>>12150130I was curious about the methodology and comparisons of this. The chart you lifted off /pol/ or a similar source (the oldest source I can find by google search is this
https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1c8tq8/hey_guys_someone_posted_these_stats_posted_on/ ) is, as things from there often are.
Statistically significant differences are not from "married parents", they are from "intact biological family" - that means, they haven't experienced any form of divorce. There are obvious reasons that this is not an accurate comparison by itself, which the author of the cited study himself admits. Most importantly, children of non-heterosexual parents are more likely to have endured a divorce or come from a single parent family. Accordingly, when in his actual chart we see the comparisons with children who have step families, we find most of the statistically significant differences are in fact also statistically significant for children of divorce who have step-families and single parents, a confounder which the study does not account for (as it is outside of its scope).
The author rightly says that previous studies look at an ideal situation, which is planned gay or lesbian families, and conclude there is no difference—of course, they're planned! Why does he not seek to discern between planned and unplanned gay families? In his own words: "While it is certainly accurate to affirm that sexual orientation or parental sexual behavior need have nothing to do with the ability to be a good, effective parent, the data evaluated herein using population-based estimates drawn from a large, nationally-representative sample of young Americans suggest that it may affect the reality of family experiences among a significant number"
In other words, the purpose of his study is to see what the reality of the differences between straight and heterosexual families are and not to ascertain whether gays can raise children, as your misleading table would seem to imply.
