Category Archives: Marriage & Family

Ryan Anderson at NY Daily News: Same-sex marriage will never be widely accepted in America for a simple reason: It’s based on a lie. But don’t take my word on this; leading LGBT scholars and activists say as much.

Wall Street Journal (access via Google): Senators began laying the groundwork Sunday for formal debate on immigration-overhaul legislation, including a provision that would extend immigration rights for same-sex couples.

Erwin Chemersinsky at ABA Journal: No decisions are more eagerly awaited from the U.S. Supreme Court than those in the marriage equality cases. Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor were argued on March 26 and 27, and most expect that the decisions will be announced at the end of June. Having just re-read the transcripts of the arguments, a few things seem clear.

Engage Family Minute provides a quick summary.

National Review: They say that ‘homosexuality’ or ‘homosexual’ is used and hurled at people who are gay as a slur,” Kornheiser explained, saying he was unaware of the issue but will use the network’s preferred word. ESPN has also singled out the term “sexual preference,” saying it wants employees to use “sexual orientation” instead.

LifeSiteNews: An American sports analyst for global TV network ESPN has stirred the left into a frenzy after expressing Christian views on homosexuality following a basketball star’s recent announcement that he is homosexual.

Dennis Prager at NRO: In our dialogue, we agreed that her book’s subtitle was accurate, but we disagreed as to the cause. Freitas, who holds a Ph.D. in religious studies, blamed it on peer pressure, the sex-drenched social media of young people, and the ubiquity of pornography. I blamed three other culprits: feminism, careerism, and secularism.

Heritage Foundation: In a recent debate at New York University Law School, Ryan T. Anderson, co-author of the book What Is Marriage? and Heritage’s William E. Simon Fellow, asks Professor Judith Stacey the essential question: What is marriage? Stacey gives a very clear answer: “Why should there be marriage at all?”

Patheos: In the report, Sliding v. Deciding, Dr. Scott Stanley argues that there are significant differences in the process by which cohabiting and non-cohabiting couples enter into marriage. And this process, itself, plays a significant factor in determining the stability of the future marriage. Non-cohabiting couples tend to proceed toward marriage in a conscious way.

Dallas Morning News: Mayor Mike Rawlings is upset by a marriage equality resolution that the Dallas City Council is poised to vote on in mid-June.

Benjamin L. Smith at First Things: Unfortunately the sentimentality surrounding this phrase can obscure the plain facts of the matter. New generations must replace old generations. There must be a never-ending supply of farmers, entrepreneurs, soldiers, voters, statesmen, taxpayers, intellectuals, and others for society to provide essential goods and services. Furthermore, there is overwhelming evidence of the sociological and economic benefits of traditional, heterosexual marriage. For all of these reasons the promulgation of heterosexual marriage contracts is justified by grave public necessity; the legal establishment of heterosexual marriage is justified by the common good.

Delaware Online: Legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in Delaware cleared a Senate Committee today, paving the way for a final legislative vote on the measure Tuesday.

KVUE.com: On Monday Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott issued a six-page formal opinion declaring the practice violates the Texas Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and amendment to the Texas Constitution approved by voters in 2005. The opinion came at the request of state Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston).

Orlando Sentinel: The Lake County School Board now faces a legal battle with the American Civil Liberties Union over a 14-year-old’s attempt to start a gay-straight club at Carver Middle School in Leesburg. The ACLU Wednesday filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of eighth-grader Bayli Silberstein who’s been blocked for months from starting a Gay-Straight Alliance at Carver Middle School in Leesburg.

Star Tribune: Gov. Mark Dayton is intensifying pressure on legislators to legalize same-sex marriage this year.

Elahe Izadi at National J. via Yahoo: Polling on gay marriage among blacks has been mixed. A March 2013 Pew Center study – which compiled results from four surveys conducted over more than a year — found 40 percent of African-Americans support gay marriage, with 48 percent opposing. The same study found 49 percent of whites and 61 percent of Democrats support gay marriage.

KTAR (AP): A groundbreaking civil union ordinance in the southern Arizona city of Bisbee will lose much of its punch after Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne on Monday said he’s reached an agreement in principal on changes that will remove his opposition and a threat to sue to block it from taking effect.

LifeSiteNews: Catholics in Pennsylvania and around the country are outraged after learning that a college student dressed as the pope from the waist up – and nude from the waist down – handed out condoms in an event organized by Carnegie Mellon University’s art department.

Religion Clause Blog: The Denver Post reports that as Colorado’s civil union law (see prior posting) took effect just after midnight this morning, hundreds of gay and lesbian couples applied for licences and exchanged vows.

Tulsa World: In this case, a middle-school principal issued a dress code for the eighth grade’s spring dance. No strapless dresses. So teenage girls will have to go to the dance this year with their shoulders burdened by dainty spaghetti straps.

The Journal: More than 15 Musselman Middle School students were given in-school suspension this week due to alleged dress code violations, according to parents and students.

Christian Post: On Valentines’s Day, the Scientific American published an article claiming that polyamorists could “teach us a thing or two about love,” and the only reason to oppose it was bigotry because of outdated views about love and sexuality. (Rod Anderson comic)

NRO (includes video): Amidst a controversy over the widespread education-reform project Governor Bobby Jindal has begun in Louisiana, the head of the state’s largest teachers’ union has essentially claimed that children belong to teachers’ unions as much as they do their parents.

Washington Post: For the second straight year, significant parent opposition to “parent trigger” legislation in Florida has led to defeat in the legislature despite powerful supporters, including former governor Jeb Bush.

Edge Boston: trans woman won’t get to fulfill her dream of attending Smith College, a private women’s university in Massachusetts, because on government federal financial aid documents she is registered as a male . . . “We have a petition of over 3,700 signatures,” Schwartz said of the Change.org petition, noting plans to present the petition with the signatures to the school’s administration sometime this week. “We have a list of demands created as an organization

NY Times: The vote reflected not only the rapidly shifting tides of public opinion on same-sex marriage, but also the influence of a new Republican advocacy group called the American Unity Fund, which spent weeks helping the state’s gay rights organization cultivate Republican senators.

Bloomberg: Finance firms can move fast when it benefits the bottom line. That’s why Wall Street, despite its rigid alpha-male reputation, has been remarkably progressive on the issue of gay rights.

MO Family Policy Council: The Missouri House has advanced legislation which would provide constitutional protection to the right of parents to guide the upbringing of their children. The House has given preliminary approval to House Joint Resolution 26, sponsored by Representative Todd Richardson of Poplar Bluff.

The Hill: President Obama telephoned professional basketball player Jason Collins on Monday to congratulate him for coming out as the first openly gay player on a major U.S. sports team.

CBS: A new trend has some couples turning to lawyers to help save their relationships.

CNSNews: A proposed law introduced in the California State legislature would allow public school children to use bathrooms designated for members of the opposite sex, if that students’ “gender identity” differed from the students biological sex. Assembly Bill 1266 . . .

WPRI (AP): Legislation to allow gay couples to marry in Rhode Island will probably be signed into law by the end of the week.

Austin Ruse at Crisis Magazine: There’s deception going on in the front office of the Boy Scouts. It includes deliberate misrepresentation of polling data, and threats to pack an upcoming meeting with anonymous and unqualified voters so that the Boy Scout policy on homosexuality gets forced on the majority of Scouts and parents who don’t want it.

The Rebel Yell: The Browns are like any average American family. If every family consisted of four wives and 17 children. The Browns are polygamists living in Las Vegas, trying to paint a modern picture of plural marriage. In an attempt to denounce the negative stereotypes of polygamy, from sexual abuse to forced marriage, the Browns have put their every move on camera.

Reihan Salam at NRO: As more couples plan and pay for the occasion, its central meaning is shifting from uniting two families to celebrating the bride and groom themselves.

York Daily Record: One issue was resolved for a local transgender student Friday – he can bring his girlfriend to prom Saturday – and the ACLU says it is working with the Red Lion Area School District’s attorney on other issues

Erica Ritz at the Blaze via Yahoo News: Billionaire hedge fund manager and Republican donor Paul Singer launched American Unity PAC. The lobbying effort is the next phase as the push for gay marriage spreads to more states, spokesman Jeff Cook-McCormac told The Associated Press.

MyFoxNy.com: The NFL distributed a document to its teams Monday reiterating its anti-discrimination policy on sexual orientation.

The College Fix: The latest column from Julie Baumgardner, president of First Things First, offers a great summary of how porn is destroying men, based on the research from Dr. Phil Zimbardo, a psychology professor at Stanford University, as well as Dr. Gary Wilson, who has studied the neuroscience behind porn watching.

Miami Herald: Charter schools will receive $91 million for their construction and maintenance needs, state lawmakers agreed late Sunday.

Delaware Online: A Glasgow church faced what it described as a “disturbance” after a sign out front implying religion trumps gay marriage caused a stir on social media.

ACLU: The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Pennsylvania sent a letter today on behalf of a male transgender student who was denied the chance to run for prom king when his principal placed his female birth name in the column for “prom queen” despite repeated requests to be listed under his correct gender identity . . . copy of the letter can be seen here.

HSLDA: The military has new policies for homeschool graduates who seek to enlist. These are simply to determine if your child was actually homeschooled and not for any other reason. We are very pleased that the new law is leading to good policies for homeschool enlistment across the services.

David Lapp at Family Scholars: In “Promises I Can Keep,” Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas find that among the poor single mothers they interviewed, “Nearly everyone has a morality tale to tell of two fools who rushed into marriage only to divorce.” And, “The harshest condemnation is reserved for those who marry because of pregnancy. Such marriages, they believe, are almost certain to end in divorce, and thus benefit neither the couple nor the child.”

EagNews.org: Leaders of a deeply troubled Pennsylvania school district are considering a plan to convert all of its individual schools into charters beginning next fall – an immediate and sweeping change that’s never been attempted before in American K-12 history.

Washington Post: A gay couple married under state law cannot give a joint contribution to a federal candidate if they make it from an individual banking account, the Federal Election Commission voted unanimously Thursday.

Boston Globe (AP): Phone banks, an army of volunteers and alliances with organized labor, business leaders and religious clergy propelled gay marriage to victory in Rhode Island this week, a savvy and coordinated strategy that relied on growing public support and old-fashioned bare-knuckle politics.

WorldNetDaily: Outraged parents say a New York middle school instructed young female students to ask one another for a lesbian kiss – and boys learned how to spot young sluts – in an anti-bullying presentation on gender identity and sexual orientation, according to Fox News’ Todd Starnes.

York Dispatch: That was Sierra Stambaugh’s realization growing up in Red Lion Area School District. About three years ago, she came to another realization, one that explained the nagging feeling. “It was that I identified as a male,” Sierra said of being transgender.Sierra cut her hair short, and her mom bought her men’s pants. She changed her name to Issak Wolfe and has used it ever since, with full parental support.

MPR: The former deputy chief of staff to Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty says he supports legal same-sex marriage. Brian McClung, who now runs a PR firm, said support for same-sex marriage aligns with Republican values.

ABQ Journal (includes video): . . . an overflowing crowd of a couple hundred people, the Santa Fe City Council on Wednesday approved a controversial and largely symbolic resolution recognizing gay marriage as legal in New Mexico and urging county clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Washington Times: He’s referring to what You Can Play Project co-founder Patrick Burke calls “casual homophobia,” the kind of language he hopes to get rid of as part of an initiative with the NHL and NHL Players’ Association.

John G. Crandall at Public Discourse: Proposition 8 does not, contrary to Judge Vaughan Walker’s claims, treat equals unequally.

AP: Frustrated at being left out of an immigration overhaul, gay rights groups are pushing to adjust a bipartisan Senate bill to include gay couples.

Mary Eberstadt’s new book is now available on Amazon.

ACLU: The Idaho Transportation Department has amended its policy regarding changes to driver’s licenses to allow transgender individuals to correct the gender markers on their licenses without showing proof they have undergone surgery.

National Review Bench Memos: Washington governor Jay Inslee yesterday signed into law the last piece of a multi-year effort to rewrite state statutes in something that resembles Orwell’s Newspeak. Reuters notes that 3,500 state code sections have now been “tediously scrubbed” of gender bias . . .

CNSNews: The federal government is spending $152,000 to study “voice therapy” for transgenders, saying it is incumbent to being “accepted as one’s preferred gender.”

NewsObserver: North Carolina’s 115 public school systems would lose the right to take their local board of county commissioners to court for more funding under a bill filed in the state Senate.

Anthony Esolen at Public Discourse: The Boy Scouts are en route to holding that there is nothing to being a boy, and nothing to the boy’s becoming a man; they might as well be the Unisex Scouts, as they are in Canada, where the scouting movement has collapsed.

Philly.com: A BILL SPONSORED by City Councilman Jim Kenney at the behest of the LGBT community would require newly constructed or renovated city-owned buildings to have gender-neutral bathrooms in addition to men’s and women’s rooms.

Orlando Sentinel: Since November, Bayli Silberstein, an openly bisexual 14-year-old, has lobbied for a Gay-Straight Alliance at Carver Middle School in Leesburg but has been thwarted by school officials.

Washington Post: It’s often said you can’t please all of the people all of the time. But in announcing a proposal to lift the ban on gay scouts but not gay leaders, the Boy Scouts have managed to please no one at all.

CBS: The Nevada State Senate is scheduled to vote today on a resolution that allows gay marriage in Nevada. SJR13 . . .

MPR: Roback Morse founded the California-based Ruth Institute, which promotes marriage to college students. Many Minnesotans voted against amending the Constitution in November, Roback Morse said, because they thought there was no threat to traditional marriage. She believes those voters were surprised to have state legislators propose same-sex marriage legislation so soon.

Providence Journal: The Providence Chamber of Commerce’s board chairman and two other business leaders said Monday legalizing same-sex marriage would remove one hurdle that makes it hard for R.I. businesses to compete.

Emma Margolin at MSNBC: In a controversial resolution released on Friday, the group proposed lifting its ban on gay scouts–a significant shift in policy for one of the nation’s largest and most prominent youth development institutions–while still maintaining its current position excluding gay adults as potential leaders. If approved, the policy would take effect on Jan. 1, 2014.

Business Insider: These trends create an even higher demand for education among women. Education is insurance against divorce risk, but it also creates more unstable marriages, which in turn increases demand for more education. And since the marriage market is filled with more educated women, it’s more difficult for uneducated women to find a mate — making the marriage market more competitive.

Os Hillman at Christian Post: The battle for the family is heating up with one of the most important issues that could cause a huge tipping point in culture-the redefining of marriage by the Supreme Court. This is part 3 of a 4 part series on the topic of gay marriage. In this segment we look at how the failure of Christian marriages and how it has contributed to the issue of the rising gay community and the agenda of the gay community.
Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/is-gay-marriage-a-moral-issue-or-a-civil-liberties-issue-pt-3-94431/#sfwrzD6dg26Almep.99

Ken Klukowski at Breitbart: A faction in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) just proposed a resolution to change BSA’s longstanding policy regarding openly homosexual behavior, one that will subject them to crippling lawsuits and cannot possibly survive over time. Regardless of where a person stands on the question of whether there should be open and avowed homosexuals in the Boy Scouts, this policy doesn’t make sense either way.

Topeka Capitol-Journal: The U.S. Supreme Court five years ago sided with the Kansas high court that Topekan Daryl Hendrix couldn’t be a part of the lives of two children conceived by artificial insemination using his sperm.

The Hill: Forty-one percent of Republicans polled said they think less favorably of Portman following his shift, and the percentage of respondents reporting an unfavorable view of the senator saw a sharp increase in the new poll, up to 21 percent from 8 percent in late February. His approval among Republicans has dropped six percentage points since the last poll.

NCPA Policy Digest: In states where online education has been implemented, local and state teachers unions have challenged virtual education in court by seeking to limit enrollment in the charter schools that utilize the technology, by pushing for virtual schools to be closed and by seeking to limit enrollment to students who live “in district,” despite that defeating the benefits of the Internet.

Deseret News: Now think about that for a minute. This is the most famous newspaper in the world, the New York Times, in its popular and highly read Style section, not condemning Partilla and Riddell for deserting their families and children but featuring them positively because, instead of “denying their feelings and living dishonestly,” they had the courage to be “brave enough to hold hands and jump.”

Peter Sprigg at LifeSiteNews: In a country where 41 out of 50 states still define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and voters in a majority, 30 have placed that definition in their state constitutions; it can only be wishful thinking for the advocates of marriage redefinition to claim that it is imminent or inevitable. I suspect that some in the mainstream media are hoping that their prophecy will be a self-fulfilling one.