By Bryan Fischer 

Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at “Focal Point” 

I have written before that, according to the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God, marriage exists for three purposes: companionship, sexual intimacy, and procreation. Same-sex counterfeits cannot fulfill any of these purposes. 

Same-sex unions are notoriously short-lived and unstable, the kind of sex that is practiced is immoral, unnatural, and unhealthy, and procreation is an impossibility. These are reasons enough to reserve the term marriage for the union of one man and one woman. 

Not only can same-sex couples not conceive children,  solid social research has now emerged that confirms what common sense, history, experience and Scripture tell us: same-sex parenting is bad for children. 

Mark Regnerus, a sociology professor at the University of Texas (which last I checked was not part of the vast right-wing conspiracy) has determined that the “empirical claim” that there are no “notable differences” between children raised in mother-father households and same-sex households is an antiquated idea which “must go.” 

Regnerus compared adults raised in married, mother-father families to adults raised in same-sex “families” and found that adults raised in same-sex environments had “negative outcomes” in as many as 25 out of 40 categories. 

His research reveals that adults raised as children in same-sex environments reported lower income levels, poorer mental and physical health, and more problematic romantic relationships than adults raised in natural families. 

Regnerus’ research confirms that same-sex relationships are devastatingly brief and unstable. Because of this, children rarely spent their entire childhoods in the household of the same same-sex partners. This inherent, inescapable instability is reason alone to make homosexual adoption contrary to public policy. 

Researchers A.P. Bell and M.S. Weinberg in their classic work, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women, published by Simon and Schuster (also not a part of the vast right-wing conspiracy), revealed just how promiscuous homosexuals tend to be. 

According to Bell and Weinberg, 43 percent of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more sexual partners, with 28 percent having one thousand or more sex partners. 

A Dutch study of partnered homosexuals found that even men with a steady partner - in so-called “monogamous” relationships - had an average of eight outside sexual partners every year. 

And a homosexual publication called Genre conducted a survey which found that 24 percent of respondents confessed to having more than one hundred sexual partners over the course of their lifetime. 

It is obviously unconscionable to put vulnerable young children into such dangerously fluid and disorienting environments. 

Research by Walter R. Schumm of Kansas State University verifies that a homosexual home environment has a profound and disturbing impact on a child’s sexual identity. According to Schumm’s research, the percentage of children of gay and lesbian parents who adopt non-heterosexual identities ranges anywhere from 16% to 57%, with daughters of lesbians at the highest risk. 

Regnerus uncovered another astonishly alarming finding, according to Charles Cooke writing at NRO. Less than 2 percent of children in intact, biological families reported experiencing sexual abuse, but the figure for same-sex couples is a frightening 23 percent. 

And while just two percent of the population at large has spent time in foster care, that figure skyrockets to 14 percent of children from same-sex couples. 

Regnerus’ research is consistent with a 1996 study done by Australian sociologist Sotiris Saranatakos which found that children of homosexual couples fared worse in nine of 13 academic and social categories.  

As Cooke concludes, the answer to the question of “whether children who have parents in a same-sex relationship experience disadvantages when compared with children raised by their biological, married parents...appears to be a resounding yes.” 

We know that children need and deserve both a mother and father. Dr. Kyle Pruett of Yale Medical School and others have pointed out that fathers contribute necessary ingredients to parenting that mothers cannot provide, and mothers contribute something to the nurture of children that fathers cannot provide. 

While single parent families are an unfortunate social tragedy, it’s a tragedy because we know clearly the impact on young children of growing up without a mom or a dad. When we adopt children into same-sex environments, we are inexcusably and deliberately creating households with a missing mother or father. No rational and compassionate society would ever do that to its most vulnerable members. Same-sex adoption, in fact, is itself a form of child abuse. 

Bottom line: children need both a mom and a dad. Let’s make sure our marriage and adoption policies do what is best for kids. They deserve no less. 

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)