EFFECT OF GAY MARRIAGE ON CHILDREN OF GAYS: Maggie Gallagher replies to Jonathan Rauch

Jon writes:

The 2000 census counted about 160,000 same-sex-couple households with one or more children. Those children, of course, would be directly affected if their parents got married, and there seems to be little dispute that the effects would be positive. Marriage would, to begin with, give their families the additional legal security that marriage provides. The children would have, as Evan Wolfson notes in his book Why Marriage Matters, "automatic and undisputed access to the resources, benefits, and entitlements of both parents."

Just a sidenote: The majority of those kids appear to be children of previous heterosexual marriages. If their same-sex couple-heads married, it would be a stepfamily, not an intact married familiy. There is no particular evidence of benefit to children from living in stepfamilies.

I don't think the effects of gay marriage on children with a gay parent are at all clear, although I agree it's quite possible they'd be better off.
posted by Eve at 1:06 PM | Link |

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