"I believe, although there is little evidence yet, that the effects on children raised by gay couples will usually be quite negative, in part because fathers and mothers have distinct but important roles, in part because their family structures will differ so greatly from that of their classmates and other peers."

What about the children of homosexual couples in comparison to children raised by a single parent? A same-sex couple at least has a chance of fulfilling the need for two distinct but important roles. A single parent has no chance.

I would be more interested to see the outcome of two gay parents raising a heterosexual child. I don't doubt the capacity of the parent's love to be blind to such distinctions, but they nevertheless could lead to some awkward and inadequate parent/child dynamics.

"although the data that demonstrate this is mainly from gay couples without children."

Well now see that is really important, because gay couples who decide to get married are, via that committment, proving their increased suitability for rasing children by your own criteria. (stability, multiple parent)

I was in Boston during the debate on this issue, and was overjoyed to see gay couples lining up at the courthouse. Every discussion I have seen on gay marriage has come down to, "look to the children"

Conservatives are in need of a rational "harm" to point to in order to make their opposition to gay rights look like anything other than a bare desire to discriminate. Children are the easy target, because no one wants to hurt kids, and they are reportedly fragile.

I grew up in Jesus-land, around conservatives who were pretty ignorant about gays. The funny thing was, when it came to alcoholic, chain-smoking, promiscious, straight single-parent neighbors, no one was standing up to say "look to the children". In fact, many of these people would rail against the guv'ment messin' wit their rights whenever child services would show up at someone's door to look into bruises.

Gay couples have a right to raise children to the best of their ability. The fact that the median income for gays is $20,000 higher than for straights in this country might help them in that endeavor. Conservatives who are also opposed to abortion might think of the increased market for adoption as more gay couples found stable homes and want to raise kids.

1. Many conservatives oppose same-sex marriage (SSM) because they regard homosexual relationships as intrinsically unnatural (in the natural right/natural law tradition of Aristotle/Aquinas) or sinful. For them, it is one thing for the state to tolerate homosexual behavior (just as it tolerates many other bad behaviors), quite another to put its imprimatur to the practice.

Others argue that SSM would contribute to the further decline of marriage by decoupling sex from procreation and marriage from the family (e.g., Stanley Kurtz), causing the US to look more like "Old Europe."

SSM could also make it easier for gay couples to rear children (thus increasing its incidence), which, despite the studies produced by academics (who are overwhelmingly leftist and pro-SSM), is not in the best interests of children unless one believes that men and women are interchangeable (one wonders how they square this idea with their mantra for gender diversity). And as Becker notes, we know from the Dutch experience that gay couples divorce at a much higher rate than straight couples, which does not bode well for creating stable families for children.

2. Conversely, gay-rights activists insist on "marriage" even if the legal benefits of civil unions are similar because they seek equal recognition ("isothumia" as Fukuyama terms it). It's as much about "dignity" as it is about the actual legal benefits that the marriage contract bestows (only devotees of abstract egalitarianism would find this rationale convincing).

And as Eugene Volokh suggests, SSM might also pave the way for an activist judiciary to extend protection for gays against discrimination in employment, housing, etc. if the theory is that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of sex (or gender) discrimnation.

"I grew up in Jesus-land, around conservatives who were pretty ignorant about gays. The funny thing was, when it came to alcoholic, chain-smoking, promiscious, straight single-parent neighbors, no one was standing up to say 'look to the children'. In fact, many of these people would rail against the guv'ment messin' wit their rights whenever child services would show up at someone's door to look into bruises."

I don't know where Jesus-land is, but it sounds like a place that has the same problems as every state in the country. Moreover, there was someone standing up to say, "look to the children." Child services, AKA the government (who was acting in behalf of the people through elected representatives), utilized the power given to them through statutes. This is the center of the debate for SSM, and the argument that government should consider the affects that SSM has on children is germane and necessary.

Many conservatives (like Kurtz) say legalization will have a contagion effect and/or it will harm heterosexual marriage. I don't understand theoretically how legalization will undermine heterosexual marriage, and am hoping commets may address this, but given how small the gay population is to the rest of the population (1-3% according to the NHSLS), and given the lower rates of cohabitation among gay men, I cannot imagine the effect would be large if it did exist at all.

But you could also imagine that legalizing gay marriage could improve heterosexual marriages. If gay men marry women, occasionally, to acquire some portion of the benefits to marriage (or perhaps to conceal their status as gay), then legalization would result in gay men selecting out of the heterosexual marriage pool, resulting in a kind of separating equilibrium. Anecdotally, you sometimes get the sense that the current situation is more like a pooling equilibrium. I have heard countless stories of wives whose husbands come out of the closet fairly far down the road of marriage, causing significant damage to both the wife, as well as the children. Legalization would take many gay men out of the heterosexual marriage market, which would allow heterosexual females to search through a "purer" pool of potential mates (ie, ones who are of a single sexual orientation type).

Also, I wonder if there might be epidemiological benefits for legalizing gay marriage - or at the least, allowing the contract approach Posner and Becker argue for. Legalizing gay marriage would, I'm guessing, decrease the number of sexual partners either partner was having - if only because of the divorce threat point, in the event of sexual unfaithfulness, and how divorce imposes financial costs on the offending party. Approximately three-quarters of all AIDS-infected white gay males were infected through male-to-male intercourse, and if gay marriage did lower both the average number of sexual partners, as well as the variance in the distribution of partners, it could alter the spread of AIDS, not only throughout the gay population, but possibly even throughout heterosexual populations (given, that is, a certain amount of sexual connectedness between the two populations).

"the argument that government should consider the affects that SSM has on children is germane and necessary."

Perhaps, but this is a blog full of libertarians and de-regulationists who would normally be on the other side of the question "should the government consider/legislate ______." It is interesting to see where such people actually argue FOR intervention.

"It's as much about "dignity" as it is about the actual legal benefits that the marriage contract bestows"

yes, Its about both at the same time.

"(only devotees of abstract egalitarianism would find this rationale convincing)."

Well, and also perhaps people who have read Brown v. Board of Education, or who are old enough to remember segregation and the curse of "separate but equal." Anyway, you might be suprised how many "devotees of abstract egalitarianism" there are among the American people. It is common for neo-liberals to distill the "American dream" mythology down to just Horatio Alger and the Magic Meritocracy, but that leaves out a great of the flavor.

Becker's opening paragraph solves the issue for me. People are willing to accept that gays and straights can both live in unions with another person--one is marriage and one is a civil union.

My only question is what is the state's interest in or power to create a distinction between a civil union and a "marriage?" Is marriage a non-civil union? It seems clear to me that the salient difference is that "marriage" has relgiogious/spiritual content distinct from "civil union." If that is the case, then the government can have no interest in the distinction and everything should legally be a "civil union" while "marriage" remains a sacrament.

"If that is the case, then the government can have no interest in the distinction and everything should legally be a "civil union" while "marriage" remains a sacrament."

Except that practically, "civil union" is an abstract concept that has been proposed while "marriage" is a predefined subset of rights, privileges, and obligations. I say everything should be a marriage, with churches left free to add sacramental norms to the concept for their own members if they wish.

The simplest and most administrable option is also the egalitarian one, allow gay couples equal access to marriage licenses and all that comes with it. American history is full of examples of why creating separate legal categories leads to injustice. (see Birmingham and the segregated south) Civil Unions would be AT BEST exactly the same as Marriage from a legal standpoint, but even then would waste money in the administrative overhead of enacting and maintaining a parallel set of laws.

And for what? So traditionalists can define words for us? Tradition is not an end in itself. It is only valuable if it is still relevant to today's situation and understanding.

Churches are left to define the "sacrament" of marriage however they want. The church I used to attend in central Boston was over 200 years old,
had been attended by some of our founding fathers (Sam Adams for one), but had evolved to include gays in all aspects of religious life, including gay marriage ceremonies in the church.

Some traditionalists may find that discouraging, to them I would say, "Praise Jesus, as you do unto the least of these my brothers, you do unto God."

Assuming, as has been asserted, that gay unions tend to dissolve more frequently than do marriages, it might be interesting to see if that statistic applies to all informal unions of that sort -- homosexual and heterosexual. I suspect that there is a kind of cultural "magic" in the ceremony of marriage that produces a new status of special worth in the community, which adds reason not to break up in case of serious tensions in the union.

If I am right about the magic, then I can see why homosexuals find it important that they have access to this culturally important and potent event.

"I believe, although there is little evidence yet, that the effects on children raised by gay couples will usually be quite negative, in part because fathers and mothers have distinct but important roles, in part because their family structures will differ so greatly from that of their classmates and other peers."

Re-iteration: as this analysis applies to adoption, Becker seems to assume that we live in a better world than this one. The germane questions is: What is the difference for a child between being raised by a gay couple and growing up in, for instance, a foster home, or with an abusive parent, etc.?

"Another reason is that gay couples tend to have much less stable relations than heterosexual couples, although the data that demonstrate this is mainly from gay couples without children. To the extent the greater turnover extends to gay couples with children, which I believe it will, then greater turnover adds a further complication and difficulty for the children raised by gay couples."

This is . . . pure speculation. At present, to my knowledge, we have NO reliable data on the seperation rate of gay couples that are either in civil unions or are married AND have a child or children. (If this data exists, please provide it.) I would SPECULATE that the combination of a formally sanctioned relationship (such as marriage or civil union) and a child or children would tend to strengthen that relationship.

Even if the seperation rate is higher for gay couples, where does that get us? Can adoption policy be shaped on such a generalization as "gay couples are, say, 25% more likely to seperate than heterosexual couples"?

"I believe, although there is little evidence yet, that the effects on children raised by gay couples will usually be quite negative, . . ., in part because their family structures will differ so greatly from that of their classmates and other peers."

This exact argument was used to defend bans on interracial marriage prior to Loving v. Virginia.
It was supposed that mixed-race children would be disadvantaged because of discrimination. Even if that were true, it is an argument for fighting discrimination, not an argument against inter-racial (or gay) marriage.

Modern social and educational systems are accustomed to dealing with the different cultural, economic, and social backgrounds of children. In fact, much competent educational research has been dedicated to proving how diversity in the classroom benefits ALL students.

People should beware of assuming that their idea of marriage is the 'traditional' one when it is really only the currently conventional one.

The ideas that marriage applies only to men marrying women, and that love is more important than contract are historically relatively recent. Many forms of marriage were accepted before this convention was violenty enforced by Christians.

For an inormed historical perspective on the history of marriage, one that might shake the religious right out of the belief that they have copyright on the concept and use of the term 'marriage', take a look at Alan Bray's 'The Friend'. It was brilliantly reviewed in London Review of Books. The review can be seen here:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n11/davi02_.html

Ian

People have referred to the different divorce rates. The only statistical data I'm aware of is from the netherlands, and was released in April this year. This can be twisted in any sense, since we have only one datapoint.

Gay divorce stats released - 04/04/2005 17:39


Amsterdam - Gay Dutch couples appear to divorce at a rate of about one percent a year - the same rate as heterosexual married couples, according to government data released on Monday.

1. The analogy between bans on inter-racial marriage and SSM is utterly inapt. Mixed-raced couples, unlike same-sex couples, are fully capable of fulfilling the teleological ends of marriage. Also, we create all sorts of legal categories that allow people to collect goodies from the state (e.g., the disabled, the old, the poor, farmers, etc.) as well as categories that prevent people from exercising certain rights (e.g., convicted felons in many states lose the right to vote).

2. The idea that "love is more important than contract" is indeed "historically relatively recent." But most supporters of SSM invoke a groundless right to love whom they please as the basis for demanding the right to marry. But the state's interest in creating the legal institution of marriage is not to facilitate love between couples. Rather, it is to channel erotic desire in such a manner as to produce stable family structures. True lovers don't need the law (convention). As any reader of Romeo & Juliet is aware, law (convention) has a habit of getting in the way of love.

It is rather loose talk to equate segregation, which was a descendant of slavery, with social discrimination that gays may face. Blacks could not own property, marry into families who owned property, vote, participate in politics, serve in government, serve on juries, form contracts, or gain employment in any professional fields requiring higher education or professional licenses. They were consigned to poverty as a social caste. Being totally blocked off from the political system, the free market, and access to education is not equivalent to the mild social discomfort gays confront. I don't think not being invited to a party because someone finds out that you like it in the rear truly compares to being lynched because you decided to start up your own business or run for city council. And the continual attempt to cement the false comparison is quite absurd and offensive to a great many black persons alive to experience segregation. The loose talk really must end.

Why do gay marriage opponents completely dismiss or trivialize the argument that marriage is an important fundamental institution that a democratic society has a right to preserve in its present form through legislative acts? It matters. It matters a lot. And most people like it the way it is. Do you really believe that marriage is not important or that it serves no purpose or that it has no meaning? If not, then you agree it is important.

If it's an important interest, I don't see why the State can't protect it. The State can protect oranges from rotting: aren't a couple thousand rotting oranges less important than a couple thousand marriages?

It seems the burden should be on gay activists to explain why other people should change how they feel about an important societal institution just to realize the gay agenda. Why should everyone else have to change just to accomodate gay activists?

"I don't think not being invited to a party because someone finds out that you like it in the rear truly compares to being lynched"

OK, how about beaten, tied to a fencepost and left to die in the cold winter of Montana. (Matthew Shepard, killed for being gay in 1998)

How about being beaten with an ax handle, having your throat cut, and your body set on fire. (Billy Jack Gaither, killed for being gay in 1999)

What about Brandon Teena, subject of the film "Boys Don't Cry", who was beaten, raped, and ultimately murdered in 1993 after the local newspaper reported she was transgendered.

"The loose talk really must end."

No, the hate crimes and discrimination must end. No one is trying to trivialize the struggle of African Americans, but they do not have a monopoly on being abused and discriminated against in America, as the above examples show.

If Becker and comment writers here are going to use arguments from the bad side of the inter-racial marriage debate, they are open to having that pointed out.

"It seems the burden should be on gay activists to explain why other people should change how they feel about an important societal institution just to realize the gay agenda."

No, when you are talking about discriminatory laws, or exceptions to legal protections based on status, the group that wants to discriminate has to prove the need for it.

Its similar to "innocent until proven guilty". Freedom and equality are better preserved if we err on the side of NOT discriminating.

"Why should everyone else have to change just to accomodate gay activists?"

Why did everyone have to change in order to accomodate blacks who wanted to marry whites?
Well, because their opposition to it was debunked, and shown to rest on a bare desire to discriminate, and nothing legitimate.

But what change are you referring to? What possible effect on your marriage can arise from Jill and Liz getting married in Boston? "Well, we've gotta separate, because now that them gays is getting married, I just don't know what our relationship means anymore"

All of you who are so on about the changing of the definition of marriage... Did you get this upset when they added the phrase "Bling Bling" or "Hoochie" to the Oxford English Dictionary? I mean, what more important societal institution is there than the Language! How dare they change it!

It is clear from Becker's and others' comments that not all parties here accept the immutability of homosexual attraction. The argument that allowing same-sex marriage would harm children by depriving them of a two sex-role household overlooks that self-aware homosexuals, the people whose children society seems to be concerned with, have no interest in entering heterosexual relationships for childbearing or any other purposes. Children are not distributed by stork to state-sanctioned married households and, as such, gay marriage will not suddenly open the gates to gay couples’ having children. Gay couples and gay single parents have been having children out of wedlock since the invention of artificial insemination.

Restricting marriage to heterosexuals is not preventing any significant number of children from being raised in gay instead of straight households. What it is doing is keeping the children of gay parents subject to conflict over custody and hospital visitation rights, insurance and death benefits, and inheritance, instead of a household existing under the same customs and presumptions straight married couples enjoy.

Oh, and I will take seriously the argument that gay marriage can be contractually simulated, when such contractual simulation can be done for less than a thousand dollars, in less than an hour, in a civil setting, and when the federal government recognizes such a contract for tax and entitlement purposes.

What do you think of the stuff like the "No Video Games For Kids" activity in the state of Illinois?

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/12/16/1545227.shtml?tid=17&tid=10

The most salient feature about this entire dialogue going on nationally is that it, in large part, seems to be motivated primarily by emotion, ie, in this situation, by fear, indignation and resentment. As with any political issue so charged it obscures what logically presents itself as the best solution.

Gays feel that they are being discriminated against (thus feeling resentment and indignation), and opponents of SSM are basing their opposition primarily off of the fear of the harms they feel would inevitably surface with the acceptance of gay marriage. These are natural human emotions, but unfortunately, they are presenting themselves as impediments to a rational dialogue on the issue.

Were the state to remove itself from the marriage business altogether, many supporters of SSM would still be unsatisified. In so doing, the state would isolate itself from the opponents of SSM.

And when futher considering the concept of the 'protection' of marriage, it would be best to confront the specter of divorce. With the divorce rate claiming half of the heterosexual couples in America, it has a far more damaging effect to marriage then two men or women wishing to marry.

In so saying, the state should indeed remove themselves from the marriage business altogether, and leave that term for churches and individuals to work out, entitling gay and straight couples alike to identical property rights.

Politically, that's probably not going to happen on a national level. The blue states are far more likely to see it before the red states. However, even in many of them, it is still a distant prospect that we probably will not witness until, sad to say, the majority of the baby boom generation has passed on, and those individuals who were born in the late 1970s and early 1980s are firmly ensconced in middle age.

Those young adults that are now coming into their own are far more receptive to the concept of equal rights for gay couples, and their generation is characterized by an overall higher degree of tolerance for gays. There will be opponents, yes, but nothing near the level we see today. And that imagined 'emotional' damage caused to opponents will reach nowhere near the level it does today, that it will in the future.

To All Bloggers:

In a very odd sense, gay marriage is already permissible: A gay man and a lesbian can marry in any of the 50 states. (I know, I know: This seems odd and improbable - but read on.)

My chief concern about gay marriage is not GAY marriage per se; my chief concern is SAME SEX marriage. Gay marriage will never be legalized, because, as practical matter, the cost of verifying that two adults are gay is extremely high. Compared to gay marriage, same-sex marriage has been legalized - and could be legalized in other states - in part because there is no verification cost. (Obviously, if opposite-sex heterosexual marriage and same-sex heterosexual marriage are permissible, the only cost is verifying that the two individuals are consenting adults.)

In this context, my chief concern - and one that I believe has not been expressed in this blog (there are close to 60 entries on the subject!) - is that if same-sex marriage were legalized, over time SAME-SEX HETEROSEXUAL couples who were primarily interested in securing the benefits of marriage, would begin to avail themselves of those benefits by marrying. As a practical matter, it would be impossible for the law to discriminate between same-sex heterosexual couples and same-sex gay couples. Consequently, the definition of marriage would be expanded to include not only gay adult couples but also same-sex heterosexual couples.

Pragmatists might say, ?So what if this happened?? Or, ?This might even good thing.? I wonder, however, whether broadening the definition of marriage would increase marriage rates or decrease marriage rates. (Marriage may attain some of its status because of its exclusiveness; some people don?t want to join a club that everyone can belong to.) Furthermore, if broadening the definition of marriage rates decreased marriage rates, this could have adverse effects on children, who, if the experiment in Scandinavia is any indication, would probably not benefit from such an expansion. See, e.g., Kurtz?s article in the Weekly Standard:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp

"No one is trying to trivialize the struggle of African Americans, but they do not have a monopoly on being abused and discriminated against in America, as the above examples show."

Did you actually compare slavery to three assaults? Corey, that's like comparing the Holocaust to stealing a cookie from the cookie jar.

"Why did everyone have to change in order to accomodate blacks who wanted to marry whites?
Well, because their opposition to it was debunked, and shown to rest on a bare desire to discriminate, and nothing legitimate."

No, it is because slavery was outlawed by the 13th Amendment, the 14th Amendment gave blacks citizenship, and the 15th Amendment gave them the right to vote. This was after a bloody war.

There has been no such historical record of tumultuous change involving gay people. Your inability to see the difference, perhaps, is due to your ignorance of history, or hatred of the text of the Constitution.

I also find odd that you and people like you, Corey, always retort with comments that suggest you hate black people. If you respect black people so much, why do you always bring them up as rhetorical strawmen in your arguments as objects of contempt? Why do you trivialize their history? And why do you suggest that interracial marriage is repugnant or nasty in the way that most people view sodomy? There are plenty of interracial couples that view sodomy as morally repugnant, as a behavior. Much of the dislike of gays comes not from the denial of their common humanity -- as was done with blacks, who were considered property -- but from the fact that gay men put their pee-pees in the assholes of other men and then they suck each other off. I don't see how that act is worthy of constitutional protection. By contrast, I do see why blacks should be considered citizens instead of equivalent to rocks on my land. Please explain again how treating black people like human beings is as wortwhile as awarding gay people the Bronze Star for putting hamsters in each others' butts.

"Did you actually compare slavery to three assaults? Corey, that's like comparing the Holocaust to stealing a cookie from the cookie jar."

You know full well that I didn't just compare slavery to three assaults. Someone posted, "stop whining over minor inconveniences you gays" to which I cited three of the many examples of the extreme recent consequences of being gay in America. I also have separately pointed out the similarities in arguments against civil rights for both gays and african-americans.

What's the matter, aren't there enough good people to go around? If I come across a gay man being beaten to death, should I say, "well, I would love to help him, but I am late for an appointment at the Southern Poverty Law Center".
I think it is downright ugly when two worthy causes start competing over who was most victimized.

We're talking about gay rights today, and I'm trying to help by pointing out that discrimination is the same evil no matter who it falls on. A hate crime is a hate crime. What still needs to be done with regard to slavery or the holocaust is an issue for another day.

"It seems the burden should be on gay activists to explain why other people should change how they feel about an important societal institution just to realize the gay agenda."

"No, when you are talking about discriminatory laws, or exceptions to legal protections based on status, the group that wants to discriminate has to prove the need for it."

Not really. Since gays get rational-basis, the burden is on gays. You are a warped barrel brimming with falsehoods.

"I think it is downright ugly when two worthy causes start competing over who was most victimized."

That is exactly why gays should stop pretending their "cause" is analogous to that of blacks'. But you don't get that because you've been corrupted by the gay agenda.

Jane, you are maliciously mischaracterizing my words. Anyone can see what I wrote and know this is the case. I will not respond to scatological homophobia. I'm sorry you feel that way.

"I will not respond to scatological homophobia."

So anyone who disagrees with you substantively had a mental disorder? Gee, talk about fairness. You don't even know what equality of respect is.

"Since gays get rational-basis, the burden is on gays. You are a warped barrel brimming with falsehoods."

OK, so think really hard and try to figure out if I think gays SHOULD get rational-basis or if that isn't exactly the problem from a legal sense.

I'm done on this topic, its not this hard. Have a nice day.

"...the effects on children raised by gay couples will usually be quite negative."

Your reasons to support this statement can only indicate that children raised by homosexuals are bound to have a different upbringing than those raise by heterosexuals, which says nothing about whether it would be a better or a worse one.
Each case is different. We all know that having a father and a mother is not a sufficient condition for an emotionally healthy upbringing.

I have a few economic arguments that have not been addressed or sufficiently addressed:

1. transactions costs: I believe the single best argument against privatizing marriage is that the transactions costs of the parties entering into a contract that specifies all of the default rules that come with marriage would be prohibitively high. Lots of default rules govern children, divorce, custody, and financial relations between spouses. Even if there are a range of boilerplate contracts from which to choose, the massive costs of couples looking through all of those distasteful scenarios and picking the contract best for them would be a major deterrent to going through with marriage. They can, of course, contract around the default rules with a pre-nup, but the distaste that people get from dealing with pre-nups is a walk in the park compared to true privatization in all matters.

2. externalities: There are two main externalities that SSM creates: (1) on other young people growing up in an environment of SSM, and (2) on the more children that would almost inevitably be raised in SSM households. As to (1), the contention is that universal SSM would send a very strong message to the country, and young children, that homosexuality and heterosexuality are the same. To the extent that people think that the two are characterized by very different patterns and behaviors and effects (including me), it is an externality that is justifiably part of the discussion. As to (2), a major argument against SSM raising a lot more kids is that, first, SSM would encourage a lot more people to choose to pursue homosexuality. See, for example, Greece and Rome, where casual/occasional homosexuality was quite common, as opposed to, say, modern Africa, the US, or India. Doing so then means that more boys are raised in environments that do not really foster or develop their natural masculinity in ways that have generally proven themselves. Girls, likewise, may not learn the things that are very important for them to learn in order to be healthy in the dating game. Personally, I have seen boys raised by lesbians, for example, and they have been the picture of what one would expect–shy, clingy, not good at sports or athletic, fearful of competitiveness, and a bit fragile. Many, including me, contend that this is a troubling externality issue.

3. benefit versus burden: Extending marriage to gays/lesbians confers a benefit they do not now have, many benefits of which amount to subsidies by the government. The government is not denying people “rights” by not adding SSM to the statute books. People may still live together and have formal ceremonies if they like. SSM adds a subsidy to the mix, by and large.

RWS:

Good points all. I have a few elaborations, which are related to your post and my post above.

Costs: Literally understood, gay marriage is marriage by same-sex homosexual couples. This type of marriage will *never* be adopted into law because the cost of verifying homosexuality (an orientation that cannot be directly observed from physical attributes) is prohibitively high. SSM, as opposed to gay marriage, has been adopted into law in Mass. and probably will adopted by other states, in part, because verification costs are non-existent.

People in this blog have ignored this point, probably because they see it as a trivial theoretical point with uncertain consequences. But, actually, allowing for SSM marriage (along with opposite sex marriage) would allow two adults of any sexual orientation to marry. That is, it would allow two same-sex heterosexual adults to marry, two same-sex homosexual adults to marry, two same-sex bisexual adults to marry, two hermaphrodite adults to marry. . . Well, I could go on, but you get the idea.

One consequence of this is that the definition of marriage would be expanded to include any two consenting adults regardless of their sexual orientation. Marriage would, as a consequence, lose all of its current opposite-sex exclusivity. Losing its exclusivity may not be a bad thing, but others have argued (based on real-world scenarios) that when marriage loses its exclusivity opposite-sex couples with and without children marry at lower rates. In support of this position, Stanley Kurtz and others have observed from the Scandinavian experiment that when SSM was legalized there marriages rates among opposite-sex couples declined sharply and, most troubling, single-parenthood increased sharply. (Almost no social scientist believes that at the macro level, single-parenthood is good for children.)

So, if SSM marriage causes marriage to lose its exclusivity, and this in turn reduces marriage rates among opposite-sex couples and increases single-parenthood, the results could produce one of several externalities (e.g., single parents are more likely to seek and need government assistance than two parent families).

That?s my two cents. Good post.

TRC

RWS writes: "benefit versus burden: Extending marriage to gays/lesbians confers a benefit they do not now have, many benefits of which amount to subsidies by the government. The government is not denying [people's] rights by not adding SSM to the statute books. People may still live together and have formal ceremonies if they like. SSM adds a subsidy to the mix, by and large."

I'm not sure which way this does, or was intended, to cut. For any X that is a subsidy to marriage -- as opposed to a subsidy to activities like childrearing that are somwhat, but not perfectly, correlated with marriage -- I can think of several possibilities: (1) it makes no sense to have the subsidy in the first place, in which case we should get rid of it (as a heterosexual single, I would probably populate this category more heavily than most other people); (2) the rationale for the subsidy is really better keyed to some other characteristic (childrearing perhaps, to revert to the prior example), in which case we ought to target the subsidy more directly to that characteristic rather than to marriage; (3) it's not really a "subsidy" to begin with, or at least not an avoidable one, but a byproduct of the difficulty in some areas of making rules that are marriage-neutral across-the-board (for example, income taxes in a progressive system, though I don't know whether the rates are now skewed far enough that there is now a real subsidy here); or (4) we really do as a society want to reward or encourage people to enter into one-on-one [that's shorthand, I'm not intending here to express a view on polygamy] committed and at-least-intended-to-be-permanent relationships and so we subsidize those relationships. For any "subsidies" of the first three types, there are better questions to ask than whether or not same sex couples should also get them. It is only one's view of subsidies of the fourth type that, it seems to me, ought to bear some weight in considering one's view of same sex marriage (and vice versa).

I am not persuaded by the attempt to decouple marriage with child rearing. The argument goes that we should directly subsidize child rearing and not marriage, as they do not perfectly coorelate.

This argument neglects, of course, that children are the natural and usual consequence of heterosexual unions. Birth control, and changing social norms have altered this scenario a bit, but not so signifcantly that a great alteration is required.

Moreover, it is completely reasonable that the state support/subsidize the marriage while a couple is trying to have a baby. Sometimes this takes years. Sometimes it takes a few years for a couple to be on the right financial and emotional footing to be ready for children. The process of child rearing begins before the actual child enters the world, while a couple builds their relationship and prepares for the financial and emotional challenges bringing a child into this world entails.

I apologize for adding this comment here when it's unrelated to the topic, but I must thank you Sirs for the NY Times article titled "Bad News."

I am a TV news reporter in a small market in Washington state, and as I look to my future in broadcast news, I'm concerend about the hyper-sensitivty among news outlets to appear balanced. Objectivity and balance ought to be two different things, you gave the great example of the so-called evolution versus intelligent design "debate."

Asking "what's the other side of the issue" is a question that should guide reporters, but a fearlessness must accompany that inquiry. If using my best judgement, I discover there is no other side unless I create one, it's my duty to report the story as is, and let the chips fall where they may.

No discussion of the economic consequences of homosexual marriage is complete without pondering the effect on heterosexual roommates. How many million of them will fraudulently register as married homosexuals in order to pick up free health insurance or other benefits? Since a large number of them are impudent college students, I think this represents a significant claim on the property of others, perhaps a great hemorrhage compared to the trickle which will flow from legitimately homosexual couples. Until it's tried, we cannot know, but it will be instructive to watch Canada.

I disagree, Larry. All we need do is turn to the Bible, which instructs us that gay marriage leads to sudden lightning igniting the natural gas deposits beneath our most treasured cities.

Laugh if you must. But harm will follow from gay marriage's acceptance throughout this land, in part because of the radical mutilation of our constitutional structure and political process it took to get there. When you move too fast, you warp. Why would we want to warp our Constitution?

Please join me in supporting the Federal Marriage Amendment.

How many million of them will fraudulently register as married homosexuals in order to pick up free health insurance or other benefits?

Considering the millions who fraudulently register as married heterosexuals, it is obvious that the only solution is to ban marriage entirely.

The argument goes that we should directly subsidize child rearing and not marriage, as they do not perfectly coorelate.

That a society tries to provide a minimum standard of living for children does not mean that the society thinks that having children is a good thing. For example, society tries to provide a minimum standard of living for disabled people but that does not mean that society thinks that being disabled is a good thing.

It's actually OK to be caring and compassionate even when it's not specifically part of a broader agenda to impose a particular set of moral beliefs on society.

"Please join me in supporting the Federal Marriage Amendment."

OK, so once again someone has decided to post pretending to be me. Not a very convincing impersonation though. Please stop doing that, it is very inconsiderate and further dumbs down the debate here. Forging posts is easy to do, but if it happens much it will become impossible for _anyone_ to maintain credibility.

But as for Larry's point, why are you characterizing efforts to obtain health insurance as a drain on society. Perhaps you should ask yourself why young college students (soon to be working, tax paying professionals) should need to lie or marry someone in order to be able to afford health insurance or whatever other benefit you wish to keep from them. If you've got Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of stale bread, you might want to ask, why is such an able-bodied person starving.

If you've got Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of stale bread, you might want to ask, why is such an able-bodied person starving.

Why presume he is starving? Perhaps he is just a thief.

The anxiety about the use of the word "marriage" when talking about homosexual relationships is, I think, rooted in our understanding of the religious implications of the act of marriage. The confusion is in assigning religious meaning to state-sanctioned marriages.

Many on the right increasingly see government as an extension of the Church, with a corresponding religious significance to state actions. This distorted view allows many to view strictly civil marriages as having some religious meaning (which they do not). It also allows more extreme individuals to erroneously assign religious meaning to the current war in Iraq: that the President is doing "God's work" there.

If the constitutionality of state involvement in church weddings were ever successfully challenged (if it could be), that might hasten the age of contract unions. Those who choose could still have church weddings, but the legal implications would be separate.

Mr. Becker, may I ask you to consider a different question? What would be the economic and social benefits of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry?

I wonder whether some of the assumptions you raise (e.g., that gays have more fragile relationships) would collapse if and when the rights and social responsibilites associated with marriage were granted to these disenfranchised groups. Do you expect this would be the case?

Regarding your unfortunate statement: "I believe, although there is little evidence yet, that the effects on children raised by gay couples will usually be quite negative." This merely distracts your readers from the real question at hand of gay marriage and from your otherwise well-articulated position on marriage contracts. Surely an economist of your standing could invest some time (or the time of a graduate student) into seriously evaluating this question before making this sort of statement. (Certainly, your colleagues at Chicago would not let you wriggle away from such a comment without some studies to back you up.)

To this point, essentially what do the success / failure rates of children (ignoring the question of how one might measure this) from married, heterosexual, two-parent homes have to do with the parents right to marry in the first place? It is a poorly reasoned argument to make civil freedoms contingent on certain unforseen outcomes.

Note to Corey: You wrote "The fact that the median income for gays is $20,000 higher than for straights in this country might help them in that endeavor." This is a widely held economic myth. See MV Lee Badgett's book "Myths, Money and Change: The Economic Lives of Gays and Lesbians"
for a more thorough discussion.