Tons of stuff out there today on marriage for same-sex couples.    What can one add?   I offer this, which is a view from the Guardian.co.uk.   I often find their coverage interesting and insightful.  I do think it is the view from a distance that helps.   Here’s a commentary on there about the marriage issue and the political outlook for the fall.

And while I’m linking to the Guardian, here’s a thoughtful account of a bit of science news that bouncing around out there.   It seems that there are similarities in the physical structures of the brains of gay men and straight women, on the one hand, and lesbians and straight men on the other.   (I believe the brains of straight women and gay men are more symmetrical, while straight men and lesbians have a slightly larger right hemisphere.)   Kudos to the Guardian reporting of the story for two reasons.  First, they note that the scientists have only an observation of correlation and do not assert causation.   Indeed, it seems they (the scientists) think there may be a common cause for both sexual orientation and brain structure.   Second, the Guardian discusses what the point of research like this actually is.

Here’s an interesting release from a collection of organizations who have been instrumental in obtaining access to marriage for lesbian and gay couples in California.   (There’s also a story about the release in today’s LA TImes (registration required, I think, but free).

Unlike Massachusetts, California will allow out-of-state same-sex couples to marry.   Thus, it’s expected that people will travel to California from all over the country to get married.

While states typically recognize and honor marriages that are validly performed in other states, this is not and never has been a universal rule.   For example, if you leave your home state because you are too young to marry there, travel to a neighboring state that has a lower age and get married, and then return to your original state, your home state may or may not recognize that marriage.

In the case of marriages between same-sex couples, it’s clear that most other states won’t recognize those weddings.   That’s because many states have adopted laws or amendments to the state constitution that bar recognition of marriages between two people of the same-sex.    The possibility that people who have married in CA will be unhappy about this and seek to sue in their home states is clear.   And, as the memo just issues makes clear, worrisome.    Hence, the unprecedented (as far as I know) call from all these organizations–many of the legal organizations whose primary business is suing people–asking people NOT TO SUE.

And while I’m on the subject, one other point I feel I should make.   Just because your home state doesn’t recognize your marriage doesn’t mean you aren’t married.   If you go to CA and get married you will be married.   Getting married has many many legal ramifications.   You cannot just walk away from a marriage and decide you are now unmarried, for example, but must actually get divorced.    It’s worth thinking through the implications pretty carefully.

Big story in today’s New York Times about what one might learn about gender and relationships from examining same-sex relationships.  Interesting observations ranging from one about supposed perishability  of same-sex relationships (which, if it is so, may be attributable to lack of legal/social support) to greater fairness in how couples fight.

Also of note:   the first of San Francisco’s lesbian/gay community to marry will be legendary lesbians  Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.   They are both in their eighties and have been together for over fifty years.  Mayor Gavin Newsome will preside at the ceremony, which will be at 5:00 on June 16.    Generally, weddings will begin on June 17, starting at 8:00 AM.

Here’s a link to an article about a recent study on teen sex.   Seems that declining rates of teen sexual activity and rising rates of condom use have both leveled off.   So while it used to be that fewer teenagers were having sex (however the survey defined that) and more were using condoms, we cannot take comfort in that any more.  Indeed, there are apparently some suggests that there’s more sex and less condom use–surely a bad combination.

Not surprisingly people do not agree on why this might be happening.  Promoters of comprehensive sex ed blame abstinence-only education.  Promoters of abstinence-only sex ed blame comprehensive sex ed.  Yet other people point to the pervasiveness of sexualized imagery in the media.   Or maybe it’s the internet.   Or the economy.   (Okay, I don’t quite get the economy rational.  Is it cheap entertainment?)

Today the California Supreme Court voted 4-3 not to stay its ruling in the marriage case.   The split on the court was the same as in the original opinion.

What this means is that same-sex marriages can proceed in California, starting on June 17.   Anti-marriage organizations (and the attorneys general from ten states) had requested a stay until after the vote in November on amending the California Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a women. If this initiative is successful, it will have the effect of overruling the California Supreme Court and prohibiting marriage between people of the same sex.   (It’s unclear what that might mean for people who get married between now and election day.)

Unlike Massachusetts, California does not have an anti-evasion statute.  What that means is that people from outside California can travel to California and get married.   The legal effect of any marriage by non-Californians will vary.  For example, Governor Paterson in NY has ordered that NY state recognize lawful out-of-state same-sex marriages.  Thus, a NY couple who marries in California will be recognized as married in NY as well.   But many states have specific laws and/or constitutional amendments that prohibit recognition of out-of-state same-sex marriages.   For people from these states, chances are CA marriages will not be recognized.

The fact that a marriage is not recognized DOES NOT MEAN that you are not married.   Here’s what I mean. If a WA same-sex couple went to CA and got married, chances are high that WA will not recognize that marriage.   But this doesn’t mean that the couple is not married.  And if in time the couple travels to NY, they will be recognized as married.

That might be particularly important if one member of the couple wishes to marry (or domestic partner?) someone else.   The CA marriage probably needs to be dissolved via divorce before a person commenced a new relationship.  And the catch?  California has a six month residency requirement before it will grant a divorce.

Here is an account of an argument before the California Supreme Court last week.   This is, you’ll recall, the court that recognized that same-sex couples have a constitutional right of access to marriage a few short weeks ago.  As the article reflects, court watchers seem to expect another win for lesbians and gay men.

Benitez (I’ve read two different first names for her, so I shall use only the last) is a lesbian who sought fertility services from the defendant doctors.   They declined to provide them, asserting that it violated their religious faith to do so.   (They insisted it was not because she was a lesbian but rather because she was unmarried.  This leads me to wonder whether they’ll be willing to provide these services come June 17, when married lesbians might appear at their door.  That is not before the court.)

The court was asked to determine whether the doctor’s conduct constitutes unlawful discrimination or whether they are exercising protected rights to religious freedom.   Similar issues have arisen recently in other contexts in other states–for example, can pharmacists refuse to provide the morning-after pill because they are opposed to abortion?   (A current case involving Washington pharmacists being litigated by the Northwest Women’s Law Center.)

As the article notes, the court did not seem to be inclined to allow the doctors to pick and choose among patients based on their particular religious beliefs.    Watch for the court’s opinion in about ninety days.

A new category today–Reading/Listening Notes.    I run across interesting things from time to time and figured I could just point people to them.

There’s a podcast up at Slate right now that begins with a discussion of New York magazine article about promiscuity.  Both are interesting.    The article follows a popular “men are naturally promiscuous” line that is supported by some current sociobiology research.   It’s an interesting effort to naturalize (and therefore validate?) promiscuity, but apparently exclusively for men.  (The same sociobiology suggests that women are naturally monogamous.   There is, of course, a dissenting view.)

Kudos to the podcast particularly for raising the lesbian/gay critique of marriage that the article manages to overlook.  Although the podcasters take this to be largely a gay male critique and I think they’re only thinking of one axis of the critique.   Still, it’s something.

I’ll confess to having let this blog slide over the past month or so as classes came to a close, and so on.   I’m not sure what to do about the name if I continue it.  But I figure I can work that out.

Meantime, here’s a link to an article about interesting developments in the UK.  You can read a bit more about this on my other blog, if you like.   For months the Parliament has been considering a big piece of legislation overhauling a lot of reproductive rights stuff.   The bill generated controversy around diverse topics like abortion and the creation of human/animal hybrid embryos.   One particularly controversial piece eliminated language that spoke of “the need for a father” in consider provision of IVF (that’s in vitro fertilization).   This was understood to be about the ability of single women and lesbian couples to create families via IVF–they, after all, are the ones who would have children without fathers.

An amendment sought to retain the “need for a father” language.   The vote was Tuesday and the amendment failed.  Thus, the legislation remained as proposed, inserting “supportive parenting” in place of “need for a father.”

As far as I can tell this is entirely about lesbian families.  Gay men, after all, would have an excess of fathers (if anything).   No one has suggested any “need for a mother” language.   What’s slightly ironic is that gay men are far more likely to use IVF than are lesbians.

I’ve actually been waiting for the spate of articles like this one. In order to meet recruiting goals, the armed forces are issuing increasing numbers of waivers, allowing convicted felons to serve in the military. These go to people convicted of everything from thefts, burlgaries and simple assaults on through sex crimes and manslaughter. We are assured this is okay, though.

At the same time, the military continues to discharge gay men and lesbians with perfectly good service records, even distinguished ones, because they are–well—gay men and lesbians. No waivers for them. Oh no. That might put us all in jeopardy.

I feel so much better now.

For the last week or so there have been a whole series of stories about a police raid on a community of polygamists in Texas.   The most recent story from the New York Times is here, but there’s a ton of coverage anywhere.   The police have focused on allegations of child abuse which are apparently grounded in allegations that a number of young women under 17 have given birth in this community.

I’m not particularly a fan of teen-age pregnancy, but it’s not extraordinary in this day and age for women who are 16 to have children.   And many times in our history it would have been entirely unremarkable.   But of course, there is much more going on in this case than simple teen pregnancy.   One concern is that the men who fathered these children were significantly older than the women–perhaps as much as 30 years.   A second concern is that the religious sect involved was quite hierarchical.   Both of these factors might suggest that the women did not truly consent to sex/marriage.

Now I don’t actually know very much about what it might have been like to live in the community involved here, so I pass no judgment on the conditions there.   But it is striking to me that there is such care over the women’s capacity for true consent in this setting.   There are so many instances in which we seem much more willing to assume consent, even when confronted with ambiguous circumstances.

I’d guess the different reactions have to do with a couple of factors.   There’s a lot about the sect that seems alien to us.   In particular, it is a polygamous sect.  I wonder whether a general uneasiness about differentness in general and polygamy in particular leads us to be particularly skeptical about assertions of consent and free will.