I was just catching up on the September issue of Sex Monthly Magazine—the September 1926 issue, that is. Here’s a quote from an article entitled “Unhappy Marriages” by a “foremost Psychologist of our day” Wilfrid Lay: “I believe the failure of marriage is the cause of most of the discontent, dissatisfaction and unhappiness of modern time; also if all people were happily married, all sorts of material disasters, including wars, could be avoided forever.”
There is certainly something to be said for bottom-up social order. Stable, nurturing marriages beget a harmonious family, harmonious families beget a harmonious community, harmonious communities beget a harmonious nation and harmonious nations beget a peaceful world.
In this context, as we approach the second anniversary of marriage equality in Wisconsin, we might take a moment to assess its success.
One argument of the opposition, after all the others are debunked, goes something like this: The best environment for children is a traditional one with a female mother and a male father. Well, not so fast. One might think, with a divorce rate of 50% and the high rate of child abuse, their traditional family track record would at least make them blush with embarrassment. Instead they remain strident in proclaiming the primacy of their version of the institution.
But here’s the rub: A recent Columbia Law School review of 74 studies on the subject showed that children of same-sex parents “fare no worse” than those of opposite sex parents. Four studies found children of same-sex parents were “disadvantaged.” However, those were deemed flawed. Not surprisingly, Christian and Catholic writers found the other 74 studies flawed.
In fact, some research implies same-sex marriages are more stable than their heterosexual counterparts. Among other reasons, unlike “traditional” marriages, gender competition is absent. In other words, opposing gender roles in which the woman, in the much-touted biblical sense, is subjugated to the man, do not factor into the family equation. In same-sex couplings there is none of that competitive chest-beating male versus the obstinate woman standing her maternal ground. With two guys or two gals, it seems, teamwork comes naturally. The hetero-normative male dominant template may work great for reproduction (50% of that being accidental) but not so much for child rearing. And, gay and lesbian parents are often foster or adoptive parents, offering loving homes to otherwise discarded children.
If there is negative impact on the children of same sex marriages, it may be due to the external environment. This election year’s homophobic rhetoric buttressed by the recent spate of anti-LGBT religious freedom laws probably does more to undermine the harmony of LGBT families than any inherent flaw in their household dynamics. To what extent this aspect has been studied, I’m not sure. However, I can only imagine its contribution is significant. How can a child not react when his family is the target of so much hate?
So it seems, LGBTs win again. Meanwhile, if you’re contemplating a second anniversary gift for the gays in your lives, give something in cotton or china. They’ve earned it.
