On: De facto families – Romney’s poor position on same-sex marriage

“Guess what [James] Coleman’s found? Schools make no difference; families make the difference.” – S. M. Lipset

James Coleman

As Einstein fundamentally redirected our understanding of the universe, Coleman fundamentally redirected America’s understanding of education. Until the 1966 publishing of his transformative report, Equality of Educational Opportunity (EEO), America’s philosophy on education was over-intuitive and lacked the hard facts which make or break policy. Priorly, the assumption was that pupil success was tied, as with bands of steel, to school funding and classroom size. Coleman’s findings changed that. Yes, these factors were important, he realized, but even more so was the socio-economic backgrounds of the families.

Mr. Coleman’s suggestions for an approach more sensitive to socio-economic status eventually worked their way into America’s public school system. The result: achievement gaps between whites and blacks began a slow yet evident decline, an unqualified victory given the report was published merely two years after the passage of the original Civil Rights Act.

Yet the EEO report maintains relevance today: better education for children entails more collegiate success, more collegiate success leads to a better first job, and a person’s first job is strongly tied to their advantages later in life.

Indeed, if families are this important, it is perfectly reasonable that governments should endeavor to lighten their burdens. Hence, they get tax breaks, subsidies, and a host of other government preferences.

Which brings us to Mitt Romney. A portion of Monday’s editorial was devoted to the benefits of Mr. Obama’s position on same-sex marriage; here’s the greatest: It has forced Mr. Romney to take an untenable position.

Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney

When asked in an interview, “What is your position on gay marriage and civil unions for same-sex couples?” Mr. Romney responded, “Marriage is a relationship between a man and a women.” When queried, “You support domestic partnerships, why not civil unions?” He stated, “If a civil union is identical to marriage other than with the name, why, I don’t support that. But I certainly recognize that hospital visitation rights and benefits of that nature may well be appropriate. And states are able to make provisions for the determination of those kind of rights as well as, if you will, benefits that might accrue to state workers.”

Two days later he said in a Fox News interview, “If two people of the same gender want to live together, want to have a loving relationship and even want to adopt a child … [i]n my view that's something which people have the right to do…”

Oy vey. If President Obama can (justly) be accused of flip-flopping, Mr. Romney can (justly) be accused of political equivocation. To streamline: Mr. Romney doesn’t support gay marriage or civil unions, but believes that hospital visitation rights and nebulous other “benefits of that nature” are well in order.

There are two points of interest here. First, a celebration: That draconian idea most often pronounced by the right (that homosexuals should not have the ability to adopt children) is officially off the table. It’s a dead argument. We’ve moved on.

Aren't these families?

Second, a question: If two people of the same gender can be allowed to live together in “a loving relationship” and raise a child, if they are entitled to “hospital visitation” rights and other “benefits of that nature” such as those which would “accrue to state workers,” isn’t this, ultimately, a de facto family?

No less than the President of the United States has taken the opposite view on same-sex marriage – the first to do so in our history. This ensures the subject will never completely leave the news cycle, nor will it be absent in the debates before the election. When the time comes, lest he be seen as taking the politically expedient route once more, Mr. Romney should expound upon the differences between families with heterosexual parents and families with homosexual parents. He should articulate why the latter aren’t entitled to the same benefits if for nothing more than the children Mr. Romney believes they have the right to rear.

It is a position Mr. Romney and other Republicans have boxed themselves into defending: They have long bemoaned the forces they considered antithetical to family values.  But it goes without saying that different families have different values. It doesn’t go without saying why those families don’t retain rights and deserve support – even the de facto ones.

For the ramifications of this inconsistency, see above.


A previous editorial dealt with the negatives of President Obama's position. That editorial is available here.


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