Same Sex Marriage - UK takes a step forward...

[_Res Ipsa]

Subgenius, show me the studies to which you refer. Otherwise, you're just pulling stuff out of your nether regions.

[_subgenius]

then it won't take you long to find one study to cite (unless you're full of crap).

laziness is so often the harbinger of the uninformed and poor opinion.
here let me drag you from the cave.....babysteps

http://www.clasp.org/admin/site/publica ... s/0086.pdf
http://www.heritage.org/research/report ... doesnt-say

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 9X12000610
http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/u ... thor/30594

http://csd.wustl.edu/Publications/Docum ... havior.pdf
http://papers.ccpr.ucla.edu/papers/PWP- ... 08-022.pdf

[_subgenius]

Subgenius, show me the studies to which you refer. Otherwise, you're just pulling stuff out of your nether regions.

unlike your post, i mostly relied on facts for this topic....i would have guessed that you, of all people, would at least be informed about a topic before you threw your hat in the ring.
you asking for the references, like palerobber, has revealed that you have been unaware of the majority of the science on this matter. And, yes, you will surely find a few LGBT funded studies (more like press releases) that present a bias and quasi-scientific view in their favor - all of which have been created in recent time and politically calculated, but most of which have already been discounted by real scientists....but, here is a primer for you to get started.
viewtopic.php?p=683615#p683615

[_Res Ipsa]

Subgenius, show me the studies to which you refer. Otherwise, you're just pulling stuff out of your nether regions.

unlike your post, i mostly relied on facts for this topic....i would have guessed that you, of all people, would at least be informed about a topic before you threw your hat in the ring.
you asking for the references, like palerobber, has revealed that you have been unaware of the majority of the science on this matter. And, yes, you will surely find a few LGBT funded studies (more like press releases) that present a bias and quasi-scientific view in their favor - all of which have been created in recent time and politically calculated, but most of which have already been discounted by real scientists....but, here is a primer for you to get started.
viewtopic.php?p=683615#p683615

It's amazing (and pretty funny) how you make the same mistake every time: assuming that when I ask you a question it's because I'm uninformed. I ask you because, when you are forced to move beyond sweeping generalizations, your evidence and arguments generally suck.

In science, there are articles known as literature reviews. If we want to know what the general results are in a given field, that's a good place to start. Here's one from the Australian Psychological Society -- hardly an LGBT funded organization -- that is six years old -- hardly a recent creation for purely political purposes. http://www.psychology.org.au/Assets/Fil ... Review.pdf And it shows that your characterization of the general field of study (let alone getting down to specific articles), is woefully off the mark.

And since we're getting down to the nitty gritty, who are the "real scientists" to which you refer?

[_ludwigm]

Subgenius, show me the studies to which you refer. Otherwise, you're just pulling stuff out of your nether regions.

... nether ...

[off]
The Netherlands is a geographically low-lying country, with about 20% of its area and 21% of its population located below sea level.
3 of my 20 grandchildren (no, I don't boast...) live there. In Woudrichem, they are 2,1 m below sea level. Their house is 8,0 m high...
[/off]

[_Res Ipsa]

Subgenius, show me the studies to which you refer. Otherwise, you're just pulling stuff out of your nether regions.

... nether ...

[off]
The Netherlands is a geographically low-lying country, with about 20% of its area and 21% of its population located below sea level.
3 of my 20 grandchildren (no, I don't boast...) live there. In Woudrichem, they are 2,1 m below sea level. Their house is 8,0 m high...
[/off]

My apologies for indirectly impugning your grandchildren. I hope they are keeping their feet dry.

[_ludwigm]

Up to now...

[Guest]

laziness is so often the harbinger of the uninformed and poor opinion.
here let me drag you from the cave.....babysteps

http://www.clasp.org/admin/site/publica ... s/0086.pdf
http://www.heritage.org/research/report ... doesnt-say

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 9X12000610
http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/u ... thor/30594

http://csd.wustl.edu/Publications/Docum ... havior.pdf
http://papers.ccpr.ucla.edu/papers/PWP- ... 08-022.pdf

You claim:

"the overwhelming majority of studies that conclude with same sex couples being less effective and less beneficial for a child when compared to the child's biological parents."

Can you please show us where any of these articles you linked to conclude that same sex couples are "less effective and less beneficial for a child when compared to the child's biological parents"?

I did find this in one of your articles:

"By contrast, the current debate over same-sex marriage is not anchored in sound research, and data on the consequences of children being brought up by same-sex couples remains scarce. Same-sex couples with children constitute a new form of household that has not been carefully studied. Nor has the objective of this policy discussion been clearly defined as the interest of children or the future of the nation's families."

Hmmm, so you decided to ignore "the overwhelming majority of studies that conclude with same sex couples being less effective and less beneficial for a child when compared to the child's biological parents" in favor of the links you provided?...I also enjoy how you linked to an extract of an article (which doesn't support what you claim above) and then to a newspaper article about how the author didn't purposely falsify the data but then goes on to explain that a detailed audit will be published because his findings were based on "questionable evidence" and misleading data...

[_Res Ipsa]

Okay, subgenius was kind enough to provide us with six citations. Let's see what we've got.

http://www.clasp.org/admin/site/publica ... s/0086.pdf



This is a Research/Policy paper for the Center for Law and Social Policy. Their interest is in policy that assists low income people. A quick trip through their web page didn't turn up any advocacy for or against marriage equality.

Here's what the paper has to say about same sex-families and children:

Although the research on these families has limitations, the findings are consistent: children raised by same-sex parents are no more likely to exhibit poor outcomes than children raised by divorced heterosexual parents.41 Since many children raised by gay or lesbian parents have undergone the divorce of their parents, researchers have considered the most appropriate comparison group to be children of heterosexual divorced parents.42 Children of gay or lesbian parents do not look different from their counterparts raised in heterosexual divorced families regarding school performance, behavior problems, emotional problems, early pregnancy, or difficulties finding employment.43 However, as previously indicated, children of divorce are at higher risk for many of these problems than children of married parents.

This makes sense. Because same sex couples have been until recently prohibited from marrying, the typical scenario for a child being raised by a gay or lesbian parent has involved an opposite sex marriage followed by divorce. So, the apples apples comparison is between children raised by gay and lesbian parents and children raised by a divorced heterosexual parent. And, according to this paper cited by Subgenius, there is no difference.

Often, information contained in the footnotes is important to the study. Subgenius places great emphasis on studies finding that the best environment for children is being raised by two biological parents. That should raise the question, what about adoptive parents? The answer is in footnote 1.

1 The reference to biological parents is to distinguish between biological/adoptive parents and step-parents. Most studies that include data on adoptive parents include them in the biological-parent category. Adopted children have very similar outcomes to children raised by both biological parents. Zill, N. (1995, May 10). Adopted Children in the United States. Testimony before the Human Resources Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, U.S. Congress.

So, the fact that a child is biologically related to the parents is irrelevant. Functionally, married people of the same sex who decide to raise a child are not materially distinguishable from married people of the opposite sex who decide to adopt. They certainly are not comparable to a gay or lesbian who enters into an opposite sex marriage, has a child, gets divorced and raises the child.

Here's the article's conclusion:

Research indicates that, on average, children who grow up in families with both their biological parents in a low-conflict marriage are better off in a number of ways than children who grow up in single-, step- or cohabiting-parent households. Compared to children who are raised by their married parents, children in other family types are more likely to achieve lower levels of education, to become teen parents, and to experience health, behavior, and mental health problems. And children in single- and cohabiting-parent families are more likely to be poor. This being said, most children not living with married, biological parents grow up without serious problems.

In individual situations, marriage may or may not make children better off, depending on whether the marriage is “healthy” and stable. Marriage may also be a proxy for other parental characteristics that are associated with relationship stability and positive child outcomes. The legal basis and public support involved in the institution of marriage helps to create the most likely conditions for the development of factors that children need most to thrive—consistent,8 stable, loving attention from two parents who cooperate and who have sufficient resources and support from two extended families, two sets of friends, and society. Marriage is not a guarantee of these conditions, however, and these conditions exist in other family circumstances, but they are less likely to.

The article says nothing about what marriage equality would permit: the chance for same sex couples to raise children within the institution of marriage. In fact, the paper implicitly supports same sex marriage because of the benefits the marriage relationship itself.


http://www.heritage.org/research/report ... doesnt-say

This is a policy paper by a former senior director of family studies at the Family Research Council published by a conservative think tank. The author holds degrees in French and Statecraft. A quick perusal of the Heritage site shows the organization to be solidly opposed to marriage equality. The paper simply takes some information from demographic data and draws conclusions without any analysis of data. None of the data involve children raised by same sex parents. It's purely a political position paper, and not scientific research.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 9X12000610

Here's the abstract:

The New Family Structures Study (NFSS) is a social-science data-collection project that fielded a survey to a large, random sample of American young adults (ages 18–39) who were raised in different types of family arrangements. In this debut article of the NFSS, I compare how the young-adult children of a parent who has had a same-sex romantic relationship fare on 40 different social, emotional, and relational outcome variables when compared with six other family-of-origin types. The results reveal numerous, consistent differences, especially between the children of women who have had a lesbian relationship and those with still-married (heterosexual) biological parents. The results are typically robust in multivariate contexts as well, suggesting far greater diversity in lesbian-parent household experiences than convenience-sample studies of lesbian families have revealed. The NFSS proves to be an illuminating, versatile dataset that can assist family scholars in understanding the long reach of family structure and transitions.

This study is fatally flawed. After it was published, the author admitted that it only included two children who had been raised continuously by a lesbian parent. It failed to account for the differences between two-parent homes and single parent homes, which we already know has an impact on outcomes. It's like taking the data on women, smoking, and lung cancer and concluding that being a woman causes cancer.


http://chronicle.com/blogs/percolator/u ... thor/30594

This is an article about the Regnerus paper. There was an inquiry into whether Regnerus was guilty of scientific misconduct, which found he was not. However, the journal that published the article had it audited. The audit was highly critical, and the editor viewed its publication as a failure of peer review. The bottom line is, however, that Regnerus's article tells us nothing about children raised by same sex parents.

http://csd.wustl.edu/Publications/Docum ... havior.pdf

This is a "Research Background Paper" for the Center for Social Development at Washington University at St. Louis. It was written as background for research into "Children Youth Savings Accounts." It cites a couple different studies, but is clearly not an attempt to survey the relevant scientific literature. It contains no original research and does not appear to have been for publication.

Nothing in the paper addresses children raised by same sex parents. It does quote a book that compared children of intact families to children of divorced parents:

McLanahan and Sandefur (1994) focus on the benefits of growing up in a home with both biological parents. Analyzing four nationally representative datasets, the authors find that children who grow up in a household with a single parent are worse off, on average, than children who grow up with both of their biological parents, controlling for most things (race, parental education, remarriage).

http://papers.ccpr.ucla.edu/papers/PWP- ... 08-022.pdf[/quote]

This is a paper written for publication by the California Center for Population Research. It takes data previously used to compare child well-being in continuously married families versus single parent and step-parent families, and adds parental conflict as a variable. It concludes:

Should parents stay together for the sake of the children? Children tend to fare better with both married parents, but mean differences in child well-being mask important variation. Despite caveats concerning potential underestimates of conflict, we find that children from high conflict married-parent families do more poorly in the domains of schooling and substance use, and are at greater risk of early family formation and dissolution, relative to children from low conflict married-parent families. In half of our outcomes, high conflict, stepfather, and single- mother families are statistically indistinguishable in their associations with young adult well- being. These findings hold once account is taken of key mechanisms posited to link family type and child outcomes. They are consistent with recent research on marriage and the well-being of adults, showing that although marriage confers benefits to adults on average, those in poor quality marriages are no better off than the single and, indeed, may fare worse on some measures
13 Harsh parenting behaviors are asked with respect to all children in the household at NSFH1, but specifically with respect to the focal child at NSFH2. 34
(Hawkins & Booth, 2005; Williams & Umberson, 2004). We conclude with the perhaps obvious point that marriage is not a blanket prescription for the well-being of children, any more than it is for the well-being of adults. Recent policy initiatives to promote marriage need to take account of how variation within marriage relates to child well-being.

Nothing in the study addresses children raised by same sex parents.

So, here is Subgenius's claim:

The simple example is how same-sex relationships currently impact family law combined with the fact that the overwhelming majority of studies that conclude with same sex couples being less effective and less beneficial for a child when compared to the child's biological parents.

Out of an "overwhelming majority of studies," he went 0-6. Given the outcome comparisons between children continuously raised by two married parents as opposed to two cohabiting parents, the data imply that permitting persons of the same sex to marry would benefit children.

[_moksha]

Can a believing member of the Church now in good conscience vote for any of the major political parties given all their Leaders support for this bill?

They must now engage in prayer till the leaders of Great Britain see the errors of their ways and reinstitute Sharia Law. The Church will not be mocked.