The biggest social problem in the U.S. today is the crime and academic achievement gap between blacks and whites. The academic achievement gap (several grade levels and 200 SAT points (old system)) distorts our pedagogy, academic hiring and admissions, and employment standards in the public and private sectors (see the recent New Haven firefighters reverse discrimination case); it triggers huge and to date wholly ineffective government programs to try to close the gap (e.g., Head Start, No Child Left Behind). Black males commit homicide at ten times the rate of white males; in New York City, a representative locality, any violent crime is 13 times more likely to be committed by a black perp than by a white one. This crime gap results in depressed urban economies, huge incarceration costs, and the unjust demonization of the police as racist for merely going after criminals and of inner-city employers who worry about black thieves coming into their stores.
One overpowering cause of black social failure is the breakdown of marriage in the black community. Nationally, the black illegitimacy rate is 71%; in some inner city areas, it is closer to 90%. When boys grow up without any expectation that they will have to marry the mother of their children, they fail to learn the most basic lesson of personal responsibility. A community without the marriage norm is teetering on the edge of civilizational collapse, if it has not already fallen into the abyss. Fatherless black boys, who themselves experience no pressure to become marriageable mates as they grow up, end up joining gangs, dropping out of school, and embracing a “street” lifestyle in the absence of any male authority in the home.
If the black illegitimacy rate were not nearly three times the rate of whites’, I would have few qualms about gay marriage. Or if someone can guarantee that widespread gay marriage would not further erode the expectation among blacks that marriage is the proper context for raising children, I would also not worry. But no one can make that guarantee.
Why might it further depress the black marriage rate? There is a logical reason and a visceral reason. First, it sends the signal that marriage is simply about numbers: it is an institution that binds two (for the moment) people who are in love. It erases completely the significance that marriage is THE context in which the children of biological parents should be raised. And there are undoubtedly many other subtle meanings and effects of gay marriage that we cannot even imagine at the moment—which institutional shift is something that conservatives should be most attuned to.
As for the visceral reason: It is no secret that resistance to homosexuality is highest among the black population (though probably other ethnic minorities are close contenders). I fear that it will be harder than usual to persuade black men of the obligation to marry the mother of their children if the inevitable media saturation coverage associates marriage with homosexuals. Is the availability of homosexual marriage a valid reason to shun the institution? No, but that doesn’t make the reaction any less likely.
What are the chances that gay marriage would further doom marriage among blacks? I don’t know. Again, if someone can persuade me that the chances are zero, then I would be much more sanguine. But anything more than zero, I am reluctant to risk.
Is it fair to those gays who want to marry that their desires should be thwarted for the sake of black boys? Maybe not. And as has been pointed out many times before, it is exclusively heterosexuals who have eroded the institution of marriage through easy divorce, increasing rates of single-parenting, “blended” families, and co-habitation. But just because marriage is already in bad shape, for reasons wholly unrelated to gay marriage, doesn’t mean that gay marriage won’t weaken it further.
Black failure is at present a greater social problem in my view than whether gays who already have the right of civil unions have the right to marry as well. For similar reasons, I have always been appalled at the campaign by gay rights groups to shut down inner city Boy Scout organizations if they don’t toe the line on gay rights. A Scout troop may be the only hope that a black 11-year-old in Brooklyn has to learn self-discipline and deferred gratification. That black kid’s life chances are a lot bleaker than any gay white Eagle scout leader.
I agree with Andrew and David Hume that gay marriage is inevitable, given the clout of the gay lobby and the power of the modern non-discrimination principle. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t have consequences beyond what we can possibly foretell and which conservatives should be attuned to.
I don’t understand your argument. How does allowing more people to marry–thus allowing more people to have married parents–erase the significance of marriage as “THE” context in which children should be raised?
My primary objection is that you seem to think that gays that get married will set a bad example for black children. I don’t get that. Gay people aren’t expected to get married now. While that might change in the long run, in general the ones that DO want to get married are going to set a pretty good example.
In addition, there are black, gay people, too. Right now, they can hardly be expected to raise traditional families in any regard. As it stands, inner-city black communities are sometimes pretty homophobic — won’t allowing black gay men a route to a traditional family help alleviate this and provide a constructive outcome for them?
Hmmm…. let’s see… the highest rates of homophobia correlate with the lowest rates of heterosexual marriage, so let’s encourage hetero marriage by enshrining homophobia in law.
Ah, ya gotta love modern “conservatism”.
This one was really funny. Thank you. But I would like to reassure the contributors to this unusual Web site. You don’t need to go through such acrobatics to oppose marriage equality. You can just be against gay marriage without any justification. You guys could find a comfortable place here in Europe. We have a lot of far right parties that are based on identity and tradition, and they reject gay marriage as a question of national honor. They want heterosexual superiority because their national is supposed to be more macho than the other countries. That is good enough, really. Unfortunately you’re stuck in the US where pure ethnic and cultural arguments don’t work. Americans are just too fair-minded and so astoundingly dynamic.
No, Heather is making the same argument as Ron Guhname did sometime ago here that hyper-masculine men (black males in the ‘hood are often hyper-masculine) may come to view marriage as a “faggy” thing if gay marriage becomes legitimized by society. In my opinion, this is the single most legitimate argument I have heard in opposition to gay marriage. It IS a convincing argument. I’m not sure I agree with it. However, it IS a legitimate argument.
The problem is that the religious conservatives are shooting themselves in the foot with regards to the gay marriage debate. Instead of presenting credible arguments (like this one of Heather’s) how gay marriage may undermine respect for marriage by lower class heterosexuals, the religious conservatives seem to be using the gay marriage debate as an excuse to legitimize their bigotry towards gays, in general. By conflating the legitimate issue of protecting marriage as a necessary institution for having kids with their bigotry of gays, I believe the religious conservatives are unwittingly increasing public support for gay marriage.
This is an aspect of a much more fundamental problem of the religious conservatives. They rightly understand the need for two parent families for raising kids and what not. However, instead of addressing this issues in an objective fashion, they instead use this issues as justification for peddling their religious ideology onto those who want nothing to do with it. By doing such, they create unnecessary hostility back on themselves with regards to discussion of these issues.
The religious conservatives are correct in pointing out these social issues. However, they must give up the dream of their religious ideology having influence over those who want nothing to do with it.
national group.. typo sorry
I’m genuinely confused by this blog.
I understand why the religious oppose gay marriage. I can’t figure out why secular conservatives do. I find your arguments inconsistent with my understanding of secular conservatism, so I hope you’ll answer the below questions in an manner intellectually consistent with your post. (I’m assuming that homosexuality is more or less innate and immutable, by the way — saying you don’t believe that would resolve my confusion.) Anyway, here goes: Marriage is a conservative institution. So what is a good, conservative, gay person to aspire to? More specifically:
If you had a gay son or daughter, what would you tell them about their future, what would you, as a good conservative, hope they would be like at 50?
Shouldn’t they aspire to conservative traditions? If not, what is the alternative you would suggest?
Should they suppress and ignore their desire for families and children because it would somehow damage traditional families?
Should they seek out monogamous relationships with lifelong partners?
Should they seek acceptance and validation within their families, communities, and governments, for their lifestyle choices? Isn’t that how traditional, conservative values are propagated?
Most generally, what choices should be worthy of validation? That is, since the government can condone and validate behavior in many ways, what behavior should the government condone and validate for gay people, and how?
Why do you suppose gay people want to get married?
And finally, what do you imagine the liberal position is these matters is?
You say:
Or if someone can guarantee that widespread gay marriage would not further erode the expectation among blacks that marriage is the proper context for raising children, I would also not worry. But no one can make that guarantee.
This doesn’t make much sense. Virtually no law that we’ve made in human history can be guaranteed against negative unintended consequences. Ought we make no laws, then? Of course not. We try instead to make laws on the basis of reasonable, considered benefits to the law against reasonable expectations of what we are trading off.
Or perhaps it’s that you have a different framework for considering the role of the government and individuals. You seem to speak of marriage as if it’s a benefit that the government discretionarily hands out to individuals. Therefore, before we extend that benefit to more citizens, namely gay citizens, we ought require a compelling case to be made that such citizens are worthy of the right, including proper consideration of the potential negative consequences a detailed plan — a guarantee in fact — that these consequences can be avoided.
If that’s your default operating framework for government, it seems to me decidedly not conservative. For I believe the conservative position starts from the basis that individuals have a natural right to freedoms in their affairs, and that the essential role of government is to protect these rights, imposing limits upon them only when such rights can be shown to interfere with the rights of others or the collective good.
In the case of marriage, then, I think your assumed default position is exactly counter to a conservative stance. The onus should be those who seek to restrict an individual’s right to marriage to demonstrate why such a right interferes with the liberty or well being of the collective as a case against it. Failing such a compelling argument, the government ought take no position. Here you seem to be arguing for the opposite: an activist role for the government in regulating marriage, with your fundamental point being that we ought subject the freeing of some of the regulation (the prohibition against same sex partners) to higher scrutiny prior to agreeing to it.
I will say this: in a debate filled with arguments repeated ad infinitum ad nauseum from both sides, you’ve come up with an argument I haven’t heard before. It would never have occurred to me to discriminate against one minority group in order to teach another one a lesson.
“First, it sends the signal that marriage is simply about numbers: it is an institution that binds two (for the moment) people who are in love. It erases completely the significance that marriage is THE context in which the children of biological parents should be raised.”
I don’t understand this argument. Many gay couples wish to get married precisely in order to start and raise families, while enjoying legal protection for those families. Denying benefits to same-sex couples and their children, or indeed, preventing same-sex couples from even adopting children, sends the message that the government cares more about discriminating than making sure children are raised properly.
“What are the chances that gay marriage would further doom marriage among blacks? I don’t know. Again, if someone can persuade me that the chances are zero, then I would be much more sanguine. But anything more than zero, I am reluctant to risk.”
I’m rather amazed at this statement. You would perpetuate the 100% chance that LGBT people experience continued discrimination in fear of a 0.1% chance that marriage among blacks becomes further eroded? What about the possibility that black marriage becomes strengthened instead? Your opposition due merely to a poorly-substantiated fear suggests that you have more going on than concern over the welfare of black Americans.
This argument is like a tripod that is missing a couple of legs. For a start, one would want to have some analysis of why black illegitamicy rates are so high in the first place. Second, at this level of generality one could create an equally plausible argument that marriage equality would have a positive effect, since the publicity would underline the importance of marriage, etc, etc.
But most fundamentally, I think linking SSM to the profound problems of urban blacks trivializes the latter, by making it ideological cannon fodder in a battle to which it is no way related.
You also say:
What are the chances that gay marriage would further doom marriage among blacks? I don’t know. Again, if someone can persuade me that the chances are zero, then I would be much more sanguine. But anything more than zero, I am reluctant to risk.
You are asserting that gay marriage would lead blacks to be less likely to want to marry. You don’t cite any evidence that is true, you simply seem to feel it’s true through your intuition. But rather than take responsibility for proving this point, you put the burden on others to prove you’re wrong. You want us to believe you on faith that your sense is accurate, or else prove otherwise.
The truth is, we don’t know that allowing homosexual marriage will make it less likely for blacks to marry. It may have that effect, or it may have the opposite effect, or it may have little effect at all. You are the one asserting a potential outcome as a reason to ban gays from marrying. If you’re going to assert that position, you should take responsibility to investigate it and cite evidence beyond your own intuition.
It’s an interesting idea, but I’ve a few concerns.
First is that we can just as easily construct stories where society saying that two gay men can have the state’s ‘endorsement’ as parents threatens some black men sufficiently that they feel an obligation to get married, etc, because they’re certainly better than those fags. Lots of people are inspired by dislike and fear of the Other to try harder, after all, especially when that Other is usurping their position. Ultimately this doesn’t seem like a convincing reason to oppose gay marriage without some real-world evidence indicating that what you fear (and not the opposite) will come to pass. Is there some hint that black illegitimacy rates were given a boost in those states which have legalized gay marriage (because of the legalization, of course)? Typically-homophobic-minority illegitimacy rates in general in European countries with legal gay marriage? Especially because this seems like an easy thing to check, it’s hard to justify continued discrimination against homosexuals on the basis of a ‘maybe’ like this.
Second – to make the obvious point – could marriage really garner less respect from large parts of the black community than it already does? It’s hard to believe that anything like a marriage norm exists now. As you say, the inner-city illegitimacy rate is 90% – about the worst that could happen would be an 11% increase over what we’ve got now.
Third, if what you’re saying is true, and if legal gay marriage is inevitable (which you think is the case), then aren’t gay marriage opponents almost entirely to blame? If it’s going to happen anyway, surely the single most damaging thing anyone could do would be to loudly proclaim that legal gay marriage would destroy all of the institution’s purpose and meaning. The responsible thing would seem to be to make a case for why marriage equality isn’t actually that big of a change. If legal gay marriage has bad effects on the black community, surely campaigns like that for Prop 8 in California will be a large part of why. After all, if gay marriage had passed every legislature quietly and without fuss, almost none of these people you’re so concerned about would even be aware of it.
So there’s a “negotiating with terrorists” feel to this. If you’re right, then it seems like SSM opponents are working to make it the case that successful legalization of SSM will harm disadvantaged communities (even that it will harm the children – won’t somebody think of the children!). It seems to me to imply that most public opposition to gay marriage is a form of blackmail. Or, given inevitability, that most public opposition to gay marriage is in practice an attempt to sabotage society.
What in the world does the marriage rate of African American’s have to do with gay people getting married? And if you really think about it a good percentage of those gay people would be African American. Allowing them to marry might actually raise the level of marriage in that group. In fact, allowing gay people to marry would raise the level of marriage within every group, including Caucasion, Hispanics, Asians, you name it, and they have gay people.
Your argument is lost because you only think of gay people as being white. We come in all shapes sizes and colors, if we are allowed to marry then marriage rates will still rise in every demographic. I’m really surprised at the lack of logic on this site, between this and the idea that straight men look at other straight men with children and think their “faggy”, you guys are as loony as the religious right.
You also say:
When boys grow up without any expectation that they will have to marry the mother of their children, they fail to learn the most basic lesson of personal responsibility. A community without the marriage norm is teetering on the edge of civilizational collapse, if it has not already fallen into the abyss.
Again, not only is there not evidence for this, it can be logically argued against. Whether or not two people are married might very well make no difference whatsoever in the stability of the child’s environment. Married persons in the United States are free to live any way they choose. By law, married parents might live in different states from one another. They might sleep with different people. They might not share their incomes with one another, or any other obligation including the day-to-day raising of the children.
Married persons, in other words, are free to live any way they want to. None of the behavior of married persons necessarily need correlate with any kind of behavior conducive to the child’s best interests.Likewise, two non-married parents might very well cooperate in ways absolutely beneficial to the health and well-being and development of children.
So it seems to me what you’re saying is, we ought to — at a policy level — encourage parents to better cooperate towards the best interests of their children and our society at large. I doubt too many people would oppose that. The question is, how do you best do that? You assume that encouraging marriage only among heterosexuals is one of the best ways to do that. You may be right, but by conflating that solution with the desired outcome you’re advocating, you do yourself — and us — a disservice in failing to give proper consideration to the context and questions we’re dealing with.
@kurt9
“No, Heather is making the same argument as Ron Guhname did sometime ago here that hyper-masculine men (black males in the ‘hood are often hyper-masculine) may come to view marriage as a “faggy” thing if gay marriage becomes legitimized by society. In my opinion, this is the single most legitimate argument I have heard in opposition to gay marriage. It IS a convincing argument. I’m not sure I agree with it. However, it IS a legitimate argument.”
I’m not convinced that this is a legitimate argument. Or to be more clear, even if it were true that SSM would discourage hypermasculine men from getting married, I don’t see this as a legitimate reason as to why government should withhold from gay couples equal treatment under the law.
Ultimately, the frustrating thing about arguments such as these given by Ms. Mac Donald above is that they fail to take into account the basic fact that LGBT couples are being discriminated against by their government. It is not enough that SSM opponents describe social harms, real or imagined, that might come about from SSM. They have to weigh these against the very real discriminatory harm that same-sex couples face every day, and explain why preventing their described harm is such a compelling government interest that it warrants suspending constitutionally mandated equal protection rights.
kurt says:
No, Heather is making the same argument as Ron Guhname did sometime ago here that hyper-masculine men (black males in the ‘hood are often hyper-masculine) may come to view marriage as a “faggy” thing if gay marriage becomes legitimized by society. In my opinion, this is the single most legitimate argument I have heard in opposition to gay marriage. It IS a convincing argument. I’m not sure I agree with it. However, it IS a legitimate argument.
No, it’s not a legitimate argument. Would it be a legitimate argument in 1950s Mississippi to say that racist, rural whites are undereducated, and if we allow black kids to go to white public schools the white kids will be even less likely to go to school, thus perpetuating the lack of education of rural whites, therefore we ought not allow black kids to go to school? I fail to see a difference in the construct of that argument and that of Ms. Mac Donald’s.
These class-based arguments against gay marriage are getting insulting. Is there no concept of individual responsibility? It appears as though the position of “Secular Right” is that the following groups:
1) lower economic classes
2) people in the fourth quartile of IQ
3) the entire black population of the US
are incapable of leading productive lives without proper direction and moral finger wagging from the upper class. And apparently they’re all poised to completely destroy society as we know it, and the spark that will ignite that conflagration is… GAY MARRIAGE.
Please, please go on a nationwide tour promoting this concept. Let me know how well it goes in LA, Detroit, Chicago, etc.
@willybobo “Would it be a legitimate argument in 1950s Mississippi to say that racist, rural whites are undereducated, and if we allow black kids to go to white public schools the white kids will be even less likely to go to school, thus perpetuating the lack of education of rural whites, therefore we ought not allow black kids to go to school? I fail to see a difference in the construct of that argument and that of Ms. Mac Donald’s.”
Snap!
If the black illegitimacy rate were not nearly three times the rate of whites’, I would have few qualms about gay marriage.Am I the only reader to doubt, given Ms. MacDonald’s willingness to grasp at this line of argument in the first place, that she would find some other dire social problem on which to base her opposition to gay marriage?
So, let me make sure I have this right:
The problem in the black community is that not enough people are getting married, family structures fall apart, etc, leading to lower achievement and more crime. Now, even this much is really debatable, but let’s assume for argument that you’re right.
The next piece of this is that if gays start getting married, they’ll gay up the institution and make macho black guys not want to do it, leading to even more low achievement and crime. That about the shape of it?
Really?
And you’re willing to say no to gay marriage, sans evidence, over even a non-zero chance that this might possibly happen? Oh, if only someone could guarantee you that it wouldn’t happen, everything would be hunky dory, but if there’s even the tiniest little chance this weird scenario you’ve dreamed up (based on, umm, an incredibly broad brush picture of the black lower class) might come true, then sorry, no gay marriage. Come on. This really seems like grasping at straws.
Worse, it seems like projecting your fears onto the black boogeyman. “Oh, I’d be for gay marriage, of course, but the blacks just won’t be able to handle it and society will suffer.” Sheesh.
I’m calling Poe’s law.
I thank the above commenters for pointing out the (unintentional, I’m sure) hilarity of the “what about the blacks!?!” argument, but just to finish off the fisking:
Black failure is at present a greater social problem in my view than whether gays who already have the right of civil unions have the right to marry as well All gays have civil union rights? And right-wing organizations (such as, you know, the GOP) don’t oppose the efforts to extend any couples’ rights to gays near uniformly? I guess we should celebrate! Heather McD says we all have legal equivalencey (via a separate-but-equal regime); I guess I didn’t get this month’s copy of the Homosexual Agenda with the good news.
And you are appalled at efforts to “shut down” the Boy Scouts? Please provide one link to a group or case that tried to close the Boy Scouts as a organization. We’ll wait. They have been forced to pay a political and legal price for their discrimination; if a private group said, “We only allow gay Muslims in our org, but we still demand government subsidies” (which, eg, the city of PA was providing the Scouts as long as they complied with anti-discrimination laws) it would be the first thing on Hannity that night and you know it. They discriminate in a way which makes them inelegible for public assistance. As a staunch conservative, you want them a) on the dole and b) able to evade secular laws for religious reasons. Tell me whether opposing Sharia law in Michigan just become easier or harder if you get this to stick.
unintentional lol: City of Philadelphia, PA
I find this sort of argument disingenuous. I become suspicious whenever some political argument is advanced by a partisan who obviously does not share the same social milieu with the group whose interests are being crooned over. What do you really care about Black prosperity, other than the relevance of Black crime which could you? A conservative railing over Crime and Punishment and Blacks is normal; one who cares about minority self-esteem for its own sake is rare. That isn’t calling you an evil person – you care about Black issues in that the topic allows you to showcase your intellectual and moral capabilities. But I really doubt you this issue grounds your political views as, say, abortion does to some who become genuinely overwhelmed and invigorated at the thought of the termination of young life. Faux concern can be used in support of another, better, argument, but it is very unconvincing given human incentives and any cursory knowledge of the historical record. Be careful when another group deigns to care about your interests.
Bah, that should be, “which could *affect you?”
The more I think about it, the more I think this is just the worst kind of bad-faith Burkeanism: saying you oppose something for fear of unintended consequences when really you don’t like it very much. I just get the feeling Ms. McDonald doesn’t show anything like this degree of careful, beware-of-unintended-consequences conservatism in the face of things she’s in favor of.
I guess the real reason I think so is buried halfway through the column when she says:
“it sends the signal that marriage is simply about numbers: it is an institution that binds two (for the moment) people who are in love. It erases completely the significance that marriage is THE context in which the children of biological parents should be raised”
That seems like the real heart of the fear. But that’s a much more conventional, less ‘interesting’ argument. We’ve heard it before, and I don’t think anyone’s mind will be changed by going through the zillionth iteration of it.
So instead we have her grasping for a novel reason that a conservative might have to fear gay marriage. But it’s not about unintended consequences for the black community, not really. It’s about the old argument against defining marriage too much in terms of love between adults, which our society has been moving towards for a very long time before gays started asking to join in on the fun.
I really have trouble taking Heather’s argument seriously in this case. She has no qualms whatsoever in undermining people’s faith in religion. Traditionally faith has been very strong in the African American community, and I’m pretty sure you will find a correlation between dropping church attendance and decreasing marriage rates in inner city communities. Shouldn’t she be supporting increased church attendance in these communities to help stabilize them. Surely institutional religion has traditionally been a bulwark of Western society every bit as important as marriage. Indeed the two institutions are inextricably linked in Western society. Nonetheless, Heather seems to not be too worried about undermining people’s faith.
However, now we can’t allow gay marriage because the other 10% of inner city blacks who are currently married will give up and say, well if this is for gays, it’s not for me?
Talk about tying yourself up in knots to come out against something that you dont like?
I feel like Heather here and Derb are playing a practical joke on us. Any moment they are going to announce that this was all an experiment. Because I can’t even imagine how two intelligent people (Derb is.. I dont know of Heather) can make these arguments without squirming.
And this discussion is among conservatives. Can one imagine how liberals would react to these ‘arguments’;
Brian, that’s what really bugs me as well. It’s two great examples of twisted logic. In each case, they’re treating it like a geometry proof:
Two givens (in their minds):
Gay marriage/homosexuality is wrong
Religious reasoning is wrong
Prove:
There is a secular conservative argument against gay marriage
Both are looking for some shortcut for the proof, but instead have to take a wild, wandering journey to arrive at their destination. It’s sort of the way that some interesting math about the solar system was developed using a geocentric view of the universe, but ultimately the entire exercise was based on a flawed given.
One of the two above givens may be flawed. I can’t tell whether the two writers are attempting to prove this argument to people on the fence, or to themselves.
steveT has, I think, the most devastating point.
The whole notion that a website called “Secular Right” could have anything whatsoever to do with a supposedly heartfelt concern for “black failure” is simply absurd on its face.
Sviluppo: Exactly.
Whats devastating about these two threads is that two supposedly very intelligent and very literate persons who are against gay marriage, cant come up with one reason that isn’t easily assailable by the majority of those commenting in these sections. There is no meat in their arguments. Neither of them can offer up reasons that those of us who don’t find the subject too ‘icky’ can tolerate as worthy of a high school paper.
The point here is that the idea of gay marriage is gaining popularity. There’s no argument against it aside from the states sanctioning something that is contra someone’s religion (The religious argument.. one which I at least can understand).
If you’re going to argue against me marrying my pony, a point where over 99% of the people in the US will agree with you, you don’t need a proper argument. Just a ‘no’ and an ‘ick’ and we will all agree. Pony marrying will never happen. However when you’re arguing with the other half of the country (assuming here a near split in the country) then your argument must amount to something convincing.
Derb and Heather’s (Heather is really an acrobat isnt she) arguments just tell those sitting on the fence that there IS no argument.
So two civilized upper class gays can’t be married because dysfunctional blacks act dysfunctionally and the two gays marrying would make the blacks even more dysfunctional. Yes, that’s a solid argument.
wow, longest non sequitor ever.
So far all your arguments opposing gay marriage have been total failures.
How about being a conservative site and actually support more individual freedom and following the Constitution. Which, in reality, what already makes gay marriage legal.
“If you’re going to argue against me marrying my pony, a point where over 99% of the people in the US will agree with you, you don’t need a proper argument. Just a ‘no’ and an ‘ick’ and we will all agree. Pony marrying will never happen.”
You’re missing the point of the Pony argument. The point is not that gay marriage will lead to an acceptance of zoophilia. The point is that once you divorce completely the idea of marriage as a procreative sexual union between one man and one woman, then you have given up the entire principle upon which marriage is founded. We recognize that children are necessary for the future of society. We futhermore recognize that lifelong, monogamous heterosexual unions are the optimal environment for the rearing of said children (spare me the P.C. studies about the mental stability children of lesbians; they are self selected and prima facie dubious). Once that principle is tossed in the ditch, there is no theoretical reason to reject polygamy, zoophilia, etc. That’s not to say that they will be legally recognized; I think you are correct to say that they won’t, based solely on the “ick” factor. But it is correct that we would have thrown overboard the only rational reason for rejecting such unions.
@Mike I — If your argument is based on “the idea of marriage as a procreative sexual union between one man and one woman”, you’ve already lost. Marriage is not that. As has been well researched and argued by scholars from the right, left, middle, and elsewhere, marriage is a distinct, useful social contract from raising children, hence the ability of post menopausal women to marry, hence the ability of married persons to reside in different states, hence the right of married persons to engage in extra-marital sex acts, hence… Marriage as a legal matter has never been functionally or expressly limited to, or even in totum intended as, a relationship definitionally related to child-rearing.
Mike I:
I believe marriage was founded as a property rights issue? No? Not as anything to do with procreation.
However there are many theoretical reasons to reject zoophilia, polygamy and incest etc and saying otherwise doesnt make it so. We’ve seen them all written down before, e,g., a pony cant sign a marriage certificate (and aside from that we all know it to be preposterous), polygamy can place women underfoot, incestuous relationships are possibly unhealthy etc etc.
We all are adults here, and we all know what a slippery slope argument is! And your insistence that there is no theoretical barrier on that slope is fallacious.
And quite frankly even though i would be against all of them, none of the above would in any sense take away from _your_ personal idea of marriage as a procreative sexual union between a man and a woman. It would be that PLUS the others.
I might grant you that monogamous hetero unions are probably better in bringing up kids than any other unions. That seems obvious to me(but i may be wrong) That is because I think that kids benefit from different gender parents more than same gender parents. However, that doesnt make the children of the lesbian moms any less able to help society’s future than those from heterosexual marriages. The hetero parents may be best.. but the lesbian moms are indeed sufficient. Im sure there are many things that influence children more than the gender of their parents.
Won’t we have less children if the lesbian moms dont get married and have children? Is less children a good thing or a bad thing?
Or do you suggest that those lesbian moms marry straight men and make them both miserable, then bring up kids in an unhappy home? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Many if not MOST gay men and women are closeted and married to members of the opposite sex. Is that a good thing for society?
willybobo: Fair enough, if your aim is solely to point out that we, in 21st century America, have fallen far short of the heterosexual, procreative ideal and normative purpose of marriage. I’ll grant that without argument. Nevertheless, the ideal and normative purpose of marriage as a hetersexual union ordered towards childrearing remains in place as an ideal, and the fact that Brittany Spears can tromp all over that ideal in Vegas on a druken escapade does not mean that we should further erode said ideal to include sexual unions which are inherently sterile.
Brian said:
“I believe marriage was founded as a property rights issue? No? Not as anything to do with procreation.”
Not really, no. The fact that marriages among European nobility in the past usually involved a dowry does not change the fact that said marriage s were still heterosexual, one man, one woman unions intended to bring forth children/heirs.
“a pony cant sign a marriage certificate”
Is it your position that if a pony could sign a marriage certificate that he ought to be granted one?
” none of the above would in any sense take away from _your_ personal idea of marriage as a procreative sexual union between a man and a woman. It would be that PLUS the others.”
It is precisely my position that “my” (I love the po-mo tendency to label traditional opinions as somehow being idiosyncratic) ideal of marriage as a procreative heterosexual union is not merely “my ideal,” but rather the arrangement which 1) has been the longstanding understanding of Civilized Society for many millenia, and 2) that idea of marriage as exclusively monogamous and procrative is such because society benefits best from it.
Mike I: “Nevertheless, the ideal and normative purpose of marriage as a hetersexual union ordered towards childrearing remains in place as an ideal…”
Yes, marriage does exist as the ideal you suggest, but that is an ideal not universally endorsed and has never been the basis of settled law in this country.
“…and the fact that Brittany Spears can tromp all over that ideal in Vegas on a druken escapade does not mean that we should further erode said ideal to include sexual unions which are inherently sterile”
So, heterosexual seventy year-old seniors should similarly be excluded from marrying one another? You would argue in good faith that this kind of prohibition somehow strengthens the moral fabric of society? I’ve certainly been to such weddings (eg, a family friend married a woman he met in the nursing home years after his first wife of 48 years died) and never heard anyone argue that what we were witnessing sullied the meaning of their own marriage. To the contrary, many reported that the authentic expression of joy and commitment they witnessed strengthen their own feelings of commitment to their spouse.
Please, please, no more posts about gay marriage.
Hey, anybody remember the secular, conservative argument against the marriage norm for African-Americans? It was a reaction to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was sort of an intellectual ancestor of City Journal and Heather Mac Donald.
The anti-marriage argument went like this: single-parent black families are not dysfunctional. They are a continuation of a stable, functional childrearing network (this was in the 1960s and 70s) with deep cultural roots in Africa. What’s dysfunctional is to impose alien, white, bourgeois norms on this traditional, non-bourgeois culture. This argument came from the left and was directed against Moynihan liberals (today called neoconservatives), but the argument is no less conservative for that.
I don’t want to talk about which of the two opposing secular, conservative arguments is correct, Mac Donald-Moynihan’s or this one. My point is that here, as is often the case, there are two contradictory secular conservative arguments. Ms. Mac Donald wants black people to become bourgeois; others wanted them to be stick to their traditonal, non-bourgeois roots. Once again, the Secular Right argument, while compelling in a policy-wonk kind of way, speaks mostly to the elites (all the more so today, now that de facto racial segregation is the norm). Moynihan’s opponents spoke to their fellow elites but also to the masses: stay black, stay African, stay who you are, don’t let them try to turn you into white people.
Religious conservatives on the other hand, both black and white, have always been univocally on Mac Donald’s side on the marriage norm. After all, it’s right there in the Bible.
“a pony cant sign a marriage certificate”
Is it your position that if a pony could sign a marriage certificate that he ought to be granted one?
What is so difficult about that, yes, if a pony was under the law considered capable of understanding and able to legally sign a marriage certificate then yes it should be able to marry another such wonderful pony or a human or another magical beast with the same abilities (if it loved the other spouse and neither party was coerced into the marriage).
But you know it is a non issue (unless you can actually show us this magical pony)
As for the original post, I just want to reply with a little personal experience: I was raised by my mom (from age 6) and could not count on my dad, his “example” for marriage was not very good, neither was my mom’s (she had more than 2 divorces, my dad never remarried) well, I’m with my wife 17 years now and we’ve been married 13 years and have kids.
My college and high school friends almost all come from “traditional heterosexual marriages” and most have not married or have only recently “settled down”.
Here in Belgium same sex marriage is absolutely normal, it has been for about 5 years (even before that homosexuality was already well accepted), our neighbors have had same sex marriage for almost 10 years now, heterosexual marriage is still the same, same sex marriage has not changed anything, the minorities we have did not and do not start considering marriage any less (or more) than they already did, it does not change a thing EXCEPT to give more people equality and increase happiness! (well if you don’t count the bigoted hate still the equality should be enough)
Enough people have already undercut the argument’s points with regard to gay marriage.
I find it remarkable the author did not even think to mention removing the welfare system, the child support system, and any and all state-run programs that offer comfort, care, food, money, clothing, and daycare. After all, women were more likely to avoid the risky behaviors that could lead to pregnancy (or take other steps like adoption) when they were forced to deal fully with the result.
It may then be more likely that the women wouldn’t give away the ‘free milk’ (at least not without some kind of protection) and you might see the marriage rate increase just because of frustration, if you know what I mean.
This is the most embarassing article I have ever read. I really am in doubt that the author of this tripe possesses an I.Q. above the average. To write a piece which essentially states that you are doubful of extending marriage rights to gay couples because of your concern for the destruction of the black family or as you say “black boys”, without once offering any evidence of causation. Without even a hint of statistical evidence that shows gay marriage has or would have any impact on the black family or any family!! As a 19 yr. old college student I feel embarassed for the author, she should be embarrased for herself and take this nonsense down!!!
@Ploni Almoni
I don’t think many people, especially on this site, think that increased marriage rates in the black community is a bad thing. I personally think this is a noble goal. However, it’s far from clear that gay marriage has anything at all to do with heterosexual marriage rates in the black community. Let me ask you this, what do you think would have a bigger effect on marriage rates in the black community: increased church attendance, or gay marriage? It seems obvious to me that increased church attendance with a strong social network built around this structure could have a strong impact on the black community. However, Heather consistently denigrates religious people and undermines the case for faith.
I’m not saying that she’s taking an incorrect position with regard to faith, in fact I think the facts are on her side. But if she’s willing to take this position on the most conservative institution in Western society, then she can’t have it both ways. It’s disingenuous to then say that we shouldn’t have gay marriage because of what it will do to black society, when the effect will almost certainly be much less than the effect of reduced religious influence in the lives of blacks.
>>>Without even a hint of statistical evidence that shows gay marriage has or would have any impact on the black family or any family!! As a 19 yr. old college student I feel embarassed for the author, she should be embarrased for herself and take this nonsense down!!!
If statistical evidence of this sort were even remotely capable of helping us make decisions about how to structure (engineer?) society, we wouldn’t have this conversation, because we would have put perfected society a long time ago.
This unhappy realization starts to kick in around … oh … 30 or so, and for some reason is rarely mentioned in college.
We’re not talking about building a bridge, or putting a man on the moon.
We’re talking about the unbelievably complicated, multi-lyared, interedependent, and consequential process by which societies keep their weakest links out of trouble and their strongest links motivated to contribute.
We keep hearing pleas for “evidence” and “direct connections” between this, that and the other.
If it were that easy, society would have been perfected a long time ago. Poverty and crime would have been eliminated and everyone would be above average all the time.
It’s a trial and error process that plays out over time and generations, and you can never really be sure at the time whether or not your making a mistake or pushing society up another rung on the ladder of progress.
Snippet, you’re right about this being a different kind of question than one that’s provable. Aristotle distinguishes between these as problems that are demonstrable as true, using syllogisms (a=b, b=c, therefore a=c), and those that are dialectical, dependent on a premise of belief. Thus, How far is the sun from the earth? is by nature a different type of question than, How should we govern Iraq?
The problem with the author’s argument is that she reasons it as a false syllogism. She is the one who makes the assertion that blacks don’t marry enough, gay marriage will erode black marriage further, therefore we ought not allow gay marriage. By asserting it that way, she assumes the burden of proof for the position (how will gay marriage erode marriage among blacks?). But rather than offering any evidence as proof, she burdens the reader to disprove it (guarantee that it won’t happen!) or accept that she’s right.
What she could do instead is attempt to gather evidence from what we might consider small scale experiments. For example Massachusetts has allowed gay marriage since 2005. Since that time, what has happened to black views about marriage? Has the rate of marriage among blacks in MA declined? Can we find any correlation whatsoever from which we might further investigate the relationship between gay marriage and marriage among blacks?
Sadly, she doesn’t bother with this. Nor does she propose a different method for testing her idea prospectively. She simply creates an illogical specter that bad stuff *could* happen, and submits that as sufficient rationale for avoiding gay marriage entirely.
For most people in the modern, Western world, marriage isn’t about property, or maximal production of children, or ensuring that children are born into environments where they’ll be taken care of.
Marriage is about emotional commitment to another person and having that commitment recognized in a formal, social context.
In that context, gay marriage is entirely appropriate among homosexuals who want to express their commitment.
If you try to eliminate that understanding of marriage and make it about children, it won’t change the minds of young people about emotional commitment and homosexuals. What it WILL do is make them discard marriage entirely as an appropriate ritual to express commitment.
The next generation is already moderately dismissive of the importance and worth of marriage. Why in the world would you want to make them actively contemptuous of it?
This is the best secular argument I’ve heard against gay marriage, but it still sucks. In that sense it’s kind of heartening to gay marriage proponents like myself. Conservatives who make a “but think of the black community” argument are truly giving up the ghost.
Something to consider. Back when “liberals” were considering letting women vote could have (and probably did) argue the unintended consequences argument. They could have (and probably did) pointed out that in the past women were almost universally limited in their participation in public life. The could have (and certainly did) play on the fear of change.