[Campion]

How does the availability of a sanctioned couples relationship (call it domestic partnership, civil union, or gay marriage, it's all pretty much the same thing) tempt heterosexual young people to not find each other attractive, marry each other, and then procreate?

Empirically, look at what has happened in Europe, where homosexual marriage has been closely followed by a drastic decline in the heterosexual marriage rate.

[HaveHadEnough]

Empirically, look at what has happened in Europe, where homosexual marriage has been closely followed by a drastic decline in the heterosexual marriage rate.

Have marriage rates gone down even in those states that have not legalized gay marriage? Has the marriage rate gone down in the US, when gay marriage has not been legal?

[hunter112]

As anybody knows, correlation does not imply causation. In both the US and Europe, long before even Vermont civil unions, marriage has been disintegrating. I'm much more inclined to blame it on feminism, birth control, easy divorce laws, welfare, and the media, than to attribute a decline in heterosexual marriage rate to the availability of homosexual marriage.

Do you really think that Europeans who married a same-sex partner would have instead married an opposite sex partner, if the option were not available? I'd like to think that closeted homosexuals would NOT inflict themselves on an innocent straight person in an effort to 'treat' themselves. The story of Dina Matos McGreevey should NOT be relived by anybody else.