Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott at least makes a more coherent argument against gay marriage than Rick Santorum ever did.
Attorney General Greg Abbott says Texas’ same-sex marriage ban should remain in place because legalizing it would do little or nothing to encourage heterosexual couples to get married and have children.
Writing in a brief filed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, Abbott said the state was not obligated to prove why gay marriage might be detrimental to the economic or social well-being of Texans. It was only required to show how opposite-sex marriage would be more beneficial for its citizens.
That’s a little unclear. Let’s see if this helps.
“The State is not required to show that recognizing same-sex marriage will undermine heterosexual marriage,” the brief read. “It is enough if one could rationally speculate that opposite-sex marriages will advance some state interest to a greater extent than same-sex marriages will.”
The new filing largely reiterated the same “responsible procreation” argument Abbott made in July, when the state first appealed a a February district court’s ruling overturning the Texas gay marriage ban. In it, Abbott argued marriage among heterosexual partners is more beneficial to society because it encourages married couples to have children and provides an example for other couples to do the same.
Notice that Mr. Abbott isn’t arguing that allowing same-sex marriage will lead people to marry animals. Instead, he argues that when men and women get married before having children, they set a positive example for other people that has the effect of reducing the number of out-of-wedlock births. And, by his argument, the example of same-sex partners getting married does not share this salutary effect on the health of society.
Of course, same-sex marriages create their own examples, including the idea that being gay doesn’t preclude having a loving, potentially monogamous relationship. By reducing promiscuity, at least potentially, and increasing the quality of life for marginalized people, same-sex marriage has its own salutary effects.
And, of course, if reducing the stigma attached to homosexuality and making people happy are values the state cares about, then there’s a state interest in promoting same-sex marriage.
Abbott’s argument isn’t particularly good, and it isn’t convincing, but it is at least some kind of argument. Man on Dog was never an argument.
Still, even the idea that the state has a compelling interest in deterring out-of-wedlock births seems dubious to me because it sounds good in theory but it begins to fall apart in practice. To what degree should the state go to promote this interest? They can’t go very far before they get themselves involved in discriminatory practices.
Greg Abbott says Texas’ same-sex marriage ban should remain in place because legalizing it would do little or nothing to encourage heterosexual couples to get married and have children.
One could list any number of things that Texas permits that do little or nothing to encourage heterosexual marriage and reproduction.
Like divorce.
High school football.
Country music.
Big hair.
Trailer parks.
Barbecue.
None of these things encourage raising little Texans (well, except maybe the football thing–I’m sure some Texas dads dream of raising up the next Heisman winner). But they don’t do anything to discourage it either.
It is a legal argument rather than an argument for public consumption, but it does seem kind of strained, don’t you think?
Reproduction doesn’t seem to need any encouragement from the state.
If (a rather big if) it is in the state’s interest to encourage heterosexual marriage, we learned decades ago how to do that. Create decent paying and seemingly secure jobs for men and the marriage rates soar. The only problem with that great post-WWII experiment was that the birth rate soared as well (and generations before and after love to hate on the Boomers), but that was before more effective and easy to obtain birth control measures.
WAPO For millennial women, `the one’ must have a steady job
This.
If you want people (straight, gay, whatever) to get married and settle down and be good consumers, they need…uh…money.
That comes first. Otherwise, people who get married without money will likely divorce without money.
If the state says it wants to promote two-parent households as the best possible environment for raising children, it should also promote gay marraige, since a larger pool of married couples means more adoptions, and more kids in a stable home environment.
Well, what they really want is to discourage premarital sexy-time for their daughters.
The primary, some would say the only, justification for marriage — civil, legal, or religious — as the union of one man and one(or more…) woman is and always has been the need to provide a stable, relatively secure environment for raising children, presumably the offspring of that union. Given the high and growing rate of divorce and voluntarily out-of-wedlock pregnancies in most modern industrial societies, that justification grows less and less meaningful every day. For the right to raise it as a reason to ban gay marriage is nothing more than a convenient fig leaf for their ongoing anti-gay agenda.
I’d say two people wanting to marry as a symbol of their commitment is justification enough for marriage, but I’m not the one opposing homosexual unions.
Exactly. And given the number of hetero couples who marry even though they have no plans for children, plus the number of same-sex couples who would willingly adopt and raise children in a stable, loving relationship given the chance, the ban on same-sex marriages makes even less sense.
“The primary, some would say the only, justification for marriage — civil, legal, or religious — as the union of one man and one(or more…) woman is and always has been the need to provide a stable, relatively secure environment for raising children”
Uhhh, no. Historically the purpose of marriage was to arrange mergers between families with secular power: landowners, rulers etc. The aim was to produce a secure, un-disputed heir to the throne/estate/etc.
The serfs just shacked up.
Even the serfs viewed marriage in terms of legitimizing heirs to whatever shreds of property they had, combining field strips, etc. The ideas of marrying for love as the preferred approach, nuclear families rather than extended families all living together, etc., are generally very recent additions to the world. Not saying that love matches were unknown, but they were definitely outliers in most cultures for most of human history.
But is marriage a zero-sum proposition, so that an increase in gay marriage will result in a decrease in straight marriage? I wouldn’t think so, although to the extent legalizing gay marriage expresses acceptance by the state of gay relationships, maybe there would be fewer straight “sham” marriages or something by people who felt they needed to hide their sexuality. But is there a state interest in keeping the number of straight “sham” marriages at whatever level they’re at? Hard to see that.
Let’s ban dairy price supports because they don’t encourage people to eat meat.
no, it’s still batshit stupid. gay marriages aren’t competing with straight marriages. it’s not zero-sum.
additionaly, the forced-birth crew should also be aware of all the kids out there waiting to be adopted. which – as far as the moronic abbot argument goes – would be a PLUS for gay marriage. at this point he’ll revert back to the explicit GAY BAD bigotry which he’s been trying laughably to keep on the down-low.
yes, francis – it’s perfectly common for there to be multiple ways to be dumb.
When discussing legal recognition of marriage as opposed to church recognition or personal recognition, asking the state’s interest is a reasonable question. If we believe in maximum personal freedom then the state needs to make a compelling case for state recognition. Given the high rates of out of wedlock births in Europe (in Sweden over 50%) and European denial of the concept of legitimacy of birth in some countries (France?), I don’t think any such argument can be made. Despite all the talk about children, property and it’s conveyance is the main thrust of marriage laws. Indeed, it was at the core of the SCOTUS case that overturned DOMA. Is there a compelling case that involves property rather than reproduction? Perhaps, but Texas has not made it. All the talk really breaks down to “Because God wants it that way.” Which violates the First Amendment.
BTW, can I marry Exxon-Mobil now that it is a person?
Texas’ interest is in keeping tribe members clearly in a tribe. GoodTribe and BadTribe.
Guess who belongs in BadTribe?
If one looks at the Texas brief through the lens of global overpopulation, their thesis that heterosexual marriage “encourages married couples to have children,” looks completely stupid.