GENDER AND MARRIAGE: Mike Pignatello replies to Sam Schulman

Schulman claims that gay marriage will harm children: "Those analysts who have focused on how children will suffer from the legalization of gay marriage are undoubtedly correct."

Where is the proof? Tens of thousands of children are already being raised in gay families across the U.S. Many studies (such as those conducted by the American Psychological Association) do not show any demonstrative difference between children raised in same-sex parent homes and those raised in opposite-sex parent homes.

Schulman writes, "Some of our fellow citizens wish to impose a radically new understanding upon laws and institutions that are both very old and fundamental to our organization as individuals and as a society."

But it is hardly "radical" to support the notion that there are male-female relationships other than monogamous marriage that sustain societies. Based on what we can observe in other cultures, monogamous male-female marriage has not had exclusive claim to the throne of family structure.

Finally, Schulman positions SSM outside the realm of possibility by claiming that,"...by definition, the essence of marriage is to sanction and solemnize that connection of opposites which alone creates new life. (Whether or not a given married couple does in fact create new life is immaterial.)"

So marriage has to be "opposites." Is that sexual opposites? Gender opposites? Personality opposites? Eve has mentioned "tension" between the sexes, which can be healthy for parenting. But how do opponents of SSM know that same-sex tension is not the same as opposite-sex tension, or is not as beneficial?
posted by Eve at 10:53 AM VOTE

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