After declaring a California voter initiative wrongly passed because he disagreed with the citizens’ conclusion, Judge Vaughn Walker took it upon himself to declare anyone who disagreed with him ineligible to appeal to a higher court. Case closed, he thought. He was wrong. Read more…
Gotta love the first paragraph.
Re-examining the essential characteristics of marriage.
Abraham Lincoln once asked how many legs a dog has if we call a tail a leg. The answer, he said, is four: calling a tail a leg does not make it so. We chuckle and move on.
But what if people began to argue that a tail really is a leg? They might say that what defines the leg is that it is an appendage of the dog’s body, that it contains bone and muscle covered with skin and fur—just like a tail. Tails just happen to come out of the body at a different angle than other legs. When a tail hangs down low, who can tell the difference? Read more…
Ed Whelan at the NRO Bench Memos provides the best analysis of Judge Walker’s overreach in his overturn of Prop 8. Today, Ed discusses the significance of the Ninth Circuit’s Stay order in the case. In case you missed the news, Judge Walker had originally ordered that same sex marriages begin immediately. The Proponents of Prop 8 asked him for a “stay,” until the appeals process is completed. Judge Walker issued a stay for 6 days. When the Proponents appealled that decision, the Ninth Circuit agreed with them, and ordered a stay, and expedited the case. Oral arguments will begin the week of December 6th.
Here is some of what Ed has to say:
The Ninth Circuit’s grant of a stay of Judge Walker’s judgment pending appeal provides yet further compelling evidence that Walker has gone utterly bonkers in his egregious mishandling of this case. Walker’s denial of the stay threatened to dramatically alter the status quo before a higher court could even review his radical ruling. Read more…
(August 11, 2010) Dr J appears on radio program Point of View, where she and host Penna Dexter discuss Judge Walker’s recent Proposition 8 ruling.
Oh boy. Here we go.
The evidence shows that gay marriage is equal to or better than traditional marriage, according to a Federal Court judge. But what sort of evidence?
In one sense, Judge Walker can’t be blamed for his decision since he was provided a great deal of inaccurate and incomplete information through the trial process. I hope that future amicus briefs will be able to correct those deficiencies. Read more…
What gays can teach straights about marriage, according to some people.
Of all the things that Tom and Tina Average might want for their marriage, one they have quite likely never thought of is innovation. It is the kind of word they might look for in the home improvement pages of the weekend paper or on their favourite consumer website, but not in a marriage guidance brochure. Read more…
This is a refreshing headline. Family time is important for good mental health, especially family dinners, which would be totally cramped by sports.
By SUE SHELLENBARGER
Mark Breier sees big benefits for his three sons in playing sports. But when his teenage son Travis, dreaming of a pro career, wanted to join an elite traveling basketball team in junior-high school, Mr. Breier said no. Read more…
I admit surprise at this one.
THE GIST: Contrary to popular belief, relationship woes bother men more than they bother women.
THE SOURCE: “Nonmarital Romantic Relationships and Mental Health in Early Adulthood: Does the Association Differ for Women and Men?” The Journal of Health and Social Behavior, June 2010. Read more…
As if there were only a couple…
Besides every other issue dividing politicians and the culture, which seem to abound right now, the battle for the legalization of same-sex marriage is throwing more heat than light on the larger issue of human rights.
In the past two weeks, Hawaii’s governor had to pronounce on state legislation that would have permitted gay marriage. She said no. Read more…
My basic summary of this article? “Waaaaaaa!” -Parents
I have never been a fan of Time, so the recent news that the magazine is withdrawing a lot of free content from its online version did not cost me one wink of sleep. But this week’s cover story promoting the one-child family as the new American family model annoyed me — at least, what I read of it from other sources as well as the summary Time published online.
What’s at issue here is not how many children any particular couple have, which is their own business, but the suggestion that society as a whole has outgrown the need for more than one, or at least the ability to afford a bigger family. Read more…
I think this is fair. People who want the pill can simply go to a different pharmacy. Big deal. This reminds me a little of the counseling student issue. Surely they could have worked something out there, too. But perhaps I’m naive about people’s open-mindedness going both ways.
by Cristina Alarcon
One American state has thought better of its policy to browbeat pharmacists into selling the morning after pill. Read more…
What do you all think about this article?
by Frank Turek
When one judge overturned the will of more than seven million Californians last week in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, he listed 80 supposed “findings of fact” (FF) as evidence that Proposition 8 violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Many of those 80 findings are not facts at all. They’re lies or distortions. Read more…
Robert George is on the Hugh Hewitt show right now, with Timothy George and Chuck Colson, talking about the Prop 8 Overturn and the Manhattan Declaration.
Push the “Listen Live” button.
Fox News has a poll on the Prop 8 Overturn. It is worded in an odd way, to give opponents two ways to answer, thus possibly skewing the results.
Still, this very non-scientific poll creates the impression that no one cares about the Overturn and that same sex marriage is inevitable.
Go take it. suggest it to your friends.
I have been reading lots of disappointed commentary about the defense of Prop 8. “If only we had a better defense team, more witnesses, better witnesses, etc.” I have had people contact me telling me they wish I had testified. Others write to volunteer their services in Public Relations, Advertizing or even Lawyering.
What I take from all this is that a) people are frustrated and b) people want to Do Something to help.
I understand. Really I do. And I appreciate the confidence that people are showing in me by asking these questions, and suggesting that I would have done better on the stand.
But just as a matter of professional courtesy and Christian humility, I am unwilling to second guess the attorneys or the expert witnesses. After beginning to read Judge Walker’s opinion this morning, I am even less willing to second guess the Protect Marriage team. In particular, I have a renewed respect for David Blankenhorn, the one witness the Proponents of Prop 8 called to testify on the social purpose of marriage. Read more…
By Todd Starnes
A federal judge has ruled in favor of a public university that removed a Christian student from its graduate program in school counseling over her belief that homosexuality is morally wrong. Monday’s ruling, according to Julea Ward’s attorneys, could result in Christian students across the country being expelled from public university for similar views.
“It’s a very dangerous precedent,” Jeremy Tedesco, legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, told FOX News Radio. “The ruling doesn’t say that explicitly, but that’s what is going to happen.” Read more…
by Elizabeth Marquardt
A scruffy man, tanned and good-looking, dressed in an old leather jacket and snug jeans, is on a motorcycle zipping through a neighborhood near you. He’s a restaurateur into “local” everything, a man whose produce vendor is one among many sexy women who want to hook up with him. He was also, years ago, a sperm donor who, unbeknownst to him, achieved reproductive success. Read more…
Book outlines stark divisions
By Cheryl Wetzstein, The Washington Times
Young parents Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston may have gotten engaged again recently, but they are still a quintessential “red” family trying to swim against the tide of family change, say two family law professors who have launched a debate about “red” and “blue” American families.
The 2004 and 2008 elections showed a divided America — and that division extends even to families, Naomi Cahn and June Carbone write in their book, “Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture.” Read more…
The End of Men recently published in the Atlantic, can’t decide whether the marginalization of men from the family, the economy and the academy, is a nightmare or a dream come true. Steve Baskerville takes on the questions no one else will and says what no one else will say. The End of Men is not a naturally occuring result of natural forces, but something aggressively constructed by committed ideologues:
While elite feminists did assume previously male occupations, many more women have entered the workforce in professionalized versions of traditional homemaker roles. This has transformed childrearing and other domestic tasks from private family matters into public, communal, and taxable activities, necessarily expanding the size and power of the state and leading to the creation of vast bureaucracies to oversee public education and social services. Read more…
by Colin Mason
Cyril Connolly once said that “there is no more somber enemy of good art than the pram in the hallway.” Connelly is here suggesting that the distractions implicit in rearing a child will undercut an artist’s attempt to create, so children are to be avoided insofar as possible.
I have long believed that Connelly is wrong in opposing children to art. So I was pleasantly surprised, recently, to see my view validated by Frank Cottrell Boyce, a successful British screenwriter, novelist and actor. Boyce’s article, entitled “The Parent Trap: Art After Children” and appearing in Britain’s Guardian, makes the case that children, far from inhibiting or destroying an artist’s creativity, are actually a creative boon. He has this to say about fatherhood and art:
What is “me”, if not the sum of all my relationships and obligations? A customer, that’s what. The more you give, the more you are. Think of Chekhov, with his patients and his crowds of dependent relatives, whose living room became such a public space that he had to put up no smoking signs. His advice to young writers was “travel third class”. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s was to “buy carrots and turnips” … Read more…
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