So, there’s this video going around of Al Franken (whom I truly admire as one of our more sensible-seeming Senators[1]) taking Tim Minnery–who services in some sort of capacity with the anti-gay Focus on the Family organization–to task for misrepresenting a study about the correlation of the well-being of children and the type of family they come from.
Now I support same-sex marriage, and *love* to see bigots of all stripes get schooled, but I’m not sure Franken is necessarily right on this one.
Specifically, if the study defines a “nuclear family” as a married couple—and you can hear Senator Franken use the phrase “who are married to one another” at 1:59, when he says he is reading the definition the study uses—then Minnery’s interpretation is at least legitimate, and perhaps even more correct: because same-sex couples are not allowed to marry in all but a scant handful of states, they are going to be excluded from the “nuclear family” category in almost all cases.
There may be more to it that’s not in this clip, but in this case, I’m not sure the evidence as portrayed holds up to scrutiny.
fn1. Many years ago, Anne and I were seated at a table adjacent to his in a restaurant in Harvard Square.