Tag Archives: Adopting

The Argument Against Same-Sex Parenting Just Got Blown Out Of The Water

In recent years, right winged Christians like Mark Regnerus, Donald Paul Sullins and Douglas Allen, have done their best to argue that same-sex parenting is flawed, wrong and immoral.

But a new study has blown a massive whole in this biased theory, and proved what the medical community has already long known: same-sex couples make great parents.

The primary accusation against past research supporting same-sex parenting is that the samples are skewed.

Because researchers have to advertise and search for same-sex couples willing to participate, the families self-select to join the studies, and thus may be not be representative of all same-sex families.

Mark Regnerus insisted that his studies – which are sceptical of same-sex parenting – are more valid because they use data from broad population-based surveys, and therefore are more representative.

So the Williams Institute, an LGBT think tank at the UCLA School of Law, decided to call Regnerus’ bluff.

Using data from the National Survey of Children’s Health, researchers were able to identify same-sex couples who were raising children and compare them to demographically similar different-sex parents. Because few male same-sex parent households were included in the study, they focused on female couples, identifying 95 that they then matched against similar different-sex households.

The study found only one difference between the families: same-sex couples had more stress than their different-sex peers.

However, even with that distinction, there was no difference in the outcomes for their children, including their general health, emotional difficulties, coping behaviour, or learning behaviour.

Most would think a higher stress rate would have gone against the them up, but it didn’t.

Researches concluded that the lesbian mothers might be using additional support systems like parenting groups or counselling services, and likewise, their kids may also develop greater resilience skills having to defend against the stigma of having same-sex parents.

There is an obvious explanation as to why the new study found affirming results while conservatives found negative outcomes in their population-based studies.

The new study controls for committed couples; it compares same-sex families who have raised their children from birth with different-sex families who had done the same.

None of the same-sex parents who had broken up or divorced were analysed in the study.

Regnerus didn’t account for family structure. In his study, he counted any child whose parent had had any kind of same-sex relationship at any point.

As a result, most of the children he counted had experienced a parent’s separation or divorce, but they were still compared against children from stable different-sex families. The resulting negative outcomes for those children, he concluded, proved that same-sex couples make inferior parents. Regnerus’ data only included two children who had been raised from birth by committed same-sex couples, and their outcomes were just fine.

Similar population-based surveys from Donald Paul Sullins and Douglas Allen used the same trick of comparing unstable same-sex families to stable different-sex families. Sullins, for example, used data from the National Health Interview Survey, and admitted, “Almost all opposite-sex parents who are raising joint biological offspring are in intact marriages, but very few, if any, same-sex parents were married during the period under observation.”

Sullins, like Regnerus and Allen, was comparing apples to oranges.

In some ways, the new study isn’t ground-breaking. There has already been scientific consensus in support of same-sex families for decades. With the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision last year and the recent conclusion of the challenge to Mississippi adoption ban, same-sex adoption is now legal in all 50 states.

Nevertheless, some states are still figuring out some legal questions about same-sex parenting.

Several lesbian couples in Indiana, for example, are fighting to make sure that both moms can have their names on their children’s birth certificates, a fight that has played out in other states as well.

With courts continuing to weigh these important protections for same-sex families, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have another study showing that their children turn out just as great as in other families.


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For Now, Same Sex Couples Can Now Legally Adopt In All 50 US States

U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan has ruled that Mississippi’s ban on same-sex couples adopting children is unconstitutional.

This move now means gay adoption legal in all 50 US states.

Judge Jordan issued a preliminary injunction against the ban, citing the Supreme Court’s decision legalise same-sex marriage across the US last June.

The injunction blocks Mississippi from enforcing its 16-year-old anti-gay adoption law.

Jordan wrote in his ruling.

… foreclosed litigation over laws interfering with the right to marry and rights and responsibilities intertwined with marriage. It also seems highly unlikely that the same court that held a state cannot ban gay marriage because it would deny benefits — expressly including the right to adopt — would then conclude that married gay couples can be denied that very same benefit.”

The challenge to Mississippi’s law was filed last year by four same-sex couples, who were joined in their fight by the Campaign for Southern Equality and the Family Equality Council.

Roberta Kaplan, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said.

Two sets of our clients have waited many years to become legal parents to the children they have loved and cared for since birth. We hope that it should finally be clear that discrimination against gay people simply because they are gay violates the Constitution in all 50 states, including Mississippi.”

The Human Rights Campaign’s Mississippi state director Rob Hill also praised the ruling.

This welcome decision affirms that qualified same-sex couples in Mississippi seeking to become adoptive or foster parents are entitled to equal treatment under the law, and commits to the well-being of children in our state who need loving homes,” he said in a statement.

Sadly, the ruling came soon after Mississippi’s Senate passed a “religious freedom“ bill, its most homophobic to date.

Americans Grow Increasingly Supportive Of Gay And Lesbian Adults Adopting Children

According to the new states from the CDC, Americans have grown increasingly supportive of gay and lesbian adults adopting children.

In a survey completed in 2013, nearly 75% of women said they agreed that gay or lesbian adults should have the right to adopt children — up from 55% in 2002.

Men aren’t as accepting. Only 68% say they’re in support, up from 47% 10 years prior.

Even though men lag behind, the results show a major shift over a decade, with acceptance growing from a slight majority of the population to closer to three-quarters of the population.

Approval of same-sex relationships also grew, hitting 60% among women and 49% among men.

Given recent major political shifts, like the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide in June 2015, it’s possible that these figures have grown even further since.

Many states, like Mississippi, still have laws that prohibit or limit same-sex couples from adopting, so shifting views on adoption are every bit as important as advocates continue to press for equality.


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