'False' — Politifact rates claims by Faith & Freedom Coalition head Ralph Reed about gay couples raising children

(Via JMG)
On ABC's This Week, Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said he opposed gay marriage (video here) and gay couples raising adopted children:

"This is about what's best for children here in the United States. And the social science is irrefutable. And it is that a child who grows up in a home without the mother and father present and they both play very unique procreative, nurturing and socializing role, they're nine times more likely to end up dropping out of high school. They're five times more likely to end up in poverty. And they're three times more likely to end up addicted to drugs and alcohol."

Though Reed peddled specific statistics, he did not name his source. So the Tampa Bay Times investigated his claims. 

The social science statistics Reed called "irrefutable" actually have nothing to do with gay couples raising kids. Instead, they’re focused on the effects of children who grow up without a father in a one-parent household. Put another way, the studies focus on the quantity of parents and not their gender.

The Tampa Bay Times contacted Reed's office, which offered as evidence Reed's book and a Brookings Institution report saying parents who graduate from high school and bear children within marriage have a 2 percent chance of living in poverty. But neither source drew any comparison between gay and straight marriages, and, in fact, neither mentioned gay marriages.

     ...We decided not to investigate further the specific stats Reed cited once we realized they weren’t measuring what he said they were.
     Comparisons like Reed’s are "a complete misuse of the research," said Judith Stacey, a New York University sociologist.

Here's what the article concluded:

     Reed said there’s "irrefutable" social science to show that children are better off being parented by a mother and father. That’s not right. What studies really show is that children are better off with two parents. Those studies do not focus on gender.
     All reputable research so far indicates that children brought up by gay parents are just well off as those brought up by straight parents.
     We rate Reed’s statement False.