Author of Discredited Anti-Gay Study to Speak at NOM Affiliate Conference
Mark Regnerus, the author of a widely discredited 2012 study purporting to show that same-sex parents are bad for children, will be speaking this weekend at a conference sponsored by the Ruth Institute, a project of the (NOM). Geared toward college students, the annual (ITAF) conference addresses issues like marriage (should be heterosexual), family (should also be heterosexual), and sex (heterosexual and should ideally not take place outside of marriage).
Today, in the summer issue of its Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center released , professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University and board member of the respected peer-reviewed journal Social Science Research, which published Regnerus鈥� study. Sherkat was charged with auditing the study鈥檚 publication process. He came to the same conclusions that scores of other sociologists and social scientists have: The Regnerus study is and should not have been published.
Regardless, the study was immediately trumpeted by anti-gay groups and has been used as a tool in anti-gay battles against marriage equality. The day after its publication, for example, the American College of Pediatricians (a tiny anti-gay breakaway group from the American Academy of Pediatrics) cited it in an amicus brief for a court case in support of the Defense of Marriage Act. In the firestorm the followed the study鈥檚 publication, questions arose about the timing of its release, and there is information to suggest that , an influential conservative think tank that opposes marriage equality, to produce the study (the Institute granted Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas, nearly $700,000). Correspondence between the Institute鈥檚 president and donors seems to indicate that the president clearly expected results unfavorable to marriage equality.
Regnerus is now a darling of the anti-gay right, even though he has that his study鈥檚 conclusions are too weak to reach the conclusions that many have drawn. That clearly hasn鈥檛 stopped the invitations. He鈥檒l be about why pre-marital sex is bad and how to understand same-sex parenting studies (he may even bring up 鈥� that watching pornography makes straight men support gay marriage). He鈥檚 clearly found a receptive audience for his work, and he鈥檒l be in good company, like fellow conference speakers , a theology professor who has railed about the 鈥渟ignificant pathological side鈥� of homosexuality, which he has linked to pedophilia, and Autumn Leva, a spokesperson for Minnesota for Marriage, a group that that gay people should not be allowed to get married because they鈥檙e too promiscuous. Other speakers include Bill Duncan, director of the Marriage Law Foundation, which opposes marriage equality; of NOM, who supports ex-gay therapy and has compared homosexuality to alcoholism; and Ruth Institute President , who of marriage equality that 鈥渢here really isn鈥檛 any future in sodomy鈥� and that marriage equality will allow mentally unstable people, drug addicts, and people who aren鈥檛 really sure they鈥檙e gay to get married.
