Cornell University has re-examined sociologist Mark Regnerus’s study on the challenges faced by children of same-sex couples. The findings show that no positive outcomes emerged.

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A rigorous academic study from Cornell University has been released, yet nobody is talking about it.

Published by Cambridge University Press, the research seriously re-examined a previous 2012 study that sparked an international uproar.

This concerns the investigation carried out by sociologist Mark Regnerus (University of Texas) on a national US sample of over 15,000 young adults whose mothers or fathers had had same-sex relationships.

It was the largest nationally representative random sample and, for the first time, directly questioned the grown-up children themselves.

 

Mark Regnerus’ Study on Same-Sex Parenting

The results showed that these young people, compared to those raised in natural families, had worse outcomes in several areas: academic achievement, employment status, mental health, substance use, and even higher rates of incarceration, depression, and involvement with public assistance.

The study was immediately opposed by LGBTQ+ organizations and also by several academics who raised methodological limitations.

Media pressure led the University of Texas to open an internal review of the study, which concluded with a denial of scientific misconduct. However, this was not enough to quell the controversy.

 

No Evidence Supporting Same-Sex Parenting

Fast forward to a few months ago, when the debate on same-sex parenting was reopened by two Cornell University sociologists, Cristobal Young and Erin Cumberworth.

Through an academic review, they applied a technique called “multiverse analysis” to various studies, including Mark Regnerus’ on children raised by same-sex couples.

The researchers systematically reprocessed all possible analytical models, varying choices and criteria, to verify the robustness of the original results.

The reason why no media outlet picked up the news lies in the outcome: in none of the millions of tested models did favourable effects of being raised by same-sex parents emerge. On the contrary, the underlying hypothesis – that growing up with a stable biological family provides better social and emotional well-being – proved robust across every scenario analysed.

The Cornell sociologists admitted to being “surprised by the robustness of Regnerus’ findings”. While expecting some complexity and occasionally a reduction in statistical significance, they did not anticipate that the overall negative effect associated with having a same-sex parent would appear in all variants.

Certainly, in some models the effect was attenuated, but never disappeared. In other approaches that considered both family transition and presence of LGBTQ+ parents simultaneously, both factors contributed: the influence could not be attributed to just one variable.

Commenting on Regnerus’ study, Young and Cumberworth note that it quickly became “one of the most vehemently contested studies in 21st-century sociology”.

Yet, the two Cornell sociologists examined the main academic objections to Regnerus’ work (notably from Michael Rosenfeld, Simon Cheng, and Brian Powell), observing that the critics simply stacked the deck (particularly by reducing the sample size) in an attempt to diminish statistical significance.

The scholars concluded that the advantage of having stable, opposite-sex biological parents for children has persisted so robustly in the data not because the arguments supporting this finding are smarter than those opposing it, but because they reflect a social fact stubbornly rooted in human reality itself.

 

The Debate on Same-Sex Parenting is Flawed

Young and Cumberworth hope that the solid validation of Mark Regnerus’ conclusions may help renew the debate on same-sex parenting.

A hope met with skepticism by Paul Sullins, Sociology professor at the Catholic University of America, who comments that, in his view, “Regnerus’ critics or supporters of same-sex parenting” opposed the research for a reason “that was not methodological, but ethical”.

For this reason, Sullins concludes, it is highly likely “that Young and Cumberworth’s reanalysis will meet ideological silence”. And indeed, that has been exactly the case.