Tag Archives: Sex Differences

Podcasts

Jennifer Roback Morse answers the best argument for same-sex marriage

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Jennifer Roback Morse likes to debate, and she’s very good at it. So good, that you can learn how to debate about marriage too, just by listening to her debates.

The audio of her recent debate in Manhattan just came out.

The MP3 file is here. (46 minutes lecture, 27 minutes of Q&A)

The main case that she makes is similar to the case she made in the debate she had at Columbia University, which I blogged about before. But the Q&A is new, and very interesting. It starts at 46:00 and goes until the end. But one of the difficult questions she was asked really stood out.

The argument

Opposition to same-sex marriage is the same as opposition to inter-racial marriage.

The answer

There are two ways to respond:

1) Race has nothing to do with the central purpose of marriage as being the natural way of binding children to parents, and parents to each other. Race doesn’t affect those goals. But gender is relevant to the the purpose of marriage, because if a baby is formed from opposite sex parents then both parents have a biological link to the child, which is a stronger bond than a non-biological link. This improves the chances that the child will be raised in a stable environment.

2) A better historical analogy to opposing same-sex marriage is opposition to no-fault divorce (unilateral divorce). No-fault marriage started in California. They also argued that only a few people would be affected, that the children would not be harmed, studies show that it will be OK, etc. But in hindsight, we now know that it was a disaster for the family, and especially for children.

You can visit Dr. J’s blog here.

Those of you who are into Christian apologetics need to understand that atheism is embraced for a whole host of non-rational causes. One of them is growing up in a fatherless household. It has a profound impact on a child’s worldview when the child’s father is defective or absent. That means that every Christian apologist who knows the standard arguments also needs to know how to defend marriage. Insofar as socialism attacks marriage, the Christian apologist needs to be able to defend marriage on fiscal grounds, as well.

I’ve written before about no-fault divorce, pre/extra-marital sex, single-mother parenting and same-sex marriage. Here is my post that cites research in order to explain why people oppose same-sex marriage.

Commentary

Feminists urge preferential treatment for women in math and science

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Here are the latest numbers from National Journal magazine. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Women now claim more than 57 percent of all bachelor’s degrees, 61 percent of all master’s degrees, and half of all professional and doctoral degrees, according to Education Department data cited by University of Michigan economist Mark Perry and others. They also earn more Ph.D.s than men in the humanities, education, health sciences, and social sciences, in-cluding two-thirds of new psychology doctorates.

And Obama and the Democrats are on board with pushing men further out of the university:

Administration officials and others are “promising to litigate, regulate, and legislate the nation’s universities until women obtain half of all academic degrees in science and technology and hold half of the faculty positions in those areas,” as my colleague Neil Munro detailed in the July 4 National Journal.

With federal agencies already preparing aggressive gender-equity reviews, the feminists’ biggest potential weapon is Title IX, the 1972 law barring sex discrimination in education. While commendably opening up opportunities, Title IX has also been used to require colleges to field as many female athletes as male, even though fewer women are interested. Many colleges have met their quotas by cutting back programs for male athletes.

The push for what some feminists call “Title-Nining” the sciences makes especially timely the recent publication of The Science on Women and Science, a book of 10 essays edited by Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute.

So, the future for the Obama administration is to “Title-Nine” science and math to make sure that women and men are equally represented. Even if they have to shrink math and science programs down to nothing to have 50-50 parity. As long as the feminists achieve their goal of a perfect 50-50 distribution of men and women in every area of life, then it’s all worth it, right? Who needs math and science when you have feminism?

And there’s loads of taxpayer money (some of it mine) available to help the social engineers achieve their goals:

As the academic debate rages on, feminists seeking to engineer 50-50 male-female ratios have already directed millions of dollars of federal and university money to special efforts to increase the number of girls and women in math and science. They may also be sending a message that boys and men are on their own, except perhaps for re-education programs to purge them of gender bias. Ever-more-overt quotas (“goals”) in hiring and promotions to push women ahead of better-credentialed males are very much on the feminist agenda.

“Few academic scientists know anything about the equity crusade,” Sommers writes. “Most have no idea of its power, its scope, and the threats they may soon be facing. The business community and citizens at large are completely in the dark.”

I am a huge fan of Christina Hoff Sommers and have both of her books on feminism. I hope this new one is as good as the others! I wonder what women will do for husbands and fathers when there is a shortage of decent, educated, hard-working men? Good thing I don’t have any sisters or daughters to worry about. But I feel bad for marriage-minded women today. Everything was ruined by feminism before they were even born.

Commentary

MUST-READ: Which family configuration is best for raising children?

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Looks like Dr. J’s stylish new blog is featuring guests posts by scholars.

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Here’s a new post by Dr. Trayce Hansen. She wrote an article on which family configuration is best for children. The title is “Same-Sex Marriage: Not in the Best Interest of Children”.

Here’s her thesis:

Same-sex marriage isn’t in the best interest of children. While we may empathize with those homosexuals who long to be married and parent children, we mustn’t allow our compassion for them to trump our compassion for children. In a contest between the desires of some homosexuals and the needs of all children, we cannot allow the children to lose.

And here’s a sample:

Only mother-father families afford children the opportunity to develop relationships with a parent of the same, as well as the opposite sex. Relationships with both sexes early in life make it easier and more comfortable for a child to relate to both sexes later in life. Overall, having a relationship with both a male and female parent increases the likelihood that a child will have successful social and romantic relationships during his or her life.(5)

Moreover, existing research on children reared by homosexuals is not only scientifically flawed and extremely limited (6,7,8) but some of it actually indicates that those children are at increased risk for a variety of negative outcomes.(6) Other studies find that homosexually parented children are more likely to experiment sexually, experience sexual confusion, and engage in homosexual and bisexual behavior themselves.(5,6,9) And for those children who later engage in non-heterosexual behavior, extensive research reveals they are more likely to suffer from psychiatric disorders, abuse alcohol and drugs, (10) attempt suicide, (11) experience domestic violence and sexual assault, (12) and are at increased risk for chronic diseases, AIDS, and shortened life spans.(13,14,15)

It shouldn’t be surprising that studies find children reared by homosexuals are more likely to engage in homosexual behavior themselves (16,9,17) since extensive worldwide research reveals homosexuality is primarily environmentally induced. Specifically, social and/or family factors, as well as permissive environments which affirm homosexuality, play major environmental roles in the development of homosexual behavior.(18,19,20,21)

The rest of the article, with references, is here. I like all of the footnotes because they provide a jumping off point for more research, and that’s how these things need to be evaluated. First, we find out what’s true. Then we adjust our lives based on what is really true. We need to act in a way such that others are not harmed by out decisions. We especially need to govern our actions to avoid behaviors that may harm born and unborn children.

It looks like the the article was suppressed due to pressure from gay activists.

The California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) published a special issue of their bi-monthly journal “The Therapist” dedicated to the subject of same-sex marriage. Guest authors were asked to contribute articles, half of the writers in support and half opposed to same-sex marriage. A stated goal of the issue was to determine whether the organization should adopt a formal position on the matter.

Subsequent to publication of the May/June 2009 special issue (Volume 21, Issue 3), homosexual activists within and without the organization pressured CAMFT to not only apologize, but also expunge from their organizational archives those articles that voiced opposition to same-sex marriage. CAMFT capitulated to those demands. The Director of CAMFT apologized for publishing articles critical of same-sex marriage and all the “offending” articles were censored from the CAMFT website archives. So much for intellectual debate and freedom of opinion.

Apparently, making arguments and citing research papers was considered too “mean”.

Extra stuff

Look! I found some radio show clips that you can listen to on her web site:

And last of all, here is my post explaining why people oppose same-sex marriage. I also cite research!