Forget Prop 8... Marriage is Already on the Rocks

Regardless of whether or not same-sex marriage is accepted, many Americans have already rejected the norms of traditional marriage.

Same-sex marriage opponents argue that it threatens traditional marriage.  In my latest CNN column, however, I argue that regardless of whether or not same-sex marriage is accepted, many Americans have already rejected the norms of traditional marriage.

Last week, a federal judge declared same-sex marriage a constitutional right. Meanwhile, Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston again broke up their on-again, off-again romance.

Which event ultimately matters more to the future of the United States? I would argue: the Palin-Johnston bust-up. No, I am not kidding.

Think for a minute: Why do people oppose same-sex marriage in the first place?

They do so because they fear that otherwise America's young people will end up like ... Bristol and Levi: having sex and raising children without regard to marriage.

Here for example is the National Organization for Marriage, a leading opponent of same-sex marriage. The group warns that if same-sex marriage comes to pass, "The law will teach your children and grandchildren that there is nothing special about mothers and fathers raising children together, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a bigot."

If the law fails to uphold traditional marriage, the organization continues, children are more likely to be born outside marriage. And, it argues, "marriage matters because when fathers are committed to their children (and their children's mother!), children are most likely to thrive and women are spared the unfair burdens of parenting alone."

Those are important and valid warnings. A huge and growing body of social science research confirms: Children born outside marriage are less likely than the children of married parents to finish school, more likely to experience poverty, more likely to go to prison. These dangers accrue even if the mother is a post-teenager, even if she subsequently marries or remarries, even if the mother's own parents earn above-average income. ...

Better educated Americans have discovered and absorbed these facts and altered their choices accordingly. College-educated women who married in the 1990s are much less likely to get divorced than were college-educated women who married in the 1970s. As ever, only a comparative handful of college-educated women give birth unwed: under 5 percent.

But more vulnerable Americans have not heard the message.

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