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Mass. ‘gay marriage’ numbers plummet


BOSTON (BP)–Following an early rush to city hall, the number of “gay marriages” in Massachusetts has plunged dramatically, and continues to decline, since such unions were legalized three years ago.

In the last seven and a half months of 2004 — “gay marriage” became legal in mid-May that year — 6,121 homosexual couples received marriage licenses from the state. But in 2005, that number dropped to 2,060, and in 2006, to 1,427.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health statistics, cited first by Newhouse News Service, show that of the 9,608 total “marriages” performed from 2004-2006, 64 percent were performed in the first year alone — despite the fact it was legal for just half of that year.

If the downward trend continues, the number of “gay marriages” will fall well below 1,000 by the end of this year. Newhouse News said that through April 26, only 87 same-sex couples had “married.”

The statistics, pro-family experts say, should impact the nationwide debate over the issue.

“This data that we’re seeing completely supports this idea that it’s not so much marriage itself that [homosexuals] want, but it’s the change to marriage,” Glenn Stanton, a sociologist and a research fellow with Focus on the Family, told Baptist Press. “It’s the deconstruction of family that is so important to them. They are not availing themselves of this so-called right or benefit that they legally now have in Massachusetts.”

Homosexual activists, Stanton said, are interested more in the “symbolism” behind “gay marriage” legalization.

“They understand that when you redefine marriage to say that it’s not about male and female, that you have done something culturally radical and significant — at least from their perspective,” he said. “You’ve normalized homosexuality, but you’ve [also] deconstructed humanity to say that … male and female really are, as they’ve said all along, mere social constructs. But they’re not [mere social constructs], and we’re going to find out they’re not to our own peril. So, it is so much more than the normalization of homosexuality.”

States that have same-sex unions — which grant the benefits of marriage, minus the name — have seen similar trends. According to data cited in USA Today and The Star-Ledger:

— In Vermont, 2,091 couples got civil union licenses in 2000, the first year it was legal. Last year, only 548 couples did.

— In Connecticut, only 18 percent of homosexual couples in the state got a civil union license in the first 15 months they were legal there. (Census data from 2000 was used to ascertain the number of couples within the state.)

— In New Jersey, 852 couples obtained a civil unions license in the first three months after they became legal this year.

Interestingly, the USA Today story about civil unions cited Carisa Cunningham of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders as saying civil unions were no longer popular because same-sex couples now were “waiting for marriage” legalization. But the USA Today story ran one month prior to the new data out of the Bay State about “gay marriages.”

The latest data out of Massachusetts also showed that 64 percent of the “marriages” there involved lesbians. Likewise, 60 percent of the civil unions in New Jersey have involved women.

“That’s a huge thing, and what it points to is that men and women are different,” Stanton said. “We don’t find as many gay men entering these relationships because gay men are not real big on long-term commitment. It does happen, very rarely, but most of the time they’re not interested in settling down. They’re interested in exploring their opportunities and possibilities. It’s women who are more interested in settling down and committing to one another.

“But in lesbian relationships, you have much higher relational vulnerability and volatility, and you also have more domestic violence, because what you have is two women expecting too much relational energy out of a relationship than it can provide.”

A three-year study by University of Chicago researchers released in 2004 showed that 42.9 percent of homosexual men in Chicago’s Shoreland area had more than 60 sexual partners, while an additional 18.4 percent had between 31 and 60 partners. All total, 61.3 percent of the area’s homosexual men had more than 30 partners, and 87.8 percent had more than 15, the research found. Such promiscuity has consequences — 55.1 percent of homosexual males in Shoreland had at least one sexually transmitted disease.

In the U.S., homosexual men are barred from donating blood because of their high risk of infection of HIV. The Food and Drug Administration reaffirmed the policy May 23, the Associated Press reported. It was first put in place in 1983.

The male-female relationship, within the bond of marriage, provides benefits that homosexual relationships cannot, Stanton said.

“Women help men settle down and become more domesticated. And men provide for women the kind of relationship that they need and the kind of companionship that they need that other women cannot provide,” he said. “… We understand biologically it clearly takes a significant contribution from a male and a female to bring new life into the world, but it also takes that sustained contribution over a lifetime to bring that new human life to full human development. And we know that male and female both contribute to that, or children [otherwise] will suffer.”
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    About the Author

  • Michael Foust