Eric Holder and Gay Parenting

These two topics are unrelated, by the way....

I have ranted against Attorney General Eric Holder many times on this blog.  I think he is nothing more than a corrupt, incompetent, race-obsessed political hack, and it is a disgrace that he occupies one of the most powerful governmental positions in this country.  Finally, in the wake of Holder's utter failure to seriously address the Fast and Furious scandal and the unprecedented leaks of classified information that are apparently coming from the White House, several prominent Republican in Congress, including Senator John Cornyn from Texas who sits on the Justice Committee, have called for Eric Holder's resignation.  Senator Cornyn lays out the reasons why Holder should resign clearly here.

I also want to follow up on the lengthy essay I published on the topic of same-sex marriage last month.  One of the issues I discussed with Some Dude in the comments to that essay was the question about how children do growing up in homes with same-sex parents compared with children being raised by both of their biological parents.  Some recent studies have claimed that there is no difference, and supporters of same-sex marriage have seized on these studies to argue that since children do not need a father and a mother to thrive there is no reason to give special recognition to traditional heterosexual marriage for the sake of the children. 

However, two studies published on June 10 in the Social Science Research journal, which is apparently a well-respected scholarly publication, raise serious questions about these claims.  One study, authored by a professor at Louisiana State University, found that previous research studies that claimed children raised by same-sex parents do just as well as children raised by married heterosexual parents were flawed and that the data from those studies was insufficient to support their claims.  The other study, authored by a professor from the University of Texas, found that children raised by lesbian parents fared worse on 24 out of 40 key developmental outcomes, and that children raised by gay parents fared worse on 19 out of 40 key developmental outcomes.  The children of gay and lesbian parents fared better on no developmental outcomes.  This study also compared other types of family structures.  The study's conclusion is that "children appear most apt to succeed well as adults—on multiple counts and across a variety of domains—when they spend their entire childhood with their married mother and father, and especially when the parents remain married to the present day.”

I have found a number of helpful articles online that provide more information and analysis of these studies.  They include an article from Fox News by Dr. Keith Ablow and a National Review article by Charles C.W. Cooke.  And legal expert Ed Whelan, also of National Review, discusses the implications of these studies on the ongoing gay marriage debate in three very helpful articles here, here, and here.  Of course, studies must be taken with a grain of salt and no one study can definitively prove anything.  But these studies are important in debunking the claim being advanced by many gay marriage advocates that science definitively proves that it makes no difference to a child whether he is raised by a mother and a father, two fathers, or two mothers.  Ultimately, my belief in the importance of fathers and mothers is not based on any study.  It is based, first of all, in my belief in God's Word and the creation order and marriage institution God established.  It is also based on the fundamental realities of biology and the clear differences between genders and between fathers and mothers.  And finally, it is based on the experience of thousands of years of culture and the mountains of evidence that demonstrate that children do best when raised by their married biological parents.

UPDATE: Another great article from National Review analyzing the recent gay parenting study and comparing it to other gay parenting studies published in recent years.