In-law relationships when a child is homosexual

The purpose of this study is to review related literature concerning in-law relationships and begin an empirical exploration of the relationship between parents of gay men and lesbians and their child's significant other. Three hundred forty-seven parents of lesbians and gay men were surveyed regarding their sexuality, religiosity, socioeconomic status, attitude toward homosexuality, years they have known their child was homosexual, number of other children in the family, and acceptance of their homosexual child's significant other. A model was designed and tested via analysis of covariance structures in the LISREL VII package (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1989). Results suggest that the proposed model and the model estimated for the data are not significantly different, indicating support for the model. Future research issues are offered.