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 Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Kurtz Replies to Rauch about DUTCH MARRIAGE/NRO
http://corner.nationalreview.com/06_02_26_corner-archive.asp#091291 Jonathan Rauch has some questions about my causal framework. The short answer is that the impact of gay marriage depends on pre-existing conditions in a particular country. Gay marriage weakens the idea that the fundamental purpose of marriage is to encourage a mother and father to stay together for the sake of the children they may produce. The stronger that notion is to begin with, the greater is the impact of gay marriage. For more, see "The Marriage Mentality." As to the issue of timing, it's certainly striking that the Dutch passed registered partnerships in the same year that a long, continuous, two-percentage point rise in the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate began. But the passage of laws is only part of the process by which same-sex marriage contributes to marital decline. Even before the law changes, public debate begins to shift the meaning of marriage for society as a whole. In The Netherlands, we had significant debate in parliament in 1996, and symbolic marriages (Gavin Newsom lite) in many municipalities, well before that. All that had a strong effect on the public’s view of what marriage meant. For more, see "Going Dutch?" I remember all those articles in the American press about how "the sky hasn’t fallen" in The Netherlands. Most of those stories used Dutch gay marriage advocates as sources. Only a decade ago, marriage in The Netherlands was quite strong in comparison to the rest of northern Europe. If you want to see what's become of Dutch marriage today, have a look at this essay by Jan Latten, a demographer at CBS, Holland’s official statistical agency: "Trends in Cohabiting and Marriage." This is what's become of Dutch marriage in the years since registered partnerships and gay marriage passed. Ask yourself if Latten's account is consistent with the "conservative case" for same-sex marriage. For my comments on Latten's essay, see "Standing Out." 
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Gay marriage weakens the idea that the fundamental purpose of marriage is to encourage a mother and father to stay together for the sake of the children they may produce.
Yet when given a whole week and an infinite amount of wordage to explain how on earth the fact that Bob and Tim down the road can get married weakens the determination of Joan and Rob to stay together, you were completely unable to do so.
If you want to see what's become of Dutch marriage today, have a look at this essay by Jan Latten, a demographer at CBS, Holland’s official statistical agency: "Trends in Cohabiting and Marriage."
That would be the one where Latten claims that same-sex couples being able to marry in 2001 somehow "caused" couples to have children out of wedlock in 1972? Hee.
No, he said it affects Joan and Rob's idea of marriage. It turns their idea of marriage from something expected of them, a duty even, into something optional and unrelated to the fact that they might have children together. Now that you have pounded in the idea that it is homophobic to believe that, they are less likely to believe that, and more likely to remain unmarried.
John Howard
(pay no attention to jesurgislac)
During the fight over No-fault divorce, cultural liberals were often heard issuing the typical refrain, “what do two people getting divorced have to do with YOUR marriage”
Traditionalists had to argue that our social fabric depends on everyone holding a similar respect for lifelong marriage; including the law. Of coarse the left would have none of it.
Their inability to see causal connections in correlations is directly tied to their ideological zeal for the belief that each individual in society exists in a self contained autonomous bubble. (Every man IS an island onto himself - in other words)
Its not that they cant make the connection, its that they wont!
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