Beyond SSM – Far-fetched and vacuous or tip of the iceberg?

Posted on February 11, 2015 by ScottC

Pretty interesting thing I just stumbled across (via The Federalist).

In our past debates about SSM, pointing out the obvious, logical implications of arguments for re-defining marriage to include same-sex couples was variously dismissed as “false equivalencies”, “vacuous”, “far-fetched”, and as possibilities that exist only in the “slippery slope” imaginations of those who object to SSM (to wit, “I understand that no defender of SSM would have raised the idea if it had not been first made an attack point by opponents of SSM”).

It turns out, however, that a document titled Beyond Same-Sex Marriage was produced way back in the dark ages of 2006 before it was politically expedient to support SSM, in which all of the fanciful, vacuous, far-fetched, slippery slope implications of SSM we fully laid out by the burgeoning SSM movement…as long term goals. A taste:

We, the undersigned – lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and allied activists, scholars, educators, writers, artists, lawyers, journalists, and community organizers – seek to offer friends and colleagues everywhere a new vision for securing governmental and private institutional recognition of diverse kinds of partnerships, households, kinship relationships and families. In so doing, we hope to move beyond the narrow confines of marriage politics as they exist in the United States today.

…The struggle for same-sex marriage rights is only one part of a larger effort to strengthen the security and stability of diverse households and families. LGBT communities have ample reason to recognize that families and relationships know no borders and will never slot narrowly into a single existing template.

…Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others. While we honor those for whom marriage is the most meaningful personal ­– for some, also a deeply spiritual – choice, we believe that many other kinds of kinship relationship, households, and families must also be accorded recognition.

Among these relationships that should be granted the legal and cultural equivalence of marriage are:

Committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal partner

…and:

Close friends and siblings who live together in long-term, committed, non-conjugal relationships, serving as each other’s primary support and caregivers

…and:

Queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with another queer person or couple, in two households

Perhaps what we who oppose court imposed SSM were saying all those many months ago was not quite so vacuous and far-fetched, after all.

BTW, if you want to peruse the hundreds of signatories to this document, representing ostensibly respectable institutions like Harvard, Georgetown, Columbia, University of Texas Austin, NYU, you can find them here.

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Morning Report – Good early indications on the Spring Selling Season2/11/15

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Brent Nyitray

Stocks are lower worldwide as Greece and Germany continue to posture over future Greek bailouts. The Greek 10 year bond yield is up 33 basis points to 10.58%. Global bonds are up small, and MBS are flat.

Mortgage Applications fell 9% last week as rates backed up 32 basis points. Purchases were down 6.5% while refis were down 10.3%.

Hedge funds that bought distressed mortgage debt in 2008 and 2009 are unwinding their positions as spreads have tightened and real estate prices have risen. Probably next on the agenda is the unwind of the REO-to-Rental trade which has simply not lived up to the hype.

Homebuilder KB Home is doing a $250 million bond issue today. Separately, they announced new orders were up 25% so far this year. Key quote from CEO Jeffrey Metzger: “Based on our expanding community count and the strength of our recent net order results, we are optimistic about the spring selling season. We believe the momentum of these favorable trends, in combination with our solid backlog, support a positive revenue outlook for the remainder of the year, particularly in the third and fourth quarters.”

Lewie Ranieri’s Shellpoint Partners rolled out their non-QM credit repair product in October, and they hope to do their first securitization of these loans this year. They believe the agencies will demand 15% credit enhancement for AAA tranches with high quality non-QM loans, and credit enhancement of 34%-40% for the tougher stuff: 620 FICO, 50 DTI, 80 LTV loans. Shellpoint lends through its New Penn unit. Sounds like we are getting closer to non-QM securitization.

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