How gay marriage will affect me

Update 6/26/13: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) is unconstitutional. They also killed California's Prop 8 ban on gay marriage. 

By the end of the summer, there will be twelve states that allow gay marriage. Here are all the ways that is going to affect my own heterosexual marriage:


 

To prevent rape, know what it is

A couple of months ago, political analyst Zerlina Maxwell startled Sean Hannity by rejecting his notion that more access to guns was the best strategy for protecting women from rape. Her alternative plan? Teach men not to rape. 

If you read the transcript, you may notice that in exchange for her efforts to tell men not to rape women, she received numerous rape and death threats. Stay classy, internet.

As you can see, the idea that rapists could be taught not to rape was baffling to Hannity. Many of the people charged with finding solutions to the problem of rape in the military seem equally perplexed. Unlike Hannity, their best guesses weren’t to arm women, who presumably do have access to guns, but to keep women out of the military altogether. Senator Saxby Chambliss opined that raging hormones were to blame for the rampant sexual assault in the military and suggested that things wouldn’t improve as long as women were allowed to serve in the armed forces. This is like telling robbery victims to stop owning things. 

As the epidemic of sexual assault in the military makes clear, arming people in hopes of deterring violence does not and cannot work. This is particularly true in the case of rape. According to Maxwell, 80% of rapes are ‘acquaintance rapes’, meaning that the victim knows the rapist. That means that either the woman already knows that the man is violent, in which case she’s five times more likely to be killed by him if there are guns around, or she has no reason to suspect that he’s violent, in which case she probably wouldn’t keep her gun at the ready. Either way, guns are no help to either civilians or military personnel.

Let’s go back to Maxwell’s prescription: teach men not to rape. Hannity thought the idea of convincing a rapist not to rape was ridiculous. Not being known for being a good listener, he missed her point entirely, so I’ll spell it out for him. If you teach men what rape is, they’ll know it when they see it and they’ll be less likely to do it. At this point, you may be thinking, "Come on! Everybody knows what rape is!" Really?

Is it rape if you have sex with a girl who’s dead drunk? The boys involved in the Steubenville High School rape case didn’t think so. Even after the trial, many members of the community still didn’t think so, judging by the backlash against that girl. The problem isn't that some people are born evil as if they grew on rapist trees, it's that ordinary young men don't recognize sexual assault for what it is. Maybe that story would have played out differently if rape were more clearly defined in our society.

Maxwell doesn’t just pass around empty platitudes. She has some concrete ideas for how to go about teaching men not to rape. One idea I particularly liked: teach young men to take an enthusiastic ‘yes’, rather than the lack of a ‘no’ as consent. This would preclude men from thinking that sex with a woman who was unconscious or incoherent was acceptable.

If Hannity and Chambliss think that men are incorrigible and can’t be dissuaded from their desire to rape, then I have a higher opinion of men than they do. I also have a higher opinion of the power of information and education. With those tools, we can and must make the world safer for women.

Crimes against the youth: student loans and what we can do about them

Nowadays, you often hear young people (in their teens and twenties) being given the advice, “College isn’t for everyone! You might be much better off skipping college and avoiding those huge student loans. Think carefully about whether college will be worth your while.”

I hate this advice. Not because I think every person should go to college. I recognize that there are perfectly acceptable life choices that don’t include college, and that college may not even be particularly helpful for some careers. No, I hate this advice because it’s usually given by people who have been to college, at an earlier time when it was more affordable. It’s like telling someone, ‘you wouldn’t have enjoyed that cake anyway’ after you take the last piece. 

Actually, it’s worse than that, because nobody denies that college is a stimulating, enriching experience for most people. No one is suggesting that young people won’t discover new interests and develop useful skills and contacts at college. There's also no doubt that societies benefit from having a well-educated populace. The advice to bypass college is purely an economic calculation. So let’s look at some numbers.

In 2010, the total unemployment rate among high school graduates who did not go to college was 10.3%. For people with at least a bachelor’s degree, that number was only 4.7%. In April of this year, those figures were 7.5% and 3.9%, respectively. Things have definitely been improving for everyone, but people with a college degree still have a definite edge in getting a job.

What about pay?

For these figures, I went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2013, the median salary of a 25 year old with a high school diploma but no college was $651/week. For a person with a college degree, the median weekly salary was $1095.

So far, it sounds like a college education is a huge asset. Why would anyone discourage someone from getting one? Two words: student loans.

Colleges and universities have been increasing in price more than any other commodity, at two to three times the rate of inflation. For the 2012-2013 school year, a student could expect to pay over $20,000/year at an in-state public college and over $40,000 at a private college. These numbers are averages for moderately priced schools in each category. 

Not too many poor or middle class kids have $80,000 (and in many cases, far more than that) lying around to pay for college. Obviously, everyone hopes their kids will get grants and scholarships, and some universities are working to help lower income families send their kids to college. Many Ivy League and elite schools waive tuition for families earning under $60,000/year. However, you still have to be accepted to those schools, which isn’t easy. For most students, the only way to get all the way to a bachelor’s degree is to take out some loans, and that changes the equation dramatically. 

While it’s true that college grads get more jobs and more pay at those jobs, that doesn’t mean that recent college graduates are getting the kinds of jobs they want. In one small study, only half of students who graduated from a U.S. college in 2011 or 2012 were employed full time. Many of those that were employed settled for unfavorable work hours, low wages and few benefits. One third felt that their college degree had little if anything to do with that job. Meanwhile, unlike high school grads, the college grads are starting their careers saddled with loans. Each year, 60% of college students borrow money for school. Most owe close to $25,000 but many owe far more and some owe more than $200,000. College graduates might be making more money than their bachelor-less peers, but not enough more to compensate for those loans. Forty-one percent of borrowers miss some payments within the first five years.

So here’s the choice faced by many young people today: skip college and take your chances with higher unemployment and lower pay, or take out loans that you may never be able to repay. Either choice is a loss, not only for the individual, but for society as well. Young people who are encumbered by huge loans make far fewer major purchases (house or car) than they would have otherwise done. They put off marriage or moving into their own homes. And that doesn't even count the loss of potential that results from discouraging a whole generation of talented people from pursuing their interests. 

I consider it to be a crime against the youth in this country that we put them in this position. But it doesn't have to be this way. 

Senator Elizabeth Warren has proposed a bill to set the interest rate for student loans at 0.75%, which incidentally is the same rate the U.S. government charges the big banks. I think that’s a great idea and I hope it passes, but I think we should go even further. Let’s make higher education free. Why not? Lots of other countries do it. The University of California system was practically free until 1969.

Just how much would it cost to provide free universal college educations? One study estimates that, based on the number of students enrolled in public universities in 2009, the total cost of providing free public college would be $128 billion per year. That figure assumes that the 2009 ratio of 40% enrollment in cheaper community colleges holds steady. 

I think 128 billion is a low estimate, both because more people overall would attend college if it were free, and because more students would go straight to a four-year school rather than starting at community college. So let’s increase it by 50% and round it off to an even 200 billion. Where could we possibly come up with that kind of money? 

Here’s an idea. How about taking the money out of the military budget? If that makes you uncomfortable, take a look at this chart:

In 2011, the U.S. spent over $960 billion on defense. That’s more than the next fourteen biggest spenders combined. If we cut our defense spending by 20%, we could afford free universal higher education and we’d still be outspending the next highest military spender (China) by four to one. 

If you don’t like that idea, I’m sure there are programs you wouldn’t mind cutting or eliminating in favor of providing opportunities for the people who will one day be in charge of everything. It’s a matter of priorities, and it’s long past time we set ours straight. 

Wherein I compare the secular community to the GOP

You don’t often find parallels between the atheist community and the Republican party. However, recent events place them in a surprisingly similar light with respect to their potential members.

Let’s look at the atheists first.

In recent years, secular, atheist and humanist women have rightfully demanded that they be given a greater voice within their communities. This culminated in the Women in Secularism 2 conference, which took place in Washington, DC last month. I wasn’t in attendance, so my information comes from the multitude of blogs and tweets about the event. According to most accounts, the opening speaker, Ronald Lindsay (President and CEO of the Center for Inquiry, which sponsored the conference) chastised the attendees for trying to silence men. I say ‘most accounts’ because Lindsay feels otherwise.*

This isn’t the place for a primer on the problems women and minorities have faced within the secular community. I bring the story up to compare it with a similar event, this time courtesy of the Republican party.

The GOP lost the last presidential election by five million votes. Much of that loss was due to their particularly poor showing among younger voters (teens and twenty year olds). The College Republican National Committee (CRNC) put out a report explaining why this was so. Briefly, young people don’t think the GOP cares about them or represents their interests. 

How did the GOP react to this news?

Here’s one example, courtesy of Bill O’Reilly:

So why should I care about this study, or why should the Republican Party care about a bunch of kids who don’t know anything?

In case it isn’t clear, the CRNC’s report was conducted by and for Republicans. It’s explicit purpose was to help the GOP regain the trust of younger voters. From the report’s introduction: 

We believe that Republicans can win young voters but that it will require a significantly different approach than has been used in recent elections. In this report, we propose what such an approach would entail and offer research-based insights that can guide Republicans wishing to find success with a new generation. 

Let’s compare O’Reilly’s comment to one by Lindsay: 

[They] assume you should never question, you should never argue back, because the person from the marginalized group must have the expertise.

As with the GOP, the people who were complaining about Lindsay’s talk at Women in Secularism 2 genuinely want their community to flourish. Their goal isn’t to aid and abet the enemy. They want more people to join their ranks. Scolding them for informing you about the feelings of people you need to court in order to stay relevant is shortsighted and unhelpful. While there are many effective strategies for growing a community, having a tantrum about dissenting views is not one of them.

Lindsay doesn’t speak for all secularists anymore than O’Reilly speaks for all Republicans. However, they are both in positions to guide their communities toward greater inclusion, something both organizations desperately need right now. The question is: will either group listen?

*Lindsay's full Women in Secularism 2 speech.

Neutrality does not mean the atheists win

A Muslim, a Christian and an atheist went into a community center...No, this isn’t the start of a joke, but of a real conversation that took place not long ago. I’ll be playing the part of the atheist.

A Muslim friend of mine mentioned that, until recently, board meetings at her work in a public facility had begun with a Christian prayer. However, people had complained and the board had agreed to stop the practice. A Christian friend had listened to this and agreed that it made sense not to have explicitly Christian prayers. She could understand how such a practice would be alienating to non-Christians like our mutual Muslim friend. However, she pointed out, you can’t have no prayers at all because “then the atheists would win.”

Really? If no religion is favored, that’s a win for atheism? It’s not as if the board meetings would start with someone saying, ‘Before we begin, I’d like us all to take a moment to acknowledge that there are no gods.’ 

My Christian friend’s attitude pervades our culture. When the U.S. Army recently ruled that their weaponry could no longer bear references to bible verses, this was taken as an attack on Christianity. Never mind that these inscribed weapons were being used in Muslim countries. Not exactly a good PR move.

By the same token, Christian groups often oppose efforts to prevent school bullying or to promote understanding and acceptance. Any attempt to curb their ability to proselytize or force others to accept their viewpoint is seen as persecution. Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association went so far as to claim that “anti-bullying policies become a mechanism for punishing Christian students.”

You know you hold a privileged position in society when you think that not being allowed to bully others is a form of discrimination.

The reality is that it isn’t just the atheists who win when no religion is promoted. We all do. When no specific religion is mentioned, each person is free to think about their own particular religion and no one feels excluded. 

They said it better: the good guys with guns myth

I do my best to make my points as clearly and persuasively as I can. Then I come across an article that does a much better job. In those cases, it's best for everyone if I step aside and let the author of that piece do the talking.

Retired pediatrician Wayne Myers wrote a blog post called A Doctor's View of Guns in the Daily Yonder, an online source of news and commentary about small towns.

In his post, Myers discusses his experiences with guns in his rural Maine community and why those experiences made him "skeptical of the 'good guy with a gun' theory". You don't have to witness or patch up too many cases of otherwise good people unwittingly sending bullets into themselves or other good people to come to a similar verdict.

His conclusion tells it all:

If children and adults were infallible, and never got angry, depressed, drunk, curious, delusional, careless, childish, greedy, confused or jealous, guns wouldn't be a problem.

Read the whole piece.

The wrong question about abortion

There are people who claim to be resolutely against abortion in all cases. A standard ploy to gauge the depth of these people’s conviction on this issue is to pose the question, ‘what if your own daughter became pregnant after being raped?’ Rick Santorum was asked this question during the 2012 Republican Primary race, and he, like others in his situation, answered that he would counsel her to keep the baby. Following exchanges like this, everyone congratulates themselves on having asked and answered such a tough, enlightening question.

I’m not impressed.

To explain why, I’m going to don my biologist hat. Let’s look at things purely from a genetic standpoint.

Santorum’s daughter’s baby, regardless of the circumstances of its conception, would be his biological grandchild. That gives him a powerful incentive to resist her attempts to abort it, even if he normally would be pro-choice (which, of course, he’s not). Seen in this light, asking him his views about his daughter’s theoretical abortion is a pointlessly facile question. Here’s what I hear when reporters ask it: “You say you don’t believe in abortion, but would you still feel that way even if one killed your future grandchild?”

All of a sudden, the stock answer sounds a lot less courageous, doesn't it?

Let’s contrast that question with an alternative question that I’ve never heard someone ask a politician*: ‘What if your wife got pregnant from being raped?’ 

If the daughter chooses not to abort, Santorum’s genes get passed on, very likely with little or no longterm investment on his part. If, on the other hand, his wife doesn’t abort, Santorum will have to invest huge amounts of time, money and energy into rearing someone else’s biological child. That’s quite a different prospect. If I heard a male politician say that he would willingly raise a child that resulted from his wife’s rape, I’d be far more inclined to accept his conviction on the issue of abortion. 

I feel I need to clarify something. Please don’t take this post to mean that I don’t think adoptive parents can love their children just as much as biological parents do. I know that they can and do. My point is that telling someone else to keep a baby, especially when you have a biological incentive for her to do so, is not the same as rearing a baby yourself, especially when you don’t have a biological incentive to do so. Applauding someone for holding the former position is giving credit where none is due.

*If you know of a case where this has happened, leave it in the comments.