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.]

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.

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 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.

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?