equality blooms with spring

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by AliEnvy

He couldn't have been sober writing this, hilarious...this sounds like the ramblings of a shotgun-married, thrice-divorced, alimony-paying, down-by-the-river-living barfly.

i understand that sexual monogamy can pose a challenge to many males (and females), and that is one of the generally accepted expectations of marriage: sexual fidelity to one's spouse.

but i guess i thought that it was a more joyful thing, something done out of choice rather than begrudging obligation.

i suppose this author feels cheated and tricked by marriage. though, who can he blame? fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me three times ... we won't get fooled again.

rite?

[AliEnvy]

To be serious for a moment, it seems to me that many of the "generally accepted expectations of marriage" (not monogamy per se) have been shifting since the introduction of the birth control pill and many men and women are not on the same page about those expectations anymore. In my opinion, that basic disconnect is what is most responsible for high divorce rates.

If anything, successful gay marriages will have a positive impact on heteros figuring out what marriage and commitment really means to them outside of traditional assumptions.

[MrsSpringsteen]

Originally Posted by AliEnvy

If anything, successful gay marriages will have a positive impact on heteros figuring out what marriage and commitment really means to them outside of traditional assumptions.

I wish-but it seems as if all it means to some heteros is "one man one woman". It's as if the actual content of a marriage doesn't even matter

[BVS]

Originally Posted by AliEnvy

To be serious for a moment, it seems to me that many of the "generally accepted expectations of marriage" (not monogamy per se) have been shifting since the introduction of the birth control pill and many men and women are not on the same page about those expectations anymore. In my opinion, that basic disconnect is what is most responsible for high divorce rates.

What did the pill have to do with it?

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by MrsSpringsteen

I wish-but it seems as if all it means to some heteros is "one man one woman". It's as if the actual content of a marriage doesn't even matter

and for some, it's simply, "no faggots allowed."

[AliEnvy]

Originally Posted by BVS

What did the pill have to do with it?

It gave women the choice to delay starting a family and pursue higher education or a career, pursuing economic independence. Huge impact on gender roles over 40 years that still causes confusion.

[BVS]

Interesting theory, I don't buy it but interesting nonetheless...

[MrsSpringsteen]

How about that one? Black men won't marry the mothers of their kids cause that's just so gay! Or white too, I would imagine. Or maybe they always marry their baby mamas. I'm so confused...



Until Logic Did Them Apart

The definitive case against gay marriage critics.

Jonathan Chait, The New Republic Published: May 28, 2009

Beauty pageant contestant Carrie Prejean, asked about gay marriage a few weeks ago, summed up her view this way: "In my country and in my family, I think that I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman." It's a pretty simple answer--what you'd expect, intellectually, from someone who had just successfully completed a bikini walk rather than a dissertation on the topic at hand.

Around the same time, Rudy Giuliani framed his own thinking in similar terms: "Marriage, I believe, both traditionally and legally, has always been between a man and a woman and should remain between a man and woman." (In Giuliani's case, he means a man and one woman at a time, though some romantic overlap may be unavoidable.)

Gay marriage opponents have made that formulation their mantra. It's a really strange way for them to summarize their argument, because it's not an argument at all. If we're debating health care, one side will have a line about big government, and the other will have a line about the uninsured or spiraling costs. If we're debating torture, advocates will mention the need to make terrorists talk, and opponents will invoke American values. Soundbites, by their nature, can't express much logical nuance, but they do tend to give you a reason to agree with the position.

The anti-gay-marriage soundbite, by contrast, makes no attempt at persuasion. It's like saying you oppose the Bush tax cuts because "I believe the top tax rate should be 39.6 percent." You believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman? Okay! But why?

The ubiquity of this hollow formulation tells us something about the state of anti-gay-marriage thought. It's a body of opinion held largely by people who either don't know why they oppose gay marriage or don't feel comfortable explicating their case.

In a liberal society, consenting adults are presumed to be able to do as they like, and it is incumbent upon opponents of any such freedom to demonstrate some wider harm. The National Organization for Marriage, on its website, instructs its activists to answer the who-gets-harmed query like so: "Who gets harmed? The people of this state who lose our right to define marriage as the union of husband and wife, that's who." Former GOP Senator Rick Santorum, arguing along similar lines, has said, "[I]f anybody can get married for any reason, then it loses its special place."

Both these arguments rest upon simple tautologies. Expanding a right to a new group deprives the rest of us of our right to deny that right to others. If making a right less exclusive devalues it, then any extension of rights is an imposition upon those who were not previously excluded--i.e., women's suffrage makes voting less special for men.

Another objection holds that gay marriage would weaken the link between marriage and child-rearing, therefore encouraging out-of-wedlock births. If true, this would at least provide some weight on the scale against gay marriage. But it suffers from two massive flaws. First, it's hard to imagine how the tiny gay minority's behavior can materially influence the way the vast majority of heterosexuals view marriage. Second, if you think about it, the causality gay-marriage opponents imagine is running the wrong way.

Suppose we had a social epidemic of young adults who moved back into their parents' houses and watched television all day rather than finding a job. You might want to strengthen the link between adulthood and work. You'd be concerned about anything that weakened this link by letting adults not work--say, early retirement. But you wouldn't be concerned about the social signals sent by teenagers finding summer jobs. That would be weakening the link between adulthood and work, but not in the harmful way.

Likewise, marriage proponents might worry about anything that expands childbearing to the non-married, but they have no reason to fear expanding marriage to the non-childbearing. This is why approximately zero people in the history of the human race have ever expressed concern about allowing old or otherwise infertile heterosexuals to marry, even though they account for a far larger percentage of marriages than gays ever could.

The most striking thing about anti-gay-marriage arguments is that they dwell exclusively on how heterosexuals would be affected. Heather Mac Donald of the conservative Manhattan Institute writes, "I fear that it will be harder than usual to persuade black men of the obligation to marry the mother of their children if the inevitable media saturation coverage associates marriage with homosexuals."

I suppose you could imagine, somewhere, a black man telling his friends he's going to propose to his pregnant girlfriend, only to be taunted, "Marriage? That's so gay," and think better of it. I don't find this very likely. Neither does Mac Donald, actually. "[I]f someone can persuade me that the chances are zero, then I would be much more sanguine," she writes. "But anything more than zero, I am reluctant to risk."

This is the One Percent Doctrine of social policy. If you place zero weight upon the preferences of gays, then all you have to do is suggest a possible harm, however remote, associated with gay marriage. The same sensibility was on stark display in a recent National Review editorial. Dismissing the argument that marriage might foster more stable gay relationships, the magazine's editors replied curtly, "[T]hese do not strike us as important governmental goals." There's a word for social policy that disregards the welfare of one class of citizens: discrimination.

Some hard-core conservatives are willing to openly discriminate like this, but most people aren't, which is why public opinion is warming to gay marriage. Most opposition arises from simple discomfort. When I first started hearing about gay marriage, I didn't oppose it, but it seemed sort of strange and radical--and only after several years did I realize I supported it.

The line "I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman" is an expression of that sensibility--a reflection of unease rather than principle. As people face up to the fact that opposing gay marriage means disregarding the happiness of the people most directly (or even solely) affected by it, most of us come around. Good ideas don't always defeat bad ideas, but they usually, over time, defeat non-ideas.

[BVS]

Wow...

Some really solid arguments

Keep bringing them on, this is entertaining.

[VintagePunk]

Great piece, Mrs. S. Funny how gay marriage supporters are the ones who are consistently able to come up with logical arguments, isn't it?

[corianderstem]

Heather Mac Donald of the conservative Manhattan Institute writes, "I fear that it will be harder than usual to persuade black men of the obligation to marry the mother of their children if the inevitable media saturation coverage associates marriage with homosexuals."

Holy shit - what?

Do they honestly think that there will suddenly be taunts of "You want to marry your girlfriend? Dude, that's so gay."

[anitram]

Originally Posted by BVS

Interesting theory, I don't buy it but interesting nonetheless...

I think it's bang on, legally speaking. Most people talk about Roe v. Wade, when the truly seminal decision on privacy was Griswold v. Connecticut. Roe v. Wade could not have come without it.

[Diemen]

If making a right less exclusive devalues it, then any extension of rights is an imposition upon those who were not previously excluded--i.e., women's suffrage makes voting less special for men.

It's true. Voting was much more special when we got to lord it over the womenfolk.

[AliEnvy]

YouTube - Dick Cheney on Same-Sex Marriage

[DrTeeth]

Cheney sounds surprisingly reasonable in that clip, but I guess that's what can happen when you're confronted with reality in your own life.

[AliEnvy]

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by AliEnvy

agreed. we're waiting. it's also only been a few months and he does have a lot on his plate right now.

who's excited for the Cairo speech?

[AliEnvy]

Craig Ferguson: "Dick Cheney said today, he supports gay marriage....I think he only supports gay marriage because he sees marriage as a form of torture, but anyway, he supports it."

[deep]

Originally Posted by DrTeeth

Cheney sounds surprisingly reasonable in that clip, but I guess that's what can happen when you're confronted with reality in your own life.

I believe that was his stand in 2004

he would not support a Federal Ban on same sex marriage.

[Irvine511]

unless you want to actively hurt gay people, who on earth could be against such a thing?

Same-sex couples fight for immigration rights

By Mallory Simon
CNN
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(CNN) -- Jared was forced to choose between a dying father and the love of his life.

Judy Rickard had to quit her job and lose her full pension to be with the one she loved.

Martha McDevitt-Pugh packed up and moved to another country to be with her future spouse.

"Nobody should be in that position. Nobody should have to be an exile," Rickard said.

But all three said their hands were forced by federal immigration laws that don't allow Americans to sponsor their foreign-born same-sex partners for citizenship as a man may do for his wife or a woman for her husband.

"The problem is that I, as a woman, cannot sponsor my female partner for immigration. If I was a man or [my partner] Karin was a man, we wouldn't be having this discussion," said Rickard, 61.

She now travels outside the United States whenever she can to be with her partner, Karin Bogliolo, 68, who had to go back to Britain when her visa expired last year, but it's not the life together they dreamed of.

"I am finally with someone I really want to be with," Bogliolo said. "But we haven't got all the time in the world. We're both getting old." Video Watch couple's emotional plea to live together »

An estimated 36,000 bi-national couples face the same dilemma each year, according to an advocacy group, Immigration Equality.

The issue will be discussed in Congress on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, after 10 previous attempts to have hearings on the Uniting American Families Act. The bill has 102 co-sponsors in the House and 17 co-sponsors in the Senate, including Judiciary Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council which opposes same sex marriage, has condemned the bill as "yet another attack on marriage at the expense of U.S. taxpayers."

"Although Leahy frames the policy as an anti-discrimination measure, the truth is, this weakens our federal law and chips away at the unique status of marriage," Perkins wrote in a blog on the group's Web site.

"For the federal government to recognize homosexual pairs in any way, shape, or form is a violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act."

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, who is openly gay, is a co-sponsor of the House version of the bill, but thinks it should be part of a larger immigration reform measure, according to his spokesman, Harry Gural.

Gural said Frank "doubts that it will be taken up in this Congress because of the overwhelming need to deal with other issues like financial regulation, climate change and health care." Gural said Frank supports the bill, but "he's just a pragmatist."

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear from couples facing deportation and split because of the law. Nineteen other countries, including much of western Europe and Canada, Brazil and Australia among others, allow nationals to sponsor same-sex partners for citizenship.

"We're not asking for anything special," Rickard said. "This is a civil rights issue; it's about basic rights and right now, we are considered second-class citizens. But this bill, if it passed, it would mean quite simply that we could be equal."

There will also be testimony from opponents like Jessica M. Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that supports a restrictive immigration policy and the deportation of illegal immigrants. She will testify that immigration numbers in the United States are already staggering and the bill would put further stress on the system.

Vaughan said that because the bill would allow sponsoring of "permanent partnerships," it would be difficult to accept applications because there was no documentation for those, the way there are for marriages.

"Without documents, how do you establish the relationship is bona fide?" she said. "And if we are going to make this change, it should be across all federal levels, not just immigration. What about Social Security and Medicare?"

For some same-sex couples, it is enough to start with immigration.

Jared, a Dutch national living in this country illegally who asked to be identified only by his English nickname, fell in love with Melvin Terry in 1978 while traveling in Europe. He had been with Terry for 18 years when he was told by the U.S. government that he had to leave.

"The fact that the government has the right to tell you your relationship is invalid, it's more than frustrating, it's insulting," Terry said.

Then, Jared's dad became ill in the Netherlands.

He was forced to choose whether to go back home to see his father before he died and risk being denied entry back into the United States because he is HIV-positive or of staying with Terry and never seeing his father again.

His father made the choice for him, sending him a letter and underlining "don't even think about coming here." And so for 13 years, Jared, 49, has remained in the United States illegally to be with his 62-year-old partner.

Canadian Chris Waddling, who came to the United States to study and work beginning in 1994 as a research analyst, is one of the lucky ones -- his employer at UCLA has agreed to sponsor him for a green card and permanent residency.

But Waddling says he sees inequality every day at work, in the shape of a female coworker who married a foreign man and could sponsor him.

"Every single time somebody gets a green card based on a spouse's support, it's one more person who has jumped ahead of me in a line I should be in," Waddling said.

Martha McDevitt-Pugh, founder and chairwoman of the advocacy group Love Exiles, gave up waiting for things to change and moved to the Netherlands so she could be with her Dutch partner, Lin McDevitt-Pugh.

The two married in the Netherlands, but Martha McDevitt-Pugh has struggled to find work abroad.

"I realized that what I had in the U.S. I was never going to have that again," she said. "I wanted to have the same choice as everyone else and that was what made me so angry."
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The McDevitt-Pughs are hopeful this will be the year things will change, and they encourage all gay people to stand up for the rights they deserve.

"What we have on our side is love," Lin McDevitt-Pugh said. "I know that those in exile are in exile because they love somebody so much that they are willing to leave their country and their families."