Over at Box Turtle Bulletin, poster Rob Tisinai asks “Regnerus Admits He Lacks the Data to Critique Same-Sex Parenting (*so why is he doing it?)” No offense to Rob, but why the hell do you think?

And finally, he grants interviews to conservative outlets, claiming that his study shows the harm of same-sex parenting, even though his own words, in his own study, demonstrate that he knows his sample size is just too damn small to say anything with confidence.

The funding for the study came from the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation. Not only are both of these major hard right money teats, National Organization For Marriage (NOM) co-founder Robert (Super Genius) George is a Senior Fellow at Witherspoon and a Board member of the Bradley Foundation. So the study is also intimately tied to NOM and NOM’s political anti-gay, anti same-sex marriage agenda. And…surprise, surprise, George is also on the editorial board of the Mormon Church owned Deseret News, which ran with Regnerus’ conclusions in both its news and editorial pages. The Mormon church is widely suspected of being the power behind the founding and bankrolling of NOM. If that’s not enough, the study’s author (“of record”, as opposed to “of funding”), Mark Regnerus is a graduate of Trinity Christian College, a former professor at Calvin College, now a sociologist at the University of Texas, with a track record of pushing religious right propaganda posing as research into mainstream news outlets. George knew perfectly well what he was buying with Witherspoon and Bradley money.

What the hell…the motivation here could not be clearer if it was written in neon lights. How does anyone not know why Regnerus is saying his three quarter of a million right wing dollar study proves that gay parents damage children regardless of what the data actually says?   It’s Anita Bryant and Save Our Children again for the zillianth time because that’s the song they know works when the polls start tilting in favor of Teh Gay and push comes to shove. Didn’t NOM play that song over and over during the proposition 8 campaign? The homos are coming for our children! We must Save Our Children from the homos!

As Kate Kendell says over at The Huffington Post, the Regnerus study is a hit piece, pure and simple.   Is saying so going too far?   Over at The Daily Beast David Sessions wags a finger…

that his methodology is suspect does not automatically make him a “right-wing author” who wants to “disparage lesbian and gay parents.”

Oh bullshit. Look carefully here…first at Mark Regnerus responding to critics in the July 2012 issue of Social Science Review, as reported by Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin…

I recognize, with Paul and Cynthia, that organizations may  utilize these findings to press a political program. And I concur with them that that is not what data come prepared to do.  Paul offers wise words of caution against it, as did I in the body of the text. Implying causation here—to parental sexual orientation  or anything else, for that matter—is a bridge too far.

And here is is talking to Kathryn Jean Lopez over at The National Review…

Well, in the generation that are adults now, kids raised in a same-sex household were more likely to experience instability and shifting household arrangements. For example, 14 percent of kids whose moms had a lesbian relationship reported spending more time in foster care, well above the average of 2 percent among all respondents.

This is the usual second act in the anti-gay dance.   First, publish your hit piece.   Then when the gays react angrily, put on your best innocent face and claim that you aren’t pushing the anti-gay agenda that you are pushing.   Take offense at any suggestion you are motivated by animus toward gay people…

I elected NOT to make this about orientation or self-identity. You suggest more ominous motivation, but I assure you that was not true.

Your accusations are getting more heated, and I’m afraid unless we can correspond civilly, I may have to call a conclusion to this.

Hang tight…we’ll be hearing shortly about all the gay friends Regnerus has.

I have a wee suggestion for mainstream news media journalmalists, bloggers, folks who may just be a tad curious about it all: if you want to know what the motivations are behind this study, don’t bother asking the parties involved directly.   Go listen to what they say to each other.   In their publications, on their talk radio stations, on their blogs and newspapers and magazines.   Go to the hard right, where they talk to each other, and just…listen.   It’s all there…everything you need to know about what motivates them and what they hope to achieve.   If you ask them straight up they will look you right in the face with a warm and friendly smile and lie through their teeth. If you just sit back and listen to them talk to each other you will get the hard cold brutal truth of it.   Animus does not even begin to describe how they feel toward gay people.   Or toward you, for that matter.