When the California Supreme Court a few years ago heard an appeal against the constitionality of Proposition 8, the promoters of the propostion, and opponents of gay marriage, could produce only one supposedly expert witness to argue their case before the court. Famously, his testimony was so badly lacking in any actual evidence for his claims, that the judge not only rejected it - he found that it in fact strengthened the case of his opponents, the supporters of equal marriage who were attempting to have the ban ruled unconstitutional. The court overturned the proposition, and the “expert” witness, David Blankenhorn, was left pondering his own evidence. In doing so, he seems to have reached a remarkable conclusion - the judge was right. His own evidence did not justify opposition to same - sex marriage, but support for it.
Mr. Blankenhorn didn’t get very far in a California district court on the 23 harmful consequences. “Suffice it to say that he provided no credible evidence to support any of the claimed adverse effects proponents promised to demonstrate,” Justice Vaughn Walker wrote in 2010, in a case now headed for the United States Supreme Court.
To his credit, Mr. Blankenhorn examined the evidence and decided that gay marriage fits with American values. It is a brave step that portends wider change.
-Globe and Mail
In the years since, he has found several notable conservatives who have come to agree with him. He, and they, continue to see marriage as under real threat, and have launched a campaigning group, “The Institute for American Values”, that aims to protect marriage, support fatherhood, and oppose parenthood outside of marriage. But unusually for conservatives, this group supports marriage for all, including gay men and lesbians.
Gay marriage just became a conservative cause in the United States. Mr. Blankenhorn is the president of a group with the patriotic-sounding name, the Institute for American Values. (It supports fatherhood and opposes people having children outside of marriage.)
The institute is spearheading what Mr. Blankenhorn hopes will be a coalition of supporters across the political spectrum who believe in marriage, heterosexual or gay. On Wednesday, it published a “Call for a New Conversation on Marriage,” signed by 74 “American leaders,” including the academic and author Francis Fukuyama, and Canada’s own Michael Ignatieff.
-Globe and Mail
Many opponents of equality insist, as Catholic bishops have done regularly, andthe leader of the Surrey County Council did just this week, that permitting it will destroy traditional marriage, undermine society and be bad for children. In fact, in the 30 years since Denmark introduced near marriage for same - sex couples, the ten years since full marriage equality was introduced in the Netherlands, or the years since Massachusetts introduced it to the United States, the evidence has indicated the exact reverse. A Canadian priest has testified to the New Zealand parliamentary committee investigating their own proposals that equal marriage in Canada has strengthened, not weakened, traditional marriage. In Massachusetts, public health statistics have shown a clear improvement in gay men’s health indicators since the introduction of equality - and healthier parents has been beneficial, too, for the children they are raising. And there has been no evidence, anywhere, to indicate the reverse, that the fears of our opponents are in any way justified. The threats to marriage are real - but do not arise from the arrival of marriage equality.
There are no signs, Mr. Blankenhorn says, that fighting gay marriage has made marriage stronger. In the United States, 44 per cent of children born to women who have a high-school diploma but no four-year college degree were born outside marriage. “Marriage is fracturing in America,” says the call for a new conversation. It’s still strong among “college-educated elites,” but “much larger numbers of Americans, particularly in middle- and working-class America, are abandoning the institution entirely.” This hurts children and contributes to the growth of inequality, the institute says.
-Globe and Mail
It’s time for a new conversation on marriage.
Why marriage?
Because families are the seedbeds of civil society, and marriage is the basis of the family. Marriage creates kin. Marriage is a wealth-producing institution. And because marriage is the main institution governing the link between the spousal association and the parent-child association, marriage is society’s most pro-child institution.
Marriage is fracturing in America. While the nation’s attention is riveted by a debate about whether a small proportion of our fellow citizens (gays and lesbians) should be allowed to marry, marriage is rapidly dividing along class lines, splitting the country that it used to unite. While marriage is stable or strengthening among our college-educated elites, much larger numbers of Americans, particularly in middle and working-class America, are abandoning the institution entirely, with harmful social and personal consequences.
This hollowing out of marriage in mainstream America is among the most consequential social facts of our era. It’s contributing to the growth of inequality, harming countless children, and weakening, perhaps fatally, our formerly strong middle class. And amazingly, if you listen to political leaders of both parties and opinion leaders from both the left and right, you’ll discover that very few of them appear even to have noticed what’s happening.
Why a new conversation?
1.The current conversation is almost entirely a culture war over gay marriage, pitting traditionalists opposed to gay rights against gay rights leaders and their allies.
2.The current conversation treats marriage decline as primarily a problem of the poor and minorities.
3.The current conversation on heterosexual marriage focuses largely on the young, especially on teenagers at risk of getting pregnant and on parents of young children.
4.The current conversation on middle-class marriage is largely therapeutic and psychological, focusing on gender roles and on “soul mate” issues.
5. Finally, and possibly most importantly, the current conversation on marriage decline is rooted in the belief that nothing can be done.
They conclude:
The current conversation is at a dead end.
But the new conversation is just getting started.
Related articles
- Why one opponent now supports same-sex marriage: Kathleen Parker (oregonlive.com)
- The Last, Feeble Case Against Marriage Equality (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
- Gay marriage becomes an American value (theglobeandmail.com)
- Former Opponent Invites Gays to the Wedding Party (religiondispatches.org)
- All marriage is better than cohabitation (mysanantonio.com)
- Same-sex marriage foe now endorses gay nuptials (miamiherald.typepad.com)
- Romney Strategist Supports Marriage Equality: “Individual Liberty… Extends To Marriage” (queerty.com)
