Parenting Bombshell study explodes myth that same-sex parenting makes ‘no difference’
by Will Jones, Rebel Priest:
Social science has gained higher profile than usual in recent years as it has been called on to testify in courts of law and in the court of public opinion about same-sex parenting. Do the children of same-sex parents do any better or worse than children of opposite-sex parents? That is what lawmakers and judges have eagerly wanted to know.
The response from social scientists, with notable exceptions, has been unequivocal: there is ‘no difference’. This, they say, is the ‘scientific consensus’, from which it would be irrational, ‘delusional’ even, to demur.
They claim that children raised by same-sex parents do not show any differences at all compared to those raised by male-female parents – not in sexual orientation, sexual behaviour, gender identity, personal values, drug use or mental health.
Neither are same-sex unions said to be any less stable than male-female unions. As one 2006 paper put it: ‘Not a single study has found anything unstable about the families created by lesbian and gay parents.’
Walter Schumm is a social scientist who begs to differ. Reviewing hundreds of studies in his important new book Same-Sex Parenting Research: A Critical Assessment, the American professor of some 30 years finds plenty of evidence for differences of various kinds, and in the work of ‘liberal’ scholars not just ‘conservative’ ones.
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