I haven’t read Blankenhorn’s book, yet, but here is some the points he is suppose to expound upon.
Has any body else on the forum read it?
Code:
In **THE** **FUTURE OF MARRIAGE**, Blankenhorn reveals that:From the patriarchal societies in Mesopotamia and Egypt (where marriage first emerged 5,000 years ago), to the sexually permissive female-oriented Trobriand Islanders in the South Pacific, to the militaristic Nayars of southwest India, the main purpose of marriage is to provide every child with a father and mother.
· Shows how marriage has a biological foundation in humans, who are much more highly sexual than other animals. The purpose of this ongoing sexual interest is to bind together the man and the woman who make and raise the child.
· When we change marriage, we change parenthood, not just for children of same-sex couples, but for everyone.
· Since almost all children of same-sex couples will be raised without either a father or mother, a society that embraces same-sex marriage can no longer embrace the norm that children need both a mother and a father. The main likely consequence would be more children growing up without their fathers.
· Since many same-sex couples obtain children through the use of donor eggs or sperm or the use of a surrogate mother, same-sex marriage conflicts with the right of children to be raised by their two *natural *parents, expect when it is contrary to the child’s best interests, as declared the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
· While Blankehorn strongly supports the equal dignity of gays, he concludes “with some anguish” that their right to marry and form families conflicts with the right of children to be raised by their own mother and father. Forced to choose between two goods, he believes sustaining the right of the child to a mother and father is ultimately more important because first and foremost we should seek to protect the interests of those who are less able to protect themselves, which in this case, means children.
· Same-sex marriage would erase three of marriage’s core features: 1) the idea that marriage about bridging the gender divide between men and women, 2) the idea that marriage involves sexual intercourse, and 3) the idea that marriage is about the union of two people.
· Provides never before released research showing that support for marriage is weakest in countries in which support for same-sex marriage is strongest - a direct rebuttal to the main argument in
Gay Marriage: For Better or for Worse? What We’ve Learned From the Evidence (May 2006).
Has any body else on the forum read it?
here is a link to an USA story on him
usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-03-13-blankenhorn-fatherhood_N.htm?csp=34
and a link for his book
encounterbooks.com/books/futureofmarriage/