How a revived study is being used in a push against marriage equality

A controversial sociological study published 14 years ago is once again being used by opponents of marriage equality as part of a campaign to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court decision that made marriage equality a federal right.

The research, known as the “New Family Structures Study,” was published in 2012 in Social Science Research by Mark Regnerus, a sociologist who has said his Catholic faith shapes his work. It claimed that children raised by a parent in a same-gender relationship faced greater risks of negative psychosocial outcomes in adulthood than children raised by straight parents.

Regnerus’s study was funded mainly by the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation, which the article describes as far-right interest groups that lobby against LGBTQ+ rights. At the time, many observers saw the project as an effort to influence the Supreme Court in cases including Obergefell. Regnerus denied that accusation, though leaked correspondence later challenged his defense and suggested the study had been designed to reach predetermined conclusions.

Critics in the mainstream social science community said the paper’s methodology was deeply flawed. The study asked adults ages 18 to 39 whether a parent had ever had a same-gender sexual or romantic relationship, then grouped those respondents as having a sexual minority parent based on that answer alone. It compared them with stable households headed by two straight parents. Of the 236 people counted as having an LGBTQ+ parent, only two had been raised in a two-parent same-gender household for their entire childhood.

The American Sociological Association later filed amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases supporting marriage equality and rejecting Regnerus’s conclusions. In those briefs, the association said the data were highly flawed, the sample was not representative, and the study ignored a broad scientific consensus that children raised by same-gender parents do not differ from children raised by straight parents in psychosocial outcomes.

That old study has now resurfaced in the work of the “Greater Than” movement, which the article describes as a coalition of anti-LGBTQ+ lobbyists and political figures seeking to overturn Obergefell. Its prominent figures include Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Jim Daly of Focus on the Family, and Kim Faust of the “Them Before Us” movement.

The campaign argues that “children are greater than equal,” saying marriage equality harms children and that they should be shielded from what it calls the “LGBTQ+ agenda” in the United States. It also leans on comparisons showing better outcomes for children raised by married straight parents than for those raised in single-parent or divorced households — evidence that does not address the experience of children raised by same-gender parents.

The article says those comparisons are misleading because they conflate family structure with social and economic conditions. It notes that children in two-parent homes often do better on measures such as poverty and school performance, but that those outcomes are shaped by social determinants of health and are not universal, especially in homes marked by conflict.

Meanwhile, the Witherspoon Institute, one of the original funders of Regnerus’s work, published a 2025 op-ed in its own publication claiming there was “new vindication” for the study because artificial intelligence had supposedly enabled a better reading of its data. The article says that framing leaves out longstanding allegations that Regnerus shaped the research to fit his theological worldview.

For LGBTQ+ parents and children, the renewed use of the study matters because it revives a discredited argument that has long been used to question same-gender families in law and politics. The article says decades of research have consistently found that children raised by LGBTQ+ parents do not fare worse than those raised by straight parents and, in some educational measures, do better.

It adds that the campaign’s framing is especially striking given the thousands of children in foster care who need adoptive homes. The broader fight, the article suggests, is not only about Obergefell, but about whether family policy will be built on evidence or ideology.

What the study said, and why critics rejected it

• Published in 2012 in Social Science Research.
• Authored by sociologist Mark Regnerus.
• Funded primarily by the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation.
• Included 236 participants counted as having an LGBTQ+ parent, but only two from two-parent same-gender households throughout childhood.
• Criticized by the American Sociological Association as methodologically unsound.

Why it has returned now

• The “Greater Than” movement is using the study to support efforts to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges.
• Its leaders include Tony Perkins, Jim Daly and Kim Faust.
• The movement argues marriage equality harms children and promotes a “children are greater than equal” message.
• The article says the evidence it relies on does not measure same-gender parenting fairly.