(I feel the ghost of political correctness walking down the road looking for my house...)
In the July 2012 issue of Social Science Research University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus published How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study.
Immediately he was ad hominem-abused by the spirit of political correctness. The July 30 cover of The Weekly Standard showed Regnerus being medievally tortured by angry sociologists. (See "Revenge of the Sociologists.") Here's the cover:
In a recent interview Regnerus sums up the study's conclusions. He says:
"While social science cannot "prove" things, it can describe social reality. What the NFSS [New Family Structures Study] does describe is that the young-adult children of men and women who have had same-sex relationships appear more likely to have experienced problems, and in some cases continue to struggle, than those whose biological parents were and are still married. Why exactly this is the case is an important question that should continue to be explored and debated." (Emphasis mine)
Question: What problems in particular do young-adult children of parents who have had same-sex relationships encounter? Emotional, financial, spiritual?
Regnerus: "They report a variety of challenges, especially if they witnessed elevated instability in their household. Most of them have seen some [non-parent adults] coming and going. Among other things, they are more apt to report financial and employment difficulties, to finish less schooling, feel more ambivalence about their family experiences while growing up, smoke more, have more run-ins with the law, and report more sexual partners and greater victimization than those children from biologically intact, stable marriages. I didn't include religion or spirituality in the published study."
