Russian Lawmaker Pushing To Remove Children From Gay Parents Cites Disgraced Regnerus Study

Lawmaker Compares LGBT And Same-Sex Parents To Communism, Alcoholism

A Russian lawmaker pushing legislation to remove children from any parent “guilty” of being LGBT has cited the disgraced Mark Regnerus study and claims it is the only “reliable” research on same-sex parents. The bill, originally introduced by State Duma Deputy Alexei Zhuravlev, who compares homosexuality to child abuse, drug abuse, and alcoholism, would allow the government to remove all children from all LGBT parents and from same-sex couples. The attack on parents merely perceived to be LGBT comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin had signed the “homosexual propaganda” law, outlawing public displays of homosexuality, including hand-holding by two people of the same gender. In essence, the law makes it illegal to tell children gay people even exist.

In June, immediately following a speech by National Organization For Marriage (NOM) president Brian Brown, which he delivered in Moscow to the Russian Duma (Congress), “Yelena Mizulina, the chairwoman of the Duma’s committee on family, women and children and the sponsor of the ‘propaganda’ bill, cited Regnerus to advocate for the adoption measure, claiming that Regnerus had provided the only ‘reliable’ research on same-sex parents,” a just-released report by Right Wing Watch notes.

The Regnerus “study” was thoroughly discredited, disgraced, and debunked — much of that original work and reporting was done here at The New Civil Rights Movement. (See all our Regnerus work, about 100 articles, here.)

Yet, RWW reports, Yelena Mizulina “went on to hypothesize that gay parents would teach their children to be gay just as alcoholics would likely have children who drink, and compared the ‘social experiment’ of marriage equality to the experiment of communism in Russia:

It is established that if the parents in a family smoke, their child will likely smoke. And in these families the share of children who smoke when they become adults is higher. If parents drink, the probability that children in these families will drink is much higher than in families where parents do not drink.

Why and on what basis is there an exception regarding imitation of the behavior of parents when we’re talking about homosexuality? Why? Where do they get that children will not imitate this particular behavior? It’s untenable, even without scientific studies. But scientific studies would of course be important here, too.

But this type of experiment, this sexual revolution as they call what is happening in Europe today, is a social experiment that the West is conducting on its own children.  Russia has had enough of social experiments.

Last century we had social experiments where the family was destroyed. It was argued that there would be no more families, that this institution would die out, and many others. And the West watched and did the opposite.

RWW adds:

A news report about the meetings on the TV Tsentr channel included an interview with Evgenii Makushkin, a Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development psychologist, who insisted that “a same-sex pair may raise a child with a host of sexual problems.” His evidence? An American study published in the Social Science Research journal – the Regnerus study.

One key point to remember about the Regnerus study, despite any claims it may make, is that it does not study adult children of same-sex parents — only two of its participants fall into that category. It studies adult children of parents who most likely divorced, and who lived in what were called then “broken homes.” In short, it actually makes the case for same-sex marriage, proving the point that opposite-sex couples in challenged marriages, raising children, can negatively impact the future of their children.

Editor’s note: Because of the challenges transcribing the Russian alphabet into the Latin (English) alphabet, Alexei Zhuravlev is also commonly spelled Aleksei Zhuravlyov, Alexei Zhuravlyov, and Alexey Zhuravlev

Image by Memeographs via Facebook

 

Related:

Russian Lawmaker: ‘We Should Definitely Take Away A Mother’s Rights To Her Child’ If She’s Gay

LGBT Journalist: I Will Out Closeted Anti-Gay Russian Lawmakers

Comparing Homosexuality To Child Abuse, Russian Lawmaker Moves To Ban Kids From Gay Parents