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Witherspoon’s Matthew Franck Lies About The Anti-Gay Regnerus Study

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Given that the NOM-linked Witherspoon Institute has already engaged in a ton of lying related to the anti-gay “study” it paid Mark Regnerus to carry out, there is little surprise that Witherspoon’s Matthew Franck now promotes the booby-trapped study by lying about it in a series of articles on Witherspoon’s’ Public Discourse.

Still, noting that Franck is lying, so that we highlight the overall lack of integrity of this “study” is a necessary exercise.

Franck is Director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute on the Princeton University campus.

That title of Witherspoon Director is one that Brad Wilcox held in 2010 when he organized the so-called New Family Structures Study.

Wilcox was, in fact, Director of Witherspoon’s Program for Marriage, Family and Democracy.

Wilcox recruited Regnerus for the study, and Witherspoon then gave Regnerus a $55,000 planning grant. Subsequently, while a Witherspoon Program Director, Wilcox collaborated with Regnerus on study design.

Nobody at Witherspoon voluntarily disclosed these facts about Wilcox’s involvement with the study. Rather, the facts were dragged out into the light of day through investigative reporting efforts.

Nonetheless, both Regnerus and Witherspoon continue attempting to mislead the public, with use of such phrases as “No funding agency representatives were consulted about research design, survey contents, analyses, or conclusions.”

Clearly, with Wilcox as a Witherspoon Program Director collaborating with Regnerus on study design, it is a lie to say that no funding agency representatives were consulted about research design.

Despite the documentation of Wilcox’s involvement with the study, Franck in one of his series of articles says:

“Regnerus . . .  told his readers that neither Witherspoon nor Bradley had any role in shaping the conduct or the conclusions of his research,” and then, Franck goes on, untruthfully;

“No one has ever gainsaid this avowal on his part.”

Not only have authorities “gainsaid” Regnerus’s false claim; sociologists have actually called Regnerus out for lying about his relationship with Witherspoon.

Wilcox additionally is known to have collaborated with Regnerus on data collection, data analysis and interpretation. He is an old crony to Regnerus and to James Wright, editor of Elsevier’s “Social Science Research,” which published Regnerus. Wilcox, moreover, is on the editorial board of that journal. And, Wilcox’s conflicts of interest with Regnerus’s funders do not stop with The Witherspoon Institute. Regnerus received $90,000 for the study from the Bradley Foundation, which contributes money to The Ridge Foundation, whose chief officer is Brad Wilcox. (On page 3 at this link, you may see the Bradley Foundation’s $20,000 grant to Wilcox’s Ridge Foundation).

Mr. Franck did not reply to this reporter’s e-mail, asking if he acknowledges that Wilcox, as a Witherspoon Program Director, collaborated with Regnerus on study design.

The second of Franck’s mendacious articles promoting the scientifically invalid study his Witherspoon Institute commissioned is titled The Vindication of Mark Regnerus.

The case Franck tries to make involves a number of articles — including Regnerus’s Additional Analyses — that were published in the November issue of Social Science Research, the Elsevier journal that published Regnerus in June without benefit of valid peer review.

Whereas the June issue featured corrupt peer review, the Regnerus-related articles in the November issue were not peer reviewed at all.

One of these new articles, by Walter Schumm, does not disclose that Witherspoon paid Schumm for initial consulting on the Regnerus study.

How is that for integrity in science publishing?

Franck’s fellow anti-gay bigots will lap up his propaganda — undermining the trust on which science is based — but serious-minded sociologists do not consider that the Regnerus study received valid peer review.

Because Franck’s articles contain only anti-gay propaganda, and no serious considerations of sociology, his arguments are not legitimate grounds for any scientific debate, yet exposing just one of his lies is worthwhile by way of illustration.

Franck wrongly claims that Regnerus “proved” that virtually no gay or lesbian couples stay together long enough to raise a child from birth to 18.

After saying that the study included just two young adults raised from birth to 18 by “lesbian mothers,” Franck writes: “This, out of an initial population of 15,000.”

Screening 15,000 people of a general population is not adequate to doing a study of young adults  aged 18 – 39 raised from birth to 18 by one or two gay parents.

Franck is attempting to mislead people about social science when he implies that screening 15,000 of a general population should be adequate.

Additionally, the Knowledge Network panel from which Regnerus screened for study participants does not include a representative number of employed adults.

A son raised by a lesbian couple, now 31 and working as a surgeon, is not sitting around taking Knowledge Network surveys every week for a $5 incentive.

Neither is a daughter raised by a lesbian couple, now 26 and working two jobs to help to support her household.

Dr. Michael Rosenfeld’s study based on the 2000 census included 3,502 children of same-sex couples who had been together at least five years. Rosenfeld found that those children of same-sex couples did as well in school as children of heterosexual parents.

Franck’s claim that Regnerus has been “vindicated” through non-peer-reviewed papers is ridiculous.

The President of the American Sociological Association, Dr. Erik Olin Wright, has co-signed a letter with over 200 Ph.D.s and M.D.s calling Regnerus’s groupings “absurd” and expressing concerns about the invalid peer review process through which the study was published.

Eight major professional associations including the American Medical Association filed an amicus brief analyzing Regnerus’s methodology as scientifically unsound.

In the face of that massive expression of professional opinion that the Regnerus study is scientifically invalid, a few non-peer-reviewed articles, including one by Regnerus himself, can not “vindicate” Regnerus or his study.

What Franck has written is nothing other than an advertorial for the Regnerus study, published by the anti-gay-rights group that commissioned it and of which he is a part.

That Franck lies outright in saying the funders were not involved in study design demonstrates that he has no integrity.

Franck’s behavior demonstrates once again why it is so contemptible for Princeton University to continue with its intimate, incestuous relationship with The Witherspoon Institute.

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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‘When She Is Already Governor and Senator?’: Kari Lake Mocked Over Possible Ambassador Nom

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December 9, 2024

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Failed ultra-MAGA GOP nominee for Arizona governor and U.S. Senator, Kari Lake, is being mocked after a report detailed that she has emerged as a “leading contender” to be President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Mexico.

Semafor published the “scoop” late Monday afternoon, noting also that “Lake has echoed Trump in backing strict limits on immigration. On the campaign trail, Lake described the influx of migrants entering the US as an ‘invasion.’”

“She campaigned on finishing the wall at the US southern border, increasing the number of judges who hear asylum claims, stepping up quick deportations of undocumented immigrants who cross outside official ports of entry and building additional border detention facilities,” Semafor reports.

READ MORE: ‘I Love His Charisma’: Republican Lauds ‘Man of Integrity’ Hegseth Who Will ‘Get Rid of DEI’

Notably, like Trump, she refused to concede her election loss in the 2022 race for Arizona governor.

Mexico is a critical trading partner and the health of the U.S. economy hinges in part on America’s relationship with our neighbor to the south.

In September, the U.S. Dept. of State noted that “Mexico remains one of the United States’ closest and most valued partners, with a 2,000-mile shared border containing 47 active land ports of entry, and a shared history that has established deep cultural and people-to-people ties over 200 years of diplomatic relations. This bilateral relationship directly impacts the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans on issues as varied as trade and economic development, education exchange, citizen security, drug control, migration, human trafficking, entrepreneurship, innovation, environmental protection, climate change, and public health.”

“Each day, hundreds of thousands of people cross both sides of the border legally to work, live, or visit close relatives and friends. In addition, an estimated 1.6 million U.S. citizens live in Mexico and Mexico is the top foreign destination for U.S. travelers.”

READ MORE: ‘You Have to’: Trump Confirms Plan to Deport US Citizens With Undocumented Parents

If nominated and confirmed, Lake would be responsible for maintaining and, presumably, improving this relationship.

Critics expressed largely negative responses.

Eric Boehm, a reporter at the libertarian magazine Reason commented, “Tell me you’re not serious about negotiating with Mexico over trade or immigration without telling me….”

Bridgeport, Pennsylvania Councilman Tony Heyl sarcastically asked, “How is she going to have time to do this when she is already Governor and Senator from Arizona?”

Another critic, mocking Trump’s 2015 presidential campaign launch speech, wrote: “When America sends its people, they’re not sending their best.”

READ MORE: Butker’s ‘Traditional Values’ PAC Took Retiree Cash, Spent Most on Fundraising: Report

 

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

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‘I Love His Charisma’: Republican Lauds ‘Man of Integrity’ Hegseth Who Will ‘Get Rid of DEI’

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8 hours ago

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December 9, 2024

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Republican Senators are starting to circle the wagons around President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Defense, former Fox News weekend co-host Pete Hegseth, with one particularly loyal ultra-MAGA lawmaker praising him as a “man of integrity.”

Hegseth has faced criticism for a wide variety of allegations, including tattoos that reflect an affinity for Christian nationalism, alleged “aggressive drunkenness,” possible alcohol intoxication on the job, alleged sexual assault of a woman who attended a Republican conference with her husband and children and says she was trapped by Hegseth in his room, and alleged financial mismanagement of two charities that support veterans.

The alleged sexual assault victim “had texted her husband about her dislike for Hegseth, saying he gave off ‘creeper’ vibes,” USA TODAY reported. “Hotel footage showed them in a verbal altercation at the pool area before she led Hegseth towards his room. She later told police she didn’t know how she ended up in Hegseth’s room, but she remembered he blocked the door and took her phone, she told police. Hegseth told police at the time he was ‘buzzed’ but not drunk, though his lawyer recently claimed he was ‘visibly intoxicated’ and the woman was the ‘the aggressor in the encounter.'”

READ MORE: Jason Miller Tries to Spin Trump

The New Yorker alleged Hegseth that at one of the veterans’ charities, Hegseth “was frequently intoxicated on the job and contributed to a hostile workplace due to sexual misconduct,” USA Today also reported.

“A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events,” The New Yorker also reported. “The detailed seven-page report—which was compiled by multiple former C.V.A. employees and sent to the organization’s senior management in February, 2015—states that, at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team.”

“The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers, whom they divided into two groups—the ‘party girls’ and the ‘not party girls.’ In addition, the report asserts that, under Hegseth’s leadership, the organization became a hostile workplace that ignored serious accusations of impropriety, including an allegation made by a female employee that another employee on Hegseth’s staff had attempted to sexually assault her at the Louisiana strip club. In a separate letter of complaint, which was sent to the organization in late 2015, a different former employee described Hegseth being at a bar in the early-morning hours of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, drunkenly chanting ‘Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!’ ”

One Republican U.S. Senator, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, on Sunday said he did not see Hegseth’s drinking as a problem.

Monday afternoon, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) declared that Hegseth is a “good man,” and a “man of integrity” who absolutely has his support.

“I think that these anonymous character assassinations by the media are way over-reported,” Marshall insisted.

Fox News host John Roberts interjected, saying, “but some of them weren’t anonymous.”

“Well, the ones that I’ve seen are anonymous,” Marshall claimed, before insisting Hegseth will be a good Secretary of Defense.

“The people elected President Trump for transformational changes,” Marshall claimed. “Pete is gonna get rid of the DEI business going on in the military. He’s going to reward people for their merits that our warfighters out there aren’t afraid who’s standing beside them when the bullets are pouring down.”

READ MORE: ‘You Have to’: Trump Confirms Plan to Deport US Citizens With Undocumented Parents

“Look, Pete has my full throated support,” Marshall also said. “I think that what I love about Pete, first of all, is his heart, that he has a heart of a warfighter and he’s more focused on those enlisted soldiers than he is on this industrial military complex of Washington, D.C.”

“I love his charisma,” he continued. “I love his ability to communicate.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Butker’s ‘Traditional Values’ PAC Took Retiree Cash, Spent Most on Fundraising: Report

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Jason Miller Tries to Spin Trump

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10 hours ago

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December 9, 2024

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Trump senior adviser Jason Miller appeared on camera Monday morning, attempting to explain remarks made by the President-elect on Sunday. Miller explained that when Donald Trump said Republican former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, should be imprisoned, it was not intended as a literal call for her incarceration. Instead, Miller suggested that the statement was meant to promote the equal application of the rule of law in America.

“For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired Sunday (video below). He was referring to Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, and its chairman, Democrat Bennie Thompson.

Trump, The New York Times reported, falsely claimed that the committee had destroyed all the evidence it had collected.

“Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” he said. “They deleted and destroyed all evidence.”

READ MORE: ‘You Have to’: Trump Confirms Plan to Deport US Citizens With Undocumented Parents

“And Cheney was behind it. And so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee,” Trump alleged.

The Times reports, “In fact, the committee did not destroy all evidence. It released an 800-page report as well as 140 transcripts of testimony and various memos, emails and voice mail messages. The evidence remains online. Mr. Thompson explained in a letter last year that the committee had asked the executive branch to go through some material first to protect ‘law enforcement sensitive operational details and private, personal information that, if released, could endanger the safety of witnesses.’”

Cheney “said the incoming president ‘lied about the Jan. 6 select committee’ and that there would be ‘no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis’ to prosecute its members,” The Times adds.

“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power,” she said in a statement, according to The Times. “He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave.”

“This was the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history,” Cheney also said in her statement. “Donald Trump’s suggestion that members of Congress who later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional actions should be jailed is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”

But Miller, who has been with Trump for much of the time since his 2016 presidential campaign, suggested the President-elect did not call for Cheney to be imprisoned.

READ MORE: Butker’s ‘Traditional Values’ PAC Took Retiree Cash, Spent Most on Fundraising: Report

“Look, Liz Cheney is someone who lost her primary, who got bounced out by a very good Republican who’s been bitter and attacking President Trump ever since,” Miller told CNN’s Pamela Brown Monday morning. “I think Liz Cheney, quite frankly, for what she did, I have my own personal opinions about Liz Cheney, but what President Trump said, if you listen to the entire ‘Meet the Press’ interview, is he wants everyone who he puts in the key positions of leadership … to apply the law equally to everybody.”

“Now,” Miller continued, “that means if you’re somebody who’s committed some very serious crimes, who’s committed very serious felonies, who’s, for example, confidential information and direct violation of laws that are in place, well, then obviously that sets you up for different things, but as far as the politics aspect, if you listen to the entire interview with President Trump, he said he’s gonna leave that up to the law enforcement agents in charge.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Melania Grift’: Incoming First Lady Hawks Her Christmas ‘Collectibles’ in Fox Interview

 

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