A Review of Methodological and Ethical Issues Surrounding the New Family Structures Study June 9, 2014 Mare A. Musick Department of Sociology College of Liberal Arts The University of Texas at Austin.‘Table of Contents Summary of the Article. Survey Sereening Proves Grouping and Labeling Respondents by Family Type .sunesssnesnmn Analysis and Findings... Sourve of Funding for the NFS8..nessnnsnn Published Methodological Critiques. Overly Broad Definition of Gay Parents Confating Family Structures with Family Instability... Misuse of Lesbian and Gay Label Failue to Identify Family Structures in which Respondents were Raised Less Commonly Mentioned Critiques .nnnisnnnssnnnnnnnncnnn Published Methodological Defenses No Research is Ever Perfeet Critiques are Partly Based on Ideological Opposition to the Findings... Importance of the Large Nationally Representative Sample... Walter Schumm’s Analysis Now Methodological Critiques. Issues of Internal and External Validity... Proxy Measurement of Same-sex Relationships. Family Instability and Parental Same-sex Romantic Relationships Summary of New Critiques .. Ethical Critiques Ethical Standards 3(d) and 10.02(b) Ethical Standards 13.04(€)....nse Ethical Standard 10.01(b) . Statement Regarding Participation of the Witherspoon Institute... Wileox’s Involvement in the NFSS wes Wileox’s Involvement in the Witherspoon Institute. Summary... Statement Regarding the Use ofthe Research Findings in the Same-Sex Marriage Debate... Media Campaigns with Politically-motivated Actor Publie Activities Following the Publication of the NFSS Article ....29 Is This All Just a Witch-Hunt Led by Gay Rights Advocates? Concluding Thoughts. Summary of Findings. Disclaimers and Acknowledgement References...‘The 2012 article, “How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study” authored by Professor Mark Regnerus and published in Social Science Research (1) is probably one of the most, if not the most, scrutinized sociological articles in recent history. Physicians, bloggers, psychologists, law faculty, judges, fellow sociologists and many others have weighed in on the validity of the research and whether it should have any effect on the issue of same-sex marriage in the United States. When one steps back and examines the enormous amount of writing and unearthed documents related to the funding, authorship and publication of the article, it would be incredibly difficult to determine just how much time has been spent on this one paper, But, itis clear that two main camps have emerged on the article. On one side, bloggers, sociologists such as Philip Cohen, and others have stridently argued that the auticle is fundamentally flawed and that Regnerus acted unethically in its production, ‘The other camp, voiced by Christian Smith (professor Regnerus’ dissertation advisor), Paul Amato (a consultant on the NESS project), sociologists at Baylor University and others, have argued that the article is imperfect but nevertheless has important findings that should be used to inform our understanding of the effects of family structures on child outeomes, This latter camp also tends to argue that the attacks on Professor Regnerus are ideologically driven by individuals on the political left who will attack anyone who provides evidence that disrupts the movement towards more extensive civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans. In general, this controversy has made it difficult to disentangle the two most important issues related to the New Family Structures Study (NFSS): whether the findings are valid and whether Professor Regnerus acted ethically in his authorship and publication of the research. ‘The goal of this summary is to use the available evidence to come to terms with these two issues and to help those who are new to the debate understand it from a methodological and ethical perspective,’ SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE ‘The ostensible goal of Professor Regnerus’ article (1) was to examine how the young-adult children of a parent who has had a same-sex romantic relationship fare on 40 different social, emotional, and relational outcome variables when compared with six other family-of-origin types. (p. 752) ‘To accomplish this goal, Professor Regnerus fielded a new self-administered internet survey, the New Family Structures Study, t0 a group of young adults (aged 18-39 at the time of the survey) that were meant to be representative of adults in their age group in the United States. ‘The survey was administered by Knowledge Networks, a survey firm that has conducted surveys for many different researchers and organizations. ' This report was written to support the post-tenure review process for Professor Regnerus and was done at th behest of the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Randy Diehl. However, all of the arguments and observati contained in this report are my own and do not reflect those of Dean Diehl or the college as a whole.