Tag Archives: Category: Marriage and Family

Mercator.net: Research showing problems with homosexual parenting continues to grow with the release of a study showing that the children of heterosexual couples are more likely to progress in primary school than children from a same-sex household. The study, “Nontraditional Families and Childhood Progress Through School: A Comment on Rosenfeld”, is a re-examination of a study by Michael J. Rosenfeld of Stanford University’s Department of Sociologypublished in 2010. The new study, led by Douglas W Allen, and published by the academic journal Demography, found that the children from a heterosexual household are “35 percent more likely to make typical school progress”.

Toledo Blade: The latest Ohio poll suggested 45 percent of registered voters support gay marriage and 47 percent oppose it. The results, however, suggest a softening of Ohioans’ position on the issue.

Toledo Blade: Toledo Council President Joe McNamara today threw his support behind a statewide drive to allow same-sex marriage in Ohio.

PR Newswire: he Assembly also voted to support the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act pending in the Illinois state Legislature. The bill provides same-sex and different-sex couples and their children equal access to the status, benefits, protections, rights, and responsibilities of civil marriage.

WPRI.com: The state Senate president said Monday she anticipates a committee vote on same-sex marriage in the coming legislative session, despite her opposition to it, if the House of Representatives endorses it.

Inside Higher Ed: The six-month lifespan of Queer at Patrick Henry College, a blog focusing on the struggles of gay students at the evangelical Christian college in Virginia, has been turbulent, to say the least.

Ryan T. Anderson at Public Discourse: How successful can a “new conversation on marriage” be when its leaders can’t even say what marriage is?

“Society should protect and strengthen marriage, not undermine it. This lawsuit sought to undermine Montana’s legal definition of marriage as a man and a woman by eliminating the state’s ability to distinguish between married and unmarried couples for the purpose of benefits. Marriage expresses the truth that men and women bring distinct, irreplaceable gifts to family life. The state is on firm ground to recognize and promote that ideal for the good of society.”

Joe Infranco on the Janet Mefferd Show to discuss the litigation. | MP3 audio 11:28 mins

Lyle Denniston reports at the SCOTUS Blog.

Garrett Epps at the Atlantic: Maza quotes a statement from Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights: “A doctor can’t tell you that it would be good for your health to smoke a couple of packs of cigarettes a day. But if Judge Shubb’s analysis were right, a doctor could not be disciplined by a medical board or sued for malpractice for voicing his or her ‘opinion.’ ”

Washington Times: The disappearance of marriage in “middle America” is tracking with the disappearance of the middle class in the same communities, and “strikes at the very heart of the American Dream,” scholars Elizabeth Marquardt, David Blankenhorn, Robert I. Lerman, Linda Malone-Colon and W. Bradford Wilcox said in a paper released Sunday. They offer 10 recommendations to President Obama and other policymakers to renew a marriage culture.

KTAR.com (AP): The Montana Supreme Court on Monday rejected an “overly broad” request that gay couples be guaranteed the same benefits as married couples. The court wrote in Monday’s 4-3 decision Monday that a lower court was within its discretion when it earlier dismissed the request. But the Supreme Court left the door open for the gay couples to modify their request and try again. | Donaldson v. Montana

Ed Whelan at National Review: In another bout of ASDS (Anti-Scalia Derangement Syndrome), some folks on the Left are insisting that Justice Scalia should recuse himself from the marriage cases—and even be impeached—because of his recent Princeton remarks in which, in response to a question, he explained the reasoning of his 2003 dissent in Lawrence v. Texas.

LifeSiteNews: The Alliance Defending Freedom has made itself available to any notaries public in Maine who seek their help. Conley says, “we are so thankful for organizations such as the Alliance Defending Freedom because the other side works through intimidation.”

Jeff Jacoby at Townhall: Fertility in America has been declining for years. According to the Pew Research Center, the nation’s birth rate hit an all-time low in 2011 – just 63 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age. It was almost twice as high – 123 births per 1,000 women – at the peak of the Baby Boom in 1957.

Bill Press at Chicago Tribune: At an October book-signing, as reported by Nina Strochlic of The Daily Beast, Scalia cavalierly dismissed three Supreme Court-weighty issues: “The death penalty? Give me a break. It’s easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state.”

LA Times: The dispute is before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is expected to decide within the next several days whether to put the law on hold before it takes effect Jan. 1.

American Lawyer: It’s a good thing that Paul Clement and Viet Dinh are such close friends. Not many lawyers would do well sharing an office divided down the middle by a sheet of glass. Not only can they watch each other work, but others can look in, too, observing the pair side by side through a hallway wall that is also clear glass. The overall effect is like an exhibit at a museum, or perhaps a zoo.

Religion Clause Blog: According to yesterday’s Salt Lake Tribune, Utah’s newly-elected attorney general, John Swallow says he will continue the policy of his predecessor Mark Shurtleff and will not bring criminal charges against consenting adults in plural marriages if they have not violated any law other than the state’s polygamy ban. It is estimated that 38,000 people live in polygamous communities in Utah

Huffington Post: Researchers from San Francisco State University and UCLA found that married gay, lesbian and bisexual people have lower levels of psychological distress than their unmarried counterparts, according to a study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health.

NBC: The University of Iowa has become the first public university in the U.S. to include a question about students’ sexual orientation in their application for admission.

NY Times: But when the Legislature returns to Albany next month, only one of those four senators will be among those sworn into office.

Stars and Stripes: The officers’ spouses club at Fort Bragg, N.C., is asking for more time to determine whether to allow Ashley Broadway to join. Broadway, who is legally married to Lt. Col. Heather Mack, recently contacted the Association of Bragg Officers’ Spouses in hopes of joining. She said she was told she could not join because she does not have a military dependent ID card.

Metro Weekly: In a statement released Thursday, OutServe-SLDN Executive Director Allyson Robinson expressed confidence in Obama’s final decision, but alluded to the Nebraska Republican’s lackluster record on LGBT rights as speculation continues to circulate that he will replace current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

NJ Today: Assemblyman Reed Gusciora introduced a measure placing the question of marriage equality on the 2013 November ballot. Gusciora remains “encouraged” in light of three states, Maryland, Maine and Washington, each successfully passing such measures this past November.

Maggie Gallagher at Townhall: I hate to be the one to tell you this, but a serious case is now being made that our beloved Constitution gives us the right to have sex with donkeys.

Robyn Hagan Cain at Findlaw: Justice Antonin Scalia moseyed over to Princeton University on Monday to promote “Reading Law.” It didn’t go too well.
We dare say the only thing anyone will remember from the lecture is a question from a student about Scalia’s dissents in Lawrence v. Texas and Romer v. Evans, in which the jurist compared homosexuality to murder, polygamy, and cruelty to animals. In both dissents, Justice Scalia wrote that states should be permitted to legislate their disapproval for homosexual conduct, just as they do for murder and bestiality.

Mark Davis at Townhall: It is about acceptance. The agenda on this issue has less to do with the real-world lives of gay married couples than with the desire to have homosexuality recognized as just another way to be, like red-haired or left-handed.

Ryan T. Anderson at Ricochet: Redefining marriage would abandon the norm of male-female sexual complementarity as an essential characteristic of marriage. Making that optional would also make other essential characteristics—like monogamy, exclusivity and permanency—optional, as my co-authors and I argue in our new book, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense.

Linda Greenhouse at NY Times: Is it heretical of me, or merely quirky, to find myself nearly as fascinated by the procedural game the Supreme Court is playing in the same-sex marriage cases as I am by the underlying merits of the two appeals the court has agreed to decide?

Jackie Gingrich Cushman at Townhall: Marriage — and the relationship between partners and their God — should be defined by the church. Civil unions and their legalities should be defined by the state.

AP: Two Illinois lawmakers said Thursday they will seek legislative approval of gay marriage when the General Assembly reconvenes in three weeks, answering Gov. Pat Quinn’s hope that he could sign same-sex marital rights into law as early as January.

National Review Editors: On Friday afternoon, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear arguments in two cases that are at the center of the same-sex-marriage controversy. One concerns the power of people in the states to govern themselves on the question, the other the complementary power of Congress to define “marriage” for purposes of federal law.

NPR (includes audio): The Supreme Court has chosen to hear two cases relating to same-sex marriage that would judge the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8. Washington Post opinion writer Jonathan Capehart argues that this is not the best time for a marriage equality ruling.

The New Civil Rights Movement (includes video): Glenn Beck, who seems to have a tenuous relationship with truth and consistency, after being definitely anti-marriage equality, is now trying to say the GOP should embrace same-sex marriage in order to “have the ultimate big tent” and to expand our own horizon.” But he himself doesn’t believe in full civil marriage equality.

Jordan Lorence at USA Today: The Supreme Court will soon consider why government is in the marriage business. A federal court in a Hawaii lawsuit recently answered that question well: Government can “rationally conclude that, other things being equal, it is best for children to be raised by a parent of each sex.”

San Diego Gay and Lesbian News: Elizabeth L. Hillman, a respected scholar in military law and history who was part of the fight to overturn “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” has been appointed Academic Dean at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

MagicValley.com: Twin Falls city staff will study the issue of adding sexual orientation to the anti-harassment and discrimination policy for city employees, at the suggestion of a councilwoman.

Politico: “I’m personally grateful to Speaker [John] Boehner for being willing to defend the law, but it’s clear GOP elites don’t want to talk about it and want to keep it as quiet as possible,” said Maggie Gallagher, a founder of the National Organization for Marriage and a fellow at the conservative American Principles Project. “That’s so obvious, I don’t see any point in pretending otherwise.”

LifeSiteNews: The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has launched a federal investigation over a conversation between a Huntsville JROTC instructor and a lesbian student about the Bible and homosexuality.

AP: The Supreme Court has asked a Massachusetts lawyer to present arguments on why the justices should not rule on a federal gay marriage law next year.

On Brief, Iowa’s Appellate Blog: This afternoon, the Iowa Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Gartner v. Iowa Department of Public Health, which presents the following issue: When a mother gives birth to a child, does the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision in Varnum v. Brien require that the mother’s same-sex spouse be listed on the birth certificate?

Evan Wolfson at the NY Times: Now here we are, with the Supreme Court heading toward decisions on both the state and federal marriage discrimination that same-sex couples endure. And if we do our part over the next months, building on the irrefutable momentum of 2011 and 2012, we can give the justices confidence that when they stand on the right side of history, their rulings will not only stand the test of time, but be true to where the American people already are.

Nathan Cherry at Engage Family Minute: Sure, there is a great chance that legalizing same-sex “marriage” won’t affect you. But I can promise you that your kids and grandkids will be affected each and every day if it is legalized. Is that what you want your legacy to be?

Jeremy Dys at Engage Family Minute: The central point is whether or not getting government out of the “marriage business” reduces the size of government and, ergo, increases liberty.

Alan Sears on the Hugh Hewitt Show discusses the litigation. | MP3 audio 10:06 mins

Missouri Family Policy Council: Leaders of the homosexual rights movement are mounting a statewide petition drive to adopt a new law to provide special legal rights to homosexuals, bisexuals, and so-called “transgendered” individuals.

Ryan Anderson at Ricochet: Same-sex relationships weren’t on anyone’s radar. (It may be hard to remember, but until just recently same-sex marriage was inconceivable to almost everyone.) The marriage movement leaders’ concern, like that of today’s leading conservative scholars and activists, was much broader . . . The question of whether to redefine marriage to include same-sex relationships didn’t take center stage until 2003, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court claimed to find a constitutional right to it.

Ryan T. Anderson and Andrew T. Walker at National Review: Regardless of what Will might imagine, support for marriage isn’t a relic of the past. A careful look at the polls reveals complex and dynamic trends. But how those polls change over time will depend on human choice, not blind historical forces. The right question is not what will happen, but what we should do. Would George Will give up market economies if polls showed an “emerging consensus” in favor of socialism? We think not.

CBS: A study by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has found that large parts of the city are plagued with soaring rates for multiple STDs – including HIV/AIDS.

Gayopolis: In related news, the anti-gay Texas Values group, along with the Alliance Defending Freedom, filed a “Memorandum of Law” to Abbott’s office last week explaining why the group believes that DP benefits offered by Pflugerville Independent School District violate state law.

Chicago Tribune: Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn today said he hopes state lawmakers send him a gay marriage bill when they meet again in January, but even the measure’s sponsor is unsure the issue will rise to the top of a busy agenda.

The Foreign Policy list is here. Blankenhorn is number 10.

Reuters: The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to review California’s same-sex marriage ban disappointed some Golden State gay couples who would have been able to wed if the court refused to hear the case.

AP: Merck’s charitable foundation has stopped giving money to the Boy Scouts of America.

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post: The Supreme Court’s decision to weigh in on two gay marriage cases has raised an important question: Will the Obama administration offer clarity on whether he thinks gay and lesbian Americans have a constitutional, as opposed to a moral, right to marry?

Jim Campbell on KGO 810 AM San Francisco to discuss the litigation. | MP3 audio 2:55 mins

Warren Richey at Christian Science Monitor on Yahoo News: The Supreme Court’s decision to take up appeals over DOMA and California’s Prop. 8 ban on gay marriage elicited positive reactions from advocates on both sides of the contentious issue . . . Jim Campbell, a lawyer with the conservative group, Alliance Defending Freedom, stressed that Americans have a right to preserve the traditional definition of marriage. He said the institution forms a “fundamental building block of civilization.” “Marriage between a man and a woman is a universal good that diverse cultures and faiths have honored throughout the history of Western civilization,” he said. “Marriage expresses the truth that men and women bring distinct, irreplaceable gifts to family life.”

Daniel Fisher at Forbes: The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a pair of cases that could — but likely will not — establish a nationwide, constitutional right to gay marriage. The cases leave the high court plenty of escape hatches from taking a big step the country may not be ready for yet, said William Eskridge, a constitutional law scholar at Yale Law School who contributed the legal reasoning that helped decide one of the cases, a challenge to an anti-gay marriage referendum in California.

Scott Shackford at USA Today: The Supreme Court can’t actually stop the trend toward gay marriage recognition if that’s what the public wants. It can only decide whether or not same-sex couples have a right to demand it.

NY Times: Fifty-eight years after it banned discrimination in public education, the Supreme Court has set the stage for the defining civil rights decision of this era — agreeing to hear two cases challenging laws that define marriage to exclude couples of the same sex. To us, and a growing number of Americans, the right course seems clear: that the justices continue the march toward real equality.

Neal Devins and Tara Grove at SCOTUS Blog: In this post, we argue that the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) is not a proper party to defend DOMA. Likewise, we doubt that the proponents of Proposition 8 have standing to defend California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. At the same time, we suspect that the Court will rule on the merits of both cases – something it can still do if it rules against the BLAG; something it cannot do if it finds the Proposition 8 proponents are without standing.

Kenji Yoshino at SCOTUS Blog: It might seem to follow from these two premises that the Court will split the baby between the cases. But the error lies in thinking that the Perry Court must require marriage in all fifty states or none. In fact, the Court can more narrowly invalidate Prop. 8 in at least three ways.

William Duncan at the SCOTUS Blog: Now that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeals of one of the decisions striking down DOMA and the Proposition 8 case, the Court’s focus should turn to correcting the serious flaws in the lower court decisions it will be reviewing and preventing future judicial adventurism on the definition of marriage. The decisions the Court will be reviewing have embraced something like a “substantive equal protection” doctrine.

The U.S. Supreme Court Friday agreed to review the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and California’s marriage amendment.

“Marriage between a man and a woman is a universal good that diverse cultures and faiths have honored throughout the history of Western Civilization. Marriage expresses the truth that men and women bring distinct, irreplaceable gifts to family life. The ProtectMarriage.com legal team looks forward to advocating before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the people’s right to preserve this fundamental building block of civilization.”

SCOTUS Blog has just broken the news. This posted may be updated as more information comes.

Mona Charen at National Review: It in’t a matter of urgent national importance when non-parents choose to live together without benefit of clergy (I love the old-fashioned expression). When children come into the picture, it is. There is simply no controversy about the data: Two-parent married families are best for children — and best for society.

Christian Concern: Prime Minister David Cameron has broken his promise not to permit same-sex ‘marriages’ to take place in churches.

Stephen M. Krason at Crisis Magazine: How can one talk about changing the libertarian divorce laws—much less the divorce culture—in the Age of Obama, when the national administration and the ruling political party is pushing the most permissive sexual and family agenda in American history? There is no place to work from but the ground up, and we should always keep in mind that the bright future of new historical ages is often fashioned in the throes of a troubled and declining socio-cultural era.

Seattle Times: Hundreds of gay and lesbian couples took advantage of Washington’s new same-sex marriage law on Thursday, getting marriage licenses on a historic day filled with celebration.

Christian Civic League Faith Matters in Maine: Protect and prepare for any conflict that same sex marriage will bring to your church. Click here for part 2 of a two part “Faith Matters in Maine” interview with Joel Oster, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom. Listen to Faith Matters in Maine with Carroll Conley, Jr. and Bob Emrich every Monday at 6:15 pm (WHCF 88.5, Hodgdon/Houlton 93.7, and Presque Isle 102.7)

AP: Mormon leaders made their most significant outreach yet to gays and lesbians, unveiling a new website Thursday that encourages church members to be more compassionate in discussions about homosexuality.

Liberty Counsel: Late last night, Liberty Counsel filed a request for an emergency appeal and declarations in support of our appeal, asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to block California law SB 1172 which goes into effect on January 1, 2013. The law will ban any counsel that seeks to reduce or eliminate same-sex sexual attractions, behavior, or identity.