This Salon article by Ann Hulbert, about flaws in studies of children raised in same-sex households (studies which univerally failed to find any harm to those children), has gotten a fair number of links from anti-same-sex-marriage blogs, and no wonder.
Whenever advocates shoot down findings that work in their favor, the result carries extra credibility. In this case it helps, too, that the professor stepping forth to do so, Judith Stacey, is a well-known sociologist whose strident advocacy of “alternative” families has made her a nemesis of traditionalists.
But although Judith Stacey has indeed criticized many studies (in her much-talked about journal article), to describe her as “shooting down findings” is going a bit far. In fact, Stacey has strongly defended the studies Slate says she “shot down”:
The studies that have been conducted are certainly not perfect – virtually no study is. It’s almost never possible to transform complex social relationships, such as parent-child relationships, into adequate, quantifiable measures, and because many lesbians and gay men remain in the closet, we cannot know if the participants in the studies are representative of all gay people. However, the studies we reviewed are just as reliable and respected as studies in other areas of child development and psychology. So, most of those so-called experts are really leveling attacks on well-accepted social science methods. Yet they do not raise objections to studies that are even less rigorous or generalizable on such issues as the impact of divorce on children. It seems evident that the critics employ a double-standard. They attack these particular studies not because the research methods differ from or are inferior to most studies of family relationships but because these critics politically oppose equal family rights for lesbians and gay men.
The studies we discussed have been published in rigorously peer-reviewed and highly selective journals, whose standards represent expert consensus on generally accepted social scientific standards for research on child development. […]
I also agree with the article’s conclusion, which suggests that this isn’t a question that’ll be decided by the social science, ultimately.
In the meantime, it’s quite clear that the absence of good science won’t – and shouldn’t – settle a fraught debate. What will help clarify it are experiences like mine, watching my sister and her partner sharing the hard work and the happiness of raising their daughter. I can’t think of a better argument for gay marriage than that.
(See also this post, linking to con- and pro- articles about the social science studies)..
I don’t think social science will really “decide” the matter, either, simply because our society places little value on social science. Sure, we fund the crap out of it and use its findings to suit our own political agendas, but few people actually take the time to understand the methodologies, complexities and history of social science. Nuances and context get lost in mainstream media reporting, because most journalists are trained to be AP hacks rather than careful analysts of complex social and historical issues. And their audience/readership has little patience for “longwinded eggheads.”
I say this not to refute the value you place in social science—I share it, actually. The intellecutal rigeur, the critical analysis, peer review—we need to subject hard data to the scientific method in order to better buttress our arguments. But Ann Hulbert is right to encourage people to gain some personal experience with gay parents and children. Few people read studies, but watching a loving lesbian mother or a loving gay father interact with his or her child can be a powerful refutation of homophobic objections to gay parentage. Every time I hear some “family” defender braying about same-sex couples devaluing marriage, my first thought of the same-sex couples I know, the pair of mothers and the pair of fathers who serve as personal examples of great parenting, and I think, “Wot a buncha hooey.”
because most journalists are trained to be AP hacks rather than careful analysts of complex social and historical issues. And their audience/readership has little patience for “longwinded eggheads.”
I think it’s more than that. You’ll find the same attitude towards experts in other sciences, but it seems to me that social science isn’t respected as a “real science” like the “hard sciences” like physics, biology, and chemistry. Heck, sociology seems to be less respected than economics, even though economics is just as much a social science.
I don’t agree with this perception, and it’s just my impression of it all.
Yeah there seems to be this irrational fear in the US that there is some intellectual elite out to pull one over on decent, common, everyday people using big fancy words… I’m not sure where it comes from, but it’s sure disturbing. And look what kind of leaders it gets us…
Or as a guy once told me, “Liars figure and figures lie.” That pretty much ended our discussion. Some people ya just can’t reach.