Children Of Lesbians Are Healthy & Happy

It is no secret that the right-wing christian (and muslim) fundamentalists have been waging a bigoted war against homosexuals.   Among the many untrue charges leveled against them is the argument that somehow a child would be harmed by being raised by lesbian or gay parents.   The fundies would like for Americans to think that the children would be abused, psychologically scarred or turn out to be  homosexuals because they were raised by parents who were lesbian or gay.

Of course any reasonable person would know these charges are ludicrous.   The most important things (and probably the only important things) about raising children is that they be shown love and given support and encouragement -- and it doesn't really matter whether the parents are heterosexual or homosexual.   It doesn't take any special intelligence to know a child would be better off in a loving homosexual home than a dysfunctional and/or abusive heterosexual home.

Now there is a study that backs up these common sense conclusions.   There is a scientific study done on the children of lesbian parents.   This is no fly-by-night study -- it was conducted over a 24 year period.   The name of the study is the U.S. National Longtitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), and it was recently printed in the Archives of Sexual Behavior magazine.

What did the study show?   First of all, it showed a 0% incidence of  child abuse in the lesbian familes (over a 24 year period!).   That's right -- ZERO PERCENT (either physically or sexually abused).   Compare that to what adolescents in American families report -- 26% report physical abuse and 8.3% report sexual abuse.   One bigoted charge down the drain!

But what about the child's sexual preference?   Did living with a lesbian couple cause them to be homosexuals themselves?   No.   Only 2.8% of the children in the NLLFS study said they were either predominantly or exclusively homosexual.   Since most experts estimate that homosexuals make up around 10% of the population in general (and nearly all were raised by heterosexual parents), this seems to shoot down the other fundie argument.   Growing up with lesbian parents did not alter the sexual preference of the children (although it very probably created a better home life for the 2.8% who were born that way).

It is far more important for parents to be loving, accepting and encouraging than it is for them to be heterosexual.   It is time for the court system and society in general to accept that fact.   It is not just stupid, it borders on being abusive, to deny a child a loving home because the parents are lesbian or gay.