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The other story about same-sex parenting

July 13th, 2010

by Walter R Schumm

Research showing the risks of lesbian and gay parenting is ignored in the race to make a political case.

There is an inherent risk that anyone who has anything to say about gay male or lesbian parenting, no matter how cautious, will be misunderstood at best and vilified at worst. Nevertheless, the mission of a university professor includes seeking new ways to look at old issues, to resist all forms of intimidation, and to ensure that multiple sides of controversial issues are considered. Since there are more voices promoting the virtues of parenting by people defining themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (GLBT), I will present here an alternative, possibly minority, view that focuses on some of the possible risks associated with gay and lesbian parenting.

This is a challenging area. As one hint about the difficulties, consider this: when a group of authors published three articles (two even in the same journal) on data from the same set of lesbian parents about 1980, the two articles reporting favorable outcomes were cited 65 times compared to only two citations for the one article reporting unfavorable outcomes. In other cases, the worse the methodological quality of the research, the more likely it is to have been cited in major reviews of the literature.

The methodological quality of much of the literature is poor. Many studies have not controlled for parental educational and family per-capita income differences between lesbian and heterosexual families. Regardless, between February and June of 2010 no less than three articles have concluded that two lesbian mothers may, on average, tend to be better parents than heterosexual parents (Biblarz & Stacey, 2010; Gartrell & Bos, 2010; Biblarz & Savci, 2010) — quite a controversial position. However, serious concerns remain.

Sexual Fidelity

Research is increasingly clear that many lesbigay partners enter into their versions of a committed relationship with expectations that cheating is acceptable. Some research suggests that gay men have more stable relationships only if cheating is permitted. Michael Bettinger (2006) reported: “An important difference between gay men and heterosexuals is that the majority of gay men in committed relationships are not monogamous”.

Dr. Esther Rothblum has reported that whereas women (lesbian or heterosexual) seldom permit sexual affairs, “40 percent of gay men in civil unions have an agreement that non-monogamy is permitted and over half have had sex outside their current relationship”. If gay marriage means accepting sexual non-monogamy within marriage, we must accept an inherent change in the intrinsic meaning of marriage and ultimately the meaning of responsible parenting.

Relationship Stability and Children

Another issue concerns the relationship between having children and staying together for the sake of the children. Though gay and lesbian couples in some studies appear to have higher quality, more satisfying relationships, they also appear less likely to remain stable when children are involved. Recent studies by Patterson and by Nanette Gartrell in the United States, as well as Scandinavian research, confirm this outcome, even when the GLBT subjects sampled had much higher levels of education than the heterosexual subjects.

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  1. Sara
    July 19th, 2010 at 12:55 | #1

    Two thoughts: 1) is it possible that same-sex male couples are more inclined to be non-monogamous because they are men, and men are, well…men? 2) is it possible that same-sex relationships are less stable because they are not afforded access to the universal institution intended to promote stability and lifelong commitment (marriage)?

    What percentage of heterosexual married couples have “open” and/or non-monogamous relationships? As compared to gay male couples? As compared to lesbian couples? What in the world does that have to do with “responsible parenting” if the kids aren’t told about it?

    In any event, I suspect that the stability of same-sex relationships would improve greatly if we had access to marriage and if our relationships were treated with the same dignity and respect as the relationships of straight people.

    Signed, a monogamous and committed bisexual in a long-term lesbian relationship who has raised one heterosexual daughter thus far and has yet to know the sexual orientation of the younger one because she’s too little.

    P.S. Do we deny marriage rights to straight people because they might cheat on their spouses and/or get divorced?

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