He then was postdoctoral researcher at the Carolina Population Center before taking a position as assistant professor at Calvin College, where he remained until 2002.
A 2012 population-based study of his, which was published in Social Science Research,[10] concluded that people who had had a parent who had been in a same-gender relationship were at a greater risk of several adverse outcomes, including "being on public assistance, being unemployed, and having poorer educational attainment.
[12][13] This included a disavowal by Regnerus's department chair at the University of Texas-Austin, in which Christine L. Williams cites the American Sociological Association, "which takes the position that the conclusions he draws from his study of gay parenting are fundamentally flawed on conceptual and methodological grounds and that findings from Dr. Regnerus’ work have been cited inappropriately in efforts to diminish the civil rights and legitimacy of LBGTQ partners and their families.
"[22] They also argue that "it is possible to interpret Regnerus's findings as evidence for the need for legalized gay marriage, in order to support the social stability of such relationships", which contrasts with Regnerus's own conclusion published in Slate: "[This study] may suggest that the household instability that the NFSS reveals is just too common among same-sex couples to take the social gamble of spending significant political and economic capital to esteem and support this new (but tiny) family form.
"[23] Major academic organizations including the American Sociological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Medical Association dispute the validity of Regnerus's data and conclusions reached thereof, arguing that unlike previous studies, the statistically tiny number of same sex couples in a study whose sample group largely consisted of failed heterosexual marriages where one of the parents was allegedly homosexual, make it impossible to extrapolate any information about same sex parenting.
"[20]Some argue that the project's funding source, the Witherspoon Institute, an American conservative think tank, ultimately biased the results;[24][25] New York Times writer Mark Oppenheimer speculated that Regnerus's Catholic faith may have shaped the way he approached the study of same-sex relationships.
Citing widespread criticism of NFSS methodology, Judge Bernard A. Friedman rejected Regnerus's testimony, alleging the arguments derived from methodologically flawed data were "not worthy of serious consideration" and served rather to please the conservative organizations (Witherspoon Institute and Bradley Foundation) that underwrote the survey research project.
"[31] During a speech at Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2014 titled "What Sexual Behavior Patterns Reveal about the Mating Market and Catholic Thought", Regnerus's views on same-sex relationships continued to spread controversy when he claimed that "normalization of gay men's sexual behavior" in society will contribute to a surge in the "practice of heterosexual anal sex.
They alleged American conservatism had "surrendered to the pornographization of daily life, to the culture of death, to the cult of competitiveness" and a "poisonous and censorious multiculturalism".