Those wacky gays and lesbians are at it again; they’re doing things that they don’t want to do – making huge sacrifices – all so they can destroy society and all that’s good!!!
Or, at least, that must be what Alan Chambers is thinking. Back in February he told the Conservative Political Action Conference
gay people do not really want gay marriage
But now news comes out of Canada to tell us Same-sex marriages are on the rise. Maybe it’s just a liberal militant homosexual activist coordinated part of the radical Gay Agenda (but if so, why didn’t I get the memo?).
Tim: When Denmark first passed partnership laws, a large number of partnerships was formed. However, currently, according to Danish epidemiologist Morton Frisch, the percentage of the homosexual population in Denmark involved in marriage is between less than 5% and perhaps as low as 1%. I do not think support or lack thereof hinges on issues like this but since you raise the matter, do you have thoughts about why this number would be so low?
Timothy said:
Maybe it’s just a liberal militant homosexual activist coordinated part of the radical Gay Agenda (but if so, why didn’t I get the memo?).
Because you haven’t been paying your membership dues with all that extra disposable income you have because you are gay. As a result, we had to deactivate your benefits (including the memo’s). However, we have brought back the toaster oven campaign and you are still eligible to receive one for every five converts.
Warren, of all people you should know to include a link! Link please.
You mean being gay involves more than just cheap, tawdry sex?!? See what happens when people forget to pass out the latest updates to the Gay Agenda? Dammit. [/sarcasm]
Warren, I do not have the link right now, but I will look for it. Marriage has never been that popular in Denmark, and heterosexual marriages are on decline. From what I understand, there are also partnerships for heterosexuals and homosexuals in Denmark and many choose those instead. Andrew Sullivan has had numerous articles on it in the past and when I have time I will look for the links.
John said:
You mean being gay involves more than just cheap, tawdry sex?!?
I’m almost embarrassed to say that I’m not sure if I would know cheap, tawdry sex if I had it. BTW, pay your dues 🙂
David: I did not have a link since he told me this in an email. The reference to the article where this is discussed further is here in his comment reproduced from the email.
Warren,
I believe the proportion of all homosexual individuals in Denmark who get married with a same-sex partner is considerably lower than 10%. No reliable statistics are available on the true homosexual denominator, but in a previous paper I’ve estimated that the true homosexually married proportion is probably as low as one to a few percent of all homosexual persons in Denmark (discussed on p. 969 in the attached article on ‘Cancer in a population-based cohort of men and women in registered homoexual partnerships’ published in Am J Epidemiol 2003;157:966-972). Hope this is helpful.
Morten
Thank you for the citation, Mr. Throckmorton. Here’s the relevant text of the article:
One thing that jumped out to me is the assumption that anyone who has ever had sex with another man in their entire life is therefore ‘gay’. I think that alone would wildly inflate the supposed number of gays.
Second, he says that “All persons in Denmark who became a registered homosexual partner between 1989 and 1997 were eligible for study.” So it would appear that his numbers are nearly ten years old. They may have improved since then, but this is just speculation.
And for some more speculation–Denmark doesn’t offer “marriage”, but “civil unions”. Some may choose not to settle for anything less than marriage.
Warren said:
I did not have a link since he told me this in an email.
That’s not much to go on. I’m personally not too eager to speculate from a vacuum – I don’t know much about the culture in Denmark in general. Certainly some plausible reasons have been mentioned. To my knowledge, we have virtually nothing from history to which we can compare this so even with more data I’m not sure if anything solid can be said about it.
Since I’m uncertain of how significant this notion is in the first place, I certainly can’t say it has any significance within the subject of the current thread. The kind of opinion you are probably looking for would best be thrown about over a cup of coffee, but probably not here as we have a bit more responsibility to be accurate on the site.
Others may have more information to go on and might venture out further. Sorry 🙁
Edit: FYI, skemono posted while I was in the middle of writing.
To be fair, to evaluate marriage for gays and lesbians I think you have to wait for two or three generations, from perhaps 50 – 75 years (25 years per generation) or more. Marriage for gays and lesbians has to become more accultured in the social setting and also in the minds of young gay people. Young gays and lesbians have to have a chance to grow up and realize that they have marriage as a possibility as an endeavor in their lives.
“The gay lifestyle” which is as much an invention of the west’s Christian culture as that of gay people themselves has to be allowed to evolve based in the idea of this new ethic that might exist in each gay and lesbian’s mind. I would agree that marriage for gays and lesbians is an experiment. But is an experiment that must be allowed to run a course, one that might last a century.
you raise the matter, do you have thoughts about why this number would be so low?
Why? Social inertia. Because social change takes time to filter through a population. Just because one gets a new right doesn’t mean that society is going to change overnight.
I don’t know much about what the Dane’s partnership offers. The social benefits may not be worth much.
Here in Canada there has been a (rather tenuous) threat that gay marriage was going to be repealed. The current Conservative Party government had an election promise to have a re-vote on the issue. Part of the promise was to allow those who had already been married to remain married but anyone after the repeal would have a civil union, which critics derided as “two-tier marriage”.
But the Conservative Party has a minority of seats and is sliding in the polls. All of the other parties in Parliament officially support gay marriage. The New Democratic Party and Bloc Québécois will officially vote as a bloc to keep gay marriage and there isn’t enough support amongst the Liberal and Conservative parties to repeal it. (39th Canadian Parliament – Same sex marriage)
Most Canadians, even those who initially opposed it (over 85% total according to polling), are against reopening the issue. The newspapers and TV have made it clear that the repeal effort is going nowhere. People have moved on.
So I suspect now that the threat of losing these rights have receded more gay couples feel comfortable taking advantage of them.
Assume for a moment that there is a vast gay conspiracy to legalize gay marriage, and then no one takes advantage of it. This will harm society… how?
Chambers seems to be using Underpants Gnomes logic
Step 1: Legalize Gay Marriage
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Destroy Society!
Even if it was one of the authors doing it, it’s really not honest to reference an epidemiological study designed to study relative cancer mortality risks in MSM and WSW to test a hypothesis that few gay men “get partnered.” It’s not designed to come to conclusions about that.
(Even for its original purpose, it’s not a very interesting study – surprise, men with AIDS get Kaposi’s sarcoma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and MSM are at higher risk for anal cancer and WSW are at lower risk for certain cervical cancers – things I think have been known for some time. The study was too underpowered to find anything except already known, very obvious relationships.)
All said, if few gay people take advantage of marriage/civil unions, so what? The whole gay marriage thing is so overblown because frankly societal impact is just minimal from it either way.
Of course the big question is whether they are sodomatically-active, right? Don’t bother looking for that one, Mark Brown made it up.
Sorry, I’ve reached my quota of anti-gay bigotry and I’m trying to find creative outlets (sarcasm works). Carry on.
Warren,
I think that your response, while appearing initially to be relevant, on second glance is less so.
First, this post is about a demographic with a desire for marriage. You are talking about persons in a registered partnership. This is not the same thing and are not equally desired. It’s like determining a market for Haagen Daz ice cream by looking at non-dairy fat-free frozen frostee. It’s just not comparable.
I don’t know the distinctions in Denmark. But in California, gay couples will review a DP along financial terms while a marriage is weighed along emotional terms. Couples that would marry (and want to marry) sometimes don’t go into DPs.
While anti-gay activists say that civil unions are just marriage with another name, gay people know better. Civil protections are nice (and needed), but they are not a level playing field.
Second, I find it curious that 6% became 1 to 5 percent based on instances of same sex behavior. What was the point of that?
It sounds like the researcher doesn’t know the difference between someone who had a same-sex experience and someone who is primarily same-sex attracted. That’s odd and makes me wonder about built-in bias.
Even so, 6% of a population is a fairly sizeable chunk – just ask most politicians who were elected this month.
Finally, the point of the thread is that there is a demand for marriage among gay people. It is not as high as the demand among heterosexuals, but it does exist. To say otherwise flys in the face of the upswing in marriage in Canada (where there actually is gay marriage) as well as the 8,000 Massachusetts marriages so far (less a tiny number of divorces).
Yet Alan Chambers was willing to TESTIFY before some conference that there is no want for marriage. That it’s all just the liberal media.
He used his “credentials” as an ex-gay person to prop up a claim that isn’t true. And in old-fashioned language, that’s bearing false witness.
Of course the big question is whether they are sodomatically-active, right? Don’t bother looking for that one, Mark Brown made it up.
I’m confused. Is that the Ronco Sod-O-Matic? Cuz I can’t get mine to activate.
I’m almost embarrassed to say that I’m not sure if I would know cheap, tawdry sex if I had it. BTW, pay your dues 🙂
I have a vague memory of what sex is all about, not sure I remember right now. Whaddaya mean dues? You mean I have to PAY for de facto celibacy??? No justice, no peace my friend. >:-)
Cheap, tawdry sex, eh? Oh, yes, I’ve had it but it’s been so long that I fear my ‘card’ has expired.
Any suggestions as to how I might get it renewed? (G)