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