Report Claims Children in Gay Homes as Happy as Kids With Mom, Dad
A new report titled “All Children Matter: How Legal and Social Inequalities Hurt LGBT Families,” attempts to make the claim that children raised in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender homes are just as happy and healthy as those raised by heterosexual couples.
The Family Equality Council, Movement Advancement Project and the Center for American Progress coauthored the report that was released this week, but pro-family and marriage organizations dispute the report’s conclusions.
Groups advocating same-sex marriage have been pressuring Congress and state legislatures to change or enact legislation that will give LGBT couples and individuals the legal right to adopt children and receive health care and legal benefits currently available only to married and heterosexual couples.
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Among the report’s findings are:
• There are over two million children currently being raised in LGBT households
• Children being raised in these homes are twice as likely to live in poverty
• Same-Sex couples raising children are more racially and ethnically diverse that married, heterosexual couples raising children
• Major authorities say that sexual orientation has nothing to do with the ability to be good parents
Obviously, not everyone agrees with the report.
“To claim that there’s no difference between kids raised in a home with a married mother and father as compared to a home with two same-sex couples is to ignore decades of undisputed social science data to the contrary,” wrote Carrie Gordon Earll, senior director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy at Focus on the Family, in an email to The Christian Post. “No study has ever found children raised in same-sex households to do as well as kids in a home with a married, biological mom and dad.
“The few studies that do exist on same-sex parenting lack long-term stability, and those studies didn’t even start until the mid 1990’s or so. These few studies also offer virtually no reliable data due to a lack of random sampling – those who participate are deeply invested in an outcome that elevates same-sex parenting.”
Critics of the report also dispute the 2 million number used in the report. The U.S. census bureau does not count children being raised by homosexuals. However, they began counting same-sex households in the 2010 census. Yet significant problems have arisen over with the reporting of these households.
The census bureau first reported the number of same-sex households was around 1 million. But earlier this month that number was reduced to fewer than 650,000 households, about six tenths of one percent of total U.S. households.
Additionally, the census bureau found that only 115,000 households represented children living with same-sex couples, equating to less than four-tenths of one percent of U.S. children.
Although the LGBT report tends to highlight children, it appears to be a lobbying piece designed to encourage legislative bodies to enact or change laws that will benefit homosexual individuals and couples.
In a commentary earlier this month, influential evangelical Chuck Colson addressed homosexual marriage.
“Gays and lesbians don’t want marriage; they want their sexual choices affirmed as normal and moral. And that’s what’s behind the blacklisting, boycotting, and suing anybody who even questions homosexuality,” wrote Colson. “They don’t want anyone telling them that how they live is morally problematic. Gays are actively trying to destroy marriage and will take away our freedom of speech and religion in order to do it.”
The LGBT community has undertaken extensive public relations in order to “normalize” same-sex marriage and the perceived discrimination they endure at the hands of governmental agencies.
Jeff Krehely, director of LGBT Research and Communications at the Center for American Progress, said part of the objective of the study is to raise awareness of the differences in public policy between LGBT couples and those in traditional marriages.
“More than anything, we want public policy to reflect the types of families that are living in the U.S.,” Krehley told The Christian Post. “Given that states have a lot of leeway in adoption laws, we think looking at these issues on a state-by-state basis is what is needed.”
"There are myriad ways that our families are discounted by government at all levels, and children are hurt the most," Jennifer Chrisler of the Family Equality Council, told The Associated Press.
Among the recommendations offered in the report is legalizing same-sex marriage through legislation, such as overturning the federal Defense of Marriage Act, making changes in the IRS tax code to allow same-sex couples to take advantage of tax incentives currently available only to heterosexual couples, and passing anti-bullying laws that bar discrimination in adoption and employment.
Maggie Gallagher, of the National Organization for Marriage who has worked tirelessly to protect marriage on both the national and state level, said a change in the federal marriage law would not better protect children.
“Marriage between a man and woman best protects children by having a mother and father in the same family,” Gallagher told Reuters.
