By David Edwards

The director of issues of the anti-LGBT rights group American Family Association (AFA) on Wednesday claimed that kids were facing “a form of sexual abuse” when they were adopted by same sex couples.

During his Wednesday radio program Focal Point, Bryan Fischer pointed to a debunked study that suggested children with same sex parents had less of a chance of succeeding as adults.

“There is a myth that homosexual couples can be just a good of parents to children as heterosexual couples, as married moms and dads,” Fischer insisted. “Absolutely, flatly, totally, completely not true. Same sex parenting is bad for kids period.”

“The bottom line, ladies and gentlemen, to put kids into this environment, it’s a form of sexual abuse all its own. To adopt kids into a same sex environment is a form of child abuse.”

Fischer also explained what it was about same sex relationships that he believes creates a dangerous environment for children.

“The sex that’s involved in homosexual behavior, it’s unnatural, it’s immoral and it is unhealthy,” he opined. “We know that it puts the human body to uses for which it was not designed. Whether you believe in evolution or you believe in creation, we can all say, look, the human body was not designed to be used that way. It just wasn’t. In fact, I would suggest to you that people who believe in evolution ought to be more opposed to the normalization of homosexuality than evangelicals. Because evolution is supposed to be all about propagation of the species.”

Constitutional Accountability Center President Doug Kendall told Mother Jones‘ Adam Serwer that if the study Fischer cites is valid — and there is evidence that it’s not — then people were drawing the wrong conclusions.

“If a child born in poverty is less likely to thrive as an adult, no one would argue that poor people can’t get married?” Kendall observed. “Even if it’s true [that LGBT people’s kids do worse], it should not be relevant to the constitutional question of invidious discrimination.”

The American Psychological Association has concluded that there is “no scientific evidence that parenting effectiveness is related to parental sexual orientation.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Wednesday announced that it had filed a lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s second parent adoption ban, which effective prevents same sex partner’s from adopting children.

Same sex adoptions would protect children by allowing either parent to cover the child with health insurance, ensuring that families can stay together if something happens to the biological parent and granting both parents the right to make medical decisions for children in case of emergency.

“The current policy is discriminatory and doesn’t take into account what’s best for a child,” ACLU senior staff attorney Elizabeth Gill explained. “These parents want the same thing as any other parents: to be able to provide the best possible care and protection for their children. The law should not stand in the way of allowing loving couples to share responsibility for their families.”