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!)
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 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 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:
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.
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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.
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.
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.
For folks who are following the Scandinavian debate, this post by Bjørn Stærk (from back in February) will be of interest.
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.
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.
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:
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”:
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).
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“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).
(I can’t resist stealing this post word-for-word from SistersTalk:)
Looks like that decision allowing the Boy Scouts to ban gay Scoutmasters backfired on the military. Oops!
Poetic justice. Oh so priceless.
Page 19 of Hereville is online. Hope y’all like it.
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