Q. When Professor Glenn writes:
“Legalizing same-sex marriage would have
a small effect, at most, on the percentage of fatherless children and there is no precedent for prohibiting a family arrangement because it creates less than ideal conditions for children.”

Blankenhorn then goes on to suggest that polygamy might be one form that was prohibited, but says he is no expert on polygamy/polygyny, even though it’s been a *huge part* of the history of marriage of the understanding of ‘social institution’…

Note the line “Since many children raised by gay or lesbian parents haveundergone the divorce of their parents, researchers have considered the most appropriate comparison group to be children of heterosexual divorced parents.42″

This suggests this is merely an opinion, not a finding based upon any sort of evidence. The footnote refers to the research of Charlotte Patterson who plays promininately in the research I posted which says children of gay parents do just as well, if not better than children of heterosexual parents. Patterson makes no such claim that the outcomes for such children are equivalent to divorced heterosexual parents.

Futher note these lines: “Children of gay or lesbianparents do not look different from their counterparts raised in heterosexual divorced familiesregarding school performance, behavior problems, emotional problems, early pregnancy, ordifficulties finding employment.43 However, as previously indicated, children of divorce are athigher risk for many of these problems than children of married parents.”.

Once again, the second sentence makes it clear that the first is merely an opinion – the author is merely assuming the children of same sex couples have the same outcomes as the children of divorced heterosexual couples, no evidence to support that conclusion is presented.

Further, the claim that footnote 43 supports the idea that children of same sex couples are the same as children of divorced opposite sex couples is simply a lie. That study makes no such claim and in fact clearly says the opposite:

“Again,
as will be discussed, the evidence does not support the
claim that children raised by same-sex parents exhibit more
developmental problems than those raised in heterosexual
families.”.

“The vast majority of children in all the studies functioned
well intellectually, did not engage in self-destructive
behaviors or in behavior harmful to the community. In
these regards, as well as in general well-being, they did
not look different from their counterparts with heterosexual
parents.”

“The studies also find that children raised by gay male
and lesbian parents get along as well with their parents
and peers as children raised in heterosexual families. The
research finds no differences between these groups of
children in self-esteem or in characteristics such as leadership
ability, self-reliance, interpersonal flexibility, and
self-confidence. In a few studies, the children in same-sex
households even seemed to have higher levels of wellbeing
in some respects than the comparison group of
children from heterosexual families.”

This comments on same sex couples made by this author are a matter of biased opinion and are directly contradicted by the footnotes he uses to allegedly support those opinions.

The vast majority of research shows that parents of same sex couples do as well or better than the children of heterosexuals. The idea that such research doesn’t deal primarily with biological heterosexual parents in low conflict marriages simply isn’t credible. Research has also shown that in many cases same sex relationships have less conflict than heterosexual relationships due to there not being an inherent power imbalance and gay couples sharing more equitably in the responsibilities of the relationship.

Precisely. If we were basing on “ideals”, then the research on child abuse suggests that lesbian parents should be allowed to marry LONG BEFORE heterosexual step parents.

Pender,

thanks

I scanned the CLASP article.

Here’s a problem for the idealists, one that I’ve never thought of before.

It’s not “ideal” for gays to have kids, so the state has an interest in not letting them into marriage.

Have a look at the section on step-families.

It’s definitely not ideal for kids to get into a step-family. Yet, should we deny marriage to those with kids who want to remarry? After all, “… children in step-families are at
increased risk for experiencing physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.”

So, even if some group turns out to be somewhat less than ideal, I’m not sure that is what should be informing good public policy.

What if it turned out, on some analysis, that the people of Alabama were doing a really poor job on child outcomes. Should we withhold Federal marriage benefits, because there is something not ideal about Alabama?

It’s important to look after the kids and study what works best, but, … there seem to be limitations, policy limitations, that get lost in the war of words.

It’s incorrect of Blankenhorn to imagine that his marriage formulation/definition is associated with a just society.

Biological + arranged one-man, one-woman marriage tradition + caste system = deeply unjust society

Therefore, one-man, one-woman is not sufficient to a just order.

Therefore, marriage alone is not ‘the foundation’ of society.

But, not to put too fine a point on it, I wonder why no one focuses on the downside of biological parents, historically or otherwise.

Tribalism and clanship have created quite a lot of strife, yes?

Tim, as for applied inconsistently, I can’t reconstruct DB’s views on it for you, yet. I do believe that some ‘biological purists’ would deny gays and lesbians access to reproductive technology. Indeed, these views are aggressively promoted. Austria just gave civil union to gays, but withheld access to kids, either through adoption or reproductive technology.

Myself, I believe that the fears about the use of this technology are greatly overblown. Even for those who are worried, we do not need to draw such a bright line. In fact, one could argue that NO parents on earth are more willing, self-selected, and prepared than gay parents. No gay couple ever had an unwanted pregnancy or an accidental child….