FAMILY STRUCTURE: Chairm Ohn replies to Joshua Jasper and Mark Barton

[Chairm is a retired educator "currently traveling in the American Heartland."]

Josh Jasper said:

"The main difference in a child having two parents of the same sex is going to be in growing up with a hostile culture, and probably with the GLBT (gay lesbian bisexual and transgendered) culture as a support for the parents. I don't think that's comparable to having one's parents divorce and re-marry, and I'd be interested in hearing any ideas on why that might be."

By far most of the children living with same-sex couples are the offspring of previously procreative marriages with the opposite sex. They have the same potential legal protections as other children of divorce. And they do have both moms and dads. The second adults in these same-sex relationships are more like social (rather than adoptive) stepparents who must cope with a blended family; but with the added complication of standing in for the opposite-sex parent. And doing so in a supposedly gender-neutral manner as companion of the custodial parent.

On that score it is worth considering the emerging trend of state legislatures enacting the presumption of joint custody. This seems to dampen the rate of divorce. It also increases the involvement of both parents in the lives of their children after divorce. That is a good thing for the children. So where would that place most of the second adults in same-sex households that raise children if not in the realm of something like social stepparents?

Mark Barton wrote that "On the one hand you won't succeed in getting gay men into opposite-sex marriages simply by making same-sex marriage unavailable."

Mr. Barton concludes that gay men in opposite-sex marriages would "be spectacularly pointless or even counterproductive because (i) such marriages are not particularly stable, (ii) men in such marriages are likely to be cheating with other men in unsavory circumstances that promote STDs, and (iii) gay men are not particularly likely to father children except in such marriages."

These three speculative points are subject to assumptions about marriage. First, that sexual preference is not fluid; that the experience of mixed-orientation marriages is more spectacularly pointless and unstable than the average marriage. Second, that gay men who marry women in order to, e.g., have their own children are generally prone to unsavory sexual behavior; that may or may not be so within or without marriage -- as per the common view among gay activists that monogamy need not mean sexual exclusivity in SSM. The third point is evidently accurate as relatively few children live with homosexual men; and few of this subset of children have been acquired through means other than marriages with women.

If SSM would have the influence on gay domesticity that its advocates predict, we might expect more same-sex couples would be attracted to SSM (if enacted); and fewer would start mixed-orientation marriages to have children. There'd be a reduction in the volume of children migrating from man-woman couples to same-sex couples through divorce. It is difficult to imagine that assisted reproduction and adoption could make-up the difference. The tiny volume of same-sex households raising children might be expected to diminish below current levels.

There are related questions that are by-products of the SSM debate. First, will society be pushed to establish a right to unrestricted access to assisted reproduction; and will society give up any option of restricting such access to man-woman marriages? Second, will society relinquish the lawful authority to prioritize who may adopt needy children?

Is there consensus on the liberal view on these fundamental issues? Is access to adoption and assisted reproduction being decided in the courts, legislatures, or outside of either?
posted by Eve at 7:18 PM | link

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