CEG\'er
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 443 |
Originally posted by bishop375:
Originally posted by Woodencross:
Amazing how my argument still stands.
If I remember correctly, it really doesn't, and was disproven twice.
Why must all of you have this FEAR of gay marriage? What will it really do to YOUR marriage? How will it change how you look at your wife?
Can you please answer that?
Personally, I have no "fear" of gay marriage, but quite frankly, as much as you insist on making this issue deeply personal, that is irrelevant. Marriage is a social contract, a deepseated and essential part of the social structure of every country that endorses marriage, and a fundamental and necessary institution to build healthy families which in turn build healthy communities which in turn build healthy states/countries. Socrates often stated that the basic purpose of any state is to protect and nurture life. The fact that the majority of cultural issues that are often passionately argued about here on the CEG and in a myriad of other web forums, debate teams, state/local governments and increasingly at the federal levels surround the protection of life shows us that the man Socrates was indeed a wise man. Abortion, marriage, euthanasia, to name a few issues along this line.
In any case, with the proven concept in mind that marriage is one of the fundamental tools of building a healthy society, it would be most interesting if we could study a state that has already widely adopted same-sex marriage and to see what has occurred to the marriage institution and to that states ability to raise healthy children. Fortunately, Scandinavia and the Netherlands did so a number of years ago, and several studies are under way to examine the results of same-sex marriage. Here is a summation of one study due out very soon:
My name is Stanley Kurtz. I have a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University (1990). My scholarly work has long focused on the intersection of culture and family life. My book, All the Mothers Are Oneâ? (Columbia University Press, 1992), is about the cultural significance of the Hindu joint-family. I have published in scholarly journals on the subject of the family and psychology in cross-cultural perspective.
I have been a Research Associate of the Committee on Human Development of the University of Chicago, a program that specializes in the interdisciplinary study of the family and psychology. I have also been a postdoctoral trainee with the Culture and Mental Health Behavioral Training Grant (NIMH), administered by the University of Chicagoâ??s Committee on Human Development. For two years, I was Assistant Director of the Center for Culture and Mental Health, and Program Coordinator of the Culture and Mental Health Training Grant(NIMH), at the University of Chicagoâ??s Committee on Human Development. There I helped train graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. I taught in the â??Mindâ? sequence of the University of Chicagoâ??s core curriculum, and also taught a graduate seminar on cultural psychology in the Committee on Human Development. I was also a Dewey Prize Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago.
For several years, I was also a Lecturer in the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies of Harvard University, where I won numerous teaching awards. Harvardâ??s Committee on Degrees in Social Studies is an interdisciplinary undergraduate major in the social sciences.
In recent years, I have been a public writer. I am currently a research fellow at Stanford Universityâ??s Hoover Institution, and a Contributing Editor at National Review Online. The views I put forward in this affidavit are my own, and do not represent the views of either the Hoover Institution, or of National Review Online.
In a recently published article, â??The End of Marriage in Scandinaviaâ? (The Weekly Standard, February 2, 2004), I argue that the system of marriage-like same-sex registered partnerships established in the late eighties and early nineties in Scandinavia has contributed significantly to the ongoing decline of marriage in that region. My research on Scandinavia is based on my reading of the demographic and sociological literature on Scandinavian marriage. I
have also consulted with Scandinavian scholars, and with American scholars with expertise on Scandinavia.
I expect to publish the results of my research on marriage in the Netherlands in the near future. That research is based on my reading of the demographic and sociological literature on marriage in the Netherlands, as well as on consultation with scholars and experts on the Netherlands. In my forthcoming publications on the Netherlands, I shall argue that same-sex marriage has contributed significantly to the decline of marriage in that country.
After summarizing the results of my published research on Scandinavian marriage, I shall summarize the results of my soon to be published research on marriage in the Netherlands. The research discussed below is drawn from demographic information provided by European statistical agencies, and from scholarly monographs and journal articles by demographers and sociologists expert on the state of the family in Europe. Social scientists typically draw conclusions about the nature and causes of family change from evidence of this nature.
Scandinavia
Marriage in Scandinavia is in serious decline. A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are now born out-of-wedlock, as are sixty percent of first born children in Denmark. In some of the more socially liberal districts of Scandinavia, marriage itself has virtually ceased to exist.
When Scandinaviaâ??s system of marriage-like same-sex registered partnerships was enacted in the late 1980's and early 1990's, Scandinavian marriage was already in decline. Many Scandinavians were having children out-of-wedlock, although it was still typical for parents to marry sometime before the birth of the second child.
Although a number of these out-of-wedlock births were to single parents, most were to cohabiting, yet unmarried, couples. The drawback of this practice is that cohabiting parents break up at two to three times the rate of married parents. A high breakup rate for unmarried parents is found in Scandinavia, and throughout the West. For this reason, rising rates of out-ofwedlock birthâ???even when such births are to cohabiting, rather than single, parentsâ???mean rising
rates of family dissolution.
Since demographers and sociologists take rising out-of-wedlock birthrates as a proxy for rising rates of family dissolution, we know that the family dissolution rate in Scandinavia has been growing. We also have studies that confirm for Scandinavia what we already know for the
United Statesâ???that children of intact families are significantly better off than children in families that experience parental breakup.
Out-of-wedlock birthrates were already rising in Scandinavia prior to the enactment of same-sex registered partnerships. Those rates have continued to rise since the enactment of same-sex partnerships. While the out-of-wedlock birthrate rose swiftly during the 1970's and 1980's, those rapidly rising rates reflected the â??easyâ? part of the shift toward a system of unmarried parenthood. That is, the common practice in Scandinavia through the 1980's was to have the first child out of wedlock. Prior to the nineties in Norway, for example, a majority of
parentsâ???even in the most socially liberal districtsâ???got married prior to the birth of a second child.
During the nineties, howeverâ???following the debate on, and adoption of, same-sex registered partnershipsâ???the out-of-wedlock birthrate began to move through the toughest areas of cultural resistance. At the beginning of the nineties, for example, traditionally religious and socially conservative districts of Norway had relatively low out-of-wedlock birthrates. Now those rates have risen substantially, for both first and second-an-above births. In socially liberal districts of Norway, where it was already common to have the first child outside of marriage by the early nineties, a majority of even second-and-above born children are now born out-ofwedlock.
Marital decline in Scandinavia is the product of a confluence of factors: contraception, abortion, women in the workforce, cultural individualism, secularism, and the welfare state. Scandinavia is extremely secular, and its welfare state unusually large. Scandinavian law tends
to treat marriage and cohabitation alike. Yet the factors driving marital decline in Scandinavia are present in all Western countries. Scholars have long taken Scandinavian family change as a bellwether for family change throughout the West. Scholars agree that the Scandinavian pattern
of births to unmarried, cohabiting parents is sweeping across Europe. Northern and middle European countries are most effected by the trend, while the southern European countries are least effected. Scholarly debate among comparative students of marriage now centers on the
question of whether, and how quickly, the Scandinavian family pattern is likely to spread through Europe and North America.
There is good reason to believe that same-sex marriage, and marriage-like same-sex registered partnerships, are both an effect and a reinforcing cause of this Scandinavian trend
toward unmarried parenthood. The increasing cultural separation between the ideas of marriage and parenthood makes same-sex marriage more conceivable. Once marriage is separated from the idea of parenthood, there seems little reason to deny marriage, or marriage-like partnerships,
to same-sex couples. By the same token, once marriage (or a status close to marriage) has been redefined to include same-sex couples, the symbolic separation between marriage and parenthood is confirmed, locked-in, and reinforced. It is virtually impossible to believe that same-sex
partnerships could be an effect of the cultural separation of marriage and parenthood without also becoming a reinforcing cause of that same separation.
Concretely, same-sex partnerships in Scandinavia have furthered the cultural separation of marriage and parenthood in at least two ways. First, the debate over same-sex partnerships has split the Norwegian church. The Norwegian church is the strongest cultural check on out-ofwedlock birth in Norway, since traditional clergy preach against unmarried parenthood. Yet differences within Norwayâ??s Lutheran church on the same-sex marriage issue have weakened the position of traditionalist clergy, and strengthened the position of socially liberal clergy who
effectively accept both same-sex partnerships and the practice of unmarried parenthood.
This pattern has been operative since the establishment of same-sex registered partnerships early in the nineties. The phenomenon has lately been most evident in the socially
liberal Norwegian county of Nordland, where many churches now fly rainbow flags. Those flags welcome clergy in same-sex registered partnerships, and signal that clergy who preach against homosexual behavior are banned.
When scholars draw conclusions about the causal effects on marriage of various beliefs and practices, they do so by combining statistical correlations with a cultural analysis. For example, we know that out-of-wedlock birthrates are unusually low in traditionally religious
districts of Norway, where clergy actively preach against the practice of unmarried parenthood. Scholars reasonably conclude that the low out-of-wedlock birthrates in such districts are causally related to the preaching of these traditionalists clergy.
The judgement that same-sex marriage has contributed to rising out-of-wedlock birthrates in Norway is of exactly the same order as the aforementioned scholarly conclusion. If traditionalist preachers in socially conservative districts of Norway help to keep out-of-wedlock birthrates low, it follows that a ban on conservative preachers in socially liberal districts of Norway removes a critical barrier to an increase in those rates. Since the division within the Norwegian church caused by the debate over same-sex unions has led to a banning of traditionalist clergy (the same clergy who preach against unmarried parenthood) it follows that the controversy over same-sex partnerships has helped to raise the out-of-wedlock birthrate.
In concluding that same-sex registered partnerships have contributed to higher out-ofwedlock birthrates, we do not simply rely on the experience of the Norwegian church. The
cultural meaning of marriage-like same-sex partnerships in Scandinavia tends to heighten the separation of marriage and parenthood in secular, as well as religious, contexts. As the influence of the clergy has declined in Scandinavia, secular social scientists have taken on a role as cultural
arbiters. These secular social scientists have touted same-sex registered partnerships as proof that traditional marriage is outdated. Instead of arguing that de facto marriage by same-sex couples ought to encourage marriage among heterosexual parents, secular opinion leaders have
drawn a different lesson. Those opinion leaders have pointed to same-sex partnerships to argue
that marriage itself is outdated, and that single motherhood and unmarried parental cohabitation
are just as acceptable as parenthood within marriage.
This socially radical cultural reading of same-sex partnerships applies to same-sex adoption as well. In 2002, Sweden added the right of adoption to same-sex registered
partnerships. During that debate, advocates of the reform associated same-sex adoption with single parenthood. Same-sex adoption was not used to heighten the cultural connection between marriage and parenthood. On the contrary, same-sex adoption was taken to prove that the
traditional family was outdated, and that novel social formsâ???like single parenthood, were now fully acceptable.
The socially liberal districts where Norwayâ??s secular intellectuals â??preachâ? this view of the family experience significantly higher out of wedlock birthrates than more traditional and religious districts. Therefore, in the same way that scholars conclude that traditionalist clergy
keep out-of-wedlock birthrates low in religious districts, we can conclude that the advocacy of culturally radical public intellectuals has helped to spread the practice of unmarried parenthood in socially liberal districts. These secular intellectuals have consistently pointed to same-sex
registered partnerships as evidence that marriage is outdated, and unmarried parenthood as acceptable as any other family form. In this way, we can isolate the causal effect of same-sex registered partnerships as one among several causes contributing to the decline of marriage in
Scandinavia.
In the socially liberal Norwegian county of Nordland, where rainbow flags fly on churches as signs that same-sex registered partnerships are fully accepted, the out of wedlock birthrate in 2002 was 67.29 percentâ???markedly higher than the rate for Norway as a whole. The out-of-wedlock birthrate for first born children in Nordland county in 2002 was 82.27 percent. More significantly, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for second-and-above born children in Nordland county in 2002 was 58.61 percent. In the early nineties, when the debate on same-sex partnerships began, most Nordlanders already bore their first child out-of-wedlock. Yet in 1990, 60.26 percent of Nordlandâ??s parents still married before the birth of the second-or-above born
child. By 2002, the situation had reversed. Just under sixty percent of Nordlanders now bear even second-and-above born children out-of-wedlock.
That nearly twenty point shift in the out-of-wedlock birthrate for second-and-above born children since 1990 signals that marriage itself is now a rarity in Nordland county. What began as a practice of experimenting with the relationship through the birth of the fist child has now
turned into a general repudiation of marriage itself.
The figures are similar in the socially liberal county of Nord-Troendelag, which borders on the university town of Trondheim, home to some of the prominent public intellectuals who point to same-sex registered partnerships as proof that marriage itself is outdated and unnecessary. In 2002, 83.27 percent of first born children in Nord-Troendelag were born out-ofwedlock. More significantly, in 2002, 57.74 percent of second-and-above born children were
born out-of-wedlock. That compares to 38.12 percent of second-and-above born children born out of wedlock in 1990, just before the debate over marriage-like same-sex partnerships began. With a clear majority of even second-and-above born children now born out-of-wedlock, it is evident that marriage has nearly disappeared in some socially liberal counties of Norway. In the parts of Norway where de facto gay marriage finds its highest degree of acceptance, marriage itself has virtually ceased to exist. This fact ought to give pause.
The Netherlands
The situation in the Netherlands confirms and strengthens the argument for a causal contribution of same-sex marriage to the decline of marriage. This is so for two reasons. In the Netherlands, a system of marriage-like registered partnerships open to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples was established in 1998. More recently, in 2001, the Netherlands adopted full and formal same-sex marriage. The experience of the Netherlands shows that not only
marriage-like registered partnerships open to same-sex couples, but also full and formal same-sex marriage, contribute to the decline of marriage. The particular cultural situation of marriage in the Netherlands, moreover, makes it easier to isolate the causal effect of same-sex marriage from other contributors to marital decline.
Marriage in the Netherlands has long been liberalized in a legal sense. Nearly a decade before the adoption of registered partnerships in the nineties, the Netherlands began to legally equalize marriage and cohabitation. The practice of premarital cohabitation is very widespread
in the Netherlands, and in a European context, high rates of premarital cohabitation are generally associated with high out-of-wedlock birthrates.
Yet scholars note that the practice of cohabiting parenthood in the Netherlands has been surprisingly rare, despite the early legal equalization of marriage and cohabitation, and despite the frequency of premarital cohabitation. Most scholars attribute the unexpectedly low out-ofwedlock birthrates in the Netherlands to the strength of conservative cultural tradition in the Netherlands.
Ever since Dutch parliamentary proposals for formal gay marriage and/or registered partnerships were first introduced and debated in 1996, and continuing through and beyond the adoption of full and formal same-sex marriage in 2001, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the Netherlands has been increasing at double its previous speed. The movement for same-sex marriage in the Netherlands began in earnest at the beginning of the 1990's. That movement only picked up steam, however, after the election of a socially liberal government in 1994â???a government that for the first time included no representatives of the socially conservative
Christian Democratic party. At that point, the movement for same-sex marriage began in earnest, with a series of parliamentary debates and public campaigns running from 1996 through the adoption of full gay marriage in 2000.
In 1996, just as the campaign for gay marriage went into high gear, the unusually low Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate began to rise at a rate of two percent per year, in contrast to itâ??s earlier average rise of only one percent per year. Dutch demographers are at a loss to explain this
doubling of the rate of increase by reference to legal changes, or changes in welfare policy.
Some might argue that the â??marriage liteâ? of registered partnerships opened to both samesex and opposite-sex couples in the mid-nineties can account for the rapid increase in the out-ofwedlock birthrate. That is, it could be argued that had the Netherlands established full and
formal gay marriage in the mid-nineties, instead of a system of registered partnerships open to same-sex and opposite-sex couples, out-of-wedlock birthrates would have remained low.
In fact, however, Dutch demographers discount the â??marriage liteâ? effect on the out-ofwedlock birthrate. The number of heterosexual couples entering into registered partnerships in the nineties was simply too small to account for the two-fold increase in growth of the out of wedlock birthrate during this period. By the same token, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has continued to climb at a very fast two percent per year since the establishment of full and formal gay marriage in 2001.
In light of all this, it is reasonable to conclude that the traditionalist â??cultural capitalâ? that scholars agree kept the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate artificially low despite the legal equalization of marriage and cohabitation in the eighties) has been displaced and depleted by the long public campaign for same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage has increased the cultural separation of marriage from parenthood in the Netherlands, just as it has in Scandinavia.
This history enables us to isolate the causal mechanism in question. Since legal and structural factors effecting marriage had failed to produce high out-of-wedlock birthrates in the Netherlands through the mid-nineties, the scholarly consensus was that cultural factorsâ???and only
cultural factorsâ???were keeping the out-of-wedlock birthrates low. It took a new cultural outlook on the connection between marriage and parenthood to eliminate the traditional cultural barriers to unmarried parental cohabitation. Same-sex marriage, along with marriage-like registered partnerships open to same-sex couples, provided that outlook. Now, with the Dutch out-ofwedlock birthrate at 29 percent and the practice of cohabiting parenthood on the rise, the Netherlands appears to be well along the Scandinavian path.
Americaâ??s Prospects
The danger in all this is that same-sex marriage could widen the separation between marriage and parenthood here in the United States. America is already the world leader in
divorce. Our high divorce rates have significantly weakened the institution of marriage in this country. For all that, however, Americans differ from Europeans in that they commonly assume that couples ought to marry prior to having children. Although the association of marriage and
parenthood is weak in the American underclass, it is still remarkably strong in the rest of American society. Scandinavia, in contrast, has no underclass. The practice of unmarried parenthood is widespread in Scandinaviaâ??s middle and upper-middle classes, because the cultural
association between marriage and parenthood has been lost in much of Europe.
Yet, the first signs of European-style parental cohabitation are now evident in America. And the prestigious American Law Institute recently proposed a series of legal reforms that would tend to equalize marriage and cohabitation. (â??The Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution,â? 2000) As of yet, these harbingers of the Scandinavian family pattern have had a limited effect on the United States. The danger is that same-sex marriage could introduce the sharp cultural separation of marriage and parenthood in America that is now familiar in
Scandinavia. That, in turn, could draw out the budding American trends toward unmarried but cohabiting parenthood, and the associated legal equalization of marriage and cohabitation.
Same-sex marriage has every prospect of being even more influential in America than it has already been in Europe. Thatâ??s because, in Scandinavia, same-sex partnerships came at the tail end of a process of martial decline that centered around unmarried parental cohabitation. In
the United States, same-sex marriage would be the leading edge, rather than the tail end, of the Scandinavian cultural pattern. And a combination of the Scandinavian cultural pattern with Americaâ??s already high divorce rate would likely mean a radical weakening of marriageâ???perhaps
even the end of marriage itself. After all, we are witnessing no less than the end of marriage
itself in Scandinavia.
Americaâ??s substantial underclass compounds the potential dangers of importing a Scandinavian-style separation between marriage and parenthood. Scandinavia has no underclass. Yet America does have an underclass. A weakening of the ethos of marriage in the middle and
upper-middle classes would likely undo the progress made since welfare reform in stemming the tide of single parenthood among our underclass. This is foreshadowed in Great Britain, where the Scandinavian pattern of unmarried but cohabiting parenthood is rapidly spreading. Britain,
like the United States, does have an underclass. Since the spread of the Scandinavian family pattern to Britainâ??s middle classes, the rate of births to single teenaged parents in Britainâ??s underclass has risen significantly.
In Scandinavia, a massive welfare state largely substitutes for the family. Most Scandinavian children over one year of age, for example, spend much of the day in public day
care facilities. Should the Scandinavian cultural pattern take root in the United States, with its accompanying effects on the underclass, we shall be forced to choose between significant social disruption and a substantial increase in our own welfare state. The fate of marriage therefore impacts the broadest questions of governance.
Note also that scholars of marriage widely discuss the likelihood that the Scandinavian family pattern will spread throughout the Westâ???including the United States. And in effect, the spread of the movement for same-sex marriage from Scandinavia to Europe and North America is further evidence that what happens in Scandinavia can and does have every prospect of spreading to the United States. Unless we take steps to block same-sex marriage and prevent the
legal equalization of marriage and cohabitation, it is entirely likely that American will experience marital decline of the type now familiar in Scandinavia.
In effect, the adoption of same-sex marriage in the Netherlands has prefigured this entire process. The socially conservative Netherlands equalized marriage and cohabitation, then adopted same-sex marriage. As a result, the Netherlandsâ?? relative cultural conservatism was eroded. That country is now firmly on the path to the Scandinavian system of unmarried, cohabiting parenthood.
In short, since the adoption of same-sex registered partnershipsâ???and of full, formal same-sex marriageâ???marriage has declined substantially in both Scandinavia and the Netherlands. In the districts of Scandinavia most accepting of same-sex marriage, marriage itself has almost entirely disappeared. I have shown that same sex marriage contributed significantly to this pattern of marital decline. Recall that the social harm in all this is the damage to children. Children will suffer if the Scandinavian pattern takes hold, because the concomitant of the Scandinavian pattern is a rising rate of family dissolution.
Even someone who receives this argument skeptically ought to pause for further consideration before making irrevocable decisions about the adoption of same-sex marriage. Given the fact that marriage itself is literally disappearing in the places where same-sex marriageâ???or marriage-like same-sex statusesâ???have existed for significant periods of time, precipitous adoption of same-sex marriage in the United States is clearly contraindicated.
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IMHO, I think this particular analysis sites something we should all care deeply about, which is the destabilization of society when we remove marriage as a fundamental building block and replace it with, basically, nothing. We live in an increasingly self centered and greed centered society as it is, and the dissolution of marriage is but one more example of these social diseases.
I will be watching the studies of Scandinavia and the Netherlands with a great deal of interest going forward. Preliminary data shows very little positives are resulting from same-sex marriage and in fact, that the dissolution of marriage is not far behind as a reality once this path is taken.
I agree with Tony's point that putting aside notions of same-sex marriage and paying more attention to the increasingly widespread failure of traditional marriage is also of paramount importance.
Personally, I've not always had an easy time in my marriage, but both my wife and I now hold the view that the same principles that this country was founded on, courage, conviction, faith in ourselves and in a belief in something greater than ourselves, being others-centered, are at the center of the definition of marriage at a social level. It is a social contract that ideally fosters an environment well suited for raising generations of healthy, confident, courageous, intelligent children. It is about commitment, about courage, about standing with each other side by side, hand in hand, and communicating to each other in marriage and to our children that we are here together to the end no matter what. It takes courage and conviction to make a marriage work and to provide that environment for children within a marriage, and it is far from easy. I believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman, and that children learn the lasting definitions of what it is to be a man or a woman within the social contract of marriage.
That said, my personal views are of little relevance. What is most important is to do what is best for the state, to protect and nurture life, we must take great care in the directions we choose to head surrounding the matter in this thread, we are quite possibly stripping one of the most basic building blocks of our society out from under ourselves in the name of tolerance and forward progress. I would suggest a great deal of patience and a great deal of research are our best friends as we grapple with this difficult issue. A wise man once said, every complex problem has a quick easy answer, but it is always the wrong answer.
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