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LGBT Groups Unite Against Flawed Conservative-Funded Anti-Gay Parenting Paper

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Four of America’s top LGBT civil rights advocacy organizations have joined forces to unite in opposition to a flawed research paper written by an associate professor that has been roundly criticized in both liberal and conservative circles. The Family Equality Council, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Freedom to Marry, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation (GLAAD) all joined together and examined the research. Late last night the coalition issued this joint statement that explains why the research, by conservative sex author-activist Mark Regnerus is not only a “flawed, misleading, and scientifically unsound paper that seeks to disparage lesbian and gay parents,” but note it “was roundly criticized today by organizations that protect and advance the freedoms and equality of Americans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT).

Via a press release:
FLAWED PAPER CLAIMS TO OVERTURN 30 YEARS OF CREDIBLE RESEARCH THAT
SHOWS GAY AND LESBIAN PARENTS ARE GOOD PARENTSConservative Author Behind New Paper Marked by Poor Methodology, Faulty Conclusions

Washington, DC – A flawed, misleading, and scientifically unsound paper that seeks to disparage lesbian and gay parents was roundly criticized today by organizations that protect and advance the freedoms and equality of Americans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT).

The paper, “New Family Structures Study,” written by right-wing author Mark Regnerus (of the Department of Sociology and Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin) and funded in large part by the anti-gay Witherspoon Institute, makes a number of claims about negative outcomes for children raised by gay and lesbian parents.  However, for the most part, the paper doesn’t even look at same-sex couples raising a child together in a long-term committed relationship.

The Family Equality Council, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Freedom to Marry, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation (GLAAD) pointed out that numerous flaws and a biased agenda undermine the claims made by the paper.

“Flawed methodology and misleading conclusions all driven by a right-wing ideology,” said Jennifer Chrisler, Executive Director of the Family Equality Council. “That alone should raise doubts about the credibility of this author’s work. But on top of that, his paper doesn’t even measure what it claims to be measuring.”

“Because of the serious flaws, this so-called study doesn’t match 30 years of scientific research that shows overwhelmingly that children raised by parents who are LGBT do equally as well as their counterparts raised by heterosexual parents,” said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin.

Griffin and Chrisler added that those conclusions are backed up by every major child welfare organization—whose sole objective is to ensure child welfare– along with the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Association of Social Workers, who all confirm that LGBT parents make good parents.

Chrisler also said that these 30 years of research are grounded in the day-to-day reality witnessed by millions of Americans.

“Everyday people in this country see real-life examples of the love, commitment and caring these parents provide to their children, said Chrisler. “These parents are raising their children to be kind to their friends and neighbors, support their communities and uphold American values.  One biased paper cannot undo the truth nor demean the value of these families.”

Regnerus is well known for his ultra-conservative ideology and the paper was funded by the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation – two groups commonly known for their support of conservative causes. The Witherspoon Institute also has ties to the Family Research Council, the National Organization for Marriage, and ultra-conservative Catholic groups like Opus Dei.

Freedom to Marry President Evan Wolfson said it is these anti-gay groups and their dangerous ideologies that, in fact, create some of the biggest legal, social, and economic challenges that LGBT families do face.

“The two million kids being raised by 1 million gay parents in this country are doing great, and would do even better if their parents didn’t have to deal with legal discrimination such as the denial of the freedom to marry, and ongoing attacks such as this kind of pseudo-scientific misinformation and the disinformation agenda that’s funding it,” said Wolfson.

GLAAD President Herndon Graddick added, “A growing majority of Americans today already realize the harms this kind of junk science inflicts on loving families. If the media decides that this paper is worth covering, journalists have a responsibility to inform their audiences about the serious and glaring flaws in its methodology, and about the biased views of its author and funders.”

Key problems with the “New Family Structures Study” include:

  • The paper is fundamentally flawed and intentionally misleading. It doesn’t even measure what it claims to be measuring. Most of the children examined in the paper were not being raised by parents in a committed same-sex relationship—whereas the other children in the study were being raised in two-parent homes with straight parents.
     

  • Given its fundamental flaws and ideological agenda, it’s not surprising that the paper doesn’t match the 30 years of solid scientific research on gay and lesbian parents and families. That research has been reviewed by child welfare organizations like the Child Welfare League of America, the National Adoption Center, the National Association of Social Workers and others whose only priority is the health and welfare of children and that research has led them to strongly support adoption by lesbian and gay parents.

 

       

  • In addition, the paper’s flaws highlight the disconnect between its claims about gay parents and the lived experiences of 2 million children in this country being raised by LGBT parents.  Americans know that their LGBT friends, family members and neighbors are wonderful parents and are providing loving and happy homes to children.

     

           

  • The paper fails to consider the impact of family arrangement or family transitions on children, invalidating any attempt on its part to assess the impact of sexual orientation on parenting.  The paper inappropriately compares children raised by two heterosexual parents for 18 years with children who experience family transitions – like foster care – or who live with single or divorced parents, or in blended families. Moreover, the limited number of respondents arbitrarily classified as having a gay or lesbian parent are combined regardless of their experiences of family instability.

     

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    Related:

    NOM Jumps On Flawed Anti-Gay Research, Posts False Graphic

    NOM Founder And Mormon Church Tied To First Report Of New Anti-Gay Parenting Paper

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    News

    Trump Doubles Down Calling Egg Prices ‘Too Low’ as Costs Soar to Record Highs

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    In the days leading up to Easter, President Donald Trump has repeatedly—and falsely—claimed that egg prices have plummeted to the point of being “too low,” baselessly citing steep double-digit declines—even as Americans face record-high prices at the grocery store.

    “The egg prices are down 87 percent, but nobody talks about that,” the President said on Friday. “You can have all the eggs you want, we have too many eggs, in fact, if anything the prices are getting too low.”

    Trump campaigned on the promise he would lower the price of groceries “on day one,” a promise that three months later is not only unfulfilled, but in some cases reversed: overall grocery prices have risen.

    READ MORE: ‘Taunting SCOTUS’: Concerns Mount Over ‘Openly Contemptuous’ White House

    On Thursday, Trump claimed the price of eggs had dropped 92%, while berating a reporter and his Federal Reserve Chairman.

    “The price of groceries are substantially down,” the president falsely claimed.

    The price of eggs, you know, when I came in, they hit me with eggs. I just got there, I was here for one week, and they started screaming, ‘Eggs have gone through the roof.’ I said, ‘I just got here.’

    “They went up 87%, and you couldn’t get them,” Trump told reporters. “They said, ‘You won’t have eggs for Easter,’ which is coming up. Happy Easter, everybody.You won’t have eggs for Easter.”

    “And we did an unbelievable job, and now eggs are all over the place and the price went down 92 percent,” he claimed.

    READ MORE: Trump’s Latest Target: The Watchdog That Keeps Suing Him

    Last week on Monday, Trump had claimed, falsely, that egg prices had dropped 79%.

    Egg prices, Newsweek reported on Wednesday, “continued to climb despite recent efforts by the Trump administration to combat the shortage brought about by the ongoing bird flu with imports of Turkish eggs. The CPI egg index jumped by 5.9 percent from February and was up 60.4 percent compared to March 2024, and the average price for a dozen grade A large eggs climbed 5.6 percent to a record $6.23.”

    Moe Davis, the well-known retired U.S. Air Force colonel, attorney, and former administrative law judge, posted to social media a federal government chart of egg prices.

    “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” Davis wrote, “the price of a dozen eggs in March was $6.23, the highest price ever recorded and 26% higher than in January when Trump took office. Of course if Trump says egg prices are down then the MAGA cult is obliged to say egg prices are down.”

    Watch the video above or at this link.

    READ MORE: ‘Things Like This Take Place’: Trump Shrugs Off Mass Shooting Despite Once Being a Target

     

    Image via Reuters

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    ‘Taunting SCOTUS’: Concerns Mount Over ‘Openly Contemptuous’ White House

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    The Trump White House is coming under fire for what appears to be an attempt to mock the U.S. Supreme Court, the facts in the case of a Maryland man wrongly deported to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, and The New York Times.

    The White House’s official account on the social media platform X posted a “corrected” version of a New York Times story—corrections that have drawn concern and scorn from the legal community and political commentators.

    “Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Maryland Man in El Salvador,” read a screenshot of the Times’ headline.

    But the White House’s version (below), complete with red ink and cross outs, reads: “Senator Meets With MS-13 Illegal Alien in El Salvador Who Is Never Coming Back.”

    The White House added remarks saying, “Fixed it for you, @NYTimes. Oh, and by the way, @ChrisVanHollen — he’s NOT coming back.”

    Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) traveled to El Salvador this week and, after several days, was finally permitted to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia—the legal U.S. resident whom the Trump administration has admitted in court it wrongly deported. Multiple courts, including the Supreme Court, have ordered the administration to “facilitate” his return. Yet the Trump administration appears to be refusing.

    Friday’s claim that Abrego Garcia is “never coming back” was taken as a serious statement of intent by some.

    Attorney Aaron Regunberg wrote: “The White House is saying he’s ‘never coming back’ — they are explicitly declaring they will violate a unanimous Supreme Court order.” Calling out Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Regunberg wrote: “you said this was your red line that would trigger ‘extraordinary action.’ So…where the f— are you?”

    “2 telling things here,” offered The Washington Post’s senior political reporter Aaron Blake. “1) White House crosses out ‘wrongly,’ despite repeatedly acknowledging its error in court. 2) ‘who’s never coming back’ is basically taunting SCOTUS. Signals the opposite of any intent to ‘facilitate’ his return.”

    “The White House press shop lies and claims Mr. Abrego was not wrongfully deported, despite having acknowledged that fact at every single stage of the court process; at the district court, the circuit court, and the Supreme Court,” noted attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “They are openly contemptuous of the truth.”

    Civil rights attorney Patrick Jaicomo, replying to the White House, wrote: “There is a mistake in the headline. You didn’t wrongly deport Garcia. You wrongly imprisoned him without due process. So, fix your mistake, as the courts have ordered. You don’t have to keep doubling down on bad decisions.”

    Attorney Dilan Esper added, “I’ll remind you that the federal judges issuing orders see this.”

    Veteran journalist John Harwoood called it, “disgusting fascism,” and wrote that “the Trump WH is garbage from top to bottom.”

    Opinion writer Magdi Jacobs noted, “They’re moving from evading the judiciary to openly mocking it. This is very dangerous territory.”

    Some others addressed what they appeared to suggest was the juvenile nature of the White House’s post.

    “When you graduate from 4chan and land your first job at the White House,” wrote Talking Points Memo publisher Josh Marshall.

    “The Trump admin really wants to distract people from the fact that it illegally sent someone to El Salvador in violation of a court order & binding law, either out of malice or sheer incompetence. No amount of s—posting will change that,” said Reason magazine’s Billy Binion.

    “This is the evil of the Trump White House,” remarked Fred Wellman, an Army veteran, political consultant, and the host of the podcast “On Democracy.”

    Journalist and author Robert Lusetich observed: “The White House, an ever-lasting symbol of the power, dignity and greatness of the United States. Now, a trolling meme account.”

    Anti-gun-violence activist Fred Guttenberg declared the White House is “staffed by pathetic punk 2nd grade pre pubescent children.”

    Journalist James Surowiecki commented, “Your tax dollars are paying for this childish cr–.”

    See the White House’s social media post above or at this link.

     

    Image via Reuters

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    Trump’s Latest Target: The Watchdog That Keeps Suing Him

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    From the outset of his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump signaled that a central focus of his presidency would be targeting and exacting retribution against his critics.

    “In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice,’” Trump told attendees at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2023. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

    In keeping his retribution vow, Trump in just three months—often with the use of the power of his executive orders—has targeted for retribution numerous top law firms, revoked the security clearances of dozens of top national security experts, former government officials, and former political opponents. He has targeted top universities, threaten to defund millions of dollars or more in critical research grants, and declared top news outlets CNN and MSNBC “corrupt” and “illegal.”

    Just days after the 2024 election, NPR reported that during the campaign, “Trump made more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived enemies, including political opponents and private citizens.”

    READ MORE: ‘Things Like This Take Place’: Trump Shrugs Off Mass Shooting Despite Once Being a Target

    On Thursday, Trump threatened to go after one of his top legal critics: CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit legal and ethics watchdog that has been working for years to hold him (and others) to account, often by suing.

    Asked by a reporter what group he would like to see have their tax exempt status removed, Trump replied, “Well, we’ll be making some statements, but it’s a big deal.”

    “They’re so rich and so strong, and then they go so bad, they’ve earned so much by being a member of this country, you know, a member of this group, this beautiful group of people in this country, and then they go and they abuse their power like that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon. “I think it’s, you know, I think it’s very sad.”

    “I have a group named CREW,” he continued. “CREW. You ever hear of it? I think it’s CREW, and they have a guy that heads CREW. It’s supposed to be a charitable organization. The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that.”

    “We’re looking at a lot of things, but if you take a look at CREW, what they’ve done, and I think it was a very big abuse, but we’re going to be finding out pretty soon.”

    During Trump’s first and second terms, CREW sued Trump or his administration for alleged emoluments clause violations, alleged Presidential Records Act noncompliance, and challenged some of his executive orders. It also represented voters in a lawsuit attempting to use the 14th Amendment to remove him from the ballot, claiming his role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection was constitutionally disqualifying.

    READ MORE: ‘Full Time Babysitter’: Treasury Secretary Urges Caution After Trump Fed Chair Threat

    In January, CREW was part of a lawsuit suing to “block Trump’s illegal plan to fire government workers,” and in February, CREW sued the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “to compel transparency.”

    CREW, in a statement to NCRM, vowed to continue its work.

    “For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government,” CREW Vice President of Communications Jordan Libowitz said. “Good governance groups are the heart of a healthy democracy. We will continue to do our work to ensure Americans have an ethical and accountable government.”

    Legal experts are blasting Trump’s threat.

    “It is literally a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison for the President, VP, or any senior White House employee, to ‘request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the IRS to conduct … an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer,'” wrote attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

    “The Trump administration has gone after law firms, they’ve gone after universities, and they’re now going after civil society, including groups like @CREWcrew. They want to silence any opposition to their extreme agenda,” added the National Women’s Law Center.

    “President Trump is now threatening to weaponize the IRS against nonprofit organizations like @CREWcrew,” wrote Public Citizen. “He is attacking our most basic right: to say what we believe without fear of government prosecution. We proudly stand in solidarity with our friends at CREW.”

    Watch the video below or at this link.

    Watch the video above or at this link.

    READ MORE: ‘Stunning Admission’: GOP Senator Says Colleagues ‘Are All Afraid’ of ‘Retaliation’

    Image via Reuters

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