Critical essay on gay marriage - 2070 Words

To begin, I must admit that I approached David Blankenhorns 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 â€Å"family values.† He doesnt 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†¦show more content†¦And children born into married households are greatly advantaged. As such, â€Å"Marriage is society’s most pro-child institution† (5). In the larger cultural, political, and legal debates over homosexuality, one sig nificant 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 studyShow MoreRelatedAnalytical Response to Barbara Kingsolver’s â€Å"Stone Soup† Essay680 Words   |  3 Pagessingle parenthood, gay parents, and blended families, and that alternative families deserve equal standing in our society. In response to reading Kingsolver’s essay, this paper will serve to show which parts of â€Å"Stone Soup† are supported by outside evidence and which are not. â€Å"Stone Soup† is a personal reaction by Barbara Kingsolver that expresses the author’s feelings in response to society’s negative view and it’s holding of contempt of divorced, remarried, single parenthood, and gay parents. 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