New Study: Gay Dads' Brain Activity Pattern mirrors both New Mothers and Fathers

A new study reveals that gay fathers' brain activity changes as they raise children. In fact, their brain activity resembles that of both new mothers and new fathers.

But what does that mean? Here's more:

The 48 gay fathers raising children with their husbands seemed to be both mom and dad, brain-wise. Their emotional circuits were as active as those of mothers and the interpretive circuits showed the same extra activity as that of heterosexual fathers'.

Ideally, scientists would perform neuroimaging on men and women before and then after they became parents, to show definitely that any heightened activity followed junior's arrival and was not present before. Until they can do that, Feldman said, she is confident that the telltale brain activity results from parenting.

One clue: in gay fathers, but not heterosexual ones, the brain also had extra communication lines between emotional and cognitive structures. The more time a man spent as primary caregiver, the greater the connectivity. It was as if playing both parental roles caused the brain to integrate the structures required for each.

"Fathers' brains are very plastic," Feldman said. "When there are two fathers, their brains must recruit both networks, the emotional and cognitive, for optimal parenting."

I think this is fascinating.

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Arkansas Legislative Candidate supports Death Penalty for Rebellious Children

Great Hera! This loon, Charlie Fuqua, is the Republican candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives and he's lost it. He supports giving the death penalty to "rebellious children."

HuffPo reports:

In "God's Law," Fuqua's 2012 book, the candidate wrote that while parents love their children, a process could be set up to allow for the institution of the death penalty for "rebellious children," according to the Arkansas Times. Fuqua, who is anti-abortion, points out that the course of action involved in sentencing a child to death is described in the Bible and would involve judicial approval. While it is unlikely that many parents would seek to have their children killed by the government, Fuqua wrote, such power would serve as a way to stop rebellious children.

Read the full passage after the jump

A Catholic Church study finds neither Celibacy or Homosexuality is to Blame for Child Abuse

A study on the sexual abuse within the American Catholic Church has some interesting and clarifying news. The results show that the celibate or homosexual priests are no more likely to abuse children than the straight priests.

Discounting a number of theories that have been previously put forward to explain abuse by priests, the researchers conducting the study found only a small minority of abusive priests met the clinical definition of paedophiles.

Instead, researchers concluded priests were under stress and unprepared to deal with the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and '70s.

Poor monitoring of men working with children also contributed to the child abuse epidemic, according to the report, which was commissioned by America's Catholic bishops.

For the report, researchers were given unlimited access to the medical and psychological records of priests alleged to have been involved in child sex crimes, including the results of psycho-sexual testing.

This study confirmed that researchers can't identify abusive priests in advance


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Children of Hate: A Sad look at the kids of Westboro

20/20 looks at the kids of the Westboro Baptist Church

This is so sad

First Look: CNN pilot study on children's attitudes on race

This was sad to watch


Quick Update:

Renowned child psychologist and University of Chicago professor Margaret Beale Spencer, a leading researcher in the field of child development, was hired as a consultant by CNN. She designed the pilot study and used a team of three psychologists to implement it: two testers to execute the study and a statistician to help analyze the results.

Her team tested 133 children from schools that met very specific economic and demographic requirements. In total, eight schools participated: four in the greater New York City area and four in Georgia.

The mother, whose name the study prohibits from being used, says her daughter has "never asked her about color" and that the results of the test were an eye opener, and she says she and her daughter "talked a long time about it"

Her daughter's perception on race and the fact that the issue was not taken up at home is in many ways typical.

Research and discussions with parents of the children who participated in this study, indicate that white parents as a whole do not talk to their kids about race as much as black parents.

More to come.

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George Rekers Presents: Spank the Gay Away

Spank the Gay Away, that could be Peaches' new song.

Anywho back in the day (the year of me), Rekers believed you could spank out the Gay demon. In fact he did experiments on it.

In 1974, Rekers, a leading thinker in the so-called ex-gay movement, was presented with a 4-year-old "effeminate boy" named Kraig, whose parents had enrolled him in the program.

Rekers put Kraig in a "play-observation room" with his mother, who was equipped with a listening device. When the boy played with girly toys, the doctors instructed her to avert her eyes from the child.

According to a 2001 account in Brain, Child Magazine, "On one such occasion, his distress was such that he began to scream, but his mother just looked away. His anxiety increased, and he did whatever he could to get her to respond to him... Kraig became so hysterical, and his mother so uncomfortable, that one of the clinicians had to enter and take Kraig, screaming, from the room." Rekers's research team continued the experiment in the family's home.

Kraig received red chips for feminine behavior and blue chips for masculine behavior. The blue chips could be cashed in for candy or television time. The red chips earned him a "swat" or spanking from his father. Researchers periodically entered the family's home to ensure proper implementation of the reward-punishment system.

After two years, the boy supposedly manned up. Over the decades, Rekers, who ran countless similar experiments, held Kraig up as "the poster boy for behavioral treatment of boyhood effeminacy."

Child Cheese, that's a mess. Besides, when I was paddled by my hot P.E. teachers, the Gay didn't go away... Hmm, maybe that's where my desires for rough men really started.

Learn something new everyday.

My Top 5 Evil Kids

People are scary, especially kids. They don't know any better, or do they?

I like to present my top 5 evil kids from the movies:

Rhoda from the Bad Seed- I love her


Damien from The Omen


Mara from the Village of The Damned


Isaac from The Children of the Corn


Gage from Pet Sematary

Nigerian Children are dying from False Claims of Witchcraft

This really gets me.

Evangelical Christianity in Nigeria is causing horrible abuse and wrongful deaths of children. Pastors are accusing children of witchcraft and putting them through "exorcisms" like pouring acid down their throats.

The worst part is the families allow this to happen. A growing number of children are dying like this.

Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of "witch children" reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files. Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises.

Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

"It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity," said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria. For their part, the families are often extremely poor, and sometimes even relieved to have one less mouth to feed.

Poverty, conflict and poor education lay the foundation for accusations, which are then triggered by the death of a relative, the loss of a job or the denunciation of a pastor on the make, said Martin Dawes, a spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund. "When communities come under pressure, they look for scapegoats," he said. "It plays into traditional beliefs that someone is responsible for a negative change ... and children are defenseless."

This is really hard to think about. These children need help and support. I am hoping these mission groups save these kids.

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A kid ask Obama: Why do people Hate You?

I can tell you the truth, most of it is foolishness.

Merciful Minerva! NOM is trying to f**k up the Children

NOM just keep the mess flowing in their new ad. This one features children "confused" by the idea of same sex marriage.

Too silly, NOM, too silly.

What About The Children?

Yes for Prop 8 is bringing out the ugly in Christians, Mormons, and other people. And now, they're using kids to spread their hate and mess.

This is sad and desperate folks, stop the madness!

Horror in Real Time

I can't believe this! Patrick "Booger Red" Kelly, an alleged member of the swingers' club in Tyler, Texas, is charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and aggravated sexual assualt against children as young as 5 years old.

In sad detail, an 11-year-old girl testified about taking "silly pills" and playing "doctor" with her younger brother at the club, where prosecutors say the siblings performed for paying audiences.

It horrible to think about the crimes and mess our children face these days. I wish these children well and I hope they get the help they need to move past this.

Gerbils as Teachers

Diversity can be a hard case to sell, but to children, it's actually quite easy. Sarah S. Brannen created a cute book that discusses Gay marriage in the eyes of a little girl or gerbil. I'm sure this book will be big to new gay families and ammo for the haters. But I think it's a great start.

Thanks to Queerty for talking about this.