Prop 8 Trial Closing Arguments
Did anyone watch (well, read actually) the closing arguments for Perry v. Schwarzenegger?
For what it’s worth, this blog looked to me like the best place to watch the proceedings live. (Per the court’s ruling, there was no video or audio of the trial available.) Yes I know, that website advocates overturning Proposition 8. But they still had the best (most verbatim) live transcription of the proceedings that I was able to find. And now they have the official court-approved transcripts available at this LINK. (It’s a lot easier than registering at scribid.com, and you won’t have to decipher incomplete sentences or figure out that the live transcription consistently rendered as “i am mutable” the word “immutable”…)
Anyway, from what I saw while viewing the live transcription, I would say that our closer can beat up their closer any day. But that’s going on the basis of the substance of the arguments alone without being able to evaluate the ‘presence’ of the respective attorneys in court, style of delivery, or audio and visual clues from them, the judge, or others present in the courtroom. (Apparently the pro same-sex ‘marriage’ folks in court that day behaved about as reprehensibly as they did throughout the Prop 8 campaign and have since. From what I’ve heard they occasionally disrupted Charles Coopers’ presentation by applauding when they thought Judge Walker was taking him to task, etc.) Also, Vaughn Walker definitely does seem to be biased in favor of the plaintiffs. But I guess when he makes his ruling we’ll see.
Some of the more important points made by Charles Cooper (IMHO, and put in my own words. I am not quoting him verbatim.):
The only truly legitimate interest the government has in sanctioning marriage is that only the union of a man and a woman can produce the next generation of society, and only (traditional) marriage bonds both parents to their offspring and to one another, thus producing the optimal environment to provide for the support, safety, and rearing of children so that they will become self-sufficient contributing members of society. (And only by legally compelling a man and a woman to take responsibility to do all that for their own offspring can the rearing of children be accomplished with the least burden to the community and at the lowest possible level of intrusion by the state into the private lives of the individual members of society, I would add.)
While the central purpose of marriage is indeed procreation, that does not mean that procreation would need to be a compulsory feature of marriage to justify the state’s interest in marriage (as is virtually always imputed by the advocates of same-sex ‘marriage’). The mere fact that marriage provides for responsible procreation is entirely sufficient to serve the state’s interest. When procreation does not occur in a marriage, it does nothing to prevent marriage from serving its purpose for those married couples who do bear (and rear) children together.
Opposing same-sex so-called ‘marriage’ is in no way analogous to the prohibition of marriage between people of different races. Anti-miscegenation laws (which were overturned by the Supreme Court in the case of Loving v. Virginia in 1967) were an interference by the state into the natural purpose and function of marriage – the bonding of a man to a woman and both to any offspring they produce. Refusing to call two people of the same sex ‘married’ does not at all interfere with that defining feature of (genuine) marriage. (I would have loved it if he had driven the point home by mentioning that since same-sex so-called ‘marriage’ is not the union of a man and a woman, and that since in order to make two people of the same sex the legal parents of a child we must first legally separate that child from at least one of the biological parents, then using the power of the law to force people to recognize a same-sex union as a valid ‘marriage’ is itself analogous to anti-miscegenation in that it is an interference by the state into the natural form and function of marriage. But, as I have found out myself on occasion, when you point out the hypocrisy of comparing the defense of the sanctity of marriage to anti-miscegenation to any supporter of same-sex ‘marriage’ you are goring their most sacred ox – they do so love availing themselves of a pretext to hate any of us who oppose their objective, in this case by equating us with racists – and you are likely to be on the receiving end of a very acrimoniously emotional response. Mr Cooper was probably wise not to discombobulate Judge Walker in that way…)
He also made the case that if Judge Walker found that it would be constitutionally “incompatible” to allow the 18,000 or so people who married someone of the same sex during the months between the time the California Supreme Court overturned Prop 22 and the passage of Prop 8, but then refuse to allow any other same-sex ‘marriages’ after that, then rather than overturning a duly enacted amendment to the State Constitution, his only recourse would be to declare that those 18,000 or so people were never married. It is not true (as some have claimed) that he actually advocated the nullification of those ‘marriages’, though. It is the position of the defense that “grandfathering-in” those unions as ‘marriages’ is perfectly constitutional. (I disagree with him. I think it was an act of judicial and intellectual cowardice for the Supreme Court of California not to accept responsibility for the consequences they were warned about before they refused to stay their ruling against Prop 22 until after the Prop 8 election. But that is not the position the defense is taking in this case.)
Finally, Charles Cooper pointed out that the defense does not have to prove a lack of “animus” on the part of the voters who passed Prop 8. We do not have to prove that everyone who voted for Prop 8 did so solely on the basis of rational motives (or even that most or any of the people who voted for Prop 8 did so). But rather, we only have to prove that there are rational and benevolent motives for voting in favor of Prop 8. And in order for the courts to justify overturning the will of the people, the plaintiffs must first prove there could not have been any such rational motives available to the voters and that they could have only passed Prop 8 on the basis of animus. (They did not make that case. It would be virtually impossible to do so…)
Well, that’s my two cents worth. I’d be very interested in hearing other people’s take on the conclusion of Perry v. Schwarzenegger while we wait anxiously for the judge’s ruling.
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I didn’t see any mention in the closing arguements of the NIS-4 Child Abuse study. It seems to me this comprehesive study shows a substantial relationship between Marriage and an important government interest of protecting children.
Jennifer,
Francis Beckwith has an illuminating essay on the analogy to anti-miscegenation laws. See here: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/05/1324.
Best,
RM
Big Wig, what about the children of same-sex parents? Don’t they deserve protection too?
Heidi – NIS-4 reported 6.8 kids/1000 were abused by “Married Biological Parents”. “Other Married” couples abused kids at 24.4/1000. (pg 5-20 of the report)Thats >3 times the abuse rate. The best way to protect kids is to encourage biological parents to remain married.
In every case? Of course not. I had a Grandfather who was a heavy smoker almost all his life – and he lived to 86. Its still an unhealthy behavior and should not be encourged.
Big Wig, I don’t have time to read the whole study right now. Does it break “Other Married” couples down into couples that adopted, step-parents that adopted and step-parents that didn’t adopt? Because a couple that decides to adopt a baby is in a different situation than a man who marries a woman who has a kid from a previous relationship. I would predict the abuse rates would be lower for the first group, and I don’t know what judgments we can make from data that lump all of these types of families together.
fuerte – The NIS-4 did not break out “Other Married” into sub-categories. It identified 6 family structures, and the only one that showed any significant reduction in abuse was “Married Biological Parents.” (pg 5-20) Its certainly possible there are sub-categories that significantly vary from the mean, but to come anywhere close to the Biological Parents it would have to be a pretty small category.
Big Wig, so what you’re saying is that the study didn’t include same-sex parents and their children? Because we can’t get married in most places yet! But in any event, it doesn’t even matter, because regardless of what the study may suggest about the “ideal,” the fact remains that millions of children are not being raised in that situation, and those children deserve protection too. My partner and I are raising a child whose biological parents couldn’t/wouldn’t care for her. Why doesn’t this child deserve protection?
Why doesn’t this child deserve protection?
Are you doing anything to provide that protection? Didn’t you adopt this child knowing full well that the protection of marriage wouldn’t be available to the kid? That is, unless you or your partner actually decided to marry for real? You know, like to a man? Mom & Dad, Husband & Wife, Have & Hold, Til Death Do Us Part, etc?
No. You and your partner chose to do something completely different, leaving your kid without protection. YOU CHOSE TO.
Of course, you could have chosen otherwise — it IS a free country after all.
Heidi – all I can say is good luck. The odds aren’t in your favor. The NIS-4 is a HUGE study (123 counties, 11,000+ trained reporters), so I’m sure it included Lesbian Parents/Guardians; and not just lesbian Phd’s living in Berkeley, but those that show up on Jerry Springer too.
The NIS-4 says kids in “Other Married” homes have significantly higher rates of abuse than in homes with “Biological Parents”. The term Marriage, by itself, didn’t have much impact. The Data, and evolutionary logic indicate that Biological relation is not just a semantic difference.
Right, Marty, because faking one’s sexual orientation to satisfy the dominant paradigm is in the best interests of children. Uh huh. You want to know what is in a child’s best interests? Love, acceptance, nurturing, education, and happy and healthy adults who can provide those things. My partner and I chose out of love to respond to a child in need. I’m sure it would be soooooooo much better for that little girl if we split up, faked our sexual orientation to marry men, and shared the child between our two false families, all to satisfy the bigots of the world. Or maybe it would have better to destroy the bond that had been created between us and this child (thereby almost guaranteeing that the child suffer from attachment disorder) and to sever the link entirely to her biological family and give her to a heterosexual married couple just so she could have the “something” (whatever that is) that ONLY a male can provide. Uh huh. Of course, drug-affected babies aren’t really all the rage on the adoption market, you know.
Somehow, even though this child is not granted all of the same protections as the children of married parents, I am willing to bet that she will have a much more successful outcome if we just continue to do what we have been doing, which is to love her unconditionally and to provide for her needs–physical, emotional and spiritual.
And yes, by the way, we ARE doing something to try to provide that protection. We are actively engaged in the battle for marriage equality!
Big Wig your study is flawed in this case. If “other married” contains six different types of couples, there’s no way to be sure the risk of any one type of couple. A mother and step-father combination may actually be six times the risk of abuse then a father and step-mother combination, which might only be twice or equal to the risk of a biological, married family. More importantly, does this study break it down by class and income? Being poor puts one at far more risk then any combination of gay or mixed families.
I’m not saying it’s not useful or important, it’s just not specific enough.
Nerdy,
The NIS did look at Income and Class:
“Socioeconomic status. To contend with missing data on individual items, the NIS–4 analyses combined three indicators into a general measure of socioeconomic status: household income, household participation in any poverty program, and parents’ education. Low socioeconomic status households were those in the bottom tier on any indicator: household income below $15,000 a year, parents’ highest education level less than high school, or any member of the household a participant in a poverty program, such as TANF, food stamps, public housing, energy assistance, or subsidized school meals. Children in low socioeconomic status households had significantly higher rates of maltreatment in all categories and across both definitional standards. They experienced some type of maltreatment at more than 5 times the rate of other children; they were more than 3 times as likely to be abused and about 7 times as likely to be neglected”
But Kids in broken homes had even higher rates of abuse:
“Compared to children living with married biological parents, those whose single parent had a live-in partner had more than 8 times the rate of maltreatment overall, over 10 times the rate of abuse, and nearly 8 times the rate of neglect.”