Gay Parents As Good As Straight On | BU Today | Boston Universy

Contents:

• GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?
• WHAT DO THE SCHOLARLY REARCH SAY ABOUT THE WELL-BEG OF CHILDREN WH GAY OR LBIAN PARENTS?
• THE CHILDREN OF GAY PARENTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELV
• CHILDREN RAISED BY GAY AND LBIAN PARENTS DEVELOP AS WELL AS KIDS OF HETEROSEXUAL COUPL
• GROWG UP WH GAY PARENTS: WHAT IS THE BIG AL?*
• FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED
• KIDS OF GAY PARENTS FARE WORSE, STUDY FDS, BUT REARCH DRAWS FIRE OM EXPERTS
• GAY PARENTS AS GOOD AS STRAIGHT ON

GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?

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.

The number of children fai wh gay, lbian, bisexual, queer or transgenr parents has been risg recent years. Should other gay parents be ncerned?

The days, gay parents are no novelty: We see them strollg through our neighborhoods, participatg our PTA meetgs, and, perhaps most notably, appearg on our TV screens: Mchell and Cam, fathers to Lily, on the ratgs smash Morn Fay; Glee’s Sue Sylvter, expectant mom to a baby nceived wh an as-yet-unrevealed sperm donor, and Rachel’s dads, played wh humor and grace by Jeff Goldblum and Brian Stok. The Hollywood exampl are important that they’ve helped prent gay parentg as not unlike straight parentg: challengg, joyful, plited, and most of all, entirely normal.

WHAT DO THE SCHOLARLY REARCH SAY ABOUT THE WELL-BEG OF CHILDREN WH GAY OR LBIAN PARENTS?

Though this media mastreamifitn of gay parentg is a relatively new phenomenon, for s, gay parents have had children all sorts of fay nfiguratns—whether through adoptn, prev heterosexual relatnships, or, creasgly, by choosg to have blogil offsprg g vro, surrogate, and other methods.

Last November Illois, Catholic Chari ceased s adoptn servic after the state refed fundg unls the groups agreed not to discrimate agast gays and lbians. Although gay and lbian parents are a powerful rource for kids need of adoptn—at least half of all children foster re the U. Are livg wh adoptive gay parents—Catholic Chari simply qu the bs rather than ply.

Earlier this month, when Print Obama announced his support for same sex marriage days after North Carola voted to ban , he changed the nversatn nsirably by argug that ncern for children is a reason to support, rather than oppose, gay marriage. He ced gay upl his own life, “same-sex upl who are as mted, as monogamo, as rponsible, as lovg a group of parents as any heterosexual uple that I know, ” he said.

THE CHILDREN OF GAY PARENTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELV

” His support for gay marriage was self a landmark turn, but jt as notable was s direct affirmatn of gay upl as parents, which served to rebut the standard argument agast gay marriage—namely, that risks the well-beg of children and the fay.

They want to know: How will the children of gay parents fare?

Can kids raised homosexual hom turn out (gasp) okay? Throughout many years of workg wh fai, I’ve studied the liv of gay parents raisg sons and dghters. In general, gay parents tend to be more motivated, more mted, and more thoughtful parents than heterosexual upl.

CHILDREN RAISED BY GAY AND LBIAN PARENTS DEVELOP AS WELL AS KIDS OF HETEROSEXUAL COUPL

In my work, I routely saw how, wh enough support om their fai, children of gay parents veloped skills at thkg penntly and standg up for what they believed .

Much of the ncern for the children of gay parents has centered specifilly on boys, who as a group have seemed, pecially recent years, prey to nfn, rentment, and stctivens—somethg creded to the risg proportn of mal beg reared fatherls hom.

Will they grow up to be gay? And, fact, all the rearch has reported children of gay parents feel ls bound, ls rtricted, by genr stereotyp than those raised straight hoeholds. But kids of gay parents do often face discrimatn, and ’s not always the easit childhood (though show me one that is).

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

Perhaps as a by-product of the discrimatn they sometim face, children of gay parents tend to be more sensive to others and to the posive and negative feelgs themselv. And they have no greater chance of “turng gay” than the child wh the straight parents next door. Science has proven that homosexualy has blogil roots, and if we believe that is neher a choice nor an unlucky orientatn, then we n relax and tst that the young men and women will fd out what possibily naturally to them.

As one boy, 10-year-old Kenny, told me matter-of-factly, “I’ll know if I’m gay or straight when I’m olr. Of urse, children of gay parents may ponr their sexual orientatn at an early age, and tablish the terms of their sexualy wh more self-nscns than most other young adults. But most children of gay parents will ultimately grow up to be straight, if only bee most children grow up to be straight—perd.

FOR GAY MEN, HAVG A BLOGIL CHILD N BE PLITED

In a 2007 paper published the Amerin Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 28 out of 46 adults wh at least one gay parent spontaneoly offered that they felt more open-md and empathetic than people not raised their suatn. The children I studied, and those growg up around now—those kids beg raised by gay moms and dads lovg, nurturg hom—promise to offer, as adults, the bt characteristics of men and women. Overview: We intified 79 scholarly studi that met our creria for addg to knowledge about the well-beg of children wh gay or lbian parents.

Of those studi, 75 nclud that children of gay or lbian parents fare no worse than other children. We intified four studi ncludg that children of gay or lbian parents face add disadvantag.

Taken together, this rearch forms an overwhelmg scholarly nsens, based on over three s of peer-reviewed rearch, that havg a gay or lbian parent do not harm children. Evaluatg Studi that Conclu Gay Parentg Rais Risks: Wh regard to the four outlier studi, all share the same flaw.

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

At most a handful of the children who were studied were actually raised by same-sex parents; the rt me om fai which oppose-sex parents raised their children for a perd of time, but which, often, one or more parent(s) subsequently me out as gay or lbian and left the fay or had a same-sex relatnship. Includg such children among those labeled as havg been “raised by same-sex parents” is so misleadg as to be accurate, sce the children were generally raised by oppose-sex fai and only later, after a fay disptn, did they live hoeholds wh one or more gay parent(s), and only rarely did two parents of the same sex, a stable, long-term relatnship, actually raise the children together.

GAY PARENTS AS GOOD AS STRAIGHT ON

Authors of the outlier studi argue that, neverthels, such nfiguratns often reprent fai wh gay or lbian parents, and hence is reasonable to unt them as ditors of what happens when children live wh one or more gay parent(s).