National Review writer, Stanley Kurtz, has become something of a folk hero on the religious right for his opposition to marriage for gays. And the anti-marriage advocates have been using articles of his (see here and here), on the impact of same-sex marriage rights in Scandinavia very heavily in the debate. For Kurtz, allowing gays to marry essentially killed civil marriage in the Nordic countries. In his eyes, it has increased out-of-wedlock births. It has led to the end of marriage as we know it. All gripping stuff, except that Kurtz failed, as many pointed out, to prove anything but a correlation between rising rates of non-marital cohabitation and gay marriage. The distinction between correlation and causation, indeed, is blurred beyond recognition in Kurtz’s articles on the subject. But Kurtz also dismisses the research of others who have actually spent months on the ground in Scandinavia resarching this topic, namely one Darren Spedale, a young Fulbright scholar who has dedicated himself to the subject and has produced an as-yet unpublished book. Kurtz has dismissed Spedale’s on-the-ground research as the work of “a kid barely out of college.” Now he is moving on to the Netherlands. I sent Kurtz’s pieces to Spedale and he has some cogent points to make in response.
SPEDALE RESPONDS: First, the legal and cultural norms around coupling and family are very, very different in Scandinavia than in the U.S. Civil marriage doesn’t have the kind of privileges that it has in the U.S. and marriage laws ensure that there is little, if any, incentive to get formally married, rather than simply cohabitate or live under partnership arrangements. Put this down to an egalitarian welfare state or a different culture, but that makes it strikingly different than the U.S., where civil marriage remains (in my view, rightly) the privileged organizing unit for coupling and rearing children. As Spedale explains:
Norwegian individuals are entitled to most benefits regardless of their possession of such a certificate, as almost all government benefits accrue to the individual rather than to couples based on their marriage status. Even when long-term unmarried domestic partnerships break up, the state has provisions in place to protect the needs of the weaker (i.e., financially dependent) party in such a relationship. Thus, many couples have decided that a state sanction in the form of a marriage certificate is not necessary for them to live their lives together.
This is a far, far more central cause for the decline of formal marriage in Scandinavia, which, as Kurtz concedes, has been going on for decades. To attribute it to the rise of same-sex registered partnerships is an almighty stretch. And it doesn’t mean what it might mean in America. Scandinavia tends to be a very socially conservative and culturally heterogeneous place. By that I mean that, although marriage is in decline, there’s little evidence that this has led to family dissolution. Over to Spedale again:
Couples in Scandinavia who have chosen to spend their lives together without a marriage certificate often plan for an otherwise traditional family structure, including children. Thus, the ‘out-of-wedlock births’ that Kurtz refers to in Scandinavia are children who are wanted by their parents… Probably the most telling proof of this is the incredibly low number of Scandinavian children available for adoption each year. In Denmark, for example, only about 25 Danish children are available for adoption each year in the entire country. (The vast majority of adopted children, over 90%, come from poorer countries.) Kurtz’s claim that ‘rising rates of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births stand as proxy for rising rates of family dissolution’ is therefore misleading. The only thing that such statistics demonstrate is a continuing shift in the Scandinavian countries to permanent relationships of families in a traditional family structure (i.e., with children), who don’t hold a marriage license. Kurtz fails to prove any connection whatsoever between unmarried couples and family dissolution.
And if that is true, it’s doubly true that he proves no connection whatsoever between such shifts and allowing gays to become registered partners or to marry.
KURTZ’S DISTORTIONS: Kurtz also wants to argue that same-sex marriage advocates are cultural radicals who wish to destroy the traditional family. He has barely acknowledged the long battle that gay conservatives have waged against some gay radicals in the U.S. and elsewhere in promoting civil marriage rights. And he wants to describe the low numbers of same-sex marriages in Scandinavia as a function of gays protesting marriage. Spedale believes otherwise:
The reason that marriage rates among gay couples in Scandinavia is so low reflects the seriousness with which gays and lesbians have taken the institution of marriage. Most gay couples wait many years into their relationship before choosing to marry, specifically for the reason that they want to be sure that their chosen partner is truly their life partner. This solemn approach towards, and respect for, entering into the institution of marriage also explains why divorce rates among gay and lesbian couples is so much lower than rates of divorce among their heterosexual counterparts.
Yes, you read that right. Gay divorce rates are in fact lower than straight ones. Straining to find a connection between gay radicalism and family collapse, Kurtz finds a specific area in Norway to make his point:
Now consider the county of Nord-Troendelag, which is bordered by NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology). NTNU is where Kari Moxnes and Kari Melby teach – two radical pro-gay marriage social scientists. Nord-Troendelag is like Massachusetts – a socially liberal state influenced by left-leaning institutions of higher learning. In Nord-Troendelag in 2002, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for first-born children was 83.27 percent. The out-of-wedlock birthrate for all children was 66.85 percent. These rates are far higher than the rates for Norway as a whole.
As we’ve seen, such “out-of-wedlock” births may not mean in Norway what they might mean in, say, Anacostia, D.C. But was this because of same-sex marriage? Between 1994 and 1999, there were a total of five registered same-sex partnerships in the county Kurtz cites. Kurtz wants to explain the shift in that county’s heterosexual conduct by citing a mere ten people? It’s also true that in the period Kurtz is concerned about the number of marriages in Norway increased by almost 25 percent from 20,161 in 1993 to 26,425 in 1999. How does that square with the “death of marriage”? Kurtz is now preparing to do the same job on Holland. Since real marriage rights have been legal for all citizens in the Netherlands, the Boston Globe reports, there is no “evidence of damage to the institution. For example, divorce rates are no higher, and there is no sign that conventional couples are shunning marriage.” Can’t wait to see how Kurtz manages to reverse that.
The Dish 