Shitty Reasons to Be Opposed to Gay Marriage, an incomplete list

1) Think of the children!!

Which ones?  The ones who you keep telling their orientation is dirty and shameful and sinful and who see it will result in a lifetime of fighting for basic human rights, the ones who are bullied at massively higher rates than everyone else, who have much higher suicide rates, who are sexually assaulted at higher rates, who are kicked out and left homeless at higher rates?

No?  Oh, then you must mean the ones whose parents have to keep trying to cobble together a series of documents to attempt to legally protect their family and their custody, the ones whose families may be sharply redefined simply by moving one state over, the ones whose parents are rendered invisible or who are held up as examples of what we can't let the world turn to, whose parents are compared to child molesters?  Oh, except it turns out there's actually no evidence they have poorer outcomes.  They're not more likely to be gay themselves (if you consider that a negative outcome), and they're not less likely to be well-adjusted. They're just kids, and legitimizing their families would seem like a great conservative project if "family values" hadn't acquired a bizarre definition.

Oh, so it sounds like you mean your children, who might—horror of horrors—be forced—forced, I say!—to read a book where someone has two mothers or where two penguins raise a chick together.  And then they might—oh no, anything but that!—ask you a question or something.  So by "think of the children!" you mean "I don't like having to talk to mine."

2) Webster

Dictionaries don't create meaning, they report it (sometimes poorly).   Not that "marriage" actually has meant much of anything we currently use it to mean throughout human history, since, after all, its a concept humans invented to serve their own purposes at varied places and times.  The Bible alone reports polygyny, concubinage, and forced marrying of deceased siblings' spouses, none of which we're anxious to include today.  Sometimes spouses have been selected by parents* and sometimes they were self-selected.  Sometimes marriage was a practical economic arrangement (division of labor).  Sometimes people paid to marry someone, and sometimes they were paid.  Sometimes marriage is assumed to be monogamous, sometimes not.  (Sometimes it actually is, sometimes not.)  Sometimes it's meant to be permanent, sometimes not.  Sometimes the participants have to be of a certain age.  Sometimes they have to be of the same race or caste.  Sometimes they have to be of different sexes.  Sometimes one member controls another, sometimes they're seen as equals.  Sometimes they have to make religious vows, sometimes only secular ones.  Sometimes children are required or at least intended, sometimes that's irrelevant. Sometimes control of property and inheritance was the primary goal, sometimes sex was, sometimes love was. Sometimes you share a bed, sometimes you don't.  Sometimes you like each other and talk over breakfast, sometimes you go months without seeing each other.  Sometimes you can't have been married previously but sometimes that doesn't matter.  Sometimes you can't be married currently; sometimes that too doesn't matter.  Sometimes you have to sign things, sometimes you have to break things, sometimes you have to light things, sometimes you jump over a broom.  Sometimes there has to be a clergy member or pillar of the community to pronounce your marriage valid, but sometimes it's only between you and the other party.  Sometimes it's a partnership, sometimes it's a hierarchy.  Sometimes you're in love (sometimes before, sometimes just after). Sometimes it's a community issue (even/especially the consummation), sometimes it's private.  Sometimes it's a legal process, sometimes it's a religious process, sometimes it's a personal process; sometimes it's some combination.  Read some books on the history and functions of marriage.  Or just go look a married gay couple in the face.  (Other countries are already doing this.  Some states in this country are too.  Married gay people exist, so obviously the term "marriage" already means them.  You have already lost this battle.)



To be continued, naturally.

*I was going to put links for every single thing, but that gets old.  Everyone's capable of Googling, I hope.

Our wives and mothers

My Google Reader is full of feminists.  Actual feminist blogs, style blogs written by feminists, parenting blogs written by feminists, a couple news sources where one is more or less guaranteed to see a feminist coverage of any large event among the six or seven articles they publish concerning it, etc.  And yet somehow I am entirely alone in seeing something a little questionable in the president's feminism as expressed in his inaugural address.  This is kind of a first for me, finding myself with more extreme thoughts than literally anyone else I've encountered, even among more or less professional feminists on the internet, people who generally spend a lot of time dissecting language and nuance and implication.  So maybe I am "just looking for things to be offended about," * or maybe I'm just that special.  At any rate, I wanted to explore my thoughts a little bit.

*  I'm not.  Though obviously I do look at basically everything with, first and foremost, a critical attitude, so if there's an aspect in which something is unfair or questionable, I'm going to notice it, and of course I'm going to point it out.  That's how I work, yo.

The section in question, which was Facebooked and blogged by several women I know and loads of random internet women, goes like this:

For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law—for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

So, first of all:  yes, obviously, to the sentiment.  Women should earn fair wages on par with men and gay people's marriages matter as much as straight people's.  No quibble there.

However, I find this part to be, ironically, a sudden (linguistic, rhetorical) departure from his previous language of inclusivity.  It's a subtle shift, but I find it surprisingly alienating.  If Obama is suddenly talking about "our" wives and mothers and daughters and "our" gay brothers and sisters, the "we" he is speaking to doesn't seem to actually include those people who are the wives/mothers/daughters, brothers/sisters.  He suddenly seems to be speaking to those in charge, those with the power, those who are 'neutral,' who actually (functionally, historically, are perceived to) make up the "we" of the citizenry of America.  And that implication is where I suddenly have a problem.  For these sentences he shifts into the usual language of privilege and exclusivity that I generally see all around but that is the result of attitudes that he is explicitly trying to end.  Sure, let's give rights to those people.  "We" in our benevolence, can bestow that upon them.  It's perpetuating the attitude he's trying to solve.

I'm really surprised that nobody else has had this reaction, because it stuck out like a sore thumb to me.  Reading down the transcript, you get we, we, we, together, together, together, "we have always understood," "this generation of Americans," "for we, the people, understand...," "we understand...," "we, the people, still believe...," "any one of us," "the commitments we make to each other," "we, the people," "we, the people," "we."  All togetherness and unity and melded identity, and then, wait a second, "our wives, our mothers, and daughters."  Except he's talking about me.  In the third person.  And if I'm not part of the "we" here, I'm left to wonder if I've been part of the "we" all along or if this whole speech is addressed to people who aren't  me.

And it really is rather abrupt and rather unique.  He didn't say "our friends who are parents of a disabled child," he just said, "parents of a disabled child," which I at least take as the implied "those of us who," or "if you end up being."  He didn't say "when our old spent their twilight years in poverty," he said, "when twilight years were spent in poverty."  He does say "our brave men and women in battle," but I feel like that's different and rings more of "those of us who..." than "our sons and daughters" (which he could have, and often has, said).  It's all about smoothing over differences and kind of looking past individuality, about identifying as part of an amorphous blob of citizenry.  (Which I don't mean to sound negative; we could use more of that.)  We, we, we, together, my fellow Americans, you and I as citizens...  Why not continue with "Our journey is not complete until we all, regardless of gender, can earn a living equal to our efforts" (or even "until we all can earn...," though I assume he wants to specifically point out gender, and I dig that) or "until our income is not dependent on our gender" or "until those of us who are women can earn a living in accordance with our effort"?  Why not "until we view all marriage as equal" or "until we all can enjoy the legal and social sanction of our declared love" or "those of us who are gay enjoy equality under the law" or "all our marriages are equal, as our love is"?

I actually have less of a problem with the gay part, I guess because "our brothers and sisters" still more invokes "each other" than "our wives and mothers and daughters" does.  (At least I hope it's not just that I am a woman and not gay.  That would be disappointingly normal of me.)  So while I still don't like the alienating "our," it's more an "our" of "our friends" than "our children."  It's a mutual relationship being implied.  And "brothers and sisters" is obviously meant yet a step more metaphorically than "wives and mothers."  Plus I feel like the follow-up sentence furthers the thought and focuses on the identity and equality more:  "for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."  Back to "we."  And not a "we are equal with them," but a "we [all of us] are equal [with each other]."

Secondarily, I have a problem with people being defined in relation to others.  Part of this is connected, but part of it is distinct.  I've never liked politicians talking about "our children and grandchildren" when what they mean is either young Americans or future generations of Americans, partially because (as above) it alienates any minors who happen to be listening and paying attention (or, well, not even minors—I'm going to be alive when the environment self-destructs, and I'm going to be around when Social Security runs out...), but partially because  it unnecessarily links people to us, gives us the primacy and the importance.  If doing something about the environment is important because of its effects on future people, it's important regardless of how those people may be connected to us.  You shouldn't have to have a personal connection to someone to care.  And I know it's metaphorical and is an accepted rhetorical device, and I know that most people really do care more about things when they have a personal relationship with someone it affects (and that's fine, though I would prefer it to be more in a drawing-one's-attention way and less in a hey-that's-my-grandson-you're-talking-about way), but I don't really think that sort of absurdity should be encouraged.

It's offensive to other people's full autonomy as individuals and human beings to couch their existence in relation to ours.  "Our children"?  Blech.  "Our wives and mothers"?  Even blech-er.  This is, obviously, generally much more often done with women ("our children" and "our sons (and daughters) off to war" being the only common exceptions).  Sorry, I am a person.  My rights and my earning power, much less this country's willingness to stand for my equality and full citizenship, should have absolutely nothing to do with my being anyone's wife or mother or daughter.  I'm neither a wife nor a mother, and while obviously all women are technically someone's daughter...really? That's not part of my identity.  That's not who I am, it's just a thing one can say about me.  Like ten or so things down the list.  And you know?  That kind of makes it more important that I make an appropriate amount of money.

(And yeah, I just did kind of the same thing rhetorically, switching to talking about "me" instead of "women."  Fair enough, what I deserve or want doesn't matter either; relating to myself instead of abstractly is exactly the problem.  But the difference is I'm not trying to smash the entire country into one happy huggy together-identifying mass though the power of my words.  Also, this is a personal blog and I am one person, and my job in the world is to be that one person and not a representative of anything else.  So yeah, lots of first-person singular here.  Also, of course, the fact that apparently nobody else out there has quite the same take on this as I do, so of course I'm only speaking of myself.)

Thoughts on States' Rights

Despite my absolute abhorrence of gun ownership and use and secret desire that the Second Amendment had never been written (or the punctuation therein had at least been applied less ambiguously), I find myself supporting the Supreme Court's recent decision (McDonald v. Chicago) that local or state laws cannot entirely prohibit handgun ownership. Why? Because I believe in a strong central government more strongly than I believe in gun control. I think it's pretty self-evident that states should not have the ability to entirely rescind rights given to its residents by the federal government. (Disclaimer: I have never taken a constitutional law course, and so while I know there are things going on with the Fourteenth Amendment and incorporation and such, I'm not even pretending to speak authoritatively about specific legal precedent, etc. This is all just one average citizen's "common sense" thoughts with very little background info other than the text of the Constitution.)

Only the First Amendment explicitly states it is enumerating rights that "Congress shall make no law respecting"; the rest simply refer to rights of "the people," "any person," or "the accused." Thus it seems to me it's entirely legitimate to assume that the entire Bill of Rights, with the exception of the First Amendment, describes rights that all U.S. citizens have and that neither the federal nor state or local governments can take away. (Lucky for us, the First Amendment very definitely was part of this mysterious incorporation process that somehow the Second Amendment was left out of, because it apparently seemed pretty obvious to everyone else that if Congress can't censor what you say, neither should your state legislature or city council.)

In general, I think the rights conferred upon citizens by the federal government should be the absolute minimum recognized by states, that states could grant extra rights but couldn't take away any already granted by the federal government. How can a state claim jurisdiction over something that the country of which it is a member has already granted to every citizen (resident?)? If people could be citizens of the U.S. without somehow being under the jurisdiction of any other governmental body, there might be a case to be made that states can then do whatever they want and if you don't like it you can go someplace else, but to me it seems like it's entirely pointless to be granted a right by the federal government if it's entirely possible every single state (you have to live somewhere!) would curtail it. Then where would you be?

Thus, the first issue I have with state's rights: that (in some cases) a person who is a resident of both the United States and a specific state is thought to somehow be primarily under the second-tier state's jurisdiction and only secondarily under the jurisdiction of the first-tier, overarching federal government. (I know the Ninth Amendment confers all powers not enumerated in the Constitution to the states, but I'm talking here about the ones I think it does very definitely enumerate.)

At first blush it seems all very nice and reasonable that local governments are best situated to rule and regulate themselves, that the people in an area may have different concerns than the country overall and that they might prefer to regulate different aspects of life or regulate life in different or opposing ways to those of some other locale. After all, who wants some distant bureaucrat telling them how to best run their own affairs? However, I think local rule can only be truly fair and effective when communities are remarkably homogeneous and when everyone there chose to live there.

Regarding the inevitably incomplete homogeneity: I think local rule tends to silence minorities (of all varieties) even more effectively than federal rule does. On a nationwide scale, people who are the minority in a city or state might be either a much larger minority (say, African-Americans in New Hampshire versus the entire U.S.) or even the majority (say, conservatives in Massachusetts versus the country at large). There is simply more room for a meaningful debate about equality and representativeness and more impetus toward protection of minority rights on a nationwide level due to the increased visibility and larger numbers. Protecting the rights of one gay couple in some random small, overwhelmingly conservative and/or religious town may not seem like a legitimate issue to the rest of the townspeople (it's just a few people being deviant or provocative or asking for special treatment), whereas on the national stage gay rights are at least a recognized concern, however divided governmental bodies and the populace at large may be on the issue. Minorities deserve protection no matter where they are, but if they're a small enough minority, a lot of times it's not even clear to the majority that they are a distinct minority that merits protection. It's helpful for a more removed federal government to make these calls.

Regarding choice: If every state had a clearly-enumerated list of laws that was easily compared to that of every other state and if all residents of a state chose to move there based on their willingness to be bound by those laws, I would have no issue whatsoever with states enacting whatever laws they so desired. However, the vast majority of people (myself excluded) probably did not simply pick a state they wanted to live in based on the political and social attitudes represented therein. People live places for all sorts of reasons: they were born there, their parents moved them there when they were still minors, that's where they went to school and so they stuck around, that's where the job they found is or their job relocated them to, that's where their or their spouse's family is, that's the kind of climate they enjoy or has the sort of landscape they find enjoyable (hiking, rafting, skiing, beaches, etc.). While many of these may in some way reflect legal structures (regarding industry regulation or educational funding or what have you), the laws of a place are very rarely a conscious consideration of any one individual when planning to relocate. It could be argued that that is the fault of the individual, not the state, but I find this pretty unrealistic.

In addition, there are plenty of reasons why the state you're in now is likely to be the state you stay in. Many poor people lack the resources to relocate or the skills to find employment in certain other regions of the country. And, more than anything else, people just tend to go for the status quo, so all other things being equal, they tend to stay put.

Moreover, it's not like everyone is just born into some limbo state and brought to the age of majority in an entirely neutral place then left to select where they want to live. I think it is deeply unfair to have minors be stuck some place that may have pretty extreme laws they never voted for or even tacitly accepted by willingly choosing to reside there. Pity the poor gay kid stuck against his or her will in a red state without hate crime legislation, gay marriage, civil unions, nondiscrimination policies that include homosexuality, etc. What about teenagers who want contraception who live somewhere they can't get it without parental consent? What about atheists (or just science nerds) living somewhere that mandates equal time for intelligent design as evolution? What are they supposed to do? It's hardly their choice to be there, and they have absolutely no representation. (I'm sure equally terrifying examples could be generated regarding living in a ridiculously liberal state, but I'm having trouble coming up with those since I just don't think like that. Or, you know, maybe not, since liberal states tend not to restrict what people can do; you can always be more conservative than your surroundings, but being more liberal than your surroundings often runs you up against legal bounds.) Simply because the adult population of where they live is unlike them, these children are stuck in what is quite possibly a hellish existence for them. With a stronger central government making many of the decisions that are now left up to the states, laws would probably be a little more balanced and mainstream, severely disturbing a much smaller percentage of the populace.

(Of course, the same argument can be made regarding citizenship on the national level—a relatively small percentage of the world's population actively chooses in which country they want to live, and even if there were free movement between all nations, minors would still be stuck where their parents want them to be. This is one of the reasons I think Hobbes's social contract is full of crap—nobody alive today actually made a conscious choice to leave the state of nature and join into the leviathan. Regardless, we as a country can't really do much to change that, but we could try to make life suck less for kids who aren't like their parents who happen to live in this country.)

And now the flip side of mobility: especially nowadays, everyone moves across state lines. (OK, not everyone, but 22 million people moved across state lines between 1995 and 2000, which appears to be about 13% of the population. In five years. So obviously way more than that has moved across state lines at some point in their lives.) It is absolutely impossible to be aware of every difference in law between your old state and your new state, especially before moving. (I'm still blown away that there's not a nice handy website that encompasses all state laws ever and permits them to be compared; states' websites are hit or miss, and they're all obviously in different formats and pretty much impossible to compare.) So you move to another state because of your job or something, and then the next thing you know, you learn you can't talk on your cell phone while driving, or your 17-year-old son can be charged with statutory rape for sleeping with his 17-year-old girlfriend, or you can't get a no-fault divorce without a year's separation first, or gay partners of biological parents don't have any legal rights over kids that were previously considered equally theirs, or it's illegal for medical insurance to cover abortions (or the reverse of any of these scenarios, though again, I'm having trouble seeing how discovering that the opposite of any of these was the case would be as problematic—I guess there are plenty of people who would like the 17-year-old boyfriend of their daughters to be made sex offenders as punishment for premarital sex (essentially) and would be disturbed by the kind of laws that doesn't make it statutory rape if both parties are under 18 and within two years of each other's ages or whatever, right?). Most of these situations are ones that people would never expect to find themselves in in advance (divorce, abortion, children committing sex crimes, etc.) so they aren't that particular about seeing what the law has to say until it's suddenly applicable. How do you know, short of reading the entire legal code (which I assume is pretty obviously ridiculous) what random laws there may be that might crop up to impact your life in ways you never imagined?

If laws were consistent nationwide, there might still be things you never thought to look into, but you'd have a much better chance of hearing or seeing something about them if they were applicable to everyone in the entire country. You'd know that if it only took a month for your brother and sister-in-law to get a divorce, you could get one in about the same timeframe without having to remember that they live somewhere that's not New York (although actually I think that changed recently). You'd know if you read some story about surrogate mothers winning custody of the kids they bore that you'd better beware of that sort of thing if you're using any sort of nontraditional means of reproduction. (You'd know if you read some story about surrogate mothers suing for and losing custody of the kids they bore that it obviously wouldn't be an issue for you, rather than getting lulled into a false sense of security and then, ta-da, oh, that story took place in some other state and is actually the exact opposite of what would happen in your state.)

Basically I just don't think modern life works well with such a fractured system. In the age of the internet (which brings information about myriad such situations people find themselves in, often without making it clear how this may differ from state to state) and of frequent inter-state relocations (which suddenly and entirely (and largely unnoticedly) change the rules by which one is to abide), so many independent sets of laws seems pretty ridiculous. And then of course there are the ones, like most family laws, that turn into a giant mess when one party relocates. If you have a child with a partner you're not married to and then that partner leaves you and takes the kid to another state, which state's family laws apply? If you're gay and the state they went to doesn't recognize civil unions, domestic partnerships, or non-biological parents' rights but the state you resided in and formed your family in did, now what? Wouldn't it just be easier if it were the same everywhere? So yeah, I think states are pretty anachronistic, personally.

Looking to be Offended

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On Douches and Assholes

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