[Torie]

Well, the problems of Europe are about low birth rates primarily (actually putting that aside, Western Europe is by and large one of the most agreeable places to live on this planet), and the lowest birth rates are not in places where "secular humanism" (and certainly not gay marriages) has raised its ugly head in your parlance. The lowest birth rates are in Slavic countries by and large. Your cause and effect analysis really lacks much empirical traction. The suggestion that gay marriage will end civilization as we know it is just that - a suggestion.

[NutCrackerBoy]

The suggestion that gay marriage will end civilization as we know it is just that - a suggestion.

And I absolutely did not suggest that.

In my last paragraph I did make some unsubstantiated and really unexplained claims. The intent of my post was to critique the Ellen Goodman column.

The fruits of secular humanism in Western Europe are: the low birth rate you mentioned; also declining militaries; also increased dependence on socialistic government; also a burgeoning hostile Islamic population. The deaths of those old folks in France were a signpost. It is no longer the family's job to take care of the elderly and infirm; that instead falls to the government.

[jwalsh07]

The suggestion that gay marriage will end civilization as we know it is just that - a suggestion.

It won't end civilization but it will end the institution of marriage as we know it. Whether or not that will have an effect on civilization is for each of us to decide. I, of course, have decided it will have a profoundly negative effect and thus I will oppose any redefining of the word.