Simply finding 20 children with same-sex parents using random methods would mean beginning with a huge pool of participants. Here’s a look at one study that did it- the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

It analyzed data based on one of the most exhaustive, and expensive, ongoing government survey research efforts to date. In the “fourth wave” of evaluating the same students over a period of two decades, 20 children with same-sex parents were identified- out of over 12,000. Here’s what they found.

The outcome reveals that “no difference” actually meant “huge difference”. Here are the official results which include one of the most surprising findings- that children who have married same-sex parents fare worse than those with unmarried same-sex parents.

The adolescents with same-sex parents experience significantly lower autonomy and higher anxiety, but also better school performance, than do adolescents with opposite-sex parents.

Comparing unmarried to (self-described) married same-sex parents, above-average child depressive symptoms rises from 50% to 88%; daily fearfulness or crying rises from 5% to 32%; grade point average declines from 3.6 to 3.4; and child sex abuse by parent rises from zero to 38%.

The longer a child has been with same-sex parents, the greater the harm.

The largest study to date – the National Health Interview Study which began with 1.6 million cases and yielded 512 same-sex parent families – destroys any fantasy that children with same-sex parents fare “no different” than children raised in the home of their married mother and father…

Dr. Sullins, who analyzed the data of both studies above concludes:

The higher risk of emotional problems for children in same-sex parent families has little or nothing to do with the quality of parenting, care, or other relational characteristics of those families.