Excerpts from the CA Supreme Court same-sex marriage opinion

[sapience]

[U]pon review of the numerous California decisions that have examined the underlying bases and significance of the constitutional right to marry (and that illuminate why this right has been recognized as one of the basic, inalienable civil rights guaranteed to an individual by the California Constitution), we conclude that, under this state's

Comments

[burgundy]

I assume then that you also support policies that make it more difficult for heterosexual couples to divorce or that otherwise discourage women from becoming single mothers? There are an awful lot more children being raised in single-sex-adult families because their hetero parents didn't stick together than there are kids being raised by gay couples.

To say nothing of the fact that, regardless of sexual orientation, marriage and child-rearing are becoming increasingly decoupled. Gay couples have been raising children together for quite a while now, despite not being able to marry. Straight couples have children outside of marriage all the time. People get married and have no intention of having kids. So what does child rearing have to do with marriage equality? The kids are a fact. They are already there. sapience has given a really solid response re: the evidence on child development, but even beyond that, it makes things worse for kids if their parents don't have legal protection. In a lot of states, gay couples can only do single-parent adoption, which means one parent doesn't have a legal right to the child. How does it help children to keep their parents from being able to make medical decisions, to deny them social security benefits, to hamper the transer of inheritance, etc? Marriage equality strengthens families, and that helps children.

[ijournaler]

"I assume then that you also support policies that make it more difficult for heterosexual couples to divorce or that otherwise discourage women from becoming single mothers?" Why - did I say so?

I think there are many concerns, problems and unanswered questions about the state of marriage and child rearing and no quick answers.

[burgundy]

Marriage does not equal child-rearing. Being a good parent is not a requirement for being able to get married. The immediate question is equality before the law. Straight couples can get married even if they are demonstrably bad parents (or if they have no intention of becoming parents, or if they are physically incapable of having children). Why then should gay couples not have access to the same legal rights? Civil marriage is a contract between two adults that grants them a number of privileges not available through other means. It is entirely separate from the question of parenting ability or appropriateness.

There's also a difference between policy/legal discussions and ethical/best practice discussions. There are a lot of people who parent in ways that I don't think are necessarily good for their children, but I'm not going to support legislation enforcing my views (I'm not talking about actual abuse or neglect here.) Straight couples get married for all kinds of reasons, some of them very bad. Straight couples have children for all kinds of reasons, some of them very bad. Their legal equality is assured, regardless of the badness of their decisions. The same is not true for gay couples or gay parents.