Santorum blames gay marriage for bad economy

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Isn't it odd how Santorum is supposed to be wild and crazy, but when you actually read what he says, he's sensible?

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So comparing good parents to terrible ones is supposed to be a compelling argument in favor?

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Torie:

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It's actually a really simple argument.

You've heard of the 'broken window' approach to crime? What it argues is that neglect, in the form of broken windows encourages crime, and can be more effective then policing after the fact. If people see that the small things are taken care of, then there will be fewer break-ins.

Whereas if it's left as it is, it encourages crime, because people believe that there will be no repercussions.

Santorum's arguing that the same thing works for marriage.

We know that families that are married make more money than families that are not married. This is something that's been shown for quite some time.

Gay marriage weakens the natural family, because you're arguing that 'sex doesn't matter', and that there is no such thing as 'men' or 'women' that would actually be relevant to marriage.

If gay marriage is more likely to lead to relationships outside of marriage, then gay marriage is going to hurt the economy as it forms unstable unions that are more likely to break up as well as discouraging marriage altogether.

That's what Santorum is getting at. It makes sense, but you have to have some of the background to understand the premisses.

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Yessir. What he actually says makes sense here.

It's the broken window effect from crime applied to marriage and society. Keep the windows fixed and in good repair, and you avoid much of the problems that are becoming endemic in society.

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Uh, I think you were going for the 'terrible' parenting with the ones who chug mountain dew.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but you're comparing "good parents" your first example, to "bad parents" in your second example.

Or have I misunderstood you?

Saying that because some people are crappy parents means that everyone is a crappy parent isn't going to get you where you want to go.

You want to say that because some not gay parents suck at parenting, ergo, gay people should be permitted because they suck less is a terrible argument.

Really it is. Go back and look at it again.

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Well, as it's been shown in Canada, something like 1 percent of gay folks choose to get married. Which means that gay marriage is pointless. Why bother? There's no demand for it.

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But that's not what I'm talking about here. If you recognise all different types of relationships as 'marriage', then you are rewarding people for choosing other options. If you want to see a specific type of behavior, reward single moms for being single with plenty of goodies.

And this is what we are seeing. People who love each other are seeing that Marriage - really doesn't symbolize the extent of their love so they are doing other things. This is a consequence of 'changing the definition'.

If 10 percent of people choose not to get married whom otherwise would, that's a very significant and long-term effect on the overall wellbeing.

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It's relevant to everyone. You're separating, "marriage" from "having children" and there are negative economic consequences associated with that too.

I'm not saying, and I know Santorum's not saying that gay marriage is the root of all this - rather gay marriage is a symptom of problems that have been going on for quite some time. Look at out of wedlock births and you'll start to see what I, and Santorum are getting at. In 1955, 95 percent of black children were born in wedlock, now it's a minority.

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Ok, let's go back a bit.

Do you believe that gay marriage argues that the sex you happen to be is irrelevant to your marital relationship? Yes or no?

How do you reconcile this position with the understanding of the marital union as consummation? Are you now arguing that consummation is unnecessary in a marital relationship?

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Gay people don't WANT marriage. They aren't getting married in Canada. Ergo, if 'increasing monogamy' is the goal, than gay marriage is an outright failure.

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Not when 1 percent of gay people are getting married. That's a tiny number. Even if the total number of marriages dropped by a tenth of a percent, the negative repercussions would far outweigh the positives.

And yes, marriage rates continue to drop.

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It's not a hard argument. Look at births out of wedlock. Those born out of wedlock are much less likely to do well.

No?  I mean, I agree that it's not nutter versus some arguments out there, but do you actually find it a compelling argument?

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Look at marriage percentages and out of wedlock births among white people over most recent years.

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If they are not interested in it, then there is no need to grant them that which they do not want.

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If they want gay marriage to stick around, then they should actually make use of it.

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What do you think would happen if you exempted homeschooling parents from school taxes?

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Yes, it is. There are public benefits that are associated with it.

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Not arguing that. I'm saying that they have no reason to convert their common law relationship into marriage, if they can obtain the same benefits without having to make the commitment.

Works this way with most things. Subsidize something, and you'll see more of it.

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Now you're conceding that empirical evidence does in fact exist for Santorum's thesis. You're right that there can be and are other reasons for this, which is what Santorum's thesis argues.

He sees gay marriage as a symptom, not a cause.

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It's pretty hard to argue that you are being oppressed when 99 percent stay exactly the same as before.

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Absolutely. I think it's in the interest of society to discourage divorce.

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http://www.vs.gov.bc.ca/stats/annual/2003/pdf/marriages.pdf

In the first year it was legalized (where you would expect more), you see 600 residents of BC with gay marriage as compared to 40k, or 1.5 percent.

Only 40 percent of gay marriages in BC were by BC residents, 60 percent were from outside the province.

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Vital statistics.

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Answered and answered.

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Statistics are showing in BC that fewer people overall are choosing to get married.

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The rate has increased after the laws were changed.

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There's no reason why the 'nuclear family' cannot include aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins. This is a straw man.

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Unfortunately, since most gay people do not want this, this is not what we see.

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They can't have children. Not without outside help.

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So what you are arguing is that an entire family needs to rearrange itself to suits the needs and desire of one member. Are you trying to reinforce my argument?

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Unfortunately the experiment is showing precisely the opposite. Fewer people are getting married.

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That's the behaviour that we are seeing, and I believe the thesis makes sense. If you don't have to have children to get married, and it doesn't even matter if you are a man or a woman, that's not really symbolic of a relationship between a husband and wife, is it? Is someone who's already in a long term relationship going to be all that inclined to take advantage of a relationship that doesn't express how they feel about each other?

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60 percent of all gay marriages in 2003 in BC were from folks outside of BC, this corresponds to 90 percernt of all straight marriages. Clearly there is a campaign. This is what is driving the demand, and why the demand has fallen off drastically from a high of 1 percent.

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Is divorce an issue more or less likely to be tackled before or after gay marriage is legalized?

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Never said it would be the cure or moral decay, but banning it will treat the symptom so you can tackle the other problems. Doing nothing will simply let things get even worse then they are now.

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Ok, then are you arguing that your sex is in fact relevant?

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You can't have both of these. One or the other. Either things like procreation are relevant or they are not.

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If you are arguing that they are both the same and should be treated the same, then you are saying that procreation is irrelevant to marriage.

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Then you don't see consummation as having any relevance to marriage?

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Uh, yeah. Sorry. If a policy that's supposed to bring freedom to people is outright rejected, then that pretty much says it all? Maybe the policy stinks and/or doesn't meet the needs of gay people.

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Yep, you've got it, it breaks things that have generally always been associated with marriage.

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I'm stating that the effect of 10 percent of the population doing something that hurts things overall outweighs 1 percent of the population doing something that may be helpful.

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All I'm seeing are negative externalities associated with the policy. If you've got positive externalities, then I'd like to see them.  

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Because it's an empirical effect? You've asked for something that can be measured. This is one thing that can.

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I'm stating that the evidence that we possess at present shows an insignificant increase in one type of marriage and a significant decrease in another type of marriage. Ergo, the policy is an outright failure at producing the desired result, increasing the marriage rate in Canada. In fact, it's been quite the opposite.

Fewer people getting married is going to have a negative effect further on down the road. Smaller families, more breakups, more children out of wedlock, and an overall drag on the economy.

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It would be, except this theory isn't working out this way. If gay marriage increased overall monogamy, we would not be seeing the things we do see. We're seeing precisely the opposite.

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Not sure where I've dismissed them altogether? I've argued they are substantially outweighed by the negative effects.

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What percentage of children overall are raised in these circumstances? By far the greatest correlation is the overall marriage rates.

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One of me, lots of you.

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The problem is that 60+ percent of gay marriages are not to Canadians, whereas 90+ of straight marriages are.

So you really can take only the 40 percent or so of marriages that actually involve Canadians.

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Again, you have to take into account the fact that most do not actually involve Canadians.

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If I'm in Georgia, I don't go to NYC by way of Florida Keys.

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Twilight:

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Do you want me to check that out? I'm pretty sure the answer is a 1:1 correlation...

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I'm not sure why people who support gay marriage to be the reason for their vote are voting for Santorum. 

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As I said, you don't get from GA to NYC by way of Florida Keys.

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http://www.vs.gov.bc.ca/stats/annual/2007/pdf/marriages.pdf

2007 shows that the numbers haven't changed substantially.

I'm not cherry picking, just picked 2007 at random.

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But if I have a goal in mind, I do not get to that goal by working towards the opposite. That is the point I'm trying to drive home. I don't reduce the divorce rate by approving Gay marriage, and if you seriously believe that divorce is more likely to be changed after gay marriage, than before, then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you...

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Add two zeros and you see my point, hopefully.

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Hey, I'm willing to argue facts with facts, principles with principles.

If you believe that gay marriage is ok, then I fail to see how you can say that procreation has a connection to marriage. That seems incoherent to me. The argument that procreation is irrelevant to marriage makes sense- because that position is consistant.

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Gosh. How about you first.

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As a utilitarian, isn't this where Mr. Spock steps in and says that the needs of the many...

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No, I've observed a decline in marriage rates, consistant with the broken window thesis. The thesis matches the observations, and attempts to explain why.

You're articulating a thesis that does not actually matched the expected observations. Which leads me to wonder, do you believe that this will change in the future?

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It was predicted that there would be no effect. That has been shown to be false. The folks that predicted (prior to the change of the law), that marriage rates would decline, has been shown to be correct.

What happens to theories that make wrong predictions? It leads credence to the folks who predicted that marriage rates would decline that they were able to correctly predict what was to come.

Even if they are right for the wrong reasons. See what I'm saying?

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That would take time. I can do it but it would take a bit.  

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Marriage rates have the biggest effect on the total children born out of wedlock. Even if it goes up with a small segment of the population, an overall decline will have a much greater effect on this number. More children born out of wedlock on average means greater poverty.

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One of me, about 10 of you folks... Bear with me.

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Yay! I caught up.

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I'm pretty sure that's one of my premisses...

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No argument here.

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I would argue they see it as anachronistic because it no longer has any relevance to their lives. If you've grown up in a broken family, without really any positive role models in marriage, then yes, it's going to lose most of it's relevancy to you. Then the cycle repeats. This is why that statistic with children born out of wedlock has continued to increase every year.

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True, but take a look around you. Does it do much good to win the battle but lose the war? You are fighting a battle that you perceive as good and noble, while at the same time, the rest of us are taking some hard looks at the big picture.

I'm fighting against the times, because I know that the times are not moving in a productive, but rather a destructive fashion. Some people see this, some do not.

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I don't believe you will like to live in such a society. Perhaps I'm wrong about that, but a society without marriage isn't going to be a particularly nice one.

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Most of us could care little about what the state chooses to do but it means withdrawing from the state and leaving to your own or fighting the state as best we can.

For now, we've chosen to fight for a society that seems to hate itself and what it stood for more than anything, which rather perplexes me, that the only thing that seems to stick up for it is a Church that wasn't built in America, was considered an enemy of America all it's existence. I supposed that's Irony for you.

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Are you more concerned with upholding the 1 percent that is working or the 40 percent that isn't?