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Homosexuals’ children more likely to try same-sex activity, study says


WASHINGTON (BP)–Children of same-sex parents are more likely to pursue homosexual relationships than the offspring of heterosexual parents, according to a recent study.

While that finding may seem obvious on its face, it contradicts previously published results on research conducted during the last two decades, the Associated Press reported.

The new study by two University of Southern California sociologists says children reared by male or female homosexuals are probably more likely to try homosexual activity and are less restricted by traditional gender roles, according to the AP report. The study is not based on new research but on a reevaluation of 21 psychological studies conducted between 1981 and 1998.

Those studies reported children were no different whether reared by homosexual or heterosexual parents.

“We say there are some differences and that people have shied away from acknowledging them for fear that this would inflame homophobia,” USC researcher Judith Stacey, coauthor of the new study, told AP. “It’s time to stop worrying about that and look at it with eyes wide open.”

“Because antigay scholars seek evidence of harm, sympathetic researchers defensively stress its absence,” Stacey and coauthor Timothy Biblarz wrote in the new study, according to AP. Those researchers “tread gingerly around the terrain of differences,” they wrote.

Some homosexuals are concerned the new report will aid the efforts of opponents of homosexual adoption and foster parenting, AP reported. Stacey told AP she worries some judges may use the study’s findings to support rulings against homosexual parenting but said the report does not justify discrimination against such families.

Lynn Wardle, a family law specialist from Brigham Young University’s law school and a skeptic of homosexual parenting, told AP, “This is a flashing yellow light that says before you legalize gay adoptions you better think clearly. The social science doesn’t support those kind of radical reforms.”

Amy Desai, a policy analyst with Focus on the Family, told AP, “Kids do best when they have a married mother and a married father.”

The study by Stacey and Biblarz is published in the latest issue of American Sociological Review.
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A copy of the study is available at http://www.asanet.org/pubs/stacey.pdf.

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