Conservative Case Against Same-Sex Parenting Falls Apart

This blog has looked at the fraudulent work of right wing researchers who have sought to depict same-sex couples as a danger for children.  Among the most notorious is Mark Regnerus who was called a fraud by a federal judge after his anti-gay testimony.  Now, a new study confirms what most of us have long known: gay parents are good parents and their children do as well or better than those raised in heterosexual households.  Think Progress looks at the new study findings.  Here are excerpts:

Conservatives have long squawked that the studies showing positive outcomes for the children of same-sex couples are lacking methodologically, instead offering their own flawed studies to claim negative consequences. A new study, however, uses their preferred methods — minus the flaws — and proves what the medical community has already long known: same-sex couples make great parents.

[T]he Williams Institute, an LGBT think tank at the UCLA School of Law, decided to call Regnerus’ bluff. Using data from the National Survey of Children’s Health, researchers were able to identify same-sex couples who were raising children and compare them to demographically similar different-sex parents. Because few male same-sex parent households were included in the study, they focused on female couples, identifying 95 that they then matched against similar different-sex households.

The study found only one difference between the families: same-sex couples had more stress than their different-sex peers. But even with that distinction, there was no difference in the outcomes for their children, including their general health, emotional difficulties, coping behavior, or learning behavior.

This juxtaposition actually lends more credence to same-sex parenting. The higher stress rate should have correlated with less favorable outcomes for the children, but it didn’t. This suggests, the researchers reason, that the lesbian mothers might be using additional support systems like parenting groups or counseling services, and likewise, their kids may also develop greater resilience skills having to defend against the stigma of having same-sex parents.

There is an obvious explanation as to why the new study found affirming results while conservatives found negative outcomes in their population-based studies. The new study controls for committed couples; it compares same-sex families who have raised their children from birth with different-sex families who had done the same. None of the same-sex parents who had broken up or divorced were analyzed in the study.

Regnerus — seemingly intentionally — didn’t account for family structure.  . . . Regnerus’ data only included two children who had been raised from birth by committed same-sex couples, and their outcomes were just fine. . . . . Similar population-based surveys from Donald Paul Sullins and Douglas Allen used the same trick of comparing unstable same-sex families to stable different-sex families.

In some ways, the new study isn’t groundbreaking. There has already been scientific consensus in support of same-sex families for decades. With the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision last year and the recent conclusion of the challenge to Mississippi adoption ban, same-sex adoption is now legal in all 50 states.

 Despite the study findings, it is a safe bet that the "godly folk" will continue to tell the same tired lies about gay parenting.  The truth simply does not matter to them.

Quote of the Day: British Prime Minister David Cameron on the Commencement of Same Sex Marriages

Prime Minister David Cameron

Tonight same sex marriage became legal in England and Wales and couples flocked to tie the knot.  Not surprisingly Catholic prelates and far right elements in the Church of England are whining and carrying on as if the world is ending.  Perhaps it is - or at least their world of hate and discrimination that for far too long they were able to inflict on others.  Prime Minister David Cameron had forward looking words for the arrival of equality and a legal structure where individuals will no longer be inferior because of their sexuality.  Cameron's words are the antithesis of what the Christofascists preach, although I would argue that they are very much in keeping with the teachings of Christ.  Teachings more or less totally ignored by today's "godly folk" who reject the Gospel message in favor of the worst aspects of the Old Testament.  Pink News has details on Cameron's remarks. Here are highlights

Writing exclusively for PinkNews, Prime Minister David Cameron celebrates the introduction of same-sex marriage today, comparing same-sex marriages to his own, and noting the work still to be done for equality.

This weekend is an important moment for our country. For the first time, the couples getting married won’t just include men and women – but men and men; and women and women. After all the campaigning – not least by readers of PinkNews – we will at last have equal marriage in our country. Put simply, in Britain it will no longer matter whether you are straight or gay – the State will recognise your relationship as equal.

This is something that has been very important to me. I have been so lucky to find the most incredible lifelong partner in Sam and our marriage has been a very special part of the commitment we have made to each other. Of course any marriage takes work, requires patience and understanding, give and take – but what it gives back in terms of love, support, stability and happiness is immeasurable. That is not something that the State should ever deny someone on the basis of their sexuality. When people’s love is divided by law, it is the law that needs to change.

The introduction of same-sex civil marriage says something about the sort of country we are. It says we are a country that will continue to honour its proud traditions of respect, tolerance and equal worth. It also sends a powerful message to young people growing up who are uncertain about their sexuality. It clearly says ‘you are equal’ whether straight or gay. That is so important in trying to create an environment where people are no longer bullied because of their sexuality – and where they can realise their potential, whether as a great mathematician like Alan Turing, a star of stage and screen like Sir Ian McKellen or a wonderful journalist and presenter like Clare Balding.

[W]e should be proud to live in a country judged to be the best place to live in Europe if you are lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans. But we should equally be far from complacent about the challenges that remain – and I am just as committed as ever to working with you to challenge attitudes and stamp-out homophobic bullying and hate crimes.

We are a nation that is growing stronger economically because of our long term economic plan. But I hope we can also be a country that is growing stronger socially because we value love and commitment equally. Let us raise a toast to that – and all those getting married this weekend.

 It is worth remembering that David Cameron is the leader of the Tory Party - the UK's conservative party and that it was the Tories who pushed through marriage equality.  Given that marriage and supporting stable relationships are indeed a conservative value, it was appropriate that Cameron and the Tories championed same sex marriage - as any true conservatives should.  The reality is that here in America the Republican Party is no longer a conservative party.  Instead it is a sectarian party push to impose Christofascist beliefs on all citizens. 

Brantinham Lake - A Life Saver for a Gay Youth

In some of the earliest posts on this blog I spoke of my summers at our family summer home on Brantingham Lake in the western Adirondack Mountains.  Thankfully, the "camp" as they are called in the Adirondacks remains in the family and this summer I plan to take the boyfriend - who will be my husband by that point - for his first visit.  For those who watch the video, our place is the white boathouse to the left of the long point (named Long Point) that extends well out into the lake from the top of the frame.  Not excelling in team sports and suffering from jeers of "fag" at times at school during the school year, summers - where I excelled in swimming, water skiing and sailing - and my wonderful summer friends were literally a life saver.  No matter how long I live, a part of my heart will always be at Brantingham.

America's Changing Families - The Christofascists Rejection of Reality

One of the myths that Christofascists - the folks at The Family Foundation in Richmond are a case in point - constantly disseminate is that of the Norman Rockwell nuclear family which is held out as the norm but for the threat of gay marriage.  The reality, however, is that such families are increasingly NOT the norm and in the past many continued to exist simply because people stayed in bad marriages that were often toxic for all concerned.  To the Christofascists, it's better that everyone remain in unhappy sham heterosexual marriages than face the truth that their little ideological world is largely a fantasy in their own minds.  Their rigid agenda insults the lives and loves of more and more Americans.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the changing face of America's families.  Here are highlights:

Kristi and Michael Burns have a lot in common.  . . . . their blended family is a sprawling, sometimes uneasy ensemble of two sharp-eyed sons from her two previous husbands, a daughter and son from his second marriage, ex-spouses of varying degrees of involvement, the partners of ex-spouses, the bemused in-laws and a kitten named Agnes that likes to sleep on computer keyboards.

If the Burnses seem atypical as an American nuclear family, how about the Schulte-Waysers, a merry band of two married dads, six kids and two dogs? Or the Indrakrishnans, a successful immigrant couple in Atlanta whose teenage daughter divides her time between prosaic homework and the precision footwork of ancient Hindu dance; the Glusacs of Los Angeles, with their two nearly grown children and their litany of middle-class challenges that seem like minor sagas; Ana Perez and Julian Hill of Harlem, unmarried and just getting by, but with Warren Buffett-size dreams for their three young children; and the alarming number families with incarcerated parents, a sorry byproduct of America’s status as the world’s leading jailer. 

Researchers who study the structure and evolution of the American family express unsullied astonishment at how rapidly the family has changed in recent years, the transformations often exceeding or capsizing those same experts’ predictions of just a few journal articles ago. 

Yet for all the restless shape-shifting of the American family, researchers who comb through census, survey and historical data and conduct field studies of ordinary home life have identified a number of key emerging themes. 

Families, they say, are becoming more socially egalitarian over all, even as economic disparities widen. Families are more ethnically, racially, religiously and stylistically diverse than half a generation ago — than even half a year ago. 

Good friends join forces as part of the “voluntary kin” movement, sharing medical directives, wills, even adopting one another legally. 

Single people live alone and proudly consider themselves families of one — more generous and civic-minded than so-called “greedy marrieds.”

[T]he old-fashioned family plan of stably married parents residing with their children remains a source of considerable power in America — but one that is increasingly seen as out of reach to all but the educated elite. 

“We’re seeing a class divide not only between the haves and the have-nots, but between the I do’s and the I do nots,” Dr. Coontz said. Those who are enjoying the perks of a good marriage “wouldn’t stand for any other kind,” she said, while those who would benefit most from marital stability “are the ones least likely to have the resources to sustain it.”

The nation’s birthrate today is half what it was in 1960, and last year hit its lowest point ever. At the end of the baby boom, in 1964, 36 percent of all Americans were under 18 years old; last year, children accounted for just 23.5 percent of the population, and the proportion is dropping, to a projected 21 percent by 2050.

One big reason is the soaring cost of ushering offspring to functional independence. According to the Department of Agriculture, the average middle-class couple will spend $241,080 to raise a child to age 18. Factor in four years of college and maybe graduate school, or a parentally subsidized internship with the local theater company, and say hello to your million-dollar bundle of oh joy. 

Also démodé is the old debate over whether mothers of dependent children should work outside the home. The facts have voted, the issue is settled, and Paycheck Mommy is now a central organizing principle of the modern American family.  

There are many more insights.  The take away message, however, is that if Republicans and the Christofascists are truly worried about "protecting marriage," they need to support policies that address the stresses now faced by families.  Gays marrying have NOTHING to do with these forces.  The fact that they refuse to face reality and adopt and supported supportive programs speaks volumes about their dishonesty and hypocrisy.

House DOMA Legal Team Deliberately Wrongly Cites Parenting Study

I'm beginning to believe that in addition to being devoid of compassion towards others, consumed by greed and filled with hatred towards those deemed "other," in order to be a Republican nowadays, one must also be a pathological liar.  A case in point is the seemingly deliberate misuse of gay parenting studies by the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives, also known as BLAG for short.  BLAG's legal team apparently takes a view that if research doesn't support one's anti-gay agenda, then just lie about it and twist its findings.  It's a trait apparently learned from the Christianist hate groups who can safely be assumed to be lying if their mouth pieces' lips are moving (think Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher and Bryan Fischer for starters).  A component in childerns' success is stability - something same sex marriage would bring to families.  As would ending the "change myth" and "ex-gay" ministries that only lead to opposite sex marriages that are doomed to fail and cause upheaval for the children of such marriages.  The hypocrisy is that the opponents of gay marriage do all in their power to destabilize same sex unions, and then use the fruits of their handiwork to condemn gay couples and their families.  A piece in The Advocate looks at BLAG's attempts to defraud the Courts with false citations of Daniel Potter's study.  Here are some article highlights:

BLAG’s brief marks the second time the study — which was conducted by University of Texas professor Mark Regnerus with the financial backing of socially conservative groups — has been used to defend DOMA in the case. The day after Regnerus’ study was released to the public last month, a conservative medical group highlighted it in a “friend of the court” brief. The American College of Pediatricians filed that brief at the request of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an influential religious right legal organization.

In fact, Regnerus’ study has been widely criticized for comparing children raised by intact biological families to children raised by parents who had a same-sex relationship at some point, regardless of whether the child was actually raised by a stable, same-sex couple.

The other recent study BLAG cites in support of the premise that children are better off when raised by two heterosexual parents was published in the Journal of Marriage and Family in May. That study, authored by Daniel Potter of the American Institutes for Research, found that children raised in same-sex-parent families scored lower on academic tests than children raised in two-parent households by a straight couple.

Potter, who conducted his research using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, says in a discussion of the results that the “transitions and changes that accompany the formation of such households” factored heavily into the lower test scores. He stresses that instability within the family, rather than the family structure itself, seemed to have had more of an effect on the children’s test scores.

In an email exchange, Potter said he had not previously been aware that BLAG had used his study in its defense of DOMA.  .   .   .  .  “But … the negative association is accounted for by including information on the number of transitions that children experience. … I interpret these findings to suggest that it is not the family structure per se that is associated with children’s lower performance, but that it is the instability and transitions leading up to the formation of these families that matters.”

Potter added: “I do not view my study as rejecting prior research on same-sex parent families, nor do I believe it offers the quintessential investigation from which future research should advance.  .  .  .  .  “I think the results do push forward the idea that stability is a central element for understanding the role of family structure in children’s lives,” he said, “but the research cannot speak to the issue of same-sex marriage.”

Potter explains that “same-sex parent families are often created through a series of changes to and transitions in children’s family structure” but notes that “not all same-sex parent families are created from dissolved opposite-sex relationships.”

John Boehner congratulates himself on being a "godly Christian" yet he and his compatriots are in my view lying sacks of shit.

Jeb Bush Slams "Dysfunction" of Today's GOP, Says Reagan Could Not Be Nominated Today, Supports Gay Couples

One has to wonder exactly what Jeb Bush is trying to do even if the statements he is making are 100% on target.  Indeed, Jeb Bush's statements echo what I've said before - Ronald Reagan  could not win the GOP nomination given the abject insanity of today's Republican Party.  Oh, and did I mention that Jeb Bush said that stable same sex relationships should be encouraged?    Jeb Bush's heresy could not be more complete.  Heads must be literally exploding amongst wingnut Christianist circles.  Sometimes speaking the truth isn't popular, but that doesn't make it any less the truth.  Here are highlights from BuzzFeed on Jeb's comments on the GOP:

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said today that both Ronald Reagan and his father George H. W. Bush would have had a difficult time getting nominated by today's ultra-conservative Republican Party.

"Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad — they would have a hard time if you define the Republican party — and I don’t — as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement, doesn’t allow for finding some common ground," 

Bush cited, in particular, "the budget deal my dad did, with bipartisan support — at least for a while — that created the spending restraint of the ‘90s," a reference to a move widely viewed now as a political disaster for Bush, breaking a pledge against tax increases and infuriating conservatives. It was, Bush said, "helpful in creating a climate of more sustainted economic growth."  Politically it clearly didn't work out — he was a one term president," his son said.  Bush called the present partisan climate "disturbing."

His remarks to a group of reporters and editors at the headquarters of Bloomberg LP in Manhattan were the latest in a series of concerns Bush, one of the best-respected figures in his party, has raised about its current direction. Other Republicans, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, have suggested that this GOP wouldn't nominate Reagan, who raised taxes and made grand bargains with Democrats on immigration and fiscal issues. Bush also repeated criticism of the "tone" of the discussion of immigration issues.

With the Bible beaters, Bush's biggest heresy, however, was in the context of how the nation's laws treat same sex couples.  Here are highlights from Think Progress:

Although his brother supported a constitutional ban on gay marriage as president, the younger Bush believes America needs all forms of families as parenting examples. He clarified that he personally still opposes same-sex marriage, but despite his platitudes offered a contrast to many of his GOP cohort:

BUSH: I don’t think people need to be discriminated against because they don’t share my belief on this, and if people love their children with all their heart and soul and that’s what they do and that’s how they organize their life that should be held up as examples for others to follow because we need it. We desperately need it and that can take all sorts of forms, it doesn’t have to take the one that I think should be sanctioned under the law.

Bush’s statement is not an endorsement of marriage equality. Still, coupled with his other observation about how his father and Ronald Reagan would have a hard time finding common ground in today’s GOP, it does show the potential of a party shift on marriage equality similar to President Obama’s own evolution.

Tony Perkins and Bryan Fischer must be having apoplexy!

Did Right Wing Funded Gay Parenting Study Unwittingly Support Gay Marriage?

Over the weekend I blogged about the right wing funded study on gay parenting and the flawed group same sex parents with other groups so that the results deliberately came out skewed against gay parenting.  Not surprisingly, NOM and Family Research Council and similar anti-gay groups have joyously jumped on to the report as supportive of the anti-gay jihad.  But as a piece in Slate column suggests - and echo's what I said about the negative impact that DOMA and bans on same sex marriage have on the children of LGBT citizens - the anti-gay study unwittingly makes the case as to why same sex marriage is a necessity if one truly is concerned about children as the Christianists pretend to be concerned  The bottom line is that by banning same sex marriage children are deliberately deprived of financial and family stability that the children of heterosexual couples take for granted.  It's yet another of the rank dishonesty and hypocrisy of the far right that claim to care about children but then do all they can to harm countless children.  As I've noted many times, tawdry whores are more virtuous than most of the "godly Christian" crowd.  Here are highlights from the Slate article:

Is same-sex marriage a good idea? Or is an intact biological family the best environment for raising a child? The answer may turn out to be yes and yes.

That’s the curious implication of a study reported yesterday in Social Science Research and outlined in Slate today by its principal investigator, sociologist Mark Regnerus. The study, which found inferior economic, educational, social, and psychological outcomes among children of gay parents, comes across as evidence that homosexuals are unfit to raise kids. But the study doesn’t document the failure of same-sex marriage. It documents the failure of the closeted, broken, and unstable households that preceded same-sex marriage.

In his journal article, Regnerus says it “clearly reveals that children appear most apt to succeed well as adults—on multiple counts and across a variety of domains—when they spend their entire childhood with their married mother and father.”

These findings shouldn’t surprise us, because this isn’t a study of gay couples who decided to have kids. It’s a study of people who engaged in same-sex relationships—and often broke up their households—decades ago.

To understand the study, you have to read the questionnaire that defined the sample. It began by asking each respondent, as the child of this or that kind of family arrangement, his age. If the respondent was younger than 18 or older than 39, the survey was terminated. This means the entire sample was born between 1971 and 1994, when same-sex marriage was illegal throughout the United States, and millions of homosexuals were trying to pass or function as straight spouses.

[B]roken families were excluded from the IBF [intact biological family] category but included in the GF and LM categories. This loaded classification system produced predictable results. In his journal article, Regnerus says respondents who were labeled GF or LM originated most commonly from a “failed heterosexual union.”

In short, these people aren’t the products of same-sex households. They’re the products of broken homes. And the closer you look, the weirder the sample gets.

What the study shows, then, is that kids from broken homes headed by gay people develop the same problems as kids from broken homes headed by straight people. But that finding isn’t meaningless. It tells us something important: We need fewer broken homes among gays, just as we do among straights. We need to study Regnerus’ sample and fix the mistakes we made 20 or 40 years ago. No more sham heterosexual marriages. No more post-parenthood self-discoveries. No more deceptions. No more affairs. And no more polarization between homosexuality and marriage. Gay parents owe their kids the same stability as straight parents. That means less talk about marriage as a right, and more about marriage as an expectation.

[T]he methodology and findings, coupled with previous research, point to deeper differences that transcend orientation. Kids do better when they have two committed parents, a biological connection, and a stable home. If that’s good advice for straights, it’s good advice for gays, too.

Not surprisingly, the wingnuts do not want same sex couples to have the same legal rights, legal protections, and stability of their heterosexual counterparts be cause, God forbid from the Kool-Aid drinking crowd perspective - the same sex couples might just do a better job parenting children and expose the anti-gay Christianist lies.

When Will the GOP Face a Reckoning On Marriage Equality?

Andrew Sullivan has written on why marriage equality should be a conservative goal - and I have done the same in a VEER Magazine column - because of the stability and benefits that flow not only to the couples involved, but also to their families and the larger community. Despite this, the GOP continues to pander like a tawdry whore to the Christianists. When has to wonder when the ultimate reckoning will come given the rapidly growing acceptance of same sex marriage by the younger generations. A piece in the New Yorker looks at this issue and again makes the case as to why marriage equality should be a conservative value. Here are some excerpts:

Why isn’t gay marriage conservative? One would think that, at a certain point, there would be a real confrontation within the Republican Party about this—one that goes beyond its libertarian wing’s impatience with the subject. Do you want children to grow up in a home with married parents? Do you want adults who live together to make a binding commitment, one that helps weave them into their community? Are your party’s candidates and alleged intellectuals turning out books complaining about the absence of both of the above, books with titles like “It Takes a Family”? Would you like to help plan, attend, and dance at the wedding of your daughter, nephew, brother—or your own marriage? All of these people exist; so do their children. A wedding ring is the symbol of a transformative legal act, but it is not the sort of magic ring that conjures people out of nowhere or, pulled off, makes them invisible.

Perhaps that confrontation has begun, quietly enough, although the agreement of the G.O.P. Presidential candidates (other than Ron Paul) on the subject makes that harder to see.

And yet the legalization of gay marriage in New York State was eased by Republican Party donors who supported it and told Senators and assemblymen that they wouldn’t be abandoned financially. And, as the Times noted recently, they haven’t been—quite the opposite. . . . . The Washington bill was supported by Nike, Microsoft, and Starbucks—liberal-minded corporations on issues like this, maybe, but still corporations. But what may be more effective is the voter in the back of the auditorium who checks himself when he hears bitter talk about the supposed assault on marriage, because the words are no longer abstract, and because they seem unloving.

When policemen in Virginia barged into the bedroom of Richard and Mildred Loving, in 1958, there was a wedding certificate hanging on their wall. Because Richard was white and Mildred was black and Native American, the piece of paper marked them, in the eyes of the local government, as disreputable. . . . . They were forced to leave the state. The perversion of that position was recognized by the Supreme Court five years later, in a unanimous decision that overturned miscegenation laws.

Gay marriage may get to the court, but it’s looking as though it will stop in many statehouses along the way, and by then more marriage certificates will hang on more walls, recognized as something to honor.

Between the GOP position on contraception, the glorification of discrimination against those deemed "other," the anti-abortion extremism and the efforts to dehumanize LGBT citizens I have to wonder when the majority will wake up and throw the GOP on the trash heap of history.

Gay Marriage - A Moral Crossroads For Conservatives

Columnist Jonathan Rauch has a piece at the National Journal that intersects with a piece by fellow Bilerico contributor Cathy Renna (pictured at left in the photo) - who I met last year at the LGBT Blogger Summit - on the issue of same sex marriage. Rauch's piece is based on a true experience that happened to a gay cousin while Cathy looks at the impact of her own marriage on same sex relationships. Combined, they highlight why the truly "conservative" approach to marriage should be to make it available to all couples who desire it because of its ability to increase stability and afford legal rights. In contrast, of course, the falsely conservative :family values" organizations seek to destabilize and marginalize same sex relationships to the maximum extent possible based on the religious based intolerance - which mocks the concept of freedom of religion for ALL citizens. First, some highlights from Rauch's column:

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Last October, Bill Meezan, my cousin, left his home in Columbus, Ohio, for a business trip to Philadelphia. . . . Mike Brittenback recalls sharply how doctors in Philadelphia called him in Columbus to say they suspected pneumonia. Mike, an organist and choirmaster, is Bill's partner of 30 years. A few hours later that Friday, they called back to confirm the diagnosis. Mike was concerned but not alarmed. At 3 a.m. the next day, the phone woke him up. It was a doctor in Philadelphia. Mike needed to come to Philadelphia immediately. Bill had gone into septic shock and might not survive more than a few hours.
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Having just been told, at 3 a.m., that his partner of three decades might die within hours, Mike Brittenback was told something else: Before rushing to Bill's side, he needed to collect and bring with him documents proving his medical power of attorney. This indignity, unheard-of in the world of heterosexual marriage, is a commonplace of American gay life.

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National Review has a cover story this month by Maggie Gallagher, a prominent anti-gay-marriage activist, subtitled: "Why Gay Marriage Isn't Inevitable." She is right, in a sense. Most states explicitly ban same-sex marriage. . . In another sense, however, she is wrong. Never again will America not have gay marriage, and never again will less than a majority favor some kind of legal and social recognition for same-sex couples. The genie that gay-marriage opponents still hope to stuff back into the bottle is out and out for good.

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If gay couples can't be allowed to marry, what should they be able to do? Asked this question, cultural conservatives say, in the words of Tom Lehrer's song about the German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, "That's not my department." Effectively, conservatives are saying that what Mike and Bill do for each other has no significance outside their own bedroom.

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But what happened in that hospital in Philadelphia for those six weeks was not just Mike and Bill's business, a fact that is self-evident to any reasonable human being who hears the story. "Mike was making a medical decision at least once a day that would have serious consequences," Bill told me. Who but a life partner would or could have done that? Who but a life partner will drop everything to provide constant care? Bill's mother told me that if not for Mike, her son would have died. Faced with this reality, what kind of person, morally, simply turns away and offers silence?

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Conservatives have a decision to make. They can continue pretending that the bond between Mike and Bill does not exist, is of no social value, or has no place on conservatives' agenda. Doing so would be of a piece with their retreat to economic Hooverism, their embrace of cultural Palinism, and, in general, their preference for purity over relevance.

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Or they can acknowledge what to most of the country is already obvious: Whether the nation finally settles on marriage or on something else for gay couples, Bill and Mike are now in the mainstream and the Republican Party is not. If cultural conservatism continues to treat same-sex couples as outside the social covenant, the currents of history will flow right around it, and future generations of conservatives will wonder how their predecessors could ever have made such a callous and politically costly mistake.

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I believe that Rauch's analysis on on target and both the professional Christian set and religious denominations that fail to fully accept same sex partners as full members and rostered clergy will someday be viewed in the same category as the most foul racists and segregationists are by most people today. The choice is theirs as to how they want to be viewed by history. This point is further highlighted by some of Cathy's reflections:

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A new book by M.V. Lee Badgett, Professor of Economics, director of the Center of Public Policy And Administration at Amherst and research director of the Williams Institute on Public Policy at UCLA School of Law (phew, her business card must be huge!) has written a compelling and very useful addition to the debate about marriage equality. . . . Her verdict: marriage changes gay people more than gay people change marriage. Take that, Family Research Council!

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On a personal level, this book resonated with much of my family's experience of the issue of marriage equality, including the true value of marriage, how our marriage has impacted the heterosexual people on our lives and the many ways this is changing the way we look at families in general.

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My wife and I had an amazing wedding in 2003. It sounds trite, but is was the happiest day of our lives. We affirmed our commitment and vows to each other in the eyes of God(ess) and in front of about 100 members of our family, chosen family and friends. That ritual was such an important part of building the foundation of a solid relationship.

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There are many sides to this issue and this new book is a much needed addition to the conversation. And I am sure no matter what beach you are reading it on, you'll probably prompt some conversations as well.

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I firmly believe that all unrelated consenting adult couples who desire to be married should be able to do so not only for the legal and emotional benefits it will bring to them, but also because it provides a stabilizing glue to relationships and formalizes a "family" for the couple's children and relatives. I truly do not understand why this so terrifies the homophobes and self-hating closet cases like Robert Knight and ex-gays for pay.