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Robert George
While the National Organization for Marriage has been trumpeting a recent study which claims that gay households are inferior to heterosexual households when it comes to the raising of children, recent information has revealed that NOM has not been forthcoming as to how deep the ties the study has to one of the organization’s founders.
According to Wayne Besen of the group Truth Wins Out, the head of the study – University of Texas researcher Mark Regnerus, received a $695,000 grant from the Witherspoon Institute and a $90,000 grant from the Bradley Foundation.
Both of the Bradley Foundation and the Witherspoon Foundation are affiliated with Princeton professor Robert George. At the Witherspoon Foundation, he is a Herbert W. Vaughan Senior Fellow and at the Bradley Foundation, he is on the Board of Directors.
Robert George is also a founder and chairman emeritus of the National Organization for Marriage.
It gets even more interesting.
Probably the first publication to trumpet the results of the study was Utah’s Deseret News. Robert George just happens to be a member of that publication’s board. He joined in 2010.
Interestingly enough, while the National Organization for Marriage ran several posts praising the study, no one from the organization even bothered to mention its ties to George. One would think that for the sake of disclosure, NOM could have mention that its founder and chairman emeritus had a huge hand in not only the study’s funding, but possibly also its publicity.
Regnerus’s study has received much criticism for its faulty methodology, but it appears that questions also need to be asked as to its ties with NOM because this collusion is not without precedent.
Last year, during its unsuccessful fight to keep marriage equality from New York, NOM members held a press conference claiming that “objective legal scholars” said that marriage equality will negatively impact the rights of people who disagree with it.
Come to find out, however, that all of those “objective legal scholars” had ties with NOM, including . . . Robert George.
NOM, George, and even Regnerus have a lot to answer for. The only thing is will they be asked the right questions?
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Alas, scientific method and the American right wing continue to be at best nodding acquaintances.
This post only scratches the surface of the corruption involved in the study. For one, it isn’t only that Robert George secured the funding for Regnerus; it’s also that George, having secured the funding, had influence over the study. Regnerus is being highly disingenuous. At this site, he made a Q&A for himself, saying that his religious beliefs never impact his research: http://tinyurl.com/dyfyu5d He told that lie there, to B.S. people about this study. Meanwhile on his Trinity Christian College bio, he said “”As Christians, our lives should reflect our relationship with God and our desire to glorify Him,” Regnerus says. “I’ve noticed that some Christian professors see a disconnect between their faith and their profession. I believe that if your faith matters, it should inform what you teach and what you research.” How very coincidental, additionally, that the Regnerus study, funded through Robert George, and politically convenient for him in his gay bashing, was published at the same time as the Mormon gay-basher Loren Marks’s study allegedly refuting most studies that produced results favorable to gay parents. And, the editor of the journal, Social Science Research, refuses to say who peer-reviewed Regnerus’s and Marks’s “studies.” And, that editor, James Wright, is a promoter of “Covenant Marriage.” Here is a typical phrase from Wright’s writings: “the threat of gay marriage as a potentially destructive influence on the institution of marriage.”
I mentioned in a comment in a related post that William Saletan took Regnerus’ study apart pretty neatly. What I hadn’t read yet was the column Regnerus himself penned on DoubleXX. From the column:
FWIW, I’m not endorsing Regnerus at all with this comment, and I whole-heartedly agree with Saletan’s conclusions about just how bad the study is. I just wanted to point out that at least Regnerus also admits that his study is not a commentary on gays and lesbians as parents.
That being said, I’m not exactly surprised the way the study is being used.
I think you should look at the interviews that Regnerus has been giving on TV, to see that he is messaging a very negative thing about gay parents. And, even his article that you believe shows he is reasonable, ends with this: (my 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.” Get it? He’s saying that his study shows that same-sex-headed households are not safe for kids.