Category Archives: Marriage & Family

Boston Globe: Police are investigating after someone spray-painted swastikas on a Stockton Springs church, and the pastor says the church was targeted because of his opposition to same-sex marriage.

Nathaniel Frank at the Daily Herald (AP): After the losses in Maine in 2009 and California a year earlier, LGBT advocates knew they needed to craft an effective response to Schubert’s false message that gay equality harms kids. Enter Freedom To Marry. The umbrella group was founded in 2003 by the civil rights lawyer Evan Wolfson, who has consistently preached about winning hearts and minds in between elections rather than in the frenzied lead-up to them. While gay groups had spent millions of dollars on public opinion research before and after the Prop 8 loss in California, no one had ever stopped to pull it all together . . . Frank, author of “Unfriendly Fire” and a visiting scholar at Columbia’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, is writing a book called “The Anti-Gay Mind.”

Boston.com (AP): Ray Sullivan, campaign director for the group Fight Back RI, says the General Assembly should have at least four or five additional supporters of same-sex marriage following Tuesday’s election.

The American Federation for Children—the nation’s voice for educational choice—today congratulated a slate of bipartisan legislative candidates across Arizona who were victorious in last night’s elections and have pledged to support and advocate for meaningful education reform, including educational choice.

NCPA Policy Digest: For several decades, support has coalesced in favor of broad school reforms in an effort to increase student achievement scores. Recently, reformers have focused on the role that teacher unions play in K-12 education, say Amber M. Winkler, Janie Scull and Dara Zeehandelaar of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. . . . Source: Amber M. Winkler, Janie Scull and Dara Zeehandelaar, “How Strong Are U.S. Teacher Unions? A State-By-State Comparison,” Thomas B. Fordham Institute, October 29, 2012.

Seattle Times: Altering the course of U.S social policy, Maine and Maryland became the first states to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote, while Washington state and Colorado set up a showdown with federal authorities by legalizing recreational use of marijuana.

Wall Street Journal: Americans for the first time approved gay marriage at the ballot box on Tuesday, pointing to changing attitudes on the divisive issue.

Portland Press Herald (AP):With 48 percent of Maine precincts reporting to the Press Herald, same-sex marriage proponents have 54 percent of votes.

Baltimore Sun: Marylanders made history Tuesday as they voted to make same-sex marriage legal — a question that had been defeated each of the 32 times it had been on the ballot in other states.

Kentucky.com: The testimony provided more evidence that the eastern parts of our commonwealth are suffering. Perhaps more important than any other ailment that affects the rough underside of the “holler shack” or the “sagging modular home” are the dysfunctional families who live in them.

One News Now: Despite the increased demand and bigger budget, the Department of Education and the Obama administration have been working for a year to limit participation in the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program.

Scott Yenor at the Ruth Institute Blog: Elizabeth Brake’s Minimizing Marriage breaks new ground in the contemporary liberal critique of traditional arrangements. The object of her critique is what she calls amatonormativity—the belief that society should value two-person, amorous love relationships. Even same-sex marriage (SSM) advocates are too restrictive for Brake in that they would confer benefits on two people alone; SSM advocates are unwitting amatonormativists.

Geoffrey Fowler at the Wall Street Journal: Americans weighed in on gay marriage in four states Tuesday, in a test of whether attitudes have changed on the divisive issue. In Maine, Maryland and Washington state, voters decided whether to begin allowing same-sex unions. A vote to permit gay marriage would mark a first for a cause that previously has been rejected by voters in 32 states.

Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy: The problem? The parents wanted to change the children’s last name to a name other than either the mother’s or the father’s, plus (and it’s not clear how relevant this ended up being) they had changed one child’s name three years before. From In re Kobra, 2012 WL 5373490 (N.Y. City Civ. Ct. Oct. 26) . . .

Wesley Smith at National Review: An unusual custody battle involving a surrogate mother and two Houston men is playing out in a Harris County courtroom.Cindy Close, 48, gave birth to twins at Texas Children’s Medical Center in July, but on the night of their birth she was visited by a social worker. “She told me we had a surrogacy situation,” Close said. “I looked at her and said ‘I’m not a surrogate, what are you talking about?’”

Regina Griggs and Peter Sprigg at the Christian Post: Voters in 32 out of the 32 states where it has appeared on the ballot have upheld marriage as the union of a woman and a man. Advocates of same-sex marriage are holding out hope that their long losing streak will end on Election Day in Minnesota, Washington, Maryland or Maine.

NY Daily News: Former Gov. George Paaki ripped an upstate rabbi for making “offensive and disgraceful” comments that described Hurricane Sandy as divine payback for New York legalizing gay marriage. Pataki called on fellow Republican Neil DiCarlo — who is running on the Conservative Party line for a state Senate seat from the Hudson Valley — to denounce the remarks of Rabbi Noson Leiter. DiCarlo opposes gay marriage, and the orthodox rabbi made the statements in support of his third-party candidacy.

CBS: A new study has found that 17-year-olds with lesbian mothers had high school GPAs ranging between A-minus to B-plus, while having strong family bonds with their mothers, whom the teens consider good role models. The Williams Institute at UCLA, which conducted “Adolescents with Lesbian Mothers Describe Their Own Lives,” tracked 78 adolescents over a 26-year period. | UCLA Williams Institute Study

CNSNews: If Americans under the age of 18 were required as a group to pay off the entirety of the federal government’s debt in equal shares, each would now need to pay about $218,676.

Las Vegas Review Journal: The tough question used to be: “Who’s your Daddy?” But now the Nevada Supreme Court has to decide an even tougher question: “Who’s your Mama?”

The inter-ethnic, interdenominational coalition of pastors that originally opposed the decision by Pflugerville ISD to extend employee benefits to domestic partners expressed appreciation to State Senator Dan Patrick for his bold leadership in requesting an opinion by Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Christian Newswire: The highest judicial commission of the Presbyterian Church (USA) published a final decision this week in an internal disciplinary case holding that the Rev. Laurie McNeill did not commit any offense by “marrying” her same-sex partner.

Matthew J. Franck at National Review: Regnerus’s research exploded the “no differences” thesis to which advocates of same-sex marriage have clung–that is, the thesis that children do just as well being raised by parents in such relationships as they do being raised by their own biological, married parents who stay together for the long haul. Furious at his dissent from their unwarranted “consensus,” Regnerus’s critics lashed out at him with everything from reasonable (but misplaced) criticisms of his research to vicious attacks on him as a person. One of the more temperate critics of Regnerus has been David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values . . .

Baptist Press: Gay marriage laws in Washington state and Maryland are in danger of being overturned by voters, according to new polls that were released after traditional groups went on the air with television ads warning of the consequences of marriage redefinition.

LA Times: The change appears to be partly driven by black pastors in Maryland urging their congregations to vote against the measure. During a sermon in October, pastor Harold L. Dugger of First Baptist Church in Prince George’s County, Md., asked his congregation to go to the polls to cast their votes against same-sex marriage.

Patheos: Vice President Joe Biden said transgender discrimination is “the civil rights issue of our time” during a visit to a Florida field office on Tuesday, according to pool reports.

CNSNews: “The 2011 preliminary number of U.S. births was 3,953,593, 1 percent less (or 45,793 fewer) births than in 2010; the general fertility rate (63.3 per 1,000 women age 15-44 years) declined to the lowest rate ever reported for the United States,” said the report. More than 40 percent of all babies born in the country last year, the report said, were born to unmarried women.

The Church Report: Polling of Maryland voters a few weeks ago suggested black voters supported same-sex marriage but a poll conducted last week indicated the numbers tightened.

Miami New Times: Coral Gables has joined seven other local municipalities and Miami-Dade County in passing a Domestic Partnership ordinance which grants LGBT city employees partnership benefits.

Fox News: A 27-year-old Davenport man has been accused of biting his 4-year-old stepchild in order to punish the child.

Courthouse News Service: In a 3-2 vote along party lines, the court approved a subsidy for the purchase or continuation of private medical insurance for any county employee’s domestic partner and children, according to the court’s agenda.

AP: Brad Pitt has agreed to donate $100,000 to help the Human Rights Campaign raise money for its efforts to support same-sex marriage initiatives in several states.

Matthew J. Franck at Public Discourse: Mark Regnerus’s response to his critics shows more clearly that instability is characteristic of same-sex relationships and that stable same-sex parented households are virtually non-existent. Second of a two-part series.

Catholic Culture: The mind boggles not only at the directness of this defiance but at the absurdity of its alleged theological justification. Anyone who understands the Catholic doctrine of marriage knows that no such “development” could possibly be authentic. Consider these fundamentals . . .

Baltimore Sun: Asked to support the ad’s claim, Frank Schubert, the consultant running the campaign against same-sex marriage in Maryland and other states, said “it necessarily follows” that schools would teach same-sex marriage if Question 6 is approved.

Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal: The Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors said Tuesday it opposes the proposed change to the Minnesota constitution that would define recognized marriage as only between opposite-sex couples.

Balitmore Sun Editorial: Our view: Maryland’s marriage equality law protects religious institutions while affirming the principle that no one should face discrimination under the law

San Francisco Chronicle: The two principal campaigns battling over Minnesota’s constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage have raised more than $16 million combined, with opponents of the ban outraising supporters by nearly two-to-one.

Nathan Cherry at Engage Family Minute Blog: continue to hear people say that our society should just legalize same-sex “marriage” and be done with the whole issue. They reason that allowing homosexuals to marry will not severely alter the lives of others in any significant way so it would be best for everyone to legalize marriage and move forward. But Jennifer Thieme has written an article which expertly sums up the out of control spiral that legalizing same-sex “marriage” would induce . . . .

Midtown.patch.com: The lawsuit alleges that the preamble and the question on the Nov. 6 ballot is biased in favor of approval of the measure.

LifeSiteNews: They used to call them “swingers.” Not anymore. These days, like most “alternative lifestyle” groups, they’ve adopted a new, more clinical-sounding description – polyamorist – and incorporated it into the names of a small but growing number of advocacy and social networking organizations.

Matthew J. Franck at Public Discourse: Attacks on sociologist Mark Regnerus after he challenged the “no differences” thesis haven’t obscured the high quality of the New Family Structures Study or its troubling findings. The first of a two-part series.

Dennis Prager at Townhall: Is there any argument that can compete with the emotionally compelling fairness argument? The answer is that one can — namely, the answer to the second question, Is it good for society? Before answering that question, however, it is necessary to respond to the charge that opposition to same-sex marriage is morally equivalent to opposition to interracial marriage and, therefore, the moral equivalent of racism.

AP: In all, there are 176 measures on the Nov. 6 ballots in 38 states, according to the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California

One News Now: Despite big bucks by major corporations being poured into the campaign for same-sex “marriage” in Washington State, polls continue to show that the gap for support for Democrat-backed Referendum 74 is dwindling ─ fast. For the first time, support for Referendum 74 has dropped below 50 percent, according to the latest statewide Elway Poll.

Washington Post: Maryland activists working to overturn same-sex marriage have had to get used to one surprising absence from their religious coalition: Mormons.

Daniel Christensen, Kathleen Albrecht, Bruce Minor And Bill Clapp at the Minneapolis Star Tribune: Four major mental-health professional associations — the Minnesota Psychological Association; the Minnesota chapter of the National Association of Social Workers; the Minnesota Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and the Minnesota Psychiatric Society — oppose amending our state Constitution to exclude same-sex couples from legal marriage . . . Far from “redefining marriage,” the research shows that same-sex couples who seek to wed one another are hoping to participate fully in the same traditional definitions of marriage their other family members embrace, and for the same reasons.

Sharon A. Knotts at Baltimore Sun: He was highly upset by remarks made by a local Baptist preacher regarding a New Testament Bible verse, Romans 1:32, that states that homosexuality, along with other sins, “is worthy of death.” The short answer is, according to both Old and New Testaments, in scores of verses too numerous to cite here, all sin is worthy of death . . . While the writer referred to the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount and their unparalleled teachings of hope and love, neither of these speak directly to marriage. Why not cite the passages where Jesus did specifically address the subject of marriage?

Boston Globe: This is the second time in four years that Mainers will vote on gay marriage. Voters in 2009 overturned a Maine law passed by the Legislature earlier in the year allowing same-sex marriage.

Sea Coast Online: If one consenting adult pays another consenting adult for sex, “it’s not the government’s business,” said Barbara Keshen, an attorney for the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union.

SCOTUS Blog: The Obama Administration on Friday urged the Supreme Court to hear and decide the most sweeping federal appeals court decision ever issued on gay rights, as the government’s preferred case for reviewing the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.  Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., in a new brief, said the Second Circuit Court case of Windsor v. United States is “the most appropriate vehicle” for review of DOMA’s ban on federal benefits for legally married same-sex couples.

Jenet Erickson at Public Discourse: Promoting “genderless parenting” contradicts what the facts show us both about the harms of single parenthood and the benefits of having a mom and a dad.

AP: President Barack Obama on Thursday threw his support behind ballot measures in Maine, Maryland and Washington state that would legalize same-sex marriage.

Boston Globe: Mainers United for Marriage, the group leading the campaign in favor of gay marriage, says the Obama campaign’s regional press secretary issued a statement Thursday giving support to Maine’s gay marriage referendum on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Washington Post: President Obama is heard endorsing same-sex marriage in a new radio ad being aired by supporters of Question 6, the Maryland ballot measure that would legalize gay unions.

AP: An audit of the U.S. Department of Education’s division overseeing hundreds of millions of dollars in charter school funding has criticized the office for failing to properly monitor how states spend the money.

AP: Out are the super-sized McMansions in far-flung suburbs and in the sprawling Southwest . . . In are new, 300 square-foot “micro” apartments under consideration for wider development in dense cities such as New York, San Francisco, Boston and …

AP: But days after Austin-Knight’s children were put in foster care, she met foster mother Krista King at a park as part of an effort in Florida to encourage more foster parents to communicate with birth parents, let them talk to their children and honor their child-rearing wishes. Similar programs are in California, Virginia and New Mexico. Several other states – including Oregon, New Hampshire and Washington – provide legal representation or mentorship for birth parents.

Christian Civic League has published a list of reader comments on the topic.

Caplan AL, Hoke D, Diamond NJ, Karshenboyem V., J Law Med Ethics. 2012 Sep;40(3):606-11. doi: 10.1111/j.1748-720X.2012.00693.x.

Abstract
Can parents who choose not to vaccinate their children be held legally liable for any harm that results? The state of laboratory and epidemiological understanding of a disease such as measles makes it likely that a persuasive causal link can be established between a decision to not vaccinate, a failure to take appropriate precautions to isolate a non-vaccinated child who may have been exposed to measles from highly vulnerable persons, and a death. This paper argues that, even if a parent chooses to not vaccinate a child under a state law permitting exemptions, that decision does not create complete protection against liability for the adverse consequences of that choice.

WorldNetDaily: Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan backed homeschool freedom at a recent campaign event in Florida. At the town hall-style event in Ocala, Florida, on Thursday, October 18, the following exchange took place. We encourage you to watch the video clip. Transcript . . .

Seattle Times: A source of debate across the country and the subject of ballot measures in four states this year, same-sex marriage remains a thorny issue within the African-American community, where objections are deeply rooted in religion and biblical teachings.

MinnPost: Minnesota is one of four states where voters next month will be asked to decide ballot questions related to same-sex marriage. This is the only state where voters will be asked to outlaw, not approve, gay marriage.

Seattle Post Intelligencer: Support for Referendum 74 is under 50 percent, and the measure to legalize same-sex marriage enjoys only a narrow four-point lead, according to a new statewide Elway Poll released on Wednesday.

The Republic (AP): The Illinois Department of Public Health previously denied requests to change the gender on a birth certificate unless the person had undergone genital reconstruction surgery. But the American Civil Liberties Union sued last year on behalf of three transgender individuals, arguing that the state’s rules should not specify what kind of surgery a person must have before updating a birth certificate.

Wall Street Journal: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he’ll spend $500,000 of his personal fortune on gay marriage campaigns in Maine, Minnesota and Washington state to help them raise an equal amount.

Keepmecurrent.com: On Monday, Maine’s fourth-largest city became the third municipality in the state to publicly endorse same-sex marriage.

Doe v. Reed, No. 11-35854 ( Before: Harry Pregerson, A. Wallace Tashima, and N. Randy Smith, Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge Tashima; Concurrence by Judge N.R. Smith)

Plaintiffs Protect Marriage Washington (“PMW”), John Doe #1, and John Doe #2 (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) seek to enjoin Defendants, the Secretary of State and Public Records Officer of the State of Washington, from releasing the names of people who signed petitions supporting a Washington referendum. These petitions are already widely available on the internet. We dismiss this case as moot because we cannot grant Plaintiffs effective relief.

U.S. v. Child, No. 11-30241 (Before: Mary M. Schroeder, Stephen Reinhardt, and Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge Reinhardt) Opinion Excerpt: Timothy Eric Wolf Child, a Native American, appeals a special condition of supervised release imposed by …

Log Cabin Republicans: There has been discussion about whether we, as members of Log Cabin Republicans, are LGBT first or Republican first. Ultimately, we believe the answer is neither. We are Americans first, and as such, must stand for what we believe is right for our country.

Family Policy Council of West Virginia: A recent attempt to establish three-parent parenting in California reminds us of the importance of strengthening marriage between one man and one woman. Not only does marriage connect mothers and fathers to the children that they conceive, it may also lead to reducing the size of government. As California recently experienced, attempts to redefine marriage make children the subject of a social experiment and demand an increase in governmental oversight. Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse and Austin Muck, each from the Ruth Institute, explain why we ought to concern ourselves with strengthening marriage between one man and one woman.

Education News: Lawyers representing hundreds of school districts challenging the state’s school funding system argued Monday that it’s “hopelessly broken,” but an attorney for the state said the situation isn’t as dire as the districts portray.

USCCB: “The recognition that marriage is and can only be the union of one man and one woman is grounded in our nature, being clear from the very way our bodies are designed. This recognition obliges our consciences and laws. It is a matter of basic rights—the right of every child to be welcomed and raised, as far as possible, by his or her mother and father together in a stable home,” Archbishop Cordileone said. “Marriage is the only institution whereby a man and a woman unite for life and are united to any child born from their union. The public good demands that the unique meaning and purpose of marriage be respected in law and society, not rejected as beyond the constitutional pale. Redefining marriage never upholds the equal dignity of individuals because it contradicts basic human rights. The ruling yesterday is unjust and a great disappointment.”

Washington Post: IN 2007, EDITH Windsor married Thea Spyer, her partner of 42 years, in Canada. Two years later, Ms. Spyer died. If the New York couple had been been man and woman, Ms. Windsor wouldn’t have been hit with a big estate tax bill. But they were two women, and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) prohibited the federal government from recognizing their relationship. Ms. Windsor owed the Internal Revenue Service $363,053.

Baltimore Sun: Gallaudet University is asking the group opposing Maryland’s same-sex marriage law to take down a new commercialthat features a university staff member who was suspended for signing a referendum petition.