No Reliable Research Indicates Children in Same-Sex Homes Do As Well
Same-sex advocates are quick to explain that many professional health organizations have explained that children in same-sex homes do just as well in important health measures as children in heterosexual homes.
Their statements neglect a vital point of comparison. One must examine exactly what they have said, and what they have not said in order to understand what this actually means for child welfare.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the leading medical organization to make such a statement, and which most other organizations followed, simply said,
“a growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that children who grow up with 1 or 2 gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual.”
So curious people must ask, do the children with two gay or lesbian parents look like children with heterosexual intact, married parents? Do they look like children with hetero-divorced parents? Single parents? Hetero stepparents? Cohabiting parents?
Nowhere in the AAP’s research, nor in any of the studies they cited, are we told. If the AAP’s statement is going to tell us anything objectively useful, then the family structure of the heterosexual homes being compared is essential because the outcomes for each is dramatically different in nearly every important measure of child AND adult well-being.
This oversight deems the AAP statement utterly meaningless in providing any kind of decisive information on how helpful or harmful same-sex families could be to children. It essentially claims, “Kids from lesbian-parented homes look like children from some kinds of heterosexual-parented home.” It says nothing specific about the quality or health-outcomes of lesbian- or gay-headed homes because some forms of heterosexual-parented homes are healthy and some are not.
Same sex parenting advocates have made no attempt in any professional literature to clarify this by specifically saying what kind of hetero-homes the same-sex homes in the studies were compared to.
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Because of all the "rules and regulations", and headache that comes with being a gay parent, there doesn't really seem to be too many of them. But I promise this, you can mark a tally under the yes column when the research does start. I know I did the best I could regardless of my home situation.
In the previous argument the title states " Research Indicates Children Do Best When Raised By Married Mom & Dad." Yet this argument says that no reliable research indicates children in same sex homes do as well. Now clear something up for me. If there is "reliable" research to indicate an outcome in any comparison, there has to be reliable research based on the other end of that comparison. That means you can't say that kids do best with mom and dad and then say that there is no reliable research to the contrary. Either the first statement is made up, or the second is a lie. Lastly, how is this research performed? Who conducted it and what are the standards? None of this info is given. I, for one, was raised in a mom and dad household. And one that lived by Focus on the Family, none the less. However, I want to pull my hair out thinking about my upbringing. Going by textbook FOTF living, resulted in a pregnant teenage sister who got kicked out of high school, a gay brother, and me. I left the home at 16 and slept in my car at the park. My friend? Grew up with two dads. She excelled in school, is happily married to her military husband, and is well on her way to her Masters. Now tell me again. What are the standards?
It seems the "experts" from Focus think they can dismiss a growing body of work by dicing up the semantics of the APA's general statement. They could have instead taken a trip to google and found any number of research papers that directly address their question of what kind of heterosexual couple do the children of same-sex couples resemble.
Dufur, M. , McKune, B. A., Hoffmann, J. P. and Bahr, S. J. , 2007-08-11 "Adolescent Outcomes in Single Parent, Heterosexual Couple, and Homosexual Couple Families: Findings from a National Survey" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, TBA, New York, New York City Online . 2009-03-04 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p184075_index.html
The abstract reads,"...In this study, we provide the first empirical analysis using national representative data that compares adolescents from these various family types on several different social outcomes. We utilize data from the National Survey of Adolescent Health (AddHealth) to compare a variety of academic and behavioral outcomes across seven family types: two- parent biological, single mother, single father, father/stepmother, mother/stepfather, two gay male parents, and two lesbian parents. Comparisons across these family types show that adolescents raised by gay and lesbian parents typically behave more like youth in two parent biological families, providing little support for gendered-deficit theories."
There is the answer, "...adolescents raised by gay and lesbian parents typically behave more like youth in two parent biological families..."
How can you call yourself an expert when you are not willing to do a 10 minute google search?
"How can you call yourself an expert when you are not willing to do a 10 minute google search?"
high five
Psychosocial Adjustment, School Outcomes, and Romantic Relationships of Adolescents With Same-Sex Parents. Jennifer L. Wainright, Stephen T. Russell, and Charlotte J. Patterson. Child Development, 2004, Volume 75, Number 6, Pages 1886-1898.
That's my first source. In it, the three find that "The results of the present study, which is the first based on a large national sample of adolescents living with same-sex couples, revealed that on nearly all of a large array of variables related to school and personal adjustment, adolescents with same-sex parents did not differ significantly from a matched group of adolescents living with opposite-sex parents. Regardless of family type, adolescents were more likely to show favorable adjustment when they perceived more caring from adults and when parents described close relationships with them. Thus, as has been reported in studies of children with lesbian mothers (e.g., Chan et al., 1998), it was the qualities of adolescent-parent relationships rather than the structural features of families (e.g., same vs. opposite-sex parents) that were significantly associated with adolescent adjustment (Golombok, 1999; Patterson, 2000)."
Have some other sources:
Patterson, C.J. (2000). Family relationships of lesbians and gay men. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 1052 – 1069.
Huggins (1989). A comparative study of self-esteem of adolescent children of divorced lesbian mothers and divorced heterosexual mothers. In F.W. Bozett (Ed.), Homosexuality and the family (pp. 123-35). New York: Harrington Park Press.
O'Connor, A. (1993). Voices from the heart: The developmental impact of a mother's lesbianism on her adolescent children. Smith College Studies in Social Work, 63, 281-299.
Gershon, Tschann, and Jemerin (1999). Stigmatization, self-esteem, and coping among the adolescent children of lesbian mothers. Journal of Adolescent Health, 24, 437-445.
Golombok et. al.: Children in lesbian and single-parent households: Psychosocial and psychiatric appraisal. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 24, 551-572.
And I found these all spending ten minutes on my university's website. Don't tell me you don't have access to this kind of material.
Here is a quote from a summary of studies done on gay/lesbian parenting:
"In summary, there is no evidence to suggest that lesbian women or gay men are unfit to be parents or that psychosocial development among children of lesbian women or gay men is compromised relative to that among offspring of heterosexual parents. Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests that home environments provided by lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children's psychosocial growth."
Link: http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/publications/lgpconclusion.html
Link to the study on the website of the American Psychological Association:
http://www.apa.org/pi/parent.html
From the second page, above:
"Part I is a summary of research findings on lesbian mothers, gay fathers, and their children written by Charlotte J. Patterson, PhD. Part II is an annotated bibliography of the literature cited in the summary. Part III provides some additional resources relevant to lesbian and gay parenting in the forensic context: APA amicus briefs, professional association policies, and contact information for relevant organizations."
I find it ludicrous that the organization in this country which has the most credible membership of both academics and practitioners of psychology is pooh-poohed and discounted by this tiny biased religious group, Focus on the Family, and it's various outgrowths (Family Research Council, Exodus International, etc.) who clearly have a strong religious bias in discrediting gays as "sinners" and "deviants" in every possible venue, and yet some people insist upon billing Focus on the Family as "experts" in the field. It is ridiculous.
Focus on the Family has but one goal -- to convince the world that gays are sinful perverts, sexual deviants, who should not have the same rights as heterosexuals. They denigrate our families, try to have our children taken away, and would (re)criminalize our private sexual behaviors if they could.
And yet they are given the same credence as the APA. I say again: Ludicrous.
you have anything that is actually more recent than 2004...?
I see now that you are on the "No" side of this issue, and apologize if I was hasty in assuming that you were challenging the validity of the data.
There is research being done constantly, and there may be more recent studies. I don't think, though, that they have any significant argument with the existing material I linked.
its cool, i get defensive on these subjects all the time... i have though attacked the other side because i was sure there was more recent data -hence they use data from 2004 and below-
You think things have changed significantly since 2004? Studies take time to compile. Do you actually believe that an entire body of data spreading over the course of the last 30-40 years could show that children of same-gender parents are healthy, well-adjusted, and not at a disadvantage as compared with their opposite-gender-parented peers, but then somehow something would happen in the last 5 years which would turn all that on its ear?
Sure, whatever. If you can produce a study in the last five years which demonstrates that the last 30-40 years' worth of studies are wrong, please link it right up and I'll be happy to have a look.
This seems to be a growing epidemic among the experts on this site: A lack of positive evidence does not imply that the argument is false. There was a time that there was no proof of the existence of microbes, so at that time it would be perfectly reasonable to assume that illness was entirely caused by evil spirits. Everyone needs to stop making this argument.