were primarily due to a lack or
loss of income, one would expect children living with two adults to do as well as those living
with their married, biological parents. But this is not the case. The research shows that children
living with two adults (i.e., with cohabiting parents or in a step-family) do not do as well as
children living with married, biological parents on a number of variables.

[...] Research indicates that, on average, children who grow up in families with both their biological
parents in a low-conflict marriage are better off in a number of ways than children who grow up
in single-, step- or cohabiting-parent households. Compared to children who are raised by their
married parents, children in other family types are more likely to achieve lower levels of
education, to become teen parents, and to experience health, behavior, and mental health
problems. And children in single- and cohabiting-parent families are more likely to be poor.
This being said, most children not living with married, biological parents grow up without
serious problems.

Why I don't support one-size-fits-all plans for adult relationships

2011-11-10T09:39:00.001-05:00

I'll be honest. I don't care what it's name is, or if it is a religious ceremony or not. Why should I? What does that do for me?

However, the government didn't create kids for me, my wife and I did that. We don't need the government to have kids, but we do need to govern our household as a part of raising our children. What I do need is for the government to recognize and support that.

Children are raised in all sorts of households. And you know who I admire for having a tough job? I admire foster parents. They get credentials every year and they get checked on even more regularly than that. If that isn't enough, they have to deal with the most jaded kids who have nothing to lose, and often know how to game the legal system better than you do. Foster parents are care-takers of the state's responsibility, and its not easy. There the state did give them the children, and takes direct responsibility for them. All because their real parents didn't take responsibility for them.

I'm not against civil unions or foster parents. Both are needed. But I tell you if everything is a civil union, just two adults who can take care of a child just as well as any other two adults, all parenting will be more like foster parenting. Its the subtle change from parenting to just fostering what the government has to take responsibility for. Not because the state is grabbing it from the parents, but because the parents are leaving that up to the state to take care of.

Do you know who's between those extremes? Divorced parents. They have to raise their children in a constant power struggle with the state and the ex-spouse. Ultimately when they fight, the state decides what will happen. I don't admire them as much as foster parents, at least the foster parents are trying to be part of the solution. I just see the divorced parents as part of the problem (though I do know many situations where it really is just one of those parents who is the real problem).

For all of our laughing at short celebrity marriages, lets be honest ... they might as well have been a civil union. If that is all people think their marriage is what happens between the adults, that's what people do. They simply look after themselves.

And that's simply where I'm coming from. Isn't it telling that the people who think marriage is a joke are the ones wanting to remove "man and woman" from its definition. That is the main thing tying marriage to its real responsibility, that a man and a woman create kids together, and that child and each spouse deserves love and tolerance from the others. They work to govern together. Their kids should know their parents, and they should learn responsibility, love, and tolerance from how their parents work to govern together.

A bit longer than I intended, but if there is a point to what I'm saying, that's it.

Generation – Père / fils et mère / fille photographiés par Frauke Theilking

2011-11-08T11:12:00.002-05:00

My french is really elementary, so I'll leave it to others to give a real translation. But this is a photography project to show just how striking the similarities are between children and their parents, and the foil of time. Very striking... (just the first four pictures)

Now, live on Google+

2011-11-07T17:22:00.001-05:00

We've had our Facebook page for a while, but you'll notice by the new badge to the right of the page we also get to be one of the first Google+ pages. Read on for a bit of a long story about where Opine is headed, why, and what you can do about it.

There's always been a niche of the internet that I haven't quite been able to fulfill. I tried early on with a companion website (now incorporated fully into our main website) called Watch where I'd take the news of the day and present it directly. I felt that the continuous stream of news would all too quickly run our more thoughtful pieces off the front page.

I thought that some permanent feeds would solve that on the left hand side. But analytics show us that not many people followed those. And besides, even if you did you wouldn't get our unique and always interesting perspective on them.

Then came Facebook, which we dabble in. Its more of the type of thing that works best for immediate news releases. However, Facebook itself was a deluge of rowdy commentary that we would rather not be a part of. You know us, we like a good debate and have always encouraged them, but sometimes that can give people the wrong idea. We are here to debate and learn, I'm more than willing to have my thoughts scrutinized if you are too. But complaining isn't scrutiny, and defamatory comments are not critical thinking.

While our presence in Facebook will remain active as a sort of repeater for our main articles, I believe Google+ will be our spot for news feed. We aren't here to make fun of what we link to, or find the softest pitches to swing after. Our feed is interesting news and commentary with just a refreshing thought to chase it down with.

Our Blogger page will remain our place for essays, our thoughts born from more fleeting conversations as we continue to discuss these issues across the internet. We can even start hangouts on Google+, just like the good old days when I was asked to help host a radio show or two.

So we have the fleeting, the more stable ... what to do about those posts we've made long ago that are still relevant today? In any activism you can get tired of saying the same thing over again, but repetition is needed. Every new audience is fresh and they need you on the top of your game. Our longstanding readership might get bored of hearing it over and over again. What to do ... what to do ... ;)

Marriage on the Ballot in 2012

2011-11-07T09:22:00.000-05:00

On a state and federal level it's an off election year, as I vote tomorrow in my local city elections. Here's the link to the Ballot Initiatives for Marriage that may come up in the future.

Marriage and family on the ballot from BallotPedia

Having Courage to Stand Guard

2011-11-05T11:47:00.000-04:00

Having courage
The Rev. René Monette (Opinion from Houma Today (Louisiana)) November 4, 2011

On Sept. 18, 2003, Hurricane Isabel slammed into the East Coast, lashing North Carolina and Virginia. It left 16 dead and cut power to 6 million people. When the hurricane hit, the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown were given permission to seek shelter since the winds and rain were more than 95 miles an hour. The guards there at the time refused and continued to stand guard.
Regardless of the storm, they refused to be the only guards in history to depart their post at the Tomb of the Unknown. Someone once said of these guards at Arlington National Cemetery, “If these men can stand guard over the dead, how much more important is it that I stand guard over the living: my wife and my children?”

Rev. Monette is great in this short opinion piece detailing the several storms of confusion that we are confronted with.

The Question of Walker

2011-11-04T18:19:00.001-04:00

Maura Dolan reported at LATimes.com about the latest with the court maneuvering over the duly adopted California Marriage Amendment, voted in as Proposition 8. This has to do with whether or not federal judge Walker should have handled things differently. I have edited the quotes to remove some of prejudicial language biased in favor of neutering marriage through federal judicial activism.

A federal judge’s failure to disclose whether he intended to [get a state license with] his long-term, same-sex partner before presiding over the Proposition 8 case amounts to misconduct that requires the removal of his ruling against the 2008 ballot measure, lawyers opposed to [neutering] marriage [and having a federal judge overturn a duly adopted state constitutional amendment] told a federal appeals court.

Yup.

Walker should have disclosed any interest he may have had in marrying his partner of 10 years or stepped aside when he was randomly chosen to preside over the case, the [defenders of the duly adopted state constitutional amendment] said.

“Although a judge may choose to avoid disclosure by recusing himself without explanation, he cannot both remain silent and sit in judgment of a case in which a reasonable observer, with knowledge of all of the relevant facts (disclosed or not) would conclude the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” ProtectMarriage argued.

Yes, we've been through this.

[Lawyers supporting a judge overturning a duly adopted state constitutional amendment] countered that judges must disqualify, or recuse, themselves from hearing cases only when they have a “substantial and individualized interest in the case, particularly a financial interest, that gives rise to actual bias,” the lawyers for Proposition 8’s challengers said.

So according to the very same people...

1. State marriage licensing needs to be neutered because it will be of significant benefit, including financial benefit, to gay individuals in same-sex relationships.

2. Walker was such a person by his actions - regardless of his birth, but he didn't stand to benefit enough for it to matter.

It matters so much that a federal court is compelled to overturn a voter-approved state constitutional amendment, but not enough for Walker to either recuse himself or at least talk about it before the trial.

Huh?!?

This kind of twisting of logic reminds me of when the same bunch of activists argue that there is no difference between men and women, while also insisting that someone can be born apparently male (male parts, male DNA), but is really a female per how they feel, as though there is a difference between male and female.

You can't pay us to have babies

2011-11-03T11:18:00.000-04:00

We link babies to the definition marriage, because it takes a man and a woman to create and raise a child. While in polite conversation this is seen as culturally backwards, more often then not this concept finds itself needed in public policy. Babies are important, but given the choice what would make any woman in her right mind have children, especially if she could be financially independent and men are unreliable. Heck No!

Fair question and answer.

Some governments, as reported by NPR, have given baby bonuses with little luck to boosting their fertility rate.

When Governments Pay People To Have Babies

In some countries, male-female relations may be a bigger impediment than money. Boling says women may be deciding, "Look, if it's all me and I'm doing all of the child rearing and maybe working outside the home as well, and you're having a drink with your buddies every night, forget it. ... I don't want to have any kids."

There are nights and days I get frustrated, why am I not considered the feminist? Studies over and over again show women are better off when the father of her children is also a good husband to her. How can something so good for women and her children, be deemed as something so intolerable that it can't be acknowledge?

If the Church just changed its teachings...

2011-11-02T05:47:00.001-04:00

"If the Church just changed its teachings, people would come to Mass. People are turned away from the Church, because of its social teachings." -random persons I engage with about the Catholic Church

Well how is it working for congregations that did move its social teachings to appease the masses?

Episcopal Church reports lowest membership in 70 years

The denomination has lost an average of 25,798 Sunday worshipers each year since 2006, bringing the total of U.S. Episcopal worshipers on a given Sunday to 657,831 in 2010. Overall, the Sunday attendance rate in Episcopal communities has declined by 23 percent since 2000.

A wedding, A marriage

2011-11-01T10:44:00.000-04:00

A pebble when held close to your eye looks like a boulder. Its a very simple concept, little things if they are really close to you can seem very, very large.

In the marriage debate, there are many items which look huge because they are close to how we understand the social climate of today. But they are really pebbles in the much larger perspective of what marriage is and has done through millenia for cultures.

Weddings, for all of their wonderful celebration of marriage, are a good example of one of these pebbles. A wedding day is large as life to the married couple as they plan to get married. The day comes, and goes. It casts a large shadow on the first few years of their marriage. But as time goes on the defining moments of the marriage become those times that the two people reconcile their differences and renew their marriage promises. Those times where hardships work to drive the spouses apart, yet they cling to each other and learn to work as one. Those times where children's needs exacted great sacrifices from both spouses.

But not always will opposition define a marriage. Each family develops culture over time. Its not the one-time marriage which fills the photo books as much as the regular passing of each birthday, Christmas and other holidays. The rituals that seem to dictate how we celebrate events from our past traditions.

Each passing year melts into a large stream, who's head is your marriage and the marriage of your parents. All the gifts of instinct, reaction, as well as the virtues are passed from one generation to the next. And with each passing the virtues are either refined and made more bright or they are left to diminish over time.

A wedding is one of the few times we celebrate an accomplishment before it happens. We celebrate a graduation after the work of study and testing is past. We celebrate a retirement after the long work of career development has past. But a wedding celebrates a marriage before all the real work and testing and development has happened. For this reason, you might find people who treat the wedding as the accomplishment. You might find people who are ready to take the winnings of the wedding and forgo what marriage is. You might find that any two people who qualify for a wedding ceremony are a marriage.

But what your marriage is doesn't die like the school days, or the career days. It lives on in your children. You've either given them a great stepping stone to develop their identity or a great hurdle to overcome (which many children turning into adults falter and fall because of the burden). You've either helped them understand who they are, because you know who you are, or you've left them to reconcile who they are in spite of their parents example.

There is much work to be done for people who have not been born under the protection and guidance of marriage. Anyone who is willing to help may. However, what marriage is has to be the prime consideration of any policy to help limit the damage happening in the first place. Only a real ideal of marriage can do that one important task of keeping families intact and thriving as living cultural entities.

More Kardashian....

2011-11-01T10:38:00.001-04:00

Here is commentary from a local pundit from Boston on their divorce. WBZ-TV

If you have wasted precious hours of your time watching Kim parade her vapid personality and grotesque materialism over the past few years, you know that she is the poster girl for narcissism, or self-love, without any apparent justification for that adoration.

And from two months ago this piece Kim Kardashian's wedding: promises, profits and product placement -Oregon Live

Much has been made of the Kardashian-Humphries wedding invitations, which were decorated with black crystals and arrived in silver boxes. Guests were asked to wear black and white and to keep ceremony details confidential. Even more has been made of the couple's wedding registry at Geary's of Beverly Hills, which totals $172,000 and includes such items as a $1,650 coffee pot and two $1,250 sterling silver vegetable spoons.

Yet, Another reason why I don't have cable...

2011-10-31T14:27:00.001-04:00

KIM KARDASHIAN
FILES FOR DIVORCE reports TMZ

The couple was married on August 20 in a lavish ceremony (see below) in Montecito, CA. There are reports that the wedding cost as much as $10 mil, which means $138,888 for every day until today.

Saddest Commercial Ever

2011-10-30T11:47:00.002-04:00

Dear Cousin, Please...

2011-10-28T08:57:00.000-04:00

Dear Cousin,

Please don't change your Facebook status from married to single and state how happy you are to be free, but fail to mention it's because your husband is out of town with the children only for a few days.

Sincerely, Your divorce fearing younger cousin

Based on the Internet Meme "Dead Blank, Please Blank"

Dafydd Ab Hugh: Discriminating Discrimination

2011-10-27T14:44:00.000-04:00

Discriminating Discrimination:

[...]
It's not that gays want the right to live together, to consider themselves married, or even to be declared married in the eyes of God, according to a particular church; for they already have those rights (and I completely support them). Rather, they demand not merely that you allow them to pursue their own happiness, but that you agree with and support their lifestyle... and that you consent to equate an outré sexual relationship with the traditional Western and American relationship called marriage.
(Not merely outré but antithetical to what I consider the main point of traditional, even more axiomatic than the raising of children: the union of the female and male elements of humanity, the yin and yang. Opposite-sex marriage serves to moderate the extremes of both sexes, producing a stable and fruitful (in several senses) society. By contrast, SSM tends to exaggerate the bad tendencies of both sexes, leading to extremism and even fanaticism.)
Enforced SSM sails directly athwart the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion, speech, and association: If we're forced to equate same-sex couples with opposite-sex couples for purposes of marriage -- speaking of them as married, suppressing any religious-based criticism, and compelled to let them live together as if married, even in a room I might rent out within my own house -- then dissent from liberal orthodoxy is criminal, upon penalty of prosecution or administrative punishment.
Thus conservatives (I am not one) fall into grave error when they accept the idea that there is a "gay agenda," defined as the collection of all laws or policies that most homosexuals and many libertine liberals want to enact. Discrimination in this case is vital, and the real divide is between liberty interests (allowing the individual to live his life as he sees fit) and social reprogramming -- forcing society to transmogrify from the traditional American Borg culture into a limp, squishy, bowl of moral pablum, where all that matters is feeding the maw of every special-interest group temporarily important to the ruling class.
It's easy to draw the line between freedom of association and the right to defend oneself, one's loved ones, and one's society on the one hand, and the peremptory demand that all of us espouse the absurdity that same-sex relationships are identical to opposite-sex relationships.
It's like legally declaring cows to be vegetables, just so that everyone can be called a vegetarian.

I'm as good as you

2011-10-26T18:23:00.002-04:00

You can get him to practise, not only without shame but with a positive glow of self-approval, conduct which, if undefended by the magic word, would be universally derided.

The feeling I mean is of course that which prompts a man to say I’m as good as you.

The first and most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good, solid, resounding lie. I don’t mean merely that his statement is false in fact, that he is no more equal to everyone he meets in kindness, honesty, and good sense than in height or waist measurement. I mean that he does not believe it himself. No man who says I’m as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.

And therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation. Presently he suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority. No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food: “Here is someone who speaks English rather more clearly and euphoniously than I — it must be a vile, upstage, la-di-da affectation. Here’s a fellow who says he doesn’t like hot dogs — thinks himself too good for them, no doubt. Here’s a man who hasn’t turned on the jukebox — he’s one of those goddamn highbrows and is doing it to show off. If they were honest-to-God all-right Joes they’d be like me. They’ve no business to be different. It’s undemocratic.”

-- CS Lewis, "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" published Dec 19, 1959 in the Saturday Evening Post

In the time since that was written "Superiority" and "Inferiority" has moved further from a statement of usefulness to reading as a statement of subjugation -- as if to underline the message given by Screwtape all the more.

what does that even mean…

2011-10-26T12:49:00.002-04:00

what does that even mean…

I often hear people profess to not believe in marriage. How does that even work? It’s not like marriage is Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. -The Crescat

Interesting comments otherwise in the link.

Proposal to repeal same-sex marriage heading to House in 2012

2011-10-25T22:14:00.002-04:00

Proposal to repeal same-sex marriage heading to House in 2012 from the Nashua Telegraph

Rep. David Bates, R-Windham, the bill’s prime author, said marriage should be restricted to a man and a woman and letting any two adults to enter a civil union is the proper compromise.

“We have heard for a number of years that the government needs to get out of peoples’ bedrooms,” Bates said. “This does not contemplate the sexual relationship of the parties involved.”

Rep. Gregory Sorg, R-Grafton, said marriage must be equated with the procreation of children.

Rather surprised it made it this far.

Why should single moms be treated differently in public policy?

2011-10-25T21:52:00.003-04:00

What are they missing to deserve preferential treatment? All families types are equal to each other. Right?

Single mothers & their children should receive more support (European Union's Parliament)

I agree they deserve appropriate charity. Still it is not in my nature, but it is common to state in sympathy and need to mention if someone is a single parent. No one ever does out of their way to mention they're married parent. I don't think it would be charitable of anyone to state, "So what one parent, two parent, or three, no parent in a group home, all the same you know. It doesn't make a difference."

Be Ware? Trial Recordings Release on Hold

2011-10-24T19:24:00.000-04:00

Our good friend Maura Dolan reported at LATimes.com on the latest action around the trials around the California Marriage Amendment, duly adopted by the majority of voting Californians via Proposition 8.

A federal appeals court Monday put a temporary hold on a decision to make public the video recordings of the Proposition 8 trial and decided to rule on the matter expeditiously.

A three-member panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said in a brief order that Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware's ruling this month to release the video recordings may not be enforced pending a decision by the appeals court.

The court set an accelerated schedule for written arguments and a hearing for Dec. 5.

And how many federal trials do you know of that have been taped and released for public viewing?

Marriage neutering advocates are frothing at the mouth to release the tapes, so that they can have more material with which to ridicule those who, like every major civil rights leader of the past, every great religious or moral teacher of the past, the people who wrote and adopted the Constitution and every Amendment, and every President, actually think that marriage is inclusive of a bride and a groom. Because, you know, marriage neutering advocates never appear strange themselves.

Previously: Even the 9th Circuit Put a Hold on Release of Prop 8 Tapes