The Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson, a disciple of National Organization for Marriage former chairman Robert George, has become a national spokesperson for opposition to marriage equality. In a new piece for Focus on the Family co-written with Heritage’s Andrew Walker, they make “a Millennial case for marriage,” citing a litany of arguments about the importance of not “redefining marriage.” Strikingly, not one of their arguments actually addresses the lives of gay people, and in turn, not one of their points would actually be compromised by same-sex couples marrying.

Here are some of their claims, many of which derive from an arbitrary definition of marriage that “men and women are different and complementary”:

Children Need To Have Fathers

Borrowing a tactic from NOM, Anderson and Walker invoke President Obama’s concerns about how growing up without a father has a significant negative impact on children.  They conclude, “fathers matter, and marriage helps to connect fathers to mothers and children.” But abandoned single mothers have nothing to do with same-sex couples, and studies about “fatherlessness” do not even include lesbian families in their samples. Heterosexual men deserting their families is a legitimate societal concern, but it has nothing to do with same-sex families.

Children Do Best With A Mother And Father

Without referencing a single citation — not even Mark Regnerus — Anderson and Walker proclaim, “For decades, social science has shown that children tend to do best when reared by their married mother and father.” It may be true that children do better with both of their parents as opposed to only one, but social science has found that committed same-sex couples are just as capable of effectively raising children.

They later acknowledge that a “relatively small number” of gay or lesbian couples “would be” raising children — avoiding the reality that they already are — but offer no thought as to how those families would actually benefit from the protections of marriage outlined throughout the rest of the post.

Men Will No Longer Stay Committed To Their Wives

This continues to be one of the most absurd arguments against marriage equality: “Redefining marriage would diminish the social pressures and incentives for husbands to remain with their wives and their biological children, and for men and women to marry before having children.” Whether men will cheat on their wives has nothing to do with whether same-sex couples can marry.

Marital Norms Will Dissolve

Anderson and Walker’s slippery slope suggests that if marriages were reduced to just “intense emotional regard,” they would not have to be permanent, limited to two people, sexually exclusive, or oriented to raising families. But all of these points are already true of opposite-sex couples: many divorce, some practice polygamy, plenty cheat or are open, and none have any obligation to raise children. This argument also undercuts the important protections that couples themselves gain from marriage through that “intense emotional regard,” particularly as they age. Because they don’t have access to marriage, older same-sex couples struggle economically and face extra hurdles to care for each other.

Marriage Equality Discriminates Against Christians

Somehow marriage equality “further marginalizes those with traditional views and erodes religious liberty.” Anderson and Walker are concerned that people who are prejudiced against same-sex couples marrying will be perceived as prejudiced, which just isn’t fair. Borrowing another popular talking point, they claim that Catholic Charities in Massachusetts was “forced to discontinue adoption services,” when in fact they voluntarily shut down because of their insistence on discriminating. They’re also afraid elementary school children will learn that same-sex couples exist, ignoring that they’ll already learn that if their classmates’ parents are same-sex couples. The underlying objection here seems to be that marriage equality will make it harder for Christians to discriminate against the gay community — discrimination for discrimination’s sake.

Society Will ‘Self-Correct On Marriage Over Time’

Anderson and Walker conclude their piece by constructing a narrative of momentum for opposition to marriage equality, imagining “Americans committed to marriage coming out of the shadows.” This optimism for their cause ignores that people of all ages are increasingly supporting same-sex marriage, a trend driven most robustly by the young people they claim to represent. Their hope is that when young people marry, they’ll appreciate the “gendered nature of parenting,” but what seems more likely is that they will only further appreciate just how much respect and security is denied to same-sex couples.

Research has previously demonstrated that ballot initiatives to ban same-sex marriage create psychological stress for the gay community, and new analysis from a massive National Institutes of Health study has confirmed the same effect. Around 2004, NIH began conducting interviews for a massive mental health survey, then followed up with the same participants a year later. In the 13 states that approved constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage that year, there was a sharp increase in psychological disorders among people who identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual, according to Columbia University psychologist Mark Hatzenbuehler:

“Lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals who lived in the states that banned same sex marriage experienced a significant increase in psychiatric disorders,” Hatzenbuehler says.

“There was a 37 percent increase in mood disorders,” he says, “a 42 percent increase in alcohol-use disorders, and — I think really strikingly — a 248 percent increase in generalized anxiety disorders.”

To put those numbers in perspective, although Hatzenbuehler did find more than a doubling in the rate of anxiety disorders in states that eventually banned gay marriage, in absolute numbers he found that anxiety disorders went from being reported among 2.7 percent to 9.4 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual people.

The effect was unique to members of the gay community and unique to those states, not occurring among LGB people in states that didn’t have ballot measures that year. Hatzenbuehler attributes the psychological stress to negative media portrayals, anti-gay graffiti, a general loss of safety, and a feeling of directly targeted for discrimination.

Conservatives regularly claim that there are “health consequences” associated with being gay, but they rarely admit that it’s their rhetoric and tactics that are responsible.

 

President Obama delivered the commencement speech this weekend at Morehouse College, an historically black all-male liberal arts school in Georgia. His remarks were remarkably gay-inclusive, challenging the graduates to be the best husband they can be even if their partner isn’t female, and to recognize the kind of oppression other groups experience, including gays and lesbians:

OBAMA: And that’s what I’m asking all of you to do:  Keep setting an example for what it means to be a man.  Be the best husband to your wife, or your boyfriend, or your partner.  Be the best father you can be to your children.  Because nothing is more important. [...]

As Morehouse Men, many of you know what it’s like to be an outsider; know what it’s like to be marginalized; know what it’s like to feel the sting of discrimination.  And that’s an experience that a lot of Americans share.  Hispanic Americans know that feeling when somebody asks them where they come from or tell them to go back.  Gay and lesbian Americans feel it when a stranger passes judgment on their parenting skills or the love that they share.  Muslim Americans feel it when they’re stared at with suspicion because of their faith.  Any woman who knows the injustice of earning less pay for doing the same work — she knows what it’s like to be on the outside looking in.

So your experiences give you special insight that today’s leaders need.  If you tap into that experience, it should endow you with empathy — the understanding of what it’s like to walk in somebody else’s shoes, to see through their eyes, to know what it’s like when you’re not born on 3rd base, thinking you hit a triple.  It should give you the ability to connect.  It should give you a sense of compassion and what it means to overcome barriers.

Watch the full address (HT: Towleroad):

In 2009, Morehouse College was the subject of controversy for instituting a dress code that seemed to specifically target gay men who occasionally cross-dressed. More recently, the university established a scholarship in the name of gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin and also began offering its first Black LGBT History course.

As state legislatures around the country move to enact marriage equality and civil unions, an anti-gay Christian legal and policy coalition calling itself the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has become a ubiquitous presence at committee hearings. But their misleading testimony in defense of the right to discriminate has done virtually nothing to advance their cause — and may even undermine it.

As the Delaware Senate debated a marriage equality bill earlier this month, opponents brought ADF senior counsel Jordan Lorence to the floor to offer testimony. Lorence noted a case in New Mexico (a state which don’t even allow same-sex marriage), in which an anti-gay vendor had faced legal action after violating state civil rights laws, and suggested that he believes such public accommodations laws are unconstitutional. “It’s the business owners that deal with weddings. It’s licensed professionals having their licenses threatened because they believe the wrong things about marriage,” he told the Senators.

Delaware state Sen. Dave Sokola (D), lead Senate sponsor of the bill, told ThinkProgress that Lorence’s right-to-discriminate arguments actually helped solidify support for the bill:

We had recently added “sexual orientation” to our non-discrimination statute in 2009, and debated and passed Civil Unions just 2 years ago. Even with a large turn-over in both the House and Senate, this issue was very fresh in many of our minds. Equality Delaware did a tremendous outreach to all, with a special emphasis on our newer legislators, so there was sufficient understanding of the matter, and I do think he just firmed up the positions of all on the prevailing side. We also now have a 4-year track record of how Delaware businesses are doing with respect to this, and the predictions of our opponents have not come true since we enacted either of the previous bills. The facts have significantly diminished their credibility.

Lorence also made this argument to the Delaware House of Representatives. Sokola’s House counterpart, Rep. Melanie Smith (D), told ThinkProgress: “I believe he was mistaken in much of what he said and misrepresented the bill significantly.” She added that as far as she knew, “no votes were swayed by his testimony.” The bill passed both chambers and was signed into law by Gov. Jack Markell (D).

Lorence also offered similar testimony in 2011 before the Maryland House Judiciary Committee, warning that “small businesses that decline to serve or participate in same-sex ceremonies could be sued for discrimination by a public accommodation,” ignoring the fact that Maryland law had prohibited such discrimination since 2001. The committee recommended the bill and voters enacted the law last year. Read more

Former Vice President Walter Mondale and former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis told ThinkProgress this week that they support marriage equality. With their endorsements, every living former Democratic presidential nominee is now on record in support of same-sex marriage.

Every other living Democratic nominee had previously made their support explicit.

The list includes:

• 1. Former President Jimmy Carter (1976 and 1980). Carter said last year “Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things — he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.”
• 2. Former Vice President Walter Mondale (1984). Mondale, who invoked civil rights legend Hubert Humphrey as he campaigned against last year’s proposed Minnesota marriage inequality amendment, said in an e-mail that he not both “opposed the constitutional amendment that would prevent legalizing gay marriage and I supported the legalization of gay marriage adopted this past week in Minnesota.
• 3. Former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis (1988). Dukakis confirmed his support to ThinkProgress in a May 12 e-mail.
• 4. Former President Bill Clinton (1992 and 1996). Clinton announced his support for marriage equality in 2009 and has actively campaigned for it since. Clinton had previously signed the anti-gay 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.
• 5. Former Vice President Al Gore (2000). Gore delivered a “forceful endorsement” of marriage equality in 2008, saying “gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women — to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage.”
• 6. Secretary of State John Kerry (2004). Kerry told the blog Blue Mass Group in 2008 that he “absolutely” supported civil marriage equality. He explained his evolution in a 2011 Boston Globe op-ed entitled “Politicians have the right to evolve on gay marriage.”
• 7. President Barack Obama (2008 and 2012). President Obama made his historic announcement one year ago, telling ABC’s Robin Roberts: “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

Former Senator George McGovern (D-SD), the 1972 Democratic nominee, also endorsed marriage equality prior to his death last year. He told the Daily Republic last May: “I’m a ‘conservative’ when it comes to marriage. I think if two people love each other, are living together and having sex, they ought to get married.”

To date, no living Republican nominee or president has endorsed same-sex marriage.

Two new polls show continued momentum for marriage equality in the states of Michigan and Virginia.

According to results from The Detroit News and WDIV-TV Channel 4, 56.8 percent of Michigan voters now support the freedom to marry — up 12.5 percent from last year — while just 36.7 percent oppose it. At least 65 percent favor some form of civil unions, but those are also banned by the state’s constitutional amendment defining marriage. Apparently, 54 percent would be prepared to vote to repeal that ban. A November poll similarly found that 56 percent support equality, while a poll from last May found only 41 percent approval. These various results suggest a significant sea change in Michigan over the past year on this issue.

Virginia has also experienced significant progress. A new Washington Post poll shows that 56 percent support marriage equality —  up 10 points from two years ago — while 43 percent remain opposed. A series of recent posts have shown mixed results in Virginia, such as two polls last month that only found 45 percent for the freedom to marry, while an October poll found 49 percent support. Many of these polls found higher support for civil unions or other forms of relationship recognition for same-sex couples.

Tuesday afternoon, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (DFL) signed the state’s marriage equality bill into law at a public ceremony. Addressing the crowd, Dayton applauded the state’s progress from defeating an anti-gay constitutional amendment to passing full equality:

DAYTON: What a day for Minnesota, and what a difference a year and an election can make in our state! Last year there were concerns that marriage equality would be banned here forever. Now, my signature will make it legal in two and a half months. First and foremost, I want to thank the people of Minnesota who voted last year to defeat a very destructive constitutional amendment and also to elect courageous legislators who would support this monumental social advance. I want to thank the activists… who worked so long and so hard to win this extraordinary victory. [...]

Last week, I suggested to you legislators that you read John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage book. Instead, you wrote its latest chapter. By your political courage, you join that pantheon of exception leaders who did something truly extraordinary: you changed the course of history for our state and our nation.

Watch his full remarks and the signing:

Minnesota is the 12th state to recognize marriage equality. The law takes effect August 1.

In many of the states that have waged marriage equality fights recently, opponents have often coalesced around a coalition consisting of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the state’s Catholic conference, and the state’s “family policy council” affiliate of the Family Research Council. In Illinois, however, these typical players have not united in the same way, seemingly in part because the state social conservative group is the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a hate group in its own right associated with the American Family Association.

IFI’s rhetoric is quite a bit more brazen than what anti-gay groups have used in other states, which may have scared away its would-be allies. As a telling example, NOM posted pictures from an IFI rally last week, but didn’t mention the organization by name nor link to its own post about the rally. Otherwise, NOM’s rhetoric has mostly been limited to threats of retribution against Republicans who might support marriage equality. The Illinois Catholic Conference has issued its own materials opposing marriage equality, and Springfield Bishop Thomas John Paprocki has made his share of negative comments, but there seems to be no coordination with IFI.

Today marks three months since the Illinois Senate passed the marriage equality bill, and with only three weeks left for the House to pass it, here’s a look at some of IFI’s rhetoric that is dominating the opposition:

• Today, IFI posted numerous photos from its rally this weekend, including a sign that reads, “The crime against nature will never be equal.”
• Speakers at the rally included ex-gay advocate Linda Jernigan and another hate group leader, Peter LaBarbera, who told the crowd that homosexuality is “unnatural and wrong,” citing HIV rates among men who have sex with men as evidence of “the dangers of homosexuality.”
• In February, IFI’s Laurie Higgins wrote that gay people shouldn’t even be allowed to teach because they’ll put pictures of their partners on their desk that students will see.
• In fact, IFI believes that parents should pull their children from any classroom that attempts to create a safe environment for LGBT students.
• IFI has claimed gays and lesbians already have equality because they can marry the opposite sex like everyone else; same-sex marriage is thus a demand “to be treated specially.”
• IFI recommends language that demonizes the gay community, encouraging opponents of equality to frame their resistance as compassion.

This extreme rhetoric extends beyond the talking points conservatives have traditionally used in these fights, which tend to focus on supposed protections for children, gender norms, and the institution of marriage. By openly condemning homosexuality as unnatural and curable through therapy — as well as enabling the bullying of LGBT youth — IFI sets itself apart. It remains unclear how many votes short the Illinois House is from passage or what is motivating those opponents, but with IFI’s strong presence in the fight, opponents’ will struggle to deliver a cohesive or approachable argument as the vote approaches.