Fox News correspondents Bret Baier and Shannon Bream took to the conservative network’s Special Report to reinforce the widely debunked idea that same sex marriage poses a clear and present threat to heterosexual marriages. Growing support for marriage equality, the talking heads reasoned, actively discouraged straight people from considering “traditional marriage,” and was one of the major contributing factors to the overall decline in marriage rates in the US.

The false correlation between rise in gay marriage and the fall of straight marriages was thoroughly disproved in a study conducted by Portland State University’s School of Community Health last June.

“[W]e found that adult rates of opposite sex marriage in states implementing same sex marriage laws were equivalent to rates in states with no such laws,” researchers explained. “[W]e find that any differences appear to due to chance alone.”

“The question of whether states ought to legally provide same sex couples with the legal status of marriage, or a related, though less regarded and less beneficial status of same sex union cannot be answered solely in terms of the effect on opposite sex marriages. However, a deleterious effect on rates of state rates of opposite sex marriage has been argued to be a motivating factor for both the withholding and the elimination of existing rights of same sex couples to marry by policy makers–including presiding justices of current litigation over same sex couples rights to legally marry. Such claims do not appear credible in the face of the existing evidence.”

Watch Fox News correspondents Brett Baier and Shannon Bream’s misguided attempt at blaming marriage equality for the decline in heterosexual marriages AFTER THE JUMP…