It just goes to show you, it's always something. Now that gay couples have the right to marry in Massachusetts, a new problem has arisen: divorce. For example, how do courts resolve disputes over the custody of children? From the Washington Post:
For years, family court judges leaned toward a maternal preference when it came to custody disputes. But what to do when both parents are women, or neither is? Judges in Massachusetts have been grappling with that question since gay and lesbian couples began filing for divorce in 2004, seven months after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.
Now I figure this will be worked out the way the strike zone is worked out in baseball: it is what the ump calls. But this story gives rise to one of the dumbest things I have ever heard and educated person say:
"One of the benefits of marriage is divorce," said Joyce Kauffman, a Boston divorce lawyer who has handled a dozen same-sex divorce cases. "But for a lot of couples, that benefit is very complicated and very costly in ways that heterosexual couples would never have to experience."
That is a little bit like saying that high speed collisions are one of the benefits of driving. But it is typical of all that is wrong with the gay marriage argument. The left sees marriage as a large collection of benefits, to which gay persons ought to be entitled. In this view, divorce becomes one more benefit. But marriage is not about benefits at all. It is about mutual obligations between individuals that are reinforced by social as well as legal sanction. In that sense it is like any contract. But contracts involve benefits only to the degree that they bind the various parties. The left has worked assiduously to undo the ties that bind for a long time now.
I am in favor of gay marriage because I think that homosexual couples ought to have access to some of the benefits of the marriage contract. Rights of access in medical emergencies, power of attorney, and medical consent, that sort of thing. But when custody rights and other matters involving children are raised, some very funny stuff pops up.
In the case of the doctor, she and her spouse each gave birth to a boy fathered by the same sperm donor. They then adopted one another's sons. Biologically, their children are half-siblings; legally, they are full brothers.
Now biology is real, and if the law says the two young men are full brothers, then the law is an ass. As the article noted above, courts have tended to give preference to mothers in custody disputes. This is in part a consequence of the cultural idea that mothers are the primary caregivers. But that in turn has its origins in biology. For most of human history, it was always a lot easier to tell who the real mother is than who the real father is. On the other hand, adoption is even easier since it is established by legal fiat. So the court was probably reasonable in its solution.
While the parties are litigating, a family court in Boston has come up with a Solomonic ruling, saying that each of the women can spend half the week alone in the family home with the children.
The term Solomonic is unintentionally ironic. Divorce may on occasion be necessary for the protection of children. More often, it benefits one or more parent while cutting the children in half.
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