The LA Times editorial board nimbly changes the subject when it’s pet project of promoting same sex marriage isn’t going well. In this editorial, they say they are sorry the subject of marriage quality came up. Memo to LA Times: it came up because the pro-ssm team brought it up. Listen to the LA Whines:
In what ways would same-sex marriages be the same or different from heterosexual marriages? Answer: It’s nobody’s business.
Yet the matter was explored at length in court this week by an expert for the plaintiffs — the pro-gay-marriage group challenging Proposition 8. Homosexual couples are much the same as heterosexual couples, Letitia Peplau, a UCLA professor of social psychology, testified. They form relationships in which the closeness and stability measure as high. We’re sorry the topic even came up. Not because we believe there is necessarily anything different about same-sex relationships, but because it doesn’t matter if there is. Same-sex couples shouldn’t have to prove that their marriages would be as “normal” as those of heterosexuals or meet some kind of artificial bar — a bar that many heterosexual couples fall short of — for an ideal marriage.
This strikes at the heart of what’s wrong with denying marital status to gay and lesbian couples. Somehow, society — and in this case, a federal judge — are being put in the position of deciding whether these unions are “good enough” to earn the legal and social status of marriage.
Memo to LA Times Editorial Board: We didn’t particularly want to talk about this subject either.
The case for Prop 8 never turned on issues of this kind. The Prop 8 campaign never argued that same sex couples weren’t good enough, or that their relationships were suspect, or anything else. The Prop 8 campaign was fundamentally not about gays and lesbians: it was about marriage. What is the social purpose and meaning of marriage? Can you change the definition of marriage, without changing the social meaning and purposes of marriage? what other forces will set in motion, what incentives will you put into place, if you remove gender from marriage? That is what the campaign was about: not the worthiness or unworthiness of gay couples.
That is why it is instructive that the plaintiffs brought up the subject of the quality of same sex unions. The advocates of marriage redefinition think the issue is about same sex couples, only about same sex couples, and that any other consequence that might follow from neutering marriage are not worth thinking about, and anyone rude enough to keep raising questions must be a bigot.
However, given that boy geniuses Olson and Boies put her on the stand, Prop 8 lawyers did cross examine her.
UCLA social psychology professor Dr. Letitia Peppeau opined that, among other things, same-sex couples are “indistinguishable” from heterosexual couples in terms of their relationships, and that legalizing same sex marriage would not harm traditional marriage. However, she could offer no studies to prove her contention that there would be no impacts on traditional marriage. On cross examination, she also admitted that the available studies do, in fact, show significant differences between gay couples and heterosexual couples. For example, one study reported that a significantly lower percentage of gay men think that monogamy is important in their relationships (only 36%) than do those in heterosexual relationships. Of those gay men who say that monogamy is important in their relationships, 74% still engage in sex with multiple partners. When pressed, she admitted that sexual exclusivity among gay men is the exception rather than the rule.
People of California, honestly: did you ever see or hear this particular social science finding discussed by the Prop 8 campaign? I was pretty close to the campaign, and I sure don’t remember seeing any ads, or reading any literature that quoted that study or any others remotely like it. It is the pro-ssm side that thinks the issue is about gays and lesbians. The rest of us think it is about marriage.
