The Future of Marriage

With precision and passion, David Blankenhorn offers a bold new argument in the debate over same-sex marriage: that it would essentially deny all children, not just the children of same-sex couples, their birthright to their own mother and father. If we change marriage, we change parenthood-for all families. Altering marriage to accommodate same-sex couples would mean weakening in culture and eliminating in law the idea that children need both their mother and their father.

David Blankenhorn is founder and president of the Institute for American Values, a nonpartisan organization devoted to strengthening families and civil society. The New York Times has described him as a "consensus builder for a moral base in society," and the Idaho Statesman called his 1995 book, Fatherless America, "the bible of the fatherhood movement." Blankenhorn lives in New York City with his wife, Raina, and their children, Raymond, Sophia, and Alexandra.