Marriage / Family

For those of you who have an interest in demography, immigration, Social Security, sustainability and/or just the general shape of the future, you might be interested in a lengthy article in this Sunday’s NYT Magazine discussing the causes and potential impact of Europe’s record-low birthrate.

Some of the points raised in the article

• In parts of Europe, the birth rate has dropped to roughly 60% of the rate needed to maintain a static population (ignoring migration).
• Demographers in Europe are particularly concerned about the sustainability of pension schemes in an environment where the worker-to-retiree ratio is so low; some European countries are toying with workforce-expanding measures including increasing retirement age to the unthinkable (?!) age of 65.
• Several towns in eastern Germany are apparently de-developing unused neighborhoods and districts, downsizing and combating urban blight to better support their smaller populations.
• In Western societies, it’s theorized that birth rates are increased when either there is extensive social support for working mothers (e.g. subsidized daycare, and extensive maternity and paternity leave in northern Europe), or when society doesn’t penalize working mothers who take a few years off from their career (e.g. the United States).  Countries where society expects mothers to stay at home with the children (Italy, Greece) see the lowest birthrates.

It’s a fascinating read.

The smell of political silliness is in the air here in Connecticut.  An article in the Courant mentions:

• Connecticut is required to have a ballot question every 20 years on whether to call a convention to amend the state’s constitution;
   
• This November will see an appearance of the bi-decadal question on the ballot;
   
• Groups supporting an anti-same-gender amendment to the state constitution and the introduction of the ballot initiative are ramping up a campaign to encourage voters to vote “yes” to the question.

While I’m all for periodically revisiting the fundamentals from which our legal and regulatory system works, I tend to distrust politicians’ and activists’ attempts to improve something that isn’t necessarily broken.  That distrust is doubled when folks seeking to meddle with the status-quo have ulterior motives.

For example, longer-time readers of this blog should be aware of my thoughts on same-gender marriage – I feel that the notion of a bureaucrat or politician dictating whom God or Mother Nature may marry to be silly at best, arrogant at worst.  I wouldn’t mind seeing a roadblock or two set up to interfere with those who would aggravate that silliness/arrogance.

On the subject of ballot initiatives – while I can see the attraction to the idea, I can also see the potential for great mischief to be caused through attempting to game the tyranny of the majority.   Besides, given the small size of Connecticut, both in terms of population and geography, state legislators seem particularly responsive to the will of the people.   For a recent example, consider the recent hoopla over requiring gas company franchises to permit franchisees to grant cash discounts.

We apparently don’t need ballot initiatives in this state to see silliness occur.

Given the level of responsiveness we already have in state government, why the heck should we want to give up the sanity that is supposed to be imposed by filtering legislative changes through theoretically wise elected representatives?

However, I suspect that I’m in the minority on this matter.  So, if we are going to endure the ordeal of ballot initiatives in this state, could I at least get the right to mace aggressive petitioners written into the state constitution, or the state’s do-not-call law amended to prohibit robocalls from political campaigns and campaigns for/against the initiatives of the day?

The subject of what constitutes a marriage, and whether gender should really matter in state recognition of marriages, has been a hot topic recently, with California’s Supreme Court ruling that a prohibition on same-gender marriage runs afoul of that state’s constitution, and indications that New York will begin recognizing same-gender marriages performed out-of-state.

While conservatives have, predictably, come out of the woodwork railing against the gay threat to the institution of marriage, I take some comfort in seeing a few more folks sharing a viewpoint similar to mine — the notion that a government can dictate who can or cannot get married is silly, and that the real question is whether the state should recognize all marriages that have taken place.

I came across a comment at The Moderate Voice which is a wonderfully succinct way to help make that point:

The first point often made is that it is wrong for us to ‘approve of’ or ‘allow’ gays to have the same romantic activities that ‘normal people’ do (please note the quotes there).

Now perhaps someone forgot to send me the memo, but as far as I know, two consenting adults do not need my permission, blessing or consent to do whatever they want to with someone they love.

Indeed the only circumstance where my consent would be required is if I was the subject of the romance (which I suppose would depend on how good dinner was).

So on point #1, I see no reason whatsoever for me to rail over what romances happen between what people. If personal distaste were the standard, Britney Spears would have been banned from dating years ago.

(emphasis added)

And now, I have to admit that the image of a state-run “Bureau of Relationships” just popped up in my mind.  Imagine a DMV-like place, to which  you must go to register or obtain permission for each new tryst or relationship….

I’ve been tied up all day with work and the latest appeal in my and my wife’s long fight with our health insurance company, so I’m late to the party on this one…but it seems that the California Supreme Court has found on a 4-3 vote that prohibiting same-gender marriage is unconstitutional.   I’ll defer to this post at Daily Kos for the summary.

I guess congratulations will soon be in order for some happy couples.

Driving home this evening, I listened to a few talking heads on the radio regarding what this might mean. For example, here in Connecticut, it’s expected that the logic behind today’s ruling will appear in arguments in a pending lawsuit which argues that our civil unions aren’t an acceptable compromise on the subject of marriage.   In CT and probably a few other states, this ruling will likely reinvigorate efforts to amend state constitutions to institutionalize homophobia.

In other words, the GOP might have an issue to campaign on this fall…one which would perhaps distract a few sheeple away from other issues plaguing the pachyderms.

I’ll take this opportunity to repeat my thoughts on the subject:  If you view marriage as being religious in nature, than it is arrogant beyond all belief for the state to dictate whom God can or cannot join together.  State recognition of marriage should be a reflection of a relationship that has formed, not a set of guidelines as to who may have relations.  Such restrictions could be viewed as just as inane as legislation governing who may or may not be baptized or ordained.

If you prefer to view marriage as a social construct…well, the last time I checked, politicians and bureaucrats are frequently not the folks I want to emulate when looking for social guidance.  Recognition of relationships defined by society should recognize differences in interpretation and evolution in those social norms.

I would prefer to see states get out of the marriage business.   Have civil unions, gender-blind, as a means for packaging up a bundle of legal privileges and responsibilities.   People can informally/conversationally view some or all civil unions as “marriage” according to their norms, but the state avoiding dealing with such an emotion-charged term is probably the fairest treatment of all.

In past discussions I’ve witnessed, where the principles of a centrist or libertarian party platform have attempted to have been worked out, one of the big challenges that must be overcome is that of abortion.  It’s a major political concern to many, and views on the subject tend to be highly polarized.

Frankly, when I was outlining the subjects I wanted to touch upon in my “Centrist’s Platform” series of posts, I was very tempted to skip over the subject due to the sensitivity of the matter.  (But, it’s not like many people actually read my rantings…so I’ll press on.)

On the one hand, you have folks who are morally horrified over such statistics as “20% of all pregnancies are terminated with an abortion”.   On the other, you have those who believe a woman should be in control of her own bodily functions.

Personally, I’m of a mind that an “abortion of convenience” is tantamount to murder, while an “abortion necessary to protect the health of the mother” is a tragedy, but something that should be available to those who need it.

However, “necessary to protect the health…” is a fuzzy term.  Mental and physical health matters are incredibly complex to perfectly define.  So, unless a legislative body is comprised predominantly of medical experts specializing in women’s health issues, I think such questions necessarily need to be left in the hands of a woman, her doctor, and others they may choose to include in the determination.

And because of the wide range of ambiguities involved…I submit that attempting any codification of the matter is an exercise in futility.

There, isn’t that simple?

If government involvement is required — a point I’m not sure I’d agree to begin with on — I’d prefer that it be focused on ensuring that people are adequately informed in order to make appropriate decisions and take appropriate measures before being exposed to a certain hormone-induced temporary drop in IQ and reason.

Oftentimes, other family issues are raised alongside the question of abortion.  Although the fuss seems to have declined somewhat in the past couple of years, the biggie would seem to be questions of same-gender marriage.

If I’m not mistaken, Americans have reached a point where a majority (or a near-majority) accept the notion of “civil unions” — the idea that the civic rights, privileges and responsibilities traditionally associated with marriage should be awarded to committed couples without actually describing the relationship as “marriage”.

Criticisms on that stance seem to focus on whether the state should “legitimize” same-gender relationships, versus whether the state should be obliged to bolster the social recognition of the status between same-gender couples by bestowing the label “marriage”.

What I’d like to know is — who came up with the idea that the state grants marriage?   Depending on your view, marriage is a sacrament bestowed by God, or is type of relationship that a committed couple agree to regardless of what others might say.

While I think there is something to be said for the state bundling rights, privileges, and obligations into a convenient label, to facilitate stable families… it boggles my mind to believe that anyone would buy into the notion that the state grants marriage.

Therefore, I’d like to see the government get out of the marriage business.   Let the state handle the paperwork and bureaucracy surrounded with the record keeping and protections needed to facilitate stable families blind to certain groups’ societal or religious biases.  Call that state recognition “civil union”.  And leave the question of whether a relationship is or is not “marriage” to religious or social institutions.

Seen in Monday’s Wall Street Journal: (subscriber link)

A small protestant church in Adrian, Mich., has weathered controversies surrounding abolition, the Civil War, desegregation and Vietnam since it was established in 1836. Now, because its denomination supports gay rights, the church has been deemed too risky for property insurance.

Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co. of Fort Wayne, Ind., turned down the West Adrian United Church of Christ, citing its national governing body’s approval of gay marriage and the ordination of homosexuals.

“Based on national media reports, controversial stances such as those indicated in your application responses have resulted in property damage and the potential for increased litigation among churches that have chosen to publicly endorse these positions,” Marci J. Fretz, a regional underwriter for Brotherhood Mutual — one of the nation’s largest insurers of religious institutions — wrote in a letter to the church last summer.

While I can imagine a slightly increased threat of physical damage (but then again, churches are surprisingly vulnerable to physical damage; remind me to tell you of the church I was in which was struck by lightning…twice)…increased liability risk?

In commercial lines property/casualty insurance business, insurers generally have additional flexibility in accepting or declining risk than they do in personal lines…so it does seem within the insurer’s rights to do this.  However, it seems wrong.

I’ve stated several times in the past my belief that the government should get out of the marriage business, due to the religious connotations of the union, as well as the social turmoil over what constitutes “marriage”. The the law package up certain rights, privileges, and responsibilities for family units, and leave the question of “what is marriage” to religious institutions and/or society at large.

Based on a WCCO story I encountered via Midtopia, a few American churches have started taking a similar stance:

The small, liberal church in south Minneapolis was the first of several Twin Cities congregations last year to stop performing civil marriage ceremonies as long as gay marriage is illegal. These churches, and a handful of others around the country that took the same step, will still hold a religious ceremony to bless the unions of straight and gay couples—but straight couples must go separately to a judge or justice of the peace for the marriage license.

“If you feel that gay and lesbian people are loved and credited by God, then how can we continue to discriminate against our brothers and sisters?” asked Rev. Don Portwood, the reserved Nebraska native who’s been lead pastor at the 120-member Lyndale United Church of Christ for 27 years.[...]

“I think both the civil and the conventional aspects of marriage are important, but they both have their place,” Campbell said. “It’s just gotten mixed up where they’re not clearly separated. I would say it’s only a matter of time before we move to what they’ve done in Canada, South Africa, Europe—separating out those two aspects.”

Runnion-Bareford, whose group led the opposition to UCC’s declaration on gay marriage in 2005, said that might not be as difficult to achieve as some might imagine. If gay marriage becomes legal in states other than Massachusetts, Runnion-Bareford predicted, then churches like Lyndale and Mayflower could find unlikely allies.

“I know there are clusters of conservative pastors in Massachusetts who have discussed refusing civil ceremonies so as not to be under pressure to perform same-gender ceremonies,” said Runnion-Bareford, who himself believes that government and the church have a joint interest in promoting traditional marriage as a societal good.

With a majority or near-majority of Americans supporting the idea of civil unions, but resisting actual “gay marriage”, heading down the path of unlinking the civil and religious/societal unions would likely be the fastest, least divisive way to achieve the end of this form of discrimination, I think.

Seen in the Boston Herald:

Parents who spank their kids - even in their own homes - would be slapped by the long arm of the law under an Arlington nurse’s proposal to make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to outlaw corporal punishment.[...]

If signed into law, parents would be prohibited from forcefully laying a hand on any child under age 18 unless it was to wrest them from danger, lest they be charged with abuse or neglect.[...]

Corporal punishment in the home is already illegal in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Latvia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and the Ukraine.[...]

An ombudsman is available to children in Sweden to report allegations of corporal punishment. Parents face jail time if it’s found they’ve stepped out of line.

While I can appreciate the concerns of some who believe that spanking equates to abuse, it seems to me that a proposal such as this is crossing the line when it comes to governmental interference with family life.

Child abuse is and should be a crime, and growing up, I definitely encountered situations where my classmates experienced corporal punishment at home that was certainly “over the line” by most folks’ definition of abuse.

However, I’m uncomfortable with the notion that a parent could be sent to jail for even an accusation of or a misunderstanding around a single swat to get an unruly child’s attention.

If corporal punishment is always to be considered abuse, wouldn’t it be worthwhile to invest in education/communication of that message, rather than simply declaring it to be so by legislative fiat, without buy-in from a super-majority of the public?

On many occasions in the past, I’ve questioned the idea of states being in the marriage business. I’d prefer that states became simple registrars of civil unions, and that the term “marriage” be left to be defined by society…or that religious marriage, as a sacrament, be left in the hands of churches. (After all, if it doesn’t make sense for the government to define eligibility for baptism, why does it make sense for the government to say whom God may join together?)

As this OpEd piece in the New York Times indicates, I’m perhaps not alone in having this view:

Possession of a marriage license is no longer the chief determinant of which obligations a couple must keep, either to their children or to each other. But it still determines which obligations a couple can keep — who gets hospital visitation rights, family leave, health care and survivor’s benefits. This may serve the purpose of some moralists. But it doesn’t serve the public interest of helping individuals meet their care-giving commitments.

Perhaps it’s time to revert to a much older marital tradition. Let churches decide which marriages they deem “licit.” But let couples — gay or straight — decide if they want the legal protections and obligations of a committed relationship.

Included in the articles I downloaded before we sailed from New York was a diary entry at Blue Mass Group relaying Live Science article:

Civil unions between male couples existed around 600 years ago in medieval Europe….

[Professor Allan Tulchin] found legal contracts from late medieval France that referred to the term “affrèrement,” roughly translated as brotherment….In the contract, the “brothers” pledged to live together sharing “un pain, un vin, et une bourse,” (that’s French for one bread, one wine and one purse). The “one purse” referred to the idea that all of the couple’s goods became joint property. Like marriage contracts, the “brotherments” had to be sworn before a notary and witnesses.

The comments to the diary entry are, naturally, full of discussion regarding the significance of this. However, I think this comment by Tim Little just about nails it:

I think the point may very well be that this type of arrangement is indeed nothing new. While it’s unclear whether these afrerements necessarily applied to homosexual couples, it does at least cast doubt upon the traditionalist argument against legal and social recognition of committed same-sex couples… with the caveat that this is just one snapshot of one place and one moment in European history.

To clarify, my guess—not being an historian—is that there was probably a world of difference between these afrerements and Church-sanctioned marriages between hetero couples circa 1400, just as a legal agreement (as suggested above) between a same-sex couple is not the same as true marriage equality in our own day and age.

I might go a step further, adding that this would provide some precedent for the concept civil recognition of non-traditional one-man, one-woman families, presumably with rights, responsibilities, and privileges associated with that recognition, without breaching the religious definition of marriage.

Thus, I stand by my previously-stated preference that the government should get out of the business of marriage. Let the state serve as registrar of civil unions, and leave the definition and pronouncement of marriage to society and religious institutions.