NOM: Same-sex couples destroying marriage retroactively

It’s apparent that any wingnut group that could interpret data rationally and honestly would no longer be a wingnut group. Giving credence to this theory now is the virulently homophobic National Organization for Marriage, which recently posted this graph to their Facebook page:

It’s unsourced, so I can’t immediately confirm its credibility, but it appears to mesh with US Census data at a glance.

Now, a reasonable person might look at this data and understand that marital rates have been in a continuous and steady decline for at least 50 years (and presumably longer, given the rate of decline present at the start of the graph), presumably as a result of an increasingly liberal culture that rejects forcing partners to remain trapped in loveless or hostile unions and encourages people to wait until they’re more certain of who they are and what they want in life before deciding to settle down.

And then, there’s NOM’s interpretation:

Marriage rates down, out-of-wedlock birth rates up. Conservatives may have correctly predicted the consequences of same-sex marriage.

Amazing – gay and lesbian couples are so pervasive and noxious that they’re actually destroying society retroactively, starting decades before they were even allowed to marry anywhere in the world! Maybe these arch-conservative groups are onto something after all.

(Or just on something. Something with strong reality-altering properties.)

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)