Gay Marriage: Healthy For Children

A study in VT has confirmed what many of us already know through anecdotal evidence (a.k.a., living it): gay marriage is good for the health of kids! And it is probably pretty darn good for the couples as well.

Sigh..

Here's the story below:

On Monday, Vermont mental health organizations and human service groups banded together to release a statement in favor of gay marriages, saying that, far from being detrimental, allowing an LGBT couple to marry could be the very best thing for children in their care, turning the argument against gay marriage on its head by effectively suggesting that it is gay marriage opponents who are creating unstable families by keeping gay parents apart.

Opponents to gay marriage often cry "Think of the children", but Jackie Weinstein of the University of Vermont's Human Development and Family Studies program said that, "We [the coalition group] felt it was important for us to set the record straight about the scholarly literature in our field, and we have lots of different families and the best thing to do for all children is to support parents the best way we can," which was why she and other representatives would be recommending same-sex marriage be allowed when a gay marriage bill, HB 178, is debated in the Vermont senate next week.

The group's consensus, which also includes the Vermont sector of the National Association of Social Workers, also drew a distinction between civil partnerships for LGBT couples and marriage, saying that the latter would validate a same-sex couple in the eyes of society in a way that a civil partnership could not.

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What most of us who have any background in social scientific research know is that what many of these studies do is confirm what we already knew in our gut. The studies do give a kind of legitimacy to what many of us already deduced.

Pace!

B