Researchers and Physicians: The Religious Right Distorts Our LGBT Research!

In a recent issue of the Minneapolis City Pages, University of Minnesota professor Greg Remafedi has gone on record complaining that the American College of Pediatricians, a sham group camouflaging religious right distortions as legitimate research, distorted his work. The article reads:

When the University of Minnesota Medical School professor followed the links he was being sent, he was dismayed. A group called the American College of Pediatricians had sent a letter to more than 14,000 superintendents across the country, claiming that the best thing schools can do for students who come out of the closet is nothing at all: no support, no affirmation, no gay-straight alliance clubs on campus.

The letter, and the Facts About Youth website it pointed school officials to, was dense with footnotes citing scientific studies. Remafedi's research was at the top of the list.

The ACP argues that schools shouldn't support gay teens because they're probably just confused. "Most adolescents who experience same-sex attraction ... no longer experience such attractions at age 25," the letter says, citing a 1992 study by Remafedi.

Except that's not what Remafedi's research suggested at all. His work showed that kids who are confused about their sexuality eventually sort it out -- meaning many of them accept being gay.

The article also says that Remafedi wrote a letter to the ACPED's president, Dr. Tom Benton, requesting that his research be removed.

Benton refused to do so.

While Remafedi has voiced disenchantment over this new development, he should take solace in the fact that he is not the only physician or researcher who has had his or her work distorted by religious right groups and affiliates.

The organization Truth Wins Out has complied a listing of researchers, professors, and physicians who have complained about the distortion of their work pertaining to the LGBT community by the religious right.

They include:

• University of Utah professor Lisa Diamond, who complained that NARTH (the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality), a group that also shares board members with the ACPED, distorted her research on sexual orientation.

• Dr. Carol Gilligan, Professor of Education and Law at New York University, who complained that former Focus on the Family head James Dobson misrepresented her research to attack LGBT families.

• Dr. Kyle Pruett, Ph.D., a professor of child psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, who has also complained that Focus on the Family distorted his work.

• Dr. Robert Spitzer, Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, who has consistently complained that religious right groups distorted his study to claim that the LGBT orientation is easily changeable.

• Judith Stacey, Professor of Sociology at New York University, who has had to, on more than one occasion, cry foul over how religious right groups distorted her work on LGBT families.

There are still other examples, including:

• National Institute of Health director Francis Collins, who rebuked the American College of Pediatricians for falsely claiming that he stated sexual orientation is not hardwired by DNA.

• Six researchers of a 1997 Canadian study (Robert S. Hogg, Stefan A. Strathdee, Kevin J.P. Craib, Michael V. Shaughnessy, Julio Montaner, and Martin T. Schehter), who complained in 2001 that religious right groups were distorting their work to claim that gay men have a short life span.

• The authors of the book Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States (Professors Richard J. Wolitski, Ron Stall, and Ronald O. Valdiserri), who complained that their work was being distorted by Focus on the Family.

• University College London professor Michael King, who complained that the American Family Association was distorting his work on depression and suicide in LGBT individuals.

Also, it is worth noting that just like in the case of Remafedi, many of these distortions have not been corrected. In fact, the distortion of Stacey's work, as well as that of the 1997 Canadian study, can still be found unchanged on several religious right web sites.

One has to wonder how many other examples are out there. However, one thing is clear: as long as this issue falls under the radar, there will be many more cases of religious right groups distorting legitimate studies and thumbing their noses at calls to correct these distortions.

Related posts:

Phony Medical Group Receives Numerous Rebukes for Inaccurate Anti-Gay Web Site

The American College of Pediatricians and the Laundering of Junk Science

The Christian Medical & Dental Associations - another group, another batch of lies

Religious right tries to smear the American Psychological Association

JONAH - Another ex-gay group pushing bad science

 

Comments

[Peter Danbridge]

04:51 PM on 06/06/2010

Look at how few comments there are in response to this piece.

It's as if people saw the headline and didn't waste any of their time actually reading the piece, saying, "Well, duh."

[Alvin McEwen]

12:40 AM on 06/12/2010

LOL and that's a mistake because this sort of thing shouldn't be taken for granted.

[Peter Danbridge]

02:55 AM on 06/12/2010

So true.

[Bill J4321]

01:34 PM on 05/26/2010

How else would society justify the abuse, degradation, dehumanization, rape, torture and murder of their very own gay offspring if they didn't tell a little white lie from time to time?

[LMPE]

01:32 PM on 05/26/2010

Is it a safe bet that ACPED consists of people like Ted Haggard and George Rekers?

[xenas mom]

12:00 PM on 05/26/2010

This is a shameful assault on legitimate research and researchers. The problem is, of course, that even IF these sham organizations were to recant, their bizarre analyses are already out there. Many times I've encountered people who are not skilled in understanding how actual research is conducted, and because of this information gap they believe what they want to believe. To such folks, all research is created equal. After all, during the Prop 8 federal trial in California, one of the defense witnesses actually seemed to believe that passing his article around to others in the office was somehow "peer review."

[talkstocoyotes]

09:40 AM on 05/26/2010

Caliprof: "It is not "whining" when the original researchers identify that they have made no such conclusions and that and that those conclusions are unfounded, unsupported (by the original data), and an unprofessional citation is used to distort."

There's also the little matter of the "American College of Pediatricians" being touted by right-wing hate groups as a legitimate medical organization. It's about as genuine as a two-dollar Prada handbag bought from a seller in an abandoned parking lot.

http://talkingwithcoyotes.blogspot.com

[Jdaddy1951]

08:07 AM on 05/26/2010

Gasp and clutch the pearls! The religious right is lying about homosexuality! I'm shocked, simply shocked ...

Let's see, the religious right --- they're people like Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, George Rekers, allt those straight guys who date boys and male prostitutes and tap dance in restrooms, right? Uh-HUH! ...

Seriously, I think there must be some kind of legal options the Truth Wins Out folks can pursue. Copyright violations. Libel laws --- damage done to careers because the radical Christian liars have misused someone else's words to make it look like they were saying something they didn't say.

My coffee is NOT working fast enough this morning. I've allowed myself to actually get annoyed by these fools ...

[Caliprof]

06:42 AM on 05/26/2010

There are constraints on how the data can be interpreted. Yes, people can look at that data and argue a conclusion based on re-analysis of that data and yes, that is done all the time. But these are not examples of that. These citations referred to above are not other professional researchers reanalyzing the data and then publishing a new analysis and argument, they are reporting falsely the conclusions reported by the original researchers. It is not "whining" when the original researchers identify that they have made no such conclusions and that and that those conclusions are unfounded, unsupported (by the original data), and an unprofessional citation is used to distort. Before you impugn the original researchers' ideology as somehow biasing their original conclusions on their original research, you might want to do your homework. They have in fact, reported their methodology, logic, supporting analysis, etc. These particular examples of distortions have not provided their counter-argument, logic or supporting analysis as you seem to think they did. They merely declared it so and put the original researchers citation to lend their declarations scientific weight because they don't have any supporting data. It is unethical and certainly brings into question their integrity.

[lastpost]

06:31 AM on 05/26/2010

What a pity there isn’t a website called, “whatIactuallysaidwas”. Where anyone who finds their work deliberately misrepresented (since if accidental they could rectify it), can correct those fabrications.

[Theresa N]

06:00 AM on 05/26/2010

During the past decade funding has been cut for studying the impact of DES on gender identity of genetic males. President Bush prohibited the research on this by government funded researchers.

[KrugnacTheMagnificent]

02:52 AM on 05/26/2010

In many ways, science is a commodity. If you generate a bunch of data and publish it, you may have a certain interpretation of what it means. But good data can be used in many different ways to address things that the original scientist that generated it never thought of.

Such Post-Hoc analysis happens all the time. It's not given the weight of the data or the original interpretation, but it can be entirely correct.

It seems to me that often these scientists claiming that their research is being "distorted" are upset that their data can be interpreted to support a political ideology while they actually support the opposite ideology.

Nobody has a monopoly on interpreting data. The proper response is to rebut the argument being made by disproving it with additional data, not to whine about it and throw a tantrum.

[Alvin McEwen]

07:27 AM on 05/26/2010

I'm sorry but I have a serious problem with what you said. If a study points to, say, problems of suicide amongst gay teens and points to homophobia as a root cause, then no one has any ethical business distorting said study to claim that homosexuality is a "deadly lifestyle," while totally omitting the portion of the study talking about homophobia.

We are talking about common sense here AND bad ethics, period. I think your comment is classic rigmarole designed to jumble things up.

[talkstocoyotes]

09:36 AM on 05/26/2010

I can spot two problems just at a glance:

1) It isn't just "data" that's being quoted out of context. The anti-gay industry is claiming that these studies and researchers back up their claims about gay people.


2) The poster made the assumption that the researchers did their work with the intent of promoting a particular "ideology".



http://talkingwithcoyotes.blogspot.com