Back in April, I conducted an analysis of the prospects of a gay marriage ban becoming law in each of the 50 states. The analysis found that support for gay marriage bans was strongly tied to two factors: the degree of religiosity in a state, as measured by 2008 Gallup tracking surveys, and the year that the initiative was up for vote -- marriage bans have lost support at a rate of about 2 percent per year, ceteris paribus. That analysis concluded that a Maine is one of 11 states that would probably vote to reject a ban on gay marriage if a referendum were held this year.
Mainers, in fact, will soon have a chance to test this proposition. In November, they will go to the polls to vote on Question 1; a yes vote would overturn a law passed earlier this year by the state's legislature that permits gays and lesbians to get married in the state.
I decided to re-visit my model, which consists of a relatively simple data set of all previous anti-gay marriage initiatives. 31 of 32 such initiatives have passed, the sole exception being Arizona Proposition 107, which failed in 2006, although Arizona's voters decided two years later to approve a similar measure that limited its scope to marriage rather than civil unions. I've expanded the model to include a new variable, which -- pursuant to the Arizona case -- is whether the initiative sought to ban civil unions in addition to marriage. (Although I'd given this a cursory look before, I evidently wasn't careful enough, because it turns out to be highly statistically significant). I then placed the initiatives into a regression model, which yields the following results:
Bangay is the percentage of the vote in favor of the marriage ban; this is the dependent variable. The independent variables are year, which is the number of years elapsed since 1998, relig, which is the percentage of the state's residents that consider religion "an important part of [their] daily lives", and civil, which is whether the initiative sought to ban civil unions in addition marriage.
All three variables are highly statistically significant. Support for the marriage ban rises nearly one-for-one with religiosity; it falls by about two points (actually, 1.9) for each passing year, and it falls by 5-6 points if the amendment seeks to ban civil unions in addition to marriage.
Maine is the third least-religious state in the country, according to Gallup, with only 46 percent of that state's residents saying religion is an important part of their daily lives. That bodes well for those who are hoping the initiative fails; the comparable fraction in California, which passed Prop 8 last year, is 57 percent. We're also another year down the line on a type of initiative that pretty reliably loses support with each passing election. On the other hand, Question 1 would not seek to overturn civil unions, which gives it a better chance of passing.
Throw Maine's numbers into the model, and we come up with an estimated level of support for the ban of 43.5 percent, with 56.5 percent opposed. In other words, the model's prediction is that the ban will fail. The standard error of the forecast (not the margin of error, which is larger) is 5.2 points. This implies that the marriage ban only has about an 11 percent chance of passing.
But don't start counting your (gay) chickens yet, because there are a couple of additional circumstances that are relatively unique to Maine. One is that this is a standalone initiative in an off-year election in which voters will have few other things to consider. What sort of electorate will turn out? This precedent has previously occurred twice, in Texas and Kansas, both of which voted on marriage bans in 2005. That Texas and Kansas voted to approve the marriage bans is no surprise, but the margin was somewhat wider than the model predicted -- 76 percent in Texas, rather than the prediction of 71 percent, and 70 percent in Kansas, rather than the prediction of 67 percent.
Arguably, that implies that an marriage ban will gain about another 4 points' worth of support if it occurs in an off-year election. If that is the case, the projected support for the marriage ban is 47.5 percent, which means that it has a 32 percent chance of passing -- about one in three.
It is debatable, however, whether the same ought to hold true in Maine. In Texas and Kansas, which are conservative states, the base electorate is particularly conservative, and it's the base that comes out to vote in off-year elections. But Maine is a fairly liberal state, and it's not clear where the base lies there. In 2006, a mid-term election, 26 percent of the Maine electorate identified itself as liberal, and 26 percent as conservative. In 2008, with a much larger turnout, the numbers were essentially unchanged: 27 percent liberal and 28 percent conservative. On the other hand, while 27 percent of Maine's voters identified themselves as having no religion or an "other" religion in 2008, only 20 percent did in the lower-turnout year of 2006. On balance, I suspect the off-year status of the election is slightly more likely to help Question 1 than to hurt it -- old people vote in off-year elections, for instance, and old people mostly don't like gay marriage. But the effects are not what they might be if we were talking about a state like Oklahoma.
Another factor is that this is the first time that a state's voters will be considering on a gay marriage bill that was actually affirmed by the state legislature. With the exception of Prop 8 -- which was a response to court rather than legislative action -- all of the other marriage initiatives have been preemptive in nature. In addition, unlike virtually all other initiatives, Question 1 would not seek to ban gay marriage in the state Constitution; it would merely overturn the legislature's decision. I figure that the first contingency is probably slightly unfavorable to Question 1 second is probably favorable, but this is fairly speculative.
There have also been three polls conducted on the gay marriage ban, although one is somewhat out of date:
On average, the 'No on 1' position -- which would preserve gay marriage -- appears to be about 3 points ahead. It trails slightly, however, in the only poll of likely voters, which is the one from Research 2000 / Daily Kos.
Time to play oddsmaker: I'd lay about 3 to 1 against the marriage ban passing. But it's liable to fairly close -- clearly a winnable campaign for conservatives and a losable one for liberals, especially if the sort of complacency sets in that we saw in California*.
* With that said, the model predicts that Prop 8 should have gotten 54 percent of the vote in California when it actually got 52 percent. So it's not clear if the No on 8 campaign deserves quite the flak that it's gotten.
10.01.2009
Analysis: Gay Marriage Ban is Underdog in Maine
@ 6:05 AM
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Very clear. Now can anyone comment on the campaign on the ground in Maine? Who's organizing it on both sides, and how can we send $?
"So it's not clear if the No on 8 campaign deserves quite the flak that it's gotten. "
Oh it does. I volunteered for No on 8 in San Francisco, and the campaign was reactionary and completely outmaneuvered from the very beginning. We had enthusiastic supporters and actually outraised our opponents, but the leadership and messaging was abysmal. That we actually outperformed your model, especially given the African American vote and its turnout because of Obama, is truly a surprise.
i wonder whether prop 8 itself significantly changed the game. the aftermath got a lot of coverage nationwide, and i seem to remember some post-election polling in california that indicated even a few yes-on-8 voters had been swayed after seeing what they'd done (am i making that up?)
it would be interesting, in years to come, whether a binary post-prop-8 variable might emerge as significant, or more generally, whether the slope of the year variable will change.
of course, we could hope that the model won't get much further usable data, because we won't have any more bans enacted!
More Stata screenshots!
A CONSERVATIVE SHOULD SUPPORT INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND FREEDOM ON ECONOMY LIKE ON SOCIAL ISSUES.
G.-
I couldn't agree more. Somewhere after Reagan conservatives became driven by their religious base instead of their true ideology - true Conervatives should want gov out of all people's bedrooms...but they don't chalking up another reason that the current "Republican" party cannot win intelligent moderates or people of color.
I think the backlash against 8 was fairly strong, so yeah, I think a few people might have been swayed.
I'm also rather amused by the entire, "IF IT WASN'T FOR THE BLACKS IT WOULD HAVE FAILED" rhetoric. Which is amusing because I'm queer. And black.
And by "amusing" I mean "kind of offensive. No, really."
Back on topic: I'm...kind of leaning towards R2K if they're using an LV screen and Q1 is up this year (which seems to be the case). I think that, in the end, it's a GOTV effort - more liberal Mainers need to be persuaded to go to the polls.
Though it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy - if this becomes an issue, liberals will go to the polls because the Prop 8 debacle (and yes, that's what it is - a debacle) is still fresh in our memories. Granted, the health care debacle is taking precedence, but we haven't quite forgotten that 52% of Californians voted against equal rights. (Which is why you don't put minority rights issues up for ballot. Imagine if the Civil Rights Acts had been put up to popular vote.)
I'm in Texas at a University; the elderly homophobes are dying out and being replaced in the voter pool by the kids I work with, and they are for the vast majority distinctly non-homophobic. There may be some small core of intolerance among the religious, but even among them I haven't seen or heard about anybody crazed by homophobia.
Thanks to the information revolution, these kids can watch full video of just about every sexual act imaginable. Thanks to feminism and various social advances for women, both males and females assume men and women are equal even though emotionally different.
With that broad "education" on extant sexual practice, and an assumption of equality, and the rise of "spirituality" over dogmatic rule-based formal religion, it is much harder for these kids (actually full adults) to become homophobes.
Homophobia is grounded in religion and a presumption of gender inequality. Oral and anal sex are widely accepted in the young college crowd; dictating by gender who can be penetrated in these ways suggests inherent gender inequality, and that is inconsistent with the super-majority view in college culture.
I suspect as these kids grow older and begin to vote, most of this tolerant attitude will persist, and by the time they are in charge of the country (30 years or so) homophobic legislation will be a thing of the past.
The public aftermath of the passage of Prop 8 also has to be figured into the calculation. As opposed to happy families cheering the passage, the picture was unhappy families, protests, boycotts, and the likelihood of a rerun. In other words, instead of passively settling the issue, it only aroused more activists. As the mere fact that Maine is considering this shows, it's not the end of the debate on marraiage equality, it's not even the beginning of the end. It's merely the end of the beginning.
There are two additional factors that I see, one cutting each way. First, this was an enacted law, not a court imposed one. The judicial activism argument (which is a very powerful one for many, and a convincing one to anyone with an objective perspective) is not there. However, I do wonder if Nate's religious/nonreligious test might cloak (because of correlation) a rural/urban divide. Rural voters, it seems to me, are more socially conservative whether or not they are religious. Finally, don't the polls show a tie. If that's so, I think its trouble for gay marriage. It seems to me that opponents of gay marriage tend to underpoll.
@ Juris
I can't speak to the nature of the ground campaing but No on 1 has been one of the 5 featured campaigns on ActBlue for a while now. I suggest donating there.
Could declining church attendance in the South if and when it occurs, be a harbinger of resurgence for the Republican Party?
Great analysis, Nate- thanks.
Off topic, but:
Glad to see you're using the classic theme on Stata! Unless it's 10 or lower, in which case I guess you don't really have a choice. Nevertheless, glad to see you're using Stata - it's my favorite.
More confusing data on this tiresome subject that seems to be a breakpoint in major campaigns.
What I want to know, and perhaps the general public should know, is how many gay people are there?
What is the percentage of gays to the general population in each state that this campaign for more gay rights is trying to dominate the nation's attention?
Why do we have to keep voting on it? Why do we have to have this a major campaign issue?
A lot of the press regarding California that people are talking about isn't new. There's a reason why Nate's model predicts that the gay marriage proponents are gaining ground by about 2% every year.
Rene, you could pretty easily replace "gays" with "negros" and you'd sound like you were from the 50s. A minority doesn't have the same rights as the rest of the general population for no good reason, and they've convinced a lot of the majority that the situation is unfair. That's why it's an issue.
Judicial activism a convincing argument? Only if you're 1) blind to the same from the right 2) think the role of the judiciary is to abdicate its responsibilities to the legislature and executive and 3) believe that individual liberty should be as limited as possible by the whim of the masses. Then, yeah, you've got a convincing argument, but then again you're already convinced.
If you WERE objective, you'd see that 1) the court's roles are to protect minorities from majoritarian policy 2) defend individual liberty 3) vigorously examine legislative and executive policies and 4) don't hesitate to strike legislative and executive policy down when it violates these principles.
Now, in the particular case that led to proposition 8, and in quite a simplistic manner, the Republican-controlled Court found that 1) there was a provision of the California constitution prohibiting discrimination on the basis of, among other things, gender and sexual orientation; 2) there were separate regimes set up for straight marriage and gay civil union, 3) the civil union regime was intended to be, and actually was, inferior to the marriage regime, so 4) it constituted discrimination.
I don't know how you look at that objectively and say its not clearly unconstitutional. It's only because its gay marriage that you feel differently. If the provision were reversed (only gays could marry, and straights would have civil unions) would that constitute discrimination? If so, the reverse must also be true.
Conservatives supporting individual liberty on social issues? Don't play into this ridiculous theme. I challenge anyone to throw out some conservatives who have ever supported such things (other than Barry Goldwater, who, though called a conservative, was probably more of a libertarian).
You've conflated conservative with libertarian, which is hardly accurate, despite the constant attempts of conservatives to portray themselves this way. No, they've married classical economic liberalism with the echoes of a classical social despotism stretching back millenia. And the closest they come to repudiation of that is to "lessen the emphasis" on social issues, which means they wait until they're back in power.
Jeff said: The judicial activism argument (which is a very powerful one for many, and a convincing one to anyone with an objective perspective)...
What is this "judicial activism" argument? I believe I have an objective perspective; I am trained to have one. Any argument against gay marriage based on "judicial activism" is grounded in bias against gay marriage. What you call "judicial activism" is simply the courts doing their job which is to clarify the meaning of state and federal Constitutional language, with the federal version superceding any state version, and with the objective of enforcing fairness despite popular sentiment.
Courts and judges are specifically charged with deciding issues on based on broadly written principles and rights (of both states and citizens) as granted in law and legally binding Constitutions and Amendments; they are expressly intended to prevent mob rule.
Further, the only cases that get to the point where a decision is going to affect a state or the nation are inherently close calls; if the language is clear then appeals or certification for the Supreme Courts (state and federal) are simply denied, letting a lower court verdict stand.
Just because a court decides against the will of the people on some issue, even against the will of a super-majority, does not make them "activist" judges. Making such decisions is actually their function; if they never decided against the majority we could always just vote on such issues; and as the founding fathers knew, that path leads quickly to the destruction of individual rights and oppression of minorities by majorities.
There is no "judicial activism" argument; if you could see things objectively, you would realize that every single time this phrase is uttered in the context of gay rights, it is synonymous with "Those judges made the wrong decision."
The sister to this argument is that judges shouldn't "legislate from the bench." Anybody that argues that is completely ignorant of a Constitutional judge's job! The only cases they get are cases where the law is vague, badly worded, an inherent violation of rights, conflicting with other laws, or fucked up in some other way, and it is their job to resolve this situation in some way that clarifies it for the future. That might be by striking down the law as unconstitutional, or as unenforceable without inherent discrimination, or as beyond the jurisdiction of the law-making body. It might be resolved by limiting the scope of the law based on Constitutional principles or other extant law. But no matter how it is done the case presents a dispute over meaning that cannot be resolved by a simple reading, and it is not "judicial activism" to resolve such issues, it is simply their designated function and responsibility to do so.
NOBODY that views the "judicial activism" argument objectively would consider it to have any power, it is only a "powerful argument" for people completely ignorant of how their rights and freedoms are actually preserved in American society; it is only a "powerful argument" for people that believe in mob rule.
You can donate to No on 1: Protect Maine Equality, at their website, www.protectmaineequality.org
They are also running the ground campaign for the No on 1 campaign in Maine.
There's also a medical-marijuana question on the ballot, likely to bring out folks who would support gay marriage.
Tony C:
It's not quite mob rule. It's "mob rule while we control the mob" rule.
I find it to be a useful exercise to ask conservatives about the reverse of each position they espouse that gets struck down by "judicial activism." For instance, suppose you're a conservative who wants more prayer in the schools. Of course, there is always a Christian flavor to this prayer. They scream and shout and complain when a court prevents this. But, praytell, what happens when the prayer takes on a Hindu flavor? Suddenly, conservatives are even more irate: why must my children be subjected to this?
And, the strangest part is, they often don't see the disconnect between those two positions.
There is another variable here that may be hard to quantify.
Part of the driving force in the enactment of the state constitutional definitions of marriage was the very realistic fear that a court would redefine marriage by fiat against the will of the voters. Thus, voters were defending both the traditional definition of marriage and their democratic rights to make that determination.
However, that latter impetus is missing in Maine. Maine created its civil same sex marriage through the democratic process rather than by fiat in 4-3 state supreme court decision. Thus, I wonder if the effort to maintain the traditional definition of marriage will be as motivated in Maine.
@Richard:
True enough. Basically conservatives and Republicans are consistently shallow thinkers that have abandoned logical objective thought; everything they do is subjective. They conflate "Constitutional" and "Justice" and "Equality" with whatever they think they want, for them the meanings of these words have nothing to do with the actual Constitution, actual courts, or actual egalitarianism.
I'd think it comically childish if they weren't so dangerous.
Bart:
I believe that issue was mentioned.
I think calling a well-reasoned legal decision an imposition by fiat is disingenuous, especially for a lawyer like yourself. Especially considering I don't see how you get around the fact that the civil union regime was both inferior to the marriage regime and intentionally made that way.
@René O'Deay
You are correct. I do not understand why this is still a campaign issue, or why we still have to vote on it.
The constitution grantees equal rights. To all. The same rights that are granted to you and me should be granted to everyone else.
it SHOULD be a non issue.
We SHOULDN"T be spending time and money on this issue, and everyone should have the right to marry whomever they so please.
done.
but sadly, there are those in this country who like to pretend their way of life is the only correct way of life - no matter the history of the people coming to this land to be able to practice their way of life without being persecuted in the 'old world'....
The people such as myself who choose a heterosexual lifestyle should not be demanding special rights. These attempts to limit marriage rights only to those who choose a heterosexual lifestyle are absurd.
The government shouldn't be in the business of defining marriage anyway. That's a religious matter, and the First Amendment prohibits government intrusion into religion. Keep the government off the backs of the people, that's what I say.
I do not want Big Government intruding into my religion, nor imposing heterosexual lifestyles, nor indoctrinating and brainwashing my children into believing heterosexuality is the only acceptable lifestyle. I don't want a government official standing between me and my minister.
I have a daughter. I'm not at all sure I want heterosexual male teachers leering at her all day. We all know what pedophiles they are. I also have a son, and those heterosexual female teachers are a distraction and a temptation they don't need.
And if challenges to equal rights ever get to the Supreme Court, I do not want activist judges like Scalia and Roberts and Thomas to overturn laws such as the one in Iowa that allows everyone to get married. I've had it with those conservatives legislating from the bench.
Judicial activism?? Let's take Massachusetts' example:
Department of Health is part of the Executive Branch of the state goverment.
The Department of Health is responsible for issuing marriage licenses.
Being legally married with a license is the only way to receive many benefits, including financial.
The Department of Health was refusing to issue marriage licenses to a sub-set of the population.
That sub-set used the checks and balances to the Executive Branch set up in the Massachusetts constitution and brought the issue to the attention of the Judicial Branch.
The Judicial Branch ruled that the Executive Branch was acting against the Constitution of the state.
That is not judicial activism, it is the courts operating in their intended manner. Serving the people to check the power that sits in the executive and legislative branches of government.
@René O'Deay:
The number of gay people is not the real reason this is such a major issue. The number of social conservatives is the reason this is such a major issue. Gay people don't want this to be a major issue; they want it to be a simple, open-and-shut case, wherein a couple of old laws are repealed, a few phrases are moved around, and it's done. The reason this is a major issue is because there's a huge resistance to these (legislatively speaking) simple changes from people who believe homosexuality is immoral and cannot be condoned, and/or that gay marriage infringes upon something they think belongs to them or their religion - namely the institution of marriage. Those people, unfortunately, greatly outnumber the gay people, and they're the ones making this a campaign maker/breaker.
It wasn't blacks that doomed Prop 8, it was seniors. The good news (for those of us who support marriage equality) is each year more and more seniors get replaced by more moderate voters through natural attrition.
I think the next question (which might be impossible to answer from available data) is when support for gay marriage will be high enough that the bans that have passed so far can realistically be repealed. Your earlier post suggested that a state like mine--Oregon--that previously banned gay marriage would not do so if asked again today (which sounds right to me).
But is unwillingness to pass a ban the same as a willingness to overturn a ban? That seems unlikely, but it would be interesting to see some inspired thought on the subject.
What if the gay marriage ban read, "Marriage shall be between one man and one woman, neither of whom shall be of the Mormon faith"?
Would that be less likely to pass because LDS would not sink their resources into promoting it (as they did in CA), or MORE likely to pass because it would energize the evangelical vote?
Sure would be fun to try it and see.
Judicial activism? I think the Equal Protection clause is clear and anyone should be able to marry anyone.
The homophobes sounds like the last judge to argue that whites could not marry blacks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
How backward is this? Remind you of Palin just a little? From the case that was overturned:
"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."
From the Loving court which squashed this stupid idea:
"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."
If the above is judicial activism, lets have more of it.
If the above is judicial activism, lets have more of it.
Good question/point Austen. My understanding is that, while there is debate on the exact magnitude, there is usually a small "home field" advantage to the No on Yes/No questions. Change is scary.
So as a rough approximation take give the "No" side of a vote on repealing the law a generous +3 for that homefield, plus the +2 homefield (because it was sort of a change but not really) that the initial vote had to overcome (that I think is built into Nate's model?), and that's a rough eyeball.
@Juris you can support the Maine No on 1 campaign via actblue or travel for change or the campaign's web site
actblue reports they've raised $800k so far!
http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/22505
http://www.protectmaineequality.org/
http://www.travelforchange.org/
"Judicial activism" is a conservative codeword for "liberal-leaning decisions." Historically, there have been plenty of "activist" court decisions that have leaned to the right. One that most affects us is the one that made corporations into "persons" with rights. This came up recently in a case on campaign finance limitations, in which Sotomayor questioned the long-established precedent.
I don't think this case will in fact reinterpret the precedent but it may be reluctant to broaden it.
Thanks for the links to ActBlue. I'm making a cash contribution. I'd love to visit Maine again but no way could I do it now.
@Rob 322:
Exactly my point. The average age of death in the USA is approaching 78 years; if we presume voting has no effect on lifespan, every year we lose about 1.28% of elderly voters. They are not only replaced by younger voters, but our population has been growing (on average since 2000) by 0.93% per year. So it looks like the old vote loses 1.28%, the young vote gains about 2.21%, and the differential is 3.49%.
If all the young were liberal and all of the old were conservatives that would be great news for liberals; but of course the mix is closer to 75/25 either way.
It is the simple observation that explains about 88% of the annual 2% increase in support Nate identified; and there is no sign this turnover will abate any time soon. In ten years this whole gay marriage issue will likely have faded to non-issue; at least for voters. Politicians, of course, are older than the majority of voters, it may take a few more years to make it a non-issue for them.
Prop 8 definitely deserves all the flak it gets. I live in San Francisco proper and work downtown, and I saw "No on 8" (pro-gay marriage) workers every day for months on the corner of Montgomery and Market. Same goes with the corner of Castro and Market. Why in the hell were "No on 8" people waving signs in the Castro, or even on Montgomery? 90% of voters in these places were already voting No on 8.
Maine's main lesson from the debacle in California should be to send people out to unfriendly places. Let rural citizens actually talk to a few gay people and realize that they aren't the spawn of Satan. Don't cluster in the gayest parts of the state and high five with people that were already going to vote for you like Californians did. That's all I can say.
Richard said...
I think calling a well-reasoned legal decision an imposition by fiat is disingenuous, especially for a lawyer like yourself.
No judicial decision that rewrites a state constitution is ever well reasoned. This is especially the case with decisions which ignore contrary arguments.
As an attorney pledged to uphold the law, I have a special duty to call out illegal judicial decisions.
Are there enough results/data to model for popular vote on when states allow gay marriage? Or at least to map the spread between a "No" on a ban and a "Yes" on allowing gay marriage?
(Understandably limited as judiciaries have made this decision several times).
Nicely done, shrinkers. :-)
And I agree with LAW about the importance of making sure supporters venture into "unfriendly" territory. Even the most conservative places are usually about 75% conservative. So, there will be liberals there who will be encouraged to see *someone* who agrees with them. People who hold the minority view in their neighborhood feel isolated and are afraid to speak up or vote, because they don't think there's anyone else around who thinks like they do. So, you can get very high dividends if you can motivate and encourage these people who normally wouldn't have had the courage to vote.
And you may even be surprised to discover that the neighborhood that you thought was 80% conservative is actually more like 60%...
Whoa. Folks a little sensitive about the judicial activism issue?
Two points. First, whether you people like it or not, the argument appeals to a LOT of people. "Judicial activism", according to the polls, is exceptionally unpopular, and it is generally (although not exclusive) associated with the left. These are not points for debate - they are points of fact about the political landscape. Fulminating about it won't convince anyone.
Secondly, why do I suspect that none of you would think Roe V. Wade - the most infamous stroke of judicial activism in fifty years - was properly called "judicial activism"? Scholars from many different sides of the abortion issue deem it to be such, but I suspect most of you drink the cool aid on this. Point? That judicial activism on the left doesn't exist for many of you. If so, please point out a case that rises to the activist standard (and don't make it a nice easy case that was decided on the "conservative" side of an issue, though there are, of course, such cases, I would readily admit).
The issue of whether being gay is like being black as it applies to various public accomodations is precisely what is AT issue in these court decisions. You can't just preempt that democratic debate by saying, gays = racial minority. Nor can the courts. Federal and state constitutions are silent on the issue. You may have strong views. But you have to win the argument, unless the clear language of the constitution provides direction. Efforts to ram through a position via the courts, in the absence of social consensus, tend to backfire rather dramatically (as in, now bans on gay marriage are enshrined in 30 odd state constitions, rather than just being part of the more fluid law).
And don't come back at me with that tired argument about inserting "black" in place of "gay". That is a question begging rhetorical move, no more convincing than some bible belter offensively replacing "gay" with "pedophile" and justifying the ban on marriage that way. Analogies often lead to fallacies. The former one partly helped pass Prop 8, as it seems African Americans weren't overly convinced by the comparison.
@BDP:
How about a decision that a State Constitutional amendment violates the US Constitution? That cannot be well-reasoned?
You are an idiot. As an attorney, you don't get to decide what is a legal or illegal decision; only judges get to decide that (and they don't even have to be attorneys!). If you think the decision is illegal than you can appeal it to a higher court, but if the Supreme Court declines to hear it, or decides to let it stand, then by definition the decision was legal and you were wrong.
Your simplistic opinion of whether or not a court decision is immaterial; and as an attorney you have no special responsibility to the public to act as a judge. In the courtroom as an officer of the court you are obligated to speak up when you have personal knowledge that perjury is being committed under oath. That is it, buddy, a JD doesn't impose any duty or grant you any right to decide whether a court decision is legal or illegal. Dumbass.
I fear that the gay marriage issue will be settled through the courts within a couple years.
David Boies and Ted Olson have filed suit in federal court in California seeking to overturn Prop 8. All the arguments are on their side, and the amicus briefs will reach mountainous proportions before this thing is decided.
But the buck will eventually stop at the Supreme Court, which will do whatever it wants, the law, the Constitution or any other consideration be damned. Unless somehow or other any one these justices is no longer on the court in, say, 2011—
♦ John Roberts
♦ Antonin Scalia
♦ Clarence Thomas
♦ Samuel Alito
♦ Anthony Kennedy
—any possibility of gay marriage being recognized in this country will be destroyed completely and probably forever.
Remember that the Supremes are the last stop, and they have to answer to nobody for their decisions. Remember also Bush v. Gore, where no credible legal scholar (even to this day) can find a sound legal argument for the Court voting the way it did.
So while what states do regarding gay marriage is interesting, the real battle will be waged in the federal courts.
Bart De Palma is not an attorney. Law school bakes stupid thinking out of the head of anyone smart enough to graduate, and his arguments are ludicrous.
Maybe he was getting his law degree at the same time Muley was winning $600k+ in the stock market. They carpooled to Fantasy Island together.
@Jeff:
As I said, there are no cases of judicial activism. You are correct: I don't think it exists; it is just a pejorative term invented to make it sound like liberal court decisions are somehow wrong.
"Judicial Activism" is just sour grapes. Roe v. Wade is a case in point. The question was whether the government has the right to control a woman's body, and there was no Constitutional law on either side, but the State was insisting it had the right to force a woman to carry a child to term whether she wanted to do that or not. Yet the court is obligated to resolve the issue one way or the other, and they chose to interpret their deep knowledge of the founding fathers and opinions they had written as consistent with personal liberty in this issue, that excluded the State's claimed right of control. That was their job. In my view they did it correctly; the State should not have such power.
Presumably you cite this as evidence of "judicial activism" because you think it was decided wrongly; I claim it was them doing their job.
Whoa. Folks a little sensitive about the judicial activism issue?
Since when did it become "sensitive" to crush an "argument" made by an ignorant wingnut like you?
Bart: I fail to see how the decision rewrote the state constitution. I challenge you to explain how it is not discrimination to intentionally create lesser legal rights for a group.
Your only argument is based upon the level of scrutiny to the class. In California, sexual orientation is a protected class. Are you honestly saying there is a COMPELLING state interest in denying the marriage rights to gays? If so, I'd beg for some exposition.
Jeff: Unfortunately, the Constitution's language is anything but clear. Please provide me with a full and complete list of searches and seizures that are reasonable, and those that are not.
The best rationale for Roe, which I don't think was actually expressed very well in that decision, is that any seizure by the state of a woman's body for the purpose of forcing her to bear a child to term against her will is unreasonable.
If conservative logic holds, then laws compelling abortion are constitutional. If the state can regulate your womb to prevent an abortion, why can't it regulate your womb to compel one? And again, if marriage rights can be denied to gays constitutionally but granted to straights, why can they not be denied to straights and granted to gays?
@ shrinkers
I agree in principle to almost everything you wrote, and I appreciate the way you framed your argument. My only point of contention is that I don't believe marriage is a religious matter. I was raised in the Methodist church, however as an adult, I consider myself an agnostic atheist. My wife holds similar beliefs (or lack thereof). We have a legal marriage license, yet the ceremony was performed by a family friend acting as a Justice of the Peace. There was no mention of God whatsoever.
I believe there should be two types of marriage and that they should be separate and unequal. The first is civil marriage, the second is religious marriage. If the Catholic church wants to refuse to recognize homosexual marriages, that's their prerogative. Just like the Boy Scouts of America can refuse girls as members, and the KKK can refuse black people as members. But that should have no relation to civil marriage, which should be available to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. And it should be civil marriage to which all of the benefits currently associated with marriage are tethered. This way, the churches still get to discriminate, and gays get equal rights. Everybody wins!
WV: slient - how to describe a dyslexic person who's not tlaking
Chris: I think that is, in fact, the proposal. I'd consider it an equally unconstitutional exercise to compel a Church to marry anyone they didn't want to, or NOT marry someone they wanted to, black, white, gay, straight, human, beast, etc.
Although nobody is proposing such measures, I think that at least some opposition is based upon a misunderstanding that gay marriage would force churches to do so.
FYI: Maine is entirely rural, even Portland is only about 30,000 people I think (offhand).
Tony C. said...
You are an idiot. As an attorney, you don't get to decide what is a legal or illegal decision; only judges get to decide that (and they don't even have to be attorneys!). If you think the decision is illegal than you can appeal it to a higher court, but if the Supreme Court declines to hear it, or decides to let it stand, then by definition the decision was legal and you were wrong.
You confuse power with the law.
Supreme courts do indeed have the power of final judicial review of legal questions. However, the existence of that power does not mean a particular majority of supremes followed the law or were correct.
If the Supreme Court abused their power to rewrite the Constitution to read that the President had the power to summarily all liberals like yourself who lacked basic knowledge of the law, the Supremes would hardly be following the law or correct.
Your deference to unelected courts is positively monarchial. Our kings have spoken and we must obey!
Sorry, but I am a free citizen of a Republic and I have every right and indeed an obligation to challenge unlawful decisions of my government, perhaps most especially unelected and unaccountable judges.
Richard,
You're close -- Portland is about 60,000 in the city proper, and about 500,000 in the "metro" area.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/23/2360545.html
Nate -
I can tell from the screenshot that you're likely using STATA!!!!
Bart de Palma -
Part of the driving force in the enactment of the state constitutional definitions of marriage was the very realistic fear that a court would redefine marriage by fiat against the will of the voters.
If extended, your reasoning seems to deny the existence of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Any time a law is passed which violates the constitutional rights of individuals, courts are required to overturn it. SCOTUS is the ultimate authority, but lower courts have the right to recognize violations of constitutional rights as well.
Guarantee of fundamental rights by a constitution is not "by fiat", strictly speaking. The Constitution can be amended. However, it is true that it superficially resembles fiat in some situations. A local majority group cannot arbitrarily deny the rights of a local minority.
However, I suppose what's really relevant is that homophobia is dying out. Eventually the Republicans will either be a non-homophobic party, or cease to exist, or both. In any case, fairly soon, you may not have a homophobic major party to vote for at all.
Richard said...
Bart: I fail to see how the decision rewrote the state constitution. I challenge you to explain how it is not discrimination to intentionally create lesser legal rights for a group.
Easily. In order for homosexuals to claim that the statutory definition of civil marriage violates equal protection by failing to include homosexual unions they have the burden of showing that homosexual unions are similarly situated to traditional marriage of one man and one woman.
Homosexual unions are in almost no way similarly situated to marriage. They involve different combinations of genders and do not produce any of the benefits to society that marriage does. The CA supremes had to dishonestly reduce marriage to a civil contract between loving people and ignore all the ways homosexual unions are not similarly situated to marriage.
Assuming homosexual unions meet the equal protection requirement of similar situation to marriage, then the court will examine whether government has an interest in favoring marriage over homosexual unions. In the case of CA where homosexuals have been made a suspect class, the government must show a compelling interest.
This is actually easily done. Marriage is a basic foundation of society which provides the benefits of health and productivity to its partners and is the best human structure to procreate and raise civilized children. Homosexual unions provide none of these benefits. The CA Supremes dishonestly ignored centuries of evidence of social benefits and instead reduced marriage to a mere contractual relationship for government benefits.
The CA supremes had a clear policy agenda and were not about to let the requirements of equal protection law keep them from rewriting the definition of marriage to suit their own preferences.
What was worse was that a minority of CA Supremes were prepared to blow off the People's amendment expressly reversing their misbegotten decision rewriting marriage law. Those justices are not fit to sit on the bench and should be impeached.
Fortunately for those of us here in Maine, the folks running the No on 1 campaign have been down this road many times before. In fact, this is at least the 4th No on 1 campaign going back over the past 14 years. When the pro-bigotry folks have won it's always been by a relatively narrow margin, and they're last win was in '98.
That said, the Catholic church has brought big money to bear on this, plus we've got the addition of NOM, who were instrumental in getting Prop 8 passed (and who are now recycling those ads in Maine). So donations are definitely needed, and if anyone needs more encouragement, I'm running a raffle on my blog. Even $5-$10 donations are helpful, because they really add up. You can find the details at http://cabezalana.blogspot.com/.
Bart, you are entirely correct in stating that a particular group of Supreme Court justices making a given ruling does not, by definition, mean that they were correct or reasonable in that ruling. It is unreasonable to expect that any given group of humans is infallible or universally benevolent; indeed, the SCOTUS has erred in a number of directions at various times in the past, as evidenced quite simply by the fact that they have reversed previous SCOTUS decisions, if by nothing else. The same is true of any other Supreme Court, e.g. the Supreme Court in California.
At the same time, I think you are not entirely correct on a few things. First of all, obviously, I believe you are factually incorrect on the particular matter; that is, although I readily accept that the California SC can and has made mistakes, this decision was not a mistake.
Second, it's simply not true that judges are unelected and unaccountable. In particular, California Supreme Court justices are subject to retention votes. In some states, the justices are in fact directly elected in the first place.
Third, while it is true that a supreme court is not guaranteed to have followed the most reasonable, legal and rational course in its decision, it is true that the supreme court is, on average, more likely to follow such a course than a random representative lawyer, or even a random representative lower-court judge. That is to say; in the discussion of points of law, to a relatively uninformed layman, the ruling of the supreme court should have more inherent authority (as it is more likely to be correct, all other things equal) than that of a given lawyer arguing against it.
@BDP
"do not produce any of the benefits to society that marriage does"
This argument doesn't hold water. Other than bearing children, what could this possibly mean? And if that's the case, should sterile people, couples who choose to adopt rather than have their own children, couples who choose not to have children, and postmenopausal women also be denied marriage rights?
Heterosexual couples do more procreating than they can handle as is, especially in the areas of the country most opposed to extending equal marriage rights to homosexual couples.
Richard,
Banning straight marriage is thought experiment stuff, and so has its limits, but I suppose there would be no constitutional reason such a law couldn't exist. Certainly there would be moral and political objections, overwhelming ones, which would undoubtedly inform the democracy. Not all matters of law - even grave ones - can be determined by courts, who are in theory just to apply the law and particularly to protect the highest law (our social compact - the Constitution). I didn't say that I though gay marriage laws were somehow unconstitutional. I just also hold that the reverse laws are also constitutional. Its not a constitutional issue. Its a very serious issue for democratic legislation.
The abortion case is different in my view, because I view unborn children as rights bearing, and thus protected by the right to life enumerated in the constitution. But you presumably disagree.
Both you and Tony C. cast abortion as an "attempt to control (or seize) a woman's body". That's an utter red herring. Does the state "seize" my body when it prohibts me from driving drunk, or slapping strangers, or sticking steroids into my arm? Does it seize my body when it prohibts doctors from agreeing to my wish that my healthy arms be amputated? Law constrains freedom - in abortion law as in all other areas. Emotional rhetoric about seizing women is nonsense. Not to mention, it relies on the difficult judgment about when it becomes reasonable to admit that abortion is not just about ONE person - it's about two. An unborn baby is not an organ.
As for Tony C's argument that there is no such thing as judicial activism - that all complaints along those lines are sour grapes - I supposed that applies to the decisions by which the Supreme Court invalidated 2/3rds of the early New Deal legislation? It's a ridiculous argument. Courts can overstep their due authority. And when they do so, thus making law rather than interpreting and enforcing it - they are properly called "activist" courts. There is a disagreement as to whether the gay marriage decisions are activist or not, but do pretend that the claim is crazy is itself crazy. After all, the California supreme court decision was 5-4, and the minority themselves were very clear they thought that decision was overreaching. Other courts, including the NJ supreme court, have decided in that way - saying the decision was a matter for lawmakers not for the courts.
Bart, an addendum to a post that showed up as I was typing:
"Marriage is a basic foundation of society which provides the benefits of health and productivity to its partners and is the best human structure to procreate and raise civilized children. Homosexual unions provide none of these benefits."
You are factually mistaken. The benefits to health and productivity within a heterosexual relationship are identical to the benefits to health and productivity within a homosexual relationship. The benefits to the raising of children by two homosexual parents is identical to the raising of children by two heterosexual parents.
Further, even if you were correct, that is insufficient to demonstrate a compelling interest to ban same-sex marriage. For that, it would be necessary to show harm from homosexual marriage, which is not at all the same as showing that it does not have some set of benefits that another kind of marriage does not. This is trivially obvious in the oft-cited example: an infertile couple is by definition unable to provide some of the child-producing and rearing benefits you mentioned, yet this is insufficient to prove that they should not be allowed to marry.
Any hypothesis that suggests that there is harm to society stemming from homosexual marriage must, at this point, also deal with the problem of Massachusetts. They have had gay marriage for years now. If there were such negative repercussions, surely it would be possible to clearly point to evidence thereof in that state.
Bart DePalma writes:
This is actually easily done. Marriage is a basic foundation of society which provides the benefits of health and productivity to its partners and is the best human structure to procreate and raise civilized children. Homosexual unions provide none of these benefits. The CA Supremes dishonestly ignored centuries of evidence of social benefits and instead reduced marriage to a mere contractual relationship for government benefits.
So you're saying that straight infertile couples should be denied the right to marry, right? Or, at least, that there would be no constitutional argument against a government decision to deny straight infertile couples the right to marry.
Also, the claim that "homosexual unions provide none of these benefits" is entirely unsupported by any research whatsoever. Many homosexual couples adopt children, and plenty of research shows that the only deficit facing the children of homosexual parents is the prejudice society maintains against their parents. One can presume that if marriage makes for better parenting then it will make for better homosexual parenting as well as better heterosexual parenting.
There is nothing so dreary as the pathetic dishonesty of those opposing gay marriage. You know that the real reasons for your opposition are disreputable (you can't go into court and say "we think gays are yucky and want to hurt them!") so you make up these completely bogus arguments which are absurd on their face.
Pragmatus said...
Bart De Palma is not an attorney. Law school bakes stupid thinking out of the head of anyone smart enough to graduate, and his arguments are ludicrous.
Some graduate over/under done.
Attorneys are people, too. With the sprinkling of crazy, etc. that comes with that. Get past the bar and you are covered until you go Full Total Loon and do something grossly unethical in a professional capacity (and of course get caught).
Pragmatus, I agree with you that the odds are high that Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the Boies/Olsen lawsuit, would result in a loss at the Supreme Court. But I disagree that it would likely result in as great a catastrophe as you present it.
(A) For one thing, it's going to create a huge political problem in California if Perry wins at the district court level. Attorney General Jerry Brown would make the decision about whether or not to file an appeal - and he's running for Governor. If it happens before the primary, and he appeals, he likely loses the primary. If it happens after the primary, then whether or not to appeal is a really, really tough decision.
(b) If Perry wins on appeal at the 9th Circuit, it's totally unclear that whoever is AG at that time would appeal.
(c) Even if it did reach the Supreme Court level, the worst that the Supreme Court would do is to say either that (a) the gay/straight marriage distinction is to be analyzed using a rational basis test (meaning that all the state needs is a rational basis for the distinction) or (b) the state of California has a compelling state interest in keeping gays out of marriage.
But neither of these would preclude subsequent legalization of gay marriage by legislatures or initiatives, or rulings that such discrimination violates state equal protection clauses. They would just close off the federal equal protection challenge.
So ... the outcome would be bad if it got to the Supreme Court (but the politics of that suggest that it might not); but it would not mean that "any possibility of gay marriage being recognized in this country will be destroyed completely and probably forever".
In California, sexual orientation is a protected class
It's probably worth noting that the question of whether or not sexual orientation is a protected class was un-answered until the Marriage Cases, and that an argument could be made that since the process by which sexual orientation became a protected class was the judges deciding that case concluded that the precedents under which other groups had become protected classes in the past suggested that gays should become a protected class now, that process was a rewriting of the Constitution.
I don't agree with that argument, but it's hardly an unreasonable argument to make.
@ Andrew: Bravo. You can't simply show that one side is preferable, even strongly so. Compelling means compelling, and Bart simply cannot establish it.
@ Jeff: Essentially you are seizing the person by compelling them to follow through on the pregnancy. To distinguish the situations you pointed out, the law there merely acts in a negative manner and does not create a positive obligation with your body. Essentially, more apt comparisons are: forcing a person to eat certain foods, forcing a person to maintain a certain organ which will later be removed, forcing a person to engage in a particular activity with regards to the internal workings of their body for the next 9 months, etc.
I agree that there _could_ be a counterargument on the issue of the fetus's right to life. But that is irrelevant to the question posed, which is whether it was judicial activism to hold that the state cannot force the woman to bring the pregnancy to term. The basis in the constitution is there. Now, whether it was the CORRECT DECISION is another question entirely, and I grant that there are some very compelling arguments on both sides. But I don't think its judicial activism.
Admittedly, those are thought experiments I posed, and they're hardly flawless. I do appreciate your participation, though!
@Chris
I agree in principle to almost everything you wrote, and I appreciate the way you framed your argument. My only point of contention is that I don't believe marriage is a religious matter.
And with the distinctions you made, I agree absolutely with you. There is a) the question of whether a given Church or denomination wishes to sanctify or recognize a given union, and there is b) the question of whether legal rights are granted to people in a union. These are, in fact, two different questions, and you are spot on in your analysis.
The problem is that the conservative nutcases insist on conflating the two questions, and on answering them both based on the narrow and discriminatory views of Their Particular Church. They then wish to impose this view upon all the rest of us, through legal definitions.
Since they are simplistic, so was my argument. It's an error to try to make subtle distinctions in conversation with someone unable to comprehend subtlety.
@BDP:
No, You confuse power and the law by saying that the obligation of a judge to decide an issue is one of power instead of one of law. It is, by the law of the land, the court's duty to make such determinations.
Further, judges are typically appointed and then independent because their job is to ignore the wishes of the majority, or minority, or special interests, and make their decisions without fear of retribution in the polls. Independence for judges provides them with at least some amount of insulation against populist anger, and that is the intent of it.
Again, if we wanted mob rule we wouldn't need courts! It is not an issue of power versus legality, the judges by law have both the power and the duty to decide the law.
Bart DePalma writes:
This is actually easily done. Marriage is a basic foundation of society which provides the benefits of health and productivity to its partners and is the best human structure to procreate and raise civilized children. Homosexual unions provide none of these benefits.
None of them except the 1st, 2nd, and 4th ones. The third one is mostly a push for lesbians, as they fall into the same category as a small but existent segment of heterosexual marriages that rely on AI and related fertility treatments.
Gay men of course have a much harder time of it there on the 3rd item, and they are limited to adoption/surrogate territory for them (not unlike another small segment of heterosexual couples).
So, umm, yeah. Try put that past a judge that is simply applying rule of law and you'll get beat down promptly. No "activist" required, just a brain.
@Juris
In legal fact, there is no judicial precedent for the doctrine that corporations enjoy all the rights of former slaves. There is merely the statement of an activist SCOTUS Chief Justice in 1886, recorded by the court reporter in the headnotes to the case:
"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad
"Judicial activism" is merely Republican code for "I don't like it, and you can't make me," specifically in Civil Rights cases. See http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Code_Words
Judicial activist
One who holds that Constitutional protections apply to the riff-raff, particularly Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, who should have been impeached
Take a moment to consider the question of gay marriage/civil unions from a Constitutional standpoint.
My approach to this has been best described in this very short piece.
There's always a Tertium Quid...
What do you think? ;)
OK ... where can I jump in here? C'mon Pragmatus, shrinkers, Dwight ... bait me.
@BDP: Your argument about the benefits of straight marriage vs gay marriage are A) wrong on the facts and B) irrelevant…because the state doesn’t require any checks to make sure those benefits are being delivered. That is, your talk about love and positive environment is nice, but the state doesn’t require you to prove that you’re in love to get married, nor do have to prove that you’re compatible or treat each other well. In most states, you just need to show up at the court house with two IDs and enough cash to cover the fee. If the state really cared about making sure that marriages benefited society, they would require pre-marital counseling, parenting classes, blood tests, etc.
So let’s be clear: a man and woman of any race or religion, who may or may not love, like or care about each other, who may be seeking financial gain or may be perfect strangers… they can get married and have it recognized in any state. But two men or two women who love each other, want to build a family and settle down… they can’t? That’s not looking out for social benefit; that’s discrimination.
@Jeff: So your point is that because people believe “judicial activism” is real and they don’t like it, that it is real and we should watch out for it? You’re either an idiot or a cynic, possibly both.
People are sensitive about “judicial activism” because it’s a smoke screen, like most of the other worthless arguments that the Republican party throws out about whatever issue it is they’ve decided to yell about. It’s the equivalent of death panels and welfare queens…totally made up. As a reasonable person, I’m tired of people expecting me to take them seriously when they talk about boogeymen and gremlins. We could be having a real discussion about gay marriage, but instead, we have to talk about “judicial activism” and “special rights”.
Also, you should check out Nate piece debunking the “blacks passed prop 8” meme: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/prop-8-myths.html
There were too many Richards, so I changed to RichA to distinguish. I am the moderate, libertarian Richard.
While some here may consider me on the wrong side of the health care debate I hate the public option), I'm all for same-sex marriages. All of the reasons offered to ban same-sex marriage are directly related to some religious purpose and the government should in no shape or form be making law based on a religious foundation. Some thoughtful courts (why not all?)have struck down laws banning same-sex marriages because the laws discriminate against a segment of society without any strong public policy reason as a foundation to do so.
It is a shame we still are in the Dred Scott era of homosexual civil rights and that even some so-called liberals (e.g., President Obama) prefer the Plessy v. Fergusson, separate but equal, type solution (i.e., civil unions), rather than the appropriate, Brown v. Board of Education type of solution.
I do not have time to go into the detail this deserves, but here is a thumbnail sketch of the societal benefits of marriage that homosexual unions do not provide:
1) Marital benefits to the husband - Less likely to engage in anti-social behavior, more likely to earn more income, healthier and longer life.
2) Marital benefits to the wife - Less likely to be impoverished, a partner to help support her children, healthier and longer life.
3) Marital benefits to the children - the union creates the children, the children are far less likely to engage in anti social behaviors, the children are less likely to be impoverished the children are more likely to be educated and accomplished, and the children can use their parents as role models on how men and women are supposed to act and interact in society.
Cohabitation without marriage provides far fewer of these benefits, thus marriage itself offers society a compelling array of well established benefits. For a primer, read the work of Gertrude Himmelfarb. However, there are dozens of studies demonstrating these benefits of marriage.
Homosexual unions without marriage do not provide any of these benefits and there is no evidence that same sex marriage where it has been created provides any of these benefits.
If you disagree, show me the scientific evidence.
Be forewarned, I have made this challenge on several other legal and political blogs and no one has yet been able to offer actual evidence apart from anecdotes, including professors who specialize on these issues.
Any thoughts on the likelihood of passing Washington State's Referendum 71? It's confusing for many, because there was a big push by those who favor civil unions for gays to not get the referendum on the ballot - now that it is on the ballot, they have to remember to vote yes
http://approvereferendum71.org/referendum-71-news/
vs
http://www.protectmarriagewa.com/
Be forewarned, I have made this challenge on several other legal and political blogs and no one has yet been able to offer actual evidence apart from anecdotes, including professors who specialize on these issues.
Yes, be forewarned that Baghdad Bart is an expert at pulling idiotic claims out of his ass!!
And no matter how many times those claims have been crushed, he has never acknowledged it!!
YOU HAVE BEEN FOREWARNED!!
If you disagree, show me the scientific evidence.
Numbnuts, it's up to you to prove that "benefit to society" is a reason to restrict who can get married.
I am not against civil rights. I see no benefit from homosexual marriage.
I am not anti-gay.
None of my gay friends have stayed together very long.
Blacks use to make up 17 percent of US population, now down to 12 percent. But how many do you see on TV? in Sports? in other professions? and what does that have to do with this issue?
How many gays are there in Maine?
And in US? no stats? Is that why no one cared to answer that question?
Bart DePalma,
You have to be joking about your "benefits of marriage," right? I work in the family courts and what you suggest is not reality at all. Marriage does not prevent a man from beating his wife, nor does it prevent a woman from falling into poverty, and, most damaging of all, children are all too often exposed to the constant fighting and mental and physical abuse perpetrated upon them from married men and women. I wouldn't argue that homosexual couples would be better, but I doubt very much they could do worse.
Furthermore, obviously it is better to have two people raising a child and sharing household costs, rather than just one person, but why are those "benefits" better if one person is a man and one is woman? The benefits are derived by the sharing of costs and responsibilities by two people, despite whether they are different genders. Therefore, the benefits of marriage that you have outlined would be beneficial for same-sex couples as well as hetrosexual couples, thereby strengthening the argument for same-sex marriage.
@BDP
Replace "husband" and "wife" with "partner" and homosexual and heterosexual couples are virtually identical for #1 and #2. Remove your sexist assumption about gender roles and they are completely identical for gay and straight couples.
Your #3 has been refuted multiple times (sterile couples, elderly couples, couples who choose not to have kids, etc). How about soldiers killed in battle with pregnant wives back home? Are those families also hurting America? Or do you not even consider them families? Why do you hate the troops?
I hate to burst your bubble, but marriages aren't just for making babies for Jesus.
@BDP:
Ha! How about YOU show US some scientific evidence? You cannot simply make baseless assertions and then demand WE disprove them. What then? You make more baseless assertions, we disprove them, and you make more. Sounds like we are doing all the work, and you get to just make shit up.
Also, gay males are FAR less likely to engage in anti-social behavior than straight males, married or not. There is a reason the prison population is overwhelmingly male; and gay males are essentially female brains trapped in a male body (and there is a lot of medical evidence for this in stroke recovery studies and functional brain imaging; straight male and straight female brains work differently and recover differently from injury). As a result, the number of gay males committing anti-social acts such as armed robbery, assaults, and destruction of private property is comparable to the number of women doing the same, meaning, 20 times less on a per capita basis than the number of straight males.
You really are a dork.
1) Marital benefits to the husband - Less likely to engage in anti-social behavior, more likely to earn more income, healthier and longer life.
2) Marital benefits to the wife - Less likely to be impoverished, a partner to help support her children, healthier and longer life.
LOL, well for starters you are stuck in the wrong century assigning the roles based on gender. It's like you've been hiding in a cave for 50 years.
3) Marital benefits to the children - the union creates the children, the children are far less likely to engage in anti social behaviors, the children are less likely to be impoverished the children are more likely to be educated and accomplished,
Why is that, one must ask. Or more to the point why would this not happen if it's Adam and Steve, not Adam and Eve?
children can use their parents as role models on how men and women are supposed to act and interact in society.
So the children watch mom and dad get it on, noting which bit gets stuffed into what hole? But then this is all about "are supposed to act". I thought you were all libertarian and shit. Now you want to be all conformist and make sure the The Man ensures everyone is doing what they are supposed to do [according to you]!
Only this is NOT about that. Because we DON'T enforce who lives with whom, about who's banging who's parent. This is about the money and the legal organization and...
Cohabitation without marriage provides far fewer of these benefits,
Yes, when the government biases and denies the financial and legal benefits of the union. That's why over the years common law has largely become recognized as de facto marriage (though not entirely in all jurisdictions).
If you disagree, show me the scientific evidence.
LOL. You feel you can just throw out assertions like that and demand "well prove this stuff I just pulled out of my ass is wrong"? The burden is actually on those that would deny equal rights. There must be a valid, evidenced reason or the requirement of equality stands.
But of course as an attorney you knew this, right? That you are just full of shit?
O'Deay:
Who cares how many? Are you saying it is okay to discriminate against a minority if there aren't very many of them?
How can you NOT see a benefit from homosexual marriage, if homosexuals see a benefit from being allowed to marry? Or are you saying there is no benefit to YOU?
This is a ridiculous argument. Somewhere between 5% and 10% of the population is born homosexual, so feel free to use the census bureau and calculate if you want; but it makes no difference whatsoever. Discrimination is wrong on an individual basis, there is no threshold where we say discrimination is okay if less than X people are affected and not okay when X+1 people are affected.
No Romney = no legit challenge coming from the GOP in 2012...any thoughts?
Bart
Your first point is okay-ish, your second point is misogynistic AND wrong (married women do not live longer - http://www.familyfacts.org/findingdetail.cfm?finding=6684) and your third point is only valid should a couple decide to have children. And your list of benefits does not prove that it is the gender of the couples that provides those benefits.
And again, your argument about benefits, besides relying on flawed assumptions, is irrelevant. A good marriage is beneficial to both parties and to their community and their children, should they choose to have them… but the state does nothing to promote or regulate a good marriage. You can be the most sexist, disrespectful SOB in the state and you can get married. You could have serious control issues and beat your kids… and you can get married. You just need an ID and some cash. Your argument about benefits to society is tertiary at best and has never been a concern of the state… until ‘the gays’ wanted to get married.
RichA said...
Bart DePalma: You have to be joking about your "benefits of marriage," right? I work in the family courts and what you suggest is not reality at all. Marriage does not prevent a man from beating his wife, nor does it prevent a woman from falling into poverty, and, most damaging of all, children are all too often exposed to the constant fighting and mental and physical abuse perpetrated upon them from married men and women.
You are only seeing the results of marriage falling apart. Women with children outside of marriage are far more likely to be in poverty and to be victims of domestic violence by their boyfriends.
Furthermore, obviously it is better to have two people raising a child and sharing household costs, rather than just one person, but why are those "benefits" better if one person is a man and one is woman?
Marriage is a multiplier, not merely the result of addition. Married men tend to earn more than unmarried men. Thus, a married couple are likely to be wealthier than that same couple merely cohabiting. There is no evidence of this effect in homosexual unions.
I love Rene's point that none of her gay friends have stayed together very long. That's classic. On average, my gay friends have stayed together longer than my straight friends. Oh no!! How will we ever decide who's right??
And just 'cause I'm curious, are you sure it's your gay friends you're talking about Rene? Are you sure it's not... nobody?
Bart DePalma said:
"You are only seeing the results of marriage falling apart."
Well, if marriage doesn't guarantee the benefit, then the benfit isn't derived from marriage. It's like saying if you join a gym, you are likely to lose weight. If you did research, you would probably find that more people who join gyms do lose weight, but the mere fact that you joined the gym isn't the reason one loses weight. Rather, it is the commitment of going to the gym and exercising that causes people to lose weight. In marriage, it is the commitment of the two people have toward each other that creates the benefit. Marriage, like the gym, is merely a conduit.
"Thus, a married couple are likely to be wealthier than that same couple merely cohabiting. There is no evidence of this effect in homosexual unions."
Yes, for two reasons. First, they make more money due to the legal and tax benefits provided to married couples. If homosexuals were provided the same benefits, they too would be better off financially...thus the argument that they not be discriminated against. Second, marriage is more of a legal commitment than co-habitation, therefore married people are more likely to be committed to the economic welfare of their spouse and family than a co-habitating person, but this is still likely to work whether the commitment is made by two people of the same sex.
"Married men tend to earn more than unmarried men."
Of course, especially if they have children who they have to care for and raise. Given the chance, married homosexuals are likely to earn more too, since they would be more economically committed to their spouse and family. Again, a reason to support same-sex marriage, not ban it.
David.
No. That was not my argument. Look elsewhere for the stupidity. Perhaps in a mirror. My point is that people vote against judicial activism where they see it, whether you like it or not. I wasn't making any evaluation at all in stating the obvious. Your strategy of combining ignorance with sneering doesn't strike me as the most promising way to defuse their concerns.
Nevertheless, I also happen to think that denying judicial activism entirely - as if they are "boogeymen and gremlins" - is almost hilariously stupid, and may go some way toward explaining why the pro-gay marriage supports lose virtually every time this issue is voted on: because they refuse to take reasonable concerns seriously. So your position is that courts never overstep, and never go beyond their judicial function. Interesting. Unfortunately also utterly risible. For instance, I've never had a discussion with, or read a commentary by, a serious scholar of the law who didn't think that Roe v. Wade was at least ARGUABLY an act of judicial activism. (Most of them, left and right, think it was rather obviously so.) Likewise a whole raft of other decisions on the left and right.
The left used to have a nice, healthy suspicion of judges. Now they bend their knees like panting sycophants at the bench. Pathetic.
Richard said...
Bart:
I think calling a well-reasoned legal decision an imposition by fiat is disingenuous
~~~~~~~~~~
BDP disingenuous, perish the thought! Indeed, factually incorrect 24/7 a given, but disingenuous, never lol
carry on
Jeff said...
The left used to have a nice, healthy suspicion of judges. Now they bend their knees like panting sycophants at the bench. Pathetic.
~~~~~~~~~~
hmm, using more and more ad hominems lately, eh. Yea, when reasoned thought has one in a bind, always resort to name calling ...
Fitting one resorted to name calling at the end of your post. A clear indication one had lost the debate.
take care
i think that much of the dispute over "judicial activism" coming from Jeff and others involves a misunderstanding of the role of the judiciary in the common law tradition.
In many societies, such as France and others with Napoleonic legal traditions, the courts only apply the law as broadly construed and if their is a question or inconsistency, they ask the legislature for a clarification. These legal cultures believe far more strongly in majoritarianism than did the creators of our system.
A majoritarian system with weak courts is not a problem in principle, and it certainly comes with many advantages, but it is not our system. In the English common law tradition, and especially in the United States, courts are more independent bodies given the power to interpret vague laws. And almost all cases that reach the supreme court or involve contentious appellate decisions involve a complex issue with a real dispute over the meaning of a statute or constitutional article.
Very rarely do we see a SCOTUS case where the decision is obvious. Most of the landmark decisions made recently, Roe, Casey, Griswold, Brown, Carhart, Bakke, Bush v UM, Hamdi, Texas v. Johnson, Kelo, Ricci, Roeper, etc have been split decisions (OK not Brown), with valid points on both sides. Some of these rulings I agree with and some I do not, but none of them are judicial activism.
Even Bush v Gore raised an interesting Article II question (although the majority used the much flimsier equal protection argument).
Taking sides on the issue is fine, but lets not pretend that the courts should have to agree with the majority or should have to uphold a statute to avoid being activists.
Of all of the cases I just mentioned, there is probably at least one that anyone here could agree with, and yet the majority in each of those cases could be accused of overreaching just as easily is some here have accused the CA Supreme Court for ruling that equal protection means that everyone is protected equally.
@ Bart
While I do think that you should also provide some scientific evidence to back up your case if you are going to demand evidence from others, I still provide you (and everyone else) with the appropriate evidence to read and digest.
Here is a press briefing summary of the APA's position, which is based on the cumulative research of psychologists: http://www.apa.org/releases/gaymarriage.html
Here is the APA's summary of the impact of gay parents on their children: http://www.apa.org/pi/parent.html
In short having two stable parents is the most important issue, not their sexual orientation or their gender. In fact children of gay parents are psychologically equivalent to children of gay parents with one exception--children of gay parents are more tolerant.
So, the scientific evidence actually suggests the opposite of your assertions. If you have counter evidence feel free to post and we can have a lively debate over the veracity of the claims
@ Bart (again)
I didn't see this the first time through. You said "Women with children outside of marriage are far more likely to be in poverty and to be victims of domestic violence by their boyfriends."
Yes this is true, but this is not an argument against gay marriage. The comparison in these sorts of studies is between single mothers and married heterosexual couples. They do not provide the appropriate comparison of a same-sex couple to draw any conclusions of same-sex marriage.
A lot of your arguments are very compelling to a lot of people. For example, Focus on the Family.
Brian DePalma,
Here's some evidence http://www.volokh.com/files/dale-Census_Bureau_chart_on_gay_and_straight_married_couples.jpg.
It is a Census Bureau chart on data obtained about gay and straight couples, married and unmarried. First, I'm surprised, but unmarried males and females earn more than married. Go figure! Also, it appears that the "child" benefit for straight couples and gay is about equal (43% of straight couples have children, but 38% of same-sex female couples have children and 32% of same-sex male couples have children).
Shiloh,
You're kidding right. Any post of mine or other conservatives on this site, no matter how mild, is meet with torrent of abuse. Spare me. And that wasn't ad hominem, because it wasn't aimed at an individual. It was actually a systematic point: a criticism of the left's worship of the judiciary.
Jacob,
There are many problems with your argument, but the most obvious is that most contentious decisions aren't about "clarifying" unclear statutes. They are about tossing out perfectly clear laws, such as abortion bans, as "unconstitutional". They aren't about implementation generally. And your characterization of complaints about judicial activism - i.e., that courts "must" agree with the majority, or uphold all laws - is absurd. No one makes such claims, of course. Are you seriously of the mind that judicial activism (or overreach, use what word you want) doesn't exist? That is not even plausible. There are rules and principles that govern when courts have a role, and they often ignore them. This isn't just a concern of the right. The left legal scholar Cass Sunstein has written about judicial restraint and judicial activism. But I'm going to cease commenting on this because its so bloody obvious that its tedious to debate. By all means, go on laughing at the proposition that there is such a thing as judicial activism. And go on loosing the gay marriage battle at the ballot box.
Jeff said...
Shiloh,
You're kidding right. Any post of mine or other conservatives on this site, no matter how mild, is meet with torrent of abuse. Spare me. And that wasn't ad hominem, because it wasn't aimed at an individual. It was actually a systematic point: a criticism of the left's worship of the judiciary.
lol left's worship of the judiciary, when conservatives live and die w/SC nominations as does far left liberals. And the SC appointed cheney/bush president if memory serves ie conservative live, eat and breathe judicial decisions.
Disingenuous indeed, you and BDP are quite the pair, eh.
Oh and a general ad hominem also applies to the individual one is replying to as your name calling applied to every liberal poster at 538.
Jeff, you are acting quite the victim, eh. Kind of amusing when liberal logic slams conservatives daily at 538.
take care
Good point Jeff. Courts do not only clarify existing law, they also must examine claims that a law might violate the constitution of the us and of their states. However, this duty is still well within the realm of the courts in our system. If the court finds that a ban on terminating pregnancies violates the constitution as interpreted, or that laws denying people the equal protection of the law violates the promise of equal protection, then they must rule that the higher law applies. That isn't throwing out the law--it's resolving a discrepancy between two laws, and there is almost always a legitimate point of contention.
Yes, judicial activism exists, but not as a trump card to play whenever a court makes a decision that you don't like. I think that Carhart v Gonzales (deciding that IDX abortions are not protected from government intrusion) was a bad decision, but that does not mean it was overreaching. I think that Bush v. Gore, invalidating a state's recount procedures by applying an impossible standard, IS an example of overreaching by the judiciary, and yet there was still a legitimate question about the precise meaning of Article II. My point is that invalidating a law that you don't like is not automatically overreaching (and such cases are very rare).
Nice parting shot, but you're ignoring the point. The right of minority groups to equal protection under the law should not have to come to a vote. That's why we have courts.
Bart De P has advanced an absurd argument in which a legal “state” i.e. being married has precedence over the rights of the individuals who are parties to the “state”.
Whether or not marriage confers any benefit on society is completely irrelevant. Contract law, which is the basis upon which civil society is built, is completely unconcerned with what contracts bring, as regards benefits, to society, but what the power to enforce contracts brings to society. Marriage is a contract whose sole purpose is regularizing and codifying the material and property relationships between two people who enter into it. In no society, outside of defunct ones such as Nazi Germany, does marriage have anything to do with producing and raising children for the purpose of benefiting the state.
Pedantic statistical point: When a model actually serves the purpose of formalizing and replacing our informal understandings of the relationships among factors, like Nate's regression does in this case, it's a success. Because it's embodied in arithmetic, it makes it possible to challenge, tweak, update, and improve our understanding, in a way that's impossible as long as we're dealing only with informal opinions.
But even as I appreciate the model, I scorn the supposed confidence intervals. Because the underlying data consists of an exhaustive collection of referenda, it's not likely to meet the requirement that the error terms be statistically independent. Rather, the data is riddled with latent dependencies, such as the fact that the 31 elections represent only a handful of distinct election dates. If, for example, there was a sharp but short-lived shift in the national political climate that affected all the results held on a particular date, the coefficients of the model might be substantially affected, but there would be little or no effect on the calculated confidence intervals.
I've tried to make this point before, but I don't think I'm explaining it well enough to be understood. I'll be happy if a few of our sophisticated participants note that if you build a model based on all the data available, the results may appear more reliable and consistent than they really are.
It's stupid to offer a rule of thumb that could apply under widely divergent circumstances, but I find myself stupid enough to do so: Discount the sample size by half when a political model is derived from the entire universe of a phenomenon. If that would render the results non-significant, you should worry about their robustness.
Re conservatives and judicial activism and privacy and personal choice: Terry Schiavo, Creationism, school prayer, abortion, etc.
As I said in another thread, denying Gays equal rights by vote would be the same as Brown vs. BOE being overturned by a vote of "we the people".
The founding fathers would not be happy if minority rights were overturned by a vote of the majority imo.
take care
Jeff: I don't see why any liberals bother to read anything you post. All you conservatives are loons.
By your earlier argument, that's a reasonable argument, and not an ad hominem attack.
RichA said...
Well, if marriage doesn't guarantee the benefit, then the benfit isn't derived from marriage.
Nothing in life is guaranteed apart from death. Life is a matter of probabilities punctuated by random chance. Married folks and through them society are far more likely to enjoy the benefits of marriage I noted above than unmarried folks. You are free to offer proof that homosexual unions provide the same benefits as marriage.
BD: "Thus, a married couple are likely to be wealthier than that same couple merely cohabiting. There is no evidence of this effect in homosexual unions."
Yes, for two reasons. First, they make more money due to the legal and tax benefits provided to married couples. If homosexuals were provided the same benefits, they too would be better off financially.
We are not talking about after tax income.
Second, marriage is more of a legal commitment than co-habitation, therefore married people are more likely to be committed to the economic welfare of their spouse and family than a co-habitating person...
Bingo.
...but this is still likely to work whether the commitment is made by two people of the same sex.
Why and based on what evidence? The fact that a married man would work harder for the mother of his children and for those children does not necessarily mean that a homosexual man with an admittedly different sexual orientation would do the same for his male partner who cannot bear him children. Indeed, the dynamic between gay and lesbian couples is likely to be as different from each other as they are from from heterosexual couples.
Why and based on what evidence?
Again Bart, this isn't defending against a DUI charge by the state. You are arguing for the state against the citizen, arguing to deny equal protection under law. Therefore the burden of proof is on you.
If you tried to pull this before a judge his verdict is going to be chalk full of "Respondent failed to provide evidence." :P
RichA said...
Here's some evidence
http://www.volokh.com/files/dale-Census_Bureau_chart_on_gay_and_straight_married_couples.jpg.
It is a Census Bureau chart on data obtained about gay and straight couples, married and unmarried. First, I'm surprised, but unmarried males and females earn more than married. Go figure!
The chart indicates that unmarried gay and lesbian couples earn more on average than "married" gay and lesbian couples.
This does not exactly provide evidence that "marriage" enhances the earning ability of homosexual couples. Quite the opposite. It appears that "marriage" may substantially degrade homosexual earning ability.
To be fair, though, to determine if there is a causal connection between marriage and earning ability among homosexual couples, the Census folks need to compare earnings of the same set of people before and after marriage.
Also, it appears that the "child" benefit for straight couples and gay is about equal (43% of straight couples have children, but 38% of same-sex female couples have children and 32% of same-sex male couples have children).
The fact that homosexual couples have adoptive custody of children created outside the homosexual union in comparable percentages to marriages with children does not speak to the generational of societal benefits.
Haha.
"Don't start counting your (gay) chickens yet."
I LOLed.
That said, I hope your model is right, last thing we need is another state banning civil rights.
The fact that homosexual couples have adoptive custody of children created outside the homosexual union in comparable percentages to marriages with children does not speak to the generational of societal benefits.
It certainly speaks to the irrelevance of your arguments, if not their outright illogical nature.
I don't know why anyone is even addressing anything BDP says. Seriously. We have a guy here who is just asserting absolutely everything under the sun, with NO PROOF, and then demanding that everyone else prove him wrong.
Seriously? Not even worth the time of day. If you are that ideologically blinded, reality will absolutely NOT change your mind.
However, I will note that every argument that BDP has was actually used in court; when it came time to actually produce EVIDENCE, however, that is exactly when the conservatives lost -- because they were unable to provide evidence that was anywhere near as persuasive as the other side. I'll just leave it at that.
Bart DePalma said...
The fact that homosexual couples have adoptive custody of children created outside the homosexual union in comparable percentages to marriages with children does not speak to the generational of societal benefits.
~~~~~~~~~~
Please speak to the generational or societal benefits of heterosexual couples in American taking into consideration the divorce rate and children being raised by a single parent after said divorce and both parents having to work to make ends meet as the govt. was led by Reps the previous 7 of 10 presidential terms, letting mom and dad down each time they were in charge as re: to education, health care, etc.
Hence, ergo, therefore today's children are being raised by cable tv and video games, etc.
And as always, please give source material on how heterosexual parents have done an outstanding er adequate job in child rearing.
take care
Bart, let me summarize again, as you seem not to have responded to these points.
- You have not provided evidence for your own assertions about these benefits to society;
- EVEN IF you are correct on the benefits you claim, you have not provided evidence that there is a difference between homosexual and heterosexual unions in that regard;
- EVEN IF you have evidence for that, it is still irrelevant because showing that A provides more benefit than B in no way, shape or form provides a reason to ban B.
"Compelling interest" requires something a lot stronger than anything you've offered even if all your claims were true
See, Andrey, here you are going on with "logic" again...clearly, this is going to go over the head of our resident "laywer", BDP...a lawyer who doesn't even understand a fundamental concept such as the burden of proof ;-)
I think this is all very interesting and your predictions are great to use as a general analysis, but they do ignore the political ramifications in individual states. California was dead set against Prop H8 in summertime polls, it was the massive failure of the inept campaign to defeat H8 that led to the embarrassing, sad and horrifying loss. It was utter lies and deception that went unchecked which convinced enough of the public to vote for H8. That's rather difficult to calculate politically, but essential to understanding what went down.
I don't think Maine's marriage equality campaign is doing as bad as California, but it's such a smaller state that it's much more easily subject to manipulation through outside donors. A tenth of the money and effort spent in California would go a longer way in Maine -- and it's always easier to just lie in a short campaign, like the bigots always do, than correct those lies to the public at large.
Unfortunately my last comment did not garner any direct response to my points, so I will iterate them more plainly this time.
- "Marriage" has both societal and religious context. Being a religious ceremony, it should not be recognized by the state in any way, shape, or form; save for the societal context, which needs to be restructured so as to exclude the religious context.
Basically, a couple can be married, but to have any state recognition, they need state recognition. Unless I'm mistaken, the law already resembles that in some states.
This leaves civil unions as a point of contention.
Here, two questions need to be asked:
1. Are there ramifications to the nature of civil unions on society?
2. Assuming the answer to 1) is positive, to what extent may government limit personal freedom to capitalize on supposed best practices?
If your answer to 2) is "government may not restrict liberty except in extreme cases such as public safety", you are in line with the founding principles. Under that answer, civil unions should be allowed for everyone, regardless of their gender and lifestyle; up to and including the number of partners in the civil union.
The reason why this line of argumentation seems counter-intuitive to us is because the traditional family unit neatly organizes society for us into neatly-arranged blocks, which we can understand and anticipate. It's a stability of our assumptions, which creates a cognitive dissonance when it is broken.
But, I should point out, "it's unpleasant to think about and annoying to get used to" isn't a good argument against a serious social structure policy.
Your thoughts?
Polymeron, you raise a good point that neatly explains why the right is so opposed to changing what they laughingly call "traditional marriage" without being able to articulate why the idea of allowing more people in is so frightening.
When people make the argument that gay marriage would disrupt the family structure, they always forget that gays who cannot get married don't just settle into heterosexual relationships and start popping out babies for Jebus--homosexual relationships like marriage exist already, but are just not recognized as such. Gay partnerships and families would not change much in structure if marriage were legalized, so even the threat of cognitive dissonance does not really exist.
Brian, to be fair - and to preempt a possible retort along those lines - the legal concept of "burden of proof" and the "burden of proof" inherent in rational reasoning and things like the scientific method, are on occasion different.
I don't have data on whether this is the case, but I would not be too surprised to find that many lawyers used to the legal meaning of "burden of proof" may have difficulty with the identically named concept in the context of scientific and philosophical reasoning.
That's true Andrey -- though I was being a bit facetious ;-) I'm just tired of reading the illogical nonsense that is constantly spewing from BDP.
However, I WOULD argue that the burden of proof, in this case, is at least somewhat similar to what a lawyer should be experienced with. You cannot just plead a bunch of allegations and then offer no proof of them, and expect your adversary to have to DISPROVE everything you have alleged.
All we're really talking about is whether the government has a compelling interest in preventing two people of the same sex from entering into a legal contract that allows the benefits of marriage - i.e., inheritance, insurance dependency, adoption, hospital visits, power of attorney, etc., etc.
I can't think of any reason for the government to prevent this. The talk about "societal benefits" of hetero marriage is a red herring. The government does not measure the "societal benefits" of any other contract. There is no excuse to put a government functionary between you and the person you love.
The real fear of conservatives is that a marriage between two people of the same sex is an "official" acknowledgment of the fact that they have sex together. That's the whole reason for their opposition, nothing more or less. It's a dorky reason to oppose it.
The conservative arguments here are cr@p, nothing more.
I think Bart got his Law degree from the University of Google.
If rightwingers who cited the perceived societal benefits of "traditional" marriage as a reason to oppose gay marriage also supported laws to make divorce illegal and to mandate jail time for adultery, I would congratulate them for at least being consistent, even if I still thought they were wrong.
They don't, of course, because although they couch their arguments in ways that might make them sound as if they had socially beneficial ideals in mind, they simply do not like gays and lesbians, and that dislike typically (but not always) stems from their religious beliefs. Conservatives hold tightly to their dogma in the face of all fact and logic. Just try arguing with one who thinks that the earth is only six thousand years old.
@George Taylor
Nail on the head.
Tony C said:
The average age of death in the USA is approaching 78 years; if we presume voting has no effect on lifespan, every year we lose about 1.28% of elderly voters. They are not only replaced by younger voters, but our population has been growing (on average since 2000) by 0.93% per year. So it looks like the old vote loses 1.28%, the young vote gains about 2.21%, and the differential is 3.49%.
Good point. I agree, but think this might be lowballing the amount of change that happens each year. I'm not adept at math, but if the average lifespan is 78 and citizens don't get to vote till they're 18, as Tony C. posits, then the shift from old to young should be about 1.667% per year on both sides of the age divide, not even counting the difference caused by population growth.
Quite a stimulating discussion. I'm inspired to drum up support for a state constitutional amendment to prohibit gays from being Bar Mitzvah.
To Bart who is dumber than a Palmetto, to Jeffy BOY, and to any other Conservatard:
If you are against 'activist judges', which Supreme Court was activist:
1. The one composed of Field, Harland, Gray, Fuller, Brewer, Brown, Shiras, White and Peckham that ruled that separate but equal was legal? or
2. The one composed of Black, Burton, Clark, Douglas, Frankfurter, Warren, Jackson, Minton and Reed that ruled that separate but equal was NOT legal?
After identifying which was the activist court, then explain the how and why of that court being, in your opinion, an activist court. After all, the two courts came to diametrically opposite rulings on the subject, basing their decision on the same basic set of laws and the Constitution (which had been amended, but all amendments enacted between 1894 and 1954 had no bearing on this case). Therefore one was activist and the other, by your logic, had to be the opposite of activist (would that be called 'inactivist' or 'unactivist' or 'nonactivist', or be called something else?).
Thank you for attending to this assignment (especially if you would be kind enough to explain to us what sobriquet we should call the opposite of an 'activist court').
Mike in Maryland
People interested in evidence about gay couples and gay parents refer to my previous post. It addresses almost all of Bart's assertions as to the effectiveness of marriage etc.
It's actually, evidence against Barts position and the evidence he keeps demanding. Given that his argument implies that he would change his mind given evidence, I think its time for him to do that.
Importantly, however, Bart made assertions contrary to the evidence after I posted the relevant evidence suggesting that well...I laugh.
Shiloh said...
BDP disingenuous, perish the thought!
I agree, but for a different reason than what you were probably thinking.
For a person to be disingenuous, they have to have a modicum of ability to think. Since BDP is dumber that a Palmetto, and Palmettos are incapable of thinking, BDP is incapable of being disingenuous.
Mike in Maryland
@BDP
Conservatives like you are partly culpable for liberals' systematic distortion of the constitution and substitution of an unaccountable judicial tyranny for our republic. When you use specious arguments and the bludgeon of majority rule to promote a thinly disguised religious agenda, they forsake democracy and prefer the rule of men to the rule of law. They are apparently not all able to distinguish between an unjust law and an unconstitutional one but I have every confidence you are able to consider yet a third variable: popularity. As Nate said, opposition drops every year and you are simply on the wrong side of history.
The Other Brian
Here's a map I made based on Nate Silver's earlier analysis of gay marriage ban support. Perhaps a new map would be in order if Nate cares to post the new data?
For those looking for data on the societal benefits of marriage, I would commend the following two books to begin your study.
For a great primer on the latest research with extensive annotation, read:
The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better off Financially
by Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher.
For a longer historical view, read this comparison between Victorian England and post 60s America:
The De-moralization Of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values by Gertrude Himmelfarb.
Bart…
If you tried to enter either book as evidence in a courtroom you wouldn’t get two syllables out before being slapped into silence by a sustained objection.
Andrey Stroilov said...
Bart, let me summarize again, as you seem not to have responded to these points. You have not provided evidence for your own assertions about these benefits to society
Sorry for the delay, some of us have to work. See my last post.
- EVEN IF you are correct on the benefits you claim, you have not provided evidence that there is a difference between homosexual and heterosexual unions in that regard;
- EVEN IF you have evidence for that, it is still irrelevant because showing that A provides more benefit than B in no way, shape or form provides a reason to ban B.
1) No state in the Union has banned same sex "marriage." Any homosexual couple in the Republic can have a Universalist minister preside over their "marriage" and pronounce them husband and husband or wife and wife, they may exchange vows and rings, then run up to the nearest police officer and proclaim: "We are married, what are you going to do about it," and the cop will probably just say congratulations and walk away.
2) What proponents of same sex "marriage" are demanding is not that society stop preventing them from marrying, but rather that society recognize and subsidize homosexual unions as if they were marriages. The burden is on the proponents to demonstrate how homosexual unions merit such recognition and subsidy.
No one here has yet to offer actual evidence that homosexual unions provide any benefit to society at all nevertheless the fundamental benefits provided by marriage. There have been many claims of comparable benefit, but no proof.
I think I have made my point.
At the risk of being labelled a "Conservitard" by the masters of the personal attack, a modest question. Why is it that the folks who cry the loudest about keeping the Republicans out of their bedrooms are the same folks who insist on public display of their particular proclivities? San Francisco is notorious for large scale public events devoted to, shall we say, particular sexual proclivities. That is apparently a huge part of what motivates a lot of "anti-gay marriage" types. And I do not limit the range of public sexual celebration to the LGBT communities. There are enough "straight" couples who engage in PDA behavior that rather pushes the envelope. In other words, a heck of a lot of "socially conservative" people really don't care what you do in your house, but they do care what you do in the public arena. I'm apparently a bit older than some of the posters, but when I grew up, it was considered unseemly to discuss one's sexual activities in public. Also, there is that air of zealotry about enough of the more vocal proponents of gay marriage that tends to put otherwise accepting people off, hence a reflexive opposition to the idea.
To be fair, yes, marriage has many societal benefits, including increased health, happiness, finances.
Which is why it is absurdly cruel to deny those benefits to people just because you don't like who they choose to marry.
Bart DePalma said...
~~~~~~~~~~
Would suggest you quote source material w/verifiable, reliable scientific research noted.
Re societal benefits of marriage: when Gays have full human rights, one can then research a tome on how Gays have also benefited from marriage, eh.
BDP, one does realize how I can easily google books which say the exact opposite of the books you mention.
Bottom line, is that the best one has to offer, please tell me you have more ...
take care
Prag:
If we were in a court of law, I could easily call the author's of the "Case for Marriage" as expert witnesses to summarize the science they discuss in their book and render expert opinions as to the plethora of benefits of marriage.
You are welcome to offer a single witness to testify as to the science demonstrating any social benefit of homosexual unions. Good luck with that witness surviving a Frye nevertheless a Daubert hearing.
mike in maryland:
An activist judge is one who rewrites the law to fit his or her own policy preferences.
Your citation to those judges who ignored the plain meaning of "equal" to create the legal fiction of "separate but equal" are perfect examples of judicial activists.
BDP, w/Gays still not having full human rights in American society And Gay discrimination still a fact of life, hopefully one gets a homophobe judge when you are arguing a case that involves Gay discrimination and rights violation of any kind.
One cannot argue apples to oranges when it's freedom and lack thereof.
As Brian stated, you are fighting a losing battle in the court of public opinion. Sooo when Gays do have full human rights, what country will you be moving to.
just wonderin'
take care
I think I have made my point.
Were you trying to expose yourself as an imbecile? If so, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!
Bartbuster said...
I think I have made my point.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Yea, is it ok if everyone at 538 uses that assertion er pretense ;)
lol BDP has made his point, so hopefully he's done w/his spin er misinformation.
@Bart:
This is actually easily done. Marriage is a basic foundation of society which provides the benefits of health and productivity to its partners and is the best human structure to procreate and raise civilized children. Homosexual unions provide none of these benefits. The CA Supremes dishonestly ignored centuries of evidence of social benefits and instead reduced marriage to a mere contractual relationship for government benefits.
You've also provided us with this:
I do not have time to go into the detail this deserves, but here is a thumbnail sketch of the societal benefits of marriage that homosexual unions do not provide:
1) Marital benefits to the husband - Less likely to engage in anti-social behavior, more likely to earn more income, healthier and longer life.
2) Marital benefits to the wife - Less likely to be impoverished, a partner to help support her children, healthier and longer life.
3) Marital benefits to the children - the union creates the children, the children are far less likely to engage in anti social behaviors, the children are less likely to be impoverished the children are more likely to be educated and accomplished, and the children can use their parents as role models on how men and women are supposed to act and interact in society.
The first thing I'd like to point out is that you've been (rightfully) demanding reliable proof from people making counter-arguments, and yet you have failed to do so yourself. Here, you've given us a list of very pointed claims... where is YOUR proof? Give us reliable sources. How can you raise this complaint against others when you haven't held yourself to the same standard.
The second point I'd like to posit is purely philosophical. Let's suppose that I didn't have any proof that homosexual unions provided the same benefits as heterosexual unions... is this really a good enough reason to say gay marriage shouldn't be permitted?
Unless you can give us good enough evidence to suggest that children raised by gay couples are disadvantage, then gay couples still serve a purpose (and a very good one) -- they become the parents for those children who don't have parents.
Which brings me to the main part of my argument: there IS evidence on the other side of the spectrum, Bart. Not only that, but the evidence in support of gay marriage far outweighs the evidence against it. The most popular sources against gay marriage are sources like Focus on the Family and Narth. The problem with this is that both groups approach the issue from the moral standpoint that homosexuality is not permissible. From that premise, they pursue evidence. Their researchers are looking for justification, not objective truth. This is the case with almost any anti-gay resource out there (and it's easy to prove this by the theme of their organization or the people who run it). I'm not saying that there are NO studies out there that aren't biased, but you won't find many that aren't circulated by the groups mentioned above.
On the pro-gay marriage side, you have groups who have no religious or political reason to support gay marriage. Not only that, but you have groups that SHOULD be the kind of sources that matter to us. You have studies put forth by:
American Academy of Pediatrics
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/514477
"An analysis of multiple studies of 500 households shows that rearing children in a same-sex household does not affect the their self-esteem, gender identity, or emotional health, a Boston researcher reported."
American Psychological Association
http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/policy/parents.html
"As the social visibility and legal status of lesbian and gay parents has increased, three major concerns about the influence of lesbian and gay parents on children have been often voiced (Falk, 1994; Patterson, Fulcher & Wainright, 2002). One is that the children of lesbian and gay parents will experience more difficulties in the area of sexual identity than children of heterosexual parents... A second category of concerns involves aspects of children's personal development other than sexual identity... A third category of concerns is that children of lesbian and gay parents will experience difficulty in social relationships... Results of social science research have failed to confirm any of these concerns about children of lesbian and gay parents (Patterson, 2000, 2004a; Perrin, 2002; Tasker, 1999)... Overall, results of research suggest that the development, adjustment, and well-being of children with lesbian and gay parents do not differ markedly from that of children with heterosexual parents."
American Sociological Association
http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/Feb07ASRAdoption.pdf
"Lesbian and gay parents—facing high levels of discrimination, homophobia, and stigma—may also engage in compensatory parenting mechanisms that benefit their children (Stacey and Biblarz 2001). Ironically, the same social context that creates struggles for these alternative families may also set the stage for them to excel in some measures of parenting."
Other groups that fall in line:
American Psychiatric Association
National Association of Social Workers
National Education Association
Shoot.
I've been working on all of that for a little while, and I didn't realize that people were trying to fizzle out this discussion.
Sorry for beating a dead horse, guys. :P
@GbThrone--
I don't think you have any proof that the people "who cry the loudest about keeping the Republicans out of their bedrooms are the same folks who insist on public display of their particular proclivities."
The type of question you asked is a tactic employed by many people who want to dismiss or ignore the foundation of an argument by establishing false associations.
It goes like this: "I don't like Group A, but I have no logical way to argue against it. However, if I can smear it by a contrived association with Group B (which has unpleasant qualities), then I can dismiss everything Group A stands for."
Yet even if your question were valid, it would be immaterial to the discussion here. The legal right for two women to marry in Bar Harbor should not be conditional on two men not being allowed to smooch openly on the streets of San Francisco.
And I don't think that anti-gay marriage types base their judgments on what occurs in the Castro, for example. I can't imagine anyone saying, "I'd be in favor of allowing gay marriages if only gays weren't so openly debaucherous in _______."
If every gay and lesbian in America lived a standard, white-picket-fence lifestyle, most of the anti-gay marriage types would continue to be anti-gay marriage types. The primary opposition to gay marriage is largely founded on religious dogma that detests the condition of being gay, period, not the way in which someone who is gay or lesbian chooses to interact in society.
Corey said...
Shoot.
I've been working on all of that for a little while, and I didn't realize that people were trying to fizzle out this discussion.
Sorry for beating a dead horse, guys. :P
~~~~~~~~~~
Thanx for the source material w/verifiable, reliable scientific research I was asking BDP for. :)
And speaking of a dead horse, believe Bart has once again fizzled out of the discussion. ;) No surprise ...
take care
lol BDP has made his point, so hopefully he's done w/his spin er misinformation.
Sadly, no. He has no shame. He appears to have no idea how bad a beating he is taking. And he's a shitty lawyer, so he has lots of free time. Welcome to Bartworld.
Bartbuster said...
lol BDP has made his point, so hopefully he's done w/his spin er misinformation.
Sadly, no. He has no shame. He appears to have no idea how bad a beating he is taking. And he's a shitty lawyer, so he has lots of free time. Welcome to Bartworld.
~~~~~~~~~~
Was just talking about this thread, but as always, his spin is always welcome if he wishes to return as progressives are staunch defenders of Freedom of Speech! :)
2) What proponents of same sex "marriage" are demanding is not that society stop preventing them from marrying, but rather that society recognize and subsidize homosexual unions as if they were marriages. The burden is on the proponents to demonstrate how homosexual unions merit such recognition and subsidy.
Incorrect. The issue is in fact laws that very obviously discriminate on a basis of gender. Or if you like, promotion of one [group of] religion[s] over another if you want to get all Universalist and separation of church and state.
If you have issue with any 'subsidies' I would suggest you take them up with your representatives, pleading to have said 'subsidies' struck down ASAP. In the meantime rule of law says subsidies for all couples!
P.S. Given that you are stuck back in a sexist mentality that is more the era of my grandparents, I guess it shouldn't be too much a surprise that you are having a hard time getting your head around this.
I have the proof: I am a heterosexual in a long stable marriage. I live in Massachusetts, and I know many married gay and lesbian couples who are raising their children better than I am raising mine, better than plenty of other heterosexual couples I know.
Anecdotal evidence to be sure. But even if statistically heterosexual couples were better parents than gays, you're still going to have plenty of gay parents who are better than plenty of straight parents.
Denying marriage to gays on the basis of child rearing would be like claiming that since Jews and Chinese student outperform other ethnic groups academically, we're only going to allow the Jews and Chinese into the elite universities.
Unless you can show that ALL gays are bad parents, worse than ALL straight parents (and all I need is ONE beautiful gay family to disprove you), your argument is a slippery slope to hell.
Full disclosure: I think gay sex is really icky, lesbian sex not so much but still kinda weird.
@George Taylor, respectfully submit you check out the online editions of the San Francisco Chronicle. Further note that the image is what controls the debate for many people. (Recall the exact split of opinion between television viewers and radio listeners as to who won the Kennedy/Nixon debate in 1960. Perception mattered then, and it matters now.) The mainstream San Francisco media image [of the LGBT community] is a curious blend of the progressive call for equal political/legal rights for a downtrodden group combined with "look at the freak show" coverage of LGBT events such as the Gay and Lesbian Parade or the Castro Street Fair. A related perceptual problem for gay marriage proponents is that some, not all, but some, members of the LGBT community haven't figured out that publicly playing "shock the straights" isn't your best move when you're trying to get the "straights" to agree with you on something. Like equal political/legal rights. I will agree with you on your last point. Specifically that there are persons adamantly opposed to the idea of gay marriage. And you aren't going to change their minds. The trick is not to offend those of us who really don't care about a couple's sex life.
@GbThrone: I don't see how being revolted by the "freak show" is in any way an argument against same-sex marriage.
If you don't like the "freak show," providing an alternative (legally sanctioned, stable, long-term relationships, i.e., same-sex marriage) seems like a smart move.
GbThrone said...
~~~~~~~~~~
The San Francisco Chronicle is a conservative newspaper. Yes, it's true, gasp! SF has a conservative newspaper and there's nothing wrong w/that except, of course, they have an agenda.
Nixon/Kennedy ?!?
And what does perception have to do w/human rights, a legal issue. btw, has one been to Mardi Gras or Carnival, those crazy, cuckoo Catholics ;)
I perceive all Rep politicians cheat on their spouses, ok that perception may be true. ;)
and Billo likes to harass female co-workers w/conversations re: phone sex, vibrators, threesomes, masturbation, the loss of his virginity, and sexual fantasies involving loofas, falafels, Thailand sex shows, porn stars etc.
and Dick Morris likes to suck toes.
and Vitter likes diapers.
and Larry Craig likes Gay sex at airport restrooms.
and Sanford likes to hike the Argentina tail er trail.
And Ensign has a campaign staffer as his mistress.
and Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Faye, Vito Fossella, etc.
TMI ;)
yes Virginia, the hypocrisy of Reps and right wing media re: Gay marriage is ... not a surprise!
Ted Haggard is completely heterosexual!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZmHC75FDqQ
Gentlemen,
One's perceptions leads to one's predispositions, which influences how one votes. To address the Shock, Shock...of citing the Kennedy Nixon debate in 1960, the literature for quite some time (yes this was covered in my college coursework) has noted that television viewers perceived Kennedy the winner while radio listeners perceived Nixon as the winner. Same event, different perceived outcomes based on the way voters saw/heard the debate.
One's endorsement (or not) of gay marriage is definitely influenced by one's perception of the LGBT community. And for a lot of "socially conservative" voters, that perception isn't very positive. I have opined that is mostly due to a sensationalist media coverage of the LGBT community, particularly in the San Francisco Area. I implied that if the LGBT community spent some serious effort into presenting a day in, day out positive image of stable committed couples, their electoral fortunes would be quite improved.
http://www.actblue.com/page/overthetop
http://action.protectmaineequality.org/t/4847/signUp.jsp?key=2499&CFID=33225586&CFTOKEN=89857679
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Brian said...
Ted Haggard is completely heterosexual!
~~~~~~~~~~
Didn't say he was Gay, but:
In November 2006, he resigned from all of his leadership positions after he admitted soliciting prostitute Mike Jones for homosexual sex and methamphetamine. Initially Haggard denied even knowing Mike Jones, but as a media investigation proceeded he acknowledged that some allegations, such as his purchase of methamphetamine, were true. He later added "sexual immorality" to his list of confessions.
After the scandal was publicized, Haggard entered three weeks of intensive counseling, overseen by four ministers. In February 2007, one of those ministers, Tim Ralph, said that Haggard "is completely heterosexual." Ralph later said he meant that therapy "gave Ted the tools to help to embrace his heterosexual side." As of early 2009, Haggard continues to receive counseling, and now he says that he is a “heterosexual with issues."
Whereas a guy having sex w/another guy doesn't necessarily mean one is Gay. Just like (2) women having sex doesn't mean they are lesbian. Suffice it to say, in Ted's own words, He has issues!
Yes Virginia, experimenting w/the same sex. Does it mean one is Gay?
A very interesting read, especially for our resident Conservatards:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/state/stories/DN-gaydivorce_02met.ART.State.Edition2.4bcd80d.html
Mike in Maryland
GbThrone said...
Gentlemen,
~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, if you're older w/preconceived ideas, prejudices, fears re: Gays one is not likely to be in favor of Gay marriage or Gay anything. And one doesn't have to old to qualify.
Which is why Reps in 2004, put the Gay marriage hate issue on the ballot in (8) states, including OH which helped cheney/bush win the election. Reps all all about wedge/division issues when it comes to winning. But as I have mentioned, they have pretty much shot their wad w/the hate issues ie scorched earth fear tactics have less effect w/generational turnover and education as prejudice is just fear and stupidity.
As many Gay celebrities are now out, they have become less threatening to the general population, just like Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey, etc. paved the way for Obama.
It can be a slow process, but as I also mentioned Gays are on a faster track than African/Americans for full human rights as they have the advantage of modern communications to educate the uninformed.
Remember when Harry Belafonte kissed Julie Andrews on TV in the late '60s and the shock! and outrage that ensued. Now (2) guys are in bed together and nobody cares except the religious right and some old folk and the uninformed.
People love the Mona Lisa and the Sistine Chapel but don't tell them Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were gay ...
Is that Stata? Haven't seen that in forever!
Mike In Maryland:
What I found most interesting about the article was the following:
The judge ruled that "the state's ban on gay marriage violates the U.S. Constitution."
In the Governor's statement, he said "The laws and constitution of the State of Texas define marriage as an institution involving one man and one woman. Today's ruling purports to strike down that constitutional definition – despite the fact that it was recently adopted by 75 percent of Texas voters."
Now I'm not qualified to say if the judges ruling that it violates the U.S. constitution is correct or not, but the Govenor's respose basically says "I don't care if it violates the U.S. Constitution, our vote in Texas supercedes it."
I'm assuming all that believe gay marriage should be legal, also believe we should legalize polygamy. No?
@GROG
Ah, the old polygamy legalization chestnut is another one often mentioned by anti-gay marriage folks.
First, there is no logical progression between the call for allowing two consenting adults to marry, regardless of their gender, and saying that we should allow any number of people of whatever gender to engage in a group marriage. And whether or not gay marriage is legalized, folks who support polygamy are free to begin their own arduous process of getting legislation passed.
Second, you could reasonably argue in favor of legalizing gay marriage based on genetics--that some people are born gay just as some are born straight--and therefore all should be allowed to marry a partner of their choice. This genetic argument would fall flat with polygamy.
Soon I'd wager that someone will post on these threads that if gay marriage is legalized, soon we'll have to allow someone to marry their pet turtle or their dog or their Prius.
@shrinkers - loved the comment, well said, made me smile
GROG-
Some of us do! Except it has nothing to do with marriage, only civil unions. Read my last comment ;)
George-
I reject the idea that civil rights should be administered based on individual genetics (i.e. personal innate urges). Civil liberties should be available to all, under the condition that they do not infringe upon the civil liberties of others. As it is, a contract between any number of consenting adults, of any gender does not infringe on others' liberties and should thus be allowable.
George Taylor,
Really? There is no logical link. Some of your political allies disagree with you. I suggest you acquaint yourself with the organization "Beyond Marriage" and its petition, "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Stategic Vision." This document, signed by hundreds of prominent same sex marriage activists, calls for - among other things - legal recognition of "households in which there is more than one conjugal partner."
If marriage and family life is treated entirely as a matter of individual choice and sexual gratification, and if the gender of spouses is treated as a mere convention, then the number of spouses will become an equally dispensible convention. This is already happening in places like Canada and Britain, where polygamy is being normalized in some settings.
But you explain, please, where the legal objection to so empowering polyamorous relationships would come from? The courts certainly won't allow the democracy to decide this on its own, so some other basis will need to be found.
Great article on why Strategic Vision got reprimanded by AAPOR.
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/so_why_isnt_aapor_more_transpa.php
Great article on why Strategic Vision got reprimanded by AAPOR.
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/so_why_isnt_aapor_more_transpa.php
Grog - what is with an assumed fact that those for gay marriage will recoil against polygamy and waht is with thinking they are legally equivalent? I think we shouldn't be so biased against polygamy and have not real problem with it but to think it is legally equivalent to two persons in a civil union is not so easy. Polygamy does present unique, unprecedneted by a two person civil union/marriage issues, where as gay marriage is marriage laws for stright to gays.
Legal polygamy would require a whole set of new rules around financials, children's protections etc..State's has a HUGE interest in regards to children's situation especially.
I think we should allow the rights and resposnsibilties/entanglements of marriage or something like two person marriage to anyone, if they are willing to take the good and bad of such entanglements. But polygamy is not simply allowing a group of three or more doing what two now do...it would require new rules, not to say that should be a reason to not do it, but certainly not same as just allowing existing marriage laws to apply to two gay people as they do to two straight people
@wake up:
Well, the voting age is 18, and although some of us start then most people don't start voting until their mid 20's, but these details of when voting starts can be ignored.
The reason is that the death rate is near zero for the young. So whatever age you pick as the average age of voting initiation, say 24, and ignoring the population growth rate (as you suggested), we will have as many 24 year olds start voting as we have new babies born.
The model I am presenting can be simplistic because a robust statistical analysis cannot change the results by much. So the simplistic model is a conveyor belt; new voters get on at one end and are violet (gay tolerant) or orange (gay hostile), and get off at the other end, and maintain their color throughout the ride. But the people getting on are far more violet than orange, and you can see how this looks like a wave of violet sweeping over the belt: On the far end we have 70% orange and 30% violet falling off, being replaced by about 80% violet and 20% orange on the input end. Eventually the belt will be 80% violet (gay tolerant), and likely will eventually become 99% violet and stay that way, because once people become accustomed to open homosexuality in everyday life it will become an innocuous and largely ignored inherent trait.
@Bart:
"2) What proponents of same sex "marriage" are demanding is not that society stop preventing them from marrying, but rather that society recognize and subsidize homosexual unions as if they were marriages. The burden is on the proponents to demonstrate how homosexual unions merit such recognition and subsidy."
No, it is not. That is the entire point of the decision made by the California Supremes. A very, very simplified rephrasing of their decision: the very fact that heterosexual marriage has government benefits is by itself reason to grant those benefits to any other marriage group (in the context of protected classes) unless the government can provide "compelling interest" reasons to deny it.
In other words, the law says that if the government provides some privileges to group A, it must provide those privileges to group B (again, in the context of classes which require this particular standard of judicial review) as the default position, in the absence of any evidence for social benefit from such an action.
You may think that it should be always the onus of those who would seek to claim a privilege to prove the benefit gained from it. But that is not how the law works.
@Polymeron:
I'm not sure what your point is, but I will try to respond:
1) Marriage is already structured to eliminate the religious context; as far as the law and taxes are concerned all marriages (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Mormon, Wiccan, or atheist like my own) are identical. They do not discriminate based on religion or race or type of ceremony or types of vows taken. My vows, for example, had no mention of any God. There is no need to "restructure" anything.
2) Thus this does not leave "civil unions as a point of contention." Gays should have the right to marry exactly as we heterosexual atheists have the right to marry, and they should have the rights to 100% of the legal and tax ramifications thereof.
3) I used to be a libertarian, then I turned 15. Okay, that is a snarky way of saying that I find libertarianism suffused with laughably immature thinking; and thus I disagree with your point that "government may not restrict liberty except in extreme cases such as public safety."
Unless you care to define "public safety:" Is the prevention of fraud public safety? How about misleading ads, or purposely confusing contracts?
I am for gay rights, but not on THESE grounds. In my view, one primary role of government is to protect the weak from the strong. The classic examples are the various levels of government running the military, police forces, and federal agencies like the FDA, SEC, FCC, EPA, etc.
However, it is also their job to protect minorities (racial, religious, sexual orientation) from discrimination and persecution by majorities. Whether somebody else has "rights" is not up for a vote by the majority, period.
Now the question, "to what extent..." is easy to answer. It is the government's job to protect minority populations (like gays) from discrimination; if they discriminate against them for any reason, they are doing the exact opposite of their job.
So the extent is relative: To the extent that government can convincingly demonstrate a practice does significant harm to citizens or children, they should be able to restrict it. Drunk driving is therefore prohibited.
However, such "significant harm" must be judged relative to other extant practices. For example, does being raised in a gay household do any more "harm" to a child than being raised in an Amish household, or home-schooled in a fundamentalist Christian household? I doubt that case can be made, since both of the latter cases purposely produce adults with views well outside the mainstream of American society, and sometimes with education levels well below the national averages.
The government is not there to "optimize" outcomes or exploit "best practices;" it is there to prevent harm to others.
The laws against drunk driving are not there to reduce alcoholism (an "optimal outcome"), they are there to keep drunks from endangering other citizens. The government's business is in one direction; the prevention of harm. It has no business in promoting or supporting "supposed best practices."
I'm a little confused why Nate is using a linear regression model instead of a logistic regression model.
George Taylor
Soon I'd wager that someone will post on these threads that if gay marriage is legalized, soon we'll have to allow someone to marry their pet turtle or their dog or their Prius.
Only if the dog or Prius is a) of legal age, and b) signs the papers.
@Jeff
Yes, really, there is no logical link. And I'm sure you can find all means of variation regarding my "political allies." So?
I re-read my post--and judging from your post, it looks like you'd benefit from doing the same--and I can't see where I wrote that I was opposed to legalizing polygamy.
In fact, I wrote that proponents of polygamy are free to begin the process that would lead to legalization independent of the efforts to legalize same-gender marriages.
Two things that supporters of polygamy will have to address, though, are (1) the very real effects of the overabundance of young, single males deprived of potential mates that legalized polygamy would cause, and (2) the tendency for polygamy as it is now practiced in, say, Colorado City to involve marriage of underage women/girls.
The second concern can be addressed by strict enforcement of state laws regarding age of marriage, of course.
The first concern is more tricky. Unlike same-gender marriages, which have no direct effect on the nature of potential or actual opposite-gender marriages, polygamy leads to a group of males who are excluded from being able to mate.
Granted, this is more of a biological concern than a legal one, but perhaps you can study the effects of this sort of exclusion in other species of primates and report back to us, so that after same-gender marriages are fully legal, we can begin our national debate on legalization of polygamy.
Jeff said…
“If marriage and family life is treated entirely as a matter of individual choice and sexual gratification, and if the gender of spouses is treated as a mere convention, then the number of spouses will become an equally dispensable convention. This is already happening in places like Canada and Britain, where polygamy is being normalized in some settings.”
Jeff, it’s not even a matter of sexual gratification, it’s just a matter of personal choice and that’s the only way the gov’t needs to see it. I agree that the number of spouses will become irrelevant and I don’t have a problem with that. Just because I wouldn’t choose to live a certain way is not justification for making those other ways of living illegal. Polygamy has been practiced by many cultures throughout history and is still practiced in many cultures today. Your distaste for the practice is your personal view, not a universal truth. (Personally, I think polygamy is impractical and more of headache than one would need… I have enough trouble keeping up with just one wife)
Let me ask you this: if you think it’s okay for the state to dictate the structure of your family in terms of the number of partners, would you also be willing to allow the state to tell you how many children you can have?
@GBThrone: Your concern is valid, but directed in the wrong direction. Yes, there is a perception of the gay community as flamboyant and provocative… but that represents a small minority of the gay community. Trying to hold the entire community responsible for the actions of a few of its members and suggesting that they deserve that label for not doing enough to “control themselves” is a little bigoted. But that’s part of being in a privileged class: you can assume that minorities are homogenus, not individual people the same as you.
Instead of asking people who are being portrayed poorly to clean up their act, maybe you should start asking yourself how you can help combat the misperception.
@George:
"Two things that supporters of polygamy will have to address, though, are (1) the very real effects of the overabundance of young, single males deprived of potential mates that legalized polygamy would cause, and (2) the tendency for polygamy as it is now practiced in, say, Colorado City to involve marriage of underage women/girls."
Note that this is only really true for polygyny. Granted, worldwide polygyny is currently much more common than polyandry for cultural and in many cases religious reasons. I'm not sure to what extent that would hold in the US; though it's clear that some subcultures (e.g. Mormons) would be much, much more likely to trend to polygyny, it would be interesting from a sociological perspective what number of US men and women would be happy in a polyandrous relationship - or for that matter, the even less common situation with multiple partners both male and female. It would be interesting to see that also compared with other Western and non-Western cultures.
Without much effort, I have elicited several posts expressing "no problem" with polygamy. Apparently, an aversion to this practice is simply my small minded prejudice.
No. My aversion to the practice is based on my moral understanding (not simply a religious understanding, but a reasoned account of morality). It is an understanding that is shared by the vast majority of my fellow citizens in the Western world. It is partly based on tradition, to be sure, but to suggest that its historical particularity invalidaties it is a fallacy. A moral claim can be true without being universally accepted. I assume none of you believe that our aversion to slavery is just some convention we've adopted. It's moral truth is deeper than that. But an aversion to slavery is rather historically unique. Similarly, I'm not particularly rattled by the knowledge that ancient Babylonians, or modern Mormons, were polygamists. That historical knowledge of pluralism doesn't constitute a sufficient mode of moral reasoning, unless one is simply going to tip into utter moral relativism. Polygamy, in my view, is typically an exploitative and tyrannical form of family arrangement. Most people, including many gay marriage supporters, agree, but in agreeing they are making a democratic moral judgment, and are constraining the behavior of others. This is the sort of thing that they red-facedly denounce when it is done to maintain the social norm of heterosexual marriage. There is glaring inconsistency.
Some of you don't share this inconsistency. You are willing to accept polygamy, and thus get points for consistency, if not for moral reasoning. You also stand as evidence of why many fear that gay marriage advocates are hostile to the monogamous, nuclear family itself.
Or, perhaps, you completely misunderstand what everyone is talking about.
"Polygamy, in my view, is typically an exploitative and tyrannical form of family arrangement."
For the majority of its history, and in the majority of cultures, marriage has been an exploitative and tyrannical form of family arrangement. Wives have been viewed, figuratively and often literally, as property. The exceptions, up until the last 50-100 years, have been few and far between; and there are many countries where this is still the case.
The theoretical potential structure of a society that accepted polygamy yet did not have a strong correlation between polygamy and domestic violence and tyranny is interesting. A large part of the reason that there is no significant push to try to legalize polygamy is the fact that, indeed, modern polygamy is so directly intertwined with those practices, since modern polygamy is almost universally polygyny and stems from traditions that do not assign equality between men and women.
If you have an aversion to the concept of someone having multiple life-partners in the theoretical sense and under all circumstances, that is indeed your small minded prejudice. Having an aversion to the particular instances that can be commonly found in the modern world and the annals of history is not prejudice, and no one here has claimed that those instances are desirable. Please differentiate, however, between theoretical discussions of what an ideal polygamy might look like and what it has looked like in practice and especially in history. They are as different as the theoretical heterosexual marriage that has been proposed so often - and the idealized "tradition" that is "defended" - and the actual traditional history of marriage up to very recently, which has generally ranged from "unequal partners" to "effective slavery".
Nate, thank you. This is the post I have been waiting for. If I were a man, I would take you to my hometown of Millinocket, Maine, gay-marry you, and have a reception at the Elks' Club, complete with pastel streamers and Fluffernutter sandwiches passed by waiters wearing Ski-doo attire.
To the poster(s) who asked how they can help the No on 1 effort: You can give money to protectmaineequality.org. If you live in the Northeast, you can go to Portland or Bangor to canvass any Saturday. I think Lewiston, too, but that would be scarier.
"If you have an aversion to the concept of someone havng multiple life partners in the theoretical sense and under all circumstances, that is indeed you small minded prejudice."
I don't accept this point. It's a small minded prejudice to believe in the moral value, indeed superiority, of life time monogamous marriages? To be open minded I have to celebrate divorce, separation, open marriages, serial monogamy, and the whole raft of other self-gratifications dreamed up by the social left? I thought the value of life time monogamy was exactly what the gay marriage movement was all about. Or perhaps its not. Perhaps the suspicions of gay marriage opponents on this score are not misplaced.
Your account, Andrey, of "typical" heterosexual, monogamous marriage in history is an opinion, not a fact. I consider it an ill-informed and ideologically driven opinion. While the institution of marriage has had its shortcomings (like all institutions), to present it as one long history of exploitation and enslavement is a typically ill-informed academic conceit. Marriage, like all institutions in the past, tended to reflect gender norms that we don't approve of. But that doesn't mean that past marriages weren't largely beneficial, effective, and treasured relationships. Not for all, of course, but that is to state the obvious. It has been a far more successful institution than polygamy at ensuring family stability and social flourishing. This is a large topic, and I can't sustain these opinions in the space here, but I have to raise an eyebrow at your facile equivalencies. Traditional marriage is far more effective and admirable, in theory and practice, than polygamy ever was. Your blurring of this reminds me a bit of the 19th century pro-slavery apologists who used to blithely argue: sure slavery is tough, but modern wage labour is tough too - the lot of the poor is always tough, etc. They used to hang a lot on history too.
None of this has done much to allay much suspicions that many pro gay marriage advocates do not particularly care whether or not they strengthen the nuclear family. They have very little attachment to the institution. It's a view, but I hope you all are aware of how vanishingly marginal it is in the broader society. Most of your fellow citizens would rear away from these casual defenses of polygamy, and they are not small minded bigots for doing so.
Still, thanks for your transparency. It helps to know what the culture is up against.
Nate,
It might be too late (or too far down the comment thread) to suggest this, but have you looked at the interactions among your predictors in the model? I could easily see it being the case, for example, that change over time (year) has been faster for less-religious than more-religious states, suggesting a religXyear interaction that might yield a different prediction for Maine. Other interactions might be important, too, but that's one of the more important examples I could think of...
@Octavio:
He's predicting percentage of support (continuous) not passage/non-passage (dichotomous)
The problems with polygamy are not moral so much as combinatorial in divorce proceedings. Splitting property and children and arranging for alimony payments and child support are complex enough in a two-person marriage; they become exponentially more complex with a group, especially a group with children.
Jeff's "moral reasoning" is completely circular and tautological; it amounts to the same tired claim that monogamy is good because it sounds better. Andrey is correct that for most of human history marriage was an arrangement in which the wife became the property of the man; denying this is denying literally tons of written documents, contracts, and law literally written in stone for thousands of years. As recently as 1950's America married women were routinely prohibited from getting loans for cars or homes without the approval of their husbands, while husbands were permitted to sign alone. Within the last 75 years in America men were not prosecuted for forcibly raping their wives or beating them; that is not equality. To deny that women were historically slaves in marriage, in nearly every world culture for thousands of years, is simply ludicrously contrary to well established fact.
Andrey Stroilov said...
BD: What proponents of same sex "marriage" are demanding is not that society stop preventing them from marrying, but rather that society recognize and subsidize homosexual unions as if they were marriages. The burden is on the proponents to demonstrate how homosexual unions merit such recognition and subsidy."
No, it is not. That is the entire point of the decision made by the California Supremes.
I am referring to the burden on the proponents to make their case in a democratic system to redefine marriage. Legislatures are tasked in our Republic with making such law.
The burden is somewhat different in an Equal Protection suit. In such a suit, same sex marriage proponents must first prove that homosexual unions are similarly situated to marriage.
For the reasons, I provided in previous posts, homosexual unions and marriage are not similarly situated. To rewrite the definition of marriage,he CA Supremes had to relieve proponents of this burden by dishonestly ignoring all the points of difference between marriage and homosexual unions and reducing marriage to a civil contract for government benefits
Your account, Andrey, of "typical" heterosexual, monogamous marriage in history is an opinion, not a fact. ...
Good point, Jeff. I'm glad you're willing to take a stand against making points without having any facts to back yourself up... oh wait, I'm sorry, you weren't done?
Traditional marriage is far more effective and admirable, in theory and practice, than polygamy ever was. Your blurring of this reminds me a bit of the 19th century pro-slavery apologists...
:facepalm:
Ah yes, I forgot - the difference between "opinion" and "fact" is that a "fact" is what you agree with and "opinion" is what you disagree with.
many pro gay marriage advocates do not particularly care whether or not they strengthen the nuclear family
The question is equality of benefits, not "strengthening the nuclear family". What are you even talking about? This is about being able to see your dying partner of forty years without getting ushered out at the end of visiting hours. Who in the world told you it was about "strengthening the nuclear family"? Why would that even be something you would want government to do, Jeff? You're interested in the government taking an active role in our families?
And polygamy, by the way, is no doubt being "normalized" in other countries because it is, in fact, a valid form of marriage in Islam, and as such is a moral choice for about one-quarter of the planet. It is quite clearly against religious freedom to disallow a form of marriage, particularly one so widely used. Your insistence that it is obviously bad enough that it should be illegal is, in fact, small-minded prejudice, your denials notwithstanding.
I've seen arguments, which have some validity I think, that in theory polygamy (well, in this case, polygyny) isn't "pro-male" as much as it is "pro-wealthy-male" and "pro-female."
Polygyny typically pairs many females with a single, resource-rich male. Looking at it from a purely biological, successfully-passing-down-of-one's-genes perspective, a woman who marries a polygamist is probably more likely to be reproductively successful.
Polygyny for the extraneous males who don't have harems is a kick in the pants, however, and for all we know, may have resulted in the establishment of "traditional" marriages.
Every once in awhile a news outlet will carry stories about the extraneous boys from Colorado City or other polyg settlements that are abandoned on the streets of St. George or even Las Vegas because they are competition for older, wealthier polygamists. That, to me, indicates the direct negative impact of polygamy, and provides yet another factual disconnection between people who support legalization of same-gender marriages and people who argue that if you legalized same-gender marriages, you also have to legalize polygamy.
@Tony C
Actually, for most of our human history, "marriage" by any modern definition wasn't even on our species' radar screen.
Occasional polygamy aside, marriage has always been a legal arrangement of one type or another between two human beings, often but not always with religious undertones. As such, there is no reason that two consenting, legal, human parties should not be allowed to enter into that arrangement of their own free will and enjoy the legal benefits that flow therefrom.
@ Octavio
@ M
Actually, the logistic model is for more than just dichotomous dependent variables. It is often used as a transformation to adjust a dependent variable that is constrained between 0 and 1 (or 0 and 100%) into a true unbounded variable, thus allowing for normal OLS to take place.
Octavio, I also wondered that at first, but I looked at the percentages and they were bounded near 60%. I then ran some simulations (1e6 x 10) and discovered that only 5 times did a predicted percentage stray beyond 0 or 100.
Thus, while I would have enjoyed seeing logistic just for the theoretical strength, it does not really matter. Plus, OLS is easily understood by the average American, whereas logistic needs to be back-transformed.
Jeff,
I find it increasingly difficult to attempt rational discourse when your responses continue to assume positions on my part that I have not stated, and to attempt to reduce to binary and simplistic notions that which I have stated. Nevertheless, here's another shot.
"To be open minded I have to celebrate divorce, separation, open marriages, serial monogamy, and the whole raft of other self-gratifications dreamed up by the social left?"
Celebrate? No. For example, that any divorce must happen is a tragedy. At the same time, the fact that divorce can happen is to be celebrated; it is a good thing that someone in an abusive relationship, in a relationship that no longer holds meaning, in a relationship with someone who is unfaithful, can escape from that relationship without literally running away and hiding. You see, it's significantly more nuanced than you propose.
What I am referring to as small-mindedness in that comment, is your apparent inability to separate given bad examples of a class of situations from the possibilities of other incarnations of that class of situations.
"While the institution of marriage has had its shortcomings (like all institutions), to present it as one long history of exploitation and enslavement is a typically ill-informed academic conceit."
The series of terms "ill-informed academic" is interesting. Who, do you suppose, is well-informed if not the academics who make it their life work to study these things?
"Marriage, like all institutions in the past, tended to reflect gender norms that we don't approve of. But that doesn't mean that past marriages weren't largely beneficial, effective, and treasured relationships."
In the absence of anything better? Certainly. In fact, most of those wives would have been quite devoted to their husbands. And right now, many wives in modern polygamous cultures are devoted to their husbands and to that way of life.
"Traditional marriage is far more effective and admirable, in theory and practice, than polygamy ever was."
In terms of semantics, what you are discussing is not traditional marriage. The correct term, at the level of granularity for your subsequent comparison, is monogamous marriage. Strictly speaking, what we have right now, at the level of federal law, is heterosexual monogamous panracial panreligious consensual terminable gender-equal marriage. What we have now is not traditional in any meaningful sense beyond the past 50 years. Virtually every culture until now has differed with this definition (and with each other) on at least one, often more, of those axes.
That being said, I agree that on aggregate, along the axis of polygamous vs. monogamous marriages, polygamous marriages have been less beneficial to the people involved than monogamous ones. I suspect that a high correlation between the axes "polygamous/monogamous", "gender-inequal/gender-equal" and "nonconsensual (arranged) / consensual" is responsible for a good part of this, and if you read my previous posts carefully, you'll see the hypotheticals I was discussing were assuming that we could somehow decouple those axes.
Continued in subsequent comment, as apparently I cannot post more than 4096 characters at once.
Continued:
"None of this has done much to allay much suspicions that many pro gay marriage advocates do not particularly care whether or not they strengthen the nuclear family."
I am curious, how many gay marriage advocates have you seen who state that they strengthen the nuclear family? Certainly many will point out that they do not weaken it; what other families do should not affect how you live your life with your family.
At the same time, the "nuclear family" you speak of is also a modern construct. It is, again, not traditional in any realistic sense, except the sense that considers Coca-Cola traditional. Families in the past have differed widely in various cultures. Many were much larger than the "nuclear family" and comprised four or more generations at once. Some placed as much emphasis on what we would consider third-order or lesser ties as on one's own spouse or sibling; depending on the social structure, perhaps even more. Some included non-blood, non-spouse relatives in a way we do not have direct analogues for. And, of course, many families in other cultures had more than one wife - or more than one husband.
"They have very little attachment to the institution. It's a view, but I hope you all are aware of how vanishingly marginal it is in the broader society."
If your hypothesis were true, and all but a vanishing margin of society were attached strongly to the particular institution of the nuclear family - which, by your own words earlier, does not include divorce and separation, and serial monogamy - we would expect to see a vanishingly small rate of divorces. This is not the case. Your hypothesis is refuted by the empirical evidence. The disattachment to the "nuclear family" concept is not a marginal phenomenon, nor is it particularly unusual, since as I already noted, the nuclear family itself as a tradition is a 20th century Western artifact, and neither a worldwide nor a historically universal phenomenon.
@George Taylor:
DNA studies of a large number of people all over the world, done in 2005, indicate we have twice as many female ancestors as we do males. That counterintuitive result is a result of a few men having many children, while no women can get even close (Genghis Khan had at least 500 and probably over 1000 children). Working backward with a little statistics; we can arrive at the result that throughout human history, approximately 80% of all women that ever lived have living descendants, while only 40% of all men that ever lived have living descendants.
We can safely conclude that polygyny has been the worldwide norm for about 100,000 years. The typical historical male (meaning median, not average) has exactly zero living descendants. Our heritage has always been that resource-rich men have descendants and resource-poor men do not; that is quite likely the evolutionary basis of male psychology; including their sex drive, competitive nature, and risk taking.
Females that take no risks will in all likelihood still reproduce; but for males, unless they are born rich, they better take risks and get rich or odds are high they will not reproduce.
I don't know where the prohibition on polygyny comes from; but I suspect some kind of property or power rights, such as singular alliances between families and ensured inheritance rights. In any case, it is recent: Even in the 1800's it was not unusual for wealthy men to openly have multiple mistresses and support their children born out of wedlock, although such children were not eligible for inheritance rights.
@Ole
Yes, I know that any percentage can (should?) theoretically be modeled logistically, as a likelihood of a 1/0 outcome. But I guess my point was that Nate specifically *wanted* a percentage number as the output of the model. On the other hand, it's interesting that he goes on in his post to lay "odds" on the bill's passing. Now, that just cries out for a logistic analysis...
Jeff said...
To be open minded I have to celebrate divorce ... dreamed up by the social left?
Jeff, your ignorance of history and the Bible is truly breathtaking.
Bart DePalma said....
For the reasons, I provided in previous posts, homosexual unions and marriage are not similarly situated. To rewrite the definition of marriage,he CA Supremes had to relieve proponents of this burden by dishonestly ignoring all the points of difference between marriage and homosexual unions and reducing marriage to a civil contract for government benefits
It is a crucial part of a judge's job to ignore arguments brought without credible evidence. Your list represents nothing more than a circular argument(s) devoid of fact.
This is why so many devoutly religious people are left crying foul from a court decision, because circular arguments are not an issue with faith. It is a very corrosive thing about religion, promoting such logic fallacies. The weak of mind confuse them for reasoned arguments and move forward in the word with their mind working from this pattern. But then run into a wall when faced with professions that have rigorous reason as their basis, such as science and law.
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