In this extremely valuable and superbly researched volume everything you wanted to know about social science research and the issue of homosexual parenting can be found. Research on this topic is relatively new, for the simple reason that having numerous children being raised in same-sex households is relatively new.
But for several decades now many folks have sought to claim that children fare just as well in homosexual households as in heterosexual households – maybe even better. Now a number of studies have appeared on this matter, and many of them take the line that kids are just fine when raised by two homosexuals or two lesbians. This is the “no difference” hypothesis.
Schumm, a professor of family studies at Kansas State University, looks at this research in great detail and shows that much of it is incomplete, skewed, selective, or politicised. Says Schumm, “In this book I will examine and report those outcomes in more detail than have most scholars. The results will show, at the very least, that the situation is more complicated than many have allowed or, at the worst, that much of the way in which the research has been interpreted has been biased in favour of progressive values.”
There are six main parts to this vital volume. In Part 1 Schumm offers a very careful and thorough explanation and assessment of how social science research is done – or should be done. Indeed, one major theme found in this volume is just how much social science research is in fact biased, corrupted and politicised.
He looks in great detail at this, and asks in conclusion just what sort of research is being conducted and what is involved. For example, “Have all relevant variables been measured and tested? Have all subpopulations been studied? Have the best statistical models been tested appropriately?”
Part 2 looks at what we actually know about same-sex parents. He notes how so many numbers have been blown out of the water. Some have even suggested that there are anywhere between 6-28 million children being raised in such households in America!
After a careful and thorough look at the data, as well as the methodology being used, Schumm says that the numbers are much closer to 300,000. Thus some of these estimates have been off by a factor of 50! Once again, politics and ideology seem to trump the facts.
Other chapters focus on family stability in various household types, and the issue of sexual abuse. Concerning the latter, he concludes: “There have been insufficient high quality studies in this area to draw much in the way of firm conclusions about same-sex parents abusing their children, although there is much more evidence that early childhood sexual abuse seems to have occurred frequently in the backgrounds of adult LGBT persons.”
Parts 3 and 4 take a very close look at children in these households and how they fare. The various claims being made about positive outcomes for children raised in same-sex households are meticulously examined, and most are found wanting.
For example, consider the claim often made that having homosexual parents makes no difference in how children develop in terms of sexual preference. Says Schumm, “There are now dozens of studies that appear to refute the ‘no difference’ hypothesis with only a few that do not essentially (in terms of effect sizes, if not statistical significance) refute it.”
As to mental health outcomes and the like for children, again, the claims of “no difference” do not hold up well upon closer examination. Given that so often these conclusions are made simply by asking same-sex parents about the mental health of their children, this is hardly a scientific or objective means of determining such matters.
Until studies routinely control for pre-existing differences between the two groups of parents and control for social desirability, I doubt that we will get to the bottom of this issue. It is not correct scientifically to take a group of highly educated, wealthy, mentally healthy same-sex parents and compare their children to the children of uneducated, poor, mentally ill heterosexual parents and think you have set up a fair comparison.
Part 5 examines the consequences of same-sex marriage. The claim is made that homosexual marriage offers no negative externalities for heterosexuals. Anecdotal evidence here alone should refute that. But plenty of evidence is examined, including how fertility rates are adversely impacted.
Finally, Part 6 offers some concluding thoughts, such as the following:
I am disappointed that many U.S. courts were misled into accepting as valid research, research that was biased, incomplete, and focused on significance levels rather than effects sizes. Numerous studies whose results would have been inconvenient for the ‘no difference’ hypothesis were overlooked or ignored. Research on same-sex parenting has often been cited because it came to the politically correct conclusions, not because it was of the highest quality. In one sense, this book is an attempt to redress that imbalance.
He reminds us that so much of the pro-homosexual, “no difference” research is filled with phrases like “not a single study” and “no evidence” and “uncontroverted scientific evidence” and the like. He calls this “socilese” – it is dogma, not science.
All this has been about the politicisation and dumbing down of social science in the interests of promoting an agenda – in this case the radical homosexual agenda. As a result, “it appears that substantial amounts of ‘fact’ have been ignored or suppressed in the process of moving” this agenda forward.
Schumm has made it clear in this carefully researched book that “scientific consensus” can often be wrong. And he has given us a great amount of social science details to back this up. Indeed, he says it is remarkable that one can “find 90% of over 70 literature reviews having drawn incorrect conclusions about some aspects of same-sex parenting”.
And after this exhaustive examination of nearly 400 studies on same-sex parenting, the bottom-line truth is this: “There do appear to be significant and substantial differences between same-sex and heterosexual parents and in the long-term outcomes of their children, contrary to many, many allegations by numerous social scientists over the past decades.”
(This book is available from the publisher: https://www.christianconcern.com/wilberforce-publications )
9 Replies to “A Review of Same-Sex Parenting Research: A Critical Assessment. By Walter R. Schumm.”
Absolutely. The way people who have produced objective studies have been demonized is absolutely outrageous. It just reaffirms how the media and TV and the like can create a false image in people’s minds and how they will then go on to act, often aggressively, on those implanted ideas and this should alarm people hugely but most, very obviously, are asleep to the problem. When Judge Michael Posner, in the US, absolutely and point blank refused to even allow arguments against redefining marriage on the basis that it must have been bigoted, this was one of the worst cases of prejudicial judging I have seen in my life and I have definitely seen some prejudiced judges, but this was no different to the way the case against redefining marriage was repeatedly shut down by the media and most concerningly by the public media who have a mandate (as do judges) to not be prejudiced. The whole system of society, that the Judeo/Christian ethic has set up, fails when you refuse to allow debate as happened in the marriage redefinition debacle.
Regarding the very obviously poor and prejudiced studies that claim to show “no difference” I remember one sharp commentator noting that none of these studies would have even shown anything had every child who was raised by homosexuals had an arm amputated. The fact is it is very easy to not find problems when you are deliberately coming from a mindset that does not want to find problems. The fact that so many of these studies were based on what the homosexuals claimed themselves should, at very least, have set off alarm bells but apparently not. There was not even the slightest effort to allow a free debate of these matters or a reasoned assessment of the many studies that showed different results, that were clearly based on objective evidence, to the overwhelming number of poor studies that were initiated from a biased foundation and had very obvious flaws, poor sample sizes and selection methods, easily passed criteria for determining “no difference”, wrong assessment of whether the children were in fact raised by homosexuals, wrongly comparing the best of homosexual situations with the worst of heterosexual etc. etc. . As far as the brainwashed people were concerned anything a homosexual said about homosexuality was absolutely correct and anything anyone said against homosexuality must have been bigoted and so should be immediately ignored. How can you possible come to truth with that approach? Would you also claim that anything a drug addict said about drugs was also absolutely correct and any criticisms were just bigotry? Would that allow you to come to the truth of the matter?
What I also hated is the way biased journalists such in the NY Times would quote large numbers of children when asked about their “parents” because, of course, the first thing that children would say in those circumstances would be positive but as soon as the children started to go into more depth and detail they would be cut off and those statements, which of course would have been difficult for the children to bring out anyway, were simply shut down before the children could mention the whole truth of the matter and anything that was not positive. By repeating these small and unrepresentative snippets, they, of course, created an absolutely false impression which, of course, was the intent of the articles in the first place. There was never the slightest effort to delve into the actual truth of the matter, just a superficial perspective just like the Queensland ABC’s assessment of what they claimed were the ideal homosexual parents of Mark J Newton and Peter Truong.
You are spot on once again, Bill. During the lead up to the “Yes/No” vote last year, one of the LGBQT!’s minion organisations, the AMA released their policy supporting the “Yes” vote.
They supported their opinion that there were no dangers to children raised in these situations by citing a flawed research study by the Australian Institute of Family Studies into the outcome for children brought up by same sex couples.
An objective review of that study rightly described it as “tendentious and mendacious”.
Thanks Bill. Michael has certainly said a mouthful here, in the positive sense of the word.
Great article Bill,
I would say the bottom line truth is that there is a terribly skewed bias in social science research, adding to the increasing problem of shoddy science in general. Scientists not understanding basic, but important statistics is one of the main culprits.
As your article says, over 90% of articles found in a literature review are wrong in at least some key points.
This is just so frustrating. It’s a tough situation to try to educate Christian’s especially of the value of science, but also of the pitfalls and the biases inherent in the scientific establishment, especially on politicised issues, or issues that have a greater worldview implication (like evolutionary biology and cosmology).
Same sex parenting deliberately denies and deprives children of their natural right to have both a mother and a father. Every child needs both a mother and a father and every child especially needs a same sex parent. The same sex parent is the most important parent and role model in a child’s life, because that is the parent that the child grows up knowing how to be the sex that they are from. A boy needs his father to teach him and show him how to be a man, and a girl needs her mother to teach her and show her how to be a woman.
I can’t find the book at that link. please help.
I couldn’t see anything about a book on same-sex parenting on their website.
Thanks guys. I am told that soon the links will be up and the book will be available.
Absolutely. The way people who have produced objective studies have been demonized is absolutely outrageous. It just reaffirms how the media and TV and the like can create a false image in people’s minds and how they will then go on to act, often aggressively, on those implanted ideas and this should alarm people hugely but most, very obviously, are asleep to the problem. When Judge Michael Posner, in the US, absolutely and point blank refused to even allow arguments against redefining marriage on the basis that it must have been bigoted, this was one of the worst cases of prejudicial judging I have seen in my life and I have definitely seen some prejudiced judges, but this was no different to the way the case against redefining marriage was repeatedly shut down by the media and most concerningly by the public media who have a mandate (as do judges) to not be prejudiced. The whole system of society, that the Judeo/Christian ethic has set up, fails when you refuse to allow debate as happened in the marriage redefinition debacle.
Regarding the very obviously poor and prejudiced studies that claim to show “no difference” I remember one sharp commentator noting that none of these studies would have even shown anything had every child who was raised by homosexuals had an arm amputated. The fact is it is very easy to not find problems when you are deliberately coming from a mindset that does not want to find problems. The fact that so many of these studies were based on what the homosexuals claimed themselves should, at very least, have set off alarm bells but apparently not. There was not even the slightest effort to allow a free debate of these matters or a reasoned assessment of the many studies that showed different results, that were clearly based on objective evidence, to the overwhelming number of poor studies that were initiated from a biased foundation and had very obvious flaws, poor sample sizes and selection methods, easily passed criteria for determining “no difference”, wrong assessment of whether the children were in fact raised by homosexuals, wrongly comparing the best of homosexual situations with the worst of heterosexual etc. etc. . As far as the brainwashed people were concerned anything a homosexual said about homosexuality was absolutely correct and anything anyone said against homosexuality must have been bigoted and so should be immediately ignored. How can you possible come to truth with that approach? Would you also claim that anything a drug addict said about drugs was also absolutely correct and any criticisms were just bigotry? Would that allow you to come to the truth of the matter?
What I also hated is the way biased journalists such in the NY Times would quote large numbers of children when asked about their “parents” because, of course, the first thing that children would say in those circumstances would be positive but as soon as the children started to go into more depth and detail they would be cut off and those statements, which of course would have been difficult for the children to bring out anyway, were simply shut down before the children could mention the whole truth of the matter and anything that was not positive. By repeating these small and unrepresentative snippets, they, of course, created an absolutely false impression which, of course, was the intent of the articles in the first place. There was never the slightest effort to delve into the actual truth of the matter, just a superficial perspective just like the Queensland ABC’s assessment of what they claimed were the ideal homosexual parents of Mark J Newton and Peter Truong.
You are spot on once again, Bill. During the lead up to the “Yes/No” vote last year, one of the LGBQT!’s minion organisations, the AMA released their policy supporting the “Yes” vote.
They supported their opinion that there were no dangers to children raised in these situations by citing a flawed research study by the Australian Institute of Family Studies into the outcome for children brought up by same sex couples.
An objective review of that study rightly described it as “tendentious and mendacious”.
Thanks Bill. Michael has certainly said a mouthful here, in the positive sense of the word.
Great article Bill,
I would say the bottom line truth is that there is a terribly skewed bias in social science research, adding to the increasing problem of shoddy science in general. Scientists not understanding basic, but important statistics is one of the main culprits.
As your article says, over 90% of articles found in a literature review are wrong in at least some key points.
This is just so frustrating. It’s a tough situation to try to educate Christian’s especially of the value of science, but also of the pitfalls and the biases inherent in the scientific establishment, especially on politicised issues, or issues that have a greater worldview implication (like evolutionary biology and cosmology).
Same sex parenting deliberately denies and deprives children of their natural right to have both a mother and a father. Every child needs both a mother and a father and every child especially needs a same sex parent. The same sex parent is the most important parent and role model in a child’s life, because that is the parent that the child grows up knowing how to be the sex that they are from. A boy needs his father to teach him and show him how to be a man, and a girl needs her mother to teach her and show her how to be a woman.
I can’t find the book at that link. please help.
I couldn’t see anything about a book on same-sex parenting on their website.
Thanks guys. I am told that soon the links will be up and the book will be available.
Amazon now has it:
https://www.amazon.com/Same-Sex-Parenting-Research-Critical-Assessment/dp/099568328X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538209288&sr=8-1&keywords=Same-Sex+Parenting+Research