SO-CALLED "family issues" have become among the most divisive in our nation, with both liberals and conservatives polarizing increasingly over issues of "morality" as opposed to anything else. Yet the empirical underpinnings of this debate have often been trampled underfoot in amidst all of the partisanship and hype. The issues of the proper role of the state in defining family life deserve more serious treatment than they have received at the hands of policy-makers. Evidence indicates that we should move slowly on policies that would seek to alter encourage "non-traditional" family structures.
Divorce rates have skyrocketed over the past few generations, especially during the 1970s, when no-fault divorce laws were introduced across the country, to the point that about 40 to 50 percent of marriages today will end in divorce. Statistics indicate that divorce disproportionately impacts those without college degrees. Studies have also confirmed the damaging psychological impact of divorce on children. Cal Berkeley professor Judith Wallerstein's long-term study of the children of divorce, "The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study," found damaging long-term emotional consequences among several children of divorced parents. The rise in divorce has come hand-in-hand with a rise in single motherhood and absentee fathers: statistics indicate that only one-third of children of divorced parents saw their fathers at least once a month.
It is frequently asserted with increasing vehemence that issues involving family structures are no business of the state at all. Yet the issues of family structures and their effect on children within our society should be just as much of a concern to us as the devastating impact of poverty and racism. The consequences of divorce and family disintegration can be just as devastating to individuals as the effects of these other sorts of harms.
For too long, our policymakers have considered family questions as matters of abstract rights rather than looking at the social consequences of various policy changes. The Supreme Court took exactly the wrong approach when it attempted to carve out a sphere of family life immune from state concern in its famous "privacy cases," such as Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut. We should reject the blanket assertions of the immunity of family structures from public concern, just as earlier generations rejected the idea that there was a sphere of economic activity that was purely of private concern.
Parallel issues may arise as the consequences of the increased number of homosexual parents become apparent. Whatever our personal guesses at the answers to this question may be, we simply have no empirical data at this point on whether homosexual family arrangements are optimal. As Justice Martha Sosman wrote in her dissenting opinion to the Goodridge Massachusetts gay marriage case: "Conspicuously absent from the court's opinion today is any acknowledgment that the attempts at scientific study of the ramifications of raising children in same-sex couple households are themselves in their infancy and have so far produced inconclusive and conflicting results. Notwithstanding our belief that gender and sexual orientation of parents should not matter to the success of the child rearing venture, studies to date reveal that there are still some observable differences between children raised by opposite-sex couples and children raised by same-sex couples." Though some data indicates that there is a biological basis for gender distinctions that might bear on the quality of family life, there are studies supporting both sides of the controversy and the issue remains unresolved. This does not mean, however, that we must also promote moral and religious condemnation of homosexuality. The costs of maintaining social stigma against gays at this point are unjustifiably high. It simply means that as much as we might value in the abstract the rights of gay parents, we should move carefully on these issues.
As much as Americans value claims to individual rights, government should certainly try to encourage by public policy the family structures which best serve citizens to the extent that these measures are compatible with individual autonomy. Yet just as reformers could not foresee the consequences of increased divorce on children, so today we should not be so arrogant as to think we can foresee the changes which will be wrought by fashionable public policy changes on current "family issues."
Noah Peters' column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at npeters@cavalierdaily.com.
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