5 Gay Parenting Myths

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins isn't the first or only person to posit that scientific evidence doesn't support same-sex parenting. Many a wary eye has been cast on published academic research that's found no adverse risk associated with gay parenting, under the assumption it's tainted with liberal biases [source: Kix]. But the body of research conducted on LGBT parents and their children has been overwhelmingly positive enough for a host of respected professional organizations to issue public statements giving gay parenting their stamp of approval. They include the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry [source: Gottleib].

Take a 2002 policy statement released by the American Academy of Pediatrics that was reaffirmed in 2010. It reiterated that, based on scientific literature, "children who grow up with one or two gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual" [source: Perrin]. None of the organizations have since rescinded their positions on same-sex parenting, either, rendering the case of scant scientific evidence null and void.

The first wave of legal challenges to same-sex parents came during the so-called "lesbian baby boom" in the 1980s [source: Gottleib]. Women who came out after being in heterosexual marriages and having children with heterosexual partners frequently encountered roadblocks in the court during subsequent custody battles. Today, though legal obstacles are still an issue, lesbians are more likely to have children than gay males, because the hurdles to gay men becoming fathers -- adoption, foster care and surrogacy -- remain higher by virtue of their biological sex. Out of legal and social lesbian mothering debates have come the contention that, in order to thrive, a child needs both a mother and a father.

In heterosexual household contexts, studies have linked the absence of dads to higher rates of delinquency, drug abuse and lower educational attainment [source: National Center for Fathering]. But as New York University sociologist Judith Stacey pointed out in her 2010 study on gender and parenting, conflating single motherhood with lesbian motherhood is inaccurate. As the American Psychological Association has similarly stated, Stacey's meta analysis of 33 studies found that parental gender had little bearing on kids' well-being. The most influential variables were resources and childcare commitment, and those hold even greater sway than the number of parents in a home [source: Pappas]. In other words, two invested parents are the best case scenario, but even one involved parent is better than a detached couple -- no matter their sexual orientation.

Even if LGBT couples create an enriching home environment, what happens to the kids when they venture from the roost? By one 2010 estimate, 41 percent of 10-year-old children with gay parents encountered bullying or isolation [source: Park]. That doesn't, however, imply that they're at greater risk of becoming depressed or forming fewer friendships than other peers on the playground. The University of California at San Francisco researchers who collected that bullying data went back and checked in with the same adolescents seven years later and found no lasting psychological damage from any parent-related persecution [source: Park].

In addition, 25 years' worth of studies consistently debunk theories that psychological and social pitfalls are in store for children of lesbian and gay parents. Outcomes of anxiety, depression, substance abuse and socialization aren't markedly different for kids raised in gay- or lesbian-headed households compared to those from heterosexual-headed households. Repeated analyses have found that parents' sexual orientation isn't a factor [source: Patterson]. In other words, kids can -- and clearly do -- grow up with good heads on their shoulders regardless of their parents' sexual orientation [source: Patterson].

One of the most common anxieties regarding LGBT parenting is that the children will, inevitably, come out as homosexual. To that, University of Virginia psychologist Charlotte J. Patterson points out that such anxiety is unfounded, since non-heterosexual orientation was long ago eliminated as a disorder or illness. Still, regardless of whether homosexuality is viewed as a negative outcome for a child, the statistics indicate that children don't necessarily inherit the identical gender and sexual identities of their parents.

Research on kids raised by lesbian couples (data on gay male parenting remains relatively sparse) has found that they conform less to pink-and-blue divided gender roles and stereotypes, but a majority ultimately identify as heterosexual in adulthood [sources: Park, Patterson]. For example, in one 1989 study of adolescents raised by lesbians and heterosexual parents, the only participant to identify as homosexual belonged to a hetero-headed household [source: Patterson].

A controversial 2010 study from Kansas State University family studies professor Walter Schumm did suggest that gay and lesbian parents may sway their children's orientations toward non-heterosexuality [source: Schumm]. In his examination of 262 children of gay fathers and lesbian mothers, the number of those who identified as LGBT spanned from 16 to 57 percent. Schumm's research did, however, come under fire from other academics who criticized the study' small sample size of 262, which may have inadvertently inflated the results [source: Kix].

The idea that same-sex couples raise children and manage households identically to straight parents might seem like something gay parenting advocates would want to preserve, but it simply isn't accurate. And that isn't a negative thing.

Until the early 2000s, research on gay parenting and child development outcomes were largely focused on drawing parallels between LGBT and heterosexual parents as a way to remove sexual orientation as some sort of dangerous ingredient in the complicated stew of child rearing. But, as New York University sociologist Judith Stacey points out, differences don't equate deficiencies in this case [source: Stacey and Biblartz]. Research has highlighted some unique hallmarks of lesbian parenting, including more equal division of chores and childcare and greater parent-child emotional openness [source: Belkin].

Of course, just as not all heterosexual couples make identical decisions and establish uniform household rules, neither do LGBT parents. But since data have clearly demonstrated that kids raised by gay and lesbian parents grow into successful, well-adjusted young adults, parents of all stripes can take away an important lesson: There is more than one road to raising a happy, healthy child.