Parkinson: report not about gay parents
The author of a report into family breakdown in Australia has rebuked commentators who seized on it to lash out at same-sex marriage and same-sex couples raising children.
The Australian’s Angela Shanahan pointed to Professor Patrick Parkinson’s For Kids’ Sake report in a column which called same-sex parenting “a silly game of let’s pretend” and “psychological abuse”, and referred to same-sex marriage as “social engineering” and “thought control”.
Former Victorian premier and beyondblue chair Jeff Kennett cited the report as part of a veiled attack on same-sex parenting in The Herald Sun.
“There is no substitute for parents of both genders,” Kennett wrote.
“Happy heterosexual marriages are the best environment for the mental health of children.”
Parkinson, a Sydney University professor of law, said it had been “remarkable” how many people had not seen the need to read the report before commenting on it.
“The report did not engage in any criticism about same-sex relationships of any kind,” he told the Star Observer.
“It includes same-sex couples in the recommendations concerning couple and parent-child education. My recommendation is that in any rollout of relationship education programs, gay and lesbian organisations should also be supported to provide programs that meet the needs of the same-sex [attracted] community.”
Parkinson confirmed that discussion in the report about risk factors for sexual abuse where an unrelated adult was in a live-in relationship with a child’s parent was in reference to heterosexual situations only and was not a comment on same-sex couples who had children through surrogacy or IVF.
“In terms of child sexual abuse, [there is a] very well documented risk from male partners of women,” he said.
“There is some interesting and important research on what are the protective factors that mean biological fathers are much less likely to abuse their children than non-fathers who have children in the home.
“One research study suggests that being involved very early on in the baby’s life, changing nappies and being involved in the routine care of a child, is a protective factor [where a male partner is not a relative]. If male same-sex partners who do not have a biological link with the child are involved in that care work, that may well be a protective factor.”
However, Parkinson said he was unaware if research had been carried out in that area.
Kennett’s comments are the latest in a series of homophobic gaffes and are badly timed for beyondblue, which is currently in the recruiting stage for a new LGBTI-focused mental health initiative.
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You can add almonds if you want a milky-looking smoothie or shake.
The last thing you want to do is gorge yourself on fast foods, donuts, burgers, fries, and pizza.
This should never be a Band-Aid for not putting forth the effort that getting ready for an event requires.
You can add almonds if you want a milky-looking smoothie or shake.
The last thing you want to do is gorge yourself on fast foods, donuts, burgers, fries, and pizza.
This should never be a Band-Aid for not putting forth the effort that getting ready for an event requires.
My mother and I are heterosexual females fostering a 10 year old male relative. The Christian Lobby would seem to argue that rather then thriving in our care he would be better off with his violent, abusive and neglectful parents so that he had the ‘advantage’ of contact with his biologicall gather. As if.
[…] READ: Report not about gay parents […]
Does Prof Parkinson also make a qualification that this article does NOT apply to broken marriages due to domestic violence or abuse?
I have heard of abusive men who wave articles like these to their ex’s, demanding their return “for the sake of the kids”. Ignorant friends also apply pressure quoting such studies, completely ignoring the fact the kids are better off not having a father than having an abusive father.
Articles like these give ammunition for abusive partners to re-abuse victims, who not only suffered during marriage, but gathered the courage, at great risk, to leave the abusive marriage. They shouldn’t made to feel false guilt at doing the right thing.
To all professors and researchers, please be honest when you publish and disseminate the results of these studies. For the kids’ sake.
[…] health of children. That’s pretty rough, too. Particularly since the author of the report has himself condemned Jeff Kennett’s interpretation of it: The author of a report into family breakdown in Australia has rebuked commentators who seized on […]
What have gays got to do with the breakdown of the family. My ad hoc data says that gays divorce at about a 5% rate. In the USA, for conventioal families, its 50%
To say nothing of the str8 people having children without a spouse, eg the single parent family.
The whole mess reminds me of how the church obfuscated the issue of molestation, including moving known vile priests to new locations where they continued their high crimes, while keeping the collection plate full.
Is there any sin the church has NOT committed
I’m sure the cahtolic church of the endless hidden molestation of children and the non-cath evangelicals are behind all the trouble.
They always need someone to be a victim, to deflect from their own high crimes
Just google “[country name] – catholic church molestation] ” and be horrified
And if your stomach hasnt gone to horrors go to
http://NOBELIEFS.COM/NAZIS.HTM to see the ultimate horror that the church has committed.
it created the hatred of the Jews over a millenia because the Jews wouldnt convert. And gave the world the Pogroms – mass riots and murderes of Jews in Europe.
And Hitler, born and baptised cAtholic in very catholic Austria, leveraged that hatred to gain power. The rest is history, 55 million died for the “church that claims to support life”.
And btw Hitler has not yet been explcitly EXcommunicated, dead or alive. the above website should explain.
Dave – perhaps you should take Parkinson’s advice and read the report? I have, and don’t remember him singling out same sex relationships. Rather, his focus is on his ideas of how best to support children in families – which, incidently, are typically heterosexual – and who should be doing that, and some ideas about how the government might do that better – to parents in hetero and same sex relationships. Slam Kennett and Shanaghan – there the ones using it (the report) suggest children in same sex relationships are somehow ‘missing out’.
Jeff Kennett is a narrow minded and egotistical moron. Who cares what he thinks anyways.
Jeff Kennett is a pig
When you take money from the Christian Lobby, when you try and give them credibility on family matters, a group who applauded the attacks on the unborn baby of Penny Wong, and who says homosexual marriage is “the Greatest Evil”, then don’t complain when people lose faith in you.
Parkinson’s promotion of the Christian Lobby is disgraceful. He has given the University name to a Christian hate group, giving them oxygen and a platform to yell abuse at the GLBTI community, as they are now doing. What is next, a report for the Klu Klux Klan? Where does Parkinson’s journey through the valley of fundamentalist haters take him?
He is not some climate scientist doing good work for a University, he was paid by a well known hate group, and gave them credibility to do their damage. I will feel sorry for a lot of other academics before I feel sorry for Parkinson.
Dr Parkinson doesn’t have to apologise.He may have foreseen however that any information, no matter how objective and credible would be misappropriated by groups to support homophobic discrimination that is itself not supported by a shred of credible evidence. Researchers like Dr Parkinson are in a no-win situation- do the survey and have their work utterly exploited and misrepresented to justify an argument bereft of any substantive scientific backing, or get accused of being in a giant liberal conspiracy that excludes opposing viewpoints and manufactures evidence according to ideology. Already,this has clearly plagued climate scientists and the positions on homosexuality taken by the American Psychological Association. I reckon Dr Parkinson is doing all that he can now to reign in the mindless desperation of the far right Christians and extricate his own name and work from their broken argument.
There was Parkinson dancing in a fox trot with the Devil who paid. They were firecrackers, all of us watched with amazement. They owned the dance floor.
Now the music stopped, I would be delighted if Parkinson could advertise a few facts in the press. His report did meet the basic requirements for publication in scientific journals that value their reputation, other than the Christian Lobby Magazine, squeezed in amongst hate rants against people of the Muslim faith, homosexuality, and the Greens for daring to want equality.
The road to salvation begins with an apology, and some self reflection Mr Parkinson.
I guess the problem for people like Angela Shanahan from the Murdoch press is that lessons about gender hierarchy can’t be transmitted in same-sex marriages. Which would be terrible wouldn’t it?