The past few days have not been kind to hard line conservatives determined to prevent gay and lesbian Americans from adopting children. In Florida, emails released Thursday show that Attorney General and GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill McCollum ignored his staff's warnings against hiring Rentboy client and anti-gay crusader George Rekers to testify in support of the state's ban on gay adoption. And on Monday, yet another study suggested that the children of lesbian parents do as well - or better - than those reared in straight households.
The Sarasota Herald Tribune detailed AG's McCollum's insistence on paying Rekers $300 an hour and a total of $120,000 despite the objections of lawyers within the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF). Despite considering over 30 possible expert witnesses in his effort to defend Florida's three-decade old ban on gay adoption, McCollum nevertheless pushed for Rekers against the "strong cautions" of the Assistant Attorney General:

Florida wound up paying more than $120,000 to hire Rekers, whose credibility was tarnished after he recently went on a European vacation with a gay male escort. The state's ban on gay adoption was declared unconstitutional by a Miami judge in late 2008 who criticized Rekers as "not credible."
The e-mails released Thursday show that an attorney in McCollum's own office warned against hiring Rekers, whose testimony had been deemed suspect in an earlier Arkansas lawsuit that challenged a ban on placing foster children in homes with gay parents.
Assistant Attorney General Valerie Martin wrote in a July 2007 e-mail that after talking to Arkansas officials and reviewing the background of the former University of South Carolina professor that she would "recommend NOT using him."

In November 2008, Bill McCollum paid a price for that decision. Miami Dade county Judge Cindy Lederman ignored Rekers' testimony in the case of Martin Gill, a gay man who hoped to adopt two foster children in his care for five years:

"Dr. Rekers' testimony was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers' beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court can not consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy."

And much to the dismay of Rekers' allies, the science (as well as basic notions of equality and human dignity) is on the other side.
Back in 2004, a study led by Dr. Charlotte J. Patterson at the University of Virginia showed that teenagers raised by two women appear to be as well adjusted as those who are raised by male-female couples. "Their adjustment is pretty normal - that is, indistinguishable from a matched group of kids being raised by opposite-sex parents," noted Patterson. She added that "I think that our results speak to that concern", meaning the concern of critics that same-sex parents "may in some way harm the children that are raised in these households."
Now, new research from UCLA similarly suggests that "when compared to teens of the same age, adolescents raised by lesbian parents are doing just fine socially, psychologically and academically." CNN described the findings of Dr. Nanette Gartrell, who led the study funded by several lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocacy groups, such as the Gill Foundation and the Lesbian Health Fund from the Gay Lesbian Medical Association.

A nearly 25-year study concluded that children raised in lesbian households were psychologically well-adjusted and had fewer behavioral problems than their peers.
The study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, followed 78 lesbian couples who conceived through sperm donations and assessed their children's well-being through a series of questionnaires and interviews...
Children from lesbian families rated higher in social, academic and total competence. They also showed lower rates in social, rule-breaking, aggressive problem behavior.

Gartrell explained that the mothers' strong motivation and involvement, as well as the fact that all of the pregnancies were planned, could account for the findings. ""I would have anticipated the kids would be doing as well as the normative sample," she said, adding, "I didn't expect better."
All of which was too much for Wendy Wright, president of the right-wing Concerned Women for America. Claiming that its roster of funders "proves the prejudice and bias of the study," Wright protested that the truth wasn't setting her free.

"You have to be a little suspicious of any study that says children being raised by same-sex couples do better or have superior outcomes to children raised with a mother and father," she said. "It just defies common sense and reality."

As their very bad week showed, it is the right-wing's opposition to gay parents that defies common sense and reality.