Do you think that there is a chance that children of LGBT parents are more likely to become part of the LGBT community?

I can’t imagine why. Look how many gay people have “straight” parents. They may end up a bit more tolerant….

I agree with @Trillian. If upbringing was anythig to do with it then straight people would only ever have straight kids. I know a lot of LGBT people and none (to my knowledge) had gay parents.

No. This study is from 2006.

@downtide, @Trillian : maybe we could tell with the next generation? I don’t know if there are more LGBT people in this generation than in the last one that have adopted children, but is it possibility that the next generation could tend to raise LGBT kids?

Sure they’ll be part of the community. They’ll all be allies.

@troubleinharlem I don’t know. I just think that the premise that having “LGBT” parents will necessarily cause more “LGBT” kids is fallacious, as I stated above. And as @downtide further elaborated for me.

@Trillian: You put LGBT in quotes… should I do that also? Is that more politically correct?

@troubleinharlem I think if that were the case we’d have noticed it in past generations. People would have noticed that gay people tend to have gay grandparents (rather than gay parents) and that doesn’t seem to be the case either. I’m inclined to think there is no genetic component. I still think it’s a natural occurrence somehow, and can’t be chosen, but I’m doubting that the tendency for it is carried in the genes.

I don’t know why I did that. I don’t even know the acronym. I assume the first two are lesbian and gay, but I can’t even be sure of that. I have no idea what is politically correct. I should clarify that I meant no offense with the quotation marks, I meant nothing one way or the other.

@Trillian : Okay, just asking. No need to get upset. (:

@downtide: Yeah, thats what I was thinking about the whole generational thing.

No.

I wasn’t upset, I was just explaining myself. What did I write that makes you think I was upset?

The answer is yes I suppose as they will be born into that community but whether they are more likely to be that way inclined sexually I would doubt and anyway does it matter it is their lives.

I have to agree with @Trillian and @downtide‘s logic. If the sexual orientation of the parents determined the sexual orientation of the children, heterosexual parents wouldn’t have gay children. It may be possible there is a hereditary component to sexual orientation, but that wouldn’t apply to adopted children.

My next question would be….why does it matter? If kids raised by gay parents turn out to be gay themselves more often than kids raised by straight parents, would that mean gay couples should not raise children? And why not? After that, where would you draw the line? Should atheists, Wiccans, vegans, the physically disabled, the mentally ill, people with lower IQs, conspiracy theorists, and those people with a fetish for dressing up as big stuffed animals also not be able to raise children? How about parents who might pass on genes contributing to diabetes, cancer, heart defects, birth defects, sickle cell anemia? You can’t deny people the right to raise children because you don’t agree with their lifestyle choices, DNA, or life circumstances?

@MissAusten GA-times-eleventy-million.

I just realized it looks like I’m comparing homosexuality to cancer and birth defects. :( Not what I meant, and I hope that’s clear…

Are you asking about the children’s sexual orientation or their participation in the LGBT community regardless of sexuality? Cause I’d say the parents’ orientation would have no bearing on the former but would influence the latter because the children of gay couples would be more likely to be aware of and comfortable with LGBT issues/lifestyles. I am, of course, speaking of children now living and not future generations, who I expect will become increasingly accepting or at least tolerant of LGBT communities whether they consider themselves part of those communities or not.

@flutherother capures my opinion quite well.

Though I think homo/bi/u-sexuals (I’m going to bring usexuality into life, same meaning as utopia but with sex instead of land. It basically applies to anyone that has an opinion on sex.) can just as eaily be unfit parents as anyone else.

@perg That’s exactly what I was wondering. The LGBT community consists of all of us who are interested in equal opportunity for all people.

@MissAusten I think I understood what you meant.

“Research suggests that they turn out about the same, no better, no worse and no more likely to be gay than other kids.”

“For the most part, the organizations are relying on a relatively small but conclusive body of research—approximately 67 studies—looking at children of gay parents and compiled by the American Psychological Association. In study after study, children in same-sex parent families turned out the same, for better or for worse, as children in heterosexual families.

Moreover, a 2001 meta-analysis of those studies found that the sexual orientation of a parent is irrelevant to the development of a child’s mental health and social development and to the quality of a parent-child relationship.”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I don’t need to think about the issue. There have been studies. Children raised in GLBT families are not more likely to be gay than children raised in heterosexual families.

I’m not willing to discount the idea that children raised in alternative sexual environments may be more open to the idea of experimenting, though…

I think their children might be more willing to identify as other than straight because they wouldn’t feel stigmatized in the home – but that just means that otherwise they’d be hiding whatever sexuality, not that they’d be gaining it if they had queer parents.

@iamthemob & @Simone_De_Beauvoir I thought that too, but there have no been a series of studies that did not find that to be the case.

@ETpro

Hmm – there’s some double negative action in that sentence that confuses me – I think you’re saying you thought about the increased experimentation, but then a series of studies demonstrated that the sexuality of a person’s parents had no significant impact on that?

@iamthemob Ha! I really have to remember to proof read what I write. I meant to type: ”...there have been a series of studies that did not find that to be the case.” Thanks for calling my attention to the sloppy editing.

@ETpro

you know I could give two shits about spelling generally – that one was just confusing because of the dropped letter

Hmm. Have there been any studies indicating a reduced frequency among children of gay parents?

I’m wondering if there might be a skewing due to the fact that you MUST have some of the children thinking as they grow “Okay, I’m having these gay thoughts, but my social life in high school with gay parents is already complicated enough…”

@iamthemob I can’t answer the question about whether there have been any studies showing a reverse bias. All the ones I have seen found no difference in frequency of homosexuality between children reared in GLBT households and those reared in heterosexual ones. One study that looked at emotional adjustment of the kids did find a slight bias for better adjustment among kids raised by gay couples. The study authors suggested that might be due to overcompensation on the part of those parents. They might have been so worried they would somehow damage their children that they went out of their way to be good parents.