Brian Brown throws around the term "irrational" quite a bit.
Brown is the Executive Director of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), an anti-gay-marriage organization (Maggie Gallagher is its president). I first came across his name last summer when the Washington Post profiled him, describing him as "pleasantly, ruthlessly sane" and "rational."
From the profile, it appears that "irrational" is Brown's favorite term of abuse.
For example, he claims it's irrational when polls indicate that most young people support equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians. Or when people argue that marriage equality is ultimately inevitable. Or when they describe his position as bigotry:
"I think it's irrational that up until 10 years ago, all of these societies agreed with my position [and yet now they're changing]" he tells the Post.
However, the term "irrational" was given new meaning in Brown's most recent fundraising letter, in which he uses a new Department of Health and Human Services study, the "Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-4)," to argue against same-sex marriage.
Brown cites the HHS study as stating that
"Children living with two married biological parents had the lowest rate of overall Harm Standard maltreatment, at 6.8 per 1,000 children. This rate differs significantly from the rates for all other family structure and living arrangement circumstances."
Brown goes on to argue,
"All parents working hard to raise good kidsâ¦deserve our respect and help. But there is no call to wipe out the ideal itself, rooted in Nature and Nature's God, and replace it with a man-made fantasy that same-sex unions are just the same as the one kind of union that best protects children."
Got that? Children do best with a married biological mother and father. Therefore, we ought to oppose same-sex marriage.
I felt like I was missing some steps-maybe I was being "irrational"-so I went and read the study Brown cites. And I learned a few interesting things.
First, the 455-page study says not a word about gay and lesbian parents. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Which makes it essentially useless for anyone wanting to do a three-way comparison between children of married straight parents, married gay parents, and unmarried gay parents.
The study does indeed find that, on average, children living with married biological parents are at substantially lower risk of maltreatment than children in other family structures studied: namely, those with "other married parents" (not both biological but both having a legal relationship to the child), unmarried parents (biological or other), single parents with an unmarried partner, unpartnered single parents, and no parents.
What follows from this finding is quite simple. My fellow gays and lesbians should stop snatching children away from married biological parents who are raising them. As The Gay Moralist, I hereby call for an immediate cessation of this horrible practice. It's bad for the kids. Stop it. Thank you.
Back on Planet Earth, where gay and lesbian people are generally not kidnapping children from their married biological parents, the relevant conclusion is rather different.
To the extent that the study teaches us about gay and lesbian families at all, it is to suggest that children in them would do far better IF THEIR PARENTS COULD GET MARRIED.
Are you listening, Mr. Rational? The study actually shows the OPPOSITE of what you're using it for.
But wait-there's more. Everything I've said thus far (and indeed, everything in the HHS report) assumes an "all else being equal" clause. But of course, all else is often not equal.
Which is why the report looks at factors beyond family structure, and notes that, for example
⢠Children of the unemployed are at a 2-3 times higher risk for maltreatment.
⢠Children in large households (four or more children) had more than twice the incidence of maltreatment than those in two-child families.
⢠Children in families of low socio-economic status were 5 times more likely to be victims of maltreatment than other children.
Somehow, however, I don't expect Brown to oppose marriage for the poor, or for his fellow conservative Catholics (who tend to have large families).
Or maybe to ask wealthy lesbians (Ellen and Portia?) to revive that imaginary kidnapping trend.
The general problem here is familiar: making the best the enemy of the good. Brown's argument presupposes that the only people who should be allowed to marry are those whose marriages would create ideal scenarios for children.
By that logic, NOM's own president wouldn't have been allowed her current marriage, since that marriage created a stepfamily. Logician, heal thyself.
Meanwhile, there are several million American children being raised by gay parents. What (if anything) can the HHS study tell us about them?
According to the study, children living with "other married parents" (at least one non-biological) are at LESS THAN HALF the risk of maltreatment compared to children living with a single parent and an unmarried partner.
So if we really care about these children's welfare, we should let their parents marry. It's only rational.
3 Comments for “Brian Brown’s Bad Logic”
posted by BobN on
By that logic, NOMâs own president wouldnât have been allowed her current marriage
Just a friendly reminder that Maggie’s current marriage is her one and only. She bore her son out of wedlock intentionally, refusing to marry the baby-daddy even when he proposed. She then went on to “deprive him of a father” for another eight (or was it nine) years. The child, now living with his mother (what hell that must be) and his step-father, is still, as Maggie would put it, being deprived of his father.
posted by Lymis on
This is of course, not to mention the other factor – let’s say, even for the sake of argument, that children being raised by stable gay parents really are statistically at higher risk for harm, however you define harm.
So, for example, say children raised by their straight biological parents have a statistical risk of 10%, but children raised by gay couples have a statistical risk of 20%. (For discussion; I don’t for an instant think these are accurate numbers.)
Whatever number you pick, there are still a significant majority of families where it is documented that no appreciable harm exists. Using the for-discussion number, 80% of gay families still raise happy healthy kids.
By what “rational” standard do you simply deny that majority the right to raise their own kids, or in this case, the benefits TO those kids that everyone else gets? Membership in a demographic that has a chance of causing harm to kids? Well, that counts straight people, too.
At most – and I could only support that in demographics that have a huge likelihood of causing harm, like over 50 or 60 percent, you could set up some system of extra checking in to continue to verify things, but we have most of those in place to police the straight families anyway.
This is no different than looking at statistics that black people are imprisoned for crimes at a higher rate than whites and using it to deny a condo membership to every black couple that applies.
People are individuals, not collective groups. What’s irrational is forgetting that.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
As John pointed out, there are OTHER factors that strain families and the welfare of children despite having married biological parents.
Size, which DOES lead to less resources for the child’s support, unemployment and overall poverty.
If sexual orientation has been a negligible comparative value to add to all these studies of families, then it must not be important enough to factor it in.
After all, no other citizen really has to present proof or qualifications as to what KIND of competence they have for spouse and children at the point of applying for a marriage license.
Tracking what affects children the most profoundly isn’t sexual orientation.
Even those adults who have genetic diseases or defects are not restricted from marrying and bearing children freely.
So for the anti gay to argue as if the sexual orientation is the worst, the least desirable or the most damaging to a child’s well being and so on, is a patent like and worthy of ridicule.
Prejudice and bigotry are damaging to children also, so is punishing their gay parents through marriage discrimination. But that fact seems to escape that intellectual and moral gnat that is Brian Brown as well.