much the way eating food served by we used to be taken by many people in india to contaminate the high-cost body. nothing short of a primitive idea of stigma and taint can explain the widespread feeling that same-sex marriage is defiling by the marriage of amol in central heterosexual is not. if a larger portion of replied marriage between two people of the same sex after all cannot result in the procreation of children so must be a kind of parity or sham marriage and we are back to the earlier argument the procreation and those who insist so strongly on procreation do not feel the marriage of to heterosexual seven deals is a sham or party and they don't try to get lawmakers to make such marriages eagle. if we are looking for historical parallel to the anxiety is associated with same-sex

marriage we can find it in the history of the views about eight to get the time of loving versus virginia in 1967 and raising the elite, 16 states both prohibited and punished marriages across the racial lines furthermore although the states were always required to honor to force performed in other states that had more leaning into force residence requirements than their own that was not the case with interracial marriage so it is the only parallel to the defense if they're attacked three states that have laws refused to recognize marriages between black and white contract elsewhere and the even criminalize those marriages. the supreme court case that brought up the overturning of the antimiscegenation laws, loving versus virginia was such a case african-american and richard fluffing got married in washington, d.c. in 1958 but their marriage notice increase,

too was in the vanguard so this is interesting their marriage was not recognized as legal in the home state of virginia. when they returned they were addressed in the middle of the light in the bedroom with a framed copy of the marriage certificate hanging over the bed and then how they were convicted and sentenced one year in jail but also told if they leave ho could leave a discount for 25 years in lieu of going to jail. call, like san six marriages, across racial unions were opposed with a variety of punitive arguments both political and theological in hindsight however we can clearly see the discussed was at work but indeed it didn't hide its head. the idea of racial purity was proudly proclaimed for example in the racial integrity act of 1924 in virginia and ideas of teen and contamination were ubiquitous. if people felt disgusted and contaminated by the thought that an african-american had drunk

from the same public drinking fountain or had gone swimming in the same public swimming pool or use the same toilet or the same plates and glasses all whitely held southern views and a view is enforced by the law and i should add views my own father who grew up in georgia and was a practicing lawyer in philadelphia as i was growing up would team to the end of his life very educated and other respects would find men that he did believe is an african-american had jumped from the class you could never use that class again so it's remarkable the tenacity of these ideas, so if all that was true we could see the thought of sex and marriage between black and white would have to read a powerful revulsion. the supreme court concluded such ideas of racial stigma were the only ideas that really supported those laws whatever else people said. they said, quote, there is no legitimate overriding purpose independent of in it is racial

discrimination which justifies this classification. and i think we should draw the same conclusion about the provision of same-sex marriage. a rational ideas of stigma and contamination, the kind of animus the court recognized in romer our powerful forces in support of that prohibition. so the supreme court of california in october, 2008 they wrote beyond mortal disapprobation the persons also face vara let homophobia the rests on nothing more than feelings of revulsion toward the persons and the intimate sexual contact with which they are assessed get it. such prejudice is reflected in the large number of hate crimes perpetrated against a person's. the irrational nature of the president's who are ridiculed, ostracized, despise, demonized and condemned for being with alar is entirely different in kind and the prejudice suffered by other groups that previously had been denied suspect or cause

i suspect status and then they go on with a technical legal argument. sweet scene the prominence against same-sex marriage they don't seem particularly impressive. we haven't seen any that supply government with compelling state interest and it seems likely given romer versus evans these arguments motivated by mms sale even the rational basis test. the argument in favor of same-sex marriage is straightforward. if two people want to make a commitment of the marital sort it right that has been held in a series of cases to be a fundamental constitutional right for all citizens the should be permitted to do so and excluding the one class of citizens from the benefits and dignity of that commitment demeans them and insults their dignity. thanks. [applause]

>> i have a comment and question. the comment is there's an interesting book of called agreed and sex by countrymen about leviticus singing even within of leviticus purity laws and morrill can be distinguished from each other which is fascinating. the question i have i'm a physician and in fact the genders are not as divided as people think in the sense there's a population of people who are born with ambiguous genitalia so would this be a legal way of getting around people thinking the are approving same-sex marriage and other words sitting marriages between two individuals? and we can't define -- people don't have to define what the gender or six days. some people can't. a small minority, granted but just like in a race there is a divide between white people and black people because assuming in

between would that be a way to politically and around this and just say marriages between two individuals, humans? >> intellectually it is a good move. politically i guess i think it's such an exotic idea for many people to get them to swallow that before they get to the conclusion is going to be harder because they are much more ready to see same-sex couples as couples they can identify with couples who are pursuing happiness than they are to think these exotic thoughts. so i do think that is where it ends up, with the right of individuals and that is where lawrence ended with the right of sexual choice as the right of individuals so the road to that probably we shouldn't sprinkle it with such a strange notions. >> it seems to me that your arguments apply just as well against wall that prohibit public me as long as there is no element of co portion.

can you comment on that? >> this is a tough one for me because i have written on newspapers and not in any book about polygamy. when i had my [inaudible] i had deuteronomy the second version so i was quite interested to know this polygamy is presupposed in the converting of amendments because the prohibition to covet your neighbor's spouse is applied to men only because in the footnote in my commentary said the cause women were fine because they could be the second wife and the prohibition not to cover the property. so that was interesting. any way the whole society of the old testament is polygamous and of course joseph smith noticed that but very few other people do. so i've long felt the persecution of the mormons is hard in this in history and the demonization of mormon polygamy is grossly inaccurate in the

sense that women in public isthmus marriage and utah didn't -- the it problem is that so too did women in monogamous marriage as well, no property rights and some in effect in one respect the woman in the polygamous marriage were better off. they could vote. women could vote in the territory in 1870 and that was certainly not true of the others said they were hypocritical when they said these women are living at her double life and they were fighting to end name on divorce and everything women wanted. so the history of demonizing polygamy is atrocious. well what we say today if there were a religion that claimed polygamy as an essential part of its religious practices? is there? i think the right to marry is the right of individuals. it belongs to all individuals than it can be trumped by the compelling state interest. that is the structure i argued for. would there be a compelling state interest? in the case of same-sex marriage

the courts have gone through possible contenders and found that none stands up. i think in the case of polygamy there is one that stands up and that is the interest of sex equality in parallel case in the case of bob jones university u.s. versus bob jones university that evangelical university lost its tax exemption because the ban interracial dating and the compelling state interest that was cited their was the protection of racial equality. they said we had a compelling interest not giving favor to any practice of racial inequality so they could say the same thing about sex inequality and they don't know in fact the protection of sex equality has never been used as a compelling state interest and i think they are afraid to use it because it is interesting consequences like withdrawing tax extension from all the major catholic university's is required to be may also georgetown will be the only one there will be okay

because they got out of it. so the court doesn't want to go there but don't be the compelling. but if we have a practice of polyandry manly contractual arrangements and plural adults where there is no systematic subordination of women so it is sex equal and women can contract with more than one man. i don't think there is any compelling state interest until against the except possibly administrative complexity. none in the religious cases they sometimes do allow that. for example the case of the native american family who wanted their child not to have a social security number the did say it is administrative role. we can't run the country if someone doesn't have the same number but short of that they've never allowed at the ministry of complexity to trump religious rights and if it was a religious unmotivated six equal polygamy the would have to win if people

were being true to the president but what other legal framework what we think about if it's not a religious thing. so presumably we would have to have somebody taking the state to court and claiming they were being denied the fundamental rights under the 14th amendment and a bit of a strong argument as far as i am concerned but i just know that it is not in the foreseeable future reports will go there and i was torn in this book because it wanted to persuade people of same-sex marriage and other issues and it's aimed at a why a public audience and i know if my views about polygamy were to be announced that might lose me and my audience but that is why not going in and it's what i believe so i have to say and so i do say that i think polygamy arguments against polygamy are very weak.

it is for incest adults are also -- i mean any kind of parent charnel insist is a form of child abuse so that's easy but let's say an adult brother and sister, the usual reason is health. but right now we can do genetic counseling and people with same-sex genes can marry so i don't think that is very strong anymore so that, too ferc this to be called into question but any way that's usually used as just the boogeyman if we allow same-sex marriage we of to what polygamy and incest and then bestiality is the kronman one. it is a form of animal cruelty so that is easy to justify laws against bestiality but the other two, no. >> i wonder if you can give comments on a couple of thoughts i had when listening to you. one, it seems like is the combination of two very

hot-button concepts. sex and marriage. when you look at what happened in washington state where the voters overwhelmingly approved what is known as everything but marriage domestic partnerships, it's amazing where's the beef that had been called marriage there might have been a different result but substantively there really was no difference in terms of things and so that's the marriage hot-button. the sec's hot-button is when we look in the first amendment area most americans i think would say in the supreme court has said it's okay for the nazis to march through and for the ku klux klan to do certain things yet we still have pornography as an exception to the first amendment because there is this sex

component so if you could address that and then my second point quickly to my evangelical friends actually i have some evangelical friends who say i love you index of two and all that stuff but the problem i would have is if you were married it wouldn't be accepting you it would be accepting of these implications for my relationship and all the things that flow from its and we see these things now with doctors and pharmacists and whatever that it's sort of an affront to their religious beliefs to have to deal with people who consider themselves and may be are legally married when that is directly contrary to religious beliefs that sometimes fall in fact does make exceptions as you

know the federal law makes certain exceptions where certain health care givers don't have to do certain things because of conscience clauses so if you could talk about those two things the would be great. >> i agree americans are phobic about sex and i would say drugs are the other things. the minute the topic is raised there is an ideal of unimaginable contagion and so long and intel in the book is a story about a new book the university of chicago press is published called unlimited intimacy by tim dena when it was first proposed it is a sociological study of condomless sex in six houses. it's hard to get information about that and so he studies the pornography of it and the fantasies people report to him and so on. the university of chicago press, certain powerful people made a

terrible opposition to this because they said we will be construed as advocating risky behavior. of course advocating had nothing to do with it. but even to study it was thought. but seemed to me particularly horribly hypocritical was the fact this press would have no hesitation publishing books about mountain climbing, racing and of course we publish all of those risky behaviors. so, it is the fact that its risk connected with sex and of course it would be similar with drugs so i agree there is that phobia. i don't know whether to go off into the tangent you offer me about pornography because i think the issue is very complicated. i guess i think first of all that nothing is actually been under the current obscenity. there is almost no case anymore

and what is the old obscenity law which is still enforced -- toward pornography is used by feminists, but the obscenity law we is about sexual explicitness and disgusting mess of it and in fact in some of the cases the idea of the and the knowledge she would seem from disgusting is made much of and somehow it is fought sex itself has something disgusting about it so it is a very weird seventh thoughts and in my book hiding from humanity i do go into some of the strange things the supreme court said on that. but feminists proposed and never got was to reorient the thinking toward harm. that is if there was an explicit material that d greeted or humiliated women and a plaintiff could come forward who showed the bodily harm to her was caused by the use of those materials of course hard to

prove but they wanted this base to establish that either as an actress in the making of it or somebody who copycats' the area enacted, then there could be an injunction -- there could be criminal charges against the abuse and also in action against the distributor of the materials similar to a dangerous product litigation that goes against the tobacco companies and gun companies so that was the model, this is a dangerous product if we can show it causes harm in the individual case that individual can go to court not just the harbor but the purveyor of the dangerous product so that idea -- i don't agree with the legal strategy but think it's a very respectable attempt to target the issue of parma and nothing to do with thinking sex is bad so that was a different strategy altogether that is a much more as it were a million strategy. you've got to have harm before you can have litigation so okay. that is the digression you

offered me. i couldn't resist. now what was the second point that -- >> [inaudible] >> conscience clauses and people saying my problem is not with so and so -- >> it is accepting -- [inaudible] >> well, you know, we are used to the fact we have to work out ways in which people can somehow not be burdened with respect to their religious beliefs in the exercise of their functions and we already have ways of getting around pharmacist's filling prescriptions for the abortion pill. i think so long as there is provision for somebody who wants to get the legal service and should be okay to give the individual to refuse to perform

a service that goes against their conscience. i'm not sure what would be in the case of san six marriage because no one is suggesting the clergy should be forced to perform same-sex marriages. they marry whoever they please and they always have and always will. my daughter married a non-issue and the rabbi said i want to marry you so we had to find someone else. so that's the way that it's always been. a catholic priest want to marry somebody that's been divorced and so it would be like that. the clergy would do what they want to do. you mentioned dr. sprick i am not sure the doctors would want to refuse to do. insemination? well, you know, usually it is a single individual coming in and i think different -- >> [inaudible] -- i do not want a same-sex couple [inaudible]

>> that's a non-discrimination issue. most cities have nondiscrimination always and it's covered by that and not in the litigation surrounding romer v evans one of the things raised is should people have exemptions for religion? with the in the that saying is that denver and aspen did that for small landlords, not hotels and i think the distinction between personal dwelling and public accommodation is the right one to use it is a hotel you can't do it and put it is a personal thing an exception for the religious purpose is okay. within the up being quite amusing was the witnesses f the catholic expert witnesses use a form of argument coming from the new natural law according to which masturbation as the central fires and all other vices our vices because they resemble masturbation's a

they were doing landlords should be able to refuse to rent to people with whom they believed the white masturbate in the apartment. [laughter] it's not an argument the rental market would be so pleased with. so anyway -- i don't agree they are on problematic. in illinois we've been fighting to get them in catholic church opposes to and neil and we haven't got it. the vast majority not only citizens of catholics support it but it's the fact certain legislators do not want to risk the cardinal georgia and other leading. why should they have the aggravations of they don't vote against it and they bottled up in the committee but even if it were acceptable the problem now is it is a second-class status. if in the south had a thing called transracial union and said you can have that you just can't have marriage you could

see what would be wrong with that and i think the same thing is wrong here. >> thank you for coming and speaking. it's been a pleasure to listen to you and i want to thank you for writing this book. it reminds me of a book from ten years ago which was a popular book by michael warner and he's coming out of queer fury and i would like you to go to the issue you treat at the end of the book about the private question because his issue in that book, maybe not the whole issue but a big part of it is that marriage really is about putting a veil over sex. americans can't deal with it and we are ashamed of it and she had a big problem with the push toward same-sex marriage as a gay man because he felt it was

essentially just seeking approval and going into hiding and using marriage the same way street people use marriage and when it doesn't really reflect all of the possibilities of what we could be experiencing and it doesn't really line up with people's desire. i'm glad to hear what you said about polygamy because it seems where things are going into law and where you see things going in the law we contradict a lot of his concerns from ten years ago. but i would like to hear what you think about the issue. >> michael and i have an exchange coming out next year so you will be able to see that. i think michael's book is great and i admire him and we are kind of on the same page about a lot of things. i guess i believe like michael if we were to start off, the

best thing would be to start with backend which privileges we want a bundled together. we have a big bundle called marriage where we've wrapup decisions about burial, spousal exemption, immigration benefits come in here attend -- so it is all in one package and michael nicely points to france where a brother and sister who share a household give certain tax benefits. i think we should if we were starting over again that is what we should do and short of that we should perhaps get the state to about our of the marriage business and give this a full package. the trouble is we are never baxter and over again and we won't ever be. and right now if the state were to back out there would be the following problem. it would be like closing the store because the gays and lesbians were about to go to the store. this happened. the close of the swimming pools to prevent immigration of

swimming pools and some districts closed public schools to prevent integration so that was declared unconstitutional and i have the feeling of the state suddenly said aquino more marriages, it would be like that, a kind of spike lee and things we have to get to that in a different way having already accepted gays and lesbians but that is and where we are so i tickets at least one prediction that might be made -- michael made his of focusing on marriage would lose a lot of mileage with respect to anti-discrimination and other areas where progress could have been made. that hasn't been made because focus on marriage has made all the rest easy and when her marriage wins then you've got everything but even when mayor richard lewis is of course we want nondiscrimination and you get the republicans in 2008 saying that kind of thing so i

think even when the military's backing down to to hear what happened today they finally announced that prosecutions for dismissal under don't ask don't tell can only be initiated by an adel or general so this is we are getting the progress that he was worried about some i guess i'm also worried at least about that and i guess i think well if we stick up for marriage so long as we don't define the house that is the party if it public and because and lawrence what was terribly in the u.s. was six being protected because it is a particular kind of intimate decision which i think would be the right understanding or is it being protected because it is in a protected place. we certainly don't want to see people -- the home is secret. that's been a terrible line to take for many reasons because it insulates the hitters such as domestic violence and child abuse in the home and it fails to protect consentual behavior

which might be in a hotel or club or some other seclusions secluded spot so i defend in the book track that the great distinction as on the confusing part of it public distinction but mills distinction of self regarding acts that implicate the interest of the people involved and other regarding acts but in a pinch on the rights of others and you can if you are secluding yourself whether a rest stop or on their roads there should be fine. okay. sorry. i have been giving for the answers because i have to leave. but anyway so this will be the last question to rely sorry. >> to much pressure for me. a few quick points. to argue that the beginning the ennis that individuals feel about particular act is not a good basis for predicting that act. >> into the microphone. >> my ques