So I'm going down the rabbit hole a little here in response to what Jerch posted from that eminent psychologist. The question that came to mind was, why would this guy be posting this article in a low-distribution, super-catholic unregistered website? Why not a national newspaper? He's a professor with a long career, why such a minor, biased website for his opinion piece?
It didn't take too long to find out - the answer is that the vast majority of psychologists in Slovenia, much like around the world, agree that there is no difference between kids raised by straight or gay parents. Even further than that, their professional body was
angry about misrepresentations of research by groups trying to paint them as different. Such as Dr Janek's piece, which misrepresents the APA studies. He is in a tiny minority of psychologists in his own country with the views he expresses. What a surprise.
http://www.rtvslo.si/slovenija/psih...t-starsev-za-otrokov-razvoj-ni-kljucna/275580
http://casjeza.si/za-so-tudi-psihologi-andragogi-in-pedagogi/
Fine, so that's that put to bed. By the way, I found other stuff that said this Dr Janek's books are old-fashioned, out-dated, conservative, sexist and racist, but without proper sources and translations I'm going to leave that aside.
I wanted to take a look a little bit deeper at what I take issue with the article itself. This line was the first one that was particularly galling and strikes me as massive false equivalence:
It may be thousands of really good things, and one really bad, but the law can not be accepted. The problem lies in the fact that the law but may not be poor or in one point, but must be good at all. Our moral and civic duty is that it does not accept, if we consider that a single serious mistake.
How many perfect laws do we have in our countries? How do you make a perfect law at all, when a society consists of so many compromises? This smacks me as pretty airy-fairy stuff. You would deny a change that could create thousands of positives based on one potential bad side? That's what he's going for here. Pretty weak stuff and not real-world at all. For a comparison - look at the history of votes for women, which is recent history in the case of Saudi Arabia. Mired with comprimises and questionable facets along its path, but it was a path of progress towards equality that required little steps due to the times. Should those law changes have been rejected at the time because they were not perfect?
- all scientifically relevant summaries of the results of several studies in which they compared the psychological effects in children from heterosexual community with children from the homosexual community or with children of homosexual parents warn that the results so far do not provide a basis for konkluzivne conclusions and generalizations (so eg. the report APA undoubtedly the largest and most authoritative global association of psychologists, as well as the recent pan-European report); these summaries also (and usually also the research itself) warn of serious methodological flaws research.
Really? Seriously? Ummmm.... Could have fooled me
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/03/same-sex-marriage.aspx
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/10/adopted-children.aspx
Research findings therefore do not prove either that the differences in these effects are, or that they can not; This is understandable, because it is so far impossible to carry out crucial methodological study that would sufficiently large comparative group selected from a random sample of the population and to cover 40-50 years of age accompanying long period
Here we have some pretty curvy circular logic. Research to date shows that there's no difference, but we should not trust it because it's the only research to date because it's the only research to date. Nice bit of subtle fearmongering with no basis too, I should add.
- but this study clearly show one thing: that is the children of the rainbow community in a much greater feel discriminated against because of sexual orientation of parents than children of heterosexual parents - the percentage of 47 to 0 (so eg. known "Bamberg" study Marine Rupp);
Here's the actual study:
https://www.bmjv.de/SharedDocs/Down...civil_partnerships.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
There's a few very interesting things to note here. The most interesting is that the report states in 25% of these bullying cases,
an adult was present and acted as if they saw or heard nothing. Another 8% either
just observed or actually rejected helping the child. That's an indictment of our society and the wrong-headedness of some people who would allow a child to be bullied due to the sexuality of our parents. This is something also that is bound to change as older points of view become more and more marginalised. Also, it should be noted that nowhere in the report does it say the figure of 0% he mentions. He's added that in all by himself
Also, this paper highlights that such tribulations for the child can have positive outcomes. Conveniently omitted by Dr Janek.
"Nevertheless, it is not necessary that negative effects result from the related necessity of the children having to assert themselves. They may even develop a greater power of assertion and, frequently, higher self-esteem due to their experiences. These impressions are consolidated by the psychological partial study (cf. Ch. IV). "
Dr Janek, how about this gem from the same report, hmm? What does this "clearly show?
The results show that children and adolescents from same-sex partnerships differ only very little with regard to the quality of the relationship with both parents and to their mental adaptation when compared to children and adolescents growing up in other family forms. The same goes for conflicts between partners in CPs and disputes with the external parent. Significant differences were established in as far as children and adolescents from CPs have a higher self-esteem and greater autonomy in their relationship with both parents than their peers in other family forms. No significant differences have been found with regard to other features such as emotional uncertainties and other aspects of the psychic development (depressions, aggressions, somatic troubles). Altogether, the development of children and adolescents from same-sex partnerships differs only slightly – and if so in a more positive manner – from that of children and adolescents in other family forms
Dr Janek's aptitude for cherry-picking is nearly as bad as Jerch's!
The next point was a massive paragraph about paedophilia which I don't even want to get into because of how absolutely vile it is. This says it all:
http://psc.dss.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html
Adoption of the Code would have consequences that are extremely problematic from the point of view of ethics, morals and values.
The weakest argument of all. When he says from the point of view of ethics, morals and values, he means of course from the point of view of
HIS ethics, morals and values.
Dr Janek's argument is an almost predatory form of academia. He's banking on the fact that noone is going to actually check his sources out, especially on that kind of website he's posted the opinion piece on. Away from this core audience, you would certainly find people who would delve a bit deeper and reveal the dishonesty behind it. Like me
