Anti-Gay Rhetoric 101: Child Abuse and Family Structure

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is now pointing to a recent government study in an attempt to provide proof that children living in non-traditional households are more likely to be abused than those who live in the nuclear family with both biological parents.  A 10 minute perusal of the document only serves to demonstrate that once again NOM missed the point, and, worse yet, grossly over exaggerated their case.  In their effort to discredit gay parents and tear down these families, this is an excellent example of this countries need for better education in basic math.  Let's examine a couple points.

(1) This study is of primarily heterosexual relationships.  Doesn't it seem somewhat intellectually dishonest not to recognize that gay and lesbian parents are purposefully denied access to a supposedly stabilizing institution (Marriage) and then punished them because they fall into the less stable category?  Of course they do!  If gay people could get married there would be no point to be made here because some would fall into each category, so really, this has nothing to do with homosexuality and shouldn't be used as a referendum on anything other than family structure.  IF ANYTHING, this is proof that gay people should be allowed to marry so their children would have a more stable household (since any kind of married parents are better than single with partner apparently).

(2) The problem is Single parents who live with their partner (what might be considered the only gay relationship category on here), but the problem is that there is another problem to be noted here.  The number of incidents of abuse in these relationships is about 33 per 1,000.  BUT here is a wrinkle, most of those incidents are perpetrated by the BIOLOGICAL parent, and not the partner.  In fact, in EVERY type of relationship 87% of the time it is the biological parent who is the perpetrator of abuse.  So, I guess that means the whole biological aspect of this argument doesn't hold much water.  So that really only leaves the married part.  Further support for gay people getting married!

(3) Now, lets talk about some statistics.  Children living with single parents and their partners are about 8 times more likely to be abused (33.0 incidents as opposed to 4.0 per 1,000).  However, those of you with half a brain already picked up on the HUGE omission in this argument.  33/1000 = 3.3%.  Translation.  Only 3 in every 100 children in these relationships are abused.  In strict statistical terms, this means there is probably a HUGE probability that this correlation isn't very strong and that there might be other factors.

For example, The same study finds that children with unemployed parents are about 2 times more likely to abuse their children, and three times more likely if they are not even in the labor force.  Why isn't this a referendum on unemployed parents?  Children in low SES families are 5 times more likely to be abused.  Why isn't this sparking a war on poor parents?  Children in families with 4+ children are twice as likely to be mistreated than those in families with 2 children.  Why aren't we talking about limited the number of births?  This is just three examples that I could find in 5 minutes.

(4) Finally, if you look at basic statistical scores (Appendixes), it looks pretty clear that half the stuff they are reporting isn't statistically significant by even the more relaxed research standards.  This begs the question, why is this being reported at all when it might not even be significant?  and why aren't people up in arms about this stuff?  (because they don't understand any of what I just said most likely)

Common Sense