Making the Family Functional: The Case for Legalized Same-Sex Domestic Partnerships

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

Volumn 29, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 231-247

  Hickman, Larry A ^a  

^a SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84996241041     PISSN: 00483931     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/004839319902900204     Document Type: Article

References (11)

1. William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890; reprint, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 961.
2. William James, “The Sentiment of Rationality,” in Essays in Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 34.
3. Complicating this matter, of course, is the fact that before the 14th day after fertilization, it is not clear whether the embryo of human provenance is an “individual” or a “dividual” since an embryo that has split into twins must surely be regarded, at least in retrospect, as having been a “dividual.” And if a proper part of the fixed “essence” of human being is the property of individuality, then this is a sticky matter indeed for the hard-line essentialists.
4. “American Families Must Be Nurtured,” Bryan-College Station Eagle, 22 October 1991, 6A.
5. “Gays Cannot Be a Family,” Bryan-College Station Eagle, 7 November 1991, 4A.
6. I should note that the person who responded to my column cited the second edition of the American Heritage Dictionary. The third edition, published after I wrote my column, contains a definition that is similar to the one to which my critic objected. The “b” definition is now: “Two or more people who share goals and values, have long-term commitments to one another, and reside usually in the same dwelling place.”
7. An earlier version of this paper was first presented in Colorado. Voters in that state have registered just such an opinion.
8. Here are some examples of the counterproductive effects of accepting the hard-line essentialist's position. The first is from an editorial (“Gay Parents Living in Fear”) in The New York Times, 4 October 1993, A14. In a Virginia case, a judge removed a child from two parents and placed him with a single grandmother. In an Oklahoma case, an appeals court judge removed two girls from their family. In both cases, the reason cited by the judge was that the parents were of the same gender. The editorial pointed out that researchers have found no evidence of harm to children raised by gay parents.
9. Statistical Abstract of the United States 1994 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1994), 56.
10. “Fact, Fiction and the Health of Lesbians,” The New York Times, 19 January 1999, D8.
11. James, The Principles of Psychology, 961.