Lee, Welcome to the Lake.

Lane, Thank you for Hosting today’s Book Salon.

Hi Bev and Lane–Thanks for having me on!

Dr Badgett, what an honor to have you here at FDL. I was in the ceremonial courtroom and liveblogged your entire testimony during Perry. Thanks for your forthright and extraordinary testimony. How does it feel to be a part of history?

(Hi Lane!)

Hi Lee! Long time no chat. Thanks to Bev for setting everything up!

Good afternoon Lee and Lane and welcome to FDL

Lee, I have not had an opportunity to read your book so forgive me if you address this in there but what do you say to the folks who will say “but the time just isn’t right to do this?” (the all purpose concern troll statement to avoid any uncomfortable topic it seems )

Welcome to the Lake, perfect timing!

How are people in the gay community struggling to accept this change? It isn’t universally welcome?

Hi Teddy! Thanks for lobbing out the first question as I had to reset my password to login. Doh!

Here’s another question for Lee:

Much of your book read like the 109 pages of findings of fact by Judge Walker. How closely did you work with the legal team to share the research from your book an other work?

Hi Teddy–thanks for your work liveblogging–I followed it closely when I wasn’t in the courtroom! This ruling does feel historic–and It feels good to know that research and real facts can have an impact on how people think about marriage equality! I feel honored to have been a part of the trial.

How do you answer critics of applying your study of other countries’ same-sex marriage experience to America? Doesn’t American exceptionalism make it easy for marriage equality opponents to say that, “Sure, in the Netherlands….”

Hi Lane–I was asked to testify about several different things that drew on different aspects of my work. I’ve done a lot of research on the economic harms to couples and to states and economies from not allowing same-sex couples to marry. The legal team was of course interested in that. In fact, it was the City & County of San Francisco that originally asked me to testify. The timing of my book was pretty lucky–i certainly had no idea that a judge would be asking the questions that I had spent several years studying and writing about in the book!

You stole my question!

Hi–It’s an interesting question. Of course, the US is behind much of the rest of the world on this issue. But even in the US, same-sex couples have been increasingly recognized all over the country by an important institutional stakeholder: their employers. Over the last 20 years enormous changes have occurred as employers recognize the same-sex partners of their employees for purposes of benefits, health and pension benefits mainly. That process has involved LGBT employees talking to their coworkers and bosses about their lives, educating them on why equality matters. So this has been the US path, and now the US path is converging with the rest of the world with respect to thinking about the right to marry and recognition at a broad state level.

Heehee. How did it feel for you to be the liveblogger of the historic case?

That sounds just fascinating. Reminds us that there’s a great deal to the idea of ‘right place, right time’.

I’ve got a question not related to the Prop 8 case. As someone who remembers accepting the fact that I would never be able to marry, it’s been a really big change in worldview to now have that option. What does your research tell you about how different generations of LGBT people view their newfound right to marriage, albeit, in limited jurisdictions?

If I recall correctly, the Defendant-Intervenors’ counsel asked you, early in cross-examination, if you were a lesbian. Had you ever been asked that as an expert witness, and did it have the same Star Chamber quality to you as a witness that it had to us seeing it happen? “Are you now or have you ever been….” seemed to echo down history’s halls from the HUAC hearings and McCarthy’s heyday.

We all gasped in the Ceremonial Courtroom, but our reactions were necessarily less constrained than in-person observers. I wondered at the time if the Defendant-Intervenors’ counsel was creating a climate where anyone (the judge?) could be asked a corresponding question at some future time….

Teddy–I think my comment about US employers puts this issue in at true US context. But it’s also important to remember that the US is 50 states (and one wannabe–DC). The pattern here looks a lot like the pattern of change in Western Europe. The most liberal and most tolerant states are recognizing gay couples first; the states with the most family diversity (as in high rates of cohabiting heterosexual couples) are the ones recognizing gay couples first. And the pioneering states also have fewer members of conservative evangelical and fundamentalist faiths. That’s very similar to what I saw in Europe. I’m not sure that Massachusetts is the Netherlands of the US, but it does look like the Netherlands in those other ways.

I am in Arizona and as you might be aware we don’t exactly have a progressive bunch of folks running the state. Last year the governor and state legislature worked to prevent people working for the state who have significant others of the same sex from receiving state benefits. They had to widen that to anyone who is not legally married to the person working for the state. If the decision of Judge Walker is upheld through SCOTUS how do you think this will affect state laws such as Arizona’s?

Employers have also been the site of differential regarding states that enact civil unions, right? In NJ in particular, I recall an employer whose HR policies specified “spouse” with regard to benefits (perhaps it was UPS?). The employer told its LBGT employees, “Hey, the state could have allowed you to marry, but NJ chose civil unions. And that’s not spousal. So our benefits don’t apply.”

This was powerful evidence in the Governor’s Commission studying the implementation of the NJ Supreme Court’s order that marriage “or something equivalent” be granted to same-sex couples. Since NJ chose NOT marriage, employers responded by denying benefits when their policies specified “spouse.” The difference between employer treatment of civil-unioned same-sex couples and married heterosexual partners made the Commission conclude that the Supreme Court’s order wasn’t being followed.

Although NJ didn’t then enact marriage equality, and likely won’t under Chris Christie.

Hi Lane–great question. I think we’re seeing some generational differences. Some opinion research from the Harris INteractive/Witeck-Combs survey finds that younger LGBT people are much more interested in getting married than their older LGBT friends. There’s something about my generation and a bit older (let’s just say baby boomers) has made us more critical of marriage, even though every LGBT person I know is in favor of having the right to marry. People are suspicious of marriage because they sometimes think of it as a heterosexual patriarchal institution. When we’re excluded from the institution, it’s easy to complain about it and it’s at least partly a defensive strategy to say we’re just not interested. I think that marriage has changed a lot in a legal sense, and my own opinion is that it isn’t an institutions to be avoided. The people i interviewed for my book had the same range of opinions as LGBT people in the US. What’s most interesting to me is that people sometimes change their minds–I think that demonstrates the power of social exclusion to give us a reason to downplay inequality in some contexts. When people feel fully included, they often make different decisions.

Oh yeah, every time I’ve been an expert witness in a court case I’ve been asked this. Mostly it’s funny to see how uncomfortable it makes the questioner. I have no problem answering it!

Hi–it’s hard to say how the decision would affect AZ. I’ll have to leave that one for the lawyers. But there was a recent victory when a judge in AZ issued a restraining order stopping the state from taking away the partner benefits for employees with same-sex partners. Lambda Legal was behind that.

Hi Teddy–that’s a great example of how civil unions or domestic partnerships just aren’t the same as marriage. However, it’s also true that some employers continue to — legally–discriminate against employees married to same-sex partners. Big employers that are self-insured are regulated by federal law, so DOMA means that they can take a pass on covering same-sex spouses. In fact, in Massachusetts, only about 70% of employers say they cover same-sex spouses, while about 95% cover different-sex spouses!

Welcome to the Lake, Lee!

I haven’t finished your book yet, but what I have read so far I’ve found very fascinating.

I’m a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which has spent the last 20 years or so discussing, debating, and otherwise wrestling with issues related to human sexuality. Last year, the ELCA finally removed the rule prohibiting the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians (yay!).

In watching more than a few congregations wrestle with questions around the place of GLBTs inside the church and in broader society, the tone of the debate always changed — often dramatically — when a well-loved member of the congregation either came out themselves or disclosed that their child is/was gay. Suddenly, the dynamic changed. Folks weren’t talking about “those people” but rather about “Sue” or “Bill’s son”, and thus many stereotypes disappeared.

I vividly recall one elderly couple — pillars of the congregation — telling a large discussion forum about their family. The mother stood up and said to her friends at church three little sentences, delivered with a quiet voice:

“You all know we’ve got three boys, grown and on their own. One is going through his second divorce, the second is 40 and hasn’t gotten married because he still acts like he’s twelve, and the third is gay and celebrating the 20th anniversary of his relationship with his partner. If there’s one of my three boys who is modeling what it means to be in a lifelong relationship of love and commitment, it’s that third one.”

She sat down, the group was quiet for a long time, and I never heard a public homophobic statement uttered at that church after that.

That would be the issue I was describing. The state universities and the Arizona Board of Regents wanted to maintain benefits because of the worry of losing employees, especially faculty.

That is so true. I was just reading the Washington Blade today and there was a quote from Rufus Wainwright that said something like, ‘I wasn’t such a fan of gay marriage until I met my boyfriend. He is so amazing and now I want to know that I have that option.’ For me, having co-founded DC for Marriage, it’s an odd feeling having fought for the right to marriage and now having it, yet not having taken advantage of it. Perhaps some day soon…. ;-)

Hi Lee – I’m especially interested in your work in the Netherlands.

I’ve been a dutchophile for the longest time, and was a bit shocked post 9-11, as I’ve regarded them to be one of the most historically tolerant societies.

Did the vector of Dutch society’s regard of LGBT marriage change in any noticeable ways post 9-11 with it’s general shift toward Muslim intolerance?

Thanks for that moving story Peter! I’m also convinced that telling personal stories is a powerful tool that has been behind the change in status for LGBT people over the last few decades. Your story also shows the power of an ally to work from the inside to get others to see LGBT people as human beings. It’s wonderful to see that happen, and I hope it will happen more often! As gay couples marry, most people will get used to the idea even if they’re initially opposed, and that will become a ripple effect as others talk about seeing that experience and use it to humanized LGBT people and this issue.

I’ve got a friend in DC you should meet….

Can you briefly discuss what attitudes are on marriage when that marriage is only recognized by a limited number of jurisdictions and also not recognized by the Federal Government? I’m interested in hearing about the way individuals value a marriage that still isn’t ultimately the same marriage as other people have. When will we be able to make the argument about the harm that comes from that?

LOL! I’m always up for meeting new friends. But thankfully, I’m in a wonderful relationship at the moment and have high hopes for what the future holds. ;-)

Hi Kelly–An interesting and kind of disturbing pattern developed. The right wing government that took over had not favored marriage equality, and yet they found it to be a helpful tool in their attempts to reduce immigration. They used gay marriage as an example of a Dutch value that needed to be accepted by immigrants, and for a while they made prospective immigrants watch a video of two gay men kissing in an attempt to discourage Muslim immigrants. But overall, the vast majority of the Dutch population supports the idea of gay marriage (presumably for less Machiavellian reasons), and I know of no trend away from that.

Hi Lee. Welcome to Firedoglake.
Can you explain to me why marriage equality is so important in light of the fact that the vast majority of transgendered Americans don’t even have the “right” to work and support themselves? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for equality for everybody and that includes marriage rights. It just seems to me that we’re leap frogging some very basic human rights while focusing instead on social constructs. Thank you.

For me, the objection to marriage grew out of the feminist movement of the 1970s — marriage was a creation of Men, for Men, to benefit Men and keep womyn down. The people I knew who refused to marry in the late 20th century were all strong feminists, partnered with men who didn’t want to control them in a marital relationship.

These relationships had all the attendant expense and necessary lawyering that same-sex couples find themselves paying for and enmired in when marriage isn’t legal for them. But for the 1970s feminists, executing a contract as an equal was much preferable than entering into a patriarchal marital relationship no matter how liberated the man in it.

On another topic, do you think the American LGBT movement’s emphasis on marriage has hurt our other initiatives, particularly employment? In 37 states, gays and lesbians have no protections from being fired or denied housing due to our orientation. Yet the federal effort on ENDA has stalled, again. Will the spotlight on marriage only abate, and move to other issues, when we win at SCOTUS, do you think?

And will the focus on marriage help efforts elsewhere, or mobilize the opposition and thus make progress tougher? Which has come first elsewhere, have you found?

Interesting that generally Dutch society has a limbic system agility that we evidently lack in the US.

Oddly, I suspect that most people don’t realize that the federal government doesn’t recognize gay couples’ marriages. People seemed surprised when I show them my paycheck and point out the taxes I pay on my spouse’s health insurance that people married to different-sex spouses don’t have to pay, for example. So I’m not sure how much lack of federal recognition affects attitudes about marriage. But it certainly has a harmful economic effect on the married couples.

Do you think it has an effect on heterosexual people’s attitudes?

My own mom lives amidst the privileged wealthy who seem prideful about their intolerance and bigotry in the most casual ways, sometimes. She shuts down the anti-gay talk real quick at the bridge table: “You know, when you talk that way, you’re talking about my son and his partner of ten years, right?”

As I said, it shuts it right down. Personal witness is what people understand. And everyone has a family, and families are always weird.

Hi Margaret–Thanks for your question. THere are a lot of injustices that need to be addressed, and rights for transgendered people are among them. I guess the way I look at it is that there are a lot of people in this country, and we should be able to have different groups of us working on different issues at once. Plus each one of us has the capacity to follow a lot of different issues so we can work on more than one at a time! ANd every time somebody writes a letter to an elected official on one issue, they’ve just learned how to do it for other issues, too! The gay marriage issue has been an opportunity for many people to learn how to exercise their political voice on many other issues, and I’ve seen that happen in Massachusetts.

I’m not sure. That’s why I was asking the expert! LOL. Honestly, it’s a personal hesitancy that I have. Without federal recognition, I still feel like it’s just not the real thing. But I come at it from a much different place than most, so perhaps my question isn’t representative of a larger sample.

There’s lots of things Americans don’t realize about gay people. Surprise your friends sometime by telling them that gay American men can’t donate blood. Most people, even very progressive people committed to our issues and working alongside us to achieve them, are shocked.

O yeah, it does.

I was selected for a deep dive into our company’s benefits, as a receiver, what did I like, not like, etc.

Specifically about the health care, I raved about it; it’s a good plan. When it came to expense, and I told them nothing they could do could relieve the tax-unfairness, they were shocked. They didn’t know that.

Federal recognition is the holy grail: survivorship within Social Security is the brass ring. Without it, our surviving partners will struggle to support themselves, won’t be able to pay the rent on our apartments, can’t buy groceries, and might become dependent upon unhealthy and unsupportive birth-family members.

Our benefits under Social Security simply must be attained, fully and completely. Employers can ‘gross up’ earnings to cover the taxes paid on partners’ health benefits (Google does this, iirc) and can offer relocation assistance, tuition grants (in academia) and job search assistance when relocating a ‘trailing non-spouse.’ All these can be accomplished privately, but Social Security — which really matters to that big Baby Boom bubble coming into our benefits age — really, really matters.

I think the issues are connected in different and complicated ways. In my experience, it doesn’t matter which LGBT issue you’re talking about–the issue always comes down to the humanity of LGBT people and the need for equal rights. So when LGBT people talk about their lives and the injustices they face–whether at the workplace or related to marriage–we’re talking about the same thing in many ways.

When you’re talking about predicting what will happen, then I think the pattern is fairly clear. Almost always (internationally and in the US), civil rights protections for LGBT people came before marriage equality or some other kind of relationship recognition.

Finally, have you ever heard this argument in the marriage debate (I’ve heard it a million times): “I’m all for equality and don’t think discrimination against gay people is right, but I just don’t like the idea of letting gay people marry.” The first part of that sentence suggests that the marriage debate gives people a chance to make distinctions that we might not agree with, but those distinctions might be helpful in moving along some of the other important policy changes related to LGBT equality.

I think there are a lot of things people don’t realize about marriage either–what laws it does and does not give rights with. I think for most people marriage is an unthought step you take after finishing education.

In fact it’s probably that lack of awareness that is harming straight marriage. If your average straight people thought about what it means and whether it’s a good idea, they might not end in divorce.

I guess the way I look at it is that there are a lot of people in this country, and we should be able to have different groups of us working on different issues at once. Plus each one of us has the capacity to follow a lot of different issues so we can work on more than one at a time!

Thank you. I look at it that way too but too often the reality is that it’s a zero sum game. That is the issue close to the members of the majority always supercedes those of a minority and for some reason we never seem to get around to coming back to those issues and addressing them. The fact is that gay people and their supporters far outnumber transgendered people and their supporters and without support from the numbers that the gay and lesbian community represent, those issues are never going to be addressed.

Yes, it does shock them! I’m not sure it makes them see same-sex marriages as less valued, though. To me the harm of DOMA is less the symbolism than the practical reality, but I’m an economist!

I don’t think most folks understand all the benefits that are automatically conferred by virtue of a marriage license. Sure, they get that you check the box “married filing jointly” instead of “single,” but issues like paying taxes on insurance provided through your partner’s employment are eye openers to most non-LGBTs.

The group that MOST gets it, though, are the elderly who have outlived their first spouse and developed a new relationship with someone else. Questions about marriage immediately get into all kinds of legal and financial issues that non-LGBTs don’t think about. Tax consequences of selling one home and merging households, the effect on pensions and SSI payments, estate planning, insurance issues, etc.

These folks understand more of the legal complexities of marriage than most people, and are perhaps an untapped source of allies in the debates over marriage equality.

Social Security — which really matters to that big Baby Boom bubble coming into our benefits age — really, really matters.

Exactamundo. Without Fed acknowledgment and full participation in the Social systems, it’s separate and unequal.

That’s an interesting point. It also points up the fact that marriage is more than the legal relationship. People get married for lots of different reasons, and the practical advantages and disadvantages are often poorly understood. A friend of mine got married on New Year’s Eve because she thought that was kind of romantic–but she ended up paying more in taxes for that whole year as a result!

Great point! I hadn’t thought of it that way, but that heightened legal consciousness for older people makes sense. However, one of the best predictors of attitudes on the gay marriage issue is age, and it’s the younger folks who are the big allies.

Well, a California group has attained signature-gathering status for a ballot initiative to outlaw divorce there.

So all those protect-marriage people will have to put their signatures where their rhetoric is, I guess.

We must never say, “We’ll come back for you!” because history shows we hardly ever do.

One for all and all for one. Compton’s Cafeteria and Stonewall weren’t rioted on by polite homosexuals in boat shoes. Not that there’s anything wrong with boat shoes and chinos, but the cross-dressers who made our movement what it is today didn’t want to leave anyone behind. Certainly not their spiritual descendants.

You probably know this, but there are two cases in federal court that challenge DOMA, and this very issue was raised related to social security benefits (among others). Very recently the judge ruled that DOMA is unconstitutional, but we’ll see what happens on appeal.

The fact is that gay people and their supporters far outnumber transgendered people and their supporters and without support from the numbers that the gay and lesbian community represent, those issues are never going to be addressed.

Support is neither monolithic, nor walled off, Peg. I’m just saying that remember the folks like me who said “No T’s? No ENDA. Get real Barney Frank!”

People who are interested in equality, really ARE interested in equality; those who have parochial interests in the subset can often be dragged along once they finally “get it” about total equality.

We must never say, “We’ll come back for you!” because history shows we hardly ever do.

Well you know me Teddy….I’d never say that. Unfortunately that attitude is too often not the typical one.

The interesting thing with respect to marriage equality is that it is also a very important issue for transgender people. Once the sex of the person you’re marrying does not matter, transgender people will also have full marriage equality. In California, the state even took off the marriage license’s boxes for marking the sex of people.

I’m just saying that remember the folks like me who said “No T’s? No ENDA. Get real Barney Frank!”

Thanks. I’d never forget you flat or the friendship and support you’ve always shown me. :)

Another thought on this question–in the DOMA cases (Gill and Commonwealth of MA), the judge relied heavily on historian Nancy Cott’s work showing that states have always defined marriage in the US, not the federal government. So if what same-sex couples can do is called marriage by the state, then I suspect that most people in that state, at least, see that as a fully legitimate marriage, regardless of what the feds say.

The interesting thing with respect to marriage equality is that it is also a very important issue for transgender people.

Indeed! Though I didn’t know it until about fifteen years ago, it turns out that I’m intersexed with an XXY chromosome. Since my state assigns gender by chromosome, technically I can’t marry ANYBODY here. I’m not really fussed about that though. As I said, being given the “right” to work and rent and patronize shops is much more important and immediate to me. (Well not to me personally so much anymore but I don’t want others to have to go through what I did)

I’d be interested in hearing your opinions about leadership; specifically on DOMA.

This administrations reactions to Prop8 as well as it’s DOMA filings have been underwhelming at best, and in the case of the DOMA briefs, vituperative and over-reaching at worst in my view.

When a population is presented with wishy-washy leadership opinions, what happens with society’s development in your view?

The younger folks are more accepting, because they’ve been raised in an era when Ellen Degeneres has always been on television, and for many of them there have always been Gay/Straight Alliances at their schools.

The generation of the elderly — 70+ years old — never had that. But with a little nudge, they are capable of making the connection pretty quickly.

Barney has traveled a long way, showing all of us what a journey of learning looks like. I was among the most vocal in opposition to him, but I must credit him now: he understands inclusiveness, its value, and its importance to all of us. He’s hired a superb transgender person who continues to educate him and help us all work together.

I won’t forget the hurt he inflicted on my friends and my community, but I thank him for his service and his willingness to learn and grow. It’s a rare quality among our electeds.

Back to the book, though: Dr Badgett, what will you next study? Where will your work take you? What communities, states or nations provide the next template for understanding what happens when gay people marry?

On the issue of marriage equality, it’s state leaders whose opinions will make more of a difference at this stage. The Obama administration is in a tough spot on the DOMA case–Obama supports repeal but putting that into practice on an existing court case is another matter.

Although there are some fascinating things happening in other countries (I just got back from Argentina, for instance), I’m now doing more work related to the US. The recent changes in marriage laws in other states have sparked some ideas that I’m mulling over. I’ve been doing some further work on the harm of not being allowed to marry, too. In addition to the economic angle, the psychological angle is also important. I just finished a new paper showing that being allowed to marry leads to important feelings of social inclusion for LGBT people. I also do a lot of work on employment discrimination and am starting some new projects.

It’s not such a tough spot: if he and his Attorney General think the law is unconstitutional, then they can elect not to defend it in court. They can take their example from the Governor and Attorney General of California.

They may have to take their lumps, though, which seems to be the thing driving the Obama Administration on this topic.

I’ve often wondered if on the subject of marriage equality, DOMA and maybe even Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, perhaps Obama is hoping that the courts take it out of his hands and make a ruling. He seems to me like he’s trying to have it both ways on all of these related issues.

OK – then let’s narrow that down to California today.

Since the state didn’t defend, and Intervenors did, and since the state is echoing the Pf’s position on lifting the stay of Walker’s judgment, how do you think that plays out with California’s society?

I really want to know more about Iowa, if your studies take you there: how is a non-coastal, faith-oriented, agricultural state integrating marriage equality? Is it paying off for them economically? Are other, adjoining states seeing folks coming home married and demanding equal treatment?

That’s where the “real American” example is, in the heartland. Not among the coastal elite states where anything goes.

Is there a national economic impact study on marriage equality in the works? Your research on a state by state basis has been very helpful in each of those jurisdictions.

Lee, the various charts and figures in your book are wonderful distillations of a lot of research and careful attention to details and assumptions. My favorite, so far, is on p. 23, where you lay out a picture of how same-sex couples go about deciding whether to marry. To introduce the chart, you wrote:

In my conversations with same-sex couples, I observed an intricate, layered process in choosing whether to marry that involved factors from all the social sciences. Figure 2.1 presents the different pieces of that process. I would expect different-sex couples’ decision-making process to be at least somewhat similar, given the overlap of my approach and that of other social scientists, but some of the factors involved here are much more relevant to gay and lesbian couples.

In the chart, you break out issues and choices related to the individual, the couple, and society, and then look at various pieces of the decisionmaking process — preconditions, the “spark” for the decision, the value of the choice, barriers, processes, and outcomes.

The rest of the chapter — “Why Marry?” — explores all these pieces, but the chart itself is an excellent examination of a process that most people simply go through but never particularly look at. (And I do think that much of it is also part of the opposite-sex couple decisionmaking process, even the social issues and choices. Social disapproval is not limited to same-sex couples: “What will my PhD-holding parents think if I tell them I want to marry a plumber?”)

Excellent, excellent stuff!

Great question. We might get an answer in the fall election. Republican gov candidate Meg Whitman opposes marriage equality but Jerry Brown obviously supports it. It will be interesting to see if the Perry case influences that outcome.

Apologies to Lee for taking this off topic again- But Teddy, do you remember that amazing thread during ENDA (your piece we’ll pick you up later) when Dr. Dick was leading the discussion (so to speak) and I was chiming in? I was really astounded by the level of ignorance (sorry I can’t find a more polite word) about transgendered people from seemingly educated people? It was heart breaking. Perhaps it’s time to find an appropriate book on this for Book Salon, and try to educate people.

I’ve got similar questions about Iowa. I spoke at Drake U last spring, and that audience seemed quite comfortable with gay marriage. It is geographically different from the other states, but it was no accident that Iowa is a marriage equality state. They were one of the first to have a sexual orientation nondiscrimination law. And the U of Iowa was the first state university to offer partner benefits back in the early 90s, as I recall.

Excellent idea, perhaps Dr Badgett can suggest a book or author she’d recommend on this topic?

Missouri has had a sizable number of couples head north to get married, even though MO won’t recognize it.

But even if the state does not, it is beginning to have an impact anyway:

Missouri’s Michael and Chuck Hewitt road tripped to Iowa on May 17 for their marriage license, but when they contacted the Kansas City Star to share the good news with the paper’s readers, they were turned down. Missourians, after all, amended their state constitution banning same-sex marriage in 2004; that means the newspaper never had to deal with the issue of gay weddings.

But after the Hewitts were quickly turned down by the Star, editors there decided to chat about their policy — and ended up reversing it, reports Fox 4. As of last week, the Star now publishes same-sex wedding announcements. According to reader’s editor Derek Donovan, “We couldn’t come up with a compelling reason why not to.”

Sounds like of like Vaughn Walker’s ruling, doesn’t it?

Not at the moment. Since the decision gets made on a state-by-state basis, our policy analyses have focused on that level. (We’ve done lots of work on federal issues for same-sex couples, though, like the impact of taxing DP benefits or inequities in the estate tax system.) Back in 2004, the Congressional Budget Office did an analysis of the impact of marriage equality on the federal budget, though. They found that the federal budget would gain, on net, about a billion per year if gay couples could marry!

Caitlin Ryan could be a good person for that, as she has done a great deal of research on transgender issues. Cathy Renna knows her well.

Thanks Peter! I’m really glad you liked that chart–it’s my inner sociologist showing! I think you’re right about different-sex couples, too. It’s interesting–the marriage decision is so much taken for granted by social scientists, probably because it was once so (almost) universal, that there have not been many studies or theories exploring that decision.

CBO analysis is here.

Which reminds me: what’s up with men taking their husbands’ names? I first noticed this in the NYTimes announcement of Mitchell Gold and Tim Scofield’s wedding. Is this something gay people are doing, Dr Badgett? It sure seems to hearken back to the chattel days, although I’m sure the married couples who take their partners’ name don’t see it that way….

I’m curious if it happens a lot.

I don’t know of any studies on this. ANecdotally, I’ve mostly seen hyphenated names when there was a change, but most of the same-sex couples I know have not changed their names. It would be interesting to look at and study!

Before you head out, Lee, one last question from me….what is your favorite thing about being married???

I’m now told that I must go out and enjoy the Portland sunshine, which as you might know is very rare in my new city.

Thanks so much to Lee Badgett for this book and taking time on a weekend to chat with us. I hope everyone will buy this book — it provides so much useful information (ammunition) when discussing the topic.

And, Lane, thanks and best wishes!

As we come to the end of this great Book Salon,

Lee, Thank you for stopping by the Lake and spending the afternoon with us discussing your new book and marriage equality.

Lane, Thank you for Hosting this great Book Salon.

Everyone, if you would like more information:
Lee’s website
VIDEO

Lane’s website

Thanks all.

Say it isn’t so!

A long time ago I thought the marriage idea was dumb. I called it the “LWPF(Little White Picket Fence) Syndrome.”

And at that time, I maintained “We don’t want to BE like you; we want to be TREATED equally, like you.”

I since evolved to the opinion that words matter, and so “marriage” was going to be it. But this name thing is a bit much IMO.

Hi Lane–Hard to say….I think it’s the public commitment piece of it. We were able to say that in a socially and legally meaningful way to each other, and others heard us say it–and remind us of that!

Thanks so much for all of the great questions. I enjoyed the discussion!

I’ve seen same-sex couples hyphenate their names, to emphasize the union, but never seen a case where one man took the other’s last name. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s not something I’ve seen either in CA or MO/KS.

Thanks for being here — and for your testimony at the Prop 8 trial!

Thanks Lee!

Thank you Lee. :)

Thanks so much Lee! Keep up the amazing work. Thanks also to everyone else for a great discussion!!!

Thanks Lee, thanks Lane

and Bev

Best of luck with the book sales and your future research.