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Same-Sex Relations and Americans\' Definitions of Family
Russell Sage Foundation
September 2010
On Sale: September 1, 2010
336 pages
ISBN: 0871546876
EAN: 9780871546876
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
When state voters passed the California Marriage Protection
Act (Proposition 8) in 2008, it restricted the definition of
marriage to a legal union between a man and a woman. The
act’s passage further agitated an already roiling national
debate about whether American notions of family could or
should expand to include, for example, same-sex marriage,
unmarried cohabitation, and gay adoption. But how do
Americans really define family? The first study to explore
this largely overlooked question, Counted Out
examines currents in public opinion to assess their policy
implications and predict how Americans’ definitions of
family may change in the future.
Counted Out broadens the scope of previous studies
by moving beyond efforts to understand how Americans view
their own families to examine the way Americans characterize
the concept of family in general. The book reports on and
analyzes the results of the authors’ Constructing the Family
Surveys (2003 and 2006), which asked more than 1,500 people
to explain their stances on a broad range of issues,
including gay marriage and adoption, single parenthood, the
influence of biological and social factors in child
development, religious ideology, and the legal rights of
unmarried partners. Not surprisingly, the authors find that
the standard bearer for public conceptions of family
continues to be a married, heterosexual couple with
children. More than half of Americans also consider same-sex
couples with children as family, and from 2003 to 2006 the
percentages of those who believe so increased
significantly—up 6 percent for lesbian couples and 5 percent
for gay couples. The presence of children in any living
arrangement meets with a notable degree of public approval.
Less than 30 percent of Americans view heterosexual
cohabitating couples without children as family, while
similar couples with children count as family for nearly 80
percent. Counted Out shows that for most Americans,
however, the boundaries around what they define as family
are becoming more malleable with time.
Counted Out demonstrates that American definitions
of family are becoming more expansive. Who counts as family
has far-reaching implications for policy, including health
insurance coverage, end-of-life decisions, estate rights,
and child custody. Public opinion matters. As lawmakers
consider the future of family policy, they will want to
consider the evolution in American opinion represented in
this groundbreaking book.
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