The Rev. Dr. Paul Sullins

1
Child Emotional Problems in Same-Sex Parent
FamiliesThe Discovery of Irreducible Difference

• The Rev. Dr. Paul Sullins
• The Catholic University of America
• Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI)

2
American Sociological Association Amicus Brief
(2/23/13), Hollingsworth v. Perry, p. 3

• The claim that same-sex parents produce less
  positive child outcomes than opposite-sex
  parentseither because such families lack both a
  male and female parent or because both parents
  are not the biological parents of their
  childrencontradicts abundant social science
  research.
• Whether a child is raised by same-sex or
• opposite-sex parents has no bearing on a childs
• wellbeing.

3
Child Well-Being in Same-Sex Parent Families
Review of Research Prepared for American
Sociological Association Amicus Brief Wendy D.
Manning Marshal Neal FettroEsther Lamidi Popul
Res Policy Rev (2014) 33485502, Abstract

• We conclude that there is a clear consensus in
  the social science literature indicating that
  American children living within same-sex parent
  households fare just as well as those children
  residing within different-sex parent households
  over a wide array of well-being measures
  academic performance, cognitive development,
  social development, psychological health, early
  sexual activity, and substance abuse.
• Our assessment of the literature is based on
  credible and methodologically sound studies that
  compare well-being outcomes of children residing
  within same-sex and different-sex parent
  families.
• Differences that exist in child well-being are
  largely due to socioeconomic circumstances and
  family stability.

4
Sound methodology?
Our assessment of the literature is based on
credible and methodologically sound studies that
compare well-being outcomes of children residing
within same-sex and different-sex parent
families.
In a recent review of 49 same-sex parenting
studies prior to 2010, 47 of which concluded that
there were no differences in child well-being
compared to opposite-sex families, Allen found
that not a single study involved a representative
sample large enough to distinguish differences if
they existed. The mean sample size of children
with same-sex parents was only 39 (Rosenfeld
2013757), virtually guaranteeing Type II error
(failing to detect a true effect) regarding
population differences. Only four studies used a
probability (random) sample at all the largest
of these included only 44 female same-sex
families. The remainder based their findings
on conveniently available or selected groups of
participants, often recruited from biased,
politically aware sources such as LGBT events,
bookstore and newspaper advertisements, word of
mouth, networking and youth groups (Allen
2013640 see this article or Marks 2012 for
comprehensive lists of study sample sizes and
sources.).
5
Good data are hard to find
Drawing a probability sample of sufficient size
to discern population differences with any
statistical power, however, presents substantial
difficulties for what Rosenfeld (2013963) has
colorfully termed the needle-in-a-haystack
population of same-sex parents. According to the
U.S. Census, same-sex couple households comprise
less than 0.005 (five one-thousandths, or
one-half of one percent) of U.S. households with
children.i To attain a sample of 800 same-sex
couples, which has been estimated to be the
minimum sample size needed to make inferences for
this population, would require drawing at least
160,000 cases, assuming a perfect response rate.
Same-sex couples, moreover, tend to have somewhat
lower than normal response rates, perhaps due to
stigma, and female couples are more likely to be
raising children than males, resulting in an
extremely low yield for same-sex parents, and
particularly gay male parents, in randomized
population samples.
6
Enter NHIS 1.6 million cases yielding 512 SS
parent families

• The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) is
  the principle source of public health information
  about the United States population. Since 1957
  the United States Centers for Disease Control and
  Preventions National Center for Health
  Statistics has annually interviewed between
  35,000 and 40,000 households, collecting data on
  75,000 to 100,000 individuals comprising a
  nationally representative sample of the civilian
  noninstitutionalized population of the United
  States.

The present study examines combined 1997-2013
NHIS data, consisting of information on 1,598,006
persons, including 207,007 sample children. This
sample included 2,751 same sex couples2,304
cohabiting and 447 spousalconsisting of 1,387
male couples and 1,384 female couples 582
couples406 female and 176 malehad children
under age 18 in the home. A more extensive
battery of health questions, including the
measures of emotional health used in this study,
was completed for 512 children sampled, one per
family, from the same-sex parenting families.
7
Primary measure Strengths and Difficulties
Questionnaire (SDQ)

• The 0-10 scale used on NHIS (SDQ-EX) was
  calibrated against a sample with known clinical
  diagnoses by a team from the Harvard University
  School of Public Health, who discovered that a
  high score (6 or more) screened for 12-month
  clinical diagnoses, as determined by a more
  extensive clinical assessment, with a positive
  predictive value of 74, negative predictive
  value of 98, and overall concordance (AUC) of
  .80. (Kessler, Gruber, and Sampson 200655, Table
  28)

8
RESULTS
9
What does not explain it

• OS/SS Differences in child emotional problems are
  unaffected by
• parent education and income
• family stability
• age, race and sex of child
• peer stigmatization or bullying
• parent emotional problems
• Most of these affect the overall risk of child
  emotional problems, but do not cause more
  problems in SS families than they do in OS
  families.

10
What does explain it

• One powerful factor explains Biological
  Parentage
• Distinguishes children being raised by
• 1. Both biological parents, or
• 2. Only one of his/her biological parents (step
  or single parent family), or
• 3. Neither biological parent (i.e., adopted
  children)
• Including biological parentage in the statistical
  models explains all the OS/SS variation and
  renders all other causal factors insignificant.
• Bio Parentage is both necessary and sufficient
  to account for the higher rate of emotional
  problems observed among children with same-sex
  parents.

11
Children living with both bio parents have far
fewer emotional problems
but there are no such children in same-sex
families.
(They make up almost two-thirds of children in
opposite-sex families)
12
Marriage or family structure alone has a mixed
and weak effect, which does not clearly
differentiate same-sex and opposite-sex families.
The apparent effect of family structure is
really due to the fact that
13
Bio effects correlate strongly with marriage
Almost all children with parents in an intact
first marriage live with both bio parents
14
This finding is well recognized--for opposite-sex
families

• First, research clearly demonstrates that family
• structure matters for children, and the family
  structure
• that helps children the most is a family headed
• by two biological parents in a low-conflict
  marriage.
• Children in single-parent families, children born
  to
• unmarried mothers, and children in stepfamilies
  or
• cohabiting relationships face higher risks of
  poor
• outcomes than do children in intact families
  headed
• by two biological parents.
• Kristin Anderson Moore, Susan M. Jekielek, and
  Carol Emig, "Marriage from a Childs Perspective
  How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and
  What Can We Do about It?", Child Trends Research
  Brief, June 2002 (Emphasis added)

15
This is not new or surprising--for opposite-sex
families

• Children who grow up in a household with only
  one biological parent are worse off, on average,
  than children who grow up in a household with
  both of their biological parents regardless of
  the parents race, education and marital status,
  including remarriage.
• McLanahan, Sara, and Gary D. Sandefur. 1994.
  Growing up with a Single Parent What Hurts, What
  Helps. Harvard University Press. Page 1.

16
ThreeImplications
The higher risk of emotional problems for
children in same-sex parent families has little
or nothing to do with the quality of parenting,
care, or other relational characteristics of
those families.
1

• But if the strongest benefits for child
  well-being are conferred only on the biological
  offspring of both parents
• and since same-sex relationships cannot, at least
  at present, conceive a child that is the
  biological offspring of both partners, in the way
  that every child conceived by opposite-sex
  partners is such
• then same-sex partners, no matter how loving and
  committed, can never replicate the level of
  benevolence for child well-being that is possible
  for opposite-sex partners.

2
This defect, moreover, is an essential and
permanent feature of same-sex relationships it
is part of their definition, an irreducible
difference that cannot be amended or abrogated by
improving the circumstances, stability, legal
status or social acceptance of same-sex couples.
3
17
Conclusion What is marriage?
The primary benefit of marriage for children may
not be that it tends to present them with
improved parents (more stable, financially
affluent, etc., although it does do this), but
that it presents them with their own parents.
This is the case for 98 of children in nuclear
familieswhich most successfully fulfill the
formal civil premise of marriage, that is,
lifelong and exclusive partner commitmentcompared
to less than half of children in any other
family category, and no children in same-sex
families. Whether or not same-sex families
attain the legal right, as opposite-sex couples
now have, to solemnize their relationship in
civil marriage, the two family forms will
continue to have fundamentally different, even
contrasting, effects on the biological component
of child well-being, to the relative detriment of
children in same-sex families. Functionally,
opposite-sex marriage is a social practice that,
as much as possible, ensures to children the
joint care of both biological parents, with the
attendant benefits that brings same-sex marriage
ensures the opposite.