Monday 15 April 2013

Social Science Study Still Spooking Gay Advocates

A year ago Dr. Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas published a 15,000-person study showing that children do best in a household with their married mother and father. He further found that no other family structure works this well and by contrast often did worse.

A tsunami of protest and personal attacks engulfed him. His university and the journal where he published his findings investigated the research and cleared him of any suspicion. Even so, the attacks on him and those who use his research continues.

Dr. Susan Yoshihara, research director of C-FAM, used the Regnerus study before the legislature in Rhode Island and came under attack by political fact checkers who claim some of her testimony was false. Yoshihara countered the popular wisdom that it makes no difference whether gay or biological parents raise a child. She said such claims have been “shattered by the latest and best social science research.”

Yoshihara also pointed to a study that challenges social science claims that sexual orientation of parents makes no difference. Loren Marks of LSU analyzed 59 studies used to make this claim and found all of them scientifically wanting.

Politifact, a self-styled watchdog of political truth, branded Yoshihara’s claim as false. Yoshihara, however, says the Politifact piece itself backed up her claim when they quoted a “prudent scholar” who said the issue is not settled in the scientific literature, which was Yoshihara’s claim in the first place.

The Regnerus study came up again this week in the pages of the New York Times. Former Times executive editor Bill Keller said, “The study was pretty well demolished by peers.”

Read more at C-FAM.

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