Pro-family leaders decried a resolution recently adopted by the American Psychological Association, which supported same-sex “marriages” and the practice of homosexuals raising children upon the contention that sexual orientation makes little or no difference in the scope of social issues such as marriage and parenting.
Focus on the Family believes the APA position is an attack on the traditional family.
"The APA's decision to endorse same-sex marriage flies in the face of logic, science and the historical experience of every culture on the face of the planet," said Dr. James C. Dobson, a psychologist and the chairman of Focus on the Family.
"Let's be clear: What we're talking about here is intentionally creating hundreds of thousands of motherless and fatherless families, permanently depriving little boys of a father and little girls of a mother.”
The APA Council of Representatives appointed the APA Working Group on Same-Sex Families and Relationships in February 2004 to develop policy recommendations for APA that would guide psychologists in the current public debate over civil marriage for same-sex couples.
The resolution relies on false assumptions that same-sex couples maintain long-term, monogamous relationships, suffer economic disadvantages and are victims of hate crimes, reads the press release from Liberty Counsel, a pro-family legal counsel.
Liberty Counsel cited several studies to debunk the pretenses of the resolution. A 1997 study reveals that only 2.7% of male homosexuals claimed to have only one partner, with nearly 25% reporting that they had had 101 to 500 different partners, said the Liberty Counsel. Recent economic studies show that homosexual couples have a higher income than heterosexual couples and FBI statistics show that in 1999, only three of 18,000 homicides were based on the victim’s “sexual orientation.”
The seven-member team of psychologists also concluded that “parenting effectiveness and the adjustment, development and psychological well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual orientation,” according to an APA press release.
“Gender does matter to children,” said Mathew D. Staver, President and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel. “Thousands of studies have reached the obvious conclusion – that children fare best in every measurable category when raised by a mom and a dad.”
Glenn Stanton, Focus on the Family's senior research analyst for marriage and sexuality, listed the detrimental effects of not having a mother and a father.
"Study after study has found that boys and girls not raised by both their mother and father are much more likely to, among other things, suffer abuse, perform poorly in school, suffer lower levels of mental and physical health and wind up in trouble with the law,” he asserted.
Although Diane Halpern, president of APA admitted the group was “going out on a limb” in supporting same-sex “marriage,” but she justified it by saying, “We're doing what we should be doing."
Stanton said, “This policy will subject generations of children to the status of lab animals in a vast, untested social experiment with the family.
“No one can say that is compassionate."
