Swept under the carpet (the truth about same-sex parenting)

Mercatornet ^ | 9/23/15 | Michael Cook

[wagglebee]

Australian research from the 1990s has emerged as key evidence in the debate about same-sex parenting.

The constant refrain from supporters has been that there is no difference in outcomes for children in traditional marriages or same-sex couples. In 2010 Judge Vaughn Walker struck down a voter-approved constitutional referendum in California, partly because he found no sociological evidence of a difference. He put the conventional wisdom in a nutshell:

“Children raised by gay or lesbian parents are as likely as children raised by heterosexual parents to be healthy, successful and well-adjusted. The research supporting this conclusion is accepted beyond serious debate in the field of developmental psychology.”

And a brief sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2005 asserted baldly that “none of the published research suggests conclusions different from” the “no difference” hypothesis.

This is simply not true. There was a study. It showed disadvantage. And it was ignored. Why? Perhaps because it came from Australia, far from the bright lights of San Francisco or New York.

In the latest issue of the journal Comprehensive Psychology, Walter R. Schumm, Professor of Family Studies at Kansas State University, investigates why a 1996 article by Sotirios Sarantakos at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, a city in country New South Wales, has sunk into obscurity.

Sarantakos’s article, “Children in three contexts: Family, education, and social development” was published in a small  journal called Children Australia. It dealt with 58 children of heterosexual married parents, 58 children of cohabiting heterosexual parents, and 58 children of 11 gay and 47 lesbian parents. It has some limitations but Schumm believes that it is “comparable or better than much research of the same time period, even better than some that has been done since 2001”. Sarantakos followed it up with other studies of homosexual parenting.

Sarantakos was favourably disposed toward gays and lesbians and even appears to have supported the idea of same-sex marriage. He was by no means a conservative ideologue.

What did he find about the children?

• Academically, children of same-sex couples and cohabiting heterosexual couples performed worse at school than children of married couples. They had less direction and they were more often truant.
• To his surprise, he found that children of same-sex couples were more likely to engage in homosexual behaviour or to identify as LGBT.
• Their gender identity was confused. He found that “Girls of gay fathers were reported to demonstrate more ‘boyish’ attitudes and behavior than girls of heterosexual parents. Most young boys of lesbian mothers were reported to be more effeminate in their behavior and mannerisms than boys of heterosexual parents.”
• There was higher drug and alcohol use amongst children of same-sex couples.

And the parents? Same-sex parents appeared to have different and not necessarily better parenting styles.

• Gay and lesbian parents gave their children more autonomy – which meant in practice that they gave them more space and more possessions, but less personal direction.
• Gay and lesbian parents were less satisfied with their own sexual identity. Of the 82 couples in one of his studies,  Sarantakos found that 55 percent of the gay men reported they were a woman in a man's body, while 45 percent of the lesbians reported being a man in a woman's body.  This could be very disorienting for children.
• The relationships of gay and lesbian parents were far less stable. Sarantakos found that in the past five years 66 percent of the gay couples and 63 percent of the lesbian couples had broken up with three or more partners; 7 percent of the homosexual couples had broken up with six or more partners, and only 19 percent of the couples had not broken up at all. While the children generally came from former heterosexual relationships, the instability of the homosexual couple was closer, and possibly more wounding.
• Gay and lesbian parents were more promiscuous. Sarantakos’s research showed that only 10 percent of the men and 17 percent of the women in homosexual partnerships were intentionally monogamous. This worried him because “… sexual pluralism and promiscuity can cause confusion to young children and retard their social and emotional growth and development”.

These findings are based on 20-year-old research. Since then, the debate has moved on and many more studies have been done. However, Dr Schumm says that several articles in recent research have confirmed what Sarantakos found. It is still a valuable contribution to a controversial field.

So why has Sarantakos been overlooked?

Essentially because its data is a bright red pimple on the heavily powdered face of same-sex parenting. This pioneering look at how children fare in same-sex unions gave them a big thumbs-down. It has been a mortification for labourers in the vineyard of activist scholarship ever since.

It’s not quite true that the APA brief – which is cited as gospel writ in today’s debates – overlooked the Sarantakos study. It states confidently that “none of the published research” contradicts its rosy picture of same-sex parenting. But then it devotes a gigantic footnote – its only footnote! -- to the Australian study, rubbishing it as anomalous, idiosyncratic, unreliable, skewed and invalid.

A more candid text would have read: “ … none of the published research (except that embarrassing Sarantakos stuff which threatens to wreck our happy snapshot of unanimity which is why we have left it out)”.

Dr Schumm’s closer reading of Sarantakos suggests that this dismissive attitude is driven by bias – “the political success of false negatives, in which positive results are overlooked systematically or heavily criticized when reported”.

By coincidence, a new website was launched this week called Heterodox Academy with the backing of some of the biggest names in progressive social science, including luminaries like Jonathan Haidt and Steven Pinker. Its purpose is to highlight the loss or lack of “viewpoint diversity” in universities. “In most academic fields, progressives outnumber conservatives by ratios that often exceed ten to one,” they point out. Can there be a better demonstration of this than the reception given to the family research of Sotirios Sarantakos?

[wagglebee]

Dr Schumm’s closer reading of Sarantakos suggests that this dismissive attitude is driven by bias – “the political success of false negatives, in which positive results are overlooked systematically or heavily criticized when reported”.

That explains the entirety of the homosexual agenda, ANYTHING that contradicts the agenda is dismissed or ignored.

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[LouAvul]

There was a study. It showed disadvantage. And it was ignored. Why?

Because in a satanic culture like America, where millions of unborn children are murdered in the name of convenience, the left has no problem sacrificing children to the gods of sexual perversion. And to give children to fags or dikes is absolutely perverse.

[austingirl]

No surprise, in fact anyone with a few brain cells would know this- but not to be discussed or publicized in keeping with the homo agenda.

[mykroar]

To his surprise, he found that children of same-sex couples were more likely to engage in homosexual behaviour or to identify as LGBT.

Then he's an idiot.

[xzins]

I studied under Dr Schumm at KSU. Wonderful human being and a brilliant defender of our Judeo-Christian culture.

[ClearCase_guy]

Conclusions come first.
Studies follow.
You can tell if its a good study by how closely it adheres to the Conclusion.

This is how settled science is done

[wbill]

Well, yeah, that and it's a pretty small sample. 58 homosexual couples, 58 hetero but unmarried couples, and 58 married couples (the "control"?) ain't much to draw from.

But, his studies bear out common sense. Children need stability, period. The article didn't mention how children fared in single-parent homes where the mother (or father) is promiscuous, or homes where the family is heterosexual, but fractured and dysfunctional. I'd guess that the results would be similar to homo households, because the problems are similar.

That doesn't make it right, if anything, it adds legitimacy to the fact that adoptive kids don't need to be placed in homes that are prone to such activity. Political Correctness be dammed.

[manc]

Anyone with half a brain understands that a child being raised by homosexuals will have problems and will not have the advantages to lifei.e. Mother and a Father .

[DuncanWaring]

The question for those who claim same-sex parents are as good as a real mother and father:

“Would you rather have had two mothers or two fathers?”

[knarf]

The commentaries on the family and parents are just as valid when applied to teachers in the government indoctrination centers

It is an area I am trying to open up to my local public and enlighten, considering (what I thuink is) an unproportional number of suspected gay teachers in my local district

If the "moms and dads" are screwed up and get it wrong, how much more "effective" and damaging when an adult has daily contact with about 150 kids of all ages K-12 ?

[HLPhat]

Thinking themselves to be wise they became ________?

[wagglebee]

It is an area I am trying to open up to my local public and enlighten, considering (what I thuink is) an unproportional number of suspected gay teachers in my local district

Despite everything the left puts out, the REAL percentage of homosexuals in the population is about 3%, ANY percentage of teachers that varies significantly from this is suspect.

I will acknowledge that there are certain professions where the percentage of homosexuals (especially males) tends to be far above the norm; however, teaching isn't one of them.

[Neoliberalnot]

Child abuse is simply a game to perverts. Nothing in the article addresses the sexual abuse does it. Why?

[Taxman]

No study is needed!

Any normal person could tell you that kids raised in homosexual couples or cohabiting heterosexual couples households would be screwed up!

No brainer!

[darrellmaurina]

Bookmarked for later reference.

It’s often helpful to note cases in which liberals did research and came to conclusions which contradicted their expectations.

Given enough time, the general public becomes aware of the reality of what “alternative lifestyles” actually involve. Sometimes those alternatives get tolerated or accepted. Sometimes the general public recoils when the consequences become too obvious to ignore.

One example of that would be how the early Bolsheviks were advocating sexual liberation and destruction of “bourgeois” views of the family, but by the time of Stalin and his successors, the Communists had figured out that some semblance of family was essential to having a functioning society. Later Communists might be quite immoral in their private lives, but they understood the need for the masses to have “family values” if they wanted to stay in power as heads of a country that worked.

Arguing against family values is sort of like arguing against gravity. You can say all you want against gravity, and might even try an experiment, but it’s only a matter of time until you go “splat” on the pavement if a whole society tries out what its elites talk about.