1. Law Dork has an excellent, angry response to people who blame marriage equality activists for asking for equality, rather than waiting.

2. I’m fond of responding to complaints of “judicial tyranny” overwhelming democracy by pointing out that no one should want judges to take a poll of the public’s preference before issuing a decision. While that’s true, it’s also true that courts, like everything else, are reflections of what’s happening in the larger society; as my friend Robert pointed out, the Massachusetts Supreme Court wouldn’t have decided in favor of same-sex marriage 20 years ago. What the courts see in the Constitution changes along with the country’s views.

   Jack Balkin - who, when he’s not blogging, teaches constitutional law at Yale - discusses this issue in his paper What Brown Teaches Us About Constitutional Theory. A much more intelligent discussion of how the courts and public opinion interact (and he explicitly discusses both gay rights and the same-sex marriage question).

3. Speaking of “Judicial Tyranny,” Reason & Liberty has an excellent post pointing out that virtually all groups in America - including conservative groups - appeal to the Courts to enforce their rights. “Why is going to court seeking to vindicate your rights suddenly disreputable just because gay people are doing it?”
4. Along similar lines, the blogger of Life, Law, Gender defends her right to seek redress through the courts, just like any other American.
5. Occasional “Alas” comment-writer Robert just posted the first of a series of posts on his blog explaining his opposition to same-sex marriage. (Please be gentle with Rob, he’s an old college chum.)
6. Interesting development in Oregon: A Republican legislator, who voted for the same-sex marriage ban, is proposing civil union legislation. Good for him. Not all Republican officials in Oregon agree: According to one, “If civil union status is granted, there will be no turning back. The liberals and the homosexual-lesbian coalition will have won and the people’s vote in favor of traditional marriage will have been effectively nullified.” Via CultureWatch
7. On the same topic, The Bend Bulletin has an excellent article discussing prospects for Civil Unions in Oregon in the wake of Measure 36.
8. Civil Unions are looking like a shoe-in in Connecticut, with marriage equality a real possibility.
9. While reading this anti-SSM site (link via Feministe), I came across Jeff Jacoby’s prediction that “a generation after same-sex marriage is legalized, families will be even less stable than they are today, the divorce rate will be even higher, and children will be even less safe.” Could Jacoby have possibly made a more gutless prediction? Given the trend lines over the last several generations, Jacoby’s predictions are safe regardless of if same-sex marriage is legalized.

   There are real ways to consider if SSM harms the institution of heterosexual marriage; for instance, if SSM opponents are correct, then heterosexual divorce rates should increase much faster in Massachusetts than in comparable Northeastern states. Of course, that would put their theories to a real, empirical test, a prospect that SSM opponents haven’t shown any interest in.

10. Andrew Sullivan points to a rare - and perhaps unique - case: A SSM opponent (working for the Family Research Council, no less!) who admits that the “marriage is about procreation” rationalization for denying same-sex marriage is bogus. Here’s the best bit:
    Can we still defend the purpose of marriage as procreation? No, not in the current constitutional climate. It is now clear that the “right of privacy,” conceived by the Supreme Court nearly four decades ago, is the enemy of both marriage and procreation separately, and is especially hostile when they are united. It is also clear that we lost the key battles in defense of this union decades ago, long before anyone even imagined same-sex marriage. And we lost these battles over questions that–to be honest–relatively few of us are really prepared to reopen. How many are ready to argue for the recriminalization of contraception? How many want to argue for a strict legal and cultural imposition of the word illegitimate on certain little children?

    Link via Daddy, Papa and Me.

11. Another study has found that children of same-sex parents turn out more-or-less the same as children of opp-sex parents. This study is notable because its sample is better than previous samples (it’s a national sample, and because the data wasn’t collected with the same-sex parenting issue in mind, it can’t be accused of bias in data collection).

    Tom at Family Scholars Blog , noting that the authors said “while family type wasn’t a factor in how teens fared, family relationships were,” wonders if this might be the researchers’ coy way of covering up that children of same-sex parents had worse relationships with their parents. It’s a reasonable question. (Tom - to his credit - raises the question without assuming any particular answer.)

    Having read the study, I can assure Tom that the data doesn’t show any difference between same-sex and opp-sex parents regarding the quality of their relationships with their kids. In fact, the only difference this study found is that children of same-sex parents “reported feeling more connected to school,” which usually leads to better grades and less dropping out.

    Note that - once again - there is not the slightest shred of evidence to support the claim that being raised by opposite-sex parents is preferable to being raised by same-sex parents. Yet I predict that SSM opponents will continue claiming that social science has conclusively shown children do best when raised by two biological, opposite-sex parents.

12. Andrew Sullivan on the recent elections, and the future of SSM. He’s convinced that same-sex marriage is still a winning cause in the long run, and of course I agree.
13. GayAmerican.org has some strong criticisms of how Basic Rights Oregon fought (and lost) the recent gay-marriage battle.
14. The Republic of T. extensively quotes from an article arguing that Black lesbians and gays have the most to gain - and to lose - from the same-sex marriage struggle.
15. New Human Rights Campaign report: The Cost of Marriage Inequality to Children and Their Same-Sex Parents. The report concentrates on inequalities in insurance, Social Security, and taxes. They also mention the harm done to lesbian and gay veterans and their families by the lack of legal equality, which is an aspect I haven’t considered before.
16. The Supreme Court has turned down a chance to overturn the Massachusetts SSM decision - yay! As far as I’m concerned, the longer we keep this issue from being decided in Federal courts, the better. If SSM is decided in the Supreme Court anytime in the next several years, the best we can hope for is to lose. If we actually won in the Supreme Court, there’d be a nationwide Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage so fast we wouldn’t even have time to inquire about job prospects in Canada.

I don’t publish many photos of myself on this blog, but I just came across this one while cleaning my room, and thought I’d share it. It’s from my sister’s wedding (or, more accurately, her wedding reception) a few years ago. I’m a bit fatter now, and my hair’s a bit longer, but otherwise I look much the same.

I love juggling, but I’m not all that good at it. (Notice how no one is standing near me - a wise decision on their part!) I can juggle balls or beanbags fairly well, including doing some tricks. But I tend to drop clubs after only 15 or 20 passes, and I can’t juggle more than three objects. I should practice more often, but who has time?

It’s a bit embarrassing - I say I’m “cleaning” my room, but really what I’m doing is unpacking, over a year after moving in. And I’m only unpacking now because I need to clear off my second desk so I have room to draw. (It’s fortunate that I own a loft bed, or I couldn’t possibly fit two large desks in my bedroom!)

In her latest column, foxnews anti-feminist (and “ifeminist”) Wendy McElroy tells the story of Norma Khouri, a longtime con artist who wrote a fraudulent account of honor killings in Jordon. Wendy’s point is that people nowadays aren’t skeptical enough:

McElroy’s language clearly indicates a change over time; society “has become” gullible, and “no longer” requires evidence. But when did this less gullible age take place, exactly? Although McElroy assumes that people are quicker to fall to frauds nowadays - due to an alleged new belief in victimhood - in fact, people have always been susectable to frauds, including literary frauds.

For example, the author of the acclaimed 1965 novel The Painted Bird led people to believe that the novel was based on his own life story as a boy brutalized in Holocaust-era Europe. (This book is only one of several best-selling fake holocaust stories - a particularly annoying breed of hoax, since holocaust deniers sieze on these lies as proof of their own lies. Oy.)

The Ern Malley poetry hoax - in which the literary world was fooled into lauding the deliberately awful poetry of a made-up author - took place in 1943.

So scratch off the 20th century in our search for a time when people were smarter skeptics. How about the 19th century - when PT Barnum took an 70ish black woman and put her on tour as the 160-year-old nurse of George Washington? I don’t think so.

The 1700s were also a time of stunning hoaxes, such as an English teacher who drew up a fake 14th-century “Roman” map of Britain which was so widely accepted that it screwed up history books for a generation. That was minor league compared to the widely celebrated “Homer of Scotland,” Ossian, whose works were mostly made up by a schoolteacher.

There’s no reason to believe that there ever was an age of skepticism. Nor do current-day frauds need claims of victimhood to pull the wool over our eyes; Tom Carew’s bestselling hoax Jihad! painted the author as a daring military hero, for example, not as anyone’s victim.

McElroy complains that Norma Khouri’s hoax “should have immediately collapsed of its own weight. But, then, that would have required asking a question.” McElroy’s own claim - that people are any more gullible nowadays - should also have collapsed immediately. But, then, that would have required McElroy to conduct a five-second google search.

* * *

Here’s what I wonder: Why didn’t McElroy use this incident as another opportunity for her signature feminist-bashing? My guess is because many of the people responsible for exposing the hoax were women’s rights activists in Jordon, whereas prominent anti-feminists like Kay Hymowitz fell for the hoax.

* * *

Further links: If you love reading about hoaxes, check out the wonderful blog Museum of Hoaxes. And this blog has more posts on Wendy McElroy, if you’re interested.

Elizabeth at the Family Scholars Blog writes:

First of all, I’m happy that Elizabeth calls me her friend - and I’m quite sure she has feelings. :-)

As for gender neutral marriage, we’ve been moving in that direction for quite a long time; more wives and mothers work, stay-at-home-Dads are increasing (although still a small group), and coverture laws are an archaism. I’m curious to know if Elizabeth would like to undo any of the previous legal steps towards gender-neutral marriage, and if so, which ones.

Elizabeth goes on:

Here’s how I’d sum up the argument in the above paragraph (Elizabeth was nice enough to confirm by email that my paraphrase is accurate):

1. If SSM is allowed, society will be less able to affirm the importance of being raised by two bio-parents.
2. This will likely result in more heterosexual parents either never marrying, or marrying and then divorcing. (This is what Elizabeth means by “more [children] will grow up lacking that key security”).
3. Therefore, we should not allow SSM.

For the sake of this post, I’m going to ignore my disagreements with statements 1 and 2 (and trust me, they are legion). Instead, I want to point out that something’s missing from Elizabeth’s argument. 1 and 2 do not logically lead to 3. There’s something missing - a step between 2 and 3 which justifies the conclusion in step 3.

For example, let’s look at one possibility - let’s call it 2.5.

2.5 Whatever leads to more bio-parents not marrying, or getting divorced, should not be legal.

If we add that, then 1 & 2 logically lead to 3. 1 & 2 together establish that SSM will lead to more bio-parents not marrying, or getting divorced; 2.5 establishes that everything that leads to more unmarried bio-parents should not be legal. Once that’s established, then Elizabeth’s conclusion - that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed - logically follows.

But it’s fairly obvious that Elizabeth - like most opponents of SSM - does not really believe in statement 2.5.

After all, if “whatever leads to more bio-parents not marrying, or getting divorced, should not be legal,” then Elizabeth should logically want to refuse to legally recognize divorce. She should logically favor coverture. She should also be against legal interracial marriage, since interracial marriages are among the most likely to divorce.

It’s safe to assume that Elizabeth doesn’t favor banning divorce, or banning interracial marriage, or bringing back coverture laws. But if Elizabeth doesn’t favor those things, then Elizabeth doesn’t beleive everything that makes it less likely that bio-parents will get married and stay married should not be allowed by law. Which means that she can’t fill in the gap in her argument with statement 2.5, or anything like it.

I think Elizabeth must be using some method of categorization to fill in the gap in her argument. Some things - such as the Marriage Initiative, which I think Elizabeth favors - are acceptable ways of promoting marriage. Other ways - like refusing to legally recognize divorce - are not. And, in Elizabeth’s view, legally recognizing same-sex marriage falls into the “acceptable” catagory.

Putting aside the SSM question for a moment, my guess is Elizabeth’s categories look something like this:

There’s a genuine pattern here, I think. Elizabeth and others would like to use the government’s powers to make it more likely that children will be raised by their own, married, biological parents. However, there’s a general consensus - even, I think, within the marriage movement - that some ways of doing this (category A) are unreasonable and shouldn’t be pursued. No one at the Institute for American Values (Elizabeth’s employer) is suggesting that we bring back coverture or outlaw divorce, for example.

So what differentiates category A from category B? The general principle seems to be that although the government should encourage childrearing by married bio-parents, in the name of the common good, it shouldn’t do so at the expense of removing civil rights or endorsing outright discrimination.

Instead, the government is allowed to use the methods in category B: the government can cajole, the government can persuade, the government can educate.

Here’s what puzzles me: I’m sure that Elizabeth would agree that the government should be doing a lot to encourage a society in which more children are raised by married bio-parents. I’m sure that she would also agree that some means of doing this are acceptable, and some are not. I suspect that if she made a list of acceptable and unacceptable methods, it might look pretty similar to my two lists above.

It seems obvious to me that refusing to recognize same-sex marriage belongs in catagory A, similar to refusing to recognize divorce, refusing to recognize interracial marriage, and so forth. But Elizabeth must think it belongs in category B, similar to providing tax breaks and marriage education programs. And I genuinely don’t understand why.

This is, I think, the issue I’d like to see Elizabeth address - the missing piece of her argument. She clearly doesn’t favor everything the government could do to reduce the number of divorced bio-parents - for instance, she doesn’t favor the government refusing to legally recognize divorce. So I’d like to know the rules she uses to catagorize things which are, and things which are not, acceptable ways for the government to encourage married bio-parenting; and why refusing to recognize same-sex marriages belongs in the “acceptable” category.

P.S. Many thanks to “Alas” reader Tina for emailing me a solution to my table formatting problem!

Page 18 of Hereville is up. (Two weeks in a row - will miracles never cease?)

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I’ve had a very busy week - my day job has been busy, I drew Santa Claus for some newspaper ad, I did a Hereville page and - oh yeah - we’re having dinner for 21 here tomorrow. Unfortunately, this all adds up to very little time to post on “Alas,” as y’all have probably noticed. I’m hoping to post more next week.

Meanwhile, of course, y’all have kept the comments section hopping.

It’s probably wrong on some level to celebrate Thanksgiving, given the history, but I’m willing to be a hypocrite in exchange for the meal and the company. (Of course, in Hereville, Mirka’s family does this every week!) I hope that those “Alas” readers who don’t boycott Thanksgiving have a wonderful tme tomorrow. (And those who do, you’re a better person than me!)

OxBlog reports that “twenty-five bloggers and civil society activists have been arbitrarily arrested in recent weeks” in Iran. Oxblog reproduced this message from the World Movement for Democracy, which I’m reproducing as well, in the hope that “Alas” readers will take a moment to send an email.

The Rightysphere’s a-buzz with their new claim: Liberal cartoonists are making racist attacks on Condeoleezza Rice! The IWF, incapable as ever of expressing an original thought, jumps on the bandwagon:

Let’s look at the cartoons they’re talking about. First, Jeff Danziger’s:

The cartoon is based on a character from “Gone With the Wind.” Here’s Danziger’s defense (via Rambling’s Journal):

It’s true that Danziger isn’t particularly a liberal, unless your definition of liberal is “anyone who criticizes George W. Bush.” If you look at Danziger’s cartoons from back when Clinton was in office, he was just as harsh on the Dems (for example, here, here [a quite funny one depicting Democratic racism, by the way], and here).

But I don’t think the rest of Danziger’s explanation helps him out. Danziger says that Rice “happens to be African-American,” as if he were depicting her without regard to her race. But that’s nonsense. It’s only because she’s black that it makes any sense to draw her as a black stereotype from “Gone With the Wind” - and drawing her that way doesn’t make fun of her lies or her politics, it just makes fun of her race.

It’s a racist cartoon, and pointing to a past history of non-racist cartoons - or, pathetically, trying to blame it on an unnamed black friend - won’t rescue it.

Next, Pat Oliphant:

I think this is borderline racist. There’s nothing wrong with depicting Rice as a parrot - doing so in no way makes fun of her race, and the cartoon would make just as much sense if she were white. But why did he have to draw her lips that way? Yes, it’s a cartoonist’s job to exaggerate, but a caricaturist as hugely skilled as Oliphant could have drawn Rice without reminding us of the history of racist big-lipped caricatures of blacks. (From the interviews I’ve read, my guess is that Oliphant would dismiss such a concern as political correctness.)

On the other hand, contrary to the IWF’s claims, Oliphant’s hardly a liberal. He’s a “whoever’s in power is my enemy” cartoonist; if anything, he leans a little to the right (see his cartoons criticizing teachers and teachers unions, for example).

(Incidentally, back when Bush senior was in office, Oliphant did a series of offensively homophobic cartoons depicting Bush as a mincing, flaming gay man, which I thought were pretty disgusting.)

Finally, the Doonesbury:

The Doonesbury cartoon isn’t at all derogatory towards Ms Rice; it is derogatory towards Bush and his famous habit of giving nicknames to people. At most, it suggests that Bush might be racist - which may be an unfair thing to say, but it’s not a racist thing to say.

So, what’s the score? The IWF, attempting to smear liberals, makes three accusations - but two of them, while racist, aren’t by liberals, and the third, while liberal, isn’t racist. As usual, the IWF scores zip on truthfulness. On the other hand, it is disturbing that two of the most mainstream, well-known figures in the editorial cartoon biz are producing racist strips, and it’s good that the righties are bringing this some attention (even if I suspect many of them are more concerned with being anti-liberal than anti-racist).

Page 17 is (finally) up.

I keep on forgetting to post these Dollars and Sense cartoons after each issue is published. This cartoon is from the October issue. The teacher in the last panel is a caricature of my sister (who teaches second grade in Ithaca, New York).

Kind of interesting article in the Inclusion Daily Express about how saving Terri Schiavo through pro-life activism, has led to the disability rights issues being overlooked. The article criticizes both pro-life and pro-choice groups.

More “Alas” posts regarding Terri Shiavo.

Both the mainstream media (including some folks who favor same-sex marriage) and SSM opponents tend to speak as if last week’s elections have changed anything in the fight for SSM. For instance, in the comments to this post on Family Scholars blog, SSM opponent “Marty” asks us, “would you like some condescension with my gloating?”

Marty, dude: Maybe you should reflect on the fact that “retrospect” is not a verb. That aside, what Marty doesn’t seem to understand is that almost no one in the pro-SSM movement expected the pony this year. In statement after statement before the election, SSM activists admitted that 10 of the ballot measures were a lost cause for us, and the 11th was far from a shoe-in.

So, we ended up losing 11 of 11, rather than the 10 of 11 that was our best-case scenario. Since that was pretty much the result we expected, I don’t see any reason to change our views or our long-term strategy. No matter what, we knew that in this year’s ballot measures, our asses were going to be kicked. It’s called “backlash,” and it’s the inevitable result of progress. (Besides, the states were mostly “low hanging fruit” for the anti-SSM movement - 10 of the 11 had “defense of marriage” laws on the books even before this election).

The Times has an article suggesting that SSM activists, after the election, are backing down on lawsuits, but I think the reporter is spinning (or perhaps being spun). Activists quoted in the article say that they’re not going to be pursuing Federal lawsuits, which is good - winning in Federal courts at this time, even if we could do it, would only help our opponents by making it possible for them to pass a Federal (anti) Marriage Amendment. But that’s nothing new.

But no one in the article is talking about backing down from state-level lawsuits in places like New Jersey and Washington. As far as I can tell, the overall strategy hasn’t changed - nor should it have. It’s true that we have to win over hearts and minds, not just courtrooms; but our strongest tool for winning over hearts and minds will be the normalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts (and hopefully a couple of other states as well).

Meanwhile, as a result of the controversy over marriage equality, Connecticut is going to enact a civil union law, to provide relief for some of the extreme and concrete inequalities (hospital visitation, etc). I think we’ll see more of this sort of thing happening over the next decade. A similar thing happened during the fight for the ERA; because of the ERA controversy, public attention was brought to many legal inequalities, causing many of those inequalities to be addressed by Congress. Giving up on the ERA and aiming lower wouldn’t have been nearly as effective.

I don’t normally link to these quizzes, but this one - How Sketchy Are You? - was quick and fairly fun. I’m 53% sketchy, by the way. Via Noli Irritare Leones, who is only 18% sketchy, which I find amazing (how could anyone score that low?).

A friend of a friend of mine, writing about same-sex marriage, wrote this on her blog. I haven’t linked to it, because I don’t think this person wants a link from “Alas,” but I can’t resist replying to it:

1) In only one of the four states where gay marriages were legally recognized, was a court responsible (the famous Massachusetts Supreme Court Goodridge decision). In the other three states, the same-sex marriages were put in place by elected officials and then invalidated or halted by judges. Both sides of the SSM debate have used judges to further their cause - your side more than mine.

2) More fundamentally, your comment ignores that judges (or, more accurately, courts) are not an outside imposition on the American system. They are part of the system, part of the Constitutional design of checks and balances. Are you seriously suggesting that courts should not be allowed to over-rule the legislature - or the popular will - ever? Should courts take polls of public preferences before issuing legal opinions? That’s an approach which goes radically against the Constitution’s design.

3) To claim that the Massachusetts judges ever said or implied “the masses are too stupid to know what’s good for them” is a lie, and one that covers up the real issues. What they actually said, in the Goodridge decision, is that the equal protection provisions of the Massachusetts Constitution prevents the state government from providing marriage rights to opposite-sex couples but not to same-sex couples. They didn’t say a word about what was good or bad for the masses, or about the intelligence of people who are against SSM.

I happen to think that the Goodridge judges were correct, but I admit that it’s possible for someone to disagree with me in good faith. Will you admit the reverse - that when judges make a decision you disagree with, it’s possible they were interpreting the law as best they understand it, and not actually accusing the masses of being stupid?

In the post before this one, I argued that one of the most common arguments against marriage equality is a bait and switch. Rather than arguing against marriage equality itself, opponents argue that ideally children should be raised by a mom and a dad. Then they tell people that in order to insure that children are raised by moms and dads, we must oppose marriage equality.

Marriage equality opponents must know that this is nonsense. All over the country, and (outside of Massachusetts) without legal marriage, same-sex couples are raising children. They are not waiting for legal marriage, nor will banning legal marriage give the government a new right to take children away from same-sex couples. The policy marriage-equality opponents propose - banning same-sex marriage - does not in any way solve the problem they claim to be responding to, which is children growing up in homes without two biological parents.

This fundamental disconnect between their (stated) goals and their policy is a problem for marriage equality opponents. They want the law to discriminate against same-sex couples; at the same time, they genuinely don’t want to be seen as anti-gay bigots. So they have to somehow connect “protecting the children” (a goal that’s not anti-gay) with discrimination against lesbians and gays.

The way some of them make the link is to argue that whenever the law treats two things with legal equality that sends a message. According to this worldview, by allowing marriage equality, Massachusetts has “sent a message” which says that no child needs a mom or a dad.

There are two problems with this point of view.

First of all, it’s simply, factually wrong: equal legal treatment sends no such message. If it did, then by allowing criminals in prison to marry, the US has sent the message that convicted murderers are just swell as parents and mates, and that kids don’t need two parents out of prison. By allowing the KKK a legal right to march, the government says the KKK is just as good as Veterans marching on Veterans Day. And so forth.

In fact, no such message is sent. I defy you to locate one non-KKK member who has been convinced that because the KKK has an equal legal right to march, they must be just as admirable as all other groups that march. People simply don’t think that way.

The paradox is, although no particular message is sent by equal treatment, a definite message is sent by prejudicial treatment. As long as marriage inequality continues, the US is sending a message that lesbians, gays and their children are second-class citizens (a message that’s particularly harmful to lesbian and gay teens). This may seem like a contradiction in my position, but it’s not. The discrimination marriage equality opponents favor is active discrimination; in contrast, equal treatment is a government’s way of being neutral, sending no message at all.

So, for instance, if the government bans all paintings of clowns (wistful thinking, I know), that sends a message that clown painting deserves contempt and lesser treatment. Does it follow that by not banning clown paintings, the government is saying a clown painting has just as much value as a Mary Cassatt’s The Bath? Of course not; the government is simply remaining neutral and letting the culture decide for itself what to value.

* * *

I said there were two reasons the “we can’t allow marriage equality because that sends a message that moms and dads are unnecessary” logic is flawed. One problem is that it’s factually wrong; equal, neutral treatment sends no message. The second problem is that the anti-equality logic treats the lives and rights of lesbians, gays and their children as tools to be used to benefit heterosexuals.

The lives of same-sex families aren’t post-it notes! If marriage equality opponents wish to send a message, they should by all means write opinion pieces, or agitate for more healthy heterosexual families on TV. But don’t use lesbian and gay lives for your op-ed statement. Same-sex families are human beings, as precious as any heterosexual family; injustice to them cannot be justified by saying injustice sends a valuable message.

The anti-marriage equality case rests on the implicit belief that any harm to same-sex families, however huge, is justified if it prevents any difficulty to heterosexuals, however tiny or theoretical. That view is simply not compatible with a worldview that sees lesbians, gays and their children as human beings equal in value to all other humans.

* * *

(Note that I haven’t addressed the question, “are mothers and fathers necessary?” That’s a topic for another post.)

Over on Marriage Debate, Eve disagrees with Michael Triplett’s claim that “anti-gay marriage initiative campaigns were not waged on a ‘we need to save fragile marriage’ platform”:

I don’t want to spend much time rehashing the election. Eve’s allies won, my allies lost. Maziltov to you, Eve. But let’s remember that the vast majority of voters are not doing a daily Nexis search of the papers; they did not see what Eve saw.

What the majority of Oregon voters did see is flyers like this one, which claimed that if they didn’t support Measure 36, “gay and lesbian sex will be taught in Oregon schools.” A similar message was given to all Oregonians via push polling.

The same thing was true in the voter’s ballot delivered to the home of every Oregon voter - a theme repeated again and again by Measure 36’s advocates is that this was a vote about what children will be taught in schools.

To be fair, the “Yes on 36″ crowd also distributed a flyer saying “children do better with a mom and dad” (along with the usual anti-SSM lies about what social science research says), which by Eve’s standards possibly qualifies as being “focused on marriage.” I disagree; since same-sex couples will raise children regardless of Measure 36, logically the issue of “shall same-sex couples be permitted to raise children” is distinct from the issue of SSM’s legal status. In essence, SSM opponents are performing a bait-and-switch; they’re promising to do something about providing all kids “a mom and dad,” when actually their proposed policy does no such thing.

Could they have won this election without the “faggots will teach your kids gay sex” boogieman? I don’t know. Clearly, they didn’t think they could win without bringing up such nonsensical claims (in Oregon, anyway).

However, they did win - and they won by telling virtually every Oregonian, in multiple ways, that the alternative to their ballot measure was teaching children gay sex in public schools. By doing so, I think that they (and their fellow-travelers) have given up the ability to reasonably claim that this was an election “focused on marriage.”

UPDATE: Michael Triplett replies to Eve as well.

I’m hardly a religious person, but I still found this worth reading. The best bit:

Read the whole thing.

Let me admit this right up front: this sucks. It’s depressing. And it makes things harder for the immediate future.

The big mistake the Democrats, and most of the left, made was to believe that by winning elections we will change the country.

Just the opposite is true. It is only by changing the country that we will win elections.

We need to stop thinking in terms of winning elections, and start thinking about persuading more of the country to believe our ideas. If we do that, elections will follow.

What does that mean for the left? We still lack an effective left counterpart to the Heritage Foundation and the Fox News Network; by which I mean, we lack effective institutions dedicated not to pushing our candidates but instead to pushing our ideas. And that’s killing us.

Some lefty blogger just sent me an email saying that we should say “We’re preparing for 2006 and 2008 and 2010 and 2012 now.” To which I say, stop thinking in terms of even-numbered years. We need to build institutions that change the way our society thinks, and if that program doesn’t fit into a two-year electoral cycle, then throw away the cycle.

Nader has the right idea - he’s out there running a campaign for progressive ideas. The problem with Nader is that presidential elections aren’t an effective platform for progressive ideas. By concentrating on being a presidential candidate, Nader guarantees that the only thing that anyone discusses about him is his “spoiler” potential. I admire Nader enormously, but we have to get away from thinking that elections are how we advance progressive ideas.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t vote for Nader, or for Cobb, or for Kerry. I’m saying we should stop thinking that “Nader vs Kerry” is a pressing issue for us to argue about. Elections must stop being the center of our political universe.

Measure this fight in generations, not in elections. In 1984, marital rape was still legal in most states and not even Walter Mondale would have dared come out in favor of civil unions. In 2004, even with control of all three branches of government, pro-lifers are waging war on “partial birth” abortions because they don’t think they can win a fight against the other 99.9% of abortions. Massachusetts has same-sex marriage, and with the failure of the FMA that’s not going away.

I’m still thinking about what this all means for reproductive rights, for lesbian and gay rights, for women’s rights, and for gender freedom in general. I’ll be posting more about this in weeks to come. But I remain confident that - despite hard times to come, despite Bush’s re-election, despite the loss of gay marriage measures throughout the country, and despite the Supreme Court’s likely change in the next few years from “bad” to “Holy Fuck!” - the momentum of history remains on our side.

In 1986, Ronald Reagan won re-election, and the world seemed pretty hopeless. Look at all that’s happened since then - not all good, but real progress has been made. Not all of the next twenty years will be good, either - but that doesn’t mean that we can’t move forward a lot between now and 2024.

Measure in generations, not in elections.

So as I’m sure most “Alas” readers know by now, the marriage equality movement lost eleven out of eleven ballot measures this election. I’m not surprised; there were only a couple of states where we had any chance of winning, and even they were long shots.

What you may not know is that we won a major victory this election day, as well. Every single Massachusetts legislator who voted against the Massachusetts anti-SSM amendment won re-election.

From Mass Equality’s press release:

So, hooray for same-sex marriage in Massachusetts - odds are, it’s here to stay.

And five or ten years from now - when it’s clear that Massachusetts divorce rates (already the lowest in the USA) haven’t skyrocketed, that teachers aren’t being fired for talking about moms and dads, and that children aren’t being taught mechanics of lesbian and gay sex in schools - the fear mongering tactics of the anti-equality forces will start sounding very shallow to more and more Americans.

And that’s when we’ll see many of today’s anti-gay ballot measures undone.

The election is (mostly) over, and it’s become clear that, barring a miracle, the other folks won. I congratulate them, and hope they have a joyful night full of hugs and victory toasting and party hats.

I’m sad Bush won re-election (although I sure hope he winds up winning it cleanly), and I’m pissed as hell that the anti-gay Ballot Measure 36 passed in Oregon (as did its counterparts in 10 other states).

But you know? The fight goes on. And if Kerry had won, or if Measure 36 had failed, then the same fight would still have gone on. Sure, the playing field might have looked a little different, but our opponents wouldn’t have rolled over and died. They would have played on, getting every victory they could. We need to do the same. And those of us who are far enough left so that we want to transform society, not just win elections - our fight really doesn’t change that much depending on who’s in the White House.

Bush was president last year, and we didn’t despair, we didn’t give up. Next year Bush will still be president, and I for one will not despair, will not give up. Why should I? Nothing has changed.

Get drunk. Get joyful. Get laid, if that’s what you’re into. Get high. Get giggly. Get dancing. Get some damn sleep already. And then get back up, and get active. Get ready to get started, because the next four years will need you more than ever.

Original text below the link, but it’s pretty darn moot now.
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