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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27159 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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children raised by two same-sex parents have equal or better life outcomes to straight parents

What evidence have you seen that makes this a matter of "fact" to you? From my understanding, the studies that show this are about as high a quality as studies on trans-youth medicine, relying on parental-reports of well-being and slanted samples.

Meanwhile, studies on heterosexual couples show that mothers and fathers parent differently and children living with unrelated adults suffer from increased stress measured by cortisol levels.

Children living with nonrelatives, stepfathers and half-siblings (stepfather has children by the stepchild’s mother), or single parents without kin support had higher average levels of cortisol than children living with both parents, single mothers with kin support, or grandparents. A further test of this hypothesis is provided by comparison of step- and genetic children residing in the same households. Stepchildren had higher average cortisol levels than their half-siblings residing in the same household who were genetic offspring of both parents (Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, page 565.)

Parents and Stepparents even abuse and murder children in different ways:

Stepparents commit filicide at higher rates than do genetic parents. According to M. Daly and M. I. Wilson (1994), motivational differences generate differences in the methods by which stepparents and genetic parents kill a child. Using Canadian and British national-level databases, Daly and Wilson (1994) found that stepfathers were more likely than genetic fathers to commit filicide by beating and bludgeoning, arguably revealing step-parental feelings of bitterness and resentment not present to the same degree in genetic fathers. Genetic fathers, in contrast, were more likely than stepfathers to commit filicide by shooting or asphyxiation, methods which often produce a relatively quick and painless death. We sought to replicate and extend these findings using a United States national-level database of over 400,000 homicides. Results replicate those of Daly and Wilson(1994) for genetic fathers and stepfathers. In addition, we identified similar differences in the methods by which stepmothers and genetic mothers committed filicide.

Given this, my prior would be that a kid raised in a Same Sex household, where they are by default unrelated to at least one parent, would have poorer outcomes than kids raised by straight parents (where a larger percentage are raised by two related parents.) What have you seen that makes you confident otherwise?

Your links are comparing natal parents to step-parents, not adoptive parents; a single mother remarrying is completely a different environment compared to two infertile parents deciding to adopt and raise a child from infancy. Adoptive children seem to have poorer physical health but greater parental support than biological children, interestingly enough.

Also if a gay couple adopts a child, it’s not as if the child is being deprived of a mother and a father; the alternative to the gay couple is the child being raised in an orphanage and then going from foster home to foster home.

And in case you suggest it, I’m not sure a closeted gay biological parent in a sham straight marriage is preferable long-term to a stable gay marriage either.

I’m not sure a closeted gay biological parent in a sham straight marriage is preferable long-term to a stable gay marriage either.

In a modern, Western society...especially with gayness being heritable...I agree with you, here. You had a lot more support for the gay, closeted man or woman and a lot more pressure to be closeted fifty years ago, let alone a hundred years ago.

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