Mark Regnerus goes out on another limb to attack gay marriage; Zack Ford saws it off

Ford, who AKSARBENT reads regularly, but not enough, posted another impeccably reasoned and elegantly written critique of the execrable Mark Regnerus, who recently said this about gay marriage:

Many libertarians and conservatives, including Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, assert that marriage is a conservative institution—which is true—one that will therefore function as such for those who enter it, whether gay or straight. While certainly the case for some, that claim is an unlikely future for many, not because gay or lesbian couples are liberal but because those in the driver’s seat of the contemporary mating market—men—are permissive. This, I predict, will be same-sex marriage’s signature effect on the institution—the institutionalization of monogamish as an acceptable marital trait. No, gay men can’t cause straight men to cheat. Instead, the legitimacy newly accorded their marital unions spells opportunity for men everywhere to bend the boundaries. Dan Savage will be proud.

Part of Ford's answer, at ThinkProgress:

     ...Regnerus may have put the cart before the horse. Society has long stigmatized the gay community, inherently discouraging monogamy among same-sex couples. It was easier for gay people to have secret sexual liaisons than build a consistent life with a person of the same gender that might out them. Over time, the gay community has sought out monogamy in spite of societal expectations, and Dan Savage’s “monogamish” structure may well have evolved out of these competing dynamics.
     Thus, Regnerus is blaming gay people for how they adapted to being condemned by society to justify continuing to condemn them. Rather than acknowledge this tautology and instead promote marriage and monogamy for all couples, he continues to feed the feedback loop. Given that even opponents of marriage equality believe it to be inevitable, Regnerus is solving nothing by clinging to the past.

Video: Family First of Nebraska's Dave Bydalek tries to trick Unicameral's Judiciary Committee with bogus Regnerus Study; Brad Ashford not fooled

Note: audio more easily understood via headphones. Also: State Senator asks ex-gay at Nebraska antiLGBT bias bill hearing if he enjoyed the gay sex he used to have, causing Christers to erupt angrily in the first of two outbursts, after which they were told to behave or the room would be cleared.

The scholarly merit of the laughable Regnerus Study has been questioned by 200 PhDs and MDs; it was concocted to influence the gay marriage debate now before the Supreme Court and it was called "bullshit" by an editor of the very journal that published it, Darren E. Sherkat, who was assigned to audit the study after the uproar it caused.
     The prestigious American Sociological Association ripped apart the junk science of the Regnerus "research" in a Supreme Court brief on pages 15-22, which you may read here.
     However, none of that dissuaded Dave Bydalek from attempting to sell the study's dubious conclusions (just after the 3:00 mark) to Brad Ashford — who wasn't buying any of it.

Revolting National Organization for Marriage operative, Jennifer Roback Morse, claims her Tyler Clementi slur was mischaracterized

Jennifer Roback Morse, head of the National
Organization for Marriage's Ruth Institute

Jennifer Roback Morse, head of the Ruth Institute, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Organization for Marriage, recently exploited the suicide of Tyler Clementi at Rutgers by tying the episode of someone streaming him in his dorm room to her pronouncement: "I believe that engaging in uncommitted sex hurts people of both genders and all sexual orientations."
     She offered no evidence that Clementi engaged in sexual activity at all. (The video showed none.)
     Zack Ford at ThinkProgress reports:

The Clementi family responded by demanding an apology from Morse for exploiting Tyler’s name “to advance an anti-equality agenda.”
     Now, Morse has released a statement in which she not only refuses to apologize, but doubles down on the very duplicitous claims that got her in trouble in the first place:

MORSE: The media and activists groups are mischaracterizing my remarks, in which I urged students to befriend gay students, and also urged them all to adhere to the traditional standards of sexual morality. I believe that engaging in uncommitted sex hurts people of both genders and all sexual orientations. I would be happy to meet with Tyler Clementi’s mom and dad to try to move forward and go beyond the highly charged rhetoric that doesn’t help anyone. I don’t think the Clementis know me or what I believe or think or said. Reaching out across lines of moral difference in a spirit of love is my mission. In the meantime, I would invite anyone to come to the Ruth Institute website and listen to the entire podcast for themselves.

Dr. Laura Berk

     Morse's most recent stunt was to testify against a marriage equality bill (SB10) before an Illinois House of Representatives committee by quoting from a widely-discredited University of Texas study on gay parenting.
     She did so minutes after Dr. Laura Berk of Illinois State University explained that the notorious Regnerus study was methodo­logically flawed and arrived at invalid conclusions.
     An editor of the very journal that published the Regnerus study, Darren E. Sherkat, who was assigned to audit the study after the uproar it caused, called it "bullshit."

U of Texas finds no scientific misconduct in Regnerus gay parenting study; board member/investigator at journal that published study: 'It's bullshit'

Mark Regnerus

Ralph K.M. Harwitz reports that Robert A. Peterson, a University of Texas research integrity officer in the Office of the Vice President for Research, found no falsification of data, plagiarism or other serious ethical breaches constituting scientific misconduct after consulting with a four-member advisory panel of senior UT faculty members.

However, Peterson said the question of whether Regnerus' study has serious flaws is one best left to debate among scholars, future research and an expected release by Regnerus of the data underlying his research. He went on to cite university policy that says "ordinary errors, good faith differences in interpretations or judgments of data, scholarly or political disagreements, good faith personal or professional opinions, or private moral or ethical behavior or views are not misconduct."

     ...An internal draft audit by Social Science Research, the journal that published the study, found "serious flaws" in the peer review process and concluded that the journal never should have published his report.

     The allegations of scientific misconduct were leveled by freelance writer Scott Rosensweig, who uses the byline Scott Rose, in a letter to UT President Bill Powers. That prompted the university's inquiry....

     ...Rosensweig disputed UT's review, contending that some peer reviewers of Regnerus' study were also paid study consultants, "a most serious matter."

Princeton Professor Robert George, founder of the
National Organization for Marriage and board member
of the Family Research Council, also has positions of
authority in the Bradley Foundation, which gave a known
minimum grant of $90,000 for the Regnerus study, and the
Witherspoon Institute, which gave a known minimum
$55,000 "planning grant." Full funding for the study
was $785,000. The questionable study has been jumped
on by right-wing political organizations like NOM, and
may have been concocted as a 2012 political tool, to be
touted in states with Marriage Equality votes.
If so, IRS regulations were violated.

Yesterday, Scott Rosensweig, of the New Civil Rights Movement, published a blistering indictment of the study:

...a Golinski-case amicus brief analyzing the Regnerus study as scientifically invalid was jointly filed by 1) the American Psychological Association; 2) the California Psychological Association; 3) the American Psychiatric Association; 4) the National Association of Social Workers; and 5) its California Chapter; 6) the American Medical Association; 7) the American Academy of Pediatrics; and 8) the American Psychoanalytic Association.

     ...Separately, over 200 Ph.D.s and M.D.s sent a letter to the journal Social Science Research, which published the fraudulent Regnerus study, complaining of its lack of intellectual integrity and its suspiciously rushed publication schedule.

 In July, Tom Bartlett, of The Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote:

Like Regnerus, the editor of Social Science Research, James D. Wright, has been at the receiving end of an outpouring of anger over the paper. At the suggestion of another scholar, Wright, a professor of sociology at the University of Central Florida, assigned a member of the journal’s editorial board—Darren E. Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale—to examine how the paper was handled.

     Sherkat was given access to all the reviews and correspondence connected with the paper, and was told the identities of the reviewers. According to Sherkat, Regnerus’s paper should never have been published. His assessment of it, in an interview, was concise: “It’s bullshit,” he said.

200 PhDs and MDs question Regnerus gay parenting "study" — it's now the subject of scientific misconduct inquiry at U of Texas

Maggie Gallagher and Robert P. George, of Princeton
University. George, with convicted convicted Watergate felon
Chuck Colson, wrote The Manhattan Declaration, urging
Christians to exempt themselves from laws which guarantee
equal opportunity to gay citizens.

The New Civil Rights Movement reports on an academic revolt against a dubious new University of Texas study hypercritical of gay parents
     The study, which suspiciously portrays same-sex parents as much worse at child raising than other recent studies have, has instantly become a junk statistic goldmine for gay marriage opponent agitprop.
     It was apparently funded with a $35,000 “planning grant” from the Witherspoon Institute, where Princeton academic Robert George is a Senior Fellow.
     George is a founder of the virulently homophobic National Organization for Marriage, which has spent millions of dollars to enact state laws banning gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships.
     Nom is now in court in several states  defending its disobedience of campaign finance disclosure laws in order to hide the identities of the handful of anonymous donors who provide most of NOM's money. The information below was posted by Fred Karger, who has been relentless in exposing the Mormon Church's behind-the-scenes, no-fingerprints-left-behind manipulation of antigay politics in state after state

Organizational Chart of Creation of
National Organization for Marriage

Gordon B. Hinckley
President, Mormon Church
Grand Strategist of Mormon Fight Against Same-sex Marriage

Jeffrey R. Holland
Quorum of 12 Mormon Apostles, Salt Lake City, UT
Former President of Brigham Young University (BYU)
Father of Matthew Holland
Matthew S. Holland
BYU Professor, Salt Lake City, UT
LDS Connection to NOM, Former Fellow of Robert P. George (2005–6), Went to Professor George to Create NOM and its board
Robert P. (Robby) George
Princeton Professor, Princeton, NJ
Former Teacher of Matthew Holland (2005–6), Put NOM Board together and recruited Staff, Chairman of NOM, Headquartered in Princeton, NJ, NOM Board of Directors
Maggie Gallagher
President of NOM, Westchester, NY
Outspoken and Longtime Opponent of Same-sex Marriage, President of Institute for Marriage and Public Policy,
NOM Board of Directors
Brian S. Brown
Executive Director of NOM, Princeton, NJ
Recruited from Family Institute of Connecticut
NOM Board of Directors