Doctors group claims heterosexual marriage better for kids Pages 1 2 3 4 NEXT | |
"Doctors for the Family's convener Lachlan Dunjey, a right-to-life campaigner who has run as a Senate candidate for the Christian Democratic Party, told ABC News Radio the group is concerned about the health consequences for children of gay marriages." Seems the bias is right there for all to behold. What gets me about this kind of blanket statement is that it ignores the fact that no family is the same. One Family of a mum and a dad and 2.4 children might be fantastic but another might be abusive and horrible. It isn't the gender of the parents which matters so much as who the people are themselves. Also I don't think there has ever been a large enough study done to justify any of the claims being made the sample sizes are tiny relative to population. | |
It is my personal and unscientific belief that kids do best in a family with: (in order, with all other things being equal) 1) A loving a male and female roll model Even with that in mind, biased source is biased. Without even clicking on the study based on the name of the group the research can not be considered independant in any way. | |
I'd love to see their 'evidence', because I'm betting it's either a lie, or they're comparing regular families to broken single-parent families, and are incorrectly comparing that to homosexual couples who adopt children. Anyway, a research by C.K. Dush at Ohio State University who compared 5000 mothers and 11.000 children suggested the traditional family is not a better place for children than another kind of family. It, quite predictably, turned out that stability in a family is the determining factor. Well... it just so happens to be that since homosexuas are a minority and quite new to having marriage, it means those that get married are in very stable relationships, much more stable than heterosexual couples who for instance marry because of religious pressure to do so, and end up divorced. It's quite likely on that basis that right now, a homosexual couple can statistically speaking better raise a child than a heterosexual couple. | |
The actual studies into the matter have said just the opposite, and that says more than any group of people, however eminent in their field, does.
That's pretty much what this review article says.[1] I believe I've also read studies suggesting that children who grow up under same-sex marriages do better than those raised by single heterosexuals. | |
My own research on the topic has led me to believe with absolute conviction that growing up in a loving family is always preferable to not having a family. Shockingly enough, it also revealed that whenever a bunch of supposed experts sign a petition in support of a Christian Conservative position of some significance, at least 90% of the supposed experts are not actually experts that graduated from accredited learning institutions and the ones that are regularly lie for personal profit. Further research has indicated that the group mentioned in this thread was politically motivated to take this stance and has neither the data nor the inclination to make a real argument for their position beyond referencing the same sort of pretend data that fuels the Discovery Institute. | |
If their opinions wern't biased and their claims correct then you wouldn't see the Australian Medical Association distancing themselves and retaliating with "There is a growing body of evidence that says there's no difference in their psychological development, their general health, their sexual orientation,". These people are just making wild claims to support their own twisted moral beliefs with little evidence to actually support what they are saying and relying on the fact they are medical professionals to fool people in to thinking their opinion is fact or to simply get publicity. With any luck people won't fall for this group trying to hide their ultra-conservative and/or religion derrived agenda and will see past facade | |
Well, if you're calling yourself "doctors4family", then it's obvious that it's not exactly unbiased research devoid of preconceived notions you're engaging in. Like a fair few of the global warming scientists, they've completely undermined their academic integrity by tying themselves to a fixed political agenda. You don't start with a conclusion - least of all an unrelated political one - and then try to find facts to support it. Now, if people who didn't positively reek of wanting to find results in support of traditional marriage had found indications that it was inherently better for children than other family forms, then it'd be interesting. This is just pathetic. | |
Before even looking at any of the links I can say that a group who's website is called 'doctors4family' aren't going to be the most neutral guys out there. Right off the bat this bit hits me:
If this were true then we would see the same correlations they quote in single parent or adopted families - something I wasn't aware is true. While there is often trouble with children who have gone through a separation, whether parents being divorced or being in care, this is more to do with the trauma itself rather than a lack of both parents. For children who have grown up in a stable, loving family then there is usually no problems. The same is true of a gay family; if a kid has 2 mums (or dads) and they have a stable relationship then there's no reason for them to have problems. If anything I'd say they could be more stable than single parents as they can share the workload and parenting responsibilities. And that only considers mental health; to say gay families are less healthy implies that gay families lead radically different lives from straight families, something I find almost impossible to believe. This is just another anti-gay group using pseudo-science to support their own views, bending the evidence to their conclusions instead of the reverse. | |
Soo... | |
They're Australian, the .au web address gives it away | |
Even if they were entirely right, the political conclusion doesn't follow. Last I checked, single mother and fatherhood isn't banned: those aren't the best family forms either. Banning gay marriage because heterosexual marriages are better for children would be like banning broccoli because kale is a healthier vegetable. | |
Sorry but this is a bit of a /thread Its obvious that two women are equally as good at raising a child as any other parent. Parenting isnt sometihng people just "get" because they are of the right gender. Parenting is SO varied in its success and failure even when the same techniques are applied. To simply say "All of X cant parent" is rediculous. The example I linked is conclusive proof that lesbian parents CAN raise a child. If one instance exists its possible. Its possible. The best line is that "No one INDEPENDANTLY worked out i was raised by two women ever". | |
This pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter. | |
Yep, I kinda have to agree. In my own view, same-sex couples should be allowed to marry even adopt (I'd rather they be in loving hands than an orphanage). But I'd draw the line at procreation; if homosexuality is 'genetic' increasing it's numbers in the gene pool is not necessarily a sound idea. That and the idea of conceiving children via completely artificial means when there was no possibility of a natural conception doesn't sit right with me. It's just to "Brave New World". Also some of the Doctor's 'supporting arguments" : http://sydney.edu.au/law/news/docs_pdfs_images/2011/Sep/FKS-ResearchReport.pdf | |
Really depends on the person in charge of the kid, this whole thing is bullshit. Yeah it would be a different story if gay people went beserk around children, but they don't. Kind of find stuff like this to be funny. Almost reminds me of this one where they asked people from other parts of the world on how they viewed people from California. Really goes to show that people are really ignorant. Did the poll and this is what you bastards said. 1. We all drive nice cars. 2. We all go surfing. 3. We love to smoke weed. 4. We are all health nuts. Really have no idea where this shit is coming from, you people are dumbasses for believing it, lol. | |
But they are DOCTORS! Being a doctor automatically means your completely immune to bias and/or bribery! They obviously are correct on what is totally a medical heath issue and not a societal or phycological one! HOW DARE YOU QUESTION THEIR WISDOM! ):< | |
Wait you say you have no problems with same sex marriages but then say you want to see less of their genetics in the gene pool, why? If your fine with them existing and being in relationships what's your problem if a few more appeared? Either you have a problem with them or you don't try and pick a side. Secondly if your oposed to artificial conception techniques, I assume you extend this to heterosexual couples who can't naturally concieve. Or is your fear of scientific progression limited to specifically targetting homosexual couples? | |
Well some of us like a "Brave New World" ;D | |
Both of these parts, especially the first, seem very dubious to me. What's wrong with gay people passing on their genes? | |
Their sources are utter bollocks, you wouldn't even be able to use those in a freshman science course. Hopefully this won't affect their professional opinion in any way, but I doubt it slightly. | |
I remember two studies about a genetic perk which made women statistically more fertile, and men homosexual. Genetic homosexuality that's an evolutionary advantage, even. Not to mention the cause of other factors is indirect. D Swaab, neurologist and brain researcher for instance, found a correlation between size of the brain's timekeeper (and a few other small parts) between homosexuals, where the development in homosexual men looked more like the development in heterosexual women, than heterosexual men. That part of the brain is completely formed at a very early state, suggesting the cause of the variation is genetic (that early makes hormonal influences from the mother less likely). Not really a negative thing there either. | |
Because clearly our planet isn't already overpopulated, and a few gays might bring us to near extinction. Do me a favour. | |
I seriously doubt that once all outlying factors are accounted for, that the trend will remain accurate. I suspect that the truth of the matter is that parents in a homosexual marriage are more likely to take raising kids seriously, partly because of the bias against such families, and partly because they almost always choose to conceive unlike the rest of us. Compare such families to "straight" families whose parent's approach parenting well, and I hypothesize that the bias will disappear.
A.) Homosexuality is not a genetic factor, and would have already weeded itself out of the population if it was. Homosexuals finding a way to conceive will have zero effect on their population distribution. B.) Nothing about having a small segment of the population choosing to conceive in vitro suggests that such methods will become the norm. Besides, most of us enjoy the normal method quite well. C.) Even if I was wrong on point B, there's nothing wrong with that, so long as we don't make the mistake of treating babies like assembly line products like they did in BNW. An incredible amount of suffering can be averted by not conceiving naturally, primarily in terms of being able to avoid birth defects and expressed genetic diseases. | |
This is not a professional body speaking out, it's a family values group which happens to include medical professionals in its numbers. There's a big difference. The AMA, which is a professional organization, has correctly stated that the overwhelming body of empirical evidence does not support these claims. Anyone who believes that being a doctor entitles you to make a scientific judgement without any evidence, social services will be round to collect your brain shortly.
If there's one thing we can now say with a fair degree of conviction that homosexuality is not, it's genetic. | |
Three points of concern: | |
There is a very strong genetic factor into being gay. It's fairly valid to say that somebody is 'born gay', due to their genes and hormones at birth (and I'm not even talking about 'environmentally introduced hormones). That said, even if no gay people reproduce, it doesn't matter because there's no 'gay gene'. That's not how genetics works. Heterosexuals and bisexual people in heterosexual relationships will continue to have homosexual children because the genes that effect the potential for a person to be gay, do different things in different genders. For example, there's evidence that genes that will help produce gay men will also make fecund females. Fecund females then will propagate the species faster even if a few of their children pop out gay. So 'banning' gay people from reproducing solves exactly nothing, except for weakening genetic diversity in our species, which is pretty stupid. Gay parents don't always produce gay children anyways, for the same reason heterosexuals don't always produce heterosexual children. Moreover even if you feel that humans are in a precarious position to where they might go extinct with a few more gay people, despite the fact there's 7 goddamn billion of us and the amount of gay people is at MOST 10% and even if you made it 75% that's still 1.75 billion reproductive capable heterosexuals, then wouldn't it make sense to encourage gay people to still reproduce artificially any damn ways, just so there would be more humans? Huur. Also, gay people that reproduce artificially don't do so by cloning labs or shit. Being gay doesn't mean you have to turn in your genitals to the gay agenda authority. Gay people can still have sex with opposite gender, and even if they're not willing to do that, nothing more 'scientific' is needed than masturbation into a turkey baster to get it to work. Nothing more high tech or 'brave new world' is needed than that, which is basically all a sperm donor is anyways for straight people. It's not like straight people don't go to fertility clinics anyways. | |
I can't let that stand under my name. In no way do I endorse or agree with Fraser Greenfield's view on procreation. I completely support anyone having full and equal access to IVF treatments. Let's stay away from eugenics please. Also, for the record, "completely artificial means" are not required for a homosexual person to have a baby. | |
I'm not sure about that. There is still some research going that way, including the stuff showing that if a man is gay his sister is likely to be more fertile. That does sound like a possible genetic twist. In the end I bet it will be like cancer (no, I'm not calling gay a cancer) and be a combination of genetics and environent (particular inutero), with possibily a dash of nurture/life experience thrown in for good measure. | |
Research tends to show that genetic factors combined with hormones in utero are more or less all that matter. Emotional/moral nurturing environment plays practically no real role, aside from possibly chemical factors in the environment. Or else you'd have no gay kids born to conservatives or whatever. No amount of 'moral upbringing' is going to make a child gay, or not gay. Your kid isn't going to become gay because of some sort of trauma, nor does he being gay mean he's suffered some sort of sexual abuse, etc. Be aware though that it's possible for some genetic factors to be 'unlocked' by environmental factors, like overcrowding or nutrition intake, etc. Which isn't the same as just saying the environment 'made' you one way. A woman's body does develop 'antibodies' against her unborn child, and the more children she has the more severe that reaction gets. That's why in part that parents with non compatible blood types have to be especially careful having a second child. By the second child, the body's built up antibodies and chemicals to try to get rid of it. Bodies are stupid as shit. | |
First, nowhere near enough data to say anything definitive on this subject. Second, reeks of bias Third, what do a bunch of doctors know about the psychology of a developing child?
You might have a point if we were having some kind of population crisis. We are not, nor are we anywhere near having a population crisis. I think the current data is that there are genetic markers that increase the chances that a person will be gay, but that doesn't determine things entirely. IIRC, the hypothesis is that it's something that happens early in childhood development that determines sexuality. What we do know is that it's not really a choice. The comparison to Brave New World is unfounded. In the book, children were created not to be loved but for one very specific task and nothing else. A child created by artificial means would still be born into a loving family and that's the key difference. BNW children are made due to necessity. A job had to be filled. A child conceived by artificial means in the situation with two gay parents is still a product of desire/love. | |
If say, some disaster wiped out most everybody, wouldn't that be the time you'd want even more people to reproduce, gay or not? Even if gay people only produced gay children, which they don't and is stupid, wouldn't it be better to have a million genetically diverse survivors even if 50% or more are gay (which, again can still reproduce) than 500,000 survivors with low genetic diversity which is still likely to be about 10% gay, which means that every surviving generation has less and less reproductive capable people due to dumb laws? You're looking at a situation where rebuilding requires capable hands and loving parents, gay or not. | |
Well, there are also twin studies which claim that if a man is gay his brothers are more likely to be gay. I'm not dismissing them, but they're fairly "outside" claims at the moment. The thing is, genetics doesn't directly influence behaviour. A person doesn't feel their genes, genes can only produce chemical and hormonal responses which result in physiological and neurological differences, and thus far we have no reliable reports of consistent physiological differences between gays and straights. Since the 19th century, this has been the holy grail of sexuality research, and noone has found it yet. There have been countless suggestions, assertions and weird myths about the anatomical or neurological differences between gay and straight people, none of which have concretely materialized. A few years ago, Simon LeVay did an anatomic study in which he claimed one particular region of the hypothalamus was larger in gay men than straight men (by a degree so tiny it couldn't be seen with the naked eye), but despite getting a lot of publicity out of it he's kind of alone in claiming that, and he also didn't think it was genetic (he subscribes to prenatal hormone theory, in my opinion a fairly weird 19th century theory which a few people still seem determined to find evidence for). Okay, at this point my general (if a bit biased) assessment of scientific consensus ends, and my personal opinion begins. What I find most interesting about all this is what it implies, because it implies that someone emerges from the womb with a pre-existing knowledge and ability to recognize male and female bodies, and I'm sorry.. but think about that for a second, because when you actually think about it it's ridiculous. I don't want to rule out some degree prenatal influence, but only in the very vague sense that any human social behaviour is influenced by inherent traits. There is not a gay gene, there is not a particular hormone in the womb which makes you gay, because if there was there would be an identifiable physical result of these processes which was consistent across all gay people, and despite the best medical screening technology available, there isn't anything that we can see. My opinion as a social scientist, the question you'd be better asking yourself is not "what physical deviation from the norm would make someone gay" but "how does anyone acquire exclusive sexuality in the first place", because there's no evidence that any of us are born with it. It's been observed for over a hundred years that infant children respond to sexual pleasure regardless of source, much like animals. It's only as they become socially aware that they start developing exclusive behaviour patterns. | |
I don't think it necessarily implies that. Children with Williams Syndrome are known to posses exceptionally strong language skills, especially compared to their generalized mental deficits. However, it's generally agreed that language acquisition doesn't occur until sometime after birth, and even later in the case of children with Williams Syndrome. It is also generally accepted that we aren't born knowing language, but are born with a particular physiology that facilitates the uptake of language (and is time limited). Children with Williams Syndrome have a genetic defect which affects this physiology in some fashion. I don't see how one can argue against the possibility that there exists a similar mechanism for gender acquisition as there is language acquisition, and that this may be affected by genetics. If we weren't bothered by ethics, it would be interesting to see if it's possible to raise feral children with language but without exposure to gender. Or to study how feral children approach gender. | |
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So a group of around 150 medical practitioners have signed a claim that traditional heterosexual couples produce better kids or "do better in all parameters".
You can see the news article here
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-13/doctors-say-heterosexual-marriage-better-for-kids/4008452
Their website here
http://www.doctors4family.com.au/
and an ABC sponsored response by Same-sex families
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-14/same-sex-families-hit-back-at-doctors27-claims/4009998
On one hand we've been continually told that being gay is ok. But do we draw the line at Marriage? procreation? These guys are supposed to be professionals, so their word is defiantly worth more value than some American evangelical, right? But is it right?
Debate!