Homosexual parenting leads to more homosexual kids? Common sense and research suggests as much. Implications for gay adoption and gay "marriage".

The debate over homosexual "marriage" invariably implicates the impact of homosexual couples on the children they raise. While there's debate over the exact origins of homosexual attractions and orientations, it's generally viewed as resulting from a complex interaction of biological and environmental factors. Even gay researchers like Simon LaVay acknowledge as much.

It shouldn't be surprising then when kids raised by homosexual parents have a greater propensity for developing same sex inclinations. That's what Dr. Walter Schumm, professor of Family Studies and Human Services at Kansas State University found in his research. Here's what he said in an interview on the topic.

For decades it was politically correct to argue that parental sexual orientation had nothing to do with a child's sexual orientation. However, about 1995 or so, a few scholars began to admit that, at least in theory, parental values would be expected to influence children's values, including sexual orientation preferences. Nevertheless, it was argued that even such an expected result had little empirical support. I decided to tackle this difficult problem from three perspectives, in a report in press with the
Cambridge journal, Journal of Biosocial Science.

First, I reviewed ten books concerning over 250 children of gay, lesbian, or bisexual parents and evaluated the children's own stories about their sexual orientations. I used a 10% baseline for a simulated comparison group of heterosexual families. It was clear that the children of GLB parents were more likely to either have
identified as GLB or to have at least experimented with nonheterosexual behavior. The more I controlled for age (using older children) and availability of data (using only those children who specifically described their sexual orientations), the stronger the results became. Gender was an interesting and strong factor in that the daughters of lesbian mothers were most likely to reject a heterosexual orientation whereas sons of gay fathers were least likely to do so.

I then compiled data from 26 studies about GLB parenting and found that children of GLB parents were more likely to report a nonheterosexual orientation than were children of heterosexual parents in those studies, an effect that was strongest for mothers.

Third, I studied reports from a number of cultures from around the world and found that the less strongly those cultures condemned homosexuality, the less rare was its actual (open) practice.

Thus, all three sources of data indicate that sexual orientation, at least in terms of its open expression, is subject to the influence of social and cultural factors, including family background. While not surprising in terms of what social science theory might predict, the results differ greatly from the testimony of many experts at a host of previous court cases concerning gay or lesbian parenting.

Furthermore, my analysis of previous data, some of which has seldom been mentioned, showed that gay or lesbian parents were less likely to want their children to grow up to be heterosexual than were heterosexual parents. Gay and lesbian parents also seemed less likely to expect that their children would grow up to be heterosexual. Thus, both parental expectations and aspirations tend to pressure children to model their parent's own sexual orientation, providing a clear pathway for parental sexual orientation to influence a child's sexual orientation.

Some gay activists want to discredit Professor Schumm and his research though one has to ask why if there are no problems with homosexuality. The problem for gay activists is the public is uncomfortable with the promotion of homosexuality and the resulting behavior. And that uncomfortable is reasonable in light of the negative health consequences of the behavior.

Such research has significant implications for the gay adoption and homosexual "marriage" debates.