John Corvino

Masturbation Month (VIDEO)

2013-05-02T13:36:30-04:00

May is National Masturbation Month. I am not making this up.

National Masturbation Month was introduced in 1995 by the sex-toy store Good Vibrations, in response to the dismissal of U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. At a World AIDS Day presentation, an audience member had asked Elders about masturbation's role in discouraging risky sexual activity among youth, and Elders had responded, "I think it is something that is part of human sexuality and a part of something that perhaps should be taught." President Clinton subsequently fired her.

National Masturbation Month is intended to reduce the stigma surrounding the discussion and practice of masturbation. You've probably been observing it all along without even realizing it.

Since the inception of National Masturbation Month, various organizations have highlighted it by sponsoring "Wank Weeks" and (I am still not making this up) "Masturbate-a-thons," where people raise money for sex-education groups by playing with themselves.

As charity fundraisers go, you can't beat it. On second thought, you can!

LGBT people should pay particular attention to National Masturbation Month, for two reasons:

First, the squeamishness surrounding frank discussions of sexuality has been particularly damaging to those whose sexuality is perceived as "deviant" or "unnatural."

Second, much of the contemporary academic opposition to same-sex relations comes from natural-law theorists (such as Robert P. George at Princeton) who condemn homosexual conduct for the very same reason that they condemn masturbation: Both allegedly treat the human person as a mere object.

I further explain this theory and its problems in the following video, one of a new series of 11.

WATCH:

John Corvino, aka The Gay Moralist, is the chair of the philosophy department at Wayne State University in Detroit. Find his new book on Amazon.

Am I Gay, or LGBT?

2013-04-26T09:54:53-04:00

I admit it: Like many gay men of my era -- I'm now in my 40's -- it took me a while to move from "gay" to "gay and lesbian" to "LGBT" and beyond.

It's not that I didn't recognize common cause among the groups. It's that I tend to get set in my ways when it comes to terminology. (First they wanted me to refer to Constantinople as Istanbul, and now this!) And "LGBTQITSLFA" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

There's a more substantive concern as well. The LGBT community is actually a collection of overlapping communities, each with distinctive experiences, needs, and challenges. While it makes sense to find common cause, it can also make sense to separate the various groups sometimes, in order to avoid obscuring our diversity.

Meanwhile, I continue to be moved by stories like this one about a high school principal's cruel and thoughtless response to a transgender student. Terminology may be challenging, but basic human kindness shouldn't be.

I discuss the "alphabet soup" of LGBTQetc. in this video, one of a new series of 11.

Born This Way? (VIDEO)

2013-04-18T17:27:05-04:00

The headline reads "Study Finds Epigenetics, Not Genetics, Underlies Homosexuality," and the accompanying article goes on to announce, "The study solves the evolutionary riddle of homosexuality," except that it doesn't.

Bold overstatements regarding scientific research about sexual orientation are nothing new, of course. The study in question is actually a review paper that was released in December. It explores existing data that supports the hypothesis that epigenetic factors (essentially, annotations to the genetic code that affect how genes are expressed) play a role in sexual orientation. (A nice explanation of the paper can be found here.) But that hypothesis hasn't even been directly tested yet, much less conclusively established.

Why are some people so quick to latch on to bold claims about the biological origins of homosexuality? I think it's because they believe that we need to show that we're born gay in order to establish that our sexuality is a deep, important and relatively fixed part of who we are. But that's simply not true. Consider a counterexample: My comprehension of English is a deep, important and relatively fixed part of who I am. I could acquire other languages, of course, but none would subsume my native tongue at this point. Being forbidden to express myself in English would be a real deprivation. But I wasn't born comprehending English.

It's also troubling that this paper, like much research in this area, singles out homosexuality as a particular riddle to be solved. It's as if heterosexuality were the default setting, requiring us to figure out "what went wrong" when people turn out gay.

Evolutionary theory holds that we should expect species to reproduce themselves, not that we should expect each individual to do so. There are plenty of features of human evolution that defy explanation when considered in isolation at the individual level (for example, the fact that women live well past menopause).

Personally, I remain agnostic on the question of whether I was born this way; I neither know nor care. I explain why in the video below, one of a series of 11 in the gay-rights debate based on my new book, What's Wrong With Homosexuality?

WATCH:

On Anal Sex (VIDEO)

2013-04-16T14:33:40-04:00

Many years ago I lived next door to a young, born-again-Christian rock singer named Jason. (I know that sounds like the premise for a bad sitcom.) While he strongly disapproved of my being gay, he was also fascinated by it, and he constantly asked me questions.

One day I revealed to him that I had never had anal sex. His face brightened. "That's awesome!" he shouted.

"Why, pray tell, is it awesome?" I responded.

"Because maybe you'll try it and then realize you don't like it, and then you won't be gay."

For Jason, being gay meant liking anal sex. He found it odd that the equivalence had never occurred to me.

For me, being gay means that I like guys. It means that I like guys: I have crushes on them, I fall in love with them, I want to "get physical" with them. It doesn't specify how I should do this.

The obsession with anal sex isn't limited to born-again-Christian rock singers, or to religious conservatives more generally, although it's striking how many arguments against same-sex relationships focus almost exclusively on male homosexuality and anal sex. I've also seen it within the gay community itself, with the tendency to fit all gay men into neat "top" or "bottom" boxes. Here's a conversation I've had more than once:

Interested guy: "Are you a top or a bottom?"

Me: "No."

Interested guy: "What do you mean by 'no'?"

Me: "I mean I'm neither a top nor a bottom."

Interested guy, now somewhat less interested: "That means you're a bottom."

That said, the obsession is particularly troubling when it's used to disguise negative visceral reactions as considered moral judgments -- in other words, when our opponents move from "that's yucky" to "that's wrong!"

I confront that tendency in the following video, one of a new series of 11 in the gay-rights debate.

A Plea for Philosophy

2013-04-10T08:33:05-04:00

There's a reaction I sometimes hear to my work as The Gay Moralist, including my new book What's Wrong with Homosexuality? It goes something like this:

Rational argument is all fine and dandy, but people don't become homophobes via rational argument, and they're not going to get talked out of homophobia that way, either. By now, virtually anyone who's going to be convinced of equal rights for gay people has already joined us. The rest will cling to arguments as clever rationalizations for their underlying prejudice--but those arguments are just a fig leaf. By responding to them, you are at best wasting your breath and at worst enhancing their veneer of plausibility.

I take the point seriously, and I've mulled on it quite a bit. I still think it's badly mistaken.

First, I reject the premise that rational argument on gay rights has outlived its usefulness. Watching the rapid shift in public support lately--a recent poll suggests that 58% of Americans favor marriage equality--it's easy to forget that plenty aren't there yet. Furthermore, those who are there aren't necessarily robust in their support. While 58% support our legal right to marry, some still believe deep down that there's something wrong with being gay, and quite a few would probably prefer that their children don't turn out that way.

Now combine the "soft" supporters with the remaining 42% of Americans. Are all of these just bigoted homophobes who are immune to rational persuasion? I suspect not--and certainly hope not.

Second, even if one supposes that anti-gay arguments are just fig leaves, there's a value to ripping off fig leaves. (Reminds me of a party I attended in West Hollywood recently--but let's not go there right now.)

In all seriousness: the "veneer of plausibility" works only insofar as people can continue making such arguments unchallenged. Vigorous public refutation is an antidote.

Of course argument is not always sufficient to do the job, and no one denies the powerful role that personal visibility plays in combating anti-gay stereotypes. But to acknowledge that people's minds are changed mainly through knowing flesh-and-blood LGBT people is not to deny that argument has an important task as well. It can hasten the process by uncovering hidden assumptions and neutralizing self-serving rationalizations.

Third, and perhaps most crucially, there's the kids.

I'm talking about LGBT youth, the ones who have heard these arguments from their parents, pastors, and teachers and who accept them on authority. Because they've internalized the attacks, they mistakenly but deeply believe that there's something sick, unnatural, and perverse about themselves.

I want to help these kids. Carefully picking apart the anti-gay case is one way to do that.

And so I continue to make a plea for philosophical argument--and specifically, for moral philosophy, a.k.a. ethics. Speaking of which, here's another video from my new series of 11 in the gay-rights debate. It's on the question "Where does morality come from?" and it pushes back against both "conservative" and "liberal" misunderstandings of morality's nature:

The Race Analogy

2013-04-08T16:18:30-04:00

A reader recently shared with me this Q&A with William Lane Craig, the famous Christian apologist. Asked about the analogy between prohibiting same-sex marriage and prohibiting interracial marriage, Craig responds with some clever sophistry that (not surprisingly) misses the point:

The lesson to be learned from the legality of interracial marriage is that just as the law must be blind with respect to the race of persons desiring to marry, so it must also be blind to the sexual orientation of persons desiring to marry. Just as persons desiring to marry cannot be discriminated against on the basis of their race, neither can they be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation.

Please be clear: Craig is not endorsing same-sex marriage. Rather, he is suggesting that male-female marriage (the only kind he acknowledges) should be legally indifferent to whether the parties are heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual. The main thing is that it involves a man and a woman; their sexual orientation is legally irrelevant. Craig explains further:

That's why the term "gay marriage"... is misconceived. Laws permitting gay marriage would be clearly unconstitutional, since they would not be blind to the sexual orientation of the persons involved. Such laws would sanction marriage for same-sex couples only if they were homosexuals, thereby taking cognizance of their sexual orientation and discriminating against heterosexuals who wanted to enter into marriage with someone of the same sex.

Put aside the strange idea that "gay marriage" (as Craig understands it) would require any more legal intrusiveness about sexual orientation than current practice does. (No court clerk asked Jim McGreevey whether he was straight when he married his wife, and no clerk would ask him whether he's gay when he seeks to marry his boyfriend.)

Also put aside whether it's a good idea to encourage male-female marriage for people who are gay. (It isn't. See McGreevey, supra.)

The main thing to notice here is Craig's self-serving use of analogies. He claims that the lesson to be learned here is that "just as the law must be blind with respect to the race of persons desiring to marry, so it must also be blind to the sexual orientation of persons desiring to marry." Well, that's one lesson, but it's scarcely the only one, let alone the most relevant.

Analogies are not like house-keys, with a single correct one for unlocking each door. (Indeed, there are probably better analogies than house-keys to illustrate this point, and if I had more time or more coffee I might come up with one.) They have multiple purposes and varying strength.

What's more, the interracial marriage analogy is actually a collection of analogies, some of them stronger than others. One can, for example, analogize race to sexual orientation, as Craig does here. But one can also analogize it to sex or gender. Telling people that they can't marry someone they love because of that person's race is not unlike telling people they can't marry someone they love because of that person's sex or gender. The claims are similar in terms of both the rhetoric used (often invoking God and nature, as well as what's best for children) and the bans' devastating effects.

Most of all, they're similar in that neither has a good rationale.

I discuss the race analogy here, one of a series of 11 new videos on the gay-rights debate:

Dave Agema Half-Right About 'Risky Lifestyle' (VIDEO)

2013-04-05T14:34:14-04:00

Some of my Detroit neighbors have told me that, when traveling, they're embarrassed to tell people that they're from Detroit, instead preferring the vaguer description "from Michigan." Lately, however, I'm feeling the opposite: I'm proud to be from Detroit, a struggling but determined city with a rich history and a promising future, but ashamed to be from Michigan, a state that too often makes the news because of dumb things its Republicans say and do.

The latest is Rep. Dave Agema of the Republican National Committee. During the U.S. Supreme Court DOMA hearings last week, Agema posted an article on his Facebook page asserting that homosexuals have "between 20 and 106 partners per year" (leading me to wonder what vitamins my fellow gays are taking, and where I can get some); that "50% of suicides can be attributed to homosexuals," and "[h]omosexuals account for half the murders in large cities."

Not long ago, Agema could have posted such claims with impunity, perhaps even garnering a chorus of amens. Instead, many of his fellow Republicans rushed to distance themselves from him, with some even calling for him to step down.

But Agema dug in his heels, ranting about the "negative health affects [sic] of this lifestyle" and insisting that the article contained "facts derived from several studies. The trouble is many don't like facts."

Indeed. Including some elected officials, apparently.

It is yet unclear how this incident will affect Agema's career. One hopeful sign is that Janice Daniels, the Republican mayor of Troy, Mich., a Detroit suburb, was recalled last year for similar stupidity: Facebook comments about "queers" marrying in New York, followed by further insistence that the "homosexual lifestyle is dangerous."

But let's not miss the grain of truth in both Agema's and Daniels' position: Gay life is indeed risky. The main source of that risk? People like Agema and Daniels.

By spreading lies about the "homosexual lifestyle," and by teaching kids, and especially vulnerable LGBT youth, that there's something sick, wrong or unnatural about being gay, folks like Agema and Daniels put us at risk. They make it more difficult for us to come out of the closet, sustain long-term relationships and live out our lives in healthy and happy ways. Most perversely, they increase the suicide risk that they then turn around and use to justify their anti-gay rants.

I address the general problem with the "risky lifestyle" argument in the following video, one of a series of 11 new videos on arguments in the gay-rights debate.

WATCH:

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-866-488-7386 for the Trevor Lifeline, or call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Bible Thumpers

2013-04-03T15:28:04-04:00

Last week, when Fox News host Bill O'Reilly acknowledged that pro-equality supporters have the more "compelling" argument in the marriage debate, he surprised both supporters and detractors. The right wing media giant took his claim a step further, noting that the anti-equality side "hasn't been able to do anything but thump the Bible." Too strong? Of course -- but O'Reilly isn't known for measured understatement.

It's certainly true that many people claim that they find all they need to know within the Bible: God said it, I believe it, that settles it! There are at least two major problems with this approach. First, most people don't know what the Bible actually says. And second, when one examines what it actually says, the results can be rather embarrassing for the "God said it" crowd.

In the following two videos -- part of a new series on arguments in the gay-rights debate -- I discuss the Bible and its relevance to same-sex relationships today. The first video is a general response to the use and misuse of the Bible, and the second is on the much-cited, but seldom read, Sodom and Gomorrah story.

Loving the Sinner, Hating the Sin

2013-04-02T08:46:48-04:00

Baby steps.

That was my reaction to the Easter weekend comments of Cardinal Dolan, the affable Archbishop of New York, about gays and the Church. Responding to a question about how he would respond to a loving same-sex couple, Dolan replied,

Well, the first thing I'd say to them is, 'I love you, too. And God loves you. And you are made in God's image and likeness. And -- and we -- we want your happiness. But -- and you're entitled to friendship. But we also know that God has told us that the way to happiness, that -- especially when it comes to sexual love -- that is intended only for a man and woman in marriage, where children can come about naturally.

Dolan went on to say that the Church must "do better to see that our defense of marriage is not reduced to an attack on gay people. And I admit, we haven't been too good at that."

He's got that one right.

I give the man credit for taking a more positive and welcoming tone, and sincerely hope that his fellow Christians take note. At the same time, it's a sign of how low the bar is set when comments like Dolan's inspire such interest and excitement. For example, Francis DeBernardo, Executive Director of the gay Catholic group New Ways Ministry, called Dolan's remarks "nothing short of an Easter miracle."

Really? Rising from the dead is an Easter miracle. Marshmallow Peeps are an Easter miracle. (You can put them in your pantry for a decade, and they won't decay. It's true.) But a Christian leader saying "Hey, maybe we shouldn't attack gay people"? That's just common decency, not to mention good strategy -- especially in a world where a majority of American Catholics support equal marriage rights for same-sex couples.

What worries me is that Dolan's remarks seem to be a kinder, gentler face on the same old "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin" line. It's hard to argue with the "Love" part, naturally. But the sharp distinction between who we are and what we do -- the "sinner" and the "sin" -- doesn't hold up when we're talking about the fundamental relationships around which we organize our lives: our "significant others," to use a tired but illuminating phrase. Dolan's assurance that we're "entitled to friendship" seems a rather tepid consolation prize.

I explain my problem with "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin" in the first of a series of 11 new short videos that I'll be sharing here over the next couple of weeks. The videos grew out of my new book, What's Wrong with Homosexuality?, and they counter common arguments against same-sex relationships in a concise, accessible, and occasionally funny manner.

The videos and book appear at a time when the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are weighing arguments for and against marriage equality. Whatever happens at the Court, one thing is clear: Many Americans (including some justices and most archbishops) still believe that there's something wrong with being gay. In order to secure equality for all -- as well as to protect vulnerable LGBT youth -- it is important to counter such beliefs thoughtfully and forcefully.

Good Conversations Involve Both Talking and Listening

2013-02-19T16:57:10-05:00

The following essay reflects on and continues A New Conversation on Marriage. Professor John Corvino is Chair of the Philosophy Department at Wayne State University in Detroit, co-author (with Maggie Gallagher) of Debating Same-Sex Marriage, and the author of What's Wrong with Homosexuality? (forth-coming March 1) both from Oxford University Press. These words of advice first appeared at www.familyscholars.org.

One of Stephen Colbert's best jokes about George W. Bush praised the 43rd president for being steady: "He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday," Colbert deadpanned, "no matter what happened Tuesday."

In effect, my main piece of advice for those seeking to have a new conversation on marriage is to pay attention to what happened Tuesday.

By "Tuesday," I'm not just referring to that Tuesday last November, when Maine, Maryland, and Washington voters granted marriage rights to same-sex couples, and Minnesota voters rejected an anti-gay-marriage amendment. That day was indeed historic, and we cannot ignore the trends it reflects. But I'm also referring more generally to evidence, and specifically to evidence that challenges our well-entrenched biases.

This advice is harder than it sounds. The line between steadiness and stubbornness is often both jagged and blurry. On the one hand, we become wedded to familiar scripts precisely because they're "tried and true." ("Wedded" is an apt metaphor here; we value marriage largely because of the stability it provides.) In a turbulent world, we crave constancy, and who can blame us?

On the other hand, reciting scripts is not a recipe for great conversation.

Which brings me to a corollary piece of advice: Good conversations involve both talking and listening. The marriage conversation, especially when focused on "gay marriage," has involved scant little listening. This must change.

It's not that we don't try, or at least put on a good show. I've been involved in public "Conversations on Marriage" where hosts pat themselves on the back to the point of bruising for their "open-mindedness" and "tolerance," only to jump right to their canned scripts -- if not at the event itself, then moments afterward. If you don't believe that the other side might possibly have anything worthwhile to say, you won't hear them saying anything worthwhile.

Although all of us are prone to such closed-mindedness, the risk is particularly acute for religious believers who claim to have the Truth, capital T -- from the Bible, infallible church pronouncements, personal revelation or whatever. Once you have the Truth, what's left to hear? The primary danger of religion is that it can lead people to believe they have infallible backing for their very fallible prejudices.

Of course, you don't have to be a religious fundamentalist or even a theist to be an arrogant jackass. And there are many orthodox theists who grapple admirably with opposing evidence (St. Thomas Aquinas is a nice historical example). Thoughtful believers can agree with non-believers on the following, at least: None of us is God.

I'm concerned, naturally, about how the New Conversation will proceed while many of us are still involved in the "old" conversation: the one focused on marriage rights for same-sex couples. That conversation must go on, since virtually no one is happy with the status quo: an untenable patchwork of conflicting laws and practices, with marriage equality in nine states and amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage in dozens of others. The New Conversation is a recalibration of priorities; it need not involve "throwing in the towel" on the equality debate.

But, meanwhile, there are important questions that deserve more attention than they're getting: What is the social and personal significance of marriage? How can we promote a healthy marriage culture, for both adults and children? How can we ensure fairness of opportunity for those who pursue other life options? (Not everyone marries, and not everyone should.)

There are also new questions that arise now that married same-sex couples are a permanent part of the American landscape: What is the distinctive contribution that gays and lesbians can make to our marriage culture, and to our marriage conversation? What does freedom entail, both for these couples and for those who would generally prefer to avoid them?

If we can approach these questions with rigor, humility, and grace, we might all learn something new. It's worth a shot.

Professor John Corvino is a signatory to "A Call for a New Conversation on Marriage." You are invited to read the Call and become a signatory today.

Coming Out Later

2012-11-27T20:55:00-05:00

"Jake" has been a friend of my partner Mark since high school. He's now a successful attorney, in his late 30s, nice-looking, smart and kind. Also, he's never had a girlfriend. Also, he frequently posts about pro-gay causes on Facebook. (Yes, I'm doing the same math you're doing.)

"Is Jake gay?" I asked Mark.

"We've never discussed it," he responded.

"Why not?" I countered.

"Too weird to bring it up. Of course he's gay. At least, I think so. Maybe. I dunno. He must be. Why mention it?"

"Um, why not mention it?"

Mark and Jake have been close for over two decades. I believe everyone deserves a zone of privacy. I also believe that gayness is not, and should not be treated as, something unspeakable, a dirty little secret that dare not speak its name. Maybe Jake's closet door is stuck, and he's just waiting for someone to toss him some WD-40. Maybe not. It shouldn't hurt to ask.

I decided to make my move when Jake was in town for Thanksgiving weekend and the three of us were out to dinner. Our waiter was particularly handsome. As he left the table, I turned to Jake and said, "He's cute. If you like that sort of thing. What do you like, Jake? We've never had that conversation."

"You're right, we haven't," Jake said, perking up. "Interesting that you ask, because..."

And Mark changed the subject. Seriously. Not once but twice.

Eventually I redirected the conversation back to where I wanted it, and Jake blurted out, "Yes, I'm gay, and I'm actually just starting to come out."

We chatted about it for a moment, and then Mark inexplicably changed the subject again.

Side note: Mark and I have been together for over 11 years. Like most long-term couples, we've developed ways to convey discreet messages. For example, there's a secret hand signal we use at cocktail parties if one of us needs to be rescued from someone rude/boring/smelly/whatever. Unfortunately, we do not have a signal that says, "You fool! Can't you see that we've almost got this closet door open?! Stop changing the damn subject!"

When I later confronted Mark, he claimed that he had no idea that he had been doing it. Perhaps he was so accustomed to Jake's sexuality being unspoken that, subconsciously, he didn't want to rock the boat. Or perhaps it was his way of conveying, "Hey, it's no big deal."

Except that coming out is a big deal.

It's a big deal at any age, but doing it later has particular challenges. For one thing, it requires going through adolescent growing pains while dating non-adolescents. Remember how awkward (and exciting!) your first kiss was? Now imagine experiencing that in your late 30s. Now imagine experiencing that with someone who, unlike you, has a couple of decades of experience under his belt -- and who may mistakenly assume, given your age, that you do, as well.

What's more, given people's tendency to treat heterosexuality as the default setting, coming out later requires correcting people's long-held assumptions: "No, I'm not just a straight guy who's been 'married to his work' all these years. I'm gay." Such corrections can be jarring.

I have a friend in his late 40s -- let's call him "Steve" -- who also figured out his gayness later in life. Unlike Jake, Steve decided that "later" was "too late." He feared that this "new fact" about him would eclipse all others in people's minds, that instead of being Steve, he'd now be "Gay Steve." It's not that he thinks that there's anything wrong with being gay; it's just that he doesn't want to spare the emotional capital that coming out would require. So, despite encouragement from the small group of friends (like me) who know his secret, Steve has chosen to remain closeted.

I don't want Jake to end up like Steve. Yes, coming out is challenging, but the payoff can be considerable. Even if you don't find Mr. or Ms. Right, there's the simple pleasure of being able to speak freely, the burden of the closet lifted. At a minimum, coming out is liberating; at its best, it can be joyous. (At its worst, it can be dangerous, but that doesn't appear to be the case for Jake or Steve.)

There are some lessons to be gleaned here.

The first is that even if someone's coming out is no big deal to you, it does not follow that it's no big deal to them.

The second is that patience is a virtue. That's true for those who are coming out, for those who are supporting them, and (perhaps especially) for those who are dating them. If that successful, 30-something professional acts like a teenager when it comes to dating, maybe it's because he is a teenager when it comes to dating.

The flip side is that sometimes people need a little gentle nudging, too.

Perhaps the most important lesson is that people come out at all ages. That will likely be true for some time to come: It's not as if the popularity of Glee means that, from now on, all LGBT folk will come out as teens, surrounded by a supportive, talented and ridiculously good-looking show choir.

We're making great progress on the equality front, as the recent election results made clear. We still have a long way to go.

John Corvino is the co-author (with Maggie Gallagher) of Debating Same-Sex Marriage (Oxford University Press, 2012). You can find his marriage-equality short-video series at his website.

The Slippery Slope

2012-11-01T18:35:46-04:00

With less than five days to the election, anti-equality forces are pulling out all the stops in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington, the four states with marriage on the ballot. As usual, they're targeting voters' fears: If we allow same-sex couples to marry, children will be threatened, religious freedom will be trashed, civilization as we know it will collapse, and so on.

One common argument suggests that if we allow same-sex marriage, then we'll have no principled reason to oppose polygamy, incest, or any other possible marriage arrangement. My response to this argument, here:

For my full series of videos responding to common arguments in the marriage debate, see here. And please share with friends voting in ME, MD, MN, and WA.

Romney, Gays, and Kids

2012-10-26T15:01:00-04:00

Murray Waas at the Boston Globe has compiled some unsurprising but troubling evidence of Mitt Romney's callous disregard toward same-sex families.

After Massachusetts extended marriage to same-sex couples in 2003, Romney fought his state's Registry of Vital Records' attempts to reflect new family forms on birth certificates. In the process, the governor demonstrated remarkable ignorance of LGBT lives, even telling Julie Goodridge, lead plaintiff in the case that secured marriage equality in Massachusetts, "I didn't know you had families."

I can understand some people's misgivings about altering birth certificates to exclude the name of biological parents (although this concern is hardly unique to same-sex families). Biological origins may be important to people for various historical, medical, and personal reasons.

What I cannot understand, much less abide, is the persistent insensitivity to the real needs and interests of same-sex couples. Far worse is the insensitivity to their children, who are among the most serious victims of the right wing's war against gays.

"Some gays are actually having children born to them," Romney said in 2005. "It's not right on paper. It's not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and father."

The idea that "every child has a right to a mother and father" is a common claim in the fight against marriage equality. I respond to it in this video, one in a series of nine on arguments in the marriage debate.

D'Souza: The Real Problem

2012-10-22T15:22:00-04:00

Last week, the conservative luminary Dinesh D'Souza resigned as president of The King's College, a New York City evangelical school, after it was revealed that he brought his mistress to a Christian conference, apparently shared a room with her, and introduced her as his fiancée -- even though he was still married to his wife of 20 years.

Andy Mills, chairman of the college's Board of Trustees told students, "God has a mighty future for Dinesh, but there are some things he has to go through first" -- which is evangelical-speak for "WTF was he thinking?!?"

What bugs me about this story is not right-wing hypocrisy about sex (which is old news) or that sex leads smart people to do dumb things (even older news). It's that, by focusing on D'Souza's timing, commentators are ignoring the main double standard at work here.

In the marriage-equality debate, Christian conservatives often talk about the sanctity of marriage, the Biblical definition of marriage, God's plan for marriage and so on. Christian conservatives also often get divorced, as D'Souza is finally getting around to doing. (There's nothing like a scandal to remind you to call your lawyer.) When they do so, the usual reaction from their brethren is to emphasize forgiveness, redemption, and so on. Witness Newt Gingrich.

I'm all in favor of forgiveness and redemption, and I recognize that divorce is sometimes the best solution for a bad marriage. On the other hand, I'm not a Biblical fundamentalist. If I were, I'd have a hard time defending (most instances of) divorce. After all, Jesus says forcefully:

"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery" (Mark 10: 11-12).

Notice that, according to this view, divorced and remarried people are not people who did sin (past tense) and then went on to have a "mighty future." They are people who are sinning, as persistent adulterers.

In other words, the problem won't -- or, at least for those Biblical believers who value consistency, shouldn't -- disappear once D'Souza's divorce is finalized and Denise Odie Joseph II takes her place as the second Mrs. D'Souza. Not unless the "mighty future" God has in mind for Dinesh includes his being an unrepentant adulterer.

That's not how evangelical Christians will treat the new couple, of course. Which is just further evidence that they are willing to hold other people to a standard of Biblical literalism that they would never tolerate for themselves.

***

And speaking of religion and the marriage debate, here's my response to the "Threat to Religious Freedom" argument, one of a series of nine short videos on arguments against marriage equality. Please share with your friends who are voting in MD, ME, MN, and WA.

Regnerus Still Wrong on Same-Sex Parents

2012-10-16T17:31:40-04:00

Christianity Today just published an interview with the "embattled" sociologist Mark Regnerus. Unsurprisingly, the interview perpetuated the right-wing's popular characterization of Regnerus as the victim of political correctness, after he was roundly criticized for his study comparing children from "Lesbian Mother" and "Gay Father" families to those from "Intact Biological Families."

Regnerus's study has been widely touted by marriage-equality opponents as decisively proving that gay parenting is bad for children. In the words of the Family Research Council, for example, Regnerus

overturned the conventional academic wisdom that such children suffer no disadvantages when compared to children raised by their married mother and father. [T]he most careful, rigorous, and methodologically sound study ever conducted on this issue found numerous and significant differences between these groups -- the outcomes for children of homosexuals rated "suboptimal" (Regnerus' word) in almost every category.

But Regnerus proved no such thing, as I explain in the following short video (one of a series of 9 responding to arguments in the marriage debate). All it proved is that the right-wing will grasp at anything in order to maintain their indefensible position.