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Harvard Law Professor Distorted and
Mocked the Truth About Census in Boston Globe Article;
Attempted to Damage Marriage Amendment
February 2003 Print Edition
The truth about the census
was told in our December 2001 issue after Martha Minow,
Harvard Law School professor, and others brought an
unsuccessful lawsuit, asking the SJC to block the
Protection of Marriage Amendment. She wrote an article
for the Globe as to why she and other feminist lawyers
were more qualified to make the decisions about marriage
than mothers, engineers, accountants, construction
workers, farmers or any other group.
Minow told many falsehoods before reporting about
the census. We answered her entire article at the
time. You can read it in its entirety on our website.
This is a portion of her article that was printed
in the Globe on October 27, 2001. We answered it at
that time with her article in boldface type and comments
from our Publisher, Atty. J. Edward Pawlick in regular
type.
Census data indicate that
married couples occupy only 52 percent of households,
That's not true. Over 68% of households in Massachusetts
are married couples, according to the 2000 census.
The opposing lawyer got her misleading 52% by including
as a "household" all single people, such
as the following: any widow who lives alone, young
people who live alone, etc. But obviously the fact
that there are more such people living alone today
does not diminish marriage in any way. She only wishes
it did.
You can determine the truth of what I say by going
to the data of the Census Bureau at www.census.gov.
and the number of unmarried couples living together
grew over the past 10 years by 72 percent.
If it were true that the number of unmarried couples
had grown, this might give her solace, but it would
make most of us very sad to see the plight of many
of our children who would be without both a mother
and father. There are very few of us who are anxious
to see that number increase.
Indeed, only 25 percent of households in the nation
are composed of a married couple with one or more
children under the age of 18.
So what? Now she is arguing that when a child becomes
18-years-old or moves out of the house and goes to
college, that that "household" becomes dysfunctional.
Or when a husband dies and leaves a widow, that household
is dysfunctional because it no longer has "a
married couple." The statistic she cites also
shows that we have smaller families than before and
therefore, the parents are without "children
under the age of 18" much earlier than they used
to be. What obvious distortions and silly talk.
It is difficult to get a fully accurate picture
of the number of households composed of same-sex couples
and their families; people are often reluctant to
identify themselves this way, and the US Census did
not count such couples in the past. Nonetheless, nearly
1.2 million people reported in the 2000 Census that
they are part of gay and lesbian couples.
And those people who are "part of gay and
lesbian couples" total less than 1% of all the
households in the country (.56% to be exact). Even
if you subtract the households of people living alone,
it would not come close to 1% of the households. (Do
you remember two or three years ago when we were told
that homosexuals were 10% of the population?)
Additionally, multigenerational households and households
where grandparents care for grandchildren and stepparents
care for children are increasing nationwide.
When the law tries to impose norms out of step
with actual lived experiences, enforcement and legitimacy
of the law become serious problems. Moreover, legal
rules bearing little relationship to how people live
is not law, it's ideology. Legal rules out of touch
with people's lives means that government expresses
beliefs about how to distribute status and value instead
of guiding behavior effectively.
No matter how hard she tries, she will never get people
to agree that having a mother and a father is "out
of step with actual lived experiences." What
is out-of-step with actual experience is a child living
with two mothers or two fathers. Or a heterosexual
couple having children without taking the responsibility
to care for them. Or a group relationship which wants
the other citizens to financially support their relationship.
As a single parent for fifteen years while raising
three girls and a boy, I can personally attest to
the fact that my children would have had a better
childhood if they had had a mother present as well
as their father.
There are many children who are successfully raised
by arrangements other than a mother and father, but
if we had to choose where we would be born, practically
100% of us would choose to have a mother and a father.
Even most homosexuals agree with that.
But what really haunts me are the children growing
up right now in households that do not include a married
man and woman. For these children, the adults who
matter to them matter because of the daily care they
provide, not because of their ability to fit the traditional
definition of marriage. For children, the marital
status, biological or nonbiological connection, and
sexual orientation of parenting figures is irrelevant.
Children form strong attachments without asking about
such things; indeed, children form strong attachments
before they even know what it is to ask about such
things. It is difficult to understand why two adults
who share responsibility for children - whether they
are partners, siblings, or a mother and her mother
- would offer less of what children need than do married
couples.
Those children also "haunt" most of us.
That is why we do not want to increase their numbers.
The research at best for her side shows that they
are unable to demonstrate any inaccuracy in our innate
belief that children are damaged by not having a mother
and a father. The research for our side shows that
they are damaged.
The homosexual activists are constantly saying that
children who are "different" have serious
problems in life. What a burden they put on these
innocent children to fight the battle for homosexuals
out in the world. How can anyone who loves a child
place that burden on the child?
It's difficult to understand how this lawyer finds
it "difficult to understand" why homosexual
couples "would offer less of what children need
than do married couples." It's difficult for
her only because she does not want to believe that
all children desire a mother and a father. Many of
them do not get that happy combination, but that is
no reason for us to deny it to as many as we can.
Studies show that children raised in households
with same-sex couples show no difficulties in school
performance or emotional development when compared
with children raised in households with opposite-sex
couples. If the petitions pass, these children risk
economic and custodial uncertainty as well as an upsurge
of intolerance or rejection by peers. The state could
tell these children and everyone who knows them that
the government will not recognize their parent or
give their parent the economic benefits given others.
Even though the petitions would directly implicate
only the benefits accorded by government, their adoption
would feed discrimination and negative feelings spilling
over to employers, insurers, and playground bullies.
The studies do not show that at all. There are studies
on both sides of the question. Most of us do not need
a "study" to answer this.
We must also remember that homosexual activists are
deep into every professional group today. The prestigious
American Psychological Association got into serious
trouble in 1999 after publishing a study indicating
that sexual molestation can have a positive influence
on a child. It said we must eliminate terms like "molestation,"
and "victims." We should use neutral, value-free
terms like "adult-child sex." We should
not talk about "the severity of the abuse,"
but instead refer to "the level of sexual intimacy."
[Wouldn't the bad Catholic priests like that kind
of talk!] The psychologists were thereafter chastised
by Congress by a vote of 355-0, after which they changed
their minds and apologized.
So much for "studies" from many of these
social scientists.
If Prof. Minow is truly concerned about the feelings
of these children, she would not put them into the
environment as she is doing now where they face serious
problems of trying to defend and protect partners.
That is not the role for any child.
The precise legal question of the lawsuit concerns
whether these topics are even proper for voting by
popular initiative. Our Constitution makes clear that
rights of individuals and minorities would be jeopardized
if any topic could be put to a referendum or initiative
vote, and therefore, "No measure that relates
to the powers, creation or abolition of courts shall
be proposed by initiative petition."
The petitions would do just this: They would deprive
the courts of the ability to adjudicate matters about
family obligations and benefits or even family status.
It is to courts we have entrusted the responsibility
to determine the best interests of children,
We have entrusted our children to the courts only
if, and when, a family has failed, not before. Too
many judges in our state are quick to impose their
decisions on children and families that have not failed.
when a marriage should be ended, and what intimate
partners owe one another.
Defining who is in a family and who is eligible for
what benefits may pose some difficult factual questions.
But that is precisely the context in which judges
- not voters flipping a switch on an abstract proposition
- are capable of attending to the needs and merits
in particular situations. I am confident of the judiciary's
ability to do what is right.
This lawyer/professor wants to reject having the people
decide this issue because she knows they will reject
her ideas. She knows that the courts are her only
hope (although it is a terribly slim one). But the
Constitution was not written by judges, but by the
people. And the Constitution should not be amended
by the judges but by the people. Once the Constitution
is written, then the judges can interpret it, but
they do not write it.
Like many lawyers, she does not trust the people.
She wants an elite group of judges to decide the important
issues for the country. As one who spent some time
at Yale Law School in the 1950s (which was considered
by everyone to be the best law school in the country),
I, and many others, do not stand in awe of Prof. Minow
or her friends at Harvard.
We all know that the courts have done much good in
our country and protected the people from tyranny.
They have also done much harm such as the infamous
Dred Scott decision of 1857 where the U.S. Supreme
Court held that a black man had no right to sue in
our courts, or where it held that a state could require
separate railway facilities for blacks (1896) or that
a state could tell a private school it must remain
segregated (1908).
The Attorney General, Tom Reilly, who is an acknowledged
friend of homosexuals, decided correctly the legal
issue the Professor is challenging and the SJC approved
it unanimously when the homosexual activists appealed
it. He approved the question to be on the ballot in
2004. He said that the Amendment does not concern
the power of the courts. He was right and the Professor
knows it.
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