This week, I have blogged twice on this informative article, The End of Marriage in Scandinavia which is linked on my sidebar.
You can read those entries here and here
Today I want to briefly point out how the legalization of same sex marriage in Scandinavia DID have a significant impact on the culture and the institution of marriage. Stanley Kurtz, the author points out that there are three zones of countries regarding the state of marriage and cohabitation and same sex marriage.
The first zone are the leaders in cohabitation and out-of wedlock births. These include the Nordic countries.
The second zone include the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain and Germany. The United States and Canada also fall into this group.
The third group is the group most resistant to cohabitation, family dissolution and out-of-wedlock births and these include Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece
According to the article:
These three groupings closely track the movement for gay marriage. In the early nineties, gay marriage came to the Nordic countries, where the out-of-wedlock birthrate was already high. Ten years later, out-of-wedlock birth rates have risen significantly in the middle group of nations. Not coincidentally, nearly every country in that middle group has recently either legalized some form of gay marriage, or is seriously considering doing so. Only in the group with low out-of-wedlock birthrates has the gay marriage movement achieved relatively little success
And now we come to the crux of the issue.
This suggests that gay marriage is both an effect and a cause of the increasing separation between marriage and parenthood. As rising out-of-wedlock birthrates disassociate heterosexual marriage from parenting, gay marriage becomes conceivable. If marriage is only about a relationship between two people, and is not intrinsically connected to parenthood, why shouldn’t same-sex couples be allowed to marry? It follows that once marriage is redefined to accommodate same-sex couples, that change cannot help but lock in and reinforce the very cultural separation between marriage and parenthood that makes gay marriage conceivable to begin with.
We see this process at work in the radical separation of marriage and parenthood that swept across Scandinavia in the nineties. If Scandinavian out-of-wedlock birthrates had not already been high in the late eighties, gay marriage would have been far more difficult to imagine. More than a decade into post-gay marriage Scandinavia, out-of-wedlock birthrates have passed 50 percent, and the effective end of marriage as a protective shield for children has become thinkable. Gay marriage hasn’t blocked the separation of marriage and parenthood; it has advanced it.
I would just like to interject my own observations as a child of the 60s and 70s. One only has to look at the acceptance of contraception and the inevitable and eventual acceptance of premarital sex to know that attitudes change swiftly but surely once the government legislations or judiciates morality. In the late 50s and early 60s you never saw characters in movies and plays engaging in premarital sex. It may have been hinted at or alluded to but it wasn’t acceptable to engage in or even talk about. Fast forward to the 21st century and now the big question isn’t whether or not to kiss on the first date, but whether or not the couple will have sex. The attitude put forward by legalizing same sex marriage will also change the culture. In fact, I think we’re half way there. If marriage isn’t about children, but only about the wants and desires of two people, which indeed IS the message of SSM, then why bother with the institution of marriage to begin with.
Tomorrow I want to talk about how this affects the meaning of fatherhood, motherhood and children.
Please feel free to leave a comment under the posting, or sign my Spiritbook (guestbook). You can chat with me on the tag board to the right!
