Research shows kids raised by gays do worse in many areas.

[Danno 1,228]

Study suggests risks from same-sex parenting

Two studies released Sunday may act like brakes on popular social-science assertions that gay parents are the same as — or maybe better than — married mother-father parents.

“The empirical claim that no notable differences exist must go,” University of Texas sociology professor Mark Regnerus said in his study in Social Science Research.

Using a “gold standard” data set of nearly 3,000 randomly selected American young adults, Mr. Regnerus looked at their lives on 40 measures of social, emotional and relationship outcomes.

He found that, when compared with adults raised in married, mother-father families, adults raised by lesbian mothers had negative outcomes in 24 of 40 categories, while adults raised by gay fathers had negative outcomes in 19 categories.

Findings like these contradict claims that there are no differences between gay parenting and heterosexual, married parents, said Mr. Regnerus, who helped develop the New Family Structures Study at the University of Texas.

Instead, “[C]hildren appear most apt to succeed well as adults when they spend their entire childhood with their married mother and father, and especially when the parents remain married to the present day,” he wrote.

Mr. Regnerus‘ study of 2,988 people ages 18 to 39 — including 175 adults raised by lesbian mothers and 73 adults raised by gay fathers — marks the first research from the new data set, which initially included some 15,000 people.

The second study, also in Social Science Research, takes a critical look at the basis of an oft-cited American Psychological Association report on gay parenting.

The APA brief says, “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.”

After looking at the 59 studies that undergird this assertion, however, “The jury is still out,” said Loren Marks, an associate professor at the School of Human Ecology at Louisiana State University. “The lack of high-quality data leaves the most significant questions [about gay parenting] unaddressed and unanswered.”

Problems with the APA-cited studies were their small size; dependence on wealthy, white, well-educated lesbian mothers; and failure to examine common outcomes for children, such as their education, employment and risks for poverty, criminality, early childbearing, substance abuse and suicide. Instead, the APA studies often looked at children’s gender-role behaviors, emotional functioning and sexual identities.

An APA spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. Mr. Marks‘ findings, though, have been presented in gay-marriage lawsuits on behalf of those arguing in favor of traditional marriage. Critics noted that Mr. Marks‘ paper had not been published yet and that he was not an expert on gay families.

Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Family Equality Council, declined to comment on the studies, which she had not seen.

But she was confident they could not counteract “the very deep and rich body of research that has been conducted over the last 30 years” that shows children raised by gay, bisexual and transgender parents “do equally as well as their counterparts raised by heterosexual couples.”

“And I can tell you anecdotally that, given the thousands and thousands of families that I spend time with on a regular basis, [what happens in their lives] bears out and confirms everything that we see in the research, in terms of the positive outcomes for these kids,” said Ms. Chrisler, who is raising twin sons with her wife, Cheryl Jacques.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/10/study-suggests-risks-from-same-sex-parenting/

Edited June 15, 2012 by Danno

[rocks 494]

could you be any more derogatory? "gays"... really?

[Obama 2012 1,714]

could you be any more derogatory? "gays"... really?

I'm confused. So "gay" is a derogatory term now?

[rocks 494]

I'm confused. So "gay" is a derogatory term now?

I said "gays", try reading what I say. Replace "gays" with any other minority and it is also offensive.

[Marilyn. 340]

The research surveyed almost 3,000 18- to 39-year-olds. Most were raised by heterosexual parents, but 175 had mothers who at one point had same-sex relationships and another 73 of whom had dads once in same-sex relationships.

Strong criticism

But other scientists say the research is deeply flawed, and does not measure the effect of same-sex parenting at all. The study defined same-sex parenting by asking participants if their parents had ever had same-sex relationships, and whether they had lived with the parent at that time. That led to a "hodgepodge" group of people who Regnerus then compared with kids in stable, married homes, said Judith Stacey, a sociologist at New York University who was not involved in the research.

"He doesn't have an actual category of gay parents in the project that you can isolate and say the most important thing in this kid's childhood is that they were raised by gay parents," Stacey told LiveScience. "These are kids whose parents, maybe they divorced, maybe they separated, maybe they had a scandalous affair, we just don't know."

In contrast, a fair comparison would have matched up children of same-sex parents with children of heterosexual parents who looked otherwise similar — no extra divorces, no extra separations, no extra time in foster care for the kids, said Gary Gates, a researcher at the Williams Institute, a sexual orientation policy think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Instead, Regnerus categorized all people who said their parents were once in a same-sex relationship in the same group, even if those people had also experienced major childhood upheavals. About half of the people whose parents had ever been in gay or lesbian relationships also said their parents had once been in a heterosexual marriage, suggesting that a great many of these children were the products of a heterosexual relationship in which one parent later came out as gay or bisexual. Fifty-eight percent of those raised by moms who'd indicated a lesbian experience said their mother once left the household during their youth, and 14 percent said they'd spent time in foster care.

"All he found is that family instability is bad for children and that's hardly groundbreaking or new," Gates, who was not involved in the research, told LiveScience.

"What I find most frustrating is that from what I could tell, he could have used his data to test the way I'm suggesting the test, and he chose not to," Gates added. "He intentionally chose a methodology that is absolutely primed to find bad outcomes in those kids."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/12/gay-parents-study-kids-social-scientists_n_1589177.html

[Obama 2012 1,714]

I said "gays", try reading what I say. Replace "gays" with any other minority and it is also offensive.

how is it offensive? The study is about said 'group'

[rocks 494]

how is it offensive? The study is about said 'group'

Did you read what I said? Clearly not, again.

Go back and read what I said. It's pretty clear, you should be able to "get it" if you re-read and have a long hard think about it.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Did you read what I said? Clearly not, again.

Go back and read what I said. It's pretty clear, you should be able to "get it" if you re-read and have a long hard think about it.

i read what you said, but if it were any other group, it doesn't change anything if the study was about another 'group' - It's still correct.

The "study" might be offensive, but saying how things are about the study shouldn't be...

[rocks 494]

i read what you said, but if it were any other group, it doesn't change anything if the study was about another 'group' - It's still correct.

The "study" might be offensive, but saying how things are about the study shouldn't be...

I wasn't referring to the study, which you would know if you read what I said, which you clearly didn't. What I said was referring to a group of "people" as just "gays" and not "gay people" is derogatory. People do that for other minorities too and it is offensive. I can't make this any clearer for you, if you don't "get it" then I guess you'll have to live with being confused.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

I wasn't referring to the study, which you would know if you read what I said, which you clearly didn't. What I said was referring to a group of "people" as just "gays" and not "gay people" is derogatory. People do that for other minorities too and it is offensive. I can't make this any clearer for you, if you don't "get it" then I guess you'll have to live with being confused.

I get what you are saying. HOWEVER the study was about said "group" of people. How is it offensive to mention "gays" in a study about homosexual family units? The last time I checked "gay" and "gays" was acceptable by even the group themselves?

[Kathryn41 3,205]

This thread is closed as a baiting thread. The Washington Times is a notorious anti-gay publication and this article appears to be posted in order to stir up anti-gay sentiments, in effect - as 'hate literature', thus also violating TOS.