I'm not going to do a great deal of research, because we're on page 32. I'm sure it will come up again. However, if Kurtz looks at South Africa, he might look at this paper, from 2004.
http://www.hsrc.ac.za/media/2004/8/20040805Paper2.pdf
It says divorce and cohabitation rates were on the rise in South Africa.
Kind of small, isn’t it? Divorce rose less than 0.5% for all the categories studies according to Fig 2G and marriage is down between 2 and 5% between 1996 and 2001. And too bad they don’t have data since SSM was implemented; it may have stopped and reversed this trend, as it did the Scandinavian countries
.
But nevertheless
it’s still in the top ten of every country! SSM didn’t happen where they think marriage is “no big deal”, nor did it happen that way in Spain. I’m wondering still what specific numbers make Kurts think the populations of Scandinavia think marriage is “no big deal”.
It’s certainly not your claim in action: “I think countries where gay marriage is legal tend to have low marriage rates.” It’s just the opposite. Now are you saying a increase in divorce (or decrease in marriage), no matter how slight and no matter how strongly marriage is “respected” in terms of marriages per capita and divorces per marriage tends to lead to SSM for a country?
As for Libya, I'm confident that they have a great deal of respect for marriage. Likewise Iran and Saudi Arabia and other hellholes. Probably Ireland, too, with its rather repressive sexual laws, although I understand it's catching up to Europe as well.
That’s it, isn’t it? For the past couple of decades people have been living under less and less oppressive/restrictive governments and societies. Most everyone has been becoming less and less like Iran. No doubt that increases divorce rates, and leads to people living how they want to (even in South Africa). I can even remember, when I was a kid, that, while abuse was no doubt wrong, it still seemed immoral for a woman to leave an abusive husband (again, I was in an abnormally conservative culture). That’s not a part of my culture anymore and, no doubt, divorce went up for it. But that is not the effect of gay marriage.
To reiterate my personal position, I think that the most important thing to society is that some sort of very strong marriage option be available, but not required. To me, everything else is secondary, including the inclusion of same sex marriage. While I support gay marriage, I think the general attitude of its supporters is not good for long term society.
I hate it when we go pages and just end up agreeing. Makes it all seem a waste.
BUT, I’d add a “some” or "a few" to your “of it’s supporters.”
Scot, if you could convince Ken and ImaginalDisc that you were right about marriage, then I would have much more enthusiasm for your position.
Ken and ID have their points. They are looking at it from a different angle than I am, but I’m not going to fight two supporters just to make another supporter more enthusiastic.
Eh, I’ll do it once though, just for you. Okay, I’ll play Meadmaker: (
I’ve thought it’d be a interesting to do a gay marriage thread where we had to take the other’s side… Actually, I’d want to be Huntster, rather than Mead, seems like more fun. Ken, you could be Meadmaker, and Meadmaker would be ID. And, hmm… ID would be me… What happened to Jen, anyway? Miss her, I do).
Ken (no offence Ken, just a little bored here, kid napping…).
It’s bad for society if it’s not about love, but it’s also bad if it’s
only about love.
The way I see it, they, marriage and love, feed off each other. Love makes you want to sacrifice. It makes the obligations of marriage seem like rights. But love, for many, fades with time. When you can’t yourself find a reason to work at maintaining it, that’s where marriage comes most strongly into play for many people; not when they love, but when they begin to stop loving. It gives more motivation to attend to love, to keep their obligations, sometimes even to find a way to love someone they stopped loving completely.
Kid’s, though not nessesary for marriage, make all that all the more important, because now it’s not just you and your partner. You’ve added a person to the deal, who never asked to be added in the first place, and they depend on you, as a couple, not you as individuals. You owe them all, big time, love or no.
Actually, that was probably more my opinion than playing Meadmaker, but I bet I’m kind of close.
