GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

I’ve felt for a long time that the most important secular reason to preserve man-woman marriage is because the ideal environment to raise a child has both a mother and a father. Well, a Providence, Rhode Island, academic and medical expert, Dr. Daniel Harrop, has weighed in on my side of the parenting debate:

Marriage is a core social institution, the only one we have that is dedicated to communicating and reinforcing a unique and vitally important task: bringing together men and women to make and raise the next generation together….

Existing scientific data suggests that the law of marriage protects children to the extent it increases the likelihood that children will be born to and raised by their own mother and father in a harmonious, lasting union….

As a psychiatrist and a clinical assistant professor at Brown, I am well aware that proponents of same-sex marriage will cite the American Psychiatric Association and other professional organizations to justify their view: There is nothing scientific at all about the view that a child needs his mother and father.

The scientific reality is that there are only a handful of studies on same-sex parenting (less than 50 total), and almost none of them are based on nationally representative data, which means we simply do not know how typical or atypical the gay parents and their children studied are.

The point I wish to underscore here is not that gay people cannot be good parents (just as many single mothers and fathers are good parents), but that there is something special and distinctive about sexual unions that can both create life and connect those babies to a mother and father.