September 10, 2012 9:31 am ET - by Carlos Maza
The National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) Ruth Institute continues to tout a widely discredited study on same-sex parenting in order to promote the myth that the children of gay parents are more likely to be molested and identify as gay.
On Friday, the Ruth Institute published a press release praising the University of Texas for halting further investigation into whether UT associate professor Mark Regnerus is guilty of “scientific misconduct” for his recent study on same-sex parenting. Ruth Institute president Jennifer Morse celebrated the university’s decision, saying:
I am relieved that this ideologically motivated witch hunt has ended. Every honest scholar in America should be relieved as well.
[...]
Mark Regnerus has made a genuine contribution to our understanding of the complexities involved in new family forms, including parenting by same sex couples. His work must be reckoned with by the scientific community.
Of course, the university’s decision to halt its search for “scientific misconduct” has nothing to do with whether the study itself is flawed (why? – what is scientific misconduct versus whether study is flawed? Not totally clear). As UT’s inquiry into the matter plainly states:
Whether the research designed and conducted by Professor Regnerus and reported in Social Science Research possessed significant limitations or was even perhaps seriously flawed is a determination that should be left to debates that are currently underway in the academy.
But experts have already thoroughly lambasted the study for its flawed methodology and extremely misleading conclusions.
The Ruth Institute’s press release went on to cite the study as evidence that children raised by same-sex parents are more likely to be molested and identify as gay:
The most explosive results in the paper can be found in Table 2: Young adults whose mothers had a same sex relationship at some point in their childhoods were more likely to have been touched sexually by an adult, more likely to have had sex against their will, and less likely to describe themselves as exclusively heterosexual, than children raised by their married biological parents.
The Regnerus study played a prominent role at the Ruth Institute’s recent “It Takes A Family To Raise A Village” conference, which peddled similar anti-gay misinformation to dozens of college-age students.
Previously:
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