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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 3/1/2004 11:06 AM (GMT -6) |   | www.worldmag.com/world/issue/03-06-04/cover_2.asp
The Nordic track
COVER STORY: State approval of homosexual marriage in Scandinavia contributed to the virtual disappearance of real marriage
By Gene Edward Veith
No matter what happens in the homosexual-marriage/civil-union controversies, marriage as an institution isn't going away, is it?
Yes, it is. Marriage has already all but disappeared in Scandinavia. Other Europeans are heading down that Nordic track. And, if gay marriage is legalized, so will we.
That is the conclusion of Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, whose article "The End of Marriage in Scandinavia" was published in The Weekly Standard.
Sweden was the first country in Europe to legalize homosexual unions in 1989, and Denmark and Norway followed soon thereafter. Today, a majority of children in those countries are born out of wedlock. Although some older couples are getting married after having more than one child, younger couples are dispensing with marriage altogether. Southern Seminary president Al Mohler reports that in Sweden, the few young couples who do get married often do not like to admit it, since what they have done is so far out of the norm that they feel embarrassed.
Couples just live together for awhile. If the woman has a baby, the father-unlike in the United States-will typically stay around until the baby reaches a certain age. Until recently, if they had a second child together, they would typically get married, but this has changed for the new generation. Once the children are grown, the parents typically go their separate ways.
What role has gay marriage played in the disappearance of marriage in Scandinavia? "Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated," says Mr. Kurtz, "and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable."
More direct causes Mr. Kurtz cites include the Scandinavian welfare state, which means that the family unit is no longer necessary for economic support. Plus, to support that welfare state, taxes are so high that both parents have to work. A vast state day-care system has taken over many of the child-care duties that once were the job of families. Also, the universities are even more radical than they are in the United States, with socialists, feminists, and other social revolutionaries-including those who denounce marriage as being intrinsically oppressive-having a huge influence in public policy.
Homosexual marriage has contributed to the dissolution of marriage as a significant institution in Scandinavian culture primarily by contributing to the notion that marriage need have nothing to do with having children.
Most instructive for Americans is what happened with Norway, traditionally the most conservative of the Scandinavian states. Sweden and Denmark have always been far more liberal, and in those nations the public wanted gay marriage. In Norway, though, the general public had gay marriage foisted upon it from above, by elite judges and lawmakers. The state Lutheran church opposed not only gay marriage but the growing trend of cohabitation and having children out of wedlock. The church also fought an internal battle over the ordination of those in homosexual unions.
The media covered the church's debates over these issues, taking every opportunity to attack and ridicule Christian teachings about sexuality and marriage. As a result, the church's traditionally strong influence on Norwegian society declined. When the dust settled, the liberal pro-gay and cohabitation theologians, who were once in a minority, took over the leadership of the church.
Another important finding about the Scandinavian experience with what Mr. Kurtz describes as "de facto" gay marriage-actually, they are "civil unions"-is how few homosexuals actually enter into them. A study published by Yale's William Eskridge in 2000 showed that after nine years, only 2,372 homosexual couples took advantage of the Danish law allowing gay unions. After four years, only 749 gay Swedes and only 674 gay Norwegians bothered to "get married."
Today's gay activists in Scandinavia, having gotten everything they wanted, now admit that their case for homosexual marriage-particularly that allowing gays to marry will encourage a monogamous lifestyle-was only a tactical argument. The goal, says Mr. Kurtz, citing two prominent gay thinkers, "was not marriage but social approval for homosexuality."
They achieved that goal, but now there is little social approval for marriage.
quote:
An excerpt:
BOQ
Another important finding about the Scandinavian experience with what Mr. Kurtz describes as "de facto" gay marriage-actually, they are "civil unions"-is how few homosexuals actually enter into them. A study published by Yale's William Eskridge in 2000 showed that after nine years, only 2,372 homosexual couples took advantage of the Danish law allowing gay unions. After four years, only 749 gay Swedes and only 674 gay Norwegians bothered to "get married."
Today's gay activists in Scandinavia, having gotten everything they wanted, now admit that their case for homosexual marriage-particularly that allowing gays to marry will encourage a monogamous lifestyle-was only a tactical argument. The goal, says Mr. Kurtz, citing two prominent gay thinkers, "was not marriage but social approval for homosexuality."
They achieved that goal, but now there is little social approval for marriage.
EOQ
Interesting. Interesting indeed.
Decidedly worth pondering.
But when it comes down to it, the Church's interest in the matter isn't procreation, or social recognition of various lifestyles, or socio-economic factors. The Church's interest lies in bearing witness to what God has declared in His Word to be His plan for His image-bearers. It's not what science or statistics or lawyers or politicians have to say that should influence the Church (reports from 1973 notwithstanding); it is what the Creator has said which should be the guiding influence for the Church.
And when society ignores God's Word and does what is right in its own eyes, we ought not to be surprised that the outcome is anarchical and me-centered. Instead, we should be stunningly UN-surprised -- and prayerfully prepared to offer a desperate world a better way, by the mercy and grace and restorative freedom of the Gospel in Christ.
FWIW.
-doug
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Wahoo
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 142
| Posted 3/3/2004 6:19 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Wahoo
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 142
| Posted 3/3/2004 6:53 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Tigress
But it's all the same to God. Why can't people understand that?
It all boils down to the relationship... the relationship.
That's what the big deal with most faulty theology is. It's not about what you know, its who you know. Some think they can rationalize the one person that they can't posses full knowledge of. I had to rest my will on the mystery of God, of what He hasn't revealed, otherwise I would have gone mad in the epistimolgical void.
Peace! | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 3/5/2004 11:40 AM (GMT -6) | | I see too much of the current American "how does this affect me" in the responses above.
What I come back to in the article, by contrast, is the HORROR of the following:
- 1. "...the few young couples who do get married often do not like to admit it, since what they have done is so far out of the norm that they feel embarrassed."
- 2. "...other social revolutionaries-including those who denounce marriage as being intrinsically oppressive-having a huge influence in public policy."
Sometimes people call it "previent grace" when they think about the benefits they enjoy by being in a healthy surrounding, with good examples, and barriers that remind one of limits. It does not guarantee one's own healthy behavior or outcome; but it does point to something INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT.
So, you young kids! Rather than think about how this might affect you or your peers, CONSIDER FOR A MOMENT how this can affect your OWN KIDS, and grandkids -- or maybe you won't have any. | | Back to Top | | |
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