Stanley Kurtz: marriage still in decline in the Netherlands

Stanley Kurtz, the FMA-wingnut of the National Review, does it again. He claims that the trend for out-of-wedlock births in the Netherlands is due to gay marriage.

I replied to an earlier post of his here.

And his claims are further (and far more thoroughly) debunked here. Apparently Bulgaria, Ireland and a host of other countries do not count in Kurtz' view because they lack birth control, even though their birthrates are comparable or lower than those in the United States.

But this time, my beef isn't about the statistics. I know he's lying about that. It's about his logic. To make his case, he quotes a few nutty professors who wrote a letter to the Reformatorisch Dagblad. The loony fundamentalist Christians may not be in power in Holland  like they are in the States, but they do have a history that goes back a lot further than the Mayflower. The Reformatorisch Dagblad is their newspaper.

What do the scholars claim?

In our judgment, it is difficult to imagine that a lengthy, highly visible, and ultimately successful campaign to persuade Dutch citizens that marriage is not connected to parenthood and that marriage and cohabitation are equally valid 'lifestyle choices' has not had serious social consequences. 

But no proponent of same sex marriage is claiming that marriage and cohabitation are equally valid 'lifestyle choices'. If that were so, there would be no need for same sex marriage.

Instead, proponents of SSM think marriage is better than cohabitating. Opponents think likewise, but also think that once non-heterosexuals are allowed to wed marriage will somehow automatically degrade to the level of cohabitating. I can only conclude that if the whole debate surrounding same sex marriage were responsible for the rise in the number of unmarried Dutch cohabitating parents like myself, it is the opponents who are to blame!
 
After all, they talked me into devaluing marriage. My gay friends can get married, so why the hell should I?