The week ended for the Prop. 8 trial with Michael Lamb testifying about how studies of children raised by same-sex couples show that the kids are alright: No better and no worse than the kids raised by heterosexual couples.
David H. Thompson had the job of cross-examining Lamb, and I'll leave it to others to discuss some obvious problems. But one thing Thompson kept harping on was the contradictions of older studies -- some relying on data about parenting from the 1950s and 60s -- with newer ones. Lamb began his work in this field in the 1970s with some views that changed by the 1990s, and Thompson refused to believe that the data had changed, suggesting it was Lamb who had.
Any time the 1970s is mentioned, it should ring a bell in any discussion of gay equality. That was a landmark decade, when 20 states repealed their sodomy laws, joining lonely Illinois, which was ahead of the pack back in 1961.
It is too easy to forget or underestimate this context; but it is essential to understanding what is happening today in the courtroom. Sodomy laws were the primary tool government had to actually enforce the silence of the closet. They enshrined in law the cultural misperceptions about homosexuality that pervaded the culture at large. Growing up in this country in the 1960s, and well into the 1970s, people who publicly identified themselves as homosexual were subject to prosecution, fines and actual imprisonment. There is simply no equivalent that heterosexuals had to endure.
And criminal conviction is not the half of it. While the sodomy laws, themselves, were seldom actually enforced, they provided the foundation for police harassment and social ostracism. Again, George Chauncey's testimony does an exemplary job of exploring this. In the face of the existence of such laws, and an almost universal social stigma, the act of coming out was dangerous at worst, but foolhardy in even the best cases. Yes, people knew of homosexuals then - as sexual deviants and perverts and queers. The bravest and most far-thinking lesbians and gay men came out in the 1950s and 60s, but they were literally risking their lives, and certainly their freedom. However they were viewed, it was not as mainstream.
So what kind of data about same-sex parenting would have been available for the years when, in many states, sodomy was still a crime? Obviously, pretty much nothing of value, at least if your goal is to compare how the children of same-sex couples compare to the children of opposite-sex couples. If a gay person wanted or needed to stay in the closet (as the vast majority of lesbians and gay men did), you certainly didn't set up housekeeping with a same-sex partner and your children. The social obliviousness of the time only went so far. Some people who came out had been heterosexually married, and began fighting in the courts for custody of their children, but that was an emotionally wracking experience, particularly for the children. And it was not common.
The 1986 Supreme Court decision in Bowers v. Hardwick affirmed the right of states to criminalize homosexuals, and inflamed the problem. Americans with a predisposition to believing the existing set of prejudices were reinforced: It was entirely acceptable to view homosexuals as criminals - the Supreme Court said so.
But the cultural shift was already in place, and it was the reaction to Bowers by homosexuals that was so important. I know that it got me interested in politics and governance. More important, it finally opened up the conversation about homosexual equality which had been kept captive in the same closet with the rest of us.
So I think it's fair to say that lesbians and gay men who began coming out to themselves and their families in the 1970s and 80s, and forming public relationships that in earlier times would have only confirmed their criminal and/or deviate status, was itself a revolution enough.
But as heterosexual couples were becoming comfortable with their constitutional right to use birth control, and even not to have children at all, homosexual couples began to see the possibility of becoming parents, not just of children from a prior heterosexual marriage one of them might have had, but of their own - whether adopted or by use of the technologies that had been developed for their similarly situated heterosexual counterparts.
It is amazing to me that data about the children of those couples in the 1980s and 1990s is as favorable as it is, given that those children were really the first generation of any size to have grown up with parents of the same sex. I suppose that can be attributed to the dedication of those couples to negotiate both the bureaucratic maze that all parents must go through to adopt or conceive a child with technological assistance, and also the residue of prejudice against them, simply for being homosexual and not ashamed of it. If you want a child that badly, it's a safe bet the child will not lack for parental attention.
It was not until 2003 that the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled that sodomy laws are unconstitutional, and removed the primary legal stigma against homosexuality once and for all. Nevertheless, the social stigmas still remain, as we see again and again.
But now, the legal barriers to coming out are gone. People may
remain in the closet for their own reasons, but they don't need to
fear prosecution by the government.
And that will, itself, bring out even more same-sex couples, and
produce more children of same-sex couples. Those children
shouldn't need to bear the social stigma some people have against
their parents, but that is what some people insist on. That is
their right, but it is not to their credit.
Is it at all likely that the children of same-sex couples who are growing up now will do worse than the generation that preceded them? I think that's unlikely, but I'll leave that to the academics who study such things.
But for legal purposes - for the purposes of the case now in court - it is safe to assume that the data available to the court about the effects of same-sex parenting on children will be the worst-case scenario. Those parents were pioneers. From now on, they'll just be parents.
***CORRECTION*** The original post identified the witness as "Brian" Lamb, when in fact it was Dr. Michael Lamb. I've corrected that in the post. I have no idea what Brian Lamb thinks of studies about same-sex parenting skills, if anything.
6 Comments for “The Kids Are Alright”
posted by Jorge on
Sort of like how Ann Landers’ position on homosexuality is cited and critiqued on this site.
Ah, here we go:
http://www.indegayforum.org/news/show/27002.html
Context is helpful.
posted by Bobby on
The homophobes are always going to find some child of gay parents that became a born-again Christian and hates his family, but that’s just politics. The truth is that gay parents are parents by choice and not by accident, that alone gives them an advantage straight parents don’t always have.
With that said, I think in this economy having children is a luxury, not a necessity. This used to be a great country and then Obama got elected, God help us all.
posted by Josh M. on
Greetings from New York City.
I have a comment out coming out in general during the 1950s and 1960s. I certainly appreciate the fact that it was very difficult to come out in that era, unlike any era in American history (and in some aspects world history) due to the institutionalization of homophobia (think Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover, and even Romania’s Ceaususceau). However, that homphobe was due to people and government thinking of us in terms of pedophiles, sex perverts, and rapists. That was not due loving-committed relationships between two people that only have the ability to love the same gender. Because we have done the hard work of coming out in showing heterosexuals that we are good people, like them, would want a love relationship. The reason why there is so much tolerance and acceptance today is because the pioneers in that time won the thin level of acceptance and tolerance then by blowing away the severe stereotypes of the day. It was rapists, pedophiles, prositutes, and public sexualities that mainly went to prison, not people in private consensual behavior. There were many professionals that were out who didn’t ruin their careers or be harassed by the police (see the excellent books Dishonorable Passions, Sex and Reason, and Homosexuality and Civilization by John Boswell). However, it was very difficult, I concede and coming-out was a hell of a journey at that time. Showing hostile forces in the police and government, that we were no harm to society, was very trying. I just feel it’s melodramatic to say coming out during that time would guarantee “prosecution, fines, and actual imprisonment”. However, public sexual behavior, prostitution including solicitation, pedophilia, and sexual assault (sodomy) guaranteed those things would happen in the 1950s. But guess what, they would guarantee that today anywhere in the world, even for heterosexuals. I concede to the author though, that we were DISPROPORTIONATELY targeted for those aforementioned offenses. Comments on my comment are more than welcomed.
REMEMBER IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY AS GLBT PEOPLE TO CHANGE PERCEPTIONS AND WIN OUR RIGHTS. IT’S NOT FAIR, BUT THAT’S LIFE FOR BETTER OR WORSE.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
The majority of the opposition to marriage equality are themselves quite insulated from a diversified reality.
They cite statistics (much of which is outdated) or methodology of studies that were narrow, or outright distorted (something that occurred when James Dobson used material he distorted and ignored the researchers call to c & d).
Few of them ever talk about actually KNOWING a large enough portion of gay parents or having any relationships with them to either reject or challenge the dry information they try to foment as truth.
I am fortunate enough to know many gay couples with children. Some with biological children from donor friends, but most of their children are adopted.
It’s not unusual of course to see a child not share the same ethnic background as their parents. Sometimes the children that are adopted have serious health or emotional disabilities, which would be considered a challenge off the top. But these children it seems have been reserved for ‘the parents of last resort’ meaning, gay parents.
Who, even despite that, have risen to those challenges in ways that obviously the biological parents who abandoned the children could not.
In my estimation, as well as that of Lamb, it’s true about the children of same sex parents not having sex stereotype attitudes.
But it’s also true of racism, dispassion regarding people with disabilities or chronic illness and the willingness to accept gender variance and homosexuality.
That is to say, that these couples are essentially raising children with less prejudice than their counterparts raised in nuclear, less integrated families.
I remember telling this to a very committed anti gay Catholic woman, that a child raised in a home without racism, sexism, homophobia and lack of compassion for the disabled.
Sounds like a much better future than the past that she and I grew up in.
Her answer?
That those children were still going to grow up immoral.
Right.
This from someone who’s only experience with gay people was from witnessing them denounce their orientation in church.
Indeed, those who argue the most fervently have been considerably isolated and committed in rejecting any experience known first hand about not only being gay, but the damaging effects of discrimination and prejudice as well.
Still, it’s remarkable that the basis of the debate is a concern about child rearing, when being qualified to marry, carries no such interests when you apply to marry.
The parenting issue, because of adoption being legal in so many states. Most obviously because of excessive need to have children in stable homes. And which reveals a subtext that those most committed to keeping gay people from being married, have failed where the needs of children in general aren’t being met.
With nearly all CPS being overwhelmed everywhere, the issue of children living in poverty and epidemic levels and the rates of children in foster care and on welfare in this country: maintaining a stigma against people who don’t procreate (therefore don’t contribute to the CPS burden in general), or one against the gay community for committing to easing some of that burden more than delineates the irrational mindset of the opposition.
posted by Chairm on
David Link and other SSM supporters, would you not support treating SSM as marriage even if studies showed that the outcomes for children fell short for those in families with same-sex parents?
Let’s be brutally honest about that.
You maintain, do you not, that marriage and children are so seperated nowadays that marriage is about the adult-adult relationship first and foremost.
Children are a secondary or tertiary part of family life — even within marriage — according to the pro-SSM arguments, yes?
The assumption you make in your last paragraph is safe because for at least two generations the people in these “same-sex parenting’ scenarios will be pioneers. The evidence won’t be in for about 40-50 years.
Today we have a standard — the benachmark — of the intact low-conflict married household. And against that standard all other arrangements fall short.
The one-sexed scenario has been studied: lone parenting.
The not-intact scenario, also: divorced or estranged parents and broken families.
Even the scenario of third party procreation has been studied extensively (though not yet for two generations).
The same-sex parenting scenario you would make assumptions about has a lot in common with these non-standard examples.
It is safe, from a social science perspective, to assume for now that the same-sex parenting scenario will not meet the benchmark and will compare closely to the nonstandard scenarios.
From the legal perspective, marriage has special status for special reason. That reason is extrinsic to all one-sexed arrangements — sexualized or not.
It makes little sense, really, to assume that same-sex sexual behavior of the adults would make for superior outcomes for children. So this is not really about gayness, sexual orientation, or the stuff that the SSM litigators have been emphasizing.
It is not even about the subjectivity or the feelings of the trial participant who spoke about parenting.
posted by Kris Armstrong on
Hello,
My name is Kris Armstrong, I’m a producer with the Dr. Phil Show. We are currently working on a show about same-sex couples raising children. Dr. Phil would like to speak to a few same-sex couples that have questions about raising their kids. I would really like to speak to you about the possibility of some of your readers participating in our show. For instance, maybe there is a couple that is concerned about their son being bullied because he has two fathers and how they should go about approaching that issue. Or lesbian couples who are having trouble disciplining and are being told that it’s because there’s not a father figure around.
Dr. Phil would like to talk about and set straight some of the misconceptions that are often linked to this touchy subject, in a professional and classy way. If you could give me a call as soon as possible at 323-956-3362, I would really appreciate it. Thank you and I look forward to your response.
Kris Armstrong
Senior Associate Producer
Dr. Phil Show
323-956-3362
kris.armstrong@cbsparamount.com