Puff Piece Goes Poof–Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
By Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, first published in the National Catholic Register
“‘Gayby Boom’ Fueled by Same-Sex Parents” screamed a headline on the website of ABC News this past summer. “Post-1980s Children of Gay Parents Thrive in School, More Open Society,” the subhead declared. Was there some new information in this story? Nope. It was just another human-interest story in the noble-homosexuals-who-overcome-adversity-and-stay-true-to-themselves template.
Unfortunately for ABC, a closer look at the source of the few facts in this story tells another story — one the “gay rights” lobby and its allies in the media probably would rather you didn’t hear: Same-sex “marriage” is a completely disproportionate response to an overwrought problem. Most of the feature consisted of interviews with same-sex couples who have raised children together. But among the obvious ploy for sympathy were a few facts, including this eyepopper: “Just under 1% of all couples in the U.S. — or 594,391 people — identify themselves as gay, lesbian or transgender, and about 20% of them are raising children under the age of 18.”
Yes, you read that correctly: Two-tenths of 1% of couples in America are same-sex couples raising children.
One of the most appealing rhetorical questions posed by advocates of same-sex “marriage” is: “Gays and lesbians are already raising children. Why shouldn’t they and their children have the legal protections of marriage?” But these figures, produced by the Williams Institute, a pro-homosexuality think tank, show that a truly tiny percentage of children is at stake. We are being urged to redefine marriage to protect the children of two-tenths of 1% of all the couples in America. And we’re bigots if we resist. This puts new perspective on demands for same-sex “marriage.”
In many states, same-sex couples can use some combination of domestic partnerships or second-party adoption to share legal parenting rights. Why is it bigotry to insist that same-sex couples solve their practical problems with the legal tools already available? Often, advocates of same-sex “marriage” will respond that it is demeaning that they should be treated differently by the law. But it is no disgrace to say that the law should treat exceptional situations as exceptions. Biology is the ordinary way we assign legal parenting rights. Adoption exists to accommodate the unusual situations in which the biological parents are not available. Adoptive parents must get fingerprinted and investigated before adoptive children can be placed in their homes.
Do we really believe that adoptive parents are second-class citizens? No. The steps serve to protect the principle that biology is the basic way we assign parenting rights. All other cases are treated as exceptions. I don’t know how the homosexual-rights lobby gets the major news media to do these unreflective booster articles transparently designed to garner sympathy for same-sex couples and, by extension, for same-sex “marriage.” But this particular puff piece blew up in the face of one major mainstream-media outlet. You’d think the others would notice.
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In your sentence, “We are being urged to redefine marriage to protect the children of two-tenths of 1% of all the couples in America,” I would have put the word “protect” in quotes. This is to indicate that it is questionable whether calling a same-sex arrangement “marriage” would actually protect the children involved. I can well imagine that it would put a significant percentage of children at greater risk, if Dawn Stefanowicz, raised by a homosexually active father, is right (www.dawnstefanowicz.com).
The concern regarding proportionately is legitimate.
Based on Census 2000 and on the HRC’s own analysis of the census data, about 95% of the openly homosexual adult population (5% of the population according to HRC) does NOT reside in same-sex households (a broad category of living arrangements that would include domestic partnership, civil union, SSM, and unregistered same-sex twosomes); and about 97% do NOT reside in such households with children resident.
This is the virtual inverse of marriage.
And how would same-sex households attain children? Well, perhaps as much as 4% of the child population living in such households were adopted (including second-parent adoptions); and a fraction of 1% of this tiny child population might have been attained via the practice of third partyprocreation (use of “donated” sperm and ova).
The vast majority — 95% of the children in same-sex households — migrated from the previously procreative relationships of mom or dad (usually marriages). These children have the protections of divorced, seperated, or otherwise estranged moms and dads. In this way they are no more vulnerable than children of broken homes that are not same-sexed.
Meanwhile there are millions of children are being raised in households where mom or dad have teamed-up with grandmother or grandfather. A large portion of such households are same-sexed but not in the gaycentric or sexualized form that SSMers often assume is essential to the well-being of children. There is no principled basis to treat these nonmarital households as inferior to the gaycentric nonmarital households.
Yet society may legitimately discriminate between marriage and nonmarriage. The special status of marriage begins with the special reason that society shows preference for the union of husband and wife — for the social institution of marriage. That reason is the core meaning of marriage: sex integration combined with responsible procreation. Societal, rather than purely private, concerns about this core of marriage provide the coherency for the special status of marriage. Its sexual basis is expressed in our culture and in our laws via consummation, annulment, adultery, divorce, and most importantly the marital presumption of paternity. That sexual basis is extrinsic to all one-sexed arrangements. This sexual basis also provides justification for the lines of eligbility that society draws around the core meaning of marriage.
Adoption and third party procreation each come with pre-requsities: parental relinquishment (post-birth in the case of adoption and pre-emptive in the case of “donor” sperm and ova); and government intervention to assign a replacement (in the best interests of children in need in the case of adoption and via legislation that shields the donor in the case of third party procreation). Neither of these practices — whatever their merits and demerits — points to the core of marriage but rather outside of marriage. For example, third party procreation is extramarital procreation even when married couples partake of it.
Compare both of those practices with the marital presumption of paternity by which the husband is presumed to be the father of the children born to his wife during their marriage. The sexual basis for this lawful and vigorously enforced presumption cannot apply to any one-sexed arrangement, regardless of sexual orientation. And it does apply and does protect the vast majority of children who reside in same-sex households because the sexual orientation of mom or dad does not negate parental status nor does it negate the best interests of the children. In other words, even after the dissolution of a marriage — done, for example, to free a mom or dad to form a same-sexed gaycentric household — the marital presumption of paternity lives-on to protect the children of that marriage. The parental status of the divorced father, for example, who now resides with another man, is maintained lawfully.
What else is protected via the enforcement of the marital presumption of paternity? The social institution of marriage — its coherency and its integrity — for the sake of the current and future generations.
Yet, with all of that, SSM argumentation attacks the core of marriage: it seeks to outright abolish the legal requirements that express societal preference for sex integration and that express societal preference for responsible procreation. SSMers argue, instead, for favoritism in the name of gay identity politics. Of all the vulnerable families formed and existing outside of marriage, SSMers battle for just a tiny subset. And that tiny subset is engaging in a practice — a new form of gay domesticity — that is itself a marginal practice within the openly homosexual adult population.
Only about 3% of that population resides in same-sex households with children. Less than 2/10ths of one percentage of that population has formed same-sex households in which children were attained by means other than previously procreative relationships. The marital presumption of paternity is very reliable; its unwed imitation is considerably less reliable; yet it is this presumption (within marriage and outside of marriage) which provides the protections that SSM cannot provide for children and their parents.
SSM relies on segregation of fatherhood and motherhood, where children are involved. It relies on extramarital procreation where biological parenting is the basis for parental status. Both scenarios are extrinsic to the core of marriage. And, as per SSM argumentation itself, both scenarios are optional and not essential to the demand that SSM be merged with marriage. Children, SSMers tell us repeatedly, are disconnected from SSM. Of course, SSMers say this through their own version of anti-marriage rhetoric by which they assert that children and marriage are disconnected. Theirs is an attempt at self-fulfilling prophecy.
Proporitionality counts for something. Indeed, given the very low participation rates in SSM (under whatever guise — domestic partnership, civil union, SSM, or the more broad and inclusive same-sex householding category), the SSM merger with marriage would be a very poor vehicle for extending protections to the openly homosexual adult population and whatever children may reside with them.