Mark Regnerus’s much-bruited study takes an innovative approach to solving the difficulties of generating a large sample of parents in same-sex relationships. Marks highlights three studies that avoid small convenience samples and work with much larger random samples, two of which can be found in the new volume, in the chapter by Mark Regnerus and the chapter by Douglas Allen, Catherine Pakaluk, and Joseph Price. Certainly that would be the case if one wanted to maintain that there was no difference between the status quo outcomes for children of parents in same-sex relationships and those of heterosexual married parents, as some have seemed to want to do. He suggests that better comparison groups might consist of married heterosexual parents or of all heterosexual parents. Marks also notes that many of the small studies either fail to identify a comparison group of heterosexual parents, or they compare educated and affluent lesbian couples to single heterosexual parents. Technically speaking, estimates of the difference between outcomes for same-sex parents and those for heterosexual couples suffer from low “power.” Moreover, because convenience samples do not constitute a random cross-section of the population, they are not representative, and so estimates based on them suffer from a problem known to statisticians as “bias.” In such a small sample, only enormous differences in children’s outcomes will rise to the level of statistical significance.
First, the sample sizes are very small one of the better studies might include a dozen or two lesbian families and a comparable number of heterosexual families. While they can provide a useful window on the experience of parents in same-sex relationships, Marks notes that convenience samples suffer from two generic problems.
Convenience samples are a staple of the literature because same-sex parenting is rare, and so recruiting same-sex parents for a study generally involves placing ads at day-care centers and in publications aimed at the LGBT population, or contacting people by way of their network of friends. Marks reviews an extensive literature on the topic and finds that most of the studies on the subject rely on “convenience samples”: groups of respondents that cannot be considered cross-sections of the population at large. The first paper included in the volume, by Loren Marks, examines the foundations of the position taken by the American Psychological Association (APA) on what it calls “lesbian and gay parenting.” The 2005 APA monograph setting forth that organization’s position asserts that the question of whether the childrearing efficacy of parents in same-sex relationships is at least the equal of that of heterosexual couples is settled, and that the serious academic literature speaks with a single voice on the matter. The new volume is meant for those who still approach the topic of parenting and sexuality with open minds. That is unfortunate.Ī reading of the sometimes apoplectic reactions in the press, and even among some academics, to the papers by professors Marks and Regnerus reminds one of Samuel Johnson’s aphorism that “prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.” It is clear that for some people, scientific research on this subject is irrelevant. Because of their policy relevance, the papers in this volume will be read by many for their importance to the approval of particular referenda, or to the outcome of a specific Supreme Court test case. This is an increasingly important topic, as many countries have extended their definition of marriage to encompass same-sex couples, while others are considering doing so. In particular, the authors focus on the efficacy of families in which the adults are involved in a physically intimate same-sex relationship. The papers included and summarized in the book all study the nexus between children’s well-being and the structure of the families in which they are raised. An important new collection of peer-reviewed scholarly papers entitled No Differences? How Children in Same-Sex Households Fare has just been released by the Witherspoon Institute.