Psychologists twist research results

A reader asked for more info about academic research that leftists try to censor. Here is the Mark Regnerus study showing that kids of LGBT parents do worse on the available meansures.

The Loren Marks study shows that American Psychological Association (APA) has misrepresented the research in legal briefs and arguments supporting same-sex marriage.

The APA is dominated by quacks who are ideologically committed to destroying the American family.

The same issue of Elsevier's Social Science Research has a Paul R. Amato essay try to keep readers from drawing the obvious conclusions from the above two studies. Amato is an advocate of same-sex marriage.

Amato writes:

It would be unfortunate if the findings from the Regnerus study were used to undermine the social progress that has been made in recent decades in protecting the rights of gays, lesbians, and their children. ...

To understand the implications of being raised from birth by two same-sex parents, researchers need to study children born through sperm donation or surrogacy. Yet we know relatively little about the newest generation of planned children with same-sex parents. ...

Second, the legality of same-sex marriage is a constitutional issue and not one that should be decided on the basis of social science research.

In other words, he wants to ignore the facts unless they promote the LGBT agenda.

Too much attention has been given to this evidence. Social science has produced a long list of parental characteristics that are statistically associated with children’s development and well-being, including personality traits, cognitive ability, education, earnings, mental health, child-rearing philosophies, and parenting skills. But we do not restrict the right to marry and raise children on the basis of any of these characteristics. When a particular parental behavior poses a clear danger to children’s health or well-being, the state will not hesitate to remove children from the parental home to prevent abuse or neglect. Unless a clear and imminent danger exists, however, the state does not regulate family life on the basis of parental characteristics that correlate — usually quite modestly — with child outcomes.

That last statement is false. The APA psychologists are in the business of writing recommendations for regulating family life, even when there is no clear danger to children’s health or well-being. The APA even has guidelines for it on its web site.

From a civil rights perspective, one could argue that all children should have the right to be raised by married parents.

As noted last week, we have a culture war in America. The liberals and Democrats are overwhelmingly dedicated to laws, policies, and propaganda to destroy the right of a child to be raised by his married parents. They openly mock the Ozzie-and-Harriet family model as antiquated.

This is not a debate that can be adjudicated on the basis of social science research. The Regnerus study makes an important contribution to our understanding of how a variety of childhood family environments are related to outcomes among young adult offspring. But these findings — and for that matter, any social research findings — should not be used to restrict the civil rights of any group of individuals.

I agree that we do not need social science research to know that kids have a right to be reared by their parents. It has been the belief of civilized society for millennia. The Regnerus study just adds a small amount of confirmation.

But it is the liberal social scientists who are attempting to inject bogus social science into a political debate.

A Scientific American Mind article said:

The guidelines judges and psychologists use to decide child custody cases have little basis in science.

Other scholars say the same:

"Psychologists don't have the knowledge to do what they attempt to do when they do custody evaluations," he said.

Many custody decisions, he said, involve not scientific findings, but competing values, like a father's wish that his child excel in sports versus the mother's emphasis on studying.

And yet the APA supports a whole industry doing this bogus anti-family work.