Sociology Research Paper

To begin, I must admit that I approached David Blankenhorn's book The Future of Marriage with some trepidation, as I know that he is against extending marriage to same-sex couples. After reading the book, however, I have to give him credit for approaching the issue with more respect than most who believe in preserving “family values.” He doesn't fall into the easy and usual trap of moralizing about homosexuality being "wrong," "perverted," or "unnatural." In fact, he goes as far as saying "homosexual behavior is an important and normal (expected) occurrence in human societies" (Blankenhorn 115) and "[w]e as a society can and should accept the dignity of homosexual love and the equal worth of gay and lesbian persons" (179). Such acknowledgments do a lot to encourage dialogue out of mutual respect; something that many on his side would do better to remember. David Blankenhorn is a world authority on the institution of marriage. One of the biggest debates concerning marriage today is whether we should expand the concept to include same-sex marriage. Blankenhorn thinks not, and in his book titled, The Future of Marriage, sets out to make the case against homosexual marriage. But he does so, pre-eminently, by making the case for the institution of heterosexual marriage. Blankenhorn first seeks to get a handle on what marriage is, and then he shows how it has been experienced over the centuries. The first half of the book is about what marriage is, and how it has developed. The second half deals with the challenge of same-sex marriage. Although homosexual couples should have the right to love one another without experiencing prejudice, their unions should not be labeled as a “marriage”, for this would cause our society to rethink the values of marriage and how it pertains to children. Blankenhorn recognizes that a definition of marriage is a slippery affair, but after a close examination of the issue and how others have thought about it, he comes up with this helpful intellection; “In all or nearly all human societies, marriage is socially approved sexual intercourse between a woman and a man, conceived both as a personal relationship and as an institution, primarily such that any children resulting from the union are – and are understood by society to be – emotionally, morally, practically, and legally affiliated with both of the parents” (Blankenhorn 91). In his overview of the history of marriage, he demonstrates what has been the universal belief about marriage: It reflects the fundamental belief that “for every child, a mother and a father” (81). Thus marriage is primarily about two things: the socially approved sexual intercourse between a woman and a man, and the protection and nurturing of the fruit of that relationship. Both are vital components of marriage, and must not be separated from it or from each other. He argues that marriage is based on two universal and timeless basic rules: the rule of opposites (marriage is man-woman) and the rule of sex (marriage involves sexual intercourse). And even though it is difficult for people to get their head around this fact, sexual intercourse has always been about procreation, or at least its possibility. Marriage is not just a private relationship; it is a public institution. Social institutions exist to meet fundamental human needs. The need for the institution of marriage arises because human beings are “sexually embodied creatures who everywhere reproduce sexually and give birth to helpless, socially needy offspring who remain immature for long periods of time and who therefore depend on the love and support of both of the parents who brought them into existence” (102). So how does same-sex marriage fit into all this? First, it must be said that Blankenhorn is not unsympathetic to the arguments of homosexuals wanting marriage rights. He believes that basic human rights are important, and that all people must be treated with dignity. But he still believes that marriage is not something that can be redefined to include same-sex relationships. Put at its simplest, “marriage is fundamentally about sex and reproduction” (94). And children born into married households are greatly advantaged. As such, “Marriage is society’s most pro-child institution” (5). In the larger cultural, political, and legal debates over homosexuality, one significant smaller debate has been over homosexual parents: do children who are raised by homosexual parents or caregivers suffer disadvantages in comparison to children raised in other family structures--particularly children raised by a married mother and father? This question is essential to political and ethical debates over adoption, foster care, and artificial reproductive technology, and it is highly relevant to the raging debate over same-sex "marriage." The argument that "children need a mom and a dad" is central to the defense of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The research on how child fare in a two-parent household cemented by marriage is now voluminous. No other type of relationship is as good for children as heterosexual marriage. Family structure, in other words, matters overwhelmingly for children. In a historic study of children raised by homosexual parents, sociologist Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin has overturned the conventional academic wisdom that such children suffer no disadvantages when compared to children raised by their married mother and father. Just published in the journal Social Science Research, a careful, rigorous, and methodologically study ever conducted on this issue found numerous and significant differences between these groups--with the outcomes for children of homosexuals rated "suboptimal" in almost every category (Regnerus 52-70). The study looked at 40 different outcomes, but reported data for children with "lesbian mothers" and those with "gay fathers" separately. Therefore, there actually were 80 outcome measures that could be said to compare children with "homosexual parents" to those from other family structures. When compared with outcomes for children raised by an "intact biological family" (with a married, biological mother and father), the children of homosexuals did worse, or, in the case of their own sexual orientation, were more likely to deviate from the societal norm on 77 out of 80 outcome measures. The only exceptions being: children of "gay fathers" were more likely to vote; children of lesbians used alcohol less frequently; and children of "gay fathers" used alcohol at the same rate as those in intact biological families. It found that children of homosexual fathers are nearly three times as likely, and children of lesbian mothers are nearly four times as likely, to identify as something other than heterosexual. In fact, an important article published in relation with the Regnerus study, by Loren Marks, Louisiana State University, analyzes the previous studies cited in a 2005 policy brief on homosexual parents by the American Psychological Association, APA, (Marks 35-51). Marks debunks the APA's claim that "not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents." Marks also points out that only four of the 59 studies cited by the APA even met the APA's own standards by "provid[ing] evidence of statistical power." As Marks so carefully documents, "Not one of the 59 studies referenced in the 2005 APA Brief compares a large, random, representative sample of lesbian or gay parents and their children with a large, random, representative sample of married parents and their children” (48). The articles by Marks and Regnerus have completely changed the way society should view same-sex relationships when there is a child involved, as it has proven that the surrounding ideas that children of homosexual parents are ‘no different’ from other children and suffer ‘no harm’ from being raised by homosexual parents are myths. But aside from this major concern, Blankenhorn’s arguments against homosexual marriage are quite good. He argues that homosexual marriage fundamentally means transforming the institution of marriage. Even the various international human rights documents of today speak of the right to participate in the institution of marriage, but they do not recognize the right to turn marriage into another word for any private adult relationship of choice. And given the intimate link between marriage and parenting, to change the institution of marriage is to change parenthood itself. Changing marriage changes marriage for everyone, and it will change parenthood for everyone. But as the research keeps telling us, that will be bad news for children. Every child in the world has a right to a name, a nationality, and a mother and father, Blankenhorn claims. The issue, however, is not how any one couple’s marriage would affect any other specific couple’s marriage—the issue is how changing the definition of marriage under the law would change the social institution of marriage. Giving unique privileges and a unique status to the only type of relationship that can ever result in the natural creation of another human being sends an important message to society. Contrary to the charges of those who would redefine marriage, that message has nothing to do with “sexual orientation” as such. It simply sends the message that relationships of a type which can result in natural reproduction are unique, and are uniquely valuable to society; and it further sends the message that children benefit uniquely from being raised by their own mother and father (as well as the message that a man and woman should take responsibility for children produced by their union). Instead of sending the message that potentially procreative relationships are uniquely valuable and that children being raised by their mother and father is uniquely valuable, the message to society will be the exact opposite. Since same-sex relationships, which are intrinsically infertile and can never result in natural procreation, would be treated as identical under the law to opposite-sex relationships which are the only type that can ever result in natural procreation, the explicit message to society would be that there is nothing uniquely valuable about the very reproduction of the human race. This would be a shocking denial of a reality that is literally fundamental to human existence. In his article, “The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage”, Dr. Andrew Cherlin describes differences in American couples’ views of marriage over the last several decades. He describes this process as the “deinstitutionalization of marriage” or the weakening of the social norms that define American couples’ behavior in a social institution such as marriage. Through cited statistics he shows that while in the 1970's sixty percent of cohabitations resulted in a marriage within three years, that number has been drastically reduced to thirty three percent in the 1990's. Cherlin shows that “cohabitation has become so prevalent in the United States that the laws of the country have had to be changed to adapt to this recently developed living situation” (Cherlin 856). He presents examples including different forms of cohabitation and the emergence of same sex relationships as furthering this shift in the view of marriage. Marriage, as an institution, may then become more symbolic and less of a dominant institution and thus losing its uniqueness. Still, Cherlin states that marriage could simply be going through a transitional phase and will not ultimately lose its distinctiveness. The meaning of marriage is changing quite dramatically by historical events, individual perspectives, childbearing, cohabitation, and gay marriage. These, in part, are beginning to change the way society views marriage, and not for the better of marriage as an institution. In addition to the deinstitutionalization of marriage, same-sex marriage would “require us in both law and culture to deny the double origin of the child,” says Blankenhorn, “I can hardly imagine a more serious violation” (Blankenhorn 201). Blankenhorn finishes by listing some 23 possible positive consequences of legalizing same-sex unions, and then lists 24 possible negative outcomes, also offering 12 possible neutral outcomes. A major reason for all this is to demonstrate that same sex marriage is a very large and complex topic, with profound consequences. If we accept the logic of same-sex marriage, how can we possibly oppose the logic of, say, bisexual, polyamorous marriage? If we can redefine marriage in terms of sexual orientation, “why not permit a bisexual woman to marry one man and one woman?” (258). The consequences of such a revolutionary change will be far-reaching, and at this point, perhaps unmeasurable. Perhaps our bet course of action as a society should be to wait to decide the future of homosexual marriage until we are able to recognize exactly what changes and consequences will occur once they have the right to a marriage. Thus we need to be very careful about how we proceed. Williams 8 Williams 1