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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• 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.

• Why No-Fault Divorce is a Good Thing. One of my favorite Jake Squid posts, pointing out that No Fault is by far the lesser evil.

• Nick Kiddle responds to Susan Shell’s essay against gay marriage. The best and most thorough response to Shell; I highly recommend it.
• There will soon be a ballot measure in Oregon banning same-sex marriage here, and I expect that the forces of hate and bigotry will win this one. Kip’s commentary is a must-read.
• Same-sex marriage opponents say they just favor Democracy - but not when it comes to Washington, D.C., where if they allowed democracy to function same-sex marriage would probably be legal. Not to mention all the constitutional amendments (state and federal) that, instead of merely forbidding the courts from instituting gay marriage, forbid elected legislatures from allowing gay marriage.
• I agree with Rick Perlstein’s belief that the Democrats will win more - and do better in long-term accomplishments - if they don’t move right. But I don’t find his argument in “How Can the Democrats Win” convincing. What I did find very interesting was his initial discussion of how the stock market enourages American companies to make decisions that are bad for their long-term prospects, using Boeing as his example.

My impression is that relatively few “Alas” readers - lefties that we are - read Andrew Sullivan’s blog often. But I think we should all read his discussion of the Federal Marriage Amendment, so I’m taking the liberty of quoting it here:

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

I’ve created a new sub-category, Same-Sex Marriage: The Scandinavian Question. The reason I created this category is that I wanted to be able to email someone a single link to all of Lucia’s posts on this subject. So, here it is. (I did this without consulting Lucia, by the way.)

Lucia’s posts will continue appearing in the general same-sex marriage category as well, of course.

Those of you who never use the categories, please ignore this post. :-)

Recently, in an NRO article carried at MarriageDebate.com, Senator Sam Brownback (Kansas) explained why the US constitution needs to be amended to prohibit Same Sex Marriage. Belittling the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that enacting Same Sex Marriage would save the tax payers nearly a billion dollars a year, Brownback regurgitates misleading information from articles by NRO columnist Stanley Kurtz. Brownback also seems to suggest that legalized same sex marriage in Scandinavia caused out of wedlock births to increase, marriage rates to fall, and may aggravate the collapse of the entire social welfare system in all of Europe.

Possibly I exaggerate (but I don’t think so). So, let us examine his argument. It seems to consist of:

1. Marriage is good for society because “diminishes public expenditure on welfare, raises government revenues, and produces a more engaged, responsible citizenry.”
2. Europeans think marriage is about love and affection, whereas Americans think it’s about procreation. Moreover, believing marriage is about procreation prevents explosive growth in out of wedlock births.
3. In countries where same sex marriage and registered partnerships have been enacted, marriage has declined and family dissolution is endemic.
4. Same Sex Marriage may aggravate the European birth dearth or at least it won’t improve it. This will cause irreparable harm to their social welfare system.

I will address these ideas and show that Senator Brownback is incorrect on all but point 1. However, if point 1 is true, then we should enact SSM and realize the cost savings and other societal benefits of extending marriage. Moreover, when points 2-4 are corrected to reflect the actual effects of same sex marriage on marriage and society, we will find, if our goal is to benefit heterosexual marriage, same sex marriage should be enacted.

Let me address each idea in turn.

Over on the Family Scholars Blog, David Blankenhorn critiques Kerry’s position on abortion. Kerry, you will recall, says he’s personally anti-abortion but says “I can’t take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist …who doesn’t share it. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America.”

David writes:

Following this logic, shouldn’t we criticize Senator Lieberman for not trying to outlaw eating pork? After all, eating pork is not a theological question - not if you define “theological” as narrowly as David does. (Hat tip: Jake Squid).

I think David’s view is a little too black-and-white to be realistic; abortion is both a moral and a theological question, and the dividing line varies from person to person. For many non-think-tank Americans, abortion is a religious question, and I don’t think it’s possible to understand the abortion debate if you’re not willing to acknowledge that it frequently has a religious component.

For instance, suppose Kerry is against abortion because he believes that God gives each embryo a soul, starting at conception; although Kerry is also familiar with the secular arguments against abortion, he doesn’t believe they hold water. That would certainly make Kerry’s opposition to abortion a religious belief.

Based on that belief, Kerry could decide to be pro-life (reasoning that saving the babies should be his highest priority), or he could decide to be pro-choice (reasoning that he should not enforce his religious beliefs about abortion onto others). Either position strikes me as reasonable and self-consistent (although I personally prefer the pro-choice position).

Now, David is certainly correct to say that taking a position on abortion policy does not require taking a theological stance. But Kerry hasn’t claimed that it does. Kerry has said that, for Kerry, opposing abortion is a theological issue; it doesn’t follow from that statement that Kerry believes that it’s a theological question for everybody.

David continues:

This statement isn’t even remotely true: Most elected Democrats are (alas) opposed to SSM, yet Kerry isn’t “strongly and totally opposed” to most elected Democrats.

Ironically, David is being evasive: As he must know, one can be a registered Democrat and still be a political opponent of Kerry’s (just ask Zell Miller). The question is, David, are you intending to vote for Kerry or for Bush? You have to answer that question before you can credibly claim to not oppose Kerry. (I’m not saying David is required to reveal how he plans to vote - he could just not bring up the question at all. But David is trying to make himself sound credible and objective by claiming he’s not opposed to Kerry - while at the same time, dodging the question of if he opposes Kerry in the election. That won’t wash).

More to the point, I dislike the way David is conflating a reasonable, complex position with evasiveness - as if no politician is allowed to take a nuanced position on any moral question. In essence, all Kerry is saying is that his religion tells him that abortion is immoral, but at the same time he doesn’t believe that all moral questions are best dealt with by a government ban. Rather, on some issues - including issues with a strong connection to religious beliefs, such as abortion - he wants all Americans to have the freedom to make their own moral choices, even if they make choices Kerry would personally disagree with.

That’s a more sophisticated position than David’s implied position (judging from this post, David apparently believes that legislators are required to legally ban every act they feel is immoral), but it’s hardly evasive. In fact, it’s the position that a large number of ordinary Americans hold on abortion, and on many other issues (pornography, alcohol, gambling, etc).

I say this as a partisan - although I am not a registered Democrat, I intend to vote for Kerry. Nonetheless, there is a tendency in politics - on both sides - to interpret any complex or nuanced position as evasiveness or flip-flopping. Whether he’s pro- or anti-Kerry, David’s post is a clear example of this tendency.

• Do the majority of Republicans favor abortion rights? They do according to a new poll, causing the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition to change their name. Here are articles from a feminist website and from a right-wing website.

• Nowadays, even a videotape of someone being raped isn’t enough for a conviction, if the high-priced defense attorneys call the victim “slut” often enough. Who’s on trial?, this LA Times article asks. Blogger Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft is quoted in the article; although I generally admire Ms. Merritt, I’m left wondering if there’s any attack on an alleged victim that she wouldn’t support, if it helped a defendant.
• Quote: “I don’t think it makes you gay just because you beat off to images of Brad Pitt.” Via One Good Thing.
• Cool snowflake toy. I really began enjoying it once I realized that I could add more flake details while it was rotating in 3-d. I had fun with this straight, but probably it wouldn’t be a half-bad time stoned. Via #!/usr/bin/girl, which is stooped low under the weight of all those neato-keen links (and which I found via One Good Thing).
• Fun anecdote about someone who was employed by a major movie studio to read novels, summarize them, and recommend if they should be optioned for movies or not.
• As some of my readers may know, in high school I worked in Norwalk, CT, as Daisy Duck. Then, as an adult, I moved to Portland, Oregon, and started a website. Here’s the odd thing: would you believe that I’m not the only person who has that exact biography?
• The current issue of Willamette Week has a cover story on blogs that begins: “Portland is home to thousands of Web logs. Most of them suck. Here are 17 that don’t.” So I’m flattered that “Alas” made their short list. So did “Alas” blog-child/blog-parent Long Story, Short Pier. The lucky 17 includes a few neat blogs that I had never heard of before, so if you’re looking for neat-o blogs check out the story.
• Speaking of me, there’s a chapter by me in this Xlibris book. The book is mostly concerned with feminist responses to anti-feminism and men’s righters, I think.

First, I highly recommend this animated Lego version of Spiderman 2. It’s pretty much spoiler-free, too.

Second, if you’re a person who enjoys superhero movies, then you should definitely see Spiderman 2. Much better than the first movie, and on the whole better than any other superhero movie I’ve seen. (That may be damning with faint praise).

What most struck me about the movie, aside from the genuinely wowzerific action sequences, was Aunt May’s comment that “I believe there is a hero in all of us.” (Spoilers ahead).
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New Hereville page is up - I finished it just this minute (7:13 am). I really love drawing sequences like the first three panels of this page.

Now I must sleep.

I don’t have time to post today. If you’re looking to have a little creepy fun, though, I highly recommend that you dial the phone. (My only regret is that there aren’t more numbers).

Via #!/usr/bin/girl.

Chickpea Eater’s Bookblog, commenting on Rauch’s arguments in Gay Marriage (and via the invaluable Marriage Debate), writes:

Contrary to Ms. (Mr?) Eater’s analysis, we don’t call professors “professor” to indicate one who does original research; there are obviously many professors who do no original research, and also many non-professors (private-sector research scientists, for example) who do plenty of original research.

We call them “professor” because that is a job title (one of several possible titles) of those who teach at colleges and universities. “Teacher,” in contrast, is a job title for those teaching at other sorts of schools. Calling each person by their correct job title is not, despite Ms. Eater’s claim, any sort of injustice.

Aside from her badly-chosen metaphor, Ms. Eater’s logic - that if we object to any unfair distinction, we are making “an argument against making any distinctions of status” - is nonsense. If I say that a law forbidding Jews from owning property is unjust, I’m not arguing against all distinctions of status. Rather, I’m saying that this particular distinction creates injustice needlessly and should therefore no longer be recognized by law.

To say that teachers are not professors isn’t an injustice; it’s a statement about job categories. On the other hand, to forbid someone by law from teaching because they’re a member of a minority - for instance, to say that homosexuals are not allowed to be teachers - would be an injustice. Straights-only marriage more closely resembles the latter case than the former.

Later in her review, Ms. Eater argues that Rauch is mistaken in his attempt to “pare marriage to its essential core.” I agree with Ms. Eater; marriage is complex and multifaceted, and cannot be sensibly pared down to a single essential core. To any honest observer, it’s obvious that marriage serves many functions simultaneously. As Rauch says, marriage “is two people’s lifelong commitment, recognized by law and society, to care for each other.” But it’s also, as Ms. Eater says, society’s attempt “to encourage biological parents to be committed to taking care of the children they’ve conceived.” And I’d add that “marriage is a family-making bond,” benefiting not only the couple but also any children they’re raising (not only “biological” children).

Years before the gay marriage controversy encouraged many folks in the marriage movement to write op-eds declaring that children conceived through heterosexual intercourse is the sole purpose of marriage, some of those same folks had a more sensible view. Asking “what is marriage,” they said that “marriage is…” a legal contract; a financial partnership; a sacred promise; a sexual union; a personal bond; and a family-making bond. This approach - recognizing the reality that marriage can, does and should serve multiple functions, and can even serve different functions for different people - is far more intelligent and realistic than the “one purpose” analysis most anti-SSM folks have been forced into by their need to exclude homosexuals.

Well, it’s been a year, and I’m still not patriotic. But I still love blowing things up.

More later.

In a comment that ignored the main point of my recent article, Dr. Stanley Kurtz criticized people for ignoring some of his points. My main point was that the drop in the marriage rate in the Netherlands seems to be well explained by the fact that the Netherlands is in Europe. The marriage rate in the Netherlands tracked that in Europe throughout the nineties. It seems very odd to attribute this average variation in the marriage rate to the recent legalization of SSM in the Netherlands.

Overlooking this point, Dr. Kurtz chose to comment on a minor point I made. He objected to this observation:

If I understand Dr. Kurtz’s brief comments correctly, he considers it entirely implausible that a decline in the number of young people entering the marriage pool might have affected the Dutch marriage rate in the 90’s. He suggests the decline is due solely to the increase in cohabitation which is, evidently, caused by legalized SSM. As Dr. Kurtz does not elaborate further, I do not know whether he is denying the fact that there are fewer available couples, or whether he is denying the marriage rate would drop if there were fewer couples.

I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he is aware that, all other social factors being equal, fewer available marriageable couples would mean fewer marriages. Consequently, I will address this question: Are there fewer couples of marriageable age in the Netherlands?

The answer is “yes”.

As most people have noticed, people tend to marry when they are young adults; so young adults might be thought to make up the “marriage pool” in any country. Examining Statitstics Netherland we see that in 1990, the young adult age group, consisting of those between 20-45 years old, made up 41% of the Dutch population. This fraction dropped to 36% by 2003. This 11% decrease in the marriage pool represents roughly two thirds of the 17% decrease in the Dutch marriage rate observed between 1991 and 2002. Consequently, based on this data, one might correctly observe the shift in demographics explains the drop in part. Possibly, it explains more than half the drop in the marriage rate.

It is also useful to note that examining the pool of 20-45 year olds, as I just did, may
underestimate the drop in available couples. On average, Dutch women tend to marry near the age of 27, or nearer the younger end of the 20-45 year old age range. I thought it might be useful to examine the age group between 25-30. Unfortunately, these were availabl at Statistics Netherlands. So, instead, I examined the birth rate statistics to get a rough estimate of the supply of “typical brides” during the 1990s and first few years in the 2000’s, the period Mr. Livestro and Dr. Kurtz are discussing.

I decided to make a rough estimate , reasoning as follows: One might expect the the supply of brides in 1990 to be strongly influenced by the birth rate in 27 years earlier, that is 1963; the supply of brides in 2002 would be affected by the birth rate in 1975. Between these years, Dutch birth rate dropped from 20.9/1000 persons to 13/1000 persons. This represents a 35% drop in potential 27 year old brides during the 90s. This number is twice the 17% drop observed in the marriage rate.¹

Taking the two estimates together, it seems plausible that the drop in the available brides might have a very significant effect on the drop in the marriage rate during the 90s!

Of course, other factors affect the decrease in the marriage rate. These include: the tendency to delay marriage, the tendency to remain single altogether, and the tendency to cohabit rather than marry. I failed to mention these in my previous article, and Dr. Kurtz seems perturbed by my omission. However, it is generally considered a relatively minor sin to name the major cause while omitting minor contributing causes. In contrast, Dr. Kurtz’s insistence on waving away the impact of demographics, which appears to have the major effect on the marriage rate, in favor of his pet theory that the decrease in the marriage rate is due to legalized same sex marriage suggests an obstinate refusal to look at existing data.

Yes, this blogger still believes that to suggest the Dutch decrease in the marriage rate is due to the Dutch legalization of SSM “boggles the mind”.

===== End notes:
[1] Clearly, more complicated analyses are necessary to determine a precise number of eligible couples. My intention is to only to show the drop in available couples is likely substantial. Birth data are available at OECD Fertility Data Baby Boom.

Our own PinkDreamPoppies was the winner of flea’s contest. He was the quickest person to correctly identify all the vibrators featured in both the Dog Toy or Marital Aid quiz and flea’s store, The Honeysuckle Shop.

I suppose I can admit that I only got 9 out of 14 right in the “warm-up round” on that quiz. I just hope people don’t feel the overwhelming need to hide their dogs from me. But I suppose I wouldn’t blame them at all for hiding their dog toys from me.

A fascinating article from 1945: An economist who was a P.O.W. during WW2 describes the POW Camp economy which developed.

Via Crooked Timber (from whom I stole the post title).

Another Thursday, another page of Hereville. I’ve had the last bit of dialog on this page in mind for sooooo long.

…but he ignores 90% of her argument. If you read his post, and then you read Lucia’s post, it really shows how much he didn’t respond to.

[Some speculation about why he didn't include a proper link to "Alas" edited out, in response to an intelligent comment from Karlicko.)