Being an undergraduate intern here at the ACLU of Michigan is a dream. Sometimes I spend my days doing small tasks like working with spreadsheets, and sometimes I spend my day in Lansing attending House Committee hearings.
No matter what I am doing, I am always lucky enough to be surrounded by the hubbub of our exciting and important work. And yesterday, I had the awesome task of covering day 6 of the DeBoer trial. Here's what happened.
Yesterday, ACLU attorney Leslie Cooper, representing April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, finished her cross-examination of sociologist Mark Regnerus. The attorneys questioned Regnerus thoroughly on the reliability and validity of studies that claim to show LGBT families are unstable.
The cross-examination was excellent, but nothing could be as damaging as the scathing statement released yesterday by the University of Texas at Austin.
Regnerus’ own employer called his study “fundamentally flawed on conceptual and methodological grounds,” and explicitly refused to endorse Regnerus’ research and any affiliation with the Austin Institute, where both Regnerus and other State expert witness Joesph Price are Senior Fellows.
Economist Joseph Price was the next witness called by the State. The State questioned Price about an article he coauthored titled “Nontraditional Families and Childhood Progress Through School: A Comment on Rosenfeld.”
Throughout the questioning, Price attempted to explain how his study, which he called an extension of Rosenfeld’s work, came to vastly different conclusions than did Rosenfeld. Price argued that Rosenfeld had used too small a sample, a consequence of the two restrictions Rosenfeld had placed on the sample. Price eliminated these sample restrictions and concluded that children of opposite-sex couples are 35% more likely to make normal progress in school than children of same-sex couples.
During cross-examination, Dana Nessel requested that Price explain what this 35% chance meant in real numbers, asking if the 35% chance was the difference between 30 students being held back while 60 students passed on to the next grade, or if it was more comparable to 98% of children passed successfully to the next grade, while 2% of children were held back. Price, the expert in numbers, was unable to answer.
That wasn't the only time Dana Nessel stumped him. Price stated he “didn’t know” what the mission of the Heritage Foundation is despite attending its conference in 2010, where he met his co-author Douglas Allen. He also “didn’t know” what the mission of the Austin Institute is despite being a Senior Fellow there, alongside Regnerus.
In questioning Price about one of his publications which highlighted the benefits of marriage, Nessel asked Price if he believed that LGBT families would be worse off if they could marry and share in these benefits. “I don’t have any reason to believe that,” he responded. Nessel continued to question Price about his own critique of Rosenfeld’s study, as well as other studies upon which Price’s testimony relied, when court adjourned for the day.
This morning, Price concluded his testimony and the State called Professor Loren Marks, who concentrates his research on how religion influences marriages and families.
Dr. Marks is a contributor to Same-sex Parenting and Children’s Outcomes: A Closer Examination of the American Psychological Association’s Brief on Lesbian and Gay Parenting, which challenges the 2005 American Psychological Association brief asserting that: “Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents.”
To talk about the sweeping changes we've seen in the last decade and look at some upcoming challenges, we're talking about Marriage Matters . This series of blogs takes a look at history of the fight for LGBT rights in Michigan to an in-depth look at the DeBoer case, which could impact marriage equality in Michigan.
By Lauryn Pennington, Undergraduate Intern
Key News & Documents
Marriage Matters
LGBT Rights
