Five years after Vermont allowed civil unions, the first study to examine the experience has found that legalized same-sex couple relationships appear to be longer-lasting than those without a legal status.
“There are many ways that a legal couple status may support a relationship – more family understanding, acceptance by friends and co-workers, greater commitment that results from a public declaration, and enhanced legal protections in the form of healthcare benefits and community property,” said Robert-Jay Green. “The results of this first study on the topic suggest that same-sex partners who legalized their relationships in Vermont may have been more committed to each other or functioning better prior to obtaining a civil union—or that civil union status itself is helping to preserve their relationships . Future research will help clarify whether various legal statuses actually increase the likelihood that lesbian and gay couples stay together. ”
“In contrast to old myths about same-sex couples being deficient or less viable than male-female couples , this research project shows that same-sex partners who seek to legalize their relationships actually may be among the best functioning couples in this society,” said Green.
None of this surprises me. Simple empiricism, just looking around at the same-sex couples I’ve known for decades offers the same conclusion.
Some of this may eventually seep down into the cracks where professional moralists cluster.
I’m not sure what the point is other than saying that married people tend to stay together longer than unmarried people. Isn’t that generally true anyway? Just the fact that being legally tied to somebody creates a situation where it is now more inconvenient to break apart would explain part of this.
What if marriage of any kind were illegal, but cohabitation was not. How would that affect ANY relationship?
Without the possibility of societal or legal confirmation of a person-to-person commitment, it would not be surprising to see a much more casual attitude to pairing off, having kids and staying together.
Homosexuals enjoy seeing information that somehow justifies their behavior problem?
You have to weigh in the fact that many (most?) of the same sex couples that get married when it first becomes legal have been together for many years already. I’d wager that opposite sex couples that have been together for many years and finally marry (often for financial reasons) show similar behavior.
Wait a few years, when quickie marriages and divorces are available in Las Vegas. It will make Brittany Spears look like Ike and Mamie!
#3 – High Loogie
>>Homosexuals enjoy seeing information that
>>somehow justifies their behavior problem?
Behavior problem? WTF? How is their behavior a “problem”, other than in the minds of the Professional Moralists, whose lives are so barren that they seek gratification in trying to tell other people what to do?
I found the part of the article that talks about the fact that the percentage of same-sex civil unions ending being greater than hetrosexual marrages more interesting even if the study considers the diffrence to be “not statistically significant”.
I would like to see a break-down of those percentages of those same-sex couples by gender, to see if male same-sex relationship lasted longer or ended more often than female same-sex couples.
Higghawker, I would agree. Marriage is completely abhorrent behavior.
This makes sense for at least two reasons in addition to that stated in point #1.
1) People have more of an incentive to stay together when it costs money to split and requires lawyers.
2) In order to self-justify that they made the commitment in the first place, they will convince themselves that they made the right choice, which will involve staying together.
As for Higghawker’s comment in post #3, Mister Mustard has it right. Where the hell do you get off deciding what is and what is not a behavior problem? Do you see the way in your blind and unthinking faith in a stupid 2,000 year old book has clouded your vision? Damn!! Times change. Morality has improved a lot since people had to kill each other for wearing a mix of linen and wool or for not accepting Jesus as their king.
Get a freakin’ life!!
If the bible were the one true source of morals, how many of us would have to be publicly stoned to death for the high crime of working on the Sabbath? And, yes, carrying a bag of groceries will probably count.
At least if you need to believe in a load of horseshit try thinking about it enough to come up with a self-consistent version. ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’ is not consistent with ‘homosexuals should be publicly stoned to death’. When you can think enough to recognize that ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is inconsistent with ‘death by stoning to anyone who breaks any of the commandments’, perhaps you will see the error of your ways. But, I doubt it.
Higghawker, how’s the therapy coming along?
Misanthropic Scott, I like the part in the bible about selling my daughter into slavery. Especially, after I get her cell phone bill.
Man, I am just laughing my a$$ off. If this actually makes the relationship stronger then it was pretty shallow to begin with.
There are 3 types of lies. Lies, Damned lies, and statistics.
I’m gay and have been in a single relationship for 12 years now. We don’t plan to get “married” because in a way it would cheapen the relationship. Exactly as some have been saying, it would create a financial/legal hurdle to breaking up, meaning you’re more likely to stay together. That’s sick. That means you may be with someone not because you love them and choose to be with them, but just because it’s too difficult and expensive to leave them? Wow. I like the idea that after 12 years, my partner wakes up next to me because he WANTS to, not because he has to or it’s too difficult to chew his foot off and ‘escape’. 🙂 Now if you have children or legal dependents, then some union makes sense just for legal reasons, but otherwise, marriage is bullshit. If you love someone, stay with them. If you don’t love them, you shouldn’t be tricked/forced into staying with them.
#10 – QB,
Clearly you must like that great urban legend of a letter alleged to have been sent to Dr. Laura. While the letter is likely just a legend, it does cite chapter and verse of the bible and probably brings up some of the more beautiful points of the total load of crap that is the number one best seller in all of history.
Letter to Dr. Laura
I think any two people who have a shared experience, shared values, stay together longer than those who don’t whether they get married or not.
Gay people “in general” have the common experience of putting up with prejudicial fuckwits who judge their life style. If they didn’t show solidarity in various ways, they wouldn’t be hooman.
Who cares.
The legal status debate NOR the goal is about making same-sex relationships last longer. That’s just a happy coincidence by product.
Get real. The debate is maintaining and codifying bigotry and religious beliefs in law.
0 Eideard: “Some of this may eventually seep down into the cracks where professional moralists cluster.”
And maybe even the professional evolutionists too.
RBG
Duh.
Misanthropic Scott. I have never seen that letter but I love it. Honestly I really don’t think much about Dr Laura since life is too short for that. However, she strikes me as a woman who needs an orgasm more than any white woman in history, with the possible exception Ann Coulter.
Maybe those two are made for each other?
#16–RBG==I’ll bite. I can’t think of anything legitimately related to Darwin on this subject, so what have you got?
Let’s not forget the marriage was INVENTED (cause there is nothing in Nature that requires marriage) as a means of passing property from one generation to another !!! So it’s a legal/religious construct based on PROPERTY OWNERSHIP, and let’s also not forget, that PEOPLE – WOMEN, CHILDREN, SLAVES were considered PROPERTY THAT PASSED FROM ONE GENERATIONAL “OWNER” TO THE NEXT !!! And because Laws were passed that advantage those “Married” against those Not Married, and since most marriages were performed in Churches, until the advent of Civil Marriages, gays were disadvantaged and discriminated against. So Gay Marriage seeks to reverse that, but comes with all the baggage of Marriage Contracts !!!
JimD, there is actually a fair amount of interesting history around marriage. For example, it was not uncommon in the Roman empire for same sex couples to marry. It was made illegal around 340 (I’d have to look it up) by the Christian emporer (or emporers, it was a wacky time).
Also, historically there have been more laws specifying the terms for cohabitation rather than marriage since this was more common until recently (late 1800’s or so). It wasn’t until the Protestant Reformation that marriage laws really started to kick in.
>> QB said,
>> For example, it was not uncommon in the Roman empire for same sex couples to marry.
Wait a doggone minute! The cultural conservatives swear that homosexuality has been condemned by all cultures for all time.
THEY WOULD NEVER LIE!
From a biological standpoint, homosexuality is abnormal. There is no reason to get into morals.
There also seems to be a problem with the life expectancy of men who are homosexual. This is to be expected as that behavior doesn’t forward species propagation.
It is obviously an evolutionary dead end. But, that happens all the time with evolution.
#24–Paddy==binary thinking is about the simplest, one or two steps above worms.
Trying viewing a few issues using “a continuum” model and you won’t be so judgmental. You’d lose all your current friends, that would be a good thing too would it not?
>> Paddy-O said,
>> From a biological standpoint, homosexuality is abnormal.
So is monogamy, abstinence and post-menopause. Should we outlaw those, too?
Here’s the bottom line for me:
Gay people are Americans and must have the same rights of all others Americans.
This includes legally marrying their partner, if they want to.
19 bobbo
You seem surprised as me when I first learned that humans and a few other animals, for some reason, evolved opposite sexes from its beginnings over a billion years ago.
But I guess that little fact shouldn’t be given any sort of special recognition since the idea of “discrimination” was invented a number of decades back.
RBG
#27–RBG==binary thinking is about the simplest, one or two steps above worms.
Trying viewing a few issues using “a continuum” model and you won’t be so judgmental. You’d lose all your current friends, that would be a good thing too would it not?
But to be fair:==just read about “anything” on evolution and homosexuality and your dipodal view of the universe will be totally flushed. Or==continue to post from your sewer.
#26 – GregAllen
What you said. Don’t let the homophobes and hatemongers rule the day.
Paddy-O said: “From a biological standpoint, homosexuality is abnormal. There is no reason to get into morals.”
Oh give me a break. Have you actually spent any time around animals, especially herd or pack animals? Most bighorn sheep and elk are gayer than a dutch bassoon.
Dogs do it. Cats do it. Even little sheep who go “baaaa” do it.
Well, at first view, Paddy is correct.
Homosexuality is abnormal. As did Paddy, not talking about “natural” or “morals.”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abnormal
Main Entry:
1. ab·nor·mal
\(ˌ)ab-ˈnȯr-məl, əb-\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
alteration of French anormal, from Medieval Latin anormalis, from Latin a- + Late Latin normalis normal
Date:
circa 1836
: deviating from the normal or average : unusual, exceptional
— ab·nor·mal·ly Listen to the pronunciation of abnormally \-mə-lē\ adverb
Homosexuality naturally arises in hoomans across time and culture from 5-15% depending on how you define it. Only an idiot would claim it was a choice, although in prison that does seem the case.
I think it is fair to view homosexuality as a defect of the normative hetersexual process that constantly recurs without negative impact on the breeding population, but more recent studies suggest an accidental linkage of several genes resulting in homosexuality as also linked to greater overall fertility.
Still, all these issues aside, unless you think homosexuals aren’t human, and as long as their choices aren’t hurting you, whats the deal?