Week 2 - Trustworthy Sources

 

Hey everyone!

Before we get into what it is that I had prepared for today, I wanted to just give a quick update on myself for you guys. I’m here at the end of the second week of the semester and I’m doing pretty good! There’s a few adjustments that I need to make to my schedule, but overall things are going good. I do miss my family a bit. My sisters and brothers back home make many efforts to reach out to me, which I appreciate. The issue is that sometimes I just don’t have the time to spend with them, being that they’re so far away from where I am. It can be rough, but I know that what I’m doing here is worth the difficulty.

Anyways, I want to start today’s actual blog post with a disclaimer or two. First off, my views do not wholly represent the views of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Though I am a member of the church, I am not authorized to speak on their behalf in any way. If there’s any differences of opinion you’d like to voice about my posts, feel free to direct them towards me. Second, and perhaps most applicable to today’s post, I do not intend to combat opinions of others on sensitive subjects. Please don’t feel like I’m trying to invalidate your opinions or feelings with what I write. I promise that this isn’t my intentions.

With that being said, the topic that we discussed this week is a bit more of a sensitive nature. I don’t feel that the nature of it should stop me from discussing it though. One of the more intense debates in our time was that of the legality of homosexual marriage legality. As we know, this question was resolved by the United States Supreme Court some years ago. People stand on both sides of this argument, which is good, as I do not believe absolute acceptance is required for validation. What I do want to talk about was a pivotal article written that was used as fact to support this decision.

In 2005, the American Psychological Association issued a statement in favor of Homosexual parenting and families. Their claim was that “Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents.” As evidence supporting this claim, the APA cited numerous individual research projects, all of which were focused in some way on homosexual families. Seems like a legitimate study right?

Perhaps that was the intention. The issue though was that the studies were so diverse in themselves that collectively, they didn’t actually support the claim that APA put forward. There were several key issues with these studies. One of the most important ones was that the vast majority of the studies did not include a comparison group for heterosexual families. Another key issue was based around the representation issues of the studies, which were mostly limited to privileged Caucasian parents. Many issues can be found in the support to APA’s claims.

Why is this an issue? I think that the issue here is that the claim doesn’t match the studies. Each study was individual in purpose and findings, ranging from parent’s attitudes to psychologist interviews, not always including the outcome of parenting styles. They weren’t made specifically to support the claim that APA made. So, for APA to use these non-targeted studies to support their own claim, their argument is weakened.

In class this week, someone spoke up and mentioned that she supported homosexual marriage. Obviously, no one fought against this argument. She then went on to say that she wished that the support for gay marriage was built on more substantial evidence. I deeply felt that because were it to be my own argument on the line, I would want to have the most concrete support available. The argument APA put forward was not the strongest because of an inaccurate portrayal of facts.

Why does this matter? I think that it’s wrong to portray truth as something that it isn’t wholly. I’m not arguing against the idea that gay marriage doesn’t differ in parenting from straight marriage. I simply don’t appreciate the misrepresentation of facts perpetuated by APA. It’s always important to remember that truth is out there, and not everything you read from a “credible” source is truth.

Thanks for listening to me today haha. Again, I’m not here to argue against gay marriage. I’m simply wanting to bring to light some of the logical fallacies that exist everywhere, not just in APA’s piece.

Peace out guys!

-Caleb