Samkönade äktenskap hotar äktenskapet

Det konservativa argumentet för samkönade äktenskap lyder ungefär så här: Äktenskapet är bra och värt att bevara. Genom att ge permanenta homosexuella relationer ett statligt (och kanske även kyrkligt) erkännande kommer fler människor än idag att erbjudas äktenskapets välsignelser. Istället för att leva utan något officiellt trohetsband skulle fler välja att stabilisera sina relationer och gifta sig. Äktenskapet skulle därmed stärkas. Skribenten Stanley Kurtz – som skriver för National Review, Wall Street Journal, Commentary och Policy Review – har i ett par längre artiklar i The Weekly Standard undersökt hållbarheten i detta argument.

I artikeln The End of Marriage in Scandinavia beskriver han situationen i Sverige, Norge och Danmark. Titeln avslöjar hur mörkt han ser på äktenskapets framtid i Sverige och i dess grannländer. Han skriver:

A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Not coincidentally, these countries have had something close to full gay marriage for a decade or more. Same-sex marriage has locked in and reinforced an existing Scandinavian trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood. The Nordic family pattern–including gay marriage–is spreading across Europe. And by looking closely at it we can answer the key empirical question underlying the gay marriage debate. Will same-sex marriage undermine the institution of marriage? It already has… Instead of encouraging a society-wide return to marriage, Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.

Om Sverige skriver han:

In Sweden, as elsewhere, the sixties brought contraception, abortion, and growing individualism. Sex was separated from procreation, reducing the need for ”shotgun weddings.” These changes, along with the movement of women into the workforce, enabled and encouraged people to marry at later ages. With married couples putting off parenthood, early divorce had fewer consequences for children. That weakened the taboo against divorce. Since young couples were putting off children, the next step was to dispense with marriage and cohabit until children were desired. Americans have lived through this transformation. The Swedes have simply drawn the final conclusion: If we’ve come so far without marriage, why marry at all? Our love is what matters, not a piece of paper. Why should children change that?

Vad har då detta med samkönade äktenskap att göra?

As rising out-of-wedlock birthrates disassociate heterosexual marriage from parenting, gay marriage becomes conceivable. If marriage is only about a relationship between two people, and is not intrinsically connected to parenthood, why shouldn’t same-sex couples be allowed to marry? It follows that once marriage is redefined to accommodate same-sex couples, that change cannot help but lock in and reinforce the very cultural separation between marriage and parenthood that makes gay marriage conceivable to begin with.

Och vidare:

Gay marriage is both an effect and a reinforcing cause of the separation of marriage and parenthood. In states like Sweden and Denmark, where out-of-wedlock birthrates were already very high, and the public favored gay marriage, gay unions were an effect of earlier changes. Once in place, gay marriage symbolically ratified the separation of marriage and parenthood. And once established, gay marriage became one of several factors contributing to further increases in cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birthrates, as well as to early divorce.

Men var inte syftet med registrerade partnerskap att främja mer stabila förhållanden mellan homosexuella? Kurtz skriver:

Danish social theorist Henning Bech and Norwegian sociologist Rune Halvorsen offer excellent accounts of the gay marriage debates in Denmark and Norway… Both Bech and Halvorsen stress that the conservative case for gay marriage, while put forward by a few, was rejected by many in the gay community. Bech, perhaps Scandinavia’s most prominent gay thinker, dismisses as an ”implausible” claim the idea that gay marriage promotes monogamy. He treats the ”conservative case” as something that served chiefly tactical purposes during a difficult political debate. According to Halvorsen, many of Norway’s gays imposed self-censorship during the marriage debate, so as to hide their opposition to marriage itself. The goal of the gay marriage movements in both Norway and Denmark, say Halvorsen and Bech, was not marriage but social approval for homosexuality. Halvorsen suggests that the low numbers of registered gay couples may be understood as a collective protest against the expectations (presumably, monogamy) embodied in marriage.

Vilka är då effekterna av äktenskapets förfall?

In 2000, Danish sociologist Mai Heide Ottosen published a study, ”Samboskab, Aegteskab og Foraeldrebrud” (”Cohabitation, Marriage and Parental Breakup”), which confirmed the increased risk of family dissolution to children of unmarried parents, and gently chided Scandinavian social scientists for ignoring the ”quiet revolution” of out-of-wedlock parenting.

Despite the reluctance of Scandinavian social scientists to study the consequences of family dissolution for children, we do have an excellent study that followed the life experiences of all children born in Stockholm in 1953. (Not coincidentally, the research was conducted by a British scholar, Duncan W.G. Timms.) That study found that regardless of income or social status, parental breakup had negative effects on children’s mental health. Boys living with single, separated, or divorced mothers had particularly high rates of impairment in adolescence. An important 2003 study by Gunilla Ringbäck Weitoft, et al. found that children of single parents in Sweden have more than double the rates of mortality, severe morbidity, and injury of children in two parent households.

Artikeln Beyond Gay Marriage är en tidigare artikel som handlar om vad som kan komma efter samkönade äktenskap. Kurtz menar att det kommer att bli svårt att undvika att äktenskapet utvidgas ytterligare så att det inkluderar polygama (en med flera) och polyamorösa (flera med flera) relationer. Det största hotet mot äktenskapet kommer emellertid från heterosexuella av samma kön som väljer att gifta sig av bekvämlighetsskäl. Kurtz avslutar:

Marriage is a critical social institution. Stable families depend on it. Society depends on stable families. Up to now, with all the changes in marriage, the one thing we’ve been sure of is that marriage means monogamy. Gay marriage will break that connection. It will do this by itself, and by leading to polygamy and polyamory. What lies beyond gay marriage is no marriage at all.

Läs mer av Kurtz här.