Researcher Retracts Study Showing Effects of LGBT Outreach on Same-Sex Marriage

A study that claimed face-to-face conversations with opponents of same-sex marriage led to them changing their minds on the issue has been retracted because of allegations that one of the researchers fabricated data.

The study got a lot of attention when it was published in the December issue of Science. Its authors, Columbia University professor and political scientist Donald P. Green and Michael J. LaCour of UCLA, said they had studied a program by the L.A. LGBT Center’s Vote for Equality in which staff and volunteers had more than 12,000 one-on-one conversations over a five-year period in Los Angeles neighborhoods that overwhelmingly supported Prop 8, the California ballot measure that repealed the freedom for same-sex couples to marry. Those conversations, the study said, changed the minds of conservative voters to support marriage for same-sex couples five times faster than their neighbors were evolving on the issue.

But according to Retraction Watch, an academic watchdog website, Green published a retraction of the study yesterday after LaCour, its co-author, said he could not located date associated with the study and agreed to a retraction. Green raised questions about LaCour’s work after students at UCLA Berkley were unable to replicate its findings and questioned the collection of data on which LaCour said it was based.

“We were shocked and disheartened when we learned yesterday of the apparent falsification of data by independent researcher Michael LaCour,” said L.A. LGBT Center Leadership LAB Director David Fleischer. “We sought external and independent evaluation of our voter canvassing project to determine the efficacy of the work through unbiased analysis. We are not in a position to fully interpret or assess the apparent irregularities in the research as we do not have access to the full body of information and, by design, have maintained an arms-length relationship with the evaluation of the project. We support Donald Green’s retraction of the Science article and are grateful that the problems with LaCour’s research have been exposed.”