Gay Parents Better Than Straight Parents?

[Mayhem]

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Gay marriage, and especially gay parenting, has been in the cross hairs in recent days.

On Jan. 6, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum told a New Hampshire audience that ******** are better off with a ****** in prison than being raised in a home with lesbian parents and no ****** at all. And last Monday (Jan. 9), Pope Benedict called gay marriage a threat "to the future of humanity itself," citing the need for ******** to have heterosexual homes.

But research on families headed by gays and lesbians doesn't back up these dire assertions. In fact, in some ways, gay parents may bring talents to the table that straight parents don't.

Gay parents "tend to be more motivated, more committed than heterosexual parents on average, because they chose to be parents," said Abbie Goldberg, a psychologist at Clark University in Massachusetts who researches gay and lesbian parenting. Gays and lesbians rarely become parents by accident, compared with an almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals, Goldberg said. "That translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement."

Gay adoption recently caused controversy in Illinois, where Catholic Charities adoption services decided in November to cease offering services because the state refused funding unless the groups agreed not to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Rather than comply, Catholic Charities closed up shop.

Catholic opposition aside, research suggests that gay and lesbian parents are actually a powerful resource for **** in need of adoption. According to a 2007 report by the Williams Institute and the Urban Institute, 65,000 **** were living with adoptive gay parents between 2000 and 2002, with another 14,000 in ****** homes headed by gays and lesbians. (There are currently more than 100,000 **** in ****** care in the U.S.)

An October 2011 report by Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute found that, of gay and lesbian adoptions at more than 300 agencies, 10 percent of the **** placed were older than 6 — typically a very difficult age to adopt out. About 25 percent were older than 3. Sixty percent of gay and lesbian couples adopted across races, which is important given that minority ******** in the ****** system tend to linger. More than half of the **** adopted by gays and lesbians had special needs.

The bottom line, Stacey said, is that people who say ******** need both a ****** and a ****** in the home are misrepresenting the research, most of which compares ******** of single parents to ******** of married couples. Two good parents are better than one good parent, Stacey said, but one good parent is better than two bad parents. And gender seems to make no difference. While you do find broad differences between how men and women parent on average, she said, there is much more diversity within the genders than between them.

"Two heterosexual parents of the same educational background, class, race and religion are more like each other in the way they parent than one is like all other women and one is like all other men," she said.

Much more at the above link.