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New evidence indicates that 
gay fathers actually develop

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patterns, brain patterns, 
that are typical in both

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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processing regions

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

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parenting role, exhibited increased

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cognitive activity in the brain.
So the women were

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much more emotional, the men were 
much more cognitive.

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

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to communicate.

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

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cognitive brain activity, suggesting

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

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

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

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roles, which is really, 
really fascinating stuff.

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

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some jealousy coming out of this research.

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

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

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

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

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agenda that

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

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brought up in a healthy fashion if he's with

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a traditional one-male 
one-female relationship.

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

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

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they will have to fill both of those roles.

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

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And feeling like we should be 
constrained by gender roles

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that were developed in the

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

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plastic than that. We can fill more roles

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

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it was when--

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

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

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

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kind of protest

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

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that is because they feel that children

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

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

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

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

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

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

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- even better--
- (man) Yeah.

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

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

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likely to

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

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

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

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

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emotionally developed...

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

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

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them procreate.

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

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

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points lower,

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

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

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

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

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

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