Should Marriage for Same Sex Couples be Legal?

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The state’s interest in recognizing marriage is to ensure that as many children as possible grow up with their own married mom and dad.  Every child has a biological mom and dad.  The nonpartisan social science research is overwhelmingly conclusive.  All other things being equal, children generally do far better, by every measure, when raised by their own married parents.  One result is that the state saves a bundle of money.

A recent study by economist Ben Scafidi found that single parenthood and family dissolution costs California taxpayers $4.8 billion a year.  Nationwide, that figure is $112 billion (more than $1 trillion over a decade).  So how would same-sex “marriage” impact that cost?  If same-sex relationships in Norway and Sweden, as reported in a 2004 study, are a harbinger of things to come in California, male couples will be about 50% more likely to “divorce” than opposite-sex couples, and the divorce rate of female couples will be nearly double that of male couples.  And, according to David Blankenhorn's book, The Future of Marriage, evidence suggests that when states adopt same-sex “marriage,” opposite-sex couples are more likely to decide that there is no need to get married prior to having children (cause and effect is an open question, but the correlation is definite).  An increase in single parenthood and family dissolution as a secondary effect of devaluing marriage will be devastating to children and will generate significant additional costs to taxpayers.