Here are some helpful links going into more depth and examining the implications of the two landmark studies that were released earlier this week.
Be sure to first to check out a new website on the New Family Structures Study, including links to Mark Regnerus’ and Loren Marks’ studies as well as the three scholarly comments on those studies. The website also has helpful tools for easily comparing outcomes among the different family structures studied: www.familystructurestudies.com
Here are the reactions and op-eds:
- Supreme Court Take Notice: Two Sociologists Shift the Ground of the Marriage Debate by Matthew Franck (Public Discourse)
- Are Gay Parents Worse Parents? by Mona Charen (NRO)
- The Kids Aren’t All Right: New Family Structures and the “No Differences” Claim by Ana Samuel (Public Discourse)
- The Regnerus Debate: Most gay-parenting studies are long on bias and short on hard data by Douglas Allen (NRO)
- A Liberal War on Science: Don’t bury Mark Regnerus’ study of gay parents. Learn what it can teach the left and right by William Saletan (Slate)
- New Research on Children of Same-Sex Parents Suggests Differences Matter by Christine Kim and Jennifer Marshall (Heritage’s The Foundry Blog)
- Gay Parents and the Marriage Debate by Ross Douthat (New York Times)
- Debate on a Study Examining Gay Parents by Benedict Carey (New York Times)
- A Mom and a Dad Make a Difference by Kathryn Lopez (NRO)
- Exposing the Schlock Social Science on Gay Parenting: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 by Ed Whelan (NRO’s Bench Memos)
- Is Gay Parenting Bad for the Kids? Children of gay couples are disadvantaged – because of family instability by Charles Cooke (NRO)
Good weekend reading!
42 Comments
Amato, for instance, writes:
It would be unfortunate if the findings from the Regnerus study were used to undermine the social progress that has been made in recent decades in protecting the rights of gays, lesbians, and their children. . . . [T]he legality of same-sex marriage is a constitutional issue and not one that should be decided on the basis of social science research. . . . Opponents as well as proponents of same-sex marriage have produced a parade of social scientists to provide testimony about the quality and stability of same-sex unions and the adjustment of children from these unions . . . Too much attention has been given to this evidence.
Osborne similarly remarks:
Given the sensitive political and cultural environment surrounding same-sex relationships, preliminary findings of “differences” such as those reported by Regnerus should not be used to support punitive legislation aimed at limiting the family formation and fertility choices of gays and lesbians.
Article by : Mathew J. Franck
Title: Supreme Court Take Notice: Two Sociologists Shift the Ground of the Marriage Debate
Eggebeen does not call for a halt on using social science research in the marriage debate. But, rather desperately speculating on the causes of the differences Regnerus reports, he seems unable to credit the possibility that anything but extra-familial factors could be at work: “Parents, regardless of sexual orientation, are equally motivated to provide the best care possible for their children.” Even if we were to concede the absolute truth of this surprisingly axiomatic statement, it is not the motivation of parents, but the results of their parenting that matter. Eggebeen’s certainty that family structure cannot itself be any part of the explanation is breathtakingly unscientific.
It might be tempting to say, “It’s a deal.” All individual social scientists, and all scientific professional associations, could declare publicly that they have nothing meaningful to contribute to the debate over same-sex marriage in courts and legislatures and popular referenda. No more testimony, no more legal briefs purporting to represent any “established knowledge” or “consensus of the experts” on the question of parenting outcomes by unconventional new family structures.
Such a truce would strongly support the preservation of the historic norms of marriage. For democratic decision-makers would clearly have a “rational basis” for the status quo—a basis the challengers cannot refute. This was clearly understood by the three dissenters in the 2003 Goodridge decision of the Massachusetts high court—the first state supreme court ruling inventing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. As Justice Martha Sosman said in her dissent, “the attempts at scientific study of the ramifications of raising children in same-sex couple households are in their infancy and have so far produced inconclusive and conflicting results.” Justice Robert Cordy dwelt on this matter at greater length, concluding:
Article by : Mathew J. Franck
Title: Supreme Court Take Notice: Two Sociologists Shift the Ground of the Marriage Debate
Just so. When the social science is at best highly uncertain, the default position of the judiciary in constitutional cases should be that the burden has been met by traditional marriage laws as having an eminently “rational basis.” The argument would then turn to other traditional canons of legal reasoning: the force of precedent, and the authority of legislatures and other democratic decision-makers to settle basic moral norms for society.
As I say, after the publication of Loren Marks’s critique of past research, and especially of Mark Regnerus’s impressive new research, it could be tempting to seize the implied offer of their rather shell-shocked critics and agree that social scientists may be excused from any further role in the marriage debate.
But then again, why agree to a truce when one is winning an argument? For the plainly rational basis of traditional marriage laws is strongly supported by the studies of Professors Marks and Regnerus. As the Perry case on Prop 8, and related litigation on the Defense of Marriage Act, reach the Supreme Court, the counsels of good social science can be added to the standard norms of constitutionalism to counsel against the willful judicial invention of a right to same-sex marriage.
Matthew J. Franck is Director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute.
Marriage corruption supporters have been conspicuous in their absents since these "Gold Standard" findings were brought to light.
"[T]he legality of same-sex marriage is a constitutional issue and not one that should be decided on the basis of social science research…Too much attention has been given to this evidence."
That was, of course, the position of the defenders of Prop 8.
Judge Walker didn't get that memo.
This will be a nice weekend for reading!
Thanks, NOM, for the round-up. And thanks, Leo, for the foretaste of what I will be reading.
I want to read as much analysis as possible about the Regnerus study, including criticisms from opponents.
But I do have standards; and that's why I'm glad NOM provided this nice list of links.
Unfortunately, internet searches for commentary on this study can produce a lot of hit pieces from people who don't know what they are talking about in the first place.
Thanks.
Thanks for the links.
With the bit of reading I've done so far, two things stand out :
One- Many of the critics are falsely claiming that Regnerus has made definitive statements about SS couples jointly parenting children.
He did not and *could* not because, out of the thousands he studied, there were only a handful of people that fit that description. SS couple parenting is a rare phenomenon.
Two- The studies that have been done on SS couple parenting are small in size, non-random in sample, and the children are too young to really assess any of the possible long term effects. The really important indicators such as: drug use, criminality, early sexual activity, have not been a part of these studies.
"But I do have standards and that's why I 'm glad NOM provided this nice list of links" Good grief.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/12/gay-parents-study-kids-social-scientists_n_1589177.html
Kind of clears things up.
Richard:
How exactly, does your link clear things up?
The Regnery study shows that children function best in one man one woman married families.
The statistical methods to arrive at this conclusion are by far the most comprehensive ever employed.
I would say things are pretty clear.
Richard,
The commentary you linked to is not creditable to this blog article, never linked the Hoffington Post to this site. That news outlet is forbidden here.
Very true, Rick D. Regnerus's study is the best one we have on the subject of children raised by gay and/or lesbian parents.
I like how Douglas Allen put it in one of the NRO articles:
"Ironically, the common complaint about Regnerus — that he compares apples to oranges — is valid about practically every study that finds no difference between homosexual and heterosexual families. In the latter, biased samples of high-income, highly educated, self-selected lesbian parents are compared to random samples of opposite-sexed parents.
If the Regnerus study is to be thrown out, then practically everything else in the field has to go with it."
Unfortunately, the HuffPo article posted by Rick seems to be one of the hit pieces I was referring to. It seems that a lot of people are concerned with--and responding to--more so how they think conservative groups will use the study, as opposed to the actual content of the study, and the researcher's follow-up commentary.
It's appalling to see how lop-sided the media is in critiquing this study (the strongest of them all) after consistently hailing the flimsy, ideologically motivated studies regularly pushed by the likes of Judith Stacey.
But now it's time to put up or shut up. If one can scrutinize the Regnerus study (as one should) then one has to gain a certain level of honesty about the previous same-sex parenting research.
That's why I'm looking forward to reading the Box Turtle Bulletin's review of Dr. Marks' work, which was published alongside Regnerus's study. (Dr. Marks did an excellent analysis of the 59 studies cited by the APA to endorse same-sex parenting. Not a good look for the APA, is all I will say.)
It's going to be yummy
I'd love to see the Box Turtle Bulletin try to redeem the junk science that has been pushed for ten years, after attempting to grind Regnerus through a mortar.
Correction: the HuffPo article posted by Richard.
My apologies.
"...never link the Hoffington Post to this site. That news outlet is forbidden here."
Don't know the Hoffington Post – but man do I know, we'er going to need humor along the way...!
The study clearly shows the high risk outcomes when homosexuals get near children. Not withstanding the current penn state and church court cases.
That deserves to be said about men having sex with men and the attempt to endorse the practice with marriage law.
Good grief!
This is one more legitimate study that dispels the bogus and flawed methodology of studies by gay groups who maintain no difference in child rearing. Gay propaganda is impervious to the reality. The tragedy of gay parenting is extreme narcissism and selfishness on gay couples to ignore the harm. Their investment in sexual addiction of their relationship takes precedent.
The real tragedy about the studies coming from both side of the issue, is the notion that we need a study to confirm and figure out what is self evident, what is unnatural. There are a lot of us in a phase of great confusion to even think that SS parenting or marriage should be consider as an option to start a family.or even to suggest or propose that these life styles may be superior to traditional marriage. Very sad!
OK NOMers, 5 words you must use often and fight to prevent:
1. Heterophobic
2. Christophobia
3.Fatherphobia
4.Femalephobic
5.Naturalparenting-phobia
STOP BIGOTRY, AND PROMOTE FULL EQUALITY!
Thanks for the round-up. Indeed, a lot of good weekend reading!
How typically dishonest of NOM to link to Saletan's critique of liberal's response to the Regnerus Study, but fails to link to his critique of the study.
Just to set the record straight, Saletan finds the study to be seriously flawed:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2012/06/new_family_structures_study_is_gay_parenthood_bad_or_is_gay_marriage_good_.html
Oh, and Ashley, this wasn't a study of "children raised by gay and/or lesbian parents". The group that is referred to as LM or GF doesn't consist of children who were raised by their lesbian mother or their lesbian father, let alone children that were raised by same-sex couples. The biases in the study are bad enough by the lies that NOMies tell about are disgusting. Another case of NOMie situational ethics.
I don't get what it has to do with marriage. Marriage is approval of conceiving children together, it has nothing to do with custody of existing kids, no effect on single parents or same-sex couples raising kids.
All we have to do is enact a law that restricts creating a human being to the union of a man and a woman's unmodified gametes, like Missouri has done, and another law that sets the effect of marriage as approving and allowing the couple to coneive offspring together from their own genes, and voila, same-sex marriage will be illegal in all fifty states.
John C., who are you to say that the LM or GF parents were not really gay or lesbian?
They, at least at one point, had a same-sex relationship. But I guess we really can't be sure that they were "gay" (whatever the heck that is).
Your statement does bring up an interesting point that Maggie noted when discussing this study:
"Gay-parenting research like all research dealing with gay people begins with a problem of definition: Who counts as gay? Do you ask people about their sexual behavior? Their sexual attractions? Their romantic attractions? Their self-identity, and at what point in time? This is not a trivial problem because the pool of who counts as gay will greatly expand or contract depending on how you define what you are studying.
The definition this study adopts has its limitations — like all such definitions — but it came from the research focus: How to capture the representative experience of all adult children who lived with a gay parent in a romantic relationship. It turns out very few of these relationships look like Modern Family."
You're right. Not many children in the sample had been raised by same-sex couples for all their lives. Out of a nationally representative sample of 15,000 people, only two adults had lived with their mother and her lesbian partner for all 18 years.
I don't see this as a "flaw" of the study. If that's a flaw, then ALL of the same sex parenting studies must be thrown out.
And unlike the authors and pushers of the other studies, Regnerus isn't even attempting to draw conclusions about how children fare when they are born to and raised by same-sex couples as compared to those raised from birth in an intact-married family.
Regnerus simply used representative data to show the diversity of lesbian families, the rarity of the Zach Wahls types, and how the children obviously have differences when compared to children raised by the gold standard.
Sure, you'll find "no differences" when you compare rich, White, self-selected lesbian divorcees to lower-SES'd single and divorced heterosexual women. But not when you do a nationally representative sample (which included 48% racially identified as Black and Hispanic) and compare them to intact-married families!
So now, SSMers, like yourself, are claiming that unless a study compares children raised from birth by same-sex couples to children raised from birth in intact-married families, then we can't really draw conclusions.
Good! I agree!
But there are no such studies, as admitted by Professor Michael Lamb, expert witness against Prop 8.
So no more "lesbian parents are the best" recitations. And no more briefs for the courts on how same-sex parents are equal to the intact family.
This is the best study we have on this subject. Of course we need more research; but if this one is too flawed to be considered, then so are the rest of them.
The link to the quote from Maggie:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/302511/best-or-worst-all-possible-gay-parenting-studies-maggie-gallagher
Biology is serenely inattentive to these studies.
Biology answers the question conclusively.
Each child is the result of the union of exactly one man and exactly one woman.
Civilization itself rests upon the recognition that fostering marriage- the long term union of a man and a woman- means fostering the future; that is, those children who commonly result from such unions, and who are best nurtured in them.
Simple.
It really is curtains for any civilization which has so lost its way that it requires studies in order to ascertain the truth of this matter.
Rick, I agree.
Bottom-line, society has a unique interest in uniting one man to one woman. Since those parties are responsible for the existence of children, those parties are responsible for their nurturance.
Marriage is the answer to this societal imperative.
I do value social scientific research. It reveals and confirms many things, particularly about marriage and family structure types. But the definition of marriage, quite frankly, can stand without it.
"Each child is the result of the union of exactly one man and exactly one woman."
So far that has been the case, and that is the basis for the principles of equality, liberty and rights. But it's not illegal to make children using stem cell derived gametes so that it is the union of two women or two men. Marriage is society's official state approval of conceiving children together, and we shouldn't give that approval to same-sex couples who would publicly have to use genetically modified artificial gametes to reproduce together. There are lots of reasons to prohibit it, risk of birth defects being just one, but an obvious one.
So it's not enough just to say that babies all come form a man and a woman, because that is irrelevant to them, they demand the right to make babies together anyhow. We have to say that they shouldn't be allowed to, and we have to say there needs to be a law so that all children come from one man and one woman. Without enacting that law, then the mere history of how people have been created so far is irrelevant to how they might be created in the future.
Every time you make a statement like that without also calling for a law to keep it that way, then you wind up making an argument for same-sex marriage.
Ashley,
I am not saying that these parents aren't gay or lesbian, I'm saying the study doesn't address whether the children in question were RAISED by their gay or lesbian parent.
"who lived with a gay parent in a romantic relationship" NO! The study does NOT look at that! READ THE ACTUAL STUDY, NOT NOM'S ANALYSIS!!!
The Study groups together adult children, who have at least one parent, who had a same-sex relationship, regardless of whether the child EVER lived with their gay parent, let alone whether they lived with said parent and their same-sex partner!
If the study wanted to find out about children, who were actually raised by same-sex parents, THAT would be the group getting compared to intact biological families. It is not.
Comparing the outcomes of children, who have a gay or lesbian parent, that that of ALL of those children, who do not, would be a more honest comparison. Instead Regnerus chooses to ignore almost 50% of those surveyed to make an apples to oranges comparisons.
Anti-marriage equality activist and pro Prop 8 witness David Blankenhorn but the inherent dishonesty of this best:
"Therefore, comparing the results of questions about family structure with results of questions that are NOT about family structure is … confusing … especially in a study that says it’s about “new family structures.” I think that’s the heart of why this study is generating such heated commentary. Particularly confusing is the attempt to compare outcomes of children whose parents had a same-sex relationship (which is not an issue of family structure) with outcomes of children who grew up in bio two-parent married homes (which is an issue of family structure)."
http://familyscholars.org/2012/06/12/the-regnerus-study-cont/
So, sneer all you want about "SSMers" but is honest people on both sides, who are questioning this study!
As for alleged claims that lesbian parents are better, I've never made them, so I don't have to answer to anyone, much less you for them.
Personally, I've always maintained that gay and lesbian parents aren't any better or worse than straight parents. I have yet to see any evidence that disproves this theory. Despite the triumphant cries of NOMies like yourself misrepresenting the findings of the the Regnerus study.
Of course, you display the situational ethics endemic to your ilk when you maintain that this obviously flawed study MUST be accepted as fact, yet dozens of equally flawed studies, which don't support your anti-gay views, MUST be ignored. How typically dishonest of you.
John,
Why comment on that which obviously did not read in its entirety? These recently released findings were declared to be "Gold Standard" because they were governed by the most stringent criteria available – standards that no single anti-prop gr8 researcher ever achieved in their test groups of handpicked affluent lesbians.
The researchers in question noted that the children in the -5200- sample group that had at least one "homosexual" parent only spent about 35% of their time, on average, in the care of deviants. The researchers went on to note that it was the lack of stability that is commonplace in the lives of sexual deviants that played the largest role in disadvantaging the children raised in said construct.
The research also points out that children raised by deviants is a relatively new phenomena; which renders acceptable data-sets hard to come by.
John C.
To sum up Randy's post @ 30,and others here, your side never had any real study on SSM or gay parenting because,there were never any creditable samples to begin with. Mark Regnerus exposed the original research on so-call gay parenting for the fraud it is. Using similar samples, he came up with just the opposite, that is, gay parenting creates negative attributes not positive to once when it comes to parenting and raising kids. Now, I said all of this without expressing my opinion of how terriblely wrong the concept of gay parenting.
Will you accept the facts as stated here and in the study or will you continue to defend an idea like SSM parenting that simply can't be defended?
@LEO & Randy,
The only facts that need to be accepting is that Regnerus's study does not address the so-called "new family structures" which it claims to. It certainly doesn't support the further misrepresentation of its findings by the anti-gay bigots commenting here.
John,
We provided you actuals linked to a "Gold Standard" case study and all you have to offer in response is an unsubstantiated personal opinion backed up by what you seem to think is an insult; seriously...?
Do you realize that "gay-bashing bigots" translates to "Happily Hositle to those you disagree with?"
What is "SSM parenting"? This blog is about marriage, not about parenting. It doesn't matter if, on average, some kind of family does a better or worse job at raising kids, because individuals are not the average, and people raise their kids poorly in all kinds of families. Is anyone saying that we should remove children from parents who are illiterate, even though their kids probably on average do worse than parents who can read?
I really with people would focus on the simple sine non qua of marriage, which is conception rights. We never waste time studying if a brother and sister are good parents or not, we just simply say they are not allowed to conceive children together in the first place. If they happen to be raising children together (kids of the brother, say, and his sister helps raise them), we never say "they're good parents, they should marry" because we understand that marriage means making more children, together, and that would be unethical.
"Scientific" cover for our hatred! Hoo-ray!!
John C., let me explain this in a way that you can understand.
The children WERE raised by a gay or lesbian parent. Their mother had a child from a heterosexual relationship, and then had a same-sex relationship at one point in her life.
The children rarely lived with the same-sex couple for many years; but that doesn't change the fact that their biological parent was a gay or lesbian. And the lesbian parent DID raise them, apart from the time the children spent in foster care or with a grandparent.
You don't know what you're talking about. YOU need to read the actual study. Ninety-one percent of the children of LMs lived with their mother during her same-sex relationship, but not for a long time.
The study DID want to examine the outcomes of children raised by same-sex couples as compared to intact married families. There was only one problem: long-term same-sex couples were extremely rare. Only two adults out of 15,000 were raised from birth by their lesbian mother and her partner. The researcher couldn't possibly draw widespread conclusions based on a sample of two children. So he admitted that family instability was the culprit, and that more research will have to examine children raised from birth by same-sex couples to children raised in intact families.
I've read David Blankenhorn's criticisms, and I've read the criticisms of SSMers. All of this heated rhetoric from the pro-ssm side is not based on the actual study, but on how SSMers *think* others (like FRC) will use the findings.
Regnerus simply gathered a representative sample of children who had ever lived in a same-sex household and measured them, finding that they are not "alright," as previous, non-representative studies that also did apples to oranges comparisons found.
"Question" the study all you want. But it is the best we have.
Yes, this study must be accepted as fact, because it is not making claims beyond the scope of the study. The researcher is showing that children who have ever lived with a same-sex couple are not doing all that great; and that the Zach Wahls types (children raised from birth by a lesbian couple) are woefully rare. Regnerus concedes that future research must compare outcomes of planned same-sex families to those of the intact family.
I don't know what's so hard to understand, or what, exactly, isn't factual about this. Please point out what is false about the above paragraph.
The other studies don't have to be ignored, but they must not be interpreted beyond their methodological scope.
For instance, you can't cite studies in court that focus on a small, self-selected sample of rich, White, educated, lesbian divorcees, self-reporting on their children's emotional well-being, to claim that lesbian AND GAY MALE couples are equal to the intact family in terms of child well-being and adult outcomes that weren't even measured in the vast majority of the studies!
You may not have done this, but others have.
You don't have to ignore anything. In fact, I take into consideration that the previous research.
It shows that children raised by lesbians have a greater propensity for same-sex relationships, and the daughters are more promiscuous. This is consistent with previous research showing that girls raised without fathers are more promiscuous.
I take into consideration the extremely high lesbian relationship dissolution rates present in the previous studies. This is consistent with other research showing high divorce rates for lesbian couples.
I take into consideration that much of the previous research focuses on lesbian women who had children resulting from failed heterosexual relationships. This is consistent with Regnerus's study!
We don't have to ignore any study, but they must be interpreted within their limitations.
SSMers have not exercised such restraint in the past. But now they will, because every time they criticize Regnerus, they will have to justify the previous studies and their methodologies.
Regnerus is not being irresponsible with his research, and neither am I.
I, and the scholars who commented on his work, are just recognizing that his study is the best one we have, and that it provides a much more comprehensive set of *descriptive* data.
Regnerus and I reject the attempts to show causality, i.e. that growing up with a same-sex couple will result in "X."
I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.
And you wonder why I'm over contending with 20 John Colgan-types on Facebook whose lack of comprehension gives them the right to accuse opponents of "dishonesty" and distortion.
Ashley,
Regnerus states right in the study that it does NOT find what NOMies like you claim it does, from the study:
"There are several things the NFSS is not. The NFSS is not a longitudinal study, and therefore cannot attempt to broach questions of causation. It is a cross-sectional study, and collected data from respondents at only one point in time, when they were between the ages of 18 and 39. It does not evaluate the offspring of gay marriages, since the vast majority of its respondents came of age prior to the legalization of gay marriage in several states. This study cannot answer political questions about same-sex relationships and their legal legitimacy."
So this does not evaluate the offspring of gay marriages or even gay couples! Despite the claims of yourself and other NOMies.
The SAMPLING used in the Regnerus study is "Gold Standard" no one is disputing that, it is the groupings and analysis used with the results of that sampling that are at issue. The fact that this study has random sampling and the others do not (but do study children actually raised by same-sex couples) doesn't support the NOMie cries that ALL the other studies must be thrown out in favor of the one and only study that, despite it's many flaws, can be construed to support their anti-gay views.
I notice you've failed to address my point that comparing children, who have a parent, who had a same-sex relationship, to ALL those children, who did not, would be a far more accurate and honest grouping. Why not use that grouping? Was it attempted and differences weren't found? or was it simply never attempted because the results were unlikely to be politically useful?
In another example of NOMie dishonesty around this study, you made much in your last post of the fact that 91% of the children, whose mother had a same-sex relationship, lived with their mother and their partner (but not for a long time).
I guess that's technically true, but astoundingly dishonest. Reading the above, most folks would assume that 91% of the LM sample lived with their mother and her partner for several years. That's simply false:
"Among those who said their mother had a same-sex relationship, 91% reported living with their mother while she was in the romantic relationship, and 57% said they had lived with their mother and her partner for at least 4 months at some point prior to age 18. A smaller share (23%) said they had spent at least 3 years living in the same household with a romantic partner of their mother’s."
So only 23% of these children spent as much as 1/6th of their childhood in a same-sex household. Yes earlier you claimed that this study told us about
"children raised by gay and/or lesbian parents". Was someone, who lived with her mother and her partner for less than 1/6 of her childhood (let alone a mere 4 months), really raised by lesbian parents?
But all this emphasis by NOMies on representative sampling does raise a question in my mind: Will the anti-gay activist crowd be sourcing any representative sampling studies on so-called "ex-gays"? Given that there has yet to be such a study, I assume that for consistency's sake NOMies will from this point forward cease to claim that gays and lesbian can change their orientation, or that there are tens of thousands of these so-called "ex-gays".
Funny, you claim to have been debating this topic with 20+ "John Colgan-types" on FB, yet I've been your friend on FB for years had have never had the opportunity to discuss this an "Ashley-type" there! As I've stated several times, if you didn't feel deep down inside that your anti-gay views or shameful, you wouldn't be embarrassed to voice them in front of your friends. Then again, I post here and pretty much everywhere under my real name, because I think throwing stones at others from behind a cloak of anonymity is lame and not very Bright.
Why do I waste my time trying to have a discussion on this site?
I spent 15 minutes writing a response to Ashley's not-so-bright drivel and the censors eat it.
Clearly NOMies aren't interested in discussion or debate, else they would allow it when they have control of the forum.
Yeah...right, John. The dog ate your comment.
We know this site has filters, but you fall back on them a lot. It's embarrassingly obvious.
Maybe now you'll finally stop posting, after claiming you would on previous occasions.
The censors ate John's homework.
I know we have filters. Hey, my first version of this comment was caught in one.
But John falls back on the censors a lot.
Maybe he'll finally stop posting.
JC, I read you respond to Ash, your lost...
John, more and more lies from you.
I *repeatedly* acknowledged that the study is *not* one attempting to show causation. Try to read. Reading is your friend. Read the sentence in post #36 again: "Regnerus and I reject the attempts to show causality, i.e. that growing up with a same-sex couple will result in 'X.'"
I didn't claim that the study evaluated children of gay couples/marriages. I said that it gave *descriptive* data on children who had been raised by a gay or lesbian parent, and at one point, spent time in the household with their parent and a same-sex partner.
Learn how to read!
The sampling is not the only thing better about this study. The comparisons are also better.
The previous studies DID NOT compare children raised by gay couples to children raised in an intact family. They did one of two things:
1) compared children raised with a lesbian DIVORCED mother to single and divorced heterosexual women who were less educated, less wealthy, and more racially diverse
2) compared children raised by self-selected lesbian women and couples to a random sample of all children raised in heterosexual households
Regnerus compared the children of a lesbian/gay parent to children raised in an intact family. This strategy seems like apples-to-oranges, but it's necessary to dispel previous myths.
For example: studies that compared children stationed in broken, but affluent, lesbian families to children stationed in other broken families and finding "no differences," were used by LGBT advocates to make the outlandish claim that it is no longer true that children do best when raised by their married mother and father.
Rengerus's study, by doing direct comparisons between a *representative* group of the children of lesbians and the children of intact families, quintessentially, helped to dispel the idea that research studying broken lesbian families some how dethroned the intact family as the empirically-recognized best environment for children.
There are other ways in which this study is better:
1) it measured a wide array of outcomes (welfare dependency, criminal behavior, etc.), unlike the previous studies which focused, primarily, on gender identity, self-esteem, and how it felt for the adult to parent as a gay or lesbian.
2) this study measures where the children are *now* by getting their reports. The previous studies asked the parents, and sometimes the kids, about a limited number of things while the kids were living in the house. Interviewing a thirteen year old says nothing about what will happen to them at age 35. This study is not longitudinal, but it, at least, interviews adults.
3) this study controlled for extraneous variables, like race and mother's education
Regnerus gathered enough data for people on both sides to analyze further; but he and Paul Amato found disadvantages for the children of lesbian and gays even when compared to the entire sample. Amato, writing commentary in the same journal, found moderate disadvantages for the children when compared to the entire group; but the disadvantages decreased for those children when they were compared to the single, divorced, and step-family samples respectively. The disadvantages remained, but they were not as severe.
What does all of this mean? It means that your desired grouping *was* analyzed.
I'm speaking words that are "technically true" but "astoundingly dishonest"? Ridiculous! Boy, you SSMers...I tell ya.
"So only 23% of these children spent as much as 1/6th of their childhood in a same-sex household. Yes earlier you claimed that this study told us about 'children raised by gay and/or lesbian parents'. Was someone, who lived with her mother and her partner for less than 1/6 of her childhood (let alone a mere 4 months), really raised by lesbian parents?"
Yes! The child was raised by a lesbian PARENT. A woman does not stop being a lesbian because her lesbian relationship was short-lived, right? That's what I hear on this blog all the time. Gay people are gay regardless of how they behave. The children were raised by a lesbian PARENT.
I would like to see representative studies of ex-gays. Not sure how possible it would be to get such a sample, considering that gays are a small portion of the population, and ex-gays would be small, too.
Consider the complexities of defining "gay" for research purposes; such complexities would be compounded in trying to conceptualize what an "ex-gay" is.
But I figure we should try to do some research on it, and that all sides should be heard.
The difference I see between family structures and sexual orientation change is that sexual orientation is subjective. People self-identify as something, and we can't really verify, independently, what their orientation is. After all, people are claiming that the mothers in Regnerus's study are not lesbians, though they've spent time in a same-sex relationship. Regnerus acknowledged these complexities when he admitted to understanding that "one same-sex relationship does not a lesbian make."
Sexual orientation is a foggy area, and it's not something so established, so clearly defined, and so objective, that we can begin to deny who is and isn't gay.
If people claim they are gay, I can believe them; if people claim the changed their sexual orientation, I can believe them, too.
Believe it or not, homosexuality is not much different than any other sexual proclivity that is out of the norm. This idea that people can't change, or at least shift, their sexual orientation, but can get rid of sexual fetishes and a number of things through therapy, strikes me as implausible.
In summation: unlike family structure, which can be conceptualized and measured, sexual orientation is more difficult to measure, and can't be verified independently. So if people claimed that they changed their sexual orientation, believe them! Just like you would want someone to believe you if you said that you were gay!
But now that you mentioned it, I do wonder why SSMers demand the utmost in scientific standards when it comes to therapies sought by adults in a private session; but then take research, much of which is anecdotal, as solid, although it could influence all types of policies, including ones that concern the placement of innocent children! I've noted such inconsistencies on this very blog.
And John needs to read...again.
I did not say that I was debating this on facebook. I said that you wondered why I have discontinued ("I'm over") debating these issues on facebook; and it is, in part, because I encounter too many people like you.
Do you demand that every person who posts here use their real name? I haven't seen you say anything to SSMers who come here with unusual monikers.
Wherever I go, I talk the same way. I don't talk politely on facebook, and then let loose here. I converse the same way everywhere. And I don't "throw stones."
But you are a bald-face liar. You are not my friend on facebook. I don't ever recall seeing your name *anywhere* on facebook. You once told me that you would send me a message on facebook after one discussion on this blog, and never did, because you are a liar.
Either you are lying about posting under your "real name," or you are lying about being my facebook friend.
You are a liar either way.