It’s always good when someone writes intelligently in a mainstream publication about LGBT rights. Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune yesterday tackled the conservative claim that same-sex marriage “would grossly shortchange the needs of children ‘in order to further adult interests in sexual freedom'”:
Now, it will come as a shock to heterosexual couples that marriage can further sexual freedom, but never mind that. . . . Gays are already at liberty to have commitment-free trysts with members of Congress, evangelical pastors and anyone else they choose. . . .
What same-sex marriage offers, by contrast, is a safe harbor for those who prefer responsible monogamy to free love. It’s not a rejection of the values of traditional marriage—it’s an affirmation. . . .
Gallagher insists that youngsters are better off in a home with both a mother and a father, but thanks in part to liberal divorce laws—which conservatives are not mobilizing to repeal—many children already are deprived of the model family.
Some kids already are being brought up by same-sex partners. Conservatives think children of straight couples are better off if their parents are married. So how can children of gay couples be better off if their parents are not?
Chapman’s article won’t be news to most readers of this blog. It’s well put, though, and worth forwarding to friends and family in any of the eight states with ballot initiatives to ban same-sex marriage or domestic partnership. (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin.)