Box Turtle Bulletin

Arizona House Still Hasn’t Scheduled Anti-Marriage Vote

There’s still time to contact your Arizona state representatives. The Arizona House has still not given its final approval to the proposed anti-marriage constitutional amendment (SCR 1041).

We reported that the Arizona House of Representatives brought the proposed anti-marriage constitutional amendment (SCR 1042) to the floor on Wednesday and that the final vote was expected to take place as soon as Thursday. Well, it didn’t happen, and last I heard the vote wasn’t expected to take place today either.

Please note: A lot of bloggers and out-of-state web sites are erroneously reporting that the House has approved the measure and it has gone on to the Senate. It hasn’t. The House has only given its preliminary approval to bring the bill to the floor. That means there’s still time for you to act.

Remember: there are two representatives for each legislative district. If you don’t know who your representatives are, the Equality Arizona web site can find them for you and provide you with their phone numbers and contact information. You can call then directly, or you can even send a message via Equality Arizona.

Please let your representatives know how much you appreciate their work in opposing this divisive and anti-family measure. And if they happen to not be working in your favor, please politely inform them of what they are doing to you and your family.

Expectations of Domesticity

One of the arguments from anti-gays in opposition to marriage equality is that gay people don’t want marriage anyway. But a new study from the Rockway Institute Anthony R. D’Augelli, H. Jonathon Rendina and Katerina O. Sinclair of Pennsylvania State University and Arnold Grossman of New York University suggest that not only do gay youth want to be part of a couple, they expect to be.

In what is believed to be the first study of its kind, social scientists have found that many lesbian and gay youth have expectations of spending their adult life in a long-term relationship raising children. More than 90 percent of females and more than 80 percent of males expect to be partnered in a monogamous relationship after age 30. Two thirds of females and more than half of males expressed likelihood that they would raise children in the future.

As gay youth become more aware that they have the opportunity and the right to live their lives openly and with someone they love, the more they grow up expecting to do just that.

It’s ironic, in a way, that the failure of heterosexuals to live up to their own expectations has not jaded gay kids. In a time of 50% heterosexual divorce these kids still believe that love is powerful and meaningful.

Visiting San Diego?

San Diego is worth a visit. The city is charming and friendly with a world famous zoo, beautiful parks, perfect weather, and a thriving gay community. And although it is a military city that leans Republican, they are often of the pro-gay variety and the city is very supportive of its gay residents.

However, not everyone will make you welcome. For example, much of the funding for the anti-gay marriage amendment in California came from San Diego.

Among the major donors to Protect Marriage are a group of San Diego County businessmen. Developer Doug Manchester alone has contributed $125,000 prompting gays to urge a boycott of his properties. Manchester owns the Manchester Grand Hyatt and the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina.

Mission Valley developer Terry Caster has donated $162,500, Carlsbad car dealer Robert Hoehn gave $25,000, and La Jolla businessman Roger Benson has given $50,000, according to state records.

Now these businessmen are entitled to their opinions and to seek the advancement of their political goals, even if they are designed to harm gay men and women. And we are entitled to avoid giving them a single cent, if possible.

So if you live in San Diego, or are planning a visit, you may wish to avoid patronizing any of the following businesses.

Manchester:

The Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego
The San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina
The Grand Del Mar
Whitetail Club & Resort

Caster:

A1 Self Storage (throughout California)
Caster Center and Stadium Park

Hoehn:

Hoehn Mercedes
Hoehn Porsche
Hoehn Audi
Hoehn Infinity
Hoehn Acura
Hoehn Honda

Roger Benson appears to be retired and I am unable to identify his investment or ownership in any business that might be impacted by my spending decisions.

Some activists in San Diego are considering calling for a boycott of the above listed businesses. Complicating matters is that some of the businesses have a national reputation for working with the community. Hyatt, for example, is proud of their perfect score by HRC.

But some are not waiting for an official boycott. GLAAD has already pulled from an event at Manchester’s hotel.

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation announced that it has withdrawn from a “Pride Rocks” event scheduled for the summer at the Hyatt owned by Doug Manchester. The event celebrates gay pride.

The president of the gay and lesbian alliance , Neil Giuliano, said in a news release that Manchester’s decision to fund an initiative that would “hurt loving, committed gay couples makes it impossible for us” to take part in an event that promotes his hotel.

So if you are considering a visit to one of the most beautiful cities in California, by all means please come. Just put some thought into where your money goes while you’re there.

Arizona House Ditched Veterans To Go After Gays

That bill to place an anti-marriage amendment on the ballot in November that the Arizona House gave preliminary approval to yesterday? It started life as bill that would have established a Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Day. But the House Judiciary Committee placed a “strike all” amendment to the bill which removed the original language in its entirety and replaced it with something completely unrelated: the anti-marriage amendment.

This had two effects. First, it short circuited the debate and review process. And second, because the new verbiage is attached to an unrelated bill that already has been approved by the Senate, then that means that when the bill returns to the Senate they will only have two choices: Approve the House-passed version of the measure or reject it. There will be no opportunity to amend it.

The House is expected to give final approval to the bill later today. The Senate has not yet scheduled debate. Arizona residents are asked to contact your Senator and House Representatives.

California Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Petitions Submitted

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the anti-gay group, Protect Marriage, has submitted their signatures to the county registrars to place an amendment on the November ballot.

A coalition of religious groups called Protect Marriage collected more than 1.1 million signatures in support of the amendment, said Brian Brown, executive director of the California office of the National Organization for Marriage.

The initiative needs 694,354 signatures, or 8 percent of the votes cast in the last governor’s race, to make it onto the ballot. However, a large percentage of signatures tend to be invalid so petition goals were at 1.1 million.

When I checked their site last week, Protect Marriage was still about 50,000 short. Their website currently is not self-congratulatory, but the Chronicle may be right in their reporting. But even if they are a little short, there is still a good chance that the sample validation may prove that adequate signatures were raised.

If this reaches the ballot for November, there will undoubtedly be an expensive and fierce battle within the state. Fortunately, the Governor has promised to oppose the constitutional amendment, which will be very helpful for appealing to moderates.

UPDATE: the Protect Marriage website now states “We have received over 1.1 million signatures to qualify the California Marriage Protection Act for the ballot!”

Vermont Commission Makes No Recommendation

The Vermont Legislature has commissioned an effort to determine the thoughts of citizens about civil unions. Recognizing that their opinions are a small minority, anti-gays refused to be part of the process. Consequently, the report, released today, mostly reflects an attitude that civil unions should be upgraded to marriage.

The report will not answer the ultimate question regarding gay marriage. “That’s a decision for Vermont’s elected officials,” says Little. Public testimony, however, has been overwhelmingly in support of the change.

Due to the presidential election, it is not expected that action will be taken until next year.

The Politics of Anti-Marriage Amendments

Arizona became the first state in the union to defeat an anti-marriage amendment in 2006. Thats when voters gave the thumbs down to Proposition 107, which sought to enshrine marriage inequality into the state constitution, with 48.2% voting “yes” and 51.8% “no” (PDF: 220KB/18 pages). Now legislators in the Arizona House appear poised to approve a measure to put another anti-marriage amendment on the ballot for 2008. Some of those legislators who are reportedly leaning towards approving the measure represent districts which voted against the 2006 proposal, bucking the wisdom of their own constituents.

Let’s take the 30th legislative district as an example. The 30th spans the eastern part of Pima County (including Tucson’s eastern suburbs) and dips down to cover the northern half of Santa Cruz county and a small bite of Cochise County. This is a lightly suburban and rural district.

The way the Arizona House is set up, there are two representatives for each legislative district. Voters are asked to choose two names from a slate of candidates, and the top two vote winners are elected to seats in that district. For the 30th district, voters in 2006 chose Marian McClure (R, 36%) and Jonathan Paton (R, 34%) over Clarence Boykins (D, 30%). McClure and Paton are two of the legislators who are expected to vote to place the 2008 anti-marriage measure on the ballot.

You might think that those voters in the 30th really like their conservative Republicans, and in Arizona that’s often the case. But things aren’t always so straightforward here in the independent-minded West. A careful analysis of all the individual voting precincts which make up the 30th reveals that Arizona voters are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves and don’t need party labels or outside pressure groups to tell them how to vote.

It turns out that those very same voters who sent McClure and Paton to the statehouse also chose Janet Napolitano (D, 62.6%) over Len Munsil (R, 37.4%) for governor, and they preferred Gabrielle Giffords (D, 51.5%) over Randy Graf (R, 48.5%) for the U.S. Congress. Rep. Giffords now represents Rep. Jim Kolbe’s (R) seat. Kolbe, you may remember, retired in 2006 after continuing to represent his district for some ten years after coming out as gay.

And those voters did not like the idea of having inequality written into the state constitution, with 52.5% voting against Prop 107 and only 47.5% voting for it. This means that voters in this suburban and rural district defeated Prop 107 by a wider margin than did voters statewide.

If McClure and Paton had been paying any attention to their own constituents, we wouldn’t be hearing about their intentions to vote next week against their own district’s wishes. But right now, it appears that they intend to ignore the very voters who sent them to the statehouse, and they will instead vote to permanently disenfranchise thousands of Arizona citizens — those same family members, friends and neighbors who the voters of the 30th district stood up for in 2006. Arizona is definitely changing. It’s time for our legislators to start paying attention.

Colombian Couples Get More Rights

365Gay.com is reporting that Colombia’s Supreme Court has added to the rights same-sex couples can receive.

The court ruled that same-sex partners must be given the same pension and health benefits as opposite-sex married partners receive.

This is in addition to the property rights granted last year.

Blade Asks What Happened in Maryland

In January I noted that Maryland was ideally situated to provide marriage equality. A poll had been taken which revealed that 58% of residents supported gay marriage or civil unions. And the Democratic Party was fully in control of all legislation.

Maryland’s legislature is predominantly Democrat with a 33 to 14 advantage in the State Senate and 103 to 36 in the House. The leaders of both chambers are Democrats, as is the Governor.

Legislation was introduced in both houses – with significant support – to bring about marriage equality. One legislator even called the bluff of those who think marriage is a religious institution, offering to have the state only provide civil unions to both heterosexual and homosexual couples.

But four months later, gay couples received nothing more than the right to tranfer property and the right to make medical and burial decisions.

The Washington Blade asks “Why”?

What happened to marriage in Maryland?
Gay activists in Maryland had high hopes for this legislative session. Marriage rights seemed, for the first time, within reach. But the session ended last week with only token pro-gay measures approved. Joshua Lynsen talks to the key players to find out what went wrong.

See Also:
Blade Asks What Happened In Maryland
Maryland Passes Limited Rights for Gay Couples
Maryland Balances Budget by Taxing Gay Widows
Maryland Senator Muse Champions Bigotry
Maryland AG Endorses Marriage Equality
Maryland Legislator Calls Anti-Gay Bluff
Maryland Introduces Bill to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage – Are Democrats Committed to Equality?
Maryland Marriage Poll

Civil Union in Uruguay

Yahoo news reports that “Uruguay holds Latin America’s first gay wedding“.

That, of course, is not true as the ceremony was a civil union rather than a wedding and as there are regions in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico in which civil unions have already been performed. Further, as the law has been in place since January 1, it is at least possible that other unpublicized civil unions have been performed.

Nevertheless, we wish the couple much happiness.

Judge Estrella Perez officiated the civil union between Adrian Figuera, 38, and actor and theater director Juan Carlos Moretti, 67, in a courtroom before a small group of friends and family, as witnessed by an AFP reporter.

Moretti later told AFP that after living together for 14 years, he and Figuera thought their marriage was “a matter of justice and a step forward for Uruguayan society.”

See also:
Civil Union In Uruguay
Uruguay Approves Civil Unions
Uruguay To Offer Civil Unions

Anti-Marriage Proposition Likely For Arizona

Update: Arizona residents can take action here.

Two weeks ago it looked like efforts by members of the Arizona state legislature to place an anti-marriage amendment proposal on the ballot was effectively killed when Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Phoenix) managed to add, by a one-vote margin, a provision to grant certain rights to unmarried couples living together. This would force voters to consider guaranteeing rights for gay couples while simultaneously banning same-sex marriage. By tying the two issues together, the proposed amendment became unacceptable to conservative supporters and they voted to kill it.

Last Friday, we learned that the anti-marriage amendment is back on the agenda, and prospects for killing it this time aren’t so good. The proposed amendment was resurrected by the House Judiciary Committee without the pro-gay provisions, and the full House is expected to vote on it next Tuesday. This time, it’s expected that there won’t be enough votes to add Rep. Sinema’s pro-gay provisions. Several legislators who would have voted against the provisions two weeks ago were absent. They plan on being there this time.

If the proposal passes the House, it will go on to the Senate before being placed on the ballot.

Arizona voters defeated a proposed anti-marriage amendment in 2006, making Arizona is the only state to do so. I’ve looked into some of the precinct level results from that election. I’ve found that at least a few of those state representatives who are rumored to support the current attempt to ban same-sex marriage represent legislative districts where voters soundly defeated the 2006 proposal.

The 2006 proposed amendment not only sought to ban same-sex marriage, but all other forms of civil unions, domestic partnerships or any other state and municipal recognition of unmarried relationships. The current proposal calls for a “pure” anti-marriage amendment, without the prohibitions against other forms of legal recognition.

Illinois Civil Unions Not Looking Very Promising

In February we reported that Rep. Harris and Sen. Koehler had introduced legislation to bring about civil unions in Illinois. Chicagoist.com gives us an update

There are currently two bills in the General Assembly to recognize civil unions in Illinois, House Bill 1826 and Senate Bill 2436. State Rep. Greg Harris (D Chicago), sponsor of the house bill said that they are close to the 60 votes needed. The sponsor of the Senate bill, David Koehler (D Peoria), says he is waiting to see what happens in the House before going forward.

While I appreciate Rep. Harris’ enthusiasm and hope that his vote count is correct, another recent vote count suggests that this is probably just wishful thinking.

This week another bill that would impact gay couples was before the House

The measure involves pension benefits that surviving spouses can collect after a teacher dies. The change would have allowed gay teachers to give survivor benefits to their partners, just as married couples can.

Although this would have had no financial impact on the state (teachers pay for the policies) the house voted 67 to 43 against this bill.

Now I may be wrong, but to me it seems that there can only be one reason for denying gay teachers the ability to leave their survivor benefits to their partners; and that’s because they are gay. And I’m just not very hopeful that a legislative body that so dislikes gay people that they won’t let them arrange for their own survivor benefits will suddenly champion civil unions.

Meanwhile, anti-gays are moving ahead in their efforts to change their constitution to exclude gay couples entirely.

Protect Marriage Illinois has been circulating petitions to put an advisory referendum on the ballot in Illinois this fall. If they succeed, voters would be asked if the General Assembly should propose an amendment to the state constitution that reads “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 marriage or similar union for any purpose.”

California Supreme Court to Rule In Favor of Same-Sex Marraige?

That’s the rumor anyway:

Sources wishing to remain anonymous in the California Court System indicate that the court, which has until June 2, 2008 to issue it’s marriage ruling, is considering issuing it on Friday, May 23, 2008, with the decision being written by Chief Justice Ronald George. The Court is readying itself for a backlash that may follow the rumored and bold decision. There is talk that the Court will not simply strike down Proposition 22, but will move the State of California toward full marriage, if not even granting full marriage rights for gays and lesbians outright.

I wonder, did this rumor embolden Gov. Schwarzenegger to fire the first shot?

The Pope’s Anti-Marriage Record

In conjunction with the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, anti-gay marriage activist Maggie Gallagher has compiled a listing of the Pope’s rants in opposition to any efforts to provide civil protections to same-sex families.

A new analysis entitled “Pope Benedict XVI on Marriage: A Compendium” [pdf] and published by the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy on the eve of Benedict’s historic U.S. visit, finds that in less than three years of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI has spoken publicly about marriage on 111 occasions, connecting marriage to such overarching themes as human rights, world peace, and the conversation between faith and reason.

Sadly, rather than revealing an obsession that places opposition to gay equality as more important than scandals within the church, Gallagher sees this as validation of her quest for civil discrimination.

The short pontificate of Benedict XVI is thus already a standing rebuke to those voices of our time who attempt to make us embarrassed about our concern for, and battles over, marriage, family and sexual issues – to those who see in the contemporary marriage debate merely a distraction from more important issues.

But Gallagher is a bright woman. And even she can recognize that Benedict is a bit extreme.

Marriage essential to world peace? This may strike American ears as an oddity.

Ummm, yeah. Ya think?

Wrap-Up: Anthropology and the Same-Sex Marraige Debate

As I said last week, I wanted to offer a few closing thoughts on Glenn Stanton and Patrick Chapman’s online debate on anthropology and same-sex marriage. (You can read them in order here, here, here, and here.) But first, I want to thank Glenn and Patrick for their eagerness to participate in this fruitful and substantive debate. I’m especially grateful to Glenn for his willingness to appear as a guest author on this web site. I am familiar with the same-sex marriage debates that he and John Corvino conduct across the country, and I hope someday they will come to my neck of the desert. Glenn and Patrick were very gracious to me and to each other in the emails we exchanged back and forth behind the scenes, and I look forward to more public and private discussions with both of them in the future.

In my closing thought, I’d like to touch on three things:

1. The problem of language — How language itself influences how we see the world, and shapes how we communicate what we see.
2. The difference between sex and gender — not everyone gets it, not even professional social scientists.
3. And why anthropology? — How is anthropology relevant to the same-sex marriage debate?

The Problem of Language
When we speak, we typically try to speak precisely with a commonly understood language in order to be understood. But our very language can restrict what we’re able to describe. Either we don’t have quite the right word, or the phrases we commonly use don’t quite get there. Conversely, our language may influence how we see the world, as it is filtered through the words and expressions which come naturally to us. Let me explain.

I like Tucson. That’s a pretty simple expression. “I” — that’s me, the subject of the sentence — “like” — the verb, which describes the thing that I’m doing — “Tucson” — the direct object which receives the action. The course of action begins with me and comes to rest in the object which receives my affection. Duh, you say? Well, stay with me, because there’s a whole world of assumptions built into that tiny little sentence.

I like Tucson for many reasons. One reason it that it’s still something of a “Mexamerica” in culture and language because Anglos settled here relatively late in history. It’s also only sixty miles from Mexico, so it helps to know some Spanish.

And so in Spanish I say, Me gusta Tucson. The word order may appear to remain the same as in English, but that’s misleading. In short sentences like this in Spanish, the subject is routinely placed at the end of the sentence, not at the beginning. And direct object and reflexive pronouns (“myself, himself) always appear in front of the verb no matter what. This sentence actually says “Tucson pleases me.”

Notice the difference. In Spanish, this expression is always given in the passive sense. It is a restriction built into the language. In Spanish, it’s Tucson’s job to please me; it’s not up to me to like Tucson. If I didn’t like Tucson, an English speaker might ask, “What’s wrong with you? How can you not like Tucson?” But in Spanish, I suppose the more natural response might be, “What’s so bad about Tucson? Why doesn’t Tucson please you?”

As you can see, that simple little sentence in Spanish has a whole different world of assumptions, doesn’t it? I can’t help but wonder what other linguistic quirks in Spanish might support that wonderfully passionate yet que será, será culture, or to what extent our own language contributes to our driving sense of individualistic manifest destiny.

It’s not just grammar, but vocabulary too. We English-speakers haven’t traditionally enjoyed spicy foods like we do today, and our language hasn’t caught up with this new experience. We’re still trying to cram two very different meanings into the word “hot” and rely on context for understanding. Sometimes we have to ask, “Do you mean hot-hot or spicy-hot?” Not surprisingly, Spanish is way ahead of us: caliente is used to describe hot temperatures, and picante is spicy hot. These are two very different and non-interchangeable words. Use the wrong one, and you’ll look very stupid and possibly a little insane. The habanero salsa in the refrigerator is certainly not caliente.

Language itself is the result of a whole pile of social constructs – even with the simplest of things like how we like things (or are pleased by them) and how we sense our foods. It both reflects and defines our view of the world.

I was reminded of this as I was exchanging some casual emails with Glenn Stanton about the online dialog between him and Patrick Chapman. At one point he remarked:

But one thing I do find in this is regardless of how clear we try to be, we do end up too often talking past each other. I get accused in your reader’s posts of “just not getting it” but that is exactly what my friends say about Chapman. It is a perspective and position of life issue, I guess.

In many very important ways, he’s exactly right.

The difference between sex and gender
We often use the words “sex” and “gender” interchangeably, but strictly speaking their definitions are critically different. We can’t fault too many people for confusing the two — I’ve abused those definitions many times myself, right here in these pages. So this exchange between Mr. Stanton and Dr. Chapman has been a great learning experience for me.

I don’t feel too bad about my confusion because many social scientists get tripped up by these terms as well. When the journal Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry issued their July 2002 special edition on gender and sexual identity, the editors realized that they couldn’t just assume that their professional readership would understand the distinction between sex and gender. That’s why the first article following the introductory editorial was Dr. Milton Diamond’s explicitly titled piece, “Sex and Gender are Different: Sexual Identity and Gender Identity are Different.” He wrote:

The term sex, since classical times, has been used to designate matters related to biology and medicine when male, female or bisexual were in context. Thus animals, including humans, are categorized dependent upon whether they either produce gametes as, or similar to, spermatozoa (males) or ova (females), or have parts of the reproductive system appropriate to the development of and delivery or reception of such gametes. … Classically, for humans, those individuals that had both male and female characteristics were called hermaphrodites. Presently the term intersex is preferred.

The term gender has generally been used in social or cultural contexts, in distinction from biological ones. This was particularly associated with language. The first known use of the word gender was listed as 1387 CE when T. Usk wrote “No mo genders been there but masculine and femynyne, all the remnaunte been no genders but of grace, in faculte of grammar.” This context for gender has been expanded so that since the 1960s or 1970s the word is often used as a euphemism for the sex of a human being but the intended emphasis remains on the social and cultural, as opposed to the biological. United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia, in an attempt to clarify usage of the terms has written “The word gender has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine is to male.”

Dr. Diamond and Justice Scalia have it exactly right. (Dr. Diamond goes on to note that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg continues to use “sex” and “gender” interchangeably. She defends it as a stylistic choice and nothing more.) I think Dr. Chapman was pretty clear in his distinctions between “sex” and “gender”; Mr. Stanton, less so. When Mr. Stanton said, “I think this new understanding of ‘gender’ is a cultural construct,” he’s mostly correct: it is a cultural construct, just as masculine and feminine are cultural constructs. And these cultural constructs arise because they represent concepts — sometimes new concepts — that we have to find ways of talking about.

But as Dr. Chapman, Dr. Diamond and the 14th century’s T. Usk demonstrated, this construct about gender isn’t a new one. But it is a confusing one, even for some very smart and educated people. I was confused by it, Justice Scalia understands it perfectly, Justice Bader Ginsberg either doesn’t understand or deems it insignificant, and even the highly educated readers of Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry needed to have their definitions calibrated so that the ensuing articles in that issue could make sense.

Now I suspect that most people who believe in absolutes might be skeptical of cultural constructs. But in a sense, they accept the idea every day (or at least every Sunday). It’s a core principle in Biblical hermeneutics that the cultural constructs of the day must be taken into account when interpreting Scriptures. I have on my bookshelves 25 volumes (soon to be 29) of InterVarsity Press’ Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, which I enthusiastically recommend. It’s chock-full of fascinating explanations of cultural constructs and historical context, and it provides an amazing window into the world of those ancient authors.

Cultural constructs are all around us, and they issue forth with every word we speak. Every time I say I really don’t like celery, people scrunch their face at me and ask, “What’s wrong with you?” That always startles me because there’s nothing at all wrong with me, but there’s clearly something terribly wrong with celery.

And so when we’re talking about gender and why we think it’s important, then we really need to be clear about it. The same is true for sex. But when Mr. Stanton offers different definitions of gender (“a much softer, less precise term than ‘sex'”), and Dr. Chapman emphasizes how societies construct gender when we were talking about same-sex marriage, then I do fear that the two sides are still talking past each other. We fall into the old habit of trying to use the word hot when we really need to use words describing caliente and picante.

Why Anthropology?
During the midst of Stanton’s and Chapman’s exchanges, I was fascinated by a post I ran across on another anthropology blog. I posted a brief excerpt that I want to return to here:

It’s a fascinating debate to me not necessarily because I am interested in definitions of marriage (though I am) but because of the way that anthropology is invoked by both sides as having authority on the subject. … Anthropologists: Do not despair! Someone still cares what we have to say. Anthropologists are seen to have the last word on human nature and therefore as potentially having knowledge that could settle debate on the topic. …

…To me what’s interesting is how a moral question appears to be disguised in these debates as a ‘scientific’ one, and therefore the real nature of the conflict gets displaced. [Boldface emphasis mine; italics in the original.]

Actually, when we’re talking about same-sex marriage, I don’t believe we are talking about a moral problem, but a political one. But I recognize that most opponents to same-sex marriage don’t see it that way. So we end up talking about morality and politics, and we often throw in developmental psychology, hormonal and genetic research, sociology and public opinion polls, and now anthropology. Of all these topics, it does seem to me that anthropology is an odd proxy in these debates. But this is where we are, so let me offer these thoughts.

It’s good to know that modern Western civilization is far from the first to grapple with the place of same-sex relationships in society. I was fascinated to learn about the Indonesian Bujis’ concept of calabai, calalai, and bissu as genders. Their gender construct is very different from our own — foreign even — even if their understanding of sex remains largely the same. But we’re not Bujis, nor do we consider the Tongan gender construct of fakaleitis or the Samoan concept of fa’afafine sufficient to describe our sense of ourselves in western culture.

We’re Americans. We like to define things for ourselves. We don’t find it pleasing to shoehorn our experiences into other cultures’ constructs. It’s very interesting to see how other cultures have dealt with the same issues that we have, but in the end our solutions will be ones most familiar to our own experiences, not those of the xaniths of Oman.

While gender is most certainly an important topic in our society when we talk about issues facing transgender people (for example), I think it is largely moot when we’re discussing same-sex marriage. And since some cultures around the world have accommodated same-sex relationships as a culturally sanctioned entity, then what we’re talking about is not all that groundbreaking. I just don’t think we will be creating different classes of gender to accommodate it as other cultures have, simply because we no longer ascribe sanctioned roles to particular genders. If we did, then we would very quickly come up with Mr. Stanton’s “6.5 billion different genders”, which would render the whole idea of gender meaningless both as a definition and as a concept. Because gender is still too vital a concept for other topics, I don’t see that happening. And besides, in 21st-century America it’s just not our way.

See also:
Wrap-up: Anthropology and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate
Round 2: Stanton Replies to Chapman
Round 2: Chapman Replies to Stanton
Glenn T. Stanton Responds to Professor Patrick Chapman
An Anthropologist Critiques Focus on the Family’s “Anthropological” Report on Marriage