In the marriage debate, we do need to ask the question, what about the children? This is not a red herring or irrelevant question.
Marriage is ultimately more than just two people romantically in love.
Here are some recent articles...
"Marriage, Procreation, and Historical Amnesia." Ross Douthat shows that having, raising, and safeguarding children has been the relevant governmental interest in marriage from time past until just a few years ago. Remarkable quote from Bertrand Russell: “...it is through children alone that sexual relations become important to society, and worthy to be taken cognizance of by a legal institution."
"Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Children’s View." A man raised with same-sex parents explains the confusion of growing up bi-sexual.
"A Social Experiment Without Science Behind It." "A significant number of organizations representing social and behavioral scientists have filed briefs promising the court that there is nothing to worry about. These assurances have no scientific foundation. Same-sex marriage is brand new, and child rearing by same-sex couples remains rare. Even if both phenomena were far more common, large amounts of data collected over decades would be required before any responsible researcher could make meaningful scientific estimates of the long-term effects of redefining marriage..."
"Privatizing Marriage Is Unjust to Children." "The primary business of the state is justice. Because children cannot be autonomous, adult society has an obligation in justice to provide institutional structures that protect their most basic interests...
“Do the needs of society place constraints on how we treat children?” But even this analysis still views the child from society’s perspective. It is about time we look at it from the child’s point of view, and ask a different kind of question. What is owed to the child?
"Children are entitled to a relationship with both of their parents. They are entitled to know who they are and where they came from. Therefore children have a legitimate interest in the stability of their parents’ union, since that is ordinarily how kids have relationships with both parents."
(Another way of saying this is, which parent is it -- mother or father -- that children do not need?)
Photos from morguefile.com.
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