This ‘Expert’ Claims Gay Parents Are Bad For Kids, But Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Listen

The Huffington Post  | by  Kate Abbey-Lambertz

– March 4, 2014

An expert witness in the federal trial on Michigan’s gay marriage ban who found that same-sex relationships have a negative effect on children was denounced by his own university.

Sociologist Mark Regnerus was a witness for the state of Michigan, which is being challenged on its gay marriage ban. The author of a controversial 2012 study, Regnerus found that children who grew up in a house where a parent eventually had a same-sex relationship had more difficulties and said that the lack of evidence on the effects of same-sex relationships is a reason for the state to proceed with caution when it comes to legalizing gay marriage.

“Until we get more evidence, we should be skeptical. … It’s prudent for the state to retain its definition of marriage to one man, one woman,” Regnerus said during his testimony in the case Monday, according to the Associated Press.

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in Legal / Parenting / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Opponents of Same-Sex Marriage Take Bad-for-Children Argument to Court

New York Times – February 23, 2014 – By Erik Eckholm

As they reel from a succession of defeats in courtrooms and legislatures, opponents of same-sex marriage have a new chance this week to play one of their most emotional and, they hope, potent cards: the claim that having parents of the same sex is bad for children.

In a federal court in Detroit starting Tuesday, in the first trial of its kind in years, the social science research on family structure and child progress will be openly debated, with expert testimony and cross-examination, offering an unusual public dissection of the methods of sociology and the intersection of science and politics.

Scholars testifying in defense of Michigan’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage aim to sow doubt about the wisdom of change. They brandish a few sharply disputed recent studies — the fruits of a concerted and expensive effort by conservatives to sponsor research by sympathetic scholars — to suggest that children of same-sex couples do not fare as well as those raised by married heterosexuals.

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in Legal / Parenting / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Federal Judge Overturns Virginia’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban

New York Times, by Eric Eckholm, February 14, 2014

A federal judge on Thursday evening declared that Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, in the strongest legal reversal yet of restrictive marriage amendments that exist throughout the South.

“Our Constitution declares that ‘all men’ are created equal,” wrote Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen of United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, in Norfolk. “Surely this means all of us.”

The ruling, which overturned a constitutional amendment adopted by Virginia voters in 2006 as well as previous laws, also said that Virginia must respect same-sex marriages that were carried out legally in other states.

But opponents of same-sex marriage have vowed to appeal the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, and Judge Wright Allen stayed the execution of Thursday’s ruling pending the appeal.

This week, a federal judge in Kentucky ruled that the state must honor same-sex marriages legally performed in other states, but the ruling did not address Kentucky’s own ban on such marriages.

If the Court of Appeals upholds Thursday’s decision, the repercussions in the South could be wide. Similar amendments limiting marriage to a man and a woman would most likely be voided in other states of the Fourth Circuit, including North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia. (Maryland, the fifth member, approved same-sex marriage in 2012.)

But many legal experts believe that this case, or another among the dozens now being argued in federal district or appeals courts around the country, will eventually be taken up by the United States Supreme Court.

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in In the News / Legal / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Russia halts adoptions to Sweden over gay nuptials

TheLocal.se, October 4th, 2013

Russia has stopped all adoptions to Swedish parents due to a court decision banning international adoptions to countries which afford homosexual couples equal marriage rights.

“It’s terrible. We have 13 children in Russian orphanages today who have been offered to parents in Sweden who they have actually met,” said Jonas Friberg at the Adoptioncentrum agency in Sweden to Sveriges Television (SVT).

Representatives of the Russian authorities and the Swedish embassy met yesterday to discuss the legal situation with regard to adoptions of Russian children. Russia is seeking to sign agreements with individual countries to ensure that Russian children do not come to LGBT parents, according to the SVT report.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry has confirmed that no formal negotiations have begun, but the meeting concerned an attempt to clarify what the new law means in practice.

Russian politician Vitaly Milonov meanwhile called homosexuals “perverts” in an interview with SVT broadcast on Thursday, arguing that children would be better off staying in Russian orphanages.

in Adoption / In the News / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

HuffingtonPost.com, June 20, 2013

Exodus International, a large Christian ministry that claimed to offer a “cure” for homosexuality, plans to shut down.

In a press release posted on the ministry’s website Wednesday night, the board of directors announced the decision to close after nearly four decades.

“We’re not negating the ways God used Exodus to positively affect thousands of people, but a new generation of Christians is looking for change — and they want to be heard,” Exodus board member Tony Moore said.

The closure comes less than a day after Exodus released a statement apologizing to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community for years of undue judgment, by the organization and from the Christian Church as a whole.

“Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we’ve ceased to be a living, breathing organism. For quite some time we’ve been imprisoned in a worldview that’s neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical,” said Alan Chambers, president of Exodus.

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in In the News / Parenting / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

Top Anti-Gay Attorney Insults Chief Justice Roberts And Justice Thomas’ Decisions To Adopt Children

ThinkProgress.org, By Ian Millhiser on Mar 14, 2013

When President Bush announced his decision to nominate future-Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court, his wife Jane stood nearby holding the hands of two beautiful children — Jack and Josie Roberts. Both of these children were born in Ireland, and later adopted by the future Chief Justice and his wife. Justice Clarence Thomas also has an adopted son, his grandnephew Mark Martin, Jr., who Thomas adopted when Martin was six.

So it is a bit hard to understand why a top anti-gay advocate decided to insult adoptive parents in general — and Chief Justice Roberts in particular — as the justices are preparing to hear two cases that will decide whether same-sex couples will enjoy the same right to marry as all other Americans. According to John Eastman, a law professor and chair of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, Roberts and Thomas’ adopted children are only growing up in the “second-best” environment:

The justices also are not immune to considering how they might be affected by the course one side or the other is advocating in a dispute before them. . . . [Johns Hopkins Sociology Professor Andrew] Cherlin, who does not follow the high court especially closely, wondered whether the gay marriage cases might take on a similar dynamic. “If justices consider their own family lives in these cases, it may change the way they rule,” he said.

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in Adoption / In the News / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments

New Pope: Francis believes gay adoption is child abuse

Argentina’s Jorge Mario Bergoglio was chosen by the conclave of cardinals as the next leader of the Roman Catholic Church
| By Joe Morgan – GayStarNews.com

Pope Francis was elected as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church today (13 March).

Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, was chosen by the conclave of 115 cardinals as a successor to Benedict XVI.

Tens of thousands of faithful Catholics broke into cheers as the white smoke indicated the new pontiff had obtained the required two thirds majority, which happened in the fifth round of voting over two days.

Francis is still a conservative choice, but has taught the ‘importance of respecting gay individuals’.

However he strongly opposed same-sex marriage legislation introduced in 2010 by the Argentine government, calling it a ‘destructive attack on God’s plan’.

In a letter to the monasteries of Buenos Aires, he wrote: ‘Let’s not be naive, we’re not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God.

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in Adoption / In the News / Religious  by Anthony Brown 0 comments