Canada’s low fertility rate dooms us, thanks to the homogay agenda

Via Right Wing Watch, the religious and anti-gay Family Research Institute’s March memo makes some rather astounding claims.

Astoundingly stupid.

Apparently, because of the gay rights movement, women are having less kids. Somehow, gays being able to marry one another discourages women from reproducing. Somehow. All because children aren’t being taught to hate gays like the religious nutters really, really want.

Like frogs in a kettle being slowly boiled to death, FRI frequently hears people — including those concerned about our cultural decline — suggest that the progress of gay rights is not worth a great deal of worry. After all, ‘the sky is not falling. The sun will always come up tomorrow.’ But no matter how ‘big’ or ‘small’ the crisis seems at the moment, the goal of proper social policy is to assure a future for society. As the birth rates of Western countries continue to fall, those who have supported gay rights seem oblivious to the contribution such ‘rights’ make to the decline. Even those who have ‘tolerated’ (or not vigorously opposed) gay rights do not seem to understand the implications. But now the sky is starting to fall. From Xtra, a gay magazine in Vancouver, comes this:

“the gay rights movement is shifting norms in Canada. And with that comes a message to those who won’t evolve: your outdated morals are no longer acceptable, and we will teach your kids the new norm.” (10/20/11)

Canada produces 1.6 children/woman. Its future is thus doomed. Onward gay rights!


I’m really trying to wrap my head around this claim, but the memo offers little in the way of clues. The anti-gay message seems tacked on unnecessarily, to be quite honest. RWW helpfully points out that fertility rates are nearly identical in Iran, despite its actually executing gays rather than letting them marry. So I guess the solution, then, is to neither allow gays to marry, nor execute them, but to simply deny them rights and treat them like shit.

Except, wait, there really isn’t a correlation between gays getting the right to marry and fertility rates dropping. If anything, fertility rates basically have been in decline worldwide since the Baby Boom, except in those countries that still, to this day, have absurd levels of religiously motivated violence and civil unrest. Here, look at this chart for more info. I’d encourage you to check some other countries as well. Report your findings in the comments.

Population growth leveling out is actually a pretty damned good thing for sustainability of our species. Sure, it’ll wreak havoc on growth-based economy, which means rich people will be less rich and poor people will have to fight harder for their share of the pie when those rich people refuse to give up what they have already stolen from the rest of us. But when you look at the grand scheme of things, with almost seven billion of us on the planet today, and with how ably we’ve been overwhelming our planet’s resources and ecosystem, reducing population growth is a pretty good idea.

I’m of the opinion that if we somehow levelled out world population at, say, a billion, and never progressed past that point due to proper husbandry of our reproductive rates, we might not be in quite as dire a situation as we face today.

Of course, to those same religious nutters who think a low reproductive rate is somehow a bad thing, this might be a way to hasten the apocalypse they so direly want to see come to pass. You know, the sort who say “the Earth has existed for six thousand years, and nothing humans can do will destroy God’s creation, which he gave us to use however we want”.

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Canada’s low fertility rate dooms us, thanks to the homogay agenda
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23 thoughts on “Canada’s low fertility rate dooms us, thanks to the homogay agenda

  1. 1

    Canada produces 1.6 children/woman. Its future is thus doomed.

    Nonsense. Why do you think god gave you immigrants, except to renew your numbers and improve your cultural and economic climate? It’s worked-repeatedly-for New York.

  2. 2

    Walton, I absolutely agree. Have been meaning to write on that as well. Honestly, sometimes I get discouraged by the number of terrible things that this government is implementing in such a shotgun fashion while they have their “majority” and can speak on behalf of all Canadians with their steamroller mandate of ~22%.

  3. 3

    This argument angers me to no end. A few years ago, I read an article that stated that places with incredible high population density was seeing a decrease in the sperm counts of citizens. (I really wish I could remember where I read this. It was about 3 years ago though, sorry). This leads me to believe that part of our evolutionary make-up encourages us not just to create more people, but to preserve our species. If all of us reproduce with no thought to the resources on this planet, we are not helping our own species thrive. We would be doing just the opposite. If we were to all pop kids out like the vile Duggard family, within just a few generations, our offspring would be in a constant state of uncertainty and likely warfare.
    I’m doing my duty to our species by not having children at all. Not because the anyone doscouraged it.

  4. 4

    … reducing population growth is a pretty good idea.

    Consider the semi-official Catholic line, as promulgated by the “Population Research Institute“:

    Overpopulation is a myth. This myth has caused human rights abuses around the world, forced population control, denied medicines to the poor, and targeted attacks on ethnic minorities and women.

    You know it must be Real Science™ – they’ve got videos ‘n’ t-shirt contests and everything!

  5. 5

    the appalling conditions in ICE detention centers.

    Have you ever been inside one of these? I think I can say without exaggeration that they are worse than prisons. For example, many have no outside space so people are kept in windowless cells for years. They have few, if any facilities for education or entertainment. You’re also not allowed to take any electronics in because you might have a camera with you and document the conditions and that wouldn’t do. They’re frankly terrifying.

  6. 6

    There’s several holes in FRI’s argument:

    1. Whether or not same-sex marriage is allowed, the number of GLBT people won’t change. So same-sex marriage will have no effect on birth rates.

    b. Similar to No. 1 above, acceptance of GLBTs will have no effect on birth rates.

    iii. As Walton points out, immigration would keep the Canadian population numbers stable.

    But FRI isn’t making a logical argument for homophobia, they’re making an emotional argument. They really don’t care that it’s easy to show how silly their birth-rate argument actually is.

  7. 7

    Erm, not to imply that Walton doesn’t understand the implications of the detention centers already. Just agreeing emphatically with his post and not thinking through the possible implications of how I put things. Sorry, Walton.

  8. 8

    I particularly hate this argument, because the people who are fearmongering about low birth rates and the “ticking time bomb” are inevitably the same people who strongly oppose, and fulminate against, immigration from the developing world – on the ostensible ground that their countries “don’t have room” for immigrants. The racism is painfully obvious; the xenophobes fearmongering about declining birth rates don’t want more young people, they want more white Christian young people. It isn’t surprising that in this particular case, the demographic fearmongering is combined with homophobia: after all, racism and homophobia frequently go hand in hand.

    By the way, Canadians, please contact your MP and speak out against Bill C-31, the Refugee Exclusion Act. Please don’t follow the US, UK and Australia in dehumanizing and abusing refugees and locking them up in privatized detention centres.

  9. 9

    The irony of the US’s (and, I suppose, Canada’s proposed) immigration policy is that immigrants are exactly what the US and Canada need to survive. Immigrants and especially their children tend to pay more taxes than they use services, are likely to start businesses, seek better education, etc. Sure, sometimes a sleazebag will sneak in-no group’s perfect–but generally lazy people who want to sponge off the government don’t have the energy to immigrate and criminals like to stay in places where they’re less visible, i.e. their home countries. New York City thrives (and supports the rest of New York state) because of immigrants. Alabama passes strict anti-immigration laws and looks to be about to lose major industry because of it. Anti-immigration policies aren’t just inhumane, they’re also stupid.

  10. 10

    I haven’t yet visited a detention center personally, but I will soon; here in the Boston area, ICE has an agreement with the county sheriff and holds immigration detainees at the Suffolk County House of Correction. I’m going to a vigil and protest there on May 6.

    Sorry if this sounds paranoid and/or is unwanted advice, but…Particularly since you’re not a US citizen, make sure that you have your documentation (i.e. passport and visas) with you and that copies of your documents are somewhere safe and known to a friend. Make sure someone knows where you’re going and when you’re supposed to be back. I don’t think they’re up for random detention to intimidate protestors, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it occurs either, so be prepared for the possibility. I don’t want to discourage you from going and the risk is probably extremely low, but…well, I’m sure you’re at least as aware as I am of the issues around immigration in the US right now and why it might be prudent to be prepared for the worst.

    (This may be projection: I’m terrified that they won’t open the door again every time I go in one of those places to do a physical, despite being American and even passably white appearing. They’re built to intimidate.)

  11. 11

    RWW helpfully points out that fertility rates are nearly identical in Iran, despite its actually executing gays rather than letting them marry.

    I was about to express skepticism about this, given the often-cited statistic that something like 60% of the population is under 30, but then I clicked on your link, and damn…Iran went from a fertility rate of 6.5 to 1.9 between 1983 and 2003, quite an astonishing decline. I guess being under the ayatollahs really puts a damper on sex?

  12. 12

    Walton, I absolutely agree. Have been meaning to write on that as well.

    Thank you. I appreciate it. Not being in Canada myself, I don’t have the opportunity to campaign directly on this; I’ve been trying to draw people’s attention to it as best I can. It seems to have received far too little coverage in the Canadian news media, which in my experience is par for the course.

    (I’m a Brit who lives in the US, and have been writing about anti-immigrant laws and policies in both countries – most recently, Massachusetts SB 2061, and the appalling conditions in ICE detention centers. It’s often hard to get people to notice these things, since immigrants are a politically unpopular group, and the news media rarely draws attention to the way they’re treated.)

    Honestly, sometimes I get discouraged by the number of terrible things that this government is implementing in such a shotgun fashion while they have their “majority” and can speak on behalf of all Canadians with their steamroller mandate of ~22%.

    Indeed. It seems pretty dismal. One thing Britain and Canada have in common is the artificiality of the electoral system. And I keep hearing about the Harper government’s drive to replicate the worst authoritarian policies from the rest of the English-speaking world.

  13. 13

    And I keep hearing about the Harper government’s drive to replicate the worst authoritarian policies from the rest of the English-speaking world.

    (Sorry, terrible wording there. But as far as I can tell, they seem intent on building an American-style prison-industrial complex, and instituting Australian-style mandatory detention of refugees. It’s incredibly depressing to see, especially in a country that’s long been regarded as very progressive by global standards.)

  14. 14

    One can only assume that God is lowering the Canadian population to make it easier for Him to lovingly and mercifully smite every man, woman, and child there for their sin of allowing gay marriage.

  15. 15

    Dianne: I agree with you. As it happens, I recently saw the documentary “Lost in Detention”, and I’ve written a series of posts on my blog about the impact of ICE detention, particularly in light of the “Secure Communities” program which involves state and local cops in immigration enforcement, leading to undocumented people getting stopped for minor traffic violations and the like (or for driving-while-wrong-skin-colour) and then handed over to ICE, forcibly separated from their families, and put into detention awaiting deportation. People are often transported hundreds or thousands of miles from their homes and housed in jails or detention centers for months or years while waiting for an Immigration Court hearing. And since proceedings in Immigration Court are technically civil rather than criminal, there is no automatic right to a lawyer; in 2007, 84 percent of immigration detainees in removal proceedings were unrepresented by counsel, and had to make their case against deportation in Immigration Court on their own.

    And sadly, there’s SB 2061, an Arizona-style anti-immigrant bill currently pending before the state legislature here in Massachusetts. I’ve been involved in rallies and campaigns against it, but it’s still on the table in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I don’t know what will happen.

    I haven’t yet visited a detention center personally, but I will soon; here in the Boston area, ICE has an agreement with the county sheriff and holds immigration detainees at the Suffolk County House of Correction. I’m going to a vigil and protest there on May 6.

    (Anyway, sorry to Jason for hijacking the thread.)

  16. 16

    But FRI isn’t making a logical argument for homophobia, they’re making an emotional argument. They really don’t care that it’s easy to show how silly their birth-rate argument actually is.

    Indeed. So many authoritarian conservatism arguments boil down to invoking fear. Authoritarian conservatism is completely grounded on paranoid fear; it’s based on fear that the Radical Homosexual Lobby will destroy your marriage and turn your kids gay, fear that hordes of foreigners will come to your town and take your house and your job and speak languages you can’t understand, fear of pot-smokers, fear of sexual liberation, fear of young people being “out of control”, fear of being confronted with uncomfortable facts, fear of change.

  17. 17

    In a hundred years when the mass of humanity is not standing shoulder to shoulder, I expect a big thank you to go out to all the homos and child-hating feminazis for helping make that happen. I won’t hold my breath for it though.

  18. 18

    1. Fewer children, not less.

    2. A billion people is still too many. One million to, possibly, 100 million is a far more reasonable number, packed into a few geologically stable areas away from volcanoes and the ocean, with the rest of the planet left to its own devices without human development.

  19. 19

    A billion people is still too many. One million to, possibly, 100 million is a far more reasonable number, packed into a few geologically stable areas away from volcanoes and the ocean, with the rest of the planet left to its own devices without human development.

    Not that I disagree about easing down on the reproduction, but where do you get these numbers? I’m not convinced it’s the raw numbers of humans so much as the way we live. To use a US-centric example, the damage to the environment from the population of Manhattan is probably less than that from the population of Dallas or Atlanta, despite these cities being smaller, because living closer together allows economies of scale and reduces the need for greenhouse gas producing forms of travel. I’m not convinced that 7 billion people couldn’t live in reasonable harmony with the rest of nature if we did it right.

  20. 20

    I’ve always felt that as birth rates in a nation decline, immigration likely picks up, and as immigrants move ahead the birthrates for their demographics decrease as well. Perhaps a fear of declining birthrates is just a fear of demographic change.

  21. 22

    That memo makes it sound like what they are really worried about isn’t demographic decline, but rather that they are slowly losing the struggle for public opinion over the issue of whether homosexuals should be treated just like the rest of the population. Fortunately, they are slowly losing that struggle.

  22. 23

    So if gays and lesbians are at fault for a declining birthrate, what should I tell my friend Deb who had three children and yet prefers women to men?

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