SSM: THE LESSER-HEARD OPPOSITION MOVEMENT: From New York Newsday

Elizabeth Marquardt is 33, married for eight years, a mother of two young children, an author and researcher on the topic of divorce and family. ...

She is also, much to the surprise and dismay of her liberal friends and colleagues, opposed to same-sex marriage, even though her best friend is gay. ...

Marquardt said her argument has nothing to do with homosexuality itself. Instead, she said, gay marriage brings up the same concern as divorce and single parenthood: That all potentially compromise the emotional health of children by aspiring to something less than what she considers the gold standard, a family led by a man and woman, married to each other. Broken and imperfect families are realities of life, but only gay marriage involves changing the fundamental definition of marriage, she said.

"I'm not willing to say right now," she said, "that the rights of adults to do what they want trump the question of how this will affect children." ...

Marquardt supports gay adoption and legal protections for gay couples and parents. But she stops short along with a great many Americans when it comes to granting wholesale the rights of marriage to gay couples.

"It's one thing to accept all kinds of families as you find them," Marquardt said. "But when you talk about larger policy goals, and changing the norm, that's not acceptable." ...

"We believe marriage is about family, too," said Corri Planck, with the Family Pride Coalition, a national advocacy group for gay and lesbian families. "It seems both sides are saying the same thing. We just have some different ideas of what constitutes a family."

Social scientists generally agree that the family structure best suited to raise the healthiest children is one led by a married mother and father, a position that is difficult to assert without appearing anti-gay, some said.

Gay rights advocates point to research that shows gay parents raise healthy and happy children. But some scientists and scholars say those studies are too new to be conclusive. Samples are small, do not take into account all variables, and have been studied over a short period of time, they say.

Bill Doherty, a professor in the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota, said that "kids in same-sex households will probably look like kids in stepfamilies. They're not quite as well off, but they're not terrible. And we don't ban stepfamilies."

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posted by Eve at 6:00 PM | link

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