Anti-Gay Researcher Mark Regnerus Is Angry That Russia Is Using His Work

"Policing the uses to which my Social Science Research article on same-sex parenting has been put would be a challenge. Groups from across the political spectrum have struggled over the meaning of its analyses, which documented a variety of differences between those young adults who grew up in a stable, biological family and those who did not—including those who reported a parental same-sex romantic relationship. One Russian lawmaker, however, apparently perceives in the study a reason for stripping some Russians of their parental rights based on knowledge of their homosexual activity.

"But such a legislative move would be wrong. Why? Because the study in question, and no shortage of other analyses of population-based data, reaffirm that kinship and stability are important for children. Generating new household instability, via one-size-fits-all legislation poised to sever the parent-child bond, is to overlook these basic conclusions of the study. A comparable treatment is not, I presume, planned against heterosexual stepfamilies, regardless of the extent of the household upheaval and parental relationship drama that may or may not have generated them.

"No, to suggest a policy of removing a child from a biological parent is to move well beyond the data, because the sources, or causes, of the group differences I documented are not simple to discern. And I said as much in the original text." - Mark Regnerus, whose debunked study is cited in the just-introduced bill that would authorize the Russian government to seize the children of gay parents.

NOTE: Some commenters on the above-linked Atlantic column are furious that the site even gave Regnerus the space to voice his complaint. (Tipped by JMG readers Str8Grandmother and Michael)