People leave the Circuit Court building after a bomb threat this morning.
Associated Press photo

David Eggebeen, associate professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Pennsylvania State University, provided statistics on changes to American families, focusing on trends from about 1960 to 1990 in partnering, child bearing and mothers working.

Such demographics may underscore the reason proposed by the state to stop same-sex marriages in Hawaii.

The trial, before Circuit Court Judge Kevin Chang, gives the state a chance to provide a reason compelling enough to justify the sex discrimination the state Supreme Court has identified in the state's marriage law.

Procedings were interrupted for several hours by a 9:15 a.m. bomb threat in the courthouse, causing the evacuation of about 200 people, but no courtroom was identified as a target. People were allowed back into the building at about 11 a.m.

Eggebeen said births to unmarried mothers in Hawaii have increased from about ten percent in 1970 to 26 percent in 1990. He also said one in four couples between the ages of 25 and 29 now cohabitate as an alternative to marriage.

The state argues it should encourage marriage between a man and a woman for the optimal development of children.

A mainland child psychiatrist who testified for the state yesterday said children of same-sex couples carry an extra burden.

But the quality of the relationship can outweigh the burden, Dr. Kyle Pruett, a national expert, said yesterday during cross-examination.

Pruett, with the Yale University School of Medicine and Yale Child Study Center, was the state's first witness in the nonjury trial, expected to last about 10 days.

Pruett said parents of different faiths and races also create burdens for their children, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't marry or have children.

He said the burden of losing a parent was significantly greater than the burden of having same-sex parents.

Pruett backed the state's main argument that the optimal development for most children occurs when they are raised by their biological parents.

He said biological parents share genetic and familial bonds with children that aren't possible with other parents. "One thing the state can do is to encourage the union of a mother and father to raise a child," he said.

But adoptive and same-sex couples and single mothers and fathers also can be good parents, he said under cross-examination by Evan Wolfson of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc. of New York.

Wolfson is co-counsel with attorney Dan Foley for three same-sex couples who sued the state in 1991 for the right to marry.