The American Sociological Association filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to disregard arguments against same-sex parenting in the Proposition 8 and Defense of Marriage Act cases, but a coalition of other medical organizations also filed a brief explaining the consequences of denying gays, lesbians, and bisexuals the freedom to marry. The signers of this brief include the America Psychological Association, the American Medial Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and the National Association of Social Workers, among other mental health professional organizations. In addition to reiterating the validity of same-sex couples’ parenting, the medical professionals argue that laws like Proposition 8 harm same-sex couples by denying them specific benefits that marriage offers:

Married men and women generally experience better physical and mental health than their unmarried counterparts. These health benefits do not appear to result simply from being in an intimate relationship, for most studies have found that married heterosexual individuals generally manifest greater well-being than those of comparable cohabiting couples. [...]

Being married also is a source of stability and commitment. Marital commitment is a function not only of attractive forces (i.e ., rewarding features of the partner or relationship) but also of external forces that serve as constraints on dissolving the relationship. Barriers to terminating a marriage include feelings of obligation to one’s family members; moral and religious values; legal restrictions; financial concerns; and the anticipated disapproval of others. In the absence of adequate rewards, the existence of barriers alone is not sufficient to sustain a marriage in the long term. Perceiving one’s intimate relationship primarily in terms of rewards, rather than barriers to dissolution, is likely to be associated with greater relationship satisfaction. Nonetheless, perceived barriers are negatively correlated with divorce and thus the presence of barriers may increase partners’ motivation to seek solutions for problems, rather than rushing to dissolve a salvageable relationship.

Lacking access to legal marriage, the primary motivation for same-sex couples to remain together derives mainly from the rewards associated with the relationship rather than from formal barriers to separation. Given this fact, and the legal and prejudicial obstacles that same-sex partners face, the prevalence and durability of same-sex relationships are striking.

In other words, same-sex couples are forming lasting relationships even in spite of the fact that many of the protective factors for keeping families together are not present due to discrimination like Prop 8. Conservatives have argued that gay people shouldn’t have access to marriage because they want it for the selfish reason of validating their intimacy. But as these social science experts argue, the opposite is true — there are benefits to marriage beyond intimacy and commitment, and it’s for same-sex couples’ own well-being that they deserve access to those benefits.

It’s hard to argue there’s a compelling societal benefit for discrimination when social science shows there’s actually a compelling societal benefit for equality.

The conservative right continues to invest heavily in defending a seriously flawed study by University of Texas researcher Mark Regnerus that claims same-sex parenting harms children, even though only two of the individuals in the study were actually raised by same-sex couples. An internal audit conducted by the academic journal that originally printed Regnerus’ paper found his conclusions to be “bullshit.” Focus on the Family president Jim Daly is the latest to come to the study’s defense, choosing to paint Regnerus as a victim of media persecution, even though the conclusions he made are not substantiated by the data he collected:

DALY: Professor Regnerus wasn’t being attacked because his research lacked academic rigor – in fact, his peer-reviewed study was by far the largest, most statistically valid study on the topic to be done. He was being attacked because his scientific findings didn’t square with the liberal perspective. When it comes to this topic of homosexual parenting, numerous other studies have been published that utilized all kinds of sloppy techniques, all intended to generate a desired outcome – that children do just fine in homosexual households. None of the professors who have conducted those studies have been subjected to similar investigations, even though their bias is obvious and their work deeply flawed.

Daly conveniently ignores that the “numerous” other studies are, in fact, decades of research that have withstood ample criticism. Many have been convenience samples to ensure that the families being studied are actual committed same-sex couples raising children, as opposed to the hodgepodge of unstable “parents who have a had a same-sex relationship” that Regnerus used as a qualifier. The American Psychological Association had enough data in 2004 to issue a policy statement supporting same-sex adoption, well before there was even data available about families that could legally marry. The APA and other medical organizations have dismissed Regnerus’ paper as “gravely misleading” because it “sheds no light on the parenting of stable, committed same-sex couples.”

It’s particularly telling that conservatives are now defining the study in terms of a character attack on Regnerus. The problem with his conclusions is not that they conflict with the “liberal perspective,” but because they conflict with his own data and all other scientific research conducted on the subject. This is not a fight being waged over facts, but a campaign to demonize the millions of children being raised by same-sex couples.

Way back in August of 2011, the American Psychological Association unanimously approved a resolution in favor of marriage equality. Now, eleven months later, Maggie Gallagher’s Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (IMAPP) has released a critique, challenging all of the claims made in the resolution about gay people, their relationships, and their ability to parent. Rather than offer any compelling evidence that runs contrary to the APA resolution, IMAPP took eleven months to essentially argue that it’s merely not convinced by the evidence cited. Here are a few of the claims IMAPP simply refuses to accept:

• People who are gay are normal and healthy and can have satisfying relationships and raise well-adjusted children.
• Campaigns to deny same-sex couples rights cause them stress and negatively impact their psychological well-being.
• Same-sex couples are similar to opposite-sex couples.
• Equality improves same-sex couples’ psychological well-being.

There are two obvious flaws that make IMAPP’s critique irrelevant. First of all, IMAPP abandoned any sense of objectivity by only looking for opportunities to challenge the APA’s claims. There is plenty of additional supporting research not cited in APA’s resolution that IMAPP simply treated as non-existent, instead focusing only on weaknesses it could find in the few citations APA did provide. For example, the APA only cited three reference for its claim that anti-equality campaigns stigmatize gays and lesbians, the most recent of which was from 2006. But there is well over a decade of studies that reinforce this claim, such as the vast amount of research on this very question conducted by Dr. Glenda Russell.

Secondly, IMAPP abused what is actually good scientific rigor in the cited studies. When scientists conduct research, they take responsibility for identifying the limitations of each study, pointing out to what extent the conclusions can be fairly generalized and suggesting future areas of study. IMAPP pounced on these limitations in an attempt to demonstrate that the studies’ conclusions were somehow faulty or inapplicable, a tactic that abridges the integrity of what each study actually found. It actually raises the question of whether there is any collection of studies that could ever convince IMAPP to support marriage equality, and the answer is probably no, because IMAPP was founded upon the very bias of opposing equality. Thus, this oddly delayed and whiny rebuke should be seen only in the shallow intellectual format in which it was presented.

Just to drive home how disconnected from reality IMAPP’s positions are, consider this excerpt from its critique:

Overall the APA cites virtually no research suggesting that gay marriage provides any additional long-term benefits for gay couples in terms of their relationships, or social stigma. Nor does the APA take cognizance of the gay people who have opposed same-sex marriage, or in fact prefer civil unions. We do not know how many gay people take these views, but they appear with enough frequency in academic and popular press that a broad-brush assessment that gay people find the absence of gay marriage or the presence of civil unions uniformly stigmatizing appears hard to justify.

This, from one of many conservative groups committed to “strengthening marriage,” advocating for covenant marriage, and reducing the divorce rate. According to Gallagher and IMAPP, opposite-sex couples can benefit incredibly from having long-lasting committed marriage, but same-sex couples wouldn’t benefit at all. Clearly, IMAPP has nothing substantive to offer except a narrow-minded bias against the very lives of LGBT people.

Mark Regnerus

Mark Regnerus’ parenting paper, with its faulty negative claims about gay parenting, has been roundly criticized by LGBT groups and mainstream psychological organizations and widely praised by anti-gay groups, in particular the National Organization for Marriage. Regnerus’ paper was published simultaneously in Social Science Research with a brief by professor Loren Marks critiquing the American Psychological Association’s support of same-sex parenting.

Scott Rose at The New Civil Rights Movement is building a compelling case that the publication of these two papers was coordinated with anti-gay groups who would capitalize on its political implications. Here are some of the clues Rose has discovered:

• Regnerus and Marks published their pieces together, but Marks cited Regnerus’ paper, so he clearly had foreknowledge of its conclusions. This suggests it is likely they intentionally published simultaneously as a “one-two election year punch.”
• Marks was originally called to testify in favor of Proposition 8, but admitted in deposition that he only had read parts of the studies from which he drew conclusions and had considered no research on gay and lesbian parents. His present research, published just two years later, attempts to make the same claims.
• Marks also made his paper available for the House Republican legal team defending the Defense of Marriage Act long before it was published in a peer-reviewed journal.
• There are multiple obvious ties between NOM co-founder Robert George, the Witherspoon Institute (which funded Regnerus’ research), Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion (which is defending the research), National Review (where NOM’s Maggie Gallagher frequently writes and where she has promoted the paper), and Mark Regnerus himself, suggesting particularly convenient collusion for spinning the political implications of the paper’s publication.

Anti-gay organizations have been quite intentional about promoting the paper’s fraudulent results since its publication, ignoring not only 30 years of past precedent but conflicting research that has been published in the interim. The number of convenient intersections allowing them to do so are becoming too plentiful to ignore. Fortunately, the study’s conclusions remain unfounded in the data and can continue to be disregarded as such.

Brad Dacus, Pacific Justice Institute

The Pacific Justice Institute, a California-based Christian legal defense organization, has partnered with groups that promote ex-gay therapy like NARTH to oppose a California bill that would limit how the dangerous treatment could be provided in the state. In an interview on Friday, the Institute’s Brad Dacus told talk show host Janet Meffered that discredited ex-gay therapist Joseph Nicolosi has been effective in over 80 percent of cases, arguing that homosexuality is a “path of death and destruction”:

MEFFERD: Brad, is there overwhelming evidence that reparative therapy is a fraud?

DACUS: Actually it’s contrary, there’s overwhelming evidence that reparative therapy actually works. It’s not 100% because you have individual will and every person has their own issues. But Dr. [Joseph] Nicolosi and other famous psychiatrists who have treated this, thousands and thousands of patients, report a very high success rate, I know it’s at least over 80 percent, I believe it’s 80-85 percent success rate. These are people who leave the lifestyle, get married to people, have children, and enter heterosexual relationships. It’s a big mass of deception that they are trying to carry out at the expense of many hundreds of thousands or millions of youths who will be led down a path of death and destruction, unfortunately, if they get away with this.

Listen to it:

Dacus, an attorney, went on to explain that “the homosexual lifestyle gives…boys an average lifespan of the age of 40″ and is “worse than being a chain cigarette smoker.” He also suggested that being gay is the consequence of sexual abuse or poor bonding with their father.

Equating homosexuality with “death and destruction” presents a hefty bias to Dacus’ other claims, and it’s unsurprising that his “evidence” carries no weight. When the American Psychological Association resolved that ex-gay therapy is ineffective and harmful, it was only after a systematic review of the available literature. One of the most prominent studies used to support ex-gay therapy was just disavowed by its primary researcher, who apologized to the gay community for promoting its faulty results. Even anti-gay researchers at Pat Robertson’s Regent University admitted in their research that the “ex-gays” they studied who were now in opposite-sex marriages still had the same same-sex orientation as before their therapy.

There is no data to support any claim of sexual orientation change success, let alone 80-85 percent. Such “results” are likely hearsay from Nicolosi himself, who is probably afraid that the California legislation will impede his ability to continue profiting off of internalized anti-gay stigma.

Earlier this week, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told students at his alma mater, Pennsylvania State University, that the American Psychological Association’s support for marriage equality and same-sex families is immaterial. He suggested the APA is made up only of people who support what the APA believes, and that the organization’s statements are “not evidence of benefit to society.”

Here’s how APA spokeswoman Kim Mills responded:

MILLS: The American Psychological Association’s position in support of same-sex marriage is based on a body of empirical research concerning sexual orientation and marriage. APA believes that it is unfair and discriminatory to deny same-sex couples legal access to civil marriage and all its attendant benefits, rights and privileges.

Indeed, the various resolutions and amicus briefs APA has issued on behalf of marriage equality, same-sex couples, and their children cite multitudes of studies that inform their conclusions. It is unknown whether the former senator read any of APA’s publications or the decades of research that inform them before dismissing its 154,000 members for having a “point of view.”

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has no shortage of arguments against marriage equality, particularly with his new “a marriage is a marriage” talking point, where he compares random objects to somehow suggest a same-sex marriage is not a marriage. Yesterday, during a question and answer session at his alma mater, Penn State University, Santorum spoke at length about his views on why same-sex couples should not marry. He made a new random object comparison (“a napkin is not a projector”), a comparison to incest (“My relationship with my aunt is a very nice relationship, but we’re not going to say we’re married”), and suggested that “every civilization that has gone in that direction” has “destroyed marriage.”

When a student challenged Santorum that his belief system is “archaic” and “out of date,” he suggested that equality advocates are trying to refashion “the moral ecology” and “destroy faith,” and that the burden of proof is on them to prove the change and he “sees no data.” He even asked, “Is it beneficial to change the marriage laws and then say to two-year-olds that we’re going to teach you about gay sex in 2nd grade?” and suggested that Catholic Charities were being told they were not allowed to provide adoption services.

Santorum’s comments led students to interrupt him and make it clear there are plenty of studies that show that children do just as well with married same-sex parents as with married opposite-sex parents. He dismissed the studies by saying, “The American Psychological Association is made up of people who belong to the American Psychological Association… All these associations prove is that they have a point of view and the people who join them agree with that point of view. It’s not evidence of benefit to society.”

Watch the full exchange, courtesy of The Daily Collegian: