The LGBT Community is NOT Going to Like This New Study on Same-Sex Parenting

by Philip Hodges 

Many studies have been done allegedly proving that children of same-sex parents fare just as well emotionally as those of heterosexual parents.
The problem with most of those studies, however, is that the parents were the ones who were interviewed. So how do you think those parents would have answered questions regarding child abuse – whether physical, sexual, or emotional? Obviously, they – like most parents – would downplay any abuse toward their kids.
Not only that, but study subjects were obtained through newspaper advertisements, LGBT events, and LGBT bookstores. These were people who understood what the study was about and had a vested interest in giving same-sex parenting a good name

A new study – conducted by Donald Paul Sullins, a sociology professor at the Catholic University of America – has been released that is the first of its kind with regards to homosexual parenting. It took a longitudinal approach – meaning that the study focused on the same participants of the representative sample over the course of many years for the purpose of exploring the long-term effects of living under same-sex parents. This time, the children of same-sex parents were interviewed at different times in their lives – ages 15, 22, and 28. Not surprisingly, the study yielded a much different result compared with previous studies.

The research article – called Invisible Victims: Delayed Onset Depression Among Adults With Same-Sex Parents – was published in the journal Depression Research and Treatment.
CNS News reported:
Specifically, “[a]t age 28, the adults raised by same-sex parents were at over twice the risk of depression as persons raised by man-woman parents,” reads the study abstract.
“As the first study to examine children raised by same-sex parents into adulthood,” says Sullins, “this exploratory study aims to contribute new information for understanding the effects of same-sex parenting through the life course transition into early adulthood.”
[…] 


Sullins used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (“Add Health”), which monitors the development of a sample of Americans from age 15 to 28, to ensure his sample would be as representative as possible.
The study found that children raised by homosexual parents were more than twice as likely to be depressed as adults as were their peers raised by opposite-sex parents.
Although children of same-sex parents were slightly less likely to be depressed during adolescence, more than half suffered depression symptoms as adults. 


Sullins examined a variety of factors that have been shown to be related to depression, including child abuse, obesity, perceived stigmatization and parental distance.
Children raised by homosexual parents showed higher rates of all these factors than their peers with heterosexual parents. 


In addition, 92 percent of those interviewed during the course of the study reported being abused in some way as kids – whether it was verbal, physical, or emotional abuse – particularly those of lesbian parents. In comparison, 58 percent of those with heterosexual parents reported some kind of abuse. Twenty-three percent of those interviewed for the same-sex parenting study reported being sexually abused as kids.