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Category Archives: Science

"As Close to an Ideal Test as We've Seen"

October 8, 2013 – 10:30 am

Over at Public Discourse, Professor Mark Regnerus reports on the important new study from Canada which we told you about yesterday.

Regnerus shares his opinions on the research by Douglas Allen published in the Review of the Economics of the Household last week:

Every study has its limitations, and this one does too.... [but] its limitations are modest in comparison to its remarkable and unique strengths—a rigorous and thorough analysis of a massive, nationally-representative dataset from a country whose government has long affirmed same-sex couples and parenting. It is as close to an ideal test as we’ve seen yet.

The study’s publication continues the emergence of new, population-based research in this domain, much of which has undermined scholarly and popular claims about equivalence between same-sex and opposite-sex households echoed by activists and reflected in recent legal proceedings about same-sex marriage.

Read Professor Regnerus' full piece here.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Canada, Children, Marriage, Parenting, Research/Study, Same Sex Marriage, Science | Comments Off

Facts Are Stubborn Things

October 7, 2013 – 10:55 am

The famous line from founding father John Adams comes to mind with the publication of yet another study - published in a peer reviewed academic journal - that demonstrates the negative outcomes for children when they are denied the love of either a mother or a father. Maggie Gallagher reports on the study over at NRO:

Using Canadian census data, a very large and therefore representative database, Canadian professor Douglas Allen of Simon Frazier University finds that children raised by intact, married biological parents do better than children raised by same-sex couples.

So once again science confirms the truth about the importance of marriage that the wisdom of the ages and common sense have always told us: marriage matters because kids need and deserve a mom and a dad. Redefining marriage, though, means that kids as a norm will be denied at least one of these parents' vital role in their lives - and there are consequences, whether we like it or not. Facts are stubborn things.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, News, Parenting, Research/Study, Same Sex Marriage, Science | Comments Off

When Do Commodified IVF Practices Turn Into Human Trafficking?

September 10, 2013 – 2:47 pm

From redefining marriage to intentional single parenthood, we're seeing the prioritization of adult desires over the needs of children with increased frequency. The voices of children are silent, either because they're too young to articulate their own needs ...or they can't speak up about those needs at all.

As a society, how often do we consider the rights of donor-conceived people? The human beings who are literally 'manufactured' so that adults can end up with exactly what they want for themselves. Shouldn't birth be less about adults, and more about the life of the new person?

Alana Newman, founder of Anonymous Us

We’ve created a class of people who are manufactured, and treat them as less-than-fully human, demanding that they be grateful for whatever circumstances we give them. While fathers of traditionally conceived human beings are chased down and forced to make child support payments as a minimal standard of care, people conceived commercially are reprimanded when they question the anonymous voids that their biological fathers so “lovingly” left.

The crimes against the donor-conceived bend time and space. The adults that betray us do so before official personhood, which is the loophole through which this new form of human trafficking is made possible. Is gamete-selling all that different from baby-selling?

Today, human rights do not apply to the donor-conceived child because her humanity has been deconstructed and she is a product to please adults, a thing to service others and be consumed. She does not have a father like other people, nor a mother. She only has donors and “intended” parents. If she complains about the discrepancy, the world will ask her threateningly, would you rather not exist?

She fears what they’ll do if she answers honestly. -Alana S. Newman for MercatorNet

Today, IVF is even becoming a commodity in the stock market, which – by only a degree of separation – means in a very real way embryos are being monetized and commodified. Not much of a stretch to view many of these practices as legitimate human trafficking.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Ethics, Parenting, Same Sex Marriage, Science | Comments Off

Men and Woman: There's a Difference (Shocker!)

August 28, 2013 – 12:44 pm

Same-sex marriage advocates will tell you "love is love". That there is zero difference between men and women, apart from sexual organs. But the differences between genders are far more than what meets the eye. Scientifically, our brains show major genetic differences as well.

Mothers and fathers play unique roles in the lives of their children because ultimately, they are complementary beings.

There is a growing number of people in our nation today who think that sex (that is, maleness and femaleness) is not an objective biological reality, but rather a social construct.

Those who reject the objectivity of sex will often say that although male and female bodies may have some differences between them, our brains are just the same. One man, who is currently raising three “genderless children,” argued, “If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs.”

As it turns out, male and female brains are biologically different.

In 2004 an all-star team of fourteen neuroscientists, from the University of California, the University of Michigan, and Stanford University, published findings showing that male and female brains are genetically different.

The differences between male and female brains affect many aspects of our behavior, including memory, emotion, vision and hearing, how we handle stress… and even the toys we like to play with.

In 2002, Melissa Hines of City University London, and Gerianne M. Alexander of Texas A&M University decided to conduct experiments on vervet monkeys, one of our closest biological cousins. They found that the monkeys showed “sex differences in toy preferences similar to those documented previously in children.” The boy monkeys typically preferred playing with cars and balls, while the female monkeys preferred playing with dolls and pots. (And they didn’t have parents or toy catalogues telling them which they should prefer.) -MattFradd.com

By NOM Staff | Posted in Parenting, Research/Study, Science, Women | Comments Off

The Atlantic: In Tribes Desperate for Children, Homosexuality "Unknown"

December 8, 2012 – 9:00 am

A remote where homosexuality does not exist challenges postmodern western ideas of sex, love, marriage and babies:

"Barry and Bonnie Hewlett had been studying the Aka and Ngandu people of central Africa for many years before they began to specifically study the groups' sexuality. As they reported in the journal African Study Monographs, the married couple of anthropologists from Washington State University "decided to systematically study sexual behavior after several campfire discussions with married middle-aged Aka men who mentioned in passing that they had sex three or four times during the night. At first [they] thought it was just men telling their stories, but we talked to women and they verified the men's assertions."

In turning to a dedicated study of sex practices, the Hewletts formally confirmed that the campfire stories were no mere fish tales. Married Aka and Ngandu men and women consistently reported having sex multiple times in a single night. But in the process of verifying this, the Hewletts also incidentally found that homosexuality and masturbation appeared to be foreign to both groups.

... The finding with regard to homosexuality is perhaps not that surprising. As the Hewletts note, other researchers have documented cultures where homosexuality appears not to exist. If homosexual orientation has a genetic component to it -- and there is increasing evidence that it does, in many cases -- then it would not be surprising that this complex human trait (one that involves non-procreative efforts) would be found in some populations but not others.

... But, the Hewletts suggest, "The bonobo view may apply to Euro-Americans (plural), but from an Aka or Ngandu viewpoint, sex is linked to reproduction and building a family." Where sex is work, sex may just work differently." -- The Atlantic

By NOM Staff | Posted in Africa, Culture, Research/Study, Science | Comments (18)

Prof. Regnerus: "Is it Time to Retire the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study?"

November 13, 2012 – 9:00 am

Prof. Mark Regnerus shares his comments in National Review Online on the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, which once again is garnering plenty of favorable press despite the methodological failings he points out:

"...What exactly is the NLLFS and why do I say it should be retired?

... the reason is that its sample — 78 kids growing up in activist households — is no longer a source for valid, reliable information. Why?

... The “Hawthorne effect” refers to the tendency of study participants to work harder or perform better because they know they are being studied. While it is typically applied to experimental research studies of worker productivity, the same could be true here. It’s a cousin to “social desirability bias,” which is closer to what I’m suggesting. In this case, I’m concerned that the kids feel pressure to give better-than-accurate portrayals of their household and personal life. When the adolescent children of lesbian parents are being intermittently interviewed for a study whose results have proven quite politically important — and almost always covered favorably by the mainstream media — it’s prudent for scholars to be skeptical about whether respondents are still offering valid and reliable responses years after they were first contacted. Some kids will always offer valid information, but given the fishbowl these 78 have lived in, I’m concerned that social desirability bias will affect disproportionate numbers of them, especially in contrast to far larger survey projects.

... I just don’t believe the 78 kids in the NLLFS are capable of reporting unbiased information any more, not after a childhood and adolescence spent entirely in a fishbowl. Even the NLLFS’s principal investigators suggested that 25 years of data collection may be enough. I would concur, and — since the study commenced in 1986 — we eclipsed that mark in 2011. Perhaps it’s time to commit significant funds — and a panoply of research perspectives — to a very large (and hence expensive), longitudinal, population-based data-collection effort that would make fans of the NLLFS and fans of the NFSS alike content with its methodology.

I’m all for more information. But if the data are to be valid and reliable, the study needs to be as free of source bias as is humanly possible. I won’t hold my breath, though, because in the case of lesbian parenting, a nationally representative sample is not what many of my scholarly, rational, and allegedly dispassionate colleagues in the social sciences appear to want."

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Media, Parenting, Research/Study, Science | Comments (28)

Gay Sperm Donor Told to Pay for His Daughters

November 3, 2012 – 2:00 pm

GayStarNews:

A British gay man lived a content life before he was contacted suddenly by the Child Support Agency (CSA), demanding he start paying £26 ($41, €32) a week for two children he technically fathered over a decade ago.

Mark Langridge, from Essex, helped a former lesbian couple who were desperate for children and ask him to donate his sperm so they could have children.

The 47-year-old had not seen the family he helped out of kindness create since 2004, he was not named on the birth certificates of the two children and played no role in their upbringing.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Ethics, Parenting, Science, United Kingdom | Comments (3)

Archbishop Cordileone's Statement on Second Federal Court Striking Down DOMA

October 22, 2012 – 4:30 pm

Catholic Culture World News:

The chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage has called a federal court’s decision to strike down the key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act “unjust and a great disappointment.”

“The recognition that marriage is and can only be the union of one man and one woman is grounded in our nature, being clear from the very way our bodies are designed,” said Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco. “This recognition obliges our consciences and laws. It is a matter of basic rights—the right of every child to be welcomed and raised, as far as possible, by his or her mother and father together in a stable home.”

“Marriage is the only institution whereby a man and a woman unite for life and are united to any child born from their union,” he added. “The public good demands that the unique meaning and purpose of marriage be respected in law and society, not rejected as beyond the constitutional pale. Redefining marriage never upholds the equal dignity of individuals because it contradicts basic human rights.”

By NOM Staff | Posted in Catholic Church, Culture, DOMA, Law, Marriage, Same Sex Marriage, Science | Comments (4)

Prof. Regnerus Explains What Makes His Study Different

October 11, 2012 – 9:00 am

Prof. Mark Regnerus sat down with Christianity Today to explain more about his study on outcomes of children raised by a same-sex parent:

How does your methodology compare with those used in previous surveys on this topic?

This is the key area of distinction between my study and most others. Almost all studies that came before this one were small and "nonrandom." That is, we have no idea how similar most other studies' research participants are to the general population they seek to study. And with many previous studies, I think it's fair to be skeptical. For example, if you know you're participating in a small study on gay parenting and that it'll make the news and perhaps have political ramifications, I think it's fair for scholars to wonder whether such a study will yield valid, reliable data.

The NFSS, on the other hand, is much larger than most others, and is a random sample of the population of American adults ages 18–39. I focused not on their parents' sexual orientation—after all, it was a quite different era back then—but on their parents' relationship behavior. So I compared how young adults whose mothers or fathers had a same-sex relationship fared when analyzed alongside other types of arrangements, including the traditional, biologically intact married mother and father.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Culture, Parenting, Research/Study, Science | Comments (8)

Founder of "Anonymous Us" Project on Gay People Seeking The Eggs of Young Women To Start Families

October 5, 2012 – 9:00 am

Alana Newman, founder of The Anonymous Us Project, writes at The Public Discourse: "Young women now have to defend themselves not only from stereotypical sexual predators, but also from older women and gay men who seek their eggs."

Value depends on scarcity. In the world of human reproduction, the most valuable entity is the fertile female—specifically, her eggs and her womb.

The fierce politics surrounding female fecundity and women’s reproductive rights rests not only on a woman’s ability to create new life, but also on the incredible amount of commitment and risk involved when her eggs and her womb are accessed for procreation. Since women are fertile for a shorter period than men, since gestation takes forty long weeks, and since labor and delivery pose life-threatening risks, young women always will face disproportionately high demands for access to their bodies. But those demands are rising in unexpected ways, and from unexpected people.

... Our gay friends and family members may now also be after our daughters’ bodies. These are the only men in the world we thought we could trust because they weren’t interested in our bodies. That is, until they grew older and discovered they wanted to be parents. Today, more and more often, gay men are using egg donors and surrogates to create motherless children on purpose.

... Proponents of redefining marriage call marriage equality “the civil rights struggle of our time.” TV shows such as The New Normal promote surrogacy arrangements with dialogue such as “a family is a family, and love is love.” Characters that criticize the use of surrogacy and egg donation are explicitly depicted as unsympathetic, racist, close-minded bigots.

What these shows (and other memes) do is insist that in order to be a friend to gay people, one must approve, or at least stay neutral toward, all forms of third-party reproduction.

So now, young women must do more than simply defend themselves against aggressive heterosexual males who want to use them for sex. They must also navigate a world filled with new, never-before-seen predators—people they thought they could trust—who aggressively target them for their eggs and their wombs.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Ethics, Parenting, Science, Youth | Comments (5)

Lesbian Rails Against "Biological Injustice" Of Having to Seek Sperm Donor

October 4, 2012 – 1:00 pm

Michelle Cheever writes in the Huffington Post:

"...The attitude I have always taken to having a baby with another woman has been this: "It's not fair! It's so hard! Why me?"

I am a total brat about what I consider a biological injustice. Did you just hear me say that? Biological injustice? That doesn't even make sense!

If I were a logical, realistic person I would likely be happy with flipping through sperm donor catalogs, or picking a foreign country to adopt from, or begging my gay male friends to consider jizzing into a warm bowl for me. But I am not logical, and I am not ready to accept the realities of my sexuality compounded by my body's abilities with a female partner.

Why can't my girlfriend and I have a baby that shares our DNA? Why can't an egg from each of us be scrambled up and sprinkled with sperm? It seems so easy! Try harder scientists! Make this a priority."

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Parenting, Science | Comments (32)

PMW Responds to NYTimes Article on Why Fathers Really Matter

September 21, 2012 – 2:00 pm

Chip White, Communications Director for Preserve Marriage Washington submitted this letter to the editor of the New York Times:

Judith Shulevitz’ opinion piece on September 9 (“Why Fathers Really Matter”) underscores the important role that fathers play in the lives of their children. As Schulevitz explains, fathers shape their children “not just by way of genes,” but also in terms of “cognitive style,” “character,” “psychological dimensions,” and a host of other important ways. This November, the definition of marriage is on the ballot in four states (Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington). If marriage is redefined to be a genderless institution, children are the ones who would suffer. Such a paradigm shift says to children that mothers and fathers don’t matter (especially fathers) – any two “parents” will do. It proclaims the false notion that men and women are exactly the same in rearing children. And it undermines the marriage culture by making marriage a meaningless political gesture, rather than a child-affirming social contract. We urge voters to reject redefining marriage.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Marriage, Media, Parenting, Same Sex Marriage, Science, Washington | Comments Off

The New York Times on "Why Fathers Really Matter"

September 16, 2012 – 12:00 pm

Because biology matters:

MOTHERHOOD begins as a tempestuously physical experience but quickly becomes a political one. Once a woman's pregnancy goes public, the storm moves outside. Don't pile on the pounds! Your child will be obese. Don't eat too little, or your baby will be born too small. For heaven's sake, don't drink alcohol. Oh, please: you can sip some wine now and again. And no matter how many contradictory things the experts say, don't panic. Stress hormones wreak havoc on a baby's budding nervous system.

All this advice rains down on expectant mothers for the obvious reason that mothers carry babies and create the environments in which they grow. What if it turned out, though, that expectant fathers molded babies, too, and not just by way of genes?

Biology is making it clearer by the day that a man's health and well-being have a measurable impact on his future children's health and happiness. This is not because a strong, resilient man has a greater likelihood of being a fabulous dad - or not only for that reason - or because he's probably got good genes. Whether a man's genes are good or bad (and whatever "good" and "bad" mean in this context), his children's bodies and minds will reflect lifestyle choices he has made over the years, even if he made those choices long before he ever imagined himself strapping on a Baby Bjorn.

Doctors have been telling men for years that smoking, drinking and recreational drugs can lower the quality of their sperm. What doctors should probably add is that the health of unborn children can be affected by what and how much men eat; the toxins they absorb; the traumas they endure; their poverty or powerlessness; and their age at the time of conception. In other words, what a man needs to know is that his life experience leaves biological traces on his children. Even more astonishingly, those children may pass those traces along to their children. -- The New York Times

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Parenting, Research/Study, Science | Comments (4)

Focus on the Family's Jim Daly on "The Professor Who Dared Rock the Boat"

September 10, 2012 – 11:15 am

Focus on the Family's Jim Daly:

Professor Regnerus wasn’t being attacked because his research lacked academic rigor – in fact, his peer-reviewed study was by far the largest, most statistically valid study on the topic to be done. He was being attacked because his scientific findings didn’t square with the liberal perspective. When it comes to this topic of homosexual parenting, numerous other studies have been published that utilized all kinds of sloppy techniques, all intended to generate a desired outcome – that children do just fine in homosexual households. None of the professors who have conducted those studies have been subjected to similar investigations, even though their bias is obvious and their work deeply flawed.

The indignity that befell Professor Regnerus notwithstanding, the findings of his study should embolden and hearten those who believe in the biblical definition of marriage.

Here’s why:

Reality is not going to contradict God’s law and humans have the best chance to flourish when they follow it.

By NOM Staff | Posted in Children, Parenting, Research/Study, Science | Comments (30)

UK Daily Mail: Regnerus "Cleared in School Inquiry"

September 7, 2012 – 10:00 am

The UK Daily Mail reports on the exoneration of the Regnerus study:

"A professor who came under attack over a critical research paper about children of gay-marriages will not be fired after being backed up by his school.

The University of Texas-Austin came to the defense of Professor Mark Regnerus after his controversial journal article was published, claiming children of same-sex parents are more likely to be on welfare or depressed than the offspring of heterosexual couples.

His work featured in the July issue of Social Science Research and prompted public outcry after gay rights advocates criticized it as being one-sided and biased.

‘The university expects the scholarly community will continue to evaluate and report on the findings of the Regnerus article and supports such discussion.’

...Rose now plans to pursue his claims with the American Sociological Association, not happy with the findings of a four-member advisory panel who trawled through Regnerus' computers and 42,000 emails before deciding to back his methodology.

'Since it's a sensitive subject that offers quite different conclusions from previous studies, it's not surprising that it has drawn critics,' he told FoxNews.com.

Regnerus’ New Family Structures Study sampled 3,000 people ages 18-39, of whom 248 said their mothers or fathers had a same-sex relationship while they were growing up.

He claimed his study was unique because of its large sample size and that previous studies 'seemed designed to conclude there are no differences between children of the two groups'."