Front matter
Policy Issues Affecting
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Contents
1. Introduction 2. LGBT Families and Their Policy Needs 3. Legal Protections for Families and Children
4. The Intellectual History of Family: A Contested Discourse within the LGBT Movement
5. Recent Political History: The Struggle for Partner Recognition and the Right-Wing Backlash
Introduction
Eugene Clark and Larry Courtney lived like many married couples, creating their lives around each other and being recognized by their families and friends as a committed couple. When Larry was offered a job in New York City in 1988, the couple relocated from Washington, D.C., and Eugene found a new position in New York. When New York City created a domestic partnership registry, the couple went to City Hall to get the closest thing to a marriage certificate available to them. When Eugene’s mother became ill, they brought her from D.C. to their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment so that they could care for her during the last years of her life.
On September 11, 2001, Eugene was one of the thousands at the World Trade Center who did not come home to their loved ones that evening. Larry received a voice mail from Eugene after the first building was hit: “Don’t worry, the plane hit the other building. I’m okay. We’re evacuating.” That was the last time Larry heard from him. Like other people who lost family members that day, Larry reported Eugene missing and filled out his death certificate and the workers’ compensation forms. However, Larry was informed that since he and Eugene were not legally married, he was not considered family. The compensation would go to Eugene’s father, with whom Eugene had not spoken in over twenty years.
In the midst of his intense grief, Larry had to counter this claim that he and Eugene were not family, even though they had built a life together for fourteen years. Larry joined with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund to educate the public, the media, and legislators about this unjust situation. On August 20, 2002, the New York State Assembly passed a bill giving the domestic partners of September 11 victims full spousal rights to workers’ compensation. !
Unfortunately, this type of situation is far from uncommon for same-sex couples and their families. Larry Courtney’s predicament was addressed in part because his life partner Eugene was killed in an attack of international significance. Although the resulting 2002 bill marks an important victory,
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor most lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) families remain routinely discriminated against by public policy. These injustices are usually not linked to a high-profile national tragedy, and these families’ stories usually do not make it to the evening news. Nevertheless, many LGBT people experience personal tragedies—such as the death of a life partner—that are compounded by a callous disregard of their family bonds. As a result, they suffer emotionally, economically, and personally.
Family policy affects LGBT individuals and influences their security and well-being throughout their lives—from childhood through young adulthood, middle age through older years, and even after death. Much public policy is based on the goal of promoting “the family,” recognizing the economic and emotional interdependence of family members and giving special priority to this bond. Yet policy has historically been based on a narrow definition of family that does not encompass the bonds of LGBT people. Most policy gives preference to heterosexual married couples and their children over all other family formations. Thus, unmarried couples (both same-sex and opposite-sex), single parents, extended-family caregivers, and the children of these families are all disadvantaged. Homophobia and heterosexism compound this problem for LGBT families. Consequently, LGBT people are left with little security for their relationships, especially in times of hardship or transition.
This book will provide a comprehensive account of the discrimination that LGBT families confront. It will explore how policy changes could make LGBT families more secure. It will pay particular attention to the current political debate over how to recognize same-sex couple families.
The issue of whether or not same-sex couples should be allowed to access the institution of civil marriage emerged as a major national political controversy in the mid-1990s. During this time, same-sex relationships were decried by congressional conservatives as a threat to an abstract construct of “the family’—the heterosexual, married, and economically sustainable family—which was posited as “the backbone of this country” by Representative Bob Barr (R-GA) in 1995 and as “one of the essential foundations on which our civilization is based” by Representative Charles Canady (R-FL) in 1996. In congressional debate on July 12, 1996, Representative Barr, the architect of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, argued:
[A]s Rome burned, Nero fiddled, and that is exactly what [supporters of same-sex marriage] would have us do. . . The very foundations of our so-
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Introduction * 3 ciety are in danger of being burned. The flames of hedonism, the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundations of our society: the family unit.
Ironically, in the summer of 1996, congressional conservatives portrayed low-income single mothers and cohabiting unmarried heterosexual couples as selfish and narcissistic for not getting married, while those same conservatives concurrently denounced gay and lesbian couples as self-indulgent narcissists for seeking to get married. Gay and lesbian families seeking legal protections were portrayed as a threat to Western civilization and God. Representative Canady stated, “we as legislators and leaders for the country are in the midst of a chaos, an attack upon God’s principles.” Representative Ron Packard (R-CA) argued, “throughout history, civilizations that have allowed the traditional bonds of family to be weakened, these civilizations have not survived.”*
Anxieties related to gay couples seeking legal protections surfaced again in December 1999, when Vermont’s high court ruled that same-sex couples required equal treatment under state policy. But backlash against the advances of gay people reached a peak in 2003-4, following a number of key court rulings in the United States and Canada striking down archaic sex “sodomy” laws and legalizing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Through the debate about gay marriage, many claims have been made about gay and lesbian people and their families. Anti-gay marriage activists and elected officials have also targeted gay and lesbian parenting, safe schools initiatives, and nondiscrimination laws protecting against anti-gay and anti-transgender discrimination.
The main chapters of this book can be divided into two discussions. In chapters 2 and 3, we provide an overview of what is known about LGBT families and the policy issues affecting them—ranging from discrimination to domestic partnership, from health insurance access to family and medical leave. In chapters 4 and 5, we focus on the recent political and intellectual history that frames the struggle over LGBT family policy—a struggle that occurs within the LGBT movement itself, as well as between supporters and opponents of legal equality for LGBT people.
In chapter 2, we summarize what is known about LGBT people and their families. We review recent U.S. Census data pertaining to the households of same-sex couples, paying particular attention to parenting data, including parenting data about people of color in same-sex relationships. We provide
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor an overview of issues of adoption, foster care, and reproductive technology that affect LGBT families. We also address the unique situation of LGBT youth, who are at greater risk than other youth of experiencing homelessness, suicide, and violence and who are often unable to find support at school or in their families. We discuss the particular family issues facing LGBT elders, including unequal treatment under income support programs and Medicaid. We also consider the way in which major health-related issues— such as health insurance access, decision making, unpaid leave from work, nursing care, and domestic violence—relate to LGBT family policy.
In chapter 3, we address the options available to policymakers for recognizing same-sex relationships. We discuss civil marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships, and reciprocal beneficiary relationships. We explore the international trend toward recognizing same-sex unions, and we provide an overview of recent court decisions in the United States and Canada that have major implications for public policy affecting LGBT families.
In chapter 4, we explore the intellectual history of the internal debates regarding family recognition within the LGBT movement. We show how marriage has historically been a controversial and contested terrain for gay men and lesbians. We discuss the hostility of radical feminism toward marriage, and we discuss the gay rights movement’s early acknowledgment that gay liberation will only be achieved as a by-product of women’s liberation. We explore queer theorists’ claims that marriage constitutes a divisive and exclusionary form of moral regulation that should be shunned. We also address the way in which some LGBT legal scholars have sought to define family expansively in terms of functional relationships. About a decade into the AIDS epidemic, some conservative voices in the LGBT movement started to write about marriage as a means to reject so-called queer values, promote monogamy in gay relationships, and stabilize gay life; we discuss these arguments. Finally, we describe how the struggle for family recognition was reframed during the 1990s as a civil rights strategy to combat discrimination.
In chapter 5, we argue that the gay marriage issue? has become central in contemporary U.S. politics in large part because anti-gay activists from the religious right have successfully deployed gay rights controversies as divisive social issues since the early 1970s. Since the mid-1990s, the main focus of anti-gay politics in the United States has been opposition to civil marriage by same-sex couples. Social conservatives have consistently argued that expanding the institution of marriage to include gay and lesbian couples
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Introduction * 5 would undermine “the family,” constructed as exclusively heterosexual. Chapter 5 examines the recent political history of the struggle for marriage equality by same-sex couples and the backlash evoked by such advances as the Massachusetts high court ruling of 2003 legalizing marriage for gay couples. It also examines the Massachusetts-based Coalition for Marriage, a network of national and local religious right groups that seeks to ban any type of partner recognition for gay couples in Massachusetts. The Coalition for Marriage is an example of the kinds of political coalitions being formed by the Christian right in America. In addition, chapter 5 reviews the role the marriage issue played in the 2004 presidential election.
In chapter 6, we consider the extent to which the pursuit of same-sex marriage is currently reflective of the priorities of the LGBT community. Some LGBT intellectuals continue to argue that marriage itself is a regressive or antidemocratic institution that should be abolished or supplemented with other forms of partner recognition. Many other voices of dissent within the LGBT community question the movement’s focus on marriage. In addition to faulting the flaws of the institution, they argue that too many resources have been devoted to the marriage issue to the detriment of other concerns, such as anti-LGBT hate violence, anti-LGBT discrimination in employment and housing, and other basic concerns. Although many black gay people support marriage equality, some members of the African American community have expressed anger at the usurpation of civil rights discourse by LGBT whites. Gay activists argue, however, that the LGBT community must defend itself against the attacks of the anti-gay movement. This is also a critical opportunity to educate straight America about the real experiences facing same-sex couple families. Finally, several recent surveys indicate that marriage and partner recognition is a top priority of LGBT people, including LGBT people of color.
We intersperse chapters 2 and 3 with case studies illustrating the difficulties regularly confronted by same-sex couples whose family bonds are not recognized. The rights, responsibilities, protections, and peace of mind afforded couples through family recognition become particularly important in times of crisis. For example, Hillary Goodridge, one of the lead plaintiffs in the Massachusetts same-sex marriage case Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, reported encountering a “nightmare” after her partner Julie Goodridge gave birth to their daughter Annie. Her account was reported in the Boston Globe.
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
After Annie emerged from Julie Goodridge’s womb by cesarean section with lungs full of liquid, the infant was rushed from the operating room into intensive care, put on a ventilator and strapped to splints with intravenous tubes inserted in her tiny arms. As Julie’s lesbian partner, Hillary, ran frantically from floor to floor between the neonatal unit and post-op where doctors were sewing up Julie, she was barred at different times from both Julie’s and Annie’s bedsides by hospital staff because she wasn’t legally connected to either. She eventually saw both—by tearfully pleading with a nurse in one instance and telling staff she was Julie’s sister in another—but the experience later fueled the couple’s determination to make marriage an option for gays and lesbians like themselves.°
This book is intended for those interested in better understanding same-sex couple families in the United States, as well as other LGBT families. We hope that, as a result of reading this book, more people will challenge the discrimination LGBT families face in public policy. In highlighting these areas, it is our hope that we can help researchers, policymakers, and fellow Americans more clearly define areas of need and promote policies to respond to them. If changed uniformly, family policy would result in a world much more responsive to the economic, legal, and social issues LGBT people face in building and sustaining the relationships with those dearest to them—with their partners, their children, their families.
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Chapter 2 3 EAE IE EE IE I HE IE
WHAT DEFINES A FAMILY?
Most people in the United States consider a family to be “a group who love and care for each other,” defining the term “in emotional, rather than legal or structural terms.”! In the LGBT community, as in the larger community, these families take many forms. They include e a same-sex couple living alone, with other family, or with friends;
e a same-sex couple with children from previous relationships or adopted or conceived during their relationship;
e a single parent raising a biological child or biological children, an adopted child, or a relative’s child;
e individuals living with their families of origin or with their “families of choice,” such as close friends who serve essential caregiving functions;
e multiple parent networks consisting of, for example, two couples or one couple and an individual who are raising children together;
Although the public largely believes that a family is something more than a legal relationship and that caring for one another transcends legal boundaries, the vast majority of the policies that govern people’s lives define family as a legal unit comprised of a married man and woman with their own biological or adopted children. This assumption underlying family policy does not reflect the contemporary demographic reality of American families. Almost one-third of families with children in the United States are headed by either single parents or two unmarried, cohabiting parents.” There are significant differences among racial and ethnic groups. Single parenting is much more prevalent among black and Latino parents than among white non-Hispanics. Black families with children are nearly four times as likely as white non-Hispanic families with children to be headed by single or 7 Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families.
E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor unmarried parents. Hispanic families with children are two-and-a-half times as likely as white non-Hispanic families with children to be headed by a single or unmarried parent.’
Approximately 44 percent of adults in the United States are unmarried. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, married heterosexual couples with children comprise less than one-quarter of American households.+ The 2000 U.S. Census found nearly 1.2 million men and women living with an unmarried partner of the same sex, or some 594,391 same-sex couples.’
Studies show that most lesbians and gay men aspire to have committed, loving relationships and want a stronger sense of family in their lives. Although demographic research on lesbian, gay, and bisexual people is limited and most national surveys do not ask about sexual orientation, there is a significant body of research from which we can discern some trends. A series of studies from the 1970s to the 1990s found that between 64 and 80 percent of lesbians and between 46 and 60 percent of gay men report that they are in committed relationships with another person of the same sex.’ Studies show that same-sex relationships are comparable to opposite-sex relationships in terms of quality and satisfaction in the relationship. Contrary to common misconceptions, many same-sex couples are raising children, as are thousands of single lesbian and gay parents. Bisexuals and transgender people are found in both opposite-sex and same-sex relationships.
THE SAME-SEX COUPLE SAMPLE FROM THE 2000 U.S. CENSUS
Given the dearth of research on the families of same-sex couples, the samples of same-sex unmarried partners from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses are particularly important. The existence and widespread geographical distribution of same-sex couples are reflected in the 2000 U.S. Census data, in which nearly 600,000 same-sex couples self-reported as cohabiting “unmarried partners.”? Although this number likely represents a significant undercount, it constitutes a 310 percent increase over the 145,130 same-sex households tallied in the 1990 Census. Whereas the 1990 Census found same-sex couples in about half the nation’s counties, the 2000 Census documented same-sex couples in more than 99 percent of all counties across the United States.!° If gay and lesbian people represent about 5 percent of the U.S. population,!! as a broad range of surveys indicate, and if roughly half to two-thirds are in partnered relationships, as studies indicate, then there
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
1.3% or more 0.8 to 1.0% California, District of Columbia, Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, 1.1 to 1.2% South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Puerto Rico Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Nevada, 0.7% or less New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, lowa, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Washington Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah,
West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming Fig. 1. Density of same-sex couples versus all coupled households.
Data from T. Simmons and M. O’Connell, Married-Couple and Unmarried-Partner Households, 2000 [Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, 2003], http://www .census.gov/prod/2003pubs/censr-5.pdf [accessed February 20, 2004]. Reproduced courtesy of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
are as many as two to three million same-sex couples in the United States. However, this is a very rough estimate, and the actual number could be significantly different.
Many same-sex couples may not live together. Therefore they would not have been able to self-identify on the 2000 Census as cohabiting unmarried partners. Because of the way the U.S. Census allows same-sex cohabiting couples to self-identify, it misses many gay people, including those who are single, those whose partners have died, and people who are in a long-term same-sex relationship but who are not cohabiting with their partner. Many cohabiting gay and lesbian couples may have chosen not to indicate that they were “unmarried partners” because they did not want the government to have this information. In a country where gay people were by definition criminals under the sodomy laws on the books in fifteen states until June
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
2003 and in which federal, state, and local governments continue to officially discriminate in many ways, this is not surprising. Nonetheless, the
U.S. Census data allow us to describe a large sample of same-sex couples, or gay and lesbian families.!?
In 2000, same-sex couple households were reported in 99.3 percent of all U.S. counties and represented every ethnic, racial, and income group
TABLE 1. Ohio Same-Sex Households by County, 2000 Census
County Gay Lesbian Total County Gay Lesbian Total State Totals 9,266 9,671 18,937 Licking County 106 128 234 Adams County 18 17 35 Logan County 35 30 65 Allen County 62 66 128 Lorain County 178 204 382 Ashland County 36 40 76 Lucas County 402 479 881 Ashtabula County 75 88 163 Madison County 24 29 53 Athens County 46 52 98 Mahoning County 146 167 313 Auglaize County 10 21 31 Marion County 35 45 80 Belmont County 36 43 79 Medina County 81 82 163 Brown County 27 34 61 Meigs County 21 24 45 Butler County 208 248 456 Mercer County 15 18 33 Carroll County 22 15 37 Miami County 54 71 125 Champaign County 22 23 45 Monroe County 8 10 18 Clark County 104 102 206 Montgomery County 533 545 1,078 Clermont County 133 142 275 Morgan County 11 10 21 Clinton County 18 36 54 Morrow County 17 25 42 Columbiana County 52 72 124 Muskingum County 62 50 112 Coshocton County 18 22 40 Noble County 8 7 15 Crawford County 26 27 53 Ottawa County 20 25 45 Cuyahoga County 1,368 1,326 2,694 Paulding County 9 18 27 Darke County 27 22 49 Perry County 21 32 53 Defiance County 19 16 35 Pickaway County 23 46 69 Delaware County 106 113 219 Pike County 19 21 40 Erie County 59 44 103 Portage County 75 121 196 Fairfield County 72 99 171 Preble County 24 24 48 Fayette County 25 25 50 Putnam County 13 13 26 Franklin County 1,718 1,523 3,241 Richland County 89 85 174 Fulton County 20 32 52 Ross County 49 66 115 Gallia County 25 11 36 Sandusky County 36 44 80 Geauga County 51 51 102 Scioto County 42 66 108 Greene County 88 127 215 Seneca County 25 39 64 Guernsey County 16 18 34 Shelby County 31 38 69 Hamilton County 822 798 1,620 Stark County 224 271 495 Hancock County 65 61 126 Summit County 491 464 955 Hardin County 14 23 37 Trumbull County 130 143 273 Harrison County 13 10 23 Tuscarawas County 43 61 104 Henry County 19 17 36 Union County 17 23 40 Highland County 26 25 51 Van Wert County 16 15 31 Hocking County 13 28 41 Vinton County 13 5 18 Holmes County 30 24 54 Warren County 95 94 189 Huron County 20 31 51 Washington County 40 42 82 Jackson County 23 27 50 Wayne County 57 55 112 Jefferson County 49 55 104 Williams County 15 21 36 Knox County 42 49 91 Wood Conty 72 95 167 Lake County 128 139 267 Wyandot County 9 22 31 Lawrence County 61 56 117
Source: Data from the 2000 U.S. Census, U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC, analyzed in J. Bradford, K. Barett, and J. A. Honnold, The 2000 Census and Same-Sex Households: A User’s Guide (New York: Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Froce, 2002), 107.
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
2000 Total Same-Sex Households: 18,937 Relative Growth: 4.61
Legend x = 25 same-sex houscholds [E] counties reporting one or ~— [] counties reporting zero more same-sex households same-sex houscholds
Fig. 2. Ohio same-sex households, 1990 and 2000.
Map by Kirsten Barrett.
and every adult age-group.!? For example, about 14 percent of all same-sex couples, or eighty-five thousand same-sex couples reported on the 2000 Census, include at least one black or African American adult. Four in five of these “black same-sex couples” include two black men or two black women. The other 20 percent include one black man or woman and one man or woman of another race.!* This and other analyses indicate that the U.S. Census’s same-sex household sample reflects the racial diversity of the overall U.S. population.
PARENTING AMONG SAME-SEX COUPLES AND SINGLE GAY PARENTS
Many same-sex couples are raising children. Estimates of the number of lesbian or gay parents in the United States range from two to eight million.!> These figures include many single parents who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. Data from the 2000 Census indicate that 34 percent of lesbian couples and
22 percent of gay male couples!° have at least one child under eighteen years
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor of age living in their home.!? While these figures may not seem that high, when compared with parenting rates among married heterosexual couples (46 percent of whom are raising children), lesbian couples on the 2000 Census parent at about three-quarters the rate of married straight couples, and gay male couples parent at about half the rate as married straight couples. Many more are parents of children who do not live with them or are “empty nesters”
because their children are away at college or living on their own as adults.
RESEARCH ON CHILDREN OF LESBIAN, GAY, AND BISEXUAL PARENTS
Anti-gay groups portray parenting by gay men, lesbians, and same-sex couples as a threat to children. For example, Focus on the Family ran a full-page advertisement in the Boston Globe in January 2004, just as the Massachusetts legislature was reacting to the state high court’s ruling legalizing marriage for same-sex couples. The ad claimed: “Same-sex marriage advocates and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court are asking our state and nation to enter a massive, untested social experiment with coming generations of children. We must ask one simple question: Is the same-sex ‘family’ good for children?”!® Conservative elected officials echo these claims with statements that “every child needs/deserves a mother and a father.” For example, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said at the Republican National Convention in August 2004, “because every child deserves a mother and a father, we step forward by recognizing that marriage is between a man and a woman.”!?
The vast majority of children’s advocacy organizations recognize that most lesbian and gay parents are good parents and that children can and do thrive in gay and lesbian families. Several leading professional organizations concerned with child welfare have made statements to this effect.
The American Academy of Pediatrics. “A growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that children who grow up with 1 or 2 gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual.”?°
The American Psychological Association. “Nota single study has found children of gay or lesbian parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents.”?!
The National Association of Social Workers, in conjunction with the Ameri-
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.92262. Downloaded on behalf of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor can Psychological Association. “[C]hildren who retain regular and un-
restricted contact with a gay or lesbian parent are as healthy psycho-
logically or socially as children raised by heterosexual parents and...
the parenting skills of gay fathers and lesbian mothers are comparable
to their heterosexual counterparts.”?7
The American Psychoanalytic Association. “Accumulated evidence suggests the best interest of the child requires attachment to committed, nurturing and competent parents. Evaluation of an individual or couple for these parental qualities should be determined without prejudice regarding sexual orientation. Gay and lesbian individuals and couples are capable of meeting the best interest of the child and should be afforded the same rights and should accept the same responsibilities as heterosexual parents.”??
The American Academy of Family Physicians called for their group to “establish policy and be supportive of legislation which promotes a safe and nurturing environment, including psychological and legal security, for all children, including those of adoptive parents, regardless of the parents’ sexual orientation.”?*
These positions are based on decades of social science research that has discredited the overly simplistic premise that it is always in the best interest of a child to be raised by two heterosexual, married parents. For example,
Silverstein and Auerbach contend:
[O]ur research with divorced, never-married and remarried fathers has taught us that a wide variety of family structures can support positive child outcomes. We have concluded that children need at least one responsible, caretaking adult who has a positive emotional connection to them and with whom they have a consistent relationship . . . We share the concern that many men in U.S. society do not have a feeling of emotional connection or a sense of responsibility toward their children. However, we do not believe that the data support the conclusion that fathers are essential to child well-being and that heterosexual marriage is the social context in which responsible fathering is most likely to occur.?>
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