American Academy of Pediatricians formally supports immoral homosexual ‘marriage’
March 22, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has come out with a policy statement throwing their full support behind homosexual ‘marriage,’ including full adoption and foster care rights. At the same time, another U.S.-based organization of pediatricians has responded with its own statement affirming that a marriage between a man and a woman is the best place for children.
In its statement the AAP says that supporting gay "marriage" is “the best way to guarantee benefits and security for their children.”
“Children thrive in families that are stable and that provide permanent security, and the way we do that is through marriage,” said Benjamin Siegel, MD, FAAP, chair of the AAP Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, and a co-author of the policy statement.
“The AAP believes there should be equal opportunity for every couple to access the economic stability and federal supports provided to married couples to raise children.”
Last year, the AAP also stirred controvery when it advocated that teens be given access to abortifacient emergency contraception “regardless of age.”
The AAP’s support for gay "marriage" follows a policy statement published in 2002, in which the organization supported adoption by partners of the same sex.
The organization's newest statement claims that scientific research has shown that there is no cause-and-effect relationship between parents’ sexual orientation and children’s well-being.
The AAP’s liberal positions on social issues, particularly gay adoption, led in 2002 to the creation of another group of pediatricians in the United States, the American College of Pediatricians (ACP).
In the wake of the AAP’s statement, the ACP has released its own statement reaffirming that “the intact, functional family consisting of a married (female) mother and (male) father provides the best opportunity for children.”
The ACP also accuses the AAP of ignoring “important research on risks to children in favor of the wants of adults.”
A number of studies frequently cited by gay activists have found that gay parenting has no negative effect on children. However, these studies have been criticized for their reliance on small groups of handpicked subjects and on the reporting of the gay parents rather than their children.
Recently, however, a study was released that has been hailed as a “gold standard” study due to its use of a large, random sample.
Mark Regnerus’ study, intended to be published last July in Social Science Research, found that children of homosexual parents scored significantly lower on numerous measures of social and mental health than children of heterosexual parents.
The study has been scathingly criticized by LGBT activists, who claimed Regnerus was biased and deliberately set out to make homosexuals look bad.
In response to the controversy, the University of Texas launched an investigation of "scientific misconduct" into the study, which found that Regnerus was innocent of all charges.
“No one concerned with the well-being of children can reasonably ignore the evidence for maintaining the current standard [of traditional marriage], nor can they or we ignore the equally strong evidence that harm to children can result if the current standards are rejected," said Den Trumbull, M.D., President of the American College of Pediatricians.
"The AAP ignores generations of evidence of health risks to children in advocating for the legality and legitimacy of same-sex marriage and child-rearing."
