Children of same-sex couples are happier and healthier than peers, research show

[derspiess]

my lesbian mailman neighbor

Uh, the PC term is "femailman" 

[Eddie Teach]

Mihali, you should help them out with that.

[MadImmortalMan]

my lesbian mailman neighbor

Uh, the PC term is "femailman" 

Either way, they seem to have authority over the growth of my bushes. Assholes. 

I need to move someplace very rural.

[Capetan Mihali]

Mihali, you should help them out with that.

I already did. ....with my suggestions for dealing with a complex real estate ownership situation (*this is not legal advice* etc) and info on the local school districts.   Humiliating as it was, I certainly expect they'll name their first son after me.

[Berkut]

A better comparison for this type of thing would be to compare to hetero couples that adopt/use surrogacy, for all of the reasons everyone else pointed out.

I'm not really sure why one would need that comparison. Despite the headline from the WP, I would think the point of the research would be to show, as CC noted, that gay parents are just as capable as the general population of straight parents.  I'm struggling to think of a benefit from research designed to show if motivated gay couples are better than motivated straight couples.

It is important because if we are being asked to take a study like this seriously, it should take itself seriously.

If the study wants to show that gay couples can be as good parents as straight couples, then it should be prepared to show and admit if necessary that the data *might* conclude otherwise. What if it turns out that in fact gay couples are not as good parents? Will the study admit to that? If not, then it isn't an honest study, and is really just an opinion piece wrapped up in the trapping of science.

Like I said before, I find the conclusion here (Your typical gay couple is as good parents as your typical hetero couple) convincing, but for reasons that have nothing to do with this study, which strikes me as pretty much complete bullshit.

[garbon]

Like I said before, I find the conclusion here (Your typical gay couple is as good parents as your typical hetero couple) convincing, but for reasons that have nothing to do with this study, which strikes me as pretty much complete bullshit.

Well you are perfectly free to draw your own conclusions. I only wonder if you are reading too much into what the WaPo article said vs. actual study.

[crazy canuck]

It is important because if we are being asked to take a study like this seriously, it should take itself seriously.

If the study wants to show that gay couples can be as good parents as straight couples, then it should be prepared to show and admit if necessary that the data *might* conclude otherwise.

The data does show that gay couples are not only as good but are better parents than the general population of straight couples.  We, including you,  have already identified why that is necessarily so.  Not all straight couples are self selected as parents. 

An interesting question might be whether there is any different between self selecting hetero and gay parents.  I suspect there would be none but the answer to that question has nothing to do with whether gay parents are better than the general population of hetero parents.  The issue is important because nobody would seek to limit the rights of hetero parents based on predetermined criteria.  But some groups think that gays should not raise kids simply because they are gay.  Given the data that position is nonsense and the study makes it that point clearly.   

[crazy canuck]

Like I said before, I find the conclusion here (Your typical gay couple is as good parents as your typical hetero couple) convincing, but for reasons that have nothing to do with this study, which strikes me as pretty much complete bullshit.

Well you are perfectly free to draw your own conclusions. I only wonder if you are reading too much into what the WaPo article said vs. actual study.

No, he is making the logical flaw of thinking that in order for a gay couple to be as good or better than the population of hetero parents (the claim made by the report)  they must be compared to the very best of hetero parents rather than the general population.

[The Brain]

What about all the different LGQBTZXYTER combos that are possible? The study seems awfully gay-centric.

[Capetan Mihali]

What if the headline was: Children of same-sex couples are more miserable and sickly than peers, research shows?

Would it change anybody's mind on same-sex marriage?  On same-sex adoption?

The right to parent a child, your child, is a concept that is strongly enriched in contemporary American constitutional law and, I think, public consciousness.  Which is different than many other societies, and different in at least some ways from other rich post-industrial states that share our fundamental ideology of liberal individualism.

I have a few newborns as clients.  Not in criminal court (@Beeb), but in family court.  In one case, both parents have IQs in the 50s, and both have children from other relationships.  In another, the mother did every drug she could find right up until she went into labor, won't do treatment, and the father appears by phone since he is incarcerated in another state for various felonies. 

These parents all have a strong case to keep custody of their child.  In reality, there are varying levels of state intervention, and that's where we're at in these cases.  Still, nobody could legitimately say -- and I don't think any of us involved would even want to say -- what many people might think when confronted when that situation: Take the kid away from them, immediately!

Studies like these are, I guess, the "cherry on top" for people who support equal rights for same-sex couples.  But I remain concerned that they undermine the political nature of queer peoples' struggle by setting up ostensibly-neutral scientific results as the arbiter of validity.  Of course one study doesn't accomplish this, and scientific research does not 'intend' to produce moral/political outcomes; but the more we point to these as justification rationales for a specific political position, the more authority they accumulate.

If hundreds of studies showed that it was severely deleterious for a child to have a black parent, it wouldn't convince me to support reviving miscegenation laws.  But why not, if I will point to the happy outcomes of similar studies to support my actual position on same-sex parenting? 

Eugenics is very much an intelligible concept, not some crazy relic.  And what is frightening about it is precisely how otherwise smart and tolerant individuals ended up supporting an abhorrent* political movement, with ostensibly neutral scientific authority guiding them all the while.  (Certain of Sav's Progressive-Era filmmakers bear out this trajectory quite dramatically.)





*Per broad consensus in the West, July 2014.  The usual suspects should feel free to weigh in on the matter.

[The Brain]

The right to parent a child, your child, is a concept that is strongly enriched in contemporary American constitutional law and, I think, public consciousness.  Which is different than many other societies, and different in at least some ways from other rich post-industrial states that share our fundamental ideology of liberal individualism.

Where do you think this points?

[Malthus]

I think most of the opposition to gay parenting isn't actually based on a genuine concern that kids raised by gays will turn out worse. The opponents of gay parenting generally could not care less if the kids raised by gays all went on to become genius athletes who take time out from composing symphonies to accept their Nobel Peace Prizes. They don't want gays to be parents because gays are icky and sinful. 

No amount of studies showing that kids raised by gays are generally okay are likely to change their minds.

[Capetan Mihali]

The right to parent a child, your child, is a concept that is strongly enriched in contemporary American constitutional law and, I think, public consciousness.  Which is different than many other societies, and different in at least some ways from other rich post-industrial states that share our fundamental ideology of liberal individualism.

Where do you think this points?

"Enriched"? WTF Should be "strongly entrenched."

Probably just points to some of the same Euro vs American tendencies we've discussed before.  Also points to the general tendency for the disintegration of traditional community/family ties, or at least their authority, associated with modernization and the incorporation of a society into globalized capitalism.  So nothing that hasn't been said before many times.  Unless you had something else in mind?

[The Brain]

The right to parent a child, your child, is a concept that is strongly enriched in contemporary American constitutional law and, I think, public consciousness.  Which is different than many other societies, and different in at least some ways from other rich post-industrial states that share our fundamental ideology of liberal individualism.

Where do you think this points?

"Enriched"? WTF Should be "strongly entrenched."

Probably just points to some of the same Euro vs American tendencies we've discussed before.  Also points to the general tendency for the disintegration of traditional community/family ties, or at least their authority, associated with modernization and the incorporation of a society into globalized capitalism.  So nothing that hasn't been said before many times.  Unless you had something else in mind?

Does this strong American feeling about the right to parent your child make Americans more positive to gay parenting, or less?

[Capetan Mihali]

Does this strong American feeling about the right to parent your child make Americans more positive to gay parenting, or less?

That's an interesting question.  I'm not sure, really.  I think that since parents have such wide latitude in raising their children, it sets the bar for initial acceptance a little higher than elsewhere, i.e. since gaining "parent" status gives you so many rights over the child, there is probably more hesitancy to see same-sex couples (esp. two men) have access to it.  But it may mean that gay parenting rights flow more naturally from any initial state recognition of same-sex couple status.