Alas, a Blog | Feminist, anti-racist, pro-fat, plus whatever else we feel like talking about.

16 extra years in prison for being gay

Posted on April 25, 2005 by Ampersand

Kansas’ statutory rape law prohibits “criminal sodomy” (including oral sex) with teenagers younger than 16. If the object of Matthew’s affection had been female, however, Kansas would have afforded him the benefit of its romantically named “Romeo and Juliet” statute, designed precisely for kids like him, kids who have consensual sex with other kids. In Kansas, and in many other states, when two teenagers have heterosexual sex, even the dreaded sodomy, the penalties are relatively mild. If Matthew had had consensual sex with a girl, and the state had prosecuted him at all, the longest sentence they could have given him was 15 months. Instead, because Matthew had sex with another boy, and only because he had sex with another boy, he has spent the past five years in Ellsworth Correctional Facility in central Kansas.

I wonder if the folks who oppose same-sex marriage would say that this “Romeo and Juliet” law isn’t discrimination? After all, gays and straight teens alike are given the much, much harsher punishment if they have sex with their underage same-sex lover. According to the same logic same-sex marriage opponents are so fond of – the logic that says that gays and lesbians have an equal right to marry someone of the opposite sex – this law must not be discriminatory.

A correction of the definition of "woman" looming if a certain bill is allowed to pass

Posted on April 25, 2005 by Pseudo-Adrienne

From Feministe and Big Brass Blog on “what makes a woman a woman,” according to a certain bill. Read A Handmaid’s Tale, folks.

According to the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2005 (Senate Bill 51 and House Bill 356, if you’re curious), it’s the ova and the uterus and nothing else. The Act, which has been criticized for its possible effects on abortion law, has been referred to committee in both the House and the Senate. It contains this excellent definition:

WOMAN- The term `woman’ means a female human being who is capable of becoming pregnant, whether or not she has reached the age of majority.

This definition of ‘woman’ was considered appropriate by both House and Senate. There are several interesting implications to this:

A. A female human being who is not capable of becoming pregnant does not qualify as a woman under this definition.

B. This definition implies that a woman is not, as any dictionary will tell you, an ‘adult female human.’ A thirteen-year-old female child is a woman if she has reached puberty. Fertility is the sole measure of womanhood, not maturity and the capacity to make one’s own decisions.

C. This definition could be used in other laws if this bill is passed and signed.

All of this reminds me of the definition of ‘woman’ in Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, wherein infertile women were considered Unwomen.

Pretty damn disturbing. So what are we going to call menopausal and post-menopausal women? Disposable crones? So I suppose Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, isn’t a woman by this definition because she’s unmarried and childless, and probably menopausal or post-menopausal. I just love knowing that according to certain conservatives I’m just breeding-stock and an incubator, along with other women my age. We live in scary times indeed.

Posted in \"Partial Birth\" Abortion, Abortion & reproductive rights, Anti-feminists and their pals, Feminism, sexism, etc | 31 Comments

Remember that one Seinfeld episode?

Posted on April 25, 2005 by Pseudo-Adrienne

The one that dealt with a particular sponge that one of the characters planned on stocking up with before they were taken off the market? Well the FDA just recently re-approved of the Today Sponge, a popular female contraceptive so I’m told by their official website.

The TodayÂ® Sponge, once the most popular over-the-counter female contraceptive, has won re-approval for marketing from the Food and Drug Administration. Finally, U.S. women will once again be able to make the TodayÂ® Sponge their contraceptive choice. The Sponge provides what women most often look for in a contraceptive: effectiveness, safety, convenience and sexual spontaneity.

Well the more contraceptive choices for women the better. My health professor even cited that Seinfeld episode when he was talking about contraceptive methods. Now how long do you think once this reaches far and wide to drugstores and supermarkets, it will take for the anti-contraceptive/anti-choice movement to come up with another “conscience clause?” This time for cashiers who have their own personal reservations on contraception, so they can refuse to sell it to women? Thankfully, women can order this and have it delivered to their home so they won’t have to risk putting up with that crap.

Posted in Anti-Contraceptives/EC zaniness | 21 Comments

Why Men Right's Activists Prefer Data From Before 1990

Posted on April 25, 2005 by Ampersand

In the comments to an earlier post, Brad Benjaminson (who doesn’t identify as a men’s rights activist, but tends to cite writings by MRAs) cited several articles he thought of interest. I read the title of one – “Wives Also Kill Husbands-Quite Often” – and before I even saw the date the article was written (1994), I knew the article would use data from before 1990.

How did I know? Because I’ve read a lot of men’s rights articles about “intimate partner homicide” (that’s murdering a spouse, a girlfriend or a boyfriend), and nearly all of them use pre-1990 data. For instance, a quick search of two MRA (men’s rights activist) websites – Men’s Network.org and MenWeb – found seven articles arguing that women are about as likely as men to commit intimate murder. All of them used data from before 1990 to make their case. In fact, almost all of them used the same data set – a Bureau of Justice Statistics study of intimate homicide in 33 of the 75 largest-population (i.e., urban) counties, which was published in 1994 but used data gathered in 1988. The BJS has published more recent work – so why do the MRAs return to this one source over and over? (Or, if not this source, sources that also used urban data from before 1990?)

Because they want to prove – despite clear data, like these recent FBI figures, showing men are far more likely to murder wives and girlfriends than vice-versa – that men are “equal victims.” (This relates, I believe, to a larger project of trying to show that patriarchy doesn’t exist, women have nothing to complain about, etc.)

So what’s special about Urban data from before 1988? Check out these charts (source), both featuring more recent homicide data than the data the MRAs highlight:

This graph shows the reality: although there have always been more women murdered by intimates than vice-versa, the numbers used to be closer. In particular, there’s been a huge decline in male victims – which, unsurprisingly, isn’t something that MRAs with an ideology of male victimhood want to admit.

So that’s why MRAs avoid recent homicide data. Why do they prefer urban data, rather than countrywide data?

As you can see, before 1988 or so black husbands were more likely to be murdered by wives than vice-versa. The BJS data set the MRAs like to use, contains data from spousal-murder cases in 33 urban counties in 1988. In that data set, “Blacks comprised 55% of the 540 defendants, and whites comprised 43%. Among husband defendants 51% were black and 45% were white. Among wife defendants 61% were black and 39% were white.”

So using out-of-date urban data enables MRAs to use a historic anomaly – the high rate of husband-murder among blacks before 1988 – and pretend it represents the norm.

* * *

So why have husband-murder rates been dropping faster? Obviously, there is no one simple answer: but part of the answer is that abused women now have more resources. “Studies of homicides between intimates show that they are often preceded by a history of physical abuse directed at the women, and several studies have documented that a high proportion of women imprisoned for killing a husband had been physically abused by their spouses… the weight of the available evidence shows that often wives kill their husbands in the context of a history of wife abuse.” (Mercy, J.A. & Saltzman, L.E. “Fatal violence among spouses in the United States, 1976-85” American Journal of Public Health 79(5): 595-9 May 1989)

Many of these studies have found that wives who kill their husbands often felt “hopelessly trapped” in an abusive relationship. Therefore, it seems possible that the growth of resources for abused women since 1970 has made a significant number of such wives feel less “trapped,” hence reducing the murder rate of men. To test this possibility, Browne & Williams looked at state-by-state spousal murder rates compared to a “Resources for Abused Women Index,” (availability of shelters, hot lines, support networks, etc, in each state), after controlling for demographic variables (such as the higher general murder rate in many southern states). (Browne, A. & Williams, K. R. “Exploring the effect of resource availability and the likelihood of female-perpetrated homicides.” Law and Society Review, 23, 75-94, 1989.)

The study found that “the Resources for Abused Women Index, although negatively correlated with rates of both types of partner homicide, is more strongly correlated with female-perpetrated than with male-perpetrated homicide…. Moreover, such resources were associated with a decline in the rate of female-perpetrated partner homicide in 1980-1984 compared to 1976-1979.”

So it seems that, thanks to feminism, abusive men may now be less likely to be murdered by their wives.

It’s also possible, that if battered black women (on average) had less access to resources to get themselves out of abusive relationships, that could explain the unusually high rate of black husbands murdered before battered women’s shelters became (relatively) common.

Another question: Why has homicide of white wives declined while homicide of white girlfriends hasn’t? I’m not sure what explains the racial difference, but one factor contributing to the girlfriend/wife difference is the emergence of no-fault divorce. According to a paper (.pdf link) by Betsey Stevensen of Harvard and Justin Wolfers of Stanford, no-fault divorce signficantly helps women in bad marraiges. From an article written by Wolfers:

The findings reveal that under no-fault laws a wife can threaten to leave an abusive husband, and this becomes a credible threat. Under the old regime, this was not so. Our theory is that the fear of divorce creates a strong incentive for abusive partners to behave.

More generally, easy access to divorce redistributes marital power from the party interested in preserving the marriage to the partner who wants out. In most instances, this resulted in an increase in marital power for women, and a decrease in power for men.

Our analysis of US data revealed the legislative change had caused female suicide to decline by about a fifth, domestic violence to decline by about a third, and intimate femicide – the husband’s murder of his wife – to decline by about a tenth.

Unfortunately, as “marriage movement” and men’s right activists have become more influential in recent years, there has been a movement to defund battered women’s shelters and to repeal no-fault divorce laws. Either of these changes would be incredibly harmful to the interests of battered women.

* * *

(Below the fold are links to the seven MRA articles I looked at, with the relevant bits quoted).

Here are links to the seven articles I looked at, all of which used pre-1990 data to make their points, and most of which used data drawn from urban areas. These articles make many additional claims, which I don’t cover in this blog post; many of them, however, are discussed in this earlier post about “husband-battering.”

From “Husband Battering” by David Goss: In 1958, an investigation of spousal homicide between 1948 and 1952 found that 7.8% of murder victims were husbands murdered by wives, and 8% were wives murdered by husbands (Wolfgang 1958). More recently, in a study of spousal homicide in the period from 1976 to 1985, it was found that there was an overall ratio of 1.3:1.0 of murdered wives to murdered husbands, and that “Black husbands were at greater risk of spouse homicide victimization than Black wives or White spouses of either sex” (Mercy & Saltzman 1989).
From “Domestic Violence and the Demonising of Men”: If we consider the most extreme form of physical violence – murder of one spouse by another – it is apparent that women are almost as likely to kill as a man. Of urban spouses convicted of murdering a spouse, 41 per cent are wives (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1994.) [Note: the 1994 BJS report cited uses data from 33 urban counties collected in 1988. –Amp]
From “Family Violence” (also available here): Men and children may not report when they are injured by a woman, however, the dead bodies of the men and children who are the victims of violent women are usually reported. Murder statistics are far more reliable than reported abuse statistics. The Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report of family homicides in 33 urban counties [using data collected in 1988 – Amp]. Some gender activists claim that violent women are acting in self- defense. These quoted statistics represent convictions for murder.
1. “In spouse murders, women represented 41 percent of killers.”
2. “In murders of their offspring, women predominated, accounting for 55 percent of killers.”
3. “Among black marital partners, wives were just about as likely to murder their husbands as husbands were to murder their wives: (47/53)
From “Assaultive Girlfriends”: In July 1994 the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice released a Special Report detailing the results of a survey of family homicides in 33 urban U.S. counties. [What a surprise – the same data source, with data collected in 1988, shows up again. –Amp]
From – ironically – “Latest Research Findings”: Some of the best data on serious assault by intimates appears to be homicide data, which suggest that four out of ten intimate homicides are of men. (Mercy 1989, Langen & Dawson, 1995, FBI Uniform Crime Reports). [That 1995 article, it turns out, uses BJS stats collected in 1988 from 33 urban counties – just like the previous three references. And although he cites FBI data, current FBI numbers show that about two out of ten intimate homicides are of men. -Amp]
From “Domestic Violence: A Two-Way Street”: Nor do husbands murder their wives significantly more than wives murder their husbands. A 1994 Department of Justice study [Yup! The same one! –Amp] analyzed 10,000 cases and found that women make up over 40 percent of those charged in familial murders.
Finally, this long list of citations include three that discuss spousal homicide. Of the three, the one with the most recent data is a report “on homicide rates in St. Louis from 1968-1992.”

Posted in Anti-feminists and their pals | 105 Comments

Here's some quick links for all you dinks

Posted on April 24, 2005 by Ampersand

Hey, sorry to call you all “dinks,” but hey, it rhymed.

The Guardian has printed an essay by Andrea Dworkin about her bone disease and resulting disability, which is billed as “the last piece written by Andrea Dworkin.” As usual, Dwokin’s prose voice is clear and engrossing. Thanks to “Alas” reader “Maureen” for emailing the tip.
From Geekery Today: A man sentenced to just four months in prison for killing his wife, after a jury concluded he acted in a blind fury, drew a 15-year term for wounding her boyfriend.
No matter how many times you clean the toilet, you’re gonna have to clean it again and again. Which brings us to that stupid shit Paul Cameron, king of the homo-hating liars. I See Invisible People is on hand with the toilet brush.
I couldn’t write prose this bad if you paid me: “The walls had fallen down and the Windows had opened, making the world much flatter than it had ever been…but the age of seamless global communication had not yet dawned.” It really is awesome – Thomas Friedman is no ordinary bad writer. Read the post and comments at Crooked Timber for more.
Republicans, conceding that the private sector is unable to win a fair competition with the public sector, have proposed that taxpayers subsidize uncompetitive private-sector weather report services. Majikthise has more.
Microsoft has apparently been pressured to stop supporting gay-rights bills by the threat of a right-wing Christian boycott. Daddy, Papa and Me has more: here and here.
Interesting WomensEnews article about Angela Bonavoglia, a Catholic, feminist, Roman Catholic writer working to reform the Catholic Church. “Angela is exposing in her book that we have great women that the church is determined to turn into good girls.” Bonavoglia’s own website is here.
This New York Times article reports that the divorce rate is not only falling, it was never as high as we’ve all seen claimed; the “50% of marriages end in divorce” claim is a myth.
Seder-Masochism. A comic book about Passover (well, sort of) made from photos of action figures. So sue me, it totally cracked me up.

Posted in Link farms | 2 Comments

How often are the phrases "ironic" and "ergonomic disorders" combined in one post?

Posted on April 23, 2005 by Ampersand

Jordon at Confined Space is enjoying the schadenfreude…

Recognizing the very real pain that ergonomic disorders cause, there is still something deliciously ironic about this:

Sandy Boyd’s BlackBerry had become her passion. Now it has also become a source of pain.

About three months ago, the National Association of Manufacturers vice president noticed that, as she started to type, the area between her thumb and wrist would begin to throb.

Orthopedists say they are seeing an increasing number of patients with similar symptoms, a condition known as “overuse syndrome” or “BlackBerry thumb.” In some patients, the disability has become severe.

For those of you just tuning in, the National Association of Manufacturers was one of the leaders in the campaign to stop OSHA from issuing an ergnomics standard, to repeal the standard in March 2001 after it was issued, as well as the current effort to force OSHA to withdraw the voluntary guidelines issued over the past three years because of the lack of “hard, verifiable scientific evidence.”

Read Jordon’s whole post.

Posted in Whatever | 3 Comments

Thanks for the reminder Serpent Goddess

Posted on April 22, 2005 by Pseudo-Adrienne

Echidne of the Snakes, reminds us of what ‘W’ really stands for and it sure as hell isn’t for women. Certainly not for our reproductive rights. As some of you may know, the FDA has conveniently been taking its grand ole time in officially approving mass distribution of the emergency contraceptive pill, Plan B, though two FDA panels have already found it to be safe for women to use. The playing of politics with women’s health and rights continues. Echidne, please elaborate….

In fact, George Bush and his wingnuts care so much for the women of this world that they are prepared to have as many as 68,000 more of them dead:

Dead from what, might I ask?

The US government is trying to block the World Health Organisation from endorsing two abortion pills which could save the lives of some of the 68,000 women who die from unsafe practices in poor countries every year.

The WHO wants to put the pills on its essential medicines list, which constitutes official advice to all governments on the basic drugs their doctors should have available.

Last month, an expert committee met to consider a number of new drugs for inclusion on the list. They approved for the first time two pills, to be used in combination for the termination of early pregnancy, called mifepristone and misoprostol. In poor countries where abortion is legal, doctors currently have no alternative to surgery.

The Guardian understands that the US department of health and human services has been lobbying the director general’s office at the WHO to block approval of the pills, in line with President George Bush’s neoconservative stance on abortion.

While the availability of pills might make abortion easier and could increase the number choosing it, the experts want them listed to reduce the deaths and damage caused by surgery. Every year, 19 million women have unsafe abortions – 18.5 million of those take place in developing countries. An estimated 68,000 women die as a result of botched or unhygienic surgery, while many others suffer long-term damage, including sterility.

All of this sums up to what, Echidne?

[…]…The Bush administration calculus of values is clear: The loss of fetuses counts for more than the loss of already existing lives. I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t another hidden value judgment in operation: Punish those women who don’t wish to be pregnant.

Similar sentiments hold sway here in the U.S.. The pro-life movement has expanded its definition of abortion to cover certain types of contraceptives, especially the contraceptive pill. Pharmacists now wish to decide if the contraceptive pill is an abortifacient and they want to have the right not to dispense it. Given this, it is not surprising that the most recent pro-life attack is against “the morning after” pill, also called Plan B, a high dose of progesterone taken soon after unprotected intercourse.

The wingnuts don’t like this pill. It encourages promiscuity, omits the necessary punishment for sexual activity and so on:

Specifically, sexual activity among unmarried women who do not wish to become pregnant. Can’t have that now can we?

Plan B’s most outspoken critic, the right-wing Concerned Women for America, insists it is actually worried about safety, given the lack of studies on the pill’s long-term effects. But the vast majority of medical experts say Plan B is completely safe, in part because birth-control pills have such a well-established safety record themselves. According to the Guttmacher Institute, Plan B was available in 2002 without a prescription in 26 countries, including Switzerland, Israel, and Congo.

A less flimsy argument against Plan B is that it is tantamount to abortion. While science has demonstrated that Plan B works, it has not shown definitively how Plan B works. And, although most researchers believe that it acts by postponing ovulation or preventing fertilization, it could also prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus–which, according to some pro-life groups, is murder. That’s a perfectly respectable, intellectually consistent position for people who believe life begins at the instant when sperm meets egg. But it’s also a very severe standard, given that fertilized eggs naturally fail to implant 40 to 60 percent of the time. This is one reason that the medical establishment defines pregnancy as beginning only when a fertilized egg has implanted.

When did many of these ultra-conservative “pro-life” groups relied on medical science to define anything concerning reproductive and sexual health?

The other serious argument against Plan B is that it will increase risky sexual activity by young people. But peerreviewed studies published in mainstream medical publications (like one just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association) have repeatedly found no such link. Of course, conservatives argue that making emergency contraception available sends a broader cultural message about the acceptability of premarital sex. But, even if that were true, there are the likely benefits of Plan B to consider. James Trussell, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, has estimated that, if emergency contraceptives were widely available in this country, they could reduce the approximately 1.3 million abortions that take place yearly in this country by half. If a culture of life is so sacrosanct, shouldn’t that trump the issue of premarital sex?

Echidne continues…..

How to answer that last question? There are specifications to the “culture of life” in wingnuttia and these exclude most anything that promotes better lives for already existing people. “Life” in the wingnut jargon usually refers to fetuses and to people who are brain-dead. Some already existing lives (such as those of Iraqis or Afghanis) don’t matter much. Women’s lives are valued as equipment for making future wingnuts but don’t seem to possess much intrinsic worth. And in general wingnuts lose all interest in the saving of any lives if it costs them something. Hence the eagerness to ban abortions and the reluctance to fund anything that would make bringing up children easier.

The “W”, by the way, stands for “wingnut”.

A nice sobering reminder. Yes, I’ll definitely be remembering this during my job interview today with Victoria’s Secret. I hate being fertile sometimes. Actually, I have never hate being fertile more so than during this administration. Hot flashes and night-sweats aren’t that bad are they? It still amazes me to no end that many of these “pro-life” groups fail to acknowledge or hell, believe that back alley abortions do happen. Women die because of them. And will illegalizing abortion and going further with banning contraceptives improve this situation? Or will the self-delusion of there being “no such thing as desperate women turning to back alley abortions even if abortion is illegal and contraceptives are incredibly difficult to obtain” continue? Especially with this administration’s politics?

Posted in Abortion & reproductive rights, Anti-feminists and their pals, Elections and politics, International issues | 4 Comments

Interesting Discussion on Same-Sex Marriage

Posted on April 22, 2005 by Ampersand

I don’t really have much to say about it that many, many people haven’t said before, but I wanted to point out an interesting exchange about same-sex marriage that’s been bouncing around the blogosphere. I’m quoting brief snippets of each, for flavor, but there’s lots, lots more if you read the posts in full.

First of all, Megan of Asymmetrical Information (who “Alas” readers may remember I debated on a certain movie star’s radio show), a libertarian, argues that same-sex marriage advocates have been too easily dismissing the potential downside of legal same-sex marriage.

A very common response to this is essentially to mock this as ridiculous. “Why on earth would it make any difference to me whether gay people are getting married? Why would that change my behavior as a heterosexual”

To which social conservatives reply that institutions have a number of complex ways in which they fulfill their roles, and one of the very important ways in which the institution of marriage perpetuates itself is by creating a romantic vision of oneself in marriage that is intrinsically tied into expressing one’s masculinity or femininity in relation to a person of the opposite sex; stepping into an explicitly gendered role. This may not be true of every single marriage, and indeed undoubtedly it is untrue in some cases. But it is true of the culture-wide institution. By changing the explicitly gendered nature of marriage we might be accidentally cutting away something that turns out to be a crucial underpinning.

To which, again, the other side replies “That’s ridiculous! I would never change my willingness to get married based on whether or not gay people were getting married!”

Now, economists hear this sort of argument all the time. “That’s ridiculous! I would never start working fewer hours because my taxes went up!” This ignores the fact that you may not be the marginal case. The marginal case may be some consultant who just can’t justify sacrificing valuable leisure for a new project when he’s only making 60 cents on the dollar. The result will nonetheless be the same: less economic activity. Similarly, you–highly educated, firmly socialised, upper middle class you–may not be the marginal marriage candidate; it may be some high school dropout in Tuscaloosa. That doesn’t mean that the institution of marriage won’t be weakened in America just the same.

Megan goes on to give a number of somewhat dubious examples of government policy causing Bad Things (no-fault divorce caused a high divorce rate, that sort of thing).

Galios responds (in part; read the whole thing):

[Megan speculates that, if same-sex marriage is legalized,] some people might no longer choose to marry as it will no longer be an expression of an explicit gendered role. I had thought, however, that in such a conflict where one person wants a role to be explicitly gendered and another wishes to take that role in spite of his or her gender, the latter’s equality rights would generally trump the other’s interest in maintaining gender roles. If not we should reconsider a lot of issues. Perhaps women should no longer be allowed to be policemen as some men at the margins are no longer joining the force because it does not afford an opportunity to step into an explicitly gendered role. In this case it is not that I arrogantly suppose nobody would react this way. I simply feel the need for explicit gendered roles is far outweighed by the need to be free of them.

Tom at Family Scholars Blog, also responding to Megan, writes:

Hear, hear. Same-sex marriage could weaken marriage in numerous ways. I think there are clear reasons why marriage has always been understood as being between a man and a woman. Marriage has been about regulating sexuality and procreation (and property and other things), and we live in”“and always will live in”“a heteronormative world.

But not allowing same-sex marriage could also weaken marriage. (Marriage could increasingly be seen as a discriminatory institution, the compromise of civil unions could undermine marriage far more than same-sex marriage, and so on.) Just as many gay rights activists should think a bit more seriously about marriage, many opponents of same-sex marriage should think a bit more seriously about fairness and equality for homosexuals. I see no reason why society should condemn homosexuality and stigmatize homosexuals, and most opposition to same-sex marriage is rooted in opposition to homosexuality (Elizabeth and David are in the minority there, I’m afraid). I’m not sure if there are any rational arguments out there against homosexuality, either. That’s not to say that our ancestors were bigoted, repressed bastards. But sometimes societies make progress, and it’s difficult to see how the growing social acceptance of homosexuality can be categorized as anything other than progress.

Jim at Unqualified Offerings gets in the deal; answering Megan’s examples and also her Chesterson quote (which I’m not even getting in to here, space being limited and all), and also writing:

The form of the social conservative argument against gay marriage is entirely different: easing couple-formation among Class A is supposed to make couple-formation less attractive to Class B. One version of this argument would hold that Class B so reviles Class A that they will, at the margin, want less to do with any institution Class A has contaminated. Social conservatives on their best behavior are at pains to avoid this one. Instead they argue that marriage is deeply attractive because it is an opportunity to “step[] into an explicitly gendered role,”?as Megan puts it, and opening the institution to Class A, gay couples, compromises that.

I can’t say definitively that it doesn’t, because one can’t prove a negative. I can say that the “gendered roles are the it thing about marriage”? claim has a distinctly after-the-fact air about it; that is, it feels like the opposition to gay marriage comes first, and the reasoning afterward. […]

Social conservatives either need a more compelling causal explanation of how gay marriage would harm straight marriage, or they need closer analogies than Megan managed. Give me compelling historical cases of the form “We opened Institution X to Class A and that caused it to weaken among Class B”? and you’ll have at least a level of surface plausibility that social conservatives currently don’t have. You won’t have won the argument by any means – at that point we have to weigh your story against the justice claims that have been patiently waiting to be brought back in to the discussion. But at least you’ll have an argument.

Kip Esquire makes a solid point as well:

The mile-wide blindspot in Jane’s tome is that all her examples are non-discriminatory. Look at the income tax: two clones with exactly identical financial profiles pay exactly the same income tax … whether that tax is too high is an entirely different discussion. Yes, libertarians … or anyone … can disagree about whether “taxes are too high,” but I would hope that a tax policy that discriminated against gays … or blacks or women or immigrants or any other group … would unite libertarians in saying “Now hold on a minute…” […]

I don’t give a damn whether recognizing same-sex marriage affects anybody else’s behavior “at the margin.” I’m being discriminated against, and I want it to stop. The margin be damned.

Over in Obernews, Brooke writes:

But I ask again, what does any of this have to do with gay marriage? Traditional marriage supporters seem to be flocking to this essay because it supposedly makes a compelling case for not allowing gay marriage. But do we learn anything at all about the possible consequences of gay marriage in this essay? No. So what have we learned? That change means change and incentives matter. Both good lessons with no discernable relationship to gay marriage. Because what are the incentives to marriage that are likely to change? Companionship, having children, economic security, fulfillment of religious duty, and, as McArdle says, “stepping into an explicitly gendered role”? (which, incidentally, I think is increasingly rare and likely to become more so, and also, bullshit)? For heterosexual people who want any or all of those things, how are the incentives changed by allowing gay people to marry, even to people on the margin? What disincentive to marriage does allowing gays to marry create? McArdle doesn’t suggest any.

In the comments to Obernews, Jesse made what I thought was an on-target comment:

But Megan, the position you’re targeting doesn’t boil down to “Because I wouldn’t change my behavior, it is therefore true that no one else will change their behavior.” It boils down to “Why would this cause any heterosexuals to change their behavior?” Put another way, the point isn’t that the speaker doesn’t see how incentives that won’t affect him could affect anyone else. It’s that gay marriage doesn’t change any heterosexual’s incentives in the first place.

The proper response, if you object to the argument, is not to point out incentives that were pooh-poohed in the past but which turned out to be important after all; it’s to note some negative incentives that exist in the first place.

Since I haven’t seen any compelling examples of such incentives, I can’t say the argument strikes me as stupid at all.

In contrast, Justin at Dust In The Light argues that what this all shows is that gay marriage is a slippery, slippery slope.

…It’s true that the social mixing will remain intact even should the genetic mixing be withdrawn from the essential definition of marriage. However, McArdle’s point about each step making the next easier comes starkly into play: there are currently two reasons for the fence against consanguineous marriage: procreative and social. At the very least, same-sex marriage would invalidate the former, leaving only vague notions of clannishness that a society (or judiciary) that takes individual choice as the supreme principle would surely deem an inappropriate basis for the law.

Stepping outside of the narrow point, though, we observe that Henley has made the repeated assertion that he is leaving out the “justice claims” of same-sex marriage supporters. Those claims, and every other argument that Henley puts forward on behalf of same-sex marriage, would apply equally to any other couple or group that wished to have the government recognize its relationship as “marriage.”

One of Justin’s comment-writers argues that it’s not true that we have to be against same-sex marriage because it would be the end of the world. No, no – we have to be against same-sex marriage because it would led to the Muslims taking over.

You two are overstating our arguments. I’ve never claimed that humanity will die out. I don’t think any other commenters here have ever made that claim either. The real argument is that this particular society that you will have radically modified will become unviable and will be replaced. What the replacement will be nobody can guess. Some believe it will be replaced with a fundamentalist muslim society. In which case your ssm couples would have to start hiding again, only not from fear of being ostracized. Whatever replaces American society will not be as friendly to homogamous relationships as you hope to enjoy. It won’t happen overnight of course. It may not even happen until your ssm grandchildren, but it will happen just like it is happening in Europe.

Although it’s too difficult to find a bit to quote, Sebastian Holsclaw also has some interesting thoughts on the nature of reforming any institution.

Anyhow, with the exception of Justin’s (which is just more of the old “same sex marriage will lead to incest” fearmongering), all the above posts – including Megan’s original post – are well worth reading.

Posted in Same-Sex Marriage | 50 Comments

Protect the Roosters! To hell with domestic violence victims!

Posted on April 21, 2005 by Pseudo-Adrienne

If you’re a victim of domestic violence living in South Carolina, guess what?! Cockfighting is a felony, while domestic abuse is just a misdemeanor! From the President-for-Life Sheelzebub of Pinko Feminist Hellcat…

The South Carolina Judiciary Committee passed legislation that turned cockfighting into a felony. The same committee tabled a bill to protect victims of domestic violence–beating up your spouse is still just a misdemeanor.

And if you question this logic, you’re obviously not very bright, at least according to SC State Rep. John Graham Altman III.

And here’s a little spat between Altman and a reporter named Kara Gormley who dared to do her job and ask why the fuck would anyone place more value on a rooster’s life over a domestic violence victim.

Rep. Altman responds to the comparison, “People who compare the two are not very smart and if you don’t understand the difference, Ms. Gormley, between trying to ban the savage practice of watching chickens trying to kill each other and protecting people rights in CDV statutes, I’ll never be able to explain it to you in a 100 years ma’am.”

News 10 reporter Kara Gormley asked Altman, “That’s fine if you feel you will never be able to explain it to me, but my question to you is: does that show that we are valuing a gamecock’s life over a woman’s life?”

Altman again, “You’re really not very bright and I realize you are not accustomed to this, but I’m accustomed to reporters having a better sense of depth of things and you’re asking this question to me would indicate you can’t understand the answer. To ask the question is to demonstrate an enormous amount of ignorance. I’m not trying to be rude or hostile, I’m telling you.”

Gormley, “It’s rude when you tell someone they are not very bright.”

Altman, “You’re not very bright and you’ll just have to live with that.”

In the follow-up interview, Rep. Altman commented, “I wanted to offend that snippy reporter who come in here on a mission. She already had the story and she came in with some dumb questions and I don’t mind telling people when they ask dumb questions.”

Oh and what dumb question was that? Why the SC Committee tabled a bill that would increase the penalties for domestic abusers, but readily passed a law that would make it a felony to hold cockfights?! Yeah, real stupid question.

Oh Amp, maybe we should add a “douchebag politician zaniness” category.

Posted in Elections and politics, Rape, intimate violence, & related issues | 55 Comments