Okay, so it looks like a special effect from a low budget sci-fi movie, what’s so cool about that? It’s real. See also this video. More here.

(via Making Light.)

Yesterday Amp posted about some of the wacky music he heard at a high school graduation party. In summary: hits from the late seventies and eighties. Amp wonders why kids are listening to this stuff that is so obviously anachronistic to the youth of today; I may have an answer.

I can’t speak for hip-hop, as I’m still desperately trying to find some aside from DJ Shadow and Prefuse 73 that doesn’t suck, but rock-and-roll is currently experiencing an obsession with the late seventies and the whole of the eighties. Consider the success of the Darkness, a pseudo-80’s band, or the “dancepunk” groups—the Rapture, !!!, Radio 5, Liars—that sound like the Gang of Four, or the “garage rock revival” of the White Stripes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs—not to mention the Strokes—or the post-punk obsession of groups like Interpol, or the electroclash influences of the Postal Service.

Admittedly, most of these bands are still in the province of the indie cool kids, but I think that there’s a resurgence of eighties culture across the white bread spectrum. Take a dip into Hot Topic these days and what’ll you see? The same thing you’ll see at Target: Transformers, Thundercats, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony—the defining toys and paraphanalia of childhood in the eighties. I’m not surprised that this has trickled down into the musical tastes of the graduates at the party Amp went to.

I’m not sure what causes this except that it may, perhaps, be the same thing that’s made me seek out some music from the eighties. I’m only a couple years older than the graduates Amp visited—although I’ve been out of high school for much longer, so this analysis may mean less than nothing—and I’ve always been quietly fascinated with the eighties because I’m aware that the first six years of my life were spent in them but I can’t remember anything about them. I can vaguely remember the New Kids on the Block, the crimped hair, and the wretched music that powered the inspirational sections of movies, but little more than that. My memory doesn’t really begin until ‘92 and doesn’t start to crystalize until ‘93 or ‘94. I’ve always wondered if I missed anything important, any really great music or movies or fashions or whatever. So when I got to be seventeen or eighteen or so, I started looking.

I’m wondering if the “kids these days” aren’t doing much of the same thing. Were those things that they played with as kids—or, more likely, the things that their older siblings played with as kids—actually cool? Was the music terrible or good or what? Was The Neverending Story really all that good of a movie?

So that’s my explanation for things: a bit of vague nostalgia mixed with a hindsight curiousity and a culture that’s actively interested in recycling some bits from the eighties mixed with the simple fact that music these days is actually remarkably dull if you’re a white kid who can’t or won’t like hip-hop. In ten years or so, if popular music is as dead as it is today, I wouldn’t be surprised to see kids jumping around to a playlist that included Limp Bizkit and Britney Spears and Ricky Martin. At which point, I’ll probably be standing around, looking at kids at a high school graduation party, saying to myself, “The fuck are they doing listening to this stuff?”

Hmm, as a final note, I did remember one group, or individual at least, from the hip-hop half of the airways who has been digging into the eighties for inspiration for his music. Big Boi’s half of the latest Outkast album, Speakerboxx/The Love Below, was heavy with beats cut with old-school 808’s which hit the height of their popularity with musicians in the late eighties.

So tonight, at my workplace, a high-schooler’s graduation party. It was a fun crowd - lots of drama-nerds who aren’t afraid to have silly fun. But I’m struck - as I have been many times before - at the music these kids listen to. Here’s the last ten or so songs they’ve played:

1. Stayin’ Alive (Bee Gees)

2. Beat It (Michael Jackson)
3. Bohemian Rapsody (Queen)
4. Some hip-hop song I didn’t recognize
5. Thriller (Michael Jackson again)
6. Shout (you know, from Animal House)
7. Kung Fu Fighting
8. My Shirona (they all cheered and said “yeah!” at the opening chords)
9. Like A Prayer (Madonna)
10. You spin me right round, baby, right round (okay, that’s probably not the real title, but you know what I mean).

The dancers are having so much silly fun it’s really infectous - singing very loudly along to Bohemian Rhapsody, making werewolf dance moves for Thriller, and so on.

But what I can’t get over is, almost all the songs they’ve danced to are songs that were around when I was in high school (or earlier). I mean, I’m 35 years old. Most of the guests at the party tonight are half my age. Why aren’t they listening to music from their own time?

And this group isn’t unusual. Okay, maybe a little - I don’t hear Bohemian Rhapsody played at many of the wedding receptions I attend - but most of them feature a lot of songs from my kidhood. (The most popular wedding reception song - the one I hear at virtually every wedding reception that has a lot of young people dancing? The Village People’s “YMCA.”)

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I really like a lot of these songs. Plus, as I said, the dancers are hilarious (and intentionally so). But it just seems a little weird.

P.S. It may be relevant to mention: The group tonight is pretty much entirely white. (And that’s how it usually is here - this is Oregon, after all).

P.P.S. The party’s over now, they’re cleaning up. I just overheard one girl singing a verse from “Leaving On a Jet Plane” to herself.

Justin Katz has responded to my responses to his response to my post! Once again, he complains I look to narrowly to find a theme, and I should reconsider the effect of welfare reform. He also suggests I am distorting the theme suggested by Dr. Kurtz, and provides an example showing how to identify principle themes of campaigns. He also wonders about my motive and I think is is concerned this may be a waste of time.

As to my motive, does it matter?

Readers can choose to read or not. As I told Mr. Katz, he can reply or not as the whim takes him. Evidently he has chosen to do so, having some motive of his own. I imagine his readers and mine will soon grow bored; I am sure some already are. For that reason, I will not likely blog responding to Mr. Katz again.

Notwithstanding Mr. Katz statement to the contrary, I have not given him or anyone my word that this is not a big waste of time. As it happens, I have plenty of time, and I am enjoying writing this more than doing the laundry. So, I will respond. Those who prefer to get their laundry done, or just kick back and relax on a Friday afternoon are welcome to do so!

Now I will proceed to the criticisms.
Read the rest of this entry »

• I Wrote Some Stuff and Now I Have a Shop-Vac. Definitely the best blog post I’ve read this week, over at Real Live Preacher.

• I’ve been intending to link to the Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 for a while. It’s just bad luck that when I finally do link to it, it’s the first day in which the most current polls give Bush the lead. (This may reflect the boost Bush got from Reagan’s death, in which case I doubt it’ll last).

  UPDATE: Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball says things currenlty lean for Kerry. Both maps agree that the race is close enough to go either way.

• Interesting article in the Voice about how Karry and Bush are appealing - or, more accurately, failing to appeal - to single female voters. There are a lot of ways Kerry could try to appeal to these voters - for instance, promising to raise the minimum wage. But he won’t, because he’s focused on appealing to “Reagan democrats” (i.e., men). There’s also a companion article. Via Feministing.
• I keep on forgetting to link to Freaky Bob’s report on the Stumptown Comics Fest, a local comics convention I helped organize. There’s a bit about Kevin Moore on page 5, and a bit about me (including a photo - Bob held up a camera and said “pretend you feel sick”) on page 6.

  Kip has a report on the Fest as well, and so does Erika. Erika has lots of photos, but none of me, dammit! (Actually, there are two of the back of my head - just after the photo of Erika’s underwear riding higher than her pants.)

  In addition, someone wrote into a local paper calling everyone at the Fest “scenester fucks.” I’ve never been called a scenester before, so I think that’s pretty cool. Mercury Studios has all the info.

• Vanessa at Feministing discusses an interesting/appalling Title IX case, in which a coach was fired for complaining about the lesser funding given to girl’s teams.
• Positive Liberty is looking forward to the day when all people, male or female, will be running around in skirts.
• If you’re a Simpsons fan, you’ve gotta check out this amazing map of Springfield.
• Where does Bush stand on abortion? Tapped points out that Bush, in his public statements, hasn’t been totally forthright. Noentheless, it’s clear that Bush (like Kerry) is out of synch with his church’s position on abortion - a fact that doesn’t often make the papers.
• If you’ve got a fast connection and don’t mind downloading a big .mov file, check out this stunning performance by beatboxer Kenny Muhammad. Some of the stuff he does doesn’t even seem possible. Thanks to Kip for the tip.

A new Hereville page is up. This is page seven. As promised, more violent than last week’s page. Less wordy, too.

Katz:

I believe Mr. Katz is objecting to my use of the term “white, educated elites” and providing a link to an article applying the term to Maggie Gallagher.

I’ll admit it is more polite to refer to people directly by name instead of alluding to them by their race, educational and economic characteristics. Moreover, the fact one is white, educated and elite is irrelevant to whether or not one may form political opinions, write articles and advocate for a position. For that reason, it is pointless to refer to these features.

But there is one question I would like to ask:

I’ve been a wedding coordinator for almost a decade, and in that time I’ve attended hundreds of weddings. When I started this job, I assumed I’d wind up with lots of “wedding disaster” anecdotes. You know the stuff I mean: people saying “I don’t” at the alter, memorably hideous bridesmaids gowns, and all the other staples of TV sit-com nuptials. Happily, in real life nearly every wedding I’ve been at has been happy and gone off well. Even the near-disasters - such as the one where the bride’s gown wasn’t delivered - often turn out beautifully in the end.

A column I read in Newsday this week has reminded me of the exception - the worse, most miserable wedding I’ve ever attended. This was eight years ago, not long after I had begun as a wedding coordinator. The groom was African-American. The bride was white. And the families were absent.

From what the few guests (the bride and groom had expected 150; about 30 attended) present were saying, neither family had approved of the wedding, primarily because of the race difference. I don’t know how usual or unusual such family disapproval is; I can say, having since attended a couple dozen mixed-race weddings, that it is very unusual for both families to express their disapproval by boycotting the wedding.

When it became clear what had happened, the bride retreated into her dressing room and cried. The groom literally staggered, looking alternatively shellshocked and heartbroken. They pulled themselves out of their funk and got married; put on brave faces and danced at the reception afterwards (empty chairs, guests with strained grins, mounds of food that would end up being thrown away).

“God Squad” writers Rabbi Marc Gellman and Msgr. Thomas Hartman would have approved of what happened at that wedding, eight years ago.

Oh, probably they wouldn’t have approved of the racial politics. But, like the families of that unfortunate couple, they view weddings as a platform for relatives to express disapproval of the marriage. Thus, they advise a loving grandmother to boycott her granddaughter’s commitment ceremony, because her granddaughter is a lesbian.

But why would anyone choose to do this on a wedding (or commitment ceremony) day? After all, a wedding is not a unique opportunity to express misgivings or disapproval; there are 364 other days of the year available to say that (with, say, a difficult-but-loving chat over dinner, or a heartfelt letter).

So what is special about the wedding day? Well, a wedding is a unique opportunity for a loved one to express disapproval in a way that is especially cruel; and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to strike on what is for many brides and grooms the single most emotionally vulnerable day of their lives.

Of course, not all wedding couples are the same. Some deal with the most terrible wedding crisis with aplomb. (At the wedding where the bride’s dress never arrived, the groom paced up and down telling anyone with ears that he didn’t care, he’d marry his bride even if she was wearing blue jeans and a halter top. When I relayed that to the bride - who had been hiding in her dressing room - she brightened up. She walked up the aisle in a red ball gown she had bought for a different occasion, and I’ve gotta tell you, she looked stunning).

But as I know (and as The God Squad, who have probably attended even more weddings than I have, know) not every wedding couple is like that. I’ve seen grooms tremble and turn white because of a missing collar stud. I’ve seen brides weep because of a wedding cake of the wrong flavor. And I’ve also seen brides weep because their grandmother didn’t come to their special day.

Why would anyone wish that, under any circumstances?

Not on that day. There may be a need, as Rabbi Gellman and Msgr Hartman say, for expressing disapproval; but there’s no need to be cruel about it.

Not on that day. Attending a wedding doesn’t have to be a political statement. I’m sure that the granddaughter is already fully aware of her grandmother’s disapproval (the grandmother refuses to even sleep in her granddaughter’s house). By attending the wedding, the grandmother could have let her granddaughter know that despite her disapproval, she still intended to be in her granddaughter’s life when her granddaughter needed her. Instead, the God Squad has advised her to send a message that when the chips are down, the grandmother considers her need to make a political statement more important than her love for her granddaughter.

Again: She could have expressed her disapproval of her granddaughter’s lifestyle anytime. The only advantage of doing so by boycotting the commitment ceremony, rather than in any of a thousand other ways, is because no other way will inflict as much pain on her granddaughter. I’m appalled that this is the route the God Squad endorses.

I’d also ask the God Squad to examine their own hearts. Suppose that this had been a heterosexual wedding that the grandmother didn’t approve of because her granddaughter’s fiance was (say) an employee of Playboy, or intended to be a househusband while the granddaughter worked, or something like that. In that case, would they have endorsed a boycott of the wedding - or would they have suggested attending the wedding and finding some more loving place and time to express disapproval?

* * *

P.S. The God Squad also writes that they “hope that the gay community can understand that… the choices they’ve made in their lives are a fair field for criticism.” Fair enough. But they then hypocritically say that “those who reject [same-sex] unions must not have to bear the unjust slander of being called ‘homophobes.’” It seems to me that what’s sauce for the goose, is also sauce for the gander. I don’t know if they, personally, are homophobes - but the homophobia that clearly underlies much of the anti-gay-marriage movement is, contrary to what the God Squad thinks, fair game for criticism. (Or do they suggest that in the entire anti-gay-marriage movement, there is not a single person, anywhere, motivated by homophobia?)

Readers will recall in “Reemergence of Marriage” I showed a distinct deceleration in the rate of increase in the non-marital birth ratio (ROI-NMBR)^[1] which occurred in conjunction with the American debate for Same Sex Marriage. This deceleration is what one would expect to occur if Americans responded to the twin themes of responsible parenthood and long term commitment aired by advocates of same sex marriage. Borrowing the words Dr. Stanley Kurtz used to explain a similar conjunction between changes in the Dutch ROI-NMBR and the Dutch campaign for Same Sex Marriage, I observe, “The conjunction is no coincidence”.

Mr. Katz disputed my assertion that the debate over SSM influenced the American trend. Observing that my causal mechanism relied on the theme of responsible parenthood, he requested I provide evidence of this theme. Pointing out that Dr. Kurtz has devoted lots of ink to this subject, he suggested I should also devote plenty to address the possibility that other factors may have caused the noticeable transition. Finally, he requested I demonstrate the distinct transition is statistically significant and occurs at the appropriate time to support the linkage.

In my first response to Mr. Katz, I provided evidence of that advocates emphasized the important ways children benefit when their parents marry. In my second, I demonstrated the transition cannot explained by the factors Mr. Katz suggested.

In this article, I will show the data are statistically significant and the transition occurs very near the time one might expect it to. Since the transition is statistically significant, supports the causal mechanism I have suggested and cannot be explained by theories proposed by opponents of same sex marriage, I believe it is up to those who wish to argue that same sex marriage has not strengthened marriage in the US to provide a more plausible reason for the last nine years of American marital revitalization.”^[2]

The Third Criticism
I will now address the idea that the transition did not occur near the onset of the national debate for SSM. Quoting Mr. Katz:

I interpret this to mean either:

1. The deceleration in the out of wedlock birth rate occurred too late to attribute it to the Hawaii ruling in favor of same sex marriage,
2. The change in the slope I indicate is not statistically significant or
3. Both.

Whether or not Mr. Katz intended both, people who read his column may understand him to mean both.^[4] So, I believe it is important to rebut both, earnestly.^[5]

Timing: I will first address the suggestion that the change in slope occurred to late to be associated with the Hawaii Court Case.

As I stated in my first article responding to Mr. Katz, the deceleration in the NMBR, first became evident in 1995. Is this too late to attribute it to the 1993 Hawaii Court case?

At first glance it may appear so; some might overlook the 9 month gestation period for humans.^[6] So, it may surprise them to learn that some women pregnant on the day of the May 1993 court decision would not give birth until 1994. Thus, we would expect the 23 year trend in the ROI-NMBR to persist through a portion of 1994. To better illustrate these two events, I shifted the line indicating the Hawaii court ruling to suggest its May date, and added another to note the end of the 9 month gestation period. Examining the graph, we see that no matter what we postulate about the effect of the court ruling on personal behavior, one would expect the ROI-NMBR to follow the pre-Hawaii court case trend until March, 1994. View image.

One might, however, have expected a drop in the birth ratio during 1994 due to an effect during the final months. Examining the data, it appears this did not occur. Why not? There are two possible reasons:

1. There may be a data tabulation error for 1994.
2. People tend to delay; their behavior may not change instantaneously.

I consider the delay theory the more likely of the two possibilities. However, it is not possible distinguish these two based on the data I have obtained. Consequently, I will consider both possibilities, beginning with the less likely one.

To see whether the 1994 data point looks suspicious, I calculated the ROI-NMBR by subtraction.^[7] The derived values are shown in Figure 2. Note, the ROI-NMBR achieves a maximum of 1.6% in 1994 and a minimum of -0.4% in 1995; both are outliers. Examining further, the 1.6% increase in 1994, although a maximum, does not seem remarkably large. An increase of 1.5% was achieved in 1992, and increases of 1.4% had been achieved in the late 80’s. So, it is possible that the increase simply represents a continuation of the pre-Hawaii trend, and is consistent with the “delay” theory.

The 1995 minimum, however, falls well outside the ranges exhibited by both the pre or post-Hawaii data sets. It is not uncommon to suspect error when one observes distant outliers. The fact that outliers representing both a maximum and a minimum are side by side further supports the idea of error. The data shown on Figure 2 are obtained by subtraction, if one data point was erroneously tabulated or recorded, that would be the cause of the two adjacent outliers, one a maximum and one a minimum.

Figure 2: The ROI-NMBR for years 1970-2002

Since the side-by-side outliers look suspicious, it is worthwhile to consider the possibility the entry for 1994 is incorrect,^[8] particularly, in light of the “delay” theory I have yet to address. Let us assume 1994 data point is flawed, the pre-Hawaii trend in the ROI-NMBR persisted through March 1, 1994 and the post-Hawaii trend applied during the remaining months of 1994. Removing the 1994 data point, and recalculating, we would expect the cumulative two year change in the NMBR to be 1.2%.^[9] Interestingly, if we add to obtain the increase from Jan 1, 1994 (1.6%) to Dec 31, 1995 (-0.4%), we obtain 1.2%. This is exactly the value calculated assuming people responded immediately to the ruling!

The agreement is likely a complete coincidence. It is, in fact, amazing given the year to year statistical variability expected in the ROI-NMBR even during stable periods. However, if the 1994 data point is wrong, this agreement suggests the possibility that couples young and old changed their behavior very quickly after the Hawaii court ruling!

Now let us consider the more likely possibility the pre-Hawaii trend persisted because people did not change their behavior immediately. Is this plausible?

We know the Hawaii court case was reported and discussed nationally. However, just as most political discussion of the Goodridge case came after the ruling, the bulk of political discussion also came after the Hawaii ruling. In any case, some Americans might not listen to the news every evening; some might only hear of a topic, and the pro-family theme aired by advocates of SSM until after their friends mention the issue at summer barbecues, or church pancake breakfasts. So, it is possible many did not become aware of the Hawaii ruling for several months.

If people delayed their response for these reasons, it seems plausible to me the ROI-NMBR would not decelerate in 1994. The fact that the 1994 birth ratio follows the pre-Hawaii trend simply implies people persisted in their pre-Hawaii beliefs and behaviors for a number of months. However, is the explanation that American’s might not respond instantaneously plausible to others?

Possibly. It seems at least one person has postulated the tendency of people’s behavior to lag judicial rulings. In “Scandinavia by the Numbers”^[10], explaining the delay in Danish marital behavior, Mr. Katz suggests this “delay theory”:

There we have it! It takes time before people change their attitudes about marriage. Just as people don’t divorce the day after a judicial ruling, cohabiting couples might not rush to churches and marry; they might spend some time internalizing the decision before making a marital commitment. Afterwards, they might spend time planning their wedding. Other cohabiting couples who after some months of discussion decide to part might wait until their leases run out. During this transition period, some women may find themselves unintentionally pregnant. If their pre-Hawaii attitude persists, the couple may choose not to marry and these births will contribute to the 1994 out of wedlock birth statistics.

So, just as I suggested when I discussed the effect of The Welfare Reform Act, one might expect a delay of several months beyond the 9 month gestation period before the Hawaii ruling affects American’s behavior. If Americans did wait several months, 1994 data would not reflect the effect of the 1993 ruling. Instead, 1995 is the first year when one should expect to detect the effect of the Hawaii ruling on the NMBR. That is the year when the change first becomes visible in the data.

Since the transition occurred the first year when one likely expects to detect it, I think it is fair to say the transition was “almost immediate”!

Statistical significance
Mr. Katz is correct to mention I failed to show the transition in the ROI-NMBR is statistically significant.^[11] I will now remedy this deficiency.

To evaluate statistical significance, I compared the mean ROI-NMBR for the “pre-Hawaii” and “post-Hawaii” groups; these are 0.9%/year and 0.2% /year. These two values differ by a factor of 4.5. Dr. Kurtz claims a factor of 2 change in the Dutch ROI-NMBR and deems that meaningful. So, I assume a change by a factor of 4.5, which is more than twice a large, is agreed to be meaningful.

Nevertheless, the fact the difference in the two means is large does not mean the difference is statistically significant. To test for significance, I performed a two-tailed T-Test. The difference in the means to be significant to the 99.995% confidence level; this is greater than the 95% confidence level generally thought to imply statistical significance.^[12]

So, we seen the deceleration in the ROI-NMBR is strong, statistically significant, and is reflected as soon after the 1993 pro-SSM Hawaii judicial ruling as might be thought plausible.

Conclusion
I believe I have addressed Mr. Katz’s criticisms and shown that the correlation between deceleration in the ROI-NMBR and the campaign for SSM is, indeed, “very good”. The deceleration in the American out of wed lock birth rate is both large in magnitude, and statistically significant. The slight delay noted by Mr. Kats is expected because of the 9 month gestation period and the additional delay theory proposed by Mr. Katz. Because of this delay, one would expect 1995 would be first year when the birth rate might be unambiguously affected by the 1993 Hawaii ruling. That is precisely when the transition became evident, and supports my contention that the transition occurred after the Hawaii Ruling which brought the pro-family pro-commitment message of those advocating legalized same sex marriage to national attention. American’s listened and responded.

Who has the burden of proof? It is now up to the opponents of same-sex marriage to show why we should believe them when they say that same-sex marriage will weaken American marriage as a social institution. Why should we weaken the linkage between parenthood raising children by legally prohibiting some parents from marrying? Children of gay parents deserve the legal protection of parents united in marriage.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Hey, I thought that this post I wrote on the UN Population Fund was rather good, and it required a lot of research on my part. Alas, no one has commented on it or linked to it. Hint. Hint.

• The American Prospect reviews two books about mommy. Talking about The Mommy Myth:
  Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels, takes a stab at it by suggesting that the old “feminine mystique” has morphed into a “new momism,” a perfectionist ideal of motherhood that torments women with standards no mortal can meet. Momism doesn’t demand subservience to men; it requires subservience to children.

  Via Arts & Letters Daily.

• An interesting article in Sojourners about “progressive pro-lifers,” and a website by and about such folk, Leftout. These people might be potential allies, if they could be persuaded to try and reduce abortion by aiming at demand rather than supply.
• For folks with fast connections, the Discovery Channels “Know More Than You Should” TV spots are pretty funny (click on “watch the TV spots” to see them). “Milk Truck” is the best one.
• A Women’s ENews article on the most recent Juarez murders report. The Mexican government’s response to mass murder reminds me of the Bush administration’s response to torture; the reflex is to cast blame on the front-line cops and investigators, while ignoring the complicity of the people higher-up in the chain of command.
• Mikhaela’s News Blog has a great round-up of cartoons critical of Reagan (Kirk Anderson’s “Supply Side Journalism” is my favorite). She also provides a round-up of mainstream cartoons adoring Reagan (she found eight different cartoonists unoriginal enough to use the “mourning in America” pun). Oh, and check out her own cartoon, as well.
• An article about hospitals wanting to “pull the plug” on patients - against the wishes of the families.
• Did you know this year is the 40th anniversary of the publication of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree? This article discusses and interprets this amazingly harsh children’s classic. I don’t agree with everything he says - especially his last two sentences - but it’s an interesting piece nonetheless.
• Dump Cheney! It’s time for the Bush/Zombie Reagan ticket! From the FAQ:
  Q: Is Zombie Reagan really that much of an advantage? Doesn’t John Kerry have the zombie vote locked up?

  A: No. John Kerry, in fact, isn’t really a zombie. He is more akin to Frankenstein’s Monster, built out of parts stolen from graveyards under cover of night. He simply claims to be a zombie for political advantage.

• Winning Argument is a blog devoted to succinct summaries of persuasive liberal arguments on various topics likely to come up around the proverbial water cooler. Via Body & Soul.
• Welfare reform in the 1990s did not lead to any decrease in single motherhood, according to two studies reported on in this article. The studies themselves can be read here, although I suspect that link will not be permanent. Via Family Scholars Blog.
• Teen Suicide Rate Down (via Family Scholars Blog).
  Suicide among American youngsters and teens fell about 25 percent in the last decade, reflecting a dramatic dropoff in gun suicides, the government said Thursday.

  In fact, hanging and other forms of suffocation — including use of belts, ropes or plastic bags — overtook self-inflicted shootings in the 1990s as the most common method of suicide among 10- to 14-year-olds, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

  CDC researchers did not immediately know why the overall rate dropped, but a specialist in adolescent medicine said new safety measures for keeping guns out of children’s hands and greater acceptance of gays may have played important roles.

• In a well-reasoned (and researched) post, Gabriel Rosenberg refutes charges that the ACLU is trying to strike down child molestation laws.
• Pong and S&M: Together at last! Two German students have created a version of “pong” in which the players’ non-joystick hands are subjected to a variety of physically painful punishments whenever they miss the ball. Whichever player removes his hand from the punishment platform first loses the game. Neat! The link includes an interview with the game’s creators:
  Q: How much pain are we talking about?

  A: The heat will get very bad if you play for a long time, and the, the same with the whip, because the whip always hits you on the same spot.

  Q: And it’s the whip that can get your hands bloody.

  A: Yeah, that’s the whip.

  All the best games are created by Germans.

• There are lots of good comics here.
• Interesting interview with Martin Torgoff, author of Can’t Find My Way Home: America in the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000. It’ s on Salon, so unless you’re a subscriber you’ll have to sit through the ad, but it’s worth it.

Yes, the winner (Jamie Foss) gave great attitude, but her voice wasn’t nearly awful enough. Rosa deserved to win, damn it - she has a once-in-a-generation bad singing voice.

As some of you may know, I also do some volunteer work with a magazine (the first issue is in stores NOW!!) called World Pulse . Anyway, we’re looking for some new columnists, and I’m hoping to tap into your knowledge and see if you can think of any women who might be good for this position.

From the publisher, Jensine Larson:

If you can think of anyone who would be good, let me know. It can be a friend or someonw you’re read. You don’t have to know them personally — you may have just read an article or book by them. OTOH, she doesn’t have to have been published or well-known. Perhaps she is someone you know (or maybe it’s you) who happens to have a strong interest in this subject and an ability to write about it. If you can think of any suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks!!

Steve Skojec, writing in the comments at Amy Welborn’s blog.

I don’t think Mr. Skojec’s pro-violence position is the norm among pro-lifers (the fellow who responded to Mr. Skojec, arguing that pro-lifers should not resort to violence, is much more mainstream). But we should remember that there are folks like Mr. Skojec out there.

A whlle ago, Sara at Diotima asked:

I have looked at a lot of the literature out there on the UNFPA and whether or not it supported coerced abortions in China, and I’m just not sure it’s as conclusive as Ampersand does (for example, I’m not sure why you’d decide to dismiss the Population Research Institute’s report as just pushing an anti-woman agenda but accept the Catholics for Choice report as objective, unless you’ve got an agenda yourself).

At the time, I don’t think I gave Sara a very satisfactory answer, so I’m going to try again. (My timing is unfortunate, since Sara is currently on vacation, but perhaps she’ll see it when she returns).

First off, what is the issue and why does it matter? The issue is that George Bush, responding to lobbying from US pro-life groups, decided in 2002 to withhold money Congress had authorized for the UN Population Fund. The contribution, $34 million dollars, is a tiny portion of the US federal budget, but over 10% of the UN Population Fund’s budget.

Why does that matter? Well, according to the UN Population Fund, “$34 million applied to family planning programmes could prevent some 800,000 abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths annually worldwide.”

From an article in Salon:

The result of Bush’s freeze has been a reduction in medical services to women worldwide. According to the UNFPA, in Bangladesh, where 67 percent of pregnant women receive no medical care, programs to train doctors to deal with pregnancy complications will be put on hold. In Vietnam, according to UNFPA field worker Tran Thi Van, a program to train 4,000 health workers in reproductive issues and to provide medical equipment and drugs to 500 remote clinics is in jeopardy. In Kenya, where the UNFPA has been working with the Catholic Church to prevent teenagers from getting AIDS, the church’s request to expand the program will probably have to be rejected. Overall, UNFPA’s funding shortfall is $52 million, because some other countries failed to meet their contribution targets due to financial constraints. The agency estimates that the lack of resources will result in 3 million unwanted pregnancies, 7,140 maternal deaths and, ironically, 1,215,000 abortions.

Nicholas Kristof suggested what some of the consequences of Bush’s funding freeze could be in an April 26 New York Times column about Aisha Idris, a young Sudanese woman with fistula, a condition in which a woman’s rectum, urethra and vagina are torn during childbirth, “leaving her incontinent and causing bodily wastes to seep through her vaginal canal and down her legs.” The UNFPA, he wrote, “supports precisely the kind of third-world maternal health care programs that can save women’s lives in childbirth and avoid medical complications like fistula. Yet the White House for now is crippling the fund by withholding the 13 percent of its budget that the United States provides.”

A bit more background: What is the UN Population Fund? The UN Population Fund, or UNFPA (I know the initials don’t match - years ago, they changed their name but not their abbreviation) is a UN agency which provides assistance to about 140 poor countries around the world - many more countries than any similar aid agency goes to. According to the UNFPA’s operating rules, the UNFPA does not encourage or fund abortion, anyplace in the world.

The funding controversy centers on UNFPA’s program in China. The UNFPA program is an attempt to move China from its infamous coercive population-reduction practices to a voluntary model, in which women are empowered to control their own reproduction through education, contraception, and good prenatal care.

Finally, it’s important to know that US funds donated to UNFPA do not fund UNFPA’s China program. Instead, US funds go to a earmarked UNFPA bank account; the money from this account is never mixed with other UNFPA accounts, and cannot be spent on any program in China.

The Case Against UNFPA

In 2002, one pro-life organization - the Population Research Institute, or PRI - claimed that the UNFPA was supporting forced abortions in China. (The PRI is an extremist group - they oppose not only abortion, but all family planning programs.)

In their sworn testimony before Congress on February 27, 2002, and in their official report of their findings in China (both of which are available here), PRI made three claims against UNPFA:

1. That coercive family planning programs, including forced abortions, are taking place in the areas of China in which UNFPA operates, despite UNFPA’s claim that coercive practices no longer exist in those areas of China. To prove this claim, PRI provided translations of anonymous interviews a PRI researcher had conducted in Sihui, China.

2. These abuses were, according to PRI, carried out by the Chinese Office of Family Planning. To prove that UNFPA is aware of and complicit in these abuses, PRI provided dramatic video and photographic evidence showing that a UNFPA employee shares office space with the Office of Family Planning. From testimony by PRI researcher Josephine Guy:
   

   …Within the Office of Family Planning, family planning officials showed us the location of the UNFPA desk. We were told that a UNFPA representative works with, in and through the Sihui Office of Family Planning. We photographed the UNFPA office desk–and you can see over here on the podium–which faces, in fact touches, a desk of the Chinese Office of Family Planning.

   As far as I know, images of this desk are the only evidence PRI has presented linking UNFPA to the alleged abuses.

3. That when the UNFPA sent a fact-finding team to investigate PRI’s charges, all interviews were conducted with Chinese officials present, preventing Chinese civilians from freely testifying about Chinese government abuses. (I’ve seen pro-lifers make this claim about all the other investigations, actually).

In response, UNFPA has said:

1. UNFPA does not promise that no abuses ever happen anywhere they operate. According to the UNFPA employee in charge of the China program, “In a population of 20 million, I cannot promise that nothing bad happens. I can promise that, certainly, we’re not involved.” (Quoted by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, September 22, 2002). They do claim that their program has led to significant improvements in the 32 counties in which they operate.

2. There is no UNFPA desk in Sihui City.
3. According to UNFPA’s investigative team leader, Nicolaas Biegman, UNFPA’s investigators “interviewed Chinese citizens at random–on the street, in family planning and mother and child health clinics, in villages–using two independent interpreters and without any Chinese government officials present.”

What other investigations have found.

1. The US Department of State’s year 1999 report on Human Rights in China - issued before PRI’s report - had this to say about UNFPA:

   Although it was still too early for an overall assessment of [the UNFPA] program, visits to selected counties by foreign diplomats indicate that progress in implementing the program has been mixed. Some counties have made appreciable progress in implementing the program, while others have made relatively little. Notably, some counties have informed the general public about the UNFPA program and have eliminated the system of strict, government-assigned birth quotas (allowing couples to choose without authorization when to have their first child); other counties have not yet done so, or have only begun to do so.

   Although not a ringing endorsement, this supports UNFPA’s claim that they are improving China’s family planning policies.

2. UNFPA’s managing board - which includes a representative of the US government - sent an investigative team headed by Dr. Nicolaas H. Biegman, former Ambassador of the Netherlands to NATO. According to Dr. Biegman’s testimony to Congress:
   

   Responses varied, but generally people believed that family planning policy in their area had been relaxed considerably in recent years and that the quality of care had improved. No one expressed any grievances or complaints or knew of any abuses in recent years. Such abuses had occurred in the past, they said, but not in the present. […]

   The desk that supposedly comprised the UNFPA office in Sihui County that was constantly referred to in the testimony before the House Committee simply does not exist. That purported UNFPA office, which formed a central part of the testimony of the Population Research Institute, is a complete and utter fabrication. UNFPA has no offices in China outside Beijing.

3. In April of 2002, a team from the British Parliament - led by Edward Leigh, a pro-life, Catholic member of the Conservative Party who has been a critic of UNFPA - sent a team to look for evidence of UNFPA supporting coercive practices in China. From their report (pdf file):
   

   The study team found no evidence of UNFPA advocating or facilitating coercive Family Planning laws. Indeed, it seemed precisely the opposite applied. The UNFPA projects, based on the IDPD Programme of Action, helped empower women by ensuring they had the fullest possible information about reproductive health and choices. […]

   The UK MP delegation was convinced that the UNFPA programme is a force for good, in moving China away from abuses such as forced-family planning, sterilisation and abortions…. It is vitally important that the UNFPA remains actively involved in China, with continued financial support from the UK and other Western Governments.

   The UK investigation included random interviews of ordinary Chinese citizens, without any Chinese officials present.

4. In May of 2002, the Bush Administration State Department sent a team to investigate UNFPA in China. (The Bush administration waited until July 22nd - when they cut off UNFPA’s funding - to release the State Department’s report.) The Bush team found “no evidence” of UNFPA participation in “coercive abortion” or any other coercive practices, and recommended that the $34 million dollars be released to the UNFPA. They did find “ample evidence… of heavy-handed abusive and coercive practices,” but specified that these abuses took place outside the 32 counties in which UNFPA operates.

   (The State Department team also recommended that “no US Government funds be allocated for population programs” in China. Some pro-lifers have claimed this is a recommendation that the US cut funding to UNFPA. This interpretation is mistaken; since by law all US contributions to UNFPA are allocated for projects outside of China, the reference is to non-UNFPA funding.)

   And what about that desk? From a Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service article published September 11, 2002:

   The State Department team, which conducted a two-week investigation in May, also was unable to find any UNFPA desk or worker in Sihui county, according to team member Theodore Tong, a professor of pharmacy, public health and toxicology at the University of Arizona.

   “We didn’t meet any UNFPA persons outside of the Beijing office,” Tong said. […]

   “We stopped off at schools; we stopped off at some factories. These were all unplanned,” he said, rejecting PRI’s assertion that the team was unable to speak freely with random Chinese.

   Keep in mind, these conclusions come from a team selected by the Bush State Department, and therefore unlikely to be biased in UNFPA’s favor.

5. In September 2002, the Knight-Ridder news service conducted its own investigation, and “found that the U.N. Population Fund has no desk or staff members in Sihui county.”
6. In September 2003, “an interfaith delegation of prominent US religious leaders, faith-based organization leaders and ethicists,” organized by Catholics for Choice, investigated the UNFPA’s practices in China. “Delegates met with citizens without any officials present and made impromptu visits to communities not on the itinerary.” From their report (pdf file).
   

   After extensive study and on-site investigation, we are convinced that UNFPA has made an invaluable contribution to women’s reproductive health and rights in China. We find that UNFPA’s work is of fundamental value in affirming the highest religious and ethical values of the delegation members’ preservation of human life and the promotion of the human rights of every individual. We are equally convinced that the charges against UNFPA made by its opponents, including PRI, are without foundation.

Which brings us back to Sara’s question:

Why should sensible people find the PRI report less credible than the other reports?

The reports from China are seriously divergent - so divergent that it’s hard to avoid suspecting somebody is lying. It is necessary, therefore, to assess the credibility of the reports.

There are several reasons to conclude that the PRI report is less credible.

• First of all - and perhaps least importantly - when assessing credibility, it’s reasonable to look at the character of the persons or organizations making claims. In the case of the PRI, I am disturbed by a well-documented history of anti-Semitism by the PRI’s founder, Paul Marx. (See Anti-Defamation League press releases from October 30, 1998 and March 10, 1995; Zero Population Growth’s press release of February 11, 1997; Philadelphia Inquirer, July 27, 2002).

  Marx writes essays with titles like “Pro-Abortion Jews and the New Holocaust.” His writings attempt to show that abortion is a Jewish conspiracy: According to Marx, “Notice how many Jews led the infamous 1971 abortion-planning meeting in Los Angeles which I exposed…note the large number of abortionists (consult the Yellow Pages) and pro-abortion medical professors who are Jewish.”

  Of course, just because the PRI was founded by an anti-Semite (who hired the current PRI president) doesn’t prove that the PRI is wrong. One can be a raving lunatic bigot (or the hand-picked successor of a raving lunatic bigot) without being wrong about everything. Nonetheless, for those of us who find anti-Semites less credible than non-anti-Semites, it’s a point to consider.

• Elements of the PRI story cannot be true. PRI has repeatedly claimed that other investigations conducted their interviews in the presence of Chinese government officials. This, according to PRI, explains why other investigators failed to find the rampant abuse the PRI’s investigator found.

  Here’s the problem: The PRI has no way of knowing how interviews were conducted by the other investigations.

  1. The PRI can’t have gotten their information from the statements and reports of the other investigators, because those reports and statements clearly indicate that interviews were conducted without Chinese officials present.

  2. The PRI couldn’t have checked with the interview subjects, because to protect them, interview subjects are not identified (the PRI’s report followed the same procedure).
  3. PRI can’t have gotten its information from the Chinese goverment, since the Chinese government wouldn’t know about interviews kept secret from the Chinese government. (Nor would the Chinese government have any reason to help the PRI).

  So the PRI claims to have knowlege that it cannot possibly have; this is, it seems to me, a blow against their credibility.

• There’s the simple matter of replication. Despite five separate attempts, no one has been able to verify even a single claim made by the PRI about UNFPA’s program in China. In fact, every claim PRI has made has been contradicted by the other investigations.
• The PRI sent one investigator[*]; between them, the other five investigations sent a total of 19. To believe the PRI is correct, one would have to accept that the other 19 investigators are engaged in a massive conspiracy. That seems unlikely.

  [*]Although the PRI investigator, Josephine Guy, often spoke of her team in the plural, she is the only person to sign her name to the PRI report. The PRI team consisted of Ms. Guy, a hired photographer, and two hired translators. As far as I know, PRI has not released the names of Ms. Guy’s three employees, and they have not testified in support of her account.

This is a question I’d really like some of the intelligent pro-lifers out there to address. How can any reasonable person, weighing all of the evidence, continue to support the PRI’s account?

And to anyone who still favors the PRI account: What evidence would it take to convince you that the PRI’s account is probably not true?

• There have been a lot of critical comments about Reagan recently. However, I thought this one - Martha Burk’s critique of Reagan’s record from a feminist point of view - would be of particular interest to “Alas” readers.

• Also, Respectful of Otters reminds me why I loathed the Reaganites.
• Back in the present, Pinko Feminist Hellcat posts about the rape of women at Abu Ghraib. Outcry? What outcry?
• Mouse Words reports that they’re trying to ban SUVs in Paris. I approve.
• Things may be worse than I thought.
  Jon Gould and Stephen Mastrofski document astonishingly high rates of unconstitutional police searches in their forthcoming article Suspect Searches: Assessing Police Behavior Under the U.S. Constitution to be published in Criminology & Public Policy (2004). By their conservative estimate, 30 percent of the 115 police searches they studied violated the Fourth Amendment. The vast majority of the unconstitutional searches were invisible to the courts, having resulted in no arrest, charge, or citation. Focusing exclusively on stop-and-frisk searches, an even higher proportion - 46 percent - were unconstitutional. Moreover, 84 percent of the searches involved African-American suspects.

  Via Stuart Buck, who uses it as a springboard for a very unconvincing argument against the exclusionary rule. (As he admits, just because the exclusionary rule isn’t preventing all illegal searches doesn’t mean it doesn’t prevent any.) Clearly, however, the exclusionary rule by itself isn’t doing enough.

• A long and detailed paper on gerrymandering, which I haven’t read yet. But from the bits I’ve skimmed, it looks like a good backgrounder.
• The Fifty Minute Hour quotes from a (not available online) Nation article, focusing on the easiest way to slow the spread of AIDS.
  The good news is that injection-driven epidemics are relatively easy to contain. Participants in needle-exchange programs show none of the ambivalence associated with behavioral initiatives to increase condom use: Almost no drug user chooses to share needles if offered another option. Ongoing treatment with methadone, widely tested in developing and industrialized countries alike, has been shown to reduce both injection and drug-related crime. More broadly, researchers evaluating the full spectrum of efforts to prevent HIV and other harms among drug users–which includes peer education, syringe exchange and safer injection rooms, methadone maintenance and overdose prevention–have demonstrated positive outcomes in trials from Australia to Belarus.

  The bad news is that evidence of effectiveness has so far proven no match for ideology. Public health efforts to offer drug users options other than abstinence, whether in the United States, Asia or the former Soviet Union, have frequently taken a back seat to criminal enforcement campaigns or languished for years in perpetual pilot-program status.

  This will keep going on as long as moralistic fanatics remain in charge of drug policy. Read the whole thing.

• Which reminds me of this article, from The Economist: Putting the World to Rights. It’s a report on what a bunch of eggheads have agreed, after some study, are (relatively) cheap and effective measures to improve the world. (The conference was organized by an anti-environmentalist, so it’s no surprise that doing anything about global warming came bottom of the list. But the proposals they favored are well worth looking at.)
• Searching for The Great Brain. A family tries to locate the real-life settings of the series of children’s books by John Fitzgerald. I loved those books when I was a kid - I keep on meaning to reread them. Via Boing Boing.

As readers are aware from my recent articles, I contend the campaign for same sex marriage has lead to a deceleration in the rate-of-increase in-the-non-marital birth ratio [ROI-NMBR]^[1] in the United States. As I see it, Dr. Stanley Kurtz and I agree on one thing: there is a causal link between SSM and the ROI-NMBR.

It has come to my attention that this causal link is disputed.

In this article, I will provide hyperlinks to arguments for and against the causal link. I also invite readers to participate in a poll.

I will begin by presenting the case supporting the causal link. First, Dr. Kurtz, who has earned a Ph. D. in social anthropology from Harvard, says there is a causal link between SSM and ROI-NMBR. If such an elite educated person says a causal link exists, must it not be so?

Others also believe it. As recently as May 30, three days days after I published my first article showing the causal link for the American data, and two days after it was picked up by MarriageDebate.com, Maggie Gallagher, a white, educated elite opponent of SSM appeared to endorsed the cause and effect relationship and provided a supporting theory, saying:

Shortly afterward, a blogger Michael Sellitto posting at MarriageDebate.com also agreed there could be a causal link, writing:

I believe that summarizes the arguments in favor of the causal link. Let us now turn to arguments against it.

Almost as soon as I posted my first article in this series, Julian said

Later on, Rachel Ann noticed I buried Julian’s observation deep in the footnotes of this article. Probably suspecting^[a] my intention to evade Julian’s comments, she posted to endorse his point of view. This raised the visibility of the idea. Afterwards both Trish Wilson^[b] and Don P. posted in support of Julian.

How can one fail to be suprised by all this support despite the fact that Julian has expended very little ink to support his claim. Certainly he has devoted much less ink than either Dr. Kurtz, Mr. Katz or I have!^[2]

These are not the only critics of the proposed causal link. Since my first article appeared, I have discovered people posting on other blogs also believe there is no causal link.

These include:

• Andrew Sullivan who ridiculed the idea there could be cause and effect relationship.
• Jason Kuznicki of Positive Liberty, who implied that Dr. Kurtz and I might be guilty of data mining. (Jason was kind enough to note that my American Data has a much more noticeable kink than Dr. Kurtz’s Dutch Data which has no apparent kink.)
• Jari Koskiku “I live in Finland and I cannot see how gay registred partnerships have had any kind of effect on how straight people view marriage. None. There is not enough evidence to say to what extent gay civil unions strenghten the concept of marriage, but there is enough evidence that the reasons for changes in the institution of marriage stem from somewhere else.” and
• Mark Becker suggests:
  As much as I appreciate Stanley Kurtz’s attempts to look at what’s happening in Europe now for some sign of what SSM means for the future, I feel that it’s way too soon to be able to make any definitive statements of cause and effect.

  .

Most surprisingly of all, on June 4th, after my article appeared, Maggie Gallagher states:“Isolating the effects of legal changes using social science methods is difficult. If the mechanism is the cultural meanings of marriage, the consequences are likely to take a generation to uncover and they may be different in different countries.”^[3]

Examining all the arguments and counter arguments, I have decided the we must resolve this issue through the democratic process. You may all vote in this poll which I have set up at yahoogroups. ^[4]

Naturally, you may all campaign for your personal theory in the comments boxes. ^[5]

(Note: I made some editorial revisions to reflect comments.)
Read the rest of this entry »

• Guess the Dictator or Sit-Com Character. I haven’t come up with one it can’t guess. It’s darn good at guessing Buffy characters, too.

• The Council on Contemporary Families argues that marriage is not a cure-all for poverty. They would rather focus on providing college educations and career prospects to single mothers. “Coontz and Folbre point out that college-educated single mothers who work full-time actually have poverty rates lower than the national average.” The full paper is worth reading as an antidote for a lot of the “marriage initiative” discussions going on nowadays.
• One of my favorite comic books, Finder, has a website which includes a few complete sample issues.
• New to my blogroll: Professor Kim’s News Notes. Genuinely excellent blog with a focus on ” race, class, religion, gender and sexuality in the news.” There are loads of excellent posts there, but this disturbing memory from election day, 1980, is especially striking.
• There is still a gender wage gap. Excellent post at Feministe, springing off of a New York Times article. (And hey, while I’m at it, I’ll plug my own series on the gender wage gap).
• Is the “Fat Epidemic” a statistical illusion? From the Times:
  But Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, an obesity researcher at Rockefeller University, argues that contrary to popular opinion, national data do not show Americans growing uniformly fatter. Instead, he says, the statistics demonstrate clearly that while the very fat are getting fatter, thinner people have remained pretty much the same.[…]

  But Dr. Friedman said he was outraged by the acceptance of what he sees as a hurtful myth, one that encourages people to believe that if you are fat, it is your fault.[…]

  Dr. Friedman points to careful statistical analyses of the changes in Americans’ body weights from 1991 to today by Dr. Katherine Flegal of the National Center for Health Statistics. At the lower end of the weight distribution, nothing has changed, not even by a few pounds. As you move up the scale, a few additional pounds start to show up, but even at midrange, people today are just 6 or 7 pounds heavier than they were in 1991. Only with the massively obese, the very top of the distribution, is there a substantial increase in weight, about 25 to 30 pounds, Dr. Flegal reported.

• An article in the Washington Post about “Whiteness Studies.” Wish they’d had that at my college.
• Professor Kim discusses how gay-marriage bans will effect the marriage rights of intersexuals. In some cases, the results will be counterintuitive.

Justin Katz of Dust in the Light. has responded to my post describing the deceleration in the rate of change in the US non-marital birth ratio and its relationship to the campaign for same sex marriage. My argument is analogous to that of Dr. Stanley Kurtz. Just as Dr. Kurtz argues that the acceleration in the rate-of-change in the Dutch non-marital birth ratio is caused by the Dutch campaign for same sex marriage, I argued the deceleration in the rate-of-change in the American non-marital birth ratio is caused by the American campaign for same sex marriage.

In my June 8 article, I listed the categories of flaws Mr. Katz identified. I also addressed one category of flaws.^[1] Today, I will address this second category of flaws:

I will consider three theories Mr. Katz suggested might explain the data. These are:

• The beneficial effects of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act which might lower the non-marital birth ratio.

• The “boost” phenomena which might lower the non-marital birth ratio.
• The tendency of campaigns for same sex marriage to raise the non-marital birth ratio, as Dr. Kurtz has speculated.

The Welfare Reform Act of 1996

Mr. Katz suggested The Welfare Reform Act might explain the American Data:

Justin Katz is correct; I did not consider that the 1995 deceleration might have resulted from The 1996 Welfare Reform Act, signed into law in late August. Women who became pregnant the day the bill was signed would give birth in May 1997, contributing to the 1997 birth statistics. In any case, one might expect a somewhat longer time lag. After all, it is possible that co-habiting couples might spend a few months deciding to marry and then a few more planning their wedding.

Consequently, the first full year when one would expect to note any effect of The Welfare Reform Act of on the birth statistics would be 1998. Any attempt to assess the impact of the legislation at an earlier date would be premature. In 1998, the non-marital birth ratio rose to 32. 8% after remaining at 32.4% for two years running.

To address my omission, I added passage of The Welfare Reform Act to my graph. The line between 1996 and 1997 denotes passage; the later line shows when women who became pregnant the day before the act was signed would have given birth.

Examining the graph, it appears unlikely The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 caused the decline in birth rates in 1995.

Read the rest of this entry »

Violence! Violence!

(Actually, next week will be much more violent).

Car Damaged by Flying Portable Toilet

(UPDATE: Broken link fixed).