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MA Gay Marriage Brings Perilous Drop in Divorce, STD, Teen Pregnancy Rates?
The Daily Show summed it up brilliantly:
"It's like a rolling ball of snow. It gets bigger and bigger. You allow it in Massachusetts, it'll spread to God knows where." - Massachusetts Democratic State Representative Emile J. Goguen, as quoted by the "Traditional Values Coalition" website "We can look at those places where same-sex marriage has been legalized to see what the future looks like" - Ron Crews, President of The Massachusetts Family Institute, as quoted in the Washington Times, March 10, 2004 Since 2004, Massachusetts has also clearly outperformed Texas in terms of rates of two major STD's (all data from US CDC). Syphilis According to United States Center For Disease Control data, in 2004 Massachusetts ranked 21st in the US in terms of its Syphilis rate, 1.8 per 100,000. By 2006, following the legalized gar marriage "catastrophe", MA Syphilis rates rose very slightly, to 1.9 per 100,000 but Massachusetts outperformed in relative terms, many other US states in which Syphilis rates rose faster and so the MA state ranking, for Syphilis rates, dropped to 24th place (with 1st being the state with the highest Syphilis rate). By contrast, in 2004 Texas had a Syphilis rate of 3.7 per 100,000, establishing Texas as the US state with the 8th highest Syphilis rate. Two years later, apparently lacking the civilization-destroying benefit of gay marriage, the Texas Syphilis rate had climbed to 4.7 per 100,000, bumping TX to the #7 spot. Gonorrhea In 2004, the Texas Gonorrhea rate was 110.6/100K, putting the Lone Star State in 18th place in the national Syphilis sweepstakes. In the same year, Massachusetts had a 47.5/100K Gonorrhea rate, putting the Bay State in 38th place. Two years later, the purported corrosive effects of gay marriage had undermined any chances whatsoever that Massachusetts might catch up with Texas Gonorrhea rates any time soon; in 2006, the MA Gonorrhea rate had declined to 38.0/100K, putting MA in 42nd place and within conceivable striking range soon of gaining the "lowest Gonorrhea rate state" spot. Meanwhile, Texas moved one spot up the scale towards "highest Gonorrhea rate state", to 17th place as its Gonorrhea rate climber to 133.2 per 100,000.
In my July 13, 2006 Christian Right Wrong On Gay Marriage in Massachusetts I noted the sorts of dire sounding warnings leaders of the Christian right, and conservative politicians had made about the alleged impact gay marriage would have on Massachusetts and the nation. Focus on The Family head James Dobson's prediction was typical:Note: It is unikely there's there's any direct causation between gay marriage and lower rates of divorce, teen pregnancy or STD's. But there may be a correlation between societal acceptance of lifestyle diversity and lower teen pregnancy and STD's - states more tolerant of lifestyle diversity tend to be more supportive of fact-based (science based, that is) sex ed rather than "faith based" sex ed. Along that line of thinking, on the societal benefits of gay-friendly attitudes, Richard Florida has done substantial research suggesting that gay-friendly areas prosper more economically as compared to gay-hostile regions. This isn't because gays are somehow magical - it's because societal acceptance of gayness turns out to be a great proxy for acceptance of all sorts of diversity, and acceptance of diversity confers economic benefits.
"Dear Friends, I write to you today with a profound sense of concern...Barring a miracle, the family as it has been known for more than five millennia will crumble, presaging the fall of Western civilization itself..... As I wrote, "These were certainly alarming assertions coming from such prominent leaders. But was there any truth to them? The claims were impossible to prove or disprove because there was no data. James Dobson's hoped for divine intervention against same sex marriage never arrived, and so since May 20, 2004 -- when same sex couples began to marry in Massachusetts -- nearly two years of data have accumulated and we can begin to answer the question: How has the institution of marriage in the Commonwealth fared ? The answer to this question was prefigured in a November 2005 television interview, by "The Daily Show", of Brian Camenker, founder of the "Article 8 Alliance" - a Massachusetts activist group opposed to same sex marriage:
[ source: "Has Gay Marriage Ruined Massachusetts ?", courtesy of Crooks And Liars. ] Indeed, the dots have been lining up - but not in favor of Mr. Camenker's beliefs. Over two years have passed now since same sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts, and emergent trends in Massachusetts amount to a stark indictment of those dire claims about sex marriage cited earlier in this article." My July 2006 story pushed the evidentiary envelope--some of the evidence was preliminary--but in the intervening period the portrait I sketched out, in which gay-marriage friendly states have, in terms of social indices on divorce rates, STD rates and teen pregnancy rates, tended on the balance to do at least as well, if not outperform gay-marriage hostile states in reducing the incidence of divorce, STD's and teen pregnancy. That leads into a wider issue: John McCain's controversial political endorser, San Antonio megachurch preacher Pastor John Hagee, routinely inveighs against what Hagee claims is the moral slide of America into immorality and what Hagee calls a "secular humanist sewer". But actually, much of the available data contradicts Hagee's claim - by many measures of societal pathology, America has over the last decade and a half, since the early 1990's when Bill Clinton came into office, been doing steadily better. In terms of traditional measures of morality, The United States has done markedly better since the early 1990's, and by one much ballyhooed measuresof "morality", the national divorce rate, American public morality has been improving since the early 1980's. But we'd never know were we to listen to the following public voices:
"marriage bears a real relation to the well-being, health and enduring strength of society" - Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, in a February 5, 2004 Wall Street Journal opinion article" | |||||||||||
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