THE END OF MARRIAGE IN SCANDINAVIA? Stanley Kurtz replies to Andrew Sullivan

In "The End of Marriage in Scandinavia," I show that gay marriage has helped hasten the decline of marriage. Andrew Sullivan dismisses my argument, claiming I fail to show causality, and draw impermissible inferences about gay marriage from Scandinavian registered partnerships. ...To see why Sullivan is wrong, let's take a look at marriage in Norway. ...

When we look at Nordland and Nord-Troendelag--the Vermont and Massachusetts of Norway--we are peering as far as we can into the future of marriage in a world where gay marriage is almost totally accepted. What we see is a place where marriage itself has almost totally disappeared. ...

...If the mere existence of prior causes of marital decline makes it impossible to isolate new factors, then the offer of state-by-state "experiments" in gay marriage is bogus. No matter how bad things get--and no matter how clearly we show a cultural connection between attitudes toward gay marriage and marital decline--Sullivan will deny that gay marriage makes any contribution to the problem.

Of course, when Sullivan thought he had statistical proof that heterosexual marriage was doing well in post-gay marriage Scandinavia, he was eager to play social scientist. ...

Sullivan is wrong to say that Scandinavian registered partnerships are open to heterosexuals. They're not. ... (I see Sullivan has now corrected his error. But he's avoided acknowledging that his mistake sinks his explanation for the link between gay marriage and the decline of marriage in Scandinavia.) ...

And note that "The End of Marriage in Scandinavia" refutes the "conservative case" for gay marriage on several matters that have nothing to do with the causal question. Scandinavian gays have not taken to monogamous marriage, and they openly reject the "conservative case" for gay marriage. Sullivan says nothing in response to these points.

The mechanism by which gay marriage undermines marriage is easy to grasp. We see it at work in Sullivan's own writings--including his reply to me. Sullivan claims that "coupling--not procreation--is what civil marriage now is." That is false. Just because we can find cases in which infertile couples marry, Sullivan thinks he's proven that marriage has nothing to do with parenthood. But marriage and parenthood are still deeply linked. That is why Scandinavia's practice of unmarried parenthood shocks us. ...

But every time Andrew Sullivan claims that marriage is about coupling, not procreation, he helps weaken the connection between marriage and parenting in America. The gay-marriage debate is eroding the cultural connection between marriage and parenthood. Despite all the changes in marriage since the Sixties, Americans have a long way to go before marriage and parenthood are decoupled to the degree that they are now in Nordland and Nord-Troendelag. There is more than enough scope for a new factor to intervene and heighten that separation. This is exactly what gay marriage has done in Scandinavia--and is doing right now in America, especially through the work of Andrew Sullivan.

more
posted by Eve at 10:02 PM | link

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home