A recent research report in the journal Pediatrics suggests that children of gay parents are not adversely affected by their parents’ sexual orientation. Results showed that kids raised by lesbian parents are psychologically well-adjusted and even experience fewer behavioral problems than kids raised by heterosexual parents. 

This report is creating quite a stir.

As a statistician and researcher who has both published and evaluated peer review articles for professional journals, there is always a room for debate when it comes to arguing the legitimacy of results. There are questions such as: Was the study adequately powered? What is the effect size? What kind of test was used? What sampling method was followed? Who funded the study? While these are important issues in the debating the results of the aforementioned study, I shall leave these issues to groups that have much more interest in the issue than I.   

I do not find the results of the study surprising. It does not surprise me that children of lesbian parents are psychologically well-adjusted. Why should a lesbian not be a good parent in terms of loving, providing, and caring for her child? I want children of lesbian parents to do well; I want them to be just as well-adjusted as children from homes with heterosexual parents. In a way, the results or this study are good news – I want psychologically well-adjusted kids no matter what the home environment is like. 

For me there is a more important issue that the study did not address. I want to know what effect growing up with lesbian parents has on one’s morals. Put differently, I want to know if the kids of lesbian parents are morally well-adjusted, in a Judaeo-Christian sense. Do they ever receive Christian teachings which tell them that homosexuality is a sin? Are they taught that sexual orientation is merely a matter of personal preference?

I suspect that lesbian parents are downplaying the Judaeo-Christian viewpoint which is that homosexuality is a sin. They are likely emphasizing the homosexual viewpoint which is that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. So my concern does not center on psychological adjustment; it centers on moral adjustment. 

If lesbian parents are teaching their children that homosexuality is normal, then that teaching is contributing to the normalization of homosexuality in our society. This is a dangerous trend. The normalization of homosexuality could lead to our nation’s downfall. Mosiah put it this way: “if the time comes that the [greater] voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land” (Mosiah 29:27).

The concern is not psychological adjustment; it is moral adjustment.

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