Same-Sex Marriage and Children, What We Don't Know Shouldn't Hurt Us

In the Iowa court case that legalized same-sex marriage in that state, some "experts" offered testimony that same-sex marriage is bad for children. A group of social science organizations and scholars, myself included, signed an amicus brief arguing that evidence should be excluded because it lacked scientific merit. In the decision, the Iowa Supreme Court cited counter-evidence showing the same-sex couples can be good parents.

Research on the risks or benefits to children of being raised by same-sex couples has been hotly debated. The bulk of existing evidence supports the conclusion that children raised in stable married-couple families have better outcomes on average than those raised in other family contexts. That much is not really controversial. And it is interesting and important to study these questions. But there are at least three problems with using that research to support the argument against same-sex marriage.

1. There are no U.S.-based studies comparing children raised by opposite-sex and same-sex married couples, because there are no legally-married same-sex couples to use in the comparison. The few years of legal marriage we have in a few states hasn't yet yielded enough information to study this systematically.

The Iowa decision declared that "the ultimate disadvantage [from having the right to marriage denied] expressed in the testimony of the plaintiffs is the inability to obtain for themselves and for their children the personal and public affirmation that accompanies marriage." If the benefits of marriage even partly result from that "affirmation," then no current study can test whether differences in child outcomes between same-sex and opposite-sex married couples are caused by family structure. Maybe the benefits, if they are real, result from the families' membership in a commonly valued and valuable social institution.

2. The same people who want to ban gay marriage, and who sex up the research to support their ideological arguments, also insist that the government not collect data on same-sex married couples.

The U.S. Census Bureau, principally, is forbidden from counting same-sex married couples as married -- even when they are legally married in their home states -- by the Defense of Marriage Act. In 2010, as in previous decades, the decennial Census will once again unmarry those same-sex couples who report themselves as married, and count them instead as "unmarried partners." The same rules apply to the other surveys collected by the Federal government. This denial of state definitions of marriage undermines scientific efforts to study family structure and its consequences. (Of course, no one has to prove they are married for the Census -- the concern over whether self-reported marriages are really legal is suspiciously sudden.)

3. Finally, when a condition is advantageous -- that is, it yields benefits compared to being in some other condition -- that also means it contributes to inequality. That's because not everyone gets to experience it. If children of married couples are more likely to finish high school than those who grow up with single mothers, for example, then there is inequality between those two groups. One policy approach to that inequality is to make the condition more common - for example, encourage or coerce people to marry (or discourage people from having children when single).

Another approach is to improve outcomes for people in the disadvantaged group. For example, because resource scarcity is a big part of the problem for single-parent families, we could support a public school system that educates all children effectively, or provide income support to poor families.

Which is the better approach? When the difference is a matter of civil and human rights -- as it is in the case of legal marriage for all couples -- then I favor the second approach. Rather than prevent same-sex couples from having or rearing children, let's find a way to support same-sex parents, and others, to help equalize the chances of success for all children.

Comments

[citybythebay]

The Far Right keeps going on and on about kids in the way John Donovan reasons above. Marriage is so kids have one father and one mother. Leave alone that marriage is not dependent on child raising and functions to signal the relationship between the couple to the legal system. Here's my question: how will allowing two men or two women to get married prevent any child destined to grow up in a mother/father household from doing so? No one ever provides the causal link here.

[carsntrucks]

"1. There are no U.S.-based studies comparing children raised by opposite-sex and same-sex married couples, because there are no legally-married same-sex couples to use in the comparison. The few years of legal marriage we have in a few states hasn't yet yielded enough information to study this systematically."

This is silly for a few reasons. First, it's interesting that you say gay marriage hasn't been legal long enough in enough places to yield enough information to study this, but gay marriage advocates say it has been long enough to determine that nothing "bad" will happen by legalizing gay marriage. I'm just confused on that point.

Also, exactly how would same-sex couples receiving a marriage license positively or negative affect their parentage? Beyond all the legal stuff about custody (which has been shown to have detrimental effects on children even with heterosexual couples), are you saying two unmarried gay parents can better raise children than legally married gay parents? I'm just wondering how licensure changes things.

"One policy approach to that inequality is to make the condition more common - for example, encourage or coerce people to marry (or discourage people from having children when single)."

You're ignoring pertinent data to ratchet up your claims here. The research based that on the mother/father relationship. Unless it placed this result at the feet of a marriage license, I think the mother/father dynamic is what's essential here, not just any form of marriage.

[johnbdonovan]

Yes the mother and father dynamic is what's most essential, but the contract with society and the associated privileges add an important stabilizing dimension.

[Philip N. Cohen - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm really wondering why you would want to prohibit same-sex couples from marrying *even if* they were not ideal parents. By the logic of the good-paren­ting-stand­ard argument (which I don't subscribe to), wouldn't letting them legally marry only make them likely to be better parents, or to gain some of the benefits of marriage for their (innocent) children?

[johnbdonovan]

I've read stories about kids brought up by homosexuals who are now adults. Said one: "I’ve been there. I know the finger-pointing and the shame one carries. For years, you struggle with the thought that you might be a homosexual. People say ‘like mother, like daughter.’ Most of us become promiscuous to prove we’re straight.” Said another: " My (homosexual) father and I have looked back through the past and discussed the issue of homosexual parenting. With great remorse, he agrees the homosexual lifestyle, no matter how conservative, is not healthy for children. My father and I agree: homosexuality and raising healthy children exclude each other.”

[PlaceboStudman]

One anecdote or 500 anecdotes do not represent the experiences of an entire population. In statistical terms, this is called standard deviation, and we simply do not yet know, and may never know whether the story you tell is inside the standard deviation ie statistically reliable to make a conclusion, or outside the standard deviation and therefore unreliable to point to make a conclusion

[mercury613]

Please provide evidence of these stories, as well as information about who published them.

[litlbznsmn]

Most of these arguments seem to take for granted that having a mother and father is all you need for successful child rearing... a realy stupid falicy. Children are molded and tought less by the gender of the parents than by the quality of the parenting and the love they receive. Look at all the f**cked up heterosexual couples out there having children. It amazes me that they are automatically assumed to be better parents because of their sexual orientation. And what of all the homosexual children born to straight parents?? Often they are less than cherished and loved. Anatomy does not a parent make!

[johnbdonovan]

Some people have to realize a basic fact -- men and women are DIFFERENT. They raise children differently! They complement each other -- and not just physically but in child-rearing. What isn't obvious about this. Why use children as guinea pigs for this experiment? It's like people coming along and saying, "Breathing the same kind of air all the time is boring. Let's have a new kind of air."

[frommyeyes]

While I agree that children benefit from the hands and help of two parents, I am appalled at the idea and narrowness of vision that anyone thinks these days that mothers alone give sympathy and grace and those feminine characteristics to their children, while it is only the fathers that can then pass on qualities like justice and fairness. Good gracious man, have you been living in the 18th century? Did women's suffrage mean nothing to you? Didn't women build those planes and help fight for civil rights out of a sense of fairness and justice and wasn't it Jesus who said to love one another in sympathy and grace, and that includes men, does it not? I am not exclusively a religious person by any stretch of the imagination but I am perplexed by this division of labor when I believe that it is by attempting balance within ourselves that we do it best and then collectively holding each other up in the areas we fall short in, when we are fatigued and are just not as good in some areas as in others. But to to try to take us back to those times when I am supposed to simply be good at wiping away the tears while the man in the house teaches the children about justice and fairness is absolutely Victorian. I suppose next you'll give me a pan and expect me to hand you a gun.

[johnbdonovan]

You're appalled? Get over it and then get two books -- the one by Pruett about the essentiality of fathers and the one by Gilligan about the same for mothers.

[johnbdonovan]

You don't need studies to understand the effect on children. You just need common powers of observation. Anyone who has had an adequate mother knows that being a little kid would've been very very different without her.

[Philip N. Cohen - Huffpost Blogger]

OK, I'm sure most kids want a mother. But someone who had an *in*adequate mother know also knows that being a little kid would've been very very different without her. With studies you can add up the observations and see what the real pattern is.

[johnbdonovan]

The point is that mothers tend to stress sympathy, grace and care to their children, while fathers accent justice, fairness and duty. Kids need the combination.

[JohnBisceglia]

I wish more child psychologists, child advocates, and brain specialists get in on the conversation - y'know - SCIENCE?!?!

Has ANYONE ever considered what the psychological impact of PROP 8 was on the children of CA alone?! A child's musical aptitude is set by age 9. Our personalities are ALMOST fully-developed by age 3.

Growing up where you see confusing YES and NO signs littering every other lawn, including your neighbor's lawn, was psychological warfare on children. Giving a minority its DUE civil rights and then ALLOWING a vote to take them away is psychological warfare on all Queer Americans. We have EVERY RIGHT to revolt.

[johnbdonovan]

Marriage isn't a right but a privilege, a system of benefits for the sake of giving children a mother AND a father, because each contributes in a distinctive and necessary way to a child's upbringing. Are there exceptions (eg kids growing up okay without a father)? Sure. But the generalization holds true that when there is no influence of a mother, say, there is a much higher likelihood of antisocial behavior.

[Philip N. Cohen - Huffpost Blogger]

1. Marriage benefits aren't just to give children parents, but also to benefit adults. So same-sex marriage is a fairness issue separate from the child issue.

2. That "generalization" is what I'm getting at in this post. We don't know if that "holds" when comparing married opposite-sex and marriage same-sex couples.

3. Even if that generalization were found to be true in the case of real married-to-married comparisons, I don't think that's a reason to deny marriage rights. Why only give the privilege to people who are behaving perfectly? Under your assumptions about marriage, it seems likely same-sex parent couples would be better parents if they were legally married.

[guywaters]

The U.S. Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court have determined marriage is a FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT, not a privilege as you stated.

“Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.” Loving v. Virginia , 388 U.S. 1 (1967)

“Although our state Constitution does not contain any explicit reference to a
‘right to marry,’ past California cases establish beyond question that the right to
marry is a fundamental right whose protection is guaranteed to all persons by the
California Constitution.” In re Marriage Cases (2008) 43 Cal.4th 757

[tck29]

Someone once told me that gays cannot be parents because they would automatically raise gay children. Never considered that this hypothesis can't account for either straight children of gay parents or gay children of straight parents (which is how the vast majority of gay adults were raised). It's frightening to realize that people actually believe this nonsense which is not grounded in reality.

[juanh]

I believe in evolution - so I can't be a Christian.
I don't like to judge people - so I can't be a Christian.
I don't like to lie to people - so I can't be a Christian.
I don't like to tell others how to live their lives - so I can't be a Christian.
When I hear about gay marriage, I think about to people in love, not sex - so I can't be a Christian.
I believe everyone has a right to chose the faith they wish to believe in - so I can't be a Christian.
I believe in equal under the law - so I can't be a Christian
I think people who are in risk of STD and have sex should use condoms - so I can't be a Christian.
I think adultery and divorce are a bad thing - so I can't be a Christian
I don't want to live in a monarchy for 1,000 years - so I can't be a Christian.
I think we should explore the world around us and learn to be a better, more intelligent society based on science and knowledge - so I can't be a Christian.
I don't like to kill people who are different branches (Protestan­t/Catholic­s) of my faith - so I can't be a Christian.

I guess I can't to be a Christian.

[SJBrown]

HuffPost's Pick

Rather than prevent same-sex couples from having or rearing children....

I am waiting for an honest conversation. A same sex couple cannot "have" children. Can same-sex couples raise children?Yes, they do it every day. Either way, marriage does not demand children or measure marriage by child-rearing.

It amazes me that there is a desire for the stereotype "just like heterosexuals" image that is portrayed in the Iowa Supreme Court decision. In this country, marriage laws were written for a man and a woman. Why are we debating that? The focus should be on public policy, the civil marriage/union models that are most appropriate for this country, and what relationships goverment needs to underpin with contract or benefit.

A close friend left her husband of 13 years/ father of her 4 children; moved in with a divorced woman with 1 minor child. Are they lesbians? No (their view.) Are they a family? Yes (no debate.) Did it affect the children? Yes, as it does any family that separates, stressful/complex. The children call their Mother's partner Aunt. It's what works for them.

Should we look at the impact of this union on the children? Yes, but not for the purposes of whether it is better/worse than, but to understand how we manage the impact of our adult decisions on children.
Are there implications for public policy? I don't know.

Open your eyes to the reality of our relationships.

[LeftRight]

They CAN have children. Since there is no such distinction made for straight couples who adopt.....

[SJBrown]

The distinction is "raise" and "have" if you read the commentary. It still takes a man and a woman to "have" a child.

Adoption is a different issue and isn't restricted to marriage couples and varies by community. In that case, you are raising or caring for a child that when you are, in most cases, not the biological parent. (one exception would be when you provide the egg to another woman and then adopt the child with the surrogate.)

And we certainly make the same distinctions for "straight" couples.

[mydwyf]

"What we don't know shouldn't hurt us" ? What planet are you from ?

[TryToBeFlexible]

The biggest baddest effect of having gays marry and raise children, for the anti-gay mentally deranged christ-addicts, is that the children will not be mentally deranged christ-addicts. They will be reasonable, caring, non-bigotted individuals. And that is a real threat to their world view.

[david43a]

Your rational approach to these questions is welcome, by me in any case!
I fear that the current climate discourages this kind of approach.....
For instance, you did not mention God in the article....that will get you nowhere with
the majority of folks who are anti gay. I say anti gay instead of anti gay-marriage because there is no real difference between the two. The statement "I have friends who are gay" notwithstanding!

[SJBrown]

Sure there is a difference. I think that marriage law was written for a man and a woman. I think we have accepted marriage as an institution that should have some benefits.

I don't think of it as a "heterosexual" institution and don't understand how "marriage" can be redefined and still be "marriage." There are many unions and relationships that are legitimate that aren't "marriage."

I don't want to have to carry a sexual orientation identity and I especially don't want the government labeling me or in my bedroom. I don't know why that necessarily means I hate any group or am anti-gay.

[mydwyf]

It is very curious that the gay rights platform is predicated on 'sexual orientation identity' and yet it is politically incorrect to actually discuss the ramifications of those sexual behaviors. . .

[rx7ward]

No, you are wrong. There is NO DIFFERENCE. Look at it this way: you are saying, "I am not anti-gay, I just think they are not fully human." Or, "I am not anti-gay, I just don't think they deserve equal rights with us straights (even though they pay equal taxes)." Do you not see that being anti-marriage equality, you are IN FACT being anti-gay?

You say, "I don't think of it as a 'heterosexual' institution and don't understand how 'marriage' can be redefined and still be 'marriage.'" You claim to NOT think of it as hetero, but then immediately say "but it's only for man-woman". That is the very definition of hetero-only! Do you not see how confused your thinking is on this issue?

[johnbdonovan]

The issue doesn't have to relate to religion and you can be anti-gay marriage even without having any opinion about gays (I don't have one, for instance). The point is that children need a mother and a father.

[ignoranceequalsfear]

All children benefit from having two parents in a stable loving relationship.
This is easily accepted and not controversial, in my opinion.
Raising a child alone is hard and it is so much easier when you have a partner/spouse to share the work of supporting the child/ren emotionally, spiritually, financially, etc.

That the two parents need to be of the oposite sex for the child/ren to be healthy, happy, well-adjusted, etc is certainly debatable.

There is no true evidence that the parents need to be of the oposite sex as the studies do not exist. Reread the post by Mr Cohen (thank you for your sound arguments, by the way Mr Cohen!) because it seems that this is the exact point he his trying to make!

Opinion is not necessarily reality or fact....

[PlaceboStudman]

HuffPost's Pick

Yet another reason to overturn DOMA. People just don't realize how influencial these laws are in calculating population distribution and relevant need of the population. It's heartbreaking to me that President Obama has decided not to tackle the DOMA question, presumably because that is "a second term issue". But, there are so many "second term issues" that are important to so many people that action, or lack of action on these issues (DOMA, DADT, drug reform laws) may drive people to not support Obama in a second term run. And, the election was not as big a landslide mandate as people would like to believe, so there is a good chance that the disregarded minority (which, frankly is redundant, all minorities are disregarded) may very well swing the next elections in a different direction, when some of us put our support behind an Independent candidate.