Scholars Defend Regenerus Study

Special Report - July 11, 2012
Eighteen social scientists from a variety of universities have issued a letter defending a major new national study that found “numerous, consistent differences” between the young adult children of same-sex parents and those raised in intact families. The letter is in response to criticism from the mainstream media and homosexual advocacy groups about the New Family Structures Study (NFSS), an ongoing, federally funded study led by sociologist Mark Regnerus at the University of Texas at Austin. The letter defending the Regernus study was issued June 20 by 18 scholars, including Peter Arcidiacono, an economics professor at Duke University, Professor Peter Uhlenberg, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, among others. While the letter acknowledges that the Regnerus study is “not without its limitations,” it offers three reasons to show why “much of the public criticism Regnerus has received is unwarranted...” These three reasons are:

1. “Limitations” in prior research on same-sex parenting that have generally been ignored by the media. “The vast majority of studies published before 2012 on this subject have relied upon small, non-representative samples that do not represent children in typical gay and lesbian families in the United States,” the letter points out. “By contrast, Regnerus relies on a large, random, and representative sample of more than 200 children raised by parents who have had same-sex relationships, comparing them to a random sample of more than 2,000 children raised in heterosexual families, to reach his conclusions.”

2. Other studies of children from same-sex parent families, including recent studies in the Netherlands and Sweden, have also found high levels of family instability. This point in the letter addresses one of the main criticisms of the Regnerus study, which is that the study sample compared “young adults from gay and lesbian families that experienced high levels of family instability to young adults from stable heterosexual married families.” While the letter acknowledges that, “this is not an ideal comparison,” it notes, “what his critics fail to appreciate is that Regnerus chose his categories on the basis of young adults’ characterizations of their own families growing up, and the young adults whose parents had same-sex romantic relationships also happened to have high levels of instability in their families of origin.” The letter continues, “Regnerus should not be faulted for drawing a random, representative sample of young-adult children of parents who have had same-sex romantic relationships and also happened to have experienced high levels of family instability growing up.”

3. Another study published in June in the Journal of Marriage and Family reached parallel conclusions to those in the Regnerus study. That study found that “children in same-sex parent families scored lower than their peers” in married-biological parent families “on two academic outcomes, and that these baseline differences can probably be attributed in part to higher levels of family instability in same-sex families, compared to intact, biological married families…” According to the letter, “The parallels between the findings in this study and Regnerus’s study call into question the…claim that the Regnerus study ‘gets everything wrong.’”

“To be clear: We do not think that these new studies settle the nation’s ongoing debate about gay parenting, same-sex marriage, and the welfare of children,” the letter concludes, noting that same-sex parenting research is still in its earliest stages. “But we think that the Regnerus study, which is one of the first to rely on a large, random, and representative sample of children from parents who have experienced same-sex relationships, has helped to inform the ongoing scholarly and public conversation about same-sex families in America.”

Related resources:
Homosexual Couples Challenge Adoption Law - June 15, 2012
New Findings On Same-Sex Parenting - June 15, 2012
Problems With Same-Sex Parenting Research - March 12, 2012
Group Issues Parenting Guidelines - September 12, 2011
“Why Gender Matters to Parenting,” - FNC- Spring 2011
Court Rules Same-Sex Adoption Void - December 21, 2010
Supreme Court Hears Same-Sex Adoption Case - September 9, 2010
Brief Filed In Same-Sex Adoption Case - March 3, 2010

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