Time Corrects Jennifer Chrisler Error
I dunno. I guess its too embarrassing to have published a piece on THE FACTS with such a big error. Because
Time.com has corrected Jennifer Chrisler's mistake, without ever acknowledging to its readers it published such a howling blooper in the first place. Here is the letter Jennifer Chrisler sent to me, acknowledging her error and her admirable willingness to fix it. Fixing it by changing the text without acknowledging the error itself strikes me as well. . .a little self-serving on the part of Time. I wouldn't make such a big deal of it, but it is in a column accusing her opponent of actually lying about "the facts" because he disagrees with her assessment of the research. . .Here is the letter Jennifer wrote to me on this, just for the record. Again, I blame Time magazine, not Jennifer:
Maggie -
I want to thank you for contacting me with your question about the Time piece.
Your question made me re-examine the wording I used and in fact, the sentence should have read:
"According to the 2000 census, the vast majority - more than 75% - of American households differ in structure from two married, heterosexual parents and their biological children."
Obviously, this has a significantly different meaning than the original sentence and was an accidental misstatement on my part in describing the census terminology. I want this to appear accurately and am sending a letter to Time magazine as well in order to correct the piece.
As I am sure you are aware from your review of the census data, it is a complicated and nuanced set of statistics with terminology that has a long way to go in order to describe the many diverse family structures we see in our culture.
Irregardless, Family Pride feels strongly that every American family should enjoy the same rights and protections, including gay and lesbian families.
I would be happy to discuss this with you further at your convenience.
Best wishes,
Jennifer
Jennifer Chrisler
Executive Director
Family Pride
posted by maggie at
12:06 PM | link
It is honorable that Chrisler admitted her mistake. The data from the Census CAN be confusing...sometimes, but not when it is clearly spelled out in their publication at: http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p70-104.pdfy
Also, does she really believe that every family, regardless of form or ability to promote postitive well-being outcomes, should "enjoy the same rights and protections"? That is as clear a definition of "family relativism" as I have heard.
Kindof negates her whole point in writing that sentance, doesn’t it? The first was about the households children are raised in. The second includes all households, whether they have children in the home or not.
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