The Greatest Parenting Lie Ever Told

Today, over a quarter million children live with same-sex parents in the United States. If you ask the mainstream media, academia, and the American Psychological Association, they just shrug and say, so what? There's no difference if they live with a mom and a dad, or a dad and a dad, or a mom and a mom. The kids are okay. Love is love. It feels inclusive. It's even called the scientific consensus. But it's a myth, and it's It's a dangerous one. Where did the myth come from?

In 2005, the APA issued an official brief on gay parenting, declaring, Not a single study has found children of lesbian and gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents. It sounds definitive, official. It even named 59 studies, but the thing is, it wasn't true. Seven years later, Dr. Lauren Marks evaluated those 59 studies and found most had no heterosexual comparison group at all, and in cases where comparisons were made, they were often to single mothers, not intact married mother-father homes.

Of the 59 studies, none met the standards of scientific rigor required. to back up the APA's sweeping claims. And yet, those studies were used to justify policy and legal decisions that altered the definition of marriage and family nationwide. The two most cited studies to this day, by Gartrell and Bowes and Biblarz and Stacey, rely on self-reported data from same-sex parents who knew ahead of time that their participation was helping a very specific cause, the forced redefinition of marriage in all 50 U.S.

states through the Supreme Court decision Obergefell. This introduces what researchers call, quote, social desirability bias. Simply put, the participants in the studies had every reason to paint a rosy picture. In 31 of the 33 studies analyzed by Biblarz and Stacey, for example, the data came solely from the parents. That's like asking a restaurant owner if the food is good. And look, personal stories have a place. Lived experience is not unimportant, but it is not science, and it definitely should not set law and policy.

So, do we have any data-driven science on what impact deliberately putting kids in motherless or fatherless homes has on them? It turns out, we do. We'll get to that in a second, but first, a word from our sponsor. Do you ever feel like your money is working against your values instead of for them? That's no way to build a future for your children and grandchildren.

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If you are ready to align your investments with your values, start the conversation today. Your children and grandchildren will thank you for it. Visit Taylor for Gone in the link below for a no-obligation consultation. And now, back to gay parenting. In 2012, three years before the Supreme Court's Obergefell decision, Dr. Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, Austin, conducted one of the most comprehensive studies on family structure and child outcomes ever undertaken, the New Family Structure Study, or NFSS for short.

Unlike the boutique surveys used by earlier researchers, NFSS drew from a large, representative, population-based sample of American young adults. His conclusion? I'll let him speak for himself. The optimal environment for children is a stable home headed by their married mother and father. Ragnar has found notable differences on many outcomes, including mental health, economic stability, and educational achievement. His results directly contradicted the, quote, no difference myth. Here's just a sampling of the differences he found. On public assistance as a child? 69% and 59% of kids from lesbian and gay households said yes.

Those from a mom and dad household, only 17%. Are they currently unemployed? 28% of lesbian and 20% of gay-parented children said yes. Mom and dad, 8%. Were they ever forced to have sex against their will, or did they suffer rape? From lesbian and gay households, 31% and 25% responded. from a home with mom and dad, 8%. Are they currently married, now in their young adult lives? Lesbian households, 36%. Gay, 35%. Mom and dad, 43%. Have they recently thought of committing suicide?

Lesbian household children, 12%. Gay household children, 24%. Mom and dad, 5%. Have they ever had an STI, a sexually transmitted infection? 20%. from lesbian households, 25% from gay households, 8% from mom and dad. All told, children from same-sex households fared worse on 77 of 80 life outcome measures, such as the ones I just cited. These are not subtle distinctions. They are statistically significant, socially alarming, and personally absolutely heartbreaking.

So, why didn't you hear about this? When Dr. Regnerus published his findings in 2012, the backlash was swift, coordinated, and vicious. Eleven days after publication, activists called for the study's retraction before they had even read the data, which wasn't released yet. Regnerus was put under investigation for scientific misconduct based on blog posts from anonymous activists.

The University of Texas seized his hard drives, searched his emails, and subjected him to years of professional punishment. One of the men assigned to audit the publication had previously called Regnerus an and his study, Propaganda, again, before ever seeing the study for himself.

The message was clear. If you challenge the approved narrative, you will pay for it. Because science. Ragnaros was not alone in his findings, however. In 2015, the year Obergefell actually dropped, Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons compiled a review of 10 additional large-scale peer-reviewed studies. The conclusions were consistent and, again, alarming. In nearly every measure, mental health. Academic success, family stability, attachment disorders, and abuse, the traditional family structure outperformed others significantly.

Not only was Regnerus not alone at the time, but a recent critique out of Cornell that I referenced at the start of this video that examined highly controversial studies concluded that Dr. Regnerus' interpretation of the data was, unlike every other study in their survey, completely vindicated. Regnerus' thesis, the researchers found, was not only true in the analytic model in which he presented it, it was true in every analytic model possible. And they went through two million possible outcomes. So, why is it true?

Why is it that the outcomes are so much significantly worse for children in same-sex parenting households? It's not because heterosexual parents are inherently better people, nor is it because getting married is an automatic ticket to being a great parent. It's because the presence of a mother and father, both sexes, permanent and faithful, Matters. There's a difference, and a big one. Now, there's a temptation, though, to look away. I mean, who wants to be seen as harsh or judgmental? I don't. But if science shows us that children raised outside the natural family structure suffer more, not occasionally, but predictably, then continuing to push the no-difference line is not compassionate.

It is cruel. It is putting the... Adults' gratification before the welfare of children who can't speak up for themselves. We live in a culture that treats adult desire as sacred and children's needs as negotiable. Children don't need perfect parents. They need a mom and a dad committed to each other and committed to them.

If we really care about kids, we should be asking, what do they need, not what are adults entitled to? You know, there's an old saying, one of my favorites, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. But the truth always re-emerges. Life finds a way, no matter how many narratives we use to try to bury it. Reality has a funny way of breaking through the fog, because the truth does not need your permission to exist. It just is. And the truth is this.

Kids do best when raised by their own married mother and father. That is not political. It is not hateful. It is simply human nature. The only question left is, how many children have to suffer before we find the courage to say so? I'm Erika Ahearn with The Deep for LOOPcast. If you enjoyed this video and would like to see more, please be sure to subscribe and hit that notification bell. If you are on the podcast platforms, be sure to leave a review and come back for more every Thursday with The Deep. Thank you so much. God bless.