Web site launched to fight distortion of research on LGBT families

While James Dobson’s Focus on the Family continues to cherry-pick and distort research on LGBT families, Soulforce and Truth Wins Out are raising the stakes to expose what they call a harmful and alarming disinformation campaign discriminating against American families. A week after Robynne Sapp and Dotti Berry were arrested as part of Soulforce’s new "Focus on the Facts" campaign, Truth Wins Out has launched a new Web site, RespectMyResearch.org. “Dobson’s latest op-ed in Time was the last straw,” declared Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out. “I called five different mainstream researchers, all of whom were floored that their research was being used to denounce LGBT families.”

Judith Stacey was one of them. “I’ve had to spend a lot of time correcting the record,” Stacey confirmed. “When Dobson says thousand of studies demonstrate that children do better with a mom and a dad, he is not talking about research that studied gay and lesbian parents. He is talking about children who were raised by two heterosexual parents versus children who were raised by a single heterosexual parent.”

Rather, all of the major medical and professional associations, including the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Counseling Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the American Academy of Family Physicians, have unequivocally discredited Dobson’s claims.

“The endorsement of these organizations does not represent a small minority,” stated Brian Dew of the American Counseling Association. Citing numerous studies from over the last three decades, professional researchers have consistently demonstrated that optimal development of a child is not based on orientation of parents, but on stable attachment to adults.

“Every time I am asked to debate, I am [pitted against] commentators like syndicated conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher,” remarked Stacey. “I am almost never debating a researcher, because there are no legitimate, credible researchers that have found the kind of evidence that Dobson and others use to discredit LGBT parents.”

RespectMyResearch.org will be used as a platform to educate the public and the media. “There is a difference between balancing opinion and balancing research in a story,” stated Clinton Anderson, director of the Office of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Concerns, American Psychological Association. “No research has come up with a negative conclusion about gay and lesbian parents, and asking someone to give their opinion is not balance. The media needs to be more sophisticated.”

As anti-LGBT family policies proliferate on the state level, Jeff Lutes, executive director of Soulforce, sees this media and public education campaign as vital to slashing regressive forces. “For the past four legislative sessions, advocates in Texas have been fighting back against attempts to ban adoption or foster parenting by lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender couples or individuals,” said Lutes. “While child protection services are praising LGBT foster parents, legislators are trying to take our rights away.” (Cole Krawitz, The Advocate)