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Witherspoon Institute’s gay-parenting study questioned
Published: Monday, September 17th, 2012
A recent study funded by the Princeton-based Witherspoon Institute questioning the success of same-sex parenting has drawn scrutiny from gay rights activists and scholars. The controversial study, conducted by University of Texas at Austin sociology professor Mark Regnerus, concludes that ...(back to the article)
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The Witherspoon representative quoted above – Ana Samuel -- gave the Witherspoon Institute’s usual duplicitous remark of saying that Regnerus did not prove causation between gay parents and bad child outcomes. Causation is not the issue. That is a distraction, from the fact that Regnerus claims, falsely, to have proven correlation between gay parents and bad child outcomes. Worse still, Witherspoon's same Ana Samuel, quoted above saying that Regnerus did not prove causation, published an article on Witherspoon's "Public Discourse" more than strongly hinting that the "controls" Regnerus used in his study made causation "more likely." Her gay-bashing propaganda about the study directs readers to believe that causation between gay parents and bad child outcomes is “likely.” So she's telling the Princetonian interviewer one thing, and her anti-gay-rights Witherspoon readership another thing altogether. (For reference, Samuel's article is here: http://tinyurl.com/c5xmubu) Samuel's article includes a great deal of hateful, untruthful gay bashing, by the way, as well as misrepresentations of what the Regnerus study does. And, a crucial fact got omitted from the above. The Regnerus study was published without valid peer review. Its invalid peer review was enabled by its funders. The Witherspoon Institute's Brad Wilcox is on the editorial board of the journal that published Regnerus; Elsevier's Social Science Research. No topic-experts were used for either the peer review or the commentaries published alongside the study. The peer reviewers had conflicts of interest, including that they were paid study consultants. Wilcox himself has a Regnerus study consulting contract for data analysis; yet Regnerus's published study says that none of his funders helped him with data analyses, i.e. Regnerus is lying. The same “controls” that Witherspoon’s Samuel says show that the Regnerus study proves that causation is “more likely” were devised by the Witherspoon Institute’s Wilcox together with Regnerus, and the public does not know how those two derived their published numbers from the raw data. To say that the Witherspoon Institute has not taken a position on gay parenting, as Ana Samuel does, also is a lie. Its president Luis Tellez and its powerful Senior Fellow Robert George support the Catholic Church and Catholic Charities in wanting to prohibit adoption to prospective gay adults. How is that not taking a position on gay parenting? And, these dirty actors are pushing the Regnerus study hard, to rally people to that "cause." Witherspoon President Luis Tellez is a NOM board member; Robert George is NOM’s founder. NOM participated in an anti-gay-rights political event organized by the Catholic Bishops this past summer. At that NOM-linked event, Bishop Salvatore Cordileone used the Regnerus study to demonize gay people and to incite others against their rights. How is that “not taking a position” on gay parenting? Witherspoon people were at that event, and had coordinated Cordileone’s use of it.
Don't dare report anything that disagrees with the gay-rights agenda, even if it's based on straight-forward science and Q&A. We can't have logic get in the way.
The only social science that matters is the social science we like
Am curious about some of your factual claims…where can we find this list of the peer-reviewers for Regnerus’ article and proof that they were paid consultants on the study? As for how it can be true that the Witherspoon Institute doesn’t have an official position on gay parenting, it’s no secret that George is involved in NOM and is a Catholic, but it’s a non sequitur that every organization he’s involved in therefore has his opinions as its official positions.
I read the Samuel article, and saw a clear conservative bent but hardly “gay-bashing propaganda,” since she clearly admits that heterosexual parents who aren’t both married and the child’s biological mother and father are also excluded from the praised “IBF” (intact biological family) category:
Therefore, Regnerus analyzed the new NFSS data to verify this claim. In the end, he found the claim to be more plausible when comparing the grown children of parents who had a same-sex relationship to the grown children of divorced, adopted, single-parented, or step-parented arrangements. The claim is false if one compares the grown children of a parent who had a same-sex relationship to those from IBFs...these two new studies reaffirm — and strengthen — the conviction that the gold standard for raising children is still the intact, biological family.
Also, heaven forbid you would speakT of the Witherspoon Inst. as “an anti-gay bigot organization” which loves nothing better than to “incite people to hatred of -- and discrimination against – LGBTers” and therefore funded Wilcox’ “evil plot” of a study to “demonize gay people” – we might think you had your own axe to grind beyond a call for academic justice.
Lame Prince comments box can't handle html tags. My last paragraph was supposed to link to this:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/elsevier-science-pu...
And the 3rd paragraph is an excerpt from the Samuel article.
This comment answers to "P'11" in the comments above.
1) What proof is there that paid Regnerus study consultants did peer review of the Regnerus and/or Loren Marks studies?
After 200+ Ph.D.s and M.D.s sent a letter to Regnerus's publisher, Elsevier's journal Social Science Research editor James Wright had SSR editorial board member Darren Sherkat conduct an audit of the publication of the Regnerus study. The audit was a sham that found conflicts of interest but held nobody accountable for the corrupt peer review. Note that Sherkat and Wright both admit that two of the peer reviewers were also paid study consultants. That in itself means that there was no valid peer review. An article where Wright and Sherkat admit that paid study consultants were among the peer reviewers is here, in the Chronicle of Higher Education (http://tinyurl.com/cjzqfad). So we are agreed on this point; the journal editors themselves admit that paid study consultants also were involved in peer review. Sherkat sent the University of Texas at Austin FOIA requests. He gave them the names of the peer reviewers, and said that he wanted Regnerus study consulting contracts for any of the people on the list of the peer reviewers. UT then gave him two Regnerus study contracts; one for Paul Amato, the other for Witherspoon’s Brad Wilcox. What that means, is that Amato and Wilcox both did peer review. Wilcox's Witherspoon program -- the program for "Marriage, Family and Democracy" is the one that funds Regnerus. You can verify that through Witherspoon's 2010 IRS 990 form, here: (http://tinyurl.com/9z54drp) Wilcox was issued, and signed, a Regnerus study consulting contract, for data analysis. Wilcox's Regnerus study consulting contract is the second contract viewable at this next link, after one for Paul Amato: (http://tinyurl.com/9yxjaux) Regnerus's published study falsely states that none of his funders are involved in his study analyses. Regnerus’s claim there – that his funders are not involved in his data analysis -- plainly is false, as Wilcox's Regnerus study consulting contract for data analysis shows. Furthermore, Wright intends to publish “Additional Analyses” from Regnerus in November. In his “Additional Analyses,” Regnerus repeats his lie, that no funding agency representative is involved in his data analyses. Regnerus, Wilcox and Wright all have been sent e-mails, asking if they will acknowledge that despite Regnerus’s claim, Wilcox is involved in Regnerus study data analysis. The three parties refuse to answer to that message. Wilcox is on the editorial board of the journal that published the twinned Marks and Regnerus studies, Elsevier’s Social Science Research. You can see Wilcox’s name on the SSR editorial board roster here: (http://tinyurl.com/927cmpo) Wilcox also has a Princeton affiliation. He is a member of Princeton’s James Madison Society, which is headed by Robert George.
2) Is Witherspoon hostile to gay parenting, only because Robert George is a Senior Fellow there, and Witherspoon President Luis Tellez is the regional representative for the Catholic Church’s Opus Dei?
The Witherspoon Institute is unwaveringly hostile to gay rights, and promotes non-science-based ignorance about, and bullying non-acceptance of gay human beings. Ana Samuel falsely intimates in her article that Regnerus came close to proving causation between gay parents and bad child outcomes. Regnerus, however, did absolutely nothing to test causation. Samuel is telling a scandalous lie about the study, against gay parents, in an article that she or her editors (who include Brad Wilcox) titled “The Kids Aren’t Alright.” Even considering that the Regnerus study was intentionally booby-trapped against gays, not all of its study subjects labeled as having “lesbian mothers” or “gay fathers’ had bad child outcomes. Yet, Witherspoon/Samuel title their article about the study “The Kids Aren’t Alright.”
3) Do I have an axe to grind, because I accurately refer to Witherspoon as an anti-gay bigot organization that carried out an evil plot to demonize gay people? No, no more than the Anti-Defamation League has “an axe to grind” when it calls out people and organizations for demonizing minorities. Look at the gay-bashing junk that Witherspoon’s Samuel wrote into her article;
“Despite the lack of empirical evidence for the claim that today there are large numbers of stable, two-parent gay households, for the last ten years, contemporary gay parenting research has nevertheless claimed that there are “no significant differences” (and some benefits) to being raised by same-sex parents. Therefore, Regnerus analyzed the new NFSS data to verify this claim.”
Notice what the gay-bashing bigot Ana Samuel did. First she alleged that there is a “lack of empirical evidence for the claim that TODAY there are large numbers of stable, two-parent gay households.” Then, she talks about Regnerus’s study, as if Regnerus had tested a claim made about the gay parents of TODAY, even though Regnerus DID NOT study the gay parents of today.
A study that Stanford’s Michael Rosenfeld did of same-sex parents’ child outcomes was based on information in the 2000 US Census, a reliable source. Rosenfeld studied 3,500 children of same-sex couples who had been together for at least five years. He found that the children of same-sex couples do as well as those of heterosexual couples. Whereas Rosenfeld studied 3,500 children of same-sex couples, Regnerus only studied 236 (of parents improperly labeled as “same sex parents.”) There is obvious anti-gay animus in Witherspoon’s Samuel’s lies and misrepresentations. If there is a “lack of empirical evidence for the claim that today there are large numbers of stable, two-parent gay households,” as Witherspoon’s Samuel claims, then why was Rosenfeld able to do a study of 3,500 children of same-sex couples together for at least five years? How could Regnerus’s study of 236 children of supposed gay parents possibly tell you more about how many stable same-sex couples there are, than Rosenfeld’s study of 3,500 children of same-sex couples together for at least five years?
Should the anus be used as a sex organ? Google First Scandal. When you get there, go to the top of the page and click on "Can you explain..." Please note: this website you reach will be deleted on November 1, 2012.
It is unusual to characterize a university funded study as a ''pseudo-science''A questionable assessment would come in the form of a prosaic agenda,from a pseudo-sociology.Heterosexual parenting is less subjective.
what are "gay" rights? rights that only "gay" people have?
Also, since when did the LGBT "cause" become a "civil rights" issue? MLK Jr. is probably rolling over in his grave right now.
P11 you didn't read the study. The control group was heterosexual families who raised their children from cradle to adulthood. The group of gay parents included anyone who had any homosexual encounter when they had a child under the age of 18. This makes as much sense as saying one heterosexual encounter makes you straight. It was the group of gay parents who had children of divorce, death, adoption, single parenting, etc.. Regnerus never tried to find out whether the gay parents ever had sole or primary custody of the children. around half of the lesbians and less than half of gay men had custody of the children for as little as 4 months. The numbers get even lower after 3 years. Only 2 lesbian couples were legitimate comparison subjects, having raised their children from cradle to adulthood.
Just how can you have a study on gay parenting when few of the subjects were active gay parents?