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U. Of Texas Stonewalling On Regnerus Inquiry; TNCRM Reporter Sends Complaint E-Mail

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The e-mail below was sent by The New Civil Rights Movement’s Scott Rose to the University of Texas, Austin’s Research Integrity Officer Robert Peterson, as a complaint about the university’s apparent stonewalling on an inquiry into Sociological Malpractice allegedly committed, in an ongoing way, by UTA Associate Professor Mark Regnerus. A previously-published TNCRM introduction to the matter may be read here.

 July 6, 2012

Dr. Peterson:

Although UTA attorney Jeffery Graves was kind enough to inform me that I should not send UTA any more information about the Regnerus matter unless UTA requests it, I am writing to you so as to have a public record of things that you have been told about the Regnerus study.

As a baseline matter, there is nothing really to discuss, as Regnerus did not make a valid sociological comparison and therefore, his entire study is invalid. In case somebody doesn’t understand this; it would be valid to compare young adult children of broken heterosexual homes with young adult children of broken homosexual homes, but it is not a sociologically valid comparison to compare broken homes with unbroken homes, as Regnerus did.

In her Huffington Post article, co-authored with additional UTA Sociologists, Debra Umberson said this:

Mark Regnerus claims to have produced the first rigorous scientific evidence showing that same sex families harm children. As a family sociologist at the University of Texas, I am disturbed by his irresponsible and reckless representation of social science research, and furious that he is besmirching my university to lend credibility to his “findings.”

Umberson did not specify that when she references Regnerus’s “irresponsible and reckless representation of social science research,” what she means is that Regnerus DID NOT MAKE ANY VALID SOCIOLOGICAL COMPARISON.

I put that in all caps, because frankly, I am sick of this ridiculous game where Regnerus violated the most basic rules of his own field, other professors at the same school have complained that he is negatively impacting their department’s and school’s reputations, but nonetheless, school administration, which is busy promoting Regnerus’s study, is acting as though one had still to investigate whether Regnerus had made a sociologically valid comparison.

Regnerus appears purposely to be clouding public understanding of the basics of Sociology when he insists on talking about the superiority of his random sampling to the convenience and snowball samplings of past studies on gay parenting. Sampling method is irrelevant if a sociologist makes an invalid comparison with his data.

Furthermore, Regnerus appears to be being highly disingenuous and untruthful when he alleges that at the beginning of the study, they thought they might be able to connect with and to survey an adequate number of authentic gay parents, but that they eventually found that they could not, and so they went ahead and made the invalid comparison anyway. Firstly, why is Regnerus trying to play people for fools, as though all of his blah-blah-blah meant that his study would magically become valid because of the blah-blah-blah, even though he had not made a sociologically valid comparison? This is exactly what UTA Sociologist Debra Umberson is referring to when she says:”I am disturbed by his irresponsible and reckless representation of social science research.”

Why is Regnerus doing that, and why is school administration allowing him to do that, given that its own additional Sociology professors say that this is Sociological Malpractice? The study Loren Marks simultaneously published with Regnerus’s study is in many respects a give-away as to the underhanded dirty tricks that Regnerus’s funders are playing. The Marks study is all about how a random sampling is superior to the convenience and snowball samplings of past studies on gay parents; but nowhere does it mention that *no* sampling method is relevant to research results if an invalid comparison was made with the data collected. Furthermore, Marks’s June, 2012 study was published under exactly the same title in October, 2011, is essentially the same as that past version of the study, though with a few tables thrown in, and it has EXACTLY the same conclusion. Now who publishes research as though it were a brand new study and trumpets it all around as some new discovery, when it has exactly the same conclusion as the previously-published study?

PILOT STUDIES — Any reputable surveying company, including the one Regnerus used, Knowledge Networks, will tell you that if you are going to spend a great deal of money attempting to survey a small population, you must first do a PILOT STUDY that will give you a good idea of how many of your intended target demographic you will be able to reach with the larger study. Knowledge Networks, or any similar company, will advise people looking to spend lots of money to reach a small population to first do a PILOT STUDY because a company like KN does not want to damage its professional reputation by promising results that it is not sure of being able to produce, leaving a client very dissatisfied. “They promised me the moon but delivered nothing!” Knowledge Networks would not operate towards that outcome, because it would severely damage their brand.  And, to be sure, Regnerus wanted to study young adult children of gay parents, but Knowledge Networks did not find an adequate sampling of them for him to survey. Knowledge Networks is not a used car dealership, but Regnerus is presenting his dealings with them, as though they allowed him to spend a huge amount of money to reach a small population which they knew he would not be able to reach with their methods and his budget.

Of course, all of those details are extraneous to the fact that Regnerus made no valid sociological comparison with his study. And that is why four UTA Sociologists signed a published article that says: “As a family sociologist at the University of Texas, I am disturbed by his irresponsible and reckless representation of social science research, and furious that he is besmirching my university to lend credibility to his “findings.”

So far from UTA, I have experienced: 1) probable dissembling about a documentation request being already in progress, before I was told that I would have to file an Open Record Act request. If, as David Ochsner told me, the documentation was already being assembled, why was it not ready as soon as I filed the Open Record Act request? 2) UTA’s Ochsner, who has been placing advertorials for the Regnerus study, sent attack e-mails to my publication containing unwarranted smears against me, and attempts to discredit my reporting and my person, and to intimidate us out of further reporting on the Regnerus matter as though we have never seen such tactics attempted before. 3) UTA attorney Graves told me — “Don’t call us, we’ll call you!” — with any further info related to Regnerus; so my question for you now is, in working on the inquiry, had you ever realized what I told you above about pilot studies, and if so, can you produce any documentation for your having explored that question with respect to Regnerus? That no pilot study apparently was done appears to speak to the whole study being carried out either with incompetence or with evil motives. If a pilot study was done, where is the evidence of that, what was learned through the pilot study and what decisions were based on it and how were those decisions reached?

Nobody needs to investigate anything to understand that Regnerus’s study does not make a sociologically valid comparison, but anybody truly interested in understanding his relationship with his funders would be examining such issues as whether he did a pilot study. UT has made statements of confidence in Regnerus’s independence of his funders, which tells me that UTA is not serious about an inquiry.

Furthermore, that Regnerus would accept funding from the hateful people who got him his planning grant and his study funding says something about his character, because even *if* those funders gave Regnerus true independence, he was responsible for understanding the wicked uses they would make of his study. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which had success suing the Ku Klux Klan, has a 2012 Intelligence Report on the National Organization for Marriage titled: “National Organization for Marriage Continues to Spread Lies About Gays.” The SPLC report centers on NOM’s lies conflating homosexuals with pedophiles, a known falsehood. It is now using Regnerus’s study in similar ways; to say that homosexuals are dangerous to children. And very interestingly along those lines, it is using supposed sexual abuse information from the study to further claim that homosexuals equate to pedophiles. As happens, in the study, most parents incorrectly labeled as gay were from failed heterosexual marriages, one spouse of which appears to have perhaps experimented with same-sex intimacy, perhaps to have been bi-sexual — Regnerus made no attempt to clarify the situations. However that may be, when parents divorce, generally each of them continues playing a role in their children’s lives. Regnerus asked those children of broken homes questions pertaining to whether they had ever experienced sex abuse, but he did not research *which* parent or other adult in or out of the home had committed the abuse; it could as easily have been a heterosexual adult as a homosexual one, but Regnerus is pinning the blame for the abuse on the (supposed) gay parent only. Doing that violates the core principle of “innocent until proven guilty.”

NOM, already notorious for its dishonorable dancing around campaign finance laws, clearly is the funding driver behind the Regnerus study. I say that because; 1) NOM head Robert George has authority within both The Witherspoon Institute and The Bradley Foundation, which both funded Regnerus; 2) The Bradley Foundation funds The Witherspoon Institute; and 3) Witherspoon Institute President Luis Tellez is a NOM board member.

The Regnerus study is defamatory of gays as a class of people, is being aggressively used as a political and social weapon against gays, and in particular is being used in deliberately cruel ways against gays by Regnerus’s funders who have a long, long history of caring more about their political gay-bashing than about child welfare.

NOM has held anti-gay-rights rallies where its speakers yell through megaphones that homosexuals are “worthy to death.” Recently in Texas, Mary Kristene Chapa, 18 and Mollie Olgin, 19, a lesbian couple were shot point-blank in their heads while relaxing together in a public park.

But UTA thinks there is no urgent problem, is dragging its feet before deciding whether Regnerus’s study makes a valid sociological comparison, and on top of that, is promoting the invalid study as a shining example of what the school can do.

Scott Rose

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

‘Repercussions’: Democrats and Republicans Stand Against ‘Pro-Putin’ House GOP Faction

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April 18, 2024

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Some House Democrats and House Republicans are coming together toward a common opponent: far-right “pro-Putin” hardliners in the House Republican conference, who appear to be led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Congresswoman Greene has been threatening to oust the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. Last month she filed a “motion to vacate the chair.” If she chooses to call it up she could force a vote on the House floor to try to remove Speaker Johnson.

House Democrats say they are willing to vote against ousting Johnson, as long as the Speaker puts on the floor desperately needed and long-awaited legislation to fund aid to Ukraine and Israel. Johnson has refused to put the Ukraine aid bill on the floor for months, but after Iran attacked Israel Johnson switched gears. Almost all Democrats and a seemingly large number of Republicans want to pass the Ukraine and Israel aid packages.

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

Forgoing the possibility of installing Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker, which is conceivable given Johnson’s now one-vote majority, Democrats say if Johnson does the right thing, they will throw him their support.

“I think he’ll be in good shape,” to get Democrats to support him, if he puts the Ukraine aid bill on the floor, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) told CNN Thursday. “I would say that there’s a lot of support for the underlying bills. I think those are vital.”

“If these bills were delivered favorably, and the aid was favorably voted upon, and Marjorie Taylor Greene went up there with a motion to remove him, for instance, I think there’s gonna be a lot of Democrats that move to kill that motion,” Congressman Krishnamoorthi said. “They don’t want to see him getting punished for doing the right thing.”

“I think it is a very bad policy of the House to allow one individual such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is an arsonist to this House of Representatives,” U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) told CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane, when asked about intervening to save Johnson. He added he doesn’t want her “to have so much influence.”

U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, one of several Republicans who won their New York districts in 2022, districts that were previously held by Democrats, opposes Greene’s motion to vacate – although he praised the Georgia GOP congresswoman.

CNN’s Manu Raju reports Republicans “say it’s time to marginalize hardliners blocking [their] agenda.”

D’Esposito, speaking to Raju, called for “repercussions for those who completely alienate the will of the conference. The people gave us the majority because they wanted Republicans to govern.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, like D’Esposito is another New York Republican who won a previously Democratic seat in 2022. Lawler spoke out against the co-sponsor of Greene’s motion to vacate, U.S. Rep. Tim Massie (R-KY), along with two other House Republicans who are working to block the Ukraine aid bill via their powerful seats on the Rules Committee.

U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), a former Navy pilot, blasted Congresswoman Greene.

RELATED: ‘They Want Russia to Win So Badly’: GOP Congressman Blasts Far-Right House Republicans

“Time is of the essence” for Ukraine, Rep. Sherrill told CNN Wednesday night. “The least we can do is support our Democratic allies, especially given what we know Putin to do. To watch a report and to think there are people like Marjorie Taylor Greene on the right that are pro-Putin? That are pro-Russia? It is really shocking.”

U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), as NCRM reported Thursday, had denounced Greene.

“I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the Speaker over it,” he said, referring to the Ukraine aid bill Greene and her cohorts want to tank. “I mean that’s a strange position to take.”

The far-right hardliners are also causing chaos in the House.

“Things just got very heated on the House floor,” NBC News’ Julie Tsirkin reported earlier Thursday. “Group of hardliners were trying to pressure Johnson to only put Israel aid on the floor and hold Ukraine aid until the Senate passed HR2.”

HR2 is the House Republicans’ extremist anti-immigrant legislation that has n o chance of passage in the Senate nor would it be signed into law by President Biden.

“Johnson said he couldn’t do it, and [U.S. Rep. Derrick] Van Orden,” a far-right Republican from Wisconsin “called him ‘tubby’ and vowed to bring on the MTV [Motion to Vacate.]”

“No one in the group (Gaetz, Boebert, Burchett, Higgins, Donalds et al.) were threatening Johnson with an MTV,” Tsirkin added. “Van Orden seemed to escalate things dramatically…”

Despite Greene’s pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine positions, her falsehoods about “Ukrainian Nazis,” and Russians not slaughtering Ukrainian clergy, reporters continue to “swarm”:

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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

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‘They Want Russia to Win So Badly’: GOP Congressman Blasts Far-Right House Republicans

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14 hours ago

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April 18, 2024

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A sitting Republican Congressman is harshly criticizing far-right House Republicans over their apparent support of Russia.

“I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the Speaker over it. I mean that’s a strange position to take,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a three-term Texas Republican rated a hard-core conservative told CNN’s Manu Raju, in video posted Thursday. “I think they want to be in the minority too. I think that’s an obvious reality.”

Congressman Crenshaw was referring to the movement led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), now joined by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), over the Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s decision to finally put legislation on the floor to provide funding to Ukraine to support that sovereign nation in its fight against Russia.

“I’m still trying to process all the b*llsh*t,” Crenshaw added.

Crenshaw on Thursday also commented on Speaker Johnson’s remarks, stating he will hold the Ukraine funding vote regardless of attempts to oust him over it.

“To be clear, he’s being threatened for even allowing a vote to come to the floor. For allowing the constitutional process to play out as intended by our Founders. That’s a wild thing to consider, especially when his enemies consider themselves ‘conservative.’ Not conserving the painstaking constitutional process our Founders created, that’s for sure. Conserving Putin’s gains on the battlefield, more like it.”

Journalist Brian Beutler, a former editor-in-chief at Crooked Media, called it, “darkly funny to me that a pincer movement of MAGAns and leftists mock liberals for claiming the GOP works hand in glove with Russia, and then multiple conservative Republican dissenters are like ‘no it’s true, we’re lousy with Russian influence.'”

Watch Crenshaw’s remarks below or at this link.

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

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OPINION

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

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16 hours ago

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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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