Marriage, Kids, and the Gays
This neat summary of how marriage is becoming less child-centered has indirect implications for the marriage equality debate, it seems to me. Tara Parker-Pope, a blogger for the Times, summarizes research establishing that kids rank fairly low on the list of things necessary to a happy marriage; not surprising, given that people are also having fewer kids — and having them later — than generations past.
The story also quotes the testimony of the main witness for the Prop 8 proponents, the disastrous and case-destroying David Blankenhorn, who blathered on about the marriage-reproduction bond,which he regards as insoluble:
Extending marital rights to couples who cannot conceive children would change marriage from “a child-based public institution to an adult-centered private institution” and “weaken the role of marriage generally in society.”
But while Mr. Blankenhorn has been marinating in his think tank, marriage has been changing around him. His airy pronouncements, void of empirical support, are contradicted by reality — a reality that could include (as long as we’re speculating) the strengthening of marriage by allowing same-sex couples in. After all, the couples likeliest to take advantage of the right to marry would be those who have, or want, kids. So the marriage-kids connection might be reinforced, not further pulled apart, by marriage equality.
One Response to “Marriage, Kids, and the Gays”
June 20th, 2010 at 8:29 am
Our government/society encourages marriage by giving tax benefits to those who are married, presumably because it is to society’s benefit to have citizens in stable family units (and extra tax benefits for raising children because, let’s face it, society can’t continue without replenishing its supply of citizens) but yet the government/society refuses to allow some of its citizens to marry. It’s just a matter of logic that every citizen ought to have the ability to marry into a stable family unit (and to raise children if capable and willing.)
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