Same-Sex Marriage: Revolution in Parenthood
September 27, 2006 · By Tom Cerber
The Institute of American Values has a new study out that looks at legal changes to parenthood in light of same-sex marriage legislation, and also has data on children born as test-tube children, of gay and lesbian parents, etc.:
In Canada, with virtually no debate, the controversial law that brought about same-sex marriage quietly included the provision to erase the term “natural parent†across the board in federal law, replacing it with the term “legal parent.†With that law, the locus of power in defining who a child’s parents are shifts precipitously from civil society to the state, with the consequences as yet unknown.
Donor-conceived young people point out that the informed consent of the most vulnerable party—the child—is not obtained in reproductive technology procedures that intentionally separate children from one or both of their biological parents. They ask how the state can aid and defend a practice that denies them their birthright to know and be raised by their own parents and that forcibly conceals half of their genetic heritage. Some call themselves “lopsided†or “half adopted.â€[39] At least one uses the term “kinship slave.â€[40] Some born of lesbian or gay parents call themselves “queer spawn,†although others in the same situation find the term offensive.[41] No studies have been conducted focusing on these young people’s long-term emotional experience.[42] Clearly, rigorous long-term studies need to be done. For now, we should listen to their compelling voices.
Click here for the full study (pdf).
H/t: Barbara Kay at National Post
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Let the freak show begin!!
No, let’s recruit thousands of children to be used as guinea pigs in this social experiment.
Are you looking forward to being a mother, Lyndon?
A submission by Stephen Nock to the Halpern (Ontario) case summarized some major methodological problems with the extant social science literature looking at the well-being of children with same-sex parents. Here’s a sample:
The vast majority of these studies compare single lesbian mothers to single heterosexual mothers. As sociologist Charlotte Patterson, a leading researcher on gay and lesbian parenting, recently summed up, “[M]ost studies have compared children in divorced lesbian mother-headed families with children in divorced heterosexual mother-headed families.”16
Most of the gay parenting literature thus compares children in some fatherless families to children in other fatherless family forms. The results may be relevant for some legal policy debates (such as custody disputes) but, in our opinion, they are not designed to shed light on family structure per se, and cannot credibly be used to contradict the current weight of social science: family structure matters, and the family structure that is most protective a child well-being is the intact, married biological family.
Insults are the ammunition of the unintellegant – is that all you’ve got Lyndon?