Many people question how capable same-sex parents are of raising children to live fulfilling and successful lives. And while the words "same-sex" have no relation to what it means to raise a good child, it's the exact reason many gay couples get denied the opportunity. Obviously, many people believe that children need to be surrounded by both a mother and father.

When deciding the time is right to have a child, however, gay couples tend to be more prepared, due to the many channels they must go through compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Whether it's through adoption or a surrogate parent, the choice to have a child is a thought-out process.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, more than 51 percent of pregnancies are unplanned. That’s 3.4 million unintended babies born to women 15 to 44 years old. Three of those 10 women will opt for an abortion. While the rate of teen pregnancies has declined 42 percent in the last 24 years, teens who have children may have a more difficult time raising them. By comparison, gay couples can't have an unplanned pregnancy, which causes them to scramble for resources and make sacrifices. Therefore, their children may live better lives.

While there isn’t much research to confirm or deny any of these claims for heterosexual teen parents, recent research suggests that children with same-sex parents are generally healthier with a stronger family system. In an Australian study, researchers from the University of Melbourne surveyed 315 same-sex parents and 500 children. They found that these children "had higher scores on measures of general behavior, general health, and family cohesion compared to population normative data,” the researchers wrote. Eighty percent of the children studied were raised in homes with lesbian parents, while 18 percent were raised among gay dads. The study authors also found that, “perceived stigma is negatively associated with mental health. Through improved awareness of stigma, these findings play an important role in health policy, improving child health outcomes.” 

One explanation for this success could be that household responsibilities were more likely to be evenly distributed. "That's really a measure that looks at how well families get along, and it seems that same-sex-parent families and the children in them are getting along well, and this has positive impacts on child health," said lead researcher Dr. Simon Crouch, according to The Washington Times. This basically means that same-sex couples are less likely to conform to traditional gender roles, which can lead to a happier home.

"Previous research has suggested that parenting roles and work roles, and home roles within same-sex parenting families are more equitably distributed when compared to heterosexual families," Crouch said. "So what this means is that people take on roles that are suited to their skill sets rather than falling into those gender stereotypes, which is mum staying home and looking after the kids and dad going out to earn money. What this leads to is a more harmonious family unit and therefore feeding on to better health and wellbeing."

More than 16,000 same-sex couples are raising over 22,000 adopted children in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute, and the children raised among these parents were no different than those adopted by straight parents. 

Gay Parents Better Than Straight Parents? What Research Says

By: Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Published: 01/16/2012 08:19 AM EST on LiveScience

Gay marriage, and especially gay parenting, has been in the cross hairs in recent days.

On Jan. 6, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum told a New Hampshire audience that children are better off with a father in prison than being raised in a home with lesbian parents and no father at all. And last Monday (Jan. 9), Pope Benedict called gay marriage a threat "to the future of humanity itself," citing the need for children to have heterosexual homes.

But research on families headed by gays and lesbians doesn't back up these dire assertions. In fact, in some ways, gay parents may bring talents to the table that straight parents don't.

Gay parents "tend to be more motivated, more committed than heterosexual parents on average, because they chose to be parents," said Abbie Goldberg, a psychologist at Clark University in Massachusetts who researches gay and lesbian parenting. Gays and lesbians rarely become parents by accident, compared with an almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals, Goldberg said. "That translates to greater commitment on average and more involvement."

And while research indicates that kids of gay parents show few differences in achievement, mental health, social functioning and other measures, these kids may have the advantage of open-mindedness, tolerance and role models for equitable relationships, according to some research. Not only that, but gays and lesbians are likely to provide homes for difficult-to-place children in the foster system, studies show. (Of course, this isn't to say that heterosexual parents can't bring these same qualities to the parenting table.)

Adopting the neediest

Gay adoption recently caused controversy in Illinois, where Catholic Charities adoption services decided in November to cease offering services because the state refused funding unless the groups agreed not to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Rather than comply, Catholic Charities closed up shop.

Catholic opposition aside, research suggests that gay and lesbian parents are actually a powerful resource for kids in need of adoption. According to a 2007 report by the Williams Institute and the Urban Institute, 65,000 kids were living with adoptive gay parents between 2000 and 2002, with another 14,000 in foster homes headed by gays and lesbians. (There are currently more than 100,000 kids in foster care in the U.S.)

An October 2011 report by Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute found that, of gay and lesbian adoptions at more than 300 agencies, 10 percent of the kids placed were older than 6 — typically a very difficult age to adopt out. About 25 percent were older than 3. Sixty percent of gay and lesbian couples adopted across races, which is important given that minority children in the foster system tend to linger. More than half of the kids adopted by gays and lesbians had special needs.

The report didn't compare the adoption preferences of gay couples directly with those of heterosexual couples, said author David Brodzinsky, research director at the Institute and co-editor of "Adoption By Lesbians and Gay Men: A New Dimension of Family Diversity" (Oxford University Press, 2011). But research suggests that gays and lesbians are more likely than heterosexuals to adopt older, special-needs and minority children, he said. Part of that could be their own preferences, and part could be because of discrimination by adoption agencies that puts more difficult children with what caseworkers see as "less desirable" parents.

No matter how you slice it, Brodzinsky told LiveScience, gays and lesbians are highly interested in adoption as a group. The 2007 report by the Urban Institute also found that more than half of gay men and 41 percent of lesbians in the U.S. would like to adopt. That adds up to an estimated 2 million gay people who are interested in adoption. It's a huge reservoir of potential parents who could get kids out of the instability of the foster system, Brodzinsky said.

"When you think about the 114,000 children who are freed for adoption who continue to live in foster care and who are not being readily adopted, the goal is to increase the pool of available, interested and well-trained individuals to parent these children," Brodzinsky said.

In addition, Brodzinsky said, there's evidence to suggest that gays and lesbians are especially accepting of open adoptions, where the child retains some contact with his or her birth parents. And the statistics bear out that birth parents often have no problem with their kids being raised by same-sex couples, he added.

"Interestingly, we find that a small percentage, but enough to be noteworthy, [of birth mothers] make a conscious decision to place with gay men, so they can be the only mother in their child's life," Brodzinsky said.

Good parenting

Research has shown that the kids of same-sex couples — both adopted and biological kids — fare no worse than the kids of straight couples on mental health, social functioning, school performance and a variety of other life-success measures.

In a 2010 review of virtually every study on gay parenting, New York University sociologist Judith Stacey and University of Southern California sociologist Tim Biblarz found no differences between children raised in homes with two heterosexual parents and children raised with lesbian parents.

"There's no doubt whatsoever from the research that children with two lesbian parents are growing up to be just as well-adjusted and successful" as children with a male and a female parent," Stacey told LiveScience.

There is very little research on the children of gay men, so Stacey and Biblarz couldn't draw conclusions on those families. But Stacey suspects that gay men "will be the best parents on average," she said.

That's a speculation, she said, but if lesbian parents have to really plan to have a child, it's even harder for gay men. Those who decide to do it are thus likely to be extremely committed, Stacey said. Gay men may also experience fewer parenting conflicts, she added. Most lesbians use donor sperm to have a child, so one mother is biological and the other is not, which could create conflict because one mother may feel closer to the kid.

"With gay men, you don't have that factor," she said. "Neither of them gets pregnant, neither of them breast-feeds, so you don't have that asymmetry built into the relationship."

The bottom line, Stacey said, is that people who say children need both a father and a mother in the home are misrepresenting the research, most of which compares children of single parents to children of married couples. Two good parents are better than one good parent, Stacey said, but one good parent is better than two bad parents. And gender seems to make no difference. While you do find broad differences between how men and women parent on average, she said, there is much more diversity within the genders than between them.

"Two heterosexual parents of the same educational background, class, race and religion are more like each other in the way they parent than one is like all other women and one is like all other men," she said.

Nurturing tolerance

In fact, the only consistent places you find differences between how kids of gay parents and kids of straight parents turn out are in issues of tolerance and open-mindedness, according to Goldberg. In a paper published in 2007 in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Goldberg conducted in-depth interviews with 46 adults with at least one gay parent. Twenty-eight of them spontaneously offered that they felt more open-minded and empathetic than people not raised in their situation.

"These individuals feel like their perspectives on family, on gender, on sexuality have largely been enhanced by growing up with gay parents," Goldberg said.

One 33-year-old man with a lesbian mother told Goldberg, "I feel I'm a more open, well-rounded person for having been raised in a nontraditional family, and I think those that know me would agree. My mom opened me up to the positive impact of differences in people."

Children of gay parents also reported feeling less stymied by gender stereotypes than they would have been if raised in straight households. That's likely because gays and lesbians tend to have more egalitarian relationships than straight couples, Goldberg said. They're also less wedded to rigid gender stereotypes themselves.

"Men and women felt like they were free to pursue a wide range of interests," Goldberg said. "Nobody was telling them, 'Oh, you can't do that, that's a boy thing,' or 'That's a girl thing.'"

Same-sex acceptance

If same-sex marriage does disadvantage kids in any way, it has nothing to do with their parent's gender and everything to do with society's reaction toward the families, said Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell, the author of "Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and Americans definition or marriage" (Russell Sage Foundation, 2010).

"Imagine being a child living in a state with two parents in which, legally, only one parent is allowed to be their parent," Powell told LiveScience. "In that situation, the family is not seen as authentic or real by others. That would be the disadvantage."

In her research, Goldberg has found that many children of gay and lesbian parents say that more acceptance of gay and lesbian families, not less, would help solve this problem.

In a study published online Jan. 11, 2012, in the Journal of Marriage and Family, Goldberg interviewed another group of 49 teenagers and young adults with gay parents and found that not one of them rejected the right of gays and lesbians to marry. Most cited legal benefits as well as social acceptance.

"I was just thinking about this with a couple of friends and just was in tears thinking about how different my childhood might have been had same-sex marriage been legalized 25 years ago," a 23-year-old man raised by a lesbian couple told Goldberg. "The cultural, legal status of same-sex couples impacts the family narratives of same-sex families — how we see ourselves in relation to the larger culture, whether we see ourselves as accepted or outsiders."

Draga gejevska skupnost: Vaši otroci trpijo!

31-letna Heather Barwick, ki sta jo vzgajali lezbični materi, se je izpostavila ter povedala, zakaj se je iz aktivistke, ki je zagovarjala gejevske poroke, prelevila v nasprotnico istospolnih porok. Pravi, da je v korist otroka, da ima mamo in očeta. "Mama me je s svojo istospolno partnerko vzgajala v 80-ih in 90-ih letih. Z očetom je bila poročena le malo časa. Že preden sta se poročila, je mama vedela, da je lezbijka, vendar so bili takrat drugačni časi," je Heather Barwick zapisala v odprtem pismu objavljenem v časniku Federalist. "Pustila ga je, ko sem bil stara dve ali tri leta, ker si je želela priložnosti, da bi bila srečna z nekom, ki ga zares ljubi, z žensko."

Barwickova je povedala, da je z mamo in njeno partnerko živela v "zelo liberalnem in odprtem prostoru" ter, da sta obe z njo ravnali lepo. Nasprotno pa je za očeta povedala, da "ni bil sijajen dečko". Poročena mati štirih otrok je v nagovoru gejem in lezbijkam povedala, da se je iz svoje življenjske izkušnje v gejevski skupnosti naučila zelo veliko: empatije, hrabrosti, kako poslušati drugega, in celo plesa. "Naučili sta me, naj se ne bojim tistega, kar je drugačno," je zapisala Barwickova. "In naučili sta me, kako naj se postavim zase, čeprav bi to pomenilo, da ostanem sama."

Čeprav ima Barwickova gejevsko skupnost rada, pa pravi, da je prepričana, da je "lepota in modrost v tradicionalnem zakonu in starševstvu", kar opaža v lastni družini. "V času odraščanja in še pri svojih dvajsetih letih sem podpirala in zagovarjala gejevske poroke," je zapisala Barwickova. "Po preteku določenega časa pa sem sposobna razmišljati o svojih izkušnjah ter prepoznavati trajne posledice istospolnega starševstva name."

Istospolna poroka otrokom preprečuje, da bi imeli izkušnjo strukture tradicionalne družine. Otrokom govorijo, da je povsem isto, če imajo dve mami ali dva očeta. To pojmovanje je Barwickova zavrnila. "Veliko nas je, veliko vaših otrok je ranjenih. Očetova odsotnost je v meni ustvarjala veliko praznino in vsak dan sem hrepenela po očetu," je zapisala. "Mamino partnerko sem imela rada, toda še ena mama ne more nikoli nadomestiti očeta, ki sem ga izgubila."Barwickova je še dodala: "Odraščala sem obdana z ženskami, ki so govorile, da ne potrebujejo in ne želijo moškega. Toda ko sem bila deklica, sem si tako obupno želela očeta." Povedala je še, da je ta dinamika v njej pustila razklanost. Hrepenela je po očetovi navzočnosti in se jezila, ker ga ni bilo, obenem pa se je tudi počutila krivo, da si je želela očeta. Barwick, ki je tesno povezana z materjo, je razložila, da ni mnenja, da geji ne morejo biti dobri starši, vendar je prepričana, da je najuspešnejša in najboljša sestava družine tista, v kateri imajo otroci mamo in očeta. Prepričana je, da bi moralo biti omogočeno, da to občutje svobodno izrazijo tudi drugi otroci gejevskih staršev. "Veliko nas je vse preveč prestrašenih, da bi spregovorili in vam povedali o svoji ranjenosti in bolečini, kajti kakorkoli že, zdi se, da ne poslušate. Da tega nočete slišati," je zapisala. "Če rečemo, da smo ranjeni, ker so nas vzgajali istospolni starši, nas ignorirate ali pa označite za sovražne."

Prispevek Barwickove si lahko preberete tukaj Njeno zgodbo so pred kratkim objavili tudi v World Magazine.Zaupala jim je, da je od svoje "očetovske rane" ozdravela, ko je začela hoditi v cerkev. "Dokler nisem prišla h Kristusu, nisem čutila, da bi mi bilo odvzeto to breme," je dejala. "Nisem zagrenjena, nisem jezna. Očetu odpuščam."

Barwickova je nedavno podpisala tudi pismo v podporo Dolce&Gabbana, v odgovor na širjenje komentarjev njunemu mnenju nasprotnih gejevskih modnih oblikovalcev. 

Objavljamo celotno pismo Heather Barwick

„Gejevska skupnost, vaša hči sem. Moja mama me je vzgajala skupaj s svojo istospolno partnerko v 80-ih in 90-ih letih. Z mojim očetom je bil poročena le malo časa. Da je gejevska, je vedela, preden se je poročila, vendar je bilo to takrat drugače. Tako sem prišla sem. Bilo je zapleteno, kakor si lahko mislite. Pustila ga je, ko sem bila stara dve leti ali tri, ker je hotela možnost, da bi bila srečna z nekom, ki ga je zares ljubila: žensko. Očka ni bil sijajen dečko, ko ga je pustila in mu ni bilo niti za mar, da bi se še kaj oglasil.

Se spomnite knjige Heather ima dve mamici? To je bilo moje življenje. Moja mama, njena partnerka in jaz smo živele v prijetni hišici v predmestju zelo naprednjaškega in odkritega področja. Njena partnerka je ravnala z menoj, kakor da bi bila njena hčerka. Skupaj z mamino partnerko sem podedovala tudi njeno tesno prepleteno skupnost gejevskih in lezbičnih prijateljev. Ali pa so nemara oni podedovali mene? Kakorkoli že, še vedno čutim, da so geji moji ljudje. Od vas sem se toliko naučila. Naučili ste me, kako naj bom pogumna, še zlasti, kadar je težko. Učili ste me empatije. Učili ste me poslušati. In plesati. Učili ste me, naj se ne bojim drugačnega. In učili ste me, kako naj se postavim zase, tudi če to pomeni, da stojim sama. Pišem vam, ker se izpuščam iz zaprte sobe: Ne podpiram gejevske poroke. Pa verjetno ne iz razloga, zaradi kakršnega mislite vi.

Otroci potrebujejo mamo in očeta.

Pa ne zato, ker ste geji. Tako zelo vas imam rada. Ampak zaradi same narave istospolnega odnosa. Šele zdaj, ko vsak dan gledam svoje otroke, kako ljubijo svojega očeta in jih ljubi on, vidim lepoto in modrost tradicionalne družine in starševstva. Ko sem odraščala, in še v svojih 20-ih letih, sem podpirala in zagovarjala gejevsko poroko. Šele po nekaj časa in razdalje od svojega otroštva zmorem razmišljati o svojih izkušnjah ter prepoznavati trajne posledice istospolnega starševstva zame. In šele zdaj, ko gledam, kako moji otroci imajo radi očeta in kako jih ima rad on, vidim v tradicionalnem zakonu in starševstvu lepoto in modrost.

Istospolna poroka odreka otroku očeta ali mater ter mu pravi, da to ni pomembno. Da je prav isto. Vendar ni. Veliko nas, veliko vaših otrok je ranjenih. Odsotnost mojega očeta je v meni ustvarila veliko luknjo in sem vsak dan koprnela po očetu. Mamino partnerko sem imela rada, toda še ena mama ni mogla nadomestiti očeta, ki sem ga izgubila. Odraščala sem med ženskami, ki so govorile, da ne potrebujejo ali nočejo moškega.

Toda kot deklica sem si tako obupno želela očeta. Tako čudno in zbegano je hoditi s tako globokim nepotešenim hrepenenjem po očetu, po moškem v skupnosti, ki pravi, da moški niso potrebni. Bili so časi, ko sem bila na svojega očeta tako jezna, da ga ni, pa tudi časi, ko sem se jezila nase, da si sploh želim očeta, da začnem s tem. Nekateri deli mene še danes žalujejo zaradi te izgube. Ne pravim, da ne morete biti dobri starši. Morete. Jaz sem imela ene najboljših. Tudi ne pravim, da vzgoja pri urejenih starših pomeni, da bo slednjič vse prav. Vemo, da je toliko različnih načinov, da se družinska celica razdre in povzroči trpljenje otrok: ločitev, zapuščenost, nezvestoba, zlorabljanje, smrt itd. Toda na splošno je najboljša in najuspešnejša družinska sestava je tista, v kateri vzgajajta otroka oba, njuna mati in oče.

Zakaj ne morejo biti otroci gejev pošteni?

Gejevska poroka ne redefinira le poroke, ampak tudi starševstvo. Priporoča in normalizira sestavo družine, ki nam nujno zanika nekaj dragocenega in temeljnega, obenem pa nam govori, da v resnici ne potrebujemo tega, kar nujno potrebujemo. da bo z nami vse dobro. Vendar ni. Smo ranjeni. Če more kdo govoriti o hudem, smo to mi.

Otroci ločenih staršev smejo reči: „Ej, mami in očka, rad vaju imam, ločitev pa me je strla in je tako zelo hudo. Pretresla je moje zaupanje in nje sem se počutil krivega zanjo. tako težko je živeti v dveh različnih hišah.“ Posvojeni otroci smejo reči: „Oj, moji posvojitelji, rad vas imam. Dejansko pa mi je zelo hudo. Trpim, ker se je razdrl odnos z mojimi prvimi starši. Zbegan sem in jih kljub temu pogrešam. Z njimi se nisem srečal.“

Otroci istospolnih staršev pa nimajo istega glasu. Ne le jaz. Toliko nas je. Veliko izmed nas nas je preveč strah, da bi spregovorili in vam povedali o svoji ranjenosti in bolečini, kajti iz kateregakoli razloga se zdi, da ne poslušate. Da nočete slišati. Če rečemo, da smo ranjeni, ker so nas vzgajali istospolni starši, nas ignorirate ali pa nas označite za sovražne.

Pa tu sploh ne gre za sovraštvo. Vem, da razumete bolečino etiketiranja, ki ni pravo ter bolečino nalepke, ki jo uporabljajo, da bi vas grdili ali utišali. In vem, da vas v resnici sovražijo in da ste zares ranjeni. Bila sem na pohodih, ko so nosili napise Bog sovraži čike ter Aids zdravi homoseksualnost. Jokala sem in se razsrdila skupaj z vami na ulici. Toda to nisem jaz. To nismo mi.

Vem, da je to težak pogovor. Vendar o tem moramo govoriti. Če lahko kdo govori o hudih rečeh, smo to mi. Vi ste me tega učili."