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Thompson: There is evidence showing that boys growing up w/o fathers have probs with sexual and gender identities. Evidence that comes from 1990s.

Lamb: Not familiar with research on gender identity in 1990s.

Thompson: your Role of father, 1997 edition. Describing Chapter 11 of volume. Seem to have problems with school performance, and social aggression. You were describing state of art lit.

Lamb: If you look at paragraph in context it cites earlier lit, it’s a reference to earlier studies. Absolutely these are discussed.

Thompson: You intended your book to be up to date and current.

Lamb: I intended to put results in context. To quote from previous sentence.

Thompson: There is increasing evidence that relationship w/father long term impact of adjustment.

Lamb: It is correct that children who grow up in hetero families do benefit when they have good relationship with father, contrarily may be probs if they don’t have good rel.

Thompson: Relationship with father, and way they interact with peers.

Lamb: Quality of rels that children have with parents, have short and long term effects.

Thompson: David Blankenhorn. You said easily most provocative commentary published in 1995.

Lamb: I’m glad. He found it a rather negative review. I’m glad I couched my criticism so carefully.

Thompson: Parents may be different, and some may be related to gender. You think probably beneficial from having relationships with different people.

Lamb: The more different people you have deep relationship wiht the better.

Thompson: You would concede that it’s relevant to have male role model.

Lamb: Both boys and girls do copy people in a variety of way. It’s a way children learn about different ways of behaving.

Thompson: It’s not irrelevant.

Lamb: Children do benefit from role models, and society is replete with role models.

Thompson: Influence on children’s gender roles.

Lamb: Evidence on extent to which children make a great deal of use of role models inside and outside the home.

Thompson: There isn’t any evidence for children to see traditional role model.

Lamb: Whenever I hear the word “any” my attenae start to wiggle.

Thompson: Turn to Howard deposition.

Lamb: There isn’t any evidence to see that in a home. In part because children see so many role models outside the home.

Thompson: You would include someone on TV.

Lamb: Most real world, it’s someone child comes in contact with: teachers, relatives, friends.

Thompson: Having committed father good.

Lamb: When children do have father having him involved in life is important.

Thompson: Having a mother is really important too. Do you think having a mother is important to a child’s development?

Lamb: It depends. There are certainly circumstances when children do perfectly well when raised by someone other than mother.

Thompson: Is there a rich empirical literature in your field showing that mothers are irrelevant.

Lamb: One would have to ask what use of word mother used in that phrase. If you mean mother biologically conceived and bore the child.I testify ni everything I have written about importance of relationships of people taking care of them. When that person is a woman, and identified as mother, supremely important. But gender is not the important part.

Thompson: You used phrase traditional family. Married biological mother and father.

Lamb: Usually broader than that. Cases where not only married biological mother and family. Stay at home mother, early child care provided in home. Anything deviating from those non-traditional family.

Thompson: Some elements that still assume traditional family best for children. Even among social scientists, diverse range of opinion.

Lamb: Consensus is structure is not as important.

Thompson: Personality under genetic influence. Similarities between genetic parents and offspring.

Lamb: There can be similarities, because two different parents, it may be a blend, also quite common that child like one parent and not like other. Genetics is one factor that influences those things.

Thompson: Those similarities would influence adjustment.

Lamb: If there were similarities it would be one factor. You could conceive of those situations where someone’s temperament is irritable, that might affect parenting.

Thompson: Your deposition. Certainly we know personality influenced by genetic influence. Genetic factors significant influences. You gave that testimony.

Lamb: Yeah.

Thompson: Importance of family structure. Marriage is correlated with outcomes. Ways in which marriage correlated, varied in both direct and indirect pathways of influence. Let’s look at reconstituted family. Fairly substantial body of evidence, addition of stepfather often not posiive event.

Lamb: Certainly true.

Thompson: But you don’t think family structure affects processes.

Lamb: Entry of stepfather in trying to establish relationships would. Clearly correlation in structures.

Thompson: Family structures matter married biological family and cohabiting family.

Lamb: You’d have to look at those processes. Evidence shows that its the within the family processes.

Thompson: As between married biological family and cohabiting you don’t think affects structure. Turn to deposition in Cole case. Five weeks ago?

Lamb: Or four weeks ago? Recent.

Thompson: How does married biological family structure in a way different from cohabiting couple where only one person related. “I don’t think family structure affects family processes.” You gave that testimony, correct?

Thompson: If we did not control for other factors.

Thompson: Child trends research group.

[Objection–sounds like this is one of the ]

Thompson: Withdrew Dr. Marks and other experts bc of concern of video recorded. They were extremely concerned about personal safety. Did not want to appear with any recording whatsoever. No limitation on court’s ability on taking judicial notice, same thing SCOTUS in Brown and Roe and others has looked at.

Thompson: It is not simply the presence of two parents, but presence of two biological parents that seems to support children’s development. You didn’t even consider this document when you put together your report.

Lamb: Research review, put together by very well respected people. Not a scholarly document. Primarily designed to contribute to popular understanding of these issues. It’s not something I would want to distance myself from. Review of research on children born to hetero parents, grow up with them or in families with only one of them. Believe it probably also talks abotu effects of step parenthood. In that context, that particularly summary statement seems to be reasonable summary of it. Uses causal language more often than is warranted, I suspect bc written not for academic audience but as public education document.

Thompson: Impact of family formation change. Paul Amato. Well-respect?

Lamb: Yes.

Thompson: Research clearly demonstrates that children growing up with two continually married parents less likely than other children to have problems.

Lamb: Large scale studies of children being raised by hetero parents.

Thompson: Even stronger if two happily married parents.

Lamb: Entirely consistent with what I testified the importance of relationships between indivs.

Thompson: Consequences of marriage for African Americans. Marriage itself appears to contribute to better outcomes.

Lamb: I wouldn’t want to say I’m familiar with all the research on African American families. I would suggest it’s on shaky grounds when it suggests more than correlation.

Thompson: William Doherty and others, Responsible fathering. Doherty well-respected, is he not? “We conclude that in pracice the kind of mother-father relationship, is a caring, committed collaborative marriage. Outside of this, stand in way of active, involved fathering.”

Lamb: It accurately reflects studies they’re talking about: hetero parents and children.

[What Thompson appears not to realize, is that some of this actually REFUTES the traditional father idea, bc “collaboative relationships” aren’t necessarily traditional. In any case, he seems to be making a great case for marriage.]

Thompson: Marriage matters, better than single parents.

Lamb: That’s true, on average, as I testified earlier.

Walker: With reference to statement.  Is that drawn on opposite sex couples.

Lamb: Not to my knowledge.

Walker: Not same sex?

Lamb: I believe that’s true. Institute for American Values promotes a particular view of marriage, mostly focused on promoting marriage among hetero couples. I believe that their research seems to involve studies of such families.

Thompson: You say lobbying group. Comes from scholars. UVA, Doherty, Norville Glen, highly regarded.

Lamb: He’s quite ideologically committed. I’m not a sociologist.

Thompson: Are you familiar with sociological lit.

Lamb: I’ve tried to cover sociological and demographic lit as you know from our previous discussions.

Thompson: Putting Families first.

Lamb: On average, children being raised by two married hetero parents do better than those growing up with a single or divorced parent.

Thompson: [sorry didn’t get name of scholar] Are you familiar with this study. Very large set of data. Children who grow up in household with only one biological parent worse off then children growing up with two biological parents.

Lamb: Accurate of what the study says.

Thompson: Adolescents in married two-biological family, cohabiting step father, advantage of marriage better when biological child.

Lamb: All of the research that involves hetero families in different configurations.

Thompson: Father absence in youth incarceration. Sarah McLanahan. Results from longitudinal event history analysis, sizeable portion of risk could be attribtued to other fators. Worst is stepfather.

Thompson: Another study, large sample size.

Lamb: The actual study focuses on small number of individuals.

Thompson: Is that a problem?

Lamb: No, just clarifying.

Thompson: Adolscents in cohabiting families, significant more problems.

Thompson: Paul Amato. Whites and African Americans separated from parent, worse than those raised in continually intact families.

[Again, doesn’t this make a great case for same sex marriage?]

Thompson: Does father absence place daughters at special risk? Father absence overwhelming factor for early sexual activity.

Lamb: it’s interesting that you would raise this. In most recent edition of childhood education, study that addresses one weakness that these researchers discuss. Possibility that genetic difference. That analysis makes clear that this had to do not with father absence but inherited dispositions of indivs in study.

Thompson: Comparable size?

Lamb: Don’t remember same size.

Thompson: Analysis of interviews obtained, 17% who had step-father was abused, comparable for biological father was 2%.

Lamb: Much more work on incidents of sexual abuse. None contradicts the conclusion that girls are at greater risk, but specific figures.

Thompson: Volume three! We’re halfway home, your honor.

Thompson: Change topics from biological parenting. Divorce has painful adverse effects?

Lamb: That’s correct, as a summary.

Thompson: Children with divorced parents, do more poorly than married parents.

Lamb: On average, yes, that’s what I testified earlier.

Thompson: Stepfathers do not develop authoritative relationships with chidren. Children whose parents are divorced. Many gay fathers have children in hetero relationships before coming out. Difficulties involve coming to terms with sexual orientation. Lesbian couples have them in hetero relationships, true?

Lamb: That used to be true, I don’t have data.

Thompson: For those whom it is true, children would have suffered from trauma of divorce or death of parent. Look closely at study. None of the studies on gay parenting draws on all gay and lesbians in US.

Lamb: I’m interested in those raising children.

Thompson: there’s no study that can address parenting ability of those who don’t have children. WRT same sex couples who do have children, any study that purports to be random study?

Lamb: Closes that would come would not be random sample, anlysis of US census data. There are now data drawn from US census.

Thompson: They don’t purport to be random sample.

Lamb: You don’t have a random sample when you sample the entire population. Most of us would consider this to be better.

Thompson: Which study purports to be random sample. Do you know of any study that purports to reflect a study of all gay and lesbian couples in US.

Lamb; We have one study looking at all G&L raising children. Another conducted by Waingright and Patterson focusing on children drawn from national representative. REpresentative of population with children in that age range.

Thompson: Which is study drawn from Census.

Lamb: Rosenfeld which is to appear i nDemography.

Thompson: Which IS to appear? That’s not something you cite?

Lamb: No.

Thompson: Proportion of male couples who have children.

Lamb: 20%?

Thompson: cites from study 33% lesbian, 22% gay men. Most studies study lesbian mothers. Issue is that fewer gay fathers.

Lamb: And also gay fathers also more difficult to locate.

Thompson: Lesbians tend to be better than average?

Walker: You’re talking about financially?

Thompson: yes

Lamb: I don’t know about that.

Thompson: Would you admit that one obvious concern brought up by trying to research gays and lesbians is that you’re confined by those who identify themselves as gay and lesbian. Some suggestion that samples drawn tend to be form middle class, don’t reflect full totality of G&L community.

Lamb: No, that wouldn’t be true.

Thompson: Appearances can be deceptive. Self-selection and political mobilization. Seguera (sp), will be testifying on behalf of plaintiffs next week. “If ability to mobilize is one incentives for identification, then indivs from invisible groups likely to be more politically active than visible groups.” Isn’t professor Seguera right about this point, sorts of indivs who are willing to be in these studies not representative of overall community.

Lamb: As far as I can tell this has nothing to do with parents. G&L raising children area already visible.

Thompson: Logical breaking point.

Walker: Logical breaking point is as good as any.

Lunch time. Reconvene at 1PM.

[This post is rescued liveblogging materials that the Toobz Godz would not let me include in the last post. It picks up midway through the Defendants’ questioning of Letitiia Peplau, a Social Psychologist and an expert witness on the benefits of marriage. Nicole Moss is doing the questioning for the defendants. This overlaps slightly with the last thread to give some context. Moss is trying to introduce data from Belgium and the Netherlands to suggest that not really that many gays and lesbians want to get married. She then tries to attack the MA survey which showed a lot of people did get want to get married.]

[Objection: Ms. Peplau not a demographer]

Walker: Ask the bottom line question?

Moss; Assuming my math is correct. If numbers showed that 5% of gay and lesbian indivs and 43% had taken advantage of marriage, significant difference?

Peplau: Absolutely.

Moss: Data for Netherlands.

Peplau: Can I just make sue I’m with you on these data. You’re not saying that only 5% of homosexuals got married. What you’re saying is that all married indivs in Belgium, only 5% of them are homosexual.

Moss: No, I’m saying 5% of homosexuals are married. I asked you to assume that 2% are homosexuals.

Peplau: You’re saying 5% are married, compared to 43% of homosexuals.

Moss: You would agree that significant difference in percentage of population that is choosing to take advantage.

Peplau: I’d be struck by difference with analyses about MA that have chosen to get marriage. Americans are one of the most pro-family people around. Americans are enthusiasts of marriage.

Moss shows Netherlands data (after saying that govt “very nicely gave data in English”) 5% versus 40-someting.

Moss: Would you agree that purpose of marriage to make sure that children not born outside of marrirage? So that children born from sexual relations of men and women not born outside of marriage.

[Object, beyond scope]

Moss: Well, she’s testified that gay and lesbians are similarly situated, are they similarly situated to accidentally having children out of wedlock.

Moss: Would you agree that gays and lesbians do not accidentally have children?

Peplau: Except in MA, all children born to same sex couples are born out of lesbians. Are you asking whether two lesbians can accidentally impregnate each other? Not to my knowledge.

[hilarity all around]

Peplau: I would agree that same sex couples do not have accidental pregnancies.

Peplau: A book review.

Moss: On romantic marriages. A growing body of research shows asexual lesbian relationships not uncommon.

Peplau: We have documented examples of lesbian relationships not characterized by genital sexual activities. A lot is based on male ideas of sexuality, as if there isn’t a penis involved there’s not a sexual activity. Many lesbians repport that other things that might be considered sexual, such as cuddling or kissing, but that does not have a genital component.

[I wonder if Moss has a study of how much sexual activity goes down after they get married.]

Moss: You’re not an expert in social meaning of marriage?

Peplau: I have cited data from Gallup showing that a large number of Americans say they will get married. I have not conducted studies in which I have tried to assess attitudes of Americans about basis of marriage. It really depends. I have done studies about attitudes of division of labor. By social meaning, if you mean the kind of things sociologists do, I’m not by training a sociologist. I’ve relied on other sources of empirical data.

Moss: You have not done any research into relative benefits of DPs and same sex or hetero marriage. The only empirical research that you’ve pointed to on same sex couples is MA survey.

Peplau: I have drawn conclusions on much broader lit. I’m drawing on a great knowledge base. But in terms of studies specifically of effects of same sex civil marriage.

Moss: MA study. It’s not a representative sample.What do you mean?

Peplau: A rep sample would mean reflective of entire pop. There may be different or similar opinions among the people who did not get informed about survey or chose not to answer.

Moss: This particular survey recruited by gay rights advocacy group.

Peplau: This was done online. They went to group that had large email list. Assumed that among that list there would be some indivs who had gotten married. The way Department of Health chose to collect info.

Moss; Indivs from gay rights advocacy group, who responded. Top 10 reasons why they go married was have society know about legal relationships.

Peplau: I’m not sure that’s the wording.

Moss: If you turn to tab 12. 4 in 10 reported wanted to have society know about gay and lesbian marriages. That was one of top 3 reasons why got married.

Peplau: They were asked multiple reasons, 93% said love and commitment, Second was legal recognition of their relationship. 40% of unrepresentative sample said social visibility was one of the reasons for them.

Moss; it was 90% white.

Peplau: I don’t know what demos of lesbian and gay men in MA.

Moss; Average age was 48 years old.

Peplau: Again, I don’t know what to make out of that. THat was what they found.

Moss; Significantly higher than most same sex couples in US.

Peplau: I’m trying, there may be data from census about average age of same sex couples is in US, I don’t know what those data are. I don’t know how to make comparisons that you’re driving at. I don’t know the answer to that.

Moss; 85% had at least a college, 55% had grad education.

Peplau: lesbians and gay men on average have higher level of education but these are higher.

Moss: 32% earned more than 110,000.

Peplau: when we say not representative. Part of what we mean may differ from state.

Moss; In terms of how the survey was conducted. It was based on self-reporting by these individuals.

Peplau: Survey studies are self-report studies. You ask people a question and they answer.

Moss: And like all surveys, open to self-reporting bias.

[Like the 75% of married men who say they care about monogomy? Do we know whether they practice it?]

Moss: We don’t know about self-reporting bias?

Peplau: We don’t know about that with this report. In general, researchers have worried about being more likely to get happy couples who want to brag about relationship, or miserable couples who want to complain about partners.

Moss; We do know that recruitment came through gay advocacy. Top 3 reasons was having relationships more visible.

Peplau: Debate about same sex marriage, widely talked about. Wouldn’t surprise me that in state that is one of the first states to permit same sex marriage. Part of what they were doing was participating in private activity that would be known to other people.

Moss: Those facts tell us something about those who chose to respond to this survey.

Peplau: They told us about those who responded.

Moss; You said wouldn’t harm same sex. You focused on increased divorce rates. You have not offered opinions or undertaken extensive analysis about whether or not it might harm institution of marriage apart from individual marrirages.

Peplau: Entry into marriage and existing through divorce or dissolution. Those speak to very important measures of health of marriage. There are certainly others.

Moss: Your statement: Public acceptance of divorce is growing, growing emphasis on personal fulfillment has eroded commitment to marriage. Another thing is that state no fault divorce laws make it easier to end relationships.

Peplau: Try to understand factors that led to enormous divorce rate, peaked in 80s and has leveled off. Factors during reasonably long period that contributed to fairly high divorce rate.

Moss: those include growing emphasis on individualism and personal fulfillment.

Peplau: Part of what they have suggested is that in earlier time when more important part of marriage is economic unit, to meet basic needs for survival, over time we have come to expect personal fulfillment. Marriage is not only where laundry is done and someone pays the bills. It is a place where we develop personal potential. Increase in emphasis has set very high expectations for marriage. Shifting values may have been one of many factors. None of these factors is due to gay civil rights movement. Increase in divorce rate indepdent of push for marriage equality.

Moss; Turning to page 13. 4 years of data.

Peplau: 4 years before and 4 years after same sex marraige in MA.

Moss; Not a lot of data.

Peplau: 8 years of data, only 4 years since marriage has begun, only bc those are the most recent govt stats available.

Moss: In 2004, highest divorce rate.

Peplau: What I would say about these data is that there is almost no change.

[Moss looks back at her co-counsel, who is rocking back and forth in his chair]

Peplau: I think this is haphazard variation in the data. I don’t take those as serious indicators. Aside from what looks like impact of gay people getting married in first year, numbers look the same to me.

Moss: Comprehensive marriage and divorce rates in neighboring states.

Peplau: Only point I was trying to make was that it would be informative to look at that state. I don’t make any claims beyond that.

Moss; Last two years of data, divorce goes up.

Peplau: And still winding up lower than in years leading up to gay marriage. We could try to make something of difference between 2.2 and 2.3. If we want to look at minor changes in divorce, my interpretation is it’s the same.

Moss: it would be helpful to have several more years of data.

Peplau: I’m sure we will have that data soon.

Moss; As to whether gay marraige will affect marriage over time?

Peplau Could you repeat the question?

Moss; Whether same sex marriage would have any effect on individualism over time is something you could only speculate about.

Peplau: The question is whether I think same sex marriage.

Moss [VERY SNOTTY]: Well, really, have you studied that question so you could offer an expert opinion on it? [leaning back on her elbow again]

Peplau: My opinion is based on a lot of evidence. All of the evidence are on the side of no harm. And then on the side of what theory that might do harm, there’s nothing. I have no confidence in that conclusion. But it is the case that that is not based on empirical study on how same sex marriage will affect attitudes toward individualism over time.

Dusseault; Enforceable trust. Greater degree of enforceable trust in marriage or DP?

Peplau: Marriage.

Dusseault: Greater barriers to exit in marriage or DP.

Peplau: Marriage.

Dussealt: Ms. Moss, exclusivity. That was done 25 years ago. There was no marraige available for same sex couples.

Peplau: Nor were there domestic partnerships.

Dusseault: Any effect had nothing to do with behavior

Dusseault: In state of CA, any restriction to couples who don’t want exclusive relationship to marry.

Peplau: There is none.

Dusseault: Why focus on US?

Peplau: We’re focusing on changes to law in CA and US. It seems to me most directly relevant data was from another state.

Dusseault: Any idea whether the 43% of those in Moss’ Belgium data included all that were married?

Peplau: Percent of indivs that were married.

Dusseault; How long opposite sex marriage legal in Blegium.

Peplau: I assume for a long time.

Dusseault: Same sex couples have great emphasis on indivs than opposite sex.

It’s BEER THIRTY!!!

Walker: SCOTUS has given us guidance, we may have issues beyond remote access. To these proceedings that we’ll have to take up. My inclination without hearing from counsel, that we put that aside from time being. We seem to be moving along well. Don’t want to do anything to alter how we’re proceeding. We will not have remote access. We’ll have to deal with other issues in due time.

Walker: Cooper, Understand you asked about the responses to proposed change in local rule. And responses wrt broadcasting or webcasting these proceedings.

Cooper: I believe my colleagues have taken advantage of that.

Walker: there were quite a number. My understanding from clerk, your team had requested to copy some of them.Maybe you should chat with your colleague. I’ll be guided by whatever you advise, you should either copy all or none or make them all part of the record. In view of the volume I wonder what value they may have.

Cooper: Court has selection of comments.

Walker I put all the lawyer comments on. But none from indivs.

Cooper: If we do conclude that someting we’d like to ask clerk to make part of public record.

Walker: Stewart.

Stewart: Wanted to make sure that Tam did get into record. I’m told that they weren’t transcribed. I’d like to make sure deposition excerpts are part of the record.

Walker: helpful if you give line items. Whose our first witness tomorrow. Eagen. First witness. Suppose we can get through three of these tomorrow.

Boies: We hope those three will not take whole day.

Walker: that would be good progress. We are moving along, which is what we all want to do.

I’m about to pick up the liveblogging of the Prop 8 trial from Teddy, who has earned a big break (and who is off to the court room for a spell). We’re in the middle of expert testimony–I believe that’s what we’ve got coming up after this lunch break.

Letitia Ann Peplau: Bachelor in Psych from Brown, PhD social Psych from Harvard. Research on heterosexual and same sex couples. Some studies that have involved marriage.

Christopher Dusseault (from plaintiffs).

Peplau: Four opinions. One, for those who enter into marriage, associated with benefits. Research of gay and lesbian couples remarkable similarities with heterosexual couples. When permitted to enter into civil marriage, will likely have same benefits as heterosexual couples. Permitting same sex marriage will not be harmful to heterosexual marriage.

Peplau: Americans very enthusiastic about marriage. Most Americans view marriage as one of most important relationships in life. Gallup poll, 91% reported that they have been married or planned to get married.

Dussealt: Any evidence that lesbians and gay men feel the same way.

Peplau: in most states, a hypothetical. Study by Kaiser Family Foundation, would you like to marry? Majority of gay men said they would like to get married. (study admitted)

Dusseault: Domestic partnerships valued as much as gay marriage?

Peplau: Researchers into prefer marriage or domestic partnership. These researchers asked, across all states that permit domestic partnerships. What percentage took advantage. Then, MA, where marriage available. What they found was that 10-12% took option of domestic partnership. Something like 37% of couples get married in MA. 3X as likely to get married as enter into quasi-marital relationships.

Dusseault: Research regarding impact of marriage on health?

Peplau: Very large body for heterosexual marriages on health. Very consistent findings are that on average married indivs fare better, physically healthier, live longer, fewer risky behaviors, better on psychological well-being.

Peplau: Interview a sample of Americans, 100,000 people, comparison between married and unmarried indivs, control for other factors, across all groups, married indivs did better on all measures. Consistent pattern, on average, married couples were better on health.

Dusseault: Why?

Peplau: Two main explanations. Selection effect. People who are healthier to start out with more likely to attract partner. Protection effect. The idea that things associated with marriage that enhance health. Things that people didn’t bring into relationship, that they experienced as a result of being married. Selection effect only partial answer, does appear to be protective effect.

Dussealt: Why protective effects?

Peplau: Getting married reflects a change in identity. For many people marriage is one of the identities. As well, part of being married may mean more of adult, or feel more responsible for our spouse. Marriage about relationship between two people. Important ways in which spouses support each other. This kind of support from another person can enhance health. Broader social network. When people get married, develop relationships with partner and extended family. Connection to extended community and family network. Marriage can also lead to supports from government. Beneficial laws, eligible for programs, health insurance. This doesn’t happen automatically in every marriage. These happen in good marriages. On average, marriage does seem to be associated with benefits, and for many good reasons.

Dusseault: Series of exhibits. 71, 913, 937, 964, 1043, 1171, 1173, 1250, 1254, 1474.

Peplau: I don’t think they’re in the order you read them in.

[Walker’s peaking at her, trying to find them]

Peplau: All articles about benefits of marriage.

Dusseault: Second opinion. Has research been done that compares same sex to heterosexual marriage?

Peplau: Number of studies.

Dusseault: Well-received in your field?

Peplau: Peer-reviewed journals, major conferences. One major topic, examine quality of same sex as compared to heterosexuality, durability over time, processes and dyanmics that affect relationships. To see if relationships influenced by same factors.

Dusseault: Does this show whether similarity?

Peplau: Consistency of findings across different studies. Consistent finding one of great similarity.

Dusseault: Quality of relationships. Research comparing quality?

Peplau: Researchers have tried to measure quality. Standardized measures of love, commitment. Researches also conducted observational studies. Systematically assess things like how much warmth, sarcasm. A lot of different methods to assess quality. Consistent finding, on average, same sex couples and heterosexual are indistinguishable.

Dusseault: Stereotype that gay marriages are unstable.

Peplau: Consistent stereotype, problem forming deep relationships.

Dusseault: Any support?

Peplau: None at all.

Peplau: Stability. For married couples, we have govt statistics. We have pretty good national data sets aboyt heterosexual marriages. Do not have comparable data for same sex couples. Some large scale representative surveys. Substantial proportion of lesbians and gay men in relationships, long term.

Dusseault: Any studies showing that lesbians and gay men can form long-lasting relationships.

Peplau: Demographic study, analyze data, representative sample of lesbians and gay men from CA. Are you currently in cohabiting relationship with partner. 61% of lesbian yes, 46% of gay men yes. For comparison, if you looked at same age range at heterosexuals, 62% of heterosexuals married or cohabiting, percent for hetero and lesbian essentially the same.

Dusseault: Long-lasting?

Peplau: How long has current relationship been going on. 8-10 years. To put that in context, average person who was part of survey was about 41 years old. If 41 now, ten years, 31 when relationship began. Indicates that these are people who, early in adulthood established partnership. For bulk of young adulthood, with same partner. Evidence that gay men and lesbians in extended relationships and at least some of quite long duration.

Dusseault: Can lesbians and gay men form committed relationships?

Peplau: Largest in world, adopted resolution on that topic.

Peplau: APA policy statement on gay marriage.

[Exhibit on screen: “many lesbians and gay men have formed durable relationships”]

[the factors that predict relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, and relationship stability are remarbly similar for both same-sex cohaniting couples and hetersex couples.]

Dusseault: gay relationships slightly shorter? Explanation?

Peplau: Because they aren’t directly comparable, married couples may be selected for high levels of commitment. Cohabiting slightly more diverse. Comparison that may be mixing apples and oranges. I think there are several other reasons as well: gay men and lesbians don’t have benefits of marriage. Marriage is stabilizing influence. We’ll talk about why that may be the case. Another reason, sexual orientation, still stigmatized identity, there may be ways in which stigma take a toll.

Walker: Are you saying there’s a difference in durability between cohabiting hetero and married hetero.

Peplau: I was trying to make comparison between same sex and hetero couples. We have a good idea of who those hetero couples, same sex more mixed group.

Walker: What would data show between married hetero and cohabiting hetero couples. Is there difference in durability in those relationships?

Peplau: On average hetero cohabiting relationships of shorter duration.

Dusseault: Processes? Research into whether same processes at work?

Peplau: What factors determine level of satisfaction in relationship. Arguments or conflict. Examined extent to which same sex and hetero. Same frequency of arguing, same sort of things, extent to which try to work out, negotiate, All the same. The process question is is the relationship between high levels of conflict and satisfaction the same. Yes, level of conflict influences quality in both.

Dusseault: Consensus in research as to whether these factors are similar, same sex and hetero.

Peplau: Similarity across these two types of couples.

Dusseault: Move into exhibit on studies.

[The witness, btw, looks very matronly, with very tidy, short chesnut colored hair. She’s dress all in black, which almost makes her look like a judge.]

Dusseault; Would gay men and lesbians benefit from marriage?

Peplau: if same sex couples were permitted to marry, would also enjoy same benefits.

Dusseault: professional orgs same conclusion?

Peplau: American Psychiatric Association, policy statement on that. Approved by assembly and board of trustees. 2005.

[Reads from statement: “In interest of maintaining and promoting mental health … supports legal recognition of same-sex civil marriage.”]

Peplau: my strong belief based primarily on large body of research on hetero marriage, and large body on similarities between same sex and hetero marriage. I don’t think we’d see difference in rate of getting married or rate of getting divorced. Govt website, stats on annual rates for marriage and divorce. 4 years prior to same sex being legal and four years after. Has there been change? There has been no change, rates of divorce and marriage same as they were before.

[Trouble finding exhibit again]

Walker: I have it.

Dusseault: Study looking at results where couples permitted to marriage?

Peplau: What I was referring to before were govt statistics. Predict that couples would report benefitting from that. This is the study. MA Department of Health, 4 years after, conducted survey. Not representative sample. Included over 500 lesbians and gay men. Why they got married, whether it improved their lives, for those raising children, how it affected the children.

Dusseault: What did it show?

Peplau: One things researches found, many said they felt more committed. I think hetero newleyweds might say same things. Other particularly noteworthy things. Many married lesbian and gay men, families more approving of relationship. Felt less worried about legal problems. 1/3 said either they or spouse said now have access to health benefits. A number of benefits. For those who had children, about 25% of respondants, they overwhelmingly reported marriage had been beneficial.

[Walker just highlighted something, now writing notes.]

Dusseault: Did this study support your opinion.

Peplau: yes.

Dusseault: Let’s turn to benefits. Fourth opinion. Opinion on whether allowing gay and lesbian couples would harm?

Peplau: I think it would have no impact on stability of hetero marriages. We mean two things. Is it going to affect entry into marriage. Exit from marriage, increase in divorce.

Dusseault: do you see any basis for arg that allowing same sex to enter in would affect entry into marriage.

Peplau: No, things about relationship, about special other person, nothing that would suggest that same sex civil marriage would lead fewer heteros to marry.

Dusseault: Any basis that would lead more married hetero couples to divorce or exit from marriage.

Peplau: Hard to imagine someone saying, “Gertrude, we’ve been married for 30 years, but we’ve got to throw in the towel because Adam and Stewart got married.” We know a lot of the reasons why people divorce. They’re very personal reasons. People most likely to get divorced. Nothing we know about these factors that lead to divorce has anything to do with civil rights for same sex couples.

Dussealt: Exposure to marriage. What percentage of what proportion of married couples would be same sex if permitted to marry.

Peplau: 1 to 2 to 3% of all married couples would be same sex couples. We usually measure marriage in terms of numbers, this would increase number of marriages. Anthropologists, large group that has done kinship, American Anthropological Association has position on this.

[Results of more than a century of anthropological research … provide no support … for the view that either civilizations or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. … A vast array of family types … can contribute to stable and humane societies.”]

[Repeating data showing that rates of divorce in MA consistent with expectation of no harm.]

Cross-examination:

Nicole Moss: Start first with your first opinion. Marriage confers physical and psychological benefits. When you talk about married indivs. You’re talking about hetero indivs. Reason is that you don’t have data on same sex indivs.

Peplau: On married same sex couples. Yes.

Moss; No empirical studies apart from this one survey on whether same sex marriage would confer the same benefits.

Peplau: Opinion based on hetero couples, research showing similarity. Informed by this one piece of information.

Moss: and hat is the only empirical study, or survey, that has been done. And similarly, there have not been any studies comparing whether physical and psychological benefits comparing domestic partnerships.

Peplau: Comparing indivs in same sex domestic partnerships and same sex marriages? We have many reasons to estimate what we’d find, but there have been no studies on this.

Moss; You’d agree that we study same sex marriage.

[Well, how the fuck are we going to do that if you won’t let peopel actually GET married???]

Peplau: I’d always support more research.

Moss; Studies on physical and psychological benes on domestic partnerships.

Peplau: Right, most rely on very large govt studies. Don’t have statistics like that for registered same sex couples.

Moss; You can’t rank or assess which particular aspect of marriage caused observed increase in physical and psychological health.

Peplau: I think they work simulatneously. I think that would vary from one couple to another depending on life circumstances. That’s not an activity researches have tried to undertake.

Moss; Some aspect that researchers have opined, one of those is access to health insurance, right? To extent that health insurance afforded through domestic partnerships, you would expect to see benefits from domestic partnerships.

Peplau: DPs have been an improvement. It is my opinion that they do not confer all of the benefits of marriage. But I do not dispute that there are good things taht go along with marriage.

Moss: You can’t say with certainty that those aspects that they don’t confer are responsible for greater health.

Peplau: I have a lot of confidence, belief that you are in state of relationship that this society considers most legitimate undoubtedly has benefits that are not part of DPs.

Moss; But again, you have no empirical studies, that measure specifically whether there were benefits conferred differently from DPs?

Peplau: I believe that we know a lot about impact that stigma and being second class have on people and relationships.

Moss; Importance of legal contracts.

Peplau I think that’s not exactly what I said. Enforceable trust that in many kinds of relationships. One benefit of marriage, enhances the likelihood that those trusts will be acted upon. I don’t think solely about legal contract, that people associate with marriage a degree of seriousness and gravitas that leads them to relations.

Moss; You have no basis to dispute that many in DPs view their relationship with same level of commitment you see in marriages.

Peplau: Couples very resilient. Manage to form high quality relationships under adverse circumstances. Couples have formed strong lasting relationships. But would be further enhanced by having access to marriage.

Moss: One of the benefits of marriage that you talked about barriers to exit. Fact that it makes it more difficult to just split up.

[Moss is very pretty, fairly young, and has this flouncy thing on with a pink shirt underneath. Her voice makes her sound very young, too]

Moss: Civil unions also provide barriers to exit.

Peplau: Not equivalent, bc all of a sudden your relatives find out about. “Oh, Ann got married.” It’s not necessarily understood by your relatives, which is an important part of the barrier concept.

Moss; Have you undertaken any studies to test public’s perceptions on DP.

Peplau: No I have not.

Moss: And you don’t cite any in your bilblio One of the studies that you do rely on Kim Ballsome. In this particular study, researches found same sex couples not in civil unions more likely to end relationship. Authors characterize data as showing significant difference in relationship terminations.

Peplau: I think that is probably correct.

Moss: Isn’t it correct that they found significant difference in relationship terminations. Move into evidence. Focused quite a bit on ways in which gay and lesbian couples similar to hetero couples. Focus on ways in which they’re different. Gay men. Monogomy in gay male relationships different from hetero?

Peplau: Sexual exclusivity in monogomy. One, do you believe important. Second, have you been monogamous. One of ways in which gay men’s relationship differ, on average, is that a higher percentage of gay men do not value monogamy. not important. May have an agreement not need to be sexually exclusive. Somewhat more gay men may report.

[Has anyone asked Mark Sanford and John Ensign about this? Because I’m pretty sure they’d say monogamy was really important to them.]

Peplau: Monogamy correlated with relationship satisfaction for lesbians and heteros. It’s not one of the markets by which gay men.

Walker: That’s not true of most married people, is it?

Peplau: most married people. And for sizeable of gay men.

[Moss sounds worried, directs to another exhibit]

Moss; You write that sexual exclusivity might be exception for most gay men. Encouraged sexual openness rather than exclusivity.

[Moss seems to have no problem with lesbian marriages, then?]

Peplau: we might find different things. No one was talking about same sex marriage. Relationships more closeted. Our undestanding, less well-developed. I’m not retracting what I said, accurate of what I found at the time. I wasn’t studying gay men who, for example, had chosen to get married. Whether statements about majority of gay men.

Moss; Before I move on to more recent article.

Moss: “close relationships of lesbians and gay men.” In this more recent article, you did a study of a certain number of gay men in relationships.

Peplau: Not an empirical study I conducted. Literature review. Summary of results of other people’s research.

Moss; My apologies. On page 410, of lit review. You write about a study that indicates that 36% of gay men, important to be sexually monogomas, 75% lesbians, 80% of wives, 75% of married men.

Peplau: Study late 70s and 80s.

Moss: Less gay men believe that sexual monogamy important as compared to lesbians, wives and husbands.

Peplau: We may not be able to pin down percentages. Percentage difference is correct.

Moss; Going back to study on sexual exclusivity and openness. In that particular study, you noted that there was a difference between valuing and carrying through when it came to their behavior.

[Moss snorts stotily.]

Peplau: There are heterosexuals who pledge to be monogamous, and the same is true of gay men.

Moss: You find that they are in closed relationships, but have had sex with at least one other partner.

[Can we plase call Mark Sanford to the stand to ask about his promise of exclusivity??]

Peplau: What we did was give a definition of open and closed. The statement that you’re citing is an accurate depiction of what we found.

Moss: By closed, partners agreed they would be exclusive to one another.

Peplau: A little vague about how we asked that question. I assume that what we’re reporting, that yes, according to our definition. A question about presumably have you ever had sex with another person.

Moss: You also write that all men in relationships identified as having been closed, lasting 3 years or longer, had engaged in sex with at least one person other than primary partner.

Peplau: Study of gay men in LA in different time period. Don’t want to deny findings. Have the context in mind.

Moss: Turning your attention to desire of gays and lesbians to marry as compared to hetero community. 74% of lesbians and gay men, they would like to do so.

[Describe some govt statistics. With translation.Plaintiffs ask if it was disclosed on exhibit list.]

Moss; In the last couple of days.

[Now Belgian]

[Plaintiffs make same reservation on them just coming on the exhibit list]

Moss: Relative different percentages, hetero population versus same sex couples.

Peplau: My expertise is about relationships in the US. I’m in no way shape or form knowledgable about marriage in Europe. As researcher in order to comment, I can read you the statistics, but to comment or interpret them, I’d feel unqualified, bc I don’t know context in Belgium.

Moss; You did not do any studies about other countries where same sex marriage has been available.

Peplau: That is correct.

Moss: No statistics that would indicate how many gay and lesbians there were in that country. Would you agree that good conservative estimate 2%?

[Objection]

Walker: Witness has stated she doesn’t have expertise outside the US.

Moss: Do you have an estimate of pop in US that’s gay and lesbian.

Peplau: Something like 2-3% who identify as gay or lesbian.

Moss: From what you know, any reason that there would be remarkably different outside US?

Peplau: People’s willingness to disclose sexual orientation might well vary from country to country.

Moss [snottily]: so would you just take as conservative estimate 2%?

Peplau: if we assume same as US, guesstimate, something like 2%.

Moss; I’m not offering as evidence.

Walker: Base testimony on hypothetical.

[Moss’ posture is telling, she’s leaning away, as if she’s very clever. Has a “cute” little smile.]

Moss, now making other assumptions.Strike that, I’ve gotten ahead of myself.

Moss: Govt data that shows hetero marriages.

Walker: It shows trend in homosexual marriages.

Moss: I meant homosexual marriages. In 2004, reports that 2138 indivs in same sex marriage.

Peplau: What I’m not clear about, who got married or who reported they were married.

Moss; I believe that the govt number.

Peplau: So fewer in 2008?

Moss: Total number who got married that year. Individuals who got married that year.

Peplau: So that number is twice as large as the number of marriages?

Moss; If you want to know how many at end were in marriages, you’d have to add up. It comes up a total number of 10,923.

[Um, how can you have an odd number of “individuals who were married”?]

Moss: if you take total number of married indivs and subtract out same sex, you’d agree that’d give you total number of opposite sex marriages? Would you agree that to determine what percentage, you would divide number into number of gay and lesbians who are married.

Peplau: I’m puzzled about one thing, you can do the math better than I can. I thought we said on first table, 10 million marriages total. But that the table for the homosexual is number per year.

Moss: 10 million.

Peplau: Married is 4.5 million. Total of everyone in Belgium.

Moss: 10,000 individuals.

[Moss, still leaning away, sort of propping herself up on her left elbow.]

[Objection: Ms. Peplau not a demographer]

Walker: Ask the bottom line question?

Moss; Assuming my math is correct. If numbers showed that 5% of gay and lesbian indivs and 43% had taken advantage of marriage, significant difference?

Peplau: Absolutely.

Moss: Data for Netherlands.

Peplau: Can I just make sue I’m with you on these data. You’re not saying that only 5% of homosexuals got married. What you’re saying is that all married indivs in Belgium, only 5% of them are homosexual.

Moss: No, I’m saying 5% of homosexuals are married. I asked you to assume that 2% are homosexuals.

Peplau: You’re saying 5% are married, compared to 43% of homosexuals.

Moss: You would agree that significant difference in percentage of population that is choosing to take advantage.

Peplau: I’d be struck by difference with analyses about MA that have chosen to get marriage. Americans are one of the most pro-family people around. Americans are enthusiasts of marriage.

One of the biggest stories at the North American International Auto Show yesterday was not the cars, but the congressional delegation — led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — that came to the show. In addition to Pelosi and Hoyer, much of Michigan’s delegation (the only Republican was Fred Upton, though Candice Miller had intended to attend before bad roads got in the way), Ohio Representatives Tim Ryan and Betty Sutton, and Senators Byron Dorgan and Tom Carper attended the show. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis were there, too; and until last Thursday, Obama was planning to attend (until the Secret Service decided it would be a security nightmare).

In other words, there was a big presence of DC bigwigs at the auto show. As Pelosi, in particular, worked her way from the General Motors’ display (she got a close look at the Volt) to the Chrysler to the Ford one (she checked out the new Focus), the media followed along in a big pack, filming her chatting with the CEOs of America’s (and, in the case of GM and Chrysler, the taxpayers’) auto companies. In the YouTube above, she and Hoywer are talking to Ford CEO Alan Mulally.

The crowds and media attention their presence brought tells you something — that DC has been far too distant from America’s industrial base for far too long.

Indeed, some of the DC-MI folks I spoke to pointed out to me that the US car companies have not done a good job at reaching out to the press in recent years, and nor has DC shown much interest in exchange.  The hope was that yesterday’s visit may begin to change all that. (I know GM plans a series of Volt test drives for politicos at the DC auto show later this month.)

And, at the very least, Pelosi has promised to come back next year.

Speaking to those close to the delegation, it sounds like one of the most productive parts of the day was a lunch some of the DC bigwigs had with some local representatives of energy companies: Dow Kokam, Johnson-Saft Power, and Dowding Machining. In addition to talking to about innovation going on here in MI, they talked about the kind of support they need to continue and grow such efforts.  That’s the kind of conversation — rather than just a pitch from a CEO standing in front of a shiny car–that we need to see more of.

Here’s a YouTube from the press conference Pelosi did at the end of the day. And here are the comments John Dingell and Fred Upton made at the same press conference.

Greetings from the North American International Auto Show.

As I explained last week, I’m going to have a number of discussions about your taxpayer owned car company–GM–today.

But the big news of the morning is that Ford won both the North American car and truck of the year, with the Fusion Hybrid and the Transit Connect, respectively. I expect the sweep of the awards (it is just the third time one manufacturer has won both awards) will continue Ford’s success at changing its brand image.

The other big buzz this morning is the presence of a sizable congressional delegation, led by Nancy Pelosi, here to figure out what is going on with our auto industry. There’s a fair amount of discussion about that among both the car people and other journalists.

I often joke with Californians that even as their environmental regulations make MI’s main industry defunct (admittedly, largely because of the short sightedness of Michiganders), MI will take over CA’s role as the lead Ag state. CA, after all, is fighting water problems because of its own short-sightedness. We, on the other hand, have got water–lots of it. And MI is already the country’s second most diverse agricultural state. Add a few degrees of temperature due to climate change (ignoring the signs that global warming seems to be making a cold sink stretching from MI to MN), and MI could be downright bountiful.

But there’s a more serious side to it–the post-industrial side. Specifically, the increasingly urgent efforts to turn Detroit back into an agricultural bread basket.

“There’s so much land available and it’s begging to be used,” said Michael Score, president of the Hantz Farms, which is buying up abandoned sections of the city’s 139-square-mile landscape and plans to transform them into a large-scale commercial farm enterprise.

“Farming is how Detroit started,” Score said, “and farming is how Detroit can be saved.”

[snip]

In Detroit, hundreds of backyard gardens and scores of community gardens have blossomed and helped feed students in at least 40 schools and hundreds of families.

It is the size and scope of Hantz Farms that makes the project unique. Although company officials declined to pinpoint how many acres they might use, they have been quoted as saying that they plan to farm up to 5,000 acres within the Motor City’s limits in the coming years, raising organic lettuces, trees for biofuel and a variety of other things.

Detroit has long been a symbol of America’s industrial might. And yet, quickly, it has become a symbol not only of decay, but of the earth reclaiming the land. Frankly, I’m in favor of using Detroit’s vacant space for farming (though I prefer it to be organic, small scale farming). But if Detroit is the canary in the coal mine of industrial society, we need to start preparing to return to an agricultural way of life.

Photo credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessicareeder/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Previously, Marcy Wheeler noted the unsavory blending of the private interests of health insurance companies with the power and hand of the US government:

It’s one thing to require a citizen to pay taxes–to pay into the commons. It’s another thing to require taxpayers to pay a private corporation, and to have up to 25% of that go to paying for luxuries like private jets and gyms for the company CEOs.

It’s the same kind of deal peasants made under feudalism: some proportion of their labor in exchange for protection (in this case, from bankruptcy from health problems, though the bill doesn’t actually require the private corporations to deliver that much protection).In this case, the federal government becomes an appendage to do collections for the corporations.
…
The reason this matters, though, is the power it gives the health care corporations. We can’t ditch Halliburton or Blackwater because they have become the sole primary contractor providing precisely the services they do. And so, like it or not, we’re dependent on them. And if we were to try to exercise oversight over them, we’d ultimately face the reality that we have no leverage over them, so we’d have to accept whatever they chose to provide. This bill gives the health care industry the leverage we’ve already given Halliburton and Blackwater.

Marcy termed this being “On The Road To Neo-feudalism” and then followed up with a subsequent post noting how much the concept was applicable to so much of the American life and economy, especially through the security/military/industial complex so intertwined with the US government.

Marcy Wheeler is not the only one recently noting the striking rise in power of corporate interests via the forceful hand of US governmental decree (usually at the direct behest of the corporate interests). Glenn Greenwald, expanding on previous work by Ed Kilgore, penned a dynamic description of the dirty little secret (only it is not little by any means) afoot in modern American socio-political existence:

But the most significant underlying division identified by Kilgore is the divergent views over the rapidly growing corporatism that defines our political system.

Kilgore doesn’t call it “corporatism” — the virtually complete dominance of government by large corporations, even a merger between the two — but that’s what he’s talking about. He puts it in slightly more palatable terms:

To put it simply, and perhaps over-simply, on a variety of fronts (most notably financial restructuring and health care reform, but arguably on climate change as well), the Obama administration has chosen the strategy of deploying regulated and subsidized private sector entities to achieve progressive policy results. This approach was a hallmark of the so-called Clintonian, “New Democrat” movement, and the broader international movement sometimes referred to as “the Third Way,” which often defended the use of private means for public ends.

As I’ve written for quite some time, I’ve honestly never understood how anyone could think that Obama was going to bring about some sort of “new” political approach or governing method when, as Kilgore notes, what he practices — politically and substantively — is the Third Way, DLC, triangulating corporatism of the Clinton era, just re-packaged with some sleeker and more updated marketing. At its core, it seeks to use government power not to regulate, but to benefit and even merge with, large corporate interests, both for political power (those corporate interests, in return, then fund the Party and its campaigns) and for policy ends. It’s devoted to empowering large corporations, letting them always get what they want from government, and extracting, at best, some very modest concessions in return. This is the same point Taibbi made about the Democratic Party in the context of economic policy:

The significance of all of these appointments isn’t that the Wall Street types are now in a position to provide direct favors to their former employers. It’s that, with one or two exceptions, they collectively offer a microcosm of what the Democratic Party has come to stand for in the 21st century. Virtually all of the Rubinites brought in to manage the economy under Obama share the same fundamental political philosophy carefully articulated for years by the Hamilton Project: Expand the safety net to protect the poor, but let Wall Street do whatever it wants.

One finds this in far more than just economic policy, and it’s about more than just letting corporations do what they want. It’s about affirmatively harnessing government power in order to benefit and strengthen those corporate interests and even merging government and the private sector.

Ms. Wheeler and Mr. Greenwald are correct, and the phenomenon is not just limited to the healthcare and military/industrial complex either; it is even more alarming in the ever more dominant and pervasive financial sector, home of the “too big to fail”. The phrase itself should terrify citizens, yet the country seems blithely oblivious to the implications. If there was even a vein of common sense among the people and leadership of this country, there would be immediate realization that an entity too big to fail is so big that it controls the government as much as the other way around. But the people are asleep, distracted by their own despair and desensitized over the years. The leadership, as both Wheeler and Greenwald describe have become symbiotic with the cause and, thus, are the part of problem not a source of solution.

Marcy Wheeler describes the concentration of power and wealth in corporations married to the hand of government as neo-feudalism; Glenn Greenwald and Kilgore posit it as corporatism. Both are worthy and descriptive terms, but the real ill goes a bit deeper if you also consider the accompanying rise in income inequality and transfer of wealth to the privileged and powerful few individuals that has paralleled what Marcy and Glenn describe. When you put it all together, the result is a situation that eerily duplicates the era of the robber barons existing in the United States 100 years ago.

The New Robber Barons

Robber Barons as a descriptor for the modern overlords came to me during a conversation with several colleagues a week or two ago on how to term the healthcare companies and their owners and executives. In writing this article, however, I have found I am far from the first person to realize how the old is new again in this regard to the rapacious class. Over a decade ago, Brad DeLong hit on the same precise thought, and he hit it hard and big:

“Robber Barons”: that was what U.S. political and economic commentator Matthew Josephson (1934) called the economic princes of his own day. Today we call them “billionaires.” Our capitalist economy–any capitalist economy–throws up such enormous concentrations of wealth: those lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, driven and smart enough to see particular economic opportunities and seize them, foresighted enough to have gathered a large share of the equity of a highly-profitable enterprise into their hands, and well-connected enough to fend off political attempts to curb their wealth (or well-connected enough to make political favors the foundation of their wealth).

Matthew Josephson called them “Robber Barons”. He wanted readers to think back to their European history classes, back to thugs with spears on horses who did nothing save fight each other and loot merchant caravans that passed under the walls of their castles. He judged that their wealth was in no sense of their own creation, but was like a tax levied upon the productive workers and craftsmen of the American economy. Many others agreed: President Theodore Roosevelt–the Republican Roosevelt, president in the first decade of this century–spoke of the “malefactors of great wealth” and embraced a public, political role for the government in “anti-trust”: controlling, curbing, and breaking up large private concentrations of economic power.
…
And whatever the causes, the period since the mid-1970s has seen wealth concentration in the United States increase more rapidly than ever before–even during the heyday of industrialization in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Aggregate measures of wealth concentration today are greater than at any time since the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Great Depression, and are within striking distance of the peak in wealth concentration reached during the Gilded Age (see Wolff, 1994).
…..
It is striking how closely numbers of “billionaire” match shifts in aggregate wealth inequality: when the frequency of billionaires in the labor force is high, wealth concentration is high. A simple linear regression predicts that the frequency of billionaires would drop to zero should the share of wealth held by the top one percent drop to twenty percent or so–and, indeed, we find no billionaires back when wealth concentration was so low.
…..
These causes of immense wealth have nothing to do with the determinants of the relative supplies of skilled and unskilled workers, or with the technological requirements of production. It makes me think that the overall level of wealth concentration is much more a “political” and a “cultural” phenomenon than an “economic” one: that we through our political systems and our attitudes have much more to do with the concentration of wealth than does the dance of factor supplies and technology-driven factor demands.

DeLong’s piece is a comprehensive thesis that describes both the history of the earlier American robber barons and modern day versions, at least as of the time he penned his work in 1997-98. Brad noted disturbing trends at the time, but did not reach hard conclusions as to the overall effect of the phenomenon on the health of American society.

So if there is a lesson, it is roughly as follows: Politics can put curbs on the accumulation of extraordinary amounts of wealth. And there is a very strong sense in which an unequal society is an ugly society. I like the distribution of wealth in the United States as it stood in 1975 much more than I like the relative contribution of wealth today. But would breaking up Microsoft five years ago have increased the pace of technological development in software? Probably not. And diminishing subsidies for railroad construction would not have given the United States a nation-spanning railroad network more quickly.

So there are still a lot of questions and few answers. At what level does corruption become intolerable and undermine the legitimacy of democracy? How large are the entrepreneurial benefits from the finance-industrial development nexus through which the truly astonishing fortunes are developed? To what extent are the Jay Goulds and Leland Stanfords embarrassing but tolerable side-effects of successful and broad economic development?

DeLong knew what the issues were, but did not have firm conclusions and answers as to the potential detriment or benefit of such unequal wealth distribution. However, the decade plus that has elapsed since Brad wrote his version of the robber barons, and especially the last two, has put a far different patina on the situation. It is not just the difference between the rich man and poor man, it is the vanishing middle class coupled with the ever grosser arrogance, recklessness and impunity which makes the New Robber Barons such a dangerous and destructive force. There is no longer need to describe what the downside of the insanity could be; we know, we are living it as we speak and have been over the past two years.

The question is where we go from here with respect to the New Robber Baron overlords. Just mosey along status quo as the Obama Administration appears to envision, not looking back with anger, accountability and real change; or do we plow the harder, but ultimately more fertile ground of curbing the irrational and destructive accumulation of wealth and power through Teddy Rooseveltian anti-trust programs, return of Glass-Steagall protections separation of banking and investment functions and tax and social programs to rebuild the evaporating middle class.

Healthcare is the current flashpoint, and it is rightfully a big one. There is no question but that the US needs “reform”; but there is a real question, still to be answered, whether there will be something produced which benefits the masses of citizens both now and in the future or just an illusory pile of junk that benefits the ruling classes of politicians and health industry robber barons.

As Marcy Wheeler and Glenn Greenwald have persuasively argued, however, it goes much, much deeper than merely healthcare; the battle is over the root ethos of what this country is and is going to be. The incontrovertible trend is toward an unholy blending of the robber barons with the government itself. Not just the usual influencing of government policies through lobbying and monetary control of individual politicians to seek favorable policies, but where the federal government becomes an appendage to do collections, enforcement and expansion for the corporations. The best time to rethink and reverse this trend is now, it will not get easier as the trend becomes more ingrained and pervasive with time.

As long as this post is, the surface of this topic has barely been scratched. It is my hope to peg this phenomenon with a term simple, descriptive and instantly understandable by all, and to start a discussion both in comments to this post and in subsequent posts here and by others across the spectrum. Time is wasting at an alarming rate.

(graphic courtesy of Southern Labor Archives, Georgia State University)

I have had several people ask me off blog about the “opinions” on the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) that have surfaced recently in the 9th Circuit. I may write more later; but for now I want to lay out the sequence of facts and actions and start the discussion.

The current issue really took flight last month when 9th Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski entered an order dated November 19, 2009 on the matter of Karen Golinski, a staff attorney for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judicial branch employees such as Golinski are Federal employees and therefore have their benefits administered by the Office of Personnel Management (the same folks Obama and Harry Reid want to administer their poor excuse of a substitute for the Public Option). Based upon the OPM’s stated position, the contracted benefits carrier (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) refused to provide health benefits for her same sex legal spouse, Amy Cunninghis.

From Judge Kosinski’s November 19 Order:

Karen Golinski has been denied a benefit of federal employment because she married a woman rather than a man. I previously determined that violates this court’s guarantee of equal employment opportunity. To avoid a difficult constitutional problem, I harmonized the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), 1 USC §7; the statutes creating the benefit program at issue, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), 5 USC §8901 et seq.; and this court’s commitment to equal employment opportunity.

I then entered [an] order
…
No “party or individual aggrieved” by my decision appealed it.

The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) complied with my order and submitted Ms. Golinski’s form 2089 to the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Servie Benefit Plan, Ms. Golinski’s health insurance carrier. That’s as it should be; the AO is subject to the “supervision and direction” of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 28 USC §604(a), and I exercised authority delegated by the Judicial Conference when I ordered relief. After the AO submitted Ms. golinski’s form, I thought this matter had concluded.

The Executive Branch, acting through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), thought otherwise. It directed the insurance carrier not to process Ms. Golinski’s form 2089, thwarting the relief I had ordered. (citations omitted)

That is the basic tale of Golinski and Kozinski. Since the November 19 Order the above language was taken from, the situation has become even more exacerbated by the intransigence of the Obama Administration and its OPM which, either comically or tragically depending on one’s view, is headed by John Berry who the Administration made a big show of touting as its highest ranking openly gay official.

The irony just oozes. After further refusal and contempt of his clear order, which the Administration never appealed, Judge Kozinski entered another Order Tuesday further blistering the Administration and all but instructing Karen Golinski to sue them.

But that is not the only such matter percolating in the 9th Circuit. In a separate matter involving Brad Levenson, a member of the Federal Public Defender’s Office of Central California, an office also under the same benefits plan, a different 9th Circuit Judge, Stephen Reinhardt, has also indicated dissatisfaction with the position of the government as directed by the Obama Administration. In a decision dated November 18, 2009, just a day before Kozinski’s Order in Golinski, Reinhardt wrote:

Brad Levenson, a deputy public defender in the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Central District of California (“FPD”), is legally married, under California law, to Tony Sears. Nevertheless, Levenson has not been permitted to enroll Sears as a family member beneficiary of his federal health, dental, and vision benefits (hereinafter “federal benefits”) because both spouses are of the same sex. In a previous order, I determined that the denial of benefits on this ground violates the Ninth Circuit’s Employment Dispute Resolution Plan for Federal Public Defenders and Staff (“EDR Plan”), which expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation. I also determined for similar reasons that the denial of benefits violates the United States Constitution. As a further remedy for those violations Levenson now requests an order directing the FPD to enter into separate contracts with private insurers in order to provide Sears with benefits comparable to those provided in the existing federal plans, or alternatively, a monetary award pursuant to the Back Pay Act. For the reasons set forth below I have determined that an order directing the FPD to enter into separate health insurance contracts would not be a “necessary and appropriate” remedy within the scope of the EDR Plan. A back pay award, however, would be appropriate under the circumstances. Accordingly, I grant Levenson’s alternative request for monetary award, and remand the matter to the FPD to determine the actual amount awarded.

In both of these cases, Golinski and Levenson, the “plan” they were under was contractual and stipulated the only remedy and forum available for prosecuting claims of employment discrimination, which mandated first a “counseling” which was effectively a discussion with OPM representatives, followed by mediation, followed only after unsuccessful exhaustion of the first two avenues, by the ability to petition the 9th Circuit Judicial authority. The latter allows the matter to be heard by a judge, but clearly in an administrative authority as opposed to pursuant to their Article III formal judicial authority. And therein lies the rub and why the Obama Administration feels empowered to contemptuously thumb their nose at the resultant orders.

In case there is any question what Judge Reinhardt thinks of DOMA and its effects on members of the LGBT community under the circumstances:

As I concluded in my previous order, the application of DOMA to FEHBA so as to deny Levenson’s request that his same-sex spouse receive federal benefits violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. In reaching that conclusion, I believe it likely that some form of heightened Constitutional scrutiny applies to Levenson’s claims.

For the uninitiated, Reinhardt finds DOMA clearly unconstitutional and, because it discriminates against protected classes, must be judged under a particularly burdensome standard, which it cannot, and does not, meet. A striking and quite correct analysis.

It is somewhat scandalous, if not outright scurrilous, that the Obama Administration, which ran hard on relief to the GLBT community and protection and equal protection of their rights, would hide behind the DOMA they once scorned to deny equal protection to Karen Golinski and Brad Levenson. But that is just how they roll.

The question now is what avenue for remedy will Golinski and Levenson pursue? That is still unclear, but it ought to be very interesting. The other thing that simply cannot be emphasized enough is how remarkable the decisions of Judge Stephen Reinhardt and Chief Judge Alex Kozinski are. They have not hidden behind illusory outs or carefully kept their powder dry. Both judges have observed unconstitutional provisions and acts, egregious positions by the Obama Administration that openly claimed otherwise to get elected, and denial of equal protection to worthy citizens, and they flat out called it for what it is.

And make no mistake, those of us who live and practice in the 9th Circuit can attest to how different a place on the ideological spectrum these two are. Stephen Reinhardt is a proud old school hard liberal appointed by Jimmy Carter; Kozinski was a young and fairly radical conservative when appointed by Ronald Reagan and openly complained that the 9th was too wild eyed liberal when he joined. Their decisions here may not have precedential value as reported Article III cases, but when these two are on the same page calling foul, as they have done on the acts of the Obama Administration against Ms. Golinski and Mr. Levenson, it is a powerful marker that something very wrong is afoot. And so it is.

I’ve been noting for months that Rod Blagojevich would make a big deal out of the conversations his people had with Rahm about gaming the election for Rahm’s former seat. If for no other reason than Blago claims Rahm gave him the idea behind one of the charges, Blago has every incentive to embarrass Rahm thoroughly over the course of his trial.

And, not surprisingly, Blago has made the first move in that play.

Rod Blagojevich’s lawyers want the FBI to give up details of interviews conducted last year of President Obama, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett and others as part of the investigation into the former governor.

In a Friday filing, Blagojevich attorneys also asked for information regarding first lady Michelle Obama. However, a source said late Friday that the FBI never interviewed the first lady.

Prosecutors may well delay (that’s certainly what Fitz did in the CIA Leak case, where he turned over materials on prosecution witnesses just weeks before the trial started).

But I can imagine that Obama would prefer to put off this little side show until health care gets done–if it does get done. And I imagine Blago knows that well.

Okay, this is just creepy, but creepy in terms that may impact politics more than Tiger Woods taking a hiatus from golf:

The Missoulian newspaper today disclosed that Sen. Max Baucus’s future girlfriend, Melodee Hanes, was involved in discussions with the senator’s divorce lawyer in 2007 while serving on the Montana Democrat’s Senate staff. The Montana newspaper quoted from billing records submitted by Baucus’s lawyer, Ronald F. Waterman, in Helena.

Main Justice obtained a copy of the billing records. Click here to see them.

The records show that Hanes – whom Baucus later recommended to the White House as a finalist for Montana’s U.S. Attorney – consulted with the divorce lawyer on such delicate matters as how to determine the value of the home Baucus shared with his then-wife, Wanda, in Washington’s exclusive Georgetown section.

Mind you, nothing about this development (unlike the fact that MaxTax nominated his girlfriend to be US Attorney and that he brought her on a trip to Dubai) is ethically scandalous. MaxTax just had his then State Director and now girlfriend handle discussions with the lawyers drawing up his separation agreement with his then wife.

Indeed, at one level this proves the point Baucus’ office has been making–that Baucus’ relationship with Hanes (which reportedly started in June 2008) had nothing to do with his split with his ex-wife.

But it is all rather, um, cozy.

Update: It gets creepier. Baucus’ then wife, Wanda, didn’t know that he was scheming on a separation at the time.

Wanda Baucus, the senator’s second wife, said Friday that she knew nothing about the 2007 meetings and that the couple had not at that point discussed getting a divorce.

“I think this whole thing is very sad. It’s not the way you do things,” she said in an interview.

[snip]

“Ending a 25-year marriage is a serious undertaking that should be discussed first within the family,” Wanda Baucus said. “There’s no justification for the staff being involved in such private matters.”

Which I guess means Baucus’ then State Director and now girlfriend knew that he was splitting before his then wife did.