http://www.slate.com/id/2156033/
Lesbians of Mass Destruction
The empty case against Mary Cheney.
By William Saletan
Posted Saturday, Dec. 23, 2006, at 7:17 AM ET
Poor ***** Cheney. He was sure we'd find weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq. We searched and searched, but he refused to give up.
Now he's discovering what it's like to be on the other end of such
obtuse certainty. The conservative jihad has turned from Saddam to
Sodom. Moralists are denouncing Cheney's pregnant daughter, Mary, for
disclosing that she and her lesbian partner will raise the baby
together. The moralists are confident that having two mommies is bad for
kids. And no evidence to the contrary can dissuade them.
The 30-year search for proof that gay parents are destructive looks a
lot like the hunt for WMD. The American Psychological Association has
compiled abstracts of 67 studies. Some are plainly biased, and only the
latest two or three have avoided the methodological flaws of earlier
investigations. But after 67 tries, you'd expect the harm of gay
parenting to show up somewhere. Yet in study after study, on measure
after measure, kids turn out the same.
One study found that straight parents "made a greater effort to provide
an opposite-sex role model for their children," but it doesn't say
whether this affected the kids. Another says children raised by lesbian
couples "were more likely to explore same-sex relationships," but it
doesn't say they turned out gay. Other studies say they seldom do.
That's it. That's the evidence against gay parenthood. On the other
hand, three studies say lesbians share child care more equally than
straight couples do. Others conclude that lesbians are more satisfied
with their relationships, that they show more "parenting awareness
skills," that nonbiological lesbian moms "played a more active role in
daily caretaking than did most fathers," and that their kids are less
domineering and experience "greater warmth and interaction with their
mother."
Such unwelcome findings haven't chastened the antigay lobby any more
than they've chastened the Bush administration. If the direct evidence
doesn't bear you out, look for indirect evidence. So conservatives have
developed a subtler argument: On average, children do best when raised
by their two married, biological parents.
Let's take this argument a piece at a time. It's true that two parents
are better than one. It's also true that married parents are better than
unmarried ones. But those aren't arguments against gay parenthood.
They're arguments for gay marriage.
The biological part of the argument is more serious. On average, kids do
better with parents than with stepparents. Focus on the Family, a
leading moralist group, concludes that gay parenthood is unhealthy
because "it is biologically impossible for a child living in a same-sex
home to be living with both natural parents." Actually, that may change.
Scientists recently produced a fertile adult mouse by combining, in one
embryo, DNA from two females. But a lesbian who wants a genetic bond to
her partner's baby doesn't have to wait for such technology. She can
simply ask her brother to donate the sperm.
If you believe, as Focus on the Family does, that we should stop
creating families in which one parent is biologically unrelated to the
child, then gays are the least of your worries. By professional
estimates, 40,000 babies are born each year from donated eggs or sperm.
You want to stop nonbiological parenthood? Go chain yourself to a sperm
bank.
For that matter, if you want every child to have the benefit of two
parents, you're picking on the wrong Cheney. Mary's sister, Liz, just
had her fifth kid. All things being equal, Liz's baby will get one-fifth
as much parental attention as Mary's will get. But nobody complains
about that.
And let's not forget that the case against nonbiological parenthood is
based on averages. Averages make bad law. The best critique of gay
parenting studies is that because many homosexuals are closeted, those
who are found by researchers and who agree to participate are
disproportionately white, well-educated, and female. But that's exactly
what Mary Cheney is. She's a vice president of AOL. Her partner's
current occupation is renovating their home. Should they abstain from
motherhood because they're above average?
The same goes for gender averages. James Dobson, chairman of Focus on
the Family, says Cheney's pregnancy is a bad idea because a father
"makes unique contributions to the task of parenting that a mother
cannot emulate," such as "a sense of right and wrong and its
consequences." You must be kidding. Cheney's partner is a former park
ranger. They met while playing collegiate hockey. If they want a night
out to catch an NHL game, Grandpa ***** can drop by to read bedtime
stories about detainee interrogation.
If you're going to base family policy on averages, the chief problem
isn't stepparents; it's men. That's what "pro-family" groups keep
covering up. According to Focus on the Family, "Increased risks of
physical and sexual child abuse at the hands of non-biological parents
are another serious concern for same-sex families." Nope, not for
lesbians. The latest study cited by the group actually concludes that
the "key risk factors are living with a stepfather or the mother's
boyfriend." Of 55 child deaths reviewed in the study, zero were caused
by a stepmother or by a biological mother in a stepfamily or live-in
relationship. Other studies show the same pattern in child abuse
generally.
The Family Research Institute says Cheney's child "will
disproportionately associate with homosexuals—who are as a class
considerably more apt to have STDs and a criminal history [and] be
interested in sex with children." That's hilarious. Women commit 3.5
percent of single-perpetrator sexual assaults and make up 7 percent of
the prison population.
The Family Research Council says lesbians are dangerous parents because
of their "high prevalence of life events and behaviors related to mental
health problems," particularly rapes and sexual attacks. But if you look
up the study cited by the council, guess who committed virtually all of
the rapes and sexual attacks? Men.
You want to protect kids? Here's my proposed constitutional amendment:
"Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union involving at
least one woman."
Or you could just let Mary Cheney raise her child in peace.
A version of this article also appears in the Outlook section of the
Sunday Washington Post.
/end
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
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