New Study: Twins Suggest Genes Do NOT Account for Divorce Impact on Children

One more blow against Judith Harris' argument (about divorce) in The Nurture Assumption:

A Children of Twins Study of parental divorce and offspring psychopathology
Brian M. D'Onofrio et al, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Abstract
Background: Although parental divorce is associated with increased substance use and internalizing problems, experiencing the separation of one's parents may not cause these outcomes. The relations may be due to genetic or environmental selection factors, characteristics that lead to both marital separation and offspring functioning.

Method: We used the Children of Twins (CoT) Design to explore whether unmeasured genetic or environmental factors related to the twin parent, and measured characteristics of both parents, account for the association between parental divorce and offspring substance use and internalizing problems.

Results: The association between parental divorce and offspring substance use problems remained robust when controlling for genetic and environmental risk from the twin parent associated with parental divorce, and measured characteristics of both parents. The results do not prove, but are consistent with, a causal connection. In contrast, the analyses suggest that shared genetic liability in parents and their offspring accounts for the increased risk of internalizing problems in adult offspring from divorced families.

Conclusions: The study illustrates that unmeasured genetic and environmental selection factors must be considered when studying parental divorce. In explaining associations between parental divorce and young-adult adjustment, our evidence suggests that selection versus causal mechanisms may operate differently for substance abuse (a causal relation) and internalizing problems (an artifact of selection). The CoT design only controls for the genetic and environmental characteristics of one parent; thus, additional genetically informed analyses are needed.

posted by maggie at 6:53 AM | Link | 0 comments  

SSM and Religious Liberty: NJ

NJ same-sex couples claim the right to be married in a Methodist pavilion; Asbury Park Press, June 21, 2007:

"Civil union denial spurs bias claim in Ocean Grove
SAME-SEX COUPLE CEREMONY NIXED

BY BILL BOWMAN
www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070621/NEWS/70621003

OCEAN GROVE — A same-sex couple has filed a civil rights complaint against the Ocean
Grove Camp Meeting Association, claiming it discriminated against them by denying their request to hold their civil union ceremony in the boardwalk pavilion.

The complaint is the first filed over a disputed public accommodation since civil unions were recognized in the state earlier this year, said Frank Vespa-Papaleo, chairman of the state Division on Civil Rights.

Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Paster of Broadway in Ocean Grove contend they were refused permission in March to hold their ceremony, scheduled Sept. 30.

The Camp Meeting Association is a Methodist ministry that owns all the land and boardwalk in the oceanfront enclave that is now part of Neptune. . ."

posted by maggie at 1:17 PM | Link | 13 comments  

California Supreme Court Has More Questions in Same-Sex Marriage Case

The California Supreme Court has asked the parties in the state’s same-sex marriage case answer some additional questions in preparation for the court’s ruling on the issue. The questions are included in the docket sheet for the case.

The new questions are:

1. What differences in legal rights or benefits and legal obligations or duties exist under current California law affecting those couples who are registered domestic partners as compared to those couples who are legally married spouses? Please list all of the current differences of which you are aware.
2. What, if any, are the minimum, constitutionally-guaranteed substantive attributes or rights that are embodied within the fundamental constitutional "right to marry" that is referred to in cases such as Perez v. Sharp (1948) 32 Cal.2d 711, 713-714? In other words, what set of substantive rights and/or obligations, if any, does a married couple possess that, because of their constitutionally protected status under the state Constitution, may not (in the absence of a compelling interest) be eliminated or abrogated by the Legislature, or by the people through the initiative process, without amending the California Constitution?
3. Do the terms "marriage" or "marry" themselves have constitutional significance under the California Constitution? Could the Legislature, consistent with the California Constitution, change the name of the legal relationship of "marriage" to some other name, assuming the legislation preserved all of the rights and obligations that are now associated with marriage?
4. Should Family Code section 308.5 - which provides that "[o]nly marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California" - be interpreted to prohibit only the recognition in California of same-sex marriages that are entered into in another state or country or does the provision also apply to and prohibit same-sex marriages entered into within California? Under the Full Faith and Credit Clause and the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the federal Constitution (U.S. Const., art. IV, sec. 1, 2, cl.1), could California recognize same-sex marriages that are entered into within California but deny such recognition to same-sex marriages that are entered into in another state? Do these federal constitutional provisions affect how Family Code section 308.5 should be interpreted?

Obviously, it’s impossible to guess what exactly the justices have in mind but these are very perceptive questions that could greatly aid the court in its judgment.

The answer to the first question is probably nothing. There are some difference in the way Federal law treats California domestic partners and California spouses but the California Supreme Court can do nothing to change those Federal laws. Likewise, I believe the California Constitution may include an incident of marriage that would also be unaffected by any court ruling. Otherwise, the legal incidents of marriage and the legal incidents of California’s domestic partnership law are the same.

The third question goes to the heart of the State of California’s argument in the case. They have argued that since current California law gives all the incidents of marriage to same-sex couples there is no possible constitutional inequity in the current marriage law. Thus, if the answer to this question is “no,” then there would seem to be no case at all—the treatment of same and opposite-sex couples in California law is the same.

The second question is perhaps the most interesting. One way to understand this is to read the question as asking whether the state is constitutionally required to recognize marriage at all (this is also implied in the second part of the third question). Some of us have argued that the “right to marry” cases mean that a person cannot be denied the right to marry (with marriage understood as an opposite-sex relationship) on the basis of race or some other suspect classification. The court’s questions here ask whether that “right” means that the state has a positive obligation to create a status called marriage. Also, whether the state has an obligation to grant certain legal incidents to that status and, if so, what these would be.

The answer would seem to be that the constitution does not require that California recognize marriage and certainly that it does not require certain legal incidents to flow from the status. This does not, of course, answer the question of whether if the state is going to have marital status, it has to define that status so that it includes same-sex couples but it is suggestive.

The final question is also very interesting. Some legislators who have supported a legislative redefinition of marriage in California have made the implausible argument that Proposition 22’s, approved by voters in 2000, applies only to out-of-state marriages (I say implausible because the legislation uses the terms “valid” which typically refers to the status of a marriage in the state and “recognized” which typically refers to out-of-state marriages). They make this argument because a ballot proposition cannot be changed without a popular vote and they want to redefine marriage without such a vote. The court is asking the parties whether they agree with this interpretation.

If that interpretation were accepted, it would raise the strange situation of California allowing same-sex couples to marry in state but not recognizing the same kinds of marriages contracted out-of-state. This would arguably raise the Federal Constitutional concerns the court raises in the second part of question four. Thus, the last question, which asks whether the best way to understand California law is that it applies to both in and out-of-state marriages. I think that answer is clearly yes.
posted by William Duncan at 5:10 PM | Link | 1 comments  

Oklahoma Same-Sex Divorce

Austin Nimocks has a very interesting post about a case pending with the Oklahoma Supreme Court on whether a same-sex couple married in Canada can be granted a divorce in Oklahoma. There’s additional information on the case from an Oklahoma attorney here.
posted by William Duncan at 5:09 PM | Link | 0 comments  

Recent Religious Liberty Cases

Maggie has previously raised the possible religious liberty implications of redefining marriage. Two recent cases illustrate how these kinds of conflicts might practically arise.

The first is a Seventh Circuit decision involving a man who claimed he was fired from his job on a farm owned and operated by nuns because he had gotten his girlfriend pregnant. The court held that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act did not apply to the employee. Given this holding the court did not have to address the claim that the Catholic Church’s moral teachings were a defense to this kind of lawsuit. One can see how the facts of this case could easily be adjusted to the same-sex marriage context.

The next decision (from Maryland’s highest court) involved an employment discrimination suit against the Archdiocese of Washington by a church organist who claimed he had been fired in retaliation for reporting abuse by a choirmaster some decades earlier. The court held that a church organist was not covered by the ministerial exception to coverage by state discrimination laws. Again the relevance for marriage-related cases seems clear.
posted by William Duncan at 5:07 PM | Link | 0 comments  

WEDDING BELL BLUES: Douglas LeBlanc

...It will come as no surprise that more substantial reading on weddings is to be found this week at The New Yorker’s website. Rebecca Mead discusses her new book, One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding, which began as a New Yorker feature story in April 2003. ...

Mead offers this helpful insight on why so many weddings (and receptions) have become such elaborate productions:

It used to be that a wedding was a definitive break in your life, and the new traumas of married life were real. Suddenly, you were waking up next to somebody with whom you’d never spent the night before. We don’t have that anymore — marriage is not the beginning of your independent life, it’s probably not the beginning of your sexual life, and it’s not your entry into adulthood, as it once was. So there’s a sense in which what used to be the trauma of newly married life has been transferred to the trauma of planning a wedding, because we need a wedding to feel momentous, and one way to make it feel momentous is to make the planning of it complicated and difficult and an enormous production.

After reading through People Extra, my new heroine is Mary Beth Baptiste, who wrote recently in Newsweek about how she and her husband began their new life together for a total of $150.

more
posted by Eve at 12:07 AM | Link | 2 comments  

Sheila Kennedy Defends her Marriage From Church Annulment

The story is from Time magazine. As she is an Episcopalian who has no interest in sustaining her marriage to Joe Kennedy, and thus suffers no consequences from the results, it seems a trifle mean-spirited to pursue this. On the other hand. . . .

"The most controversial "marriage that never was" in recent U.S. political history is back. Sources tell TIME that the Vatican has reversed the annulment of Joseph P. Kennedy II's marriage to Sheila Rauch. The annulment had been granted in secrecy by the Catholic Church after the couple's 1991 no-fault civil divorce. Rauch found out about the de-sanctification of their marriage only in 1996, after Kennedy had been wedded to his former Congressional aide, Beth Kelly, for three years.

The annulment was the subject of Rauch's 1997 book Shattered Faith, which lambasted her ex-husband and was severely critical of the Catholic Church's proceedings, which made the marriage (which had produced twin boys) null and void in the eyes of the church. Rauch argued that Kennedy was able to unilaterally "cancel" nearly 12 years of marriage because of his clan's influence in the church. Kennedy argued at the time that the annulment was the right thing to do in religious terms. Few observers thought the appeal to Rome by Rauch, an Episcopalian, had a chance against the well-connected Kennedy. With women's groups loudly on Rauch's side, the controversy may have contributed to Kennedy's decision to give up his plans to seek re-election to Congress in 1998.

Reached by TIME in her Massachusetts home on Tuesday, Rauch said that she had just recently been informed by Boston Archdiocese officials of her successful appeal. "I am very pleased," she told TIME. "There was a real marriage. It was a marriage that failed, but as grown-ups we need to take responsibility for that. The [annulment] process was dishonest, and it was important to stand up and say that." But Rauch says she worries that the practice, particularly in the U.S., of giving what she called "easy annulments" will continue. "They don't give people a fair defense. The Boston Archdiocese doesn't even tell you that you can appeal to Rome." Reached by TIME, Kennedy's office provided no reaction from the former congressman.

Erroneously dubbed "Catholic divorce," an annulment in fact holds that a failed marriage was never valid in the eyes of the Church. With divorce strictly prohibited in Catholicism, annulments allow Catholics to remarry before a priest and continue receiving the sacraments. Several years after his 1991 civil divorce to Rauch, Kennedy obtained an annulment from a Church tribunal in Massachusetts so he could have a Church ceremony with Kelly. The couple had already been married in a 1993 civil ceremony, but needed the Roma Rota appeals tribunal at the Vatican to uphold the Massachusetts annulment verdict before they could be married by a priest. Now with Rauch's successful appeal, that cannot happen, unless Kennedy wins a counter-appeal.

The Roma Rota's ruling, written in Latin, was reached in 2005, and had been kept secret while the official written notice was being prepared, said a source in Rome familiar with the case. Rauch's successful appeal effectively reinstates the Kennedy-Rauch marriage in the eyes of the Vatican. The case once again highlights this unique Catholic Church proceeding. Some 75% of annulments each year are from the United States, where there are an estimated 8 million divorced and remarried Catholics. The subject came up in the 2004 presidential campaign after word spread that John Kerry had obtained an annulment of his first marriage. Another prominent Catholic who has had a marriage annulled is former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who is now running for the Republican Presidential nomination.

At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI has indicated that he wants to streamline the Roma Rota to respond to the desire of divorced Catholics to stay inside the Church. But there is also concern that some Catholics, particularly in the U.S., abuse the practice. "People think it's their right," says one Rome-based canon lawyer. He adds sternly,"It's not a right."

posted by maggie at 10:22 AM | Link | 0 comments  

SSM Update: NJ May Pass SSM in 2008

NJ Star-Ledger, June 19 2007:

"State panel studying civil unions' success
Group to look at how well the idea is working
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG
Star-Ledger Staff

A state commission convened yesterday to study whether civil unions in New Jersey really do provide all the benefits of marriage.

A total of 1,092 same-sex couples have applied to form civil unions in New Jersey since a new law allowed them four months ago, the New Jersey Civil Union Review Commission was told yesterday.

During a brief organizational meeting in Trenton, the commission elected J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo, the state's director of civil rights, as its chairman. He said the commission was formed to answer seven questions about civil unions, ranging from whether they are working to their recognition by other states to how they affect children and the state's finances. It also must determine whether same-sex couples need additional legal protections and whether an existing law on domestic partnerships should be repealed.

"We're hoping to report twice a year on all seven of those items," Vespa-Papaleo said, adding the panel will issue a final report by its deadline in 2010.

But its newly elected vice chairman, Steven Goldstein, who also chairs the gay rights group Garden State Equality, predicted that lawmakers will not need three years to conclude that the only way to treat same-sex couples equally is to allow them to marry. Goldstein said his organization is rapidly gaining converts to the cause of same-sex marriage and there is a "very substantial" possibility that it could pass the Legislature next year. . ."

posted by maggie at 10:14 AM | Link | 0 comments  

SSM Update: NY Assembly Passes SSM

June 20, NY Post:

"ASSEMBLY OKS GAY-MARRIAGE MEASURE
By KENNETH LOVETT

June 20, 2007 -- ALBANY - The Assembly last night became the first legislative body in New York to pass a bill to legalize gay marriage.

"My colleagues stood up and did the right thing," emotional Assembly-bill sponsor Daniel O'Donnell (D-Manhattan), the brother of Rosie O'Donnell and one of three openly gay Assembly members, told The Post as he hugged his partner of 26 years.
But the bill, which passed by a healthy 85-61 margin and has the support of Gov. Spitzer, is more a symbolic victory for gay-rights advocates, as Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said the GOP-controlled body will not take up the measure this year.

California remains the only state in which a legislature passed a gay-marriage bill, although it was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In Massachusetts, gay marriage was made legal by the courts.

A Quinnipiac University poll that came out hours before the Assembly debate began showed just 35 percent of registered voters support legalizing same-sex marriage. . ."

posted by maggie at 10:10 AM | Link | 2 comments  

Vermont Court Rules in Custody Dispute

June 19, 2007 New York Times:

"A family court judge in Vermont on Friday dissolved a civil union between two women whose fight over their daughter had attracted national attention and for a time put a judge in Virginia at odds with one in Vermont over whether a child can have two mothers.

The Vermont judge, William D. Cohen of Rutland Family Court, affirmed that the two women were legal parents of Isabella Miller-Jenkins, 5. But Judge Cohen awarded sole physical and legal custody of Isabella to her biological mother, Lisa Miller.
Judge Cohen ordered Ms. Miller, who now lives in Virginia, to allow her former lesbian partner, Janet Jenkins, to spend alternate weekends and some holidays with Isabella. . ."

posted by maggie at 4:36 PM | Link | 1 comments  

SSN Update: NY SSM Bill passes First Hurdle in Assembly

June 19 365gay.com:

"A bill to legalize same-sex marriage has passed its first major hurdle in the New York State legislature.

The Assembly's Judiciary Committee passed the legislation on a 16 - 5 vote with all the Democrats in favor of it and all the Republicans rejecting it. The measure now heads to the Rules Committee before going to the Assembly floor for a vote.

Last July, the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, ruled that same-sex couples do not have a constitutional right to marry. (story) It said that the issue, however, could be taken up by the Legislature.

In April, Gov. Eliot Spitzer became the first governor in the country to introduce same-sex marriage legislation. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D) has avoided taking a position on gay marriage - saying he will leave it up to the party caucus. Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno (R), the most powerful Republican in the state is vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage and has vowed not to let the bill come to a vote. . ."

posted by maggie at 4:31 PM | Link | 1 comments  

Fr. Landry: In Response to the Recent Loss in Massachusetts

Learning From Our Catholic Heroes How To Be Catholic
Fr. Roger J. Landry
The Anchor
Editorial
June 22, 2007


Today is the feast of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, two English martyrs who went to their death in 1535 in defense of the truth about marriage. Their example provides a fitting backdrop to evaluate the actions of Massachusetts Catholics with respect to the failure to defend the truth about marriage at last week’s Constitutional Convention.


The layman More and the bishop Fisher were imprisoned and eventually beheaded because they refused to assent to the lie about marriage King Henry VIII was trying to force every British subject to affirm by oath. Most British subjects capitulated, as did, shamefully, most clerics, but More and Fisher refused. Both were willing to be killed rather than betray Christ and his teaching about marriage. Fisher, like a modern day John the Baptist, lost his head for boldly pointing out that it was not lawful for Henry to marry Anne Boleyn (see Mk 6:18). More, Henry’s former chancellor, in order to protect his family tried to remain silent, but once he received his death sentence, spoke plainly. The patron saint of lawyers and politicians went to the guillotine famously stating that he was the King’s good servant, but God’s first.


The June 14th defeat of the marriage protection amendment, and the failure to garner the support of 25% of state legislators, indicate how radical our state’s political leadership class is in comparison to the general population, as well as how little politicians respect the rights of those who voted for them to vote on something as important as the meaning of marriage. But the most ignoble aspect of the defeat was the massive betrayals by Catholics — certainly legislators, but also indirectly voters and clergy — that made such a setback possible. Many were simply not God’s good servants at all.

As is well-known, the Massachusetts legislature is dominated by Roman Catholics: the State Senate President, the Speaker of the House, the House Majority Leader, and a solid majority of the members all call themselves Catholic. Yet the Senate President and the Speaker were two of the biggest opponents of the amendment, and the vast majority of Catholic legislators voted against it. One, of course, does not have to be Catholic to recognize that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, or to be religious to grasp the harm that would come to society and especially to children through same-sex unions. Catholics, however, are informed not just by reason but by Revelation, and in the latter, God removes any possible doubt about the meaning of marriage and the moral qualification of same-sex sexual relationships. Nevertheless, in their vote last Thursday, most Catholic lawmakers on Beacon Hill ignored both faith and reason and seemed to fear and want to please the gay lobby more than they feared and sought to please God.

How is it that in a legislature dominated by Catholics, fewer than one-quarter would vote in accord with what both reason and revelation teach marriage is, and allow the citizenry to have their say? How is it possible that a state where half the population is Catholic is the only one with gay marriage?


. . . .This betrayal of our mission to be salt, light and leaven cannot be ascribed solely to the unfaithfulness of certain Catholic legislators. Most of them, after all, are elected and re-elected by heavily Catholic districts, where Catholic voters fail to hold them accountable to votes that reason and faith both show as contrary to the good of the human person. Their behavior on June 14th is a clear indication that they did not think that their Catholic constituents would care about their vote as much as the gay lobby would in the next election.


In light of St. John Fisher’s example, however, we must also candidly admit the responsibility of Catholic clergy as a whole for failing adequately to inform the consciences of the faithful by passing on the truths of the faith and the duties that flow from them. With regard to the issue of same-sex marriage, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by the future Pope Benedict XVI, taught unequivocally in 2003 that before legislation in favor of same-sex unions, “the Catholic lawmaker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.” To say “gravely immoral” means that if a Catholic legislator with deliberate consent votes in favor of same-sex marriage, it is a mortal sin, which would cut off the person’s communion with Christ and endanger the person’s eternal salvation. The same document teaches that “clear and emphatic opposition” to same-sex unions is a moral duty for all Catholic citizens.


It can legitimately be asked, however, how many Catholics have heard these truths from their clergy. In some places, legislators and voters who support same-sex marriage — not to mention those who favor abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, cloning, xenophobia toward immigrants, vengeance toward criminals or euthanasia — have simply not been called upon to convert, in any way. While not everyone will be persuaded, mentioning among other things the truth that one would be committing a mortal sin and possibly squandering heaven might be sufficient to make those who have true Catholic faith reconsider. On the other hand, when nothing is mentioned, or when even those who notoriously depart from Church teaching on faith and morals in their public actions seem to suffer no consequences, it’s no surprise that many will continue to act contrary to the faith. And that makes possible the shameful results we all saw on June 14th. . .


For an archive of past homilies and articles, please visit www.catholicpreaching.com
posted by maggie at 4:18 PM | Link | 19 comments  

SSM Update: Massachusetts May Inspire Other States to SSM

June 15, Boston Globe:

"The vote yesterday to protect same-sex marriage in Massachusetts is likely to embolden gay rights supporters in other liberal-leaning states considering similar policies, political analysts and advocates said.

On the presidential stage, the vote greatly reduces the prospect that gay marriage will be a marquee issue in the 2008 race, allowing Democrats to potentially sidestep the controversial subject, they said. . ."

Also, June 15 AP story:

"Next Battle Ready for Mass. Gay Marriage

Fresh off the success of defending gay marriage from its latest attack, advocates say they have one more fight in Massachusetts: Repealing a 1913 law that bars same-sex couples in most other states from coming here to get married.

Some say the law _ which says couples cannot be married here unless their unions would be legal in their home states _ has its roots in the effort to block interracial marriage, and plan soon to strategize for its repeal. . ."

posted by maggie at 6:08 AM | Link | 4 comments  

CULTURAL MAP OF THE WORLD

huh.
posted by Eve at 7:36 PM | Link | 0 comments