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- Title
THE NUCLEAR GAY FAMILY: SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IN CHILDREN'S BOOKS.
- Authors
EPSTEIN, B. J.
- Abstract
The debate regarding same-sex marriage is polarised in a number of countries. The UK government, for example, is currently holding a consultation about civil marriage for same- sex couples, and Barack Obama - the first sitting US president ever to speak up for marriage equality - was just re-elected president of the US in an election that also saw voters in several states approve same-sex marriage. These changing political views of same-sex marriage led me to wonder whether and how gay parents and their children are reflected in children's literature, and whether the amount of books that feature same-sex marriage map onto public discourse about same-sex marriage in a given country. In other words, is the political made personal in children's literature? In this paper I analyse a number of children's books from English-speaking countries to explore how the topic is portrayed, and then I briefly compare this to such books from northern European countries. I find that, whilst as expected there are higher levels of representations of same-sex marriage in northern European texts, there are actually more books published in less liberal countries featuring children of same-sex couples. What makes the difference, I argue, is how child-centred the countries in question are, so countries with strong provision for gay parenting - no matter if they allow same-sex marriage - are more likely to feature such family set-ups in literature, even if they do not feature married parents. Thus here I combine literary analysis with sociocultural and legal analysis.
- Subjects
SAME-sex marriage; DEBATE; LGBTQ+ families; LGBTQ+ people in literature; CHILDREN'S literature
- Publication
Gay & Lesbian Issues & Psychology Review, 2012, Vol 8, Issue 3, p142
- ISSN
1833-4512
- Publication type
Article