In their recent consideration of the legality of same sex marriage, two members of the Supreme Court called into question whether or not the science exists demonstrating that these unions do not harm children. During oral arguments over whether or not to uphold the legality of California's Proposition 8, which codifies marriage as being only between one man and one woman, Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy both questioned whether or not science or "experts" had confirmed the harmlessness of same-sex marriage to children. Justice Samuel Alito then noted that same sex marriage was newer than cell phones or the Internet (transcript here).
Unless the ancient Greeks had cell phones and wireless, he's wrong on that. And based on that reasoning, it would have been just fine for a Supreme Court justice hearing Brown vs. the Board of Education in 1954 to point out that school desegregation was a concept newer even than television. Does that mean anything?
Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, presenting the case before the court, offered up another comparison:
Not all same-sex couples intend to have children; indeed, their alleged inability to have biological children as a couple is one argument frequently forwarded against recognizing their marriages, primarily by people who think marriage exists only for the purposes of pro-creation. So it's unclear how the effect of same-sex marriage on children is relevant to the question of how marriage should be defined.
What is clear is that the American Academy of Pediatrics has come out with a it's there.
First, some numbers. According to the AAP statement, same-sex couples in the U.S. are raising a total of 115,000 children; if you roll in households with a single gay or lesbian parent, this country has at least 2 million children being raised by non-heterosexual parents.
Two million children. And that doesn't even count children being raised by parents in an outwardly heternormative relationship but whose gender identities and sexual behaviors might not be so, well, hetero as presumed. Again, whether it's obvious or not, the sex or gender of the parent isn't inherently harmful to a child. It's how society reacts to it.
The science is there. Is the problem that some members of the Court just don't want to hear it?Guess what the science whose existence Scalia and Kennedy questioned has to say on the subject? The AAP--you know, the experts on children who also might not exist, according to the Supreme Court--says:
The reference they cite for that last statement is this one, which is unfortunately paywalled. However, it is a review of the available data and was published a year ago. In the abstract, the authors clearly state that:
This information has been available for almost a year. The AAP statement appeared online on March 20, days before the Supreme Court heard these arguments. The science is there. The experts had spoken. Is the problem that some members of the Court just don't want to hear it?
This article was republished with permission. Emily Willingham, co-founder and editor at DoubleXScience, is a science writer and compulsive biologist. You can find her on Twitter at @DoubleXSci or @ejwillingham.
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