My views on the morphology of family

On the event of our anniversary, I posted the following message to Facebook:

Today, we celebrate many many years of commitment, three-quarters of which include the legally binding contract called marriage. We honor our love for each other every single day. But today, we give thanks for the legal protections afforded to us by the government for making this legal contract with each other. We hope that one day soon, our friends who live in states whose government continues to discriminate against them will one day also be able to share in those legal benefits.

In response, a friend asked me whether I feel that people who engage in polyamorous relationships, but are prevented from getting married are being discriminated against.  He extended the question to GSA couples who are prevented from being legally married in some places.  It's a completely legitimate question.  I started to respond in Facebook, but decided that it needed a longer and more thoughtful response than Facebook provides.  Here is my response:

I have been blessed to have met a lot of people who live in all kinds of relationships.  I have met happily married people whose marriages were arranged and did not know each other until weeks before their marriage.  I have met one person who lives in, and have read a little bit about, polyamorous marriages.  I also know and love people of a variety of sexual and gender identities, many of whom are in committed relationships, some of whom are married, and many who are unable to be married or have their legal marriage recognized by the state they live in.

What I've learned is that I cannot say that the structure of their intimate and family relationship is fundamentally wrong.  Especially when I see so many examples of heterosexual couples who mistreat, abuse, and disrespect their partners and their families.   How can I say a same sex relationship, a polygamous relationship, or even an arranged marriage is inherently wrong when there are so many examples of loving, supportive, and devoted relationships in exactly those kinds of family structures.  These folks have taught me that there are many ways of being and many ways of loving that are based on mutual respect and devotion. 

For me, there are two issues here.  First, there is the issue of dignity and abuse.  There is a long history of subjugation within and through marriage.  You have to look no further than the bible for examples of this.  We find oppression and degradation (especially of women) in both monogamous and polygamous relationships.  As such, it strikes me that abuse is not confined to a particular family morphology.  Rather, history (and reading today's newspapers) shows us that patriarchy and the structure of power between social and gender groups is what creates oppression.  If dignity can be found in arranged marriages, same-sex and opposite-sex marriages, then it is entirely possible that people (again, most especially women) can live dignified lives even in polygamous relationships.

The second, and more important issue, is the legal one.  To me, this issue is about the law, and by extension the relationship between the state (i.e. the government) and its citizens.  I am not concerned about what any particular faith community believes or practices and would not support requiring faith communities to perform religious rituals that are contrary to their belief system.

My concern is the extension of legal protections and privileges to people who choose to engage in the legal contract that we call marriage.  There are hundreds of benefits and protections that are afforded to people who are legally married that people who are not allowed to be legally married are denied.  Again, my primary concern is the ability of people to be able to live lives of dignity and respect.  By not extending the access to legal recognition of a relationship between consenting adults, the government is discriminating against those people without any rational relationship to a legitimate government interest.

However, the question that is really at the heart of my friend's inquiry is would I support extending legal recognition of polygamy.  I would have to say at this point, I just might.  Since my primary concern is the ability of people to live in loving, devoted, dignified relationships of their choosing, I can't say that I have an a priori objection to any particular family structure.

However, I will also concede that I don't really know whether I would support the legalization of polygamy yet because I don't know that we have in place the social and legal structures to manage what is a more complex family structure.  We barely have the legal capacity to handle definitions of family that extend beyond one or two degrees.  Two cousins living together do not constitute a "family" in many jurisdictions, which is contrary to how many non-white or lower income cultures view family.  The obsession with maintaining the "nuclear family" as the only legally acceptable family structure makes dealing with potential conflicts within polygamous families a legal minefield.

What do you do if one wife asserts she has been abused and the others either have not or do not agree there has been abuse?  How do you handle divorce settlements, especially in community property states?  Do all spouses have to agree to an adoption?  Or to give permission for one spouse to travel with a minor child overseas?  Who has decision-making power in the event of medical emergency and death?  Does one mother have the same legal rights over the biological child of co-wife?

None of these are insurmountable. But they require that we as a society engage respectfully with communities who do live in polyamorous relationships.  It may require that we look to cultures that accept polygamy for guidance - something U.S. Americans are loathe to do.  But if we can find a way to distinguish between abusive relationships from loving, devoted ones, then perhaps we can accept this is a family structure.

I can't say I've met people who meet the criteria for GSA, at least not to my knowledge.  I haven't read much about it but I suspect that this may become an issue that will have to be addressed legally in places where known genetic relation prevents legal marriage.  With the increase in the use of anonymous sperm and egg donors, the probability of such relationships occurring may increase.  Again, I suspect that I would not object to allowing these couples to marry.  If there is no indication of abuse, if they live healthy, supportive, loving lives, that is their business and not mine.

Losing my liberal credentials

It should come as no surprise to most people who know me that my ideological inclinations lean progressive liberal. I believe there is a role for society in ensuring the health and well-being of everyone, most especially the most vulnerable. I also believe that government is often the most efficient mechanism to ensure that public goods (e.g. education, social welfare, research, defense, etc) are provided to the general public, particularly the most vulnerable.

However, I apparently lost some of my liberal street cred because I refuse to be steadfastly opposed to the debt deal that was passed by the House last night and will likely be approved by the Senate today. I don't believe in hurting people (or myself) to serve ideological purity. Therefore, I am not liberal enough. The fact that I believe that this is not the best deal that could have emerged and that I would have preferred something else apparently does not matter.

Not only that, but because I completely refuse to put the blame for this on President Obama, I am also a sell out. Or a fool. A damn fool, according to one acquaintance.

There are two important reasons why this attitude is both wrong and dangerous. First, putting the onus on the president to solve the budget problem betrays a serious misunderstanding of the legal structure of our government. Second, this attitude is the exact mirror of the right wing perspective that my liberal purist friends and acquaintances profess to detest.

A little lesson on the law: the Congress is responsible for the budget, including the debt.

There's a document that guides pretty much everything that we do here in the USA. It's called the Constitution. It sets the framework for our government and enumerates the rights citizens can expect our government will uphold. For liberals, we rely on the Constitution to ensure everything from fair trials to free speech. Well, there's a little thing found in Article I, Section 8 that should guide our understanding of what is wrong with the whole debt ceiling mess:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States ... (emphasis added)

The powers of the Congress are further enumerated, including:

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

and

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

The president's responsibilities are also enumerated in the Constitution. Of particular interest here is that the president has a pretty small role in the crafting and passage of legislation (including the budget). The president's main job is to review legislation passed by both houses of Congress and either sign the legislation or veto it. Beyond this, Article II, Section 3 in the Constitution does provide for the following:

...from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; .... he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, ....

If you notice, Congress has most of the power here. The passage of laws, including the budget, is entirely the responsibility of Congress. The president's leverage is the veto. That is it.

So, forgive me, my liberal colleagues, friends, and others, if I just don't buy the argument that this is all Obama's fault. Did the president make recommendations regarding the budget and the debt ceiling to the Congress? Did he convene both houses of Congresses in this extraordinary occasion to resolve this disagreement? Why, yes he did. Could he impose his will, whatever that may have been, on recalcitrant members of Congress, some of whom were hell bent on going into default? No. The Constitution does not allow it. If we are going to rely on the Constitution to protect us from the government and each other, we need to also accept the structure of responsibilities between the Executive and the Congress that is laid out in it.

Blaming the president for the many undesirable provisions in the debt ceiling plan displaces responsibility for this problem from its true agent: Congress. It is Congress that holds the power here, as was clearly demonstrated over the past few weeks. It is members of Congress who should be held accountable for both the crisis and the consequences of dragging this on for this long. By putting all of their energies and expectations onto the president, liberals and progressives remove themselves from the responsibility from doing the harder work of electing responsible members of Congress.

Obsessing over the president's "failure" to ensure tax revenue was part of the deal to me is like blaming the CEOs of publicly traded companies for laying off workers, rather than the shareholders and investors whose expectations for never-ending increases in dividends make laying off workers a rational choice. And if you really want to know who to blame, talk with the voters who elected the dozens of Tea Party Republicans who made this the crisis it came to be.


Liberal ideological puritanism is just as bad as conservative ideological puritanism

Ignorance of the Constitution is regrettable, but also understandable. For almost a century, the power of the Executive has grown over time. The existence of strong presidents who appeared to impose their desires on an unwilling Congress is a fiction supported by a misreading of history and by the willful spread of misinformation. What I find more disturbing is that the behavior and attitude displayed by some of my fellow progressives and liberals is eerily similar to the objectionable behaviors and attitudes of the rabid right wing ideologues who are the primary source of this crisis.

Much has been made about the demonizing of moderates and liberals by right wing, Tea Party types. This is a legitimate criticism. But when Democrats in Congress refer to the debt deal as a "Satan sandwich" and describe their colleagues as terrorists, they are participating in the exact same kind of demonization. I'm just not inclined to believe that those who hold different views of the world or different ideas about what is right and wrong are inherently bad people. They may be greedy, power hungry, or hypocrites. Or they may be misled or ignorant of the true consequences of their beliefs. Or they may have a truly different value system. But many of those who share my left leaning inclinations have come to the view that everyone who is to the right of them are inherently greedy, power hungry, bigoted hypocrites.

There is a serious problem with this perspective. By demonizing and dehumanizing those whose view of the good is different than yours, you are absolved from the hard work of actually making the argument in favor of your position. You can rest on your characterizations of evilness and bad faith, as if that alone justifies your view. If such behaviors and attitudes are unacceptable when perpetrated by the right wing, they are equally unacceptable by progressives, liberals, and moderates.

Further, there is no meaningful difference between refusing to budge on restructuring Social Security and refusing to budge on tax reform. The outcome is the same: no action. There are definitely times when no action is the best course of action. This was not one of them. The consequences of going into default was immediate harm to the most vulnerable members of society with little to no chance of long term gain. We would have gotten nothing in the long term, except the cold comfort that we were right. We would have imposed a serious economic burden on many individuals and families, even furthered hampered a very fragile economic recovery, and the rest of the world would have been justified in beginning the process of containing its economic relationship with the US. On the latter point, if you haven't been paying attention, China and India are steadily catching up to the US in terms of consumption and economic power.

In my view, there are few values that are absolute. Even the one of the most fundamental of human values, thou shalt not kill, can be loosened under the right circumstance. So, while I am heartbroken that the agreement includes removing subsidized graduate student loans, and knowing that this will probably also impact me as a college professor, if the choice was subsidized student loans or default, I'm going to vote to get rid of student loans. Knowing, too, that it is something that could always be changed later if me and my liberal/progressive/moderate colleagues do the hard work in ensuring that reasonable people are elected into Congress in the future.

So I refuse to be blinded by the righteousness of my view. I also do not believe that this is about my side versus their side but about doing a better job convincing people that my view better meets their goals and better supports their fundamental values. And I believe in holding accountable those who were truly in the positions of power to do the right thing. If this means that I am not the liberal you want me to be, so be it. I was never good at conforming to other people's expectations anyway. And it does not change my inclination to do what I can to prevent harm to those who are vulnerable to the consequences of demagoguery of all forms.

Beyond hope

I am certainly excited over the passage of the health care reform bill this week. I will feel much better when the reconciliation bill, with the necessary changes, is passed and signed. It's about time that this country started moving down a path towards true civilization.

With that said, there is a lot of uncertainty that prevents me from feeling the kind of elation that I thought I would have felt. My feelings are captured perfectly by these lines from the poem "we are running" by Lucille Clifton:

oh pray that what we want
is worth this running,
pray that what we’re running
toward
is what we want

The reform is imperfect, we all know that. There are at least two general directions I can see this going. The imperfections can be used to foster more discontent among the fear-filled bigots (especially among those who believe that our president is a socialist, marxist, communist Muslim). As much as I would like to ignore these folks, fear is a great motivator for getting people out on election day. And complacency keeps folks home. Juxtapose the two in any given election and you get Scott Brown elected to the Congressional Senate. Every increase in reactionary, right wing ideologues there are in policymaking positions, the greater the chance that this much needed reform is repealed, or worse, crafted to not work.

Or we can insist that the imperfections be monitored closely, rooted out, and fixed. Ask the question "what would make this fail" so that we can identify those "unforeseen" consequences and then proactively address them.

We can be sure that those who oppose this reform for whatever reason are prepared to do whatever it takes to repeal or cripple it. If the last year has shown us anything, it is that we must move beyond hope. We must act. Act to rebut the misinformation and lies. Act to deny going back to system in which people lose their homes or their lives but for lack of health insurance. Act to continually improve this imperfect system we call the USA.

Hope is not enough anymore. We need to seize the sense of possibility that we felt in November 2008, when it was evident that the world really was changing for the better. Now we need to make that change happen. Part of that means moving past the uncertainty, past the grief or anger that the bill wasn't sufficiently comprehensive or efficient for your taste, and past the certainty that your favored solution was the only acceptable solution. If we cannot work together to take what we've been given and change it for the better, then you can be sure that we will lose it.

P.S. Don't forget to fill out your census forms. And then mail them back. And also, tell your neighbors. The due date is March 30.

Random thoughts on the week's news

Anti-Obama/Tea Party/Right wing nutcases argue that the health care legislation that passed last night is unconstitutional because it would force people to buy a health insurance under "threat of financial punishment."

-Where were these people when Congress passed a law that requires everyone to either buy a digital TV or buy a digital converter box for their analog TVs?

-Are these the same people who are upset that they are required, under penalty of law, to send their children to school?

-I am curious if these are the same people who are upset that they have to purchase clothing if they want to walk about in public.

And indeed, you are not required to purchase anything. If you choose not to purchase health insurance (or take advantage of the subsidies available to you), then you can pay a fee into the health system that must make itself available, as required by law, when you end up in the emergency room.

You call it punishment. I call it contributing to the system.