Out of Context.

   ‘You can make any thing seem good or bad when you take it out of context.’  That is the lesson I learned this week. The American psychological association put out a brief on lesbian and gay parenting to use during the Supreme Court’s ruling regarding same-sex marriage. However, the facts reported in that brief were far from accurate. The purpose of the brief was mainly to show that children raised by same-sex couples were no worse off than children raised by a traditional family built up of a mom and a dad. This brief was very influential during the ruling, but if you take a close look, things aren’t what they seem to be concerning this brief.
     Loren Marks, a professor at LSU and respected researcher, examined the findings in the APA’s brief and then had his findings published in the social science research journal. (Read the abstract for Marks’ article HERE.) What Marks found was less then accurate reporting’s in the APA’s brief. While the purpose of the brief was to show children from same-sex homes were no worse off than children from traditional homes the research used as proof often compared children from same-sex homes to children from single parent homes, not from traditional homes. That is just one of the many flaws Marks found with the brief. (Read more about the flaws Marks found HERE.)
     I must admit that I was baffled by the amount of irrelevant research used by the APA to prove their point. I, like many people, just assumed that, seeing as the APA is the largest and most accredited psychological association their information, research, and conclusions MUST be correct. Yet, we must always be willing to look deeper in order to find truth. To be good stewards of learning and understanding we must be willing to find the true context of what is given to us, because when taken out of context, anything, including research, can be made to look positive or negative. 

How do you feel about Marks' findings concerning the APA's brief on same-sex parenting?