The entertainment industry centered on Hollywood has helped reshape Americans’ views on sexuality, family and marriage.

But this change results from Hollywood’s powerful homosexual culture, whose ideological leaders tolerate no dissent — even from other homosexuals — and who have filled a vacuum in the industry left by the absence of faithful Christians.

... More than 5,000 members of the rich and famous attended the Los Angeles GLAAD Media Awards in April, which honored President Bill Clinton with the Advocate for Change Award. Clinton has apologized for signing into federal law the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which now faces a constitutional challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court.

However, GLAAD has made known that not all homosexuals in Hollywood are welcome, especially when they step out of line with GLAAD’s agenda. Bret Easton Ellis, screenwriter and author of the book American Psycho, took to Twitter to claim that GLAAD had banned him from the awards ceremony over controversial tweets criticizing what he called the “politically correct gay agenda.”

GLAAD's vice president of communications, Rich Ferraro, told the Hollywood Reporter that GLAAD did not want Ellis and his tweets overshadowing an event “advocating for equality in the Boy Scouts, marriage and across the country.”

In the face of the continued national push to legalize same-sex marriage, individuals who believe in the longstanding social institution comprising only of one man and one woman are urged to join a recently launched campaign to support traditional marriage.

The new campaign, "God's Marriage Bow," was created by the Salt & Light Council, who is backing a new movement. They want supporters of traditional marriage to wear white bows in symbolic reference to the unity and purity of traditional marriage.

"The white color stands in contrast to the rainbow colors that advocate same-sex marriage," Dran Reese, President of the Salt & Light Council, said in a statement.

... The campaign began on March 26 to coincide with the first day of Supreme Court oral arguments concerning the future of marriage in America.

Well, just in case anyone should think this is idle speculation and thought experiment, consider news coming out of Canada today:

A Canadian court is assembling an unprecedented set of testimonies and legal briefs about the pros and cons of polygamy. The goal is to answer the question of whether Canada’s anti-polygamy law is constitutional.

But, as the story reveals, there is still cause for hope. The case to legalize polygamous unions faces an uphill battle, against some formidable forces -- for example, the scholarship of Professor Joseph Henrich from the University of British Columbia.

Henrich has written of monogamy that it is "one of the foundations of Western civilization, and may explain why democratic ideals and notions of human rights first emerged as a Western phenomenon."

This much, at least, is not news to us. Let's hope that the Court recognizes this fact enshrined in the tradition of marriage, too.

"The Boy Scouts' long-standing refusal to admit gay members is deplorable and offensive. But it's also legal. Just because we — or California legislators — might disagree with the discriminatory path the Boy Scouts has taken doesn't mean the organization should be singled out from other nonprofits to lose its tax-exempt status.

... If legislators can go after the Scouts for engaging in legal (though offensive) behavior, what group will they go after next?"

In their recently filed brief before the U.S. Supreme Court, advocates for redefining marriage argued that "gay men and lesbians are a suspect class" and thus need special judicial protection of the "politically powerless."

But making claims to be a minority in need of special judicial protection while simultaneously enjoying the patronage of some of our country's most powerful people, corporations and political entities is disingenuous.

...Unlike African-Americans, who struggled for full recognition and participation in society, homosexual activists and their goals are lionized by practically every powerful cultural institution and center of wealth in America today.

Their political and social war chest -- which includes the backing of Fortune 500 companies and other well-known businesses, politicians and celebrities -- is a far cry from the batons, fire hoses and tear gas that black Americans faced.

"...As marriage gets redefined we’ll see an expansion of government. That’s because gay marriage won’t just happen if government “gets out of the way.” It requires creating a new possibility that will not come to pass if traditional institutions and moral traditions are left alone. Government must intervene. Our moral traditions must be subjected to what activists think of as corrective surgery. With gay marriage we’re sure to get legislation redefining what it means to be a parent, and what it means to be a child, as is already the case in California. In the way of these redefinitions will come programs to “reeducate” John Q. Public to the “new realities.”

Here as elsewhere the progressive project is always political. It sees a problem: The pre-political institutions and traditions of society are violating rights and creating inequalities. Then it reaches for the ready tool for redress and correction, which is almost always the power of government—coercive force.

... Tyranny isn’t just a situation in which the government is telling you what to do at every moment. It’s also a society in which government says that, if necessary, it can. In this respect gay marriage reflects a dramatic enlargement of government. If legislatures and courts can redefine marriage, what can’t it intervene to reshape and re-purpose?

During an interview Sunday, Rep. Matt Salmon's (R-Ariz.) gay sontold KPNX-TV that CNN and MSNBC cancelled interviews with him after he told them he would not bash his father for his stance againstgay marriage.

Matt R. Salmon told KPNX-TV that he is disappointed that his father has not changed his position on gay marriage, however, he still enjoys a good relationship with him and supports him. He also said his father is not a "bigot."

"People want controversy," Salmon said.

Accused of canceling the interviews are MSNBC's "The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell" and CNN's "Piers Morgan Live."

The younger Salmon said MSNBC cancelled his scheduled interview because "they had intended to be critical of him and" he was unwilling to do so. Additionally, he claimed CNN was "very gung ho" about doing an interview but then became disinterested when he reiterated he wouldn't attack his dad.

"...the conservative view [of what would happen if we redefine marriage] has actually had decent predictive power. As the cause of gay marriage has pressed forward, the social link between marriage and childbearing has indeed weakened faster than before. As the public’s shift on the issue has accelerated, so has marriage’s overall decline.

Since Frum warned that gay marriage could advance only at traditional wedlock’s expense, the marriage rate has been falling faster, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has been rising faster, and the substitution of cohabitation for marriage has markedly increased. Underlying these trends is a steady shift in values: Americans are less likely to see children as important to marriage and less likely to see marriage as important to childbearing (the generation gap on gay marriage shows up on unwed parenting as well) than even in the very recent past."

... But there is also a certain willed naïveté to the idea that the advance of gay marriage is unrelated to any other marital trend. For 10 years, America’s only major public debate about marriage and family has featured one side — judges and journalists, celebrities and now finally politicians — pressing the case that modern marriage has nothing to do with the way human beings reproduce themselves, that the procreative understanding of the institution was founded entirely on prejudice, and that the shift away from a male-female marital ideal is analogous to the end of segregation.

A new survey of African Americans shows that most disagree with the claim that the effort to promote gay rights is comparable to the historic movement for racial equality.

About 55 percent of respondents to a Zogby Analytics survey said that equal rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons are not the same as equal rights for African Americans. Only 28 percent agreed, while 17 percent said they are not sure.

The online survey of 1,002 adults used respondents recruited through partners or random telephone samples. It was commissioned by Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, and was conducted Feb. 14 through Feb. 20.

On whether gays and lesbians are "politically powerless" he said:

"I think what John Roberts was asking was a really fascinating question because currently gay marriage activists are claiming that they are politically powerless and that's why we have to strike down laws defending marriage like the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8. Whereas what the Chief Justice is saying is that actually gays and lesbians are very politically powerful -- the President supports them, the Democratic party platform supports them -- and so the idea that we need to strike down laws protecting marriage is absurd. What we need to uphold is that people have the ultimate right to decide marriage laws. The states, the democratic process is working, and we hope the Supreme Court will acknowledge the votes of over 45 million Americans who have voted to protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman."

On the question of whether Americans who are pro-marriage are akin to those who opposed interracial marriage he said:

"Laws against interracial marriage were meant to keep the races separate so they wouldn't have children together and they were wrong, marriage is meant to bring men and women together so they have children which is right. You cannot compare these two things at all and furthermore, I think it's really important what she brought up, the 45 million Americans who have voted to protect marriage are not motivated by animus towards gay people, they're motivated out of love for the institution, and [crosstalk] if the Supreme Court were to rule that laws defining marriage are akin to bigotry, then every person in this country who believes that children have a right to a mother and father will be treated as bigots under the law, that's why Steve and others might agree with me that the Supreme Court's not going to go there. We can work this out through the political process. The debate can continue. Questions as central as marriage should not be decided by the Supreme Court they should be decided by the people."

In an interview aired over the weekend, Rep. Matt J. Salmon (R-Ariz.) told a local news station that his son’s homosexuality has not led him to change his position on gay marriage.

“I don’t support the gay marriage,” the congressman said. But Salmon emphasized that he loved and respected his son and did not consider homosexuality a choice.

“My son is by far one of the most important people in my life. I love him more than I can say,” an emotional Salmon told 3TV. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t have respect, it doesn’t mean that I don’t sympathize with some of the issues. It just means I haven’t evolved to that stage.”

... “We respect each others’ opinions and we just know that on certain issues we have to agree to disagree,” the congressman’s son, Matt R. Salmon, told The Post. “I love my father and realize that he can have the opinions that he has, and they might differ from mine, but that doesn’t change the way I feel about him.”

... Salmon also expressed disappointment in those who have reacted to the interview by leaving “hate speech” on his father’s Facebook page. “If he’s going to change his mind it’s going to come from a place of love,” Salmon said. “All they’re doing is fighting intolerance with intolerance.”

How can you be pro-life unless you are also pro-marriage? I’ve been thinking about that question ever since I moved over from pro-life activism to pro-marriage activism. Since that transition, my conviction that the movements are essentially one has only been reinforced.

Pro-life is in my blood. My parents met at an event to welcome pro-life activists who had been recently bailed out of jail for conducting a peaceful sit-in at an abortion clinic. When I moved to Washington, D.C., five years ago, I knew I would be a pro-life activist, and so I was.

But as my activism matured, so did my conviction that the pro-life movement must become explicitly pro-marriage or risk its future. The Guttmacher Institute tells us that 85% of women who opt for abortion are unmarried. The community most afflicted by abortion, African-Americans, is also the community that suffers the lowest marriage rate.

He concludes with a call for pro-life activists to join the March for Marriage:

"...as an ardent pro-life activist, I’m calling on my fellow pro-life warriors to formally join in the pro-marriage cause. One concrete action we can take in the next months is to show up for the March for Marriage (www.MarriageMarch.org) on March 26 in Washington, D.C, the same day the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Proposition 8 case.

Pro-lifers once needed a scientific instrument — the ultrasound — to renew their cause. Today I believe they only need a bit of encouragement to acknowledge the deeper truth embedded in the biology of the human beings they defend — the truth that unborn children are conceived by men and women. The cultural question which every civilized society before us, and our nation throughout most of its history, has resolved is that this new life deserves to be born and raised by its parents who are united in marriage.

What could be more pro-life than that?"

CNN has posted a transcript -- including this part about the so-called economic argument for redefining marriage:

[CNN HOST] KEILAR: But the point that I'm getting at is that when we talk about this as a business imperative, let's take a look at what this filing says. It says, recognizing the rights of same-sex couples to marry is more than a constitutional issue. It is a business imperative. So what do you think about that? Do you agree with that? Do you disagree with that? Is it about more than that? Is that not enough?

PETERS: I strongly disagree with it, because, first of all, the top 10 states for growth right now in this country, nine of them have marriage protection amendments. And so, you know, where this argument comes from is the left wing, UCLA Williams Institute, which has been peddling this argument for years, that gay marriage is an economic stimulus. The very states that are currently trying to [...] legalize gay marriage, like New York and California, are not exactly in an economic picture of well-being. So, look, strong states like Indiana are moving towards marriage protection amendments. North Carolina recently passed its marriage protection amendment by 61 percent. The fact of the matter is that protecting marriage protects children and it helps businesses.

KEILAR: But, Thomas, let me ask you this. Because you have businesses now that are saying, it's costing us money. They say and this obviously gets a little complicated, but they say, same-sex couples are required to pay a Federal income tax on health benefits provided to a spouse through an employer-sponsored health insurance plan. Some employers reimburse employees for the extra tax paid. That requires extra time and money. They say it's costing them money. Do you disagree with that?

PETERS: Well, let's look at -- you used the adjective complicated and you're right, it is complicated. But here's one complicating factor that I think is being ignored in this broader debate. You know, the president is arguing in the Supreme Court that gays and lesbians are politically powerless class. And now you've been telling me time and time again that all these corporations support redefining marriage.

So I would actually ask Brian [of the Human Rights Campaign], which is it? Are gays and lesbians actually a politically powerless class or do all these corporations, the vast majority of people support redefining marriage because you can't have it both ways -- I believe the majority of Americans believe in protecting marriage and I believe that gays and lesbians are an incredibly powerful political class that are trying to redefine marriage for all of us.

Orson Scott Card, a talented science fiction writer, is part of a team of writers and artists assembled by DC Comics to create an “Adventures of Superman” comic series ahead of the release of the summer Superman film Man of Steel.* Card is also a believer in the Biblical definition of marriage who has the courage to say so.

Orson Scott Card’s views, such as “the left is at war with the family,” and opposition to same sex marriage are reflective of his Christian faith and hardly “out of the mainstream,” but they have now earned him and DC comics a call from homosexual activists for a boycott.

National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown told Fox News he was simply stunned that homosexual activists are trying to destroy a man’s career.

“This is completely un-American and it needs to be stopped,” Brown said. “Simply because we stand up for traditional marriage, some people feel like it is okay to target us for intimidation and punishment.”

Brown called the attacks on Card frightening and said it’s another example of radical homosexual activists trying to punish those who believe marriage should be a union between a man and woman.

“Marriage is the union of a man and a woman,” Brown said. “That is not hateful. That is not bigoted.”

The percentage of U.S. adults who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) ranges from 1.7% in North Dakota to 5.1% in Hawaii and 10% in the District of Columbia, according to Gallup surveys conducted from June-December 2012. Residents in the District of Columbia were most likely to identify as LGBT (10%). Among states, the highest percentage was in Hawaii (5.1%) and the lowest in North Dakota (1.7%), but all states are within two percentage points of the nationwide average of 3.5%.

Orson Scott Card is one of the best-selling science fiction writers alive. He is also a devout Mormon who opposes same-sex marriage. A group of pro-gay comics fans is up in arms over the fact that DC has hired Card to write a new Superman series. The Guardian is making it sound like a huge deal:

... “Superman stands for truth, justice and the American way. Orson Scott Card does not stand for any idea of truth, justice or the American way that I can subscribe to,” said Jono Jarrett of Geeks Out, a gay fan group. “It’s a deeply disappointing and frankly weird choice.”

A film of Ender’s Game, co-produced by Card and starring Harrison Ford, is set to be released in November. Jarrett speculated DC was hoping pre-publicity for the movie would drive sales for the comic.

Fortunately, a gay comic writer quoted in the piece understands that blacklisting Card is offensive:

Dale Lazarov, a gay comic writer, said it was counterproductive to attack Card’s appointment: “I’ve known Orson Scott Card is a raging homophobe since the early 90s. I refuse to buy or read his work. But asking that he be denied work because he is a raging homophobe is taking it too far. Asking for workplace discrimination for any reason is counterproductive for those who want to end discrimination on their own behalf.”

True enough. What does Card’s view on homosexuality have to do with Superman? This is about trying to punish Card for thoughtcrime.

G.K. Chesterton observed in The Superstition of Divorce that “reformers of marriage . . . do not know what it is, or what it is meant to be, or what its supporters suppose it to be . . . .” Marriage opponents, who today seek not to reform but rather redefine marriage, appear to suffer from the problem diagnosed by Chesterton almost a century ago.

In their heedless rush to establish the legitimacy of same-sex marriage, they ignore what marriage is and what marriage does.

Marriage between a man and a woman is a universal good that diverse cultures and faiths have honored and relied upon throughout history. An organic phenomenon of human society without parallel, it has emerged spontaneously and instinctively, as if in answer to a deep and abiding human need for order and stability.

Rooted in biological and social reality, marriage has always been marked, for good reason, by its male-female nature and its undeniable link to procreation and responsible childrearing. Not every couple has a child, but every child has a mother and a father.

A healthy marriage culture helps the gold standard prevail, wherever possible, that children are raised by the parents who brought them into this world. The strong families which result from this arrangement produce a vibrant and self-sustaining society which serves as our best guarantee of limited government...

The Family Research Council shooter, Floyd Lee Corkins II, on Wednesday pleaded guilty to charges that include assault with intent to kill and committing an act of terrorism.

Shockingly enough, Corkins told FBI agents that he chose FRC as a target based on the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate map.”

In case you were unaware, the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated FRC a “hate group” because of the conservative organization’s position on gay marriage:

It is absolutely extraordinary to me that, as of this writing, almost a week after these revelations have been made public, SPLC has still not taken down their hate map.

This hate map includes at the top a photo of (presumably) neo-nazis in military style gear. If you look on the SPLC Hate Map it lists the Family Research Council (and Traditional Values Coalition) as "Anti-Gay". Click on that link and you see this image:

More faces of hate, more provocation.

But it doesn't end there. The SPLC includes a photo of FRC President Tony Perkins alongside images of graphic, anti-gay imagery that FRC and Tony Perkins has condemned repeatedly!

The SPLC Hate Map is not designed to bring hatred to light. It is designed to instigate hatred against the people it lists.

The SPLC still lists the Family Research Council, which so recently would have been the scene of a human massacre were it not for the heroic actions of the security guard who was shot in the process, on this Hate Map. Even after a killer admitted he used this map to find victims and unleash his own hatred at them with a gun.

SPLC, take down your Hate Map. Ending hatred starts with you.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION BY SIGNING THE PETITION FOR SPLC TO TAKE DOWN ITS HATE MAP HERE.

Even if all the market reforms of the Washington think tanks, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes Magazine were enacted, we’d still need to kiss the Great American Economy goodbye. Below the level of economic policy lies a society that is producing fewer people capable of hard work, especially married men with children. As the retreat from marriage continues apace, there are fewer and fewer of these men, resulting in a slowly, permanently decelerating economy.

When men get married, their sense of responsibility and drive to provide gives them the incentive to work much harder. This translates into an average 27-percent increase in their productivity and income. With the retreat from marriage, instead of this “marriage premium,” we get more single men (who work the least), more cohabiting men (who work less than married men), and more divorced men (who fall between the singles and cohabiters).

All this is visible in the changing work patterns of our country, resulting in real macro-economic consequences.

Breitbart:

"...It's impossible not to notice that this is precisely what many on the left accused Sarah Palin of doing in January 2011 after Jared Loughner shot Rep. Giffords and several bystanders in a Tucson parking lot. At the time, the left claimed Palin's district map featuring crosshairs might have given Loughner ideas. No connection between the map and the shooting was ever found. Indeed, it turned out Loughner had been obsessed with Giffords before Palin's map even existed.

Now that anti-right, anti-hate SPLC is implicated in providing targets for a politically motivated mass shooter will the national media turn on the SPLC the way they did on Sarah Palin?"

Erick Erickson of RedState:

"...Floyd Lee Corkins, II, who shot a security guard at the Family Research Center as he attempted to shoot up the organization was directly inspired to take action by a list of supposed “hate groups” on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website.

... I hope my friends in the media who spent much time talking about Sarah Palin’s political target map will now talk about the Southern Poverty Law Center’s routine and reckless use of the label “hate group” with which is smears conservatives.

By the way, Palin took down her target map after the controversy. The Southern Poverty Law Center? Crickets..."

HotAir:

"...Why yes, this is eerily similar to the left claiming after Gabby Giffords was shot that Palin’s “crosshairs” election map inspired Jared Loughner. With two differences. First, Loughner was not, in fact, inspired by Palin whereas this guy, per his own plea bargain, did consult the SPLC website in choosing people to kill. Second, you’ll see zero coverage of this inconvenient entry in the canon of political hate in wider media because it can’t be used as a blunt object with which to bludgeon the right.

... Funny thing, though: The SPLC itself was verrrrry quick to try to tie Jared Loughner to the “far right”, and kept at it long enough that they were posting speculative pieces about “political rhetoric” and its role in the Tucson shooting as late as 13 days after it occurred. Not only are they comfortable with a free-speech slippery slope when it’s right-wingers who are at risk, they’re willing and eager to add some grease."

On love and its relation to marriage, Peters says in response to Peter Tatchell:

"The proponent of gay marriage keeps saying "love is love is love" but the fact is there's a difference between the love of two men, and the love of a man and a woman the difference being that the love of a man and a woman, in most cases, ends with a child, and the child needs a mother and a father, a child for its entire biological [upbringing] will need to be raised by will be raised best by its mother and father and so that's why it's absurd to claim there's something ethically wrong with with seeing the love between a man and a woman as being unique -- that's what the core of marriage is, it's not an evaluation of one love versus another, it's saying different loves result in different things, and that's why the vast majority of who will experience love heterosexually and will have a child and that child will need a mother and father and all the social sciences show that children to best when they're raised by their biological mother and father. And so marriage just isn't about the emotional needs of adults, it's about the practical, emotional, psychological, social needs of children and that's why, while you can experiment with marriage for a few years, generationally only a healthy society that understands this core meaning of what love actually means, is a successful society."

On the harm gay marriage causes, Peters provides an illustration:

"There's an awful lot of civil society -- churches, communities, government -- that is all built to support marriage because marriage isn't easy. It's not easy to get men and women to commit to raising the children they make with their bodies. But that's what civil society has been doing and a healthy society does that. It is difficult and gay marriage makes it difficult for all of civil society to enshrine that value that children deserve a mom and a dad, and that men and women should stick around and love and raise the children they make with their bodies, and the detraction of gay marriage has made it impossible for things like the Catholic Church, for things like political/civil government to give that message and so when you say "gay marriage won't hurt anyone" it already has because now when I try to say "a child deserves both mom and a dad" you jump in and say "that's against equality!" and so you can actually see already that the more gay marriage becomes accepted and enshrined in law the more difficult it will become for the rest of us to communicate this life saving propagating message for the next generation."

"... Marriage as it has been defined throughout history - as the union of one man and one woman - is a great cause of unity for any culture, including our own. We know all too well what happens to society when marriage breaks down and government interferes with the rights of men and women to come together and form healthy, lifelong marriages.  The President's obsession with redefining marriage has prevented him in his first term from doing anything of substance to support and advance the institution of marriage for the vast majority of Americans. That is where his emphasis should be. 

Americans remain united in support of the commonsense definition of marriage. A poll taken after the most recent elections showed that 60% of Americans agree that marriage is between one man and one woman. Twenty percent of Americans in that same poll said marriage was one of their top three issues. The vast majority of states define marriage as the union of husband and wife and the vast majority of Americans who have been given a chance to vote on the question have supported that definition as well.

... We eagerly await the Supreme Court's decision on the question of whether Americans have a right to protect marriage in law.

In the meantime, Americans should unite in support of the commonsense definition of marriage. The longer our leaders insist on throwing their words and weight behind the movement to redefine marriage the more they will continue to divide our beloved nation."

"...Already one of the pressure-group leaders who has brought the Scouts to the brink of this change is warning that it does not go far enough:“It’s a step in the right direction, and good to see that B.S.A. is softening its position,” [Zach Wahls] said. “But under the policy change, it will still be possible for some units to discriminate.”

This is a perfect occasion for a reminder of Neuhaus’ Law, named for First Thingsfounding editor Richard John Neuhaus, who coined it in a “Public Square” entry in the January 1997 issue titled “The Unhappy Fate of Optional Orthodoxy.” Here is the Law as Fr. Neuhaus himself stated it: “Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.”

As Neuhaus went on to explain, with his usual trenchant insight:

With the older orthodoxy it is possible to disagree, as in having an argument. Evidence, reason, and logic count, in principle at least. Not so with the new orthodoxy. Here disagreement is an intolerable personal affront. It is construed as a denial of others, of their experience of who they are. It is a blasphemous assault on that most high god, “My Identity.” Truth-as-identity is not appealable beyond the assertion of identity. In this game, identity is trumps.

Just so."

An Italian archbishop has revealed that he was confined to his home, forced to remain inside his “besieged” residence, when homosexual activists staged a protest there earlier this month, and warned that gay-rights campaigners aim to prosecute all who oppose their agenda.

... Archbishop Crepaldi said that the protest was organized against him because of “the false and very grave accusation of being intolerant and racist.” He said that gay-rights activists are determined to gain approval for same-sex marriage, and toward that end will accuse all opponents of “homophobia.”

The archbishop warned that the goal of the demonstrators was to define “homophobia” as a crime, in order for “those who say publicly--as the Catholic Church has always done--that the real family is only that founded on marriage between a man and a woman, to be declared homophobic, intolerant, racist, and therefore, subject to criminal prosecution.”

Today the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Quebec can exclude cohabiting couples from receiving spousal support in the event of relationship breakdown.

The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada applauds this decision because it accurately reflects the fact that social science research shows marriage to be substantively different from living common law.

“There is great consensus from social scientists, no matter their political stripe, that marriage is different from living together,” says IMFC Manager of Research Andrea Mrozek. “Unfortunately, the statistical reality is that people living together break up more readily – even if they do eventually wed. They are more likely to have multiple partners. Their children face more problems – higher rates of school dropout, more drug use and an earlier age of sexual initiation. And single parents – typically mothers – are more likely to be poor. These are some of the harsh statistical realities of living together versus getting married, and it is wise to acknowledge this difference,” says Mrozek.

Marriage protects against poverty and remains the most stable manner in which to raise children. Some researchers have even identified that a new class division is emerging along married versus unmarried lines. This is the message of author Kay Hymowitz’s book, Marriage and Caste in America.

I just want to say, flat out…

… Marriage is a really good deal.

Let’s assume for a second that you don’t think of humans as inherently spiritual beings. So let’s remove the fact that married people claim to be happier, more fulfilled, complete and purposeful. Some of you are even thinking,

“Love? Who needs love!”

Okay. Here are a few purely statistical reasons as to why marriage (when done correctly) is conducive to an undeniably better life. Hold onto your butts.

1. You’ll be richer – Yes. Not only do married couples make more, save more, have a higher net worth and qualify for more benefits/financial incentives than lonely, single folk… but your kids will be richer too. Which brings me to my next point

2. Would somebody please think of the children!! – The single biggest indicator of child poverty is whether both original parents are still together. Not only that, but children in married households get better grades, are less disruptive in class and less likely to develop behavioral disorders than children from non-married households. So be married long and prosper. Your kids will too.

Read the other three reasons here!

A Princeton law professor has predicted increasing persecution of Catholic teaching on sexuality, amid accusations by a New York scholar that such teaching creates a culture of rape.

In a Jan. 17 email to CNA, Professor Robert George of Princeton University warned of rising oppression against those who oppose a redefinition of marriage.

Such persecution includes an increase in "the use of 'anti-discrimination' laws to violate the freedom of religious institutions and religious individuals to honor their beliefs about marriage and sexual morality,” he said.

"...The best parallel one could offer [to gay voices against gay marriage in France] is that many Jewish commentators are particularly harsh in their critiques of Israel not in spite of, but rather because of, the Jewish state’s claim of acting in their name. The same dynamic may explain the plethora of gay men who have not only supported but orchestrated the march on Paris to protest gay adoption. The idea of instrumentalizing children’s lives as a way of fulfilling gay aspirations is so abhorrent to a foundational Gallic sense of decency that the gay men who are being invoked to license it seem first in line to denounce it.

It is time for Americans to follow France’s lead. Frigide Barjot, Laurence Tcheng, and Xavier Bongibault have presented us with a game changer. They have given us the necessary rhetoric and republican logic to present a strong case against redefining marriage. They have provided us a playbook for mobilizing across party lines. They’ve presented colorful characters whom we can emulate. I will keep translating the news as it comes in, in the hope that American defenders of the family will be inspired to do as the “march for all” movement has done." (Public Discourse)

"...As David Mills notes below, Wendell Berry has recently claimed that opponents of same-sex marriage are necessarily and categorically rejecting a whole class of people. He tells us this kind of “categorical condemnation is the hatred of the mob” and as such is the worst kind of hate.

"...Throughout history, just states (whether democratic or not) have understood that there are limits to their powers: There are certain things that just states simply cannot do.

With rare exceptions, the just state cannot interfere in the doctor-patient relationship or the lawyer-client relationship; it can never interfere in the priest-penitent relationship; it ought to be extremely chary of interfering in the parent-child relationship (save in obvious cases like abuse); and there are limits (always subject to debate and adjustment) about the state’s reach into the employer-employee relationship. The just state acknowledges the integrity of these primary, fundamental, civil society relationships and protects them legally. It has no business reinventing or redefining those relationships, for the just state exists to serve civil society, not vice versa.

Marriage is the primordial civil society relationship, for it is the basis of the family, which is the primordial civil society institution. That is why, for millennia, states have protected marriage, understood as what it is: the stable union of a man and a woman ordered to the begetting and raising of children. When a state claims the right to alter the definition of marriage to include same-sex relationships, it is tacitly claiming the right to redefine the number of persons who may make a marriage (why stop at two?); it is also tacitly claiming the right to redefine, by governmental fiat, every other pre-existing free association of civil society.

That claim is antithetical to the freedom of individuals, families, and society."  (First Things)

At the rally for marriage last Sunday, she led a spirited public recitation of diverse voices calling on President Hollande to acknowledge their points and understand the damage his proposal to redefine marriage will cause to French children and culture should it be passed:

Here are a couple excerpts from a translation:

"...The marriage for all is a juridical denial of the most elementary reality of humanity, constituted as it is "man and woman", the only union naturally capable of siring new life.

You, President of the Republic -- Will you be the one to float a travesty--that a human being can be born of two men or of two women? "Marriage for all" inscribes fundamental discrimination into our law among children, an inequality between children who will be born of a mother and a father, and children who will be born of two fathers, and children who will be born of two mothers.

...You, President of the Republic, dialogue, working together, participatory democracy, you cannot refuse any longer the growing demand for debate, free of homophobia, which has been expressed in all the countries of the world, by means of these citizen gatherings. You have before you, on the Champ de Mars, a wide representation of the French people.

... The people ask you, Mr. President of the Republic, to SUSPEND without further delay this bill for marriage and adoption for all. It rips apart our country. The people ask you today to convoke a General Estate of the Family, Marriage, Lineage, and the Rights of the Child. In doing so we gesture toward reconciliation and coming together as a nation. We bring this to you peacefully and obediently!"

"...In the thick of the struggle over the law and politics of marriage, we can easily forget how novel is the idea of two men or two women marrying each other.

This fact came home to me when I participated in a forum on the subject at Princeton University last spring. Present in the room were two lions of the liberal academy, each past the “threescore years and ten” of which the Psalmist speaks, each a distinguished scholar with many publications to his credit, each known for his devotion to liberal causes. Both gentlemen expressed the opinion that the cause of same-sex marriage was obviously just, that opponents of the cause were obviously reactionary and benighted, and that this was plainly the new civil rights struggle of our time.''

Yet it struck me that if denying same-sex couples the “right to marry” was such an obvious and gross injustice as to merit such energetic claims today, why had it never occurred to either of these august scholars decades ago, at the beginning or the middle of their careers? In the books of proud advocacy each had published, say, twenty or thirty years ago, there was not the slightest hint that American public life was disfigured by this particular injustice.

Redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships simply didn’t occur to them, because it didn’t occur to anyone. Yet that day they espoused that view with the fervor of men who had always thought so, and for whom it was unthinkable to believe otherwise. If they reflected on this change in their own thinking, would they conclude that their reasoning powers had been deficient years ago, or their moral sympathies inadequate?" -- Public Discourse

If we ask ourselves how it is that the advocacy of gay marriage has become an orthodoxy to which all our political leaders subscribe, we must surely acknowledge that intimidation has some part to play in the matter. Express the slightest hesitation on this score and someone will accuse you of “homophobia”, while others will organise to ensure that, even if nothing else is known about your views, this at least will be notorious. Only someone with nothing to lose can venture to discuss the issue with the measure of circumspection that it invites, and politicians do not figure among the class of people with nothing to lose.

Yet it is unlikely that the ordinary conscience will find itself entirely at ease with a change that overthrows social norms on which people have depended throughout recorded history. In this, as in so many things, people of conservative temperament look around for the person who will speak for them and find only an embarrassed silence. Strident minorities, acting on the growing disposition to censor their opponents, ensure that the deeper the question, the more likely it is to be settled by shallow arguments.

... A request for a "mum" reached number 23 on the list.

Jeremy Paxman hosts a debate with Tim Montgomerie, of the Conservative Home blog, Anne McIntosh MP and the President of a local Conservative association.

Anne McIntosh warns redefining marriage is "very divisive", "ill thought-out" and could have unintended consequences.

Others interviewed by the programme also tell of the damaging effects of the same-sex marriage plans:

There is a particularly good exchange at 12:40 between a man in favor of redefined marriage and a woman in favor of protecting it:

Pro-SSM man: "For me marriage is an incredibly important institution, it doesn't just join two people together it joins the two, couples, loved ones, friends and family together as well. And I think it's right that such an important institution, an incredibly conservative institution doesn't exclude anyone in society and, actually, by introducing equal marriage we broaden and popularize an institution and make it more central to society."

Pro-marriage woman: "But men and women are different. As a one-time divorce lawyer I know that part of the reason that marriage has succeeded as well as it has was for the protection of women and children. And if you actually change the ground rules there are going to be some very confused people out there in the church, in the schools, in society at large..."

Moderator interrupts: "What are they confused about?"

Pro-marriage woman: "About what the implications are..."

Moderator interrupts again: "The commitment of two people..."

Pro- marriage woman: "But we've got that in civil partnerships already. So why is the need to change at this pace?"

A bill proposed by the UK government allows gay marriages, but explicitly forbids the Church of England and the Church in Wales from blessing same-sex couples. British Muslims have criticized the proposition, demanding a similar exception.

The specific naming of the two churches in the bill drew criticism from other religious factions opposed to same-sex marriage. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), which has more than 500 affiliated mosques, charities and schools, said Tuesday it was "appalled" by the proposed legislation.

MCB secretary-general Farooq Murad said he was seeking an urgent meeting with UK Culture Secretary Maria Miller to express the level of intense opposition to the bill among Muslims. "No one in their right mind should accept such a discriminatory law," Murad said. "It should be amended to give exactly the same exemption to all the religions."

"...before the GOP starts working on schemes to pander to singletons, it’s worth considering an alternative path.

Rather than entering a bidding war with the Democratic party for the votes of Julias, perhaps the GOP should try to convince them to get married, instead. At the individual level, there’s nothing wrong with forgoing marriage. But at scale, it is a dangerous proposition for a society. That’s because marriage, as an institution, is helpful to all involved. Survey after survey has shown that married people are happier, wealthier, and healthier than their single counterparts. All of the research suggests that having married parents dramatically improves the well-being of children, both in their youth and later as adults.

As Robert George put it after the election, limited government “cannot be maintained where the marriage culture collapses and families fail to form or easily dissolve. Where these things happen, the health, education, and welfare functions of the family will have to be undertaken by someone, or some institution, and that will sooner or later be the government.” Marriage is what makes the entire Western project—liberalism, the dignity of the human person, the free market, and the limited, democratic state—possible. George continues, “The two greatest institutions ever devised for lifting people out of poverty and enabling them to live in dignity are the market economy and the institution of marriage. These institutions will, in the end, stand or fall together.”

Instead of trying to bribe single America into voting Republican, Republicans might do better by making the argument—to all Americans—that marriage is a pillar of both freedom and liberalism. That it is an arrangement which ought to be celebrated, nurtured, and defended because its health is integral to the success of our grand national experiment. And that Julia and her boyfriend ought to go ahead and tie the knot."

Next week, fourth-grade students at Penn Valley Elementary School in the gilded Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion will spend part of their school day watching and discussing a very clever piece of cinematic propaganda courtesy of organized homosexuality. The film is called That’s a Family!, and it is endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign along with other homosexual activist groups. 

... That’s a Family! is not about tolerance or treating people decently. It is about indoctrination, a fact that its enthusiasts make little attempt to hide. It lists among its endorsers such Democratic worthies as Senator Barbara Boxer, who declares that the film can be used to “break down” attitudes she finds disagreeable. Loret Peterson, a fourth-grade teacher in (of course) San Francisco, wrote that the film provides “a gentle starting point to reach elementary age children with a message of respect for all differences before biases become entrenched and the pressures of middle school set in. . . . We have the opportunity to take an active, moral approach to deflating the power of stereotypes by addressing them in the classroom.”

... There are no cease-fires in the culture wars, because the Left simply will not stop until it has achieved total conformity, which it pursues under the banners of “tolerance” and “diversity,” i.e., a virtue the Left does not possess and a condition the Left will not abide. The front runs through every corporate human-resources office, every college campus, every church, and the fourth-grade classroom at Penn Valley Elementary School, too.

"No one would have bet on it. But after decades of invisibility and torpor, the French Catholic Church has returned vigorously to the public scene.

It was a minority and a minority it remains, in a country where less than 5 percent of the population goes to Sunday Mass, and where baptisms of children are increasingly rare.

But it is one thing to give up, to and another to be creative. That of "creative minority" is the future that pope Joseph Ratzinger himself has assigned to Catholicism in secularized regions. The Church of France is putting this to the test.

The turnaround came all of a sudden. One sign of foreshadowing was, in mid-August, the prayer that the archbishop of Paris, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois (in the photo), had raised to Our Lady of the Assumption: "May children and young people cease to be the object of the desires and conflicts of adults, in order to enjoy fully the love of a father and mother." A furious controversy exploded, in a France on the path to legalizing marriage between persons of the same sex, with the possibility of adopting.

... To Minister Taubira, who told [the Cardinal]: "We are not touching the Bible," the cardinal rebutted that not even he was bringing this into discussion: "It is a question that concerns man, and this is enough."

And this is precisely what is new. Against the law on gay marriage a resistance is mobilizing that is not confessional, but humanistic, of men and women with the most varied visions of the world."

We are less than 1,300 away from reaching 50,000 who have signed our pro-family DumpStarbucks pledge. Please sign today if you have not already!

"As the Ricochet editors mentioned, tomorrow Encounter Books releases my new book, co-authored with Sherif Girgis and Robert P. George, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense. So while blogging at Ricochet this week, I thought I’d explore some of the issues raised by the book—and recent events, thanks to the Supreme Court. Today I’d like to situate the debate over the definition of marriage within its proper context. 

Some people wonder why conservatives choose to focus exclusively on same-sex marriage. The answer is simple: We don’t. First, conservatives always did—and still do—make other social and political efforts to strengthen the marriage culture. The push for same-sex marriage was brought to us. Second, now that this is the live debate, we can’t ignore it, for its outcome will have wider effects on the marriage culture that really is our main concern.

Long before there was a debate about same-sex marriage, there was a debate about marriage. It launched a “marriage movement,” to explain why marriage was good for the men and women who were faithful to its demands, and for the children they reared."

"...Matthew Frank pointed out in these pages that recent Federal Court rulings scoff at the claim that LGBT persons are politically powerless.

... And now comes a new study from the financial services giant Prudential. The study looked at 1,401 LGBT persons aged 25-68 from “urban, suburban, and rural communities throughout the 50 states in August 2012.”

Rather than living in extreme poverty, or poverty of any kind, the study shows that gay individuals and couples are significantly better off than heterosexuals. They are more likely to be employed. They make significant more money. They have much higher levels of disposable income and have more in savings.

... A lawyer in Washington DC recently said the LGBT folks are the most powerful minority group our country has ever seen. They are lauded in the media and in the popular culture. They are better off by any financial measure. And their cause is championed by what Father Neuhaus called the “prestige media.” They are honored and promoted not just at Ivy League schools but in just about every college setting in the United States. And those who oppose them? They are vilified, driven from their jobs and from the public square.

Let us hope that the Supreme Court, which has taken up this issue, looks carefully at the real and privileged position of the homosexual community in the United States. We should all be so discriminated against."

"...same-sex marriage advocates claim that gays and lesbians are politically powerless, unable to make headway in the normal channels of democratic decision-making at the polls and in legislatures, thus needing the aid of the judiciary. As Judge Jones noted in the Nevada case, this claim is refuted by recent history. The president of the United States opposes the Defense of Marriage Act and favors same-sex marriage. Legislatures in some states have established same-sex marriage, and in other states, civil unions. Moreover, Jones noted, the people of four states went to the polls in November to decide this question—and we know what the result was.

...notwithstanding their November victories, they are still leery of democracy in much of the country, even in blue New Jersey, where they have rejected a referendum idea floated by Governor Chris Christie.

But Judge Kay and Judge Jones are quite right. It is ludicrous to call gays and lesbians an oppressed and powerless minority in the United States at the end of 2012. This fact should weigh heavily in the Supreme Court’s deliberations." -- First Things "On the Square" blog

"...John Londregan and Luis Tellez on Public Discourse already have shown why the Republican Party should continue its principled support of life and marriage, but the debate has thus far ignored a critical obstacle to the conservative movement’s efforts to appeal to youth: the American college campus. More than sixty years ago, William F. Buckley, Jr., wrote in God and Man at Yale that on college campuses, “the conservatives, as a minority, are the new radicals.” We remain so today.

After three years at the helm of Harvard’s student conservative movement, I know that the campus is not only liberal but also hostile to conservatives, especially social conservatives. As the Republican Party and fellow conservatives try to appeal to young voters, they must not ignore the university environment in which many of those voters live and learn. The actual state of America’s universities is worse than most Republicans realize, not because conservatives’ efforts have failed but because they have not wholeheartedly been tried. Instead of abandoning fundamental portions of the Republican platform, it’s time for the party to embrace a new one: outreach to America’s universities on social issues." -- The Public Discourse

"Barry and Bonnie Hewlett had been studying the Aka and Ngandu people of central Africa for many years before they began to specifically study the groups' sexuality. As they reported in the journal African Study Monographs, the married couple of anthropologists from Washington State University "decided to systematically study sexual behavior after several campfire discussions with married middle-aged Aka men who mentioned in passing that they had sex three or four times during the night. At first [they] thought it was just men telling their stories, but we talked to women and they verified the men's assertions."

In turning to a dedicated study of sex practices, the Hewletts formally confirmed that the campfire stories were no mere fish tales. Married Aka and Ngandu men and women consistently reported having sex multiple times in a single night. But in the process of verifying this, the Hewletts also incidentally found that homosexuality and masturbation appeared to be foreign to both groups.

... The finding with regard to homosexuality is perhaps not that surprising. As the Hewletts note, other researchers have documented cultures where homosexuality appears not to exist. If homosexual orientation has a genetic component to it -- and there is increasing evidence that it does, in many cases -- then it would not be surprising that this complex human trait (one that involves non-procreative efforts) would be found in some populations but not others.

... But, the Hewletts suggest, "The bonobo view may apply to Euro-Americans (plural), but from an Aka or Ngandu viewpoint, sex is linked to reproduction and building a family." Where sex is work, sex may just work differently." -- The Atlantic

"... [marriage] is a human good. Its goodness stands upon, and flows out of, what we are as human beings. It is good to unite with another person in a comprehensive union. It is good for that union to be of the sort that uniquely completes the one biological function that depends on two persons, male and female. It is good for that union to be of the sort that can and usually does result in offspring, the effusive fruit of the couple’s love. It is good for those children to be raised by their biological parents. It is good for individuals, for couples, for children, for society as a whole, which by the way is the only reason it makes sense for government to be involved in marriage. It is not good to practice or propose any view of marriage that would undermine these goods, just because they are real goods.

They are good because of who we are as humans. And it is our humanity, not any three authors’ opinions, or any religious or conservative political group’s viewpoint, that is the immovable object against which the (seemingly) irresistible force of same-sex “marriage” is pressing itself. There is, after all, an answer to the question, “what is marriage?” In its core (not its accidents but its substance), that answer has been the same the world over in virtually all cultures: a fact which is easily understood in virtue of humans being humans in all cultures the world over."

"...The number of Americans who are living alone has shot up from 9 percent in 1950 to 28 percent today. In 1990, 65 percent of Americans said that children are very important to a successful marriage. Now, only 41 percent of Americans say they believe that. There are now more American houses with dogs than with children.

This is not a phenomenon particular to the United States. In Scandinavia, 40 percent to 45 percent of the people live alone. The number of marriages in Spain has declined from 270,000 in 1975 to 170,000 today, and the number of total Spanish births per year is now lower than it was in the 18th century.

Thirty percent of German women say they do not intend to have children. In a 2011 survey, a majority of Taiwanese women under 50 said they did not want children. Fertility rates in Brazil have dropped from 4.3 babies per woman 35 years ago to 1.9 babies today.

These are all stunningly fast cultural and demographic shifts. The world is moving in the same basic direction, from societies oriented around the two-parent family to cafeteria societies with many options.

This global phenomenon has been expertly analyzed in a report called “The Rise of Post-Familialism: Humanity’s Future?” written by a team of scholars including Joel Kotkin, Anuradha Shroff, Ali Modarres and Wendell Cox."

 

Ken Mehlman is either deluded or disingenuous. The former chairman of the Republican National Committee is among those now trying to bring the Republican Party around to the cause of gay marriage. In today’s Wall Street Journal he made his case.

... Even more ridiculous is the notion that redefining marriage makes government less intrusive. The notion of civil rights that fuels the push for “marriage equality” requires pumping up the power of the state to bulldoze older traditions and attitudes that stand in the way of the full acceptance and affirmation of homosexuality. It’s going to lead to litigation, regulation, mandated school programs and “inclusivity” seminars, and lots of other legislation.

... Mehlman needs to either open his eyes or be honest: the gay rights movement can’t succeed unless and until the apparatus of the state is brought to bear on traditional institutions that don’t treat homosexuality and heterosexuality equally. It’s not just religious institutions. Basic cultural practices such as sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms will be revised—and always under pressure from the courts and government bureaucracies tasked to ensure LGBT rights.

This is in the nature of all progressive projects. The push toward redefining marriage involves creating a new possibility that would not otherwise come to pass if traditional institutions and attitudes were left alone. How will this change be effected. What will have sufficient power to overcome the always substantial solidity of the status quo? Government, of course. That’s why the progressive project is always essentially political.

... Case in point: by Mehlman’s way of thinking, the most basic institution of civil life, marriage itself, is a creation of the modern state to be redefined as the political will sees fit. If we can redefine marriage at such a fundamental level, then what is there in society other than individual choices and the power of the state?

Chad Griffen, president of the $40million-per-year Human Rights Campaign, fresh from four state vote victories and the re-election of a pro-gay marriage president, claims the political power to demand more appointments of lesbian and gay people to the highest political offices in the land:

"...The Human Rights Campaign's Chad Griffin, president of the largest LGBT equality-rights advocacy group and political lobbying organization in the US, is calling for inclusion in the cabinet and other positions.

'We made historic progress with President Obama in terms of our openly LGBT appointments across the board,' Griffin tellsBuzzFeed. 'We now have the opportunity, and I hope this president and this White House will seize the opportunity to have the first openly LGBT Cabinet secretary, the first openly LGBT G-8 ambassador, and across the board with administrative appointments and judges as well." -- GayStarNews

Election Day was a drubbing for marriage. The ballot initiatives to protect marriage lost by over 4% in Maine, Minnesota, Washington State, and Maryland. Those who support same-sex “marriage” reportedly spent over $33 million, while those who defend marriage spent just over $10 million.

Many friends have said that same-sex marriage is inevitable. It is not. I have confidence that fence-sitters will enter the fray in support of traditional marriage. As we continue to debate this issue, three important forces can shift the outcome in favor of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Consider first, public opinion; second, the methods and the message of LGBT activists; and third, reality.

... Ultimately, the future of marriage will not be decided by our likes or our dislikes. Human suffering will periodically remind us that losing a healthy marriage culture produces all kinds of practical costs and penalties. These are measured by those social pathologies that impose a great weight on our society, such as depression, addiction, violence, and illness, as well as missed educational and economic opportunities. However you slice it, the intact biological family continues to be the best “Department of Health, Education and Welfare” when it comes to raising the next generation. Marriage is worth fighting for, even if we lose. Because remember, LGBT activists will lose too as they bring us all down. And that is a sobering thought.

Here is one example that would suggest that gay and lesbian people are not politically powerless:

Rep. Tina Kotek of Oregon will become the first out lesbian to lead a state legislative chamber after being elected House Speaker by her Democratic colleagues Thursday.

The Associated Press reports on the vote, which needs to be formally ratified in January. Kotek told the AP that she knows her success as an openly lesbian official has inspired other LGBT people.

"We all look for people out there who look like us," she said. "I have had emails and text messages from people who are very excited."

Openly gay leaders will control legislative chambers in five states, according to the AP, up from two before the election last week. -- The Advocate

Christian believers and others in Britain are expressing outrage after the country’s leading homosexualist lobby group declared the Cardinal Archbishop of Edinburgh, Keith O’Brien, “Bigot of the Year” for his opposition to “gay marriage”. While Stonewall and some others continue to defend the award category, even some of the group’s greatest supporters have criticized it, saying the designation damages their own cause.

Gerald Warner, a Catholic journalist and sometime policy advisor to the Scottish Conservative party, called the award a sign that the homosexualist movement is sinking further into “homofascism”. He told LifeSiteNews.com, “How would the politically correct media respond if the most prominent Catholic pressure group in Britain last night voted Ben Summerskill, of Stonewall, ‘Weirdo of the Year’? We all know the answer.

“So why is ‘hate speech,’ and even a hate award, acceptable, so long as it is directed against a Prince of the Church for reasserting the timeless and unchangeable doctrine of the Catholic Church as it has stood for 2,000 years?”

While Stonewall and other homosexualist activist groups continue to defend the award, others have said it brings the tenor of the debate down to the level of the schoolyard. --LifeSiteNews

Voters in three states legalized gay marriage on Election Day -- the first time voters in any state had done so. But it wasn't a turning point on the issue, and traditionalists can still win the cultural battle, says Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage.

Some might think Brown is naive, but he notes that supporters of traditional marriage were outspent by a margin of 3-to-1 in liberal-leaning Maine, Maryland and Washington and lost by an average of only 53-47 percent.

"This is not over," Brown told Baptist Press, referencing the nationwide debate over marriage's definition. "... They had a great election from their perspective, but I hope that what this does is wake folks up and energize folks and people realize that [these losses] were not inevitable, same-sex marriage is not inevitable."

"...Marriage traditionalists had a range of reactions to last week's elections. On one end is Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage. "It's absurd to say the fight is over," he said in an interview. "The fight has just begun." He believes that the ballot initiatives succeeded simply because marriage-equality supporters poured so much money into the campaigns. "We could have won these fights with the right amount of money," Brown said.

... Whether optimistic or defeatist about the opinions of Americans as a whole, marriage traditionalists agree on one thing: Their own views on marriage are not changing. "Religious and social conservatives cannot abandon what we believe to be true," Dreher wrote. Jennifer Marshall, director of domestic policy studies for the Heritage Foundation, agreed: "Marriage is deeply linked to children's welfare and our social order," she said. "We are as committed as ever to explaining that relationship."

... Brown put the same sentiments a bit more bluntly. "I believe the idea of same-sex marriage is a profoundly flawed idea," he said. "We're not going to recognize these unions as marriages, ever."

In the United States, some of the referendums held on the same day as the presidential elections in various States have, for the first time, delivered an outcome favourable to same-sex marriages. It is therefore clear that in western countries there is a widespread tendency to modify the classic vision of marriage between a man and woman, or rather to try to give it up, erasing its specific and privileged legal recognition compared to other forms of union.

It is nothing new. This we had already realised. Nevertheless, the matter does not cease to amaze: Because we should be asking if this really corresponds to the feelings of the people, and because the logic of it cannot have a far-sighted outlook for the common good. Not only the Catholic Church is saying this; it was pointed out clearly by the Chief Rabbi of France in a well-reasoned statement. It is not, in fact, a question of avoiding unfair discrimination for homosexuals, since this must and can be guaranteed in other ways. It is a question of admitting that a husband and a wife are publicly recognised as such; and that children who come into the world can know, and say they have, a father and a mother.

In short, preserving a vision of the human person and of human relationships where there is a public acknowledgement of monogamous marriage between a man and woman is an achievement of civilisation. If not, why not contemplate also freely chosen polygamy and, of course, not to discriminate, polyandry? It is not expected, then, the Church will give up proposing that society recognise a specific place for marriage between a man and a woman.

Here is the last exchange between the host and Peters:

Suarez: "Aren't you standing on shifting sand? Given the momentum of the polls, given the momentum of the legal challenges, the losses in various federal appellate courts, the changes in various state laws, maybe you'll win tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, but are you fighting against an inevitability?"

Peters: "No for two important reasons, first of all, I believe in the truth of my pro-marriage views, just as the other side does, and people who have those deep-seated convictions don't look at the changing tides wherever they may be they fight for what's true and what's right. Second of all, I think it's amazing with all of the cultural forces tying to redefine marriage that we're still here in 2012 just barely seeing some footholds gained in deep blue states. I think the future of the marriage movement is bright and ultimately I don't believe history moves in one direction."

"...In my home state, Maryland, a minimum of 23% [100% - (37%/48%) = 23%] of the opposition to same-sex marriage came from Obama/Biden supporters. Earlier in the year, the Maryland House of Delegates only narrowly passed same-sex marriage legislation with just one vote to spare, and that only came with lots of arm-twisting.

These are not overwhelming victories representing a sea change in public attitude toward same-sex marriage. These are tactical wins." -- AmericanThinker

Maryland voters approved same sex-marriage by popular vote Tuesday, a move that has been a cause for debate for Christian Baltimore Ravens safety Bernard Pollard and some of his teammates.

Pollard, 27-year-old NFL safety, said many of his teammates agree with his biblical standpoint on the subject of same-sex marriage.

"When it's all said and done, there are a lot of guys on this team that stand firmly behind what the Bible says -- that a man marries a woman and a woman marries a man," Pollard said in a Mercury News report.

Pollard said he felt that people in power were reshaping important societal principles.

"It shows you that people in high power are changing what was set for a very long time," Pollard said in the Mercury News piece. "These are the principles, man, this is what life is about. But when it's all said and done, they came in and changed it."

"...A sizable portion of those black and hispanic voters voted GOP despite disagreeing with the GOP on fiscal issues. But they are strongly social conservative and could not vote for the party of killing kids and gay marriage. So they voted GOP. 

You throw out the social conservatives and you throw out those hispanic and black voters. Further, you make it harder to attract new hispanic voters who happen to be the most socially conservative voters in the country.

Next, you’ll also see a reduction of probably half the existing GOP base. You won’t make that up with Democrats who suddenly think that because their uterus is safe they can now vote Republican. Most of those people don’t like fiscal conservatism either — often though claiming that they do.

... It’s not time to throw out social conservatives. It’s time to accept that without them the GOP would be even a smaller party even less able to reach out to the hispanic demographic all the smart people say they need to embrace. Addition through subtraction never really works well."

This is off-topic for us, but thought it was an interesting development:

"For most of his life, Blake Smith said, “every inch of my body craved male sexual contact.”

Mr. Smith, 58, who says he believes homosexual behavior is wrong on religious grounds, tried to tough it out. He spent 17 years in a doomed marriage while battling his urges all day, he said, and dreaming about them all night.

But in recent years, as he probed his childhood in counseling and at men’s weekend retreats with names like People Can Change and Journey Into Manhood, “my homosexual feelings have nearly vanished,” Mr. Smith said in an interview at the house in Bakersfield, Calif., he shares with his second wife, who married him eight years ago knowing his history. “In my 50s, for the first time, I can look at a woman and say ‘she’s really hot.’ ”

Mr. Smith is one of thousands of men across the country, often known as “ex-gay,” who believe they have changed their most basic sexual desires through some combination of therapy and prayer — something most scientists say has never been proved possible and is likely an illusion.

Ex-gay men are often closeted, fearing ridicule from gay advocates who accuse them of self-deception and, at the same time, fearing rejection by their church communities as tainted oddities. Here in California, their sense of siege grew more intense in September when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law banning use of widely discredited sexual “conversion therapies” for minors — an assault on their own validity, some ex-gay men feel..."

... In this referendum same-sex marriage advocates are looking to the people of Maine for compassion and understanding to grant them the right to marry with all the marriage entitlements. The privileges of marriage can be available to them under the title of civil unions.

Our reader Tim in MT shared this video with us that he had made after catching Michelangelo Signorile on SiriusXM radio yesterday.

The left-wing radio talker, twice in the segment (at about 2:15 & 3:45) advises his gay Romney-supporting caller to drink arsenic or other poison so he can commit suicide. At 2:57, he tells the young man that he should not be allowed to vote.

We're waiting for Dan Savage to condemn Signorile's (repeated and egregious) advice to this young man in Utah.

"Yesterday on Public Discourse, I described the controversy that followed the publication of the New Family Structures Study (NFSS), led by University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus. During a summer of unusual abuse, Regnerus remained largely silent but with his head unbowed. As autumn arrived, he found himself vindicated as an honest scientist by his university, with continued support from the journal editor who published his research.

Liberal billionaires and millionaires, and Hollywood celebrities -- that's who is bankrolling gay marriage.

Don't let them drown out your voice: visit www.StandforMarriageAmerica.com today!

Since the 2008 presidential campaign, when then-Sen. Barack Obama told the Rev. Rick Warren that he supported traditional marriage defined as the union of “one man and one woman,” the president’s position on this topic has “evolved,” and now, of course, has reversed.

Indeed, Mr. Obama not only has strayed quite a distance from his original position, he has done everything he can to undermine traditional marriage. What’s more, he has sat by idly while activist judges have decided how marriage should be defined. This is bad for marriage and bad for America.

The president’s refusal to defend marriage at the federal level has been an abdication of his constitutional responsibility to execute and enforce the law. He has signaled clearly that if re-elected in November, he will continue this abuse of power to redefine marriage.

The people of Maryland, Minnesota, Washington and Maine have the opportunity to affirm core traditional American values by voting to support traditional marriage on Election Day, Nov. 6. Voters in those states can join the 31 other states that have voted “yes” to preserving marriage through a state constitutional amendment, honoring marriage between a man and a woman now and for future generations.

Seldom has the publication of a dry, factual report in sociology caused such a storm of controversy. In June 2012, the bimonthly peer-reviewed journal Social Science Research published an article by University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus titled, “How different are the children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study.” The answer to his title’s question was: quite a bit different, and most of the differences are not good.

Within minutes, it seemed, Professor Regnerus, a gifted and highly productive scholar with two previous books published on related subjects, was denounced as “anti-gay,” attacked personally and professionally, and his thoughtful, measured research conclusions were buried under an avalanche of invective, abuse, and misunderstanding. For the remainder of the summer months, Regnerus withstood an onslaught of criticism, but as the autumn arrived, it became clear that his reputation and the soundness of his research had been vindicated.

What had happened? [Continue reading...]

"...Rather than assembling outside a church with rosaries and images of the Sacred Heart, these protestors met beneath the Grande Arche de la Défense with some Abba LP’s and a mime. They went, to borrow George Weigel’s phrasing, with the cube rather than the cathedral, and that is significant. The assertion made by such a choice is that marriage is not just a particular religious inheritance but rather something indispensable in every kind of society: Modernity has not outmoded marriage.

We can cheer this canniness while lamenting that faith has become less central to France’s national life. It also reflects a real truth, for opposition to the prime minister’s plans is coming not just from the traditional quarters of society. Another protest, scheduled for November 7, has been signed on to by several left-wing and LGBT organizations. American nightmares of French socialism and liberalism sometimes forget that it’s a country where there are organized socialists for lifeand gay men and women against gay marriage.

The person in a bird costume has one wing with the word Dad (Papa) and one wing with the word Mom (Maman). The bird is learning to fly and to do that it needs the help of both a mom and dad:

"...Adultery is a grave sin for Christians, but it's the sin of giving yourself a partial excusal from the sacred marriage vow -- of unilaterally taking back the gift of your body that you gave at the altar. So how exactly, from a Christian point of view, does breaking the whole vow publicly and explicitly make it better?

I could cite chapter and verse, but let me instead just cite a few examples from the studies published just this year on the harm that divorce causes.

A 2012 study in the International Journal of Public Health looked at 6,928 adults in Alameda County, Calif.. Adults whose parents divorce experienced not only “lowered well-being in adulthood,” but reduced “long-term survival.”

A 2012 study by Leslie Gordon Simons (et al.) looked at more than 2,000 college students: “Results indicate that respondents from continuously married families were more committed to marriage, and this commitment reduced the probability of risky sexual behavior.”

So Dinesh, by choosing divorce, you may not only put at risk your teen's life, health and faith in marriage -- but even her faith in God.

”Parental breakup is associated with religious decline among ... youth characterized by high levels of religious salience,” according to a March 2012 study by Melinda Lundquist Denton.

If we were really close, I would plead with D'Souza: Don't do this. Don't do this to your daughter. Don't do this to the wife of your youth. Don't do this to those former students of yours at King's College, young and idealistic and hopeful about marriage, scared and scarred by divorce."

"...Whether a poly person is looking for stability or sex, the Twin Cities has a group for pretty much any flavor.

A quick search online will show a number of various polyamory meet-up groups or organizations, catering to various ages, backgrounds, and geographical locations throughout the state. MN Poly — the Minnesota Polyamory Network — is the most well-known, and also happens to be the one that has Carrie as a member of the board.

The group officially has a couple hundred active members, but this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to finding a poly group in the area.

... "I remember once in the gay-marriage movement several years ago there was an opinion piece written in another local publication. The right-wing groups and talking heads were all saying things like, 'We can't support gay marriage because the next thing will be polyamorous marriages.' I thought that was interesting because I had never heard polyamory mentioned in the media before," she recalls. "So anyways, this publication wrote an op-ed piece where they said, 'You don't have to worry about polyamorous marriage because polyamory doesn't exist.' That really upset a lot of us because we felt like we were being marginalized."

The group took a stand, organizing a letter-writing campaign (remember letters?) and creating more awareness for the poly community. The results are still being seen today.

"It's a lot different now that we have organized groups, and I think because people have become so much more accepting of the GLBT community and other types of relationships, I think our group and our community is going to continue to grow," Carrie says optimistically. "I think that we are the next equal rights movement, and that poly is going to continue to become increasingly accepted in the future."

City Pages also interviewed a polyamorous mother of two:

Alright, so let's get this part out of the way: How long have you been practicing poly?

My husband, Jim, and I have been married for almost 12 years. We decided to open our marriage up in August of 2009, and I promptly met my boyfriend, Justin, who I've been with for three years.

And how many kids do you have?

I have a daughter who is ten and a son who is eight.

So how did your kids react to you practicing poly?

The things with kids, is that when people are trying to hide something, it's exciting. But we just live our lives and don't really make a big deal out of it, so they don't really think anything of it either.

You never had any sort of talk with your kids about being poly?

Early on, if Justin would spend the night then we'd try and get up before the kids and be like, "Hey, my friend Justin came over for breakfast again!" But eventually we just stopped pretending. Plus my kids get up way too early, so I just couldn't keep that up.

LifeSiteNews has the story:

The first nationwide public demonstration against the French socialist government’s plan to legalize homosexual “marriage” took place today simultaneously in 75 French towns.

The events were organized by “Alliance Vita” and took the form of colorful flash mobs in well-frequented locations, attracting widespread public attention and media coverage.

In every case groups of men dressed in black and women in white separated into two groups symbolizing the fact that every child needs a mother and a father. Holding up bright pink signs saying : “Daddy, Mommy, you shouldn’t tell lies to children”, the “daddies” and “mommies” alternately helped a blundering bird – symbolizing a new-born child – to leave its nest without falling.

Meanwhile Joe Dassin’s sixties hit, “Tout bébé a besoin d’une maman” (“Every baby needs a Mommie to be loved”), and Abba’s Mamma mia were played over loudspeakers.

On the busy main square of Paris business and shopping center “La Défense,” where this author witnessed the event, most of the lookers-on seemed interested and even sympathetic to the message. Young people handing out leaflets in favor of natural marriage said at least 80% of people they spoke with reacted positively.

In many towns hundreds of “daddies and mommies” gathered to spread the message: 600 in Lyons, 400 in Rennes, as many in Bordeaux, 200 in Toulouse.

At least 1,500 joined the event in Paris, where “Alliance Vita’s” leaders addressed the crowd.

“To tell a child it has two daddies or two mommies is telling a lie. You should never lie to a child,” said Tugdual Derville, the movement’s general delegate.

“Children have a right to know their origins, they have a right to a daddy and a mommy and not respecting that when they are already hurt through being orphans is just adding further mistreatment,” he said.

You can find more photos of the Paris flash mob here.

Alliance Vita, which organized the Flash Mobs, is calling for a referendum allowing the people of France to vote on marriage.

Here is one of the organizers of the Paris event explaining their message:

One of our French-speaking supporters provides a rough translation:

”We have heard those who want the so-called marriage for everyone but we have not heard the voice of the children ...We are all born from one man and one woman ...In term of education, are we going to abolish this [idea of] natural parenting and the complementary between father and mother which we know is very precious ...Even if the government erase[s] on paper such natural parenting, it will not be erased at the level of the people."

This past weekend Treworgy Family Orchards became the “Chick-Fil-A of Maine” in that they exercised their freedom of speech to show support for traditional marriage, and as a result received backlash from the homosexual community and those that support their agenda. The simple act of placing a “NO on Question 1″ campaign sign in front of their family-owned business was labeled bigotry and hate-speech. Much of this backlash was expressed on their business Facebook page, but the Bangor Daily News reportsthat they were finally strong-armed into removing the sign by people stopping into the business to express their displeasure with it being there.

This incident is further proof that the crowd who continually cries for tolerance is only “tolerant” if you support their agenda. I expressed this sentiment directly on the Treworgy’s Facebook page, and was immediately bombarded with the usual, predictable responses.

... to witness fellow Christians such as the Treworgy’s being persecuted for their heart-felt beliefs has prodded me to speak out. And while I’m just another voice in the wilderness, and by no means think I speak for anyone but myself, I’ve concluded the platform this blog allows must no longer be silent on the same-sex marriage issue. -- CounterCulture

The most famous and revered pastor in America, Billy Graham, is calling on voters to cast a ballot for their faith in full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other newspapers.

Graham's picture appears prominently in the ads, next to copy that reads, "As I approach my 94th birthday, I realize this election could be my last."

It continues, "I believe it is vitally important that we cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel. I urge you to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me that America will remain one nation under God."

The ad hit the prominent papers Wednesday and Thursday, and could hit a dozen more newspapers, a week after the famed evangelist met with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney at Graham's Montreat, North Carolina, home ...

Yesterday, a Vote Yes billboard in Minneapolis was vandalized.  The destruction demonstrates the kind of environment Minnesotans can expect if marriage is redefined in Minnesota.

The vandalism came on the heels of a new TV ad by Minnesota for Marriage citing similar examples in six other states that have  legalized same-sex marriage including Washington, D.C., and Canada.  Like the vandalized billboard, the examples show how citizens, like most Minnesotans who believe marriage is the unique union of one man and one woman, are certainly not living in a “live, let live” society.

“This kind of disrespect is a perfect example of what Minnesotans, who simply believe marriage is between one man and one woman, can expect if marriage is redefined,” said John Helmberger, Chairman of Minnesota for Marriage. -- Minnesota For Marraige

The chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage has called a federal court’s decision to strike down the key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act “unjust and a great disappointment.”

“The recognition that marriage is and can only be the union of one man and one woman is grounded in our nature, being clear from the very way our bodies are designed,” said Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco. “This recognition obliges our consciences and laws. It is a matter of basic rights—the right of every child to be welcomed and raised, as far as possible, by his or her mother and father together in a stable home.”

“Marriage is the only institution whereby a man and a woman unite for life and are united to any child born from their union,” he added. “The public good demands that the unique meaning and purpose of marriage be respected in law and society, not rejected as beyond the constitutional pale. Redefining marriage never upholds the equal dignity of individuals because it contradicts basic human rights.”

A gay couple who were turned away from a B&B have won their court case.

Michael Black, 64, and John Morgan, 59, were prevented from sharing a room together at the Swiss Bed and Breakfast in Cookham, Berkshire.

They began legal proceedings against the owners, Susanne and Mike Wilkinson in January 2011.

... The couple called the police over her refusal and were told they could make a civil claim against the Wilkinsons.

The Press Association reported on Thursday, the couple from Brampton near Huntingdon, were awarded £1,800 each at Reading County Court for “injury to feelings”.

... The judge accepted that Mrs Wilkinson was genuine about her Christian beliefs and had also stopped unmarried heterosexual couples from sharing a double bed.

... The Equality Act makes it illegal to refuse people goods and services on the grounds of sexual orientation.

"To start, there have been hundreds of Canadian proceedings in courts, human rights commissions and employment boards, against critics and opponents of same-sex marriage. Religious groups and leaders have been punished. For instance, the Archbishop of Calgary was forced to answer to the Alberta human rights commission for preaching the Church's teaching on marriage."

Gallaudet University's chief diversity officer is scheduled to discuss her views about being placed on leave for signing a petition to put Maryland's same-sex marriage law on the ballot for voters to decide.

Angela McCaskill, of Upper Marlboro, is scheduled to speak in Annapolis on Tuesday. J. Wyndal Gordan, an attorney for McCaskill, says she is not "anti-gay."

He says she only signed the petition because she believes the issue should be settled by the democratic process.

Voters will be deciding whether to allow same-sex marriage in Maryland in November.

Gallaudet is the nation's leading university for the deaf and the hard of hearing. McCaskill was placed on leave last week.

“Dr McCaskill’s decision to sign the petition does not automatically declare her support for or against same-sex marriage. It merely indicates that she wants to see the decision made by the people and not the legislature. But if her employer is able to restrict her right to engage in the petition-gathering phase of democracy, are they also allowed to enter the voting booth and dictate how she votes?

“Unfortunately, this is only the latest in a long list of attacks on individuals who express support for marriage as a union between one man and one woman. If such attacks can be made before same-sex marriage is law, how can homosexual activists in good faith say that religious liberties will not be attacked if Question 6 passes?”

As three states face ballot questions on whether to uphold the traditional definition of marriage between two members of the opposite sex, some in the national intelligentsia are looking forward to the next victory of the sexual revolution: polygamy.

The faith writer at The Washington Post asked in a recent column, if one believes marriage should sanction any affectionate arrangement that makes its parties happy, “Why is polygamy so problematic?”

John Witte Jr., a law professor and religion scholar Atlanta’s Emory University, has written in a forthcoming book on plural marriages that the case for legalizing polygamy rests on the same ground as that of homosexual unions.

“American states today, viewed together, already offer several models of state-sanctioned domestic life for their citizens: straight and gay marriage, contract and covenant marriage, civil union and domestic partnership,” he writes in the first chapter of a forthcoming work on polygamy. “And the parties can further tailor these built-in rights and duties through private prenuptial contracts. With so much marital pluralism and private ordering already available, why not add a further option — that of polygamous marriage?”

Lisa Miller, who writes the Post‘s “On Faith” column, wrote that she knows defending the indefensible can make libertines uncomfortable. “But really. If the purpose of marriage is to preserve personal happiness, protect and raise children, and create social stability through shared property and mutual obligation, then why is polygamy so problematic if it occurs among consenting adults?”

"...Hollywood has spent more than half a century railing against the anti-Communist blacklists of the Forties and Fifties that prevented some people from working in the movie industry. Woody Allen, George Clooney, and countless other celebrities have produced films purporting to show how evil the blacklist was and upbraiding those who were silent while it was imposed.

Well, a blacklist is being imposed in Maryland right now, and few are questioning it. The same thing happened in California four years ago, after that state’s voters approved Proposition 8, defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Many activists hounded anyone who had supported the measure.

... At least the old Hollywood blacklist targeted those who either professed Communist sympathies or refused to sign loyalty oaths. As columnist Maggie Gallagher pointed out during the furor over Proposition 8, “Targeting an entire business because one person associated with it made (in their personal capacity) a donation to a cause is brand new.” Some gay activists are one step away from claiming that if someone disagrees with them, they shouldn’t be allowed to work anywhere. The original Hollywood blacklist never went that far, but you won’t see any movies made about the current intolerance of supporters of traditional marriage.

Liberals claim to favor open and honest debate in the democratic process, but when it comes to gay marriage it appears some proponents would rather intimidate their critics."

How does your methodology compare with those used in previous surveys on this topic?

This is the key area of distinction between my study and most others. Almost all studies that came before this one were small and "nonrandom." That is, we have no idea how similar most other studies' research participants are to the general population they seek to study. And with many previous studies, I think it's fair to be skeptical. For example, if you know you're participating in a small study on gay parenting and that it'll make the news and perhaps have political ramifications, I think it's fair for scholars to wonder whether such a study will yield valid, reliable data.

The NFSS, on the other hand, is much larger than most others, and is a random sample of the population of American adults ages 18–39. I focused not on their parents' sexual orientation—after all, it was a quite different era back then—but on their parents' relationship behavior. So I compared how young adults whose mothers or fathers had a same-sex relationship fared when analyzed alongside other types of arrangements, including the traditional, biologically intact married mother and father.

"Creationists and evolutionists don’t agree on much, but they both believe that monogamy is the most “natural” form of reproduction for the human species. This seems counterintuitive. Yes, the Bible recounts the story of creation, but it also describes the rampant polygamy of Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon and other titans of the faith. Yes, nesting birds, voles, and a few other animals are monogamous, but most mammals reproduce with one dominant male controlling a large harem of females. Polygamy seems “natural,” monogamy “supernatural.”

Yet, for the past millennium, Christians and post-Christian liberals alike – Aquinas, Calvin, Locke, Hume, and Jefferson -- all agreed that God created humans to reproduce by becoming “two in one flesh,” not three or four. And modern evolutionary scientists, from Claude Lèvi-Straussto Bernard Chapais, have concluded the same: that pair-bonding is part of the “deep structure” of human reproduction that humans have evolved as their best strategy for survival and success...."