Two for Two
or
Doggone it Wayne Besen! You are making me jealous!

YALE PROFESSOR SAYS JAMES DOBSON ‘CHERRY PICKED’ HIS RESEARCH IN TIME MAGAZINE ARTICLE

Kyle Pruett, M.D., is Second Professor In Two Days To Challenge Dobson’s Use Of Research Miami Beach, FLA. – Truth Wins Out urged Time Magazine today to renounce a guest column written by James C. Dobson in this week’s magazine after a second professor, Kyle Pruett, M.D. of the Yale School of Medicine, expressed concerns that the Focus on the Family leader “cherry picked” his work.

In a letter to Time and Dobson, Dr. Pruett asked that Focus on the Family, “not quote from my research in your media campaigns, personal or corporate, without previously securing my permission.”Yesterday, New York University Professor Carol Gilligan, PhD, also wrote a letter to Time and Dobson saying that her research was distorted and twisted.

“Time Magazine should take Dobson’s article off the web and pledge that they will never again use his group as a source on family issues,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “Focus on the Family has damaged its credibility and should stop misleading Americans by misquoting respected researchers.”

TODAY, Pruett wrote the following letter:

13 December 2006

Dr. Dobson,I was startled and disappointed to see my work referenced in the current Time Magazine piece in which you opined that social science, such as mine, supports your convictions opposing lesbian and gay parenthood. I write now to insist that you not quote from my research in your media campaigns, personal or corporate, without previously securing my permission.You cherry-picked a phrase to shore up highly (in my view) discriminatory purposes. This practice is condemned in real science, common though it may be in pseudo-science circles. There is nothing in my longitudinal research or any of my writings to support such conclusions.

On page 134 of the book you cite in your piece, I wrote, “What we do know is that there is no reason for concern about the development or psychological competence of children living with gay fathers. It is love that binds relationships, not sex.”

Kyle Pruett,
M.D.Yale School of Medicine

Additionally, New York University educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, PhD, demanded an apology from Dobson yesterday and asked that Focus on the Family “cease and desist” from quoting her work in the future.

Truth Wins OUT is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.

For more information, visit www.TruthWinsOut.org

** TAKE ACTION **

James Dobson is a discredited political hack who has serially distorted research and twisted the truth to fit his right wing political agenda. He should never have been given a platform to discuss GLBT families in a respected major media outlet, such as Time Magazine.

The use of pseudo-science that aims to discriminate has no place in a publication like Time. Let's face it, they would never dare provide a similar platform for extremist groups to bash other minorities.

Tell Time, that it is way past time, to be giving a stage to Focus on the Family and other groups that blatantly and provably lie about gay life.

Memo to Time: "If the right can't prove it, Don't use it.

"WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Time MagazinePatrick_Smith@timemagazine.com
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Kudos to Wayne Besen for exposing another anti-gay industry attempt to use bad research in order to lie about the gay community.

This is not the first time the anti-gay industry has distorted Dr. Pruett's work for their own purposes.

An excerpt from my upcoming book:

In November 2004, Dr. Kyle Pruett, a clinical professor of psychiatry in the Yale Child Study Center and School of Nursing, complained that a local anti-same sex marriage group incorrectly used one of his studies.

He said that Oregon’s Defense of Marriage Coalition claimed that a study of his said that infants just eight weeks old could already detect the difference between male and female interaction. This, the group claimed in a flyer, says that the role of a mother and father are not interchangeable when it comes to raising children.
Dr. Pruett said that first of all, the research was not his. The citation in question was another researcher’s work he mentioned in a book he authored. However, Pruett said, secondly, there is no research in his book that can be used to criticize same sex marriage.

“They were cherry picking research,” he told The Yale Herald, “for their own purposes . . . In my book, I talk about how gay and lesbian marriage is not currently thought to place children at risk.”

According to the same article, Michael White, the executive director of the Defense of Marriage Coalition, denied Pruett’s claim. He also said he was surprised by the controversy because many organizations have been using Pruett’s research for years.
“We get a lot of stuff from the organization Focus on the Family,” he said, “and they’ve printed Pruett’s stuff for years.”

I think that there should be some clearity as to what needs to be done. Those of us who are trying to expose the lies of the anti-gay industry are not out to bash Christians or any other persons of faith. If one's faith teaches that homosexuality is an abomination, then that is okay. You should have that right to believe this.

This is not about telling people that they cannot believe what they want. This is about exposing groups who are spreading propaganda designed to reinforce negative stereotypes about the gay community.

The phony studies spread by Dobson and company are no different than the lies the Nazis spread about Jews or the Ku Klux Klan spreads about African-Americans. In the historical context of things, we need to establish this point and hammer it home time and time again.

At the end of the day, victory will not come to the gay community through pleadings for tolerance. We will win through cold hard facts. Luckily we have them on our side.

We need to start using them.