Here’s a handy graphic illustrating the various possible outcomes regarding the debate over the proposed anti-gay marriage amendment in the Massachusetts legislature, which (possibly) happens today.
Category Archives: General
The freedom to marry: Keep dancing
The freedom to marry: Keep dancing | Advocate.com
Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, has a great piece online about last week’s marriage decision in New York. An excerpt:
In fact, the plurality’s strained rationalizing of the discriminatory exclusion fails on its own terms.
New York’s ruling came just a week after the Arkansas supreme court unanimously rejected precisely the same proffered rationale; unlike the four-member majority of New York’s highest court, the judges in Arkansas (!) instead relied on the evidence provided by experts in child welfare. That evidence was, of course, available to the New York judges. Institutions such as the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Psychiatric Association, the Association to Benefit Children, and the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, among other authorities, submitted briefs to the court calling for an end to marriage discrimination in the interest of children and families.
And the very week of the New York decision, the American Academy of Pediatrics weighed in once again with an authoritative statement titled “The Effects of Marriage, Civil Union, and Domestic Partnership Laws on the Health and Well-being of Children†(see the academy’s full analysis on www.freedomtomarry.org). The nation’s kids’ doctors know best—and here’s what they said:
“There is ample evidence to show that children raised by same-gender parents fare as well as those raised by heterosexual parents. More than 25 years of research have documented that there is no relationship between parents’ sexual orientation and any measure of a child’s emotional, psychosocial, and behavioral adjustment. These data have demonstrated no risk to children as a result of growing up in a family with one or more gay parents. Conscientious and nurturing adults, whether they are men or women, heterosexual or homosexual, can be excellent parents. The rights, benefits, and protections of civil marriage can further strengthen these families.â€
Not only was this evidence, this kind of careful consideration of what truly helps couples and kids missing from the New York plurality opinion, so was any actual logical connection between the ends ostensibly sought (promoting stability, helping children) and the means chosen (denying that stability and help to others).
“The silver lining of the decision,” he writes, “is, ironically, its thinness, illogic, and refusal to consider the lives of real people, including gay families, and the real meaning of the denial of the human experience that is marriage. While the dissent makes a convincing legal and moral case, the plurality and concurring opinions will present no impediment to a court or decision-maker wanting to do what is right and willing to apply real scrutiny to a constitutional and moral wrong.
Personality Test Results
I’ve begun doing some informational interviews in the area of gay rights law, in order to see what the work is like and (more importantly) where the jobs are, and also to start making connections. I met with someone yesterday at a prominent gay rights organization and learned a lot.
If any of you have any connections at gay rights organizations in New York with whom I might be able to speak about working in gay rights law, feel free to contact me.
In other news, last week I got the results back from my personality tests. I’d taken the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) and the Strong Interest Inventory.
On the Myers-Briggs I was classified as INFP. This means I am more:
Introverted as opposed to Extroverted
iNtuitive as opposed to Sensing
Feeling as opposed to Thinking
Perceiving as opposed to Judging
More explanation of the different qualities here.
Two of the categories were close calls. I was classified as only three points more introverted than extroverted, which makes some sense, because I do like parties and I do value relationships with people, but I also really need my quiet alone time. Even closer, I was only one point more feeling than thinking. That’s understandable, too, as I have a long-standing conflict between the emotional and logical sides of me; I find each mode of existence highly appealing in its own way.
I came out six points more perceiving than judging, and a whopping THIRTEEN points more intuitive than sensing.
As for the Strong Interest Inventory, it judges you on six characteristics: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. I scored most highly in the Artistic and Investigative categories.
The job categories with which my answers to the various questions correlated most closely are: Librarian, Translator, Technical Writer. I have no interest in being a translator, some interest in being a “technical writer” (which apparently encompasses such things as legal writing), and not a whole lot of interest in being a librarian.
Another job on which it ranked me pretty highly, though, was college professor. That’s another thing I’ve thought about before.
Anyway, I tend to think these kinds of tests are largely self-reinforcing – they confirm what you already know, and if you disagree with the results, you discount them. Still, they’re fun to take, and they’re not wholly unenlightening.