The Nordic track

COVER STORY: State approval of homosexual marriage in Scandinavia contributed to the virtual disappearance of real marriage | Gene Edward Veith

No matter what happens in the homosexual-marriage/civil-union controversies, marriage as an institution isn't going away, is it?

Yes, it is. Marriage has already all but disappeared in Scandinavia. Other Europeans are heading down that Nordic track. And, if gay marriage is legalized, so will we.

That is the conclusion of Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, whose article "The End of Marriage in Scandinavia" was published in The Weekly Standard.

Sweden was the first country in Europe to legalize homosexual unions in 1989, and Denmark and Norway followed soon thereafter. Today, a majority of children in those countries are born out of wedlock. Although some older couples are getting married after having more than one child, younger couples are dispensing with marriage altogether. Southern Seminary president Al Mohler reports that in Sweden, the few young couples who do get married often do not like to admit it, since what they have done is so far out of the norm that they feel embarrassed.