The Volokh Conspiracy

If adoptive familes are just as good as procreative ones, from the perspective of the child --- as Gallagher seems to imply here --- then it seems obvious to me that it would be better for a child to be raised from birth by a committed same-sex couple than in any of the family arrangements (single-parent, blended-family) that Gallagher has disparaged.

And since Gallagher contends so strongly that marriage strengthens families, she would presumably have to agree that the children of same-sex couples would be well served by policies that did not merely allow, but encouraged, their parents to marry.

That she is unwilling to concede either of these points demonstrates once again that she harbors an animus toward same-sex couples that she is unwilling to acknowledge.

So is procreation now only "connected" to marriage? Or is it still "the reason" for marriage? The former seems beyond question. The latter assumes that marriage has a single, overriding reason; a contention that seems open to debate.

Is Sullivan claiming that marriage isn't "connected" to procreation? Or is it, as it appears to me, that he's claiming it's obviously not the ONLY "reason" for marriage (as you stated in your first post)?

If he is arguing the former, he's a crackpot. If he's arguing the latter, you're doing him a considerable injustice by making a strawman out of a very reasonable argument.

For clarity, my "it would be better for a child to be raised from birth by a committed same-sex couple" above should probably be "it would be better, by Gallagher's professed standards, for a child to be raised from birth by a committed same-sex couple."

I myself have no opinion on whether, as Gallagher has claimed, blended families cause problems for kids.

Hi Maggie,

Good to see you here. Even though I disagree with much of your view on SSM, I think that you're onto something, especially with this post. One aspect of the idea that marriage is not entirely separate from procreation is the fact that we don't let siblings marry. In fact, the same arguments used by SSM proponents could easily be transferred to the realm of sibling marriages. After all, how can you be so bigoted as to deny the potentially sexual love that a brother and a sister share? The reason we don't do this is because we know that marriage is too inately tied to procreation. For example, we don't ban sex between siblings. But we do ban marriage between them because we do, in law, recognize that marriage as an institution is a baby-producing one and as such, we wouldn't want little Alexey Romanovs running around bleeding all over the place every time they fall in the playground, a high probability outcome of sibling marriage.

I have several disagreements, but will save them for a future comments. Again, good to see you here, and hope all is well.

"SS couples are being added to the mix precisely in order to assure that society views them as “no different” than other couples. This intrinsically means (if the effort is successful) downgrading if not eliminating the social significance of generativity (procreation and family structure)."

From your writing, I interpret this to you mean the dilution of generativity by the addition of same-sex marriages to the mix.

"The second truth is that both older couples and childless couples are part of the natural life-cycle of marriage. Their presence in the mix doesn’t signal anything in particular at all."

But it dilutes the generativity, does it not?


I can not wait unti Friday, when I hope the semblance of rational thought returns to this web site.

Maggie,

You've been pretending that the frustration felt by your commenters stems from your reluctance thus far to rebut their specific arguments.

It's not. It stems from your refusal thus far to articulate any reason why SSM would hurt marriage or otherwise discourage people from raising children in the context of traditional husband-and-wife households. And, emphatically, you have refused to articulate any such reason.

That is what your commenters want to know. Not whether you approve of adoption.

You've been promising it all week. Please, finally, tell us in what way allowing same-sex marriage will affect negatively different-sex marriage.

Cheers,

Goober

"Their presence in the mix doesn’t signal anything in particular at all."

... or does it signal that marriage isn't always and only about procreation... and that marriage is already a varied and fluid institution with many forms...

Eugene,
No one has claimed that marriage is entirely separate from procreation. Of course, it is not. Although, as many commenters have demonstrated, it is by far not the only purpose nor has it ever been. Nurturing children is much more of a purpose than physical sexual act leading to pregnancy.
We don't allow siblings to marry for reasons having nothing to do with same sex marriage debate. We don't allow them to marry because it has been shown that children of these marriages are likely to suffer from diseases, as you yourself stated. Note that this rationale is simply inapplicable in SSM. There has been no scientific evidence that children raised in SSM are any worse off than children of heterosexual marriages. Moreover, the situation is also distinguishable because in the case of sibling marriages, there is nothing to prevent siblings from marrying someone else. In contrast, in the absence of SSM, gays cannot marry at all unless they change their sexual orientation.

It may not have been de jure forcible annulment, but in practice such social stigma in effect barred infertile women from marriage.

Presumably, the response to this would be in terms of presumption &administrative costs: we don't want to expend the energy it would take to have people take fertility tests, so we presume heterosexual couples are capable of having kids.

If there were obvious physical markers of infertility (a 3rd nipple or something), though, would we then prohibit those people from marrying? My intuition is that we shouldn't. Those people should still be able to marry, infertility or not. At least for me (and I suspect for most people), then, intuition doesn't track the proffered rationale for marriage.

Alright Maggie, it seems to me that you are arguing that we cannot separate biological child bearing from marriage, or else western civilization will collapse. If you truly believe that, then you should be arguing for a law which would say this:

"All persons entering into a marriage agree that they will produce children by natural childbirth within X years (X to be determined by the state). Failure to produce any children by the end date will result in an automatic declaration that the marriage is null and void."

This way your goals are fully accomplished -- it prohibits gay marriage, since gay people can't have children naturally, and it directly links marriage and procreation. Anyone impertinent to think otherwise will find themselves back at the singles bar in short order. It will get people's attention very quickly, will insure that people will associate marriage with procreation. It has the added benefit of not mentioning whether love or sharing a life has anything to do with marriage, as you seem to not care about that at all.

Wouldn't that be a better way to accomplish your goals? Then anyone opposing this legislation, you can label a bigot for resisting change!

jpe, it isn't just adminstrative costs of infertiilty tests. All of us have a right to attempt to procreate, that's why we all have a right to marry the person of our choice (with the exception of relationships where there is supportable basis to forbid their procreation, ie siblings and other (blood and non-blood) relatives.)

So, we don't give infertiity tests because everyone has a basic civil right to try.

Oh my, this discussion is embarassing. It's one thing to disagree with Maggie (as I do). It's quite another that most of the posters apparently can't even discern her argument. She's made it pretty clear people. I guess that ideological brick wall she mentioned really does exist in most of your heads.

Here's the argument as I see it:

1. Marriage is a universal institution in successful societies. It has served many purposes (i.e. property distribution), but the main purpose has been to protect pregnant women and the children they have by binding the father to the family. For most of history, romantic love had nothing to do with it.

2. In the last 200 years, society has slowly moved away from the idea that marriage is about anything other than romantic love and personal fulfillment. With no-fault divorce and high out-of-wedlock childbearing, the idea that marriage is mostly about procreation has become tenuous.

3. If marriage is defined as being just about romantic love, fulfillment, and commitment to a partner, then marriage is doomed, because:
A. Romantic love is just about the most fickle and undependable emotion in human experience, and can't sustain an institution as important as marriage, and
B. Once you say marriage is just about a love commitment, there's no reason to limit it to unrelated, unmarried dyads in a sexual relationship. Any number of people who are or aren't having sex will be able to get married, and that removes any meaning from marriage.

4. Allowing SSM will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and push our culture over the edge into believing that marriage is really just about a romantic love commitment, and not inherently tied up with the protection of pregnant women and children.

Now, I disagree with this analysis because:
1. I think that over the next 200 years, our society will move towards the unstable, individualized romantic view of marriage anyway, regardless of SSM. So I don't think allowing gay marriage will have anything more than a very slight accelerating effect on that change.

2. Denying a class of citizens the dignity of having equal rights isn't worth staving off a slight accelerating effect.

However, I can at least understand her argument, which is more than I can say for most people here. And her argument does make sense in a non-bigoted way, even though I ultimately think it's wrong. She's right that most Americans still think of marriage is being mostly about procreation (as a married, childless by choice woman, I can attest to this - I can't count the amount of times I've been asked "Why did you even bother to get married?" when I tell people that I don't intend to have children). However, the link is weakening, and this is especially true in the urban/liberal/educated areas that are also most in favor of SSM.

There are lots of reasons to disagree with Maggie. But it's shameful how many of the posters here are so blinded by ideology that they're literally incapable of understanding her argument. Aren't most of you lawyers, law students, or law professors? Isn't it your job to be able to comprehend and analyze both sides of an issue??

Also, several posters have challenged Maggie's views on gays in general, in an effort to reveal what they think is an underlying animosity. A valid concern, but I would ask the analogous question of SSM-supporters: Would you really care if marriage ceased to meaningfully exist in our culture?

Two points: SS couples are being added to the mix precisely in order to assure that society views them as “no different” than other couples. This intrinsically means (if the effort is successful) downgrading if not eliminating the social significance of generativity (procreation and family structure)

How does recognizing the fundamental equality of gays and lesbians in any way "downgrade" the importance of "generativity." Non sequiturs do not become somehow valid simply because they are made by right-wingers.

Basing marriage laws on pragmatic objectives or probabilistic outcomes is contrary to the principle of freedom and is just bad law. If you're going to go down the path of "likely to succeed in raising fertile offspring" it would be better to insist that a couple have a demonstrated income of $X per year than to insist that they be of the opposite sex. SSM should be forbidden because it is wrong, not because state planners don't foresee the requisite number of children being produced by it.

I think Law Student Kate's right, both in her evaluation of the quality of many of the comments and in her summary of Maggie's argument.

As to the first, I find it disturbing that apparently our law schools--I saw this among my own classmates as well--have failed at teaching the most basic elements of logic and rhetoric. It's certainly easier dealing with discomfiting arguments by asserting that your opponent is a bigot (how, by the way, is this any different from asserting, as some on the right do, that your opponent is immoral; certainly the commentors here would recognize THAT as an illegitimate form of argument--why not when the tables are turned). But it's still universally accepted, is it not, that the merits of an argument are to be decided on the strength of the argument itself, and not on the proponents motivations, underlying beliefs, or sources of funding? If not, I fear that this is evidence of an abandonment of reason that poses a far greater threat to enlightenment values than poor Maggie's alleged animosity toward gays.

As to the second, Maggie captures something important that has been obscured by reproductive technology--primarily birth control. Prior to reliable means of birth control, it was inevitable that male-female unions would produce babies; in this way, they were fundamentally different from same-sex relationships, and even had such relationships been recognized, they would have not have presented the same problem of how to contain and nurture the inherent generativeness (?) of the male-female union. Defining marriage broadly enough to capture most fertile couples was an attempt to solve the myriad problems this generative (and uncontrollable, apart from celibacy) characteristic of male-female relationships. Perhaps Kate is also correct that the popular concept of marriage has been transformed (arguably by the development of reliable birth control technologies). If she is, and the popular concept of marriage has finally diverged (or will diverge) so markedly from the traditional religious concept, perhaps it's time for either a privatization of marriage or a reassertion of the distinction between civil and religious marriage?

It seems to me that MG is making a classic Burkean argument: that the wisdom of society shows this is best, and when not bad things happen. She then goes on to assume that the known and traditional structures are the best for assumed goals of society (procreation and child-rearing.)

Unfortunately(?), society underwent several revolutions in the 20th century, some technology driven (pill, antibiotics), some government driven (welfare state), and some socially driven (value changes in society). What we are left with is a system that does not allow differing methods of establishing society to compete within the self-government countries and no way to tell which are better than others.

MG mentions that marriage has been challenged in the inner cities, but doesn’t note that it has been replaced with the welfare state, and assumes that her prescription would lead to a better result. (what goals, what opportunity costs, what outside effects?)

It looks like there are too many other influences on the measurements MG is using as MOEs for why or why not SSM to accurately assess its benefit to her self-chosen goals. Of course as a libertarian, I would like government to get out of the way, including helping those that fail and allow society to develop new traditions that work.

Why not allow and see? We have enough other changes in society... why limit the choices... maybe this will lead to better traditions that meet or current tech driven society’s needs.

Anymore than I think the fact that people can and do bear children outside of marriage (and the state doesn’t forcibly repatriate their children) means that marriage really never really been about procreation.

"repatriate"? I do not think that word means what you think it means.

PaulD,

SSM is wrong, how?

Gene Vilensky,

4 states permit first cousin marriage under the condition that they prove at least one member of the relationship is infertile. So in at least those four states, lack of procreation is a pre-condition to certain marriages.

I agree with Maggie that procreation is desireable within marriage. I also agree that it is important for children to be raised within a marriage as the legal benefits given to the parents create a more stable environment for them.

I disagree that SSM will harm procreation. I am disappointed, though not surprised, that Maggie avoids the issue of child raising (which is hard to tie only to opposite-sex couples) in favor of direct procreation (which is easily tied to only opposite-sex couples.) If she gives in and admits that marriage is good for the 18+ years a child is raised, versus the 9 months it takes to procreate and give birth, she greatly weakens her argument against including same-sex couples within marriage.

As a citizen, I am more concerned about how children are raised rather than how they come into being.

Here's is a simple question regarding your rebuttal of Andrew Sullivan:

While I agree that he uses faulty logic, perhaps the point should be this, why are childless marriages supported with the same rights as child-bearing. IF the bundle of rights and privileges are really about supporting this result, then I would rephrase his criticism as one which says:

If you include all heteroxexual marriages under this blanket of procreative incentives and protections, why shouldn't there be a separate kind of marriage for barren, childless couples. Many couples never intend to have babies.

In any event, if the procreation and protection of children is the point, what does marriage (and the specific legal protections for the spouses) have to do with the kids? It would make more sense to create a body of law that actively protects the welfare of children.

And by the way, have you ever been to Norway, for example, where procreation and the protection of children are directly addressed without the need for the institution of marriage being propped up by the government.

Finally, as a contract, I don't recall any promises made to the other spouse regarding procreation or the support of children.

A final query, should the refusal to procreate be a ground for divorce?

Marriage as an institution to me is secondary to the family as an institution. What has been destroyed, with the help of our government, is the ability to have extended families, or tribes if you will. This is deomonstrably a more innate "cultural" institution than marriage per se.

Marriage and the bundle of rights and privileges appurenant thereto are mostly concerned with the disposition of property.

Ron,

I say SSM is wrong because a non-pleading interpretation of the Bible indicates that it is. Should religious views not have a place in this debate? Perhaps our society will decide that they do not, or it will turn out that the majority of even religious voices will turn out in favor of SSM. But it seems silly to me to think that the predominant reason heretofore that SSM was illegal was unrelated to the predominant Judeo-Christian moral framework of this country.

Maggie,

You say: "People raise the most bizarre arguments: Well, if marriage were really important for procreation and family structure we’d do “X.” And the “x” is something no marriage culture has ever done to my knowledge: like forcibly annulling childless couples."

However, your factual assertion is wrong. According to strict jewish law a marriage is annulled if it does not produce any children within 10 years. Obviously very few Jews currently follow this practice, but the Ultra-Orthodox still do.

I'd say the reason most Jews no longer annul childless marriages, and the reason most people would be appalled if the US government did so, is that we recognize that whatever the purpose of marriage is, its about more than just procreation.

For the government to allow divorce in the case of childlessness would be reasonable if divorce in general were outlawed, but what is the point when you can get a divorce for any reason?

Jesurgislac: "why do you think that children adopted by same-sex couples do not deserve those benefits?"

Those benefits can be granted without granting procreation rights to those children's parents by creating civil unions which do not grant procreation rights. If we give them all the rights that a both-sex marriage has, either with marriage or a civil union that gives all the rights of marriage, then they would have the right to procreate that all marriages have. It would harm the adopted children if their parents attempted to procreate, not help them. They should be protected from their parents attempting to procreate by banning non-male/female procreation.

PaulD, I think that religious views do have a place in the debate. However the most common reponse to "The Bible says SSM is wrong" is "Yeah, so?". Maggie's been trying to outline why she thinks SSM will destroy marriage. I might be persuaded if she had provided decent statistical evidence of that from what's happened in other places but as far as I can work out, she hasn't.

By the way, TRC made a point last night that I did find interesting, if we have SSM, what's to stop non-gay couples from "marrying" to gain the financial advantages. If so that would change the nature of marriage in my eyes as marriage wouldn't be about love, but about finances. If there was evidence that was happening then I would be worried.

Kate, as a supporter of SSM, I would say I would care if marriage ceased to meaningfully exist in our culture. I happen to think that the introduction of SSM would make marriage more important in our culture as more people would be included in it.

Kate - well said. thanks.

Your summation makes me think of two apt metaphors. I do think that MG sees SSM as the proverbial back-breaking straw in this cultural and social moment in history, but to her credit I don't believe that she claims that it's the only clear and present danger to generativity. No-fault divorce is one 800 lb gorilla that comes to mind, but certainly not the only one. My sense of why people cringe or lash out when someone makes a straw-that-breaks-the-camel's-back argument is their belief that it is unfair or demonstrably untrue (2 different things) to claim that the next straw (here, SSM) will be the coup de grace that finishes off a good social institution. How can we know today that SSM will at some future time be that coup de grace? We can't, we're only hypothesizing. Also, with all these other material causes of the decline that preceded SSM, is seems arbitrary and unfair to make SSM the point at which society says "this is enough, nothing more." Kinda like being the last step you take before stepping off of a cliff into the abyss.

Another metaphor that comes to mind is the tide. I think your observation of some factors that have contributed to the decline of marriage and the threats to generativity is a realization that the decline/threat comes from the combined effect of many forces gathered over time. Reinforcing something to withstand to everyday effect of the tides is difficult, never-ending work. People don't stop building homes on coastal beaches after it is damaged or destroyed, but they rebuild a better beach home the next time. If we're concerned about building better the next time around, then we would address the biggest threats, and SSM is not one of the biggest.

I'm riffing on your post and am not trying to mischaracterize it. I realize that metaphors have limits, but sometimes they are helpful.

One of the things that has struck me is the ease with which one of Gallagher's central arguments - that it is best for a child to be raised by her mother and father who are married to each other - is turned against MG by some commenters who argue, in effect, "if you agree with that, why would you deny the children of same sex relationships the benefit of married 'parents'".

Same sex "parents" are not the child's mother and father. Is that such a hard concept to understand? And the social science is pretty well established that the marriage status of a child's mother and father is highly correlated with the child's well being.

I'd like to know everyone's position on the question of allowing or not allowing same-sex couples to procreate together, using some process that combines their genes so that they are the two proginators of their children and no person of the other sex is involved in the conception.

I cannot fathom how people can avoid this question, or not see that it is the question of allowing marriage or not allowing marriage. Everytime there is a question of 'should this type of relationship be allowed to mary' the question was exclusively about the ethics of a relationship of that type procreating together. Why Maggie is content to let the question of marriage for this type of relationship be argued on a different basis than procreation rights is beyond me, since she ought to be in favor of anything that would further the connection of marriage and procreation.

I think Maggie must be in favor of procreation rights for same-sex couples, since she seems to be opposed to banning all procreation that is not the union of a man and a woman.

John H, I'm fine with it. Of course there are technical issues, would a YY embyro be viable?

Nothing at all, in the same way that a gay man is free to marry a lesbian "to gain the financial advantages", or a straight man is free to marry a straight woman "to gain the financial advantages" even where he has no romantic interest in her or desire to have children. Do such marriages of convenience change the nature of marriage? Since marriages like that happen now, what would you propose doing about them?

By the way, TRC made a point last night that I did find interesting, if we have SSM, what's to stop non-gay couples from "marrying" to gain the financial advantages. If so that would change the nature of marriage in my eyes as marriage wouldn't be about love, but about finances. If there was evidence that was happening then I would be worried.

DM Andy

By the way, TRC made a point last night that I did find interesting, if we have SSM, what's to stop non-gay couples from "marrying" to gain the financial advantages. If so that would change the nature of marriage in my eyes as marriage wouldn't be about love, but about finances. If there was evidence that was happening then I would be worried.

What about the opposite? Very common in the military for opposite sex lower ranked enlisted to ‘marry’ only so they can get off post housing and the increased benefits.

Sauce. goose. gander.

In reality though this is a mutually exclusive contract that in many states involves community property rights and distribution on dissolution. Most of the benefits of the civil marriage contract are of value to those who actually do want to build a life together, not casual roommates.

Their [older and childess couples] presence signals that the contract theory -- those who wish to marry should be allowed to marry -- has won out over the permit theory -- that the state licenses procreation.

How about siblings? We do not allow siblings to marry because their procreation would be unethical. It is unethical not only because it has a higher risk of birth defects, but also because declaring it ethical would mess up the proper dynamics of the family. Siblings should be considered off-limits as procreation partners, so that a proper, deeper sibling relationship can develop.

First: IANAL.
Second: Personally, I think marriage isn't going to disappear soon. I think it's a commitment, or if you will a covenant, between two people for mutual support, financial, social, or emotional, which may or may not include children, either naturally or by adoption. I don't think SSM is outside of that view.

I have worked with one person in a longterm same-sex relationship. From what I could see, it was marriage in every way but the legality. There was an adopted child - it took much longer than it should have done to get that through the system! - and I can say there was no difference in kind between a SSM and an OSM in that relationship.

If you want to say that SSM is wrong because marriage is about procreation, to me you must then show why it is not wrong to have childless OSM. If you want to say that SSM is somehow going to weaken marriage as an institution, then you must explain why same-sex couples want to marry. If you are telling me that SSM weakens marriage, or that marriage as an instituion needs to be defended from SSM, then you should be prepared to explain why then same-sex couples (or opposite-sex couples, for that matter) are eager to marry; you should also be prepared to explain why Brittney Spears's three-day opposite-sex marriage, with its attendant publicity, does not weaken marriage as an institution, where a twenty- or thirty-year same-sex relationship does.

Just saying.

Witgin: Same sex "parents" are not the child's mother and father. Is that such a hard concept to understand? And the social science is pretty well established that the marriage status of a child's mother and father is highly correlated with the child's well being.

So your view is that when a child is conceived by donor, there is no correlation between the child's well-being and the marital status of the child's legal parents? How have you established this? Is there a social study of children conceived by donor whose parents - the biological mother and her partner, male or female - were married, versus one where the mother and her partner were not married?

And you think that when a child is adopted, given that the child's adopted parents are not the child's "mother and father" biologically, it therefore can make no difference to the well-being of the child whether or not the adoptive parents are married? Again, what social studies are you basing your opinion on? Cite them.

Law Student Kate,

I think your summaries of Gallagher's argument as well as the reasons for its failure are cogent, but I think you go overboard in your criticism of the commenters.

I agree that trying to surmise the ideology driving a person's argument is tricky. However, I think many (and I admit it, even me) who think there is homophobia underlying Gallagher's argument are providing their most educated guess to something that you yourself point out: namely, that though there are many, many other reasons for the breakdown of "traditional" notions of marriage, somehow same-sex marriage is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

What Gallagher has not offered is an explanation as to why same-sex marriage is the straw. I suppose this is simply a question we can ask. However, it is also true that Gallagher has barely mentioned no-fault divorce, has only mentioned the women's liberation movement within the context of villifying it, and has not mentioned at all what I think is, in my opinion, the real "straw that broke the camel's back" with regard to this subject: namely, the repeal of laws in the late 19th/early 20th century that had defined women, in property terms, as men's chattel.

John H, I'm fine with it.

Do you demand a right to it? Are you against banning it? If you demand the right to procreate with a person of your same sex, you should list it a the top of the list of your demands, since it is a very significant demand, and not keep that demand hidden until later and hope no ne asks about it.

Of course there are technical issues, would a YY embyro be viable?

There are more than just "technical issues". We can't let people just create experimental embryos in the lab and see how they come out, these are people we are talking about. Yes, hetersexual couples create embryos and see how the baby comes out, but we all have the basic civil right to do that, when it is not banned for a supportable reason, such as prohibiting certain relatives, children, etc, from marrying.

Bob -

As to your saying we are ignoring Gallager's thesis, we do because it is flawed - the current national debate isn't about 'marriage the insititution' but marriage the civil contract. Reality always trumps mental constructs and the reality is that same gender couples have been marrying, are marrying, and will continue to marry - the only question wh shouldn't their marriages have access to the civil contract of the same name?

But I think your characterization is exactly what Maggie was talking about when she said that the two sides on this debate are talking past each other. Your characterization reflects the perspective of most SSM supporters. But for many SSM opponents, the issue IS about marriage as an institution, and whether it can withstand further change. So the two sides aren't even having the same debate. Opponents tend to see the institution as already being into extreme jeopardy, so they're wary about further changes. Supporters think that this is an exxagerated chicken-little view, don't see the harm, and thus are focused mainly on the equality/civil contract view.

I think that the reason that Maggie keeps repeating the same thing over and over is because she's trying to get agreement on what the debate is even about, and she's been losing. Your practical view is winning over her more abstract view. But if we can't agree on the issue, then how can we ever move on to the "meat" of whether SSM will positively or negatively effect the institution?

Law Student Kate---

You make a nicely reasoned argument that explains a possible reason not to allows homosexuals to marry. Unfortunately, it's not an argument that Ms. Gallagher has made. She hasn't made any such argument, being perfectly content to let her readers assume she must be saying this or that. Rhetorically useful, but it's still a dodge.

I think probably most of us can imagine a potential argument. What I'm still interested in is what Ms. Gallagher's actual argument is. And I don't think it's beneath comment that after four days, Ms. Gallagher has been unable to give a single reason why gay marriage would hurt straight marriage.

I look forward to the debate, should it ever happen. But I can't fault those who think the reason Ms. Gallagher hasn't come forward with an answer, is that there is no answer.

John H, I'm not demanding a right to it, to be honest I don't think it's that important. But like cloning it seems to me to be an inevitable medical happening. It doesn't seem that it would be possible to ban anyway.

Of all the factors that effect the well-being and opportunities of children, I doubt that having married parents tops the list in terms of influence.

Those who want to help children, therefore, would do better to address poverty, long working hours, parental illiteracy, the trend toward needing two incomes to support children, child health care, abuse and neglect, educational quality (or lack thereof), and arguable deterioration of civic/social support systems in some communities.

True, married couples (like any couple) will have more income. But the fact that two incomes are now viewed as a necessity detracts from parental availability.

Children with sub-literate parents are less likely to succeed in school. Marriage does not promote literacy.

Marriage arguably has a deletarious effect on forming successful support systems. Single parents often cooperate more successfully with other working single parents and extended families in sharing responsibility for childcare.

Etc.

It hardly seems to me that avoiding gay marriage is any kind of strategy for improving the well-being of children.

"The second truth is that both older couples and childless couples are part of the natural life-cycle of marriage. Their presence in the mix doesn’t signal anything in particular at all."

Oh, yes, when two 70-year-olds get married, it's just part of the "natural" circle of life. Hakuna Matata!

"I could well be wrong--anyone could be wrong"

Given the extremely weak nature of the arugments presented here, I, and I suspect many others, are inferring that the reasoning is results-driven.

Witgin: "And the social science is pretty well established that the marriage status of a child's mother and father is highly correlated with the child's well being."


No it's not. Not as it pertains to this discussion. The data indicate that children raised by (heterosexual) single mothers suffer in comparison with children raised by married couples (finances play an important role).

There is no data that I know of suggesting that children raised by two male parents or two female parents suffer in comparison with children raised by heterosexual married couples. If you can direct me to some, I would very much like to see it.

-> Bill,

Besides casual thinking, and self admitted doubt, you wouldn't have any proof to substantiate those conjectures. In fact the proof tends to show that there is something of real substance to gender integration. We see children turning out better when raised in an intact family, we see the economic status of the parents and children raised, we see the health and longevity also improved.

More on the need for gender integration in parenting is here.

Your misuse of research is as glaring as Maggie's, On Lawn. None of those studies included same-sex parents, so we actually don't know how they stack up. In addition, "gender integration" doesn't work in homes involving step-parents, where the presence of an unrelated male actually INCREASES risk to the child where mom had remarried or is shacking up.

The only reason the term "biological" parents is used as a qualifier, is to separate them from "adoptive" parents. There is nothing in the research to show that the biological link is what is the deciding factor.

None of those studies included same-sex parents

So what do you suggest is the difference between a same-sex couple and say, a grand-mother and mother teaming up to raise a child (which are included in the studies)?

One more thing...

The only reason the term "biological" parents is used as a qualifier, is to separate them from "adoptive" parents.

The reason biological is used as a qualifier is because it truely denotes an advantage to parenting. As the studies show, in-tact families do better in raising children than adoptive, and step-parent families.