Social Science and the Same-Sex Marriage Debate

DARREN SHERKAT SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

Public Opinion and Same Sex Marriage 19882010

The Social Sources of Support for Civil Rights

Politics, Social Science, and Ethics

How do political institutions and values motivate

social scientific research? What are the political consequences of particular research questions? How is social scientific research conducted, and who pays for the effort?

The War on Education and Social Research

Funding for Social Scientific Research was cut late in

the Carter years---leading to the cancellation of the 1979 GSS and a restructuring or discontinuation of many data collection efforts. Ronald Reagan ushered in a new era of hostility towards education, slashing budgets and leaving social science research centers scrambling for funds--many have closed. Private foundations---most of which have a very conservative political agenda---now fund the vast majority of social science research.

Increasing Competition and Publication

The decline in resources available helped fuel

increasing competition for academic jobs, and assistant professors were required to publish far more than used to be the caseand in the social sciences peer reviewed journal articles are the mainstay for demonstrating scholarly achievement needed to secure tenure. Article submissions increased, and rejection rates in top journals are between 80-90%.

Productivity and Peer Review

Editors and editorial boards are swamped with manuscriptswith

top journals processing nearly 1000 manuscripts a year, and all highly-ranked journals seeing 350-400 submissions per year. The burden of reviewing has led to lower cooperation from potential reviewersmaking editing difficult. And editors increasingly rely on editorial boards and regular reviewers---many of whom review 5-6 manuscripts a month for various high-tier journals. High refusal rates for reviewing mean that editors of top journals are making over 6,000 solicitations for reviewers a year. Well known and reliable reviewers can become influential in defining fields, since a fairly small number of scholars wind up doing the bulk of the reviewing. Some scholars used this process to help friends and hurt enemies, and in segmented fields any interconnected group could become gatekeepers for specific areas of research and at particular journals.

The Rise of Conservative Social Science

The influx of conservative private foundations money into the social

sciences was matched by funding for identifying and mentoring young conservative researchers. Foundations targeted conservative Christian schools, and offered workshops and scholarships to hone skills and funnel social conservatives into elite graduate programs with conservative faculty allies. Conservative activist graduate students are given fellowships, summer money for workshops and travel, and it has not been uncommon for graduate students to be awarded six figures in grant money before even completing their PhDs. Young conservatives were socialized to seek out positions of responsibility and to always review manuscripts when asked---while other social scientists were often encouraged to avoid reviewing articles---and even to boycott reviewing for the increasing number of privately owned journals--just see Mondays edition of the Chronicle.

The Decline of Scientific Survey Research

Decreases in funding left survey research centers

scrambling, and basic research could not keep pace with scientific inquiry. The rise of a private public opinion industry for marketing and politics poisoned the respondent pools and made garnering a scientific sample more difficult and costly. Private firms now dominate public opinion research, and have watered down scientific standards; AAPOR acceptability standards have fallen from over 50% response rate to under 20% in the last two decades.

Conservative Foundations and the Manipulation of Public Opinion

One of the key goals of heavily funded conservative

foundations is to set the agenda for the kinds of questions asked by social scientists. Will scarce resources be used to investigate inequalities, or will they be used to moralize about sexual behavior? Manipulating public opinion is a key goal in this enterprise, and studies funded by private foundations are promoted by professional media relations specialists. Given the dearth of funding for basic research, even politically neutral or liberal scholars are attracted to new questions by the promise of funding---instead of studying racial disparities in arrest or sentencing, a scholar may instead get a large grant to study how religiosity reduces delinquency.

Sexuality and Politicized Social Science

Conservative grant money and the rise of committed

conservative Christian scholars coalesced to politicize all aspects of sexuality, with a goal of eliminating science-based education on sexuality, limiting the rights of individuals engaging in nonmarital sexuality, and forging public policy that punishes single parenthood---and especially marital and parental rights for LGBT persons.

The Regnerus Affair

With funding from the Witherspoon and Bradley foundations (totalling about

$800k), a conservative Christian sociologist sought to demonstrate the superiority of heterosexual, biological, two-parent families for childrearing outcomes---and to show that children raised by lesbians and gays have poor social outcomes (including drug abuse, hypersexuality, molestation, criminal activity, mental health) Yet, this study used a non-random convenience sample commissioned from a private firm and administered on-line. The gay fathers and lesbian mothers were identified by a very odd retrospective question about parental romantic involvements. Only 2 of the 238 children of gays and lesbians were actually raised in a same-sex family. For analyses, Regnerus performed only a basic comparison of means on these non-scientific data, ignoring controls for many known sources of negative childhood outcomes. The paper was accepted and published along with responses from two conservative activist scholars and a seasoned moderate family sociologist. Two liberal activist scholars refused to respond. Many questioned the timing of the publication and the seemingly unrealistic review time, and scholars were shocked that such a low quality study was published in a top 10 journal like Social Science Research.

Ethics and Peer Review for Regnerus

Conflicts of interest abounded in the respondents to the

article (two were consultants), and two reviewers also admitted to having been consultants. However, the editor quickly received three glowing reviews and all of the reviewers were well-known scholars. Should the reviewers have reviewed? Should the editor have sought others? Regnerus clearly stepped over an ethical line by submitting his paper before the data firm had completed collection! This was one of the reason why scholars cried foul and assumed editorial collusion---but this fact was not known to the reviewers or the editor.

Editorial Incentives and Peer Review

The oligopolization of the publishing industry has left journals scrambling to

increase impact factors based in citations and downloads. And sexuality is a hot button topic to increase interest---and controversy doesnt hurt. Increasing submissions and the decline of print copy gave publishers an incentive to increase the number of issues---often leading to a decline in average quality. Many reviewers and members of editorial boards are reviewing over 5 manuscripts per monthan unsustainable level of reviewing if quality is going to be maintained. Regnerus capitalized on this situation by sending his article to a journal with several very conservative scholars on the editorial board, former colleagues, co-authors, and kindred activists. He also labeled his tables in a way that would deceive inattentive reviewers. If you didnt read the data and measures section and skipped to the analyses, you saw tables with gay fathers and lesbian mothers. Is it an ethical failing to not read carefully before writing a review? Is it wrong to favor research areas that are hot or to promote controversial studies? Notably, in this case the promotion came after the paper was accepted.

Politicizing Social Science Research

As intended, Regnerus research was immediately used by

conservative legal organizations seeking to uphold DOMA and Prop 8, and to support ballot initiatives in Minnesota. An amicus brief supporting DOMA was filed by a conservative Christian medical organization the day after publication--clearly indicating collusion between Regnerus, his funders, and political activists bent on denying marriage rights for same sex couples. Some organizations, notably the APA and ASWA, filed amicus briefs which included a denunciation of Regnerus sample, measures, and relevance to the issue of same sex parenting or marriage. LGBT activists continue to demand a retraction of the paper, while conservative activists hail Regnerus as a martyr.

Is bad research unethical?

If you conduct a poor quality study for political ends,

is that unethical? How so? Should people like Regnerus be sanctioned by their universities? Censored by professional societies? Who determines this? Would censoring Regnerus be a violation of his academic freedom? What of liberal activists who construct low quality studies to make a political point, or professors who consult for political movements or other interest groups?