Yesterday in the Detroit Free Press (and picked up in USA Today), Tresa Baldas wrote about the federal case beginning today in Michigan that will determine whether same-sex couples can marry and adopt there. She states, “now, for the first time, scientific studies on same-sex parenting will undergo legal scrutiny.” Really? The first time? REALLY?
Did she skip the whole U.S. Supreme Court DOMA trial last year? Or the lower court Prop 8 trial in 2008? Or the many if not all state marriage equality trials, which have used such studies as evidence? Or the 2010 case to allow gay men and lesbians to adopt in Florida? Not to mention psychological studies used as evidence in custody cases at least as far back as the 1980s to support lesbian and gay parents.
Of course, Baldas cites the study of University of Texas at Austin sociologist Mark Regnerus without noting that he’s been widely discredited, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised she thinks studies of same-sex parents and our children are a newfangled and untested phenomenon.
To be fair, she also quotes Dana Nessel, one of the lawyers arguing in court this week to overturn the bans on marriage and adoption for same-sex couples in Michigan (see my previous post), who mentions that some new experts will testify for the first time in favor of same-sex parents and our children. That’s great — but Baldas shouldn’t imply that scientific studies of same-sex parents have never been evaluated by lawyers before.
Studies of lesbian and gay parents (and to a smaller extent, bisexual and transgender ones) have been tried and tested in many a courtroom. They’re going back to court this week — and I know they’ll stand up to the pressure once again.
Thank you! I blew a gasket when I saw that AP story as well. The entire story is crafted in typical lazy journalism style of he said/she with its rhetorical dramatic tension and cliff hanger ending.