Studies on the Effects of Same-Sex Parentage on Children

With respect to the recent exchange of views on same-sex marriage and parenthood here, here, here and here, I agree that a through understanding of the facts should inform how the law is crafted, going forward.  The problem, however, to which Rob Vischer alludes, is that the effects of same-sex parentage on children are far from clear, a point made by MOJ friend and alumna Helen Alvare in her article The Turn Toward the Self in the Law of Marriage & Family: Same-Sex Marriage & Its Predecessors, 16 Stan. L. & Pol’y Rev. 135 (2005).  The article as a whole is well worth reading.  With respect to same-sex parenting, here’s an excerpt (from pp. 179-180, footnotes omitted):

 

 

“The most sound conclusion about gay parenting, reached not only by supporters of traditional marriage, but also by those of gay marriage, is that we do not know the ultimate effects on children of long-term rearing in gay couple households, with or without marriage, with a few possible exceptions. One set of researchers concluded that daughters raised by lesbians will likely have more sexual partners before adulthood and that males and females reared by lesbians are more likely to experiment with or consider homosexuality themselves.  As to additional effects of gay marriage on children, the research is quite incomplete.

 

 

“The most thorough reviews of existing studies on gay parenting are by Steven Nock, an eminent sociology professor at the University of Virginia (submitted as an affidavit in the Ontario, Canada, same-sex marriage case and by two University of Chicago sociologists, Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai.  Nock's study states: 'Let me begin by noting that the central question, that is, what effect does gay and lesbian marriage have on children in such unions, cannot be answered at the moment.'  He proceeds to assert that '[a]ll of the articles [about the well-being of children raised in gay households] I reviewed contained at least one fatal flaw of design or execution. Not a single one was conducted according to generally accepted standards of scientific research.'

 

  

“Similarly, Professors Lerner and Nagai have also called into serious question the relatively brief and sanguine conclusions of the courts about the research presented to them on gay parenting. Professors Lerner and Nagai reviewed forty-nine existing studies supporting the ‘no difference’ theory between heterosexual and homosexual parenting and found the following: recurring methodological flaws; failure to use testable hypotheses; lack of control methods; unrepresentative study populations; self-selected sample groups; and use of negative hypotheses (for example, the ‘no difference’ hypotheses) which are easier to prove than positive hypotheses.

  

 

“Two

University

of

Michigan

researchers sympathetic to gay marriage also published a revealing look at existing favorable studies in 2001. Professors Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz critiqued twenty-one studies claiming positive outcomes for gay parenting, concluding that ‘there are no studies of child development based on random, representative samples’ of same-sex households.  Occasionally, one finds a study that acknowledges its own flaws, but more often, as reported by Lerner and Nagai, the ‘no difference’ result is reported without nuance.”