Gay Marriage: It's Not About the Children

A very good catch and legal sleuthing by Althouse, and perhaps, in the fullness of time, very good SCOTUS handicapping.

There are some 40,000 children in California, according to the Red Brief, that live with same-sex parents, and they want their parents to have full recognition and full status. The voice of those children is important in this case, don't you think?

As an adoptee and one with gay friends who parent adopted children, this is a sensitive and compassionate question.  I am of the mind that a child in ANY loving home is better than a child lacking a loving home.  It is APPROPRIATE in society's deliberations of this question as it then translates to legislative remedies, but I am not sure this question is GERMANE.  Just as marriage is fraught whether it be gay or straight, childrearing is fraught whether it be by gay or straight parents.  It doesn't de-legitimate the thousands of years of societal wisdom of traditional marriage to say that some kids are better off with two gay parents rather than one or no straight parents.  It may be a function of our society's compassion and tolerance that we accept this wisdom and allow adoption or placement of at-risk children with gay couples, but it is NOT a wholesale endorsement and acceptance of this social arrangement.  The law, after all, is a reflection of who we are as a society.  We aren't repudiating the wisdom of the ages by making compassionate concessions to kids that need homes.  It is a measure of our advancement as a society that we stand by  a traditional conception of what is ideal as a social unit for the upbringing of the next generation, but that we readily allow for exceptions for children that fall, inevitably due to our human frailties, by the wayside.