Category Archives: Marriage & Family

EWTN: A University of Texas sociologist is being investigated for scientific “misconduct,” after angering gay activists with research suggesting children raised by same-sex couples have more problems as adults.

The Hill: Nearly half (47 percent) of likely voters believe it is impossible for them to become wealthy in the course of their lifetime, according to a new poll for The Hill.

Las Vegas Review Journal: Cafferata and Jenkins, who have been together for 15 years, are among the 3,780 couples in Nevada who have entered into domestic partner­ships under a 2009 state law. This partnership gives them most of the rights and privileges of heterosexual married couples, although it has a few shortcomings. It doesn’t give them something they really want – a legal marriage.

Harry R. Jackson, Jr. at Townhall: First of all, the legal rigor that made the organization effective and famous under Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall was not employed in this decision. Secondly, instead of leading the community in a mature discussion about this issue, the NAACP has stooped to name calling and hate mongering.

Findlaw: If you sponsor an immigrant spouse for permanent residency and later divorce, you could be on the line for spousal support, regardless of whether your former spouse attempts to find work, according to a recent Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.

Reuters: The biggest civil rights group’s two-month-old decision to support same-sex marriage has opened rifts at its convention in Houston this week, pitting religious conservatives against political progressives.

Miami Herald: Following a complaint by a lesbian Coral Gables police lieutenant denied bereavement leave when her partner’s father died, the city has tentatively agreed to provide officers with domestic-partner benefits, according to SAVE Dade, the county’s largest gay-rights group.

Seattle Post Intelligencer: Specifically, the Chamber said same-sex marriage would “improve recruiting efforts for state businesses, which compete against companies in states like Massachusetts and New York that have extended civil marriage rights to same sex couples.”

Washington Post: The Rev. Ronald Nuzzi, who heads the leadership program for Catholic educators at the University of Notre Dame, said many bishops “are in a pickle.” They want Catholic institutions to be staffed by people who not only teach what the church teaches but whose “whole life will bear witness.”

Louisiana Federation for Children: The Louisiana Department of Education today announced that the state’s newly-expanded voucher program received more than 10,300 applications during the month-long application period for the statewide program, marking one of the largest single-year application increases ever for a voucher program.

LA Times: Los Angeles school officials are fighting a court order, which took effect Wednesday, that would set aside more classroom seats for charter schools — even if that means traditional schools will lose space for parent centers, computer labs, academic intervention and other services.

The Texas Pastor Council provides information regarding today’s press conference and observes: “It is clear that the NAACP does not represent the majority of African Americans on this issue and we will explain why.”

Christian Science Monitor: Sexting – often thought of only in a legal context – needs to be considered from a youth perspective in order for parents to more fully protect them from its consequences.

HSLDA on the Christian Newswire: Parental rights will be eviscerated by the mandatory application of the ‘best interest of the child’ standard,” said Farris. “If parents think that private education is best for their child, the CRPD gives the government the authority and the legal duty to override that judgment and keep the child in the government-approved program that the officials think is best for the child.”

TaxTV: To break it down a bit more, the Internal Revenue Code assumes that people with shared financial interests may try to use one another for tax advantages, such as by transacting business with one another. For this reason, the Code contains numerous provisions that forbid related people from taking advantage of such transactions. But still as of 2012, the Code does not recognize same-sex married couples as being related, and so they are not subject to such provisions. This opens up a world of opportunities.

Dr. Melvin Johnson at the Christian Post: So this poses a couple of quesions for the leadership of the century-old organization: Is it truly supportive of the advancement of “colored people” or only certain colored people? OR was the NAACP actually formed by the white socialists as a means to infiltrate the African American community (including churches) and use it to incubate and the Marxist ideology. Based upon the current agendas and positions, the orgiinal founders are successfully making their marks!

AP: “I believe that if you understood who I truly am in my heart, and if it were possible to fully communicate what I believe is in the real, enduring best interest of African-American families, you would vote for me for president,” Romney will tell the NAACP’s annual meeting, according to excerpts of his speech that were released early by his campaign.

Fox News: But Mrs. Pitt has at least one high-profile supporter on her daughter-in-law’s side of the family: Jolie’s dad Jon Voight! “Good for her,” Voight told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column, adding that he agrees with the points-of-view expressed by Jane.

AP: LPAC, as the independent super PAC was christened, will be launched Wednesday with the freedom to spend unrestricted amounts of money for or against candidates.

Washington Post: “I have determined that final certification … is warranted at this time,” State Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone said in a letter to Derek McCoy, executive director of the Maryland Marriage Alliance.

Christian Post: Jane Pitt, the mother of famed Hollywood actor Brad Pitt, has been forced into silence over a politically motivated letter she recently wrote to her local newspaper.

ABC: After a lawsuit was filed against the Roanoke Athletic Club by a same-sex couple for offering them a “family membership” then revoking it, the club today changed its policy.

Quad-City Times: Ever since gay couples began flocking to Iowa to marry three years ago, conservative Republicans have been looking forward to amassing enough political power to put an end to it. But now that the opportunity is finally approaching, their goal may be slipping out of reach.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette: This fall, students will be able to choose from four new cyber charter schools, bringing the statewide total to 16, thanks to approvals by the state Department of Education.

AP: “You can’t make a rule to stop every accident,” Mosbacher said after his son Jacob hopped off the 40-year-old, 60-horsepower tractor at their farm near the tiny southern Illinois town of Fults. “There’s always a risk in life, no matter what you do.”

Robert Knight at Townhall: The most important part of the program, of which CBS ran 249 episodes (159 in black and white and 90 in color) from 1960 to 1968, was not the idealized portrayal of small town American life. It is the Christian-inspired warmth and wisdom, which never goes out of style. Most Americans don’t live in semi-rural villages anymore, and the communications age has ended isolation, but “The Andy Griffith Show” transcends its venue.

AP: Church leaders on Monday voted 111-41 in favor of the liturgy during the Episcopal General Convention in Indianapolis.

Spokesman Review: Among the donations were $100,000 each from Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates. Referendum 74 was certified for the ballot last month after gay marriage opponents turned in more than 240,000 signatures, far more than the minimum of 120,577 valid voter signatures required.

HomeTownSource.com: Supporters of the proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage have long argued that passage would stave off legal challenges to the state law that already outlaws same-sex marriage. And some attorneys say to a degree that idea is correct. “Well, yes and no,” said Teresa Nelson, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Minnesota.

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUS Blog: The precedent is considered to be fully binding even now by opponents of same-sex marriage, but of only limited impact — at most — by advocates of such marriages.

Robert P. George and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf at Public Discourse: A letter on pornography and business ethics written by two prominent public intellectuals—one a Christian, one a Muslim—sent to hotel industry executives last week.

Religion Clause Blog: In New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms v New York State Senate, (NY App. Div., July 6, 2912) a New York state appeals court rejected a challenge to the state’s Marriage Equality Law (which permits same-sex marriage) enacted last year.

Harvard Crimson: Harvard has appointed Vanidy “Van” Bailey as the College’s first permanent director of bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer student life. Bailey, the assistant director for education at the University of California, San Diego, will assume the new position on July 16.

The Church Report: The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) narrowly rejected a proposal to revise the traditional definition of marriage on Friday, a year after it struck down a barrier to ordaining gays.

Christian Newswire: Today, Judge Sophia Hall of the Cook County Circuit Court granted the Thomas More Society’s motion to intervene on behalf of two downstate county clerks in Illinois’ same-sex marriage case brought by the ACLU and Lambda Legal. The motion was not opposed by the other parties in the case.

Seattle Times: A Washington initiative to define marriage as between a man and a woman is not getting enough signatures to qualify for the ballot alongside the state’s marriage referendum.

Reeves & Associates: The issue of gay marriage has received much attention from the media. In May, President Obama declared his support for gay marriage. Also garnering attention is the impact of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) on the immigrant community. Under DOMA, a US citizen cannot petition a same-sex spouse for a green card.

Politico: NPR crunches the numbers on President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage in May and finds that his reelection campaign raised almost $9M in the three days after his endorsement . . .

Seattle Post Intelligencer: The United Methodist Church in the Northwest, at odds with its parent denomination, has endorsed Referendum 74 and called on voters to make Washington the nation’s seventh state to enact same-sex marriage.

New Civil Rights Movement: As researchers and scholars, many of whom with extensive experience in quantitative and qualitative research in family structures and child outcomes, we write to raise serious concerns about the most recent issue of Social Science Research and the set of papers focused on parenting by lesbians and gay men. In this regard, we have particular concern about Mark Regnerus’ paper entitled “How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study.”

Fox News: “The Andy Griffith Show” was a loving portrait of the town where few grew up but many wished they did — a place where all foibles are forgiven and friendships are forever. Villains came through town and moved on, usually changed by their stay in Mayberry. That was all a credit to Griffith, said Craig Fincannon, who met Griffith in 1974.

One News Now: Two Illinois county clerks have received permission to defend the state’s gay marriage ban in court.

USA Today: The National Education Association (NEA) has lost more than 100,000 members since 2010. By 2014, union projections show, it could lose a cumulative total of about 308,000 full-time teachers and other workers, a 16% drop from 2010. Lost dues will shrink NEA’s budget an estimated $65 million, or 18%.

One News Now: The Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) is demanding a meeting with President Barack Obama or Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the president’s endorsement of homosexual “marriage.”

Michael Foust at Baptist Press: On Friday (June 29) lawyers for the House of Representatives filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, asking it to take up a case concerning the constitutionality of a major section of the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 federal law which defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.

Catholic World Report: Dawn Stefanowicz grew up in a home where the sexual desires of adults were put ahead of her needs and well-being. Today she fights for traditional marriage and a child’s right to a mother and father.

Kenneth D. Whitehead at the Homiletic and Pastoral Review: Christians, including Catholics, are acquiescing, and even favoring, the idea that homosexual behavior must be considered, at least, morally neutral…and must be considered something to which those, so inclined, have a right.

Washington Post: Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, the legal services group that represented military service members discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell,” is merging with OutServe, a formerly underground group that has emerged as a leading advocate for troops in the year since the Pentagon lifted the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military

MSNBC: “Evangelicals have been so submitted to these culture wars for so long, so that’s hard to give up,” evangelical writer and speaker Rachel Held Evans, 31, told msnbc.com. But “the majority of young Christians really, really, really want to stop with the political emphasis.”

Seattle Times: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer are each donating $100,000 to the campaign to support Washington state’s new gay-marriage law, which faces a referendum vote in November, according to The Associated Press.

The Thomas More Society has issued this press release (pdf) with document links.

Findlaw: Green Dot Public Schools filed a charter petition with the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education in 2007 to convert Alain Leroy Locke High School (Locke High School) to a charter school. The board granted the charter school petition. In 2008, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) challenged the charter by filing a petition to compel arbitration pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement between the District and UTLA.

MPR: he issue of who should be able to marry divides families, churches, towns and political parties. That’s evident on the Range, a socially conservative DFL stronghold where both sides hope to win — and where feelings about the amendment run deep.

American Federation for Children: The poll found that 62 percent of respondents support the newly-improved ESA program, while nearly four in five likely voters—77 percent—favor increased accountability measures for the program in the form of required standardized tests to measure student performance.

Deseret News: Last year, a majority of presbyteries ratified the Presbyterian Church’s 2010 General Assembly approval of ordaining non-celibate gay clergy. But that didn’t settle the issue. Opponents of ordaining gay clergy will try to undo the change at this year’s biennial assembly that meets in Pittsburgh from June 30-July 7.

WPRI.com: House Speaker Gordon Fox says he will call a vote next year on legalizing same-sex marriage in Rhode Island.

Gay City News: Sean Patrick Maloney, an out gay attorney, has captured the Democratic nomination for the 18th District US House in seat in New York’s Lower Hudson Valley.

KJ Dell’Antonia at NY Times: Seeking, and Resisting, Vaccines
Recent studies suggest that as many as 21 percent of parents in the U.S. are delaying or refusing some or all of the recommended early childhood vaccines.

Economic Populist: If we take the 2012 Federal Poverty level for an individual, and apply the 2014 health care individual insurance mandate, a person would have a gross income of $33,684 with $3200 per year being paid to just health insurance. That’s $267 per month. Think about that, with rent, food, gas, car payment. Take a typical rent payment for a 1 bedroom, $800/month. That’s $9600 in rent alone for a year. $34k is not a lot of money and now one has an additional very large mandatory expense, since health care costs were not addressed by PPACA, de facto. Also notice this is a major regressive tax on single people. The average family size is 2.59 in 2010. The median income for an individual in 2010 was $26,197 and over half of America is officially low income or poor.

Baltimore Sun: Cheslack was one of 295 female plebes, a record 24 percent of the entering Class of 2016 . . . Women would be spared the head shavings imposed on male classmates, but that seemed the only break.

Bangor Daily News: The campaign fighting to legalize same-sex marriage in Maine said Thursday its fundraising has passed the $1 million mark and that 64 percent of the contributions have come from within Maine.

AP: Rep. Adam Smith of Washington is top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

Christian Post: Christianity is being rejected and deemed evil by many today because it opposes homosexual practice, say pastors from The Gospel Coalition.

W. James Antle III at the American Spectator: The problem isn’t “the gays.” The problem is what happens when you rewrite the basic rules and assumptions of marriage. Marriage cannot be government-recognized couplehood for some people and about procreation for other people. The ideal of traditional marriage is a public promise by two people to take care of each other and any children that their sexual union produces. A unisex definition of marriage is only compatible with the first half of that promise. A same-sex couple with children is missing one of the biological parents by design.

Pioneer Press: It fueled cheers and jeers, but the chief executive of General Mills said he’s seen no sales impact from the company’s opposition to the Minnesota marriage amendment.

LubbockOnline.com: Texas’ largest charter school organization Tuesday filed the sixth major lawsuit over the way the state funds public education, arguing charter schools should have access to public money for facilities and there should be no limit on the number of charter schools statewide.

American Federation for Children: A new scholarship tax credit program benefiting low-income families in New Hampshire became law today, joining a recently-passed measure in Mississippi for dyslexic children as the latest in a groundswell of school choice momentum across the country.

AP: The president of the country’s best-known Christian ministry dedicated to helping people repress same-sex attraction through prayer is trying to distance the group from the idea that gay people’s sexual orientation can be permanently changed or “cured.”

MPR: “The purpose of the rally is to send a message to General Mills and all Minnesota companies that marriage matters to a majority of Minnesotans,” Darrell said.

David N. Bass at the American Spectator: Later in Maggie’s piece, she writes that the chief lesson for the Left from Blankenhorn’s conversion is that “stigma and hatred directed at people who disagree with them work.” Blankenhorn testified during the court proceedings for California’s marriage amendment, Proposition 8. He was roundly villified for doing so.

NY Daily News: State law requires that marriages be broken down for at least six months before a divorce filing, meaning only those that hit the skids soon after the law was passed are winding up in the courts.

ABC: America’s favorite cookie is stirring up more than milk today after Kraft Foods posted a gay pride Oreo on the cookie’s Facebook page.

Washington Blade: In spite of this growing support for same-sex marriage, the survey noted that the majority of Latinos who identify themselves as religious remain opposed to nuptials for gays and lesbians.

Laura Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute at the Star Tribune: It’s clear that the Rev. John Piper directed his church members to vote to approve the amendment.

William McGurn at the Wall Street Journal (via Google): It’s on. On the Idaho ballot, that is. Come November, Idahoans will vote on three referenda aimed at repealing what may be the nation’s most sweeping education reform, including new limits on collective bargaining for teachers. Think of it as the sequel to Wisconsin, where similar reforms led to a similar effort—the attempted recall of Gov. Scott Walker.