8/2/2019 Why Opposing the Gay Lobby is Not Anti-gay

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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078

www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com 760/295-92782007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.

Why opposing the gay

lobby is not anti-gay

by Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.

This article was first published atTheblaze.com on March 24, 2012.

Earlier this month the Gay & LesbianAlliance Against Defamations (GLAAD)

Commentator Accountability Project

included me on their list of people whodeserve special scrutiny before they can be

engaged as commentators on the marriage

debate. But it is organizations like GLAAD

that need to be held accountable for theimpact of their rhetoric on the public debate.

According to the GLAAD website, I have

held myself out as someone who purports to

be an expert on the lives of LGBT people.

Evidently (and unbeknownst to me) I havedevoted my career making life more

difficult for LGBT people. Although these

extreme statements have since beenscrubbed from the site, the organization

continues to claim that Bias is Not

Balance. The undeniable implication is thatmy views are baseless. GLAADs

systematic policy of slapping negative labels

on their opponents without actually

engaging them in debate reduces the qualityof discourse in the public square.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of words I

have spoken or written,GLAAD found a

grand total of four quotes as evidence of mysupposed extreme animus towards the

entire LGBT community. One of these is

that I say redefining marriage willmarginalize fathers from the family, because

fathers will be considered inessential.

GLAAD acts as if this were self-evidentevidence of anti-gay bias.

This is very peculiar, as the claim that

redefining marriage will marginalize fathers

from the family is not a statement about the

behavior, character or motives of same sexattracted people, male or female. It is simply

my forecast of one consequence of

redefining marriage. I believe it with all myheart, and have said so on numerous

occasions, citing a variety of reasons and

evidence. I am not the slightest bit ashamedof this forecast.

My training is in economics. Economistsexamine how changes in public policies alter

peoples incentives, and hence their

behavior. So it is natural for me to ask, Whatwill happen if we remove the gender

requirement from marriage? I wonder what

society will look like after 30 years of agentsof the state making statements like this one

from the Iowa Supreme Court: The

traditional notion that children need a

mother and a father to be raised into healthy,well-adjusted adults is based more on

stereotype than anything else.

You may disagree with me about how likely

it is that making marriage a genderless

social institution will marginalize fathersfrom the family. Or you may disagree with

my assessment of the harm it would do. But

you cannot deny that this is a serious

http://www.glaad.org/caphttp://www.glaad.org/cap/jennifer-roback-morsehttp://www.glaad.org/cap/jennifer-roback-morsehttp://www.glaad.org/cap/jennifer-roback-morsehttp://www.glaad.org/cap

8/2/2019 Why Opposing the Gay Lobby is Not Anti-gay

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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078

www.jennifer-roback-morse.com email: drj@jennifer-roback-morse.com 760/295-92782007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.

question about the possible impact of

changing the law and culture of marriage.

Evidently GLAAD believes that raisinglegitimate questions about the groups

preferred policies automatically makes a

person anti-gay. But surely one candisagree with policies advocated by the

National Education Association without

hating every teacher in America, just as one

can surely oppose policies advocated by theNAACP without being a racist.

Redefining marriage raises questions that

deserve to be fully aired. Trying to discredit

skeptics changes the subject. Equating all

disagreement with evidence of bias lowersthe intellectual level of the discussion. These

rhetorical tactics do not do the gay lobby

any credit. In fact, responsible people of allparties should shun these strategies and

make room for honest debate on this

momentous question of changing thefundamental structure of our most important

social institution.

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is an

economist and the Founder and President of

theRuth Institute, a nonprofit educationalorganization devoted to bringing hope and

encouragement for lifelong married love.

She is also the author of77 Non-Religious

Reasons to Support Man/Woman Marriage,Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to

Raise a Village andSmart Sex: Finding

Life-Long Love in a Hook-Up World.

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