Truth Wins Out has harshly criticized a sham study on gay parents by University of Texas researcher Mark Regnerus. We also launched a petition that has gathered more than 3,600 signatures urging University of Texas to investigate Regnerus for academic fraud, since his rhetoric surrounding his study results do not match his data — and his funding came from virulently right wing sources. However, the individual really driving the campaign against this quack study is Scott Rose, who is writing for the New Civil Rights Movement. Here is how he describes the study:
Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, Austin carried out a methodologically-challenged gay parenting study so blatantly in line with the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage‘s goals of smearing gay people for political purposes, that many have considered Regnerus’s work far closer to election year political propaganda than to science. Indeed, Regnerus received a $35,000 “planning grant” from the Witherspoon Institute, where NOM’s Robert George is a Senior Fellow. The appearance is that if George-Witherspoon had not approved the disingenuous, anti-gay study design, Regnerus would not have received any further funding from them. Regnerus has admitted that had he sought funding for a gay parenting study from the National Institutes of Health, their study protocol would have worked in the long-term best interest of science.
Rose reports that “Regnerus’s activity is now the subject of a Scientific Misconduct inquiry at the University of Texas, Austin.” He also had released a key letter by “scores of Ph.D.s and M.D.s and professionals in sociology, psychiatry and other relevant fields” who have an issue with the study. Read the full letter here.
Hats off to Rose for doing incredible work on behalf of the LGBT community.
Update: Regnerus Study Referred To Committee On Publication Ethics
