SAME-SEX MARRIAGE RESPONSES PART ONE: Jonathan Rauch responds; then Maggie Gallagher.

Dave Tepper responds but misses what I meant w/r/t why it’s important to talk about sex, not just committed loving relationships, when we talk about marriage…. I genuinely do not think the SSM debate reduces to, or even needs to address, “Is sodomy A-OK?” But I can see that I was unclear about that. Hope to make my point clearer a little later today, when I respond to Ampersand’s lengthy post.

THOUGHTS ON THE A.F.F. SAME-SEX MARRIAGE DEBATE: Scattered impressions, of course–what, you expected concise paragraphs in military formation?

The panelists were Pia de Solenni, Robert Knight, Patrick Guerrerro, and Jonathan Rauch. Rauch was by far the best speaker, as I’d expected. He kicked off the panel with a strong defense of two things that may or may not be the same thing: marriage, and “long-term caring relationships,” “someone to come home to,” someone to provide stability in one’s life.

He also argued that if same-sex marriage doesn’t pass soon, a Chinese menu of alternatives to marriage will arise (or rather, will gain in popularity–all of these already exist): domestic partnerships, civil unions, committed relationships without marriage, etc. etc. Basically, the idea is that heterosexual couples will see these other relationship models being practiced by homosexual couples, and will pick these looser-but-stabler unions over the demands of marriage. (Interestingly, this claim rests on the premise that hetero couples will take advantage of problematic relationship models offered by homosexual couples. That’s a premise that advocates of SSM generally deny when the question is whether hetero couples will imitate male-male couples’ often laxer standards of infidelity.) I think this is Rauch’s strongest claim, and will perhaps write more about it later.

De Solenni made one really good point, which is that advocates of SSM rarely cash out what makes marriage different from best-friendship. I think it’s fairly important to ask why nobody thinks the state should sanction or affirm my closest chosen relationship unless I start sleepin’ with her. More on this soon. Unfortunately, this interesting point was sort of lost amid vague, un-cashed-out talk of “complementarity” and children.

Guerrerro is a politician–he’s a big wheel in the Log Cabin Republicans–and talked like one, for good and for ill. He spoke movingly about 50-year-long loving homosexual relationships that have lasted through thick and thin. I found myself wondering whether Guerrerro really thinks that nobody is ever really in love with his mistress. IOW “but they love each other” is not really the end of the argument, you know? For oh so much more on that tip, check out Denis de Rougemont’s incisive and potentially life-changing literary study, Love in the Western World.

He also offered a very attenuated understanding of friendship (can you tell I’ve been thinking about this a lot?), as if a friend is just a casual acquaintance, rather than, so often, a well-loved shelter from the storms of life.

Knight… well, eh. I’ve seen him speak more persuasively than this on topics relating to homosexuality. Basically, he said that butt sex is bad, and we should be encouraging people to become “ex-gays” (not a notion I’m super fond of).

Then the moderator asked everyone to define marriage. You can probably do Knight’s and De Solenni’s yourself, but Guerrerro’s and Rauch’s definitions were interesting: G. said that marriage is when “two loving people choose to have the state recognize their lifelong committed relationship, with all the legal rights and responsibilities offered to heterosexuals.” Rauch, in a clipped and passionate tone, simply said, “To have and to hold, to love and to cherish, for richer and for poorer, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, ’til death do you part.”

Overall take-home thoughts from the debate:

Like most of these discussions, it was framed in terms of heteros vs. homos. I think that’s unnecessary and misleading; I’ve said before that I think this is an issue about men and women, not gays ‘n’ straights.

Similarly, both Knight and the pro-SSM speakers seemed to think it was very important to figure out whether or not people could change from a homosexual to a heterosexual orientation. I don’t think that’s an especially important question (to the extent that it’s important to one’s personal life, you can find my answer in the “ex-gay” article linked above), and I think it reflects an unwarranted American pursuit of “the authentic self”–what I am rather than what I should do. Include me out.

Opponents of SSM need to work much harder on explaining what “the children!” are doing in our argument. There needs to be much more careful attention to the role of ideals and models in people’s lives. Instead, we’re getting bogged down in questions about infertile couples, etc., which I think are just plain irrelevant.

We need to talk about the effects of changing the ideal marriage to a unisex, not necessarily physically constant model, where children only enter the picture when you specifically go out and plan and get ’em. We need to talk about the expectations that new model raises, and the desires it does and doesn’t cater to. (Does = the desire to have control over our bodies, a control that is, frankly, illusory, especially for those whose sexual relations can and often do lead to pregnancy. Doesn’t = the desire for gender. For example.) None of that stuff got brought up last night.

Advocates of SSM really need to stop talking about me and my best friend when they think they’re talking about marriage. I mean, I don’t think Knight’s approach was super helpful either, but at least he did in fact talk about sex. Let’s have a less abstracted and more visceral, embodied understanding of what makes marriage unlike other socially-beneficial relationships.

Advocates and opponents of SSM might usefully discuss what they think about children and gender. Should children learn gender roles? Is that harder with a same-sex couple? Is it harder in a society with same-sex marriage? Do those questions matter, and if so, how much?

The language of “gender complementarity” is kind of bloodless. I more like a formulation, which I think Maggie Gallagher may have come up with?, that marriage is how we reconcile the opposite sexes.

TOMORROW: Florence King, marriage-debate report, fun with hurricanes, finally-updated fiction, and more. Unlike the federal government, this blog will be open for business. Uh, unless we lose power.

“THE SECRET LIVES OF DENTISTS”: Saw the movie yesterday, per parental recommendation. It’s excellent. I can’t add to the chorus of married people who have said it is one of the best representations of real marriage that they’ve seen on the silver screen, but I will say that many, many of the moments rang exactly true to me. The kids act like real kids. There’s a subtle moment where someone says, “I love you,” and means it–and it’s exactly the wrong thing to say. This is a hard-hitting movie. It’s great art and an intense pro-marriage statement. There’s even a Cat Power song!

Tiny quibbles: The voice-over narration sucks. Fortunately it only appears at the beginning and end, but sheesh, don’t people know that voice-overs are the classic What Not to Do of adapting novels to the screen?

There’s too much imbalance between husband and wife. Although you definitely see both characters’ viewpoints, the husband is so completely the children’s caretaker that audience sympathy sways too much to his side–it’s not really a fair fight for sympathy between him and his wife. There’s a scene that basically parallels the wife and the children in a way that only reinforces this overly-heroic portrayal of the husband. (I should be clear: The husband is not portrayed as a flawless icon, at all. And like I said, you definitely see where his wife is coming from. But I think the movie would have been more powerful if their roles in the family were more balanced.)

Sometimes the music is too insistent.

But those are really minor complaints compared to the richness of the movie’s moral vision and the acuity of its observation of family life. Do yourself a favor and go see this.

Bring Kleenex. Even if you don’t think you’ll need it.

You can’t catch me where I’m gonna blog

You can’t catch me where I’ll watch

This world’s too cold, so I’m gonna run

I’m moving to the sun…

Cranky Professor: Lots of interesting stuff, mostly about technology and/or liberal arts education. Also, his comments on the “X kills! Wait, I mean, a mislabeled drug that isn’t Ecstasy at all kills! But X is still really really bad! We’ll tell you why as soon as we figure it out…” study. My personal beef against Ecstasy remains what it has always been: I already have a religion that says I gotta love everybody. Last thing I need is a drug that makes me like everybody.

Dappled Things: Nifty sermon on Jesus’ healing of the deaf-mute. (Hey, are a sermon and a homily the same thing?)

Kesher Talk: Vast trove of links relating to Leon Wieseltier’s Kaddish, his meditation on his father’s death.

Old Oligarch: In olden days we had the allegory of love. Now we have the allegory of Quake….

Relapsed Catholic will be on TV the 14th and the 21st. She’ll be dissecting same-sex marriage, the Ten Commandments monument mishegoss, Al-Jazeera, and Paul Hill.

Unqualified Offerings: Comic-book Jews! Fun, fun stuff, celebrating Arrival Day (the day the first Jews came to America). Here’s another article on the same topic, via Journalista!.

Basic, interesting intro piece about the nooks and crannies of the intelligence war. Profiles of Djibouti, Indonesia, and Mauritania. For those who didn’t see it at InstaPundit.

And: “Up on stage for the raunchy performance of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ was 6-year-old Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon. Little Lourdes was dressed in First Communion white, decked out in lace gloves, a crucifix, and a studded belt with the words ‘BOY TOY.’ Paving the way for the entrance of Madonna and her entourage of sexual exhibitionists, Lourdes tossed flower petals on the dance floor while a mosh pit of fans writhed in front of her and the porno soundtrack throbbed behind her.” I’ll steal Mark Shea’s shtik: A country that despises virginity is a country that hates children. Madonna link via Relapsed Catholic, I think.

TAKE THESE JOBS AND SHOVE ‘EM?: Ampersand pointed me to a series of posts defending a higher minimum wage. I’ve read two so far, “How Minimum Wage Increases Employment” and “Why Job Losses from Min Wage Don’t Matter.” I can’t rightly put my finger on my problems with the first one–odd that there’s so much talk of consumption but not of investment, that’s one problem, but I am pretty sure that if I were either a) less fuzzheaded or b) more economically ept I would have more to say about that post.

I do have something to say about the “job losses don’t matter” post though. Basically, Nathan Newman says, I don’t buy that instituting or increasing a minimum wage would lead to job losses. But let’s say it does. These job losses will be balanced out by the fact that still-employed min-wage workers will be making more money, which will mean increased tax revenues, which we can use to fund welfare for the unemployed!

Er. Ah. Yes, well, indeed…

To be fair, Newman also says the tax money could be spent on education and suchlike, which opens a few more kettles of fish. But he focuses on monetary transfers to the unemployed a.k.a. the dole. Thus, he argues, the still-employed end up with more money than they had before, and the newly-unemployed end up with a decent enough welfare check that they’re basically at financial status quo ante.

I don’t know, maybe Newman is being frivolous here because he believes that the jobs WON’T be lost, so he’s just kind of tossing this claim out there? If he’s serious about this “solution,” he’s ignoring the huge, obvious differences between welfare and work. It’s not just about cash in hand. It’s about:

knowing you’re productive vs. knowing you’re a public charge

structure in your life vs. lack of structure (chaos)–this is a huge deal in communities where a lot of people are on welfare

greater degree of independence vs. greater degree of dependence

being viewed as more marriageable vs. being viewed as less marriageable

gaining skills to move up in your job as you choose vs. somebody else’s idea of a “job training program” that might be Good For You

sustainable employment (and sustained contribution to the economy) vs. temporary assistance

plus more stuff I can’t think of right now.

As I read the post, I kept thinking about two people I know whose fathers were laid off. Not for cause. Just laid off. Unemployment came as a psychological blow that they took out on their families. It was pretty obviously a horrible time for the newly-unemployed men and those who loved them–not so much because of financial issues (though the sudden change in financial prospects and plans hit hard) but because of the shock of unpleasant change and the disruption of the men’s sense of their place in the world. Contra Cyndi Lauper, money doesn’t change everything.

In a boat (boat) (boat)

you and I will go

and we’ll sail straight North to where everything’s snow

and the narwhal

is the primary source of vitamin C

on the blogwatch sea

that’s where we’ll be…

You know that movie, “The Stuff”? Where the killer yogurt eats the yuppies? OK, so probably you don’t know it, all the better for you–but basically, I feel like The Stuff has moved into my skull for a belated Labor Day vacation. I hab a code, in other words. So blogging will be light and possibly light-headed. Blah.

Also, this post may feature the most obscure blogwatch-song yet. If you identify it, you will win a fabulous imaginary prize!

All Facts and Opinions: Why she opposes affirmative action; plus getting stopped and searched for DWB. (My take on AA is somewhat different from hers.) Via Ampersand.

Cacciaguida: operaoperaoperaoperaoperaopera. Truly a magnum opus–your guide to essential opera recordings. With fun pictures!

The MarriageDebate blog is discussing the nature of sexual attraction and sexual identity. If The Stuff vacates the premises, I will add my thoughts. What’s been posted so far is fascinating and I will definitely be adding something by, say, Friday–probably by midnight tonight.

Why the PATRIOT Act sucks. Well worth your time.

Man, The DaVinci Code is messed-up! Sandra Miesel performs the autopsy.

…and the narwhal….