If you are a regular reader of Public Discourse (and if you’re not, you should be!), you will already have seen my two latest contributions there. Yesterday, in “Mark Regnerus and the Storm Over the New Family Structures Study,” I described the furor that erupted back in June when Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, published the first high-quality, random-sample research of the outcomes of parenting for the children of those who have same-sex relationships. Today, in “Vindicating Mark Regnerus,” I describe the response he himself has now given in a second article in the journal (Social Science Research) in which his original article appeared.
Regnerus’s research exploded the “no differences” thesis to which advocates of same-sex marriage have clung–that is, the thesis that children do just as well being raised by parents in such relationships as they do being raised by their own biological, married parents who stay together for the long haul. Furious at his dissent from their unwarranted “consensus,” Regnerus’s critics lashed out at him with everything from reasonable (but misplaced) criticisms of his research to vicious attacks on him as a person.
One of the more temperate critics of Regnerus has been David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values, the country’s most famous opponent-of-same-sex marriage-turned-activist-for-same-sex-marriage. At the FamilyScholars.org blog, Blankenhorn rushed to comment yesterday, after the first of my two installments went up, that I had not addressed what he regarded as the most important criticisms of Regnerus’s work. But that was the burden of the second installment, which went online this morning, so he was going off a bit half-cocked.
Today Blankenhorn comments again, but still manages to miss the forest because he is intent on finding one tree in which only he is interested. He complains that Regnerus was wrong to describe the parenting of children by persons who have same-sex relationships as a “family structure,” as in the title of the New Family Structures Study. But this is to get hung up on a question of description rather than a dispute over the very important phenomena Regnerus has uncovered. What if the name of the study were the “New Family Experiences Study,” or the “New Family Relationships Study”? Then Blankenhorn’s point collapses.
As I explain in my article today, one of Regnerus’s most crucial discoveries is that “family instability is the characteristic experience of those whose parents have same-sex relationships.” That is saying something very important about “family structure,” is it not?
Still, we may thank David Blankenhorn for a couple of things. In his first post yesterday, he conceded a point made by Regnerus, and by Loren Marks of LSU in another important article back in June–namely, that “previous studies of this topic have been deeply flawed.” Saying so will not endear Blankenhorn to his new allies, but it is true and honest of him to say so.
Secondly, to his repeated complaint that Regnerus was not really looking at “family structure” when he examined the messy social reality of unstable families headed by parents in same-sex relationships, we might say: Amen, brother, what these kids lack, and what they need, and what these experiences are not giving them, is–family structure.
P.S. Blankenhorn admits not having read the new articles in Social Science Research on which I comment in my two Public Discourse essays. He really should. Unfortunately, for nonsubscribers they’re behind an expensive paywall; to read the whole 40-page section of the journal that I discuss would cost over $250. But anyone who works or studies at a subscriber institution can get behind that wall for free, here, if one goes through one’s institutional library portal.
P.P.S. Readers may now follow me on Twitter @MatthewJFranck.
October 31st, 2012 | 5:18 pm
What an odd post.
You say I’ve “conceded” something, as if this is a debate. I’m not debating you. What I said is, what I said; it’s not a “concession.”
You call me an “activist” and make a snide reference to my “new allies.” I am saying what I’m saying because I think it’s true; I am not thinking one way or the other about “new allies.” I just don’t think that way.
Continuing to seem to want to make it personal and snarky, you chide me for commenting on your first article without waiting until you’d posted your second article. Hmmm … I must have missed the memo that lays down that rule of public discussion.
On the question of family structure, your comments here suggest to me that you simply do not understand this issue. First, contra your assertion, I am far from the only one saying this. Second, you seem to think that my only objection is Mark’s use of the term “family structure” in the title of the article. That is so entirely to miss the point that I hardly know where to begin. I said a lot about this issue on our blog today, including in the comments, and including long back and forths with Maggie Gallagher, and if none of that makes any sense to you — if it still seems to you like I am simply objecting to a title — then I think we’d probably have to start all over, from the beginning, preferably in person or on the phone rather than in this way, in order to make any progress.
October 31st, 2012 | 6:03 pm
i just came over here from public discourse. thank you for a fantastic couple of essays and for all your work. i agree: controlling for “stability” would probably have made the original study statistically impossible to conduct (underpowered) given the nature of these “new family structures.” and how stable would the IBF’s themselves have to be before passing such a “stability” test?
moreover, the fact that such structures are unstable is precisely the point — prof. regnerus wanted to study the outcomes of such structures and his data have given us the outcomes.
October 31st, 2012 | 7:18 pm
Regnerus compared children whose parents never divorced, to children whose parents DID divorce, probably due to an adulterous affair. Why blame the negative outcomes on the supposed gayness of the affair? Isn’t the problem the affair or the divorce?
November 1st, 2012 | 12:43 am
Regnerus specifically does not blame anything on the gayness of the parent. He simply states the “no difference” conclusion–no study has ever found a difference between children a parent in a same-sex relationship and children in intact married biological families–has to go.
Social science is seldom ever proof, and has a much harder time with the whys than the whats.
This is the beginning of a serious debate not the end.
November 1st, 2012 | 8:57 am
@Maggie Gallagher: unfortunately, though, the Regnerus study simply doesn’t offer sufficient evidence to reject the “no differences” hypothesis as properly construed. That’s because the independent variable measures an entirely different construct and therefore doesn’t address the hypothesis. http://scatter.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/bad-science-not-about-same-sex-parenting/
November 1st, 2012 | 9:48 am
Hi, Maggie. I agree that Mark does not say, it’s the gayness that is the problem. Nor does he ever say that his findings bear on the gay marriage debate. And yes it’s true that his core framing (or at least one of his core framings) is that the no-difference thesis has to go. And finally, I’m sure we both agree that no one can be held responsible for how others interpret or use one’s statements.
At the same time …
We both know that, on websites and in other venues all over the country, this study is being cited as we speak to justify the claim that gay parents are bad parents and that therefore gay marriage is no good. Plain as that. I’ve seen this too many times, and I’m sure you have too, for the matter to be of any doubt or ambiguity.
I bring this fact up, not sure exactly what to make of it myself … it’s just that, it seems like a relevant fact.
As for the framing around “no difference,” that has always struck me as a bit … odd … even though as factual matter, I agree with it fully. It just strikes me — I had this reaction instantly, upon first hearing and reading the material — that a study’s findings ought to stand mainly on their own; they ought to be judged mainly on the basis of what they positively are, as opposed to the notion that their value lies mainly or partly in providing a counter or off-set to (what the author alleges to be) wrong or misleading ideas that the public has previously held. Wouldn’t it be better, cleaner, easier to discuss, if the scholar simply said, here are my findings and here is how I interpret them, and leave it to others to decide whether this constitutes a valuable off-set to previously held flawed ideas?
November 1st, 2012 | 10:50 am
We can all agree I think that the proper comparison is between outcomes for children raised in intact biological families and what would count as the gay counterpart to that. The disagreements arise over what exactly that counterpart is. It’s very tempting to suppose it’s something like children raised by gay parents in a stable, long term relationship from infancy. If that’s the assumption, then Regnerus’ study fails pretty obviously. But for reasons that have been much discussed at Family Scholars, to leave it there is really much too simple. Regnerus made a choice to broaden the comparison classes so as to accommodate the actual diversity of the circumstances under which children are being raised and their complexities. (Somewhat lost in all this is the fact he did this on both sides of the gay/straight divide). On the gay side of it all this meant giving enormous weight to comparatively unstable relationships. But I think it’s fair to ask what else could and should he have done. Holding out for the ‘raised in a stable long term relationship from birth’ ideal on the gay side was apparently methodologically impossible—it’s just too rare, comparatively speaking. But given that very fact, it’s a fair question to ask why that should be the normative model of ‘gay parenting’ in the first place. If the reality is that most gay parenting comes in circumstances far removed from that ideal, it seems right to compare outcomes in those circumstances to outcomes in the varieties of circumstances in which straight parenting takes place. That I take it is Regnerus’ response to these kinds of criticisms, and it seems right, as far it goes.
Unfortunately—and here David Blankenhorn is surely right—all these subtleties are lost, frequently enough intentionally, when the results are put to political use.
November 1st, 2012 | 12:37 pm
The “gay equivalent” to intact biological families is not yet available: lab-created gametes perhaps derived from stem cells that have been imprinted with the opposite sex methylation patterns to become “female sperm” and “male eggs.”
But even that won’t be the equivalent, because it’s unethical and artificial and expensive, and isn’t a right, unlike a married man and a woman creating offspring, which is ethical, natural, free, and a human right. Being created unethically would effect “parenting outcomes” more than “parenting skill” would, and “parenting” has nothing to do with marriage rights anyhow, only conception of offspring is a right of marriage, not parenting.
You might be not realize it, but being allowed to create biological offspring with another person of the same sex is the actual demand of Culhane, Corvino, Rauch, etc. They have admitted this to me, you can ask them yourself if you don’t believe me.
Since David Blankenhorn is reading this: David, do you still believe what you said about children’s rights in 2005?:
“2. Every child has the right to a natural biological heritage, defined as the union of the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg. Society should typically refrain from actions that would efface or deny the child’s natural biological heritage, or what the French philosopher Sylvianne Agacinski calls the child’s double origin.”
If so, Culhane et al strongly disagree with you.
November 1st, 2012 | 6:18 pm
I know it’s old fashioned and simply morally wrong to say so, but I am very grateful that I was raised by my mom and dad. I would not want to be raised by two dads or two moms.
Can anyone honestly say that if they had to choose another couple to raise their kids that they would choose to give their own kids to two moms or two dads as opposed to a mom and dad – all other things being equal?
I feel very sorry for any child that is deprived of a mom and dad in order to fulfill someone else’s needs. What a world!
November 2nd, 2012 | 11:03 am
As we all know, Maggie Gallagher and David Blankenhorn disagree about allowing people to marry someone of the same sex. But what’s worse, they also disagree about allowing people to reproduce offspring with someone of the same-sex, in the opposite way: Blankenhorn (unless he has changed his mind along with his change on marriage) said children have a right to be born from a man and a woman, which if he is serious about means he doesn’t think people have a right to conceive with someone of the same sex. Gallagher, while opposing same-sex marriage, has been quoted as saying “if it is possible, then it is possible” regarding changing sex and reproducing as the other sex, letting her Libertarianism and sci-fi background form her views, perhaps.
What’s remarkable though is that their views on same-sex marriage are inconsistent with their views on allowing same-sex couples to conceive offspring together. They have somehow managed to agree that marriage has nothing to do with being allowed to conceive offspring together, which is a terrible eugenic belief. In the past, marriage has always meant that the couple is allowed to reproduce offspring together, combining their genes (“miscegenation” means “mixing genes” and creating mixed race children). There has never before been a marriage that was not allowed to conceive offspring together, nor have there been any couples that were allowed to conceive offspring but not allowed to marry. But now apparently Blankenhorn and Gallagher think it is OK to change that, and separate conception rights from marriage rights, for everyone’s marriage.
We should not do that, we should preserve marriage’s conception rights. If we don’t allow same-sex couples to make offspring together, we should not let them marry, and if we don’t let them marry, we shouldn’t let them make offspring together.
November 3rd, 2012 | 10:11 pm
What’s going on? David, do you still believe what you wrote in 2005? Maggie, was I wrong that you think same-sex conception should be allowed? Matthew, do you think this is off topic? I think “parenting” is off topic, unless we are talking about adoption laws or child protection services or something. But everyone knows we are talking about marriage, and “parenting” is off-topic to marriage, there are no tests of parenting to get married, you don’t have to be married to parent, being married doesn’t protect a right to parent, etc. So I’m hoping to hear from everyone, it’s past time to resolve this.
November 4th, 2012 | 9:29 pm
John Howard – are you being ironic when you press the question of whether two people of the same sex have the “right” to conceive a child together? Because, you know… they can’t. Last I checked you still need a sperm and an egg to conceive a child, so what in the world are you talking about?
November 5th, 2012 | 12:53 am
Currently they still need a sperm (which currently must come from a man) and an egg (which currently must come from a woman). But they could soon use stem cells to create or some other method to enable same-sex couples to conceive genetic offspring together. It’s not a question of whether it is feasible or how far away it might be, that doesn’t matter.
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