NOM misconstrues research to confuse

National Organization for Marriage claims that equal marriage advocates in Minnesota are confusing the facts about social science and medical research. NOM continues to demonstrate that they have no choice but to substitute incoherent arguments for their religious objections. NOM's advocacy is as a proxy for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. They are not opposed to marriage equality out of concern for children. They are opposed to marriage equality because of extreme religious fundamentalism.

Rather than engaging in a they-said/they-said discourse, let's consider some facts:

Regnerus:

Even is we set aside all of the biased sampling and flawed methodology, Regnerus does not prove, nor even suggest, that gay couples are not good parents. At face value, it suggests that children of traditional marriage who had one parent cheat on their spouse with a person of the same sex did not fare as well as their peers. Children of divorced parents probably fare similarly. Moreover, these are children who were born in a different era     before, for example, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was even signed into law.

The claims made about the Regnerus research are more flawed than the research itself which is profoundly defective.

Marriage:

Regardless of whether or not society recognizes same-sex marriages, the same heterosexual couples will produce the exact same children. For the most part, gay and lesbian couples will continue to adopt kids, Surrogacy will remain very rare given the expense and legal risk. Some lesbian couples are conceiving children via sperm donation. Whether or not that will increase with marriage equality remains undetermined.

Gay parenting:

According to the APA;

Beliefs that lesbian and gay adults are not fit parents likewise have no empirical foundation. .... The results of some studies suggest that lesbian mothers' and gay fathers' parenting skills may be superior to those of matched heterosexual couples.

Furthermore, extensive research has determined that children raised by gay and lesbian couples are no different that the children of traditional marriage in terms of sexual identity and sexual orientation.

Children:

There are children affected by marriage equality. These are children being raised by gay couples whose parents desire to marry. As a matter of common sense, children raised by a married couple will probably fare better than children raised by an unmarried couple due to increased security. Preventing gay couples from marrying is detrimental to these kids!