An honest question (same sex marriage/parenting related)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, some serious crickets in this thread.

YES or NO. It's easy. Would you folks support doing a very careful randomized study to answer this question. Either you're pro-science or you're not. Let's let the NIH do it. It's not like I'm calling for the Heritage Foundation to do it.

Science has already spoken. Two homosexuals can not reproduce using their own bodies. You should take a hint from that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If we did a randomized experiment and randomly assigned children who need homes (adopted kids) to married same sex couples and married hetero couples and the kids did better with the hetero couple families...would you change your mind about:

1) gay adoption
2) surrogate parenting among gays (i.e., bringing a kid into the world for 2 daddy's who otherwise wouldn't be born)?

Just curious. I hate the climate deniers on the right. But we should be scientific about this, no?

Here's the specific thought experiment/proposal:

Randomly assign infants (so that they are, in expectation, average on all traits) to gay vs straight MARRIED couples. We can even do some matching pre-hand to make sure families are of similar SES. Then sit back and watch the process unfold. If there are significant differences, we change family law policy to reflect what is in the best interests of the children, not the adults.

This shouldn't be about adult desires.

God you know that when someone uses the word 'honest' it isn't an honest question at all. It's a (very) thinly veiled attack. OP what would happen in the scenario that you describe is that some of those placed with heterosexual couples would fare better and some would fare worse. Because people are people. Some make good parents, some don't. Sexuality is pretty irrelevant to the question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, some serious crickets in this thread.

YES or NO. It's easy. Would you folks support doing a very careful randomized study to answer this question. Either you're pro-science or you're not. Let's let the NIH do it. It's not like I'm calling for the Heritage Foundation to do it.

Umm, where are you getting all these adoptable infants from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, some serious crickets in this thread.

YES or NO. It's easy. Would you folks support doing a very careful randomized study to answer this question. Either you're pro-science or you're not. Let's let the NIH do it. It's not like I'm calling for the Heritage Foundation to do it.

Science has already spoken. Two homosexuals can not reproduce using their own bodies. You should take a hint from that.

Out of interest, do you take the same view of infertile heterosexual couples? (In fact, we could expand the OP's experiment to them too: if they, as a group, proved not to be such good parents, perhaps we should stop them adopting too?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we did a randomized experiment and randomly assigned children who need homes (adopted kids) to married same sex couples and married hetero couples and the kids did better with the hetero couple families...would you change your mind about:

1) gay adoption
2) surrogate parenting among gays (i.e., bringing a kid into the world for 2 daddy's who otherwise wouldn't be born)?

Just curious. I hate the climate deniers on the right. But we should be scientific about this, no?

Here's the specific thought experiment/proposal:

Randomly assign infants (so that they are, in expectation, average on all traits) to gay vs straight MARRIED couples. We can even do some matching pre-hand to make sure families are of similar SES. Then sit back and watch the process unfold. If there are significant differences, we change family law policy to reflect what is in the best interests of the children, not the adults.

This shouldn't be about adult desires.

God you know that when someone uses the word 'honest' it isn't an honest question at all. It's a (very) thinly veiled attack. OP what would happen in the scenario that you describe is that some of those placed with heterosexual couples would fare better and some would fare worse. Because people are people. Some make good parents, some don't. Sexuality is pretty irrelevant to the question.

You do realize adoption agencies use all sorts of criteria based on data analysis/research, right? I mean most every one of us relies on the law of averages on a daily basis. There are biological reasons to suspect that mothering and fathering are unique roles and that the biological basis in parenting is, all else equal, superior. But let's let science decide. Only ideologues who favor ideology > scientific reason would be opposed to making adoption policy on the basis of rigorous scientific study. They want rigorous scientific study to decide climate policy but not family law policy. Weirdly hypocritical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, some serious crickets in this thread.

YES or NO. It's easy. Would you folks support doing a very careful randomized study to answer this question. Either you're pro-science or you're not. Let's let the NIH do it. It's not like I'm calling for the Heritage Foundation to do it.

Umm, where are you getting all these adoptable infants from?

Especially all these adoptable infants whose birth parents don't want to have any involvement in selecting their adoptive parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, some serious crickets in this thread.

YES or NO. It's easy. Would you folks support doing a very careful randomized study to answer this question. Either you're pro-science or you're not. Let's let the NIH do it. It's not like I'm calling for the Heritage Foundation to do it.

I'm very pro-science, but scientific experiments need to be ethically conducted. Aside from the logistical impossibility of finding such a sample of parentless infants and prospective adoptive parents, there is no way this would get past a review board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, some serious crickets in this thread.

YES or NO. It's easy. Would you folks support doing a very careful randomized study to answer this question. Either you're pro-science or you're not. Let's let the NIH do it. It's not like I'm calling for the Heritage Foundation to do it.

Umm, where are you getting all these adoptable infants from?

Yes. I'd support it. And I'd be confident that it would show that good parenting is down to people and not sexuality. But at that point, I'd expect people like you to stop believing in science and accuse the people running the experiment of pushing a political agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, some serious crickets in this thread.

YES or NO. It's easy. Would you folks support doing a very careful randomized study to answer this question. Either you're pro-science or you're not. Let's let the NIH do it. It's not like I'm calling for the Heritage Foundation to do it.

Umm, where are you getting all these adoptable infants from?

Yes. I'd support it. And I'd be confident that it would show that good parenting is down to people and not sexuality. But at that point, I'd expect people like you to stop believing in science and accuse the people running the experiment of pushing a political agenda.

Good for you. And you're wrong about me. I have my priors, but I favor making policy based on rigorous data/science. So, if the NIH did a clean random experiment and found that the children randomly assigned to married gay couples did just as well as the children randomly assigned to heterosexual married couples, I would favor both gay adoption and gay surrogacy parenting. If, on the other hand, the children did far worse with the gay married couples, I'd question why we should take children away from either their mother or father. BTW, I'd say the same thing for surrogacy pregnancies undergone by single mothers too. My point is I want science to guide us on what's best for kids, not ideology.

[Anonymous]

First, how are you going to do this "random assignment of children?"

Second, to go with your "thought experiment," if the result was uniformly terrible outcomes versus great outcomes (huge effect size), I'd think about it.

But here's thought experiment Part Deux: If the gay parents do better, will you remove all those unlucky kids w/hetero parents to gay families? Promise?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, some serious crickets in this thread.

YES or NO. It's easy. Would you folks support doing a very careful randomized study to answer this question. Either you're pro-science or you're not. Let's let the NIH do it. It's not like I'm calling for the Heritage Foundation to do it.

I'm very pro-science, but scientific experiments need to be ethically conducted. Aside from the logistical impossibility of finding such a sample of parentless infants and prospective adoptive parents, there is no way this would get past a review board.

+1. This experiment is a non starter OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, some serious crickets in this thread.

YES or NO. It's easy. Would you folks support doing a very careful randomized study to answer this question. Either you're pro-science or you're not. Let's let the NIH do it. It's not like I'm calling for the Heritage Foundation to do it.

I'm very pro-science, but scientific experiments need to be ethically conducted. Aside from the logistical impossibility of finding such a sample of parentless infants and prospective adoptive parents, there is no way this would get past a review board.

+1. This experiment is a non starter OP.

Not necessarily. Birth parents are often not involved once children are placed into the foster care system. Infants would be more difficult. BUT, there's no reason when talking about kids who need homes in the foster system now that we couldn't randomly assign them. What's unethical about that?

[Anonymous]

I don't think you need to do such a study. Just ask the children of gay couples once they reach adulthood if they were happy with their given situations and allow them an honest, anonymous way to share their thoughts. Only they can tell us if this works well. If they're happy, functional people, perfect. If they express doubts or say their childhoods lacked something, then maybe they're onto something and their feelings need to be respected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are an idiot

Wow that's some intellectual gravitas you've displayed. Coach a debate team in your free time?

Nope but I still think the op is an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think you need to do such a study. Just ask the children of gay couples once they reach adulthood if they were happy with their given situations and allow them an honest, anonymous way to share their thoughts. Only they can tell us if this works well. If they're happy, functional people, perfect. If they express doubts or say their childhoods lacked something, then maybe they're onto something and their feelings need to be respected.

You should ask the same thing of children of hetero parents. Otherwise you'll know nothing.