The Gay Parents Study

Slate may be a strange venue for a public ?peer review? process, but I am willing. The New Family Structures Study (NFSS) was not conceived of in the dark, nor do I have anything to hide. The data are high quality, and yes, a good investment. It?s information, albeit sensitive stuff. At the beginning of the project, I committed to pulling together a group of consultants from left and right, and I did that. Indeed, at the outset I invited several of the authors of important earlier studies on the children of same-sex households, as well as a demographer from the Williams Institute, to be a part of the genesis of the research and survey design process, but they declined. Other quality family scholars?all of whom lean left?took their place. Don?t you think if this were a right-wing conspiracy, it would be headed by someone who?s more savvy, political, one-sided, and predictable than I am? There is no conspiracy here, just a piece of contested social science from a study funded by a pair of organizations many of your readers distrust. Critics are disputing the meaning of the study?a meaning I have not assigned to it?as well as the very nerve to have conducted it in the first place. But I?m glad you?ve seen value in it.

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