minnesotaindependent.com

Archbishop John Nienstedt penned a column on Thursday defending the Catholic Church’s decision to lobby for an amendment that would add a ban on same-sex marriage to the Minnesota Constitution. He said the amendment is not “anti-gay, mean-spirited and prejudicial.” Later in the column he endorses the words of his fellow Catholic, the Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, who says if same-sex marriage is legalized, it could lead to polygamy and incest.

“Regrettably, the media and some secular commentators have chosen to mischaracterize this measure as anti-gay, mean-spirited and prejudicial,” wrote Nienstedt in the Archdiocese newspaper, the Catholic Spirit. “This is not the case or the intent behind the initiative.”

Nienstedt argued that children fare best in families with one mother and one father, an argument that seems to contradict most research on same-sex parenting.

“Pastorally, children flourish best in the context of having both a mother and a father. Every scientific study confirms this reality,” he wrote.

But a review of 81 studies of many family types released late last year showed the opposite.

“No research supports the widely held conviction that the gender of parents matters for child well-being,” wrote sociologists Stacey and Timothy Biblarz of the University of Southern California.