Preaching To The Converted

Right now on C-SPAN there's a speech by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Looney Tunes) frothing all over an Iowa county Republican meeting. It's like a Gallager show. They have the local Young Republicans walking around handing out paper towels to the people in the front row. He spent most of the time talking about pork chops on a stick and 800 lbs pumpkins. But he did say a couple things that struck me.

First, he said that there's a lot of data from those few countries in Europe that have legalized gay marriage show that causing less and less straight marrages (the theory being that it "cheapens" marriage as a concept, I guess). So I did a little googling and, first off, the first country in the world to legalize same sex marriage was The Netherlands in 2001, so it might seem a little premature to be checking trend lines, and secondly, the other other place I could find that talking point was in The Weekly Standard, and even then it takes some pretty serious logical stretches to make their point.
I

n 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?

So the lack of "shotgun weddings" helped destory marriage. What a shame. It was obviously a perfect institution.

Oh, right, Brownback.

He was also talking about stem cells, and he said that everything is either a person or it's property. So if we allow stem cell research those people will be legislated as property. The implication being that stem cells = slavery.