The Curious Case of the Incurious Economists
I just found out that I have been published over at The American Thinker. I’m very excited, as they have very intelligent readers over there. Here is the beginning of the article.
Normally, economists and libertarians take pride in tracking the changes in incentives as far through society as possible. Yet on the subject of same-sex marriage, these economists seemed uncharacteristically incurious. They seem to think same sex-marriage will affect only the handful of people who 1) currently identify themselves as gay or lesbian, 2) are partnered, and 3) want to get married. My economist friends do not seem to see that redefining marriage will create changes in the social incentive structure for everyone. If I’m right, the behavior of many millions of people could be in play.
Permitting people to form same-sex unions will not be the last change to the legal landscape. The entire culture, including the coercive apparatus of the state, will be pressed into service to promote same-sex relationships as wholly unexceptional.
Read the whole thing here.
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I honestly never thought of the possibility of non-sexual same-sex unions to avoid having a man around. Now that you wrote about it and opened my eyes, I can see how it would logically follow. Each and every child needs to be protected from this nightmare, because they will be the ones who suffer most from this tragedy. Lord, help us!
Dear Ruth, i certainly hope that you testified as an expert witness in the Prop 8 trial.
I am a member of democrats for life and a opponent of same-sex marriage on what I call ‘sociological” grounds which largely tracks the analysis you set out in terms of incentives ,and creation of new socialization norms governing sexuality. Once “choice” is established as a social norm for intra-gender sex, the cultural norm will be to exercise that choice to avoid the stigma of being “homophobic”. All kids will be socialized to not only consider that intra-gender sex is OK for them, but that it is discriminatory and homophobic to only consider inter-gender sex.
Dr. Ruth – Congratulations on your publication on The Thinker website. I read the whole article there and also the comments. Some excellent points in both. Thanks for your work.
Thanks Joanne. But, just for the record: I’m not Dr Ruth. You are confusing me with someone else! I’m Dr. Morse, also known as Dr. J!