The meaning of marriage

JEFF JACOBY argues that civil marriage exists to provide a stable environment "in which children can enter the world with mothers and fathers committed to their well-being" ("Love, marriage, and the baby carriage," Op-ed, Feb. 25). Really?

More than 30 percent of children are born out of wedlock. That means roughly two-thirds of children are born to married parents, but more than half of all marriages fail.

All things being equal, that leaves just one out of three children enjoying the stable environment civil marriage is supposed to produce. Would these stable environments vanish if the government did not confer extraordinary legal rights and benefits? It's hardly likely. Loving couples and good parents are not a creation of the state.

So why is Mr. Jacoby defending the existing institution of marriage? Civil marriage as Jacoby envisions it is a failure. A political conservative, Jacoby should condemn failing government programs, not rush to their defense.

JAMES M. THOMAS
North Billerica

JEFF JACOBY inadvertently makes a strong argument for why same-gender marriage is good for families . He lists many legitimate purposes of marriage. He also correctly writes, "What makes marriage a public institution . . . -- regulated by law and given an elevated legal status -- is that it provides . . . a stable environment" to "bring up the next generation, and in which children can" have parents "committed to their well-being." He is correct that, to help children thrive, society has a "vested interest in encouraging long term, monogamous . . . marriage."

In the references above, I've excised Mr. Jacoby's explicit references to heterosexual couples. Regardless of how the child was conceived, and regardless of the gender of the parents, these principles apply. If society wishes to protect and nurture all children, it should accord their parents the legal, financial, and societal safeguards of civil marriage.

Dr. CAROLE E. ALLEN
Arlington

The writer is vice president of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

AS ELABORATE and sophisticated as Jacoby's argument against gay marriage seems, it all boils down to one tricky assumption: that "children tend to do best when raised by their mothers and fathers."

No sound research has shown so far that two mothers or two fathers do a lesser job. None, according to the American Psychiatric Association; none, according to the American Psychological Association; none, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Period.

Dr. R. KAAN OZBAYRAK
West Brookfield

The writer is a child and adolescent psychiatrist.

I SEE Jeff Jacoby is on his ban-gay-marriage-to-protect-children soapbox again.

Will it ever occur to him that preventing gays from marrying does not in any way prevent them from raising children?

SUSAN GABLE
Mashpee