Dispatches from the Creation Wars

Paul Cameron, the favorite liar and discredited fraud of anti-gay bigots everywhere, has weighed in on Mary Cheney’s decision to have a child. Guess what? He doesn’t like it, not one bit. And true to his entire career, he cites entirely irrelevant data to support his bias:

Dr. Paul Cameron, Chairman of the Family Research Institute, a Colorado Springs think-tank, condemned her decision:

“Unmarried women should not deliberately have children. Their children are more apt to experience privation and disruption. Consequently, such children are more apt to do poorly in school, disrupt society (e.g., engage in criminality), and be personally troubled. These wrongs are compounded when the child is brought into a homosexual setting.”

All nonsense. Studies of children from single parent homes, especially ones with low incomes, do indeed show a much higher risk of children doing poorly in school, committing crimes, and so forth. But dozens of studies comparing children of gay couples to children of straight couples show quite the contrary, that children are no worse off with gay parents than with straight parents. In this case, you have two educated, financially stable parents in a committed relationship (they’ve been together for 15 years, for crying out loud). There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that their child will be any different than any other child raised by a man and a woman in similar circumstances.

For more information on Paul Cameron, read this page. Cameron is a fraud who has been thrown out of two professional organizations for numerous ethical violations. He’s also been directly called a fraud by a Federal judge in a case where he willfully distorted the data several times and got caught.

Comments

#1 Chris Hyland
December 9, 2006

You have to admire the twisted logic of saying homosexuals shouldn’t get married therefore they shouldn’t be able to have children because they aren’t married. If you missed the last sentence off that quote I would have guessed it was someone arguing for gay marriage.
#2 mark
December 9, 2006

The abstract from an article by E.C. Perrin in the American Academy of Pediatrics, February 2002 109(2):341-344:

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. Children’s optimal development seems to be influenced more by the nature of the relationships and interactions within the family unit than by the particular structural form it takes.

I read a column by a wingnut who interpreted this to mean that the AAP was advocating raising children by homosexuals instead of by non-homosexuals; these people live in an alternative reality and interpret everything through their bizarro filters.
#3 Skemono
December 9, 2006

Unmarried women should not deliberately have children.

Ah-ha! So Dr. Cameron supports lesbians getting married!
#4 Julia
December 9, 2006

It seems to me that entirely without intending it, in the earlier discussion on Mary Cheney, On_Lawn provided the answer to these quarrels about who is entitled to be considered a family:

It seems everyone who is partnering up to solve domestic issues in a long-term committed basis should have access to the very same provisions of marriage

Yes, yes, yes.

The government really needs to get out of the marriage business, at least marriage as a sanctioning of sexual relationships. It needs to confine itself to the creation of domestic partnerships. Everyone – gay couples, elderly never-married brothers, a mother and her widowed daughter – everyone who is partnering up to solve domestic issues in a long-term committed basis should have access to the legal protections now afforded to traditonal marriage.

Such domestic partnerships would provide the financial and legal stability that many/most adults and essentially all children need in their lives. It has the potential to reduce poverty and the need for welfare by giving any two people having difficulty making it alone the legal opportunity to provide for each other all the support and security now reserved almost entirely for opposite-sex couples who are usually presumed to have a romantic interest in each other.

Religious organizations would still be free to perform blessings of those couples it wished, and deny their ceremonies to whom they wished.

While I suppose that On_Lawn was merely being sarcastic, he/she phrased the solution very well indeed.
#5 GH
December 9, 2006

The government really needs to get out of the marriage business, at least marriage as a sanctioning of sexual relationships. It needs to confine itself to the creation of domestic partnerships.

I see this idea now and again but I find it an odd thought. Marriage has always been an institution of the ‘state’ whatever that may have been. Domestic partnerships seems to be mere word games for something that already exists.

Also I think the studies show that poverty,not single motherhood, is the greater cause of the mentioned ills above.
#6 Julia
December 9, 2006

Domestic partnerships seems to be mere word games for something that already exists.

Access to the very same provisions of marriage for everyone who is partnering up to solve domestic issues in a long-term committed basis already exists? I think not.

And yes, marriage with all its religion-based limitations and focus on legitimizing and controlling women and sexual relationships has traditionally been backed by the state. The fact that it has been that way doesn’t mean that it ought to continue to be that way.

Yes, the term “domestic partnership” as I am using it includes all the legal protections of what we call “marriage.” The word “marriage” is so tied in with religious beliefs that I doubt it can be successfully redefined to refer to everyone partnering up to solve domestic issues in a long-term committed basis; it seems to me to be best to leave the word to the religious groups who want to limit its meaning to licensing sex between a man and a woman setting up a union for the putposes of procreation, or whatever they want to limit it to.
#7 Philip T.
December 9, 2006

Re “marriage” for non-romantically involved partners.
I grew up in Canada’s Maritime provinces, on the East Coast, and at one time worked for a pair of women who were in what even then was called a “Boston marriage.” The term – and therefore, one concludes, the practise – dates back to the 19th century. It describes two women, widowed or never married to men, who would set up house keeping together. There’s debate about whether such relationships had a sexual component – I suspect some did, some didn’t (not unlike straight marriages:-)
Whether or not it was sexual, the Boston marriage I saw certainly included love, mutual support (one partner was seriously ill for a long time), and finanical partnership (they ran the business I worked for.)
I wasn’t aware of the male equivalent in that time and place. Such relationships would have had to be more deeply closeted, I suspect.
#8 GH
December 9, 2006

marriage with all its religion-based limitations and focus on legitimizing and controlling women and sexual relationships has traditionally been backed by the state.

Your wrong here Julia, marriage was civil first and then coopted by various religions later. It was a social property contract initially. Women where viewed as property. The marriage contract was simply how this was addressed.

I think a better way, maybe not realistic, is to make everyone aware that religious angle is a johnny come lately view and the social contract was just that first.
#9 Julia
December 9, 2006

marriage was civil first and then coopted by various religions later

I didn’t say otherwise; I made no comment on which came first. I said that religion-based limitations and focus have traditionally been backed by the state. And they have. The no-gay-marriage limitation, for example, is strongly religion-based, and that religious prohibition has also been backed by the government. The addition to our state constitution, made in November, to limit marriage to a male and a female, was largely developed, publicized, backed, and passed as part of individual voters’ religious beliefs. The European separation of marriage qualifications from the Christian/Catholic view is quite recent; it just doesn’t go far enough in my opinion.

If the government provided only the legality of domestic parnerships for everyone who wished to partner for their domestic stability and security, Mary Cheney would likely have long ago had that protection, as would her child. And, I think, a great many people in poverty, many of them elderly, would have improved their living situation through means of the same partnerships with no implications of romance or sexual relations.

The notion of whether “marriage was civil first” and “co-opted by religions later” seems off the topic of the present post, as what people did about their family and property matters thousands of years ago is no compelling reason for our continuing to do the same, but still it’s an interesting question. I’ve not been sure exactly how anyone knows whether in early civilizations, so many of which were theocratic in nature, the creation of marriage with all its property-control features, was really quite separate from religious influences and beliefs about women.

I think a better way, maybe not realistic, is to make everyone aware that religious angle is a johnny come lately view and the social contract was just that first.

Sorry, but I’m not following that. A better way to do what? If everyone accepts your view that the belief that women as property and marriage as a way to handle them was originally entirely separate from any religious belief about the inferiority of women, how does that make anything better now?
#10 GH
December 9, 2006

Julia,

I think we are talking past each other a little as I agree with much of what you say in your last post. My point is that the current structure is more than adequate without adding ‘domestic partnerships’. People just need to understand marriage as it actually is, a social contract. Any religious meaning one chooses to give to it is superflous to the fact it is a contract.

If everyone accepts your view that the belief that women as property and marriage as a way to handle them was originally entirely separate from any religious belief about the inferiority of women, how does that make anything better now?

Your missreading me. I’m simply saying marriage was orginally a contract for the rights to a woman. Still is in many parts of the world. It wasn’t religious in the beginning. Obviously I do not view women as property and am speaking from a historical angle only.
#11 steve s
December 9, 2006

http://corner.nationalreview.com/

Right-wing nutjob K-Lo is trying to avoid discussion of the whole thing because of the name Cheney. Her Bush/Cheney worship is temporarily overwhelming her prejudice against gays. It’s funny to watch them squirm around trying to justify their bigotry and exceptions to same.

“Gay people shouldn’t have children because it destroys traditional marriage.”
“O Really? How is it going to destroy yours for instance?”
“Uh well, it won’t, but…children of queers…uh…they’ll wind up worse off than children of heteros.”
“You mean like Mary Cheney’s kid? You think that kid will probably wind up worse off than Britney Spears’s kid?”
“Uh well…uh…hold on I’ll think of somethin…”

I might have more respect for the K-Los and the Camerons and the Perkinses of the world if they would just be honest and say “I don’t like fags and they disgust me and I want them to suffer so they’ll stay in the closet for my own selfish benefit.” because that’s all the hell they’re about.
#12 yazz
December 9, 2006

There is the attempt to establish homosexual relationships as no less preferential to society than heterosexual relationships, and this is especially true when arguing about the role of children as it concerns these relationships.

Having children bridges the past and the future. Doing this represent continuity. Homosexual relationships, however, represent a rupture of this continuity. Mere homosexual acts in and of themselves may be more tolerable, actually, than “committed homosexual relationships” insofar as they might be regarded as no more of a hinderance to proper social functioning than masturbation, for example. But societal acceptance of committed homosexual relationships through gay marriage would effectively bestow social sanction upon a type of sexual relationship that implies the rupture of the social and political continuity of a nation.

It just sets a bad example, so is not to be encouraged. The state, I believe, has the responsibility to encourage the best example.

Homosexual relationships, then, are to sexual relationships what picking your nose or farting in public are to etiquette. It may do no one any real harm, though it is likely to offend. But as no one has a right to not be offended, I suppose we might all accept these types of behaviors, also, and perhaps even encourage those that engage in these behavior out of a concern for the principles of tolerance and equality. Yes, I am being facetious…. but I hope you do see the point.

It sets a bad example.
#13 Vic Vanity
December 9, 2006

Mary Cheney for all intents and purposes is in a marriage (a lasting Bond between to loving people) Data that shows children from signle parent households have little to noe relevance in two parent household , how can this dickweed (cameron or what ever his name is) not see that Mary and Heather are two parents who have been together for 15 years Hell thats twice as long as all of newt gingriches marriages combined
#14 F. Rottles
December 9, 2006

Steve S., you provided a parody of the SSM proponents’ most favorite rantings.
#15 Mithrandir
December 9, 2006

Having children bridges the past and the future. Doing this represent continuity. Homosexual relationships, however, represent a rupture of this continuity.

No more so than any other infertile couple that must adopt to have children.

But societal acceptance of committed homosexual relationships through gay marriage would effectively bestow social sanction upon a type of sexual relationship that implies the rupture of the social and political continuity of a nation.

Uh… what is being ruptured, exactly? This is word salad with no actual content. Perhaps it implies the rupture of the social and political continuity of certain bigoted religions, and good riddance.
#16 Tulle
December 9, 2006

Hey, yazz, my partner has two kids off his own, thier mother died in August. Me an Tony have been together for 6 years now. So you want to support the kids if he dies? Because the state of Florida sure won’t let me adopt them, but since you are so much of a stand up person, I can count on you then, right? Or do you think they should be ripped from thier home and school and cared for at tax payers expense? They sure sgouldn’t be with some homo right, even thought he has helped raise them and support them all throuhg middle school and now they are in high schoolt? I quess the Illinois judge was wrongg to take them away from thier herion addicted mother and place them with thier gay father, right? They would have been much better off with her, at least until she overdosed last August, right? Or should the tax payers of Illnios have supported them even though they have a loving father and step-father? You are nothing but a bigot who has NO idea of anything about gay people, you believe all the shit you are spoon fed by your bigot friends. YOU MAKE ME SICK AND WILL ROT IN HELL FOR WHAT YOU ARE
#17 steve s
December 9, 2006

Steve S., you provided a parody of the SSM proponents’ most favorite rantings.

Posted by: F. Rottles | December 9, 2006 06:21 PM

Robert O’Brien to the white courtesy phone, please. Your long-lost brother has arrived.
#18 Philip T.
December 9, 2006

“It just sets a bad example, so is not to be encouraged. The state, I believe, has the responsibility to encourage the best example.”

yazz, I’m just a dumb Canuck, so I may have this wrong. But I thought one of your country’s founding ideals was that everyone had the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Which I’ve always understood to mean what the individual thought would make them happy, not what the state thought. Sure, we may think that what makes some people happy is silly – stamp collecting or NASCAR racing or mountain climbing, or whatever interest we don’t happen to share. And in some cases, individuals will discover that whatever they’ve pursued has not in fact made them happy. That will include gay marriages in some cases, and hetrosexual marrigages in others. But barring active harm to others, what right does the state have to interfere? And withholding the right to marry “to encourage the best example” is certainly interfering.
#19 steve s
December 9, 2006

Phil, the ‘encourage the best example’ is just a stupid fake argument masking the real beliefs. If they actually believed that the government could/should do such a thing, they’d prohibit Gingrich, Limbaugh from marrying women. I’d give any random lesbian couple better odds than thrice-divorced

Opponents of gay marriage are on the losing side. Some of them, like Bill Bennett, actually know their side is doomed.

BTW, here’s an interesting bit:

Republicans are the party of family values.

They’re the party that protects the sanctity of marriage. Their morality is stronger than their opposition.

So say the Republicans. But the statistics say differently.

Of the top 15 states for divorce rates in 2005, all 15 voted for Bush in 2004. All fifteen.

Of the 12 lowest states for divorce rates, 10 voted for Kerry.

Massachusetts, where gay marriage is allowed (and where, according to Republicans, civilization would fall apart), has the lowest divorce rate in the country.

This cannot be a coincidence. So what are the reasons behind the fact that Republicans are significantly more likely to divorce than Democrats? And why do the former claim the high ground on marriage, when it is patently clear that their marriages don’t last as long as their political opponents?

http://www.thinkingliberal.com/the_free_radical/2006/10/why_do_republic.html
#20 kehrsam
December 9, 2006

It just sets a bad example, so is not to be encouraged. The state, I believe, has the responsibility to encourage the best example.

In a word, no. As I just noted on the other thread, the goal of good public policy is to get people to do things that are good for them; it should be self-reinforcing. Good does not equal best, just not bad. We promote good health and healthy habits, but we allow people to smoke and drink because freedom, too, is a good. There are always tradeoffs.

The argument is not to show that gay parents are best: Rather. it is to demonstrate that they will not be good, and there is certainly no data in favor of this proposition, because we haven’t really tried the experiment in a neutral setting, now have we?
#21 Prof Dr Anastasios Zavales
December 9, 2006

Congrats for taking on and exposing some twisted logic and going the extra with honesty and facts. Perhaps when we as a society stop inferring that “gay” and “straight” and “sexual orientation” means “genital preference” rather than mature heart-to-heart emotional preference (i.e., homoemotional and heteroemotional orientations), such arguments won’t even have the chance to see the light of day. But as long we empower homophobes and other human rights violators with genital-dominance in their opinions, these infantile discussions will surface over and over. We know genuine mature human relationships are multidimensional, transcending genitalia (not that they aren’t essential to the shared intimacy, but one of many needful aspects). On behalf of homohearts and heterohearts everywhere, thank you.
#22 Chairm
December 10, 2006

Brayton said: “But dozens of studies comparing children of gay couples to children of straight couples show quite the contrary, that children are no worse off with gay parents than with straight parents.”

Each time you make that claim it would be responsible to provide a hyperlink to those studies your claim depends on. And it would be useful for you to also state the absolute number of children studied who were raised from conception to adulthood by intact same-sex couples.

Afterall, you suggestion is that third party procreation creates child outcomes as good as children born and raised by intact married couples. You are suggesting there is statistical and qualitative evidence that proves this over the lifetime of children.

I suspect you are lumping together the various alternative situations with the intact married couple situation. A single mom may be homosexual or heterosexual. Likewise a cohabitating mom.

Of course, some lesbian women are married to men with whom they have engaged in procreative relations throughout their marriages. So if you are including these women, then, you might say so. I doubt you are. My point is that sexual orientation is not a marker of same-sex couples parenting children from conception to adulthood.

The child population in same-sex households is about one-half of one-percent of the country’s child population. That makes it very unlikely that the handful of studies you’d cite are 1) randomized, 2) quantitative, or 3) longitudinal. That’s no fault of the researchers, really, because of the very tiny size of the target population.

Also, about 97% of the openly homosexual adult population does NOT reside in same-sex households with children. Even if you wish to double the 3% share who do live in such households, that guesstimate would still be just 6%. And if that doubled guesstimate is based on the assumption that such couples are not disinclined to self-identify for research, then, it goes to show just how selective the sampling for any studies of that kind would have to be, by necessity.

This is what stands against the decades of studies and analysis that has produced the very wide consensus that the intact married household provides the optimal setting for raising children. It is the standard by which all other alternatives are measured, and found wanting.

The parents are usually very loving in all the alternatives and, sure, in the standard arrangement high conflict relationships are very much sub-optimal. But that does not undermine the consensus that was arrived at after decades of studying millions of children.

Now, if you mean to say that there are dozens of studies of parents who used third party procreation to attain their children and these studies compared parents based on sexual orientation, then, please make that more clear. And cite the studies. Because that would be pretty much a landmark set of studies that has gone unnoticed around the world.
#23 Andrew McClure
December 10, 2006

Sure are a shocking number of people using this “third party procreation” slang/buzzword in these gay marriage threads. Are all of these people coming from the same site, or something?

What I can’t help but wonder is how these people are going to cope once it’s finally possible for two people of the same gender to bear biological children which are their own genetic offspring. The technology to make this possible is actually kinda close to working already.
#24 GH
December 10, 2006

you suggestion is that third party procreation creates child outcomes as good as children born and raised by intact married couples. You are suggesting there is statistical and qualitative evidence that proves this over the lifetime of children.

You should be fair here and admit that the studies also show that adults raised by single parents are no worse off than those raised by intact married couples. There is a catching up that occurs as the child becomes an adult.

You should also admit that just because 2 people remain married is no indicator of parenting skills or being successful at the marriage. You seem to be arguing the mere presense of a male and female makes for positive results and that is just silly.
#25 GH
December 10, 2006

about 97% of the openly homosexual adult population does NOT reside in same-sex households with children. Even if you wish to double the 3% share who do live in such households, that guesstimate would still be just 6%.

Back this up please. I know several gay couples who have raised their children together and the children are some of the best I have seen. Likewise I have seen successful children from married couples and single mothers. I have also known many unsuccessful children from married couples and single parents but never gay parents(perhaps I just don’t know enough).

It seems to me that the biggest factor in all of these scenarios wasn’t who or how many provided care for the child but the skill and involvment of the parent(s) and the financial state of the family. The single parent may have to work more and that presents a problem.
#26 DuWayne
December 10, 2006

Chairm -

You are missing the point. Children are being raised by GLBTs. It shouldn’t matter how many, they deserve the same security that the children of hetero, married parents provide their children. When people argue against gay marriage/civil unions, they are arguing against the notion that marriage plays an important role in childrens lives. Either that, or they are arguing that the children of GLBTs are not as important as other children.
#27 DuWayne
December 10, 2006

I really would love to see the single parenting comparisons dissapear from the gay marriage debate. It simply isn’t the least bit relavent, except insofar as marriage lowers the rate of single parenting. Single parenting is an entirely different issue, carrying it’s own unique challenges – challenges that no couple, raising a child together, will face.

In most circumstances, two parents, working together, is better for the child. Regardless of how they turn out as an adult, it is better for them as a child – better for the parents as well. Raising a child, seperate from the other parent is really hard. So gay or straight, two parents is better than one.
#28 Ed Brayton
December 10, 2006

We’ve already been over this several times. There are now over 40 studies that all conclude the same thing, that children of gay parents are no worse off than the children of gay parents. There is not a single study that concludes otherwise. Now, you can nitpick the methodologies on those studies, as you can on any social science study. But the fact that you can nitpick any methodology is why, in the social sciences, so much emphasis is put on using a variety of different studies and reaching a consensus; that has been done. Some of those studies used convenience sampling, some used random sampling. They used different techniques for measuring well-being and different definitions of well being. Yet they all reached the same conclusion. As far as longitudinal studies go, many of those studies are ongoing and the samples are retested as they get older, but we already have studies that show similar results from very young ages to young adulthood. And again, not a single study that concludes otherwise. The only thing you can do is nitpick them because you have no positive evidence of your own to point to (and no, studies comparing two parent families to single families simply do not count). There is a reason why every single adoption group and child welfare group in the nation is strongly in favor of allowing gay adoption, and it’s because the evidence has now become so compelling on this front that it cannot be ignored.

Also remember this: even if you were right, it would not be a basis for any public policy decision preventing either gay adoptions or use of IVF by gays. Such studies only show statistical trends, not deterministic outcomes. We have lots and lots of studies that show that children from lower income families are statistically worse off than those from higher income families, but no one is ever going to argue that we should therefore sterilize anyone with an income below a certain point.

Why don’t we just cut to the chase and be honest? The real reason why you don’t like this is because gay people make you feel icky and you think being gay is bad. You know it. We know it. All of this word salad you keep dropping in voluminous amounts is just a veneer over the real reason you don’t like this. And frankly, I couldn’t possibly care any less how you feel about it, I only care that you cannot stop it.
#29 Anuminous
December 10, 2006

Actually, DuWayne, I do see one important parallel between current same-sex couples and single parents. In the event of the death or otherwise incapacity of the parent of record, in many places the law considers the child effectively orphaned. So by forbidding same-sex marriage, we are putting children to some of the same risks children of single parents are exposed to. Of course, compasionate people should find this to be a bad thing, so perhaps our side should be pointing that out more.
#30 DuWayne
December 10, 2006

Anuminous, I agree that is relevant, but the context in which it is usually used in this debate is not. Also, that is more of a risk than many single parent children face. I am a single dad, but if something happened to me, my son would simply live with his mother. And like I said, it is also relevant insofar as, marriage tends to lower the chance of becoming single parents.

I am certain that one could probably find even more parrallels. But discussing it as though how well a child does coming from such a home is ridiculous. It is simply and entirely irrelevant. Mostly it just bugs me because people on all sides of the issue tend to mis-characterize single parenting and poverty parenting. Neither has a thing to do with gay marriage. Both can have quite positive outcomes or horrenously bad outcomes – mostly dependent on how much the parent/s want work for it. Ultimately, this is true of any parenting, but single parenting tends to be especialy hard for the parent, which all to often translates into being hard on the child.
#31 Anuminous
December 10, 2006

DuWayne — I absolutely agree with you. I have a bad habit of trying to think reasonably about things which are, in the normal political usage, not used reasonably. I merely observe that the anti-same-sex marriage people frequently trot out the single parent statistics as though permitting same-sex marriage would make them worse rather than improving them.

I certainly do not wish you to believe that I think that it is never better for an unmarried person to be a parent — I have know a few people who made much better parents separated than they ever would have together.
#32 Roman Werpachowski
December 10, 2006

“Unmarried women should not deliberately have children. Their children are more apt to experience privation and disruption. Consequently, such children are more apt to do poorly in school, disrupt society (e.g., engage in criminality), and be personally troubled. [...]“

Here am I, son of a divorced mother, toiling away at my theoretical physics PhD…

On the other hand, I often regretted not having a father at my side.
#33 Uber
December 10, 2006

It seems to me the big discussion and causation is not how many parents but rather finances. The reason single mothers don’t do as well likely has little to do with the parenting aspect but rather income.

But that is just one view.
#34 DuWayne
December 10, 2006

Uber said -
It seems to me the big discussion and causation is not how many parents but rather finances. The reason single mothers don’t do as well likely has little to do with the parenting aspect but rather income.

Actually, single parenting is difficult beyond finances. Though I live in poverty, as does my son’s mom, the biggest problem that I run into is having no relief. When I am stressed or angry, I can’t just step out and walk it off, without getting someone to comne over and sit with my son. This occasionaly leads to me taking it out on my son. Not horribly, just over-reacting to minor mis-behavior and the like.

The other major issue is keeping a certain continuity between his life at mom’s and his life with me. Not an easy task even when the parents are together, it is both more difficult and far more important when the child is shuffled back and forth.

Whereas finances play little role in my son’s life. We live in a crappy neighborhood, but he has hispanic friends, black friends and Vietnamese friends, within a couple blocks of our home. His hispanic friends, ages 3 and 5, don’t even speak English, he doesn’t speak Spanish – yet it doesn’t begin to interfere with their playing. Sure, we occasionaly see people smoking crack in doorways, when we’re out walking, but the tradeoff is so worth it. He is also not going to be in the crappy neighborhood school which makes a huge difference. Certainly a lot of things would be easier for his mom and I, not living in poverty, but I doubt it will have much of an effect on his expierience.

Parenting in poverty also has it’s own challenges that other parenting does not. But again, it is how much parents are willing to work at making up for the lack, that makes the difference. Though, it should be noted that no matter what, it is a crap shoot. You can do everything right, give your child all the “advantages,” and still end up with a monster. Likewise, parents can do it all wrong, as wrong as can be – and still end up with great people.
#35 SharonB
December 11, 2006

Ed,
A FANTASTIC job of exposing the facetious and meretricious nature of partisans like yass and Chairm. I am going to save your comments. It is so telling that partisans of their ilk will sharp-shoot the considerable body of legitimate studies where they merely dislike the conclusions (based on their pre-staked positions), but tenaciously hold to demonstrably and fatally flawed findings from hacks like Cameron.
#36 Ghost of discussions past
December 12, 2006

There are now over 40 studies that all conclude the same thing, that children of gay parents are no worse off than the children of gay parents.

49 studies, and they have no basis in that conclusion. Some even contradict your findings.

The APA Committee supported their resolution on homosexual parenting by citing the research of Golombok, Spencer and Rutter as well as Golombok and Tasker. Nowhere did they acknowledge the methodological flaws or the unreported differences. For example, Williams (2000), in his re-analysis of the data of Golomobok, Spencer, and Rutter (1983) and the Golomobok and Tasker (1996) research found a significant number of children to either have considered engaging in a homosexual relationship, or already engaged in a homosexual relationship. There were also significant, but left unreported, differences in self-esteem between children of homosexual and heterosexual parents, as well as significant but unreported differences in social and emotional difficulties experienced by children of homosexual parents.

Even the meta-analysis by Stacy and Biblarz (2001) was given only cursory attention. This meta-analysis repudiated over 20 years of research which had been said to show that there were no differences between children raised by homosexual and heterosexual parents. In contrast, Stacy and Biblarz found that lesbian mothers had a feminizing effect on their sons and a masculinizing effect on their daughters. They report: “…the adolescent and young adult girls raised by lesbian mothers appear to have been more sexually adventurous and less chaste…in other words, once again, children (especially girls) raised by lesbians appear to depart from traditional gender-based norms, while children raised by heterosexual mothers appear to conform to them” (p. 171).

…

Lerner and Nagai (2000), in their excellent review of the research concluded:

The claim has been made that homosexual parents raise children as effectively as married biological parents. A detailed analysis of the methodologies of the 49 studies, which are put forward to support this claim, shows that they suffer from severe methodological flaws. In addition to their methodological flaws, none of the studies deals adequately with the problem of affirming the null hypothesis, of adequate sample size, and of spurious non-correlation. (p. 1)

The critique of the research on homosexual parenting completed by Williams (2000) arrives at essentially the same conclusion. However, Williams goes a step further in his review of the research by Golombok, Spencer, and Rutter (1983), and Golombok and Tasker (1996), which followed children of lesbian and heterosexual parents into adulthood. He noted that the follow-up study found that children of lesbian parents were significantly more likely to have both considered and actually engaged in homosexual relationships. This finding did not seem particularly interesting to the researchers. Williams found that other omissions were made by researchers who conducted research in these areas as well. Huggins found a difference in the variability of self-esteem between children of homosexual and heterosexual parents. Huggins did not test for significance, hut Williams reanalyzed the data and found the differences to he significant. Williams noted that Patterson found, and left unreported, similar differences. Likewise, Williams noted that Lewis found social and emotional difficulties in the lives of children of homosexual parents, but such data did not seem to find its way into her conclusions.

…

The research by Susan Golombok and Fiona Tasker was reported in a 1996 issue of Developmental Psychology. These authors studied 25 children of lesbian single mothers and 21 children of straight single mothers beginning when the children were in elementary school and then again in young adulthood.

Specifically, the authors were wondering if being raised by lesbian mothers would increase the likelihood of children identifying as lesbian. This study has been widely quoted to prove that children raised by gay parents are not more likely to become gay themselves. The authors acknowledge their results demonstrate that young adults are more likely to consider trying out and actually engaging in homosexual relationships.

However, they say their analysis of the results do not support the idea that the actual sexual orientation of children is significantly different based on having a lesbian mother.

In looking again, I come to a somewhat different understanding of the findings. The authors reported the sexual orientation of the children studied in two different ways. They reported the number of children who labeled themselves bisexual or lesbian and then they reported the Kinsey rating of the participants. Kinsey ratings range from 0 to 6 with 0 being exclusively heterosexual and 6 being exclusively homosexual.

Generally, ratings of 2 through 4 are considered descriptive of bisexuality. When documenting the self-labels of the participants, they found two out of 25 children raised by lesbian mothers to be bisexual or gay. None of thechildren raised by straight single mothers self-identified as gay or bisexual. Statistically, this difference is unrelated to the sexual orientation of the mother.

However, when the Kinsey ratings are examined, there are four participants with Kinsey ratings of 2 or higher, thus indicating at least bisexual levels of same sex attraction. There is no explanation in the article for this discrepancy in the report. This suggests the need for a re-examination of the differences between groups.

…

Another study that bears on this issue is another conducted by Michael Bailey and colleagues. In a study of boys with homosexual fathers, he found that the percentage of boys who were homosexual in the sample studied was 9.3%.[9] Now the percentage of the population that is assessed to identify as a gay male is about 2%.[10] This means that having a homosexual father in this sample increased the likelihood of homosexual identity in boys by approximately 4.6 times. Dr. Bailey and his team had a variety of alternative explanations as to why this increased probability might not relate to parenting but the actual data is clear. One cannot say with absolute certainty why the percentage is higher. However, to give the public and the legislature the impression that the research is voluminous and consistent that gay parenting has no impact upon the sexual orientation of children is disingenuous at worst and wildly optimistic at best.

For those interested in additional careful, detailed examination of the studies concerning gay parenting, I would point you to a book by Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai, called No Basis.
#37 Ed Brayton
December 12, 2006

We can go on all day long citing reviews of the literature by various scholars and nitpicking the methodology of every individual study, but the fact remains that every single study has reached the same conclusion, that every major child welfare and psychology association finds that evidence compelling, and that it has stood up in court cases time and time again. No one disputes that the children of gays and lesbians have problems, a sizable portion of which are undoubtedly brought on by facing a hostile society and so many people frantic to prove that they’re abnormal or evil. But study after study shows that they are, on balance, no worse off than the children of straight parents. As far as finding out that a higher percentage of their children have considered or engaged in some homosexual activity, that is not the least bit surprising. The vast majority of subjects in such studies are children raised by lesbian women rather than gay men (gay men rarely get custody of their children, so it’s an extremely small sample group; thus, some 90% of those who participate in such studies are female). The percentage of women who have engaged in or considered same sex activity is considerably higher than the percentage of men who have done so, regardless of whether they were raised by straight parents or gay parents. Regardless, of course, such statistics are only bothersome if one believes that there’s something wrong with same-sex sex, a premise that is hardly axiomatic in such discussions.
#38 To bad Ed,
December 12, 2006

Ed wrote;

~~Sorry, I really was wrong when I said nothing contradicts those studies. Since their own data contradicts their conclusions I’ve decided to side with good science and take back my previous claims.~~ [but, but,] but the fact remains that every single study has reached the same conclusion

Your reliance on bad studies as the new norm is rather ignominious. Sometimes it is the problems we overlook that really show our bias.

No one disputes that the children of gays and lesbians have problems, a sizable portion of which are undoubtedly brought on by facing a hostile society and so many people frantic to prove that they’re abnormal or evil.

I will agree they go through problems. For starters,their care-givers sexual wants and needs come before the children’s. From an interview of Arch Dale O’Leary of the Catholic Medical Association…

‘Persons with same-sex attractions who adopt love their children, and the children love their adoptive parents, but because there is love there will also be denial.

‘The same-sex couples will not be able to admit to themselves the harm they have done to the children they love, and so will blame “society” or “homophobia” for the problems they face. The children will not be able to voice their dissatisfaction and will at the same time feel guilty for not being grateful. The children will be made to feel that there is something wrong with their natural desire for a parent of opposite sexes.

‘We have already seen an example of this. Rosie O’Donnell, a very public lesbian and advocate for lesbian adoption, was asked what she would do if her adopted son wanted a father. According to O’Donnell, her son had already expressed that desire. When he was 6, he said, “I want to have a daddy.”

‘O’Donnell replied, “If you were to have a daddy, you wouldn’t have me as a mommy because I’m the kind of mommy who wants another mommy. This is the way mommy got born.” He said, “OK, I’ll just keep you.”

‘While O’Donnell undoubtedly sees this as a positive affirmation of same-sex adoption, there is another interpretation: She made her son feel that his natural desire for a father is a rejection of her. That is a terrible burden to place on a little boy.

‘And it gets worse. In the same interview, O’Donnell recounted how she explained adoption to her son: “… he understands that there are different types of people; that he grew up in another lady’s tummy, and that God looked inside and saw there was a mix-up and that God brought him to me.”

In other words, in light of this and the previous conversation between O’Donnell and her son, it is wrong for him to want a daddy because God decided that he shouldn’t have one. ‘

As far as finding out that a higher percentage of their children have considered or engaged in some homosexual activity, that is not the least bit surprising.

It isn’t? I thought that homosexuality was something innate and immutable. That homosexuality was their identity and they discover it sometime in life. At least that is one of the things people have been trying to convince me of in this debate.

But now it isn’t surprising to you that family life does influence gender preference. You may not have ever agreed, or I might not be right in what they told me. But it sure seems like there is a contradiction here.

But beyond that, we see fatherless girls acting the same between gay parents, and other families without a father. They are more promiscuous even when not more lesbian. Same with sons. In short there doesn’t seem to be a difference between lesbians and single-parenting. Is there a difference to you? I’d like to hear it.
#39 To bad Ed 2
December 12, 2006

Hey Ed, you don’t allow strike tags?

For the record the above, “Sorry, I really was wrong when I said nothing contradicts those studies. Since their own data contradicts their conclusions I’ve decided to side with good science and take back my previous claims.” was supposed have a line through it… For the humor impaired, Ed didn’t really say it (and that is the point
#40 Jeff Hebert
December 12, 2006

To bad Ed 2 (btw, worst handle ever) said:

In short there doesn’t seem to be a difference between lesbians and single-parenting. Is there a difference to you? I’d like to hear it.

I’m not very good at math, but I think one difference might be, you know, having TWO parents instead of ONE parent.
#41 Raging Bee
December 12, 2006

Chairm, Yazz, Ghost, et al: if you’re so dead-set against gays adopting or having kids of their own, then you must have thought of an alternative after all this time. So what IS your alternative? Keep kids with unfit, unwilling or otherwise disadvantaged parents rather than let them be adopted by committed and willing couples like Mary Cheney and her pertner? Keep orphans as wards of the state? (I thought you right-wingers were against big-government socialism.) Force lesbians who get pregnant via “third-party procreation” to get abortions? (I thought you were unconditionally pro-life.) Send a SWAT team to take such babies away as soon as they’re born? (Y’all weren’t too happy when we did something similar to Elian Gonzales.)

It’s not enough merely to say that certain environments are less-than-ideal for kids. You need to come up with something better, otherwise you have nothing good to offer to parents in the real world.
#42 Raging Bee
December 12, 2006

So Rosie O’Donnell said something stupid to her kid, therefore gays can’t be trusted to adopt kids? Of course, hetero parents NEVER say stupid things to their kids, do they?

Your logic is as lame as your handle.
#43 Jeff Hebert
December 12, 2006

The Latest Lame Handle Wrote:

Its so funny how to homosexuals gender is everything when it comes to arousal.

That may be the funniest thing I’ve read in this at times brilliantly (though unintentionally) funny thread.
#44 Sonnet
December 13, 2006

Currently Ed keeps deleting this comment, and I have no idea why

So, Rosie O’Donnell said something stupid to her kid. That we agree.

Why didn’t she just say the truth, “look kid, my sexual prejudice .. uh no, discrimination (wait that doesn’t work either) orientation .. yeah orientation is more important than you wanting a Dad, so live with it.”

Or do you have something else that Rosie should have told her child? Come on, what would you have said that wouldn’t have been stupid?

I’m not sure how she could have described her situation to her child and not been stupid, because her sexual selfishness is pretty stupid to begin with.

BTW, the alternatives already exist. Foster care, Reciprocal beneficiary programs, etc…

Now Jeff, there is good logic. There’s two of the same, and that is more than one! Can’t argue with that. I have two left shoes right now and that is much better than just one left shoe.

Hmmm, these children in raised by homosexual couples still lack a father or mother (because of the father or mother’s sexual bias). And that is just as useful, right? So is it the father or the mother that is so useless?

Its so funny how to homosexuals gender is everything when it comes to arousal. And that is important. But in parenting and to children gender is meaningless. I can’t think of a more misplaced and arrogant set of ideals off the top of my head.

Ed is apparently up in arms that extended-family helping out a daughter with her child is different (just trust him that they are because he can’t exactly say why). He says, ”

Because that is a single parent. That isn’t one parent, there could be three or more in that circumstance (grandparents, aunts, etc…). Or a single-parent living with their friend, there would be two heading that household. The general category “single-parent” is what it seems Ed is lumping all of these situations into (and so do many studies). So in reality you can’t assume that numerical difference.

Besides, listen to Barbara Whitehead and she’ll point out that there are many studies that show devoted single parents do as well as step parents in raising children.
#45 Raging Bee
December 13, 2006

Or do you have something else that Rosie should have told her child? Come on, what would you have said that wouldn’t have been stupid?

How about “My partner and I both love each other, therefore we moved in together. And this is how you were born… Other kids are born by a variety of other ways as well…”

As long as both caregivers truly act as caregivers, and the procreation technology didn’t cause any crippling or disfiguring birth-defect, I doubt the kid will be too upset about it. (Bullying by small-minded so-called adults like yourself, of course, is another matter…)

I’m not sure how she could have described her situation to her child and not been stupid, because her sexual selfishness is pretty stupid to begin with.

More so than the “sexual selfishness” of a man and a woman marrying because they enjoy each other’s company? More so than the “sexual selfishness” of said man and woman fucking each other’s brains out solely to give themselves pleasure, then deciding, after the fact, to keep the kid that results?

How many people would there be on Earth if it weren’t for the “sexual selfishness” of so many people fucking because the Gods made sex pleasurable?

Ed, It seems your readership appreciate this comment.

Yeah, if ridicule can be thought of as “appreciation.”
#46 Bonnet
December 13, 2006

So your solution is to just ignore the child’s need for a father, and give a bs answer about how in love you two are.

I thought you were trying to *not* give a stupid answer.

Choosing someone you love may or may not be selfishness. It is when you put your own sexual needs above other’s needs that it becomes selfishness. Which is funny, because you seem to think that a mother and father taking care of their children as selfish, at least if Rosie O’Donnell is.

Heterosexuals can be selfish. They commit adultery, they get into fights over sex, etc… These all negatively impact children in the home. But to you when its homosexuals, its all magically okay. I think you have stepped over the line of advocating gay rights, to advocating gay privilege. Their special exemption.

Way to go Ed, you’ve really found a winner here in your self-touted human rights efforts.

Ridicule is always the way the mentally challenged will try to discredit the truth. And here you’ve just dig yourself a bigger hole. Congrats, either you aren’t very good at ridicule, or ridicule doesn’t really do what you hope it would.
#47 Raging Bee
December 13, 2006

Does a kid “need” a father so badly that some people should be forbidden to have kids? In a previous post you mentioned a study saying that “devoted single parents do as well as step parents in raising children.” So those kids aren’t exactly suffering from lack of a dad. Nor are we sending cops to take kids away from recently divorced or widowed moms.

Ridicule is always the way the mentally challenged will try to discredit the truth.

It’s also the way most people respond to statements or actions that are ridiculous. (Can’t you even do fake-victimhood right?)

Are you a sissy, a sonnet or a bonnet? Make up your mind, willya?
#48 Gretchen
December 13, 2006

So your solution is to just ignore the child’s need for a father, and give a bs answer about how in love you two are.

Need? So because a kid asks for something, he “needs” it? Gee, when I was a kid I must have needed a pony, a little sister, a four-wheeler, a pool in the backyard…..goodness, how my parents abused me by not supplying me with those things!
#49 Uber
December 13, 2006

devoted single parents do as well as step parents in raising children.”

This should more correctly read devoted single parents do as well as other parents in raising children. There is no statistical difference of merit between natural parents and step parents. You find an equal number of positive and negative examples in either group.

To me this entire discussion highlights the evolutionary advantages some humans have at parenting and the problems some have with accepting the obvious. Some are simply born with the skills to be better at parenting than others. Of course with effort and work many more can succeed but some of us are simply better at parenting. Like all aspects of living things it’s not black and white and a continuum exists.

In this view a good parent can simply do the job of 2 well while a not so good parent needs more assistance.
#50 Skemono
December 14, 2006

Its so funny how to homosexuals gender is everything when it comes to arousal. And that is important. But in parenting and to children gender is meaningless. I can’t think of a more misplaced and arrogant set of ideals off the top of my head.

Sure you can. And you keep vomiting them up as asinine comments.
#51 Chairm
January 14, 2007

“you must have thought of an alternative after all this time”

Attitude surveys consistently indicate that there are more married couples interested in adopting children than there are children in fostercare. The fact that there are about as many foreign adoptions as domestic adoptions each year also supports this finding.

Recruitment of married couples as top priority would address the need of relinquished children for moms and dads. There are obstacles in the system that turn too many married couples away; these need to be removed or at least minimized.

As a matter of social policy, the priority ought to be on providing these children with married parents. Lower priority on cohabitating both-sexed couples; lower again on unmarried single individuals; lower again on couples or individuals who are not open to marriage; but there is no need to bar in all circumstances the adoption of fosterchildren by the lower prioritized scenarios, incuding same-sex pairs or homosexual individuals.

The problems with creating children through third party procreation are not restricted to individuals, or couples, who believe they are homosexual and thus who believe that their desires dictate the creation of fatherless or motherless homes by design. But those problems do not go away just because these individuals are gay or lesbian.

Don’t confuse adoption (even second parent adoption) with third party procreation. The former addresses the needs of children who exist; the latter creates children.
#52 Chairm
January 14, 2007

“When people argue against gay marriage/civil unions, they are arguing against the notion that marriage plays an important role in childrens lives. Either that, or they are arguing that the children of GLBTs are not as important as other children.”

No, they argue that society affords marriage a preferential status based on the combination of 1) integrating the sexes and 2) responsible procreation. This is extrinsic to the one-sexed arrangement — homosexual or not.

Civil union cannot do more than marriage when it comes to establishing the legal child-parent relationship. Married step parents do not gain parental status of a child who has not been relinquished by one or the other parent. The same goes for same-sex second parent adoption. Civil union can not do what adoption would do. Civil union is about the adult relationship, not about the child-parent relationship. The presence of children does not bestow marital status, or civil union status, on the adults.

My point still stands: the double dad or double mom scenarior depends on parental relinquishment.

On the other hand, in Ontario, a court granted the request of a lesbian couple to give the second woman parental status along with the child’s mother. That’s a double mom scenario in a jurisdiction that has enacted SSM.

The lesbian twosome had attained the child via third party procreation. The third person, a male friend (heterosexual), supplied the sperm. He also is an involved father to the child.

The court order granted tripartite parental status. The mother and the father plus the second woman each have parental status now.

And why did the court not require that the father relinquish his status? Because the three adults agreed that the father eas essential to raising the child.

See New York Times story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/world/americas/12canada.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Here is a snippet from the story:

She said the father’s role could not have been filled by herself or her partner.

“I’m going to sound really, really sexist,” she said. “But some things are daddy stuff. There’s no way we can keep up when they get into wrestling and hanging little boys upside down.”

* * *

So now the limit of two is busted in Ontario where SSM is treated like marriage. And that is at the request of the couple who are in SSM. The three-judge panel including judges who had imposed SSM; they said that the best interest of the child was for the father to reatain his legal status as the child’s father. Otherwise, they’d have required relinquishment so that the way would have been open for second parent adoption which is routine in Ontario courts.
#53 Chairm
January 14, 2007

“No one disputes that the children of gays and lesbians have problems, a sizable portion of which are undoubtedly brought on by facing a hostile society and so many people frantic to prove that they’re abnormal or evil. But study after study shows that they are, on balance, no worse off than the children of straight parents.”

Undoubtedly is your speculation. And citing conclusions of studies that are insufficient is not really bolstering your claims. These are inconclusive studies. You would make premature conclusions, and social policy reforms, based on insufficient evidence. That’s your poliical bias speaking, not the objectivity of science. Same goes for the associations you cited. Your appeal to their authority is really an appeal to their ideological bias.

The children in the studies you cite are predominantly children from dissolved both-sexed parental relationships. A small portion of them live in same-sex parenting households.

Also, these arrangements are structurally similiar to arrangements such as step-families or lone-parent families. Stucture counts for much — especially when much larger and substantive studies control for variable such as income and education.

No double dad or double mom scenario exists without parental relinquishment or loss (except now in Ontario). So you are left with the problem of structure that you seem to wish away. The arrangements you are puffing up are either lacking in one of the sexes (as a lone parent situation) or are not intact (as with the homosexual individuals who migrate from marriages with their opposite sex).

For example, the step-family as a category of family type falls short of the intact, low-conflict, married family type. For pity’s sake, the high-conflict married family type also falls short. Society ought to help low-conflict marriages stay intact; it ought to encourage improvements in high-conflict marriages — or prevention of such situations. I see no reason to replace the golden standard with sub-standard arrangements with which the homosexual parenting scenario shares too much in essential structure.

So why do you pretend that objective accounts of the social science data are “attacks” on homosexual parents? You seem to attack the standard in terms of what is good for society and that’s just irresponsible. You are advocating less and pretending it is more.

You are flapping your arms around far too much to distract from the science that you would co-opt to your political cause.
#54 Phillips
May 26, 2007

Fewer than 40 comparative studies on the effects of homosexual parents have been published. Only one (Cameron P & Cameron K Homosexual parents. Adolescence 1996) was based on a random sample, and another (Golombok S, Tasker F Do parents influence the sexual orientation of their children? Developmental Psychol 1996) followed the children for 14 years. The rest were based on small samples of volunteers, and those usually with children under the age of 10. These studies seldom addressed traditional concerns — for instance, molestation, or recruitment by parents or their lovers. Nor did they tend to consider the effects on teenagers. Instead they were ‘snapshots’ of a particular moment in the lives of these children. Yet the empirical evidence supports what common sense would expect.
#55 Phillips
May 26, 2007

As for the Cameron ‘biography’ link:

APA “expulsion”, “extermination” claim, etc.:
http://familyresearchinst.org/Default.aspx?tabid=85

Judge Buchmeyer:
http://familyresearchinst.org/Default.aspx?tabid=65
#56 Ed Brayton
May 26, 2007

Yes, we know that Cameron has written responses to the charges against him. We also know that Cameron is an utter joke as a “researcher”, a fraud, a con man and a vile bigot. You will get nowhere defending his bullshit here.
#57 Phillips
May 27, 2007

Whew, with that kind of language, I suppose I won’t, but you might as well give honest coverage or the good populace will have to continually point out your bias/misprepresentations/lies.
#58 Skemono
May 27, 2007

Our bias? That’s rich coming from someone defending Cameron.
#59 doctorgoo
May 27, 2007

Ed said:

We also know that Cameron is an utter joke as a “researcher”, a fraud, a con man and a vile bigot. You will get nowhere defending his bullshit here.

Phillips replied:

Whew, with that kind of language, I suppose I won’t

Ahhh… poor Phillips… Is honestly describing Cameron appear to be too mean to you? Ed simply described the reality that everyone sees.

Heck, even my Christian friends who know about this guy all realize he’s a complete fraud and a bigot, and thus making him a very poor example of a Christian.

BTW Phillips… if this, too, is too rough on your poor ears, then please let me rephrase:

Cameron is a poopy-head who makes baby Jesus cry.