Apr 20th, 2006
Context and Qualifiers: More on Cameron’s research and my book
My gratitude to a thoughtful professor who emailed a copy of the published article “Children of Homosexuals and Transsexuals More Apt to be Homosexual” for my review. Now I can confirm without a doubt that Paul Cameron’s article is indeed in the May 2006 issue of The Journal of Social Science (Copyright 2005, Cambridge University Press). (My previous related posts are here and here.)
Two things I need to say upfront to respond to the biggest pieces of criticism I anticipate:
1) By denouncing Cameron’s methods, I am not challenging the value of non-scientific research and reporting on our families. In fact, I think the general public can learn tons more about the realities of our lives from personal stories than they can from journals. What I dispute is the attempt to apply scientific analysis to non-scientific research methods.
2) By denouncing Cameron’s article, I am not attempting to “cover up” stats about second generation offspring. Following the example of Second Generation founder Dan Cherubin, I count myself among the offspring who insist on acknowledging that some kids turn out gay — even when it is gay parents themselves who want to deny it.
Cameron learned a few things as he shopped around his article for publication, because the published piece is significantly different from the version he submitted to Pediatrics. At that time, I was described in his paper as an “investigator” and my book was referred to as a “report.” This led Pediatrics to presume I had a Ph.D. (which is why I was asked to peer-review his article in the first place). If my academic credentials and research were described in such a way that misled Pediatrics, imagine how it would have misled other academics, not to mention the average undergrad. Cameron’s published version is now much more forth-coming about his sources being books, with only one (Gottlieb) written by a social scientist.
Other qualifiers have been added. The “sub-sample” that he originally referred to from my book is now described in full as what it really was: a COLAGE meeting I attended in which eight of the eleven kids of queer parents were also queer. In the previous version he wrote that my “report” included a “sub-sample” with 73% reporting homosexuality. Well that’s not a “lie” since 8 out of 11 is indeed 73%. Without mention of how this “sub-sample” came to be or is size, the reader was left guessing. Now with the full context of my sub-sample, the mention of it comes off as just plain silly. (Which, by the way, I never ever thought of as a “sub-sample;” I prefer the term “friends.”)
Cameron also provides a more accurate explanation of the investigators (now identified as authors) who wrote the reports (now “books”). He says that I have a gay father and that Noelle Howey, editor of Out of the Ordinary has a transgender father, details that were not disclosed in the previous version. This clarifies that we developed this material beginning with personal experience. But then Cameron adds “any bias in their samples and reporting would presumably be pro- rather than anti-gay rights.”
Presume nothing. My book is about taking risks in speaking outside of the “acceptable” ways many of us internalized in order to present our families in the “best” light. That’s why I interviewed adult children — they could speak freely without fear of being grounded or punished for saying the “wrong” thing, and without worry that they would be removed from their homes if someone decided their parents were “unfit” based on the children’s candidness. I even reject the assumption of being “pro-gay” right there on the inside flap of the book jacket:
Garner’s book refutes the popular pro-gay sentiment that these children turn out “just like everyone else.”
It also should be noted that five of the 77 in his sample are duplicates. Noelle Howey, Meema Spadola, Alysia Abbott, Stefan Lynch, and Laurie Cicotello are identified in both Families Like Mine and Out of the Ordinary by their real first and last names, but Cameron either did not notice or chose to not mention it. This takes oversampling to a whole new level.
The revisions Cameron has made give his claims the context for readers of the article to question enough of it to (hopefully) recognize the necessity to dig deeper and find the truth behind the stats. The real danger is how ultra-conservatives who don’t care to dig deeper will take the research, based only on the title, and run with it, cite it, reference it on AM Radio. I can hear it now: “According to a report released by Cambridge University Press — now this is not some fly-by-night-publication here folks — here’s what they reported in May 2006: Children of homosexuals are more likely to become homosexual under their parents’ influence. All the more reason for you to pick up the phone, call your senator, and tell him you want him to make sure he helps pass [insert anti-gay family bill du jour here].”
If they were to dig deeper they would find Cameron’s own disclaimer right there in his own article:
No obvious sampling strategy presents itself, but a number of books touching upon gay parenting, all written from a celebratory stance, have recently appeared. While unknown biases may have led to the compilations they reported, taken together the number of adult children of homosexuals in these compilations is larger than the number studied for any other account. In the absence of a random sample, it seemed reasonable to at least examine the material available. Therefore, all books about adult children who had homosexual or transsexual parents that could be purchased on Amazon.com in April 2004 were examined.
Just look at this caveat-packed phrase: “…it seemed reasonable to at least examine…”
Seemed? At least? Yeah. Let’s kinda sorta check it out an maybe it could mean something. Or whatever.
Cambridge University Press did not publish a valid piece of research; it published a mediocre high-school-level book report.
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Read related posts.
I don’t want to terrify the cats by screaming….
But gah!! Argh!!
OK, that’s my articulate response to this.
Abigail, thanks for keeping us on top of this…we need to nip this one in the bud, if possible, before it becomes as ubiquitous as the “most gay men die before 40″ thing that we can thank that lunatic Cameron for.
Again, like you say, not that it might not be true that kids of gay parents may end up being more open to alternative relationships or may be able to deal with their orientation more openly and earlier than some of us (meaning that there might be more self-reporting gay kids of gay parents) – and I’m cool with that. I just want it researched and reported on by someone who has some ethics.
Is there anything the average Joe or Jane can do?
Dear Ms. Garner,
I am sure that you realize what a potential disaster Cmaeron’s paper is going to be. It really doesn’t matter thaaat everyone knows that it is bullshit, we will soon here politicians and the President and judges all claiming that it has been “scientifically found that gay families raise gay children”.
The best we can hope for is that the journal will retract the paper – the next best would be that other social scientist would examine and rebut it in another paper (and hopefully destroy the journal’s credibility in the process).
To do this will require alerting academics to the situation – and I was considering posting an appeal on DailyKos for such academics – they have a very wide audience.
I was going to suggest that you do so, since you are much more knowledgeable and involved than I.
I shudder to think of this going unchallenged.
While I too am disturbed by his claims. I find his article to be evidence that if you really want to find something to support your view what ever your view happens to be, you will find that something. You just have to be determind enough.
I think little has changed with this. Yes people will think they now have proof of what they suspected all along . Still, I think this changes very little cause I think they believed they had proof already.
I am proud that both “Families Like Mine” and “Out Of The Ordinary” are both on my book shelf. they are both honest books which is the way we need to tell it.
I considered myself to have been raised both by a homosexual parent and a transgenderd parent. the only effect that has had on my gender idenity and sexual orientation is that I have a better understanding of what gender identity and sexual orientation is.
I find the publication of this article both disturbing and indicative of the willful ignorance of some people in academia. How is it that “researchers” are so far behind the real world that the only level of representative “research” they can come up with some questionable attempt at using representations in non-academic books as the basis for their studies? And how is it that an editor and selected reviewers of an established academic journal, supposedly representing viewpoints of multiple disciplines with an international audience, is incapable of even questioning how Cameron could select this group of books for this travesty?
Actually, I think the publication of this article is an indication of much of the rot that is masqueraded as “intellectual inquiry,” as if academics believe their rather elementary approaches to research in apparently ‘taboo” areas are above scrutiny or question by the general public. When this kind of crap can be passed off as refereed work and is used in public forums to influence and affect public policy which can affect people’s lives for decades, the standards MUST be examined, criticized and scrutinized right down to the last footnote…particularly when the work is written by someone with a track record of a radical political agenda that precludes an audience with natural suspicions about academic honesty.
Either the Journal is so hard up for contributions that it will scrape the bottom of any barrel, or there are political motivations for publishing this submission – and I don’t believe it was a commitment to discuss “controversial” issues. Their “debate” forum is hardly large enough to even begin to print the obvious flaws in the study – even Burroway’s critique likely contains more words than Cameron’s original publication of this article. Yet, the Journals silence and pretense that they carefully investigated and scrutinized this submission is an indication they had no concern for the impact of such speculative research. And, to me, there is nothing more arrogant in academia than the claim that an intellectual discussion that is nothing more than a political chess game somehow rises above any responsibility for the lives of people it affects in real life.
The issue here is not the possibility of the findings, but the questionable credentials of the researcher and the methodology which so reduces the humanity of the community being studied that it is obvious the Academy has had little real interest in pursuing research in this area. But on top of that notion, the idea that a researcher who is so reviled by the very community which he claims to study that he isn’t capable of going INTO that community to do appropriate research should alone have been enough reason to pull this publication.
I don’t believe the CUP, or the Journal, realizes that there are thousands of graduate students out there who are taught that publication in journals is an award for good-intentioned work and research – and that it is difficult to get into that door the first time. But when they show me that a “researcher” with a 20 year track record of junk can still be considered over the efforts of scholars who attempt to stick to their ethical training, they devalue the meaning of everyone’s degree and all others who submit to that publication.
[...] One of the better posts, linked from a ProgressiveU writing on “secondhand gay” (where I originally found Garner’s site) can be found at http://damnstraight.oversampled.net/…/context…paul-cameron/ [...]
I just found out about Paul Cameron and his ridiculous claims. I don’t spend very much time on the computer…but I am willing to speak out and let him see that I, the daughter of a homosexual, am a heterosexual woman with a husband of six years, a two year old, and a successful teaching job.
By the way…some friends of mine who are a lesbian couple are reading your book right now. They are trying to get pregnant and are really appreciating the insight that your book provides them about the way gay parenting affects kids.
[Melanie is one of the interviewees in Families Like Mine. -- A.G.]
[...] Garner has written extensively about this on her blog, Damn Straight. She also unsuccessfully contacted Cambridge University Press to have them further investigate Cameron’s article before publication. (One might think they would have stopped it on the grounds of sloppy science, if nothing else.) Note that Garner does not deny that some children of LGBT parents turn out to be LGBT. She objects to the fact that a discredited homophobe is distorting the material in her book as part of his deceptive attempt to build a case against gay parenting. [...]
[...] April 20, 2006 Context and Qualifiers: More on Cameron’s research and my book [...]
[...] if it is already being citied on radio programs I don’t listen to, just as I predicted in my previous post in which I explained how his published myths could morph into “conventional wisdom”: [...]