National Medical And Psychological Groups File Amicus Brief Against DOMA

In yet another move to counter the the claims of anti-gay hate groups, professional Christians, fraudulent "family values" organizations and the political prostitutes of all of the foregoing in the Republican Party, a who's who of legitimate medical and mental health associations, including the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have filed an amici curiae brief supporting Karen Golinski's discrimination case against the government, Golinski v. Office of Personnel, which seeks to have DOMA struck down as unconstitutional.  The lower court has already found DOMA to be unconstitutional and motivated by nothing other than anti-gay animus. It goes without saying that the anti-gay hate groups will be claiming that somehow LGBT individuals have somehow co=opted these associations.  Towleroard observes as follows on the amicus filing:

[T]he good doctors offer scores of scientific data showing that same-sex parents do no hurt children, but that the government's prohibitions on marriage equality do.

From their introduction:

The claim that legal recognition of marriage for same–sex couples undermines the institution of marriage and harms their children is inconsistent with the scientific evidence. That evidence supports the conclusion that homosexuality is a normal expression of human sexuality that is not chosen; that gay and lesbian people form stable, committed relationships that are equivalent to heterosexual relationships in essential respects; and that same-sex couples are no less fit than heterosexual parents to raise children and their children are no less psychologically healthy and well-adjusted than children of opposite sex parents.

And this comes from a section called "Homosexuality Is A Normal Expression Of Human Sexuality, Is Generally Not Chosen, And Is Highly Resistant To Change:"

Current scientific and professional understanding is that the core feelings that form the basis for adult sexual orientation typically emerge between middle childhood and early adolescence, without any necessary prior sexual experience. Most gay men and lesbian women do not experience their sexual orientation as the result of a voluntary choice.

And then there's this bit from their final argument:

The foregoing shows that the attitudes towards and beliefs about lesbians and gay men relied on by Congress in enacting DOMA – about their capacity for committed, long lasting relationships, and their ability to raise healthy well-adjusted children – are contradicted by the scientific evidence and instead reflect an unreasoned antipathy towards an identifiable minority. Amici accordingly support the judgment of Judge White that § 3 of DOMA appears to be based on an explicit animus against gay men and lesbians. In institutionalizing greater access by heterosexuals than gay men and lesbians to the many federal resources and benefits accorded married couples and their children, the Act conveys the federal government’s judgment that committed intimate relationships between people of the same sex – even when recognized as legal marriages by the couple’s state – are inferior to heterosexual relationships.

I can already hear the shrieks and screams of Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, Bryan Fischer and those of their ilk who enrich themselves by disseminating hatred and falsehoods against others.  As note many times before on this blog, there is absolutely NOTHING to justify anti-gay laws and constitutional amendments other that religious based bigotry and the writings of ignorant ans uneducated Bronze Age herders and nomads.  Writings that modern science is continuing to expose as false and inaccurate.  DOMA needs to be struck down as do anti-ga constitutional amendments such as Virginia's nasty Marshall-Newman Amendment

Are Gay Parents Better Than Straight Parents?

Just today Christofascist bigot and GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum lectured the mother of a gay man on how he doesn't "hate gays." Actions and statements over a period of time, of course, tells a different story. Personally, barring a group of people from ever having any legal recognition of their relationships doesn't exactly strike me as loving. And as for Santorum's tired parroting of the hate group derived meme that children need a mother and father, new research suggests that even that line is not true. In fact, the new research suggests that gay parents may be better than many straight parents. I'm sure this nugget of truth will have Maggie Gallagher, Linda Harvey, Victoria Cobb and other professional Christians wetting themselves and going into spittle spewing convulsions. Here are highlights from a Huffington Post that detail yet another favorite Christianist lie being exposed as untrue:

On Jan. 6, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum told a New Hampshire audience that children are better off with a father in prison than being raised in a home with lesbian parents and no father at all. And last Monday (Jan. 9), Pope Benedict called gay marriage a threat "to the future of humanity itself," citing the need for children to have heterosexual homes.

But research on families headed by gays and lesbians doesn't back up these dire assertions. In fact, in some ways, gay parents may bring talents to the table that straight parents don't.

Gay parents "tend to be more motivated, more committed than heterosexual parents on average, because they chose to be parents," said Abbie Goldberg, a psychologist at Clark University in Massachusetts who researches gay and lesbian parenting. Gays and lesbians rarely become parents by accident, compared with an almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals, Goldberg said. "That translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement."

[R]esearch suggests that gay and lesbian parents are actually a powerful resource for kids in need of adoption. According to a 2007 report by the Williams Institute and the Urban Institute, 65,000 kids were living with adoptive gay parents between 2000 and 2002, with another 14,000 in foster homes headed by gays and lesbians.

Research has shown that the kids of same-sex couples — both adopted and biological kids — fare no worse than the kids of straight couples on mental health, social functioning, school performance and a variety of other life-success measures.

In a 2010 review of virtually every study on gay parenting, New York University sociologist Judith Stacey and University of Southern California sociologist Tim Biblarz found no differences between children raised in homes with two heterosexual parents and children raised with lesbian parents.

The bottom line, Stacey said, is that people who say children need both a father and a mother in the home are misrepresenting the research, most of which compares children of single parents to children of married couples. Two good parents are better than one good parent, Stacey said, but one good parent is better than two bad parents. And gender seems to make no difference. While you do find broad differences between how men and women parent on average, she said, there is much more diversity within the genders than between them.

In fact, the only consistent places you find differences between how kids of gay parents and kids of straight parents turn out are in issues of tolerance and open-mindedness, according to Goldberg.

If same-sex marriage does disadvantage kids in any way, it has nothing to do with their parent's gender and everything to do with society's reaction toward the families, said Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell, . . .

Imagine that. "Godly Christians" lying and deliberately misrepresenting legitimate research. Rick Santorum is a total douche bag and if there is a God, Santorum will end up with gay or lesbian children. As noted before, the strongest argument for walking away from Christianity is falsely pious, sanctimonious, modern day Pharisee like "godly Christians."

Christian Right Group Misrepresents Legitimate Research - Yet Again

Recently, Regina Griggs of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) - an organization set up by an funded by major anti-gay Christian Right organizations to help breath life into the "ex-gay" myth which is so important to the Christianists' efforts to deny legal equality to LGBT citizens - has once again and all too typically been lying about real research findings. As more and more research supports the unchanging nature of sexual orientation or in this instance the negative consequences of parental rejection of their LGBT children as found in the recent study, self-styled professional Christians like Griggs attempt to discredit findings that run counter to their religious fanaticism by lying about what the research findings state or selectively quoting from them to yield an utterly different conclusion. Personally, I don't know why the Christianist do not formally adopt a New Nine Commandment standard since they always ignore the Commandment against bearing false witness. Here are some highlights from Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters on Griggs' latest dishonesty:

*

In what seems to be becoming a habit, another professor has cried foul over what he calls the distortion of his work by the religious right.Theo Sandfort, Associate Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences (HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies - New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University) said his work is being incorrectly cited.

*

Recently, Regina Griggs of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) voiced her displeasure with a recent study conducted in California that said young gays and lesbians were more likely to suffer depression or commit suicide if their parents or guardians reacted negatively to their sexual orientation.

*

Griggs also added: Studies in the Netherlands -- where there is an "extremely open society," notes Griggs -- found that although the homosexual lifestyle is affirmed through the culture, the suicide rates have remained steady or increased.

*

The "studies" Griggs alluded to is actually one study and it has been cited by the religious right numerous times to claim that homophobia has very little to do with the depression and suicide rate of lgbts. The study, Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders, appeared in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 2001 and it looked at psychiatric disorders in gay adults from the Netherlands. . . . Griggs incorrectly cites this study because it had absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand (i.e. negative behaviors in lgbt youth in the United States).

*

Via email, Professor Sandfort said: There is a difference between the U.S. and the Netherlands in terms of acceptance of homosexuality. That does not mean that there is no homophobia (and homophobic damage) in the Netherlands. It is not clear how difference in climate affects the prevalence of mental disorders. We don't know the final answers, but in the U.S. as well as the Netherlands, homophobia is related to mental health problems.

*

He also said that Griggs and others who use the study to claim that homophobia does not have an effect on negative lgbt behavior are clearly distorting his work:" They use data to promote their moral convictions without truly understanding what the issues are. They are not interested in understanding how people's lives are affected by their social environment."

*

Sandfort's complaint is not the first time a professor has cried foul about how PFOX distorts his work. Last year, Gary Remafedi, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, complained that PFOX distorted his work on suicide attempts in gay youth.

*

Sadly, the bottom line is that fanatics like Griggs care NOTHING about the damage they do to LGBT youth much less LGBT adults. I can assure you that it was homophobia and an all day divorce hearing where I was crucified for being gay that pushed me to my own nearly successful suicide attempt. To Griggs and her fellow Christianists, I - like all other LGBT individuals - are disposable and they care only about their agenda to persecute gays. They are NOT Christians but instead are monsters.