{"id":714,"date":"2004-03-23T00:14:23","date_gmt":"2004-03-23T08:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/03\/23\/does-the-evidence-say-anything-about-kids-of-gay-parents\/"},"modified":"2004-03-23T00:14:23","modified_gmt":"2004-03-23T08:14:23","slug":"does-the-evidence-say-anything-about-kids-of-gay-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=714","title":{"rendered":"Does the evidence say anything about kids of gay parents?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Salon <\/i>article by Ann Hulbert<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/div>\n

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 <\/a>the studies Slate <\/i>says she “shot down”:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. […]<\/p><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/div>\n

(See also this post<\/a>, linking to con- and pro- articles about the social science studies)..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-714","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\/714","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=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}