I am always wary when somebody presents two alternatives and asks, "Which is it? A or B?" Quite often there should be a choice "C", none of the above. Thus I was a bit skeptical when Eve Tushnet offered only two alternatives for the effects of same-sex marriage. She wrote:
Marriage is the place where society promotes childrearing, because marriage links children to mothers and fathers. SSM either makes marriage no longer the norm, the place where it is good to have kids; or it says that children do not need mothers and fathers at all, only unisex "parents."
Scandinavia has take option #1, allowing same-sex couples to wed but denying them the ability to adopt. Now Scandinavia has marriages where childrearing is actively discouraged.
America seems to be taking option #2. That's understandable--gender, with its emphasis on the constraints of the body, is unattractive to Americans, who tend to prefer unfettered intellects and wills. So for us, SSM will intentionally create legally fatherless and legally motherless children--and will say that these family forms are just as normative as families with father and mother.
In just three short paragraphs I found a great deal about which Eve and I disagree. First there is the initial premise as to the reason society would like childrearing to occur within marriage (as opposed to outside of it). Eve claims it is because marriage links the children to mothers and fathers. I believe the more fundamental reason is it links the mother and father to each other. One benefit of that is it makes it far more likely that each will then be linked to the child, but I don't think it is just as well for the child to have the parents unmarried or even living apart as long as each parent maintains a link to the child. I think the relationship between the parents has an enormous impact on the child. When people--myself included--argue that marriage is good for the health, wealth, and happiness of the spouses or that it promotes stability in the relationship between the spouses, we are not ignoring children. The welfare of the adults as individuals and as a couple is itself tied tightly with the welfare of the child.
Next Eve claims that SSM must do one of two things. The first option is that it makes marriage no longer the place where it is good to have kids. Suppose SSM does not do this. What follows? Only the negation of that statement. That is, SSM continues to present marriage as the place where it is good to have kids. But Eve claims this implies that children do not need mothers and fathers. That only follows from the former if we assume that every marriage provides everything children need. But that is certainly not true. When a couple gets married it does not necessarily follow that the child will thus be raised in some perfect sitaution. This is not what we mean--at least not what I mean--when I claim marriage is the place where it is good to have kids. I mean, rather, that it is generally better for the kids to be raised within a marriage than outside of one. Across married couples there will be a wide variety of living situations for children. They are not all equally ideal. So one can hold that a child would generally do better with a mother and a father and at the same time believe that a child, whether he has a mother and father or two unisex parents, would generally do better if those parents were married. As an example, I think a child would generally do better with two parents of the same faith. That does not mean that I think interfaith marriages should be illegal out of some concern about it misleading people about the importance of religion in child rearing. In fact, if an interfaith couple is going to raise a child I still think it should be done within marriage. Whatever one's views with regards to interfaith or same-sex marriages, the second alternative Eve provides does not follow from rejecting the first.
Then Eve seems to claim that allowing same-sex couples to wed but denying them the ability to adopt is taking option #1. That is, such a path makes marriage no longer the place where it is good to have kids. Once again that does not follow. "All child rearing should be done in marriage" does not imply "all marriages should engage in child rearing". Therefore saying some marriages should not engage in child rearing does not imply some child rearing should not be done in marriage. Compare this with the situation in many US states where same-sex couples are allowed to raise children, but denied the ability to wed. We have child rearing where marriage is actively discouraged. That does deny marriage is the place where it is good to have kids. It is the current situation that really separates marriage from child rearing.
Finally Eve claims that SSM will intentionally create legally fatherless and legally motherless children. That is also false. Some children are legally fatherless or legally motherless. Some of these children have two parents of the same sex. SSM does not create these families, it only offers them more protection. Same-sex marriage would hold out marriage as the normative family form. Prohibiting same-sex marriage, on the other hand, would create a wide variety of legal structures for families and say that which structure is right for which family depends on the characteristics of the individuals in the family.
Welcome back!
(Good post, too!)
Posted by: Ampersand | July 10, 2004 at 06:16 PM
"The welfare of the adults as individuals and as a couple is itself tied tightly with the welfare of the child."
Thank you so much for making this point. So many conservatives seem convinced that the happiness of couples and the welfare of children are entirely independent issues. I don't understand it.
Posted by: elf | July 11, 2004 at 10:21 PM
And btw, thank you for another entirely wonderful post.
Posted by: elf | July 11, 2004 at 10:22 PM
Thank you again for an excellent post - one that astutely explores the wealth of detail in an issue that is, as you mention, often made out to be a black-and-white, "A" or "B" matter.
Posted by: Lenka | July 12, 2004 at 01:08 PM
Welcome back!
I have never figured out how Eve, and other opponents of SSM can believe permitting same sex couples to marry will result in kids who are legally motherless or fatherless. Or at least more legally motherless or fatherless kids than already exist!
Don't most states permit single parents to adopt? Aren't kids generally legally fatherless when an unwed mother does not identify the father, and he does not step forward? (Is there anything we can do about that?)
The only change I see if we enact same sex marriage is that some childern will go from having one parent to having two!
Posted by: lucia | July 12, 2004 at 02:09 PM
Thanks all for the kind words of support. Unfortunately I still have much less time for blogging than I would like, but I'm going to try to maintain at least 3-4 posts a week.
Posted by: Galois | July 12, 2004 at 03:07 PM
"[S]ome childern will go from having one parent to having two!"
If 2 is better than 1, isn't 3 better than 2? What about 4? Or 5?
It makes me think of the Nike salesman in Kansas recently who had his samples stolen from his truck in a motel parking lot. Even though the loot was worth more than $10,000 it wasn't quite the haul the thief expected, since all of them were left-foot shoes.
http://www.wibw.com/news/headlines/871901.html
Posted by: Bill Dillinger | July 14, 2004 at 04:27 PM
somehow I feel insulted by that analogy.
listen, I had 4 parents (step parents) and a close grandmother and a close uncle and aunt with no children who all pretty much raised me... so in some sense.. the answer is
YES.. Family has always meant more than 'nuclear' (a historically recent addition to our family structures). 3 is better than 2, 4 better than three..etc.
as to 'parents', two is better than 1 in most cases, sometimes it is not possible or optimal (if one parent is abusive, etc), but for legal and other reasons, 'parents' is better left at 2, I would argue.
Posted by: trey | July 14, 2004 at 06:42 PM
Bill,
Haven't you heard, one is the loneliest number?
Yes. Two is better than one. I happen to think two is optimum.
Posted by: lucia | July 14, 2004 at 07:40 PM
>>Lucia: "[How does] permitting same sex couples to marry will result in kids who are legally motherless or fatherless. Or at least more legally motherless or fatherless kids than already exist!"
If you are looking for a definitive cause and effect, you probably won't find it. If SSM is enacted, you might have to wait a couple of decades to become unconvinced by the plentiful data and analyses. ;-)
But I am not so sure that those with whom you disagree actually say that SSM alone would increase motherless or fatherless kids. They defend an optimum that SSM contradicts. They are convinced that in the long-run society needs to encourage men and women to provide children with moms and dads together.
Their goal (your goal, too?) is not so much to prevent an increase as it is to *achieve a decrease* in fatherlessness and motherlessness. SSM promotes a unisex doctrine of both marriage and parenthood.
Posted by: chairm | July 15, 2004 at 05:20 AM
Reflecting upon your question, I have a few tentative suggestions. Grist for the mill.
First, there is a trend in which same-sex couples adopt children from out-of-country to avoid the mom-dad priority that many defend in our own country. If encouraged with SSM, this would add children to our society who would remain fatherless or motherless.
Second, there is another trend in which same-sex couples partake of assisted reproduction technologies (ART) and this creates legally fatherless or motherless children. Yes, there is a legal process of relinquishment of parental duties and rights -- whether ART includes donors or surrogates -- but the end result is the same. It seems reasonable to expect that SSM would encourage this trend.
Posted by: chairm | July 15, 2004 at 05:23 AM
Most children in same-sex households were neither adopted nor created through ART. The largest source of children has been prior marriages with the opposite sex.
When a child migrates from a mixed-orientation marriage to a same-sex marriage, that child still has both a mom and a dad; so the count of fatherless or motherless children wouldn't go up. However, estrangement between parents might cause a non-custodial parent to relinquish parental status; then step-parent adoption would be an option for the same-sex partner of the other parent. That would add to the count.
I don't claim to know if these trends would hold steady or increase due to the influence of SSM -- via the cultural discussion or legal enactment. But it might get in the way of a reduction in fatherlessness and motherlessness.
Posted by: chairm | July 15, 2004 at 05:31 AM
trey, if a child had 4 step-parents, that would imply 6 parents total. And a succession of relinquishments of parental responsibility. But perhaps you meant step-parent in the social or informal sense and not in the formal sense of adoption in which the new parent replaces one of the original two?
Polygamy might include multiple parents and a blending of step-siblings and step-parents, I suppose, but I'm not up on all the diversity of such marriages. I do know that the communal "marriages" of the early 1970s became confirmed disasters shortly after children arrived on the scene.
In our society the experience of step-families does not indicate that "more is better", but that more is more difficult and unstable. Remarriage is generally a good thing for both parents and their children, however, what makes it good is not the multiplying of adults but the settling of mom and dad (singular).
And, no, the partners of parents and the uncles, auntes, and grandparents do not stand as parents in this sense in the SSM discussion. Children understand that uncle does not mean mom; grandmom does mean dad. Yes, very often, these relatives are the constants in the lives of children of divorce or other domestic shifts. It is also very common for relatives to become foster parents, and eventually adoptive parents, of children whose original parents cannot fulfill their parental responsibilities. But that's where "step-parents" step-in: to make-up for a shortfall rather than multiply what original parents are already capable of doing for the child.
It seems to me that the point of Bill's post, and the wry ref to the linked newstory, was to anticipate Lucia's and your response: how is marriage (and / or parenting) optimized by limiting it to two adults, and not three or more -- whether of the same or opposite sex?
Posted by: chairm | July 15, 2004 at 05:40 AM
Galois, I've re-read your post at the top of this thread and I'm not sure that I understand your argument. Here's what I gather to be the first few points in your response to Eve:
Society "would like childbearing to occur within marriage" because marriage links children to their mothers and fathers. But more fundamentally,
The welfare of the child is tied tightly to the marital relationship's stability which itself is good for the health, wealth, and happiness of the married individuals.
The relationship between the parents has an enormous impact on the child.
Marriage links the mother and father to each other [as husband and wife].
A benefitial by-product of the marital link is the greater likelihood that each parent will be linked to their child. But a child could be linked to unmarried parents -- cohabitating together or living apart.
I'm restating your points and asking for clarification and / or correction. I'm not building an argument as I am trying first to understand your points; and then decide if I agree or not.
Posted by: chairm | July 15, 2004 at 05:53 AM
First, there is a trend in which same-sex couples adopt children from out-of-country to avoid the mom-dad priority that many defend in our own country. If encouraged with SSM, this would add children to our society who would remain fatherless or motherless.
For these individual children, the alternative is to be orphaned entirely. So, they get either one or two parents instead of zero. Seems like a good thing to me.
In anycase, I know many heterosexual couples who have adopted from overseas, including my cousin and his wife.
Second, there is another trend in which same-sex couples partake of assisted reproduction technologies (ART) and this creates legally fatherless or motherless children.
As long as they get two responsible parents, I have see no problem with this. Two people cooperate to bring the kid up.
This is why we need presumed parenthood for the spouse of birth mother.
You are, btw, aware, that women managed to figure out how to get artificially inseminated withouth the medical assistance, right? Some ingeneous person came up with the "the turkey baster method". This happens with or without legal same sex marriage. Same sex marriage will help resolve many of the custody issues that arise when methods like these are used.
Posted by: lucia | July 15, 2004 at 08:58 AM
>>Lucia: "As long as they get two responsible parents, I have see no problem with this. Two people cooperate to bring the kid up."
You asked and I provided suggestions that show how SSM could add to the count of fatherless and motherless children. Circling back to the basic point of contention doesn't reduce the count.
>>Lucia: "For these individual children, the alternative is to be orphaned entirely. ... I know many heterosexual couples who have adopted from overseas"
The alternative is that the children be adopted by married couples, or single men and women who are eligible to marry. Calling SSU "marriage" doesn't provide a child with both a mom and a dad, or even the prospect, whereas the heterosexual couples you mentioned did.
Contrary to SSM mythology, there are millions of such couples who are ready and willing; but we do have loads of b'cratic obstacles to clear away and inertia to overcome. And millions of children would benefit.
Posted by: chairm | July 15, 2004 at 10:41 AM
Chairm,
I think you summarize my first few points fairly well. I would add that when I say that marriage helps the married individuals, this is in turn good for the child.
The basic idea is that a person is going to be better able to care for the child and take care of the child's needs when that person has help caring for his or her own needs. A person can devote more energy and attention to the child, when the person has less financial and health worries, and when that person has emotional and spiritual support. This is an addition to the added benefit of a second person to directly care for the child.
Which brings us to Bill's statement that if 2 is better than 1, why isn't 3 (or 4 or 5) better than 2. The short answer is that there is no reason to believe one implies the other, and in fact one can develop a counterexample to the theory quite easily. Take the mathematical function f(x) = 14 + 4x - x squared. Then we have f(1) = 17 and f(2) = 18. So 2 gives us a greater value than 1. Yet f(3) = 17, f(4) = 14, and f(5) = 9. So greater numbers are giving us successively less value.
As for the case of parents it is reasonable to believe that additional parents add some benefits (for example, more people to attend to the needs of the child), but they also add some costs (for example, greater chance for conflict; with 2 adults there is one relationship with potential conflict, with 3 adults there is 3 relationships with potential conflict, with 4 adults there is 6, etc.) In the case of going from 1 adult to 2 we may believe that the added benefits outweigh the added costs, but beyond that the added costs start to outweigh the added benefits.
On one last issuse, Chairm you do hint at some possible ways SSM could increase the number of children without a parent of each sex. You say that SSM could encourage same-sex adoption. First of all, note that this only increases the number of such children if they would otherwise have been adopted by parents of the opposite sex. But generally the goal is to place a child in the best possible home for that child. So if the child were placed with a same-sex couple over an opposite-sex couple it means a conclusion was reached that in this case the same-sex couple provided the better home for the child than that opposite-sex couple. Certainly that is possible. You are not, I believe, arguing that all opposite-sex couples provide better environments for raising a child than all same-sex couples. Furthermore, the opposite-sex couple who were unable to adopt that particular child, might subsequently adopt a child who would otherwise not have been adopted. So it's a win-win situation.
You also mention SSM might increase the trend of ART. How might it do so? Perhaps SSM will create more stable and secure families. And a stable and secure family is more likely to decide to have a child. I would say such a family including the newborn child is a blessing to the world and a great benefit of SSM.
Finally, you refer to parents who might relinquish parental rights in favor of a same-sex step-parent. Once again I would say that the child is better off in this circumstance. Furthermore, I would argue that in the future we would be better off not trying to force gay individuals into opposite-sex marriages in the first place.
All in all, I'd say children are far better off with same-sex marriage.
Posted by: Galois | July 15, 2004 at 11:19 AM
Hi Galois, good to see you posting again. I'll comment a bit later tonight on your post at the very top of this thread. But for the moment...
>>Galois: "SSM could encourage same-sex adoption. First of all, note that this only increases the number of such children if they would otherwise have been adopted by parents of the opposite sex."
The count of fatherless or motherless children in our country would go up when same-sex couples adopt children from out-of-country. This is a growing trend even now without SSM. How much more it would grow with state-sanctioned SSM (or SSU) is probably anyone's guess. The point is that the count of fatherless or motherless children would not diminish due to SSM.
Now, if coincidentally, our society did manage to improve the adoption process *within our own country*, the resulting decrease in fatherless or motherless children would not be due to an enactment of SSM. Such an improvement is working its way through the pipes in several states and that would do far more to reduce the count than anything promised in the espousal of SSM. Likewise with encouraging the involvement of unwed dads in the lives of their kids; and same for the efforts to reduce teenage conceptions. But I'm digressing...
As for best interests of the child, that is a doctrine that has been stretched beyond its limits, I think. We can do much better in a society as sophisticated and as virtuous (yes we area virtuous society) as ours. And although there may be circumstances in which a same-sex couple might be the best option for a given child (for example, a child related to one of the adults), I do believe that society ought to have the right to prioritize prospective adoptive parents; and married man-woman couples, when qualified, ought to be at the top of the list. But that is really something that our open and democratic society ought to test, study, decide.
>>Galois: "You also mention SSM might increase the trend of ART. How might it do so?"
To clarify: I said that there is an existing trend in which homosexual adults, and same-sex couples, are increasingly accessing ART to create children to raise. It seems reasonable to say that when ART is used by such prospective parents (and I know it is not nearly as foolproof as some newsarticles might suggest) with success, then, they willl have added to the count of fatherless or motherless children in our society. Again, institutionalizing the unisex doctrine of marriage and parenthood via SSM would probably encourage this trend rather than reverse it. But maybe it would have little or no effect, I'm only speculating like anyone else would.
>>Galois: "parents who might relinquish parental rights in favor of a same-sex step-parent. Once again I would say that the child is better off in this circumstance. Furthermore, I would argue that in the future we would be better off not trying to force gay individuals into opposite-sex marriages in the first place."
Basically, I'd agree, however this would still add to the count. There are successful mixed-orientation marriages. We shouldn't judge them too quickly. The primary reason that homosexual men and women give for having entered such marriages, or to continue such marriages, is having and raising children of their own. (Of course, they also usually have genuine love and attachment to their wives or husbands.) SSM might encourage a higher rate of dissolution. It might reduce such marriages in the first place (no one is foricing them into mixed-orientation marriages) and increase SSMs; and since these are the marrying type such a trend would be reasonable to expect -- along with a concomittant increase in ART or adoptions.
So all three suggestions could add to the count. Whether or not you think this would be good or bad, neither trend seems capable of reducing the count. It is the reduction that is the goal of those who want to conserve the status quo of marriage. And perhaps not unlike your mathematical equation, there is a judgment involved in weighing the costs of failing to reach for a goal that SSM seems to contradict.
Posted by: chairm | July 15, 2004 at 02:23 PM
By your logic Chairm it would seem that we should support more abortions in this country. (Not just having it legal, but rather having more of them performed). That might reduce the number of children in fatherless or motherless households. Even if the parents are happily married, there is a chance they will eventually divorce or one parent will die and then we have a child without a mother or father. Performing an abortion would eliminate that possiblity. Certainly not performing the abortion won't reduce the number of motherless or fatherless children.
Even in a case of a couple adopting a child who would otherwise be orphaned, you consider that to be a negative consequence because it adds to the number of motherless or fatherless children in this country. How is that a detriment for the child or for society?
It is still the case that couples are currently having children in all of these manners. SSM could help them care for these children. You fear that with this help, though, more couples might be inclined to have children in this manner. Perhaps we should ban motorcycle helmets for the same reason. If people are allowed to wear helmets, it becomes safer to ride a motorcycle. But if motorcycle riding is safer (or perceived to be such) then more people might ride motorcylces. The more people that ride motorcycles, the more likely a motorcycle crash is. Motorcycle crashes are bad, so we should ban helmets. Of course we will continue to allow people to ride motorcycles, but they just can't wear a helmet.
Posted by: Galois | July 15, 2004 at 02:59 PM
Chairm: "First, there is a trend in which same-sex couples adopt children from out-of-country to avoid the mom-dad priority that many defend in our own country. If encouraged with SSM, this would add children to our society who would remain fatherless or motherless."
I think this first statement is one you will have to throw out of the mill.
The trend is opposite. The facts: Adopting overseas is more _difficult_ for gay parents because _every_ country bans gay couples and most all ban known gay individuals, many ban single men (thus barring one gay man in a couple to adopt, bringing the child home and then doing a second-parent adoption) and many make it difficult for single women. Adopting overseas has become and is becoming MORE difficult for gay individuals and couples, not less. It is MUCH simpler to adopt privately within the US (in all but 3 states) or through state organizations (in about 25) either as a single parent (47 states) or even as a gay couple (around 10-15 states). More facts: Of the over 1,000 gay parents that belong to a local gay parent support group, over 90% of those that adopted did so domestically, not internationally (a overwhelmingly higher percentage of domestic vs international adoptions than straight parent adoptions).
anecdotely. We decided to adopt domestically for the very reasons stated above. We found very few countries that were willing to allow a single male adopt and if we did, it would take a lot of 'hiding' to adopt (writing homestudy as a couple for local purposes (judge, etc), having it rewritten as a single person for the international judge/authorities). It wasn't worth it. Our first adoption was a private adoption domestically. We had 3 prospective mothers choose _us_ over other straight parent profiles, we were finally matched with our dear daughter. Born in Washington, the country judge put us both on the birth certificate as legal parents. Our second adoption is through the state/county fost-adopt program. Again, it is no problem legally (in California we can both be on the birth certificate) and proceedurely (homestudy, social workers, parents if any, judge, everyone knows we are a gay couple). Even our gay friends in _Utah_, Maryland, Virginia and Colorado have adopted domestically with little problem.
It is much easier to adopt domestically for gay couples (or single men for that matter) than it is to adopt internationally. The trend is exact opposite as you state. Gay and lesbian couples adopt overwhelmingly domestically, and overwhelmingly more so than straight parents.
Posted by: trey | July 15, 2004 at 04:02 PM
>>You asked and I provided suggestions that show how SSM could add to the count of fatherless and motherless children. Circling back to the basic point of contention doesn't reduce the count.
True-- I don't see a problem, and as I mentioned, the lesbian couples are already having these children anyway. Permitting them to marry won't add to the number. (I should have added that idea. Forgive me, but these threads get spread out, and one is after all, carrying on several conversations at various blogs. It's easy to forget where we began.)
>>Lucia: "For these individual children, the alternative is to be orphaned entirely. ... I know many heterosexual couples who have adopted from overseas"
The alternative is that the children be adopted by married couples, or single men and women who are eligible to marry.
No. This is not the alternative. The reason these overseas children are available for adoption to same sex couples is that insufficient number of adults are stepping forward to adopt them. Others remain in orphanages. So, the alternative for these children is to remain orphans. In fact, many countries limit adoption to opposite sex parents, and keep the children in foster or state homes. Our permitting same sex marriage will likely not affect the decision making process in those countries.
If, in fact, millions of heterosexual couples were stepping forward to adopt overseas children, China, Korea, Guatemala etc. would permit these children to be adopted by those couples. These millions are not stepping forward. Possibly, as you suggest, the heterosexual couples are not sufficiently eager to deal with the paperwork and prefer to drop the matter. When a same sex couple becomes willing to do so, the child is saved from a life in an institution.
It might be nice if these countries simplified the adoption process, but that's not really in our power. Is it?
Posted by: lucia | July 15, 2004 at 06:16 PM
Take the mathematical function f(x) = 14 + 4x - x squared. Then we have f(1) = 17 and f(2) = 18. So 2 gives us a greater value than 1. Yet f(3) = 17, f(4) = 14, and f(5) = 9. So greater numbers are giving us successively less value.
In your next post discussing the optimum number of parents, can you use Lagrange multipliers!!!!!
;-)
By the way-- I agree. There is no reason why the "benefit" to children is a monotonically increasing function of the number of parents. Few things are monotonically increasing or decreasing.
(Sorry non-engineers or non-mathematicians. But, I'm tired of holding back things like "Lagrange multiplier"!
Posted by: lucia | July 15, 2004 at 06:22 PM
And imagine, Trey. You adopted even though SSM was not enacted! So, likely, enacting SSM will make little difference.
Posted by: lucia | July 15, 2004 at 06:30 PM
Galois, the remarks in your last post do not follow logically from my comments. If you read with care you will notice that I did not propose a ban on adoptions by homosexual men and women. Nor did I suggest even remotely that abortion would be preferable to such adoptions. I have voiced my opinion regarding prioritization and the need for these matters to be subject to the democratic process of lawmaking.
>>trey: "The trend is exact opposite as you state. Gay and lesbian couples adopt overwhelmingly domestically, and overwhelmingly more so than straight parents."
I did not describe a trend that is opposite of the statment you just made. But I'm skeptical of your claim.
How many domestic adoptions? How many out-of-country? What portion of adoptions by same-sex couples are domestic? And for opposite-sex couples?
As a baseline, consider Census 2000 data. Adopted children comprised about 2.6% of all the children in married homes and 1.7% of the children in the homes of unmarried couples (which is a category that includes same-sex homes). Given that same-sex households included children at a rate that was significantly lower than that of opposite-sex couples, and that they are more likely to have children of foreign origin, etc., it is reasonable to doubt your assertion.
Yes, out-of-country immigration has increased steadily -- from about 7,000 in 1999 to 21,100 in 2002. That's because there's a decrease in the availability of young children domestically. And that's tied to the recent increase in legal and informal adoptions by relatives and stepparents who account for about half of domestic adoptions (as well as fosterparenting). Adding to the doubts about an overwhelmingly higher rate of domestic adoption by same-sex couples is the variety of restrictions on same-sex couples in most of our states. On the other hand, in certain regions, local social workers are prone to the policy of "don't ask, don't tell" -- for both domestic and international adoptions.
As for restrictions in Asian countries, in 2002 more than two-thirds of immigration visas issued to orphans were for children coming from Africa, Europe, and North-Central-South America (not including Mexico and Canada). Besides, the homestudies are performed by the same local social workers who don't ask, don't tell for domestic cases.
This is all the more reason to expect that the enactment of SSM would encourage the trend toward same-sex couples setting up fatherless or motherless homes.
Posted by: chairm | July 16, 2004 at 05:41 PM
I'm sorry to intrude, but there's something I'm trying to understand, and perhaps y'all can help me. I don't see the big differences between "Parenthood", "Motherhood", and "Fatherhood" which are sometimes brought up in these discussions. I'm a happily married mom in a heterosexual marriage with the father of my child, so I feel like I SHOULD get it, but I just don't.
I can see the differences between one and two parent families -- I watch my sister's struggle as a single parent, and can compare it to my life in a two parent family. But I don't see a difference between SSM two parent families and OSM (if that's the right TLA) two parent families. Perhaps it's because I'm the primary wage-earner, and my husband is the stay at home parent. Or maybe it's because I'm the least feminine person I know (including some straight men of my acquaintance) -- I'm a classic programmer nerd. If I had to diagram parenting, I'd draw two circles (one for mother, one for father) which overlapped 99%, with the union labeled "Parent". Others would draw the circles barely touching. And my picture would look the same for a same sex couple raising children.
So, my questions: Aside from giving birth and lactating, what do mothers do that fathers can't? Or vice versa? What's the difference between a mother, a father, and a parent?
Thanks for your patience.
Posted by: Ab_Normal | July 16, 2004 at 05:57 PM