Blame Gay Marriage First, Chapter 419

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What exactly won't Stanley Kurtz blame on gay marriage? The Enron scandal? The Greensburg tornado? Antibiotic-resistant TB? At Volokh.com, IGF contributor Dale Carpenter makes you wonder.

36 Comments for “Blame Gay Marriage First, Chapter 419”

  1. posted by On Lawn on

    If your take is to marginalize Kurtz claims as “blaiming gay-marriage”, then Carpenter’s case against it seems to be “blaming lesbians who want to pretend to have children between them”.

    Though admittedly Carpenter doesn’t seem to be applying blame, because it seems that Carpenter agrees with their actions, and the court ruling.

    I’ll start with Carpenter’s restatement of Kurtz thesis, “the latest evidence that gay marriage will ‘dissolve the family’ and lead to multi-partner marriage,” makes it sound like Kurtz give gay marriage the blame. But that is not how Kurtz put it…

    One of the most important paths by which gay marriage is liable to dissolve the family runs through triple parenting.

    He notes this is a reference to articles he wrote in the past that show in part that, “pro-triple-parenting movement is already visible”. And the importance of this case was to, “serv[e] as a springboard” for a movement that according to neutered marriage apologists was never going to be, “powerful enough to precipitate legal recognition of this dramatic change in family practice”.

    That seems plausible. In fact, I don’t see anything that Carpenter writes that actually disagrees with that. I also looked for Dale’s specific counter-arguments against making multi-partner marriages out of this. Could you point those out to me? I haven’t seen them, let alone in that article.

    It seems he’s so focused on other ways that this might happen — which doesn’t disprove Kurtz, btw — that he’s forgotten to discuss the case for what it is. This isn’t a case where heterosexuals are asking for de-facto parenthood status, though there are cases that exist. And if they were, it is hard pressed to see if that is a bad thing in Carpenter’s eyes.

    In fact, in the advent of de-facto parenthood and establishing parental status just by playing a parental role (common law marriage for adoption?) it seems instead Dale is advocating such a change. Because heterosexuals need it too? No, because the lesbian couple catapulted on their own status with a dissolving civil union feel they need it.

    In fact, if the decision relates to the controversy over gay marriage at all, it helps show the need for recognizing gay families in the law.

    In some ways its the whole causality issue all over again. But in this instance Carpenter seems to not be eschewing causality, instead he is insisting that the cart is before the horse.

    As he also states…

    Neither gay marriage nor the “mere cultural and conceptual momentum of the gay marriage movement” is producing these arrangements. Instead, the opposite is true.

    The facts of the case seem to show that two lesbian’s dissolving a Civil Union wish to share custody of a child with the father. The court grants them the three-parent status. Is Dale unaware of the cultural underpinnings that created this situation in the first place?

    Sara Butler Nardo wrote about the concept of De-Facto Parenthood a while back amidst another case between two lesbians. She wrote:

    Under the new regime of de facto parenthood, biological and adoptive parents, gay or straight, may find that they have unintentionally given third-party adults a legally enforceable right to their children after cohabiting or remarrying. The tests that courts have set up to determine de-facto parenthood are supposed to take into account the intentions of any legal parents. But will judges really be able to tell whether a mother or father was “fostering a parent-like relationship” between, say, a new lover and a son or daughter or merely encouraging them to get along?

    She also noted the particular push that the culture and momentum of gay marriage provides the advent, and that there is a solution that is probably more salient to the particular problems…

    The advent of de facto parenthood has been hailed as a victory for gays and lesbians, who, it is argued, must be allowed to establish legal parenthood this way since they cannot do so through marriage. But judicially created and enforced de facto parenthood is not the only way to address the situation of gay and lesbian couples raising children; indeed, many of the states that have created de facto parenthood already allowed second-parent adoption to gay and lesbian couples, but couples who ended up in court had declined to take advantage of it.

    She also notes that this isn’t a purely gay-problem. I would agree, but it is a gay-exacerbated problem. The facts of the case before Carpenter are clear in that regard. Their needs as lesbians to be able to procreate children by employing a male, and then have that relationship recognized as parenthood, is supposed to be a good cause for gay-marriage? I’m not sure it is a good cause at all, for gays or otherwise. Sure its a double-edged sword, but the particular and specific need that homosexual couples have for that relationship is what drove them to the court as much as their automobile did. Or else why not the second parent adoption?

    He also accuses Kurtz of only taking issue with this because homosexuals got involved. Yet Kurtz takes issue with the whole concept of removing marriage from responsible procreation. This triage was not married nor was their civil union recognized in the state they were fighting for custody, nor was that civil union going to be honored by the lesbians, yet their need supplied the demand. They have parental status, with Carpenter’s blessing, anyway. And for the reasons that are all familiar to people following the conservative case neutered marriage apologists.

    Carpenter admits the demand, concedes the outcome, and then denies the effect? That is apology gone mad.

  2. posted by Chairm on

    Mr. Rauch, I take it that your brief post is an endorsement of Carpenter’s response.

    Or is there anything in Carpetner’s posts on this subjec that you disagree with?

    Do you really mean to say that Kurtz has blamed gay marriage in his words on this particular subject?

    If yes, please add a few more words of your own that explain how you came to that opinion about the actual words that Kurtz wrote.

    Carpenter recently said in the comment section at Volokh that repeating something does not make it true or truer. With due respect, you might want to take that under advisement.

  3. posted by Richard J. Rosendall on

    The failure of many gay couples to take advantage of the legal protections available to them is a matter of great concern to one lesbian attorney specializing in family law in Virginia with whom I recently spoke. That being said, the bottom line for me in this discussion is that Kurtz, while he does not lay the problems he discusses solely at the feet of gay couples, does single gay people out for discrimination. Although third- and fourth-parent situations also occur in heterosexual contexts when sperm donors or surrogate mothers are involved, Kurtz dismisses that merely by stating that it tends to happen more with lesbian couples. Excuse me, but since gay and lesbian people represent about 3 percent of the population, and therefore can only be a small part of social trends like sperm donors and surrogate mothers, how in the world does it make sense for gay people to bear the brunt of Kurtz’s remedy (banning SSM)?

    I am too old to be raising children at this point, and have no interest in renting someone’s womb so that my partner and I can be biological fathers. I just want to marry my Patrick and have our relationship legally protected. Why should I have to bear the burden of refuting every damn thing that an anti-gay obsessive like Mr. Kurtz dreams up? We aren’t trying to harm anybody, we just want to live our lives. And we are damn tired of having to defend something as basic as that.

  4. posted by Chairm on

    Mr. Rosendall,

    I think you have misunderstood the issue here.

    You said, “third- and fourth-parent situations also occur in heterosexual contexts when sperm donors or surrogate mothers are involved”.

    You have examples where three or four people share custody and have co-equal parental status of the same child?

    I ask because the norm, even our modern family law system, is that a child has a maximum of two parents with co-equal status.

    Third party procreation usually requires the “donor” or the “surrogate” to relinquish parental status. In the triple parenting cases in Penn and in Ont, the “donor” did not relinquish.

    There were two sets of children. The first set were nephews adopted by the first woman. The second woman did not a adopt them.

    The second set of kids had both a mom and a dad. The second woman could not adopt because the father did not relinquish parental status.

    Perhaps you can point to examples where a married couple used “donor” or “surrogate” AND the third party remained deeply involved in the child’s life, AND the court established tripartite parental status and tripartite custody. If so, please do. If not, your assertion is based on some other idea or assumption about parental status.

  5. posted by Amicus on

    Kurtz refutes Blankenhorn: Blankenhorn says gay children don’t have fathers (“My daddy’s name is ‘donor'”) and therefore, I cannot support gay marriage. Kurtz says, look, many gay children know their fathers (“Horror at 11:00! The court says my biological dad has to pay child support”) and therefore I cannot support gay marriage.

    So which is it guys?

  6. posted by Chairm on

    –> “since gay and lesbian people represent about 3 percent of the population, and therefore can only be a small part of social trends like sperm donors and surrogate mothers”

    According to the 2000 Census, the CDC, and related sources, only about 10% of the adult homosexual population resided in same-sex households. Only 3% of the adult homosexual population resided in such households with children. In those households with children, only about 4-5% of the children were adopted. Most of the children, by far, migrated from the previously procreative and both-sexed relationships of one of their parents. But some of the children were attained through third party procreation.

    Around 0.5% of the child population were born with the aid of third party procreation methods. With IVF, for example, about 90% of users did NOT rely on “donor sperm”. With IVF, for example, about 89% of procedures did not use “donated” sperm and/or ova. That’s because these technologies treated the fertility problems of both-sexed couples.

    So some tiny percentage of the 0.5% of the child population were attained via third party methods.

    The CDC stats show that third party methods got a big boost with the passage of enabling legislation. In recent years about 1% of the births have been through third party procreation.

    This repro industry is largely unregulated. Lone women and two-women pairs have increasingly used the fertility services as endruns around responsible procreation.

    Now, almost a decade later, the reports of a boom in the use of these methods — by lesbians — and surrogacy by gays — has been vaulted by the SSM campaign and the newsmedia. Some people tell me that about one-third of the lesbians they know with young children have used these methods. Maybe they hype it too much, I dunno, because reliable stats are hard to come by when this is so politically charged with bias. But let’s suppose that even half the hype is reflective of what is going on.

    That would mean the same-sex parenting scenarios use third party procreation at a much higher rate than the both-sexed parenting scenario.

    Maybe that is a good thing, I doubt it, but maybe.

    But it does show that there is a driving force in the rapidly rising trend.

    That the trendlines began way back when these methods were first developed to treat infertility — an actual medical disability not experienced by any one-sexed couple — and then took off with legislation that enabled third party procreation, well, this does not negate the current significance of the use of these methods by the adult homosexual population.

    These methods usually result in multiple conceptions — and more often than not, also multiple births.

    Here’s a really rough extrapolation: if 1% of the child population are attained this way each year, and all of them were multiple births, then one percent of of the adult population has contributed to this trend (i.e. one child per adult). Only ten years ago the share per year was about 0.5% so let’s just draw a straight trendline ten years into the future when the share per year will be 2% of births.

    If the reported subtrend among the adult homosexual population continues to grow rapidly, as reported, then, just another one-percent of the adult population could double the share of children attained each year by this method.

    There are surveys that indicate that around 20-30% of adult homosexuals are seriously considering the future use of these methods. Suppose just one in five were to do so, well, that’s 1% of the adult population. [The HRC’s census analysis used 5% as the share of the adult population that was openly homosexual].

    So the homosexual subtrend would add another percentage to the rapidly growing trend in third party procreation.

    That’s a very rough extrapolation and not a prediction on my part. But it shows how same-sex pairs are a key driver — even if the actual share is not quite as high as in that extrapolation.

  7. posted by Chairm on

    Amicus,

    Does the existence of double-dad scenarios support your argument for SSM? If so, howso?

    And, based directly on your answer, on what principle would you deny three dads the same status as two dads?

  8. posted by Tim Hulsey on

    “Chairm” writes: Do you really mean to say that Kurtz has blamed gay marriage in his words on this particular subject? If yes, please add a few more words of your own that explain how you came to that opinion about the actual words that Kurtz wrote.

    I’m no Jon Rauch, but I think I can answer most of your questions, Chairm.

    The first sentence of Kurtz’s post at NRO reads: One of the most important paths by which gay marriage is liable to dissolve the family runs through triple parenting.

    Now unless you believe in “the open work,” Chairm — in which case, you’re probably the last living deconstructionist out of captivity — you have to admit that Kurtz is talking about same-sex marriage in rather negative terms, to say the least.

    Carpenter’s article points out an important factual error in Kurtz’s argument: The court decision in Pennsylvania was based on a legal precedent involving a heterosexual family and their sperm donor. Therefore, the facts of the case (you know what facts are … right, Chairm?) disprove Kurtz’s initial assertion that same-sex marriages will “dissolve the family through triple parenting.” If heterosexual families have already pioneered the triple-parenting arrangement, then gay couples can’t dissolve the family with it.

    Now, Chairm, you’ve also asked Amicus: On what principle would you deny three dads the same status as two dads? Again, I’m no Amicus (and I think I can safely say I’m no “amicus” of yours), but I’d deny three dads the same status as two dads on the simple grounds of uncertainty: We just don’t know how a marriage involving three or more persons would work, legally speaking, and until we have a better idea of precisely how a polyamorous marriage could function in legal terms, there would be no sense in making a civil institution of it.

    Before you can legalize polyamorous relationships, you have to determine which partner would serve as which partner’s next of kin, which partner would have power of attorney should one person in the relationship become incapacitated, how many partners’ consent would be required to file for divorce, who would receive insurance benefits, how inheritance rights would be handled, where tax liabilities would fall, and so forth.

    With monogamous marriage, of course, all of these rights, benefits and legal questions have already been settled — regardless of whether the partners involved are of the same sex or different sexes. The law doesn’t have to choose which marital partner will receive benefits or responsibilities when there’s only one marital partner to choose.

  9. posted by Amicus on

    Does the existence of double-dad scenarios support your argument for SSM? If so, howso?

    Two gay men who want to get married would support the argument for SSM, of course.

    There are a number of gay men who are already fathers, (perhaps partly because of harmfully misleading teachings from their Church coupled with a desire to do what was socially expected). If you need a high-profile case, Jim McGreevey is one, now in the news.

    Marriage, with its rights and responsibilities and legal protections, seems to me like it would be a good idea for two men who want to bring up a child together.

    Kurtz, either sloppy (without retraction?) or on the prowl to mischaracterize, takes a remediation of the PA court and suggests that the folks involved wanted a “group marriage”. As if. He takes a case about the dissolution of a family and says that it is going to cause the dissolution of the family. Only in his world.

    Kurtz grossly mischaracterizes, in my view, the Beyond Marriage document, as a “confession”. It’s best understood as a reaction to his – and the others he misleads – refusnik positions, denying marriage. Denied marriage, tell me, what are people who really, really want to have some relationship recognition supposed to do, except go ‘beyond marriage’? In my view, those who are failing to see the simple justice in the cause of ‘gay marriage’, failing to address it in any way other than with scorn and condemnation and ‘wandering empiricism’ against it, are recklessly risking the very traditions that that they have been entrusted with, needlessly and disproportionately risking the very thing they are trying to protect.

    Last, I’m reluctant to shade marriage as deeply as Blakenhorn may have done to be about the children. Of course, the welfare of the children is prime, even against the life of the parents, let alone their wishes; but, in some ways, shading marriage to be about procreation and total child welfare is as radical as ‘the full Stacey’. Think it through.

    …on what principle would you deny three dads the same status as two dads?

    I’m not sure how to make sense out of your question.

    First, it points out yet another problem with Kurtz’s latest box of chocolates. The most parents a child could logically have have from formal relationships are three, two biological and one from marriage/adoption. We can chuck his hysterical arguments about ‘polygamy’ and polyamory, therefore. As Dale pointed out already the choices that the courts and legislatures have in defining the responsibilities of each. Of course, we know also that, in fact, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, and the like for a LOT of the parenting burden among the ‘informal’ relationships, frequently in very, very important ways (to the child and the parents) and often with great degrees of emphasis in different cultures and sub-cultures.

    Second, if you meant your question about marriage, and not about parenting, then can I also challenge you a little bit? If you were to grant permission for gay marriage, on what principle would you deny it (three-person marriage)? Can you think of none? What’s wrong with the ones we have already used, in the past?

    What if I were to say I’d be against it based on what my Church teaches is correct (it’s not completely improbable to assume that even mainstream Christian churches could come to bless gay marriages, but not find merit in ‘group marriage’).

  10. posted by Charim on

    Tim Hulsey,

    –> The court decision in Pennsylvania was based on a legal precedent involving a heterosexual family and their sperm donor.

    How is that a factual error in what Kurtz said? That precedent did not create triple parenting.

    But what did Kurtz say? Gay marriage. One of the paths. Liable to dissolve the family through triple parenting.

    Now, you might hide behind, or merely be confused by, the lack of official status, but the two lesbians certainly did act as if they thought they were “married” and as if the courts should treat them as if they were in effect “married”.

    Are you going to claim that if they had not formed a same-sex houehold the second woman would still have been treated as a de facto parent by the court? Or by the father of the children?

    If yes, please sayso explicitly and then reconcile that with your first complaint.

    Carpenter seems to think that society should react to this sort of scenario by enacting a merger of SSM with marriage. Is that your reaction?

    –> If heterosexual families have already pioneered the triple-parenting arrangement, then gay couples can’t dissolve the family with it.

    Well, “gay marriage” can be one of the paths if not the only path. The Penn case involved a couple who had formed a “gay marriage”.

    Did “heterosexuals” pioneer co-equal parental status and shared custody amongst three (or more) adults? Please cite examples. Thanks.

    You can also checkout the Ontario court case that openly acknowledged it was doing something new that had not been anticipated in previous court cases nor in legislation.

    As for uncertaintly, what certainty can you provide regarding tripling parenting?

    Amicus,

    –> The most parents a child could logically have have from formal relationships are three, two biological and one from marriage/adoption.

    You’ll need to demonstrate the logic.

    In adoption there often is a 4-parent scenario. The two birthparents and the two adoptive parents. But the birth parents relinquish parental status. The child would have only two co-equal parents. Not three. But by your confusion you might declare this a precedent for quadruple parenting, I guess.

    The Ontario case involved a lesbian union, a “sperm donor” known and involved in the child’s life as the child’s father, and his wife stood in the wings. If the second woman in the lesbian union could be construed as a third parent, why not the father’s wife? Afterall, her children are directly related to the other children but the second woman is not so directly related — except by the union with the mother. In a slightly different scenario, with shared custody, the father’s wife would likely become very involved in the life of her own children’s brother. Quadruple parenting?

    Look, we’ve had a few decades of step-family scenarios without same-sex unions and yet the legal norm is for a child to have two parents, not three, not four. We’ve had adoption for even longer and the legal norm is that parental relinquishments precedes adoption. Not tripling parenting, not quadruple parenting. Step-parent adoption is no exception to that norm.

    But my question went unanswered. If the double-dad scenario supports SSM, for your reasons (which you are not very clear about), then, would the triple-dad scenario also support SSM? If not, why not. If yes, howso?

  11. posted by Chairm on

    Amicus,

    –> If you were to grant permission for gay marriage, on what principle would you deny it (three-person marriage)? Can you think of none? What’s wrong with the ones we have already used, in the past?

    Could you elaborate? I really don’t see what you are asking of me.

    I oppose the merger of same-sex union and marriage. So if it were to occur, it would be based on someone else’s reasons, not mine.

    So you might want to consider the SSM argumentation about same-sex parenting and from it derive a reason to deny triple-person marriage, if you can.

    If you want to relay on the customary definition of marriage to deny triple-person marriage, I guess you want to abandon SSM argumentation the moment the merger is enacted.

    SSM argumentation trivializes the nature of marriage which combines responsible procreation (not the case with “donors”) with integration of the seexes (extrinsic to the one-sexed arrangements). So minus the nature of marriage, I guess you’ll have to come up with some other reason to oppose multi-person marriage.

    Evidently, complexity is not such a big hurdle, as per the Penn and Ont cases we’ve discussed.

    And given the claims of SSMers about empirical evidence (or rather the lack of it) regarding same-sex parenting, I guess you can’t oppose triple parrenting (and thus multi-person marriage) on that basis.

    You tell me. SSM is your cause. Based direclty on your reasons to support it, and as Carpenter suggests this is bolstered by the triple parenting scenario, what stands in the way of multi-marriage for multi-parents?

  12. posted by Chairm on

    By the way, is it reasonable to oppose third party procreation while supporting SSM?

    Can an SSMer reasonable disagree with the Penn case? If there is an SSMer who opposes third party procreation, or disagrees with triple parenting, what would you say to distinguish such practices from your reasons to favor SSM?

    That is to whom Amicus should really make his challenge.

  13. posted by On Lawn on

    Amicus,

    “My Daddy’s Name is Donor” comes up with an article written by Elizabeth Marquadt. Where do were you going with attributing that title to Blankenhorn? Also I’m unaware of where Blankenhorn says children don’t have fathers.

  14. posted by Amicus on

    In adoption there often is a 4-parent scenario.

    True and accurate. But, this is not a terribly interesting case, in this context. For one, the courts have years of experience with adoption cases. No one thinks that adoption threatens to “dissolve the family” and hasten ‘group marriage’ or the end of civilization, at least enough to be continuously writing about it at the NRO, so far as I know. The point remains, as well, that it’s not a path to ‘poly’ anything – it has a limit that Kurtz ignores in order to drive his propaganda.

    …why not the father’s wife?

    Because she would have no legal standing (i.e. what I described colloquially as ‘formal relationship’), any more than she would over a child from a prior marriage of her husband.

    we’ve had a few decades of step-family scenarios

    Hey, I invite you to take a step out into the world, meet some gay people (“gay” is not catching, so you are “safe”) and some step-families. Apart from meeting some gay people who might break your preconceptions, you will also find out that, if you are a young kid in a step family, and your parents have remarried, you most certainly do have four parents, quite often, regardless of who among them are the ‘legal guardians’.

    Other considerations:

    If a kid is with has nanny 90% of the time and thereafter goes to live at a boarding school, who are his “real” parents?

    When you get married, do you call your in-law’s parents “mom” and “dad”, making them your third and fourth “parents”?

    So, why is it so odd (and lamentable or detestable from your view?) when a lesbian couple chooses to involve the father of their kids in their lives?

    …triple-dadmarriage scenario also support SSM?

    Same reasons that U.S. denied polygamy in the past -stamped it out, even, at one time. Unless you can think of some others (I probably can).

    So if it were to occur, it would be based on someone else’s reasons, not mine.

    Hey, you let yourself off the hook pretty easy.

    I don’t get to have the world the way I like it, but that doesn’t mean I give up on having reasons to continue to shape things the way I want.

    For instance, I can say, “Okay, IF we are going to have guns for everybody, then I’m for pretty strict gun controls. No “weapons of mass destruction” (i.e., fully automatics or semi automatics that can be easily upgraded), no concealed carry, no teflon bullets, licensing, waiting periods, mandatory safety-switch (young kids protection), inter-state transportation restrictions, etc.

    Why some people (including Kurtz?) choose to leave their reason at the doorstep regarding the issues of gay marriage looks like a sin to me, the sin of withholding their talents to solve a problem. I understand that they think that they are doing the right thing, but they must understand they could be wrong – it’s not like ‘gay marriage’ is an open/shut case at all.

  15. posted by On Lawn on

    No one thinks that adoption threatens to “dissolve the family” … The point remains, as well, that it’s not a path to ‘poly’ anything – it has a limit that Kurtz ignores in order to drive his propaganda.

    That and the recent advent of the triple-parenting in conjunction with neutered marriage would enforce Kurtz argument, not undermine it. As pointed out above, this isn’t the only case to reference in this field thats raised red flags in others.

    As an aside, to me one of the most interesting observations I’ve made, and continue to observe, is that what Kurtz writes is relatively interesting and well balanced. What people say second hand as Kurtz argument does not.

    Please cross reference the post above where I pointed out problems in your previous post in dealing with Blankenhorn’s writings.

    Misrepresenting others arguments will help you feel better, and assuage the pain in your fellows, but will do little in addressing the concerns people have.

    Because she would have no legal standing (i.e. what I described colloquially as ‘formal relationship’), any more than she would over a child from a prior marriage of her husband.

    Perhaps you didn’t realize that the findings of the case would show that an unrelated wife to a father could establish de-facto parenthood, as SBN feared (quoted above). In this case, the unrelated civil union partner establishes her parental status by the role she played with the child. And this would, as you note, be a departure from current understanding of establishment of parental status. But this is the same point I began this post with, and it directly substantiates Kurtz argument. Perhaps you need to re-read his article.

    Hey, I invite you to take a step out into the world, meet some gay people

    One of the reasons I like Rauch and Carpenter (for all my misgivings about them) is they are one of the few apologists that don’t rely on or even repeat arguments that suggest gay animus drives people’s defense of marriage.

    It is a shame that you need that crutch.

    if you are a young kid in a step family, and your parents have remarried, you most certainly do have four parents

    And in your own way, you just hinted at why neutered marriage and no-fault divorce have similar effects on the dissolution of the family. And in subsequent questions, I believe you hint at why establishing parental status simply by being a caregiver has potential to make the family system unravel completely. Again, read Sara Butler Nardo’s quotes and article mentioned above.

    Same reasons that U.S. denied polygamy in the past -stamped it out, even, at one time.

    What are those reasons as you see them? And are you sure it is really stamped out? I could point to large colonies of polygamists in the US and other western nations to refute that statement. But I will take a different tact. A father divorces his wife and re-marries. He still is parent of the children, and has a relationship with the mother, to help raise and support the children. He remarries, and now has two families he’s supporting. That support is mandated to two families by the court. You tell me, what is different from that scenario and polygamy.

    Then you can preach about how we’ve stamped it out, and then make a valid point from it.

    Why some people (including Kurtz?) choose to leave their reason at the doorstep

    Perhaps you should check with the doorman to see where you left your reasoning. I would appreciate more effort from you to provide some. So far you seem to expect me to believe that your inability to comprehend what another is saying is itself good reasoning.

    (note to admin: I’m just replying to his accusations in pointing out specifically how they, in turn, have reflected badly on him.)

  16. posted by Amicus on

    …attributing that title to Blankenhorn

    I believe that he’s used the phrase in public and I doubt he’d allow it significant place on his organization’s website if he didn’t largely agree with Elizabeth.

    Also I’m unaware of where Blankenhorn says children don’t have fathers.

    Yes, I wrote quickly and didn’t convey my meaning. I didn’t mean ‘gay children’. I should have written ‘children of gay couples’, who Blankenhorn believes, if their parents are lesbians, are fatherless, which, in turn, to him and his calculus is a severe deprivation, something that has been questioned here and elsewhere. In that context of the PA court case, it would be interesting to hear his ruminations on that topic, since it does make his ‘haiku’ even that much less air-tight.

    Frankly, I think it would be a really hard to show that the best interests of the child were not served by the PA court or the parents.

    (BTW, I’ve written a rebuttal to David’s 24 points since they have become public. If I have a chance I’ll post what I have, to see what your thoughts are.)

  17. posted by On Lawn on

    I doubt he’d allow it significant place on his organization’s website if he didn’t largely agree with Elizabeth.

    They are both part of the same organization, yes. But even that article does not say what you attribute to it, even if Blankenhorn agreed or not.

    who Blankenhorn believes, if their parents are lesbians, are fatherless,

    Again, please provide a quote that gives you that impression.

    I think it would be a really hard to show that the best interests of the child were not served by the PA court or the parents.

    It would be interesting to see someone argue how they were – first.

    But even so, as my friend points out it would really serve my best interests to have my minivan painted like an Ambulance with the lights and all. Imagine how quickly I could get to work, etc… Moral of the story: individual interests (yet to be argued) are sometimes at the expense of social interests. We may not know if this is such a case until someone argues how it served their best interest.

  18. posted by Charim on

    Amicus, since I probably know and have been in direct contact with more gay and lesbian people than the typical SSM supporter, you would be wise to not assume that I am naive about the world just because I disagree with you on this subject.

    On the other hand, I wonder how you would respond to someone who was openly gay and yet disagreed with you about the marriage issue. Would you tell him to step out into the world and meet more gay people?

    Maybe you are more mature and worldly than your comments would make it appear.

    I would say that much of what Jon Rauch has said about the so-called “conservative case for SSM” is very naive but at least he has brought intellectual rigour to his advocacey.

    I discuss this issue expecting to be met with principled reasoning rather than namecalling and emotive posturing. Most SSMers (you to a much lesser degree) belie a transparent immaturity on this particular issue and continue to miscomprehend the argument. You did it again in your recent comment.

    But I do see your struggle to come to grips with this subtopic of triple parenting and multi-person marriage. There is nothing wrong with that struggle. I struggle with it myself. This subtopic is not so easy to dismiss, as per Rauch’s quip in his post.

    You recognize that adoption does not create co-equal parental status for three or four people. Relinquishment before adoption is the legal norm.

    Good.

    That distinguishes adoption from the Penn case and the Ont case.

    Now we have two birth parents — one dad and one mom — plus a de facto parent, another woman who had lived in a same sex union with the mother. Three parents for one child — they share parental status and custody and support.

    I do not believe you will find a precedent for that arrangment where second parent adoption is concerned even in same-sex households. Nor will you find it among married households where adoption or third party procreation was the means by which the adoptive mother and father attained the child.

    Is that distinction irrelevant as far you are concerned? If so, why should society react to this particular scenario by enacting SSM, as per Carpenter’s comments (apparently endorsed by Rauch)? Maybe you disagree on that part.

    In principle, would you empower the state to impose involuntary adoption? Or to impose on a parent the sharing of custody and co-equal parental status with a nonparent?

    As I said, when a husband becomes the social step-parent of his wife’s child, he does not become the legal father unless 1) the child’s father relinquishes and 2) the wife and the husband jointly establish a stepfather adoption.

    The social stepfather does not adopt unilaterally. The court does not impose involuntary adoption on him; it does not impose involuntary relinquishment of the father; and it does not impose a third parent on the wife nor on the father. The child has two parents already.

    As for polygamy, I am not sure of your line of reasoning and questioning. It seems like an evasion of the simple question I asked which, I would akcnowledge, has no easy answer.

    Triple parenting, as per Carpenter, ought to add to the SSM argumentation. If so, would you deny triple marital status to triple parents? If not, why not? If yes, howso?

  19. posted by Chairm on

    When it comes to the use of “donor sperm” by a married couple, the husband must voluntarily consent — in places that consent must be written before the clinic can proceed. And the donor, known or unknown, must relinquishment parent status prior to conception. In this scenario the marriage presumption becomes more like a form of step-parent adoption with the husband and wife jointly sharing the parental status of the child — after the “donor” relinquished.

    I don’t think there is precedent in which a “donor” retained parental status while the husband shared parental status as a second father. If he has some limited parental responsiblities it would be through his wife’s parental status and his acting on her behalf.

    Maybe you have an example of triple parental status for the the donor, the wife, and the husband?

    In any case, how would you codify such an arrangement? What principles would you use to do as Carpenter suggested?

    I think Kurtz raised pionts that must be dealt with if you would codify tripling parenting into statutory law rather than depend on a patchwork of judge-made innovations that undermine the legal norm of no more than two parents per child.

  20. posted by Amicus on

    But even that article does not say what you attribute to it, even if Blankenhorn agreed or not.

    Oh good grief!

    You folks come here seeking a standard of honesty that Kurtz doesn’t offer; and the good people here, give it to you, most often, and I don’t care how ‘unsophisticated’ you find their replies.

    No one has yet answer my question of how Kurtz could have written with honesty that he had considered and dismissed important alternative explanations relating to his work on Scandinavia and the Netherlands, yet NONE appear in the work that I’ve read of his, so far. What’s more, on what basis does he assert that something is a true confession, as in his pieces “Confession” and “Confession II”? Is he a mind reader? The list goes on. The title of this thread is yet another calling out of it.

    At least I TRY to do my homework. If you want a direct quote, go to reason #3 on Blankenhorn’s list of 24 against SSM and to his recent note, “Dale Carpenter, p.s.” – the haiku, item #2. See also reason #6 of his, if you want a THIRD confirming source.

    I’ll accept apologies.

    Perhaps you didn’t realize that the findings of the case …

    I read what you say, but you fail to grapple with I have said about it: “The most parents a child could logically have from formal relationships are three, two biological and one from marriage/adoption (four, if you consider regular adoptions) [edit added with thanks to Chairm]. We can chuck his hysterical arguments about ‘polygamy’ and polyamory, therefore.”

    Repeating the facts of the case (or quoting Nardo) won’t help you with what Dale said about it either, namely that the legislatures and the courts have options about how to define these relationships (and no, I don’t think it’s abjectly poor that the courts work on some of these cases, in advance of policy making. Discovery is one mechanism that public policy makers can rely on to come to understand what is going on and/or what are the so-called hard cases). Chairm seems to be asking a lot of on target questions in the latter part of his/her post about that. The question that I think Rauch is hinting in this thread is why isn’t Kurtz doing the same, but instead throwing up all kinds of nonsense about “dissolving families” and the slippery slope to “polygamy” and “polyamory” and more besides?

    I’m sorry that you took such exception to my impression that someone else ought to get out more, based on their comments about step families. All the same, I think I’ve pointed out enough examples across the spectrum that show your formalistic leaning and legalistic thinking on two-person parenthood doesn’t cover all of what is going on in the proverbial real-world. I’ve given scenarios and examples: the nanny, the boarding school; the parenting role of grandparents, aunts, and uncles, inflected as it is by various cultures; as well as the real-world experience of step-kids whose parents have remarried. There is more. One could fill a book with all the variety of what is truly covered under legal, two-person parenthood, that one might never know just gazing at the Law.

    One of the reasons I like Rauch and Carpenter …

    I’m glad to have them to, fulfilling that role.

    I don’t have their obligations, however, and I regret to disappoint you, but I’m not missing my target. When I hear people intimating things about how gays will “defining down” marriage and how gay people “trivialize” marriage (just above, here) or Kurtz and Wilcox using gay marriage in the context of “decline”, I know of NO person who really knows gay people who would use such miserable language, publicly or privately. Sorry, eyes open here. Happy to keep chatting, but …

  21. posted by Tim Hulsey on

    Chairm says: How is that a factual error in what Kurtz said? That precedent did not create triple parenting. But what did Kurtz say? Gay marriage. One of the paths. Liable to dissolve the family through triple parenting.

    No, Chairm. Here is what Kurtz actually wrote:

    One of the most important paths by which gay marriage is liable to dissolve the family runs through triple parenting.

    Kurtz is claiming here that one important consequence of gay marriage would be “triple parenting,” and that this particular legal arrangement could spell the downfall of the family. Yet the case he cites as evidence for the claim uses a heterosexual family for precedent. One therefore cannot claim that same-sex families alone will “dissolve the family” through triple parenting. Nor can one claim that triple parenting is somehow causally related to same-sex marriage. Heterosexual couples have already done it, you see.

    Now if a same-sex couple had established a legal precedent for triple parenting, we could say that Kurtz represented the facts with some degree of accuracy. But because the Pennsylvania court merely followed heterosexual precedent with a same-sex household, we cannot say that Kurtz has accurately presented the facts of the case at all. Indeed, we have to concede that Kurtz’s general claim is based on either misunderstanding or willful distortion.

  22. posted by Amicus on

    since I probably know and have been in direct contact with more gay and lesbian people than the typical SSM supporter

    If this does indeed inform your opinion, how is it that you can formulation NO notion – NONE – of what ‘ideal’ gay relationships might speak to?

    Would you tell him to step out into the world and meet more gay people?

    To be honest, I’ve never, ever, once met a gay person who suggested to me that gay people would ‘trivialize’ marriage. Apart from the radical who want to re-make the world, those gay and non-gay who are largely indifferent to marriage are so because they find it an unnecessary encumbrance, a throwback. Is your experience different?

    I discuss this issue expecting to be met with principled reasoning rather than namecalling and emotive posturing.

    See what I said to On Lawn above.

    By the way, I’d be interested if you do or would call your in-laws parents’ “mom” and “dad”.

    But I do see your struggle to come to grips with this subtopic of triple parenting and multi-person marriage. There is nothing wrong with that struggle.

    I appreciate your approval, but, as I see it, Dale was on top of things in his post and I just filled out a point here or there. It’s you, Chairm, and hopefully Kurtz who are coming up to speed, namely that the issues in this PA case are not about ‘poly’ anything, really or likely to cause the dissolution of the family.

    Had there been a gay marriage for the PA couple, we can ditch all of the considerations of Nardo and the monotonous rehearsal and re-rehearsal of them by OnLawn.

    IF – IF – there were a case to be made to codify what you call ‘involuntary adoption’, it might be because consent to such is tacit in the agreement to be a donor, unless there is a provision for it being explicitly stated otherwise by the parties, I would guess.

    My answer to your polygamy question is not an ‘evasion’, simply because it highlights just how unfair (and possibly unfounded) this question really is.

    I agree with Dale that SSM would be a good first step to helping the courts with questions like the PA case (I think, at least if that is what he implied or said). (No surprise, there, eh?)

    When it comes to the use of “donor sperm” by a married couple, the husband must voluntarily consent …

    Indeed. HOWever, heterosexuals are completely free to have a child out of wedlock, “by accident” (sort of a consensual non-consent). Even in a drunken stupor, gay and lesbian people wouldn’t much be expected to ever have a kid “by accident”. It’s a little off the path for me to point it out, but it irks that such things don’t make it onto Blakenhorn’s talking-point lists of pros and cons … He can feel free round out his list with this, though, and without attribution.

    Maybe you have an example of triple parental status for the the donor, the wife, and the husband?

    I don’t … yet.

    I’ll not, however, that heterosexuals have availed themselves of open adoptions (and laws). [In a further sign of Kurtz’s bias, he doesn’t pen much on this topic.]

    I will go on, however, observe that there is one “triple-parent” case in the entire nation of 300+ Million. Perhaps you can say why you think it deserves front page treatment? Statistically, there are more al-qaeda likely to be in the U.S. than that. There are more children starving right now. There are more kids kicked out of their homes just tonight, for that matter. More kids were physically abused by their parents tonight. Last, before all the family ‘scholars’ declare a trend, are you also aware of the court cases that went the other way, on this matter? Is Ontario all the evidence? What about this Swedish case, which is at least collaterally relevant?

  23. posted by Tim Hulsey on

    Chairm again: I don’t think there is precedent in which a “donor” retained parental status while the husband shared parental status as a second father. If he has some limited parental responsiblities it would be through his wife’s parental status and his acting on her behalf.

    Obviously there is such a precedent, because the Pennsylvania court invoked it. That’s what people would call a fact. And the funny thing about a fact, Chairm, is that it exists whether you believe it or not.

  24. posted by Fitz on

    Tim Hulsey

    “Obviously there is such a precedent, because the Pennsylvania court invoked it. That’s what people would call a fact. And the funny thing about a fact, Chairm, is that it exists whether you believe it or not.”

    The existence of an incident of common law precedent decided under equitable estoppel says nothing about the legal veracity of the judgment, its statutory authority and reconciliation or its adoption as public policy (within or outside the common law)

    It is also a fact that the law does not recognize triple parenting, and indeed privileges the natural family as a matter of both common law, statutory and constitutional right. These precedents are infinitely more established, historically rooted and widespread than those invoked in the Pennsylvanian decision.

  25. posted by Fitz on

    Tim Hulsey |

    ?Kurtz is claiming here that one important consequence of gay marriage would be “triple parenting,” and that this particular legal arrangement could spell the downfall of the family. Yet the case he cites as evidence for the claim uses a heterosexual family for precedent. One therefore cannot claim that same-sex families alone will “dissolve the family” through triple parenting.?

    No, not alone?. But Kurtz never maintains otherwise. As you acknowledge Kurtz concedes that triple parenting is one important consequence of gay marriage.

    ?Nor can one claim that triple parenting is somehow causally related to same-sex marriage. Heterosexual couples have already done it, you see.?

    I?m afraid not. They are causally related & directly so. While any given opposite sex couple may not be able to conceive children (& therefore need IVF) Every same-sex couple cannot have children & would require IVF to have a child that was the natural lineage of at least one of the child?s caregivers.

    Therefore same-sex ?marriage? can properly be said to casually relate itself to the necessity for IVF and triple parenting.

  26. posted by Brian Miller on

    Fitz, I’m perfectly happy to let you have your own government marriages if you (and only you) pay for it.

    Unfortunately, just like your other right-wing socialist bretheren, you continue to insist that you have a “right” to use government to force other people into your preferred lifestyle — and then expect the rest of us to pick up the tab.

    Regardless of what you *think* you’ll be able to do there, that’s not going to happen for long.

  27. posted by On Lawn on

    Amicus: You folks come here seeking a standard of honesty that Kurtz doesn’t offer;

    I do not let Kurtz set any standard for myself, let alone honesty. And neither should you. The standard of honesty is something to strive for independent of others slipping away from it.

    But since that reads to me as an admission of dishonesty on your part, hoping to blame Kurtz for your dishonesty, I will let that serve as your final indictment. I see no more reason to pursue our conversation.

    Suffice to say, that what I’ve written appears to have been unanswered by your post. Especially the clear pronouncement that finding other ways to meet the same end does not disprove Kurtz showing that same-sex marriage is one way to that end. Even the most used path at the moment.

    If you’ve been lead to believe otherwise, it is Carpenter’s disservice to you.

    Tim,

    One therefore cannot claim that same-sex families alone will “dissolve the family” through triple parenting.

    That does not match Kurtz as you quote and comment yourself

    “One of the most important paths by which gay marriage is liable to dissolve the family runs through triple parenting.”

    Kurtz is claiming here that one important consequence of gay marriage would be “triple parenting,” and that this particular legal arrangement could spell the downfall of the family.”

    Again, multiple paths may lead to triple parenting. I don’t read Kurtz as saying otherwise.

    And a heterosexual couple may have had a case quoted as precedent. But that doesn’t show that Triple Parenting isn’t part of a continued “dissolution of our traditional family arrangements”, as Kurtz says later in the article. This case (as well as the one given by Sara Butler Nardo quoted in the first comment in the thread) is direct evidence of that.

    I see no denial in what Carpenter writes that it is indeed a path that leads to that end. In fact, it seems to be a path Carpenter is happilly traversing himself, even one he expects to go down to meet the realities of the needs of lesbian partnerships that should be recognized by the state. Again, first comment in this thread is where I outline this.

    Now if a same-sex couple had established a legal precedent for triple parenting

    You seem to be arguing that this case does not establish such a precedent. I can see good reasons for saying that, for instance there is a chance for appeal. That a case was cited as precedent that involves a heterosexual couple, is not.

  28. posted by On Lawn on

    Brian,

    Unfortunately, just like your other right-wing socialist bretheren, you continue to insist that you have a “right” to use government to force other people into your preferred lifestyle — and then expect the rest of us to pick up the tab.

    Is Dale Carpenter not in a happy stable homosexual relationship? Is Jon Rauch not in a happy stable homosexual relationship?

    I can’t speak for Fitz, Dale or Jon as I do not know them personally. Because even if Dale and Jon happen to be looking or taken, there are many who are in happy homosexual relationships.

    But I do know marriage, and that it is not about forcing anyone to be married. Or forcing them to be married if they are in a stable relationship. In fact one of the largest chasms in the debate as I’ve read it so far (in general) is how Rauch and Carpenter seem to feel that the reality of stable homosexual relationships require, demand, or even need the definition of marriage to be neutered for their sake. How is their relationships harmed if marriage isn’t neutered? Perhaps someone will take up the tools and bridge that disparity for me, but in the mean time I will continue to argue marriage for what it is. An institution, like a club where the initiation is a commitment to an uncertain future where children may come who are literal incarnations of that relationship and rely on that relationship. I put that in bold because without that meaning, marriage is just another fling.

    In the mean time, I find marriage to be a non-partisan issue. Just look at the current field of strong presidential candidates both Democrat and Republican.

  29. posted by Brian Miller on

    I do know marriage, and that it is not about forcing anyone to be married

    Say that after you transfer your $500,000 home to your unmarried partner and get a $150,000 tax bill from the IRS for the transfer.

  30. posted by Craig on

    I realize I’m spitting in the wind here, On Lawn, but I guess you would say that when my 83 year old grandmother married her husband a few years ago, that it was just a “fling?”

    Sheesh.

  31. posted by On Lawn on

    Say that after you transfer your $500,000 home to your unmarried partner and get a $150,000 tax bill from the IRS for the transfer.

    Oh the inconveniences of the rich. Isn’t that what taxes are for? To get support from the rich to help out with the social good? Just what is the policy toward married people for, anyway?

    I’m not callous to their plight. I know of simular cases between parents donating houses to their children, and other situations where people need the resources but wind up getting hit with taxes for it. I’m not too interested in arguing tax policy, or preferential status. Perhaps both should be done away, I don’t know. Neither has a real impact on marriage policy, as I see it.

    I would be interested in the discussion if there were any takers, but usually the eye for an eye version of equal justice actually blinds them to the reality of what is going on. Perhaps you can be different?

  32. posted by On Lawn on

    when my 83 year old grandmother married her husband a few years ago, that it was just a “fling?”

    Thanks for bringing them up. I wish them the best, and many happy years together 🙂 I hope she had a great mothers day this past weekend. I know my children enjoyed their grandmother’s company on Sunday.

    I miss my Grandmother, who passed on when I was a teenager. Any my Grandfather who passed on some time before she did. She missed him every day of her life, and often I am overwhelmed at what that would mean, being married now myself.

    But in order to answer that question I need to find out from you, why would I consider that a fling? It is important to know if I’m being understood or not.

  33. posted by Chairm on

    –> Nor can one claim that triple parenting is somehow causally related to same-sex marriage. Heterosexual couples have already done it, you see.

    What have “heterosexual” couples already done?

    Read the background material again and you will discover you have just relayed an error of fact. It is not even a disputed fact.

  34. posted by Chairm on

    –> “how is it that you can [forumate] NO notion – NONE – of what ‘ideal’ gay relationships might speak to?

    I’ve asked. You haven’t answered. It is not for me to read your mind and make your argument for you, right? You seem to have a ready answer, so just state it. Then together we can assess its relevance and usefulness.

  35. posted by Chairm on

    –> To be honest, I’ve never, ever, once met a gay person who suggested to me that gay people would ‘trivialize’ marriage.

    If you have met an SSMers (gay or not) then you have met someone who trivializes the nature of marriage.

    Amicus, look in the mirror. Introduce yourself. I say that gentlely because you are among the many SSMers (gay or not) who have not grasped the actual disagreement over SSM that I, and many others, have voiced and which both Blankenhorn and Kurtz, and many other professionals, have been explaining. But it is like talking to a brick wall.

    This discussion is a good example of that. I will illustrate, but to see what I am trying to say, perhaps skip to the bottom of this comment first and then return to this spot.

    The nature of marriage is both-sexed: marriage 1) integrates the sexes, 2) provides contingency for responsible procreation, and 3) combines items #1 and #2 into a coherent whole (i.e. a social institution) which is recognize and esteemed by society, via the state authorities.

    This is trivialized by SSM argumentation. The SSM campaign is based on pushing the core of marriage to the sidelines and, then, relocating the center of recognition to the two-person concept. That is the replacement of a very rich and meaningful institution with something that is anemic and very vague and ambiguous.

    That is highlighted in the example of the triple parenting cases in Penn and in Ont.

    * * *

    –> IF – IF – there were a case to be made to codify what you call ‘involuntary adoption’, it might be because consent to such is tacit in the agreement to be a donor, unless there is a provision for it being explicitly stated otherwise by the parties, I would guess.

    Amicus, each child has a mom and dad. Calling the dad a “donor” entails his relinquishment of parental status. Calling him a “known donor” entails belittling his having fathered his own child.

    In both instances, this is extramarital procreation. It is extrinsic to the nature of marriage. So I don’t see how it can be brought in to bolster the case to strengthen the social institution.

    On the other hand, it shows how SSM argumentation about the presence of children in certain households means the adults should be 1) treated special because they are same-sex parents (even where there is a both-sexed parenting situation) and 2) the adult relationship type must be merged with the conjugal relationship.

    That’s the point I made about codifying the practice of triple parenting.

    In this tripling parenting case, the father did not relinquish his status. The mother encouraged the man, in a segregated fashion, to remain the social father of his their two children. Yet for some reason he is referred to as a “known donor”.

    The reason is that the mother chose to form a household with another woman, to raise these children. That second woman did not adopt the man’s children; she did not adopt the newphews that the mother had adopted.

    There was no establishment of parental status via the legal norms available and which would have sufficed.

    Instead, the court stretched the de facto doctrine.

    It is not really the “donor” that concerns me in this part of the discussion.

    In this Penn case, and in the Ont case, the third parent is not the father.

    The third parent is the second woman in the household of the mother.

    She aquired custody and parental status via the straining of the de facto parent doctrine.

    She could have adopted the children — the nephews who had been adopted by the first woman. She did not. That is a deliberate choice that the de facto doctrine did not originate to rectify.

    The adoptive mother joined in that decision for her consent would have been necessary for the second-parent adoption. Their incompetence on this point does not speak well of this arrangement. They haven’t the escuse that this solution was unavailable due to the bad meanies out to oppress lesbians. The establishment of a direct child-parent relationship, at law, was an option they both did not choose to take.

    Yet, that set of kids were fatherless — legally.

    The second set of kids had a father and a mother. Two parents. Here is where the twist comes in that is special to this case.

    The court added a third parent. The donor is not the third parent.

  36. posted by Chairm on

    –> I will go on, however, observe that there is one “triple-parent” case in the entire nation of 300+ Million. Perhaps you can say why you think it deserves front page treatment?

    It is the first and it is directly related to a same-sex union. It illustrates that SSMers endorse adding a third parent while selectively segregating the sexes — the father is relegated to “donor” even when he continues to be the social father.

    Do you not expect more cases to follow? Do you not advocate codification of these arrangements for three (maybe more) adults per child?

    If so, then, a discussion is due.

    A) If so, and legislation is proposed, a public decision is due.

    B) If so, and we leave it to the courts instead, where these sort of bizarre precedents are made.

    Statistically speaking, what’s the point of all this SSM effort to change the plublic meaning of marriage? or of parenting? That I would discuss it, that it would gain attention in the newsmedia, surely should not be pooh-bahed when you think this case helps support the claims of the SSM campaign.

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