Category Archives: Marriage & Family

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.

Family Scholars: Divorce rates among couples over 50 have doubled in the last 20 years, according to a study by Bowling Green State University.

FoxBaltimore.com: Derek McCoy, executive director of Maryland Marriage Alliance, said Monday the group is turning in 39,743 more signatures. That’s on top of 113,000 already submitted.

Wall Street Journal (via Google) Accountability for results and freedom from union rules attract the best teachers into the profession.

Washington Post: But once the concept of private choice becomes dominant, then the sense of communal responsibility is dissolved. Each of us is then given permission to think of what is best for me, not what is best for we.

AP: Loud sirens, flashing lights and countless rainbow flags and banners accompanied uniformed police officers, cheerleaders and politicians who marched in San Francisco’s gay pride parade Sunday, the 42nd year the city has celebrated . . .

NCPA Policy Digest: A silent victim of the last two recessions, teen unemployment has hit record levels since 2001. This trend is especially noticeable during the summer months, which are a traditional time of the year when teens head to work in droves, enabled by freedom from school and openings in seasonal employment. Recent labor statistics, however, suggest that this pattern has been largely disrupted, says the Sacramento Bee.

AP: An increasing number of parents are choosing to delay certain vaccinations for their young children, a new study shows, even as cases of whooping cough continue to rise nationwide. Portland, Oregon, parents were the subject of the study, which found that they are increasingly following alternative vaccination schedules, says MSNBC.com.

Minnesota for Marriage: “Lawyers for Marriage,” an organization of Minnesota attorneys in support of the proposed Marriage Protection Amendment on the November ballot, has been formed to campaign in support of the amendment. The organization was formed to be a resource for understanding the legal and social importance of Minnesota’s existing legal definition of marriage.

David Blankenhorn writes at the NY Times: I opposed gay marriage believing that children have the right, insofar as society makes it possible, to know and to be cared for by the two parents who brought them into this world. I didn’t just dream up this notion: the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which came into force in 1990, guarantees children this right . . . I have written these things in my book and said them in my testimony, and I believe them today. I am not recanting any of it.

W. James Antle III at the American Spectator: Another Less Famous, But More Telling, Gay Marriage Conversion
The fact that some social conservatives who understand the proper link between marriage and parenthood now accept that society has decided to sever that link is ultimately more important to this debate than President Barack Obama’s recent change in position.

First Things: David Blankenhorn hasn’t changed his mind about marriage, but he has changed his stance. The best that one can say of the New York Times op-ed in which he shifts his footing is that it is clearly heartfelt.

PostStarNews: For this reason, the New York State Bar Association urges the Assembly and the Senate to pass legislation to allow the disposition of certain cases in Youth Court, where youths are held accountable for their actions by their peers.

LA Times: Mary Cheney, the openly gay daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has married her longtime partner, Heather Poe.

Deseret News (June 14th): There is only one problem with this story: it is a myth that does not fit the facts.

Religion Clause Blog: The New York Times reported earlier this week that the school voucher program for Washington, D.C. school children will be renewed for another year under an agreement that House Speaker John Boehner and Senator Joseph Lieberman have reached with the Department of Education.

Karla Dial at Citizen Link: Two studies recently published in scientific journals say that when it comes to parenting, dads really do matter to kids — and in some ways, they may have even more influence than mothers.

SCOTUS Blog: They asked a federal District Court judge in New Haven to put on hold a similar case testing the same provision in the Defense of Marriage Act.  A legal memo to support the plea is here.

Richard Vedder at Minding the Campus.

Kennebec Journal: Summers proposed this question last week for the Nov. 6 ballot: “Do you want to allow same-sex couples to marry?” Matt McTighe, campaign manager for Mainers United for Marriage, said, “Simply put, the question as drafted is inaccurate … It fails to address important parts of the initiative that more than 105,000 Mainers signed” to get the proposal on the ballot.

First Things: Hence the effort at every point to circumvent democratic procedures: to skirt referenda with legislative votes and legislative votes with judicial rulings. If gay marriage is ratified across the country, it will be elites whom we can thank or fault, not the American voter.

NY Daily News: McKissic, who is black, said it was “an unfair comparison” for gays to equate same-sex marriage with civil rights because there is not incontrovertible scientific evidence that homosexuality is an innate characteristic, like skin color. “They’re equating their sin with my skin,” he said.

NY Times: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Christine C. Quinn, the speaker of the City Council, announced on Wednesday that they intended to file a legal brief arguing that the federal government’s Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional

KATC.com: “It is regrettable that homosexual rights activists and those who are promoting the recognition of ‘same-sex marriage’ have misappropriated the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement,” the resolution states.

Ed Whelan at National Review via EPPC: The mainstream academic journal Social Science Research has just published two articles that expose and challenge the schlock social science on gay parenting that has been uncritically embraced and propagated by so many people eager to advance the cause of gay marriage. In “Same-sex parenting and children’s outcomes: A closer examination of the American Psychological Association’s brief on lesbian and gay parenting,” LSU professor Loren Marks addresses a puzzle . . . Relatedly, and before I turn in the next post to the second new Social Science Research article, I’d like to highlight this recent paper, “Sexual Orientation and Reason: On the Implications of False Beliefs about Homosexuality,” by psychologist Stanton L. Jones . . . The second article that the academic journal Social Science Research has just published is University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus’s “How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study.”

AWR Hawkins writes at Breitbart: Call me crazy, but I don’t think this is what Waylon Jennings had this in mind when he sang “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?”

MLIve.com: Confidence in public schools is dropping and has hit an all-time low, according to a new Gallup poll. The number of people expressing “a great deal” and “quite a lot” of confidence in public education dropped 5 points to 29 percent, according to the poll released Wednesday.

Frank Bruni at the NY Times: This further stoked the fury in particular of the group One Million Moms, an offshoot of the anti-gay American Family Association. One Million Moms urged a J. C. Penney boycott. What did J. C. Penney do? In advance of Father’s Day last weekend, it tripled down and unveiled an ad with another same-sex couple: two dads.

Pastor Lance Lee at the Montgomery Advertiser: There can be little doubt that the legalization of same-sex marriage will increase a cultural shift toward viewing any marital union as simply “coupling” and away from our traditional understanding of it. Such a shift can only bring a marked decrease in traditional marriages.

Des Moines Register: But Dedric Doolin, president of the Cedar Rapids branch of the NAACP, said most controversial issues are first debated at the local level before the national board takes a formal stance. In the case of same-sex marriage, that didn’t occur, he said.

NCPPA Policy Digest: This speaks to the importance of a global mindset when assessing and determining national education policy. Current students will not operate in a labor market like the one that exists today, but will instead be forced to compete with workers from around the world. Therefore, if the United States is to maintain its traditional comparative advantage in human capital, education must be brought up to snuff.

Missoulian: The GOP had held the position seeking to criminalize homosexuality since a 1997 Montana Supreme Court case struck down similar state laws. The party had been criticized in recent years for continuing to maintain the stance.

National Review: The study published by Professor Mark Regnerus this week certainly has some flaws, and many of the comments made about it have some merit. However, as a matter of intellectual honesty, it needs to be recognized that virtually all the studies of same-sex parenting that have been conducted thus far fall far short of any standard of scientific testing.

Washington Post: An increasing number of U.S. hospitals have adopted policies that explicitly ban discrimination against lesbian, gay and bisexual patients, according to a report to be released Tuesday.

MPBN: Coming off the primary election, Mainers are giving the biggest thumbs up to same-sex marriage and Angus King. Five-hundred-six people were surveyed across Maine’s counties, with a margin of error was 4.4 percent. Fifty percent of respondents said they would vote for independent candidate King to take Olympia Snowe’s seat.

The Hill: A dozen GOP senators wrote a letter to the IRS in March questioning whether Tea Party-affiliated organized were being more closely scrutinized when applying for 501(c)(4) status, which is exempt from taxes. They said the IRS acknowledged requesting donor information from some 501(c)(4) applicants.

The Church Report: A self-described anti-homosexual “bigot” from Tennessee says he decided to pose as gay for a year after a female friend told him she was a lesbian.

Carrie Lukas at Townhall: The problem for my family—and millions of families like mine—is that new cars are expensive, and the government is making them more so.

Washington Post: The White House has reversed course and agreed to continue funding private school vouchers for a select number of children in the District of Columbia.

Daily Mail: Nationwide, the number of stay-at-home fathers – while still relatively small – has more than doubled in the past decade. There were only about 81,000 Mr Moms in 2001, or about 1.6 per cent of all stay-at-home parents.

National Journal: LGBT parents are raising nearly 2 million children, according to a joint report by the Movement Advancement Project,the Family Equality Council, and the Center for American Progress. Here are some of the report’s other findings . . .

CNN: As my companion and I passed through security on a gorgeous Washington afternoon Friday, invited by President Barack Obama to join hundreds of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks at the White House for a reception celebrating LGBT Pride Month, I couldn’t help but reflect back.

Gay Politics: Nevada and Maine could see the number of openly gay state lawmakers triple after Victory Fund-endorsed candidates advanced in primary elections last night.

Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy: Dier v. Peters (Iowa June 1, 2012) offers a good discussion of the debate about paternity fraud lawsuits, including citations to cases that reject such a cause of action and to cases that accept it.

CNSNews: The federal government Web site www.fatherhood.gov offers a wide range of “tips” and resources for teaching men how to be a father, including “father-child” videos on healthy eating, teeth brushing and hand washing.

AP: A government report released Thursday found that a middle-income family with a child born last year will spend about that much in child-related expenses from birth through age 17.

Christian Concern: Professor Ronald Rohner, who conducted the review, stated: “In the US, Great Britain and Europe, we have assumed for the past 300 years that all children need for normal healthy development is a loving relationship with their mother. “And that dads are there as support for the mother and to support the family financially but are not required for the healthy development of the children. “But that belief is fundamentally wrong. We have to start getting away from that idea and realise the dad’s influence is as great, and sometimes greater, than the mother’s.”

Abdul Khaleque and Ronald P. Rohner
Transnational Relations Between Perceived Parental Acceptance and Personality Dispositions of Children and Adults: A Meta-Analytic Review
Pers Soc Psychol Rev May 2012 16: 103-115, first published on September 1, 2011 doi:10.1177/1088868311418986

Heritage Foundation: Two peer-reviewed articles published Sunday in a scholarly journal cast doubt on a core assumption used to advance same-sex marriage.

AP: A look at some military rules following repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell policy,” which for 18 years meant troops could be kicked out if they revealed their homosexual orientation . . .

CNSNews: Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) sent a letter signed by 62 other Democrats to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, supporting her agency’s review of the policy that bans homosexual and bisexual men from donating blood.

Lambda Legal: Today, Lambda Legal announced that, beginning in July, Washington County will extend spousal benefits to all eligible county employees married to a same-sex spouse. The County’s decision comes on the heels of a complaint filed by Lambda Legal . . .

Rep. John Hostettler at Truth in Action Ministries: ames Madison no doubt would have been very concerned by the obvious confusion on the part of judges of the First Circuit regarding federalism. There is likewise no doubt he would have scoffed at the notion that Congress, in fashioning its definition of marriage for federal purposes, was obliged by “federalism” to have it comport with that of the state of Massachusetts.

Mike Baker at AP: Opponents of gay marriage have an unblemished track record in U.S. elections, chalking up 32 victories in 32 public votes.

NCPA Policy Digest: This concern, that current joblessness woes signal permanently higher structural unemployment, would have drastic implications for the health of the economy if found to be true.  However, several other theories remain for why the current fragile recovery may not be an indication of larger problems.

TeutopolisPress.com: State Representative David Reis (R-Ste. Marie) is calling upon Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to recuse herself and the resources of her taxpayer-funded state office from supporting two lawsuits questioning the constitutionality of Illinois’ gay marriage ban

Baltimore Sun: “We’re moving forward to a country where we treat everybody fairly and everybody equally, with dignity and respect,” Obama said according to a transcript of the speech. “And here in Maryland, thanks to the leadership of committed citizens and Governor O’Malley, you have a chance to reaffirm that principle in the voting booth in November. It’s the right thing to do.”

Shreveport Times: The Louisiana Association of Educators says it also will file a lawsuit to throw out a set of education changes that Gov. Bobby Jindal pushed and state lawmakers passed. Directors of the teachers’ union also have endorsed an effort to recall Jindal.

Baptist Press: The North American Mission Board’s LoveLoud initiative and Together for Adoption will host a four-person breakfast panel discussion at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting addressing Southern Baptist involvement in adoption and orphan care.

David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy: A new study of the American Jewish population in the New York metro area contains this stunning statistic: sixty-one percent of all Jewish children in the area live in Orthodox households.

Jacob Sullum at Reason: “If you believe the matter should be left to the states,” Stanford law professor Michael McConnell recently told The Washington Post, “that means you think the Constitution permits the states to take a different view. I don’t see how that can be squared with Attorney General Holder’s claim.” In fact, Holder and Obama implicitly have staked out a stronger position against state bans on gay marriage than the 9th Circuit did.

EdWeek.org: The ACLU said the Camdenton R-III School District has agreed to stop blocking the sites, submit to monitoring for 18 months to confirm compliance and pay $125,000 in legal fees and costs.

Rebecca Hagelin at Townhall: Parenting is tougher than it used to be. And if California is any indication, parents may soon have to fight for the right to exercise any influence–not to mention authority–over their children’s sexual behaviors.

AP: Ernst & Young CEO James Turley, whose company has welcomed gays in its own workforce . . .

NCPA Policy Digest: The median U.S. household lost nearly 39 percent of its wealth from 2007 to 2010, according to a Federal Reserve report released Monday, emphasizing anew the impact of the financial crisis and the recession on ordinary Americans, says USA Today.

AP: Fewer than three in 10 American teenagers now hold jobs such as running cash registers, mowing lawns or busing restaurant tables from June to August.

Wall Street Journal: The New York State Division of Human Rights lacks jurisdiction to investigate students’ civil rights complaints against their public school districts, the state’s top court ruled Tuesday. | Lambda Legal press release and background information

Citizen Link: “This is the kind of research Americans need to take a hard look at in the context of the ongoing efforts to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples,” said Focus on the Family President Jim Daly.

Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review: Regnerus found that children in the study rarely spent their entire childhoods in the households of their gay parent and partner. Only two of the 175 subjects who reported having a mother in a lesbian relationship spent their whole childhood with the couple, and no children studied spent their entire childhood with two gay males.

American Federation for Children: More than 650 attendees recognize historic case, which opened doors of educational opportunity to hundreds of thousands of children nationwide . . . The American Federation for Children—the nation’s voice for school choice—was among the sponsors of the event, which recognized a June 27, 2002, high court ruling in Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris that affirmed the constitutionality of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program and proved to be among the catalysts for significant expansion of private school voucher and scholarship tax credit legislation in the decade that followed.

Phyllis Schlafly at Townhall: One of the ways to cut the big-spending binge engaged in by the federal government is to terminate the racket of college loans. It’s counterproductive, discriminatory and a bad investment for both taxpayers and students.

Peninsula Daily News: The approximately 1,000 signatures were names of legitimate registered voters, but the signatures did not match the ones on file,” said David Ammons, communications director for Secretary of State Sam Reed, who is the state’s top elections officer. The non-matching signatures are a drop in the bucket of the nearly 250,000 signatures . . .

Seattle Times: In November, voters in Washington, Maine and Maryland will go to the polls to decide whether same-sex marriage should be legal in their state — providing a glimpse into the extend to which Americans’ attitudes around this issue have softened in recent years.