The Right to have Children

Posted by Zia H. Shah MD - Twitter: @ZiahShah1

By Paul Kokoski

I have enclosed the following letter for publication. Please let me know if you intent to print it. Thank you.

I am disappointed that homosexual partners Elton John and David Furnish have adopted another child via a surrogate mother.

Last June, the American scientific magazine “Social Science Research”, the most prestigious peer reviewed publication of its kind, published two new innovative and definitive studies on children raised by same-sex couples. From the studies it emerged that 12% of children brought up by same-sex couples contemplate suicide (against 5% of children with heterosexual parents), they are more inclined to be unfaithful (40% against 13%), they are unemployed more often (28% against 8%) and they are more likely to visit a psychotherapist (19% against 8%). They are also more often under social service surveillance compared to peers who are raised by heterosexual couples. In 40% of cases they will catch a sexually transmitted disease at some point (against 8% of peers raised by heterosexual couples) and they are generally less healthy, poorer and more likely to smoke and commit criminal offences.

The few studies published so far that support the theory that there is no difference between children brought up in heterosexual and homosexual families are – unlike the new studies – based on non-random, non-representative data often employing small samples that do not allow for generalization to the larger population of gay and lesbian families.

It is time we realize that the rights of children trump the right to children.

Author: Mr. Paul Kokoski holds a BA in philosophy from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. His articles have been published in several newspapers and journals including, Homiletic and Pastoral Review, New Oxford Review, and The Toronto Star.

Posted by Zia H. Shah MD - Twitter: @ZiahShah1 on January 21, 2013. Filed under Americas,Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

6 Responses to The Right to have Children

Dr Stephen Moreton

January 21, 2013 at 7:58 am

Kokoski is not being truthful about the studies he cites. One was just a review of the existing literature by Loren Marks which concluded that the data was inconclusive. The one from which Kokoski draws his statistics was by Mark Regnerus. Both have been strongly criticised, and the one by Mark Regnerus has been retracted. The journal issued an apology in its November issue, admitting that Regnerus’ paper was so seriously flawed it should never have been accepted, and that the peer-review process had failed. The reviewers, it turned out, had biases and conflicts of interest.
Most of the children Regnerus deemed to be from gay/lesbian parents were in fact from divorced, or single-parent households, not from stable same-sex ones. The parents were labelled gay/lesbian even if they had only had a brief homosexual experience. And most of the children had not lived with their supposedly gay or lesbian parent for any significant length of time. Regnerus could not find enough children from stable same-sex households to draw any conclusions. So his study only tells us that children from broken homes, or single-parent families, don’t do as well as those from stable homes. It does NOT tell us that stable same-sex parents are any different to stable different sex ones.
Kokoski is citing discredited and retracted “research” that does not prove the things he claims. He has been doing this for years. I have investigated many similar claims this man has made and every time found them to be entirely bogus. See here for more about this man, and why he should never be believed: http://antigayfactcheck.org/2012/11/15/paul-kokoskis-anti-gay-ignorance/
Scroll down to the responses section for my detailed debunking of Kokoski’s hateful anti-gay lies.
Zia H. Shah MD - Twitter: @ZiahShah1

January 21, 2013 at 8:22 am

“Human law has the nature of law in so far as it partakes of right reason; and it is clear that, in this respect, it is derived from the eternal law. But in so far as it deviates from reason, it is called an unjust law, and has the nature, not of law but of violence.” St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 – March 7, 1274)
Zia H. Shah MD - Twitter: @ZiahShah1

January 21, 2013 at 8:25 am

“Do they seek a religion other than Allah’s, while to Him submits whosoever is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly, and to Him shall they be returned?” (Al Quran 3:84)

It is self evident to me that if I had two fathers and no mother, I would have been very much worse off, all my life. This observation rises to the level of self evident, if any thing is evident to the humans, then for me, as regards my choice for my parents, needs no other argument, logic, science or psychological studies.

Both my parents are deceased, so no one needs to exhume them here.

My two cents on the issue.
Qudsia

January 21, 2013 at 12:09 pm

Dr. Stephen Moreton in his comments criticized Paul Kokoski saying that when one compares stable gay couples to stable straight couples one gets different results. But he failed to mention that the rate of infidelity is significantly higher in gay couples than in straight couples.

In fact, in a study of homosexual male couples conducted by gay researchers:

--100% (all) of the couples experienced infidelity in their relationship within the first 5 years.

Also,

--Couples who remained together past the 10-year mark were able to do so only by accepting the painful reality of infidelity in their relationship.

http://www.examiner.com/article/same-sex-marriage-alert-shocking-statistics-on-gay-and-lesbian-infidelity

And so comparing stable gay homes to stable straight homes will give skewed results since one will not be analyzing a random sample from a community, and such a study would completely bypass the reality faced by an adopted child who will more likely end up in a broken home if adopted by a gay couple compared to a straight couple.
leila

January 21, 2013 at 4:22 pm

while I am not against any human beings right to have children, but what about the rights of children , why should they be deprived of having a real biological mommy and daddy isn’t it a contradiction and lying to a child to tell them one daddy is really mommy and the other is really daddy even though they are a like or vise versa or you just have to live and accept that you only have two daddys or two mommys because we have the legal right to have xx and don’t worry about yy.
as if the world isn’t confusing enough to the poor children. Dear God save our children from all the pollutions and confusions of the so called civilized.
Dr Stephen Moreton

January 22, 2013 at 7:36 am

Qudsia’s post demonstrates the danger of searching the internet for quick sound bites without checking them first. The link is not to any academic source, but to a journalistic piece. The statistics quoted are described as being cited in the book “Sex in America: a definitive survey”. So it is already second hand data, and we are not told what the authors of “Sex in America” thought of it. The primary source is:
McWhirter, David P. and Andrew M. Mattison. (1984) The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
So the data Qudsia is using is about 30 years old! In fact, as some of those in their study had been together 37 years, the study is really telling us about gay relationships in America in the 1950s to 1970s, a difficult time to be gay, when gay relationships were frowned upon, not legally recognised, and before AIDS. So the data is hopelessly out of date, and has no bearing on today’s situation.
Chastened by AIDS, and with long-term gay relationships at last starting to be recognised and valued, gay people are motivated – and finally able – to make them work. In fact, Qudsia’s own link concludes with data from a much more recent (2011) study which shows a dramatic decrease in infidelity in same-sex relationships, with lesbians now actually being more faithful to each other than heterosexual women are to their husbands:
G. Gotta, R-J. Green, E. Rothblum, S. Solomon, K. Balsam & P. Schwartz (2011) Heterosexual, Lesbian, and Gay Male Relationships: A Comparison of Couples in 1975 and 2000. Family Process, vol. 50, no. 3, p. 353-376.
So, if Qudsia thinks infidelity is a problem in same-sex relationships, the answer is to recognise and value such relationships. Who can blame gays for being unfaithful if their relationships are treated as having little value?