- Home
- About Us
- Contributors
- Departments
- Topics
- Back Issues
- Weekly Archives
- AmSpecBlog
- Subscribe
- Newsletter
- Advertise
- Donate
- Contact Us
- Daily Digest
- Templeton Essays
The Marital Spectator
Judges Not
Since 1993, when Hawaii's state supreme court began threatening to inflict a radically new definition of marriage on an unwilling populace, the gay marriage debate has generally played out along predictable lines. Judges rule that marriage as it has always existed in our society is somehow unconstitutional. The people, either directly or through their elected representatives, reassert the validity of existing constitutional and social norms.
By the time Hawaii’s highest court finally made good on its threats in 1997, the federal government had already passed legislation stating that it would not recognize same-sex marriage and that no state had to do so. Enacted during an election year, the Defense of Marriage Act sailed through the House by 342 to 67 and the Senate by 85 to 14. It was signed into law by Bill Clinton, who had been more sympathetic to gay rights than any president in history. Then Hawaii’s voters made it a moot point, amending their state constitution to reaffirm traditional marriage through a ballot initiative that won nearly 70 percent of the vote.
Every time the voters have gotten to rule on same-sex marriage, their verdict has been the same: a resounding “I don’t.” This has been as true in Democratic states like Hawaii, Oregon, Wisconsin, and California, where Golden State African Americans turned out in large numbers to pull the lever for both Barack Obama and Proposition 8, as in deeply conservative states like Mississippi. Arizona narrowly rejected a defense-of-marriage amendment in 2006 because opponents convinced a critical mass of voters that it would affect benefits for elderly roommates. When the language was clarified, Arizonans voted against same-sex marriage in 2008.
Vermont’s state legislature has fundamentally altered this pattern by overriding the governor’s veto of a bill allowing same-sex marriage in the Green Mountain State. For the first time, marriage was being redefined democratically rather than by judicial fiat. The old procedural arguments linking same-sex marriage to activist judges will no longer suffice. Social conservatives will have to see what is left of the “marriage culture” in this country if they are to prevail.
In truth, the ground has been subtly shifting for the past decade. De facto same-sex marriage first came to Vermont the same way it did everywhere else. In 1999, the state supreme court ordered the legislature to give same-sex couples the same benefits as married men and women. Yet the elected officials in Montpelier flinched from calling this new arrangement “marriage,” instead creating the parallel institution of “civil unions.” The state constitution gave the voters no recourse through ballot initiative, but the Defense of Marriage Act confined the damage to Vermont’s state lines.
Something similar occurred in Massachusetts when the commonwealth’s supreme judicial court imposed same-sex marriage in November 2003. The process for amending the state constitution was difficult— an amendment must pass in two consecutive legislative sessions before it can reach the ballot— allowing liberal legislators to keep the issue away from the electorate. Thus same-sex marriage endured in Massachusetts as well, though limited to in-state residents by a 1913 statute as well as by federal law. Since then, the state supreme courts of Connecticut and Iowa have ruled in favor of gay marriage, bringing the total number of such states to four.
Yet what started through judicial activism began to acquire a kind of democratic legitimacy over time. There was a “Take Back Vermont” backlash against a handful of pro-civil union legislators, but it was insufficient. In Massachusetts, the backlash against legislators who kept the people from voting on full gay marriage was practically nonexistent. By late 2003, polls started showing a plurality of Massachusetts voters in favor of same-sex marriage even though a defense-of-marriage amendment had been considered likely to pass in the commonwealth as recently as 2002 (the legislature kept it from appearing on the ballot).
When Vermont’s legislators finally decided to go all the way on same-sex marriage, they did so with the full confidence that there would be no political consequences. Elected officials in other liberal states have been similarly emboldened. Even though Californians have twice voted against same-sex marriage, the legislature has twice tried to redefine marriage by statute (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both bills). Connecticut is getting ready to democratically legitimize its state supreme court ruling. New York Gov. David Paterson isn’t doing much right, according to the polls, but his bill to create gay marriage is one thing voters seem to like: a Siena College survey showed 53 percent of New Yorkers support the legislation while only 39 percent oppose it.
Although the numbers have declined since the mid-1990s, a majority of Americans still oppose same-sex marriage. In fact, there hasn’t been much movement on this question in national polls over the last five years despite the gay marriage juggernaut at the state level. But support for same-sex marriage has become a mainstream liberal position, like supporting abortion or gun control. The late Sen. Paul Wellstone, arguably the most liberal member of the Senate at the time, voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Today, President Obama’s opposition to gay marriage is purely nominal—he even favors the Defense of Marriage Act’s repeal, opening the door for judges to impose what he lacks the courage to do himself.
WHAT HAS PROTECTED THE national consensus against same-sex marriage for the past 16 years is precisely that it was not a blue state vs. red state issue. Popular majorities defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman virtually everywhere. Same-sex marriage was possible only in a handful of easily isolated states where there was no check against judicial activism, hemmed in by federal law and 30 state defense-of-marriage acts. The old consensus will quickly unravel if same-sex marriage is democratically enacted in more liberal states on the two coasts while being democratically opposed everywhere in between.
The ensuing debate has the potential to make our long national conflict over abortion seem tame. “Say this for abortion: It’s a geographically specific event, and once it’s over, it’s over,” observed David Frum in his column for the Week. “By contrast, there’s nothing like marriage for generating unceasing litigation, with ramifications that are sure to cross state lines.” The potential for conflict is even greater given how unpredictable state and federal courts have been on the issue, and the fact that the Obama administration can hardly be depended on to defend the constitutionality of the existing federal law.
Supporters of same-sex marriage will try to use the courts to impose their will on states where gay nuptials cannot be enacted democratically. Opponents will redouble their efforts to push for a federal marriage amendment, which would overrule the will of the voters in states like Vermont. A scenario in which liberals on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue try to gut the Defense of Marriage Act while courts overturn traditional marriage laws is easy to envision. It is much harder to see how a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage could pass, since it went nowhere under President Bush and the Republican Congress.
In 2004, the House did pass the Marriage Protection Act, which would have stopped federal courts from imposing same-sex marriage by stripping them of all jurisdiction over the issue. The Bush administration said the president would sign the bill, but it stalled in the Senate. Its author, Rep. John Hostettler of Indiana, was swept out of Congress along with the GOP majorities in 2006. Social conservative groups might be reluctant to support a new version of the bill because it would not stop state judges, like those on the Iowa and Connecticut supreme courts, from issuing gay marriage rulings.
Gay marriage proponents sense that the momentum is on their side, with New York Times columnist Frank Rich sneering that even the sophisticated pro- marriage arguments of Princeton University’s Robert George and syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher are merely “the bigots’ last hurrah.” The announcement that John McCain’s campaign manager supports same-sex marriage reveals that what passes for enlightened social commentary at the Times is on its way to becoming the bipartisan conventional wisdom. If social conservatives can’t adapt to the marriage debate’s new terrain, it will become the official history learned by their children.
Comments
Leave a Comment
Denver Todd| 6.17.09 @ 7:44AM
One interesting note on the issue is that there may be a relatively miniscule portion of the gay world that wants gay marriage, but it is all the other activist groups that will benefit somehow from the move who are the loudest proponents. Ask your average gay man what he wants, and he will probably say the status quo.
Theo N| 6.17.09 @ 9:01AM
Denver Todd, I think you are over reaching on that statement and obviously you don't have a lot of direct information on gay people. As a gay man, I do not have any immediate desires to get married and will avoid it at all costs (just like most straight men). However, I can assure you the 99.9% of gay men are not going to be apathetic about being told we aren't allowed to get married. Personally I don't know a lot of black people who ride the bus, but tell them they have to sit in the back when they do and you'll have a riot.
Pól Ó C| 6.17.09 @ 9:06AM
Denver, please allow me to be the first average gay man to fully reject your arrogant statement.
Pól Ó C| 6.17.09 @ 9:07AM
...second's good too!
:-)
Michael L. Hauschild| 6.17.09 @ 9:19AM
The social conservatives (read social engineers) are simply on the wrong side of freedom and democracy. Minuscule margins of affirmation of their positions are trumpeted as “trends” but the reality remains that those so inclined to this behavior will continue to emerge from the “closet” and be granted validation by an increasingly secular public. I constantly marvel at the myopic vehemence of the factions in this particular debate, gays have existed throughout history and their lifestyles have exhibited no personal infringement on our straight population or our nation. The legislative ebb and flow will continue, the debate will rage, but eventually the outcome is not really in doubt. The very same passions that rationalized slavery, gender and racial disenfranchisement, and prohibition will be slowly and painfully defeated. Nothing has ever been gained through the process of demonization, and those that use this tactic are always confronted and eventually defeated by facts and reality.
In the meantime, fools, don’t look now but YOUR freedoms and democracy are being disassembled. You are wasting critical time, assets, and credibility crying “mouse” while the wolf is at the door.
MikeNYC| 6.17.09 @ 9:23AM
It still amazes me that anyone with any intelligence at all thinks that the general population should vote on civil rights. It's laughable. Can anyone imagine the outcome of a vote for women's suffrage? The idea of "traditional" marriage in the 1960's was people marrying others only of their own race. I'm sure THAT traditional marriage would still be the law of the land in many states if it had come to a general vote. The simple fact is that letting two men get married harms no one and it does what marriage has always encouraged; produce a stable family unit. It really begs the question as to why anyone would want to discourage people from getting married when it produces so many benefits to society. Same sex couples have biological as well as adopted children, yet those children are denied married parents. Why? What purpose does that serve other than to discriminate against one group of children? All we see in most of these anti-marriage rants is lack of logic and personal prejudice. When someone can show me logically how stopping people from getting married benefits me or society, I'll listen, until then these rants are meaningless.
Martin McPhillips| 6.17.09 @ 9:38AM
"Gay marriage" isn't simply an attack on the meaning of marriage, it is also an attack on meaning itself. It is very much an attempt to force people to believe that 2 + 2 = 5. Any social institution, any parcel of language in fact, whose meaning is embedded in tradition such that people have never had to find words to express that meaning, can thus be rousted from its true meaning and forced into service to a lie.
"Gay marriage" is a lie directed at the meaning and truth of marriage, and at meaning and truth themselves.
The meaning and purpose of marriage, as the social institution that makes virtuous the natural opposition and complementarity of the two sexes, has nothing to do at all with homosexual relations. Only in a postmodern fabrication, where the only truth is that there is no truth, can a lie such as "gay marriage" be equated with what a marriage really is.
The lazy thinking habits now current in America and the West, blithely open to shallow mental suggestions of all sorts, are the habits of the Eloi, too shallow and narcissistic to remember the values that made the civilization around them.
paul| 6.17.09 @ 9:50AM
Sorry ,i dont know much about this ,but i know homosexuality has been legal in many countries .In my mind freedom is the most important ,as long as they wont do the bad things.
MikeVermont| 6.17.09 @ 10:05AM
Sorry MikeNYC but what is laughable is the comparison of gay marriage to the civil rights struggle. Defending traditional marriage is not about discrimination. It's about encouraging and protecting the ideal for family formation. That ideal in the US has always been one man, one women. In many other countries it is one many, multiple women. If the American general population wants to change that ideal to include gay coupling, so be it. But such a fundamental reordering of American society demands nothing less that democratic affirmation. To suggest otherwise shows an amazing lack of intelligence (to paraphase you).
The question is not how stopping gay marriage benefits society. The question is how promoting unions based on deviant sexual acts benefits society.
Philoktetes| 6.17.09 @ 10:10AM
Partric, I don't get the Air Jordan reference. Is that a gay thing that I wouldn't understand?
Big Leo| 6.17.09 @ 12:28PM
Mike says, "It still amazes me that anyone with any intelligence at all thinks that the general population should vote on civil rights. It's laughable. Can anyone imagine the outcome of a vote for women's suffrage?" Actually, the public did vote on civil rights. The great majority of states were for it. The Federal Civil Rights Act was approved by the majority of the people. Women's suffrage was likewise approved by the majority of the States before the Federal government passed the Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing it in the remaining states.
If gay marriage is as rational and civil libertarian as you claim, then you should be able to persuade the majority of the states, or the majority of people in a given state, to approve it. Your view of the voting populace seems to be that they are sheep who need to be herded. That's . . . well . . . unAmerican, don't you think?
If you persuade people to accept gay marriage and they encourage their legislatures to vote for it, you win. If you merely have the court declare it as a right, you gain the substance, but not the reality, which is acceptance by the people. The result is more division, not less. Whichever party will then support the people in their disagreement will swamp the other.
KyMouse| 6.17.09 @ 12:31PM
I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why any combination of people shouldn't be allowed to marry. Seems to me that once we throw out what the Bible and long-standing Western tradition say about marriage, i.e. between one man and one woman, there is no reason to keep any two (or more) people who are in love from marrying. All I hear is that multiple/incestuous/whatever marriages would never happen, and that even bringing them up for discussion is a red herring. Well, a decade or so ago, I never would have believed we'd be seeing same-sex marriages. So please, someone, explain to me why freeform marriages wouldn't, and/or shouldn't, be allowed as well.
Gary| 6.17.09 @ 2:52PM
As far as "gay marriage" becoming accepted it is no surprise to me as most now have no respect or regard for regular marriage as shacking up, divorcing for any reason, not caring for offspring etc. is accepted widely. So why not let gays indulge their little fad & fantsy that their "marriages" are real? Forty% of kids are born out of wedlock so marriage is a joke to many. Look at all the pols, fooling around, supposedly the best we have to offer? If they are the best what are the rest of us whan it comes to personal morality? The truth is it doesn't matter if we are personally immoral, just so long as we are "socially" moral & care about the enviornment, global warming, affirmative action, the right to abortion, stem cell research, accept all cultures as equal & are not homophobic. So big deal if we don't marry, violate wedding vows, & don't rear our kids?
mean homo | 6.17.09 @ 3:02PM
I just wish HRC and all these other spoiled, pampered urban elite eggheads would just shut the ____ up about gay marriage. I would MUCH rather see a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Frankly, I don't give a flying rats ___ if two dykes in Vermont can get married or not. Anyone who sees themselves as trod upon in this day and age is weak and pathetic, and they need to stop their whining. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ruins more lives then Fran and Emily not being able to get free stuff from their friends. Boo hoo hoo, like, I'm so upset. I'm sure The Indigo Girls will write a song about it.
MikeNYC| 6.17.09 @ 3:48PM
Once again, nothing but misinformation and lack of logic. MikeVermont, you do realize that one of the first people to make the comparison between the black civil rights movement and the gay fight for rights was Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr. If you can show me that your involvement in the civil rights movement of the 1960s was greater than hers, I listen, otherwise, I'll take HER word for it. You talk about encouraging families, yet have no interested in two gay men and their two children. Please explain why they are not a family and while you're at it, which other families don't meet your standard. America encourages the stability of the family unit and there is NO proscribed combination that I'm aware of since many single women adopt or have biological children every day. Your prejudicial comment about "deviant" pretty much reveals, once again, the lack of logic in your statements.
As for BigLeo, please tell us the date and ballot where the public voted for women's suffrage and for the civil rights legislation. Considering the entire south vehemently opposed it, I would definitely like to see that vote count. The fact is in both cases only a tiny minority of people were for the legislations. In 1967, when the US Supreme court overturned anti-miscegenation laws, polls showed that less than 20% of the country was in favor of mixed race marriage. You can attempt, on a comment board, to re-write history but the facts are there for all to see. We don't vote on civil rights and we never have. That is un-America.
doart| 6.17.09 @ 8:36PM
It's the counter-cultural boomer doofuses who never fully accepted gay people; and, newsflash to all the hopey-changers, blacks can't stand gays, the bamster ain't gonna so squat for the queers, so better to sober up now and ask yourselves, is this the change you voted for?
MikeVermont| 6.17.09 @ 10:00PM
MikeNYC. You continue to be confused on a number of issues. First, women's sufferage became the law of the land with the 19th amendment to the Constitution which passed in congress by the required 2/3s majority. That's US style democracy. Creating law through judicial fiat is clearly undemocratic and therefor un-American.
Second, changing the definition of marriage is not a civil rights issue. Reading, or misreading, Coretta Scott King does not change that. Everyone is treated equally with regard to marriage. Any man can marry any women without discrimination (after repeal of the miscegenation laws), and no man can marry any other man without discrimination.
Third, marriage has always been about regulating procreation - not love, or romance and not sexual acts, deviant or otherwise.
But that's really all beside the point. You want to change the definition of marriage. Okay, so what is the compelling state interest? Surely you must have a "logical" rationale other than the civil rights straw man.
hayekstheman77| 6.18.09 @ 1:09AM
As a gay guy who has a respect for religion, I would have no problem with the status quo IF the estate tax and other tax issues were abolished. However, since it doesn't seem as though the government is in a tax-abolishing mood, extending CIVIL marriage to same-sex couples should be a priority to anybody who believes in equal protection under the law. I want protection from the predatory government too dammit. (incidently, I really liked the way that the New Hampshire bill placed protections from legal action for churches and religious orgs)
Hayekstheman77| 6.18.09 @ 1:37AM
MikeVermont: Marriage has changed in purpose over many, many generations, mainly because of capitalism. Lemme be a little bit more provocative and say that the changes to marriage are quite permanent. When the family was the key economic unit, in the agrarian society, marriage was a necessity for survival. Children were essential to be able to survive, since you needed bodies in the field. With the industrial revolution, children became less important. Children became a sentimental and cherished part of the family with the invention of modern appliances. Throughout this time, marriage became less about economic necessity and became more of a luxury. With the invention of the washing machine and the microwave, the family has abandoned all of the vestiges the traditional economic purpose that families provided (in agrarian economies, the women and children worked in the fields all day long, and families were considered to be firms), something that began with the industrial revolution and the improvement in the quality of life that came from the move to an industrial society. At that time, the family moved into more of a role of companionship, social standing, emotional supporter, and a basis for sexual relationship. And with the advent of the pill and other scientific advances, sexual relationships and marriages could be NOT about procreation. The most common family arrangement in America is a husband and wife, no children. Nowadays, a person can have sex in marriage, sex out of marriage, can have sex without procreating, and can even procreate without sex. Economic growth has allowed for single parenthood to be a viable option for most, and the self-sufficiency of women in the workplace has made marriage a preference rather than a need. With all of these factors undercutting the traditional motivation for marriage (economic complementarity, economic necessity, child rearing, household division of labor [ended with the invention of the washing machine]) the only thing left that marriage fulfills, other than a basis for a sexual relationship, is love. Marriage becoming about love has made divorce more prevalent and has led to gay people wanting in on marriage, since they see nothing different in the modern marriage arrangement than the relationships that they are already in (minus the legal recognition). Case in point, why did you marry the person that you did? Was it for a complementarity of consumption??? The question becomes in modern times not "how can I live without her?" but "how can I live with her?" Love was expensive back in the days of subsistence farming, but it is much less costly nowadays and is the basis for our relationships. Now I am not saying that married couples back in the days of the agrarian society didn't love each other, but that love was not a huge factor in the decision to get married. I think that society is much better off with marriage being about love. Freidrick A. Hayek wrote that "capitalism is no respecter of tradition and culture" and I guarantee you that there are many men (as well as the entire population of women) who would not like to return to the days of "marriage not about love"
Read Stephen Horwitz
MikeNYC| 6.18.09 @ 11:04AM
MikeVermont you seem to be a bit confused here. We WERE talking about a vote of the people of the country. Passing a vote in Congress is NOT the same thing and you know it. The fact is neither women's suffrage nor civil rights legislation would have passed a general vote and EVERYONE knows it. Certainly anti-miscegenation laws would still be on the books if SCOTUS had not overturned them.
Secondly, Mrs. King was very clear in several dozen speeches that she made supporting same sex marriage and condemning discrimination against gay individuals and comparing the black civil rights movement to the gay rights movement. You are using the same rhetoric used at the time of anti-miscegenation laws, any black person could marry any other black person and any white person could marry any other white person, so where was the discrimination? Sorry that argument didn't fly then and it doesn't fly now.
Thirdly, marriage has NEVER been about procreation in this country. There are NO laws requiring the ability or even the willingness to procreate in marriage. People marry all the time with no idea or ability to procreate and to tie marriage to procreation is just silly. Not to mention all the people who procreate without marriage. You can't say its based on procreation but only for same sex couples, especially when same sex couples have biological children all the time. That argument doesn't fly either.
Finally, there is ALWAYS a compelling state interest in supporting and creating stable families. That has been stated many hundreds of times for many reasons. The simple fact that you want to pick and choose which families YOU personally find acceptable and which ones you don't is irrelevant to the compelling need for stable families and stable environments for children. You want to discriminate against children with same sex parents by not allowing them to have married parents, have at it, but at least admit you're discriminating based on personal prejudice, not logic.
MikeVermont| 6.19.09 @ 7:40AM
MikeNYC I'm glad to see that you support the democratic process as long as it's done in the form of a vote in Congress (I wasn't aware of any other process - California notwithstanding).
Secondly, marriage is gender specific by definition. What does race have to do with it? Just because CSK makes a silly argument (I'll take your word for it) conflating the two doesn't make it so. Don't confuse a political argument with logic.
Thirdly, the whole point of marriage is to promote family formation by protecting both parties with an economic compact. One party sacrifices their career to focus on child rearing while the other party concentrates on bringing home the bacon, and at the end of the day and the latter cannot abandon the former. Marriages without childress are rather pointless, don't you think?
Finally, I'm glad to see that you agree that there is ALWAYS a compelling state interest in supporting procreation (aka family formation). That's why I support the defense of marriage. It is not I that picks and chooses what type of family formation to support, it is we the people. I'm still waiting for you to explain why the status quo should be changed.
MikeVermont| 6.19.09 @ 8:28AM
Hayekstheman77: Hayek is the man! I agree with a lot of what you said, however, allow me disagree with your conclusion. I still think the family is the key economic unit in our post-agrarian society - even more so. In a knowledge-based world people need ever greater resources and longer periods of family stability to develop into productive members of society. The incredible wealth amassed by Western societies has created the illusion that we can now abandon those very institutions that brought us to this point.
If marriage has just become about love, as you say, then I can certainly see why gay folks want in on it and I'd be hard pressed to begrudge them.
But if marriage is just about love, then it really has become meaningless as an institution hasn't it? Better to strenghten it than give it the coup de grace of gay marriage.
American Grit| 6.22.09 @ 1:40AM
Murdoch owns the Spectator, Post, and WSJ. He just sold the (neocon) Weekly Standard.
Of the three, the Post endorsed Democrats, the Journal is now a defanged globalist in the mold of Bartley, and the Spectator... ? What should it be?
If I want to read this shit, I know where to go. ABCCBSNBCMSNBCCNN. Or the aforementioned News Corp properties. I don't want it here.
Antle's too British. Socialist. Clearly out of touch with the opinion of his readers. Lachlan was pushed aside, and Antle's time has come, too. Just go.
Hayekstheman77| 6.23.09 @ 1:27AM
The family still has some economic roles, one of them is being an institution that brings income in. It also is an institution that is responsible for household production (although there are now substitutes for every bit of the household production, including childcare). I may have not have said it in a way that would convey this, but the modern family is very much about love, marriage quit being predominantly about survival in modern times. Happiness matters in a marriage nowadays more than in the past, since women and men can survive and even thrive without marriage. That is one characteristic of the modern family, the economic equality of women and men and the self-sufficiency of each. The economic purpose of the family has been diminished and sometimes have become a disincentive for the formation of a family. It takes over 100k to raise a kid these days, and they are not going to be productive for themselves or the family for at least 20 years.
But even with these economic disincentives for staying in a marriage, it seems that there is some bright spots on the horizon, since it seems that the newest generation is much less likely to get a divorce than previous generations post- industrial revolution. Marriages are occurring less often and later, but the effect is that all of the marriages that are occurring are strong and long lasting.
There is not much, policy-wise that will increase the voluntary union that is marriage among straight couples. Allowing gay civil marriage cannot conceivably add to the economic disincentives that are discouraging marriage today, and therefore wouldn't hurt the opposite sex marriage institution. Those that view marriage as a sacred institution find that the most fulfilling part is the church, not the civil aspect. Religious people would still get married, both civilly and by the church. Non-religious people will still get married for the economic advantages and legal privilages.
Allowing same-sex marriage will not decrease family stability, but rather would increase it for an increasing number of people. Gay people who earnestly seek marriage are looking to increase stability and monogamy in their own relationships, and to possibly create a stable environment to socialize their adopted children.
So in conclusion: modern family and marriage is not just about love, but love plays a large part in it. The great amount of wealth and economic growth weakens, rather than strengthens, the need for the family and marriage, as evidenced by the increase in the number of single mothers and babies born outside of wedlock. And how can an institution characterized by the voluntary contractual association of two people who love each other be abolished just because some people choose not to enter into it, it is still there for the utilization. As to the assertion that, if my assertion was true then marriage was meaningless, then I must say that it is true, since the political and economic function of the family has been greatly diminished, and since the most common family structure is two adults-no children, then yes the institution of marriage is almost meaningless with the exception of the desire to create a disincentive to breaking up the relationship. And finally, there are no policy initiatives that can simultaneously expand the institution to a group that traditionally is not served by it while at the same time further eroding the economic incentives for the entering into a marriage.
Alan Brooks| 6.30.09 @ 7:23PM
it's alright to be as long as gays stay in the closet. Whatever your peccadilloes are you don't trumpet them.
cheap handbags| 7.27.09 @ 5:26AM
We only sell the top grade replica cheap handbags, some of them are genuine leather handbags, yet the price is far lower than the authentic designers want you to pay. We lead you to a genuine pool of bags : collections in wide range: handbags, shoulder bags, clutches, tote bags, purses and wallets, the hottest brands you can find like replica Louis Vuitton handbags, Replica marc jacobs handags, Replica Prada handbags, Coach,Replica Chloe handbags,Burberry, Dior,replica Chanel handbags, Chloe,Replica gucci handbags, Dolce & Gabbana,Replica Balenciaga handbags . Crafted to the highest standard, from the finest materials in the industry, we guarantee the toppest Replica Hermes handbags at low price you'll find anywhere.
george| 7.29.09 @ 4:22AM
Louis Vuitton Agendas , commonly referred to as
Louis Vuitton Antigua bags, or sometimes shortened to
Louis Vuitton Antigua has become one of the most
Louis Vuitton Bequia Leather bags luxury brands.
lv salelove
sale lvnice
louis vuitton outlet
vuitton outlet good
tiffany jewellery| 8.14.09 @ 3:26AM
Very good to see the tiffany jewellery tiffany jewellery tiffany jewellery links of london hollister clothing ed hardy christian audigier abercrombie
feeling quite.
Wholesale Lingerie| 9.5.09 @ 10:02PM
sexy lingerie lingerie
Wedding Dresses| 9.10.09 @ 3:05AM
This handbag is so unique,Wedding Dresses
Designer Wedding Gowns
and I never see it’s sold in the stores, where did you get this one please?
sadasdasdada| 10.11.09 @ 9:06AM
Some people like LV handbags,Some people like Chanel handbags,but most popel have been keeping an eye on cheap fashion brand handbags .we often talk about all kinds of designer handbags with my friends,most of my friends also like cheap fashion brand handbags.We admire cheap fashion brand handbags designer who often be able to design so many stylish handbags.We want to be a handbag’s designer in the future too. In our store online，you can buy all series of cheap fashion brand handbags，include: Louis Vuitton,LV Luggage
world of warcraft eu| 10.20.09 @ 10:44PM
Thank you!
links london Bracelets| 10.21.09 @ 3:10AM
It was a very nice idea! Just wanna say thank you for the information you have shared. Just continue writing this kind of post. I will be your loyal reader. Thanks again.
christian louboutin heel| 10.21.09 @ 9:59PM
It was a very nice idea! Just wanna say thank you for the information you have shared. Just continue writing this kind of post. I will be your loyal reader. Thanks again.