Ron Paul Endorses Gay Marriage, Sort Of

Or else, endorses getting government out of the marriage biz, not entirely clear:

John Stossel: Homosexuality. Should gays be allowed to marry?

Ron Paul: Sure.

Stossel: The State says, we will believe in this?

Paul: Sure they can do whatever they want and they can call it whatever they want , just so they don’t expect to impose their relationship on somebody else. They can’t make me, personally, accept what they do, but they gay couples can do whatever they want. In fact, I’d like to see all governments out of the marriage question. I don’t think it’s a state function. I think it’s a religious function. There was a time when only churches dealt with marriage, and they determined what it was. But 100 years or so ago for health reasons they claim that the state would protect us if we knew more about our spouses and we did health testing and you had to get a license to get married and I don’t agree with that.

posted by maggie at 10:03 PM | link

Another Dispatch from the Brave New World

Earlier this week, the Minnesota Court of Appeals issued an unpublished decision in a dispute over a surrogacy agreement. The parties to the agreement were a gay lawyer and his niece. She agreed to carry a child created with his sperm and a donor egg in exchange for a $20,000 payment. During the pregnancy, the parties had a disagreement and the surrogate gave birth to the child without telling the father. He filed a paternity claim and the trial court ruled the surrogate lacked any parental rights.

On appeal, the court found the surrogacy agreement valid since no Minnesota law prohibits such agreements and it was not procured by coercion. The court said state law against transferring a child from a parent to another person without adoption did not apply because a gestational surrogate is not a parent. The court said surrogacy agreements did not violate the state’s public policy.
posted by William Duncan at 4:40 PM | link

Gay RI Woman Files for Same Divorce in Different Court

From "Despite ruling, woman asks court for same-sex divorce," Providence Journal, December 14, 2007:

PROVIDENCE — Less than a week after the Rhode Island Supreme Court said a same-sex couple could not get divorced in Family Court, [Margaret R. Chambers, one of the Providence women involved in the groundbreaking case,] filed for divorce yesterday in Superior Court, the main state trial court...

“The Supreme Court is telling us Family Court lacks jurisdiction, but they did not say Superior Court lacks jurisdiction,” [Chambers’ lawyer, Louis M. Pulner] said in an interview. “They did not say this couple could not get divorced in Rhode Island. They just said they could not get divorced in Family Court because of their interpretation of statutory language from 1961.”...

posted by Imapp Staff at 3:48 PM | link

The Colorado Springs Church Murders

My friend,and fellow marriage advocate Glenn Stanton, who worships at the church that was attacked, blogs about it, here.
posted by maggie at 3:16 PM | link

Chicago Tribune: Where They Stand on Gay Marriage

Chicago Tribune: Where They Stand on Gay Marriage

Sources: pewforum.org, candidate Web sites and Tribune news services

December 14, 2007

THE DEMOCRATS

JOSEPH BIDEN: Favors equal treatment for gays, with civil unions and marriage left to the states.

HILLARY CLINTON: Opposes same-sex marriage, favors civil unions. Says it's a state issue.

CHRIS DODD: Supports civil unions but is "not comfortable" with applying word "marriage" to same-sex unions.

JOHN EDWARDS: Opposes same-sex marriage, supports civil unions. Says states should decide.

MIKE GRAVEL: Supports same-sex marriage.

DENNIS KUCINICH: Supports same-sex marriage.

BARACK OBAMA: Opposes same-sex marriage, supports civil unions.

BILL RICHARDSON: Opposes same-sex marriage, supports civil unions.

THE REPUBLICANS

RUDOLPH GIULIANI: Opposes gay marriage but also opposes constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Says New Hampshire's civil unions law goes too far.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Opposes gay marriage.

DUNCAN HUNTER: Supports constitutional ban on gay marriage.

JOHN McCAIN: Opposes gay marriage, says states should control marriage law.

RON PAUL: Federal government should leave issue to the states.

MITT ROMNEY: Supports constitutional ban on gay marriage.

TOM TANCREDO: Supports constitutional ban on gay marriage.

FRED THOMPSON: Favors "great leeway" for states to decide on civil unions, says marriage is between a man and a woman.

posted by maggie at 3:10 PM | link

MA SSMs Lead to Increase in IVF

From "Mass. Gay Marriages Lead To Increase In IVF," 365Gay.com, December 7, 2007:

(Boston, Massachusetts) Since the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts there has been a marked increase in the number of gay couples seeking assisted reproduction a medical center specializing in in vitro fertilization said Friday.

"Each year we're seeing an annual increase of about 50 percent in the number of same-sex couples coming to us for IVF to have their children and build their families," said Dr. Samuel Pang, Medical Director of Reproductive Science Center of New England...

"I don't know how much equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples has affected the upward shift, but it seems to be the trend over the last three or four years."...

posted by Imapp Staff at 12:38 PM | link

Disposable Marriages in Sweden

From "Please can I return this husband?" The Local, November 13, 2007:

Swedish chain stores Ikea and H&M have enabled people around the world to buy fashionable clothes and bright, trendy furniture at knock-down prices...

But clothes and furniture are not the only things Sweden has turned into disposable goods - the country has also become a pioneer in disposable marriages...

Some 55 percent of all Swedish marriages will end in divorce, giving Sweden the highest divorce rate in the Western world...

The consumerism of Ikea and H&M and the high divorce rate can both be seen as reflections of Sweden's commitment to modernity...

"Sweden is a modern country and in the modern world, people are reluctant to make strong commitments, if they don't have to," said Sociologist David Popenoe, Chairman of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. The result is that society ends up with increasingly fragile relationships...

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:35 AM | link

Instant Sex and the Sad Demise of Romantic Love

From "Instant Sex and the sad demise of romantic love" by David Gelernter, The Weekly Standard, December 17, 2007:

A middle school in Portland, Maine, decided recently that it would hand out birth-control pills to girls as young as 11; no parental consent required. Strippers were invited to participate (fully clothed) in this year's "Haunted Halloween Carnival Benefit" at a New York City middle school. Complaints were received and the strippers were, reluctantly, disinvited. (For this year.) And the list goes on...

School and college authorities who used to discourage casual sex have long since decided that they dare not seem prudish, reactionary, envious, antiquated--or (worst of all) religion-minded, an attitude that everyone knows is unconstitutional. Besides, they can't see anything wrong with the proposition...

But many of us know that these pleasures are dipped in poison. The moral problems are most important, and have often been discussed. Let's consider a different aspect of the same phenomenon: the ongoing slow death of romantic love...

Instant sex and romantic love can't coexist any more than hurricanes and forest fires...

Thwarted sexual desire is nearly as necessary to young people as food and shelter. Premarital, premature sex drains the power reserve that would have propelled them into emotional (versus mere physical) adulthood...

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:18 AM | link

Chinese Are Expecting a New Baby Boom

From "Chinese Are Expecting a New Baby Boom," Washington Post, December 13, 2007:

BEIJING, Dec. 12 -- China expects the start of a baby boom next year, state media said Wednesday, in a development that will further strain a country whose resources are already stretched thin by a population of 1.3 billion.

The "mini-baby boom" is partly the result of a relaxation in family planning rules in the 1980s, Zhang Weiqing, the country's top population control official, said in a speech, according to the China Daily newspaper. Exceptions were made to China's "one-child" policy in 1984, and children born since then have reached childbearing age...

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:51 AM | link

Florida Marriage Protection Amendment Qualifies for 2008 Ballot

From Florida Family Policy Council Press Release, December 13, 2007:

(TALLAHASSEE, FL) December 13, 2007, Florida4Marriage.org representatives in Tallahassee today announced that the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment has exceeded the number of verified petitions to qualify to be on the November 4, 2008 ballot...

On December 12, 2007, the Florida Division of Elections Website indicated that marriage amendment petitions had been verified throughout the 67 counties of Florida. This accomplishes the final legal requirement to place the marriage amendment on the 2008 ballot so Floridians can decide how marriage will be defined in their state...

The text of the amendment has been approved by the Florida Supreme Court and would constitutionally prohibit polygamy, group marriage and same sex marriages. The amendment clearly does not interfere with any of the existing domestic partnerships in Florida which grant only a small set of rights...

posted by Imapp Staff at 1:11 PM | link

New Study: Does Family Structure Matter for Youth Substance Abuse?

From the December 2007 Journal of Research on Adolescence:

Does Family Structure Matter in the Relationships Between Youth Assets and Youth Alcohol, Drug and Tobacco Use?
Roy F. Oman, et al,

Abstract:
This study investigated significant relationships between youth assets and youth alcohol, tobacco, and drug use that differ according to family structure (one- or two-parent households). Data were collected from a randomly sampled inner-city population (n=1,256 teenagers and 1,256 parents of the teenagers) using in-home, in-person interviews. Logistic regression analyses, stratifying by one- and two-parent household status, were conducted with nine youth assets as the independent variables and youth alcohol, tobacco, and drug use as the dependent variables. Results indicated that the associations between assets and risk behaviors varied depending upon whether the youth lived in one- or two-parent households. Continued research is warranted to further investigate associations among family structure, youth assets, and youth risk behaviors.

posted by maggie at 12:12 PM | link

UK Women Delaying Motherhood Well Into Their 30s

From "Women delaying motherhood well into their 30s as they put their career first," Daily Mail (UK), December 12, 2007:

A major factor behind the baby boom is more women having children in their thirties after first pursuing a career, experts said.

There is one birth for around every ten women in the 30-34 age group, more than for any other age range recorded by the Office for National Statistics.

It has been rising steadily since 2001 as women who put off having a child in their twenties start to give birth.

[Yesterday's ONS report on population] said the main reason they delayed having children was to go through university, then start a career. They are also marrying later, after taking longer to settle down.

It has pushed up the average age at which a woman gives birth to 29. In 1981 it was 27...

posted by Imapp Staff at 9:07 AM | link

Wealth is Key for Marriage, Study Claims

From "Wealth is key for marriage, study claims," Telegraph (UK), December 12, 2007:

A man's riches, not his looks, are most important if he wants to settle down, according to a pioneering study of the "marriage market" [published in the journal Biology Letters by Thomas Pollet and Daniel Nettle of Newcastle University]...

The survey of more than 20,000 American men, based on historical data from the turn of the last century, suggests how when men become in short supply, for instance in the wake of the First World War, women are happy to put up with poorer partners of lesser social sway.

And when men are commonplace, women are in the driving seat and become correspondingly more choosy, driving a hard bargain for the richest and most powerful men, with the marriage prospects of a male pauper being "drastically reduced"...

posted by Imapp Staff at 10:17 AM | link

CA SSM Case Attracts 45 "Friend-Of-Court" Briefs

From "Gay marriage case gets most "friend-of-court" briefs in memory," AP, December 11, 2007:

SAN FRANCISCO—One reason why the California Supreme Court is taking so long to decide whether gay marriage is legal is that the issue has attracted more "friend of the court" briefs than any other case in recent memory, Chief Justice Ronald George said Tuesday.

George said the court has received 45 such briefs from 145 different organizations lobbying the state's high court to decide the case in a variety of ways...

The Supreme Court took up the matter in December 2006. All the required written legal arguments were filed by Nov. 15, George said.

The issue dates back to Valentine's Day in 2004 when San Francisco began marrying same-sex couples. In March, the California Supreme Court ordered the city to stop the marriages while the courts considered six related lawsuits challenging whether the state's one-man, one-marriage laws are constitutional.

In October 2006, a divided appellate court upheld California's marriage laws, ruling that they did not discriminate against gays because they get the same rights by registering as domestic partners.

posted by Imapp Staff at 10:06 AM | link

Threats to Traditional Family Threaten Peace, Pope Says

From "Threats to traditional family threaten peace, pope says in message," Catholic News Service, December 11, 2007:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Anything that threatens the traditional family threatens peace, because the family "is the first and indispensable teacher of peace," Pope Benedict XVI said [in his annual message for the Jan. 1 celebration of the World Day of Peace]...

In explaining the theme he chose for the message, ["The Human Family, A Community of Peace,"] the pope said the fact that a strong, healthy family is the basis of a healthy society is not simply a slogan...

The pope said that anyone who weakens the institution of the family weakens "what is in effect the primary agency of peace" in society.

"Everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an obstacle on the road to peace," he said...

posted by Imapp Staff at 10:33 AM | link

Kant Attack Ad

Off topic but I couldn't resist: Wrong on Metaphysics/Wrong on Ethics/Wrong for America: here.
posted by maggie at 9:49 AM | link

New Study: Divorce Doesn't Hurt Parenting Processes

Guessing this new study in Family Relations gets a lot of play, the press release:

Massive Study Finds Parenting Practices Don't Suffer During DivorceLibraries

New research is challenging the notion that parents who divorce necessarily exhibit a diminished capacity to parent in the period following divorce. A large, longitudinal study conducted by University of Alberta sociology professor Lisa Strohschein has found that divorce does not change parenting behavior, and that there are actually more similarities than differences in parenting between recently divorced and married parents.

The study used data from the 1994 and 1996 cycles of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NSLCY) to compare changes in parenting practices between 208 households that divorced between the first and follow up interview and 4796 households that remained intact. Strohschein looked at three measures of parenting behavior (nurturing, consistent, and punitive parenting) to tap into the different ways that divorce is believed to disrupt parenting practices. Her results show that there are no differences between divorced and stably married parents for any parenting behavior either before or after a divorce has occurred. . ."

posted by maggie at 9:43 AM | link

Australian Medical Journal: Tax Parents for Babies' Carbon Footprint

The Australian newspaper story is here. The excerpt below is from cybernews:

"'Tax Parents for Children's Carbon Emissions'
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
December 10, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Having babies is bad for the planet, and parents of more than two children should be charged a birth levy and annual tax to offset the "greenhouse gases" their child will be responsible for over his or her lifetime.

At the same time, those who use and prescribe contraceptives and sterilization procedures should earn tax relief for such greenhouse friendly services" that help to keep the population size down.

These proposals, by an Australian academic, were published in the country's leading medical journal on Monday . . ."

posted by maggie at 8:13 PM | link

New Study: Single Parents and School Failure

An ETS study reported by the NYT finds four family variables--including proportion of single-parent families--explain two-thirds of the variation in school performance:

NYT, December 9, 2007, "In Gaps at School, Weighing Family Life" by Michael Winerap

". . .A new study by the Educational Testing Service — which develops and administers more than 50 million standardized tests annually, including the SAT — concludes that an awful lot of those low scores can be explained by factors that have nothing to do with schools. The study, “The Family: America’s Smallest School,” suggests that a lot of the failure has to do with what takes place in the home, the level of poverty and government’s inadequate support for programs that could make a difference, like high-quality day care and paid maternity leave.

The E.T.S. researchers took four variables that are beyond the control of schools: The percentage of children living with one parent; the percentage of eighth graders absent from school at least three times a month; the percentage of children 5 or younger whose parents read to them daily, and the percentage of eighth graders who watch five or more hours of TV a day. Using just those four variables, the researchers were able to predict each state’s results on the federal eighth-grade reading test with impressive accuracy.

“Together, these four factors account for about two-thirds of the large differences among states,” the report said. In other words, the states that had the lowest test scores tended to be those that had the highest percentages of children from single-parent families, eighth graders watching lots of TV and eighth graders absent a lot, and the lowest percentages of young children being read to regularly, regardless of what was going on in their schools.

Which gets to the heart of the report: by the time these children start school at age 5, they are far behind, and tend to stay behind all through high school. There is no evidence that the gap is being closed.

“Kids start school from platforms of different heights and teachers don’t have a magic wand they can wave to get kids on the same platform,” said Richard J. Coley, director of E.T.S.’s policy information center and co-author of the report with Paul E. Barton, a senior researcher. “If we’re really interested in raising overall levels of achievement and in closing the achievement gap, we need to pay as much attention to the starting line as we do to the finish line.”

What’s interesting about the report — which combines E.T.S. studies with research on families from myriad sources, including the Census Bureau and Child Trends research center — is how much we know, how often government policy and parental behavior does not reflect that knowledge, and how stacked the odds are against so many children. (The study is at www.ets.org/familyreport.)

Being raised by a single parent in itself steepens the odds considerably. Keep in mind that findings are based on statistical averages, and we all know people raised by a single parent who have thrived; I count seven nieces, nephews and cousins in my own extended family. But on average, the child with a single parent is 2.5 times more likely to repeat a grade. That child on average scores a third of a standard deviation lower on tests — the difference between 500 and 463 on the SAT.

And the demographics are not promising. In 1980, 77 percent of American children lived with two parents compared with 68 percent today. For black children the numbers are more stark: 42 percent lived with both parents in 1980, versus 35 percent today. In contrast, in Japan, 92 percent of children live with both parents.

Single parents on average will have less income and less time for a child, given all the demands. . ."

posted by maggie at 10:50 AM | link

New Study: Changing Orientation of Fruit Flies

Curious: A fruit fly's orientation is biological, and therefore scientists were able to cure either heterosexuality or homosexuality, at will, press release here. NOTE: These are only fruit flies.
posted by maggie at 10:26 AM | link

The Decade Between High School and Marriage

From "A Challenge for Churches: Adulthood Takes Its Time" by by Peter Steinfels, NY Times, December 8, 2007:

...“Half a century ago, many young people were anxious to get out of high school, marry, settle down, have children and start a long-term career,” writes Professor [Christian] Smith, [in the November-December issue of Books & Culture]. Today, many young people spend more than a decade between high school and marriage “exploring life’s many options in unprecedented freedom.” And, it should be added, in great uncertainty...

Professor Smith [who directs the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame] puts “sex, cohabitation and marriage” (in that order) squarely on the table as “key dimensions” of the changed situation. Any emerging adults who want to abide by traditional strictures against premarital sex, he says, “face a very difficult peer culture in which to live.”...

Professor Smith, writing for a largely evangelical audience, jumps in with the idea that perhaps parents, who already offer their adult offspring considerable financial and caretaking support, should challenge the cultural assumption that marriage ought to await financial independence. Instead, they should provide social and financial support for marriage in the early 20s rather than the late.

“Teenage marriage is the best recipe for divorce,” he writes, “but marriage in the 20s itself is not.”...

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:51 AM | link