This is actually very interesting, and an important topic for those who have to advise our younger generation about their life choices.

So what information is there about it that is more reliable than a book by Kevin Andrews, of all people?

For those with short memories Kevin Andrews is the Minister of Immigration who cancelled the immigration visa of Mohammed Haneef, apparently on the grounds that he had been under investigation by the police regarding a terrorist plot. This was quickly resolved, but the visa remained cancelled, on grounds which were not stated - I suppose just to save the Minister's face.

And this is the person Bill M. hopes will convince us of some no doubt contentious assertions!

All good arguments to support gay marriage. Where were you Kevin?

Indeed this is very interesting. Not having read the book, I find it hard to see how researchers can accurately differentiate the effects of marriage per se from the impact of the personal traits that enable individuals to make a marriage work - values, patience, persistence, negotiating and listening skills, resilience, etc.

But the more important question is: If marriage is indeed so valuable, both individually and socially, why is Kevin Andrews intent on excluding gay couples from this institution, thereby denying their children its benefits.

...In a life-full of diminishing alternatives, marriage remains the most difficult of alternatives to maintain. Most “progressive” households I am aware of, where marriage is the key glue of the family; demands on time energy and resources of the family are stretched so thinly as to leave the observer bewildered when they do stay "glued".

...The enormous effort required by working parents to resist the inuring influences of family needs infixed as housing, transport and employment, as a small sample of the burden, leaves one totally unsuprised when such commitments finally “fall in a heap”.

...Once was a time long long ago, when the sole job of the wife was tendering the needs of the “brood”, while the husband rose to the occasion of sole bread winner: In those days divorce was almost entirely an unnecessary resort.

...And...once was a time when the connection of homosexual and marriage were so distant that chalk and "moon" cheese would be served with the "SAO" without a wink.

Any essay or whatever on the state of the family that does not refer to the function of TV as the primary causative factor in the disintegration of the family, is seriously deficient.

Years ago Jules Henry pointed that TV had become the major influence on children's "education" and socialization. And that THAT fact alone signified and facilitated a profound shift in human culture.

Furthermore another primary determining factor on the structure of families and communities is technology and the economic changes that each technological revolution inevitably causes.

Meanwhile exactly what was the truth of the old-time nuclear family that Bill promotes? What kind of dreadfully-sane individual, and culture altogether did it produce. What sins and abuses were beaten into the bodies of children generation after generation by the stern patriarchal fathers.
These references provide a more truthful perspective.
http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/06_politic.html
http://www.alice-miller.com/books_en.php?page=2
Bill of course would absolutely loathe the above author.
Plus a related book by Philip Greven titled: Spare The Child- The Religious Roots of Punishment.

http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/JCP98.html
In his first book (Magical Child) the author of the above reference describes the usual "normal" mis-understanding of child-rearing as a MONSTRPUS MISUNDERSTANDING

Plus this USA reference on the myth of the happy self-reliant family
http://stephaniecoontz.com/books/thewayweneverwere

Furthermore it seems to me that the individual and collective psychosis pointed to and described above is the root emotional driving force of right-wing religion - particularly as it is now being dramatized by the GOP in the USA. Of which Bill is a more than enthusiastic supporter.

I just love Christians ignore the fact that humans have been around for over 100,000 years. In that time we have developed many different cultures with many different family units. Yet this fact is ignored and only the version of the family unit that the Christian church has been pushing for the last couple of hundred years is now the only one that can make a stable family.

Christian groups needs to focus on cleaning up the mess the kiddy fiddling priest have hurt rather than moralise over us.