A new study shows there’s much more depression, obesity and suicidal tendencies among adults raised by same-sex couples than among adults raised by a normal family of complementary male and female parents.
According to the study, which tracks the development of children to adulthood, 51 percent of those raised by same-sex couples had experienced depression, compared to only 19.7 percent of those raised in normal married households.
“By age 28 a cohort of children raised by same-sex parents are 2.25 times more likely to experience depression than is the general population. Adult onset depression is associated with a more frequent history of abuse victimization, obesity, stigma, and distance from one or both parents.”
Thirty percent of adults from gay households fanaticized about suicide as an adult, compared to 7 percent from normal households. A whopping 71.9 percent of adults raised in gay homes reported obesity, compared to 37 percent from opposite-sex homes.
The study shows more kids raised by gays reported that a parent or caregiver had slapped, hit, or kicked them. More of them said they were touched in a sexual way or forced to touch someone in a sexual way or were forced into sex relations.
The study flies in the face of recent claims by gay advocates that there is no difference between being raised by gays or by straights.
The study used data from the non-partisan National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, and was produced by Professor Paul Sullins of the Leo Initiative. He’s worked with the Department of Sociology at the Catholic University of America for many years.
The major limitation of of the study is that the database contained information on kids raised by only twenty same-sex couples. But there are very few children raised by gays at all, let alone over a long period. Even so, as sociologist Mark Regnerus says of this study, “This makes the same-sex household estimates displayed in the graph imprecise, but it does nothing to undermine the significance of the differences between groups.”
The study has already come under attack from gay blogs that tend to pounce on any negative data.
At the urging of gay bloggers, in 2012, Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin was investigated by his university and attempts were made to bring him up on charges and get him fired for reaching much the same conclusions as Sullins has reached. Though the University of Texas backed him up and the journal that published his paper has not withdrawn it, he still comes under bitter criticism from gay advocates.
ThinkProgress has tried to smear Sullins for his religious faith and his priesthood. The author, Zack Ford, a columnist and not an expert in sociological research, called the study “hugely flawed” and ran a picture of Sullins in his priestly garb. He also complained that the study was carried out on children raised by gays prior to the legalization of gay marriage, proposing that marriage will make all the difference in outcomes for kids.
Even liberal advocates admit that children do best when raised by their own mom and dad. Secular sociologist Sara McLanahan of Princeton University and other secular experts have reported for decades that children do best within normal families.
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