Precisely. Nobody is saying otherwise.
Except for Focus on the Family.
Hardly. No distinction needs to be made because the issue is marriage not homosexuality. The study shows the benefits of a stable family unit under formal marriage. That’s the whole point. The conclusion is that gay families are hurt by not having access to marriage. This is the exact opposite conclusion that FoF was trying to trick Congress into believing.
At least that what I think happened. Maybe I’m the one that is confused.
The study (PDF) says:
The data from the study includes 4,246 “nuclear families,” and was drawn from surveys conducted from 2001-2007. (Ibid, page 2)
The first legal same-sex marriages were in 2003, in Massachusetts. Subsequent years did bring other states on the list of possible same-sex marriage locations, but considering the years of the study, does anyone here genuinely believe that of those 4,246 nuclear families, even one was a same-sex married household?
That’s one possible conclusion.
Of course, the FoF could equally well contend that same-sex households are so poisonous to the well-being of children that if they had been included, the numbers would show a marked decline.
So no – we don’t know (from this study) that gay families are hurt by not having access to marriage, any more than we know gay families would produce some sort of negative effect in a similar study. The study simply doesn’t address the point.
It doesn’t really matter. The claim by FoF is that this study proves that marriage between a man and a woman is the best way to raise a child. Since marriage was not defined in that manner, if there were no gay couples in the study, it doesn’t prove anything at all about gay marriage. If there were gay couples in the study, the variable either wasn’t studied, or wasn’t statistically significant.
I think in order for your suppositions to have validity, you must first show that homosexual households differ in a dramatic way from heterosexual households. (I mean beyond the same-sex, opposite-sex point.)
You are assuming there is a difference.
Statistically, without running a study (a good one, child outcome is a very complicated topic), you can’t say whether they are different populations or not.
But here is the thing…the status quo for children in gay households is cohabitating gay households - not hetero households. What you need to measure to prove gay marriage is bad is that kids raised in households where their two dads (or two moms) do worse than kids raised in households where their gay dads (or moms) are single, promiscuous, or cohabitating. Gay parents are not going to go out and marry persons of the opposite gender and have normal hetero marriages just for the kids (that ship sailed twenty years ago for most gay people). Nor do I think its likely that gay people are going to suddenly stop reproducing and adopting.
And they probably will. As long as they make clear that is their supposition, and not that of the authors of the study, that’s fine.
When they assert the study draws any such conclusion, that is a falsehood.
Are all bigots stupid too?
I mean, don’t they know that everyone who is against them has to be a Democrat and that there’s no such thing as a bad Republican? What’s that “R” doing after Franken’s name, then?
(And, it would be much, much cooler if it was the Paul Stanley from KISS. I mean Alice Cooper is an evangelical Christian but that still doesn’t detract one iota from his coolness, it’d be kind of cool if Paul Stanley was one and was still the KISS member we all know and love.)
I’d lay you money, no. Bigotry will always be among us. If you’re in Europe or many other countries where religion is not as important to people as it is in the US, then homophobia will definitely be significantly reduced in your lifetime, but bigotry of all shapes and sizes will always be alive in the US if people refuse to think critically. (Note that this is not a bash on religion, I happen to be deeply religious myself. But I also have a brain and take my religion’s teachings of doing as much good as you can to others, especially if they are different from you, and moreso if they are shunned by society, to heart.)
They don’t, as far as I can tell, but the argument was that they do. That’s the whole kit and caboodle. The FotF folks were trying to prove that straight couples were somehow better for families than gay couples, so in their estimation, homosexual households do “differ in a dramatic way from heterosexual households.” Their evidence sucked dick, which is why we are here, but their point (however flawed) is that same-sex couples are fundamentally different and/or inferior to opposite-sex.
Good fuck - no he’s not. The FotFuckers are. Please don’t pretend that just because you don’t agree with someone’s point that you can’t see what it is. FotF was attempting to prove that opposite-sex couples were… you know what? I’m going to bed.
Well first I’m taking a night cap, then I’m going to bed.
Right, so all you can say is that the study offers no evidence that gay parents are better or worse than straight parents. What I am questioning is the assumption that we can’t say gays are as good as straights as parenting. I mean, that seems like the null hypothesis here to me and proof would be needed for the claims of inferiority or superiority.
From the study:
Nuclear family - married parents, bio & adopted kids
Single parent family - one adult + kid(s)
Unmarried bio/adopted family - two non-married adults; both bio or adoptive parents of all kids in family
Blended family - married parents, both adults not bio or adoptive parents of all kids
Cohabiting family - unmarried parents, both adults not bio or adoptive parents of all kids
Extended family - parents of various types plus adult non-parent family member
"Other" family - something else
Data was collected from 2001 to 2007. During those years, Massachusetts was the only state in which gay marriage was legal. I’m willing to bet that there are gay couples represented in this data, but they’re not in the nuclear category. They’re probably in the “unmarried bio/adoptive family” or “cohabiting family” categories. Both of those groups fare considerably worse in the outcome measures reported.
However, the results in this report are strictly cross-tabulations. There’s no multivariate analysis. Frankly, I wouldn’t use this report to support the argument that marriage benefits the children of heterosexual couples. It’s not like marriage is a randomly-assigned event; the people who end up in nuclear families look very different from people who end up in other family types on so very many factors that are probably correlated with child health outcomes.
So, basically, there’s no way to even hint at causality here. Kids in nuclear families do better, but whether that’s because of marriage is still an open question.
An end to a lack of civil rights for LGB people, perhaps. And end to the bigotry that we face? No, I don’t think so. No more so than civil rights legislation of the 60s caused the end of racism.
Well, I don’t know if he did, or not. When was the study? At the time of said study, the word ‘marriage’ may have generally meant ‘opposite sex,’ since it may have been before same sex marriages were validated in the US.
So, from the video, the guy may have been correct, and Franken a tool. Can’t say, tho.
Best wishes,
hh
Yes, in fact we can say with complete certainty that the Focus on the Family guy was wrong! Look, if there were no gay couples in the study, how can you conclude that the study says anything about their parenting?
This was mentioned briefly back on page one, by raventhief, but I’ll mention it again for the page two crowd:
The lead author of the study has stated that Franken was correct in his take on things:
Therefore, according to the study’s lead author, it is unreasonable to assume that the study’s claim (that children of married couples fare better than children of non-married couple) refers solely to the outcome for straight married couples and thus, FoF was incorrect to make that assumption and then use their assumption as an argument against gay marriage.
And yes, given that the lead author has stated publicly that gay couples were not excluded, I can say that I genuinely believe that at least one of the 4246 “nuclear family” couples was gay and legally married.
So “career politicians” are not so bad? And those actors and talk show hosts running for office should just pick one or the other?
Exit dodge immediately. Your claim that the study concludes gay families are hurt by not having access to marriage is hilarious blend of wishful thinking and all-out nonsense. It makes no attempt to even tangentially discuss that topic, let alone draw conclusions about it. You’re getting Thomas Minnery crazy by pretending it says something that it doesn’t.
Yup.
Yup.
Twenty says I’m right. Bigotry will always be among us, but I predict that by the end of my lifetime – let’s say July 22nd, 2041 – anti-SSM laws will be considered as quaint as anti-miscegenation laws are today. SSM will be legal in at least 48 states by then.
Do we have a bet?