A recent article by Paul Kix of AOL News, "Study: Gay Parents More Likely to Have Gay Kids," discussed research by Kansas State University professor Walter Schumm. Kix reported on Schumm's work as if it were valid and worthy of consideration.

It is neither. Schumm's work has been shown to use misleading methods, such as non-random, non-representative sampling. He is also associated with the leader of a known hate group.

Some of the material in Schumm's paper was initially prepared for his testimony as an "expert" witness for the State of Florida in its recent court battle to try and uphold a ban on adoption by lesbians and gay men. The court stated that Schumm admitted his statistical methods "depart from conventions in the field" and two other expert witnesses testified that "Dr. Schumm’s statistical reanalysis contained a number of fundamental errors." The court struck down the adoption ban.

Kix noted that Schumm testified in the case, but did not mention that his analysis was questioned. Instead, Kix said, "In his testimony was an inkling of the robust research Schumm has just completed."

Additionally, Schumm sat on the board of the Empirical Journal of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior, a failed online journal run by Paul Cameron, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) calls "an infamous anti-gay propagandist whose one-man statistical chop shop, the Family Research Institute, churns out hate literature masquerading as legitimate science." SPLC lists the Family Research Institute as a hate group.

Kix, however, tried to position Schumm as distancing himself from Cameron's views. He noted that Schumm's views are bound to be controversial, but did not discuss the many serious questions about his methodology. He also, without question, quoted Schumm's statement in an interview that "some lesbians 'have a hatred of men that's intense,'" thus perpetuating the old stereotype of "man-hating lesbians."

This is shoddy, unbalanced reporting, ignoring easily found information that calls Schumm's research into question and associates him with the leader of an anti-gay hate group. AOL News should be ashamed to have published such an article.