David Valdes Greenwood - a gay man married in MA - tries to cherry-pick stats about national divorce rates to promote his claim that SSM in Massachusetts is the cause for why heterosexual couples are divorcing there less than couples in other states with marriage amendments.

Greenwood's argument is re-treading territory already explored (in more detail) by NOM Chairman Maggie Gallagher. Here's the relevant part:

The tiny number of liberal northeastern states that have embraced gay marriage tend to have high per capita incomes, because they are much older, supporting fewer children, and much whiter, and better educated than average. They are older in part because with so little job growth, young adults with families move elsewhere, most likely to a southern state with a marriage amendment that enjoys more robust economic growth.

One of the things we are learning about marriage is that is increasingly becoming a "luxury" of the middle and upper-middle class -- and that's never a good thing. Underprivileged persons, after all, suffer the most when a marriage culture decays - the increasing numbers of children growing up without their father because their parents never married bear this out.

As for Greenwood's point that the marriage debate is forcing people to reexamine the importance of marriage in society, we absolutely agree. But why should the aging north and the minority of states that have legalized SSM have more of a say about what makes for a vibrant marriage culture that the vast majority of states from coast to coast that have recently reaffirmed traditional marriage as the true way forward?

Finally, the majority of divorces happen in the first 8 years of marriage--meaning they happen to younger people. You want to lower your divorce rate? Make your state unlivable for young families.