Over at marriagedebate.com, Jonathan Rauch replies to “Standing Out” my recent piece on Dutch marriage. Based on his “eyeballing of a chart” on rising Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrates, Rauch dismisses what he calls a “mild acceleration” in the Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrate. Actually, what Rauch calls a “mild acceleration” is the fastest continuous rise in out-of-wedlock birthrates in Western Europe in the past decade. It is neither usual nor expected, and it requires explanation.

European out-of-wedlock birthrates rarely, if ever, rise more than two percentage points a year. In a given year, the choices are a drop of a point, a drop of two points, staying even, rising one point, or rising two points. It is very rare for any West European country’s out-of-wedlock birthrate to rise at a rate of two percentage points a year for eight consecutive years. A few East European countries have approached this rate in the last decade, but they have been suffering from immense disruptions following the collapse of communism. This is the context that matters in interpreting that chart. “Eyeballing” alone will not do. Based on Rauch’s “eyeballing” criterion, further deterioration of out-of-wedlock birth rates caused by any new factor would look “continuous.”

In practice, this means that Ruach will not accept any empirical evidence about the disruptive effects of gay marriage. We already know that marriage has been in decline throughout the Western world since the 1960’s. The question is whether gay marriage contributes to further decline. If you won’t accept a continuous eight year doubling of the rate of marital decline (a rate higher than any in Western Europe during the same period) as a significant problem, you are really saying that you are unwilling to consider anything a problem. You are simply using preexisting decline to dismiss any evidence of later worsening. But again, the whole question at issue is whether gay marriage will make a bad situation worse. So while Rauch has claimed to be open to empirical evidence on precisely this question, in practice he is not.

Actually, contrary to Rauch, the rise is Dutch out-of-wedlock birthrates in The Netherlands is keyed to the passage of Registered Partnerships in 1997. For a chart, see my “Going Dutch?” Rauch says I have a “monocausal” theory. Not at all. I’ve acknowledge repeatedly that gay marriage is only one of many contributors to marital decline. But particularly in the Dutch case, we can isolate that factor from others, as I show in “No Explanation.” So Rauch’s quick, superficial dismissal won’t do.