Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and Americans' Definitions of Family

Notes

267 Notes Chapter 1 1. In his thoughtful article, Weigel (2008) explores college students’ assessment of the key features and traits they attribute to “family” and their evaluation of particular living arrangements as prototypical of family. For two of the few analyses of adults’ conceptualizations of family—one relying on a Swedish sample and the other relying on an Australian sample—see Trost (1990) and Evans and Gray (2005). 2. State of Arkansas, Adoption Act ACA §7-9-107 (2007), written by the Secretary of State. See “Notice of Certification of Sufficiency,” November 13, 2007, available at: http://www.sos.arkansas.gov/elections/elections_pdfs/ proposed_amendments/2007-293_Adopt_or_Foster_parent.pdf. The status of this ban is in doubt. A circuit judge in Arkansas struck down the law as unconstitutional, although at the time of writing it is likely that this judicial decision will be appealed. 3. For more detail about these interviews, see appendices 1.A and 1.B. Despite claims by many of our interviewees that they would not be able to speak to us for more than a few minutes, they often became so involved in the interview that they spoke for much longer than we had anticipated. The phone interviews ranged in length from 25 to 112 minutes in 2003, with a mean length of 44 minutes and a median length of 41 minutes. We used a more abridged inventory of questions in 2006, resulting in interviews that ranged in length from 13 to 87 minutes (with a mean of 28 minutes and median of 24 minutes). 4. But see Trost (1990). Trost also notes that the use of the term “parent-child unit” instead of “child-parent unit” is a “matter of taste” but could imply to some a hierarchy that places children at a structural disadvantage by relegating them to a lesser status. Some critics, however, might note that Trost expresses less concern over the relegation of nonromantic roommates (and other coresidential arrangements that do not involve a parent-child or a romantic/sexual dyad) to nonfamily status. 5. The sociologists Kathryn Harker Tillman and Charles Nam (2008) offer an insightful look at the policy implications and other implications of varying definitions of family. 6. Still, there is a great deal of variation among members of this group, even 268    Notes among pro-marriage supporters who have collaborated in their efforts to promote “stronger families.” The sociologist Linda Waite and the columnist Maggie Gallagher, for example, take divergent positions regarding same-sex couples; see Waite and Gallagher (2000). 7. For a slightly revised interpretation of family by Coontz, see Coontz (2008). Chapter 2 1. Such a definition could also include nonbiological children, such as adopted children. The U.S. Bureau of the Census (2001, 71), however, explicitly excludes adoptive families from the category “traditional nuclear family ” (“a family in which a child lives with two married biological parents and with only full siblings if siblings are present”), thereby reinforcing the idea that adoptive families are inauthentic or nonstandard. For a discussion of some implications of this definition and for various social-scientific views regarding adoption, see Hamilton, Cheng, and Powell (2007). 2. At the time of writing, same-sex marriage had been allowed or was pending in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. Recognition of marital status in one’s own state does not translate into similar recognition by the majority of states that prohibit same-sex marriage or by the federal government. 3. Preliminary analyses indicate that the ordering of items does not significantly affect patterns of response. Pretesting, along with the open-ended component of our interviews, also indicates that respondents generally understood “two men (women) living together as a couple” as a same-sex (gay-lesbian) couple, although in reference to this living arrangement one person responded, “That’s not possible. That doesn’t exist in Texas.” 4. Indeed, earlier drafts of our interview inventory included a much larger set of living arrangements. However, our pretest phone interviews were so long that we needed to delete several items from our final version of the survey. 5. Some scholars contend that the “benchmark” family may be even narrower than the father-mother-child living arrangement asked about in our interviews . The sociologist Sandra Hofferth (1985) notes that a particular division of labor—with the father employed in the labor force and the mother responsible for the care of the child—further defines the benchmark family. Although Hofferth’s depiction is from...