*I removed the original diary as it contained too much copyrighted material. I wrote a new diary that did not have that problem. My apologies to you for the removal and to PolitiFact.*
PolitiFact has written a fact check of Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed's statement on ABC's This Week about marriage equality and same-sex parenting:
This is about what's best for children here in the United States. And the social science is irrefutable. And it is that a child who grows up in a home without the mother and father present and they both play very unique procreative, nurturing and socializing role, they're nine times more likely to end up dropping out of high school. They're five times more likely to end up in poverty. And they're three times more likely to end up addicted to drugs and alcohol.
PolitiFact notes that the
studies that he cites do not prove that at all:
The social science statistics Reed called "irrefutable" actually have nothing to do with gay couples raising kids. Instead, they’re focused on the effects of children who grow up without a father in a one-parent household. Put another way, the studies focus on the quantity of parents and not their gender.
Mark Regnerus' study has been denounced by the
American Sociological Association, the
University of Texas and "m
any reputable psychologists", to quote PolitiFact.
PolitiFact also found "many reputable studies" that children of gay parents do just as well as children of straight parents.
They rated Reed's claim "False".