Stuckinthemilli.eu

Been recovering from this.

Been beaming about this.

Been face-palming about this.

Been playing this.

Been listening to this (Careful, it’s got naughty words in it).

Been preparing for this.

After the conference last week, I’ve been pretty busy, but earlier on in the week my Shorter (and Better) Half pointed out a couple of negative posts online (they weren’t on blogs, because blogs – like this one – encourage interaction by using a comments section and making contact easy). The bulk of them seem to come from Senator Rónán Mullen, who sent out a press release protesting the conference (if anyone can get a copy of that press release I’d appreciate seeing it, for curiosity sake). The two pieces I’m looking at are from The Iona Institutes website – one boo-hoo-ing the EU support and the other complaining about the limitations of the study.

First thing is first – Rónán and the Iona Institute: This conference was not about promoting gay adoption. I realised that’s the easiest thing for you to cling on to, because it’s really, really easy to be simplistic about it and scare people with the idea of gay and lesbian people adopting children, but the conference wasn’t about that. I’ll talk slowly and try to make this clear:

The conference was to launch the report, which look at the opinions and experiences of a group of children of lesbian and gay parents.

Not. Gay. Adoption.

The main focus of the conference was on us and the report. Honestly. If you weren’t there, I’m very disappointed. It was open for registration, there’s no reason why you weren’t there.

There were different perspectives on solutions to the problems we’re facing at the moment. The idea of accepting that your homophobia-inspired opposition to proposal such as the Civil Partnership Act, civil marriage for lesbian and gay people and the right to be considered for adoption for lesbian and gay parents is having a negative impact on children is probably too hard for you to swallow though, so you can conveniently ignore it.

Second – We know there were only 11 people in the study. I was there. We pointed this out. We all encouraged further research in Ireland in this area. Don’t talk to me about the limitations of small-scale qualitative research – I love that shit and can pick holes in weak research fairly easily.

The Iona Institute fail to point to other research, on larger groups over a longitudinal scale, in the UK and the US however. Cherry-picking, that’s called. Also, this line struck me as poignant: “Four were born by sperm donation and have no contact with their fathers.”. Yeah, funny, I’m one of them. It is my choice that I have not had contact with the man who donated sperm to my mothers.

Anyway. Comments section below is you agree or disagree. Honestly, the opposition to this is so banal and repetitive. The evidence is that gay and lesbian parents do a great job at raising children who are well-balanced on an emotional, social and whatever else scale. That’s the goal – getting parents who do a good job.

Doesn’t make a damn bit of difference what their gender and sexuality is.

Just a quick note to let you know, in case you’ve missed it, that there’s a conference happening this Wednesday that will focus on the lives and experiences of children of lesbian and gay parents. Organised by MarriagEquality, the conference is called Voices of Children and will be used to launch a report on research in to children of lesbian and gay parents. There will be a number of speakers in the morning (I will also be making a brief appearance) and the afternoon will host three workshops: One about LGBT families in education; a second on the Irish healthcare system; and the third will be watching a short documentary on children of LGBT parents in the UK.

You can still register for the event and I would encourage you to do so as soon as possible. It should be a really interesting conference, with a nice balance of empirical evidence and personal stories. I’ll try and Tweet about it on the day too. Once I get a final copy of the report, I’ll put it up here too.