Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin has compiled a very detailed analysis of Paul Cameron’s preposterous article that I posted about earlier this year. “Children of Homosexuals and Transsexuals More Apt To Be Homosexual” is scheduled for publication in the May 2006 issue of Journal of Biosocial Science.

When I first learned that Cameron’s article was set for publication, I figured that enough feedback to enlighten JBS would make them pull the article. I guess not.

Here’s what I emailed to the Journal of Biosocial Science soon after I found out:

February 10, 2006

Dear Miss Gallimore:

In a Varsity article published January 30 regarding Paul Cameron, the final statement was “Caroline Gallimore, Associate Editor of JBS, promised Varsity that she would investigate.” I am writing to provide information for that investigation and to ask for confirmation of publishing details.

I am the author of Families Like Mine, one of three books Cameron used for his supposed statistical analysis in the article in question. Cameron had absolutely no right to twist these non-scientific samples into bogus findings that he is trying to pass off as hard data. Anyone who is familiar with the sources he cites would know his results are ludicrous — no advanced degree necessary to debunk his work after just a few minutes of elementary fact-checking.

Documentation of my “peer review” of this article which was rejected by Pediatrics Journal and more on my opinion on this matter is online here.

If you need an official statement from me to help with your investigation, I am more than willing to provide one. I recommend that JBS take swift action to denounce Cameron’s article and his unethical so-called research.

Finally, please clarify when/if the article did run. According to the JBS website, it has been available for a fee online since the May 2005 issue. The Varsity article dated January 30, 2006 says the publication of Cameron’s research in is forthcoming. Please tell me when the article did/will run online and/or in print. I, of course, want to make sure I accurately report these facts as this story continues to unfold.

Sincerely,
Abigail Garner
Author of
Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is
www.FamiliesLikeMine.com

I did not receive a reply. The Journal’s listing of articles includes Cameron’s article for May 2006, but I have yet to confirm that the article is actually going to run in the print copy.

I can only hope that responsible readers of the journal will look into Cameron’s citations to understand his research is beyond worthless. If JBS had taken that basic step in the first place, Cameron’s article wouldn’t have readers at all.

But these distortions will be so much harder to undo once the official-sounding report published in an official-sounding journal gets cited in another study that gets cited in another study that gets cited in an article by a major media source that is then regurgitated in newspapers everywhere until everyone is convinced it’s “conventional wisdom.” It’s that report-of-a-report-of-a-report ripple affect that allows Bush to be quoted in the New York Times referring only to “studies” to support why he favors heterosexual parents, with no one at NYT asking him exactly what “studies” he is referring to.

For too long the offspring of queer parents have been treated as mostly hypothetical, and researchers have talked over and around us. They could get away with it, too, because the children were anonymous and invisible. As the community of people with LGBT parents continues to emerge, we reject the family closet that has allowed researchers — well-intentioned and otherwise — to exclude us from conversations which shape public opinion about our families, which in turn, determines the quality of our lives.

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Follow-up entry, April 20: Context and Qualifiers: More on Cameron’s research and my book

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UPDATE: The Varsity article has been removed from their website, so here it is in full.

Cambridge University Press to publish ariticle by “homophobic” academic

Contributed by Rebecca Greig
Monday, 30 January 2006
In the same week that Cambridge City Council was listed among the most gay-friendly employers in the UK, it has been revealed that Cambridge University Press is to print an article by a “far-right, anti-gay” researcher in its Journal of Biosocial Science (JBS). Dr Paul Cameron is notorious in the US as an anti-gay activist, not only opposing gay rights, but actively lobbying for restrictions on homosexuals and lesbians. His scientific research has also been important in these efforts.

In 1982, he co-founded the Family Research Institute. This think-tank’s mission is “generating empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality, AIDS and drug abuse”.

Cameron has used the institute to publish reports that homosexuals were more likely than heterosexuals to commit violent crimes and to abuse children.

Cameron refers to gays and lesbians and those sympathetic to them as “death marketers”, and makes no effort to hide his views, saying “I am not sure how long they will take to destroy the US from within, but sufficiently weakened, the US will probably fall to another state before that occurs.”

In the early 1980s the American Psychological Association launched an inquiry into Cameron’s methodology after receiving complaints from its members. The association wrote to him in December 1983, saying it had decided to “drop [him] from membership” because he had not cooperated with
the investigation.

None of this has prevented Cameron’s article from being published online on the JBS website. Cameron’s article, Children of Homosexuals and Transsexuals More Apt To Be Homosexual claims “Common sense holds that homosexuality is contagious.”

His research methods have also excited some controversy. Rejecting random sampling of homosexuals and their children, Cameron made his conclusions by examining the only material available, confirming “All books about adult children who had homosexual or transsexual parents that could be purchased
on amazon.com in April 2004 were examined. A tally of sexual preferences were made from the three that could be purchased.”

No genetic correlation is addressed, but rather Cameron makes the analogy of how gay parents are likely to raise gay children as religious parents are likely to raise religious children.

When CUSU LGBT rep, Olly Glover, was made aware of the article, he circulated an email to the CUSU executive strongly condemning Cameron’s work and expressing disbelief about its imminent publication. “I can’t believe an editor would actually consider printing this”, Glover wrote.

However, in an official statement to Varsity, Glover was more reticent, apparently unwilling to say too much given his lack of expertise in this particular area.

“We were contacted last week by an American gay rights activist alerting us to it”, said Glover. “CUSU LBGT Exec has investigated and we are planning to write a friendly letter to the Journal’s board expressing some of our concerns.”

Caroline Gallimore, Associate Editor of JBS, promised Varsity that she would investigate.

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