The American Independent has shed some light on how a study which concluded that the children of gay or lesbian parents did not fare as well as those of heterosexual parents was funded and conducted. The story is running now on the Huffington Post. It begins:
The conservative funders who bankrolled a flawed and widely cited academic study that’s critical of gay marriage choreographed its release in time to influence “major decisions of the Supreme Court,” documents show.
The documents, recently obtained through public-records requests by The American Independent and published in collaboration with The Huffington Post, show that the Witherspoon Institute recruited a professor from a major university to carry out a study that was designed to manipulate public policy. In communicating with donors about the research project, Witherspoon’s president clearly expected results unfavorable to the gay-marriage movement.
And:
Records show that an academic consultant hired by UT to conduct data analysis for the project was a longtime fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, which shelled out about $700,000 for the research. Documentation about University of Virginia associate sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox’s dual roles contradict Regnerus’ assertions that the think tank wasn’t involved with how the study was designed or carried out.