For an idea of how the study was done, here's a short excerpt from the introduction to the study:
The NFSS [New Family Structures Study]drew from a large, nationally representative, random sample of the U.S. population of young adults, ages 18–39, who were raised in diverse family arrangements, screening 15,000 persons and interviewing 2,988 respondents, making it the second-largest probability sample of children of gay and lesbian parents.As the debate on same-sex 'marriage' has unfolded, the advocates of such have chosen to talk about marriage equality. By using this phrase, those advocates are leaping over a few considerations to the contrary and are claiming, without any discussion or evidence other than anecdotal, that marriage between a homosexual couple is the same as marriage between a heterosexual couple. Since married people typically have children, what follows of course is that homosexual couples should have children because their union through marriage is no different from that of a heterosexual couple. Thus, children of homosexual couples, these advocates of 'equality' must claim, are no different from the children of heterosexual couples. And so on down the garden path.
This study addresses that assumption and shows that that isn't the case. Interestingly, the study is not being well-received by advocates of same-sex 'marriage,' as you can read here. As this article asks, where is the tolerance for a study that challenges the views of the marriage equality advocates? Note that no one on the 'marriage equality' side of the issue chose to support this study.
"To avoid political partisanship, donors who support same-sex marriage rights as well as those that don’t were invited to participate equally. Regrettably no donors who support same-sex marriage rights accepted the invitation; four were approached, all declined." (NFSS)Critics of the NFSS are saying that Regnerus compared children in stable heterosexual families with children from unstable homosexual unions. In this article, the author says of the Regnerus study:
The study compares how children fare [under] stable parents to how children fare under divorce or infidelity. We call that “comparing apples to oranges.” Of course the oranges don’t have black seeds. They’re oranges. If he had compared how children did in heterosexual stepfamilies or heterosexual single-parent families with the lesbian or gay stepfamilies or single-parent homes, we might learn something.Could be accurate, but, frankly, I think if that study were made, the result would still be that children of heterosexual broken families fared better than those from homosexual unions. Anyway, I wonder how Graff feels about the effects of divorce and infidelity on children? Usually, advocates for the do-what's-good-for-you style of living claim that divorce doesn't harm children. Divorce, blended families, affairs, menages-a-trois, lesbian couples, male-male couples, it's all just variations on a theme. No big deal. Furthermore, the homosexual life-style itself is marked by a fair degree of infidelity that we are apparently supposed to accept--and even condone--as healthy and just one more 'choice.'
The problem begins with being told that we all must accept what is utterly contrary to common sense--that homosexuality is no different from heterosexuality.
