The documents, recently obtained through public-records requests by The American Independent and published in collaboration with The Huffington Post, show that the Witherspoon Institute recruited a professor from a major university to carry out a study that was designed to manipulate public policy. In communicating with donors about the research project, Witherspoon’s president clearly expected results unfavorable to the gay-marriage movement.
[,,,] In a study slammed for its methodology, funding, and academic integrity, University of Texas associate sociology professor Mark Regnerus found that children who grew up in households where one parent had a same-sex relationship (regardless of whether the children lived with that parent or that parent’s supposed same-sex partner) were more likely to experience negative social, psychological, and economic outcomes than children raised by a married heterosexual couple.
[,,,] So far, the New Family Structures Study has been cited in United States v. Windsor, a challenge to the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, and Hollingsworth v. Perry, which seeks to overturn California’s gay-marriage ban, Proposition 8.
[,,,] Plaintiffs and advocates involved with some of the cases in which the study has been cited as evidence to support bans on gay marriage are pointing out its many flaws.
Regnerus’ own professional organization, the American Sociological Association, recently filed an amicus brief in Hollingsworth v. Perry, arguing that his study “provides no support for the conclusions that same-sex parents are inferior parents or that the children of same-sex parents experience worse outcomes.”
[,,,] Jennifer C. Pizer, senior counsel and director of the Law and Policy Project at the LGBT-rights legal advocacy group Lambda Legal, said she is not surprised to learn that the study’s funders had an agenda when financing this research. But what is more important, she said, is that the study is being used to support conclusions it did not find.
[,,,] In the early stages of the New Family Structures Study – before data was collected and long before any results were known – the Witherspoon Institute’s president, Luis Tellez, made it clear to Regnerus that expediency was paramount.
[,,,] A letter Tellez wrote to the Bradley Foundation’s Vice President for Programs Dan Schmidt shows that Teller not only anticipated what the study would find, but also intended to use it to sway policy.
[,,,] Tellez went on to explain that the crux of the New Family Structures Study – whether kids raised by gay parents fare as well as those raised by straight parents – “is the question that must now be answered – in a scientifically serious way – by those who are in favor of traditional marriage.”
[,,,] “One of the things about academic publishing is that it’s not in a hurry,” Rosenfeld said. “It’s more important to get it right than to rush it into print. So, I was sort of perplexed as to what the hurry was about.”
Rosenfeld said he agreed to review the paper on the condition that he could see the data. But Regnerus’ team refused.
“I’m a data-analysis person,” Rosenfeld said. “So, for me I wasn’t going to have anything to say about Regnerus’ paper until I could actually see the data and figure out for myself whether what he had done was reasonable or not. And I didn’t want to have a debate with him about the data when he could see the data and I couldn’t. That didn’t seem like it was going to go very far.”
[,,,] In late 2010, Clark University psychology professor and LGBT parenting scholar Abbie Goldberg contacted Regnerus after hearing about his study plans from other researchers. In her initial email, she asked him why he was undertaking this research and said she was skeptical of the Witherspoon Institute’s involvement.
In an email dated Dec. 2, 2010, Regnerus revealed to Goldberg that the Witherspoon Institute had already anticipated what the results would be – that previous studies showing favorable outcomes for children raised by same-sex parents were wrong. Still, he assured Goldberg that he was committed to finding the truth. He also told her that Witherspoon was trying to raise money from LGBT-friendly organizations to help fund the study.
[,,,] Regnerus’ assertions come into question in light of revelations last year that Wilcox had been hired on contract by UT to assist Regnerus with the data analysis of the study. During part of that time, Wilcox was also the director of Witherspoon’s Program on Family, Marriage, and Democracy, out of which the study was conceptualized and Regnerus was recruited. Wilcox had been a fellow with Witherspoon from 2004 to 2011, and he has said that he worked as a paid consultant on the study from October 2010 to April 2012.
Wilcox, Regnerus, and Tellez all downplayed Wilcox’s position at the Witherspoon Institute and asserted that his advice to Regnerus was never given on behalf of the think tank. “[Wilcox] was never involved in any decision making at the Witherspoon Institute in matters related to the New Family Structure Study,” Tellez told The American Independent last October. Regnerus also said that Wilcox was never a “Witherspoon agent.”
New Family Structures Study Intended To Sway Supreme Court On Gay Marriage, Documents Show
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