(AgapePress) - Raising questions about a conflict of interests, a pro-family leader claims that the co-author of a 2002 study of the children of homosexual couples is not a researcher but a propagandist.

FPN President Joe Glover

Joe Glover, president of the Family Policy Network in Virginia, said that he was puzzled by the work of University of Virginia professor Charlotte J. Patterson, who co-authored a study which claimed that the children of lesbian couples are as happy and well-adjusted as children living in traditional homes. In addition, the study recommended -- as steps toward "breaking down legal barriers to maintenance of parent-child relationships in families headed by gay and lesbian parents" -- repeal of all sodomy laws, legalization of same-sex "marriage" throughout the U.S., and legalization of adoption by same-sex couples as well as "second-parent adoptions" (adoption of the children of the other same-sex partner).

Such reforms, stated the report, "would extend to gay and lesbian parents and their children the legal protections that are now generally taken for granted by other families." In that report, titled "Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents: Research, Law and Policy," Patterson cited her own research extensively.

However, Glover did some research of his own, and discovered that Patterson is a lesbian in a relationship with a female partner, and the couple has three children between them. The pro-family advocate said Patterson has an obvious agenda and is using her title as a psychologist to put forth one-sided propaganda.

"She actually writes books on how lesbians can manipulate the law in order to have double adoption processes so they can create these lesbian so-called 'families,'" he said. Patterson, he added, is a radical homosexual activist "who has a clear agenda to redefine what a family is or should be."

In addition, according to an article in The Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Virginia), Patterson admitted that the study did not deal one of the most controversial issues -- whether or not kids raised in same-sex households were more likely to become homosexual themselves.

Those in favor of legitimizing same-sex families frequently gloss over or completely ignore this area of debate. For example, in a panel discussion at Tufts University, Dr. Ellen Perrin, professor of pediatrics at the Tufts-New England Medical Center, said the matter was not even a valid question.

"One of those questions that always gets asked is, 'What are these kids [raised in same-sex families] going to be?' I'm bothered by that question," she said, adding that "it's a homophobic question, because it doesn't matter" if a child turns out to be homosexual.

Perrin was instrumental in getting the American Academy of Pediatrics to change its policy to favor same-sex families.