We have been left with large, scientifically strong studies showing children do best with their married mother and father–but which do not make comparisons with homosexual parents or couples; and studies which purportedly show that children of homosexuals do just as well as other children–but which are methodologically weak and thus scientifically inconclusive.
This logjam of dueling studies has been broken by the work that Regnerus has undertaken. Unlike the many large studies previously undertaken on family structure, Regnerus (“How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study,” Social Science Research Vol 41, Issue 4 [July 2012], pp. 752-770) has included specific comparisons with children raised by homosexual parents.
Unlike the previous studies on children of homosexual parents, he has put together a representative, population-based sample that is large enough to draw scientifically and statistically valid conclusions. For these reasons, his “New Family Structures Study” (NFSS) deserves to be considered the “gold standard” in this field. […]
Regnerus has analyzed his findings, and their statistical significance, in two ways–first by a simple and direct comparison between what is reported by the children of homosexual parents and the children of “intact biological families” (“IBFs”), and second by “controlling” for a variety of other characteristics. “Controlling for income,” for example, would mean showing that “IBF” children do not do better just because their married parents have higher incomes, but that they do better even when the incomes of their households and the households of homosexual parents are the same. Again, Regnerus has done these comparisons for “LMs” (children of “lesbian mothers”) and “GFs” (children of gay fathers) separately. […]
