{"id":514,"date":"2003-12-29T22:07:26","date_gmt":"2003-12-30T06:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2003\/12\/29\/two-questions-for-same-sex-marriage-opponents\/"},"modified":"2003-12-29T22:07:26","modified_gmt":"2003-12-30T06:07:26","slug":"two-questions-for-same-sex-marriage-opponents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=514","title":{"rendered":"Two Questions for Same-Sex Marriage Opponents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier today<\/a>, I responded to the first half of Eve’s National Catholic Register <\/i>article<\/a>, regarding “the bait and switch.” I was going to respond to the other half, regarding “marriage is for procreation,” but happily Gabriel Rosenberg has already done so<\/a> very well.<\/p>\n

What exactly is the harm in same-sex couples getting married. Eve says the harm comes in “sending the message” that men (hence fathers) are unnecessary in forming a family. I’m not certain what Eve perceives the consequence of this message will be. One possibility is that two women will decide it is possible to form a family without any men. They will marry and possibly start raising kids. Of course female-only couples are already doing this. To see any harm of SSM we would need to believe that (1) such families are inherently harmful and (2) as a result of SSM more women will decide to do this as opposed to marrying men or remaining single and childless for life. From a policy perspective, to oppose SSM one also needs to believe the harm created by these additional same-sex parented families is not outweighed by the benefit of giving the existing families the protections of marriage. This view would also seem to hold that it is better for a lesbian either to marry a man or to remain single and childless.<\/div>\n

Read Gabriel’s entire post here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gabriel’s post reminds me of two questions I hope opponents of gay marriage will address.<\/p>\n

First, what is the measurable <\/i>harm of same-sex marriage?<\/p>\n

Second, what is the mechanism<\/i>?<\/p>\n

Just to be clear, by “measurable harm” I mean just that. It seems likely that very soon there will be gay marriage in Canada and Massachusetts. What are the measurable, specific <\/i>differences we should expect to see in Massachusetts as a result of Goodridge<\/i>? Will divorce rates go up? Will there be an increase in single-parent families? Will absentee fathers be less willing to pay child support? Let’s hear some specifics.<\/p>\n

By “mechanism,” I mean the chain of events leading from gay marriage to harm. We are told, over and over, that if A) Sally and Suzy get married, this will cause C) terrible harm to Ed and Edith’s son Ed Jr. But what are the specific, concrete steps by which A leads inevitably to C?<\/p>\n

In short, does same-sex marriage cause harms that are measurable to everybody, or are the harms of gay marriage like the Emperor’s New Clothes, visible only to those who fervently believe in them?.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier today, I responded to the first half of Eve’s National Catholic Register article, regarding “the bait and switch.” I was going to respond to the other half, regarding “marriage is for procreation,” but happily Gabriel Rosenberg has already done … 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-514","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\/514","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=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}