The Ottawa-based Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) has responded to the Canadian government study that asserted same-sex partnerships are of equivalent social value as natural marriage in the raising of children. The 74-page study, commissioned in 2003 by the Liberal government's Justice Department, cross-references 240 studies on parenting and children's development.
Lea Singh, assistant director of COLF, wrote to the National Post criticizing the study saying it is flawed enough in its methodology to be unreliable. Singh writes that "most research on gay parenting has been based on inadequately sized, self-selected samples, with lack of control for important variables."
The report was only released after its main author, Paul Hastings, a psychology professor at Concordia University, made a request using the Access to Information Act. Hastings claims that the Harper government was withholding the report because it supports homosexual adoption, but the Harper Conservatives did not come to power until 2006.
In her letter to the Post, Singh cites a 2005, the Vanier Institute report that stated, "It cannot be emphasized enough that the research upon which we can draw at this time remains embryonic and is often incomplete or inadequate methodologically. As such, any conclusions that can be drawn are tentative."
Homosexual activists have made great strides in Canada to abolish legal recognition of the natural family. Since the summer of 2005, Canadian law no longer gives special recognition or protection to marriage between a man and a woman.
COLF refers to the June 2005 "Act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes," that redefined marriage. This "denaturing" of marriage, the group says, has also had the effect of dividing Canadians.
Singh writes, "Decades of careful research on children of divorce confirm that children do best when raised by their own biological mothers and fathers."
"The complementarity of the parental sexes is fundamental for children's emotive and psychological development. Both mothers and fathers have a crucial role to play. So while lesbians provide two moms, children need only one. The other figure they need is a father and women just don't make good dads."
