by IJ » Tue Mar 27, 2007 3:11 am
Here's the abstract from the title mentioned above. Couldn't get the actual article.
Data from partners of 236 married, 66 gay cohabiting, and 51 lesbian cohabiting couples were used to assess if members of married couples differed from those of either gay couples or lesbian couples on five dimensions of relationship quality (intimacy, autonomy, equality, constructive problem solving, and barriers to leaving), two relationship outcomes (the trajectory of change in relationship satisfaction and relationship dissolution over 5 years), and the link between each dimension of relationship quality and each relationship outcome. Relative to married partners, gay partners reported more autonomy, fewer barriers to leaving, and more frequent relationship dissolution. Relative to married partners, lesbian partners reported more intimacy, more autonomy, more equality, fewer barriers to leaving, and more frequent relationship dissolution. Overall, the strength with which the dimensions of relationship quality were linked to each relationship outcome for married partners was equivalent to that for both gay and lesbian partners.
Issues worth noting:
1) Dissolution was "more frequent" but was that in a statistically significant way, or a clinically significant way, both, or just in author opinion? For example, if women had on average a highly statistically significantly .1 point higher IQ, (p<.0000001) that finding would be irrelevant when judging any men or women. How much more likely would relationship dissolution be for a whole class of people to be cut off from adoption privileges?
2) Is this an apples and oranges comparison? Cohabitating gay and lesbian couples are just cohabitating; married straight couples have moved from cohabitation to a higher level of committment in almost all cases I can imagine... I suppose a few live together without marriage on principle (Jonie Mitchell's "My Old Man": "We don't need a piece of paper from the city hall, keeping us tied and true..."), but perhaps a more valid comparison would be LGB couples Vs only cohabitating straights OR married couples vs LGB couples in a civil union or after a committment ceremony. Those are, afterall, the people likelier to apply for adoption.
3) Is the real distinction here the LGB factor? For example, coffee drinking is associated with lung cancer. But you wouldn't want to vary your clinical suspicion of lung cancer based on coffee exposure, because the link is there only because coffee and smoking go together. Similarly, is there some identifiable attribute of the couples that is a better predictor of breakup than sexual orientation? Perhaps every couple that will breakup argues at the initial meeting, and every couple that will remain together doesn't, and more LGB couples argue. You would want to select the nonarguing rather than the straight couples for stability. Is this plausible? Sure, LGB couples face pressures to dissolve, for exmple, lack of state support and family pressures, but these are not unique to LGB couples.. So those stressors could be identified in the screening process.
4) How were the couples identified? A lot of times you hear that STDs are VERY prevalent in LGBs. But those samples are often recruited from bathhouses and STD clinics and can't be considered representative. With couples, this issue is less likely to be a factor, but given self identification and honesty issues getting a good LGB sample can be hard.
5) Is this issue time sensitive? A freshly outed LGB is not the same as an LGB living as an LGB for 20 years. It is reasonable to imagine that after that chaotic period has ended, relationships and plans stabilize. I've seen it happen. There might be a relationship duration that is fairly sensitive and specific for longterm stability, whether in straight or LGB cohabitating couples or married/CU'd couples, or both, and thus that might be the criterion to pursue at adoption application.
This is complicated stuff. Unfortunately, on the national debate level, all we get is Bush saying "studies show the best place for children is in a married family" and so on, and no one ever gets citations from the man. Instead, people hear, and if you hear enough, you believe, and sometimes, you vote.
--Ian