Studies and surveys reveal that the following qualities and characteristics usually are found in strong, successful families: Ability to resolve conflict Flexibility and willingness to compromise Commitment Fulfillment Time together and time alone Ability to deal with crisis and stress Ability to handle money problems Open and honest lines of communication Sense of humor Mutual love and caring Expression of appreciation Genuine liking for one another Flexibility in gender roles Religion and shared faith
To encourage marriage and promote the well-being of children, I have proposed a healthy marriage initiative to help couples develop the skills and knowledge to form and sustain healthy marriages. Research has shown that, on average, children raised in households headed by married parents fare better than children who grow up in other family structures. Through education and counseling programs, faith-based, community, and government organizations promote healthy marriages and a better quality of life for children. By supporting responsible child-rearing and strong families, my Administration is seeking to ensure that every child can grow up in a safe and loving home. -President George W. Bush, Proclamation of Marriage Protection Week, 2003
(2002) When President Bush announced his intention to promote marriage as an antidote for poverty, he was doing several things intentionally: appealing to social conservatives in the Republican Party; signaling his desire to reduce the costs of welfare reform; making warm and fuzzy sound bites for the 6 o'clock news. But without realizing it, Bush was also doing something else that will make those same social conservatives apoplectic, as soon as it sinks into their right-brained heads: He was making the case for legalized partnerships for gay and lesbian parents, and for the necessity of allowing them to adopt each other's children. Not that I expect the president or the Family Research Council to admit it, but this whole marriage initiative has set them on a collision course. Their ideology contains two conflicting imperatives that simply cannot coexist. Marriage -- or civil union, or whatever name one might choose for the legal relationship that marriage affords -- is either good for children or it's not. It cannot be good for the children of heterosexual couples and bad for those of same-sex partners. Of course, the president and his supporters have taken pains to say that they're referring only to marriage between a man and a woman. But that distinction contains a fatal flaw. The whole basis of their argument is the statistical evidence that kids in two-parent homes are more likely to do better in life. And children in the homes of lesbian and gay couples have two parents. It's not the grown-ups' chromosomes that are at issue here; it's the children's need for the permanence of an intact family. Bush is so convinced that kids -- especially poor kids -- do better with two parents, he's willing to gamble $300 million [now proposing $1.3 billion for 2004 budget] in welfare money on encouraging marriage in poor communities. That's a pretty strong statement. If two legally joined parents are more important to kids' well-being than all the other services that $300 million [now $1.3 billion] could provide -- child care, health care, subsidies for food and a place to live -- then it must be powerful medicine indeed.
"It cannot be rational under our laws, and indeed it is not permitted, to penalize children by depriving them of state benefits because the state disapproves of their parents' sexual orientation."