The Nappy Cat Chronicles

Child-Rearing

The Claims:

In raising these issues, Focus on the Family does not desire to harm or insult women such as Cheney and Poe. Rather, our conviction is that birth and adoption are the purview of married heterosexual couples. Traditional marriage is God’s design for the family and is rooted in biblical truth. When that divine plan is implemented, children have the best opportunity to thrive. That’s why public policy as it relates to families must be based not solely on the desires of adults but rather on the needs of children and what is best for society at large.¹¹

KING: Can a gay couple be a family?

DOBSON: Not in that sense, no. And I think that gay couples have difficulties trying to be a family in that sense.

KING: You would not allow them to adopt children?

DOBSON: Oh, I definitely would not.

KING: Would not because?

DOBSON: No, because there is so much research. I mean, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of articles and studies in the journals that show that children do best when you have a mother and a father providing role modeling for those kids and who are committed to each other.¹²

The Empirical Evidence:

There is no evidence to suggest that psychosocial development among children of gay men or lesbians is compromised in any respect relative to that among offspring of heterosexual parents. Despite longstanding legal presumptions against gay and lesbian parents in many states, despite dire predictions about their children based on well-known theories of psychosocial development, and despite the accumulation of a substantial body of research investigating these issues, not a single study has found children of gay or lesbian 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 gay and lesbian parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children’s psychosocial growth.¹³

[T]here is suggestive evidence and good reason to believe that contemporary children and young adults with lesbian or gay parents do differ in modest and interesting ways from children with heterosexual parents. Most of the differences in the findings…cannot be considered deficits from any legitimate public policy perspective. They either favor the children with [lesbian and gay] parents, are secondary effects of social prejudice, or represent “just a difference” of the sort democratic societies should respect and protect.¹⁴

A Great Summary:

Numerous studies over the last three decades consistently demonstrate that children raised by gay or lesbian parents exhibit the same level of emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as children raised by heterosexual parents. This research indicates that optimal development for children is based not on the sexual orientation of the parents, but on stable attachments to committed and nurturing adults. The research also shows that children who have two parents, regardless of the parents’ sexual orientations, do better than children with only one parent.¹⁵