Tag Archives: De Facto Parenting

Podcasts

Jennifer Roback Morse podcasts on same-sex marriage and prop 8

1 Comment
Cloning her would solve the marriage problem
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

From the Ruth Institute podcast page.

An update on the federal trial on California’s Proposition 8

The MP3 file is here. (from 1/19/2010)

Topics:

  • what is the prop 8 federal court trial about?
  • what is at stake in the prop 8 trial?
  • what is the only argument in favor of SSM?
  • what is the purpose of marriage?
  • what is the end goal of the marriage redefiners?
  • what would happen if sexual orientation were protected like race?
  • what happens to people today who disagree with SSM?
  • does SSM diminish the biological basis for assigning parenthood?

Reponding to Ted Olson’s pro-SSM arguments:

  • traditional marriage violate the Equal Protection clause
  • people have a right to demand respect from other people
  • children don’t need a mother and father
  • there are no differences between same-sex and opposite-sex couples

Understanding same-sex marriage

The MP3 file is here. (from 1/21/2010)

Topics:

  • how did Dr. J get interested in the marriage issue?
  • what got the pro-marriage Prop 8 movement started?
  • what do we know about the federal judge in the prop 8 trial?
  • how will the school curriculum change if SSM becomes legal?
  • how same-sex unions are a stepping stone to legalizing SSM
  • how SSM empowers the state to regulate private relationships
  • children have a right to a relationship with their parents
  • how SSM threatens the rights of free speech and association
  • how the purpose of SSM differs than the purpose of TM
  • how SSM expands the state’s power to coerce individuals
  • how the province of Quebec opposes heterosexuality as normal
  • SSM’s goal is the elimination of sex differences
  • how the SSM agenda is an extension of third-wave feminism

Wonderful stuff. I really, really like listening to her talk about these things!

Dr. J’s wonderful blog is here.  Please give it a visit! She has really been writing a lot of her own thoughts into her posts lately. It’s very fun and engaging!

It’s too bad that more single women don’t talk about the things that Dr. J talks about. Do you know what single Christian men think of when a single Christian woman comes along and starts talking about the role of husband/father, marriage and children? He thinks about marriage and children, of course, and it’s fun to talk about things like that.

Commentary

Are “de-facto” parents good for children?

1 Comment

ECM sent me this interesting National Review article about how courts are undermining the rights of children by breaking down traditional parental roles.

Excerpt:

This year, the District of Columbia Council passed a law allowing biological parents’ registered domestic partners to be presumed parents, and to be listed as such on the children’s birth certificates. The law also allows a person to be legally designated a parent if he consents in writing to the artificial insemination of his partner, or if he “hold[s] out” the child as his own—that is, presents the child as his to others. (D.C. already had a law allowing people to sue for child custody if they could show they had acted as “de facto” parents (D.C. Code 16-831.01).)

Then, last month, the Delaware legislature went even farther when it enacted legislation giving state courts the ability to designate a non-parent as a “de facto” parent (with all the legal ramifications of parenthood) as long as the biological parent of a child “fosters” a “parent-like relationship” between the non-parent and the child, and as long as the “de facto” parent has acted like a parent and bonded with the child in a way that is “parental in nature.”

The Delaware law completely untethers legal parentage from biology, marriage, adoption, and even the relationship between the adults who are the child’s legal “parents.” It also abandons the binary nature of legal parenthood by allowing three or more adults to be designated “parents” of a child at the same time.

The article goes on to explain why the court’s designation of de facto parents is a bad idea for children, who are increasingly having their rights to a happy childhood denied by courts. This is what Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse was concerned about in her recent podcast on family and marriage.

I think the bottom line here is that children do best when bonding to two opposite-sex parents who are biologically linked to them. That is the most stable, loving environment in which to have children. The left is sacrificing the welfare of children in order to cater to the needs of adults who don’t care about what is best for children.