Emily Campbell
U5161815
Discuss what you consider to be one of the most important social problems in Australia.
A social problem can be defined as a social condition which enough people have an undesirable outlook upon. There are many social problems in Australia today, one which could be considered one of the most important and discussed, not just in Australia, but world wide, is the debate of gay marriage. This is something which fifty years ago, would not have even been considered, let alone up for debate. In the last couple of decades, it has been brought increasingly into the public eye, with protests, petitions, and even public leaders voicing their support.
The arguments against gay marriage have started to be framed much more by sociology. A main point in the debate against same sex marriage is the upbringing of children. Even though having children is no longer exclusively confined to marriage, with one in three children being born out of wedlock, the argument that all children deserve both a mother and a father, is still highly prominent. Many sociological studies in the last decade have found that children raised by same-sex couples do not have any social disadvantages except the problems society makes for them by discrimination and lack of acceptance. Both the Australian Psychological Association and sociologists have conducted studies over the last couple of decades and found that a lot of the data being used to back arguments of children having a disadvantage in life being raised by same sex couples to be incorrect.
