State Marriage Amendment Introduced in Maryland

Wash Blade reports.
posted by maggie at 1:51 PM | Link | 0 comments

What Me Worry?

A story on a new study showing an overall low but definitely increased risk of birth defects in babies created by articial technologies (esp. the more complicasted kind). The insistence that nobody should worry about this is quite striking, compared to how fanatical we usually are about telling women they shouldn't do anything (like have a glass of wine) that increases any risk to their baby.
posted by maggie at 1:48 PM | Link | 3 comments

How Low Can It Go?

Three European demographers forecast continuing declines in Eurofertility based on three factors: lower number of women in childbearing years, declining family size, and a conflict between a trajectory of increasing economic expectations and reduced accomplishment (in part as economies are geared to meeting the needs of older generations first). Only a theory but. . . read it here.
posted by maggie at 1:42 PM | Link | 0 comments

New Study: Interracial Marriages Decline for Asians/Hispanics

Newswire press release:

". . ."These declines in intermarriages are a significant departure from past trends," said Zhenchao Qian, co-author of the study and professor of sociology at Ohio State University. . . The study also found that interracial marriages involving African Americans increased significantly during the 1990s, but still continued to lag far behind other minorities.

Qian conducted the study with Daniel Lichter, professor at Cornell University. Their results appear in the February 2007 issue of the American Sociological Review.

The researchers studied U.S. census data from 1990 and 2000. They examined married couples between the ages of 20 to 34 who identified themselves as whites, African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, Hispanics or some combination.

Interracial and inter-ethnic marriages began to increase in the 1970s and continued to grow through the 1980s, Qian said. Almost all such marriages are between whites and minorities – very few marriages occur between people of different minority groups. But the rate of intermarriages began declining in the 1990s– particularly those involving whites and Asian Americans or Hispanics – and this study was designed in part to find out why. . .

. . . the number of native-born Hispanic men in intermarriages with whites declined by nearly 4 percentage points between 1990 and 2000 – from 35.3 percent to 31.9 percent. The number of native-born Asian American men in intermarriages declined from 50.2 to 45.8 percent. . ."

posted by maggie at 3:56 PM | Link | 0 comments

Law Journal Article on Marriage

The Howard Law Journal has just published a piece, "Portrait of an Institution," on the same-sex marriage cases, focusing on what the courts in those cases say about what marriage is. The issue is available here and the article is on page 95 (page 103 of the file).
posted by William Duncan at 12:10 PM | Link | 9 comments

Scots to Challenge Ban on Catholic Adoption Agencies

The Scotman story is headlined "Church: we'll make gay rights martyrs":

". . .In a change of tactics, Church officials now say they will not close down adoption agencies as a result of new laws forcing them to deal with applications from gay couples.

Instead, they will deliberately break the law in order to bring a case to court. The Church believes it could then challenge a guilty verdict through Article 9 of the Human Rights Act, which upholds the freedom of religious expression.

The challenge considerably increases the temperature in a row that last week left the Cabinet divided and prompted warnings from Church leaders that the issue would prompt them to campaign against Labour in May's Scottish elections. Scotland has two Catholic adoption agencies, which place about 200 children and offer aftercare to 2,000 more.

Previously, Church leaders have said that the agencies would be forced to close, however, a spokesman for the Church told Scotland on Sunday: "We will not shut down the agencies. We will carry on working until someone takes us to court for breaking the law." He added: "There would then be a case where one of our agencies would be found guilty of breaking the law and would be put out of business."

He went on: "We believe there is an opportunity for a judicial review on the grounds that compelling people to act against their religious beliefs contravenes Article 9 of the ECHR."

The plan follows a similar challenge brought against the government in Northern Ireland, where the act has already been introduced. Brought by the Christian Institute, the bid will go ahead in March, in an attempt to topple the regulations in the Province.

The Church is now also warning of other examples where its members may find themselves breaking the new legislation. Once passed, the Equality Act, will ban any discrimination in the provision of services on grounds of sexuality.

The spokesman added: "We will see priests prosecuted for saying they are not renting the hall for a same-sex celebration." He went on: "What about the Christian bookshop which refuses to stock gay literature? They will all be breaking the law."

. . .Westminster officials last night insisted that Prime Minister Tony Blair and communities minister Ruth Kelly - the two Cabinet supporters of a Catholic 'exemption' - had not fully capitulated over the gay-adoption issue and were maintaining efforts to seek a "workable compromise". Home Secretary John Reid floated the possibility of following Scotland's lead in pacifying the Catholic Church and the gay community - although he insisted the thrust of the equal-opportunities legislation should not be diverted. . ."

posted by maggie at 10:37 AM | Link | 1 comments

Paternity Fraud in Florida

In discouraging contrast to the comments by the Archbishop of Canterbury, there is this decision of the Florida Supreme Court issued last week. The case involves a challenge to a child support order by a man who had learned that the child he was supporting was the biological offspring of another man, although during the divorce the wife had said the child was his. The key issue for the court involved gradations of fraud and the amount of time a person has to attack a court order based on the fraud. (Here, the man had one year to file his suit and since he had not learned of the child’s true paternity in that period, he was foreclosed from challenging the support order).

Perhaps most interesting, though, is the court’s policy justification for this obviously unfair result. The court quotes a law review article: “[w]hile some individuals are innocent victims of deceptive partners, adults are aware of the high incidence of infidelity and only they, not the children, are able to act to ensure that the biological ties they may deem essential are present. . . . The law should discourage adults from treating children they have parented as expendable when their adult relationships fall apart. It is the adults who can and should absorb the pain of betrayal rather than inflict additional betrayal on the involved children.”

The court concludes spouses bear any risk of infidelity so that there is no chance a child will miss out on child support because of that infidelity. This is okay, to the court, because a spouse should know infidelity is common and they can always seek (if they think a biological tie to their children is important) proof of biological parenthood. This is a pretty sorry portrait of marriage—where spousal trust is assumed not to exist and penalized where it does.

It’s also interesting that the risk would always seem to fall on the betrayed spouse. Few would argue that a child ought to be penalized but why of the adults involved, does the one who is betrayed have to bear the risk of infidelity? Wouldn’t it make more sense to assume the adulterous spouse is on notice that their adultery might produce a child and that they (and possibly their paramour) will be responsible for that child?
posted by William Duncan at 12:24 PM | Link | 1 comments

Legal Change Through Extortion

The ACLU announced yesterday that it was pursuing a lawsuit against the state of New Mexico to gain retirement benefits for same-sex partners of state employees. The complaint charges that the failure of the state to provide these benefits constitutes sex and/or sexual orientation discrimination and violates various other constitutional provisions. Although the complaint is virtually identical to those from the marriage lawsuits, there seems to have been a strategic decision not to pursue that route.

A clue to the motivation is contained in the press release which notes that legislation pending in the New Mexico state senate would provide the benefits sought in the case and quotes an ACLU official as saying: “The state legislature has the opportunity to spare taxpayers the needless expense of defending this lawsuit by passing this bill.” I suppose this effort will tell us whether the threat of litigation expense is an effective lobbying tool. Whatever the outcome, this does not bode well for our political system.
posted by William Duncan at 11:49 AM | Link | 0 comments

Customs

According to this story, the only known culture in which only women may propose marriage and men are not supposed to say "no." Feb 1 AP:

"He was 14 when the girl entered his grass-covered hut and placed a plate in front of him containing an ancient recipe.

Like all men on this African isle, Carvadju Jose Nananghe knew exactly what it meant. Refusing was not an option. His heart pounding, he lifted the steaming fish to his lips, agreeing in one bite to marry the girl.

"I had no feelings for her," said Nananghe, now 65. "Then when I ate this meal, it was like lightning. I wanted only her."

In this archipelago of 50 islands of pale blue water off the western rim of Africa, it's women, not men, who choose. . ."

posted by maggie at 7:35 AM | Link | 1 comments

Proof of Procreation in Washington

Andrew Sullivan must be pleased:

"Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed has accepted Iinitiative 957, a response by gay rights activists to a State Supreme Court ruling last summer. . .

It would allow only couples capable of having kids to marry, and that they file "proof of procreation" within three years of the marriage. If not, the marriage would be annulled. . .

I-957 would also force couples who married out of state to show the same proof of procreation or their marriage wouldn't be recognized, and it would become a criminal act for anyone in an unrecognized marriage to get marriage benefits.

To make it on the November ballot they need 224,800 signatures by July 6."

posted by maggie at 7:30 AM | Link | 26 comments

Archbishop of Canterbury on Marriage

From the U.K. Telegraph:

"Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, said . . ."Our focus should not be on whether people marry or not, it should be on the welfare of the child and the quality of the upbringing."

Dr Williams said many of those commentating on marriage were "trading off the inherited capital" of previous generations who worked at marriage and stayed together. Their "prosaic heroism" and "moral geography" had provided a stable background for the next generation.

He added that a committed relationship of a husband and a wife indicated to the children that "it is quite possible to live as a human being not afraid that at any moment you are going to be let down, abandoned, left to yourself - someone has actually committed to be there for you".

The archbishop said: "The fluidity, changeability of relationships and the transience of marriage may look perfectly fine if you belong to the commentating classes of north London but you don't have to go many miles to see what the cost is for people who cannot take that sort of thing for granted."

(Thanks to www.wesleyjsmith.com)
posted by maggie at 6:08 AM | Link | 0 comments