SSM Update: Connecticut

Another supreme court justice recused himself from the case, story here.

Oral arguments before the state supreme court will be Monday morning, you can watch it here: www.ctn.state.ct.us/daily_schedule.asp?date=5/14/2007

According to this Hartford Courant story, the legislature will not vote on a gay marriage bill introduced this year.
posted by maggie at 6:35 PM | Link | 0 comments

SF CHRONICLE OVERVIEW OF GAY PARENTING VIA INFERTILITY CLINICS

Infertility clinics in the Bay Area and other regions with large gay populations are actively promoting biological parenthood for gay men and lesbians, hoping to expand the market for reproductive technologies once aimed almost exclusively at infertile heterosexuals. ...

Despite the risks, biological parenthood is increasingly seen in gay communities as an attractive alternative to adopting -- or remaining childless.

"For some people, having a biological connection to their children is important," said Judy Appell, a lesbian parent of two children and executive director of Our Family Coalition, a San Francisco gay-parenthood group. "More doors are opening to us through medical advancements, so more and more people are willing to try new ways to create our families."

Options range from simple intrauterine insemination for women, which may cost a few hundred dollars, to use of paid egg donors and gestational surrogates for gay men, who may have to pay $150,000 in medical and legal services to have a child.

Statistics are hard to come by, in part because of the controversy surrounding same-sex marriage and the hostility in some parts of the country to the idea of gay men and lesbians raising families. But experts in the field say there's no doubt that at least 5 percent of clients at many clinics are homosexual.

"In the last decade, it's dramatically increased," said Gail Taylor, president and founder of Growing Generations in Los Angeles, which offers surrogacy services. "Once people know the opportunity is out there, absolutely the desire keeps growing."

Jeff Eichenfield, 46, a gay man from San Francisco, said he's perceived a lot of isolation and unhappiness in the gay community partly because of limited opportunities to have families. That changed for him in October when his son, Nate, was born using a surrogate. ...

Taylor's organization has been involved in the birth of about 500 babies in the past 11 years, she said, mostly to gay men using a gestational surrogate -- a women paid to carry an implanted embryo produced from a donor egg fertilized with the client's sperm. In California, two men's names can go on the birth certificate regardless of where they live, without any need for adoption, through what's known as a prebirth paternity judgment.

In vitro fertilization technology today offers gay people more options to participate directly in the biological adventure of childbirth than once thought possible, creating along the way some novel family relationships.
Ronda Hanson, 47, and her partner, Darleen DeRosa, 36, of Moss Beach in San Mateo County decided to use the younger woman's eggs, which were fertilized in vitro. They obtained sperm from an anonymous donor through a sperm bank. The resulting embryos were transferred into Hanson, who after three failed pregnancies delivered a boy, Lorenzo Hanson DeRosa, on July 12, 2006.

"I am the birth mother, but not the biological mother," Hanson said. "It was a way for us to feel that we were really sharing this baby, much the same as a straight couple would. To whatever extent we could do this together, we did."

Both men in a relationship can contribute sperm to fertilize donor eggs. A resulting embryo from each man can be implanted in a surrogate, sometimes at the same time, in order to produce fraternal twins, each child with a different biological father.

Dr. G. David Adamson, director of a Bay Area medical group called Fertility Associates of Northern California and president-elect of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the leading in vitro industry group, said the boom in biological parenthood is driven not so much by technology as by gradually changing societal attitudes.

"There's increasing acceptance of nontraditional families, meaning either single women or men or couples of women and men having a life together and sometimes wanting to have children together," he said. "So there's unquestionably been an increased utilization of these more sophisticated technologies and less traditional approaches to creating families."

This recently prompted the American Fertility Association, a national patient-advocacy group in New York, to create its first referral list of providers eager to expand their gay and lesbian clientele. "It's another reflection of the gay community growing up," said Pamela Madsen, the group's founder.

more
posted by Eve at 3:58 PM | Link | 2 comments

SPERM DONOR TO LESBIAN COUPLE ORDERED TO PAY CHILD SUPPORT: Associated Press

A sperm donor who helped a lesbian couple conceive two children is liable for child support under a state appeals-court ruling that a legal expert believes might be the first of its kind.

A Superior Court panel last week ordered a Dauphin County judge to establish how much Carl L. Frampton Jr. would have to pay to the birth mother of an 8-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl.

"I'm unaware of any other state appellate court that has found that a child has, simultaneously, three adults who are financially obligated to the child's support and are also entitled to visitation," said New York Law School professor Arthur S. Leonard, an expert on sexuality and the law.

But Frampton, 60, of Indiana, Pa., died suddenly of a stroke in March, leaving lawyers involved in the case with different theories about how his death may affect the precedent-setting case.

Jodilynn Jacob, 33, and Jennifer Lee Shultz-Jacob, 48, moved in together as a couple in 1996, and were granted a civil-union license in Vermont in 2002. In addition to conceiving the two children with the help of Frampton -- a longtime friend of Shultz-Jacob's — Jacob also adopted her brother's two older children, now 12 and 13.

But the women's relationship fell apart, and Jacob and the children moved out of their Dillsburg home in February 2006.

Shortly afterward, a court awarded her about $1,000 a month in support from Shultz-Jacob. Shultz-Jacob later lost an effort to have the court force Frampton to contribute support — a decision that the Superior Court overturned April 30.

Jacob, who now lives in Harrisburg, said Frampton provided some financial support over the years and gradually took a greater interest in the children.

"Part of the decision came down because he was so involved with them," Jacob said Wednesday. "It wasn't that he went to the (sperm) bank and that was it. They called him Papa."

The process was very informal — Jacob was inseminated at home.

Lori Andrews, a Chicago-Kent College of Law professor with expertise in reproductive technology, said as many as five people could claim some parental status toward a single child if its conception involved a surrogate mother, an egg donor and a sperm donor. ...

In his written opinion requiring Frampton to help pay for the child's support, Superior Court Judge John T.J. Kelly Jr. noted that Frampton spent thousands of dollars on the children, including purchases of toys and clothing.

"Such constant and attentive solicitude seems widely at variance with the support court's characterization of (him) having 'played a minimal role in raising and supporting' the children," Kelly said. ...

The state Supreme Court is currently considering a similar case, in which a sperm donor wants to enforce a promise made by the mother that he would not have to be involved in the child's life. That biological father was ordered to pay $1,520 in monthly support.

About two-thirds of states have adopted versions of the Uniform Parentage Act that can shield sperm donors from being forced to assume parenting responsibilities. Pennsylvania has no such law.

more
posted by Eve at 3:55 PM | Link | 1 comments

DUELING RADICALS: Dale Carpenter

...Pro-gay marriage radicals are useful to opponents of gay marriage because what they say frightens people. Identifying some tangible harm from gay marriage has been the elusive Holy Grail of the anti-gay marriage movement. Now they can say, effectively, “See, even supporters of gay marriage admit they’re destroying marriage with this reform. We’ve exposed their real agenda.”

However, there are multiple problems with using pro-marriage radicals to show gay marriage will harm the institution.

more
posted by Eve at 3:53 PM | Link | 3 comments

Science and Sex Difference

Right now scientists and health researchers are gathering in Washington D.C. for the first conference discussing biological sex differences in health. Press release here.
posted by maggie at 9:50 AM | Link | 0 comments

Washington Times: "The Future of Marriage"

A Washington Times story n a recent Ethics and Public Policy debate between David Blankenhorn, author of The Future of Marriage, and Jon Rauch:

". . . Marriage is more than just a legal commitment between two persons in love, Mr. Blankenhorn writes in his new book, "The Future of Marriage." It is an ancient, universal social institution, rooted in biology and supported by religion, which guides men and women to bridge their differences, form exclusive unions, create families and kinship networks, and live in a way that best benefits themselves, their children and those around them.

Marriage is also the institution that bestows public approval on a man and a woman's sexual intercourse and urges couples to work out their problems so they will stay together and give their children the two things they want and need most: their own father and mother who love each other and who love them, says Mr. Blankenhorn.

However, the same-sex "marriage" debate tends to ignore these powerful "institutional" aspects of marriage and fixates on the "personal commitment" part of marriage, he says in his book, where he calls such a focus "the tail wagging the dog."

This is why the press keeps repeating the rhetorical question of how does the marriage of a loving homosexual couple threaten the heterosexual couple down the street -- it's as if this were the paramount question and its answer settles the matter, Mr. Blankenhorn told a recent event sponsored by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC).

In fact, he says, researchers have identified at least 24 negative consequences of legalizing same-sex "marriage," virtually all of which relate to how it changes the institutional aspects of marriage.

What's at stake with same-sex "marriage" is that it reinforces the "deinstitutionalization" -- the weakening or overturning of customary forms -- of marriage for everyone, Mr. Blankenhorn says, adding that some people support same-sex "marriage" precisely because they approve of such a deinstitutionalization. . .

Marriage needs renewing and strengthening, says Mr. Blankenhorn, who wrote the 1995 book "Fatherless America" to address the social consequences of families without fathers.

Same-sex "marriage" certainly offers benefits to same-sex couples and could have many other positive social outcomes, he says. If adding same-sex unions was beneficial to the institution of marriage or even neutral -- it didn't undermine it -- "I am confident that most marriage advocates would favor its adoption. I know I would."

But same-sex "marriage" hastens the day when marriage loses its profound shared public meanings, such as the lifelong bond between a man and a woman, sexual exclusivity, the expectation of natural procreation and provision of both a father and a mother for each child, says Mr. Blankenhorn.

"The main question in the United States regarding the future of marriage is not whether we will adopt gay marriage" -- that's the tail wagging the dog, he writes. "The main question is whether the social institution of marriage will become weaker or stronger."

At the EPPC event, Jonathan Rauch, a guest scholar at Brookings Institution and writer for the National Journal and Atlantic monthly, said Mr. Blankenhorn's arguments "lift the debate" but are ultimately flawed.

"I see same-sex marriage as flowing quite naturally and gracefully into what marriage has become today and indeed should be today: a commitment by couples to each other and their community -- underscore 'and their community' -- to care for each other and for their children, including non-biological children," said Mr. Rauch, an open homosexual who wrote the 2004 book "Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America."

"The kind of institution we want," he says, "includes public vows, in-laws, medical obligations and yes, divorce. Marriage is very hard to get out of and should be." . . ."

posted by maggie at 9:44 AM | Link | 1 comments

SSM Creates Diplomatic Spat Between Canada, India

From 365gay.com:

"The Indian government reportedly has refused a Canadian request to recognize the same-sex marriages of two employees of the Canadian High Commission.
The Calcutta Telegraph reports that the two Canadians - a man and a woman - married their same-sex partners before being assigned to India. They are living with their spouses in Canadian diplomatic corps accommodations.
Homosexuality is illegal in India - punishable by up to ten years imprisonment - under a law passed in the mid 1800s when the country was a British colony.
The government has refused to repeal the law and LGBT rights groups are battling the government in court. . .

The request is based on two sections of international law: The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963 which allow for certain privileges to diplomats and their families on foreign soil.
The Telegraph, quoting unnamed sources in the Foreign Ministry in Delhi, reports that the Canadian request has been turned down. The paper says the sources said the government has told Canada its diplomats are not exempt from the law of the land in which the diplomat is based.That would mean both diplomats could be arrested and tried under the anti-homosexuality law. . ."

posted by maggie at 9:40 AM | Link | 0 comments

UPDATE: "Life's Short, Get a Divorce" Billboard Removed

The city is claiming they didn't have the proper permits, according to the May 9 AP:

"The city of Chicago has taken down a racy billboard that proclaimed "Life is short. Get a divorce."The billboard featured photos of a scantily clad woman and a shirtless man and was an ad for Chicago divorce attorney Corri Fetman.

The display drew criticism from some residents in the Rush Street neighborhood and from other lawyers, who say the ad sullies their profession.

The billboard was removed a week after it went up after Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd) determined it didn't have a proper permit.

Fetman says her billboard was no threat to people in happy marriages. And she says it was taken down without due process.

Fetman's law partner, Kelly Garland, added that even people who disliked the billboard should worry about what its removal means for free speech."

posted by maggie at 9:38 AM | Link | 0 comments

Crude Divorce Rate Drops to New Low

That is the divorce rate as the number of divorces per 1000 individuals, not the number of divorces per 1000 married women (a much better measure), AP reports on May 8:

". . . America's divorce rate began climbing in the late 1960s and skyrocketed during the '70s and early '80s, as virtually every state adopted no fault divorce laws. The rate peaked at 5.3 divorces per 1,000 people in 1981.

But since then it's dropped by one-third, to 3.6. That's the lowest rate since 1970.

What's fueling that decline? According to 20 scholars, marriage-promotion experts and divorce lawyers consulted by The Associated Press, a lot of things. . ."

posted by maggie at 5:38 PM | Link | 1 comments

SSM Update: Massachusetts

To put a state marriage amendment overturning Goodrich on the ballot in Massachusetts requires that (after a set number of citizens sign the initiative) one-quarter of legislators (or 50 or more lawmakers) approve it in two successive years.

More than fifty approved the amendment last year, after the state supreme court issued an opinion that the legislature is obligated to vote on the amendment (they don't have to vote "yes" obviously). The majority may not constitutionally prevent a vote because they feara minority (50 votes) will approve it and they don't want it put on the ballot for voters to decide. (The high court also ruled it had no remedy if the legislature failed in its constitutional obligation).

What will the state legislature do this year? Today, it voted to postpone the vote until at least June 14. Story here.
posted by maggie at 5:14 PM | Link | 1 comments

New Study: Rates of Child Abuse in Military Families Jump With Deployment

I think this means: when dads (or moms) leave the home for extended periods, rates of child abuse, neglect and maltreatment increase: Study here
posted by maggie at 9:41 AM | Link | 1 comments

FAMILIES MATTER: Ross Douthat

...Women move in and out of the workforce more than they used to, creating more volatility; people delay marriage longer than they used to, creating more volatility; women are more likely to have children while they're single, creating more volatility. Of these three trends, it seems to me that policymakers should ignore the second - income volatility among metropolitan singletons is hardly a pressing issue - while doing more to help parents who want to take time off to raise their kids (rather than just subsidizing daycare), and more, as well, to encourage people to get and stay married.

Reihan and I proposed some possible steps in our Party of Sam's Club essay, which I won't bore you by rehashing here. I would suggest, though, that this shouldn't be cast as a debate about whether we're going to roll back the Sexual Revolution by government fiat; obviously we aren't. It should be a debate about how to deal with the landscape we face now - a debate, for instance, over whether we should attack the instability in working-class life by simply funneling more money to Americans when they hit a moment of crisis (as, say, an expanded wage insurance program would do), or whether we should seek policies that sharpen the incentives to form stable families, so that Americans need less government help when the crisis arrives, and their children need still less, and so on.

more
posted by Eve at 12:03 AM | Link | 0 comments

HEATHER HAS TWO MOMMIES AND A DADDY. AT LEAST.: Stanley Kurtz and/vs. Dale Carpenter

triple-parenting debate, links here and probably here if you scroll
posted by Eve at 10:21 PM | Link | 0 comments

FROM THE INTERMITTENTLY ADORABLE MICKEY KAUS

"The only sexy picture ever taken** of Maggie Gyllenhaal and they complain!"

slightly more if you scroll scroll scroll
posted by Eve at 10:19 PM | Link | 0 comments

TWO LINKS FROM CHILD OF DIVORCE/CHILD OF GOD

Encouraging words on marriage;

and more on that "Life is short--get a divorce" ad.
posted by Eve at 10:17 PM | Link | 0 comments

SSM Update: Iowa

They heard oral arguments at the appellate level in Iowa on May 4, AP story here.
posted by maggie at 9:13 PM | Link | 0 comments

California Name Change Law

The new bill lets California domestic partners, and husbands, change their last names upon uniting as easily as wives. From the San Jose Mercury News:

". . .If AB102 is adopted by the Senate and signed by the governor, California would become the first state to allow domestic partners to change their names without having to obtain a court order.

Under current law, husbands, or domestic partners, can legally change their name - but only through a cumbersome process that requires a judge's intervention, takes many months of hassle and costs hundreds of dollars.

But the Name Equality Act of 2007 would make it as easy for them to change their last names as it is for wives upon marriage. County-issued marriage license applications and state-produced domestic partnership certificates would be amended to allow couples or individuals to jot down any last name they wish to adopt.
"AB102 is about equality and flexibility, and getting with the times," said Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, who proposed the legislation. . .

Seven states - Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York and North Dakota - allow a husband to take his wife's last name upon marriage. Massachusetts allows same-sex spouses to choose their surnames, as well. . ."

posted by maggie at 9:07 PM | Link | 0 comments

New Study: Marriage, Not Children, Makes Women Happy

According to this study in the Journal of Aging and Human Development, mothers were no happier than childless women, but married women are happier that unmarried women. On the other hand, the average of the mothers may be dragged down by this finding: What women are the most depressed in late middle-age? Single mothers:

". . .“Contrary to warnings we hear about being lonely if you don’t have children, our study finds that childless women and mothers generally report similar levels of psychological well-being in their 50s,” said Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox, lead author and a UF sociology professor. . .

Being in good health and having a husband or partner gave the biggest boost to older women’s psychological well-being, said Koropeckyj-Cox, whose study of nearly 6,000 women between the ages of 51 and 61 is scheduled to be published in the June 7 issue of the International Journal of Aging and Human Development.

The study used data from two major national surveys: the Health and Retirement Study, conducted in 1992, which includes women born between 1931 and 1941, and the National Survey of Families and Households, which provides a comparable sample from 1987-88.

“The most vulnerable group in terms of being least happy, loneliest and most depressed are the mothers who were single, divorced or widowed in middle age,” she said. . ."

That so few differences in psychological well-being were found between childless women and mothers was significant considering it was this generation that mothered the baby boomers, Koropeckyj-Cox said. “If anyone was going to show disadvantages in being childless, it would be these women,” she said. “They came of age during the 1950s, when motherhood was regarded as the focal point that defined women’s lives.”

Fewer than 10 percent of women of this generation remained childless, compared with nearly a quarter of those who came of age earlier during the Depression, Koropeckyj-Cox said. Today, 16 percent to 19 percent of women in their 40s have not had children, she said.

Koropeckyj-Cox worked on the study with Amy Pienta, a University of Michigan sociologist, and Tyson Brown, a sociology doctoral student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill."

posted by maggie at 10:06 AM | Link | 0 comments

"Life's Short: Get a Divorce"

A new ad billboard for a firm of Chicago lawyers strikes a new low according to ABCnews.com (Thanks to Wally Olson at Overlawyered for noticing):

"'Life's short. Get a divorce,' proclaims the Chicago billboard of the law firm of Fetman, Garland & Associates. Flanking the message: big pictures of a buxom temptress in black lace bra and, on the other side, a half-clad muscleman. Reaction has been strong:

"It's grotesque,'' said John Ducanto, past president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. "It's totally undignified and offensive." . .."

posted by maggie at 9:27 AM | Link | 0 comments

New Study: Fathers Matter More than Mothers for Childhood Obesity

A paper analyzing data on Australian 4 and 5 year olds concludes:

"The study looked at nearly 5,000 4 to 5 year olds and investigated the relationship between their body mass index (BMI) status and the parenting styles of their mothers and fathers. The study’s findings will be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting in Toronto between May 4 and 9.

The study found that fathers who had permissive (allowing children freedom without limits) or disengaged parenting styles were more likely to have heavier children. Conversely, fathers whose parenting was more consistent (setting clear limits, following through with instructions etc) were less likely to have a child with a higher BMI. Mothers’ parenting behaviours and styles were not associated with a child’s risk of having a higher BMI. . ."

No word on absent dads and obesity.
posted by maggie at 10:02 AM | Link | 0 comments

NY SSM Update: "Gay Wed Bid Splits Dems"

From the New York Post today:

"GOV. Spitzer's plan to legalize gay marriage is dividing Democrats, harming Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential ambitions, and handing Republicans their first strong campaign issue in some time, officials told The Post. . ."

posted by maggie at 9:56 AM | Link | 44 comments