The Maxim Institute has a surprising connection with Kinsey, a newly released film screening around the country. It's boss, Bruce Logan, attacked Alfred Kinsey's research in the mid-nineties, while he ran the Education Development Foundation, the Maxim Institute's predecessor. In the mid-nineties, the Education Development Foundation became aware of a US Family Research Council video entitled "Children of Table 34." In this propaganda video, one Judith Reisman accused the late Alfred Kinsey of paedophile involvement in one statistical table related to child sexual development. Needless to say, this was an utter fabrication. Poppy Dixon authored an incisive review of Reisman's 'career' as a US Christian Right 'social scientist' in June 2000. According to Dixon, Reisman worked for "Captain Kangaroo,' a children's programme, before it was cancelled. Reisman attributed this to increased antisocial media content and went off the deep end. In the early eighties, she became closely involved with the US Christian Right and got money thrown at her when she tendered for a content analysis to count the incidence of specific images and words related to particular designated topics. Reisman bungled this simple research methodology. The embarrassed US Department of Justice refused to be associated with such a poorly designed project. Reisman made another inferential jump and attacked Indiana University's Kinsey Institute for legitimisation of mainstream sexuality-related social scientific research. Huntington House published her work five years later, and it should be noted that this fundamentalist publishing house is noted for its conspiratorial fare. It published Neil Whitehead's attack on gay genes several years later, and it is worth noting that Whitehead cited Cameron's work within that volume, unaware that it was similarly discredited. If this is supposed to be serious academic work, why couldn't Whitehead find a mainstream publisher for it? The Society for Promotion of Community Standards ignored the fact that Reisman's work was thoroughly discredited in the United States, and tried to pass off Reisman as a proper social scientist in the New Zealand context. Unfortunately, as Carolyn Moynihan's hag-iography of the late Miss Bartlett tells us, she didn't have that much credibility in terms of the Indecent Publications Tribunal, High Court and Court of Appeal. At that time, Dr Sue Middleton had been appointed to the Tribunal, and this experienced social scientist exposed the inadequacies of Reisman's ineptitude as a content analyst in one case. After the SPCS fell onto hard times, it realised that Reisman lacked credibility as a serious 'social scientist' and abandoned citation of her work. Amusingly, Bruce Logan was unaware of the damning condemnation of Reisman's work within the Indecent Publications Tribunal in the late eighties and early nineties. Similarly, he seemed unaware of developments related to Reisman's animus against the Kinsey Institute itself in the early nineties. Dixon tells us that Reisman sued the Kinsey Institute, but her own attorney realised that Reisman had no case, and bailed out. As a consequence, Reisman was prohibited from refiling her case against the Kinsey Institute, as a vexatious litigant, in 1993. Logan seemed to be oblivious to Reisman's marginal status, as he cited her work and the "Children of Table 34" in his own mid-nineties monograph against comprehensive sex education, "A Questionable Conception" (1986). In 1996, Cutting Edge republished these allegations, even given the fact that Reisman and friends have been unable to locate any of the imaginary 'children' within her fabricated obsession. Moreover, Logan had ignored Reisman's demolition within the findings of the Indecent Publications Tribunal as Cutting Edge editor. When Affirm published his monograph against same-sex marriage, Logan whined that the academic community gave a hard time to social conservative opponents of lesbian and gay relationship and parenting equality, unlike the lower demographic reaches of the mass media. Dare one suggest that mainstream academia really objects to the appalling lack of professional research standards in the alleged methodologies of these people? If Lynn Wardle or the Maxim Institute cite the work of discredited quacks like Cameron or Reisman, then they have to realise that these marginal figures have already been cited and discredited in New Zealand public policy debate, and never rehabilitated. However, nothing really changes in conservative Christendom. Even if Logan isn't citing Reisman as a reliable authority, the SPCS and its satellites still seem to be doing so. Somewhere, Alfred Kinsey is laughing out loud at the sheer ineptitude of his opponents' New Zealand derivatives... Recommended Reading: Gary Bauer "Kinsey and the Children of Table 34" Cutting Edge 17 (April/May 1995). Tom Bethell "Sex, Lies and Kinsey: Exposing the Father of Child Abuse" Cutting Edge 25 (August/September 1996). Poppy Dixon: "I'm Ready for My Closeup Now, Captain Kangaroo" (June 2000): http://www.jesus21.com/poppydixon/sex/kinsey/judith_reisman.html Kinsey Institute: Response to Reisman's Allegations: http://www.indiana.edu/~kinsey/about/contro-03.html Bruce Logan: A Questionable Conception: Christchurch: Education Development Foundation: 1996. Bruce Logan: Same-Sex Marriage? Tauranga: Affirm Publications: 2000. Carolyn Moynihan: A Stand for Decency: Patricia Bartlett and the Society for Promotion of Community Standards: Upper Hutt: SPCS: 1995. Judith Reisman: Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: Lafayette: Huntington House: 1990. Judith Reisman: The Children of Table 34: Washington: Family Research Council c1994 [video]. Lynn Wardle: "The Potential Impact of Homosexual Parenting" University of Illinois Law Review: 3: 833-920. Neil Whitehead: My Genes Made Me Do It: Lafayette: Huntington House: 1998. Craig Young - 14th January 2005