While reading Family Scholar’s blog, I noticed Elizabeth’s quoting of a New York Times article. Here’s the complete text of Elizabeth’s post:

RACE AND SSM

In a new University of Chicago study:

Fifty-eight percent of blacks opposed legalizing same-sex marriage compared to 36 percent of Hispanics, and 35 percent of whites.

Elizabeth’s partial quoting of the paragraph from the news story obscures the striking correspondence between homophobia and opposing marriage equality. Here’s what the complete paragraph in the Times story says:

In addition 55 percent of blacks felt homosexual activity was always wrong compared to 36 percent of Hispanics and 35 percent for whites. Fifty-eight percent of blacks opposed legalizing same-sex marriage compared to 36 percent of Hispanics, and 35 percent of whites.

So in all three populations, according to this survey, the rates of homophobia and the rates of opposing equal marriage rights are virtually identical. Although I doubt Elizabeth left that out of her post on purpose, the strong popular connection between anti-gay bigotry and opposition to marriage equality is certainly a subject that she avoids discussing.

So why are blacks more likely to oppose SSM — and gay sex — than whites? I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet the fact that blacks attend church more than whites (I don’t know what the stats are for Latinas) has a lot to do with it.

A group called The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance is proposing to modify Washington state’s marriage laws to better comport with a recent anti-gay-rights marriage ruling by the Washington state supreme court:

If passed by Washington voters, the Defense of Marriage Initiative would… require that couples married in Washington file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage automatically annulled.

Initiative 957 is actually the first of three planned initiatives; “The second would prohibit divorce or legal separation when there are children. The third would make the act of having a child together the legal equivalent of a marriage ceremony.”

The Defense of Marriage Alliance (”DOMA” - hee hee) website explains:

Absurd? Very. But there is a rational basis for this absurdity. By floating the initiatives, we hope to prompt discussion about the many misguided assumptions which make up the Andersen ruling. By getting the initiatives passed, we hope the Supreme Court will strike them down as unconstitutional and thus weaken Andersen itself. And at the very least, it should be good fun to see the social conservatives who have long screamed that marriage exists for the sole purpose of procreation be forced to choke on their own rhetoric.

I don’t know if this is politically wise or foolish, but I do think it’s hilarious. Elizabeth at Family Scholars doesn’t agree:

Absurd. No one says marriage exists for the “sole” purpose of procreation. But some of us do say that gutting marriage of any legal or cultural relevance to encouraging men and women who make babies together to stick together for the sake of the baby and each other — that gutting marriage of that could be a very bad thing for children overall.

But there’s no logical reason to believe that state recognition of same-sex marriages would have that effect, any more than state recognition of infertile couples’ marriages currently has that effect. Recognizing same-sex marriage logically requires rejecting the view that heterosexual reproduction is the sole purpose of marriage; but it doesn’t require rejecting the view that encouraging women and men to become committed parents who stick together is one purpose of marriage.

Elizabeth goes on:

Also a weird touch of envy that heterosexual sex MAKES BABIES.

Thank goodness queers have heterosexuals like Elizabeth around to use their magical gay-mind-reading powers to let us all know what queers are really thinking! Why, without heterosexuals like Elizabeth around to tell us what the gays are thinking but not saying, we might actually have to listen to what non-heterosexual people say! The horror, the horror!

But I really want to address Elizabeth’s contention that “No one says marriage exists for the ’sole’ purpose of procreation.” If that’s not precisely what anti-gay activists have been saying, they’re certainly coming awfully close. Here’s Elizabeth’s friend Maggie Gallagher wrote, in a Weekly Standard piece entitled “What Marriage is For”:

Marriage is the fundamental, cross-cultural institution for bridging the male-female divide so that children have loving, committed mothers and fathers. [...] The marriage idea is that children need mothers and fathers, that societies need babies, and that adults have an obligation to shape their sexual behavior so as to give their children stable families in which to grow up.

Next, here’s what Margaret Somerville — one of the best-known and best-respected academic opponents of equal marriage rights — says marriage is for (pdf link):

Through marriage our society marks out the relationship of two people who will together transmit human life to the next generation and nurture and protect that life. By institutionalizing the relationship that has the inherent capacity to transmit life — that between a man and a woman — marriage symbolizes and engenders respect for the transmission of human life.

Here’s what On Lawn — who frequently commented in support of Elizabeth’s anti-marriage-equality views, back when Elizabeth’s blog accepted comments — wrote on his blog yesterday:

It is the 800lb gorilla in the room that marriage is about responsible procreation. Every benefit and provision of it intersects in that single purpose.

Next, here’s what the Family Research Council blog says:

“Is marriage solely for the purpose of creation?” My tentative answer: Yes and no. I agree with natural law thinker Robert George, who says, “Here is the core of the traditional understanding: Marriage is a two-in-one-flesh communion of person that is consummated and actualized by acts that are reproductive in type, whether or not they are reproductive in effect…” He adds: “Although not all reproductive-type acts are marital, there can be no marital act that is not reproductive in type.”

A number of factors could prevent a married couple from having a child within three years (e.g., what if the child is stillborn?) so it would be unfair to penalize them for something that is beyond their control. Instead, a more reasonable criteria should be established that is based on actions that are solely within their power. For example, all couples who wish to marry–both gay and straight–must be willing and able to engage in “marital acts”, acts that are reproductive in type. To paraphrase the WA-DOMA, those couples who cannot or will not engage in marital acts that are reproductive in type should equally be barred from marriage.

Blogger Thomas Shawn:

Human nature defines the properties of marriage as between a man and a woman with the primary purpose of procreation and the education of children.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:

Marriage exists so that the spouses might grow in mutual love and, by the generosity of their love, bring children into the world and serve life fully.

These are hardly unique or even unusual examples, and many of them represent the intellectual leadership of the anti-equality movement. The best thing that can be said in defense of Elizabeth’s statement is that not all these people are saying that procreation is the “sole” purpose of marriage; there’s some wiggle about whether these folks consider reproduction the “sole” purpose or merely the “primary” purpose.

But if Elizabeth’s argument is based on the word “sole,” then Elizabeth’s case is awfully weak. After all, DOMA’s argument doesn’t change much if we strike the word “sole” and stick in “primary” instead. (”And at the very least, it should be good fun to see the social conservatives who have long screamed that marriage exists for the sole primary purpose of procreation be forced to choke on their own rhetoric.”)

Other blogs yakking about this ballot proposal: Shakespeare’s Sister, Bring It On!, Pam’s House Blend, Goosing the Antithesis, Lunkhead’s Diary, Eclectism, Feministing, and the Republic of T.

It’s good that same-sex marriage happened in Massachusetts first, because the Massachusetts constitutional amendment process is designed to move slowly, encouraging deliberation and second thoughts. In Massachusetts, ballot measures amending the state constitution can’t be sent to the voters until after a quarter of the legislature votes in favor of the amendment, in two sessions in a row. So if the SSM¹ ban passes the Massachusetts legislature tomorrow, then it has to pass it again in 2007, and only if it does that do the voters get a crack at it - in 2008.

This has put anti-equality activists, who have no rational arguments on their side but who excel at harnessing bigotry and fearmongering, at a disadvantage in Massachusetts. It wasn’t possible for them to pass a SSM ban were unable to take advantage of the initial shock following the Massachusett Supreme Court’s Goodridge decision.² And now that Massachusetts voters have seen firsthand that the sky doesn’t fall when lesbian and gays legally marry, it seems unlikely that an SSM ban could pass there. From the Boston Herald:

State House News Poll results released Sunday show 56 percent of respondents say that when the Massachusetts Legislature meets in Thursday’s Constitutional Convention, members should advance a ban on gay marriage. However, if the ban reaches the ballot, 63 percent of poll respondents would vote against it and 31 percent would vote for it.

It’s sad that SSM bans are passing in so much of the country - but in the long run, these bans won’t stop equal marriage rights. Marriage equality wasn’t really on the table in Tennessee or Georgia or even Oregon anyway (although I expect we’ll have civil unions in Oregon soon). I don’t ignore the real harm those bans do, but I don’t think they’re the whole story, either. Massachusetts is the front line, and it’s where marriage equality will be won. Massachusetts is where reality defeats fearmongering.

Every night, anti-equality activists go to their beds praying for catastrophe in Massachusetts; praying for divorce rates to skyrocket, for children to be in pain, for families to collapse, for disaster and horror to swoop down on every family in Massachusetts. They clutch their little hands and screw shut their eyes and fervently beg God to make Massachusetts families suffer, suffer, suffer. Because they know that if this doesn’t happen, they’ve lost. Married queers in Massachusetts are winning the fight for marriage equality, just by leading ordinary lives, rather than being harbingers of the Apocalypse.

Over the coming decades, as each new generation is less homophobic than the last, and as the Massachusetts sky stubbornly continues to unfall, the fearmongering arguments against marriage equality will become more and more embarrassing. The anti-SSM votes we’ve seen - all of them - will be undone. The 63% who oppose banning SSM in Massachusetts today are the mainstream of America by 2050.

(Curtsy: Marriage Debate.)

[Crossposted at Creative Destruction. If your comments aren’t being approved here, try there.]

1. SSM = “same sex marriage.” (back)
2. Unable to take advantage of it in Massachusetts, I mean. They certainly took advantage of it in the rest of the country! (back)

Other people’s elections have two important elements that make them better than my own, first my emotional detachment and my intellectual detachment match. In NZ elections I know Labour sucks, and I know it’s not going to matter that much, but I still end up caring, and I find that frustrating. The other thing is that other people have first past the post voting systems, which while fundamentally undemocratic, are really fun to watch.

I think it’s basically the geek in me that likes elections. I suspect the part of me that decided that all X-files episodes that began with the letter ‘P’ were of superior quality (this was back in Season three, I make no claism f), is exactly the same part of me that loves knowing that the thing to do is watch New Hampshire 2.

Of course an election is no fun if you can’t support a team. I find if you look there’s always something to care about: in Britain it was the fate of Plaid Cymru,¹ in America it was the ballot measures, and knowing if the Democrats took back the house no-one will be able to do anything for two years.

According to CNN all states that had minimum wage increases on the ballots succeeded (often with large margins), that’s far more than any New Zealand election has done. Plus the news on the abortion rights front is all good - two parental notification clauses knocked out, and the South Dakota abortion ban overturned. If they can’t ban abortion in South Dakota, then that has to be a good sign.

The rest is less fun (although go Arizona for being the first state not legislate Homophobia), also I’m not sure that I believe CNN, when it says that it’s covering the key ballot initiatives. I read somewhere that some state voted to investigate bringing in the death penalty. I think that’s key and I don’t even know what state it is.

As for the actual results, I’m generally fond of the US government not being able to do anything, really I am. I might even have the desire to kind of hope that the Democrats take the remaining two Senate seats, if I thought they might use them not to confirm people, but I don’t.²

It’s not that I wouldn’t vote. The thing I like best about my own elections is voting. I’m reasonably pragmatic about voting, and I love making really complicated theories about the best way to use my vote (or really complicated theories about how to answer polling questions - once I was supposed to say that I was going to vote for NZ First, I can’t remember why).³ It’s just that they’re the Democrats; they suck beyond the telling of it. There are probably even occasions where I’d vote for a Democrat in a national race (although I think in the unlikely event that I moved to America I’d make sure I lived somewhere like Mississippi or Massachusetts, so I’d never be tempted to vote for president). I can also think of circumstances that I’d be glad they won. But none of this makes them an fraction more left-wing, or an ounce less of a corporate party. I don’t think it’s elections that bring about meaningful change, but organising.

This election has reminded me everything I find weird about American elections. Top of the list is the fact that you use a different voting system in each part of the country, and it’s elected officials who decide on the voting system.

But second is the fact that Americans vote for everything. In New Zealand all the power is totally centralised and the only thing we vote for is central government (we do occasionally vote for local government but they don’t control any of the most important services such as education).

So I have a question for everyone there whose just voted for the Secretary of State in California, or their local DA or the Insurance Comptroller (what on earth is that?), what difference do you think it makes that these positions are . I imagine that mostly it wouldn’t make a difference, but when would it would mean that . NZ has pretty much the same level of violent, racist, rapist cops across the country. Somewhere you have to elect the sheriff, there would be places where that would encourage violent, racist, rapist cops, and other places where it might not stop it, but it might curb it. Is that people’s experience?

1. Chalk that up to things you didn’t know about me - I’m enough Welsh to support the Plaid (if not Welsh to reliably pronounce it). (back)
2. It sounds like the Virginia Senate race actually resembles the Tauranga Electorate race - which my friend Larry described as sexism beating racism on the day (although it sounds like racism is going to beat sexism in Virginia - isn’t that special). (back)
3. My favourite was that friends who were too principled to vote for Labour or the Greens, but wanted Winston Peters out of a job should vote for the Maori party, on the grounds that the Maori party would have an overhang so voting for then would mean that they wouldn’t get any extra seats, but would make it less likely that NZ first would reach the 5% threshold. Then it was pointed out to me that voting for the Libertarianz would achieve the same result, and I was sad, because that was a really complicated bit of logic out the window. (back)

There’s been a lot of fussing over this statement, written by some LGBT activists, which calls for a broader debate over what kind of families will be recognized by the government. Here’s a sample:

To have our government define as “legitimate families” only those households with couples in conjugal relationships does a tremendous disservice to the many other ways in which people actually construct their families, kinship networks, households, and relationships. For example, who among us seriously will argue that the following kinds of households are less socially, economically, and spiritually worthy?

· Senior citizens living together, serving as each other’s caregivers, partners, and/or constructed families

· Adult children living with and caring for their parents

· Grandparents and other family members raising their children’s (and/or a relative’s) children

· Committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal partner

· Blended families

· Single parent households

· Extended families (especially in particular immigrant populations) living under one roof, whose members care for one another

· Queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with another queer person or couple, in two households

· Close friends and siblings who live together in long-term, committed, non-conjugal relationships, serving as each other’s primary support and caregivers

· Care-giving and partnership relationships that have been developed to provide support systems to those living with HIV/AIDS

Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others. While we honor those for whom marriage is the most meaningful personal ­– for some, also a deeply spiritual – choice, we believe that many other kinds of kinship relationship, households, and families must also be accorded recognition.

I’m pretty much in agreement with this entire statement. The world isn’t limited to two-person couples who want to get married; there are other kinds of families, and they are also deserving of legal and economic support. Frankly, to me this seems like a no-brainer.

But obviously not everyone feels that way. Anti-gay-rights activists - from relatively moderate opponents of equal rights, like Elizabeth Marquardt, to full-on anti-gay extremists, like the folks at the American Family Association, are claiming that this statement shows the “real agenda” of “tak[ing marriage] apart.” Here’s Elizabeth’s take:

What do I find both amusing and infuriating about all this? The dance. The same people who want to extend marriage to same-sex couples are quite often the same people who want to take the thing apart, redefining and inflating it in ways that attempt to cover all sorts of human needs with virtually no regard for one of the most basic: the need for children, whenever possible, to be raised by the mom and dad who made them. For a while, the “take the thing apart” folks have been operating full steam ahead in academia and fringe advocacy but getting little attention elsewhere.

But what the “Beyond Marriage” statement calls for is not an expansion of marriage (although it leaves open the question of expanding marriage to same-sex couples), but for legal recognition of non-marital families, in ways other than marriage.

How is saying “forms of family other than marriage deserve recognition” anti-marriage? This is a consistent (although not universal) logical flaw in the so-called “marriage movement”; they see family as a zero-sum game, and believe that if any family form other than their own is given any respect or recognition, that will cause dire harm to their own families.

It’s true, as Elizabeth says, that most children will be best off being raised by their own parents. But nothing in the “Beyond Marriage” statement denies that. Once again, Elizabeth sees a zero-sum game where none exists: recognizing and caring about support systems for children raised by same-sex parents, or in shared households, does not require in any way that we stop caring about or stop providing legal and economic support for children being raised in conventional nuclear families.

It’s also notable that Elizabeth herself supports “civil unions” for same-sex couples (although she rarely mentions this support except when she’s arguing against marriage equality). So when the Beyond Marriage folks propose that family forms other than marriage be given legal recognition, that’s “taking the thing apart” and bad; but when Elizabeth proposes that family forms other than marriage be given legal definition, why is that any different?

The American Family Association statement is, as you’d expect, a good deal less intelligent and sophisticated:

Pro-Homosexual Marriage Proponents Go Public With Their Agenda

We have repeatedly said the agenda of those pushing homosexual marriage will lead to polygamy and a total devaluation of marriage. Not content with “the narrow terms of the marriage debate,” the pro-homosexual advocates are now declaring, “Legal recognition for a wide rage of relationships, households and families - regardless of kinship or conjugal status.” They also demand, “Access for all, regardless of marital or citizenship status, to vital government support programs, including but not limited to health care, housing, Social Security and pension plans, disaster recovery assistance, unemployment insurance, and welfare assistance.”

In short, they want to totally redefine our society by eliminating the very concepts of marriage and family, and the battle to redefine traditional marriage is just the beginning. The proponents of homosexual “marriage” admit it and they have posted their manifesto online.

The big error the AFA makes, that Elizabeth doesn’t, is to implicitly assume that all homosexuals share an “agenda.” This is, of course, a common view of bigots. A non-bigoted person, when seeing that queer group X produces a statement which in some ways disagrees with the statements put out by queer group Y, would come to the conclusion that queer group Y and queer group X disagree on some issues. In contrast, a bigot like the AFA writer assumes that all queer groups agree on everything, and any apparent disagreement indicates that there is a unified “real agenda,” and that statements from queer groups that don’t agree with this “real agenda” are lies. (Oh, those tricksy trisksy queer groups!)

But note also what Elizabeth and the AFA share in common: the zero-sum mentality, which falsely assumes that the very act of recognizing or respecting “alternative” family arrangements will do terrible harm to “conventional” families.

UPDATE: Check out this response to the AFA and other hard-right anti-gay groups at Good As You.

UPDATE 2: Amanda at Pandagon comments:

Naturally, conservatives are claiming that this is evidence that progressives are trying to tear down traditional marriage. But what I noticed about the family types that conservatives are giving the hairy eye to and claiming shouldn’t have full rights as bona fide families is that they are often family arrangements that are made by people who are not WASPs and/or people who don’t have the financial means to divide up into households based around a straight couple, a gaggle of kids, and a white picket fence.

In other words, conservatives oppose opening up the meaning of the word “family” for reasons other than strict sexism, but in fact have very classist motivations. They want special rights for family living arrangements that are often only available to people of means. The fetishizing of the housewife is the biggest clue that this is about proclaiming that people of means are morally superior to people without, but beyond that, everything about the culture wars starts with the assumption that middle class WASP culture is morally superior to all others and that everyone else should aspire (or be forced to aspire) to the lifestyle of our social superiors.

Now I’m not saying that people who do have nuclear families are morally inferior by any means. Just that they are not morally superior to other people, and yet it’s still largely assumed that the nuclear family is the morally superior option, even though the expense and burden of it is too much for some of us. It’s the 21st century and it’s still so widely assumed that male-dominated nuclear families are so morally superior to the rabble that it’s still traditional for politicians to trot out the wife and kids in front of the camera to assure Americans that they are morally strong enough to be leaders. Single mothers, people who live with friends, people who live with extended families all need not apply.

[Crossposted at Creative Destruction, where the moderation is lighter and all the children are above average.]

A new addition to the list of the stupidest arguments against marriage equality. From the New York Times article on the House of Reps debate over same-sex marriage:

Another Georgia Republican, Representative Phil Gingrey, said support for traditional marriage “is perhaps the best message we can give to the Middle East and all the trouble they’re having over there right now.”

I’m trying to imagine what would have to be going through someone’s mind to make “we should ban same-sex marriage to send a message to the Middle East” seem like an even remotely rational argument.

Was he thinking that if there’s anything wrong with the middle east, it’s that the culture there is too accommodating of homosexuals, and so we must set a good example by not accommodating our local queers? Was he thinking that the reason people kidnap Israeli soldiers is because lesbians and gays in Massachusetts are getting married, and so we should therefore attempt to placate them by assuring them we hate gays, too? Was he too high on crack to be thinking anything at all? It’s a mystery.

UPDATE: By the way, this is far from being the most repulsive, bigoted, anti-queer statement to come out of an elected Republican this week.

[Cross-posted on Creative Destruction, where the moderation is lighter.]

WCCO

A woman is dead and her boyfriend is in custody after a weekend shooting in St. Paul, police said.

I once assumed everyone would see this as a tragedy all Americans want to fight, yet in Time To Address Domestic Violence Abuses by Phyllis Schlafly, she writes:

The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was signed by President Bush in January without any public debate, but evidence is now surfacing which Congress should have examined before the law was passed. VAWA is a nearly-billion-dollar-a-year extension of one of the major ways that Bill Clinton bought the support of the radical feminists. Why Republicans passed this bill is a mystery. It’s unlikely that the feminists who will spend all that money will ever vote Republican.

Is this Ms. Schlafly’s way of trying to bring more violent men into the Republican fold? I’d dismiss her as a radical fluke except a known side effect of at least one state’s gay marriage ban removes women like the victim in this recent case from protection provided by anti-domestic violence laws.

It’s telling to me that I haven’t seen a single gay-marriage-ban proponent working to close this gap.

ohio.com

DAYTON, Ohio - A constitutional amendment banning gay marriage bars prosecutors from charging some unmarried people under the state’s domestic violence law, a state appeals court ruled.

Friday’s decision by the 2nd District Court of Appeals is the first from Ohio’s 12 appellate courts to rule that the Defense of Marriage amendment, passed by voters in 2004, means that the domestic violence law does not apply to unmarried people.

Does this mean that those in favor of the gay marriage ban see gay marriage as a greater sin than murder?

Also posted on my blog, | Posted by Abyss2hope in Anti-feminists and their pals, Feminism, sexism, etc, Rape, intimate violence, & related issues, Same-Sex Marriage | 10 Comments »