Happy Anniversary!

To marriage equality!

Maggie Gallagher Is A Whiny Bitch

After a week of guest-blogging on The Volokh Conspiracy, that's about the most charitable thing I can say about her. Over the past few years I've read much of what she has written and I always thought it boiled down to "sex makes babies so we shouldn't allow gay marriage" which of course makes that kind of sense that doesn't. So I was generally interested in seeing what she was going to say in a series of posts geared toward lawyers. Five days and approximately 20,000 words later I've discovered she basically thinks that "sex makes babies so we shouldn't allow gay marriage".

I feel justified in making the judgment that I do (ie, Maggie Gallagher is a whiny bitch) because that's about the level of sophistication her arguments took ("like the first ingredient is a husband and a wife, duh").

I also feel justified in critiquing what she has to say because we are equally qualified to comment on marriage and social policy. We both have undergraduate degrees from ivy league schools (Dartmouth '99; Yale '82) in fields unrelated to social policy (Chemistry; probably English and since none of her biographies seem to indicate what it was, I'm guessing it has nothing to do with government or sociology). We both have published an equal number of peer-reviewed articles on marriage (zero; zero). We both worship the whore of Babylon (Catholics, you know). We both have a checkered past with payments for expertise (she was payed by the Administration to espouse their policies in print; I was payed by a university to "volunteer" my time a local high schools). She's married and I'm not, but I'm gay and she's not so as far as "gay marriage" is concerned I think we can call it a wash. The only thing she's really got on me is that she's "thought about marriage" an awful lot; me probably not nearly as much. But if thinking a lot about something can be considered a qualification, I think Oslo's a bit behind on giving me my Nobel.

With that out of the way, I was going to go over her arguments post by post, but I've decided that they aren't worth taking a look at in that much detail because she tends to repeat herself a lot. Instead I'll look mostly at her last entry. According to "bad time management" we do not get treated to the

theories of the cognitive nature of social institutions, the relevance of the New Institutionalist Economics’ understanding of isomorphic institutional change, the developing legal pressures in Canada to repress opposition to its new normative understanding of marriage, or even why I think the most likely outcome of same-sex marriage is not polygamy but to the end of marriage as a legal status.

which is a shame because something substantial like that is what I was interested in hearing. Instead we get treated to five days of "sex makes babies, duh" rhetoric. My guess is time management has nothing to do with it; my true belief is that the woman has absolutely no qualifications whatsoever, let alone knows the definition of "isomorphic". Ok, that was a bit harsh, but for all her grandstanding and considering the venue I would expect something a little less sophomoric. She spent a great deal of time making a case for the importance of procreation to marriage, which is becoming more and more like a strawman argument. Not many same-sex marriage advocates argue against the importance of marriage and child rearing; what I've been searching for these past few years is a reasonable argument to connect "sex makes babies" with "gay marriage will end marriage as a legal status".

Maggie seems to be making three general arguments against same-sex marriage. 1) Analogies to no-fault divorce; 2) Connections to generativity; and 3) "Gender matters".

On the first point, I believe she is misguided. She brings up the history of no-fault divorce and the mantra about someone else's divorce not affecting your marriage. The disconnect here is that, in the case of no-fault divorce, it is easy to see how a climate of divorce might effect, not necessarily current marriages, but the decisions of the next generation to get married. If the next generation grows up in a world where individual marriages are statistically less permanent, two people entering into one might also treat it as less permanent. After all, monogamy is hard. But what exactly does the marriage of the gays down the street do to heterosexual marriage? It's not exactly as if same-sex marriage would realistically make a straight person think that he could just as easily marry someone of the same sex. So what does it do?

Dissociates marriage from generativity, obviously. If the gays down the street can get married without having children, what does that say about my marriage? Well, according to Maggie, "marriage as a public act is clearly no longer related at all to generativity, and the government declares as well it has no further interest in whether children are connected to their own mom and dad." Really, Maggie? But people are still having babies. Husbands will continue to be responsible for the children of their wives, presumably their children. And what about that so-called "sterility strawman"? Her answer, I must cite in full:

A subtler argument sometimes made is this: well, we have some non-procreating couples in the mix. Why would adding SS couples change anything? Two points: SS couples are being added to the mix precisely in order to assure that society views them as “no different” than other couples. This intrinsically means (if the effort is successful) downgrading if not eliminating the social significance of generativity (procreation and family structure). The second truth is that both older couples and childless couples are part of the natural life-cycle of marriage. Their presence in the mix doesn’t signal anything in particular at all.

Really, Maggie? Older couples and childless couples are part of the natural life-cycle of marriage? How? How exactly, if they aren't generating any children, can they be part of the natural life-cycle of marriage? Because they are a man and woman? That's borderline tautological. She's trying to defend the definition of marriage as between only a man and a woman based on procreation (not child-rearing, by the way) and generativity, but a male-female couple who cannot participate in either procreation or generativity are still part of the natural life-cycle of marriage precisely because they are a man and a woman and not two men.

See, according to Maggie, gay marriage is filled with gender contradictions:

Gender doesn’t matter, except when orientation is involved, in which case gendered sexual desire matters so much we are morally obligated to restructure our most basic social institution for protecting children, so that all adults get their needs for intimacy and social affirmation met equally. Orientation, as a classification, assumes gender is a real and significant category of human existence; but apparently only for gays, and not for children.

But gender does matter, obviously. It matters equally for heterosexuals as it does for homosexuals; it just doesn't matter so much for the institution. Maggie would like to believe that marriage has nothing to do with adult intimacy, and while maybe the government doesn't care if you love your spouse, perhaps Maggie forgot why she got married. Children are the ultimate expression of love, but I'm guessing it is not exactly for the sheer love of children and the future of the human race that Maggie chose her particular husband. But what I don't understand is the above statement in light of Maggie's (reluctant) support for single and gay adoption. Her constant bleating of "mothers and fathers matter" can obviously be halted if a child can be saved. What her real beef seems to be with is artificial reproductive technology (ART) and alternative family structures, but that's a whole other can of worms I'd rather not get into.

It is important to make the distinction, though, because the burning question which she is unable or refuses to answer is why, given the current state of ART and of adoption laws, how the very important role that marriage plays in connecting children to their fathers will diminish any faster with a small number of gay marriages. And her focus on sex is also very confusing and contradictory; her position seems to be that all procreative sex should occur only within marriage and if you can only have non-procreative sex you cannot get married. Well, exactly what kind of message does that send exactly? That sex outside of marriage is fine as long as it doesn't result in any babies?

I do think there is an elephant in the room (like there always is): Maggie finds gayness icky.

I really do think, btw, that this is what bothers most ordinary people: an instinct that their government, against their will, is telling them (and will re-educate their children) that everything they know about marriage (like the first ingredient is a husband and a wife, duh) is wrong and must now change. Upon penalty of being officially labeled bigots by their government. And everyone knows its open season on bigots in our society.

Well cry me a river, Maggie Gallagher! You might be labeled as a bigot if you oppose same-sex marriage! I oppose affirmative action and hate crimes. Many consider that bigoted. But I've got some convincing (I think) arguments that say affirmative action harms minorities and society as a whole, and we would all be better off without it. Can Maggie offer any convincing reason why gay marriage is harmful to gays? Why yes, she can! Societies can't survive without marriage and since gay marriage will obviously cause the downfall of marriage in Western society, western civilization will crumble and be replaced by something else that isn't so gay-friendly. See, this society is the best we're going to get, so we should just be grateful we aren't hanged to death for our perversions. Yes, that's really her argument as to why gay marriage isn't in the interest of gays.

Color me unimpressed.

Together At Last...

I have only two google alerts set up to notify me weekly on the two topics I find near and dear to my heart; intelligent design and gay marriage. I was shocked this week to see one story appear in both alerts! I mean, it is from Renew America, but still, it heartened me to realize that someone else shares the same interests that I do...

WARNING: People with any knowledge, however scant, of either science or philosophy should refrain from reading the above cited article, as it may cause nausea, upset stomach, insomnia, itching, burning, redness, dry eye, mental retardation, epilepsy, consumption and, in rare cases, death.

Pride (In The Name Of Love)

I normally avoid everything to do with gay pride, not because I'm not proud of my "family" but because like all family reunions, the big ones tend to bring out the embarrassing crazies. In our case, the drunk Aunt Ritas include, but are not limited to, "chicks with dicks", men who think formal wear can include tight sleeveless "cocksucker" shirts, and "Democrats".

So when you score an invite to the mayor's party at Gracie Mansion on one of the most beautiful nights of the year, you don't say no. And so I didn't; although I probably would have done well to say no to that last glass of sauvignon blanc. For those of you who've never gotten to have your picture taken with a politician, I recommend shoes with good ankle support, because if you linger just a split second too long that mofo's gonna move you along. Forcefully. For a man of modest stature, our mayor has one hell of a grip.

There were blessedly only two gay jokes, one about Abe Lincoln and the other about a dancing queen. And then we had to hear the mayor's version of what kind of music the queers like to listen to, which includes, but is not limited to, ABBA, Donna Summer, Madonna, and Outkast. It was so offensively accurate that I found myself unable to pass judgement in good conscience. And nothing makes me more unhappy than being unable to pass judgement. But then a waiter flittered over with a tray of rainbow striped star cookies and everything was OK again.

Homespun and Corny Principles

This month in Policy Review, Lee Harris addresses the notion of tradition and its place in society's past, present and future. It's long but I think it's an essential read. He spends a good deal of article describing tradition, rejecting some definitions, favoring others and putting the role of tradition into perspective. While there is much that my more right-leaning side agrees with, it is good basic overview of the role tradition plays in our history, or at least a "conservative" overview. I was especially fond of his "tradition as recipe" analogy. It is not enough that one passes down the knowledge of how to make the family recipe, he says; one must also pass down the cook. And yet even more important, one must teach that budding young cook how to replace himself in the next generation.

He then describes the role of the family which culminates in the "shining example":

This is the highest ethical contribution of the family — setting for the child not merely the minimal acceptable ethical baseline, but the promotion of its most cherished ethical ideal in the form of our developmental destiny — what Aristotle called our telos. In short, what we want to be when we grow up.

But a telos, to be the focus of a concrete ambition, must exist in the form of an actual individual who has fulfilled this ambition in an exemplary way. Such an individual we will call a shining example.

To Harris, the shining example is lacking in our society. We are striving for abstract ideals set out by the intelligentsia that we can never hope to achieve. What we need is real exemplary models, something tangible. Someone to look up to, not a paragon of virtue, per se, but someone who overcomes his weaknesses to prevail. Harris implies that the intelligentsia, which is apparently in conflict with middle America, is destroying this.

And as you can easily guess, all this leads directly into the current marriage debate. And I think it does so a little abruptly. Harris never really explains exactly why gays should not seek marriage, except that we should respect the mysterious ethical traditions of middle America, without ever really telling us what they are. But if we delve deeper we can see what he means. We should respect their shining examples. He claims there will be tragedy if middle America loses its ethical fundamentalism.

If the reflective class, represented by intellectuals in the media and the academic world, continues to undermine the ideological superstructure of the visceral code operative among the “culturally backward,” it may eventually succeed in subverting and even destroying the visceral code that has established the common high ethical baseline of the average American...

I was with him right up until this point, the point where he sets up the divide: gay America is a product of the "reflective class", the abstract ideals people and not-gay America is the ideological superstructure, the group that will pass down the family recipe along with the cooks. Gay America is striving for an abstract ideal; not-gay America is striving to be like its "shining examples".

To Harris, who is himself gay, homosexuals have rejected middle America even if some of them are a product of it.

Even the most sophisticated of us have something to learn from the fundamentalism of middle America. For stripped of its quaint and antiquated ideological superstructure, there is a hard and solid kernel of wisdom embodied in the visceral code by which fundamentalists raise their children, and many of us, including many gay men like myself, are thankful to have been raised by parents who were so unshakably committed to the values of decency, and honesty, and integrity, and all those other homespun and corny principles. Reject the theology if you wish, but respect the ethical fundamentalism by which these people live: It is not a weakness of intellect, but a strength of character.

And then to the gays:

But there can be no advantage to them if they insist on trying to co-opt the shining example of an ethical tradition that they themselves have abandoned in order to find their own way in the world.

What Harris fails to see is that many gays have not abandoned the ethical tradition of the ancestors. I am not, despite my education, estranged from my middle American roots; I am a product of it. Middle Americans have their shining examples, their good parents who mold their children into good parents who mold their children into good parents. They want them to have honesty, decency and integrity. To Harris, these middle Americans are "passing on, through the uniquely reliable visceral code, the great postulate of transgenerational duty: not to beseech people to make the world a better place, but to make children whose children will leave it a better world and not merely a world with better abstract ideals."

I cannot speak for all gays, but that is exactly what I would aspire to. Yet I have a tragic flaw, but so do many other straight couples. I cannot "make children". But that does not mean I cannot aspire to rescue a child from a situation where he cannot see any shining examples, any honest, decent people. Committed spouses. Committed parents. This does not mean that I cannot impart my transgenerational duty, my duty to actually help make a better world, not just one with better abstract ideals.

Because a world with marriage for gays would in fact be a better world.

Harris concludes that gays are outside of middle America and that they have no place trying to squeeze their way into it. He concludes that they shouldn't co-opt middle America's shining examples. Note, however, what Harris thinks of a shining example:

The shining example does not need to be the paragon of all virtues; in fact, he must not be. This is because what makes the shining example shine is not his immunity to human frailty, but his ability to rise above it when he encounters it in his own nature.

So what makes the Goodridges not shining examples? Or any of the other gay couples who have made families and committed themselves to each other for decades? Who have honesty and decency and integrity? As Harris points out, a shining example is not immune to human frailty; he overcomes it.

In essence, Harris is saying that homosexuality is a frailty. It is a weakness. And gays have overcome nothing. They have failed. This is the "hard and solid kernel of wisdom embodied in the visceral code by which fundamentalists raise their children". Homosexuality is a sin.

Harris tells me I am free to reject middle America's theology, and I do. But I am entreated to respect their "ethical fundamentalism", which is not a weakness for them but a "strength of character". But the only thing I that separates me from them, is that I haven't beaten my sexuality.

See, this isn't about honesty, or integrity, or decency, or any other homespun or corny principle. This is about homosexuality being wrong, being a weakness, being something to overcome. Lee Harris may think that; but I don't. And neither do hundreds of thousands of other gay Americans. My sexuality is a blessing, not a curse.

But I can tell you something that many gay Americans have overcome; the twisted lure of the gay underculture. The club-hopping, body-waxing, AIDS-infested, drug-addicted, free-loving promiscuity that plagues the community. And how have they overcome it? By forming stable, committed relationships in the face of the temptation of debauchery on the one side and the push away from "decent" Americans on the other. Ironically they found that stability in the values of middle America, the very middle America Harris claims all gays have abandoned. But he wants them to look elsewhere because to co-opt those values would be detrimental to "a fundamental ethical baseline below which [civilization] cannot be allowed to fall." One can only infer that that ethical baseline must not be lowered to include homosexuality as a virtue.

Well I will not take Harris' advice and beat "a rapid retreat from even the slightest whisper that marriage ever was or ever could be anything other than the shining example that most Americans still hold so sacred within their hearts." He wants gays to have their own shining examples. Well there are thousands of gays, right now, overcoming vices and raising children who will raise children that will make the world a better place. Just like their straight counterparts. My shining example looks conspicuously like their shining example, except while my shining example isn't necessarily gay, theirs is definitely not.

So, Mr. Harris, we have found our shining example which we've created "out of [our] own unique perspective on the world" and it looks an awful lot like middle America's. That's not so surprising when most of us came out of middle America in the first place. It probably means that our sexuality doesn't necessarily make our perspectives all that unique. Or at least any more unique than any other individual.

That said, I'd now like to participate in my transgenerational duty and get married. Is that ok now, middle America?

Massaging the Data

I feel it is my job, as a scientist and a sane human being, to point out everything that is wrong with Maggie Gallagher. She has an article in the NRO this week calling for more money to help "protect" marriage. Pretty much it's the same old crap. But I'd like to point out two small issues I have. One is with statistics. She says:

The most striking (and underreported) results are those of the 2004

UCLA freshman poll released earlier this year, which surveys 290,000

college freshman. Between 2003 and 2004 the proportion of college

freshman who support gay marriage dropped almost three percentage

points, from 59.4 percent to 56.7 percent. This is the first recorded

drop in support for same-sex marriage among college freshman since the

question was first asked in 1997.

Well, aside from the fact that I am completely unable to find this poll on the internet, we should look carefully at those numbers. I'm no mathematician, but even with 290,000 people surveyed, I know of no drop of 3% that can be considered statistically significant; the margin of error doesn't improve that dramatically with a greater sample size. So maybe the reason it's underreported is that it isn't terribly striking. Even all of the other polls she cites as showing that Americans are increasingly opposed to gay marriage aren't that dramatic.

The Pew poll, which asks “Do you strongly favor, favor, oppose, or

strongly oppose allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally?,” showed

Americans’ opposition to SSM climbing from 53 percent v. 38 percent in

July 2003, to 60 percent v. 29 percent in the latest August of 2004

survey.

Notice how the question specifically asks for one of four choices and yet she lumps them into two. It be interesting and important to know how committed the citizenry is to their opposition. These are minor points, but it's the subversive ways that people use numbers and facts to support their positions or make small changes seem significant, that are subtly manipulative.

And then there's an interesting omission at the end of the article:

Two years from now, one-third of the country is likely to be living

with gay marriage. Pending court decisions in California, Washington

state, New Jersey (along with Massachusetts) are likely to produce a

fragmented marriage system despite overwhelming public opposition. And

other states, like New York, are taking a different route: forbidding

the performance of gay marriages in-state, but recognizing gay

marriages performed in nearby Massachusetts or Canada.

Where is Connecticut, which just approved civil unions that are significantly close to gay marriage, and did so legislatively? I'm hard-pressed to believe that Maggie Gallagher missed that little development. No, the reason that Connecticut isn't mentioned is because it doesn't fit into her nice little model of judical tyranny and forced acceptance. It doesn't matter that some of the country might actually want to be living with gay marriage. Nor does it matter that public opposition to gay marriage in Massachusetts is waning and that the citizens there are not punishing gay marriage-backing legislators but rather rewarding them. Because for people like Maggie Gallagher, the voice of the people is sacred and absolute, but only as long as the people are agreeing with your position.

What's Wrong With Kansas?

Or Connecticut, depending on the way you lean. As I right this, the CT State Senate is discussion the much hyped civil union bill. They've already rejected an amendment to the bill that would include language defining marriage as between a man and a woman. I know because I've been stalking them.

This is monumental because Connecticut, my blessed home state, would become the first state to enact civil union legislation without court intervention. No one can complain that the process was usurped from the elected representatives. (Well, I guess they can still complain...)

This comes on the heels of Kansas becoming the 18th state to ban same-sex marriage in a state constitution. It's interesting to see the way both processes are working. One is brave, the other cowardly. Not because of what each state is trying to do, but how they are trying to do it.

See, voting is private. You go into a little booth and make a decision and don't have to tell anyone what you decided. Legislative voting, however, is public. People can go into a little booth and vote to treat gays as less than equal citizens and no one needs to know. But if everyone had to wear little buttons on their lapels with how they voted, they'd be singing a different tune. Because no one wants to be accused of being intolerant. But with secret ballots, there's no danger of that. They don't have to back up their convictions.

Why didn't the Massachusetts legislature tackle the gay marriage issue sooner? The court gave them ample time to get the constitutional ban wagon rolling, but they sat on their asses because no one wanted to be accused of being intolerant. Every voter in Kansas who voted for this amendment should be forced to go up to a gay person, look them in the eye, and tell them that they voted to keep him or her from marrying the person that they love.

Because if you feel that strongly about marriage, you should tell the people you're affecting to their faces, and not hide anonymously behind a curtain. That's something a coward does.

UPDATE: Well the bill passed the Senate 27-9. That's fairly definitive. It should pass the House next week.

What's Worse for Western Society?

Polygamy or same-sex marriage?

This is the question that I think all opponents of SSM should be thinking about when the argue so vehemently against it, because I am afraid that the more they push against gay marriage and against the acceptance of homosexuality in general, the more likely polygamy will be to follow.

I think it is safe to say that polygamy is generally harmful to our society and I don't think I'd get any arguments from SSM-opponents. I'm not convinced that any new style of polyandry is actually beneficial to a significant enough population to outweigh the backwards slide to women's equality that would undoubtedly occur due to the use of polygamy by more inherently misogynistic populations, namely your more fundamental branches of Mormonism and Islam. We should, of course, be concerned with the possibility of polygamy in the United States since traditional polygamy is gaining popularity world-wide.

It is clear to many supporters of SSM, however, that polygamy does not naturally follow from gay marriage, yet to many SSM opponents it remains a mystery as to why this may be the case. The reason that SSM opponents find the slippery slope argument so compelling is because of the way they have been forced (and are forcing the rest of us) to shape the debate. And this all comes down to the refusal to choose to recognized sexual orientation as a suspect and protected class.

If sexual orientation were considered along with religion, race and sex, then the entire debate is an open/shut case. Restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples discriminates against gays, therefore gays should be allowed to marry. End of argument. The conservatives don't get their way, necessarily, but they get to keep marriage defined as a monogamous relationship. It would then be up to the polygamists to come up with a specific reason why they have the fundamental right to marry more than one person and why this would not only be beneficial to society but not harmful to an already protected class, oh, let's say women. I do not think that this would be an easy task, especially considering that a judge in Utah already found a compeling state interest in defining marriage as a monogamy.

But without any legal protection of sexual orientation, gays are forced to look outside of legislative means in order to secure protection for their families, namely suing in court. This leads to two problems for those of us who wish to keep the lid clamped firmly down on polygamy. First, marriage equality has to be argued for in terms of freedoms of choice (right to choose one's life partner) rather than on suspect classes. Second, arguments in favor of OSM-only have to exclude both SSM and polygamy.

While Gabriel Rosenberg (and others) makes some brilliant arguments for same-sex marriage based on sex discrimination, as well as against polygamy, it is becoming increasingly obvious that liberal-leaning courts will probably rule in favor of SSM not based on sex (which while articulate an argument, often comes across as clever world-play and manipulation of a system), but rather rule based on issues of privacy. And that leaves the door wide open for polygamy. Understand that I'm not making claims of a slippery slope. It's still possible to argue against polygamy even if the SSM debate is won over privacy; it's just that it's going to be a bit harder.

This leaves us with the opposition. How do they argue against SSM? Their two main pieces of ammunition seem to boil down to tradition and procreation, neither of which are terrible blows to polygamy. If we take a broad look at tradition, we lose to polygamy almost immediately, since polygamy was practiced not only by our own cultural ancestors but by the more recent ancestors and living relatives of a population of our country as well. And even if we limit the tradition argument to the traditions of our own country, since the Constitution was ratified, the traditional argument against polygamy is stronger, but not absolute given that the Church of Latter Day Saints has its roots in America and practiced polygamy in territories controlled by this country. And the procreation argument makes absolutely no sense against polygamy, since many children born out of wedlock could potentially benefit from having their father marry their mother, even though he is already married to someone else. In fact, it can be argued that outlawing polygamy can have a detrimental effect on those children, since it seems extraordinarily important to SSM opponents that children have "mothers and fathers" and that they be married to each other.

So what does that leave us? What's the bottom line? Same-sex unions cannot be stopped. They are legal in Vermont and Massachusetts and we can hopefully add Connecticut to that list soon, not to mention the millions of informal arrangements gay couples have already made. The path to recognition of homosexuality as a non-deviant orientation is well underway. Gays are already having families and the government has a compelling interest to protect its citizens, even ones that might not have 100% popular approval. Any evidence for the harm gay marriage causes to society is tenuous at best; the harm of polygamy, however, is well-documented.

So in arguing against same-sex marriage, we don't automatically exclude polygamy; but by arguing in favor of same-sex marriage, we can reinforce the importance of monogamy to a healthy society. It is essential for opponents of same-sex marriage to figure out exactly what about "traditional" marriage is important enough to fight for and what ideas can be sacrificed. Is it monogamy? Or heterosexuality? Or simply misogyny?

Gays and Wealth

An idea that is often floated around is that gays, as a group, are wealthier and more successful than the average bear. This is often used by gay supporters as evidence that they will generally make good homes for children, are useful members of society, are more creative, etc, etc. It's also used by the far right to show that gays aren't really an underprivileged class since they do so well financially and occupationally.

But does this mean that gays are actually more successful or that gays who have come out of the closet are more successful? Or, similarly, does one's success help determine the ease with which he can accept his sexuality? Successful people have access to better psychiatric care; they are more prone to live in urban areas, which are more liberal; they tend to have jobs where the barriers to success are no more than women and probably less so; and they tend to be more self-confident due to their current or projected affluence that the negative social and emotional consequences may not affect them as much as if they were in a stifling or confining work environment.

Basically, what I'm getting at is that there may be the same ratio of gay to straight factory workers as gay to straight stockbrokers or academics, it's just that they're not very visible. Although it's hard for me to pinpoint why I'm smarter than the average bear.....

The Sky Isn't Falling!

The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) remains intact, as a Florida judge rejects a lesbian couple's request to have their Massachusetts marriage recognized. If California follows suit , further DOMA challenges will probably be harder to win. I do, however, wonder how the likes of Rick Santorum (spit, spit) will react if New York voluntarily decides to accept them. DOMA's very clear on this; no state can be forced to accept the marriage of another state. It doesn't say they are prohibited from accepting them.

This, of course, means that next to Virginia, Florida has to be the least gay-friendly state in the country. Where are Mrs. and Mrs. Rosie O'Donnell when you need them?

La Cage Aux Faboolous!

Last night I saw the revival of La Cage Aux Folles at the Marquis Theater. It starred Gary "I Wish I Were Nathan Lane Because Anything He Can Do I Can Do Backward And In Heels" Beach and Daniel "I Was Tony Nominated But All Anyone Can Remember Was That I Was The Butler In The Nanny" Davis. They were (bad drag queen pun alert), ahem, Divine. It really is a touching story. Well, what there is of story, since this is really in the classic vein of the old-school Broadway musical. It's main draw was really a bunch of men in drag performing acrobatics and a kickline that would have put the Rockettes to shame. Oh, and the requisite penis gags.

I was especially pleased that they kept it set in France and that they didn't try to overtly pull any references to the current state of politics and anti-family policies of the current administration. Gary Beach's "I Am What I Am" made me sniffle, although I officially maintain it's my lingering cold. I kept thinking about how it must have been received in 1983; it's not a shy piece. The show is not Jerry Herman's best, but I'd definitely recommend it for the season. Considering the garbage Broadway has been dumping on us lately, it's quite refreshing.

Leeches!

The other night the boy and I decided to use that whole Movies OnDemand feature of my extraordinarily expensive cable. Rather than get something good, like Kill Bill, or professional wrestling, we opted for a B horror movie called Leeches! (complete with exclamation point).

I was not previously a fan of low-budget horror movies but I have since been convinced of their appeal. You see, in Leeches!, the "plot" is as follows: There is a community college swim team who are taking steroids (oh no!) and are fond of walking around in their speedos everywhere and/or taking off their shirts. They are also fond of swimming in the local lake, which has leeches. The leeches are fond of sucking the blood of the swim team and so they end up growing really big (from the steroids, remember) and terrorizing everyone.

So pretty much the movie consisted of slow, pan-up shots of nearly naked Abercrombie models with similar acting skills being sucked dry by giant leeches which were quite clearly hand-puppets. One of the swimmers was a resident biology geek (Abercrombie model with glasses!) who was able to fill in the requisite plot holes with painfully obvious astute scientific concepts.

I think my favorite scene was when one of the swimmers was tied to the bed by his girlfriend who left him there to go get condoms and while she was out, leeches sucked him dry. Of course, the slowly crawled up his nearly naked body while he moaned, thinking it was his girlfriend.

There was, of course, deliciously humorous homoerotic subtext, mostly coming from the overly macho main asshole character, Steve-o, played by some blond with horrible poofy hair who was apparently also played River Garvey Carpenter #4 on One Life to Live. (Now, I don't watch soaps so I don't know exactly who River Garvey Carpenter is or why there needs to be four of him. But there you go.) He also apparently is allowed to do things with Jason that Jason's girlfriend doesn't need to know about.

So, in conclusion, I suggest that you go out and rent Leeches! immediately, especially if you like to see almost naked boys being erotically sucked by leeches in something that is almost, but not quite entirely unlike porn. Of course it would have been so much better if we'd been given even just one butt shot.

Disgusting, Absolutely Disgusting

I cannot begin to articulate how absolutely repugnant and nauseating this incident in Louisiana is. Scroll down to read the "Student Behavior Contract" a seven-year-old had to sign because he explained to a classmate that his mother was a lesbian. And the teacher is suing the mother for defamation!! Pro-family, my fucking ass.....

Why You Can't Argue With Conservatives

Out of the dozen or so states that have anti-marriage equality amendments on the ballot today, most of the focus (monetary and otherwise) has been with Oregon and Measure 36, because it seems to have the best chance of not passing. So in an attempt to prove my point about being unable to argue against gay marriage without using horrible talking points and catchphrases, I bring you....

I Won't Be Redefined Dot Com.

Um, homo say what? First of all this attempt to be edgy and appeal to a younger crowd is fucking ridiculous. Just look at their video. First of all, they have some horrible emo/christian rock band with a "cute" spelling of their name, Kutless, for their background ("I am not what you see, oh no / Not much more than a slave I wish to be", which if it had been sung by Xtina, the religious right would have had a field day, but that is a whole other topic of discussion). They also have faux-hip retro-lettering. Pulling out all the stops, I see...

So anyway, the video starts out with young, hip kids being interviewed about how they, as the church, have failed homosexuals in many ways (aw, thanks guys) but obviously voting "no" to this measure is not the way to "show that we care." Uh-huh. So how exactly is it that you're going to show us that you care? Keep us from making the mistake of getting married, obviously. And really, it isn't the church's fault. "I personally don't think you should bring politics into the church but what do you do when a moral issue becomes political?" Uh, yeah, thank you guy with the tacky Justin Timberlake hat.

But let's talk purpose. Let's talk 5000 years of history. Let's talk the woman in the oh-so-1993 glasses and her oh-so-articulate observation that God "purposed [men and women] to have a destiny together" as she gazes lovingly into her dopey boyfriends eyes. You just know that these two are "promise keepers" and, while they've never technically had sex, she's probably sucked more dick than I have.

Oh, but of course, it isn't all about what God created us for and for the happiness of heterosexuals. It is important for the bi-racial couple holding two very beautiful children to not have to explain the intricacies of life to their three-year-old. Because, oh, actual parenting is too difficult and apparently their moral convictions aren't strong enough to survive two queers getting married, not to mention the fact that this asswipe should shut his mouth because if it weren't for some minorities trying to "redefine [his] culture" then he wouldn't be married to his little blonde wife, now would he? Would he? No! Stop! Sodom Sodom Sodom!!! Ok, back to the video...

Now let's talk civil rights. Apparently, sexual preference isn't a civil right. The idea of the gay gene has been totally rejected by the medical community, says the little raver boy, so you aren't born gay. Uh-huh. Can I get some statistics there buddy boy? Or at least your phone number? (Stop it! Bad Michael!) Maybe nobody told him that, um, the entire medical community hasn't rejected the idea. Or that pre-natal and post-natal environmental factors predispose one towards homosexuality and that just cause their ain't a gene, don't mean it's a choice. Just ask Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian...

But what's been missing so far is how to the blacks feel about this being called a civil rights issue? Bingo! Cue black woman! Of course she and her older relatives are appalled that gays are making that comparison! Appalled! Because didn't you know that the NAACP tradmarked civil rights back in 1964 and no one other than the almighty African-American is truly discriminated against!

But wait! There is another group that stands to be marginalized! It's not the blacks! It's not the gays! No, it's the religious! Cue token accusation of Bible banning: "Scripture could become illegal and outlawed." "Portions of the Bible will be declared as hate literature!" "Maybe I could go to jail someday if I don't [marry two homosexuals]." And if that's not enough fear-mongering for you, the opposition has also recruited young adults to drop out of college to slump for their cause of gay marriage! They're taking your children out of school for this!

And then, three quarters of the way into it, just as we're getting close.... bam! Money shot! "We can't let 2% of the population redefine marriage for us." Cue screen-filling shot of slow-waving American flag and patriotic sounding Chrisitan rock! But wait! We get bonus multiple angle footage! Cue emotional speech ending in idiotic platitude: "If you don't stand up for something you'll fall for anything!" Boo-yah!

Let's fade out with some audio of inspired Christian rock about being a "history maker," followed by the voice of the large crowd singing along and clapping in unison! Kumbaya! I WON'T BE REDEFINED!

Ok, fine. I won't redefine you. I'll keep defining you as an irrational, backwater, oppressive, fundamentalist crackwhore like I always have. Excuse me now, while I go watch the election results with some other godless sodomites, and as I tear at the delicate connective tissues of society, I'll be sure not to redefine you into anything that sounds like you might have an original or rational thought....

A Modest Challenge

Every issue has its talking points and catchphrases. I would like to see an honest, well-thought out challenge to gay marriage without using the phrases "redefining marriage," "judicial activism," "judicial elites," or "traditional marriage," or any derivation thereof. I mean, seriously, judicial elites? Talk about spin...

Why You Can't Argue With Liberals

A few weeks ago I posted a rant about the craziness of "liberals". What I perceive as an inability to adequately debate with hard-line liberals is something that helped sway me away from Kerry, perhaps because in part because I very much don't want to be grouped together with ignorant Bush-haters. It's also another reason why I support and am proud to be part of the LCR, because they had the courage to stand up against their party and call them out when they are wrong.

Often, you'll be surprised to know, I read a liberal blog, Alas a Blog, which focuses on gay rights, feminism and abortion rights (only one of which I thoroughly agree with but the whole blog is written in such a rational, sane, and well-thought out way that I can't say anything bad about the moderators). This post impressed me, referencing Chris Crain of the Washington Blade taking the Stonewall Democrats (the Democratic version of the LCR) to task for not calling out Democrats on their poor gay rights records. Barry did a great job of hitting the nail on the head. If I liked Bible references I'd say something about a mote. But his commendation was met with harsh criticism from another, more typical liberal blog, This Space for Rent:

To continue with what has set me off, I think that comparing the Stonewall Democrats to the Log Cabin Republicans isn't a "good point", it's fucking ridiculous, and Chris Cain needs take that back. There just simply ians't a comparison between the Stonewalls, and the Log Cabins. The Stonewalls are brave enough to fight on the right side - The LCR just want to have their cake and eat it too.

Here's why: The LCR are not courageous by any standard of the word. They're a bunch of greedy sellouts who routinely support the party that has, built into their platform, a serious anti-gay rights agenda, because they're happy to screw poor people in order to keep more money after taxes. They're assholes....

The LCR are self-haters who value their pocketbooks over their personal dignity. It isn't as though the Republican Anti-gay agenda is some super secret stealth platform - it's part and parcel to being a Republican, much like supporting dangerous tax cuts and privatizing everything under the sun. There simply isn't anything resembling a serious debate in the Republican party about it, except amongst marginalized and impotent moderates and so-called Liberal republicans. Face it people - when you register republican, you ARE AGREEING with their platform.

So in otherwords, if you register for a party you are agreeing one-hundred percent and endorsing one-hundred percent everything that that party stands for. And if you disagree with one thing your party says, who I would hope embodies many of your own philosophies that may or may not be related to who you are fucking, the brave thing to do is the abandon the party entirely and go onto the "right side". Basically if you are a gay Republican you are (to borrow a phrase) an abused puppy who is rich, votes with your checkbook, and has no personal dignity whatsoever. It surprises me that this asswipe hasn't called for the couragous party abandonment of every single congressman who has ever voted against their party platform because obviously they should be agreeing with each and every point since they are registered for that party. Oh, wait. It's not because he's principled or anything, he just hates Republicans.

Ok, let's have a spirited, rational debate about it! That is, of course, if someone so rational and enlightened as this dickwad should even bother to attempt to be rational with an obviously self-hating, money-grubbing, screw-the-poor abused puppy. I mean, seriously, does any rational gay even think that privitization is good, even though it is mostly private companies with private health insurance that give benefits to same-sex spouses? Nah, big government will take care of us, just like it has done in the past....

Now I don't mean to be channeling Ann Coulter, nor do I mean to imply that all liberals are as bigoted and blind as this guy, but this is far from the first time that I've heard crap like this, and in more reasonable arenas. This kind of idiotic ranting is excrutiatingly unproductive. But the Republicans at least have room for descention in the ranks; I can name at least two prime RNC speakers who were pro-choice. Try to name one pro-life Dem who spoke at the DNC.

And you know, if someone truly doesn't believe in a tax cut that they've been granted by the government, they could always voluntarily pay more....

Take That, Stanley Kurtz!

William N. Eskridge Jr., Darren R. Spedale, and Hans Ytterberg recently published a paper, a real, honest-to-goodness academic paper about same-sex marriage in Scandinavia entitled Nordic Bliss? Scandinavian Registered Partnerships and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate. And you know what? Surprise, surprise, Stanley Kurtz's disengenuous and statistically corrupt social scientific arguments are completely refuted.

After detailing three features of marriage that have been liberalized in the past 50 years, alternatives to marriage, state regulation of marital sex, and exit from marriage, they contrast it with the expansion of marriage eligibility, namely same-sex marriage. And then they (rightly) nail Kurtz:

There is another kind of problem with Kurtz’s mutual reinforcement

argument. After decades of catering to straight people’s desires to have the

advantages of marriage without its costs, through cohabitation regimes and nofault

divorce, it is unfair to draw the line with gay and lesbian couples, the group

whose choices have been least honored by the state. If you really want to combat

the expanded choice norm, it would be much more powerful to revoke no-fault

divorce or cohabitation regimes and reintroduce Features 1 (marriage monopoly)

and 3 (lifetime obligations) into the law. Astoundingly, these are the two reforms

Kurtz explicitly avoids. “So repealing no-fault divorce, or even eliminating

premarital cohabitation, are not what’s at issue.”31 As Kurtz explains the fate of

marriage, American society should swallow the liberalizations we have already

adopted to accommodate the choices straight people want to have, even though

this expanded-choice regime significantly undermines marriage and facilitates

divorce—and should rescue marriage from decline by denying gay people

eligibility for it, even though it is highly speculative that such denial would have

any effect on the institution. This is not only direct discrimination. It is hypocrisy.

After all of that, they show, with little statistical uncertainty, that registered partnerships in Denmark and Sweden cannot be even casually correlated with the "end of marriage".

If state-recognized same-sex partnerships “contributed” to the decline of marriage

and the rise of illegitimacy, even if indirectly by reinforcing an expanded-choice

norm, we would expect to see (ceteris paribus) something more than falling

marriage rates, rising divorce rates, and rising non-marital birth rates in Denmark

after 1989 and in Sweden after 1994; those were the trends before 1989 and 1994.

Rather, we should expect to see marriage rates falling faster, divorce rates

accelerating upward, and a surge in non-marital birth rates. The data reveal no

such trend. Not only do the registered partnership laws in Denmark and Sweden

not correlate to super-normal plunges in marriage rates and super-elevated divorce

rates, but some of the trends move in the other direction.

This doesn't even get close to how they tear apart his derogatory mis-use of the of term "out-of-wedlock births" and inconsistencies with his various other definitions, like constantly refering to registered partnerships as marriages, even though up until last year registered parnters (hetero or homo) could not adopt children or get state-assisted artificial insemination. In short, Kurtz really needs to be taken to task for his blatant abuse of his "academic" findings, especially since he's been testifying in front of Congress with his, to put it as bluntly as I can, lies. To continue to deny that Kurtz has an agenda and his work is utterly biased should be taken as either blind ignorance or rampant homophobia.

Unelected Judges

In the debate over gay marriage, I often hear the terms "activist judge" or "unelected judge" tossed around. The former I consider to be a real problem, although I don't believe that a majority of accusations of an activist judiciary are really acts of legislation from the bench. The latter, however, really pisses me off. It's as if no one ever took civics in junior high. The last time I checked the judiciary was an equal branch of our government, our representational democracy. The way the terms get tossed about it's as if these judges emerge inexplicibly from the ether and indiscriminately pass judgement on an unwilling populus, unsure of where they came from or how they got there.

Well, pick a state constitution, any constitution. Or the federal one for that matter. In it, I guarantee you'll find instructions on how the judiciary is formed. Just because some judges aren't selected directly by the people in an at large election does not mean that they aren't a product of our democratic republic, a set of laws that can be changed at any time by the people, provided that is that they follow the Rule of Law. Now, I personally like an unelected judiciary, since an elected one like we have here in New York is often surrounded by accusations of partisan politicking.

And it's not as if these judges are the only "unelected" officials that have power in our system. I have never, ever heard Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice referred to as those "unelected secretaries", but they still have a shitload of power. In fact, Ashcroft, an unelected official, has as much power to pick and choose what cases he'd like to prosecute as the judiciary gets to select what cases it wants to hear. And if you think that the Attorney General doesn't play politics, you've got your head buried so far up your ass that I can't imagine how you even found your way onto the internet. But it doesn't matter, because every single judge in this country got there as a result of our elective process, some way or another.

So you might not like the fact that you don't get to hand-pick the judges who sit on the bench. You might not like the fact that you can't just kick them out when you don't like they way they interpret a law (which by the way, last time I checked was, um, their job). But to criticize their legitimacy based on their "unelected" status is to show a fundamental lack of understanding of our government. I'd expect that of a kindergartener, but from "educated" political pundits?

Liberals Are Crazy

So last night I went to a debate hosted by FSIX, a group interested in foster gay and lesbian equality in the financial sector, and cosponsered by the HRC entitled "LGBT in the Two Party System". I had absolutely no idea what it was going to be like, but Chris Barron of the LCR was one of the debators and I like hearing him speak. For some unknown reason it was in the middle of a design showroom, so I sat on a bed and the debators sat on chairs with price tags showing.

Barron debated Rachel Maddow of Air America's morning show "Unfiltered". And I came to the conclusion that liberals are, um, crazy. First of all, Maddow began by claiming to have no affiliation with the Democrats and was not there to slump for them. She ended up saying, and I'm not making this up, that no gay or lesbian should ever vote for a Republican, period. Why, you might ask? Because even by supporting gay-friendly Republicans, you end up giving control of the legislature to the Evil Republicans and only their agendas get pushed through. So we shouldn't reward the good Republicans because Bill Frist might stay in power. Um, homo say what? To paraphrase Barron, why should I give up my views on scores of other issues that are important to me, like trade, national security, healthcare and taxes, issues that have nothing to do with my sexuality? No, we just can't let the Republicans have any power.

But what about reaching across the aisle by having friends on both sides? According to Maddow it's not necessary because gay Republicans are like abused puppies, sorry dogs, that just keep going back to their owners who kick them. And her answer to reach out across the aisle? We shouldn't have elected Republicans in the first place. Not slumping for Democrats, my ass. And while she begrudgingly agreed that we should reward moderate Republicans, she rebuked us for not attempting to punish the bad ones who vote against gay equality. But when Barron pulled out a slew of Democrats who voted for the FMA and who are championing "traditional" marriage and asked how her party was punishing them, she didn't have an answer. Oooh, I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. But, she didn't really see it as hypocrisy because, according to her, ounce for ounce Democrats have a better record than Republicans. Oh, and she firmly believes that a gay rights organization should have the word "gay" in its name. Give me a fucking break. She also managed to stereotype Republicans as rich bankers. What a way to push for non-discrimination. But what do you really expect from a butch dyke from Massachusetts? (Hey, she insinuated I was a banker, I can call her a dyke).

And the questions from the audience? A conservative audience member pointed out that it was through gay Republicans lobbying Pataki to strong-arm Joe Bruno that the legislater has finally provided domestic partnerships statewide, and he asked how that would have been done without allies in the Republican party. What was Maddow's answer? Don't elect Republicans in the first place. Yeah, try telling that the conservatie majority who live upstate. But what were the liberal questions like? Well, not questions really. One lengthy comment was to brow-beat Barron into admiting he was an abused puppy and all his efforts to make the Republican party more inclusive were fruitless, while another one tried to get him to admit that he had Freudian issues with his father's (Bush's) approval.

I fucking hate liberals.

The Internet Has Everything...

Sexually transmitted diseases are a big problem, especially among the gay community in big cities. So you've already hooked up with dozens of people when it turns out you've come down with the clap. You get a pang of guilt. How do I tell all these people I might have caused them to burn like hellfire when they take a whiz? I can't do it face to face since it's too embarassing. E-mailing them would be better but I don't want to be ostracized. Whatever is a boi to do?

Well, San Francisco has the answer. Anonymous e-cards! Hey, you've been screwed!

The sad thing is, there are enough people in this boat to warrant this website. And it's not a joke. I don't mean to make light of people's plights, and young people especially make mistakes since they often feel immortal or liberated right after coming out. But dude, if you're going to be a slut, wear a fucking condom. And if you don't want to wear a fucking condom, find someone you like and get married. Oh wait....