Homosexuals Have "Numerous Emotional Dysfunctions"

NASHVILLE, TENNESSE - A state representative from Hendersonville has upset some gays and others in Nashville with the comment that homosexuals have "numerous emotional dysfunctions" that make them unfit to be parents.
Republican Rep. Debra Maggart made the comment in an e-mail exchange with a graduate student from Vanderbilt's Peabody College.
The student, Sara Dykstra, had sent letters to 20 legislators expressing her views about whether gays ought to be allowed to adopt children in foster care.
Maggart, who voted for a bill to ban adoptions by gay couples last year, responded that gays should be banned from adopting children because "research … shows that most homosexual couples have numerous emotional dysfunctions and psychological issues that may not be healthy for children."
The representative stood by the statement in a recent interview. "I don't wish to discriminate against anyone … but (gays) have issues. That's my opinion," she said.
Dykstra said that when she received Maggart's e-mail, she was "shocked" by such a "blanket discriminatory statement" — so shocked that she shared the e-mail with Jerry Jones, publisher of Out and About Nashville, a local newspaper for gays.
Jones published an article on the e-mail exchange in this month's issue.
It has "galvanized the gay community," said Chris Sanders, board spokesman for the Tennessee Equality Project.
"It's horrendous that it had to come across this way," Sanders said, but Maggart's comments "crystallized in the community that lawmakers are talking in ways that are discriminatory toward gays."
Jones said that since the story's publication, many readers have expressed "outrage and surprise" at Maggart's comments.
Christopher Harris, a pediatrician at Vanderbilt University and a gay parent of an adopted child, reacted to the story by saying that "it demonstrates blatant homophobia."
Maggart has received a handful of what she describes as "disgusting" and "vulgar" e-mails from constituents who take issue with her views.
The exchange highlights the antagonism engendered by a bill proposed last year to ban gays' adoptions of foster children. The bill was rejected in the House Children and Family Affairs Committee by an 11-9 vote.
Gay political activists think that lawmakers will use several new bills concerning adoption to raise the issue again this year.
Maggart thinks that the activists are "overreacting."
Rep. John DeBerry, a Memphis Democrat who is chairman of the House Children and Family Affairs Committee, thinks that gays may have reason to be alert.
"Somewhere along the line, (these) bills will be amended," DeBerry said. "It's such a passionate issue that it is not going to go away."
The political battle raises the question of what exactly "research shows" about the mental health and parenting abilities of gay people.
Bill Maier, vice-president and psychologist-in-residence at Focus on the Family, a national conservative group that made a presentation to several members of DeBerry's committee last year, says that Maggart's statement "certainly stacks up" with existing research.
According to Maier, studies show homosexuals are at higher risk for certain forms of mental illness.
Many gay activists categorically reject this notion. Others say that if gays are at higher risk, it is because of the social stigma attached to homosexuality in this country.
Further, they note that nearly every organization that represents professionals in the child welfare system — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association and the National Association of Social Workers — supports gay adoption. They also point out that the vast majority of social science research finds no significant differences in outcomes for children of gay vs. heterosexual parents.
This is not to say that this research finds no differences. In a review of literature published in 2001, sociologists Judith Stacey of New York University and Timothy J. Biblarz of the University of Southern California found that children of gay parents are different in some ways from children raised in heterosexual households. These differences include higher incidences of gender confusion and more sexual experimentation — including experimentation with homosexuality.
However, "such differences are relatively trivial" and are no reason to prevent gays from being parents, Stacey said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Maier and other conservative critics are more bothered by these outcomes.
"Thirty years of evidence shows that children do best when they are raised by mothers and fathers," he said.
from Tennessean.com