Opponents of the ELCA ministry policies that allow gay clergy frequently trumpet the Reformation cry Sola Scriptura. The WordAlone Ministries bases its name on this slogan, and ELCA critics decry any other influence in ethical discernment beyond strict application of Biblical law. Such critics conveniently overlook Luther’s own two-pronged analytical approach–“the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason”–to inform conscience. One expects that the Lutheran CORE, WordAlone, & LCMC spokesmen would cite scientific or empirical evidence if they could, but they are left with unsound science such as reparative therapy (CORE brought along fellow-travelers from the debunked Exodus Ministries to CWA09). Lacking sound scientific support for gay-EXCLUSIVE policies, it is understandable why ELCA opponents wrap themselves in unscientific and uncritical Biblical interpretations. Oh, we hear platitudes now and again about “family values” or “traditional marriage”, but the evidence doesn’t support their case.
Thus, we don’t expect the CORE types to pay much attention to the scientific study report in today’s issue of Pediatric Journal which concludes “Being raised by a same-sex couple is no hindrance to healthy psychological development”. In fact, 17 year olds who had been raised entirely by a lesbian couple following artificial insemination of one partner, actually seemed better adjusted than their counterparts who had been raised by heterosexual partners—except when subjected to homophobic bullying.
When comparing the results to how mothers living in conventional families rated their teenagers, children of same-sex couples were more competent in school, had fewer social problems, broke fewer rules and were less aggressive.
Based on what the children reported themselves, they did just as well whether or not they knew the identity of their biological father.
However, those teenagers who — according to their mothers — experienced homophobia and bullying did turn out to be more anxious and have more depressive symptoms than their peers.
Nice. I would bet that there is extra nurturing with two women raising the child.
@Lilly
When I read the story I, too, was struck by the focus on lesbian couples. Your analysis, however, smacks of gender stereotyping. Wouldn’t it be disappointing if society moved away from discriminating against lesbians while still discriminating against gay men?
I think I was a bit short sighted on that one. I had written more but erased it. I would like to see how children raised by 2 gay males would be by comparison and I also think it would depend on the area of the country where these children were being raised. Did I gender stereotype? Yes. When my son divorced he wanted to take the baby boy and have me raise him. I told him that babies needed their mothers. My son has seen him frequently and the boy has turned out well-is even an eagle scout. This doesn’t have a lot to do with the GLBT issue but if one looks back at the family tree and looks at children raised by a widowed father or neglected by him, I come to the conclusion that children need a mother. There are nurturing men out there and perhaps some of the gay men would do well . Likewise there are women who are not good mothers and the children would do better with the dad. I think it would be an individual issue. But let’s have more statistics. The other thing that may come into play in this issue is that often the sperm donor of an artificial insemination is a medical student or a doctor. I know of two cases where the son turned out to be an above average student. These were not lesbian mothers. If you want to get into the nature-nurture thing– any ideas?
@Tyler
I do not have time to read the whole study (if it is even available on line) but I will make two observations based on the article.
First, Obie, I would’ve thought you’d be more precise with use of words. You follow the MSNBC into the error of expanding from a study which seems to focus exclusively on lesbian couples into making much broader and unsupported statements about “same-sex couples”.
Secondly, a “scientific study” based on self reporting of subjective data? May as well break out the goat entrails.
The results of the study may be accurate, but they are not scientifically derived.
@Tony Stoutenburg
When it comes to children, there is a big difference between being gay/lesbian and being a pedophile(spelling). Pedophiles can be homosexual or heterosexual. I have always regretted that I didn’t report a father, who was raising his children as a single parent, who slept with the one 9 yr. old girl. She didn’t report abuse to me but she had been told not to tell anyone.
I suppose that you believe that homo-sexuality is learned. Some of it might be. But I am guessing without seeing any statistics that most of it is natural sexual orientation, even if it is suppressed. So I would be interested in how many of the children raised by homo-sexual couples are adult homosexuals or are straight.
Lilly, might I suggest that you read more and “suppose” and “guess” less? At what point did I say one word about the origins of homosexuality or even mention pedophilia on this blog? I respect you but you are not playing fair by throwing in things that I did not say or infer in any way at all.
@Tony Stoutenburg
Aw, this is a blog and a certain amount of a blog is opinion. Do you have to agree with it? Do you have to take it personally ? That is up to you. I think I am branding the whole LCMC as homophobic and taking it out on you. What happened here in Clintonville is showing in my writing. All I get here at Christus is that being gay is sin. Yah, and so are a whole bunch of other things.
I do know some gay people. One is one of my son’s best friends from Middle and High School. My son tells me that the friend’s first crush when in middle school was on a boy that I know. That boy was beautiful as a boy and he grew up straight. My daughter played with a neighbor boy when they were grade school age. When he got a little older I restricted them from playing in the bedroom . I really didn’t have to worry because it turned out that he was gay too. My daughter had a boyfriend in high school that turned out to be gay and he dumped her for a girl that is a lesbian now. So I “guess” that my study of the issue is partly based on people I know. Yes, I did do much reading when dealing with my ex son in law’s problem and trying to understand. Last night I did go back and review some literature on the net. I “suppose” I “guessed” somewhat right.
@Tony Stoutenburg
This whole issue got revisited for me at my grandson’s graduation. That is why it popped up again. At this time, I think I am using it as a diversion from worrying about my daughter’s illness and my son’s need to go job hunting again. I miss the associate pastor at Christus because he was someone I could talk to and he would just listen. But he is not my pastor anymore.
@Lilly
Of course it is opinion Lilly; no problem with that. My objection was to your throwing in side issues in a response to me and thereby implying that those were my positions. They are not.
@Tony Stoutenburg
Well, Tony, this part of the blog is about children of homosexual couples being ok with it. I am merely reiterating for the sake of the national audience that there is a difference between pedophilia and gay and or lesbian orientation. This needs to be clarified because a lot of the homophobia in Christus had to do with fear of pedophiles. We do have some in Clintonville,( one woman belongs to the church). So far as I know they aren’t in the clergy but apparently there was one in the school system a while back. If this is a misconception in Clintonville, then it could well be a misconception other places. Sorry if you took it personally.
@Lilly
🙂
Tony, you are correct that the study focused on Lesbian parents and did not include gay male couples raising children. But it should also be noted that there is no evidence that children raised by same-sex couples are likely to be maladjusted.
But more importantly, you are just plain wrong about saying that this information was not scientifically derived. First of all, nearly any study related to psychology relies to some degree (and often entirely) on self-reporting by subjects. It can’t be any other way, as we do not have windows into people’s minds. But this is also why psychologists develop various instruments which are rigorously tested, validated, and normed. These instruments seek to remove subjectivity so that objective measurements may be made. This study used one such instrument, the Child Behavior Checklist. Additionally, well established statistical methods can measure the variation and significance in various measures, and these would certainly have been used in any study like this published in a well-respected peer reviewed journal (as this study was). Using data that is self-reported (even without the use of a normed and validated instrument) does not make a study or it’s data unscientific. What matters is how that data is treated, handled, and analyzed.
@Mark C. Christianson
Say Mark, you link to a blog page on antinomianism. I wrote a response. Do you not publish responses that disagree with you?
Self-reporting studies are one type of social science studies but there are others. There are objective measures of success, such as gpa (ok, at least somewhat subjective), health statistics, incarceration rates, etc. I recall hearing of one study of h.s. students asking individuals to rate their own popularity. Almost all of them reported themselves to be very popular. When students were asked to list their friends, however, it was found that popularity is very subjective.
Asking parents to rate how well adjusted their children are is highly subjective. Perhaps you have heard the phrase “a face only a mother could love.” I know I have heard that one plenty. And she did. 🙂
Asking parents who happen to be in a class that is regularly criticized for being parents how their kids are doing … how do you think they are going to respond? (This is not a criticism of lesbians; it is natural human instinct.)
Consider this sentence from the article: “In fact, lesbian mothers rated their 17-year-olds higher in social and academic skills, and lower in rule-breaking and aggression, than did mothers of teenagers who also had a father.”
Why did they ask their academic skills? Does this represent subjective parental evaluation, or did they ask the parents for copies of the grade cards? The wording of the article seems to indicate the latter.
Finally, at least one reliable source indicates that the study was funded by gay rights groups. Again that does not automatically make it wrong, but whenever I see a study funded by a drug company that shows its products to be safe … I wonder.
I suppose this does in fact pass for “science” in the “social sciences” but I have always considered that a misnomer anyway. (And I have a degree in one of them.)
Blessings
TS
Oops. Hit submit too soon. Two error.
should read: I recall hearing of one study of h.s. students asking individuals to rate their own popularity. Almost all of them reported themselves to be very popular. When students were asked to list their friends, however, it was found that self-reported popularity was significantly higher in a particular subgroup (academically successful black children) when compared to listings by peers.
Second, should read: How did they evaluate the academic skills? Does this represent subjective parental evaluation, or did they ask the parents for copies of the grade cards? The wording of the article seems to indicate the former.
Peace. ts
@Tony Stoutenburg
You wrote: Consider this sentence from the article: “In fact, lesbian mothers rated their 17-year-olds higher in social and academic skills, and lower in rule-breaking and aggression, than did mothers of teenagers who also had a father.”
That could mean simply an answer to a question “Rate how aggressive your child is on a scale of 1 to 10” and the like on those various measures. But the clear problems with that, as you point out, is why the various instruments are created and subjected to rigorous testing, validation, and norming. The items compared appear to be some of the scales that are measured by the particular instrument that was used and not something simply reported by the parents. The point of such an instrument will be to get past the “only a face a mother could love” kind of thing. If it was the kind of reporting you seem to be suggesting, it is very unlikely to have gotten past the peer review process, especially as such a significant journal as the study appeared in.
(And about your comment on my own occasional blog, it may have been sucked up into filters. I’ll check.)
@Tony Stoutenburg
Tony, you really get “nit picky” on meaning of words and studies etc. Are you threatened by those of us who disagree with you ? If so, I am glad. Could it be that society is showing that some of the things in the Bible just don’t make as much sense as you would like them to ? Could it be that society just doesn’t care what the Bible says or how YOU interpret it ? Sorry, Tony, but the more you blog here, the more you leave me going some other way.
I am an educator by profession and had to take the research and statistics classes. I know that if you try hard enough, you can get a statistical correlation between any two factors. There are all kinds of studies out there but I find this one interesting in that it shows that by and large, these children are doing well.
Show me studies that say the opposite.
@Lilly
My Pickyness is because words have meanings, Lilly. That was a principle reinforced for me at Seminary by, surprise surprise, Terry Fretheim.
“Could it be that society just doesn’t care what the Bible says…” That is precisely the problem.
Enjoy your journey then. Hope we end up at the same place.
Since basically, we have the same Savior, we will.
@Tony Stoutenburg
Tony, My son’s first wife was Jewish raised more or less by a Lutheran. They divorced after a year. My son’s fiancee’ is Jewish. They celebrate the Jewish High Holidays. My son goes to an ELCA church. He raised his son in an ELCA church. I am glad because he doesn’t need someone judging him for his lifestyle. They may eventually marry but she is already in her 50’s. He is in his mid 40’s. They both have debt and don’t need each other’s debt. I have had to accept this or lose my family. I neither condone nor condemn them. Let’s leave this kind of thing up to God. I would like to leave the gay issue up to God too. There is enough misery out there for us to address without picking on people who really aren’t hurting us.
@Lilly
“Show me studies that say the opposite.”
I wasn’t looking for it but this one came across my email today as a link. If I read this right, this study covers a very large percentage of the small sample that makes up the “National” (actually 3 city) study cited above. And yes this covers lesbian and straight couples. Of course, one wonders how many straight couples tell their kids they are donor children …
http://www.slate.com/id/2256212/pagenum/all/
@Tony Stoutenburg
Interesting study. It is beginning to look like anything out of the ordinary can scar children or at least make them blame their “parents” for all their troubles.
I am interested in these studies because I am a genealogist and have studied the various families in my family and my husband’s family to see what happened to make us as we are. A hundred years ago it was the orphans who had a hard time. Often they were adopted by families who just wanted servants. Or the father remarried and the step mother favored her own children over the first family. The children seemed to fare better if mom remarried and the kids were accepted by the step father. In the case of children born out of wedlock, often the grandparents raised the child even if the mother married later. There was always the stain of the “sin” even if it was a rape.
How do I get on this subject– because I would like to have more than a name and an approximate birth year for my grandfather. My dad’s mother died in Norway when he was 5 and the stepfather raised her kids. The new wife was young and did not appreciate the extra children who were not relatd to her husband. Dad was always ashamed of his backgound even though it wasn’t his fault that he was born out of wedlock and my mother was sure there was something in the genes that would make us stray.
There are many ways to interpret the verse in the Bible about the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation. While many interpret this to mean God’s punishment, I interpret this to mean that is how long it takes for any kind of family “sin” to be overcome in a family.
@Tony Stoutenburg
Yesterday was the graduation party for 1 grandson. His dad was there with her partner who is also a transsexual. She is very “nice”. We had a good time catching up with the other grandparents and great grandmothers who were there. I am more comfortable with the situation now and it seems like the former son-in-law has settled down to a more conventional lifestyle- she is back into gardening and the like.
Last week I decided that it will work best for me to just keep boycotting Christus. There are other churches that worship the same God.