MARRIAGE PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION: Michael Triplett

Is there a legal and moral obligation to prefer married parents over all others?

It's an interesting question, but it doesn't really explain the "why." Why would there be a moral obligation? Is it because there is evidence that married couples are better parents? Is it because there is evidence that children will be harmed if not raised by married parents?

The much-heralded research alleging that children do better when raised by BIOLOGICAL married mothers and fathers is of little use in making this determination. Since there is no biological link, there is no reason to believe that social science research would support the idea that married mother and fathers who adopt provide better outcomes for kids then kids raised in other "non-gold standard" situations. If there is such research, it would surely be interesting to see.

Perhaps the "moral obligation" comes from the idea that we should be promoting these kinds of parenting relationships, even if there is no evidence they are superior from other configurations. That is probably a persuasive argument, until you realize the consequences of such a preference.

It is interesting that you point to Utah as a state with a married parent preference, since it is a state that is probably able to avoid one of the biggest consequences of this policy: the disparate impact it would have on African Americans. A "married couple" preference could be disastrous when it comes to placing African American children into African American homes. There are already significant barriers to placing children into African American homes, many of them economic. When you add the additional barrier of preferring married couples--which are less common among African Americans--you suddenly have even greater problems with placing African American children--often the largest group of adoptable children--into homes of the same race.

My sense is you won't find that problematic, but there are many who would argue it is a "legal and moral obligation" not to create barriers for children to be placed in homes of the same race.
posted by Eve at 4:52 PM VOTE 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND ADOPTION (AND LIONS): Maggie replies to Ms Wells 1980

And because we are not animals, who act by instinct, we need social institutions, like marriage--which is the only known context in which human fathers normally and usually develop strong relationships with their children. (The majority of children whose fathers don't get and stay married do not keep warm and close relationships with them. In some studies, the majority haven't even seen their dad once in the past year. More than 60 percent of children of divorce in one white middle-class sample reported as adults that they were not close to their fathers.)

This makes sense.

What is marriage ordinarily a promise to do? It means 1. man will live with his children and their mother. 2. the man's children and their mother will be his principle financial and emotional responsibility and 3. he will not sleep with other women, and so will not have children across multiple households.

For most men, these turn out to be pretty important context for responsible fathering. Some dads outside of marriage do better than others (and some do a pretty good job) and all dads are responsible for their kids. (You are inventing disagreement on this point.) But only married dads do these three things, and these three things end up being a pretty important part of fathering in the real world, as opposed to the hypothetical world, or the animal world.

Lions are a particularly bad example, because as far as I can tell, all they do is sleep, have sex, and fight with other male lions.
posted by Eve at 4:50 PM VOTE 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND ADOPTION (AND LIONS): Ms Wells 1980 replies to Maggie

Due to your lack of the nature and social organizaion of lion prides, you missed my point. A "father" is a positive male role model. He does not have to be "married", just determined to spend quality time, economically support, and physically protect our children! (that means ALL the little people)

All men are responsible for ALL children regardless of paternity. Nor does any man/woman "own" another by virtue of vow or contract. How many wars have we fought, quite literally, over a piece of ass? Why? Because "paternity" was at question! He who inherits the wealth, inherits power and control etc.

Even though you advocate a particular form of marriage, marriage in and of itself is a "man made" institution wrought with failings--the idea is perfect, just not the implementation and interpretation of it. Nor is it biologically possible, given birth and death rates of men and women, for every man and woman to be married.

Who marries who is not an issue when compared against who cares, stands up for, and fights for our children. Bottom line, we should eliminate marriage altogether. It is merely a tax break (our governent only recognizes one form of marriage--check the world out). We should establish a social and economic structure that cares for nothing else than educating positive thinking human adults.
posted by Eve at 4:47 PM VOTE 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND ADOPTION: Maggie replies to Ms Wells 1980

Alas, if we were lions, you'd be right. Certainly we must help all children. We don't do so when we pretend that fathers don't matter. Fatherless kids know this best of all.
posted by Eve at 4:46 PM VOTE 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND ADOPTION LAW: "Ms Wells 1980"

[That's the pseudonym of a married mother who works full-time.]

I am a parent and I recognize the need for a "two-parent" household. I am not for gay couples adopting because they willfully "chose" a life style that cannot naturally produce children under any circumstances. That is their choice though I feel the ability to successfully raise and nurture children among them is the same as that of heterosexuals.

Unfortunately, the economic forces at work do not maintain a "living wage" based on a single income thereby resulting in many moms working outside the home. That is reality. And any "type" of abusive parent should be absent from a child's life period. Better to be a single parent than suffer that situation.

Equally so, no woman or man should be forced to maintain a false relationship over time "for the sake of the children". That leads "in death do we part" situations. And the tension between them does filter down to the children.

Also add to the fire nature and mankind are "not in balance" and there does not exist a "father" for every child in the monogamous setting. If that were true, given the nature of man, there would be a third of the population of women without husbands and childless. By the time women and men are of marriagable age, the ration is 4:1.

Reality is it is time for a new social agenda for the rearing of human beings. It is truely one world and we need to be addressing the concerns of humanity versus individual pre-conceived norms.

Men do not "own" children because they fathered them. This drive for "paternity" has enslaved women emothionaly (sex for women is tied to our emotions-paternity identification) and resulted in the neglect of children considered "not theirs" (sex for men is tied to their egos-how many children they father).

These outdated social norms must be addressed and corrected if society is to truly step into a new century. It does not matter who a child's father is (study the lions), all that matters is that as a collective group we sucessfully raise ALL the children to be positive human lights of humanity.
posted by Eve at 4:42 PM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Dale A. Carpenter

[Unconnected to very long exchange below. --Eve]

I'd support a preference for married couples. Of course that would still leave many children who need to be adopted; and Florida actually removed its preference for married couples a few years ago. The cruelty, to children and to gays, of a categorical ban on gay adoptive parents but not child molesters or dead-beat parents or any other category, should not be lost on anyone.
posted by Eve at 2:41 AM VOTE 0 comments

FAMILY POLICY AND WOMEN'S PREFERENCES: Neil Gilbert

...In contrast to the United States, Western European countries are well known for having a powerful arsenal of day care and other family-friendly benefits. For example, over 70 percent of the children from age three years to school age in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom are in publicly financed child care. Given the general direction of U.S. policy, it may be instructive to examine how motherhood and family life have fared in light of the changing levels of family-friendly benefits available in the industrialized countries of the European Union. The question is not simply are they "family friendly," but for what kinds of families and female life styles are they friendly?

Overall, marriage and fertility rates have declined and female labor-force participation rates have increased throughout most of the European Union over the last few decades. ...

Overall, these findings lend themselves to at least three broad interpretations. Believers in the salutary effects of family-friendly policies would argue that although such policies did not appear to strengthen the formation of family life (by increasing the presence of children and marriage), in the absence of these benefits the declines would have been even sharper--that is, these benefits acted as a brake to slow things up. As evidence, they might point to the fact that in three of the countries--Denmark, Sweden, and Finland--that had significant positive correlations between fertility rates and public expenditure on family benefits, the rates of expenditure were proportionately more than twice as high as that of most of the other countries. This suggests that the decline can be diminished if significant resources are invested in family services.

Invoking the mantra "correlation is not causality," skeptics find little reason to assume that these policies are either friendly or unfriendly to families, and read the results as confirming that family-friendly policies make no palpable difference. They point out that if indeed these benefits served as a brake on declining rates of fertility and marriage, then one would expect to find the lowest marriage and fertility rates in countries that lagged behind in the family-friendly benefits, of which the United States is a prime example--except that the American rates are higher than those of the European Union. Skeptics would no doubt refer to the history of children's allowances in France which were initiated under the Family Code of 1939 with the explicit goal of increasing the birthrate. Although the French birthrate increased considerably in the decades after World War II, during the same period the United States--with no children's allowance--also experienced a dramatic rise in the birthrate, while the birthrate in Sweden declined despite its allowance system. The skeptic argues that decisions concerning marriage and family size address fundamental conditions of human existence, which do not yield readily to social policy.

Finally, disbelievers conclude that so-called family-friendly policies are not really family friendly at all. ...

The second reality is that the main threads of family-friendly policies are tied to and reinforce female labor-force participation--and are more aptly labeled "market friendly." These policies are largely, though not entirely, associated with publicly provided care for children and supports for periods of parental leave. To qualify for parental-leave benefits it is necessary to have a job before having children. The incentive for early attachment to the labor force is bolstered by publicly subsidized day care. Child-care services both compensate for the absence of parental child care in families with working mothers and generate an economic spur for mothers to shift their labor from the home to the market. In Sweden, for example, free day-care services are state-subsidized by as much as $11,900 per child. They are free at the point of consumption, but paid for dearly by direct and indirect taxes—in 1990, Swedish taxes absorbed the highest proportion of the gross domestic product of any OECD country. Paying in advance for the "free" day-care service tends to squeeze mothers into the labor force, since the crushing tax rates make it difficult for the average family to get by on the salary of one earner. State-sponsored welfare activities accounted for about three-quarters of the net job creation in Sweden between 1970 and 1990, with almost all of these public-service positions being filled by women. Thus much of the voluntary labor invested in care for children, disabled kin, and elderly relatives was redirected to providing social care to strangers for pay. ...

The reality is that family policies can be friendlier to some life styles than to others. Recognizing this, we should explore alternatives to the conventional perspective on family policies designed to harmonize work and family life. The conventional approach is implicitly oriented toward helping mothers work while raising children. It is informed by male work patterns, which basically involve a seamless transition from school to the paid labor force along with a drive to rise as high as possible in a given line of work. This "male model" of an early start and a continuous work history imposes a temporal frame on policies to harmonize work and family life, and it stresses the idea of "balancing" the concurrent performance of labor-force participation and child-rearing activities. Child-care services, and even periods of parental leave, facilitate an ongoing and relatively stable work history--which is preferred by many, though clearly not all, women.

more
posted by Eve at 2:34 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Lee Walzer

[Lee Walzer is an attorney and writer in Washington, DC. He is the author of "Between Sodom and Eden: A Gay Journey Through Today's Changing Israel" (Columbia University Press 2000), "Gay Rights on Trial: A Reference Handbook" (ABC-CLIO 2002), and the forthcoming "Marriage on Trial: A Reference Handbook" (ABC-CLIO 2005). Eve notes: Because this is a fairly long exchange, which would be hard to read in the usual blogger format, I'm posting it all at once and you read it from top to bottom. This is the first post in the exchange. The last one is by Maggie. Any later posts in this exchange will be posted as they arrive. Sorry for any confusion--I think this is the least confusing way to handle it. --Eve]

Maggie Gallagher's column concerning the Supreme Court's decision not to hear a challenge to Florida's absolute ban against gays adopting reveals a complete misunderstanding of how people adopt and how the system works.

She cites the case of a North Carolina family where social workers apparently decided to place twins with a gay male couple rather than a husband-wife couple who had previously adopted a child previously placed by the birthmother of the twins with them. She decries this "political correctness" and calls for laws that give preferences to married couples in adoption (although she's too polite to call for outright bans on gays or singles, men as well as women).

But it is her conservative political correctness that will deprive many children of a family. The case she cited apparently involved the public adoption system (seeing that it was DSS personnel who made the placement decision); but it is children in the public system who often are much harder to place because of the issues that many of those children have, whether from abuse, bad and/or frequent foster placements, handicaps and, yes, race. Who is stepping up to the plate and adopting many of these kids, who otherwise would never have a family? Gay men and lesbians, as well as singles and others perceived as somehow less ideal as parents by conservatives. It is not as if there are heterosexual married parents being deprived of adopted children because those uppity gays and lesbians (and singles and others) are out to make a political statement by adopting. There are far more children in need of a permanent home than there are parents of whatever relationship constellation or sexuality.

Many, perhaps most, adoptions in this country are either privately arranged through adoption agencies or attorneys, or are from other countries, many of which allow singles to adopt. Happily, Maggie Gallagher's drive to ensure that more children grow up without parents will not reach most adopted children, even if she succeeds in inflicting incalculable harm on the most vulnerable of the children in need of an adoptive family -- those in the public system.
posted by Eve at 2:25 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Maggie Gallagher

I'm not only too polite, but I don't believe in bans on adoptions by single parents, or by gay parents, for some of the reasons you suggest and for some of my own. (If I died, I want my kids to go to my sister regardless of her orientation, rather than some stranger, for example.)

The question I'm raising is different (and Lee, you just skirted it): If (as in North Carolina) married moms and dads are available and willing to adopt, should they be given preference? I think so. Do you?
posted by Eve at 2:23 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Lee Walzer

I think it's a tough question, Maggie. In general, I think that children benefit from having two parents. There are some situations where a child would definitely benefit from having a mom AND a dad. But I know so many kids who have been adopted by single parents, and by same-sex couples, who do just fine with one parent (or two parents of the same sex). This is why social worker discretion is important, particularly when it comes to the public system where so many children have "issues" because of past abuse or because they've been placed in multiple foster homes.

What wasn't clear from your article was why the social workers placed the twins with the gay couple in the first place, even though the married parents, who'd adopted a previous child from this birthmother, wanted to adopt the twins. My own guess: they may not have been "paper-ready." There is a lot of paperwork to do in order to adopt and the paperwork does not carry over from one adoption to the next, in general (unless you adopt another child within the one year period that a homestudy is valid for, for example). In this case, the social workers had a loving home for the twins and acted -- although I agree that it would have been wonderful for the
siblings to all be in one home (regardless of the sexual orientation or relationship status of the parent/s).

I greatly enjoy marriagedebate.com even though, as you can tell, I do not agree with a lot of your views. I am glad that you do not favor bans on singles or gays adopting though! I think one thing that you ignore in these discussions is how much our concepts of parenting and parenthood are indeed social constructs. The way we raise children, and relate to them, today is much different from a century or two ago, let alone across cultures. There are plenty of mothers out there who do not ascribe to "traditional" concepts of motherhood, and the same goes for fathers and fatherhood -- this is a good thing actually. It's only a few decades back that fathers had very little to do with raising children whereas today, it is socially
expected for fathers to be involved.

To sum up, it sounds nice in theory to say that kids need some theoretical construct of what you expect fathers and mothers individually to provide a child, but I don't believe that day to day life, even for married heterosexual couples, conforms to your vision of what kids have, or receive. Nor can it. There is so much variation in how parents parent. In your view, do fathers who address their teenage sons as "honey" or "sweetheart" (and I know plenty of heterosexual fathers who do so) provide a proper model of what masculinity is or what it means to be a man (whatever that means!)? You may well think so, but I read some of the stuff that your allies on these issues among the religious right publish and they probably would say that such fathers are insufficiently "manly" and put their kids "at risk" for homosexuality.

I think that if children have love and stability in their lives, they're going to do just fine.
posted by Eve at 2:21 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Lee Walzer

One other point. I might be more inclined to agree with you that children should be BORN into a married relationship. I say this in part because many of those who become pregnant out of wedlock are not ready emotionally etc to raise a child on their own. So, it's axiomatic that such children, on the whole, would be better off in a married relationship.

Adoption is different though. You are dealing with a population of kids who have no parents and who will invariably benefit from having a permanent home, whether it's with a same-sex couple, a heterosexual married couple, or a single parent. And there are far more kids in need of homes, whether in our own public adoption system or internationally, than there are available parents. You need to find good parents period.

And, thinking further about things, you need not worry as much as you are about the system not taking married couples into account enough. While the NC case you cite is interesting, it is most definitely not the norm. I know anecdotally that married couples invariably are preferred -- whether by birthmoms seeking a private placement for their child, in the public system, or by foreign governments.

I'll close with a truly radical additional thought: That gay parents may make better adoptive parents as a group than heterosexual married couples. There is still a lot of prejudice against adoption in this country and heterosexual married couples mostly come to adoption by default -- as a second-best choice necessitated by infertility, which often creates years of grief for such couples. Same-sex couples (especially male couples) do not come to adoption as a second-best option -- they embrace the idea as a way of becoming parents. And although it's changing, for years the only kids that gay couples could adopt from the public system were the most damaged/least wanted -- HIV-positive, differently abled, lots of emotional/learning issues, or even simply non-caucasian kids. In many cases, were it not for gay parents, these kids would never have a forever family.
posted by Eve at 2:18 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Maggie Gallagher

The gay couple who adopted (actually North Carolina doesn't allow unmarried couples to adopt, so technically the twins were placed with a single father who had a live-in partner) were told the married couple refused the adoption when they discovered the children had special medical needs.

Susan vigorously contests this, noting she is a nurse and that her mother (also a nurse) had agreed to take time off to help with the kids. She says the social workers mislead her to get them to withdraw their petition in two ways: a. by claiming she and her husband lived in the wrong county and it was impossible for them to place children out of county and b. by claiming that the children had been placed with a great married couple in which the "wife" was a doctor.

I was unable to contact the social workers (who may not even work for the county now) so I don't know their side of the story. Placement decisions are essentially unreviewable by outsiders (the Esbenshades, when they found the truth, were told they had no standing to contest the placement, in spite of the state law requirng siblings to be placed together when possible, which is probably true).

The social workers aren't talking. So we don't know their motivation.

I agree with you, Lee: Blanket legal bans are unworkable and unwise--not in the interests of children. I also think the social work profession as a whole is more interested in promoting family diversity as a social justice ideal that getting married moms and dads for kids in their care. (Anyone care to dispute that? The evidence is pretty powerful.)
posted by Eve at 2:16 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Maggie Gallagher

Why would pregnancy be evidence that single parents aren't emotionally ready to take on a child? Almost half of all unwed pregnancies are now planned.

Why are you so prejudiced against pregnant women?
posted by Eve at 2:15 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Lee Walzer

I'll stand corrected on this -- what I was trying to say (and failed!) referred more to kids born to impoverished single mothers. Believe me, I know plenty of single women who have had children out of wedlock by choice and who are great parents!!
posted by Eve at 2:13 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Lee Walzer

You really should have included some of these details in the column that you wrote -- it gives a more nuanced picture of what happened. In reading your original column, you made it seem like the social workers were out to score a victory for revolutionary alternative families, casting aside great married heterosexual couples. The special needs angle is interesting -- and underscores my previous point that, in many cases, same-sex couples are adopting kids that no one else might take. Not quite the case here, I agree -- perhaps.

It is hard to imagine social workers doing the egregious things that Susan alleges. They're licensed professionals and could certainly lose their licenses over incidents like these, if true. I also think you distort their thinking about family diversity. You have to put their thinking into context -- the way that we as a society have changed our views about adoption and what makes a good parent.

Thirty or forty years ago, adopted kids were placed with parents of the same ethnic group/religion. Only married people could adopt. A lot of children were not finding homes as a result. Over time, adoption social workers have come to see that children do well with single adoptive parents, and with same-sex couples (as well as gay and lesbian individuals) and that such placements can be good for children. I don't think they're out to consciously promote family diversity -- they're charged with looking for good homes for children who don't have a home/parents of their own.

How do you respond, Maggie, to the fact that there are far more kids available for adoption than there are adoptive parents in general, let alone married couples in particular? This is what motivates most social workers, not promoting family diversity.
posted by Eve at 2:09 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Lee Walzer

Marriagedebate.com posed the question, "Should we prefer married parents or ban marital status discrimination? Or neither?"

The question should be rephrased to read: "Should we prefer married parents or permanent homes for children in need of an adoptive family?" Those are the real stakes here, with a real impact on children. Anyone familiar with adoption knows that there are far more children in need of a forever family than there are prospective adoptive parents. Start giving preferences (affirmative action) for married couples and the pool of adoptive parents will shrink accordingly, with children left to suffer the consequences.

That is the true travesty of Florida's anti-gay adoption policy -- thousands of children continue to languish in Florida's foster care system, shuttled between foster homes, and never knowing permanency. Ending the adoption ban there would have helped some of these children.

The preamble at marriagedebate.com noted that adoption is about the best interests of the child, not "adults' needs and desires." Unfortunately, too many conservatives seem to put their needs and desires to make an ideological point about marriage over the very real needs of children. So much for family values -- better to let children grow up without any parents than to give them love and permanency in the home of a same-sex couple or a single person.
posted by Eve at 2:03 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Maggie Gallagher

Lee, why will preferring married couples if they are available shrink the pool? Is there any evidence that say, more children await adoption in Utah (which has a marriage preference) than other states?

In fact, there are vastly more parents available to adopt babies, than there are babies available. Special needs kids or older children are a different story.
posted by Eve at 2:01 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE FOR ADOPTION?: Lee Walzer

It depends how you define the pool of available kids versus the pool of available parents. If you're talking about adoption of white infants, then yes, there is no shortage of parents. If you add in hispanic and African-American infants, though, the pool sizes shift significantly -- which is why many adoption agencies actually charge less to families adopting children of color. And if you look at international adoption, there obviously is a vastly larger pool of children than there are parents. Even more so, as you noted, with special needs or older children.

ALL of these kids need a home and family.

I also don't know how you write such a preference into law: Does the preference govern private domestic adoptions where birthmoms choose the adopting parent/s? Does the preference only apply to white infants?

I would argue that the preference you seek already exists de facto in private domestic adoptions of white infants. Many adoption agencies will only work with married couples for such adoptions. But the pool of kids needing homes is vastly larger -- and would grow even more were it not for adoptions by singles (of whatever sexual orientation) and same-sex couples.
posted by Eve at 1:59 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Maggie Gallagher

Lee, we disagree on a lot of the surrounding facts. For example.

One of the main reasons its hard to find parents for minority babies is the National Association of Black Social Workers' stance that it is wrong to allow transracial adoptions.

International transracial adoption by white American parents is incredibly common. Affluent married parents pay a great deal of money to adopt children of different races, including dark-skinned ones. Go to any Yale reunion and you'll see.

The perception among married folks seeking adoption is that a. there aren't enough babies of any kind to go around (since so many are aborted or kept by unwed moms) and b. there are barriers to domestic adoptions that aren't there for international ones. (such as the right of birth parents to take up to a year to rescind the adoption, the right of the birth father to prevent the adoption even when birth mother consents).

You take the Esbenshades' account to be so unlikely as to be perhaps not credible. (Yes, social workers are licensed, and subject to judicial oversight, but almost no-one has legal standing to contest any decision they make.) ( am having an increasingly hard time believing that single and gay people are so much more heroic than married folks as to be the only available families not only sometimes (which is credible) but much or most of the time.

It seems to me that social workers as a profession are committed to family diversity as an ideal and are acting on that belief in ways the profession does not consider inappropriate, but I do. (See for example the code of ethics of the National Association of Social Workers).

Regardless of our dispute here, my point still holds: even if married parents are rare, if they are available they should be preferred, because that is our legal and moral obligation to the babies.
posted by Eve at 1:57 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Lee

We do indeed disagree about a lot of the surrounding facts! Yes, in the 1970s (!), the National Association of Black Social Workers did adopt a stance against transracial adoptions, but legislative changes, and growing understanding about transracial adoptions, has lowered the barriers to such adoptions; the main problem today is the lack of parents to adopt these children -- which is why adoption agencies often charge lower fees to place African-American babies.

Indeed, international transracial adoption is quite common -- no disagreement there.

Perceptions are just that--perceptions. People have plenty of (mis)perceptions about international adoption as well. Some states provide birthmothers with a lot of time to change their minds, but there are many other states where such adoptions are finalized quickly. Parents seeking domestically adopted infants quite often know what states place them on the best legal ground. I think this is a particularly difficult issue. No one should want a system where a birthmom (and perhaps birthfather) are coerced into surrendering a child that she/they could raise. Likewise, a system that gives a birthmother an inordinate amount of time to change her mind (1 year, for example) is grossly unfair to the child and to adoptive
parents.

The bigger problem is how our public adoption system works. The system places a premium on reunification with the birth family, if at all possible. Proceedings to terminate parental rights and render a child eligible for adoption are extremely time-consuming and the system is woefully underfunded, leading to large backlogs of cases.

I didn't say that singles and gay people step up to the plate more than married heterosexuals, but without these two groups adopting, there would be far greater numbers of kids without families and permanent homes.

Social workers believe in family diversity, perhaps, but those working to place children for adoption do not have that as their raison d'etre. Their foremost goal is to find a loving home for children in need of one. You're creating a bogeyman out of social workers and it's not fair -- certainly not fair to children who need a home. The family diversity belief, if it comes out at all, centers on the homestudy that all adoptive parents must have done. Social workers today recognize that loving families come in many forms: single parents, same-sex couples, differently abled parents, and older parents. This development has served children waiting for a home quite well.

Maggie, there is no legal, and certainly no moral, obligation to prefer married parents in adoptions. The system overall has a bias in favor of such parents already, I would argue, in terms of the hoops that those in unmarried families have to go through in order to adopt in the first place.

The best interest of the child demands finding a permanent, loving home for that child as expeditiously as possible. In the public system, placements are based on how well the parents can match up to the needs of the child, which often are quite many. In private placements, most birthmoms will seek a mom AND a dad of their own accord. In international adoptions, the laws of a particular country (some of whom will let only married couples adopt) govern who can adopt.

If you're talking about a preference for married couples, the system already works quite well, save for the odd sensationalist case that you can find. If you care about the kids, and I know that you do, get them a loving home as quickly as possible, regardless of marital status (and sexual orientation).
posted by Eve at 1:54 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Maggie Gallagher

Lee writes:

Maggie, there is no legal, and certainly no moral, obligation to prefer married parents in adoptions.

Lee, this is the heart of our disagreement. The rest is circumstantial.
posted by Eve at 1:51 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Lee

I of course would phrase the difference a bit differently: "Does insisting on a particular family structure for children in need of a home take precedence over finding them a loving home?"

I certainly don't think that singles or same-sex couples deserve affirmative action in adoption. The same belief holds vis a vis married couples. In saying this, I certainly do not denigrate married couples. I was raised by a great mom and dad. But I know that children thrive in all types of families.

A fascinating study would look at outcomes for adopted children placed in different types of homes. You certainly can cite studies about the value of married parents to children and I can cite studies about children raised by same-sex couples. I wonder whether adoptive status would make a meaningful difference.
posted by Eve at 1:49 AM VOTE 0 comments

SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE IN ADOPTION?: Maggie Gallagher

[Eve notes: This is the last in a long exchange between Maggie and Lee Walzer. Read it from top to bottom!]

Lee writes:

I of course would phrase the difference a bit differently: "Does insisting on a particular family structure for children in need of a home take precedence over finding them a loving home?"

But Lee, I'm explicitly agreeing with you that the answer to your question is no. However, I think we have an obligation to give children to married parents if they are available. You have explicitly rejected that. Or have you? Rephrasing it so you avoid the core question isn't helpful.
posted by Eve at 1:39 AM VOTE 0 comments

ADOPTION: Anonymous

I read Maggie's latest column with great interest.

My wife and I have been in the process of adopting through the state of New Jersey and as a part of this process we were required to attend parenting classes. The DYFUS run adoption resource center staff promoted an upcoming event at which a couple that had adopted would be sharing their experience. Much to our chagrin, the couple that showed up on the night of the presentation was comprised of two men. The staff could have chosen any of a hundred different couples. Yet they chose to show and promote a gay couple that had adopted. One of the men even left his wife for a man.

I doubt that you need another anecdote on this topic, but I thought I would write to encourage you. You are on the right track! I was absolutely shocked to realize that the state had made a decision to foster and encourage the adoption of children by gay couples. My impression has often been that people are greatly unaware that this is occurring in society. It is a sad example of how a government bureaucracy can implement a policy decision that has far reaching societal impact without the consent of the majority of the people.
posted by Eve at 1:36 AM VOTE 0 comments

CHANGE FLA'S ANTI-GAY ADOPTION LAW: Gregory J. Wallance

...Florida is not merely isolated; it is close to aberrant. Florida's argument to the Supreme Court that children "need male and female influences to develop optimally" is simply unsupported. The American Academy of Pediatrics, representing 60,000 pediatricians, supports gay and lesbian adoption. It cites studies that as many as nine million children in the United States have at least one gay or lesbian parent and that there are no data suggesting that the parents' sexual orientation harm the children. As a court in the Arkansas recently found, "There is no factual basis for the statement that being raised by gay or lesbian parents has a negative effect on children's adjustment."

The sad part is that Florida, which allows some convicted criminals to adopt, had more than 8,000 children awaiting adoption in 2002, who, but for the ban, now might be in loving and supportive homes.

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posted by Eve at 7:07 PM VOTE 0 comments

COURT REFLECTS PUBLIC AMBIGUITY ON GAYS: Peter A. Brown

The U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing states to ban gay adoption may surprise some, because the high court two years ago, in effect, legalized homosexuality.

But this decision shows that the law, for now, seems to have caught up with public opinion on gay-rights matters.

There is a consensus that homosexuals deserve the same basic rights as all Americans. But those individual rights may be tempered due to public concerns about the impact of homosexual conduct on society.

And despite gay-rights advocates' efforts to sell their agenda as the next step in the civil-rights movement, the courts and the country are not yet sold on their one gigantic premise:

That when it comes to questions about conflicting rights and government protections, homosexuality should merit the same status in the legal pecking order as does race.

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posted by Eve at 7:05 PM VOTE 0 comments

CONSERVATIVE RABBIS MAY EXPEL COLLEAGUE: From the New York Times

A rabbi who has officiated at the marriage of gay and lesbian couples has been threatened with expulsion from the Conservative movement's rabbinical association, though movement officials say it is not her activism that is at issue but her repeated defiance of the movement's rules.

Ayelet S. Cohen, the junior rabbi at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, a largely gay and lesbian synagogue in Greenwich Village, says she is being punished for her openness in performing the ceremonies. Officials of the association say it has nothing to do with the gay marriages. Rather, they say, she faces expulsion because she has repeatedly defied long-established rules for taking a job at a synagogue.

The Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement, with 1,600 rabbis, voted in 1992 not to ordain gays as rabbis and said that rabbis should not perform same-sex marriages. But the assembly stopped short of declaring the ban on marriage or commitment ceremonies a binding standard, tacitly allowing individual rabbis some discretion. Various rabbis within the movement have estimated that 20 to 40 rabbis have performed these ceremonies. Both the Reform and Reconstructionist movements ordain people who are gay and allow rabbis to marry gay people. Orthodox Jews neither ordain nor marry gays. ...

Whatever happens to Rabbi Cohen, the issue is not going to go away. The assembly's committee on Jewish law and standards is meeting in April and will revisit the issue of gay and lesbian unions.

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posted by Eve at 7:03 PM VOTE 0 comments

IF GAYS CAN'T MARRY IN THIS CHURCH, NO ONE WILL: From the New York Times

In a protest against the Episcopal Church's refusal to allow same-sex marriages, the leaders of a church in the stately East Rock section of this city have announced that they will perform no marriage ceremonies at all.

The decision, conveyed on Thursday in a letter from the priest to the 115 families of St. Thomas's Episcopal Church, is a novel challenge to the social and religious barriers to marriage between homosexuals.

Some Episcopal churches have handled the problem by offering gay couples a blessing ceremony that is not legally considered a marriage. Lay leaders at St. Thomas's have decided that the absence of a ritual at the heart of a church's spiritual and social functions is a powerful way to protest what they consider a form of religious discrimination.

The church has adopted the new policy even though no gay couples have asked to be married there.

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posted by Eve at 6:59 PM VOTE 0 comments

"UNITY" STATEMENT SEEN AS MARRIAGE RETREAT: From the Washington Blade

Gay leaders who were not a part of a unity statement released on Thursday by major gay rights groups criticized the collaborative document, noting that marriage equality was featured last on the agenda's priority list.

One gay rights leader went further and said the statement appeared to be political cover for criticism the Human Rights Campaign received last month for what appeared to be a retreat from marriage equality and support for President Bush's efforts to privatize social security.

Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, dubbed the official document, "Civil Rights, Community, Movement," a "state of the union" for the gay rights movement, noting that 22 leaders from major gay rights groups worked to shape the statement.

During a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Garry said the statement was designed to quell pessimism over what some say was a disappointing 2004 election and to show unity within the gay rights movement. The statement articulates the future goals of the signatory groups and reiterates that there will be no retreat from seeking full marriage equality. ...

While all of the leaders agreed that there would be no retreat from the marriage issue, marriage equality was the last item of eight joint goals featured on the statement's priority list.

Robin Tyler, a longtime activist from California who heads DontAmend.com, a national grassroots organization focused on marriage equality, said she was greatly disturbed to learn that marriage equality is not listed higher.

"The fact that they would accept it listed being at the bottom of the page makes me wonder if this issue will now be placed for many of these organizations on the bottom of their list," Tyler said.

"Even though we know every other issue they list is important, recognizing our relationships through marriage equality is the Trojan Horse in which all of the other issues can ride. The grassroots people--who have struggled so valiantly--will not allow any back fighting by any LGBT organization or individual in commitment to this issue." ...

Also discussed during the hour-long phone conversation was the future of legal challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Matt Coles, director of the ACLU's Gay & Lesbian Civil Rights Project, said that if DOMA were to be challenged, lawyers would solely focus on the part of DOMA that denies gay citizens federal benefits.

Left unchallenged would be the portion of DOMA that allows states to refuse recognition to a same-sex marriage performed in another state, out of fear that the legal claim would be rejected, and even if successful might encourage passage of a federal amendment banning gay marriage.

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posted by Eve at 6:57 PM VOTE 0 comments

ARGUMENTS IN NY SSM CASE: From The Associated Press

Attorneys for 25 same-sex couples seeking the right to marry said Friday the state's opposition to gay marriage is akin to the mentality that once allowed slavery and discrimination against women and minorities.

"The basis of the (the state's) opposition is that it goes against tradition. If tradition carried on, we would still have slavery," said Mariette Geldenhuys, one of the attorneys for the same-sex couples that have been dubbed the "Ithaca 50."

Geldenhuys, in arguments here before state Supreme Court Justice Robert Mulvey, also pointed out the state made it illegal in 2002 to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and also allows same-sex couples to adopt children.

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posted by Eve at 6:55 PM VOTE 0 comments

MORE ON THE LUTHERANS: Terry Mattingly

...Which brings us to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America task force and its report on how to handle the explosive issue of same-sex unions and the status of clergy who are sexually active outside of marriage. After three years of work, the task force tried to cut the Solomonic baby right down the middle and craft a non-decision decision.

This suggested two things. The ELCA (1) is ready for shared Communion with the via-media experts at the Episcopal Church and (2) the ongoing storm of sex-war headlines will continue in oldline Protestantism as people fight over clashing concepts of truth -- experiential progressives vs. traditionalists who stress moral absolutes. The issue of sex outside of marriage (gay and straight) makes for great headlines and points toward more fundamental differences in almost every set of pews in America.

Almost everyone covered this story and many linked the Lutheran events to the wider global conflict in the Anglican Communion. But what interested me were the leads. Almost everyone said that both sides of the conflict were ticked off (maybe). Who really won and who really lost? ...

However, the lead that I think captured the most interesting element of the story came from Godbeat veteran Julia Duin at the Washington Times. She declared a winner and noted another fascinating wrinkle. Check this out:

A Lutheran task force handed a victory to homosexual rights groups yesterday by recommending that although the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America should not change its policy against ordaining homosexual clergy, it should not censure churches that break the rule.

But "those who feel conscience-bound to call people [as pastors] in committed same-sex unions should refrain from making the call a media event either as an act of defiance or with the presumption of being prophetic," the task force warned.

In other words, progressive Lutherans, you are not to call attention to yourselves. Do not speak clearly. Keep your head down and run out the clock. Above all, do not turn this into more headlines that will hurt the denomination's finances or statistics. This raises a question for me: What does it mean when conservative newspapers say the left won and liberal newspapers say that no one was victorious? Just curious.

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posted by Eve at 6:52 PM VOTE 0 comments

CHURCHES TAKE STEPS ON ISSUE OF SSM: From the Washington Post

U.S. Episcopal bishops expressed regret yesterday for having consecrated the group's first openly gay bishop but said they need more time to respond to a call that they halt such ordinations and stop blessing same-sex marriages.

The issue, which threatens the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Church with schism, also swept the largest U.S. Lutheran denomination on the same day.

In that separate development, a divided task force of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America declined to recommend that the denomination bless same-sex unions or approve the ordination of ministers involved in gay relationships, but the task force called on congregants to work for ways to "live together faithfully in the midst of our disagreements." ...

Meanwhile, the report issued by the Lutheran task force will be weighed by that group's 5 million members in the United States and the Caribbean ahead of consideration by a churchwide assembly in Florida in August.

The task force backed a 1993 statement by its Conference of Bishops, which said pastors and congregations can be trusted to exercise "wisdom and discretion" in ministering to same-sex couples.

The group's policy says no pastor may engage in heterosexual or homosexual relations outside marriage -- and it defines marriage as a lifelong relationship between a man and a woman. The group does allow gay pastors who remain celibate.

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posted by Eve at 6:50 PM VOTE 0 comments

KAN. SENATE APPROVES MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: From the Kansas City Star

The Kansas Senate today approved a proposal that would ban same-sex marriages in the state Constitution.

If the Kansas House of Representatives concurs, the marriage amendment would go before Kansas voters on April 5. The proposal would define marriage as being between a man and a woman. ...

A proposal to put the question before Kansas voters failed last spring. The measure was approved in the Senate but fell five votes short of the necessary two-thirds approval in the House.

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posted by Eve at 6:47 PM VOTE 0 comments

STANDING QUESTIONED IN IA "LESBIAN DIVORCE" CASE: From the Des Moines Register

A lawsuit to derail a judge's ruling granting a divorce to a lesbian couple may face an uphill battle on a technicality.

The Iowa Supreme Court today questioned whether a group of conversative state lawmakers, joined by a Republican Congressman Steve King and a Le Mars pastor, had legal standing to bring the lawsuit.

"What injuries have you suffered?" Chief Justice Louis Lavorato asked as the case was formally submitted to the court.

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posted by Eve at 6:44 PM VOTE 0 comments

MORE LOVE: Camassia

...It's become an axiom among social conservatives that the sexual revolution "won," and yet the actual sexual revolutionaries I know feel very much like they lost. And the article describes well the reason: love's liberation from religion and tradition mostly just left it vulnerable to being snatched by consumerism. Neither the True Love nor the Free Love ideals that I described earlier have really come to fruition.

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posted by Eve at 2:59 AM VOTE 0 comments

DIVORCE REFORM IN GEORGIA: From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Spouses seeking a divorce soon may have to wait longer before they can call it quits, and those who commit adultery could lose their rights to marital property.

Several state legislators are pushing bills they say will strengthen marriage by making divorce a longer, and perhaps costlier, process.

A Senate bill introduced Wednesday would extend the waiting period from 30 days to six months for an uncontested divorce of a couple with children, and to four months if no children are involved.

The bill by state Sen. Mitch Seabaugh (R-Sharpsburg) calls children "innocent victims" of legal separation and divorce. They are often "negatively affected academically, socially, emotionally, and psychologically" by the stress and trauma of divorce, the legislation declares. Last year, a similar bill was approved in the Senate, 33-21, but died in the House Judiciary Committee. With Republicans in control of the House, the divorce bill now has a good chance of passing.

Legislation to stem divorces or make them harder to acquire may receive support from Democrats, who also have expressed concern about the high number of failed marriages. ...

The bill before the Georgia Senate would require divorcing parents with children to attend classes for a minimum of four hours that focus on the effects of divorce and separation on children. Many judicial circuits in Georgia already require such classes. ...

The waiting period would be waived if either the husband or wife has a protective order or if there has been family violence.

Some legislators expressed concern about meddling in the private lives of Georgia citizens. ...

In the House, state Rep. Nikki Randall, a Macon Democrat, filed a bill that would prohibit a divorcing man or woman from receiving any marital property if he or she committed adultery. The adulterer would be required to attend 12 hours of marital counseling before the divorce would be final.

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posted by Eve at 2:40 AM VOTE 0 comments

22 GAY/LESBIAN GROUPS RESET PRIORITIES IN WAKE OF LOSSES: From the San Francisco Chronicle

Twenty-two gay and lesbian rights groups, smarting in the aftermath of the November election and bracing for President Bush's second inaugural, issued a unity statement Wednesday insisting they are not backing off marriage equality but will simultaneously push for other "common priorities."

These include hate crimes legislation, employment protection, immigration rights for gays and lesbian partners, overturning the ban on gays in the military and continuing battle against constitutional bans on same-sex marriage in states and Congress. ...

The statement -- signed by Lambda Legal, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Log Cabin Republicans, Stonewall Democrats, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and others -- maintains that American civil rights movements have historically proceeded through a "complex interweaving of legal victories, political progress and advances in public opinion."

Noting that only 18 months have elapsed since the U.S. Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality, a little more than a year since the Massachusetts high court created the nation's first same-sex marriage rights, and weeks since California passed a sweeping domestic partnership law, the groups said, "We have every reason to be optimistic."

The statement includes an excerpt from a People magazine interview with the president and Laura Bush, in which Bush said gay couples joined in a civil union "of course" are as much a family as his own.

Still, the renewed focus on more practical matters after a year in which marriage equality grabbed the national spotlight and became a central focus of a presidential election campaign, indicates a retrenchment, said University of Pennsylvania analyst Nathaniel Persily.

"It is quite clear that most Americans attach a certain significance to the word marriage, such that it eclipsed some of their otherwise egalitarian feelings toward gays," Persily said.

Hospital visitation and inheritance rights, by contrast, do not seem to be eclipsed. "The decision to move one step at a time and focus on other areas is a smart strategic choice on their part," Persily said. "We find on most questions of equal rights, Americans are willing to make sure that gays are treated equally with heterosexuals, but when it comes to marriage, people just have an emotional, visceral reaction."

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posted by Eve at 2:34 AM VOTE 0 comments

NGLTF REPORT FINDS MIDWESTERN INCUMBENTS WEREN'T PENALIZED FOR OPPOSING MARRIAGE AMENDMENTS: Press release

Legislators who voted against state constitutional amendments banning same sex marriage rarely faced negative consequences when running for reelection in November, according to a report issued by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute.

The Institute's report, Impact of Voting against Anti-gay Marriage Amendments on 2004 Re-election Campaigns in Five Midwestern States, analyzed the election results in Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, where state legislatures had voted in 2004 on constitutional amendments seeking to ban marriage between same-sex couples, and in some cases, any form of partner recognition such as civil unions or domestic partnerships. The report found:

Voting against anti-gay marriage amendments did not hurt incumbents' chances of re-election.

If anything, it may have helped. The report found that 97% (100 of 103) of state legislators who voted against anti-gay constitutional amendments and ran for re-election won their races, compared to 91% of state legislators who voted for them ( 196 of 215) . In all five states combined, 19 legislators who voted for anti-gay amendments lost their seats. Only 3 legislators who voted against these amendments lost their seats.

In Iowa and Minnesota, legislators who voted against these amendments fared significantly better than their anti-gay colleagues.

In Iowa, all 7 legislators who voted against the anti-gay amendment were re-elected, compared to 71% (10 of 14) of those who voted for it. In Minnesota, 98% (40 of 41) of House members who voted against the anti-gay amendment were re-elected, compared to 86% of those who voted for it.

Republican legislators did not receive any electoral benefit from supporting anti-gay amendments in these five states.

In Michigan, Democrats picked up seats, closing the Republican majority in the House from 63-46 to 58-52. Although all Iowa Democrats voted against the anti-gay constitutional amendment, the Democrats picked up a net four seats, evening the balance of power in the Senate in which the majority had been Republican.

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posted by Eve at 2:30 AM VOTE 0 comments

GAY ADOPTION AS FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT: Joanna Grossman

...And for other reasons, Lawrence would seem to be squarely applicable here. The liberty interest embraced in Lawrence was the freedom of adults to order their private lives in the ways they see fit. Adoption is part of building a life, and a family; as is choosing to cohabit and coparent with a partner of the same-sex.

Moreover, the constitutional right Lawrence protected was that of autonomy and personhood. There a few choices more integral to one's autonomy, and to one's self-definition, than the choice to adopt a child--especially one for whom one has provided lifelong care. ...

The Supreme Court should have reviewed Lofton.

Granted, the case does not present a split among federal circuits about the proper interpretation or application of a federal statute or constitutional right--a typical reason for the Court to grant review. Since Florida's statute is unique, other circuits have not faced the question. Its uniqueness may have done in its chances for review.

But review of the case would have allowed the Court to elaborate on Lawrence. It would also have allowed the Court to make clearer the meaning of Romer v. Evans -- a case striking down an anti-gay statute in Colorado.

The court held in Romer, applying equal protection principles, that legislation cannot survive even rational basis review if "it is born of animosity toward the class of persons affected." ("Rational basis" review is the lowest constitutional standard of review the Supreme Court applies--asking only that a challenged law have a rational basis. But recently, the Supreme Court has made clear that certain laws do fail even rational basis review.)

Given the openly anti-gay origins of Florida's law, it would have been hard for the Supreme Court to find the law constitutionally valid. If any law was "born of animosity" toward gays, it is this Florida statute.

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posted by Eve at 1:46 PM VOTE 0 comments

EQUALITY WARS: COMING TO A STATE NEAR YOU: From The Advocate

...Election coverage focused on the antigay constitutional amendments that passed in various states around the country. These losses are certainly disheartening and are a reason for analysis of how to do better in the future. But what both the national and queer press failed to report is that in 14 states, statewide advocacy groups successfully prevented passage of these amendments in their legislatures, keeping them off the ballot this fall. Half of those states are so-called red states.

Stopping amendments legislatively is the smart way to go, and this is where Equality Federation organizations have the most experience to get the job done. To date, our community has yet to win when an anti-LGBT marriage amendment goes before voters statewide, but we do have a record of legislative success. Moreover, an effective legislative campaign costs a fraction of the millions it costs to run a statewide ballot campaign.

Statewide organizations are also succeeding in advancing proactive legislation: ...

More and more local governments and even states are passing some form of relationship recognition, from a domestic partner registry in Carrboro, N.C., to statewide recognition in Vermont and California.

Even in conservative states, progress is being made through local policies and executive regulations. All of these victories have been made possible by the hard work of statewide advocacy groups. ...

Our national groups are each critical to our movement. We count on them to fight for us in an unfriendly Congress, to monitor and shape the national media, to conduct strategic research, to fight in the courts, and much more. But our movement cannot succeed if we invest all our hope and all our resources in federal work. As statewide organizers, we've learned time and again that a top-down, one-size-fits-all model of organizing doesn't work.

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posted by Eve at 1:44 PM VOTE 0 comments

UTAH BILL GIVES RIGHTS TO UNMARRIED COUPLES: From the Associated Press

A state senator has introduced a bill to give unmarried couples joint property and health care rights, fixing what many said was a problem with the constitutional ban on gay marriage.

But Sen. Gregory Bell, R-Fruit Heights, said the constitutional change approved by Utah voters in November wasn't his motivation.

"It addresses the need of persons who may have some relationship other than marriage to delegate responsibilities to each other," Bell said Tuesday.

That was the problem raised by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who warned the gay marriage ban could take away rights from common-law partners of different sexes. But if Bell's legislation is a solution to the amendment's flaws, the senator insisted he didn't mean it to be so.

Bell said Utah's gay marriage ban "did raise some practical problems," but he added, "I don't think there's any legal problem with the amendment."

He characterized his legislation as an effort to "make life simpler for people" in unconventional relationships.

Bell said two unmarried partners could affirm their rights by giving each power of attorney over the other, but that Senate Bill 89 simplifies the procedure with a state-sanctioned "mutual dependence benefits contract."

The contract would give unmarried partners 18 and over joint property ownership and hospital visitation rights. It would give one partner the right to make decisions for another who becomes incapacitated, including the right to consent to surgery or accept a transplanted organ.

The contract also would give one partner the right to bury another at death.

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posted by Eve at 1:40 PM VOTE 0 comments

IA SUPREME COURT TO HEAR CIVIL-UNION DISSOLUTION CASE: From 365Gay.com

The Iowa Supreme Court this week will hear a challenge to the granting of a dissolution of a civil union to two lesbians by a lower court judge more than a year ago.

The "divorce" had been granted to Kimberly Brown and Jennifer Perez. The Sioux City women had a civil union in Vermont in 2002 in Bolton, Vt. and then returned to Sioux City to live.

Neither of the women contested the dissolution, and Woodbury County District Judge Jeffrey Neary in November 2003 granted their petition.

Neary later said that it was not until after he had signed the divorce decree that he realized it involved a same-sex couple, but added that it would not had altered his decision.

Neary said he believed that under the legal concept of full faith and credit, he would be able to grant the divorce of a union that is legal in another state. The divorce also could be granted by applying equity and partnership laws that govern the business world, he said. He later altered the decree to reflect the broader scope.

But group of conservative lawmakers said the ruling violated the state's ban on gay marriage, arguing that granting a divorce, Judge Neary was acknowledging same-sex marriage.

The group appealed to the Supreme Court for a review of the ruling.

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posted by Eve at 1:38 PM VOTE 0 comments

NEW QUESTION: SHOULD MARRIED COUPLES GET PREFERENCE FOR ADOPTION?

All 50 states declare that adoption is supposed to be governed by the "best interests of the child," not by the adults' needs or desires. Yet according for a forthcoming iMAPP policy brief, states are 5 times more likely to make it illegal to prefer married couples (marital status discrimination) than to have a preference for married mothers and fathers in adoption law.

Should we prefer married parents or ban marital status discrimination? Or neither?
What do you think?
posted by Eve at 1:29 PM VOTE 0 comments

TRUE LOVE: G.K. Chesterton

The man who makes a vow makes an appointment with himself at some distant time or place. The danger of it is that himself should not keep the appointment. And in modern times this terror of one's self, of the weakness and mutability of one's self, has perilously increased, and is the real basis of the objection to vows of any kind. A modern man refrains from swearing to count the leaves on every third tree in Holland Walk, not because it is silly to do so (he does many sillier things), but because he has a profound conviction that before he had got to the three hundred and seventy-ninth leaf on the first tree he would be excessively tired of the subject and want to go home to tea. In other words, we fear that by that time he will be, in the common but hideously significant modern phrase, another man. Now, it is this horrible fairy tale of a man constantly changing into other men that is the soul of the decadence. [...irrelevant dissing of Oscar Wilde--Chesterton never understood either Wilde or Nietzsche...]

"The one hell which imagination must conceive as most hellish is to be eternally acting a play without even the narrowest and dirtiest greenroom in which to be human. And this is the condition of the decadent, of the aesthete, of the free-lover. To be everlastingly passing through dangers which we know cannot scathe us, to be taking oaths which we know cannot bind us, to be defying enemies who we know cannot conquer us--this is the grinning tyranny of decadence which is called freedom.

"Let us turn, on the other hand, to the maker of vows. The man who made a vow, however wild, gave a healthy and natural expression to the greatness of a great moment. He vowed, for example, to chain two mountains together, perhaps as a symbol of some great relief, or love, or aspiration. Short as the moment of his resolve might be, it was, like all great moments, a moment of immortality, and the desire to say of it exegi monumentum aere perennius was the only sentiment that would satisfy his mind. The modern aesthetic man would, of course, easily see the emotional opportunity; he would vow to chain two mountains together. But, then, he would quite as cheerfully vow to chain the earth to the moon. And the withering consciousness that he did not mean what he said, that he was, in truth, saying nothing of any great import, would take from him exactly that sense of daring actuality which is the excitement of a vow.

..."In Mr. Bernard Shaw's brilliant play The Philanderer we have a vivid picture of this state of things. Charteris is a man perpetually endeavouring to be a free-lover, which is like endeavouring to be a married bachelor or a white negro. He is wandering in a hungry search for a certain exhilaration which he can only have when he has the courage to cease from wandering. Men knew better than this in old times--in the time, for example, of Shakespeare's heroes. When Shakespeare's men are really celibate they praise the undoubted advantages of celibacy, liberty, irresponsibility, a chance of continual change. But they were not such fools as to continue to talk of liberty when they were in such a condition that they could be made happy or miserable by the moving of someone else's eyebrow. Suckling classes love with debt in his praise of freedom.
And he that's fairly out of both
Of all the world is blest.
He lives as in the golden age,
When all things made were common;
He takes his pipe, he takes his glass,
He fears no man or woman.

"This is a perfectly possible, rational, and manly position. But what have lovers to do with ridiculous affectations of fearing no man or woman? They know that in the turning of a hand the whole cosmic engine to the remotest star may become an instrument of music or an instrument of torture. They hear a song older than Suckling's, that has survived a hundred philosophies. 'Who is this that looketh out of the window, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners?'"

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posted by Eve at 10:07 AM VOTE 0 comments

MARRIAGE AND ADOPTION LAW: Maggie Gallagher

This week, the Supreme Court let stand a federal court's opinion that Florida's state laws banning gay adoption are constitutional.

Florida said these laws would increase the likelihood that children will be raised by married mothers and fathers. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this a legitimate concern: "It is rational for Florida to conclude that it is in the best interests of adoptive children, many of whom come from troubled and unstable backgrounds, to be placed in a home anchored by both a father and a mother."

The case highlights the importance of the upcoming battle over Bush's judicial appointments. The ruling stands only because the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals deadlocked 6-to-6 over whether to have the full court rehear the case. One of the judges to vote against the rehearing was William H. Pryor Jr., whom the Senate Democrats filibustered and who thus serves only as a temporary recess appointment.

Although it is good to know that in the 11th Circuit, at least, the idea that children need moms and dads is not (yet) considered hate speech, one can seriously question how well the Florida law serves its intended purpose. Why not instead create preferences for married couples in adoption law?

Most people probably assume that married couples are already preferred, where available, in adoptions.

But a forthcoming policy brief on adoption law by Joshua Baker (my colleague at the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy) concludes: "Only two states codify that presumption as any kind of a preference for married couples." States are twice as likely to "forbid 'discrimination' based on marital status than to make any legal effort to place vulnerable children in homes with a married mother and father." (For a copy of the brief and accompanying model legislation remedying the situation, e-mail Joshua@imapp.org.)

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posted by Eve at 6:45 AM VOTE 0 comments

"AFTER MAKING LOVE WE HEAR FOOTSTEPS": Galway Kinnell

For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run--as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears--in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small
he has to screw them on, which one day may make him wonder
about the mental capacity of baseball players--
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.

In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across his little, startling muscled body -
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.
posted by Eve at 6:34 AM VOTE 0 comments

TRUE LOVE/EROS AS IDOL: Camassia

...My own problem with the cult of Eros isn't really that it allows non-traditional relationships. It's that it hogs all of love to itself. When I read about the attributes of marriage -- love, sharing, self-giving, commitment, duty -- I often think to myself, "But aren't Christians supposed to do that with everybody?" Especially since I've been immersed in Anabaptist ecclesiology lately, I can't help noticing that describing those as special features of marriage tacitly assumes that no other relationships have them.

lots more
posted by Eve at 2:59 AM VOTE 0 comments

LAWRENCE AND ADOPTION: Eugene Volokh

[an older post, hence "Today's Eleventh Circuit decision"--Eve]

Does Lawrence v. Texas recognize a fundamental constitutional right to sexual autonomy? There was a hot debate about this following the Lawrence decision; I argued here that it does.

Today's Eleventh Circuit decision upholding Florida's statutory ban on adoptions by practicing homosexuals shows the importance of this question. The Eleventh Circuit correctly points out that the right to adopt is a creature of statute; there's no constitutional right to adopt. But the Supreme Court has often held that even when the government is distributing a strictly optional benefit, the Constitution often (though not always) prohibits the government from discriminating based on the exercise of a constitutional right.

For instance, I suspect the law generally may not bar adoptions by people who have expressed certain political beliefs, who practice certain religions, or who own guns (either if the Second Amendment is interpreted as protecting an individual right, or if the state involved is one of the many states [including Florida] whose constitutions clearly secure an individual right). The government generally may not use a person's exercise of his First or Second Amendment rights as a justification for denying them the benefit of an adoption.

The government may have some power to consider a person's constitutionally protected conduct in making this decision--in government employment decisions, for instance, the Court has held that the government has consider power to consider an employee's speech when the speech risks interfering with the efficiency of the government employer. But courts demand more than just a bare "rational basis" for such government decisions; they generally require some pretty substantial evidence that the person's exercise of his constitutional rights is substantially relevant to the government's decision.

If Lawrence does recognize a constitutional right to sexual autonomy that's akin to the freedom of speech, the free exercise of religion, and the like--which is what "fundamental constitutional right" generally means--then the government would have to show that allowing adoptions by practicing homosexuals really would pose some pretty serious problems. But if it doesn't recognize such a right, but only holds that criminal prohibitions are illegitimate (perhaps because they fail even rational basis scrutiny), then it could defend its no-gays adoption policy under a simple rational basis test.

Note, incidentally, that the Florida Constitution specifically secures a right to privacy, and Florida courts have interpreted it as protecting sexual autonomy. Given this, I think the Florida courts' earlier decision upholding the no gay adoptions statute is unsound (Dep't of Health & Rehabilitative Servs. v. Cox, 627 So.2d 1210 (Fla. App. 1993), aff'd as to the right to privacy, 656 So.2d 902 (Fla. 1995)). The courts erroneously assumed that, just because an adoption is a government-provided benefit, the government is free to deny this benefit based on a person's exercise of his right to privacy. That, I think, is wrong, just as it's wrong to say "government employment is a benefit, so the government is free to deny it to pacifists / Catholics / gun owners."

link
posted by Eve at 6:05 PM VOTE 0 comments

MORE MARRIAGE AMENDMENTS COMING: From 365Gay.com

A second wave of states considering amendments to their constitutions to bar same-sex marriage has begun.

Steve Morris, the president-elect of the Kansas Senate, said Monday that he plans to seek Senate approval of a constitutional ban on gay marriage by the end of this week. ...

The proposal defines marriage being between one man and one woman and would prevent the state from granting civil unions. ...

In Tennessee, Republicans, in the majority in the state Senate for the first time in years, vow to bring in an amendment this session. Senate Republicans say their priority will be to use their electoral gains to push their perceived advantage on the so-called moral issues, using them to pigeonhole Democrats as out-of-touch liberals. ...

South Dakota also may put forward an amendment to that state's constitution. Republicans are considering whether to file a bill that would amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

In [Arizona] the issue is when to put a proposed amendment to that state's voters. Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is daring the state legislature to call a special election this year to let voters decide whether to approve a constitutional ban on gay marriage rather than wait for the November 2006 election.

Virginia lawmakers are considering their own amendment.

And, Alabama lawmakers will make a second attempt at approving a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage when the legislature resumes.

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posted by Eve at 6:02 PM VOTE 0 comments

TRUE LOVE: "Dark Harbor" (Eve)

I can't remember where I read this, but I was very much struck by one woman's description of love as not an impulse or emotion but "a structuring of time together." I like that. But that phrasing also reminds me of this little speech from the deeply creepy suspense movie "Dark Harbor" (speech is best in context, but at least try to imagine it being spoken in Alan Rickman's most forbidding tones):

I remember what I used to think love was then. I thought it was the fireworks, the explosions, the highlights. But it's not. It's time--to go through the seasons together, through change, through the ups and downs. To be able to look your beloved in the eye and say, "We did that together--as one--chose each other above all others." That's love. It's unexplainable. It's a secret that can only be known... once you've done the time.

posted by Eve at 5:49 PM VOTE 0 comments

TRUE LOVE: The Court of the Countess of Champagne (via Eve)
"We declare and affirm, by the tenour of these presents, that love cannot extend its rights over two married persons. For indeed lovers grant one another all things mutually and freely, without being impelled by any motive of necessity, whereas husband and wife are held by their duty to submit their wills to each other and to refuse each other nothing.

"May this judgement, which we have delivered with extreme caution, and after consulting with a great number of other ladies, be for you a constant and unassailable truth, Delivered in this year 1174, on the third day before the Kalends of May, Proclamation VII."
--Judgment of a "court of love" in the house of the Countess of Champagne, quoted in Denis de Rougemont's awesome book Love in the Western World
posted by Eve at 5:47 PM VOTE 0 comments

TRUE LOVE: Maggie Gallagher replies to Sara Butler

Sara writes:

For an evolutionary psychologist like Buss, the answer to that question is likely something unromantic like, "love is an adaptation that evolved to maximize our reproductive possibilities."

Well, the language of evolutionary psychology may not sound very romantic, but I find the idea the purpose of true love is babies also to be rather satisfying. In my experience, babies are about the best thing there is.

The older I get, the more I sound like a country and western song: ("I don't believe virginity is as common as it used to be, that black is black or white is white, the rising cost of getting by, but I believe in love. I believe in babies. I believe in mom and dad, and I believe in you...") The problem with scientists is they tend to think the discovery that human beings are bodies (not just "have bodies") and that therefore human emotions and aspirations have biological bases, invalidates them.
posted by Eve at 5:43 PM VOTE 0 comments

TRUE LOVE: Sara Butler

...From what little psychology and even less evolutionary psychology I've studied, it's always seemed to me that psychologists are better able to describe what love looks like than tell us what it really is. While the five characteristics Buss mentions are a pretty decent description, they don't really tell us what romantic love is. For an evolutionary psychologist like Buss, the answer to that question is likely something unromantic like, "love is an adaptation that evolved to maximize our reproductive possibilities" (by the way, if you want to read some of Buss’s work in this field, which is pretty interesting, start with this paper or this one).

For psychologists working in this field, I would imaging that sudying love can be kind of a downer; the whole point is to demystify love, to take the magic out of it. So my guess is that David Buss's "true love" is love that is still magical somehow, that defies the scientific approach, that refuses to follow the path that psychologists have found "regular love" usually takes. "True love" is love "for its own sake." It is how one feels about one's "soulmate," and the intense passion that one feels at the start really does last forever. My best stab at a definition of "true love," as opposed to "regular" love is that "true love" is what happens when you just follow your feelings, but everything ends "happily ever after" anyway (i.e. your love outlasts your lives). Also "true love" never becomes fully domesticated; it never entirely fades into the calmer, steadier attachment that "regular" love might. There are plenty of examples of this in art (of course, one of the perhaps unfair advantages that many of these couples have is that they seem to die fairly young), but how many couples do you actually know who would fit the description? I'm inclined to agree with what Prince Humperdinck told Wesley, "You truly love each other, and so you might have been truly happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, no matter what the story books say."

In fact, "true love" has long been more of a literary convention than a social reality, although that doesn't make it any less important socially. Commonly held understandings of "true love" can say quite a bit about a given society. One standard interpretation of the courtly love tradition, for example, argues that the ideal of courtly love was just a way of keeping young, landless, unmarried knights from making a big mess by providing some kind of direction for and limits on their actions. One of the insteresting things about this tradition is how explicitly it denied any link between love and marriage. In The Art of Courtly Love, Andreas Cappellanus explains that this is because marriage is a duty and love must be completely free. With the dawning of modernity, one first sees love being associated with marriage, even used as a reason for choosing a specific marriage partner. It's taken some time and the movement of women into the workplace for that new conception to become reality--probably more so than the courly love tradition ever did--with arguably less than spectacular results.

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posted by Eve at 5:36 PM VOTE 0 comments

VA GOP LAWMAKERS WANT MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: From the Washington Post

Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly are preparing resolutions requesting an amendment to the state Constitution that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, mirroring efforts by states across the nation to further restrict same-sex marriages.

Virginia is already one of 43 states that ban the recognition of same-sex marriages. But proponents of the resolutions say that a constitutional amendment is necessary to protect existing state law from court challenges. They add that Virginia should join the 11 states that passed such amendments on Election Day. The victories have energized social conservatives across the country and are credited by some with helping President Bush win reelection in November.

"The people should be the ultimate authority on issues like this," said Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), the sponsor of one of the several constitutional amendment resolutions that will be submitted. A constitutional amendment also "takes it out of the hands of the courts," he said, and "ensures that activist judges can't usurp" state law.

Opponents of the measure in Virginia said a constitutional amendment is unnecessary, particularly after the passage last year of a bill that vastly limits the ability of two people of the same sex to enter into contracts with one other.

That bill, House Bill 751, added a ban against recognition of same-sex civil unions or partnership arrangements to Virginia's "Affirmation of Marriage Act." Gay activists say they are looking to challenge the law on constitutional grounds.

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posted by Eve at 5:27 PM VOTE 0 comments

KANSAS SENATE TO SPEED UP GAY MARRIAGE BILL: From the Wichita Eagle

The Senate plans to vote this week on a proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriage, part of a plan to put the issue before voters on April 5.

The Senate's decision came on the opening day of the legislative session, which drew hundreds of protesters on both sides of the issue to the Capitol.

The secretary of state gave lawmakers a deadline of Feb. 11 to pass the amendment if they wanted it on the April 5 ballot. House and Senate leaders said that would be possible if the proposal passes the Senate this week. A vote is planned for Thursday.

If approved by two-thirds of the Senate, the amendment would be sent to the House three weeks before the deadline.

If a majority of Kansas voters passes the measure, it would become part of the state constitution.

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posted by Eve at 5:24 PM VOTE 0 comments

NY JUDGE SAYS BETTER LAWS NEEDED FOR SAME-SEX PARTNERS: From the NY Post-Standard

An Onondaga County Court judge Monday said the lack of civil recognition of same-sex relationships in New York led to the criminal prosecution of a Manlius woman on theft charges.

Judge Anthony Aloi said it was "unfortunate" the dispute between Lori Clapper and her former girlfriend resulted in criminal charges against Clapper, instead of being handled under state Domestic Relations Law, as happens with most issues between spouses.

The case would not have been in criminal court had it involved a husband and wife, he said.

Clapper, 44, pleaded guilty in November to a reduced charge of third-degree grand larceny, admitting she stole from her roommate, Judith Banky, from Dec. 17, 1996, though May 24, 2001, while the couple lived in Manlius. ...

Gormley said the sexual orientation of the parties had nothing to do with the prosecution. He said he was sure husbands and wives had been prosecuted for thefts as well.

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posted by Eve at 5:16 PM VOTE 0 comments

POPE DENOUNCES GAY MARRIAGE: From the New York Times

Pope John Paul II unequivocally condemned gay marriage and weighed in on a host of other social questions on Monday in a strongly worded message meant to define the position and agenda of the Roman Catholic Church.

The 84-year-old pope addressed the 174 ambassadors who make up the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See with an incisive account of the Vatican's definition of family.

"Today the family is often threatened by social and cultural pressures that tend to undermine its stability; but in some countries the family is also threatened by legislation which--at times directly--challenge its natural structure, which is and must necessarily be that of a union between a man and a woman founded on marriage," said the pope, who spoke in French.

Family, he said, "must never be undermined by laws based on a narrow and unnatural vision of man."

In recent months, senior Vatican officials have increasingly attacked what they see as the decaying of Christian tradition.

In October, the Vatican rallied around Rocco Buttiglione, an Italian minister whose effort to win a post in the European Union was rejected after he expressed his conservative Catholic views, like considering homosexuality a sin.

But the message on Monday was perhaps an even stronger indictment of what the church sees as loose secular values, both because it was delivered in the pope's own words and because it came during the so-called state of the world address, which establishes the Vatican's priorities for the coming year.

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posted by Eve at 5:01 PM VOTE 0 comments

BABIES AND SOCIAL SECURITY: Reply to Phillip Longman, via Ramesh Ponnuru

..."Personally, I wouldn't have any beef if the spousal benefit were traded for a child's benefit like a tax cut, since it's a more effective way to raise fertility, but I wouldn't look to this to rescue us.

"Longman's also wrong that it was Social Security that caused the decline in fertility. Before stocks and mutual funds were widely available, there weren't many ways for people to save for retirement. Having and investing in kids was a way to transfer assets over time. But once financial capital became readily available, people would invest in stocks or bonds rather than kids. Now, SS probably reduced the amount that people save (as Feldstein argues), but if there weren't SS there would be more money in stocks/bonds, not necessarily more kids."

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posted by Eve at 1:00 AM VOTE 0 comments

UNDERGRAD CONSERVATIVES AND SSM: From City Journal

...Yet for most of the conservative students I interviewed, traditional values did not extend to homosexuality. Though few support gay marriage, fewer still want the Constitution amended to ban it, and most are okay with state-sanctioned civil unions for gays. "I don't buy the prevalent argument that recognizing gay unions would undermine the institution of marriage," says Vanderbilt sophomore Anne Malinee, the strongly pro-life editor of the Vanderbilt Torch, the school's conservative monthly. "Of all the issues elected officials could be focusing on, why this?" Similarly, Bucknell history and economics major Charles Mitchell, culturally conservative in many respects, isn't worried about gay marriage. "I believe that homosexuality is a sin, because that's what the Bible says, but I also believe that if two people of the same sex love each other and can get a priest to marry them, the propriety of that is none of the state's business." ...

The destructive effects of "just-do-it" values on the family are equally evident to many undergrads, who have painfully felt those effects themselves or watched them rip up the homes of their friends. They turn to family values with the enthusiasm of converts. Even their support of homosexual civil unions may spring from their rejection of the world of casual hookups, broken marriages, and wounded children that liberalism has produced. "Heterosexuals have already done a decent job of cheapening marriage on their own," observes Vanderbilt's Malinee.

more (but those are pretty much the only bits about SSM)
posted by Eve at 11:53 PM VOTE 0 comments