Columnist Says Gay Marriage Is Linked To Out-Of-Wedlock Births

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


You have to stretch your neck and spin your head around to even try to grasp Brendan Miniter‘s reasoning in his Wall Street Journal column of yesterday. Miniter writes that there is a connection between gay marriage and the rise in out-of-wedlock births in the U.S.

What? Okay, Miniter has an explanation for this assertion, right? Wrong. He claims that “Although advocates of same-sex marriage will deny there is any connection…” between gay marriage and increased out-of-wedlock births, he does not utter a word about why there would be such a connection.

Miniter says that, according to reports from the National Center for Health Statistics, teen pregnancy is down, but more unmarried women in their 20s and 30s are having children. The only possible related explanation, of course, is that those women are lesbians and that they are in gay marriages. However, very, very few gay Americans are married, since gay marriage is rarely permitted. And lesbians and gay men who want children have children, regardless of whether they are fortunate enough to be married (if that is what they choose).

So add to marriage to family members and children and marriage to dogs and cats, an increase in out-of-wedlock births if gay marriage is permitted. And I’ll add some: divorce, spousal abuse, child abuse, and infidelity. Oh, wait…we already have those.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate