Dr. Peggy Drexler: The Kids Are All Right: Gay Parents Raising Children

Throughout many years of working with families, I’ve studied the lives of gay parents raising sons and daughters. In general, gay parents tend to be more motivated, more committed, and more thoughtful parents than heterosexual couples. That’s because they usually have to work very hard, and plan very far in advance, to become parents, and so rarely do so by accident.

Earlier this month, when President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage days after North Carolina voted to ban it, he changed the conversation considerably by arguing that concern for children is a reason to support, rather than oppose, gay marriage. He cited gay couples in his own life, “same-sex couples who are as committed, as monogamous, as responsible, as loving a group of parents as any heterosexual couple that I know,” he said. “And in some cases, more so.” His support for gay marriage was itself a landmark turn, but just as notable was its indirect affirmation of gay couples as parents, which served to rebut the standard argument against gay marriage — namely, that it risks the well-being of children and the family.

[via Huffington Post]