Posts Tagged ‘same-sex marriage’

About that “gay parenting” study

It’s almost entirely off-topic for this site, but some readers may be interested in my new piece for Huffington Post (my first in that venue) poking some additional holes in an already much-criticized study by Mark Regnerus finding bad life outcomes among young adults who report that a parent had a same-sex relationship. Sample:

The Witherspoon Institute, discussing the study’s findings, adds another clue: “48% of the respondents with a GF [gay father], and 43% of the respondents with an LM [lesbian mother] indicated that they were either black or Hispanic.” Those numbers sound awfully high, and they are. They far exceed the roughly 30-percent black-plus-Hispanic share of the U.S. population. Why would young adults with minority backgrounds and a high rate of economic distress report having far more than their share of gay parents? Are they somehow more likely to grow up in homes with actual gay parents? Or are their parents somehow being overclassified as gay?

Putting together that with other anomalies in the study data, I conclude that the study does not come even close to measuring what it claims to be measuring. See also: Amy Davidson, New Yorker, among a whole mini-literature of responses.

Against North Carolina Amendment One

Patrick at Popehat, who lives in Durham, N.C., interviewed his neighbors Gale and Elizabeth, who are a same sex couple, “about how Amendment One would affect them. This is what they had to say.” Earlier here (conservatives who oppose Amendment One include John Locke Foundation president John Hood) and here (most North Carolinians don’t realize measure would ban legal recognition of civil unions and domestic partnerships).

P.S. More from Richard Painter. And Gene Nichol (UNC Law) writes about the other time North Carolina amended its constitution to restrict marriage, which was back in 1875 [News & Observer]

May 3 roundup

North Carolina Amendment One

The proposed constitutional amendment, which would ban legal recognition of nonmarital relationships, is opposed by figures that include John Locke Foundation president John Hood; Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.); noted foes of same-sex marriage David Blankenhorn and Elizabeth Marquardt (ban “goes too far“); and not least by Patrick at Popehat, who says, regarding the likelihood that the “parade of horribles” conceivable from the ban would ever come to pass in North Carolina, remembers the days “when I was represented in the United States Senate by Jesse Helms and John Edwards, simultaneously.”

Related: Moorfield Storey blog on Hayek and gay marriage.

Other people’s marriages

Does same-sex marriage have any effect on wider social measures of family intactness? As the institution becomes more familiar — yesterday the GOP-run New Hampshire legislature declined 116-211 to repeal that state’s law — experience continues to suggest that there isn’t really a measurable effect: U.S. states such as Massachusetts and Iowa that recognize same-sex marriage boast some of the nation’s lowest rates of divorce and unwed childbearing, but that was also true before their law changed. I explain in a new post at Cato geared toward the current debate in Maryland.

March 2 roundup

  • Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who crusades against distracted driving, worsens the problem by honking at motorists he sees using phones [WTOP via Mike Riggs, Reason] Expensive new mandate for back-up cameras in cars may be delayed until after election [Ira Stoll and more, Ann Althouse]
  • With reporter Lee Stranahan, the late Andrew Breitbart shone an investigative spotlight on the USDA’s billion-dollar settlement with lawyers representing black farmers, and there was indeed much to investigate [Big Government]
  • Substance on floor may have been own baby oil: “Oiled Stripper Loses Slip and Fall Lawsuit” [Erik Magraken; B.C., Canada; related on-the-job pole-dance injuries here and here]
  • Honeywell’s new thermostat design deserves high marks, its patent litigation maybe not so much [Farhad Manjoo, Slate]
  • Socialism takes too many evenings: @ChadwickMatlin live-tweets Park Slope Food Co-op meeting [The Awl]
  • Auto bailout a success? Really? [Mickey Kaus, Todd Zywicki, Ted Frank, Prof. Bainbridge]
  • Way to go Maryland: proud of my state for enacting law recognizing same-sex marriage, signed by Gov. O’Malley yesterday [WaPo]

February 9 roundup

February 1 roundup

September 28 roundup