Not In Kansas Anymore (NIKA)

I actually looked into this a little while ago, out of a similar sense of befuddlement. I ran across a few arguments -- I'll provide links to prove that I'm not joking, because most seem absurd to me. For example:

• If the purpose of marriage is to provide a safe environment in which children can be reared, should childless heterosexual marriages (like mine!) be dissolved after a certain period of time? Should heterosexuals incapable of reproducing be denied the right to marry? Sure, they might adopt children -- but homosexuals can do that too.


• If homosexuals (in particular, homosexual males) are too promiscuous to marry, should we deny marriage to promiscuous people (JFK, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Clinton [okay, bad example], Arnold Schwarzenegger)?


• If homosexuals are more likely to be bad parents (highly debatable, as e.g. homosexual male couples are more likely than any other kind of couple to have one stay-at-home parent, but oops, sorry for introducing actual facts into the discussion), should we deny marriage to those people unlikely to provide good home environments for their children -- the poor, perhaps, or groups with relatively high divorce rates? (Remember that, collectively, Americans have a pretty high divorce rate.) By extension, shouldn't we then deny the right even to bear children to groups that tend not to provide stable two-parent environments for their children (say, inner-city African Americans)?


• If homosexuals should be denied marriage because their actions are sinful, should all sinners be denied marriage, or should marriage only be permitted to those whose actions adhere to Christian law -- excluding, one would suppose, adulterers, Jews, atheists, and people who work on Sundays?

I've left out some others, like "once we open the doors to gay marriage, what's to keep us from allowing three people to get married, etc., etc." because they're even sillier than the rest.

Posted by: Bear at February 19, 2004 12:36 PM

Hi "Bear",

I read your comment of Tom's message and wanted to make one comment. Overall, I am in agreement with your comments with one huge exception. I take offense at your using "inner-city African Americans" as a negative example. I grew up in the inner-city, am African-American and had both parents. Not all of us come from single parent families and I bet you might find that this is quite a stereotype. BE VERY CAREFUL with your examples. Have you checked out the propensity of whites that come from single parent families?

Thoughtfully,
Sharon Walker

Posted by: Sharon Walker at February 20, 2004 03:49 PM

Sharon,

I am sorry to have caused offense, and I apologize. My intent was to parody these positions, not to advocate them in any way or to promote hurtful stereotypes by slipping disinformation into their premises.

As to the issue of the validity of the information that you question, I checked the Current Population Reports from the 2000 U.S. Census -- specifically, the publication on America's Family and Living Arrangements. I found, for non-Hispanic whites, an approximate total of 54,711,000 families (figures are only listed in thousands), 6,097,000 of which were single-parent families -- families data from Figure 3, single-parent families data from Figure 4. That means that roughly 11% of these families were single-parent. For African-American families, the totals were 9,445,000 and 3,395,000, or roughly 36%. Among single-parent families, moreover, the poverty rate was 22% for non-Hispanic white families and 42% for African-American families. The data do not permit differentiation into sub-subcategories based on residence (inner-city vs. not), but if this remains a bone of contention I will attempt to obtain the raw data and calculate the marginals. But if I read your last question correctly, this should provide a sufficient answer to the issue of the "propensity of whites that come from single parent families," both in relative and absolute terms.

How do these facts bear on what I wrote? I will not apologize for writing that "all" African-Americans come from single-parent families, simply because I didn't write that. There is some leeway in how one interprets what I actually did write ("tend not to provide stable two-parent environments"). If it is taken to mean "the tendency is greater in one group than in another" (my intended meaning), it seems to me that the facts bear out the assertion. If, on the other hand, it is taken to mean "more than 50% of families within this group" -- another reasonable reading, though not my intended one -- it is patently false, and to any readers who took away the latter interpretation, I apologize.

And again, I apologize for any hurt feelings that this posting has caused. My intent was to point out that these anti-gay marriage arguments could be taken to ridiculous extremes, not to claim that those extremes were in any way valid ones.

Posted by: Bear at February 20, 2004 06:31 PM

(Sharon, "Bear" actually is Bear's real live legal name, for what that's worth, so you don't need to put it in quotes).

I agree that there are plenty of two-parent African American families in the inner city, but I think it is a documented population with a high rate of single parenthood. I don't know whether it's higher than the white inner city population. But I think that Bear's point is that it would be an absurd thing to put these restrictions on any of these groups. If inner-city African Americans had a low rate of single parenthood, that would strengthen the argument, not weaken it - the point would be that we would be putting in the restrictions based on stereotypes, just like we are doing by denying marriage rights to homosexuals.

Posted by: Elizabeth Nugent at February 20, 2004 06:35 PM

Geez, everyone who is commenting here is doing it in a much cleaner, better-written, less rambling style than my original post! :-)
I really should take the time (like I have tons of it right now) to work on my writing. Any suggestions?

Posted by: Tom Nugent at February 20, 2004 06:43 PM

Thanks, Elizabeth -- much more succinct. I guess I should just have written that I don't think inner-city African-Americans are bad parents any more than I think that atheists or people who work on Sundays (or etc. etc.) are bad parents. (Especially since I'm an atheist who works on Sundays.)

Tom, I don't know that I'm generally in a position to be offering writing advice, but I received some once that I found to be really helpful. A writing teacher told me that writing is like chopping an onion -- make one pass (first draft), then make another pass (revision), then make another, etc., etc. By the time you've got diced onions, you'll have a great product. Doing this means that it can take a day to write a couple of pages, but in my experience, by the time you're done, they're some wicked great pages.

Posted by: Bear at February 21, 2004 02:21 AM

This may not be a popular viewpoint here, but my opinion is that the government should not be involved in ANY marriages. The government should offer civil unions to everyone. Religions could peform marriages (which would also imply granting of civil union status), and each could make their own rules.

Like it or not, the term marriage really does have religious connotations for a lot of people (I've heard from a Catholic friend or two that they don't believe that a marriage performed by even a Christian minister of another denomoation to be valid, and I'm sure other religious groups have similar tendencies). I am a person who does have somewhat of a belief in the "sanctity" of marriage and see marriage as a sacred oath taken before God. By that reasoning I'm actually a bit more upset with heterosexuals. I think the only real way to protect the "sanctity of the institution of marriage" is to create a different term (such as a "civil union") to describe all legal aspects of what we now call "marriage." Then we move all rules and regulations about an actual "marriage" and its severing to be the responsibility of religions. Granted, there would then be a couple of hundred (or even thousand) different types of "marriages," each with different rules, but people could be content in the "sanctity" of the marriage which they are a part of and religious feelings could then be more easily kept separate from public policy.

This would also solve the issue for homosexuals. As far as I've ever seen, most of the reasons behind opposition to "gay marriage" is about emotional baggage attached to the word "marriage." Without that word getting in the way, I'd expect the majority of current opponents would change their tune and the others would be laughed off. Homosexuals would then have equal protection and status under the law with heterosexuals. Some religions would marry homosexuals also, which would be their right and quite frankly none of the business of the next church down the road.

This can be the problem with beliefs. By definition they are held to regardless of reason, so they can be very dangerous things. The semantic games to get around them might be silly, but certainly no less silly than political correctness has gotten people to do in other areas.

On the note of stability of a committed homosexual union. I would expect that they are much more stable than the average committed heterosexual union. When people face persecution to do something, they're much less likely to do it unless they're really serious. After there is equal footing and less persecution, they might fall to the same stability level as heterosexuals.

I think I brought the level of writing down here. I have a bad habit about rambling.

Posted by: Bill Coate at February 21, 2004 07:17 PM

Actually, the Massachusetts Supreme Court would find that to be a perfectly reasonable solution: it is not the word "union" that incorporates a pejorative value judgment, but the distinction between the words "marriage" and "union." If, as the separate opinion suggests, the Legislature were to jettison the term "marriage" altogether, it might well be rational and permissible. Post at n.5. What is not permissible is to retain the word for some and not for others, with all the distinctions thereby engendered. (From Feb. 3 opinion)

n.b.: today's Boston Globe reports the results of a new poll on the issue of same-sex marriage. 53% of the respondents are against it and 35% are in favor, with a margin of error of 5%. This is a significant shift from November, when 43% were opposed and 48% were in favor. The Catholic Church's campaign on the issue seems to be producing some results: among Catholics, the shift was almost twice as dramatic (47% against in November, 66% now). Details can be found here.

Posted by: Bear at February 22, 2004 12:56 PM

FWIW, most Wiccans around here already give same sex unions the same recognition as hetrosexual ones and have for quite some time. If you want examples of relgions that say yes to gay marriage, there you go.

About ten years ago I went through the procedures necessary to be able to legally marry people in Massachusetts. This involved writing the secretary of the commonwealth and sending them a certificate stating that I was a member of the clergy, a letter saying that I was in good standing, and an outline of the marriage ceremony that I would use. Being the subversive type I carefully used gender neutral wording in my ceremony. The state accepted my paperwork. I know it probably doesn't make a difference legally, but I've always liked to feel that I was doing my part by being careful with my wording on that ceremony outline.

Posted by: Elizabeth Dew at February 25, 2004 05:31 PM

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