Since civil marriage between same sex partners is a legal matter, it might be interesting to examine the issues from a legal perspective. Earlier this year the Iowa Supreme Court overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage based on a Constitutional analysis that emphasized equal protection of the law.
It was helpful to me to review the court's response to claims to the effect that hetero couples provide the best upbringing for kids:
"These opinions, while thoughtful and sincere, were largely unsupported by reliable scientific studies." This conclusion is is consistent with my own brief review of the research evidence, some of which actually shows that child upbringing provided by same-sex couples is less conflicted and more evenly distributed than hetero couples. In particular, lesbian couples' child rearing practices have been found to be superior to those of hetero couples. (See
Parenting and child development in "nontraditional" families by Michael E. Lamb)
Further, the Iowa court notes that assumptions about the advantages of a hetero upbringing are flawed:
"If the marriage statute was truly focused on optimal parenting, many classifications of people would be excluded, not merely gay and lesbian people." Consider the high rates of child abuse among hetero couples. It's ignored by RW activists against same sex-marriage. Generally speaking, I would add that there is so much wrong with traditional hetero marriage that it is borders on absurd for anyone to suggest that this is the standard same sex couples should be held to. For one thing, based on the high rates of divorce, we know that traditional marriages are unstable. While the notion of a traditional family has intuitive appeal, the fact is: it's not workable for many reasons that have nothing to do with a legal recognition of same sex marriage.
In the US, about one third of families with kids under 18 are single-parent families. There is simply no reason to believe that continuing to glorify heterosexual legal privileges in marriage and denying legal recognition for same-sex marriage would have any impact on this.
The court goes on to note that the child rearing argument is overstated and too broadly applied:
The ban on same-sex marriage is substantially over-inclusive because not all same-sex couples choose to raise children. Yet, the marriage statute denies civil marriage to all gay and lesbian people in order to discourage the limited number of same-sex couples who desire to raise children. In doing so, the legislature includes a consequential number of “individuals within the statute’s purview who are not afflicted with the evil the statute seeks to remedy.”
The court concluded that a ban on same sex marriages provides no obvious benefit for kids. It's not apparent
"how the best interests of children of gay and lesbian parents, who are denied an environment supported by the benefits of marriage under the statute, are served by the ban." The court adds that denying legal recognition for same sex marriage
"does not benefit the interests of those children of heterosexual parents, who are able to enjoy the environment supported by marriage with or without the inclusion of same-sex couples."
The court concluded that gays and lesbians be granted
"full access to the institution of civil marriage." The court's reasoning seems fairly compelling to me and leaves little doubt that child rearing aspect of the argument against same sex marriage bespeaks a belief among some that constitutional principles matter little and should be put on the back burner. The court obviously disagrees:
...Civil marriage must be judged under our constitutional standards of equal protection and not under religious doctrine or the religious views of individuals.
It can be argued that gays should have the same rights as nongays on Constitutional grounds. No matter how elaborate, op-ed pieces and untested theories about the benefits of traditional marriages won't add much of anything to the disposition of what is ultimately a legal matter. Polemics will only give the impression of being irrelevant chatter serving to sidetrack the issues, which are legal in nature.
For your interest, here's the Iowa state Supreme Court opinion:
http://www.judicial.state.ia.us/Supreme_Court/Recent_Opinions/20090403/07-1499.pdf
