Category Archives: Gay rights

Who cares about marriage?

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The California Supreme Court, that’s who.

By now you’ve heard of the historic decision allowing same-sex marriage. Lambda Legal has a brief analysis of the decision, where they highlight the signficance of the ruling.

What this means personally is that Knox and I need could get legally married in California, though Vancouver remains closer. That’s in principle; it turns out that the ruling is not final unless no appeals or motions are filed within 30 days.

The decision caught me by surprise. Not because I expected the court to rule one way or the other, but rather because the case wasn’t even on my radar. Yes, I knew some cases were winding their way through the courts, but I wasn’t following.

This is a big change from the days of the Massachusetts legal victory and the rallies to defend the state constitution. Or even from more recent tracking of gay issues in the news. Why is this?

Part of this is political fatigue. Eight years of the national nightmare that is George W. Bush have taken their toll. I feel like I’m tuned out of the political process. Even in this presidential campaign, I’m tired of the posturing and plain-folksiness, the moralizing, the hyperbole.

Part of my encroaching apathy, too, is the volume and insignificance of the blogosphere. I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said before, nor am I reaching masses of people. It’s just a fraction of my friends who bother to check my blog or RSS feed. And face-to-face debates? Much the same. No new points are brought up. Yes, talking to friends and neighbors about issues is a good way to effect change, but it is slow, laborious, and not scalable.

I care about the issues. I don’t care about the noise. More and more I seek refuge in the determinism of computer code, or the plainness of physical activity.

But I’m excited about the marriage victory.

Gay Genetics

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You can look up studies on the genetics of homosexuality using the OMIM website. What jumps out of this collection of studies is that, for males, the genetic link appears to come through the mother (X chromosome) and that boys with older siblings are more likely to be gay. Interesting.

I learned about this through the NY Times Tierney lab. As seems to be the case every time I bother to look (is it sampling bias?), reader comments on newspaper blogs degenerate into the tangential, irrelevant, and specious. Sigh.

Of convictions and change

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In an emotional statement, the mayor of San Diego reversed his stance against same-sex unions because his daughter is gay.

I have mixed feelings about this.

First of all, I applaud a politician for having the guts to say “I was wrong” and reverse himself. I admire him for putting family above dogma and for refusing to be a hypocrite.

Second, I applaud his daughter for being open, establishing dialog, and not giving up on the bond with her father.

But, third, I feel that this shows how self-serving we are even we pretend otherwise. Supposedly one holds convictions on fundamental or controversial issues such as this because one is convinced those convictions are correct. Whether that belief comes from rational thought, from humanist principles, from religious belief, from historical tradition, the presumption in politics is that those beliefs are held and professed not because of personal gain but because they’re good for society at large. That’s certainly the way the gay marriage debate has been framed.

But if a change in your personal circumstances makes you reverse your position, what does that say about your convictions? Your arguments, your talking points, your invective now change, not because you know more about the issue, but because being suddenly associated with the victims of discrimination now puts you at a disadvantage.

Will your new position survive new changes in your circumstances?

To me, you see, a good litmus test as to whether positions are worth holding is whether, indeed, I’d continue to hold them if my circumstances changed. If I wouldn’t advocate tax cuts for the rich when I’m poor, then advocating them when I’m rich is simply selfishness. If I wouldn’t advocate more social services if I were rich, then advocating them when I’m poor is purely self-serving. And similarly, suddenly supporting gay rights only because my daughter is gay means I care about me and my own but couldn’t be bothered with those whose plight did not affect me.