Mary Norton and Wendy Becker — both from the famously underprivileged professional class of college professors — have made substantial progress in their quest to disprove all of those same-sex marriage advocates who swore that judges would not be able to export the marriage policy that they (the judges) had created in Massachusetts. In a letter to the Providence Journal in which the couple responds to a letter to the same publication by Providence Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin, they give some explanation as to their motivation:
We have been involved in a loving relationship for 18 years. We are raising two wonderful children who are growing up to be compassionate, inquisitive, and kind. We wanted to be married to provide our children with the legal protections they may need and provide our relationship with the security it deserves.
Being sufficiently charitable to see this paragraph as more heartfelt than a regurgitation of movement talking points, I find its thematic transition somewhat perplexing. The first sentence of this truncated quotation is presented as if to indicate that the women’s relationship has been as committed as marriage for almost two decades, yet the last sentence insists that they require marriage in order to make their relationship secure.
I understand that proponents of pushing same-sex marriage through the judiciary find themselves having to maintain a careful linguistic balance. On one side, they must make an essentially moral argument in order to leverage the strength of civil rights sentiment. On the other, however, they must couch their goals in the language of cold law and civic interests; otherwise, it would be more difficult to hide the reality (and it is a reality) that they ought to be working through the legislative process. In their own effort to strike this balance, Norton and Becker only point the way to the public interest that both makes marriage crucial to public well-being and allows it to remain exclusive to oppose-sex couples without amounting to invidious discrimination.
If marriage is intended to encourage stability, then it is implicitly geared toward relationships that:
- would cause harm were they to end and
- are in danger of instability.
On the first point, the only circumstances that fall within the government’s scope to care is when the end of the relationship would affect children. Yes, the public has an interest in encouraging mutual care, but not only is such a goal arguably beyond the boundaries of vagueness past which the government is simply meddling, but it also offers no justification for excluding relatives or those who wish to form groups of larger than two people.
On the second point, the targeted couples are plainly not those whose commitment is ensured even without the encouragement of the marital institution. And the only relationships into which children are likely to enter (bringing with them the overriding public interest) without a previously formed commitment are those in which the partners are capable of creating children through their own actions. A long-term couple that has gone through the process of adopting children is not likely to be under the same threat of insecurity.
The argument is well worth considering that non-procreative opposite-sex couples are allowed to marry and present no relevant distinctions from same-sex couples. (In this area, I agree with Bishop Tobin on matters of morality, but we apparently differ on how morality ought to affect and operate with the law and the legislative process.) The observation that ultimately undermines that argument, however, is that same-sex couples would inherently sever the link between marriage and procreation, while non-procreative opposite-sex couples do not.
Norton and Becker end their letter with a question that presumes too much: “What could the Church find immoral in protecting children and creating secure families?” Children are most protected by a culture with the confidence to insist that their creation — not a set of legal rights and privileges — ought to be inextricable from their families’ security.
Consider this an open-thread on the day’s multiple political headlines…
- Carcieri: Labor group violated election laws (the Associated Press via the Boston Globe).
- Plunder Dome witness shows up in Senate race (Katherine Gregg, Mike Stanton and Steve Peoples in the Projo’s 7-to-7 blog).
- Lynch Requests Grand Jury Testimony In Station Case (WJAR-TV NBC 10).
Here’s a fascinating factoid for the day and a point to ponder in the casino debate, from Michael Mandel et. al in Business Week (h/t Jonah Goldberg)…
What you may not realize is that the government’s decades-old system of number collection and crunching captures investments in equipment, buildings, and software, but for the most part misses the growing portion of GDP that is generating the cool, game-changing ideas. “As we’ve become a more knowledge-based economy,” says University of Maryland economist Charles R. Hulten, “our statistics have not shifted to capture the effects.”In other words, the government’s system of economic statistics is likely to count a casino as a better investment than a new pharmaceutical research center, if the casino is in a big enough building! [Open full post]
The statistical wizards at the Bureau of Economic Analysis in Washington can whip up a spreadsheet showing how much the railroads spend on furniture ($39 million in 2004, to be exact). But they have no way of tracking the billions of dollars companies spend each year on innovation and product design, brand-building, employee training, or any of the other intangible investments required to compete in today’s global economy?
Machines and buildings were counted as future-oriented investment, but spending on education, training, and R&D was not. No attempt was made to judge the social utility of expenditures. For example, the $6 million cost of building the Flamingo Hotel, the Las Vegas casino opened by Bugsy Siegel in 1946, was tallied as an investment. But AT&T’s funding of Bell Labs, where the transistor was invented around the same time, wasn’t even included in GDP.
Bill Harsch, Republican candidate for Attorney General, has sent out a letter detailing actions he would take if elected with regards to The Station fire…
In his letter, Mr. Harsch tackles the question of “politicizing the death of the Station Fire victims” head-on…
- A complete review of the original state criminal case as well as the indictment and prosecution of all parties including town officials responsible for the events of February 20 , 2003;
- The initiation of criminal prosecutions in conjunction with the US Attorney targeting those parties responsible for the violation of the guaranteed civil rights of the Station Fire victims [including the right to equitable enforcement of all public safety laws];
- A reform of a broken plea bargain system which now favors who a perpetrator of crime knows rather than being based on what he or she has done wrong.
In writing this letter I will surely be accused of politicizing the death of the Station Fire victims. To the extent that my voicing of what the law demands of the Attorney General’s office will draw fire from those believing that the Station Fire prosecution is a closed subject, I will gladly take such risk knowing that your Attorney General must demonstrate leadership and competency in the quest to provide justice and protection for all Rhode Island citizens.[Open full post]
I am tired of being a victim of the continued incompetency and mismanagement of the Attorney General’s Office – to the extent I know that most Rhode Islanders feel as I do – I believe the time for change is now.
A detailed but accessible summary of Save the Bay‘s assessment of how conditions in Narragansett Bay have improved and declined since the year 2000 is available from the StB website (h/t RightRI)…
This edition shows that, despite considerable progress in some of the indicators, the Bay has declined slightly from an overall score of 4.5 in 2000 to a 4.3 today. The negative trend is driven by sharp declines of fish and shellfish resources, and a spreading area of low dissolved oxygen and unusually warm water temperatures creating a “dead zone” on the bottom.Though the report labels some of its own recommendations as “strong and even controversial”, its description of fish and shellfish depletion suggest that Narragansett Bay will not fully rebound (especially as a commercial fishing center) in the absence of changes to current environmental management programs. [Open full post]
The ProJo’s endorsement of a casino displays a willingness to believe everything good about the proposal and nothing bad. That alone makes it perhaps one of the most sophomoric endorsement I’ve ever read. Yet, even the naivete could be dismissed if the Journal’s editorial board had seen fit to mention at least once in their endorsement that approving Question 1 meant amending the RI Constitution. They didn’t. In their endorsement, the ProJo ignores one of the central points of contention in the entire casino debate: that approval of Question 1 hinges on changing the State Constitution. Thus, the endorsement becomes more than a display of naivete and can only be characterized as an irresponsible and disingenuous attempt to obfuscate.
In addition to the ProJo’s silence on the fact that approving a casino hinges on changing the RI Consitution, their endorsement has at least 2 examples of naivete (or amnesia) and one huge display of bad logic. Together, I think these undercut the ProJo’s argument for approving a casino.
Naive Example 1:
[A casino] would also provide substantial property-tax relief: Some of the revenue from the project would be dedicated to such relief, much needed in a state with among the country’s highest such levies.
The conclusions are correct, but the problem is in the premise: how much revenue is going to be dedicated to tax relief? The ProJo asks that we just believe that the General Assembly will follow through. And when confronted with funding higher pensions and pet projects, they’ll still follow through, right? Of course, the ProJo also isn’t troubled by the vagueness of the amendment where it states that “a portion” will be devoted to property tax relief. What if $1 were put towards it? Wouldn’t that still be Constitutionally legal?
Naive Example 2:
And the casino would increase state income- and sales-tax revenue, thus reducing pressure for rises in those taxes for Rhode Islanders. That, in turn, could make it easier to draw other business to the Ocean State.
Same problem as above. Ever hear of slippage?
Logical Fallacy 1:
Many people assert that Rhode Island must not have “a casino.” Too late! The proposed project would be the third casino in the state. The casinos in Lincoln and Newport are big and well established, although, it is true, they function mostly as slot-machine palaces, without the (far-more-social) card and other gambling games that the West Warwick project would have.
As for gambling itself, Rhode Island and most other states have been deep into state-sponsored betting for years — starting with the state lotteries established in the 1970s. To complain about yet another gambling venue seems a bit disingenuous at this point.
Hm. I never realized that card games were morally superior to slot machines because they were more “social.” But back to the point. Here, the ProJo tries to justify changing the RI Consitution to allow for the building of a casino and expanding gambling through a rhetorical trick and an exercise in circular logic.
First, to equate the “gaming parlors” at Lincoln Park and Newport Grand to a casino is specious. I’ll grant that the long term goal of the owners of each is to expand gambling at both sites, but that isn’t what the ProJo is arguing. Right now, these two establishments aren’t casino’s and it’s an improper comparison. Not all gambling is the same.
Second, and at the heart of the ProJo argument, is the use of the time tested “hypocrisy” argument in conjunction with the rhetorical strawman. The big question I have is this: How can I (and others) be “disingenuous” if we’ve never agreed with state sponsored casino gambling to begin with? Rhode Island voters have voted down casinos multiple times. The ProJo assumes that because–despite the efforts of anti-gambling people–we have state-supported gambling now, we must, ipso facto, support it’s expansion. If not, why, it’d be hypocritical! (Is there anything worse than being a hypocrite?). People who support the lottery or slot parlors don’t have to support a big casino. To them, a big casino is a step too far. In fact, it could be argued that this is the “moderate” approach to gambling. And doesn’t the ProJo usually revel in being “moderate”?
But, according to the ProJo, gambling is gambling, right?
Aw heck, I give up. The ProJo has convinced me.
So I propose that we push for legalizing sports gambling in Rhode Island. Sports betting is popular (football pools, March Madness, etc.), very “social” and the state could generate a lot of revenue by taking a piece of the action via state-run sports books. Heck, every restaurant and bar could have one in the back room. This would make them more popular and increase traffic in places like Federal Hill!
And isn’t it obvious that such a move would increase jobs?
It could also help make Rhode Island THE destination of sports gamblers worldwide!!!!! Think of the boon to the tourism industry?
And there’s no slippage clause associated with sports betting that I’m aware of!
So, why not, ProJo? Why stop at a mega-casino? Let’s make all gambling legal. Now is not the time for half-measures. All gambling is the same, after all, right? At this time we simply can’t afford to be too moralistic or “too preachy”. We need more cash for our politicians to spend in an honest and forthright manner and gambling is the quickest way. Let’s profit from vice! It’s the only practical solution to the state’s financial problems, after all, and we’re doing it already.
What’s that? No? Now don’t be a hypocrite….
“Rhode Island has the worst unemployment tax system, the worst property tax system, and the third worst individual income tax system.” So says the Tax Foundation’s latest “State Business Tax Climate Index” report (full report -> PDF). Also, Rhode Island ranks 48th in the Foundation’s Individual Income Tax Index and 35th in both the Corporate and Sales Tax Indices. Put it all together, and RI ranks dead last, or first (depending on how you look at it). I guess we should be proud. We may be the smallest state, but we’ve got the largest overall tax burden! Yippee!
[Open full post]One reason that the RIPEC casino study and the Rhode Island Building Trades casino study (links via Dan Yorke) come to different conclusions about the financial impact of building a West Warwick casino is that the Building Trades study assumes there slippage payments will only be made for two years after the opening of a new casino, while the RIPEC study assumes payments to Lincoln Park and Newport Grand will be required until the slippage clause expires. The analytical difference is that the RIPEC study assumes that the amounts guaranteed to Lincoln and Newport move upward on a yearly basis, while the Building Trades study assumes the amounts guaranteed are static.
From reading the law, I think the Building Trades interpretation is correct. This is the infamous slippage clause as expressed in Chapter 322 of the 2005 Rhode Island Public Laws…
(x) “Adjusted Base Year Net Terminal Income” means Lincoln Park’s or Newport Grand’s, as applicable, two (2) year average net terminal income during the twenty-four (24) calendar months ending on the last day of the calendar month preceding the opening of a new gaming facility increased by the change in the December Consumer Price Index All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) for the immediately preceding year published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Government or its successor agency from the index for the December immediately preceding the opening of a new gaming facility, not to exceed three percent (3.0%) per year change in any year.I think this says that if a new casino were to open in RI, the adjusted base year income for slippage payments would be calculated only one time, and not be adjusted upward for inflation on a yearly basis. Ten years after a new casino opened, the slippage guarantees to Lincoln and Newport would be calculated relative to their take from ten years prior plus a one-time adjustment for inflation, with no assumption that revenues to Lincoln and Newport would have increased each year. [Open full post]
(y) “Slippage protection” shall mean: for any subsequent year (other than the first subsequent year occurring after the base year), whenever the net terminal income is less than the adjusted base year net terminal income, the blended rate shall be increased to that rate that would have eliminated the resulting adverse impact from that difference upon UTGR or NGJA. Provided, however, that for any subsequent year (including the first subsequent year) in which an amount equal to twice the first six (6) months’ net terminal income for such subsequent year shall not exceed ninety percent (90%) of the adjusted base year net terminal income for such subsequent year, the aforesaid increase to the blended rate shall occur beginning in the seventh month of such subsequent year.
In his inimitable way, Mark Steyn addresses “the same old 40-year-old guff about ‘overpopulation’:
[Open full post]America is one of the most affordable property markets in the Western world. I was amazed to discover, back in the first summer of the Bush presidency, that a three-bedroom air-conditioned house in Crawford, Texas, could be yours for 30,000 bucks and, if that sounds a bit steep, a double-wide on a couple of acres would set you back about $6,000. And not just because Bush lives next door and serves as a kind of one-man psychological gated community keeping the NPR latte-sippers from moving in and ruining the neighborhood. The United States is about the cheapest developed country in which to get a nice home with a big yard and raise a family. That’s one of the reasons why America, almost alone among Western nations, has a healthy fertility rate.
PROEM
I submitted my response to URI student Gabriel Lugo’s hostile musings on American religion to the student paper of his school, The Good 5¢ Cigar, and Lugo (enlisting the help of a cowriter) replied a couple of weeks ago. Herewith, my further response.
Cigar readers will have to forgive me; as a humbled father of three who must work eighty-hour weeks to afford the king’s ransom of a Rhode Island mortgage, I haven’t the time that Gabriel Lugo has (much less he and a partner) to pore over research journals. Nonetheless, perhaps mere reason will suffice to make response.
I will take Mr. Lugo at his word that he has achieved hatelessness. (I, myself, cannot honestly claim to have managed such a state of grace, although I’m working on it.) Be that as it may, to the extent that Lugo is not hateful, he is certainly callous. He may have rationalized a moral imperative from humans’ natural “propensity toward cooperation within a group,” but his hostile language, mocking a majority of his fellow citizens (recall “the herd mentality” of those who believe in “invisible alpha males”), does not instill hope for that imperative’s practice when it comes to cooperation between groups. Imagine the form of that same impulse in a person who has not conquered hate.
This is what I continue to find distressing: that Lugo fails to acknowledge the sheer diversity of the human race. If everybody would simply be and believe like me, he seems to suggest, then we could do without all those silly theistic faiths. But citing the mild behavior of members of the National Academy of Sciences is no proof at all, because not everybody can or will be made scientists. What is to be done with those who will not — or cannot — be “ingenious at improving [their] ethics”?
Nor does it “support the hypothesis that a religious society does not equate to a moral one” to note that the United Nations thinks “highly secular societies such as Norway and Sweden” are swell places to live. Apart from the inherent subjectivity of such lists, the populations of those nations are drastically less diverse, and their health, as Lugo describes it, may be transitory. According to the CIA World Factbook, in Sweden, there are more people over 64 than under 15; there are more people dying than being born. The country’s meager population growth derives entirely from immigration, and some quick research from the Statistics Sweden government agency confirms that a sizable percentage of immigrants do not hail from “highly secular societies.”
A similar, albeit less dramatic, analysis can be performed within the United States, with secular states and segments of society leaning toward the Scandinavian predicament. Moreover, intra-U.S. comparisons highlight a correlation that arguably precedes the one between religion and “dysfunction” on which Lugo relies: the correlations between religion and “dysfunction” separately with lower income. The question that Lugo and his cowriter (or at least their sources) suppress is whether religion improves lives within groups that are, for other reasons, more prone to dysfunction.
Discussion of these matters becomes quickly mired in fundamental differences of worldview, but the particular markers of dysfunction that Lugo notes, such as divorce, abortion, and the repercussions of sexual license, merit consideration of their source. Which segment of society has been pushing for liberalization in these areas? In contrast, which segment has been resisting the codification of libertinism in the law? In this respect, the correlations that Lugo cites may prove nothing more than that the detrimental consequences of secularization disproportionately affect those outside of the elite that initiates the changes.
Those elites may be inclined to scoff that religion correlates with poverty and ignorance, but such scoffing would elide an important realization: Among those who lack the capacity for or interest in an intellectual construction of beliefs, morality will necessarily be conveyed in religious terms — in terms of faith — even if those terms derive from a science book. How will Lugo’s logicomorality compare with traditional religion when people inclined toward less considered behavior take it as their creed?
Moreover, how will its adherents address a world in which, despite the narrowly conclusive logic, fellow citizens say, “Fair enough, but we still want the Ten Commandments in the park and an opposite-sex definition of marriage”? We’ve evidence of the mechanism that they’ll employ: forcing their beliefs through the courts, trampling what remains of democracy in our nation. And we’ve reason to fear that, if one as unhateful and considered as Mr. Lugo is inclined to lapse into hostile language, then there will be others inclined to lapse into hostilities of a more visceral sort.
Happily, as an intellectually inclined convert to Christianity, I believe theism to be internally rational (not to mention true) if only one has answered “yes” to the basic question of God’s existence, for which either possible answer ultimately relies on faith. As I suggested in my previous letter, the relevant arguments are laid out plentifully in Western literature for those intellectuals able to leave aside their irrational biases sufficiently to read with a willingness to understand.
Mr. Lugo, in particular, might find it edifying to adopt a frame of mind that accepts that, as with civilization, so with religion. That “primitive people,” as he fashions them, misunderstood and misapplied revelation means only that they represented a stage of development of, not the full expression of, religion. Their religion must be seen in context of what they would have been — and more importantly, would have become — without it. The fact that with religion they became us should minimize intellectuals’ stigma against sharing a worldview with the less sophisticated of our day.