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According to the latest state figures, [from May 2004] through September 2008, there had been 12,167 same-sex marriages in Massachusetts -- 64 percent of them between women -- out of 170,209 marriages in all.No figures are cited on gay divorce, of course. If you read the 2,700-word story, you will see that AP reporter David Crary tells a sunshine-on-a-cloudless-day tale, elaborated with picturesque anecdotes about wonderful couples.
Crary won second place in the 2006 National Lesbian & Gay Journalist Association competition. This year, he's going for No. 1, baby!
I would very much like to be able to compare state-by-state marriage data to demonstrate that Massachusetts has one of the lowest marriage rates, and one of the lowest birth rates, in the United States. Unfortunately, as the NCHS bluntly admits, the federal government stopped providing even a semblance of comprensive data on marriage and divorce more than a decade ago.
However, birth data continue to be collected, so let's look at the 2003 total fertility rate for Massachusetts, as well as four other states -- Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and Maine -- that have legalized same-sex marriage, as well as New Hampshire, where legislation is currently awaiting the governor's signature.
Massachusetts......1.74You see that in none of these states is the total fertility rate at or above the 2.1 average lifetime births per woman necessary to prevent demographic decline. Now, let's look at the states with the highest fertility rates:
Connecticut..........1.92
Iowa.....................1.99
Vermont...............1.68
Maine...................1.75
New Hampshire...1.77
Utah..................2.57The fertility rate in Utah is 53% higher than the rate in Vermont, and the rate in Idaho is 33% higher than the rate in Massachusetts.
Arizona..............2.39
Alaska................2.37
Texas................2.35
Idaho................2.32
My point is that the popularity of same-sex marriage is strongly associated with low fertility rates. If adequate state-by-state data were available, I'm sure you'd see a similar association with low marriage rates.
Don't mistake the direction of causality, however: The decline of the traditional family caused the rise of same-sex marriage, and not vice-versa. It was America's embrace of the Contraceptive Culture -- detroying the natural connection between love, sex, marriage and parenthood -- that has made possible the radical triumph.
Gays did not do this. It was the God-haters, with the help of self-righteous fools who claimed to be religious even while they disobeyed one of God's original commandments: "Be fruitful and multiply." They thought they could embrace the Planned Parenthood lifestyle without consequence.
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . ."Mother's Day, the Planned Parenthood way! Declining birth rates mean an aging population. One of these days, we'll all be as gay -- and gray -- as Massachusetts, and they'll call that "progress."
-- Romans 1:22 KJV
UPDATE: Pundette says, "Move over, Mark Steyn." No, no, Pundette. It's more like, "Please link me, Mark Steyn!" BTW, Pundette is a mother of seven, and has an excellent Mother's Day linkfest round-up.UPDATE II: Linked at Creative Minority Report and by Dad 29, who notes that my pro-natalist traditionalism is unusual for a Protestant. I get this all the time, as does Mark Steyn, who is Jewish and, indeed, one will find that nearly all Muslims share a similar attitude. (Dinesh D'Souza caught holy hell a couple years ago for a book in which he suggested that the Muslim world's anti-American rage is a reaction to the decadence of Western pop culture.)
The feminist-infested progressive Left would doubtless characterize this ecumenical pro-natalism as a function of the patriarchal phallocratic desire to oppress The Sisterhood. Rather, I think what accounts for the similarity of perspective is a skepticism toward the truth-claims of modernism. Confronted by the arrogant assertions of the elite consensus, from which dissent is forbidden, we skeptics detect the unmistakable aroma of bovine excrement.
The disciples of Progress look at tradition -- including the traditional belief that a large family is a blessing -- and see everything they despise as obsolete and unjust. The traditionalist agrees with G.K. Chesterton:
My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.Once an intelligent person begins to question Progress in this way, once he starts wondering whether everything old is bad and everything new is better, he will soon discover evidence that contradicts the modernist truth-claims. At that point, he is likely to become a full-blown reactionary and, unless counseled by men of reason whom he respects, will soon be arguing for the divine right of kings or some other embarrassing anachronism. (The informed reader will smile in recognition of the hint of autobiography here.)Extremism of one form or another -- and Osama bin Laden will suffice as an example -- is too often the result of the traditionalist's resentment of modernist arrogance. Being a Bible-thumping hillbilly myself, I have sometimes thought the Islamic radicals have the better of the argument with their "moderate" antagonists within the Muslim world. If the Koran is true, if Muhammad was a divine Prophet who spoke on behalf of the Almighty, then jihad against the infidels is the True Faith.
But please note the hypothetical; I certainly do not accept that Mohammed was an agent of divinity, except in the sense that the Babylonian conquest was an act of God. The Israelites were God's chosen people, but disobeyed him, and the Babylonian armies were thus the temporal means of chastisement. In the same way, one might say that the errors and unfaithfulness of the 6th-century church inspired Muhammad's ignorant anti-Christian theology, which from its beginnings in a rebellion of Arab tribesmen, advanced thence by conquest until at last Christendom rallied.
Students of history will find that the Christian world did not defeat the Ottoman Empire (in the 1683 Battle of Vienna) until after Martin Luther had struck the spark of Christian reform. Make of this what you will. The relevant point here, however, is that any crisis or tribulation suffered by Christendom must be seen as the chastisement of human failing, a call to greater faith and greater obedience to God's commandments.
God will not abandon us, if we are faithful and obedient, but if He desires to call us to repentance, He will work through means at hand, and we must pay attention to understand wherein we have failed. PREVIOUSLY:
- 5/3: The Demographics of Dhimmitude
- 4/22: 'Forbidding to marry'
- 2/11: The taxpayer shortage
Well, I think I ought to get a Mark Steyn Award, our four children have given us ten (so far) grandchildren.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, we can't cheat on elections near as well as the Democrats so maybe if we out breed them. I can see it now, in 2090, Boston will have a population of 152,000, with the most common name for boys being Mohammad, and have three million Democrat votes.
Even though I live in Idaho I can't collect any awards because I have no children :-(
ReplyDeleteHowever, I encourage my friends to make up the difference for me and they are all doing a splendid job :-)
It's what I said before: The loons will contracept, abort, and homosex themselves right out of existence! Good riddance...
I hear a lot of lamenting like this from Steyn and others about birth rates, marriage, culture, etc. The question I have is, "What do you propose we do about this?" This is a political blog, so I assume you want this topic to be under the realm of government interest, no? Do you propose government regulation of reproduction and what culture we "embrace"? And is it such a bad thing that states are not keeping records of such information you wish to cite?
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be hostile, but I really see a void of solutions when these "issues" are brought up. I do NOT want more Democrats, I do NOT want more illegitimate children, and I do NOT want more broken marriages. I do NOT want government programs that subsidize such things. But most of all, I do NOT want government involved in these things.
Planned Parenthood supporters of motherhood? A wicked irony. Not only have they and other feminists convinced women that housing and nurturing a little life is no big deal, they have also simultaneously diminished and negated the unique and ultimate power of women: the womb. There's something pathetic in making one's mission a desperate drive to become as powerful as men and even more than they when all along that power has been right between their legs.
ReplyDeleteOnly blind fools and self-serving naval gazers are unable and unwilling to see God's ultimate gift.
I think you can go further. The popularity of same-sex marriage is strongly associated with Caucausity which is strongly associated with low fertility rates. Most, not all of the high birth-rate states have large Hispanic populations. Mexicans may not be overly enthusiastic about education but they know the difference between men and women and aren't unhappy about it.
ReplyDeleteThe population of New England is not only pasty white, it is going gay in front of our eyes...much like old England.
"It was America's embrace of the Contraceptive Culture -- detroying the natural connection between love, sex, marriage and parenthood -- that has made possible the radical triumph"
ReplyDelete...a line which could have come from the pen of Bp. F. Bruskewitz of Lincoln, NE., or Bp. Chaput of Denver!
The Tiber's not all that wide, Mr. McCain....
How many children do you have, Stacy?
ReplyDeleteIt's a pity larger families are disappearing in America. One reason that springs to mind immediately is that we'd be spending a lot less on the elderly if big broods were still the norm. It's difficult for one or two siblings to care for their ailing parents, especially if they've kids of their own. But a pack of 5 or 6? Much easier. Lot less slack for the government to pick up.
The shrinking family -- especially the implication noted above -- is further proof that the concept of society as a pact between the dead, the living, and the unborn is failing.
Phil
I will attempt to honestly answer Matt:
ReplyDeleteThe government already has regulation in place; it's an incentive program for entering into contractual obligations which reinforce the value of an indivisible nuclear family, for the sake of creating as many sustainable healthy child rearing environments as possible... such that those contractual arrangements, even when individually childless, still serve overall trends as examples to others in molding cultural norms. Or at least, this is what licensed marriage "benefits" were intended to do before they were contradicted by sillyness such as no-fault divorce. This is part of the reason people are waking up to why gay marriage isn't really a "rights" issue... everyone has the right to their religion and observe any such private nuptual ceremony that they desire.
However people are concerned that extending government licensing and benefits is a contradiction of the very purpose for offering those subsidies in the first place.
There is no demonstrable public good or interest which would be served in giving tax breaks that will incentivize the public to move even farther away from a child-rearing societal "norm". People have a right to do so, but no right to do so AND demand both the financing and explicit approval of their neighbors in the process. Makes no sense to spend tax dollars to subsidize a logging firm to clear-cut a tax-dollar funded nature preserve... no matter how "nice-to-have" those benefits would be to a few people in the business of laying down wood, let them do it on their own dime on some other forest that isn't important to ALL the people.
We also have "child tax credits," but those are more intended to help children directly by defraying costs than to preserve or shape culture. IMHO, I think we would be better served without them as, unlike marriage incentives, they tend to encourage people to have children for the wrong reasons (as in, not a product of a loving home) and perpetuate a cradle-to-grave-welfare-state mentality.
Granting for the sake of argument that "contraceptive culture" is to blame, the question remains why contraceptive culture has spread more in New England than in the West.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the cause has already been found by Steve Sailer: house prices. In states where house prices are low and stable, people get and stay married, start a family, become more conservative, and vote Republican. In states where house prices are high and rising, people cannot afford a house big enough for the kids, embrace contraceptive culture, and vote Democrat.
How many children do you have, Stacy?Six. However, I have the unfair advantage of superior motivation.
ReplyDeleteDana, there is an easy answer. Reduce taxes so that women can afford to stay home and raise their kids.
ReplyDeleteI'm convinced that a good number of women would rather stay home than go out in the world and have a "career". They can't because a single income won't support their family nor allow them to have more than one or maybe two children.
The third world, particularly the parts most hostile to western culture are out breeding us, as Steyn points out.
I know, I'm a Misogynist pig who wants to keep women barefoot and pregnant. At least to the left I am.
I don't think Mark Steyn is Jewish, btw.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if he's of any religion, but I think I remember him commenting on how people assume he's Jewish since his last name sounds like "Stein"
Good Grief!
ReplyDeleteAre you seriously suggesting that it was Luther, that disgruntled German monk, who was the spark that turned the tide against the rampaging muslim?
What turned the tide was cold Catholic steel!
And that tide would have turned much earlier but for the fact that some had to keep an eye on wayward, German princes who seized upon the disgruntled monk's mental meanderings to run off and make their own power play. A power play that led to the greatest bloodletting in the West up to the trenches of 1915 - 1917.
Were the Poles reinforced by the Germans, they might have rolled up the muslims throughout the entire Balkans, and then launched a counter-offensive into Anatolia, liberating the Eastern Orthodox Christians. It needs to be recalled that the muslim forces so dominated the Balkans, that Greece didn't see independence until the mid-1800s.
Mohammad was not influenced by God, if anything, his message had diabolic influences. If you examine well the psychological aspects of his method of war, you will discern the diabolical cunning latent throughout. Sure, his political creed fed off of the HERESIES of the East, {it was Saint Thomas Aquinas who said that islam was not a religion, but a political creed with a religious overlay} which were dime-a-dozen there for a while, but no matter how open to gnostic and heretical cults the Eastern Orthodox were, ---------------- they were still light years ahead of the dreary dirge of death from the desert wastelands.
Let us recall how the Byzantine Empire went down, with her Emperor upon her walls, sword in hand, doing his level best to kill off and thwart the invaders. We may now be irritated that the Byzantines didn't do what they damn well should have done, polish off that desert degenerate and his gang of cuthroats right off the bat. But they spent centuries fighting against those degenerates. And that needs to be recalled as well.
Anonymous [Sunday 10]: you are basically right that the Protestants (and, as I remember, the French) were mostly an obstacle in the Catholic fight against Ottoman imperialism.
ReplyDeleteWhat you neglected to say is that the Catholics themselves, due to the 4th crusade, were possibly the main reason why the Orthodox Byzantines lost the fight against Islamic imperialism after resisting bravely for almost 800 years.
Also worthy of mention is that, with the benefit of hindsight, the battle of Diu (1509) already made it clear that Islamic imperialism was doomed.
Just for the record:
ReplyDeleteMartin Luther said it was a SIN to fight the Muslims. So the whole 1683 military defeat of the Muslims at Vienna was, from the viewpoint of the Protestant Reformation, a Bad Idea.
You can't have your cake (Reformation allowed Catholic victory at Vienna) and eat it (but Catholic victory is a sin).
Personally, after reading Luther's writings, I think he had quite a lot in common with Mohammed and Osama bin Laden.