Brad Wilcox of the Family Scholars Blog writes disapprovingly of a Psychology Today story that suggests GLBT couples have more stable relationships than heterosexual couples for various reasons.
I have read the story and am not fully convinced either, could be, maybe not. Jury is still out. But in opposing this premise, Mr. Wilcox uses a study that actually weakens many of the arguments used by scholars at "Family Scholars Blog" (a blog** that opposes marriage equality). One that should have set off a few irony meters.
Because it did mine.
The study refered to can be found here (it's a pdf file). Mr. Wilcox uses it to "show" that GLBT couples are less stable than opposite-sex couples.
One of the arguments that anti-marriage equality pundits use to oppose same-sex marriage is that because GLBT couples are "less stable," legally and socially recognizing their unions would weaken marriage.
Of course these same pundits and scholars write books about how marriage strengthens the stability of heterosexual couples.
In trying to prove that GLBT couples are less stable, Dr. Wilcox uses a study that shows that, indeed they are somewhat less stable.
Unless those couples live in areas that have the legal and social sanction for their unions. The study is done with the data from the 2000 census when there was no same-sex marriage and many fewer states with civil unions or domestic partnerships, but it did show that the chance of a relationship being stronger with marriage or some legal and social sanction increased the chances of a same-sex couple remaining intact.
The study goes into this at length, but here is a tidbit:
The odds of an unmarried couple being in a long-term duration partnership relative to married couples are higher in states with a sexual orientation anti-discrimination statute. Perhaps not surprisingly, the magnitude of the difference between states with and without such statutes is larger for same-sex couples than for their different-sex unmarried counterparts.
Their conclusion:
We know that marriage provides both a social and legal environment that effects entry and exit from relationships. These findings relating to same-sex couples strongly suggest that relationships would be shorter and less stable in the absence of marriage. Conversely, they suggest that marriage would likely stabilize and create positive outcomes for same-sex couples.
And yet, Mr. Wilcox uses the study to argue that same-sex couples are less stable (and thus shouldn't be granted marriage equality presumably), when the study actually shows that marriage strengthens same-sex couples (and opposite-sex couples).
My irony meter is broken today after this and the last post I made.
Lets recap the irony of his argument:
Same-sex couples are unstable, thus they should not be allowed to marry.Marriage makes couples more stable.
But same-sex couples should not be allowed marriage.
Same-sex couples are so unstable...
(and we'll quote studies that show same-sex couples are unstable and ignore the part that says that marriage makes them more stable... and probably as or more stable)
Wow, thanks for that straight jacket of an argument you put our family in.
