Here’s an interesting map that shows the largest religious groups for each county in the United States. As always, I’m surprised at the geographical concentrations of different denominations and traditions which points to the rich social history that produced religion in the US.

In academics there are a handful of political and cultural issues for which there are “acceptable” and “unacceptable” positions. If you agree with the majority of academics on these issues, great, but if not, you’re going to run into trouble.

Mark Regnerus has taken one of these “unacceptable” positions. He conducted a study to compare “how the young-adult children of a parent who has had a same-sex romantic relationship fare on 40 different social, emotional, and relational outcome variables when compared with six other family-of-origin types.” To read his study, click here. To read an interview with him about this study, click here.

I don’t study family demography, but my take is that his work is a worthwhile addition to the literature on this topic. The paper went through the peer-review process at a top journal and has been vetted by other sociologists of the family. (To read a letter in support of this research, click here). This paper has produced scholarly debate, which is fine, for reasonable people can disagree on some of its technical and interpretive aspects–this true with any sociological study.

Much more problematic has been the response by some social activists, interest groups, and others who, among other things, have labeled this work “junk science,” made calls to remove his writing from newspapers, and even lodged a formal complaint against him with his university. Wow! This reaction gives the appearance of aiming to punish, shame, and even silence Regnerus. I view this as both bullying and anti-intellectual.

Activists on many issues—both to the left and the right—have an uneasy relationship with empirical research. They trumpet it when it supports their position, and they declaim it when it doesn’t, and their approval of research is often unrelated to the actual quality of the research. (In fact, it often appears inversely associated). Theirs is an “ends-justifies-the-means” approach to empirical research. Many advocates believe so strongly in the justice and rightness of their cause that they feel quite justified in attacking any perceived threats to it—data be damned.

When I organized this blog last year, Mark was the first person that I invited to join me. Though I had not met him, I knew of his reputation as a fine scholar and a devout Christian, and I was thrilled when he agreed to join us. In working with him this last year, I have had nothing but appreciation for his thoughtful and interesting writing, and I have enjoyed getting to know him.

With this study, I have another thing to appreciate about him: his courage. He didn’t just touch the third rail, he grabbed it with both hands. Out of personal conviction, he examined a topic that is highly controversial, and he had the courage to report his findings even when they flew in the face of conventional and “approved” wisdom. Thankfully Mark has tenure (once again it protects freedom of speech), but he’s still going to take a serious hit for going against the cultural grain.

Here’s to Mark—both his scholarship and personal courage. Well done, Mark!

(FYI: Since this topic is bringing out the trolls, I won’t approve any comments on this post… don’t want you to waste your time)

At some point in my life, maybe last Tuesday, I realized that what I, and others, want in life is sometimes very different than what we put our time and energy into. I suppose that I have mostly assumed that people do what they want—within the boundaries of external constraints and opportunities. So, if someone spends a lot of time at work, they main value is getting ahead in their career and maybe providing for others, and if someone else spends a lot of time with their children, their main value is how they raise their children.

There are certainly people that I know whose lives are well integrated in that they know what they want and they put their life into it. But I also know of people whose actions and efforts seem, well, unrelated to what they profess as their values. This could be interpreted as their actions reflecting what they really value, but it could also be just a general sense of inefficacy in this aspect of life—that they never learned or otherwise figured out how to focus long-term on what is most important.

Still others seem to have an inverse relationship between what they want in life and what they do. The more they want something, the more they veer away from it. This could represent anxiety and fear. Important things are scary and taking them on requires self-confidence and often some level of external security.

So, since I like to make figures and tables, we can envision the relationship between effort and value as something along the lines of the following:

Now, I have spoken about it as if there are three different types of people, put really I think that each of us probably has elements of all three models in our lives. In my life, there are some areas where I’m pretty good about putting myself into what matters, but there are other areas in which I’m not and still others that I pretty much ignore because they are important. A good example of the latter is a letter that I have been wanting to write to a funding agency asking for money. I’ve been talking about it for about a year, and it will take me an hour max, and it’s potentially much more important than a lot of other things that I do, but I haven’t/ won’t make the time to do it.

In recent years, I’ve tried to pay more attention to the alignment between how I spend my day and what is really important to me, and I’ve been surprised at how much I’ve needed to change and still need to change. I’ve also realized that, as a parent, I need actively to train my children in how to pursue what is important.

How about you?