Connect with us

Bombshell Letter: 200+ PhDs And MDs Question Scholarly Merit Of Regnerus Study

Published

on

Mark Regnerus’ so-called  study of children of gay parents has  failed the rigorous  standards demanded by  academic peer review and his work is now under heightened scrutiny at the University of Texas and by the broader academic community   

Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, Austin carried out a methodologically-challenged gay parenting study so blatantly in line with the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage‘s goals of smearing gay people for political purposes, that many have considered Regnerus’s work far closer to election year political propaganda than to science. Indeed, Regnerus received a $35,000 “planning grant” from the Witherspoon Institute, where NOM’s Robert George is a Senior Fellow. The appearance is that if George-Witherspoon had not approved the disingenuous, anti-gay study design, Regnerus would not have received any further funding from them. Regnerus has admitted that had he sought funding for a gay parenting study from the National Institutes of Health, their study protocol would have worked in the long-term best interest of science.

Regnerus’s activity is now the subject of a Scientific Misconduct inquiry at the University of Texas, Austin.

Scores of Ph.D.s and M.D.s and professionals in sociology, psychiatry and other relevant fields have sent a letter to James Wright, editor of “Social Science Research,” the journal where Regnerus’s study was published with a companion piece by the known anti-gay bigot Loren Marks.  In an e-mail, Gary J. Gates, Ph.D., Wiliams Distinguished Scholar at the Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, told me this about the letter:

As a scholar who studies the LGBT population, I see my role as a squeaky wheel in the academic grease.  Whatever assertions may be made about Dr. Rengerus’ ideological leanings or the leanings of his funders, it doesn’t change the fact that a credible academic journal with no obvious ideological bias published his paper. I find this astonishing. The evidence is pointing to an inappropriately accelerated and potentially  biased review process that calls the integrity of the journal and its editorial processes into serious question. The editorial advisors of Social Science Research include many notable and credible scholars. I am hopeful that they will eventually be compelled to intervene. If it can be clearly shown that the review process was biased and inadequate, the paper should be retracted until such time that it undergoes a more rigorous review.”

The letter follows in its entirety:

Letter to the editors and advisory editors of Social Science Research

As researchers and scholars, many of whom with extensive experience in quantitative and qualitative research in family structures and child outcomes, we write to raise serious concerns about the most recent issue of Social Science Research and the set of papers focused on parenting by lesbians and gay men. In this regard, we have particular concern about Mark Regnerus’ paper entitled “How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study.”

LGBT parenting is a highly politicized topic. While the presence of a vibrant and controversial public debate should in no way censor scholarship, it should compel the academy to hold scholarship around that topic to our most rigorous standards. We are very concerned that these standards were not upheld in this issue or with this paper, given the apparently expedited process of publication and the decision to publish commentaries on the paper by scholars who were directly involved with the study and have limited experience in LGBT parenting research. We also have serious concerns about the scholarly merit of this paper.

In this letter, we detail the specific concerns that lead us to request that you publicly disclose the reasons for both the expedited peer review process of this clearly controversial paper and the choice of commentators invited to submit critiques. We further request that you invite scholars with specific expertise in LGBT parenting issues to submit a detailed critique of the paper and accompanying commentaries for publication in the next issue of the journal.

We question the process by which this paper was submitted, reviewed, and accepted for publication. The paper was received by the journal on February 1, 2012. A revision was received on February 29, and the paper was accepted on March 12. This suggests that the peer review process and substantive revisions occurred within a period of just five weeks. According to the peer review policy of the Social Science Research website hosted by Elsevier, the first step of the review process is an initial manuscript evaluation by the editor. Once deemed to meet minimum criteria, at least 2 experts are secured for a peer review. The website states that, “Typically manuscripts are reviewed within 2-3 months of submission but substantially longer review times are not uncommon” and that “Revised manuscripts are usually returned to the initial referees upon receipt.” Clearly, Dr. Regnerus’ paper was returned to him very quickly, because he had time to revise the manuscript and get it back to the journal by February 29th. Further, it appears that a second substantive peer review may not have occurred as the paper was accepted just two weeks after the revision was submitted.

The five-week submission to acceptance length was much shorter than all of the other articles published in the July 2012 issue. The average period of review for papers published in this issue was more than a year and the median review time was more than ten months. As we note below, there are substantial concerns about the merits of this paper, and these concerns should have been identified through a thorough and rigorous peer review process.

We further question the selection of commenters for the Regnerus paper. While Cynthia Osborne and Paul Amato are certainly well-respected scholars, they are also both active participants in the Regnerus study. According to her curriculum vitae, Dr. Osborne is a Co-Principal Investigator of the New Family Structure Survey. Dr. Amato served as a paid consultant on the advisory group convened to provide insights into study design and methods. Perhaps more importantly, neither Osborne nor Amato have ever published work that considers LGBT family or parenting issues. A cursory examination of this body of literature would reveal a wide range of scholars who are much more qualified to evaluate the merits of this study and were neither directly involved in the study design nor compensated for that involvement.

We have substantial concerns about the merits of this paper and question whether it actually uses methods and instruments that answer the research questions posed in the paper. The author claims that the purpose of the analysis is to begin to address the question, “Do the children of gay and lesbian parents look comparable to those of their heterosexual counterparts?” (p. 755). He creates several categories of “family type”, including “lesbian mother” and “gay father” as well as “divorced late,” “stepfamily,” and “single-parent.” But, as the author notes, for those respondents who indicated that a parent had a “same-sex relationship,” these categories were collapsed to boost sample size:

That is, a small minority of respondents might fit more than one group. I have, however, forced their mutual exclusivity here for analytic purposes. For example, a respondent whose mother had a same-sex relationship might also qualify in Group 5 or Group 7, but in this case my analytical interest is in maximizing the sample size of Groups 2 and 3 so the respondent would be placed in Group 2 (LMs). Since Group 3 (GFs) is the smallest and most difficult to locate randomly in the population, its composition trumped that of others, even LMs. (There were 12 cases of respondents who reported both a mother and a father having a same-sex relationship; all are analyzed here as GFs, after ancillary analyses revealed comparable exposure to both their mother and father).

By doing this, the author is unable to distinguish between the impact of having a parent who has had a continuous same-sex relationship from the impact of having same-sex parents who broke-up from the impact of living in a same-sex stepfamily from the impact of living with a single parent who may have dated a same-sex partner; each of these groups are included in a single “lesbian mother” or “gay father” group depending on the gender of the parent who had a same-sex relationship. Specifically, this paper fails to distinguish family structure and family instability. Thus, it fails to distinguish, for children whose parents ever had a same-sex relationship experience, the associations due to family structure from the associations due to family stability. However, he does attempt to distinguish family structure from family instability for the children of different-sex parents by identifying children who lived in an intact biological family. To make a group equivalent to the group he labels as having “lesbian” or “gay” parents, the author should have grouped all other respondents together and included those who lived in an intact biological family with those who ever experienced divorce, or whose parents ever had a different-sex romantic relationship. That seems absurd to family structure researchers, yet that type of grouping is exactly what he did with his “lesbian mother” and “gay father” groups.

It should be noted that the analyses also fail to distinguish family structure from family stability for single mothers; this group included both continuously single mothers and those single mothers who had previously experienced a divorce.
The paper employs an unusual method to measure the sexual orientation of the respondents’ parents. Even if the analyses had distinguished family stability from family structure, this paper and its accompanying study could not actually directly examine the impact of having a gay or lesbian parent on child outcomes because the interpretation of the measurement of parental sexual orientation is unclear. The author acknowledges as much when he states:

It is, however, very possible that the same-sex romantic relationships about which the respondents report were not framed by those respondents as indicating their own (or their parent’s own) understanding of their parent as gay or lesbian or bisexual in sexual orientation. Indeed, this is more a study of the children of parents who have had (and in some cases, are still in) same-sex relationships than it is one of children whose parents have self-identified or are ‘‘out’’ as gay or lesbian or bisexual.

Respondents were asked whether their parents had ever had a same-sex relationship. The author then identifies mothers and fathers as “lesbian” or “gay” without any substantiation of parental sexual orientation either by respondents or their parents. Given the author’s stated caveats, it is both inappropriate and factually incorrect for him to refer to these parents as “gay” or “lesbian” throughout the paper.

We are very concerned about the academic integrity of the peer review process for this paper as well as its intellectual merit. We question the decision of Social Science Research to publish the paper, and particularly, to
publish it without an extensive, rigorous peer review process and commentary from scholars with explicit expertise on LGBT family research. The methodologies used in this paper and the interpretation of the findings are inappropriate. The publication of this paper and the accompanying commentary calls the editorial process at Social Science Research, a well-regarded, highly cited social science journal (ranking in the top 15% of Sociology journals by ISI), into serious question. We urge you to publicly disclose the reasons for both the expedited peer review process of this clearly controversial paper and the choice of commentators invited to submit critiques. We further request that you invite scholars with specific expertise in LGBT parenting issues to submit a detailed critique of the paper and accompanying commentaries for publication in the next issue of the journal.

Sociologists and Family Studies Scholars
Silke Aisenbrey, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Yeshiva University
Katherine R. Allen, PhD
Professor of Human Development, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Eric Anderson, PhD
Professor of Sports Medicine, University of Winchester
Nielan Barnes, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, California State University, Long Beach
Amanda K. Baumle, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Houston
Debbie Becher
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia University
Mary Bernstein, PhD
Professor of Sociology, University of Connecticut
Natalie Boero, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, San Jose State University
H.M.W Bos, PhD
Assitant Professor of Sociology, University of Amsterdam
Lisa D Brush, PhD
Professor of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh
Neal Caren
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Mary Ann Clawson, PhD
Professor of Sociology, Wesleyan University
Dan Clawson, PhD
Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Philip Cohen, PhD
Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland
D’Lane Compton, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of New Orleans
Shelley J. Correll, PhD
Professor of Sociology, Stanford University
David H. Demo, PhD
Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Catherine Donovan PhD
Professor of Social Relations, University of Sunderland
Sinikka Elliott, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, North Carolina State University
Louis Edgar Esparza, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, California State University, Los Angeles
Laurie Essig, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies, Middlebury College
Myra Marx Ferree, PhD
Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Tina Fetner, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, McMaster University
Jessica Fields, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology and Sexuality Studies, San Francisco State University
Melissa M. Forbis, PhD
Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Sociology, SUNY Stonybrook

Gary J. Gates, PhD
Williams Distinguished Scholar, Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law
Naomi Gerstel, Phd
Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts
Katherine Giuffre, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, Colorado College
Gloria González-López, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin
Theodore Greenstein, PhD
Professor and Director of Graduate Programs for Sociology, North Carolina State University
Jessica Halliday Hardie
NICHD Postdoctoral Fellow, Population Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University
Mark D. Hayward
Professor of Sociology and Director, Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
Melanie Heath, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, McMaster University
Amie Hess
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Meredith College
Melanie M. Hughes, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh
Shamus Rahman Khan, PhD
Professor of Sociology, Columbia University
Michael Kimmel, PhD
Professor of Sociology, SUNY
Sherryl Klienman, PhD
Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina
Charles Q. Lau, PhD
Survey Research Division, RTI international
Jennifer Lee, PhD
Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California – Irvine
Jean Lynch, PhD
Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Gerontology, Miami University
Gill McCann, PhD
Professor of Sociology, University of Vermont
Tey Meadow, PhD
Cotsen Fellow, Princeton University
Sarah O. Meadows, PhD
Social Scientist, RAND Corporation
Eleanor M. Miller, PhD
Professor of Sociology, University of Vermont
Debra Minkoff, PhD
Professor of Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia University
Beth Mintz, PhD
Professor of Sociology, University of Vermont
Dawne Moon, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Marquette University
Mignon R. Moore, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles and Chair, Race, Gender & Class Section of the American Sociological Association
Chandra Muller
Professor of Sociology and Faculty Research Associate, Population Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Nancy A. Naples, PhD
Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies, University of Connecticut
Peter M. Nardi, PhD
Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Pitzer College, The Claremont Colleges
Alondra Nelson, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Columbia University
Jodi O’Brien, PhD
Professor and Chair of Sociology, Seattle University
Katherine O’Donnell, PhD
Senior Lecturer, School of Social Justice, University College Dublin
Ramona Faith Oswald, PhD
Professor of Family Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Joseph M. Palacios, PhD
Adjunct Professor of Social Sciences, Georgetown University

C.J. Pascoe, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Colorado College
Dudley L. Poston, Jr., PhD
Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University
Nicole C. Raeburn, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of San Francisco
Kimberly Richman, PhD
Professor of Sociology and Legal Studies, University of San Francisco
Barbara J. Risman, PhD
Professor and Head of Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago
Sharmila Rudrappa, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin
Stephen T. Russel, PhD
Professor of Family Studies and Human Development, University of Arizona
Virginia Rutter, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, Framingham State University
Natalia Sarkisian
Associate Professor of Sociology, Boston College
Saskia Sassen, PhD
Professor of Sociology, Columbia University
Liana C. Sayer
Associate Professor of Sociology, Ohio State University
Michael Schwalbe
Professor, Department of Sociology, North Carolina State University
Michael Schwartz, PhD
Chair and Professor of Sociology, Stony Brook University
Christine R. Schwartz, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Pepper Schwartz, PhD
Professor of Sociology, University of Washington
Denise Benoit Scott, PhD
Professor of Sociology, State University of New York at Geneseo
Richard Sennett, PhD
Professor of Sociology, New York University
Eve Shapiro, PhD
Professor of Sociology, Westfield State University
Eran Shor, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, McGill University
Wendy Simonds
Professor of Sociology, Georgia State University
sarah sobieraj
Associate Professor of Sociology, Tufts University
Judith Stacey, PhD
Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University
Arlene Stein, PhD
Department of Sociology, Rutgers University
Verta Taylor, PhD
Chair and Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
Debra J Umberson, PhD
Professor of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin
Suzanna Danuta Walters, PhD
Professor of Sociology, Northeastern University
Jacqueline S. Weinstock, PhD
Associate Professor of Human Development & Family Studies, University of Vermont
Amy C. Wilkins, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Colorado
Cai Wilkinson, FHEA, PhD
Lecturer in International Relations, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University
Kristi Williams, PhD
Associate Professor of Sociology, Ohio State University
Kerry Woodward, PhD
Assistant Professor of Sociology, California State University, Long Beach
Psychologists
Nancy Lynn Baker, PhD, ABPP
Diplomate in Forensic Psychology, Director, Forensic Concentration, Fielding Graduate University and Past President of the Society for the Psychology of Women
Meg Barker, PhD
Senior Lecturer in Psychology, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

Joel Becker, PhD
Prof., Dept. of Psychology,UCLA and Assoc. Clinical Prof., UCLA, Medical School
Steven Botticelli, PhD
Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychology, NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis
Petra M Boynton, PhD
Social Psychologist, Lecturer in International Primary Health Research,UCL Medical School, University College London
Mark Brennan-Ing, PhD
Senior Research Scientist, AIDS Community Research Initiative of America
Alice S. Carter, PhD
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts – Boston
Carol A. Carver, PhD
Licensed Psychologist and Past President of the Oregon Psychological Association
Armand R. Cerbone, PhD, ABPP
Board Certified Psychologist
Kirstyn Y.S. Chun, PsyD
Tenured Faculty, Counseling and Psychological Services, California State University, Long Beach
Victoria Clarke, PhD
Associate Professor in Sexuality Studies, Department of Psychology, University of the West of England, UK
Gilbert W. Cole, PhD
Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center Guest Lecturer, Union Theological Seminary
M. Lynne Cooper, PhD
Associate Editor, American Psychologist and Curators’ Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychological Science, University of Missouri – Columbia
Howard H. Covitz, PhD, ABPP
Board Certified Psychologist
Dennis Debiak, PsyD
Adjust Associate Professor, Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology, Widener University and Secretary, Division of Psychoanalysis, American Psychological Association
Rachel H. Farr, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Department of Psychology,University of Massachusetts Amherst
Herb Gingold, PhD
Co-Founder, Noir Institute
Abbie E. Goldberg, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychology, Clark University
Carla Golden, PhD
Professor of Psychology, Ithaca College
Robert-Jay Green, PhD
Executive Director, ROCKWAY INSTITUTE for LGBT Psychology & Public Policy Distinguished Professor, California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) at Alliant International University
Beverly Greene, PhD, ABPP
Professor of Psychology, St. John’s University
Harold D. Grotevant, PhD
Rudd Family Foundation Chair in Psychology, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Sarah A. Hayes-Skelton, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Massachussets Boston
Stacy S. Horn, PhD
Associate Professor of Educational and Developmental Psychology, Univeristy of Illinois at Chicago
Sharon G. Horne, PhD
Associate Professor, Counseling Psychology, Department of Counseling and School Psychology, The University of Massachusetts Boston
Harm J. Hospers
Endowed chair Health Psychology and Homosexuality, Dean University College Maastricht, Dean Faculty of Humanities and Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands

Steven E. James, PhD
Chair of Psychology & Clinical Mental Health Counseling Programs, Goddard College
Darren Langdridge, PhD
Head of Department of Psychology, The Open University, UK
Chet Lesniak, PhD
Core Faculty, Counseling Specialization, School of Psychology, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Walden University
Heidi Levitt, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston
William D. Lubart, PhD
Faculty and Supervisor of Psychotherapy, The William Alanson White Institute
Carien Lubbe-De Beer, PhD
Senior Lecturer, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Pretoria
Tasim Martin-Berg, CPsychol
Lecturer, Glasgow Caledonian University
James P. Maurino, MSW, PhD
Assistant Professor, Human Development and Community and Human Services, SUNY-Empire State College
Ximena E. Mejia, PhD, LMHC
Director, Counseling Services, Parton Health and Counseling Center, Middlebury College
Roger Mills-Koonce, PhD
Center for Developmental Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Lin S. Myers, PhD
Professor of Psychology, California State University – Stanislaus
Jo Oppenheimer, MA
The Counseling Center for Women, Israel
Susan M. Orsillo, PhD
Professor, Department of Psychology, Suffolk University
David Pantalone, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Suffolk University
Jeffrey T. Parsons, Ph.D
Professor of Psychology and Public Health, Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Maureen Perry-Jenkins, PhD
Professor of Psychology, University of Massachusetts – Amherst
Madelyn Petrow-Cohen, LCSW
psychotherapist in private practice in NYC & Maplewood, NJ
Todd R. Poch, PSYD, MALD, BCFM
Assistant Professor in Psychology, Florida Institute of Technology
Scott D. Pytluk, PhD
Professor, Illinois School of Professional Psychology, Argosy University, Chicago
Damien W. Riggs
Editor, Gay and Lesbian Issues and Psychology Review, Senior Lecturer in Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University, Australia
Lizabeth Roemer, PhD
Professor of Psychology, University of Massachusetts – Boston
Ritch C. Savin-Williams
Professor, Developmental Psychology and Director, Sex and Gender Lab, Cornell University
J. Greg Serpa, PhD
Clinical Psychologist, Department of Veterans Affairs and Assistant Clinical Professor, UCLA Department of Psychology
Louise Bordeaux Silverstein, PhD
Professor of Psychology, Yeshiva University
Bonnie R. Strickland, PhD, ABPP
Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of Massachusetts
Karen Suyemoto, PhD
Associate Professor, Psychology and Asian American Studies, University of Massachusetts – Boston
Lance P. Swenson, PhD
Assistant Professor, Psychology Department, Suffolk University
Fiona Tasker, PhD
Department of Psychological Sciences, Birbeck University of London
Marcus C. Tye, Ph.D
Professor of Psychology, Dowling College
Richard G. Wight, PhD
Associate Researcher, UCLA School of Public Health

Other Scholars
Paula Amato, MD
Associate Professor, Oregon Health and Science University and Board Member, Gay and Lesbian Medical Association
Ellen Ann Andersen, PhD
Associate Professor of Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies University of Vermont
Mary Barber, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Co-Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health
Judith Bradford, PhD
Co-Chair, The Fenway Institute and Director, Center for Population Research in LGBT Health
Robert P Cabaj, MD
Associate Clinical Professor in Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco
Ryan M. Combs, PhD
Research Associate, Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, University of Manchester, UK
Christopher Conti, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor, New York University Medical Center
Russel W. Dalton, EdD
Associate Professor of Religious Education, Brite Divinity School Texas Christian University
John D’Emilio, PhD
Professor of History, Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago
Anne Douglass, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education and Human Development, University of Massachusetts – Boston
Jack Drescher, MD
Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, New York Medical College
Oliva M. Espin, PhD
Professor Emerita, Department of Women’s Studies, San Diego State University
Nanette Gartrell, MD
Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law
Patti Geier, LCSW
Therapist
Alan Gilbert
John Evans Professor, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.
Ann P. Haas, PhD
Senior Project Specialist, American Founcation for Suicide Prevention and Professor (ret.) Department of Health Sciences, Lehman College, CUNY
Ellen Haller, PhD
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco
Nicole Heilbron, PhD
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine
Tonda Hughes, PhD, RN, FAAN
Professor and Head of Health Systems Science, College of Nursing, University of Illinois at Chicago
Daniel Hurewitz, PhD
Assistant Professor, History Department, Hunter College, CUNY
Jesse Joad, MD, MS
Professor Emerita, Pediatrics, University of California – Davis and Vice President for Education, Gay and Lesbian Medical Association
Debra Kaysen, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Washington
Sang Hea Kil, PhD
Assistant Professor of Justice Studies, San Jose State University
Martha Kirkpatrick, MD
Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UCLA

Holning Lau, JD
Professor of Law, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Arlene Istar Lev, LCSW
School of Social Welfare, SUNY Albany
Lisa W. Loutzenheiser, PhD
Associate Professor of Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of British Columbia
Michael F. Lovenheim, PhD
Assistant Professor of Policy Analysis and Management, Cornell University
Catherine A. Lugg, PhD
Professor of Education, Rutgers University
Gerald P. Mallon, DSW
Julia Lathrop Professor of Child Welfare, Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College
Laura Mamo, PhD
Associate Professor of Health Education, San Francisco State University
Sean G. Massey
Associate Professor, Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program Binghamton University
Kenneth J. Meier, PhD
Charles H. Gregory Chair in Liberal Arts, Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University
Stephen O. Murray
El Instituto Obregón, San Francisco, CA
Douglas NeJaime, PhD
Associate Professor of Law, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
Henry Ng, MD, MPH, FAAP, FACP
Assistant Professor, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Center for Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, MetroHealth Medical Center
Julie Novkov, PhD
Chair, Department of Political Science, Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies,University at Albany, SUNY
Loren A. Olson, MD
Des Moines, IA
Donald L. Opitz, PhD
Assistant Professor, School for New Learning at DePaul University
Katherine Parkin, PhD
Associate Professor of History, Monmouth University
Jessica Peet, PhD
School of International Relations, University of Southern California
Victoria Pollock
Adjunct Faculty at the Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto.
Jesus Ramirez-Valles PhD, MPH
Professor of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago
Nancy J. Ramsay, PhD
Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Care, Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University
Paul J. Rinaldi, PhD
Clinical Director, The Addiction Institute of New York, Department of Psychiatry, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center
Barbara Rothberg, DSW, LCSW
Therapist
Esther Rothblum, PhD
Professor of Women’s Studies, San Diego State University
Ralph Roughton, MD
Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Emory University
Leila J. Rupp, PhD
Professor of Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Shawn Schulenberg, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Marshall University
Ken Sherrill, PhD
Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Hunter College, CUNY
Vincent M. B. Silenzio, MD, MPH
Associate Professor,Departments of Psychiatry, Community & Preventive Medicine, and Family Medicine, University of Rochester
Stephen V. Sprinkle, PhD
Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry, and Professor of Practical Theology Brite Divinity School

William J. Spurlin, PhD, FHEA
Professor of English, Brunel University London
Carole S. Vance, PhD, MPH
Assoc. Clinical Professor, Mailman School of Public Health,Columbia University
Angelia R. Wilson, PhD
Politics Discipline, University of Manchester, UK

 

New York City-based novelist and freelance writer Scott Rose’s LGBT-interest by-line has appeared on Advocate.com, PoliticusUSA.com, The New York Blade, Queerty.com, Girlfriends and in numerous additional venues. Among his other interests are the arts, boating and yachting, wine and food, travel, poker and dogs. His “Mr. David Cooper’s Happy Suicide” is about a New York City advertising executive assigned to a condom account.

Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

‘Antisemitic’: Trump Blasted for Attack on Jewish Democrats

Published

on

Donald Trump is attacking Jews who vote Democratic, barely days after the criminally-indicted ex-president threatened there would be a “bloodbath” if voters do not put him back in the Oval Office. His remarks, which include claiming Jews Democrats “hate” Israel and their own religion, were quickly labeled antisemitic.

“I actually think they hate Israel,” Trump on Monday told far right wing radio host Sebastian Gorka, who alleged the Biden administration and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer “hate” Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

“I think they hate Israel. And the Democrat Party hates Israel,” Trump, upping the ante, responded. Gorka is his former White House aide who served briefly in the Trump administration before reportedly being “ousted.”

“I really believe they hate Israel,” Trump also said, and accused Majority Leader Schumer, a Democrat who has represented New York for the past quarter-century, of appearing to hate Israel, for “votes.”

READ MORE: ‘Easy Mark’: Why Trump’s $464M Bond Failure Makes Him a ‘Massive National Security Risk’

“I think it’s votes more than anything else, because he was always pro-Israel. He’s very anti-Israel now,” Trump continued, before declaring: “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”

Haaretz reports, “Trump’s comments follow similar comments made during a Fox News interview, where he accused Israel of ‘being loyal to a fault’ for hoping to maintain bipartisan support within the United States.”

Trump, under tremendous fire for his “bloodbath” remarks, was immediately denounced for his comments.

“Another day, another depraved antisemitic screed from Donald Trump, who has repeatedly vilified the overwhelmingly majority of American Jews,” observed Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “He first called us ‘uninformed or disloyal’ in 2019 and essentially repeated it today. The feeling is mutual. 79% of Jewish voters have an unfavorable view of Trump according to @pewresearch.”

The Times of Israel’s Sam Sokol writes, “Trump said that ‘any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion.’ That’s a majority of US Jews. Gentiles don’t get to decide who is a good Jew. That kind of rhetoric is in itself antisemitic.”

The Biden campaign was quick to post a clip of trump’s remarks. Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘How Fascism Came to Germany’: Historian Warns Trump ‘Knew Exactly What He Was Saying’

Continue Reading

COMMENTARY

‘Easy Mark’: Why Trump’s $464M Bond Failure Makes Him a ‘Massive National Security Risk’

Published

on

National security, legal, and political experts are lining up to sound the alarm about the potential national security risks swirling around Donald Trump, and those warnings are getting stronger.

One month after Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator in 2015 to announce his run for president, CNN reported on the real estate mogul’s repeated claims of great wealth. At one point Trump told supporters he was worth “well over $10 billion.” At other points Trump says, “I’m very rich,” and “I’m really rich.” CNN’s John King noted, “some voters see this as a virtue, in the sense that they think politicians are too beholden to special interests.”

Days later Politico ran with this headline: “Donald Trump’s new pitch: I’m so rich I can’t be bought.”

Fast forward nearly a decade later.

Donald Trump’s attorneys declared in court documents Monday that 30 companies all refused to secure a $464 million bond for Trump, which he owes the State of New York after losing his civil business fraud trial.

The sirens are now wailing.

READ MORE: ‘How Fascism Came to Germany’: Historian Warns Trump ‘Knew Exactly What He Was Saying’

Citing a Washington Post report, MSNBC’s Steve Benen writes, “it’s now ‘expected’ that Manafort will be hired” to work on the Trump 2024 presidential campaign, “at least in part because the former president is ‘determined to bring Manafort back into the fold.'”

Manafort is Paul Manafort, Trump’s former 2016 campaign chairman who in 2017, “surrendered to the F.B.I. and pleaded not guilty to charges that he laundered millions of dollars through overseas shell companies,” according to a New York Times report in October of 2017.

The Times also noted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had “announced charges … against three advisers to President Trump’s campaign,” including Manafort, “and laid out the most explicit evidence to date that his campaign was eager to coordinate with the Russian government to damage his rival, Hillary Clinton.”

In 2019, NPR reported, almost as a footnote, that “a court filing that was inadvertently unsealed earlier this year, revealed that Manafort shared polling data with a business associate who has ties to Russian intelligence services.”

In his MSNBC report, Benen noted, “the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Manafort ‘represented a grave counterintelligence threat‘ in 2016 due to his relationship with a Russian intelligence officer.”

“’The Committee found that Manafort’s presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign,’ the Senate report added.” Benen also reported: “When the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report literally pointed to a ‘direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services,’ it was referring in part to Manafort ‘directly and indirectly’ communicating with an accused Russian intelligence officer, a Russian oligarch, and several pro-Russian oligarchs in Ukraine.”

Benen reinforced his thesis, writing on social media: “When the Senate Intelligence Committee pointed to a ‘direct tie’ between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence services, it was referring in large part to Paul Manafort — who’s reportedly now headed back to Team Trump.”

Add to all that this plea from The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs.

READ MORE: ‘Next Up – Property Seizures’: Experts Analyze ‘Unbankable’ Trump’s $464 Million Bond Crisis

“According to reports last week, the U.S. intelligence community is preparing to give Donald Trump classified intelligence briefings, a courtesy every White House extends to major-party candidates to ensure an effective transition. An excellent tradition—but not one that should be observed this year,” Nichols wrote at The Atlantic in a piece titled, “Donald Trump Is a National-Security Risk.”

“Indeed, if Trump were a federal employee, he’d have likely already been stripped of his clearances and escorted from the building.”

After discussing “Trump’s open and continuing affection” for authoritarian dictators, Nichols notes, “even if Trump could explain away his creepy dictator crushes and clarify his byzantine finances, he is currently facing more than half a billion dollars in court judgments against him.”

“That’s a lot of money for anyone, and Trump’s scramble to post a bond for even a small portion of that suggests that the man is in terrible financial condition, which is always a bright-red light in the clearance process.”

Political strategist Simon Rosenberg on Monday warned: “If Trump is given access to national security briefings he will now have someone with a proven history of selling stuff to the Russians on his team to help facilitate the movement of our intel to our adversaries.”

Also on Monday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) wrote on X: “We cannot emphasize this enough: Trump’s mounting court fines make him a massive national security risk.”

“After multiple losses against E. Jean Carroll and New York Attorney General Letitia James, Donald Trump is facing judgements that could end up costing him upwards of $600 million,” CREW reported February 29. “But these rulings are more than a financial headache for Trump, they are an unprecedented opportunity to buy influence with a leading presidential candidate and a sitting president should he be re-elected.”

Diving deeper, CREW notes, “Trump left the presidency with at least $1.1 billion dollars in debt tied to the COVID-weakened commercial real estate market, the vast majority of which would come due in a hypothetical second term in office. These rulings would make that number 50% higher.”

“Giving the highest and most powerful office in the land to someone deeply in debt and looking for ways to make back hundreds of millions of dollars he lost in court is a recipe for the kinds of corruption that aren’t theoretical when it comes to Trump. There’s a reason that you can’t get a job in the military or the financial services industry, or even referee a major sporting event, if you have a massive amount of debt. And you certainly aren’t getting a security clearance because you become too big of a target for corruption.”

Bloomberg Opinion senior executive editor Tim O’Brien, an MSNBC political analyst and author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald,” observed, “Trump’s financial trap — he can’t come up with the cash to appeal his $454 million civil fraud judgment — may ravage his business. More directly: It intensifies his threat to national security by making him an easy mark for overseas interests.”

“There’s no reason to believe that Trump, whose businesses collected millions of dollars from foreign governments and officials while he was president, won’t have a for-sale sign out now that he’s struggling with the suffocating weight of court judgments,” O’Brien continues at Bloomberg. “Trump is being criminally prosecuted for allegedly misappropriating classified documents and stashing them at Mar-a-Lago, his home in Palm Beach, Florida. Without a trial and public disclosure of more evidence, Trump’s motivations for taking the documents are unknown, but it’s reasonable to wonder whether he pondered trying to sell them. Monetizing the White House has been something of a family affair, after all. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been busy trading financially on his proximity to the former president, for example.”

O’Brien concludes, “the going is likely to get rough for Trump as this plays out, and he’s likely to become more financially desperate with each passing day. That’s going to make him easy prey for interested lenders — and an easy mark for overseas interests eager to influence US policy.”

READ MORE: FBI Agent Furious Over MAL Search Thought Trump Would Return Classified Docs if Just Asked

 

Continue Reading

News

‘How Fascism Came to Germany’: Historian Warns Trump ‘Knew Exactly What He Was Saying’

Published

on

Award-winning presidential historian Michael Beschloss sounded the alarm after Donald Trump’s “bloodbath” threat over the weekend, warning that his remarks echo those that led to the rise and installation of fascism in pre-World War II Germany and Italy.

“That’s how fascism and totalitarianism and in Germany’s case the Holocaust came to Germany, which had been a country where there were big institutions of democracy until, as you well know, the early 1930s,” Beschloss said on MSNBC Monday to “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski (video below). “In a way of Donald Trump has done us all a favor, because if you and I had been talking, Mika, let’s say 20 years ago, and they’ve been talking about what would have seemed like a very abstract and distant subject of how fascism and dictatorship might come to America, you probably would have been more wiser.”

“I would have said, you would have had some smiling person pretending to be a normal candidate like all the candidates for president who had gone before all the way back to 1789. And suddenly, after getting elected, that person would use the enormous powers of the presidency, that are given to that person, by their constitution,” Beschloss continued.

READ MORE: ‘Next Up – Property Seizures’: Experts Analyze ‘Unbankable’ Trump’s $464 Million Bond Crisis

“In a way Donald Trump has made it easier because when he tells you he’ll be a dictator for a day, we all know that dictators don’t resign after a day. When he uses the word bloodbath. Yes, it was in the context of an automobile industry speech, but he knew exactly what he was saying, When he talks about suspending the Constitution, or migrants as animals, this is him. He’s telling you what this choice is,” He continued, adding there is no “precedent for this.”

“I hate it when people treat this race as if it’s just one more presidential campaign. And there was lots of jokes, you know, both sides, you know, flaws and both candidates. Yes, these are two old candidates. One of those that is mentally stable, Joe Biden, whom I saw give a great speech at the Gridiron Dinner on Saturday night. Donald Trump, if you look at one of his speeches of these rallies, this is not someone who seems to have all his marbles.”

Beschloss says, “it’s important to know as we talk about this campaign, as it unfolds, we have never seen anything remotely like this in American history: a major party candidate is saying, you elect me, there’s going to be dictatorship, bloodbath, violence, retribution against my political enemies, that equals what we saw in Italy, in Germany and other places. If Americans do not get that if they choose that voluntarily, then this country has changed in a way that I do not understand.”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Bloodbath’: Psaki Slams Trump Over ‘Embrace of Political Violence’

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.