So if you don’t agree with a particular judicial decision on the constitution, the court decision becomes something “made up” and “abused”?
Are you an expert in constitutional law or are you just slanting your interpretation because you disagree with the court decision?
I’ve been away for a few weeks, so apologies if I missed a reply to these - and also apologies that I probably won’t be able to catch up through all the pages of posts that sprouted up in the past few weeks - but I didn’t see any response to this series of posts, which encapsulates much of the argument very well, so given the requests I saw in the two most recent pages for an explanation, here you go again:
http://therightcoast.blogspot.com/2005/01/marriage-schmarriage-by-gail-heriot-at.html
http://therightcoast.blogspot.com/2005/01/marriage-schmarriage-part-ii-by-gail.html
http://therightcoast.blogspot.com/2005/01/marriage-schmarriage-part-iii.html
http://therightcoast.blogspot.com/2005/01/marriage-schmarriage-part-iv-edmund.html
http://therightcoast.blogspot.com/2005/01/marriage-schmarriage-part-v-same-sex.html
http://therightcoast.blogspot.com/2005/01/marriage-schmarriage-part-vi-will-same.html
http://therightcoast.blogspot.com/2005/01/marriage-schmarriage-part-vii-partial.html
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
See Stanley Kurtz on the evidence of substantial correlation[/quote]
As anyone in Stats 101 can tell you, correlation doesn’t imply causation. Kurtz should know that. He is also using a selection bias by ignoring the numerous countries where heterosexual marriage has stayed the same or improved since the adoption of gay marriage. That is supposed to be good science?
Criticism of Kurtz’s flawed statistics from Slate magazine:
[quote]Prenuptial Jitters
Did gay marriage destroy heterosexual marriage in Scandinavia?
By M.V. Lee Badgett
Posted Thursday, May 20, 2004, at 4:28 PM ET
This week, Massachusetts began handing out marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Amid the cheers, there are the doomsayers who predict that same-sex weddings will mean the end of civilization as we know it. Conservative religious leader James Dobson warns that Massachusetts is issuing “death certificates for the institution of marriage.” And conservative pundit Stanley Kurtz claims to have found the “proof” that the institution will see its demise: Gay marriage helped to kill heterosexual marriage in Scandinavia. Indeed, Kurtz has become a key figure in the marriage debate: He and his statistics have been taken up by conservatives to support their argument that gay unions threaten heterosexual marriage. He has shown up in Congressional hearings, lawsuit filings, newspapers, debates, and anti-gay marriage videos across the country.
But Kurtz’s smoking gun is really just smoke and mirrors. Reports of the death of marriage in Scandinavia are greatly exaggerated; giving gay couples the right to wed did not lead to massive matrimonial flight by heterosexuals.
Currently there are nine European countries that give marital rights to gay couples. In Scandinavia, Denmark (1989), Norway (1993), Sweden (1994), and Iceland (1996) pioneered a separate-and-not-quite-equal status for same-sex couples called “registered partnership.” (When they register, same-sex couples receive most of the financial and legal rights of marriage, other than the right to marry in a state church and the right to adopt children.) Since 2001, the Netherlands and Belgium have opened marriage to same-sex couples.
Despite what Kurtz might say, the apocalypse has not yet arrived. In fact, the numbers show that heterosexual marriage looks pretty healthy in Scandinavia, where same-sex couples have had rights the longest. In Denmark, for example, the marriage rate had been declining for a half-century but turned around in the early 1980s. After the 1989 passage of the registered-partner law, the marriage rate continued to climb; Danish heterosexual marriage rates are now the highest they’ve been since the early 1970’s. And the most recent marriage rates in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland are all higher than the rates for the years before the partner laws were passed. Furthermore, in the 1990s, divorce rates in Scandinavia remained basically unchanged.
Of course, the good news about marriage rates is bad news for Kurtz’s sky-is-falling argument. So, Kurtz instead focuses on the increasing tendency in Europe for couples to have children out of wedlock. Gay marriage, he argues, is a wedge that is prying marriage and parenthood apart.
The main evidence Kurtz points to is the increase in cohabitation rates among unmarried heterosexual couples and the increase in births to unmarried mothers. Roughly half of all children in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are now born to unmarried parents. In Denmark, the number of cohabiting couples with children rose by 25 percent in the 1990s. From these statistics Kurtz concludes that " �?� married parenthood has become a minority phenomenon," and�??surprise�??he blames gay marriage.
But Kurtz’s interpretation of the statistics is incorrect. Parenthood within marriage is still the norm�??most cohabitating couples marry after they start having children. In Sweden, for instance, 70 percent of cohabiters wed after their first child is born. Indeed, in Scandinavia the majority of families with children are headed by married parents. In Denmark and Norway, roughly four out of five couples with children were married in 2003. In the Netherlands, a bit south of Scandinavia, 90 percent of heterosexual couples with kids are married.
Kurtz is also mistaken in maintaining that gay unions are to blame for changes in heterosexual marriage patterns. In truth, the shift occurred in the opposite direction: Changes in heterosexual marriage made the recognition of gay couples more likely. In my own recent study conducted in the Netherlands, I found that the nine countries with partnership laws had higher rates of unmarried cohabitation than other European and North American countries before passage of the partner-registration laws. In other words, high cohabitation rates came first, gay partnership laws followed.
A subtler version of Kurtz’s argument states that the advent of registered partnership caused an increase in cohabitation rates and children born outside of marriage (nonmarital births). If that were true, then we would expect to see two patterns: Cohabitation rates and the nonmarital birth rate would rise more quickly within a country after it passed partner registration laws; and the rise in the nonmarital birth rate would be greater in countries that had such laws than in countries that do not recognize same-sex partnerships.
Kurtz’s argument fails both tests. From 1970 to 1980, the Danish nonmarital birth rate tripled, from 11 percent to 33 percent. Over the next 10 years, it rose again to 46 percent and then stopped rising in 1990s after the passage of the 1989 partnership law. Norway’s big surge occurred in the 1980’s, with an increase from 16 percent to 39 percent. In the decade after Norway recognized same-sex couples (in 1993), the nonmarital birth rate first rose slightly, then, after a couple of years, leveled off at 50 percent.
Cohabitation rates tell a similar story. In Denmark, from 1980 to 1989, the number of unmarried, cohabiting couples with children rose by 70 percent, but the same figure rose by only 28 percent from 1989 to 2000�??the decade after Denmark introduced its partner-registration laws�??and then stopped rising. From 2000 to 2004, the number has increased by a barely perceptible 0.3 percent. The fact that rates of cohabitation and nonmarital births either slowed down or completely stopped rising after the passage of partnership laws shows that the laws had no effect on heterosexual behavior.
Furthermore, the change in nonmarital births was exactly the same in countries with partnership laws as it was in countries without. The eight countries that recognized registered partners at some point in the decade from 1989 to 2000 saw an increase in the average nonmarital birth rate from 36 percent in 1991 to 44 percent in 2000, an eight percentage point increase. Among the EU countries that didn’t recognize partners (plus Switzerland), the average rate of nonmarital births rose from 15 percent to 23 percent�??also an eight-point increase.
No matter how you slice the demographic data, rates of nonmarital births and cohabitation do not increase as a result of the passage of laws that give same-sex partners the right to registered partnership. To put it simply: Giving gay couples rights does not inexplicably cause heterosexuals to flee marriage, as Kurtz would have us believe. Looking at the long-term statistical trends, it seems clear that the changes in heterosexuals’ marriage and parenting decisions would have occurred anyway, even in the absence of gay marriage.
And all the conservative hand-wringing seems especially unnecessary when you consider the various incentives that encourage American heterosexual couples to marry. By marrying, U.S. couples obtain health-insurance coverage, pensions, and Social Security survivor benefits. Plus, in the United States we are required by law to be financially responsible for our spouses in bad times, since we don’t have Scandinavian-style welfare programs to fall back on.
In addition, American society already wrestles with the social tensions that Kurtz claims have occurred as a result of gay marriage in Scandinavia: deepening divisions over gay issues in churches, the increasing acceptance of lesbian and gay relationships in the media, and the occasional radical voice arguing for the abolition of marriage. Yet heterosexual couples keep getting married�??more than 2 million of them every year.
Concerns about the impact of gay marriage on heterosexual behavior are not unique to the United States, of course. European countries that recognize same-sex couples initially had their worriers, too. Over time, however, it became clear that civilization and family life would survive the recognition of gay couples’ rights. Even the conservative governments that came into power have not tried to repeal rights for gay couples in France and the Netherlands.
Both demographic data and common sense show that the dire predictions of Dobson and Kurtz are just cultural prenuptial jitters. Now that gay and lesbian couples are marrying in Massachusetts, we’ll have a home-grown social experiment that will undoubtedly compare to that of Europe: Letting gay couples say “I do” does not lead to heterosexuals saying “I don’t.”[/quote]
[quote]forlife wrote:
So if you don’t agree with a particular judicial decision on the constitution, the court decision becomes something “made up” and “abused”?
Are you an expert in constitutional law or are you just slanting your interpretation because you disagree with the court decision?[/quote]
If it’s nowhere to be found in the text, it’s made up.
As for my expertise, Constitutional law was an interest of mine in law school, and I follow a lot of developments in the area, though it’s not part of my current practice as a corporate attorney. I assume that gives me enough expertise to make the judgment.
Now, how much do you understand about the rationale behind the decision?
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
See Stanley Kurtz on the evidence of substantial correlation
forlife wrote:
As anyone in Stats 101 can tell you, correlation doesn’t imply causation. Kurtz should know that. He is also using a selection bias by ignoring the numerous countries where heterosexual marriage has stayed the same or increased since the adoption of gay marriage. That is supposed to be good science?[/quote]
Yes, that’s why I specifically said correlated, instead of caused. I know what the words I use mean - it’s OK if that is somewhat surprising to you.
The premise is that causation can’t be ruled out, and that marriage as a fundamental institution of society is too important to muck around with blindly.
As for marriage increasing, I’d like to see this please. Controlled for immigrant families and others who wouldn’t be affected by cultural norms in the new countries, right?
[quote]forlife wrote:
Criticism of Kurtz’s flawed statistics from Slate magazine:
Prenuptial Jitters
Did gay marriage destroy heterosexual marriage in Scandinavia?
By M.V. Lee Badgett
Posted Thursday, May 20, 2004, at 4:28 PM ET
This week, Massachusetts began handing out marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Amid the cheers, there are the doomsayers who predict that same-sex weddings will mean the end of civilization as we know it. Conservative religious leader James Dobson warns that Massachusetts is issuing “death certificates for the institution of marriage.” And conservative pundit Stanley Kurtz claims to have found the “proof” that the institution will see its demise: Gay marriage helped to kill heterosexual marriage in Scandinavia. Indeed, Kurtz has become a key figure in the marriage debate: He and his statistics have been taken up by conservatives to support their argument that gay unions threaten heterosexual marriage. He has shown up in Congressional hearings, lawsuit filings, newspapers, debates, and anti-gay marriage videos across the country.
But Kurtz’s smoking gun is really just smoke and mirrors. Reports of the death of marriage in Scandinavia are greatly exaggerated; giving gay couples the right to wed did not lead to massive matrimonial flight by heterosexuals.
Currently there are nine European countries that give marital rights to gay couples. In Scandinavia, Denmark (1989), Norway (1993), Sweden (1994), and Iceland (1996) pioneered a separate-and-not-quite-equal status for same-sex couples called “registered partnership.” (When they register, same-sex couples receive most of the financial and legal rights of marriage, other than the right to marry in a state church and the right to adopt children.) Since 2001, the Netherlands and Belgium have opened marriage to same-sex couples.
Despite what Kurtz might say, the apocalypse has not yet arrived. In fact, the numbers show that heterosexual marriage looks pretty healthy in Scandinavia, where same-sex couples have had rights the longest. In Denmark, for example, the marriage rate had been declining for a half-century but turned around in the early 1980s. After the 1989 passage of the registered-partner law, the marriage rate continued to climb; Danish heterosexual marriage rates are now the highest they’ve been since the early 1970’s. And the most recent marriage rates in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland are all higher than the rates for the years before the partner laws were passed. Furthermore, in the 1990s, divorce rates in Scandinavia remained basically unchanged.
Of course, the good news about marriage rates is bad news for Kurtz’s sky-is-falling argument. So, Kurtz instead focuses on the increasing tendency in Europe for couples to have children out of wedlock. Gay marriage, he argues, is a wedge that is prying marriage and parenthood apart.
The main evidence Kurtz points to is the increase in cohabitation rates among unmarried heterosexual couples and the increase in births to unmarried mothers. Roughly half of all children in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are now born to unmarried parents. In Denmark, the number of cohabiting couples with children rose by 25 percent in the 1990s. From these statistics Kurtz concludes that " �?� married parenthood has become a minority phenomenon," and�??surprise�??he blames gay marriage.
But Kurtz’s interpretation of the statistics is incorrect. Parenthood within marriage is still the norm�??most cohabitating couples marry after they start having children. In Sweden, for instance, 70 percent of cohabiters wed after their first child is born. Indeed, in Scandinavia the majority of families with children are headed by married parents. In Denmark and Norway, roughly four out of five couples with children were married in 2003. In the Netherlands, a bit south of Scandinavia, 90 percent of heterosexual couples with kids are married.
Kurtz is also mistaken in maintaining that gay unions are to blame for changes in heterosexual marriage patterns. In truth, the shift occurred in the opposite direction: Changes in heterosexual marriage made the recognition of gay couples more likely. In my own recent study conducted in the Netherlands, I found that the nine countries with partnership laws had higher rates of unmarried cohabitation than other European and North American countries before passage of the partner-registration laws. In other words, high cohabitation rates came first, gay partnership laws followed.
A subtler version of Kurtz’s argument states that the advent of registered partnership caused an increase in cohabitation rates and children born outside of marriage (nonmarital births). If that were true, then we would expect to see two patterns: Cohabitation rates and the nonmarital birth rate would rise more quickly within a country after it passed partner registration laws; and the rise in the nonmarital birth rate would be greater in countries that had such laws than in countries that do not recognize same-sex partnerships.
Kurtz’s argument fails both tests. From 1970 to 1980, the Danish nonmarital birth rate tripled, from 11 percent to 33 percent. Over the next 10 years, it rose again to 46 percent and then stopped rising in 1990s after the passage of the 1989 partnership law. Norway’s big surge occurred in the 1980’s, with an increase from 16 percent to 39 percent. In the decade after Norway recognized same-sex couples (in 1993), the nonmarital birth rate first rose slightly, then, after a couple of years, leveled off at 50 percent.
Cohabitation rates tell a similar story. In Denmark, from 1980 to 1989, the number of unmarried, cohabiting couples with children rose by 70 percent, but the same figure rose by only 28 percent from 1989 to 2000�??the decade after Denmark introduced its partner-registration laws�??and then stopped rising. From 2000 to 2004, the number has increased by a barely perceptible 0.3 percent. The fact that rates of cohabitation and nonmarital births either slowed down or completely stopped rising after the passage of partnership laws shows that the laws had no effect on heterosexual behavior.
Furthermore, the change in nonmarital births was exactly the same in countries with partnership laws as it was in countries without. The eight countries that recognized registered partners at some point in the decade from 1989 to 2000 saw an increase in the average nonmarital birth rate from 36 percent in 1991 to 44 percent in 2000, an eight percentage point increase. Among the EU countries that didn’t recognize partners (plus Switzerland), the average rate of nonmarital births rose from 15 percent to 23 percent�??also an eight-point increase.
No matter how you slice the demographic data, rates of nonmarital births and cohabitation do not increase as a result of the passage of laws that give same-sex partners the right to registered partnership. To put it simply: Giving gay couples rights does not inexplicably cause heterosexuals to flee marriage, as Kurtz would have us believe. Looking at the long-term statistical trends, it seems clear that the changes in heterosexuals’ marriage and parenting decisions would have occurred anyway, even in the absence of gay marriage.
And all the conservative hand-wringing seems especially unnecessary when you consider the various incentives that encourage American heterosexual couples to marry. By marrying, U.S. couples obtain health-insurance coverage, pensions, and Social Security survivor benefits. Plus, in the United States we are required by law to be financially responsible for our spouses in bad times, since we don’t have Scandinavian-style welfare programs to fall back on.
In addition, American society already wrestles with the social tensions that Kurtz claims have occurred as a result of gay marriage in Scandinavia: deepening divisions over gay issues in churches, the increasing acceptance of lesbian and gay relationships in the media, and the occasional radical voice arguing for the abolition of marriage. Yet heterosexual couples keep getting married�??more than 2 million of them every year.
Concerns about the impact of gay marriage on heterosexual behavior are not unique to the United States, of course. European countries that recognize same-sex couples initially had their worriers, too. Over time, however, it became clear that civilization and family life would survive the recognition of gay couples’ rights. Even the conservative governments that came into power have not tried to repeal rights for gay couples in France and the Netherlands.
Both demographic data and common sense show that the dire predictions of Dobson and Kurtz are just cultural prenuptial jitters. Now that gay and lesbian couples are marrying in Massachusetts, we’ll have a home-grown social experiment that will undoubtedly compare to that of Europe: Letting gay couples say “I do” does not lead to heterosexuals saying “I don’t.”[/quote]
In response to Badgett:
http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz200405250927.asp
[i]May 25, 2004, 9:27 a.m.
Unhealthy Half Truths
Scandinavia marriage is dying.
M. V. Lee Badgett, professor of economics and gay and lesbian studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has a Slate piece ( http://slate.msn.com/id/2100884/ ) that purports to refute my work on same-sex unions and marriage in Scandinavia ( http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/660zypwj.asp ). It doesn’t. Badgett’s case is built on statistical sleight of hand. And his claim that “heterosexual marriage looks pretty healthy in Scandinavia” flies in the face of a broad scholarly consensus.
The idea that Scandinavian marriage is dying is not my invention. Have a look at this 2000 piece from the Los Angeles Times ( http://listarchives.his.com/smartmarriages/smartmarriages.0003/msg00052.html ). Scandinavians, the Times reports, “have all but given up on marriage as a framework for family living, preferring cohabitation even after their children are born.” According to the Times, “the 1990’s witnessed a resolute rejection of marriage, even among couples having children.” Whether they praise or blame the Scandinavian family system, scholars agree.
Badgett’s odd claim that Scandinavian marriage is doing just fine is built on a statistical trick. According to Badgett, roughly four out of five couples with children in Denmark and Norway are married. That’s true, but it’s also incomplete and deeply misleading. What Badgett doesn’t tell you is that her “couples with children” figure includes only couples who are living together. Children who live with single parents or step families are omitted from Badgett’s report.
In Norway, those children of broken families are put in a huge category called “other type of family.” That category includes single adults as well as single parents and step-families. Separating out the subcategories, Norwegian demographer Christer Hyggen reports that by January 2002, only 62 percent of Norwegian children were living with married parents �?? far lower than Badgett’s 80 percent.
Badgett’s figures conveniently sidestep the central point. Cohabiting parents are 2-3 times more likely to break up than married parents. That’s why parental cohabitation is a problem. Since cohabiting couples break up at a high rate, many of their children end up with single parents or in step families. By leaving those children out, Badgett disregards the true cost of the Scandinavian system.
And the problem is getting worse. In Norway, cohabiting families are the fastest-growing family type, while married couples with children are the fastest shrinking family type. The proportion of Norwegian children living with married parents dropped 16 percent from 1989 to 2002 (from 78 percent to 62 percent).
Badgett’s figures are deeply misleading. But break even those down by region, and the results are revealing. Even restricting ourselves to parents who are living together, in Norway’s religious and socially conservative southwest, only one child in ten lives with cohabiting parents. But in the socially liberal north (where the idea of gay marriage has been most completely accepted) fully four children in ten are living with unmarried parents (who still reside together). Add the children of single parents and step families, and we are surely at over 50 percent of children living with unmarried parents in Norway’s liberal north. If that sounds high, consider that in 2002, 83 percent of first-born children in the northern Norwegian county of Nord-Troendelag were born out of wedlock, as were 58 percent of subsequent children.
You can read more in this summary from Statistics Norway ( Families and households ). Notice what Norway’s own national statisticians take to be the big story in the numbers �?? the rise of cohabitation and the decline of married couples with children. That’s a far cry from Badgett’s claim that “heterosexual marriage looks pretty healthy in Scandinavia.”
Badgett’s statistical cherrypicking also distorts her claim about the Netherlands, as blogger Justin Katz has already noticed ( http://dustinthelight.timshelarts.com/lint/000588.html ). Badgett says that in 2003, 90 percent of Dutch couples with kids were married. What she doesn’t tell you is that there were almost twice as many single-parent households in the Netherlands as cohabiting-parent households in 2003. So in reality, married couples now make up only about 75 percent of the families with children, not 90 percent. And that 75 percent figure represents a drop of about seven percent since the campaign for gay marriage kicked into high gear in the Netherlands.
Even these numbers don’t tell the real story. The important point is that registered partnerships and gay marriage have brought sharply higher rates of parental cohabitation to the Netherlands in just the last few years. (For more on this, see my new piece, “Going Dutch?” http://24.104.4.225/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/126qodro.asp ) Since the surge in Dutch unmarried cohabitation is only seven years old, it will take some time before the higher breakup rate for cohabiting couples has its full effect on the single parenting statistics. But Dutch marriage is waning, and the fast-rising rate of unmarried parenthood sets kids up for even more trouble in the future. So Badgett’s claim that heterosexual marriage “looks pretty healthy” is built on statistical half-truths.
Badgett ignores key points from my work on Scandinavia. I’ve shown in detail why higher marriage rates do not mean a marital renaissance in Scandinavia. Badgett quotes the usual statistics, while saying nothing in reply to my arguments.
Badgett also ignores another one of my key points �?? that there is an important difference between out-of-wedlock births to first-born’s, and to subsequent children. In the early stages of parental cohabitation, the first child is treated as a test of the relationship. Many couples break up shortly after the first child is born, but many also marry. Yet as parental cohabitation grows more popular, people lose the impulse to marry at all. They have two and even three children without marrying, and many stop marrying altogether. This second stage spells the end of marriage itself. That’s why it has to work against deeper cultural resistance than “experimental” first-child out-of-wedlock births.
What’s happened in Scandinavia since gay marriage is that couples have moved from the first to the second stage. They’ve started to shift from treating the first child as the test of a possible marriage, to giving up on marriage altogether. In the liberal northern counties of Norway, prior to the enactment of registered partnerships, most first children were born outside of marriage. Yet most subsequent children were born to married couples. Since registered partnerships have been established, even most second and third children are now born out-of-wedlock in these districts. The Norway’s liberal north, marriage is literally disappearing. The other key change since registered partnerships is that parental cohabitation is growing, even in the once traditional and religious districts of Norway’s southwest.
So to compare the quick early rise of the Norwegian out-of-wedlock birthrate in the 1980s to the rate of increase in the last decade or so is like comparing apples and oranges. As I’ve said from the start, out-of-wedlock birthrates may have risen more sharply in Scandinavia prior to registered partnerships, but now they’re moving through the toughest parts of cultural resistance.
If I’m right that out-of-wedlock birthrates necessarily rise more slowly when they get to very high levels, then introducing gay marriage to a country with low out-of-wedlock births could kick off a much more rapid rise in the rate. That is exactly what has happened in the Netherlands. Until recently, Holland was vastly more traditional about marriage than Scandinavia. The Dutch had very low rates of parental cohabitation, and very low rates of out-of-wedlock birth. But since registered partnerships and formal gay marriage were introduced in the Netherlands, parental cohabitation has spread widely, and the out-of-wedlock birthrate has been moving up at a fast pace.
This is exactly what Badgett says needs to happen in order to prove that registered partnerships and gay marriage really do encourage parental cohabitation. The Netherlands does in fact meet the causal test Badgett sets. Gay marriage came in, and the out-of-wedlock birthrate shot up.
When Badgett points out that countries with registered partnerships or gay marriage had just as much of a rise in their out-of-wedlock birthrates as countries without gay unions, she is again confusing two different stages of parental cohabitation. Those two groups of countries were at two very different points in the process. The countries with registered partnerships are already nearly maxed out on “experimental” first births out-of-wedlock. They’ve moved rapidly through the “easy” part of the rise in out-of-wedlock births and are now moving more slowly through the tough final stages of the destruction of marriage. It’s like the difference between slicing through the meat on a drumstick and trying to cut the drumstick off of the turkey.
I’ve explained how I think the larger causal process works, but Badgett has ignored what I’ve said. I do not argue that gay marriage is the sole cause, or even the main cause, of parental cohabitation. It is one of several causes. Gay marriage is one part of a new stage of marital decline that contains three basic elements: parental cohabitation, legal equalization of marriage and cohabitation, and gay marriage. My claim is that these three factors are mutually reinforcing. When any of these three factors emerges, the others tend to follow. And they draw out the initial factors still further.
In Sweden, parental cohabitation came first, followed quickly by legal equalization of marriage and cohabitation, and later by gay marriage. In the Netherlands, cohabitation and marriage were legally equalized in the 1980’s, yet Dutch parents still got married. It wasn’t till gay marriage was added to the mix that parental cohabitation became popular in the Netherlands. So Badgett is right to say that parental cohabitation often comes first, and itself causes gay marriage. I’ve said as much myself. But gay marriage reinforces and intensifies parental cohabitation. And in a case like the Netherlands, gay marriage actually preceded parental cohabitation, and had a key role in encouraging the practice. I’ve shown this in “Going Dutch?” and I will shortly be publishing a piece that isolates the causal effect of gay marriage in the Dutch case even more clearly.
Badgett makes much of the various legal and economic incentives that encourage Americans to marry, but all that is now in danger. The influential American Law Institute has already proposed legal reforms that would equalize marriage and cohabitation. And we’ve seen at least the beginnings of European-style parental cohabitation here in the United States. If the cultural changes stimulated by gay marriage draws these trends out, then the legal and economic incentives to marry in America will fall away.
Badgett points out that there are no moves by conservative governments in France or the Netherlands to repeal registered partnerships or gay marriage. That’s true. Yet the conservative government in France is strongly opposing formal gay marriage right now. The more important point is that it does indeed become difficult to repeal these changes once made. The truth about the decline of Dutch marriage is only beginning to come out. Yet as the real effects of gay marriage on the Netherlands emerge, it will be next to impossible politically to do anything about it. The power of “possession” changes things. If we legalize gay marriage here in the United States, we’ll meet the same fate.[/i]
[quote]mharmar wrote:
Living in Canada I have to laugh at a lot of these replies. We have had gay marriage for quite awhile now, it hasn’t destroyed any families. No one has tried to marry a goat or cow.
All the moral arguments tend to stem from a judeo-christian viewpoint which invalidates them because the judeo-christian viewpoint is not objectively correct. [/quote]
Hmmm, Canada has its own issues, eh?
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
I don’t trust much research.
[/quote]
I can’t imagine why not.
Particularly from the American Psychiatric Association.
I prefer my correctness unmodified…
BTW, notice anything about the disciplines at the bottom of the list, versus at the top? The more subjective the subject, the less trustworthy the results, IMHO.
Judicial application of constitutional law is not “making something up”. The constitution wasn’t designed to delineate every potential application, nor could it have been. Instead, it is a body of principles that the judicial system interprets and applies accordingly.
Unless you know more about constitutional law than the judges on the California Supreme Court, I would think their judgment should be respected even if it doesn’t jive with your personal opinion on gay marriage.
Judicial application of constitutional law is not “making something up”. As I’m sure you know, the constitution wasn’t designed to delineate every potential application, nor could it have been. Instead, it is a body of principles that the judicial system interprets and applies accordingly.
Unless you know more about constitutional law than the judges on the California Supreme Court, I would think their judgment should be respected even if it doesn’t jive with your personal opinion on gay marriage.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
mharmar wrote:
Living in Canada I have to laugh at a lot of these replies. We have had gay marriage for quite awhile now, it hasn’t destroyed any families. No one has tried to marry a goat or cow.
All the moral arguments tend to stem from a judeo-christian viewpoint which invalidates them because the judeo-christian viewpoint is not objectively correct.
Hmmm, Canada has its own issues, eh?
http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/kurtz200602030805.asp [/quote]
Whats the problem with allowing polygamy? If we do it I think thats great anything that causes the traditional judeo-christian morality to crumble further in this world is to be celebrated I think. People can have their christian morals in their own house but the government should eliminate most traces of it in the laws and anything else that actually effects how people live their lives.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Judicial application of constitutional law is not “making something up”. The constitution wasn’t designed to delineate every potential application, nor could it have been. Instead, it is a body of principles that the judicial system interprets and applies accordingly.
Unless you know more about constitutional law than the judges on the California Supreme Court, I would think their judgment should be respected even if it doesn’t jive with your personal opinion on gay marriage.[/quote]
No one said the Constitution was designed to “delineate every potential application.” That’s the job of the standard lawmaking process, from which the Constitution excepts certain, specific items. When judges make stuff up like this, they are usurping the power of Constitutional amendment and usurping the power of the political branches - and in the case of California, of the people who passed laws via the referendum process.
[quote] mharmar wrote:
Whats the problem with allowing polygamy? If we do it I think thats great anything that causes the traditional judeo-christian morality to crumble further in this world is to be celebrated I think. People can have their christian morals in their own house but the government should eliminate most traces of it in the laws and anything else that actually effects how people live their lives.
[/quote]
Feel free to vote that way. However, all laws are based on morality and relative valuations. It would be an awfully stupid system that rejected laws on an irrational basis such as that they are related to Judeo-Christian mores - one might almost call such an irrational system its own religion…
[quote]forlife wrote:
Judicial application of constitutional law is not “making something up”. As I’m sure you know, the constitution wasn’t designed to delineate every potential application, nor could it have been. Instead, it is a body of principles that the judicial system interprets and applies accordingly.
…[/quote]
Oh, BTW, I take it you’re a “Living Constitution” theory guy, right?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0722youthjul22,0,6673380.story
Kurtz said:
Even here, Kurtz continues to confuse correlation and causation. Precedence doesn’t prove causation. It is a necessary but insufficient factor in determining causation. Kurtz fails to provide evidence for the other factors required to demonstrate a causal effect.
If you understand the difference between correlation and causation, why are you posting stats about correlation and drawing conclusions related to causation?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
When judges make stuff up like this, they are usurping the power of Constitutional amendment and usurping the power of the political branches - and in the case of California, of the people who passed laws via the referendum process.[/quote]
You mean when judges “make stuff up” that you don’t like, right? When conservative judges “make stuff up” that agrees with your agenda, it becomes a fair interpretion of constitutional law.
At least be honest.
I strongly disagree with the constitutional interpretations of judges like Scallia and Thomas, but I’m not going to disrespect them by accusing them of making something up.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Feel free to vote that way. However, all laws are based on morality and relative valuations. It would be an awfully stupid system that rejected laws on an irrational basis such as that they are related to Judeo-Christian mores - one might almost call such an irrational system its own religion…[/quote]
It’s called Logic and Reason. I don’t necessarily reject morals because of a christian link, hell most reasonable morals are in every culture and every religion(e.g. don’t kill, steal, rape) but most monotheistic social mores are just attempts at controlling the populace and telling them what do when it effects no one but them, other consenting adults and intolerant bigots.
For example other than the potential legal headaches in a society like ours what would be wrong with allowing polygamy? And for all the theoretical bullshit being posted in this thread in the countries that allow gay marriage polygamy hasn’t sprung up, beastiality isn’t a problem. So a few high-ranking officials have said we should abolish marriage have any steps been taken towards it nope. If I see talk of polygamy being legalized or decriminalized in Canada within the next decade I will be highly surprised.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
forlife wrote:
Judicial application of constitutional law is not “making something up”. The constitution wasn’t designed to delineate every potential application, nor could it have been. Instead, it is a body of principles that the judicial system interprets and applies accordingly.
Unless you know more about constitutional law than the judges on the California Supreme Court, I would think their judgment should be respected even if it doesn’t jive with your personal opinion on gay marriage.
No one said the Constitution was designed to “delineate every potential application.” That’s the job of the standard lawmaking process, from which the Constitution excepts certain, specific items. When judges make stuff up like this, they are usurping the power of Constitutional amendment and usurping the power of the political branches - and in the case of California, of the people who passed laws via the referendum process.[/quote]
Exactly. If the Constitution doesn’t cover it then it is up to the people either through direct ballot or through their elected representatives to decide.
[quote]forlife wrote:
Kurtz said:
So Badgett is right to say that parental cohabitation often comes first, and itself causes gay marriage.
Even here, Kurtz continues to confuse correlation and causation. Precedence doesn’t prove causation. It is a necessary but insufficient factor in determining causation. Kurtz fails to provide evidence for the other factors required to demonstrate a causal effect.
If you understand the difference between correlation and causation, why are you posting stats about correlation and drawing conclusions related to causation?[/quote]
Because correlation is shown - and causation is still a relevant and likely possibility. Correlation should be interpreted as evidence of possible causation, not just dismissed out of hand as irrelevant - unless, of course, you can demonstrate that the correlation is unrelated.
Kurtz isn’t confusing the two - his position is that causation should be assumed with this kind of correlation unless it’s disproved, because of the importance of the subject. I agree with him.
Here’s the entire relevant portion from which you excerpted the above:
[i]I’ve explained how I think the larger causal process works, but Badgett has ignored what I’ve said. I do not argue that gay marriage is the sole cause, or even the main cause, of parental cohabitation. It is one of several causes. Gay marriage is one part of a new stage of marital decline that contains three basic elements: parental cohabitation, legal equalization of marriage and cohabitation, and gay marriage. My claim is that these three factors are mutually reinforcing. When any of these three factors emerges, the others tend to follow. And they draw out the initial factors still further.
In Sweden, parental cohabitation came first, followed quickly by legal equalization of marriage and cohabitation, and later by gay marriage. In the Netherlands, cohabitation and marriage were legally equalized in the 1980’s, yet Dutch parents still got married. It wasn’t till gay marriage was added to the mix that parental cohabitation became popular in the Netherlands. So Badgett is right to say that parental cohabitation often comes first, and itself causes gay marriage. I’ve said as much myself. But gay marriage reinforces and intensifies parental cohabitation. And in a case like the Netherlands, gay marriage actually preceded parental cohabitation, and had a key role in encouraging the practice. I’ve shown this in “Going Dutch?” and I will shortly be publishing a piece that isolates the causal effect of gay marriage in the Dutch case even more clearly.[/i]
[quote]
BostonBarrister wrote:
When judges make stuff up like this, they are usurping the power of Constitutional amendment and usurping the power of the political branches - and in the case of California, of the people who passed laws via the referendum process.
forlife wrote:
You mean when judges “make stuff up” that you don’t like, right? When conservative judges “make stuff up” that agrees with your agenda, it becomes a fair interpretion of constitutional law.
At least be honest.
I strongly disagree with the constitutional interpretations of judges like Scallia and Thomas, but I’m not going to disrespect them by accusing them of making something up.[/quote]
No, I mean when judges make stuff up, period. Scalia and Thomas advocate originalism, which is essentially the opposite of making stuff up - though Scalia would have more deference to precedent that was made up due to structural concerns about stability than would Thomas.
Read up on originalism a little bit:
http://volokh.com/posts/chain_1193593601.shtml
In this case, the CA Supreme Court made stuff up. It’s not even a hard case in which to make that conclusion. The text hasn’t changed in 100 years, and absolutely no one is making the argument that anyone who passed the original Constitutional language had any intention to create, or any understanding that they were creating, a right to marriage.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
It would be an awfully stupid system that rejected laws on an irrational basis such as that they are related to Judeo-Christian mores - one might almost call such an irrational system its own religion…[/quote]
Who said anything about purging ALL laws related to a Judeo-Christian viewpoint? ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ seems to be a keeper. I think what he is suggesting is getting rid of archaic laws that are holding us back as a civilization.