• Hinn Breaks Silence on Divorce Announcement  CBN.com, February 27, 2010
  Evangelist Benny Hinn is speaking out about his wife's recent divorce announcement. On Thursday, Hinn posted a three-page statement to his partners explaining that his wife Suzanne has no 'biblical grounds for divorce." "I also want you, my very dear partner, to know that there was absolutely no immorality involved in my life or in Suzanne's, ever," Hinn tells his partners in the statement. "We both kept our lives clean and were totally committed to each other for 30 years of marriage." Suzanne Hinn filed the papers in Orange County, Calif. on Feb. 1 citing irreconcilable differences. The papers noted that the two separated on Jan. 26. Hinn insists his wife's recent action was a complete shock to the family. "Suzanne never gave the family even a hint that this was on her mind," he said. "Even to this moment, the children and I don't know why she did it." The evangelist continues to ask his supporters for prayer for his family's healing. He says that any pending divorce will not stop him from fulfilling his call to ministry. "I want you, as my partner in this ministry, to know that I am going to continue preaching the Gospel and praying for the sick as I have for 36 years. I will not allow anything to slow me down or stop me," he said. Benny and Suzanne Hinn married in 1979 and have three daughters and a son. Hinn's healing and evangelistic ministry has spanned the globe for more than 30 years, including Holy Spirit Miracle Crusades, ministry training conferences,TV broadcasts, and more. Ministry officials said they covet the prayers and continued support of Pastor Hinn and his family as they walk through this difficult season. . .
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  Wife of televangelist Benny Hinn files for divorce  Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2010
  
  
  RELATED STATEMENT:  Benny Hinn: A Personal Message from My Family and Me  Benny Hinn.org

RELATED ARTICLE: Private Pain, Public Trust: Why Leaders Must Be Open About Failure  Charisma magazine,By J. Lee Grady, February 23, 2010
Christians were shocked last week after learning that Benny and Suzanne Hinn are divorcing. Do ministers owe us an explanation for their failures?
Judging by the calls and e-mails I received last week, charismatic Christians were confused and dismayed when the Los Angeles Times  broke the news that healing evangelist Benny Hinn and his wife, Suzanne, are getting divorced. The comments I heard were mostly sympathetic: "I am so grieved." "This is a wake-up call." "This is heartbreaking." "I'm praying for the Hinns." And a few people were angry: "What is happening?" "Here we go again." "This is why the secular world looks at us and laughs!". . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  Tragically Widening the Grounds of Legitimate Divorce  DesiringGod.org, By John Piper, October 17, 2007


RELATED ARTICLE:  What God Has Joined: What does the Bible really teach about divorce?  Christianity Today, By David Instone-Brewer, October 5, 2007
The early church, and even Jewish rabbis, forgot what the "any cause" divorce was, because soon after the days of Jesus, it became the only type of divorce on offer. It was simply called divorce. This meant that when Jesus condemned "divorce for 'any cause,' " later generations thought he meant "divorce for any cause." . . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  10 Ways to Lift Yourself Up When a Spiritual Leader Lets You Down   Beliefnet.com- NY, By Valerie Reiss, Nov 9, 2006

• Beverly Hills Slams Beauty Contestant for Speaking Out Against Gay Marriage   FOXNews.com, By Hollie McKay, February 24, 2010
  Former Miss California Carrie Prejean isn't the only beauty queen open to expressing her objection to same-sex marriage. Miss Beverly Hills 2010 Lauren Ashley is also speaking out in support of traditional nuptials. . . . .Miss Beverly Hills and upcoming Miss California contender Lauren Ashley spoke out to Pop Tarts earlier this week against gay marriage -- and as a result she has been publicly condemned by the City of Beverly Hills. "The City of Beverly Hills today denounced statements made by Miss California USA contestant Lauren Ashley, the self-described Miss Beverly Hills. Ms. Ashley resides in Pasadena and is currently a contestant for the Miss California USA title. She does not represent Beverly Hills in any capacity," the city said in a news release issued Wednesday. "The City of Beverly Hills strongly condemns Ms. Ashley's recent statements and has contacted pageant officials to determine ways to formally prevent any beauty contestants claiming the title of Miss Beverly Hills in the future." A representative from the City Council told Pop Tarts that the mayor and the entire council were very upset by Ashley's comments and the council will decide whether or not to take the issue up with the Miss Universe Organization, co-owned by Donald Trump and NBC. State pageant director Keith Lewis said all applicants are interviewed by a representative from the organization and if successful they can then choose what city they wish to represent in the quest for the Miss California title. But despite the Beverly Hills City Council's desire to have the pageant structure changed, Lewis said, "the incident has no bearing on Miss California USA or the way the pageant will be conducted in the future." "I would love for the City of Beverly Hills to have their own preliminary pageant to determine a representative," Lewis added. "But until then, this is the way Miss Universe runs it and this is how it is done in other states." A spokesperson for Trump and the Miss Universe Organization was not immediately available for comment. But despite the controversy -- and all he endured last year during the Carrie Prejean saga -- Lewis stands by Ashley's right to exercise her personal opinion. . . .  Ashley originally told us she was against gay marriage and quoted the Bible's Old Testament as saying, "If man lies with mankind as he would lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them." However the media storm that ensued interpreted her words with headlines such as "Miss Beverly Hills Wants Gays Put to Death" and "God Wants Gays Dead, Says Beauty Queen." The 23-year-old titleholder declined to comment any further or respond to the city's press release, but insisted she was "doing fine" in spite of the backlash. . .
  
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  The Carrie Effect: Notes from the fontlines of the Marriage War (Pdf)    National Review- Cover Story, By Maggie Gallagher, August 10, 2009
  The headline on the story about a new CBS News/New York Times survey was interesting: "Poll: Support for Gay Marriage Dips." How fast and how far had support for gay marriage had to drop before a mainstream-media headline acknowledged it, even as a "dip"? Here's the answer: 9 percentage points. That's right: In just a few short months, support for gay marriage in this poll plunged 9 percentage points, from its all-time high of 42 percent to 33 percent. A reporter for New York magazine recently called me to ask about the cause of a similar abrupt drop in support for gay marriage in a poll of voters in New York State. "Did the National Organization for Marriage" -- of which I am president -- "cause that decline?" he asked. I suspect he wanted me to claim credit, to give him a more dramatic narrative. After all, if you run a large activist organization directly involved in politics, your professional obligation is to be a blowhard. (And indeed, the 2 million robocalls and the ad campaign NOM had launched must have helped.) But I turned in my professional-blowhard card by saying, "No, I really think that it was Carrie Prejean." The Carrie Effect? How can one beauty queen cause a swing of almost ten points in national polls on a hotly debated issue?. . .
  
  
  RELATED POLL RESULTS:  Majority of Americans Continue to Oppose Gay Marriage    Gallup.com, By Jeffrey M. Jones, May 27, 2009
  Americans' views on same-sex marriage have essentially stayed the same in the past year, with a majority of 57% opposed to granting such marriages legal status and 40% in favor of doing so. Though support for legal same-sex marriage is significantly higher now than when Gallup first asked about it in 1996, in recent years support has appeared to stall, peaking at 46% in 2007. . .
  
  
  RELATED INFO:  Putting strategies to work: the homosexual propaganda campaign in America's media   MassResistance.org
  Read below: The powerful, sophisticated psychological techniques that the homosexual movement has used to manipulate the public in the media. . .
  
  
  
  

• Massachusetts AG seeking summary judgment in Defense of Marriage Act suit  JURIST, By Steve Dotterer, February 19, 2010
  Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley moved for summary judgment,Thursday in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The case will be decided in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. If the motion for summary judgment is granted, the DOMA, which defines marriage as the legal union between a man and a woman, would be declared unconstitutional without a trial. Excerpts from Coakley's memorandum supporting the motion for summary judgment outline the commonwealth's argument:
  
      First, DOMA violates the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits Congress from intruding on areas of exclusive State authority, of which the definition and regulation of marriage is perhaps the clearest example. ... Second, DOMA - which Defendants admit is "discriminatory" - violates the Spending Clause by forcing the Commonwealth to engage in invidious discrimination against its own citizens in order to receive and retain federal funds in connection with two joint federal-state programs. The government has until April 30 to file a response to the motion.
  
  The Obama administration has said DOMA is discriminatory but has maintained that it is nonetheless constitutional. . . 

RELATED ARTICLE:  Marriage as a RITE? Absolutely! Marriage as a RIGHT? Not a Chance. Chicago Sun Times, By Melissa Whittington, January 20, 2010
Marriage is a religious RITE, not a RIGHT. And if the liberal left, gays, and lesbians would recognize this FACT, because that’s what it is, perhaps they would be able to move away from the offensive, contentious assault on the Christian way of life, our country’s history and founding, and focus on a solution that works for them. . .



RELATED ARTICLE:  Will California gay-marriage trial go to Supreme Court?  As a federal court considers the constitutionality of a voter-approved ban in California, some gay-marriage advocates say a Supreme Court decision could be the best path to legalization.   Christian Science Monitor, By Michael B. Farrell, January 26, 2010
San Francisco: On the 17th floor of the Phillip Burton Federal Building in a city known for being at the edge of social change, a federal trial is under way that could lead to a landmark ruling on same-sex marriage in America. . . . . The lawsuit unfolding in California could take years to make it to the Supreme Court. The court may not even accept the case. Before Loving v. Virginia, a majority of states had already invalidated laws against interracial marriage. Today, all but five states limit marriage to a man and woman. The issue of gay marriage, said New Jersey state Sen. John Girgenti (D), who supports civil unions but voted against the same-sex marriage bill, goes to "the heart of our society and how we define who we are.". . .

• Tiger Bares Soul; Let's Leave Him Alone  Golf FanHouse, By Jay Mariotti, February 19, 2010
• Continue to laugh and ridicule him if you must. But it took considerable strength -- more than you or I might have -- for Tiger Woods to stand in a makeshift confessional Friday, stare into a camera and tell millions of TV viewers that he is a narcissist who needs help. The same Woods I saw at Torrey Pines two summers ago, winning the U.S. Open on one leg, is the same Woods I saw in a contrived yet humbling environment in which he admitted he was living a lie and a double life. Only this Woods was a flawed, tortured soul, who had to reach down and acknowledge character flaws, a necessary act as the world's first billion-dollar athlete and a closet adulterer who was trying to paint himself as a family man when he was anything but that. It would have been convenient enough to issue a brief statement and return to his sex-addiction clinic. Instead, he delivered a 13 1/2-minute guilty plea that provided just about everything I wanted to see and hear in his first public words in 79 days: pain in his voice, dampness and remorse in his eyes, an inner shame that already seems to have changed the way he interacts with the public world. . . . . . Repeatedly, he blamed himself and no one else. Repeatedly, he issued apologies to wife Elin, who wasn't in the room, and said the only way to make amends is by being a better husband and human being over time. Repeatedly, he expressed sorrow that he'd dragged his children into the mess, that his mother and family members and friends had to deal with details of his various infidelities. Repeatedly, he apologized to his fans, his corporate sponsors, the people who work for him, the kids he has tried to help via his foundation and learning center. Repeatedly, he used phrases I've never heard from a high-profile figure trying to make a mea culpa, such as the assumption that he was "entitled'' as a prominent athlete to sleep with women anytime he wanted. . .
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  Tiger Woods: 'I Am Deeply Sorry' Golf FanHouse, By Michael David Smith, February 19, 2010
  In his long-awaited first public statement since a car accident led to revelations of his infidelities, Tiger Woods offered a series of apologies to his friends and family, while defending his wife, Elin, against accusations that she caused the accident by attacking him. But Woods did not say when he will play golf again, other than to mention at the end of the statement that it could be this year. . . . . Woods asked the media to leave his family alone, and claimed that his young daughter had been followed to nursery school, and he said of the media, "They staked out my wife and they pursued my mom." Woods also mentioned his religious beliefs, saying, "I was raised a Buddhist and I actively practiced my faith in childhood before I drifted away in recent years." Although he didn't specifically address reports that he has been living in a sexual addiction rehabilitation clinic, Woods said he has "more treatment and more therapy" ahead. . .
  

RELATED VIDEO:  Tiger Woods' Full Apology  CNN.com, February 19, 2010


RELATED VIDEO:   Tiger Under the Microscope ABC News, February 18, 2009
Christine Brennan and Tom Rinaldi discuss the golfer's planned statement.


RELATED VIDEO:  Famous Faces, Famous 'Sexpologies' ABC News, February 18, 2010
A look back at the people who've apologized for their indiscretions.

RELATED ARTICLE:  How did parents’ marriage affect Woods?  Earl Woods knew devotion to son’s development put strain on his relationship with Tiger’s mother Chicago Tribune, By Fred Mitchell, February 21, 2010
Earl Woods was the first to admit he was "no expert on relationships" when it came to marriages. His son, Tiger, saw that first-hand as a child growing up in Cypress, Calif. And Earl admitted as much when he and I collaborated on the book "Playing Through" about 12 years ago. As Tiger stood before the cameras Friday, admitting his culpability for the fracturing of his marriage, I recalled some of his late father's statements and actions that must have left an indelible mark in Tiger's memory bank. . . . . How much of the predicament in which Tiger finds himself today came from observing his parents' marital relationship? This was Earl's statement in our book regarding his relationship with Tiger's mother and how the intense golf lifestyle consumed the entire family: "By the time we discovered that the little guy had an affinity for golf, Tida and I made a personal commitment to each other that we would devote all of our energies and finances to assure that he had the best that we could give him. Total commitment! Well, something had to give, and it was our relationship. The priority became Tiger, and not each other. And, in retrospect, I see that our relationship began to decline from that day on. Not the trust, not the respect, just that unbridled love. . . . . "The outgrowth of this, and I allude to my previous comment that you can't fool the kids, is that Tiger was aware of the situation between his parents.  . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  Tiger Woods Speaks: Timing of Planned Statement Curious, Experts Say: Woods' Statement Comes During Tournament Sponsored by Company That Dropped Him   ABC News, Sarah Netter and Russell Goldman, February 18, 2010
Sports fans and gossipmongers have been waiting for three months to hear from Tiger Woods, but his planned five-minute statement will be judged as much more than a simple step back into the spotlight, experts say. "No matter what he says or how thorough he tries to be ... people are going to watch him and judge him based on contrition and whether they think he's changed," ESPN golf expert Tom Rinaldi told "Good Morning America" today. Woods said Wednesday he will speak Friday at 11 a.m. from the Professional Golfers Association's headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. The timing of the statement has raised eyebrows, coming right in the middle of the Match Play Championship sponsored by Accenture, the first company to publicly drop him as a spokesman. Deadlines for upcoming tournaments also loom. Fellow golfer Ernie Els told Golfweek magazine after Woods' announcement that his statement was "selfish." "I feel sorry for the sponsor. Mondays are a good day to make statements, not Friday," he told the magazine. "This takes a lot away from the golf tournament." USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan told "Good Morning America" today that Els' grumblings were likely shared by other golfers. "It is not a nice moment," she said. "It is not a nice thing to do, to take the field of spotlight away from his peers." But the planned statement shows that Woods is trying to take control of a situation that may have irreparably harmed his professional career and his personal life. "This is a guy who has made his fame by mastering a given moment," Rinaldi said. "This moment will be the most challenging he's faced in his entire life.". . . . .Los Angeles public relations expert Howard Bragman told "Good Morning America" today that Woods' best chance for redemption is on the golf course. "What's really going to determine his future is how well he plays golf once he goes back out on the course," he said. Friday's statement is going to be so controlled, it may not make much of a difference, he added. "He might as well have taped it himself and put it on YouTube," Bragman said. "If I were advising him, I'd say, 'You need to sit down with a credible journalist and really answer these questions.'" In not taking any questions, as Woods' camp announced Wednesday, he pre-emptively reduced the event to a "dog-and-pony show," Brennan said. . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  Signs of a Restorable Spirit: What are the tangible evidences of repentance?  Christianity Today, Posted by Marshall Shelley, Nov 8, 2006
What are the evidences that repentance is taking place and that grace is having its intended effect? Here are five evidences I'd look for before ever considering any restoration to ministry leadership: 1. Is he rebuilding the broken trust with his wife and children?. . . . .2. Has the sin been confessed in a way that shows he understands the deeper issues involved?. . . . .Has he taken clear and specific steps to address the deficits in spiritual, relational, and emotional health?. . . . .4. Has he willingly relinquished his claim to position, privilege, and power? . . . .5. Has enough time passed that it's clear that his life has taken a new direction, that repentance (the "turning") is lasting, and that the soul and relationships have been cleansed?. . .

• Nicole Richie and Other Celebrities Who Delay Marriage
  After Two Children, Nicole Richie, Joel Madden Get Engaged; Other Celebrities Never Wed  ABC News, By Luchina Fisher, February 18, 2009
  Three years and two children later, actress Nicole Richie and musician Joel Madden  have announced they are officially tying the knot. If it seems Madden and Richie are flouting the words "first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage," they are certainly not alone. Plenty of stars have either delayed marriage after having children or forsaken the nuptials altogether. When it comes to relationships in Hollywood, nearly anything goes. Just yesterday, Leonardo DiCaprio, 35, who has dated some of the world's most beautiful women, including his current flame Israeli model Bar Refaeli, told "Good Morning America" host Robin Roberts that he is putting off marriage and family, even though three years ago, he told Oprah Winfrey that he'd be ready for both ... when he's 35. Now that he's 35, DiCaprio told Roberts Monday, "The truth is I'm very lucky to be in the position I am in now. If the other stuff happens to come along in a natural progression, then so be it."  As long as I have another 10 years," he added jokingly. Madden and Richie didn't seem in a big hurry to get hitched either, even though they have been living as a close-knit family for some time. As recently as October, Richie dashed engagement rumors. "One day I would love to get married," she told a reporter. "It's not something we're talking about right now. If my kids ask me to get married, I'd get married." Then on Monday, Madden revealed the couple had been engaged for some time. . . . . . Whether they will be great spouses remains to be seen. Dr. Jenn Berman believes they stand a good chance, though. "They appear to be a couple with good heads on their shoulders," she told ABCNews.com. "But putting the cart before the horse is generally not what I recommend," added Berman, the author of "The A to Z Guide to Raising Happy Confident Kids." "Everybody is well served when parents are able to create a solid relationship and level of stability and familiarity prior to starting a family." Celebrities are not like the rest of us, though. While most average couples wait until marriage to start a family, in part, out of financial need, Berman said celebrities don't have the same financial needs. For that reason they may be more hesitant to get married and choose to start a family first. If Madden and Richie wonder what the future holds for them, they can look at some other Hollywood couples who have taken a less traditional route. . .
  
  
  
  RELATED RESOURCE: The State of our Unions  The National Marriage Project
  The National Marriage Project is a nonpartisan, nonsectarian and interdisciplinary initiative located at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.  

RELATED ARTICLE:  The Power of Commitment   Faith & Family Foundation, By Phil Callaway
Believe me, ours is not a perfect marriage. But I am far richer when I remember the three "Cs" of a great marriage: Communication. Commitment. Christ. It may not be the deepest thing you’ll ever read, but I’d rather be a happily married man than a philosopher. . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  Song of Solomon Faith & Family Foundation, By Al Janssen
It's the inspiration for every great love story ever written. And it's a reflection of what God intends for your marriage . . . . It upholds a picture of marital love as it was intended.

RELATED PHOTO ESSAY:  Wife vs. Wifey: A Twentysomething Struggle with the Term 'Wifey'  Essence magazine, By Shirea L. Carroll, February 06, 2010
Real women want to be a man’s choice, not an option. Period. It takes one bad breakup or one shocking rejection to come to that epiphany—quick. After witnessing Beyonce grace the stage on Grammy night, publicly sending her love and gratitude to her “huzzzband,” Jay-Z, my appreciation for the institution of marriage surfaced stronger than ever. Belonging to the generation that created the term wifey, defined as a man’s main squeeze, long-term girlfriend, or woman who is almost “wife material,” I had ask, Is the title wifey really good enough? A lot of women seem to be honored by the title wifey, and if it works for you…who am I to judge? The question is, How long does it work? After speaking to more than a few of the fellas who admit they use the title wifey, they also admitted they don’t take the title nearly as half as serious as wife. If they don’t even hold the title “wifey” in high regard, then why should we? Get ya mind right ladies. They gave me nine reasons why, unless you’re dropping the “y,” wifey just isn’t good enough: 1. Accessibility. . . Next: 2. Exclusivity. . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  Five non-religious arguments for marriage over living together  Townhall.com, By Dennis Prager, October 3, 2006
I have always believed that there is no comparing living together with marriage. There are enormous differences between being a "husband" or a "wife" and being a "partner," a "friend" or a "significant other"; between a legal commitment and a voluntary association; between standing before family and community to publicly announce one's commitment to another person on the one hand and simply living together on the other. But attending the weddings of two of my three children this past summer made the differences far clearer and far more significant. . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  Why falling marriage rates are bad for the culture  Scripps News, By Betsy Hart, October 30, 2006
So the question is, are we at a tipping point yet when it comes to whether or not we as a culture value and sustain marriage? That's a crucial question even for those living outside of marriage. For instance, I may be raising my kids on my own but they still derive huge benefits, including safety, community stability, male and family role modeling and more from living in the neighborhood we do in which marriage rates are extremely high. If more and more kids aren't getting that either in their own homes or in their neighborhoods or larger communities, the negative cascading effect is and will be profound. So what' going on? Here's one part of the puzzle _ another report titled "Why Men Won't Commit," part of the "State of Our Unions" series from the National Marriage Project. (While recently reported at MSN.com, the study is from 2002.) Anyway, I saw the headline and it was so easy to guess the first several reasons before even glancing at them. Sure enough the study of younger men, age 25-33, showed that:
— Men can get sex without marriage more easily than in times past.
Duh.
— Men can enjoy the benefits of having a wife by cohabiting rather than marrying.
Double duh. (Oh, yeah, thanks feminist foremothers.). . . 



RELATED ARTICLE:  Glamorizing Illegitimacy  Trumpet magazine, January 2006
Hollywood. It’s cool. It’s chic. It oozes glam and glitz. But the truth is that all that glitters from Hollywood is not gold. “Out-of-wedlock births. Shotgun weddings. Catch phrases for ‘illegitimate’ pregnancies (and the quickie nuptials that may follow) have an almost criminal ring to them. But Hollywood has set to work changing the stigma of premarital babies” (Fox News, Nov. 10, 2005).  As the Fox News article wryly pointed out, a baby has replaced the diminutive, ornamented puppy as a fashion accessory to metrosexual Hollywood. Now the unmarried, star-crusted Hollywood scene is burgeoning with chips off the block—with household names like Cruise, Paltrow and Ledger. The message is clear: Unwed parenting is something to celebrate. But Hollywood is merely showcasing what is actually a growing social trend. . . . . . . It doesn’t take a genius to realize what statistics prove: that premarital sex produces single-parent families. But statistics don’t solve the puzzle of why unwed pregnancy, and why the Hollywood “love child” is such a fad. The answer is shocking and little-thought-of by academics and parents alike: The world has lost the art of proper dating. . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  God's Design for Marriage: Find the key to making your marriage flourish — just as God designed   Faith & Family Foundation, By Carol Heffernan
According to author Gary Thomas, we're not asking the right questions. What if your relationship isn't as much about you and your spouse as it is about you and God?. . .

• A Day in the Life of Sexy Me -- One Writer Undergoes a 'Man Makeover'  Asylum, By Alan Wieder, February 17, 2010
  All my life I've maintained a rather disheveled and unkempt-looking appearance: loose, wrinkled clothes; beat-up sneaks; a messy mop of hair; and, typically, a scraggly beard to match. While I'm not unclean, I have the overall look of an out-of-work, perhaps even indigent, humanities professor. The Wieder style has earned me many disparaging nicknames over the years -- "Rumple-stiltskin" and "Rip Van Wrinkle" being two of my personal faves. But whatever people may say, I dig my rumpled look.I never have to iron or fold, wear hair product or do any of the girly things that appearance-conscious dudes waste time on. I cut my own hair, saving me lots of bucks and sparing me hours of grating hairstylist jibber-jabber. My floppy duds hide my bodily contours, making exercise unnecessary. And I've never had to put on makeup. Well, not until recently. You see, a few weeks ago, Asylum asked me to undergo a "man makeover" -- one that would involve actually setting foot in a salon (eek!), cutting and styling my hair and craziest of all, wearing makeup. Yup. Makeup. Despite the fact that an array of male-makeup brands like Jean-Paul Gaultier's "Monsieur" line have recently cropped up to meet increasing demand, I wasn't so sure about the makeover request. But I was curious about the makeup. I couldn't help but wonder how people might treat me if I rocked the Pete Wentz or Russell Brand thing. What would it be like to be "Sexy Me" for a day? Would random women throw themselves at me? Would TMZ paps shadow me, thinking that if I was bold enough to wear makeup in public, I had to be somebody? Would people hand me free stuff, like in that classic Eddie Murphy "White Like Me" sketch?. . . . . . . .UPDATE: We asked the ladies at Lemondrop.com what they thought of our little makeover experiment. Read their response: Note to Men -- Do Not Attempt a 'Man Makeover'; Makeup Isn't Sexy. . .
  
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  Girly Men: The Media's Attack on Masculinity  Salvo Magazine 4, By S. T. Karnick
  The tendency of the nation’s schools to suppress boys’ natural way of seeing and doing things, brilliantly documented by Christina Hoff-Sommers in her 2001 book The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men, is becoming increasingly evident in the culture. According to Hoff-Sommers, programs in America’s public schools are set up to obliterate all that is masculine and establish femininity as the human norm:. . . . . Thus, the war against boys seems to have created three main character patterns for the adult male of our time: sensitive guys who want to please women; weenies and dorks who want only to be left alone to drink beer and play video games with their dork buddies; and thugs who, in rebellion against their unnatural education, are perpetually concerned with proving their toughness through increasingly loutish behavior. There are, of course, examples of decent, positively masculine males in the culture, but they are becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the products of educational and cultural feminization. . .

RELATED ARTICLE:  Feminists created Mr Sensitive, but what we REALLY want is a man to fix the car  The Daily Mail- UK, By Lowri Turner, May 15, 2008
A decade ago, had I received the 'man's work' speech, I would have given MM [Macho Man] a feminist lecture on equality of the sexes, told him to get lost and struggled on myself. I would have been appalled at the suggestion that I needed rescuing from my automotive crisis. So, how come I just handed him the water jug and put the key in the ignition? Exhaustion, I think. I am part of a generation which has spent the past 20 years proving to men that we don't need them. In doing so, we have painted ourselves into a corner, literally in some cases since we have given up waiting for the men in our lives to redecorate the spare room and girls are now doing it for themselves, as well as everything else. I look at myself and my girlfriends, all so tired from being bravely, fabulously independent, and I wonder if, in wanting to show we are not silly damsels in distress, we have let men off the hook? . . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  Why women are to blame for killing off real men   The Daily Mail- UK, By Carol Sandler, May 7, 2008
When we longed for the coming of what we once liked to call the New Man, don't you sometimes think we should have been more careful what we wished for? Back then, we thought we knew what we wanted. Moreover, what we thought we wanted didn't sound unreasonable. Put-upon women - run ragged by Neanderthal demands that we perform in the office, kitchen and bedroom - believed that if our partners could just be kicked up the backside of their latent sensitivity, they'd graduate from cavemen to soul-mates, and our lives would be that much easier for it. . . . . You could call it turning the tables...but two wrongs don't make a right. And now, after all these years of our efforts to "retrain" men, up to and including ridiculing them, what have we really achieved? We have achieved a generation of women who still earn, as a national average, only 70 per cent of men's wages, and who still do five hours of housework to every measly hour's contribution from the man of the house. Yet we have also achieved a new generation of men who, worrying signs suggest, are turning into a bunch of sissies. So well done, ladies. Take a look at your handiwork now. . . . And worse is on the way. The latest casualty of our well-meaning efforts, research says, is a huge decline in male libido. It's not that they can't have sex (we've got Viagra for that). No, it's that they won't have sex. Not interested. Can't be bothered. . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  A Real Man's Responsibilities Townhall.com, By John Hawkins, May 16, 2008
Real men understand that their responsibilities don't end with mere skills. Men have duties that go far beyond that. . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  Child-Man in the Promised Land: Today’s single young men hang out in a hormonal limbo between adolescence and adulthood  City Journal, By Kay S. Hymowitz, Winter 2008
It’s 1965 and you’re a 26-year-old white guy. You have a factory job, or maybe you work for an insurance broker. Either way, you’re married, probably have been for a few years now; you met your wife in high school, where she was in your sister’s class. You’ve already got one kid, with another on the way. For now, you’re renting an apartment in your parents’ two-family house, but you’re saving up for a three-bedroom ranch house in the next town. Yup, you’re an adult! Now meet the twenty-first-century you, also 26. . .

RELATED ARTICLE:  What child-men need is some tradition   The Dallas Morning News, By Rod Dreher, January 27, 2008
Today's child-men have been formed by a culture that has lost – or, rather, thrown away – a relatively fixed standard of manhood. It used to be that virtue was the measure of a man. Was a man just? Was he brave (and not necessarily in terms of physical courage)? Was he honorable in his dealings with those weaker than he? Did he respect women? Did he believe in something higher than himself? Did he submit to the concepts of duty and respect? It's not that all men, or even most, lived by this general code. It's that they recognized that they would be judged by it, and judged themselves by it. That's mostly gone, replaced by a therapeutic model in which the autonomous self is its own judge, and personal satisfaction is the measure of a life well lived. . .

• Tacky and spectacularly OTT but steeped in traditional values... Channel Four goes behind the scenes at three gypsy weddings  The Daily Mail- UK, February 16, 2010
  They look barely old enough to be getting married, and yet the extravagance of their wedding days would put Katie Price to shame. For no expense is spared when celebrating the union of young gypsy and traveller couples - the hair is big, the dresses bigger and the whole occasion gloriously over the top. In communities where divorce is still almost unheard-of, great effort is put into the biggest day of the bride's life. Now the extraordinary preparations - and fiercely upheld values of the families involved - that form the background for these  weddings will be revealed in a Cutting Edge documentary for Channel 4. Most girls from gypsy and traveller communities are barely on the verge of womanhood as they become the centrepieces fort theses grand occasions, often thrust shortly after their 16th birthdays into the role of wife and soon-to-be mothers. But despite the tender age of these brides - and sometimes the grooms - these marriages are usually guaranteed to go the distance because of strong religious and traditional convictions. Young girls are virgins when they marry, having children out of wedlock is considered taboo and divorce out of bounds. The celebrations are visual spectacles and, despite the expense involved, some might dare say tacky. Meringue-esque dresses are the norm, with sky-high tiaras, and a wedding carriage that would make Cinderella jealous. C4 cameras were allowed rare access to three gypsy and traveller weddings to reveal a culture steeped in tradition and religion. . .
  
  
  
  

• Did I Get Married Too Young?  
  Marriages of people in their early to mid-20s are not nearly as risky as you think  Wall Street Journal, By David Lapp, February 11, 2010
  When my very smart and relatively young girlfriend (she was then 20) first told her father she was thinking of marrying me, he refused to even hear of it. "How much college debt does he have?" he demanded. "What's the rush? Why not wait until your career and finances are established? How do you know he's the one?" She sobbed, he came around, and in May 2009 Amber and I became husband and wife, when I was 22 and she was 21. Granted, Amber's dad had an understandably healthy dose of "father-of-the-bride" syndrome. But he also had plenty of cultural ammunition to back up his initial barrage of questions and qualms. As college-educated, professionally aspiring young adults in New York, my wife and I were bucking the prevailing social script by marrying in our early 20s. Some Penn State sociologists summarized the zeitgeist this way: "In industrial countries, young people age 18 to 25 are expected to explore their identity, work and love by delaying marriage and parenthood. . . . Those individuals who fail to postpone these family transitions miss out on better career opportunities, make poor choices on partners, and may experience problems." Social scientists frequently note that "early marriage" is the No. 1 predictor of divorce. Additionally, the average student graduating today has about $23,000 in debt, and money problems don't exactly help a marriage. It's not surprising, then, that many young couples hook up and shack up instead of tying the knot. The median age at marriage today is 28 for men and 26 for women. So what's a young couple, in love and committed, to do? Was our decision to marry in our early 20s shortsighted and irresponsible?. . .
  
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  Wait for sex and marriage? Evangelicals conflicted  USA Today- AP, By Eric Gorski, August 09, 2009
  When Margie and Stephen Zumbrun were battling the urge to have premarital sex, a pastor counseled them to control themselves. The couple signed a purity covenant. Then, when the two got engaged and Margie went wedding dress shopping, a salesperson called her "the bride who looks like she's 12." Nonchurch friends said that, at 22, she was rushing things. The agonizing message to a young Christian couple in love: Sex can wait, but so can marriage. "It's unreasonable to say, 'Don't do anything ... and wait until you have degrees and you're in your 30s to get married,'" said Margie Zumbrun, who did wait for sex, and married Stephen fresh out of Purdue University. "I think that's just inviting people to have sex and feel like they're bad people for doing it." Against that backdrop, a number of evangelicals are promoting marrying earlier, nudging young adults toward the altar even as many of their peers and parents are holding them back. . .

RELATED ARTICLE:  Married Too Young?   Getback.com, By Amy & Nancy Harrington, July 17, 2009
A news story last week broke more teeny bopper hearts than when Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman: Kevin Jonas is engaged. We can't help but wonder if he'd be rushing into the state of wedded bliss if he didn't have that purity ring on his finger. Wouldn't you be in a hurry to get hitched, too, if you were 21 and saving yourself until your wedding night?. . .

RELATED ARTICLE:  The New Dating Game: Back to the new Paleolithic Age  Weekly Standard, By Charlotte Allen, February 15, 2010
Late last September a college student who called herself Courtney A. posted a story on the feminist website Lemondrop: I Slept With Tucker Max, the Internet Biggest Asshat. . . . At the Hampton Inn where Max was staying, he introduced Courtney to his dog: “Say hello to the new slut.” The next morning, after some sessions of “jackhammering a sidewalk,” as she described his sexual technique (although she did concede that he was a “great kisser”), he handed her $20 for the taxi ride of shame back to her apartment. His last words were, “Call me if you’re ever in L.A.”. . . . . .Welcome to the New Paleolithic, where tens of thousands of years of human mating practices have swirled into oblivion like shampoo down the shower drain and Cro-Magnons once again drag women by the hair into their caves—and the women love every minute of it. Louts who might as well be clad in bearskins and wielding spears trample over every nicety developed over millennia to mark out a ritual of courtship as a prelude to sex: Not just marriage (that went years ago with the sexual revolution and the mass-marketing of the birth-control pill) or formal dating (the hookup culture finished that)—but amorous preliminaries and other civilities once regarded as elementary, at least among the college-educated classes. . . . . .Here is Max’s seduction technique: “ ‘So,’ he asked scooting in next to me. ‘Are you coming back with me tonight?’ ” Here is how Courtney reacted: “Around 1:30, I told Tucker that I would, in fact, go home with him. ‘Oh, I know,’ he replied. ‘We have a cab waiting, let’s go.’ ” It helps, of course, that there’s currently a buyer’s market in women who are up for just about anything with the right kind of cad, what with delayed marriage (the average age for a woman’s first wedding is now 26, compared with 20 in 1960, according to the University of Virginia-based National Marriage Project’s latest report); reliable contraception; and advances in antibiotics (no more worries about what used to be called venereal disease). No-fault divorce, moreover, has pushed the marriage-dissolution rate up to between 40 and 50 percent and swelled the single-female population with “cougars” in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond. On top of it all is the feminist-driven academic and journalistic culture celebrating that yesterday’s “loose” women are today’s “liberated” women, able to proudly “explore their sexuality” without “getting punished for their lust,” as the feminist writer Naomi Wolf put it in the Guardian in December. . .


RELATED ARTICLE: The Case for Early Marriage: Amid our purity pledges and attempts to make chastity hip, we forgot to teach young Christians how to tie the knot.   Christianity Today, By Mark Regnerus, August 2009
Virginity pledges. Chastity balls. Courtship. Side hugs. Guarding your heart. Evangelical discourse on sex is more conservative than I've ever seen it. Parents and pastors and youth group leaders told us not to do it before we got married. Why? Because the Bible says so. Yet that simple message didn't go very far in shaping our sexual decision-making. So they kicked it up a notch and staked a battle over virginity, with pledges of abstinence and accountability structures to maintain the power of the imperative to not do what many of us felt like doing. Some of us failed, but we could become "born again virgins." Virginity mattered. But sex can be had in other ways, and many of us got creative. Then they told us that oral sex was still sex. It could spread disease, and it would make you feel bad. "Sex will be so much better if you wait until your wedding night," they urged. If we could hold out, they said, it would be worth it. The sheer glory of consummation would knock our socks off. Such is the prevailing discourse of abstinence culture in contemporary American evangelicalism. It might sound like I devalue abstinence. I don't. The problem is that not all abstainers end up happy or go on to the great sex lives they were promised. Nor do all indulgers become miserable or marital train wrecks. More simply, however, I have found that few evangelicals accomplish what their pastors and parents wanted them to. Indeed, over 90 percent of American adults experience sexual intercourse before marrying. The percentage of evangelicals who do so is not much lower. In a nationally representative study of young adults, just under 80 percent of unmarried, church- going, conservative Protestants who are currently dating someone are having sex of some sort. I'm certainly not suggesting that they cannot abstain. I'm suggesting that in the domain of sex, most of them don't and won't. What to do? Intensify the abstinence message even more? No. It won't work. The message must change, because our preoccupation with sex has unwittingly turned our attention away from the damage that Americans—including evangelicals—are doing to the institution of marriage by discouraging it and delaying it. If you think it's difficult to be pro-life in a pro-choice world, or to be a disciple of Jesus in a sea of skeptics, try advocating for young marriage. . .



RELATED ARTICLE & COMMENTS: Say Yes. What Are You Waiting For?   Washington Post, By Mark Regnerus, April 26, 2009
Marriage actually works best as a formative institution, not an institution you enter once you think you're fully formed. We learn marriage, just as we learn language, and to the teachable, some lessons just come easier earlier in life. . .

• Judge being gay a nonissue during Prop. 8 trial  San Francisco Chronicle, By Phillip Matier,Andrew Ross, February 7, 2010
  The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay. Many gay politicians in San Francisco and lawyers who have had dealings with Walker say the 65-year-old jurist, appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, has never taken pains to disguise - or advertise - his orientation. They also don't believe it will influence how he rules on the case he's now hearing - whether Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure approved by state voters to ban same-sex marriage, unconstitutionally discriminates against gays and lesbians. . . . . . . .Walker has declined to talk about anything involving the Prop. 8 case outside court, and he wouldn't comment to us when we asked about his orientation and whether it was relevant to the lawsuit. . . . Walker, by the way, didn't seek out the Prop. 8 case - it was assigned to him at random. If the judge decides that Prop. 8 is unconstitutional, supporters of the measure are sure to take it to the federal appeals court  and the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary. Kendell expects that if that happens, the measure's proponents will make an issue of the judge's sexual orientation - at least in the public arena. Not so, said Andy Pugno, general counsel for the group that sponsored the Prop. 8 campaign. "We are not going to say anything about that," Pugno said. He was quick to assert, however, that Prop. 8 backers haven't gotten a fair shake from Walker in court. He cited both the judge's order for the campaign to turn over thousands of pages of internal memos to the other side and Walker's decision to allow the trial to be broadcast - both of which were overturned by higher courts. "In many ways, the sponsors of Prop. 8 have been put at significant disadvantage throughout the case," Pugno said. "Regardless of the reason for it.". . .
  
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  Judge Walker’s Skewed Judgment  National Review Online- The Corner Blog, By Ed Whelan, February 07, 2010
  According to this column in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, “The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.” In terms of his judicial performance in the anti-Proposition 8 case, the bottom-line question that matters isn’t whether Walker is straight or gay. It’s whether he is capable of ruling impartially. I have no reason to doubt that there are homosexuals who could preside impartially over this case, just as I have no reason to doubt that there are heterosexuals whose bias in favor of, or against, same-sex marriage would unduly skew their handling of the case. From the outset, Walker’s entire course of conduct in the anti-Prop 8 case has reflected a manifest design to turn the lawsuit into a high-profile, culture-transforming, history-making, Scopes-style show trial of Prop 8’s sponsors. Consider his series of controversial — and, in many instances, unprecedented — decisions: . . . . . Walker’s entire course of conduct has only one sensible explanation: that Walker is hellbent to use the case to advance the cause of same-sex marriage. Given his manifest inability to be impartial, Walker should have recused himself from the beginning, and he remains obligated to do so now. . .
  

RELATED BLOG:  Protect Marriage- Yes on 8 Blog


RELATED BLOG:  Testimony Concludes But The Battle Is Just Beginning  Protect Marriage- Yes on 8 Blog, By Ron Prentice- Executive Director, February 6, 2010
The live testimony in the federal trial of Perry v Schwarzenegger, the historic court battle over the definition of marriage, finally came to a close. Our lead trial attorney Charles Cooper and the rest of the Prop 8 Legal Defense Team did a superb job defending the will of the voters and the institution of marriage itself under extremely difficult circumstances in this San Francisco courtroom. As we consistently saw in most of the critical pre-trial rulings, virtually all of Judge Vaughn Walker’s significant rulings during the trial went against us. . .

RELATED QUOTE:
"... Only down Professor Segura’s rabbit hole does the fantasy of gays lacking political power exist, leading to the conclusion that gays and lesbians are a defenseless minority entitled to extraordinary legal protection.  In the real world, gays and lesbians are one of the most powerful, effective special interest groups who wield power far in excess of their numbers. The fact that they have amassed untold millions of dollars to fund a legal team that includes dozens of lawyers and some of the nation’s top litigators to come into federal court claiming to be powerless is rich with irony..."  Andy Pugno- General Counsel, Protect Marriage-Yes on 8, January 21, 2010

RELATED ARTICLE:  Selling Homosexuality to America    Regent University Law Review, By Paul E. Rondeau
This article explores how gay rights activists use rhetoric, psychology, social psychology, and the media--all the elements of modern marketing--to position homosexuality in order to frame what is discussed in the public arena and how it is discussed. . . . The economics and education of homosexuals makes them prime players in a capitalistic society. Money means power, and education means the knowledge to use that power to gain more. Homosexuals have demonstrated they have access to the leadership in media, government, education, business and other centers of influence as well as access to capital. These are hardly traits of an oppressed minority. . .



RELATED ARTICLE:  How America Went Gay    Leadership U, By Charles W. Socarides, M.D.
Gays said they could "reinvent human nature, reinvent themselves." To do this, these reinventors had to clear away one major obstacle. No, they didn't go after the nation's clergy. They targeted the members of a worldly priesthood, the psychiatric community, and neutralized them with a radical redefinition of homosexuality itself. In 1972 and 1973 they co-opted the leadership of the American Psychiatric Association and, through a series of political maneuvers, lies and outright flim-flams, they "cured" homosexuality overnight-by fiat. They got the A.P.A. to say that same-sex sex was "not a disorder." It was merely "a condition"-as neutral as lefthandedness. . .

• Study: Gay Marriage Involves More Outside Relationships  NewsMaxx.com, By: Theodore Kettle, February 07, 2010  
  A federally-funded study by San Francisco State University that followed 556 local male couples for three years found that half “have sex outside their relationships, with the knowledge and approval of their partners,” according to The New York Times. The study, to be completed this month by the State University’s Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality, is even leading “some experts” to the conclusion that “boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution,” the newspaper reports. The key distinction is that so many homosexuals do not view cheating on each other as wrong, the way married men and women do. “With straight people, it’s called affairs or cheating,” the study’s principal investigator Colleen Hoff told the newspaper, “but with gay people it does not have such negative connotations.” On its website, the Center describes the importance in conducting the study as revolving around the fact that “gay and bisexual men in relationships engage in substantially higher rates of unprotected” homosexual activity than do “single men with their casual partners.” Hoff and her fellow researchers apparently seek to re-evaluate whether such “non-safe sex” risks as much spread of AIDS as is widely believed. According to the Center, “whether these behaviors are ‘risky’ depends on many factors and needs to be further explored.” With the high rates of non-exclusivity among homosexuals, “and primary partners an often unrecognized and under-studied source of new HIV infections,” the State University investigators say “studying gay and bisexual male couples is an important next step in HIV research and prevention.” But the New York Times could not get homosexuals themselves to discuss in the open the claimed success of the widespread prevalence of “open” unions. “Of the dozen people in open relationships contacted for this column, no one would agree to use his or her full name, citing privacy concerns.” Another big worry discovered among those contacted: “that discussing the subject could undermine the legal fight for same-sex marriage.”. . .
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  Many Successful Gay Marriages Share an Open Secret  NY Times, By Scott James, January 28, 2010
  When Rio and Ray married in 2008, the Bay Area women omitted two words from their wedding vows: fidelity and monogamy. “I take it as a gift that someone will be that open and honest and sharing with me,” said Rio, using the word “open” to describe their marriage. Love brought the middle-age couple together — they wed during California’s brief legal window for same-sex marriage. But they knew from the beginning that their bond would be forged on their own terms, including what they call “play” with other women. As the trial phase of the constitutional battle  to overturn the Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage concludes in federal court, gay nuptials are portrayed by opponents as an effort to rewrite the traditional rules of matrimony. Quietly, outside of the news media and courtroom spotlight, many gay couples are doing just that, according to
  groundbreaking new research. A study to be released next month is offering a rare glimpse inside gay relationships and reveals that monogamy is not a central feature for many. Some gay men and lesbians argue that, as a result, they have stronger, longer-lasting and more honest relationships. And while that may sound counterintuitive, some experts say boundary-challenging gay relationships represent an evolution in marriage — one that might point the way for the survival of the institution. . .

RELATED ARTICLES & INFO: HIV/AIDS and Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM)  Centers For Disease Control and Prevention


RELATED STUDY (PDF):   Modelling the Impact of HIV Disease on Mortality in Gay and Bisexual Men  International Journal of Epidemiology  Vol 6, No.3

RELATED ARTICLE (PDF):  NATIONAL GAY MEN’S HIV/AIDS AWARENESS DAY  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Statement by Dr. Jonathan Mermin— Director, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, September 27, 2009
September 27, 2009 is the second annual National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NGMHAAD). I applaud the efforts of the National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA) and many other organizations throughout the United States who are participating in this important event. HIV touches all segments of American society—individuals, families, and communities, young and old, men and women, black and white. However, since the beginning of the epidemic in the United States, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men have been disproportionately affected by HIV. Of all the people newly infected with HIV, men who have sex with men is the only risk group in the U.S. in which new HIV infections are increasing. While new infections have declined among both heterosexuals and injection drug users, the annual number of new HIV infections among men who have sex with men has been steadily increasing since the early 1990s. . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples  Family Research Council, By Timothy J. Dailey, Ph. D.  (Posted March 2008)
The “I’m boring.” down-home portrayals of homosexual couples are meant to provoke the question: Since gay couples really differ only in that both partners are of the same sex, what rational basis exists for denying them full marriage rights? Are homosexual households, as the article suggests, simply another variant of human relationships that should be considered, along with marriage, as “part of mainstream American society”? On the contrary, the evidence indicates that “committed” homosexual relationships are radically different from married couples in several key respects:

· relationship duration
· monogamy vs. promiscuity
· relationship commitment
· number of children being raised
· health risks
· rates of intimate partner violence . . . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  "Gay" Sex Kills   Townhall.com, By Matt Barber, Monday, April 21, 2008
. . . By recently admitting that “HIV is a gay disease,” Matt Foreman, outgoing Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, acknowledged what the medical community has known for decades: the homosexual lifestyle is extremely high-risk and often leads to disease and even death. . . . . . On April 25, 2008, the pro-homosexual indoctrination of your children comes to a boil. Homosexual activists and like-minded liberal educators will be pushing the so-called “Day of Silence” on kids in thousands of schools across the country. . . . To be sure, bullying and harassment should not be tolerated against anyone, anywhere for any reason, and those who engage in such activities should be firmly disciplined. However, DOS has very little to do with “bullying” and has everything to do with propaganda. During DOS, children and teachers are encouraged to disrupt the school day by refusing to speak, in a show of support to self-described “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual” and “transgender” students. Kids are additionally taught that Biblical truth, which holds that human sexuality is a gift from God shared between husband and wife within the bonds of marriage, is “homophobic,” “hateful” and “discriminatory.” Our schools are supposed to be places of learning, not places of political indoctrination. It’s the height of impropriety and cynicism for “gay” activists and school officials to use good-hearted but misguided children as pawns in their attempt to further a deceptive, highly controversial and polarizing political agenda. . . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  Till Death Do Them Part: The Deadly Consequences Of Homosexual Unions  Catholic Citizens.org, By Dr. Brian Kopp, December 5, 2003
According to Dr. Kopp, "The best scientific evidence suggests that putting society's stamp of approval on homosexual partnerships would harm society in general and homosexuals in particular, the very individuals some contend would be helped. A large body of scientific evidence suggests that homosexual marriage is a defective counterfeit of traditional marriage and that it poses a clear and present danger to the health of the community. . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  The Health Risks of Gay Sex    Catholic Education Resource Center, By John R. Diggs, Jr. M.D.

• Kim Kardashian & Kendra Wilkinson Get into Pre-Super Bowl Spat  People magazine, By Joe Bargmann, February 05, 2010
  Let the game begin: Kim Kardashian and Kendra Wilkinson enjoyed some good-natured trash-talking Friday morning as the their respective men – Kim's boyfriend, New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush, and Kendra's husband, Indianapolis Colts player Hank Baskett – prepare to meet in Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday. "This is the real showdown, baby. Let the claws come out!" Ryan Seacrest said, announcing his interview with the two women on his KIIS-FM radio show. Kardashian got into the spirit of things by kiddingly threatening, "I'm going to poison your coffee!" Wilkinson replied by taunting Kardashian about rumors that she and Bush planned to get engaged if his team wins the game on Sunday, something the E! reality star has denied. Seacrest himself referred to Kardashian as Bush's "soon to be fiancée – I think."  Although both women are camping out in the same Miami hotel as their dudes, their pre-game rituals are quite different. "[The players are] staying a couple floors up from me," said Wilkinson. "[Hank] comes in here with me and spends time with me and the baby – his 'daddy time.' " Baskett previously told reporters that his 7-week-old son, Hank Baskett IV, would watch the game from a skybox with his mom even if he doesn't remember it. Meanwhile, Kardashian will enjoy visits from Bush: The couple will have dinner together, then return to the hotel for in-room massages, but Bush will stay in a separate room, following a team rule. . . .
  
  
  
  RELATED PHOTO ESSAY:  Wife vs. Wifey: A Twentysomething Struggle with the Term 'Wifey'  Essence magazine, By Shirea L. Carroll, February 06, 2010
  Real women want to be a man’s choice, not an option. Period. It takes one bad breakup or one shocking rejection to come to that epiphany—quick. After witnessing Beyonce grace the stage on Grammy night, publicly sending her love and gratitude to her “huzzzband,” Jay-Z, my appreciation for the institution of marriage surfaced stronger than ever. Belonging to the generation that created the term wifey, defined as a man’s main squeeze, long-term girlfriend, or woman who is almost “wife material,” I had ask, Is the title wifey really good enough? A lot of women seem to be honored by the title wifey, and if it works for you…who am I to judge? The question is, How long does it work? After speaking to more than a few of the fellas who admit they use the title wifey, they also admitted they don’t take the title nearly as half as serious as wife. If they don’t even hold the title “wifey” in high regard, then why should we? Get ya mind right ladies. They gave me nine reasons why, unless you’re dropping the “y,” wifey just isn’t good enough: 1. Accessibility. . . Next: 2. Exclusivity. . .
  
  
  
  

• When did giving birth become a competition?  The Daily Mail- UK, By Liz Fraser, February 04, 2010
  Ladies, it's official: childbirth doesn't hurt. At all! In fact, it's wonderful. I know this because Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen said so. Recalling her eight-hour labour, which took place two months ago in the bath at her home, with her mother and husband present, she said it 'didn't hurt in the slightest'. And that, after lots of preparation and yoga, she 'managed to have a very tranquil birth'. The next time I need a relaxing beach holiday, remind me to go into labour, won't you? It sounds idyllic. Sadly, though I do know women who have had almost pain-free experiences of labour, for most mothers childbirth is about as far from the one Gisele described as you can imagine. As far as I'm concerned, labour was one of the least tranquil, most excruciating things I've ever experienced. And yes, I did try the yoga. My first time lasted 35 hours, and I was in terrible pain throughout. But I was determined not to have any pain relief. Why? Because pain relief, I'd been told by midwives and do-gooding mothers in Tesco, was for wimps. When I did finally cave in and ask for something to dull the agony, my midwife, who appeared to have been trained by the Royal Marines, urged me to: 'Keep going! You can do this by yourself! You are strong!' I felt like I'd let the Sisterhood down just for asking. It took the kind words of a male doctor to say 'please have an epidural. It's not a sign of weakness and will help you, and your baby' to change my mind. And the moment the anaesthetic took effect and my whole body relaxed, I wished I'd done it hours earlier - and felt angry that I'd been encouraged not to. I'd become convinced that if I caved, I would have lost the competition - and taken the 'soft option'. The fact is that, whether we like to admit it or not, motherhood makes most women very competitive. If it's not how old your baby was when he or she first talked, it's how pretty they are, or when they first walked or lost their first tooth. The list is endless. And the pressures on mums are getting greater every year. Where once making a happy home was enough to gain entry to the Good Mother Club, now the criteria are enough to make even the toughest mums weep. We should look great, dress in the latest fashions, earn a living, bake organic cupcakes, have a beautiful house and keep our man happy in bed. We should be there when our kids need us, but be somewhere else when the job does. The truth is that none of us manages even a quarter of all this without suffering from burn-out, because we're human. We are women, not robots. This competitive female culture has now seeped into childbirth. It's always been there to a certain extent, but the emphasis has changed. Ten years ago, labour stories were all about the suffering: 'Oh, I was in labour for three weeks and the baby weighed 15lb. I couldn't walk for a month and I still can't look at a trampoline without wetting myself.' Nowadays, the fashion has turned and it's all about how wonderful labour is. How peaceful. How well we coped. If you don't have a natural, 'proper' labour - like Gisele - you've somehow failed. You are less of a woman; a failed mother from day one. . .
  
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  Celebrity yummy mummies make the rest feel like failures  The Daily Mail- UK, February 28, 2008
  Looking after the children, keeping a spick and span house and perhaps juggling a job is enough to fill any mother's busy day. When you add in looking immaculate at all times, serving up home-cooked family feasts and making romantic time for a partner, the schedule looks even more daunting. But then Madonna seems to manage it. So do Victoria Beckham and Angelina Jolie. Faced with such examples of domestic goddesses, the average mother can feel a little less than perfect. In fact, more than two-thirds believe the likes of Madonna and Co are putting mothers under pressure to live up to an unrealistic ideal, a survey has found. . .
  
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  In praise of the 'ordinary' woman: It's time to embrace being Miss Average  The Daily Mail- UK, By Kathryn Knight, February 27, 2008
  Wallis Simpson once observed that a woman could 'never be too rich or too thin', and spent much of her life in slavish pursuit of both states. By and large, the former Duchess of Windsor appeared to succeed in her endeavours - certainly in the latter if the photographs of her mind-bogglingly waspish waist are anything to go by. She just never looked particularly happy about it, the same photographs revealing a red-lipsticked mouth set in a permanently thin, hard, gloomy line. Wallis wouldn't thank us for pointing it out, but her natural heir is Victoria Beckham, a woman who once looked like a perfectly attractive girl-next-door type but who increasingly resembles a sleek, scowling android given an all over hose-down with the plastic coating they use on wicker furniture. Nonetheless, contemporary wisdom has it that the Victoria Beckhams of this world have got it sussed. She has, after all, morphed by sheer force of will into an ultimate version of herself, a walking testament to the worship of superlatives. Success is about being the slimmest, prettiest, cleverest and wealthiest (Victoria is, admittedly, pushing it on the middle two). The odd thing is that it doesn't seem to help her with the quality that is arguably the most important: the happiest. It begs the question of when being ordinary got such a bad press. After all, some of the most contented women I know are average in the nicest possible way. . .
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  It's time to stop trying to be perfect, psychologist says  Boston Globe, By Billy Baker, February 25, 2008
  After more than 20 years of studying women's health issues, psychologist Alice Domar has come to a grand conclusion: Women are just too hard on themselves. There is no pill that will cure this self-imposed pressure - which Domar says creates harmful stress and makes dealing with everything from eating disorders to infertility more difficult. People will take pills, Domar says. That's easy. What's hard is to get women to accept what she says is obvious to men: Perfection is not attainable. . .
  
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  The (futile) pursuit of happiness The Daily Mail- UK, By Helen Kirwan-Taylor, March 30, 2007
  Throughout my whole life, I have striven to be happy. Indeed, on the surface, I have everything required to reach such a state of contentment: a loving husband, beautiful children, a nice house, the absence of debt or physical impediments. However, despite all this, despite my best attempts to remain positive, most of my waking life is spent in a state that is far, far short of euphoric. Not that I would ever dare admit to anyone that I am anything less than blissfully happy. For in the 21st century, being openly negative, miserable or even a little unhappy in today's glossy, airbrushed, size zero, Hello! magazine world, has become a taboo of unspeakable proportions. To admit you are miserable is to risk becoming a social pariah. It is, somehow, to admit that you are a failure in our ultra-competitive world.Try telling anyone that you feel lousy and that everything in your life stinks: you will see the room clear. It is not quite the same as admitting that you beat your children or your dog - but it's close. But what is so fantastically great about being "happy" that makes us all want it so badly? Why has that word - and the state of mind that it indicates - become the holy grail of our society? The pursuit of happiness has become such an obsession that the latest craze in the U.S. (and what the U.S. pioneers, the UK almost invariably copies), forbids complaining altogether. . .
  
  
  
  

• Marriage carries on where fairytales end  Scotsman, By Lee Randall, February 03, 2010
  Last week, avid readers will surely recall, I had a hissy fit about Lori Gottlieb's book Marry Him, in which she urges readers to abandon the search for Mr Right and settle for Mr Good Enough. Only one person – gender unidentified – commented online, saying: "Imagine the howls of 'sexism' if this story had been about women instead." This is just ambiguous enough to leave me confused about whether the remark is directed at me or at Gottlieb. If the former, I hope that commenter is with us today. We're back here again because last week I ran out of space to say: if you feel you've "settled" for the man you marry, then shame on you. You've done him a huge disservice and the poor guy deserves better. I do, still, agree with Gottlieb that despite the evidence to hand – our parents' union, for which we have ringside seats – too many of us internalise an overly romantic and utterly unpractical view of marriage, and this sets us up for a fall. I blame a diet of fairytales and films in which the entire point of the exercise is seeing the hero and the heroine swan off into the sunset arm in arm. We aren't encouraged to imagine their future together. I contend that "And they lived happily ever after" is the most pernicious phrase in the English language. It leaves out "except for when they really hated each other's guts"; it glosses over the instructional nuts and bolts description of how the hell they manage to keep love, attraction and mutual respect alive through thick and thin and all those other polar opposites in the marriage vows. There's an argument lurking in the shadows here, urging "starter marriages" or cohabiting to build up your skills, and I am reminded of my aunt remarking: "It's about time you got your first marriage under your belt." Ultimately, my main aggravation isn't Gottlieb's assertion that women ought to abandon hypercritical nitpickery in favour of realistically weighing up a person's flaws and strengths and assessing them in relation to one's own flaws and strengths. Where I stumble every time is over her choice of terminology. . . . . .That's not realism, that's cynicism. Gottlieb's assessment of the marriage game is so cold and calculating, I'd wager she suffers from hypothermia. . .
  
  
  
  RELATED VIDEO:  Should women wait for Mr. Right?  MSNBC.com, February 2008

RELATED ARTICLE:  Marry Him! The Case For Settling For Mr. Good Enough  Atlantic Monthly, By Lori Gottlieb, February 8, 2008
Still holding out for Mr. Right, even as middle age quickly approaches? Don't hold your breath, says Lori Gottlieb. Here, the author and single mom explains why true love may be a fantasy — and why that's not necessarily a bad thing. Excerpted from “Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough” from the March 2008 issue of The Atlantic magazine. . . . About six months after my son was born, he and I were sitting on a blanket at the park with a close friend and her daughter. It was a sunny summer weekend, and other parents and their kids picnicked nearby — mothers munching berries and lounging on the grass, fathers tossing balls with their giddy toddlers. My friend and I, who, in fits of self-empowerment, had conceived our babies with donor sperm because we hadn’t met Mr. Right yet, surveyed the idyllic scene. “Ah, this is the dream,” I said, and we nodded in silence for a minute, then burst out laughing. In some ways, I meant it: We’d both dreamed of motherhood, and here we were, picnicking in the park with our children. But it was also decidedly not the dream. The dream, like that of our mothers and their mothers from time immemorial, was to fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. Of course, we’d be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won’t tell you it’s a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she’ll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child). . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  Great Expectations  Psychology Today, By Polly Shulman, March 27, 2007
Has the quest to find the perfect soul mate done more harm than good? Psychologists provide insight into how the never-ending search for ideal love can keep you from enjoying a marriage or a healthy relationship that you already have. . .

• Jenny Sanford Exclusive: Husband Refused to Be Faithful in Wedding Vows
  S.C. First Lady Tells Barbara Walters: 'I Thought He Loved Me in His Own Way, Which Is Not a Warm, Bubbly Way'  ABC News, February 02, 2010
  South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford recalls how she made the "leap of faith" to marry husband Gov. Mark Sanford even though the groom refused to promise to be faithful, insisting that the clause be removed from their wedding vows.  "It bothered me to some extent, but ... we were very young, we were in love," she said in an exclusive interview with Barbara Walters to air on "20/20" Friday. "I questioned it, but I got past it ... along with other doubts that I had." Sanford and her marriage were thrust into the national spotlight in June 2009 when her husband admitted that he had been secretly visiting his longtime lover in Argentina instead of hiking the Appalachian Trail, as he had told his staff. . . .Sanford learned of her husband's infidelity in January 2009, before the scandal broke. After 20 years of marriage, she moved out of the governor's mansion with the couple's four children in August and filed for divorce in December. Following the ordeal of the last year, Sanford penned a memoir called "Staying True," a chronicle of her marriage to the governor, which will be released Friday. Sanford, a former investment banker and Georgetown alumna, was 27 when she married Mark Sanford. "I was a little bit surprised and maybe frankly a tiny bit disappointed that Jenny was willing to subvert herself to somebody who, frankly I didn't think was as capable as she was," Steve Rattner, her boss at the time, at the top investment bank Lazard Freres, told Walters. After their November 1989 wedding, the newlyweds moved to Charleston, S.C., where she discovered her husband was extremely frugal -- even "cheap." Sanford said her husband gave her less than romantic gifts for her birthday. "He drew me a picture of a half a bike, and then for the next birthday or Christmas I got the picture of the other half a bike, and then he delivered the $25 used bike," she recalled. For another birthday, Mark Sanford gave her a diamond necklace, which she adored, but then he took it back. . . . .One day her world came shattering down when Sanford said she found a letter in her husband's desk, which made it clear to her that he was "having a sexual relationship" with 43-year-old Argentine businesswoman Maria Belen Chapur. . . . . . Sanford Breaks the Mold in Face of Political Spouse's Nightmare: In the face of every political spouse's nightmare, Sanford opted not to stand by her husband's side during his June press conference when he confessed to cheating. Instead, she watched it on TV, like the rest of America. . .

RELATED VIDEO:  Jenny Sanford Memoir to Be Released Friday The Associated Press

RELATED ARTICLE:  Ex-Edwards Aide: $1 Million Spent to Cover Up Pregnant Mistress: Andrew Young Tells '20/20' About Private Jets, Mansions, 5-Star Hotels, a BMW Used in Elaborate Scheme; 'Money Was No Object'   ABC News, By James Hill, Teri Whitcraft, Eric M. Strauss, and Nadine Shubailat, January 29, 2010
When presidential contender John Edwards decided he had to hide his mistress and her pregnancy from his wife -- and from the voters -- he concocted an elaborate scheme to keep the scandal a secret, according to the once-loyal aide who helped smuggle the woman through a series of luxurious hideaways. Wealthy benefactors were called on and their sizable contributions funded the lavish life on the lam. "I know of at least a million dollars. And there was much, much more," said Andrew Young of the scheme that brought him to testify in front of a grand jury. "We were living in mansions, flying around in jets. ... Money was no object." The Iowa caucuses were just two weeks away in December 2007, when Young falsely claimed he was the father of his boss's love child. We knew we were going to have to leave town as soon as this hit the Enquirer," Young recalled of the bombshell that broke in the supermarket tabloid the National Enquirer.Young and his wife, Cheri, said they had less than 12 hours to make the decision to go on the lam with his boss's mistress -- Rielle Hunter -- but ultimately agreed to go into hiding with her. According to Young, Edwards' campaign finance chairman, Fred Baron, who's now deceased, made it possible for them to effectively disappear. "Fred said to me, 'Andrew, I got more money than I can ever spend. You spend whatever it takes to take care of the situation. And let us focus on making him president, vice president or attorney general," Young recalled. . .


RELATED ARTICLE:  The Values Dance  Joseph C. Phillips.com, October 17, 2007
What distresses is that the esteem in which we hold our public servants has fallen so far that increasingly such revelations are greeted with a yawn and a rather disinterested shrug of the shoulders. Still others will declare that we judge our public representatives solely on the work they do. I wonder, however, if the personal behavior of our public officials is truly a private matter to be overlooked by a blushing public or is it an indicator of the true character of the man? To the extent that our public policy intersects with questions of morality, is it unreasonable that we look with curiosity on the character of our political representatives?. . . . .In America we do not anoint royalty infallible, but public servants with “servants” being the operative word. Our elected officials serve at the pleasure of the people. We rightly expect that those entrusted with the nation’s security and purse strings will exercise their obligations with prudence and clarity. It is not scandal mongering that sparks our interest in the private lives of public servants but the fact that public indiscretion calls into question one’s decision making skills. Or at least it should. Trust is essential to public service. In truth though, if a man would break a sacred vow he makes to the mother of his children, why should we believe for one moment that he holds the promises he made to nameless faceless citizens in any higher esteem. I struggle with the idea that any man bent on fulfilling his own personal desires, even at the expense of the best interests of his children, can be trusted to oversee the interests of the general public. . .

• Almost All Millennials Accept Interracial Dating and Marriage   Pew Research Center, February 1, 2010
  Over the last several decades, the American public has grown increasingly accepting of interracial dating and marriage. This shift in opinion has been driven both by attitude change among individuals generally and by the fact that over the period, successive generations have reached adulthood with more racially liberal views than earlier generations. Millennials are no exception to this trend: Large majorities of 18-to-29 year olds express support for interracial marriage within their families, and the level of acceptance in this generation is greater than in other generations. The Pew Research Center's recent report on racial attitudes in the U.S., finds that an overwhelming majority of Millennials, regardless of race, say they would be fine with a family member's marriage to someone of a different racial or ethnic group. Asked about particular groups to which they do not belong, Millennials are about equally accepting of marriage to someone in any of the groups tested: Roughly nine-in-ten say they would be fine with a family member's marriage to an African American (88%), a Hispanic American (91%), an Asian American (93%) or a white American (92%). This high level of acceptance among Millennials holds true across ethnic and racial groups; there is no significant difference between white, black and Hispanic Millennials in the degree of acceptance of interracial marriage. . . . . .Not surprisingly, given the high levels of acceptance of interracial marriage among Millennials, nearly all 18-to-29-year-olds (93%) agree with the statement "I think it is all right for blacks and whites to date each other." Pew Research has tracked responses to this question for more than two decades in its study of American political values, most recently in April 2009. These surveys have found Millennials very accepting of interracial dating since the opinions of this generation first were tracked in 2003 (in 2003, 92% of Millennials agreed that it was all right for blacks and whites to date). . .
  
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  John Mayer's Playboy Interview Causes Uproar Online   MTV News, By MTV News staff, February 10, 2010
  Singer talks freely — probably too freely — about Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Aniston, his non-attraction to black women. 
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  New Mom Ellen Pompeo Reveals First Pic of Baby  People magazine, By Blane Bachelor, February 03, 2010
  New mom Ellen Pompeo showed the world – or, at least, the TV world – the first picture of 4-month-old Stella Luna. . .
  
  
  
  

• Biological Clock Ticking: Most Ovarian Eggs Used Up by Age 30  AOL Health, By Mary Beth Sammons
  By the time a woman reaches 30, she’s lost 90 percent of her ovarian eggs for good, according to a new study, which suggests that the female “biological clock situation is worse than we thought," says Elan Simckes, M.D., medical director and founder of The Fertility Partnership  of St. Peter’s, MO. The study, published by the University of St. Andrews and Edinburgh University in Scotland found that 95 percent of women have less than 12 percent of their ovarian egg reserve left by age 30 and only three percent by 40. “It sends a strong message to wannabe moms that ‘sooner is better,’ says Dr. Simckes. “I have been telling patients for years that a woman’s ability to conceive peaks in her late teens stays fairly stable until 30 and nosedives after 35.” At the same time the study is bolstering medical community recommendations surrounding women’s age and conception, it speaks volumes about the anxiety women over 30 face when trying to conceive. “I knew the odds were bad, but I didn't know how bad they were,” says Mistie Thompson, of Ellisville, MO, who will turn 40 in July, and who has experienced two miscarriages trying to conceive. She is the mom of two daughters, Faith, seven, and Gabrielle, four, but has gone through significant challenges in both pregnancies and in trying to conceive. “Obviously, the chances are incredibly slim for me, and if I do conceive, the odds of having another miscarriage are much higher than for someone even a few years younger,” Thompson says. “I definitely wish I had known this in my 20s. “Like many of my friends, I waited until I had finished my master's degree and was well-established in my public relations career at 31 to begin trying to conceive. My first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, but I was able to successfully give birth to two baby girls after that, although both involved threatened miscarriages, preterm labor and long bed rests.” Deanna Russo, a 39-year-old president of an entertainment marketing firm in Los Angeles and a self-described “career-driven and independent woman” says, “I always knew I wanted to have a child, but at some point it dawns on you, you really hope you can make it all happen within the proper window of time. Creating a healthy life is something I take very seriously. “ She says she is not surprised by the study’s findings, but it underscores the pressure she has always felt. She has decided to take her biological clock into her own hands. Not wanting to leave motherhood up to “fate,” she has chosen to have her eggs frozen. . . . . .“Between being a late bloomer and the challenges of dating in Los Angeles -- it wasn't until I was a very young 37 when I met the love of my life,” adds Russo. “I'm finally fulfilled both personally and professionally. However there’s one exception -- the love of my life is eight years younger than me. In a world of instant gratification, I knew the worst thing I could possibly do was to put unnecessary pressure on our budding relationship.” Though it’s common knowledge that women have more difficulty conceiving as they age, this study is significant because it is the first time researchers have provided a better understanding of how many eggs a woman has in her ovaries, and provides evidence that women have a fixed number of eggs that decline with increasing age, says study researcher Tom Kelsey, Ph.D., a senior research fellow at the School of Computer Science at St Andrews. . .

RELATED ARTICLE:  South Koreans Told to Go Home and Make Babies  BBC, By John Sudworth, January 20, 2010
South Korean government workers are being presented with an unusual suggestion - go home and multiply. . . .The country has one of the world's lowest birth rates, lower even than neighbouring Japan. . .

RELATED STUDY:  The birth of the biological clock    University of St. Andrews, January 26, 2010
Researchers have moved one step closer to solving the inner workings of the biological clock, by studying it from the moment it starts ticking. A successful collaboration between the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh has resulted in a better understanding of how many eggs a woman has in her ovaries (ovarian reserve) from conception to menopause.  It is the first time that scientists have ever modelled human ovarian reserve from establishment before birth to menopause around 50 years of age. The new research, by Dr Tom Kelsey (St Andrews) and Dr Hamish Wallace (Edinburgh), provides further evidence for the theory that women are born with a fixed number of non-growing follicles (eggs) that decline with increasing age. . .

• Testimony concludes in same-sex marriage trial in San Francisco The Catholic Spirit, By Rick Del Vecchio, February 01, 2010
  Closing arguments were expected around the beginning of March in the federal trial challenging the constitutionality of California's ban on same-sex marriage. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, presiding at the nonjury trial, said Jan. 27 that he will set a date for closing arguments after at least a 30-day hiatus to review the evidence. "Obviously a fascinating case," Walker said as he adjourned the proceedings. "Extremely well presented on both sides." The final expert witness for the defense in the trial on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the 2008 voter initiative that defined state-sanctioned marriage as limited to a man and a woman, testified that the "rule of opposites" has been a virtually unwavering principle of marriage throughout human history. "There are no or almost no exceptions to this principle that marriage is between a man and a woman," said David Blankenhorn, founder and president of the Institute for American Values. Blankenhorn defended the historical basis of that definition as he underwent close cross-examination by David Boies, a lawyer for same-sex couples who sued to have Proposition 8 overturned as discriminatory. . . . .Blankenhorn, testifying the previous day as the principal expert witness for the Proposition 8 defense, said the social foundation of marriage is greater than the legal issues surrounding it. He described marriage and domestic partnership as separate institutions. He said marriage predates law and "is not a creature of law." "The marital institution is differently purposed, is specifically purposed," he said. "The purpose is to bring together the biological male and biological female to make it as likely as possible that they are the social and legal parents of the child. That's the lodestar, that's the distinctive and core contribution of the institution of marriage.". . .
  
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE: Filmmakers Assemble Actors to Re-Enact Prop 8 Trial for Web  Christian Post, By Eric Young, February 01, 2010
  A film production team is re-enacting last month’s federal court battle over California’s voter-approved marriage definition to allow people to see what the U.S. Supreme Court decided to keep behind court doors. Having secured a courtroom set and casted dozens of actors, the Los Angeles-based team is re-enacting last month’s trial word-for-word, based on official court transcripts and under the advisory of constitutional law scholar and professor David B. Cruz from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, which is providing the replica courtroom. . .
  
  
  RELATED ARTICLE:  Prop. 8 defense only needs 2 witnesses   San Francisco Chronicle, By Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer, January 29, 2010
  If the Proposition 8 trial were about something more mundane than the rights of gays and lesbians to marry - say, a suit over an auto accident or insurance coverage - it would probably be no contest. In 12 days of testimony in federal court, lawyers for two same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco called a parade of academic heavyweights and people affected by the ban on same-sex marriage to buttress their claim of unconstitutional discrimination. Defenders of the November 2008 ballot measure called only two witnesses, who did not address many of the plaintiffs' issues. But while Prop. 8's challengers presented the weightier case, they also faced the heavier burden: overturning a voter-approved law on a politically sensitive subject, with arguments that no federal court has yet addressed, much less accepted. . . . . Prop. 8's sponsors may submit further evidence before closing arguments, probably in March. But for now, Blankenhorn's testimony is the sole justification offered for the ballot measure by any courtroom witness. It "couldn't possibly be enough," said Joan Hollinger, a UC Berkeley family law lecturer who attended the trial in San Francisco and plans to submit arguments in support of the plaintiffs. "There was nothing there except his own opinions." But this case is a constitutional battle that may not be as one-sided as it appeared in court. . .

RELATED BLOG:  Protect Marriage- Yes on 8 Blog


Presentation of Evidence Concludes in Perry v Schwarzenegger Federal Trial   By Andy Pugno - General Counsel, January 27, 2010


RELATED VIDEOS: Marriage Trial: Perry v. Schwarzenegger

RELATED POLLS & RESEARCH: Americans Expect Court to Reject Gay Marriage  Angus Reid Global Monitor, January 31, 2010
- Many Americans believe their Supreme Court will ultimately ban same-sex marriage, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion. 52 per cent of respondents expect a decision that would define marriage federally as between a man and a woman. In addition, 58 per cent of respondents say they would prefer a ruling that defines marriage federally as between a man and a woman. . .


RELATED QUOTE:
"...The plaintiffs put on a spectacular show-trial of irrelevant evidence, calling to the stand many “expert” witnesses to testify that allowing homosexual marriage would: help local governments raise more tax revenues, help gay and lesbian couples to accumulate greater wealth, and improve the self-esteem of homosexuals.  But those are political arguments for society to consider, not legal support for the claim that the US Constitution contains the right to homosexual marriage. The courtroom is simply not the proper forum for what is clearly a social, not a legal, appeal..."  Andy Pugno - General Counsel- Protect Marriage- Yes on 8, January 27, 2010

 "Marriage" News: January 2010

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