07 May

Why gay marriage will NOT be bad for children

I was shocked earlier today by one of my friends (now unfriended on Facebook), who argued for the No side of the marriage equality issue.

His argument was that marriage is all about children, and that if gay people are allowed to marry, then there will be a mass market for “child farm”-created children, and that children “need” both a mother and a father.

This, despite the facts that

  1. gay couples can already get children through adoption or surrogacy [1][2]
  2. there are many countries that have already legalised gay marriage and yet this has not caused a surge in “child farm” creation. [3]
  3. 12.5% of children live in a one-person family, so if they “needed” both a mother and father, wouldn’t this “need” show itself in some way? Research shows that there is no difference between children raised by gay parents and children raised by straight parents. [4]
  4. Almost half of all children born into a straight family are from an unplanned pregnancy, but children in a gay family are always planned. [5]
  5. Children of gay cohabiting parents (remember, marriage is still illegal…) do better in school than children of straight cohabiting parents [6]
  6. Where child abuse is concerned, the parents are usually straight. In fact, “a child’s risk of being molested by his or her relative’s heterosexual partner is over one hundred times greater than by someone who might be identifiable as being homosexual” [7][8]

Despite all of these arguments, this person continued to call me unanalytical, yet refused to provide any references backing up his own version of reality.

I don’t need to surround myself with mad people. I’m already mad enough as it is.

So, I unfriended him.

References for the above:
1. http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/gay-adoption-law-due-before-same-sex-marriage-referendum-1.2073215
2. http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/why-surrogacy-has-nothing-to-do-with-same-sex-marriage-1.2189717
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage#Legal_recognition
4. http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-67057.html
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_pregnancy#Europe
6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3000058/table/t1-dem-47-0755/
7. http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/f_gay.pdf
8. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/10/lesbians-child-abuse-0-percent_n_781624.html