Ethics

Won't Someone Think of the (Black) Children?

By Ed Brayton

If you're tired of hearing stupid religious reasons to oppose gay marriage, how about some stupid, allegedly secular, racist reasons to oppose gay marriage? Heather MacDonald is apparently has some sort of bet going with Maggie Gallagher to see which one of them can come up with the most offensively stupid arguments against gay marriage. And I think MacDonald just took the lead with this post at Secular Right.

There are writers at Secular Right that I respect, including ScienceBlogs' own Razib Khan and Walter Olson, a longtime friend of Dispatches. But MacDonald just embarrasses herself on this post. Once you read "If the black illegitimacy rate were not nearly three times the rate of whites', I would have few qualms about gay marriage" you know you have to prepare yourself for some serious bullshit. She claims that gay marriage will "further depress the black marriage rate" and offers two arguments, one "logical" and one visceral, for why that's the case.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on May 18, 2009 (boomark / email).