Let's assume gay marriages were really worse... [Blogathon 5\/12]<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This post is number five of twelve for the Secular Student Alliance Blogathon. \u00a0I'm responding to comments in the "Go Ahead, Tell Me What's Wrong with\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/06\/lets-assume-gay-marriages-were-really-worse-blogathon-512.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Let's assume gay marriages were really worse... 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{"id":3480,"date":"2012-06-11T13:05:16","date_gmt":"2012-06-11T17:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=3480"},"modified":"2013-01-16T01:08:31","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T06:08:31","slug":"lets-assume-gay-marriages-were-really-worse-blogathon-512","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/06\/lets-assume-gay-marriages-were-really-worse-blogathon-512.html","title":{"rendered":"Let’s assume gay marriages were really worse… [Blogathon 5\/12]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This point came up a couple of times during the thread, so there\u2019s not any specific comment I want to link back to. Some of the Christians wanted to know if gay marriages actually turned out to be worse<\/em> on average than straight marriages (maybe proven by fixing the statistical and methodological problems in Blogathon post one<\/a>, or maybe a reference to Dan Savage\u2019s monagam-ish<\/em> model<\/a>), would we withdraw our support? \u00a0For the sake of the gays themselves as much as everyone else?<\/p>\n

There are two kinds of responses to this question: first, we can follow the example of Alex<\/a>, and ask whether other classes of people should be barred from posting banns, because their\u00a0ethnic, socio-economic, or data-mining result group has a poor track record in matrimony. \u00a0Most of us would say no.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s another argument to make. \u00a0The commenters are claiming that if gay marriages turn out worse that straight marriages, we should keep them illegal. \u00a0That\u2019s not really the right comparison to make. \u00a0What we want to do is contrast outcomes for married same-sex partners and same-sex couples who would like<\/em> to get married by cannot. \u00a0That way, we\u2019re actually approximating the marginal impact of gay marriage on gays.<\/p>\n

Evelyn Waugh is kind of on my side for methodological point here. \u00a0In what may be an apocryphal story, he was taken to task for his behavior by a fellow guest at a dinner party who asked how he could be so rude and call himself a Catholic. \u00a0Waugh replied: \u201cImagine how insufferable I would be if I were not<\/em> a Catholic!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"