Talk:New Family Structures Study

Conclusions

"...and concluded that children raised by parents in same-gender relationships were at a greater risk of several adverse outcomes...."

If this is what the paper concluded, it was a badly flawed conclusion because Regnerus did NOT study "children raised by parents in same-gender relationships". The study can make no conclusions about same-sex parenting, or same-sex marriage, because because of all its subjects, only 1 or 2 had been raised by same-sex couples (and who could not be legally married at the time). The two groups being compared were (1) children who had been raised by parents in heterosexual marriages, and (2) children who reported that one (or both) parents had engaged in same-sex relationship at some point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.51.184.168 (talk) 19:23, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

• The flaws of this study are discussed already in the article. Is there any specific change you wanted to make? Everymorning talk 22:19, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

The conclusion summary in the intro seems suspect to me, and I wonder if it's due to sloppy writing. Unfortunately I don't have access to the original paper, so I can't say for certain whether it's accurate as stated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.51.184.168 (talk) 01:58, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Allegations vs. defense

The way the pars destruens and the pars construens are examined and sourced is heavily unbalanced, bordering POV if not propaganda. Everybody familiar with the scientific method can see how preposterous the allegations toward the study were, I can't understand how could this page have been left this way. --2.39.32.129 (talk) 22:02, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Issue

Most wikipedia articles I see on studies go into detail about what exactly the studies show. This one only includes a brief snippet in the introductory paragraph and focuses mostly on the funding,with a large section of criticism and a small one for defense. It reads like an op-ed to someone who takes issue with the study. I would like to include more about what made it so controversial but will leave a section here first-2601:546:8103:290:D7F:4162:570A:5164 (talk) 08:46, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

>50% of the article is "criticism" & there's not even one paragraph (except the intro) which discusses the findings of the study

You would expect that in an article about a study the findings of this study would be discussed (and the methodology etc.). Instead, the article is mostly about criticism on this study. The only paragraph about the study itself is about the funding... Doesn't seem very neutral. 94.40.194.152 (talk) 09:17, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

• I have included some stuff about methodology; I hope this addresses your concerns. Everymorning (talk) 12:58, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

It's an improvement, surely, but still the article consists for 55% out of "criticism". Also, the findings of the study are still only discussed in the introduction. Moreover, some of the "criticism" comes from weblogs.

2001:808:E002:A:0:0:0:E632 (talk) 11:52, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

I came to the talk page to say precisely what the title of this section says.

The only thing we learn about the findings is that "children raised by parents in same-gender relationships were at a greater risk of several adverse outcomes". What does "greater risk" mean? Is it 100%, 10%, 1% greater? By itself, that statement is meaningless. The findings and conclusions need to be explained. GregorB (talk) 16:16, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

pov

See the above discussion. The current article is only focused on criticism of this study. 94.40.194.152 (talk) 08:12, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Flawed "results" section

A "results" section was just added by Qurtuva (talk · contribs). The added text has a lot of problems, making inaccurate statements of what the study studied. To take it part by part:

The study found that children raised by non-heterosexual parents

• The study did not look at those raised by the type of parents in question. The parent in question may have had a trivial involvement with the child. (to quote the study's grouping "GF: R reported R’s father had a same-sex romantic (gay) relationship with a man, regardless of any other household transitions" - so whether or not that father had any hand in raising the child, that was included in the study. The same goes for the LM designation.)
• The study did not separate out "non-heterosexual parents" but rather parents whom the child had perceived has having had a same-sex relationship, which brings into question both the accuracy of the child's perception and the definition of being non-heterosexual. An asexual person who has a child in a marriage of convenience or arrangement might still be part of an IBF family under this classification; a man who had a relationship for protection in prison would still be counted as non-heterosexual. "I realize that one same-sex relationship does not a lesbian make, necessarily." Mark Regnerus
• Additionally, the study appears to lump known non-heterosexual parents who remain married out of the non-heterosexual group. "IBF: Lived in intact biological family (with mother and father) from 0 to 18, and parents are still married at present" - there is no filter there excluding parents who had extramarital same-sex relationships, so long as they remain married.

are more likely to be sexually abused by their parents, be raped, get an STD, do various drugs, commit crime, get depression, commit suicide, and end up non-heterosexual.

• are more likely than whom?

That despite making up 3% of the population,

• This phrase has zero to do with the rest of the sentence, which is not measuring the prevalence of any of these results with the general population. The despite is a challenge phrase where no challenge is given.

when compared to an Intact Bio Family(IBF), or a traditional nuclear married family, children raised by a lesbian or gay couple were 1150% more likely to be sexually abused by their parents, 250% more likely to get an STD, 450% more likely to contemplate suicide, as well as 140% more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.

• The study did not group "children who were raised by a lesbian or gay couple". The same-sex relationship may have been outside of the raising of the children.

The claim that these were the results of the study should be deleted. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:51, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

I strongly agree and will delete this section momentarily. IntoThinAir (talk) 15:00, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

I did summarize the paper as many people were asking for it, however deleting the results section is a bit too much rather the results entirely rather than expanding on it is absurd. But I will take note and will expand on the results a bit more instead of just writing a short paragraph Qurtuva (talk) 15:03, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

K I cleaned up the results section a but and expanded on my previous summary by adding a table, also much of your accusations don't seem to have any sources rather seen to be your own personal speculations, to maintain a Neutral POV, you should keep your political beliefs out of this. "May have", "appears to", these are not logical statements, and "there is no filter" is absurd as those variables were not measured here. We could say there is no filter separating Black families and White families. And if you read the paper you could see more likely than IBF.

If you have any more concerns, try citing the actual paper and what page you are referring to. The slate article really has nothing to do with this paper and the paper already states this in the conclusions. Qurtuva (talk) 16:06, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Wait, you're requiring me to state pages on which things that aren't in the paper aren't there? Sorry, don't know how that would work. I do know that you referred to "non-heterosexual" parents, a term that was only used once in "How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study"... and that was to refer to the results of another study (page 754). I do know that in edits new and old, you refer to children being raised by lesbian parents, which is not how the LM group is defined (page 757). And we do know that the study took children who would qualify for more than one category and chose a category for them for the study's convenience (page 758). And we do know that the study was based on the relationship reporting of the children, rather than on the actual activity of the adult, as you can see in the definition of LM and GF on page 757. Some of the numbers you site, such as the 1150%, I don't find in the study at all. I do see where you could try to take the 2% from one column and compare it to the 23% in another, but calculating that as you do has at the very least a problem of significant digits, not to mention precision based on sample sizes. And the term "traditional nuclear family" appears nowhere. That's spin you threw in. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:38, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Adding: Oh, and if you don't think Regnerus talking in the Slate article he wrote about the study is relevant to discussing the study, then here's material from the same paper you're citing: "It is, however, very possible that the same-sex romantic relationships about which the respondents report were not framed by those respondents as indicating their own (or their parent’s own) understanding of their parent as gay or lesbian or bisexual in sexual orientation. [...] For the sake of brevity and to avoid entanglement in interminable debates about fixed or fluid orientations, I will regularly refer to these groups as respondents with a gay father or lesbian mother." So he's not really claiming that the mothers are lesbian or the fathers gay; he is just using that shortcut terminology. Don't know how you missed that. --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:41, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh, and the "despite only 3%" bit was a) sourced to something outside the study, making it not part of the conclusion and also WP:SYNTH; b) was not something that actually was covered by the sources, as the it did not study "children of women who reported a same-sex relationship". Anyway, I've gone and wiped this "results" section, as I could not find a lick of it that didn't either misrepresent the study or presented it in such a way that you could not understand what was being said unless you'd read the study. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:44, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

I gotta agree with Qurtuba here, you seem a bit too biased about this topic, like you have a pro-LGBT agenda, now regardless of what you think, this is just science and we should list the results even if it doesn't portray these movements in positive light. In your userpage you have "this user uses gender-neutral pronouns", and the fact that you are instantly removing entire sections without even waiting for a response suggests that indeed you do not have a neutral point of view.

On Section 2.3. What does a representative sample of gay and lesbian parents (of young adults) look like? it states "Today’s children of gay men and lesbian women are more apt to be ‘‘planned’’ (that is, by using adoption, IVF, or surrogacy) than as little as 15–20 years ago, when such children were more typically the products of heterosexual unions." & "Among those who said their mother had a same-sex relationship, 91% reported living with their mother while she was in the romantic relationship, and 57% said they had lived with their mother and her partner for at least 4 months at some point prior to age 18. A smaller share (23%) said they had spent at least 3 years living in the same household with a romantic partner of their mother’s." And tbh it seems you are injecting your own interpretation of this rather than what the study actually says, mothers by definition are those that raise children. Not sure how you can confuse this with the children never being raised by them, clearly it states those children were living with those parents. Nuclear family is just the Intact-Bio-Family, divorced families have their own section. He also states "Indeed, this is more a study of the children of parents who have had (and in some cases, are still in) same-sex relationships than it is one of children whose parents have self-identified or are ‘‘out’’ as gay or lesbian or bisexual."

And to end with his conclusion "the empirical claim that no notable differences exist must go" & "The results of analyzing a rare large probability sample reported herein, however, document numerous, consistent differences among young adults who reported maternal lesbian behavior (and to a lesser extent, paternal gay behavior) prior to age 18."

Btw one thing that gives away your biased POV is the fact that you delete the entire section rather than modifying it to accurately portray the results of the study, I cross referenced it, and the table is accurate, although it is missing the foot notes and bold numbers that indicate statistical significance, but there was no need to delete that entire table unless you had some sort of agenda to hide the results of this study. I restored everything as it is indeed accurate and the only problem is that much of it is copy pasted from the study, not too much to be plagiarism, but, some of it should be reworded or at least quoted , ~ OyVey1944 (talk) 21:16, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I am going to suggest that you read our standards on what to do when someone makes a bold edit, and gets reverted (the basic answer: discuss rather than just shoving it back in), and since you're accusing me of vandalism, our standards of what is and is not vandalism. I am also going to suggest that you read all of my statements above, because you just pointlessly reinserted a bunch of claims that the study did not make, as well as summaries the oversimplify the statements that it did make. No, removing false information should not require me to spend hours building something more accurate; it is better to have no information than to have misinformation. I wasn't the only editor who was finding problem with the material. Your claim about the definition of "mother" isn't echoed by the report, which in its categorization repeatedly leans on biological relationships. You didn't bother addressing the false claims about the study making statements about "non-heterosexual" parents or "traditional nuclear families" or the fact that even the author of the study saying that :Lesbian Mothers may not be lesbian mothers. And significant digits and claims from other sources not actually found in the other sources? You just tossed that all back in, not caring whether it accurately represented the study. I am removing it again. Please discuss and come to consensus before reinserting it. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:33, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

"may not be" Could've would've should've, this is merely wishful thinking. If you actually weren't just trying to hide information based on your biases you would have then corrected the information instead of vandalizing it and blanking it. For example the Data Table, what exactly is the problem with that? Why did you remove that as well? Again leave your political beliefs outside. I'm also not sure why you're claiming it doesn't say that, when pretty much all of that is just copy-pasted from the study's conclusion section OyVey1944 (talk) 04:18, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

You realize when you argue with "may not be", you're arguing not with me, but with Regnerus, who is pointing it out? But yes, much of it is copy-pasted.... which is also a problem. The bits that aren't copy-pasted are largely misinterpretations of the work or WP:SYNTH. And false accusations of vandalism really don't serve you any good, and may wind up with a trip to WP:ANI if they keep up. As to my supposed "political beliefs", I long for a time when seeking factual correctness was not seen as a political belief. --Nat Gertler (talk) 06:55, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Note: It turns out that "Quturva" and "OyVey1944" were two accounts of the same user. This whole "I gotta agree with Qurtuba here" stance was just one editor supporting their own error-laden addition. (Oooh, there I go using a gender-neutral pronoun, showing my clear bias towards not claiming facts not in evidence.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:39, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Non-scientific criticism

There seems to be a few non-scientific criticism, I removed some of the more redundant ones, however there is this one by gay blogger Scott Rose, who is not known in academia. These are baseless accusations by unaccredited people and in the real world are often ignored unless they come from an actual scientist. However the Fox News article states the university responded to such claims. So I'm wonder should it be removed, or kept there. However the part about scott rose should be removed as he is not an actual academic, and just reworded to summarize the article and the university's conclusions. Fox news is also known to bring up fringe bloggers and exaggerate their influence Qurtuva (talk) 16:23, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Copyvio note

The copyvio being reported reflects a range of copying from the listed source. The duplication detector may not be pulling it up, but in the earliest copyvio listed, the entire paragraph beginning "While the NFSS may best capture" is copyvio, and the "Sexual Abuse" section in some later revisions is also copied from the same source, if piecemeal. --Nat Gertler (talk) 06:46, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.baylorisr.org/wp-content/uploads/Regnerus.pdf. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Nat Gertler (talk) 01:32, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

those where their parents are of the same sex

We say the study collected data from "those where their parents are of the same sex" as one of the unconventional family groups, and indeed, that is in line with how the primary source document describes that group. However, that description is at odds with the study results, which uses groups where the mother or father were involved in a same-sex relationship, regardless of whether the other member of that relationship ever lived with the subject, much less was considered a parent. As such, this descriptor is of dubious accuracy and should probably be avoided. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:52, 18 August 2019 (UTC)