Are Children with Same Sex Parents at a Disadvantage?

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The simple answer is “yes,” but the more precise question is “disadvantaged compared to what?”

There is a wealth of solid social, medical and psychological research indicating that children who grow up without their own married mother and father in the home face significant disadvantages in all important measures of well-being: physical and mental health, educational attainment, general happiness, confidence and empathy development, as well as protection from poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence and sexual abuse and avoidance of unmarried child-bearing.

Children who grow-up in any other family form -- single-parent family, divorced, step-family, or cohabiting parents – don’t do as well by up to half in these measures compared to children living with their own married mother and father.

Said another way, none of the changes to family form over the last four decades has improved any important measure of child well-being, and no evidence to date indicates that same-sex parenting would be an improvement on any of these other forms.

Three points must be considered in understanding this reality.