Talk about your brilliant political timing. New York's Guernsey's auction house is auctioning off a privately owned collection of 16the century torture devices, with the proceeds going, wait for it, to Amnesty International and other organizations committed to preventing torture. You do the math.
The 252 devices include iron masks, boots, thumbscrews, foot squeezers, ropes, leg irons, chains, rings, manacles and "witch-catchers."
The exhibit brings an interesting issue to mind aside from the obvious one. It reminds us just how far we've come on torture, at least in the west. Some of this stuff is painful to read about, much less experience, which I can't say about water boarding or much else the US has been accused of (not that that justifies any of it - let's be clear - no fucking way). I mean come on, something called a "tongue tearer" for we nonbelievers? Makes me never want to say "ah, men" again. It could also have the opposite effect from the one the promoters desire, and cause less outrage at what has gone on recently, given how tame it looks to what has been considered fine torture in the past.
Still, I hope it has the intended result. Nothing about what went on with the previous administration bothered me more than its condoning of torture (with the dismissal of habeas corpus a close second). It took away the notion that we Americans are different than our opponents and enemies by more than just our uniforms and belief in the rightness of our cause. It took away any thought, childish or otherwise, that we were the good guys. No more could we get the advantage of having enemies surrender on the word that they'd have it better as our prisoner than as a subject of their despot. No more would we have the moral high ground. And all for something that has questionable value at best. The Jack Bauer scenarios are effectively just that, fiction, the sort of thing that happens with so little frequency that no cost is worth having them as an option. One might as well justify killing puppies on the off-chance God's a cat.
The sooner America no longer tortures, and stands strongly against it again, no weasel words, no politics, the better.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Star Trek: The Movie Review, Spoiler-free
I just went and saw the new Star Trek movie, and wow, what a ride. Here's my spoiler-free review. The casting was supurb, with the possible exception of Spock's parents, who were both played by actors with too long a history for me to see anyone else. That and neither bears nearly as much resemblance to the originals as the rest of the cast. As for the rest, most of them didn't have to say a word to be instantly recognizable. Special kudos to the new Sulu. George Takei always had a little too much of a wuss factor for my tastes. This one kicked ass. As for the new Uhura, she more than fulfills the Trek tradition of gorgeous women. The new Chekov's accent went a bit far, but it did make for some good humorous moments.
The movie makes the best use of time travel I can recall (more on that later). In fact, it might be the first absolutely necessary use in cinematic history, solving the biggest problem that could face a prequel with so much history behind it. Do NOT think you can watch this film and even remotely know what's going to happen merely because you can recite original series lines from memory. A few of the key characters are in the same places, but there's a new history to be made, so expect many variations.
The film rewards longtime fans with many classic lines and scenarios, delivered expertly. What would a Trek movie be without at least one "fascinating" from Spock, a few "I'm a doctor, not a [you name the specialist]" quips from McCoy, and a "I'm given her all she's got Captain" from Scotty? Kirk even shows his penchant for green women (really any women). Don't wait for "Beam me up Scotty" though. Didn't happen in the original, interestingly enough, and I suspect it was left out here as a nugget for us.
The pace is fast and furious, but without being incoherent and stupid. They give us just enough history to fill out the characters', um, characters, and then right to the good stuff. Our villain actually has more than one dimension (something sorely lacking in films lately), an easily understandable motive, and a good scumbag rating. You'll really hate this guy.
There are a few logic problems, like opening a hatch in a huge elevated pipeline of water and having only a small portion spill out and stop, as opposed to the waterfall we expected. Generally speaking though, the film scored very high on the realism scale.
But if I may, there are a few things I've seen enough of in Sci-fi movies for one lifetime. So please, from a fan who can quote dialogue from memory, and gets chills from those opening notes, in the next Star Trek movie, I beg you, let there be none of the following:
Time travel. I understand why it was necessary this one time. But generally, it makes for logically incoherent plots, and is just plain lazy writing. There can be no urgency for the time traveler, since if he fails to attain his goal, he could always simply travel back in time before his first attempt and try again. It's the sci-fi version of wishing for infinite wishes. It would also enable anyone with that power to get pretty much any information they need, rendering all interrogation scenes moot. Time travel drove me away from the Voyager series, which seemed to have it in at least half the first episodes. You're already in the 23rd century for crying out loud, in a galaxy far more populated with interesting diverse humanoid species than we've got any business expecting ours to be. If you can't write an interesting plot without traveling in time, it's time for a career change.
Anyone saying "I've never seen anything like it". It was OK the first few hundred times, but enough already. Can we get a little more descriptive please?
Ditto for "if we do that, it'll be too late".
Someone falling a considerable height or sliding at great speed stopping himself with finger strength that would make Spiderman jealous. Again, are writers so lazy they can't create drama without something so jarringly impossible, in whatever century?
Really cool creatures like, say, a carnivorous snow crab the size of a brontosaur, who are destroyed or defeated with simple, uninteresting, unrealistic weapons, like a single lighted stick. Please. That's the best you could think of?
Yet even with all that, the new Trek rocked. 9 out of 10. Go check it out, and do it in the theatre. Home systems just won't do.
The movie makes the best use of time travel I can recall (more on that later). In fact, it might be the first absolutely necessary use in cinematic history, solving the biggest problem that could face a prequel with so much history behind it. Do NOT think you can watch this film and even remotely know what's going to happen merely because you can recite original series lines from memory. A few of the key characters are in the same places, but there's a new history to be made, so expect many variations.
The film rewards longtime fans with many classic lines and scenarios, delivered expertly. What would a Trek movie be without at least one "fascinating" from Spock, a few "I'm a doctor, not a [you name the specialist]" quips from McCoy, and a "I'm given her all she's got Captain" from Scotty? Kirk even shows his penchant for green women (really any women). Don't wait for "Beam me up Scotty" though. Didn't happen in the original, interestingly enough, and I suspect it was left out here as a nugget for us.
The pace is fast and furious, but without being incoherent and stupid. They give us just enough history to fill out the characters', um, characters, and then right to the good stuff. Our villain actually has more than one dimension (something sorely lacking in films lately), an easily understandable motive, and a good scumbag rating. You'll really hate this guy.
There are a few logic problems, like opening a hatch in a huge elevated pipeline of water and having only a small portion spill out and stop, as opposed to the waterfall we expected. Generally speaking though, the film scored very high on the realism scale.
But if I may, there are a few things I've seen enough of in Sci-fi movies for one lifetime. So please, from a fan who can quote dialogue from memory, and gets chills from those opening notes, in the next Star Trek movie, I beg you, let there be none of the following:
Time travel. I understand why it was necessary this one time. But generally, it makes for logically incoherent plots, and is just plain lazy writing. There can be no urgency for the time traveler, since if he fails to attain his goal, he could always simply travel back in time before his first attempt and try again. It's the sci-fi version of wishing for infinite wishes. It would also enable anyone with that power to get pretty much any information they need, rendering all interrogation scenes moot. Time travel drove me away from the Voyager series, which seemed to have it in at least half the first episodes. You're already in the 23rd century for crying out loud, in a galaxy far more populated with interesting diverse humanoid species than we've got any business expecting ours to be. If you can't write an interesting plot without traveling in time, it's time for a career change.
Anyone saying "I've never seen anything like it". It was OK the first few hundred times, but enough already. Can we get a little more descriptive please?
Ditto for "if we do that, it'll be too late".
Someone falling a considerable height or sliding at great speed stopping himself with finger strength that would make Spiderman jealous. Again, are writers so lazy they can't create drama without something so jarringly impossible, in whatever century?
Really cool creatures like, say, a carnivorous snow crab the size of a brontosaur, who are destroyed or defeated with simple, uninteresting, unrealistic weapons, like a single lighted stick. Please. That's the best you could think of?
Yet even with all that, the new Trek rocked. 9 out of 10. Go check it out, and do it in the theatre. Home systems just won't do.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Christian School Threatens Expulsion for Secular Prom Attendee
In a move Jesus would surely approve (not!), a fundamentalist school with social rules straight out of the 1950's (no dancing, rock music, hand-holding or kissing), has threatened to expel (savor the irony) a student who plans on attending his girlfriend's prom at a school with a 21st century curriculum.:
17-year-old Tyler Frost who is scheduled to receive his diploma May 24, would be suspended from classes and receive an "incomplete" on remaining assignments, principal Tim England said. Frost also would not be permitted to attend graduation but would get a diploma once he completes final exams. If Frost is involved with alcohol or sex at the prom, he will be expelled, England said. Frost's stepfather Stephan Johnson said the school's rules should not apply outside the classroom.
I'm totally with the stepfather on this one. I've never understood where schools, parochial or otherwise, think they get the right to dictate how students live outside school time. Inside the school, they have every right to enforce whatever rules they see fit, appropriate to their charge. But outside the school, the parents' views hold sway.
Spare me the pedantic "but they signed onto the rules" argument. That just backs up the problem a step: schools do not have the right to demand a say-so in how a child lives outside the school time, so the contract or whatever they signed should be null and void. It is not as if it was an agreement between parties of comparable negotiation positions.
Wake up Heritage Christian School. It's not 1950 any more, and there is no way to make it so again even if we wanted to.
17-year-old Tyler Frost who is scheduled to receive his diploma May 24, would be suspended from classes and receive an "incomplete" on remaining assignments, principal Tim England said. Frost also would not be permitted to attend graduation but would get a diploma once he completes final exams. If Frost is involved with alcohol or sex at the prom, he will be expelled, England said. Frost's stepfather Stephan Johnson said the school's rules should not apply outside the classroom.
I'm totally with the stepfather on this one. I've never understood where schools, parochial or otherwise, think they get the right to dictate how students live outside school time. Inside the school, they have every right to enforce whatever rules they see fit, appropriate to their charge. But outside the school, the parents' views hold sway.
Spare me the pedantic "but they signed onto the rules" argument. That just backs up the problem a step: schools do not have the right to demand a say-so in how a child lives outside the school time, so the contract or whatever they signed should be null and void. It is not as if it was an agreement between parties of comparable negotiation positions.
Wake up Heritage Christian School. It's not 1950 any more, and there is no way to make it so again even if we wanted to.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Santa Barabra Wildfire Rages: Amazing Photos
The Santa Barbara wildfires continue to rage, and you can view some amazing photos here. My favorites:
That's the fire, not the sun. What a depressing way to start the morning.
Hey there's...where my house...was. That must be an unbelievable feeling.
OMG, Jesus is in the fire! No, that's the flames through the cracks in a burning house. There are at least 75 destroyed, and its far likely the number will be far greater.
The rescue helicopter is dwarfed by the monster.
Contrary to popular mythology, animals do not have magical abilities to escape, and sometimes they join us as victims.
Try to imagine waking up in the house on the right and this being the view.
Here's your "holy shit" moment.
Bravely run away!
Do you feel puny yet? I keep hearing George Carlin in my head saying "ask those people in Pompei, frozen into place, whether they feel like a threat to the planet today...The planet isn't going anywhere...we are!"
Apparently the palm trees explode. Nice.
Save Ginger and Mary Ann!
I love the smell of California burning in the morning...not.
That's molten aluminum.
Here are your real heroes. Sure, it's their job, but come on: would you have that job? You gotta love the beast to charge in there. Let's hope they all live to fight another day.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Another Republican Dances around Evolution
Watch Chris Matthews skewer GOP Representative Mike Pence by simply asking him whether or not he believes in evolution. Pence dances madly trying to change the subject to God, stem cells, global warming, or anything else that would allow him to weasel out of ticking off his fundamentalist base.
It will be interesting to see how quickly politicians who know better stop prostrating themselves to that base once they come to understand that they can't win with it while alienating everyone else.
It will be interesting to see how quickly politicians who know better stop prostrating themselves to that base once they come to understand that they can't win with it while alienating everyone else.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Joel Walker Pwns Don McLeroy
Joel Walker, a fiscally and socially conservative churchgoing Republican with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics who is running for the College Station, Texas, Schools' Board of Trustees, has written a wonderful response to another of Texas BOE Chairman Don McLeroy's ignorant screeds. The final paragraph sums it up nicely:
Admitting some few exceptions, the considered verdict on these matters among active researchers in the relevant fields is settled, with a statistical weight approaching unanimity. It is inappropriate to ask our high school students to sit in their judgment; we must first simply educate them as to what has been learned. Surely the ultimate truths of science are not up for, nor are ever settled by, a vote of men. As a practical matter however, the science standards of our state are up for vote once each decade. An entrenched mindset bordering on reflexive antipathy to the opinions of our most distinguished scholars has no place on our State Board of Education. It is not in keeping with the mission of the Texas Education Code nor does it well serve the obligations of that high post to our students and citizenry. The struggle continues, with biology texts up for approval in 2011. We must vote with vigilance to achieve sound representation.
You can read more about it here, as well as some of the heat McLeroy is getting over the embarrassment he is bringing to Texas. Typically creationists involved in education get the boot politically once their views become public, so let's hope McLeroy is booted out on his butt as he so richly deserves. Let's also hope Governor Rick Perry gets a little political heat for appointing such a grossly unqualified person in the first place. One might as well appoint a blind man to be head of the snipers.
Admitting some few exceptions, the considered verdict on these matters among active researchers in the relevant fields is settled, with a statistical weight approaching unanimity. It is inappropriate to ask our high school students to sit in their judgment; we must first simply educate them as to what has been learned. Surely the ultimate truths of science are not up for, nor are ever settled by, a vote of men. As a practical matter however, the science standards of our state are up for vote once each decade. An entrenched mindset bordering on reflexive antipathy to the opinions of our most distinguished scholars has no place on our State Board of Education. It is not in keeping with the mission of the Texas Education Code nor does it well serve the obligations of that high post to our students and citizenry. The struggle continues, with biology texts up for approval in 2011. We must vote with vigilance to achieve sound representation.
You can read more about it here, as well as some of the heat McLeroy is getting over the embarrassment he is bringing to Texas. Typically creationists involved in education get the boot politically once their views become public, so let's hope McLeroy is booted out on his butt as he so richly deserves. Let's also hope Governor Rick Perry gets a little political heat for appointing such a grossly unqualified person in the first place. One might as well appoint a blind man to be head of the snipers.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
The Secular Case for Gay Marriage Examined
Pradeep submitted this old article by a chap named Adam Kolasinksi for criticism, and I am happy to oblige.
The debate over whether the state ought to recognize gay marriages has thus far focused on the issue as one of civil rights. Such a treatment is erroneous because state recognition of marriage is not a universal right. States regulate marriage in many ways besides denying men the right to marry men, and women the right to marry women. Roughly half of all states prohibit first cousins from marrying, and all prohibit marriage of closer blood relatives, even if the individuals being married are sterile. In all states, it is illegal to attempt to marry more than one person, or even to pass off more than one person as one's spouse. Some states restrict the marriage of people suffering from syphilis or other venereal diseases. Homosexuals, therefore, are not the only people to be denied the right to marry the person of their choosing.
It does not follow from the nonuniversality of the marriage right that it is not a civil right. Take as a counterexample the right to vote. The states also regulate voting in many ways, disallowing the right to those under 18, felons, the unregistered. and doubtless other groups. Yet were they to deny it to blacks or women, or dare we think it, homosexuals, it would be a clear civil rights issue. Homosexuals have the same right to vote as everyone else. Should they have the same right with regard to marriage? Or, to put it another way, should our right to marry any person we choose who is single, adult, and of the opposite sex, simply be revised to omit that last criteria? It recently had an additional criteria, requiring the happy couple be of the same race. This was changed in Loving v. Virginia in 1967. Why not the criteria requiring gender difference be removed in 2009 in similar fashion? Whatever else may be said of the idea, the argument that it is not a civil rights issue won't fly.
I do not claim that all of these other types of couples restricted from marrying are equivalent to homosexual couples. I only bring them up to illustrate that marriage is heavily regulated, and for good reason.
Yes. Close relatives are forbidden from marrying to prevent birth defects in potential offspring, and to aid in beneficial diffusion of genetic material (giving our species better survival odds in the face of diseases and other threats) as well as social customs, inventions and knowledge, which have obvious benefits. These benefits would be hampered in a society that allowed siblings to court siblings. Brothers would have a near insurmountable advantage against any other suitor, daily access being the most obvious. This would cause much more isolation in the society, as families and cultures would mix less, and thus invariably lag behind those who socialize freely, as history has shown repeatedly. Ask China.
The benefits of restricting diseased people are obvious enough. As for polygamy, that was the dominant form for most of human history, though it does seem less optimal in a modern civilization than monogamy. It would contract the genetic variability discussed above, as well as create a potentially dramatic negative social change with a much higher population of single men.
The challenge is for people like Mr. Kolasinksi to present equally compelling reasons to deny the right of marriage to homosexuals. So far these reasons have varied from nonexistent, to blatantly false ("the definition of marriage hasn't changed in thousands of years), circular ("it will lead to more people thinking being gay is OK"), and absurdly ignorant ("homosexuality goes against evolution"). The anti-gay marriage crowd has just about the worst quality of argument of any group currently waging political war this side of the Natural Law Party. Let's see if Mr. Kolasinksi can improve on that.
When a state recognizes a marriage, it bestows upon the couple certain benefits which are costly to both the state and other individuals. Collecting a deceased spouse's social security, claiming an extra tax exemption for a spouse, and having the right to be covered under a spouse's health insurance policy are just a few examples of the costly benefits associated with marriage. In a sense, a married couple receives a subsidy.
If this is his best case for the "marriage subsidy" argument, its a weak one, for in the second two examples the otherwise single people would get their own tax exemption and health insurance elsewhere were they not married. True, many such situations are cheaper if one is married, but first of all, this is just the gross side of the argument, and second, in many cases it is more expensive to be married. Whether being married increases or decreases one's income taxes depends greatly on what the relative levels of income are between the couple. At some level, certainly below $250k apiece, a couple who make roughly equal incomes will pay more income tax married than their combined payments would be if they filed singly.
So if Kolasinksi is going to argue that marriage is in effect a social investment from which we should expect a healthy return, he's going to have to do a lot better than collecting a deceased spouse's SS checks.
Why? Because a marriage between to [sic] unrelated heterosexuals is likely to result in a family with children, and propagation of society is a compelling state interest. For this reason, states have, in varying degrees, restricted from marriage couples unlikely to produce children.
Oh my, where to begin. First off marriage is not required to procreate. Second, homosexuals are such a small percentage of the population that it is unlikely their marriage status would effect the birth rate significantly. Third, the argument is contradictory at its core - if we want more babies, and marriage creates more babies, then we'd want as many married people as we could get. That is, unless Kolasinksi dares argue that homosexuals disallowed from marrying each other will become good heterosexually married baby makers. It is not as though there is a limit on marriage licenses. Further, current rates of procreation are far beyond what is needed for our society to survive, and there are many compelling arguments that it is in society's interests to have fewer, not more children. Underpopulation is not a problem under which the earth suffers.
And of course the biggest problem with Kolasinksi's argument is that it is a blatant case of special pleading, as he finds a way to weasel out of eliminating any other sterile group from the marriage pool:
Granted, these restrictions are not absolute. A small minority of married couples are infertile. However, excluding sterile couples from marriage, in all but the most obvious cases such as those of blood relatives, would be costly. Few people who are sterile know it, and fertility tests are too expensive and burdensome to mandate... Some couples who marry plan not to have children, but without mind-reaching technology, excluding them is impossible. Elderly couples can marry, but such cases are so rare that it is simply not worth the effort to restrict them. The marriage laws, therefore, ensure, albeit imperfectly, that the vast majority of couples who do get the benefits of marriage are those who bear children.
Now that there's a dance Fred Astaire could appreciate plenty. Elderly couples marrying are rare? Says who? And homosexuals marrying isn't? How rare do they have to be before it's worth the effort to restrict them? Please. Kolasinksi is yanking arguments from his keister. We don't allow people under certain ages (depending on the state) to marry, I suspect the enforcement effort would be comparable. And closing in even worse logic, his last claim is backwards. The premises he's working with would suggest the desire to ensure the highest proportion of wannabe procreators get married, not the other way around.
Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason for the state to grant them the costly benefits of marriage, unless they serve some other state interest. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the advocates of gay marriage to show what state interest these marriages serve. Thus far, this burden has not been met.
Say no more. Society has thousands of orphans that would benefit from being raised in a loving stable two-parent home, and it just so happens we have a small percentage of the population capable of creating such homes, but incapable (at least together and without considerable medical assistance) of having children of their own. It's a match made in Family Values Heaven. What say ye Kolasinksi?
One may argue that lesbians are capable of procreating via artificial insemination, so the state does have an interest in recognizing lesbian marriages, but a lesbian's sexual relationship, committed or not, has no bearing on her ability to reproduce.
Neither does anyone elses. See above.
Perhaps it may serve a state interest to recognize gay marriages to make it easier for gay couples to adopt. However, there is ample evidence (see, for example, David Popenoe's Life Without Father) that children need both a male and female parent for proper development. Unfortunately, small sample sizes and other methodological problems make it impossible to draw conclusions from studies that directly examine the effects of gay parenting. However, the empirically verified common wisdom about the importance of a mother and father in a child's development should give advocates of gay adoption pause. The differences between men and women extend beyond anatomy, so it is essential for a child to be nurtured by parents of both sexes if a child is to learn to function in a society made up of both sexes. Is it wise to have a social policy that encourages family arrangements that deny children such essentials? Gays are not necessarily bad parents, nor will they necessarily make their children gay, but they cannot provide a set of parents that includes both a male and a female.
Kolasinksi misses the point here by assuming a false choice: two heterosexual parents vs two homosexual parents. The fact of life for millions of children is one overworked parent, gay or straight, and the statistics have been plentiful as to the negative correlation of that and the quality adult that child becomes. Kolasinksi's political allies are quick to raise these statistics when arguing against allowing/condoning single parentage, yet now somehow they would have us believe that children in homes with two homosexual parents would be worse off than with one. His argument defeats itself.
Some have compared the prohibition of homosexual marriage to the prohibition of interracial marriage. This analogy fails because fertility does not depend on race, making race irrelevant to the state's interest in marriage. By contrast, homosexuality is highly relevant because it precludes procreation.
False premise and false logic: the state's interest in marriage goes far beyond fertility issues (it was originally primarily about property), and homosexuality does not preclude procreation. It simply makes it more difficult, requiring some form of medical intervention, similar to heterosexual women who get pregnant via invitro fertilization. I suppose Kolasinksi would dismiss that group as too small to worry about as well. How convenient.
Some argue that homosexual marriages serve a state interest because they enable gays to live in committed relationships. However, there is nothing stopping homosexuals from living in such relationships today.
There is nothing stopping heterosexuals from living in such relationships either, and yet they still (mostly) prefer the stability, property arrangements, family structure, and legal protections of getting married. Why shouldn't gays want the same things, and further, why wouldn't the family values crowd cheer that desire? It makes little sense to criticize people for living uncommitted socially irresponsible lives while simultaneously denying them the ability to live otherwise.
Advocates of gay marriage claim gay couples need marriage in order to have hospital visitation and inheritance rights, but they can easily obtain these rights by writing a living will and having each partner designate the other as trustee and heir. There is nothing stopping gay couples from signing a joint lease or owning a house jointly, as many single straight people do with roommates. The only benefits of marriage from which homosexual couples are restricted are those that are costly to the state and society.
Yet as we've already established earlier, the costs to the state Kolasinksi has presented are either deceptive, or tiny. Again, there is nothing stopping heterosexuals from doing the things Kolasinksi suggests, and yet the primary purpose of marriage originally was about property, because the benefits to both partners (especially the least self-sufficient one) were considerable. Why deny them to homosexuals?
Some argue that the link between marriage and procreation is not as strong as it once was, and they are correct. Until recently, the primary purpose of marriage, in every society around the world, has been procreation.
No, it has been about distribution and control of property, and about having a life partner, depending on how recently he means. To my knowledge there has never been a major society that set procreation requirements on people who wanted to get married.
In the 20th century, Western societies have downplayed the procreative aspect of marriage, much to our detriment. As a result, the happiness of the parties to the marriage, rather than the good of the children or the social order, has become its primary end, with disastrous consequences. When married persons care more about themselves than their responsibilities to their children and society, they become more willing to abandon these responsibilities, leading to broken homes, a plummeting birthrate, and countless other social pathologies that have become rampant over the last 40 years.
A plummeting birthrate is a social pathology? What a strange worldview that reveals. As for broken homes, if that is the concern of Kolasinksi and his crew, then why aren't they calling for a reversal of the most recent redefinition of marriage: divorce? That changed the definition of marriage from "til death do us part" to "as long as we like it". The irony is rich that a group battling hard to prevent one tiny group from forming stable committed families, while making no effort to prevent over half of Americans from dissolving their marriages, would call itself "pro family". Oh, and I know I'm picky and all, but what does any of this have to do with homosexual marriage?
Homosexual marriage is not the cause for any of these pathologies, but it will exacerbate them, as the granting of marital benefits to a category of sexual relationships that are necessarily sterile can only widen the separation between marriage and procreation.
Not significantly. That separation has been made huge by myriad factors whose effects are larger than that of homosexual marriage by orders of magnitude, such as the increasing average age for marriage.
The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage.
Divorce already did that. There's no putting the genie back in to the bottle now.
If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis cant it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other?
For the exact same reasons it does now. None of them depend on the heterosexuality of the people in question. This is a blatant red herring.
Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction that love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious.
On the contrary, if procreation is the goal, then polygamy, not monogamy, is the preferred choice. Once again Kolasinksi's argument fails even granting his flawed premises.
If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos.
Except that it hasn't, which is a perfect way to end this article, for Kolasinksi's arguments are giant speculations at best, mere guesswork as to what would happen were gay marriage allowed. The problem is this isn't theoretical any more: several states and countries have legalized gay marriage and so far not a single one of the nightmares brewing in the imaginations of the Family Values crowd have transpired. Old-fashioned heterosexual marriage continues on its merry way in those places as if nothing has happened, because, well, nothing has.
The debate over whether the state ought to recognize gay marriages has thus far focused on the issue as one of civil rights. Such a treatment is erroneous because state recognition of marriage is not a universal right. States regulate marriage in many ways besides denying men the right to marry men, and women the right to marry women. Roughly half of all states prohibit first cousins from marrying, and all prohibit marriage of closer blood relatives, even if the individuals being married are sterile. In all states, it is illegal to attempt to marry more than one person, or even to pass off more than one person as one's spouse. Some states restrict the marriage of people suffering from syphilis or other venereal diseases. Homosexuals, therefore, are not the only people to be denied the right to marry the person of their choosing.
It does not follow from the nonuniversality of the marriage right that it is not a civil right. Take as a counterexample the right to vote. The states also regulate voting in many ways, disallowing the right to those under 18, felons, the unregistered. and doubtless other groups. Yet were they to deny it to blacks or women, or dare we think it, homosexuals, it would be a clear civil rights issue. Homosexuals have the same right to vote as everyone else. Should they have the same right with regard to marriage? Or, to put it another way, should our right to marry any person we choose who is single, adult, and of the opposite sex, simply be revised to omit that last criteria? It recently had an additional criteria, requiring the happy couple be of the same race. This was changed in Loving v. Virginia in 1967. Why not the criteria requiring gender difference be removed in 2009 in similar fashion? Whatever else may be said of the idea, the argument that it is not a civil rights issue won't fly.
I do not claim that all of these other types of couples restricted from marrying are equivalent to homosexual couples. I only bring them up to illustrate that marriage is heavily regulated, and for good reason.
Yes. Close relatives are forbidden from marrying to prevent birth defects in potential offspring, and to aid in beneficial diffusion of genetic material (giving our species better survival odds in the face of diseases and other threats) as well as social customs, inventions and knowledge, which have obvious benefits. These benefits would be hampered in a society that allowed siblings to court siblings. Brothers would have a near insurmountable advantage against any other suitor, daily access being the most obvious. This would cause much more isolation in the society, as families and cultures would mix less, and thus invariably lag behind those who socialize freely, as history has shown repeatedly. Ask China.
The benefits of restricting diseased people are obvious enough. As for polygamy, that was the dominant form for most of human history, though it does seem less optimal in a modern civilization than monogamy. It would contract the genetic variability discussed above, as well as create a potentially dramatic negative social change with a much higher population of single men.
The challenge is for people like Mr. Kolasinksi to present equally compelling reasons to deny the right of marriage to homosexuals. So far these reasons have varied from nonexistent, to blatantly false ("the definition of marriage hasn't changed in thousands of years), circular ("it will lead to more people thinking being gay is OK"), and absurdly ignorant ("homosexuality goes against evolution"). The anti-gay marriage crowd has just about the worst quality of argument of any group currently waging political war this side of the Natural Law Party. Let's see if Mr. Kolasinksi can improve on that.
When a state recognizes a marriage, it bestows upon the couple certain benefits which are costly to both the state and other individuals. Collecting a deceased spouse's social security, claiming an extra tax exemption for a spouse, and having the right to be covered under a spouse's health insurance policy are just a few examples of the costly benefits associated with marriage. In a sense, a married couple receives a subsidy.
If this is his best case for the "marriage subsidy" argument, its a weak one, for in the second two examples the otherwise single people would get their own tax exemption and health insurance elsewhere were they not married. True, many such situations are cheaper if one is married, but first of all, this is just the gross side of the argument, and second, in many cases it is more expensive to be married. Whether being married increases or decreases one's income taxes depends greatly on what the relative levels of income are between the couple. At some level, certainly below $250k apiece, a couple who make roughly equal incomes will pay more income tax married than their combined payments would be if they filed singly.
So if Kolasinksi is going to argue that marriage is in effect a social investment from which we should expect a healthy return, he's going to have to do a lot better than collecting a deceased spouse's SS checks.
Why? Because a marriage between to [sic] unrelated heterosexuals is likely to result in a family with children, and propagation of society is a compelling state interest. For this reason, states have, in varying degrees, restricted from marriage couples unlikely to produce children.
Oh my, where to begin. First off marriage is not required to procreate. Second, homosexuals are such a small percentage of the population that it is unlikely their marriage status would effect the birth rate significantly. Third, the argument is contradictory at its core - if we want more babies, and marriage creates more babies, then we'd want as many married people as we could get. That is, unless Kolasinksi dares argue that homosexuals disallowed from marrying each other will become good heterosexually married baby makers. It is not as though there is a limit on marriage licenses. Further, current rates of procreation are far beyond what is needed for our society to survive, and there are many compelling arguments that it is in society's interests to have fewer, not more children. Underpopulation is not a problem under which the earth suffers.
And of course the biggest problem with Kolasinksi's argument is that it is a blatant case of special pleading, as he finds a way to weasel out of eliminating any other sterile group from the marriage pool:
Granted, these restrictions are not absolute. A small minority of married couples are infertile. However, excluding sterile couples from marriage, in all but the most obvious cases such as those of blood relatives, would be costly. Few people who are sterile know it, and fertility tests are too expensive and burdensome to mandate... Some couples who marry plan not to have children, but without mind-reaching technology, excluding them is impossible. Elderly couples can marry, but such cases are so rare that it is simply not worth the effort to restrict them. The marriage laws, therefore, ensure, albeit imperfectly, that the vast majority of couples who do get the benefits of marriage are those who bear children.
Now that there's a dance Fred Astaire could appreciate plenty. Elderly couples marrying are rare? Says who? And homosexuals marrying isn't? How rare do they have to be before it's worth the effort to restrict them? Please. Kolasinksi is yanking arguments from his keister. We don't allow people under certain ages (depending on the state) to marry, I suspect the enforcement effort would be comparable. And closing in even worse logic, his last claim is backwards. The premises he's working with would suggest the desire to ensure the highest proportion of wannabe procreators get married, not the other way around.
Homosexual relationships do nothing to serve the state interest of propagating society, so there is no reason for the state to grant them the costly benefits of marriage, unless they serve some other state interest. The burden of proof, therefore, is on the advocates of gay marriage to show what state interest these marriages serve. Thus far, this burden has not been met.
Say no more. Society has thousands of orphans that would benefit from being raised in a loving stable two-parent home, and it just so happens we have a small percentage of the population capable of creating such homes, but incapable (at least together and without considerable medical assistance) of having children of their own. It's a match made in Family Values Heaven. What say ye Kolasinksi?
One may argue that lesbians are capable of procreating via artificial insemination, so the state does have an interest in recognizing lesbian marriages, but a lesbian's sexual relationship, committed or not, has no bearing on her ability to reproduce.
Neither does anyone elses. See above.
Perhaps it may serve a state interest to recognize gay marriages to make it easier for gay couples to adopt. However, there is ample evidence (see, for example, David Popenoe's Life Without Father) that children need both a male and female parent for proper development. Unfortunately, small sample sizes and other methodological problems make it impossible to draw conclusions from studies that directly examine the effects of gay parenting. However, the empirically verified common wisdom about the importance of a mother and father in a child's development should give advocates of gay adoption pause. The differences between men and women extend beyond anatomy, so it is essential for a child to be nurtured by parents of both sexes if a child is to learn to function in a society made up of both sexes. Is it wise to have a social policy that encourages family arrangements that deny children such essentials? Gays are not necessarily bad parents, nor will they necessarily make their children gay, but they cannot provide a set of parents that includes both a male and a female.
Kolasinksi misses the point here by assuming a false choice: two heterosexual parents vs two homosexual parents. The fact of life for millions of children is one overworked parent, gay or straight, and the statistics have been plentiful as to the negative correlation of that and the quality adult that child becomes. Kolasinksi's political allies are quick to raise these statistics when arguing against allowing/condoning single parentage, yet now somehow they would have us believe that children in homes with two homosexual parents would be worse off than with one. His argument defeats itself.
Some have compared the prohibition of homosexual marriage to the prohibition of interracial marriage. This analogy fails because fertility does not depend on race, making race irrelevant to the state's interest in marriage. By contrast, homosexuality is highly relevant because it precludes procreation.
False premise and false logic: the state's interest in marriage goes far beyond fertility issues (it was originally primarily about property), and homosexuality does not preclude procreation. It simply makes it more difficult, requiring some form of medical intervention, similar to heterosexual women who get pregnant via invitro fertilization. I suppose Kolasinksi would dismiss that group as too small to worry about as well. How convenient.
Some argue that homosexual marriages serve a state interest because they enable gays to live in committed relationships. However, there is nothing stopping homosexuals from living in such relationships today.
There is nothing stopping heterosexuals from living in such relationships either, and yet they still (mostly) prefer the stability, property arrangements, family structure, and legal protections of getting married. Why shouldn't gays want the same things, and further, why wouldn't the family values crowd cheer that desire? It makes little sense to criticize people for living uncommitted socially irresponsible lives while simultaneously denying them the ability to live otherwise.
Advocates of gay marriage claim gay couples need marriage in order to have hospital visitation and inheritance rights, but they can easily obtain these rights by writing a living will and having each partner designate the other as trustee and heir. There is nothing stopping gay couples from signing a joint lease or owning a house jointly, as many single straight people do with roommates. The only benefits of marriage from which homosexual couples are restricted are those that are costly to the state and society.
Yet as we've already established earlier, the costs to the state Kolasinksi has presented are either deceptive, or tiny. Again, there is nothing stopping heterosexuals from doing the things Kolasinksi suggests, and yet the primary purpose of marriage originally was about property, because the benefits to both partners (especially the least self-sufficient one) were considerable. Why deny them to homosexuals?
Some argue that the link between marriage and procreation is not as strong as it once was, and they are correct. Until recently, the primary purpose of marriage, in every society around the world, has been procreation.
No, it has been about distribution and control of property, and about having a life partner, depending on how recently he means. To my knowledge there has never been a major society that set procreation requirements on people who wanted to get married.
In the 20th century, Western societies have downplayed the procreative aspect of marriage, much to our detriment. As a result, the happiness of the parties to the marriage, rather than the good of the children or the social order, has become its primary end, with disastrous consequences. When married persons care more about themselves than their responsibilities to their children and society, they become more willing to abandon these responsibilities, leading to broken homes, a plummeting birthrate, and countless other social pathologies that have become rampant over the last 40 years.
A plummeting birthrate is a social pathology? What a strange worldview that reveals. As for broken homes, if that is the concern of Kolasinksi and his crew, then why aren't they calling for a reversal of the most recent redefinition of marriage: divorce? That changed the definition of marriage from "til death do us part" to "as long as we like it". The irony is rich that a group battling hard to prevent one tiny group from forming stable committed families, while making no effort to prevent over half of Americans from dissolving their marriages, would call itself "pro family". Oh, and I know I'm picky and all, but what does any of this have to do with homosexual marriage?
Homosexual marriage is not the cause for any of these pathologies, but it will exacerbate them, as the granting of marital benefits to a category of sexual relationships that are necessarily sterile can only widen the separation between marriage and procreation.
Not significantly. That separation has been made huge by myriad factors whose effects are larger than that of homosexual marriage by orders of magnitude, such as the increasing average age for marriage.
The biggest danger homosexual civil marriage presents is the enshrining into law the notion that sexual love, regardless of its fecundity, is the sole criterion for marriage.
Divorce already did that. There's no putting the genie back in to the bottle now.
If the state must recognize a marriage of two men simply because they love one another, upon what basis cant it deny marital recognition to a group of two men and three women, for example, or a sterile brother and sister who claim to love each other?
For the exact same reasons it does now. None of them depend on the heterosexuality of the people in question. This is a blatant red herring.
Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally. But why is sexual love between two people more worthy of state sanction that love between three, or five? When the purpose of marriage is procreation, the answer is obvious.
On the contrary, if procreation is the goal, then polygamy, not monogamy, is the preferred choice. Once again Kolasinksi's argument fails even granting his flawed premises.
If sexual love becomes the primary purpose, the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos.
Except that it hasn't, which is a perfect way to end this article, for Kolasinksi's arguments are giant speculations at best, mere guesswork as to what would happen were gay marriage allowed. The problem is this isn't theoretical any more: several states and countries have legalized gay marriage and so far not a single one of the nightmares brewing in the imaginations of the Family Values crowd have transpired. Old-fashioned heterosexual marriage continues on its merry way in those places as if nothing has happened, because, well, nothing has.
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