NOM BLOG

Category Archives: Children

"Privacy for All Students" Effort Continues to Gain Steam

PFAS

We've been keeping our readers informed about the ongoing efforts in California to overturn AB 1266, the "Co-ed Bathroom Law" - efforts which have brought together a broad coalition effort in the Privacy for All Students campaign, including NOM California and NOM's political consultant Frank Schubert.

In case you missed it, Frank was interviewed last Friday for National Review Online and explained to Alec Torres why he is optimistic about the initiative underway there:

Once people become aware of [the law], then they oppose it.... We’ve done a survey and what we’ve found is that only 35 percent of voters support this law, and 51 percent oppose it. When you [talk with individuals and] go through the pro and con arguments, we end up at over 60 percent opposition to the law.

A victorious repeal of the law is almost certain if the matter can be put on the ballot. That's what the Privacy for All Students coalition is busy working to do, gathering petition signatures to meet a November 8th deadline.

To find out how you can help, visit the coalition's website today.

Sometimes There's Only One Right Word

The French writer Gustave Flaubert famously spent weeks sometimes pondering a single word looking for just the right one - what he called "le mot juste."

flaubert

Flaubert recognized that sometimes there really is only one perfect term to describe the essence of a particular thing. Well, there is one perfect word to describe our culture's dissonant approach to marriage and family, and that word is incoherent.

An article in yesterday's Washington Times reports that there is a growing concern about "irresponsible fatherhood" in our society: "Despite myriad efforts by fatherhood programs, too many men are ending up in multiple relationships, with multiple children from multiple mothers."

An expert quoted in the article suggests that men need to "advised... to 'slow down,' 'prepare for fatherhood,' realize that a mother and child are 'a package' and 'take time' to select a loving partner and future mother."

Erasing the First Amendment

But these efforts to address a very real concern are incoherent in a cultural context where powerful forces are pushing a radical agenda to redefine marriage and thereby necessarily redefine the roles of parents, making 'fatherhood' an expendable option and devaluing the unique services that men and women each provide in raising children.

To preserve and promote fatherhood requires first that we preserve and promote the true definition of marriage. Marriage is like a key-word for a cipher which, when you get it wrong, causes all the connected code-words to fall apart too. Fatherhood depends on the meaning of the unique and special union of one man and one woman.  And for that union, le mot juste is "marriage."

"As Close to an Ideal Test as We've Seen"

Over at Public Discourse, Professor Mark Regnerus reports on the important new study from Canada which we told you about yesterday.

Regnerus shares his opinions on the research by Douglas Allen published in the Review of the Economics of the Household last week:

FamilyEvery study has its limitations, and this one does too.... [but] its limitations are modest in comparison to its remarkable and unique strengths—a rigorous and thorough analysis of a massive, nationally-representative dataset from a country whose government has long affirmed same-sex couples and parenting. It is as close to an ideal test as we’ve seen yet.

The study’s publication continues the emergence of new, population-based research in this domain, much of which has undermined scholarly and popular claims about equivalence between same-sex and opposite-sex households echoed by activists and reflected in recent legal proceedings about same-sex marriage.

Read Professor Regnerus' full piece here.

Facts Are Stubborn Things

The famous line from founding father John Adams comes to mind with the publication of yet another study - published in a peer reviewed academic journal - that demonstrates the negative outcomes for children when they are denied the love of either a mother or a father. Maggie Gallagher reports on the study over at NRO:

Just-the-FactsUsing Canadian census data, a very large and therefore representative database, Canadian professor Douglas Allen of Simon Frazier University finds that children raised by intact, married biological parents do better than children raised by same-sex couples.

So once again science confirms the truth about the importance of marriage that the wisdom of the ages and common sense have always told us: marriage matters because kids need and deserve a mom and a dad. Redefining marriage, though, means that kids as a norm will be denied at least one of these parents' vital role in their lives - and there are consequences, whether we like it or not. Facts are stubborn things.

National Organization for Marriage California Backs Effort to Repeal Co-ed Bathroom Law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 20, 2013
Contact: Elizabeth Ray or Matille Thebolt (703-683-5004)


"AB1266, the co-ed bathroom law, is a horrible attempt by activists to strip society of all gender roles and uses children as a weapon in their culture war." — Brian Brown, NOM president —

National Organization for Marriage

Sacramento, CA — The National Organization for Marriage California (NOM) today announced that it has joined in the fight to repeal California's first-in-the-nation co-ed bathroom law, AB 1266. NOM is urging its members in California to assist in the effort to gather the nearly 505,000 required voter signatures to place the repeal on the November 2014 ballot, suspending the law until Californians can vote to reject it.

"AB1266, the co-ed bathroom law, is a horrible attempt by activists to strip society of all gender roles and uses children as a weapon in their culture war," said Brian Brown, NOM's president. "The National Organization for Marriage fully supports the efforts of the Privacy for All Students coalition to repeal this dangerous law. Opening our most vulnerable areas at school including showers, bathrooms and changing rooms to members of the opposite sex is politically-correct madness that risks the privacy and security of our children and grandchildren."

NOM has long warned that when marriage is redefined, other important social norms are soon destroyed. In June 2013, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the backers of Proposition 8 preserving marriage did not have the legal standing to bring an appeal of a lower court ruling finding traditional marriage laws to be unconstitutional, which resulted in same-sex marriage being imposed on the state in violation of the direct decision of the people themselves.

"Not even two short months after the US Supreme Court refused to uphold the right of over 7 million Californians to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, the California Legislature passed AB 1266, the school co-ed bathroom law," said Brown. "They are forcing our school children to be exposed in showers and bathrooms to members of the opposite sex who claim a 'gender identity' with that sex. This new law doesn't prevent bullying - it is bullying. It is not about protecting kids; it damages kids."

The Privacy for All Students coalition is attempting to stop the law's implementation by gathering nearly 505,000 voter signatures by early November. The law will then be suspended until the people have the chance to reject it at the general election to be held in November 2014.

"We urge all our supporters to download a petition and to financially support the Privacy For All Students coalition effort," Brown said.

The National Organization for Marriage expects to play a significant role in getting the referendum on the ballot as it did in the Prop 8 campaign in 2008.

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To schedule an interview with Brian Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage, please contact Elizabeth Ray (x130), [email protected], or Matille Thebolt (x143), [email protected], at 703-683-5004.

Paid for by The National Organization for Marriage, Brian Brown, president. 2029 K Street NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20006, not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. New § 68A.405(1)(f) & (h).

60% of Children Still Live with Married Parents

Mainstream media would have you believe that the traditional family is no longer “normal.” In fact, just watching television you see shows like “Modern Family” and “The New Normal.” Everywhere you turn media and pop culture push the lie that true marriage and family is becoming extinct.

FF-chartWell we know that’s not true and a recent report by familyfact.org paints a much more optimistic picture. Fully two-thirds of children live in a married home, and 60% of them live with their married biological or adoptive parents.

Not only does this common sense good news put the lie to what mainstream media and gay ‘marriage’ activists wish you to believe about our culture, but it also points to healthy children in the future. It is telling that the source for the report is the US Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and America’s Children: Key Indicators of National Well-Being *[emphasis added]. Even the US Census Bureau knows that the family structure a child grows up in is an indicator of their future *well-being.

The data also gives hope because 60% of America’s children are growing up in Family Structures that researcher Mark Regnerus identified as the ideal places for children to develop. His 2012 “Family Structures Study” showed definitively that children who are raised with their married biological parents do best on a host of important indicators of health and general well-being. Close second to the Intact Biological Family were adoptive families.

So there’s hope for our kids. The “New Normal” does not exist. America still believes in the importance of marriage, moms and dads, and raising the next generation.

'Til Death Do Us Part, or 3 Years, Whichever Comes First

Yesterday we told you about two competing perspectives on marriage – one focused on the desires of adults, the other on the needs and rights of children. In the end we talked about marriage as the social fabric that holds our culture together.

Well today, here’s another set of competing perspectives: Is marriage a permanent commitment or simply a commodity to be tried out on a leasing basis, like a car or an apartment? From the deep south of all places comes the idea of the ‘marriage lease’, as Fox Memphis reports:

WedleaseWhat if marriage was like leasing a car?

After a couple years, you could renew the relationship or just walk away, with no fuss. A Florida lawyer says now might be the time to consider short-term marriages.

In other words: a wed lease.

Read more here.

Marriage Connects More Than Just Men and Women; it Creates the Fabric of Society

At the heart of the marriage debate are two very different views of marriage. The view of most same-sex ‘marriage’ advocates is that marriage primarily satisfies the desires of the adults involved. On the other hand, the historical view is that marriage is a public good, not solely designed towards the satisfaction of adult desires. It is the place that children do best, and have the best chance of growing into the responsible citizens every society needs. In short, marriage is the fabric of society.

Today in the Public Discourse, Andrew T. Walker discusses marriage as it relates to community and kinship:

Family HistoryThe needs and goods of the political community define the reciprocal nature of natural marriage. The political community needs marriage because it is, according to James Q. Wilson, “a socially arranged solution for the problem of getting people to stay together and care for children that the mere desire for children, and the sex that makes children possible, does not solve.” Marriage also gives order (goods) by fashioning bonds of community that foster connection to family, neighborhood, and society.

When speaking about the uniquely child-centered nature of marriage, we need to be equally adamant that marriage is a socially-centered institution. While marriage is a good in itself, marriage’s ontological nature is intimately linked to its social purpose.

If we grant kinship’s centrality to marriage, same-sex relationships not only fail as to what constitutes a marriage, but same-sex relationships also fail the kinship test. Redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships enacts a legal fiction that the organic contours of society neither intuitively recognize nor posit. Same-sex marriage does not contribute to the kinship model. If natural marriage bestows life in way that is socially-oriented and centrifugal, then we might say that same-sex marriage is centripetal. In same-sex marriage, the emotional, non-generative unions of adults become the center.

Read more on the Public Discourse here.

When Do Commodified IVF Practices Turn Into Human Trafficking?

From redefining marriage to intentional single parenthood, we're seeing the prioritization of adult desires over the needs of children with increased frequency. The voices of children are silent, either because they're too young to articulate their own needs ...or they can't speak up about those needs at all.

As a society, how often do we consider the rights of donor-conceived people? The human beings who are literally 'manufactured' so that adults can end up with exactly what they want for themselves. Shouldn't birth be less about adults, and more about the life of the new person?

Alana Newman, founder of Anonymous Us

Alana Newman, founder of Anonymous Us

We’ve created a class of people who are manufactured, and treat them as less-than-fully human, demanding that they be grateful for whatever circumstances we give them. While fathers of traditionally conceived human beings are chased down and forced to make child support payments as a minimal standard of care, people conceived commercially are reprimanded when they question the anonymous voids that their biological fathers so “lovingly” left.

The crimes against the donor-conceived bend time and space. The adults that betray us do so before official personhood, which is the loophole through which this new form of human trafficking is made possible. Is gamete-selling all that different from baby-selling?

Today, human rights do not apply to the donor-conceived child because her humanity has been deconstructed and she is a product to please adults, a thing to service others and be consumed. She does not have a father like other people, nor a mother. She only has donors and “intended” parents. If she complains about the discrepancy, the world will ask her threateningly, would you rather not exist?

She fears what they’ll do if she answers honestly. -Alana S. Newman for MercatorNet

Today, IVF is even becoming a commodity in the stock market, which – by only a degree of separation – means in a very real way embryos are being monetized and commodified. Not much of a stretch to view many of these practices as legitimate human trafficking.

The Growing Trend of Intentional Single Fatherhood

Winnipeg Free Press examines the growing trend of single men who have decided they want children, and the fact that those children will be intentionally denied of a mother - during their upbringing and throughout their lives - is all but irrelevant.

At 42, [Trey Powell] is a new addition to the ranks of men who intentionally seek the role of single father. While some opt Baby for Salefor adoption, others yearn to have children with genetic ties and are willing to invest $100,000 or more to make that happen.

There are no firm numbers of how many men have taken this route. It's clearly still a rarity, although Growing Generations, a leading for-profit surrogacy agency in Los Angeles, says its caseload of single men has risen steadily and totalled about 25 cases last year.

"We tell people to budget $125,000 to $150,000 for a single baby, and $150,000 to $175,000 for twins," said Stuart Bell, co-owner of Growing Generations.

Those figures include compensation of $8,000 to $10,000 for the egg donor, and at least $25,000 for the surrogate mother who gives birth after being impregnated with an implanted embryo.

Though male clients have the option of enlisting an egg donor on their own, Bell said most make their choice from a pool of women recruited by Growing Generations. The clients aren't told the names of the possible egg donors, but see videos of them and learn extensive details about their health, education and genetic history.

Like Trey Powell, [Alan] Bernstein is gay and grew into adulthood never expecting that fatherhood would be a realistic and enticing option.

Read the full article here.

What Divorce Really Does to Children - in Their Own Shattering Words

UK Daily Mail has a heartbreaking article out today on how disintegrating marriages impact children, even well into adulthood. More often than not, divorce rips apart a child's world at a time when he/she does not have a voice or any control over the situation, and that pain can last a lifetime. Another example of adults prioritizing their own desires over the needs of children. And in a way, denying basic common sense that children need and deserve both their mother and father in their lives. Sound familiar?

"If you're divorced, or thinking about it, their testimony will shake you to the core."

DivorceI can still recall the sight of my boy dissolving, sobbing, still not believing that his parents would no longer live together.

I remember the message he recorded on his little cassette player, how he begged his dad to come back - and in turn the hackneyed platitudes delivered by the man who never understood, never wanted to understand, what he did to his child. 

The children in this documentary seemed like castaways, hungry and thirsty, dying to speak to someone about what happened to them and ask their parents questions still  left unanswered.

...I did my best to protect and steer my son through our divorce, but all too rarely are children caught in the middle of a divorce told why it is happening. And while some parents claim such an attitude is to protect them, in reality, of course, it's the adults whose interests and emotions are protected.

Conversations, you see, mess up game plans. They interfere with personal freedom and gratification. And induce guilt, that irksome emotion, for which there is no place in our modern world.

Separation, lone parents, remarriages, and the ensuing step-parents and siblings - the after-effects of divorce are now part of the fabric of 'normal' family life.

Read the full article here and get more info on filmmaker Olly Lambert's documentary, Mum and Dad are Splitting Up, on the BBC.

New Zealand Legislators Committed "Arrogant Act of Cultural Vandalism"

New Zealand held its first same-sex ceremonies yesterday, which you've probably heard something about in the news over the past 24 hours. The media has been at it again, celebrating NZ same-sex weddings with as much hype as possible, all the while ignoring the fact that legislators redefined marriage back in April despite strong opposition and very little debate at the time.

You won't hear much about it in the mainstream media, but conservative groups, religious leaders, and Kiwis across the nation are speaking out this week, saying that the new law "defies the national mood and common sense". We agree.

Wellington, New Zealand“Despite their grandiose view, the politicians never had the authority to redefine marriage,” said Bob McCoskrie, the national director of Family First NZ. “They committed an arrogant act of cultural vandalism with no clear public mandate."

Many people have commented on the bias in reporting on the day’s events. The mainstream media featured laudatory coverage of the weddings themselves, giving little attention to opponents' views.

Australian couple Trent Kandler and Paul McCarthy were flown from Australia to Wellington by Tourism New Zealand, where a “wedding” was held at the national museum, Te Papa.

NewspaperAir NZ provided an in-flight “wedding” ceremony for a lesbian couple, Lynley Bendall and Ally Wanikau, where Jesse Tyler Fergusson from the TV series Modern Family was present. The package included a honeymoon at a Palms Spring Resort in the U.S.

Lance Huxford is calling for people to complain to the media, saying he is “shocked at the unbalanced coverage of the same sex marriage law coming into effect on both TV 1 and TV 3.”

“We must continue to speak up for marriage as uniting a man and a woman with each other and any children born from that union” Dame Colleen Bayer, national director of Family Life International NZ, said. “For the sake of our children, we cannot stand by and let marriage be mocked.” -LifeSiteNews

Defend Marriage Lobby Day in Illinois!

If you live in Illinois, mark your calendar now! The Illinois Family Institute will be hosting the second annual Defend Marriage Lobby Day & Prayer Watch on Wednesday, October 23rd.  This is an incredibly important opportunity to stand for marriage.  The Illinois legislature is coming back into session for 3 days and homosexual-'marriage' advocates have dedicated $3 million to winning over the courageous black legislators who stood for marriage earlier this year.  Let these men and women know that you stand with them.

IFI_Lobby-Day-Oct-23-2013_2upJoin IFI and Illinois families from around the state to take a stand to protect marriage, religious freedom, parental rights and the innocence of our children! Plan to bring your family and friends AND organize your church to support this second Defend Marriage Lobby Day.

It is critically important that we have a strong showing because homosexual activists continue to press for counterfeit "marriage" (SB 10), which will affect all of society, especially children and religious freedom.  The groups pushing to pass this bill are planning to be at the Capitol on October 22nd, the day before our event. According to a 6-12-13 Windy City Times article, they have dubbed it "10.000 Families March for Marriage Equality."

Wednesday, October 23rd
9:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Illinois State Capitol
401 South 2nd St, Springfield, IL 62701

Download the flyer here.

Not All Children Raised by Gay Parents Support Same-Sex Marriage

In a 2012 landmark study on same-sex parenting (and its long-term effects on children), sociologist Mark Regnerus' identified 248 adults who were raised by couples in same-sex romantic relationships and gave reports unfavorable to the same-sex marriage agenda.

Robert Oscar Lopez

Robert Oscar Lopez

Robert Oscar Lopez bravely shares his own personal story on what it was like to be raised by two women, and what he missed out on:

Quite simply, growing up with gay parents was very difficult, and not because of prejudice from neighbors. People in our community didn’t really know what was going on in the house. To most outside observers, I was a well-raised, high-achieving child, finishing high school with straight A’s.

Inside, however, I was confused. When your home life is so drastically different from everyone around you, in a fundamental way striking at basic physical relations, you grow up weird. I have no mental health disorders or biological conditions. I just grew up in a house so unusual that I was destined to exist as a social outcast.

My peers learned all the unwritten rules of decorum and body language in their homes; they understood what was appropriate to say in certain settings and what wasn’t; they learned both traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine social mechanisms.

Same-Sex ParentingEven if my peers’ parents were divorced, and many of them were, they still grew up seeing male and female social models. They learned, typically, how to be bold and unflinching from male figures and how to write thank-you cards and be sensitive from female figures. These are stereotypes, of course, but stereotypes come in handy when you inevitably leave the safety of your lesbian mom’s trailer and have to work and survive in a world where everybody thinks in stereotypical terms, even gays.

I had no male figure at all to follow, and my mother and her partner were both unlike traditional fathers or traditional mothers. As a result, I had very few recognizable social cues to offer potential male or female friends, since I was neither confident nor sensitive to others. Thus I befriended people rarely and alienated others easily. Gay people who grew up in straight parents’ households may have struggled with their sexual orientation; but when it came to the vast social universe of adaptations not dealing with sexuality—how to act, how to speak, how to behave—they had the advantage of learning at home. Many gays don’t realize what a blessing it was to be reared in a traditional home. -LifeSiteNews

Mothers and fathers both play unique roles in a child's life. Take a look at the findings from Dr. Regnerus' study at www.familystructurestudies.com.

NOM Regional Director Christopher Plante on Relevant Radio

Chris PlanteOur own Chris Plante, Regional Director for NOM-Rhode Island, appeared on the Drew Mariani Show today to discuss attacks on marriage and our religious liberties, and also how we can continue to build a strong marriage culture for the future.

The segment begins around the 33:00 mark: