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Opinion: National Review’s VerBruggen Repeats NOM’s Anti-Gay Smears

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The National Review as an Organ of Arrogant Bigotry

Robert VerBruggen writes for The National Review, which was founded by the white supremacist William F. Buckley, Jr.

National Review writers ofttimes still defend the publication’s apartheid roots.

VerBruggen, for his part, is a heterosupremacist who thinks that because anti-gay bigots do not want gay couples to get married, gay couples must not be allowed to marry. That echoes the National Review’s history of saying that because a privileged white majority wanted segregation, whites deserved to see racial apartheid continue. See here for more of VerBruggen’s gay-bashing bigotry.

One of VerBruggen’s co-contributors is the arch-anti-gay-bigot Maggie Gallagher of the so-called National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay-rights group that sponsors hate rallies where NOM speakers yell through megaphones that homosexuals are “worthy to death.”

On July 12 in The National Review, Gallagher attacked me by lying that I have written that she has blood on her hands because she opposes “gay marriage.”

Gallagher’s NOM is behind the funding of a fraudulent study carried out by the University of Texas, Austin’s Mark Regnerus. Gallagher has been militantly active in smearing gay people in political contexts on the basis of Regnerus’s fraudulent study.

Understanding what makes Regnerus’s study a fraud is not complicated.

Regnerus alleged he wanted to study child outcomes for gay parents. Regnerus’s “test” group in his “test-and-control-group” study, however, was not actually comprised of known gay parents, as the American Medical Association — along with seven other major professional associations — explained in a Golinski-DOMA amicus brief. The one thing Regnerus’s test group respondents almost all had in common, was that they were products of broken heterosexual homes. Without so much as asking his respondents “Is your mother lesbian?” Regnerus went ahead and labeled the parents of his “broken homes” test group as either “lesbian mothers” or “gay fathers.”

His control group, by contrast, was comprised of young adult children of continuously married heterosexual couples.

Regnerus compared the people from broken homes, to the people from continuously married parents, and declared that he had “revealed” that “children raised by same-sex parents” fare worse.

The invalid comparison invalidates the entire study, but does not stop gay-bashing bigots from wielding it as a political weapon.

The heterosupremacists’ motto is: “When all else fails, defame the sexual minorities you hate.”

Robert VerBruggen Sets Up a NOM-like, Anti-Gay Smear

On July 18, VerBruggen asked to interview me apropos of my Complaint against Regnerus, filed with the University of Texas. That Complaint now is the basis of an on-going inquiry.

I responded to VerBruggen’s e-mailed questions. In my responses, I specified that the Regnerus study is not valid, because it is a “test-group/control-group” study, yet makes no valid comparison between its test group and its control group. I also specified to VerBruggen that I allege that Regnerus and NOM officials are in seeming collusion, that they seem to have produced the study intending it to have a ‘”fixed” outcome defamatory of gays, and that they seem to continue in collusion, promoting the invalid study as a gay-bashing political weapon.

I have requested full documentation of all communications about the Regnerus study between 1) Regnerus and his study team; 2) UT; and 3) Regnerus’s NOM-linked funders at The Witherspoon Institute and elsewhere.  Those parties have refused to release the documents. UT petitioned Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot, a Republican, for exemptions, allowing the parties to keep their documentation related to the fraudulent Regnerus study secret.  The American Independent, too, wants this documentation, yet UT is seeking exemptions to their Freedom of Information Act document requests as well.

If there is no political collusion between the parties on the fraudulent Regnerus study — which is being used politically to gay-bash around the country and beyond — then what could there possibly be to hide in that documentation?

In his July 19, National Review article, VerBruggen tried to manipulate his readers into believing that my allegations are baseless.

He says “Rose does not allege serious ethical misconduct, such as plagiarism or falsifying data.”  Actually, I do. Not making any effort even to determine whether a survey respondent’s parent is gay or lesbian — as is the case with Regnerus — but then going ahead to label them as “lesbian mother” or “gay father” in a study that is said to measure how young adults “raised by same-sex parents fare” is falsifying evidence. Falsifying evidence is very rarely accidental and is usually done to support a hypothesis, i.e., in the case of the Regnerus study, the NOM hypothesis that homosexuals are dangerous to children.

For emphasis: “Data falsification” occurs when research is manipulated in any way that changes or omits data. Regnerus changed his data, by not determining whether a respondent’s parent was gay or lesbian, but then going on to label respondents’ parents as “gay fathers” or “lesbian mothers” in his published study. UT’s Population Research Center’s site for Regnerus’s “New Family Structures Study” falsely claims that the study measured how young adults “raised by same-sex parents” fare. That same University of Texas, NFSS site claims that Regnerus’s is the first large-scale study of “young adults who have spent time in households with two parents of the same sex.”

Regnerus’s study did not do that. Of his respondents whose parents got misleadingly labeled as “lesbian mothers” or “gay fathers,” almost all were products of broken heterosexual marriages. The study subjects’ “parents” therefore, were their mother and father pairs. If a 15-year-old’s heterosexual parents divorce, and then when the adolescent is 17, he is living with his mother, and she invites a woman to live in the home with them for four weeks, that second woman is not the 17-year-old’s “parent” in any sense. Yet that is exactly the ridiculous thing which Regnerus is presenting as a “fact” about his data.

Falsifying evidence is an ultimate form of scientific misconduct.

One thing VerBruggen’s did in his article — after not addressing Regnerus’s falsification of data — especially sticks in my craw.

Conflating homosexuals with pedophiles, a known falsehood, is a NOM anti-gay-bigotry specialty.

As irrefutably described in the AMA brief, Regnerus did not do anything to determine whether his young adult survey respondents from broken heterosexual marriages had lesbian mothers or gay fathers. He nonetheless went ahead and labeled the parents of these offspring of broken marriages lesbian or gay, on the basis of having asked them whether either of their parents had ever had a “romantic relationship with someone of the same sex.” That means of classifying somebody as gay or lesbian is as ludicrous as would be calling them Catholic because they had ever been inside a Catholic cathedral.

Surprise, surprise; Regnerus, in seeming collusion with his NOM-linked funders, found that children of — (falsely-labeled) —  “lesbian mothers” and “gay fathers” suffered more childhood sex abuse than children of “intact biological families.”

That Regnerus study “finding,” not supported by Regnerus’s data, is especially heinous, by virtue of it being an established, favorite NOM anti-gay smear, effectively, “Let children anywhere near homosexuals, and you increase the likelihood that they will be sexually abused.” Regnerus repeated that smear when he talked about his invalid study on ABC-TV.

In his published article, VerBruggen repeated the lie that children of gay parents are “more likely to experience sexual victimization,” and then he went on wrongly to allege the smear to be  “a statement that is consistent with Regnerus’s data.”

Well, no, it is not, but what do you expect from a heterosupremacist?

VerBruggen’s History of Enabling Those Bigoted Against Sexual Minorities

At Northwestern University, VerBruggen was editor-in-chief of the reactionary Northwestern Chronicle.  On Verbruggen’s editorial watch, J. Michael Bailey, an anti-trans bigot was allowed to trans-bash, and an individual was unjustifiably smeared.

Significantly, in an article – Robert Verbruggen and J. Michael Bailey — VerBruggen is said to have allowed Bailey “to post a rambling defense of his questionable research and ethics.” At the time, VerBruggen wrote, “To my knowledge, it is the first professor-written article we’ve ever run. There are of course conflicts with this setup, especially in that he is both a source and a writer.”

The summary continues: “Bailey’s work  described gender variance in metaphors of disease and impairment, said to be an extension of Bailey’s belief that homosexuality is an evolutionary mistake and a developmental error. Bailey’s writing on homosexual eugenics and his belief that male bisexuals are liars echo his thinking on trans issues as well.” The summary of the Bailey scandal, partially enabled by VerBruggen, notes that Bailey’s work was “tainted with charges of academic misconduct, practicing without a license, fabricating data, and sex with a research subject.”

In 2004, the Southern Poverty Law Center published a history of Bailey’s connections to hate groups. Bailey eventually resigned from Northwestern University in disgrace.

Though VerBruggen intended an ethical defense of Regnerus, he inadvertently gave his article a title that describes the Regnerus study to a “T”: The Gay Parenting Witch Hunt.

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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OPINION

Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

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April 18, 2024

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For years U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has been called “Pro-Putin.” As far back as 2021, her first year as a member of Congress, the question had been raised on social media: “Is Marjorie Taylor Greene a Russian asset?”

In 2022 The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.org reported: “Marjorie Taylor Greene Parrots Russian Talking Point on Ukraine.”

Back then, as the article highlighted, Greene had said, “there is no doubt that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s actions in Ukraine are despicable and evil.”

Now, she promotes a far more favorable view of President Vladimir Putin and his illegal war against Ukraine, a sovereign nation which the Russian autocrat wants to incorporate – at least partly – into Russia.

Just last week Greene spread demonstrably false pro-Russia talking points about a “war on Christianity” while defending and promoting President Vladimir Putin.

READ MORE: ‘Afraid and Intimidated’: Trump Trial Juror Targeted by Fox News Dismissed

“This is a war on Christianity,” Greene told far-right propagandist Steve Bannon. “The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians, the Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that.”

That’s just plain false, as NCRM reported.

Largely in response to her strong opposition to the U.S. supporting Ukraine, and her spreading Russian disinformation and flat-out pro-Putin falsehoods, Greene’s fondness for Putin and Russia has been making headlines.

“Republicans Who Like Putin,” was the headline last month at The New York Times, which observed: “A few Republicans have gone so far as [to] speak about Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in ways that mimic Russian propaganda. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has accused Ukraine of having ‘a Nazi army,’ echoing language Putin used to justify the invasion.”

“The Putin Republicans Have the Upper Hand” warned Washington Monthly‘s David Atkins on Wednesday, reporting on “conservative extremists led by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

“They admire the strongman as a Christian nationalist leader, and won’t support Ukraine. The global consequences of their besotted love affair with the Russian strongman could be cataclysmic.”

“Russia Is Buying Politicians in Europe. Is It Happening Here Too?” The New Republic‘s Alex Finley wrote last week. The photo at the top of the page? Marjorie Taylor Greene.

READ MORE: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Finley pointed to Greene’s interview with Bannon, “about Ukraine’s persecution of Christians, which is a Kremlin talking point aimed at boosting the pro-Moscow wing of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church. The U.S. should be spending money on the border with Mexico, not on Ukraine aid? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself against an expanding NATO? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Call for a cease-fire, and give Russia Crimea and eastern Ukraine? That’s a Kremlin talking point.”

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post last week ran this headline: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she ‘seriously hates’ people who support sending more aid to Ukraine: ‘Most repulsive, disgusting thing happening’.”

Then there is Greene’s obsession with Nazis. Specifically, equating Ukrainians with Nazis, which she did several times over the past week, including on Wednesday. That earned her the condemnation and wrath of U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who demanded: “Stop bringing up Nazis and Hitler.”

Wednesday night, Congressman Moskowitz, known for his use of humor and sarcasm to make his points, declared: “Just submitted an amendment to Bill drafting appointing MTG [Marjorie Taylor Greene] as Putin’s Special Envoy to the United States Congress.”

Moskowitz’s amendment was in response to Congresswoman Greene’s amendments requiring members to “conscript in the Ukrainian military” if they vote for the Ukraine military funding bill, as Juliegrace Brufke reported.

READ MORE: ‘Big Journalism Fail’: Mainstream Media Blasted Over Coverage of Historic Trump Trial

The Florida Democrat wasn’t joking, as Axios’ Andrew Solender pointed out Thursday morning.

Moskowitz did not stop there.

He drafted legislation on Thursday to name the Capitol Hill offices occupied by Congresswoman Greene after the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, infamous for promoting appeasement in dealing with Adolf Hitler.

Chamberlain also signed the Munich Agreement, which allowed Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

See the social media posts above or at this link.

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‘Afraid and Intimidated’: Trump Trial Juror Targeted by Fox News Dismissed

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April 18, 2024

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One of seven jurors selected to serve on the New York criminal trial of Donald Trump has been dismissed after telling the judge she became concerned about her ability to remain impartial. That concern came after too many identifying details about potential jurors this week were reported by the press, leading the judge to admonish the media Thursday morning.

“Although the jurors’ names are being kept confidential, the woman, a nurse, ‘conveyed that after sleeping on it overnight she had concerns about her ability to be fair and impartial in this case,’ New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan said before calling her into the room for questioning,” the Associated Press reports. “The woman said her family members and friends were questioning her about being a juror.”

Judge Merchan, after he had questioned the juror, chastised the media, specifically directing reporters to “abide by common sense” and not report jurors’ identifying information, as some in the press had done as soon as jury selection began.

“As evidenced by what’s happened already, it’s become a problem,” Judge Merchan said.

“We just lost what probably would have been a very good juror,” he noted. “She said she was afraid and intimidated by the press, all the press.”

RELATED: ‘Big Journalism Fail’: Mainstream Media Blasted Over Coverage of Historic Trump Trial

Alexander Panetta of Canada’s CBC News adds, “Merchan wants changes in the juror info that gets out to the public. He says jurors’ employer name will be redacted from court records.”

But he also reports the now-excused juror “says family and friends [said] that she had been easy to identify, based on publicly available info about her from the court. She said she definitely has concerns now.”

Merchan also “lamented that media reported another juror has an Irish accent. He asked media in the room to be more careful.”

Responding to the loss of the juror, The Atlantic’s David Drum remarked, “[Trump] juror intimidation gets results.”

The dismissed juror had been targeted by Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Tuesday (video below).

“I’m not so sure about Juror No. 2,” Watters told Fox News views.

Trump on Wednesday, appearing to violate his gag order, had targeted the jurors.

READ MORE: ‘Stop Bringing Up Nazis and Hitler’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Smacked Down by Democrats

Former state and federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch Network, commented, “Fox & Trump are coordinating to intimidate jurors.”

Mediate reported, “Donald Trump appeared to violate the gag order set forth by Judge Juan Merchan.”

“On Wednesday, Trump took to Truth Social and quoted comments made about potential jurors by Fox News host Jesse Watters on The Five Wednesday night.”

Trump quoted Watters, posting: “They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury.”

“That post appears to be in direct violation of Merchan’s gag order, a reality highlighted by JustSecurity’s Ryan Goodman,” Mediate added.

On Wednesday Watters had gone even further and presented biographical and identifying details of all seven jurors. That video is currently at the top of a pinned post on the Fox News website.

READ MORE: Fox Personality’s Tweet Called ‘Jury Tampering’ by US Congressman

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OPINION

‘Stop Bringing Up Nazis and Hitler’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Smacked Down by Democrats

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20 hours ago

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April 17, 2024

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was strongly criticized by two Democratic Congressmen after the Georgia Republican’s remarks about “Ukrainian Nazis” and her attempts to paint Ukrainians as Nazis.

“Stop bringing up Nazis and Hitler,” U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) urged, after Greene’s remarks suggesting there is a large Nazi problem in Ukraine, during a House Oversight Committee hearing. “The only people who know about Nazis and Hitler are the 10 million people and their families who lost their loved ones, generations of people who were wiped out. It is enough of this disgusting behavior, using Nazis as propaganda. You want to talk about Nazis, get yourself over to the Holocaust Museum. You go see what Nazis did. It’s despicable that we use that and we allow it and we sit here like somehow it’s regular.”

Moskowitz began by telling the Committee his “grandparents escaped the Holocaust.”

“So my grandmother was part of the Kindertransport out of Germany. Her parents were killed in Auschwitz. My grandfather, her husband escaped Poland, from the pogroms,” he continued.

READ MORE: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

“There are no concentration camps in Ukraine. They’re not taking babies and shooting them in the air ’cause they’re Jewish. There’s no gas chambers. There’s no ovens. They’re not railing people in, they’re not ripping gold out of people’s mouth. They’re not taking stuff out of their home. They’re not trying to erase a people. They’re Ukrainians.”

Greene’s remarks over the weekend had caused anger.

“It’s antisemitic to make Israeli aid contingent on funding Ukrainian Nazis,” Congresswoman Greene declared Sunday from her official government social media account, as legislation to support Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan moved to the top of Speaker Mike Johnson’s priority list in the wake of Iran’s attack on Israel. Her implication appeared to be Ukrainians are Nazis – a Putin talking point.

Greene on Wednesday spent several minutes again implying there are many Nazis in Ukraine, as she was refuted by a top scholar, Yale professor of history Timothy Snyder. Dr. Snyder is the author of a dozen books, including two on Nazis and the Holocaust, and is an expert on the Holocaust, Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and serves on the Council on Foreign Relations.

Responding to Greene’s remarks, Snyder told the lawmakers, “no far-right party has ever crossed three percent” in a Ukrainian election.

READ MORE: ‘Scared to Death’: GOP Ex-Congressman Brings Hammer Down on ‘Weak’ Trump

Greene was also criticized by U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), who called her out for her “hypocrisy” and reminded her that in 2022 she “spoke at event led by white supremacists.”

That event was hosted by white supremacist Nick Fuentes:

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Big Journalism Fail’: Mainstream Media Blasted Over Coverage of Historic Trump Trial

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