Gay Marriage No Thanks
A new campaign has been launched today with the following advert in the Times of London.
Hmmmmmmm…. What do we think. Points 1 to 3 are good but after that I think it begins to tail off.
A new campaign has been launched today with the following advert in the Times of London.
Hmmmmmmm…. What do we think. Points 1 to 3 are good but after that I think it begins to tail off.
It might seem like that to some of us who live in this world, Peter, but this was obviously timed to coincide with the House of Lords debate, and many of the peers will not know all this stuff. I am often amazed, when talking to people who live in the real world, how little they know, as they have not given the matter more than ten seconds’ thought, and who still believe the ‘born gay’ and ‘cannot change’ canards.
The ‘born gay’ and ‘cannot change’ canards, whatever one may think about them, are indeed of little or no relevance to the gay marriage debate. I know of no supporter (or professed supporter) of traditional heterosexual marriage who bases his or her support even partially on the ‘born straight’ or ‘cannot change [from heterosexual to homosexual]’ canards.
The prediction that “All school children will be taught that as adults they can have marriage relationships with either men or women†may understandably alarm some people, but even if it is true, the ultimate effect of such avant-garde teaching will, in practical terms, be small. There is certainly no reason to suppose that it will lead adolescents who fancy only people of the opposite sex to start fancying people of the same sex instead, and, on reaching adulthood, to contract same-sex marriages. If, however, it reduces pressure on homosexual adolescents to force themselves into pseudo-heterosexual straitjackets, that is surely a prospect to be unreservedly welcomed.
Point 6 may be valid, although I have my doubts about “commonly” – HOW commonly? – but in any case does not affect the same-sex marriage question one way or the other. With regard to Point 8, there is no evidence that the Bill is inspired by the odd theories of a very small minority of cranks.
Observing my own bias in this debate, I am in favour of equal marriage and therefore don’t like the bill. However, my thoughts:
a. Am I imagining or do I remember you producing some statistics that showed that 7 is very hard to defend?
b. I’m not sure why 6 is relevant!
c. I think 10 is a fine arguement in favour: from a civic point of view (and we don’t legislate for the religious position anymore, like it or not) if it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck and tastes like a duck, why not just call it a duck!
d. Whilst 1-3 make a reasonable point (though I know little enough social science to speak to the veracity or otherwise of the claim), they do only make one point, doesn’t really spread to 3 different ones.
e. Likewise 4, I’d be very interested to read more on the study, shall see if I can locate the cited source, and see how the conclusion has been reached.
So, I think I might reach the same conclusion as you!
Tom
a) The reverse – the evidence seems very clear that the introduction of SSM led to a dramatic decline in other-sex marriage.
b) I guess it’s connected with the idea that gay marriage will be “promoted” in schools. Gay marriage becomes one more structure promoting homosexuality to teens who are actually not homosexual but just going through the normal variances of the puberty period.
c) But it undermines the idea that gay people are being denied a “right”. CPs provide all legal protections marriage do.
d) Hmmmm…. :-)
e) Yes – do read more. Part of the reasons I made the choices I did was because as a statistician I saw very clearly that the “born gay” arguments didn’t stand up in terms of the research.
I’m not sure I see a general trend to ‘promote’ as opposed to not discriminate. And it makes no difference whether it’s a choice or not – people’s choice deserve not to be discriminated against for being ‘wrong’
Re (c), makes me further support the idea of creating a separation of state marriage from religious marriage. Let the former be more open – a social contract for tax purposes – with a different name if necessary; and the Church can then work out what the Church thinks.
Got any links to that born gay research? I have too long a book list to be spending a fiver on a Kindle book for this exercise, but do have access to academic sources more freely.
“And it makes no difference whether it’s a choice or not – people’s choice deserve not to be discriminated against for being ‘wrong'”
This is basically Andrew Sullivan’s argument.
Re “Born Gay”, this is a good starting summary – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation
I’m not familiar with Andrew Sullivan, but based on a quick Google, I think I might agree at least somewhat yes.
And that wiki link strikes me as more saying no link proven, rather than proven no link (if the distinction makes sense!).Though I do appreciate, as with many nature vs nurture questions, ‘proof’ is hard to obtain.
I’m not a proper statistician, I only did a little during my maths degree and I wasn’t very good at it then, so whilst I appreciate criticism of selection bias, the studies listed suggesting concordance seem an awful lot larger than the alternatives arguing against (except the Swedish one, for which I’d need to read what biometric modelling they mean before commenting)
“No link proven” is ultimately where we are at, though there is some good evidence to suggest a genetic/biological portion of causation (and equally a large nurture component).
Selection bias tends to be a problem when exploring sociological outcomes (so for example gay parenting). That’s why the studies by Regenerus and Potter are so useful (even with their flaws) because they use random samples which have been utilised for other bits of research as well. I would happily take a smaller random sample over a larger biased sample collected by specific request.
Re: a) The latest research from America suggests there has been no impact on heterosexual marriage in terms of the states who have voted for same-sex marriage.
I also gather Spain changed the divorce law at the same time as introducing same sex marriage?
I agree with Tom: points 1, 2 ,and 3 all serve to make the same point. I also agree with Peter that the list then fades away. However, points 1, 2, and 3 – taken as a whole – are the reason a million marched through Paris. So, do any weaknesses in the other points really matter?
Personally i would concentrate on point 8 – “Gender Theory”.
But in the UK those issues have already been dealt with. We gave gay adoption and parenting rights before considering same sex marriage
There are two aspects to this: first, the French did not previously have same-sex adoption, whereas we did. That is one reason why the French are putting up more of a fight.
Second, the pre-existence of same-sex adoption is an illusion specifically designed to hide the reality of marriage: marriage, in law, gives the right to found a family. Adoption exists in relation to a child’s needs (when a child cannot have the parents that the child had, adoption gives the child the adults that the child needs). “Same-sex marriage” does not give the “right to adopt” – because that right exists in relation to the child (and indeed already exists). Instead, they will have the right to found a family – the right will exists in relation to the same-sex partnership.
In other words, the right goes beyond adoption and into surrogacy. Legally redefining marriage gives adults the children they want – up to and including the right to separate a child from the parents that the child has. Adoption responds to orphanhood. “Same-sex marriage” gives the right to create orphans so that they can then be adopted. That is a totally different dynamic.
No, lesbian couples have been free to seek IVF and cannot be discriminated against because of sexual orientation, and there are examples of gay men using surrogates.
I agree that France did introduce marriage and adoption at the same time. We did adoption first in the context of civil partnership, then marriage.
If you are saying, “Two women will not be able to do anything inside marriage that they cannot already do outside marriage”, then you are right. But the question is not, “How will allowing same-sex couples to legally marry affect their legal parental status?”
In light of the fact that the law will regard the legal parental status of opposite-sex couples to be equal to that of same-sex couples, the question is, “How will it affect the legal parental status of opposite-sex couples?”
If two women can only ever be legal parents, whereas a man and a woman can be natural parents and legal parents, something has to give, doesn’t it?
IVF and adoption only apply after primary parental rights relinquished by consent or court order. Licensed fertility clinics and HFEA-regulated surrogacy follow strict regulations to ascertain donor and surrogate consent. In contrast, marriage automates the sharing of parental rights between spouses as a means of founding a permanent family.
In countries that have legalised same-sex marriage, the majority of strenuously contested cases involve a same-sex partner who has gained presumptive parenthood by marriage challenging a willing natural parent who has not relinquished their rights or responsibiltiies. Same-sex marriage permits a complete fiction of parenthood to usurp the role of a biological parental.
Presumptions are rebuttable by clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. So, in one divorce case, the lesbian mother rebutted her ex-spouses’s presumption of parenthood on the basis that it was a biological impossibility.
Courts elsewhere have also decided that the gestational (birth) mother must be prioritised over the genetic (egg donation) mother’s claims for child custody.
Ultimately, the parental rights accorded to spouses by marriage have nothing to do with subsidiary parenting options, such as IVF and adoption. They have everything to do with prioritising parental responsibility in order to protect the primary natural family unit.
MIke,
Marriage, the institution establishing the presumption, normally occurs BEFORE parenting, or bringing up a child. So, are you (as a supporter of same-sex marriage) also supporting the blanket removal of all presumptions of parenthood via marriage? On what basis, should both spouses be treated as the parents of children born to the mother? Universal DNA testing?
If you are in favour of removing all presumptions of parenthood, you (perhaps unwittingly) provide a perfect answer regarding the rhetoric question of SSM supporters: ‘HOW DOES MY SAME SEX MARRIAGE AFFECT STRAIGHT MARRIAGES?’
Your same-sex marriage legislation attempts to demolish my rights as a biological parent and replace it with legislative priority for the INTENTION TO PARENT. On that basis, if the conception occurs without the intention to parent, all biological parents would have no rights in favour of their parenthood. In other words, unintentionally conceived children would have no parents.
In contrast, pregnant women will continue to have an invincible biological right over the fate of the foetus. Or would you advocate that the State over-rules biology in that case? Liberal orthodoxy is such a tangled mess of inconsistency.
I’m not sure, but have I missed something here?
These points (1,2 & 3) appear to relate to having children. I guess we all agree that children are best raised within a loving marriage.
I would like to see more couples open themselves to the possibility that they are called to marriage, especially those with children.
Gay parenting, such as ours, does not deny anything to our children. It is deeply offensive to suggest we do.
‘Children are best raised within a loving marriage’ Of course, this assertion side-steps the critical question of ‘whose children?’. If the biological parent has defaulted or surrendered parental rights, perhaps it can be true. How about other cases? Is a single-mother’s child best raised within another person’s loving marriage? Is a willing and involved biological father’s child best raised within someone else’s loving marriage?
In the California case, In re: M.C., it might have been deeply offensive to the lesbian couple that the biological father of the child expected the courts to consider him as much the presumed parent of his child as the mother’s new marriage partner.
Even though, he attended pre-natal classes with the mother and supported his daughter long after the mother broke up with him while pregnant to marry her former lover. According to you, his daughter is best raised within a loving marriage. So, would that mean that the claims of a partner (unrelated to the child) are superior?
Some might ask, ‘What could a biological father add to anything a gay couple might provide for child?’ Well, just as citizenship is chiefly grounded in native national origin, family identity is firstly grounded in genetic origin. The two essential components of a person’s genetic origin confer that person’s primary source of formative identity. Adoption is a subsidiary system that becomes an option only where biological parenting has been surrendered, or lost.
As proposed by California Senator Leno, the Governor-vetoed ‘solution’ to the presumptionn of parenthood by same-sex marriage was to legalise three-parent families. I’m also sure that the very thought is also grossly offensive that a similar UK law could be precipitated by same-sex marriage, thereby undermining the primacy of biological kinship that marriage should uphold.
What doesn’t appear to offend is undermining the rights of biological fathers, chiefly because there is an fasle dichotomy of heterosexual/homosexual family arrangements.
How can I answer this in a manner that isn’t going to offend you?
Simply put, the statement “Intact Biological Families provide the gold standard for the wellbeing of children” is an objective statement of observed fact. That does not mean that every IBF is better than every non-IBF, rather that **on average** IBF children do better than children from other environments.
The only thing gay parenting cannot offer children which IBF can is their intact biological family (or for that case a mother and father role-model). Nothing more, nothing less.
Peter, I do not feel offence from you.
The problem with this is the proclamation is flawed.
It creates a plethora of second/third rate families.
We may say that children who go to Eton have better outcomes but that doesn’t make those of us who sent our kids to the local Comp were
I think the comparison that AM might make is if you had the ability to send your kids to Eton but chose not to. I guess that’s their beef with gay adoption – *on average* the children raised by gay parents don’t do as well as those who remain in IBFs.
Of course, the real comparison they should make is between children adopted by gay families and those adopted in other environments (or remaining in care). I think Daniel Potter’s work (https://www.peter-ould.net/2012/07/18/daniel-potter-on-gay-parenting/) might give some indication but really we need a specific randomised trial to answer the question. However, if we say adoptive families are similar to step-families then same-sex parents come out quite well.
The problem with a lot of this research is that it tries to analyse quantitatively. Whereas only qualitative research will give any real insight (I happen to think that for the vast majority of things in life, but that’s for another day….)
The reasons why married parents do better are largely because there are other advantages which married parents have and these can be seen in terms of correlation. The ‘married’ bit is simply a recognition that people who are better off and in stable relationships are more likely to marry. If you made all poor, single parents, those who adopt kids from abusive homes etc, marry, there would be no correlation.
The mistake you make is that marriage itself changes the more stable families. I think its the other way round – that the stable families are more likely to marry
And even then the divorce rate is nearing 40%
Peter,
The proclaimed ‘gold standard’ differentiation merely reflects the shift in 20th century public policy regarding legal parenthood.
Whereas the rights of fathers were prioritised in custody cases until the early 1900s, this was legally superseded by the ‘best interests of the child’ doctrine. Central to this is the involvement of social workers and Family Court advisers who provide an assessment of likely impact of a new custody arrangements and likely outcome comparisons.
The evidence-based ‘best interests’ approach is now accepted and can justify the almost invincible priority that the law accords to biological mothers and maintaining the stability of a child’s current environment. Single fathers clearly come of worse, but there’s little liberal sympathy for them.
So, (and this is not rhetorical) why can’t marriage laws continue to reflect a similar ‘evidence- based’ prioritisation of biological kinship?
The parenting stuff is hardly affected at all by the marriage legislation in any case. There is already the possibility of same sex parenting via a range of options – and that will continue whether there is same sex marriage or not. So, 1-3 are already redundant in terms of the legal position. I don’t agree with them in any case – as a gay man who was not brought up by my ‘biological’ parents, I’m quite happy with my lot!
I wonder why these points weren’t dealt with when the actual legislation was changed on parenting and adoption?
Mike,
Marriage, the institution establishing the presumption, normally occurs BEFORE parenting, or bringing up a child. So, are you (as a supporter of same-sex marriage) also supporting the blanket removal of all presumptions of parenthood via marriage? On what basis, should both spouses be treated as the parents of children born to the mother? Universal DNA testing?
If you are in favour of removing all presumptions of parenthood, you (perhaps unwittingly) provide a perfect answer regarding the rhetoric question of SSM supporters: ‘HOW DOES MY SAME SEX MARRIAGE AFFECT STRAIGHT MARRIAGES?’
Your same-sex marriage legislation attempts to demolish my rights as a biological parent and replace it with legislative priority for the INTENTION TO PARENT. On that basis, if the conception occurs without the intention to parent, all biological parents would have no rights in favour of their parenthood. In other words, unintentionally conceived children would have no parents.
In contrast, pregnant women will continue to have an invincible biological right over the fate of the foetus. Or would you advocate that the State over-rules biology in that case? Liberal orthodoxy is such a tangled mess of inconsistency.
A bit of good news from Hansard last midnight. Remember that lawyers and judges will refer to the statements made at Committee Stage, if there is any ambiguity in interpreting the law:
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
For example, Section 42 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, to which the right reverend Prelate has already referred, provides that a mother’s civil partner will be treated in law as the child’s second female parent if she consented to the mother’s artificial insemination. The 2008 Act will, as a result of this Bill, be amended to allow a mother’s same-sex spouse to be treated in law as the child’s second female parent in that situation and consequently to have parental responsibility.
It would not be sensible for the law simply to presume that a second female parent is the child’s legal parent, since the second female parent could not be the biological parent, and there are established processes for that second female parent to be treated in law as the parent and consequently to have parental responsibility.
In certain circumstances, two men who are married can both be considered as the child’s legal parents and consequently have parental responsibility—for example, where both men have adopted the child.’
The primacy of biological parenthood has prevailed.