Six More Sociology PhDs Call For Retraction Of Regnerus Anti-Gay ‘Study’

A hoax study on gay parenting funded by the NOM-linked Witherspoon Institute and marked by deliberate deception and fraud is currently being used as an anti-equality weapon in the courts and in the 2012 elections.

The anti-gay hoax was carried out by Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin.

READ: Opinion: NOM Shill Mark Regnerus’ Long History Of Using Religion To Attack Gays

Witherspoon and Regnerus continue deliberately lying to the public about the study, alleging that none of Regnerus’s funding agency representatives participated in designing or conducting the study.

In truth, Witherspoon Program Director Brad Wilcox recruited Regnerus to do the work, was involved in getting him a $55,000 planning grant, and then collaborated with him on the booby-trapped study design before Witherspoon approved Regnerus for full study funding, which reached a known minimum of $785,000.

Even as Regnerus and Witherspoon continue lying by saying that Regnerus is independent of his anti-gay-rights funders, Regnerus is scheduled to promote the hoax side-by-side with his funders on November 3 in a clear, anti-gay-rights context at Princeton.

Although the American Medical Association and the President of the American Sociological Association have put their names to documents calling Regnerus’s methodology scientifically unsound, the sleazy, NOM-linked characters who commissioned the hoax continue to push it as though it were scientifically valid.

Previously on this site, Dr. Andrew Perrin has delivered a devastating science-based take-down of the Regnerus hoax. Moreover, Dr. Michael Schwartz as well as Dr. Lori Holyfield have called for the Regnerus submission to be retracted from publication.

Here, six additional Sociology Ph.D.s call for the Regnerus article to be retracted from publication, and a further three express their dismay over the Regnerus scandal:

 1) Gary J. Gates, Ph.D. is Williams Distinguished Scholar at the Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law:

“My position is clear. The fact that two of the three peer reviewers of the Regnerus paper were paid consultants undermines the review process to the point that I do not believe the academy should consider this paper to have undergone legitimate peer review. Elsevier should take steps to either formally retract the paper or subject it to an unbiased peer review process.”

2) Heidi Levitt, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston:

“I think it is appropriate to call for retraction. I have signed a letter of protest to that effect which outlines the reasons for retraction.”

3) Saskia Sassen, Ph.D. is Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, and Co-Chair of the Columbia University Committee on Global Thought:

“I was one of the signers of the original letter and have throughout supported this effort.  I find this unacceptable; the Regnerus study should be retracted from publication.”

4) Wendy Simonds, Ph.D. is Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Sociology at Georgia State University:

“I am not at all surprised by this whole situation, given Regnerus’s previous book on teen sexuality. In that book, he and his co-author present without criticism “research” of others in support of the notion that women who have unprotected sex (with the same partner of course) are less likely to be depressed than women who don’t *because* of the semen in their vaginas (imagine the pharmacological possibilities!!) as well as “research” in support of the notion that women regret abortions. Meanwhile, they also “show” that the more sexual partners young women have, the worse off they are in terms of mental health — while of course the same is not true of young men (then can handle being sluts mentally).”

“I support the retraction of Regnerus’s article, because the review process was not truly blind. Consultants and/or funders on projects should not serve as reviewers of papers that emerge from the projects in which they have been involved. Additionally, Regnerus’s “data” on gay and lesbian parents are unrepresentative of gay and lesbian parents, and, in my view, are presented so as to advance a homophobic agenda.”

5) Eric Anderson, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology at the University of Winchester in the United Kingdom:

Dr. Anderson previously has described the Regnerus study as anti-gay propaganda, explaining that that is the only term he can think of to describe a study analysis and discussion that is designed to denigrate gay people outside the boundaries of empirical evidence. Asked if he is calling for the Regnerus paper to be retracted from publication, Dr. Anderson said: “Oh God yes. This research was not sociology as science; it was instead a coup d’état against gay parenting.”

6) Amy C. Wilkins, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado:

In an e-mail response, Dr. Wilkins wrote: “I HAVE followed this case and am outraged about it.” and “Thanks for your persistence with this.”

7) Lisa Brush, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh:

In an e-mail message, Dr. Brush wrote: “I have followed with considerable appreciation your lengthy and detailed posts on this issue, and have registered my dismay with the Regnerus article.” and “Thank you for your work on this issue.”

8) Sir William Timothy Gowers, British mathematician, is a Royal Society Research Professor at the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at Cambridge University. He is the leader of a boycott against Regnerus’s publisher, Elsevier.

Gowers has said:  “a piece of blatant anti-gay propaganda has been published in the otherwise respectable journal Social Science Research. The research was, it appears, indirectly funded by anti-gay campaigners and is now being gleefully used to help Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. The refereeing process seems to have been accelerated as well. Most importantly, the paper is bunkum and shouldn’t have been accepted: its conclusion (that children do worse if they have gay parents) is not remotely justified by the data used. So who publishes the journal Social Science Research and is not interested in investigating whether proper academic standards have been upheld? I surely don’t need to spell it out.”

9) Nancy Naples, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of the University of Connecticut:

“I am calling for the Regnerus article to be retracted from publication.”

 

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.