In the absence of natural parentage, it is child abuse to deny a child the right to a father and a mother. It is to neglect a child's welfare and best interests. Children require and deserve paternal love and a male role model as well as maternal love and role model for their personal development in order to grow up with a healthy attitude towards love and relationships. To adopt or 'buy' children in order to fulfill the personal desire of the adopter, rather than the needs of a child for a loving mother and father figure, is to turn the child into a product or a commodity.
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| Westminster: The seat of abused power |
A Government that deliberately legislates to penalise those who seek the best interests of children to be served is a Government worthy only of the scorn and contempt of its population. Such a Government has lost all legitimacy. Such a Government should be removed, since if it cannot be trusted to care for the welfare of children, it cannot be trusted to protect or defend the welfare or interests of any of its citizens.
29 comments:
Yes, indeed.
Thank you for this.
Are people here familiar with the Catholic group called "Courage"? It offers support to people with unwanted same-sex attraction. The Catholic Newman Center has invited Courage to its on-site ministry on the campus of the University of Toronto.
Naturally all hell's breaking loose with homosexual activists denouncing it and demanding its removal from the campus. I don't think this blog allows links but if you go to the LifeSiteNews.com website and scroll down to the Canadian news you'll find the article.
I can never decide who's more creepy David Furnish or Elton John. Seeing them side by side though its obvious the child is a side issue to both of them. Its really all about normalising homosexuality and pushing the LGBT agenda. The poor child is just a pawn. Its disgusting really.
The organised cruelty involved is of an immense order. God protect the innocent defenceless children intentionally put into such terrible situations, to grow up without mother and father and forced to live as a "child" of people living in disordered unnatural and harmful sexual relationships. It is long-term torture. There will also be increased risk of direct sexual abuse; it is indirect sexual abuse to expose children to such sexual relationships. My heart aches for children abused in this way.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/author-of-controversial-gold-standard-study-on-gay-parenting-being-investig
I think, Andrew, that one problem is the crushing of dissent within the psychological community over this, just as there is crushing of dissent over other aspects of the issue of homosexuality.
It is called the liberal consensus. It manifests itself as a faith.
I know you're probably aware of this Lawrence, but for those that aren't, Mark Regnerus, the author of the study you cite, was found to have 'conducted his research with complete integrity', as decided by the independent investigation carried out at the behest of a single homosexual blogger who happened not to like the good Professor's findings.
William Oddie has written about it here at the Herald:
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2012/10/19/academics-intending-to-investigate-the-social-effects-of-same-sex-unions-may-think-twice-after-the-ordeal-of-professor-regnerus/
I think the farce was very instructive as to what may become more common the more bold the homosexual lobby become.
Laurence I sincerely don't mean any offence but there are occasions where presuming facts and inadvertently misrepresenting reality to argue a principle seriously doesn't help.
Let's face a few home truths. Catholic Adoption agencies WERE allowing homosexual men and women to adopt children - as individuals - irrespective of whether they were in a long term cohabiting relationship or even in a civil partnership.
Their argument against being unable to allow adoption to same sex couples was the axiomatic fact that they were not a recognised inseparable single integral holism that made a public declaration and legal contract of unifying love and commitment - they could not achieve the indissoluble bonds inherent in marriage and therefore could not be treated as a single entity having joint responsibility over a child.
BUT - simultaneously Catholic adoption agencies were adopting children jointly to unmarried heterosexual couples [using the equivocation of convalidation/radical sanation vindicating their 'common law marriage']
In other words there was intrinsic institutionalised hypocrisy, double standards and ultimately? Objective discrimination against homosexuals - because their reasons for precluding homosexual couples were identical to the heterosexuals who were allowed to adopt.
Catholc adoption agencies weren't following Catholic teaching or directives - and Bishops and Conference knew it and turned a blind eye.
Nearly half the children in this country do not live with both their biological parents.
Do you know how many babies were adopted in this country last year?
0.001% of those who were aborted - i.e. virtually none..and why?
Because for forty years we've had the mantra that adoption is not a viable option to abortion [just read Polly Toynbee on adoption being more evil than abortion - just read so-called pro-life activists dismissing adoption as an option because 'a child needs its biological mother']
Then there's the argument that same sex couples' children are wrought via exploitation and disenfranchisement of women - whereas lesbians are 350% more involved in surrogacy and IVF than male same-sex couples involved in the proecess [22% of cohabiting male homosexual couples are in parental roles compared with 34% lesbians] [35% +/- 10% from previous heterosexual relationship for males, 45% +/- 10% for females]
Rather than the ideologically presumed 'womb exploitation' there is exponentially more 'sperm exploitation' - a process where for every two children made available to male homosexuals - seven become children of lesbians.
And regarding the role of the maternal instinct allegedly being a prevailing factor towards stability - actually the statistics prove the exact opposite - the least stable relationship for a child [i.e the one where 'parents' are more likely to separate] - is actually a lesbian relationship at 45% within ten years - and the major reason for the divorce? for 62% it's the introduction of an extra child which alienated mutual affection and reduced sexual activity [and it's the prevailing reason for both biological and non-biological parental partner]]
And ironically although it would be presumed that a mother gives more stability, security and emotional/social/developmental cohesion for children - the statistics reveal this is simply not the case after australian research revealed that irrespective of the dearth of government and societal support for single-father families [11% of all single parents] there was no statistical variant in any major area compared with families with a father and mother.
[i.e. male single parent homes do not conform to the socio-cultural
complications wrought in female ones]
Whereas in fatherless homes child criminality doubles and juvenile delinquency is 700% that of children living with both biological parents. Being in youth detention: 250%, suicide 270%, behavioural disorder 700%, dropping out of education 310%, less likely to overcome poverty 3200%!!!
...and repeated clinical psychological research has proved that the major cause of confusion of sexual roles and gender identity is not the presumed feminist fallacy that it's coming from a home with strained/antagonistic relations with one's father - but rather it's coming from a home without a father!! [tbc]
So yes - although I agree with you wholeheartedly on all the issues regarding the principles behind your arguments - you're not going to get very far if you presume that certain factors are the prevailing socio-cultural influences when the real facts and figures prove the contrary and we've been indoctrinated by the media and feminist-orientated intelligentsia and the chattering classes that mothers are crucial but fathers are either superfluous or highly detrimental - and it's simply neither proven nor true.
Women may not like the stats - but they incontrovetibly prove that men are better at adopting the dual-aspects of parental roles than women.
So when it comes to the gay marriage issue and adoption/surrogacy IVF etc we must actually start arguing like Catholics rather than adopting utilitarian arguments of 'think of the consequences' - as most of these imagined consequences are wrought from fallacy, prejudice and basic superstition.
Instead we need to address the first principles and the deontological rightness/wrongness of what we face - because the immorality of it all is not in any way related to the parenting abilities of those involved - if we try to impose a link it could turn on us and bite back - because it's bitterly ironic that Gay Dads aren't that bad as parents.
Gosh I really shouldn't feed this, but it appears that Paul is saying that babies don't need their biological mothers.
Studies would suggest otherwise and if we want a pro-life society, we must make life better for a woman to keep her unborn child, adoption, whilst preferable to abortion should be a very last resort only.
It's worth reading Calah Alexander's post written from the perspective of a Catholic woman who was a crystal meth addict when she conceived. Pro-life outreach workers are primarily concerned with helping the mother keep her baby, no matter what the circumstances, as opposed to persuading a very reluctant mother to give birth to her child to hand it over to someone else.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/barefootandpregnant/2013/01/what-a-woman-in-crisis-really-needs-2.html
Just as abortion hurts women, so does adoption and it should not be thought of as a solution to abortion, but a measure of last resort only, when all other avenues have been exhausted. Babies deserve nothing less than the instinctive care and intuitive love of their biological mother.
In terms of your stats, could you link to the Australian study please? How did single mothers fare in this same study against heterosexual parents. And in terms of crime rates, was this from the same Australian study?
That children need fathers is not in doubt, but one does not remove babies from their mothers unless there really is no other option.
In any event, I'm still reeling over this, no-one is claiming that gay fathers are bad parents or that children don't need fathers, or that single mothers are better than single fathers.
What Laurence said, quite correctly, is that to deliberately conceive and deprive a child of either of its biological parents is tantamount to child abuse.
To remove a newborn baby from the arms of its mother (even if it is by her 'consent' which is often purchased) is a particular type of cruelty, for mother and baby alike, which only a sadist would advocate.That men are commodified and used as donors is equally reprehensible, but in basic terms, a sperm donation does not equate to carrying and nurturing a baby in your womb, a baby who intimately knows you, your biorhythms, your heartbeat, your smell, your taste and needs you from the day he/she was conceived. It is thought that until a baby has reached around 9 months of age, it doesn't realise that it is a separate entity from its mother.
One cannot overcome basic biology and neither should we forget the gender of Christ's mother. That he had an earthly father should not be overlooked, but who was told that a sword would pierce her soul, who stood at the foot of the cross and who was the most beloved disciple instructed to care for. Mary is the pattern of Motherhood. Christ was begat of a woman for a reason.
Andrew - that just is not true. An internal investigation by the University of Texas found no wrong doing but an external audit found it to be deeply flawed, as well as investigations by all the major professional associations and US Dept of Health.
eg: Like Regnerus, the editor of Social Science Research, James D. Wright, has been at the receiving end of an outpouring of anger over the paper. At the suggestion of another scholar, Wright, a professor of sociology at the University of Central Florida, assigned a member of the journal’s editorial board—Darren E. Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale—to examine how the paper was handled.
Sherkat was given access to all the reviews and correspondence connected with the paper, and was told the identities of the reviewers. According to Sherkat, Regnerus’s paper should never have been published. His assessment of it, in an interview, was concise: “It’s bullshit,” he said.
Among the problems Sherkat identified is the paper’s definition of “lesbian mothers” and “gay fathers”—an aspect that has been the focus of much of the public criticism. A woman could be identified as a “lesbian mother” in the study if she had had a relationship with another woman at any point after having a child, regardless of the brevity of that relationship and whether or not the two women raised the child as a couple.
Sherkat said that fact alone in the paper should have “disqualified it immediately” from being considered for publication.
Darren E. Sherkat: In his audit, he writes that the peer-review system failed because of “both ideology and inattention” on the part of the reviewers (three of the six reviewers, according to Sherkat, are on record as opposing same-sex marriage). What’s more, he writes that the reviewers were “not without some connection to Regnerus,” and suggests that those ties influenced their reviews.
He declined to be more specific in an interview, saying that he was obligated to protect their identities. “Obviously,” he concluded, “the reviewers did not do a good job.”
cont 2/
At the same time, he sympathizes with the task of the overburdened reviewer inclined to skim. Because of how the paper was written, Sherkat said, it would have been easy to miss Regnerus’s explanation of who qualified as “lesbian mothers” and “gay fathers.” If a reviewer were to skip ahead to the statistics in the table, it would be understandable, he said, to assume that the children described there were, in fact, raised by a gay or lesbian couple for a significant portion of their childhoods.
In reality, only two respondents lived with a lesbian couple for their entire childhoods, and most did not live with lesbian or gay parents for long periods, if at all.
The information about how parents are labeled is in the paper. Regnerus writes that he chose those labels for “the sake of brevity and to avoid entanglement in interminable debates about fixed or fluid orientations.” Sherkat, however, called the presentation of the data “extremely misleading.” Writes Sherkat: “Reviewers uniformly downplayed or ignored the fact that the study did not examine children of identifiably gay and lesbian parents, and none of the reviewers noticed that the marketing-research data were inappropriate for a top-tier social-scientific journal.”
He also had harsh words for an accompanying paper in the same issue by Loren D. Marks, an associate professor of family, child, and consumer sciences at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. Marks wrote a review of papers that had been published on the children of same-sex parents, taking the authors of those papers to task for using “small convenience samples” that are not generalizable, among other failings.
Sherkat writes that the Marks paper is “a lowbrow meta-analysis of studies” that was “inappropriate for a journal that publishes original quantitative research.” Sherkat, in an interview, said that Marks didn’t perform a true meta-analysis of the studies and instead simply wrote summaries of the results. Marks could not be reached for comment.
Wright points out (as Regnerus himself wrote) that the paper could be read as supportive of gay marriage because it seems to indicate that more-stable households produce less-troubled children.
OTSOTA writes: "Women may not like the stats - but they incontrovetibly prove that men are better at adopting the dual-aspects of parental roles than women."
I reply: I am civilly divorced. I obtained a civil divorce with the blessing of the Church per a reason that is stated as a reason for civil divorce in the catechism. I am still married in the eyes of the Church, however, and I conduct myself as such. The kids and I are separated from my husband who is their father. They get regular visitation with him, but for the most part, he is absent....sadly.
When my sons, who are teenagers, are having issues that are decidedly related to being a man, I tell them this: I can't tell you how to be a man, because I am a woman. Only a man can teach you how to be a man. You need a man to talk to you about this.
At the same time, their father cannot teach them about dealing with women, or what it means for a woman to be a mother.........which is something they certainly need to know as heterosexual young men who will likely be looking for a wife to marry some day.
"What it means to be a man" is different for Catholics than for others and is not something that can be shown through math and science alone. To bring the arguments about "what it means to be a man" down to the level of data alone is to treat humanity as mechanical robots. There is more to humanity than math and science can show us. There is more to manhood than math and science can show us. There is more to motherhood than math and science can show us.
If spirituality is meaningless, we are all just walking sacks of meat that may as well be incinerated in gulags. Let's not go down that road. Surely, we've learned lessons from recent history.
OTSOTA writes: "Women may not like the stats - but they incontrovetibly prove that men are better at adopting the dual-aspects of parental roles than women."
I reply: I am civilly divorced. I obtained a civil divorce with the blessing of the Church per a reason that is stated as a reason for civil divorce in the catechism. I am still married in the eyes of the Church, however, and I conduct myself as such. The kids and I are separated from my husband who is their father. They get regular visitation with him, but for the most part, he is absent....sadly.
When my sons, who are teenagers, are having issues that are decidedly related to being a man, I tell them this: I can't tell you how to be a man, because I am a woman. Only a man can teach you how to be a man. You need a man to talk to you about this.
At the same time, their father cannot teach them about dealing with women, or what it means for a woman to be a mother.........which is something they certainly need to know as heterosexual young men who will likely be looking for a wife to marry some day.
"What it means to be a man" is different for Catholics than for others and is not something that can be shown through math and science alone. To bring the arguments about "what it means to be a man" down to the level of data alone is to treat humanity as mechanical robots. There is more to humanity than math and science can show us. There is more to manhood than math and science can show us. There is more to motherhood than math and science can show us.
If spirituality is meaningless, we are all just walking sacks of meat that may as well be incinerated in gulags. Let's not go down that road. Surely, we've learned lessons from recent history.
I just realized how devoid of logic this statement actually is: "Women may not like the stats - but they incontrovetibly prove that men are better at adopting the dual-aspects of parental roles than women."
OTSOTA is saying that men are better able to be women than women are.
Not a theology of the body fan, that's for sure!
I am confused as to the relevance of children brought up in single parent households has to do with adoption or abortion?
Does that mean single pregnant women should give up their babies to a heterosexual married couple or even a single man as he would do the job better, according to statistics?
Sigh!
A few weeks ago His Holiness directed Catholics to stop resorting to consequentialist, utilitarian strategies with an appeal to changing hearts by appealing to emotions and utilitarian calculus of 'benefits to society', but rather argue from valid deontological moral principles in the attempt to convert minds with winning cogent authentic arguments.
Therefore when it comes to parenthood we should be arguing from moral principles of a married father and mother bearing and raising their own children. Both maternal and paternal aspects are the ideal, optimal way of raising children.
The statistics confirm this - even in dysfunctional, impoverished and antagonistic relationships it is still socioculturally beneficial for the child to remain with both their biological parents. Even the Government [IDS] had to concede this point.
This completely dismisses the pervading ideologies of the past thirty-plus years that:
a] The male is mainly a sperm-donor and a financial provider. Their parental role was socio-culturally inadequate, superfluous and veering upon becoming obsolete in a post-nuclear family paradigm; especially given a male's innate violence and predilection to be both promiscuous/adulterous as well as evolutionarily programmed towards potential sado-dominance and rapist-characteristics
b] That the safest and most socio-culturally beneficial rearing for a child is within a family of two lesbian parents [this was the feminist gospel mantra in academic and sociological circles - case-studies were always being cited until it was basically taken for granted as the ideal]
c] That only a sadist would deny a child their biological mother - therefore adoption rather than abortion was an unconscionably heinous crime against a child. [Polly Toynbee, Naomi Wolf, Catherine McKinnon etc etc etc]
I spent over a decade in higher and further education being perpetually indoctrinated into this mindframe - and this ideological pornography has spilled over from academic circles into society's collective consciousness - especially among the liberal chattering classes, our public services, pressure groups and lobbyists and our legislators.
...and in fighting this fight against the abuse and commoditisation of children [together with its eugenic, culture of death aspects] we have to be careful that we do not resort to the same tactics of appealing to fallacies, superstitions, anecdotes, prejudices and general utilitarian presumptions [tbc]
Resorting to utiliatarian arguments is not going to work; introducing ideological presumed corrolaries and imposing inductive causal links on to these issues where none actually exist - will fail disastrously.
Surely the early fiascos within the fight to defend marriage reveals that utilitarianism is invalid and anti-intellectual and won't win the debate or argue a cogent, valid case.
Lisa your error was in presuming that I agreed with the consequentialist findings, the validity of the statistics or the justifiability of their actuation or recourse. Of course I don't - I'm a Catholic and a father of three & was foster father to another. I am fully aware how much a child needs a mother and father and the differing strengths and approaches and relationship bonds that develop accordingly.
BUT - if we attempt to separate that holism of father and mother and remove ourselves from the underlying moral principles and argue accordingly in a consequentalist utilitarian way appealing to society's benefits or specific ideological aspects severed from the holism? That's when we come unstuck and fall flat on our face
If I atempted to argue against a gay male couple adopting a child and appealed to the disastrous emotional, developmental and socio-cultural consequences for the child [rather than its inherent wrongness based on fundamental moral principles] all the gay couple needs to do is to present the statistics that male single-parents are less detrimental to a child than being raised by a female single-parent.
If I attempted to argue by appealing to a mother being the emotional, developmental, evolutionarily- programmed nurturer who is instinctually the better parent who is the main provider of a safe, secure, stable rearing for a child?
The gay male couple could retaliate that if that were the case then being raised by a lesbian couple should be the best environment for a child - but the statistics reveal that lesbian couples are the least stable relationships and are the most compromised/jeopardised by introducing parenthood.
See my point? [tbc]
It is blatantly obvious that the truth of the matter is that mothers are the main nurturers/carers and the most stabilising force within a family - BUT - due to all manner of other unaccounted-for factors and socio-cultural influences there is an aberration in the statistics and the 'consequentialist-adjudicated' 'benefits/detriments to society' which don't confirm this reality - therefore we cannot rely on statistics or utilitarianism to prove or substantiate our case...because for all manner of unknown reasons the obvious truth isn't corroborated by the outcome in society.
How many would agree that it would be better for a married couple in a hostile dysfunctional - even violent - relationship to separate - at least for the sake of the children who should not be forced to endure such a nightmare?
The statistics completely repudiate this argument - that children from dysfunctional families are significantly better off if their parents do not separate.
Are the stats valid? Or are there a myriad of ignored/unknown factors affecting the stats?
It doesn't matter - what does matter is that we don't ever use utilitarian arguments as the foundation for our position.
The only valid, authentic - and safe - basis for our arguments is to be grounded in unswerving baseline moral principles which are right in themselves - good and true in themselves and don't require some fallacious/erroneous convalidation by statistics or societal consequences .
We need to be right because we are fundamentally morally right - and argue clinging to that principle.
We cannot argue in some pragmatic, relativistic, superstitious, ideological, anecdotal utilitarian way that relies solely upon vindication by the consequences.
We must argue because we're right - we can't argue because we expect to be proven right - because more often than not life's complexities and a mountain of unknown factors intervene and distort the actual consequences. We're all flawed human beings scarred by original sin - the right may fail for all the right reasons, the wrong may flourish for all the wrong reasons.
Now do you get where I'm coming from?
Dear Andrew Rex,
Like a lot of other people, you seem to be deeply confused about the circumstances surrounding the Regnerus study.
The result of the investigation carried out for the University of Texas-Austin found that Regnerus' study followed expected academic protocols, and was perfectly in line with required ethical standards. Indeed, Sherkat himself states 'that the editorial process was followed appropriately' when the piece was published in the relevant scientific journal.
Where both your own, and Sherkat's, confusion arises, is in that of the responses to, and implications of, Regnerus' work. Many people, both pro-, and antithetical- to, 'gay marriage' and/or 'gay adoption' have made claims about the study that Regnerus has never, nor ever sought, to make.
Indeed, Regnerus himself states that, in line with what On the side of the angels has pointed out above, 'it is certainly accurate to affirm that sexual orientation or parental sexual behavior need have nothing to do with the ability to be a good, effective parent.'
Your own knee-jerk reaction, and that of the wider homosexual community in general, to a journal-published piece of scientific work says a lot more about your own intolerance even to free and fair academic discourse and discussion than it does to any mis-perceived and ultimately groundless innuendo of bias in his work. It is telling that instead of publishing their own scientific work to answer and subsequently question Regnerus' study, the homosexual community instead tried to get him fired from his job and his work discredited. Neither tactic worked, thankfully, but it does give us a little insight into the narcissistic nature of how those currently running the homosexual lobby think.....
So we're agreed that taking babies away from their mothers like Elton John and David Furnish have done is a wicked thing to do then?
We're agreed that mothers are biologically hardwired to look after their babies end of story? Nothing pragmatic, relativistic, superstitious, ideological, anecdotal utilitarian about that. It's a pure fact.
His Holiness had a very good message about Internet communications the other day. He made some good points about getting the message across. Might be worth having a read.
I think the discussion between the Andrews about the merits of the studies in question supports Paul's point about their being rather sandy foundations on which to build moral arguments against SSM. I would argue that parenthood is not only a material, social and emotional responsibility but also, in fact primarily, a spiritual one. The prospects of a gay couple, precisely to the degree that they are financially secure, socially stable and emotionally warm, teaching a child, not just in words but by the witness of their lives, that their relationship is wrong in itself are vanishingly small. Even smaller I think than the prospects of a dysfunctional straight couple teaching a child that, even though Mummy and Daddy keep trying to kill each other, marriage is a blissful (in the original sense) and holy state and a symbol and foretaste of Paradise itself.
Tim, I'm inclined to agree with you which is why I felt compelled to correct Andrew on his deliberately misleading statement on the socio-/psychological research related to same sex parenting. As a reviewer for a published journal, I am well aware of the scandal surrounding the Regenerus study so I would thank you not to patronise me Andrew. I am entirely correct in saying that an internal enquiry found no wrong doing (read: cover-up) and that an external enquiry found very serious concerns and malpractice issues to the extent that Regenerus looks likely to face professional misconduct charges....
The Regnerus study was only published through corrupt peer review.
The Regnerus study was only published through corrupt peer review. Regnerus was funded by Brad Wilcox's program at The Witherspoon Institute. Wilcox also sits on the editorial board of the Elsevier journal that published Regnerus; Social Science Research. Although in the study, Regnerus alleges that none of his funders were involved with his study analyses, we have the documentation of a contract for, and signed by, Wilcox to do data analysis on the Regnerus study. Wilcox did peer review of either the Regnerus study or the simultaneously-published hit job by Loren Marks. Possibly, Wilcox was allowed to peer review both studies. The three commentaries published along with the studies were all written by people with conflicts of interest, i.e. that had taken money from Regnerus's Witherspoon funder and had a hand in designing or carrying out the study. Social Science Research journal editor James Wright refuses to disclose or even to acknowledge that Regnerus's funder Wilcox is on his editorial board and had a hand in the corrupt peer review through which the study was published although these conflicts of interest were not disclosed.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/06/a-faulty-gay-parenting-study.html#ixzz2J5vK563c
Dear Andrew Rex,
You still do seem rather confused about this matter, no doubt due to the fact that you have both an emotional, personal and political interest or investment in this study being discredited or undermined.
The extent of your dissemination in this case is starkly exposed thus in your last comment. In the final paragraph there you quoted some text suggesting that the words presented there belonged to the main body of the New Yorker article that you had linked to. However, those words were themselves a 'comment post' made under The New Yorker article, uploaded precisely by the person who first made the now-proven-to-be false accusations against Professor Regnerus i.e. non-other than the homosexual blogger Scott Rose himself! Not exactly a reliable or disinterested source, no? And not exactly clearly or honestly presented by you either?
The facts still stand in this case: Professor Regnerus was found to have conducted his research with due diligence to the protocols required of academic work of this kind, and he did so further to the exact standards of ethical behaviour expected.
Professor Regnerus is still not just employed by the University of Texas-Austin, but he has the full backing of his faculty, right up to the highest echelons of that institution.
You, and the opponents of Professor Regnerus, have been relegated in your efforts of discrediting him to accusing the University of Texas-Austin, as you put it, of a 'cover-up'. That is laughable, but not entirely unexpected. That the homosexual lobby should be upset about this is par for the course these days, but trying to get a man fired from his job simply because his work offends your warped sensibilities is nothing short of a disgrace, and it is gratifying to see that justice has prevailed for him, and that the attention seeking behaviour of a small cabal of narcissists has been exposed for what it is.....
Andrew - the only self-interested narcissist here is you so cut out the ad hom attacks. I have a doctorate in clinical psychology and am published in the area of sexual health research; what are your credentials?
The American Psychological / Psychiatric / Sociological Associations etc are not the ''gay lobby'', they are the legitimate professional organisations responsible for regulating ethical standards and behaviour. I am not offended so much by Regenerus' dubious findings but more by the corruption of the research process in order to fabricate them. I linked to the New Yorker as a short cut not as a comprehensive rebuttal - there is plenty of critical evaluations out there. I'm not going to spend my time arguing with you, time will tell whether the article is substantiated and the findings are replicated. I'm confident that they won't because the major methodological flaws in Regenerus' study (esp the grouping categorisation) makes it impossible to reliably draw the conclusions he does. You on-the-other-hand obviously have an agenda so it's not possible to have an objective dopen discussion with.
Mr Rex
Whatever is the truth of the matter, this is an area much like climate science, in which a person who holds to an 'old fashioned' line of enquiry is most likely defunded or thrown to the wolves.
Laurence I very much doubt that many studies which don't contain some covert political agenda are highly subsidised..but nevertheless the Regnerus study does have some problems in that there is no cross reference with the socio-economic peer data [e.g. the majority of male homosexual couples are above the average income bracket [so where the report indicates children more likely to be poorer than their parents becomes questionable] and for better-off families certain youth criminal misdemeanours will be more prevalent [speeding because the kids actually own cars, cocaine possession, drunk and disorderly in a more upmarket establishment etc] plus higher income brackets are more likely to have their children enter into therapy and therefore be diagnosed with something that might be dismissed as 'growing pains' or teenage angst elsewhere]. Which is why we shouldn't touch these studies with a barge-pole.
Nor should we rely on ownright absurd superstitions and unscientific fallacies or pop-psychologies regarding parental-child bonds which any parent soon realises are utter balderdash [Piaget for instance, or Dr Spock or Penelope Leach or 90% of the bilge proffered on Babyworld or Mumsnet where maternolatrous narcissists become convinced their children are devoid of any volition, independence or autonomy without their parents' 24/7 vigilant influence. Children need to be loved and cared for as a precious gift - not bled dry and exploited by parents seeking self-vindication.
A miraculous bounty of welfare support for single mothers is not going to suddenly appear from nowhere - and the unborn will be slaughtered unless there are alternatives. If we want to save lives adoption and fostering wil have to become viable options - rather than being hyperbolically and ideologically disnissed as the most callous form of child-abuse.
Yes children are being treated as commodities and personal property in the surrogacy/IVF procedures but let's not forget it's also prevalent among those who treat their children as accessories or slightly younger homunculi versions of the parents or 'projects' or sources of fame and fortune...the football-dads pressurising their sons to be the next Beckham, the showbiz mums..the gaia-earth goddess mums who force-feed macrobiotic diets, live out munchausen's-by-proxy and breast-feed their brood far beyond what's appropriate or treat them like experimental guinea pigs for the latest cod-child psychology or self-help book; the yummy-mummy brigade who treat their children like socio-political pawns as fairy-princesses or child prodigies in a game of local one-upmanship.The fathers who demand their sons become forced photocopies of themeselves [be it shaved head & football kit or Tweed Jackets & latin mass motets]. Child-abuse is a lot more endemic in this product-driven society than we like to think.
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