Discrimination harms children, not same sex parenting - study

With only days to go of the postal survey, a welcome study has dismissed the lies of the No campaign that children with same sex parents do worse than children with hetro parents. The peer reviewed study has found that rainbow children do just as well as their counterparts. No surprises there, people have known that for years.

Done by a group called Melbourne Children's, it includes a number of well respected bodies: the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, the Royal Children’s hospital, the University of Melbourne, department of paediatrics and the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation. 

The main concern for those in charge of the study was to address the misinformation in the current postal survey debate, and that it's discrimination of those within rainbow LGBT families and it's communities that does the real harm to children of same sex couples.

Ironic that in recent times I've read from the No camp where they point to mental illness among LGBT young people as proof that they do worse, when it's actually the No camp's own discriminatory behaviour that is doing the harm. Talk about victim blaming! *Sheesh* 

However, the study did find that young people who expressed diversity in their sexual orientation or gender identity experienced some of the highest rates of psychological distress in Australia, said the study’s senior author, Prof Frank Oberklaid. 


“Young LGBTIQ+ people are much more likely to experience poor mental health, self-harm and suicide than other young people, “ he said. 


 “Sadly, this is largely attributed to the harassment, stigma and discrimination they and other LGBTIQ+ individuals and communities face in our society,” Oberklaid said. 


 He warned that the debate itself had been harmful. 


“The negative and discriminatory rhetoric of the current marriage equality debate is damaging the most vulnerable members of our community – children and adolescents. It’s essential that we recognise the potential for the debate about marriage equality to cause harm for our children and young people,” Oberklaid said. 


He said there was solid evidence in countries that had legalised same-sex marriage that it had a positive impact on the mental health and wellbeing of same-sex-parented families and LGBTIQ+ young people. 


“As part of the medical community we feel a duty of care to all groups in our society, particularly to those who are vulnerable. Our duty extends to making sure that accurate, objective interpretations of the best available evidence are available and inaccuracies are corrected in an effort to reduce the destructiveness of public debate,” Oberklaid said. 


He called for an end to the negative messages that could harm children in the final weeks of the voting period. The Guardian  

Thanks again Turnbull.