WHAT EXPLAINS AMERICAN DEMOGRAPHIC EXCEPTIONALISM?

Nicholas Eberstadt considers possible answers, here.
posted by Eve at 12:30 AM | Link | 0 comments

Everything You Always Wanted to Know. . .

About Jon Rauch, Reason magazine was not afraid to ask. Great interview here.
posted by maggie at 4:37 PM | Link | 0 comments

Stepfamilies Seek to Stretch Their Space

A little slice of American life in today's New York Times' Home and Garden section. . .I wonder if families in other nations and cultures feel such a strong need for personal space? (I know I do, just wondering. . .). Story here.
posted by maggie at 3:42 PM | Link | 1 comments

EU Coalition Has a Demand

From a press release by C-Fam, somehow a slice of our times:

"Left-wing EU Coalition Demands US Government Official Withdraw from Pro-Family Meeting

By Samantha Singson

(NEW YORK — C-FAM) A group of hard-left Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have sent a letter to a top-ranking member of the US State Department demanding that she not attend the upcoming World Congress of Families IV set for Poland this May. In the letter recently released to the Baltimore Sun by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC), several MEPs claim that by speaking at the WCF, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Ellen Sauerbrey would be providing an “official US government stamp of approval to extremist and intolerant views.”

Signed by 19 MEPs who comprise The European Parliamentary Working Group on Separation of Religion and Politics, the signatories accused WCF organizers of holding “prejudiced attitudes toward foreigners, people from other religions, homosexuals and the inclusive vision of what represents a family unit that has been developed by the United Nations and the European Union.”

The MEPs claim that Sauerbrey would be committing “a diplomatic faux pas” by participating in the upcoming Warsaw event “with individuals whose views oppose what is laid out in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.” Legal experts point out that the Charter has never been ratified and that even if it had the Parliamentary group of MEPs violate it by trying to drive religious voices from the public square.

One of the group’s major complaints is against various individuals involved in organizing the conference. Using quotes likely taken from material published several years ago by the pro-abortion group Catholics for a Free Choice, the letter targets Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, C-FAM president Austin Ruse and Fr. Thomas Eutenauer of Human Life International. The MEPs accuse Cardinal Trujillo of making “dangerous” statements about the ineffective use of condoms to combat HIV/AIDS while Ruse is singled out for once repeating a joke told to him by a UN diplomat about Hillary Clinton.

Legal experts note that contrary to the MEP’s assertions, Sauerbrey’s attendance at WCF upholds the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, which calls for “Freedom of thought, conscience and religion,” of “expression and information,” and of “assembly and of association.” They argue that the MEP letter is evidence of a selective misinterpretation of the Charter in order to promote a version of “tolerance in Europe” that seeks to tolerate a radical social agenda while marginalizing those who disagree with that agenda.

Commenting on the letter, Member of the European Parliament from Poland, Konrad Szymanski told the Friday Fax, "Contrary to the opinion of the undersigned MEPs, the European Union has no competence to express any binding opinions in the matters of family. The letter is a good illustration of the leftist version of tolerance – it strictly prohibits criticizing abortion, birth control and homosexual claims in the realm of family law. What drives the letter is first and foremost a fear of the US-European alliance in the debate about our civilization. It exhibits a fear of transplanting the experiences of the American moral revolution of the 1980s to the European Union."

The World Congress of Families IV is scheduled to take place in Warsaw, Poland from May 11 – 13, 2007.

posted by maggie at 3:26 PM | Link | 0 comments

Morning After Pill Availability Does Not Lower Unintended Pregnancy Rates

Add this to the pile of policies that do not work, at least at the public health level, according to this study.
posted by maggie at 10:12 AM | Link | 0 comments

FATHERS ANONYMOUS: Kerry Howley vs. Kay Hymowitz

...I agree that the law should neither pretend nor pole-vault, but Hymowitz isn't asking for lawmakers to acknowledge the existence of "nature." She is concerned with fatherhood as a social/legal category, and emphatically does not want a body of law that reflects the superficiality of mere biological fatherhood. Anti [artificial insemination]-types want to foster the illusion that certain obligations are seminally transmitted. That's a defensible position, but it's no more natural than ordering a vial of sperm on the Internet.

more
posted by Eve at 12:30 AM | Link | 0 comments

Blankenhorn v. Capenter: SSM Haikus

David Blankenhorn adds a P.S. over at FamilyScholars.org:

". . .As I’ve thought further about our exchanges to date, it occurs to me that it might be helpful for each of us to step back a bit from the details and try to pin down, in a kind of haiku form, the main thesis, regarding same-sex marriage, that each of us is trying to advance. Here is my effort (as of today) to do that:

1. The primary cross-cultural purpose of marriage as an institution is to ensure, insofar as possible, that the man and women who make the child through sexual intercourse are there for the child, as social parents, and are there for each other.

2. Every child raised by a same-sex couple will by definition be missing either their mother or their father.

3. It is therefore not possible, or at least extremely hard, to believe both in gay marriage and in the importance of this essential cross-cultural purpose of marriage. The two goods are in conflict; we as a society must choose which we think is more important.

4. Changing the meaning of marriage and normative parenthood to accomodate same-sex couples changes marriage and parenthood overall — not just for the children in same-sex couple households, but for all children. . ."

posted by maggie at 11:33 AM | Link | 73 comments

Blankenhorn v. Carpenter: David B Replies

Over at FamilyScholars:

". . .As best I can determine, in your latest post you basically re-state and develop further the same points that you’ve made in earlier posts. And at this stage in our dialogue, I too probably don’t have much new to add to what I have previously stated and to what I wrote in my book. Moreover, I also suspect that no evidence I could present — or that anybody has presented, or ever will present – is likely to persuade you that maybe, just maybe, there is a connection between support for gay marriage and the weakening of marriage as a social institution. So if I were to show you, for example, that in the province of Quebec, public support for gay marriage is unusually high, while public support for customary marriage is unusually low and getting lower (as evidenced in nearly every measurement available), whereas in the rest of Canada, the situation is something close to the opposite (much higher support for marriage, much lower support for gay marriage) — I am sure that, presented with these facts, you could and would come up with many, many reasons why a) it ain’t necessarily so; and b) even if it is so, it doesn’t prove anything!

So, on the empirical issue, regarding Quebec and Europe and everywhere else, I am prepared simply to let matters rest where they are, and invite our readers to dig deeper on their own. Ditto on the issue of whether people who professionally dislike marriage tend overwhelmingly to favor gay marriage. Ditto also on the issue of whether many of the same public arguments that have long been used to attack marriage are now being deployed to support gay marriage. In my book I develop these and related argument in some detail; you make it clear that you will have none of it, not even a bit; and that is where matters between us currently lie.

Instead, let me make a more general observation, see if you agree with it, and then ask you a question. I have done a fair amount of soul searching about whether I have anything distinctive or out-of-the-ordinary to contribute to our public discussion of gay marriage, and if so, what it is. Perhaps the answer is nothing! But at least as I see it, I am making two arguments that I do not typically see coming from opponents of same-sex marriage:

1. Being against gay marriage should not mean being against gay people. I make this arguments a number of times, in a number of different ways, in my book; and in public appearances I try hard to make the same point, even (and especially) in venues where I know that the point will probably be, well, not fully appreciated or endorsed.

2. There are two sides to this argument. That’s what makes it hard. Both sides have a good case. In my book, I say that the debate on gay marriage is not good versus bad, but good versus good, or “goods in conflict.” I haven’t found many people on either side who agree with me on this point. For one side, it’s good (equal rights) versus bad (the denial of equal rights). For the other side, it’s good (customary marriage) versus bad (homosexual conduct). Maybe others are arguing goods in conflict, but if so, I’ve missed it.

So my respectfully offered, sincere question to you is: Do you believe that both sides have a valid case? And if you do believe that both sides have a case, what do you think is the strongest point on the other (anti gay marriage) side, and the corresponding weakest point on your side? . . ."

posted by maggie at 5:21 PM | Link | 59 comments

New Study: 4 Abstinence Ed Programs Fail to Show Effects

This Mathematica study reported by the AP below, was able to use a random-assignment model, rather impressive in evaluation research. Does anyone know of any random-assignment studies of other sex ed programs?:

"Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex as those who did not, according to a study ordered by Congress.

Also, those who attended one of the four abstinence classes reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes. And they first had sex about the same age as other students — 14.9 years, according to Mathematica Policy Research Inc. . ."

UPDATE: The National Association of Abstinence Educators responds:

". . . Today’s release by Mathematica Policy Research Inc. should not be generalized to all current abstinence education programs. This study examined only four out of a pool of over 700 Title V Programs. These narrow findings represent less than 1% of all Title V projects across the nation. . .

"This study began when Title V abstinence education programs were still in their infancy. The field of abstinence has significantly grown and evolved since that time and the results demonstrated in the Mathematica study are not representative of the abstinence education community as a whole.

"The recent March conference on the Evaluation of Abstinence Education, sponsored by the US Department of Health and Human Services featured at least 30 significant evaluation studies that demonstrated positive trends in teen abstinent behavior. Now that federal funding has been made available, quality evaluation of abstinence education programs will continue and help to identify proven practices in abstinence education. Currently, there are several significant studies that demonstrate that abstinence education programs are effective in delaying sexual debut, reducing partners once sexually active, and empowering sexually experienced students to embrace abstinent behavior. . .

This statement and additional information is available at www.AbstinenceAssociation.org"

posted by maggie at 9:27 AM | Link | 2 comments

Texas Legislators Push Marriage Education

Also covenant marriage, and longer waiting periods for divorce, according to this April 14 AP story in Sunday's New York Times: "Proposals that would encourage couples to undergo premarital education, extend the waiting period for a divorce and provide the option of covenant marriage are under consideration in the Texas Legislature. . ."
posted by maggie at 6:37 PM | Link | 1 comments