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Posted: 8/29/12

The July 2012 issue of Social Science Research published New Family Structures Study by professor Mark Regnerus on the differences between children raised by same sex parents.  This study immediately ignited a firestorm of controversy and attacks on Mark Regnerus over the validity of his study.  If his study is to be taken at face value then there are some obvious, numerous, and large dangers associated with same sex parenting.

How does Mark Regnerus study compare to other same sex parenting studies which say otherwise?  According to the Witherspoon Institute which helped to fund the research for this study and has not been disputed there are three unique aspects of this study that distinguish it from other same sex parenting studies.  


After an expertly and professional inquiry into the scientific conduct integrity of Mark Regnerus' peer reviewed study his scientific methodology was vindicated 8/24/12 adding a high degree of integrity to his study as compared to others of the same type.

I have read several articles criticizing the study and most seem to point to the fact that intact same sex parents were not compared to intact heterosexual parents.  Rather children of same sex parents were compared to children of stable heterosexual households.  There is some truth to that, but this was not possible to examine in this study because despite the very large sample used for this study and the large number of respondents who had a parent who was homosexual there were not enough intact homosexual parents with which to even do any comparison.  Even if you compare the children of homosexual parents to other households that are not intact biological families the outcomes of children are still comparatively dismal.

One of the most important conclusions to be drawn from this study is not that the the fault is with the same sex parents, but rather that children tend to do best when raised in a family with a married mother and father.  This is not always the case, but when the parents are the original mother and father and are a committed married couple the odds are the best that the children will turn out well.

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articles:

7/16/12 No good deed goes unpunished
6/12/12 Blockbuster research
8/10/12 Good Deeds Punished
6/30/12 Less than Ideal

Update 4/12/13: Study still generating controversy, alt

Update 5/31/15: Michael LaCour and Donald Green's 2014 article in the journal Science has been officially retracted due to very likely faked data (the evidence was conveniently destroyed).  The media decided to lump Mark Regnerus NFSS in with LaCour's retracted study and say that the Regnerus study has been thoroughly debunked.  It has not.  In fact the Regnerus study is the most thoroughly validated study to date.

5/12/15 Making Differences Disappear: The Evolution of Science on Same-Sex Households by Mark Regnerus
5/22/15 Was a Gay-Marriage Paper Fabricated? by Mark Regnerus
5/22/15 Tales of Two Social Scientists by Matthew J. Franck

Last Updated: 8/4/17

TAGS: homosexuality, study