The Journal of Marriage and Family’s lead article questions the idea that ‘fatherless’ children are necessarily at a disadvantage or that men provide a different set of parenting skills than women which are indispensable.

Timothy Biblarz, a sociologist of the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences said: “Significant policy decisions have been swayed by the misconception across party lines that children need both a mother and a father," sociologist Timothy Biblarz of the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, said. Yet, there is almost no social science research to support this claim. One problem is that proponents of this view routinely ignore research on same-gender parents.”

Biblarz and Judith Stacey of NYU analysed relevant studies about parenting which included research on single-mother and single-father households, gay male parents and lesbian parents.

Stacey said that a child requires the care and attention of a male parent and the female parent is taken for granted.

The researchers, in their analysis, did not trace any evidence of parenting abilities based on gender. The only exception is of ‘lactation’. They also noted that the gender of the parents has very little significance for the psychological adjustment and social success of the child.

The study suggests that there are innumerable similarities between the children of lesbian and heterosexual parents. The differences are rather less.