Are children raised by homosexual parents more likely to engage in homosexual activity? According to the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics, "Compared with young adults who had heterosexual mothers, men and women who had lesbian mothers were slightly more likely to consider the possibility of having a same-sex partner, and more of them had been involved in at least a brief relationship with someone of the same sex, but in each group similar proportions of adult men and women identified themselves as homosexual." "Technical Report: Coparent or Second-Parent Adoption by Same-Sex Parents," Pediatrics, Vol. 109, Number 2, pp. 341-344 (2002). This brief report does not state that children raised by same-sex parents fare as well as children raised by a married mother and father. Rather it merely approves second-parent adoption by same-sex partners for several reasons (including a desire to dismantle "pervasively heterosexist legal precedents" and to have children obtain access to the nonparent partner's medical insurance).

Curiously, only in passing did it note deficiencies with the studies on which it relied: "The small and nonrepresentative samples studied and the relatively young age of most of the children suggest some reserve." (Emphasis supplied.) Indeed, to date, studies supporting same-sex parenting, plagued by small and nonrepresentative sample sizes, have lacked scientific precision. Many studies have not provided anonymity to the research participants, contaminating the studies with the "self-presentation" bias of the participants. A well-documented critique of these studies - and critique of homosexual parenting - can be found in Timothy J. Dailey, "Breaking the Ties that Bind: The APA's Assault on Fatherhood," Insight, No. 213 (2000, Family Research Council).

Dailey quotes the authors of one study, who confessed the limitations of their study: "There is no way of knowing how representative the sample is. ... The high proportion of gay subjects who indicated a willingness to be interviewed suggests that they were perhaps unusually interested in the issues raised in the questionnaire and thus willing to divulge their homosexuality to the researchers. Moreover, even though the questionnaire was anonymous, the gay parents may have been particularly biased toward emphasizing the positive aspects of their relationships with their children, feeling that the results might have implications for custody decisions in the future. Thus, all generalizations must be viewed with caution." Mary B. Harris and Pauline H. Turner, "Gay and Lesbian Parents," Journal of Homosexuality 12 (1985/86): 111-112, quoted in Dailey.