On traditional versus “alternative” marriage, several decades of proselytizing, aided and abetted by the mass media and popular culture, have borne fruit. “There is a generational divide on this issue,” according to CBS News [1]. “Young Americans (those ages 18-29) are some of the strongest proponents of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.”
“Seventy-two percent of them support it, as do a majority –albeit a smaller one– of Americans ages 30-44. However, support for same-sex marriage drops to 44 percent among those who are age 45-64 and even further to just a third of Americans age 65 and over. In fact, 56 percent of seniors oppose permitting same-sex couples to marry.”
“The CBS News Poll also finds more women (53 percent) than men (48 percent) think same-sex marriage should be legal.”
Educators have been working towards such an outcome for years. In fact, they tend to resent information that might jeopardize it.
When you point out what previous research missed in private industry, industrialists are generally grateful. For one thing, new discoveries save them money.
In contrast, in the Alice In Wonderland [2] world that is academia today, such breakthroughs make you a pariah. Mark Regnerus [3], a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, found that children from same-sex households were, contrary to academic beliefs, more likely to use drugs or alcohol or engage in criminal activity than children from heterosexual households. When his findings were published in Social Research, an academic journal, homosexual activists pounced on them, figuratively speaking.
“Other studies showed no difference,” Jennifer Marshall, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation said at the bloggers’ briefing there on August 14, 2012. The most widely quoted of the “no difference” studies came from the American Psychological Association (APA). The California judge who overturned the ballot initiative reaffirming traditional marriage, for example, cited the APA findings in his ruling.
The other studies, Marshall noted, used smaller samples and were arguably not representative. They surveyed hundreds of homes and focused on lesbians.
Regnerus sampled thousands and looked at same-gender relationships for both genders. Nevertheless, “the editor of Social Research, who is probably a Democrat, has been viciously attacked for publishing the study,” Marshall said.
Well, here’s some research that will be difficult for gay marriage proponents to demonize. “While these issues are not specific to any particular group, relative to the wider population, statistics show that lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people experience depression and suicidal thoughts more frequently and are more likely to drink alcohol or take drugs,” The Lesbian and Gay Foundation of Great Britain [4] declared on October 9, 2012. “A 2008 review of mental disorders in the BMC Psychiatry journal suggests that LGB people are two to three times more likely than their heterosexual peers to suffer from depression. Attributable factors include institutionalised prejudice, social exclusion, hate crime, internalised homophobia, as well as lifestyle factors such as alcohol and drug misuse. A 2009 study of the Brighton LGB&T community shows that the link between drugs and suicidal thoughts is especially alarming with 2 in 5 LGB&T drug users experiencing suicidal thoughts compared to 14% of non-users.”
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.