Despite the opposition of many D.C. residents, the D.C. City Council bypassed a ballot vote, ignored constituents and passed legislation legalizing gay marriage. Congress has final approval over legislation passed by the District and can choose to intervene or allow legislation to become law. Thirty-seven House Republicans and two Senators filed an amicus brief with the D.C. Superior Court, asking that the issue be put on the ballot. The court challenge argues that the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics overstepped its authority when it determined that putting the issue to a vote would discriminate against gays.
But the District already had a domestic partnership law, and a lot of Americans – including myself – thought that was a good compromise. We aren’t bigots. We fear that the breakdown of the American family has led to bad news for this country and this city.
According to a study by the National Center for Health Statistics in 2007, 72% of black women gave birth out of wedlock compared to 28% of white women. The study also found that of the 4.3 million births in the U.S., 40% or 1.7 million were illegitimate.
Sadly, many black boys born to unwed mothers end up in prison all because American culture has come to accept out of wedlock pregnancy as a societal norm. A woman told me when her son attended a private school in D.C. a decade ago, a student became pregnant. Several parents decided to give her a baby shower and invited her classmates. This woman politely told the parents her son would not be attending. She explained her decision drew ire from some parents but as she said “this wasn’t something to celebrate.”
Now is the time for Republicans to support, protect and defend the institution of marriage against erosion because it leads to a more stable society for everyone – and a more equal chance for all children.
27 responses so far
1 BoolaBoola // Jan 11, 2010 at 2:56 pm
If you fear the breakdown of the American family, then you should criminalize DIVORCE, not gay marriage.
And I’m afraid you are wrong: those who oppose gay marriage in any way, shape, or form, ARE bigots. Religion, concern for the American family, etc, are all just excuses for behaving like first-graders in recess-yard, calling each other “Fags”.
2 rocklobster // Jan 11, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Make it easy and everyone happy.
We take marriage, a religious institution out of the government. As of now, it falls under business law.
We pick a date, everyone else is grand fathered in. From that point one, anyone who wants to spend their lives together and also receives the benefits that those who have had a religious ceremony get. All of us just get the legal part, and we are all domestic partners. Those who want the spiritual portion could then have a church marriage. It doesn’t affect family or marriage. It takes religion out of the law business.
Many don’t realize that after a church ceremony as they head off to sign the paperwork, should one of the participants pass away the other is NOT a widow or widower according to law. And, if one should have a stroke before they sign the legal papers are signed, the other is NOT considered a family member by the hospital. So, they may not get to visit the loved one. Also, the one surviving is not entitled to inheritance. There was a religious ceremony, which business law does not recognize as being completed until the paperwork is signed and witnessed.
This keeps everyone happy, other than the 50% of those who are now called married, who are getting divorced – also, business law.
3 Arch // Jan 11, 2010 at 3:37 pm
I’m fairly certain gay marriage isn’t a contributor to the problem of illegitimate children.
4 BoolaBoola // Jan 11, 2010 at 3:41 pm
The Catholic Church has long since forfeited Her authority to solemnize marriages. The government should stop recognizing Catholic “marriages”. Instead, let’s set up an alternative institution: call it “Catholic unions”.
5 seeker656 // Jan 11, 2010 at 3:43 pm
The writer fails to cite any evidence of a cause and effect relationship between gay marriage and the challenges families are facing. On the contrary there is evidence that legalizing gay marriage may have a positive impact on families.
Theodore B. Olson makes the conservative legal case in favor of gay marriage in this Newsweek article.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/229957/output/print
6 DFL // Jan 11, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Crystal Wright is right and Ted Olson is wrong. Social dysfunction, along with the current black hole of fiscal ruin, are the two greatest dangers in America today.
7 JeninCT // Jan 11, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Ms. Wright wrote: “According to a study by the National Center for Health Statistics in 2007, 72% of black women gave birth out of wedlock compared to 28% of white women. The study also found that of the 4.3 million births in the U.S., 40% or 1.7 million were illegitimate.”
What on earth does that have to do with gay marriage? Is gay marriage taking fathers out of the picture? Oh, that’s right – the nanny state already did that! When the government takes care of single moms better than married moms, the dads are off the hook.
I’m all for gay marriage, as long as it’s a civil ceremony. At least their kids will have two parents.
8 balconesfault // Jan 11, 2010 at 4:16 pm
DFL: Social dysfunction (is one of) the two greatest dangers in America today.
So what is more socially dysfunctional – someone getting married and divorced three or four times, or a gay couple getting married once?
9 RalfW // Jan 11, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I fail to see how allowing two men to marry has any bearing on “accept[ing] out of wedlock pregnancy as a societal norm.”
What’s the connection, Mr. Frum?
10 SFTor1 // Jan 11, 2010 at 4:30 pm
A rehash of some of the sorriest lingering prejudices on the right.
Toss it in the circular file, Mr. Frum.
11 sinz54 // Jan 11, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Ms. Wright:
I agree.
But that has nothing to do with same-sex marriage.
The proof is that unwed motherhood has been on the increase in numerous states where gay marriage is still illegal. And it started increasing decades ago, along with the beginning of its cultural mainstreaming–years before anyone ever seriously thought about same-sex marriage.
Besides, your stand is illogical: Gay adults are going to continue to have children. Given that reality, why is it better to encourage heterosexuals to have children within wedlock, while discouraging gays who have children (or plan to) from getting married? Wouldn’t children of gay parents benefit just as much from the stability offered by the marriage of their parents, as children of heterosexual parents?
The children of gay couples deserve no less than the children of straight couples, IMO.
12 sinz54 // Jan 11, 2010 at 6:58 pm
BoolaBoola:
Actually, that’s not going to work either. Lots of young people are having babies, even though they never got married or divorced.
And lots of couples at all ages are cohabiting rather than marrying or divorcing.
It all started with the marketing of the contraceptive pill in 1960.
I don’t know if you can put this genie back in the bottle.
But we can encourage young people to at least WAIT until they’ve got jobs and are more mature before having sexual intercourse.
13 ThurmanHart // Jan 11, 2010 at 8:00 pm
I call strawman. Not one ounce of this is related to gay couples being able to get married.
How is the idea that the DC Board of Elections and Ethics overstepped its bounds tied to these sorts of social statistics? Answer: It isn’t. But the defense of anti-gay actions cannot stand in a claim not to be bigoted against gays – so the action squirts sideways and comes out sounding stupid.
I’d have more respect for the author if she just said, “Gay people should not be able to get married because I said so.”
14 COProgressive // Jan 11, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Crystal wrote;
“Now is the time for Republicans to support, protect and defend the institution of marriage against erosion because it leads to a more stable society for everyone – and a more equal chance for all children.”
(Laughter……) Honey, that train left the station 60 years ago.
It’s all Rosie the Riveter’s fault, you know, the downturn of the family. It has nothing to do with Same-Sex marrage, or out of wedlock births. It’s all Rosie’s fault. When she went to work to do a “Men’s job” during the Second World War, she found that “Men’s work” wasn’t so bad and she could do a good job of it. When the Men came back after the war, Rosie wanted to keep working to keep from getting bored out of her head talking to little kids all day. Rosie found she and the MAN had more money to buy that little house out in Levittown and move out of the appartment in the city and a new Chevrolet too.
It was then that June Clever, Margret Anderson and Peg Riley stopped making dinner, and told Ward, Jim and Chester to find what they could in the icebox if they were hungry because they were too tired to cook. Oh, and by the way, would it kill you guys to lift a finger and do a load of laundry once in a while? Same Sex marrage? What the hell is that?
15 rectonoverso // Jan 12, 2010 at 7:19 am
If this is a pastiche, which I doubt, it’s brilliant.
If this isn’t a pastiche, which I find most plausible, it’s pathetic.
Putting the blame of parenthood out of wedlock on same-sex marriage is ludicrous.
16 Kevin B // Jan 12, 2010 at 8:16 am
It’s like searching for your lost keys next to the streetlight (rather than where you dropped them) because the light is better there.
17 sinz54 // Jan 12, 2010 at 9:35 am
COProgressive:
I used to read “The Ladder,” which was the journal published by the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian advocacy organization in the U.S. It started in the 1950s, otherwise a time of social conformity.
And in that journal, there were articles (remember, this is the 1950s) about how a lesbian woman could achieve a degree of financial independence (from men), by investing in mutual funds.
That was WAY ahead of its time. Not only because it was rare for a woman to achieve financial independence on her own back then, but by its choice of mutual funds as the vehicle. Back then, stock ownership was mostly for the rich.
(BTW: That organization was started by lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who were lovers. They finally got married in 2008. Del was 87 years old. She died a year later.)
18 sinz54 // Jan 12, 2010 at 9:45 am
COProgressive:
That’s clearly not the case,
because the 1950s were a time of much more conformity than the 1920s.
Rosie the Riveter was more independent because her husband was away at WAR.
But when Rosie’s husband got back home, he and she made lots of babies (the baby boom).
Women could NEVER become more independent as long as control of pregnancy was the responsibility of men (condoms). (Women’s methods like the rhythm method were unreliable.)
The marketing of the contraceptive pill in 1960 finally made it possible to have lots of sex without procreation. (The Catholic Church was opposed to it and many conservative Catholics still are.)
Then in 1978, in-vitro fertilization (IVF) made it possible to have procreation without sex. And it has led to some bizarre arrangements, like an unmarried couple giving their sperm and eggs to IVF to be implanted into a surrogate mother to carry the child to term, after which she hands it back to the couple to be raised.
That’s it. Thanks to medical technology, the link between sex and procreation has been cut permanently. And that has revolutionized society, both good and bad. The modern Manhattan women’s rights movement really took off in the late 1960s.
19 seeker656 // Jan 12, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Nate Silver has a piece today showing that divorce rates are higher in states with gay marriage bans and lower in states where gay marriage is legal.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/divorce-rates-appear-higher-in-states.html
Massachusetts has seen a 20.7% decline in divorce between 2003 and 2008. I have seen no credible evidence to support the fears of those who argue that legalizing gay marriage will be detrimental to families.
20 noufa // Jan 12, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Seriously, guys? You can’t connect the dots?
Supporters of gay marriage argue that marriage is essentially a business contract between 2 consenting adults. A piece of paper, if you will. This same logic makes illegitimacy seem legitimate.
And Nate Silver’s article is irrelevant. Note that the OP never mentioned divorce. The concern is illegitimacy, which IS skyrocketing:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/04/08/out.of.wedlock.births/index.html
21 anniemargret // Jan 13, 2010 at 11:01 am
noufa: Illegitimate children are a terrible scourge on the country. They end up for the most part being neglected and/or abused, as most women having them are not capable either emotionally or financially to take care of them, being themselves at times, children.
Divorce is also the problem but now always. The simplest answer to help secure families and keep them intact is education. Birth control is available. No one who is having sex should not be using it, but Republicans by and large are against anything other than ‘abstinence only’ education in the schools. They would much prefer to hope and wish that everyone comes from the same background as they do, with entrenched family values and an intact home, or have the financial resources should an unplanned pregnancy arise.
They lament about abortion but their only response to this terrible problem is that it should be outlawed. Which means more babies will be brought into the world unwanted, neglected and abused. If you ask them if they want some of their tax dollars to go to help these children, they scream, “not my taxes!” Their morality stops at pregnancy and birth. What happens after that, is someone else’s problem. Republicans love living in ideology, not reality.
Then you have your ‘what the heck adultery’ rampant among so=called adults. Men and women cheating on their spouses. Politicans cheating on their spouse but to call them out on it is being ‘judgmental.’ And if he./she can do their job while cheating on their family, so what? This too I hear from Republicans.
So which is it? To we deal with the reality of the situation or do we pretend? Do we pretend it is still 1902 and the sexual revolution hasn’t happened, or do we become more pragmatic about how to keep the family solvent?
I see no real answers from Republicans, except for their preachiness.
As far as gay marriage is concerned, they like to lump this together with the ‘breakdown’ of the family, which almost always is related to adultery and sex without birth control. It is a canard for those that cannot stand the thought that there are gay people in the world.
And those gay people have the unalienable right to marry, or we simply do not have a real democracy in which every citizen is offered the same rights as others.
22 CatherineF // Jan 28, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Actually Crystal, as you know, the best way to Save the American Family is not to date a married man with children.
23 PWallgren // Jan 28, 2010 at 5:34 pm
I agree with CatherineF. I can’t stand your Republican hypocrisy, Ms. Wright! And how cheap to try to make a name for yourself as a political commentator by bashing gays (and immigrants…and single mothers…what’s next?? baby kittens??).
24 mic // Jan 28, 2010 at 11:28 pm
While I can appreciate your ambitious goal of “saving” the American family, I think you should start a more grass roots effort (i.e. your own behavior) to save the American family by showing some restraint and not having an extra-marital affair with a married father of three children.
Had you shown some restraint, rather than writing fallacious arguments to push your own agenda, those children may still have a family intact and, in your own words “a more equal chance”.
25 PamK // Jan 28, 2010 at 11:47 pm
First, your arguments make no sense and do not support the point you are trying to make. You are all over the place– nonsensical and, at times, incoherent. Second, divorce creates more single mothers than any of the other issues you mention. And women who have affairs with married men contribute to divorce and the breakdown of the family far more directly than gay marriage or anything else.
26 quailhunter // Jan 28, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Oh Crystal. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the responsibility for the breakdown of the American family rests squarely on the shoulders of rock music. Rock music, and desperate “Conservative” women (who also happen to suck at writing, but I digress…) who bone married men with children (I mean bone married men who have children [three to be exact], not that you engage in group sex with married men and children, though moral lapses are moral lapses so I wouldn’t rule that out either, come to think of it). Anyway, I enjoyed whatever it was you were trying and failing to write about–gay “people” giving AIDS cancer to black babies or whatever. It’s an outrage, etc.!
27 corndog96 // Feb 1, 2010 at 6:02 am
Crystal, it would be interesting to hear your response on this board. A number of people have said you broke up a family by sleeping with a married man who is the father of three. And yet you write of your concern for the American family. Please explain (if you can) why you’re not a pathetic hypocrite.
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