'Gay people should not be allowed to raise children.'

Great Debates
81

Just to let everyone know, I have contacted a Swedish governmental body to request english translations of the following information:

  1. A summary of how/why/when the committee was formed.
  2. Who made up the committee, with short biographys of each (area of
    expertise etc).
  3. English translations of the published documentation of the investigation,
    including hopefully, a summerised conclusion of their findings.

Hope they can help, feels dopey that such a valuable study in terms of independant research should be in such a poorly accessable language… I have also noticed that the links I posted origionally are no longer active… DOH!

82

I am a dithery old woman (well not that old) and am putting in my third post in a row to provide about the only link I could find in english, and also repost some Swedish links. I am not sure the Swedish links are the exact same ones as before…

English press release on Swedish Governments page

Some of the findings … I think…
Scroll down to the bottom of the page, there are 4 links under “Barn i homosexuella familjer” (Kids in gay familys).

I will let you know when I get a reply from the .gov

83

I’m sorry that you haven’t. My experience is different from yours. Many gay people I know, however, have had pretty bad experiences related to being called names, assaulted, or excluded. This may account for the unhappiness you’ve encountered.

I’ve known many, many heterosexual alcoholics or drug addicts, and agree with you that this would not be the ideal home environment for a kid.

Again, this is not my experience, and I probably interact with a lot more gay people than you do. . As I noted above, social stressors based on other people’s responses to gay people can be profound. You might find it interesting to attend a PFLAG meeting and talk to the parents of gay people.

In this the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association (publishers of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, AAMFT, and countless other mental health training, accrediting, and standard-setting professional organixations disagree with you. AMA has disagreed with you since 1973. As a psychologist, I disagree with you. Not all psychologists do, but I am trying to provide a brief answer.

Is this relevant?

This is not borne out by research. As the professional providing or seeing others provide “professional help,” I can assert that this is not generally believed to be true in our professions, nor is it generally the focus of our clinical attention. I do not find data that support the assertion that sexual abuse leads to homosexuality. There is, however, some evidence that children who appear to deviate from the behavior or appearance associated with their gender (which is not the same as being gay, but is sometimes confused with it) are then abused.

Again, not well-supported by the literature. The “ex-gay” movement is fairly reticent to provide data supporting the efficacy of their interventions.

Reasonable people may differ with each other. By setting it up as “picking [you] apart,” you make the process adversarial, and suggest that disagreeing with you is a disagreement ad hominem rather than in response to your ideas. I assume, with the number of points you raised, that you are interested in participating in a dialogue. You do not get to put your cards on the table, as it were, and then assert that if anyone else does so, they are engaged in negative behavior. Since you’re posting on a thread in which a number of people have come out, I would think you’d know that there would be people who would want to make a response to being characterized as unnatural, bitter, or mentally disordered.

84

<hijack>
There is a fun anecdote in Sweden regarding the whole “homosexuality is an mental illness” thing.

As part of the protest towards homosexuality being listed as a mental illness, people started ringing in sick to work. With Swedens social security system this meant that they recieved full benefits, something like 80% of their pay etc. Together with other activist works it was quickly removed from the list of sicknesses. That story always cracks me up :smiley: “Sorry, I can’t come to work this week, I am feeling a little queer” bwahahah
</hijack>

85

Iteki - what a great way to protest. In fact, considering that, I wouldn’t mind if they put it back on the register … :wink:

86

Just a response to Lord Ashtar’s posts.

First, as has been pointed out, there are happy gay men. For some of us, though, it’s difficult.

I was raised with two mentally unstable parents and I got beaten up a lot both at home and at school, and I used to think these experiences made me gay. My parents were very conservative, and my neighbours were almost exclusively fundamentalist Christians. I tried for five years – most of my teenage years – to “go straight.” I thought I was disgusting for being gay.

Finding happiness was a long struggle for me. It involved a lot of long nights thinking and painful questions, a lot of meditation, a lot of time spent staring into an existential void. But now, I have it. Most days, I’m happy with myself and my life. Happier than most of my friends – including my straight friends. I have a sense of purpose, and see my life as having value.

Yes, I’ve known the alcoholics and the drug addicts. Most of them went through the kinds of things I went through, but never pulled themselves up out of the darkness. No one’s saying they should have children – same goes for heterosexuals who have these problems. But those people don’t represent the majority of gays and lesbians. You can’t judge any group by its lost souls.

As for sexual abuse, people who’ve been abused – straight, bi, or gay – are much more aware of their sexuality at a younger age. Gay men who’ve been sexually abused are more likely to come out young. But it’s a mistake to see sexual abuse as “the root cause” of homosexuality – the majority of my gay friends have not experienced it.

87

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

My article pointed to two sets of benefits the children of married couples, straight or (hypothetically) gay receive over the children of unmarried couples of whatever orientation.

The first set are financial. The inability to wed costs a same-sex couple money. Examples include - the denial of certain tax benefits, such as special estate tax treatment and special treatment of transfers and gifts between spouses; the denial of government benefits such as Social Security and veteran’s benefits from from one partner’s account for the other; the inability to sue for wrongful death or the loss of the consortium of the partner; and the inability to take advantage of community property laws of spousal support laws upon dissolution of the couple.
Private sector costs include: denial of insurance coverage under the partner’s insurance and pension plans.
None of these directly benefit the child, but all contribute to the financial situation of the family unit, thus benefitting the child.

The second set are societal benefits.

  1. Social capital - marriage establishes a connection between two families, and both families are formally and morally obligated to aid the children of the marriage. Further, marriage eliminates the stigmata of illegitimacy. Granted, there are stigmata associated with being the child of a gay couple, but they are not mutually exclusive - presumably, there would be greater social stigmata for the child of a gay unmarried couple than the child of a gay married couple.
  2. There is evidence that, in the aggregate, children of married couples have increased cognitive ability and educational achievement. The explanation is that children of married couples are aware of the presumed increased permanency of marriage, and thus turn their focus away from vigilance for signs of trouble between their parents and towards education and development.

Sua