World Family Policy Center Newsletter

*News relative to protecting the family worldwide*

Volume 8 Issue 199 – October 10, 2008

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Quote of the Day: "Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry."

~ Tom Mullen

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Today’s Contents:

A. Featured Scholar: Lynn B. Wardle

B. Featured News Articles

1. Brides and Grooms Return to California Marriage Papers

2. German Minister Rejects Plan to Extend Maternity Leave

3. MSI Blasts US on Contraceptives Ban

4. California Approves Nurse-Assisted Suicide

5. Supreme Court Justice Scalia: Nothing Qualifies Judge to Create Abortion Right

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FEATURED SCHOLAR

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Lynn B. Wardle

Bruce C. Hafen Professor of Law, J. Reuben Clark Law School

Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA

The following is an excerpt from Lynn B. Wardle’s speech " The Attack on Marriage As the Union of a Man and a Woman" presented at The World Congress of Families IV Warsaw, Poland, May 2007:

…Helping people to see that legalizing same-sex marriage or marriage-equivalent domestic relationships is an attack on marriage is not easy. The harm it causes is not like a broken bone sticking through the skin or blood pouring from a severed artery. It is more gradual and subtle. It is like the dangers of smoking – the damage is not obvious at first, and by the time people realize that smoking is harmful to them, irreversible damage has often been done (they may have cancer, emphesema, heart attacks, or strokes).

It is useful to begin by explaining that marriage is not merely a private matter, because there are so many important public, social consequences. It is a public institution, a public status, with public benefits. Marriage is carefully defined and regulated by the law because the public has a huge interest in protecting this basic social institution. People are vulnerable in marriages, and when marriages fail, society must pick up the pieces and the public incurs social costs such as for increased mental health treatment, increased medical services, increased juvenile delinquency, impaired education, and reduced labor productivity.

How marriage is defined sends signals to and reflects common understandings about the expectations of the relationship. Keeping those signals clear is critical to protect the vulnerable, including children, adults who invest a large part of their lives in families, and persons who depend on the care given by families.

Legalizing same-sex marriage will drain marriage of the social meaning it now has. Marriage links not only men with women, but parents with children. Legalizing same-sex marriage obscures that linkage, and weakens the message connecting marriage with spousal and parental responsibility. This is why former California Governor Pete Wilson said: “Government policy ought not to discourage marriage by offering a substitute relationship that demands much less and provides much less than is needed by children and ultimately much less than is needed by society.”

Marriage is more than a mere “word” or “piece of paper.” It is the oldest social institution in the world; it is literally a pre-legal, pre-state institution. Thus, merely calling the union of two men or two women a marriage does not make it so. It is like the story attributed to Abraham Lincoln: he is said to have once asked how many legs a dog would have if you counted a tail as a leg. To the response "five legs," Lincoln said, "No; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."http://www.worldcongress.org/wcf4.spkrs/wcf4.wardle.htm - _edn8#_edn8

If same-sex marriage is legalized on the principle of personal choice, there is no principled basis to deny those who want to call incestuous relationships “marriages,” or polygamous relationshps marriages, or polyamorous unions “marriages.”

Marriage involves the complementary, conjugal union of a man and a woman. As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in a famous decision: “Physical differences between men and women. . . are enduring: ‘The two sexes are not fungible; a community made up exclusively of one [sex] is different from a community composed of both.’”

Marriage establishes the moral core of the family and the moral baseline and standards for society in many ways. “Marriage is a society's cultural infrastructure . . . .” In marriage and family, the individual acquires his core kinshp identity. Without a solid family identity, many persons struggle and some turn to gangs, and extremist movements as a substitute for family identity. In conjugal marriage and the marital family most persons learn the most poignant lessons about how to live in meaningful relationships. Marriage is not only the most critical bridge and bonding connection in society, it is the instrument of the most important moral transformation of individuals. Marriage connects us as individuals from strangers into kin, from men and women into husbands and wives, from persons of separate generations into families.

Marriage cultivates a morality of love and sacrifice. In conjugal marriage we learn through practice to subordinate self-interest to service, to sacrifice for the welfare of others, how to nurture, give, and express love, how to forgive and be one with another (who at times seems so different, even hostile, to our interests, needs and goals). And societies for ages have channeled sexual relations into conjugal marriage, because married couples enjoy the most healthy, most satisfying, and most socially-beneficial sexual relations.

Same-sex relationships differ in profound ways in all of these critical aspects.

To read the entire article, visit http://www.worldcongress.org/wcf4.spkrs/wcf4.wardle.htm

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FEATURED NEWS ARTICLES

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Editor’s Note: The following excerpts are taken from the week’s news around the world all relating to family and family policy. By clicking on the following links, you may read the entire article from its source. Our intent is to help our readers remain current on the state of the family in the world today. The positions taken and choice of wording and advocacy belong to the authors of the articles; inclusion here does not imply endorsement by the World Family Policy Center.

1. Brides and Grooms Return to California Marriage Papers

The Guardian (United Kingdom)

October 7, 2008

The words "bride" and "groom" are to reappear on marriage licences issued in California from next month.

The state's department of public health said the change was being made because many couples still want the option of identifying themselves in traditional terms.

Same-sex marriage became legal in California with a state supreme court ruling on June 16. After the decision, the health department issued new gender-neutral marriage forms with the words "Party A" and "Party B" substituting bride and groom.

The department believed it was necessary to eliminate the traditional terms in order to comply with the court ruling, but it has since looked for alternatives to the new labels.

The new paperwork will have blank spaces for applicants' names and personal information next to the words "First Person Data" and "Second Person Data". There will then be boxes for checking bride or groom.

It will be possible for couples to check the same title twice if they wish.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/07/usa.gayrights

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2. German Minister Rejects Plan to Extend Maternity Leave

The Local (Germany)

October 4, 2008

German Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen is opposed to proposals to extend paid maternity leave for women to 18 months, warning they could backfire and hamper jobs in Germany.

Reacting to plans by the European Commission to expand paid maternity leave for women on the continent to 18 months, von der Leyen said they could raise the financial risks for employers who hire young women.

The minister, a mother of seven, said the plans could lead to higher non-wage labour costs and hinder the creation of new jobs in Germany.

“On the other hand, we would also be creating new hurdles for young women who are looking for a job,” von der Leyen said.

She pointed out that women in Germany currently enjoy strong legal protection when they become pregnant in terms of maternity leave, child benefits and lay-off protection.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.thelocal.de/14671/20081003/

Parliament Approves Universal Daycare By 2013

The Local (Germany)

September 26, 2008

The German parliament voted on Friday to provide daycare for all children younger than three-years-old beginning in August of 2013.

The new law, proposed by the ruling grand coalition of Christian and Social Democrats and passed against the will of the opposition, still must be approved by the upper house of parliament, which represents Germany's 16 federal states.

The measure aims to provide a daycare spot for a third of all children under the age of three or a monthly payment to families that prefer in-home care. The number of available daycare slots will also be tripled by 2013.

Adding the necessary daycare infrastructure will cost Germany an estimated €12 billion, of which the federal government will contribute €4 billion if the law is approved by the upper house of parliament in November.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.thelocal.de/14545/20080926/

Von der Leyen Criticizes German Firms for Being Anti-Family

The Local (Germany)

September 19, 2008

German Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen on Friday said too many of the country’s companies still made it difficult to have a career and a raise a family.

“Qualified workers are leaving regions – or aren’t even moving to regions in the first place – if they can’t work and have decent life with their partner and children,” she told business daily Handelsblatt.

Von der Leyen said some German companies had made family policy a priority, but far too many were still lagging behind.

“The nicest kindergarten and the best all-day school are useless when an employer considers children a hassle and doesn’t typically see mothers as worth promoting,” she said, adding that firms should consider allowing parents to have flexible working times and company daycare.

Von der Leyen said it was crucial to convince firms that both mothers and fathers were an irreplaceable part of the German workforce. She said the growing numbers of German fathers who had chosen to take paternity leave were playing a decisive role in changing attitudes in the corporate world.

“They’ve started a trend that can no longer be stopped,” she told the paper.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.thelocal.de/14395/20080919/

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3. MSI Blasts US on Contraceptives Ban

Chanel 4 News

October 8, 2008

British family planning charity Marie Stopes International has blasted the Bush administration for telling six African governments to stop giving it US-donated contraceptives.

The move by the US State Department and US Agency (USAID) for International Development affects Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

USAID says Marie Stopes is a major player in a United Nations programme in China that, the Bush administration says, promotes coerced abortion and sterilisation.

"Given these circumstances, USAID made the policy decision to inform governments in these countries that it does not want USAID-funded commodities to be provided to Marie Stopes International," the State Department, which oversees USAID, said.

The US does not give any direct assistance to the group but is a leading family planning health provider and one of several distributors of US-donated "contraceptive commodities", including condoms and intrauterine devices, in some of Africa's least-developed countries.

Under US law, the government must withhold aid to agencies and groups found to support or participate in management of family planning programmes abroad that involve abortion or coerced sterilisation.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/health/msi+blasts+us+on+contraceptives+ban/2485292

Federal Court Panel Grants Appeal for Woman Denied Asylum for Seeking To Avoid Forced Sterilization in China

Medical News Today

September 16, 2008

A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Thursday ruled that a Chinese woman who feared sterilization under China's family planning law can challenge her denial of asylum in the U.S. under the Convention Against Torture, the AP/Macon Telegraph reports. China's policy limits couples to one child with some exceptions for ethnic groups, rural families and couples who are both only children. A recent earthquake in China's Sichuan province also prompted officials to allow an exception to the one-child rule to couples who lost an only child.

According to the court, an affidavit submitted by the woman, Shao Yu Yuan, stated that family members had told her that many pregnant women in her hometown in China's Fujian Province were taken by authorities and forced to undergo forced abortion and/or sterilization. In its decision, the panel cited a ruling by the 11th Circuit court in a similar case. The judges ordered the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals to give Yuan a hearing on her request. Yuan's lawyer, Ted Cox, said the ruling most likely will allow the mother of two daughters to stay in the U.S.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/121593.php

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4. California Approves Nurse-Assisted Suicide

World Net Daily

October 2, 2008

SACRAMENTO – California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has officially approved an assisted suicide measure allowing nurses to sedate, dehydrate and starve depressed or confused individuals they consider to be "terminally ill."

The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Patty Berg, a Democrat, passed the California Assembly Aug. 28, and the state Senate Aug. 20. It was signed by the governor yesterday.

The legislation, called the "Terminal Patients' Right to Know End of Life Options Act," or AB 2747, passed by a 42 to 34 vote. An Aug. 20 Senate vote of 21 to 17 ushered the measure to the governor's desk for signing.

Randy Thomasson, chief of the Campaign for Children and Families, said the legislation is dangerous and should have been vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger.

"AB 2747 pushes suicide through the back door at the hands of non-physicians taking advantage of depressed patients," he said in a statement.

"AB 2747 cheapens the value of human life by endorsing suicide as an option."

The measure allows physician assistants and nurses to decide whether a person is "terminally ill" and deprive them of basic life-sustaining necessities such as food and water.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76713

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5. Supreme Court Justice Scalia: Nothing Qualifies Judge to Create Abortion Right

LifeNews.com

September 16, 2008

Washington, DC -- Justice Antonin Scalia is one of the most outspoken jurists on the Supreme Court when it comes to talking about abortion. Scalia repeated the mantra on Monday that he's presented to college students and community forums about how the high court doesn't have the power to declare a right to abortion.

During a speech at Utah State University's Taggart Student Center, where 1,700 people came to hear the respected judge tell it like it is, Scalia criticized those jurists who engage in what he called "abstract moralizing."

In addition to faulty decisions like Roe v. Wade, Scalia said it results in a corrupt political process where citizens and politicians expect new judges to "rewrite" the U.S. Constitution and make policy decisions normally reserved for legislatures.

"These are social preferences that can only be handled in a political process," he said.

According to a Salt Lake Tribune report, Scalia said the cure for the problem is for Americans to view the Constitution as a "static" document and support judges who won't make up the law from the bench.

Scalia touted his "originalist" views whereby he says the Constitution has a fixed and knowable meaning established at the time of its drafting.

That applies to pro-life issues like abortion and assisted suicide, he explained.

"I'm questioning the sanity of having value-laden decisions being made by unelected judges," he said. "Nothing I learned at Harvard or in my practice of law qualifies me to decide whether there is a right to abortion or to assisted suicide."

Scalia's comment reinforce previous statements he's made.

To view the entire article, visit http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/10/2361064.htm