Stanley Kurtz Casts Himself As Chicken Little
Conservative columnist Stanley Kurtz holds up Sweden in one more attempt to deny gays equal rights, erroneously claiming that gay marriage helped wipe out heterosexual marriage in Scandinavia. Statistics say he's wrong, points out Slate's M.V. Lee Badgett:
In fact, the numbers show that heterosexual marriage looks pretty healthy in Scandinavia, where same-sex couples have had rights the longest. In Denmark, for example, the marriage rate had been declining for a half-century but turned around in the early 1980s. After the 1989 passage of the registered-partner law, the marriage rate continued to climb; Danish heterosexual marriage rates are now the highest they've been since the early 1970's. And the most recent marriage rates in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland are all higher than the rates for the years before the partner laws were passed. Furthermore, in the 1990s, divorce rates in Scandinavia remained basically unchanged.Of course, the good news about marriage rates is bad news for Kurtz's sky-is-falling argument. So, Kurtz instead focuses on the increasing tendency in Europe for couples to have children out of wedlock. Gay marriage, he argues, is a wedge that is prying marriage and parenthood apart.
The main evidence Kurtz points to is the increase in cohabitation rates among unmarried heterosexual couples and the increase in births to unmarried mothers. Roughly half of all children in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are now born to unmarried parents. In Denmark, the number of cohabiting couples with children rose by 25 percent in the 1990s. From these statistics Kurtz concludes that " Ö married parenthood has become a minority phenomenon," andósurpriseóhe blames gay marriage.
But Kurtz's interpretation of the statistics is incorrect. Parenthood within marriage is still the normómost cohabitating couples marry after they start having children. In Sweden, for instance, 70 percent of cohabiters wed after their first child is born. Indeed, in Scandinavia the majority of families with children are headed by married parents. In Denmark and Norway, roughly four out of five couples with children were married in 2003. In the Netherlands, a bit south of Scandinavia, 90 percent of heterosexual couples with kids are married.
These statistics aside, even if gay marriage caused every married heterosexual to run immediately to divorce court, that's still not a basis for denying homo taxpayers the same rights as the hetero ones.
If gay marriage destroys anything, it'll be the distinctive sexual culture that gay men spawned in the 1970s. Children will be the only individuals left in this country who have good, dirty sex. This is a goddamn shame.
Lena will never marry. at May 22, 2004 12:44 PM
> ...denying homo taxpayers the same rights as the hetero ones.
Why do you keep saying that? Homos can marry an unmarried unrelated woman of sufficent age, just like any guy.
Crid at May 22, 2004 2:50 PM
We can't deny employment based on race, sex, etc. Marriage should be treated likewise. Any consenting adults -- 2 or even 3 -- who wish to have their partnership contract legally recognized by the state -- should be allowed to do so. No married person should be allowed special tax breaks for being married. Moreover, people in committed relationships who do not wish to marry should have the option of a registered partnership agreement like there is in France - easily dissolvable (any PACs partner can simply go to a city government office and sign a form dissolving it)...but it allows right to inherit, right to visit partner in the hospital without being related or married, etc.
Amy Alkon at May 22, 2004 3:08 PM
"Homos can marry an unmarried unrelated woman of sufficent age"
... who has a sufficient collection of strap-on's.
Lena at May 22, 2004 3:45 PM