Resources on Gay Marriage

From http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/
Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp

The End of Marriage in Scandinavia
The "conservative case" for same-sex marriage collapses, by Stanley Kurtz
02/02/2004, Volume 009, Issue 20

This thoughtfully misleading essay argues that gay marriage undermines the institution of heterosexual marriage and the family, citing as proof trends in the marriage, divorce, and child-born-of-wedlock rates in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. While the whole article is a bit long, I've addressed a few key points below.

Kurtz reports on an unpublished study conducted by Darren Spedale, and a follow-up similar study done by Andrew Sullivan and William Eskridge Jr. He sums these studies by noting:

Spedale reported that in the six years following the establishment of registered partnerships in Denmark (1990-1996), heterosexual marriage rates climbed by 10 percent, while heterosexual divorce rates declined by 12 percent. Writing in the McGeorge Law Review, Eskridge claimed that Spedale's study had exposed the "hysteria and irresponsibility" of those who predicted gay marriage would undermine marriage.

Kurtz calls these findings misleading. He explains that the raw number of heterosexual people marrying has decreased. Thus, the decrease in divorce is not due to a smaller percentage of married people divorcing, but rather really due to removing from the divorce statistics couples that never married and only cohabitated. Thus, since more and more couples decide not to become married, more and more family break-ups do not count as divorce. He also dismisses the 10% increase in heterosexual marriages in Norway, again arguing the absolute number of marriages is small and that it only appears to be increasing because more people who had been cohabitating have now married after the birth of their second child, and more divorced heterosexual people have remarried. Thus, he says, these marriage and divorce statistics really can't be trusted.

Fair enough. We can give Kurtz credit for looking beyond percent signs to the actual numbers. Not having access to the actual numbers of people marrying, I can't be certain of what he says. However, we really don't need to examine those numbers to see the first hole in his argument. Although he dismisses the numbers, he returns to others number related to the out-of-wedlock birthrate, noting Norway's rate rose 11%, Sweden's rate rose 8%, and Denmark's rate appeared to stay the same from 1990 to 2000. He says Denmark's apparent lack of change is misleading, as there was actually a 25% increase in first-born children born of unmarried parents. The overall percentage only looks as though it stays the same because there was a similar increase in the number of people who had one child while unmarried, and then married before having their second child.

What?

Yes, you read it right. We can't trust these numbers indicating an increase in marriages and a decrease in divorce because they are so small. We have to look instead at the tragedy of numbers showing an increase in out-of-wedlock births. And where we don't see an increase in out-of-wedlock births, it's because of an increase in marriages. But I thought we couldn't trust those numbers?

Kurtz makes a simple flaw I have seen time and time again in people who use statistics only to bolster their own personal views. They simply dismiss statistics that disagree with their views as flawed, without recognizing that the statistics that support their views are then similarly flawed. If the number of marriages is small, and any statistical significance is an illusion, then likewise the increase in out-of-wedlock births that is countered by this number must also be small. Thus, Norway's increase in out-of-wedlock births must be an illusion as well.

Kurtz goes on to blame his increase in out-of-wedlock births on gay marriages. He says:

	In the early nineties, gay marriage came to the Nordic countries, where the out-of-wedlock birthrate was already high. Ten years later, out-of-wedlock birth rates have risen significantly in the middle group of nations. Not coincidentally, nearly every country in that middle group has recently either legalized some form of gay marriage, or is seriously considering doing so. Only in the group with low out-of-wedlock birthrates has the gay marriage movement achieved relatively little success.... This suggests that gay marriage is both an effect and a cause of the increasing separation between marriage and parenthood.
He argues that the already rising rate of unmarried parenthood lead to accepting any relationship as equal to marriage, and thus reinforced that marriage is really not that important and certainly not connected to parenthood. Further, the controversy over gay marriage split the church, and effectively weakened the only force that could have stopped this movement. What's more, those who tried to maintain the church's split also actively supported unmarried parents, namely, Prince Haakon, heir to Norway's throne, who was living with his female lover and her child.
	From the start of the prince's controversial relationship to its eventual culmination in marriage, the future head of the Norwegian state church received tokens of public support or understanding from the very same bishops who were leading the fight to permit the ordination of homosexual partners. So rather than strengthening Norwegian marriage against the rise of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth, same-sex marriage had the opposite effect. Gay marriage lessened the church's authority by splitting it into warring factions and providing the secular media with occasions to mock and expose divisions.

What?

Yes, you read it correctly. Out-of-wedlock births were on the rise in a number of countries where gay marriages were approved. Neighboring countries, where out-of-wedlock births were not on the rise, approved gay marriages, and some were only "seriously considering" approving them, and "not coincidentally" now have high rates out-of-wedlock births.

Kurtz makes a second common mistake to those who use statistics only to further their personal opinions. They confuse correlation with causality. Kurtz does it twice actually. First, Kurtz offers rising out-of-wedlock births caused the approval of gay marriages, since the rise in out-of-wedlock births in some countries happened first, and gay marriage approval happened after. Second, Kurtz offers that Gay Marriages caused the rise in out-of-wedlock births in other countries, because gay marriage approval happened first, and the rise in out-of-wedlock births happened after.

Consider the basic argument. Countries who have a high out-of-wedlock birth rate end up approving of gay marriages. Any country who approves of gay marriages will end up with a high out-of-wedlock birth rate. While the flaw in the logic may not be immediately apparent, Costa and McCrae, speaking of this kind of circular logic in determining the validity of personality tests, offer this similar example. People running for President shake a lot of hands. Therefore, anyone who shakes a lot of hands must be running for President. See what I mean?

What's more, Kurtz blames the Church's weakness in responding to this crises on the division that gay marriage proponents caused. He doesn't actually even bother to offer statistics on this thankfully, and only says that the Church tolerated the Prince's relationship with a single mother (we could point out it was a woman he later married, but then, the Prince would only have been contributing to the very small number of increased marriages, and Kutz thinks this statistic is meaningless, so we won't bother addressing that), and this support for the Prince lead to gay marriage approval.

So what will happen if the United States approves gay marriage? "Scandinavia has run our experiment for us," Kurtz says, and he implies we will experience the same results. When will the downfall of our society occur, of course, as the result of gay marriages? "It took about 15 years after the change hit Sweden and Denmark for Norway's out-of-wedlock birthrate to begin to move from 'European' to 'Nordic' levels. It took another 15 years (and the advent of gay marriage) for Norway's out-of-wedlock birthrate to shoot past even Denmark's." Thus, Kurtz would appear to be warning us that if we approve gay marriages, or even "seriously consider" approving them in 2004, by 2034 we will all be in trouble.