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Saturday, March 13, 2004
Friday, March 12, 2004
From the LA Times: "Divided over gay marriage: Opponents of same-sex unions aren't necessarily religious or politically conservative, and many of them fear how the debate is being shaped." From Boston: "Gay marriage ban wins preliminary approval, but debate to continue". The story is from the AP, and this lead sentence stuck me as almost comically biased: Massachusetts lawmakers took a step closer to approving a constitutional amendment that would strip gay couples of their right to marry, but the debate that has caught the attention of the nation was far from over.For months now, SSM proponents have been basically suggesting, as this article does, that SSM is real, and that the current controvery is about attempts to undo or take away that reality. But of course -- how to put this? -- that's not true. PATCHWORK PANIC? Michael Triplett responds: I think the "panic" over a patchwork of marriage laws ignores the reality that we already have that, yet the court and bureaucratic system works well. 10 (or 11 or 12) states recognize common law marriages, to one degree or another. These marriages are recognized by other states, for the purposes of benefits, and are even recognized by the Social Security Administration, which created this frantic, unneeded policy about marriages from San Francisco. Thursday, March 11, 2004
PRAISING THE NEW YORK TIMES: A page-one must-read article from yesterday: "For a Promising but Poor Girl, a Struggle Over Sex and Goals." "Marriage is not something obsolete," Tabitha's mother, 34, declared later over a Sunday lunch at her Pentecostal church in East Harlem, with Kierra in white crinoline beside her. "It's to be held up as a standard."As they say, read the whole thing. TRYING TO BEAT UP ON THE NEW YORK TIMES: On Tuesday, I had lunch with David Kirkpatrick, the NYT reporter who co-wrote the notorious front-page story on January 14 essentially calling the Administration's marriage initiative an election-year political move intended to placate the religious right on the subject of gay marriage. (Here's my latest rant on the subject; here's a media backgrounder that lays out the issue in detail.) He's a nice guy. He said that everything I didn't like about the story -- i.e., the flagrantly false political framing -- was the result of co-author Robert Pear's "White House reporting," not his (Kirkpatrick's) reporting. (You may recall that the whole story was pegged to an unnamed source to whom Pear says he spoke.) I fussed and complained, but his basic response was, it wasn't me. I think that, by the end of our conversation, he did realize, I think for the first time, that there is such a thing as a grass-roots marriage movement; that this movement is growing and politically non-partisan; that it has a relationship to, but is not a product of, the Administration's marriage initiative; and that calling this movement an election-year manifestation of the religious right's anti-gay-marriage campaign is wildly inaccurate and harmful to that movement. He knows that now, or at least he knows that that's why I and others strongly believe to be true. He had lots of questions about divorce. Was divorce a big issue? Did we think about that issue? Have anything to say or propose about it? Yes, yes, yes, I said. Toward the end of the conversation, I realized the (or at least one) point of all these questions -- SSM advocates have been telling him nonstop that "conservatives" are hypocrites, because they oppose SSM but do nothing about divorce. (You've heard the sneers: "Why not a constitutional amendment to ban divorce?") So I think he wanted to test this hypothesis with me. Which I found a bit wearying, first, because it's amazing to me to find serious people who think that we marriage nuts don't care about divorce (what have we been doing for the past 10 or 15 years, anyway?); and second, because it suggests that he hasn't let go of the idea that all of this talk about marriage education and promotion is still somehow connected to the religious right and being against SSM. I've decided to adopt this issue of the January 14 article as my personal crusade, realizing full well that it may come across to others as ... a bit obsessive, maybe even a little nutty. Later this month I meet with Daniel Okrent, the NYT public editor ("omsbudman"). I plan to put on my Don Quixote costume and ask for ... truth and justice. You might have to hear about that, as well. New poll: About half the country -- 51 percent -- favors allowing gay couples to form civil unions with the same basic legal rights as married couples, up 6 percentage points in less than a month. A slightly larger majority also rejected amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriages in favor of allowing states to make their own laws, an increase of 8 percentage points in recent weeks. But it's too early to draw firm conclusions from these results. Polling on gay marriage has been particularly volatile. Support for giving states the right to decide on who can get married stood at 58 percent in January, dipped to 45 percent in February and now stands at 53 percent in the latest Post-ABC News poll. JUST MARRIED: A classmate of mine got married (should I write "married"?) in San Francisco: When Michael Gottlieb '00 LAW '06 and Ari Shapiro '00 were married at San Francisco City Hall Feb. 27, they encountered no angry protestors and no long lines. They did, however, receive an information packet about birth control before they were given their license.The gay and lesbian student group was selling t-shirts in the law school hallways today. The front of the shirts said, "Support gay marriage" and the back said "I do." They sold out rather quickly. MARRIAGE AND FEDERALISM: "The assumption that there must be a single national definition of marriage -- traditional or open-ended -- is mistaken and pernicious," argues Yale Law professor Lea Brilmayer. I think Elizabeth's post below reveals a weakness with that statement. Sure, if you can get married at 16 in Georgia but only at 17 in Massachusetts, that's no big deal (I just made those numbers up). But gay marriage in some places but not others is a big deal. People move. What if states recognize a couple as married but the federal government doesn't? A patchwork approach will be a legal mess, even though that is probably what will occur. It also raises interesting non-legal questions. If a couple is legally wed in one state and moves to a state that doesn't recognize their marriage, are they still "married"? Not legally, of course, but will friends and relatives still regard them as married? I'd think so. How much of "marriage" is the state's stamp of recognition? How much is it a religious thing? How much of "marriage" is a community's recognition that a couple is married? Wednesday, March 10, 2004
THIS IS FASCINATING: With credits to the Marriage Debate blog, look at what the Social Security Administration is saying to its' staff: Due to the unresolved legal status of same-sex marriage documents being issued by the City and County of San Francisco, SSA will no longer accept as evidence of identity any marriage documents issued by the City and County of San Francisco on or after 02/12/04. Field offices should follow the procedures in RM00203.200 and RM00203.210A for other types of documentation that are acceptable to support a name change until further notice. Central office will continue to work with the San Francisco Regional Office to monitor this situation. In other words, if I'm a woman who got married to a man in SF on, say, Valentine's Day, and I changed my name and want to apply for a new social security card, I cannot use my marriage license to do it. For some reason, rather than simply say that altered marriage licenses (for instance, those that have husband and wife crossed out) will not be accepted for now as evidence of identity, the SSA is instead rejecting all marriage licenses in that jurisdiction until further notice. Whatever you think about SSM, consider the implications of a patchwork quilt of marriage law evolving across the country. Consider the confusion among local, state, and federal organizations, as well as private businesses, in responding to applications for benefits and holding spouses accountable to legal marital obligations. And consider how they might respond to the confusion -- by looking with greater scrutiny at same sex marriages (and risk charges of discrimination and lawsuits)? Or by subjecting everybody's marriage to greater scrutiny... or even starting to dispense with laws and benefits based on marital status altogether? MATT TAYLOR ON LIBERALISM: The NYT response to Elizabeth Marquardt and Don Browning's op-ed piece is part of a disheartening trend. The liberal wing of American politics is increasingly conformist and uncivil, often downright venomous, in denouncing their perceived enemies. It's healthy to protest policies we find unwise, and to debate them vigorously, but the objective should never be to silence or demoralize those with whom we disagree. Ad hominem attacks on President Bush, people of faith, and even authors on Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Marty McKeever writes: Marriage - the Ultimate Enterprise Zone: In business, the state's interest is in creating jobs, economic growth, and maintaining economically stable It's a consistent argument, however, people could easily respond that if marriage is only about the most favorable conditions then we shouldn't allow remarriages/stepfamilies either. But as I've written before, all kinds of special circumstances of marriage -- remarriages, stepfamilies, marriages of old or infertile people or people who want to be childless, etc. -- can take place without requiring changing the definition of marriage itself. Accomodating same sex couples requires us to make the definition of marriage gender neutral, making us unable to affirm in law, policy, or increasingly in the culture that children need their mother and their father, and not just any two parents. So my argument is more about how SSM requires us to change the definition of marriage in ways that will affect straight people's behavior, and less about how SS parenting affects children. From Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic: "On Same-Sex Marriage, Bush Failed The Public And Himself" In several weeks, Jonathan's new book, Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America, will be released. On April 1, I'll be on a panel at the Brookings Institution to discuss the book with him, Bill Galston, and Sarah Brown. Barry Deustch responds to some of my arguments/responses to him here. Let me say that given limited minutes in the day and his wrap-up of a long post with the suggestion that I am a "country club bigot," I really don't feel like spending the time necessary to respond to all his points. But interested readers might want to take a look. WHEN THE LIBERAL PAPER OF RECORD REJECTS A LIBERAL ARGUMENT: The NYT ran an oped by Don Browning and I this morning, and we're glad to get a bit of space on that page to share some of our argument. But there's an interesting story behind the story. The original piece we sent them was called, "The Liberal Case Against Same Sex Marriage." We talked about two justice issues that are overlooked in the current debate: 1) the unknown effects of same sex parenting on children, and 2) the other kinds of couples caring for one another -- daughter caring for ailing mother, brother for ailing brother, etc. -- who are not having sex but who arguably need state and legal support. In addition, we made the case that marriage is often mischaracterized in the SSM debate as a "religious" institution laden with old prejudices. The editors left this latter argument about religion intact. They also retained a couple sentences about the dearth of social science data on the question of same sex parenting and children. Then they gutted everything else. The liberal paper of record could not see fit to print a liberal argument against same sex marriage. First, they wanted nothing about a "liberal" argument in there. The editor even suggested to me that we were "pretending" to make a liberal argument. We were not. Second, the editor felt that the argument on children would have to be developed further to make sense, but rather than letting us do that he cut it entirely, leaving only the reference to social science data. But because he did not let us explain why there is a social justice question here, based on what we already know about child well-being in families, the social science issue was left as the only, and insufficient, piece of evidence to support our concern. Third, the editor felt the argument about interdependent couples is irrelevant. No one is talking about that, he said. Well, actually, some influential legal theorists are making just this argument, that we shouldn't be concerned about who is having sex with each other but rather who is caring for one another. We should focus on care relationships, not sexual relationships, they say, and put our state and social support in the former category. Not a bad idea, perhaps, but once we extend marriage law to everybody who's caring for someone it's hard to tell what marriage itself is for anymore. That's why in the oped we advocate for other, significant kinds of state and legal supports being available to same sex and interdependent couples rather than marriage. And incidentally, though the NYT oped editor claimed no one is talking about interdependent coupes, the NYT itself is already laying the groundwork with a couldn't-be-more-obvious piece that ran on the front page a little over a week ago, which talked about older women who've been friends for years teaming up to age together. They're not having sex, they're just friends, but they want to share housing and companionship and care for one another when they fall ill. Sounds like a great idea. But trust us, this is the first salvo in one of the next developments of this debate. If heterosexual couples and homosexual couples get the benefits of marriage, why not these caring, aging couples? We understand that editors have to work with tight space requirements. But here were three sentences, totaling 100 words, which the editor refused to add back to the piece even if we could cut elsewhere to make the space for them: Add to the first graph: "Political and religious liberals who value social justice and rationality should consider the needs of children and other interdependent relationships in the rush to embrace same sex marriage." Add to the graph about social science research and children: "Same sex marriage would be the first time we have raised to the level of normative social policy the idea that children don't need the father and mother who gave them life." Add to the penultimate graph: "One problem, as some legal theorists point out, is that giving marriage benefits to same-sex couples may do injustice to other care taking relationships, such as a daughter caring for her ailing mother. Why privilege sexual partners, they ask, but not those actually dependent on one another?" Sure, any writer cringes when his or her precious words are cut. But in this case the Times was not just cutting for space, but intentionally changing our argument. They didn't want a liberal case against SSM. They wanted a religious case against SSM, because in their worldview only religious people and bigots are against it. And readers of the Times who share their worldview simply got the chance, today, to confirm their unchallenged beliefs once again. From the Seattle Times: "I tell mommy to find a husband 'cause we want to have a dad," Grace says later as she gets ready for bed. "I think it would be more fun that way. And if mommy has to go to a meeting, the dad could take care of us." Christi Malcomson, a single mother by choice, helps illustrate how the choices and circumstances of heterosexuals are changing the rules for marriage in this country -- the June and Ward Cleaver model that some now say is under attack by gay unions.The main point of the article is that families have changed, changed, changed, so what's so different about another change? As for me, I agree with Grace. From Boston: "After a weekend of polling and cajoling colleagues, state Senate President Robert E. Travaglini said yesterday he had marshaled a majority of lawmakers for Thursday's constitutional convention to support a compromise amendment that would ban gay marriage but create civil unions." Monday, March 08, 2004
THE MARRIAGE INITIATIVE THAT GOT CAUGHT UP IN A MAELSTROM: An oped by me in Sunday's Chicago Tribune Perspectives section (link to our version and avoid their cumbersome registration): On a weekday in mid-January readers of the New York Times woke up to this front page headline: "Bush Plans $1.5 Billion Drive for Promotion of Marriage." Opening with the words, "Administration officials say they are planning an extensive election-year initiative to promote marriage, especially among low-income couples," the article went on to say the money is earmarked for "training to help couples develop interpersonal skills that sustain 'healthy marriages.'" The reporters noted that the then-recent Massachusetts decision legalizing gay marriage made the initiative especially timely and quoted an unnamed presidential advisor who said: "This is a way for the president to address the concerns of conservatives and to solidify his conservative base." Interesting article in Christianity Today: "Civil Unions: Would a Marriage by any Other Name Be the Same? Some theologically conservative Christians support civil unions and remain opposed to same-sex marriage" These comments from Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen (with whom I just co-edited a book) caught my eye: "As a Christian feminist, here's what worries me: It may well be that, irony of ironies, in promoting gay households we may be promoting misogyny." said Van Leeuwen. "People who are gay-positive tend to think that whatever is good for gays is automatically good for people who care about justice for women." But most gay couples raising children are women. "We know from lots of intercultural and cross-cultural research that the most egalitarian societies and families are the ones where fathers are involved in hands-on nurtured childcare," she said. She acknowledges that the "gender injustice" of fatherlessness is already a problem in today's society without gay marriage, but added, "I don't think we should add to the possibility that there would be more of it." CHILDREN OF SS COUPLES: The Boston Globe article, "Children of same-sex couples tell their story," reported by Sally Jacobs and posted by David, below, is pretty good. It is refreshingly free of the snide and defensive tone that so many pro-SSM articles have these days. Jacobs genuinely wants to know how the children are doing and she freely admits early in the piece that "there are, in fact, few places to turn to for answers... there have been very few, large, long-term studies; most are considered too small to be conclusive. The scientific study of gay childrearing is at an infant stage." All true and nice to see in print. Jacobs concludes: "And so, for the moment, it is left to the children to speak." I'm all for that. In the article we read about an 11 year old girl who fiercely defends her lesbian parents but who worried about having friends over for a slumber party; a 9 year old boy who "does not seem to mind in the least" that he lives with two moms and his sister; a 61 year old lesbian mother and therapist whose daughters were furious with her when they found out and then, she admits, "kept of lot of [their feelings] quiet because they didn't want to hurt my feelings." We read about children who approach middle school and their own budding sexuality and are newly afraid of classmates' finding out about their parents, and some burdened with extra questions about their own identity. We read about a 14 year old boy and 16 year old girl whose parents divorced when they were young and who live with their mother and her partner, and whose father, they say, makes snide comments about their mother's sexuality. The 16 year old girl said "It's hard to have people over...we live in a small town. I don't know how people would react, but I don't want to find out," and then started to cry in front of the reporter, saying, "My mother's life doesn’t bother me at all. It's just all that I have been through." The reporter attributes the girl's feelings to her parents' "complicated divorce," surely part of the story, but is that really "all that she has been through"? The reporter says of two boys being raised by two gay fathers: "Both boys say they do not miss having a mother." "Not everyone needs a mother," says Tim, "a shy boy with braces." "A mother?" said Ross, the actor in the family. "Never." And then he threw himself into [his father's] lap, exclaiming with a laugh, "Mom!" Here's the problem, from an investigative point of view: Children love their parents, and children notice when their parents are vulnerable. In my own study of children of divorce they are much more likely to say they felt protective of their mothers, especially, than children of intact families are. Many other studies confirm this. They tried to hide their own feelings from their mother in order to protect her. I can only imagine that children of gays and lesbians feel even more protective of their parents who are stigmatized by society. Moreover, children themselves are vulnerable. They need their parents' love, attention, and affection. It takes a very secure child to make what sounds like significant criticisms of choices his or her parents have made (such as saying "Yes, I wish I had a mom") when he or she is not even a teenager yet, especially when the parents are sitting right there for the interview. Some of the suffering these children experience is a result of their parents' sexual identity, and this should not happen. Our society should not stigmatize gay and lesbian people nor their children. But I would like reporters to probe deeper and ask if some of their suffering could be due not just to social stigma but to their family structure itself -- that is, lacking either a mother or father in their lives. For years the debate about children of divorce was stalled over the question of adult choices-- whether adults did or did not have the right to make the choices they made. When it comes to investigating children's lives, let's try to leave that question aside for a moment and look at the children's experience on its own terms. Regardless of what any of us think their parents should or should not have done, how do the children feel? And while we should definitely value an 11 year old's answer, it is not the final word. "Seattle's mayor jumped into the roiling debate over gay marriage, vowing to recognize the marriages of gay city employees who tie the knot elsewhere and pushing for a measure to extend protections for gay married couples throughout the city." Sunday, March 07, 2004
From a story in the NYT: "I've been with the same woman for 13 years," she continued, "and she jokes if I ever tried to marry her she'd divorce me. I know many people who feel the same way." That's not to say that there isn't a reason to fight for a basic civil right. But ask around. You'll find more than a few gays questioning an institution that mixes property rights with love, church with state. "They don't want to have children, they don't want to be bothered by children, and they'd just as soon not live near children. It's the child-free movement, and it's growing." AND SPEAKING OF HONESTY... Blog readers already know what I think of Mayor Newsom's move in SF. If he supports SSM, fine, but he should pursue legal measures in favor of it or, as David suggested, resign and take up civil disobedience. All he's done with his present move is to create very nice justification for local officials to deny SS couples marriage licenses once it becomes legal in any state. Mayor Newsom says according to his interpretation the CA constitution requires SS marriage, while the law on the books in that state is quite clear. The same kind of fuzzy, intellectually dishonest "interpreting" goes on in other venues as well. In the same article I mention just below, a United Methodist pastor ...the Rev. Dr. Karen Oliveto, was called before a bishop this week after a formal complaint was filed against her for performing a same-sex marriage ceremony in the church. The complaint accused her of "disobedience to the order and discipline of the United Methodist Church" for officiating at the marriage of two men on Feb. 15. The reporter clearly enjoys putting the charge against the pastor -- "disobedience to the order and discipline of the United Methodist Church" -- in quotes that border on "sneer" quotes. Those religious nuts, he's thinking, all concerned about "order" and "discipline" and out to get gays and lesbians. Well, just to enlighten him, the Book of Order in the UMC is the liturgy of the church. That's where the marriage ritual itself is found -- a ritual that talks only about men and women and husbands and wives. The Book of Discipline is the main guide to church polity, where all the rules about the running of the church are spelled out. "Discipline" sounds yucky to modern ears but it just happens to be the word chosen by John Wesley, a great theologian and founder of what is now the UMC who despite his comfortable upbringing and excellent education chose to live and minister among the poor and speak up on their behalf, someone who should be a hero to anyone favoring social justice today. The Book of Discipline makes it very clear: Same sex blessings shall not be conducted in United Methodist churches or by United Methodist clergy. The Social Principles of the UMC affirm the dignity of homosexual people, but the church rules could not be more clear regarding same sex marriage. Indeed, in the late nineties a Chicago pastor, Greg Dell, was defrocked in a widely-covered church trial for doing the same thing Pastor Frost is doing. Many people, clergy and lay, disagreed with that decision, just as many of them disagree with the Book of Discipline's rules on same sex marriage. But in a denomination-wide conference held every four years everybody has the chance to debate and try to change the rules through representative voting. It hasn't happened yet. Pastor Frost is welcome to try to change the rules, as is any United Methodist, and she is right to say that United Methodists are not of one mind on this question. But the United Methodist Church is very clear. To claim that she is shocked, shocked to learn that she might get in trouble for officiating at same-sex marriages is disingenuous in the extreme. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE? Advocates of SSM often say that this is only about civil marriage - churches can continue defining marriage as they please and of course, they confidently say, the separation of church and state will protect that. Well, as few of them seem to realize, "churches" are not monolithic. Indeed, clergy and lay people span the political gamut in many denominations. And while it is pretty unlikely that the Roman Catholic church or the Southern Baptist Convention is likely to embrace same sex marriage remotely anytime soon, there is a great deal of tension already in many mainline Protestant and Reform Jewish congregations. An article in Sat's NYT, "Gay Marriage Licenses Create a Quandary for the Clergy," spells out nicely the dialectical relationship that often occurs between church and state over social questions. The reporter says that "many" SS couples who've received marriage licenses in SF are seeking out a church wedding as a follow up (actually, this could be one of those "trends" that has happened in the mind of the reporter only - he cites no numbers, although I don't doubt that at least some SS couples want a church wedding". He writes: By getting married with a license in a church or synagogue, many couples are hoping to chip away at opposition to same-sex marriages among religious people, and thereby advance the broader goals of the gay rights movement. And they have supporters among church leadership, with the article citing a Reform Jewish rabbi, a United Methodist pastor, and a Lutheran pastor (who is lesbian and whose congregation was expelled from the ELCA when she was hired). The latter pastor said: "If these marriages hold up to the legal challenges, it will make it very difficult for churches to censure clergy who participate in them." What does the future hold? Even greater conflict over questions about homosexuality and SSM in many congregations, and greater likely potential for schism in many of them. I used to be a United Methodist and one thing I liked about that denomination is that its members ranged from the far left to the far right of the spectrum on social questions. The debate was fierce and lively and seemed, to me, to reflect the larger society pretty well. I fear that kind of "unity in our difference" will become less and less possible to sustain. Some may say "good riddance" to those who disagree with them, but I think there is a real intellectual and spiritual danger in surrounding yourself only with people who agree with you on the most important issues of the day. |
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