Then again, why subject any American states to a little disintegrate the traditional family experiment when England has done it for us.
"Meanwhile, married couples with children no longer get preferential tax treatment, as Tony Blair's government has declared that no one form of "family" should have a tax advantage over another. Anything anyone chooses, however temporarily, to regard as a "family" is as good as any other."
Is one of the main arguments for preserving the traditional definition of marriage a slippery slope argument? Sure, but when you have a view of what lies farther down the slope (as well as evidence that the slope is slippery), the slippery slope case gains credibility.
2 comments:
This is not a warning of what is to come here in the US, this is the way things already are. The rate of teen pregnancy in the US is nearly twice that of Great Brittan and Canada [link].
I can obviously only speculate as to the many social causes, but the fact that countries which are more accepting of gay marriage have such a lower rate would seem to negate your assertion.
Teens are going to have sex, and the it seems to me that the best thing to do is properly educate them on the use of contraceptives, as your article suggests. This is, of course, contrary to what most conservatives would wish to allow.
If you look at these numbers, and only count teens 17 and under (counting 18 and 19 year olds would "taint" the numbers (for our purposes) with a far greater percentage of desired pregnancies), you get more like 40 per 1000 for the U.S. Neither set of statistics makes any mention of whether the pregnancies were planned so they are most likely reporting all pregnancies.
The numbers you linked to are from 1995-96, so they are probably from before the British did away with traditional marriage. At any rate, I don't think that the article I linked to is the final word in the matter. Rather, it's evidence to be considered. The author of the article definitely thought that Blair's policy re: marriage is to blaim. Neither the author nor myself know all the answers of course.
Yes, some teens are going to have sex. That number can be reduced if we (American society) at least try to discourage it. Until G.W., that discouragment wasn't part of public education. Education on contraceptives should also be a part of the plan.
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