The Gay Parents Study

Indeed, Will, you remain pretty fixated on the more recent turn toward planned lesbian families, wherein couples pursue the complicated?and potentially quite expensive?process of deciding just how they will have a child. Yes, the children of such a selective group would be expected to fare better. But they're hardly the only face of same-sex parents in America, and that is one conclusion of my study. Is the welfare of so many other children to be overlooked because of the scholarly community and media?s penchant for focusing only on this most elite form of childbearing? Even among the youngest NFSS respondents, few appeared to be born in this comparatively new manner. The face of gay and lesbian households in America is more diverse than that.

So what kinds of empirical research questions should come next? Here are a few that make sense to me. Each of them, I assert, ought to be tested using very large, nationally-representative samples. First, how stable are straight, gay, and lesbian relationships, both those with and without children? Instability, as you know, was a specter in the study. Might the stability that may emerge from early uptake of gay marriage (in those states that permit it) be a selection effect?that is, the result of pent-up demand among the most stable of couples? Just how common is the "planned" method of childbearing today, as a share of all households headed by gay or lesbian parents? These are just a few of the many interesting (but provocative) questions that could be asked. But we may yet be years from answering them.

Finally, critics like yourself have noted the limitations of the NFSS. It certainly has them. It's time to be as rigorous with your friends as with your (perceived) enemies.

Warmly,
Mark

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