Posted on 06/21/2004 9:06:30 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.
As America moves closer to embracing same-sex “marriage,” one can almost picture people in the wedding industry rubbing their hands in delight. After all, if we legalize gay “marriage,” we’ll have more weddings than ever, right?
Wrong. We will end up having fewer marriages, not more. Just ask the citizens of Holland, where marriage is going the way of typewriters and buggy whips.
In the Weekly Standard, Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, points out that in recent decades—a time when parental cohabitation was sweeping across Northern Europe—the Dutch clung to the last, ragged remains of their religious traditions. Yes, they engaged in cohabitation—but when Dutch couples had children, they usually got married.
Not anymore. During the mid-1990s, the rate of out-of-wedlock births began to shoot up. By 2003, the rate of increase nearly doubled to 31 percent of all Dutch births.
What accounts for this phenomenon? Gay “marriage.” These were the years, Kurtz notes, “when the debate over the legal recognition of gay relationships came to the fore in the Netherlands.” The debate came to an end when Holland legalized full same-sex “marriage” in the year 2000.
The conjunction of these two social phenomena, says Kurtz, is no coincidence. During Holland’s decade-long drive to legalize same-sex “marriage,” gay advocates openly scorned the idea that marriage ought to be defined by the possibility of childbearing. Love between two partners—any two partners—was the real basis of marriage. Thus, as one gay “marriage” advocate told the Dutch Parliament, “there is absolutely no reason, objectively, to distinguish between heterosexual and homosexual love.” Dutch leaders bought this argument. Marriage would be reduced to—as Kurtz put it—“just one choice on a menu of relationship options.” In marriage, as with cheeseburgers, you could have it your way.
Then a funny thing happened on the road to redefining marriage: Dutch people simply stopped getting married—even when they had children. This really ought to come as no surprise. After all, Kurtz writes, “Spend a decade telling people that marriage is not about parenthood, and they just might begin to believe you. Make relationship equality a rallying cry, and people might decide that all forms of relationships are equal.”
The ease with which the Dutch jettisoned marriage happened in large part because the Dutch had already abandoned their Judeo-Christian heritage. The few religious voices raised in defense of traditional marriage were drowned out. And as a result Holland is now going the way of Scandinavia—where acceptance of gay “marriage” has led to the continued deterioration of marriage.
What’s happening in the Netherlands gives us clear evidence of what gay “marriage” does: People stop getting married, and children suffer. Let this serve as a warning to Americans. Marriage between one man and one woman must be protected and strengthened. If it isn’t, then American families—already deeply damaged by divorce and illegitimacy—will be destroyed.
"Without marriage, there are no legal loopholes. I just move on with my life. With marriage, we now begin discussions concerning alimony, my house is no longer 100% mine, my income is not 100% mine, my possessions are no longer mine."
You betta get smart about common law marriage. In an awful lot of states she'd still be entitled to half of your stuff. Ring or no ring, vows or no vows. In some states she'd be entitled to half your stuff in as little as 90 days of cohabitation.
If you are warranting that current marriage law is oppressive, then you should be advocating the repeal of virtually all contract law. I mean, c'mon, the average state marriage law boils down to "Marry anybody you want as long as you're of the opposite sex, you're over 16, not genetically close and are honest about your current marital status." How much contract law is that simple?
I think you're right. In America, "cohabitation" has, rather tragically, become the legal status that provides men with the same set of protections that "marriage" provides women.
The reason marriage rates dropped in Holland (and are dropping in the US) is that the State has removed the motivation for a woman to get married.
In previous decades, a woman who wanted children and a stable environment in which to raise them had to marry a man.
In the wonderful, liberal 21st century, feminism has fooled women into believing that their actions have no consequences - that a single mom can raise a son just as well as a two-parent family.
Also, she doesn't need to get married. Just have a kid with a man and she gets child support from him - and welfare from the State. Without the State ready and waiting to act as surrogate husband, the marriage rate would go up.
I don't think it has much to do with gay marriage, except that gay marriage is simply another indicator of the steady decline of society.
In what other kind of contract does the state unilaterally set the terms, and then leave the parties subject to unwanted and even undisclosed changes in terms, at the whim of the state, and/or if the parties subsequently relocate to another state? Try moving from a community property state to a non-community property state, or vice versa, and you'll quickly discover that the parties to a marriage have little to say about the terms of the "contract".
Marriage should not be recognized by the state in any way, other than exactly how the state recognizes any other contract. What the parties specifically contract for -- and nothing else -- should be enforceable via the court system. If people want religious marriages, they should be relying on their religious group to recognize those.
The state has some to do with it, but it's not entirely the state. Decades ago, women generally didn't have the same opportunity to get an education and a good paying job as men.
Today, that is not the case. Many women choose the career path now and either forego marriage altogether or put it off until later.
you could pre-nup.
i wouldn't trust anyone who wanted to pre-nup.
mrs vs
I have no empircal evidence to back up the following remark, but intuitively I think I am right.
At best, 1 out of 10 men get married for parenthood.
Men get married because they think they are in love and want to be loved.
Or more bluntly and said among men:
Men get married because they want a regular piece of ass and want to tie that piece of ass up for themselves.
It is only women who eventually talk men into parenthood.
It appears I mistakenly took your statement as your own personal situation. I apologize for any misdirection.
I still stand by my statement on your hypothetical example. There are many men (and women) who fall into this category.
Um, I believe the point the author is making is that, if homosexual marriage is legalized, heterosexual couples end up foregoing marriage.
Just two problems:
It is both illegal and immoral to live in the same housing unit with your girlfriend until such time as the two of you, one being an adult male and the other being an adult female, join in the bonds of Holy Matrimony before God.
It is both illegal and immoral for you to engage in any sort of interpersonal behavior involving the reproductive organs unless you do so exclusively with the one and only person to whom you are bonded in Holy Matrimony before God. (Some additional restrictions apply.)
If it's just the two of you, fine. Plenty of adult emotional pain, but life is like that. You make choices, you better be willing to deal with the consequences.
But if you get kids involved, the 'moving on' thing causes a lot of damage.
There are both sane and insane men who marry. The sane ones are the ones who made a good choice of spouse in the first place and remain married to that special someone their whole lives.
"Why bother getting married? Just find a woman you hate and buy her a house!"
Uh uh, not always true. I can list a number of situations I am personally aware of where the man was the driving force behind the choice to reproduce. (And I can also name at least two off hand where the marriage ended because the man wanted kids and the woman didn't.)
Careful, yourself is showing through.
Marriage is right, because marriage is ordained by the Creator. Marriage is the foundation of all social instiutions that really matter -- including government.
Your are correct. Marriage is not easy, but it is the most stretching, ultimately satisfying relationship there is. Didn't you see the Reagan funeral? When all was said and done, who was the last one at the casket, weeping?
You may try to argue that your rationale against marriage is not selfish, but you are deceiving yourself. Real fulfillment in life does not come through living primarily for yourself, protecting yourself, looking out primarily for your own interests -- as Ayn Rand and the rest of the libertarians would have everyone believe -- but in giving yourself to others. This is true not only in marriage, but in business, in community, in politics. He who serves others in the beginning is exalted in the end.
We celebrate Jesus Christ today and we honor his memory. Why? Because he gave of himself completely for others. And we trust that the Creator has a reward for those who follow his example.
What do you think the Gettysburg Address was all about?
Your are right. A husband and a father has to give himself to his wife and children. He has to sublimate his own desires, his own happiness, for the purpose of making them happy. Ironically, when he begins to do this, he discovers that it is the only way to his own happiness. It is the path to true maturity and the true expression of American manhood and masculinity.
Until you are ready to commit your life to making someone's else's life one of happiness and joy, you SHOULDN'T get married. You are too immature -- incapable of doing the one thing that would also bring true happiness to yourself.
One more point. If you ever do marry, be sure you marry a woman who also has the heart of kindness and the heart of a servant. That way, she'll be kind to you even if you're a selfish... well, you know.
I don't completely agree. The future of society relies on the stability of the family. Children are the future, and they simply do not thrive as well in a household where there is not both mother and father lovingly committed to one another.
I do agree that, ultimately, it's up to us as grown ups to act like grown ups in making decisions about commitments, children. But the government does have a stake in the marriage issue.
The government has no capacity to make a "mother and father lovingly committed to one another". That's something only a mother and father, and the influence of their family and friends and faith can do. There are lots of people out there with government-issued marriage licenses who are hateful to each other, neglectful of their children, and even violently abusive. And there are lots of couples out there without marriage licenses who ARE "lovingly committed to one another" and to their children. And of the many couples who possess government-issued marriage licenses AND are "lovingly committed to one another", it's hard to imagine that the lack of, or sudden cessation of government recognition of, such licenses, would cause them to stop being "lovingly committed to one another".
It may be immoral, but it is certainly NOT illegal.
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