STUDY:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a921700644Hey Conservatives -- Gays Are Better Parents Than YouRecent studies show that the absurd, hateful right-wing propaganda about gay families couldn't be more wrong.
July 16, 2010 |
When I ask 29-year-old Kellen Kaiser if I can get her take on a few new studies demonstrating the benefits to gay parenting, she jokingly warns me that she’s biased.
That isn’t really surprising given the family that the L.A.-based actress and writer grew up in. Born after three lesbian friends decided to co-parent (and one ultimately became pregnant), Kaiser was also raised by her biological mother’s long-term partner, alongside a brother who was the product of a known gay sperm donor.
Though this model of parenting may be unfamiliar to the average American, (and the specifics of this particular family are, of course, not characteristic of the entire LGBT community), to Kaiser, the strengths are obvious. As she says, “I certainly feel like I gained from being exposed to so many different and wonderful adults in my life. I think gay parents are more intentional on the whole than the average straight parent. Parenting is less done on automatic. Gay families tend to reexamine and reform traditions to the particular needs of their families and children.”
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Robert-Jay Green, the executive director of the Rockway Institute for LGBT Psychology & Public Policy has looked at the experiences of gay men who became fathers using gestational or “surrogate” mothers. In April, in a paper published in the Journal of GLBT Family Studies, he and his colleagues reported that gay dads were more likely than straight to put their children before their careers, make significant changes in their lives to accommodate a child, and to strengthen bonds with extended families after becoming parents. He tells me, “The conservative argument is that children raised by gay parents will suffer by virtue of the fact of the parent’s sexual orientation. But there is lots of anecdotal evidence that children raised by gay parents are doing just fine and the central orientation of the parents, in and of itself, has no negative impact on the children.” His upcoming work will focus on translating such anecdotes into research as he studies the psychological outcomes of children raised by heterosexual parents compared to children conceived through surrogacy and raised by gay male parents.
more:
http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/147565/hey_conservatives_--_gays_are_better_parents_than_you/
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