When There Are No Experts

Hi Tom — long time, no see. When I saw this bit from your Breakpoint post:

For experts to pronounce on the matter would require a scientifically responsible study that examined the effects of same-sex “marriage” and parenting not only on couples’ children, but also their grandchildren, and preferably also their great-grandchildren (not to mention the wider culture). Ideally it would also include informed consent from all subjects—great-grandchildren included.

I was reminded of the old creationist canard that science would need to provide every transitional fossil in order to “prove” common ancestry among various species. It’s a symptom of the wide-spread misunderstanding among dogmatists that “objectivity” should mean “complete certainty”, and that a theory, or even just a hypothesis, should not be put forward until every conceivable shred of relevant evidence is found and verified in support. (Of course, there is no shortage of real, honest experts — or of real, compelling evidence — to support common ancestry, but the creationists just refuse to see that.)

People with such a point of view keep forgetting the obvious: we must always move ahead on the basis of incomplete information. We must always make decisions based on the preponderance of the best evidence available, even with the unavoidable expectation that later evidence might leaad in a different direction from the one we choose now.

In that regard, it should be entirely sufficient to look at a single generation of children, doing the best we can to treat relevant factors – education, economic status, extent of extended-family and/or community support, etc – balancing these in our sampling of observations, if possible, or at least accounting for them in our evaluations.

If, as nearly all of the studies so far have shown, we find no significant difference between same-sex and male-female parents with regard to the general happiness or dysfunction of their children, then it actually does make sense to say that healthy, happy children are no more or less likely to come from one kind of couple vs. another; i.e. sexual orientation of the parents is not a useful predictor of successful or faulty parenting.

In the case of the one “outlier” study you mentioned (M. Regnerus), you do your readers a disservice by mentioning only the most vitriolic (some might say ad-hominem) reaction to it. Other critics have presented detailed, careful and evidence-based objections. Here’s a link to a non-academic but well-informed response:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/zinniajones/2012/06/regnerus-deconstructed-how-a-new-study-misrepresents-same-sex-parents/

Given that we do have a novel type of familial structure emerging in our society, owing to the recognition that sexual orientation should be protected as a personal freedom, it certainly is to everyone’s advantage that we all learn more about what this new structure really does bring with it.

Even in the absence of careful and diligent sociological study, we all as citizens owe it to ourselves and our fellow citizens to gain a better understanding of same-sex parents, and same-sex couples generally.

If you live in a city of any appreciable size, you probably have same-sex couples as neighbors (I do). If you can see them without prejudice or bigotry, you should be able to recognize that they are good people who have a lot in common with you: they work, they pay taxes, they prefer friendship over hostility toward their neighbors, and they want their children to be safe, well taken care of, well educated, and well adjusted.

If you demean them and call them wrong or bad because of your own personal religious beliefs, then you can safely assume that their religious beliefs differ from yours. And in the USA, people are entitled to that sort of difference, so you should just get used to it, even if you can’t recognize the bigotry in your own beliefs.

Two points to refute this part:

There is no require­ment that we “always move ahead” into the unknown … that we “always move ahead” into the incom­pletely known.

(1) Sure, stagnation is always an option. Well, not really – at least, it’s never an attractive option. It goes against our nature. (2) How often, in the realm of human interactions, can you cite cases of moving in any direction with complete knowledge of ultimate consequences? It makes no sense to assert that there is “no requirement” to proceed with uncertainty, when in fact there is no alternative but to proceed with uncertainty. And it should go without saying that the “certainty of faith” is not universally shared or trusted, or at all reliable in practical terms.

There is no fear that future infor­ma­tion will find that a male-female cou­ple is an inher­ently bad par­ent­ing sys­tem. That’s not unknown ter­ri­tory.

The issue is not about “inherent” goodness or badness, but rather about the likelihood and extent of success. The point is that the population of hetero couples has an obvious “error rate” when it comes to parenting skills. And that error rate is not demonstrably greater or less than the error rate for same-sex couples; there is evidence available to all who have the willingness to see it. Sexual orientation is not a useful predictor, and it is a serious mistake to prejudge people’s parenting ability on the basis of their sexual orientation.

All your own faith-based certainty notwithstanding, your assertion of “sig­nif­i­cant rea­son to believe that same-sex cou­ples will pro­vide weak­ened par­ent­ing” is not well grounded in evidence. I expect it can be true that same-sex parents have a harder task before them, owing to the discrimination they face, but that problem is not intrinsic to the parents – it’s a problem they must cope with in a prejudicial society.

the Reg­nerus study may not be such an out­lier as you think

That study may well stand out as one in which the stated conclusions were not supported by the evidence provided. Read to the bottom of the link I gave above, and see if you can understand the problems in Regnerus’s work.

Big­otry? How do you define that?

I’ll accept the definition given by my Random House Unabridged dictionary: “stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief or opinion other than one’s own”.

Is it in hav­ing dif­fer­ent beliefs?

There’s obviously more to it than that, including the insistence that your own beliefs must hold sway over the choices and actions of others, without regard to their concerns. We do not have “parity” on that point: contrary to all the effusive bluster from “pro-traditional-family” conservatives, gays and supporters of gay rights are not proposing any sort of attack on “traditional marriage”; they are not seeking to take anything away from heteros. They are only seeking parity, where their opponents are seeking to forbid parity. Rational heteros do not feel threatened, because there is no rational basis for perceiving same-sex marriage as any sort of threat.

Is it in con­demn­ing cer­tain behav­iors? We’re in par­ity there, too!

If I understand that part right, you want to sustain your position by asserting that any objection to intolerance is itself a form of intolerance — is that it? Sorry, no real parity there.

Recall that my suggestion was “get used to it,” as in “stop trying to meddle in the private affairs of other people, in whose lives your own personal beliefs are not relevant.” If I say to you “Keep your own beliefs as you see fit, but don’t expect others to accept them,” would you really say I’m being intolerant or bigoted? If so, you would be trying to redefine the term to suit your attitude.

In contrast, if you say “gays should not be allowed to raise children, because I believe that’s bad and I don’t accept evidence to the contrary,” and you pursue sustained activity to impose your position by law (and to hell with the Bill of Rights), I would see the label of “intolerance” (bigotry) being a pretty close fit, if not dead-on.