Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 31, 2025 / 10:06 am (CNA).
A recent “multiverse analysis” by Cornell sociologists Cristobal Young and Erin Cumberworth demonstrated the accuracy of a controversial 2012 study that showed children of gay parents do worse than children who grow up with a married mother and father.
In a chapter of their book titled “Multiverse Analysis: Computational Methods for Robust Results,” Young and Cumberworth applied their multiverse analysis — by which they examined all the possible ways results of a study may produce varying outcomes depending on methodological choices — to a 2012 study by Mark Regnerus, a University of Texas at Austin sociology professor and president of the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture.
In his study, “How Different Are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships?” Regnerus found that the children of same-sex-attracted parents were worse off socio-developmentally than those raised by their intact, biological families.
Young and Cumberworth noted that Regnerus’ article “is one of the most hotly-contested studies in 21st-century sociology.”
In a July 13 article in the Public Discourse, Father Paul Sullins, a senior research associate at the Ruth Institute, described the findings as “new vindication” for Regnerus, who Sullins said had faced an almost immediate “firestorm of ideological denunciation, personal vituperation, and political pressure” following the release of his study.
“We were surprised by the robustness of the Regnerus finding,” Young and Cumberworth wrote in their conclusion. “Prior to examining the data directly, we accepted the conclusions written by the critics and expected that a comprehensive multiverse analysis would drive their point home in a powerfully conclusive way.”
Regnerus expressed gratitude to Young and Cumberworth for their analysis of his study and its critics, telling CNA in an email statement: “I am not at all surprised by its results. What the multiverse analysis has done is demonstrate that unpopular research is not the same as erroneous research.”
He continued: “Unfortunately, the scholarly world has not seen such a wide and comprehensive look at outcomes in this domain since then, even while data quality and sample sizes continue to increase. The topic remains rife with intimidation.”
“This new analysis completely vindicates Dr. Regnerus,” Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, told CNA. “In my opinion, however, he never needed ‘vindication.’ There was never anything wrong with his study. It was the best and most thorough of its type, during an era that was jammed with junk science.”
“The studies that claimed ‘no difference’ between same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents made sweeping universal claims based on unrepresentative samples,” she continued. “Dr. Regnerus collected his own data that was by far the most representative dataset anyone had used up until that time. He also survived multiple ideologically-motivated ‘investigations.’ In fact, the University of Texas ultimately promoted him to full professor.”
Ultimately, said Morse, who founded the Ruth Institute in 2008 as a means to defend traditional Christian sexual ethics, “the saddest thing about this whole ideologically distorted debate is that ordinary people are making life-altering decisions based on junk science.”
“Ordinary women are concluding that having children with another woman will be the same sort of experience as having children with a husband. When they figure out from experience that this is not really the case, it is too late to change course,” she said, adding: “They already have a child who really truly does need a father, which she is in no position to provide.”
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About the courageous Jennifer Roback Morse, yours truly recalls her vigorous testimony before the Legislature of the state of Washington in 2012, when legalization of gay “marriage” was on the docket, or on the table, or the bed, or whatever.
Testifying that same morning, here also was a quite handsome young man of twenty years, a poster child in white shirt and tie and whose parents divorced when he was twelve. After having been shaped by his father’s absence, he had recently reunited with his father–for whom he discovered that he now had a deep attachment. He would like to find an older man just like his father to intimately share the rest of his life. The bobble heads of legislators nodded in compassionate sympathy. Only moments before, in the crowded front of the chamber, two sympathetic male staffers, also in white shirts and ties, embraced each other with prolonged excitement, each chortling aloud without blushing, “I have ‘straight’ love. . . .”
The rest is history…
“In the regular November 2012 elections, voters for the first time approved the legalization of same-sex marriage by popular vote in three states: Maine, Maryland, and Washington [an unsuccessful referendum]. Maine’s law took effect on December 29, 2012. Maryland started allowing same-sex marriages on January 1, 2013. In Washington state, the first [FIRST!] licenses were distributed on December 6, with the first marriages on December 9 following the mandatory three-day waiting period [Wikipedia].”
Then, of course, the United States Supreme Court climbed in bed (5-4), reversing millennia of Civilization with the stroke of a pen, or whatever. Said Chief Justice John Roberts: “Celebrated today’s decision, but do not celebrate the Constitution.” https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/26/417720924/roberts-celebrate-todays-decision-but-do-not-celebrate-the-constitution
Well, I’m not surprised. The massive entertainment industry (even children’s entertainment), the artistic and creative industries (especially children’s authors of books), the political world, many influential companies that employ people at really good wages, and especially the academic community, along with many of the historically mainline churches (who seem to be bleeding members!) have all embraced and endorsed everything that the very powerful and visible Same Sex Lobby groups have presented as “facts”. These three social organizations, much more than the orthodox “religious world”, influence almost everyone, even devoted Christians.
I think that same sex couples can raise well-balanced children IF they include heterosexuals in their circles of friends and allow their children to spend time with coaches, teachers, friends, relatives, etc. who hold opposing views from them, and make it clear to the child that he/she is a unique individual who needs to follow the path that is really “them” and not try to be someone they are not. I think that’s tough for many younger people nowadays, who have swallowed the mantra that we can all “be all that we can be!”
I also think that’s tough for many “straight” (and LBGTQ+) parents who often expect their children to be something they’re not; e.g., very intelligent, or artistic, or “religious” or athletic (especially athletic!), or outgoing and popular, or contemplative and sensitive.
Overturn Anthony Kennedy’s insane quackery woke-religion, which is absolutely abusive to all, especially children and young people.
Common Law [for the US the common law of England] conveyed to the legal mind traditions drawn from natural law, universally acknowledged legally observed standards, reasoned opinions, religious principles, stare decisis verdicts that were the basis for an ordered society.
As Chief Justice Roberts, Scalia, the other dissenting justices during the 2015 majority decision to permit same sex marriage, the Constitutional based understanding of marriage exclusively between a man and a woman, drawn from tradition, was struck down by a radical, irrational intrusion into that commonly held understanding.
It is the same as saying a man can be a woman, or that we cannot define what a woman is – which is exactly what has transpired since the 2015 Scotus decision. Logical or Right Reason has been undermined. Only a reversal of that decision can remove legality from that immoral madness. Unfortunately, ending the practice requires a moral conversion of our culture.
Catholicism in context must first put its own house in order regarding the trend toward normalizing homosexual behavior in house to be effective in reversing it in the general population. Otherwise homosexuality will lead to the destruction of mankind.
If the Ruth institute was founded for the purpose of defending traditional Christian marriage, would their endorsing any study pertaining to a defense of their position be a credible reason for believing it? Since we all tend to stack the deck in our favor there is little hope that their case is presented objectively. Is it likely that they would ever cite a study which came to opposite conclusions as being good or accurate? No not at all.
I am not making any statement about the mission or reputation of the Ruth Institute ( about this I am totally ignorant) , I’m only trying to make the point that it is very difficult if not impossible to defend our moral values by citing sociological studies. Professionals on both sides of the fence can come up with “studies “ which support their biases.
I am 100% pro traditional family values and I don’t need any study to confirm it and no number of opposing studies will ever change my mind. Period.