Homophobic Posters Appear in Melbourne Quoting Anti-Gay Pseudoscience

As this week's deadline to enrol in the government's Marriage Law Postal Survey approaches, the "No" campaign has taken a dark turn with homophobic posters springing up in Melbourne's CBD.

Spotted in Heffernan Lane, the posters call for voters to "Stop the Fags" and feature statistics about the purported effects same-sex parents have on kids. The numbers paint a bleak picture: "92 percent of children raised by Gay Parents (sic) are abused… 51 percent have depression… 72 percent are obese."

But while the posters appear to cite a legitimate academic study, a closer look reveals they draw on deeply flawed research from Rev. D. Paul Sullins, a controversial sociology professor and priest at the Catholic University of America.

Sullins' work has been widely reported in conservative media and leveraged by anti-LGBT groups across the United States. However, he's received criticism from more mainstream media and academics alike for his unscientific approach and conflicts of interest.

This paper in particular, "Invisible Victims: Delayed Onset Depression Among Adults With Same-Sex Parents," was torn apart when it was first published in 2016 for its shoddy methodology. With a tiny sample size of just "20 unweighted cases of adolescents with same-sex parents" extrapolated to draw conclusions about the entire population, there's little chance the paper could've passed peer review.

This is likely why—as Nathaniel Frank noted at Slate— Sullins chose to publish the study "in an Egyptian-based open access journal that requires authors to pay for publication… [and] has been criticised for a lax peer-review process that isn't even overseen by a real editor."

Frank's own research at Columbia University has found an overwhelming number of studies show children from same-sex parents are no worse off than their peers. Of the 79 research papers his research group found on the issue, only four showed any negative relationship between the two—one of which, "Emotional Problems among Children with Same-Sex Parents: Difference by Definition," is by, you guessed it, Rev. D. Paul Sullins.

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Writing for ThinkProgress, Zack Ford shone some light on why Sullins' work may have zeroed in so closely on same-sex families. Including the fact the minister is "a fellow of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute, a project of the anti-LGBT Family Research Council, and a Fourth Degree member of the Knights of Columbus, which has [funnelled] millions of dollars into fighting marriage equality over the past decade."

When contacted by VICE, Melbourne City Council said they would take a stand against the posters and "City of Melbourne officers will actively remove the offensive posters as they breach our Graffiti Policy (2014)."

A spokesperson also noted the city council last week voted in support of marriage equality and "has resolved to take a leading role in promoting respectful dialogue at a time when an acrimonious public debate about marriage equality may be damaging to health and wellbeing of members of the LGBTIQA+ community."

At a state level, the Victorian Government announced Sunday it would be providing $1 million in support to the LGBTQIA+ community throughout the federal government's postal vote on marriage equality. The deadline to enrol in the vote is Thursday, August 24 at midnight. The AEC is reporting some 29,273 voters joined the electoral role in the week after the Marriage Equality Postal Survey was announced.

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If you relate to any of the issues raised in this article, know there's help out there. If you are in Australia you can call Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4436 (24 hours, 7 days per week) or QLife on 1800 184 527 (3 PM–12 AM AEST).