Mary sent me this cute video from Facebook.
And she also sent me this Ronald Reagan video.
Should have a bigger post up later! I got a Wii and a new LCD TV for my Dad for Christmas, so we are spending all our time going to the gym and playing Wii Sports Resort. He is beating me at about half the games. But we are talking about interesting things and I should write about some of those things pretty soon.
UPDATE: Here’s a new Facebook-nativity video. This one made me laugh out loud.
Another scary story from Life Site News. (H/T Mary)
Excerpt:
A “blanket ban” on convicted sex-offenders adopting children is discriminatory, says a report from Helen Reece of the London School of Economics. Reece, a family law expert, has said that each case should be examined separately “on its merits.”
“Sex offenders shouldn’t all be tarred with the same brush,” Reece said. “People need to be carefully screened for adoption and fostering, but each case should be taken on its merits.
“There shouldn’t be blanket rules. What somebody has done before is not necessarily what he or she will do again. When someone has served a sentence, as far as you can, you should treat them the same as anyone else.”
The report was published in the latest edition of Child and Family Law Quarterly.
[…]Currently, there are very few remaining “blanket” restrictions on adoption and fostering in Britain. Single people, unmarried cohabiting couples and homosexual singles can all adopt.
Where does all this compassionate tolerance lead to?
In the case of Ian Wathey and Craig Faunch, two homosexual men who were charged with sexually molesting the boys in their care, the council who gave them the children admitted that a “politically correct” prejudice in favor of homosexuals in adoption was in play.
In an inquiry, Wakefield Metropolitan District Council employees said that despite growing reservations by staff and complaints from the mother of two of the boys, the two men were treated by the authorities as “trophy carers” because of their status as homosexuals. The two men were regarded as beyond scrutiny and “the fear of being discriminatory” lead the council to “fail to discriminate between the appropriate and the abusive.”
The Daily Telegraph quoted one social worker who told the inquiry, “you didn’t want to be seen discriminating against a same-sex couple.”
Well, there are some people who can’t be foster parents or adopt. I wrote before about the Christian couple that was banned from being foster parents, and the adoption panel woman who was removed for saying that homosexual adoption is not always in the best interests of the child, and how the Catholic adoption agency group was shut down for believing that children do best with a mother and a father.
The family law expert from above is a professor of law at the London School of Economics.
Her current research interests:
Current research is concerned with the regulation of intimacy. The main research project at present, Violence to Feminism, is a theoretical probing of the contemporary feminist approach to violence against women. The two main research questions are first, why contemporary feminist theory has celebrated ever-widening conceptions of violence and secondly, why the contemporary feminist approach to violence against women has permeated legal development. Another current research project focuses on changing conceptions of parental responsibility.
Her last book is called “Divorcing Reponsibly”:
This book provides an analysis of the increasing impact on the law in general and divorce law in particular of post-liberalism,which replaces choice with self-discovery. The author shows that post-liberal premises formed the foundation for every aspect of the recent divorce reform proposals. Accordingly, she attributes their failure to the contradictions inherent within post-liberalism. Nevertheless, she concludes that post-liberalism maintains a subtle yet pervasive influence on the law. Specifically, this means that we are held accountable not for what we do but for how we approach our decisions. Thus, for the first time ever, it has become possible to divorce responsibly.
Feminist scholars often write about violence against women, even though men are equally likely to be victims of domestic violence.
*Feminist scholars also conduct research that recommends legalizing polygamy, and then governments later consider whether to legalize it.
(*Third-wave feminism)
The study is here. (H/T Dr. J from RuthBlog)
Dr. J writes:
The Institute for American Values has just published a new study, My Daddy’s Name is Donor, of how donor conceived persons are doing in comparison with those who were born and raised by their biological parents and in comparison with those who were adopted.
And she notes this comment from a gay man who thinks that the fact that he and his partner PLANNED their donor-conceived child, that they are therefore justified morally in doing so.
The gay man writes:
I’m a gay man who has had a child, with my partner of 8 years, through surrogacy and egg donation. The egg donor and surrogate will be known to our son.
One way that I explain to people our experience with the artificial reproduction process is that it is the opposite of being ‘knocked-up’. We were very involved in the planning and conception and the growth and birth of our child. Our child’s conception and birth was considered, thought about, planned for, dreamed about, fantasized about. He was most definitely wanted. He is loved and treasured.
We did not have sex to have our child. We did not have wedded, heterosexual, within marriage, we-want-to-have-a-child-sex. We did not have wedded, passionate, spur-of-the-moment at the wrong time of the month (or the wrong time of our life) sex. We did not have wedded, spur-of-the-moment, right time of the month sex. We did not have any of these types heterosexual sex as unmarried heterosexuals.
But so many children are born to heterosexual couples via each of these eight scenarios. So many. Many more, around the world are born in wider range of unloving scenarios.
And then one of the authors (Elizabeth Marquardt) of the new study responds by citing evidence.
I just want to note that one way of looking at the My Daddy’s Name is Donor study is as a study of three groups: The first completely one hundred percent wanted and intended — that is, the donor offspring. The other two groups made up of a lot of unintended pregnancies — that is, the adopted and those raised by their biological parents.
Which group is faring the worst? The 100 percent wanted, planned, intended group. The donor offspring, overall, even with controls, are twice as likely to have struggled with substance abuse and delinquency, and 1.5 times as likely to have struggled with depression, compared to those raised by their biological parents (and these differences are significant). The adopted generally fall in between except with regard to depression in which case they were higher than both the donor conceived and the raised-by-biological.
No one is saying, T, that “all” of those raised by biological parents are doing great. But when you look at these populations, measured by our study, you find that, contrary to today’s conventional wisdom, being wanted isn’t enough. What the child is born into — who the child is raised by — matters.
Some more stats from Maggie Gallagher.
Excerpt:
Forty-five percent of these young adults conceived by donor insemination agree, “The circumstances of my conception bother me.” Almost half report that they think about their donor conception a few times a week or more. Forty-five percent agree, “It bothers me that money was exchanged in order to conceive me.”
Nearly half of donor offspring (compared to about a fifth of adopted adults) agree, “When I see friends with their biological fathers and mothers, it makes me feel sad.” Similarly, 53 percent (compared to 29 percent of adoptees) agree, “It hurts when I hear other people talk about their genealogical background.”
This is not fair to children – it treats them like a commodity instead of as a gift from God to be treasured and nurtured.
WINTERY KNIGHT 