WSJ's Miniter baselessly linked same-sex marriage to rise in out-of-wedlock births
In his November 28 online column, Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal.com assistant editor Brendan Miniter baselessly asserted that a study indicating an increase in out-of-wedlock births "reveals why" the debate over same-sex marriage "is worth having now."
Miniter wrote that a lawsuit recently filed by Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) against his state's legislature, in which Romney seeks to force lawmakers to put a same-sex marriage ban on the ballot, "serv[es] as an opportunity to reach a consensus on why marriage as an institution is worth protecting." Miniter then baselessly connected same-sex marriage to a study by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), which, as Miniter wrote, "found that although teen pregnancy rates are dropping, the number of out-of-wedlock births in America has been steadily rising since the 1990s." Miniter made no attempt to explain what the rise in out-of-wedlock births since the 1990s has to do with same-sex marriage. Massachusetts is the only state in the country that has legalized same-sex marriage, doing so through a state supreme court ruling in 2003. According to a report released by the NCHS, Massachusetts had the sixth-lowest percentage of births to unmarried women in 2003, the most recent year for which state-by-state data are available. Moreover, in 2004, Massachusetts had the lowest divorce rate of the 45 states that reported the statistic, trailing only Washington, D.C., according to the NCHS.
From Miniter's November 28 column:
It is here that Mr. Romney performs a public service. Dozens of states have already enacted their own constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. But as these amendments have passed with overwhelming margins in even liberal states (and helped turn out Republican voters in 2004), the debate over the merits of traditional marriage has largely died down. Passing the marriage amendments have been exercises in the expression of the popular will, without also serving as an opportunity to reach a consensus on why marriage as an institution is worth protecting.
Although advocates of same-sex marriage will deny there is any connection to extending the institution to gay couples, a recent report released by the National Center for Health Statistics reveals why this debate is worth having now. The study found that although teen pregnancy rates are dropping, the number of out-of-wedlock births in America has been steadily rising since the 1990s. It seems women in their 20s and 30s are having children without getting married first. Last year the proportion of births that are illegitimate reached an all time high of 37%, or 1.5 million children.
The debate on how to address this growing social problem will likely only take place in a presidential race and only if at least one candidate vying for the Oval Office is willing to do more than push the issue off to the side by calling for a federal constitutional amendment.
I always assumed that the wall street journal had some professional standards, even though it's right-wing. There goes that assumption.
The solution to out-of-wedlock births is to simply "to turn our children gay". Problem solved. Apparently for some unknown reason, gays don't seem to have the same degree of problems with out-of-wedlock births as us heterosexuals do.
Miniter was apparenlty making a pro-gay point! How uncharacteristically progressive of the WSJ.
The wsj editor wasn't just writing mendacious nonsense, as I first thought; he was making a point so subtle yet brilliant that it whizzed right over my punkin head.
having a flat tire in a snowstorm is the same as buttering both sides of your bread. See what I mean?
As two papers, its reporting is world class, its editorial page is rabid rightwing rhetioric with no discernable connection to reality
...WSJ readers care about social evolution. Isn't everyone just another customer to exploit?
How about a constitutional amendment against anyone suggesting frivolous constitutional amendments?
Exactly right, I don't see any attempt to show how a rise in illegitimate children has anything to do with same sex marraige. If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on the belief that women have children out of wedlock because they want kids but find your average reichy too snobbishly revolting to spend the rest of your life with.
Somebody has to explain the birds and the bees to the WSJ!!
Same sex, means no baby's! They think we're all stupid, and they don't care if you know it!!!
Given gay women in a long term committed relationships are denied marriage all of the children they have are technically born out of wedlock. If they were given the opportunity to marry their partners and their offspring would no longer be in that category. I am fairly sure that would then lower the percentage. So shouldn’t the WSJ be a proponent of gay marriage since it will help lower the out of wedlock rate? (By the way I am not holding my breath for that to happen)
It's called Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc..After the fact, therefore because of the fact. It's on the list of classic logical fallacies. The Trogs trot it out all the time...their favorite is to cite all the social decay that has supposedly occured since 1963, when prayer was taken out of the public schools. It's all bunk, of course, but the black-and-white thinkers lap it up like gravy.
whether this degree of homophobia or delusional self-denial is the cause of such stupidity in journalism, or whether this clown is just having an egotistical good time in the recognition that enough of his supposedly intellectual audience will be too stupid to see the vast gaps in his "logic."
However, the homosexual community has amazed me with their control of hetrosexual marriage and birth rates. What's next homosexuals are responsible for hetrosexual males desiring females? They (homosexuals) must have evolved some mind control abilities denied hetrosexuals.
And I thought the right wing was not interest in good science and statistical analysis. Of course, large sections of the Right denies evolution along with same sex marriage. So much for that theory.
I think it might be.
Why? Well, children born to bigamist mothers are technically out-of-wedlock and a "partnership", "marriage" or whatever you call it made up of three or more must be some percentage (2/3, 5/6, 14/15, ...) "same sex."
Whataya think, Mitt?
This is what happens when you don't teach children sex education in school.
Has anyone else yet caught on to the fact that the people on all these tv shows are total and complete morons?
Correction. The morons in this case from a newspaper, not tv. But then there's been morons in print since time immemorial.
I'd have to peg the correlation coefficient linking same-sex marriage and out-of-wedlock pregnancy as a fat, ripe ZERO. All one has to do is THINK about it for a second, maybe two, and one's absurd-o-meter goes haywire.
GAY (as in man-man/woman-woman) MARRIED people, who are by definition both GAY (therefore unlikely to experience an accidental pregnancy, especially man-man couples) and MARRIED, are somehow responsible for an INCREASE in the number of CHILDREN born OUT of wedlock.
Oh, damn. Verbalizing it so plainly dun broke ma meter inna billion lil' ol' pieces.
The price I pay for wallowing in the truth.
I am a rabbit breeder by trade and I just wanted to clear this up for the record...You can't breed rabbits by putting two rabbits of the same sex in a cage together? Dang!
Thanks for the helpful tip. I was beginning to thing these darn rabbits was defective.
(/sarcasm off/) ;^)
that most drug addicts started out eating snickers bars? this proves, beyond any statistical deviation, the causal link between consumption of snickers bars, and future drug addiction!
The Far Right are noticing the publics increasing support for Gay Rights and are pulling all the stops to try to stop this. It is just horrible all the lies said about homosexuals to support a theocratic position. I believe Americans are not as stupid as the Far Right play them to be and they will fight back against the pathetic lies spread by the Christian Fundamentalists. It will take some time but the likes of Falwell, Robertson, and Dobson will soon fade away and normal americans will ignore them completly...
If we hadn't made it harder to buy shotguns then the out of wedlock birth rate wouldn't have risen.