Maggie Gallagher says that stable, same-sex relationships are “rare,” in a column she wrote yet again defending the debunked, flawed Regnerus anti-gay parenting “study.” Gallagher, writing at the National Review — which itself has been repeatedly attacked for the ugly racism within its ranks — was commenting on a U.K. study that claims that same-sex couples are more-likely to separate or divorce than opposite-sex couples.
“This of course cannot tell us how children fare on average when they are raised by stable same-sex couples, or whether gay marriage will significantly increase stability in same-sex couples,” Gallagher claims. “It can tell us why Professor Mark Regnerus’s study turned up so few: They are rare.”
Of course, that’s false and if Gallagher is anything, she’s a smart woman, so we can assume she knows it is.
(And we also know that the Regnerus study did not examine adult children raised by same-sex couples –except for two — rather, he examined adults who claimed they believed one of their parents had had some sort of a same-sex relationship while they were growing up. Big, big difference, especially when the people you’re surveying assuming if they say “yes” they’ll continue on in the study.)
The 2010 U.S. census found there are two million children being raised by LGBT parents. And we also know, via the U.S. Government’s Census Bureau, “there were 131,729 same-sex married couple households and 514,735 same-sex unmarried partner households in the United States.”
These numbers, of course, do not include the hundreds of thousands, or millions, of same-sex couples who are not co-habitiating but whose relationships are stable.
Is that “rare”? Are the vast majority of those relationships unstable?
Regnerus, mind you, was not searching for “stable” same-sex relationships — not by any degree.
Yet Maggie Gallagher — herself an unwed mother for many years — is telling the vast majority of approximately 650,000 same-sex couples (and, likely, far, far more) that their relationships are unstable.
Common sense alone tells us that millions of LGBT people would not be fighting so hard for marriage equality if our relationships were unstable.
Maggie Gallagher is dead wrong. So, wrong, it’s insulting.
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Dr. Michael Rosenfeld of Stanford University conducted a study on 3,502 children of same sex couples who had been together for at least five years; he found that the children of the same sex couples did as well in school as children of heterosexual couples.
Wondering if someone handed her some toilet paper after she finished this. We know where she got her facts, right?
Found an older version of the article she mentions. It's not by the author she mentions, but shares the same title (and abstract). I think the author is a collaborator of Charles Lau. Here is a link for those interested:
http://papers.ccpr.ucla.edu/papers/PWP-CCPR-2010-…
Part of the flawed method of this study Mags is citing is that many from the sample were from the early 70s when there not only WASN'T Gay marriage, but that part of Gay Pride was establishing our own non-conformist relationships antithetical to hetero. marriages and relationships; but that another facet of having Gay Pride in these early days was to have as much sex with as many men as we so-chose! This latter view came out of the sexual revelation of the mid-60s. Maggie keeps harping on about how the sexual revolution of the 60s traumatized her growing up, so how is she so naive that it had no demonstrable effect on any other significant group?
Mac the study actually acknowledges its flaws quite well and paints a more supportive picture than Maggie has presented in her article, go figure. You will never find Maggie quoting this from the article:
"The findings are consistent with the perspective the lack of legal and social institutionalization of same-sex couples may lead same-sex couples to perceive fewer rewards, fewer barriers, and more alternatives to their unions—leading to higher rates of dissolution. This perspective is grounded in longstanding theory about institutionalization and investments and consistent with previous research on how same-sex couples organize their relationships."
Technically, same-sex couples *are* rare, whether stable or not, compared to heterosexual couples. This is just another example of Maggie Gallagher's rhetorical slight-of-hand.
Gallagher is a supremely troubled individual. Who knows what demons have gotten hold of her but she is obsessed with gay people and that's not particularly healthy. She knows she's lying about the Regnerus "study" but she can't help herself. She's not taking losing the same-sex marriage fight very well. I suspect things will get worse for her before they get better!
Wait until ENDA is passed and DOMA is found unconstitutional by the SCOTUS!. Poor Maggie will have a meltdown faster than a S'mores that dropped into a campfire. So sad to watch Maggie lose her mind over her S'more AND her cause!
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