from Ethical Issues

The Research Of Charlotte J. Patterson
(Updated, December 2005)

By Gerald Schoenewolf, Ph.D.

A recent news article [February, 2005] appearing in the AFA Journal, sponsored by the American Family Association, was critical of a study of gay and lesbian parenting and its co-author.

The co-author is not a researcher but a propagandist, asserted Joe Glover, president of the Family Policy Network. Glover noted that the co-author of the study, University of Virginia professor Charlotte J. Patterson, is a lesbian living with a female partner and raising three children.

The study, titled, "Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents: Research, Law and Policy," claims that the children of lesbian couples are as happy and well-adjusted as children living in traditional homes. In addition, the study recommends -- as steps toward "breaking down legal barriers to maintenance of parent-child relationships in families headed by gay and lesbian parents" -- repeal of all sodomy laws, legalization of same-sex marriage throughout the U.S., and legalization of adoption by same-sex couples as well as "second-parent adoptions" (adoption of the children of the other same-sex partner). Such reforms, states the report, "would extend to gay and lesbian parents and their children the legal protections that are now generally taken for granted by other families." In the paper Patterson cites her own research extensively.

Patterson, Glover added, is a radical homosexual activist "who has a clear agenda to redefine what a family is or should be." The article went on to point out that Patterson acknowledged in a newspaper interview that her paper didn't address one of the questions most often asked about lesbian families: do their children turn out to be homosexual? She and others who promote lesbian families have always indicated that such a question is irrelevant because it doesn't matter, since homosexuality, in their view, is simply a variant of normal sexuality. Such questions are dismissed as "homophobic."

The article aroused my curiosity, so I began some research of my own--an internet search of Charlotte J. Patterson. I found that she has been writing on gay and lesbian issues since the early 1990s. She is the co-editor of two books published by Oxford University Press--Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Identity Over the Lifespan (1995) and Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Identity and Youth (2001), as well as the author of a number of journal articles in prestigious journals such as Child Development and Developmental Psychology. Apparently she is considered the expert on this subject, for the American Psychologist cites her as one of its main experts on gay and lesbian issues, and she is the author of an Online Public Interest article by the American Psychology Association on "Lesbian and Gay Parenting."

This "public interest" article provides a long list of research on various aspect of lesbian and gay parenting. The research compares homosexual parenting to heterosexual parenting, and concludes that there is no significant difference. At one point she does note a difference: children of lesbian mothers report greater symptoms of stress than children of heterosexual mothers. However, she dismisses this difference as "within a normal range."

Typically, Patterson's study of children of lesbian parents are based on interviews with the children in which they are asked questions about their social adjustment, their sexual orientation, and their mood (happiness); these interviews are also conducted with children of heterosexual parents and then compared. In other studies, projective testing is used (such as the Rorshach Inkblot Test). For example, one study involved two groups of 44 children, aged 12 to 18 (children of lesbians and children of heterosexuals). Both groups were said to have similar ethnic backgrounds, family income and parent educational level. The conclusions: no difference in perceived well-being, social adjustment, or sexual orientation (percentage of homosexuality) among these youth.

Sampling Flaws And Researcher Bias

There are several problems with this kind of research. No study of 44 children is representative of the population at large. No matter how well the sampling is done, it can't be representative. According to the National Adoption Clearing House, there are about 6 to 14 million children living with a gay or lesbian parent. How can 44 children be representative of 6 to 14 million children?

[Ed. Note: Since this article was published in February, 2005, we have learned that the figure of 6-14 million children in gay households is a bogus statistic--promoted by Charlotte Patterson in the early 1990s. It was published in her 1992 paper, "Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents" in Child Development, 63, 1025-1042. In her paper, she says "Estimates of the numbers of gay or lesbian parents range from 6 million to 14 million." A footnote in her paper says the estimates are based on extrapolations that assume that 10% of the general population of 250 million are homosexual. (This 250 million figure included 60 million kids.)

Her footnote cited stats from 1973 and 1978 that estimate that 10% of gay men and 20% of gay women have children. She assumed that each gay parent had two children and arrived at a figure of 6-8 million children in gay households.

Yet the inaccurate 6-14 million figure is repeated in literature as fact. Common sense would tell us that if there were14 million children being reared in homosexual homes in 1992, this would mean that 20% of all kids at that time were in gay homes.

These bogus 6-14 million children in gay households is also cited in "The Gay Baby Boom: The Psychology Of Gay Parenthood," on page one of the book. A pediatrician who reviewed the book on Amazon.com described the inaccuracy of the 6-14 million figure in a July 13, 2003 review. The pediatrician wrote: "What knowledgeable person with integrity could support, believe, or report that 14 million US kids, one of every five are being raised by a gay or lesbian?"]

The interpretations of projective tests such as the Rorshach, TAT or House-Tree-Person test, are always subject to bias. Given that in this case the administrators of the test obviously have an agenda to find evidence that children of lesbian and gay parents are normal, it is likely that their interpretations of what children project onto inkblots will be colored by their bias. Interviews of children of lesbian and gay parents are not scientific or reliable. Children have a tendency to say what their parents want them to say and to protect their parents. Even most adults do that. All psychotherapists are familiar with this resistance. "My parents were fine and we had a normal family," is a typical statement of somebody going into therapy for the first time. Another frequent statement is, "I don't want to blame my parents." Also, if the interviewer is a lesbian, she may convey to the interviewee that she is looking for a certain kind of answer.

An article by A. Dean Byrd in Ethical/Theoretical Issues, noted that a number of researchers had been critical of not only Patterson's research but of all the research used by the American Psychological Association to back up its affirmative position on gay and lesbian parenting. Baumrind (1995), for example, concluded that "Most of the studies are based on small samples of convenience, retrospective data, or self-report instruments subject to social desirability biases" and added that few studies "explored theoretically relevant hypotheses concerning adolescent outcomes or used intensive observational and interview methods most likely to reveal possible problems such as identity diffusion or parent child enmeshment" (p. 134).

Dr. Byrd further points out other questionable research methods, including the apparent use of her own friends in her studies. Her research was subsequently excluded from a Florida Court. The Court concluded:

Dr. Patterson's impartiality also came into question when prior to trial, she refused to turn over to her own attorneys copies of documentation utilized by her in studies. This court ordered her to do so (both sides having stipulated to the Order), yet she unilaterally refused despite the continued efforts on the part of her attorneys to have her do so. Both sides stipulated that Dr. Patterson's conduct was a clear violation of this Court's order. Her attorneys requested that sanctions be limited to the exclusion of her personal studies at trial and this Court agreed to do so. Dr. Patterson testified as to her own lesbian status and the Respondent maintained that her research was possibly tainted by her alleged use of friends as subjects for her research. This potential was given more credence than it should have been by virtue of her unwillingness to provide the Respondent as well as the Petitioner, with the documents ordered to be produced" (1997, JUNE AMER, Petitioner v Floyd P. Johnson, p. 11).

A Personal Reflection

The case of Charlotte J. Patterson is but one thread of a fabric that has seemingly enveloped scholarly research in general. Unfortunately, the trend toward propaganda disguised as research seems to be mushrooming in America, and nobody seems to care; either that, or they are afraid to care.

At last year's conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis which I attended, Ethel Spector Person gave a twenty minute talk titled, "Borrowed Fantasy: How Mutual Influences among Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Straights Changed Women's Lives and Psychoanalytic Theory." The presentation was all about how Freud and other male psychoanalysts were misguided about gay and lesbian issues, among others, and how gays and lesbians have corrected Freud's narrow theories and added positive contributions of their own. The presentation was backed up not so much by credible research but by a series of testimonials. There was an open microphone at the end of the discussion, but nobody questioned Dr. Person about her research. Nor did I.

In analyzing my response and that of others, I had two thoughts. We have all been conditioned (brainwashed) to think that only gays and lesbians can understand and hence be experts on gay and lesbian issues. In addition, we have all been conditioned (brainwashed) to be afraid to oppose anything that a gay or lesbian spokesperson asserts out of a fear of being rebuked as homophobic. Maybe this is why gays and lesbians have a stranglehold on the American Psychological Association.

I am reminded of a popular koan: If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?

Updated: 3 September 2008

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