Archive for December, 2004

It’s been a good week for “Hereville”

Posted by Ampersand | December 13th, 2004

This has certainly made my day; Hereville was included on The WebComics Examiner’s list of “The Best Webcomics of 2004.” Neat!

About 20 comics made the list, including three comics by other Girlamatic cartoonists: Dicebox by my pal Jenn Manley Lee, The Stiff by Jason Thompson, and Bite Me! by Dylan Meconis. (See? All the more reason for you to subscribe to Girlamatic!)

I’m in the Washington Post today!

Posted by Ampersand | December 12th, 2004

No, really.

Wonder if I’ll get any new “Hereville” readers out of it?

I’m told that the print version has an illustration (one of my self-portraits) along with the article.

By the way, in the hopes of retaining a few readers who might check Hereville out because of the Post mention, the entire Hereville archive is free this week. So if you want to reread the 20 Hereville pages so far and you’re too cheap to subscribe (just kidding!), this week is the time to do it.

If you’d like to read the whole interview (which was conducted by email), check it out below the fold. I deliberately kept my answers short (for me), since I knew the article would have a small word count. I was very, very tired when I did this, so my answers are less-than-brilliant, alas.
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What fat people and gay people have in common, part two

Posted by Ampersand | December 11th, 2004

In the previous post, I quoted from various peer-reviewed articles on dieting, to try and establish one point: Weight-loss programs do not work for most fat people over the long term.

Now that we’ve read all that (or skimmed it, or skipped it), let me return to Don’s question: Why do I think being fat is like being lesbian or gay?

There’s a question so often asked in queer-rights rhetoric, it’s become a cliché: “Why would anyone choose to be gay? The point is, being a widely despised minority is not fun. It’s not easy. It involves a lot of suffering, for many people. It’s not something that most people would choose. (Although, thanks to the lesbian and gay rights movement, it is now easier for many lesbians and gays than it used to be).

By the same logic, why would anyone choose to be obese? Fat people are discriminated against in jobs, are widely seen as lazy and unattractive, and are taught a truly stunning level of self-hatred. It’s not something most people would desire for themselves.

Peer-reviewed studies show that 92-96% of weight-loss plans fail over the long run - and those studies count anyone who takes off 10% or 15% of their weight as a “success.” The failure rate would be a lot higher - I’d guess more like 99% - if the measurement of “success” for fat dieters was “this person is no longer fat.” It’s clear, I think, that weight-loss treatments don’t work.

Nonetheless, some people will respond as Don did:

The reason they fail is that their subjects choose to return to their old habits of diet and exercise. No one is forcing them to eat Big Macs and drink 64oz Big Gulps rather than salads and diet soda. No one is forcing them to sit around and watch television rather than get up and go for a walk. These are personal choices.

Don’s right, in a sense (ignoring, for lack of a civil response, his stereotypes about fat people). In theory, any fat person could become thin, if they only kept up what the New England Journal of Medicine called “extreme measures” - extreme low-calorie diets and tons of hard exercise - for the rest of their lives. (One formerly fat person who commented on the earlier thread, said that she exercises four hours every day).

By the same token, any lesbian or gay person could “not be gay,” in the sense of repressing their real desires and marrying a person of the opposite sex. (Historically, how many lesbians and gays lived their entire lives like this? There’s no way of knowing, but hundreds of thousands seems like a reasonable guess).

So in theory, every fat person and every queer person could choose “not to be.” Just choose to eat as little as an anorexic, and exercise four hours every day, for your entire life. Just choose to repress your core sexual identity. Whatever it takes.

But in practice, some choices are so difficult that they can’t reasonably be called choices at all.

And that is what fat people and gay people have in common.

What fat people and gay people have in common - part one

Posted by Ampersand | December 11th, 2004

In an argument on an earlier thread, Don asks:

How is “choosing to be fat” (which really means choosing a bad diet and bad exercise habits) like “choosing to be gay,” given that homosexuality is, as far as we know, an involuntary condition of sexual attraction to members of the same sex?

It’ll take me two posts to answer Don’s question. In this post - which can be skipped by those of you who hate reading big blocks of quotes - I want to point out that some experts writing in the peer-reviewed scientific literature strongly doubt that fat people can choose to be thin.

In Don’s view, as I understand it, body weight is a function of two variables - the intake of calories (eating) and the expenditure of energy (exercise). If fat people only ate less and walked more, they’d cease being fat people; therefore, being fat is a choice.

But it’s not universally true that fat people have bad diets and bad exercise habits. Some fat people are healthy eaters who exercise often; most fat people have diets and lifestyles that are less than ideal, but not significantly different from that of most non-fat Americans.

In fact, although it’s commonly believed that fat people must eat a lot more than thin people, the scientific evidence for that is either non-existant or non-replicable. Multiple studies, based both on observation and on diaries, have found that fat and thin people eat similar amounts. From an article in Clinical Psychology Review (citations omitted):

…[A] tremendous body of research employing a great variety of methodologies… has failed to yield any meaningful or replicable differences in the caloric intake or eating patterns of the obese compared to the nonobese…

[In a study of children], Rolland-Cachera and Bellisle found that food intake was about 500 calories greater and obesity about four times more common in the lowest versus the highest socioeconomic groups studied; however, within each socioeconomic group, there were comparable levels of caloric intake among lean, average weight, and obese children. [...]

…It may be concluded that nature and nurture both exert influences on body weight and that the eventual expression of obesity is a complicated matter…. Regardless of these factors, the myth of overeating by the obese is sustained for the casual observer by selective attention. Each time that a fat person is observed to have a “healthy appetite” or an affinity for sweets or other high calorie foods, a stereotypic leap into causality is made. The same behaviors in a thin person attract little or no attention….

…The major premise of dietary treatments of obesity, that the obese overeat with respect to population norms, must be regarded as unproven.

Since the premise behind diets is unproven, it should be no surprise that diets themselves have never been proven to work over the long run. From a review of empirical tests of weight-loss plans by Wayne Miller, an exercise science specialist at George Washington University:

No commercial program, clinical program, or research model has been able to demonstrate significant long-term weight loss for more than a small fraction of the participants. Given the potential dangers of weight cycling and repeated failure, it is unscientific and unethical to support the continued use of dieting as an intervention for obesity.

William Bennett, editor of the Harvard Medical School Health Letter, reviewed empirical weight-loss studies going back to the 1930s. He concluded that not one had been shown to produce long-term weight loss for more than a tiny minority of dieters (and most of the few who did lose weight, lost too little weight to turn an obese person into a non-obese person).

Data on the dietary treatment of obesity have been accumulating since 1931. Nothing in the chronicle suggests that worthwhile progress has been made by pursuing efforts to teach people more effective ways to restrict their food intake. There is now enough information to permit the prediction that results will be mediocre in the short run and after several years will be less than acceptable. …

An important element of behavior modification is giving the client a model of his or her problem, one that focuses on eating behavior as the target for correction. An essential component of this model is the claim that it will be effective if the client believes it and acts accordingly. The model that appears to form the heart of most such programs, however, is at the very least seriously incomplete; there is good reason to assume it is simply wrong. In any case, the model has not produced results that would support claims of effectiveness. …

The ethical questions that can be raised about research efforts also must be asked about the dietary programs for weight control that are carried on outside a research setting - commercial, hospital, or clinic-based, or self-help. Many such programs proffer treatment as though it were established as effective and safe. Nothing in the results published by research programs authorizes anyone to make such claims.

From an article in The New England Journal of Medicine:

Many people cannot lose much weight no matter how hard they try, and promptly regain whatever they do lose….

Why is it that people cannot seem to lose weight, despite the social pressures, the urging of their doctors, and the investment of staggering amounts of time, energy, and money? The old view that body weight is a function of only two variables - the intake of calories and the expenditure of energy - has given way to a much more complex formulation involving a fairly stable set point for a person’s weight that is resistant over short periods to either gain or loss, but that may move with age. …Of course, the set point can be overridden and large losses can be induced by severe caloric restriction in conjunction with vigorous, sustained exercise, but when these extreme measures are discontinued, body weight generally returns to its preexisting level.

In my next post, I’ll return to Don’s question.
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Alas, “Alas” will be down for a little while tonight

Posted by Ampersand | December 10th, 2004

While the server does some server-repair things, “Alas” may be unreachable for a while tonight.

Some Same-Sex Marriage related links

Posted by Ampersand | December 9th, 2004
  • New Zealand’s Parliament has passed a Civil Unions law, which (in the NZ version) creates Civil Unions with all the same legal rights as “marriage,” and which are open to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. (The legal category “marriage” still exists, but is open only to opposite-sex couples). I’m glad for New Zealand queers - nine-tenths of a loaf is better than none - and very much admire the NZ legislature for voting for an unpopular civil rights bill.

    Interesting about this option being open to straights - which means that fewer straights will get married in the future. Funny, how the compromises necessary to appease the “protect marriage!” crowd sometimes end up weakening marriage far more than just letting same-sex couples get married would. (Thanks to “Alas” reader “Sarah in Chicago” for the tip!)

    Hugo has more on this subject.

  • Robert Hayes has finished his same-sex marriage series, and actually winds up suggesting that “marriage” should be left to the churches, while the government should just provide “civil unions” to same- and opposite-sexers alike. Although there are details to quibble over, on the whole I’d find that an entirely acceptable solution; what I favor is legal equality, and Robert’s solution provides that. I doubt that many non-libertarian conservatives would be willing to live with it, though.
  • Mary at Stone Court has an interesting (although very one-sided) post discussing the single parenthood and same-sex marriage issues as “dissensus politics,” political issues that become symbolic battles in the culture war.
  • Good bit from Rauch’s latest in the ongoing Rauch/Gallagher debate:
    Maggie sez: “The goal of the same-sex marriage movement is publicly and visibly to assert the legal and moral equality of same-sex and opposite-sex couples. If same-sex marriage is a civil right, this necessarily and intrinsically means that the fact that sex between men and women makes babies is not an important fact, socially or legally.”

    Sentence 1 is correct. But the second sentence should read, “If same-sex marriage is a civil right, this necessarily and intrinsically means that the fact that sex between men and women makes babies is not THE ONLY important fact, socially or legally.” Big difference, yes?

New to the “Alas” Blogroll

Posted by Ampersand | December 9th, 2004

Some additions to the blogroll:

  • Feminist Blogs, a blog that automatically compiles posts from a bunch of feminist bloggers, put together by Rad Geek. An incredibly wonderful resource - thanks, Rad Geek!

  • Meandering Vaguely Around Timnah. Good, lefty blog with a really neat name. Via Robert.
  • SoVo Blog, a well-written and frequently-updated blog about same-sex marriage and queer issues in general, written by a trio of gay male journalists.
  • Heart, Soul and Humor, a liberal on most issues, but right-wing on abortion and SSM, blog.

Various links to various places

Posted by Ampersand | December 9th, 2004
  • I’ve been meaning to link to Liliane, Bi-Dyke for ages. Lots of really terrific cartoons here. I particularly enjoyed her 27-page comic for women who’d like to be taken for men, Tips on Passing.

  • I wasted some time today reading through Find A Death dot com. I had no idea that Glenn Quinn - who I thought was excellent as Mark on Roseanne, and who also played Doyle on Angel - died two years ago. Typical sad Hollywood drug overdose thing.
  • Interesting news story - in at least one state, parents do not have the right to eavesdrop on their children. The Washington state Supreme Court has overturned a pursesnatching conviction, because some evidence used at trial came from a mom eavesdropping on her teen daughter’s phone conversation (the daughter’s boyfriend was the pursesnatcher). “The court ruled that the daughter and her boyfriend had a reasonable expectation of privacy on the phone. Washington state law prohibits intercepting or recording conversations without consent from all participants.”
  • At last, a good reason for pregnant women to take weight-loss pills.
  • Just found this online - The Senate Judiciary Committee’s 1993 “The Response to Rape” report. I remember reading this off a blurry microfilm copy a decade ago, and being appalled. A very important report on how the justice system is simply unlikely to put a rapist in prison; and a decade later, it’s still mostly accurate, as far as I can tell. From the report:
    * 98% of rape victims will never see their attacker apprehended, convicted and incarcerated.
    * Over half (54%) of all rape prosecutions result in either a dismissal or an acquittal.
    * Almost one quarter of convicted rapists are not sentenced to prison but, instead, are released on probation.
    * Almost half of all convicted rapists are sentenced to less than one year behind bars.

    The lesson, imo, isn’t just that reforms are needed (although they are), but also that it’s folly to depend on the criminal justice system to bring about any large-scale reduction of rape.

  • I’m getting to be a big fan of Minnesota City Pages writer Beth Hawkins. I’m sure I’ll blog several articles of hers in the weeks to come.

    lucy_skeleton.jpg

  • This is awesome - skeleton studies of various cartoon characters. Do check it out.

  • Amanda at Mouse Words and Jessica at Feministing comment on Frances Kissling’s article about the value of a fetus.
  • The next stage of “conscience clauses”: a South African nurse is suing for the right to refuse to treat critically injured women who were hurt as a result of complications while getting an abortion. You read that right: She’s not suing for the right to refuse to perform abortions, she’s suing for the right to sit by and refuse to give women injured during abortion procedures lifesaving treatment. (Link via Premature Terminal Delivery, where the pro-life blogger approves of this nurse’s position.) Tell me again how pro-lifers don’t want to see women punished?

Hereville page 20 is finished (again)

Posted by Ampersand | December 9th, 2004

Dave Sim (a great cartoonist, despite his appalling misogyny and homophobia) once advised young cartoonists “once a page is done, don’t finish it.” It’s wise advice, and I habitually ignore it; the day after a Hereville page is finished, I always spend a while making corrections.

I don’t try to fix everything I don’t like about a page (that would be impossible!); but there’s always a few glaring errors that I have to try to fix.

For example, among other problems with page 20, Mirka’s huge, engorged forefinger - far out of scale with the rest of her hand - really bugged me in panel two. And the warped glass (including a stem that had a different center line from the rest of the glass) in panel three really got under my skin, too. (The glass is still pretty awful after my correction - I’m terrible at drawing manmade objects - but it’s better than it was).

Would most readers even notice? I doubt it, but stuff like that drives me crazy if I don’t correct it. Anyway, for the edification of the curious, below is a “before and after” of the two above-mentioned details of page 20.

Hereville20before-after.png

Hereville page 20 is up

Posted by Ampersand | December 9th, 2004

Page 20 is done - and so, in the storyline, is this week’s Sabbath. I think the last 7 pages, depicting the Sabbath in Aherville, have been as challenging to me as any cartooning I’ve done in my life.

Frances Kissling on the fetus’ value

Posted by Ampersand | December 7th, 2004

Frances Kissling - the head of Catholics for Choice and a longtime pro-choice activist - argues that pro-choicers can and should value the fetus more. I don’t have a comment on this article yet, but it’s been getting a lot of discussion among pro-choice circles, so it seemed worth linking to. Here’s a sample:

An interesting thought exercise might help to clarify what prochoice (and antiabortion) leaders believe about fetal value. Imagine a world in which it was possible to remove fetuses prior to viability from women’s bodies and allow them to develop in a nonuterine environment. Perhaps they could be implanted in men or other women who want them; perhaps they could develop in a specially equipped nursery? In this world, medicine is so far advanced that this could be accomplished painlessly and without risking the health of either the woman or the fetus. Of course, this is at present largely a fantasy and by that time we would have found the ideal, risk-free, failure-free contraceptive; but let’s pretend.

What are the first five concerns and reactions that come to your mind? Is one of them the fact that this would mean fetuses need not die? My own experience in presenting this option to both advocates and opponents of abortion is that the fetus’s life is rarely a consideration. Among the most interesting reactions of those who are prochoice is a concern that some women might find the continued existence of the fetus painful for them or that women have a right to ensure that their genetic material does not enter the world. Abortion in this sense becomes the guarantee of a dead fetus, if desired, rather than the removal of the fetus from an unwilling host, the woman. To even offer women such an option is, some think, cruel. For some the right to choose abortion seems to include the right to be protected from thinking about the fetus and from any pain that might result from others talking about the fetus in value-laden terms. In this construct, it is hard to identify any value fetal life might have.

This level of sensitivity to protecting women from their feelings takes other forms. For example, some prochoice advocates have objected to public discussion of abortion that includes concern for the number of abortions that occur in the US or has as its goal reducing the number of abortions. Some bristled at President Clinton’s formula that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” If abortion is justifiable why should it be rare? Even the suggestion that abortion is a moral matter as well as a legal one has caused concern that such a statement might make women feel guilty. Words like “baby” are avoided, not just because they are inaccurate, but because they are loaded.

In a society where women have long been victims of moral discourse, these concerns are somewhat understandable, but they do not contribute much towards convincing people that when prochoice people say they value fetal life it is more than lip service.

The reaction of antiabortionists to the idea that a fetus could be removed from the body of an unwilling woman is as troubling. Again, one rarely hears cries of joy that fetal lives would be saved. The focus also is on the woman. But here, the view that women are, by their nature, made for childbearing dominates. Women have an obligation to continue pregnancies, to suffer the consequences of their sexuality. It is unnatural to even think that fetuses could become healthy and happy people if they did not spend nine months in the womb of a woman. One is led to believe that, for those opposed to abortion, it is not saving fetuses that matters but preserving a social construct in which women breed.

There’s lots more.

The 1 in 4 distortion: Where did it come from?

Posted by Ampersand | December 7th, 2004

A while ago, I was on some anti-feminist website debating rape prevalence statistics, and of course the “1 in 4″ figure came up. If you’re a feminist, you may not be familiar with the figure; but among anti-feminists, the “1 in 4″ figure is considered the ultimate proof of feminist mendacity or something like that.

Here’s the short version: In the 1980s, an academic named Mary Koss created a groundbreaking study of unreported rape, which surveyed college women about their lifetime experiences with coerced sex. Koss found that roughly 1 in 4 women in college had experienced rape or attempted rape at some point in their lives. Many people (both feminist and otherwise) have misstated this statistic as “1 in 4 women are raped.” In fact, if you exclude attempted rapes, the number is closer to 1 in 8. (I consider this a distinction without much difference; in either case, rape is terrifyingly common.)

Much controversy ensued, which I’ve written about elsewhere.

Anyhow, on that anti-feminist discussion board, one of the resident anti’s asked me:

If campus feminists are all relying directly on the Koss study, how do you explain the widespread prevalence of the “1 in 4 women is raped” myth? You yourself have pointed out that the Koss study supports only a 1 in 8 figure. If you have an alternative explanation for the wide spread of this error, I’d be interested to hear it.

Here’s my reply:

Did I ever claim that most campus feminists are relying directly on the Koss study? I don’t think they are.

Where did it come from? Let me answer that with a question: did you ever play “telephone” when you were a kid?

Other sources have frequently reported the figure as “1 in 4 women surveyed on campus has been a victim of rape or attempted rape.” There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s a correct way of reporting the stat. However, it quickly evolves into “1 in 4 women are raped!” when it gets spread from person to person along informal, non-peer-reviewed lines. The shorter, punchier (albeit false) version of the statistic is easier for people to remember, easier to paint on a signboard for a “Take Back the Night” march, and easier for anti-feminists to remember when they want to make feminist scholars like Dr. Koss sound like extremists.

It is, in fact, the exact same system that has led to the widespread belief among anti-feminists on internet boards like this one that Koss’ study said that “1 in 4 women have been raped.” Some people on these boards have read about Koss’ study in Sommers or Roiphe (etc, etc); those books typically state the correct “1 in 4 experience rape or attempted rape” Koss citation once or twice (and then go on to misstate it over and over). But when the people who have read these books are in online discussions, they end up playing a virtual game of “telephone,” and only the shorter, punchier, inaccurate form of the statistic gets discussed and passed on to the community as a whole.

Similarly, on campus, some 19-year-old feminist sees the Koss statistic cited correctly somewhere, but writes it down or reports it in conversation incorrectly. And she told two friends, and she told two friends, and so on, and so on…

Of course, in both cases it’s not a completely innocent distorting of the statistic, is it? Campus feminists find it easy to accidentally distort the statistic in a way that exaggerates the statistics about rape. Similarly, antifeminists find it easy to accidentally distort the statistic in a way that paints Dr. Koss as a hysterical, inaccurate extremist. In both cases, the distortion happens not because the people distorting the statistic are purposely dishonest; it’s just that most people find it easier not to question statistics that serve their political agenda.

One more thing: When I was in college a few years ago, I was aware of this controversy, and consequently paid a lot of attention to fliers handed out at the women’s center and the like. Some of them screwed things up (sometimes in the way anti-feminists criticizes, sometimes in just random ways), but some actually reported statistics accurately and with correct citations. Needless to say, those latter fliers well never be discussed in any book published with the help of an Olin grant. There’s another distortion going on here - people who only read (or only take seriously) anti-feminist sources for a guide to what’s happening on campus, are getting an only-the-bad-things-are-reported view of campus feminism.

Protective Services threatens to remove newborn from blind couple

Posted by Ampersand | December 6th, 2004

This story is appalling. In a nutshell, a blind couple in California, on the day of their newborn’s birth, were told that they had to sign a form giving the county custody of their baby, or they’d be hauled into court.

Racism and classism are probably part of this story as well - it sounds like the couple isn’t rich (the mother is studying to become a court reporter, and the father sells soda at soccer games and is studying to become a massage therapist), and their native language is Spanish. The form they signed was read to them in English, not in Spanish, nor was it offered to them in Braille.

It seems clear that the Zepedas were prepared to become parents; they have a good support system (not only family and friends nearby, but an online support and information group for blind parents), and they’ve given thought to how they’ll deal with any special parenting problems caused by their blindness (for instance, purchasing a talking thermometer and “pip squeaker” shoes.

Thankfully, an outcry from activists convinced the government to let the Zepedas take their baby home - although they’ve had to arrange to have a sighted person check their baby every two hours (as blind people, they’re seemingly presumed to be incapable of checking to see that their baby is breathing themselves). Hopefully the government will do the sane thing and stop harassing these folks.

Another article about the Zepedas is here.

I’m in Chris Baldwin’s Sketchjournal!

Posted by Ampersand | December 6th, 2004

Check it out! You may have to scroll downt the page a bit, depending on when you look.

I’m the large guy holding the baby (and drawn from that oh-so-attractive under-the-chin angle!). To the left of me, holding a kitten, is Jenn Lee. Below Jenn is Bill Mudron. And to the right of Bill the artist himself, and to the right of Chris is Kip Manley, caught in a moment of apparently Star-Trek like anguish.

“Alas” has pissed someone off

Posted by Ampersand | December 4th, 2004

There was a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack on “Alas” this morning, which put “Alas” offline for a little while. Some folks are just jerks, I guess.

Server owner Eric, who generously donates “Alas” space to live on, repelled the attack, and has posted some technical details on Wampum.

(Update: Changed “dedicated” to “distributed.” Thanks Eric!)

SSM Debates on MarriageDebate.com

Posted by Ampersand | December 2nd, 2004

Over on MarriageDebate.com, Jonathan Rauch and Maggie Gallagher are debating SSM. Go here and then scroll upwards to read the ongoing debate. Here’s a quote I liked from Rauch; it makes a point we’ve all heard made before, but it makes it particularly well:

Justice Robert Jackson: “There is no more effective practical guarantee against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally.” (Concurring, REA vs. NY, 1949)

Justice Antonin Scalia: “Our salvation is the Equal Protection Clause, which requires the democratic majority to accept for themselves and their loved ones what they impose on you and me.” (Cruzan v. Missouri Dept. of Health, 1990)

Everyone rightly accepts as a core premise of liberalism that the majority can’t keep two sets of books, one for itself and one for minorities. Anyone in American politics who flouts this principle will, eventually, lose, and will deserve to. It seems to me that opponents of same-sex marriage should just relinquish the argument that marriage is only for procreative couples (if that’s what they mean by “marriage is for procreation,” which can mean a number of things).

Historically and empirically the argument is incorrect: marriage has everywhere and always been for both procreative and nonprocreative couples. This is not a technicality or a grudging exception. All societies celebrate when post-menopausal women marry. They recognize that banning such marriages would do nothing for children or procreation.

Even if the allowance for (millions and millions of) heterosexual nonprocreative marriages were a loophole or an exception, the exception should be applied evenhandedly, not selectively or self-servingly by and for the people who have the votes. See Mr. Justice Jackson, above. If the rule is that only fertile couples can marry, fine. If the rule is that only couples who actually have biological children can marry, fine. If the rule is that only couples who are rearing children (bio or non-bio) can marry, fine. Well, not fine, but you get the point: the rule that infertility disqualifies all gay couples from marriage but disqualifies no straight couples is a crass double standard that demolishes the very principle (marriage=procreation) on which it’s supposed to be based.

Rauch suggests that SSM opponents should move to a different argument:

I’m admittedly not the best person for SSM opponents to take advice from, but, as I say, they should just drop the claim that marriage is only for procreative (fertile) couples. Give it up. Throw it away. They would be better off talking about a stronger, if subtler, kind of argument that Maggie and Eve, among others, have made: marriage valorizes mother-father families and this serves crucial social goals. I disagree with that argument, but it is logically tenable and not hypocritical, because it grounds marriage in gender difference rather than in procreativity. On that we can have a coherent debate that respects liberal principles.

I agree that the “marriage valorizes mother-father families and this serves crucial social goals” - which is essentially the argument Elizabeth was making - is a stronger argument than the ridiculous “marriage is about reproduction, so non-reproductive couples can’t marry, unless they’re heterosexual in which case forget the whole thing” argument. However, the “valorizing mother-father families” argument naturally raises some questions:

  1. Why is it acceptable to oppose same-sex civil rights in the name of valorizing mom-dad families, but not acceptable to oppose the civil rights of heterosexuals for the same purpose (i.e., by banning divorce or returning to coverture laws)?

  2. Is promoting a particular ideology of gender relations a compelling government interest?
  3. If so, is banning marriage equality the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling government interest?
  4. Is injustice to a minority justified if the injustice sends a valuable message or valorizes a social good? Would unequal laws against blacks or women or Catholics be justified, if legal inequality against these groups sent a valuable message?
  5. If it were practically viable to do so, ought we forbid cross-dressers of either sex from marrying, in order to promote “correct” gender-role ideology? How about effeminate men and butch women?
  6. How does transsexuality fit into this? Should transsexuals be barred from marriage altogether, since no matter which sex they marry, it can be construed as in some way questioning “correct” gender-role ideology?

More and more, it’s becoming clear that the debate over same sex marriage is a debate over the right of conservatives (mostly, but not entirely, Christian fundamentalists and right-wing Catholics) to put the force of law behind their particular gender ideology. Historically, this is the same debate that feminists have faced since feminism began; the people opposing SSM are the ideological heirs of the people who opposed allowing women to attend college, to vote, and to own property.

* * *

There’s also an interesting debate between Mark Barton and Eve Tushnet. It’s hard to know where to start, but here’s a good place; scroll upwards. Here’s a quote from Mark I enjoyed.

Eve: If you think that’s a problem, it’s obviously a fairly large difference in kind–not just in degree–between the “exception” of childless married couples and the “exception” of same-sex couples.

Mark: Having put the original procreation argument to bed, let’s turn to what is the independent argument in terms of childrearing. This was the secondary argument in Goodridge. However I’m afraid I don’t think that in 2004 we’re obliged to respect as serious Eve’s presentation of it above.

The issue has been studied. We have actual data. The studies are by no means the last word, but neither are they junk. Opposite-sex and same-sex couples cannot be credibly described as having “obviously a fairly large difference in kind” with respect to parenting outcomes any more than blue-eyed couples versus brown-eyed ones. Now of course Eve is welcome to invoke caution and argue that there might be small but important differences, or large differences in variables that haven’t been studied, but I think at this stage of the game “obviously” and “large” should be considered beyond the intellectual pale.

The “people who can’t procreate shouldn’t be allowed marriage, unless they’re heterosexual people in which case never mind” argument is, I think, on its deathbed. Probably most of the people who are now saying that this argument is essential will have migrated away from it a year or two from now.

Abstinence-only Teachers Lie

Posted by Ampersand | December 2nd, 2004
Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person’s genitals “can result in pregnancy,” a congressional staff analysis has found.

Those and other assertions are examples of the “false, misleading, or distorted information” in the programs’ teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

What a wonderful use of our tax dollars.

Another post on Same-Sex Spousehood in Scandinavia

Posted by Ampersand | December 2nd, 2004

For folks who are following the Scandinavian debate, this post by Bjørn Stærk (from back in February) will be of interest.

I’m sure the numbers are correct: Less marriage, more children out of marriage. And if you agree with the assumption that American family values are important you’ll find that worrisome. I don’t, but none of this is relevant as it says nothing about any connection between gay marriage (or partnership as it’s known here) and these trends. There is a correlation, but correlation is not causation. More likely both trends are caused the liberalization of sexual values that began in the 70’s. This tells us that where people abandon traditional sexual values, they are more likely to have children out of marriage and to support gay marriage. It does not tell us that by preventing legal recognition of gay marriage you can make people return to traditional sexual values.

He goes on to point out that even if SSM caused some trends in Scandinavia - which hasn’t even come close to being proven - that still doesn’t tell us much about what will happen in the USA, which is culturally and legally very different.

Misleading AP Poll on Roe v Wade

Posted by Ampersand | December 2nd, 2004

Some feminists have taken comfort from a new AP poll which has been widely reported as finding that “59 percent [of respondents] say Bush should choose a [Supreme Court] nominee who would uphold the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion… 31 percent, said they want a nominee who would overturn the decision…”

Unfortunately, the poll itself was inaccurately worded, as Eugene Volokh reports:

“As you may know, President Bush may have the opportunity to appoint several new justices to the U.S. Supreme Court during his second term. The 1973 Supreme Court ruling called Roe v. Wade made abortion in the first three months of pregnancy legal. Do you think President Bush should nominate Supreme Court justices who would uphold the Roe v. Wade decision, or nominate justices who would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision?”

But wait — Roe didn’t just make abortion in the first three months of pregnancy legal. It also made it legal at any time before viability (limiting government regulation to that related to protecting “maternal health”); the Court said viability would be at about six or seven months (though over time, the line has moved up a bit, as the 1992 Casey decision recognized). I suspect that such months-four-to-six abortions would be considerably more controversial than ones in months one through three.

Another poll shows that 66% favor abortion being generally legal in the first three months, but only 25% favor legal abortion for months four through six.

Of course, reproductive rights aren’t right or wrong based on what polls say. Still, it’s unfortunate that this poll was so badly worded.

Legal Wife-Beating In Egypt

Posted by Ampersand | December 2nd, 2004

If you’re in a mood to be disgusted and angered, go read this Human Rights Watch report, “Women’s Unequal Access to Divorce in Egypt.” Or, if you’re in more of a hurry, read this Guardian article on the report. From the Guardian:

A survey conducted for the Egyptian government a few years ago found that one woman in three had been beaten at some time by her husband. Of those women, 45% had been beaten at least once in the past year and 17% had been beaten three or more times during the same period.

Shocking as this may seem, most Egyptian women regard beating as a normal and more or less acceptable part of life. Almost 86% of the women surveyed thought husbands were justified in hitting their wives sometimes, and a large majority said a refusal to have sex was sufficient grounds for beating.

The survey also showed the percentage of women aged 20-29 who thought beating was justified for a range of other domestic “offences”:

  • “Talking back” to a husband: 70%

  • Talking to another man: 65%
  • Spending too much money: 42%
  • Burning the dinner: 26%

Violent husbands can generally avoid prosecution on religious grounds, because the Egyptian penal code excludes acts committed “in good faith, pursuant to a right determined by virtue of the Shari’a” (Islamic law).

* * *

“A survey conducted for the Egyptian government a few years ago found that one woman in three had been beaten at some time by her husband. Of those women, 45% had been beaten at least once in the past year…”

For comparison’s sake, a survey conducted by the US government a few years ago found that one American woman in five had been physically assualted by an “intimate partner” sometime in their lifetime, and 1.3% had been physically assaulted by an intimate partner in the past year.

Of course, in the USA women have - relatively speaking - a much greater right to get divorced from some asshole who beats her, so it’s not surprising that the “in the past year” statistic is so much lower. Which shows why the right to divorce, and reasonably good access to the right to divorce, is absolutely essential. (Amanda’s been all over this, from a different angle).