Interesting convergence of news today.
In Florida, gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum offers some lame defense of his hiring of George “Rent-boy” Rekers to defend Florida’s law prohibiting adoption by gay parents. McCollum’s right. It IS hard to find an expert to testify about the awfulness of gay adoption because of an absence of anything more than bias to support the premise. (Rekers is the thoroughly discredited fake expert who was paid big bucks by the Huckabee administration to peddle B.S. in defense of the anti-gay-adoption Arkansas law.)
Same day, I see this intensive research on the development of children in gay, lesbian and “conventional” male/female headed homes. Short answer: No difference. Writes Salon:
But now we have this fine bit of research that looks at kids adopted at birth by 27 lesbian couples, 29 gay male couples and 50 heterosexual couples. Parents, teachers and caregivers evaluated the preschoolers in terms of behavioral adjustment and gender development. The outcome: “Regardless of whether they had one mother and one father, two mothers, or two fathers, children were thriving” and showed “no significant differences … on measures of internalizing, externalizing, or total behavior problems.” It’s also true that “most boys exhibited behavior typical of other same-aged boys, and most girls exhibited behavior typical of other same-aged girls.” That throws a wrench in the old argument that kids needs a male and a female role model at home for “proper” gender development.
The takeaway here, researchers say, is that there is “no justification for denying lesbian and gay adults from adopting children.” Here’s hoping Florida, Mississippi and Utah, which outlaw same-sex adoption, are listening.
PS — New polling shows Californians remain about equally split still on gay marriage. But as the old folks die, that will change to solid support.