Yesterday there was an exchange (fairly brief and
respectful) on Facebook I promised to respond to, after having given myself
time to think and be somewhat thorough. And this is among people I think will
be respectful, so it is worth responding.
This is going to be long. I probably ought to have split it
into two or three posts. Nevertheless, here it is.
The post I’m quoting below is in response to a notice about
a pro-family rally off campus near BYU-Idaho. It’s honoring “The Family: A Proclamation
to the World,” which declares our Church’s basic beliefs related to family. You
can read that proclamation
here. This came out in 1995, when such beliefs were so widely held, it seemed like
they should go without saying, but when you read the proclamation today you can
see the prophetic wisdom in declaring these beliefs ahead of the cultural
shift.
So here’s the central part of BG’s Facebook post:
When you think of the family being defended here, what kind
of family do you imagine? Would I be safe to assume you imagine the nuclear
family relationship?
I ask because there is so much emphasis on the nuclear family
as though it's what holds civilization up. But honestly, it's the nuclear
family TOGETHER with all the other types of family that really hold
civilization up. Single parent family, friends, extended family, work family,
adopted family, national family, international family etc. The point is, the
family is so much more than an isolated nuclear family setup.
I am forever grateful for everyone outside of my nuclear
family that has kept us going when times have been tough.
Two individuals of the same sex that are together does not
threaten any type of family. If anything it strengthens all types of families
because there is more trust and acceptance with each other to help support one
another. We become a bigger, stronger family.
The real threat to families in my opinion is our inability to
listen and understand other family that might be different than we're used to.
And now my long response.
Family is the basic unit of civilization. To understand
that, we need to know what family is and what civilization is.
Let’s start with defining civilization, because then we can
see whether whatever family we’re looking at has what is necessary for
civilization.
Definition of Civilization
I will be using the terms Civilized and Savage somewhat more
specifically than the usual dictionary definitions. Civilized will be more than
a society where people write records, have a certain amount of technology, and
live together in cities. I think it is clearly possible for all of those things
to exist in societies that have sunk into savagery. Nazi Germany is the most
obvious example from recent history. And it is also possible, though not really
seen in today’s world, for innocent but unrefined people to live in harmonious
civilization. Many families that settled the American West exemplify
civilization at a micro level….
In the northern circle of the Spherical Model that is the
goal—Civilization—families typically remain intact, and children are raised in
loving homes, with caring parents who guide their education and training,
dedicating somewhere between 18 and 25 years for that child to reach adulthood,
and who then remain interested in their children’s success for the rest of
their lives.
Civilized people live peaceably among their neighbors, helping
rather than taking advantage of one another, abiding by laws enacted to protect
property and safety—with honesty and honor. Civilized people live in peace with
other civilized people; countries and cultures coexist in appreciation, without
fear.
There is a thriving free-enterprise economy. Poverty is
meaningless; even though there will always be a lowest earning 10% defined as
poor, in a civilized society these lowest earners have comfortable shelter and
adequate food and clothing—and there’s the possibility of rising, or at least
for future generations to rise.
Creativity abounds; enlightening arts and literature exceed
expectations. Architecture and infrastructure improve; innovation and invention
are the rule.
People feel free to choose their work, their home, their
family practices, their friendships and associations. And they generally
self-restrain before they infringe on the rights and freedoms of others. Where
there are questions about those limits, laws are in place to help clarify
boundaries of civilized behavior. When someone willingly infringes on the
rights or safety of another, the law functions to protect that victim as well
as society from further uncivilized behavior from the offender.
Much of this describes the societal goods you get from civilization.
But, in short, civilized people have a critical mass of people who honor God, life,
family, truth, and property ownership.
Definition of Family
Before I go any further, let me say something very direct: While
there is a necessary preferred family form, that does not mean that other
family forms have no value and make no contribution. I’ll go into that in more
detail later.
Families have the responsibility to safeguard women and
children for the greatest benefit of both current and future generations.
Families provide food, shelter, clothing, education, spiritual guidance, and
training in how to live a civilized life in a civilized society. Elderly are
honored for their wisdom. Youth are honored for their potential. Women are
honored for giving and nurturing life, among their other abilities. Men are
honored for providing and protecting, among their other abilities. Families are
the main economic force, as well as the very means whereby civilization can
perpetuate. Civilized societies therefore protect The Family as sacred.
But family can mean so many things, and can look very
different from one another. What do we mean? We mean a married mother and
father raising their own children. That is the ideal. That is what there needs
to be a critical mass of—which is probably quantifiable, but I would estimate
well north of 50%.
Stronger extended families are a great support to the
nuclear family. The more we have of that in a society, the better. But,
It is possible to have a civilization one family in size.
This is true—if that family is a married father and mother
caring for their own children.
 |
Here is our traditional family,
being a basic unit of civilization,
during our growth years, 1996. |
It is not true if that family is missing an essential
ingredient—namely, a mother or a father. A well-functioning traditional family
is a civilization, in and of itself. And it contributes to an ever larger civilization.
Any other family form might contribute to civilization, not because of what it
is, but in spite of what it lacks.
Historically, this has been known by every civilization for
millennia, and we shouldn’t assume people didn’t know certain things by observation
and experience over long periods of time simply because a social science database
hadn’t been invented. But, it turns out, the more social science data we
gather, the more we see that mothers and fathers—both—are essential ingredients
for raising the subsequent civilized generation.
Other Family Forms
While we know what is the best family form, that does not
preclude success by other family forms.
Married mother and father of adopted children do very nearly
as well as parents of biological children. Challenges faced by adopted children
are often mitigated by the knowledge that a devoted mother and father love
them.
Stepfamilies can bring about mixed results. The most likely
to succeed (but certainly not the only ones) are those who can come together
entirely, without having to share with absent other fathers or mothers. For
example, if a parent has died and the remaining parent eventually remarries,
full integration of the new parent can create outcomes very similar to original
biological parents. But otherwise stepparents can put children at higher risk
of abuse than even single parenting.
[i]
Single parents generally have a harder time. But among
these, those with a parent who has died fare better
[ii]
than those who are single because of divorce or never marrying. The reason is
that the parent who has died can be talked about as a positive force—a person
with principles that would have been taught, a person with love for the surviving
parent and the children. The deceased parent’s legacy is better than simple absence
of parent from the home.
Single parents have a tough row to hoe. Children need
influence from both a male and a female parent; that is critical. That does not
mean that no single parent can succeed; it means that the task is likely to be
harder. The parent needs to find outside resources to help—maybe grandparents,
maybe aunts or uncles or other extended family, maybe coaches or youth program
leaders. But the parent will need to find that additional input. And the parent
will have to do it while being the sole provider for the family, however much
extra time that takes, and then do the daily boots-on-the-ground parenting that
would have been divided among two adults, giving them each occasional rest and
recharge time.
Single parents have a more likely chance of success—if they
are surrounded by fully functional two-parent nuclear families. Because those
neighboring basic units of civilization may have social capital to spare.
It takes social capital to make up for the deficits of a
family without both mother and father. The more families that can’t bring that
to the table, the heavier the toll on civilization.
You can see the outcomes in social science data. One
collection I use is Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-One Conclusions from the
Social Sciences. Mine is a 2005 version, from the Institute for American
Values. I have picked a few, and mostly I have paraphrased. The footnotes are
theirs:
·
Cohabiting parents—even biological parents—report
relationships of lower quality than do married couples: more conflict, more
violence, and lower levels of satisfaction and commitment, resulting in
children less likely to know how to live in a committed marriage for the next
generation.
[iii]
·
Divorce, as well as unmarried childrearing, increases
poverty for both children and mothers.
[iv]
·
Married parents build more wealth than either
singles or cohabiting couples, thus benefiting their children.
[v]
·
Parental divorce is a major contributor to
children’s school failure
[vi]
and reduces the likelihood that children will graduate from college and achieve
high-status jobs.
[vii]
·
Children living with their married parents tend
to have better health than children in other family forms.
[viii]
Divorce has been shown to lower children’s life expectancy by four years.
[ix]
·
Marriage leads to reduced alcohol and substance
abuse for both teens and adults.
[x]
·
Marriage leads to better health and longer lives
for both women and men, compared to singles controlled for other variables.
[xi]
·
Children of divorced parents have higher rates
of psychological problems
[xii]
and significantly higher rates of suicide.
[xiii]
Meanwhile married mothers have lower rates of depression than do single or
cohabiting mothers.
[xiv]
·
Boys raised in single-parent families are more
likely to engage in delinquent and criminal behavior. Even after controlling
for factors such as race, mother’s education, neighborhood quality, and
cognitive ability, boys raised in single-parent homes are about twice as likely
(and boys raised in stepfamilies are three times as likely) to have committed a
crime that leads to incarceration by the time they reach their early thirties.
[xv]
·
Marriage appears to reduce the risk that adults
will be either perpetrators or victims of crime.
[xvi]
·
Married women appear to have a lower risk of
experiencing domestic violence than do cohabiting or dating women.
[xvii]
Cohabitors engage in more violence than do spouses.”
[xviii]
·
Children living with single mothers,
stepfathers, or mother’s boyfriends are more likely to become victims of child
abuse.
[xix]
The
conclusion of Why Marriage Matters is this:
Marriage is more than a private emotional
relationship. It is also a social good. Not every person can or should marry.
And not every child raised outside of marriage is damaged as a result. But
communities where good-enough marriages are common have better outcomes for
children, women, and men than do communities suffering from high rates of
divorce, unmarried childbearing, and high-conflict or violent marriages.
What I and the social scientists are saying is, marriage—man
and woman “good enough” marriage—is essential for civilization. The odds are
better for children as well as the adults when we start with the traditional
nuclear family.
 |
| UFI logo |
Let’s add some data from “The Fatherhood Study Fact Sheet”
from United Families International:
·
A study of incarcerated women showed 41% grew up
with a mother as sole provider.
[xx]
·
Youths in father-absent households had
significantly higher odds of incarceration than those in mother-father
families. Youths who never had a father in the household experienced the
highest odds.
[xxi]
·
A 2002 DOJ survey of 7,000 inmates showed that
39% of jail inmates had lived in mother-only households. Approximately 46% of jail
inmates in 2002 had a previously incarcerated family member; 20% experienced a
father in prison or jail.
[xxii]
·
Among adolescents charged with murder, 72% grew-up
without their fathers.
[xxiii]
·
High-crime neighborhoods are characterized by
high concentrations of families abandoned by fathers.
[xxiv]
·
Fatherlessness is a primary generator of
violence among young men.
[xxv]
·
Of children with highly involved fathers in
two-parent families, 50% reported getting mostly A’s through 12th grade,
compared to 35.2% of children of nonresident father families.
[xxvi]
·
What fathers provide includes protecting daughters
from sexual overtures of other men, and providing models for the kinds of
nonsexual relationships with men that daughters need to develop if they are to
avoid the ploys of sexual abusers.
Daughters
who grow up without fathers do not enjoy such protections from sexual abuse
perpetrators.
[xxvii]
·
Teens without fathers were twice as likely to be
involved in early sexual activity and seven times more likely to get pregnant
as an adolescent.
[xxviii]
Same-Sex Parents
We haven’t yet touched on same-sex parenting. The data is
only beginning to appear, since this is a relatively new family form. Early
reports were that there were relatively few differences. However, a closer look
showed that comparisons were between homosexual parents and heterosexual
parents, including all single parents—not between homosexual parents and
married biological parents. Even so, the data was showing that gender identity
and confusion, and other sexual related markers of adolescent health, were
inferior in same-sex parented families.
[xxix]
There are a couple of basic facts we can’t get around. 1. Children
need the influence of a father and a mother; same-sex families do not provide
that. Period. Full stop.
And 2. Same-sex parents do not engage in reproductive
behavior. It is not as if they are equivalent to a heterosexual couple
experiencing infertility. They are not typically infertile—with someone of the
opposite sex. The coupling is infertile because together they biologically
cannot engage in reproductive activity. Under some circumstances (previous
heterosexual marriage, invitro fertilization) one of the parents might be
biologically related to a child, but in no circumstances can both be related.
We know from adoption in married heterosexual couples that
biology isn’t an absolute necessity. But to purposely place a nonbiological child
into a family that cannot provide both a mother and a father is to deprive that
child of what is necessary for healthy growth.
Some argue that having two loving parents must be better.
But better than what? Better than a single mother, perhaps. There are possibly
two incomes, and two parents to share the parenting work. But there are not
both male and female role models.
Unfortunately, more recent data is coming out with more
troubling outcomes. Much of this comes from adult children raised by homosexual
parents, which
started coming out around 2015, in testimony before the
Supreme Court in the Obergefell decision. For example,
Dawn Stefanowicz
testified graphically of her childhood with a homosexual father who later died of AIDS.
It is quite difficult to discuss the implications of growing
up in a gay household until later in adulthood when we have developed a measure
of personal identity and independence apart from our GLBT parent, partners and
the subcultures. We are often forced to approve and tolerate all forms of
expressed sexuality, including various sexual and gender identity preferences.
And this from Robert Oscar Lopez, the son of a lesbian
woman, who
told how homosexual activists had
harassed his employers and spread lies about him on the internet following his
coming forward about his childhood experiences:
Children raised by same-sex couples face a gauntlet if they
break the silence about the “no disadvantages” consensus…. In such a climate, I
must conclude that placing children in same-sex couples’ homes is dangerous,
because they have no space or latitude to express negative feelings about
losing a mom or dad, and in fact they have much to fear if they do.
There’s a fairly recent memoir written by the daughter of
fantasy fiction writer Marion Zimmer Bradley, who was a lesbian, and the author’s
father was gay—and both were pedophiles. Moira Greyland’s account, The Last
Closet, The Dark Side of Avalon, is both frightening and horrifying, also
well documented, since it was her testimony that convicted her father. But it
isn’t just her personal experience with these particular parents that is at
issue. It is this more general conclusion:
 |
Moira Greyland, image from moiragreyland.net
found here |
Every single child of gay parents with whom I spoke had
certain things in common. Those with only same-sex parents in the home ached
for their missing parent and longed for a real father, and nearly all of us had
been sexualized far too young.
That brings us to the difficult issue related to same-sex
parenting. We tend to look at others with the assumption that they are like us.
I’ve coined the word “
heteromorphism” to mean looking at same-sex relationships
and attributing to them what we see in our own heterosexual relationships,
things like permanence and fidelity. It’s hard to look at what we see on the
surface and assume differently. We don’t want to assume differently. And most of
us don’t know any of these couples—particularly long-term same-sex couples—well
enough to feel comfortable asking some pertinent questions, such as, “What does
fidelity in your marriage mean to you? Is it a complete physical/sexual
fidelity, or more of an emotional fidelity?”
[xxx]
Because the data shows—and has shown for already a couple of
decades—that committed “married” same-sex couples have on average 8 sexual
partners a year.
[xxxi]
Lesbians are slightly less promiscuous but still much more than heterosexual
women.
[xxxii]
Single lesbians, by the way, tend to have at least one male sexual partner per
year, in addition to their homosexual partner(s).
[xxxiii]
Oddly, homosexual teens, whether bisexual or not, are four times more likely to
have gotten pregnant or gotten someone pregnant than an equivalent aged
heterosexual teen.
[xxxiv]
Committed heterosexual couples—particularly religious
couples—tend to go through life with complete fidelity. Overall, heterosexual
marriages have 75-80% of husbands and 88-90% of wives remain faithful throughout
the marriage.
[xxxv]
A typical heterosexual non-religious male averages 14 sexual
partners in a lifetime, a female averages 7.
[xxxvi]
A typical homosexual is likely to have hundreds, some even thousands.
[xxxvii]
Their sex isn’t about love and commitment; it is about trying (apparently unsuccessfully)
to satisfy personal lust. It appears much more like sexual addiction than
heterosexual family loyalty and fidelity.
Fidelity translates as security. Infidelity translates as
upheaval. For a child being raised in a home of upheaval, that is significant.
Summary
The data I’m providing today is not unknown. Most of it I’ve
had in my possession for a couple of decades, with more coming in over time
simply because I’m attuned to it. But it is practically forbidden to mention in
mainstream media. Just citing data is enough to get a person cancelled in today’s
culture.
If it were true that the family forms were equivalent, then
it would be safe to reveal the basic data about them and find ways to improve them
all.
Again, none of this is to say that any particular family, regardless
of its form, is destined for success or doomed to failure. Those who currently
find themselves in an other-than-ideal family form should still keep earnestly
striving to love and give all that they can muster for the sake of their family
members. That will always be better than succumbing to the opposite of
civilization, which is savagery.
But they really ought to increase their odds of success by
surrounding themselves with a critical mass of most-likely-to-succeed
traditional families. Because that means they’re surrounding themselves with
thriving civilization, and they’re going to need that.
[i] Martin
Daly and Margo Wilson, 1996. “Evolutionary Psychology and Marital Conflict: The
Relevance of Stepchildren,” in Sex, Power, Conflict: Evolutionary and
Feminist Perspectives, eds. David M. Buss and Neil M. Malamuth (Oxford:
Oxford University Press): 9-28.
[ii] Timothy
J. Biblarz and Greg Gottainer, 2000. “Family Structure and Children’s Success:
A Comparison of Widowed and Divorced Single-Mother Families,” Journal of
Marriage and the Family 62(2) (May): 533.
[iii] William
H. Jeynes, 2000. “The Effects of Several of the Most Common Family Structures
on the Academic Achievement of Eighth Graders,” Marriage and Family Review
30(1/2): 73-97; Donna Ruane Morrison and Amy Ritualo, 2000. “Routes to
Children’s Economic Recovery After Divorce: Are Cohabitation and Remarriage
Equivalent?” American Sociological Review 65 (August): 560-580; Lingxin
Hao, 1996. “Family Structure, Private Transfers, and the Economic Well-Being of
Families with Children,” Social Forces 75: 269-292; Wendy D. Manning and
Daniel T. Lichter, 1996. “Parental Cohabitation and Children’s Economic
Well-Being,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 58: 998-1010.
[iv] See,
for example, Pamela J. Smock, et al., 1999. “The Effect of Marriage and Divorce
on Women’s Economic Well-Being,” American Sociological Review 64:
794-812; Ross Finie, 1993. “Women, Men and the Economic Consequences of
Divorce: Evidence from Canadian Longitudinal Data,” Canadian Review of
Sociology and Anthropology 30(2): 205ff. Teresa A. Mauldin, 1990. “Women
Who Remain Above the Poverty Level in Divorce: Implications for Family Policy,”
Family Relations 39(2): 141ff. See also Sara McLanahan, 2000. “Family,
State, and Child Well-Being,” Annual Review of Sociology 26(1): 703ff;
I. Sawhill, 1999. “Families at Risk,” in H. H. Aaron and R.D. Reischauer (eds.)
Setting National Priorities (Washington, D.C.: Brookings): 97-135.
[v] Lingxin
Hao, 1996. “Family Structure, Private Transfers, and the Economic WellBeing of
Families with Children,” Social Forces 75: 269-292; Kermit Daniel, 1995.
“The Marriage Premium,” in Mariano Tommasi and Kathryn Ierullli (eds.) The
New Economics of Human Behavior (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press):
113-25. See also Rebecca M. Blank, 1997. It Takes a Nation: A New Agenda for
Fighting Poverty (New York: Russell Sage Foundation).
[vi] Timothy
J. Biblarz and Greg Gottainer, 2000. “Family Structure and Children’s Success:
A Comparison of Widowed and Divorced Single-Mother Families,” Journal of
Marriage and the Family 62(2) (May): 533.
[vii] Zeng-Yin
Cheng and Howard B. Kaplan, 1999. “Explaining the Impact of Family Structure
During Adolescence on Adult Educational Attainment,” Applied Behavioral Science
Review 7(1): 23ff; Jan O. Johnsson and Michael Gahler, 1997. “Family
Dissolution, Family Reconstitution, and Children’s Educational Careers: Recent
Evidence From Sweden,” Demography 34(2): 277-293; Dean Lillard and Jennifer
Gerner, 1996. “Getting to the Ivy League,” Journal of Higher Education 70(6):
706ff.
[viii]
Ronald Angel and Jacqueline Worobey, 1988. “Single Motherhood and Children’s
Health,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29: 38-52.
[ix] J.
E. Schwartz et al., 1995. “Childhood Sociodemographic and Psychosocial Factors
as Predictors of Mortality Across the Life-Span,” American Journal of Public
Health 85: 1237-1245.
[x] Jerald
G. Bachman, et al., 1997. Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use in Young Adulthood
(Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates); Carol Miller-Tutzauer et al., 1991.
“Marriage and Alcohol Use: A Longitudinal Study of Maturing Out,” Journal of
Studies on Alcohol 52: 434-440.
[xi] Lee
A. Lillard and Linda J. Waite, 1995. “’Til Death Do Us Part: Marital Disruption
and Mortality,” American Journal of Sociology 100: 1131-56; Catherine E.
Ross et al., 1990. “The Impact of the Family on Health: Decade in Review,” Journal
of Marriage and the Family 52: 1059-1078.
[xii] E.
Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly, 2002. For Better or For Worse: Divorce
Reconsidered (New York: W.W. Norton & Co.); Paul R. Amato, 2001.
“Children of Divorce in the 1990s: An Update of the Amato and Keith (1991)
Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Family Psychology 15(3): 355-370; Judith S.
Wallerstein et al., 2000. The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year
Landmark Study (New York: Hyperion); Paul R. Amato, 2000. “The Consequences
of Divorce for Adults and Children,” Journal of Marriage and the Family
62(4): 1269ff. Ronald L. Simons, et al., 1999. “Explaining the Higher Incidence
of Adjustment Problems Among Children of Divorce Compared with Those in
Two-Parent Families,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 61(4)
(November): 1020ff.; Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, 1989. Second
Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce (New York: Ticknor
and Fields).
[xiii]
Gregory R. Johnson et al., 2000. “Suicide Among Adolescents and Young Adults: A
Cross-National Comparison of 34 Countries,” Suicide and Life-Threatening
Behavior 30(1): 74-82; David Lester, 1994. “Domestic Integration and
Suicide in 21 Nations, 19501985,” International Journal of Comparative
Sociology XXXV (1-2): 131-137.
[xiv] Susan
L. Brown, 2000. “The Effect of Union Type on Psychological Well-Being:
Depression Among Cohabitors versus Marrieds,” Journal of Health and Social
Behavior 41 (September): 241-255.
[xv] Cynthia
Harper and Sara McLanahan, 1998. “Father Absence and Youth Incarceration.”
(paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological
Association) (San Francisco) (August).
[xvi] Ronet
Bachman, 1994. “Violence Against Women,” A National Crime Victimization
Survey Report NCK-145325 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice,
Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics) (January): See Table
2 and 3.
[xvii]
Margo I. Wilson and Martin Daly, 1992. “Who Kills Whom in Spouse Killings? On
the Exceptional Sex Ratio of Spousal Homicides in the United States,” Criminology
30(2): 189-215; J.E. Straus and M.A. Stets, 1989. “The Marriage License as
Hitting License: A Comparison of Assaults in Dating, Cohabiting and Married
Couples,” Journal of Family Violence 4(2): 161-180.
[xviii]
Nicky Ali Jackson, 1996. “Observational Experiences of Intrapersonal Conflict
and Teenage Victimization: A Comparative Study among Spouses and Cohabitors,” Journal
of Family Violence 11: 191-203.
[xix] C.D.
Siegel et al., 1996. “Mortality from Intentional and Unintentional Injury Among
Infants of Young Mothers in Colorado, 1982 to 1992,” Archives of Pediatric
and Adolescent Medicine, 150(10) (October): 1077-1083.
[xx] Thomas
E. Hanlon et al., “Incarcerated Drug-Abusing Mothers: Their Characteristics and Vulnerability,” The
American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 1 (2005): 59-77.
[xxi] Cynthia
Harper, and Sara S. McLanahan, “Father Absence and Youth Incarceration,” Journal
of Research on Adolescence 14 (September 2004): 369-397.
[xxii]
Doris J.James, “Profile of Jail Inmates, 2002,”
(NCJ 201932). Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report,
Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, July 2004.
[xxiii]
Dewey Cornell “Characteristics of Adolescents Charged with Homicide” Behavior
Sciences and the Law 5 (1987): 11-23.
[xxiv]
The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family,
and Community by Patrick F. Fagan Backgrounder #1026 March 17, 1995.
[xxv] David
Blankenhorn, Fatherless America (New York: BasicBooks, 1995): 31.
[xxvi]
National Center for Education Statistics. The Condition of Education.
NCES 1999022. Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Education, 1999: 76.
[xxvii]
David Popenoe, Life Without Father:
Compelling New Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage are Indispensable
for the Good of Children and Society, (Harvard University Press: Cambridge Massachusetts, 1996): 67-68.
[xxviii]
Bruce J. Ellis, John E. Bates, Kenneth A. Dodge, David M. Ferguson, L. John
Horwood, Gregory S. Pettit, and Lianne Woodward. “Does Father Absence Place
Daughters at Special Risk for Early Sexual Activity and Teenage Pregnancy,” Child
Development 74 (May/June 2003): 801-821.
[xxix]
Loren Marks, “Same-sex parenting and children’s outcomes: A closer examination
of the American psychological association’s brief on lesbian and gay
parenting,” Social Science Research, Volume 4, Issue 4, July 2012, pp.
735-751. See also Ana Samuel, “The Kids Aren’t All Right: New Family Structures
and the ‘No Differences’ Claim,” The Witherspoon Institute, June 14, 2012, http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/06/5640/#_edn1
. [See the footnotes.]
[xxx] Consider,
for example, the research of McWhirter and Mattison. They interviewed 156 male
couples and concluded that in these relationships "fidelity is not defined
in terms of sexual behavior, but rather by their emotional commitment to one
another" (The Male Couple; David P. McWhirter, M.D., and Andrew M.
Mattison, M.S.W., Ph.D.; Prentice-Hall, 1984; p 252, 3). The researchers—a gay couple
themselves—reported that two-thirds of the couples began their relationship with
the expectation of sexual exclusivity, but that the partners became more
permissive with time. They found that ALL the couples who had been together at
least 5 years had incorporated some provision for outside sexual activity in
their relationships. In fact, the authors concluded that "the single most
important factor that keeps couples together past the ten-year mark is the lack
of possessiveness they feel. Many couples learn very early in their
relationship that ownership of each other sexually can become the greatest
internal threat to their staying together." See also After the Ball; Marshall Kirk
and Hunter Madsen; Doubleday, 1989. The book acknowledges that "the
cheating ratio of 'married' gay males, given enough time, approaches 100%.... Many
gay lovers, bowing to the inevitable, agree to an 'open relationship,' for
which there are as many sets of ground rules as there are couples" (p 330).
[xxxi]
Xiridou, Maria, et al, “The Contribution of Steady and Casual Partnerships to
the Incidence of HIV infection among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam,” 1029-1038 AIDS,
17 (7) May 2, 2003. “Those with a steady partner and those without reported
having an average of 8 and 22 casual partners per year, respectively.”
[xxxii]
Fethers, Katherine, et al., “Sexually Transmitted Infections and Risk Behaviors
in Women Who Have Sex with Women,” Sexually Transmitted Infections 76
(2000): 348.
[xxxiii]
Zipter, Yvonne, “The Disposable Lesbian Relationship,” Windy City Times,
(December 15, 1986), p. 18, and see Zipter, a lesbian, in an article in
Chicago’s gay journal for the quote.
[xxxv]
Robert T. Michael et al., Sex in America: A Definitive Survey (Boston:
Little, Brown & Company, 1994). See also Michael W. Widerman,
"Extramarital Sex: Prevalence and Correlated in a National Survey," Journal
of Sex Research 34 (1997): 2.
[xxxvii]
G. Rotell, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men (New York,
Dutton, 1997).
