Campaign to overturn [Obergefell v. Hodges] uses 14-year-old junk science to 'prove' gay people are bad parents (www.lgbtqnation.com)

submitted 3 hours ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/news@lemmy.world

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Leading up to the 2015 landmark Supreme Court decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, which made marriage equality a federal right, sociologist Mark Regnerus published controversial research titled the “New Family Structures Study”. Regnerus, who is forthcoming about the fact that his Catholic faith shapes his practice as a social scientist, published the study in 2012 in the journal Social Science Research.

The study purported that children raised by a parent in a same-gender relationship are at greater risk of negative psychosocial outcomes in adulthood compared to children raised by straight parents. The study was funded primarily by The Witherspoon Institute and The Bradley Foundation, both far-right interest groups that actively lobby against LGBTQ+ rights, and was viewed by many political commentators as a blatant effort by both groups to influence the Supreme Court’s decision in several high-profile cases, including Obergefell v. Hodges.

Regnerus denied the allegations, although a leaked correspondence challenged his defense and insinuated that the study was designed to produce specific results to challenge the idea that children raised by same-gender parents experience similar psychosocial outcomes to those raised by straight parents.

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[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 6 points 40 minutes ago

As a child of lesbians I can tell you first hand the only ‘negative psychosocial outcomes’ I had as a child did not come from members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community… I’ll give you two guesses who they did come from… but you will probably only need one.

While I grew up in the south, I was lucky to have grown up in my tribe’s reservation, in a small college town. While there was no shortage of people who would today be maga, there was also no shortage of people who had no tolerance for that bullshit.

[-] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 17 points 2 hours ago

Obergefell v. Hodges is about marriage equality. If parenting ability has anything to say about that, then there are a lot of other people who would be ineligible for marriage.

[-] Zier@fedia.io 15 points 2 hours ago

Not everyone who is legally married in the LGBT+ community is a parent, or wants to be one. Maybe conservatives should monitor what's happening in their own house before telling the rest of us how to live life.

[-] Seleni@lemmy.world 4 points 45 minutes ago

But paying attention to other people’s houses is how they avoid looking at their own.

[-] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 9 points 2 hours ago

Who tf said my straight parents were any better?! Have you BEEN IN MY HOUSE?

[-] Sunflier@lemmy.world 8 points 2 hours ago

Not seeing how marriage equality giving tax benefits to equal marriage, inheritance law, or preference is buying a home inherently links to child upbringing.

[-] marxismtomorrow@lemmy.today 5 points 2 hours ago

It's saying the quiet part out loud. Marriage as a concept for 'love' or 'relationships' is an incredibly native, relatively brand new view. Especially in terms of Christian marriages. Marriages are for exactly one thing historically: economically linking families, which almost always has involved having children. The entire reason the bible supports marriage at all is because it had been a multi-thousand year old societal standard to join families and ensure the continuation of the family line in some way.

This attitude has of course been carried forward in conservative and regressive ideologies, since that's the idea they want to get back to; they want to abolish non-financially productive marriages.

[-] tonytins@pawb.social 7 points 1 hour ago

they want to abolish non-financially productive marriages.

Of course. It's always about work and money with these idiots.

[-] TipRing@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago

Of course conservatives will lie about "AI redeeming" a study whose sample group was completely biased. Why don't they just conduct another study? There are undoubtedly more examples of two parent LGBTQ+ households now. Could it be that they don't want to study it again because it won't give them the conclusion they want? That's not how science works, assholes.

[-] cookiecoookie@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

This is the reason I laugh whenever I see Christian and Science in the same sentence. By default they are incapable of the basic scientific theory.

[-] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 12 points 3 hours ago

This sounds like a fine question to ask... so long as "raised by teh gays" is compared to "raised by parents who dont love each other" and "higher psychological outcomes" is strongly is controlled for "likelihood of admitting problems when they arrive."

It's almost certainly not, of course.

[-] Triumph@fedia.io 8 points 3 hours ago

I'm sure they didn't consider that a bigoted society bears responsibility.

this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2026

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