Hushed report: gay adoption puts kids at risk of bullying

Children adopted by same-sex parents are likely to face bullying, according to a report that the Scottish Government tried to keep secret.

However, same-sex parents are likely to turn a blind eye for fear of being blamed, according to the review of eight studies into gay adoption which ministers have now released under a freedom of information request.

Critics of gay adoption say the Government should have conducted more research into its effect on children before deciding to allow it in Scotland in 2006.

  • More evidence on the effects of gay adoption
  • Sociologist Patricia Morgan has conducted extensive research into same-sex adoption. She said: “The adoption agencies and ministers behind these reforms are doing this to appease the gay rights lobby.

    “It is possible children will be emotionally damaged.”

    Earlier this year Edinburgh City Council prompted an outcry with its decision to place two children with a gay couple against the wishes of their grandparents who wanted to adopt them.

    The grandparents were told if they did not drop their objections they would be banned from seeing the children.

    This was then followed by news that the Scottish Government was going to look into the effects of gay adoption on children but keep the results private.

    The report has now been published after a freedom of information request from the Scottish Daily Mail.

    In its conclusions, the report says that “even when parents are aware of bullying they tended to minimise and normalise bullying accounts to prevent being undermined and held accountable”.

    It also praises lesbian couples who have children, stating that “co-mothers” show more willingness to “adjust their careers around their children in order to be more involved in parenting” than “fathers in comparable heterosexual relationships”.

    However, the review admits that it “is based on a review of only eight papers and does not claim to have captured all existing relevant research”.

    In recent months several Roman Catholic adoption agencies providing crucial adoption services for ‘hard-to-place’ children have been forced to cut ties with their Dioceses or to face court action because of new ‘gay rights’ legislation.

    The Scottish Government approved gay adoption in 2006 despite the fact that at the time 90 per cent of the population opposed it.

    Similarly, in legalising the practice in England and Wales in 2002 the Westminster Government failed to acknowledge the recommendations of its own Adoption Law Review that the law should not be changed.

    At the time, The Christian Institute set out the evidence for restricting adoption to married couples and single individuals.

    Gay adoption deprives children of a mother or father

    • Same-sex relationships are much more unstable and short-lived than heterosexual relationships.

    • Even some researchers in favour of gay adoption admit that children raised by homosexual parents are more likely to be homosexual.

    • Despite repeated assertions to the contrary, studies indicate significant differences between homosexual and heterosexual parenting outcomes for children. One of the largest pro-gay studies found that children raised by homosexual couples had the worst outcomes in terms of education and social adjustment. Children raised by cohabiting couples were better, but those raised by married couples had the best outcomes.

    • Gender confusion seems to be rife with daughters of lesbian mothers.

    • Pro-gay studies commonly ditch the most basic research methods: – They fail to test any hypothesis or use a proper control group. – Sample sizes are so small that no deductions can be made. – One study which was headlined as “Gay men make better fathers” did not even have any children in the study but merely asked opinions.

    Unmarried adoption denies children stability and security

    • Cohabiting couples have deliberately chosen to live in a relationship that gives them the complete freedom to leave that relationship. But children need to be raised within a stable, secure environment.

    • If cohabiting couples have a child, they are far more likely to split up than married couples.

    • The largest and most detailed British study on sexual attitudes concluded that: “… it is striking that cohabitation does not appear to exert any strong influence on monogamy”.