Australian Labor vote NO to Homosexual Marriage or put kids at risk
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| English: University of Texas at Austin wordmark. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
All politicians must read these two studies. Base their decision with the health and welfare of children before the homosexual agenda and the social liberal elites.
Randy Thomas writes: It seems like the Regnerus study finding that children raised with gay parents don’t fare so well is causing quite the stir.
One study entitled Study: Children of Parents in Same-Sex Relationships Face Greater Risks:
A pair of studies published today in the journal Social Science Research turns the widely accepted notion that kids raised by parents in same-sex relationships grow up to become well-adjusted adults on its ear.
According to data from the New Family Structures Study, led by Mark Regnerus at the University of Texas at Austin, children raised by homosexual parents are dramatically more likely than peers raised by married heterosexual parents to suffer from a host of social problems. Among them are strong tendencies, as adults, to exhibit poor impulse control; suffer from depression and thoughts of suicide; need mental health therapy; identify themselves as homosexual; choose cohabitation; be unfaithful to partners; contract sexually transmitted diseases; be sexually molested; have lower income levels; drink to get drunk; and smoke tobacco and marijuana.
The study of 2,988 people between the ages of 18 and 39, including 175 adults raised by lesbian mothers and 73 raised by gay fathers, marks the second-largest data sample ever used to examine the issue. The U.S. Census Bureau had a larger sample, but didn’t probe as deeply as the 40 measures Regnerus used, said Glenn Stanton, Focus on the Family’s director of Global Family Formation Studies. In all, children raised by parents in same-sex relationships fared more poorly than their peers on 24 of those measures.
Go read the whole article.
Rod Dreher posts a rundown of the situation as well. Dreher states (linkage his):
How strange and depressing it is that what used to be common sense is now considered politically dangerous to say among elites. (N.B., William Saletan finds flaws with the Regnerus study, and says even if it’s true, it’s, yes, really an argument for gay marriage.) Ross Douthat says we are going into an unprecedented social experiment — “the final, formal severing of marriage from procreation” — in which, liberal optimism notwithstanding, nobody has any idea how it’s going to turn out.
Matthew Anderson also contributes to the conversation over the study. He encourages caution (linkage his):
In one sense, reports like this are an excellent litmus test for whether we are able to overcome a built in confirmation bias. I have, as someone who supports traditional marriage, all sorts of reasons to believe that children are better off not only when raised in a stable household, but a stable household with a mom and a dad. If nothing else, it’s an article of faith, a plank that gets built in once we allow ourselves to be shaped by revelation.
Yet this study doesn’t seem like it proves nearly as much as someone like me might have hoped. The definitions, for instance, that Regnerus uses seem a bit unsettled, and if nothing else his categories of “Gay father” and “Lesbian mother” don’t have much overlap with the images that most folks have in their minds of gay couples (whether those images are themselves representative is an open question). As Will Saletan points out, Regnerus practically grants the point, suggesting that children of gay couples today would be planned out much more carefully than even twenty years ago.
Which means, simply, that we ought be very careful before deploying this study in an argument amongst friends.
Go read Anderson’s whole post.
Jim Daly, head of Focus On The Family weighs in on critics of the study who dismiss it out of hand:
This is the kind of research Americans need to take a hard look at in the context of the ongoing efforts to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. This is the first clinically substantive study of the well-being of children raised in gay or lesbian households, and it raises serious concerns about how safe and stable an environment that is for those children.
Scientific data doesn’t ‘hate.’ It can’t be a ‘bigot.’ While such words have been used against those of us who hold to a biblical view of God’s design for human sexuality, this study is impartial, unemotional and non-religious. It’s not a soldier in the ‘culture war,’ but research conducted at a prestigious university and published in a respected scientific journal. It reinforces a cultural truth on which public-policy decisions on how marriage is defined ought to be based: Moms and dads matter, and the best environment in which to raise children is a household headed by their married mom and dad.
And Glenn Stanton, also with Focus, has a very detailed overview of the study.
A pair of studies published today in the journal Social Science Research turns the widely accepted notion that kids raised by parents in same-sex relationships grow up to become well-adjusted adults on its ear.
According to data from the New Family Structures Study, led by Mark Regnerus at the University of Texas at Austin, children raised by homosexual parents are dramatically more likely than peers raised by married heterosexual parents to suffer from a host of social problems. Among them are strong tendencies, as adults, to exhibit poor impulse control; suffer from depression and thoughts of suicide; need mental health therapy; identify themselves as homosexual; choose cohabitation; be unfaithful to partners; contract sexually transmitted diseases; be sexually molested; have lower income levels; drink to get drunk; and smoke tobacco and marijuana.
The study of 2,988 people between the ages of 18 and 39, including 175 adults raised by lesbian mothers and 73 raised by gay fathers, marks the second-largest data sample ever used to examine the issue. The U.S. Census Bureau had a larger sample, but didn’t probe as deeply as the 40 measures Regnerus used, said Glenn Stanton, Focus on the Family’s director of Global Family Formation Studies. In all, children raised by parents in same-sex relationships fared more poorly than their peers on 24 of those measures.
Go read the whole article.
Rod Dreher posts a rundown of the situation as well. Dreher states (linkage his):
How strange and depressing it is that what used to be common sense is now considered politically dangerous to say among elites. (N.B., William Saletan finds flaws with the Regnerus study, and says even if it’s true, it’s, yes, really an argument for gay marriage.) Ross Douthat says we are going into an unprecedented social experiment — “the final, formal severing of marriage from procreation” — in which, liberal optimism notwithstanding, nobody has any idea how it’s going to turn out.
Matthew Anderson also contributes to the conversation over the study. He encourages caution (linkage his):
In one sense, reports like this are an excellent litmus test for whether we are able to overcome a built in confirmation bias. I have, as someone who supports traditional marriage, all sorts of reasons to believe that children are better off not only when raised in a stable household, but a stable household with a mom and a dad. If nothing else, it’s an article of faith, a plank that gets built in once we allow ourselves to be shaped by revelation.
Yet this study doesn’t seem like it proves nearly as much as someone like me might have hoped. The definitions, for instance, that Regnerus uses seem a bit unsettled, and if nothing else his categories of “Gay father” and “Lesbian mother” don’t have much overlap with the images that most folks have in their minds of gay couples (whether those images are themselves representative is an open question). As Will Saletan points out, Regnerus practically grants the point, suggesting that children of gay couples today would be planned out much more carefully than even twenty years ago.
Which means, simply, that we ought be very careful before deploying this study in an argument amongst friends.
Go read Anderson’s whole post.
Jim Daly, head of Focus On The Family weighs in on critics of the study who dismiss it out of hand:
This is the kind of research Americans need to take a hard look at in the context of the ongoing efforts to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. This is the first clinically substantive study of the well-being of children raised in gay or lesbian households, and it raises serious concerns about how safe and stable an environment that is for those children.
Scientific data doesn’t ‘hate.’ It can’t be a ‘bigot.’ While such words have been used against those of us who hold to a biblical view of God’s design for human sexuality, this study is impartial, unemotional and non-religious. It’s not a soldier in the ‘culture war,’ but research conducted at a prestigious university and published in a respected scientific journal. It reinforces a cultural truth on which public-policy decisions on how marriage is defined ought to be based: Moms and dads matter, and the best environment in which to raise children is a household headed by their married mom and dad.
And Glenn Stanton, also with Focus, has a very detailed overview of the study.
