IGF CultureWatch

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or so it seems as gay-rights opponents, in a desperate last-ditch effort to win their cultural war against homosexuality, trot out arguments that have been discredited for decades.

Many of these focus on the alleged harms of homosexuality. Having failed to make a convincing moral case, gay-rights opponents often shift to claims of "health risks" - including disease, decreased life expectancy, higher suicide rates, and so on.

Such scientific-sounding concerns give these opponents a veneer of objectivity. Indeed, their arguments sound almost compassionate at times. Consider the following question posed by Marquette University professor Christopher Wolfe:

"On the basis of health considerations alone, is it unreasonable to ask if it is better not to be an active homosexual? At the very least, don't the facts suggest that it is desirable to prevent the formation of a homosexual orientation and to bring people out of it when we can?"

The correct answer to Wolfe is, "It depends." For there are three key questions we must first ask:

(1) Are the allegations of harm accurate?

This question seems obvious, but it's crucial. Many of the studies cited by gay-rights opponents are abysmally bad.

Consider the oft-repeated claim that homosexual males face a dramatic decrease in life expectancy. The claim is rooted in the research of psychologist Paul Cameron, who argues that even apart from AIDS, gay men on average die over thirty years sooner than their straight counterparts.

How did he reach this startling conclusion? By comparing obituaries in 16 gay publications with those in two mainstream newspapers.

As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up. Cameron's methodology is laughable even to those with no formal statistical training. Newspaper obituaries are unscientific. Those that appear in gay publications are far more apt to record the deaths of those lost in their prime than of those who died elderly, especially given the target demographic of such publications. There was no control group (after all, gays have obituaries in mainstream publications too). And so on.

It should thus come as no surprise that 1983 Cameron was expelled from the American Psychological Association for ethical violations. Yet his work continues to get cited by otherwise respectable researchers like Wolfe.

But suppose, purely for the sake of argument, we were to grant the allegations of harm cited by gay-rights opponents. We would still have to ask a second question:

(2) Are the alleged harms caused by homosexuality itself, or some external factor?

In particular, we would have to ask whether many of the alleged harms result from anti-gay sentiment. In that case, there would be a vicious circle: opponents of homosexuality would be basing their opposition on factors caused by that very opposition - a classic case of "blaming the victim."

In some cases these external factors are complex. Gays are, to a considerable extent, a wounded people. Many experience ostracism from their own families during formative years, with deep emotional scars resulting.

To say this is not to say that gay life is miserable or that we should not take responsibility for our own well-being. Rather, it is to remind those who allege various problems in gay life that they may share responsibility for those problems.

But suppose I'm wrong. Suppose - again for the sake of argument - that the alleged problems result from homosexuality itself, rather than social pressure. There is a third question that must be asked:

(3) What follows?

This is the question most people miss. They assume that if a practice is riskier than the alternatives, the practice must be wrong. But that assumption is demonstrably false.

Driving is riskier than walking. Being a coal miner is riskier than being a newspaper columnist. Football is riskier than chess. Yet no one thinks that the former activity in each example is wrong just because of the risks involved.

There are too many holes in the argument that links homosexuality with risk and risk with wrongness. Consider how Wolfe's argument would look if we applied it to football:

"On the basis of health considerations alone, is it unreasonable to ask if it is better not to be [a football player]? At the very least, don't the facts suggest that it is desirable to prevent the formation of [an interest in football] and to bring people out of it when we can?"

After all, there are safer hobbies, like chess!

Well, sure. But football players don't want to play chess; they want to play football. The argument reminds me of an old joke:

Question: What's the best way to avoid spilling your coffee while driving?
Answer: Drink tea.

Gays, like everyone else, can take steps to minimize risks in their lives. They can start by confronting the pseudo-science and invalid inferences of their opponents.

First published on June 16, 2004, in the Rutland Herald.

You know the gay couple down the street from you? You envy their garden; you envy their clothes. You saw the inside of their home, and you envy their furniture. Now, with the release of the Vermont 2002 Vital Statistics, you can envy their relationship.

Forget the phony figures cooked up by organizations like the Family Research Council that warn about the alleged instability of gay relationships. Vermont has been the only place in America where we have amassed hard, cold facts about gay couples, the only place where, for the last four years, gay relationships have been recognized by the state as equal to straight relationships. And the data is in: Gay couples are doing much better than straight couples are.

A year ago in The Valley News, I looked at Vermont's vital statistics on marriage and civil union from 1998 to 2001 (see "Separate State-Sanctioned Unions from Religious Marriage").Civil union was still in its infancy, and it was too soon to draw comparisons between divorce and dissolution rates. But those earlier numbers suggested that gay couples were not undermining marriage in Vermont, as straight couples continued to marry in steady numbers.

Before turning to the 2002 numbers, some long-term perspective on marriage in Vermont is warranted. The year 1988 was a high water mark. It was the first year marriages numbered over 6,000; that year, the marriage rate of 11.1 persons per 1,000 population was also the highest Vermont had reached since 1940. Since then, the number of marriages has hovered around 6,000, while the rate per 1,000 has steadily dropped.

The 2002 numbers fit well within this larger picture. The number of marriages increased slightly from those in 2001 (6,011 vs. 5,983), while the rate was 9.8 per 1,000, the same as it was in 2001 (which is still higher than the U.S. rate of 7.8 in 2002 and 8.4 in 2001). In 2002, the number of civil unions dropped, from 1,875 to 1,707. Out-of-state couples make up almost 90 percent of all civil unions, and the overwhelming majority of these couples are lesbians. These numbers show that civil union hasn't stopped straight couples from marrying in Vermont.

It also hasn't stopped them from divorcing, either. In 2002, 3,633 Vermont couples got married; that same year, 2,653 got divorced. Imagine seven Vermont couples in a room; five of them will get divorced. And some of these folks know this, because they've been divorced already; just under half of the marriages in 2002 were firsts for both bride and groom.

Contrast this with gay couples: 161 Vermont couples entered into a civil union in 2002; that same year, nine dissolved their civil unions. Eighteen couples are in a room; for 14 of them, this is their first legalized commitment; only one of them will divorce.

Of course, civil unions only go back to 2000, so the comparison above cannot account for all of the variables. For example, we don't know how long two people have been together prior to the legalization of their relationship. The fact that the median for marriage in Vermont is 30-34 years and the median for civil union is 35-39 years suggests that some gay couples may have already clocked more years together as partners than their straight counterparts have.

But there are other statistics that allow us to get closer to comparing apples with apples. In 2002, 353 straight Vermont couples got divorced after having been married for two years or less. Take this number, and straight Vermont couples are nearly twice as likely to dissolve their unions as are gay couples that have been legally united the same length of time.

So perhaps the defenders of traditional marriage have a point. Gay couples undermine marriage by succeeding in civil union at levels straight married couples can only dream of, succeeding by and large without the help of our churches, chapels, synagogues and mosques.

Which brings me to one last statistic. In 2001, 58.9 percent of straight marriages were civil ceremonies, solemnized without the benefit of organized religion. In 2002, that figure edged up to 60.9 percent. And I'm fairly confident that the rate of civil ceremonies for civil unions is even higher than the rate for marriages.

The debate over same-sex marriage is often a proxy debate over how to separate civil marriage from holy matrimony. As it happens, these two entities have been drifting apart on their own, with no help from gay Americans. But the debate has also entertained two other claims:

1. Same-sex marriage undermines marriage, and
2. Gay men and lesbians are ill-suited for marriage

In a few years, we'll have more statistics from our neighbor to the south, as marriage for gay couples is legal in Massachusetts. But the Vermont vital statistics not only refute the charge that gays will undermine marriage. They suggest that, if one wants to slow the tide of divorce, the state should allow gay couples to marry. However one approaches the statistics, the same basic point emerges: Gay Vermont couples are treating civil union much more seriously than straight Vermont couples are treating marriage.

First published on June 13, 2004, in The Washington Post.

On July 1 Virginia takes a big step backward, into the shadow of Jim Crow.

I do not write those words lightly or rhetorically. Although I'm an advocate of same-sex marriage, I have taken care not to throw around motive-impugning words such as bigotry, hate or homophobia. I have worked hard to avoid facile comparisons between the struggle for gay marriage and the struggle for civil rights for African Americans; the similarities are real, but so are the differences.

Above all, I have been careful to distinguish between animus against gay people and opposition to same-sex marriage. No doubt the two often conjoin. But millions of Americans bear no ill will toward their gay and lesbian fellow citizens, yet still draw back from changing the boundaries of society's most fundamental institution. The ban on gay marriage in 49 states (Massachusetts, of course, being the newly minted exception) may well be unfair and unwise, as I believe it to be. Yet people of good conscience can maintain that although all individuals are equal, all couples are not.

If I seem to be splitting hairs, that is because Virginia - where my partner and I make our home - is not splitting hairs. It has instead taken a baseball bat to civic equality, thanks to the so-called Marriage Affirmation Act.

The act - really an amendment to an earlier law - was passed in April, over Gov. Mark R. Warner's objections, and it takes effect July 1. It says, "A civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges and obligations of marriage is prohibited." It goes on to add that any such union, contract or arrangement entered into in any other state, "and any contractual rights created thereby," are "void and unenforceable in Virginia."

When gay marriage came up, Virginia was among the first states to preemptively ban it, in 1997. Moreover, Virginia is the only state to forbid even private companies, unless self-insured, from extending health insurance benefits to unmarried couples. That provision affects cohabiting straights but works a far greater hardship on gay couples, who cannot marry.

Those steps, however, impinge on the power of third parties (corporations and the government) to recognize gay couples. In the Marriage Affirmation Act, Virginia appears to abridge gay individuals' right to enter into private contracts with each other. On its face, the law could interfere with wills, medical directives, powers of attorney, child custody and property arrangements, even perhaps joint bank accounts. If a gay Californian was hit by a bus in Arlington, her medical power of attorney might be worthless there. "Sorry," the hospital might have to say to her frantic partner, "your contract means nothing here. Now leave before we call security."

Some of the law's sponsors have denied intending such a draconian result, and courts may interpret the text's vague and peculiar language more narrowly. Nonetheless, the law as written is a threat to all Virginians and indeed to all Americans, gay and straight alike.

Before Thomas Jefferson substituted the timeless phrase "pursuit of happiness," the founding fathers held that mankind's unalienable entitlements were to life, liberty and property. By "property" they meant not just material possessions but what we call autonomy. "Every man has a property in his own person," John Locke said.

It is by entering into contracts that we bind ourselves to each other. Without the right of contract, participation in economic and social life is impossible; thus is that right enshrined in Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution. Slaves could not enter into contracts because they were the property of others rather than themselves; nor could children, who were wards of their parents. To be barred from contract, the founders understood, is to lose ownership of oneself.

To abridge the right of contract for same-sex partners, then, is to deny not just gay coupledom, in the law's eyes, but gay personhood. It disenfranchises gay people as individuals. It makes us nonpersons, subcitizens. By stripping us of our bonds to each other, it strips us even of ownership of ourselves.

Americans have a name for the use of law in this fashion, and that name is Jim Crow. It is not a name much called for anymore, but the Marriage Affirmation Act - could that name be any more inapt? - is the genuine article.

The law may be found unconstitutional or narrowed through interpretation, but judicial review could take years. Far better, in any case, would be for the legislature to salvage its good name by repudiating and repealing the law.

The legislature needs some help in recognizing its error. Dyana Mason of Equality Virginia, a gay advocacy group, notes that the new ban is beginning to attract some outside notice. A nascent movement to boycott Virginia has formed. A few newspapers, including the Washington Post, have editorialized against the law.

That is a start. But when Rhea County, Tenn., tried to ban gays from living there, it became a national laughingstock and hastily backed down.

Obstructing gay couples' private contracts is no less vindictive and abusive, and it deserves the same nationwide opprobrium - especially among conservatives who distinguish between denying marriage to gay couples and denying civil rights to gay individuals. If Virginia's attack on basic legal equality does not offend and embarrass conservatives, what anti-gay measure possibly could? And if this law is not snuffed out, what might be next?