The shaky science behind gay marriage
A brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the California case by conservative professors Leon Kass and Harvey Mansfield and the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy warns that “the social and behavioral sciences have a long history of being shaped and driven by politics and ideology.” And research about, for example, the stability of same-sex marriages or child-rearing by same-sex couples is “radically inconclusive” because these are recent phenomena and they provide a small sample from which to conclude that these innovations will be benign.
Unlike the physical sciences, the social sciences can rarely settle questions using “controlled and replicable experiments.” Today “there neither are nor could possibly be any scientifically valid studies from which to predict the effects of a family structure that is so new and so rare.” Hence there can be no “scientific basis for constitutionalizing same-sex marriage.”
The brief does not argue against same-sex marriage as social policy, other than by counseling caution about altering foundational social institutions when guidance from social science is as yet impossible. The brief is a preemptive refutation of inappropriate invocations of spurious social science by supporters of same-sex marriage.
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On this we agree.
libfreeordie on March 16, 2013 at 11:25 AM
There’s a reason this often crosses liberal/conservative lines (e.g., AP and most younger folks).
calbear on March 16, 2013 at 11:26 AM
But your gender has not really changed. You know it. This dishonesty is just tiring.
CW on March 16, 2013 at 11:28 AM
To understand the Progressive mind, simply understand the illogic and agenda-driven stupidity behind Louis Brandeis citing his supposed knowledge of the water content of men’s and women’s blood in a SCOTUS decision.
Yeah…it’s that stupid.
Jaibones on March 16, 2013 at 11:28 AM
Ah…that’s why it is undeniable fact that homosexuals are “born that way” but people who wish to be another gender were born backward, or something.
The mind is a terrible thing to waste, dude.
Jaibones on March 16, 2013 at 11:31 AM
Now you’re either blinded by your advocacy or you’re being deliberately obtuse. Read what I wrote again and you’ll see that I’m speaking about the issue being shoved in our faces here and elsewhere in order to drive a political result. I know a number of gays and lesbians (probably more than I realize) and have no problem getting along just fine with them because they live their lives and I live mine. When it comes to the Gay Pride parade freakshow and the ceaseless driving of a political agenda, then I’m left with either capitulating the debate or answering back. As a conservative, I answer back. People like you are damaging your own argument by telling us to accept it, all of it or we’re neanderthals. You’d have much more success with conservatives if you worked the “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and “all men are created equal” approach. No one takes kindly to the “we’ll keep hammering you until you surrender” approach.
jnelchef on March 16, 2013 at 11:32 AM
As usual, you misunderstand. Transgender people argue for the unchangeability of gender. That gender is something beyond what the *body* manifests. The biological body defines “sex,” our desires define our “sexuality” but it is “gender” which is both impossible to locate biologically and which people feel they understand about themselves. Is this stuff easy to get your head around? Of course not. Does it mean its all a bunch of hooey? No. Just because you don”t understand something doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
libfreeordie on March 16, 2013 at 11:32 AM
Gonna stop you right there. Because its utterly ridiculous. Gay Pride parades are *one* day (per city) a year. One. Its a party for adults. No different than St. Pattys or Halloween or Mardi Gras. People get drunk, they take off their clothes and act a little wild. Your claim that this is somehow “shoving it in your face” starts you off as being dishonest and hypocritical. How many toga parties are there in frats every year? Come on now. Be honest.
You’re contradicting yourself. How can anyone work the “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” approach without making themselves visible or without “shoving it in your face?”
libfreeordie on March 16, 2013 at 11:35 AM
For the vast majority, “gender” is a consistent physical, mental, and biological identity. In the case of those few people for whom those identities are not consistent, they have to figure out just what “gender” means. You might ask them to consult a dictionary, but whether you want to call it “gender” or “identity” or something else, these people really do need to struggle and find themselves. Now if someone who is biologically and physically female gets hysterical every time the female pronoun is used (because “he” is how they “feel”), then that’s bad. But same fluidity in their own language might be a bit understandable.
calbear on March 16, 2013 at 11:36 AM
This is how I engage with YOU. I don’t think you’re dishonest or dumb, you’re just incapable of realizing that you think about oppression all day. It colors every aspect of your existence. In every statement you make. Even one as seemingly innocuous as the “fluidity of sexuality” you hedge in the premise that the VAST majority is destined by Nature for their sexuality to be set in stone and in this hedge you accept that a “marginalized” group simply must be relieved of the “oppression” put forth by society-Republicans-Civilization-whatever.
happytobehere on March 16, 2013 at 11:43 AM
Also, of course they’re more likely to hew to the definitions of gender studies classes than those of Merriam-Webster. But don’t let a difference of definition confuse the actual issues at hand.
calbear on March 16, 2013 at 11:44 AM
Honey, if you think you “schooled” me, you are seriously deluded. I meant both explanations. The whole point of the rhetorical term ‘orthogonal’ being used in that manner is because of its meaning in geometry. You were trying to make the two paradigms tangential, parallel or coincident. They aren’t. Those two paradigms are irrelevant to each other in reality, and barely even meet in any sort of realistic ‘mapping’. That was my point.
Ummm, if they’re “whipping it out” in the ladies room where it can be sen by everyone else, then there’s some serious issues that need addressing beyond their gender confusion.
GWB on March 16, 2013 at 11:47 AM
Gender is an invnented social construct. Useful and arguably necessary, but it’s purely an invention. Will is right that social science is virtually worthless as a social tool. I’d say most of those fields need about another 100 years to catch up. Some should probably die.
But then there’s nothing scientific about individual liberty, and equal protection.
Free Constitution on March 16, 2013 at 11:47 AM
Social Science is how you came to understand that gender is an invented social construct.
libfreeordie on March 16, 2013 at 12:11 PM
Or as someone commented yesterday, the practice of anal sex which is dangerous, unhealthy, and almost entirely responsible for the US AIDS epidemic, is to be understood as the codified expression in “gay marriage” of love between two men, but big gulps are to be outlawed as the real danger and source of disease.
The notion sexual orientation is changeable (I have to wonder where they fit “bisexuality” into their stereotyped, straight-jacketed, no pun intended, perspective of human malleability, or lack of it) goes against their worldview. So, therefor … it can’t exist! And they violently oppose the possibility of such change. Even its very possibility.
Paul-Cincy on March 16, 2013 at 12:15 PM
That part of your post (and the essence of your posts with me) are all about your own issues.
libfreeordie on March 16, 2013 at 12:26 PM
Yeah, it’s not like there’s any physiological basis for distinctions between the sexes…..
There Goes The Neighborhood on March 16, 2013 at 12:29 PM
Who or what is marginalizing social groups? I’d like a name to attach to your fantasies about oppression. A made-up name will do.
happytobehere on March 16, 2013 at 12:33 PM
Haha. I didn’t say completely worthless. I support gay marriage for philosophical reasons. I would be interested to see a purely sociological reason, if only for entertainment purposes.
Free Constitution on March 16, 2013 at 12:37 PM
The use of “gender” in place of the term “sex” is a misuse of a grammatical term-gender- to undercut a perfectly accurate and directly testable scientific term-sex. DNA doesn’t lie. It is reported that the Australian Commission on Human Rights currently recognizes a list of 23 genders- and growing. This is indeed a peculiar form of madness that requires one to “believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.
Mason on March 16, 2013 at 2:46 PM
*almost falls out of chair*
…got a link? Not that I doubt you too much.
MelonCollie on March 16, 2013 at 3:49 PM
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