Sanford and Family Values

Let’s add one more name to our list of hypocrites—Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina. He has now admitted to an affair while at the same time voting to ban adoptions by gay men and lesbians and is on record as being against same-sex marriage and even against civil unions for same-sex couples. Apparently, betraying his wife and three children—to say nothing of the people of South Carolina and the country as a whole—is consistent with his idea of “family values”. Sanford, you’re a great poster boy for Bigots, Inc.
This is just one more bit of support for the hypothesis advanced earlier: people who find fault with the relationships of others (in this case, to the point of voting to make them illegal) are those experiencing dissonance and dissatisfaction with their own relationships.

It Makes You Wonder

Everyone has by now heard of Nevada Senator John Ensign’s admission that he had an affair with a campaign staffer, Cynthia Hampton, whose salary as a staffer doubled and whose 19 year-old son was put on the payroll when the affair began. Not unrelated to this is Ensign’s attack on same-sex marriage and his defense of the Federal Marriage Amendment. It makes you wonder if there’s not some connection between those with relationship “problems” and their condemnation of the relationships of others, especially those relationships that differ from what they want people to think they have or believe in.
Long married, Idaho Senator Larry Craig, who was caught not so long ago for solicitation in a men’s airport bathroom (he pleaded guilty to “disorderly conduct”), was also an outspoken critic of same-sex marriage and of general civil rights for gay men and lesbians. It makes you wonder.
And of course we all remember the case of Jimmy Swaggart, media minister and outspoken critic of fellow media minister, Jim Bakker, for his indiscretions, and who spoke long and loud against civil rights for gay men and lesbians, was caught with prostitutes more than once—even after his tearful speech of apology: “I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I would ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God’s forgiveness.” WOW! It makes you wonder.
As a working hypothesis, I wonder if this would work: Those with relationship dissonance are more critical of the relationships of others (especially relationships that are different from their own) than are those without relationship dissonance, with the degree of dissonance experienced being positively correlated with the quantity and forcefulness of their criticism. Alternatively, one might hypothesize that relationship satisfaction and the criticism of others’ relationships (that is, the degree of dissatisfaction with the relationships of others) would be negatively correlated; the more satisfied one is in one’s own relationship, the less critical that person is likely to be toward the alternative relationships of others.
Yes, it makes you wonder. Why are people like Ensign, Craig, Swaggart—and these are just three (who are familiar to us because they made the front pages) out of a likely host of others—so against the granting of civil rights for gay men and lesbians? What are they trying to protect?

Relationship Research and Same-Sex Marriage

Congratulations to both Iowa and Vermont for making justice prevail and granting same-sex couples the same rights as opposite-sex couples. Research on relationships has failed to find any negative effects that same-sex marriage might have on the family, on children, on opposite-sex marriages, and on society as a whole—effects that opponents of same-sex marriage claim exist but have never been able to prove. It’s the fallacious argument that Stuart Chase called the Thin Entering Wedge (same-sex marriage will open the doors to all sorts of catastrophes) and perhaps more popularly known as the fallacy of the Slippery Slope (once you allow same-sex marriage, everything else is down hill). The added difficulties that same-sex couples and their families face and ultimately surmount seem attributable to bigotry and discrimination.
With all the money these opponents spend in their advocacy for legalizing discrimination against gay men and lesbians, you’d assume that if there was such evidence, they would have found it. They haven’t. And these folks are very dedicated people; they’re willing, even anxious, to spend a good deal of their money, time, and talent to institutionalize discrimination. And so they resort to creationist beliefs (especially interesting from a rhetorical point of view) in their support of legal discrimination (the utterly stupid Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, the type of argument you’d think would be restricted to the audience attending The Jerry Springer Show)—a belief that even many of the states that still discriminate have rejected, at least as a scientific explanation of our current state.
And, it’s also clear, that legalizing same-sex marriage will have numerous benefits for both gay and straight, something New York and New Jersey need to consider as they prepare to make their decisions. But that’s another post.