Are Children with Same Sex Parents at a Disadvantage?

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There appears to be a common misconception that all lesbian and gay couples are childless; and that the discussion about gay and lesbian couples raising children is a debate about theorhetical families. The reality, however, is quite different. According to the 2000 Census, one-third of lesbian couples and one-fifth of male couples are already raising children. The most conservative estimates tell us that there are hundreds of thousands of children in the U.S. being raised by families headed by gay and lesbian couples. Hundreds of thousands of children. These are very real children, in very real families who, in most states in America, struggle day to day without the legal protections many others may take for granted. The fact that their parents are denied access to the rights, protections and benefits of civil marriage puts these children at a tremendous disadvantage.

These families are everywhere. They don't just live in the Bay Area, New York City and Key West, FL. They live in Provo and Topeka, Montgomery and Houston. In cities and towns of every size and political complexion throughout our country. They are our patients, our neighbors, and our families. They look to us for protection and support. The welfare of these children, and the security of their families, matter to pediatricians.

Civil marriage is a legal status that promotes healthy families by conferring over 1,000 rights, benefits and protections that cannot be obtained by other means. Including the right to make medical decisions for a child or on behalf of an incapacitated partner, access to insurance and social security benefits, the right to jointly adopt children, or the right to inherit property at the death of a spouse.

Without civil marriage, these families struggle to be recognized. The law sees only individuals. Never couples. Never families. Again and again, in state after state, we see examples of how the lack of access to gender neutral civil marriage has had adverse effects for children and families.

It is the duty of pediatricians to make sure all children they care for have safe and secure homes. Access to civil marriage is critical to same gender couples raising children, just as it is to opposite gender couples raising children. That’s why the American Academy of Pediatrics passed a resolution in 2007 in support of the right of same gender couples to marry. Speaking out to ensure that gay and lesbian families are as safe and protected as possible, and speaking out to ensure that heterosexual families are as safe and protected as possible, are not mutually exclusive enterprises.  

Gay and lesbian people have been raising children for many years and will continue to do so in the future. The need for the legal protections that civil marriage affords these couples and their children is not merely some interesting intellectual topic of debate. It is a very real roadblock to the security of hundreds of thousands of the children we care for.