Leave it to the Family Research Council (FRC), one of America’s most ravenously anti-gay organizations, to draw conclusions about same-sex households where none exist. In a report published by Harvard, which examines upward mobility among children raised in single-family households versus dual-family households, a team of social scientists have concluded that “children growing up in communities with many single parents are less likely to have economic mobility as adults.” By extrapolating these results, the FRC has drawn their own conclusions. This, they claim, “… shows that same-sex marriage will contribute to the same consequences for other children in their communities.”
In a radio discussion with Peter Sprigg and Tony Perkins, they discuss how if A equals B and B equals C than A must equal whatever letter comes to them:
SPRIGG: If a child grows up in a community with married households, that child will do better than a child raised in a community where there are many single-parent households. And this is exactly what I’ve been saying about the marriage issue and so forth: if you redefine marriage, it’s not going to affect just those couples. It’s going to affect the whole community by setting an example.
PERKINS: That’s very interesting Peter because … that study then answers that question of, “How does my same-sex marriage affect yours?” It may not affect my marriage, but it affects my children because it has an impact upon marriage across the board.
Ironically, nowhere in the Harvard study do the authors mention ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian,’ or ‘same-sex household.” Furthermore, no same-sex households were used in the study to draw conclusions about the effects on children growing up in same-sex households.
But that’s never stood in the way of the Family Research Council. In the report on Think Progress, they mention that in a brief filed by the American Psychological Association, National Association of Social Workers, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, American Psychoanalytic Association, and Hawaii Psychological Association, the scholars outline three factors that research has determined leads to good parenting:
The quality of the relationships between parent and child.
The quality of the relationships among adults in the child’s life (such as between the parents).
Available economic resources to support the child’s development (e.g., safer neighborhoods, more nutritious food, etc.).
Naturally, gay men and lesbian couples are at the root of all of this.
