Pioneers today and tomorrow.

David Link blogged about the topic of parenting and how this was presented in witness cross-examination at the Proposition 8 Trial.

The Kids Are Alright.

The week ended for the Prop. 8 trial with Michael Lamb testifying about how studies of children raised by same-sex couples show that the kids are alright: No better and no worse than the kids raised by heterosexual couples.

[...]

Is it at all likely that the children of same-sex couples who are growing up now will do worse than the generation that preceded them? I think that’s unlikely, but I’ll leave that to the academics who study such things.

But for legal purposes – for the purposes of the case now in court – it is safe to assume that the data available to the court about the effects of same-sex parenting on children will be the worst-case scenario. Those parents were pioneers. From now on, they’ll just be parents.

I left a comment under Mr. Link's blogpost. In part I wrote:

David Link and other SSM supporters, would you not support treating SSM as marriage even if studies showed that the outcomes for children fell short for those in families with same-sex parents?

Let's be brutally honest about that.

You maintain, do you not, that marriage and children are so seperated nowadays that marriage is about the adult-adult relationship first and foremost.

Children are a secondary or tertiary part of family life -- even within marriage -- according to the pro-SSM arguments, yes?

The assumption you make in your last paragraph is safe because for at least two generations the people in these "same-sex parenting' scenarios will be pioneers. The evidence won't be in for about 40-50 years.

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