The Pursuit of Happiness
| July 19th, 2004Economists David G. Blanchflower of Dartmouth College and Andrew J. Oswald of the University of Warwick in England have done a study which was reported by AIM. Evidently, you would need to give a single person $100,000 a year to buy the amount of happiness one gains through lasting marriage.
We all know the Founding Fathers thought the pursuit of happiness an unalienable right. Moreover, the US Supreme Court has recognized marriage as an unenumerated civil right. So, here is a modest proposal:
If those opposing same sex marriage wish to be fair, they should offer $100,000 a year to each homosexual individual excluded from civil marriage.
That should just about balance things out, right?
July 19th, 2004 at 10:08 am
“homosexual or lesbian”?
This comment was written by Ryan Freebern.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 10:13 am
Opps! I’ll edit!
This comment was written by lucia.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 10:20 am
Actually, shouldn’t it be GLBTQ individuals?
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 10:30 am
Hmmm… I think you are correct. Although, I think there seems to be some dispute as to whether or not the transgendered can legally marry the partner of their choice. Some states seem to insist they marry acording to their DNA traits, some insist they marry according to their new physical appearance. Sigh….
I think we can hash out the wording of the new act here in comments. Sort of like the Republican’s hashed out the FMA.
This comment was written by lucia.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 10:35 am
Hmmm, I’ll “divorce” if we each get 100,000 per year.
This comment was written by wookie.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 11:54 am
Lucia, I wasn’t really being serious. It used to be just “gay rights.” Then it became “gay and lesbian.” Then “bisexual” was added. And “transgendered.” And now increasingly I see “Queer” too, which is apparently now deemed to be a separate category.
I say this not to mock. I passionately support the movement. Just having some fun with the PC-ness of it all.
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 12:29 pm
Don’t worry Don P. I am often less serious than, I suspect , you guess. ;-)
This comment was written by lucia.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 12:54 pm
And now increasingly I see “Queer” too, which is apparently now deemed to be a separate category.
No, “queer” generally refers to the whole gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered thing. Some people don’t like the term, of course.
There’s a long history of tension between gay men and lesbians on whether ‘gay’ is inclusive, and between homosexuals and bisexuals as to whether the latter are really just straight people, so it’s not so much about PC.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 1:38 pm
Obviously, some activists think “queer” is a distinct category or identity. Hence the “GLBTQ” designation.
And I do think political correctness, in the perjorative sense, has to do in part with going overboard in trying to be inclusive and accommodating. There has to be a point at which we stop adding new letters to the name of our movement to identify ever smaller and more contested categories.
I’m pretty sympathetic to separation of the “gay” and “lesbian” categories, though.
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 2:16 pm
For a 100K a year I’ll be gay as all get out. My wife will be, too.
This comment was written by K.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 2:35 pm
hmm.. my happiness is worth 150k a year!!
now if only my JOB would be :D
interesting though, puts an economic value on jobs/family, etc..
so if you could find a job that pays 100k a year, but it would hurt your married and sex life.. well, probably not worth it…
but if the job paid 200k/year.. well then… there is something to think about?
LOL
This comment was written by Trey.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 2:41 pm
I’m not big on the GLBTQ thing.. it is all so difficult to spit out and to feel like you have to include everyone.. but by doing so exclude _someone_…
there was an article a while back that argued that all gay, lesbian, transsexual, queer, bi, etc.. should be titled…
“transgendered”
and I agreed with the article (basically the poles of gender are men of ‘masculine’ characteristics, attracted to women and women of ‘feminine’ characterstics, attracted to men.. and the rest of us are somewhere in between (masculine men attracted to men, transsexual, etc) and thus “trans”
I’d be fine being called transgendered in a ‘larger’ since if it would get rid of the whole BLGTQ thing… but I don’t see it happening.
This comment was written by Trey.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 3:56 pm
>>For a 100K a year I’ll be gay as all get out. My wife will be, too.
Hmmm.. this entitlement program may get pretty expensive.
We could, of course, put it in place, then save the government money by just enacting same sex marriage and getting rid of the entitlement.
This comment was written by lucia.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 4:12 pm
The Pursuit of Happiness
This comment was written by Daddy, Papa & Me.Well it seems that if you are married it makes you happy…
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July 19th, 2004 at 4:50 pm
Anyone see Queer As Folk last night? Wasn’t it great what Debbie did? Now if we could just persuade all sympathetic straight people to refuse to marry until gay couples are granted equal marriage rights, it might do wonders for the cause. I wonder how many straight marriages Maggie Gallagher and her ilk would be willing to sacrifice in order to keep excluding gays.
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 6:23 pm
Trey, I think the kinds of people who worry about what the movement should be called are also the kinds of people who would vehemently object to being told that being attracted to men is somehow “less masculine” than being attracted to women. I like queer as a catch-all term, but pulling the BLGTs out from the Qs in “GLBTQ” is just silly.
This comment was written by yami.Report this comment to the moderators
July 19th, 2004 at 7:29 pm
I guess it depends on what you mean by “masculine.” Science has pretty much disproven the old idea that gay men are essentially women trapped in men’s bodies. Gay male sexuality mirrors straight male sexuality in pretty much every way except that the object of gay male desire is other men rather than women. Pornography, prostitution, promiscuity and a high premium on youth and physical attractiveness in one’s sex partners are overwhelmingly male interests.
This comment was written by Don P.Report this comment to the moderators
July 20th, 2004 at 7:04 am
Doesn’t “Q” stand for “questioning”?
This comment was written by Joe M..Report this comment to the moderators
July 20th, 2004 at 7:50 am
Hence the “GLBTQ” designation.
I have to admit, even out here in San Francisco and environs I don’t see “GLBTQ” used, probably because it sounds like a sandwich.
Yes, at some point you go overboard trying to please everyone; I think gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender pretty much covers everyone.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
July 20th, 2004 at 10:54 am
I’ve heard GLBTQ several times in academic settings.
No, Joe, the Q definitely stands for “Queer” and not “Questioning,” (in every instance I’ve heard, anyway).
And to my understanding, Queer means anyone who is “different” but doesn’t fit into one of the previous letters of the acronym… so a woman who dates women and men but doesn’t consider herself either lesbian or bisexual (maybe because she dates men predominantly?)… or someone who is attracted to people of both sexes but only romantically interested in one sex… or someone who is attracted to transgendered people (see, that would be hard to fit)… etc.
This comment was written by emilie.Report this comment to the moderators
July 20th, 2004 at 11:00 am
well, people may say “gay and lesbian,” but I think that “homosexual” is always construed as meaning both, since it’s so literally just ‘loving one’s own sex’ . . .
This comment was written by acm.Report this comment to the moderators
July 20th, 2004 at 11:41 am
Don P, I think that’s funny and a great idea. I think there’s already alot of straight couples who, while not actively boycotting marriage because of that, are less inclined to marry because gay marriage is illegal. I’m straight and living in sin with a man–we live in an area that has a high percentage of gay and lesbian couples, who are obviously unmarried but living together as well. The trend on my block is to not be married–why buck it?
This comment was written by Amanda.All joking aside, it’s easier to just neglect to get married if alot of people you know also live together without marriage. As long as gay and lesbian couples can’t marry, that’s just that many more straight couples who won’t see the point of marrying themselves.
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July 20th, 2004 at 11:44 am
No, thats the point of the article, there are two poles of gneder. If you are a masculine male attracted to males, you don’t fit the pole, thus ‘trans’. An bisexual is not a pole, thus trans. A overtly ‘feminine’ (whatever that means) male attracted to either or both genders is ‘trans’. A butch or fem lesbian is ‘trans’. A transexual is ‘trans’. etc, etc. ALL of these don’t fit the poles of gender (in physical, orientation and/or behavior characteristics) and thus are ‘trans’. But I don’t want to belabor the point, its all moot. Language seems to have a life of its own and its difficult to make language ‘policy’.
As to Queer, even though I don’t necessarily object to the term, except that I know several of my friends who object to it because they feel the term comes with a certain ‘political-social’ bent they don’t subscribe to.
so.. that leaves us with LBGTQ or whatever.
If there are ’straight’ maybe you can call us all ‘zigzag’… I just don’t care much i guess.
This comment was written by Trey.Report this comment to the moderators
July 20th, 2004 at 11:48 am
But “Q” is definitely used to stand for “questioning,” at least by a lot of people. No question, so to speak, about that. See here, here, here, or here, or here, for some of the first 10 hits (out of 4,700) when you do a search for “GLBTQ” and “questioning.”
This comment was written by Joe M..Report this comment to the moderators
July 22nd, 2004 at 8:59 am
Happiness begets…
This comment was written by Crescat Sententia.There has been much talk (from Amber Taylor, Alas, a Blog, Matthew Yglesias, and many more)of this study, which purports to find that a regular sex life brings about the same happiness as $50,000 a year. The article doesn’t say,…
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