Learning from Europe

At Volokh, Dale Carpenter speaks of some new studies looking at Scandinavia since the recognition of same sex relationships.  It’s an interesting read since Scandinavia is the favorite boogey man of the wingnuts.

Some interesting bits:

The debate over gay marriage for the past two decades has largely been a duel of abstractions, hopes and fears, unsupported claims, and hypotheticals. That’s been true on both sides of the debate, though for gay families the stakes are far from theoretical. With several countries now recognizing gay marriages, and with almost 1/5 of the U.S. population living in states with gay marriages or civil unions, this period of abstract debate is coming to an end. The debate will start to become an empirical one.

What we can say with confidence so far, based on the evidence, is that the sky doesn’t immediately fall when a society recognizes gay relationships. As time passes without the sort of cataclysmic consequences predicted by opponents of gay marriage, we will be able to say more. We may soon be able to say, with good evidence to back it up, that recognzing gay marriage leads to greater stability in gay families, with benefits to gay couples, children raised in gay families, and communities. The signs so far are pointing in the right direction.

And what are those signs?

Seventeen years after recognizing same-sex relationships in Scandinavia there are higher marriage rates for heterosexuals, lower divorce rates, lower rates for out-of-wedlock births, lower STD rates, more stable and durable gay relationships, more monogamy among gay couples, and so far no slippery slope to polygamy, incestuous marriages, or “man-on-dog” unions.

Other voices:
Positive Liberty:

Strong, durable same-sex unions are exactly what the religious right fears most. They want, and need, gays to be promiscuous, irresponsible, shunned, and freakish. Dare I say it: diseased, too. They want gays forever to be scapegoats, and never to be people.

To them, tolerance is the enemy — and this is the reason they oppose civil marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. Forbidding civil marriage sends a message, and they know what the message is just as surely as they dare not speak it aloud: You, it says, you are not fully our equal. To win, all that they need to do is to insist that heterosexual marriage is “special,” that it is “sacred,” and that its sacredness must be defended by the government. Civil marriage for gay and lesbian couples strikes at the heart of this agenda.

Donklephant:

Stories like this make me smile because you can’t argue with numbers like that. Well, you can, but you’ll look like a hack.

And by the way…DUH! Of course when you allow more people to marry, more are going to do it and more are going to behave in a less risky fashion. The legal right to make it official and have the government bless the words “Yes, I want to spend my life with this person” is always a good idea and for those who think differently…again…the numbers.