title: Comment on "The effect of same-sex marriage laws on different-sex marriage: evidence from the Netherlands".
abstract: In the recent Demography article titled "The Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Laws on Different-Sex Marriage: Evidence From the Netherlands," Trandafir attempted to answer the question, Are rates of opposite sex marriage affected by legal recognition of same-sex marriages? The results of his approach to statistical inference-looking for evidence of a difference in rates of opposite-sex marriage-provide an absence of evidence of such effects. However, the validity of his conclusion of no causal relationship between same-sex marriage laws and rates of opposite-sex marriage is threatened by the fact that Trandafir did not also look for equivalence in rates of opposite-sex marriage in order to provide evidence of an absence of such an effect. Equivalence tests in combination with difference tests are introduced and presented in this article as a more valid inferential approach to the substantive question Trandafir attempted to answer.
authors.affiliation: School of Community Health, Portland State University, PO Box 751-SCH, Portland, OR, 97207-0751, USA, alexis.dinno@pdx.edu.
authors.forename: Alexis
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dinno
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006716:Homosexuality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000523:psychology*