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News

Study: children of same-sex couples do less well than those of married couples

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A family praying and reading the Bible
A family praying and reading the Bible

The Public Discourse reports on a recent study out of Canada.

Excerpt:

A new academic study based on the Canadian census suggests that a married mom and dad matter for children. Children of same-sex coupled households do not fare as well.

There is a new and significant piece of evidence in the social science debate about gay parenting and the unique contributions that mothers and fathers make to their children’s flourishing. A study published last week in the journal Review of the Economics of the Household—analyzing data from a very large, population-based sample—reveals that the children of gay and lesbian couples are only about 65 percent as likely to have graduated from high school as the children of married, opposite-sex couples. And gender matters, too: girls are more apt to struggle than boys, with daughters of gay parents displaying dramatically low graduation rates.

Unlike US-based studies, this one evaluates a 20 percent sample of the Canadian census, where same-sex couples have had access to all taxation and government benefits since 1997 and to marriage since 2005.

While in the US Census same-sex households have to be guessed at based on the gender and number of self-reported heads-of-household, young adults in the Canadian census were asked, “Are you the child of a male or female same-sex married or common law couple?” While study author and economist Douglas Allen noted that very many children in Canada who live with a gay or lesbian parent are actually living with a single mother—a finding consonant with that detected in the 2012 New Family Structures Study—he was able to isolate and analyze hundreds of children living with a gay or lesbian couple (either married or in a “common law” relationship akin to cohabitation).

So the study is able to compare—side by side—the young-adult children of same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples, as well as children growing up in single-parent homes and other types of households. Three key findings stood out to Allen:

children of married opposite-sex families have a high graduation rate compared to the others; children of lesbian families have a very low graduation rate compared to the others; and the other four types [common law, gay, single mother, single father] are similar to each other and lie in between the married/lesbian extremes.

Employing regression models and series of control variables, Allen concludes that the substandard performance cannot be attributed to lower school attendance or the more modest education of gay or lesbian parents. Indeed, same-sex parents were characterized by higher levels of education, and their children were more likely to be enrolled in school than even those of married, opposite-sex couples. And yet their children are notably more likely to lag in finishing their own schooling.

[…]The truly unique aspect of Allen’s study, however, may be its ability to distinguish gender-specific effects of same-sex households on children. He writes:

the particular gender mix of a same-sex household has a dramatic difference in the association with child graduation. Consider the case of girls. . . . Regardless of the controls and whether or not girls are currently living in a gay or lesbian household, the odds of graduating from high school are considerably lower than any other household type. Indeed, girls living in gay households are only 15 percent as likely to graduate compared to girls from opposite sex married homes.

Thus although the children of same-sex couples fare worse overall, the disparity is unequally shared, but is instead based on the combination of the gender of child and gender of parents. Boys fare better—that is, they’re more likely to have finished high school—in gay households than in lesbian households. For girls, the opposite is true. Thus the study undermines not only claims about “no differences” but also assertions that moms and dads are interchangeable. They’re not.

With a little digging, I found the abstract of the study:

Almost all studies of same-sex parenting have concluded there is “no difference” in a range of outcome measures for children who live in a household with same-sex parents compared to children living with married opposite-sex parents. Recently, some work based on the US census has suggested otherwise, but those studies have considerable drawbacks. Here, a 20% sample of the 2006 Canada census is used to identify self-reported children living with same-sex parents, and to examine the association of household type with children’s high school graduation rates. This large random sample allows for control of parental marital status, distinguishes between gay and lesbian families, and is large enough to evaluate differences in gender between parents and children. Children living with gay and lesbian families in 2006 were about 65 % as likely to graduate compared to children living in opposite sex marriage families. Daughters of same-sex parents do considerably worse than sons.

The author of the study is a professor of economics at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. His PhD in economics is from the University of Washington. A previous study had shown that gay relationships typically have far more instability (they last for more shorter times). That’s not good for children either. Another study featured in the Atlantic talked about how gay relationships have much higher rates of domestic violence. That’s not good for children either. So we have three reasons to think that normalizing gay relationships as “marriage” would not be good for children.

The reason I am posting this is because I want people to understand why social conservatives like me propose these laws defining and promoting marriage. We do favor natural marriage for the same reason that we oppose no-fault divorce, and for the same reason why we oppose welfare for single mothers (it encourages single motherhood). We don’t want to encourage people to deprive children of their mother or their father. We look at the research, and we decide that children need their mother and father. Given the choice between the needs of the child and restraining the freedom of the adults, we prefer the child’s need for her mother and father. It’s not just arbitrary rules, there is a reason behind the rules.

But children are not commodities. They have certain needs right out of the box. Adults should NOT be thinking about how to duct-tape a child onto any old relationship that doesn’t offer the same safety and stability that opposite sex marriage offers. We should be passing laws to strengthen marriage in order to protect children, not to weaken it. Libertarians don’t want to do that, because they want adults to be free to do as they please, at the expense of children.  Libertarians think that the adults should be able to negotiate private contracts and have no obligations to any children who are present, or who may be present later.

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News

Two Christian women threatened with jail time for refusing to celebrate LGBT events

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Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign
Gay activist vandalizes pro-marriage sign

Is it safe to live as a Bible-believing Christian in America? We all know that you can live comfortably as a “Christian” by just behaving in compliance with whatever the secular left tells you. But what happens to you if you take the Bible seriously on moral issues? Is it easy to live consistently with the Bible in America?

Consider this article from Daily Wire:

Two female Christian artists in Arizona who refuse to make custom-art for same sex weddings could actually be jailed for sticking to their religious beliefs.

Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski , who own Brush & Nib Studio, make custom artwork using painting, calligraphy and handlettering. They filed suit against the city of Phoenix, as a Phoenix city ordinance threatens them with up to six months and/or a fine of $2,500 each day they refuse to make the artwork. First the women filed in state court to overturn the ordinance, but lost in a court of appeals, prompting them to appeal to the state’s Supreme Court, which said on November 20 it would hear the case.

There’s a video about the case from Fox News:

In other news, Christian baker Jack Phillips is STILL in trouble with the secular left fascists in Colorado. Although he won his case at the Supreme Court, the LGBT activists and their allies in the state government are still going after him to punish him for his Christian beliefs.

The Federalist had a really, really good article about it:

On June 26, 2017, the day the Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ case, Autumn Scardina, a transgender attorney and activist, called Masterpiece Cakeshop and asked Phillips to design a custom cake with a blue exterior and a pink interior to symbolize a transition from male to female. Phillips politely turned Scardina down. “I was stunned,” the lawyer risibly claimed in her complaint to the Civil Rights Commission.

Scardina, of course, didn’t accidentally ask the most famous Christian baker in the nation to make a “transition” cake. Scardina is leading a crusade against Phillips. In one call, Scardina allegedly asked for “an image of Satan smoking marijuana.” In another, members of “the Church of Satan” asked for “a three-tiered white cake” with a “large figure of Satan, licking a nine inch black Dildo.” “I would like the dildo to be an actual working model that can be turned on before we unveil the cake,” went the request. You can just sense the sanctimonious smugness of people who think this sort of thing is edgy.

In any event, the state of Colorado has allied itself with such activists, formally determining that there was probable cause that Phillips had indeed discriminated against Scardina based on “gender identity.” Of course the baker’s refusal to make dildo and pentagram cakes only proves that Phillips isn’t specifically antagonistic to the newly consecrated belief in malleable “gender identity,” but that he’s shown a consistent adherence to his less malleable Christian values.

It’s those values that upset Scardina and members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Though they can’t say it explicitly, most progressives are fine with discrimination against religious groups. In their hierarchy of moral concerns, free expression isn’t nearly as concerning as the hurt feelings of an aggrieved gay couple. And Colorado is again complicit in another attack on the Constitution. Until SCOTUS comes down with a ruling that explicitly protects religious liberty from state-sponsored attacks on faith, they’ll keep trying.

But it goes well beyond those legal concerns. Activists — including the civil rights commission — are trying to destroy a man for thought crimes. This state-sponsored harassment isn’t only about Phillip’s modest business in Lakewood, Colorado, although that’s surely part of it. It’s a warning to all those with unpopular opinions to stay in line.

I’ve found myself thinking about how to live in a world where every day you get up to go to work, your livelihood is threatened by secular left fascists who want to use the government as a weapon to destroy your basic God-given human rights. And the only answers I can come up with to this are 1) avoid putting my children into public schools run by the secular left, and 2) retire as early as possible so that I don’t have to deal with the coming generation of social justice warriors in an office setting.

First, I need to avoid dealing with the secular left in public schools (my future children) or the workplace. This is because a lot of legal problems start when the secular left finds out what Christian parents are teaching their children. The easiest way to not deal with public schools is to not get married, unless you marry a woman who has carefully made pro-marriage decisions with her education, career and finances. Decisions designed to keep her future children out of the public schools. It’s very rare to find a young, unmarried Christian woman who has made correct decisions to protect her future family from the secular left, though. Thanks to the uncritical acceptance of radical feminism in the church – right under the noses of traditional conservative male pastors – most don’t want to homeschool and they haven’t made the right choices in education,career and finances to help their future husband afford homeschooling and/or private schools, anyway.

How about the workplace? Well, it’s fine for now if, for example, you live in a red state and you’re in the private sector and you’re working in a STEM field. But there’s a generation of unstable social justice warriors coming through the assembly line of government schools, and they’re going to hit the workplace shortly. I don’t want to be there when they finally arrive. The easiest way to get out of the workplace early is to have enough money saved so that you can retire early. But this is getting harder to do. In our culture, we’re always hearing that “good people” only have one acceptable way to vote: for higher taxes, more unskilled immigration and more government spending. This is the case even in conservative churches. Just last month, my Southern Baptist pastor told our Bible study that “Jesus was a refugee”, which is in keeping with the Democrat talking points of open borders leftists like Russell Moore. The more we vote for government to be the “solution” to people’s bad choices, the higher taxes will go, and the more exposed Christians are going to be to troubles in the workplace.

Well, I probably track these religious liberty stories more than most. And I worry about it more than most, too. I am more prepared than most to avoid having my conscience violated by the secular left. But I don’t see things getting better. There just isn’t any seriousness among Christians to hold the line on Biblical teachings and values. We’ve long ago dumped the masculine aspects of Christianity – uncomfortable theological truths and politically incorrect moral rules – for a more feminine focus on non-judgmentalism, feelings, self-esteem, universalism, etc. In the church today, you’re unlikely to win an argument about a moral issue by citing the Bible and then supporting your claim with peer-reviewed evidence. Instead, the church decided that the highest authority is to conform to the demands of people whose best argument is “agree with me, or I’ll commit suicide due to bad feelings!” That apparently has a lot of weight in the feminized church today. But not with me.

News

Terrorist attack: two Scandinavian women beheaded while traveling in Morocco

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Two tourists murdered in Morocco
Two tourists murdered in Morocco

The Daily Caller reports: (H/T Terrell)

Norwegian police confirmed Friday that the recently-surfaced video of a female Scandinavian student being beheaded is likely authentic.

The bodies of 28-year-old Maren Ueland from Norway and 24-year-old Louisa Vesterager Jespersen were recovered and flown to Casablanca on Friday, according to Deustche Welle. The two were reportedly killed in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains earlier this week, and video has since emerged online that appears to show one of them screaming as her head is severed with a knife.

At least one of the alleged perpetrators reportedly has ties to ISIS, reports The Daily Beast.

“There is no concrete evidence indicating the video is not real,” Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service said.

Thirteen arrests have been made in what is believed to be an act of terror.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen called the killings “politically motivated and thus an act of terror.”

News Corp Australia had some information about the attackers:

On Tuesday police detained a suspect said to belong to a militant group in Marrakesh. Three other suspects were subsequently arrested in the city, the Central Bureau for Judicial Investigations said.

They were named as:

● Rachid Afatti, a 32-year-old small businessman from Al Kayed, a village in rural Harbil, 30km outside Marrakech;

● Ouziad Younes, a 27-year-old carpenter from the Marrakech suburb of Al Azzouzia;

● Ejjoud Abdessamad, 25, from the Zeroual district of Marrakech.

Police have not released details of the fourth man arrested yesterday after police seized a cache of knives found on a bus in Marrakech.

The BBC article I looked at had a photo of 3 of the men:

Morrocan police released this photo of 3 of the 4 suspects
Morrocan police released this photo of 3 of the 4 suspects

Now, if I had known those women, and they told me about their plans to go hiking in Morocco, I would have told them not to go. I would have told them not to go, even if they went with male friends, or had a male guide, or whatever. It’s important to be alert and not put yourself in situations where you will be isolated and exposed to harm.

Windsor, Ontario, Canada

On a related note, I wanted to share a story from Windsor, Ontario Canada, where a 76-year-old woman died as a result of her injuries from another attack by a 21-year-old man.

The Windsor Star reports: (H/T Stephanie)

The elderly Windsor woman who suffered severe injuries in a shocking beating on Ganatchio Trail last year has died in hospital.

Sources have confirmed that Sara Anne Widholm, 76, died at Windsor Regional Hospital on Saturday, Dec. 15.

“She was a faithful and beloved member of our church, Riverside Baptist, and we will miss her dearly, but now she is whole and at peace in heaven with her Lord Jesus,” said Pastor Brandon Taylor, leader of the church where Widholm and her husband were members.

[…]On the morning of Oct. 8, 2017, Widholm was walking on the Ganatchio Trail and cleaning it of litter, as was her regular habit, when she became the victim of an attack that Windsor police have described as “vicious” and “unprovoked.”

[…]The long list of injuries included multiple brain hemorrhages, a life-threatening blood clot, extensive skull fractures, and fractured vertebrae.

[…]Later the same day as the attack, police arrested Windsor resident Habibullah Ahmadi in relation to the crime.

Ahmadi — who goes by the first name Daniel and is now 22 — was initially charged with aggravated assault, but the charge was upgraded to attempted murder.

Canada is a country that has embraced open borders and mass migration from Middle Eastern countries, so it’s interesting to see how Canadian leaders responded to the story.

Frontpage magazine reported on that:

Attacker Habibullah Ahmadi was 21, a full adult, but police never released his booking photo. News reports described him as a “Windsor man,” who goes by the name “Daniel.”  Local and national news stories contained no statements from Habibullah Ahmadi, nor any indication that he had declined an interview. Likewise, news reports contained no quotes from Habibullah Ahmadi’s family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, or fellow students in Windsor.

Habibullah Ahmadi, a male of 21, attacked a defenseless woman, 75, but local and national feminists did not cite the attack as an example of violence against women or toxic masculinity. Likewise, no statement against violence emerged after the attack finally claimed Widholm’s life.

Windsor mayor Drew Dilkens tweeted that Widholm “exemplified the can-do Windsor spirit and my most sincere condolences go out to her family for their loss.” It was as though she had died of natural causes, and no mention of the violent attack.

Former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynn, a crusader against bullying, never offered a statement on the case. Current Premier Doug Ford of the Progressive Conservative Party did not issue a  comment. News reports turn up no proclamations on the attack from Lisa Gretzky, a New Democratic Party MPP for Windsor, or from the NDP provincial leader Andrea Horwath.

I thought this was interesting about Trudeau, who likes to present himself as a great moral human being because of his tolerance:

Last January, an 11-year-old Toronto girl charged that a man had twice cut her hijab. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced the attack, which turned out to be a hoax. The son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had nothing to say about the attack on Anne Widholm, which was not a hoax.

And the national media has been silent as well:

The one-year anniversary of the attack passed without notice in local and national media. Police and court authorities weren’t exactly keep the public posted about the case.

Last July, CTV news said AM800 News, CKLW, has learned that a date for Habibullah’s trial would be set sometime in January 2019, though no official court or police document was cited. The CTV piece came headlined, “Windsor man going to trial for alleged Ganatchio Trail attack,” and the story cited “an alleged vicious attack of an elderly woman.”  From the start, there was nothing “alleged” about it, and the report offered no insight on the attacker.

I can understand that it is compassionate to risk your own life for someone else, and generous to spend your own money on someone else. What I don’t understand is when politicians want to claim to be compassionate and generous when they risk other people’s lives and spend other people’s money.