I don’t think that addresses her point. No one thinks that banning gay marriage will SOLVE the problems of divorce, etc. No one could possibly think that, because the problems of divorce, etc., have arisen precisely during the past few decades while gay marriage has been disallowed. You’re really responding to a straw man argument here.

What Marquardt would say, I think, is that our society has gone too far in the direction of thinking that parents — real mothers and fathers — are essentially fungible and easily replaceable entities. And how our society thinks affects how people act. If public norms treat fathers as filling an unnecessary role, all too many fathers will take advantage of the ideological cover as an excuse to abandon their responsibilities.

The argument as to gay “marriage” is that here is yet another instance where people are trying to instigate a social development that is based on the idea that neither mothers nor fathers are really necessary. If two men or two women want to “have a child” — well, they obviously can’t do it amongst themselves. They have to somehow involve a member of the opposite sex. To describe this model of family as legitimate, as worthy of state protection and encouragement, is to say that the child’s real mother or real father is unnecessary.

And that is what Marquardt is worried about. She doesn’t say that banning gay “marriage” will somehow “solve” problems of divorce and irresponsibility. Her point is that the arguments for gay “marriage” necessarily rest on _ideas_ that in themselves provide support for a culture of divorce and irresponsibility.

Take the moving story about the lesbian couple that you reprinted below. I’m sure the children were loved and were better off in that situation. But you’re not just saying that these two women should have gotten better treatment for estate tax purposes. You don’t even want civil unions. You want the government to pronounce, as official policy, that all same-sex couples are “married.” This means that the government would stamp its approval on the idea that any two women can do just a good a job raising children as could the actual mother and father. And this necessarily implies the same old “fathers are generally expendable” argument that has caused such problems in other areas.

I don’t think you’re really grappling with that point.

QUOTE
1) Do we really know what children of gays and lesbians say about their experiences?

We don’t know very well how children of gays and lesbians talk about their experience. The early studies are small and contradictory. Permit me a comparison. Many advocates of SSM compare it to the interracial marriage issue. That’s a false comparison, because interracial marriage did not require that a child grow up from birth in a home automatically lacking his mother and father, and it did not weaken our legal or cultural understanding that children need their mother and father. It strengthened marriage.

I think the more apt comparison with the budding SSM revolution is the divorce revolution. In the early years of the divorce revolution adults claimed it was an important step for adult freedom and rights. When children were mentioned at all advocates said they’d be “fine,” that all that matters is a loving household. Early studies, conducted mostly by advocates, interviewed little kids about their experience and, surprise surprise, the kids said they loved their parents. The adults said this proves that divorce is fine.

Then years pass, children grow up, longer, better studies are done, and we know a lot more now about the downsides of divorce.

The problem is that children are dependent on their parents and they are not verbally articulate like adults. I have no doubt whatsoever that children of gays and lesbians love their parents, but I just can’t imagine that homosexuality sprinkled on a household makes these children magically different from children in every other alternative family structure, who tell us that they love their parents but that the absence of a biological parent causes them pain. When this first generation of the SSM revolution grows up and tells us, then we’ll know. I would really like to be wrong. ENDQUOTE

Elizabeth justifies her policies by bringing up problems. In essense, what I’ve done in this post is suggest that the problems she brings up to justify her policies, should in fact be solved by her policies. If they are not, then the problems she brings up - and thus, her justification for opposing gay marriage - are irrelevant.

A similar logic applies to what you say here. For instance, you write:

…our society has gone too far in the direction of thinking that parents — real mothers and fathers — are essentially fungible and easily replaceable entities. And how our society thinks affects how people act. If public norms treat fathers as filling an unnecessary role, all too many fathers will take advantage of the ideological cover as an excuse to abandon their responsibilities.

Let me ask you: do you imagine that ANY of these problems (accepting for the sake of argument that they exist) will be solved by banning gay marriage? If not, then how can you claim that these problems justify denying gays equal rights?

To describe this model of family as legitimate, as worthy of state protection and encouragement, is to say that the child’s real mother or real father is unnecessary.

First of all, the word “real” is inappropriate, because it implies that adoptive parents are never “real” parents. A more accurate term would be “biological.”

And I do say that biological parents are unnecessary, in the sense of being necessarily better than other kinds of parents. (Of course, that doesn’t mean that particular bio-parents are unnecessary). There is no evidence that a child raised by lesbian parents from birth does any worse than a child raised by two biological parents from birth; nor is there any evidence that such a child would be better off being raised instead by her biological mother and the anonymous sperm donor.

However, let’s go back to this: “I do say that biological parents are unnecessary.” To prevent me from being able to say that, do you think it’s justifiable to deny me basic human rights? And if your answer is “no,” then why is it justifiable to deny gays the right to marry in order to prevent a message being sent that bio-parents are unnecessary?

Her point is that the arguments for gay “marriage” necessarily rest on _ideas_ that in themselves provide support for a culture of divorce and irresponsibility.

Even if this were so - and I don’t know that it is - again, I must ask: Will opposing equal rights for gays somehow prevent a culture of divorce and irresponsibility? And if it won’t prevent it, then why does this problem you’re worrying about justify unequal rights?

Once again, the problem you cite to justify the policy, won’t actually be solved by your policy.

In your opinion, will legalizing gay marriage cause A) no harm at all, B) add small, incremental increases to already-existing harms and/or harmful trends, or C) cause large, independant harms on its own?

We know (as a statistical fact) that interracial couples are among the most likely to get divorced. Why, then, could we not oppose inter-racial marriage, on the grounds that legalizing inter-racial marriage causes an incremental increase in the divorce rate?

To describe this model of family as legitimate, as worthy of state protection and encouragement, is to say that the child’s real mother or real father is unnecessary.

Of course children can only be created using an egg and a sperm (currently, in any case). In that sense they’re necessary. But it clearly isn’t necessary for the biological parent to fulfill the role of parent for the child.

If public norms treat fathers as filling an unnecessary role, all too many fathers will take advantage of the ideological cover as an excuse to abandon their responsibilities.

Public norms will never treat fathers as “unnecessary” in the way you mean it, i.e., not valuable. Fathers–and mothers–will always be considered valuable, regardless of who makes up the family unit. While grandparents are technically “unnecessary,” we still think they play important roles in a child’s life, don’t we?

And I don’t understand why you believe that fathers (or mothers, unless you think that mothers are less expendable than fathers, somehow) will run if society says it’s OK to do so, or that a child would be best served by a family in which one of her parents wants nothing to do with her.

Me: …our society has gone too far in the direction of thinking that parents — real mothers and fathers — are essentially fungible and easily replaceable entities. And how our society thinks affects how people act. If public norms treat fathers as filling an unnecessary role, all too many fathers will take advantage of the ideological cover as an excuse to abandon their responsibilities.

You: Let me ask you: do you imagine that ANY of these problems (accepting for the sake of argument that they exist) will be solved by banning gay marriage?

My response: No. They won’t be solved. Not at all. But giving societal approval to gay marriage might make them worse. That’s the point.

You say: There is no evidence that a child raised by lesbian parents from birth does any worse than a child raised by two biological parents from birth; nor is there any evidence that such a child would be better off being raised instead by her biological mother and the anonymous sperm donor.

How do you know this? How do you know that there is any evidence that children don’t need their biological mothers and fathers? Is this just an article of faith? Shouldn’t there be some really impressive evidence before we dismiss hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, all of which shows that people tend to expend the most effort taking care of those who carry their genes?

We know (as a statistical fact) that interracial couples are among the most likely to get divorced. Why, then, could we not oppose inter-racial marriage, on the grounds that legalizing inter-racial marriage causes an incremental increase in the divorce rate?

Marriage isn’t a “right” like free speech or freedom of religion. It is a privilege that the state grants to a certain type of relationship, and that need not be granted to anyone at all. I’m not persuaded by all the talk of “equal rights,” any more than I would be persuaded if someone said, “I’m an animal lover, so why doesn’t the state grant me privileges based on the fact that I love my cat so much?” Not that gay marriage is equivalent to owning a pet — not at all. But my response would be the same: As a member of society, I don’t care whether you love your pet or whether you have a pet at all. Therefore, I don’t care to grant privileges to that type of relationship. And as a member of society, I don’t care whether two gay men or two gay women live together, and hence I don’t care to have society grant all such relationships special privileges, any more than I care to have society grant a special certificate to “roommates.”

Whereas I do care whether a male-female couple live together as a couple, because they at least have the potential to produce children as a couple, in which case they should have every incentive to act responsibly towards their children.

There’s no evidence. If there were evidence, then we’d know otherwise. Do you have some evidence of which we are not aware? Or are you really saying “There’s no evidence that there’s no evidence, and so we must do what I think is best, even though there’s no evidence that it is”?

And like I said in response to another one of your posts, just because “people tend to expend the most effort taking care of those who carry their genes” (which I’m not convinced is true) does not mean that people who care for non-biological children are harming those children or anyone else.

Not to mention that it doesn’t do anything a’tall to address the problem itself. In order to address the problem that you cite, we would need to not only make divorce illegal - we would also need to mandate that spouses MUST live in the same home 98% of the time (98 days of 100 - as a number I’ve pulled out of somebody’s ass). Then you would have no families effected by the symptoms of modern-day divorce and seperation.

But maybe I’m just cranky.

The very idea of legitimizing a gay or lesbian relationship threatens my limited and ossified conception of a societal construct, and so I am wholly justified in calling for the destruction of their families.

Newsflash, Joe: gay men and lesbians in committed relationships are producing kids all over the place, in all manner of ways, from turkey basters to calculated one-night stands. Decide you can open your mind if not your heart, or proudly proclaim you just don’t give a fuck about the destructive financial hardships and profoundly petty idignities your policies will put them through, parents and children alike, all to no more good than the salving of your cultural insecurities. It’s reality, and you’re going to have to deal with it, one way or another.

My ass is grass.

Shorter kip:

I’m the mower, bitch!

good takedown

1) A tremendous stigma must be placed on civil unions to prevent gays from raising their children that way. After all, if the harm consists of the child not living with biological parents, it doesn’t help matters if gay parents decide to live together in a civil union instead of a marriage. Elizabeth supports civil unions, but surely she can’t want anyone to take advantage of the opportunity.

2) We should essentially outlaw divorce. After all, if nothing is a substitute for biological parents, then no alternate arrangement be it ever so serene is better than bickering or abusive parents.

3) We should essentially outlaw second marriages for people, even widowed ones, with minor children. If Heather’s second mommy is no substitute for her daddy, not because she’s not a man but because she’s not her biological father, then a stepfather is no substitute either. Biological parents uber alles!

4) Actually, what we’d really need to do is make it illegal for parents of minor children to die. Universal health care would be a start.

5) Get the troops out of Iraq! Some of them might get killed! Then their children will be deprived of a biological parent! Quel horreur!

6) Toss out all those child-protection laws that remove children from abusive homes. That takes them away from their all-important biological parents.

7) Remember how the anti-choice people say “Adoption, not abortion”? Well, toss that too. Adoption takes children away from their biological parents. Reinstitute shotgun weddings for any teen who gets herself knocked up, even if it’s by her brother. Cleopatra married her brother, and she turned out OK. [this is sarcasm, btw]

Alternatively, we can avoid these absurd arguments by just dropping the notion that the biological parents are the best possible rearing parents in all possible circumstances, since it’s clearly just a figleaf for opposing gay marriage, from bigots too chicken to come out with the good old “God decreed Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” argument, which is what they really think - since they’re not in fact opposing stepparents, adoption, and other commonplaces which would be equally bad by this argument.

Jake: Do you support “equal rights” for best friends? Equal rights for roommates? Equal rights for polygamists? Equal rights for incest?

Simon: Your bombastic post is arguing against a straw man. Typical around here, I guess. Neither I nor anyone ever said that biological parents are better in every single situation. Just that they’re better on average, and that policies shouldn’t be based on a philosophy that undermines social support for the role of parents.

People aren’t roommates, best friends, polygamous, or incestuous by birth, or by natural development. Try not to confuse the issue by making the “homosexuality is a choice” argument. It’s nonsense.

First of all, how do you know what’s better on average. When did you become a spokesperson for all children everywhere? And when are you going to get around to demonstrating specifically how allowing equal rights to homosexuals undermines support for the role of parents? It seems to me that it only reinforces it.