Ever see a cow spin? Well keep reading.
Today Maggie Gallagher, writing in the conservative website rag The National Review, is claiming New Civil Rights Movement author Scott Rose is “Attacking Freedom of Thought and Scholarship”
Gallagher whose piece is blessedly short attacks Rose for his work on Mark Regnerus flawed and purposely misleading study on the dangerous effects to children of living in same-sex households study called the New Family Structure Survey
“Scott Rose, who writes that I have blood on my hands for opposing gay marriage (read this to get a flavor of who Scott Rose is and how he thinks), has filed an ethics complaint charging a serious scholar with “scientific misconduct” for publishing a study in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The study was incidentally reviewed by three major family sociologists, Paul Amato, Cynthia Osbourne, and David Eggebeen.
Will Saletan’s question about a “Liberal War on Science?” is beginning to look prophetic. Will the academic community react against political attacks on scholarship like this? Or will liberalism trump the guild? Stay tuned.”
Oh, out! Out! Damned heffer! (Blood, hands, Lady Macbeth. Get it?) Science isn’t partisan and certainly neither are you or the the “family sociologist” you name above.
Dr. Paul Amato has no credentials in gay parenting, and he was paid as a Regnerus study consultant and then he was asked to provide commentary on the Regnerus study, which was published along with the Regnerus study. And according to her curriculum vitae, Dr. Osborne is a Co-Principal Investigator of the New Family Structure Survey. Dr. Amato served as a paid consultant on the advisory group convened to provide insights into study design and methods. So neither of them can be thought of as remotely objective to the contents of the study.
And as for David Eggebeen. In 1996, Eggebeen testified in support of Hawaii’s efforts to ban same-sex marriage, saying “To me, the conclusion is clear that marriage is the gateway to becoming a parent.” and suggested that the children of a same-sex couple would similarly be at a “heightened risk” for poverty and behavioral problems. Sound familiar?
And whats most amazing (and convenient) is that Maggie failed to mention her group’s chairman, Robert George, helped fund the study. Nothing like defending scholarship by failing to disclose a conflict of interest.
Time to come in from the fields Maggie old girl because your obviously wading deep in bullshit once again.
I am so tired of these liars perpetuating this bullshit for profit and the fact that this “study” by Eggebeen that was confounded at it’s inception shows how desperate Maggie and her flunkies really are. Kids raised in same sex parent homes are no different than same sex, one sex or any other crap they throw in to prove their worthless agenda. I hope more strenuous sanctions are put in place by the APA and other Psychological/Psychiatric Associations are put in place to stop these lies because we have to hav the ethical responsiblity to do no harm.
From: Scott Rose
To: “letters@nationalreview.com”
Cc: “davidbadash@gmail.com” , “MAGGIEGALLAGHER1960@GMAIL.COM”
Subject: 2nd letter: Attacking Freedom of Thought and Scholarship
Date: Jul 12, 2012 4:41 PM
In Re: Attacking Freedom of Thought and Scholarship, Maggie Gallagher, July 12
To the National Review Editors:
I really can not let go unremarked Maggie Gallagher’s attempts to tie me to a supposed “Liberal war on science.”
Firstly, my father holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has taught there, as well as at numerous additional prestigious institutions, including the University of Paris, the University of Western Switzerland, the University of Minnesota, which has one of the top Chemical Engineering departments in the world, the University of Puerto Rico and at the Technion in Israel.
In addition to all of those Chemical Engineer teaching credits, my father is consider the top world authority in the field of ferromagnetic fluids. There is a drop of one such fluid in virtually every computer hard drive, and in virtually every cell phone. The science of ferromagnetic fluids has led to advancements in areas as diverse as medical science, airplane engine science, the science of industrial seals, and moreover, ferrofluids have been used by artists in creation of artworks.
Gallagher by contrast holds a B.A in Theology; what are her credentials for evaluating anything science related?
I was raised in a family that placed unwavering importance on understanding science and adhering to scientific process when undertaking any scientific endeavor. From the earliest age, I was taken to my father’s laboratories, where he patiently and lovingly explained the scientific marvels all around us, and made certain that I understood them. From him, I learned to love and to honor science. To illustrate how I was as a child; I was fascinated with meteorology. I had a home weather station with instruments on the roof. At 6, I wrote a letter to Norm MacDonald, a Boston TV weatherman, telling him that I wanted to be a meteorologist when I grew up. Norm invited me to the weather station at Hanscom Air Force Base. My Ph.D. Chemical Engineer father took me to the base; Norm MacDonald showed us around for hours, talking to me with greatest enthusiasm, and amazement over how much the 6-year-old me understood about the science of meteorology.
That Gallagher’s National Organization for Marriage’s heads fund a study by Mark Regnerus — allegedly on the young adult children of gay parents — hardly means that nobody may make accurate criticisms of the study. That Gallagher claims that such criticisms are “attacks on freedom of thought and scholarship” is typical of her ludicrous, hate-mongering propaganda, but not of scholarly method. The reason the Regnerus study has been judged invalid by knowledgeable social scientists is this; Regnerus did not make a valid comparison between his test group and his control group. That is as basic to sociology as 1 + 1 = 2 is to math.
Gallagher, funnily enough, linked to an article where Regnerus’s own UT Colleague Debra Umberson said this: “Regnerus’ study is bad science. Among other errors, he made egregious yet strategic decisions in selecting particular groups for comparison.” She is making the same baseline criticism as I; that Regnerus did not make a valid comparison between his test group and his control group. Writing in the L.A. Times, Dr. Nathaniel Frank said the same thing: Regnerus: “fails the most basic requirement of social science research — assessing causation by holding all other variables constant.”
When is Maggie Gallagher going to explain to National Review readers — or to anybody — why it is imperative that a sociological study make a valid comparison between its test and its control groups?
Scott Rose
From:
Scott Rose
In Re: Attacking Freedom of Thought and Scholarship,Maggie Gallagher, July 12
To the Editors:
I am the same Scott Rose whom Ms. Gallagher libels in her referenced post.
She linked to my article here: (http://tinyurl.com/88l6q63) in connection with an outright lie, by which she claims that I write that she has blood on her hands for opposing gay marriage. Nowhere have I said that for “opposing gay marriage” alone, Gallagher has “blood on her hands.” In my article to which Gallagher links, I included a discussion of *her* prior article in which she examined the question of whether she has “blood on her hands.” You will note that I did not provide a “yes” or “no” answer to that question. What I *did* do, was to expose Gallagher’s lies about the youth suicide rate in Massachusetts, which, since state-level marriage equality for gay and/or lesbian couples was established there, has gone down for *all* categories of youth. Gallagher had said that she “took the trouble” to examine the statistics and found that “gay marriage is not the answer.” Now, throughout the Youth Risk Surveys from 2000 to the present, in Massachusetts, the *ratio* of gay to apparently non-gay youth suicides has remained constant at about 4:1. (During that same period, Gallagher and her organization have perpetuated known negative falsehoods against gay people in Massachusetts). Though the ratio remained the same, the *total* number of youth suicides went down. That result illustrates the findings of Dr. Mark Hatzenbuehler, who found that all youth have lower suicide rates in liberal areas than in anti-gay-rights ones. Gallagher acknowledges nothing of the suicide rate in Massachusetts going down in numbers for *all* youth over time generally since marriage equality for homosexual couples became law. Gallagher appears willfully to wish to conceal the truth; that all youth suicides have gone down in number over time generally since state-level same-sex couple marriage equality became law in Massachusetts.
Additionally be it known, that Gallagher has repeatedly been invited to fact-check my article “The endless anti-gay lies of the National Organization for Marriage’s Maggie Gallagher” (see here: http://tinyurl.com/6wnz5v7) Furnished with authentic documentation that anything said in that article is not factual, we will publish corrections. Gallagher has never replied to requests for her to fact-check the article.
The National Review editors should note that the day after the Regnerus study was published, the religious-right splinter group “The American College of Pediatrics” filed an amicus brief in the Golinski-DOMA case in California, relying heavily on the Regnerus study. One month later, eight major professional organizations, including the American Medical Association, filed what essentially is a “response” amicus brief, methodically debunking both the ACP amicus brief *and* the Regnerus study as unscientific. I would very much like to know what Gallagher has to say to each of the 1) American Psychological Association; 2) the California Psychological Association; 3) the American Psychiatric Association; 4) the National Association of Social Workers and 5) its California Chapter; 6) the American Medical Association; 7) the American Academy of Pediatrics, and 8) the American Psychoanalytic Association, who are united in a belief that the Regnerus study does not meet minimum scientific standards.
That brief is here:
http://tinyurl.com/7g55hzt
Additionally, I question the ethics by which The National Review continues to allow Gallagher to publish advertorials for the Regnerus study, without disclosing that her National Organization for Marriage is connected to Regnerus’s study funding. The funding so far known for the Regnerus study came from the Bradley Foundation (where NOM head Robert George is a Board Member, and which Bradley Foundation also helps to finance the) Witherspoon Institute, whose president Luis Tellez is a NOM board member, and where Robert George is a Senior Fellow.
There simply is no daylight between NOM’s leaders and the Regnerus study funders; Gallagher should always disclose that when writing about the Regnerus study. Gallagher previously was caught out taking money from the Bush administration to further its “family” related policy goals, and she not disclose that she was writing advertorials for the Bush administration.
Tomorrow, I shall contact publications that specialize in exposing unethical publishing practices, and propose writing an article for them about the National Review publishing Gallagher’s, and other connected person’s advertorials for the Regnerus study without disclosing their connection to the funding of the study. Please advise me immediately if the National Review editors intend to publish “disclosure” notices on all Regnerus-related articles published in the magazine and/or on the publication’s website with Regnerus-funder-related by-lines.
In terms of Gallagher’s character, it must be noted that after state-level marriage equality for gay couples became law in New York, Gallagher and NOM immediately announced plans for protests on July 24, the day that marriage licenses were first issued to same-sex couples in NY. Joining Gallagher in protesting those marriages that day were persons from the Westboro Baptist Church. Note that NOM has a heavy affiliation with Liberty University, whose founder Jerry Falwell said that the 9/11 attacks occurred due to America’s acceptance of gay people, and that the attacks were “probably deserved.” Under heavy criticism for those remarks, Falwell walked them back a bit, only to confirm towards the end of his life that he meant what he said. At Liberty University in 2010, NOM’s William Duncan participated in an all-day anti-gay hate fest; his symposium topic was “Homosexuals or Homo Sapiens: Who Deserves Protected Class Status?” That is the crowd Maggie Gallagher runs with, yet she accuses me of attacking scholarship. Note that I published and e-mailed a letter to Gallagher, offering to help her to help the homeless for one week, pro bono on my part, if she would call off her planned protests of the first same-sex marriages in New York. The letter, which received no response, is here:
http://tinyurl.com/4yylxxu
I find troubling — the word sickening might be le mot juste — that Gallagher thinks she is going to show National Review readers “how I think” by linking to a strictly facts-based article critical of her, while not mentioning that I offered to help her to help the homeless, pro bono on my part, for one week in exchange for her calling off her protests of gay human beings’ love, and that she did not respond to that offer. As happens, stigma and discrimination contribute greatly to the elevated levels of gay youth homelessness; Gallagher, her organization and those like it, with whom she frequently associates, do perpetuate the misinformation about and bullying non-acceptance of gay human beings that lead to anti-gay bigot parents throwing their gay and lesbian children out of their homes without resources to survive.
Scott Rose