Tag Archives: Category: Marriage and Family

Michael Ebnet at Star Tribune: But a growing number of us don’t believe there’s anything unique about gender when it comes to raising a family. Not that long ago, the book “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus ” sold 50 million copies because its explanation of why men were different from women resonated with many. Today, many people see the sexes as interchangeable.

Miami Herald: With more Native Americans making similar demands, the Suquamish tribe is one of three that have signed off on marriage by same-sex couples, laws that apply only on their land. Legal analysts predict that more tribes will follow, giving new rights to what many Native Americans call “two-spirit” individuals, who carry both a feminine and masculine spirit. Still, the issue is far from settled in Indian country.

KRMG.com: Paul and Hava spend their days together but state law requires they return to their respective state sanctioned non-profit facilities at night. You see both are developmentally disabled.

GLAD: Today, the Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and other child welfare organizations filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in support of a transgender girl who experienced discrimination …

Mercury News: Confronting a Silicon Valley woman’s unusual legal plight, the California Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared reluctant to strip legal rights from spouses who truly believe they are married but may not have taken all the technical steps to make sure their paperwork is right under state law.

Lyle Denniston at Constitution Daily: If the Constitution takes at least part of its meaning from the way elected officials react to a high-profile public policy issue, the supporters of same-sex marriage have reason to be optimistic right now. In the space of less than a week, Rhode Island and then Delaware became the 10th and 11th states to allow gay marriage (along with Washington, D.C.). But is that a trend that the Supreme Court is ready to advance—or will choose to leave alone to see how it goes?

The Barna Group: One common thread in every survey has been the significant number of Millennials among these “Nones.” The initial Pew survey found that nearly one-in-three members of the Millennial generation (32%) has no religious affiliation. But, who are these faithless twentysomethings? Where did they come from? Did they ever claim faith? And what is it about religion that has left them cold?

Washington Times: The U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday that beginning with the 2014-2015 federal student aid form, the Department will — for the first time — collect income “from a dependent student’s legal parents regardless of the parents’ marital status or gender, if those parents live together.”

Education Week: A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated a Michigan law that bars school districts from deducting teachers’ union dues for their employees. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled 2-1 that the state’s Act 53, a 2012 measure that by its own terms was meant as “a check on union power,” likely does not violate the free speech or equal protection rights of teachers’ unions.

Sussex Countian: “Marriage equality passes Delaware Senate; Gov. immediately signs into law”
Jordan Lorence, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom had concerns about the potential legal ramifications of the bill. “This state bans marital status discrimination. By passing this bill you will be changing the definition of marital status. People who don’t support this bill will be branded as bigots. If this is meant as a culture changing bill, those who believe in traditional marriage, defined as only one man and one woman, can only express that opinion with in four walls and not affect anybody else. If it goes anywhere else there are public accommodations laws already set that would come against them.”

One News Now: Nicole Theis, president of Delaware Family Policy Council, says there is no protection in the bill for people of faith . . . And we’ll be there with our partners at the Alliance Defending Freedom ready to defend the religious liberties of the good people of Delaware who find themselves in situations where their rights are being violated,” states the DFPC leader.

ThinkProgress: Unsurprisingly, one witness cited the debunked Regnerus study, while an Alliance Defending Freedom attorney claimed that the Ocean Grove pavilion in New Jersey was an example of “religious freedom” being violated, even though it wasn’t. A motion by opponents to table the bill failed 9-12.

On Top Magazine: Jordan Lorence, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a leading group representing clients who claim equal marriage laws violate their Christian beliefs, argued that allowing same-sex couples to marry would lead to discrimination against Christians. He warned that the bill’s true objective was to foster “a cultural change” and shun opponents as “bigots.”

HSLDA: Last week, HSLDA sent a nationwide alert asking you to call your U.S. senators and urge them to sign a letter from Senator Chuck Grassley exhorting Congress to defund the federal government’s role in the Common Core Standards and Curriculum.

Religion Clause Blog: The Louisiana Supreme Court today in a 6-1 decision held that the state’s school voucher program enacted in 2012 violates the state constitution.  In Louisiana Federation of Teachers v. State of Louisiana, (LA Sup. Ct., May 7, 2013) . . .

Religion Clause: The new law protects clergy who object to performing same-sex marriages. It provides: nothing in this section shall be construed to require any person (including any clergyperson or minister of any religion) authorized to solemnize a marriage to solemnize any marriage, and no such authorized person who fails or refuses for any reason to solemnize a marriage shall be subject to any fine or other penalty for such failure or refusal. Notwithstanding the preceding sentence, a clerk of the peace who issues a marriage license, or a deputy thereof, shall be required to perform a solemnization of such marriage if requested by the applicants for such license.

Pioneer Press: Minnesota might be poised to become the 12th state in the nation to legalize gay marriage, as House leaders prepare for a floor vote Thursday, May 9.

Miami Herald: Minnesota appears poised to legalize gay marriage, as the Democratic speaker of the state House said Tuesday that a gay marriage bill endorsed by the governor and likely to pass in the state Senate also now has enough backing in his chamber.

USA Today: The Senate’s 12-9 vote sends the bill to Democratic Gov. Jack Markell, who supports the measure and planned to sign it later in the day. It would go into effect July 1.

The American Federation for Children, the nation’s voice for educational choice, today urged the Louisiana Legislature and Governor to find a legislative solution after the Louisiana Supreme Court struck down the current funding mechanism for state’s voucher program. The Court only ruled against the funding of the voucher program and did not strike down the constitutionality of the program.

Matthew Schmitz at First Things: Heterosexual exchange and reproduction has always been the very “grammar” of social relating as such. The abandonment of this grammar would thus imply a society no longer primarily constituted by extended kinship, but rather by state control and merely monetary exchange and reproduction.

KARE11.com: “You have to have proof that he’s not representing. Well, the proof was in the last election when you have 62.5 percent of the voters (in the district) that voted for traditional marriage,” he told KARE 11. Radinovich recently announced he supports same sex marriage legislation.

LiveScience: “This is because traditional economic models of marriage have argued that men who have high earning potential are more likely to marry at an older age so that they can ‘reveal’ their high potential,” explained Hani Mansour, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver. [I Don't: 5 Myths About Marriage]

TwinCities.com: A Senate Finance Committee will review the potential fiscal impact of a bill allowing same-sex couples to wed at a meeting Tuesday morning, May 7. A companion bill cleared the House Ways and Means Committee on a voice vote Monday night, May 6. Both are last stops before potential floor vote in each chamber.

Illinois Review reports.

Opposing Views: The Illinois Family Institute protested against State Rep. Ron Sandack over the weekend, while gay marriage activists staged a counter protest, outside the Republican’s Downers Grove office (video below).

Chicago Tribune: Pat Brady, the chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, announced his resignation Tuesday amid a simmering controversy over his support for gay marriage legislation.

CNSNews: Bishop Thomas Tobin, head of the Catholic diocese of Providence, said the “gay marriage” bill signed into law in Rhode Island by its governor, Lincoln Chafee, constituted a “new challenge of the post-Christian era into which, clearly, we have now entered.”

Kellie Fiedorek at Townhall: Yes, anyone is capable of loving a child, and many heroic single parents admirably love and care for their children; however, few people advocate to incentivize permanently excluding moms or dads from a child’s life.

Ashley McGuire at Public Discourse: How appropriate that Justice Alito brought up cellphones in the recent Supreme Court hearings on the marriage cases. Because these days it seems like it is easier to get out of a marriage than it is to get out of a cellphone contract.

Star Tribune: Legalizing same-sex marriage will eventually cost the state about $678,000 a year, a new report has found. The new wrinkle will send a proposal to legalize same-sex marriage to another committee test in the Minnesota House on Monday. The measure could then go to the House floor in coming days.

ABC: A former rural Iowa court official pleaded guilty Monday to forgery for filing false documents to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple from central Florida, in the first case of its kind in Iowa.

Des Moines Register: Married same-sex couples have the same rights as married heterosexuals to have both parents listed on the birth certificates of their newborn children, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled this morning. Justices ruled 6-0 . . . | Gartner v. Iowa Dept. of Public Health

CNSNews: The results of a Boy Scouts of America (BSA) survey shows that a majority of members support keeping in place the policy that prohibits homosexuals from joining or leading the organization.

Jerome Peters at Citizen-Times: Go to Alliance Defending Freedom and click on “Faith and Justice.’’ The choice is in the Christians’ end of the court. Obey God, get some new salt or reap the bad harvest coming around the corner. A very bad harvest it will be.

ACLU: The Red Lion Area School District (RLASD) has refused to change its policy regarding transgender candidates for prom court, nor will it agree to allow transgender students to use a name at graduation to match their gender identity, according to a letter from the school district’s solicitor.

Mercury News: And now Nancy Ceja finds herself in the midst of a legal quagmire over whether, in fact, she was truly married in the eyes of the law solely because she believed she was legally married. As it turned out, the ink had not yet dried on Robert Ceja’s divorce to his previous wife when they exchanged vows — and that may deprive Nancy Ceja of the right to sue his former company for wrongful death.

Benjamin Wiker at NC Register: While we wait until June to find out how the U.S. Supreme Court will rule in its two “gay marriage” cases, perhaps it will add a little energy to our prayers to understand that the judges in black will be making a stark choice: The choice is either “gay marriage” or religious freedom, but not both.

Ryan T. Anderson at Red State: When a baby is born, a mother always is nearby. The question is whether a father will be involved in the life of that child and, if so, for how long. Marriage increases the odds that a man will be committed to both the children that he helps create and to the woman with whom he does so.

Steve Deace at Townhall: Last week’s column on getting the state out of marriage prompted some follow-up questions, which in this week’s piece I will attempt to answer.

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.

Wisconsin Family Action sent a letter to Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) Friday inviting him to  clarify what he believes regarding the best interest of children.

ABC: Rhode Island is joining nine other states and the District of Columbia in allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.

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.

The Columbus Dispatch: ‘Steadfast in the teaching of the church’: Bishop defends gay teacher’s firing

Campbell said earlier in the day that Hale was not fired because of her sexual orientation but because her “quasi-spousal relationship” with another woman violates the church’s moral teaching. He said Hale violated a teacher contract and Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus policy that prohibits immoral behavior and requires employees to follow general church tenets.

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.

Robert McNamara and Paul Sherman at the National Law Journal: As if the facts of these cases weren’t provocative enough, the challenges to California’s law are complicated by the fact that the plaintiffs, practicing psychologists who are licensed in California, simply engage in “talk therapy” with their patients. As a result, these cases raise an important, unresolved constitutional question: Is the kind of one-on-one counseling and advice at issue in talk therapy “free speech” protected by the First Amendment?

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.

Pittsbugh Post-Gazette: Some 20 percent of science teachers in survey say they believe in creationism

USA Today: Asked at a town-hall-style meeting Monday in Wisconsin about the issue, Ryan said he would “vote differently these days” and still opposes gay marriage. In 1999, the congressman voted in favor of banning same-sex couples in the District of Columbia from adopting.

Kellie Fiedorick at Alliance Defending Freedom: As part of the legal team defending Proposition 8—California’s marriage protection amendment—before the U.S. Supreme Court, Alliance Defending Freedom has helped prepare the best resource you can read to find answers to tough questions surrounding the marriage debate.  Our new brochure, “What You Need to Know About Marriage: Questions and Answers Driving the Debate,” has these answers.  This informative, easy-to-readbrochure was forged with some of our closest allies to engage in the national fight to defend marriage.

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.

USA Today: San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone chairs the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage. Here are his views on the subject in response to questions from USA TODAY . . .

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.

CNSNews: Miami’s Catholic archbishop, Thomas Wenski, said establishing “gay marriage” would corrupt the natural setting for rearing children by a mother and a father, and further spread “moral relativism,” one of the signs that democracy is “on its way to totalitarianism.”

Marvin Olasky at Townhall: Today’s justices have a chance to do not only what’s right but what’s logical: If the Supreme Court affirms states rights on marriage, why not on abortion?

Buzz Feed: The federal government plans to start counting income from both parents in a same-sex couple when making federal student aid decisions beginning in 2014, the Department of Education announced Monday, a change that could result in students of same-sex couples receiving less federal aid.