As the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of gay marriage as soon as Friday, a University of Oregon researcher found no harmful effects for children of same-sex parents. The studywas published in the journal "Social Science Research".
Ryan Light is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the U of O.
He and co-author, Jimi Adams, of the University of Colorado, analyzed 19-thousand peer reviewed articles on same sex parenting and child outcomes. They found overwhelming consensus in current research that there's no difference between children raised in same-sex and opposite sex households.
Light: "One of the key factors that opponents of gay marriage are arguing within the legal system is that, in fact, gay marriage could be bad for children and of course we find that that's not the case."
Light says he was motivated to do the research after hearing Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia say there's disagreement among sociologists about how children of same sex couples turn out. The justices are expected to rule very soon on whether states can outlaw same-sex marriage.