Marriage Defender Says Homosexual Push Could Destroy Traditional Marriage

by Mary Rettig and Jenni Parker
April 13, 2004

(AgapePress) - William Murray, the chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, warns of the dangers of legalizing same-sex marriage in the United States. He says Scandinavia has had nearly a decade of legal homosexual marriage, and it has nearly destroyed the institution of marriage altogether.

Scandinavia is considered by many to be the leading edge of Western culture. But Murray considers this region a cautionary tale, and one to which Americans need to pay heed before it is too late. He feels that something is definitely rotten in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway as well -- the decaying institution of marriage.

In Scandinavia, illegitimate birth rates exceed 50 percent. The majority of Swedish and Norwegian children are born out of wedlock, and 60 percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Meanwhile, marriage rates subtly decline while, in some countries, divorce rates have skyrocketed to nearly 80 percent.

Homosexual Marriage's Effect
In a recent FreeRepublic.com article, columnist Stanley Kurtz pointed out that Denmark legalized de facto homosexual marriage in 1989, with Norway following in 1993 and Sweden in 1994. Since then, he writes, same-sex marriage in Scandinavia has locked in and reinforced an existing trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood.

This trend toward what Kurtz calls the "Nordic family pattern" easily includes homosexual marriage, and it is a lifestyle and a view of the modern family that is already spreading across Europe.

But William Murray believes the Scandinavians got more than they bargained for when they legalized same-sex marriage. He says they did not understand the damaging effect that the government's legitimization of homosexual unions would have on the traditional institution of marriage.

"The institution of marriage has just been destroyed," the pro-family spokesman says. He contends that the existence of homosexual marriage has helped to make marriage "nothing special" in the eyes of postmodern Scandinavian society. And since that European region has long been considered by cultural analysts as a bellwether of family and social change, Murray believes America would do well to look at what homosexual marriage has done to Scandinavia and beware.

For instance, in the 1990s Denmark saw a 25 percent rise in the number of unmarried couples living together and having children. Statistics also indicate that more Danish parents have stopped delaying divorce until their children are grown. And since so many Scandinavians now raise their children outside of marriage, divorce rates alone no longer reliably measure family weakness; researchers must look at "family dissolution" statistics, which, sadly, are less frequently available.

Still, as Kurtz noted, such studies have been done. He says they showed that "throughout Scandinavia (and the West) cohabiting couples with children break up at two to three times the rate of married parents. So rising rates of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth stand as proxy for rising rates of family dissolution."

Civil Unions, Just As Dangerous
Although some U.S. politicians are calling for a constitutional amendment banning homosexual marriage as a solution, Murray feels that they and other pro-family Americans need to be aware of an equal danger. He warns that, even if the United States passes the FMA but then gives the okay to civil unions, the same damaging effects to traditional marriage are likely to occur as would result from full-blown homosexual marriage.

In fact, the traditional marriage advocate believes some damage will be inevitable. "Regardless whether the Federal Marriage Amendment is passed or not, we are going to have legalized civil unions in a lot of states with the same kind of devastating effects that we see in Scandinavia," he says. "

Murray feels compromise and concessions are not the answer. He asserts that pro-family preachers need to speak the truth boldly from their pulpits, rather than fall into political correctness for the sake of the church treasury.

The Religious Freedom Coalition's chairman says the family is the cornerstone of America's society. But Murray says pro-family citizens must remain vigilant and alert to the danger of civil unions because they can be just as destructive to a society as homosexual marriage itself.