Debate on a new study of gay vs. straight parents
Some groups are alarmed at a new study that is depicted as showing poorer outcomes for adult children of gay parents. They shouldn't be. This study has no relevance for today's push for marriage equality.
The children in this study (now adults) were raised by single parents, or by parents in TRADITIONAL gay marriages -- in other words, in mixed- orientation marriages, gay people married to straight people, who went on to divorce.
Furthermore, the study included adult-children up to the age of 39, so the difficulties they experienced with their parents' divorce and subsequent coming-out would likely be greater than would be true today. (Although I don't want to minimize this -- in any situation where it is hard for an adult to come out, it is also hard for the spouse and children.)
But, in any case, the outcomes of these children would not be predictive of children raised openly, from the beginning, by committed gay spouses who don't bring their children through a divorce and coming-out process.
If anything, this study is an argument FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY. It shows that traditional gay families, i.e. gay people having children with straight people (and eventually getting divorced), result in poorer outcomes for children.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/health/study-examines-effect-of-having-a-gay-parent.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
Young adults from broken homes in which a parent had had a same-sex relationship reported modestly more psychological and social problems in their current lives than peers from other families that had experienced divorce and other disruptions, a new study has found, stirring bitter debate among partisans on gay marriage.
The study counted parents as gay or lesbian by asking participants whether their parents had ever had a same-sex relationship; the parents may not have identified themselves as gay or lesbian. Gay-rights groups attacked the study, financed by conservative foundations, as biased and poorly done even before its publication on Sunday in the journal Social Science Research.
But outside experts, by and large, said the research was rigorous, providing some of the best data yet comparing outcomes for adult children with a gay parent with those with heterosexual parents. But they also said the findings were not particularly relevant to the current debate over gay marriage or gay parenting.
About half the study participants with a gay parent, as defined in the study, were born out of wedlock and half into a traditional family that broke up. Many lived with the gay parent sporadically.
SNIP
= new reply since forum marked as read
Dr. Regenerus's Respondents were raised in a MIXED ORIENTATION MARRIAGE (MOM), or a MIXED ORIENTATION SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP. A MOM is where one spouse is gay and one spouse is straight. That is who responded to this survey people who had parents in a MOM. Regnerus confirms that he found only a few Respondents who were raised in a straight up lesbian or straight up gay home. Here is part of his e-mail to me which he asked me to post.
[snip]"By the way, one of the key methodological criticisms circulating is that–basically–in a population-based sample, I haven’t really evaluated how the adult children of stably-intact coupled self-identified lesbians have fared. Right? Right. And I’m telling you that it cannot be feasibly accomplished. It is a methodological (practical) impossibility at present, for reasons I describe: they really didn’t exist in numbers that could be amply obtained *randomly*. It may well be a flaw–limitation, I think–but it is unavoidable. We maxxed Knowledge Networks’ ability, and no firm is positioned to do better. It would have cost untold millions of dollars, and still may not generate the number of cases needed for statistical analyses.[end snip] You can read the full e-mail exchange here-
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2012/06/11/45557
We know that only 1/3 of Mixed Orientation Marriages attempt to stay together after disclosure and of that 1/3, only half manage to stay together for 3 years or more (and it goes really down hill after 7 years).
FWIW I agree with Dr. Regnerus Mixed Orientation Marriages (or Mixed Orientation Sexual Relationships) that produce children are VERY BAD for the children. And that is what his study proves. It does not attempt and does NOT assess the outcomes of children raised by 2 loving moms or 2 loving dads. It.Does.Not.
This pic by Rob Tsinai depicts this research perfectly. I know he will let you re-post it.
