Did the APA misrepresent the scientific literature to courts in support of homosexual custody?
In 1994, American Psychological Association amicus briefs informed two state Supreme Courts that (a) homosexual parents are not more apt to have homosexual children; (b) lesbians "score significantly higher than heterosexual parents" on a measure of parental effectiveness; and (c) no differences between the children raised by homosexuals and nonhomosexuals had been found "regardless of the geographic region within the United States where the children were raised." In fact, the evidence from these briefs shows to the contrary that (a) homosexual parents are more apt to have homosexual children; (b) the findings on parental effectiveness consisted of 15 fathers being less verbal than 45 mothers; and (c) the finding of no differences between homosexually and heterosexually raised children consisted of investigators visiting 11 states to test 89 offspring of 83 lesbian vs. 81 children of 69 nonlesbian volunteers. The APA's support for gay rights in these briefs may have violated its own ethical principles that "psychologists base their statements on scientifically acceptable psychological findings and techniques with full recognition of the limits and uncertainties of such evidence" and that psychologists must "provide thorough discussion of the limitations of their data, especially where their work touches on social policy" (APA, 1981).
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Family Research Institute, Colorado Springs, CO 80962-2640, USA.
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D002655:Child Custody; D002668:Child Rearing; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003416:Criminal Law; D004995:Ethics, Professional; D005260:Female; D006716:Homosexuality; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D012725:Sexual Behavior