Growg up wh gay parents: What is the big al?* - PMC

Contents:

• KIDS OF GAY PARENTS FARE WORSE, STUDY FDS, BUT REARCH DRAWS FIRE OM EXPERTS
• GROWG UP WH GAY PARENTS: WHAT IS THE BIG AL?*
• GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?
• DEBATE ON A STUDY EXAMG GAY PARENTS
• PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE

KIDS OF GAY PARENTS FARE WORSE, STUDY FDS, BUT REARCH DRAWS FIRE OM EXPERTS

(CBS News) A new study that fds children of a gay or lbian parent may be more likely to have social and emotnal problems has sparked ntroversy on both sis of the same-sex marriage bate. In a jot statement om the Fay Equaly Council, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Freedom to Marry, and the Gay and Lbian Alliance agast Defamatn (GLAAD), advot lled the study a "flawed, misleadg, and scientifilly unsound paper that seeks to disparage lbian and gay parents. In a mentary Slate, William Saletan wr, "What the study shows, then, is that kids om broken hom head by gay people velop the same problems as kids om broken hom head by straight people.

Children wh gay, lbian, transgenr or other sexual mory parents fare as well as, or better than, children wh parents of the oppose sex, acrdg to rearch published Monday BMJ Global Health, further unrmg a mon but unsupported argument agast equal marriage and adoptn as a growg number of stat enact laws curtailg LGBT+ rights.

GROWG UP WH GAY PARENTS: WHAT IS THE BIG AL?*

The number of children fai wh gay, lbian, bisexual, queer or transgenr parents has been risg recent years. A 2013 Canadian study (Allen 2013), which analyzed data om a very large populatn-based sample, revealed that the children of gay and lbian upl are only about 65 percent as likely to have graduated om high school as are the children of married, oppose-sex upl.

Three key fdgs stood out this study: children of married, oppose-sex parents have a high graduatn rate pared to the others; children of lbian fai have a very low graduatn rate pared to the others; and children the other four typ of livg arrangements (mon law marriage, gay uple, sgle mother, and sgle father) are siar to each other and fall between the extrem of married heterosexual parents and lbian upl. A study of 174 primary school children Atralia (Sarantakos 1996) pared the social and tnal velopment of 58 children livg married fai, 58 livg wh habg heterosexuals, and 58 livg homosexual unns. The thors found that married upl offer the bt environment for a child's social and tnal velopment, followed by habg heterosexual upl and lastly by homosexual upl.

In a study (Goldberg 2007) of 36 adults raised by lbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) parents, 15 of them (42%) scribed challeng relatg to their abily to tst other people. A study (Sirota 2009) of 68 women wh gay or bisexual fathers and 68 women wh heterosexual fathers found a statistilly signifint difference between the two groups.

GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?

The women (whose average age both groups was 29) wh gay or bisexual fathers had difficulty wh adult attachment issu three areas: (1) they were ls fortable wh closens and timacy; (2) they were ls able to tst and pend on others; and (3) they experienced more anxiety relatnships pared to the women raised by heterosexual fathers (and mothers).

DEBATE ON A STUDY EXAMG GAY PARENTS

The study is noteworthy for several reasons: (1) his study sample was large, reprentative, and populatn-based (not a small, self-selected group); (2) Regnes studied the rpons of adult children rather than askg same-sex parents to scribe how their young pennt children are dog; and (3) he was able to draw parisons on up to 80 measur for children who had lived wh (or had) parents who fell to one of eight tegori—tact fai wh both blogil parents who were married to each other, lbian mothers, gay fathers, heterosexual sgle parents, parents who later divorced, habg parents, parents who adopted the rponnt, and other (such as a ceased parent). Exceptns related only to the votg habs of children wh gay fathers, and alhol e by children of lbian mothers. In recent years, married or habg gay and lbian upl have acquired children through artificial sematn or vro fertilizatn.

4) as prevalent among children wh same-sex parents than the general populatn, after ntrollg for age, sex, ethnicy, and parent soc-enomic stat (Sulls 2015b) n one rencile the signifint fdgs wh the wily publicized studi showg no harmful effects to children who have, or have lived wh, lbian or gay parents? For example, 2005, the Amerin Psychologil Associatn (APA) issued an official brief on lbian and gay parentg, which clud this assertn: “Not a sgle study has found children of lbian and gay parents to be disadvantaged any signifint rpect relative to children of heterosexual parents” (Amerin Psychologil Associatn 2005).

PARENTS OF GAY CHILDREN AND THE ISSU THEY FACE

The thor remend further flaws exist the vast majory of studi published before 2012 on this subject (Marks 2012) cludg the fact that they relied upon small, nonreprentative sampl that are not reprentative of children typil homosexual fai the Uned major studi, published by Gartrell and Bos (2010) and Biblarz and Stacey (2010), are often ced by gay activists and extensively the media. Same-sex parentg and children's out: A closer examatn of the Amerin Psychologil Associatn's brief on lbian and gay parentg.

” For example, the Amerin Psychologil Associatn (APA) stated 2005 that “not a sgle study has found children of lbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged any signifint rpect relative to children of heterosexual parents. ”[8] For example, a 2012 review of the 59 studi reported the 2005 APA brief on same-sex parentg “reveals a tenncy towards not only non-reprentative but racially homogeneo sampl. ”[9] Even studi of donor-semated (DI) parenthood “do not know the extent to which the paratively high socenomic stat of DI parents studied accurately reflects the mographics of lbian and gay parenthood generally.