2004-04-23 04:00:00 PDT Washington -- A Hoover Institution scholar told a House committee Thursday that same-sex marriages destroy heterosexual marriages, citing a coincidence of out- of-wedlock births in Scandinavia and the Netherlands after acceptance of homosexual unions.

But some lawmakers criticized his contention, suggesting the scholar was attributing cause-and-effect to separate, coincidental trends.

Stanley Kurtz, who holds a doctorate in social anthropology from Harvard University and is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution think tank, said the Dutch example is particularly striking because Holland had an ample stock of "cultural capital," or conservative social tradition, before it legalized same-sex marriage in 2000.

The increasingly widespread European practice -- which Kurtz said took root in Scandinavia -- of heterosexual cohabitation and out-of-wedlock childbearing was still fairly rare in Holland, Kurtz said, until the debate over same-sex marriage began in 1996.

"The movement for same-sex marriage picked up steam after the election of a socially liberal government in 1994, a government that for the first time included no representatives of the socially conservative Christian Democratic Party," Kurtz said.

The result, Kurtz asserted, is that the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate doubled.

Kurtz testified before the Constitution panel of the House Judiciary Committee, holding its second hearing on a federal constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage. The issue burst into the national spotlight with a series of events, including the Massachusetts top court decision to sanction such marriages and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's action to issue same-sex marriage licenses until a court blocked the move.

President Bush backs a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, but the proposal has stalled in Congress as supporters wrestle with the language and lawmakers consider the political implications of an amendment.

A chief argument of gay rights activists in the marriage debate is that allowing lesbian and gay couples to marry will not harm traditional marriage. Opponents of same-sex marriage contend that opening up marriage to homosexuals will make marriage meaningless.

Kurtz has become the leading proponent of a social science approach to this argument with his studies of marriage in Scandinavia and now Holland, publishing his pieces in conservative opinion journals such as the National Review and Weekly Standard.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., accused Kurtz of adopting the elementary statistical fallacy of confusing correlation with cause and effect.

"You show no causality whatsoever," Nadler said, adding that he may attempt to amend the Federal Marriage Amendment, assuming it comes to the floor, with prohibitions on divorce, birth control, adultery, female employment and other social trends believed to undermine traditional marriage.

Kurtz replied that he can't prove causation but is making a systematic argument, and there is no better explanation for the sudden doubling in the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the Netherlands. To disprove him, he said, same- sex marriage advocates would have to come up with a better explanation.


When Kurtz said yes, Scott laughed.

Kurtz agreed with Nadler that banning such things as divorce and female employment would strengthen traditional marriages, and he said there is a tradeoff between changing social mores and strengthening traditional marriage.