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Family Scholars Blog
Saturday, January 10, 2026
From the WaPo: Grab your partner and SP45 sunscreen: Rosie O'Donnell is planning what is being billed as "the first gay cruise with family values." The comedienne and former talk show host said the first offering from R Family Vacations, a company she co-founded, would be a week-long cruise on the new Norwegian Dawn to the Bahamas. On the cruise, which will depart New York on July 11, passengers will be able to learn about topics such as adoption and artificial insemination. FROM DAVID MAMET: "No one involved in a "relationship" ever had a good time. One may be courting, seducing, experimenting sexually, dating, married, keeping company, and so on. But anything called "a relationship" must eventually result in sorrow, as the participants are unwilling to examine and name its nature." "Is it just me, or has Britney's 48-hour marriage to childhood sweetheart Jason Alexander left a sour taste in your mouth?" No, it's not just you. "But I will, and have, looked my gay friends in the eye to tell them I oppose restructuring society's fundamental unit to endorse arrangements that deny children their birthright." FROM CANADA: "The federal government has delayed a final decision on whether to ask the Supreme Court if it is constitutional to restrict same-sex couples to civil unions instead of full marriage." This seems to be the current pattern in Canada: delay in the name of further discussion. ADVOCACY POLLING ON SSM: The leader of a state group that opposes gay marriage acknowledged it did not release portions of a poll that indicated voters are deeply divided on whether to ban same-sex marriage. Ron Crews of the Massachusetts Family Institute said he regretted downplaying the omitted survey results as irrelevant. "I want to apologize," Crews said. "I misspoke. I misspoke primarily out of ignorance, but that does not excuse misspeaking. There were other questions, and we are ... going to release those other questions." At a rally Wednesday, the group touted Zogby poll results that indicated 69 percent of respondents wanted a chance to vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The group also highlighted a question that showed 52 percent said that "only marriage between one man and one woman should be legal," with 42 percent disagreeing. The group didn't release information that poll respondents opposed the constitutional amendment, by a split of 49-48 percent. It also didn't mention that poll respondents, by a margin of 48-46, did not want lawmakers to prevent marriage licenses from being issued to homosexual couples in May, when the Supreme Judicial Court decision legalizing gay marriage takes effect.I was afraid of something like this. Friday, January 09, 2026
NRO's John Derbyshire expounds on marriage, pop music, and Britney Spears's thighs. Relevant point: The short answer is that if a customary social institution is trashed and trivialized by irresponsible buffoons, we ought to exert more control over it — to tighten access, not loosen it. ... Things are for whom they are for. ... [M]arriage is for men and women; the fact that either institution might have been abused in some particular instance does not make a case for altering fundamental definitions.Meanwhile, Deroy Murdock puts forth the "why fear gay marriage when celebrities are worse?" argument: [S]ocial conservatives who blow their stacks over homosexual matrimony's supposed threat to traditional marriage tomorrow should focus on the far greater damage that heterosexuals are wreaking on that venerable institution today. FAMILY PICTURES: Tom did a great job blogging on the NYT article on single mothers, below. The only thing I would add is that the most painful part of the article, in my opinion, was the mention that there is one picture of three-year old Michelle's father in the photo album, hamming for the camera shortly after her birth. That made me wince. Sure, if he or any of them had known that would be the only picture his daughter would have of him, they'd at least have taken a serious shot. But in the joy of the moments after a baby's birth nobody can believe anyone would abandon this new creature -- everyone feels bonded right then. But now that's the one picture little Michelle will look at for years to come when she wonders about "who half of her is,"where she comes from, and why that man was not interested in sticking around for her... It also struck me that Michelle looked quite a lot different from her mom (a photo showed them both in profile) so presumeably quite a lot like her dad. If you don't think a vivid physical resemblence to her absent father won't prey on her for a long time, you don't know the first thing about growing up lacking both parents in the home. Book review of Old Before Their Times: She zeros in on the lives of six teenage mothers, some single, some divorced and some temporarily "hooked up" with unreliable or unsavory men, the teen fathers of their babies or the next boyfriend in line. The narrative focuses on their lives as daughters in families that range from the solid to the dysfunctional; these are teenagers who crave attention and thrills, and those desires get them into trouble that lasts a lifetime.Thanks to Sarah Woods. "The New Jersey state senate approved a bill Thursday giving same-sex couples many of the state-level rights available to legally married couples, and the governor is expected to sign it into law, which would make New Jersey the fifth state to recognize domestic partners." Once more on Britney, with gusto, from the Washington Blade: SO LET ME get this, uh, straight: Britney can grab any guy, go to a cheesy wedding place, which incidentally offers drive-thru service, get hitched in a ceremony reminiscent of a drunken trip to 7-Eleven, and immediately gain more than 1,000 legal rights as a married person, even if she'll never use any of them. It'll take more than a Big Gulp and a bag of Cheetos to digest that insult. And what makes the whole thing so incredibly ludicrous is that they got the marriage annulled a mere 55 hours later. Fifty-five hours of a prank marriage, and we can't marry legally for 55 seconds. So, all you right wing, holier than thou, Bible-thumping zealots, how's that for preserving the sanctity of marriage? Why hasn't the world, as we know it, come to an end when a heterosexual couple makes "a mockery of this scared institution"? "SINGLE MOTHERS, FAR FROM ALONE" is a heartbreaking must-read from yesterday's New York Times. In it, reporter Alan Feuer gives a sensitive but straightforward profile of two poor, single mothers from the Bronx. The headline may try to give a positive spin to their situation, but it's tough to be sanguine when the story starts like this: Last year, as she does every year, Brunilda Bonilla hung a condom on the Christmas tree. There it was in its little plastic package, dangling among the shiny lights and baubles, should either of her daughters be in need.DEFINING DEVIANCY DOWN: When Silky's daughter, Michelle, was born, it was a joyful day. After all, Ms. Bonilla was now a grandmother. It was also a sobering day: Silky -- like Ms. Bonilla -- would be raising the child without the presence of a man.A man? What about without the presence of a husband? Or the presence of the child's father? A FATHER'S LEGACY: Silky, who grew up without her father, became a single mother herself at age 18. For her own part, Silky seems to hold no grudge against her father. "My father taught me that if there's no man in my life, I can do it by myself," she said. "Even though he may not live with us anymore, that was the lesson he had to teach."Would that make any father proud? Silky also said, "When I knew that I was going to raise Michelle myself, I really understood everything my mother went through. When I think about it now, it makes me proud."I can only imagine Ms. Bonilla's efforts to provide for her family. Despite the stereotype of the lazy single mom on welfare, many poor, single mothers probably work much harder, and certainly in more unforgiving conditions, than the typical American. (Read about Elizabeth Jones, Corean Brothers, or Making Ends Meet). Ms. Bonilla should be proud of her success in getting off welfare. In her situation, just surviving seems like a struggle. But something is awry when a 24-year-old woman is proud to have become a single mother at age 18. FAR FROM ALONE?: Recall the headline. "Single Mothers, Far From Alone." It conjures up Carol Stack's story of poor single mothers who "adapt[] to their poverty conditions by forming large, resilient, lifelong support networks based on friendship and family that were very powerful, highly structured and surprisingly complex." Defenders of family diversity (read: apologists for father absence) always trumpet such networks to "explode the myth" that the single-parent family structure might be lacking. Now, from the article itself: The hard part, Silky said, is not in putting food on the table, or clothes in the dresser, or even gifts beneath the tree. The hard part, she said, comes when Michelle gets sick and there is no one there to hold her hand. Of course, there is no guarantee that these absent fathers would be trustworthy fathers. Based on the article, they certainly don't appear to be responsible men. There are no easy answers. But, going back to the article's beginning, with the condom on the Christmas tree, I can't help but wonder: If Barbara's father were at home, would he allow his 18-year-old daughter's boyfriend to sleep over in her bed? UPDATE: I just realized that, by focusing on Ms. Bonilla's and Silky's stories, I misinterpreted the headline "Single Mothers, Far From Alone." The Times most likely meant to highlight that almost one-third of Bronx households are headed by single mothers. I.e., single mothers are far from alone; these days, they're quite common. That fact makes the article's implications all the more troubling. My mistake actually highlights a tragic irony. Thursday, January 08, 2026
Mary Ann Glendon and Hadley Arkes have an interesting suggestion for the Massachusetts legislature in light of Goodridge. Someone who knows tells me that this idea is more than an op-ed. Stay tuned. More from Stephen Baskerville, now the head of the largest fathers rights group (40,000 members) in the U.S.: It is impossible to overestimate the burden that weighs upon our shoulders. We face a government that threatens our children, our lives, our Constitution, and quite possibly the very basis of civilization itself. Before our very eyes we see history's greatest experiment in human freedom being debased into a ruthless, depraved, diabolical tyranny. It has fallen to us "to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime." But this tyranny does not come from abroad; it has arisen in our very midst. It is a tyranny of cowards, that hides in secret courtrooms and protected offices, that fears the citizens it ostensibly serves, while cynically using and abusing innocent children ...Would you trust a man who talks this way to do anything that mattered to you? "Most unwed parents say marriage helps kids". From Ron Mincy, a new study: Most Louisiana men and women who have children out of wedlock believe marriage benefits children, but few think the institutionalized union will make the parents happier, according to an 18-month study ... Almost all the women surveyed wanted "father involvement" regardless of whether a marriage occurs, said the study's lead author, Ron Mincy, a professor of social welfare policy at Columbia University in New York. Almost all wanted a father who would spend time with the child as well as provide emotional, spiritual and financial support and safety, he said. In general, the men had more positive attitudes about marriage than the women, who are food stamp recipients who never married, Mincy said. Many of the women reassess their relationship with the child's biological father after they get pregnant, looking at him as a potential father and husband, Mincy said. In that new light, the women pull out of the relationship primarily because of infidelity and "relationship problems" that were less relevant before the pregnancy, Mincy said. In general, the women and the fathers of their children said they didn't think they should marry until they had more money saved and were better educated. The reality, though, is that they're more likely to achieve those goals as a married couple, Mincy said. From Ellen Goodman: "Britney Spears aids gay marriage: Weekend fling illuminates flaw in 'sanctity' defense". Essentially this essay is the same blah-blah, but this sentence caught my eye: The state's interest in marriage is based largely on the public interest in -- hold your breath here -- stable relationships.I like and respect Ellen Goodman, but again, when it comes to basic definitions, it's the silly season. "Stable relationships" is the main reason for the state's interest in marriage? Sorry, not even close! Why can't smart people manage to say it: Since marriage began, everywhere in the world, the state interest in the institution has been based, first, on establishing the mother-father child raising unit; and second, on regulating the male-female sexual bond, in part (but only in part) in order to enhance "stability." My relationship with my best friend since childhood is stable, but the state has no interest in, or history of, regulating it or calling it marriage. It's hard even to get to the hard questions when the simplest and most self-evident facts get lost in the mist. DOES IT INSULT KIDS TO SAY THEY NEED PARENTS? Ashley Doherty writes about Maggie Gallagher's column, which I posted a comment on yesterday: Might some of the divergence between Ms. Gallagher's point of view, and that of her airplane seatmate, be due to different interpretations of the word "need"? Perhaps Doherty is right that the young man Maggie Gallagher conversed with thought she implied he was irrevocably screwed up for lack of a father in the home. If so, it could have contributed to his tragic statement that his own future children won’t necessarily "need" him either. But what Doherty really points to is a big flaw in children of divorce research that has bothered me and others for a long time. Too much research on children of divorce (and children of fragmented families more generally) has focused only on the question, "How screwed up are they?" Experts create lists of symptoms -- severe depression, suicide attempts, mental illness, incarceration, teen pregnancy, etc. If children of divorce grow up and don't have one of these major problems then everybody says they’re "fine." The experts then proceed to ignore the ones they've decided are "fine" and just argue about whether children of divorce end up with more symptoms than kids from intact families (Which, by the way, they do, with a major study by M. Hetherington, for instance, finding that 20-25% of kids of divorce end up with major social or psychological problems compared to 10% of kids from intact families. A wealth of other studies reach similar or even more striking conclusions.) Research examining serious symptoms associated with divorce is very important, but there are two major problems with limiting your research to that question. One, too many experts, like Hetherington, then conclude that those 75-80% of kids who are "fine" are in the majority, so divorce must not be such a big deal (even though any other social process that resulted in two to two and a half times as many kids ending up with severe long-term social and psychological problems would prompt our social leaders to declare "war" on it). Two, asking only how many kids are screwed up is setting a very low bar on our expectations for children's lives. Parents and society alike should not ask merely whether something will screw kids up. They should also ask what are the best circumstances in which children can thrive. Kids don't necessarily "need" fresh air, sunshine, exercise, good nutrition, quality schooling, or regular doctor visits either. But an awful lot of people agree that, whenever possible, our society should do everything it can do ensure that children have access to resources like these. Yes, most children of divorce survive the experience without disabling problems, just as plenty of kids with poor nutrition don't drop dead by 18. But very few children of divorce will say the divorce was just fine and no big deal for them. In fact, as my forthcoming book will argue based on a new national study, divorce radically restructures childhood, rearranging its basic building blocks and throwing much of what we take for granted about childhood up for grabs. And, as a child of divorce who didn't feel irrevocably screwed up, but who knew that something distinctive had happened to me as a result of my parents' divorce, something that too many people seemed to want to ignore because I had managed to pull through it relatively intact, the kind of misunderstanding Doherty points out is exactly the reason why I've plugged away at this rather depressing topic for almost seven years now. Doherty says the young man on the plane may have been insulted by an implication that he was screwed up. I'll tell you what's even more insulting, and much more common -- to have people literally look you up and down, comment on your record of higher education, good manners, happy marriage, whatever, and say to you, "Well, you look fine to me, so that disrupted childhood must not have been such a big deal, eh?" Try saying that to anyone who has survived a wrenching childhood experience and see what kind of reaction you get. Wednesday, January 07, 2026
STEPHEN BASKERVILLE is the new president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, a fathers' rights group. He has an long, overwrought, slightly paranoid call to arms on Men's News Daily: Defeat is not an option, because we fight for our very survival and for the survival of our children, and of their children. We will comport ourselves with dignified outrage. We will never cross the line into violence. But neither will we relent, withdraw, or surrender. And if we are struck down, others will rise up in our place.One sign that a movement might be a bit iffy is if they feel the need to make assurances (repeatedly, in this case) that they won't become violent. Here's more on Baskerville. "Majority of Massachusetts Voters Opposed to Homosexual Marriage, Poll Suggests" -- it's also worth noting that the poll was sponsored by an anti-SSM coalition. DEFINING STANDARDS DOWN? From a Republican-American editorial: An out-of-state reader asks: "Britney Spears can get married in Las Vegas on a whim (and have it annulled later the same day), but gay people such as myself who have been together in a loving, faithful, monogamous relationship with one partner for over a dozen years are not allowed to marry because some say we would damage the institution of marriage. Is something wrong with this picture?"I think the editors miss the point. Generally speaking, gays and lesbians aren't arguing that they would "heal" the institution of marriage, but that it's unfair to exclude committed, serious same-sex couples from marriage when the law accepts drunken, joke marriages between heteros as valid. And, frankly, the analogy that gays are to marriage as cheaters and Bill Bennett are to baseball is offensive because it assumes that there is something wrong with homosexuality per se. Many same-sex couples aren't looking to expand the "variety of behaviors that are considered acceptable within [marriage]" except insofar as they want to get rid of sex discrimination. The core social norms of marital behavior (loving, being committed, etc.) wouldn't change. Of course, the radicals do want to expand the variety of acceptable behaviors, i.e., weaken the notion that marriage = monogamy = sexual exclusivity. Whether and how same-sex marriage would change social norms of acceptable marital behavior is what's up for debate. That said, the editors are right that the "We aren't as bad as Britney" argument should carry little weight. David explained why here. DO YOUR KIDS NEED YOU? Be sure to read Maggie Gallagher's column that David posted below. She asks, "What message will same-sex marriage send to the next generation?" and relates a recent, impromptu discussion with a college student about SSM and family structure in general. He's from a divorced family and basically feels like he came out OK (though maybe his brother had problems), and he knows people being raised by gays and lesbians, so kids must be OK with any kind of family structure. So Maggie asks, do you think your own kids will need you some day? He pauses, then concludes, well, not necessarily. Maggie calls this a "train wreck," and she's right. This young man has already absorbed the message wrought by growing up in a divorce culture -- that kids don't necessarily need a father. This message that will be solidified in law and made a new norm with legalized SSM, which will state in law that children don't necessarily need their father or their mother. As she points out, how can a young man who can't imagine his own indispensability to his future children possibly grow up to be a good husband and father? And, as I wondered reading her column, what kind of self-worth can a young person have if they think their future children would be fine without them? "A majority of Harvard students agree with a recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that declared a ban on gay marriage unconstitutional. Roughly 77 percent of students said in a mid-December Crimson poll that they support the Supreme Judicial Court's November decision." OK, just one more time, on Vegas weddings: No, it's a big business. More than 120,000 marriage licenses were issued by Clark County in 2003, and an estimated 1 million visitors came to southern Nevada to attend a wedding, either theirs or someone else's. The courthouse is open for licenses every night until midnight and 24 hours on holidays. Couples can get married here at a drive-up window while seated in their cars. They can be married by a Dr. Spock look-alike or by an Elvis impersonator. Many proper churches are available, too, as well as elegant, traditional chapels. Most take walk-ins, and some weddings are as cheap as $200.Of course, analysts for some time have been stressing that the main thing about Vegas today is that the rest of the country is becoming more and more like it. Another insight into Britney: "Felder said couples sometimes opt for an annulment to avoid the stigma of a divorce ... " Not to mention, I guess he forgot to add, avoiding the publicity. From Michael Triplett: Your comments about Britney and the fight over SSM actually clarified a major problem with the "debate:" the two sides are not debating the same issue. Your discussion of redefining marriage and weakening the culture is the debate being had by SSM opponents. The loss of important legal rights and legal recognition is what is being debated by SSM proponents. As long as the two sides continue to debate entirely different issues, there is never going to be a resolution.I agree. Tuesday, January 06, 2026
OH WELL: At Tapped, Matthew Yglesias says that Stephanie Coontz's WaPo piece is "the op-ed you actually need to read." IGNORANCE IS NO EXCUSE: In a speech at a "Strengthening Families" conference, New Zealand's Minister of Social Development, Steve Maharey, said he knew "of no social science that says the nuclear family is more successful than other kinds." My goodness. Is it that hard to get briefed on the research? I'm quite willing to concede that there is plenty of social science that suggests family structure is not that important for children (such studies often aren't convincing, though, for numerous reasons). But rather than discuss research, Maharey merely accuses those who disagree with him of being driven by ideology (yet he is not, of course). He frames the debate as between warm, tolerant, accepting good people who care about children and cold-hearted ideologues who don't. Lindsay Mitchell of the Institute for Liberal Values (!) exposes Maharey's intellectual unseriousness. (Hat tip to Throop Logs). Tom called it. From yesterday's andrewsullivan.com: We live a world in which Britney Spears just engaged in something "sacred" (in the president's words), where instant and joke hetero marriages and divorces are a subject of titillation, and where a decades-long monogamous lesbian marriage is a threat to civilization as we know it. Please. Can we have a smidgen of consistency here?Today's NYT jumps in with not one but two letters making the same point. I'm glad that people are criticizing Britney Spears. What she did was stupid and harmful. But before we all agree, or are told a thousand times, that this episode demonstrates that opposition to SSM is hypocritical or invalid, I think it's fair to point out that using this incident to make this point is itself largely invalid. First, the SSM debate is not and has never been about whether some people, gay or straight, do or would do dumb things that mock or trivialize marriage. Unfortunately there are such people, and always will be, but SS couples are not prevented from marrying because society somehow worries that some of them might be as thoughtless and immature as Britney Spears. I doubt any are, anyway. So that's not the real issue here. Here's the real issue we are debating. When heteros fail at marriage, or even when they act stupidly in marriage, or treat marriage contemptuously, they inflict damage on the norms of marriage, but they do not in doing so remove or replace those norms. Legally redefining marriage to include SS couples would eliminate entirely in law, and greatly weaken in the culture as a whole, the norm of every child needing a mother and a father. This is a big deal. What Spears did was to mock a norm and fail egregiously as an individual to meet a norm. SSM would, in some important respects for the society as a whole, replace that norm with a new norm. Neither is good, but the two are clearly not the same, and we ultimately do ourselves no favors, no matter which side of this issue we are on, by using one to score a cheap point about another. AUTHORITATIVE COMMUNITITES, ANYONE? A fascinating article on the relationship between "collective efficacy" and crime. The basic idea: "the most important influence on a neighborhood's crime rate is neighbors' willingness to act, when needed, for one another's benefit, and particularly for the benefit of one another's children." Monday, January 05, 2026
UNVEILED IN FRANCE: A suburban Paris mayor has banned religious symbols from civil weddings, notably Islamic veils. I'm a big fan of secularism, but this is a ridiculous infringment of religious liberty. Matt Taylor replies: First of all, I think I was unclear when I said "the suggestion of anti-gay bigotry strikes me as a red herring". I didn't mean that you are using it as a red herring, but that they are. People whose view on marriage differs from yours should not accuse you of anti'gay bias; doing so diverts attention from the more important question of childrens' welfare. You have made clear many times that you are not morally opposed to homosexuality per se, which should be enough to satisfy such critics. BRITNEY SPEARS WEDS...sort of.... I can already hear Andrew Sullivan saying, "If a drunken Britney Spears can get married as a joke/publicity stunt...." Matt Taylor replies to my earlier post, specifically to this paragraph: "Yet normalizing the use of radical reproductive technologies to facilitate the new norm of married SS couples is not even my biggest fear. My biggest fear, the one that seems likely to affect many more children, is that a new norm of SS married parenting would reinforce the idea that children in general -- whether born of straights or gays -- do not need their own mother and father. When SSM becomes a new norm, those of us who advocate, for instance, for children of divorced or single parents will be challenged by people who argue, "Well, children of same sex couples don't grow up with their father or mother either. Are you saying there is something wrong with them?" Those who suggest that children need their mother and father will be charged with homosexual bigotry; indeed in the current debate at times we already have been. And because most people fear the charge of bigotry (myself included), in silent deference to the marriage rights of gays and lesbians more and more people will avoid saying boldly what used to be a simple proposition -- that children need their father and mother." He writes: In the hypothetical debate you describe, the suggestion of anti-gay bigotry strikes me as a red herring. Assuming that the discussion is among straight people, the accusation would carry little weight, since it was the accuser who "played the gay card". One might reply that same-sex parenting is not relevant to the topic at hand (divorce, single parenting, etc.), since gay couples, like infertile straight couples, cannot have children through sex. Fertile, straight adults, on the other hand, can take the shortest path to a child’s happiness -- marriage. Matt Taylor makes some good points. But let me say that I don't think the charge of bigotry is a red herring. In the recent debates we have all seen some gays and straights charge anyone who opposes SSM with bigotry. The charge does not only come from gays, though like the charge of racism it probably has even more power when it comes from a member of the oppressed group. Unfortunately, I don't think my fear that legalized SSM will undermine the mother-father norm can be easily offset by saying that SS couples, like infertile couples, cannot have children through sex. SS couples and infertile couples alike can use radical reproductive technologies to produce a child, and the use of these technologies is increasingly widely accepted. Indeed, because they were created first for infertile couples, who everybody sympathizes with, few have been willing to question their implications. I think legalized SSM would only further institutionalize the use of these technologies. Those who oppose them would be charged not only with cruelty to infertile couples but also anti-gay bigotry, a powerful one-two punch. I'm intrigued by Matt's idea that "The central message would be that all parents should arrange their lives to the maximum benefit of their children." I agree that should be the central message. But the question is whether creating intentionally fatherless or motherless children, or claiming that any child does not need a father or mother, could ever be construed as adults "arranging their lives to the maximum benefit of their children." From the WaPo, more on teen sex culture: "Sex Bracelets? Only if Your Wrist's in the Gutter." Seems that this trend has been a bit over-interpreted. "WELCOME TO AMERIKA": An article from Men's News Daily on "divorce self-defense" in "Amerika." Reading it will give you a good sense of the basic ethos of the contemporary fathers rights movement, and why I think that, despite some valid grievances and an occasional voice of sanity and reason, this movement as currently constituted is less a solution than a sad illustration of the problem. Sunday, January 04, 2026
Barry Maley on the need to reform no-fault divorce. I basically agree with him, especially his contention that no-fault is fundamentally unjust. DOG GONE: "When we got divorced there was no way he was going to get the dogs," said Zimmerman, 32, of Livingston. "I don't anticipate ever having children, and my animals mean that much to me." It's not unheard of in dog-friendly Montana for splitting couples to go toe-to-toe over who gets the dogs. Lawyers, veterinarians and shelter officials say they regularly deal with dogs caught between owners who are getting divorced. "People fight over dogs," said Carolyn Parker, a Bozeman divorce attorney. THE PRESBYTERIANS RE-THINK: A lot of us were pretty dismayed -- see here and here -- with last summer's draft Pesbyterian report on families, which, thank goodness, ended up being rejected by the General Assembly. A recently completed new draft would appear to be substantially more intellectually and morally serious: The latest draft of a much-contested policy paper on families has a new name, a new theological backbone, and a new emphasis on what it calls the "marital-biological" relationship between a man and a woman as the ideal foundation for the Christian family. Its key assertion is that it is "preferable, on the whole," for children to be raised by a mother and a father who are married to each other and live in the same home. It also repeats the key assertion of the original, controversial version, that "God works through all kinds of families" -- but takes pains to point out that some kinds are better than others ...I like the balance they seem to be striking. What an amazing improvement! From the WaPo, more on teen girls' sexuality: Partway Gay? For Some Teen Girls, Sexual Preference Is A Shifting Concept |
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