If you've been following the attacks on gay marriage by anti-gay
conservative Stanley Kurtz of The Hoover Institution, you'll enjoy
this thorough repudiation by Nathaniel Frank in The New Republic,
titled "Perverted:
Quack Gay Marriage Science." Frank writes:
Kurtz's argument is -- that the symbolic damage done to the institution by letting gays join it would deter younger couples from bothering to wed. -- Alas, Kurtz's conclusions are suspect on their face. -- In the United States, the number of unmarried, co-habiting couples increased tenfold from 1960 to 2000. And all of this with no gay marriage, no registered partnerships, not even civil unions, which only came into existence in a handful of states after the 40 years of data in question.
But when have ideologues of the left or the right ever let mere
reality interfere with their abstract theorizing?