Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Everyone's favorite anti-gay blowhard Rick Santorum has a gloriously self-aggrandizing op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the California gay marriage ruling. The whole tone of the piece is "I told you this would happen and you all laughed at me. But who's laughing now?" Well Rick, I am, at the ridiculous and long-debunked lies you tell in this op-ed piece. Like this one:
Look at Norway. It began allowing same-sex marriage in the 1990s. In just the last decade, its heterosexual-marriage rates have nose-dived and its out-of-wedlock birthrate skyrocketed to 80 percent for firstborn children.
Absolutely, patently and in all other ways false. As M.V. Lee Badgett points out in an article in Slate, the out of wedlock birth rate went up in the 1980s, before Norway legalized gay marriage:
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.
And Santorum's focus on the first born child obscures a cultural distinction that is rather important. In Scandinavia, most couples wait until they have children to get married. Once they do have children, the overwhelming majority gets married and stays married:
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.
Those rates are, in fact, far higher than the US. So now we've established that the big jump in out of wedlock births came before gay marriage was legalized, now let's look at what has happened to heterosexual marriages after gay marriage was allowed. William Eskridge and Darren Spedale give the stats:
A decade after Denmark, Norway and Sweden passed their respective partnership laws, heterosexual marriage rates had risen 10.7% in Denmark; 12.7% in Norway; and a whopping 28.8% in Sweden. In Denmark over the last few years, marriage rates are the highest they've been since the early 1970s. Divorce rates among heterosexual couples, on the other hand, have fallen. A decade after each country passed its partnership law, divorce rates had dropped 13.9% in Denmark; 6% in Norway; and 13.7% in Sweden. On average, divorce rates among heterosexuals remain lower now than in the years before same-sex partnerships were legalized.
Marriage rates have gone up, divorce rates have gone down. Damn that same-sex marriage for "destroying" marriage in Scandinavia!
Politics
Comments
Yap Ed, same in Massechusetts, marriage rates went up, divorce went down after 2004. Did allowing gay marriage cause this? Don't know, but what other mechanism can you suggest? -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 27, 2008 9:23 AM
I'm in Massachusetts and I'm not married - although I'd like to be, if only for the night. Ed, what are you doing this Saturday?
Posted by: little peanut | May 27, 2008 9:50 AM
Good catch on Santorum's dishonest use of the "firstborn" statistic!
Posted by: Russell | May 27, 2008 10:04 AM
But, but, but... You don't understand! Same-sex marriage will destroy the human race!
I actually heard that argument on the radio again. Some Christian talk show had these guys pontificating about how heterosexual marriage perpetuates the human race and how we would become extinct if homosexual marriage existed (because, apparently, straight people would lose interest if gay people were made maritally equal to them). Fortunately, I found a great training video on preserving one's heterosexuality.
Posted by: Zeno | May 27, 2008 10:09 AM
It's always risky to try to identify "cause" strictly from "correlation," but is there any chance that allowing gay marriage encouraged closeted gays to come out and form same-sex relationships, where previously they might have forced themselves into living a lie that ended in divorce? I don't think the numbers on that sort of thing would really explain the drop in the hetero divorce rate, but I can't think of any other direct connection, either - and I'm equally unimpressed by the proposed reason in the article.
Of course, failing to find a cause doesn't make these numbers any less convincing. We don't have to know WHY it works as long as we know it does.
Posted by: BobApril | May 27, 2008 10:13 AM
BiobApril- I'm not taking a piddly little rise/fall. Marriage up by over 49 Errors of Estimate (similar to standard deviation) and divorce fell by over 4 Errors of Estimate. These are results that are EXTREMELY unlikely to be due to random fluctuations. So something is occurring, what it is, I can't say. -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 27, 2008 10:28 AM
Didn't mean to suggest disagreement with you, DJ - I was only proposing a mechanism whereby legalizing gay marriage might have had this effect. I'm not happy with either my suggestion or the authors', I think they're both insufficient causes. But like I said - we don't have to know WHY, we just have to know that it happens. And as you said, the numbers are too definite to be random.
Posted by: BobApril | May 27, 2008 10:32 AM
My take on the correlation is that jurisdictions in which marriage becomes increasingly favored will be more likely to regard excluding certain people from marriage as an injustice.
Posted by: ebohlman | May 27, 2008 10:34 AM
BobApril - Sorry, I wasn't saying you disagree at all. I'm just blown away by how large this change is, definately a real artifact. - DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 27, 2008 10:39 AM
What about the incidence of man on dog sex? Won't Rick tell us about that?
Posted by: kehrsam | May 27, 2008 11:05 AM
Dan Savage has still summed Santorum up the best.
Posted by: dc | May 27, 2008 11:09 AM
If Errors of Estimate is what it sounds like, it's nothing like standard deviation, and either way, it wouldn't "imply causation" in the sense of giving you a good guess that one change caused the other. (Not that you're saying it would.)
If Errors of Estimate is just expected statistical sampling error, it's mostly an artifact of sample size (and maybe demographic weighting and a few other things). Just using a substantially bigger sample will give you a much smaller expected error, without much changing the standard deviation. Given a really small expected sampling error, you could make an effect sound really big, when looking at standard deviations would show that it's small.
As far as causation goes, I seriously doubt that legalizing gay marriage would have much of an effect on heterosexual marriage in Scandinavia. I would look for other things that happened about the same time, like maybe a change in tax laws making marriage more advantageous, increased public awareness of other advantages of marriage, or demographic changes due to immigration and/or greater fertility of marriage-oriented subpopulations.
I'm not a statistician or anything close, and have no particular knowledge of this subject beyond the links Ed gave, so do feel free to correct me if I've got any of the above stuff wrong.
Posted by: Paul W. | May 27, 2008 11:49 AM
I thought it might be interesting to see the impact of same-sex marriage on Olympic gold medals. I found a very interesting trend. Here are the raw numbers, total gold medals for Sweden, Norway, and Denmark combine:
1984: 2
1988: 4
1992: 4
1996: 8
2000: 10
2004: 11
Look at that marked upward trend! That's a 275% increase in gold medals from 1988 to 2004. Looking at each country individually you'll see a similar year on year improvement. Obviously if you really want to drive children to excel and show your patriotism by supporting your Olympic teams, then you should be lobbying for same-sex marriage.
I just love statistics, don't you?
Posted by: Abby Normal | May 27, 2008 12:00 PM
Lets put a religious argument together to explain the correlations so's we can hit right-wingers like Santorum where it'll really annoy the crap out of them.
God always intended same-sex marriage to be allowed (as can be seen in the existence of early Christian homosexual communes), so god afflicts states with divorce less when they legalize gay marriage, so as to show his beneficence. The Happenstance doesn't lie people!!
Posted by: Julian | May 27, 2008 12:06 PM
See!! God makes them win more gold medals at a Pagan-inspired global sporting event as well! The info is really making the argument for us now.
Posted by: Julian | May 27, 2008 12:08 PM
Ah, but you've forgotten to correct for the "fact" that gay marriage devalues straight marriage. If you assume a 50% devaluation of of straight marriages when gay marriage is allowed, then the numbers look entirely different. Sure the number of marriages is up 28.8% in Sweden, but the aggregate value of these marriages is way, way down.
And I say this as a person who perceived an immediate 50% drop in the value of his own Massachusetts marriage on May 17, 2004. Damn those activist judges!
Posted by: noncarborundum | May 27, 2008 12:53 PM
Or maybe marriage just became fashionable again when the style gurus started doing it...
Posted by: tes | May 27, 2008 1:21 PM
All of this talk about children and procreation from the anti-gay crowd is nothing more than a big fat red herring, but even assuming that they are correct in their claims that gay marriage leads to declining birth rates (and I think that that claim is highly illogical and inaccurate), why is that to be regarded as such an unequivocal, absolute negative? Haven't these people heard of overpopulation? The United States has one of (if not the) highest birth rates in the developed, Western world.
Personally, I can only assume that racialist assumptions underlie some of these people's fears about real (in the case of parts of Europe) or alleged (in the case of the U.S.) declining birth rates.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | May 27, 2008 1:38 PM
Haven't these people heard of overpopulation?
Overpopulation? Shit, Sadie--these are the same folks who make statements like "global warming is a liberal lie created by Al Gore" with absolute straight-faced seriousness.
Be fruitful and multiply.
Posted by: Josh | May 27, 2008 1:41 PM
Of course, the underlying assumption here must be that they marry heterosexually only because they are told it is the correct thing to do, and to have babies, right? Not because they love their spouses or anything. Given the opportunity they will all choose to be gay, as it is a way more attractive thing to be, you just naturally prefer gay sex, apparently.
Why else care so much about the missed procreation opportunities of those guys they otherwise love to hate?
Or is this just an excuse to be unreasonable in public again?
Posted by: tes | May 27, 2008 1:57 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvyluTaz9Bk
Come for the Fjords. Stay for the Moral Chaos.
Posted by: The Young Linguist | May 27, 2008 4:11 PM
Just to keep our facts correct: My understanding is that Norway does NOT have same-sex marriage yet. They do have civil unions for same-sex couples.
Posted by: Richard Rush | May 27, 2008 6:32 PM
See? Same-sex marriage is so destructive, it destroys marriage retroactively!
(Just in case you can't tell, that's sarcasm.)
Posted by: Turcano | May 27, 2008 6:37 PM
Oh, I know. Reasoning with these people is somewhat akin to deliberately running into a brick wall, over and over again. Still, it is worth questioning what exactly these people are panicking so much over.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | May 27, 2008 7:35 PM
I have to point out that Sweden doesn't have gay marriage. There is a form of registered partnership that you can do, but it's not at all on the same level as marriage when it comes to taxes, inheritance, and so on.
Being Swedish, I am ashamed that both Massachusetts and California beat us to it. And we're supposed to be so progressive.
And on that note, going a bit OT, there is now a bill up for the vote in Parliament legalizing warrantless spying on Swedish citizens by our equivalent of NSA. Moreover, the bastards just passed a law that denies illegal immigrants the right to subsidized public health care (all health care is otherwise more or less free).
Posted by: Rien | May 27, 2008 9:19 PM
Rien:
Stop!! If the next thing you're going to write is that Swedish women are not really blond, I don't want to hear it.
Posted by: Ex-drone | May 28, 2008 12:38 AM
Rien:
The grass is always greener on the other side of the Baltic. I suspect that there are still people who live in Sherman Oaks, CA (capitol of the US porn business, or so I'm told) who think that the Swedes and Danes invented XXX videos--both straight and gay.
Posted by: democommie | May 28, 2008 7:44 AM
Okay, I've been trying like crazy, but I just can't find any actual statistics on marriage in Scandanavion countries from a resource that I can trust! No government reports (at least, none available in English), no nothing.
Posted by: MRL | May 28, 2008 8:57 AM
Rien -
And yet people claim you goddless damned Swedes are so enlightened. Soon you'll be invading other nations because of what their leaders wish they could do and torturing your own citizens, as you hold them without charge;)
Posted by: DuWayne | May 28, 2008 3:03 PM
It's funny, I caught an episode of Oprah that dealt with gay issues (no, I don't watch on a regular basis, AND NO I don't have to defend watching Oprah, why the hell are you looking at me like that?!?)...anyway, one of the higher ups that put out The Advocate was in the audience, and Oprah asked her where in the world it's best to live being a gay person. And she said Sweden, because it's pretty much not even considered an issue there. I took this to mean that they had gay marriage as well, but perhaps the system is so equivalent over there that people don't see a need to quibble? What exactly is the system in Sweden? I'd imagine a lot of the difference is probably cultural, even in California we're still way too god-soaked, a problem that Europe doesn't really seem to have. Is the system newly designed to accommodate gay relationships? Or were gays incorporated into an already existing policy, and thus those relationships were already traditionally seen as valid?
Posted by: paul | May 28, 2008 3:59 PM
AND NO I don't have to defend watching Oprah, why the hell are you looking at me like that?!?
*giggle*
Posted by: Josh | May 28, 2008 4:04 PM
Oh, and before mroberts, or anyone else on the loony right, tries to say that gay marriage will lead to polygamy, let me just note that polygamy is mostly practiced by segments of the population most hostile to gay anything, such as extremist Mormons and Muslims. (Was there any same-sex marriage in that FLDS compound in Texas? Hell no, but plenty of polygamy and child-rape.)
Posted by: Raging Bee | May 28, 2008 4:08 PM
paul -
no, I don't watch on a regular basis,
Sure, and I don't look at my partner's magazines about women stuff either.
AND NO I don't have to defend watching Oprah,
Just like I wouldn't have to defend reading Cosmo on the potty, if I actually read that - which as I mentioned above, I - just - don't....
why the hell are you looking at me like that?!?
Goddammit. I keep telling people, it's not you or anything you said, I always look at people like that, because I can't help it. Yell at me for being ugly, you big poo-head.
Posted by: DuWayne | May 28, 2008 5:23 PM
Froma Harrop had a wonderful oped in the Inquirer this past weekend, taking some of the air out of the gay marriage advocates who wax poetic about 'fundamental' rights but really only care about 'romantic' relationships (and romance doesn't evoke 'gravitas' so they stick to the 'fundamental human right' schtick.
Harrop observes that perhaps society should stop giving legal privilege to all marital arrangements, because there is no legitimate reason to favor husband and wife (or, okay, husband and husband, wife and wife) over sister and brother, parent child, etc.
As an unmarried woman, I frankly get upset at the thought that my relationship with my sister (who I've known for 37 years) is considered less important than the relationship between newlyweds (of whatever sex)
As far as the argument that marriage is privileged to protect children, well, that has relevance but there are other ways for society to protect the rights of children without giving preference to marrieds.
Of course, the gay rights movement isn't interested in this line of reasoning, because it undercuts their point that being able to have sex with someone of the same gender is crushingly, overwhelmingly, constitutionally relevant.
And as for the snarky, snide comments about Santorum, well, if it makes you 'scientific' types to feel superior to Christians or traditionalists, go ahead. The rest of us can deal with your superiority complex.
Posted by: Christine | May 28, 2008 5:34 PM
To be honest I am not sure exactly how the registered partnership works, but it's gender neutral. Many opposite-sex couples choose that instead of marrying too. Marriage is less of a deal in Sweden than here in the US and a lot of people just don't care and live toghether without marrying. (There are advantages if you have kids, though, I guess that's why people often marry after the first kid.)
If I understand it correctly, all political parties except the tiny Christian democrats (about 4% of the popular vote) are in favor of introducing gay marriage, but unfortunately there is some political positioning going on and therefore it hasn't happened yet. (The Christian democrats are in the governing center-right coalition).
Posted by: Rien | May 28, 2008 5:55 PM
MRL:
I posted a comment some time ago with links to statistics sites, but it must have gotten stuck in the spam filter.
Try googling the following:
Sweden: "statistiska centralbyran".
Norway: "statistisk sentralbyra"
Denmark: "statistik danmark"
You'll find the government statistics agencies and they have webpages in English.
Posted by: Rien | May 28, 2008 6:02 PM
Christine, you're right, there are people who advocate that the government not be involved in marriage at all. The reason that gays fighting for marriage equality don't take that into consideration is because it's a completely different argument. We DO recognize marriage in this country, and becoming the family of the person you fall in love with and have children with (adopted or otherwise) is very important to a lot of people. So sure, I even agree a bit with the idea that marriage is an outdated concept, but it's what we have currently, it's how society recognizes a family, and because that is so, gaining equality for homosexuals in that institution is important. Your argument is like saying that golf is a stupid sport so it shouldn't be important whether or not blacks are allowed to play.
And did you read the article? I'd feel superior to anyone who distorts truth like that in order to advocate the discrimination of others. But I suppose that's just the arrogant scientific part of me. /snarky
Posted by: paul | May 28, 2008 6:55 PM