John Corvino

Tag: Marriage

  • The Gay Parenting Difference – and Why it Doesn’t Matter to Marriage

    First published at 365gay.com on June 11, 2010

    Opponents of marriage equality often refer to the “untested experiment” of same-sex parenting, asserting that we just don’t know how children in these families will fare over the long haul. They point to the fact that there has never been a significant long-term longitudinal study of such children’s welfare—that is, one that follows the same group of children over time.

    They can no longer make the latter claim.

    In the current issue of the journal Pediatrics, Drs. Nanette Gartrell and Henny Bos report on their 25-year study of the psychological adjustment of donor-conceived children in 78 lesbian-parented families. They followed the families from before the children’s birth until they were seventeen years old, interviewing the lesbian birth mothers at various points during this span, as well as interviewing the children at ages 10 and 17.

    They then compared this data with a general normative sample of American youth (known as Achenbach samples), controlling for similar socioeconomic status. The study, which is ongoing, constitutes the largest, longest-running, prospective longitudinal study of same-sex parented families to date, with results published in the peer-reviewed official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

    What they found is that the 17-year-old children of the lesbian mothers scored significantly higher than their peers in social and academic competence, and significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, and aggressive behavior.

    That’s right: the lesbians’ kids outperformed their peers. This does not surprise me.

    One reason it doesn’t surprise me is because I’ve known lesbian parents, and they rock.

    But it also doesn’t surprise me because of an important general fact about same-sex parents. Unlike heterosexual parents, same-sex parents typically don’t wake up and say “Oops, we’re pregnant.” For them, becoming parents is never a matter of simply going through the motions. It’s something into which they must put a great deal of planning and commitment—factors which translate into positive outcomes, for traditional and non-traditional families alike.

    If I’m right about this, then the moral of the story is not that lesbian parents are better than straight parents. (Sorry, lesbians.) It’s that thoughtful, committed parents are better, and that a lot of lesbian parents fit that description.

    Many marriage-equality opponents claim to know this already. “Sure, there are good lesbian parents out there,” they say. “But on average, two-biological-parent families do better than any other family form.” They will doubtless argue that the current study doesn’t show otherwise, because it doesn’t control for biological relatedness in the Achenbach comparison group.

    Let’s suppose they’re right about all that. What follows?

    What follows is that gays and lesbians shouldn’t kidnap children from their own biological mothers and fathers. Since that’s not happening, the opponents’ point is a red herring.

    I don’t mean to be glib, but from the premise “on average, two-biological-parent families do better than any other family form,” to the conclusion “Therefore, we should not allow same-sex couples to marry,” there are a lot of missing steps. Indeed, more like entire missing staircases. Marriage-equality opponents never acknowledge those missing staircases, much less address them.

    We allow many couples to marry who fall short of the purported parenting ideal—as we should. Notably, we allow stepfamilies to form, even though the very same premise that opponents cite against same-sex-parented families applies to them: “on average, two-biological-parent families do better than any other family form.”

    We allow poor people to marry, people without college degrees to marry, people in rural areas to marry, and so on, even though there is substantial research—far more decisive than that surrounding same-sex parenting—showing that, on average, children fare less well in these environments than in the contrasting ones.

    My point is that the debate over marriage equality is not the same as the debate over parenting ideals—as much as our opponents try to make it so. We need to call them out on this diversion.

    Meanwhile, we should welcome this new study as providing insight into lesbian families. Like any study, it has its limitations. It studies only lesbians, not gay men. The data are based on mothers’ reports (although so are the Achenbach comparison data). The lesbian parents studied were not randomly selected—a procedure that would have been preferable, but also unrealistic in the 1980’s when same-sex families were more often hidden. (On the other hand, it is a prospective study, so volunteers wouldn’t have known ahead of time that their children would fare well.)

    These limitations, and the study’s broader implications, will inevitably be subject to critical debate. That is as it should be.

    But let’s not confuse that debate with the debate over our right to marry.

  • My Daddy’s Name is ‘Donor’

    First published at 365gay.com on June 4, 2010

    In our public debates over marriage equality, Glenn Stanton often holds up a picture, taken from a lesbian parenting website, of a small child wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “My Daddy’s Name is Donor.”

    The line usually elicits a laugh from the audience, prompting Glenn to launch into his “Except it isn’t funny” speech.

    I’m inclined to agree with him.

    It’s not that I oppose reproductive technology or sperm donation per se. And I certainly don’t think that our marriage rights should hinge on the donor-conception debate. By substantial margins, most people who use sperm banks are heterosexual; most lesbians and gays never use sperm banks, and most sperm banks don’t restrict their use to married couples.

    It’s that I think that the creation of new life is a serious matter—about as serious as matters get—and I don’t like reducing moral complexities to tacky t-shirt slogans.

    Which is why I was both intrigued and ultimately disappointed by a report released May 31 by the Commission on Parenthood’s Future at the Institute for American Values, entitled “My Daddy’s Name is Donor: A New Study of Young Adults Conceived Through Sperm Donation.”

    Intrigued, because donor conception’s effects are well worth studying, and the report contains useful data.

    Disappointed, because the report’s interpretations are exceedingly biased, at times announcing conclusions that seem the opposite of what the data imply.

    For example, in its summary of “Fifteen Major Findings,” number one is that donor offspring “experience profound struggles with their origins and identities.” But the survey never included any questions with the words “profound struggles.” Rather, the researchers base this finding on the fact that 65% of donor offspring agree that “My sperm donor is half of who I am;” 45% agree that “The circumstances of my conception bother me;” and nearly half report that they think about donor conception at least a few times a week.

    Do these answers indicate “profound struggles” for most donor offspring? I doubt it, especially when compared to the rest of the data.

    Buried down at number eleven, we learn that well over half (61%) of donor offspring favor the practice of donor conception.

    Even more telling, roughly three-quarters agree with the statements that “Our society should encourage people to donate their sperm or eggs to other people who want them;” “I think every person has a right to a child;” “Health insurance plans and government policies should make it easier for people to have babies with donated sperm or eggs;” and “Artificial reproductive technologies are good for children because the children are wanted.” These percentages are substantially higher than those for adoptees or children of biological parents.

    Examining the raw data, we also learn that 56% of donor offspring would not discourage a friend from using a sperm donor to have a baby, and fewer than half (48%) agree that it is better to adopt than to use donated sperm or eggs to have a child. Moreover, donor offspring are far more likely than others to become donors themselves.

    And when asked how they feel about being donor-conceived, fewer than 10% of adult donor offspring chose available negative options such as “lonely,” “abandoned,” “angry,” and “freak of nature,” whereas 43% chose “not a big deal.” (Multiple answers were possible for this question.) Less than 1% chose “depressed.”

    Taken together, such data do not suggest the overall negative picture that the authors and promoters of the study are spinning. Quite the contrary.

    The researchers’ bias against these technologies comes out in the very first paragraph. The study’s narrative begins,

    “In 1884, a Philadelphia physician put his female patient to sleep and inseminated her with sperm from a man who was not her husband. The patient became pregnant and bore a child she believed was the couple’s biological offspring.

    “Today, this event occurs every day around the world with the willing consent of women and with the involvement of millions of physicians, technicians, cryoscientists, and accountants.”

    Um, no—unless we’re being really sloppy about what “this event” refers to. Chloroforming a woman without her consent and secretly impregnating her with sperm from a medical student (which is what the physician did in the 1884 case) is not the same—morally or legally—as consensual use of reproductive technology, whatever reasonable concerns we might have about the latter.

    The good news is that the data from the study may be worthwhile even if the researchers’ spin is not.

    The bad news is that the spin is likely to eclipse the data—and to provide more fodder to those who want to scapegoat lesbians and gays in the culture wars.

  • Is it Appropriate to Ask if a Potential Justice is Gay?

    First published at 365gay.com on May 21, 2010

    “Are you, or have you ever been, a homosexual?”

    From the moment President Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, observers have been itching to ask her some version of this question—or as I’ll call it, The Question.

    For the time being, The Question has subsided. Instead, it has been largely replaced by a meta-question: is The Question even appropriate to ask?

    When commentators as disparate as gay-rights advocate Andrew Sullivan and the virulently anti-gay Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth (About Homosexuality), agree on something, it’s noteworthy. And both agree that asking Kagan The Question is appropriate.

    LaBarbera writes [http://americansfortruth.com/news/if-elena-kagan-is-a-lesbian-she-should-say-so-because-public-has-a-right-to-know.html],

    “If Kagan is practicing immoral sexual behavior, it reflects on her character as a judicial nominee and her personal bias as potentially one of the most important public officials in America….Besides, in an era of ubiquitous pro-gay messages and pop culture celebration of homosexuality, it’s ridiculous that Americans should be left guessing as to whether a Supreme Court nominee has a special, personal interest in homosexuality.”

    And here’s Sullivan [http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/05/so-is-she-gay.html]:

    “[Whether Kagan is gay] is no more of an empirical question than whether she is Jewish. We know she is Jewish, and it is a fact simply and rightly put in the public square. If she were to hide her Jewishness, it would seem rightly odd, bizarre, anachronistic, even arguably self-critical or self-loathing.”

    Sullivan adds that since gay-rights issues will likely come before the Court, “and since it would be bizarre to argue that a Justice’s sexual orientation will not in some way affect his or her judgment of the issue, it is only logical that this question should be clarified.”

    Strange bedfellows, indeed.

    Notwithstanding her short haircut, her penchant for cigars, her enjoyment of softball, and the fact that she’s requested her judicial robe in flannel (okay, I made that last one up), no one has found solid evidence that Kagan is a lesbian. This, despite relentless efforts from across the political spectrum to do so. If she is, it certainly isn’t the sort of “open secret” some have claimed.

    So, should we just come out and ask her?

    It’s tempting to give one of the two easy answers to this question, which are

    (A) It’s nobody’s damn business, and certainly not relevant to her nomination,

    or

    (B) Sure—why not? It’s 2010, and not such a big deal anymore.

    The right answer is more complicated.

    On the one hand, every Justice, like any other citizen, is entitled to some zone of privacy. Of course their private experiences might affect how they rule. But we need to be careful about getting on that slippery slope, lest we turn confirmation hearings into witch hunts.

    Moreover, in a questionnaire for her Solicitor General nomination, Kagan rejected the idea that there is a fundamental constitutional right to same-sex marriage—as have some openly gay constitutional scholars. So her being lesbian, even if true, wouldn’t guarantee any particular ruling on the specific gay-rights issues likely to come before the Court. Constitutional jurisprudence isn’t the same as personal policy preference.

    On the other hand, her being a lesbian would give her a unique perspective on the Court, and could certainly influence the other justices in a positive way. As Justice Antonin Scalia once said of Justice Thurgood Marshall (the first African-American justice), “He wouldn’t have had to open his mouth to affect the nature of the conference and how seriously the conference would take matters of race.”

    And Sullivan has a point when he suggests that treating a person’s (actual or possible) lesbianism like some dirty little secret is ultimately no more palatable than treating her Jewishness that way. Doing so smacks of complicity in the closet, which Sullivan rightly condemns as an awful relic.

    Unfortunately, that awful relic—and the reasons for it—have hardly disappeared. And one need look no further than the ranting of folks like Peter LaBarbera to see why.

    In defending The Question, Sullivan writes that “a revolution in attitudes has occurred” on gay issues. But Sullivan’s use of the present-perfect tense (“has occurred”) is misleading. That revolution IS OCCURRING, and it’s far from complete.

    I’d love for lesbianism to be as much of a non-issue for Supreme Court nominees as Jewishness. The fracas over Kagan’s personal life makes it clear that we’re not there yet.

    Meanwhile, if I were a Senator at her confirmation hearings, I’d say “There has been much speculation in the media about your personal life. Is that anything you wish to comment on?” Then I’d step back and let Kagan handle it as she sees fit.

  • Rekers’ Rentboy

    First published at 365gay.com on May 7, 2010

    So, we have a new line to add to the file labeled “Seriously?!?”—alongside Reverend Ted Haggard’s “I bought the meth but didn’t use it,” ex-gay leader John Paulk’s “I had to use the bathroom and had no idea it was a gay bar,” Rep. Eric Massa’s “I’m just a salty old sailor,” and Senator Larry Craig’s “I have a wide stance.”

    Now add Reverend George Rekers’ “I hired him to lift my luggage.”

    As a co-founder (with James Dobson) of the conservative Family Research Council, a board member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), and an author of numerous anti-gay works, Dr. Rekers is a major right-wing figure.

    And so he did what any straight, family-oriented Baptist minister would do when looking for someone to carry his luggage on a ten-day European excursion. He went to rentboy.com and hired a prostitute.

    I can’t make this stuff up.

    The Miami New Times broke the story [http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2010-05-06/news/christian-right-leader-george-rekers-takes-vacation-with-rent-boy/1] this week, complete with details from 20-year-old blond Puerto Rican rentboy “Lucien’s” profile: his “smooth, sweet, tight ass,” his “perfectly built 8 inch cock (uncut)” and the fact that he’ll “do anything you say as long as you ask.” These are important attributes for travel assistants, no doubt.

    A blogger at Unzipped.net [http://blog.unzipped.net/2010/05/meet-homophobe-george-rekers-rentboy-fuck-slut-lucien.html] quickly uncovered the rentboy’s profile, which identifies him as Boynextdoor/Geo and was purged of some of the earlier sexual content; the profile has since been removed from the site to protect the young man’s privacy.

    (Incidentally, we SHOULD protect the young man’s privacy. 20-year-olds don’t typically go into prostitution because it’s the best among many excellent job opportunities.)

    Lucien/Geo is the same age as a son that Rekers adopted four years ago, which might not be relevant were it not for Rekers’ vigorous opposition to adoption by gays. Rekers testified in favor of nasty homosexual adoption bans in both Arkansas and Florida. Indeed, on the blog page [http://professorgeorge.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/misleading-internet-reports-about-professor-george-rekers/] where he repeats his lame luggage excuse, there’s a link labeled “Should homosexuals be allowed to adopt children?” This leads to a page full of outright falsehoods, including:

    “Large research studies consistently report that a majority of homosexually-behaving adults have a life-time incidence of one or more psychiatric disorders, while a majority of heterosexually-behaving adults do not suffer a psychiatric disorder…. So my professional conclusion that homosexually-behaving adults should not be allowed to adopt children is based on research and logic.”

    And perhaps personal experience.

    This is not funny. It is not even sad. It’s disgusting. And I’m tired of feeling sorry for these people.

    As the Gay Moralist, I like to give all people the benefit of the doubt. It’s not a strategy so much as a matter of empathy. I was once a closeted homosexual conservative myself, and I came close to entering the Catholic priesthood. I often wonder whether, had my life gone slightly differently—different influences, different opportunities, different choices—I’d be missing truths that seem obvious to me now.

    I even wonder whether I might have acted out sexually in inappropriate ways—hiring male prostitutes privately while railing against homosexuality publicly, or hitting on college seminary students (not children) in my priestly care. While I’m no longer a believer, the phrase “There but for the grace of God” still resonates with me.

    I am not denying that we’re responsible for our choices and actions. I’m simply saying that there are often mitigating factors beyond observers’ ken. I don’t know Rekers personally, and I can only make an educated guess at what demons he wrestles with.

    But I know from hard experience that the best way to tame demons is to start being honest with yourself and others. That, instead of using self-respecting gays as a proxy for whatever internal foes you’re fighting.

    Unsurprisingly, not even Rekers’ religious-right buddies are buying his “lift my luggage” line, or his more recent claim (in a message to blogger Joe.My.God) that he spent time with the youth in order to share the Gospel: “Like John the Baptist and Jesus, I have a loving Christian ministry to homosexuals and prostitutes in which I share the Good News of Jesus Christ with them.” [http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/05/dr-george-rekers-patron-of-male.html]

    Lift his luggage? Share the Good News? These lines make great double-entendres for late-night comedians (“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”) but they don’t get Rekers a whit closer to addressing his real baggage.

  • The Message of Marriage

    First published at 365gay.com on April 30, 2010

    If I’ve asked it once I’ve asked it a hundred times: how does marriage equality hurt heterosexuals?

    Recently I posed the question yet again to Maggie Gallagher, outgoing president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), as she visited my ethics class at Wayne State University via audio conference.

    I “get” that Gallagher wants children to have mothers and fathers, and ideally, their own biological mothers and fathers. What I’ve never quite gotten is why extending marriage to gays and lesbians undermines that goal. One can be married without having children, one can have children without being married; and (most important) same-sex marriage is not about gay couples’ snatching children away from their loving heterosexual parents. No sane person thinks otherwise.

    Maggie Gallagher is a sane person. (Wrong, but sane.) For the record, she is not worried that marriage equality would give gays license to kidnap children. Nor does she oppose adoption by gay individuals or couples, although she thinks heterosexual married couples should be preferred. So what’s the problem?

    At the risk of oversimplifying, one could describe her concern—which she graciously explained to my class—as The Message Argument. The idea is this. The core reason society promotes marriage is to bind mothers and fathers together for the long-term welfare of their offspring. In doing so we send a message: “Children need their mothers and fathers.”

    But on Gallagher’s view, extending marriage to gays and lesbians makes it virtually impossible to sustain that message. The central premise of the marriage-equality movement is that Jack and Bob’s marriage is just as valid, qua marriage, as Jack and Jill’s. (That’s the whole point of calling it “marriage equality.”) And if we make that equivalence, we cannot also say that children—some of whom Jack and Bob may be raising—need their mothers and fathers. Indeed, the latter claim would now seem offensive, even bigoted.

    So Gallagher’s argument poses a dilemma: either maintain the message that children need their mothers and fathers, and thus oppose marriage equality; or else embrace marriage equality, and thus relinquish the message. You can’t have both.

    Whatever else you want to say about this argument, it’s not crazy. It’s about how to maintain a message that seems well motivated, at least on the surface: children need their mothers and fathers.

    Elsewhere I’ve argued that the claim “Children need their mothers and fathers” is ambiguous. On one reading it’s obviously false. On another, it’s more plausible, but it doesn’t support the conclusion against marriage equality. For even if we were to grant for the sake of argument that the “ideal” situation for children is, on average, with their own biological mother and father, we ought not to discourage—and deny marriage to—other arrangements: stepfamilies, adoptive families, and same-sex households. It’s a non-sequitur.

    But that (familiar and ongoing) argument is somewhat beside the point. The Message Argument does not say that promoting children’s welfare logically entails denying marriage to gays and lesbians. It says that, in practice, it is virtually impossible to maintain the message “Children need their mothers and fathers” while also promoting the message that “Gay families are just as good as straight ones.” And given a choice between the two messages, Gallagher favors the former.

    I think urging parents—especially fathers—to stick around for their offspring is an admirable and important goal. It’s also one that has personal resonance for Gallagher, who has spoken candidly of her experience as a young single mother left behind by her child’s father.

    I also think that there are 1001 better ways to achieve this goal than fighting marriage equality. The fact that NOM targets gays and gays alone makes it hard to believe that we are merely collateral damage in their battle to promote children’s welfare.

    That said, I want to thank Gallagher for clarifying her position. I want to assure her that I’ll take The Message dilemma seriously. I plan to grapple with it in future columns (and our forthcoming book).

    But I also want to pose for her a counter-dilemma, which I hope she’ll take equally seriously.

    For it seems to me that, in practice, it is impossible to tell gay couples and families that they are full-fledged members of our society, deserving of equal respect and dignity, while also denying them the legal and social status of marriage.

    Yes, marriage sends messages, but “children need their mothers and fathers” is scarcely the only one. Marriage sends the message that it’s good for people to have someone special to take care of them, and vice-versa—to have and to hold, for better or worse, ‘til death do they part.

    Marriage sends a message about the importance of forming family, even when those families don’t include children; about making the transition from being a child in one’s family of origin to being an adult in one’s family of choice.

    Gallagher claims that she loves and respects gay people, and I want to believe her. But how can she sustain that message while also opposing marriage equality? How does her own preferred message not tell gay families—not to mention stepfamilies, adoptive families, and single-parent households—that “Your family isn’t real”?

    Yes, marriage sends messages. So does its denial.

  • Conversations with Maggie Gallagher

    First published at 365gay.com on April 23, 2010

    Maggie Gallagher has announced that she is stepping down as president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), adding that she will remain on NOM’s executive board while pursuing future projects, including a book with me, “Debating Same-Sex Marriage,” for Oxford University Press.

    This prompted some surprised e-mails from friends who hadn’t heard about the book: “You’re doing WHAT with WHOM?” You would think she had announced that we were planning on spending the next few months braiding each other’s hair and painting our toenails.

    Here’s the deal: Maggie and I will each write a long essay aiming to give the most powerful possible statement of our respective positions; we will then each write a rebuttal to the other’s essay. We will exchange drafts with each other (and no doubt, with various colleagues); the book will contain the finished versions of our two essays and rebuttals.

    Why do a book debating Maggie Gallagher? The main reason is that I think she’s wrong—badly wrong, wrong in ways that hurt real individuals and real families—and I want to refute her.

    Why “dignify” Maggie Gallagher with a platform for her pernicious views? Because, like it or not, those views are still shared by the majority of voters, in every single state in which marriage equality has been put to the ballot. You may call Maggie Gallagher a right-wing fringe lunatic all you like, but her side is winning plenty of battles, even while it is slowly losing the war.

    I’m doing this book because I’d like to speed up that loss, not because I’m trying “to justify profiting from the suffering of others,” as one blog commenter put it. (Incidentally, academic-press books seldom turn a profit for their authors.) Yes, Maggie’s popularity on the right will sell books, but that also lets me make the case for equality before people I wouldn’t otherwise reach. Some of those people will have gay sons and daughters.

    I don’t debate Maggie or other professional gay-rights opponents mainly to win them over. I do it to win over the moveable middle. I aim to give them, in the words of John Stuart Mill, “the clearer perception and livelier perception of truth, produced by its collision with error.” There’s something valuable about forcing people to defend their views in writing in a sustained way.

    In the process, I aim to build relationships with people, including our opponents. Sure, I’m a philosopher, and I believe in the power of ideas. But opposition to our lives is not ultimately based in logic, and it’s not ultimately going to be won on logic (even while logic plays an essential role). It’s going to be won as our adversaries get to know us and thus find it increasingly difficult to turn a blind eye to our fundamental needs and interests.

    Meanwhile, both sides need to stop pretending that we’ve got the other completely figured out. We don’t.

    I’ve known Maggie by e-mail for years, but we’ve only met in-person twice. The first time was for a marriage forum in New York. The second was for a debate in Oregon. Unexpectedly we encountered each other on a connecting flight in Salt Lake City, and we sat together on the plane. At one point I showed her a picture of my partner Mark, displaying the broad, welcoming smile that is his trademark.

    “I can see why you call him home,” she said.

    At first I misunderstood her. “I don’t need to call home,” I answered. “I just talked to him.”

    “No—I can see why you call HIM home. He’s ‘home’ for you,” Maggie replied.

    You might wonder how someone who “gets” that Mark is “home” for me can spend her life fighting my right to marry him. You might conclude she’s just being a hypocrite, “profiting from the suffering of others.” As I’ve said many times (and will continue saying), Maggie’s work harms real individuals and real families.

    But you could also—at least, if you knew Maggie as I do—keep the conversation going, pressing her directly on some of these points. And that’s what intend to do.

  • Can Animals be Gay?

    First published at 365gay.com on April 6, 2010

    They don’t drive Subarus, wear comfortable shoes, or listen to folk music. But are the female pair-bonding albatross discussed in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine lesbians?
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/magazine/04animals-t.html?ref=magazine

    Despite its provocative title, the essay “Can Animals Be Gay?” is one of the more thoughtful and nuanced treatments to have appeared in a while. It achieves this largely by ignoring the title-question and instead focusing on what scientific research into animal behavior does—and more to the point, doesn’t—tell us about humans.

    These are the facts: Lindsay C. Young, a biologist studying a Laysan albatross colony in Kaena Point, Hawaii, discovered in the course of her doctoral research that a third of the nesting pairs there were actually female-female. Albatross typically pair off monogamously, copulate, and then collaboratively incubate the resulting single egg each year. Scientists who have observed nesting pairs generally assume—falsely, it turns out—that they are all male-female. (Albatross are difficult to sex by sight.) So Young and two colleagues published a paper explaining their surprising findings. From the Times essay:

    “It turned out that many of the female-female pairs, at Kaena Point and at a colony that Young’s colleague studied on Kauai, had been together for 4, 8 or even 19 years — as far back as the biologists’ data went, in some cases. The female-female pairs had been incubating eggs together, rearing chicks and just generally passing under everybody’s nose for what you might call ‘straight’ couples.”

    Like most scientists, Young and her colleagues were careful merely to share their observations, rather than to draw moral or political conclusions. But that didn’t stop folks from both sides of the gay-rights debate from drawing foolish inferences and alternately either praising or attacking her research.

    Gay-rights opponents derided the work as agenda-driven propaganda. Gay-rights advocates, by contrast, saw it as new evidence for the “naturalness” of homosexuality and even as providing a justification for marriage equality.

    The simple truth that both sides overlook is this: Research about animals tells us what other animals’ behavior is; it does not tell us what human behavior morally ought to be.

    Notice the two key distinctions here. First, although humans are animals, they are not the same as other animals. That doesn’t mean that studying other animals can’t help us learn more about humans, often by suggesting hypotheses worth testing in humans. But species behave differently, and what’s true of albatross, or bonobos, or fruit flies frequently isn’t true of humans.

    Second, there’s the distinction between the descriptive and the normative; between what is and what ought to be. The fact that animals (including human animals) do something does not entail that we morally SHOULD do it.

    Which means that all of the empirical research in the world, as interesting and important and valuable as it is, won’t settle any moral disputes for us—at least not by itself.

    I say “at least not by itself” because there are indirect ways in which this research may be relevant. Young’s findings, for example, provide a nice illustration of heterosexist bias among previous scientists, and there are more general moral lessons to be gleaned when we uncover bias.

    Moreover, such research can undermine the premises of bad arguments used by the other side. (“Animals don’t even do that, therefore it’s obviously wrong.”) However, it’s worth noting that the arguments would be bad even if they were not based on false premises, since they still involve invalid inferences. (“Animals don’t cook their food either. What follows?”)

    There’s also the undeniable fact that, whatever their logical flaws, these arguments have emotional resonance. As the Times essay notes:

    “What animals do — what’s perceived to be ‘natural’ — seems to carry a strange moral potency: it’s out there, irrefutably, as either a validation or a denunciation of our own behavior, depending on how you happen to feel about homosexuality and about nature.”

    But that’s just the point: the conclusion depends on “how you happen to feel.” The feelings are doing the work, not the logic.

    When bad arguments are used in the service of good aims, what should we do?

    Suppose Young’s study makes a parent less inclined to kick a gay child out of the house, because the parent (illogically) reads the study as proof that human homosexuality is “natural.” This sort of thing happens all the time, and I’m hardly inclined to call up the parent and point out his or her logical lapse.

    There are, however, long-range consequences to such laxity. The same logical sloppiness that motivates this particular parent to do the right thing helps others to rationalize discrimination. Repeat after me: what other animals do is one thing; what humans morally ought to do is another. Only when we distinguish those questions can we make a sound case for equality.

  • Coming Out at the Border

    First published at 365gay.com on March 12, 2010

    The border guard didn’t even look up when she asked the question: “Citizenship?”

    “U.S.”

    “And why are you in Canada?”

    I paused. She looked up.

    I was going to Canada to give a lecture, which would be easy enough to say. But then there would be the inevitable follow-up question: “A lecture on what?”

    Instantly I thought back to a story once told to me by Glenn Stanton, my frequent debate-opponent from Focus on the Family. Just prior to Canada’s legalization of marriage for gays and lesbians, Glenn went there for a right-wing conference. When the border guard asked him, “Why are you in Canada?” he responded with “For a same-sex marriage conference.”

    His border guard shot back, “We don’t need that shit here.”

    After relaying the story to me Glenn added, “I thought to myself, what if it had been you, John?”

    To which I responded, “Welcome to my world, Glenn.”

    I live in Detroit, just next to Windsor, Ontario. I go there occasionally for dinner with friends, and most times the crossing is smooth. But if you happen to catch a border guard who’s having a bad day, or who’s on a power trip, or who’s just congenitally an asshole, be prepared for an unpleasant delay. I generally aim to give border guards all and only the information they absolutely need.

    And yet a frequent theme in my advocacy work is the importance of coming out. Not just on National Coming Out Day, or at pride parades, or when writing columns for the gay press, but at any time when reference to one’s (actual or desired) significant other—or more generally, one’s life—would be appropriate. Coming out is an opportunity to teach diversity, and to be a role model for those around us and those who come after us.

    More than that, it’s a chance for simple honesty: there’s something profoundly dehumanizing about treating one’s sexual orientation as a dirty little secret. I don’t want to be complicit in that.

    So (for instance), last Valentine’s Day, when a Trader Joe’s employee presenting roses to female customers offered me one, saying, “Maybe you have a special girl at home to give this to?” I responded, “I’ll give it to my special GUY at home, thanks!”

    Giving a diversity lesson to a Trader Joe’s employee is one thing; giving one to grumpy border guards is another. Military uniforms intimidate me more than Hawaiian shirts do. In the past, I’ve been harassed by Texas State troopers for kissing (yes, kissing) another man, and it wasn’t fun.

    After that Texas incident, I filed a formal complaint, which resulted in the trooper’s being put on probation and having to take classes on Texas state law. I’m not afraid to stand up for my rights, but like most people, on some days I just don’t want to be bothered.

    I admit I’m embarrassed to share these thoughts. It’s not just because of the great figures who have stood up for our rights even when it’s been inconvenient or dangerous: luminaries like Frank Kameny, Harvey Milk, Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon and Harry Hay. I’m sure even they had days when prudence trumped other virtues.

    It’s because I was facing a CANADIAN BORDER GUARD, for goodness sake. They’re not exactly the SS.

    So I’m embarrassed that the question gave me pause. But I share the story anyway, because it speaks to the tremendous power of the closet.

    “Why are you in Canada?” She repeated the question, startling me from my deliberations.

    “I’m giving a lecture at the University of Lethbridge.”

    “A lecture regarding…?”

    “Gay rights.”

    Now she paused.

    “Have you ever been to Lethbridge?” she finally asked.

    “No.”

    “Well, good luck with your talk.” Then, as she stamped my declarations form, she leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “Really, good luck. It’s redneck country, you know.”

  • What’s Love Got to Do With It?

    First published at 365gay.com on February 26, 2010

    Okay—so I promise that this is my last column for a while on the definition of marriage. Four out of five in a row is enough. http://www.365gay.com/archive/?id=15&logo=t

    But I’ve learned a lot from writing these, especially because of comments from various marriage-equality opponents. Three points stick out.

    First, the definitional argument is deeply important to them. Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise anyone. But it does surprise me that even those who explicitly acknowledge that marriage is an evolving institution place great weight on what marriage has been, as if that would settle the question once and for all of what marriage can or should be. It doesn’t.

    Second, marriage does not lend itself to a pithy definition. Whatever marriage is, its definition won’t be like, “A triangle is a three-sided plane figure.”

    That’s because marriage is both evolving and multifaceted. Marriage is, among other things, a social institution, a personal commitment, a religious sacrament, and a legal status. It looks different from the spouses’ perspective than it does from the outside; it looks different respectively to anthropologists, philosophers, theologians, lawyers, and so on.

    Each of these perspectives can tell us something about what marriage is; none of them is complete or final. Any definition they provide, however useful, will be partial.

    Third, those who emphasize the definitional argument, when they’re not simply begging the question against marriage-equality advocates, often invoke a false dichotomy: Either marriage is a social institution for binding parents (and especially fathers) to their biological offspring, or else it is an adult expression of love—an expression that these opponents variously dismiss as selfish, empty, or “fluttery”.

    Contrast this with the actual view of most marriage-equality advocates, which is that marriage is both of these things, and then some.

    Yes, marriage is the cross-cultural institution that has provided for the needs of children. But how? What makes marriage so suited to this purpose?

    I’ll hazard a guess: it does so because it is also an abiding commitment between the spouses. It binds them together “for keeps,” thus creating a stable environment for any children who arrive.

    So the view that marriage consists in abiding love between adults is not merely COMPATIBLE with the view that marriage serves children’s welfare; the former actually helps explain the latter.

    There’s nothing “fluttery” about this. The abiding love of marriage is not just a vague feeling or promise—it’s an ongoing activity. I’m reminded of the words of St. Augustine, “Dilige, et quod vis fac”: “Love, and do what you want.” Augustine knew that true love is challenging; it takes work.

    After one of my recent columns, a prominent same-sex marriage opponent wrote:

    “I invite you to look back at the entire world history of anthropological thought on the topic of what is marriage, and point out to me even ONE example of ONE scholar who has, based on ethnographic data, said, actually or in effect, since recorded history began, that marriage in human groups is properly defined as the promise of abiding love. If you can identify even one reputable scholar in the history of the world who has made such a statement or implied such a thing, I will grovel before you in abject intellectual humility and gladly buy you the lunch of your choice…”

    Well, I couldn’t find an anthropologist who said that. Actually, I didn’t bother looking. Anthropologists define marriage by its cultural function, and “abiding love” isn’t really their angle. But I did find this:

    “The inner and essential raison d’etre of marriage is not simply eventual transformation into a family but above all the creation of a lasting personal union between a man and a woman based on love.”

    What radical, “fluttery” activist wrote these words?

    Actually, it was Pope John Paul II.

    Of course the late pope defines marriage as “between a man and a woman.” No shock there. But the interesting thing is that he writes that marriage is “above all…a lasting personal union…based on love.”

    Perhaps he was distracted when he wrote this. Perhaps the Radical Gay Agenda had begun to infiltrate the Vatican.

    Or perhaps the pope realized what most people know. Marriage is fundamentally a lasting personal union based on love—which is not to say that it is ONLY that.

    As I said above—and it bears repeating—any neat definition of marriage will be partial and imperfect. There are counterexamples to this characterization, ways in which it is both too broad and too narrow.

    But “marriage” is not definable in the way “triangle” or “bachelor” is.

    And when marriage-equality opponents feel compelled to repudiate characterizations of marriage that The Gay Moralist, the previous pope, and most married couples all find obvious, you know they’re in trouble.

  • What Marriage Is

    First published at 365gay.com on February 19, 2010

    An opponent writes, “What’s YOUR definition of marriage? If you’re going to use a word, you need a definition of the word.”

    I doubt that.

    After all, most English speakers can competently use the word “yellow,” but ask them to define the term (without merely pointing to examples) and watch them stammer.

    And then try words like “law,” “opinion,” and “game” just for fun. It’s quite possible to have functional knowledge of how to use a term without being able to articulate the boundaries of the relevant concept.

    Alright, you say, but as someone deeply involved in the marriage debate, surely the Gay Moralist has a definition to offer?

    Yes and no. I have definitions to offer, not a definition.

    The word “marriage” can refer to many different things: a personal commitment, a religious sacrament, a social institution, a legal status.

    And even if we focus on one of those—say, the social institution—there are other challenges. As David Blankenhorn puts it: “There is no single, universally accepted definition of marriage—partly because the institution is constantly evolving, and partly because many of its features vary across groups and cultures.”

    Blankenhorn makes this point in his book _The Future of Marriage_. It’s an interesting concession, since he spends much of the rest of the chapter railing against marriage-equality advocates for offering “insubstantial” and “fluttery” definitions that emphasize personal commitment over marriage’s social meaning.

    Not surprisingly, his own definition emphasizes children:

    “In all or nearly all human societies, marriage is socially approved sexual intercourse between a woman and a man, conceived as both a personal relationship and an institution, primarily such that any children resulting from the union are—and are understood by the society to be—emotionally, morally, practically, and legally affiliated with both of the parents.”

    Putting aside the odd claim that “marriage is…sexual intercourse” (rather than, say, a context for such intercourse), this is actually a pretty good description of what marriage typically is.

    But the “typically” is key. On the very next page, Blankenhorn acknowledges a counterexample (raised by Christian theologians, no less): Marriage can’t be essentially sexual, since if it were, the Virgin Mary’s “marriage” to Joseph would not be a marriage. (And one could point to plenty of contemporary sexless marriages that are nevertheless marriages.)

    Moreover, Blankenhorn’s own definition includes the hedge-word “primarily,” acknowledging that marriage has goals beyond providing for children’s needs.

    My fellow philosophers are often enamored of analyses that provide “necessary and sufficient conditions” for concepts: definitions that capture all, and only, the members of a class. But I have yet to see anyone on either side of this debate do that for marriage, and I doubt that it’s possible.

    The definition would have to be broad enough to include unions as disparate as King Solomon’s polygamous household; Elizabeth Taylor’s marriages to her various husbands; my maternal grandparents’ arranged marriage; Bill’s marriage to Hillary; Barack’s marriage to Michelle. It would have to make sense of metaphors such as the claim that nuns are “married” to Christ (traditional profession ceremonies even involved wedding dresses). And yet it couldn’t be so broad as to include just any committed relationship.

    Are there necessary conditions for a union’s being a marriage? Sure. For instance, there must be at least two persons. (I say “at least” because polygamous marriages are still marriages, whatever other objections we might have to them.)

    Beyond the “at least two persons” requirement, we find a host of features that are typical: mutual care and concern, romantic and sexual involvement, a profession of lifelong commitment, the begetting and rearing of children.

    But “typical” does not mean “strictly necessary,” and for any one of these features, it takes very little imagination to think of a genuine marriage that lacks it. A “marriage of convenience” is still a marriage, legally speaking. A childless marriage is still a marriage. A marriage on the brink of divorce is still, for the time being, a marriage.

    I am not suggesting that any of these scenarios is ideal. But our opponents’ objection isn’t that same-sex unions aren’t “ideal” marriages. It’s that they’re not marriages AT ALL. And that objection is much harder to sustain when one surveys the various overlapping arrangements—some with children, some without; some intensely romantic; some not—that we call “marriage.”

    So what is marriage? For me, the standard vow captures it nicely, though of course not perfectly or completely. These are the words my parents used, and the same words I used with my partner Mark:

    Marriage is a commitment “to have and to hold; from this day forward; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish; ‘til death do us part.”

    “Fluttery?” Maybe. But real, and important, and good.