The Boston Herald reports on the first same-sex couple to have both parents’ names listed on the birth certificate. In Massachusetts, “under state law, married couples that have a child through artifical insemination are automatically recognized as parents.”

Astoundingly, David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values objects.

First of all, why didn’t David or other marriage movement folks raise a stink about this “could-care-less-about-children” law in the years it existed before same-sex marriage became an issue?

More importantly, it’s obvious that the intent - and the result, in most cases - of such a law would be to benefit children. It clarifies that a child created through artificial insemination is part of the family as a whole, and that both parents are legally responsible for the child’s well-being. It gives a child two parents, instead of just one. What on earth about that implies that the lawmakers don’t care about children?

Finally, it’s obvious that David, like most SSM opponents, is a chicken little (”the society is falling! the society is falling!”). This law doesn’t radically transform the meaning of “parent” to “a married adult in the household”; it applies only in the specific and narrow case of a birth via artificial insemination to an already-married couple. In essence, this law is nothing but an speeded-up adoption law for infertile couples using artificial insemination; far from attacking the family, it supports it.

The FMA was voted down. Now we move on to H.R. 3313, The Marriage Protection Act.

This bill scares me, and not just because it prevent full recognition of same sex marriage. DOMA already interferes with that. While I don’t like DOMA, it’s not flat out terrifying. In contrast, the Marriage Protection Act has the potential to wipe out the separation of powers.
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Economists 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:

That should just about balance things out, right?

Last week I commented on the right to presumed parenthood when one’s spouse gives birth. I think most recognize that right as a major benefit of marriage. As couples marry, it’s also worth keeping track of the little things. Today, Newsday.com reports that Geico will recognize same sex marriage when issuing car insurance policies (at least in NY state.)

It’s even better though. I initially, Geico refused. That prompted David Hroncich to contact other companies. So, Allstate, and State Farm both will now follow the New York state attorney general’s interpretation of state law and recognize same sex marriage when issuing insurance.

Of course, getting better car insurance is hardly the main point of marriage, as Hroncich says:

So, felicitations to Hroncich and his husband. And applause to the NY state for extending recognition to marriages performed out of state.

I love these things: Red/Blue quiz.

I came out just to the red side of the center; the diagnosis was: “Time to get out of the sun, you’re looking a little Red.” (Although, this may surprise some, it is true. I am just to the right of the center. )
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Washington Blade quotes Lisa Rue, president and CEO of Friends First:

I guess there are some conservatives who believe same sex marriage is already here. And maybe that’s a good thing!

In “Presumed Maternity” I mentioned that, Dr. Susan Shell was under the impression gays and lesbians didn’t want presumed parenthood as part of marriage. She also suggested their desire to avoid presumed parenthood is a reason same sex marriage should not be enacted. That sounded wrong to me then; it still does.

The Boston Heraldreports:

Visit the paper, you’ll see the two women who look pretty darn happy! It seems they are very specifically happy with the right to presumed parenthood:

Yes. I still think this is an important marital benefit advocates of same sex marriage long for.

Page 11 is now online. Please let me know what you think.

Good news from CBC news

Looks like yesterday was a good day for North America!

Appearing side by side at MarriageDebate.com, we see Maggie Gallagher’s and Ramesh Ponnuru’s separate takes on the 48 Yay- 50 Nay procedural vote regarding the FMA. Both Gallagher and Ponnuru have published articles on same sex marriage at NRO; let’s compare and contrast their takes on the following question.

Why didn’t the Democrats filibuster to prevent a vote?

Maggie Gallagher:

Well, I hadn’t read that reason in any other stories. She also suggests:

In contrast, Ramesh Ponnuru is under the impression

Ponnuru suggests three possible motives for the Republican’s decision to avoid the direct vote on the FMA. Reason number 2 is:

(Bold added.)

So, no, it wasn’t all those faxes and phone calls. The Democrats weren’t afraid of the various rewritten versions of the amendment the Republicans were frantically preparing during the wee hours of the night. The Democrats didn’t filibuster because no political party filibusters when they are going to win the vote.

Reading Maggie’s article, it seems Ramesh is correct about motive #2. Not only that, looks like Maggie is out of the loop and is still hoping voters haven’t read it was the Republicans who decided to avoid the vote. Ramesh, give Maggie a buzz and let her know the full story leaked.

Just in, email from Cheryl A. Jacques of the Human Rights Campaign:

To learn how your Senator voted, click here. (My Senators Durbin (D) and Fitzgerald (R) voted Nay and Yea respectively. )

Cheryl Jacques does warn the battle is not over. It is anticipated that next week the House will be discuss marriage equality. Naturally, y’all will be hearing more.

In a comment posted today, July 14, 2004, Rich Lowry complains about Andrew Sullivan’s language:

If I understand Lowry correctly, he is accusing Sullivan of using adjectives that favor his own point of view. Horrors!

Yet in an article, published just yesterday, Rich Lowery described John Edwards using these words:

Tendentious. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Earlier today, Republicans in the Senate suffered an embarassing loss on their federal marriage amendment; there was no vote on the amendment at all, and they weren’t even able to get 50% of the Senate to vote for closing the debate. The final vote tally was 48-50; the two missing votes, of course, were Senators Kerry and Edwards.

I suppose I should be thrilled, but I’m not. The inability of the anti-gay side to be even a little honest about anything is too depressing; Republicans in the House are already proposing a non-Constitutional method of keeping the courts from overturning DOMA, after months of claiming that there was no possible way aside from amending the Constitution, and that they were only doing that as a last resort. Well, I guess the important thing is that they got to spread an extra bit of anti-gay hate into the world.

I’m dispirited also by how weak the Democrats I saw on C-SPAN were in debate, and (as GA says) how many of them took the “of course I’m against gay marriage, but…” line. Not to mention the political cowardice shown by Kerry and Edwards. (If being cowardly is the way to win elections, why did the Democrats get their asses kicked in 2002?)

The good news is, poll after poll after poll has shown that young people are much more on the side of fairness and equality. As bruising as all these short-term skirmishes are, in the long term we’ve already won the war. In a couple of generations, no politician will dare speak out against marriage fairness, and the folks who are currently taking a brave stand againast equality will all be lying to their grandchildren about what they did during the second Bush administration.

From Reuters, some good news.

As far as I am aware, Prof. Eugene Volokh did not participate in Alas A Blog’s “Poll: Cause and Effect”. If he did not, his opinion would not have been reflected in our results.

As I am indulgent, I will accept his late vote. It is clear he does not believe correlation equals causation.¹ This means my position that Same Sex Marriage can cause changes in the the non-marital birth ratio and these can easily be seen in the data. now has only 1 vote out of 9 cast. (It previously had 1 vote out of 8 cast.)

My only consolation is that this outcome suggests people also don’t believe Dr. Kurtz.
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From the paper I read when I eat my morning Cheerios , The Wall Street Journal, advising a “No” vote on the Allard-Musgrave amendment.

So, the major point: leave it to the states.

Now a minor point:

I’m assume this means the Senate isn’t voting both versions I mentioned in my previous article. It sounds like the Dem’s forced the Rep’s to stick to the original two line version they worked so hard to bring forward– and then edit when they found even some Republicans don’t like it.

One of the most interesting things about the proposed FMA act is that there are two versions, and supporters can’t even decide which one they want to propose.

Should the amendment consist of this sentence only:

Or should they add this:

According to Dallas/Fort Worth CBS11 news:

Doesn’t it at least sound like the amendment would also prohibit voters from modifying their state constitutions to permit civil unions or domestic partnerships? Or if they modified them to permit these, those amendment must be set aside? If it reads that way, isn’t it possible a court would interpret it that way?

No matter what the answer to that question, I think Cheryl Jacques is correct when she says:

==== Afterward!
When I first posted, I failed to mention why there are two versions. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the two sentence version, which the Republicans were pushing might fail to musters even a simple majority.

• Via Eschaton, I really enjoyed this debate between Ralph Nader and Howard Dean. On the whole, Dean makes a better case, but Ralph gets some good points in - particularly on how little Kerry is really offering voters interested in lesbian and gay issues. John Anderson also makes some great comments from the audience.

• The strange conceptions some mainstream comic book artists have of female body parts always amazes me. It’s actually gotten much worse since I started reading comics - back then no one would have drawn the crotch in such bizarre detail. (Consider yourself warned).
• Maggie Gallagher recently published the story of an adult child who (gasp) doesn’t think her lesbian parents did a good job raising her. (Good thing children of straight parents never feel that way!) Then, defending herself from charges of drawing conclusions from an anecdote, Ms. Gallagher argued that she just published it because “is a viewpoint I have NEVER seen represented in print. Not once.” Daddy, Papa and Me makes an interesting point:
  …out of the decade or more [she’s been writing] about gay adoption, parenting, and marriage, Ms. Gallagher has NEVER seen a story like this represented in print? Out of the (I assume) thousands of words she has written and read on the topic, she has NEVER seen such a story?…

  Isn’t that telling?

  There’s lots more, so read the whole thing.

• A very interesting New York Times Magazine article about the current alternative comics movement (although nearly all of the cartoonists it describes in fact came out of the 80s alternative comics movement). Sure to annoy fans of the internet-comics movement, which is totally ignored; but still worth reading for the quotes from cartoonists like Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Chester Brown, Julie Doucet, Alan Moore, and many other brilliant people. (Also, for once, the author seems to know about and like comics.)
• David Cole describes what it’s like behind the scenes with Bill O’Reilly.

UMASS economist M. V. Badgett has released a “discussion paper” examining the evidence from Scandinavia and the Netherlands - available in both html and pdf formats. You can also read a short summary of the paper’s conclusions here.

In essence, the evidence is consistant with the common-sense idea that same-sex marriage has no impact on straight marriage. The vast majority of heterosexuals deciding whether or not to marry, aren’t basing their decision on if same-sexers have legal recognition of their relationships.

The paper also makes this point, about how heterosexual marraiges are even less likely to be affected in the US:

Incidently, folks interested in the statistics and social-science side of the SSM debate should check out Professor Badgett’s site, which is full of interesting papers.

I can help but notice the vigorous debate about religion and ethics precipitated by Amp’s articles Is abortion a religious question? (78 comments so far) and Making Distinctions Between the Distinctions We Make (107 comments to date). Clearly, we all have different opinions about the correct way to make moral judgments.

Now, by way of Procrastination, I learn we can quantify our differences of opinion by taking this quiz. (I am, of course, a big fan of quantification. It permits me to spew forth statistics at some later time.)

My results:

1. John Stuart Mill (100%)
2. Epicureans (96%)
3. Aristotle (92%)
4. Aquinas (81%)
5. Kant (78%)
6. Jeremy Bentham (77%)
7. Ayn Rand (73%)
8. Spinoza (60%)
9. Prescriptivism (54%)
10. Stoics (54%)
11. Ockham (52%)
12. Jean-Paul Sartre (50%)
13. St. Augustine (41%)
14. Nietzsche (38%)
15. Cynics (36%)
16. David Hume (36%)
17. Plato (34%)
18. Thomas Hobbes (28%)
19. Nel Noddings (24%)

I am surprised to learn I am not a Cynic. I’m glad to see I agree with the Epicureans; I can now continue my diet of chocolate chip cookies and wine. As an apostate Roman Catholic, I was sort of hoping St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas would fall to the bottom of my list. Alas, no.