Which is better: kids growing up in a foster home or kids growing up with gay parents?

[larkin31]

…The fact that I don’t happen to agree with you does not make me ignorant or uninformed. It makes me in disagreement with you about what a healthy household actually means.

True, but the fact that your position is based only on your opinion and the moral opinion of your religious institution makes your position only mildly persuasive, and typically only within your religious denomination.

There is no suggestion from any data that children raised by gays are either better OR worse off than those raised in foster homes. All the rest of the talk here is simply about a sexual Biblical precept written over 2000 years ago or it is merely a residue of prejudice.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

… Does that also mean that straight couples are unfit to be parents?

I would say straight couples who have open type of marriages are, at the least, not the ideal foster or adoptive parents. Such a home would not provide stability, IMO.

To have an environment of same-sex parents with an open type of union / “marriage” provides further challenge in the development of good values to live by in accord with Judeo-Christian tradition.

You don’t state your faith affiliation, so I don’t know if you would share this view.
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[Tantum_ergo]

True, but the fact that your position is based only on your opinion and the moral opinion of your religious institution makes your position only mildly persuasive, and typically only within your religious denomination.

There is no suggestion from any data that children raised by gays are either better OR worse off than those raised in foster homes. All the rest of the talk here is simply about a sexual Biblical precept written over 2000 years ago or it is merely a residue of prejudice.

Wait, and your position isn’t based on opinion and the moral opinion you hold? What makes your moral opinion ‘right’ and the Christian one ‘wrong?’

There isn’t any data that can accurately reflect being ‘better or worse off’. Better than what? Worse that what? What exactly are the criteria? How were these criteria, and not others, ‘chosen’ to reflect what ‘better off’ means? How can you reconcile the statistically ‘better off economically’ child in the gay home versus the ‘better off emotionally’ child in the foster home? What of the individual child and the individual people (gay or foster)? The kind of child who might ‘do well’ in the gay home of two ‘stable’ people in a well to do home might have done equally well in a foster home of two arguing people in a poor home. . .simply because the child is personally RESILIENT. . .whereas another child who does poorly in the foster home might do equally poorly in the gay home. . .simply because the child is personally NOT resilient.

Likewise, gay people might be poor role models because of their own personality flaws. . .and foster parents might be poor role models because of their own personalitiy flaws. . .which have little to do with their sexual behavior. IOW, they are simply poor ‘parental figures’. Of course, ‘natural’ parents can be poor role models because of their own personality flaws as well. . .

Using statistics with such LIMITED data (how many years, really, do we have, and how many ‘case studies’ of children raised in gay households? and do the studies take into account the incredible variety of factors besides the ‘gayness’ or the ‘fosterdom’ of the adults? Statistics are so sketchy even among studies that are supposedly hugely well known and done (Kinsey report, anybody?) that trying to use them to argue about which ‘group’ is better for raising a child is ludicrous.

 

[Elizabeth502]

IMy question to you is though, how do you feel about a non homosexual same gendered household?

Asked and answered, counsellor. In previous post and in the searches that you refuse to do.

 

[za91]

For those who are interested in studies, here is an abstract on an actual study, which does not mean, of course, that all homosexual practitioners are molesters of children, or this is for the whole United States. It clearly states it is a study by Illinois Child Services, obtained by the Family Reseach Institute thru IllinoisLeader.com using the Freedom of Information Act. I hope this is a sufficient disclaimer so posters who are on one side of the debate do not go rabid with unfair accusations.

Anybody who would want to question or pursue a study of the study can go straight to the site and analyze the bibliography and notes by Illinois Child Services.

Homosexual Child Molestations by Foster Parents: Illinois 1997 - 2002

Do those who engage in homosexuality disproportionately sexually abuse foster or adoptive children as reported by child protective services? Illinois child services reported sexual abuse for 1997 through 2002. 270 parents committed “substantiated” sexual offenses against foster or subsidized adoptive children: 67 (69%) of 97 mother and 148 (86%) of 173 father perpetrators sexually abused girls; 30 (31%) mother and 25 (14%) of father perpetrators sexually abused boys (i.e., 92 [34%] of the perpetrators homosexually abused their charges). 15 of these parents both physically and sexually abused charges: daughters by 8 mothers and 4 fathers, sons by 3 mothers (i.e., same-sex perpetrators were involved in 53%). Thus, homosexual practitioners were proportionately more apt to sexually abuse foster or adoptive children.

…

I’m sorry, but I cannot take the Family Research Institute as a fair and objective source. Their main goal is as stated: to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality. All of the organizations “research” promotes the far right agenda.

From the APA, which I admit may lean to the left, but by no means to the extent that the FRI leans to the right.
“Another myth about homosexuality is the mistaken belief that gay men have more of a tendency than heterosexual men to sexually molest children. There is no evidence to suggest that homosexuals or bisexuals molest children at a higher rate than heterosexuals.”

Please take the time to read this interesting article. It lists SEVERAL studies that show that homosexuals are no more likely to be child abusers than heterosexuals.

psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html

 

[plinko]

I’m sorry, but I cannot take the Family Research Institute as a fair and objective source…

THIS. And everything else after it. Nonbiased arguments, please!

@Elizabeth, I used to have a menial McDonald’s-like job where I would have to repeat myself for every single customer. One day the credit card machine went down. At first, telling people that they could only pay cash and no, they couldn’t use debit was just a minor bother. Then it made me angry. Then I started to give people attitude. I knew that these customers were new and couldn’t possibly have known the machine was down, but it still irritated me when I would get the same questions. My manager had to pull me aside and explain the obvious to me. Sometimes you just have to repeat yourself so that everyone knows the story. I feel like you may be suffering from “broken credit card machine syndrome”. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just repeat yourself in one or 2 sentences rather than making people open a new tab and spend HOURS looking for something you said in 2008? That way, you can type different things instead of “do a search”, “maybe if you weren’t lazy, you’d do a search”, or “hey, see that search button up there?” Just thought I’d throw that out there…

To the general public, have you guys seen this great speech by a college kid about his home life? I can’t see how anybody could have something negative to say about it, but I’m sure someone will surprise me…

 

[Elizabeth502]

@Elizabeth, I used to have a menial McDonald’s-like job where I would have to repeat myself for every single customer. One day the credit card machine went down. At first, telling people that they could only pay cash and no, they couldn’t use debit was just a minor bother. Then it made me angry. Then I started to give people attitude. I knew that these customers were new and couldn’t possibly have known the machine was down, but it still irritated me when I would get the same questions. My manager had to pull me aside and explain the obvious to me. Sometimes you just have to repeat yourself so that everyone knows the story. I feel like you may be suffering from “broken credit card machine syndrome”. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to just repeat yourself in one or 2 sentences

It’s not one or two sentences. My positions are developed, not fast food like McDonald’s.

rather than making people open a new tab and spend HOURS looking for something you said in 2008? That way, you can type different things instead of “do a search”, “maybe if you weren’t lazy, you’d do a search”, or “hey, see that search button up there?” Just thought I’d throw that out there…

Not hours. Minutes. But I guess when you’re in line at McDonald’s, minutes are like hours.

Such a long story on your part, by the way, in order to rationalize a refusal to search. Proving nothing, except that you’ll spend time on a long story iinstead of a quick search. When it hasn’t been difficult to encapsulate my position – such as I just did on another thread – with repetition of a past statement, I have done so. But again, the fact that you didn’t bother to ascertain that fact ( explained just this evneing, with a quick current search of merely today’s posts, on page one of the search page), demonstrates frankly laziness. Had you done so, you would have seen why I haven’t reposted two years of posts: because my arguments are developed and in context with other arguments. In those cases, restating a position out of context is not helpful.