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NOM, Regnerus And Robert Oscar Lopez

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We have been reporting on an invalid sociological study –allegedly, but not actually, about gay parents’ child outcomes — carried out by researcher Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, Austin.

Regnerus’s known total of $785,000 for the study was arranged by The Witherspoon Institute and The Bradley Foundation, where Robert P. George – head of the anti-gay-rights, scientifically disreputable National Organization for Marriage (NOM) — holds positions of authority. Witherspoon president Luis Tellez is a NOM board member.

A preponderance of evidence appears to suggest that Regnerus is politically in collusion with his lying, anti-gay-rights funders. This report adds to the weight of evidence.

Many of Regnerus’s past public statements are arrogantly oblivious to the very existence of gay human beings. For example, in April, 2012, the New York Times published a group of essays from different writers on the theme: Are ‘Family Values’ Outdated? 

Regnerus’s contribution was a NOM-like slogan: One Man, One Woman, One Marriage.

Not only has Regnerus never once voiced support for gay rights; he has been haughtily dismissive of some of his gay victims’ calls for him to clarify his positions in the toxic wake of his Witherspoon/NOM-funded “study.”

Take, for example, Dr. Eric Anderson, a sociologist at the University of Winchester, England.

Along with over 200 other Ph.D.s and M.D.s, Dr. Anderson signed a letter expressing concern over the Regnerus study’s lack of intellectual integrity, as well as over the very suspicious circumstances through which the study got published.

This reporter copied the 200+ signers of that letter on an e-mail to Regnerus, asking Regnerus questions pertaining to the baseline methodological failings of his study.

Regnerus ignored the e-mail. Yet, Dr. Anderson copied everybody on an e-mail which he  in turn sent to Regnerus, asking him to respond to my questions about his study methodology, as well as to some additional questions. Regnerus apparently ignored Dr. Anderson’s e-mail, which read as follows:

“Mark:
I’ve also asked you whether or not you maintain personal animus toward sexual minorities. Do you believe in equal marriage? Do you believe sexual minorities should be able to adopt? Because many of us on this list have been working hard to undo the damage you have caused. It would therefore be appreciated if you could answer these questions. My right (or not) to marriage and family (as a gay man) is more important than your academic dignity. So please do answer our questions.”

Whereas Regnerus utterly ignores his gay victims, and refuses even to acknowledge that they have posed questions to him, it seems there are few if any forms of collusion with his anti-gay-rights funders that Regnerus would refuse.

For example, on August 6, 2012, The Witherspoon Institute published a gay-bashing essay by Robert Oscar Lopez. In his gay-bashing essay, Lopez reports that Regnerus contacted him, on July 17, 2012, to thank him for sharing “his perspective on LGBT issues.” Lopez states that he and Regnerus conducted “an e-mail correspondence.”

There are several red flags on fire in Regnerus having contacted and conducted e-mail correspondence with the gay-bashing Lopez about his “study,” and with Lopez’s gay-bashing essay about Regnerus’s “study” then getting published on Regnerus’s study funders’ website.

Shortly after the Regnerus study was published on June 10, 2012, Lopez began appearing in umpteen online forums, cheerleading the Regnerus study, alleging he was raised by a lesbian mother, and venting mind-boggling contempt for “liberals” and for LGBTers. Lopez’s accounts of his biography are so full of contradictions and inconsistencies that it would be impossible to compile them into a coherent narrative. In commenting about the Regnerus study online, Lopez very frequently misrepresented what the study — invalid as it is — actually says. Indeed, in his Regnerus-funders’-site essay, Lopez alleges that the Regnerus study is about bi-sexual parents, a verifiable falsehood.

Lopez’s additional blather along those lines is of little importance, in comparison to how unethical Regnerus’s correspondence with Lopez was and remains. Regnerus in and throughout his study refers to his respondents’ parents as “lesbian mothers” and “gay fathers.” Regnerus in his study did not at all attempt to distinguish between gay and bi-sexual parents. Yet, Lopez accuses Regnerus’s critics of ignoring bi-sexual people — (Lopez alleges that he is one, while congratulating himself for marrying a woman) — while extravagantly thanking Regnerus for his study, because of the “voice” it gives to children of bi-sexual parents.

If Regnerus’s “study” is actually about children of bi-sexual parents, then Regnerus should immediately revise his written study so it does not have parents pinned as “lesbian mothers” and “gay fathers.” Read the Lopez essay through, and you will see, he is extremely insistent that Regnerus’s study is mainly about children of bi-sexual parents, not about children of “lesbian mothers” or “gay fathers.” If Lopez is wrong, and Regnerus continues to maintain that his study surveyed children of “lesbian mothers” and “gay fathers,” then he should immediately correct Lopez — being as Regnerus was in correspondence with Lopez about his study, and Lopez’s essay about Regnerus’s study then got published on Regnerus’s funder’s website.

A clear and unaltering pattern has developed, of Regnerus on the one hand whining in response to any criticism of his study methodology and funding, while on the other hand, Regnerus allows gay bashers to use his “study” as justification for all manner of gay bashing, without ever complaining that they are using his study to gay bash, and without Regnerus ever correcting the falsehoods about his “study” that the gay bashers are communicating to the public.

There is some appearance that Lopez could be a NOM plant. The same NOM strategy documents released through court order in March 2012 — (describing NOM’s evil plots to “drive a wedge” and to “fan hostility” between African-Americans and gays) — also described an evil plot to lure children of gay parents into denouncing their parents to the public. Lopez coincidentally fits that role.

The following facts; 1) that top Witherspoon authorities also are top authorities at NOM; 2) that Regnerus apparently cultivated Lopez, along with Lopez’s misunderstandings of what the Regnerus study says; and 3) that Regnerus’s NOM-linked funders then published Lopez’s gay-bashing essay, inclusive of misrepresentations of what Regnerus’s study says, certainly 4) justify skepticism apropos of Regnerus’s and his NOM-linked study funders’ motivations vis-a-vis Lopez, particularly in light of the NOM strategy documents.

Regnerus’s relationship with Lopez appears to violate the American Sociological Association’s Code of Ethics. For example, the preamble to Section 10 of the Code of Ethics says this: “Sociologists adhere to the highest professional standards in public communications about their professional services, credentials and expertise, work products, or publications, whether these communications are from themselves or from others.” (Bolding added).

Regnerus certainly has good enough ongoing relationships with his NOM-linked funders at Witherspoon and with Lopez that he could insist on an accurate representation being made of his “study” in Lopez’s essay, which is rife with inaccuracies about the Regnerus “study.”

Do not hold your breath, waiting for Regnerus to behave honorably and/or within the American Sociological Association’s Code of Ethics.

Lopez in his gay-bashing confusion can not even keep details of his life straight within this one essay, still less from 1) one of his gay-bashing online comments about the Regnerus “study” to 2) the next.  For example, in his essay, Lopez alleges that among his siblings, he was the only one not to have the presence of a father through to maturity. Yet, Lopez says that he was born when his mother was 34 — and that she died when he was 19 — meaning that all of his brothers and sisters — in order to have grown up with their father around — would have had to be fully grown by the time the mother was 34.  Lopez also reports that, in his opinion, because he did not have a father present, he exhibited cartoonish stereotypes of gay males, including “girlish mannerisms” and a lisp.  He tries to pin his alleged gay male lisp on his mother and his mother’s female lover, as though a male child would learn a cartoonish, stereotypical “gay” lisp from a lesbian mother. Moreover, although for about one dozen years, Lopez’s mother and her girlfriend lived in separate houses and only got together on weekends, Lopez alleges that he experienced “‘gay parenting’ as that term is understood today.”

Well, no, genius. Today’s gay parents overwhelmingly live together in a single dwelling with the children they are raising. Meanwhile, Regnerus in his published study — scientifically invalid though it is — says that his study “may best capture what might be called an ‘earlier generation’ of children of same-sex parents.”

If Lopez now is Regnerus’s mouthpiece for telling the world that Regnerus’s own understanding of his “study” has changed — such that Regnerus no longer thinks that the “study” captures an “earlier generation” — but rather, that Regnerus now thinks that his “study” represents “‘gay parenting’ as that term is understood today” — then maybe Regnerus should make that statement on his own, instead of implicitly approving its appearance in Lopez’s gay-bashing essay, as a representation of what his “study” is about.

The mess is, after all, right there on Regnerus’s NOM-linked study funders’ website. Regnerus conducted correspondence about his study and “LGBT issues” with Lopez, the author of that essay on Regnerus’s study funder’s website. And, the American Sociological Association says that sociologists “adhere to the highest professional standards in public communications about their professional . . . .  work products, or publications . . .  whether these communications are from themselves or from others.”

So which is it, Mr. Regnerus?  Does your study measure an “‘earlier generation’ of same-sex parents,” or — as your correspondent Robert Lopez says in an essay published on your study funder’s website — or does your study measure “gay parenting as that term is understood today”?

It is obvious why Regnerus’s NOM-linked funders want the public to believe that the Regnerus study is about “gay parenting as the term is understood today.” They want the negativity of the “study” to stick to today’s gay parents, and for voters then to vote against today’s gay parents’ — and their children’s — rights.

Regnerus is despicable for enabling this, and for not making any corrective public comment about it.

Remember; 1) Regnerus contacted Lopez first, having seen his gay-bashing online commentary, and then Regnerus conducted a correspondence with Lopez, about his study in relation to LGBT “issues;” 2) Lopez’s essay contains numerous and substantial misrepresentations of what the Regnerus study says; and 3)  Section 10 of the American Sociological Association’s Code of Ethics says this: “Sociologists adhere to the highest professional standards in public communications about their professional services, credentials and expertise, work products, or publications, whether these communications are from themselves or from others.” (Bolding added).

The University of Texas at Austin — (which is conducting a scientific misconduct Inquiry to determine if a full Investigation of Regnerus is warranted) — should take special note of Regnerus’s relationship with Lopez.

NOM’s shameless lying anti-gay bigot Maggie Gallagher very promptly cross-posted Lopez’s essay to the National Review, to which she regularly contributes, adding to the post her just absolutely preposterous and outlandish allegation that children of gay parents have not been permitted to tell their stories in the media. There are hardly words to do justice to the cesspool depths of Gallagher’s gay-bashing bigot depravity. Just when you thought Gallagher could not possibly stoop any lower, she stoops, to allege a non-existent media blackout of stories told by children raised by gay parents.  Of course, Gallagher would only be interested in negative stories about gay parents from children they raised.  Gallagher would sneer at and not acknowledge the validity of the professional baseball player Joe Valentine’s statements about his parents: “It’s no different than having a mother and father,” Valentine has said: “These are the two women who raised me, and they are wonderful people. It’s just not a big deal to me. Why should it be?”

Notice how Gallagher’s cunning, sleazebag bigot falsehood — that the media blocks children of gay parents from talking about their stories — fits in to the documented evil NOM plot to get children of gay parents to denounce their parents to the public. Lopez’s gay-bashing essay of course also was immediately cross-posted to the NOM blog, with heaps of gay-bashing bigotry voiced in the comments. The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer has used the Regnerus “study” as grounds for stating that gay parents should not have custody of their own children. AFA and NOM are known to have partnered in the past for political gay-bashing projects.

Not only does Mark Regnerus not have the decency to answer questions posed him by this reporter about  his “study” methodology — and/or by his victims — victims such as Dr. Eric Anderson — Regnerus is so iniquitous that he seeks out pathetic, disturbed gay-bashers on the internet and cultivates relationships with them, at least in part towards getting gay-bashing misrepresentations of his “study” published on his NOM-linked funders’ websites, with his correspondent Lopez’s gay-bashing essay — misrepresenting his “study” —  then getting gleefully reposted hither and yon by Regnerus’s NOM-linked accomplices in political gay bashing, as Regnerus remains silent about their misrepresentations of his “study.”

 

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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News

‘Paved Paradise and Put Up a Parking Lot’: Critics Fume Over Trump’s Rose Garden Revamp

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First Lady Melania Trump’s renovation of Jackie Kennedy’s iconic Rose Garden during Donald Trump’s first term drew widespread criticism. Now, President Trump is renovating that space once again—this time transforming it into a Mar-a-Lago-style patio—sparking a fresh wave of backlash from critics.

President Trump defended what Newsweek described as “bulldozing” part of the Rose Garden, saying the change was intended to make the space more accessible for women wearing high heels, according to The Daily Beast. The renovations also involve removing several trees, including a saucer magnolia reportedly planted to honor President John F. Kennedy.

“It’s supposed to have events,” Trump said of the Rose Garden. “Every event you have it’s soaking wet,” he complained.

“The women with the high heels, it’s just too much… the grass, it doesn’t work. We use it for press conferences. It doesn’t work.”

READ MORE: Trump Starts Weekend Early After Griping Workers Get Too Many Days Off

The White House has done little to inform the American people about the construction, leaving critics to ask questions including who is paying for the construction, and is there a federal agency or commission that approves changes to the White House, given its centuries-long history.

“The White House is a national symbol and not the personal property of any president. Permanent changes should be reviewed by preservation experts and consider public sentiment, not be made unilaterally for vanity or political messaging,” wrote Molly Ploofkins, a social media user whose bio says she is a retired Army medic.

“We’ve got money to bulldoze the White House Rose Garden and turn it into a Mar-a-Lago-style patio, but we can’t pay for cancer research for kids or make sure veterans aren’t living off food stamps,” remarked Democratic strategist and former Harris senior advisor Mike Nellis.

READ MORE: ‘People Will Die’: Shock Over Trump Shutting Down LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline Is Growing

“I love how people keep pointing out that private donations paid for it—not the government. I don’t give a s—,” Nellis added later. “The issue is this administration’s priorities. Trump thinks it’s fine to bulldoze the Rose Garden to build a patio so he can relax outside, while doing nothing to improve your life. That’s the criticism. He’s enriching himself, screwing everyone else, and not lifting a goddamn finger to help you. That’s the problem.”

Journalist Jane Coaston remarked, “I am increasingly of the view that Trump wants to ‘be president’ so he can watch musicals and manage the rose garden and he just lets other people be co-president for periods of time so he has more time for musicals and rose garden management.”

“RIP to the White House Rose Garden,” observed former Obama White House photographer Pete Souza. “Today the Rose Garden is being ripped apart as construction begins to pave over the entire grass area. A sad, and unnecessary, day for what used to be the People’s House.”

“The White House rose garden was established in 1913,” noted WAMU’s Esther Ciammachilli, before lamenting, “Trump has just paved paradise and put up a parking lot. This is not his house. It belongs to the American people. He is just a tenant. Nothing is sacred anymore.”

Image via Reuters

 

 

 

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COMMENTARY

Trump Starts Weekend Early After Griping Workers Get Too Many Days Off

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After stalling on a decision in the escalating Middle East crisis and delaying action—some say potentially in defiance of federal law—on the congressionally mandated TikTok ban, President Donald Trump, facing sliding poll numbers, a widely criticized budget bill on the brink of collapse, a looming debt ceiling showdown, and apparent tensions with his Director of National Intelligence, is heading to his Bedminster golf resort for a MAGA dinner and an early weekend likely to include several rounds of golf.

The decision to leave the White House early on Friday comes after he left the G7 early this week, reportedly to make a decision on whether or how to help Israel attack Iran. His former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, jokingly said Trump exited the conference with top world leaders because he was “bored,” The Hill reported.

The President is slated to exit the White House at 2 PM Friday.

READ MORE: ‘People Will Die’: Shock Over Trump Shutting Down LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline Is Growing

“With the world on edge, the president’s early departure underscores a pattern critics say reflects misplaced priorities, favoring fundraising and familiar retreats over the day-to-day demands of governance,” MeidasTouch News reported.

The long weekend also comes just hours after President Trump denounced “too many days off” for federal and other workers, a remark he made on Juneteenth, a federal holiday signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021. Trump had campaigned on passing the legislation to honor and celebrate the day that symbolizes the end of slavery, but made no mention of it this year.

“Too many non-working holidays in America,” Trump decried Thursday evening.

“I know this is a federal holiday.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. “I want to thank all of you for showing up to work. We are certainly here. We’re working 24/7 right now.”

This week, in addition to meeting with his national security team, and an “awkward” meeting with players of the Juventus soccer team, Trump presided over the installation of two 88-foot flag poles and the raising of massive American flags at the White House.

READ MORE: ‘Make Asbestos Great Again?’: Trump Slammed for Move to End Ban on Russia-Tied Carcinogen

Trump’s long weekend also comes just one week after millions protested his policies across all 50 states and internationally on Saturday, while he attended a military parade celebrating his and the U.S. Army’s birthdays, and after a tragic political assassination of a Democratic lawmaker and her spouse.

It also comes one week after Trump appeared to make a major about-face, saying farm, hotel, and restaurant workers are valuable and extremely difficult to replace. He suggested that ICE would pause targeting those workers, only to turn around just days later to announce “the largest mass deportation program in history.” The pause on deportations was canceled, leading one notable political commentator and legal analyst, Joyce Vance, to wonder if Trump is actually in charge.

“Who’s running the show?” she asked, suggesting someone may have “countermanded” him on the deportations. “Who’s in charge? Trump or someone else?”

READ MORE: Trump Appears to Confuse America’s Revolutionary War With the Civil War

 

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News

‘Actively Trying to Erase Black History’: Trump Berated for Juneteenth Remark

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President Donald Trump, who campaigned in 2020 on making Juneteenth a federal holiday, used the occasion this year to criticize the number of federal holidays—a comment many viewed as a direct slight against Juneteenth, which marks the symbolic end of slavery in the United States. He did not issue a presidential proclamation recognizing the holiday.

It was President Joe Biden who signed the legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021. And while he is no longer in office, it was Biden—not Trump—who formally honored and celebrated Juneteenth.

On Thursday, President Biden “took part in the service at the Reedy Chapel AME Church,” in Galveston, “one of the locations where an order announcing the end of slavery in Texas was read on June 19, 1865, two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation,” CBS News reported. Biden criticized “ongoing efforts to erase history” during the event, “and appeared to take a shot at his successor, President Trump.”

READ MORE: ‘People Will Die’: Shock Over Trump Shutting Down LGBTQ Youth Suicide Hotline Is Growing

President Biden said, “Still today, some say to me and you that this doesn’t deserve to be a federal holiday. They don’t want to remember…the moral stain of slavery.”

“Our federal holidays say … who we are as Americans,” Biden also said Thursday, as CNN reported. “What we celebrate says what we value.”

At least twice, Biden appeared to refer to Trump, although not by name.

“When speaking about attempts to erase history, he referenced ‘this guy’ before giving himself the sign of the cross — drawing laughter from the audience,” CBS noted. “At another point, Biden pointed to efforts during his administration to rename military bases named after Confederate military officers, a process mandated by Congress.”

Also on Juneteenth, President Donald Trump launched an angry missive at the number of federal holidays, although he did not mention Juneteenth specifically.

READ MORE: ‘Make Asbestos Great Again?’: Trump Slammed for Move to End Ban on Russia-Tied Carcinogen

“Too many non-working holidays in America,” Trump declared. “It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed. The workers don’t want it either! Soon we’ll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year. It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

While shuttering the federal government while paying workers does cost money, Trump offered no evidence to support his claim that workers don’t want the day off.

Critics berated President Trump.

“Saying there are ‘too many non-working holidays’ on Juneteenth is so on brand for a man who is actively trying to erase Black history,” wrote U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). “This from the same man who’s wasted over $26 million in taxpayer dollars and spent more than 30 days golfing since January 20, 2025? Please.”

“As Americans celebrate Juneteenth,” U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) wrote, “I want to say: Trump can try to erase whatever history he doesn’t like, and he can try to brand ‘diversity’ as something bad. But he won’t succeed. We’ll remember ALL of our history and affirm that diversity is our strength here in America.”

“Not only is he trying to make you work MORE but also he’s taking an apparent dig at Juneteenth. This is coming from the same guy who golfs every weekend. Pathetic,” declared political commentator Harry Sisson.

RELATED: Hegseth Sidelines Juneteenth and Its Military History

 

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