The magnitude of the challenge Mitt Romney faces on marriage can be seen, not in the looniest of gay marriage opponents, or the most depraved, (though as I argued, he is now stuck with these folks). No, the hard part will be dealing with the Maggie Gallaghers.
Gallagher has become a master of disguising her disapproval of homosexuality in general — so good she even seems to have convinced herself she’s fair minded.
But look at her defense of marriage, either in its condensed version, or for the brave hearts, its fuller explanation in an argument with John Corvino. Her bottom line is that marriage is a key “governing idea” that cannot be changed without inevitable erosion of its core. That core idea, again and again and again, is the importance of a mother and a father to children. That’s a limited idea, and a pretty uninformed view of government, law and society, but it’s one Gallagher is committed to and not afraid to man the battlements on.
Romney, however, kicked the props out from under her yesterday when he said that same-sex couples have a “right” (his exact word) to adopt children, as they did in Massachusetts under his governorship. It wasn’t long before he had to shake the Etch-a-Sketch and try to argue that he doesn’t believe gay adoption is actually a right; he was just acknowledging the reality in 49 states.
But if 49 states (Florida is the exception) allow same-sex couples (some of them legally married) to adopt children, then what governing idea is Gallagher talking about preserving?
That is the hole in the heart of Gallagher’s argument and it is the flaw that is eroding the anti-equality side every day. Nobody has to deny the importance of marriage for children to also accept that children need and must have some kind of responsible parenting, whether it is the ideal or something less. No one has ever argued that if children can’t have ideal parents, they shouldn’t have any. That’s such a ridiculous notion that even Gallagher won’t take it up. But if we believe (and our laws support) children having less than ideal parents, than isn’t that our “governing idea?”
People who believe in absolutist arguments (we can’t ever change the governing idea of marriage as between a man and a woman) run the risk of focusing so firmly on the heavens that they trip on the sidewalk. What’s happening today isn’t that people are rejecting the importance of marriage for children, they are just accepting that many good things are not perfect things.
More than that, they are understanding that homosexuals are not made of stone. Whether they have children or not, same-sex couples see childless heterosexual couples, including those who have raised children that no longer live with them, and make the perfectly reasonable claim that the relationship of marriage extends beyond a contract to have and raise children.
As heterosexuals stop to think about that, they see and even feel its fundamental truth. They are not rejecting their own ideas about marriage, they are simply embracing homosexuals into the real world they know, as imperfect equals. They see that Gallagher’s governing idea has never been a mandate for them, and if the law accepts their departures from the archetype, why shouldn’t it make room for homosexuals as well?
That is the bottom line that this GOP memo reminds the party of.
Gallagher can’t let go of her dogmas and verities, but she’s not running for public office; she has the luxury to be as philosophical as she likes. In contrast, Romney is running for President, not Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. As a whole, Americans are realists, and while there will always be some room for moral authoritarians, that’s not a style that has served American leaders well.
Obama hip-checked Romney into the absolutists, and as the adoption episode shows, Romney is going to have a hell of a time getting back on his feet. Whatever political instincts he has toward fairness cannot survive the melodramatic abstractions of the religious fervor he has to manage among his base.
32 Comments for “Mitt v. Maggie”
posted by Houndentenor on
Why isn’t everyone laughing at the hypocrisy? Children need both a mother and father? Okay. then why are the people saying that today both single moms (Maggie and Bristol). It’s hilarious. It would Mean something if they lived their own lives according to their supposed principles before they started preaching to the rest of us.
posted by Jorge on
I like that memo.
Beware: it gives as good political cover as you’re ever going to see for being against legal recognition of gay marriage.
posted by Clayton on
I have read kit twice, and maybe I’m doing so through rose floored glasses, but I don’t see the cover. Please explain.
posted by Jorge on
First, an assumption: I assume that conservatism tends to act to limit the success of progressive movements, forcing them to stop at the point where moderates think justice has prevailed, but many reformers think falls far short of their goals. The reformers are now called radicals because all this progress has been made, yet for them it’s still the dark ages. We saw (and continue to see) this with the civil rights movement and the women’s rights movement.
“We disagree on marriage, but we agree gays and lesbians deserve essential rights”. The more pro-gay a Republican candidate is, the more cover s/he has to oppose gay marriage as “too far” (this is true of Democrats, too, of course). If Republicans become “advocates” for “full” civil and social rights for gays, winning universal rights such as hospital visitation, civil unions, and other protections, but do not include legal marriage in their advocacy, who is to say that the rest of the country will not follow suit and say “Stop!”?
I didn’t say it was particularly good or well-grounded cover, and I don’t mean to suggest it can’t be sincere. Isn’t it often said that it is the intolerance and shrillness of the right that keeps gay rights issues in the political spotlight? Stephen Miller has a point when he suggests every so often that the gay left would rather have an anti-gay GOP.
posted by JohnInCA on
Seeing as you only find such high-level discussions of the purpose of marriage and government’s role in it on pro-LGBT sites, I’m not sure the “problem” is as big as you think.
See, on the social right side of things, it doesn’t actually *matter* that their arguments are bad, nonsensical or contradictory. That they’re opposing gays is enough.
posted by Carl on
That’s true. The sad likelihood is that all that matters with a Republican candidate is how anti-gay you are. The middle, and even many gay voters, will vote for a Republican candidate no matter how anti-gay this candidate is, as long as they are given other reasons (“lower taxes” is usually the one).
And the media will always give cover. This article paints Romney as taking a risk by saying that adoption is up to the states. So he is backtracking and sending out signals to the social conservatives and being praised as brave! Even in the same article which has Bay Buchanan, his adviser, saying that he believes children should be raised by a mother and father.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/12/on-same-sex-adoption-romney-may-rile-social-conservatives/
Clearly someone has decided that Romney needs to awkwardly pretend to not run an anti-gay campaign, while actually running one. This could easily be enough for him to win, since Obama has so many flaws and the economy is in the toilet. That means it’s time to ask what goal gay Republicans have to work on and if this move to the right (where now even supposedly safe choices like civil unions are out the window) means we will have the most anti-gay White House in quite a few years.
posted by Carl on
Remember when Rand Paul was supposed to show us all that the Republicans were becoming libertarian and didn’t care about social issues?
So much for that.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/rand-paul-says-he-didnt-think-obamas-views-could-get-any-gayer/
Clearly someone has been telling the party that they need to amp up the anti-gay talk. This type of smirky high school speak is a great way to dehumanize gays while also pretending to be “cool.” And it’s just the latest example of how little use the party – all branches – have for gay people.
posted by Gus on
Count me as firmly against the unholy marriage of Ayn Rand and Jesus.
posted by Mary on
Houndentenor, may I defend both Bristol (who I intensely dislike along with her mother) and Maggie (who I have great respect for)? Both women are/were single mothers. But neither was a single mother by choice. Unlike Madonna or Jodie Foster these women didn’t deliberately get pregnant out of wedlock. They had sex and ended up pregnant – I don’t know the specifics about whether they used contraceptives or why they didn’t. The point was that the pregnancies were not planned. At this point they had either abortion or giving up the baby as an option. Both women were pro-lifers and kept their children, which I give them credit for. From what I’ve read neither women had any luck getting the “baby Daddy” to marry her.
Bristol may have just been careless and had a “slip-up” – as we know it takes only one time to make a baby. Maggie’s pregnancy occured in 1978 and I have no idea what her political/cultural values were at the time. Possibly she became a social conservative later. My point is that neither of these women/girls deliberately said one thing and did another.
But I agree that Bristol and her family are a huge embarrassment to the cultural right. Why the leaders of the social conservative cause didn’t upbraid Sarah Palin for parading around a pregnant unmarried daughter on a convention stage is beyond me. I found this horribly humiliating. But Palin was “one of us” so we had to overlook it. ( If I here her talk about the “lamestream” media once more I’ll barf..)
posted by Doug on
The lengths you go too to justify the hypocrisy of Maggie and Bristol is truly mind-boggling. It’s ok because they didn’t do it on purpose. Empty the jails immediately. . . they didn’t do whatever crime on purpose. Exactly how do you know that Bristol didn’t get pregnant on purpose to trap Levi into marriage?
posted by John Howard on
Intent is a very big element in criminal law. It’s the difference between murder and manslaughter, for instance.
And all intentional conception of people is unethical, especially unmarried intentional conception, or even unmarried sex that people should know might lead to conception. People should not be created on purpose.
posted by JohnInCA on
Well, you can certainly *try* to defend them, but it doesn’t really do much to erase the essential fact that you have someone that raised a child/is raising a child in a one-parent home criticizing pairs of people raising children in two-parent homes.
Glass houses, throwing stones, and all that jazz.
So sure. Try to defend it. I’m skeptical about how many people you’ll convince.
posted by Gus on
Ms. Gallagher started out as an advocate of marriage and anti-divorce after single motherhood. She switched from her anti-divorce crusade because there was not enough money in being anti-divorce to sustain a 501(c)(3) and a career.
posted by Houndentenor on
That’s a lot of twisting. Look, for women in general I support their right to chose. Both of these women chose to carry their babies to term and to keep them. It’s their choice. It honestly doesn’t affect me in any way. The problems were are different but both troubling. 1) Bristol is Exhibit A that Abstinence Only education doesn’t work. I suppose it could in theory but in practice it’s a disaster. The problem with the right (and also with the far left) is that they just can’t learn from their mistakes or look at evidence and adjust their plans to conform to the reality of the situation we are in. 2) Maggie is a hateful woman who is devoting her life to denying rights to gay people. She can say it’s just about marriage but her comments leading up to and following the NC amendment show that to be a lie. Amendment One had no affect on the marriage laws of the state but had a huge impact on couples benefiting from domestic partner benefits.
And finally…why the social conservatives didn’t upbraid Palin for parading around her unmarried pregnant teenager daughter? Because she’s a Republican and talks the talk of social conservatives. Do you think they’d be applauding a Democrat’s teenage daughter for keeping her baby like that? Hell, no. It’s just typical American hypocrisy.
posted by Jorge on
Both women are/were single mothers. But neither was a single mother by choice.
…
But I agree that Bristol and her family are a huge embarrassment to the cultural right. Why the leaders of the social conservative cause didn’t upbraid Sarah Palin for parading around a pregnant unmarried daughter on a convention stage is beyond me.
I think your position here is very internally inconsistent. And it’s not Sarah Palin who should be upbraided.
posted by Lymis on
Mary, you’re simply proving the point of the main article.
Maggie and Bristol are straight, and somehow, it’s okay, even noble, for them to raise a child without “both a mother and a father” – but gay couples doing the same thing have to have the full force of the law aimed at making them second-class citizens?
Even if you believe that a monogamous, religious, heterosexual relationship is the ideal, why actively oppose other options, and why only the gay ones?
posted by Mary on
sorry for the type. It’s “if I hear her”, not if I “here her.”
posted by Jimmy on
You should be sorry for more than just a type-o.
posted by Mary on
Jimmy, I am making an effort to eliminate any homophobia I may still have, and to try to understand the gay community better. This takes time, but I’ve already become more understanding and a lot more tolerant than I was even a year ago, supporting both gays in the military and gay adoptions. Joining the 21st century on this isn’t easy. Social conservatives have not even fully accepted all of the TWENTIETH century yet. Social change is our weak spot.
posted by Houndentenor on
There’s really not that much to understand. We’re gay. That’s about all there is to it. For some reason some people are freaked out by that. I’m not sure why.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I think it appropriate to point several things:
(1) The underlying premise of the social conservative argument is factually wrong. All credible research points to the conclusion that children raised by same-sex couples do as well as children raised by opposite-sex couples.
(2) Same-sex couples are raising children in large numbers, marriage or no marriage. All credible research points to the conclusion that the children of same-sex couples would benefit from extending marriage to same-sex couples. Social conservative opposition to marriage equality harms children.
(3) The idea of ideal parents is a fiction, just like the idea of the institution of marriage is a fiction. Nobody in the history of the world has been raised by ideal parents. Most children, luckily, are raised by good parents. Many, tragically, are not.
(4) The social conservative insistence that same-sex couples raising children must be prohibited from marrying sends a clear and unmistakeable message to teenagers and young adults that marriage is not important to the children being raised by couples, same-sex and opposite-sex alike. In sending that message, social conservatives undermine the idea that marriage is important for couples and for the children couples are raising. Our children get the message, loud and clear. Marriage rates have dropped, and out-of-wedlock parenting has increased, during the last several decades.
In short, the arguments advanced by Maggie & Company are destructive, harmful nonsense.
The reason that the arguments are being made at all is that the underlying motivations for opposing marriage equality — theology and bias — cannot stand constitutional scrutiny.
Maggie & Company’s arguments are nothing new. I heard exactly those arguments in 2006, when I was debating Julaine Appling about Wisconsin’s anti-marriage amendment. If transcripts of those forums were available, two striking facts would stand out like a search light: (a) religious motivation was never once mentioned, despite the fact that Wisconsin Family Action, Julaine’s cash cow, touts its mission as “forward[ing] Judeo-Christian principles and values in Wisconsin”, and (b) overt anti-gay bias was largely unstated, although it peeked out from under the rock from time to time, as was the case when Julaine observed “I think we’ve been extremely tolerant in allowing them to live wherever they choose …”
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
posted by John Howard on
Tom, I agree the social conservatives have been making a wrong argument, for the four reasons you cite. But that doesn’t mean we should let same-sex couples try to create biological offspring together. We can make a public policy decision to prohibit same-sex conception and transgender conception, because a) it would be risky, b) would be expensive c) would put natural conception rights and the belief in equality at risk, d) would take resources and energy away from other existing people, and e) grow the size and scope of government and government intrusion into our basic human rights. Plus there is no medical need to attempt it whatsoever, and it is repugnant to try to create human beings intentionally.
So when we prohibit same-sex conception for those reasons, we also have to prohibit same-sex marriage, or else marriage will be stripped of the right to conceive offspring together for heterosexual couples as well. Marriage should continue to approve and allow conception of children.
Civil Unions defined as “marriage minus conception rights” would allow same-sex couples to get all the other rights of marriage, while not being given the approval to conceive offspring together.
posted by Hunter on
This is satire right, a la The Onion?
Very well done.
posted by John Howard on
No Hunter, it is not satire. It doesn’t matter how close scientists are to enabling same-sex couples to conceive biological offspring, whether it is something they can do today or whether they need more research and animal testing. We know enough right now to know that it will be unethical and expensive and bad public policy, and prohibiting it would make it possible to resolve the marriage debate with Civil Unions defined as “marriage minus conception rights” for couples that are prohibited from conceiving offspring together.
It is worse than satire to say that same-sex couples are equal to man-woman couples, that really harms everyone’s reproductive rights and the basis of equality.
posted by inahandbasket on
Hey, don’t feed the troll. He usually inhabits ‘The Volokh Conspiracy” whenever a marriage equality/LGBT parents thread pops up.
Clearly, he’s nuts. Just ignore him, otherwise he’ll go onandonandonandon…………….
posted by Jorge on
(3) The idea of ideal parents is a fiction, just like the idea of the institution of marriage is a fiction. Nobody in the history of the world has been raised by ideal parents. Most children, luckily, are raised by good parents. Many, tragically, are not.
I have to dissent from you on that point.
Not that my parents are perfect (but they’re still married and they still–well I’ll keep that part private), but there is plenty of social science research showing the qualities that are most healthy for child rearing. The researchers didn’t make them up; they came from real families.
Thank goodness for marriage!
And feminism.
And the civil rights movement.
And–gross out to the max!–personal displays of affection.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
… but there is plenty of social science research showing the qualities that are most healthy for child rearing.
Absolutely. It is those qualities that define good parents, and most parents have those qualities — not all of them in perfect proportion, but in sufficient quantity and with enough balance to provide a good environment for their children.
The researchers didn’t make them up; they came from real families.
Of course. And that is the point — the qualities of good parents were identified from observation of real families, with real parents and real children. not from an ideal construct of some sort.
But what is important in thinking about Maggie & Company is that the research shows, rather conclusively, that there is no material difference between opposite-sex and same-sex parents when it comes to having those qualities.
Maggie & Company are chasing an ideal (opposite sex, biological parents) that is irrelevant, according to the research. The ideal, in a word, has nothing to do with reality.
Maggie & Company’s attempt to impose that opposite-sex, biological parents ideal on society through law, on the other hand, is relevant, because research also shows that the children of same-sex couples would benefit if the status and legal protections of civil marriage were extended to those couples. In chasing an irrelevant ideal, and insisting that our society do so as well, Maggie & Company are doing real harm to real children.
This is not a case of “the perfect is the enemy of the good”.
No credible research supports the conclusion that opposite-sex, biological parents is relevant to the “perfect” — that is, parents who perfectly exhibit the qualities that make good parents, in perfect proportion to one another.
This is a case where a wrongheaded, unsupported notion is the enemy of the good.
posted by homer on
Maggie Gallagher got pregnant, the baby-daddy refused to marry her, therefore gay people should not be allowed to get married. This makes perfect sense to fundamentalist Christians and closeted politicians and spokesmen for far-right groups.
For the rest of us, it just gets creepy after a while. Ever seen Maggie with her husband, Raman Srivastav? She’s admitted that they lived separately for years. At one time she lived with another woman, raising her son in a two-woman household. The hypocrisy of Maggie Gallagher is astounding. Deeply unhappy with her own personal life, she is bound and determined to make sure lesbian and gay couples experience the same unhappiness in their own lives. All the while raking in huge amounts of money.
posted by Hunter on
“Maggie & Company are chasing an ideal (opposite sex, biological parents) that is irrelevant, according to the research. The ideal, in a word, has nothing to do with reality.”
It’s a belief, and therefore not contingent on objective reality. I think that’s a point that has to be made again and again — this is their belief, it is not fact, and they use it to color every argument, to be point of distorting and misrepresenting documentary evidence.
posted by John Howard on
One thing they have in common, and in common with you guys here, is that they believe that same-sex conception should be legal, or at least, they don’t support prohibiting it. We have very few clues about how much they oppose or support Transhumanism and Postgenderism, but Maggie thinks that “if it is possible then it is possible” and doesn’t seem to think it can or should be prohibited. She is still a Libertarian on that issue, as is Romney, apparently. They just want to preserve the name marriage for men and women, apparently to preserve the idea that men should marry and support women instead of leaving them to be with women they like better.
posted by Regan D. on
The point is, and this was beautifully stated in this essay, “that many good things are not perfect things.”
The question is an easy one.
Why should the children of gay parents MATTER LESS than other children?
If the concern is the betterment of children’s lives, than it’s right and important to enable those parents taking responsibility for them. And these children can be biological, adopted, step or foster children the same as their hetero peers.
And in our society, non parent AND parent couples have a contribution to make and DO. Maggie insults non parents as if their labor, interests and responsibility to the general welfare hasn’t also benefited children.
Parent and non parent married couples still have EACH OTHER to care for. The tax paying, law abiding, and responsible gay citizen is not disallowed these things along with the civil and human rights they are guaranteed.
This is where Maggie is full of shit, and where her obsession is shameful and mean in spirit.
She and her ilk are regressing back to those ancient and barbaric times when ONLY one’s tribe and clan matter. The children of the others, or orphaned children, were left to the wilderness.
She is, in effect, wanting those children of gay parents to be left to the wilderness.
To her, those children DO matter less.
posted by mike on
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Teaching our youth that we are all Americans,that we as a nation own our greatness to our diverse cultural mix.Asian,Black, European,Indian,Latino, Middle Eastern,and the alternative american, all people of the world can be found here in America and they have all contributed to Americas excellence.
The Rainbow Mobile Museum will also teach are youth about recycling,and ways of caring for mother earth,we will also have a program were by we will help the elderly and bring or youth and or elderly together on different projects.I don’t know how to let the gay community know about the museum and I find many organization will back my mobile museum if I would be willing to leave the gay community out,I refuses to do this, can you tell me were I can get the gay community to help in showing there history.www.americanrainbowmobile.com hubb1929@gmail.com all shows our free.squan.