SHORTER STANLEY KURTZ: Someone spoke disparagingly about marital benefits in the New York Times, heretofore a bastion of traditional values, and this proves that homos are causing the End of Marriage and turning the United States into Scandinavia.

(The marriage mystics' whole line of argument baffles me. When it comes to Iraq, immigration, education policy, etc., I can at least understand the other side's logic, but Kurtz et alia seem to be engaged in magical thinking. The Times article is standard-issue water-roiling on an issue it has zero chance of influencing. If marriage rates are dropping in Scandinavia, so what -- haven't conservatives been arguing for some time that Europe is dying or dead already? Is gay marriage really what destroys civilizations? Somebody tell Gibbon. Really, what am I missing here?)