Homosexual Adoption Studies Flawed
In November, sixteen states intend to place measures on their ballots, forbidding the adoption of children by same sex partners.
The opponents of these measures (the homosexuals) are using a series of studies to support their position that it should be okay for them to adopt children. New information though, points to the fact that these supporting studies are flawed and cannot be taken at face value.
(AgapePress) - In what some are calling a “second front” in the culture war — trailing in the wake of same-sex “marriage” — the battle over homosexual adoption is increasing in intensity.
Currently Florida is the only state that officially bans homosexual adoption, a law that has been upheld in federal court despite an intense publicity campaign, orchestrated by lesbian actress Rosie O’Donnell, to have it overturned. However, in 16 states efforts are under way to put same-sex adoption bans on the November ballot. And both sides are trying to convince the public to see things their way.Gay Parents Under the Microscope
The core argument put forth by homosexual activists is that science is on their side. They claim that scientific studies demonstrate that kids raised by homosexual couples suffer no adverse consequences from the experience, and that there is therefore no risk in allowing homosexuals to adopt.
But the research says no such thing, according to Dr. Timothy J. Dailey, senior fellow in culture studies at the Family Research Council. Much of it “fails to meet acceptable standards for psychological research; it is compromised by methodological flaws and driven by political agendas instead of an objective search for truth,” he insists.
For example, Drs. Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai, partners in a social science research consulting firm, examined 49 of the studies most commonly used to defend same-sex parenting and adoption. In their report, No basis: What the studies don’t tell us about same-sex parenting, the pair “found at least one fatal flaw in all 49 studies,” indicating that “no generalizations can reliably be made based on any of these studies. For these reasons the studies are no basis for good science or good public policy.”
Moreover, there is evidence that kids raised in same-sex households are more likely to drift towards the sexual orientation of their homosexual “parents.”
Dr. Judith Stacey, a sociologist at the University of Southern California and a supporter of same-sex adoption, admitted in a 2002 Primetime Thursday (ABC) interview that research had shown that children raised by homosexual couples were more likely to have “either considered or had one same-sex experience” than children raised by heterosexuals.
The study to which Stacey referred (Fiona Tasker, Susan Golombok, “Adults Raised as Children in Lesbian Families,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 4/95) actually found that 24 percent of children raised by lesbian mothers had “been involved in a same-gender sexual relationship,” while none of the kids who had been raised by heterosexuals reported such same-sex activity.
Children raised by same-sex parents are also more likely to perceive themselves as homosexual. In a 1994 article in American Sociological Review, Stacey said the Tasker-Golombok results showed: “The young adults reared by lesbian mothers were also significantly more likely to report having thought they might experience homoerotic attraction or relationships.” The differences were “striking,” she added, because 64 percent of the young adults raised by same-sex parents said they had considered having a same-sex relationship, as opposed to 17 percent of those raised by heterosexuals.
The Tasker-Golombok study also revealed that the percentage of the young women raised by lesbians who later went on to self-identify as lesbians was nearly eight times the rate of the general population (11 percent versus 1.4 percent).
As Stacey wrote in her American Sociological Review piece, “The evidence, while scanty and underanalyzed, hints that parental sexual orientation is positively associated with the possibility that children will be more likely to attain a similar orientation — and theory and common sense also support such a view.”
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