Anti-gay pundit fails to debunk gay parenting study

Stanton

Maybe I'm an old fashioned type of guy but it seems to me that if someone has publicly called homosexuality an "evil lie of Satan," you wouldn't necessarily believe his supposed "debunking" of a study which supports the idea of gay parenting.

Such is the case with Focus on the Family's Glenn T. Stanton.

According to Equality Matters, Stanton took it upon himself attempt to debunk a study dealing with lesbian parents. But as Equality Matters proves, Stanton did less of a good job debunking the study and more of a good job showing his anti-gay bias:

Anti-gay groups are excited about a new Focus on the Family (FoF) brief that purports to debunk a popular study demonstrating the effectiveness of same-sex parenting. The brief, written by FoF’s Glenn T. Stanton, criticizes the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) – “the longest-running and largest prospective investigation of lesbian mothers and their children in the Unites States.”  According to Stanton, the NLLFS is “an orchestrated persuasion piece conducted and funded by gay-rights activists” and suffers from major methodological flaws.

A closer look at his critique, though, reveals just how desperate anti-gay groups are to attack studies about gay parenting that don’t affirm their talking points.

Stanton listed three reasons why the study should be debunked:

Study’s Authors Are Biased Activists
Study’s Sample Was Too Small, Not Representative
Study Contradicts Social Science On Family Structure


Equality Matters takes intricate detail in breaking down Stanton's errors and bias. For example, take Stanton's first claim that the study's authors are "biased activists:"

Stanton devotes much of his criticism of the NLLFS to pointing out the obvious – that the study was funded and conducted by groups and individuals interested in advancing LGBT equality. Stanton specifically criticizes the NLLFS’s “investigators” for specializing in LGBT studies and research:

Their professional research has been solely in the field of lesbian research. Examine the bibliographies offered in each of their published studies to date. They offer the reader no survey of the vast literature on how various family forms impact child development and well-being in varying degrees. They consult - nearly exclusively - only published studies that examine gay or lesbian issues.

Stanton also goes to great lengths to depict one of the study’s authors, Dr. Nanette Gartrell, as an “out of the mainstream” radical.

He fails to mention that Dr. Gartrell was educated at some of the nation's leading universities - Stanford, University of California, and Harvard. He also failed to mention that in her 35-year professional career she served on the medical school faculties of Harvard and UCSF, and that her published research focuses on a variety of topics including sexual exploitation of patients by health professionals.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with whether the NLLFS actually presents reliable information on the topic of same-sex parenting. Stanton even admits that his criticisms of the study’s authors amount to little more than an ad hominem:

But the facts that NLLFS is initiated and conducted by lesbian activists, funded by foundations backing GLBT activism and that the Principle Investigator is outside the mainstream of the lesbian community do not mean the study is not a reputable academic investigation. It only lets us know who’s behind it and their possible motivations.

What matters is the structure, execution and reporting of the study itself.

According to Dr. Gartrell, many of the researchers involved in the study are heterosexual. 

Moreover, Stanton fails to mention his own “motivations” for criticizing the NLLFS. FoF’s website displays an article in which Stanton condemns homosexuality as “a particularly evil lie of Satan” which “profoundly and thoroughly” challenges the image of the “Triune God.”

All in all, the Equality Matters piece is an excellent read of the dangers of someone with whose expertise are simply "writing about family" and calling himself a Christian taking it upon himself to debunk work which he obviously doesn't know from a wart on his finger.

Stanton's pitiful attempt to debunk this study proves that he is way out of his league.

But I guess he figures he can fake it because apparently "Jesus loves him."