Gay Marriage

Gay marriage has a major impact on today’s society, in regards to the legalization of it and how it affects the representation of the nuclear family. In this essay, I will interpret same-sex marriage from a conflict perspective.

The first social science article titled, “Same-sex parenting and children’s outcomes: A closer examination of the American Psychological Association’s brief on lesbian and gay parenting” by Loren Marks, talks about how children of lesbian or gay parents are not disadvantaged in relation to children of heterosexual parents. This study also explains that children who grow in a household of a single parent are actually worse off than children of homosexual parents. With this study, there is an emergence from the traditional family form of a nuclear family. However, the data represented in this article concluded that the idea of this is difficult to be grounded into science. The reason for this is because in order for this study to have more validity, there needs to be a sampling of a larger representative sample that is to include more diverse same sex families, and also examine the economic concerns that develop during adolescence and childhood. Even though this study may not be considered valid to science, it does provide future validity for future researchers.

The next social science article titled, “The Future Impact of Same-Sex Marriage: More Questions than Answers,” by Nan D. Hunter explores the changes that occur when same sex marriage affects family law and the social definition of marriage. It talks about how the institution of marriage has continued to change over the past century. More specifically, the potential for change will take place in three different areas, including division of labor, sexual exclusivity, and childrearing. Even though the population of same sex couples is too small to yield significant change in behavior patterns, the topic of same-sex marriage has provoked enough attention to cause debate. The...