One of the many contentious questions in the debate over gay marriage is whether, and how, same-sex marriage would affect the flourishing of families and especially of children. Alana Newman, who has written for us before on gay marriage and assisted reproductive technologies, took up that topic yesterday at the Family Scholars blog.
At a luncheon, she says, she once heard “a woman speak of her and her lesbian partner and their deep, passionate desire to get married.” She continues:
In defending why they should have the right to do so they first and most forcefully reveal that they have a son they’re raising, born using one woman’s eggs, the other woman’s womb, and someone else’s sperm—a man that has been excluded and banished from the family. I notify her that I am against gay marriage and cite being donor-conceived as the essential experience that informs and shapes my opinion on this subject. She responds “but marriage and donor-conception have nothing to do with each other.” Even though she just propped up her son as the main reason why she and her partner should receive marriage privileges.
Recounting a lecture she attended by Robert George on What Is Marriage?, Newman writes that the philosophy underlying the left’s views on marriage, abortion, third-party reproduction is a dehumanizing form of mind-body dualism:
If “we”, our true selves, are our mind, and our body is just a vessel—then what harm are drugs, promiscuity, abortion, and 3PR? . . . If my body is separate from “me” than it is totally ridiculous and pointless that I am spending so much time talking about and pining for my biological father. . . .
But the body is the person. I am a woman. I am an amalgam of my father and mother. And they are of their mother and father. Intending parents that choose to dismember the human body and separate parenting into services rendered, particularly through surrogacy and egg donation, are dehumanizing their child. . . .
They are separating the person from a precious and sacred element of what it means to be human—having a mother and father. And it all stems from the mistake of philosophically separating the mind from the body. For parents via 3PR [third-party reproduction], I am not the enemy to their children finding happiness. Neither is the Catholic church. The enemy to their children’s happiness is humanity itself.
Read the rest at Family Scholars.
February 1st, 2013 | 2:02 pm
“She responds “but marriage and donor-conception have nothing to do with each other.” Even though she just propped up her son as the main reason why she and her partner should receive marriage privileges.”
No, she cited their raising of their son as a reason they need marriage. They want the rights because they have already assumed the responsibilities.
And this entire argument is moot since assisted reproduction is already legal. There’s no point in arguing if A might lead to B if B already exists.
February 1st, 2013 | 2:23 pm
I notify her that I am against gay marriage and cite being donor-conceived as the essential experience that informs and shapes my opinion on this subject.
If Alana Newman really opposes 3PR (third-party reproduction)—and I don’t doubt that she does—she ought to oppose 3PR itself, not same-sex marriage. Rob Vischer of Mirror of Justice raised this question commenting on one of Alana Newman’s previous posts on First Things:
It’s over-inclusive, of course, because by far not every gay married couple will employ 3PR or ART. And it’s under-inclusive because there are absolutely no constraints on straight married couples, straight unmarried couples, or single individuals (gay or straight) that prevent them from using 3PR or ART.
The lesbian couple Alana Newman criticizes (unjustly, in my opinion) don’t argue that they should be able to get married so that they can employ 3PR. They argue that they should be able to get married because they have a child. I think they were essentially correct in saying “marriage and donor-conception have nothing to do with each other.” They did not have to get married to have a son or to use 3PR. Nobody has to.
It is simply unjust to oppose same-sex marriage because you believe that some same-sex married couples will conceive by ART. Many opposite-sex married couples will conceive by ART. Many single women will conceive by ART. Many unmarried same-sex couples will conceive by ART. Oppose ART all you like. I’d consider supporting that. But don’t oppose…
February 1st, 2013 | 3:40 pm
Robert George – you are so close to the truth that you cannot see the truth. God is not in the business of good and bad. He does Truth. The definition of marriage is true. Any other definition is therefore a lie. Who can tell such a lie? Does that lie make the truth of our male and female bodies disappear? No.
“And it all stems from the mistake of philosophically separating the mind from the body”. Correct. But where else has our mind been separated from our body? Answer: the one place that CAN make our bodies disappear: man-made law.
February 1st, 2013 | 3:53 pm
I wonder how the lesbian mothers will explain how their male son got there? He’ll grow up one confused child, especially when other children will have a father(male) and mother(female) as parents. I guess it will take another 40 years to see the damaging effects.
February 1st, 2013 | 4:24 pm
One of the chief arguments against redefining marriage is that it’s best for a child to have a mother and a father.
More and more we see proponents of redefining marriage depriving a child of either a mother or a father and then turning around and saying “well the deed is already done, I have this child, so redefine marriage for the sake of my child.”
If it is best for a child to have a mother and a father, then why is it good to redefine marriage just because some people have already taken action against the best interests of some children?
Even if marriage is redefined, those children will still be deprived of a mother or a father.
February 1st, 2013 | 4:41 pm
Ms. Alana N. whose quotes provide quite a bit of assertive ‘substance’ for this page, is making numerous assumptions – firstly about her own self and her own views or beliefs, then secondly about somebody else’s sense of self along with what she supposes, attributes, or presumes their views to be. In fact little or none of these assumptions. which she facilely ascribes to queer folks who may disagree with her on this or that point of discussion, are essential when it comes to self/body, when it comes to loving someone else enough to pledge lifelong covenant intimacy with them, or when it comes to raising children. The spectre of a theoretically disembodied lesbian hell bent on raising a dislocated-disembodied kid (in this case, horrors, gasps, a boy?) is pretty awful sounding at first read. Thankfully we may allow ourselves a long sigh of blessed relief and sit back into our widely, deeply alive and shared humanity once more, despite the obvious fact that some of us love someone of the opposite sex enough to ‘marry’ him or her, and some of us love someone of the same sex enough to ‘marry’ him or her. One nice piece of relief simply stems from the empirical statistics. We don’t know exactly what percentage of large human populations are exclusively same sex oriented, but we do know fairly for certain that it is a small minority, that seems remarkably stable and persistent when a large population is measured or surveyed, and in any case, the percentage of queer folks is never, ever anywhere near a tipping point, statistically speaking. Perhaps Ms. AN takes way too strong a pumped up cue from her notions about theoretically disembodied lesbians? Nobody escapes being embodied in becoming a human self/embodied, either growing up, or living as an adult for the four to six additional decades that modern medicine now supports for humans. And the alarmed…
February 1st, 2013 | 5:28 pm
The real problem is the need for 3rt at all. It is used among straights because credentialling for the workplace and the flight to advanced schooling to avoid an economic downturn is making people get married at ages where fertility is on the slide downwards.
In a way, it’s similar to abortion. Both happen mostly because responsibility is ignored elsewhere. For one, it’s the lack of contraception used during sex. (I do not speak as a christian on this.) For the other, it’s the lack of understanding the reality of a woman’s fertile years.
We must deal with the changing nature of straight marriage to resist this. It will only get worse otherwise.
February 1st, 2013 | 5:58 pm
To purchase or sell a father or mother’s life-giving genetic material in order to produce a child who will deliberately be deprived of his mother, his father, or in some cases both, is an offense against children’s human rights.
Whether this has been done or is being done is of no significance. Many wrong and/or mistaken things have been done only to subsequently be corrected in law.
Slavery existed. It was legal. It had “already been done”. It seems trivial for me to have to write that this odious practice was not therefore rendered right and good. So also purchasing genetic material of a father or a mother to satisfy the desire of adults for a child.
February 1st, 2013 | 6:09 pm
Same-sex marriage does not, by itself, deprive a child of anything – because same-sex marriage does not, by itself, produce children.
To the extent that a child already exists outside the context of its mother and father, is it better for that child to grow up in the context of people in a committed marriage, or not?
Saying “I prefer children to grow up with a mother and a father, so I oppose same-sex marriage” is like saying “I prefer health, so I oppose hospitals” or “I prefer people be law-abiding citizens, so I oppose police” or “I prefer peace, so I oppose national defense.” We need public policy to address the world as we find it not the world as we might wish it to be.
Feel free to work to make the world as you might wish it to be. But in the meantime, we need hospitals.
February 1st, 2013 | 9:06 pm
Is there any hope of a turn around in this debate when we are so desensitized that we can post a picture of two women kissing in a Christian periodical without anyone batting an eye?
February 1st, 2013 | 10:57 pm
If any people raising a child together are entitled to marriage, same-sex marriage is only the tip of the iceberg. If a brother and sister are raising their orphaned nieces and nephews together, they are as much entitled. Or if more than two adults are acting as parents toward a child.
February 2nd, 2013 | 12:01 am
Once again, just as in 1968 with the publishing of Humanae Vitae, orthodox catholic teaching proclaims the truth with respect to assisted reproductive technologies (ART). I refer you to the papal instruction of a few years ago, Dignitas Personae ( or, the dignity of the person, for Latin challenged readers) ART treats children as a means to an end, the end being the “fulfillment” of the couple, be they heterosexual, homosexual, or lesbian. Whenever we treat another human being as a means to achieve our goals, we trample on his/her innate right to be shown proper respect and dignity. A child is a gift (from God), not a right!!
February 2nd, 2013 | 4:17 am
Regardless whether you agree with Same-sex marriage or not, what about the rights of IVF children? They are already here on this planet, should we consider giving them equal rights first while we adults are struggling with issues like same-sex marriage, single female mother of IVF child or single male father of IVF child, whether lesbian, gay or straight?
The way the prevailing laws are written is WITHOUT having IVF in mind. The current laws are written assuming a child always has a LEGAL MOTHER which works pretty well for natural born children and even for single mothers or lesbians, what about IVF? There are 8 different scenarios to assign parenthood for an IVF child and there is EXACTLY one scenario to assign parenthood in a natural born child. Why are we trying to fit a square peg in a round hole? We need updation of laws reflecting capabilities of medical technology like IVF in the BEST interest of the IVF CHILDREN regardless of their parent’s gender, sexual orientation, race, color, nationality, etc.
All the best!
February 2nd, 2013 | 6:27 am
It is a fact that every jurisdiction that has introduced same-sex marriage has also permitted human gametes to be treated as articles of commerce or tolerated a market in babies, bespoke or prêt-à-porter through surrogate gestation, assisted reproduction and joint adoption by same-sex couples.
I find it astonishing that Americans, who have viewed with equanimity the development of this form of human trafficking, should get into such a pother over SSM. It is to exalt form over substance with a vengeance.
Those following the debate in France will note that there most secular opposition to SSM stems from the belief that it will erode the ethical principle, enshrined in law, that children cannot be made the subject and source of a transaction, restricting joint adoption to (opposite-sex) married couples and declaring that the human body, its parts and products cannot be the subject of a patrimonial right. In this, I believe they are absolutely right.
February 2nd, 2013 | 7:32 am
The one thing that continually strikes me as I read about lesbians and gay men wanting to “be parents,” is just how incredibly selfish and inward-looking it is.
February 2nd, 2013 | 7:59 am
Thank you, Nick, for focusing attention on the photograph.
This visual image is deeply disturbing. It is part of a movement (perhaps well-meaning; I do not judge the motives of those involved) to undermine our human ability to perceive reality.
February 2nd, 2013 | 10:27 am
We are getting too philosophical about all of this. The real reason for the push for civil unions (gay marriages) and gay and lesbian rights to adopt is rather simple–these groups want us to accept their lifestyles as normal.
Those of us who believe in natural law philosophy and know that such same sex activities are sinful, do not want the lifestyles accepted, seeing these not only undermine marriage, but all of society.
To apply philosophical arguments to the lgtb agenda is not only unnecessary but a dangerous rabbit hole.
February 2nd, 2013 | 10:56 am
Ms. Newman falsely conflates marriage and procreation, a common mistake among people opposed to same-sex marriage.
If you really care about the welfare of children, you’d want them to be raised by a couple in as solid a relationship as possible, that is, a married couple. Regardless of how the children came to be their children.
February 2nd, 2013 | 11:47 am
Mary- unless, of course, there are other valid grounds for denying marriage to those groups. (And is there in fact an interest group composed of incestuous siblings raising their orphaned nieces and nephews together? I have never come across one)
February 2nd, 2013 | 5:38 pm
Did you see David Blankenhorn’s comment on the Family Scholars blog?
David Blankenhorn says:
02.01.2013 at 1:06 PM
“Their adherence to the “left” or “right” on one issue informs their likelihood of responding to the “left” or “right” on another Life or Dignity-related issue. Because there is an underlying philosophy that heads their thinking on all of them.”
In my view, that is a very dangerous way to think, Alana. I know it’s popular these days, and I too have heard dazzling lectures that propound this thesis, but in my own experience, thinking this way leads to a way of seeing the world that is harsh and brittle and angry and just about anything but fresh and engaging. I am old, and many smart people in my life have told me that they are in possession of a philosophy that answers all questions, resolves all conflicts, and explains all current divisions in society. And other smart people have told me that they are in possession of no such philosophy. I’ll leave it to God to sort out who’s ultimately on God’s side on the question, but speaking as a mere mortal, I’m grateful to find myself in the latter category.
February 2nd, 2013 | 5:54 pm
I love this comment from kisarita at the familyscholars post:
Right, and if it doesn’t allow and approve the conception of more offspring of the couple, it should have a different name. Civil Unions should be defined as “marriage minus conception rights” so they give all the security to same-sex couples raising children, but do not give the right to conceive offspring together. (And I’m not talking about 3PR, which isn’t a right of marriage (David Nickol is correct above) but literally conceiving offspring together, which IS a right of marriage.)
February 2nd, 2013 | 6:10 pm
Interesting article particularly as the debate on same sex marriage is all about keeping family lineage intact. The French were the first to respond to gay demands for recognition of their domestic partnerships. The PACT was created, which gives all of the rights of marriage, but specifically prohibits adoption, and assisted procreation to couples (gay and hetero) that have entered into PACTs. So the gay marriage debate in France is entirely focused on the rights of children to have both a father and a mother. Gay marriage would create two categories of children: those who have a mother and a father, and those who would be deprived of their real biological mother or father, and who would be separated from their lineage, from their family tree.
The second question is a human rights question: if same sex couples cannot reproduce, where will they get children? Gay men need surrogates, and some have been so forthright as to say that women should be reduced to their wombs. Surrogacy is banned in France, and Hollande’s attempts to give French citizenship to children whose mothers are exploited Indian surrogates has raised the ethical questions as to the future of women as equal human beings.
The debate in France is raising interesting philosophical and ethical issues that will enlighten the debate around Same-sex marriage in other countries. Certainly, these questions have not been debated to any depth in those jurisdictions that have already legislated same sex marriage.
February 3rd, 2013 | 7:02 am
Rachel
Thank you for an excellent post.
All these issues were very fully discussed in the Pécresse Report, a report commissioned by the National Assembly, entitled « La famille et les droits des enfants » [The Family and the Rights of Children] that reported on 25 January 2006. It is available on the Assemblée Nationale website (No 2832).
As to who is the (legal) mother, French jurisprudence has established that “the mother is the one who bears the child and gives it life by bringing it into the world.” [Court of Appeal, Rennes July 4 2002] In that case, the Procurator of the Republic successfully applied, under Art 339 of the Code Civil, to annul the acknowledgement by the unmarried genetic parents of twin girls, born to a surrogate in California.
As to paternity, Art 312 of the Code civil provides, “The child conceived or born during the marriage has the husband for father.”
February 3rd, 2013 | 10:34 am
Rachel- once again you are ignoring that surrogacy and donor sperm are already legal. Where is the crusade to ban those things for heterosexuals?
February 3rd, 2013 | 12:23 pm
“Where is the crusade to ban those things for heterosexuals?”
We should ban donor sperm and surrogacy for heterosexuals, absolutely. Alana S and several other DC offspring are crusading to end donor conception. But note that those things are not rights of marriage, so banning them wouldn’t publicly remove the approval of conception of offspring or prohibit any hetero married couple from having children together, which IS a right of marriage, but it would prohibit all same-sex couples from creating a person.
February 3rd, 2013 | 1:23 pm
John Howard- What to you mean by having children being a right of marriage? One need not be married to have kids and one need not have kids to be married.
I am glad you at least are being open about your desire to control the sexual and reproductive lives of all people, not just gay people.
February 3rd, 2013 | 2:13 pm
“Ms. Newman falsely conflates marriage and procreation, a common mistake among people opposed to same-sex marriage.
If you really care about the welfare of children, you’d want them to be raised by a couple in as solid a relationship as possible, that is, a married couple. Regardless of how the children came to be their children.”
I am curious; would you say the same thing about a committed couple that are also white supremacists? Should they be allowed to adopt and spread hate? What would you think if you found out that these supremacists were systematically adopting children in order to increase their ranks and spread their beliefs? Would you still say as long as the parents are committed it’s fine with you? I am not saying that gays are doing that, I am simply wondering how far you are willing to go with it. Some, apparently, are not allowed limits. Is it that way for all?
February 3rd, 2013 | 3:08 pm
So the gay marriage debate in France is entirely focused on the rights of children to have both a father and a mother.
rachel,
There is a problem of logic here. In the case of same-sex marriage, the children under discussion are children who have not been conceived. It may be argued that unborn children have rights, but how can it be maintained that unconceived children have rights that must be guaranteed by not allowing them to be conceived?
Gay marriage would create two categories of children: those who have a mother and a father, and those who would be deprived of their real biological mother or father, and who would be separated from their lineage, from their family tree.
Gay marriage will not, in and of itself, create any children at all. The couples I know who have married, two gay men and two lesbians, are never going to have children. The men are in their 60s with no intention to adopt, and the lesbians are past childbearing age, also with no intention to adopt. Any infertile married heterosexual couple who adopts or uses some form of third-party reproduction would have children who are “deprived of their real biological mother or father, and who would be separated from their lineage, from their family tree.” Would you be willing to prevent infertile heterosexual married couples from raising children?
February 4th, 2013 | 1:03 am
David, each child has a birthright. One would reasonably expect more conceptions and more births of more children whose birthright we are morally obligated to safeguard. There ya go.
Boo, why do you think that surrogacey is legal? Or “donor” sperm? You assume legality is decisive. But the law is not its own justification.
David Nickol declared that the presence of children justified SSM. He was challenged to say if that applied to others whose ineligibility to marry is the law. You, Boo, did not provide the “other valid reasons” for their ineligibility but your retort contradicted David’s declaration. You added that you know of no interest group for these ineligibles … however that objection would vanish by the appearance of such a group so your objection is transitory by intent. State the valid reasosn for ineligibility to SSM and later we might discuss valid reasosn for ineligibility to marry.
David Nichol, instead of the lame infertility strawman that you bring up at every opportunity, please clarify if you think SSM is oriented to same-sex sexual attraction and if that is the legitimate basis for eligiblity to SSM?
February 4th, 2013 | 3:54 am
David Nickol
It is plainly undesirable that children should be brought into being in circumstances that where they are severed from their biological roots. It is contrary to the ethical principle, hitherto enshrined in the law of France that a child may not be the subject and source of a transaction.
The ban on surrogate gestation is also directed against the exploitation of women, reducing them to the level of brood mares.
Finally, there is the question of human dignity. The general principle that “the human body, its elements and its products may not form the subject of a patrimonial right,” that “agreements that have the effect of bestowing a patrimonial value to the human body, its elements or products are void” and “no remuneration may be granted to a person who consents to an experimentation on himself, to the taking of elements of his body or to the collection of products thereof” prevents the human person being reduced to an article of commerce. Of course this includes, but is not limited to, human gametes. As Art 16-9 makes clear, this is not a question of individual rights, but of public policy – « Les dispositions du présent chapitre sont d’ordre public. »
February 4th, 2013 | 6:11 am
David Nickol declared that the presence of children justified SSM.
Chairm,
No I didn’t. If you believe I did, please point out where or quote me.
February 4th, 2013 | 9:34 am
It is plainly undesirable that children should be brought into being in circumstances that where they are severed from their biological roots.
Michael PS,
It may be an excellent principle, but clearly it doesn’t seem to have been embraced in the United States. There are almost no restrictions on third-party reproduction.
If anyone tells me he or she would support a ban on third-party reproduction, I will say, “Good for you!” I might support such a ban myself. However, if anyone tells me he or she opposes same-sex marriage because some gay people might take the same advantage of third-party reproduction as married couples, single women, and unmarried same-sex or opposite-sex couples, I will say it is a flimsy excuse for opposing same-sex marriage.
February 4th, 2013 | 11:08 am
David Nickol
What I question, as many people in France are doing, is whether it will be possible to retain the existing restrictions on assisted reproduction, if same-sex marriage is introduced.
Certainly, the ban on surrogate gestation and on the sale of human gametes could, in principle, be maintained, although, even here, we would soon hear the argument that it disproportionately affected same-sex couples.
However, could the law continue limiting assisted reproduction to the treatment of a pathological condition or to married opposite-sex couples? I doubt it.
Likewise, joint adoption is currently confined to married, hence opposite-sex, couples. If SSM were introduced, could it still be confined to opposite-sex couples?
SSM cannot be treated in isolation from adoption, assisted reproduction or surrogate gestation, because these are already linked to marital status and marital status has, in turn, been confined to opposite-sex couples.
February 4th, 2013 | 12:00 pm
RE: “If a brother and sister are raising their orphaned nieces and nephews together, they are as much entitled.”
The only purpose of marriage in the eyes of the (secular) law is to establish legal kinship where none previously existed. (It is from that kinship that the “effects that flow from marriage” come.
Brothers and sisters are already legal kin, and thus have no need of marriage.
Do better.
February 4th, 2013 | 12:56 pm
tell the truth: Social Security survivor benefits (see http://www.ssa.gov/survivorplan/ifyou.htm) are only assignable via a marriage certificate. To permit two men to assign survivor benefits to each other but not a brother and a sister raising orphans, well that would be unjust.
February 4th, 2013 | 1:19 pm
Chairm- “Boo, why do you think that surrogacey is legal? Or “donor” sperm? You assume legality is decisive. But the law is not its own justification.”
Those things are legal because we as a society have decided it isn’t the government’s business to tell people how to conceive.
“David Nickol declared that the presence of children justified SSM.”
His comment directly above yours seems to say the exact opposite. Regardless, I am not required to agree or disagree with David Nickol on anything. The presence of the 14th Amendment justifies SSM. The fact of same sex couples raising children only further underlines the point. We want the rights because we have already assumed the responsibilities, and there is no clear interest in denying those rights.
“David Nichol, instead of the lame infertility strawman that you bring up at every opportunity, please clarify if you think SSM is oriented to same-sex sexual attraction and if that is the legitimate basis for eligiblity to SSM?”
The legitimate basis for eligibility to SSM is the principle of equal rights.
February 4th, 2013 | 2:15 pm
Certainly, the ban on surrogate gestation and on the sale of human gametes could, in principle, be maintained, although, even here, we would soon hear the argument that it disproportionately affected same-sex couples.
However, could the law continue limiting assisted reproduction to the treatment of a pathological condition or to married opposite-sex couples? I doubt it.
MichaelPS, I think “disproportionately” is putting it mildly: All same-sex couples would completely lose the right to make children to raise, while absolutely zero marriages would lose the right to make children. They might lose the ability, but that was never guaranteed anyhow, even with ART. Banning donor gametes or IVF in general would only reduce the chances of a married opposite couple having children, but they would still be allowed and approved marriage to have children together. In contrast banning donor gametes or IVF would rule out completely single people and same-sex couples from making babies (except by temporarily being part of an opposite sex couple, but that just proves the point, and shows the reason marriage only allows sex on the condition of pledging exclusive commitment for life).
And if same-sex couples were married, they would surely try to claim that a ban on donor gametes violated some house-of-cards concerning marriage’s conception rights and the presumption of paternity. But they’d be wrong on both counts and their house of cards would collapse, because having children with another man is adultery and not a right of marriage, and the presumption of paternity is (or was) based on adultery being inconceivable, a capital crime, not freely allowed. It’s an abuse of the letter of the law to name husbands as fathers when they are not, and it violates the child’s rights (even though the violation occurs, obviously, before the child is conceived).
February 4th, 2013 | 2:49 pm
(I left out same-sex conception using stem cells from my last comment, just to be different this time, but I can’t let the holes in the argument go unfilled. Banning gamete donation would not completely take away the right of same-sex couples to have children, because they could still legally use their own stem cells to create their own egg and sperm, creating genetic offspring with no third party. But though that seems like a neat solution to the problems of 3PR, it would cost way too much and be too risky and is entirely unnecessary and not a right, and it would undermine the whole basis of equality. It is much better to preserve sex and equal natural reproductive rights than to allow making people from genetically modified gametes. All people should be created equal, as the union of a man and a woman.
February 4th, 2013 | 2:58 pm
Boo, no one has a right to reproduce with someone of their same sex, or change sex and reproduce as the other sex. People only have a right to reproduce as their birth sex, and in cases where it is ambiguous or incorrect, that means the sex which they would be most likely able to reproduce as using their unmodified natural gametes. But not whichever sex they feel like.
February 4th, 2013 | 3:47 pm
However, could the law continue limiting assisted reproduction to the treatment of a pathological condition or to married opposite-sex couples? I doubt it.
Michael PS,
I understand your concern about France, but since there are no restrictions on assisted reproduction in the United States, I don’t see it as an issue here. Based on this information, I take it that heterosexual couples do not have to be married to be eligible for ART in France. (“[O]nly heterosexual, young, medically infertile couples that have been married or have cohabitated for at least two years are eligible.”)
Many people who oppose same-sex marriage are Catholic or hold beliefs similar to Catholics, and as you know, the Church prohibits any form of ART, even in vitro fertilization using the husband’s sperm and the wife’s egg. I do not know why these people are not more vocal against ART, particularly when we have had such bizarre abuses of the technology in the United States (“Octomom,” the unmarried woman who had octuplets using in vitro fertilization, adding to the six others children she already had by in vitro fertilization as well).
February 4th, 2013 | 4:42 pm
David Nickol:
Some of us do oppose it, but it’s a lost fight. You have seen how hard it is for us to argue against SSM based on future problems, many of which are surprisingly coming true. How on earth can we argue in the public square that childless women cannot have children based on the potential problems they may have, especially when many of those might even be lesser than the current issues with divorce?
IVF also empowers women to get advanced degrees and obtain career success. I say this not to argue for it, but to show how hard if not impossible the challenges are. You might as well argue for legal restrictions on contraception, too.
February 4th, 2013 | 5:14 pm
I think we should immediately enact an “sperm of a man and egg of a woman law” that would stop things that haven’t been done yet, such as same-sex offspring and genetically modified humans, and then, once we have established that ART can be regulated with laws, we can begin to regulate the ART that is currently practiced. I think the next thing to ban would be posthumous conception, and then donor conception, and then, IVF. But we can’t just suddenly ban IVF, it would be unfair after so many people have planned their future with it being legal. So when we ultimately ban it, the ban should not kick in immediately but rather in 10 years time, so that people are prepared when it stops being an option.
February 4th, 2013 | 6:07 pm
[T]he ban on surrogate gestation and on the sale of human gametes could, in principle, be maintained, although, even here, we would soon hear the argument that it disproportionately affected same-sex couples.
A fair statement. Equal Protection jurisprudence recognizes that the government may adopt policies that have disparate impacts, even disparate impacts on protected categories of citizens, when the policies are narrowly tailored to promote bona fide governmental purpose.
But the political dynamics may not track the legal ones. If childless couples are deemed a more sympathetic party than children born via assistive reproductive technologies, I could imagine that prohibitions would be challenging to achieve/maintain.
To my mind, these political dynamics have nothing to do with same-sex marriage. Granting legal status for same-sex couples will not make the public sympathetic to them; rather, it’s the fact that the public has become sympathetic to same-sex couples that will promote granting legal status.
??? What harm arises from assisted reproduction that evaporates in the context of pathological condition or opposite-sex couples?
I think adoption law should promote the best interest of the child. I don’t see the need to exclude anyone from adopting, categorically. The adoption agency should consider all options and do what’s in the best interest of the child.
February 4th, 2013 | 10:52 pm
John Howard, this is the real world. There will be no ban for the simple reason that any politician who proposed it would be in search of an honest living after the next election. There are hypotheticals and there are absurdities. The notion that IVF will ever be banned in the US is an absurdity.
February 5th, 2013 | 3:55 am
Nobody.Really wrote “??? What harm arises from assisted reproduction that evaporates in the context of pathological condition or opposite-sex couples?”
The environment into which the child is born. The inability of a same-sex couple to conceive together is not pathological, so they are excluded by definition.
“I think adoption law should promote the best interest of the child.”
And the law restricting joint adoption to opposite-sex couples is based on well-established psychoanalytical theory, corroborated by clinical studies as to the rôle of father and mother in the child’s development.
As the eminent psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and government advisor, Pierre Lévy-Soussan, told the Pércresse commission: “It is in the child’s best interests to join a nuclear family that is already socially accepted so that he or she does not have to take on the additional task, following a history of abandonment, of adapting to a family that is, for whatever reason, ‘non-standard’.” He believes that in order to be successful, adoption must lead to a psychological filiation that “allows for a nexus of the three elements that are basic to any society: the biological, the social and the subjective dimensions specific to human beings. The psychological strength of this construction exceeds the purely biological connection of filiation and provides it with security. The security and ‘truth’ of this filiation are based on childbirth, on a potential or actual procreative relationship between a man and a woman, allowing the fictional filiation through the encounter with the other sex, alive and of the same generation. The fictional filiation can then be experienced as true, consistent and reasonable.”The difference in sex between the two members of the parental couple thus seems to him indispensable if the adoption “graft” is to take.
Obviously, we cannot conflate…
February 5th, 2013 | 9:52 am
Michael PS- but again, we know this is not true. Children raised by gay couples turn out as well as children raised by straight couples.
February 5th, 2013 | 9:56 am
And the law restricting joint adoption to opposite-sex couples is based on well-established psychoanalytical theory, corroborated by clinical studies as to the rôle of father and mother in the child’s development.
Michael PS,
Adoption by single parents is quite common in the United States. Even many branches of Catholic Charities support it. Is it really plausible that a single man or a single woman raising children presents no problems for their psychological health, but two men or two women raising children puts them at some kind of psychological risk?
February 5th, 2013 | 11:03 am
Chuck, I actually agree that banning IVF is not going to happen in today’s culture, and nor is it entirely necessary to ban ever. It is unrelated to marriage, and it still produces natural offspring. It is not absurd though to think we can ban genetic engineering and same-sex conception using stem cell derived genetically modified gametes, and I’d say that any politician who opposes banning same-sex conception would be looking for honest work next year. There are many SSM opponents who tell me they oppose mt proposal to only enact an “egg from woman sperm from man” law because they want to ban all ART all at once with a “sexual intercourse” law, but I tell them they are crazy to think that could be done. We should start with stuff that no one has done yet, and then slowly, incrementally address other bad practices as the culture adapts to the new reality that we can regulate this stuff at all.
February 5th, 2013 | 11:13 am
When I said “It is unrelated to marriage, and it still produces natural offspring” I was thinking of donor conception. Homologous IVF (non-donor) might well be a right of marriage, though I would say it is not, but I certainly think marriage implies a right to reproduce offspring together and I believe in medical privacy.
February 5th, 2013 | 11:35 am
So, should interracial couples be precluded from adoption? Perhaps so.
What is in the best interest of the child strikes me as an empirical question. So, if data shows that interracial couples are more prone to divorce than other couples, and that harms kids, I’d say that an adoption center should consider those data in determining the best interest of the child.
Similarly, whether or not same-sex couples provide a less nurturing environment for a kid than male/female couples, or single people, or growing up in a foster family/orphanage, is an empirical matter, not an ideological one.
That said, adoption centers don’t choose between placing a child with a same-sex couple or a male/female couple. They choose between placing a child with an affluent, bi-lingual, white-collar same-sex couple that is already raising another child vs. a male/female couple living on disability checks in which both partners chain-smoke. Etc. Etc. In short, the “best interest of the child” standard weighs multiple considerations.
I want to promote the “best interest of the child,” thus I reject any standard that would place one criterion over all others.
February 5th, 2013 | 12:10 pm
In France, the Pécresse Commission in 2006 examined the question of single adoption. There are about 25,000 married couples annually approved for adoption and about 5,000 children available. Four-fifths of these are overseas adoptions. Naturally, preference is given to couples.
In practice, the courts approve single adoptions only in the case of older children and where the adoptor is closely related to the child by blood or marriage, often a step-mother, where both the natural parents are dead or incapacitated, or, in one or two cases, a long-term care giver.
In such cases, the Commission felt that adoption by a single person could be in the child’s interests and that a judge’s assessment of the desirability of the adoption offers an adequate guarantee.
February 5th, 2013 | 1:36 pm
Boo
We cannot conflate adoption with cases of children raised by a biological parent and his or her same-sex partner, or, especially in the case of older children, an existing carer.
Nor should we rely on social surveys rather than clinical studies of patients who have undergone lengthy periods of psychoanalysis.
For over a century, psychiatrists from Freud to Lacan have stressed the role of the Œdipus complex for development in the phallic phase (aged 3-6); it would take a great deal of clinical evidence to overturn these findings.
Nobody.really
No one, in Scotland or France would hand over a child from an ethnic minority group to a white couple for adoption or vice versa
February 6th, 2013 | 1:12 pm
MichaelPS- and? Gay couples adopt children, and raise children from previous heterosexual relationships of one partner, and use IVF to have children. Who’s conflating anything?
February 6th, 2013 | 4:14 pm
Boo, do you think it would have been OK if Richard and Mildred Loving were allowed to marry but still prohibited from reproducing offspring together? If Virginia had said that as long as inter-racial couples can adopt children, and raise children from previous relationships, or use a black sperm donor, you think they would have all the rights of marriage, equal to any other marriage?
I don’t think so, I think that wouldn’t be marriage at all, it would be missing the essential sine qua non right of marriage, the right to reproduce offspring together, and that cannot be declared equal to anything a same-sex couple might do to acquire children. Same-sex couples do not have a right to procreate that all marriages have always had and must continue to have.
February 8th, 2013 | 12:28 am
Boo, the law does not justify itself. The 14th Amendment is a law. It does not justify itself.
It appears that your starting place, always, is the law. Yet the law is not the font of wisdom you pretend it to be. Indeed, that pretense is shattered each time you insist that your interpretation of this or that law is right and contrary interpretations are wrong. You rely on a reality independent of the law. That is the starting place.
Now both you and David have clarified that the presence of children does NOT justify SSM. Except when you claim that it does justify SSM.
Also you said: “We want the rights because we have already assumed the responsibilities, and there is no clear interest in denying those rights.”
Raising children is not something exclusive to the type of one-sexed scenario you have in mind for SSM, Boo. There are millions more one-sexed families that do not fit your narrow gay emphasis.
And, if the law is your touchstone, then, you would oppose the argument you make that child-raising is a trump card for those whose relationships are ineligible. The law contradicts you clearly. As does the principle of equal treatment.
That principle is has two sides, one of which you obscure deliberately. We are forbidden to treat people differently, arbitrarily; we are also forbidden to treat people the same, arbitrarily. With SSM you demand arbitrariness on both sides of the equal treatment coin.
You are playing a game of heads-I-win and tails-you-lose. That arbitrariness is the theme of your rhetoric and yet you contradict yourself repeatedly.
February 8th, 2013 | 7:04 am
John Howard- you’re confusing the right to do something with the ability to do something.
February 8th, 2013 | 7:12 am
Chairm- no, you are reading contradictions into my comments that aren’t there.
The principle of equal rights is what justifies itself (and that is my starting place). The raising of children is one reason why gay couples need access to legal marriage, but it is not the only reason. If it were, then it would be appropriate to ban marriage between infertile heterosexuals. And I am not demanding arbitrariness, I am saying that your reasons for wanting to ban same sex marriage are arbitrary. Again, every argument against it boils down to demonization of gay people, religious dogma, or false claims about gay people’s unfitness as parents. I have been debating with multiple people on this site for some time now and still have yet to come across an argument that does not fall into one of those categories.
February 9th, 2013 | 12:33 am
I don’t confuse them Boo. Marriage is the right to conceive offspring, not the ability to conceive offspring. Having the right is important, even without the ability. Marriages should never be prohibited from reproducing offspring.
Please try again to answer my question about Richard and Mildred Loving: Would it have still been a marriage if they didn’t have the right to have sex and conceive offspring together, and had to use donor sperm or adopt kids instead?
February 9th, 2013 | 12:38 am
Same-sex couples do not have the right to conceive offspring together and should be prohibited from attempting it. It doesn’t matter if they are able to or unable to, or what technology might come along to make it possible, they don’t have a right to do it in the first place and shouldn’t be allowed, it is bad public policy to be legal.
February 9th, 2013 | 10:02 am
But John,
That’s a little bit off topic. Sheesh, they have the right to try!
February 9th, 2013 | 11:34 am
No, they don’t have the right to try! People have a right to reproduce naturally, do not equate that to the right to reproduce with someone of the same sex, which does not exist at all!
Allowing it confuses children and if it ever becomes possible it would be unethical and lead to all sorts of problems such as becoming a huge expensive government entitlement and costly regulation, negate reproductive rights and equality, and there is just no need to, it would be much smarter to prohibit it right now.
February 9th, 2013 | 12:19 pm
John Howard- no, marriage is not the right to conceive offspring. I know of no law in the US that forbids unmarried people from conceiving offspring. Your assertion is simply not factually correct. I suspect what you really mean is that conceiving offspring outside of marriage violates your religious beliefs, which is all well and good, but also irrelevant.
And the argument against the Loving’s marriage was that they did not, in fact, have the right to create mixed-race offspring. The trial judge explicitly stated in his opinion that they were trying to violate God’s dictum for separation of the races.
February 9th, 2013 | 2:57 pm
No Boo my point is that same-sex couples do not, in fact, have a right to create offspring. Mixed race couples DO have a right to conceive offspring, but same-sex couples do not. So laws against letting people marry someone of a different race were unconstitutional, they violated human rights because they created racial categories that were in themselves
February 9th, 2013 | 3:10 pm
…were in themselves unConstitutional, because they were designed to promote white supremacy.
The point is that the question of whether to allow such couples to marry was identical, synonymous, to the question of whether to allow them to reproduce offspring. It should continue to be the same question, we should not separate the question into two different independent questions. Note that whether unmarried couples have a right to reproduce without marrying first is completely beside the point, irrelevant. As long as a couple has a right to marry they have a right to procreate together, and vice versa. No couple should ever be prohibited from one but allowed to do the other. That has never happened in human history until same-sex marriage, which allows marriage but requires the couple to use donors, genetic engineering, or adopt. Same-sex couples should be prohibited from conceiving offspring. All marriages should be approved and allowed to conceiving offspring.
February 9th, 2013 | 4:09 pm
Boo, SSM is not a form of marriage that I wish to ban. It is, quite simply, not marriage at all.
The principle of equality may be your starting point but you favor a type of relationship that is among many similarly situated in the non-marriage category. Your favoritism is arbitrary, based on the very same stated standards you have invoked to attack the marriage idea.
You clearly are very reluctant to defend your SSM idea. So you attack the marriage idea. But those standards for attack, when turned on your SSM idea, destroy your pro-SSM complaint and your pro-SSM remedy.
What are the essentials of the type of relationship you have in mind for SSM? Not same-sex sexual attraction. Not same-sex sexual behavior. Not even gay identity. None of that is mandatory for those who’d SSM so your SSM idea falls on your own sword.
Now, if you want to recant those stated standards that you have used to attack the marriage idea, fine, but then we can get on with the reasonable basis for lawmaking on the type of relationship you have in mind for SSM. That means the discussion is not really about marriage, afterall, but about your gay emphasis.
February 9th, 2013 | 5:33 pm
John Howard- first you insist that same sex couples do not have the right to conceive offspring, then you say they should be prohibited from doing so. Which is it?
And please cite the relevant statute that forbids gay couples to conceive.
February 9th, 2013 | 5:41 pm
“The principle of equality may be your starting point but you favor a type of relationship that is among many similarly situated in the non-marriage category. Your favoritism is arbitrary, based on the very same stated standards you have invoked to attack the marriage idea.”
In what way am I “favoring” anything? What “similarly situated” relationships do you imagine I am arbitrarily against?
“You clearly are very reluctant to defend your SSM idea. So you attack the marriage idea. But those standards for attack, when turned on your SSM idea, destroy your pro-SSM complaint and your pro-SSM remedy”
What precisely is this “marriage idea” that you claim I am attacking? You mention it all the time but I do not recall you ever actually defining it.
“What are the essentials of the type of relationship you have in mind for SSM? Not same-sex sexual attraction. Not same-sex sexual behavior. Not even gay identity. None of that is mandatory for those who’d SSM so your SSM idea falls on your own sword.”
The “essentials”? Um… that would be a consenting competent adult having the right to marry another consenting, competent adult they are not too closely biologically related to (because of genetics for opposite sex couples and because for same sex couples allowing it would create separate and unequal classes of marriage). You really needed that spelled out? And how precisely does that make anything “fall on its own sword”?
February 10th, 2013 | 11:15 am
Huh? There currently is no law prohibiting attempting to make a child that is the offspring of a same-sex couple using genetically modified stem cell derived gametes. It should be prohibited with a federal law ASAP.
There is no right to marry and procreate with someone of the same sex, which means it can be prohibited, it doesn’t mean it is already prohibited. Rights are things that cannot be prohibited, not things that happen to be allowed. Things that are not rights can be allowed, if we decide to allow them any way, but that doesn’t make them rights.
February 10th, 2013 | 12:22 pm
Boo, you are on to something with how we forbid marriage of closely related men and women. But note that we also forbid some marriages of non-blood related close relatives, so it’s more than just genetics, there is also concern for stable family dynamics free from sexual potential. When people are off limits from marriage and sex, they are able to have more productive and trusting relationships, and work together better. And also note that men are also too closely genetically related to other men and women too closely related genetically to other women for them to have healthy children together, so much so that it is impossible in nature to create viable embryos from joining their unmodified gametes. To make a viable embryo they would require genetic modification of one of their gametes, which is an unnecessary endeavor full of risk and expense.
February 10th, 2013 | 3:46 pm
Boo, there is a wide range of types of relationships and types of living arrangements that populate the non-marriage category.
Not all two-sexed scenarios are marital, of course, but this is due to the core meaning of marriage that you reject outright. Let’s that asside for a moment and focus on the range of one-sexed scenarios — most of which are not gay or even sexualized.
From amongs these, what distinguishes the type of relationship you have in mind — before the law even enters the picture? The law would follow from that so as to treat that type of relationship for what it is rather than for what it is not. That is meaning of justifying boundaries of eligibility and ineligibility; but this also goes directly to justification for a special relationship status (marital status is a special or preferential status) for the type of relationship you have in mind.
Thusfar you favor the gay subset of non-marriage. Without justification, thusfar. Consent is insufficient for consent does not trump the ineligibility of those who have called “too-closely related” — “because of genetics”. Yet you have insisted that the union of husband and wife, as a type of relationship, is not procreative in kind.
If you had been engaged in the actual arguments, you would have noticed my defining the marriage idea thusly: 1) integration of the sexes, 2) provision for responsible procreation, and 3) these combined as a coherent whole (i.e. as a foundational social institution of civil society). This is expressed in our laws and in our traditions and it is a universal core meaning that cuts across the anthropological and historical records. It explains the lines drawn for eligibility and ineligibility — where society regards this core meaning. You propose that society become blind to it because you favor a different idea — the SSM idea.
February 11th, 2013 | 11:35 am
“There is no right to marry and procreate with someone of the same sex, which means it can be prohibited, it doesn’t mean it is already prohibited. Rights are things that cannot be prohibited, not things that happen to be allowed. Things that are not rights can be allowed, if we decide to allow them any way, but that doesn’t make them rights.”
That is your opinion, and you are certainly entitled to it, but the government is not required to enforce your opinions.
February 11th, 2013 | 9:28 pm
No, it’s very much a fact. There is no right to marry and procreate with someone of the same sex, because rights are grounded in history and nature and aren’t just everything that people want to be allowed to do. You can have an opinion that there is a right to do procreate with the same sex, but it would be wrong, like having the opinion that people have a right to procreate with elephants, or you can say that in spite of it not being a right, it should be allowed anyway, but remember the government is not required to allow things that are not rights.
It would be much better public policy, and better for same-sex couples and gay people, to prohibit same-sex couples from making offspring and focus instead on uniform civil unions that give all the other rights and benefits of marriage but do not give conception rights.
February 12th, 2013 | 5:29 am
Boonton the government is not required to enforce your opinion.
The marital act, which is procreative in kind, is part and parcel of that to which the bride and groom consent and to which society consents. That is the sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity. It is the sexual basis for the liberty to attempt to procreate together that is intrinsic to the union of husband and wife.
That liberty is not a right to human manufacture. The attempt to do “same-sex conception” is the attempt to manufacture human beings. That is not human procreation nor is it entailed in the liberty to attempt to procreate together.
Merging SSM with marriage would either 1) corrupt the marital liberty and misshape it into a government created “right” to manufacture, or 2) obscure the marital liberty and intrude upon the union of husband and wife for the absrdity of cutting from marriage what does not fit SSM. Both would be unjust.
February 12th, 2013 | 2:01 pm
John Howard- once again, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but the government is not required to enforce your opinion. And the majority is not required to agree with you (which they do not). You also may not have noticed you are once again making the exact same arguments used by defenders of slavery, segregation, and anti-miscegnation laws. They too were equally convinced that there was no right grounded in history or nature that supported race-mixing. How did that work out again?
February 12th, 2013 | 2:04 pm
Chairm- “The marital act, which is procreative in kind, is part and parcel of that to which the bride and groom consent and to which society consents. That is the sexual basis for the marital presumption of paternity. It is the sexual basis for the liberty to attempt to procreate together that is intrinsic to the union of husband and wife.”
That is simply not true. Once again you ignore that we already allow people who cannot procreate to marry, and do not require people to be married to procreate. These facts essentially negate your entire last post.
February 12th, 2013 | 3:14 pm
No Boo, the majority agrees with me that we should prohibit cloning and manufacturing babies that are offspring of same-sex couples. Transhumanists are a very small subculture of the general population.
I’m not only entitled to my opinion that it would be better public policy to prohibit same-sex marriage and manufacturing offspring of same-sex couples, but I’m entitled to publicize my proposal and persuade Congress to enact the laws that would prohibit it. You’re entitled to stand in the way, but it would waste time and money and harm millions of people.
“exact same arguments used by defenders of slavery, segregation, and anti-miscegnation laws.”
On the contrary, boo! I’m making the same arguments as abolitionists and it’s transhumanists and eugenicists who are making the same arguments as slavers and segregationists. I’m trying to preserve equal procreation rights for all, with the person of our mutual choice (except for certain prohibited relationships of course, and people of the same sex), which is the basis of equality itself.
You seem to not understand: marriage approves and allows the conception of offspring, it doesn’t require it. A marriage should never be vulnerable to being prohibited from conceiving offspring of the couple’s genes, but a same-sex couple should be prohibited from conceiving offspring of the couple’s genes. My right to procreate with a woman should never be equated to my right to procreate with a man, or it is completely negated.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact