Do it for the Children

Most of the time, the right-wing/evangelical folks use the children to change things: stopping Happy Meals, censoring television shows.  But today, it seemed that the kids just weren't on their side.  Today there was a congressional hearing about overturning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  And there were a bunch of the right-wing/evangelical folks to tell the world how DOMA is just so bad.


There is Thomas Minnery, Senior Vice President for Public Policy, Focus on the Family.  He had written testimony that cited an HHS study that said "same-sex" families were bad for children or "opposite-sex" families were better for them.  Sen. Al Franken actually had the HHS study in his hand and it actually said that children did better in "two-parent" households and that the parents' gender had nothing to do with it. (ThinkProgress.org)

Franken then said that since Minnery had lied he didn't "know how we can really trust the rest of your testimony."


But Mr. Minnery gave more anyway.  Sen. Leahy brought up the issue of not having the "same financial benefits that an opposite sex family would have" without marriage rights.  Minnery went back to "certainly children are better off with parents in the home."   (PamsHouseblend.com)

But, Leahy wouldn't let it go:

• "if you have parents legally married under the laws of the state - one set of parents are entitled to certain financial benefits for their children, the other set of parents are denied those same financial benefits for their children..."

And Minnery had to say yep.  That would be yes.


But, really it is just that some of these whackos simply hate gay people.  And they throw that hate around and blame all kinds of things on gays and their marriages.  Rabbi Yehuda Levin now says that gay marriage is what caused the murder of an 8 year-old Hassidic boy in New York.  "This came in the very aftermath of the marriage bill, my dear friends," he says.  And really, had nothing to do with a heterosexual, divorced observant Jew? (JoeMyGod)

Do it for the children, Rabbi.

He seems to make the case...

In an op-ed today (on Faux News of all places), president and chief executive officer of Focus on the Family, Jim Daly wanted to tell everybody why allowing same-sex marriages is all wrong.  He decides to point out that things that might "improve the social welfare" do not always succeed.  Some have worked (woman’s suffrage and civil rights) but others have not (prohibition and no-fault divorce).  He thinks that same-sex marriage falls into that last group of things that would have to fail. (FoxNews.com)

For no-fault divorce, he states that it creates a "consequence of kids now growing up without a father in the home."  Or the expansion of welfare where "fathers no longer needed to be an integral part of the family." Doesn't the lack of same-sex marriage have other kids growing up without their two fathers in the house?

He also isn't in favor of legalized abortion in all 50 states.  He says that because of it, "the beauty of life has been cheapened" and child abuse has skyrocketed.  Not sure exactly how an increase in non-living children makes child abuse skyrocket, but how beautiful is life for living children who never get to see their two mothers happily wed?

He is not a huge fan of cohabitation because it "decreases a person’s appetite for marriage" and says a "home with two unmarried partners has proven to be the most dangerous place for children in the U.S."  Not really a strong argument for prohibiting same-sex marriage, people are fighting for the right to sate their appetite for marriage and provide a loving two-parent home for their children. 

Mr. Daly may need to re-Focus his family ideas.  None of his arguments make much sense for denying marriage equality.

May have to agree with him on Prohibition, though...