A Critical Reaction to a Recent Proposition 8 Discussion, pt. 1

I was recently home in the USA for a spell and came across a note on Facebook posted by a friend from middle school, which was called "20 Ar[gu]ments for Prop 8". I read through the document and was not shocked at its content, despite being opposed to it, but I was deeply shocked at the utter decrepitude of the statements it offered as "argument". It may be a truism that we humans are not especially critical of anything that corroborates a deeply-held belief or set of beliefs, but the substantial lack of any critical attention of the writer while compiling these statements towards, say, relevance, structure, validity, clarity, or support for his "arguments" should be appalling to any reader, regardless of their position on this issue.

After responding with a polemic gut reflex to the note (I was the first to respond), a long and impassioned debate quickly developed on the matter, which I continued to follow with interest. Though sometimes it failed to progress into much more than a roll call of the yes/no camps of the debate, there were some elements that I thought might be of especial interest, and deserving of comment. I will devote one post for each of these elements, and will include: (I) the integrity of the 20 arguments given in the note, (II) the role of intolerance in this debate, with special attention given to the comments of the note and (III) the biological/scientific arguments offered later in the comments. This does no justice to the amount of dross in the note; however, a comprehensive analysis of the all the notes faults would probably turn into a dissertation.

Note to my European friends: I found that the discussion in the note serves as an exemplar for understanding social debates in the United States. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

(I) The Abysmal Lack of Substance in the Original 20 Arguments: As though this needs pointing out, the actual argumentation here is minimal. Most of these "arguments" are free-floating statements, rather than arguments, e.g: "Legalizing gay marriage severs children from their right to know and be raised by their biological parents. Children have the right, insofar as society can make it possible, to know and to be cared for by the two parents who gave them life, known as the 'child’s bonding right.'" or: "Promiscuity in marriage will become more generally accepted [as a result of gay marriage]" as well as questionable conditionals: "If gay marriage becomes the law of the land state authorities will be required to treat opposition to gay marriage as 'invidious discrimination,' 'irrational,' or 'motivated by hate.'" But alright, let's not be too caviling; this is a political position being pushed, whose goal is to convince rather than investigate.

Nonetheless, the "arguments" here fall into at least two general categories of weakness in terms of their strength relating to; (A) the evidence supporting the claims, and (B) the role of subjective standards behind the argumentation.

(IIA.) Claims that cite 'empirical' evidence supporting the claims. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was no mention of sources for any of these evidence claims. [edit: I thnk there was one or teo, but these were links to rhetorical soundbites] Since most of these claims were social or sociological in form or scope, there are already going to many things that will be difficult to substantiate at all, let alone conclusively. Indeed even here there is a sub-categorical distinction of claims that cite [overwhelming, etc] evidential support, but (a) make no mention of what this research might be, or why it is so compelling, ex: "Research shows that marriage is weakest, in nations where support for gay marriage is strongest", or (b) offer only lip-service evidence that happily push the intuition behind the sentence, but say nothing of its relevance or accuracy to the point. Here I'll analyze two examples from the post.

1.) With respect to the "Protecting Marriage" argument it is claimed:

"There already are disturbing social impacts where gay marriage has been legalized. The experience of European countries that have legalized gay marriage demonstrates that any dilution of the traditional definition of marriage erodes the already weakened stability of marriage, family and children. Research shows that marriage is weakest, in nations where support for gay marriage is strongest, and that there is a direct connection between gay marriage and illegitimacy. As scholar Stanley Kurtz concluded, 'If gay marriage were imposed here by a socially liberal cultural elite, it would likely speed us on the way toward the classic [European] pattern of less frequent marriage, more frequent out-of-wedlock birth, and skyrocketing family dissolution. In the American context, this would be a disaster.' (The Weekly Standard 9, No. 20 (February 2, 2004): 26-33.)" [emphasis added, CS]

Besides the intriguingly explicit dislike (here and elsewhere in the document) of European society, the weakness of this claim is poignant. First of all, what is the standard of "weakness" or "strength" of a marriage? A complete measure will surely be elusive, but what kind of statistical data could possibly be offered to represent something like this? The second point, not unrelated, speaks to the actual data in the US and the EU. I took the liberty of selecting a few possible criteria by which to compare marriage in American society with marriage in European society and doing a quick search at reputable sources on their distribution; rate of illegitimate children (also mentioned in the quote, as I understood it), divorce rate, and the rate of domestic violence. The data may be surprising to some, as it not only places the US firmly within the range of statistics found in other EU countries (and that's putting it politely), but also squarely contradicts the significance of the criteria as a measure of homosexuality's effect on the respective societies.

i. Illegitimate Birth Rate

source: "Live births by legitimacy status, and percent illegitimate: 1990 - 1998" - United Nations; further statistics: UN Statistics, Natality
note: I know these stats are a little dated, but finding a template with such comprehensive data was difficult, and I do have a life after all :) I may look for more if people make a big deal out of it.
Some of the data:

United States (No [Universal] Gay Marriage)
1991 ............................29.5
1993 ............................31.0
1994 ............................32.6
1995 ............................32.2

Germany (No Gay Marriage, but Civil Unions)
1991 ............................15.1
1992 ............................14.9
1993 ............................14.8
1994 ............................15.4
1995 ............................16.1
1996 ............................17.0
1997 ............................18.0

France (No Gay Marriage, but Civil Union)
1991 ............................31.8
1992 ............................33.2
1993 ............................34.9
1994 ............................36.1
1995 ............................37.6
1996 ............................38.9

Netherlands (Gay Marriage)
1990 ............................11.4
1991 ............................12.0
1992 ............................12.4
1993 ............................13.1
1994 ............................14.3
1995 ............................15.5
1996 ............................17.0

Sweden (Gay Marriage)
1990 ............................47.0
1991 ............................48.2
1992 ............................49.5
1993 ............................50.4
1994 ............................51.6
1996 ............................53.9
1997 ............................54.1

Spain (Gay Marriage)
1991 ............................10.0
1992 ............................10.5
1993 ............................10.8
1994 ............................10.8
1995 ............................11.1
1996 ............................11.7
1997 ............................13.1

United Kingdom (No Gay Marriage, but Civil Unions)
1990 ...........................27.9
1991 ...........................29.8
1992 ...........................30.8
1993 ...........................31.8
1994 ...........................32.0
1995 ...........................33.6
1996 ...........................35.5
1997 ...........................36.7

Ireland (No Gay Marriage)
1990 ..........................14.6
1992 ..........................18.0
1993 ..........................19.9
1994 ..........................20.8
1995 ..........................22.3
1996 ..........................24.8
1997 ..........................26.6

China - Hong Kong SAR (No Gay Marriage)
1990 .........................5.0
1991 .........................5.2
1992 .........................5.2
1993 .........................5.3
1994 .........................5.4
1995 .........................5.4
1996 .........................5.5
1997 .........................5.6

Estonia (No Gay Marriage)
1990 ........................27.1
1991 ........................31.1
1992 ........................34.0
1993 ........................38.2
1994 ........................40.9
1995 ........................44.1
1996 ........................48.1
1997 ........................51.6

I think it is clear from this data that there is no significant relation between a country's stance on gay marriage and its rate of illegitimate births. In all honesty, why would one expect there to be?


ii. Divorce Rate

Sources:
US stats; National Average - CDC National Center for Health Statistics* (2005(?))
State by State - CDC National Center for Health Statistics (2005) [Different Link!]
*note: I found numbers ranging from 2.9 up to 5.6 for the national average, and decided to stay with this number because it's on the lower range (hence more conservative), and I take the CDC to be a reliable first approximation.

World Stats: - UN Statistics "Divorces and crude divorce rates by urban/rural residence: 2000 - 2004"


US
Nationwide divorce rate: 3.6 per 1000
This number is obviously a gloss, given the size of the country, the size of the population, and the diversity of culture within the landmass, so here are some 'typical' "blue" and "red" states:

(All rates per 1000 People)
Alabama
1999........................................5.7
2000........................................5.5
2001........................................5.4
2002........................................5.4
2003........................................5.2
2004........................................4.9

Alaska
1999........................................5.0
2000........................................3.9
2001........................................4.3
2002........................................4.6
2003........................................3.9
2004........................................4.3

California - No Data; wtf?

Kansas
1999........................................3.4
2000........................................3.6
2001........................................3.4
2002........................................3.6
2003........................................3.3
2004........................................3.3

Massachusetts
1999........................................2.5
2000........................................2.5
2001........................................2.4
2002........................................2.5
2003........................................2.5
2004........................................2.2

Nevada (!!)
1999........................................7.8
2000........................................9.9
2001........................................6.3
2002........................................7.1
2003........................................7.3
2004........................................6.4
[LOL]

New York
1999........................................3.3
2000........................................3.0
2001........................................3.5
2002........................................3.4
2003........................................3.2
2004........................................3.0

Ohio
1999........................................3.9
2000........................................4.2
2001........................................4.0
2002........................................4.0
2003........................................3.7
2004........................................3.6

Texas
1999........................................3.8
2000........................................4.0
2001........................................4.0
2002........................................3.9
2003........................................3.8
2004........................................3.6

Vermont
1999........................................4.4
2000........................................4.1
2001........................................4.3
2002........................................4.2
2003........................................4.0
2004........................................3.9

[For the rest refer to the source link]

Europe
All numbers refer to national averages
(Check source for sample sizes etc)

Estonia (No Gay Marriage)
2000........................................3.09
2001........................................3.16
2002........................................3.00
2003........................................2.94
2004........................................???

France (Civil Unions)
2000........................................1.93
2001........................................1.990
2002........................................1.94
2003........................................2.09
2004........................................???

Germany (Civil Unions)
2000........................................2.37
2001........................................2.40
2002........................................2.48
2003........................................2.59
2004........................................2.59

Ireland (No Gay Marriage)
2000........................................0.69
2001........................................0.74
2002........................................0.66
2003........................................0.74
2004........................................0.83

Netherlands (Gay Marriage)
2000........................................2.18
2001........................................2.31
2002........................................2.05
2003........................................1.94
2004........................................1.91

Spain (Gay Marriage)
2000........................................0.97
2001........................................0.70
2002........................................0.73
2003........................................0.75
2004........................................???

Sweden (Gay Marriage)
2000........................................2.42
2001........................................2.36
2002........................................2.39
2003........................................2.36
2004........................................2.24

United Kingdom (Civil Union)
2000........................................2.62
2001........................................2.65
2002........................................2.71
2003........................................2.80
2004........................................???

[Refer to source for more]

Like the rate of illegitimate children, this data shows no significant relationship between the nation's stance on gay marriage and divorce rate. Actually, (1) Other than Russia, Moldova, and Ukraine, the United States exhibits a higher rate of divorce than any European country! (2) More generally, any explanation for this trend will undoubtedly be heavily influenced by local culture and history. The intuitive link (if there ever was one) between supporting gay marriage and this criterion of the quality of marriage is thereby drowned out completely by other criteria that have nothing to do with gay marriage, for example the nation's dominant religion. Ireland and Spain, for example, are Catholic countries (divorce is illegal/strongly frowned upon in Catholicism), and despite having differing stances on gay marriage (one yes, the other no), they have similar divorce rates. HOW SURPRISING.


iii. Domestic Violence

note: This nature of this topic makes it extremely difficult to offer any clear assessments in the form of round figures. Even trying to understand what domestic violence is introduces daunting problems for any measure of its occurrence, in any society. First of all, how should one define it? The many forms that domestic violence can take, ranging from the more obvious, like physical assault and rape, to the more subtle, like psychological intimidation, stalking, and controlling behavior, make it very difficult to conceptualize the phenomenon in order to measure it. Each source has a section that comments on the approach they took in defining the explanandum. Other problems in data collection itself also threaten the accuracy of any statistics regarding domestic violence. I found an obscene amount of figures and studies, all of which were different in scope, experiment design, goals, and analysis. For this reason I will relay the reader to many different sources so that they can organize the numbers and parameters yourself.

More generally, this point forces once again the question: if this criterion is indicative of the strength/weakness of marriages in a country, how the heck could one possibly isolate the factors affected by the legal status of gay marriage? Let alone present this clearly in a study?

% of women who have experienced domestic violence (minor to severe):
[Several figures given when possible]

US (No [Universal] Gay Marriage)
22% (WHO) [very dated; 1995-6]
25.5% (Joint Survey by NIJ, NCIPC, and CDC) [also dated - 1996]

Canada (Gay Marriage)
29% (WHO) (1995-6)
Another Source: "Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile"

France (Civil Unions)
[Couldn't find anything concrete - figures ranged from 20-35%]
One interesting source (UN)

Germany (Civil Unions)
No reliable [national] information

Ireland (No Gay Marriage)
29% (National Crime Council Report; 2005)

Netherlands (Gay Marriage)
21% (WHO) (1986(!!))
25% (Dutch Ministry of Justice Report) (1997)

United Kingdom (Civil Unions)
30% (WHO) (1993(!!))

Like I said above, these figures are not transparent to interpretation. Nonetheless, I think it is clear that here the anti-gay marriage supporter will find no support in establishing their link between gay marriage and the quality of family life. The gross numbers that I cited are all very similar to one another, and to suggest any relationship between homosexuality and the prevalence of domestic abuse challenges the flexibility of our credulity. The author of the "20 Arguments" and its supporters in this note are obviously grasping for anything in order to make a political point, and the integrity of their claims suffer decisively for this lack of epistemic standards.

2.) With respect to the "Sustaining the Population" argument it is tersely claimed:

"To sustain the population we need a birth rate of 2.1 children per woman. Countries that have legalized gay marriage have some of the lowest fertility rates in the world. The Netherlands, Sweden and Canada all have birthrates around 1.6 children per woman, and are losing population."

I briefly commented on this argument early in the discussion, saying:

"First, those countries that have legalized gay marriage (Netherlands, Sweden, Canada are mentioned) or are considering it belong to a more general group - called the industrialized world; low fertility rates are found in all these countries. The places that most vehemently deny any concessions to gays DO in fact have very high fertility rates - and they happen to mostly be in third world/developing countries (Mid East, India, China, Africa). Is our respective stance on gay marriage relevant to this? Why/not?
Second, fertility rate is one way of conveying information on population growth. Another is to look at the trends themselves. Canada and the Netherlands both actually have -positive- growth in population (look at the CIA fact book, maybe also WHO records(?)). But Germany, who does NOT have legalized gay marriage has negative population growth."

I still agree with this statement, so I'll only flush out some points a bit further.

First, have a look at the world fertility rates by country from highest to lowest, compiled in the CIA Fact Book. The quote above is correct in saying that the Netherlands, Sweden, and Canada all have low birth rates. So does the entire industrialized world (except Israel and South Africa). The highest industrialized nation on the list as far as I see is Israel at #84 (2.77), followed by South Africa at #108 (2.43). The highest Western industrialized country is the USA at #124 (2.1), followed by France at #133 (1.98).

Insofar as supporters of Prop8 want to demonstrate the significance of this trend for their position, they are obliged to offer an explanation for its ubiquity in ALL industrialized countries despite the different positions regarding gay marriage. Like e.g., the divorce rate of a country cited above, this trend has many other more intuitive and actual causes than the legality of gay marriage (say, liberation of women, etc). I take this as trivial, and will not go into it further.


Second, of the demonized countries named above (Netherlands, Sweden, and Canada) all exhibit positive population growth (+0.46%, +0.147%, and +0.83%, respectively)! Germany, on other other hand, has negative growth rate (-0.044%); what shall we make of this, if we took the Prop8 argument seriously? That Germany is suffering for the Netherlands? That countries with legalized gay marriage are some kind of disease vectors that are immune to the effects of the pathogen, but can easily transmit it to unassuming victims? This. Is. Ridiculous.

I should emphasize, however that population sustainability is an critical issue in the industrialized world, but for different very reasons than the Prop8 platform entertains. The sooner we realize this, the more efficiently we can analyze real, tractable means of dealing with it.

..............
CONCLUSION
With respect to the original 20 "arguments" in support of Prop8, these two examples are symptomatic of the gossamer-thin support they claim to be so "overwhelming". They display an acute allergy to respectable standards of [empirical] research, the manner of displaying and interpreting information, and constructing relevant (or even significant) factors of influence for the phenomena they cite. My creative interpretation in including divorce rates and domestic violence as relevant factors for measuring strength of marriage magnifies this point further. As I will further argue in other upcoming blog posts, this pattern repeats itself in the comments of the people involved in the subsequent discussion. The more "local" (especial "biological") arguments that were offered are deserving of a post for themselves (here, most of the empirical arguments are of social scope) For now, let's further consider the other kind of "arguments" that the original note offers.


(IIB.) Claims that draw their motivation from subjective or implicit standards of evaluation.
By far the most passionately defended class of claims in the "20 Arguments" are those that either (a) are offered as lawlike axioms who carry their normative force in their utterance, or (b) lack internal and/or external logical consistency. Such claims include, for example:

"The civil rights [aspect of this] issue actually runs in favor of the 96% of the population who are not gay. Implementing gay marriage will trample upon their civil rights"...."Churches will also be pressured to compromise their beliefs or face loss of equal access to a wide array of government benefit programs and licensing regimes"..."Proposition 8 does not interfere with gays living the lifestyle they choose".... "[Prop8 will] protect RELIGIOUS FREEDOM [-] When rights for gay couples are expanded, freedom of religion is threatened as citizens are coerced to act against conscience and belief."...."Gay marriage gives a confusing message, totally marginalizes marriage and family, and fails to prepare children for heterosexual marital relationships – thereby destabilizing the basic unity of society – the family."...."Gay marriage would radically redefine marriage to include virtually any sexual behavior."

this one is particularly funny, deserving its own paragraph:

"[Prop 8 will] protect AMERICA
A defeat for marriage at the polls in California will embolden activists who have always planned to export their radical agenda to all 50 states – and basically install 'European a-morality' (which many believe is “immorality”) throughout the country. A centerpiece of that agenda is taking away the basic rights of those who disagree with them – and those fundamental rights, of free speech, of free exercise of religion, and freedom of assembly, are what differentiate America from every other country. We need to protect American Judeo-Christian morals, and American freedoms – because no other country will."

So....where to start?
Some of the statements here are simply absurd, from a logical standpoint. Others are just plain absurd. Regarding the former, take the claim that "Gay marriage would radically redefine marriage to include virtually any sexual behavior". This is one of the necessary links on the argument's [to protect morality] premises. As I hinted at in one post, this would mean that there is some property of gay marriage that makes it consistent with any sexual behavior; whether this means sex with animals, sex with cars, masturbation, and even "normal" straight sex (though they probably didn't mean this last one, as this would lead to a fullblown contradiction, AND WE DON'T WANT THAT NOW, DO WE?).

What, then, is this property, and what does it do? Ostensibly, this mysterious property of homosexuality identifies an attribute belonging to all things that one can have sex with as sufficient for entering a marriage with that thing. But what property could possibly identify a homosexual with a car, or a [non-human] animal? In lieu of any clarification, this attribution at worse equates homosexuals with [non-human] animals (and/or cars?), or at least deprives them of the status of being agents to whom we not are morally bound. But why think homosexuals are less deserving of moral considerations, and where is the connection to marriage? Most probably, there is some value judgment happening here, whereby a certain inferiority re morality is being attached to being homosexual. No matter what their feelings towards homosexuals are, this is a consequence of their position, as written.

Additionally, this mysterious property implies that all sexual behavior that excludes heterosexual pairing is wrong, but without clarification this leads to a viciously circular begging-the-question fallacy [non-heterosexual sex is wrong because it is non-heterosexual sex]. I won't even go into negative properties (i.e. the property of not being x). More likely, this draws its motivation from some subjective source that resists investigation. This became very clear during the subsequent discussion of the topic, as people began to simply state specific beliefs of theirs. (I will discuss these beliefs in a later post in more depth) For now, however, stating a belief is far removed from demonstrating its normative strength in affirming a principle that should motivate the behavior of others. I, for one, believe that brussel sprouts are disgusting. Should I then derive support for Prop8 from this?

I could go on and on about this. But it is sufficient to say that these subjective standards are unacceptable for an argument where strong passions are at play. Not only are they unclear, but they are not necessarily shared by those in the debate. Hence, they should be clarified as much as possible so that a rational discussion can even happen. Simply assuming their truth and normative precendence, and then implementing them as the primary motivations pushing an "argument" (or 20 of them, for that matter) leaves completely unclear how the conclusions of the argument are supported by the premises. In other words, it is not even an argument at all.

On the other hand, if it really comes down to beliefs or values, then clarification of these things will at least alert us to the fact that discussion is not possible, and, just maybe, help us understand more clearly what is at stake here for all sides. In such cases, democracy must take over. But whichever side democracy chooses, this is far removed from concluding that that side is right. Justification is much more subtle and complex than casting a vote. And the platform of Proposition 8 is FAR from being justified. Perhaps infinitely.