Investigation Request Filed Regarding Suspicious NOM-Regnerus Anti-Gay Study
A study carried out by Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, Austin, aroused suspicion when the public learned that the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage‘s co-founder Robert P. George had arranged for $785,000 of the funding for the study.
Though Regnerus’s stated aim in the study is to compare children raised up through the 1990’s by “intact biological families” with those raised by homosexual parents, Regnerus did not use proper methodology for surveying actual adult children raised by gay parents.
Though Regnerus’s written conclusion to the study is hedged with nuance, when he talks about the study on television, the nuance is gone, and his bottom line message is identical to NOM’s; “Homosexuals are dangerous to children.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center has noted NOM’s predilection for conflating homosexuals fraudulently with pedophiles.
Since the release of his study, Regnerus has been propagandistically criticizing past, more positive studies about gay parenting outcomes, on grounds that those studies were “convenience samples” instead of samplings from the general population.
To understand how absurd Regnerus’s criticism is, think of it in these terms; if you needed to survey members of the Jane religion, would you do a convenience sampling of Janes, or would you put out feelers in the general population and hope to find a couple of Janes in the mix?
In addition to having used a bogus methodology for surveying adult children of “gay” parents, Regnerus has aroused suspicion about his motives with many of his public statements.
Without doubt, his study was ready in time for one of its main patrons, NOM’s Robert George, to use it as a political anti-gay-rights weapon in the 2012 election. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has signed Robert George’s NOM pledge. When a local University of Texas venue interviewed Regnerus, and asked him why he did not seek funding for his study from the National Institute of Health, here is what he said:
“I had a feeling when we started this project that it would not survive the politics of, in my opinion, the peer review system at the National Institute of Health (funding) — and it takes so long to get money from them, and there are revisions and revisions; I understand that works to the long-term benefit of science, but some scholars don’t feel like going that route. Â I don’t have a shop with grant after grant.”
Despite Regnerus’s protests against National Institute of Health study protocol, and not having a shop with grant after grant, his study on Race and Religion in Adolescent Sexual Norms and Conduct was funded by the NIH.
An appearance has been created that Regnerus had some awareness of the timetable by which George required the study to be completed, and of the correspondence of the desired completion date to Robert George’s plans for political uses of the study. Regnerus, faced with questioning about Robert George’s connections to the study, has disingenuously said, “Professor George is a philosopher, I don’t think he has much to say about sampling theory.” With that quote, Regnerus appears to be feigning ignorance of NOM’s Robert George’s political connections and aims. It is not credible, that Regnerus would not be familiar with Robert George’s anti-gay politicking. NOM received condemnation from most mainstream commentators when a court-ordered release of its strategy documents revealed the organization’s plans to “drive a wedge” and to “fan hostility” between the African-American and gay communities. NOM appears also to fan the flames of antisemitism, where doing so will advance its anti-gay rights agenda. The NOM strategy documents revealed a plan to hire an employee specifically to find children of gay parents, willing to denounce their parents on camera. While that effort appears to have flopped, the Regnerus study could be viewed as an underhanded attempt to make it appear — on false pretenses — Â that children of gay parents have provided “testimony” against all gay parents.
It might be considered noteworthy, furthermore, that a Regnerus study, “National Study on Youth and Religion,” was funded by the Lilly Endowment, one of the few major foundations to fund religion. The Regnerus-Lilly Endowment study alleged to have found that children do better when raised in conformity with a religious tradition. Regnerus’s Trinity Christian College bio says that he believes his anti-gay-rights faith should inform his research.
Between Regnerus 1) saying that it takes too long to get money from NIH; and 2) his admission that going through NIH, instead of through NOM’s Robert George for funding would have worked  “to the long-term benefit of science;” one might have an impression that Regnerus was eager for the money, and willing to compromise his professional integrity by rushing his study through in order that his patron  — NOM’s Robert George — should have it in time for use as a political weapon in the 2012 elections. If Regnerus is a scientist, and getting funding for the study from the National Institute of Health would — by his own admission — have worked to the long-term benefit of science, then why instead of serving his profession in the most honorable method did Regnerus take funding from an anti-gay-rights political activist, and then get the study finished with a slant favorable to his anti-gay-rights campaigning, and in time for the 2012 elections?
Since the release of the study, various organizations connected with Robert George, as well as the entire religious right wing have been promoting the study as proof that gays hurt children and so must not be given rights.
Meanwhile, Regnerus school, the University of Texas, Austin, has an academic dishonesty policy that forbids using misinformation in an attempt to hurt others.
I am going to repeat that for emphasis: the University of Texas, Austin, has an academic dishonesty policy that forbids using misinformation in an attempt to hurt others.
Therefore, this reporter has filed a Scientific Misconduct Complaint against Regnerus through the EthicsPoint online system, which the Texas State University System uses for receipt of complaints. Â An EthicsPoint official told me that the complaint will not be delivered to the UTA employee implicated in it, but that university officials are the only persons with authority to decide whether to investigate. An initial report about the status of the investigation is due in ten days.
Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out has started a petition, asking UTA President William Powers, Jr. to investigate Regnerus.
Regnerus’s written report says that his study was supported “in part” by the $785,000 grants had through NOM’s Robert George’s Witherspoon Institute and Bradley Foundation.
This reporter asked UTA media contacts for information about who supplied Regnerus with the rest of his funding, and how much they gave. I also asked for a record of disbursement of study funds. I have specified that I want to report how much Regnerus paid himself out of the grant monies for completion of the study.
UTA’s College of Liberal Art’s Director of Public Affairs David Ochsner says that only Witherspoon ($675,000) and the Bradley Foundation ($90,000) supported the study. Yet, Regnerus in his written report on the study unambiguously makes it sound as though support for the study only came “in part” from Witherspoon and the Bradley Foundation. Here is how he put it: “The NFSS was supported in part by grants from the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation.” If Regnerus can not use English precisely for so simple a detail related to his study, why should anybody trust him to use English any more accurately to reflect his study findings? This error in wording speaks to how study quality suffered as a result of  the study being rushed to make a deadline. At the same time, we must be mindful that there actually might have been additional funders, whom Regnerus is shielding by denying that anybody other than Witherspoon and the Bradley Foundation supported his study.
Another eyebrow-raising tidbit: Ochsner informs that the Witherspoon Institute money included a $35,000 “planning grant.” Evidently, had Witherspoon not been pleased with Regnerus’s planning of the study, Witherspoon might have taken the rest of its money elsewhere.
Regnerus’s study was published in the journal “Social Science Research,” edited by James Wright, who has written demeaningly about same-sex marriage in some of his published papers. Wright simultaneously published in his journal an article by Loren Marks, who was educated at the severely anti-gay Brigham Young University. Although Marks in his article seeks to discredit researchers who have found positive results of gay parenting, observers have noted that anti-gay-rights groups attempted to use Marks as an “expert witness” in a Proposition 8-related case, but his video testimony had to be stricken from the record after it was revealed through questioning that he had not at all studied same-sex parents, a circumstance not altogether unlike that involving Regnerus’s study.
To sum up the case: 1) Regnerus admits that the way he carried out his NOM-Robert George-funded study was not in the best long-term interest of science; 2) Regnerus converted from evangelical Protestantism to Catholicism; his Church is actively involved worldwide in fighting against gay rights; 3) Regnerus admits in his published study that he can not claim any causation between having a gay parent and a bad child outcome, but, nonetheless; 4) he appears on ABC television, strongly suggesting that his study did show that homosexual parents are dangerous to children, and his activity in promoting the study that way is 5) totally in line with the way NOM and George’s other anti-gay groups are promoting Regnerus’s study. Additionally, though serving science well with this study would have required that Regnerus spend more time to complete it, he completed it in time for his funder Robert George to use it as an anti-gay-rights political weapon in the 2012 elections. And finally, the University of Texas, Austin, has an academic dishonesty policy that forbids using misinformation in an attempt to hurt others.
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.
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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.
“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.
“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.
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Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.
On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”
On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”
After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:
“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.
“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”
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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.
Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.
But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”
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“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.
“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.
SCOTUS Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “If the president … orders someone to assassinate [a rival], is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?”
Trump attorney D. John Sauer: “It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act.” pic.twitter.com/RddEEYIUrR
— The Recount (@therecount) April 25, 2024
Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”
The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.
“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.
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U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.
“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.
“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”
Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”
CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”
Watch the video above or at this link.
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Legal experts appeared somewhat pleased during the first half of the Supreme Court’s historic hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was the President of the United States, as the justice appeared unwilling to accept that claim, but were stunned later when the right-wing justices questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s attorney. Many experts are suggesting the ex-president may have won at least a part of the day, and some are expressing concern about the future of American democracy.
“Former President Trump seems likely to win at least a partial victory from the Supreme Court in his effort to avoid prosecution for his role in Jan. 6,” Axios reports. “A definitive ruling against Trump — a clear rejection of his theory of immunity that would allow his Jan. 6 trial to promptly resume — seemed to be the least likely outcome.”
The most likely outcome “might be for the high court to punt, perhaps kicking the case back to lower courts for more nuanced hearings. That would still be a victory for Trump, who has sought first and foremost to delay a trial in the Jan. 6 case until after Inauguration Day in 2025.”
Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts and the law, noted: “This did NOT go very well [for Special Counsel] Jack Smith’s team. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh think Trump’s Jan. 6 prosecution is unconstitutional. Maybe Gorsuch too. Roberts is skeptical of the charges. Barrett is more amenable to Smith but still wants some immunity.”
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Civil rights attorney and Tufts University professor Matthew Segal, responding to Stern’s remarks, commented: “If this is true, and if Trump becomes president again, there is likely no limit to the harm he’d be willing to cause — to the country, and to specific individuals — under the aegis of this immunity.”
Noted foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed: “Feels like the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president. It’s amazing. We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes in real time.”
“Frog in boiling water alert,” warned Ian Bassin, a former Associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. “Who could have imagined 8 years ago that in the Trump era the Supreme Court would be considering whether a president should be above the law for assassinating opponents or ordering a military coup and that *at least* four justices might agree.”
NYU professor of law Melissa Murray responded to Bassin: “We are normalizing authoritarianism.”
Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, argued before the Supreme Court justices that if Trump had a political rival assassinated, he could only be prosecuted if he had first been impeach by the U.S. House of Representatives then convicted by the U.S. Senate.
During oral arguments Thursday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes commented on social media, “Something that drives me a little insane, I’ll admit, is that Trump’s OWN LAWYERS at his impeachment told the Senators to vote not to convict him BECAUSE he could be prosecuted if it came to that. Now they’re arguing that the only way he could be prosecuted is if they convicted.”
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Attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa warned, “It’s worth highlighting that Trump’s lawyers are setting up another argument for a second Trump presidency: Criminal laws don’t apply to the President unless they specifically say so…this lays the groundwork for saying (in the future) he can’t be impeached for conduct he can’t be prosecuted for.”
But NYU and Harvard professor of law Ryan Goodman shared a different perspective.
“Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward. It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further. Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.”
Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward.
It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.⬇️ pic.twitter.com/F3qXi47ZT6
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) April 25, 2024
NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert scholar on authoritarians, fascism, and democracy concluded, “Folks, whatever the Court does, having this case heard and the idea of having immunity for a military coup taken seriously by being debated is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and and involves giving them a respected platform.”
The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal offered up a prediction: “Court doesn’t come back till May 9th which will be a decision day. But I think they won’t decide *this* case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.”
Watch the video above or at this link.
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