Modern Prejudice and Same-Sex Parenting: Shifting Judgments in Positive and Negative Parenting Situations

Gay marriage, same-sex parenting, and America's children.

Same-sex marriage, barely on the political radar a decade ago, is a reality in America. How will it affect the well-being of children? Some observers worry that legalizing same-sex marriage would send the message that same-sex parenting and opposite-sex parenting are interchangeable, when in fact they may lead to different outcomes for children. To evaluate that concern, William Meezan and Jona...

Birds gone wild: same-sex parenting in albatross.

Same-sex behavior in animals fascinates scientists as well as laypeople, partly because of implications about sexual orientation in humans. After all, if animals engage in homosexuality, can it be dismissed as 'unnatural'? A recent paper by Young and colleagues documents long-term female pairs in >30% of Laysan albatross on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The unrelated females bred successfully, c...

Same-sex parenting and children's outcomes: A closer examination of the American psychological association's brief on lesbian and gay parenting.

In 2005, the American Psychological Association (APA) issued an official brief on lesbian and gay parenting. This brief included the assertion: "Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents" (p. 15). The present article closely examines this assertion and the 59 published studies cited...

Positive and Negative Parenting Strategies, Parental Psychopathology, and Relational Aggression in Youth

Same-Sex Parent Socialization: Understanding Gay and Lesbian Parenting Practices as Cultural Socialization

Cultural socialization refers to the processes by which parents communicate cultural values, beliefs, customs, and behaviors to their children. To date, research on cultural socialization has focused primarily on racialand ethnic-minority families, and more contemporary studies have examined these practices among international and transracial adoptive families. In general, four main themes have...