Hiding in the Backwaters Just one more blog on the net.

And the debate goes on…

Over at Volokh, Dale Carpenter and Maggie Gallagher have been invited to guest blog and engage in some sort of debate on gay marriage. Ms. Gallagher is one of the administrations leading spokespersons against gay marriage. Mr. Carpenter is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, and yes, he is gay.

I started out reading Maggie Gallagher's opening article. She more or less just points you to a PDF file of some paper she had already written. I started reading hoping to see a cogent presentation that might actually get me thinking, but that didn't happen. I was with her all the way through her discussion of what marriage really is. No quibbles with her there. She lost me when she started making her case against gay marriage. Some of her arguments are ridiculous if for no other reason than she tries to assert they are issues unique to same sex couples. I made some notes as I was reading. Maybe one of these days I'll get around to blogging on them. As for the rest, it took this commentary over at "The Y Files" before I finally understood what Ms. Gallagher was trying to say.

I never did finish Ms. Gallagher's article. For starters, I just haven't had the time. There's a lot to read over there and I just don't have hours of uninterrupted time to wade through it all. For another, there doesn't seem to be anything new being said. It's the same arguments I've heard before from both sides. I suspect if there had been something that had grabbed my attention, I would have made the time to read and digest it.

The argument against gay marriage seems to center around procreation and the "fundamental differences between man and woman" which supposedly lend to a more stable household and a better environment for raising children. It is interesting that I have never seen a list of these differences enumerated. Perhaps it is believed to be self-evident, but from where I sit it looks there is a fair amount of mysticism involved.

Frankly, I think it's a pretty short list. Men have a penis and testicles and woman have a vagina and breasts. There you go folks. That's the fundamental difference between men and women. You don't have to be a sociologist to know there are greater variations in personality, temperament and physical stature among men and among women than any similar comparison across gender lines. Now can someone explain to me how having a pair of breasts and a set of testicles in the house makes for a better environment for raising children? It's definitely advantageous for making children, but how exactly does it improve circumstances for raising children?

OK. I'm being just a bit snide here, but "fundamental differences between man and woman" is just the "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" argument with a makeover, a sort of Middle America Eye for the Fundamentalist Guy kind of thing. The majority of Americans may still be uncomfortable with idea of gay marriage, but they are just as uncomfortable with religious ideology dictating public policy, hence the new sanitized version of the "because it offends God and Nature" argument. The assumption is there is something magic about a man and a woman coming together that imbues their children with the confidence and integrity to grow into responsible adults and productive members of society.

All of the assertions that a child needs a mother and a father are based exclusively on data about broken homes and dead beat dads. That's apples and oranges, people. There really isn't enough data out there to draw any conclusions about same sex parenting. What studies have been done on the children of same sex parents have used samples too small to draw any reliable conclusions beyond "looks good so far." If someone can produce an honest unbiased study—difficult in this arena— that shows a significant advantage for children of opposite sex households, I'd be willing to back down, but you'll never convince me that a stable, loving, same sex household is worse than many alternatives already out there.

I think we all know people who have no business being parents, people who are too dysfunctional to manage their own lives reasonably without the added stress and responsibility of raising children. However, they are physically capable of creating babies, so no one would dream interfering with their God given right to f*** up their kids. In fact, I suspect that many hope children will affect some change in the personality of the parent, that they will "finally settle down" or "pull their head out" or "think about someone besides themselves." Yeah, that's a good idea. Even people who are otherwise responsible and smart can make dumb decisions when it comes to relationships, myself included.

I have a cousin, Z, who is a walking disaster area. She is the mother of at least three children, none in her custody. A was raised by Z's mother and her second husband. A is the doting mother of six and, by all accounts, a reasonably healthy adult who is now caring for her "mother" in her advancing years and failing health. B was also placed with Z's mother, but after several months B's father took him back. C was born addicted to cocaine or maybe crack. I don't remember now. Z's brother tried to raise the child, but she was more than he and his family could handle. She is more than most families can handle. Luckily for C, my mother found a loving family with the willingness to take on the burden and the financial resources to deal with C's health and emotional issues. My family assumes there are others we don't know about. If there are others, I can only assume they ended up with their various fathers or wards of the state.

My cousin is a sad story. She is also the product of a male/female home, albeit a violent one. I am learning there is a lot that went on of which I was not aware. I was a kid. I didn't need to know. I have never heard talk of child abuse, but I am grateful I never had to witness the fights between my aunt and her husband. My dad recently told me of a time he went running to their home—they lived about half a block away at the time—because one of my cousins had shown up at our door terrified something terrible was going to happen. We can't blame Z's dysfunction on a broken home since she ran away before my aunt finally threw the man out.

This is a very personal example, but I could give others. The joys of apartment living.

Now here is my point. Putting a man and a woman together guarantees nothing about parenting skills or the stability of the relationship or the home. It seems to me that more paramount that a male/female pair is a stable, loving home. I want someone to explain to me how Z was better off with her fighting, screaming heterosexual parents than with stable, loving queers. Despite protestations to the contrary, people are making qualitative judgments about the parental fitness of homosexuals. I'm sorry; if you are trying to define a social policy that excludes homosexuals from parenting, you are basically saying they are unfit parents. Falling back on biology and conceding that biological children of homosexuals should not be taken from their custody is hardly a concession worth talking about. Biology always trumps sanity unless the child is in manifest mortal danger.

If you are inventing a social policy that defines parental fitness, when are you going to start vetting heteros for their parental fitness? Maybe we could start by forbidding children in the first two years of marriage to make sure the relationship will survive. Maybe we should evaluate the emotional maturity of both parties and determine exactly how many children (if any) the couple is capable of rearing effectively. Maybe would should mandate prison time for drug addicts not on Norplant or mandate sterilization after your second drug addicted baby, if not the first.

These suggestions sound ridiculous only because no one would dream of placing such restrictions on heterosexual couples. Well, there probably are some who dream, but they at least know that the vast majority of society would find such measures abhorrent. Society lets any man and woman come together and hopes for the best. Intervention is allowed only in extreme circumstances on a case by case basis. And yet, no one has a problem making blanket judgments about homosexuals and their home environments.

I am by no means suggesting that homosexuals aren't subject to the same shortcomings as their heterosexual counterparts. There have recently been very public cases of same-sex relationships ending with resulting squabbling over children. (Grow up, people.) Before anyone starts pointing fingers, however, I'd like to introduce my friends Mr. Pott and Ms. Kettle. My point isn't that all homosexuals will make great parents. My point is that society should allow them the same latitude it gives straight couples: it should be willing to let them come together and hope for the best.

I get the concerns people have about same-sex parenting. It's something very new. Many people are still reeling from homosexuality having burst onto the public stage. There are only a handful of children in the current generation who are being raised in same-sex households. The rest of us grew up in traditional opposite-sex households, and so did their parents, and their parents before them. Conservatives are all about tradition and the status quo. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Liberals are more about evolution and change. There's nothing wrong with that either. In fact, I think it's healthy that both sides exist to act as a break on the impulses of the other, either of which, taken to extremes, is manifestly bad for humanity.