Antigay psychologist says gays more likely to drink and drive  | News | Advocate.com

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08/13/05-08/15/05
Antigay psychologist says gays more likely to drink and drive

A psychologist who has been accused of doctoring his research to promote his antigay agenda is at it again, this time with a study that links homosexuality to drunk driving. If you're gay, according to psychologist Paul Cameron, you're twice as likely as straight people to drink and drive. Cameron published those findings in the June issue of Psychological Reports, based on data from the 1996 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.

Susan Cochran is a psychologist and epidemiologist in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2000 she published a paper looking at alcohol use in people who reported same-sex activity, based on the same data Cameron used. But she did not  get the same results. She says Cameron makes inaccurate assumptions. "He's taking people who report same-gender sexual partners and treating them as is they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. In fact, some of these individuals are, but we know from other surveys that perhaps as many as half of these people, if you asked them, would say that they're heterosexual."

Cochran said Cameron also ignores that drinking correlates with other factors, such as age, income, and place of residence. Those could skew his findings. Cameron claimed the data was suppressed by the government until he personally hunted it down. Cochran said that's ridiculous: "The government didn't cover up any data." In fact, a search of an online database of medical research found more than 300 studies based on data from the annual survey, and a random check of about 50 of those found more than a dozen based on the 1996 data.

Cameron, who directs the antigay Family Research Institute, was expelled by the American Psychological Association in 1983 and censured by the Nebraska Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association for distorting research. He publishes in a minor journal that, unlike prestigious journals, charges authors to print their research and does not reject papers based on objections from reviewers. Though his previous studies have been discredited, they are widely quoted by antigay groups to argue against gay rights. (Neil Savage, Sirius/OutQ)

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