Mitt: No to gay marriage; children need a mother and father. Gay adoption? Fine.

[Averroës Nix]

It's not as complicated (or as contradictory) as most here are making it out to be:

1. A married, heterosexual, two-parent family is the best setting for raising a child.
2. Marriage should be used to encourage the best possible kind of setting for raising children.
3. (1) is not always possible, and it's OK to allow other kinds of families to raise children, even though these arrangements are less than ideal.

The problem with the position is that empirical evidence demonstrates that a least the "heterosexual" part of point one is bunk, but that's not really the point being discussed here.

[Averroës Nix]

Strange. I know a lot of people who are supportive of gay marriage, but not gay adoption. But the other way around it's kind of rare. Mitt Romney is really something.

I think I find opposition to gay adoption, in principle, even more hateful and disagreeable than opposition to marriage.

Americans tend to take as granted that anyone who isn't physically abusive is entitled to raise their children however they prefer.

EDIT: Adding the weaselly qualifier "within reason," before someone calls me out with a counter-example.