The GMA

Darren Spedale and William Eskridge have been all over the media this week responding to the renewed push by President Bush and Senate Republicans for a Gay Marriage Amendment. Time.com blogger, Andrew Sullivan, made this quote from their new book (via an excerpt at the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy website) his ‘quote of the day’ yesterday:

Stanley Kurtz is the ‘EverReady Bunny’ of the same-sex marriage debate, a character who moves forward unrelentingly on a quest to prove that same-sex marriages are harmful. He is sure that state recognition of lesbian and gay unions in Europe has harmed the institution of marriage. But he never quite settles on a reason why this should be so, and his most recent argument illustrates the wildly unscientific thinking behind a lot of the American opposition to same-sex marriage.

Further on…

Sensing that he is losing the case with those countries with these longer-lived partnership laws, Kurtz has substantially shifted to the Netherlands, as illustrated by his recent article ‘The Smoking Gun’, (National Review On-Line, posted June 2, 2006). The Dutch had one of the lowest rates of nonmarital births in the world in 1970; between 1970 and 1982, the rate doubled, but only to 5%; between 1982 and 1988, the rate doubled again, to 10%; between 1988 and 1997, the rate doubled yet again to more than 20%. This was before the Dutch made any changes in their marriage laws. Since 1997, the nonmarital birth rate has continued to rise at a steady clip, about 2% points per year, since 1997. In 2001, the Netherlands celebrated its first same-sex marriages.

Kurtz argues that he finally has data that support his claim that same-sex marriage ’causes’ high rates of children born outside of marriage. For several reasons, this data reveal no causal link…

The nonmarital birth rate in the Netherlands has been increasing exponentially since the 1970s. It galloped up in the 1980s, and continued that gallop in the 1990s and the new millennium. The rate doubled between 1982 and 1988, doubled again between 1988 and 1997, and is on the way to another doubling. These are significant increases, but registered partnerships, not to mention same-sex marriage, came right in the middle of this demographic trend. Neither institution seems to have exacerbated the trend.

Indeed, the data support a more interesting hypothesis than the one Kurtz supposes. For social reasons, the Dutch were by the 1980s no longer so strongly committed to a norm that a marriage certificate is a necessity for couples to form permanent, committed partnerships and raise children. The compulsory-marriage norm continued to weaken in the 1990s – and that is the key reason Parliament was willing to open registered partnership to different-sex couples…

Kurtz makes the mistake David Hume calls the ‘post hoc proper hoc’ (after that, therefore because of that) fallacy…To figure out why Dutch nonmarital childbirth rates have gone up so dramatically in the last generation, we need to look at other variables – including changing attitudes about women working outside the home, the trends in neighboring countries as Europe became more integrated, and evolving social mores. To “blame” this trend on same-sex marriage, which came at its tail end, is like blaming the last batter in a 10-0 baseball game for ‘causing’ the home team to lose. The last batter did not prevent his team from losing, but neither did he cause the loss.

The ‘you lost the game’ phenomenon we have just described is called scapegoating. Interestingly, the Dutch don’t ‘blame’ gay marriage for the phenomenon of families outside of marriage in their country. Most Dutch citizens who know about Kurtz’s argument find it baffling, though not a few are amused. But scapegoating is a serious matter. To blame the group (gays and lesbians) that has been most fundamentally denied even minimal rights in the last generation for the decline of marriage is not only unscientific, it is fundamentally unjust.

Later in the day, Stanley Kurtz responded to their response (via Sullivan):

Eskridge and Spedale want to blame the substantial acceleration in Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrates entirely on the opening up of registered partnerships to both gay, and especially straight, couples in 1997. The implication is that any problems for marriage were caused by the symbolism of this “marriage lite” institution for straights. Supposedly, the passage of formal gay marriage in 2000 sent an opposite and more “conservative” pro-marriage message. But this whole line of thinking is mistaken…

Here’s another question. Since Eskridge and Spedale argue that unmarried parental cohabitation is really nothing to worry about, why do they even care whether the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate goes up or not? Would Eskridge and Spedale like to see the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate come down? If so, how can they reconcile that with their published defense of Scandinavian parental cohabitation? If not, what’s the point of this debate?

However much Eskridge and Spedale deny it, the substantial acceleration in Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrates following the passage of registered partnerships, and then gay marriage, is exactly the sort of evidence of rate accelleration they call for in their book. Comparable spikes in Eastern European out-of-wedlock birthrates are widely recognized as both significant and in need of explanation.

So, now Kurtz has moved his target to some unspecified Eastern European country? Be sure to read Kurtz’s essay on ‘Why so few?’ gays and lesbians choose to marry once the option becomes available (Click here for part 2 of the essay). It seems like someone should compare marriage rates among gays and lesbians and the straight community for the same time period.

Stay tuned for an update from Eskridge and Spedale here soon. In the meantime, check out their website, www.gaymarriagebook.com.