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Point By Point

Paul Cameron Conquers Cambridge

Cambridge University Press has published Paul Cameron’s “Children of Homosexuals And Transsexuals More Apt To Be Homosexual” in the May 2006 issue of the Journal of Biosocial Science. Will this give him the “stamp of approval” he has longed for?

Jim Burroway

April 15, 2006

I am not a psychologist. Neither am I a sociologist nor any other kind of social scientist. I have a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from 1984, a degree so old that I’m now obsolete given the state of technology today. But that degree has given me the competence to deal with the concepts of sampling, data sets, and statistics. That, along with access to a good university library, the PubMed database and Google — these are all I need to recognize that what passes as a “scientific” article is nothing more than an unsubstantiated anti-gay tract.

It’s a terrible pity that the editors and reviewers of the Journal of Biosocial Science (JBS), who presumably posses far better credentials than I, have not been able to recognize blatant propaganda when they see it. This is all the more surprising given the clue that is not so well hidden in the very first sentences of the article:

‘Common sense’ holds that homosexuality is ‘contagious’ (Levitt & Klassen, 1974). Thus Rees & Ushill [sic – ed.] (1956) state ‘it is vain to blind oneself to the fact that the problem of male homosexuality is in essence the problem of the corruption of youth by itself and by its elders. It is the problem of the creation by means of such corruption of new addicts ready to corrupt a still further generation of young men and boys in the future’ (p.29).

Levitt, Eugene E.; Klassen, Albert D., Jr. “Public attitudes toward homosexuality: Part of the 1970 national survey by the Institute of Sex Research.” Journal of Homosexuality 1, no. 1 (1974): 29-43.

Rees, J. Tudor; Usill, Harley V. They Stand Apart: A Critical Survey of the Problems of Homosexuality (New York: Macmillan, 1956)

Homosexuality is a contagion, a corruption, and an addiction. With that opening volley, Paul Cameron begins his latest article, “Children of Homosexuals And Transsexuals More Apt To Be Homosexual,” which appeared in the May 2006 edition of the Journal of Biosocial Science,1 an imprint of Cambridge University Press.

The “common sense” that Dr. Cameron speaks of is based on a thirty-six-year-old study of popular attitudes of homosexuality (followed by a statement reflecting attitudes from fifty years ago). Think back to 1970 — those of you who are old enough to do so. Do you remember what else was “common sense” back then? That very same study tells us:

The moral repugnance toward extramarital sex is so high in the adult population, with 72 percent saying it is always wrong, that it ranks almost as high as society’s repugnance for the homosexual act without affection…

Substantial majorities agree that homosexual men should be allowed to work in the arts and in the artistic occupations, but almost equally large majorities believe that they should not be permitted to engage in professions of influence and authority…

Nearly 60 percent believe that more than half of all homosexuals are high security risks in government jobs (most of these, or 43 percent of the sample, hold this to be true of all or nearly all homosexuals)…

Nearly one-half (46 percent) do not agree that homosexuals should be allowed to organize for social or recreational purposes.2

And what else was considered “common sense” back then? Homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness by the American Psychological Association. And because of that, it was also considered “common sense” to try to cure homosexuals (especially men; for some reason lesbians were mostly left alone) using aversion therapy techniques which often involved painful electric shock or apomorphine injections, which caused severe gut-retching nausia.3

You can learn more about the important role Paul Cameron plays among anti-gay extremists in “Paul Cameron and the Authority of Science.”

For the past thirty years, Paul Cameron has been among the most prolific authors in the anti-gay canon. He has accused gays and lesbians of all sorts of outrageous sexual behavior4 and excessive violence,5 and he concludes that one consequence of all this is a markedly reduced life spans for gays and lesbians.6 But the consequences supposedly don’t end there. He regularly warns about what he sees as the dangers that gays and lesbians pose to society as a whole: due to disease,7 violence8 and child sexual abuse.9 His positions have been at odds with several professional organizations, which he has condemned for “promoting” homosexuality.10 He called for the quarantining of all AIDS patients,11 and was quoted as describing AIDS as a “Godsend.”12 He suggested AIDS patients should be tattooed on their foreheads, and he was also quoted on at least two separate occasions that the idea of exterminating gays might come under consideration13 (although he denies endorsing the idea himself).

When I learned last January that that JBS had accepted his article for publication in a forthcoming issue, I wrote to the editors, explaining the many problems with Dr. Cameron’s history of anti-gay extremism. After all, they’re British, and most of them are anthropologists — maybe they don’t know about him. I even sent electronic copies of recent articles about him from the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal14 so they wouldn’t have to take my word for it. My only response came from Caroline Gallimore, associate editor, on January 16, 2006:

Thank you for comments on the forthcoming article by Paul Cameron. These are being considered by the Editor and we will get back to you soon.15

That is the last (and only) response I received from them.

So now, and against that backdrop, his JBS article arrives as the latest in a long litany describing the supposed harms that gay parents pose to children.16 Almost all of his work has been self-published, either on his own web site or in the pay-to-publish journal Psychological Reports. Occasionally, he manages to get published in a few other journals, but they tend to have a very low impact factor, often ranking near the bottom among social science journals.17 While the Journal of Bioscocial Science is not so near the bottom, its impact factor nevertheless places it in the lower half among social science journals for 2003.18 This article isn’t likely to improve to their standings.

You can learn more about Paul Cameron’s problems with the psychological and sociological professions in “Paul Cameron vs. Professional Ethics.”

His article for JBS suffers from many of the same egregious flaws found in almost everything else he writes: a hostile premise, a weak methodology, deliberate mischaracterization of the works of others, unproven conclusions, and a flagrant bias. These glaring weaknesses, which I will discuss one by one, have made him a pariah among legitimate social scientists. Yet somehow, it appears that he has managed to get this article accepted by a journal of Cambridge University Press.

A Hostile Premise

Throughout the article, Dr. Cameron carefully speaks of “sexual preference,” “sexual inclination,” and even “sexual proclivities.” The word “orientation” appears only once — in a direct quote from someone else. As with most other gay opponents, he refuses to acknowledge the possibility that the sexual orientation of most gay men and women is experienced as an intrinsic part of themselves. Instead, he speaks of being gay or transsexual as though these were conscious choices or beliefs, as if one can suddenly decide one morning to become a homosexual.

Dr. Cameron further suggests that these “beliefs” (or contagions, to provide a more direct quote) can be passed from one generation to the next. And his apparent concern is that if gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBTs) are allowed to adopt or serve as foster parents, their children might turn out gay (or in his words, they might choose to “emulate” their parents):

Many gay rights supporters… regularly contend that homosexuality is no more prevalent among children with a homosexual parent than those without. If homosexual desires are distributed essentially randomly throughout the population, then not only would common sense be wrong, but those concerned about placing foster or adoptive children could not argue that children would be more apt to emulate their parent(s) by engaging in homosexuality themselves.

The premise behind the concern of LGBT parenting is that children becoming gay would be a bad outcome of such parenting, regardless of whether the parents are gay or not. Dr. Cameron has taken the position that anything that results in gay children should be avoided at all costs. In this line of reasoning, wherever there’s a gay man or woman, there’s a parent to blame somewhere — or a child molester (a “more direct mechanism” that Dr. Cameron raises in his article, a ubiquitous charge that can be found in nearly every anti-gay tract). And if the parent happens to be transgender or gay (where molestation is often assumed with no basis whatsoever), the blame is magnified.

But questions like these place an unreasonable burden on children of LGBT parents to “prove” that their parents are good parents — a burden which children of heterosexuals do not face. And part of that “proof” requires that these children be straight, even though the overwhelming majority of gay adults themselves were raised by straight parents.

A Weak Methodology

Paul Cameron accurately notes that “there is no obvious way to design a random sample of adult children of homosexual parents. Such children are not enumerated by any census and how they might be contacted is obscure.” This is a very real problem, and every single study of children of LGBT parents suffers from this limitation. This prompts Dr. Cameron to offer a very creative solution:

No obvious sampling strategy presents itself, but a number of books touching upon gay parenting, all written from a celebratory stance, have recently appeared… Therefore all books about adult children who had homosexual or transsexual parents that could be purchased on Amazon.com in April 2004 were examined. Amazon.com was employed because its selection of ‘works that pertain to the topic’ has no apparent bias regarding gay parenting, and those works that could be purchased were in print, assuring that the material was relatively ‘fresh’ to the issue.

It’s not unusual for a researcher to turn to the published literature on a given subject to perform what is called a “meta-analysis.” Combining data from several previous scientific studies is one way to derive a larger dataset for analysis. But it is very unusual to turn to popular literature instead of scientific articles. Database searches are much more likely to be conducted in specialized databases catering to the needs of researchers (for example, Lexis-Nexis, PubMed, PsycArticles, etc.), not Amazon.com.

In his presumably exhaustive search of Amazon.com’s database, Dr. Cameron was able to find just three books: Abigail Garner’s Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is,19 Noelle Howey and  Ellen Samuels’ Out of the Ordinary: Essays on Growing Up with Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Parents,20 and Andrew Gottlieb’s Sons Talk About Their Gay Fathers: Life Curves.21 Ms. Garner interviewed over fifty adult children of gays, lesbians and transgender parents for her book, Ms. Howey and Ms. Samuels included essays from twenty participants, and Dr. Gottlieb interviewed twelve. Dr. Cameron’s statistics are derived from seventy-seven subjects overall, although he doesn’t say how many subjects each book contributed to his sample.

Three sources isn’t much to go on, and turning to a popular bookseller instead of a more specialized source is highly unusual. But in selecting these three sources, he made another very critical methodological error. Remember his concern about gays and transsexuals adopting or serving as foster parents? The subjects interviewed for these three books were almost all the biological daughters and sons of LGBT parents. This sample is doesn’t address the impact of LGBT adults adopting or fostering children.

These problems together are only a small part of his problem. His most glaring weakness is not in how he selected his material, but in how he represents it.

Deliberate Mischaracterizations

Dr. Cameron tries to defend the “representative” nature of his sample by comparing it to another non-representative sample, from a very old 1978 study by Dr. Richard Green,22 saying:

As with Green’s, the dataset reviewed for this article, being made up of volunteers is of unknown representativeness. But the 77 children with at least one homosexual parent were all aged 18 years or older and came from 75 families (Green’s homosexuals had no children aged 18 or older). Likewise, the ten children with at least one transsexual parent were aged 18 years or older and came from ten families, while Green reported on two adult children of transsexuals from two families. To the degree that larger numbers of older subjects assembled by different investigators, applying different methodologies, and in different locations more closely approximates ‘the underlying reality’, this three-book dataset would appear to be more representative.

Notice what Dr. Cameron has done. By comparing his sample to one composed by a professional researcher, he has elevated the “representativeness” of his dataset on the basis of higher numbers and more researchers. We will see in a moment that higher numbers don’t guarantee a closer approximation to “the underlying reality.” But for now, look at what else he’s done. Now the authors of his three books are “investigators”, using “methodologies” to create “datasets.” And here is where we come to the most glaring weakness of the entire article.

Two of the three books were written and compiled by ordinary writers and editors, not professional researchers. Abigail Garner is an author, lecturer, and family-rights advocate. Noelle Howey is a freelance writer and Ellen Samuels is a poet and teacher. Dr. Andrew Gottlieb, whose “dataset” is the smallest of the three, is the only professional (a psychotherapist in private practice in New York). His is also the only “scientific” book of the three.

The “datasets” provided by the first two books aren’t datasets at all — certainly not in any sense that a legitimate researcher would recognize. A researcher would have defined the type of population he was looking for and recruited his sample according to eligibility requirements that he defined ahead of time. And he would have accepted everyone who volunteered and met his acceptance criteria. This is what Dr. Green did back in 1978.

Greta Speaks!

In his manuscript for the Journal of Biosocial Science, Paul Cameron quoted “Greta” out of context from Abigail Garner’s Families Like Mine. Because we don’t think Dr. Cameron should have the last word, we decided to give “Greta” a chance to stand up for herself in “Greta Speaks!”

This is not what the authors of these first two books did, and there’s a good reason for this. They simply weren’t interested in conducting a statistical study. Instead, they had stories to tell, concepts to illustrate, and points to get across. The people they chose to present in their books were chosen solely for their ability to achieve these aims. Their books aren’t studies. They’re just books — ordinary, everyday, literary, and most importantly, nonscientific books.

Abigail Garner, whose book appeared to have supplied more than half of Dr. Cameron’s “dataset” is not a researcher, and she makes no bones about it. She also makes no bones about how she chose her subjects:

In fact, I had made a point of having a roughly even number of straight kids and second generation [gay, bisexual or transgender – ed.] kids so that both views would be evenly represented in the book. In other words, because of the goals of my book, I deliberately aimed to have 50% of the kids interviewed to be queer. Not because it is statistically reflective of the population, but to give it balance of perspective.23

Noelle Howey and  Ellen Samuels edited the book Out of the Ordinary: Essays on Growing Up with Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Parents, which consists of twenty essays written by adult children of LGBT parents. With such a nice round number of very touching, poignant, enlightening, and well-written essays, it should be obvious (and in case it isn’t, the editors explicitly say so24) that these “subjects” were selected for their writing skills, their willingness to tell their stories, and most importantly, the diversity of their stories. There was nothing remotely “random” about their selection.

Andrew Gottlieb’s book is a little different from the others; it’s a psychoanalytical study of sons of gay fathers. In his book, he describes the great difficulty he had in finding suitable participants in his study. He ended up with only twelve participants. (One was only thirteen years old; since Dr. Cameron was interested in adult children of gays and transgenders, he presumably omitted “Richard,” leaving eleven to add to his “dataset.”) While Dr. Gottlieb’s book is a psychoanalytical study, it is not a statistical study. Like the others, it too is a study of stories:

Similar to many studies of this kind, the sample is a small one. I tried to make this work in my favor. I hope my subjects emerge as people, not as statistics, as I attempt to capture what is unique about each: how they are not only the same as or different from their own fathers, but how they are the same as or different from one another.

…Obviously the findings cannot be generalized too widely but hopefully hold enough weight to say something worthwhile.25

With these three books, Dr. Cameron composed a “dataset” of seventy-seven subjects. We’ve already seen where he tried to claim that having a larger “dataset,” would “more closely approximate the underlying reality.” But we now know that this “dataset” is far from random. That fact, however, doesn’t seem to bother him in the least. He goes on the make the exceptionally surprising claim that even though his sample is non-random, it is still somehow representative:

Andersson et al. (2004) have noted that ‘some aspects of gay and lesbian life styles seem to be of such a common nature that they appear regardless of the type of data at hand’ (p. 18); that is, that a reasonably large sample of homosexuals, even if obtained non-randomly, seems fairly representative of gays and lesbians in general.

Andersson, Gunnar; Noack, Turid; Seierstad, Ane; Weedon-Fekjær, Harold. “Divorce-risk patterns in same sex marriages in Norway and Sweden.” Paper presented at the Population Association of America Annual Meeting, Boston (April 1-3, 2004). Available online at http://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2004-018.pdf (PDF: 148KB/28 pages).

Deliberately mischaracterizing of the work others is par for the course for Paul Cameron. To see how flagrantly he does this in one of his more popular pamphlets, see “A Closer Look At Paul Cameron’s Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do.”

Look closely at what he’s done here. By citing Andersson, et al. the way he did, you might be inclined to believe that this study somehow proved that non-random samples can be “fairly representative” of gays and lesbians overall. Unfortunately, it didn’t. I’ve added the link to that study so you can download it and see for yourself on page 18 what Andersson et al. really says. They were not talking about non-random data — they were comparing two different sets of random data. Dr. Cameron’s restatement of Andersson, et al. is an egregious distortion of what they actually said, and it is exactly the sort of behavior that got him in trouble with the APA. It’s very surprising that this over-reaching claim made it past the Journal of Biosocial Science’s reviewers.

You can learn more about Paul Cameron’s ISIS Survey in this section of “A Look At Paul Cameron’s “Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do”

There’s a very good reason there’s no proof to this claim. Every statistician worth his salt knows that even supposedly “random” samples can give woefully inadequate results, and that simply having a larger sample is no guarantee of greater accuracy. Perhaps the best example of a very large “random” sample which is nevertheless unrepresentative can be found in Paul Cameron’s own ISIS survey, which he refers to twice in his JBS article.26 That survey, conducted between 1983 and 1984, consisted of some 4,340 adults. Among the heterosexual respondents:27

  • 52% of males have shoplifted. The figure is 36% for females.
  • 38% of males have had a traffic accident in the past 5 years.
  • 34% of males have committed a crime without being caught. The figure is 15% for females.
  • 27% of males have contemplated suicide. The figure is 34% for females.
  • 24% of males have had sex in front of others.
  • 20% of females have obtained an abortion.
  • 22% of males have been arrested for a crime.

Clearly, the simple act of collecting a sample — even a supposedly “random” one — can give utterly invalid results if it’s not done correctly.

Unproven Conclusions

In Dr. Cameron’s concluding remarks, he says:

All in all, the correlation between parental and children’s sexual inclinations is similar enough to the influences that adult children of the religious report about parental influence on their religious sensibilities or between smokers and smoking by their children that positing additional biological mechanisms for it seem unnecessary.

We know that behaviors, attitudes and opinions can be passed down from one generation to the next — hence the references to religion and smoking. You might be able to throw politics in there, although children are about as likely to rebel as to adopt the attitudes of their parents. But we know that tastes in music, dress, or even speech (phat anyone?) almost never survive the jump across the generation gap. Dr. Cameron’s assertion that “positing additional biological mechanisms for it seem unnecessary” is made in an utter vacuum of supporting data, not to mention logic.

Dr. Cameron makes the mistake of reducing sexuality to behavior and “preference.” He ignores the intrinsic nature of sexuality that most LGBT adults experience. The correlation between parental and children’s eye color may well match many other matters of choice and behavior, but there’s nothing to suggest that brown-eyed parents raising blued-eyed children (which can happen with recessive genes) will make their blue eyes go brown. If sexuality has a biological or inherited component for only some of these children (and that possibility has neither been conclusively proven nor disproven), it would at least partly explain a higher incidence of homosexuality among children of gay and lesbian parents, if a higher incidence indeed exists. After all, almost all of this “dataset” consists of biological children of LGBT parents, not adopted children.

In fact, whether your preferred theory of homosexuality is based on biology, genetics, psychoanalysis, beliefs, or any combination of these, all of these theories can explain a higher incidence of homosexuality in the children of LGBT parents. When you think about it, it would be very strange if there were no statistical differences in the sexual orientation of adult children of gay parents when compared to those of heterosexual parents. No one has been able to prove that there is no difference, although so far the differences don’t appear to be large.28 Dr. Cameron’s conclusion — that “until better samples emerge, the 35-47% figure (from the random sample [referring to his ISIS survey – ed.]) of homosexuals’ children who adopt homosexuality appears plausible” — is, in fact, not the least bit plausible. Certainly not on the basis of this seriously flawed report.

A Flagrant Bias

But even if he has been able to make the case, does this make LGBT parents unfit? Are all parents — gay and straight — to blame for their children’s outcome? And is being gay a bad outcome? Clearly in Dr. Cameron’s world, the answers to all of these questions are a resounding yes, and in the hands of anti-gay extremists who rely on Dr. Cameron’s work, that answer is a cudgel pounded against children of gay, lesbian and transgenders: if your parents are gay, you will turn out gay, and that is a bad thing. It’s all your parents’ fault. And to parents — both gay and straight — there is a similar message: your gay children are your fault. This sense of blame can have profound consequences in the lives of these children and their families.

Children of LGBT parents are under tremendous pressure. They often find themselves at school with other students who deride “faggots” and “queers”, and they have to decide whether to tell anyone about their parents or to remain silent. They also find themselves in the precarious position of having to prove, through their own “goodness”, the worth of their parents — a situation no child of straight parents faces. And it’s not just their parents they’d be letting down. There is a whole community whose rights too often appear to rest unfairly upon their narrow shoulders. There is no other community in America whose place in society is measured according to how “normal” their children turn out to be.29 And when the child actually happens to be gay (which is assumed to be “bad”), the burden is all the heavier.

Because this is a very serious subject that is rarely talked about, Abigail Garner dedicated an entire chapter of her book to this very topic, in which she included several real-life examples from the experiences of adult gay children of LGBT parents. Ironically, because she chose to bring this very important issue to her readers’ attention, these children’s stories may well have inflated Dr. Cameron’s “dataset” of gay adult children of LGBT parents, which in turn adds to the unwarranted pressures in the lives of other similar children.

“Science” in the Service of Bigotry

Ms. Garner writes in her prologue:

Some LGBT-family supporters will want this (book) to provide evidence that gay parents are perfect, or at least “as good as” straight parents. Some homo-hostile people will carefully comb through the chapters hoping to find documentation of the tragedies children with queer parents have suffered. My intent is not to satisfy either of these assumptions, but rather to advocate for our families to be just that: families.30

The good news is that her book, as well as the others, accomplishes just that. The picture that emerges is that these families are just as normal as any other. Some parents are devoted, doting, loving and attentive; others are self-absorbed, alcoholic, abusive, or otherwise negligent. Some children are on the honor roll, are Ivy-leaguers or high achievers in their careers; others dropped out, turned to drugs, or otherwise made a mess of their lives. These families are at times resilient or fragile, flourishing or floundering, boisterous or quiet, rich or poor, politically active or bored with the whole thing. In short, they are every bit as normal as every other family.

Paul Cameron has long sought the credibility of a peer-reviewed journal. You can read more about it in this Boston Globe article, “Beliefs drive research agenda of new think tanks” (Link opens in a new window).

But the bad news is that Ms. Garner’s predictions about the misuse of her book have come true. She revealed that Dr. Cameron had originally submitted this manuscript to the journal Pediatrics, which in turn asked her for a peer review. In her review, she noted many examples were Dr. Cameron misused her work and recommended that the journal decline to publish his article, saying, “Should Pediatrics choose to accept this article, the journal risks facing a damage-control nightmare.”31 Whether it was on the basis of this review or for some other reason, Pediatrics decided against publishing the article.

Now it appears that the editors of the Journal of Biosocial Sciences are about to face this very same nightmare. And in turn, Paul Cameron can boast of having obtained the imprimatur of the Cambridge University Press, with all of its prestige hijacked into serving the cause of anti-gay extremism. But what’s worse, what is really tragic about all of this is this: “science” will be deployed once again in the service of bigotry, and it will be done on the backs of these families and their children. Shame on Cambridge University Press and the Journal of Biosocial Science for their complicity in extremism.

Notes:

1. Cameron, Paul. “Children of homosexuals and transsexuals more apt to be homosexual.” Journal of Biosocial Science 38, no. 3 (May 2006): 413-418. [BACK]

2. Levitt, Eugene E.; Klassen, Albert D., Jr. “Public attitudes toward homosexuality: Part of the 1970 national survey by the Institute of Sex Research.” Journal of Homosexuality 1, no. 1 (1974): 29-43. [BACK]

3. The following are just a few of many examples. An excerpt from the most disturbing example can be found with the last reference below (Thorpe, et al.):

McConaghy, Nathaniel. “Subjective and penile plethysmograph responses following aversion-relief and apomorphine aversion therapy for homosexual impulses.” British Journal of Psychiatry 115, no. 523 (June 1969): 723-730.

Rachman, S. “Aversion therapy: Chemical or electrical?” Behaviour Research and Therapy 2, no. 2 (1964): 289-299.

Tanner, Barry A. “Shock intensity and fear of shock in the modification of homosexual behaviour in males by avoidance learning” Behaviour Research and Therapy 11, no. 2 (May 1973): 213-218.

Thorpe, J.G.; Schmidt, E.; Brown, P.T.; Castell, D. “Therapeutic failure in a case of aversion therapy.” Behaviour Research and Therapy 1, no 2 (1963): 293-296. “…for a period of about 30 minutes following these sessions the patient was extremely disturbed, and wept bitterly… He presented himself for the fourth session… but after a few seconds took them (the electrodes) off, burst into tears, came out of the room… and continued to weep bitterly…” [BACK]

4. Cameron, Paul. “Sexual orientation and sexually transmitted disease.” Nebraska Medical Journal 70, no 8 (August 1985): 292:299.

Cameron, Paul; Cameron Kirk; Procter, Kay. “Effect of homosexuality upon public health and social order.” Psychological Reports 64, no. 3 (June, 1989): 1167-1179.

Cameron, Paul. “Medical Consequences of what homosexuals do.” Brochure (Colorado Springs: Family Research Institute, 1999). Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/Default.aspx?tabid=73.

Cameron, Paul. “Vindication: STDs and homosexuality.” FRI Reports 14, no. 4 (July 1999): 1, 3-4. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_07-99.pdf (PDF: 115KB/4 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “More evidence of lesbian risk-taking.” FRI Reports 15, no. 8 (December 2000): 1-2. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_12-00.pdf (PDF: 58KB/4 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “Joy of torture sex?!!” FRI Reports 16, no. 3 (April 2001): 2. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR%2004-01.pdf (PDF: 66KB/4 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “The high cost of sodomy, part 1” FRI Reports 19, no. 2 (March 2004): 1-4. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR03.2004.pdf (PDF: 277KB/4 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “The high cost of sodomy, part 2” FRI Reports 19, no. 3 (May 2004): 1-2. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR05.2004.pdf (PDF: 306KB/4 pages). [BACK]

5. Cameron, Paul; Cameron Kirk; Procter, Kay. “Effect of homosexuality upon public health and social order.” Psychological Reports 64, no. 3 (June, 1989): 1167-1179.

Cameron, Paul. “Violence and Homosexuality.” Brochure (Colorado Springs: Family Research Institute, 1999). Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/Default.aspx?tabid=74.

Cameron, Paul. “Gay domestic violence finally measured.” FRI Reports 16 no. 7 (December 2001): 1-2. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_01_12.html.

Cameron, Paul. “The violent lives of homosexual couples.” FRI Reports 18 no. 2 (March 2003): 1, 5. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR04.2003.pdf (PDF: 572KB/6 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “Domestic violence among homosexual partners.” Psychological Reports 93, no 2 (October 2003): 410-416. [BACK]

6. Cameron, Paul; Playfair, William L.; Wellum, Stephen. “The longevity of homosexuals: Before and after the AIDS epidemic.” Omega 29, no. 3 (1994): 249-272.

Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk; Playfair, William L. “Does homosexual activity shorten life?” Psychological Reports 83, no. 3 (December 1998): 847-866.

Cameron, Paul. “Homosexual partnerships and homosexual longevity: A replication.” Psychological Reports 91, no. 2 (October 2002): 671-678.

Cameron, Paul. “Gay obituaries closely track officially reported deaths from AIDS.” Psychological Reports 95, no. 3 (June 2005): 693-697.

Cameron, Paul; Landess, Thomas; Cameron, Kirk. “Homosexual sex as harmful as drug abuse, prostitution, or smoking.” Psychological Reports 95, no. 3 (June 2005): 915-961. [BACK]

7. Cameron, Paul; Cameron Kirk; Procter, Kay. “Effect of homosexuality upon public health and social order.” Psychological Reports 64, no. 3 (June, 1989): 1167-1179.

Cameron, Paul. “Medical Consequences of what homosexuals do.” Brochure (Colorado Springs: Family Research Institute, 1999). Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/Default.aspx?tabid=73.

Cameron, Paul. “Violence and Homosexuality.” Brochure (Colorado Springs: Family Research Institute, 1999). Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/Default.aspx?tabid=74.

Cameron, Paul. “Blood Terrorism II” FRI Reports 14 no. 2 (March 1999): 1, 3. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_03-99.pdf (PDF: 71 KB/4 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “The plague, SARS, and gay rights.” FRI Reports 18 no. 3 (May 2003): 1, 2-4. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR05.2003.pdf. [BACK]

8. Cameron, Paul. “Violence and Homosexuality.” Brochure (Colorado Springs: Family Research Institute, 1999). Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/Default.aspx?tabid=74.

Cameron, Paul. “Sodomy and murder in Arkansas!” FRI Reports 14 no. 8 (December 1999): 6. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_12-99.pdf (PDF: 208KB/6 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “How much rape is homosexual rape?” FRI Reports 17 no. 2 (March 2002): 1-5. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_03-02.pdf (PDF: 81KB/6 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “Homosexual rape and murder of children.” FRI Reports 18 no. 1 (January 2003): 1-3. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_02-03.pdf (PDF: 35 KB/4 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “A look at criminality.” FRI Reports 19 no. 8 (December 2004): 1, 2-4. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR12.04.pdf (PDF: 1,994KB/6 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “Life-force vs. death-force.” FRI Reports 19 no. 8 (December 2004): 1, 5-6. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR12.04.pdf (PDF: 1,994KB/6 pages). [BACK]

9. Cameron, Paul. “Homosexual molestation of children and sexual interaction of teacher and pupil.” Psychological Reports 57, no. 3 (December, 1985): 1227-1236.

Cameron, Paul; Proctor, Kay; Coburn, William, Jr.; Forde, Nels; Larson, Helen. “Child molestation and homosexuality.” Psychological Reports 58, no. 1 (February 1986): 327-337.

Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk. “Do homosexual teachers pose a risk to pupils?” Journal of Psychology 130, no. 6 (November 1996): 603-613.

Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk. “What proportion of newspaper stories about child molestation involves homosexuality?” Psychological Reports 82, no. 3 (June 1988): 863-871.

Cameron, Paul. “Child molestation and homosexuality.” Brochure (Colorado Springs: Family Research Institute, 1999). Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/Default.aspx?tabid=71.

Cameron, Paul. “Encouraging pedophilia.” FRI Reports 14 no. 1 (January 1999): 2-3. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_02-99.pdf (PDF: 168KB/4 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “Do homosexual teachers account for about half of news stories of molestations of pupils? A Boston Globe replication.” Psychological Reports 90, no. 1 (February 2002): 173-174.

Cameron, Paul. “A REAL child abuse scandal.” FRI Reports 17 no. 6 (October 2002): 1, 2-5. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_10_02.pdf (PDF: 991KB/6 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “Gay foster parents more apt to molest.” FRI Reports 17 no. 7 (November 2002): 1, 5. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_11-02.pdf (PDF: 483KB/6 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “Are boys safer in Boy Scouts than in Big Brothers?” FRI Reports 17, no. 8 (December 2002): 1-6. Available online at  http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_12-02.pdf (PDF: 520KB/6 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “Child molestation among the clergy.” FRI Reports 18, no. 2 (March 2002): 1, 2-4. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR04.2003.pdf (PDF: 572KB/6 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “Child molestations by homosexual foster parents: Illinois, 1997.” Psychological Reports 96, no. 1 (February 2005): 227-230.

Cameron, Paul. “Are over a third of foster parent molestations homosexual? Psychological Reports 96, no. 2 (April 2005): 275-298. [BACK]

10. Cameron, Paul. Letter to the editor. Nebraska Medical Journal 71, no. 3 (March 1986): 76-81.

Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk. “Did the American Psychological Association misrepresent scientific material to the US Supreme Court?” Psychological Reports 63, no. 1 (August 1988): 255-270.

Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk; Landess, Thomas. “Errors by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Educational Association in representing homosexuality in amicus briefs about Amendment 2 to the US Supreme Court” Psychological Reports 79, no. 2 (October 1996): 383-404.

Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk. “Did the APA misrepresent the scientific literature to courts in support of homosexual custody?” Journal of Psychology 131, no. 3 (May 1997): 313-332.

Cameron, Paul. “Mental health professionals endorse pro-gay propaganda.” FRI Reports 14, no. 8 (December 1999): 1-6. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_12-99.pdf (PDF: 208KB/6 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “Exposing scientific misconduct.” FRI Reports 16, no. 5 (August 2001): 1-2. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_09-01.pdf (PDF: 118KB/4 pages).

Cameron, Paul. “Pediatrics group bows to politics, not science; endorses gay adoptions.” FRI Reports 17, no. 1 (January 2002): 1-2. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_02-02.pdf (PDF: 468KB/4 pages). [BACK]

11. Stevens, Tara. “Congressman’s new AIDS adviser.” Washington Post (August 19, 1985): D3.

Cameron, Paul. Letter to the Editor. Nebraska Medical Journal 70, no. 12 (December, 1985): 443-444. “I have called for the quarantining of males who practice homosexual acts until the AIDS crisis is resolved. I am proud to have been the first professional to take this stand publicly, and am confident that history will vindicate my position.” [BACK]

12. Pietrzyk, Mark E. “The man behind the myths: A report on the chief anti-gay researcher of the theocratic right.” News-Telegraph (St. Louis, Kansas City: March 10, 1995). [BACK]

13. Pietrzyk, Mark E. “Queer Science: Paul Cameron, professional sham.” The New Republic (October 3, 1994): 10-12.

Pietrzyk, Mark E. “The man behind the myths: A report on the chief anti-gay researcher of the theocratic right.” News-Telegraph (St. Louis, Kansas City: March 10, 1995). At a 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference, Paul Cameron is quoted as saying, “Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.”

Harkavy, Ward. “Slay it with a smile: Paul Cameron’s mission to stop homosexuality is hard to swallow.” Westword (Denver: October 3, 1996). When asked whether he advocated the extermination of homosexuals, Paul Cameron responded, “That’s not true. All I said was a plausible idea would be extermination. Other cultures have done it. That’s hardly an endorsement, per se.” Available online at http://www.westword.com/Issues/1996-10-03/news/feature.html. [BACK]

14. Bialik, Carl. “The Numbers Guy: Debate over gay foster parents shines light on a dubious stat.” Wall Street Journal (April 28, 2005). Available online at http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB111461604615918400-H9jeoNklah4m52vbH6Iaa2Gm4,00.html.

Kranish, Michael. “Beliefs drive research agenda of new think tanks: Study on gay adoption disputed by specialists.” Boston Globe (July 31, 2005). Available online at http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/07/31/ beliefs_drive_research_agenda_of_new_think_tanks/. [BACK]

15. Gallimore, Caroline. E-mail response sent to the author. (January 16, 2006). [BACK]

16. Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk. “Homosexual parents.” Adolescence 31, no. 124 (Winter 1996): 757-776.

Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk. “Homosexual parents: A comparative forensic study of character and harms to children.” Psychological Reports 82, no. 3 (June 1998): 1155-1191.

Cameron, Paul. “Testing ‘common sense’ — A literature review emphasizing the Golombok and Tasker longitudinal study of lesbians’ children.” Psychological Reports 85, no. 1 (August 1999): 282-322.

Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk; Landess, Thomas. “Green, Mandel, Hotvedt, Gray, and Smith’s study of 50 lesbian mothers and their children: Inconsistencies in four published reports of data.” Psychological Reports 88, no. 3 (June 2001): 1223-1234.

Cameron, Paul. “Homosexual parents: ‘Hidden study’ uncovered!!” FRI Reports 16, no. 4 (June 2001). Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_01_06.html.

Cameron, Paul. “Lesbians make inferior parents.” FRI Reports 16, no. 5 (August 2001): 1. Available online at http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRR_09-01.pdf (PDF: 118KB/4 pages).

Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk. “Children of homosexual parents report childhood difficulties.” Psychological Reports 90, no. 1 (February 2002): 71-82.

Cameron, Paul. “Homosexual parents in British custody appeals.” Psychological Reports 93, no. 2 (October 2003): 410-416.

Cameron, Paul. “Numbers of homosexual parents living with their children.” Psychological Reports 94, no. 1 (February 2004): 179-188.

Cameron, Paul. “Oddities in Kirkpatrick, et al.’s study of children of lesbian mothers.” Psychological Reports 96, no. 2 (April 2005): 397-407. [BACK]

17. Herek, Gregory M. “Publication outlets used by the Cameron group.” Web page (March 21, 1999): http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_cameron_journals.html (Accessed April 7, 2006). [BACK]

18. Journal of Biosocial Science. “Journal information, Impact factor.” Web page (undated): http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayMoreInfo?jid=JBS&type=if (accessed April 13, 2006). [BACK]

19. Garner, Abigail. Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is. (New York: Harper Collins, 2004). [BACK]

20. Howey, Noelle;  Samuels, Ellen (eds.) Out of the Ordinary : Essays on Growing Up with Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Parents (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000). [BACK]

21. Gottlieb, Andrew R. Sons Talk About Their Gay Fathers: Life Curves (Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 2003). [BACK]

22. Green, Richard. “Sexual identity of 37 children raised by homosexual or transsexual parents.” American Journal of Psychiatry 135, no 6 (June, 1978): 692-697. Abstract available online at http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/135/6/692. [BACK]

23. Garner, Abigail. “How is Paul Cameron able to sleep at night?” Web page (February 9, 2006): http://damnstraight.oversampled.net/2006/02/09/how-is-paul-cameron-able-to-sleep-at-night/ (accessed April 6, 2006). [BACK]

24. Howey, Noelle;  Samuels, Ellen (eds.) Out of the Ordinary: Essays on Growing Up with Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Parents (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000): xvii-xxi. [BACK]

25. Gottlieb, Andrew R. Sons Talk About Their Gay Fathers: Life Curves (Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 2003): 50. [BACK]

26. In Paul Cameron’ JBS article, he cites the results of his ISIS survey as published in Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk. “Homosexual parents.” Adolescence 31, no. 124 (Winter 1996): 757-776. Various results from the same survey have appeared in at least nine different articles he has published since 1985. [BACK]

27. Cameron, Paul; Cameron, Kirk; Proctor, Kay. “Effect of homosexuality upon public health and social order.” Psychological Reports 64, no. 3 (June 1989): 1167-1179. [BACK]

28. Stacey, Judith; Biblarz, Timothy J. “(How) Does the sexual orientation of parents matter?” American Sociological Review 66, no. 2 (April 2001): 159-183. Abstract available online at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=276907. [BACK]

29. Garner, Abigail. Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is.( New York: Harper Collins, 2004): 37. [BACK]

30. Garner, Abigail. Families Like Mine: Children of Gay Parents Tell It Like It Is. (New York: Harper Collins, 2004): 12. [BACK]

31. Garner, Abigail. “How is Paul Cameron able to sleep at night?” Web page (February 9, 2006): http://damnstraight.oversampled.net/2006/02/09/how-is-paul-cameron-able-to-sleep-at-night/ (accessed April 6, 2006). [BACK]