In my comment threads there has recently arisen references to Stanley Kurtz's writings on the state of marriage in Scandinavia and The Netherlands. I encourage anyone encountering these ideas for the first time to read firsthand what Kurtz has actually said and what others have said in return.
As for what Kurtz himself has written, a few comments can be found on MarriageDebate.com or National Review Online's The Corner, but the bulk of what he has said can be found in two articles in The Weekly Standard together with respective follow up replies to his critics on National Review Online. The first article was titled "The End of Marriage in Scandinavia" (02/02/2004) with a follow up response to Andrew Sullivan, "Slipping Toward Scandinavia." The second article was titled "Going Dutch?" (5/31/2004) with a follow up response to M.V. Lee Badgett, "Unhealthy Half Truths."
I have responded to Kurtz's claims on a number of occasions on this blog collected into this category. Another great collection of responses was due to a number of authors at Amptoons collected under this heading. From the above two collections of posts you can find more responses for and against, but please don't miss this paper (pdf) by Professor Badgett.
Kurtz's biggest fear is that same-sex marriage is part of a movement that will lead to the equalization of marriage and cohabitation. Jonathan Rauch, though, has a brilliant piece in the latest issue of The New Republic [subscription required, but it's worth at least getting the trial subscription] as to how permitting same-sex marriage will strengthen the message that marriage is important, whereas prohibiting it will lead to a vast array of alternatives to marriage including a push for the legal and social equivalence of cohabitation to marriage. Rauch's article becomes particularly relevant after rereading Kurtz.
Jonathan Rauch, though, has a brilliant piece...as to how permitting same-sex marriage will strengthen the message that marriage is important, whereas prohibiting it will lead to a vast array of alternatives to marriage including a push for the legal and social equivalence of cohabitation to marriage.
Admittedly, I haven't read the piece, but on it's face, it is clearly less than "brilliant," since his predictions have not already come true. Marriage has been defined by its procreative potential for all of recorded history and it is that restriction he is arguing will lead to its demise. Maybe we just haven't let the experiment run long enough, but more likely you and your beloved Rauch are simply divorced from reality.
Posted by: op-ed | June 02, 2005 at 10:52 AM
Kurtz's work "The End of Marriage in Scandinavia" was not the spark igniting interest in Scandinavia. I'm not saying you are claiming that it is. I'm speaking to a larger framing of the issue which should not be left absent in regarding these works. As Kurtz has pointed out, this is an ongoing dialog with Andrew Sullivan where Sullivan fired the first salvo.
The irony of the dialog is how weakly Andrew's house of cards folds...
I've said before, the data from Sullivan and Kurtz is easily harmonized in this debate. Much of that harmony is found openly in Kurtz's writings. In the end the data, and what the data means is interpreted in two different ways and unfortunately the Sullivan side of the story seems to flail about rather than meet the straightforward consistency of Kurtz.
Posted by: On Lawn | June 02, 2005 at 01:19 PM
Op-Ed,
First of all, if you had read the article you would see that Rauch never predicted the demise of marriage. He argued that if SSM is prohibited, less people will choose marriage and instead choose other options like reciprocal beneficiaries, registered partnerships, domestic parternships, or cohabitation. That is indeed something we have seen.
Maggie Gallagher just linked to data (pdf) from the National Survey on Family Growth which reports a shocking increase of teens who approve of nonmarital childbearing. This, of course, does not establish that the denial of same-sex marriage was a cause in this increase, but Rauch provides some good arguments for why it could be connected and why permitting same-sex marriage could strengthen the view that marriage is important for the welfare of children.
As for his claim that the denial of same-sex marriage creates a variety of alternatives to marriage at the governmental and private level, that is quite clear. Programs that were instituted by states, municipalities, and private businesses, because gay and lesbian couples and their families lacked protection were often made available to straight unmarried couples as well. If same-sex marriage were instead available there would no doubt be less need and less push for such alternatives.
Posted by: Galois | June 02, 2005 at 02:43 PM
On Lawn,
Yes, you are correct to point to Sullivan's writings. Kurtz is absolutely correct that Sullivan was wrong to equate Danish RP's with marriage and to draw any causal link between the decreased divorce rate in Denmark and the establishment of said RP's. Two wrongs don't make a right, though. At least Sullivan did his in an aside comment in an article on how RP's have promoted stability among gay couples. For Kurtz the idea that RP's "continued" the trend toward nomarital childbearing was key, and entierely unsupported.
Kurtz was also very much mistaken to refer to Eskridge as drawing such conclusions. As I pointed out here and here , Prof Eskridge actually warned against such "quasi-marriage" arrangements and was dubious of any causal link being drawn from Spedale's research.
Regardless of what Sullivan wrote, though, Kurtz still fails to account for the significance of the introduction of alternatives to marriage, key differences between RP's and marriage with regards to adoption, and the fact that the increase in nonmarital childbearing has been rising since the 1970's and continues to rise in countries with legal recognition of same-sex relationships and those without.
Posted by: Galois | June 02, 2005 at 03:05 PM
Kurtz was also very much mistaken to refer to Eskridge as drawing such conclusions.
Quote?
Kurtz is absolutely correct that Sullivan was wrong to equate Danish RP's with marriage
Again, quote?
Posted by: On Lawn | June 02, 2005 at 04:10 PM
Quote?
Kurtz wrote:
Eskridge certainly does not consider "de facto gay marriage" to be such a good thing as he explained in this FindLaw article. This is also a point Rauch makes in his recent The New Republic article.
As for "making much" of the Spedale study, Eskridge referred to it as "scanty evidence" and further wrote that he was "dubious that there is a causal link".
As for Kurtz correctly criticizing Sullivan for equating RP's to marriage, I guess Kurtz wasn't actually critical. He merely acknowledged that he "simply adopted Sullivan's own language" without regards to whether the language was justified in the first place. If he believes that Sullivan himself was justified in such language, he is wrong. RP's did not even establish the same legal structure as marriage. When RP's were originally established they explictly prohibited adoption and access to reproductive technologies. Thus RP's were a distinct legal structure that could not be conisdered important for the welfare of children. In many states today we have the opposite problem. Same-sex couples can legally adopt a child, but they can't be married to one another. Thus marriage itself is considered as unimportant for the child's welfare.
Posted by: Galois | June 02, 2005 at 05:29 PM
Eskridge certainly does not consider "de facto gay marriage" to be such a good thing
And the quote you provided doesn't say he did.
I guess Kurtz wasn't actually critical.
As both of these examples show, what Kurtz says is ofted much more reasonable than what I keep reading people say Kurtz says.
Posted by: On Lawn | June 02, 2005 at 06:58 PM
As both of these examples show, what Kurtz says is ofted much more reasonable than what I keep reading people say Kurtz says.
Hence the title of the post.
Posted by: Galois | June 02, 2005 at 07:01 PM
Galois,
Pointing to short-term changes in society and blaming them on the long-term definition of marriage simply reinforces that you and your beloved Rauch are quite divorced from reality.
Posted by: op-ed | June 03, 2005 at 12:12 AM
>> Galois: "Regardless of what Sullivan wrote, though, Kurtz still fails to account for the significance of the introduction of alternatives to marriage, key differences between RP's and marriage with regards to adoption, and the fact that the increase in nonmarital childbearing has been rising since the 1970's and continues to rise in countries with legal recognition of same-sex relationships and those without."
The menu of alternatives was introduced and enacted at the instigation of the gay lobby which depended on most of the arguments that you have made in your advocacy of SSM (which is not really marriage).
Since most children living in same-sex households were NOT adopted, and since individuals, rather than couples, were able to adopt children, the pragmatic distinction between RPs and adoption was always very weak. Anyway, that part of the RP law was quickly changed.
While RP did not equate to marriage in all ways, it did send the public message that there was such a thing as state recognition of "gay marriage". That message was clearly used as a stepping stone toward enactment of SSM.
Kurtz pointed to the Netherlands in particular. And, as Dutch observers have well-noted, the social indicators for that society showed that among European countries Holland was an exceptional example where traditions remained stable despite a couple of decades of changes in family law. That came apart very quickly when the gay campaign made its rapid progress toward enactment of same-sex marriage.
Something boosted Dutch non-marital births by an unusual annual average of 2% points between 1997-2003. Although non-marital births increased steadily since 1970, it was unprecedented for the share of nonmarital births to increase above the threshold of 1.5% per year; and very unusual for both first and second order births to increase above this threshold. The pattern, after this significant bump in the trend line, has held.
Posted by: Chairm | June 03, 2005 at 04:23 PM
The menu of alternatives was introduced and enacted at the instigation of the gay lobby which depended on most of the arguments that you have made in your advocacy of SSM (which is not really marriage).
I don't know what makes you think the "gay lobby" moved for this menu of alternatives, but it doesn't really matter. Whoever pushed for it has I believe made a big mistake. I certainly have not argued in favor of this menu, but ironically you have as when you wrote in another thread:
Something boosted Dutch non-marital births by an unusual annual average of 2% points between 1997-2003.
I assume you're talking about the rate of non-marital births (ie the ratio of non-marital births to marital births) as opposed to total non-marital births. That rate went from 19.2% in 1997 to 30.7% in 2003 for an average annual increase of 1.9 percentage points. This increase was not unprecedented. From 1996-1997 the rate increased 2.2 percentage points. (So if anything RP's slowed the rate of increase). In the Scandinavian countries that adopted some form of recognition not only did the rate of increase slow, but in fact in Denmark the non-marital birth rate actually dropped! That is something unprecedented for Europe. I doubt RP's were responsible for this though. It is even more unlikley they were responsbile for the increase in The Netherlands. Other countries in Europe that did not adopt any form of recognition for same-sex couples actually saw larger increases in the non-marital birthrate. On the whole, those that adopted recognition tended to fare slightly better than those that did not adopt recognition.
Pointing to short-term changes in society and blaming them on the long-term definition of marriage simply reinforces that you and your beloved Rauch are quite divorced from reality.
Once again, op-ed, I would suggest that you actually read Rauch. He claims there are problems caused by marriage not adapting to changing conditions. Since those conditions did not exist before it makes absolutely no sense to point to the fact that it did not adapt earlier. Simply ignoring those changed conditions is indeed divorcing oneself from reality and does nothing to respond to Rauch's concerns.
Posted by: Galois | June 04, 2005 at 11:43 PM
...there are problems caused by marriage not adapting to changing conditions. Since those conditions did not exist before it makes absolutely no sense to point to the fact that it did not adapt earlier.
Hmmmmm.... So you think Rauch could do a better job representing his position than you are doing? Fair enough. But as long as you brought it up, exactly what "conditions did not exist before" that marriage is "not adapting to?"
Posted by: op-ed | June 05, 2005 at 01:04 AM
So you think Rauch could do a better job representing his position than you are doing?
Yes, for a number of reasons.
But as long as you brought it up, exactly what "conditions did not exist before" that marriage is "not adapting to?"
The growing number of same-sex couples living openly and raising families is one of the main conditions he refers to. Related to this, and also quite relevant, is the growing acceptance of homosexuality.
Posted by: Galois | June 05, 2005 at 01:16 AM
The growing number of same-sex couples living openly and raising families is one of the main conditions he refers to. Related to this, and also quite relevant, is the growing acceptance of homosexuality.
I'll assume you fired that off without thinking and let you try coming up with something that truly is unique to our time. Are you really willing to hinge your entire argument on the premise that "acceptance of homosexuality" "did not exist before?"
Posted by: op-ed | June 05, 2005 at 06:50 PM
Are you really willing to hinge your entire argument on the premise that "acceptance of homosexuality" "did not exist before?"
Acceptance of homosexuality as we have it today? Yes I believe that is unique to our time. Same-sex couples are committing to each other for life, adopting children, and many businesses and communities want to do what they can to help these couples. This has caused the passage of all sorts of domestic partnership registries and programs. I am not talking about acceptance of sexual relations between people of the same sex. I'm talking about acceptance of the fact that some people are gay, and the understanding that these people will generally find someone of the same sex with whom to settle down and live their lives together.
If you believe a situation parallel to this occurred at some other point in history we can examine how the law adapted or failed to adapt to the situation and the consequences thereof, but I do believe the current situation is unparalleled.
Posted by: Galois | June 05, 2005 at 07:09 PM
Homosexuality as the Moral Loadstone? Galois argues persuasively that endorsement of commitment in and of itself is not a state interest in marriage:
Commitment is nothing the State can really judge. The Mass Supreme Court seems to be very good at judging the intentions and commitment of the 14 plantifs in Goodridge. Michael Shiavo's attourney could determine resolutely for himself by looking in Terri's eyes whether she wanted to live or die. If I didn't have a problem with resting arguments in the unverifiable for legal decisions, I'd probably both see and not see the appeal to emotion here as others do.
Often it is not any one thing that we put importance in that really determines our morality. So often we find that life is a set of comprimises. We comprimise for what we find to be most important those things we find less important.
Aside from the appeal to novelty, we find same-sex impersonation of marriage as a good thing -- for homosexuals. And who's to say it isn't a good thing for them? What the question should be is are they really good for marriage. Again from Galois:
Marriage is not the loadstone, clearly homosexuality is.
Is homosexual acceptance new though? What's really changed since Sparta, Athens and Rome? Just why were homosexuals so uncommitted until recently?
Scratch the surface and there rests a circular argument. The Mass Supreme Court found the commitment in the 14 plaintiffs (carefully screened and chosen for such a purpose, no?) Would they not have found such commitment before? Saints Serge and Baccius were definately committed. So were the Samuri's and Spartans who would bed their fellow soldiers, and promise to take care of each other's families if they died.
The Mass. Supreme Court seemed enamoured with the purity of the subsection of homosexuality before them. The plaintiff's honorable motives and committed lifestyle was something the court relied on in their ruling, they devoted a large portion of their ruling to it. Yet the plaintiff's commitment is not new just the states attitude toward it. We could see this as a chicken and egg-scenario but this one actually has a more clear anser. For many years same-sex impersonation of marriage has been touted as a stabilizer for homosexual couples, not the other way around.
In Gulliver's Travel's the loadstone moved a whole floating island civilization by the way it was positioned. Today a simular analogy would be saying the 'tail wags to dog'. One cannot reasonably conclude other than the Mass Supreme Court and others are mearly using homosexual acceptance as a loadstone to move the popular perception. The claim from Roushe is not only that such a course leads to a happier place, but that we head to disaster if we don't take it.
But is acceptance of homosexuality really a good loadstone here? The Mass. Supreme Court seemed unwilling to even question the notion. Such scrutiny was unimportant. And by Galois' brushstrokes, such scrutiny is counter-productive. To Rosey O'Donnely such scrutiny, even from her child, is easily deprecated in the face of her desire to sexually discriminate against a gender in setting up a family.
Throughout history many have sought a certain exemption from the cultural values. Nazi's decided they wanted the Jew's money and status and found their motives to be above question also, it was their right to be aryan I suppose. Nero played his fiddle while celebrating his right to arson. Slaves were kept in an excercise of right to enterprise. And historically we judge them not by what they found important, not by what lodestone they used in charting their course, but by what their lodestone crushed in their path.
Already presented is how this loadstone crushes responsible procreation, it crushes underneath the handicapped and innocent. Truely a special goal and interest moves this loadstone.
Posted by: On Lawn | June 06, 2005 at 01:39 AM
Galois, you are mistaken about the Dutch statistics. You may want to recheck the seven year period of 1997-2003 which includes 1997.
You also miss the point about the strength of traditional family formation prior to the mid-1990s. I doubt you really deny the accelerated trend. Your real objection, I think, is to the connection with the "gay marriage" campaign of the gay activists in Holland.
Posted by: Chairm | June 06, 2005 at 01:48 PM
Also you are wrong about Hawaii. The RB system is expressly not an alternative to marital status.
Posted by: Chairm | June 06, 2005 at 01:55 PM
To Galois's summary that "Kurtz's biggest fear is that same-sex marriage is part of a movement that will lead to the equalization of marriage and cohabitation," I have but a brief point.
In my opinion, it is those who oppose SSM (or promote such arrangements as domestic partnerships) that create the greatest likelihood that marriage and cohabitation will be equalized.
As states and municipalities begin to offer domestic partnership registries for same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples, that is where the line will become blurred and perhaps disappear.
Ironically, the simplest solution is the most controversial. Recognition of SSM will continue to maintain a bright-line test between who is married and who is not. You are married, or you are not. Simple. Of course, this solution meets with the greatest amount of opposition.
Domestic partnership registries that allow couples who currently have the option of marriage available to them will be the ones to muddy the water, so to speak. It will be those who may currently available themselves of marriage that will equalize marriage and cohabition.
"Did you meet Mark and his wife?"
"Mark's not married."
"Yeah he is. I met her. Her name's...Becky, I think."
"Oh. Becky. They're not married. They're 'domestic partners'."
"Really? So, you mean they live in sin?"
"Exactly."
If same-sex couples are allowed to marry - and there are no such things as domestic partnerships then the matter is simple and there is no concern over the melding of marriage and cohabitation -- at least not as the result of SSM recognition. It is the creation of these various compromises (and, in particular, those that would also extend to opposite sex couples) that have the greatest potential to equalize marriage and cohabitation.
So, I disagree with the notion that SSM marriage will result in the "equalization of marriage and cohabitation". In fact, the opposite is true. It is not the same-sex couples who will blur the distinction - it will be the striaght couples who - for whatever reason - opt for domestic partnership rather than marriage, which is already available to them.
Posted by: Fool | June 06, 2005 at 02:32 PM
Chairm,
You are correct and I was misinformed about Hawaii. They do indeed limit it to individuals who would be prohibited by state law from marrying. That is an improvement over the model I thought they had.
As for the Dutch statistics, I believe they are perfectly accurate. You talked about the increase from 1997-2003. The nonmarital birth rate rose from 19.2% in 1997 to 30.7% in 2003. That includes 1997 and takes it as a starting period and that is a six year period. You now seem to be saying we should also consider the rise from 1996 to 1997. I don't blame you for wanting to include that to pad your statistics as it increased 2.2 percentage points over that year. I don't understand your basis for including the rise from 1996 to 1997. RP's didn't begin in The Netherlands until 1998. Are you seriously blaming them for retroactively increasing the nonmarital birth rate between 1996 and 1997? I don't deny the trend, but I do disagree with when the trend started and I don't see how you can blame it on RP's when the trend occurred across Europe and was actually less noticed in countries that recognized same-sex relationships.
Posted by: Galois | June 06, 2005 at 02:45 PM
Recognition of SSM will continue to maintain a bright-line test between who is married and who is not. You are married, or you are not.
So the more ambiguous the term "marriage," the more understandable it will be? You just can't argue against that level of reasoning.
It is not the same-sex couples who will blur the distinction - it will be the striaght couples who - for whatever reason - opt for domestic partnership rather than marriage, which is already available to them.
Moreso than the "striaght [sic]" couples who opt not for marriage already?
Posted by: op-ed | June 06, 2005 at 03:39 PM
The correct way to calcuate the change on a given year is to compare that year with the previous year. For the record here is the list of point changes for 1997-2003.
1. 1997 - 2.2
2. 1998 - 1.6
3. 1999 - 2.0
4. 2000 - 2.2
5. 2001 - 2.3
6. 2002 - 1.8
7. 2003 - 1.7
The average point change for 1997-2003 inclusive: 2.0 (rounded-up from 1.96).
---
The 1.5 point threshold was hit in 1996 and breached in 1997. It was unprecedented.
The previous seven year period from 1990 to 1996 inclusive: 1990 - 0.7, 1991 - 0.6, 1992 - 0.5, 1993 - 0.7, 1994 - 1.2, 1995 - 1.3, and 1996 - 1.5.
Annual average point change: 0.9 points.
Previously, yearly changes hovered around 1 point and barely rose above 0.5 points prior to the mid-1970s.
The rapid change of 1997-2003 was a big deal in Holland given how low the share of non-marital births had been earlier, how little it moved, and given the strength of traditional family formation even in the face of liberalized laws prior to the mid-1990s.
The resistence to the changes experienced in other countries was attributable to the strength of societal adherence to traditional family formation. That seems to have been undermined during the mid-1990s.
Posted by: Chairm | June 06, 2005 at 07:54 PM
The chronology in Holland makes the year 1996-97 a demarcation point from which we can discern a "before and after" comparison.
Dutch lawmaking is infamously slow but the government's readiness to experiment with SSM was communicated first in its express approval of RP (described locally as gay marriage), in the state commission's prominent 1996-97 hearings, in that commission's subsequent pro-SSM report, and in the government's announcement that it would enact adoption provisions and SSM.
The RP bill had been introduced in 1994; it made its way through the legislative process and was passed by the government in 1997, (to go into affect in January of 1998). Similarly, SSM was passed in 2000 and was implemented officially in early 2001. The campaign was successful by the mid-1990s, but its prominence may have had unintended consequences in boosting the unravelling of family formation traditions in that society.
I think it is plausible that the campaign was the most significant factor.
Posted by: Chairm | June 06, 2005 at 07:58 PM
I should have added that by 1989 the cohabitation laws had ripened. Also, there was a high profile Supreme Court case in 1990 that jump-started the push for RP leading to the legislation in 1994 which was widely described as "gay marriage" on all side of the issue.
Posted by: Chairm | June 06, 2005 at 08:03 PM
We seem to be in agreement about the stats Chairm. I just noted that the increase in 1997 was be definition an increase from the year 1996. That is the year 1997 showed a 2.2 point increase over the year 1996 in marital birth rate. I still don't understand why you include the increase in the "effects of RP" argument. RP's did not occur until 1998, so it is ridiculous to argue they had any effect on the increase in the nonmarital birthrate between 1996 and 1997.
Nonmarital birth rates skyrocketed in other countries without legal recognition of same-sex relationships. I still don't understand how you conclude that in these countries it was caused by other factors, but in The Netherlands it was RP's that (retroactively) caused the problem. Why in any of these countries (with or without same-sex legal recongition) do you attribute this rise to a particular cause?
It seems to me that same-sex marriage would promote adherence to traditional family formation. If you are going to form a family, marry. Don't get an RP, a registered cohabitation, or remain as unregistered cohabitants (all three of which are offered in The Netherlands to same-sex and opposite-sex couples). It is this emphasis on marriage that is being undermined by resistance to allowing same-sex couples to marry.
Posted by: Galois | June 06, 2005 at 08:10 PM