« previous post | Main | next post »
February 11, 2005
bait and switch
Don Herzog: February 11, 2005
In November, Michigan voters joined the stampede and adopted Proposal 2, amending the state constitution by adding Article 1, Section 25:
To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.
I was opposed, because I'm strongly in favor of gay marriage. But I also suspected that the legal force of that tangled wording — especially that funny last phrase, "or similar union for any purpose" — would forbid public employers from according domestic partnership benefits to gay and lesbian couples. Something fishy, I thought, was going on.
A few of us here in Michigan worried aloud about partnership benefits, but champions of the proposal pooh-poohed the worry. From The Detroit News, with its usual errant grammar, 10/27/04:
Citizens for the Protection of Marriage, the group that ram-rodded the petition drive to get the issue on the ballot, said it is not focused on benefits or discrimination. Members don't want same-sex marriages validated here like judges and politicians have done in Massachusetts and California.
"This is about defining marriage of one man and one woman," said Kristina Hemphill, of Southfield, a communications director for Citizens for the Protection of Marriage. As for people losing benefits, "nothing that's on the books is going to change. We continue to confuse this issue by bringing in speculation."
The Roman Catholic Church insisted the measure was about protecting marriage and was silent about domestic partnership benefits. From The Washington Post, 10/28/04:
Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida urged Michigan's 2.25 million Catholics, nearly a third of the state's registered voters, to pass the amendment in an eight-minute videotape that every Catholic church in the state was strongly encouraged to show during Sunday services this month.
"From the beginning of human memory, marriage has always been understood as the union of one man and one woman," Maida said on the tape. "Let us do our part here in Michigan to preserve that sacred understanding and definition of marriage."
The Michigan Catholic Conference also sent an Oct. 15 letter and a brochure titled "Between One Man and One Woman" to all 596,000 registered Catholic households in the state. And Michigan's seven Catholic dioceses contributed $500,000 to Citizens for the Protection of Marriage, about half the war chest of the umbrella group pushing for the amendment.
Looks like this is the brochure, with not a word about benefits — but with an assurance "that every sign of unjust discrimination should be avoided."
Before the election, The Thomas More Law Center, "a not-for-profit public interest law firm dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life," already had sued Ann Arbor's public schools to try to force them to stop providing domestic partnership benefits to gay and lesbian couples. The county circuit court ruled that the parties they assembled had no standing in the matter and the case went up to the state Court of Appeals. Now the Center is urging that the new constitutional amendment strengthens their case. Federal law generally frowns on taxpayer standing, but in these matters Michigan doesn't (see MCLS § 600.2041). I claim no insight on the legal merits of the action. But I don't see how "family values" are threatened by domestic partnership benefits. And I will say that the lawsuit seems repulsively meanspirited, the very opposite of Christian charity.
What groups have protested the Center's lawsuit? Round up the usual suspects: the Michigan Educational Association and the ACLU. Citizens for the Protection of Marriage and the Roman Catholic Church have fallen suspiciously silent. Nor have I heard a whisper from the American Family Association of Michigan. A week before the election, Association president Gary Glenn declared that the proposal was all about marriage. From his 10/24/04 op-ed in The Detroit News:
Now that the issue of marriage has been forced onto the table, someone will decide. The only question is who.
In Massachusetts, it was four judges.
In Michigan, it will be four million voters — including you.
If Proposal 2 fails, Michigan's marriage laws will remain unprotected and vulnerable to the agenda of activist judges, politicians, and constant pressure for change from activist groups and the media.
If Proposal 2 is approved, one-man, one-woman marriage will be safely secured in our constitution, protected from legal challenge.
A week after the election, Glenn changed his tune.
Many citizens of Michigan were opposed to gay marriage. Many others thought it not the sort of issue courts should decide. I don't think many supporters of Proposal 2 thought they were supplying legal ammunition to those trying to block domestic partnership benefits. But that's what they did.
You might point out that the supporters I've quoted aren't responsible for what the Thomas More Law Center decides to bring to court. You might say that I've no evidence that the supporters have even communicated with the Center. So talk of a vast right-wing conspiracy, or a measly one, would be entirely premature.
Sure, but there's a smoking gun in the case, right in the language of the amendment. All those supporters knew that Proposal 2 had oddly tangled wording and that funny last phrase, "or similar union for any purpose." I don't know who drafted the language, but groups don't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting a constitutional amendment without getting expert legal advice on what that amendment would do. And had the only point been to save traditional marriage, the language would have been much more straightforward.
So the public got sold a bill of goods. The duplicity is contemptible.
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834536ae669e200d83426639c53ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference bait and switch:
» Anti-Same-Sex-Marriage Being Used to Challenge Non-Marriage Benefits: from The Volokh Conspiracy
Michigan's recently enacted anti-same-sex-marriage amendment reads:
I suppose there you have an argument against legislation by referendum.To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society an... [Read More]
Tracked on Feb 11, 2005 2:18:28 PM
» Michigan Gay Marriage Law Already Being Abused from Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Eugene Volokh has a post about Michigan's new law against gay marriage, passed by referendum in November, being used as a weapon against state and local governments offering benefits to gay couples. During the ugly campaign for and against the... [Read More]Tracked on Feb 11, 2005 5:45:20 PM
» Rolling Back Gay Rights from Freiheit und Wissen
...If the bigot-brigade can get away with this overt gay-bashing, decades of progressive reform are going to be demolished before our eyes. [Read More]Tracked on Mar 18, 2005 2:08:30 PM
Comments
Posted by: oliver
Posted by: oliver | Feb 11, 2005 8:40:35 AM
Posted by: jpe
That ambiguous second sentence, a variant of which was in every proposed amendment, has so much potential for mischief. I wrote a brief post about this back in November re: the Kentucky amendment, which has similar language; the domestic benefits are just the first target of this trojan horse of an amendment.
Posted by: jpe | Feb 11, 2005 9:02:45 AM
Posted by: Terrier
Yep! They say, "now, I'm not a bigot." They even get indignant when you suggest that they want their prejudice to continue to be enshrined in law. But as I've said before, they are emotionally repulsed by homosexuality and the threat of exposure to it is more than they can bear. However, none of that has any place in this discussion! You either support freedom or you don't. You can't allow freedom except for what makes you uncomfortable and expect to have freedom yourself. Quite frankly that's also why I think civil unions are a fat red fish. Some will say they support civil unions - they just don't want the term 'marriage' used - but the point is, the rights of marriage are what we are talking about. Which rights will they subtract from civil unions? Likewise for the little red fish of bestiality, polygamy, polyandry, and whatever else they may drudge up to fuel fear in the minds of the like-minded - none of those little trout concerns them more than the prospect of two men or two women walking thru the local mall holding hands that sport matching rings. To prevent that there is probably very little that they will not do.
Posted by: Terrier | Feb 11, 2005 9:38:19 AM
Posted by: Keith DeRose
There's a similar vagueness is the proposed federal marriage amendment. Backers often claim it doesn't rule out states or local governments from passing measures that would grant some of the legal benefits of marriage to same-sex couples, but I think the wording actually does rule that out. (Well, it doesn't seem to rule out *passing* such legislation, but it does rule out construing any such legislation as granting such benefits. Making it impermissible to construe the leg. as doing what it's designed to do is equivalent to banning it, in my book.)
Posted by: Keith DeRose | Feb 11, 2005 9:43:25 AM
Posted by: rtr
So where's the praise of the NYT for a citizens' initiative? Where's the Hollywood movie staring Julia Roberts?
Domestic partner benefits is as invalid as domestic friends benefits, or benefits giving one the right to transfer such benefits to any and all persons they may so desire. I doubt any or only an extreme minority few care to prevent private businesses and entities from giving out any sort of private benefits they may so desire. Benefits are not given out to domestic partners in the public school system. They are *forced*. They are discriminatory against the religious beliefs of some. The taxpayer is the employer, not the leftist elite and unions dis-educating the children as they rob upwards of 70% from their administrative skim.
If this was to be consistent with the usual every-day leftist intolerance the country has become accustomed to, "similar union for any purpose" would be interpreted as preventing all private individuals and their transactions from funding benefits for any non-heterosexual relationships. It is not anyway near that. It's time for a taxpayer class action suit to have all monies paid for domestic partnerships by the State refunded to the taxpayer, and individuals and institutions acting in violation to be held in contempt and prosecuted criminally and civily.
Having been born and raised in Michigan I can appreciate the Militia State now and then. Well, I'm waiting for the topic linking the 2nd amendment and the Michigan Militia. That has e-x-p-o-s-e' written all over it.
Posted by: rtr | Feb 11, 2005 9:58:33 AM
Posted by: john t
Don Herzog, On first reading I se some ambiguity in the ovarall position of the pro-tradition forces. This will leave some unhappy nonetheless. By ambiguity I mean ,concerning same sex unions and benefits,the door of which would remain open. You assert that Mr Glenn has changed his tune but he cites a provision where benefits would still be available but not on th basis of sexual orientation. So? Why would it be the basis of the state and taxpayer who goes to bed with who? We all,myself included,have fun pointing out the inconsistencies of others,but we did spend 8 recent years listening to how the erotic escapades of a guy from Arkansa were private as well as a lifetime of being told that the State shouldn't interefere/regulate what goes on in the bedroom,now we're being asked to subsidize it. First post on this,but first a word; if Burke "sputtered" would to God more more of us could sputter like him
Posted by: john t | Feb 11, 2005 9:59:16 AM
Posted by: miab
"From the beginning of human memory, marriage has always been understood as the union of one man and one woman," Maida said on the tape. "Let us do our part here in Michigan to preserve that sacred understanding and definition of marriage."
I've heard this kind of thing a lot. Why do so many on the anti-gay-marriage side feel the need to say this? It's patently false -- and it's kind of shocking if a Catholic Cardinal doesn't know that; what are they teaching in seminary these days?
Polygamy is standard in the bible (and so is concubinage -- now there's old-time religion! maybe that's something we should look into reviving? In some ways, it's a lot like "civil unions").
Polygamy is still practiced in Islam and in parts of Africa. A few cultures have had polyandry.
Serial polygamy/polyandry (by divorce and re-marriage), and group parenting (by mixed families with parents and stepparents and shared custody arrangements) are now standard in the U.S., but would have been considered shocking not so long ago.
There's a strange tension here. The anti-gay-marriage advocates feel the need to assert that heretomonogamous marriage is and has always been the only practice. But that's just not true. Are they worried that if they acknowledge that accepted practices have evolved over time, they no longer have a good case against homosexual marriage?
Do you think we could get a groundswell of support for a marriage amendment that said: "the union of one man and one woman in marriage, or any other arrangement recognized as a marriage or similar union in the 2000 years preceding 1950, shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose."?
Posted by: miab | Feb 11, 2005 11:06:43 AM
Posted by: David Velleman
It would be tragic if public employees lost the ability to cover same-sex partners -- tragic not only for the employees and their partners but also for the public institutions by which they are employed. My University will lose many extremely valuable faculty and staff if same-sex partners are denied benefits.
That said, I have to admit that I find the University's policy on domestic-partner benefits difficult to understand. Consider:
EligibilityThis definition is clearly an attempt to define a marriage-like relationship, complete with its own incest-taboo. Until I looked up the policy, I had assumed that domestic-partner benefits were based on a domestic relationship -- that is, on the constitution of a household. But the policy appears to be based on the constitution of a romantic, sexual relationship, which strikes me as irrelevant to the purpose.
If you are eligible for benefits at the University of Michigan, you can cover your same-sex domestic partner. To be eligible, you and your partner must:
- Be of the same sex; and
- Not be legally married to another individual; and
- Not be related to each other by blood in a manner that would bar marriage; and
- Have registered or declared the Domestic Partnership in the manner authorized by a municipality or other government entity; and
- Have allowed at least six months to pass since the dissolution of a previous same-sex domestic partnership in the manner authorized by a municipality or other government entity.
Why does the University grant me fringe benefits that also cover my wife? Is it because we're in a committed, monogamous romantic and sexual relationship? How odd. Does the University really care about my sex life? I had no idea.
I thought that my fringe benefits cover my wife because -- to put it very roughly -- we have cast our lots together, decided to share our lives and our fates, thus constituting ourselves as unit. And I assumed that the policy was based on marriage only because marriage is a convenient proxy for the relevant kind of union -- or, at least, it was a convenient proxy, at the time when such institutional arrangements were first designed.
Marriage may no longer be a workable proxy for the domestic unit. There are more and more married couples who don't share their lives in any meaningful sense; and there are more and more people who share their lives in the relevant ways without getting married (or being allowed to marry, at least for now). By all means, then, let's re-think how we allocate benefits that were previously granted on the basis of marriage.
But why rethink these arrangements by defining another marriage-like relationship, with constraints of the sort that are designed to regulate sex? Why can't first cousins or siblings be domestic partners, for the purposes for which domestic-partner benefits are intended?
I am not questioning whether my gay and lesbian colleagues and friends should receive the benefits that they receive from the University. I am questioning particular assumptions about why they should receive those benefits.
Maybe by asking ourselves this question, we can design a policy that wouldn't be vulnerable to the new constitutional ban on gay marriage, because it wouldn't be an attempt to define a "similar union".
Posted by: David Velleman | Feb 11, 2005 11:40:50 AM
Posted by: miab
Under the UofM defintion you must:
"1. Be of the same sex; and
2. Not be legally married to another individual; and
3. Not be related to each other by blood in a manner that would bar marriage; and
4. Have registered or declared the Domestic Partnership in the manner authorized by a municipality or other government entity; and
5. Have allowed at least six months to pass since the dissolution of a previous same-sex domestic partnership in the manner authorized by a municipality or other government entity."
This is clearly discriminatory against heterosexual couples -- maybe in an attempt to balance out discrimination in the other direction, but nonetheless clearly discriminatory.
Why not just strike requirement 1 (and the other references to "same-sex", and in requirement 4, ("Have registered or declared the Domestic Partnership"), add "or marriage" after the words "Domestic Partnership"?
To address DV's concern, you could add another requirement of maintaining a joint household, but there are enough commuter marriages that this could be a real problem.
Posted by: miab | Feb 11, 2005 11:59:44 AM
Posted by: David Velleman
We should also note that what makes these constitutional provisions so pernicious is the fact that access to health care in this country is tied to employment. Employers have been put in the bizarre position of making public policy about domestic arrangements because they have been left holding the bag by our failure to fund health care in a remotely rational way.
Posted by: David Velleman | Feb 11, 2005 12:13:52 PM
Posted by: Josh
"Sure, but there's a smoking gun in the case, right in the language of the amendment. All those supporters knew that Proposal 2 had oddly tangled wording and that funny last phrase, "or similar union for any purpose." I don't know who drafted the language, but groups don't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting a constitutional amendment without getting expert legal advice on what that amendment would do. And had the only point been to save traditional marriage, the language would have been much more straightforward."
You can't possibly be serious. I work for the state of California's retirement system, so I deal with the PERL (Public Employees Retirement Law) on a daily basis. The phrasing in the law (much of which was submitted by employee unions and other interest groups) is so vaguely worded that some of our subject-matter experts have to spend HOURS deciding what the meaning of a single paragraph is. A poorly worded amendment is hardly a smoking gun for collusion.
As far as the argument that people pointed this out during the campaign, once an piece of legislation has been approved for a vote, I'm fairly sure it is difficult to re-word (I admit I don't know the specifics of Michigan law in this regard). With all the expenditure of time, energy, and money to get it to that point, they were hardly going to take it off the ballot to re-word for another vote later.
Posted by: Josh | Feb 11, 2005 1:38:17 PM
Posted by: mw
Hmmm. Given David's valid concerns about the UM definition, it would seem that *if* the Thomas Moore Law Center prevails in its case, the UM could relax its definition to include committed relationships that need not be not similar to marriage (no sexual relationship implied, no incest taboos, etc).
As to the larger question -- yes, supporters of the amendment declared (perhaps disingenuously) that it would not affect domestic partnerships. But given the margin of victory, is it clear that it would not have passed EVEN IF that had been part of the declared intent? It's a depressing thought, but I suspect it would still have passed under those conditions and that a majority of voters will therefore not mind if UM's domestic partnership benefits are disallowed.
On the other hand, if the benefits are ruled illegal and a majority are upset about it -- well, there's nothing to prevent another ballot initiative, is there?
Posted by: mw | Feb 11, 2005 1:41:50 PM
Posted by: duus
I think we should also keep in mind this should disallow any heterosexual, non-married couples from sharing any benefits as well.
Posted by: duus | Feb 11, 2005 1:47:08 PM
Posted by: john t
I think a tactical mistake was made here and you can thank the Mass. Supreme Court. Having looked at and discovered the right to gay marriage in the constitution they issued their opinion. The fact that nobody else saw it for close to 225 years troubled them not. There was some chortling thereafter about the full faith and credit clause of the U S Constitution,and then the door was slammed shut. Referenda both before and after the election have gone against the cause. The perception seems to exist that same sex unions are a stepping stone back to marriage but on the whole,Michigan aside and like it or not,same sex unions will gain legitimacy. I favor heterosexual marriage,blemishes and all.
Posted by: john t | Feb 11, 2005 2:24:11 PM
Posted by: Steve Horwitz
No one discovered a "right to gay marriage" in the Constitution, any more than there's a "right to wear a green hat" in the Constitution. The point is that constitutions have many unenumerated rights and that the burden of proof should be on the state to show that any particular interference with people's liberty serves some compelling state purpose and is being written and enforced equally across groups. One argument for legalizing same-sex marriage, or better yet, extending the right to marry to same sex couples, is that current marriage laws fail this test. Where is the harm to third parties from preventing same-sex marriage and does current policy violate equal protection considerations? This is one, but not the only, way to look at it. We need not "invent" rights to gay marriage, we need only ask whether the state, or any state, has a compelling interest in preventing it.
Posted by: Steve Horwitz | Feb 11, 2005 3:59:27 PM
Posted by: rtr
I thought leftists didn't like unequal pay. Health benefits as provided by employers constitute discriminatory wages. I seem to recall a lot of lawsuits regarding this matter along the lines of race and sex. Why should someone who is married or who has a lot of kids be paid more for the same work than someone who is not married or does not have kids? Is there any a priori moral justification or otherwise for discriminating upon the characteristic of having kids or not versus discriminating upon the basis of race or sexual orientation?
Thus these socialists who are so accepting of forcefully imposed discrimination instituted by the State on many a basis should keep in mind they would similarly be for super majority imposed discrimination upon the basis of race or sexual orientation. What these cases are showing is that the so called moral values or intellectual basis of leftist thought always was non-existent.
These health care plans have a market value that is being paid for in liew of cash (stripped of taxes etc.) wages. If someone adopts three children or twenty children they are being subsidized for their behavior by the taxpayer in the case of public institutions or at the expense of the wages of other employees in the case of private institutions. Smells like discrimination to me. Equal value, equal wages, of which health care benefitis are a part of wages, for equal work, correct?
I'm fond of the idea of cla$$ action lawsuits of late, so this seems like another potentially lucrative angle.
UofM could indeed avoid lawsuits regarding the provision of "family" benefits by removing the word "marriage", limiting it to one person, and a limited capped number of dependents. Indeed, everyone should get the same benefits as the next so if one was not currently in a "relationship" they should have the right to donate their health benefits to another homeless person of number of children of the tsunami disaster (or whomever) to surrogately receive their employee benefits to the exact proportion that couples and those with children are paid.
This opens the more expensive door to funding benefits to hetersexually married couples, same sex union couples, and the likewise for the temporary boyfriends and girlfriends of employees subject to the six month waiting/changing list. This will play right into the hands of the right wing religious conservatives who would argue if it doesn't pave the way polygamy et al it certainly paves the way to serial monogamy. The future generations should get ready to read My Twenty Daddies, My Fourteen Mommies, Here Comes the Village People, etc. Of course, such "family" initiatives are a big part of the religious agenda: higher costs for out-of-wedlock beings increases the incentives for the State company town regulations on the liberty of social life, which always occurs when such a total monopoly is controlling the purse strings. Thus, I propose the thread title be changed to "Date and Switch".
Posted by: rtr | Feb 11, 2005 4:10:39 PM
Posted by: Perseus
I know Don Herzog doesn't like the idea of original intent, but I would argue that if even "the group that ram-rodded [sic--spearheaded] the petition drive to get the issue on the ballot said it is not focused on benefits or discrimination," then that is compelling evidence of what was meant by "similar union" (i.e. domestic partnerships benefits are not included in the definition).
Don Herzog also writes: "the lawsuit seems repulsively meanspirited, the very opposite of Christian charity." As Ronald Reagan would say, "There you go again" using that tired liberal epithet "meanspirited" as well as the trope that Christian charity entails subsidizing what many Christians believe is sinful behavior.
David V. writes: "Marriage may no longer be a workable proxy for the domestic unit" because it gets in the way of "constituting ourselves as unit" as we see fit. But one of the primary purposes of marriage is indeed "to regulate sex" for the sake creating a healthy environment for the generation and rearing of children. Arguing that traditional marriage should be ended (or fundamentally altered) because it interferes with "constituting ourselves as a unit" as we see fit is nothing short of an unprecedented attempt at "defining deviancy down," as Daniel Patrick Moynihan would say.
Posted by: Perseus | Feb 11, 2005 5:26:07 PM
Posted by: Perseus
Sorry about the typo. It should read "(i.e. domestic partnership benefits are not included in the definition)." Too bad we can't edit our posts.
Posted by: Perseus | Feb 11, 2005 5:46:08 PM
Posted by: AlanC9
I'm not sure why the drafters' intent counts. Shouldn't statutes adopted by referendum be interpreted according to what the voters thought they were voting for?
And if liberals can't call that lawsuit "meanspirited," let's cut out talk of "sinful behavior" too. Or better yet, let's leave both opinions out there.
Posted by: AlanC9 | Feb 11, 2005 5:51:57 PM
Posted by: Don Herzog
Josh points out that PERL is badly worded. Plenty of statutes are very badly worded. But I think more work goes into deciding how to word a constitutional amendment in the first place. The group that wants it to get to the ballot has to supply actual language, and that language will be going on petitions and subject to judicial challenge before it gets to a vote. So no, I wasn't kidding.
Posted by: Don Herzog | Feb 11, 2005 6:07:41 PM
Posted by: David Velleman
Perseus: Don't make assumptions about my views on same-sex marriage. I haven't expressed a view on that issue. To be perfectly frank, I don't yet have a view. I think both sides of the debate are mainly talking nonsense. I've been reading about the history of marriage, and if I ever manage to figure out what to think about same-sex marriage, I'll let you know.
I certainly agree that one of the (many) purposes of marriage is to create an environment for the rearing of children, and if you read my post on "Family Values", you'll see that I have definite views about what that environment should be, at least ideally. But the idea of marriage as an institution for regulating sex -- that idea is dead. That train left the station over 30 years ago, and it's not coming back. An institution like marriage has to conform to social reality to some extent, and social reality is that extra-marital sex is normal and accepted.
In any case, the purposes of marriage are not necessarily relevant to the purpose of extending employee benefits to parties other than the employee. My question is why we extend benefits in that way, and I see no reason to assume that our purposes in doing so are identical with the purposes of marriage.
Posted by: David Velleman | Feb 11, 2005 6:12:39 PM
Posted by: Perseus
David V: I actually think that your claim that "the idea of marriage as an institution for regulating sex -- that idea is dead. That train left the station over 30 years ago, and it's not coming back. An institution like marriage has to conform to social reality to some extent, and social reality is that extra-marital sex is normal and accepted" is far, far worse than supporting same-sex marriage because it "defines deviancy down." Even though I'm skeptical, I do not reject out of hand the so-called "conservative case for gay marriage" (or preferably civil unions) precisely because it would tend to reduce promiscuity and fornication (to use more traditional language).
Not surprisingly, the importance of family stability is also why support the idea maintaining the connection between the extension of benefits and marriage or marriage-like institutions.
Re: Original Intent. The reason why I mention it is because I suspect that the public's understanding of the proposition probably coincided with the statements put forth by its originators. This is also a plea to social conservatives for consistency. Since they are generally supporters of the idea of original intent, don't try to pull a stunt like this. It gives the impression that original intent is just a slogan and will only be applied when it is convenient. That is just flat out WRONG.
Posted by: Perseus | Feb 11, 2005 7:20:15 PM
Posted by: D.A. Ridgely
I do hope when Mr. Velleman writes “social reality is that extra-marital sex is normal and accepted” he means non-marital sex. I fear many, however, will take his statement as literally true, as well.
In any case, Mr. Velleman’s earlier observation that all of this political maneuvering would be unnecessary were we to stop making the employer-employee relationship the principle mechanism by which people secure health care insurance is quite correct. Alas, however, I fear that he and I would differ significantly as to what sort of change in the status quo would be “remotely rational,” let alone satisfactorily rational.
Posted by: D.A. Ridgely | Feb 11, 2005 8:12:21 PM
Posted by: David Velleman
Correction accepted. Careless choice of word.
Posted by: David Velleman | Feb 11, 2005 8:21:15 PM
Posted by: David Velleman
Perseus: According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control, 69% of never-married women and 64% of never-married men were sexually experienced by age 18-19. Are you claiming that over 60% of the population is "deviant"?
Posted by: David Velleman | Feb 11, 2005 8:40:17 PM