{"id":1235,"date":"2004-11-30T04:13:06","date_gmt":"2004-11-30T12:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/11\/30\/sixteen-mini-posts-about-gay-marriage\/"},"modified":"2004-11-30T04:13:06","modified_gmt":"2004-11-30T12:13:06","slug":"sixteen-mini-posts-about-gay-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1235","title":{"rendered":"Sixteen mini-posts about gay marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"
    \n
  1. Law Dork has an excellent, angry response <\/a>to people who blame marriage equality activists for asking for equality, rather than waiting.\n
  2. I’m fond of responding to complaints of “judicial tyranny” overwhelming democracy by pointing out that no one should want judges to take a poll of the public’s preference before issuing a decision. While that’s true, it’s also true that courts, like everything else, are reflections of what’s happening in the larger society; as my friend Robert pointed out, the Massachusetts Supreme Court wouldn’t have decided in favor of same-sex marriage 20 years ago. What the courts see in the Constitution changes along with the country’s views.\n

    Jack Balkin – who, when he’s not blogging, teaches constitutional law at Yale – discusses this issue in his paper What Brown <\/i>Teaches Us About Constitutional Theory<\/a>. A much more intelligent discussion of how the courts and public opinion interact (and he explicitly discusses both gay rights and the same-sex marriage question).<\/p>\n

  3. Speaking of “Judicial Tyranny,” Reason & Liberty <\/a>has an excellent post pointing out that virtually all groups in America – including conservative groups – appeal to the Courts to enforce their rights. “Why is going to court seeking to vindicate your rights suddenly disreputable just because gay people are doing it?”\n
  4. Along similar lines, the blogger of Life, Law, Gender <\/a>defends her right to seek redress through the courts, just like any other American.\n
  5. Occasional “Alas” comment-writer Robert just posted the first of a series of posts <\/a>on his blog explaining his opposition to same-sex marriage. (Please be gentle with Rob, he’s an old college chum.)\n
  6. Interesting development in Oregon: A Republican legislator, who voted for the same-sex marriage ban, is proposing civil union legislation<\/a>. Good for him. Not all Republican officials in Oregon agree: According to one, “If civil union status is granted, there will be no turning back. The liberals and the homosexual-lesbian coalition will have won and the people’s vote in favor of traditional marriage will have been effectively nullified.” Via CultureWatch<\/a>\n
  7. On the same topic, The Bend Bulletin <\/a>has an excellent article discussing prospects for Civil Unions in Oregon in the wake of Measure 36.\n
  8. Civil Unions are looking like a shoe-in in Connecticut<\/a>, with marriage equality a real possibility.\n
  9. While reading this anti-SSM site<\/a> (link via Feministe<\/a>), I came across Jeff Jacoby’s prediction that “a generation after same-sex marriage is legalized, families will be even less stable than they are today, the divorce rate will be even higher, and children will be even less safe.” Could Jacoby have possibly <\/i>made a more gutless prediction? Given the trend lines over the last several generations, Jacoby’s predictions are safe regardless of if same-sex marriage is legalized.\n

    There are real ways to consider if SSM harms the institution of heterosexual marriage; for instance, if SSM opponents are correct, then heterosexual divorce rates should increase much faster in Massachusetts than in comparable Northeastern states. Of course, that would put their theories to a real, empirical test, a prospect that SSM opponents haven’t shown any interest in.<\/p>\n

  10. Andrew Sullivan <\/a>points to a rare – and perhaps unique – case: A SSM opponent (working for the Family Research Council, no less!) who admits<\/a> that the “marriage is about procreation” rationalization for denying same-sex marriage is bogus. Here’s the best bit:\n
    Can we still defend the purpose of marriage as procreation? No, not in the current constitutional climate. It is now clear that the “right of privacy,” conceived by the Supreme Court nearly four decades ago, is the enemy of both marriage and procreation separately, and is especially hostile when they are united. It is also clear that we lost the key battles in defense of this union decades ago, long before anyone even imagined same-sex marriage. And we lost these battles over questions that–to be honest–relatively few of us are really prepared to reopen. How many are ready to argue for the recriminalization of contraception? How many want to argue for a strict legal and cultural imposition of the word illegitimate <\/i>on certain little children?<\/div>\n

    Link via Daddy, Papa and Me<\/a>.<\/p>\n

  11. Another study has found<\/a> that children of same-sex parents turn out more-or-less the same as children of opp-sex parents. This study is notable because its sample is better than previous samples (it’s a national sample, and because the data wasn’t collected with the same-sex parenting issue in mind, it can’t be accused of bias in data collection).\n

    Tom at Family Scholars Blog <\/a>, noting that the authors said “while family type wasn\u2019t a factor in how teens fared, family relationships were,” wonders if this might be the researchers’ coy way of covering up that children of same-sex parents had worse relationships with their parents. It’s a reasonable question. (Tom – to his credit – raises the question without assuming any particular answer.)<\/p>\n

    Having read the study, I can assure Tom that the data doesn’t show any difference between same-sex and opp-sex parents regarding the quality of their relationships with their kids. In fact, the only <\/i>difference this study found is that children of same-sex parents “reported feeling more connected to school,” which usually leads to better grades and less dropping out.<\/p>\n

    Note that – once again – there is not the slightest shred of evidence to support the claim that being raised by opposite-sex parents is preferable to being raised by same-sex parents. Yet I predict that SSM opponents will continue claiming that social science has conclusively shown children do best when raised by two biological, opposite-sex parents.<\/p>\n

  12. Andrew Sullivan <\/a>on the recent elections, and the future of SSM. He’s convinced that same-sex marriage is still a winning cause in the long run, and of course I agree.\n
  13. GayAmerican.org has some strong criticisms <\/a>of how Basic Rights Oregon fought (and lost) the recent gay-marriage battle.\n
  14. The Republic of T<\/a>. extensively quotes from an article arguing that Black lesbians and gays have the most to gain – and to lose – from the same-sex marriage struggle.\n
  15. New Human Rights Campaign report: The Cost of Marriage Inequality to Children and Their Same-Sex Parents<\/a>. The report concentrates on inequalities in insurance, Social Security, and taxes. They also mention the harm done to lesbian and gay veterans and their families by the lack of legal equality, which is an aspect I haven’t considered before.\n
  16. The Supreme Court has turned down <\/a>a chance to overturn the Massachusetts SSM decision – yay! As far as I’m concerned, the longer we keep this issue from being decided in Federal courts, the better. If SSM is decided in the Supreme Court anytime in the next several years, the best<\/i> we can hope for is to lose. If we actually won<\/i> in the Supreme Court, there’d be a nationwide Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage so fast we wouldn’t even have time to inquire about job prospects in Canada.<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Law Dork has an excellent, angry response to people who blame marriage equality activists for asking for equality, rather than waiting. I’m fond of responding to complaints of “judicial tyranny” overwhelming democracy by pointing out that no one should want … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}