SSM AND PARENTING: David Barnes replies to Gabriel Rosenberg

Gabriel's Syllogism

(1) Parents ought to be married.
(2) Gays are parents.
(3) Therefore, gays ought to be married.

This is clearly a valid argument, because (3) follows from (1) and (2). However, I think that looking at the different uses of the term "parent" will lead people to reject (1).

(1) is not even obvious when you think that a "parent" is a biological parent, as Lucia pointed out here. "Parent" also cannot mean anyone who wants to care for a child. For example, if a father dies and the mother's mother moves in with her to care for her daughter's children, the grandmother and mother should not get married. I believe that is uncontroversial. Furthermore, sometimes a nanny will take on a lot of the childrearing duties. Should a nanny/live-in housekeeper marry a single mother? I think it's safe to say "no."

Therefore, unless you can find some way of explaining how a child's grandmother who lives with a single mother is not just as much a parent as a cohabitating boyfriend or girlfriend, then (1) is false. We can try to save Gabriel's syllogism and replace (1) with this:

(4) Parents who sleep together or plan to eventually sleep together ought be married.

However, I think that using (4) would be extremely difficult, because it's pretty close to saying "people who sleep together ought to be married" and I seriously doubt that most SSM supporters would endorse that principle.
posted by Eve at 7:34 PM VOTE

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