Mark Regnerus Testifies in Michigan Same-Sex Marriage Case: His Study Is Bunk.
Nathaniel Frank, Slate: Mark Regnerus Testifies in Michigan Same-Sex Marriage Case: His Study Is Bunk.
Scholarship has to be funded by someone. But disclosures and transparency are supposed to let readers know this. Instead, Regnerus was caught lying about the role of conservative funding in his work. In the study, Regnerus writes that “the funding sources played no role at all in the design or conduct of the study, the analyses, the interpretations of the data, or in the preparation of this manuscript.” Yet in emails obtained using the Freedom of Information Act, Regnerus flatly contradicts this claim, showing Witherspoon was intimately involved with shaping the study. Regnerus wrote that he would like “more feedback” from Witherspoon’s president about the study’s “boundaries,” “optimal timelines,” and “hopes for what emerges from this project,” and he refers to a meeting hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation, in which key supporters of Regnerus’ study discussed the need to generate research to help oppose gay marriage. According to live blog reports of today’s testimony, one of Regnerus’ emails asked what the study’s supporters “expect” from his research.
As Regnerus took the stand this week, the chair of UT Austin’s Sociology Department released a statement supporting Regnerus’ right to pursue research but strongly denouncing his views. The statement said his conclusions “do not reflect the views of the Sociology Department of The University of Texas at Austin” nor of the American Sociological Association, “which takes the position that the conclusions he draws from his study of gay parenting are fundamentally flawed on conceptual and methodological grounds and that findings from Dr. Regnerus’ work have been cited inappropriately in efforts to diminish the civil rights and legitimacy of LBGTQ partners and their families.”
In this lying sack of shit’s study, all but two of the children came from broken homes originally led by different-sex couples. I hope he gets torn a new asshole on cross-examination.