Beth's Contradictory Brain

Why So Few Gay Marriages?

While the study below looks at numbers of gay marriages in places where it's legal as a part of the number of gays in those areas, I can't help but believe the numbers would be much different if gay marriage were legalized nationwide.

As I wrote a long time ago, why should I have to move to a certain state or city or part of the country just to marry the woman I've been with for over eight years now?

That said, the second post linked right below seems pretty reasonable to me.

I know several of my readers are lesbians in long term relationships - any of you care to answer why you would or wouldn't get married?

There are two very well written, thought out posts over on The Volokh Conspiracy. The comments on the posts are worth reading as well.

Here's the reference to the original study:

Maggie Gallagher's Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, which opposes gay marriage, has just issued a new report finding that few gay couples are getting married in jurisdictions where gay marriage is permitted. Here's the summary of the findings from the report:

The highest estimate to date of the proportion of gays and lesbians who have married in any jurisdiction where it is available is 16.7% (Massachusetts). More typically, our survey of marriage statistics from various countries that legally recognize same-sex unions suggests that today between 1% and 5% of gays and lesbians have entered into a same-sex marriage. In the Netherlands, which has had same-sex marriage as a legal option for the longest period (over four years), between 2% and 6% of gays and lesbians have entered marriages.

Here are exerpts from The Volkh Conspiracy:

The answer, I think, depends on why we think marriage rates among gays might initially be low. Every gay person on this planet right now has lived almost her whole life without the prospect of ever marrying the person she loves. Most gay people in most parts of the world probably still think the prospects for this are very dim where they live, despite what’s happened in Europe, Canada, and Massachusetts. Relationships have been started, plans have been made, worldviews and political ideologies have been formed, based on the absence of marriage as an option. Suddenly, for a few people in a few isolated jurisdictions, marriage is now a possibility for the first time in their lives. While some gay couples can be expected to jump the broom right away, it's not surprising that many others will need more time to assess this new possibility.

This is so for several reasons. First, the idea of marriage is still novel in gay culture and among gay individuals. As the report suggests, "novelty" can produce excitement – but it can also produce fear, specifically fear of the unknown.

Second, without the social encouragement and support that marriage provides for relationship formation, there are probably relatively fewer long-term and stable gay couples to begin with, and thus relatively fewer couples who would immediately demand marriages. Those couples secure enough and invested enough in their relationships can start taking advantage of the option right away, if that’s what they want, and they're likely to be the first couples to get married. But for other couples, the availability of marriage means staying the course or embarking on a new one. As new relationships are formed under a regime of marriage, these couples will eventually reach the point where someone pops the question, “Will you marry me?” All of this suggests there will be an adjustment period of some duration while more marriage-inclined couples form and while marriage becomes a comfortable and normatively appealing option to them.

Third, reinforcing the fear of the unknown is the fact that many gay people have actually constructed an oppositional identity for themselves partly based on their exclusion from marriage. Excluded from marriage, they have made a virtue of necessity: "You won't let us marry? We don't want to get married anyway." This oppositional identity takes many forms in the writings of queer theorists and in the things even ordinary gay people can be heard to say when the subject of marriage arises. One hears expressions of this oppositional identity like, "We don't need marriage with all its patriarchal and heterosexist trappings." Or: "I don't want to mimic straight people." Or: "Marriage is such a mess, with 50% divorce rates, why would we want to join it?" Or: "Just give us the benefits of marriage and you can keep the word." There's a stubborn pride, born of necessity, in being on the outside of a group that won't let you in. Some people will retain this oppositional identity no matter how much time passes. But for others, primarily those younger people whose identities are formed in an environment where marriage is an option, oppositional identity of this sort should fade. Mainstreaming effects like this are what many queer theorists fear about the coming of gay marriage.

I doubt that marriage rates among gays will ever equal marriage rates among heterosexuals, primarily because gay couples will be less likely to raise children. Even after marriage culture settles in, straight couples will be most likely to get married, followed by lesbian couples (who are more likely to raise children than gay males), followed by gay-male couples. But a disparity in marriage rates among heterosexual and homosexual couples is not an argument in itself against recognizing same-sex marriages.

Must Read

Michael Yon is currently traveling through Afghanistan and writing about the poppy fields and related economic issues, driving through the desert, and much more. You won't read anything like it.

Have you noticed?

Stupid People = Free Entertainment

Gloves

I'm not saying it happens every time, but on occasion, at work when I have to snap on the latex free gloves, I get just a little flash of something deviant in my mind!

Ani D

I've travled more to see Ani than is probably reasonable. I saw her for the first time in Austin about ten years ago after Caroline had left me heartbroken. Angela was kind and went with me. Ani ended the concert that night with Joyful Girl - the title I have a tattoo of.

Then maybe a year later Ani played in Oklahoma and I met up with Wendy and her g/f at the show. She flaked out on me after the concert - and that was a good thing because I had met Nerdstar only a week or so earlier and I called her from Oklahoma before the long drive back because I wanted to talk to someone about the show. That was the first show I saw Ani without her drummer Andy, and I was sad he wasn't there.

Maybe another year, or not quite went by, and Nerdstar and I planed our East Coast road trip. Ani was traveling south as we were headed north, so we caught her show in Raleigh, NC. One of my favorite pics of Nerdstar was taken while we were waiting for the doors to open. The venue was too damn hot that night, but I suffered through.

We saw her again at the Back Yard in Austin, a perfect venue. I managed to get a photo pass and took some decent pics. That was cool.

Then while Nerdstar was in Iraq and I volunteered at SXSW, I showed up one day and saw a flyer stating Ani was going to be speaking. I managed to get a decent seat there, too. And after she spoke I actually got to show her my tattoo and hug her. That was way cool.

Last night we drove just over two hours to Columbia to see her perform. She's had trouble with her wrists and took some time off from touring and now only had four or five shows scheduled. I didn't know it was going to be quite that far, and I figured an Ani concert would be a good antidote to the boring life we're living here in the Midwest.

I've never been a big fan of Ani fans. Last night I really wished I had a stack of stickers that said "HI, I'm a walking cliche!" The audience was 80% girls under 22, at least half of them baby dykes. I realized I've been listening to Ani for half of these people's lives!

I keep thinking it has to suck as an artist when your audience doesn't age with you.

This dude opened for her. He was ok. But he also was a perfect example of why I find it hard to take the far left seriously. His first tune was about lying to his kids about his past escapades. I don't disagree with the idea, but isn't the left all about openness and honesty? Then two of the five or six other songs were pretty extreme. One was about Ann Coulter's pussy stinking. Oh that's clever. And the other had a chorus about Pat Robertson's brains on a cross. Nice. It just doesn't win any points with me. I guess the far right has Michael Moore is fat jokes.

Is It Just Me?

I find that people whose political or religious ideas I mostly agree with annoy the hell out of me and I probably wouldn't enjoy spending an hour talking with them. But the people I think I would really enjoy hanging out with and talking to are people whose politics and/or religion don't square with mine. (These are people I read or hear on tv or something.)

I used to wonder if it was better to be the most conservative person in a pretty liberal city, or the most liberal person in a pretty conservative city. I think I'd much rather live in a liberal city.

Wow!

Self medication of the highest order!

Reminds me of my best friend in college, Laura, and the brownies we used to make that had a layer of chocolate you were supposed to pour on after they cooled, but if you poured it on while they were still hot - it soaked in just right. mmmmmmmmmm Of course, Duncan Hines just had to stop selling those particular brownies, and wouldn't even ship us a case so we could ration them out.

Soldiers In Iraq

Naturally, once Nerdstar returned home from Iraq over a year ago, I didn't really want to think about the place, or read blogs about it, or anything for a while. We both needed time to recover and move on.

Then I felt a little guilty, there are still so many good soldiers over there, and their families back home dealing with their loved ones being gone.

Doc is on his third tour.

Red's Navy boyfriend is there.

Tim Boggs is on his second tour and writes about a family making a home in a tent right next to his.

And so many more.

I guess I just want to say that my heart goes out to all of them.

Health Fairs

Work has been kinda crazy this week. Instead of getting hours at either hospital, I signed up to do several health fairs at an ammunition plant about an our drive from my house. I do get paid mileage, but they subtrack the miles from your house to the hospital that you'd be driving anyway, so that's going to put a big dent in mine.

Health fairs are pretty easy. The people usually have "better veins" than sick people. We just check their blood pressure and draw one tube of blood and send them on their way.

The crazy part has been the schedule. Monday I just had to drive out there and pick up a security badge. It was a good excuse to get out on the new motorcycle. But, it was only 60 degrees out and cloudy. Not ideal riding weather. Then Tuesday and Wednesday I had to be there at 6:30 and 6 - which meant waking up at 5:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. Fun. Yesterday because we were done there at 9 I went downtown to work a few more hours. Today I don't have to be there until 4:00 p.m., but we have a second health fair tonight starting at 10:30 p.m. which means I might not get home until around 1 a.m., and I have to be back there in the morning at 7. More fun. But, I'll be done by 10:30 in the morning and will come home and take a nap.

Other than that it's been an uneventful week.

Upcoming Travels

In a couple of weeks we're headed to see my family for my nephew's birthday. He's going to be 5. Damn how the time flies! Me, Nerdstar and my brother are taking him to Six Flags. Then the next day we'll have a party. He's so funny. He understands that riding rides isn't based on age, but height, so the other day he told my Mom that he'd been stretching all night. He's going to be mad he can't ride the big roller coasters!

Then...

Nerdstar was offered a three and a half month job at a base in Japan. Actually, they'd love for her to stay much longer, but that's about as long as we want to be apart for now. She'll make at least twice what she normally does for those three months! Plus, it's a job doing more of what she wants to be doing translation wise. (Hopefully she'll write about all this and explain it better!)

A few months ago I got my first passport. So I'll be using in in June to go over and visit her in Japan. How cool is that? I'll probably be there just over a week and we'll do a long weekend in Tokyo. (The base she'll be staying at isn't very far, but it takes about three hours by train to get to Tokyo.) It is a little daunting to do my first 13 hour flight all by myself. Plus having to get through their version of customs, etc.

It's not my first trip out of the States. I met a great lady from Mexico City at Baylor and went down to visit her a couple of times. We even took the bus from Mexico City to Acapulco. I do know, though, how hard it was for me to be somewhere I didn't speak the language and how isolating it was.

But it's all very exciting!!

New Motorcycle 1

New Motorcycle 1

That's my old bike next to it. I've been wanting a new motorcycle for a couple of years now. It's just been hard to justify spending the money when I have a decent bike already. Now that I'm working, it became a little easier, and Nerdstar was great about it! It rides and handles so much better than my old one. Of course, that's the difference between one built in 1990 and one built in 2006.

What's funny is, last weekend there was a used bike that I really liked but just couldn't talk myself into getting. After thinking about it a week, and finding out I'd actually put in some decent hours the next couple of weeks, I said, ok, I'll get it if it's still there. It wasn't. I was a little disappointed. Then we got to looking at the new ones and saw this one. It hadn't been there the week before. I thought I wanted a little bigger bike, but the sales guys told me this one really handles well on the highways around here. They were right. Even in some strong winds this afternoon, it was a great ride.

Hey Baby

I just want to say how wonderful my Nerdstar has been in my "going back to work" phase. I must admit I've been quite the wuss. I come home stressed about this and that, and aching all over from having to switch from sitting on my butt all day to standing on my feet. And I keep acting like I'm the only one working all day and can't possibly manage to actually clean the house or other such nonsense as well.

And for the record - she actually made banana bread last night that's better than mine. Yummy!!!

Extra Mile

You know the saying Go the extra mile, right? Well, my co-workers won't go the extra inch for each other. It really sucks. I'm not sure if it's the personality clashes or burn out factor.

Bleh.

Yeah

This sounds about right to me.

Work

Nothing like a real job to make me appreciate weekends - and how short they are - again!

I really, really like being a phlebotomist. The actual job is a lot like I imagined it would be. What's funny is I think it's a lot like waiting tables. I'm on my feet all day and dealing with people for short amounts of time.

So far, I'm not half bad with the needle. I've learned which patients I can hit a vein on, and which ones I can't. I'm sure my coworkers will be very happy when I learn to hit the ones I currently can't. A couple think it's a lack of confidence, but I don't agree with that. It's just that I'm not comfortable trying for a vein I can't feel. My "feeling" finger is getting more sensitive though.

What I don't like about my current job - my coworkers. Burn out is a very ugly thing. What's funny is that while they've all been very nice and helpful with me - the newbie - they don't all get along very well. It's just a clash of personalities, but still. I've got two sets of coworkers - other phlebs, and then the med techs who run the actual tests on the blood back in the lab. All the med techs have been really helpful to me, too. I wish I could see what a lab would have looked like 20 years ago before these hi-tech machines did all the work for them!

If they're all being so nice to me, why don't I like them? A lot of it comes down to absolutely nothing in common, and personality clashes. But I am determined not to argue with anyone, and to maintain a good attitude. It helps that Nerdstar and I really, really intend to move (hopefully sometime this year)!

I had a patient the other day who was 100 years old. Wow. Of course, he was one of the "hard sticks" but I gave it a try - and missed. I felt horrible! I'm sure the back of his hand is still purple (from the blood pooling under the skin).

I'd say 70% of our patients are white people over 55. Not very exciting.

But, if I like doing my job this much in a workplace where I have nothing in common with my coworkers and see the same types of patients all day - just think how much more I'll enjoy it when we move to a place we actually like to live and I hopefully have more diverse coworkers and patients!

Interesting

I'm not sure where I'd come down on this argument - not that it's really an argument. Not to mention, are there different arguments to be made for gays vs. lesbians?

I've never really considered any of the more well known gay people to be a role model for me. No, not Rosey, not Ellen, not Melissa. But, I am aware that there are people who do consider them to be role models.

As for the more "radical" gays in the history of gays, I think there were some very, very brave perverts (used in the best possible way) that did a lot for the gay community. But in the past twenty years or so, I'm not sure that the agenda of the supposed gay leadership has really been that affective. The same might could be said of the Log Cabin Republicans.

I still mostly think that it's your run of the mill gays and lesbians, living their lives "out" in the midst of the "straight world" that makes the biggest difference in how gays are perceived.