Research on Homosexual Adoption

Readers should be alert to the abysmally poor quality of “research” cited on multiple liberal and activist websites concerning the subject of homosexual adoption.

Some activist websites are currently proclaiming that a “New Study Confirms Same-Sex Couples Make Great Parents.” It turns out that this fantastic claim coincides neither with reality nor with the conclusions of the cited research; namely, Abbie Goldberg and JuliAnna Smith’s “Predictors of Psychological Adjustment in Early Placed Adopted Children with Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Parents” (2013).

On the basis of a very small sample size (40 female same-sex, 35 male same-sex, and 45 different-sex parent groups) and questionnaires administered to the adults involved – Goldberg and Smith fail to find significant difference in the children’s adjustment outcomes between the three groups.

Such a negative result could have been predicted without any experiment. The time scale involved was extremely small: the experiment started when the children were 18 months old and terminated when they were about 3 years old. The extremely small sample size, the many interfering variables and the ill-defined nature of the variable “children’s adjustment” mean the experiment lacks sufficient statistical power. The multiple biases include:

1. The conclusion is based upon the adults’ opinions rather than the children’s.
2. Several national gay organizations assisted in identifying the participants.
3. The sample is more affluent than national estimates (of wealth).
4. The three groups have different salaries: male-male couples $202,200 versus heterosexual couples $127,560.
5. Over 90% of adopters were white.
6. The children were not representative: 31% had drug exposure in utero and 61% were described as colored.
7. The children’s “adjustment” was measured by adopters completing a questionnaire packet and participation in a telephone interview 3 months after adoption. Participants then completed a follow-up questionnaire packet and telephone interview 2 years after adoption.
8. One of the most important variables, namely the marital state of the heterosexual couples, is not mentioned.

How can anyone deduce from such flawed “research” the conclusion that “Same-Sex Couples Make Great Parents”?

In 2005, the American Psychological Association (APA) cited 59 studies which claimed that children of lesbian or homosexual couples were not significantly disadvantaged relative to children of heterosexual parents. However, a 2012 analysis by Loren Marks of these 59 published studies:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000580

found that none of the comparison studies had the statistical power required to make such an assertion. Worse still, 26 of the 59 APA studies on same-sex parenting had no heterosexual comparison groups and, in other cases, single mothers were used as the heterosexual comparison group.

Thus, any alleged consensus on this issue is based on flawed research and, in light of their dismal record, studies published by the American Psychological Association should be taken with a grain of salt.