Patterico's Pontifications

9/23/2005

Dafydd ab Hugh on Gay Marriage

Filed under: Civil Liberties,General — Patterico @ 7:16 am



Dafydd ab Hugh has a column up on his Big Lizards site offering a secular argument against gay marriage. Long-time Patterico readers know that I do not oppose gay marriage; Dafydd’s piece, while it makes for entertaining reading, does not persuade me that my position is wrong.

Dafydd makes two main points: 1) marriage between a man and a woman is a civilizing influence on society, and should be encouraged; and 2) therefore, society should not recognize gay marriage, because that societal recognition undercuts traditional marriage.

Point #1, the argument in favor of heterosexual marriage as a civilizing influence, has much to recommend it. True, it resorts to stereotypes of men as aggressive hunters and women as nurturers. True, these stereotypes sometimes lead to conclusions I find comical (such as the assertion that lesbians are rarely aggressive or career-oriented). But Dafydd acknowledges that there are exceptions to his stereotypes, and I think that there is a central truth in much of what he says.

Where I disagree with Dafydd is his point #2: that society should therefore ban gay marriage as a way to encourage marriage. I come to this conclusion by comparing the pros and cons of banning gay marriage.

First, the cons. The downside of banning gay marriage is that homosexuals are made to feel that they are second-class citizens. I don’t know whether being gay is genetic, a learned behavior, or some combination of the two — but I am confident that it is something that people do not consciously choose. I certainly did not consciously choose to be sexually attracted to women; that is hard-wired into me somehow. I can’t imagine it’s different for gay men.

Since gays do not consciously choose their sexual orientation, refusing to give them access to an institution available to heterosexuals is discrimination. The policy question is whether this discrimination is justified on a societal level. Dafydd argues that it is. So I turn to the alleged pros of banning gay marriage. I’ll let Dafydd speak for himself on this point:

We live in a society that prizes liberty and individual choice. To me, it betrays Americanism to forbid people the right to live as they want to live — even if that means two gay men or four lesbians making a household together. But we’re not talking about what is merely allowed; when the subject is marriage, we are talking about what is applauded.

I don’t believe we have the right to forbid gay relationships… but surely we have no obligation whatsoever to pretend they are as important to society as traditional marriage.

Marriage is a definition, and definitions are based on distinctions, on discrimination: society defines “marriage” in the way that is most valuable to society. That is the only standard to use when what you’re seeking is not individual liberty or freedom, but rather society’s seal of approval.

For its entire existence, the core of Western civilization has been the union of the male and female principles into a family that transcends the limitations of each. In deciding what relationships we, as a society, shall privilege, it is imperative that we recognize the fundamental nature of that decision: it’s not unreasonable to insist that the “norm” actually be what is normal and traditional.

So let gays shack up; let swingers have their orgies; let two aging sisters live together for companionship. But as General Honore said, “don’t get stuck on ‘stupid!’” However valuable such relationships may be to the individuals involved, we cannot pretend that every imaginable relationship is a marriage, or else the word “marriage” loses all meaning.

I just don’t buy this. People get married for all sorts of reasons: love, companionship, stability, raising a family, and financial reasons, just to name a few. People stay married for a similarly wide variety of reasons. I don’t think that, for heterosexuals, the availability of marriage to homosexuals plays any part in the calculus of whether they get married, or whether they stay married. At all. And Dafydd has not explained to me how it does.

UPDATE: Dafydd has a further post on the issue in which he purports to bust three “myths” that he has seen in the comments here. I think his post is completely illogical. I explain why here.

258 Responses to “Dafydd ab Hugh on Gay Marriage”

  1. “Dafydd ab Hugh has a column up on his Big Lizards site offering a secular argument against gay marriage.”

    The secular stereotyped argument.

    I don’t see yet how gay marriage discourages heterosexual marriage. But assuming it does, we should also count how gay marriage itself has a “civilizing” influence on society, and add that to the cost/benefit calculus.

    actus (9982e6)

  2. “Since gays do not consciously choose their sexual orientation, refusing to give them access to an institution available to heterosexuals is discrimination.”

    I’m not a lawyer (nor do i play one on tv:), but I simply don’t see the discrimination here. What you are saying, in essense, is that “Because I’m gay, I’m not allowed to marry who I want.” However, as a heterosexual, I suffer the same discrimination – i too cannot marry who I want. If the object of my affection is already married, I’m forbiden. If the object of my affection is underage, I’m not allowed. If the object of my affection is my dog.. (well, you get the point:).

    The fact is, every adult in the country has exactly the same right – to marry one (and only one at a time) person of the opposite sex. As you point out yourself, love is not the only deciding factor in determining who we choose to marry.

    Scott (82f51f)

  3. Scott, you justify the status quo as discrimination, equally applied. I am not available to marry (or be married by) a certain group, because I belong to a certain group.

    Because the group distinction is based on gender, that would seem to subject any law authorizing only opposite-sex marriage to intermediate scrutiny.

    Which, in my opinion, is right where we need to be to put theories like Dafydd’s to the fire (from the perspective of wanting to see the rational debate fleshed out). If there are a variety of reasons for entering (and staying in) hetero marriages, what important state interest do they collectively serve that failing to recognize same-sex marriages also serves? I think it’s a tough case to make, once bigotry is put aside.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  4. “However, as a heterosexual, I suffer the same discrimination – i too cannot marry who I want. If the object of my affection is already married, I’m forbiden. If the object of my affection is underage, I’m not allowed. If the object of my affection is my dog.. (well, you get the point:).”

    The point you’re missing is that its not simply “marrying who you want.” But finding a partner that gets into a situation where for everything but their same-sexness, they would be able to marry.

    actus (9982e6)

  5. Biwah,

    I am not attempting to justify the status quo as discrimination equally applied. Rather, I’m asking a legitimate question. Specifically, how is this discrimination? Merriam-Webster online defines the intransitive sense of discriminate as

    “to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit”

    I simply don’t see how this is qualifies as discrimination. Bad policy? Maybe? Unenlightened? Perhaps? Needs to be changed? Up for debate. But someone needs to explain to me how it is discrimination.

    Scott (82f51f)

  6. Discrimination:

    to make a difference in treatment or favor

    “The law does not permit me to marry (or be married by) any individual belonging to a certain group, whereas a person of the opposite sex is entitled to marry an individual from that same group.” e.g. John is legally disabled from entering a marriage with Jim (or any other man), but Sara is entitled under the law to marry Jim (or any other man, subject to certain basic criteria).

    on a basis other than individual merit

    “The sole (or overriding) reason for this is my gender.” i.e. John’s gender is the sole reason for this legal disability.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  7. Scott, I think I understand your point: none of us can marry within our gender. but that’s favoring the general over the specific. That’s why I use the “John & Sara” example. It’s about specific applications of the legal rule, not abstraction.

    If there a constitutional basis for this?

    1. Article III charges the courts with hearing “cases and controversies”, which has been held to mean only actual, not potential cases and controversies. There is a grey area, but suffice to say that if a Brown-like claim had been made by a black person in New Hampshire based on the potential inability to attend schools in a certain group of Southern states, that would be much weaker than John Johnson, a black resident of Southtown, AL, bringing a claim because just last week he actually attempted to attend Central School down the street and was actually denied access.

    Thus, a claim on the same-sex marriage issue would probably be brought based on a situation involving a specific situation, and the comparative ability of a specific person to marry “Jim”, rather than a general claim for the right to marry a person of opposite gender.

    2. Your argument (as I construe it) relies on a “separate but equal” argument. Speaking of Brown, this isn’t going to hold much water, precisely because it is a specious defense of discrimination.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  8. Disparate impact vs. disparate treatment is what’s at issue here.

    In many situations, disparate impact is not enough to ground a discrimination claim, even in racial discrimination cases, which are treated with higher constitutional scrutiny than (1) sex discrimination (intermediate scrutiny) or (2) sexual orientation discrimination (rational basis).

    Discuss.

    Angry Clam (fa7fff)

  9. Actus is right on this (and that was extremely hard to say.) I think that society’s biggest problem with gays is the perceived promiscuousness of the gay lifestyle. If they were allowed to enter into committed monogamous relationships like the rest of us, that perception would soften. Most of the benefits that Daffyd attributes to heterosexual marriage, would also benefit the gay couple in a homosexual marriage.

    I also agree with Patterico. I don’t see how gay marriage affects heterosexual marriage at all. If my brother (who is gay) is allowed to marry, does that have any effect at all on my decision to marry my wife? I would not be any more inclined to marry another man just because it is allowed. And my brother would not be any more inclined to marry a woman just because he is not allowed to marry a man.

    CPAguy (d3f5fd)

  10. I say it’s irrelevant. The disparate treatment is facially obvious. Such analysis would become necessary, for example, if the law prohibited men from marrying anyone whose name started with T, and 90% of those whose names started with T happened to be men.

    No such confusion here. The law says “gender”. It’s basing its treatment on gender.

    An aside, responding to Dafydd’s assertion that marriage is merely society’s “seal of approval” on, well, marriage. That’s incorrect, in the context of the law that is at issue here. Marriage, as defined by the law, is the government’s “seal of approval”. It is neither merely societal, nor merely symbolic.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  11. …but I am confident that it is something that people do not consciously choose.

    But the evidence suggests otherwise. Survey finds people do choose gay behavior

    And we have the experience of the ancient Greeks as well – acceptance of the behavior by society led to more of the behavior. Or it modified their DNA. Take your pick.

    But in the end (no pun intended), marriage is definitional. Calling a same-sex coupling a “marriage” would be like calling three people a “couple.” Same-sex relationships and opposite-sex relationships are fundamentally different. Calling them the same word would just be a lie. The state is under no obligation to lie and call them the same.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (17fd00)

  12. So, in other words, “just because”…?

    biwah (f5ca22)

  13. CPAguy says:

    If they were allowed to enter into committed monogamous relationships like the rest of us…

    But they are allowed, right now. They can even have a great big church wedding if they want to. That’s not the issue. The issue is official recognition of different types of relationships by the state.

    But there are many different types of relationships the state doesn’t recognize. We’re not obligated to recognize all types because we recognize one that is of unique benefit to society.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (17fd00)

  14. Editors, regarding the survey you linked:

    The original headline reads:

    Survey Finds More Women Try Bisexuality

    The right-wing version:

    Survey finds people do choose gay behavior

    And, the not-so-subtext of it’s use in The Editors’ comment above:

    People are gay only gay by choice and because society allow them to be

    This is exactly the kind of spin that our observant host continually lambasts the MSM for.

    When society clamps down on certain behavior, people who are not strongly inclined to engage in it, probably won’t. Those who are intrinsically oriented toward it, may be deterred, or they may not. Either way, that doesn’t change who they are, just what they permit themselves to do, and whether they report it.

    Which sends your argument back to the drawing board, hopefully for some relevant data.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  15. Nice spin, biwah, but your argument is not supported by the study.

    The survey found that more people are choosing to engage in homosexual behavior, there’s not any spin in the title of the blog post.

    Men are by nature promiscuous. Marriage clamps down on that behavior. That doesn’t change who they are, just what they permit themselves to do.

    Clamping down on natural human proclivities is what civilization is all about. *L*

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (17fd00)

  16. “Clamping down on natural human proclivities is what civilization is all about. *L* ”

    Deciding which ones to clamp down is whta civilization is about. Lest we come to the conclusion that the most oppressive and unnatural regimes are the most civilized.

    actus (9982e6)

  17. Patterico:

    People get married for all sorts of reasons: love, companionship, stability, raising a family, and financial reasons, just to name a few. People stay married for a similarly wide variety of reasons. I don’t think that, for heterosexuals, the availability of marriage to homosexuals plays any part in the calculus of whether they get married, or whether they stay married. At all.

    I can’t see how they wouldn’t. Either traditional marriage is sancrosanct, or it isn’t. If it can/should be redefined to accommodate gays, what’s to stop it from being redefined to accommodate everyone else, including those whose perceived personal “needs” are better suited to quickie divorce. Yes, I know we already have quickie divorce, but we shouldn’t, and I suspect that if we didn’t, far fewer gays would want marriage as long as civil unions, domestic partnerships or some other viable marriage substitute is available.

    Xrlq (0d5489)

  18. I say it’s irrelevant. The disparate treatment is facially obvious. Such analysis would become necessary, for example, if the law prohibited men from marrying anyone whose name started with T, and 90% of those whose names started with T happened to be men.

    You’re incorrect, biwah.

    The classification at issue here is homosexual vs. heterosexual. This, incidentally, merits only the most deferential standard of review (rational basis), where the people challenging the law must show that there is no way that the law is rationally related to any legitimate government interest. Note the word “any” – the actual intent of the law may, in fact, be discriminatory, but as long as there is a plausible, even if post hoc, justification, the law will be upheld.

    The argument is that limiting marriage to unions between one man and one woman is discriminatory against homosexuals. The counter, as was most recently argued in the Court of Appeal by the Attorney General of California in defending California’s ban on gay marriage from constitutional attack by the San Francisco government, is that the law is not discriminatory on that basis, as homosexuals have equal access to marriage as heterosexuals- they just receive less benefit from it.

    That’s classic disparate impact- marriage is equally available to all people regardless of sexual orientation; only the resulting benefits are lessened.

    Where the distinction between disparate impact and disparate treatment may become important is if some court should recognize homosexuality as a constitutionally suspect class- something which, remember, the Supreme Court did not do in Lawrence v. Texas or Romer v. Evans, the two most recent gay rights cases. In such an event, the nature of the government action- treatment vs. impact, will become crucial to whether the law will be upheld.

    Thus, it is very much relevant.

    Angry Clam (fa7fff)

  19. “I don’t think that, for heterosexuals, the availability of marriage to homosexuals plays any part in the calculus of whether they get married, or whether they stay married. ”

    Patterico, I agree with you completely. The desire to pair off is very, very strong. There were marriages long before there was government; I’m sure of that. Marriage will survive whatever laws we write.

    Bostonian (a37519)

  20. Editors: Not to bother you with specifics, but the article concludes this:

    More women — particularly those in their late teens and 20s — are experimenting with bisexuality or at least feel more comfortable reporting same-sex encounters.

    The conclusion you boldly report based on this article may be within the ballpark of honesty, but it extracts a broad conclusion from a very narrow survey. Anecdotally, I will tell you that approximately college-age women do the most experimenting with same-sex fooling around, where they later shed that behavior to live straight lives. So even taking the survey at face value, you’re cherry-picking.

    There is much evidence to the exact contrary of what you are trying to show. Frankly, the notion that homosexuality is wholly chosen and “reversible” is laughable if you have any personal experience with gay people.

    Xrlq:

    I suspect that if we didn’t, far fewer gays would want marriage as long as civil unions, domestic partnerships or some other viable marriage substitute is available.

    So, in other words, we shouldn’t squander such a stabilizing, commitment-inducing social institution on gays, because you suspect they wouldn’t make good use of it?

    The suspicions of certain “observers” circa Brown that black children had insufficient capacity to make use of public schools, and that the quality of white children’s education would be degraded by such limitations, didn’t change the outcome invalidating institutional bigotry. Should it have?

    biwah (f5ca22)

  21. Angry Clam:

    Disparate impact cases have thus far been where the law was silent on suspect classifications. Defense of marriage laws, as I understand them to be written, contain facial distinctions based on gender, and any inquiries into legislative intent would confirm their gender-discriminating purpose.

    Strictly speaking, same-sex marriage is not about homosexuality or gay sex. The law does not equate marriage with sex, love, intimacy etc. It is about, and can only be structured, based on gender.

    Which underscores the point that people have said they oppose gay marriage for a number of substantive or pseudo-substantive reasons, but ultimately it hinges completely on the gender of the participants.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  22. It is too tempting to post consecutive comments. Apologies for the mess.

    Angry Clam, your “marriage is available to all” assertion has the same vague circumspection of separate as arguments for separate-but equal, i.e. “education is still available to all”. When it comes down to specific cases, in the matter of marrying a certain person of a certain gender, the state is saying no to one person and yes another, based on gender.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  23. actus is wrong, or at least missing the point.

    The point you’re missing is that its not simply “marrying who you want.” But finding a partner that gets into a situation where for everything but their same-sexness, they would be able to marry.

    Which is no different from finding a partner where for everything but their age, or the fact that they’re already married, you could marry them.

    If you really need government sanction before you can engage in a long term monogamous relationship with another person, you’ve got problems that aren’t going to be fixed by the government deciding you can get “married”.

    If you want society’s approval, well, live a good life, and don’t wrry about those who don’t value you (because there will always be those who don’t value you, no matter who you are, no matter what you do. Deal with it).

    Greg D (dfbcf3)

  24. biwah,

    Frankly, the notion that homosexuality is wholly chosen and “reversible” is laughable if you have any personal experience with gay people.

    Since I have never said that homosexuality is wholly chosen, I’m not sure what your point is.

    When it comes down to specific cases, in the matter of marrying a certain person of a certain gender, the state is saying no to one person and yes another, based on gender.

    No, it is saying the sexual union of a man and a woman is different from other types of relationships, which it is.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (17fd00)

  25. “Which is no different from finding a partner where for everything but their age, or the fact that they’re already married, you could marry them.”

    On those situations, there are ways to fix the impediment: Wait till they grow up, or have the first person get divorced. Not so with the prohibition on same sex marriage.

    “If you really need government sanction before you can engage in a long term monogamous relationship with another person, you’ve got problems that aren’t going to be fixed by the government deciding you can get “married”.”

    The problem with this argument is that it argues equally against hetero as well as homo marriage.

    actus (9982e6)

  26. Patterico,

    Society benefits, in the main, from heterosexual marriage. Children are raised better because of it, and without them, we have no future.

    So soceity rewards the people who create those relationships.

    How does homosexual marriage benefit society?

    Is it goign to bring more children into the world, and put them in loving, caring, 20+ year families that give them the stability they need? If you yoke two gay men together, will they civilize each other the way that happens when you yoke together a man and a woman?

    If, in the agregate, society doesn’t benefit from homosexual marriage the way it does from heterosexual marriage, then why should it grant to homoexual couples the benefits it gives to heterosexual couples? What are they doing to earn those benefits?

    To the extent that there is choice involved (and certainly there is among bisexuals), shouldn’t society be encouraging people to go the route that benefits society the most?

    I know more polyamorous people than I know homosexual people. If it’s wrong to keep gays from getting married, on what grounds do you forbide polygamy? Or do you think we shoudl ahve that, too?

    Greg D (dfbcf3)

  27. Greg, you said: ‘Society benefits, in the main, from heterosexual marriage. Children are raised better because of it, and without them, we have no future.

    So soceity rewards the people who create those relationships.

    How does homosexual marriage benefit society?’

    You are actually arguing against having gays in our society. But that is not the question. We will always have gays in society. The question is whether society will be better off if they are allowed to marry or not. I think society is better off allowing marriage. Why else would we be encouraging heterosexual marriage?

    CPAguy (d3f5fd)

  28. “Is it goign to bring more children into the world, and put them in loving, caring, 20+ year families that give them the stability they need”

    I don’t know about brinigng more children into the world, but I do suspect that most gay marriages want to adopt. And more adoptions into loving, caring 20+ year families are a good thing.

    actus (9982e6)

  29. More children growing up with both a mother and a father is a good thing.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (17fd00)

  30. Greg D, of the various arguments from the right, I think the slippery slope argument is one of the more valid. If you open this can of worms, there is no way to reclose it. More kinds of relationships will gain legitimacy and (probably, eventually) demand legal recognition. Polygamy is an obvious one. (And frankly, what is the rational argument against polygamy again?)

    But that is not to say the line cannot be maintained as further issues arise. It is not a reason to shut the door on a live, current controversy.

    One distinction is that, as I have argued, same-sex marriage discriminates on the gender of the person one seeks to marry (or, alternatively, one’s own gender in relation to a given mate), and should be subjected to elevated constitutional scrutiny. Polygamy restrictions under constitutional precedent would get a free pass.

    The purpose of laws is not to construct reality, but to respond to it. I thought that, as a matter of government, implementing “good ideas” to the detriment of individuals’ freedoms is a liberal M.O., remember? Or maybe not…

    Editors: Clarification noted. You acknowledge the existence of the proclivities, but think gov’t should suppress them/not reward them. At the beginning of #11, you seem to be arguing that homosexuality is a matter of choice, but as you have clarified, you were not.

    I disagree with the argument that homosexuality can or should be corralled into a legal grey area for the benefit of society. The government should not offer you benefits and protections based on the gender of the person with whom you decide to enter a permanent intimate partnership. The “but think of the children” argument is extremely disingenuous. However, this is where differing opinions are least likely to change. So be it.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  31. So now simply saying that children ought to have a mother and a father is “disingenuous”? How utterly foolish.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (17fd00)

  32. “More children growing up with both a mother and a father is a good thing. ”

    Of course. Lots of things are godd things. More children having rich parents is a good thing. More children who have acces too education and health care and are not in child poverty are a good thing too.

    On the adoption front, there’s plenty of children to be adopted, and not enough families to go around. More loving adoptive families, more good thing.

    actus (9982e6)

  33. Sex, sex sex!

    Goddamn it, it’s talking about sex classifications, not gender classifications! Even if you buy into the postmodernist “gender is not the same as sex” theory, the law is still about sex classifications. Gender is not simply a more polite or more PC term for sex, stop mangling the language.

    And you’re incorrect about the separate-but-equal in education law- the entire point was that the education being provided to blacks in segregated schools was not equal to that being provided to whites, and that this was by design, such as through funding, staffing, and the like.

    To take your education analogy, compare the current complaints that education is being “re-segregated” due to white flight, the inabilitiy of urban areas to maintain a tax base sufficient to support the same schools as wealthy suburban areas, etc. This is the situation that we’re faced with in our marriage laws- because of circumstances (sexual orientation, location of birth) some people don’t derive the same benefit of the law as others do. It isn’t the same thing as the old de jure segregation, and your analogy between segregation and marriage laws fails.

    Furthermore, your later explanations expose a critical flaw in your reasoning- your focus on the sex of more than one person. Constitutional protections only attach to an individual, not to a couple. Marriage restrictions based on the sex of the proposed partner do not amount to laws discriminating against the person themselves.

    Angry Clam (fa7fff)

  34. The world is crazy. A great many children are growing up in neglectful, abusive, dangerous, and/or otherwise shitty environments. Their welfare is NOT given high priority by our culture or our government. And it has nothing to do with homosexuality. We need to focus on the real issues, not some stalking horse du jour. I know it’s a great political trump card and all, but let’s be real.

    Are mothers and fathers good? Certainly, but not universally. Some are bad. We all know about the divorce culture among straight families. I would guess that gay families will do better on that score, at least initially. In any case, shutting out willing foster parents of any orientation is a very bad idea. Your ideas about how things ought to be just offer more of the same.

    I share your concern as far as, in general, single-parent families. In that scenario, the handicaps against children’s welfare are pretty staggering and well documented. And the problem is traceable to someone’s, mostly the absent dads’ behavior.

    But gay couples are no more about indoctrinating children in harmful viewpoints or exposing them to any type of danger than are straight couples, and should be permitted to parent. Our shortage is not of children, but of good homes.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  35. Angry Clam,

    You misunderstand my use of the term gender. I actually mean gender. I acknowledge that my grammar is frequently mangled, but in this case my usage was traditional, not postmodern.

    I think I explained that here:

    same-sex marriage [prohibition] discriminates on [basis of] the gender of the person one seeks to marry (or, alternatively, one’s own gender in relation to a given mate)

    sure, there are two alternative ways to portray the discrimination, but standing in either party’s shoes, they do not have equal protection of the laws as another individual would have standing in their shoes (aka similarly situated).

    i.e. John wants to marry Jim but can’t. Jane wants to marry Jim…and can.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  36. “But gay couples are no more about indoctrinating children in harmful viewpoints or exposing them to any type of danger than are straight couples…”

    Strawman. No one argued otherwise. Gay couples do, however, deny the child either a mother or a father by definition.

    John wants to marry Jim but can’t. Jane wants to marry Jim…and can.

    Jane wants to marry Jim, and can. Joan wants to marry Bob, but can’t, because Bob is already married, or under the age of consent, or Joan’s brother…

    Equality under the law means the same limitations apply to each individual, not that there are no limitations. The same limitations for marriage apply to every individual in America right now – any individual can marry a single person, of the opposite sex, not a blood relative, not a minor.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (17fd00)

  37. The drive of every specie is to reproduce and sustain itseslf. The state interest in marriage is to create the best enviroment for this to take place. Marriage is western civilisations answer to this need. What happens when marriage is not central to a segment of society is witnessed in what we have seen in New Oleans. The claim that current ban on gay mariage is unconstitutional is silly,as if the Founders didn’t know what they were about and,moreover, to pretend that societal norms embedded for thousands of years can be altered at the whim of appointed judges and be accepted is equally silly. Has Roe proven nothing?
    The claim that two persons of the same sex are as ideal as two persons of the opposite sex to serve as parents is made, in the main, by people who are hardwired to be neither. They have every right to be happy but society is not responsible for their condition and we have no obligation to alter the basis for human civilisation to accomodate their desires.

    kent (a0b441)

  38. “Equality under the law means the same limitations apply to each individual, not that there are no limitations. The same limitations for marriage apply to every individual in America right now – any individual can marry a single person, of the opposite sex, not a blood relative, not a minor.”

    This is the sort of logic that gives us anti-miscegenation laws.

    actus (9982e6)

  39. “This is the sort of logic that gives us anti-miscegenation laws.”

    Complete nonsense. There’s no analogy between race and sex. I don’t think you really believe so either. For example, I presume you’d be outraged to see a public building with separate “white” and “non-white” restrooms. I presume you do not exhibit the same level of outrage when you see “men” and “women” on the restroom doors in a public building.

    Sex is integral to the institution of marriage. Race has nothing to do with marriage. I know a great number of people who date and/or marry a person of a different race. It’s a common occurrence. I haven’t ever met anyone who doesn’t care what sex their spouse is. Never.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (17fd00)

  40. ” Complete nonsense. There’s no analogy between race and sex. ”

    Actuall the analogy is in the example you provided. lets think about it:

    ‘Equality under the law means the same limitations apply to each individual, not that there are no limitations.The same limitations for marriage apply to every individual in America right now – any individual can marry a single person, of the opposite sex, not a blood relative, not a minor.’

    Change to to “the same limitations for marriage apply to every individual in american: any individual can marry a single person of their own race.” Blacks and whites are ‘equally’ denied the right to marry outside of their race.

    An unsatisfactory result. Which is the point: its an unsatisfactory system we have now, which is why we will end up with gay marriage. And those who rail against it will be the bull conors and roger taneys of our time.

    actus (9982e6)

  41. Repeating the same idiotic non-analogy won’t make it true, actus.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (17fd00)

  42. Editors, you are taking th equal protection discussion in circles.

    Jane wants to marry Jim, and can.

    okay…

    Joan wants to marry Bob, but can’t, because Bob is already married,

    rational basis…

    or under the age of consent,

    rational basis…

    or Joan’s brother…

    rational basis.

    to recap the earlier scenario:

    John wants to marry [unmarried, of-age, nonrelative] Jim but can’t [where a similarly situated woman could].

    Intermediate scrutiny!

    Relation to separate-but equal (Brown) and anti-miscegenation (Loving).

    The fallacy in each case:

    Brown: Whites have White schools, Blacks have Black schools, the law is facially evenhanded, no EP violation.

    Loving (I only know the broad outlines of this case): Whites can marry within race, Blacks can marry within race, the rule is facially evenhanded, no violation of fundamental rights. Note: the anti-race-mixing state interest did not pass muster.

    SSM: Men can marry women, women can marry men, thus each can marry the opposite, the law is facially evenhanded, no EP violation.

    The analysis of each:

    Brown: White schools and Black schools are qualitatively different, thus not equal from the point of view of a participant, the state may not limit any participant’s choice based on race.

    Loving: Marriage is a fundamental right, which may not be regulated on the basis of race.

    SSM: Men and women are qualitatively different, thus not equal from the point of view of a participant. The state may not limit any participant’s choice based on gender. Also, because marriage is a fundamental right, any denial of it must pass strict scrutiny.

    Race and gender. You cite the bathroom example. It’s so obvious, right? Except for this: bathrooms aren’t people. If women’s bathrooms were qualitatively worse than men’s bathrooms, they could sue. Now, with a life partner, compared to the one you want, everyonce else is inferior (at least, that’s the idea). Thus, unequal.

    Often stated, never explained.

    Gay couples do, however, deny the child either a mother or a father by definition.

    You’ve already disclaimed the notion that people are gay by choice, so how do you get the idea that gay suppression will make more mothers and fathers? Unless you are counting the extra unwilling parents with a little secret, whose repression will NOT be a boon to their children.

    So, How does one more gay couple mean one less straight one? Are you trying to pin the lack of two-parent families on homosexuals, like Kent? Or is it just the general halo of legitimacy surrounding marriage? You’ve also disclaimed the idea that gays couples have a corrupting influence on children. Why then would you cordon off marriage from a strong, reponsible couple who can get the job done, with or without the sanctity of which people have been so defensive.

    Sanctity my foot. It’s only as good as the people that make it up.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  43. Throwing in a bunch of irrelevant legal references is not particularly useful. Race and gender are not analogous. The law doesn’t treat them the same. The law should not treat them the same.

    “bathrooms aren’t people.”

    Thank you so much for clearing that up.

    “If women’s bathrooms were qualitatively worse than men’s bathrooms, they could sue.”

    So presumably if the “whites only” and “non-white” restrooms were qualitatively the same, you would have no problem with there being separate facilities? (presuming you aren’t outraged by the sight of restrooms segregated by gender) Your reaction to gender-segregated and race-segregated facilities would be identical? I feel safe in assuming that would not be the typical response among the American population.

    “So, How does one more gay couple mean one less straight one?”…

    I said, “Gay couples do, however, deny the child either a mother or a father by definition.” How this simple and straighforward statement elicited your strange reply only you can know.

    But my statement was not complicated – A male-male couple raising a child means that child is denied a mother. A female-female couple raising a child means that child is denied a father. Perhaps you’re being deliberately obtuse?

    “Why then would you cordon off marriage from a strong, reponsible couple who can get the job done,”

    They cannot get the job of giving a child a mother and a father done.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (8830f5)

  44. I recently attended a very interesting talk by Sir MacFarland (a leader in control theory). One point he made was that there is a complementary aspect of learning from our environment. For example, our language reflects our societies and out senses are adapted to our physical world.

    He also made the point that we cannot train a robot with a set of rules effeciently–there must be some aspect of empirical learning. For example, a gnoat with 150 neurons is more maneuverable than an F-16 (his example).

    Marriage is also a complementary adaptation of society to biology.

    So, some questions should be asked and answered by those who would prefer a top-down adjustment to this arrangement.

    I’ll just leave it at that for now well we ponder the great successes of other top-down programs such as Socialism.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  45. So presumably if the “whites only” and “non-white” restrooms were qualitatively the same, you would have no problem with there being separate facilities?

    Yes, I got your point:

    Race and gender are not analogous. The law doesn’t treat them the same. The law should not treat them the same.

    I’m not sure where you are finding the inconsistency. There is a good reason for having separate but equal bathrooms by gender. Not so with race. But the equal part still has to be observed to the extent possible/practical. Make sense?

    Moreover, the contrast between bathrooms and homo sapiens was not thrown in to be cute. Where marriage is concerned, different = unequal per se. There is no analog for the bathroom, where some third party can provide an equivalent substitute for the person you wish to spend your life with.

    I like “Mom and Dad” too. But “Mom and Dad” is only as good as mom and dad are. There is a need for good parents, and M&D have largely been a disappointment of late. If M&D is the be-all and end-all as an institution, you can’t see the possibilities otherwise. Our society is hampered by bigotry, and bigotry has always come in the guise of tradition. We have prouder traditions than that.

    biwah (b10825)

  46. “Repeating the same idiotic non-analogy won’t make it true, actus. ”

    Its not quite a ‘non analogy’ it was actually advanced as an argument when the supreme court overturned anti-miscegenation laws.

    I mean, for chrissakes you actually think its analagous to male and female bathrooms?

    “They cannot get the job of giving a child a mother and a father done.”

    Lots of people don’t.

    actus (c9e62e)

  47. There is a good reason for having separate but equal bathrooms by gender. Not so with race.

    That’s an acknowledgment that race and gender are not analogous. Thank you. I’ve met many people in inter-racial relationships, too many to count. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t care what gender their mate is. Have you? That’s because gender is central to human relationships, while race is not. There’s no comparison at all.

    Where marriage is concerned, different = unequal per se.

    Treating things that are not the same differently makes perfect sense. Same-sex relionships and opposite-sex relationships are fundamentally different. There’s nothing wrong with society’s laws acknowledging that reality.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (ec8009)

  48. “Its not quite a ‘non analogy’ it was actually advanced as an argument when the supreme court overturned anti-miscegenation laws.”

    It isn’t an analogy at all. Race has nothing to do with the marriage relationship. Sex is central to the marriage relationship.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (ec8009)

  49. “Have you? That’s because gender is central to human relationships, while race is not.”

    And so you want to define away one kind of relationship. Something so ‘central.’

    actus (c9e62e)

  50. Intersting comments. I may be trying to simplify matters here, but, it does appear that the argument can be boiled down to spousal rights and thus the definition of who qualifies to be a spouse. Are spouses to be of different sex or can spouses be same sex? I think the whole argument could be nulified if we all agreed that a spouse could be the same sex as the other spouse. Unfortunately in order to have a spuse you must be married. Seems simple enough to fix, just refer to each other as a spouse and forget husband and wife.

    Bobonthebellbuoy (df8751)

  51. Intersting comments. I may be trying to simplify matters here, but, it does appear that the argument can be boiled down to spousal rights and thus the definition of who qualifies to be a spouse. Are spouses to be of different sex or can spouses be same sex? I think the whole argument could be nulified if we all agreed that a spouse could be the same sex as the other spouse. Unfortunately in order to have a spouse you must be married. Seems simple enough to fix, just refer to each other as a spouse and forget husband and wife.

    I do however, hold a lot of sympathy to people who consider having a marriage to mean seperate sexes committing to each other while same sex couples making the same commitment as being entirely different than marriage. Marriage is kind of a minefield where different viewpoints challenge the legitimacy of the label (or lack thereof). It’s a quandry that reveals ones bias but does not make such a bias central to the argument. Heterosexual communion is not the same as homosexual communion, so lets forget the sex and just agree on a definition of spouse.

    Bobonthebellbuoy (df8751)

  52. PS: sorry about the double post. Give someone two buttons and the wrong button will be pushed.

    Bobonthebellbuoy (df8751)

  53. http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz200406030910.asp

    here is a great article highlighting what happens when gay marriage is legalized.

    some people may say that gay marriage will have no effect on the institution itself, while in the netherlands marriage has fallen by the wayside almost completely. i think what people here are failing to realize is that traditional marriage is the cornerstone of western civilization, which leftists want to destroy. so what better way to destroy a civilization than by taking out the most important piece to its foundation?

    if gay marriage is allowed, liberalism will have won and you can kiss the last 2000 years goodbye.

    Snuggles (71a660)

  54. All the reasons used to justify gay-marriage here could be used verbatim to justify polygamy (among mutually consenting adults, of course). After all, if 3 women want to get married, who is the government to tell them no? What are they supposed to do, draw straws?

    The same pro-gay-marriage arguments can also be used to justify a gay-incestous (eg, 2 brothers) marriage.

    And if you believe that polygamy and some incestous marriage is ok, I doubt somebody will convince you that gay marriage is wrong.

    Mike (1f02e6)

  55. The Mythical Three

    Patterico was kind enough to link my Lizard’s Tongue column “the Great Civilizer” over on Patterico’s Pontifications; in the lively (and very legalistic!) discussion in the comments page, I noticed three great myths about same-sex marriage cropping…

    Big Lizards (fe7c9d)

  56. Hello, all.

    I will continue with arguments against same-sex marriage later, in future Lizard’s Tongue columns. But for now, I have responded to three myths cited repeatedly by proponents of same-sex marriage — and in this very comment thread — over on Big Lizards.

    Comments are open, as always; or else respond on your own blogs (those of you who operate blogs) and leave me a trackback.

    Thanks! And thanks to Patterico, who I know disagrees with my column, for nevertheless linking it from here, one of my three favorite blogs.

    (One of the other two is Power Line, and the third isn’t.)

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  57. Mike,

    All the reasons used to justify gay-marriage here could be used verbatim to justify polygamy

    Read again. On the constitutional equal protection issues, SSM is on completely different footing than polygamy, and that analysis is likely to be employed if it is addressed by the courts.

    Most of the reasons used to prop up “traditional” marriage could be used to justify polygamy. More children, stable homes, tradition – the history of polygamy is longer. What’s that you say, things have changed?

    It is mistaken to assume that the present is the apex of culture and history.

    biwah (ce351f)

  58. I think the argument that if heterosexual marriage is a stabilizing influence on society, then homosexual “marriage” must be as well, is erroneous; it assumes that homosexual relationships, if monogamous, are somehow just as “good” as monogamous heterosexual ones.

    I disagree. By legalizing only monogamous heterosexual marriage among two people, we are saying that, as a society, a marriage between one man and one woman is a preferable societal arrangement than a polygamous marriage; it has long been a settled issue, as the Mormon Church discovered, that we will not allow plural marriage to enjoy the same status as monogamous marriage, and will, if the polygamists attempt to legalize it, prosecute them under the law.

    Same sex “marriage” is in a similar situation; if two people of the same sex managed to secure a marriage license (save in Massachusetts) because some idiotic court clerk didn’t notice who was in front of him, and got a minister to sign it, they’d be committing the same sort of fraudulent action that the polygamists in Utah have been wont to try . . . and for which a few have wound up in jail.

    I would suggest that we have reached a decent equilibrium: we don’t prosecute people living together outside of wedlock, but we also don’t give them the legal advantages for choosing to do so. We also don’t prosecute homosexuals for having sex (and even the prosecution that led to Lawrence v Texas was forced), and we wouldn’t prosecute a plural cohabitation as polygamy if the participants didn’t try to scam the bigamy laws.

    In other words, we don’t reward those who choose to live in relationships society does not favor, but we don’t punish them, either. That seems reasonable to me!

    Society certainly does have a right to favor or disfavor certain actions. It is difficult to see how being nude in public actually harms anyone else, but we still hold it to be illegal, and prosecute it other than in certain, rstricted venues. That is a democratic choice we have taken, and it is a reasonable one. If a man chose, for some reason, to use the women’s public restroom, he isn’t actually causing some harm to anyone else, but we’d still find his actions too disruptive to civilized society, and we’d find some statute under which to charge him.

    Society takes choices, and society has a right to take such choices.

    Dana R. Pico (a071ac)

  59. actus,

    And so you want to define away one kind of relationship. Something so ‘central.’

    I don’t know what you mean by that. I don’t define marriage. Civilization has defined it for thousands of years. And you dodged the question.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (1e5ce5)

  60. Dana and other have asserted that traditional marriage serves society and gay marriage does not. The most common argument is that since there are no offspring to protect, gays do not deserve the same level of protection.

    To me, that’s an open question, and must be balanced by the exclusion. Society DOES benefit: it benefits from childless married heterosexual couples in reduced crime rates, improved financial security and general all-around stability and willingness to protect social order. Any marriage tends to bring these as it increases the investment people have in their society. I cannot see how including gays would be different.

    Is the more limited nature of gay marriage (corresponding to childless heterosexual marriage) so different as to justify blanket exclusion? I’m pretty sure that any such exclusion would be roundly denounced if it applied to infertile heterosexuals. To me, any purely secular argument against gay marriage must somehow differeniate these cases.

    Dafydd hasn’t done it. Like most “secular” arguments he resorts to historical arguments that are fundamentally not secular. Rather like claiming that the Southern “grandfather clauses” were race-neutral: the history is as it is for a reason.

    So, today, here, now, in a vacuum: Why are infertile heterosexuals entitled to marriage licences and (mutually) infertile gays not? “Ick” is not an answer.

    Kevin Murphy (6a7945)

  61. Oh, any I’d really like to hear why xrlq thinks that marriage-lite cohabitation agreements ought to be recognized by the state and given any of the benefits of marriage? Isn’t doing THAT an attack on the institution of marriage as much as quickie divorce?

    How is it an attack on an institution when people DEMAND to be included in it, and refuse all substitutes?

    Kevin Murphy (6a7945)

  62. biwah (#56) said “On the constitutional equal protection issues, SSM is on completely different footing than polygamy”

    The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of marriage. They are on exactly the same footing there.

    You’re talking about 2 women marrying each other vs. 3 women. The constitution won’t help you splt those hairs.

    My comment didn’t make any judgement on any particular marriage arrangement. I’m just pointing out that if we legalize gay-marriage, we will have to legalize other marriages too (including polygamy, and gay-incest).

    Mike (1f02e6)

  63. Mr. Murphy writes:

    So, today, here, now, in a vacuum: Why are infertile heterosexuals entitled to marriage licences and (mutually) infertile gays not? “Ick” is not an answer.

    Since we grant marriage licenses to people before they marry, we have no way to know that a couple is going to be infertile during marriage.

    However, I’d argue that ick really is an answer. Society has preferences; that’s part of civilization. If a large part of socoety thinks it’s ick, then society in a democratic nation has a perfect right to say that the ick will not be accorded the same status as preferred institutions.

    Dana R. Pico (a9eb8b)

  64. “Why are infertile heterosexuals entitled to marriage licences and (mutually) infertile gays not?”

    We know for a fact every gay couple is “infertile.” As a rule, heterosexual couples have the potential to reproduce. It’s not practically feasible to test each couple for fertility before issuing a marriage license. We’re under no obligation to make rules based on the exceptions.

    The heterosexual union and the homosexual union are inherently different, not just in terms of fertility. There’s nothing wrong with society treating different relationships differently.

    The burden is not on those who want to maintain traditional marriage to prove that same-sex marriage would harm our society. The burden is on those who want to make the radical change of redefining marriage to prove it would do no harm.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (908a93)

  65. “I don’t know what you mean by that. I don’t define marriage. Civilization has defined it for thousands of years. And you dodged the question.”

    The question isn’t really being dodged. Sure when we designate bathrooms we segregate men and women. We treat them as separate but equal. I don’t understand why you compare public bathrooms to private marital arrangements.

    And if you’re not defining marriage, then you have no problem with gay marriage.

    actus (c9e62e)

  66. Dana, editors:

    So, since every woman over 65 (at least) is infertile, you’d bar such marriages?

    Again, “ick” as an answer for something that someone ELSE is involved in is simple legislation of personal preferences. Arguments such as that are EXACTLY what 14th Amendment substantive due-process cases are built on (never mind that I don’t much care for SDP; the courts do).

    How does this “preference” argument differ in the following cases: gay marriage and interracial marriage? At one time interracial marriage was banned due to a popular preference. Do you think that was Constitutional, so long as it treated all races equally?

    Kevin Murphy (6a7945)

  67. The heterosexual union and the homosexual union are inherently different, not just in terms of fertility.

    How, exactly. Yo keep saying that, but you never back it up. One must assume that your reasons are not strictly secular.

    Kevin Murphy (6a7945)

  68. Actus (#64)- “Separate but equal” was ruled unconstitutional. The men vs. womens bathrooms is actually a great example because there is debate about how to partition space fairly when 1 gender needs longer to do their business than the other.

    “Why are infertile heterosexuals entitled to marriage licences and (mutually) infertile gays not?”
    Childless-heterosexual marriage (A) has a different relationship to traditional heterosexual marriage (B) than gay marriage (C). That’s because heterosexual marriage (traditionally) starts off as childless. In other words, ‘B’ was once ‘A’, but was never ‘C’; and so ‘B’ and ‘C’ have different relationships to ‘A’.

    Mike (1f02e6)

  69. A challenge; assume the following and then reargue:

    1. That there is at least some genetic predispostion regarding sexual preference (e.g. reaction to pheromones).

    Extra credit: assume that you are gay and not by choice. Why is it just for society to deny you a meaningful marriage right.

    Kevin Murphy (6a7945)

  70. Mike, thanks for the link to the Constitution. If you follow it you will find, eventually, a guarantee of equal protection under the laws of the state. Some beleive this phrase has a meaning, but, inconveniently, it won’t jump off the parchment pages and smack you in the forehead.

    I strongly echo Kevin at #66. It all amounts to, “just because”, “ick”, “that’s the way its always been”, and/or “because polls show that’s what the majority wants.”

    This is not equal proetection under the laws. The government is giving preferential treatment to straight people by conferring the benefits of marriage on them only – discrimination. “No it’s not,” go the anti-SSM arguments in this discussion – it’s just like bathrooms (discussed at 42 & 45). Once they have to abandon that argument, the fallback is “yes they are, but:

    gays are icky;

    some kind of harm will befall marriage and children [that hasn’t befallen them already?];

    that’s the way it is;

    it’s inherently different.”

    No doubt cries of “strawman!” will ensue. In which case, please set me straight.

    In any case, these reasons, with or without meaningful supporting evidence (so far without, except for the historical argument, which would support polygamy as well), cannot justify discrimination.

    To which someone will respond, “it’s not discrimination.”

    Wash, rinse, repeat…

    biwah (6ea388)

  71. biwah,

    How’s about heading over to the “Tell Us About Yourselves” thread? I see you haven’t left anything there . . .

    Same goes for anyone else who hasn’t left something there — especially you lurkers!

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  72. One thing I have noticed about this thread is that it tends to get bogged down (in my opinion) in constitutional discussion. Personally, I am not a fan of solving this issue by using an expansive reading of the constitution. But that wasn’t really the point of the post. Rather, the point was: assuming that the issue is left to the voters, how do you feel about it?

    I don’t *mind* if you all want to discuss the constitution, but I am personally more interested in the policy arguments.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  73. actus,

    We aren’t talking about private marital arrangements here. We’re discussing public arrangements, i.e. licensing by the government. Homosexuals can have private marital arrangements right now.

    “And if you’re not defining marriage, then you have no problem with gay marriage.”

    That’s a completely asinine reading of what I said.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (c8e9ca)

  74. Thanks Patterico – I definitely will.

    for now, here’s the short version:

    Hi, i’m biwah and I’m a frustrated individual.

    biwah (6ea388)

  75. Kevin,

    So, since every woman over 65 (at least) is infertile, you’d bar such marriages?

    Since I already indicated that actually reproducing is not the only issue, your question is irrelevant.

    Re: #67, Go have sex with a man, then with a woman, and report back to us whether you think they’re identical or not. *L* You can assume anything you want, but you can’t demonstrate where I’ve made any non-secular argument. Not that I buy your implication that secular arguments are the only valid ones.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (c8e9ca)

  76. It all amounts to, “just because”, “ick”, “that’s the way its always been”, and/or “because polls show that’s what the majority wants.”

    So does making the speed limit 65 MPH. So what? All laws discriminate against behaviors, or in favor of other behaviors, that’s what laws do.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (c8e9ca)

  77. Adjust your time frame of reference to that where this policy decision has the most influence, childhood.

    Try to recall childhood–the period when your brain was forming semi-permanent structures. Patterning.

    Analyze the patterns for utility and stability.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  78. “Homosexuals can have private marital arrangements right now.”

    I think you understand the difference in privacy between a marriage and a public bathroom.

    “That’s a completely asinine reading of what I said.”

    Your position on gay marriage is how you’re defining marriage. That’s that. You want to defer to other people’s definition? fine. but its still a choice you’re making.

    actus (c9e62e)

  79. Here’s a thought on rights:

    All children have that right to both male and female parents. That right (whatever you think of it) is a better right than the adult right to have a societal boost in their self-esteem regardless of their chosen actions.

    I bet I could even find this right in the penumbra of the Constitution.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  80. The inestimable Mr. Murphy writes:

    So, since every woman over 65 (at least) is infertile, you’d bar such marriages?

    That isn’t what I said, Mr. Murphy. I simply noted that we cannot know, in advance, that a marriage will not be fecund. Nor does that mean we can reasonably set an age limitation on marriage; a 65 year old woman is certainly past her reproductive years, but a 65 year old man may not be.

    Mr. Murphy continued:

    Again, “ick” as an answer for something that someone ELSE is involved in is simple legislation of personal preferences. Arguments such as that are EXACTLY what 14th Amendment substantive due-process cases are built on (never mind that I don’t much care for SDP; the courts do).

    How does this “preference” argument differ in the following cases: gay marriage and interracial marriage? At one time interracial marriage was banned due to a popular preference. Do you think that was Constitutional, so long as it treated all races equally?

    We have plenty of other prohibitions involved in marriage that are for the good of society: I cannot marry my sister, as an example. I’m certain that you would not view the prohibition on not being able to marry my sister as unreasonable, or a choice that society cannot take. Similarly, I cannot take a second wife (even if we assume that the lovely Mrs. Pico would not kill me first).

    Well, society has taken the choice to prefer one form of marriage over others, whether you approve of society’s reasoning or not. We don’t prohibit homosexuals from living together, which is tolerance and a respect for their rights, but we are not required to presume their choices to be the societal equal of monogamous heterosexual marriage. I’d say that’s a pretty wise compromise.

    Dana R. Pico (8d0335)

  81. “I think you understand the difference in privacy between a marriage and a public bathroom.”

    I think you understand that race and gender are different, and you’re dodging. I didn’t compare marriage to bathrooms, I compared race to gender. Try to keep up.

    Then you referred to “private marital arrangements.” So I pointed out that we’re not discussing private arrangements here, we’re discussing public arrangements. I’m not sure whether you’re being obtuse by accident or on purpose at this point.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (c681be)

  82. “Again, “ick” as an answer for something that someone ELSE is involved in is simple legislation of personal preferences.”

    Certainly Mr. Murphy doesn’t believe that sex plays the same role in a marriage as a personal preference for, say, blonde hair, or brown eyes, or dark skin?

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (c681be)

  83. No case is being made here for gay “marriage”.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  84. Sure it is. Society should not discriminate. Also, any marriage promotes stability.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  85. Nonsense.

    1. Society discriminates based on physiological differences all the time. This discrimination has been recognized Constitutional by SCOTUS.

    2. What discrimination is happening here? Make your case.

    3. Any marriage promotes stability? How? What evidence do you have that marrying livestock promotes stability? Back in Texas, we noticed long ago that the other cows would get uppity when cowboy Clem went on his “honeymoon” LulaBell.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  86. I’ve made my case in the post for why I believe that this is discrimination, and why it shouldn’t be allowed.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  87. Since gays do not consciously choose their sexual orientation, refusing to give them access to an institution available to heterosexuals is discrimination. The policy question is whether this discrimination is justified on a societal level.

    Here is the closest that I can find to your case that there is discrimination. It is an assertion that does not stand empirical evidence. (One counterexample is all it takes–we have many).

    A definition of “gay” is lacking.

    The discrimination is not definied either.

    How is marriage not open to homosexuals? I am not clear on that either.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  88. You mentioned that you think it shouldn’t be allowed because it makes people feel bad. I can’t take this seriously, but will leave it alone until you strengthen your case. First things first.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  89. We have had cases that in essence legalized sex outside of marriage as a privacy right. So I am not even clear on the linkage between sex and marriage in today’s legal context.

    We do, however, have laws (in the military for example) against adultery. If anything, this is discrimination against those married. How is this consistent with the claim of discrimination by not recognizing gay “marriage”?

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  90. We have all heard a lot of talk about gay “marriage”. Yet, after millenia of marriage as we know it, we still do not have a good case for gay “marriage” as a right or as a desireable policy.

    I am sure we will have plenty of demands for it again and again until, the hope is, we like bad parents say, “OK, whatever”. And then the next demand will begin, and then another, until we find ourselves going in circles with no anchor to stop our spinning. Already this “right” conflicts with the rights of children.

    There is a way to avoid this, and it is notthrough intrasigent reactionarism. Simply make the rational case. We should accept nothing less. And, I would guess, if there is a case to be made, a well-trained legal mind can make it. If this case can be made here, that would be something.

    Frankly, I am unable to make a good case for it myself, but then again, that is just me.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  91. Paterico said:

    Since gays do not consciously choose their sexual orientation, refusing to give them access to an institution available to heterosexuals is discrimination. The policy question is whether this discrimination is justified on a societal level.

    The real rub, to me, is in this sentence right here. How in the world do you know if most, all, or any gays choose their sexual preference or not? I submit you simply don’t, and as a logical proposition your statement is invalid. As an opinion, it is perfectly fine, but you seem to state it as a fact.

    Since your discrimination argument rests entirely on an assertion you can’t reasonably expect to support, it simply must fail.

    I would support homosexual marriage if it were proven as a scientific fact that sexual preference is genetically determined. After all, our laws protect genetically determined conditions such as race and sex (and rightly so) from discrimination.

    But let’s go off the reservation and suppose that sexual preference actually is a preference, having nothing whatever to do with a genetic driving force. If this were true, would it change your position? It would certainly have to change your argumentation substantially, since discrimination (at least in the sense you describe) would not actually be happening.

    Glenn (c644be)

  92. “Society should not discriminate.”

    Come one, surely you can offer more than that gross generalization. Society discriminates all the time. Laws discriminate; that’s what laws are for.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (03806f)

  93. “Society should not discriminate.”

    I was using shorthand for what I said in the post. I’m not getting into an extended debate with Paul here in the comments. The long and short of it is that I don’t see a valid reason to deny homosexuals the right to marry people to whom they are sexually attracted. I’m speaking, again, on a policy level and not as a matter of constitutional analysis.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  94. But there is no right to marry whomever you’re sexually attracted to. There never has been. I’m sexually attracted to lots of people. Do I have a right to marry all of them?

    Marriage is by definition the union of a man and a woman. What’s under discussion is not whether to deny anyone some non-existent right, but whether to change the definition of marriage as it has always been understood.

    Before our society so cavalierly pitches a fundamental institution of our civilization over the side, the burden is on those who want to do so to make the case for doing so. “We shouldn’t discriminate” is not nearly enough.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (03806f)

  95. Patterico:

    As this response is so specific to your points, it makes more sense for me to post it as a comment on PP, rather than another response-post on Big Lizards; the last post was more in the way of debunking three common myths.

    You begin:

    1) Dafydd labels as “Myth 1” the idea that same-sex marriage is as civilizing as opposite-sex marriage. Dafydd begins with this nonsensical argument:

    The most interesting observation about this claim is that it is purely defensive; it begins from the nervous premise that gays need to be civilized! This is an amazing admission from the proponents of same-sex marriage; if the gay lifestyle were fine as it is, then why would it be so urgent to offer them the possibility of solemnizing their relationships by legally marrying?

    This makes no sense to me at all. Dafydd previously argued that society benefits when a man marries a woman, because marriage is a civilizing influence. Why is that not a “nervous premise” that heterosexuals need to be civilized, and thus an admission that there is somehow something wrong with the heterosexual lifestyle?

    It isn’t “nonsensical;” you simply misunderstood it. I argued not that marriage was a civilizing influence but that the joining of male to female was a civilizing influence. And not only did I admit the premise that heterosexual (and homosexual) men need taming, that was in fact my starting point!

    But the very existence of a heterosexual relationship itself, even absent marriage, does indeed partially civilize most men; and a trad marriage only furthers this effect. Neither of these carry over to groups of men with other men — whether sexual partners or simply buddies.

    Consider this analogy. Say Joe grows up in a very fundamentalist, insular version of Judaism and is very prejudiced against gentiles. I could say that spending time with a Christian girl, particularly in a romantic relationship, can make Joe more tolerant of the beliefs of others. But that does not mean that dating another girl of the same intolerant sect of Judaism as himself will likewise broaden Joe’s horizons.

    You can disagree that this accurately mirrors the male/female relationship; you can argue that men and women are essentially the same as each other. But you cannot logically say the point is “nonsensical.”

    Well, that’s a nice rhetorical trick if you can get away with it, but I’m not sure why it is logically necessary that the opponent of a tradition bear the burden of proof as to why the tradition should be abolished.

    Because the proponent of change always bears that burden of proof, just as the plaintiff (the one who seeks a change to the status quo ante) bears the burden of proof in a courtroom; yes, including cases like foot-binding, clitorectomies, and racism. And in those cases, the proponents of change accepted the burden and met it.

    Dafydd fails to distinguish between openly gay men in committed relationships and those who are not. The former group is the only relevant group to compare to married men, and I would be willing to bet that the former group is far less sexually promicuous than the latter, but Dafydd treats them as the same.

    You would be “willing to bet,” but would you be willing to research? It’s entirely possible that there is such a difference — though I haven’t seen any such studies — but that isn’t the point, either: the question is whether openly gay men in committed relationships who get married are “far less sexually promiscuous” than openly gay men in committed relationships who have to suffer along without the state recognizing their lifestyles. After all, there is no law forcing married couples (gay or straight) to live up to their marital vows; so the only enforcement mechanism attendant to marriage is social.

    Clearly there is such an enforcement mechanism inherent in the institution for heterosexuals; nearly every study (they are legion — I cited only one) shows that traditionally married heterosexual couples are more stable and less promiscuous than opposite-sex unmarried cohabiting couples. If you could cough up a study showing the same was true for gay males, then you might have something. That is why I noted there are a number of countries where same-sex marriage is legal; you could also expand the search to, say, churches that will religiously marry same-sex couples (which is perfectly legal in the United States), and see whether such couples are any more stable than similar same-sex couples who do not get religously married. That isn’t exactly the same thing, but it’s close, and I would certainly accept such as evidence in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage.

    But until you do manage to get hold of some actual evidence, to repeatedly claim something just because it would be convenient to your argument is to propagate a myth.

    You have to understand where I’m coming from, Pat: when I was your age, I too supported same-sex marriage; and I used the same arguments you use now. I was persuaded out of this position over time by the evidence. I began researching to prove my earlier position and wound up refuting it.

    It was tough, since I’m naturally libertarian, but I changed my mind. One of the turning points for me was to realize that there was no liberty interest involved: what was sought was not abolition of laws against homosexual activity (which abolition I still support, hence my support for Lawrence v. Texas), but rather society’s seal of approval. You can demand the right to be allowed to do what you want; you cannot demand that others applaud you for it.

    Dafydd labels as “Myth #2” the idea that sexual preference is fixed from birth. This is certainly not something that I stated in my earlier post; I said that “I don’t know whether being gay is genetic, a learned behavior, or some combination of the two.” So even if this is a “myth,” it doesn’t affect my argument.

    Yes; it was the very fact that I was responding to common myths advanced by many — including several in your comments thread — and not specifically to your arguments that I chose to make it a separate post. Since this is specifically a response to you, I’m putting it here. Make sense now?

    Dafydd argues that there are natural bisexuals who are more likely to lead homosexual lifestyles if homosexuality is socially accepted. He then reverts to his data from “Myth #1” to say that this is bad because homosexual lifestyles are more promiscuous. Ergo, we will have more promiscuity from bisexuals.

    Again, there are several problems with the argument.

    First, this once again appears to have nothing whatsoever to do with marriage. Nothing in Dafydd’s data tells us anything about the likely behavior of a bisexual in a committed monogamous relationship, or better yet, a marriage.

    I beg your pardon? If my point is that social acceptance of homosexual relationships as the equal of heterosexual relationships will lead to more of the former, whether within marriage or without, then how can you fail to understand why expanding the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples will create more social acceptance of homosexual relationships?

    Doesn’t it seem obvious to you that, say, making cocaine legal — even if only in designated areas — would lead to more people snorting coke everywhere? Or do you believe that law is of negligible or even nonexistent impact on the behavior of people in a society?

    I support drug legalization; but I do not deny that it would lead to more drug use. I believe the liberty issue outweighs the negative effects… I don’t try to deny there would be any negative effects.

    Second, it does not make intuitive logical sense to me that a given bisexual will lead a relatively more promiscuous lifestyle if that bisexual is allowed to conduct homosexual relationships free of social stigma.

    The distinction is between a bisexual who chooses, due to social pressure, to live a heterosexual lifestyle and one who chooses, due to wider-spread acceptance, to live a homosexual lifestyle. If it is true, as every study in the literature of sexuality represents, that gays as a group tend to be more promiscuous, and that living within the gay community amplifies this effect, then the argument about bisexuals necessarily follows.

    To refute, you must show either (1) that bisexuals who live a gay lifestle within the gay community do not mirror the behavior they see as the norm all around them, or that (2) only the least promiscuous gays will want to transform their “committed” relationships into marriages. If you have evidence for either of these propositions, I’m wide open to seeing it.

    But the bisexual will presumably have the same innate sex drive regardless of the gender of his or her sexual partners.

    This puzzles me: do you really believe that the level of social acceptance of sexual activity within one’s community has no effect at all upon one’s willingness to act on one’s “innate sex drive?” Do you believe that a sixteen year old girl is just as likely to have sex with her boyfriend if her culture expressly forbids such behavior as if her culture applauds it?

    So: is the determining factor in the bisexual’s promiscuity the availability of partners, the sex drive of the bisexual, some combination of the two, or something else entirely? Again, we don’t know, and Dafydd doesn’t tell us.

    Dafydd didn’t realize he needed to spell it out: the determining factor is sociocultural acceptance. Culture is far more deterministic of behavior than any law.

    Consider another example: in many inner-city communities, it is considered completely normal for an unmarried high-school girl to have one or more babies; her mother takes care of them while she’s at school. But in other communities (in other times and places), there was a terrible stigma attached to an unmarried teenaged girl having a child — not only against her alone but against her whole family.

    Do you not understand that the former culture results in many more such pregnancies than the latter? How can you not understand the huge impact that cultural acceptance has on specific behaviors?

    Dafydd says: “So in fact, the preferences of a group of people of undetermined size who can switch back and forth from living as gay to living as straight may indeed make a significant difference in the society.” But if the size of the group is “undetermined,” then we have no idea how “significant” the difference would be, and the use of the word “indeed” doesn’t mask that deficiency in the reasoning.

    The reasoning doesn’t need masking because it is not deficient; you have simply misunderstood what I was proving. As I stated elsewhere in the piece, the point of that post was not to make the case against same-sex marriage; it was only to refute three shopworn myths that permeate such discussions.

    The particular myth is that everybody’s sexual preference is determined biologically, and therefore that nobody would be any more likely to live a homosexual lifestyle if homosexuality were more culturally accepted. I am disproving an absolute. (If the argument is actually, “sure, there are bisexuals, but they represent only X%, and this is negligible and will have no impact,” then it has been very poorly expressed in this thread! If that is the argument, you can certainly see that it begs for some statistical data.)

    Unless you are prepared to argue that the number of bisexuals in America is literally zero, then reasoning that such a change would affect the number of them who will live a gay lifestyle does indeed effectively rebut the claim that nobody would be so affected.

    Also: while one may have difficulty finding clear causation in a specific case, the complete absence of even one single demonstrable case tends to undercut the aggregate statistical argument. Have you ever met or heard of someone who smoked all their lives and got lung cancer? Of course.

    Have you ever met or heard of someone who’s been a lifelong nonsmoker, yet who nevertheless got lung cancer? Of course. And the existence of such means that other factors can cause lung cancer… and therefore that you cannot conclude that your particular smoker’s case was caused by the cigarettes.

    You can only conclude that it may have been a contributing factor — based upon the statistical model.

    Have you ever met or heard of one single person who blamed gay marriage (or even the prospect of gay marriage) for the failure of their own heterosexual marriage — or credited the strength of their heterosexual marriage to the nonavailability of gay marriage?

    Statistically, the lower the price of gasoline, the more people will drive; the more people drive, the more people will have accidents; and the more people have accidents, the more people will be killed in those accidents. Therefore, the lower the price of gas, the more people will die in car crashes.

    Have you met or heard of one single person who blamed the low price of gasoline for the death of his or her loved one?

    Nevertheless, there is a clear statistical connection — even if people do not typically realize it.

    And I wuv you too, Pat… in a manly and completely unromantic way, of course… harumph!

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  96. Well, I take a shot at making a case for sexually indeterminate unions.

    I can’t claim a right of birth since reproduction is sexual and any genetic factor that would tend towards homosexuality is a transient mutation. Mutations are random in exery respect and it would be impossible to distinguish a group without also accepting the notion of genetic determinancy and doing complete genetic screenings–what a horrible anti-democratic kettle of worms that would be.

    What about pushing the idea that it is just good policy? Then, consistent with other democratic principles, I would have to expand the institution for all–anyone can “marry” anyone regardless of gender. So we just have a confusion of pairings. What would this achieve as a policy objective?

    Well, the primary reason we have marriage as an institution is to launch the next generation. Society has to be self-perpetuating. If there was another objective of marriage, it is subordinate to this one for the ongoing stability of the society. Since every new citizen is intrinsically equal, society cannot create a set of citizens with second-class parenting arrangements as a matter of policy. As far as society is concerned, all children should begin life as generically equal as possible as a matter of public policy. The point is that society cannot through its hand as a matter of direct consequence create inequality.

    Therefore, I cannot support multimodal marriages as a matter of public policy. The best I can do is create a nonchild rearing arrangement purely for whatever purpose pairs of individuals may want through their state legislatures, but I cannot mislabel this instituion as “marriage”. That is a seperate institution with a distinct public purpose. I will call this new institution, dualsihood(TM).

    All in favor of dualsihood(TM), say aye. Hmmmm, thats not a majority.

    Paul Deignan (d2fd7b)

  97. Glenn said:

    I would support homosexual marriage if it were proven as a scientific fact that sexual preference is genetically determined. After all, our laws protect genetically determined conditions such as race and sex (and rightly so) from discrimination.

    Well, no, actually. Discrimination (literally; the point on which a decision is taken) on the basis of sex and race is allowable in the United States; the two University of Michigan cases recently specified (sort of) how discrimination on the basis of race may be legal, and discrimination on the basis of sex is legal for many reasons. Federal law allows discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, such as admission or retention into military service. We have other laws which allow discrimination on the basis of other genetic conditions, such as height, visual ability, hearing, manual dexterity, speaking ability, mental ability, just a whole host of things.

    Dana R. Pico (a9eb8b)

  98. Several, primarily our esteemed host, have attempted to make the argument that if heterosexual marriage is a stabilizing influence on society. Patterico said:

    Also, any marriage promotes stability.

    That’s a blanket statement, and I’d suggest that it lacks proof. First of all, about half of all heterosexual marriages end in divorce; it’s pretty difficult to say that those marriages promoted stability, especially since a good number of them produced children.

    [Dana: you and Paul have both seized on a quick comment in which I was using shorthand for a more detailed argument. Of course not any marriage promotes stability. My comment was shorthand for the proposition that homosexual marriage quite arguably promotes stability just as much as heterosexual marriage does. — P]

    But, there is a second, and more important point. Marriage is regarded by our society and our law as a special status, something desirable for the public good as well as the individual good. When even a state as liberal as Oregon rejected same sex “marriage” in the 2004 election, despite Senator Kerry carrying the state by a large margin, it told us that a lot of liberals have a problem with the concept of same sex unions being considered as marriages.

    The part that has not been considered here is what I see as a large part of the animating force behind the widespread rejection of legal same sex “marriage,” and that is the concern of married heterosexuals that including different types of unions in the definition of marriage cheapens the special status of their marriages.

    Society, every society that has ever existed on earth, has considered marriage to be a special condition, something desirable for the public good. As you introduce continued variations in what is considered marriage, you downgrade that special state. People know this, instinctively, and that’s why even our most liberal areas have rejected the concept of same sex “marriage” every time they’ve been asked the question.

    Dana R. Pico (a9eb8b)

  99. I agree with Dafydd . SSM is not marriage, even Canada cannot prove it. But reasoned logic cannot refute the Bee editorial on the inevitability of SSM primarily because logic is not an equation within which the California legislature acts and a counter-argument against same will prove inadequate. That may make some lawyers unhappy especially those whose logical counter argument seemingly refute Dafydd. Sorry, the burden of defense is not on Dafydd.

    Nor does Dafydd need to counter any alleged myth arguments which Patterico pre-supposes. Over-arching is the opinion of Mayor Newsome. That’s off-topic. But he’s wrong as well.

    The myth that needs to be busted is the Volokh theory that marriage is simply just another contract between two or more individuals. He needs to wake up. No one I know arises each morning and announces, “well today, I’m going to fulfill my side of the contract.” The license may be a contract but the marriage isn’t.

    Gay-marriage is not marriage.

    Of course, I’m wrong, I always am.

    Nanuk (2f4f8f)

  100. An argument made many times above, “We make distinctions all the time,” is all well and good – we’ve heard about the 65mph speed limit, m/f bathrooms, intrafamily marriage prohibitions, military admissions, etc. But each of these exceptions to the anti-discrimination policy is backed up by a sound, obvious need, with comparatively minimal negative repercussions. Thus you end up where you started – making the policy argument.

    Glenn says:

    How in the world do you know if most, all, or any gays choose their sexual preference or not?

    This issue keeps popping up, and Paul says he might do a 180 on the issue if only he could be assured that gays were not choosing their orientation.

    Let’s retreat from science for a moment into the murkier realm of real life. Anyone here ever felt that they were choosing their sexual orientation? (to be distinguished from repressing sexual attractions for whatever reason) Chosen to be attracted to someone when, without that choice, the attraction would not have occurred? Where does this notion of choosing an attraction even find a basis in reality? It’s attraction, involuntary by nature. Are you accusing gays of a massive conspiracy to invent homosexuality? Because if homosexuality is real, it is by nature not chosen. What’s next?

    I’ve also heard the line that bisexuality is evidence that homosexuality is chosen. Sexual experimentation is chosen. But the issue is attraction and love (grouped together for our purposes). If they are real, they are real. Where is the ambiguity?

    Obviously, where we zero in on the sexual activity, there is choice there. But that’s not what people have been addressing, nor should it be.

    What this reveals is tension over whether to punish or forgive people for being gay. That is question you should be asking yourself in private, and let gay people live as they want to live, such living including the basic option of marriage.

    But as long as we’re talking about anteing up some evidence, where’s that evidence that SSM harms heterosexual marriages? It’s the core policy argument, and I’m not seeing anything more than speculation.

    For example, Dafydd cites the acceptance of homosexuality as increasing total homosexuality in society and accepting promiscuity.

    a. Based on the non-starting nature of the “choice” question I discussed above, it seems impossible to actually spread homosexuality. Relieve the weight of certain social sanctions, sure – let’s face it, SSM is a big slackening of any social sanction. But all you’re doing is backing off the practice of forcing/coaxing people to repress their identities.

    b. Promiscuity is often the direct result of the need for anonymity, or the inability to make a relationship long-term. Obviously, SSM not only is a long-term relationship, but creates a goal, even an incentive, for all long-term relationships to succeed. Discrimination is creating a huge closet, and now you are accusing those who are forced to be covert, at risk to their own (and public) health and emotional well-being, of wishing those undesirable circumstances on themelves.

    c. The drug control analogy is rich. What happens when you force drugs underground? People get poisoned, OD (participants’ incentive is to cheat), and addicts are cordoned off from mainstream society (no incentive to follow the rules of morality/decency). Big costs result.

    What happens when you keep homosexual relationships underground (no chance of legitimization)? Less incentive to keep legitimate LT relationship (marriage means you don’t back out over one disagreement or mishap), closeted atmosphere, transient/one-night relationships, disease, emotional isolation (all reflecting a detachment from overall mores of society).

    There will probably be some quibbles with the above. But think about it. Mainstream society is so used to thinking of open homosexuality as alien, that it’s hard to realize just how integrated and vanilla gay society could be.

    Of course, that’s what many people are afraid of. And that’s where fear is just fear, discrimination just discrimination, any pretense of sound policy aside.

    biwah (573082)

  101. Dana wrote:

    Well, no, actually. Discrimination (literally; the point on which a decision is taken) on the basis of sex and race is allowable in the United States; the two University of Michigan cases recently specified (sort of) how discrimination on the basis of race may be legal, and discrimination on the basis of sex is legal for many reasons. Federal law allows discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, such as admission or retention into military service. We have other laws which allow discrimination on the basis of other genetic conditions, such as height, visual ability, hearing, manual dexterity, speaking ability, mental ability, just a whole host of things.

    Indeed.

    My point was (although I apparently failed to articulate it well) that Paterico’s definition of a failure to recognize homosexual marriage as discrimination rests on an unproven assumption.

    If homosexuality is simply a preference, it makes perfect sense for society to see it as aberant or undesirable and not worthy of sanction. Of course, we could also decide that it was unworthy of sanction even if it were genetic – i.e. we could decide it was an undesirable genetic trait, but that would be pretty hard to defend given existing law.

    But from the standpoint of comparing homosexual marriage as a condition that aught to be protected in law, it would seem to require a genetic mandate to elevate it to the level of sex or race as being worthy of protection against discrimination.

    Glenn (c644be)

  102. Biwah (#70) –
    I’ve been saying Gay + polygamous marriage are in the same legal category. You say they’re not, but refuse to refute it. Instead you digress to make comparisons between gay + traditional marriage.

    Please explain why how Gay marriage is legally different from Polygamous marriage.

    Kevin (#69) – it would be interesting to repeat the same excercise for polygamy too. I’m interested to see what you come up with.

    All the talk like “Society should not discriminate” (#93) can also be used to defend polygamy. Is the only reason you’re against polygamy because you’re intolerant? and reasons like “ick”?

    In fact polygamy is only 1 supreme court case away from being legal.

    Mike (1f02e6)

  103. biwah wrote:

    Let’s retreat from science for a moment into the murkier realm of real life. Anyone here ever felt that they were choosing their sexual orientation? (to be distinguished from repressing sexual attractions for whatever reason) Chosen to be attracted to someone when, without that choice, the attraction would not have occurred? Where does this notion of choosing an attraction even find a basis in reality? It’s attraction, involuntary by nature. Are you accusing gays of a massive conspiracy to invent homosexuality? Because if homosexuality is real, it is by nature not chosen. What’s next?

    No offense, but are you trying to make an argument here? If so, I fail to see any logic in it. What I do see is an assertion that real life is so complicated that logic can’t be applied to it, so we therefore have to submit to your conclusion – sort of the old “if it feels good, do it” platitude wrapped up as a cause-and-effect fallacy.

    How many people have said that they married a man or woman to whom they were not intially attracted? Attraction can be based on many things, not all of them necessarily leading to sex. People frequently have sex with partners that they are not particularly attracted to. And is attraction really involuntary? I would sumbmit that it clearly isn’t always – have you never heard of an acquired taste?

    Assuming attraction = sexual preference/orientation seems to me a very weak case, and dismissing the cases that work against it as “repressing sexual attractions” seems to be a very facile but factually unsound argument.

    Glenn (c644be)

  104. Mike:

    Instead you digress to make comparisons between gay + traditional marriage.

    Sorry, didn’t think I was too far afield in doing so.

    In terms of policy, I agree that it’s a slippery slope, and that once gay marriage is legal, polygamy will be on the verge. However, there a lot more hassles to allowing official polygamy than there are to gay marriage. The slope isn’t that slippery, and if a discussion on polygamy is coming down the chute, then so be it. I don’t think anyone can really see what’s on the other side of that discussion.

    Like homosexuality, polygamy will go from something that people just snicker at to something they recognize, as they should, since its an old and (though not here and now) accepted practice. That doesn’t mean we have to adopt it as a society, but looking at it will raise a lot of questions that we vitally need to be asking ourselves about marriage, in order to restore the health of this institution in our society. For example, our society has become one where serial polygamy is easy and accepted. What’s our response to that?

    In terms of the law, there is a big difference, at least I have been arguing as much here. The difference is equal protection. Prohibition of SSM is gender discrimination, setting the bar for constitutional approval higher. Polygamy, by contrast, does not discriminate based on any protected classification. Thus, it’s just like a restriction on marrying your cousin, or against jaywalking for that matter. Rational basis. Please see the first part of #42 for the play by play.

    biwah (573082)

  105. Glenn:

    For attraction, I would include both sexual and romantic attraction, i.e. whatever attraction it is that gets and keeps us in a love relationship with another person. That is precisely what can’t be consciously chosen. It can be repressed, but it still exists. The choice can be made not to act upon it, but that’s not the same as choosing to be straight.

    How many people have said that they married a man or woman to whom they were not intially attracted?

    What’s yor point? Initial vs. long-term? It’s still attraction, I am aware it often takes time, but that somehow make it the product of conscious choice. Again, it does permit plenty of chances to nip it in the bud consciously, but that’s not the same as choosing to be straight.

    What I do see is an assertion that real life is so complicated that logic can’t be applied to it, so we therefore have to submit to your conclusion – sort of the old “if it feels good, do it” platitude wrapped up as a cause-and-effect fallacy.

    I don’t follow. I think my point is simpler than you are perceiving.

    biwah (573082)

  106. Dafydd:

    It isn’t “nonsensical;” you simply misunderstood it. I argued not that marriage was a civilizing influence but that the joining of male to female was a civilizing influence.

    Well, not to nitpick, but since you are . . . in your column you declared reason number one to ban gay marriage to be: “Marriage, the Great Civilizer,” and said: “Women civilize men… and they do it primarily through marriage, though of course motherhood also plays a role.”

    So I can’t agree that I misread you or misunderstood you. You are the one who said marriage civilizes men.

    But the very existence of a heterosexual relationship itself, even absent marriage, does indeed partially civilize most men; and a trad marriage only furthers this effect. Neither of these carry over to groups of men with other men — whether sexual partners or simply buddies.

    Consider this analogy. Say Joe grows up in a very fundamentalist, insular version of Judaism and is very prejudiced against gentiles. I could say that spending time with a Christian girl, particularly in a romantic relationship, can make Joe more tolerant of the beliefs of others. But that does not mean that dating another girl of the same intolerant sect of Judaism as himself will likewise broaden Joe’s horizons.

    That argument assumes that gay men are essentially the same as straight men. Based on my empirical observations, I don’t think they are. They generally don’t need “civilizing” in the same way as straight men. They are already (generally) less aggressive, and possess fewer of the offensive masculine traits that require a woman’s civilizing influence.

    Where the “civilizing” does help, I think, is in making them less promiscuous. Does marriage make a huge difference — more than simply having a committed relationship? Probably, to some degree — just like it probably does with straights, to some degree (and indeed you claim there are studies to that effect for straights).

    I don’t think I need studies for that proposition, just logic and common sense. You have assumed the burden of proof (or so you claim), Mr. “mensch” — remember? — so the burden is on you to provide studies that disprove that common-sense proposition. Or, you should admit that you’re not really shouldering the burden that you said you would shoulder.

    . . . . the question is whether openly gay men in committed relationships who get married are “far less sexually promiscuous” than openly gay men in committed relationships who have to suffer along without the state recognizing their lifestyles.

    No, the question you were trying to answer is whether homosexuals are more promiscuous than straights, and you did it by comparing married straights to gays who are not necessarily even in committed relationships. You do not respond to this criticism anywhere in your comment, yet it is the central criticism I had of your post. It is that comparison which I find nonsensical and illogical.

    But until you do manage to get hold of some actual evidence, to repeatedly claim something just because it would be convenient to your argument is to propagate a myth.

    No. Something that I believe is a logical and common-sense proposition does not automatically become a “myth” simply because I don’t have studies at hand to back it up. It’s simply an unproven assertion — call it a theory, an opinion, whatever — that makes sense to me. To call it a “myth,” you must disprove it, which you have not done.

    I beg your pardon? If my point is that social acceptance of homosexual relationships as the equal of heterosexual relationships will lead to more of the former, whether within marriage or without, then how can you fail to understand why expanding the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples will create more social acceptance of homosexual relationships?

    I don’t dispute that, but I don’t see that you’ve shown what that has to do with the promiscuity of bisexuals — for the reasons I stated. Your arguments about bisexuals assume that the same individual, attracted to both women and men, will have sex with untold numbers of men if allowed to live a homosexual lifestyle, but will lead a much less promiscuous lifestyle if forced by social pressures to lead a heterosexual lifestyle. Social norms do indeed have an effect on behaviors, but I can’t see why someone attracted to genders a and b will have less sex with gender a if society says they can’t do it with gender b. They’ll just have more with gender a.

    Re your claims about cigarette smoking: unless you’re finally admitting that you can’t shoulder the burden of proof, then in the absence of any rational empirical evidence for gay marriage threatening traditional marriage, you must present some sort of statistical evidence that shows a threat. And that, I believe, you have utterly failed to do.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  107. biwah:

    For attraction, I would include both sexual and romantic attraction, i.e. whatever attraction it is that gets and keeps us in a love relationship with another person. That is precisely what can’t be consciously chosen. It can be repressed, but it still exists. The choice can be made not to act upon it, but that’s not the same as choosing to be straight.

    Fine. But what you are describing as attraction is far more of a cognitive process than you seem to be willing to concede. There are many cognitive things that go into “attraction”, and many choices that are made in these processes. I’ll concede that some are below our conscious radar, but I believe most are not.

    If we confine our discussion to simple sexual attraction (i.e. lust, for lack of a more satisfactory term), that may well be below the cognitive level. However, we choose actively whether or not to act on such impulses, and it is that choice to which I refer. I do not believe that such choices are due to “repressed homosexuality” or any such thing.

    But this whole discussion is far afield of what my point was. I could really care less if homosexuality is percieved as involuntary or not, or is the result of a combination of environmental factors. My whole point is that I would be comfortable with homosexual marriage if it were a genetic “built in” condition. Otherwise, I am inclined to see it as eccentric behavior.

    Glenn (c644be)

  108. Some thoughts for understanding of positions and discussion to start with, some of which I do not think have been expressed so far.

    Some (not exhaustive) issues and sub-issues:
    1. Should Same-sex marriage be legal?
    a. if yes, by judicial ruling or by legislation, why?
    b. if yes, does that imply an equivalence in legal and “moral” standing between heterosexual marriages and same sex?
    i. if yes, what happens to freedom of religion where this is discussed?
    c. what is leading to the discussion- change in opinions, newly discovered scientific fact, evolving case-law?

    ==>
    1. Should Same-sex marriage be legal?
    a. if yes, by judicial ruling or by legislation, why?
    If SSM is ruled necessary by court opinion because of equal rights arguments, I do not see how intellectual integrity would allow much of any restrictions on marriage anymore.
    -John wanted to marry Jim, but was told he couldn’t because Jim wasn’t of the opposite sex
    -It is ruled that John can marry Jim whether he is of the opposite sex or not, because to limit John’s choice is discriminatory.
    -Jerry wants to marry Sue and Jane, why can’t he? George wants to “marry” his dog (not really, but he wants his work to cover his “spouse’s” vet insurance), why can’t he?
    —-> I propose that any attempt by the court to block these other alternatives is mere presumption of personal opinion of the judges, even if they try to give reasons. (“It’s ok to change marriage as long as it remains two humans”, why?) So I suggest that any change other than legislative by a majority begins either the loss of any definition of marriage, or a practice of intellectual dishonesty with the new biases of marriage dictated by “a majority of 5/9 in black robes”.

    b. if yes, does that imply an equivalence in legal and “moral” standing between heterosexual marriages and same sex?
    i. if yes, what happens to freedom of religion where this is discussed?
    We agree (with few exceptions) that the legality of a thing and the “moral appropriateness of a thing” are not identical. It may be legal to get drunk and pass out in your own home, but if it leads to a person’s loss of job and loss of ability to support his family we do not “approve” of it, let alone endorse it. (One may say the person is evil or ill or both, but we would agree that “something different should be done”). It is not illegal for unmarried people to live together in a sexual relationship, but significant numbers of people “disapprove” of it to some degree. Would the legalization of SSM imply a legal and moral equivalency with heterosexual marriage to the degree that stating, “I do not agree with SSM” is cause for a charge of harassment, intimidation, violation of civil rights, for a child to be sent to the principal’s office, for the parents to be visited by Family Services for “teaching their child to hate”? This is a main way that legalizing SSM could have a dramatic impact on my life and family, even if the impact was not on my marriage per se. [Besides, as long as someone else gets murdered, or robbed, or commits suicide, that action rarely effects me, but that has no bearing whether I oppose murder or not).

    c. what is leading to the discussion- change in opinions, newly discovered scientific fact, evolving case-law?
    This is closely related to the above. “No reasonable person” would deny equal protection and dignity of an individual no matter their sexual orientation, and most would even avoid making the behavior an issue for the government’s business. But to go from, “Don’t beat people up for believing ‘X'” to “People have a right to have their actions based on belief ‘X’ to be endorsed and protected by the government” is a big jump that needs some validation and justification.
    While the longevity of a precedent does not guarantee it is correct, their usually is wisdom in giving deference to a precedent until there is sufficient evidence to change. While I agree that the longevity in certain cultures of genital mutilation in women gives little/no merit to continue the practice, it is interesting that the tide of opinion to oppose routine male circumcision has to deal with the finding that uncircumcised males stand a higher rate of contracting HIV and other STD’s than those who have been circumcised. Until it can be shown where a society/culture promoted SSM as the equal of heterosexual marriage and the “health” of the society was “good” why should we do it? If one wishes to be “free from bias” why not look for “hard data”?
    How much empiric evidence and widespread consensus was behind the moves by professional societies to change their opinion as to whether homosexuality was “a disorder” or not? Much (harsh) criticism of Kinsey has surfaced over the last many years, how much of it is justified? There have been claims in professional journals that “intergenerational sex”, i.e., sex with minors, is “not that bad, and may even be good” for children and youth. Do we believe such a claim just because a PhD in psychology with a faculty appointment writes it?
    Whether homosexual attraction is something that someone is “born with” or not is a topic of importance for those facing the issue, but not necessarily a determining factor in the legality of marriage. A person may be born with epilepsy and can never get a driver’s license. In one way “it isn’t fair”, but that is what is. I was born not able to reach a height of 6’11”. So my NBA career never got started. I am not making light of the issue, just pointing out that life is not necessarily fair. [This is not intended to be an argument against SSM, just a point that demonstrates the logical inadequacy of the claim that “if its from birth, it must be OK’, ‘Natural’, ‘equal to heterosexuality'”.]

    None of these points have been fully developed, but it is late, no one may be interested anyway, and if there are specific comments or questions I will respond then.

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  109. Biwah (#104) – I’d argue the slope is very slippery since the exact same arguments are used to justify both. Polygamy became illegal because of the “ick” argument. It’s been to the U.S. supreme court at least 3(?) times now. It’s 1 court ruling away from being legal.

    I reread #42. You argue that banning SSM is discrimination. However, your same argument can be used for polygamy to say denying polygamists violates equal protection.

    The constitution does not provde a “right to marry”.
    Nor does it (particularly the 14th amendment) describe special “protected classification” such that discriminating against SSM is any different than discriminating against polygamy.

    Mike (1f02e6)

  110. Comment by Patterico:

    [Dana: you and Paul have both seized on a quick comment in which I was using shorthand for a more detailed argument. Of course not any marriage promotes stability. My comment was shorthand for the proposition that homosexual marriage quite arguably promotes stability just as much as heterosexual marriage does. — P]

    The degree of stability I think that is being hypothesized is the stability in a relationship between two individuals, not in society at large. For example, a crime organization mat be stable within the gang, but is a distabilizing influence on society. One form of stability does not necessarily lead to the other.

    Dualsihood(TM) uncouples the stability problem.

    biwah says:

    This issue keeps popping up, and Paul says he might do a 180 on the issue if only he could be assured that gays were not choosing their orientation

    That wasn’t me. I claim that there is no characteristic genetic factor that is not a mutation. Free will allows us to bend our desires to whatever we might. This is consistent with observation.

    biwah further states:

    But as long as we’re talking about anteing up some evidence, where’s that evidence that SSM harms heterosexual marriages? It’s the core policy argument, and I’m not seeing anything more than speculation.

    Neatherlands. Please see the NRO article. Of course, the burden of proof remains on the innovator. The best speculative “proof” is opinion expressed at the ballot box. While it is not proof, it is sufficient.

    Remember, sex and marriage are two seperate things except for the fact that adultery laws restrict sex in a married relationship. If sexual attraction is the only reason to dilute the franchise, it is an inadequate and irrelavant reason. It is even inconsistent with SCOTUS rulings.

    Paul Deignan (d2fd7b)

  111. “I think you understand that race and gender are different, and you’re dodging.”

    I do understand they’re different. But people used the same ‘equality’ argument for anti-miscegenation laws as with the ‘equality’ of how men and women are both equally restricted in who they marry.

    “I didn’t compare marriage to bathrooms, I compared race to gender. Try to keep up.”

    And you used the example of bathrooms segregated by gender. If you want to say that has nothing to do with gay marriage, fine by me.

    actus (c9e62e)

  112. Patterico said:

    Dana: you and Paul have both seized on a quick comment in which I was using shorthand for a more detailed argument. Of course not any marriage promotes stability. My comment was shorthand for the proposition that homosexual marriage quite arguably promotes stability just as much as heterosexual marriage does.

    An attorney, using shorthand? That seems . . . unusual.

    However, as you have expanded your shorthand, you have stated that

    (H)omosexual marriage quite arguably promotes stability just as much as heterosexual marriage does.

    How do you support this proposition? The stability promoted by traditional marriage must refer to the stability of society as much as the stability of the individual relationships; on what basis do you assert that conferring the societal preference of marriage on relationships that have been so far outside of traditional morés as to have been illegal for most of our history, and only tolerated even now (using the vote of the people last November as the basis for that statement) would be of a stabilizing benefit to society?

    The experience of other countries, in which marriage has been expanded (the Netherlands being the prime one) to include other relationships is that monogamous heterosexual marriage rates have drastically declined. The more probable result of allowing non-traditional relationships to be included in the definition of marriage would be increased instability in society.

    Dana R. Pico (a071ac)

  113. Glenn wrote (in comment #101):

    My point was (although I apparently failed to articulate it well) that Paterico’s definition of a failure to recognize homosexual marriage as discrimination rests on an unproven assumption.

    If homosexuality is simply a preference, it makes perfect sense for society to see it as aberant or undesirable and not worthy of sanction. Of course, we could also decide that it was unworthy of sanction even if it were genetic – i.e. we could decide it was an undesirable genetic trait, but that would be pretty hard to defend given existing law.

    But from the standpoint of comparing homosexual marriage as a condition that aught to be protected in law, it would seem to require a genetic mandate to elevate it to the level of sex or race as being worthy of protection against discrimination.

    It seems to me that the word “discrimination” is being bandied about without a clear understanding of its meaning. Discrimination, in this argument, means most properly:

    (T)he process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently.

    Even when it comes to race, racial discrimination absent the due process of law being unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment is constitutional and allowable under certain circumstances; Affirmative Action is obviously the most well known. We discriminate (take decisions) based on race for a perceived societal good.

    It doesn’t matter whether sexual orientation is geneticaly determined or not; even so obvious a thing as race being genetically determined does not mean that we cannot take some decisions, for the good of society, based upon race.

    Sexual orientation does not have the luxury of having a constitutional mandate behind its protection. We may determine, and have determined, that in some cases (service in the military being one example) that taking a societal decision based upon sexual orientation is legitimate and constitutional.

    Right now, it has been the democratic decision of society that our society is better served by restricting marriage to one man and one woman; that decision is constitutional, and it is reasonable.

    Dana R. Pico (a071ac)

  114. Glenn #101 + others -We need to be careful about making a large distinction between “preference” vs. “genetics” (eg, “Is being gay a choice?”)

    As an atheist, you can conclude that everything is genetic.

    For eg, people may have a genetic / chemical tendency to get extremely angry and violent. Just because it’s genetic / natural doesn’t mean it’s ok.
    Same thing for fidelity – people certainly don’t have a genetic predisposition to sleep with just their spouse.
    You can come up with many more examples.

    Mike S. (1f02e6)

  115. biwah,

    Obviously, where we zero in on the sexual activity, there is choice there. But that’s not what people have been addressing, nor should it be.

    No, the opposite it true. The behavior is exactly what we should be focusing on. Marriage, the union of a man and a woman, is a behavior, not an “orientation.”

    What this reveals is tension over whether to punish or forgive people for being gay. That is question you should be asking yourself in private, and let gay people live as they want to live, such living including the basic option of marriage.

    But gay people can live as they wish right now. Again, no one is talking here about banning gay relationships. The issue under discussion is whether the government should officially recognize those relationships and call them identical to marriage, the union between a man and a woman.

    But as long as we’re talking about anteing up some evidence, where’s that evidence that SSM harms heterosexual marriages? It’s the core policy argument, and I’m not seeing anything more than speculation.

    The burden of proof is on you to prove it will not do harm. The call for such a radical change requires a high level of proof.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (98fff8)

  116. Mike,

    Actually, there is not enough information stored in the human genome to even dictate the synapsis of the brain (trillions are one estimate for newborns). Compare that to the number of genes (around 30,000).

    Even if a very small percentage of synapsis were directed by genetics (the rest statistically uniformly connected) and allowing a large percentage of genes to be dedicated to the human brain development, I think we can agree that it is extremely unlikely that genetics are determinate. And that presupposes that all our behaviors are a function of the mind.

    So while this question is unresolved, it seems too much to support adopting such a bold statement as you have made as a default assumption.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  117. “I do understand they’re different. But people used the same ‘equality’ argument for anti-miscegenation laws as with the ‘equality’ of how men and women are both equally restricted in who they marry.”

    So what? Because some people used a wrong argument in the past has no bearing on the present argument. Since you’ve now acknowledged that race and gender are not the same, the arguments are not the same, even if similar on the surface. Race has nothing to do with the institution of marriage, but sex is central to the institution.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (98fff8)

  118. “So what”

    so what is the point i’ve been making. Focusing on the wrong ‘equality’ gives us the wrong result. did then, and does today.

    “Race has nothing to do with the institution of marriage, but sex is central to the institution.”

    I know. And the argument is that you’re focusing on the wrong equality. You’re made worse by your point about centrality. Not better.

    actus (c9e62e)

  119. Paul (#116):
    This is a secular thread, and so the premise is that a human being is just a giant chemical reaction refined by Darwininian processes over many generations. (Not very glamorous, but it goes with the athiest turf)
    Any premise beyond that means we’re crossing into some theist realm.

    Note that the relationship between genes and synapsis does not have to be 1:1 since a single gene may affect many synapsis.

    Thus I’m just saying it’s very dangerous to have an argument rely on assumptions about what we think is genetic or natural.

    That’s because as a giant chemical reaction, you should just expect that supporters of behavior XYZ can show that behavior can be attributed to some gene. pro-XYZ group may need to commission the researchers themselves, but they will produce the research.

    Mike S. (1f02e6)

  120. Mike,

    All people are religous. Some participate in an organized religion and some go about life wondering what the heck is going on with this place, and BTW who an I?

    The fact that you post on a blog is enough indication of indeterminacy for me to take your question seriously, not as a bit of chad spun out by an AI on autopilot. So I cannot accept your premise as logical. Errrr, errrrorr, does not compute, beep, beep, (head spining, sparks geflying).

    Does that mean that we need to approach this from a theist perspective? No. How does any of this presuppose a singular Creator?

    In any case, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the data processing inequality still apply here. I was just noting that it is unlikely for things to be as simple as you suppose, nothing more.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  121. An attorney, using shorthand? That seems . . . unusual.

    Dana, the “. . .” sounds like you’re implying I wasn’t being honest, which I assume you didn’t really mean — but that’s how it comes across. I didn’t feel like repeating my points to Paul, so I summarized them quickly. Given the proclivity of people here to seize upon my statements, I probably should have just said: “Sure it is. Read the post.”

    How do you support this proposition? The stability promoted by traditional marriage must refer to the stability of society as much as the stability of the individual relationships; on what basis do you assert that conferring the societal preference of marriage on relationships that have been so far outside of traditional morés as to have been illegal for most of our history, and only tolerated even now (using the vote of the people last November as the basis for that statement) would be of a stabilizing benefit to society?

    It’s an opinion; I’ll freely admit that. I haven’t studied the issue. My support for gay marriage doesn’t depend on my having researched its effect on society. It’s a (to me) common-sense argument that 1) denial of same-sex marriage is discriminatory and 2) I can’t see how it supposedly would cheapen marriage — certainly any more than it’s already been cheapened by quickie divorces.

    The experience of other countries, in which marriage has been expanded (the Netherlands being the prime one) to include other relationships is that monogamous heterosexual marriage rates have drastically declined.

    Interesting. More so than in other countries?

    If you have links for any of this, I’d love to look at them.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  122. Here is the source that I cited: NRO Article

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  123. And the conclusion of the linked artice:

    Of course, social-science evidence is seldom definitive. We can and should call for more research, and I hope other family scholars take up the question in a serious way. But at a minimum, we ought to be able to achieve a consensus on what has not happened in the Netherlands: There is no evidence to support the Rauch-Sullivan hypothesis — namely, that gay marriage will help strengthen marriage as a social institution.

    Again, this would be a nice application of information-theoretic measures. Note that he talks of linear indeterminacy (correlations).

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  124. Patterico writes:

    An attorney, using shorthand? That seems . . . unusual.

    Dana, the “. . .” sounds like you’re implying I wasn’t being honest, which I assume you didn’t really mean — but that’s how it comes across. I didn’t feel like repeating my points to Paul, so I summarized them quickly. Given the proclivity of people here to seize upon my statements, I probably should have just said: “Sure it is. Read the post.”

    No, it wasn’t an accusation of dishonesty. It was more along the lines of a joke, given that attorneys are usually very careful with their words.

    Dana R. Pico (a9eb8b)

  125. Patterico writes (#121):

    How do you support this proposition? The stability promoted by traditional marriage must refer to the stability of society as much as the stability of the individual relationships; on what basis do you assert that conferring the societal preference of marriage on relationships that have been so far outside of traditional morés as to have been illegal for most of our history, and only tolerated even now (using the vote of the people last November as the basis for that statement) would be of a stabilizing benefit to society?

    It’s an opinion; I’ll freely admit that. I haven’t studied the issue. My support for gay marriage doesn’t depend on my having researched its effect on society. It’s a (to me) common-sense argument that 1) denial of same-sex marriage is discriminatory and 2) I can’t see how it supposedly would cheapen marriage — certainly any more than it’s already been cheapened by quickie divorces.

    I’ll certainly agree that quickie divorces, or easy divorces, or pretty much any divorces, cheapen marriage.

    But the more important part of what you wrote is that it is your opinion, as what I have said is mine. Our democratic society has expressed its opinion as well, and it isn’t supportive of same sex “marriage.”

    Dana R. Pico (a9eb8b)

  126. From that NRO article:

    Since 1989, however, that upward trend has turned into a downward slope, from more than 95,000 new marriages in the peak year 1990 to just over 82,000 — including 1500 gay marriages — in 2003. This equals a decline in the marriage rate per 1,000 people from 6.4 at its peak in 1990 (out of a population of under 15 million) to just 5.1 in 2003. . . . maybe it’s just a coincidence that the birth of the gay-marriage movement in the Netherlands coincided with the start of the decline of the institution of marriage. Maybe — but it would be an awfully big coincidence.

    Ah, correlation without controls — is there anything more impressive than that? Long-time readers of this site know how wowed I am by such correlations.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  127. Our democratic society has expressed its opinion as well, and it isn’t supportive of same sex “marriage.”

    I’m not disputing that. You understand, I’m sure, that I don’t want gay marriage imposed by the courts. I just want to persuade people to vote in favor of it.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  128. actus,

    You’re made worse by your point about centrality. Not better.

    That makes no sense whatsoever. It should be obvious that something central to the institution (sex) should be given more consideration than something irrelevant to the institution (race). So the argument “Because we shouldn’t discriminate based on race, therefore we shouldn’t discriminate based on sex” is pure hogwash.

    Additionally, your argument, “If an argument is wrong in context A, then a similar argument is also wrong in context B” is boundless:

    “We shouldn’t let siblings marry” – “That’s exactly what people said about anti-miscegenation laws.”

    “We shouldn’t let a guy marry his dog” – “That’s exactly what people said about anti-miscegenation laws.”

    “We shouldn’t let a guy marry a 5-year-old child” – “That’s exactly what people said about anti-miscegenation laws.”

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (e2eb5e)

  129. “So the argument “Because we shouldn’t discriminate based on race, therefore we shouldn’t discriminate based on sex” is pure hogwash.”

    That’s not the argument i’m making. The argument I’m making is you’re focusing on the wrong equality. Saying that the sexes are equal because each can’t marry the same sex focuses on the wrong equality like saying that the races are equal because they can’t marry other races.

    The centrality of sex to relationships, gay and straight, makes your focus on the wrong equality worst.

    I don’t know how one focuses on the wrong equality in the examples you gave.

    actus (c9e62e)

  130. We’re really coming at this issue from two totally different underlying perspectives, and thus talking past each other.

    One side thinks marriage is important, even sacred – a fundamental institution at the foundation of our society. The other side thinks it’s “two people who are sexually attracted to each other.” So they’ve already devalued marriage to such an extent, to devalue it some more is not a big deal.

    But this leads to some more questions for the latter group:

    Why does anyone need the imprimatur of the state just because they’re sexually attracted to someone else? Again, no one here is talking about denying two men or two women the right to live their lives together, we’re discussing public affirmation here, not private conduct.

    Why is the number “two” more important than gender in a relationship? Why is the number sacred, but the traditional definition of marriage is unimportant?

    What if I, a virile 40-something, am sexually attracted to a 16-year-old girl? Would Patterico deny me a marriage license? I’d submit that the number “18” is entirely arbitrary. The difference between a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old is miniscule, the difference between an 18-year-old girl and an 18-year-old boy is gigantic.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (e2eb5e)

  131. Incidentally, NRO’s Stanley Kurtz wrote a series of articles about gay marriage in Scandinavia that basically support that article about the Dutch.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (e2eb5e)

  132. What if I, a virile 40-something, am sexually attracted to a 16-year-old girl? Would Patterico deny me a marriage license?

    I would. But there are states that would not — even if the girl is only 15 — if the parents consent.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  133. Btw, the reason I used the phrase “sexually attracted” in this sentence:

    The long and short of it is that I don’t see a valid reason to deny homosexuals the right to marry people to whom they are sexually attracted.

    is because I was looking to avoid the response about how gays are welcome to marry people of the opposite sex. To me, that argument is indeed reminiscent of the justification for the anti-miscegenation laws. (Or like saying: my refusal to hire anyone who might become pregnant is not discrimination against women. It’s discrimination against a behavior.)

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  134. Where I come from, if’n she ain’t married by sixteen, she’s doomed to spinsterhood.

    And do you have any idea how difficult it is to pay full attention to this debate while the Raiders are playing the Eagles?

    Dana R. Pico (a9eb8b)

  135. The long and short of it is that I don’t see a valid reason to deny homosexuals the right to marry people to whom they are sexually attracted.

    Marriage is not a state right. It is a state recognized institution for the good of the state.

    If one claims it as a right, then they should show how it is a right. Otherwise, lets not confuse the issue. The answer to the question, “Is state recognition of marriage an intrinsic right?” is binary.

    Often “rights” are invented in particular situations to justify wants and desires (shorthand for “opinion”) which are best expressed at the ballot box.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  136. I’m going to follow up my last comment by another observation.

    Some may claim that a state institution should be applied equally to citizens irregardless of condition of birth. Fine. That line of reasoning goes only so far however. If the purpose of the institution/policy is dependent on intrinsic personal properties or conditions of birth, then we ought to simply ask whether the purpose of the policy is legitimate and go from there.

    “Is there an overriding state need to create an institution that will have the peripheral effect of conflicting with another state value?” Marriage has such a claimed purpose, supported by years of social research and eons of human experience.

    What is not legitimate is for the state to create an institution for the satisfaction of sexual desires. Within parameters, such lusty things are whithin the realm of privacy of the individuals.

    The state can punish us for straying outside a contract that we agreed with the state to honor, it cannot however, force us to drop trousers and do the wild jigity bing bang, oh baby oh baby.

    That would be prostitution, which is naughty.

    P.S. What were we all just taking about? Football? Yeah, go Raiders. Honey, ………

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  137. “One side thinks marriage is important, even sacred – a fundamental institution at the foundation of our society. The other side thinks it’s “two people who are sexually attracted to each other.””

    None of my gay friends who want to get married think marriage is just “two people who are sexually attracted.”

    actus (c9e62e)

  138. Actus #138 –
    I agree with you. If it was just about sex, we wouldn’t need marriage. In my experience, the primary motivation for people wanting gay-marriage is:
    1) benefits (tax, health, etc)
    2) force society to recognize their gay relationship as “equal” to traditional marriage relationships.

    Mike S. (1f02e6)

  139. Paul #120
    I recognize that the theism/atheism stuff will launch us into a wild tangent. I’d be happy to followup with that on a different thread (my blog or yours 🙂 ).

    Re this topic, I’m just saying it’s very dangerous to have an argument rely on assumptions about what we think is genetic or natural.
    Your opposition will produce evidence that such behavior is indeed genetic, even if they need to fund the research themselves.

    Mike S. (1f02e6)

  140. Paul said:

    P.S. What were we all just taking about? Football? Yeah, go Raiders. Honey, ………

    Unfortunately, the Raiders beat themselves once again.

    Dana R. Pico (a071ac)

  141. To me, that argument is indeed reminiscent of the justification for the anti-miscegenation laws.

    That Apples-oranges argument has already been dealt with several times. Actually, it’s not even Apples-Oranges, it’s more like Apples-Bricks (or some other object totally unlike an apple)

    (Or like saying: my refusal to hire anyone who might become pregnant is not discrimination against women. It’s discrimination against a behavior.)

    Actually, a more apt analogy would be that lawsuit a few years ago where some men sued Hooters, because the restaurant chain only hired women as servers. I’ve never been to a Hooters, but I understand female waitresses are an integral part of the business model. 🙂

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (e28d5e)

  142. Mike,

    Unfortunately your link to your site doesn’t work.

    It is an excellent question, and a great suggestion.

    Tell you what, make a post for “what is religion” and we can cross link. Let’s take until Friday to gather our thoughts and write that post.

    OK?

    Paul Deignan (d2fd7b)

  143. Oh, any I’d really like to hear why xrlq thinks that marriage-lite cohabitation agreements ought to be recognized by the state and given any of the benefits of marriage? Isn’t doing THAT an attack on the institution of marriage as much as quickie divorce?

    Not at all. It’s the difference between crashing my party, on the one hand, and throwing a party of your own, on the other. Both accomplish the same thing for you, but only one of them impacts me.

    How is it an attack on an institution when people DEMAND to be included in it, and refuse all substitutes?

    Your question is almost self-answering. When people who don’t fit with the rules of an institution insist that the institution redefine itself to accommodate them, how on earth can this not be seen as an attack on the institution? That some would refuse functionally equivalent substitutes makes it even clearer that their true intent is not to accomplish anything constructive for themselves, but simply to ruin things for the rest of us. How do you view illegal aliens, as intruders or as would-be patriots who love our country so much they DEMAND to be included in it, and refuse all substitutes?

    Xrlq (a375a9)

  144. “When people who don’t fit with the rules of an institution insist that the institution redefine itself to accommodate them, how on earth can this not be seen as an attack on the institution?”

    I don’t see anyone seeking to redefine your marriage, so I don’t see what is attacking that.

    Then again, maybe some people should be institutionalized.

    actus (5b2f21)

  145. Diversity actus, diversity.

    Children need a father and a mother. You needed a mother and father.

    Children are highly impressionable–always learning always testing. Once those impressions are formed, its nearly impossible to rewire their heads.

    Marriage between a woman and a man is generically the most stabilizing and beneficial environment for children. Studies show that over and over.

    This is the only, in my mind, legitimate societal reason for the institution in a secular democracy. Avoid this issue and you are not talking about marriage, you are talking about Dualsihood(TM).

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  146. “Marriage between a woman and a man is generically the most stabilizing and beneficial environment for children. Studies show that over and over.”

    I don’t see why this is an argument against gay marriage. Its not like people are choosing which kind of marriage to engage in.

    actus (ebc508)

  147. The government cannot directly create inequality by design minus a paramount state interest. If it were to say that marriage is multimodal (various sorts of pairings), then children raised in one segment of the government sponsored institution would be at a systemic disadvantage to others. What is the paramount state interest? There is none since the recognition of marriage has as its primary purpose the nurturing of new generation of citizens so that the society can perpetuate itself.

    This is like the seperate by equal hypocrisy that we fought against in the 50’s.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  148. “I don’t see anyone seeking to redefine your marriage”

    They’re seeking to redefine the institution.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (17fd00)

  149. Patterico:

    Well, not to nitpick, but since you are . . . in your column you declared reason number one to ban gay marriage to be: “Marriage, the Great Civilizer,” and said: “Women civilize men… and they do it primarily through marriage, though of course motherhood also plays a role.”

    So I can’t agree that I misread you or misunderstood you. You are the one who said marriage civilizes men.

    I don’t understand why this seems to be so difficult for you.

    Here is the complete paragraph from which you quoted:

    But if civilization is not natural for men, how do we get that way? Of course, you’re way ahead of me: women take male barbarians and turn them into civilized human beings. Women civilize men… and they do it primarily through marriage, though of course motherhood also plays a role.

    And from this, you conclude that Dafydd ab Hugh is saying that it’s the marriage part, not the female part, that does the civilizing? Great leaping horny toads, Patterico; my paragraph is as clear a diamond of the first water: it is the women who do the civilizing; and the method that the women use is primarily marriage.

    For Pete’s sake, why is this such a stumbling block for you? You may disagree, but I demand that you at least understand my point! I’m not writing in Aramaic.

    Then there is this:

    That argument assumes that gay men are essentially the same as straight men. Based on my empirical observations, I don’t think they are. They generally don’t need “civilizing” in the same way as straight men. They are already (generally) less aggressive, and possess fewer of the offensive masculine traits that require a woman’s civilizing influence.

    You know, if I wrote something like that, all the liberals in this thread would accuse me of being a homophobe who thought all gays were limp-wristed pansies. For goodness’s sake, Patterico, haven’t you been in a leather bar? Or even at a meeting of GLAAD or somesuch group?

    I assure you that gay men fall along the same bell curve of aggression as straight men: they are not better or kinder or nicer or more law-abiding than straights merely by virtue of being homosexual. And those who live in the gay community are distinctly more promiscuous, more interested in anonymous sex, more prone to use drugs, and more interested in adolescents than straights — but none of those is genetic; they are all cultural, and straight men who live in the gay community doubtless fall into that same statistical spread.

    (Note that “live in the gay community” means more than simply living in West Hollywood. It means actually seeing themselves as a part of that community, one of the tribe, so to speak.)

    Here’s an odd one:

    Where the “civilizing” does help, I think, is in making them less promiscuous. Does marriage make a huge difference — more than simply having a committed relationship? Probably, to some degree — just like it probably does with straights, to some degree (and indeed you claim there are studies to that effect for straights).

    I don’t think I need studies for that proposition, just logic and common sense. You have assumed the burden of proof (or so you claim), Mr. “mensch” — remember? — so the burden is on you to provide studies that disprove that common-sense proposition. Or, you should admit that you’re not really shouldering the burden that you said you would shoulder. [Emphasis added]

    First of all, “common sense” is what tells us that the world is flat. It is precisely because of the limitations of “common sense” that we use studies when we really want to understand a phenomenon.

    Second, your memory of what I wrote serves you ill, here; you should have reread. Here is what I wrote, with emphasis of the part you forgot:

    But I’ll assume the burden of proof myself, to a partial extent; I will at least show why it’s highly unlikely to be true.

    I never said that the burden was entirely on me to prove that your proposed radical change will cause harm; I said that I will accept it merely to the point of at least doing some research (since you have done absolutely none at all) and show you some things you would have to address.

    You have picked up a bad habit from your libertarian and liberal friends, Pat; you assume that the burden of proof in any discussion is always on the other guy, and that you never have to spend even an hour in the library or even Googling.

    You certainly wouldn’t expect the defense counsel to find your points and authorities for you. Why do you expect me to do your research for you?

    I posted some; you need to refute what I posted. And that means you have to spend the time to come up with studies on your own that buttress your point of view.

    No, the question you were trying to answer is whether homosexuals are more promiscuous than straights, and you did it by comparing married straights to gays who are not necessarily even in committed relationships. You do not respond to this criticism anywhere in your comment, yet it is the central criticism I had of your post. It is that comparison which I find nonsensical and illogical.

    It is that comparision where you misread most egregiously.

    Here is one of the studies I cited:

    Alan P. Bell and Martin S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A study of Diversity Among Men and Women, p. 308, Table 7, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978: 75% of gay, white males admitted that they had had sex with more than one hundred separate males in their lifetimes; 28% claimed more than a thousand.

    The study here looked at “gay, white males.” So let’s consider straight, white males. Do you honestly believe that 75% of straight, white males would claim that they have had sex with “more than one hundred” separate women in their lives? Do you believe that a quarter of straight, white males would claim to have had sex with more than a thousand women?

    I didn’t bother pulling those numbers, but I have looked at them before, and they are nowhere near that high for heterosexual men. You have several choices:

    1) You can argue that I’m wrong, and that straights would give the same figures. You are obliged to do that research, in that case, and post the study which finds that.

    2) You can argue that the numbers are so different because the gays are just making it up. Well in that case, why would they be so much more prone to exaggerate their sexual adventurism? Would that not itself be evidence of a more promiscuous society?

    3) You can give up and admit that the studies conducted over literally decades, all of which find gay men to be greatly more promiscuous than straight men and lesbians to be moderately more promiscuous than straight women are correct, and find some other line in the sand to defend.

    You have no other choices that I can think of (besides “pounding on the table,” as the old legal maxim goes); but if you can think of another, let me know.

    No. Something that I believe is a logical and common-sense proposition does not automatically become a “myth” simply because I don’t have studies at hand to back it up. It’s simply an unproven assertion — call it a theory, an opinion, whatever — that makes sense to me. To call it a “myth,” you must disprove it, which you have not done.

    Fair enough. I used “myth” for literary purposes, and I’m willing to agree that this is an unproven assumption of yours — that gays are not, in fact, more promiscuous. But it’s an “unproven assumption” that flies in the face of decades of careful research… which you would realize if you would actually get out there, as I have, and research these studies.

    I have written research papers on this issue. I have spent literally days and days in libraries reading countless studies. This has been an interest of mine since the 1980s — at which time I was a supporter of same-sex marriage, by the way, despite these facts that were as well founded then as they are today.

    I have debated this issue literally scores of times, going all the way back to before the internet even existed as anything outside of a way for academicians to share database files.

    So it’s rather like me insisting over and over that you can call the defendant’s wife over his objections to testify against him — and then me refusing to cite a single case that held you could do that. And then me rejecting out of hand (and without reading) all the cases you cite to show you can’t! And then insisting that you admit that my claim that you can put the lady in the witness chair over the screaming objections of the defendant is just my “opinion” or my “unproven assumption,” rather than a flat error of law.

    No; that would be a flat error of law. And it is simply wrong to believe that there are legitimate studies out there that show homosexual sexual behavior patterns are the same as heterosexual patterns. Even gay-rights groups do not claim any such studies exist; when they need to make that argument (for political purposes), they do just what you’re doing: they resort to “unproven assumptions.”

    I don’t dispute that, but I don’t see that you’ve shown what that has to do with the promiscuity of bisexuals — for the reasons I stated. Your arguments about bisexuals assume that the same individual, attracted to both women and men, will have sex with untold numbers of men if allowed to live a homosexual lifestyle, but will lead a much less promiscuous lifestyle if forced by social pressures to lead a heterosexual lifestyle. Social norms do indeed have an effect on behaviors, but I can’t see why someone attracted to genders a and b will have less sex with gender a if society says they can’t do it with gender b. They’ll just have more with gender a.

    My assumption is that gays living within the gay community have more sex not because they’re genetically predisposed to do so, but rather because they live in a culture that encourages them to do so.

    I further assume that straights in the straight community are less promiscuous not because of their DNA or hormones released during their prenatal existence, but rather because they live in a culture that discourages promiscuity.

    Bisexuals, by definition, can swing either way. They can also live in either community — as can a heterosexual or a homosexual. However, it should be clear that homosexuals are more likely to be found in the gay community than heterosexuals.

    Thus, bisexuals who are living as heterosexuals will be more likely to live in the straight community; while bisexuals living as homosexuals will be more likely to live in the gay community.

    This doesn’t mean that every person will; it means that out of a statistically large number — which means anything over 1500 or so total — you will find more gay-living bisexuals in the gay community than in the straight community, and the obvious converse.

    Therefore, IF you have more bisexuals choosing to go gay, THEN you will have more people living in the gay community; IF you have more bisexuals choosing to go straight, THEN you will have fewer people living in the gay community.

    So as I already suggested, Pat, your only real hope is to argue that bisexuals who choose to live gay lifestyles within the gay community are more or less immune to the promiscuous blandishments of that community… that they don’t become more promiscuous (as gays do) but rather steadfastly maintain a non-promiscuous austerity.

    And for this, too, my friend, you need to find some evidence. You cannot climb atop a veritable Mount Everest of “unproven assumptions” and imagine you have made any sort of case at all.

    Research, Pat, Research; if you’re interested in pursuing this — and that goes for all of you reading this thread — get yourself down to a good research library (UCLA has one, as does USC, I’m sure) and start finding studies that support your point of view. If you can.

    Oh, your last point:

    Re your claims about cigarette smoking: unless you’re finally admitting that you can’t shoulder the burden of proof, then in the absence of any rational empirical evidence for gay marriage threatening traditional marriage, you must present some sort of statistical evidence that shows a threat. And that, I believe, you have utterly failed to do.

    Pat, I haven’t failed to do it; I never claimed to have even tried yet! I have not yet essayed that argument, that legalizing same-sex marriage damages the institution of marriage.

    When I do — and I will eventually — then and only then will I “present some sort of… evidence,” though I do not guarantee at this point it will be statistical; it could take many forms.

    Until then, I do not yet make the claim that same-sex “marriage” threatens the institution of marriage. Once I do, I’ll present evidence and we can discuss it, if you like.

    The only point I was refuting was the silly non-argument that one must be able to point to a specific marriage and say “that marriage was harmed by Bob and Frank getting married in Canada last weekend” in order to argue that the existence of legal same-sex marriage threatens the institution of marriage.

    That is illogical — and I gave you a good example showing that you cannot always demand or find a specific case that mirrors the general damage.

    My training is in mathematics, and I view Lady Logic as a rigorous and unforgiving mistress… but she is mine nonetheless. Fortunately, Sachi understands — and in fact, she makes it a threesome.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  150. “They’re seeking to redefine the institution.”

    Or make a new one. But it should only be a problem for the institutionalized.

    actus (ebc508)

  151. Patterico:

    This paragraph of yours deserves especial attention:

    It’s an opinion; I’ll freely admit that. I haven’t studied the issue. My support for gay marriage doesn’t depend on my having researched its effect on society. It’s a (to me) common-sense argument that 1) denial of same-sex marriage is discriminatory and 2) I can’t see how it supposedly would cheapen marriage — certainly any more than it’s already been cheapened by quickie divorces.

    You argue as if your lack of research frees you from the responsibility to see what facts are actually already established by well-conducted scientific studies. Surely you cannot mean that!

    You also introduce a straw man: has any person here who opposes SSM argued that “quickie divorces” are not also damaging to society?

    And what is the logic of this side excursion? Is it your contention that the damage to society caused by 3-day “Hollywood” marriages would be cured, if only we would allow same-sex couples to legally marry? Is this one of your “common-sense arguments?”

    This illustrates the danger of using what you call “common-sense,” but which in fact is nothing more than your prejudice in favor of SSMs: since you favor them, therefore you see nothing wrong with them.

    I began by favoring them, but I the more evidence I studied, the more uncomfortable I became with my positition. At some point (a fuzzy point; it wasn’t a road-to-Damascus moment, it was gradual) I realized I simply had to choose between supporting same-sex marriage… or believing all the studies that have been conducted. I could not logically do both.

    This is precisely why science, even social science, proceeds by methods other than “common-sense.”

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  152. I googled and found a Swedish study that has shown, through brain imaging, that homosexual men process pheromones the way females do. In the same Google I found a Boston globe article that describes two twins, one who behaves like a destined to be straight boy, and one who exhibits the behavior that, in seventy-five percent of boys, indicates a homosexual destiny.

    The evidence indicates that homosexuality is fixed in utero, is congenital, and is physiological, not a psychological imposition. Homosexuals process male sweat the way a female would. That, if it is the reality, pretty much seals the deal; homosexual men have different sexual imperatives.

    None of the above, however, tells us that homosexual marriage should be equated with traditional marriage. I have tried to find something beyond a quest for status, and benefits, in the homosexual marriage movement, but I can’t. The movement is a reach for unearned benefits and status. Homosexuals are just like the rest of us except that they are not heterosexual. Marriage means heterosexual.

    RJN (c3a4a3)

  153. Dafydd,

    I don’t have time to go into this in depth now, but let’s stick to the central point — the one that you claim I “misread most egregiously” (though, actually, I do not).

    I did not deny that gays are more promiscuous than straights, though you haven’t supplied data to prove it; I believe that’s something I have heard before and I believe it to be true as a general matter. But that’s not the proposition you purported to be proving.

    What you purported to be proving, or so I thought, was that it is a “myth” that same-sex marriage is as civilizing as opposite-sex marriage. Your data shows absolutely nothing on that point, and that is your central failing.

    Patterico (72c4a1)

  154. Dafydd,

    If there was no heterosexual marriage, wouldn’t heterosexual men be more promiscuous? I know “a few” who would.

    Is monogamy not the primary feature of marriage?

    Is the civilizing influence of marriage not its greatest “selling point”?

    Citing a 1975 study is not quite as analogous to citing a statute in a courtroom as you seem to be arguing, esp. with no details. Ask for us to give that study full credit is not much less brazen than Patterico’s invocation of common sense.

    That men and women are different is not a point you need to holler about too hard – it’s obvious. But what is not obvious are the changes that occur to your prototypical male character, in a long term gay relationship. You can pit two stereotypes – the chest-thumping thug and the limp-wristed fairy – against each other, but the reality is more diverse and more nuanced.

    RJN makes twin points – that homosexuality is immutable, and that gay men fit together at a physiological level, but concludes nonetheless with “Marriage means heterosexual.”

    I can respect that point of view more than your statistical patchwork leading nowhere.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  155. RJN,

    The brain adapts through life. You have not provided a link to the study.

    We know there are many politically motivated “studies”. I will wager that the ones you refer to are also suspect.

    Note that what you are claiming is a nongenetic abnormality that just happens to coincide with voluntary human behaviors. That should seem dubious to you.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  156. Is the civilizing influence of marriage not its greatest “selling point”?

    Yes, it is not its greatest selling point (who even brings up that claim these days outside of old Western films?)

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  157. RJN,

    I found your study–it was published recently.

    If anyone needs a copy, just e-mail me. I am going through it now.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  158. Paul,

    Please correct me then. Why get married? Many heterosexual couples are asking that question, and finding no satisfactory answer. Some of them (and their kids) are even turning out alright.

    Also, your consistent stance that homosexuality is not, cannot be normal, or normalized, is either limited to semantics, or is disproven by reality. For gay men, being gay is the norm. Is it a “transient mutation”, an opportunistic recessive gene? That is this, eugenics 101? Look at the reality “on the ground” – it is immutable to the individual.

    Can something be a directly derived from nature, yet unnatural?

    Reading your posts (MD in Philly has interesting points at 108c as well), the question occurs to me: is there some level of personal trait that is more superficial than genetics, yet more immutable than conscious choice? Earlier you argued that the choice of who to love in a way that would naturally support a marriage might not be wholly voluntary, but it was not genetic either.
    Earlier you said:

    Free will allows us to bend our desires to whatever we might. This is consistent with observation.

    First of all, whose observation? Not mine. I find that statement ludicrous. You can certainly act contrary to desire, back off from desire (i.e. meditative detachment), but create “bend our desires”, e.g. create new ones? That puts you with the folks who are attempting to reprogram gay teens in the heartland. They’re failing, by the way.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  159. biwah,

    As you say, some kids seem to be turning out alright–not as many as those proportionately from married couples. So, if you want the best chance of raising children that turn out OK, then you get married.

    “Reality on the ground”? Genes are what we think they are? What sort of mumbo jumbo is that?

    If there was a gene that killed by age 5 invariably, that gene would only occur randomly as a mutation. Same thing with the “homosexual gene”. This is rather obvious isn’t it?

    RJN,

    I’ve taken a first look at the paper. They used only 12 individuals in each group and there was little information about how the 12 were chosen. As a result, the statistical findings of the study were extremely weak.

    Secondly, they rightly do not claim that sexual orientation (or pheromone response) is not a learned behavior. Also, they only speculate about orientation and pheromone response pathways. There is some work to be done here as well (although it seems to be a stronger link in the chain of reasoning than others).

    I wouldn’t dismiss the study out of hand, it should be followed up on by a national lab using a very large sample size. I would be interested in anyone’s comments on this study.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  160. Genes are what we think they are?

    uh, strawman…

    biwah (f5ca22)

  161. Then I don’t see at all what point you are making.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  162. For what its worth (since the situation is becoming confused), I am not confident that any “orientation” is a direct result of genetics. If anything, it seems to be strongly correlated, but much more complicated.

    It is not necessary for scientists to discover a “gay gene” for the idea that sexual orientation as a condition of birth to be accepted. Something in line with the study showing that some nongenetic condition, such as pheromone response being strongly determinative would be sufficient. That said, this does not demand that a policy be adopted to span the spectrum of physiologies.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  163. That homosexuality is a little too widespread among humans to be dismissed as a transient mutation. It must at least have a high degree of latency within the genes. Also, people clearly fall on different points within a spectrum of sexual preference, and intensity thereof. Thus, the binary orientation suggested by “gay gene” theories has further to go than you suggest.

    My reference to reality was to draw your attention out of the theoretical and recognize that sexual preferences are immutable. That discrimination can blithely be justified by some “everyone can bend their will if they really want to” paean is both factually wrong and subterfuge for cultural majoritarianism.

    Finally, married couples and their kids are better off? That’s like the stats that those who eat breakfast live longer. Those who have better circumstances and habits in lots of ways, probably tend to eat breakfast. That doesn’t mean breakfast is the key to longevity. Notice that the place where this statistic is most cited is on the side of a cereal box. Which invites an analogy…

    Many couples see marriage as a piece of paper, or slightly more, but neither necessary nor worth the hassle.

    Correlation is not causation.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  164. Paul,

    our comments crossed paths in the cyberether. i will try to respond later.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  165. our comments crossed paths in the cyberether. i will try to respond later.

    Fine. I will not read your last response as a reply to any specific post.

    I will wait for your next reply to #163.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  166. biwah,

    My reference to reality was to draw your attention out of the theoretical and recognize that sexual preferences are immutable.

    You haven’t even begun to demonstrate that sexual preferences are immutable.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (11b851)

  167. I believe there is a difference between genetic and congenital. A fetus develops as the DNA unfolds and does as it does in the environment of the uterus. We know about congenital defects, and their permanence. Now, I am not calling homosexuality a defect, but it is likely permanent in the brain organization; that portion of the brain is formed for good. Therapy would be as likely to change most homosexual men as it would be to effect the same change in a normal woman.

    Once again; in the example of identical twins, it is certain that they have the same DNA, but as the fetus develops things can impact the development of the fetal brain such that a different between identical twins can occur.

    Promiscuity could be greater in homosexual men because they are in fact men, with all of the warts. Permanent alliances between two men isn’t the same as between a man and a woman. With a man and a woman there is always the strong potential, on an actuarial basis, for children, and thus for dependency. Women need men for protection, and that is a strong binding force that works on both partners.

    I hope everything works out O.K.

    RJN (c3a4a3)

  168. The process of learning involves rewiring the brain. People can learn to tolerate pain for example and there are many cases of orientation reversals–either way. Alcoholism and other “isms” have recognizable traces in the brain (one is response to video games–those haven’t been around since the dawn of time).

    I would not treat orientation as a categorical variable. Minus more definitive research, I could not support creating a “right” based on orientation.

    Paul Deignan (d2fd7b)

  169. I do think there are such things as hard wired parts of the brain. These things do exist or we would not have such consistent behavior, across a spectrum of humans, toward food, fear, and learning. Alcoholics live normal lives by not drinking, and, as I understand it, are not constantly tempted to stray. But, it is the substance in alcoholism, that modifies brain chemistry, which is a different thing from hard wiring.

    From what I have seen on the tube and in the movies about gay clubs, and gay pride parades, I would say there seems to be a lot of sweat. Maybe now I know why.

    This has been an excellent discussion.

    RJN (ec3a15)

  170. Patterico:

    I don’t have time to go into this in depth now, but let’s stick to the central point — the one that you claim I “misread most egregiously” (though, actually, I do not).

    I did not deny that gays are more promiscuous than straights, though you haven’t supplied data to prove it; I believe that’s something I have heard before and I believe it to be true as a general matter. But that’s not the proposition you purported to be proving.

    What you purported to be proving, or so I thought, was that it is a “myth” that same-sex marriage is as civilizing as opposite-sex marriage. Your data shows absolutely nothing on that point, and that is your central failing.

    First, I most certainly did provide evidence for the proposition that gays, as a class, are more promiscuous than straights. Did I provide evidence in the sort of depth that one would expect in a paper submitted to a refereed journal of sexuality, sociology, or behavioral science? Of course not.

    But to state that I “haven’t supplied data” is rather breathtaking, considering that I am virtually the only person here to cite any studies at all! I even supplied sufficient citation that you can go look them up… has anyone else here, on either side, done as much? (I haven’t read each and every one of the 160-something comments here, so I could have missed something.)

    Second, let’s take your main point. You seem to be saying that what I called a “myth” is still in some sort of “maybe” state unless and until I supply a study that explicitly compares the drop in promiscuity between opposite-sex couples who are cohabiting and those that are married — with some putative drop in promiscuity between same-sex cohabiters and same-sex married couples, to see whether the latter drop is similar to the former.

    I am not going to do an exhaustive review of the literature; but take my word for it that in twenty years or so of following this issue, I have never ever ever seen any such study that comes to that conclusion. And believe me, if any such study had been published, the gay-rights organizations that I frequently turn to for lists of studies would be trumpeting it to the skies.

    So they pretty likely haven’t seen one, either.

    What would you need to show? In order to prove this myth is actually true — that the element of marriage that civilizes is the legal status itself, rather than the gender of the individuals involved — you would have to show that same-sex marriages drastically reduced the rate of promiscuity; and you have to show that it reduces it over and above any reduction introduced by being in a committed relationship but nevertheless not legally married.

    After all, the difference between the monamory rate of opposite sex couples cohabiting and married couples is 75% to 94%… a drop of the promiscuity rate from 25% to 6%, which constitutes a reduction by seventy-six percent, three quarters, of the rate of promiscuity, just by getting married instead of shacking up!

    So you would need a rather significant drop in promiscuity indeed among cohabitating gays who get married in order for that myth to even approach the status of truth.

    In fact, I have never even seen a study showing any significant diminishment in the rate of promiscuity among gays in cohabiting relationships versus those who claim simply to be dating the field. By contrast, there are many studies showing that heterosexuals cohabitating sleep around far less than those dating; I cited only one, but there are literally hundreds.

    Perhaps there is such a study for gays; I don’t insist that shacking up has no effect at all upon them. But for heaven’s sake, if you won’t even stir yourself to find evidence for that much, how can you imagine you’re going to find a 76% drop in the promiscuity rate between cohabitating gays and married gays?

    What I wrote was that I would show evidence “why it’s highly unlikely to be true.” The sheer rate of promiscuity of gays compared to straights alone makes it unlikely, as it very much increases the amount of drop you would need to see in order to be comparable. I delivered what I promised.

    In conclusion, then, considering the complete absence of evidence supporting the proposition “allowing same-sex couples to marry will extend the same civilizing effects of marriage to gays,” simply making the assertion as if it were a proven fact constitutes propagating a myth.

    Why? For the same reason that it would be a myth were I to say “outlawing all private gun ownership in the United States will cause violent crime to plummet.”

    As a general proposition, a factual assertion for which there is no evidence, and for which there is related (but not identical) contraindicatory evidence, is a myth.

    Of course, I deliberately choose the word “myth” to avoid the emotional baggage of the much more apropos word to use; I think you know which one I mean. In fact, I suspect that the people making the false claim actually believe it to be true… hence a myth, a sociological legend, if you prefer, rather than a you-know-what.

    Pat, it’s a myth. There is no evidence to support it and much evidence that makes it highly unlikely to be true. If it were true, it would have been found; if found, it would have been all over every newspaper in America, in banner headlines: Gay Marriage Found to Reduce Promiscuity! It would have been introduced into every case filed nationwide to cram same-sex marriage down our throats judicially.

    For heaven’s sake, Pat, have the courage to admit that SSM is extraordinarily unlikely to have any impact at all on gay-male sexuality. If you want to support it on grounds of fairness or non-discrimination, on individual liberty, or any of a number of other reasons, you don’t need to make or try to defend this claim.

    Even when I supported SSM, I never pretended that it would moderate the sexual behavior of gays in any significant way. Men and women are much more different than gay men and straight men; the civilizing effects of women are not mimicked by other men.

    You simply weaken your case by refusing to grab the bull by the tail and look the facts in the face.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  171. Biwah:

    If there was no heterosexual marriage, wouldn’t heterosexual men be more promiscuous? I know “a few” who would.

    The question is ambiguous. Do you mean if legal marriage were abolished tomorrow, or do you mean if it had never existed in the first place?

    If the latter, we would be talking about a society so radically different that speculation is impossible. If the former, it would depend upon how and why it were abolished: by a court action, with the people helpless victims? Or because the people themselves clamored for their state legislatures to abolish it — in which case, again, we would be dealing with an alien society so different from this one as to be, essentially, Martians.

    I don’t think this question is answerable. It’s like asking “if there were no secondary sexual characteristics, and women looked exactly like men, would they wear dresses?”

    RJN makes twin points – that homosexuality is immutable….

    He made no such point, unless you’re referring to a different comment than I think you are. He wrote:

    I googled and found a Swedish study that has shown, through brain imaging, that homosexual men process pheromones the way females do. In the same Google I found a Boston globe article that describes two twins, one who behaves like a destined to be straight boy, and one who exhibits the behavior that, in seventy-five percent of boys, indicates a homosexual destiny.

    Neither of these so much as discusses immutability. In fact, neither even shows that all homosexual behavior is determined prior to puberty: each implies that some homosexuality (and presumably heterosexuality) is determined prior to puberty, but not that there exists no class of people for whom sexuality is actually determined by a real choice.

    I personally know a woman who was heterosexual right up until she was in her late thirties; she very much enjoyed sex with men. Then she tried having sex with a woman, and she decided she enjoyed that more. For several years, she was a strict lesbian. But then she switched back again; last I saw her, she was cohabiting (in the romantic sense) with a man.

    So was she lying about what she said she liked? Was she tricking herself into being aroused in one or the other case? Or will you admit that there really are individuals who can be either gay or straight, depending on circumstances, and derive equivalent sexual pleasure from both? (Gore Vidal claims to be another.)

    I say the only question is what percent of the population falls into this category. My personal conclusion, drawn from sexuality studies over the past forty or so years, is that the percent is startlingly high: somewhere between 15% and 25% of sexually active adults probably could enjoy sex with either gender, social pressure aside.

    Think of the ancient Greeks: they were not “gay” as we use the term; the elites enjoyed sex with young boys primarily due to the extraordinary level of misogyny of that culture — they almost saw wives as literal chattel, like horses or cattle. Thus, they appear to have culturally talked themselves into homosexual ephibophilia!

    I believe sexuality is usually fixed before puberty… but I believe the primary fixative is not DNA or prenatal hormones or trauma but rather cultural imperatives that manifest from the toddler stage. That is, we, as a society, talk ourselves into being primarily straight and monamorous… and we could equally well talk ourselves, as a society, into being gay and/or polyamorous: consider the Arab Moslem society, where polygamy is just as normal as monogamy.

    Thus, I believe the social (proxy, the legal) definition of marriage has a drastic impact indeed on the sexual behavior of men and women in the society. This is why I oppose changing that definition.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  172. Dafydd,

    You say:

    First, I most certainly did provide evidence for the proposition that gays, as a class, are more promiscuous than straights. Did I provide evidence in the sort of depth that one would expect in a paper submitted to a refereed journal of sexuality, sociology, or behavioral science? Of course not.

    You provided evidence that gays, as a class, are more promiscuous than the least promiscuous subclass of straights (married or cohabiting straights). All the rhetorical tricks in the world still fail to obscure this simple fact.

    Having failed to provide studies that actually support your position, and having failed to convince me to ignore that fact, the rest of your comment essentially trumpets the alleged lack of evidence to support the opposite point of view:

    Pat, it’s a myth. There is no evidence to support it and much evidence that makes it highly unlikely to be true. If it were true, it would have been found; if found, it would have been all over every newspaper in America, in banner headlines: Gay Marriage Found to Reduce Promiscuity!

    Like this? Gay couples can be as stable as straights, evidence suggests

    (I’ll save you the trouble and give you the counterargument as well.)

    For heaven’s sake, Pat, have the courage to admit that SSM is extraordinarily unlikely to have any impact at all on gay-male sexuality. If you want to support it on grounds of fairness or non-discrimination, on individual liberty, or any of a number of other reasons, you don’t need to make or try to defend this claim.

    For heaven’s sake, just argue the facts and don’t use rhetorical tricks about having the “courage” to agree with you. I do indeed support gay marriage on grounds of non-discrimination, and I have never claimed to have scientific studies to back up what I am arguing. I have simply pointed out that you haven’t proved your case with anywhere near the thoroughness you claimed to. You purported to be providing studies that show that “gay men’s sexual behavior is not moderated by dating and shacking up” (a quote from your original post) — but, in fact, you provided nothing of the sort. All I have done is point out that failure.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  173. Patterico:

    I have simply pointed out that you haven’t proved your case with anywhere near the thoroughness you claimed to.

    “Thoroughness?” When did I claim to have presented a thorough case proving that SSM does not “civilize” gay men in the same way that trad marriage civilizes straight men? In fact, I have repeatedly and openly noted that I was sketching the argument by quoting from a small number of studies that are, in point of fact, well within the mainstream of sociological belief.

    It is still up to the proponents of change to make that argument, not up to me to “thoroughly” disprove it.

    You still seem to labor under the delusion that unless I post a peer-reviewed quality scientific paper of sociology here in your comments section, I have presented no evidence at all of the supposition above… and that the burden of proof is either naturally upon me to disprove the myth or that I assumed the complete burden of proof; you have no burden whatsoever… your position for radical change is the default and should be adopted unless defenders of the status quo provide closely supported proofs to the contrary.

    None of these is true. I pointed the way, going beyond what I needed to do, just to get you started. As I said, there are literally hundreds of studies carried out over decades since Kinsey and M&J; there is a scientific consensus on these questions — just as there is on, say, the effectiveness or non-effectiveness of various gun-control proposals. You seem blissfully unaware of this vast body of research; yet you want your gut-feeling to be accorded the same degree of respect as the conclusion of a man who has been studying this literature, off and on, since the early 1980s, though admittedly as a mathematician, not as a sociologist.

    All right; you have the right to that expectation….

    Pat, it’s a myth. There is no evidence to support it and much evidence that makes it highly unlikely to be true. If it were true, it would have been found; if found, it would have been all over every newspaper in America, in banner headlines: Gay Marriage Found to Reduce Promiscuity!

    Like this? Gay couples can be as stable as straights, evidence suggests

    Why yes, Pat — precisely like that. Did you actually read your own citation? Or did you just read the headline and skim the rest?

    I read the entire article with close attention… and nowhere does it even claim to resolve this question: whether SSM reduces promiscuity among gays.

    What the current studies claim is that gay couples stay together… not that they stay together monamorously (the word “monogamy” is, of course, limited to heterosexuals and lesbians).

    Two gay men could live together for many years while regularly attending sex parties and bathhouses; this would satisfy the conclusion of the (ongoing) studies, but it certainly is not a demonstration of how SSM “civilizes” these men — do you disagree?

    In fact, the very article you cite above provides evidence that supports my previous contention! I have a hard time believing you actually read this, ah, “thoroughly” before citing it (emphasis added):

    Most gay men “are not interested in monogamous relationships, which is the traditional definition of what marriage is,” said Gary Glenn, president of American Family Association of Michigan.

    In Rothblum’s study, gay men [that is, gay couples who obtained civil unions in Vermont – DaH] were more likely to be non-monogamous than straight couples or lesbians, but she and others say there are numerous explanations for those findings.

    “Let’s say, for example, that you’re raising a child and you tell that child I’m going to legislate against you to become college educated because you aren’t smart enough. How many children are going to get a college education?” said Bullock, who agrees that gay couples seeking monogamous relationships are still the minority.

    Couples seeking monogamous relationships are hardly in the minority among heterosexuals, Pat; that, in fact, is the overwhelming majority to the point of being virtually 100% of the sample.

    There’s evidence for you right there — from the very Professor Esther Rothblum who is carrying out the gay-friendly study of Vermont same-sex couples who obtained civil unions, and who is flogging the (irrelevant) meme that gay couples stay together in despite of their promiscuity.

    I haven’t read the counterargument yet.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  174. “Thoroughness?” When did I claim to have presented a thorough case proving that SSM does not “civilize” gay men in the same way that trad marriage civilizes straight men?

    My mistake. When I hear someone claim they are debunking a myth, that sounds to me like they’re offering a conclusive refutation — not just sketching out some evidence that doesn’t really contradict the so-called myth.

    In Rothblum’s study, gay men [that is, gay couples who obtained civil unions in Vermont – DaH] were more likely to be non-monogamous than straight couples or lesbians, but she and others say there are numerous explanations for those findings.

    . . . .

    There’s evidence for you right there — from the very Professor Esther Rothblum who is carrying out the gay-friendly study of Vermont same-sex couples who obtained civil unions, and who is flogging the (irrelevant) meme that gay couples stay together in despite of their promiscuity.

    Only as to gay males, not lesbians. Another complaint I had about your post is that you cited exclusively studies on males, and then acted as though you had proved something about gay females as well.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  175. Dafydd,

    Let me just sum this up. Here’s how I see your argument. It’s a little sarcastic, but I have borne attacks on my “courage” for not having the fortitude to admit that you’re right, so indulge me as I engage in some rhetorical fun of my own:

    I, Dafydd ab Hugh, will now “clear the air” of the “nonsense” of certain “myths.”

    Myth 1: Same-Sex Marriage Is As Civilizing As Opposite-Sex Marriage

    Let me show why this is highly unlikely to be true. Studies show that the most promiscuous subset of homosexuals (openly gay males) are promiscuous. How does that compare to heterosexuals? Well, studies show that the least promiscuous subset of heterosexual males (married and cohabiting heterosexuals) is not very promiscuous (or so they said during the survey, during which I’m sure their wives weren’t listening).

    The proof could not be more clear: if the most promiscuous subset of group A is more promiscuous than the least promiscuous subset of group B, then group A is obviously more promiscuous than group B. It’s simple logic!

    Also, although I haven’t cited a single study having anything to do with lesbians, this must all be true for them as well, because I want it to be. More logic!

    Maybe my comparison isn’t 100% peer-reviewed, documented, and controlled to a “T” — but it’s better than your studies!

    Now that I have proved that all gay people are promiscuous, I now declare it a “myth” that gay marriage could reduce that promiscuity. Again, I have no studies to show this, but neither does the other side. So, it’s a myth. Have the courage to admit it.

    Okay, tell me where I’m being unfair.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  176. Also, the article I cited says that married gay couples in Scandanavia have a lower divorce rate than straight couples. Just as you argue that you can infer from studies showing gays are more promiscuous generally that they will be after marriage, I think one could also infer from this study (and this, not the Vermont study, is the reason I cited the article, hence my supplying of the counterargument) that these marriages last because the couples are less promiscuous.

    In each case, it’s a leap.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  177. If married gay couples have a lower divorce rate than straight couples, and are promiscuous, they would seem to be in it for the money. I think logic wants to see this behavior as confirmation of the “reach for benefits” theory of homosexual marriage.

    RJN (c3a4a3)

  178. In furtherance of Patterico’s other post on Dafydd’s “myths”, there’s an additional avenue of refutation: Dafydd’s points #2 & #3 utterly rely on the assumption that homosexual relations are WRONG.

    Without that assumption, point #3 (affecting traditional marriage) makes no sense whatsoever, as only by allowing a bad thing to be called marriage is marriage weakened.

    Point number two rests on a goal of suppressing gay sex by means of maintaining a stigma, or at least a separateness.

    A further weakness in point number #2 involves the supposed behavior of “bisexuals.” Daffyd’s point about bisexuals (esp bisexual men) engaging in more promiscuous sex if this stigma is lifted is greatly weakened by the knowledge that there are FAR more available straight partners than gay ones. Unless you admit that these supposed bisexuals greatly prefer gay sex… in which case the bisexual label is exposed for the strawman it is.

    Kevin Murphy (6a7945)

  179. Dafydd:

    Do you mean if legal marriage were abolished tomorrow, or do you mean if it had never existed in the first place?

    Either flippin’ way – do you agree or not that marriage enforces, and thus increases, monogamy?

    [RJN] made no such point[that homosexuality is immutable], unless you’re referring to a different comment than I think you are.

    No, RJN says in the same comment:

    The evidence indicates that homosexuality is fixed in utero, is congenital.

    A gas cloud of “empirical” data, even assuming arguendo that it means what you say it means, does not save you from making the logical leap, restated by Patterico as,

    “Now that I have proved that all gay people are promiscuous, I now declare it a “myth” that gay marriage could reduce that promiscuity.”

    Paul:

    I will not read your last response as a reply to any specific post.

    #164 was a response to #162.

    It is not necessary for scientists to discover a “gay gene” for the idea that sexual orientation as a condition of birth to be accepted. Something in line with the study showing that some nongenetic condition, such as pheromone response being strongly determinative would be sufficient. That said, this does not demand that a policy be adopted to span the spectrum of physiologies.

    I read this as, “whether homosexuality is genetic or ingrained at other involuntary level (physiology, i.e. pheremones), it does not matter, because gay marriage is wrong.”

    Where in an individual’s sexuality does homosexuality “live”? Many view this as a pivotal question in this debate. Like you, I don’t think the precise level is critical for policy purposes. I further agree that “this does not demand that a policy be adopted”. Physiology is a strawman. It’s not physiology or genetics, but fairness, stability, and better quality of life that favor governmental sanction of gay marriage.

    You are left standing on only your presumption that SSM is wrong.

    Editors:

    The above comment is also a reply to your comment on immutability. My original mention of immutability referred to the study RJN cited. Regardless, we all have the capacity for sexual attraction, ripening into romantic love. That is a common and elemental function of all humans.

    Where the focus of such love/attraction begins to focus on objects of a certain gender, or both genders, the classifications emerge.

    What alternative to immutability are you suggesting? Does it apply to all of the people who knew they were gay in preadolescence or adolescence, or dismiss them? When people are gay all through their lives with very little wavering on their sexual disposition, that sure suggests immutability.

    You’ve sat back and thrown stones for a while – I know this about what you think on this question:

    1. Homosexuality is not immutable
    2. Homosexuality is not wholly chosen (#24)

    If it’s not wholly chosen, then at least some aspect of it has to be immutable. Or not…? What aspect? Please explain.

    To all the detractors of SSM:
    You’ve written plenty about the sexually ambivalent/adventurous individuals who are flaky enough (for better or worse) to go with whatever society will tolerate. That’s convenient enough for you, but leaves unaddressed the large contingent of dyed-in-the-wool gays who never even had enough doubt about their sexuality to constitute sexual ambivalence. What about them? After all, they’re the ones who have the strongest desire and claim for SSM, not bisexuals.

    Moreover, most of you concede that people can engage in whatever acts they wish, “but just leave marriage alone.” At the same time, you predict that SSM will induct more people into homosexual activity and culture. Given that, as you admit, anyone who really wants to be gay can be gay, and anyone who wants to act gay can act gay, how does SSM contribute to a groundswell of gay “recruits”? How does it radically change our culture? And how does it dissuade straights from marrying?

    Point to the Netherlands if you like (Paul at #122), but that has minimal relevance. The U.S. is way bigger and way more diverse. People have been hard pressed to think of a rationale for this data, even after they have the data!

    If some of you want to discuss the connection between the Netherlands’ miniscule crime rate and their legalization of drugs and prostitution, then maybe we can build a little credibility for the comparison.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  180. Biwah,

    The social science is solid on the negative effect of dilution of the marriage institution to the increase in the entire spectrum of problems in children.

    You, nor anyone else here has presented any refutation of the cited trends. Whether it is the Neatherlands, Norway, Sweden, or the US experience, the results are consistent. Hand waving does not make it go away.

    We would be fools to bury our heads in the sand on this one as you suggest. That, is not a feasible option for responsible policy makers.

    Your last post was more a complaint than anything else. I see no argument in it.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  181. biwah,

    “When people are gay all through their lives with very little wavering on their sexual disposition, that sure suggests immutability.”

    No it doesn’t. A proclivity for certain behavior can be strongly ingrained, but still changeable. It can be more ingrained in some individuals, and less in others.

    The Editors, American Federalist Journal (17fd00)

  182. Comments on stability

    The discussion between Patterico and Dafydd revolve around stability thorought a current space of society as a function of coupling, not as the society evolves in time (generation to generation). Given that the rate of intrinsically inclined homosexuals in the society (whatever its cause) is invariant and since the current situation is stable in space (while some are discontented–there is no great problem with coupling-affected societal problems that seem to be spinning out of control as a function of the coupling), their analysis is off the mark and largely beside the point.

    The stability problem that we need to focus on is intergenerational. A slight pertubation in the construction of society here might evolve into an event that has drastic consequences for our society in the years ahead. We maintain stability by enforcing boundaries and rules–institutions that constrain how much transient effects in our economy, etc. can be carried forward generation to generation. Marriage is such a key constraint.

    Time is the critical dimension of evolution, not space

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  183. In furtherance of Patterico’s other post on Dafydd’s “myths”, there’s an additional avenue of refutation: Dafydd’s points #2 & #3 utterly rely on the assumption that homosexual relations are WRONG.

    I imagine that Dafydd would respond that such relations are wrong only because they apparently tend to be more promiscuous in nature.

    What I find interesting about his argument is that it provides an arguable basis for stigmatizing homosexual conduct in ways other than prohibiting gay marriage. Yet I know that Dafydd supports at least the result of Lawrence v. Texas, if not the specific reasoning. I assume he has thought this out and has an explanation for what seems to be a contradiction; I look forward to reading that. (Perhaps it will be one of his future essays.)

    Patterico (38003c)

  184. My apologies for being abrupt, hopefully I haven’t overlooked anything. In terms of, “What do I think?”- I think any form of hostility towards a person because of their sexual orientation is wrong and to be opposed. That said, I do not consider same-sex orientation a moral, social, physical, and psychological “equally valid” alternative to heterosexual attraction. I will mention points, unfortunately cannot “discuss at length”.

    From my previous post at 108:

    Should Same-sex marriage be legal? ///
    b. if yes, does that imply an equivalence in legal and “moral” standing between heterosexual marriages and same sex?
    i. if yes, what happens to freedom of religion where this is discussed?///
    It is not illegal for unmarried people to live together in a sexual relationship, heterosexual or same-sex, but significant numbers of people “disapprove” of it to some degree. Would the legalization of SSM imply a legal and moral equivalency with heterosexual marriage to the degree that stating, “I do not agree with SSM” is cause for a charge of harassment, intimidation, violation of civil rights, for a child to be sent to the principal’s office, for the parents to be visited by Family Services for “teaching their child to hate”? This is a main way that legalizing SSM could have a dramatic impact on my life and family, even if the impact was not on my marriage per se. [Besides, as long as someone else gets murdered, or robbed, or commits suicide, that action rarely effects me, but that has no bearing whether I oppose murder or not].

    That is a possibility of how changing the legality of SSM could significantly change culture. Now, if one wishes to argue that same-sex relationships are equivalent, you can, but that is not what many people think who would be sympathetic to SSM on the grounds of “let them do what they want”.

    c. what is leading to the discussion- change in opinions, newly discovered scientific fact, evolving case-law?
    …to go from, “Don’t beat people up for believing ‘X’” to “People have a right to have their actions based on belief ‘X’ to be endorsed and protected by the government” is a big jump that needs some validation and justification.
    While the longevity of a precedent does not guarantee it is correct, [I still think the burden of proof is on those who want to change such a fundamental thing in society.]

    There is a view that states a/the primary factor underlying same-sex attraction is a lack of adequate bonding/identification/modeling with the parent of the same sex while growing up. This view would say it could be due to a same-sex parent that is abusive, or a same-sex parent that doesn’t intervene to protect against the abuse of the other. It could be because of the death, illness, or “unavailability” physically or emotionally of the same-sex parent. If one does not develop with an adequate view of oneself in order to engage with that which is “complimentary”, you’re stuck still with the same-sex trying to figure out who you are.
    That obviously is stating a view, not defending it. One could say that such a view is meaningless, as everybody has a less than perfect childhood, and it “doesn’t prove anything”. Yes, that’s true, which may be why there is no “easy answer”. Since we are talking about psychological realities and development, things may not be apparent at all. (My 18 year old son recently told us of a time in his early years when he read on a tabloid at the grocery store that the world was going to end. he was bright enough at his young age to read, but not experienced enough to put it in context. In addition, somehow he was so “freaked out” about this while no one else seemed to be concerned, he kept the fear to himself.- Come to think of it, it was like when I turned on “Dr. Strangelove” or “Seven Days in May” on TV when I was young.– I found nothing funny in watching Slim Pickens ride a bomb down to start WWIII.)

    As I said, this is a view that some hold. In my experience of knowing people with same-sex attraction as a physician and in my “civilian” life, it appears to make sense and I have not seen evidence to contradict it. Obviously this is what gets some folks really riled up, including claiming it is malpractice for a mental health professional to try to help someone “change their orientation”, even if the person wants to. In addition, this is why many would NOT talk about “changing orientation” as the goal, but that it may be the outcome of resolving various developmental issues.

    So, if just for a moment, realize that some who oppose SSM may not be trying to be oppressive, but rather see SSM as encouraging the “full equality” of an existence which isn’t.

    In reference to another arguement (which I don’t think has actually been prominent in the thread), the marriage of a black man and a white woman is not similar to the marriage of two men. The genetic and physiologic differences between a black man and a white man are trivial compared to the differences of a person with an XX compared to an XY. The marriage of a man and woman of any race(s) is an equivalent situation. the marriage of two men or two women is not.

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  185. Comments of perspective

    We are discussing a system of rules–what will work, what might not. These rules are the mores of society so we cannot use mores to justify mores.

    Just to be clear, I am not calling SSM “wrong”. I am claiming that this dilution of the marriage institution will not work well for our society as it evolves in the future–that marriage as currently define is a key constraint.

    I would also argue that it would be beneficial for us to strengthen marriage by other means that are perhaps too draconian to discuss at this time.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  186. MD–saw your point on racial characteristics. Agree with it (made that point myself in other conversations), and so ignored Patterico’s criticim since the framework of “this is like” doesn’t get to the core of the issue unless a right is being raised.

    I am still unclear whether Patterico is claiming a right or just stating an opinion.

    Your point also is a nice context for the irrelevancy of orientation causation. It is entirely questionable and in a real sense, a distraction as Marriage is not a state benefit for couples (it is a contract to promote optimal child rearing).

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  187. MD:

    Would the legalization of SSM imply a legal and moral equivalency with heterosexual marriage to the degree that stating, “I do not agree with SSM” is cause for a charge of harassment, intimidation, violation of civil rights, for a child to be sent to the principal’s office, for the parents to be visited by Family Services for “teaching their child to hate”?

    I share your concern about political correctness, but that’s a speech issue. Whether we can uphold speech while punishing violence is a challenge that does not hinge on the legal recognition of SSM one way or the other.

    So, if just for a moment, realize that some who oppose SSM may not be trying to be oppressive, but rather see SSM as encouraging the “full equality” of an existence which isn’t.

    I realize that (now) – but also realize that the policy argument is not founded solely on “full equality.” Equality has secondary benefits in itself, and, while important, is not the holy grail of all policy. Rather, denial of equality should be viewed skeptically, and I don’t think denial of marital rights to gays stands up to that skepticism, discussed below.

    Paul:

    I better understand your point now, but still dispute your application of the “evidence.”

    I think most parties agree that the welfare of children is a high priority. If children are placed in jeopardy over the short or long term, that would trump the comparatively marginal need for change in the form of SSM.

    However, from what I have seen, your correlation the welfare of children with the prohibition of gay marriage is still dead in the water.

    SSM – Decline of Marriage – Harm to children

    Each of these requires a logical step that needs factual support. I recognize the problems marriage is facing as an institution, but the blame for these cannot justly be placed on gays. Gays who choose marriage are far more likely to stay in it – it’s the heterosexual marriages that are failing (link at #173).

    “Dilution of marriage” seems to refer more to marriage avoidance than divorce. With that assumption, here are reasons I have witnessed for heterosexual people in LTRs not getting married. (“Kids” shorthand for marrying-age heterosexuals in LTRs)

    1. Dad absent/distant, with or without visitation, child support.

    2. Kids have seen their parents get divorced, are disenchanted with it, and feel batter off without it.

    3. Kids have children out of wedlock as a couple, get into a marriage-like situation, find it works fine, and marriage postponed, sometimes indefinitely.

    4. Kids commitment-phobic/lazy/stoned, with or without children.

    5. Kids see marriage as an outdated institution based on ownership (whether mutual or unilateral) principles, and choose a more “liberated” approach.

    6. Gay marriage. (OK, not really)

    Even where “Gay marriage” is the answer, that decision to get divorced or not to get married would have to be the wrong decision, resulting in greater harm to the children. It’s far from a foregone conclusion.

    I still give my own observations more weight than the Netherlands study, which of course found a correlation without any insight into whether it was a causal relationship.

    But I would like to hear a specific rationale as to how Dilution of Marriage works, aside from heterosexuals behaving badly.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  188. However, from what I have seen, your correlation the welfare of children with the prohibition of gay marriage is still dead in the water.

    biwah,

    Please remember, it is the innovator that needs to prove their case. I am simply giving you my handle on how it can be effectively done on a rational basis.

    It’s not up to me to prove anything since I am not taking the stand that SSM is beneficial to sociey or an intrinsic right. If you have an argument to either effect, I will consider it carefully.

    To this end, I think we have made some progress already.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  189. So, if anyone is interested, my present position is that I see no problem with civil unions, i.e. Dualsihood(TM), but also no justification on any ground for what is called single-sex marriage.

    In fact, on a rights basis, SSM is not supportable (it is counter to the rights framework we have already established). How you ask? I’ll answer that when asked–not sure still if this is a true concern or a smokescreen for a taking.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  190. it is the innovator that needs to prove their case.

    That one’s been good for some serious mileage huh?

    You are the one alleging the harm. I am simply alleging a negative, i.e. the irrelevance of SSM to the welfare of children.

    If you have an argument to either effect, I will consider it carefully.

    I’ve mustered my experience and powers of reason and made my arguments. I can’t prove that the kids will be okay, (a) because for a multitude of reasons unrelated to SSM, the kids are not doing so great, and (b) because I can’t prove a speculative negative that is specific to our national situation or a decent analog.

    I’ve shown my hand. After 190 comments, there’s no need for you to be coy. If you have any evidence showing that SSM harms children, now would be the time.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  191. The default remains the status quo.

    There are two approaches to change the status quo: consistent rulemaking, i.e. rights or a benefit that outweighs the negatives.

    Some time ago in this discussion I went through the calculations myself and so I summarized again my present position. If you don’t agree, how? If the position is not well thoughtout, how again?

    When I point out that I don’t see an argument, this is my frame of reference. I am confident that if you can persuade me, that you can persuade the majority of Americans (I type out as a Centrist in these ideology polls).

    On the other hand, if anyone would like to make the case against civil unions, I’d like to hear that also.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  192. At one point early on in the national constitutional amendment debate, I think civil unions could have swept over most of the states. They would have been substantively the same as marriages. All but the far right wing was on its heels and would have viewed civil unions as a compromise, and the gay community would have walked with practically all the marbles.

    Politically, the gay lobby’s strident insistence on marriage was a major error which allowed a right-wing reframing of the debate as a threat to the institution.

    Now, it seems that civil unions are mostly off the table. Were it realistic again, I think they would take it. If it provided the substantive benefits of spouses to gay partners – taxes, inheritance, insurance, (and yes) parental – I wouldn’t see any problem with it. The difference of name would appease the conservatives and preserve the procreative aim of marriage, while also allowing gays to say “we’re married” – whatever the paper actually said.

    It would be like that great innovation, the brown paper bag – which allowed the drunks to stand on the street corner with their bottle, and the police to carry out more important work without feeling disrespected – all in the name of keeping the overall peace (analogy borrowed from “The Wire”).

    Notwithstanding everything we’ve discussed, that’s the outcome I’d like to see, because then we could move on already.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  193. Then we are in disagreement only over the matter of parental rights and probably over what tax incentives and the like should distinguish civil unions from marriage.

    I would not give civil unions parental rights and would give them the same tax status as two individuals filing seperately.

    On the other hand, they should have “partner rights” and what benefits we give married people that extend to only their spouses, such as Social Security survivors benefits, simplified wills, visitation, postal, etc.

    So I would maintain a seperate diverse institution with the promary purpose of parenthood. At the same time, civil unions would be open to all adults–not simply male-male and female-female, but also male-female.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  194. We already have a “separate institution” for parenthood (we don’t need diverse). It’s called marriage. The classic, and moral, reason we have a continuation of benefits for a surviving wife, usually, is because she gave so much of her work time to raising the future citizens of the land she could not accumulate benefits of her own. The married couples that don’t raise children, and get survivor benefits, are few. The system is actuarially, and morally, sound.

    We already have civil unions also: Partnerships. Tell these people to go sign some documents, and take their hands out of the public’s pocket.

    RJN (c3a4a3)

  195. We already have a “separate institution” for parenthood (we don’t need diverse). It’s called marriage

    Yes, I know. That was my point. Marriage is diverse (male-female) from the prospective of the child, not unigender (undiverse).

    Children learn, diversity is good for learning (in the true sense of the word as in “liberal” education.

    I knew it would come to this. Orwell predicted it long ago. Now we need to speak in double-plus good triple speak just to get our meaning across.

    We already have civil unions also: Partnerships

    Yeah, well we didn’t have a catchy name for it until now–Dualsihood(TM).

    Tell these people to go sign some documents, and take their hands out of the public’s pocket

    People, go sign some documents and get your hands out of RJN’s pockets.

    OK, I said it (Well, I typed it, but I type while mouthing the words and letters).

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  196. Patterico:

    Only as to gay males, not lesbians. Another complaint I had about your post is that you cited exclusively studies on males, and then acted as though you had proved something about gay females as well.

    I make no such claim. Women (gay or straight) don’t need “civilizing,” in the sense I’m using it. (There is some evidence that lesbian relationships are more prone to domestic violence than straight relationships, but it’s inconclusive and I’m not yet convinced. Besides, the difference didn’t strike me as particularly large.)

    What women typically need (as a group, not every individual woman) is encouragement to become more competitive, aggressive, and rigorous. I believe they get much of that from first fathers, then husbands — in good relationships, of course; we all agree that bad, repressive, and even oppressive relationships exist.

    I don’t see that a lesbian is as likely to get such encouragement merely by “marrying” (or civil-unioning) another woman. But there are so few lesbians in the population that there are few studies, compared to the number of studies of gay men.

    Okay, tell me where I’m being unfair.

    Your “summary” was not simply sarcastic, it also dumped virtually everything I said. For example, I already told you I was not going to run to the library for several hours to refute your unsourced argument that, although you agree that gays are more promiscuous (as a group) than straights, you nevertheless believe that gays in “committed relationships” abruptly cease being promiscuous.

    But then you cited an article, which I read, and which included this datum from a study conducted by a gay-friendly researcher, Esther Rothblum:

    In Rothblum’s study, gay men [that is, gay couples who obtained civil unions in Vermont – DaH] were more likely to be non-monogamous than straight couples or lesbians….

    This directly compares two virtually identical demos: gay couples who obtained civil unions, vs. straight couples who married. Yet you failed to mention it in your “sarcummery.” Why not?

    What I’m saying, Pat, is that voluminous such studies exist. It shouldn’t even be necessary for me to “prove,” e.g., that gay couples are more likely to be non-monagamous, even in “committed relationships,” than straight couples, because this is so well known in the literature that not even the gay activists try to deny it.

    You can cite study after study, but read them carefully: any that is scientific will include exactly the same data that your last citation included!

    Also, the article I cited says that married gay couples in Scandanavia have a lower divorce rate than straight couples. Just as you argue that you can infer from studies showing gays are more promiscuous generally that they will be after marriage, I think one could also infer from this study (and this, not the Vermont study, is the reason I cited the article, hence my supplying of the counterargument) that these marriages last because the couples are less promiscuous.

    Forgive me, Pat, but that’s nonsense. You have a study that directly measured promiscuity; it found that gay couples were more promiscuous than straight couples (in fact, it’s a marked difference, as found in many other studies; if you look at the study itself when it’s published, you’ll see that). On the other hand, you have a study saying that gay marriages result in fewer divorces in Scandanavia.

    That speaks to staying together; it says not a word about promiscuity. Not only that, but the research himself suggests an alternative and far more plausible explanation: that many of those gay couples had been together for many years, unable to marry because of the law; having previously lived together (in Scandanavian countries, at least) is a marker for a marriage less likely to break up within X years.

    If you want to compare apples to apples, you should compare gays who had lived together, say, three years before marrying with straights who had lived together three years before marrying. I hypothesize that would entirely explain the gap.

    In any event, you are making a supposition about the reason they don’t break up — less promiscuity — and trying to use that as a proxy measurement to counter a direct measurement of promiscuity. That’s the sort of thing proponents of global-warming theory do! (Sorry about that; cheap shot.) Not allowed to do that: direct measurements trump proxy measurements… it’s the scientific version of “best evidence,” to put it in legal terms.

    There is something else you’re missing, and I understand why; it’s a subtle nuance related to my libertarianism:

    In furtherance of Patterico’s other post on Dafydd’s “myths”, there’s an additional avenue of refutation: Dafydd’s points #2 & #3 utterly rely on the assumption that homosexual relations are WRONG.

    I imagine that Dafydd would respond that such relations are wrong only because they apparently tend to be more promiscuous in nature.

    What I find interesting about his argument is that it provides an arguable basis for stigmatizing homosexual conduct in ways other than prohibiting gay marriage. Yet I know that Dafydd supports at least the result of Lawrence v. Texas, if not the specific reasoning. I assume he has thought this out and has an explanation for what seems to be a contradiction; I look forward to reading that. (Perhaps it will be one of his future essays.)

    The problem is that Biwah’s initial premise is in error (I’ll respond to the rest of his post directly in a followup comment): I do not believe that homosexual relationships are “wrong;” in fact, I don’t even believe that promiscuous relationships are “wrong,” at least not in the sense I think he’s using the word.

    That is, I don’t see them as morally or ethically wrong — assuming all partners are aware and agree to the arrangement.

    I think it’s moderately bad for society, assuming that society clearly disapproves; if, by contrast, society makes a point of approving of the promiscuity, then I think it’s much worse for society. (If society is neutral, it’s worse than the first but not as bad as the second.)

    But I also don’t believe that everything that is bad for society ought to be illegal; there are other considerations — liberty interests, for one one class of example — and every conflict must be weighed.

    That is why I support Lawrence v. Texas: regardless of whether legal gay relations are good or bad for society, the liberty interest in allowing adult individuals to have whatever form of sex they prefer in private outweighs society’s interest.

    This, by the way, Pat, is why it’s generally a bad idea to predict what somebody else (with whom you disagree) will say: unless you thoroughly understand not only the other person’s position but also the reasoning behind it, you’re very likely to make a very bad prediction, as in this case.

    Liberty, reduced to its core, is the freedom to be let alone. Proponents of same-sex marriage are not asking to be “let alone,” however; they’re asking for positive approval, state sanction, societal applause. Whatever such a demand is, it’s certainly not a liberty interest.

    Thus, I see net harm to society by approving same-sex marriage — with no mitigating or counterargumentative principle in favor.

    And that is why I oppose it, speaking as generally as possible. I oppose changing the law to allow polyamorous marriages, consanguinous marriages, or term-limited marriages for the same reason.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  197. Biwah:

    Either flippin’ way – do you agree or not that marriage enforces, and thus increases, monogamy?

    Oh. Why didn’t you ask this in the first place, instead of positing a world in which marriage did not exist?

    Yes, in today’s world, I believe that traditional marriage between one man and one woman fosters monogamy and monandry.

    I do not believe that same-sex marriage has any effect on monamory, one way or the other.

    [RJN] made no such point[that homosexuality is immutable], unless you’re referring to a different comment than I think you are.

    No, RJN says in the same comment:

    The evidence indicates that homosexuality is fixed in utero, is congenital.

    Well, yes; but that isn’t the same as being “immutable.” Height is “fixed in utero” and “congenital,” but it’s not immutable: if you give a child shots of growth hormone during certain critical periods, he will grow taller than he otherwise would have.

    By the way, I do not believe that all homosexuality is “fixed in utero.” That may well describe some. I believe that there are many reasons why a person may prefer sex with others of the same gender: think of all the political lesbians, for example, who (in essence) train themselves to have sex only with women for political motivations.

    I think most folks here are oversimplifying what is in fact very complex.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  198. Biwah:

    Moreover, most of you concede that people can engage in whatever acts they wish, “but just leave marriage alone.” At the same time, you predict that SSM will induct more people into homosexual activity and culture. Given that, as you admit, anyone who really wants to be gay can be gay, and anyone who wants to act gay can act gay, how does SSM contribute to a groundswell of gay “recruits”?

    Anyone can be gay who wants to be gay. But likewise, anyone can dislike and disapprove of homosexuality who wants to do. And people frequently change their behavior in an effort to win approval.

    Hence, it shouldn’t be a stretch to believe that people who are not “wedded” to the gay lifestyle (sorry, I simply couldn’t stop myself!) can be influenced away from it by social disapproval — or towards it by a social nihil obstat.

    For a similar example, think of adultery.

    How does it radically change our culture?

    It radically changes the concept of marriage from the union of the male and female elements, combining and holding in equal esteem those two ways of thinking, acting, and reacting, to a simple contract with no greater cosmic significance for society than forming an S-corporation.

    And how does it dissuade straights from marrying?

    I have made no such argument; in fact, I think the raw number of marriages would increase but marriage would be increasingly meaningless as an institution.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  199. Dafydd,

    You’re driving me crazy.

    Let’s take this point by point:

    Your post, after citing studies relating to men and men only, says:

    There simply is no dispute in the literature: gay men (and even lesbians) are more sexually promiscuous, as a group, than their heterosexual counterparts.

    I therefore levelled this criticism — and not for the first time, either:

    Another complaint I had about your post is that you cited exclusively studies on males, and then acted as though you had proved something about gay females as well.

    Your latest response starts out by denying it:

    I make no such claim.

    Unless I am seriously misreading something, your denial is flatly false. That’s a terrible way to start off your response.

    I’m refusing to engage in any more comments with a gazillion points. It allows you to make up in volume what you are lacking in logic, and to skip by my valid points with breezy misstatements that get lost in the shuffle.

    One step at a time. Admit you made an unsupported claim about lesbians, or explain how I’m badly misreading your comment. Then we’ll on to the next point.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  200. I just thought I’d get in my two cents on this. I dont’ think I have any big problem with civil unions, so that gay couples can get basically most — if not all — the benefits of married couples. But let’s not get obsessed with exact, precise equality, by demanding gay marriage instead of civil unions.

    As far as I’m concerned, the main issue is children. If gay marriage becomes the norm in the U.S., then won’t the next step be that a gay couple must have equal rights with a straight couple to adopt? If there’s any natural right on this Earth, isn’t it the natural right of a child to preferably grow up with his or her biological parents? Isn’t that the ideal we should be seeking for kids’ sake, and wouldn’t complete, exact equality for gay couples undermine that? Wouldn’t we have kids being conceived and born for the express purpose of being given over to adoptive gay parents? That’s really the issue in my mind, and I tend to think it would not be a good idea, and would violate the right of children to preferably be with a Mom and Dad that they can call their own.

    I’d almost prefer the following arrangement to gay marriage: let a husband and wife invite a gay couple into their marriage and household. That way, the kids could still be with their biological parents, but the gay couple could participate in parenting too. Whatever happens, let’s let the people decide, and not some dictatorial, well-meaning judges.

    Andrew (d20398)

  201. Patterico:

    Sorry for writing long responses, but you ask open-ended questions; and when I answer with brevity, you seem even more prone to misunderstand me.

    You’re driving me crazy.

    Let’s take this point by point:

    Your post, after citing studies relating to men and men only, says:

    There simply is no dispute in the literature: gay men (and even lesbians) are more sexually promiscuous, as a group, than their heterosexual counterparts.

    I therefore levelled this criticism — and not for the first time, either:

    Another complaint I had about your post is that you cited exclusively studies on males, and then acted as though you had proved something about gay females as well.

    Your latest response starts out by denying it:

    I make no such claim.

    Unless I am seriously misreading something, your denial is flatly false. That’s a terrible way to start off your response.

    Oh, my apologies; I misunderstood what you meant by “proved something.”

    I did not see it as needing proof that gays were more promiscuous (both male and female) than their straight counterparts; that’s well-accepted in the literature.

    What I set out to prove (well, sketch a proof; a complete proof would take five or six thousand words, and I had but 1200) in that first Lizard’s Tongue column was that men needed civilizing, and that only women could civilize them.

    So I misread your post as objecting that I hadn’t proven that lesbians needed to be civilized; hence, my statement — which went on from the first sentence that you quote above to make that quite clear, I thought:

    I make no such claim. Women (gay or straight) don’t need “civilizing,” in the sense I’m using it. (There is some evidence that lesbian relationships are more prone to domestic violence than straight relationships, but it’s inconclusive and I’m not yet convinced. Besides, the difference didn’t strike me as particularly large.)

    What women typically need (as a group, not every individual woman) is encouragement to become more competitive, aggressive, and rigorous.

    I was noting that the barbarity natural to men was not confined to promiscuity but included violence, crime, irresponsibility, domination games, and so forth — all things that society needs to control in order to survive.

    (What I would really like to see is a study that directly measured, say, violent crime committed by gay men in civil unions or marriages and by straight, married men… but for obvious reasons of political dynamite, nobody has ever done such a study, that I’ve seen — on either side! I’ve seen studies of domestic violence, but not crime in general: are gay men living openly with other men more likely, less likely, or just as likely to commit armed robberies or barroom assaults than married straight men?)

    Although it’s true that lesbians are more promiscuous than straight women, it’s just an aside (hence the parentheses), since they’re not uncivilized in the way that men — including straight men — are uncivilized.

    Women (gay or straight) contribute very little to that litany of alienation. They have different problems, mostly revolving around a lack of aggression and ambition. Each sex helps the other. (And again, I stress I’m speaking of the groups; a particular individual man can be very civilized, and a particular individual woman can be very ambitious, neither needing a spouse to be well-rounded.)

    One step at a time. Admit you made an unsupported claim about lesbians, or explain how I’m badly misreading your comment. Then we’ll on to the next point.

    Actually, neither (except insofar as we were at cross purposes on the words “proved something”): there is good evidence that lesbians are more promiscuous than straight women (though less so than gay men, probably about the same level as straight men). It’s not “unsupported;” it’s just not supported in this thread, since I don’t post every study I’ve ever read — particularly on irrelevant side issues.

    Really, this discussion would be a lot easier, and you would stop thinking I was ducking your questions or being illogical or making stuff up, if you would just take a couple of days to read some of the literature of sexology. I’m not saying anything controversial! This is all undergraduate stuff.

    When studies are needed is when a person says something that goes against the prevailing wisdom. For example (shifting away from SSM for a less argumentative example) when John Lott made the claim that more private citizens with concealed-carry gun permits meant less crime, not more crime, that was a statement that went against the standard understanding of the day: therefore, Lott was required to present scientific studies to prove his point… which he did. And this changed the prevailing wisdom, changing the gun-control debate.

    I think the problem here is that, since you haven’t actually studied this field, you don’t know its conventional understandings. So you, quite understandably, want to see everything proven anew. Since I’m reluctant to spend a lot of time “proving” forty years of sociology, you think I’m being evasive, or that I’m just confabulating.

    Not so.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  202. Dafydd,

    I’ll now skip to my main point, which I am raising for about the third time now, but which you haven’t answered in a satisfactory way even once:

    You chose studies comparing the most promiscuous subset of homosexuals (openly gay males) to the least promiscuous subset of heterosexual males (married and cohabiting heterosexuals). This is an illogical basis for making any sort of comparisons.

    I called that the central problem with your argument, and you didn’t even respond to it. Earlier, you brushed aside/mocked this point of mine, by claiming that your argument needn’t be “in the sort of depth that one would expect in a paper submitted to a refereed journal of sexuality, sociology, or behavioral science.”

    No, but it should pass basic tests of logic.

    I haven’t read the literature. But if someone comes at me saying: I will now prove that

    Set A is more promiscuous than Set B

    I expect something more than citations that purport to prove:

    The most promiscuous subset of Set A is more promiscuous than the least promiscuous subset of Set B.

    To follow your law analogy, if I were a clerk for a judge and you submitted that argument in your brief, and cited a case to support your argument, I wouldn’t even read the case you cited. I could assume for the sake of argument that the case says what you claim, because even if it does, you still haven’t proven your case.

    Now you appear to suggest (as you have with my last point) that your argument rests on other studies that you didn’t cite or allude to in your original post. Well, great. If that is so, then just say so forthrightly.

    But this is not a contest of who knows more about the literature; I’ll happily cede that title to you, since I haven’t studied it. All I did was criticize the logic of your post. For the reasons I just got through stating, it was poor logic. You don’t compare two sets by comparing unlike subsets. That’s what you did, and that’s what I criticized. You can fulminate all you like about my ignorance of the studies out there, but it doesn’t make the logic of your original post any more compelling.

    If you want to simply admit that you failed to make a very good argument on this point in your original post, but that the studies nevertheless support you, I can accept that. But if you won’t make that admission, then I demand you confront my complaint head-on, without rhetorical trickery about how your studies aren’t peer-reviewed but at least they’re evidence and I haven’t supplied any. It’s a simple point, but since you keep seemingly dodging it or not understanding it, I’ll repeat it — again: when you make a comparison of two sets, don’t compare only unlike subsets of those sets, and then claim to draw a conclusion about the sets as a whole.

    That’s what I found ironic about your claimed devotion to logic — because this is indeed a very simple logical flaw in your original argument.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  203. Not to get into the details of the discussion too much, as I haven’t devoted the time to it- I cannot quote a study to “prove” that the gay male population is more promiscuous than the heterosexual male population, but from my observations it certainly seems so, and I would find it difficult to believe a study that claimed otherwise. But that certainly doesn’t pass a standard of admissibility.

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  204. MD,

    I think you’re probably right, but on a moral/behavioral issue, there’s more to the story than static statistics. For example, which direction is gay promiscuity heading and why? AIDS and other bummers of random sex have wrought some tough lessons for gays, and such lessons give a little spine to otherwise conceptual moral ideals.

    Meanwhile, straight culture seems to have losing touch with sexual mores. Random “hooking up” is a social institution with junior high through college-age kids, among adults infidelity is an institution decreasingly tied to the concept of liberation, more to mutual exploitation. These are just thoughts, I of course have no evidence.

    I’m no puritan, but the need for sex, like any need, can become pathological, joyless, and insatiable. Whatever the numbers are, the DOMAs are not in themselves going to make sex “special” for straight people again – this pendulum may simply need to swing.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  205. the DOMAs are not in themselves going to make sex “special” for straight people again

    Ha ha ha. I don’t think that was the purpose of DOMA. (Which reminds me of a story about a peny jar ….)

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  206. Exactly. Gay marriage is a stalking horse for deeper issues. (no, i’m not trying to put those words into your mouth)

    I’m not familiar with the penny jar story.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  207. biwah,

    It’s not sex that is being protected, it is a the family structure. The idea that people get married for sex is anachronistic in today’s society. It is a cultural joke.

    So here is the penny jar experiment. Take a married couple, for the first year they put a penny in a jar each time they, errr, ahhhh, you know. After a year, take a penny out of the jar each time, ….

    Will the jar ever be emptied? Folklore says no.

    So, by inference, marriage has a supressing effect on sex (an unmarried male/female would continue at near the initial rate since the timing of marriage is only weakly linked to the motive force for sex as a function of age), i.e. people (at least rational ones) don’t get married for sex.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  208. Here are some excerpts from a presentation I found at the link.
    http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0095.html
    ‘Gay marriage’ and homosexuality: some medical comments JOHN SHEA, MD, JOHN WILSON, MD, et. al………..
    • According to Statistics Canada, 1.3% of men and 0.7% of women considered themselves to be homosexual.
    • Recent studies in many different countries show that the prevalence of homosexuality is less than 3% of the population: In a US study, the prevalence of homosexuality was estimated to be 2.1% of men and 1.5% of women. (Gilman SE. Am J Public Health. 2001; 91: 933-9.) Another US study estimated the prevalence of the adult lesbian population to be 1.87% (Aaron DJ et
    • A study of homosexual men shows that more than 75% of homosexual men admitted to having sex with more than 100 different males in their lifetime: approximately 15% claimed to have had 100-249 sex partners, 17% claimed 250-499, 15% claimed 500-999 and 28% claimed more than 1,000 lifetime sexual partners. (Bell AP, Weinberg MS. Homosexualities. New York 1978).
    • Promiscuity among lesbian women is less extreme, but is still higher than among heterosexual women. Many ‘lesbian’ women also have sex with men. Lesbian women were more than 4 times as likely to have had more than 50 lifetime male partners than heterosexual women. (Fethers K et al. Sexually transmitted infections and risk behaviours in women who have sex with women. Sexually Transmitted Infections 2000; 76: 345-9.)
    • Far higher rates of promiscuity are observed even within ‘committed’ gay relationships than in heterosexual marriage: In Holland, male homosexual relationships last, on average, 1.5 years, and gay men have an average of eight partners a year outside of their supposedly “committed” relationships. (Xiridou M, et al.

    RJN (c3a4a3)

  209. And for those that believe that polygamony is separable from homosexual marriage, there is this just in from the European font of enlightenment

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  210. Patterico:

    I’ll now skip to my main point, which I am raising for about the third time now, but which you haven’t answered in a satisfactory way even once:

    As an aside, Pat, you have used this circumlocution repeatedly throughout this discussion, and it’s bloody irritating. The clear implication is that if you do not find an answer satisfying, then its dissatisfaction must be of the inherent, cosmic variety unrelated to your own expectations.

    In fact, it is rhetorically possible for an answer not to satisfy you, yet nevertheless be a true and correct answer. You are one of the “litigants” here, as am I; you’re a partisan on this issue (as am I). It is extraordinarily unlikely that any answer I give — other than “you’re so totally right, I surrender!” — will “satisfy” you.

    So please stop acting like Charles Schumer interrogating a judicial nominee. I am not being evasive or underhanded; I am answering your questions as honestly and completely as I can… whether you like those answers or not.

    Fair enough?

    You chose studies comparing the most promiscuous subset of homosexuals (openly gay males) to the least promiscuous subset of heterosexual males (married and cohabiting heterosexuals). This is an illogical basis for making any sort of comparisons.

    Right away, you have a fundamental misunderstanding. Why should it be the case that “openly gay males” would necessarily be “the most promiscuous subset?”

    There is nothing fundamentally promiscuous about the selection criterion; if we were talking about “gay men convicted of child molestation” or “gay men who are also members of NAMBLA” or some other such sex-based subset, you could have a point. But the selection criterion of the first set is gay men who are not living in the closet.

    The corresponding group for heterosexuals would be men who openly admit they like women, not men, and are known around the community to have dated women; since this is virtually all heterosexuals, the proper comparison would be gay men leading a gay lifestyle to the entire class of heterosexuals.

    Honestly, Pat, do you really believe that gay men living openly as homosexuals are no more promiscuous than heterosexuals living openly as heterosexuals?

    Why are you not very surprised that the mere fact that a gay man dates men openly rather than secretly means that he is far more likely to have multiple sex partners per year than a straight man who dates women openly?

    We know the following:

    1) Gays, as a whole, are more promiscuous than straights; even you have admitted as much.

    2) Gays living openly are more promiscuous than gays living in the closet.

    Ergo, the correct and logical conclusion is:

    3) Gays living openly are more promiscuous than straights living openly.

    This is a simple example of modus ponens… and it completely dispenses with the first category.

    Note: You can choose to complain that I haven’t actually posted evidence for (1) above. That is correct; I didn’t feel it necessary to post studies to prove what we already both stipulated. Here I have to plead that I’m not willing to waste a day at the library researching evidence to prove a point that you already agree with.

    Now to the second. One of my statistics discussed “married and cohabitating heterosexuals.” Yet the evidence you, yourself linked above — albeit, by your own admission, you really only wanted me to look at the other study mentioned in that article — notes that gays in civil unions in Vermont are more promiscuous than married straights… as precise a comparison as one can get and still stay within the United States.

    If you had a contrasting study — say, if your vaunted Scandanavian study had come to the conclusion (which it did not) that married gays were no more promiscuous than married straights — you might have some argument. But you don’t. There is no such study; believe me, I’ve hunted for one for years. Nor does any gay advocacy group (such groups are staffed with lawyers and researchers and have plenty of money) claim that such a study exists.

    So we go with such evidence as we have.

    Therefore:

    1) Gays living openly as gays are more promiscuous than straights living openly as straights;

    2) Gays living in civil unions are more promiscuous than straights living in marriage.

    The only hope you can cling to is that cohabitating straights are more promiscuous than married straights, so perhaps (you might hope to find) their level of promiscuity is greater than or equal to that of civil-unioning gays.

    But even if true (which I bet it isn’t — I’m pretty sure that more than 24% of gays in civil unions have had sex with at least one other man within the past year), this would be an inapt comparison: because straights who cohabit rather than get married, when marriage is available, clearly constitute a self-selected subgroup where the selection criterion is “unwillingness to commit.”

    Contrariwise, gays who choose to get a civil union constitute a self-selected subgroup where the selection criterion is “the willingness to obtain the most extreme method of indicating commitment available to them.”

    Therefore attempting to compare civil-unioning gays to merely-cohabiting straights would be just what you complained about, except it would be accurate in this case: it would compare the least committed subgroup of the group straights-who-live-together with the most committed subgroup of the group gays-who-live-together.

    The correct comparison is civil-unioning gays with married straights… which is why Esther Rothblum compared those two groups, giving evidence that the former are more promiscuous than the latter.

    None of my comparisons was improper; I compared apples to apples and apes to apes. You just stubbornly refuse to see it.

    The compared subsets are not “unlike.” They are as identical as possible: gays who are members of the gay community vs. straights who are members of the straight community; gays who have obtained civil unions vs. straights who have obtained marriages.

    Clear and straightforward enough of an answer, Pat?

    By the way, here are a couple of specific examples of how you misread what I write:

    But if you won’t make that admission, then I demand you confront my complaint head-on, without rhetorical trickery about how your studies aren’t peer-reviewed but at least they’re evidence and I haven’t supplied any.

    I never remotely said the studies I relied upon “aren’t peer-reviewed.” I said that my column was not written to a peer-review standard. This is a fundamental misreading on your part: you mistook the subject of the sentence.

    You chose studies comparing the most promiscuous subset of homosexuals (openly gay males) to the least promiscuous subset of heterosexual males (married and cohabiting heterosexuals).

    At no point did I compare the promiscuity rate of all “openly gay males” to the limited set of “married and cohabitating heterosexuals.” Again, I’m not sure what sentence you misread to get that idea, but it’s a pretty egregious misreading. Can you point to a specific paragraph where I compared two groups that I of course know are very different subsets?

    This is what frustrates me, Pat. I say X, and you respond “how dare you say Y!”

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  211. Biwah:

    For example, which direction is gay promiscuity heading and why? AIDS and other bummers of random sex have wrought some tough lessons for gays, and such lessons give a little spine to otherwise conceptual moral ideals.

    Most gay activists complain that, although gays became less promiscuous at first in response to AIDS, they recently have regressed to their previous levels of promiscuity… that AIDS has lost its ability to frighten people into sexual sobriety. This is the conventional wisdom.

    Do you have some indication that this is wrong, that it’s still going the other direction?

    Meanwhile, straight culture seems to have losing touch with sexual mores. Random “hooking up” is a social institution with junior high through college-age kids, among adults infidelity is an institution decreasingly tied to the concept of liberation, more to mutual exploitation. These are just thoughts, I of course have no evidence.

    Actually, the evidence supports you on this, though it’s not as drastic as many religious conservatives think it. However, doesn’t this fit in with the hypothesis that a cultural overemphasis on sexuality in general and on forms of sex outside the traditional norms — hooking up, as you say, but also exhibitionism, homosexual relations, and group sex — tends to sexualize the individuals within the culture and lead to more promiscuity, as more and more people get the message that promiscuity is better than committed monogamy?

    (I recall a classroom faux pas reported by Richard Lederer in one of his Anguished English books; a student wrote: “having multiple wives is called ‘polygamy;’ having only one wife is ‘monotony.'”)

    Surely this isn’t an argument in favor of expanding the definition of marriage to include other arrangements!

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  212. People learn best by example. When you see friends die from AIDS it is a powerful motivator.

    New generation comes along. whether or not there are now drugs to fight the disease, because of the years of latent infection before symptoms, the new generation doesn’t see friends get sick for at least 5 years (if not more like 10). By then everyone is getting sick (though there are now drugs which can give a person a full life).

    While there is evidence that the heterosexual community is going beserk, it isn’t universal, anymore than it was when I was in college in the 70’s (“That 70’s Show” is not how I remember it)

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  213. This is what frustrates me, Pat. I say X, and you respond “how dare you say Y!”

    What frustrates me is when

    1) you say X,

    2) I say that you said X, and

    3) you respond that you never said X, and further mock me for claiming you did.

    For example:

    X=Marriage is the great civilizer

    1) You say X:

    You, in a column called The Great Civilizer:

    But I’ll start right in with reason number one: Marriage, the Great Civilizer.

    . . . .

    Women civilize men… and they do it primarily through marriage, though of course motherhood also plays a role.

    2) I say that you said X:

    Dafydd previously argued that society benefits when a man marries a woman, because marriage is a civilizing influence.

    3) You respond that you never said X:

    It isn’t “nonsensical;” you simply misunderstood it. I argued not that marriage was a civilizing influence but that the joining of male to female was a civilizing influence.

    Here’s what else frustrates me: when you put words in my mouth. Here’s you mocking me for repeating the correct claim that you said X:

    And from this, you conclude that Dafydd ab Hugh is saying that it’s the marriage part, not the female part, that does the civilizing? Great leaping horny toads, Patterico; my paragraph is as clear a diamond of the first water: it is the women who do the civilizing; and the method that the women use is primarily marriage.

    For Pete’s sake, why is this such a stumbling block for you? You may disagree, but I demand that you at least understand my point! I’m not writing in Aramaic.

    I didn’t claim that you said it was the marriage part, not the female part, that does the civilizing. That is something you made up. Those are words you put in my mouth, together with a bunch of mocking statements (Great leaping horny toads. For Pete’s sake. I’m not writing in Aramaic.)

    That frustrates me.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  214. Dafydd,

    You say, amazingly enough:

    At no point did I compare the promiscuity rate of all “openly gay males” to the limited set of “married and cohabitating heterosexuals.” Again, I’m not sure what sentence you misread to get that idea, but it’s a pretty egregious misreading. Can you point to a specific paragraph where I compared two groups that I of course know are very different subsets?

    From your post:

    But gay men already date each other and live with each other — with little evidence that shacking up moderates their behavior.

    Alan P. Bell and Martin S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A study of Diversity Among Men and Women, p. 308, Table 7, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978: 75% of gay, white males admitted that they had had sex with more than one hundred separate males in their lifetimes; 28% claimed more than a thousand.

    Being openly gay appears to exacerbate promiscuity. Paul Van de Ven, et al., “Facts & Figures: 2000 Male Out Survey,” p. 20 & Table 20, monograph published by National Centre in HIV Social Research Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of New South Wales, February 2001: a survey in Australia in the year 2000 found that gay men who associated with the gay community were almost four times as likley to have had over fifty sexual partners in the preceding six months than were gay men who were not “out” and did not associate with the gay community.

    But how does this stack up against men in heterosexual relationships? Robert T. Michael, et al., Sex in America: a Definitive Survey, pp. 140-141, Table 11, Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1994; Rotello, pp. 75-76: 94% of traditionally married heterosexuals had only a single sexual partner within the preceding year; in fact, 75% of cohabitating heterosexuals had only a single sexual partner. And among married heterosexuals, “a vast majority are faithful while the marriage is intact.”

    There simply is no dispute in the literature: gay men (and even lesbians) are more sexually promiscuous, as a group, than their heterosexual counterparts.

    What am I missing here? We are given 1) data on the promiscuity of gay, white males; and 2) data on the promiscuity of openly gay males; and invited to assess how this “stack[s] up” against that of men in heterosexual relationships. Then, throwing out any concept of a fair comparison, we are given 3) data on the faithfulness of married or cohabiting heterosexuals, and none on heterosexuals who are single and on the prowl. Whaddya know, that data shows those heterosexuals being relatively faithful and nonpromiscuous. Then the conclusion: there is no dispute in the literature: gay men (and lesbians, tossed in for good measure, though you cite not a single study on them) are more promiscuous.

    If you weren’t comparing the two, you did a pretty good job of faking it. I doubt I was the only one fooled.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  215. An observation,

    It seems that Patterico is correct that Dafydd was not exactly comparing apples to apples.
    But, it looks like Dafydd was comparing the behavior of 75% of the gay male population (total, of those in a sample of gay males) with the married and cohabitating heterosexual population (which is probably a majority of the heterosexual population). The unmarried on the prowl heterosexual males would have a lot of work to do to beat the 28% of all gay males who have had 1,000 partners plus.

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  216. I think that was Dafydd’s point that he made earlier: he provided *some* evidence, just not the kind that would pass peer review (he’s right to note that I misspoke in saying he had said his *studies* weren’t peer-reviewed). I wouldn’t have called it a logical fallacy if he had cited those studies and then made the same argument you just made, MD in Philly. But he instead concluded that there was no dispute in the literature, as though he didn’t even realize that he had compared unlike subsets.

    As I have repeatedly said, for me to point that out is *not* the same as saying that he’s wrong. I am just saying that his data didn’t *prove* his point, due to a logical fallacy. But I’ve heard the claim made often enough that I don’t seriously dispute it, even though he fails to prove it.

    Dafydd,

    You have crowed quite a bit about this statement from the story I cited above:

    In Rothblum’s study, gay men were more likely to be non-monogamous than straight couples or lesbians . . .

    Well, assuming that gay men start out much more promiscuous, that statement doesn’t mean that marriage hasn’t reduced the promiscuity. If A has 75 apples and gives away 50, and B has 25 apples and gives away 5, A will have more apples than B, but will have given away far more. Rothblum’s study does not necessarily show that marriage didn’t reduce promiscuity from when gays were single. We don’t know, because the story does a poor job of reporting the findings, and we really have no idea what the numbers mean.

    Again, I didn’t cite that study or that newspaper article as in-depth research trying to prove anything. So please stop calling it a “vaunted” study — I gave the counterargument to it even as I cited the article, because I found the source of the article (the San Francisco newspaper) a bit suspect. I just thought it was funny that you had claimed that no newspapers had any headlines suggesting that marriage might reduce promiscuity, and that I had found one within about 30 seconds whose headline did seem to suggest something very similar. That’s all.

    Your style of argumentation can be very frustrating. You have this long diatribe about how I shouldn’t say you haven’t addressed something in a satisfactory way. Well, if I say you haven’t addressed it, you’ll call me a liar, because you have. But you really haven’t, because you totally overlooked the part about the unlike subsets. So I say you haven’t addressed it in a satisfactory way, which is true. I wish you’d respond to something like that with a response that does address the issue I say you haven’t addressed, rather than lecturing me about my alleged circumlocutions.

    In general, just tone down the rhetoric, please. I’m not an ideological enemy of yours, and you don’t have to treat me as one.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  217. Patterico just went through the night being frustrated and still Dafydd is not talking–proverbially locking Patterico out of the further intercourse.

    May I offer my counseling services here?

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  218. Patterico

    When Dafydd writes a long narrative, carefully checking his spelling and html and posts it to your blog, he is offering you a representation of his love. He yearns to commune with you and to share the knowledge that you cherish and respect him. Do not nitpick his arguments, by saying “Oh, the X is not like Y”, or worse, “I had better at xrlq’s before this.”

    Appreciate the care and effort of the exposition. Although you know Dafydd well and have have intercourse on many casual occassions, realize that he still needs to know he is appreciated and respected in the morning.

    Dafydd

    When Patterico tells you your arguments are not proven, he is not saying that they lack value. I think he’s gone a long way in saying he’s sorry this morning. Realize that his insensitivity is not a representation of his true feelings for you. He’s had a long day at the office before coming home and he needs to seperate himself first from the troubles of the day. Give him some time. Be patient. Sometimes men just don’t realize how much something they say can hurt.

    The rest is up to you two.

    [What you just witnessed was this thread jumping the shark. — Patterico]

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  219. Patterico,

    I appreciate your comments and understand your point. I agree (not that you need my agreement), that I look for consistent logic. I can accept some things as true without them being “proven”, but I don’t like claims being over-stretched (obvious hyperbole aside).

    Aside from the discussion on the details of the argument for a moment, I would like to readdress some things on the issues of SSM itself.

    [1. I’ve heard use of the “civilizing influence of women on men” as a reason for co-ed dorms, to help motivate the guys from acting like someone you wouldn’t respect. In practice, however, I think it simply desensitized both sexes so they now do things in each others presence we wouldn’t have dreamed of when I was in college.]

    2.

    Would the legalization of SSM imply a legal and moral equivalency with heterosexual marriage to the degree that stating, “I do not agree with SSM” is cause for a charge of harassment, intimidation, violation of civil rights, for a child to be sent to the principal’s office, for the parents to be visited by Family Services for “teaching their child to hate”?

    I share your concern about political correctness, but that’s a speech issue. Whether we can uphold speech while punishing violence is a challenge that does not hinge on the legal recognition of SSM one way or the other.

    I think its naive to go forward with something without considering implications, if they can be thought about. And I’m not sure why you discuss upholding free speech while punishing violence. I said nothing about violence, other than “violence” implied by the statement, I disagree with you.” It is more than “political correctness”, its freedom to have and discuss views of morality that differ (I can’t believe I’m having to defend the right of someone to say, “I think same-sex relationships are wrong”. The ACLU can defend Nazi marchers in Illinois and people in the Man-Boy Love Association-or whatever its called, but to say marriage should be between only a man and a woman is speech not allowed???)

    For the sake of discussion, the ruling in the sodomy law case did not disturb “conservatives” so much because we wanted to keep the sodomy law in place per se, but that it seemed to say that it is improproper for the government to address issues of sexual conduct of any kind. Perhaps that is a false impression, if so I’d love to hear why. I don’t think it should be legal for a married heterosexual couple to have intercourse on their front lawn just because they want to. Likewise, if the judicial argument is that it is discriminatory to prohibit Joe to marry the person of his choice because that person is a man and not a woman, why can’t he marry John and Sue? If marriage is in part a legal contract, what law says a contract can only be between two parties?? If John wants to marry a dog, what business does the government have to tell him what to do with his sex life, if “sexual relationship” = “right to marry”.

    Now lets be clear, I’m not saying a man with same sex attraction is like a pedophile is like a man into beastiality (I don’t believe that at all for a half a millisecond). the concern is what logic is being used to equate same sex marriage and what other logical extentions it has.

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  220. One additional point, about refereed journals. The Lancet put out an article some months ago claiming the the US military action was responsible for 100,000 civilian deaths above and beyond what the background death count would have been. If I recall correctly, the authors were even from a very reputable institution (Hopkins?)

    The article was a bunch of bunk. One , their statistical accuracy was essentially +/- almost 100,000. Even moreso, looking through their calculations, the only way you could believe the result is if you assumed/agreed with a “finding” along the way that the mortality rate in Iraq under Saddam was better than the US.

    So just because something is in a refereed journal doesn’t mean you can count on objectivity.

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  221. This is what frustrates me, Pat. I say X, and you respond “how dare you say Y!”

    What frustrates me is when

    1) you say X,

    2) I say that you said X, and

    3) you respond that you never said X, and further mock me for claiming you did.

    Cool down, guys, or at least leave me out of it.

    X

    [Imagine how Y feels. — Patterico]

    Xrlq (e2795d)

  222. [What you just witnessed was this thread jumping the shark. — Patterico]

    I had heard the phrase before, but was not sure what it meant, so I looked it up. Apparently, “jumping the shark” means to reach climax.

    Well, that is a relief. I am glad that things got worked out (which reminds me of another cultural folk tale about making up ……. maybe another time.)

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  223. MD:

    You raise a number of questions, which I think can loosely be characterized as “slippery slope” concerns.

    And I’m not sure why you discuss upholding free speech while punishing violence.

    Because I was supporting speech as distinguished from activity – the slope between the two is not at all slippery. The example you cited was clearly the former, and should not be punished under the law.

    I’m not disputing the relevance of your concern that some legislature or agency will seek to punish such statements. But the suppression of speech is a boogeyman that should be put in perspective. It’s a concern of a different stripe, and has a different remedy.

    The ACLU can defend Nazi marchers in Illinois and people in the Man-Boy Love Association-or whatever its called, but to say marriage should be between only a man and a woman is speech not allowed???

    But nobody is even suggesting that! Free speech may not be limitless, but filters on a particular viewpoint are never allowed.

    Any policy change impacting the culture potentially gives rise to criticisms of that change, and by extension the danger that those criticisms will be stifled. But the First Amendment applies. Nobody’s going to prosecute Bill Bennett for discussing the abortion of all black babies as a solution for crime (he wasn’t advocating it but you get the picture, it’s very un-P.C.), and likewise no one is going to prosecute or otherwise punish people for expressing anti-SSM views, except by informal social sanctions, which are just a part of life.

    [Texas sodomy decision] seemed to say that it is improproper for the government to address issues of sexual conduct of any kind. . .I don’t think it should be legal for a married heterosexual couple to have intercourse on their front lawn just because they want to.

    Government regulation of private conduct stands in stark contrast to speech by individuals. You seem to know what you’re talking about so I’m sure you’re not equating the two, but I want to emphasize the wide gulf between my right to say my opinion in any forum I choose, and the government’s right to prohibit me from doing something in private based on majoritarian cultural values. They are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

    Sex on your front lawn is proscribable for the same reason that sex in your bedroom is not. That line may stand to be further defined, but it’s not going to move wildly, so again, I see no impending legal schism on sexual matters.

    Likewise, if the judicial argument is that it is discriminatory to prohibit Joe to marry the person of his choice because that person is a man and not a woman, why can’t he marry John and Sue?

    In a nutshell, because regulations on how many people you can marry (or of what species) will only be struck down if they have no rational basis in law. These laws will stand no matter what.

    Regulations on the sex of those you can marry are subject to higher level of scrutiny, and will be struck down if it is not narrowly tailored to serve an important government interest. This is a more permissive standard than if it was the race of the partner that was being regulated. Outcome unknown, but if the courts choose this analysis it will be interesting to see how that gov’t interest is defined, and whether it is sufficient.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  224. What you just witnessed was this thread jumping the shark. — Patterico

    Anyone got a smoke?

    biwah (f5ca22)

  225. biwah-

    I appreciate your comments, and enjoy the discussion, but I do not believe that “they” will always reveal the amount of reasonableness you do. People are making it a Federal case (literally) if the generic benign words “under God” can be in the Pledge of allegiance or not (no one has made it a crime if a person refuses to say the words). We agree there are those who would outlaw the statement, “Homosexual behavior is morally wrong” if they had the chance (we may differ on how forceful that sentiment would be). It is not merely a speech issue, it is a “how one lives their life” issue. Is it OK to say that belief on your own time in private, but if you say it in the workplace will it constitute making an “unsafe environment” and cost a person their job (even if the person was responding calmly in a conversation that someone else began)?

    will only be struck down if they have no rational basis in law

    It is exactly what is found by some to have a rational basis in the law or not that is the problem! There are many today, and many more 20 years ago, that would say there is no rational basis for marriage to be defined as anything other than 1 man and 1 woman (it has been that way in western law for centuries), while others claim there is no rational basis to limit it to opposite sexes. The precedent of Roe v Wade is immutable (according to many), but centuries of precedent concerning marriage is not??

    Maybe nobody plans on prosecuting Bill Bennett today, but if “they” were (even) a (teensy-weeny) little bit fair minded it wouldn’t have been an issue at all. Instead, we have major political leaders trying to characterize “those evil conservatives” again and demanding he be reprimanded/fired/ or what have you. It appears you are at least somewhat familiar with the distortion involved. The full transcript shows nothing that is “not-PC”,let alone racist.

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  226. MD,

    Re rational basis,

    My belief is that the DOMAs pass rational basis but fail intermediate scrutiny. But we will see, as I’ve said I look forward to the issues being hashed out in the arguments and decision. No one’s going to die over this thing, and where there is no strong consensus today, someday there will be, regardless of today’s balance of opinion.

    Those who think the business world, in relation to government, is by nature and necessity more farsighted and has its finger more closely on the pulse might find it interesting that 68% of Fortune 100 companies provide domestic partner benefits. In the Fortune 50, that figure is 73%. Those numbers are from memory, from an advertisement section in the NYT Mag. I know it’s not the same as SSM; just pointing it out.

    I went to a liberal liberal arts college at the height of P.C. and was disturbed at the linguistic cleansing that was going on. Academia was right to concertedly go after bigotry and knuckleheadism, but their methods ultimately were quasi-fascist and self-aggrandizing, did a disservice to the students, discredited the institution, and ultimately failed even the laugh test. I do think the Court, by contrast, has been consistent and strong in its defense of the First Amendment.

    Your workplace scenario finds the weak spot in that strong free-speech view. However, the reality is that you can get disciplined or canned for almost any allusion to sex, gender etc. SSM won’t change that dramatically. Our kids’ generation will probably laugh at our stuffiness and just plain be more practical.

    biwah (f5ca22)

  227. Patterico:

    Ah; reading your quotation, I agree that it was confusing. The problem is that I didn’t bother posting any studies that specifically listed the promiscuity rate of heterosexuals in general.

    But to be fair to me, I assumed it would be obvious to readers that, among heterosexuals, you would not find that 75% would have had over one hundred partners in their lives, or that 28% would have had over a thousand!

    Did I really need to spell this one out? That statistic for gays was simply for “gay, white males,” not gays who are especially promiscuous, Pat. According to Bell and Weinberg, 75% of all white, male gays claimed to have had sex with more than a hundred men.

    Do you mean to say that, without seeing a study to the contrary, you would believe that 75% of all white, male heterosexuals have had sex with more than a hundred women? Really? Then good Lord, but I’m running way behind.

    And do you mean to say that unless I cite a contradictory study, you will believe it likely that more than a quarter of all white, male heterosexuals have slept with more than a thousand women?

    This is such a bizarre complaint, Pat. Let’s be honest. We both of us believe that the corresponding figures for white, male heterosexuals would be far below the 75% and 28% cited above. Thus, we both believe that gays are more promiscuous, as a class, than heterosexuals.

    You even admitted as much.

    But now you assail me for supposedly comparing “the promiscuity rate of all ‘openly gay males’ to the limited set of ‘married and cohabitating heterosexuals,’ when in fact I was comparing the rate between “gay, white males” and “openly gay males” to the rate of straight, white males and openly straight white males — a statistic I did not post but which we both would agree is much lower than for gays.

    This is beyond bizarre. It’s as if you became so fixated on the stat I cited for cohabitating and married heterosexuals — which I intended to use (and did use later) to show that heterosexual marriage is very civilizing — that you completely dropped the context of what you already knew… which is that far less than 75% of heterosexual men have boffed in triple digits, and far, far less than 28% in quadruple digits.

    You cannot accuse me of being illogical; the worst you can accuse me of is adding a superfluous statistic about married heterosexuals that should have come in a different segment.

    You have obsessed on the process and ignored the substance. I did, in fact, post statistics on the promiscuity rate of gays in general, and on gays living within the gay community; and you can compare them yourself to what you know about the promiscuity rate of straights in general and straights living in the straight community.

    If you want to completely ignore that statistic about married and cohabbing heterosexuals until a later time, when it becomes relevant — such as when discussing the statistics mentioned by Professor Rothblum — you are free to do so. But don’t confuse matters further by pretending that my comparison was between those separate groups, please.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  228. But don’t confuse matters further by pretending that my comparison was between those separate groups, please.

    I am content to have readers read your passage, and especially the passage I quoted, and judge for themselves whether 1) I am “pretending” that you made that comparison (a term that implies dishonesty on my part) or 2) you worded your post badly, so as to make it appear that you actually had made that comparison.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  229. If you want to completely ignore that statistic about married and cohabbing heterosexuals until a later time, when it becomes relevant — such as when discussing the statistics mentioned by Professor Rothblum — you are free to do so.

    Good. Of course, I didn’t ignore the statistics mentioned by Professor Rothblum, but if you want to “completely ignore” the fact that I addressed those statistics, and “pretend” that I ignored them, you are free to do so.

    You are free to “pretend” that my comment #218, easily accessible here, did not address that issue. Why, you can “pretend” that comment doesn’t even exist, if you like — and apparently, you do.

    Why, you are “free” to continue to imply in various ways that I have been dishonest.

    And I am “free” to be tired of spurious attacks on my honesty, and to say that your implications of dishonesty on my part are utter crap.

    Ain’t “freedom” great?

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  230. I had heard the phrase before, but was not sure what it meant, so I looked it up. Apparently, “jumping the shark” means to reach climax.

    Well, that is a relief.

    Settle down, Beavis.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  231. Who is Beavis? I need T.P. for my bungholio.

    The Great Cornholio (428dfd)

  232. Are you threatening me?

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  233. Patterico:

    Rothblum’s study does not necessarily show that marriage didn’t reduce promiscuity from when gays were single. We don’t know, because the story does a poor job of reporting the findings, and we really have no idea what the numbers mean.

    That is correct; that’s why I do not claim to have proven the core point. My purpose in the column was only to start making the argument.

    MD In Philly:

    So just because something is in a refereed journal doesn’t mean you can count on objectivity.

    You are absolutely correct, of course. In fact, my first introduction to this was when I began to pick apart the “studies” published by — um, was it Arthur Kellerman? — in the NEJM that purported to show that owning a gun increased one’s risk of death.

    But — and it’s a big butt — when a paper is published in a refereed journal, generally there is sufficient transparency that a patient person with some statistical understanding can at least recalculate the statistics on his own, reinvestigate the evidence, and even (if he has time and facilities) try to duplicate the entire experiment.

    In other words, unlike (say) a newspaper column — or a web column, like the Lizard’s Tongue — there is room enough and specificity enough to test the reasoning and see whether it really holds together. Which is why I prefer such publications over editorials and even “news” stories, at least for purposes of getting at the truth.

    And Patterico is right; this thread has B and L jumped the shark. I’ve defended my column and my post as best I can, so I’ll stand on previous comments and rest my case.

    Good night, all. Except Paul: may you rot in Riverside!

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  234. Patterico:

    Good. Of course, I didn’t ignore the statistics mentioned by Professor Rothblum, but if you want to “completely ignore” the fact that I addressed those statistics, and “pretend” that I ignored them, you are free to do so.

    You are free to “pretend” that my comment #218, easily accessible here, did not address that issue. Why, you can “pretend” that comment doesn’t even exist, if you like — and apparently, you do.

    Why, you are “free” to continue to imply in various ways that I have been dishonest.

    Oh, for God’s sake, Patterico. YOU MISREAD MY GOD DAMNED COMMENT YET AGAIN!

    I said this:

    If you want to completely ignore that statistic about married and cohabbing heterosexuals until a later time, when it becomes relevant — such as when discussing the statistics mentioned by Professor Rothblum — you are free to do so.

    You interpreted what I wrote as this:

    If you want to completely ignore that statistic about married and cohabbing hetersexuals until a later time, when it becomes relevant — like the way you ignored my points about Professor Rothblum — you are free to do so.

    However, what I meant by what I wrote was this:

    If you want to completely ignore that statistic about married and cohabbing heterosexuals until a later time, when it becomes relevant — for example, until some later time when we seriously discuss the findings of Professor Rothblum, at which time the stats about married and cohabitating heteros would be more to the point — you are free to do so.

    Pat, I have never suggested at any time in this entire discussion that you are dishonest. I don’t believe you are dishonest. Even when you have suggested that I, myself, was being dishonest, I simply chalked it up to your passion in arguing what you believe.

    But this silly last piece of yours is a perfect illustration of what Robert Anton Wilson calls the “Law of Fives”:

    Everything that happens, happens in fives, or is a multiple of five or divisible by five, or is in some way directly or indirectly related to five. This law becomes more and more apparent the harder you look.

    Stop looking so hard. Yeesh.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  235. Dafydd,

    Thank you for saying that you don’t think I’ve been dishonest. Of course, you didn’t take back your accusation that I’ve been “pretending” you compared two unlike groups. I suppose it must be another one of my egregious misreadings for me to conclude that, when you say I’m “pretending” you made some argument, that you are saying I am asserting you made an argument that I know you didn’t make.

    Perhaps you should stop and consider the possibility that your post I criticized simply was not worded well, and that my criticisms were fair criticisms based on the wording of your post, rather than egregious misreadings and pretendings by a partisan trying to be unfair to you.

    In my opinion, you have done a much better job defending your point in this comment thread than you did in your post. That’s because you have been clearer about the meaning of your studies. Rather than saying (these are characterizations, not quotes):

    I have study x and I have study y, and the conclusion is clear.

    as you did in your post, you have said:

    I have study x and I have study y, and while they don’t prove my conclusion, they are some evidence of my position. There are other studies out there that are much better evidence of my conclusion; I just cited the less relevant ones in my post. Also, my real conclusion isn’t proved by my studies, but by the lack of studies on the other side that dispute the logical conclusion I have drawn from my own evidence.

    That’s what you should have said in your post. But — in between all the accusations that I have “egregiously” misread your stuff, that I’m trying to prove things I’m not trying to prove, that I said things I never said, and that I am misunderstanding and misstating and just generally being as dense in a rock when your point is crystal clear and not written in Aramaic — in between all that, somewhere in there, you have managed to make the argument here that you should have made in your post.

    I continue to believe that your original post itself would cause intelligent readers — at least ones who are not already biased towards your position — to crease their foreheads and knot their eyebrows in several places, saying: “What? That doesn’t follow! That doesn’t make sense!”

    Rather than trying to paint such people as ignorant or unfair, take a constructive criticism. The post just wasn’t that clear, dude. No big deal; it happens to all writers.

    I don’t recall accusing you of dishonesty, by the way. I know that, at one point in the thread, I accused you of having put words in my mouth, making up something I never said. And you had indeed done that. I don’t think I said it was deliberate, though.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  236. Patterico:

    In my opinion, you have done a much better job defending your point in this comment thread than you did in your post. That’s because you have been clearer about the meaning of your studies.

    Heh… Pat, do a quick word count and compare the number of words I have used here with the number used in my post. Imagine how long that post would have been had all this been included! It was already awfully long, dealing with three separate myths, and I was trying to chop it everywhere I could… I see I chopped it too much.

    I did probably skip a paragraph in between the two sets of stats, so that it indeed looked as if I were making the comparison you thought I was making. I probably intended to write a transition in between the gay stats and the straight stats but forgot. But I did clarify here in this thread, and it was what seemed like the adamant refusal to accept my clarification that frustrated me.

    (Before you get mad again, I am not accusing you of deliberately refusing! I’m saying once you had it fixed in your mind that I was comparing apples to apes, it seemed as if nothing I said could persuade you otherwise.)

    The biggest problem of online communication, which has plagued people for longer than the internet has been in existence, is the dichotomy between online dialog as conversation and as a written missive.

    I don’t know about you, but in a comments section, I write as on a bulletin board — relatively spontaneous, as if conversing — rather than the way I would write a post or an article. I read through what I wrote before commenting, but I don’t write multiple drafts, as I generally do when posting.

    I certainly apologize for the word “pretending,” which I used only once… but honestly, I did not mean it the way you took it.

    Another problem with communication in general, not limited to online, is that no two people use the English language in precisely the same way. Betimes, two people can both be attempting to be friendly and polite; yet the differences in how each uses the language leads to confusion and hurt feelings in both parties.

    In this case, it was probably an unfortunate word. But what I had in mind was that you had become so predisposed to believe that I was making a certain comparison that no matter what I wrote, you would convince yourself that I had again made that comparison. I did not mean you knew it was otherwise and were deliberately lying; I mean you were pretending to yourself, in order to make my every explanation fit into your earlier misapprehension… in which usage, it wasn’t the best word. I should have said something like “don’t delude yourself into believing,” which is what I actually meant.

    (That might also have annoyed you, but at least you wouldn’t have felt your honesty was impugned.)

    You have to remember that by that time, I was frustrated and angry, as well. Even if my initial phrasing in my post over on BL was maladroit, I thought I had clarified it.

    But if you were under the impression I was saying A, while I knew I was saying B, we both of us would think the other was barking mad and was being at best obtuse and at worst self-deluding.

    So let us start over.

    I meant the comparison to be between the statistic cited for gays in general and gays living within the gay community — to what we all know from experience to be the general situation with heterosexuals: I doubt there is a single reader here who believes for a moment that a quarter of all heterosexual men have slept with a thousand women or that 75% had slept with a hundred.

    The part I skipped was that I have seen data that persuaded me that being involved in a “committed” relationship barely changes the promiscuity rate for gays — but I couldn’t find those studies with a few minutes of Googling, and I wasn’t ready to go spend a day at the UCLA URL to do so… and in any event, that is precisely the responsibility of proponents of SSM: to find such statistics showing, e.g., that when gays get civil unions or even when they shack up that it changes their behavior.

    The second statistic I cited was meant to set the bar; I was demonstrating that the bar was awfully high. Just taking the difference between the two stats — one for cohabitating and the other for marriage — it was clear that actually tying the knot, for heterosexuals, drastically reduced the rate of straying.

    I want to see statistics that going from just living together to civil unions (or even marriage in other countries) caused a similar change among gays… something that would certainly fly in the face of the studies I have seen.

    Or even from dating to living together: another stat I didn’t cite, but which is both obvious and readily obtained (with, albeit, more work that I’m willing to put out, but which should be believable), is that more than 25% of men who are not cohabitating with anyone but simply dating have sex with more than one woman a year. Going from casually dating to living together drastically reduces promiscuity, and getting married cuts it down to almost nothing — among heterosexuals.

    But from what studies I have read, it affects gays much less significantly. And it was that, more than anything else, that persuaded me originally away from the idea you hold: that marriage would civilize gays the same way it does straight men. I believe that marriage is socially a bad match with homosexuality because men and women are fundamentally different; and it is the combination of two such disparate but evolutionarily complimentary souls into one couple that does the trick, not any magic words spoken by a priest, judge, or magistrate.

    Society is not benefitted by same-sex marriage. If there were a liberty interest, that would trump society’s interest here, because society does have an interest in liberty. This is why I support Lawrence. But there is no liberty interest in marriage — for anyone. And therefore, I oppose SSM.

    Again, I apologize for being initially unclear and for getting frustrated when my explanations seemed futile. But I never meant to impugn your honesty, Pat.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  237. Accepted.

    Here is what I think has happened in each instance. You make a statement. You really mean to say A, but I (reasonably) read it as B. (I started to say X and Y, but I don’t want to offend Xrlq.) I criticize B. You say: look, I am really trying to argue A, not B. But rather than simply leaving it at that, and admitting that your statement could reasonably have been read to say B, you instead reproach me for thinking you possibly could have meant B. Unfortunately, this takes the focus off your argument A. So, rather than debating A, I feel the need to defend my reading of your statement as B. Then you take that as my refusal to confront your arguments as to A.

    Solution: better to start over and simply debate A.

    I think the burden of proof argument is an important one. I see the argument that the proponent of change bears the burden. But I also see the argument that the proponent of discrimination bears the burden. This is how it works in the law, and this is how I think it should work in moral discussions as well. I think people should generally be treated equally, and while society enforces unequal treatment all the time, and should, it should do so only when it can show that there is a reason for it.

    I really would be interested in studies showing that married gay men are as (or almost as) promiscuous as non-married gay men. If you do stumble across any, let me know.

    I am glad to have the discussion back on track, and thank you for your last comment.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  238. Here is what I think has happened in each instance. You make a statement. You really mean to say A, but I (reasonably) read it as B. (I started to say X and Y, but I don’t want to offend Xrlq.) I criticize B. You say: look, I am really trying to argue A, not B. But rather than simply leaving it at that, and admitting that your statement could reasonably have been read to say B, you instead reproach me for thinking you possibly could have meant B. Unfortunately, this takes the focus off your argument A. So, rather than debating A, I feel the need to defend my reading of your statement as B. Then you take that as my refusal to confront your arguments as to A.

    Dadyff is from Venus, Patterico is from Mars.

    I’m sending out for more advice, this seems a little fishy.

    Paul Deignan (d2fd7b)

  239. They even have a relationship quiz.

    Maybe you fellows should start there.

    Paul Deignan (d2fd7b)

  240. We get it already.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  241. I know, but it just keeps getting better (also as an interpersonal communication issue). I have to wonder if there is not some systemic factor at work (did a study myself along these lines).

    It’s worth a second thought (that the basis of communication is not simply rational, but also emotional/laden with assumptions/cultural/etc.). So the meta-conversation is at least as interesting as the topic at hand.

    Paul Deignan (d2fd7b)

  242. As luck would have it, we have some good advice already.

    Paul Deignan (d2fd7b)

  243. I think the burden of proof argument is an important one. I see the argument that the proponent of change bears the burden. But I also see the argument that the proponent of discrimination bears the burden. This is how it works in the law,

    How so? The presumption is of constitutionality, not unconstitutionality.

    Xrlq (428dfd)

  244. How so? The presumption is of constitutionality, not unconstitutionality.

    Okay, you have something of a point, Xrlq.

    Technically, rational basis review means that a statute has a presumption of constitutionality: the plaintiff must show that the law is arbitrary and not rationally related to a legitimate state purpose. So you’re right as a general rule.

    I’m not sure how strong that presumption is any more with respect to statutes that treat homosexuals differently. As cases like Lawrence v. Texas have modified the standard, where laws are read as singling out a politically unpopular group like homosexuals for “harm,” the courts will apply a more searching scrutiny, even if that scrutiny does not technically rise to the level of “strict scrutiny.” So the actual presumption of constitutionality, as courts would apply it now, is quite weakened — at least if the statute singles out homosexuals for “harm.”

    One could debate whether a statute that prohibits gays from marrying would be considered such a statute. Under the language of Lawrence, it would not, as Lawrence specifically deems “preserving the traditional institution of marriage” to be a legitimate state interest. But we have seen how the slippery slope operates — the Court in Eisenstadt (with the likely exception of Brennan) didn’t contemplate its reasoning to be used to constitutionalize abortion, but that’s what happened.

    So I’d argue that the question is not totally clear. But since I disagree with Lawrence, I shouldn’t have invoked the law as an analogy. And I think your point has some resonance as a counterargument to mine.

    Patterico (4e4b70)

  245. Patterico:

    Here I’m on much shakier ground, not being a lawyer. But it simply doesn’t seem like discrimination to me, because there are a number of such rules limiting who any particular person can marry; geneder is only one such.

    I cannot marry my cousin; I cannot marry two women; I cannot marry a girl below a certain age; I cannot marry a woman who is already married; in fact, I cannot marry anyone, because I’m already legally married myself!

    And, by the way, I cannot marry a bloke.

    To say that last one is discriminatory would presumably require saying the other rules were discriminatory, as well: what about the class of swingers, who cannot be satisfied with only one mate?

    There is no specific rule saying “homosexuals cannot marry.” You could argue that there is a rule that, by implication, affects gays tremendously more than straights. All right, but if I advertise for an employee who can heft two hundred pounds, that even more directly affects women even more tremendously more than men — which is an even more suspect category. But it’s certainly not illegal to post such an advertisement.

    I just don’t see it; it’s nothing like the sexual-preference discrimination of, e.g., a law that explicitly makes it a crime for two men to have sex, which singles out homosexuals using the exact definition of homosexuality.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  246. Gender. Sorry; I looked it over on the preview but somehow missed the misspelling.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd (f8a7be)

  247. Patterico,

    You are still beating about the bush.

    If you want to go the route of discrimination, then you have to prove the existence of separable groups–you haven’t even come close to even addressing this requirement head on.

    The least you might do is outline how to seperate people based on their own voluntary actions and or predilictions. This would be a first of its kind and dangerously anti-democratic. I wouldn’t skate over this as a given.

    Is this really the route you are going? Is this now the principle that you seek to apply?

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  248. At this time it is also worth considering, “Why do people marry?” It is a great expenditure of time and effort for something that in law can be eradicated within hours through the no-fault divorce. Why go to all the trouble to marry in the first place?

    There may be a proportion that marry for the governmental benefits, ctizenship, social security, health care, etc. My guess is that this is a small percentage. (This is an open question for discussion).

    People marry in an exchange of energy for a reduction in entropy–to gain a stable basis to do something constructive in their remaining lives. Principally, to raise children. Studies indicate that this is a rational basis for marriage hence an enduring one.

    However, the reduction in entropy is achieved through social, and not legal, forces. Divorce still has a stigma, cohabiting is still suspect. The threat of SSM to traditional marriage is that the social forces would be weakened. In fact, there is some evidence for this in the European experience.

    Since marriage is the bedrock of our society, we should be talking about ways of strengthening the social forces buttressing the institution. Wouldn’t it be wise to drop the no-fault divorce and to restrict inheritance to legitimate children? If not, why not?

    We have made these decisions already as a society yet we have not revisited their wisdom. We are operating like an organism without feedback. That is foolish. Before we march ahead, how about an evaluation of past social engineering projects?

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  249. Are you threatening me?

    This remark seems to be in reply to something to do with Beavis and Butthead.

    Without a doubt, this marked a low point in America culture that I try to put out of my mind by instinctively ignoring all things Beavis and Butthead. So, you can rest assured that I am not the one trying to T.P. Patterico’s Cornholio. That was likely someone whose pseudonym begins with X.

    Patterico, your Cornholio is safe with me.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  250. More food for thought.

    Several truly draconian solutions present themselves:
    1. Forced labor of incarcerated (rather than Camp Cup Cakes)
    2. Expedited death penalties for repeat offenders
    3. Sterilization programs for sexually irresponsible (rather than abortion)
    4. Separation of children from indigent parents (rather than AFDC)

    We can solve the problems raised in the articles. We just can’t solve them while also encouraging the behavior indirectly.

    Comments are welcome. I am not suggesting that we adopt these measures, only that a solution exists within the democratic framework.

    Paul Deignan (9e57a7)

  251. Is it true that polygamy has been sanctioned in Europe??

    http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/301

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  252. biwah-

    Could you please write a letter to the school board on behalf of these parents. Apparently they are among those not as reasonable as you.
    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/v-pfriendly/story/351575p-299887c.html

    Thanks

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  253. Hmmmm,

    Has everyone lost interest in this thread with other things to think about, or have people looked at the links and don’t know what to say??

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  254. I wasn’t planning on having the last word on this topic.

    MD in Philly (b3202e)

  255. Gentlemen, I must say I am deeply impressed with the class you two have exhibited in this debate. You have both been passionate but never deceitful or intentionally misleading. Patterico, I’ve enjoyed your blog semi-regularly for a while now. Dafydd, you were an unknown to me until the guys at Powerline spoke highly of you a few weeks ago. I think highly of both of you.

    I greatly admire both your honesty and humility in admitting mistakes and starting over gracefully. Regardless of which side I finally come down on, my respect for both of you had deepened–and I cannot help but automatically respect your points on other issues more than I would the average blogger.

    So, for what it’s worth: high fives from a junior in college!

    Seth (989106)

  256. Nice site I found … Plan on coming back later to spend a little time there.

    Acne Laser (bf6b99)


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