The Iona Institute, among other pro-marriage groups, likes
to use a number of studies to buttress its case that marriage should be given
special status.

It is obvious that marriage should not have special status
unless there is something special about it. What is that something? The answer
is the benefits it passes on to children.

One paper often quoted in this regard is from Child Trends,
a big US-based organisation. That paper, called ‘Marriage from a Child’s
Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children and What Can We Do About
It, is a summary of studies which show that children tend to fare best when
raised by their own biological parents in a low-conflict marriage.

This same paper goes on to say: “There is thus value in
promoting strong, stable marriage between biological parents.”

This is our position. Take this away, and it is very hard to
find any reason to give marriage special status.

There are those who object to the above kind of quote being
used in arguments about same-sex marriage.

Child Trends itself says its brief only “summarises research
conducted in 2002, when neither same-sex parents nor adoptive parents were
identified in large national studies. Therefore, no conclusions can be drawn
from this research about the well-being of children raised by same-sex parents
or adoptive parents”.

That is indeed the case. We cannot say how well children raised
by same-sex parents do compared with children raised by their own biological
married parents and won’t be able to say so for a long time to come.

Studies showing that there are no differences between the
two kinds of families from the point of view of children invariably suffer from
some fatal flaw or another. In this debate, the burden of proof is firmly on
those who say motherhood and fatherhood are of no special value to children.
That burden hasn’t even come close to being met yet.

However, what we can say most emphatically is that when
sufficiently large, well designed studies do allow for comparisons to be made
between different types of families, the married, biological family fares best
from the child’s viewpoint.

This is why marriage deserves special support from the State
and from society. Advocates of same-sex marriage don’t agree. Therefore they
need to find some other justification for giving marriage special status. I
would like to hear what the justification is.