Marriage Debate

[Dcdrac]

what get me is who on earth thinks they ahve the right to stick their noses into somoenelses life and happiness?

 

[Meadmaker]

sigh...

Huntster is saying that allowing gay marriage will affect the culture. Others have said the change will be limited to those who seek marriage under the new law. Huntster is right.

That's all I'm saying. I don't know if the changes will be good changes, or bad changes. That will probably be a matter of opinion. My guess is he won't like them and some of the rest of us will. My guess is that it will be similar to what has happened in other places where same sex marriage has been recognized. Those are guesses.

Well, actually, Huntster used the word "destroy". I don't know how much cultural change constitutes "destruction" of a culture, but I do know that the culture will change. It amazes me that anyone could take issue with that.

An awful lot of JREF folks thinks our culture is marked by bigotry toward homosexuals. I would think that you would be happy about that destruction, instead of denying it will take place.

 

[Scot C. Trypal]

sigh...

Huntster is saying that allowing gay marriage will affect the culture. Others have said the change will be limited to those who seek marriage under the new law. Huntster is right.

That's all I'm saying. I don't know if the changes will be good changes, or bad changes. That will probably be a matter of opinion. My guess is he won't like them and some of the rest of us will. My guess is that it will be similar to what has happened in other places where same sex marriage has been recognized. Those are guesses.

Don’t sigh at me mister. Here’s how it went down.

You wondered:

Surely someone somewhere has written about the effects of gay marriage in those societies where it has been legalized.

Then you claimed the effects are:

Declining marriage rates overall, and increase in out of wedlock births, although no decline in the probability that a child will be raised by his natural parents.

I pointed out this is not an accurate claim (you seemed to even have gone out of your way to downplay what would have been a good effect, more kids in stable homes).

Now, even if these were genuine effects of SSM, you are saying you don’t know if “Declining marriage rates overall, and increase in out of wedlock births” are “good changes, or bad changes”?

Are you saying you don’t know if the effects I pointed to are good or bad? It may be good, say, if gays can just leave their families on a whim and leave the taxpayer to clean up the mess?

Well, actually, Huntster used the word "destroy". I don't know how much cultural change constitutes "destruction" of a culture, but I do know that the culture will change. It amazes me that anyone could take issue with that.

Sure, you could say the culture is “destroyed” every second, with every baby born or law passed, just as you could call every change in your personality a “death”, but that would kind of obliterate the meaning of “destroy”.

An awful lot of JREF folks thinks our culture is marked by bigotry toward homosexuals. I would think that you would be happy about that destruction, instead of denying it will take place.

I’m unclear on what you’re saying I’m denying? Destruction of what, specifically?

I’d rather have my culture, even if it were “marked by bigotry toward homosexuals”, than have many another culture. And if you think SSM would “destroy” bigotry toward homosexuals, I’d think you’re mistaken. It may even make it worse for quite some time.

Gays are a perpetual minority and no law will change that. In my experience, the only thing that changes bigotry is face-to-face experience with people. I’m pretty sure of that, as my culture, the one in my tiny sphere of action, is a very conservative Christian culture, and it shows no bigotry towards homosexuals, and I’d fight vigorously to keep it from being destroyed. The only time we encounter problems are when we interact with strangers, and though sometimes violent I can gratefully say they are rare in the general public.

[Has everyone else gotten tired of this already? What you say Dave? We have a score or more pages in us, right? ]

 

[Darat]

Figures in the UK show that 6,500 civil partnerships have been entered into since it became legal in the UK and it seems it has already had terrible effects on marriage in the UK.

In 1961 there were 27,000 divorces in the UK, today the figure is over 160,000 - so there you go proof that even letting homosexuals have a "separate an not equal" civil partnership will increase the number of divorces!

 

[Meadmaker]

Scot,
Here's the key quote: from Ken.

No, it does not. Those "others" can preserve their cultures and values by NOT participating in same-sex marriage. To put it in simple terms: If you don't like gay marriage, don't have one.

Ken's wrong. If you change marriage laws, you change the culture, and it doesn't matter whether any given individual takes part in the particular aspects of the change. Our culture will be different if we allow same sex marriage.

How will it change? I don't know, but it seems like looking at other nations where it has been legalized is a good place to start.

As for those changes:

Then you claimed the effects are:


Declining marriage rates overall, and increase in out of wedlock births, although no decline in the probability that a child will be raised by his natural parents.


I pointed out this is not an accurate claim (you seemed to even have gone out of your way to downplay what would have been a good effect, more kids in stable homes).

Now, even if these were genuine effects of SSM, you are saying you don’t know if “Declining marriage rates overall, and increase in out of wedlock births” are “good changes, or bad changes”?

Are you saying you don’t know if the effects I pointed to are good or bad? It may be good, say, if gays can just leave their families on a whim and leave the taxpayer to clean up the mess?

Actually, what you pointed out is that it is hard to determine cause, effect, and existing trends. A decline in marriage rates has been observed where same sex marriage has been legalized, but pundits argue about whether it's due to same sex marriage, or a continuation of an earlier trend.

Are those changes that occurred coincident with the legalization of same sex marriage good, or bad? I don't know. If you have a crystal ball, you can tell me. The current section on this thread was dealing with whether gay marriage will have any effect on people who didn't seek gay marriages.

I think it will, but I don't know exactly what that will be.

 

[Scot C. Trypal]

Okay, I can see you’re point with Ken, but you’re still in error about these “effects”.

I had to take a walk to the library for this book (I’ll order it though, as it seems to be the latest on this sort of data):

Gay Marriage: for Better or for Worse? What We've Learned from the Evidence
William N. Eskridge and Darren R. Spedale

I took these #s from graphs in this book (they got them from the respective country’s statistics), and they show quite the opposite:

Forgive the formatting (no time to figure it out), and I think there's a per capita in there I forgot to write down but it makes no difference to the point.

For Denmark (gave SS couples rights in 1989)

Year Marriage/year Divorce/year
85-89 600 270
90-94 625 250
95-99 660 250
00-03 690 270

Denmark had an increasing divorce rate and decreasing marriage rate, but once gays were included, marriages went up and divorce stabilized.

For Norway (gave SS couples rights in 1993)

Year Marriage/year Divorce/year
91-93 440 250
94-96 475 240
97-99 540 230
00-03 510 240

Same as Denmark. They had an increasing divorce rate and decreasing marriage rate. In fact, between 73 and 93 marriages dropped 40% and divorce doubled, but once gays were included, marriages went up and divorce stabilized, even down a bit.

For Sweeden (gave SS couples rights in 1995):

Year Marriage/year Divorce/year
90-94 410 240
95-99 375 230
00-03 425 225

Again, divorce went down. With marriage there is an anomaly but it’s easily explained. In 1989 a huge peak occurred of 108,919 Swedes getting married due to new pension law. From there, of course, it had to drop with less people in the single pool, and it did until gay marriage was implemented at which point it slowed and then stabilized and went up. [edit] Let me add also, before that spike the rate was pretty stable between 400 and 550 IIRC.

Now take non-martial births in Norway:

Year %non-marital births
70-73 12
-77 23
-83 36
-88 44
-89 46
-92 46
-96 47
-01 44
-03 44

Again, it stabilized after these rights were given, from a pretty dramatic increase.

In Sweden and Norway this was not seen, though (The scrap of paper I took was filled and I was in a hurry. No, I don’t only copy the data I like ). In both places the rate has been climbing steadily. No change [edit] in climbing rate is notable though with the implementation of these rights and, remember, all these countries have a far greater rate of children living in intact homes than the average or the US.

Anyway, I could just as easily claim SSM helps all marriages. I could do it with the weight of data, and I’m tempted to do so. As I’ve said before, I don’t think the gay marriage movement is a part of the dreaded sexual revolution, it’s a rejection of it, a reaction to it. It’s a rejection of unlimited sexual freedom, having lives only focused on oneself, and so on, and it’s a promotion of fidelity, marriage, and family. I'd not be surprised if this rejection rubs off on the straight community, as we see in these Scandinavian countries .

 

[pgwenthold]

Anyway, I could just as easily claim SSM helps all marriages.

I wouldn't buy it, either. You have to figure out how to control for all the other possible effects, and these data certainly don't do it.

However, that similarly applies to Meadmaker's claims that allowing SSM "affects the culture." I will say, though, that at least you have the benefit of being able to say that, IF allowing SSM has affected society (I don't think any of it has to do with anyone's "culture," but that is a different argument), then in the places it has, it has done so to a mostly beneficial extent (assuming that society prefers marriage)

 

[Meadmaker]

Okay, I can see you’re point with Ken, but you’re still in error about these “effects”.

Stanley Kurtz is the right wing statistician in chief on this issue, and he spins the numbers quite a bit differently than your source.

Is he right? Hard to say. One thing is fairly certain. Norway still has fjords regardless of what people are doing in them. Sweden still functions, despite having a rather laissez faire approach to what people do in their homes, and whether or not they get a certificate to hang over the beds they do it in.

The fact that it can be spun in different ways suggests that it isn't an incredible effect one way or another. It seems highly likely that the effects of same sex marriage won't be easily observable for at least a full generation after it takes affect, and by then there will have been sufficient other changes that both sides will claim credit for any apparent good, but say that any apparent harm was actually caused by something else.

 

[Scot C. Trypal]

Stanley Kurtz is the right wing statistician in chief on this issue, and he spins the numbers quite a bit differently than your source.

Is he right? Hard to say. One thing is fairly certain. …cut…

Let's see his numbers then. We could then easily make two things fairly certain. Do you have them, or should I find them?

The marriages and divorces either happened or they didn’t; no spin about it, and far from “hard to say”. They either went up or down, spin or no. It would be a shame if either Eskridge or Kurtz were lying about their numbers and shouldn’t we find out and not just blow it off as spin?

I could certainly lose this bet, but I suspect Kurtz found a blip of noise and called it a trend. I bet he ignored stuff like a rush of marriages in Sweden for a pension law just before gays got these rights. I don’t know, but I, of course, would not bet on Kurts. At least Eskridge has the research ethics to keep away from claiming gay marriage caused the data she reports (which could be seen as positive effects). IIRC (from, what, 4 hours ago?) she specifically distances herself from it.

The fact that it can be spun in different ways suggests that it isn't an incredible effect one way or another. It seems highly likely that the effects of same sex marriage won't be easily observable for at least a full generation after it takes affect, and by then there will have been sufficient other changes that both sides will claim credit for any apparent good, but say that any apparent harm was actually caused by something else.

Again then, if you think this is a case of spin and the pertinent measurements are now out of our temporal reach, I’m still confused as to why then you claimed the effects you did?

It’s just frustrating.

You first ask why we aren’t discussing such data, then use it to diminish the case for SSM in response to Ken, and then, once the data shows something that could actually be construed in favor of SSM, you blow it off as irrelevant and ask for a full generation of data before you can decide.

 

[Scot C. Trypal]

I wouldn't buy it, either. You have to figure out how to control for all the other possible effects, and these data certainly don't do it.

I was kidding Dave towards the end there, but you’re right. Though they seem to correlate and I could imagine how the thinking behind gays wanting marriage could also be behind straight people wanting to stay married, I can’t really say gay marriage causes marriages to be stronger or more frequent either…

But, I want to; that has to count for something .

 

[Meadmaker]

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmNlNWYxNmZjMjVjNjEzYjdhODAwYmFiYTUwMWQyMTM=

Kurtz and Eskridge have been debating each other, by name, for a while now. In terms of resolution, it has gotten about as far as Huntster and ImaginalDisc.

Kurtz writes for National Review. You can read lots of columns mostly dealing with this subject by going to www.nationalreview.com, and checking out the authors section of the archive. That's where the above article comes from.

From what I've read, Kurtz has made a very persuasive case that gay marriage is legal exclusively in places where most people don't think marriage is a big deal, and a lot of people don't bother to do it. He has tried to further demonstrate a causal relationship between legalization of gay marriage and a declining marriage rate. On that note, he also claims success, but his argument is less persuasive.

 

[Meadmaker]

Again then, if you think this is a case of spin and the pertinent measurements are now out of our temporal reach, I’m still confused as to why then you claimed the effects you did?

It’s just frustrating.

You first ask why we aren’t discussing such data, then use it to diminish the case for SSM in response to Ken, and then, once the data shows something that could actually be construed in favor of SSM, you blow it off as irrelevant and ask for a full generation of data before you can decide.

Just to clarify, I think the trends in marriage are fairly clear, from what I've seen. Whether that's good or bad, who knows? Eskridge specifically says that there's no problem with out of wedlock births. Maybe he's right. Is it cause, effect, or correlation? Can't say. The statistics are available now, but the importance of those statistics will be difficult to judge for generations.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Ken's wrong. If you change marriage laws, you change the culture, and it doesn't matter whether any given individual takes part in the particular aspects of the change. Our culture will be different if we allow same sex marriage.

No, I'm not wrong. YOUR personal culture will not change, unless you allow it. Legalizing gay marriage only affects the homosexuals, directly. Indirectly, people might become more tolerant of homosexuals. However, if you don't like homosexuals or gay marriage, you still don't have to participate in that culture. You don't have to participate in gay marriage ceremonies or celebrations.

 

[Scot C. Trypal]

Oops, Eskridge is a he .

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...FiYTUwMWQyMTM=

Kurtz makes many claims and guesses, but, again, where is his data? It’s almost as if he knows he can’t show them so just focuses on undermining the data we have, to support a failing hypothesis. Maybe it’s just my bias, but in his tone I keep getting the familiar “I’ll break it before you can have it” vibe, almost as if he’s hoping for marriage to fail, everywhere gays can get these rights.

Can you imagine making such a claim as “it's clear that gay marriage weakens marriage itself” with this sort of show of data in any field of science not insolated by PCness? You’d be rightly run out of town. I mean, is this just another “a British medical journal says…” as we saw earlier in this thread?

Anyway, I posted the data Eskridge uses.

Either he just pulled it out of thin air, or marriages have increased and divorces decreased since these rights have been given in Sweeden, Norway, and Denmark (and we have nearly 20 years of data for Denmark, where, again out of wedlock births have stabilized and gone down).

As I mentioned, there is that anomaly in Sweden, with the pension law causing a huge spike then a decline as a reasonable reaction. In that article he tries to pin it all on a 1987 Sweden law that he says gave some rights to gay couples, and I’ll have to wait till I can get to the library again or Eskridge’s book comes in the mail, but that is one bit of data Kurtz presents that certainly doesn’t jive. Someone is wrong about the numbers there.

I find this one particularly suspect:

Eskridge defends Swedish parental cohabitation by pointing to a study that found Swedish children suffering when raised by a lone parent, but doing better when raised by either married or cohabiting parents. Eskridge neglects to mention that this equivalence between married and cohabiting parents applies only as long as the couples stay together. But cohabiting parents break up at two to three times the rate of married parents…

Kurtz “neglects to mention” if he’s actually referring to parents from these countries or the fact that they do so well at making stable homes. As you know, every one of them has far greater stability in their families, married or no, than the US.

I think this shows the major failing in many of these arguments. They care about male anatomy and female anatomy, hoping it will cause the right parenting actions. They care about marital status for the same reasons. But what are really important are the parenting actions, the results, and those countries seem to be doing far better than we are at making stable families, married or no (far far better if you add in Spain). (edit, just to be clear, my point is a kid couldn’t care less if you have a particular piece of legal paper or anatomy, if you parent for them correctly, and keep their home together and functioning smoothly and lovingly)

You say Kurtz’s claim is that SSM "exclusively" happens where people think marriage is no big deal. Again, that’s a irresponcible claim for a researcher in his field to make and once more no accounting for the data is offered. Only one counterexample is needed to refute a claim of "exclusively" but there are many. Why is the divorce rate as a % of marriages in US higher than all those countries, but Sweeden? (http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsWorld.shtml) While Sweden is higher than the US’s 46%, all the rest of those countries are lower. Spain has 15%!

Why is South Africa, a country in the top ten as far as marriage rates go (http://mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-by-highest-marriage-rates.html), just about to implement SSM? They even have no discrimination by marital status or gender right in their constitution, IIRC.

Again, I’d like to see the full body of Kurtz’s data, and hope all that’s out there isn’t just a bunch of opinion pieces and cherry picking.

Just to clarify, I think the trends in marriage are fairly clear, from what I've seen. Whether that's good or bad, who knows? Eskridge specifically says that there's no problem with out of wedlock births. Maybe he's right. Is it cause, effect, or correlation? Can't say. The statistics are available now, but the importance of those statistics will be difficult to judge for generations.

Just to be clear, what are the trends you think are clear and on what data are you basing that?

 

[Meadmaker]

Just to be clear, what are the trends you think are clear and on what data are you basing that?

I think countries where gay marriage is legal tend to have low marriage rates. You noted that their divorce rates are lower than the US, but that would be the case if there were fewer marriages to end. If people don't bother to get married, they won't bother getting divorced, either.

 

[Scot C. Trypal]

I think countries where gay marriage is legal tend to have low marriage rates. You noted that their divorce rates are lower than the US, but that would be the case if there were fewer marriages to end. If people don't bother to get married, they won't bother getting divorced, either.

No. I noticed that in Kurtz’s article and so I specifically looked for divorces as a % of marriages, not per capita. I italicized it but should have bolded too probably.

Don’t you find it a bit odd too that Kurtz is saying low marriage and low divorce rates are supposed to mean that the people think marriage is not a big deal? If we in the US get married more frequently it means we respect marriage more?

I guess all those repeated celebrity weddings are a sign of respect for marriage to Kurtz, and the countries that have more stable families and enter into and out of marriages less frequently take it less seriously? Seems kind of backwards.

EDIT -- again, on what data are you basing that? Not that I don't think, say, the US has a lower rate of marriage compared to those countries, but I think we should be using the numbers here.

 

[Darat]

Just as a FYI - some detailed figures for the UK can be found here: http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/ukstats.html

 

[Meadmaker]

No. I noticed that in Kurtz’s article and so I specifically looked for divorces as a % of marriages, not per capita. I italicized it but should have bolded too probably.

What a low divorce rate, as a percent of marriages, means, is that people who get married, stay married. But if they don't get married, does that mean they respect marriage a lot? "I have so much respect for marriage that I would not sully its reputation by joining it." I don't think Kurtz would be happy about that.

Don’t you find it a bit odd too that Kurtz is saying low marriage and low divorce rates are supposed to mean that the people think marriage is not a big deal?

Not at all. If people don't bother to get married, then they must not think very highly of marriage.

Let us assume that most adults are having sex once in a while. That seems a reasonable assumption. Then all we have to do is see how many of them are getting married. Darat's data shows the number of unmarried people in the UK increased dramatically between 1990 and 2000. All those unmarried people decided there was no need to get married just because they happened to be having sex and/or sharing domiciles. That's a cultural shift.

A good one, or a bad one? That's a matter of opinion.

I predict that any country where gay marriage is legal will have a high proportion of single people. People won't bother getting married.

They'll probably have a low divorce rate, though, because the ones who do get married will be people who have been shacking up for a long time, but decided they might as well get married after all, either out of some marginal respect for tradition, or because there was some economic benefit, or because they thought they could get their friends to buy them some nice silverware.

 

[Skeptic]

I will repeat what I keep saying: How can people like Richard Roberts (Oral's son), who dumped his wife for "the newer model," continue to say that SSM is wrong?

Surely that's not the point? It is not that anybody is saying that what these people are doing IS OK. This is an ad hominem fallacy: that the imperfect behavior of some anti-gay-marriage people means their arguments are wrong.

Contrast that with gays and lesbians who remain faithful partners for life, who endure continued hardship from society, and even in illness and death, have to fight for the most basic right of being able to attend to the final duties of a spouse.

This is a logical fallacy, "the argument from pity": "Look how they suffered for not being married, this means they have a right to get married". It doesn't follow. Not being accepted to law school causes suffering too to people (though God knows why...), but that hardly means there is a RIGHT to go to law school. There is, in general, no "right" to be free of hardship or suffering or feeling of unfairness.

Seems to me there are more gays who are actually married as opposed to a lot of those who are speaking out against SSM.

Possibly, but this would be an argumentum ad populum: many people agree with X therefore X is a right (or correct or true). Again, a fallacy.

That's my problem with the pro-gay-marriage proponents. Their argument is very often simply emotional. When analyzed, it is a string of logical fallacies.

Apart from the ones committed here by roadtoad, other common ones are the "assuing the stipulation" fallacy--essentially declaring that gay marriage IS a right, and anybody who disagrees must be an evil bigot, when the whole point of the disagreement is whether or not it is a right.

There is also the "burden of proof" fallacy--asking those in favor of the status quo to prove why gay marriage is NOT a right, when clearly the burden of proof is on them to prove that it is.

I may be missing something, but I haven't seen a sound argument yet for gay marriage.

 

[Scot C. Trypal]

What a low divorce rate, as a percent of marriages, means, is that people who get married, stay married.

Exactly, that's why I used those numbers instead of what you thought I used. In most of those countries with SSM rights, they stay married (edit, more often than we do).

But if they don't get married, does that mean they respect marriage a lot? "I have so much respect for marriage that I would not sully its reputation by joining it." I don't think Kurtz would be happy about that.

Kurtz is saying marriage rate per citizen is a sign of respect for marriage and in part it is. But it's not the right measurement. If I get married 10 times that adds to Kurtz's tally of “respect” far more than if I get married once and stay married. Again, in Spain, for example, their divorce rate as a percentage of marriages is 15%, compared to our 46%, and they just voted SSM into law.