Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council
has yet to address the charges lodged against his group by the Southern Poverty Law Center regarding how they spread propaganda and junk science or misrepresent legitimate science to demonize the lgbt community.
But apparently he isn't too busy to continue misrepresenting legitimate science against the lgbt community.
Yesterday, a piece of his,
Federal Report Confirms 'Nuclear Family' Best for Children's Health, was published in
The Christian Post.
In this piece, Sprigg claims that nonpartisan groups support theories lodged by himself and FRC regarding the best households to raise children - i.e. the notion that two-parent heterosexual families are the best places to raise children as opposed to same-sex families:
During such debates, Family Research Council and other pro-family groups note social science evidence showing children raised by their own mother and father, who are committed to one another in a lifelong marriage, are happier (experience better mental health), healthier (have better physical health), and more prosperous (attain higher socioeconomic status) than children raised in any other household setting. For example, the non-partisan research group Child Trends summarized the evidence this way:
“Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage.”
We point to this evidence in support of policies which would discourage divorce, cohabitation, and out-of-wedlock pregnancies, while encouraging sexual abstinence until marriage-as well as in opposing efforts to change the fundamental definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Yet more evidence along these lines can be found in a recently published federal study on “Family Structure and Children’s Health in the United States.” The report compares health outcomes on a variety of measures by family structure. Seven different categories of “families” are identified-“nuclear,” “single-parent,” “unmarried biological or adoptive,” “blended,” “cohabiting,” “extended,” and “other.”
Like with so many other times Sprigg refers to legitimate science to quantify his theories, there are several things wrong with his citations of these studies.
The first study he cited -
The Child Trends study - was published in 2002. And it never even addressed same-sex households.
