AOL News Airs Flawed Research About Children of LGBTQ Parents

AOL News on October 17 ran an article by Paul Kix titled, "Study: Gay Parents More Likely to Have Gay Kids." It reports on the research of Walter Schumm, a professor of Family Studies and Human Services at Kansas State University. The problem is, there is little validity to any of Schumm's claims or methodology.

Kix explained that Schumm undertook the research in order to get at the truth behind the claims of Paul Cameron, who has also tried to prove LGBTQ parents are more likely to have LGBTQ kids. Cameron has little credibility outside of far-right circles; the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) calls him "an infamous anti-gay propagandist whose one-man statistical chop shop, the Family Research Institute, churns out hate literature masquerading as legitimate science." SPLC lists the Family Research Institute as a hate group.

Kix tried to distance Schumm from Cameron's more blatantly bigoted position — but in truth, Schumm sat on the board of Cameron's Empirical Journal of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior, an online publication that never gained much traction.

Schumm's statistics are also not much more credible than those of Cameron. Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin has done a thorough job debunking his methodology.  Schumm conducted a "meta-analysis" of 10 existing sources to draw his conclusions — but Burroway notes that all of the  sources "were from general-audience books about LGBT parenting and families, most of which are available on Amazon.com. Schumm read the books, took notes on each parent and child described in the book, examined their histories, and counted up who was gay and who was straight among the kids." In other words, the sample was neither random nor representative. At least one of these books, Abigail Garner's Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is, was even intentionally non-random. Burroway cites Garner's explanation: "I deliberately aimed to have 50% of the kids interviewed to be queer. Not because it is statistically reflective of the population, but to give it balance of perspective."

I agree with her point (and highly recommend her book). LGBTQ children of LGBTQ parents are a mostly unheard voice in the LGBTQ community. Some LGBTQ youth have even spoken about how they find it harder to come out if they have LGBTQ parents. Several of the interviewees in Garner's book attest to this, as do some in Tina Fakhrid-Deen's more recent Let's Get This Straight: The Ultimate Handbook for Youth with LGBTQ Parents.

A recent study by Arlene Istar Lev in the journal Family Process also explains:

For LGBT parents there is the added pressure to raise heterosexual and gender-conforming children, or risk familial and societal condemnation that their “lifestyle” created or encouraged these behaviors. Additionally, they have their own histories of growing up “different,” which potentially evokes both compassion for their children and apprehension for their futures. The nature of homo- and transphobia is that it is difficult for LGBT parents to celebrate having a gay or trans child, although it seems that if “gay pride” has any meaning at all, it should be a natural reaction.

It is a fine line: to acknowledge that some children of LGBTQ parents will be LGBTQ themselves (and that's okay), without giving in to the fear that LGBTQ parents will "make" all of our children so against their natural inclinations. But Schumm's so-called research should not be part of the debate.

AOL News should be ashamed of publishing an article touting Schumm's work as valid — not because I expect them to accommodate some mythical "homosexual agenda," but because it's bad science.

I'm not the only one to think so. Schumm's original article, in the Journal of Biosocial Science, notes that some of his material "was prepared in his role as an expert witness" in a Florida trial to determine whether gay men and lesbians should be allowed to adopt in the state. The state was attempting to show, using Schumm's work, that Florida's ban on adoption by gay men and lesbians was justified. A Florida appeals court, however, recently upheld the lower court decision declaring the ban unconstitutional — and said of Schumm in its ruling (my emphasis):

When reanalyzing studies on outcomes of children raised by gay parents, he [Schumm] found some differences in outcomes as a factor of parental sexual orientation where the original researchers reported no differences (the null hypothesis). He suggests that his reanalysis, mostly unpublished, should be accepted over the analyses of well respected researchers in peer reviewed journals. Dr. Schumm admitted that he applies statistical standards that depart from conventions in the field. In fact, Dr. [Susan] Cochran [of UCLA] and Dr. [Michael]  Lamb [of Cambridge University] testified that Dr. Schumm’s statistical reanalysis contained a number of fundamental errors. Dr. Schumm ultimately concluded that based on his reanalysis of the data, there are statistically significant differences between children of gay and lesbian parents as compared to children of heterosexual parents. Dr. Schumm understands that much of the scientific community disagrees with his conclusions and concedes to the possibility that some gay parents may be beneficial to some children.

Kix noted that Schumm testified, but did not mention that his analysis was questioned. Instead, Kix said, "In his testimony was an inkling of the robust research Schumm has just completed."

Schumm also authored a paper with the state's other "expert" witness in the case, Dr. George Rekers. The appeals court upheld the trial court's finding that Rekers’ opinions about the unsuitability of lesbian and gay parents “were not valid from a scientific point of view.” Rekers was further discredited when he was later found traveling with a male escort he met through Rentboy.com.

One wonders how Schumm's paper got past the editors and the peer-review process at the Journal of Biosocial Science, a publication of respected academic publisher Cambridge University Press. The same journal in 2006 published the piece by Paul Cameron to which Schumm is purportedly responding, however, so maybe it's not surprising. It is, however, to their discredit that they have let such a shoddy piece of work into their publication.

Should AOL News' Kix be forgiven for his article, though, given that Schumm's paper was published in a respected, peer-reviewed journal?

No. The quickest Google search of "Walter Schumm" turns up plenty of articles casting serious doubt upon his credibility. Kix notes Schumm's findings are bound to be controversial, but nevertheless does not mention any of the easily found analysis by Burroway or others explaining why Schumm's methodology fails. And the peer-reviewed paper aside, Kix also spoke with Schumm directly, and perpetuates harmful stereotypes about lesbians with gems like this:

Schumm also finds evidence of gay mothers pushing their daughters, upset over a relationship with a man, to "try out women."

But couldn't gay men also tell their sons this? Yes, but Schumm tells AOL News that most gay men have at some point been with a woman, so they understand why their sons might date them. Whereas the literature shows some lesbians "have a hatred of men that's intense," Schumm says.

What literature? Pulp novels? Kix cites no counter opinion to this nonsense. (And yes, some lesbians hate men, as do some straight women — and even some men themselves. Let's just stay away from the "man-hating lesbian" stereotype.)

Kix does cite Dr. Abbie Goldberg of Clark University, a legitimate researcher on LGBTQ families (her book Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children won the Distinguished Book Award from the American Psychological Association this year), who questions the type of meta-analysis Schumm used. He gives Schumm's views just as much credence as Goldberg's, however — and far more column inches.

Both the Journal of Biosocial Science and AOL News are to blame, therefore, not only because they are disseminating bad science, but because in doing so they may cause very real harm — in court and in everyday life — to the many LGBTQ families who are struggling for acceptance against distortions such as these.

Photo credit: Nerissa's Ring