New Study: Single Mothers and Air Pollution

Two researchers in Social Science Quarterly conclude we need to move beyond race and income and include more family structure variables: in studies of whose at risk for environmental toxins, here.
posted by maggie at 10:50 PM | link

Baby Snatching by Arlington County (VA.)

Editorial
Baby snatching by Arlington County
The Washington DC Examiner Newspaper
2008-04-18 07:00:00.0

WASHINGTON -
There’s an empty highchair sitting in the kitchen of the Arlington home of Nancy Hey and Christopher Slitor. It’s their daughter Sabrina’s highchair. But it’s been empty for two years because thieves disguised as Arlington County social workers and judges took her from her parents. She was stolen with no public scrutiny or accountability. Arlington County social workers used unproven allegations of neglect in April 2005 to justify removing then-3-week-old Sabrina from her parent’s home. Her parents were accused - anonymously - of starving Sabrina. And they were deemed unable to care properly for their daughter, even with the frequent help of Nancy Hey’s mother and a full-time nanny. After more than two years of legal wrangling with the county’s Child Protective Services (CPS), Arlington Circuit Court Judge James Almand terminated the couple’s parental rights in June 2007.

But nine months earlier, Sabrina’s parents were completely exonerated by Virginia CPS hearing officer George Walton, who noted in his official report that, despite the baby’s worrisome 10-ounce weight loss soon after her birth by Caesarian section, nothing in the her medical record indicated she had ever been in danger. There was also no evidence, Walton added, that Sabrina’s “failure to thrive” resulted from parental neglect.

In fact, the record showed the opposite: Nancy Hey – who suffers from a developmental disorder that makes it difficult for her to recognize non-verbal signals from others – and her husband fully cooperated with medical professionals and CPS workers throughout their ordeal. In any case, Sabrina was at her proper weight when she was taken away by county officials, two days after her parents told social worker Dana Zemke that they were retaining a lawyer. Arlington Judge Esther Wiggins Lyles signed the removal order with neither Hey nor Slitor even aware of the proceedings, much less being present to contest the decision. Sabrina went to a politically influential local professional couple with no training as foster parents, despite CPS requirements that foster couples be trained before being entrusted with children.

Judge Almand later used the baby’s inappropriate removal to justify making the separation permanent, saying it would be too “traumatic” to return Sabrina to her natural parents. So, when Sabrina turned 3 April 3rd, she didn’t blow out her birthday candles in the kitchen where her heart-broken parents still keep her empty highchair. Even after spending $350,000 in legal fees, they have not given up hope. They’ve asked the Virginia Court of Appeals to return their child. Meanwhile, every Arlington County employee involved should be put under oath and questioned in public about their role in this outrage."
posted by maggie at 10:30 PM | link

Australia to cut gay discrimination

From the Washington Post.
posted by Imapp Staff at 8:59 PM | link

Presbyterian Church Clears Minister In Gay Marriage Case

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

A San Rafael minister who presided over several same-sex ceremonies didn't violate Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) rules, because same-sex marriages don't exist in the church, a church court ruled Tuesday.

At the same time, the Permanent Judicial Council's ruling affirmed the right of same-sex couples to have unions, a ceremony that would theoretically have a distinct liturgy.

The ambivalent ruling - affirming the rights of gays and lesbians to have their relationships sanctioned by the church but not considering them equal to those of heterosexual couples - is likely to disappoint both sides in the debate.

Whole story here.
posted by Imapp Staff at 8:55 PM | link

Same-sex divorce case takes a new turn

From the Providence Journal.
posted by Imapp Staff at 8:53 PM | link

Kasier Poll: 7 percent of Americans Know Someone who Married for Health Insurance

A Kaiser poll finds 7 percent of Americans claim to know someone who married mainly for access to health insurance, survey here.
posted by maggie at 4:33 PM | link

Hunter College Poll of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Americans

A nationally representative poll (using Knowledge Networks internet panel data) of gays, lesbians and bisexuals has been released by Hunter College, paid for by HRC.

Lots of interesting stuff: 2.9 percent of Americans are GLB, about half are gay or lesbian. People who identify as exclusively gay or lesbian are two-thirds male. People who identify as bisexual are two-thirds female.

Same-sex marriage did not make the list of the top 5 political priorities of GLBs overall. It skyrockets, however, among 18-25 year olds.

Data, here (and thanks to Gary Gates for passing this along).
posted by maggie at 2:42 PM | link

Latest California SSM Poll

Less than a third of Californian support SSM when civil unions are offered as an option. Minority opposition remains stronger than whtie opposition. Since California law already offers civil unions, it will be interesting to see how this effects the vote on the California marriage amendment, which backers (Including NOMCalifornia.org, my organization) say they have collected enough signature to put on the ballot, results here.
posted by maggie at 12:10 PM | link

Where Do We Draw the Line? Euro Court Rules

Where do we draw the line? Sisterhood is a weak argument, said the European court nixing a claim of two sisters to be treated the same as two lesbians in law:

"Elderly Spinster Sisters Lose Bid For Inclusion In UK Gay Partner Law
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Two elderly sisters who live together have lost their final appeal in a discrimination case that claimed they were victims of discrimination under Britain's civil partner law.

Joyce Burden, 90, and her 82-year-old sister Sybil (pictured) claimed that the partner law should have included any two people living in an interdependent relationship.

By not being included in the law they claim they could lose the their family home if either of them dies because the other could not afford to keep the home and pay Britain's death duty tax.

The women fought their case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

On Tuesday the court in 15-2 ruling rejected their claim.

In arguments before the justices an attorney for the women argued that the taxes would be unfair since unmarried same-sex couples are exempt from the tax under the civil partnership law.

The court was told that the law breached their human rights under the European convention.

The civil partnership law was passed in 2004. It grants same-sex couple of all of the rights and obligations of marriage except the name.

When the case began in 2006, Joyce Burden said that "If we were lesbians we would have all the rights in the world. But we are sisters, and it seems we have no rights at all."

In UK law there is a 40 percent inheritance tax an exemption for the first $500,000. Married couples, and couples in civil partnerships, are exempt from the tax.
The sisters’ house cost about $14,000 to build in 1965 but was recently valued last at about $1.6 million. That would mean the surviving sister would be required to pay nearly $600,000 in death tax.

Both women live on their social security.

The women have lost the case through the British legal legal system, including an appeal to the House of Lords.

A panel of seven judges on the European court in a split decision also ruled against them. The ruling by the Grand Chamber was their last stop."

posted by maggie at 10:36 AM | link

The wrong way on job bias

By David Benkof
DavidBenkof@aol.com

I've got an op-ed in today's Philadelphia Daily News about transgender issues.

I argue for a single clear standard as to which groups get job protections and which do not, and against hate-crimes laws that punish thought instead of acts.
posted by David Benkof at 4:37 AM | link

John Corvino responds to David Benkof

David Benkof very thoughtfully invited me to reply to his comments on my "What's Morally Wrong With Homosexuality?" lecture. I appreciate the opportunity.

First, a clarification: Benkof writes that "Corvino's approach to morality is similar to Descartes' approach to reality - one can sit alone in a room and think hard about morality and figure out what's moral and what isn't." Actually, that's about the furthest thing from my approach to morality. I'm an empiricist; my doctoral dissertation was on Hume's moral theory. I don't think we can figure out moral issues without carefully consulting human experience, and in particular, facts about whether actions, traits, and principles are conducive to human flourishing. Indeed, I think the main problem with most critiques of homosexuality is their failure to attend to the real experience of gay and lesbian people.

But Benkof's central argument against me, to put it simply, is the following: God knows what's best, and God says it's wrong, so it's wrong. As he writes, "Now, Corvino could probably sit in his room and come up with lots of reasons that aspects of Judaism are 'immoral' while things Judaism rejects are actually 'moral'…. The problem is, Corvino is not divine."

Let me be clear on something: if an omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent creator of the universe says that homosexuality is immoral, then homosexuality is immoral. Or to put it another way, given a choice between what I say and what God says, by all means go with God.

The problem is, while I am not divine, neither is Benkof. Here I'm reminded of a dialogue I once had with an evangelical Christian friend. Exasperated with my position on homosexuality, she blurted out, "You trust your own fallible mind, but you don’t trust the infallible mind of Christ!"

"And with whose mind am I supposed to trust Christ?" I responded. "My own, fallible one, or some other?"

The point is that belief in an infallible God does not make one infallible. That’s true whether one believes in Christ or Yahweh (or both, or neither). Many people—with widely disparate views—have claimed to know God’s mind, and they can't all be right. As humans, we are fallible. So this is not Corvino versus God; it's Corvino versus Benkof—each one trying to figure out what's right.

As an Orthodox Jew, Benkof takes the Torah to be the inspired word of God. He is correct that I find much there to criticize (as well as much to admire). For instance, I am far more confident in the wrongness of slavery than in the infallibility of the Torah.

But there is room for discussion even among those who treat the text as infallible. For example, when Leviticus states that man shall not lie with a male "as with a woman," is it prohibiting all male homosexual sex or merely penetrative anal intercourse? If the latter, then (contra Benkof) the text does not forbid "virtually all sexual contact between males."

I will leave it to Orthodox Jews to work through such questions from an Orthodox Jewish perspective. From our shared human perspective, however, I think moral questions deserve a more thoughtful treatment than simply "God says so"—beginning with the humility to acknowledge our limitations in discerning God's voice.

Again, I thank David Benkof for his invitation to respond.

Labels: homosexuality, morality

posted by David Benkof at 12:50 AM | link

The Dollars and Sense of Marriage

From The Oregonian:

Divorce and the breakup of a family are still seen as their own social tragedies, and unwed childbearing and cohabitation can still provoke religious and/or moral objections. For the most part, however, our nonjudgmental age leaves it at that. The citizens of "Whatever" America either say nothing about the broken American family, lest somebody's feelings get hurt, or take the view that it ain't nobody's business but my own or their own. It's all so very civilized or so very tolerant. And so very wrongheaded.

You see, we now know, for the first time, what the breakdown of the family is costing all of us in terms we can all understand: dollars and cents.

Oh, we have an excellent sense of the breakdown. More than a third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock today -- 25 percent of non-Latino white babies, 46 percent of Latino babies and 69 percent of African American babies. Though the divorce rate has tapered off in recent years, it remains high compared to the years before 1970. This and the number of babies born to unwed mothers have changed the makeup of the American home. From 1970 to 2005, the proportion of kids in two-parent homes declined from 85 percent to 68 percent.

We also have an excellent sense of social-educational impacts of this family fragmentation. Kids from broken or never-formed families are at higher risk of poverty, mental and physical illness, juvenile delinquency and adult criminality, sexual and substance abuse, and educational failure.

Full text here.

posted by Imapp Staff at 10:06 AM | link

Top Church Court Reviews Gay Marriage Case

The volatile issue of gay marriage reached the highest realms of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Friday, when the top church court reviewed the case of a longtime minister found guilty of violating denominational law for officiating at the weddings of two lesbian couples.

During a two-hour hearing, an attorney for the Rev. Jane Spahr said the now-retired California minister committed no offense and followed her conscience when she married two lesbian couples in 2004 and 2005.

"This is a community of faith that knows well that all of its members are equal in God's eyes," attorney Sara Taylor said during the hearing at denominational headquarters in Louisville.

In arguing against Spahr's action, Stephen Taber, an attorney for the Presbytery of the Redwoods, which oversees denominational churches from north of San Francisco to the Oregon border, said the case was a difficult one because Spahr is respected and church opinion is split on gay-rights matters.

But he said the church constitution defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
"No one in this church is above the law," he said.

Spahr, 65, was found guilty last year by a regional judicial committee and was given a rebuke—the lightest possible punishment. That ruling reversed a lower church court's decision.

Spahr appealed to the church's top court, and the gray-haired grandmother sat calmly during the hearing.

Afterward, Taylor said a ruling in their favor would represent a "turning point" for the nearly 2.3 million-member Protestant denomination, which like some other mainline denominations has struggled to stay unified amid differences over sexuality issues.

Full story can be read here.
posted by Imapp Staff at 11:25 AM | link

Swiss Church Creating Divorce 'Liturgy'

"Swiss couples are flocking back to church — to get divorced.

An official liturgy for divorce ceremonies is now being determined, because so many couples want to end their marriages where they started."

Full text here.
posted by Imapp Staff at 11:22 AM | link

Norway Poll: Majority Favor SSM

The new poll carried out by Norstat for the newspaper Vårt Land found that 58 percent of those surveyed said they supported the new Marriage Act, and 31 percent were against it. The remainder either were uncertain or had no opinion.

"We in the LLH (The Norwegian National Association of Lesbian and Gay Liberation) are very happy that such a large majority of the population wish to put an end to the discrimination of homosexuals and our children," said LLH leader Jon Reidar Øyan.

Read the whole story here.
posted by Imapp Staff at 11:20 AM | link

Florida Marriage Amendment Campaign Update: "Yes on 2"

Leaders of a coalition advocating a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage announced April 17 a new name for the effort—"Yes on 2"—at 10 news conferences across Florida.

In events in Tallahassee and nine other cities, hundreds of senior citizens also spoke in favor of the marriage amendment, refuting opponents who claim that seniors' benefits will be jeopardized by the marriage amendment.

Voters will consider Amendment 2 in November. The amendment says, "Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized."

Formerly known as "Florida4Marriage.org," coalition leader John Stemberger said the new name, "Yes on 2," with a new Web site: Yes2Marriage.org, offers a "positive emphasis. We are here for marriage and we're saying 'yes' to marriage."

To read the whole article, click here.
posted by Imapp Staff at 11:17 AM | link

Does Marriage Imply Monogamy? Gay Couples in Massachusetts Negotiate

Does marriage imply monogamy (or rather sexual fidelity)? A NYT Sunday Magazine profile of young Massahcusets gay couples finds some endorse fidelity, some not, but betrays that the marriage laws in Massachusetts make this a very active topic of negotiation:

". . .Still, they insisted they would be 'traditional; in one important way: they vowed to be monogamous. "I know that some gay couples who’ve been together awhile open up their relationships," Marc said, "but we're not going to do that. I mean, we wouldn't be getting married if we didn't plan on being monogamous. To me, that's a fundamental and important part of marriage."

It is for many young gay couples. Frederick Hertz, an attorney and mediator who co-wrote the book 'A Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples' and who has helped gay couples of all ages negotiate prenuptial agreements, told me that young gay men get the most impassioned when talk turns to monogamy. "A very common thing I hear them say in my office is, 'If he has an affair, he's not getting any alimony!' " Hertz said. "That’s just not something I hear among older gay men, who often make a distinction between emotional fidelity and sexual fidelity. There’s an emerging rhetoric around monogamy among young gay couples. In that way, they’re a lot more like married heterosexual couples than they are like older gay couples." [MG Note: state law does not always even permit infidelity to affect property distributions, although Massachusetts may be one that theoretically allows it--any family lawyers know the answer?]

I SPENT THE FOLLOWING DAY with the Brandons. They met a year before on MySpace, although this was a source of some embarrassment for the couple, who instead told friends they’d met 'at a concert.' . . . .Like Marc and Vassili, the Brandons said they planned to pick and choose what elements of "traditional heteronormative married culture," as Brandon A. put it, to appropriate. (He loves using words like 'heteronormative.') But the Brandons had different ideas from Marc and Vassili about what appealed to them about 'traditional' marriage.
For one thing, the Brandons eagerly told their families about the engagement and planned to incorporate them into their married lives. . .

The Brandons agreed that they would wait a year or two before marrying; they wanted to finish school before having a formal wedding ceremony. Unlike Marc and Vassili, the Brandons said a wedding ceremony was important — not as a "political statement" or "to get approval from anyone," but as a way to communicate their love to each other. . .

But the Brandons suspected they were untraditional when it came to their thinking about monogamy. As they saw it, one enduring lesson of heterosexual marriage is that lifelong monogamy is unrealistic for most people — especially men. "Most straight people like to talk a great game about monogamy," Brandon A. said. "But what are they actually doing? Many of them have affairs at some point or break up because they want to sleep with somebody else. We're two guys, we’re in our 20s, we haven't been sexual with that many people, and to pretend like we're never going to want to experience sex with another person until the day we die doesn't make sense to us. We’re open to exploring our sexuality together in a way that makes us both comfortable."

Negotiating questions surrounding monogamy was a critical issue for most of the young married and engaged couples I spent time with. . ."

posted by maggie at 10:15 AM | link