The Heart-Warming Science Of Gay Dad Brains

New evidence indicates that
gay fathers actually develop

patterns, brain patterns,
that are typical in both

straight men and straight women.
This is really fascinating study because

it focuses primarily on brain scans.
And what the researchers did--

and the researchers are from Israel--
is they scanned the brains of new mothers,

then they scanned the brains of new
straight fathers and then they scanned

the brains of new gay fathers,
and here's what they found.

In the study, the mothers, who played
a primary caregiver role for their

children, demonstrated heightened
activity in their brain's emotion-

processing regions

when watching their children. The straight
fathers, playing a traditional secondary

parenting role, exhibited increased

cognitive activity in the brain.
So the women were

much more emotional, the men were
much more cognitive.

...demonstrating awareness of what their
children's cries and cues were trying

to communicate.

But the gay fathers demonstrated both
the mother's emotional and father's

cognitive brain activity, suggesting

that they were at least according to
their brains, operating like both mothers

and fathers. And so the researchers said
that, you know, the men's brains

are very plastic, so they can adapt to
the given situation. They can play both

roles, which is really,
really fascinating stuff.

Well, apparently they're like super men--
and super women. I wonder if there's gonna be

some jealousy coming out of this research.

- They can apparently do both.
- They have superior brains.
- Ex--well, clearly.

They're smarter, more cognitive and
more emotional. We also should bear in

mind, like they're focusing here on the
effect on gay parents because

I assume they have sort of an agenda.
Thankfully, the science supports the

agenda that

they can fill both roles and it's
ridiculous to say that a kid can only be

brought up in a healthy fashion if he's with

a traditional one-male
one-female relationship.

But I'm sure this is, as they say,
is just as true if

a guy has to raise a kid all by himself
or a single mother, like,

they will have to fill both of those roles.

The brain is plastic, not just for the
gay couples, it's plastic for us as well.

And feeling like we should be
constrained by gender roles

that were developed in the

20s and 30s and 40s?
That's ridiculous. We are more

plastic than that. We can fill more roles

and what it means to be a mother and what it
means to be a father isn't the same as

it was when--

even when we were kids, let alone
when our parents were kids.

Right, so this summer--this coming summer--
the National Organization for Marriage,

along with Mike Huckabee, are planning
on doing this march in Washington DC to

kind of protest

same-sex marriage and marriage equality.
And one of the reasons why they do

that is because they feel that children

that are raised in same-sex households
do not fare well.

But it's really interesting to hear that
argument because there's a growing body

of evidence that proves that wrong. I
mean, we had done studies about this or

had reported on studies about this
previously, in previous years,

and it shows that, hey, not only do
children do just as well as,

you know, children in heterosexual
families, but in some cases they might do

- even better--
- (man) Yeah.

And now we have actual brain scans
showing that there's really no

element lacking in the parenting, in
terms of their brains and what they're

likely to

- do to raise their children.
- So you're totally right about the science

and I'm glad that we have the science
on our side there, but also all of that

should be completely irrelevant. Like the
fact that, even if we found that the

kids they raised weren't as psychologically
developed, or weren't as

emotionally developed...

doesn't mean they don't have the right
to raise kids! I've a feeling that really

stupid people probably don't raise kids
that are all that well off. We still let

them procreate.

- (woman) Can we mention Honey Boo-Boo?
- Exactly!
- Is that okay?
- Yeah, like, okay if you did the study

and you found that one racial group had kids
that were, on average, had an IQ two

points lower,

we don't bar them from having children.
Like, this is a sideshow

that the conservatives bring up, that they're
not even right on, to try to stop people from--

stop gay people from having the same
rights as everybody else.

But at the end of the day, it's irrelevant.
They wouldn't bar people with some sort of

handicap from having kids if they had
data that they couldn't raise kids,

- so there's no reason why that
should apply to gay people.
- (woman) Yeah.