Manufacturing dissent

Ezra Klein quotes from the American Sociological Association's statement on gay parents to contradict Scalia's statement that sociologists disagree about whether gays make good parents.  I think that he could go one further.  Scalia is probably taking Mark Regnerus's recent study as evidence of dissent within sociology.  Problems with Regnerus's study have been covered extensively, due to the e.g., defining gay parents as parents who have ever had a same-sex relationship, no matter how short-lived, as well as the conservative funding sources. The right comparison is obviously between children of stable same-sex and stable opposite-sex relationships, rather than between children of unstable same-sex and children of stable opposite-sex relationships. 

Scalia may hold a view common among conservatives that academic consensus derives more from liberal bias than from knowledge, so are only interested in findings contrary to liberal views.  Like many, I would call that cherry-picking, but conservatives seem to regard it as a necessary corrective.  It's a huge problem, and it's why there seems to be a red reality and a blue reality.

Two similar examples in my research areas:

Out of ~12 studies on virginity pledges, 2 find that pledges work, and those are the ones quoted by conservatives, especially because the first study found that pledges work (Bearman and Bruckner 2001 in American Journal of Sociology).  I reanalyzed B&B's data using better methods and found pledges didn't work. 

Out of hundreds or thousands of studies on condoms' effectiveness in preventing STIs, one prominent study (Zenilman 1995) found that people who reported condom use still got STIs.  Zenilman concluded that the subjects had over-reported their condom use; right-wingers said the study proved condoms don't work, which resulted in CDC being ordered to remove information about condoms from their website during the Bush administration. 

The biggest examples are global warming and Keynesian economics.  In red reality, the 0.3% of scientists who "don't believe" in global warming matter more than the 99.7% who do, and Scalia's discounting of the academic consensus on gay marriage is just the tip of the melting iceberg. 

Heterosexual-only sex education: next generation abstinence-only?

Rolling Stone tells of a rash of suicides among lesbian/gay/bisexual/questioning teens in a conservative town in Minnesota. They mention a next generation sex education program in public schools sponsored by evangelical organizations that questions same sex attraction. This heterosexual-only sex education program appears to be just another guise of abstinence-only sex education, and it seems to follow from the same motivation.

Both programs come from an assumption that both same sex attraction and premarital sex are brand new phenomena, and that it's possible to go back to the way things used to be. (Of course, plenty of evidence indicates that they're not new, and even if they were new, it's neither possible nor desirable to go back to a time when women's suffrage was unthinkable. None of the strong women evangelical leaders would agree to reverse feminist gains.)

Both programs attempt security via obscurity, and treat education as dangerous. Teaching a subject (contraception or same-sex attraction) is thought to encourage and legitimize the subject, and to advance an imagined liberal agenda.

Instead, the programs just delegitimize normal behavior and endanger teenagers. Abstinence-only sex education increased unsafe sex probably because it taught that pregnancy and STDs were unavoidable, so there was no point to avoiding them. Alternatively, it made teens so worried about the spiritual effects of sex that they never worried about the physical effects. That's dangerous and bad for public health, but probably no one would die from it. Hetero-only sex education is more insidious because it further marginalizes a population that is already marginalized, at high risk for educational and health disadvantages, and at high risk of suicide.

Right now these hetero-only sex education programs are coming into public schools using private funds. That's how abstinence-only sex education started in the early/mid 1990s. The next stage would be to slip funding for these programs into another bill, as abstinence-only began in 1996 with the welfare reform bill. I hope it doesn't get that far.

Romanticizing religious strictures

David Brooks on Friday wrote about the merits of what he calls "rigorous theology." Moderate feel-good religion doesn't cut it, he says. He says that more rigorous religion is what motivates people to behave sexually, and that if Mormons refrain from coffee, that willpower must extend to the rest of their lives. Even setting aside the implicit "without god all is permitted" issue, his premise is dubious. The abstinence movement shows clear examples of religion not motivating people to behave sexually. Evangelical sociologist Mark Regnerus's book about evangelical teens describes how they compartmentalize their sexual behavior from the rest of their religiosity.

As for whether discipline in one area extends to others: I'm not aware of any research of the sort. My understanding of the psychology literature is that willpower is limited: if one is exerting willpower in one area, one has less will power for other efforts. On the other hand, a life-long dietary adherence requires no willpower at all. It's just habit, and habit requires no thought. In fact, people who break dietary restrictions for the first time describe the will-power that it takes to take that first habit-breaking step.

David Brooks keeps kosher himself, so I would think that he would have realized that habitual dietary laws don't impact will-power at all. Perhaps in the throes of Passover bread deprivation (his op-ed was published on the 4th day of Passover), he wanted to believe that his week without bread was bettering himself. Now that he can go back to bread, perhaps Brooks will realize how much he was romanticizing religious strictures. Or perhaps he'll continue keeping Passover for another month because the first week was so rigorous.

My Baltimore Sun op-ed defending O'Donnell on abstinence, but not on poverty

My op-ed in today's Baltimore Sun says that O'Donnell's personal religious beliefs about abstinence and masturbation are reasonably mainstream evangelical beliefs, but that her mainstream Republican beliefs ignore that the Bible says that fortunate, wealthy societies have an obligation to provide for the poor.

Originally I framed the article as we should be sensitive to her because the Bible says to be sensitive to those who are alone through no fault of their own like widows, orphans, and converts, but the Bible also says societies have the obligation to be generous to the poor. This obligation to sensitivity for widows, orphans, and converts seems to extend to be sensitive also to people who are involuntarily single, as virtually all religious single adults are, and abstinence must be a particularly difficult subject for her since abstinence means that she has an idealized view of marriage and her eventual husband she hoped would love her for her beliefs and admire her for having stuck to them since her conversion to become more religious. I liked the parallelism, but it involved too much speculation about her personal life.

More importantly, I'm not a religious authority, so it's not my place to say what we should and shouldn't do.

Two good comments so far on Baltimore Sun. One said how to you judge which beliefs you criticize candidates for. That's a really terrific topic --- many politicians have personal religious beliefs, but they maintain a line between those beliefs and the policies that they support. One example is Joe Lieberman where it's my understanding that his personal religious beliefs should in theory make him more supportive of social programs to help the poor, but lately he has been voting against these programs for what may be political reasons. A case where religious beliefs do influence policy for Christine O'Donnell is that she is clearly extremely anti-abortion and anti-choice --- she would ban abortion even for rape survivors --- and there's every reason to expect she would vote that way, and that's a great reason to vote against her, but that's from her policy statements, not from her religious beliefs. On the other hand, there are some distinguished politicians who have personal beliefs against abortion, and they themselves would not have abortions except under limited circumstances, who have strongly pro-choice voting records. It would be a great study to look at when what we know of candidates' personal religious beliefs agree with their voting records, and when their personal religious beliefs contrast with them. And perhaps this study has already been done. Any political scientists to comment?

Second comment calls for holding politicians accountable for making "rational evidence-based decisions," and oh my, I am so in agreement with that. Not making evidence-based decisions, and instead making decisions for reasons of politics, is extremely common in our government. Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize winning economist and an expert in the Great Depression, and he's been writing op-eds for the past 2 years saying that we need to give more stimulus or unemployment is going to stay high for years and years, and we are going to lose a generation. And he's been saying the same theme over and over, and he's an extremely distinguished economist, a Nobel Prize winner, and not enough politicians listened to him to affect policy. And the failure to provide fiscal policy that can be adequate stimulus is the worst way that the government can fail people. We're talking about hurting young adults who happen to be coming of age now and during the next several years, and the effects of a worse job market when they come of age will affect them for their ENTIRE LIVES, and they will have not just lower earnings, but (judging by studies of past generations born in high unemployment eras) worse social problems. That's huge, and in my opinion way more important than abstinence education. But, yes, abstinence education is a shame, especially how $50 million abstinence-only funding came back in the health care reform bill in order to get it through Congress. And both of those issues are because of the 60 vote filibuster, and the fact that Senators no longer have to actually filibuster, they can just claim that they are. Some have said that if they actually had to speak for 24 hours straight, they would do it less. Again, the political scientists can speak.

Virgin dating site

Virgin dating site "use[s] virginity as a significant compatibility tool to bring people together. Some people may overlook the bonding power of virginity. Virginity as an important common aspect between people can lead to close friendships, or can even serve as a mutual precious gift of marriage."

I wonder how many users they will have and whether any will not also be on eharmony or a big evangelical dating site (presuming that there is an equivalent to jdate for evangelicals.) It is interesting that they would segment the evangelical dating market like this.

Something we can all agree on: not sexualizing little girls

USC researchers have released a report on the role of women and girls on children's TV. The research finds that females are underrepresented, portrayed as primarily interested in appearance and romance, and that characters are sexualized. I was shocked to see how two children's TV characters were made over as sexualized. Both characters were originally little girls. Now they look older, thinner, show more skin, and Rainbow Brite especially looks like jail bait.

The right and left wings of the sex education debate don't agree on much, but they do agree that reducing women and girls to sexual and romantic roles is distasteful and inappropriate. I hope that all can find some constructive action to counter these disturbing trends.

Early marriage reactions

Dallas TV news story giving reactions to early marriage idea, especially concern that they are pushing women away from education and towards early motherhood. Orthodox Jews have been promoting early marriage for a long time, and anecdotally I know that plenty of Orthodox Jewish women who marry young do go to medical school or other career pursuits they were planning on anyhow. It would be an interesting study to see whether marriage deters any from as extensive a career. My anecdotal impression is that married women get degrees from impressive schools but may be less likely or less interested in reaching the tiptop of their careers. So they will become a psychiatrist or internist or pediatrician with an MD from a top school, but may not become a neurosurgeon or med school professor.