One of the top leaders within the Mormon Church, Dallin Harris Oaks, said Saturday that children who are raised by same-sex couples are “victimized.” Oaks, the fifth most senior apostle in the LDS Church, was speaking at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ General Conference, and also spoke at length against single-parenting.
“He urged parents and caregivers to respond to children who struggle, including with same-sex attraction, with ‘loving understanding, not bullying or ostracism’,” the Salt Lake Tribune reports:
He also cautioned that it should be assumed that kids raised by same-sex couples or unwed mothers will be at a disadvantage.
“Children are also victimized by marriages that do not occur,” Oaks said.
Discussing children who are LGBTQ, Oaks suggested they suffer from “psychological abuse.”
“When we consider the dangers from which children should be protected, we should also include psychological abuse,” Oaks said, rightly attacking those who bully, and then added:
“Young people struggling with any exceptional condition, including same-gender attraction, are particularly vulnerable and need loving understanding and not bullying or ostracism.”
“We should assume the same disadvantages for children raised by couples of the same gender,” as for children raised by unmarried opposite-sex couples, and single parents.” Oaks then quoted an unnamed New York Times writer who claimed that “same-sex marriage is a social experiment.”
A quick search finds that writer to be the Times‘ own conservative op-ed columnist, Ross Douthat, who wrote in June of the flawed Regnerus anti-gay parenting “study” that New Civil Rights Movement writer Scott Rose has thoroughly discredited:
Same-sex marriage is a social experiment, and like most experiments it will take time to understand its consequences. We don’t know how relationship norms and expectations will evolve in the gay community – where the ongoing Dan Savage-style debates about monogamy and fidelity will lead, for instance, or how closely same-sex marriage will be associated with childrearing. We don’t know how plausible Saletan’s vision of wedlock and parenting running on parallel tracks for gays and straights really is.
The Mormon Church, via its wholly-owned Salt Lake City-based newspaper business, the Deseret News, was the first to announce and publicly applaud the flawed Regnerus “study,” and NOM co-founder Robert P. George is on the editorial advisory board of the Deseret News. The New Civil Rights Movement was the first to make this connection and one of the first to report on the “study.”
“One of the most serious abuses of children is to deny them birth,” Oaks claimed, decrying abortion, then praised “a mother in the Philippines [who] said, ‘sometimes we do not have enough money for food, but that is alright, because it gives me the opportunity to teach my children about faith. We gather and pray for relief and the children see the Lord bless us’.”
Oaks, an attorney, served as president of Brigham Young University from 1971–1980, and for decades was considered “a top prospect for appointment to the United States Supreme Court.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was a primary supporter of California’s Prop 8, which banned same-sex marriage, and provided extraordinary funding and non-financial, asset support. It is widely believed that the Mormon Church is the main funder of NOM, the National Organization For Marriage.
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{ 25 comments }
That's funny. Growing up, I was never victimized by my mother's unwed, same-sex relationship(s). What I _was_ victimized by? My father's new wife (lo! a wed, opposite-sex relationship!) who, among other things, tried to indoctrinate me with her Christian "value" that gay people were evil and going to hell. This terror haunted me for years, until my mom came out to me – and then, after a brief crisis of faith, I got over the whole thing. My mother wasn't evil. She was not going to go to hell for who she loved. LGBT people were no different than anyone else – in fact, many of them were better (kinder, more compassionate, more generous, and certainly more accepting) than those bigoted, closed-minded Christians by whom I had been raised, them and their entire community, who attempt to make children HATE an entire group of people because the simple, essential human connection of LOVE is expressed in a way that is not theirs.
LGBT couples, and unwed parents, in no way victimize their children for that particular quality. But of course such an idea would come from a Christian religion – the greatest victimizer of all time. That's right, I said it. What a contemptible, worthless ideology these people have, when it includes such inane bull$h!t.
As a social scientist (Ph.D. from Stanford University) who has studied marriage and the family I must take issue with the statement that the Regnerus study is flawed. On the contrary, it is sound science and supports the other many valid scientific studies that indicate that children raised by their biological parents who love each other are better off in virtually every way over those not raised in such situations.
Phillip C. Smith
Stanford might want to reconsider the degree it gave you, Mr. Smith. The Regnerus "study" is flawed because it compares apples to oranges, for starters: in tact families to broken families. In that context, it doesn't matter what the gender or sexual orientation of the parents are. Have you actually read the article that Mr. Regnerus wrote in Social Science Research? Of the many false and outrageous statements he made, he says that the children of gay fathers are more likely to commit suicide! Yet he doesn't even know if he has any gay fathers in his study, just men who had an affair with another man at some point, while in a different-sex marriage. Shouldn't these men be rightly considered bisexual? Isn't it a big leap to assume they're gay? Why not assume they're straight?
The Regnerus study has been completed discredited as a piece of propaganda from rightwing religionists.
Your degree is worthless, no matter who issued it, so long as you remain unable to recognize the fatal flaws in this study, e.g., no valid peer review, secretly adjusted data, author's lack of expertise and experience in the subject area, and the meddling in the study itself by the funders who commissioned it to fulfill prescribed political agendas.
Nowhere near as victimized as converts to the Mormon cult.
Until all the heterosexual couples take responsibility for the children they create, those discarded children have a better life for them in the care of loving, committed couples, regardless of orientation.
I agree that children are better off in same-gender relationships than to be neglected or mistreated in heterosexual ones.
The issue isn't "the best family arrangement for children" it's about fraudulent academic research, designed for political use. Academics have a responsibility to be honest in their work. They are not supposed to be tools of religionists who want an "academic study" to submit in DOMA court cases or at election time.
Religionists, especially Christians, in America have become very dishonest people. Lying in service to the Lord defies logic, as the Ten Commandments forbid bearing false witness, usually construed as lying. I understand homophobia is insidious and takes control of its victims' lives to some extent.
Being straight doesn't make one a good parent. Being a good parent makes one a good parent. There is no correlation between sexual orientation and parenting ability. It's just common sense. Try having some!
I believe that your labeling the Regnerus study as “fraudulent academic research” does not describe the study. There are many other studies done by David Popenoe, Barbara Whitehead and others that reaffirm the results of these type of studies. The use of epithets and anti-religious terms does not advance the inquiry into family effectiveness.
And yet every non-religious scholar who's examined the Social Sciences Research article has pronounced it a fraud. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with academic research methods. Real academics (not political ones, like Mr. Regnerus) draw conclusions from the data they collect. They don't make up conclusions unsupported by the data. Mr. Regnerus compared children whose parents never divorced while they were young to children whose parents did divorce, and had a same-sex relationships. The key fact here is, PARENTS DIVORCED. What Mr. Regnerus thoughtfully did was take a known negative outcome factor, parental divorce, and attached it to "had a same-sex affair" to be able to draw a negative conclusion, incomprehensibly, about gay parents.
Feel free to keep this issue alive. I'm glad Scott Rose is. Mr. Regnerus needs to have his no-longer-good name dragged through the mud as much as possible. What he has done is smear gay and lesbian Americans, in the most reprehensible way. This story is not done, as his accomplices, such as Brad Wilcox, are now under investigation. You'll be laughing, too, at how amateurish this fraud was executed, as more information becomes available.
This whole issue has become so political that valid science is being smothered. The pressure on scientists to conform to political correctness blocks true scientific progress in this area. You may be aware of the fact that in the Judge Walker Proposition 8 trial, seven of the nine scientists prepared to testify in support of traditional marriage withdrew from doing so because they said that for them to have testified would have meant the end of their academic careers, not because of the quality of their research but because supporters of traditional marriage who speak out are being intimidated, discriminated against when it comes to hiring, etc. I learned the bulk of my research methodology at Stanford University. Are you inferring that the scientists there do not know of or understand research methodology?
No matter how long ago you studied at Stanford, Mr. Smith, none of your comments so far are of the caliber typically shown by Ph.D. candidates. For example:
“There is considerable support for the Regnerus study from competent researchers.” No, there isn’t. None of the few professionals who dare to endorse the study have any explanation for its flaws; all they have to offer is claims that they like it.
“The issue is whether or not children do better in intact families, with parents of the opposite gender who love each other and love their children, parents who provide both female and male role models in the home, or do they do better in units where there is no father, or where the adults do not provide role models in the home of both genders, etc.” No, that’s not the “issue.” You reveal your ignorance of how such studies are performed by claiming that the “issue” is how families with 4 characteristics (intact, opposite-gender, in-love, loving parents) compare to families where those 4 factors differ. By swapping all 4 factors simultaneously, it is impossible to identify any meaningful results. Regnerus claimed that his study identified differences between opposite-gender-parent families vs. same-gender-parent families, but when pressed, he admitted that the data used could not provide those answers, and that the data used was adjusted.
“I have no doubt that there are a number of same-gender arrangements where much good is done. On average, however, this appears that these are less effective than heterosexual families.” No, it does not appear that same-gender households are less effective. Yes, that is the study’s conclusion, but no, that is not what the study proves. The study says that’s what it’s going to examine, then doesn’t examine it, and then concludes it anyway.
“. . . the research done by [Stanford University] scholars and others, scholars primarily of a liberal persuasion politically, still indicated that intact families were far better than any others in the effective care of children.” Yes, studies do show that intact families succeed better than non-intact families. Moreover, they show that when the level of intactness remains the same, whether the parent couples are heterosexual, lesbian, gay, or bisexual is irrelevant. But the Regnerus study uses unrelated data in its comparison: intact heterosexual families vs. non-intact lesbian/gay/bisexual families, so the conclusions are meaningless, and prove nothing.
“. . . you may wish to locate a study I once saw (but have lost track of) where the author compared homosexual to heterosexual arrangements and concluded that there were no differences.” It’s pointless to tell other people to go find a study which you yourself are unable to identify.
“As I looked at the sample, however, I noticed that the author was in effect comparing homosexual couples with single mothers.” This is the same mistake Regnerus made, only in reverse. He used only intact families for the heterosexual homes, and only non-intact families for the gay/lesbian homes, which makes it impossible to attribute findings to causes, and impossible to reach the conclusions he claimed.
“Thus, if intact families surveyed during my Stanford years were far better than single family arrangements, and in this study single family arrangement showed no differences when compared to homosexual couples, then by inference intact heterosexual families are still far superior to any other conjugal arrangements, heterosexual or homosexual.” You make the same mistake Regnerus made: equating “intact” families to heterosexual couples, and equating non-intact families to lesbian/gay/bisexual couples. As any Stanford freshman knows, intactness and orientation are independent factors, so if all heterosexual couple families used in the study were intact, then all LGB families studied also had to be similarly intact; otherwise, any claimed conclusions are meaningless.
“The issue here is over what is the best family arrangement for children. The valid scientific evidence, I believe, is overwhelming in this regard.” You fail to cite any scientific evidence, or even one single study, from Regnerus or anyone else, which proves whether there is any “best” family arrangement for children. But there are multiple studies proving that, all things being equal, the genders of any two parents have no measurable impact on the children’s success. Your belief in the opposite conclusion, without any scientific data to support it, is nothing more than a superstition.
I'm sorry but I disagree with your analysis. You might check David Popenoe, Barbara Whitehead and others at Rutgers for their take on these issues.
Your innocent-sounding referral to Popenoe/Whitehead, along with your designation of them as being “at Rutgers” further reveals your duplicity.
They founded the National Marriage Project, now headed by Witherspoon Institute director and Regnerus funder Bradford Wilcox, who collaborated with Regnerus on data collection and data analysis. Regnerus lied in his study by claiming his funders were not involved in the study, even when they were.
Leading sociologists such as the University of Maryland’s Dr. Philip Cohen and the University of North Carolina’s Dr. Andrew Perrin find Wilcox’s claims not credible and not truthful. Wilcox and Regnerus colluded to make an end run around serious academic review, in order to publish their seriously flawed claims.
Popenoe/Whitehead are discredited by Wilcox and his antics with Regnerus. In endorsing such arrangements, you can’t realistically claim that you adhere to professional ethics yourself.
One way to resolve this impasse is for those on both sides ideologically, and it is really ideology that is driving this issue and not valid science primacy, to get together, agree on the methodological structure, and then conduct more studies. Right now there is too much politicking involved in this whole issue, too many efforts to block out those with whom one disagrees.
No, Dr. Smith, there’s no need to bring the two “sides” together to work on the artificially created “impasse” that you imagine. Any impasse was solved over the last 25 years.
You imply that each “side” is equally valid, and that their only failure is a failure to agree on methodology for more studies, but that’s not the case at all.
The side supporting LGBT parenting is composed of experienced, credentialed experts, national professional organizations, and 25 years of studies that were already properly vetted by independent professionals. Those studies proved that same-gender parent couples are every bit as good as opposite-gender parent couples. But your “side” which opposes LGBT parenting is funded by anti-LGBT hate groups committed to oppressing LGBT people and using amateurish propaganda commissioned to pose as true research when it is nothing of the kind.
No compromise between these two groups is possible, and no compromise would be valid if it were, but that doesn’t matter, because no compromise is necessary.
Finally, the scientifically valid studies you claim to still seek actually were completed over the last 25 years. Among them are these more recent authors (readily available to any Ph.D. with your credentials):
■ American Academy of Pediatrics, which says: “[S]cientific literature demonstrates” that same-sex couple children “fare as well.”
■ American Psychiatric Association, which says: “Research indicates that optimal development for children is based not on the sexual orientation of the parents.”
■ American Psychological Association, which says: “There is no scientific basis for concluding that lesbian mothers or gay fathers are unfit parents on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
■ American Psychoanalytic Association, which says: “Gay and lesbian individuals and couples are capable of meeting the best interest of the child.”
■ Child Welfare League of America, which says: “Any attempt to preclude or prevent gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals or couples from parenting, based solely on their sexual orientation, is not in the best interest of children.”
Dr. Smith,
I am responding to your notions with bluntness because it appears I am not getting through to you.
I was born a gay male, and have never wavered in my own sexual orientation. That provides me with experiences, information, and perspectives that 90% of the population doesn’t have.
No, I do not defend or protect: persons who are “uncomfortable” that I exist, or persons who assume their orientation is divine and mine is devilish, or persons who view their sexual orientation as legitimate and unchangeable but mine as a mere — and optional — “behavior,” or persons who would deny anyone the right to marry the person of their choice (a choice which the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld as a fundamental human right on at least 14 separate occasions).
Would you defend or protect persons who are actively working to make you a permanent outlaw, and to make any marriage of yours permanently illegal, via a restriction written into the U.S. Constitution? Why would you do such a thing?
You suggest that some people, some time, might have seen earlier studies, and might have found flaws (but you don’t identify any scientists, any dates, what was reviewed, what wasn’t reviewed, or what flaws were found). From within this vacuum of conspicuously absent information, you leap to your claim that the existing studies about the biological underpinnings of sexual orientation must not be valid. You make this claim while having not one shred of evidence for it. Either produce the scientific evidence for your claim, or else give it up.
Your continued conflation of sexual orientation with mere “homoerotic feelings” suggests that either you still don’t understand why this conflation is a mistake, or else you do understand but are intentionally muddying other people’s waters to advance a political/cultural goal. Remember that people who lobby against those with “homoerotic feelings” are really implying that homosexuals are actually just heterosexuals with alternate feelings, and they are implying that homosexuality itself is optional, a choice, and “curable” (a position with no scientific basis).
You are resting your arguments for enshrining discrimination into law upon two sets of ignorance: you don’t know to what extent sexual orientation may be hormonal vs. genetic, and you don’t know to what extent cultural factors may be involved. But advocating for discrimination because of an admitted ignorance is preposterous, and unlawful. No one knows every single detail of ancient Jewish history, either, but that partial ignorance of the past is no reason to write laws ostracizing today’s Jews into sub-par ghettos of restricted liberties.
Do you want to discriminate against heterosexuals until the “causes of heterosexuality” are definitively verified? No? Well, then, if you don’t want to do that, then why do you argue to discriminate against LGBT people, just because the “causes of homosexuality” aren’t definitively verified?
If your desire to oppress LGBT people arises from the fact that there are fewer of them, remember that a minority group’s mere existence is no reason for discrimination against it.
When you ask about the “consequences” of sexual “behavior” you again betray the detrimental fuzziness of your own thinking. What you are really hoping to find is evidence of good and bad outcomes, arising solely from sexual orientation, in order to justify discrimination against whole groups of people with certain orientations. But there is no such data, and there are no plans to secure it. That’s because there is no plausible way to develop it. Every attempt so far has failed. This was seen most recently in the Regnerus work, which failed to use the equivalent households which were necessary for making any valid comparison or reaching any meaningful conclusion.
NedI am sorry if I have not been clear and if I have upset you. That is not my intent. If anyone mistreats homosexuals in any way, they are wrong to do so. What should the rest of us do to bring such mistreatment to an end? You are not an outlaw in my eyes. None of us consciously chose our sexual orientation. In the sight of God we are all loved and we should love one another. How should this love be expressed in your view?Why is it, though, that extramarital (outside of traditional marriage) sexual behavior of every kind is producing such unhealthy consequences? A Department of Health official in Hawaii once told me that he estimated that between the government, military and the private sector in his state, $25 million per year is spent fighting diseases arising from sexual relations outside of traditional marriage? Should government and interested citizens like myself be concerned about this situation? What do you think?You are right in intimating, I believe, that heterosexuals, too many heterosexuals, have made a shambles out of marriage. These abusers of the marriage relationship certainly are not good role models for society. Children suffer enormously from this societal situation. What can be done by society to better this situation? Males and females mating produce the next generation, but they need help to raise these children with love.I am concerned about the definition of marriage for another reason. If the right is given to anyone to marry whom they choose, what is to stop a man from marrying several women (there is a case in the courts at present on this very issue) or a much older man from marrying a young boy or girl. The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment certainly appears to extend itself to all these, and possibly more. How do we avoid these other cases from becoming a norm in society? I have a real problem, as well, with those, primarily males, heterosexual and homosexual, who sexually abuse young children. How do we protect the young against sexual abuse?Let me say again my responsibility is to love and protect all individuals, heterosexuals or homosexuals. I really do have compassion for my relatives and acquaintances who feel mistreated by society because of their sexual orientation. If anyone is mistreating you because of your sexual orientation, email me and I will do what I can to help you. I want good feelings to exist between us. Phil
Dr. Smith:
You agree that LGBT people are not outlaws, and agree that mistreating them is wrong. You say your responsibility is to love and protect everyone, and you ask how to end all such mistreatment, and how to express God’s love toward LGBT people.
Here’s how.
1. Admit that denying equal marriage rights to LGBT people forces their entire sex life to always be “extramarital.”
2. Admit that LGBT people deserve the same right to pursue fidelity through marriage that everyone else takes for granted.
3. Admit that sexually transmitted disease is reduced by sex education for citizens of all ages.
4. Insist that sex education curricula include the scientific facts that (1) LGBT people have always formed a sizable part of the human population everywhere, and that they live equally productive, happy lives whenever they can live free of discrimination.
5. Admit that most pedophiles are heterosexual, married males (FBI statistics).
7. Stop implying that the failures of heterosexual marriage (infidelity, disease, divorce, pedophilia) are reasons to block LGBT marriage.
8. Stop arguing that marriage equality for LGBT people leads to legalization of polygamy, incest, child molestation, bestiality, and other taboo practices. It does not. The question “if LGBT people can marry, what’s to stop these other things?” is ignorant, childish, and illogical. What prevents those other things is exactly what enables marriage equality: legislators write laws that allow or prohibit whatever their constituents ask for.
9. Admit that none of the major disasters predicted by the opponents of equality ever occurred in any of the states or nations that adopted marriage equality. (The dishonestly named Family Research Council threatened that 34 calamities occur wherever marriage equality gets a foothold, but they were proven wrong on each and every one of their 34 threats.)
10. Extend the above educational efforts to those whose scientific ignorance or religious superstitions are holding them back.
Oh, the power of intimidation and political correctness!
The scandal with the Regnerus study, and especially your support of it, is about neither politics nor correctness. It’s about Regnerus, his funders, and his apologists (like yourself) abandoning academic and scientific standards in favor of amateurish propaganda, and masquerading that propaganda as legitimate research.
If your support of this scandalous work has intimidated you (your words, above), then adopt professional standards, and revise your opinion accordingly.
My friend, I want to make it clear that those with homoerotic feelings should be treated with love and compassion. They deserve to be protected from abuse, misrepresentation and intimidation. My cousins with these feelings are dear to all of us. If that is indeed your situation also, be assured that I will do my best to defend you against mistreatment of any kind. You deserve to be truly happy.When it comes to marriage, though, I go back to my days at Stanford University when social scientists tried to be objective and as a result, liberal or conservative, affirmed through their research that the traditional family is superior to all other conjugal relationships on those key variables noted today by Regnerus and others at that time. For you to denigrate these fine researchers of earlier times is indeed sad. They deserve better. The “advocacy” research of the past few decades prostitutes the scientific method, and it is hoped that all will return someday to the objective studies of earlier times.
You claim that since you left academia, the field of sociology became subjective and unscientific.
That is untrue.
No data suggests that your departure started — or led to — any such decline.
All your academic claims depend upon a stint at Stanford University, but you fail to identify the years there, the curriculum, the degree issued, or the date issued.
You wrote — incorrectly — that research has proven that “the traditional family is superior to all other conjugal relationships” based on the factors used in the Regnerus study.
That is untrue.
There is no scientific, properly peer-reviewed study proving what you claim. You cite no such study, and identify no such researchers, yet insist upon characterizing their work as “fine.” And you ignore the decades of studies which proved that the genders of the parents are irrelevant.
You claim that LGBT couples should be treated with “love and compassion” but — without a shred of scientific evidence — you also lobby the public and the government to categorically oppress all such couples as inferior parents. That makes you a charlatan and a hypocrite.
I attended Stanford during the 1960s. My feelings about subjectivity and what has become too often “advocacy research” center pretty much around the issue of homosexuality. I find that my feelings of love and compassion for homosexuals I know and am related to cannot yet be reconciled with my feelings that homosexual behavior, like extramarital heterosexual behavior, is not physically healthy and is frequently exploitative. What is your feeling about this?One of the norms generally associated with marriage is sexual fidelity with one's partner. Studies I have read by homosexual activists such as David McWhirter (The Male Couple 1984) indicate that sexual fidelity does not characterize these relationships. I believe that children watching their same-gender caregivers changing partners, bringing new men into the domestic situation, possibly having some kind of sexual contact in their presence, etc. create confusion for children who need, ideally, the same two people always present as role models. Lesbians are much less sexually promiscuous than male homosexuals, so probably on this score there would be less disruption to a child in such relationships. Studies I am acquainted from my Stanford years also indicate that children need parents of both genders. I do believe, though, that having homosexual relationship caregivers is much better than being in abusive heterosexual relationships.I still feel that the ideal for children is a stable, loving situation where the child can relate emotionally to parents of both genders. Isn't this the best for children?I hope you can understand that these situations give me pause. I do not wish to be unkind and I do have great compassion for those with homoerotic feelings.
Dr. Smith, your concepts about gender, orientation, and identity were formed a half century ago, when same-gender relationships were regularly stigmatized at even the best schools, and long before same-gender relationships were legally recognized. Based on scientific advancements during the last 5 decades, those schools have dramatically altered their postures.
Your very own language reveals how your subjectivity limits your knowledge in this area. Here are just a few examples.
1. You think — incorrectly — that homosexuality is an “issue.” It is not. It occurs regularly throughout nature, and has been observed in every living creature in which it was studied. It has been part of human society since recorded history began, though often stigmatized by religious superstition and similar folklore. The only “issue” is the ostracizing that LGBT people experience at the hands of others, not the orientation with which they were born.
2. You also think — also incorrectly — that “homosexuality” is a “behavior” as if it were a mere choice. It is not. All five of the sexual orientations (heterosexuality, homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, asexuality) are orientations, not behaviors. All are biologically rooted. Although the exact mechanisms are still being studied, scientific studies have proven the biological roots of sexual orientation, in multiple sexual orientation research projects using twins, birth order, finger length, fingerprints, hair whorl pattern, right/left-handedness, hearing, vocal pitch, eye blinks, verbal fluency, stress, sweat, and X chromosomes. Furthermore, some of the biological underpinnings of sexual orientation are found among Caucasians, but not African-Americans, which strengthens, although still without explanation, the biological basis of sexual orientation.
3. You also think — again incorrectly — that homosexuals merely have “homoerotic feelings,” whereas heterosexuals actually are heterosexual. That is incorrect. In all humans, sexual orientation is never only a feeling; it is an immutable, fixed-before-birth characteristic.
These three linguistic tricks — calling homosexuality an “issue,” a “behavior,” and a “feeling,” — are un-scientific deceptions created by ultra-right-wing organizations that spend tens of millions of dollars every year oppressing LGBT people in every branch of government and society where they can get a foothold. Those groups continue broadcasting these three deceptions because they form a foundation of faulty logic upon which additional bigotry is then easily installed.
4. Every accusation you make about what homosexuals do (promiscuity, exploitation, etc.) also describes what heterosexuals do. If all heterosexuals were categorically denied the right to ever marry the person of their choice (as most gays are), and their children were denied legal recognition, government benefits, insurance, adoption rights, etc. (as most gays are), and their families were socially stigmatized (as most gays are), then heterosexuals would have plenty of reason to be even more promiscuous and exploitative than they are already. Studies show that when LGBT people, their partners, and their children live in an environment equivalent to the environment in which heterosexuals live, outcomes for all involved are also equivalent. Further studies show that when people, their partners, and their children are officially ostracized, ghettoized, and oppressed, those unusual conditions cause negative results. When all things (circumstances) are equal, heterosexuals and homosexuals have roughly similar relationships in terms of fidelity and success. When they’re not, all bets are off. Studies in which all things are equal can produce meaningful, scientific results, but studies in which all things are not equal, as in the Regnerus study, produce nothing usable.
Since your academic studies half a century ago, it’s been shown that children do, indeed, benefit from two parents, and that the benefit arises not from opposite-gender parents vs. same-gender parents, but from the presence of two responsible adults versus only one, and from laws and a society that treat the family as legitimate instead of illegitimate or non-existent.
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