"... and yet the institution of marriage has absorbed that change quite handily, and has soldiered on."

Really? So the divorce rate has always been 50% (or greater by some estimates)? So there have always been hoard's of single parent families that can't put food on the table, let alone be around to support their children?

You are certainly right that a change in the family dynamic will result in great change, but you assume it is for the good. Look at the rise of the dual household income. Once upon a time families had one parent that made the money, and the other that cared for the children. Then womens lib came around, and women entered the workplace exponentially. This was a good thing, right? Well, I am not against women working, but let's look at the impact the dual income households had. These dual income households resulted in an increase in spending power for a portion of the population. This increase in spending power drove up the cost of homes and goods. As a result, traditional families were forced to go to dual income households just to survive. As a result, children no longer got the attention and support from the family, and educational achievement significantly dropped.

The end result is the greatest income disparity in the history of America. There once was a time when the only dual income households were the poorest households. This allowed even poor Americans to survive in our economy.

So yes, a change in the family dynamic will have repercussions that spread across our economy. However, we should take a close look at what those changes will be. For example, legalized gay marriages will most likely result in an increase in surrogate pregnancies. We know that the best environment for a child is with the biological mother and the biological father. However, gay marriage will force children to be ripped from one of their biological parents. How is that fair to the child? No to mention the fact that we have too many children in foster care already. But hey, what's a few more, right?

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Why marry at all?
For love?
Not really. Some unmarried couples look a lot more "in love" than many married ones...
For stability?
Nope, you can divorce anytime...
For money?
Kind of. You save on taxes and one will get a pension for life when divorced.
Because of social pressure, religion, tradition?
Wrong excuse...
For the kids?
Nope. You can raise kids well and not be married.

Now, to come back to the homo/hetero thing.
Between an healthy and friendly homo couple and a sour and aggressive hetero couple... which one is best for the kids?
As a kid, I would choose the happy homos any time!
As a kid, I want love and happiness! I don't care about homo/hetero stupid religious fights...
I will end with a little video.

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I'm all for expanding the definition of marriage to include anything and everything, but only because it's nobody's business.

Seeing trends in marriage, and different people's definition of marriage may be interesting and educational. But it still doesn't change the fact that a marriage is and should be a contract between individuals.

I know the article means well, but it seems to suggest that we use an expanded definition of marriage as a tool to address social problems, expand our minds, etc. That just seems to bring the nosy neighbors and the state back into the marriage business, which we already know is a bad thing.

Good article. Good discussion.

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church. The church set up by Christ. I agree with Ron Paul in that the government has usurped the authority of the church to marry. Lets get the government out of the marriage business.

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church. The church set up by Christ. I agree with Ron Paul in that the government has usurped the authority of the church to marry. Lets get the government out of the marriage business.

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I say let them marry. Why should the law protect gays and lesbians from the misery the rest of us have to endure? Why should they not have to give up half their stuff to an unfaithful "spouse"? Change the law and let 'em strap on the 'ole ball and chain. To my gay and lesbian friends remember the old adage: becareful what you wisf for... :)

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Lajaw is a rightwing consultant, apparently. He has the talking points down, but is not up on history, law or common sense. Typical.

Marriage is NOT a church institution. If it were then ALL marriages across the entire friggin' planet would have to be sanctioned by a church. Let's see. People have been getting married far longer than before the Catholic Church was invented.

In your estimation all Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and others are not actually married because they didn't have their union sanctioned by a Christian in some church somewhere.

In the West the definition of marriage was changed over time. It is NOT defined by the church but the church wants to define it today. It is pure politics and has nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

The mix of religion and politics has caused this problem in the US. In all Western countries where the church has been kicked out of their political process the better off the people are with respect to gay marriage. Netherlands, Columbia, Canada, England, ETC.

Only the US, with it's addiction to mythological religion, has a problem with gay marriage.

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WE THE PEOPLE FOR A SANE WORLD officially declare 100% support for gay marriage, as a civil right and a birthright. Those religious institutions that condemn such partnerships are in flagrant violation of the US Constitution's first amendment, which states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Furthermore, said institutions often encourage attitudes of hatred and promotion of violence against sexual minorities in many other ways, and have a long history of such. And these "godly" organizations remain, as they have for untold centuries, the major and sole cause of virulent homophobia.

Amerika would not tolerate such ugly behavior by a religious group towards any other minority, in our modern day. And it is one important tenet of so-called activist judges, to protect a minority from the tyranny of the majority. Especially when such a minority is more universally hated than any other; as are homosexuals, transsexuals and bisexuals. In fact, as oppressed as many minorities remain, most still cling to backward and hateful notions against even their own non-hetero brethren.

The issue of gay marriage has become a glaring example of dangers that arise when church matters are not kept separate from those of the state. Indeed, it has become The Great Test Of Today's Amerika regarding the issue of individual rights versus majority prejudice. And if we keep moving in that sorry direction much longer, we are likely to see a full-blown holocaust against these long-suffering people.

But progressives of all stripes must also share considerable shame, for sometimes participating in homophobic actions (at worst), or looking the other way too often (at best). To rectify this, we stand with other responsible liberals and moderates, who take up the cause of gay equality starting with marriage, in brave and aggressive manners. Even some churches are finally joining in, thus answering to their savior's message of compassion. I hope this will mark a sea-change in attitude regarding our sexual minorities.

All truly progressive people will not tolerate any more homophobia from our own liberal groups and representatives, and must therefore, if need be, not just condemn but separate ourselves from those who continue to harbor anti-gay attitudes. We must be as clear, as strong, and as steadfast regarding gay marriage, as we have been these many years against racism, misogyny, child abuse, capital punishment, and preemptive declarations of war. For it has become all too obvious that condemnation of gay marriage is a red herring to distract us from the real agenda: removal of all LGBT rights to mark them as second-class citizens in perpetuity. And then, the elimination of all rights for every other citizen, except a remnant of the power elite.

We will no longer tolerate frivolous and mean-sprited arguments questioning whether or not gays can marry, whether or not they deserve equal status as human beings, and whether or not they shall go to heaven. Such debates hold no validity in any civilized nation, as they are founded on a premise that is blatantly erroneous from the start, for it flies in the face of common sense and compassion. Nor shall we ever again engage any discussion over partnerships termed and defined as something resembling marriage, but not ever equal to. In other words "separate and unequal." In short:

Marriage by any other name just doesn't cut the mustard.

--
Ezekiel J. Krahlin
Queer Voice in the Oscar-Wilderness

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I know nothing about marriage. But I do know that same-sex marriage will definitely change norms.

Imagine a world where people believe in Sun. Everybody around you believes in what they see during the day and worship it. Then one day, one man says that this is not right, adds that you should worship to the real creator, not the Sun. You laugh at him, however months later many more come with the same idea. You still feel like it's not a good idea so you stick with worshiping Sun.

Then they say that you should be against abortion, because it is a sin. You are ok with that because you believe in a different God now, and you fear that you may get more sin if you don't support anti-abortion.

So years later, everybody around you believe in a different God that replaced yours. And then they say, abortion is a sin and everybody believes that too, because otherwise it is a sin.

Then one day, you get pregnant and doctors tell you that your baby will be disabled, mentally, physically, whatever, which will make you think that your baby will not have a life ahead. He or she will suffer during the entire lifetime, which you don't want. Doctors also tell you that you are very unlucky and this situation is one in a million which means when you get pregnant again, he or she will be healthy.

So you decide to abort your baby but you can't do that because everybody around you believe it is a sin. But you don't believe that because your God is not their God.

In the end, you are forced to give birth and suffer for your entire life along with your baby.

Why? Because millions of people believe abortion is a sin.

Apply this to same-sex marriage and you will get the idea.

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Marriage is about preserving the past in some way. Money, property, social status, a country, etc. Children of a 'marriage' are legitmate and entitled to their inheritance. Women in the past were not allowed to own anything. They had to marry. Not any more. That alone is a major change. Most of the reasons to marry are practical. Love and the search for happiness came later. So same sex marriage is a contract with certain privileges. Mostly financial. It's the love and sex part of it that bothers people. Thanks, ANNA

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Instead of extending legal marriage to same sex couples, let's go the other way and abolish marriage altogether as a legal category. I don't think it should be the government's place to define, regulate, or promote any particular type of intimate personal relationship between consenting adults. Let people have wedding ceremonies, if they wish, to publicly announce their relationship to family and friends, but there shouldn't be any need to inform the government about it as well.

Maybe it's the libertarian in me, but I don't want to register my personal relationships with a license like I have to get a license to drive a car.

Some will point out that legal marriage bestows many legal rights and benefits currently unavailable to those in non-legal relationships of various forms. Such rights are those that mainly involve practical benefits for those sharing a household, such as filing joint taxes, eligibility to be carried on the other's health insurance, next-of-kin rights and so on.

Instead of marriage or civil union, both predicated on a sexual relationship, the government could legalize domestic partnerships that would focus solely on the strictly practical rights and benefits that are related to sharing a household. Any sexual relationships that might exist alongside it, would be entirely irrelevant to the terms of the Domestic Partnership.

In addition to those in long term marriages or marriage-clone relationships, gay and straight, Domestic Partnerships could include adult siblings sharing a household, an adult child and elderly parent(s)sharing a home, two platonic friends living together, someone caring for a disabled family member, and other non-sexual households.

In other words, the Domestic Partnership benefits package would be a Family Benefits thing, no longer synonymous with marriage, nor defining what a marriage is.

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There is a great indy movie making the rounds these days, Inlaws & Outlaws. If ever there were a love story told in documentary form, this is it. Many people are interviewed about their views of marriage and relationship - straight, gay, male, female, young, old, married, single. For me it is a brilliant look at what defines a loving, commited marriage. I walked away intensely more commited to mine.

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there’s one point that nearly everyone overlooks about gay marriage. In every culture, in every time and place, the first marriage is a rite of passage signifying the participants’ readiness and willingness to assume the responsibilities of Adult in the tribe. As long as we are forbidden to marry, we are perpetual juveniles, easy to trivialize, easily made to seem frivolous, and easy to condescend to.

That, I think, is also the real, fundamental reason we are not permitted to be out (visible) in the military. Defense of the tribe is a paramount responsibility of the Adult. As long as we can be separated from that role--especially if it takes forcing us to lie -- we can be more easily treated with contempt and denied the privileges that come with assuming culturally-defined Adult responsibilities.

It is essential to the viability of a patriarchal society that gays and lesbians be demonized and marginalized. That’s all that these lines in the sand are about.

We have to be invisible (closeted) or else we have to be severed from everything that might provide legitimacy and Adult standing. That’s also the reason we’re generally not permitted to adopt children or share full parental custody of children born to our partners, and that’s the reason our children can be taken from us when we come out. Caring for the young is a paramount responsibility of the Adult.

We mean to defy that. That's why we came out in the early 70s or early 80s (we're 10 years apart), and why we went to San Francisco in Feb. 2004 and got married.

But there's something else: We learned in the process of standing before the Community and taking those marriage vows that something changes deep within when a partner becomes a spouse. For us, it was as mystical and precious as it was politically, socially, and spiritually crucial.

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Many people believe that a legally-married two parent family is better for children to grow up in than a single parent family, or two-parent families in which the couple doesn't have that "piece of paper". Similarly, many of these same people also believe that it's best for children if one parent stays at home full time while they are growing up.

However, these beliefs vary somewhat depending on why a parent is single, and, in the case of two parent families, the gender of the stay at home parent.

There are those who are quick to judge someone who is a single parent by divorce, or never having been married. They point to higher rates of juvenile delinquency, mental illness, diminished grades, poverty, reduced opportunities, etc, as being the typical fallout of growing up in a single parent family. These people sometimes imply that people are selfish for having children without being married or for getting divorced when one has young children. Those contemplating divorce are urged to stay with their spouses "for the children's sake" and those already divorced or never married are advised to marry so that the children can have two parents.

Many people today are under the mistaken impression that single parent families were uncommon before the 1960s. This is a misconception; there have always been a reasonable percentage of one parent families. What has changed is the typical reason why the parent is single. Years ago, most single parent families existed because one parent had died. Nowadays, most single parents are either never-married or divorced.

But I never hear anyone lamenting the problems of families with widowed parents, nor are there campaigns to encourage such parents to remarry as quickly as possible for the sake of their children.

Yet, the practical realities and difficulties for all types of single parent families are the same regardless of how the parent came to be single. I should know -- I was raised by a widowed parent.

This leads me to believe that all the hand wringing about the "plight" of "unfortunate" children being raised in single parent families because of divorce or having never been married has very little to do with concern for the children and everything to do with passing moral judgments as to why the parents are single.

Similarly, many people believe children do better when they have a full time parent at home. By parent, 99 percent of these people mean mother. Many of these same people would take a dim view of a father, single or married, who does not work outside the home for money. And if a mother is single, especially if she's never been married or is divorced, then these same people will call her lazy if she wants to be a full time mother.

Again, whatever benefits there are to having a full time parent or drawbacks of being a "latchkey" kid should be the same regardless of the gender of one's full time parent or why one's single parent is single. This difference in judgment indicates more of a disapproval of wage earning women and unemployed men in two parent families, and being on welfare for single parent families, more so than what is really best for children.

It would be easier if people would state their prejudices openly, rather than trying to disguise them behind a less than altruistic concern for the welfare of children.

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My partner and I wrote the book "How
To Be A Happy Lesbian: A Coming Out Guide," and we also run a support group
for women who are coming out that has over 700 members worldwide. While doing
research for this book, we found a lot of disturbing facts about the inequalities
LGBT people face because they can not get legally married.

What really was upsetting was when we figured out how much LGBT people pay in
Federal Income Taxes. The low estimate that all working LGBT people pay in Federal
Income Taxes is over 40 billion dollars each year!

Devoted gay and lesbian couples shoulder the responsibilities of taxes and marriage,
but have few of the legal rights and protections. Married couples receive more
than 1,300 protections, rights and benefits
under state and federal law, but LGBT couples are denied basic protections and
rights granted to married couples. For example:

* Hospital visitation. Married couples have the automatic right to visit
each other in the hospital and make medical decisions. Gay and lesbian couples
can be denied the right to visit a sick or injured loved one in the hospital.

* Social Security benefits. Married people receive Social Security payments
upon the death of a spouse. Despite paying payroll taxes, gay and lesbian workers
receive no Social Security survivor benefits – resulting in an average
annual income loss of $5,528 upon the death of a partner.

* Health insurance. Many public and private employers provide medical coverage
to the spouses of their employees, but most employers do not provide coverage
to the life partners of gay and lesbian employees. Gay employees who do receive
health coverage for their partners must pay federal income taxes on the value
of the insurance.

* Estate taxes. A married person automatically inherits all the property
of his or her deceased spouse without paying estate taxes – a gay or lesbian
taxpayer is forced to pay estate taxes on property inherited from a deceased
partner.

* Retirement savings. While a married person can roll a deceased spouse’s
401(k) funds into an IRA without paying taxes, the government will take up to
70% of the amount in taxes and penalties from a gay or lesbian senior.

* Family leave. Married workers are legally entitled to unpaid leave
from their jobs to care for an ill spouse – gay and lesbian workers do
not get family leave.

* Nursing homes. Married couples have a legal right to live together in
nursing homes. Because they are not legal spouses, elderly gay or lesbian couples
do not have the right to spend their last days living together in nursing homes.

* Home protection. Laws protect married seniors from being forced to
sell their homes to pay high nursing-home bills; gay and lesbian seniors have
no such protection.

* Pensions. After the death of a worker, most pension plans pay survivor
benefits only to a legal spouse of the participant – so gay and lesbian
workers get no pension support for their partners.

There are many people, both LGBT and straight, who do not realize the rights
LGBT people do not have. We all pay taxes to live in this great country of ours,
and we all should be protected with the same rights.

Tracey Stevens
Amazing Dreams Publishing

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For those who must keep straight the legal contracts of the world, it is a legal contract.

For those who must keep the contract, it is the kind of truth that we people get to make happen. What I promise in the marriage vows, it is up to me to make into truth by keeping my promise.

That is the kind of truth that holds our world together. It's the love and sacrifice of friends and family. Compared to the *truths* found in encyclopedias and classrooms, the truth that we make happen dominates.

Consequently, that is both our suffering and our celebration. Primary truth depends on us.

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First, lets get this out of the way. In America I will never marry a woman period, end of story. Don't ask me why, let me just say I don't need her - how's that?

He can live with me (cheap rent), and he can use my health insurance, and I'll only charge him $500 a month.

That's a hell of a deal.

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The article makes a fascinating point, and it clarifies for me the visceral fear that same-sex marriage seems to promote in so many people.

In practice, of course, over 90% of the population is strictly heterosexual. Man-woman marriages will continue as always. But a subtle, yet pervasive, change in the emotional loading for the marriage institution will have taken place if same-sex marriages are permitted. If marriage is no longer "man and wife" but "person and person," it redefines the institution in a way which improves parity between women and men. Everyone becomes a "person" in a way that was, before, not quite true.

There are a lot of people in the US who don't want that to happen. Expect a big fight.

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-A View from Outside 'Your' propaganda-reality-

Noting - articles, and those comments left by posters, exclusively exist from the 'unreality' of the point of view of the religiosity & extreme racist rhetoric in the part of north America covered by the U.S.: other western true democracies do not have the same shared detachment from reality [notice I wrote 'same'].

What is a bothersome accepted practice are articles [alternet authors included] or comments, neglecting - although the audience is largely English-language competent - 'we/they' do not all live within the confines of the largest, most drugged, most extreme, most abusive, reality-separated regions on the planet.

The scourge of empire. If you don't like it: Move! Quit bitching. Much the same way as a person might be inclined to move away from a Capital city, if not desperate for power and influence - as this is where the people who lust for power and influence gravitate towards. If you are a nice person and not a bitch who belongs in McDonald-land, then the rest of the world, reality, appreciates you, and you've done the planet a favour by not propping up a derelict empire with your warm human glow. Remove the beams and the house falls.

--
Separately, the citing of what 'he said', or what 'she said', as being some sort of basis in fact because of 'this' particular person's experience is total rubbish when it comes to putting feet to the floor.
--
And lastly, Conservative Christian Lesbians make me laugh as impossible, as do 'Log Cabin Republicans'. They have as much substance in deluded labels as any mythical invention.

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"Marriage is neither a conservative nor a liberal issue; it is a universal human institution, guaranteeing children fathers, and pointing men and women toward a special kind of socially as well as personally fruitful sexual relationship. Gay marriage is the final step down a long road America has already traveled toward deinstitutionalizing, denuding and privatizing marriage. It would set in legal stone some of the most destructive ideas of the sexual revolution: There are no differences between men and women that matter, marriage has nothing to do with procreation, children do not really need mothers and fathers, the diverse family forms adults choose are all equally good for children. What happens in my heart is that I know the difference. Don't confuse my people, who have been the victims of deliberate family destruction, by giving them another definition of marriage."

Walter Fauntroy-Former DC Delegate to CongressFounding member of the Congressional Black CaucusCoordinator for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s march on DC

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So called gay “marriage” does two things necessarily. (that is it follows axiomatically from the very definitional change)
#1. It androgynies the institution.
#2. It separates it from any necessary connection to childbearing.


Men and women are members of a class that can produce children. While any member of that class may not or cannot produce a child, they remain members of a class that can produce children. Same sex pairings can never produce children. They are members of a class that always and everywhere are incapable of producing children. Therefore same sex “marriage” necessarily severs marriage from procreation. It both androgynizes the institution and separates it from any necessary link to childbearing.

Only the sexual relationships of men and women together produce children. Therefore, only the sexual relationships of men and women together require governmental regulation because of (1) THEIR CAPACITY TOGETHER TO CREATE SOCIAL DISORDER, and (2) that reproduction is a fact and does have important and inevitable consequences on society both good and bad if it is not regulated. Thus, it inevitably must implicate the political and public aspect insofar as the production of future citizens is not only vital to the survival of a nation, but that the REGULATION OF THIS PRODUCTION OF FUTURE CITIZENS IS JUST AS VITAL.


You can have this type of yuppie coupling as our ideal, but it fails to promote (and indeed undermines) the integration of the two sexes as a essential part of marriage. Most people are heterosexual and only opposite sex pairs can concieve children. Your standard explicitly states that a child’s natural Father (or Mother) is non-essential to marriage. That any combination of adult is sufficient.

It further reinforces and locks in the notion that all family forms are inherently equal. They are not.

Yes, there is a philosophical maxim that reads – “If it’s everything it’s nothing”. We cant defend what we cant define. You are attempting to severe marriage from its historical and biological heritage, this will have a net effect. (leaving aside the already discernable effects in Europe) That effect is that marriage is outdated and any family form including single parenting is acceptable.

Of coarse I’m going further than that. Mine is not a defensive crouch. I find you to be deeply inhumane and narcissistic in your demands. 40 years of a sexual revolution has given us 50% divorce rates, 70% illegitimacy rates and falling rates of marriage overall, cohabitation and un-chosen childlessness. The social scientific evidence for divorce and Fatherless-ness is in. It leads to sky high crime, depression, suicide, violence, gang activity, and a perpetual cycle of child abandonment.

For you to throw the entire institution up for redefinition is the height of self absorption.
We can and must rebuild the social institution of marriage. Its important that all children are born into married households with their own natural parents. This standard should be advanced not undermined. The institution of marriage is infinitely more important than a vehicle for your inclusion.

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Traditionally, there are different expectations of husbands versus wives in a marriage. The marriage laws in many states make different demands on husbands (economic support) than wives (care for children, sexual availability). Even while laws have changed over the years, the roles of husband and wife still carry a lot of baggage. I'm hoping that gay marriage will give us a model of marriage without "husbands" and "wives" - just equal partners.

That would benefit hetero marriages which don't always give partners enough freedom from social conventions to work out the partnership in a way that's best for the individuals involved. Maybe gay marriage will usher in equality for marriage partners. That's my hope.

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Make divorce illegal and extremely difficult like it used to be.

Sure, it's a joke, but it makes the point; people who really gave a damn about "protecting" marriage and families would be working to outlaw divorce, not stopping same-sex couples from marrying.

Which means that people working to supposedly "protect" marriage are really just using it as an excuse to espouse bigotry.

Period. The entire issue is a red herring.

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I finally spent 5 minutes - literally no more than that - searching the web and came to the American Psychological Association's website, where I found a report which apparently cites all the studies and summarizes the conclusions of current research on lesbian/gay parenting. I didn't bother to download this 88-page document with the list of studies attached, but it certainly seems to refute your statement that "no researcher has ever found a study that contradicts it (i.e., your view that biological parents are always better than non-biological parents)".

Let me summarize the APA's official position on lesbian/gay parenting, as outlined in this document:

"In summary, there is no evidence to suggest that lesbian women or gay men are unfit to be parents or that psychosocial development among children of lesbian women or gay men is compromised relative to that among offspring of heterosexual parents. Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests that home environments provided by lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children's psychosocial growth."

I'd end by saying that the APA strikes me as likely being a much less politically biased source of information on this topic than your "Focus on the Family" group.

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Steven Nock, a sociologist at the University of Virginia who was asked to review several hundred studies as an expert witness for the Attorney General of Canada.
Nock concluded:
Through this analysis I draw my conclusions that….
1) all of the articles I reviewed contained at least one fatal flaw of design or execution; and
2) not a single one of those studies was conducted according to general accepted standards of scientific research.

Design flaws researchers have found in these studies include very basic limitations:

a. No nationally representative sample.
b. Limited outcome measures. Many of the outcomes measured by the research are unrelated to standard measures of child well-being used by family sociologists
(perhaps because most of the researchers are developmental psychologists, not
sociologists).
c. Reliance on maternal reports. Many studies rely on a mother’s report of her
parenting skills and abilities, rather than objective measures of child outcomes
d. No long-term studies. All of the studies conducted to date focus on static or short term measures of child development. Few or none follow children of unisex parents to adulthood.*

* Nock Aff. ¶ 3, Halpern v. Attorney General of Canada, No. 684/00 (Ont. Sup. Ct. of Justice)

Even scholars enthusiastic about unisex parenting, such as Stacey and Biblarz,
acknowledge that…

“there are no studies of child development based on random,
representative samples of [same-sex couple] families.”*

*Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz, 2001. “(How) Does The Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?”, American Sociological Review 66:159, 166.

But perhaps the most serious methodological critique of these studies, at least with reference to the family structure debate, is this:

“The vast majority of these studies compare single lesbian mothers to single heterosexual mothers.”

As sociologist Charlotte Patterson, a leading researcher on gay and lesbian parenting, recently summed up,
“[M]ost studies have compared children in divorced lesbian mother-headed families with children in divorced heterosexual motherheaded families.”*

Most of the gay parenting literature thus compares children in some fatherless families to children in other fatherless family forms. The results may be relevant for some legal policy debates (such as custody disputes) but, in our opinion, they are not designed to shed light on family structure per se, and cannot credibly be used to contradict the current weight of social science: family structure matters, and the family structure that is most protective a child well-being is the intact, married biological family. Children do best when raised by their own married mother and father.

* Charlotte J. Patterson et al., 2000. “Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents: Research, Law and Policy,” in Bette L. Bottoms et al., eds., Children and the Law: Social Science and Policy 10-11
see also Charlotte J. Patterson, 2000. “Family Relationships of Lesbians and Gay Men,” Journal of Marriage and Family 62: 1052-1069.

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....may be in making marriage more difficult for all people rather than making divorce more difficult, as was stated, "Make divorce illegal and extremely difficult like it used to be" in another thread.

Surely, marriage should be more difficult that getting a driver's license? Or maybe both?....make getting a license to marry more difficult AND divorce more difficult?

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Why does everyone forget 2004? Do Democrats want to lose the next election as well?

Maybe someday, decades from now, same-sex marriages might change strait ones. But for now, civil unions are the answer. To those that whine about ‘separate but equal’, you’re only enraging the vast majority of African-Americans.

Same-sex marriage is a ‘boutique’ cause, and liberals and Democrats, have many others, such as re-empowering Unions, that are far more important.

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"In order for our society to accept or even tolerate same-sex marriage, a lot of fairly basic, deep-rooted ideas have to change. The way we define family. The way we think of what it means to be a man, and what it means to be a woman. The importance of sex and sexual fulfillment. What we consider natural and normal. Etc., etc., etc."

But is same-sex marriage more important than re-empowering Labor Unions? Or re-abolishing the Death Penalty? Or keeping Choice Legal?

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Your argument is logical, takes into account history, social change, religion and politics, and makes perfect sense. It has nothing to do with why gay marriage is an issue.

The people who oppose gay marriage do so for one of two reasons. The first group is educated, but politically savvy enough to know that there is profit - either monetary, political or both - in manipulating the second group. The second group knows very little about history, about the religion they profess, or the political forces that rely on their support. They don't trust anyone who does know more because those people are the educated "elitists" that intimidate them. They don't want to know that what they know about religion is mostly wrong. They think Christians invented marriage. They assume all good people are Christian. Anything that varies from the cultural norms they've been raised around theatens their sense of security.

This is no small thing. These people are at a median level of moral and ethical development that they theoretically should have outgrown in their late teens. They didn't develop the imagination it takes to really consider that everything they know might be wrong, or at least a misinterpretation. They didn't develop the critical thinking skills required to look at a religious or social problem with any objectivity. They've been taught that questioning authority is dangerous. They live in a concrete world with black and white issues and they are suspicious of anything that smacks of gray.

You mess with that at your peril. These are the people who foment rebellions, conduct inquisitions, kill, rape and torture for "god and country." If you deviate from the prescriptions of their external authority (religious, political, social, parental, whatever) you are perceived as a threat to their mortal lives and eternal souls.

All the changes you've described in this article are positive, healthy signs of social growth that our culture needs to embrace. The question is how we get there when what is required is no less than a life-altering cognitive shift on the part of the majority of our citizens, and these are the portion of society least likely to make that shift.

I don't have the answer to that problem, but until we find it, this conflict will fester. You can't use logic to reach people who don't have abstract thinking skills. Until Progressives really get that, we're spinning our wheels.

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What a sad little response - to make yourself appear to be so naive that you assumed that I haven't grappled with those questions in my 46 years of life and my years of advanced education. I've thought about these issues, studied them, researched them, experienced them through my own experiences and those of the people around me. In this case, I happen to agree with the author's basic premise, but I know that there's more to the issue than being logical and right.

You want to disagree but appear unable to make a cogent statement of any sort. In fact, your knee-jerk reaction sans supporting argument serves only to prove my premise. People like you don't have the ability to think through a problem logically - you just react and attack. Our task on the Left is to figure out how to deal with those attacks, since logic is lost on you.

Peace~

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A bunch of half-cooked right-wing inanities stated as fact. Again!

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