…from Ed Morrisey: Social conservatives — be careful what you wish for.
Ann Coulter should read it, too.
34 thoughts on “Sensible Advice On Marriage”
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…from Ed Morrisey: Social conservatives — be careful what you wish for.
Ann Coulter should read it, too.
Comments are closed.
Nope. It’s often true, and may well be in this case, but not for the “Social Conservatives”. They did not start the fight, or the games with the “definition” of marriage. They did what they could with the tools they had. The courts were (and are) playing games, and so the SolCons went to the one check on the courts they could touch. No, I think “Be careful what you wish for” applies correctly to the Leftists who pushed this silliness on the all of us. Money is quite tight now, and I’m thinking that many if not most corporations will drop their benefits rather then see their benefit budget explode by 25% or so. People do not react well to seeing a “right” taken from them (See Greece) and look, a scapegoat! Could get very bad….
No, this is delusional:
“Instead of demanding that states define and enforce marriage in a narrow sense, conservatives should demand that government stay out of defining and performing marriages at all. Couples that want to form partnerships should create a legal relationship based on existing contract law…. When one partner wants to end a partnership, then the terms of the contract should be enforced by courts.
Give me a break. Nobody sits down with his paramour in a lawyer’s office and draws up a contract before shacking up. There never has been, and never will be, a “marriage contract” between any but the most cold-blooded, bitterly experienced, or bizarrely businesslike couples, unless the rest of us enforce one, either through direct social pressure or the instrumentalities of law.
Besides, to the extent government defines a marriage contract at all, it only does so in terms of the obligations of divorcing partners to support one another, or in terms of custody of joint property and children.
Personally I would see nothing wrong with government interpreting the support obligation in terms of traditonal breach of contract damages, or explicit covenants during the marriage, but you are very unlikely to get the 51% of the population with two X chromosomes on board with that, since, inter alia, they file most of the divorce actions (so on breach of contract grounds they would get creamed) and they have traditionally argued that the duty to support is based on the unique needs of the child rearer, for which status they claim inherent biological priority.
And of course there is no way standard contract law can help with the custody of children, unless we want to resurrect Southern contract law from the time of chattel slavery.
On the whole, I find Morissey’s argument a little frivolous. He doesn’t seem to consider what matters the most in actual functioning marriage law out in flyover country — which is custody and support following divorce. There’s no plausible way this could be removed from government hands, more’s the pity.
Actually some couple do sit down and draw up a contract before marriage … It’s called a pre-nupt. Something that that I would highly recommend to any man before he marries unless he is marrying someone with more assets and income than him.
There is an effort in many states to pass laws stating a presumption of equal custody for parents unless there is proof that it would endanger the child(ren) or the parents agree otherwise.
Marriage without a pre-nupt is a contract that you don’t know the terms of unless there is a divorce. Then a moron in a black robes gets to decide those terms (Most judges come from the lower tier of lawyers). Not a chance I’m willing to take.
Carl,
I disagree,
I think that the traditional social conservative churches would quickly come up with a default contract that embraces their values and applies to couples married under their system. For civil marriages then you would also see default contracts spring up covering assets and support, children etc….
In general I think its always a good thing for people to have to explicitly look at their decisions, and not have the default “government will protect me and mine” default position.
There’s one major problem with Morrisey’s analysis. He describes marriage solely in terms of a “couple.” He forgets that there are other people involved. Marriage is, first and foremost (although, obviously, not solely) an institution for the reproduction, care, and raising of children. In that respect, marriage is unique and different from other arrangements like business partnerships. Children who are not born yet cannot negotiate or agree to the terms of Morrisey’s proposed contract.
I think that the traditional social conservative churches would quickly come up with a default contract that embraces their values.
And the reason they haven’t to date is…? And the reason people don’t sign such contracts already is…?
More precisely, Paul, I don’t doubt for a moment that chuches and The Daily Kos or whatever would come up with truly inspirational marriage model contracts. But what makes you think ordinary men and women would use them?
Look, men and women can’t even be generally bothered to think out carefully birth control before they hop in the sack. Something like one-third to one-half of all pregnancies in the United States are aborted each year, overwhelmingly simply because the pregnancy was unplanned and unwanted. You expect people shot full of Cupid’s arrows to plan carefully ahead for the possibility of divorce 20 years down the road, when they have a hard time planning for the possibility of pregnancy 20 minutes after the bra is undone?
In general I think its always a good thing for people to have to explicitly look at their decisions, and not have the default “government will protect me and mine” default position.
I agree 100%, but the problem here is, as Edward points out, the issue of the marriage (plus some relatively minor stuff about survivors benefits and inheritance). It’s all very well to allow the adults to learn by painful experience the consequences of entering a marriage without a reasonable contract — but we can’t reasonably allow the children to suffer along with them. Well, I mean, we could, but that means explicitly giving up on the whole notion of the state protecting children in general — so we can dispense with child abuse and neglect laws while we’re at it.
>And the reason they haven’t to date is…? And the reason people don’t >sign such contracts already is…?
Because government has stepped in and provided a default legal umbrella over the whole marriage contract.
Government should be a method to enforce contracts, not a creator of default contracts.
OK, does that mean…
(a) People think about their marriage contract, and are better satisfied with what the government default provides than anything anyone else can dream up?
(b) People don’t think about their marriage contract, and aren’t much aware they have one until things blow up?
I hope you see the problem with either?
Also, I think your last bit is a little overly simplified. Government doesn’t just enforce contracts, it defines what a contract is. For example, it says there must be a meeting of minds (so secret reservations can’t be part of one, and known misunderstandings invalidate them), there must be free consent (so you can’t make a contract with an insane or retarded person, nor with a child, nor by force), there must be an exchange of value, the law can’t otherwise be violated (contracts for murder are unenforceable), and so forth. There are many agreements people might make which are ruled out of bounds from the get-go.
Also also, let us bear in mind that courts will recognize (and even enforce) nearly any reasonable contract for support and custody that divorcing parents come up with on their own. Most custody and support orders are made because the parents cannot come up with a contract. Granted, they’re not necessarily in the best emotional position to do so at the end of the marriage, when they hate each others’ guts, but on the other hand it’s not clear they’d do any better at the start of the marriage, when they are equally discombobulated by strong emotion, and when the relevant conditions at the end — including the existence and nature of the children, how plausible it will be to work closely with the other parent, the resources of each — are entirely unpredictable.
Family law is by definition an odd thing: it does not even attempt to specify the mutual obligations during the marriage, for the most part. It’s not illegal to cheat on your husband, refer to your wife as the ol’ ball ‘n’ chain, nor slander your husband to his children, nor blow the mortgage money on hookers and coke while telling the wife the bank made a terrible error, nor assign the husband 80% of the domestic chores, nor refuse to have sex with the wife unless she dresses like Hillary Clinton and wears a dog collar.
What family law does do is attempt to specify the mutual obligations after the marriage. But of course people do not generally enter into marriages expecting them not to last, and so they are exceedingly unlikely to think about, or plan effectively for, what their mutual obligations are when it unexpectedly does not.
Various ficiton writers have invented the term marriage as a possible solution to this, and there’s something to be said for that: for example, if the government declined to recognize a marriage without a specific termination date, and made default custody and support orders if the marriage was not renewed before or on that date, it might indeed cause people to ponder, to varying degrees of seriousness, and if only theoretically, what happens after the marriage.
Sure, in general I agree with you entirely that people should be forced to think through the consequences of what they do. My quibble is with how that force can be found — if the manifest disaster of divorce is not itself sufficient, what on Earth would be? You’re trying to dissuade people from smoking when photographs of lung cancer patients aren’t working.
Actually, churches do have contract terms … the wedding vows. However, with no-fault divorce, it is not necessary to prove a breach of contract (such as adultery) in order to get the divorce itself. With default settlements such as a 50% split of assets in some states, then a breach of the vows really has no consequences … unless there is a pre-nupt. Thus, even more reason to push towards a written contract.
Children are not parties to the wedding contract no more than the parents are or siblings are. People can have children outside of a marriage and people can marry another besides the other parent of the child(ren) without the consent or signature of the children. Parents also make contracts, such as buying a house or a car, that affects the children but children are not a direct party.
As for custody, the default custody arrangement by a lazy moron in a black robe is custody to the mother with default child support defined by the guidelines … therefore, a mother has no incentive to negotiate custody and child support. Those that do must be reviewed by the court and the court is under heavy pressure to toss out an arrangement that pays less than the guidelines. Even if the court accepts it, if the mother changes her mind and goes back, it will be set aside and the higher amount imposed … I’ve seen it happen.
As for the abortion rate assertion, I don’t believe that for a moment in the US … maybe in Russia which does have a high rate of abortion but we’re discussing contract law and marriages in the US and is a red herring to this discussion.
The reason that there are so few pre-nupts isn’t because at least one party (the man) hasn’t consider it but the reaction of the second party (the woman). Hypergamy is alive and well in the US. It can only be controlled thru a pre-nupt. However, most men are afraid of losing the woman or upsetting her by bringing up the idea of a pre-nupt. Too many pay the price later for being a wimp. Personally, I let all women know that I will never marry again with out a solid pre-nupt and it hasn’t hurt me on the dating scene. Men just need to stand up for themselves on the front end.
I’m with LoboSolo on this one, but my view has only come to that point within the last year or so, when I dated a lawyer. If two people haven’t had a financial discussion prior to tying the knot, they’re asking for trouble anyway, and a pre-nup is an avenue to take to start that discussion.
In the state of Iowa, a pre-nup can only declare assets and liabilities; it cannot, by law, pre-define support or custody arrangements.
In that sense, I see nothing wrong with two people sitting down and putting all of their financial cards on the table, and setting it all in writing. I certainly would want to know if I’m going to be marrying someone with tens of thousands in credit card debt before I take that plunge, especially because of the potential impacts on the marriage in terms of financing a home, jointly having to pay for that debt, etc. Flip-side, my ex-girlfriend is eventual heir to a significant amount of farmland, which she has every right to protect from the ravages of a no-fault 50-50 divorce.
I dunno, Lobo. Are you arguing a particular consistent philosophy or just disputing random bits of what I said? For your assistance, the philosophy I’m arguing is that it is hopeless to attempt to get the state entirely out of the business of defining default contracts for custody and support that begin when the marriage ends, because (1) the state has a compelling interest in defending the interests of the children, just as in child abuse and labor laws, and (2) it is unrealistic to imagine most marrying couples will construct such contracts on their own, either before the marriage takes place or as it ends, and the state routinely defines workable default contracts almost everywhere else to prevent chaos when the principal parties fail to do so.
Beyond that, a few related nits:
Children are not parties to the wedding contract
You are perhaps mixing up the contract for the marriage itself, about which the state has almost nothing to say anyway, vide supra, and the contracts for custody and support after the marriage, about which family law actually concerns itself. In the case of custody and support, the children are the key parties to these contracts, since they don’t even exist in the absence of children.
As for the abortion rate assertion, I don’t believe that for a moment in the US
Well, have some data, then. These are courtesy of the CDC, and the 3rd column in this table helpfully summarizes the ratio of abortions to live births in the United States between 1970 and 2000. The peak ratio of 36% was reached in 1984, and in 2000 it was 25%.
It’s not a red herring because it’s evidence for my assertion that couples in sexual heat do not think out the long-range consequences of their mutual decisions very well, perhaps in large part because their reason is overwhelmed by deep-seated irrational drives.
The reason that there are so few pre-nupts isn’t because at least one party (the man) hasn’t consider it but the reaction of the second party (the woman).
Well, maybe. Or it could be that people generally marry for the first time when they are young and relatively penniless, and don’t foresee the major changes later that make alimony or property division painful. Or it could be for the same reason loads of people die without wills: nobody much wants to think about death and divorce when you’re young and in love.
John, at least in California your stated concerns don’t really urgently require a pre-nup. Visa can’t go after you for your wife’s pre-marital credit card debt, provided you’re not so foolish as to add your name to the account, and if you get divorced it remains her separate debt, provided it’s clearly distinguishable from debts acquired during the marriage. It would only affect your credit history if you added her to any application for credit you made, e.g. if you buy a house with both your incomes on the mortgage application.
Similarly, inheritance is specifically excluded from community property in California, at least, so even if you were married to your ex when she inherited her Thousand Acres it would be her sole and separate property, and you wouldn’t get a penny when you divorced.
There’s lots of ways to mess up the clean separation, and people do it all the time, but in principle you can keep what was yours before the marriage after the marriage.
Where pre-nups mostly come in is, I believe, where you have property that existed before the marriage which continues to acquire value during the marriage by some exertions that might be considered joint, for example you own a business, and you want to be careful about whether your wife doing some office typing is going to force you to split it 50/50 later on, or you own some property and you and your wife jointly build a house on it. Another important situation is when one of you is extremely rich, and you want your junior partner to accept some reasonably lavish but not spectacular level of alimony later on, e.g. you’re Paul McCartney and you think the gold digger you marry in your senility should be satisfied with a mere $1 million in yearly alimony instead of 40% of your (gigantic) after-tax income.
Carl, I normally agree with a lot of things you say, but it appears that you haven’t even looked at the data you linked to.
The total number and rate of abortions has been steadily dropping since the 90’s.
You first stated that “Something like one-third to one-half of all pregnancies in the United States are aborted each year”. Even if one incorrectly calculated the 356:1000 and 246:1000 ratios in the report as 35.6% and 24.6% respectively, those percentages aren’t even close to “one-half of all pregnancies”.
Now, since those are ratios of abortions to live births, the 356:1000 ratio is actually an “abortion rate” of 26.3% and the 246:1000 ratio is an “abortion rate” of only 19.7%. So, even at the “peak of abortions”, the rate was still barely over 1-in-4 pregnancies terminated by legal abortion.
If you add non-live births and other natural miscarriages to the numbers, the “abortion rates” would be even lower, and I’d venture to guess the current rate is less than 1-in-7, which is a significant difference from 1-in-3 or 1-in-2.
Children are not parties to the wedding contract
Exactly the problem with this whole argument.
Marriage was not originally defined by government. Certainly not by the US government. The institution of marriage predates contract law.
Government is currently *re*-defining marriage to mean something else. Just as it redefines the Second Amendment to mean something else. Morrisey is also redefining marriage, although he’s re-defining it in a different fashion — as a prenuptial agreement.
Marriage is an institution that evolved for the protection of children. Prenuptial agreements are a form of contract invented for the protection of Hollywood actors and actresses (who admittedly have some similarity to children).
Whether you think prenuptial agreements are good or bad, it should be obvious that a prenuptial agreement and a marriage are not the same thing. In fact, you can have a prenuptial agreement without ever getting married. That’s called a “cohabitation agreement.” Yet, most people still choose to get married, because a marriage is more than just a contract.
Equating a marriage with a prenuptial contract is like confusing an airplane with an emergency parachute.
True but irrelevant. The government did not define the automobile, but they’re charged with defining and mediating the rules of the road. Similarly, as Carl has amply argued, the government is charged with settling disputes over divorce and child welfare. It must also defend the institution as a “going concern” from time-to-time. It must therefore make some default assumptions via the legislative process.
The problem “social conservatives” face is that their war against same-sex marriage is an incoherent mess. I cannot figure out what their goal is.
It must also defend the institution as a “going concern” from time-to-time. It must therefore make some default assumptions via the legislative process.
Making default assumptions is not the same thing as redefining words to suit political winds.
The problem “social conservatives” face is that their war against same-sex marriage is an incoherent mess. I cannot figure out what their goal is.
There’s no such thing as a “same-sex marriage” any more than there’s a “same-sex pregnancy.” Once again, marriage is an institution for the reproduction, care, and raising of children. It is *not* just a prenuptial agreement, a business partnership, or a way of getting low-cost health insurance or qualifying for the family membership at the gym. By redefining the word “marriage” in a way that ignores children, you throw the primary function of marriage — protecting children — out the window. It isn’t hard to figure out why social conservatives oppose that.
I’m coming from a philosophy based having witnesses many insane divorce decrees and custody decrees. The state’s so-called “compelling interest in defending the interests of the children” of the doctrine of parens patriae leads to the morons-in-black-robe applying the “best interest of the child” test which in turn allows them (and gov’t agencies) to supplant parental decisions about child raising with their own subjective determinations about what is in a child’s “best interest”.
This “best interest” test is almost totally arbitrary and, in practice, allows virtually unlimited government interference with families. Not only that but gov’t agencies often have conflicts-of-interest, usually related to money incentives, which means that they often act contrary to a child’s best interest when it conflicts with theirs.
In reality, there is no reason why a court shouldn’t honor a pre-nupt contract concerning the custody of children in case of divorce as long as the terms do no place the child in danger. For instance, if the parties agree to a rotating physical custody every two years with no CS as long as both parties make above a minimum income … Why should the court set aside that contract as a matter of practice absent any proof of abuse or a danger to the child(ren)? In this matter, the parents are probably more rational at the beginning of a marriage than they are when it begins to fall apart and vengeance thru the child(ren) becomes possible.
And yes, the abortion issue (btw you asserted 1/2 as the max number which I was sure was incorrect) is a red herring. You’re presenting an issue that is irrelevant to the argument at hand, and then claiming that it validates the argument. Two people in the heat of hormones for sex does not compare to two people who agree to get married at a specified date in the future … apples and watermelons.
As to assets inherited … morons-black-robes can dance on the head of needle to get the result that they want. I know of one case of a man who inherited a family ranch. The judge ruled that since the wife had maintained a flower garden around the house … and thus contributed to its value … that it would be considered part of the marital property for distribution (upheld by the appeals court).
With more and more men delaying marriage, I think the idea of two young people marrying when they are penniless is pretty much history with rare exception. Many aren’t getting married until their late 20s or early 30s and by then they both have jobs and assets. It’s important to define those assets and to keep separate accounts to pay for those assets so that there is no co-mingling of funds.
The whole point of this debate, for me, is that the current undefined marriage contract is a recipe for disaster. A well thought out pre-nupt/marriage contract can head off a lot of turmoil in divorce and protect the assets of both parties. I would include a separate agreement (so as not to void the marriage contract) for the custody of any children and force the court to either uphold it or set it aside. If it sets it aside by just asserting parens patriae, that would be a basis for appeal. Contract law is very strong in most states and sooner or later, a court will uphold one as reasonable and the facade will fall.
Mr. Wright,
Pretend I’m a judge, and on my docket is a case involving cohabitating, financially comingled homosexuals with children they are both the legal parents of (aka, a “family” or “household”). Please tell me what jurisprudence I should apply and how it would differ from those of a normative heterosexual family. Thanks.
Marriage is an institution that evolved for the protection of children.
Baser motives may lie behind it as there are others ways of ensuring the protection of children in a primitive society. I’ve read that marriage arose after humans stopped being hunter gatherers, when they started to hold possessions so that after their deaths their assets would have to be divided among their heirs.
Quinn, I’m not playing that game. “Cohabitating, financially comingled homosexuals with children they are both the legal parents of”? I’m pretty sure it’s not possible for such a couple to be the children’s biological parents. You’re starting off with the implicit assumption that the law should give legal custody to this group rather than the natural parents. I can’t accept that assumption until I see some strong evidence that this is a healthy way to raise children, not just a hip or PC way. Children are not a science experiment.
Immaterial. I guess you didn’t follow the LGBT adoption issue: in my state and a dozen others two adults of the same gender can both legally be parents of a child.
The “game” is dealing with reality. The refusal of “social conservatives” to play it is exactly my point. It’s why they’re being left-out of the discussion and being called “haters” by individuals much less circumspect and considerate as yours truly. All you’ve told us is that, “gay marriage is not marriage.” That’s a position — it’s not an action. The reality is that gays are getting together and making households. I guess you want to ignore them. Okay — fine, it’s a free country, but don’t get upset that those who cannot ignore them, like judges and legislators, don’t. They don’t just work for your Platonic Ideal of Marriage, they must serve everyone.
I guess you didn’t follow the LGBT adoption issue: in my state and a dozen others two adults of the same gender can both legally be parents of a child.
And in the past, states enacted forced sterilization. Just because a state enacts a law doesn’t prove the law is a good idea, nor does it mean citizens must automatically agree with it. Your state hasn’t outlawed dissent, has it?
Once again, if you want to use the power of the state to promote something as a healthy way to raise children, equivalent to marriage, you should first *show* that it is a healthy way to raise children. So far, no one has done that. “My state legislators told me it was a good idea” is not evidence.
That’s a position — it’s not an action. The reality is that gays are getting together and making households. I guess you want to ignore them. Okay — fine, it’s a free country, but don’t get upset that those who cannot ignore them, like judges and legislators, don’t.
Of course judges and legislators can ignore them. The government doesn’t have to take action on everything that people do. Do you think the only options the government has are to either promote something or prohibit it?
Some parents allow their children to be raised almost entirely by nannies. That’s as questionable as the arrangements you propose, from the children’s point of view. It’s not obvious that it’s actively harmful, however, so the legislatures and courts allow it but they don’t promote it by laws and court decisions declaring nannyhood to be equal to marriage.
Mu. The only thing promoted is whether one is in or out of the closet, households receive equal treatment under law or otherwise unwanted children do or do not have homes and families. Gays are not spiriting-away children who already have homes. The zero-sum assumption is, as usual, false.
Regardless, you didn’t correct my assumption about your position (“stuff ’em back in the closet!”) so I must have been correct.
Morissey is utterly clueless. Robert Mitchell is right. Social conservatives are not trying to get the government to define marriage – it is trying toi keep the government from redefining it.
When someone devised the concept of a contract that has all the legal privileges associated with marriage, but goes by a name other than “marriage” – many gay activists howled. Why? I wish I could remember the source, but one activist stated that the same institution going by two different names insinuates that homosexuality is “less valuable” (exact phrase recalled from memory) than heterosexuality.
The operative word is “Newspeak.” Recall the theory: if you can’t say it, you can’t think it. The idea behind SSM is to employ the government to affect public opinion of homosexuality, by redefining a word whose historic definition insinuates that there is something fundamentally different between gay and straight orientation.
Libertarians should oppose SSM, cuz the government own neither marriage nor the language. Marriage is a concept between a couple and society (polygamy is an ancient legal fiction), and language is in the public domain.
There’s nothing new about gay activists running to the government to affect public opinion. Remember that old “tolerance” education meme that equates tolerance and acceptance? I bet that’s been around longer than GLSEN.
It’s late. Gotta go.
I think that the concept that “marriage is an institution that evolved for the protection of children” is false. Marriage has been used to forge alliances among individuals, groups, societies, and even nations. Marriage gives a measure of assurance (tho not total) of the paternity of any children … but marriage hardly evolved for the protection of children.
I don’t object to any two (or more) people forming a contractual relationship. I do object to gov’t redefining the word marriage for the convenience of any particular group … and I oppose the gov’t giving any kind of financial support whether a direct subsidy or tax credit to marriage.
But back to the topic at hand … Marriage is a contract. It is just that simple. If you do nothing more than get married, you have enabled a contract without defining the terms and responsibilities of that contract. If you never divorce, it is not an issue … But if you do divorce, it becomes a huge issue … one that usually works out worse for the man but not always.
BTW, not all states have common law marriage. Mine doesn’t. You can live together for years and if you split up, only joint assets with both names can be contested. That’s the way it should be. Common law marriage was an archaic way to get around the lack of available preachers and such … Common law marriage should be done away with … For example, if I live together for the required amount of time with two women … and have sex with each of them … which one is my “common-law” wife?
You haven’t really looked, then, Edward. Studies have repeatedly shown that children in same-sex households are no more likely to be homosexual themselves or to have statistically-significant differences in outcomes than children raised in heterosexual households. You can find references in the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_parenting
Okay, Alan, again, what’s your solution to the gay household problem? Recreate a second set of laws and call it, as McCain would say, a banana? Re-invent the wheel so as to not offend “social conservatives”? Like I’ve been trying to impress upon Mr. Wright, retreating from the situation just gives full control over it to those you despise. At least the Libertarians with their “civil unions for all, change the name” position are engaged, but their numbers are too few to succeed on their own, and absent any help from the SoCons, “gay marriage” will become universal in my lifetime. It may be a neologism to you grey-beards, but us “kids” have grown-up with the idea, and for the most part, we’re cool with it.
households receive equal treatment under law or otherwise unwanted children do or do not have homes and families.
Exactly. You want to treat unequal things equally. You’re engaged in is nothing less than false advertising. You can’t sell sawdust and call it “beef,” but you want to sell a social experiment and pass it off as “marriage.”
You continue to studiously ignore the children who are involved, pretending that the only important parties here are gay couples, legislators, and “men in black robes” and that the only important issue is what you think is “cool.”
That attitude is, unfortunately, all too common in our political/legal system. Since children are too young to vote, those legislators and men in black robes can safely ignore them.
Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to value child welfare more than “coolness,” so they view marriage as an institution to protect children from the fads of legislators and men in black robes. They want it to be protected even if that protection means they lose support from Titus Quinn because of their “uncoolness.”
That’s really not really very complex. I’m not sure why you find it so hard to understand.
And Justin, if you think the only factor in a healthy childhood is whether children are “likely to be homosexual themselves or to have statistically-significant differences in outcomes,” then you know very little about children. Additionally, Wikipedia is very, very far being an authority on childraising. Citing Wikipedia is just one step removed from citing Oprah.
Mr. Wright, thanks for the AM radio talking points circa 1996. I won’t waste any more of your time by trying to engage you in dialogue.
Edward, I told you the references were included in the link. I didn’t cite Wikpedia itself as the source of the data. If you refuse to study those resources for yourself, I can only conclude that you are willfully ignoring the data that contradicts your preconceptions about family.
Writing as the happily-married, gainfully-employed son of a gay parent, I can tell you that having two parents who support each other and set positive examples are what make the difference. Honesty, integrity, fidelity, and discipline are what matter, not sexual orientation.
I was one of those children that you think need to be “protected” and I turned out just fine.
Okay, Alan, again, what’s your solution to the gay household problem?
What gay household problem? What makes you think I know what in the hecking heckity heck you’re talking about? Explain what problem you believe to exist, and how only ONE NAME for gay unions can solve it.
Recreate a second set of laws and call it, as McCain would say, a banana?
Dude, you’re projecting pro-SSM logic onto the anti-SSM crowd. It’s your side that wants to name an institution after somethign it’s not.
When government invents a new institution, it doesn’t consult a random-word generator. It grabs from the common language a term that at least vaguely hints at a function of the thing being named. Take “guardian,” the legal term for an adult who is legally recognized as a child’s primary caregiver. The common term means “defender,” which describes a role of caregivers.
“Civil union” follows the same principle: it is administered by civil courts, and is a legally recognized union.
Note also that “guardian” and “parent” are not synonymous. This (or anything else) isn’t quite an apples-to-apples comparison to marriage and civil unions, but there’s one thing in common: both sets of institutions are bestowed with the same privileges.
If someone were to ask the government to call guardianship parenthood, it wouldn’t be a big emotional deal but it would insinuate a logical fallacy: that parent/child and guardian/child relationship dynamics are on average pretty much the same. Adoptive parents will tell you otherwise, in better language than I can summon right now.
To call same-sex unions “marriage” implies that the dynamics of homosexuality and heterosexuality, and the relationships that stem from these orientations, are pretty much the same. That’s an unproven opinion. If homosexuality is a disorder, it would be reckless to treat it otherwise. If it’s not, it’s still fascist claptrap to change the language for the purposes of social engineering. Like I said, language is public domain, not owned by the
Ministry of Truthgovernment.If you want people to change their opinions about homosexuality, you have to do so through persuasion, not through agitprop. And you have to know what you’re up against – understanding why many people believe that homosexuality is messed up in the head. If you treat it like it’s just a religious thing, you share company with the fiscal lefties who think free-market advocates don’t care about the poor, and SoCons who think drug-decriminalization advocates want drugs to proliferate.
A meme can’t spread if nobody is expressing it. Opposition to homosexuality didn’t magically appear in the 1970s – folks looked down on homosexuality (when and if they ever encountered it) long before they ever talked about it. They grow up seeing that heterosexuality is the overwhelming norm. They can’t imagine how the male body in particular could facilitate gay sex that is simultaneously as pleasurable and as safe as straight sex. They have at least a vague notion that traumas can change all sorts of psychological orientations, and know no reason to count sexual orientation as an exception.
And their beliefs are reinforced by the prevalence of irrational gay activists. The activists misrepresented Kinsey’s statistics for DECADES – he said 10% of men and 5% of women were gay, not 10% of both – and they never questioned the validity of a survey that relied on volunteers instead of random samples. Activists never try to explain the 1973 American Psychiatric Ass’n ruling – or why we should automatically believe that the ruling was scientific even though it came as a result of intense pressure from gay activist groups. We’re told homosexuality is immutable and purely biological in origin without any real proof. We’re told that human sexual psychology can be assessed by observing the behavior of nonsapient creatures – yeah, and I’ve got a CRU data storage vault in some swampland to sell you.
We’re told that gays are just like straights except for which gender they groove on, but a lot of folks don’t see it. Many people perceive that gays are more sexually immodest than the general population. Many oppose gay Boy Scout troop leaders for the same reason they oppose male (gay or straight) Girl Scout troop leaders – but that belief seems virtually nonexistent among gays. People perceive that gays disproportionately reject the notion that people can get along despite disagreements on whether or not homosexuality is messed up in the head. (I suspect this intolerance is more common among activist than nonactivist gays.) Gay politics is overwhelmingly statist – but once again, the nonactivists might not be quite as domineering as the activists.
The one I posed on June 29th, 2011 at 10:21 am, the one apparently written in invisible ink. But I guess you answer it here:
However,
While a “guardian” is legally equivalent to a “parent” — tax deduction, decision making, the works in all 50 states, a “civil union” is not legally equal to “marriage”. So I guess your answer is the same — “stay in the closet”, amirite?
Again, the problem with SoCons on this issue is the disconnect between words and actions. They think gay households are “bad” but unlike other “bad” things, they’re unwilling to do anything about it. Send in the SS to bust-up gay homes as if they parents were doing drugs and we’ll know you’re serious (or, since the other side controls the family courts, at least advocate for it…). The fact that they haven’t means that they’ve already accepted “gay marriage” de facto in the default laissez-faire of classical liberals/libertarian spirit who let people do as they will in their personal lives, and god bless them for it.
What makes you think SoCons are the only ones who think homos3xuality is a disorder?
And how is “civil union” not legally equal to “marriage” if both have the same legal privileges?
They think gay households are “bad” but unlike other “bad” things, they’re unwilling to do anything about it.
Maybe they have respect for limited government. They think one-night stands are objectively a bad thing (and they have a lot of strong points), but they don’t think it’s the government’s job to bust up trysts. (Prostitution is an exception that more than just SoCons want to keep criminalized.) More of them might have eventually come to supporting an end to sodomy laws for the very same reasons, if sodomy laws hadn’t been struck down by heavy-handed, dishonest means. The “do you own thing and leave us alone” meme is more common among SoCons than you think.
Scarcely anyone is saying that gays should be allowed to share the same living space – although forcing to live separately would be a great mechanism for artificially boosting home ownership. Let’s run that idea by Barney Frank.
It’s the majority of gay activists who hate due process and separation of powers. Particularly in the area of education – most of them believe that educrats should trump parents with regard to s3xuality education. Most of them (GLIL a notable exception) oppose the BSA’s right to limit membership to people who believe its creed. Most support “hate crimes” legislation just so they have more Victim Cards to play.
Either a significant minority or a majority support criminalization of stuff like “hate speech” and/or s3xual orientation reorientation psychological programs.
So I guess your answer is the same — “stay in the closet”, amirite?
Only a government document can get gays out of the closet? How weenieish is that? (I’d comment on “amirite,” but my Latin is quite limited.) I guess I should assume Perez Hilton is heteros3xual until he releases his long-form Certificate of S3xual Orientation.
Titus, you need to get out and meet some actual SoCons, and people who have secular opposition to homos3xuality.
Got past the Spam filter on the second try.
One word about my earlier comment…I don’t type out long screeds like that unless I think I’ve got something to say that isn’t getting said enough. In summary:
1. Even anti-SSM forces will not come right out and say what’s at the center of the marriage debate – that SSM seeks to change the language for propaganda purposes per Orwellian Newspeak.
2. People who do not believe homosexuality to be a disorder often fail to understand why people believe otherwise, or that most of the dissenting arguments are secular in nature, even among religionists.
3. The majority of gay activists represent the opposite of the live-and-let-live ethic, and as a result reinforce negative attitudes toward homosexuality. (I remember once reading a gay activist’s lament that the current activism abandoned the live-and-let-live of the Mattachine days – wish I had a link.)
4. People don’t have to like homosexuality to like homosexuals.