Eric on marriage equality
Following the SCOTUS marriage equality decision, there has been a lot of interest in the state of marriage equality in Australia. Many Liberal (read: not liberal at all) MPs have come out in favour of marriage equality or at least, a robust debate about marriage equality. But some amongst the National/Liberal coalition remain unconvinced. Some have expressed their objections in relatively respectful terms, avoiding inflammatory and false claims...and then there is Eric Abetz.
In case you have been living under a rock, or what is more likely, successfully managing to screen out the meaningless drivel of your elected leaders, Eric Abetz has done us all proud with the following objection to marriage equality:
"...legalising gay marriage would lead to polyamory"
Eric...the voice of reason
In the interests of calm, rational debate I decided that instead of dismissing this comment as the out of touch rantings of a conservative losing his grip on reality and progressively alienating the Australian public, I thought I would scientifically evaluate this claim. I mean, it should be pretty easy right? There are countries with legalised polygamy and countries with legalised same sex marriage. It shouldn't be too hard to establish if there is a correlation. And even though such a relationship wouldn't establish causality, it would certainly provide some rudimentary evidence to support the scientifically minded Eric Abetz fans out there...
So lets have a little dig shall we?
The evidence
According to my research, there are twenty countries that allow same-sex marriage nationally; Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, Denmark, France, Brazil, Uruguay, New Zealand, Britain, Luxembourg, Finland and Ireland (source:http://www.freedomtomarry.org/landscape/entry/c/international). Adding the USA to that list makes 21 countries and Mexico allows same-sex marriage regionally. So we could extend that to 22 countries, to really ramp up the statistical power. I want Abetz to feel confidant that this analysis has sufficient power to detect an effect. I'm sweet like that.
Now lets look at the list of countries that allow polyamory...or more accurately polygamy, since polyamory would just be multiple loves and I suspect that multiple legal spouses is the terrible consequence of the Gaypocalypse that Eric actually fears.
Rainbows and comets falling from the skies...the Gaypocalypse has come
Anyhoo, here is the list of countries which legally administer polygamy: Iraq, Malawi, Libya, Namibia, and Uganda. Now, you may notice that there is a startling lack of correspondence between the first list and the second. But given that you (and Eric) may prefer your data in visual forms, I have attached a Venn diagram which summarises the situation.
"But" I hear you object, "this data is not germane to the question. What we are really interested in is whether same-sex marriage leads to polygamy."
Okay, so lets consider the question temporally. Does the introduction of same-sex marriage lead to the later introduction of polygamy? To answer this, we need to consider the countries that have been administering same-sex marriage for the longest. The Netherlands introduced same-sex marriage on April 1, 2001. That has given them fourteen long years for the insidious threat of polygamy to slither its way into the mainstream. If any country was going to have fallen prey to Eric's nightmare scenario, surely it should be the Netherlands? I mean, they even have the word "nether" in their name, and we all know you can refer to hell as the Netherworld...coincidence? I think not. But a cursory examination of their laws reveals that in fact polygamous marriages are illegal in the Netherlands. Of course, samenlevingscontracts are an arrangement that can involve more than two people, but these are not considered to be equivalent to marriage, being merely a mechanism for governing property relationships between people who cohabit. In terms of evidence to justify fears of a causal relationship, I'd say this is pretty poor. One Abetz out of five.
Belgium is the next country to have introduced same-sex marriage on June 1, 2003. Again, that seems like more than enough time for the emergence of polygamy if indeed there was a causal link. But again, Belgium does not administer polygamous marriages. It also has a framework for administering property rights between cohabiting individuals wettelijk samenwonen / cohabitation légale but as in the Netherlands, this does not imply a sexual relationship at all. Once again, not looking great for Captain Traditional Marriage.
I could continue, but I think you get the point. In fact, not a single country which has introduced same-sex marriage has gone on to introduce polygamous marriage. In fact, contrary to the arguments of Eric Abetz, there is a strong overlap between countries that criminalise homosexuality and countries that allow polygamous marriage. If I was being facetious, I could suggest that tolerance towards homosexuality could be seen as protective against polygamy, but I won't.
There are in fact only two countries which currently permit same-sex marriage and recognise polygamous marriage; South Africa and the UK. For both these countries however recognition of polygamous unions preceded same-sex marriage. So the direction of causality, on the basis of this small sample size, would seem to be running in the other direction. However, there are far more countries which do not permit homosexuality and do permit polygamy.
Taken together, I have to say that the evidence seems to go very strongly against Eric Abetz here. Countries which permit polygamy tend to criminalise or outlaw homosexuality and countries that permit same-sex marriage do not permit polygamous marriage. Being the sensible man that he is, I am sure that on perusing this evidence Eric Abetz will immediately realise that there is no justifiable reason to connect same-sex marriage to polygamy, and if anything, a strong reason to believe there is a negative association between the two. I am sure we will be seeing his Facebook profile pic going rainbow very soon. I'll be waiting with baited breath.
Rainbow Eric: Protector of Monogamy
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