Yesterday, Hilary Rosen, who was last seen criticizing Ann Romney for supposedly never having worked “a day in her life,” has surfaced again – this time, to talk about how traditional marriage can be cured by allowing women to marry women and men to marry men. On This Week on ABC, she rolled out the usual same-sex marriage talking points:
Here’s one more sort of nonpolitical point, which is, you know, sorry, but straight people don’t need any help tearing down the institution of marriage. You’re doing just fine as it is. One in three divorces. You know, come on.
First off, this isn’t a nonpolitical point. It’s a very political point. Labeling marital failures the failures of “straight people” is nonsense – it’s like labeling the crime problem the fault of minorities. It’s xenophobic. Marital problems, like crimes, are the failures of individuals, not group members. Heterosexuality isn’t the problem with marriage. People who get involved with the wrong people, make bad decisions, and act badly toward one another are the problem.
Second, the implication here is that we need men to marry men and women to marry women to “fix” marriage. This, again, is idiocy. You don’t fix a car by dumping a garbage disposal mechanism into the engine. You fix it by using replacement parts. Institutions aren’t “fixed” by changing the definitions of the institutions. They’re fixed by people making better decisions. But Rosen continues:
The irony is that really, gay people are looking to do the most conservative thing. They want to fight in the armed forces, you know, to protect our country, and they want to join the institution of marriage, loving committed couples raising children. That, you know, I don’t know that that’s a conversation that the president ought to have on the campaign trail every day, but I do think it’s something we ought to recognize and acknowledge.
It’s worth noting here that Rosen herself is a lesbian who has switched partners, and with two adopted children at stake to boot. She broke up with Elizabeth Birch (pictured above), then hooked up with head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. The children spend time split between Birch and Rosen. If this is the way to “cure marriage,” then Rosen certainly doesn’t have the answers.
As to Rosen’s point that tons of men are dying to marry men and women are dying to marry women is also statistically false. The marriage rate between members of the same sex has lagged far behind that of members of the opposite sex in countries that have allowed it, like Sweden and the Netherlands. In the United States, there is always a quick jump out of the gate for same-sex partners looking to get married in states that allow it, but that rate falls off dramatically in following years.
The fact is that Rosen isn’t making an argument here. She’s making a pronouncement. It’s a pronouncement that’s specious – and once again, shows that the Obama administration’s friends and allies are more than willing to rip traditional institutions and the Americans who participate in them to please their allies.