Comment & Debate
“Case No. S147999 in the Supreme Court of the State of California, In re Marriage Cases Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding No. 4365, Application for leave to file brief amici curiae in support of the parties challenging the marriage exclusion, and brief amici curiae of the American Psychological Association, California Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, National Association of Social Workers, and National Association of Social Workers, California Chapter in support of the parties challenging the marriage exclusion”: “Although it is sometimes asserted in policy debates that heterosexual couples are inherently better parents than same-sex couples, or that the children of lesbian or gay parents fare worse than children raised by heterosexual parents, those assertions find no support in the scientific research literature.”
“When comparing the outcomes of different forms of parenting, it is critically important to make appropriate comparisons. For example, differences resulting from the number of parents in a household cannot be attributed to the parents’ gender or sexual orientation. Research in households with heterosexual parents generally indicates that – all else being equal – children do better with two parenting figures rather than just one. The specific research studies typically cited in this regard do not address parents’ sexual orientation, however, and therefore do not permit any conclusions to be drawn about the consequences of having heterosexual versus nonheterosexual parents, or two parents who are of the same versus different genders.”
Brief presented to the Legislative House of Commons Committee on Bill C38 By the Canadian Psychological Association June 2, 2005.: “Beliefs that gay and lesbian adults are not fit parents, or that the psychosocial
development of the children of gay and lesbian parents is compromised, have no
basis in science. Our position is based on a review representing approximately
50 empirical studies and at least another 50 articles and book chapters and does
not rest on the results of any one study. These articles appear in such journals
as Developmental Psychology, the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry,
the American Psychologist, the Marriage and Family Review, the American
Journal of Orthopsychiatry, and the journals of Family Relations, Sex Roles, and
Social Work. An annotated bibliography on the topic can be found on the
website of the American Psychological Association
http://www.apa.org/pi/parent.html”
“Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Relationships in the United States : A social science perspective.” American Psychologist. 2006: “Despite considerable variation in the quality of their samples, research design, measurement methods, and data analysis techniques, the findings to date have been remarkably consistent. Empirical research to date has consistently failed to find linkages between children’s well-being and the sexual orientation of their parents. If gay, lesbian, or bisexual parents were inherently less capable than otherwise comparable heterosexual parents, their children would evidence problems regardless of the type of sample. This pattern clearly has not been observed. Given the consistent failures in this research literature to disprove the null hypothesis, the burden of empirical proof is on those who argue that the children of sexual minority parents fare worse than the children of heterosexual parents.”
“How Does the Gender of Parents Matter?” Journal of Marriage and Family. 2010: “No research supports the widely held conviction that the gender of parents matters for child well-being.”