Why the “think of the kids” argument against same sex marriage is bullshit

By James Branson

No doubt hoping to bring out some epic anti-gay advertising during the upcoming and completely depressing plebiscite on marriage equality, the Australian Christian Lobby yesterday called on the Government to put aside anti-discrimination laws so those opposed to same-sex marriage could have their voice.

Their stupid, homophobic voice.

“We need to have the ability for a free debate in this plebiscite and at the moment, state-based anti-discrimination laws have a very low threshold for what constitutes discrimination,” the group’s managing Director, Lyle Shelton, told Guardian Australia. “It is creating a chilling effect on free speech.”

“Already if you speak out, you’re called a bigot or a homophobe. Just look at my Twitter feed. I’m constantly demonised.”

This coming from a guy who’s objections to marriage equality were based in part on him being worried that people might think he’s gay.

Shelton’s group isn’t the only organisation preparing to pepper the airwaves with homophobic garbage. The Australian Marriage Forum gained notoriety last year with a series of advertisement demonising same-sex parenting, and will no doubt do it again in the lead-up to the plebiscite.

“That offence against the child, inherent in any institution of ‘homosexual marriage’, is the primary reason… proposed reform is wrong and must be opposed, and likewise why any law is wrong that compels a child to live without a mother or without a father – such as single or same-sex surrogacy and same-sex stranger adoption,” The Australian Marriage Forum’s president, David van Gend said in a speech in 2013. 

Pictured: David Van Gend

He went on:

“Homosexual marriage heralds an authentic ‘gay stolen generation’, destined to the same disorientation and pain as children conceived by anonymous sperm-donor fathers or removed at birth from single mothers.”

Now, let’s just ignore the fact that this unbelievable douchebag managed to compare kids raised in loving, same-sex partnerships to the FUCKING STOLEN GENERATION, and get to the facts here.

In 1986, the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study began a survey of the children of 154 American Lesbian couples, comparing the mothers’ and their children’s psychological well-being to national standardised samples.

The study reported that the children of Lesbian parents “indicated that they had high levels of social, school/academic, and total competence and fewer social problems, rule-breaking, and aggressive and externalising behavior compared with their age-matched counterparts.”

An Australian study that interviewed the teachers of children who’d been raised in all varieties of families (including same-sex couples, married heterosexuals and unmarried heterosexuals) found that the children of gay parents were worse off when it came to development in language and math, but better in social studies.

In 2013 an exhaustive study published by the Official Journal of the American Academy of Paediatrics came to the following conclusion:

Extensive data available from more than 30 years of research reveal that children raised by gay and lesbian parents have demonstrated resilience with regard to social, psychological, and sexual health despite economic and legal disparities and social stigma.

In an interview with Boston University’s  BU Today website, Benjamin Siegel (co-author of the study), described a contention by US Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia that same-sex parents were bad for children as “baloney”.

“Many studies have demonstrated that children’s well-being is affected much more by their relationships with their parents, their parents’ sense of competence and security, and the presence of social and economic support for the family than by the gender or the sexual orientation of their parents,” Siegel stated.