Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Day 17

I know. It has been entirely too long. The problem is, once I put that book down, I struggled to pick it up.

It was always around, taunting me. Taunting me from my bedside table. Teasing me on my coffee table. Calling out to me from inside my pocketbook, “Tatiana! Read me! You have blog readers curious about what additional nonsense lies inside these pages that wills slowly drive you to madness.”

Finally, after remember one of the new rules I learned in “The Happiness Project” (because I can never read one book at a time) “tackle a nagging task” I picked up a highlighter, a notepad and this god-forsaken book.

And oh boy am I glad I did. I forgot how much fun it can be to laugh at idiots.


We continue with the explanation about why the state should be involved in the regulation of marriage in the first place. I can’t argue with the premise that society is better off when we are all invested in the well being of the next generation (and the one after that) and yes, after the passage of no fault divorces and society’s general acceptance of the divorcee, divorces skyrocketed. Of course, how that isn’t an argument for banning no-fault divorces is beyond. But hey, I didn’t go to Harvard.

The discussion about how marriage actually binds three parties -- the husband, the wife and society, I found particularly interesting. The authors bring up a valid point: when the state recognizes a marriage – everyone else has to. So, say there is a law on the books that states if a woman if married and a man enters her room, impersonating her husband and engages in intercourse with her, it is rape like this California law (from 1872); that intruder is being forced to recognize the validity of her marriage and is therefor a rapist. That a single woman, as it turns out, doesn't have the same protection is a matter for another post.

Of course, in California, it is currently not the law for two women (or two men) to get married, so a homosexual couple wouldn’t be protect by this law either. Further proving the Supreme Court's point in Brown v. the Board of Education Topeka, Kansas: Separate is not equal. Civil unions do not a marriage make. 

Onward. The authors make a final impassioned plea for why the states need to regulate marriage. Because it protects society. Much like traffic laws (yes, they are comparing one’s right to get married to one’s right to obtain a driver’s license – I couldn’t make this up). The obvious fault in this logic is that the state isn’t allowed to discriminate as to who can and can’t get a license. If you are of age and pass the pre-requisites, you get to drive a car. The state can’t say to a young woman, after she has passed all the necessary tests, “Oh, yeah, hey, nice work. Congratulations on passing and all, but you have blonde hair and blue eyes and I have seen “Clueless” enough times to know you must be a terrible driver. So, come back after you’ve dyed your hair. Buh-bye.”

So, after that bulletproof argument, we are back to talking all about how important it is for children to be raised by married biological parents. According to the book, children fared far worse when raised in a “single-motherhood, cohabitation, joint custody after divorce, and stepparenting” household. Fascinating. I noticed there wasn’t a specific mention of gay couples. Are you lumping them under cohabitation? Stepparenting?

And of course, there have been extensive studies proving children raised by married, gay couples also fare worse, right?

No?

Again, interesting. So, children raised by married parents do the best, but we don’t have a lot of studies of married gay couples raising children BECAUSE MOST GAY COUPLES CAN’T GET MARRIED.

Like I said, fascinating.

I pointed this out before, but I have to say, again, to Anonymous and the authors – if this is all about the future of our children and we can all agree that every study proves children raised in households where the parents were married and remained married fared best – why aren’t we talking about banning divorce.

Or licensing parents?

But wait. This wasn’t even my favorite part of the chapter.

I mentioned in my earlier post that I wondered how the authors would deal with the issue of polygamy. In my head, I assumed they would blissfully ignore it. I assumed they were too smart to touch this topic, especially after pointing out that allowing gay marriage would inevitably lead to polygamy and eventual lawlessness.

Here, on page 48 we learn that exclusivity is not even that important in the conjugal view of marriage – so long as rearing children remains the central focus. Yes, other cultures throughout history have had different opinions about what is important and what is moral. So, yes, “permanent, exclusive commitment -- is less represented. Hence the presence of polygamy in many cultures.” And then a footnote:
Unlike a union that involves coitus, children and permanent commitment, but not (say) exclusivity, the partnerships of two men or three women lacks even what is most basic to marriage. So such partnerships cannot even be seen as imperfect participation in the good of marriage; they are not true marriages at all.


To be clear. The authors aren’t talking about a man being married to two women not counting as marriage – that is an“imperfect participation in marriage.” They are saying that two men, or two women (or three women – wherever the hell that came from) who are exclusively engaged in a bodily union with a connection to creating and raising children aren’t involved in true marriages.

If you recall, earlier the making babies part wasn't all that important either, whether a couple couldn't make a baby or just didn't want to, so long as the couple was engaged in coitus. And coitus here is defined as a penis penetrating a vagina.

It gets better. They then rail against polyamory (again) (I thought these dudes went to Harvard, you think they would be too smart to bring it up right after pointing out that polygamy was cool). Because, again, if you want gay marriage, you can’t not allow polyamory, which would eventually lead to the downfall of society. The same can’t be said for polygamy because, again with another footnote:



Polygamy -- whereby a man can have more than one wife -- would undermine women’s social and political equality. But the proposal considered here is polyamory (emphasis theirs): legal recognition of a group (of whatever (again them, not me) gender distribution) as a sexual-romantic unit.


But hey, I mean, if women have to lose their social and political statuses, that’s okay. They have only had them for what? Less than 50 years. It is not as if they have gotten used to them. But gay marriage! Gay marriage will result in polyamory and that could bring our whole society to a screeching halt.

Raise your hand if you think it might be time for our current society to come to a screeching halt.

Also, these dickheads are okay with arranged marriages, because there is nothing saying an arranged marriage can’t be consensual. Tell that to these little girls, you effin’ pricks.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, you gave it an honest effort, so I'll give you partial credit.

However, I'm not sure you really do justice to the main points the authors are making.

Just one example. You write:

"the state isn’t allowed to discriminate as to who can and can’t get a license."

Ummmm, tell that to my 13-year-old nephew. Or my neighbor with three DUIs. Or my 96 year-old granny.

Roughly 90% of what the state does is discriminate.

You seem to realize this, as you follow up with:

"If you are of age and pass the pre-requisites, you get to drive a car."

Well the age limits and various prerequisites are by definition discriminatory.

But all of this is beside the point.

The genesis of this exercise was your distress about your father -- whom you acknowledge is a good and admirable human being -- not favoring state-sanctioned gay marriage.

His position on this public policy issue is more alarming to you than his other views, because you can't imagine how a good person could be against gay marriage. You seem to think that anyone who is against gay marriage must be motivated by hatred, fear or bigotry.

You don't allow for the possibility that someone could come to your dad's conclusion for legitimate reasons.

I thought maybe if you were exposed to lengthy expositions on your dad's view, you might change your mind, NOT on the issue, but about whether or not it's even okay for a good person to support keeping the marriage status quo.

I appear to have been wrong. Not only do you disagree with the authors of this book on the merits, they are idiots, pricks, and dickheads.

Well.

Again, good on you for at least reading the thing.

Tatiana said...

I'm still reading the book, and so far they contradict all their main points and have yet to offer a legitimate reason for their conclusions -- which is why I call them idiots.

And, yes, if you write that arranged marriages can be consensual without at the very least acknowledging for the most part they aren't, then I will call you a prick and a dickhead and also talking (or typing) out of your ass.

As for being a good person who supports maintaining the marriage status quo, if you can give me a good reason for it, I will listen, but simply telling me it is because you don't like the way two people's parts match up sounds like bigotry to me.

Anonymous said...

"have yet to offer a legitimate reason for their conclusions."

The overall health of society isn't a legitimate reason?

"if you write that arranged marriages can be consensual without at the very least acknowledging for the most part they aren't'"

That would seem to go without saying.

"if you can give me a good reason for it, I will listen."

What's your dad's reason again?

Hell, what was Barack Obama's reason until he changed his mind five minutes ago?

Because the garden variety reason has to do with children's well-being.

Divorce isn't outlawed because that would make things worse.

Parents don't need a license (outside of Robert Heinlein novels) because that would be a draconian, fascist imposition of state power. We're definitely headed in that direction, however.

"simply telling me it is because you don't like the way two people's parts match up . . ."

Ummm, yeah, so, no, that's not what the authors are saying. Even if all I had to go on was your review, I'd be able to gather that much.



jw said...

Anonymous,

Why are you so condescending?

You'll give her "partial credit" for what? Is there some sort of prize that comes with currying your favor?

Tatiana said...

The overall health of society is a fantastic reason. But the authors have yet to tell me how allowing two men to get married negatively impacts the overall health of society.

My dad doesn't have a reason, which is the whole point of my original blog.

I believe Barack Obama's reason was a religious one. Either way, he has switched his position.

I'm not actually suggesting we license parents or outlaw divorce. I am simply pointing out that if this really is for the good of the children, those two options make more sense to me and need to be considered if we really want to fix marriage in America.

And yes, the authors are saying exactly that. They define marriage (and I am paraphrasing because I don't have the book with me) as an exclusive conjugal family-focused relationship. Except, when it isn't exclusive (polygamy) or family-focused (the couple doesn’t want to have children) which are both acceptable to the authors so long as the couple is engaged in coitus -- which they define as a man having sex with a woman. How isn't this about how people's part match up?

Anonymous said...

"Why are you so condescending?"

It's a defense mechanism. I'm terribly insecure about my intellect.

"You'll give her 'partial credit' for what?"

For going outside of her comfort zone and reading a book written by people who espouse political views she deems to be terrible and dishonorable. Most people don't do that, and I believe she honestly wants to know what the hell people are thinking when they say they want to preserve the government's recognition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

She'd get full credit if her review wasn't so full of ad homonym attacks and snarky asides, attacking the motives of the authors.

"Is there some sort of prize that comes with currying your favor?"

Only in the cosmic sense. I'm convinced that people who curry my favor receive all sorts of karmic benefits.

But nothing tangible, no.

jw said...

Anonymous,

I suppose then that I need to ask what are your motives behind your comments? Aside from obviously fulfilling some psychological need to anonymously attack someone who writes an opinion contrary to your own, I can't imagine what it could possibly be.

Is it to somehow repair a father/daughter relationship that you deem as "broken," if so, will she be billed for this service or are you doing this pro bono?

Your comments have gone from mildly amusing yet condescending to annoying. Can't you go somewhere else and pat people on the head?



Anonymous said...

"I suppose then that I need to ask what are your motives behind your comments? "

I thought I was engaging a blogger on an issue she chose to write about for a public audience.

"Aside from obviously fulfilling some psychological need to anonymously attack someone who writes an opinion contrary to your own, I can't imagine what it could possibly be."

The world is nothing but opinions contrary to my own, and at no point did I "attack" Tatiana.

"Is it to somehow repair a father/daughter relationship that you deem as "broken," if so, will she be billed for this service or are you doing this pro bono?"

From what I gather, there is nothing "broken" and I would never presume to try to repair a relationship between two strangers.

"Your comments have gone from mildly amusing yet condescending to annoying. Can't you go somewhere else and pat people on the head?"

Well I'm sorry if I come across as a condescending jackass, but this is a pretty irreverent blog. It's not like this is the Oxford Union.

She's been posting about issues that are very interesting to me, and I'm responding.

In a relatively short period of time, gay marriage has gone from something laughable and absurd, to something you dare not oppose in public. I am legitimately fascinated by that. I'm wondering why that happened. What else does it apply to? What does it mean? Are people who oppose same-sex marriage the new racists? Will they be drummed out of polite society?

If that's the case, that is amazing, because there seem to be some huge double standards floating around this issue.

Politicians get a pass for being on the wrong side, as long as they throw out some vague "religious" justification for it (Tati is being VERY generous on that, btw).

Family members we know to be good people, they don't get ostracized, even when they don't have any reason at all for their position. It's just sort of instinctual.

But when two academics try to put some meat on those bones in a book-length article, they are two ticks away from being child pornographers on the evil scale.

I'm sorry the book has been so disappointing.

However, if you desire to see gay marriage legalized, especially in a state like Pennsylvania, you're going to need to win over some conservative-minded folks. Think about it, just a few years ago, CALIFORNIA voted to keep traditional marriage the law. How do you like your chances there?

So you may as well have your counter-points to their objections.