A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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June 25, 2006Why should the Government Care About Marriage?We've periodically discussed the topic of Marriage, or better put Gay Marriage. I've tried to lay low because its seems like such a divesive topic. My only recurrent point has been to ask "What's the Government's interest in sanctioning any form of marriage?". Well thanks to the blog The Gruntled Center (an interesting "centrist blog" that's more interested in family and community issues and comes at them from a centrist political AND religious viewpoint) I came across this. I found this academic statement of principles regarding the Public Good of marriage very interesting reading. Now, when I got to the gay marriage part I thought "Will anyone digest/discuss this thoughtful piece once they see the fairly clear statement against gay marriage?" Furthermore, I wondered whether once folks Googled The Witherspoon Institute would they assume "its just another conservative Christian-sponsored organization". Please read the whole thing. I'd be very interested in what political centrists think about this document and the principles it puts forth. Posted by c3 at June 25, 2006 10:35 PMComments
I agree with almost everything in the "Ten Principles on Marriage and the Public Good" when it argues the importance of marriage. I disagree with almost all of their proposed fixes. To me it seems absurd to make a valid analysis that traditional marriage is failing and the blame the potential legalization of same sex marriage as one of the causes. A gay couple would not enter into a traditional marriage so any bad gay marriage would not cause any additional damage and any good same sex marriage would be a benefit. I believe that two parents of different sexes are ideal, however a same sex couple is better than a single parent. The decline of traditional families is a problem, but same sex marriage is not the cause and banning it is not the solution. I also do not agree with the idea of eliminating the fertility industry. Again I believe this would lessen the number of children born into 2 parent households. Seems to me the Princeton Principles does a good job of identifying the problem, but I don’t understand how they justify their conclusions of either the causes or the solutions. Ok, that document lost me right away. As soon as they started talking about the evils of co-habitation and the deinstitutionalization of marrige. I, for one, dont even agree that cvo-habitaionalism is not as good as marriage. And I also don't feel that deinstitutionalization of marriage is happening. Gay marriage poses no threat to traditional marriages as some would have you believe. Do you think that gay men and women are just going to say "well, I can't marry a man/woman, so I might as well marry a woman/man." Ridiculous. If traditional marriage is failing, it is the fault of the churches for not keeping up with the times. People are loosing faith in religion and religions are doing nothing to keep them faithful. I say: Do away with marriage all together, at least from a legal standpoint. Marriage is a religious institution and has no place in a secular government. Posted by: Dan at June 26, 2006 07:34 AMIt's uncontroversial and maybe even trivial to me to acknowledge the public good of marriage. I don't see much to argue about there. But beyond the nice talk on that, I'm not buying. Has marriage decayed over the past several generations? Perhaps. But if so, how much of this decay is simply a decreased willingness of people to stay committed to a fundamentally unsound relationship? People who live together before marrying are able to discover whether their relationship is sustainable. People who divorce dissolve environments that are often unstable and poisonous. The pure conservative view of marriage is that you buy the suit off the rack and then you wear it for life regardless of fit. I am quite far from alone in thinking that this is foolish. IMO there is simply no proxy, no substitute, no exploration short of spending extensive time togther which reveals the fundamental nature of a relationship between 2 people. So what if the method of exploration varies from couple to couple. For every relationship that stays together through rough times due to the marriage promise made, there's one that stays together and preserves a poisonous environment, and there's another bad relationship that gets cut short when cohabitation reveals the relationship to be a mistake. The executive summary, if accurate, reveals the prescriptive thrust of this document to be not moderate but deeply conservative. This manifests most clearly in point 8, when it says that "Without stable families, personal liberty is thus imperiled,as the state tries to fulfill through coercion those functions that families, at their best, fulfill through covenantal devotion." My problem is this: lots of families are messed up, and always were. Domestic abuse, mental illness, and substance abuse are simply NOT new things. The "personal liberty" of domestic abusers, the mentally ill, and substance abusers SHOULD be "imperiled" as it were. Should such matters be only "within familes" so that only those families that are the strongest and have the most resources survive? IMO this is a fundamentally undemocratic and even archaic notion. The hostility towards the state in this point is unconcealed. I found no compelling argument that gay marriage is in any important sense harmful to those aspects of marrriage which could be considered public good. I could go on, but there are just too many assumptions here to question them all one by one. I mean, of course a sound stable marriage provides an ideal environment for children. But it's not marriage that creates this environment, it's 2 committed people and their families. Many marriages do NOT create such a sound stable environment. If the power is in the institution, why does it fail so often? How do we know that so many of the other alleged benefits that are claimed to be results of marriage (adult well-being, financial prospering) exist in causal and not simply correlative relationships? Doesn't it make at least as much sense to simply think that when 2 sound, stable, intelligent people join together they'll do well? Why would we think that it's the power of the instiution that does this? I think it's the power of such successful people that caused the institution to become so hallowed, and now the gatekeepers of the institution want to claim that its the institution that causes the success, and not the successful people. I repeat: If the power is in the institution, why does it fail so often? Riddle me this: Why are the failures of the institution attributed to the shortcomings of the people in the failed marriages, and yet the successes are attributed to the institution? Let the pious blather on all they want about institutions. Regardless, relationships will continue to succeed or fail just as they have in the past, 2 people at a time. Posted by: bk at June 26, 2006 08:43 AMIf marriage is good for a man and a women then it is good for 2 men or 2 women period. I am amazed that so many people are so uptight about a practice that will only involve, at best and using the most generous numbers, 10% of the population. Married same sex couples have an investment in their relationship just like heterosexual couples do that will cut down on many of the social pathologies that people live to site about the “gay community”. So this can only build more solid participation and investment in the community at large. But the real crux of the issue is that institution of marriage cannot be weakened at all by it’s expansion, it can only be weakened by it’s biggest practitioners and that is heterosexuals. No one is proposing to criminalize or eliminate divorce and short of that there is really nothing that can be done about the divorce rates. Divorce rates have been going up for one reason alone, women now can survive on their one outside of marriage. It wasn’t 60 years ago when this was not true. There was a time, no too long ago were there were sever restrictions on women in the ownership of property. Woman we paid less and for most, surviving without a husband was to court poverty and despair. If that is what you want to go back to good luck, you will have a very hard time convincing most woman to go back to that state of affairs. But without consigning women to second class personhood, there is no reason for two people to stay married when the relationship becomes counterproductive or abusive. That is the cause of divorce plain and simple. And let’s not make any mistake, there are no issues with the institution of marriage that expanding it to include homosexuals can destroy that divorce hasn’t already done. If the institution of marriage, under it’s current heterosexual exclusion, were anywhere near the ballpark of healthy, I might be sympathetic to the arguments that homosexual marriage would be counter productive. But that ain’t the case. The problem is that there are those people who insist on trying to lash traditional values onto a modern technological society. No one is arguing that the larger principals apply, but the minutia, such as traditional marriage for life I think is a custom that will have to change in order to maintain any relevance at all. Domestic abuse, mental illness, and substance abuse are simply NOT new things. The "personal liberty" of domestic abusers, the mentally ill, and substance abusers SHOULD be "imperiled" as it were.Brian, I think you are setting up a straw man here. I know of very few conservatives who argue that women (or men) should be forced to remain in a marriage with an abusive partner, alcoholic, or drug addict. Where in the document cited did you read any such support? But it's not marriage that creates this environment, it's 2 committed people and their families.As I recall (and I haven't looked up the stats myself in a long time, so I am more than willing to be corrected), the statistics show that married couples, on the whole, were more stable, better off financially, and had fewer delinquent kids. Nobody is saying that marriage is a panacea, get married and all your problems go away, just that as an institution, marriage has a proven track record of benefits to society that cohabitation does not. Also, if I recall correctly, cohabitants who go on to get married have a higher divorce rate than married couples who did not cohabitate first.
Pat, you recall incorrectly. The report I read was the opposite. Posted by: Dan at June 26, 2006 10:18 AMPat, I'm not trying to set up a straw man. My point there is that suboptimal relationships have existed for as long as relationships have, and IMO marriage does not CURE suboptimal relationships. The implication in the document is that marriage as an institution can better cure such suboptimal relationships by creating and supporting strong families and keeping the state out of involvement. And the evidence they cite is how well both children and adults thrive in strong marriages. In this view, Strong marriages conclusively prove the virtue of marriage as an institution, and lousy relationships are evidence of decay of the institution, as an extra-institutional issue. I think this argument tries to have it both ways. Why aren't dysfunctional relationships evidence of internal flaw, of the limited utility of the institution? I'm trying to point out that quite a few of the conclusions made here could well be a case of sampling error among other flaws of logic. Ideally, we'd be able to do a study where we controlled for factors such as character, education, financial resources, and so on, and then have one group marry, another cohabitate, and so on. Then we could possibly see the effect that marriage itself had on couples in a relationship. Do we know the various reasons why couples cohabitate? Isn't it likely that some substantial portion of them cohabitate instead of marrying precisely because the relationship itself is less than ideal? Maybe some of these people flunk themselves out and never reach the altar, while others stay together and then subsequently marry for the wrong reasons, like children or simple emotional inertia. But if two people feel that marrigae is a slam-0dunk decision, the sure forward. The point is that its VERY suspect to compare cohabiters who marry to married couples who didn't previously cohabit and assume that its an apples to apples comparision. It's not. This point CANNOT be ignored in any serious discussion. Nobody is saying that marriage is a panacea, get married and all your problems go away, just that as an institution, marriage has a proven track record of benefits to society that cohabitation does not. Right, but the no free lunch dictum orders us to count everything. Is anyone checking to see what value if any there is in people in suspect relationships NOT getting married becauserthey were able to discern that it would be a mistake before pulling the trigger? Simply put, the witherspoon hypothesis is this: "If you get married, you are likely to prosper." I am wondering whether the following (the converse or the inverse, I forget) might be just as true or even more true: "if you are likely to prosper, you will get married." What sorts of businesses are sought for acquistion and mergers? Successful ones. Valuable ones. Does merger or acquistion make success more likely? Not necessarily. Some mergers and acquisitions are disasters. Are mergers and acquistions considered to be instutions? Nope, because they don't (yet?) have the benefit of a long-standing multigenerational cultural and religious mythology that sings their praises. Posted by: bk at June 26, 2006 10:59 AM"If you get married, you are likely to prosper." I can offer a prime example of this being not true. I did get married. When I got married I had a nice car, great job, everything I could every want. within 2 years I had lost my job, sold the car, and wound up in jail because the woman I married was NOT the woman I dated. I subsequently divorced and had nothing and went into a downward spiral. Fast-forward 3 years and I was starting to build my life up again, got a good job. I moved in with my girlfriend, we live together for 7 years before we married. And now have been married for 2 years and have a 9 month old together. Our life is great, but I never, ever would have married her or had a child with her had I not spent those years living together. I would never buy a car without taking it for a test drive, especially a used one, why would I marryu someone who I essentially, know nothing about? Posted by: Dan at June 26, 2006 11:05 AMBrian, you certainly are correct in pointing out flaws in the logical reasoning. But that alone does not suffice to prove anything other than "we need more study". It does not disprove the pro-marriage crowd, just says that their evidence is not conclusive. I'm not married. My friends who are tell me that marriage is often hard. Sometimes, it goes in spurts, easy periods followed by the more difficult ones, "for better and for worse" and all that. The weaker the societal support for marriage, the more probable than one or the other spouse will decide to chuck the marriage during the difficult periods. And I speak not of abusive relationships, just those ordinary everyday ones where one or the other partner feels "unfulfilled" or "unappreciated" for all of their hard work. And divorce has calculable financial damages. Housing costs immediately rise for what was the family unit, as separate residences are now required. The kids need not one bicycle but two, one at each house. And those are just the financial costs. As a child of divorced parents, I can assure you that there are other costs to the kids as well. Formalizing a committed relationship, as opposed to merely cohabitating, also greatly protects both parties in the event of a break-up. With formal recognition in law comes a raft of protections mostly designed to ensure fairness to the weaker partner, the partner who perhaps sacrificed his or her own education in order to support the other. The formal protection also insures fair splitting of property bought together, regardless of whose name the official title is in, and a host of other important property and financial matters. Of course people in abusive relationships should divorce, and they are generally going to be better off doing so. They are likely not to be as financially well off, but physical and emotional safety for oneself and one's children is far more important than that. But the fact that some marriages are bad does not indict the entire institution. Can I say that the evidence conclusively shows that marriage makes any person better than the alternative? No, I can't. But is the evidence strongly suggestive that marriage as an institution provides significant benefits to society? Yes, I think I can. Posted by: PatHMV at June 26, 2006 11:34 AMMen marry women expecting them to stay the same, women marry men expecting them to change. Both are generally wrong, and thus has it ever been. Marriage as an institution has evolved for the purposes of the socialization of children and the perpetuation of genetic bloodlines. The state definitely has an interest in the former, and the latter is just the reality of species perpetuation, though some would claim a state interest there as well. The strongest natural drive there is--the perpetuation of one's genes through reproduction. Hard-wired into the cells, and observed in all animal species. Except the extinct, of course. :-) Fact: Children from single-parent homes are far likelier to be seriously abused, to be poor, to be neglected, to commit crimes, to use drugs, etc. You can argue why that is, but it most indisputably is. The figures aren't even close. That's not a condemnation of single parents, just the observation that they carry a much heavier burden in general than married parents, and it shows in the statistics. What none of that addresses is that forms of marriage other than the traditional may be just as good, or better, for the purposes of child-rearing. Or that when children are not involved, that particular social purpose is very incidental and indirect. To skip to the anecdotal, I've known single parents who both succeeded spectacularly, and those who failed. Being a single custodial parent is simply a much tougher job than being a married parent. And I've known informally "married" (committed) gay couples with children whose kids did quite well. In fact, I don't know any whose kids turned out too bad at all. If I had to compare the two based on my own observations, it seems to me that as far as child-raising goes having two "parents" around who are committed to each other is a lot better for the children than having just one parent doing all the heavy lifting, and that pretty much covers the historical socialization interest of government. I personally don't care what childless people care to call their living and legal arrangements--I think commitment is better and more stable for them in general than non-commitment. How consenting adults w/o dependent children care to order their private lives should be their own affair. Posted by: Tully at June 26, 2006 11:54 AMWhile I agree with Tully on the benefits of two-parent families, I would have to disagree with the last point. The state does have a necessary interest in how consenting adults without dependent children choose to order their private lives. As Brian so forcefully points out, some relationships are ultimately going to break up, no matter what. Human nature being what it is, those break ups have consequences which affect the society around them. Whether its a trip to the ER as a result of hurled pottery during a fight, neigbors disturbed by the yelling, a request for a restraining order or simply a court overseeing an equitable division of jointly-acquired assets when the parties involved cannot agree, legal rules governing the relationships are unavoidable. Even when the 2 parties themselves agree, their friends and relations may enter the picture. Inheritance rules, health care decision making, health insurance through a partner's employer, all of these things have a nasty habit of needing judicial intervention for resolution of disputes. It's far more equitable in the long run for their to be established rules up front rather than being made after the fact on a case-by-case basis. That's one of the reasons I strongly support civil unions for gay people. Posted by: PatHMV at June 26, 2006 12:10 PMBut is the evidence strongly suggestive that marriage as an institution provides significant benefits to society? Yes, I think I can. I have some trouble with the phrase "as an institution." What precisely does this add to the meaning of the sentence beyond exaltation? Like I said before, this part that you are claiming as the uber-insight, that marriage provides benefits, is so obvious that it borders on trivial. I'm not contesting it. I don't disagree with the notion that establishing the contract makes a relationship more clear and more durable. Again, this is trivial. What has still not been demonstrated is that the simple act of establishing a clear and durable contract improves the relationship simply by its existence. That's the part that I doubt. I like the facts Tully cites. They're good ones. They tell us what happens. Notice how Tully doesn't jump to causal relationships because they can't be shown to exist by facts. A single-parent family is suboptimal, simply on the basis of resources: time, money, emotion. What does this say about marriage as "an institution?" I dunno. Why do so few people ask "what does it say about the institution of procreation?" :-) So like I said before, I'm extremely agnstic on the notion that "if you get married, you will prosper." Here are a few substitutes that I think work better as they work together, and as they avoid any grand and self-congratulatory pack-batting of institutions: 1. If you wish to have children, you should try to establish a stable 2-parent household, so getting married is a good idea. 2. You should not get married if you don't believe you can establish a stable, secure, sustainable relationship. 3. If you wish to have children without establishing stable 2-parent relationship, you should do it with your eyes open, and be realistic about the amount of resources and the support network you will need to raise a good kid. Posted by: bk at June 26, 2006 12:15 PMalot is made of the whole "single parent" thing... well, I do believe that two parents in a childs life are better than one - how many people, after splitting up with their partner, stay single? The reality is only the well off stay single. Most single mothers these days have a live in boyfriend, and single fathers have a live in girlfriend. So 99% of the time, there is no such thing as a single parent. Every divorcee I know has remarried at some point, and 9 out of 10 of them are happier and better off than they were in the first marriage, and any kids they may have are happier too since now they have 4 parents who love them instead of just 2, they now have 8 grandparents instead of 4 and added a host of aunts and uncles to their lives as well. I know my step-son has this, I love him as my own and he knows it, his fathers new wife, same thing. But I digress. It is not always like that. Sometimes, the parents stay married and the kids really learn the true meaning of hate. Anyway, none of that has anything to do with any of this, but it just goes to show that all these so-called statistics running around amont to a big steaming pile of... well, you get it. Marriage is good for one thing and one thing only: legal rights concerning your partner. and legal rights in case of a split. Want to know why more people co-habitate than ever? Look at all the divorce cases where the woman gets far more than the man, usually far more than she deserves. Blame the courts for lack of marriages, blame the government for forcing religious institutions on the average couple, blame the churches which charge upwards of $1000 to actually perform teh ceremony. Blame the towns for not having a Justice of the Peace available at a reasonable time of day/night. Blame the fact that if you make a mistake, it is incredibvly hard to get out of if you do not have money. You cannot just go to the town and file split papers, you have to hire a lawyer which costs upwards of $500, then pay another $500 in court costs, so you can blame lawyers too. But dont blame "the decline in the American family" becaus ein my opinion, the American family is as strong, or stronger, than it has ever been. Posted by: Dan at June 26, 2006 12:37 PMPat, I said I don't personally care about the private arrangements of childless consenting adults. I'm all in favor of there being standards for legally recognizing and enforcing those personal contractual arrangements as regards property rights. And let's face it, the property rights associated with marriage are where the rubber meets the road. Especially the property rights associated with retirement and health benefits. The big noise may be driven by emotionalism, but state recognition and enforcement of those enshrined cross-party property rights is the disconnect that drives the whole thing for the pro-expanded-definition crowd. Posted by: Tully at June 26, 2006 12:43 PMhow many people, after splitting up with their partner, stay single? The reality is only the well off stay single. Most single mothers these days have a live in boyfriend, and single fathers have a live in girlfriend. So 99% of the time, there is no such thing as a single parent. What a crock. A boyfriend (and let's be real--the vast majority of single custodial parents are women) isn't a parent. A casual live-in INCREASES the odds of child abuse, etc. And good luck backing up that "only the well off stay single" thing. The vast bulk of single parents are below median income. it just goes to show that all these so-called statistics running around amont to a big steaming pile of... well, you get it. Can we translate that as "When I disagree with the evidence, no matter how solid and comprehensive and unimpeachable the evidence, the evidence is wrong"? Because that's exactly how it reads. Posted by: Tully at June 26, 2006 01:54 PMCan we translate it into this instead: "The facts are wrong because the data is wrong because it is culled from the wrong group" - ther eis no "evidence". Live it first, then tell me I am wrong. These "statistics" are always gotten by moderate to well off people from people who are not below the median level. And I, as one who has lived well below the medianm level, have a "first person account" of the realities. Not some bloated self-serving statistical analysis which, in reality, and statistics can be warped by the pollsters to reveal whatever they are trying to reveal. You know that, you have said as much before. And no, a boyfriend isnt a parent, any more than a husband who works 80 hours a week is a parent. But the bottom line is that those who "live below the median level" always group together. Noone can survive on welfare for more than a month or 2. Low income people are actually, in what I have seen, more likely to pair up than those with moderate incomes. The bottom line is that, abuse happens whether it is a husband, or boyfriend, or wife, or girlfriend. You cannot "statistically" tell me that a man who is not the father of a particular child is any more liekly to abuse than one who is. There has never been a consistent study on that which has not been tainted by the feminazis like NOW. I really, really, cannot stand listening to these so called stats and figures and analysis of low income people by people who have never been low income a day in their life. (I am not talking about the poster, but the pollster who culled these figures and the analyist who "deciphered" them). Bottom line, you want to really know what it is like and how people live under the median income, dont conduct a survey or poll statistics, go live it for a month, a year, or how about 5 years. Posted by: Dan at June 26, 2006 02:10 PMDan, the reason for collecting statistics in order to make generalizations is so that we avoid the error of overgeraliozing based on abad sample or a small sample. And that's what the experience of one person's life is, a small bad sample. Ypu can't really discover what "typical" is unless you look at a wide spectrum of types. Live it first, then tell me I am wrong. I'd never simply dismiss the insight of a person who has firsthand experience. But you seem pretty free to dismiss any data that doesn't accord with your actual experiences. The point here is that single parenthood, even if it includes the minimal involvment of various boyfriends/whatever, is still a serious challenge, and one that meets with poorer outcomes for children on average Do you dispute that? If not, then what ewxactly is it that you have a beef with as far as data-related claims that you feel are incorrect? I'm not defending the Witherspoon stuff, which seems to be making sweeping generalizations based on what I'd be willing to bet are selective citations of mostly research that supports their editorial view. Posted by: bk at June 26, 2006 03:04 PMBottom line, you want to really know what it is like and how people live under the median income, dont conduct a survey or poll statistics, go live it for a month, a year, or how about 5 years. I have. I've even been broke and homeless for months on end, though that was a long time ago when I was young, "free," and unencumbered with family. Now I can feed a family of four a week's worth of healthy meals on less money than many twenty-somethings spend each weekend on their bar tabs. Live it first, then tell me I am wrong. OK. You're wrong. These "statistics" are always gotten by moderate to well off people from people who are not below the median level. The statistics come from the U.S. Census Bureau, and hundreds (even thousands) of other studies, as comprehensive a take of the entire U.S. population as can be had. So yeah, I find what you're saying to be "When I disagree with the evidence, no matter how solid and comprehensive and unimpeachable the evidence, the evidence is wrong." Please note what the stats DON'T say. They don't say that those things will always happen, or even mostly happen. They say that under certain circumstances they are more (or less) likely to happen in a given population subset than in the group as a whole. But they're group stats--they're no good in predicting how any individual will act, or how any particular child will turn out. That's up to the individuals. See what Brian said. Posted by: Tully at June 26, 2006 03:20 PMBK, my beef is that the poorer outcomes is attributed to divorce and out of wedlock parenting, when it is more likely that the poorer outcomes are a result of simple economy. The poor generally have poorer outcomes, so what difference is it if the husband who is never there because he works 2 jobs raises the child or the boyfriend who is never there because he works 2 jobs? And then factor in the higher crime rate among the poor, which I can absolutely attest to. When you dont have any money, you are more likely to cheat on taxes, pilfer a loaf of bread, or get drunk/stoned to alleviate the pain of being poor. This has nothing to do with marriage and everything to do with monetary/income level. The poor are less likely to get married and less likely to divorce than the wealthy. Why? COST - no other reason. None. My divorce from my first wife wasnt finalized until I got back on my feet and was actually able to afford a lawyer. My experiences are not just "my experiences" but my observations over a 10 year period where I was poor, drunk, homeless, incarcerated. Through that time I observed the finer side of life. Truly, the human compassion, not of the so-called charities, but of other poor, homeless, drunk and/or incarcerated people. A poor person is more liekly to share a meal than you would expect. Ask any waitress or waiter who the best and worst, percentage-wise tipper is, they will always say pretty much the same thing: If 2 families pulled into the diner, one in a Vista Cruiser, one in a BMW, I guarantee that the people in the Vista would be more likely to leave a 20% tip than the guy in the BMW. these are just examples of the general behavior of poor people. These "statistics" they collect do not, and never do, accurately reflect reality. "I have. I've even been broke and homeless for months on end, though that was a long time ago when I was young, "free," and unencumbered with family. Now I can feed a family of four a week's worth of healthy meals on less money than many twenty-somethings spend each weekend on their bar tabs. " I was young and broke and homeless and HAD A FAMILY OF FOUR to feed. I am not wrong. Not by a long shot. You just refuse to see anything other than these statistcis to make your point. Posted by: Dan at June 26, 2006 03:29 PMNope. I've seen it all, Dan, and I'm sure as hell not rich now. I didn't attribute any of those conditions as causative, so your "rebuttal" of statements of fact with your own allegorical experiences makes no sense. I object to the dismissal of facts without a basis, and to the representation of non-facts as facts based only on personal perception. You did both. You can certainly speak to your own situation, but you can just as certainly NOT speak to the situations of others. And none of that addresses the fact that the statistics themselves are correct. my beef is that the poorer outcomes is attributed to divorce and out of wedlock parenting, when it is more likely that the poorer outcomes are a result of simple economy. The simple fact remains that outcomes for children from single-parent households are significantly less good on a collective basis than for two-parent married households. That's a statement of fact. It's verifiably true no matter how you care to explain it, confirmed over and over again, completely indisputable as stated. Why these things are so can certainly be disputed and argued, that they ARE so is not in doubt. Economy certainly has something to do with it. So does the "economy" of a single parent having less time available for parenting than two parents together, or the economy that a single parent has less income than two parents put together, etc. Ain't no metaphysics involved in the stats themselves, though. Stats don't explain, they simply describe. Explaining "why" is a different thing. It seems to be the offered explanations you really object to. The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. --Oscar WildePosted by: Tully at June 26, 2006 03:54 PM Dan, Correct me if I am wrong, you seem to be maintianing the following: • marital status has NO impact of child outcomes? So you believe that if you took two otherwise identical 2-parent families, and you took, say, a father away from one family but gave them both the same financial resources, that the 1-parent family would do just as well? I think that's nonsense. While I don't believe for a second that a single-parent family is necessarily a recipe for disaster or that the challenges of single-parenthood are insurmountable, I do think that such a difference can have a substantial impact on child outcomes. I also don't have any doubt that poor single-parent families would benefit from additional financial resources. But does money alone bridge the gap? Beyond the fact that it makes good common sense to me that it goes beyond money, volumes of data support this contention, as Tully has cited. You claim otherwise, but the extent of your basis for this claim is personal experience, which you've detailed to the extent of saying that poor people are nicer and kinder to each other, and help each other out. I have a very difficult time taking that argument seriously. It can be true that poor people are as kind and supportive to each other as is humanly possibly, and that's not always going to bridge the gap of two-guardian stability. Notice that if it only fails to bridge the gap every once in awhile, that would be enough to account for poorer outcomes on average. No one is saying that all 2 parent familees produce Yale graduates and all 1-parent families produce meth addicts. bk: I never said that single-parent vs two-parent households are not different. But all the "as a whole" argument, in my experience and perception is that all the data that is presented here is just that, data. It is not a statement of fact and for all of my experiences in all the walks of life I have lived (I grew up in a rather well-to-do household) that single parent households may, in someways can be better than two-parent households. It depends on teh child. And for Tully: 1. LOVE - whether it is from one mother or two fathers makes no difference The number of parents makes less difference than people seem to think. I had two parents, didnt do me a damn bit of good. I know plenty of people from all walks of life who had multiple parental situations growing up. The ones who were loved and got a good education are doing well. The ones who didnt, are dead, in jail, or lucky. And if I remember correctly, about 15 years ago, they made this same exact argument for raising black children in white households. "Only black parents can understand a black child" blah blah blah. Same "data collecting" same everything. I dismiss the data because of the source. The government, religious groups, scientist neo-cons. How about we include some real people in our research. Posted by: Dan at June 26, 2006 06:01 PMWhat better researcher and data collector than one who has experienced it? Impartial observers without agenda, prejudice, or personal involvement are much better. They lack motive to consciously or subconsciously color their observations and fake the stats. In this case, the stats are overwhelming and widely replicated. You can't fake data sets that large, gathered from that many different sources. Agendas and errors show in the discrepancies. In this case, there are no meaningful discrepancies between the data sets. They agree. That's a conspiracy too large to be plausible. You're doing an excellent job of demonstrating why the best observers and researchers are those removed from the immediate situation. You don't like how some interpret the evidence, so you attempt to impeach the evidence itself. Unfortunately for that approach, the evidence itself is unassailable. As a group, children from two-parent married households still have statistically better outcomes than children from one-parent households. Not even questionable. The interpretation of it is not. Why the discrepancies in outcome exist is a completely different subject, and can be disputed and analyzed and hashed over. Have at. I'll even help--I think that the Witherspoon report does indeed "cherry-pick" the research to reach a set of desired conclusions. They only take what supports those desired conclusions, and avoid what does not support them. In addition, they supply their own interpretations and explanations that go well above and beyond any evidence provided. That part is politics, not science. I do maintain that these are the things that matter most to raising a child: See? There are things we agree on. I think your list is too short, but I agree that all those things are helpful, even prime. But they don't change the evidence itself. As a group, children from two-parent married households still have statistically better outcomes than children from one-parent households. Insisting otherwise is denial, unsupportable in debate by any standard. Posted by: Tully at June 26, 2006 06:44 PMI am impartial and have no agenda, I am no longer poor (I am not rich, but have done pretty well recently) and if you read my comment about the homeless situation, you will see that, all the "research" they do says that they can be helped, but they cannot. Same with many of the poor, some can be helped, most cannot. Even if we emerged in a true Marxist society (Utopian) many of the the people who were poor, would still be "poor". They mismanage money and do not plan past Thursday. They drink their earnings away, or do drugs. I say, it is not the lack of a parent that causes these "facts" to emerge, but lack of money. Period. I have seen it time and time again, it is always the same story. Swap the words "single parent household" with "low income household" and the results would be exactly the same. Posted by: Dan at June 26, 2006 07:34 PMWow!! This is the sort of discussion I was hoping for. Now a few f/u questions. 1. For those of you who discount the claims of the benefits of marriage, then what is the government's interest in supporting marriage? 2. For the "Tully argument": the property rights associated with marriage are where the rubber meets the road. Especially the property rights associated with retirement and health benefits. The big noise may be driven by emotionalism, but state recognition and enforcement of those enshrined cross-party property rights is the disconnect that drives the whole thing for the pro-expanded-definition crowd.Why not just deam that all adults have the ability to designate another adult as their "primary property rights beneficial" and just get away from the whole marriage question? 3. Has anyone seen any other document that coherently argues for a governmental interest in marriage beyond tradition and religion? Posted by: c3 at June 26, 2006 10:29 PMI like c3's idea about the "primary property rights beneficial", even though it would really be like a Window's temporary patch. Not everyone would be happy and fortunately something better will come along. Like legalized gay marriage. That aside there is a question here: under the Constitution, what gives a heterosexual more rights than a homosexual? I know that c3's ref to the 10 principle's doc(religious tract) is no help, it's yet more justification for discrimination from conservative christians. It's also obviously yet another salvo in a desperate move to get the conservative base out with the gays, guns and god strategy. I can here the solemn tones ringing forth from the podium, "According to....yadda yadda yadda." Myself,I like T. Jefferson's idea. We're all created equal under the law. It's a philosophy that will ultimately prevail, despite the religious right's efforts to the contrary. That aside, I reiterate a past observation courtesy of my 7th grade daughter and her informal poll from last fall. Everyone in her middle school (about 50+ kids 6th-8th grade) thinks the laws against gay marriage are wrong. Everyone. At least Thomas Jefferson lives on in her cohort. I will note that many of these kids grew up since kindergarten with one classmate who has 2 moms. Perhaps familiarity breeds an end to ignorance. So far I have noted no evil influences upon my daughter from exposure to the homosexual lifestyle, (this includes the lesbian couple down the street with the adorable 6 yr old kid) except for the occasional 13-yr-old surliness and unwillingness to be geographically associated with a parental unit while with her friends or to clean her room. She also hides her romantic thoughts about some of the boys she knows whom for some reason I don't know. That's okay. That's why god created detective agencies. I also note that she gets good grades, has been on the honor roll a number of times, can whip out a 7 page script for a school presentation play or a 5 page story in under 4 hours. Complete. Reviewed. Printed. Daddy on floor looking for jaw. Can paint impressive looking props on mere posterboard, like last night. I also note that she loves watching Giants games, the Daily Show, Colbert Report, Sponge Bob, Fairy Odd Parents and Countdown. Daddy is getting his not so little girl a Wacom tablet. Posted by: Marcus at June 27, 2006 07:10 PMMarcus; I like T. Jefferson's idea. We're all created equal under the law.Except for the slaves. Posted by: c3 at June 28, 2006 08:01 PM You talking about the Irish c3? 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