You Decide

… that some people believe children raised by same-sex couples may be at risk?

“There is ample evidence that stable and satisfactory marriages are crucial for the well-being of adults. Yet such marriages are even more important for the proper socialization and overall well-being of children,” wrote Rutgers University professor David Popenoe in his essay “The State of Our Unions: 2007.”

Popenoe, writing for the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, goes on to state: “Children who grow up with cohabiting couples tend to have worse life outcomes compared to those growing up with married couples.”

Though Popenoe’s report does not directly address homosexuality or gay marriage, his are the sorts of findings that lead many critics of gay marriage to argue that the ideal child-rearing environment is one in which both of the child’s biological parents—mother and father—are present.

“Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage,” writes Kristin Anderson Moore et al., in “Marriage From a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children and What Can We Do About It?” a Child Trends research brief that does not compare child-rearing in same-sex households with other arrangements. “Children in single-parent families, children born to unmarried mothers, and children in stepfamilies or cohabiting relationships face higher risks of poor outcomes. … There is thus value for children in promoting strong, stable marriages between biological parents.”

Before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger offered a more strident critique of nontraditional families when he penned a 2003 Vatican document that invoked child safety as a primary reason for church opposition: “Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development.”

In other words, children who mature in a household where one of the sexes is absent mature in an unbalanced environment—and that absence might have lasting damaging psychological effects.

…that instead of dissolving the bedrock of our society, gay marriage, some argue, would in fact strengthen it?

One of the primary reasons government has a hand in recognizing marriage is to encourage secure, committed relationships. Paired units stabilize the culture because spouses often provide for each others’ well-being—a responsibility that, as a last resort, often falls to government programs such as Medicaid. Another societal perk: Marriage naturally advances the society through procreation.

And although there’s plenty of research pointing to the salubrious effects a stable home environment has on children, there is also emerging research that committed lesbian and gay parents are no less successful raising children than are their straight counterparts.

“Absolutely no data have pointed to any risk to children as a result of growing up in a family with one or more gay parents,” Ellen Perrin, a doctor at Tufts University told the Massachusetts Senate Judicial Committee in 2003. “What we know for sure is that children thrive better in families that include two loving, responsible and committed parents. We also know that conscientious and nurturing adults, whether they are men or women, heterosexual or homosexual, can be excellent parents.”

Perrin’s view has been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, whose guidelines state there should be no barriers to gay-parent adoption and custody.

Similarly, in “Lesbian and Gay Parents,” a report for the American Psychological Association, Charlotte J. Patterson states, “Beliefs that gay and lesbian adults are not fit parents … have no empirical foundation. … Lesbian and heterosexual women have not been found to differ markedly either in their overall mental health or in their approaches to child rearing. … Research on gay fathers has similarly found no reason to believe them unfit as parents.”

What is more, gay marriage supporters argue, the notion that same-sex couples should be prohibited from marrying in part because of their inability to have their own biologically related child is pure bunkum. If that were the case, they ask, then shouldn’t we prohibit marriage among sterile men and postmenopausal women and even dissolve marriages that don’t result in children?

So if gays and lesbians who are in committed relationships are just as likely to succeed in child rearing as their straight counterparts, wouldn’t we, by opening the option of marriage to gays—along with the attendant economic and legal entitlements—be simply expanding the base of stable relationships?