Marraige Hypocrisy

[stevec]

Seems like those who want to define marriage can't keep marriages together on their own end.

Btw, the two experts who tried to soften the impact of the study, Charles Stokes and Mark Regnerus may be a bit biased.

Study: Conservative Protestants’ divorce rates spread to their red state neighbors

www.christianheadlines.com/blog/study-conservative-protestants-divorce-rates-spread-to-their-red-state-neighbors.html

[malleodei]

I always laugh at people who make the "right side of history" claim because it likens them to the KKK who said the same thing in their support for prohibition.

[Flitzerbiest]

Jan 24, 2014 16:37:28 GMT -6 malleodei said:

I always laugh at people who make the "right side of history" claim because it likens them to the KKK who said the same thing in their support for prohibition.

Unless I am mistaken, those words didn't appear in either the article or Steve's post. Trout should be by any minute now to chide you for mislabeling.

[stevec]

Jan 24, 2014 16:37:28 GMT -6 malleodei said:

I always laugh at people who make the "right side of history" claim because it likens them to the KKK who said the same thing in their support for prohibition.

You're on the wrong side of forum history.

[Deleted]

Jan 24, 2014 16:46:16 GMT -6 Flitzerbiest said:

Jan 24, 2014 16:37:28 GMT -6 malleodei said:

I always laugh at people who make the "right side of history" claim because it likens them to the KKK who said the same thing in their support for prohibition.

Unless I am mistaken, those words didn't appear in either the article or Steve's post. Trout should be by any minute now to chide you for mislabeling.

Call me Jim, we're friends!  You've handled Malleo's post quite well enough without me.

If anyone wants to argue, I'll stake out the position that full and equal marital rights for LGBT citizens are "on the right side of history."  I'm not entirely sure what that phrase means, but if it means the following:


that the trend toward marital equality is proper, fully supported by the Constitution, fully supported by an ever increasing majority and inevitable...


then I'll win the argument.

Jim

[showmedot]

There's some interesting stuff about how Prohibition resulted in substantially more rather than less drinking, more lethal drinking for sure, in Bill Bryson's recent book, One Summer: America, 1927. (A fun read although who knows how historically sound it is.)

Leaves me wondering if the same-sex divorce rates will soon equal those of heteros.

[stevec]

Dot,

SS spouses have right to screw up and get divorces just like hetero couples. Perhaps they might even teach a thing or two about faithfulness to evangelicals.

[Flitzerbiest]

Jan 25, 2014 20:28:23 GMT -6 showmedot said:

There's some interesting stuff about how Prohibition resulted in substantially more rather than less drinking, more lethal drinking for sure, in Bill Bryson's recent book, One Summer: America, 1927. (A fun read although who knows how historically sound it is.)

Leaves me wondering if the same-sex divorce rates will soon equal those of heteros.

Sure. Why not?

[Mama Cass]

Their rates of divorce leave real married couples so far behind it isn't funny. Of course, there aren't that many societies where gay marriage has been legal for a long enough time to make a legitimate comparison. Here is a quote from something I wrote elsewhere. There is probably newer scholarship available but I have not been interested enough to pursue it, although the male dislike of monogamy among gays is one of the best attested secrets in the western world:

"If you’re in a male same-sex marriage, it’s 50 percent more likely to end in divorce than a heterosexual marriage. If you’re in a female same-sex marriage, this figure rises to 167 percent. These statistics come from Norway and Sweden where five out of every 1000 new couples are same-sex. Gunnar Andersson, “Divorce-Risk Patterns in Same-Sex Marriages in Norway and Sweden” 2004.

An Amsterdam study found that the average homosexual relationship lasts only 18 months and that “men in homosexual relationships, on average, have eight partners a year outside those relationships.” By comparison, more than two-thirds of heterosexual marriages in America last longer than ten years. Maria Xiridou, et al. “The Contribution of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV Infection Among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam,” AIDS 17, 7 (2003): 1029-1038."

[stevec]

Mama,

Gays have the same right to be jerks as heterosexuals. To think otherwise is bigoted.

[Flitzerbiest]

Welcome, Mama Cass. We hope you'll join us. We don't bite. We bite, but you'll soon discover that you like it.

Whatever the "average" homosexual sexual relationship looks like, it is clear that a significant contingent of homosexuals (male and female) do, in fact, wish to marry. The last couple of years have validated the plaintiff assertion that equal protection under the law requires full marriage rights for homosexuals, as only marriage confers the entire list of benefits that married heterosexuals receive. The "gay marriage map" is rapidly turning over, and is now divided into roughly 1/3 of the states where gay marriage is legal, and 2/3 where there is a constitutional amendment against it. In the case of the latter block, courts are beginning to challenge the constitutionality of these amendments.1

I think there are a few things worth saying here:

1. As a member of the LGBT community², I am skittish about same sex marriage becoming the end all, be all of LGBT rights. While I fully support it, I think the laser focus and energy invested on this issue will ultimately bite us in the collective ass.
2. Homosexuals who engage in multiple sexual partnerships outside of the context of marriage (which in most cases they are still denied) are not an argument against SSM any more than heterosexuals who engage in multiple sexual partnerships are an argument against heterosexual marriage.
3. Marriage doesn't make people monogamous--it isn't for everyone.
4. We don't know ourselves as well as we think, nor can we predict future relationships with any certainty. Heterosexual divorce happens (often), and homosexual divorce will happen (often).














¹ This part makes me a little dizzy. Perhaps Trout can weigh in on how a constitution can be found to be unconstitutional.
2 Whatever that means. I rarely run into other LGBT people, let alone commune meaningfully with them. Ah...the rural life.

[Deleted]

Feb 21, 2014 10:25:45 GMT -6 Flitzerbiest said:

Welcome, Mama Cass. We hope you'll join us. We don't bite. We bite, but you'll soon discover that you like it.

Whatever the "average" homosexual sexual relationship looks like, it is clear that a significant contingent of homosexuals (male and female) do, in fact, wish to marry. The last couple of years have validated the plaintiff assertion that equal protection under the law requires full marriage rights for homosexuals, as only marriage confers the entire list of benefits that married heterosexuals receive. The "gay marriage map" is rapidly turning over, and is now divided into roughly 1/3 of the states where gay marriage is legal, and 2/3 where there is a constitutional amendment against it. In the case of the latter block, courts are beginning to challenge the constitutionality of these amendments.1

I think there are a few things worth saying here:

1. As a member of the LGBT community², I am skittish about same sex marriage becoming the end all, be all of LGBT rights. While I fully support it, I think the laser focus and energy invested on this issue will ultimately bite us in the collective ass.
2. Homosexuals who engage in multiple sexual partnerships outside of the context of marriage (which in most cases they are still denied) are not an argument against SSM any more than heterosexuals who engage in multiple sexual partnerships are an argument against heterosexual marriage.
3. Marriage doesn't make people monogamous--it isn't for everyone.
4. We don't know ourselves as well as we think, nor can we predict future relationships with any certainty. Heterosexual divorce happens (often), and homosexual divorce will happen (often).














¹ This part makes me a little dizzy. Perhaps Trout can weigh in on how a constitution can be found to be unconstitutional.
2 Whatever that means. I rarely run into other LGBT people, let alone commune meaningfully with them. Ah...the rural life.

Hi FB:

The part that makes you dizzy "how a constitution can be found to be unconstitutional" is inherent in federalism.  It's an issue of state's authority vs. federal authority.  A state can pass an amendment to their state constitution banning same sex marriage.  The rules for passing that state-level amendment are state constitutional rules and the amendment is constitutional according to that state constitution, assuming that the amendment was passed according to the rules.

State constitutional provisions (and state laws) can, in certain instances (obviously this is the tricky part), be invalidated under the US constitution.  This is what is going on now when a Federal judge strikes down a state constitutional amendment: 

www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2014/0214/Gay-marriage-Virginia-ruling-is-third-against-state-bans-in-three-months-video

If the Supreme Court chooses to hear one of these cases and a lot of people think they will, they could (A) strike down all state bans (sort of a Roe v. Wade move) or (B) decided not to get involved thereby letting the states hash it out on a case by case basis.

www.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/us/politics/supreme-court-gay-marriage.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I personally think that the Supremes would be justified going with (A) under the equal protection clause.  Most LBGT activists would consider (A) to be the big win... but (A) might breed decades of resentment (See Roe v, Wade).  (B) would be reviled by the left as the Roberts Court run amok; but even though I'm fully supportive of SSM, I think (B) might be the best result since most states are going to legalize SSM anyway, sooner or later.  In my view (B) gets the same result without the resentment.  I'm not gay though, so it is easy for me to counsel patience.  

This type of worry might be behind your concern expressed in paragraph #1.  (B) could be justified more or less by the court saying that marriage is a state law issue and the Feds ought to mind their own business.  The actual body law concerning federalism and in particular what issues in the grey areas of civil rights should be decided at the federal level is very very complex.  

Jim

[Mama Cass]

The majority of gays have never wanted to marry. At least the ones who expressed themselves on the subject and reveled in their outsider status. (Current gay scholarship has found that monogamy among homosexuals is so rare as to be a statistical blip. In fact, one psychologist has said that traditional couples therapy fails gays precisely because they are not traditional couples. Ergo, a new kind of therapy must be developed for gays.)

Marriage is (or used to be) the bedrock foundation of stable societies and, thus, hopelessly bourgeois. Gays were the outrageous outsiders living that life of freedom that their heterosexual counterparts could only dream of. The push for marriage came from those who wanted to force the normalization of homosexuality. This push was and not universally accepted. Rather than say too much more, I will quote a bit from an interesting 2003 article in the Village Voice, in which the author goes back and forth between approving the idea that gays should be able to marry but decrying the downside:

"Gay marriage, say proponents, subverts religion's hegemony over the institution, with its assumption of heterosexual reproductive pairing. It makes homosexuality more visible and therefore more acceptable, not just for judges or ER doctors but for the lesbian bride's formerly homophobic cousin. Because gay marriage renders queerness "normal," notes Yale legal scholar William Eskridge, it is both radical and conservative.

"But marriage—forget the "gay" for a moment—is intrinsically conservative. It does not just normalize, it requires normality as the ticket in. Assimilating another "virtually normal" constituency, namely monogamous, long-term, homosexual couples, marriage pushes the queerer queers of all sexual persuasions—drag queens, club-crawlers, polyamorists, even ordinary single mothers or teenage lovers—further to the margins. "Marriage sanctifies some couples at the expense of others," wrote cultural critic Michael Warner. "It is selective legitimacy." (http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-07-22/news/stop-the-wedding/)

[Deleted]

Feb 21, 2014 11:56:38 GMT -6 Mama Cass said:

The majority of gays have never wanted to marry....

Hi Cass:

I don't know if that is true or not.  It seems irrelevant to me.  The gays who are getting married (where allowed) certainly want to get married.  The law concerning civil rights is never decided by what the majority might want at any given time.

Jim

[Deleted]

Feb 21, 2014 7:57:53 GMT -6 Mama Cass said:

Their rates of divorce leave real married couples so far behind it isn't funny. 

Hi Cass:

This is not something I've ever researched.  A 5 minute Google shows that plenty of studies exist claiming the other viewpoint, that average gay relationships last longer than corresponding straight relationships.  Here is one sample.

williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Badgett-Herman-Marriage-Dissolution-Nov-2011.pdf

I'm 52 years old and I know that virtually every social science study is full of partisan BS.  Particularly when there are competing studies on both sides of an issue that is politicized.  

My own gut suggests that gays and straights, all being H. Sapiens, probably have comparable tendencies to be faithful or to stray, if the entire populations were studied.

Like FB noted, I don't think this is relevant to the issue of whether the subset of gays who desire to make the loving/legal commitment of marriage ought not have that right.

Jim