Parents or Partners? Contrasting French and U.S. Attitudes to Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting

The family rights of gay and lesbian people have been the source of significant political and popular controversy in France and the United States over the last few decades. In both countries, politicians and social movement organizations have mobilized on both sides of theses issues to push their agendas forward. Yet, despite these similarities, the specific questions that appear to animate the most resistance to chance in either context are flipped. Specifically, questions about same-sex marriage have garnered the most attention and negative public opinion in the United States while issues of adoption and parenting for same-sex couples do so in France. Drawing on public opinion data from both countries, this paper explores these contrasts in attitudes across contexts and their evolutions over time. It argues that differences in attitudes on these issues maybe be explained in part by institutional differences in the ways the legal systems and cultural practices in each country deal with marriage and children. In the United States, where marriage rates are higher relative to those in France, people see marriage as an important public issue and children as the property of parents. In France, in contrast, marriage rates are lower but birthrates are higher. Furthermore, children are conceived of as the public good of the Republic, the responsibility of which is delegated to parents. The centrality of marriage in the U.S. and of parenting in France can help account for differences in attitudes toward gay and lesbian families.