Conservatives Seize On Hugely Flawed Study HYPERLINK "
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/02/10/3621375/regnerus-sullins-same-sex-parenting/
Conservatives are excitedly promoting a new study that supposedly reveals negative outcomes for the children of same-sex parents. L
ike the infamously flawed Mark Regnerus Study " rushed out two years ago, the new study seems timed to impact the Supreme Court’s upcoming consideration of marriage equality for same-sex couples. It suffers, however, from some of the same flaws and biases as Regnerus’ study,
and doesn’t actually support the argument against marriage equality that it tries to make.
The new study comes from
Donald Paul Sullins, a Catholic priest and sociology professor at Catholic University of America.
Sullins is a fellow of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute, a project of the anti-LGBT Family Research Council,………
Sullins conducted an analysis of data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) that had been collected from 1997-2013. He concluded that information about the 512 same-sex parents identified in the study demonstrates that their children have more emotional problems compared to couples raised by their biological different-sex couples………… In other words, same-sex couples should not be allowed to marry because they make inferior parents.
One of the first major flaws, however, is the fact that Sullins has no information about whether the same-sex couples were actually married……….No conclusions can actually be drawn about the impacts of legalizing same-sex marriage because the study, by its own admission, collected no data about same-sex marriage or its effect on children
Sullins notes that many of the children had a biological connection to one of the same-sex parents, but it’s unknown if these are from prior relationships, which would suggest their negative outcomes are related to a broken home instead of having two parents of the same sex.
As a vehicle for opposing same-sex marriage, the study severely lacks integrity, as its political positions don’t jibe with its data. “Biology matters,” Regnerus asserts, and Sullins emphasizes that his study identifies “the importance of common biological parentage for optimum child well-being.” Nowhere, however, does Sullins or Regnerus suggest that this has any policy implications for adoption or foster care by different-sex couples. It might be a hard case to make given Sullins has two adopted children of his own.
Conservatives praise these studies for their large samples, eagerly highlighting their negative results while ignore the distortions required to arrive at them. A recent large study from Australia with a similarly-sized pool of same-sex parents who had actually raised children together as couples found that the children have quite positive outcomes
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/02/10/3621375/regnerus-sullins-same-sex-parenting/
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More from Sullins
There Is Dangerous Power in Using 'Scientific' Findings to Undermine Gay Marriage