{"id":1196,"date":"2004-10-22T12:04:35","date_gmt":"2004-10-22T20:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/10\/22\/yale-psychiatrist-says-hes-dumbfounded-to-be-cited-by-opponents-of-same-sex-marriage\/"},"modified":"2004-10-22T12:04:35","modified_gmt":"2004-10-22T20:04:35","slug":"yale-psychiatrist-says-hes-dumbfounded-to-be-cited-by-opponents-of-same-sex-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1196","title":{"rendered":"Yale psychiatrist says he's "dumbfounded" to be cited by opponents of same-sex marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

From The Oregonian<\/i>:<\/a><\/p>\n

“Modern research,” pronounces the Measure 36 mailer, behind a photo of two nervous-looking children, “now confirms . . . children do better socially, intellectually and behaviorally when raised with a nurturing mother and father.” In fact, the mailer declares, “the scientific evidence is indisputable,” which is why Oregon voters need to put a ban on gay marriage in their constitution.<\/p>\n

Except that Katie is real, and the research the mailer describes about her is imaginary.<\/p>\n

Working from what’s now “a considerable body of research on the subject,” writes Charlotte J. Patterson, professor of developmental psychology at the University of Virginia, “Not a single study has found children of lesbian and gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests that home environments provided by lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children’s psychosocial growth.”<\/p>\n

That’s why in July, the American Psychological Association concluded, “Overall, results of research suggest that the development, adjustment and well-being of children with lesbian and gay parents do not differ markedly from that of children with heterosexual parents,” and voted to support such families having access to marriage.<\/p>\n

The Measure 36 mailer cites one researcher, Kyle Pruett, a Yale child psychiatrist. Thursday, Pruett responded, “It is a distortion of my position. . . . I was quite surprised, even a little dumbfounded to see my name listed.”<\/p>\n

(He also said, “I am numbed by the narrow-minded arrogance of the entire argument,” which may be a different point, but the Measure 36 backers brought him up.)<\/p>\n

In other words, even in a particularly truthless election year, the main argument of the supporters of Measure 36 is strikingly, unquestionably a lie.<\/p><\/div>\n

By an amazing coincidence, what Dr. Pruitt told The Oregonian <\/i>isn’t far off from what British demographer Kathleen Kiernan told me when I pointed out how anti-SSM folks were using her work<\/a>. (She called it a “misuse” of her work, and said that in her opinion the data contradicts claims that same-sex marriage causes any harm.) It’s almost as if the opponents of SSM have a pattern <\/i>of distorting legitimate social science…<\/p>\n

[Update: Screwed-up link corrected<\/a>, thanks to “Alas” reader Sam!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From The Oregonian: “Modern research,” pronounces the Measure 36 mailer, behind a photo of two nervous-looking children, “now confirms . . . children do better socially, intellectually and behaviorally when raised with a nurturing mother and father.” In fact, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}