University of Texas Opens Inquiry of Regnerus Gay Parenting Study

Between January, 2011 and June of 2012, Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, Austin, plotted, carried out and then had published a ?study? of dubious scholarly merit, alleged to show, but not actually showing, that homosexual parents are dangerous to children.

Funding for the Regnerus study was arranged through the National Organization For Marriage?s?Robert P.George along with George?s anti-gay-rights colleagues at The Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation. George is an author of the anti-gay NOM pledge signed by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

This reporter mailed a Scientific Misconduct complaint about Regnerus to University of Texas President William Powers, Jr. on June 21. ?On June 25, UTA Research Integrity Officer Dr. Robert Peterson told me in an e-mail that he will be conducting an inquiry as per university policy.??

?The purpose of the investigation is to: explore in detail the allegations; examine the evidence in depth; and, determine specifically whether misconduct has been committed, by whom, and to what extent. The investigation also will determine whether there are additional instances of possible misconduct that would justify broadening the scope beyond the initial allegations.?

The very name of the Regnerus?s project, ?The New Family Structures Study,? is deceptive ? and is an anti-gay bigot dog whistle ? in ways characteristic of Regnerus?s funder?NOM?s Robert George of the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation.

Because of that, and for reasons elaborated below, this reporter insists?that for its Scientific Misconduct inquiry of Regnerus, the University of Texas, Austin must examine in its investigation, and provide, copies of all written communications, and notes, such as of phone conversations, and all other documentation of the relationship between Mark Regnerus and The Witherspoon Institute from the time those two parties first considered a study about children of gay parents, to include the time that Witherspoon gave Regnerus a $35,000 ?planning grant? and subsequent to when the plan had been formulated and Witherspoon approved Regnerus for his full study funding.

Regnerus?s claim that the probability-based web panel that he used is the best of all existing sampling methods for surveying gay fathers and lesbian mothers is?false,?totally and utterly false. For his sampling, Regnerus relied on the company Knowledge Networks to find his survey respondents through Knowledge Networks? existing panelist system, which is based on a combination of random digit dialing sampling and address-based sampling.

To sum this point up; 1) Regnerus likely misleads?when he asserts he compared young adult children of gay parents to young adult children of ?intact biological families;? 2) In the study itself, and in his public promotions of the study, Regnerus likely misleads when he?states that he would not by any means have been able to survey an adequate sampling of young gay adults substantially raised by gay parents up through the 1990s; and 3) Regnerus likely misleads when he?states that he used the best existing survey method for surveying young adult children of gay parents.

Regnerus?s funder?Robert George of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage is obsessively concerned with ?the legal boundaries of marriage.? Robert George has written a draft for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages throughout the nation. He does not like to see gay parenting study results with good child outcomes, as they are work against his known, ferocious anti-gay political goals. George?s aims in arranging for the funding of Regnerus?s study precisely match the concerns expressed in Regnerus?s introduction.

Regnerus has been promoting his study as evidence against expansion of legal recognition of gay couples? relationships. In one of his Slate articles, Regnernus wrote that gay-rights ?advocates would do well from here forward to avoid simply assuming the kids are all right,? and then, after barely paying lip service to the notion that marriage recognition could perhaps help children being raised by gay parents, he ends his article by saying that the New Family Structures Study ??may suggest that the household instability that the NFSS reveals is just too common among same-sex couples to take the social gamble of spending significant political and economic capital to esteem and support this new (but tiny) family form while Americans continue to flee the stable, two-parent biological married model, the far more common and accomplished workhorse of the American household, and still?according to the data, at least?the safest place for a kid.?

Robert George?s Witherspoon Institute ? a Regnerus funder ? has devoted a stand-alone site to the Regnerus and Marks studies ? where the Regnerus Slate article with the aforementioned offending quote is at the top of the site?s list of study-related articles ?From the Web.?

Source: http://michael-in-norfolk.blogspot.com/2012/07/university-of-texas-opens-inquiry-of.html

kc chiefs kc chiefs judy garland j r martinez j r martinez long island serial killer wizard of oz