ROMAN KUHAR UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA It’s the end of the world as we know it: Sociological perspective and research on equal marriage and parenting

Content of the booklet Intimate/sexual citizenship Marriage & family – sociological perspectives Research on rainbow families Myths about rainbow families and abuse of research results

Consequences of gay marriage

Introduction Family has always been a political battle ground, constantly shifting to suite the culture, class, the economy of the time.

Pluralization of family forms  Nuclear families  Single parent families  Reorganized families  Extended families  Same-sex families  Adoptive families  Foster families Social history of families  People always lived in different types of families

Is family in crisis? The flexibility of family forms  Family as the basic social institution  Family as top value of Europeans  Family is NOT in crisis, but rather an ideology of traditional family with hierarchical organization of gender roles.

The role of the parents The changing of the parental roles  Not hierarchical, but equal  Biological parents  social parents  Increasing number of children with more than 2 parents  Parenting is no longer defined only by heterosexuality  Parenting does not necessarily mean “living together”  Pluralization of family PRAXIS (not only FORMS)

Inclusive (non-discriminatory) definition Family is a unit of one or more adults who are taking care of a child/children [Wilfried Dumon, Leuven University, Belgium ; United Nations, 1994] From blood to caring

Families of choice Kath Weston (1991)  The meaning of a family has two new levels:  Children are not precondition  Family relations are extended to include friends  Family is not defined by biological relations, but rather by commitment, care, responsibility.

Research on rainbow families Hidden assumptions  Heterosexual parenting is the golden standard  Difference = deficit  Does it make sense to compare families? I think that if you want to compare same-sex parents with different-sex parents that is a reasonable enough comparison, and there are reasons you want to do that at this stage of history. I don’t think the emphasis ultimately should be on which of these two types of families is best for children because that is where you get into an area where you really cannot make any kinds of judgements that make a lot of sense. That is like asking whether it is better for children to have black parents or white parents. Obviously in a racist society where blacks are subordinate, children will gain many social privileges from having white parents, but that does not mean that white folks perform a better kind of parenting. (Judith Stacey)

Research on rainbow families Two types of same-sex families  Reorganized same-sex (rainbow) families  Planned same-sex (rainbow) families Research  End of 70’, early 80’  Several longitudinal research (e.g. S. Golombok, 1983  )  Stacey (2011): “We do now have enough research to say that these families form a perfectly safe environment for children to grow up in.”

Results Gender identity  Children from same-sex families have no problems with their own gender identity Gender roles  Children from same-sex families are to a lesser extent exposed to traditional gender role divisions (e.g. active man, passive woman) Sexual orientation  Same-sex families do no “produce” more gays and lesbians. However if a child is LGBT, they experience less stress with coming out to parents. Behavior  Same-sex families are a safe environment for children to grow up. No behavioral or psychological disorders recorded. Schools  Type of a family does not influence the child’s success in school Homophobia  Children from same-sex families are exposed to homophobic violence. Their parents are generally successful in protecting them, therefore research does not show any lasting consequences in terms of self-esteem, anxiety etc.

Results It is not about the form of the family, but rather the content of the family which is important for the child’s psychosocial development.

Abuse of sociological research 100% more violence in same-sex partnerships (Research on Partnership Violence in USA)  Comparison: female violence against men in heterosexual partnerships vs. male violence against men in gay partnerships  Heterosexual partnerships: 7%  Homosexual partnership: 14 %  85% of non-violent gay partnerships?