Left-Handed Desks and Same-Sex Marriages

by on

I have just completed a week's worth of same-sex marriage debates with Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family. During the debates, Stanton made an excellent case in favor of traditional heterosexual marriage. I really mean that.

What he did not do-what he utterly failed to do-was to make a case AGAINST same-sex marriage. There's a difference, and it's crucial.

As I've said repeatedly, extending marriage to gays does not mean taking it away from straights. It's not as if there are a limited number of marriage licenses, such that once they're gone, they're gone.

So I have no problem joining Glenn is saying hooray for heterosexual marriage, an imperfect but extremely valuable institution. I love heterosexuals. My parents were heterosexual (still are). Some of my best friends are heterosexual. I support their marriages and wish them all the best.

All I ask is that they give me the same support. This is not a zero-sum game.

Consider an analogy: most school classrooms have both right-handed desks and left-handed desks. Now imagine a time before left-handed desks. A reformer then might have argued, "Hey, right-handed desks are great. But not everyone is right-handed. Left-handed desks would make life better for left-handed people; their classroom experience would be more productive, and in the long run, their increased productivity would benefit everyone, left-handed and right-handed alike." Sounds like a strong argument for left-handed desks.

Now, imagine an opponent responding, "But we've always had right-handed desks! Right-handed-desks have served society well. We obviously don't need left-handed desks; we've gotten along fine without them thus far. What's more, introducing them is an untested social experiment, one that could have serious repercussions for our children!"

Before you dismiss this comparison as silly, recall that left-handedness was once considered a sign of moral depravity, witchcraft, or worse. It's no accident that the word "sinister" matches the Latin word for "left." But that's not the point of the analogy.

Many of the arguments against same-sex marriage-including some of those offered by Glenn Stanton-commit the same fallacy as the response above. They rightly point to the many social benefits of heterosexual marriage, but they then wrongly infer that any other marriage arrangement must be bad. This is a non-sequitur.

Let me be clear on what I am not saying here. I am not saying that choosing a spouse is just like choosing a desk, or worse yet, that whether children are raised by mothers or fathers is somehow equivalent to whether they have right-handed desks, left-handed desks, or both. When I used the analogy during a debate last week, Stanton misread me to be saying just that. (In fairness to him, I should note that he was responding off-the-cuff.)

What I am saying is that we can recognize something to be good without inferring that any alternative must therefore be bad. Right-handed desks are good for most people, but they're not good for everyone. Similarly, heterosexual marriage is good for most people, but it's not good for everyone.

All analogies are imperfect. However, one of the differences between these two cases actually favors the case for same-sex marriage: any classroom can only have a limited number of desks, so left-handed desks mean less space for right-handed ones. By contrast, there are not a limited number of marriage licenses. Again, this is not a zero-sum game.

But what about the claim that allowing same-sex marriage would "redefine marriage for everyone"?

Nonsense. No one's wife is going to turn into a man just because we recognize marriage equality for gays. No one's husband is going to turn into a woman. Heterosexual marriages will go on being just as heterosexual.

What same-sex marriages would do is to acknowledge that society has an interest in supporting stable, committed unions for its non-heterosexual members. Those unions are good for gays and lesbians, but they're also good for society at large, since people in stable, committed unions are typically happier, more productive, and less likely to place demands on the public purse. It's a win-win situation.

0 Comments

Camille Paglia Covers the Oscars.

by on

Love her or hate her, feisty cultural critic Camille Paglia (an out but never PC lesbian) is always provocative. She'll be commenting on the Oscars real-time over at Salon, here.

She's got to be better than watching the insufferable Jon Stewart.

Update. See item above for a reconsideration of Stewart. As for Camille's commentary with Cintra Wilson, it was rather catty and less than riveting, alas.

0 Comments

Gays Men Take the Lead, But It’s Statistics, Not Conspiracy.

by on

After a number of years in which lesbians simultaneously held the top leadership spots in the major lesbigay+trans organizations, including HRC, NGLTF, GLAAD, and PFLAG, these groups now all have gay men at the helm, reports the Washington Blade.

That's really not surprising. In the pre-AIDS years, men led most of the emerging gay rights groups while women gravitated to feminist/lesbian rights efforts. AIDS changed everything, and women came to the "LGBT" forefront.

But as Paul Varnell noted in this column, surveys repeatedly show gay men outnumbering lesbians about two to one. For starters, in the 1950s Kinsey's often misinterpreted figures actually showed 4 percent of the surveyed men were exclusively homosexual vs. between 1% to 2% of women. In 1993, a team at the Harvard School of Public Health noted 6.2% of men and 3.6% of women reported a same-sex partner in the pervious five years.

And in 1994 a large National Opinion Research Center study found 9% of men and 4% of women engaged in at least some homosexual behavior since puberty; that 6.2% of men and 4.4% of women reported any same-sex attraction; and that 2.8% of men and 1.4% of women acknowledged a homosexual or bisexual identity.

So, despite differing methodologies (none without critics) and over the decades, these ratios seem to hold up. As Varnell concludes:

The statistics may never be as firm as we'd like, but by this point it's hard to deny a striking fact about sexual preference: Gay men outnumber gay women, by an apparently substantial margin.

Women will again take charge of many LGBT organizations as they cycle through leaders, but it shouldn't be unexpected that gay men, after such a dearth, now predominate. Unlike in the population at large, demanding equal representation between gay men and lesbians turns out not to be equitable at all.
--Stpehen H. Miller

More Recent Postings
02/26/06 - 03/05/06

0 Comments

Oscar Politics Gets Dirty?

by on

Looks to me like media pickup of this story, accusing Brokeback Mountain's filmmakers of imperiling sheep and other critters, just as Oscar voting reached its crescendo, smacks of dirty politics in Hollywoodland. It's reminiscent of how the LA Times held its story on Schwarzenegger's derriere-pinching until the eve of the Calif. gubernatorial election, or how the tale of Bush's youthful DIU was released just as his race with Gore drew to a close.

And just watch the LGBT "two-feet-bad/four-feet-good" crowd scurrying onboard. Talk about sheep!

More. Not to beat a dead sheep, but the religious rightists have now picked up the story.

0 Comments

Going Dutch on the Truth.

by on

Jon Rauch (who, among other things, is IGF's co-managing editor), dissects Stanley Kurtz's misuse of data to claim that same-sex marriage undermined traditional marriages in the Netherlands, leading to an increase in out-of-wedlock births. It gets technical, but you can read Jon's analysis first here, then a follow-up here, and a final retort here.

But the rank distortion on Kurtz's part really isn't surprising. As one of the comments to Jon's posting puts it, "The arguments against same-sex couples marrying legally are not based on reason or on data. When you have faith, anything will do to feed it."

0 Comments

Fundies vs. Parody.

by on

The Ex-Gay Watch site notes that it has received a cease-and-desist order from Liberty Counsel, "a religious-right legal assault team based at Jerry Falwell's fundamentalist Liberty University," for showing a parody of an Exodus billboard (here's the original, here's the parody by Justinsomnia).

The fundamentalist dream: no gays, and no free speech. And alas, in this disdain for expression they find objectionable, they reflect their mirror opposites in the speech-code obsessed, politically correct left.

On a brigher note, the NY Times considers the meaning of Brokeback parodies, such as those avaiilable here. No word on any suits.

0 Comments

On Marriage, Don’t Unite—Coordinate

by on

Though much will be made of it, the federal Marriage Protection Amendment (MPA) is unlikely to be the most important story on the marriage fight this year. To be sure, that constitutional atrocity must be defeated. But for most of us who are defending gay families, the fight is being fought at the state level. Given the wide range of situations from state to state, the question increasingly is how we can maintain a well-coordinated national movement with a minimum of fragmentation and internecine sniping.

• Ill-conceived lawsuits. One source of internal friction is irresponsible litigators-couples who are determined to gain their equal rights now, who are governed more by their hearts than their heads, and who press ill-advised court cases while refusing to work constructively with gay legal strategists. Such cases risk setting us back by creating bad precedents, as well as putting wind in the sails of a federal amendment by trying to force the policies of gay-welcoming states on less-welcoming ones.

Being in love, I sympathize with those who are unwilling to wait for a more conducive political climate. Unfortunately, wanting equality now does not make it so, any more than demanding my two-minute egg instantaneously will make it cook any faster. But while we remind our compatriots that our struggle is a long-term one, we must deal with the reality that some gay people will ignore us and go charging off making messes that the rest of us will have to deal with.

• Cutting slack, or being doormats? A second source of friction is disagreement over how much slack to cut politicians who are relatively gay friendly but oppose equal marriage rights. The call by some New York gays to stop giving money to Hillary Clinton is an example of this.

In races where the alternative choices are even worse, this question becomes somewhat moot, since most of us would agree that, pragmatically, we prefer the least objectionable candidate. Like President Bush dealing with the Saudis or the United Arab Emirates, we have to face the fact that imperfect alliances are necessary in a messy world. This, however, does not require us to be doormats. As Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand."

• Defining the cause. A third source of friction lies in how we define our cause. Some argue that since the federal Defense of Marriage Act bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages, and since more states offer civil unions, the likelihood of greater interstate portability for civil unions makes that the better way to go. Others argue that, since many states are moving to prohibit any protections for gay couples, and since we can never get what we want if we don't even ask for it, it makes more sense to go for full civil marriage-at least in the few states where that appears achievable in the next several years.

Appeals for unity are often just another way of telling people to keep their dissenting views to themselves.

As we argue over civil unions, domestic partnerships and civil marriage, it is worth remembering that our enemies want us to get nothing. But calls for unity do not resolve our differences. Appeals for unity are often just another way of telling people to keep their dissenting views to themselves. If I am convinced that my strategy will work and yours will backfire, it makes no sense for me to shut up and march off a cliff with you to show my solidarity. These disagreements are inevitable. The gay rights movement cannot expect to be any less contentious than earlier civil rights movements were.

Political reality in most states leaves us little choice but to embrace, at least for the time being, solutions that fall short of equality. But the defense strategies and pragmatic solutions of the present do not preclude longer-term efforts toward full equality. Indeed, the messages we convey in our initiative campaigns, and the legal commitments that gay couples are able to embrace in many states, can help move our society toward greater acceptance of gay families.

What is at issue here is not a mere label. The goal toward which gay people will inevitably push is civil equality, call it what you will. And equality at the state level does not confer equality at the interstate or federal level. As long as the 1,138 federal rights and responsibilities of marriage- including immigration rights-continue to be denied to all gay couples in the country, there will always be someone pushing to end this continuing injury. So whatever strategy is adopted in a given state, it will not be the final word on the subject.

Our statewide battles amount to a series of separate experiments from which all of us can learn. Rather than view our internal disputes over goals and strategies negatively, we can profit by regarding one another as laborers in different parts of the vineyard. Through all of our struggles ahead, the guiding force will not be mere abstractions but real couples seeking to redress particular inequities.

In the end, our nationwide success may depend on our ability to stand in one another's shoes. Our greatest risk may not be of a political or legal failure, but a failure of imagination. So while the passions that drive our activism are indispensable, on occasion we need to restrain them long enough to listen to one another. It is essential that we keep our networks in good working order.

The other side certainly does.

0 Comments

The Ivy League.

by on

IGF contributing author Jamie Kirchick writes in the Yale Daily News about his university's glee at landing the former Taliban spokesperson as a student. Comments Kirchick:

Don't expect a word of protest from our feminist and gay groups, who now have in their midst a live remnant of one of the most misogynistic and homophobic regimes ever. They're busy hunting bogeymen like frat parties and single-sex bathrooms. The answer Hashemi gave five years ago when asked about the lack of women's rights in Afghanistan, "American women don't have the right not to find images of themselves in swimsuits on the side of a bus," is the sort of sophistry likely to curry favor among Yale's feminist activists, who make every effort to paint American society as chauvinistic while refraining from criticizing non-Western cultures. To do so would be "cultural imperialism," and we cannot have that at an enlightened place like Yale.

I personally want to know whether Hashemi supports the flattening of homosexuals via brick walls, which was one of the ways the Taliban dealt with gay men.

And so it goes at Yale, Harvard, and the other bastions of elite progressivism, dedicating to training the next generation of would-be apparatchiks and fascism-appeasers.

More. Critics have noted that Yale won't allow ROTC or even military recruiters on campus, but welcome a Taliban spokesperson into their community.
--Stephen H. Miller

0 Comments

Taxing Our Patience.

by on

In California, registered domestic partners (DPs) are subject to that state's community property laws, and may file their state tax returns accordingly. But as the San Jose Mercury News reports, the question of how to deal with federal tax returns has sown a great deal of angst and confusion.

The IRS, having waited until the middle of tax return season, has now issued a clarification, recognizing that "the California [Domestic Parntership] Act allowed registered domestic partners to file joint income tax returns for California state tax purposes and to be taxed in the same manner as married couples for state income tax purposes," but adding:

In our view, the rights afforded domestic partners under the California Act are not "made an incident of marriage by the inveterate policy of the State." The relationship between registered domestic partners under the California Act is not marriage under California law. ... Consequently, an individual who is a registered domestic partner in California must report all of his or her income earned from the performance of his or her personal services notwithstanding the enactment of the California Act.

That means no recognition of community property.

I guess the CPA lobby must be happy, since DPs will have to have their taxes done twice, using two separate sets of "books"-one that recognizes their financial union and one that pretends that they're just two economically unconnected entities.

This sort of federal nonrecogntion, an outgrowth of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), will only get worse as forward-looking states recognize gay couples' spousal relationships through DPs, civil unions, or marriages, while Washington resolutely digs in its heels.

More. Reader Dan Leer clarifies that DOMA would prohibit gay couples from filing joint federal returns even if states (such as Massachusetts) recognized them as wed. At issue in Calif. is community property:

Under long-standing federal precedent, state law determines the rights of persons to property and income and federal law determines the federal income tax consequences attendant to such rights. For more than a century, the federal courts have held that spouses who are resident in a community property state are not only permitted, but required, to report their shares of the community income on their respective individual income tax returns (if they file separately) without regard to which spouse actually earned the community income.

What the IRS has now concluded (in a Technical Advice Memorandum, which does not have the force of legal precedent) is that registered domestic partners cannot split their community income in this fashion-and not that they cannot file a joint return.

I believe that this flies in the face of well-established precedent to the contrary, but ultimately the courts will have to determine what the federal income tax law is as respects this issue.

0 Comments

The Nightmare Scenario.

by on

IGF contributing author Bruce Bawer's new book, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within, marshals far too many facts to be easily dismissed. As Jonathan Rauch writes in his backcover blurb, "Some books are merely important. This one is necessary."

Among other issues, Bawer details a frightening rise of gay-bashings in Europe by Muslim immigrants, who cite their faith as their motivation-including a beating suffered by his Norwegian partner in Oslo. He writes:

"Soper!" ("Faggot!") the man shouted, charging at him. ... My partner got off at the next stop. So did the man, who leapt on him, kicking and punching. This was in a busy downtown square, crowded with people on their way to work; but although several passersby stopped to watch the assault, no one made a move to intercede. ...

When we got to the police station, the officer on duty told us that the assailant and his wife were there already-and that the wife had accused my partner of attempted murder. This, he explained wearily, was a familiar tactic in the immigrant milieu: rushing to the police station to file charges against your victim before he can report you. We were outraged. But the cop shrugged it off and urged us to do the same.

And on and on, in France, the Netherlands, Germany, and throughout Europe, where attacks and intimidation are mounting rapidly, "while Europe sleeps."

The Right Side of the Rainbow blog links to a recent Mark Steyn column, which notes:

...radical young Muslim men are changing the realities of daily life for Jews and gays and women in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo and beyond.

Steyn is a conservative, and the fight against Islamofascism may indeed make strange bedfellows of (some) gays and (some) conservatives (i.e., those who believe in conserving Western Civ.). But (some) social conservatives on the religious right may well envy what radical Islam has in store for the "perverts," while (some) gays on the anti-American, anti-Israel left will dream their sweet, false dreams of benevolent multiculturalism and moral relativism, until it's too late to save themselves.

Note: As requested, I've added some additional "somes" to the above.

More Recent Postings
02/19/06 - 02/25/06

0 Comments