Little Light of Love

I’m not a politician and don’t pretend that I know more about the political arena than the next average joe. From my own soapbox however, logic seems to have little to do with it. Obscene amounts of money are thrown around by various political affiliates in an effort to get you to believe exactly what they believe so that they don’t have to believe what you do. So what I’m about to tell you isn't coming from a political perspective, but one of absolute logic without respect to religion or the political arena.

While listening to someone close to me talk about her day, at one point she stopped to mention the fact that some people close to her had expressed their disgust regarding same-sex relationships. This prompted me to look up some of the latest studies regarding same-sex relationships, particular ones where children are involved. The ability of anyone to take care of and love a child in need is something that I have always believed in, and this is what I learned.

On February 13th, 2013 the American Sociological Association submitted an Amicus Brief, which is a document that is submitted to a court by an individual or group not directly involved in the case, which served two different goals. One was to rebuke known inaccurate research and assertions from a study conducted by Mark Regnerus, and the other was to present and review sound researched backed by well over 100 other social scientists in the field.

Some of the bullet points of the overall brief:

• “...Positive child well being is the product of stability in the relationship between the two parents, stability in the relationship between the parents and child, and greater parental socioeconomic resources.”
• “Some of the studies cited by BLAG and the Proposition 8 Proponents show that stability improves child outcomes, they confirm that marriage rights for same-sex couples and the federal recognition of such marriages are likely to improve the well-being of children of same-sex parents by providing enhanced family stability.”
• Social science research confirms that the academic performance of children raised by same-sex parents is indistinguishable from that of children raised by opposite-sex parents.

Every bit of information in the brief is based upon research that was conducted from several different respected studies, one of which is the NLLFS, or the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study. Beginning in 1986, this study followed about 80 same-sex lesbian families as their children are raised from birth to adulthood. After the child has reached adulthood they compiled the day and found something interesting.

The children that had grown up with and around lesbian parents were just as capable, sometimes more so, than those raised in a primarily heterosexual household. This information is essentially compounded when you look at another study by the Australian Study of Child Health in Same-Sex Families. Their interim report of around 500 families, the largest study of it’s kind, found that “children of same-sex couples scored higher than the national average for overall health and family cohesion...”

The Only downside that could possibly be found is that, depending on the community that these couples live in, is the discrimination from said community. To be honest however, once enough same-sex couples have children, it’ll become the norm and what outrage there is will be a thing of the past. I hope that whomever looks over the studies and information that I have pointed out will see that the benefits of allowing same-sex couples to have children far outweighs the potential downfalls, of which there are none.