WEBVTT 00:00:00.107 --> 00:00:04.810 New evidence indicates that gay fathers actually develop 00:00:05.130 --> 00:00:07.919 patterns, brain patterns, that are typical in both 00:00:07.941 --> 00:00:11.564 straight men and straight women. This is really fascinating study because 00:00:11.701 --> 00:00:15.466 it focuses primarily on brain scans. And what the researchers did-- 00:00:15.504 --> 00:00:19.855 and the researchers are from Israel-- is they scanned the brains of new mothers, 00:00:19.958 --> 00:00:23.623 then they scanned the brains of new straight fathers and then they scanned 00:00:23.623 --> 00:00:27.377 the brains of new gay fathers, and here's what they found. 00:00:27.471 --> 00:00:31.597 In the study, the mothers, who played a primary caregiver role for their 00:00:31.597 --> 00:00:34.950 children, demonstrated heightened activity in their brain's emotion- 00:00:34.990 --> 00:00:36.233 processing regions 00:00:36.233 --> 00:00:40.423 when watching their children. The straight fathers, playing a traditional secondary 00:00:40.443 --> 00:00:42.686 parenting role, exhibited increased 00:00:42.706 --> 00:00:46.074 cognitive activity in the brain. So the women were 00:00:46.119 --> 00:00:49.037 much more emotional, the men were much more cognitive. 00:00:50.157 --> 00:00:53.915 ...demonstrating awareness of what their children's cries and cues were trying 00:00:53.934 --> 00:00:55.095 to communicate. 00:00:55.142 --> 00:00:59.606 But the gay fathers demonstrated both the mother's emotional and father's 00:00:59.606 --> 00:01:01.843 cognitive brain activity, suggesting 00:01:02.005 --> 00:01:05.923 that they were at least according to their brains, operating like both mothers 00:01:06.033 --> 00:01:11.080 and fathers. And so the researchers said that, you know, the men's brains 00:01:11.596 --> 00:01:16.140 are very plastic, so they can adapt to the given situation. They can play both 00:01:16.154 --> 00:01:18.625 roles, which is really, really fascinating stuff. 00:01:18.625 --> 00:01:21.900 Well, apparently they're like super men-- and super women. I wonder if there's gonna be 00:01:21.937 --> 00:01:23.641 some jealousy coming out of this research. 00:01:23.951 --> 00:01:27.651 - They can apparently do both. - They have superior brains. - Ex--well, clearly. 00:01:27.729 --> 00:01:30.743 They're smarter, more cognitive and more emotional. We also should bear in 00:01:30.753 --> 00:01:34.646 mind, like they're focusing here on the effect on gay parents because 00:01:34.688 --> 00:01:37.394 I assume they have sort of an agenda. Thankfully, the science supports the 00:01:37.407 --> 00:01:38.374 agenda that 00:01:38.392 --> 00:01:41.727 they can fill both roles and it's ridiculous to say that a kid can only be 00:01:41.756 --> 00:01:43.573 brought up in a healthy fashion if he's with 00:01:43.823 --> 00:01:46.415 a traditional one-male one-female relationship. 00:01:46.744 --> 00:01:50.164 But I'm sure this is, as they say, is just as true if 00:01:50.181 --> 00:01:53.240 a guy has to raise a kid all by himself or a single mother, like, 00:01:53.412 --> 00:01:56.191 they will have to fill both of those roles. 00:01:56.324 --> 00:01:59.762 The brain is plastic, not just for the gay couples, it's plastic for us as well. 00:02:00.052 --> 00:02:03.916 And feeling like we should be constrained by gender roles 00:02:03.937 --> 00:02:05.142 that were developed in the 00:02:05.142 --> 00:02:08.128 20s and 30s and 40s? That's ridiculous. We are more 00:02:08.157 --> 00:02:10.003 plastic than that. We can fill more roles 00:02:10.144 --> 00:02:12.903 and what it means to be a mother and what it means to be a father isn't the same as 00:02:12.915 --> 00:02:13.901 it was when-- 00:02:13.926 --> 00:02:15.784 even when we were kids, let alone when our parents were kids. 00:02:15.795 --> 00:02:19.971 Right, so this summer--this coming summer-- the National Organization for Marriage, 00:02:20.295 --> 00:02:23.922 along with Mike Huckabee, are planning on doing this march in Washington DC to 00:02:23.943 --> 00:02:25.025 kind of protest 00:02:25.045 --> 00:02:28.966 same-sex marriage and marriage equality. And one of the reasons why they do 00:02:28.995 --> 00:02:31.238 that is because they feel that children 00:02:31.398 --> 00:02:35.403 that are raised in same-sex households do not fare well. 00:02:35.601 --> 00:02:39.662 But it's really interesting to hear that argument because there's a growing body 00:02:39.662 --> 00:02:42.794 of evidence that proves that wrong. I mean, we had done studies about this or 00:02:42.842 --> 00:02:45.948 had reported on studies about this previously, in previous years, 00:02:46.103 --> 00:02:50.172 and it shows that, hey, not only do children do just as well as, 00:02:50.177 --> 00:02:53.999 you know, children in heterosexual families, but in some cases they might do 00:02:54.035 --> 00:02:55.105 - even better-- - (man) Yeah. 00:02:55.119 --> 00:02:59.218 And now we have actual brain scans showing that there's really no 00:02:59.238 --> 00:03:02.647 element lacking in the parenting, in terms of their brains and what they're 00:03:02.660 --> 00:03:03.738 likely to 00:03:03.738 --> 00:03:07.523 - do to raise their children. - So you're totally right about the science 00:03:07.546 --> 00:03:10.992 and I'm glad that we have the science on our side there, but also all of that 00:03:11.031 --> 00:03:15.305 should be completely irrelevant. Like the fact that, even if we found that the 00:03:15.345 --> 00:03:18.458 kids they raised weren't as psychologically developed, or weren't as 00:03:18.458 --> 00:03:19.972 emotionally developed... 00:03:20.003 --> 00:03:22.962 doesn't mean they don't have the right to raise kids! I've a feeling that really 00:03:22.976 --> 00:03:26.282 stupid people probably don't raise kids that are all that well off. We still let 00:03:26.346 --> 00:03:27.550 them procreate. 00:03:27.586 --> 00:03:31.670 - (woman) Can we mention Honey Boo-Boo? - Exactly! - Is that okay? - Yeah, like, okay if you did the study 00:03:31.682 --> 00:03:35.591 and you found that one racial group had kids that were, on average, had an IQ two 00:03:35.615 --> 00:03:36.539 points lower, 00:03:36.563 --> 00:03:40.194 we don't bar them from having children. Like, this is a sideshow 00:03:40.284 --> 00:03:44.554 that the conservatives bring up, that they're not even right on, to try to stop people from-- 00:03:44.689 --> 00:03:47.070 stop gay people from having the same rights as everybody else. 00:03:47.295 --> 00:03:50.498 But at the end of the day, it's irrelevant. They wouldn't bar people with some sort of 00:03:50.525 --> 00:03:53.814 handicap from having kids if they had data that they couldn't raise kids, 00:03:54.079 --> 00:03:56.631 - so there's no reason why that should apply to gay people. - (woman) Yeah.