"I know a lot of people who want to give all the rights and privileges to gay couples that married people have, but they don't want to change the traditional meaning of the term marriage," said Norval D. Glenn, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas who specializes in the demography of the family. "We're more traditional in how we define marriage in this country than is the case in most of the Western world."

"I think the average American disapproves of homosexual sex, but tolerates it, much as they respect rights of privacy and self-expression," said Andrew J. Cherlin, a professor of public policy at Johns Hopkins University who specializes in the sociology of the family. "For the average American, civil unions sound like tolerance, but marriage sounds like approval."

Or as William Schneider, a CNN commentator and a longtime public opinion analyst, put it: "Look, if you don't call it marriage, you'll get more support."

I have been alarmed to see the sharp disjuncture between our uncritical embrace of joint custody and well-informed voices urging caution - voices such as Paul Amato and Judith Wallerstein, whose work has shown negative consequences for children of divorce. In Wallerstein's latest book, What about the Kids?, she urges against any single custody policy. Since no one custody form has a better prognosis for kids, she favours deciding on a case-by-case basis. Joint custody can work well. But as a wise judge once said to her, "for joint custody to work you need a joint custody child, a joint custody mother, and a joint custody father". It requires low conflict, co-operative parents who live close to each other. Above all, it needs a robust, flexible child capable of shifting continuously between two places. For high-conflict families, more distant custody arrangements with less contact are better. Otherwise, at every changeover, the interspousal war continues raging. The child feels safe nowhere. Nothing could be more damaging. Finally, Wallerstein urges that any custody arrangement be reviewed every few years. Children's needs change dramatically. What harms a baby may help an older child, hungry for contact with their father, to flourish. Adolescent children can be particularly bitter with a rigid arrangement to suit mum or dad, but cutting them off from their peer group.

The federal government is considering broadening its same-sex marriage reference to the Supreme Court to ask if a non-marriage form of civil union would violate the Charter of Rights, a senior government source says. The government still wants to legalize same-sex marriages, but would put civil unions before the court in a bid to make it clear that marriages are the only option that does not violate the Constitution, sources said.

The idea of civil unions, as opposed to same-sex marriages, has resonance with many Canadians, a new poll suggests. The Ipsos-Reid survey, done for CTV and The Globe and Mail, found a group of people who support civil unions between those who support and oppose same-sex marriages. A total of 38 per cent said the word "marriage" should apply to any two people regardless of gender, 37 per cent said marriage should apply only to the union of a man and a woman. About 24 per cent said marriage should refer only to a man and a woman and another legal term should be used for the formal union of same-sex couples.

When we're looking, in the not-too-distant future, for a word to replace marriage and that old-fashioned concept of forsaking all others, "mateship" might just be the answer ... "In Kipnis's characterization, the domestic captivity that is marriage is complete and relentless, with surveillance, repression and prohibition built into its very structure." The language of couples, observes Kipnis, is a catalogue of "strictures, commands and punishments so unending that you will begin to wonder why no one has yet invoked the Geneva Convention when it comes to couple relations." Indeed, traditional marriages characterized by enforced monogamy, obligatory intimacy and passive-aggressive tactics is being declared an affront to human rights ... some efforts are being made to shore up the creaky institution with better therapy for the inmates. But at the leading edge of the culture and already entering the mainstream, there's a trend, for better or for worse, to gut the institution of traditional marriage and to renovate coupledom � or mateship, if you prefer � from the ground up.

A mathematician says he can predict with almost total accuracy which newly wed couples will enjoy a happy marriage -- using two lines of algebra. The experiment, conducted with the help of a psychologist, involved observing the couples during a 15 minute conversation when they were newly married, Murray said ... A couple's ability to communicate on subjects such as sex, child-rearing or money was measured using a scale that gave positive points for good signals, such as smiles and affectionate gestures, and negative points for bad signals, such as rolling of the eyes, mocking and coldness. "We used an accepted psychological scoring system to award them points, such as minus three for scorn and plus two for humour," Murray, the author of "Mathematics for Marriage", told the newspaper.

Perhaps I the only one who winced at this: �God has once again brought an Easter out of Good Friday.' said Rev. Gene Robinson after his election as the first openly gay bishop. Good heavens, man, why don�t you just do the full James Cameron: hop up on the cross and shout I�m King of the Jews!

This story has irritated me from the start, and it has nothing to do with Rev. Robinson�s sexual orientation. The guy left his wife and kids to go do the hokey-pokey with someone else: that�s what it�s all about, at least for me. Marriages founder for a variety of reasons, and ofttimes they�re valid reasons, sad and inescapable. But �I want to have sex with other people� is not a valid reason for depriving two little girls of a daddy who lives with them, gets up at night when they're sick, kisses them in the morning when they wake. There's a word for people who leave their children because they don't want to have sex with Mommy anymore: selfish. ...
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If he�d cast off his family to cavort with a woman from the choir, I�m not sure he�d be elevated to the level of moral avatar � but by some peculiar twist the fact that he left mom for a man insulates him from criticism. It�s as if he had to do it. To stay in the marriage would have been (crack of thunder, horses neighing) living a lie, and nowadays we�re told that�s the worst thing anyone can do. Better to bedevil other lives with the truth than inconvenience your own with a lie. Right? If others are harmed in the short run, eventually they will be happy because you�re happier. Right?

I don�t think it works that way with little children. I don�t think they understand why Dads leave � and so they make up their own reasons and spend years looking for evidence in other people.

Marriage is a very serious endeavor, not to be trifled with. Just ask any of the tens of millions of divorced parents who are tied together for life in a precarious, often combative attempt to raise their kids well in separate households.

Basketball's Charles Barkley once said he wasn't a role model. This is like the president of the United States saying he doesn't want press coverage. Star black athletes have no choice about being role models. The only choice they have is what type of models they choose to be.

On Wednesday, Kobe Bryant appeared in a Colorado court to face the rape charges against him. His innocence, or lack thereof, obviously has important personal consequences for the basketball superstar. But he already is a guilty man when it comes to the damage he has caused in the communities he influences the most. Our nation's black youth idolize Bryant, but the example he sets undermines the very values � family, marital fidelity, sexual responsibility � crucial for their futures.

New research has found that cohabiting couples who get married are almost twice as likely to get divorced as those who do not live together first ... The researchers, from Penn State University in Pittsburgh, believe many unhappy couples simply get married rather than go through the emotional trauma of splitting up their shared possessions. Claire Dush, who led the study, said: "It can really come down to the couch in many cases. Couples who live together are far more likely to get married simply because it's the easier option. "Nobody wants the trauma of sorting out who owns what, and it appears a lot of people are happier to simply carry on with a dysfunctional relationship and get married rather than go through a break-up."

Does gay marriage threaten heterosexual marriage? Of course! Who knows how many women woke last week to find notes on the kitchen table: "Dearest Wife, now that homosexual sodomy is legal in Texas, I have to go try it. Took the cell phone. Farewell."

No, if heterosexual marriage is threatened by anything, it's by heterosexuals. Famous heterosexuals in particular. We see them grinning from the covers of gossip mags, celebrating wedding No. 9 or dissolving marriage No. 14, or just having a hot fling with whatever good-gened, white-toothed cretin is the flavor of the season.

People don't get divorced because Demi did. That's not the point. But because the culture attaches no particular stigma to divorce or catting around, our pop-culture heroes don't even have to pretend anymore. Say what you will about gay marriage, it's nice to see someone taking the institution seriously.

InnerChange started with 177 volunteer prisoners but only 75 of them "graduated." Graduation involved sticking with the program, not only in prison but after release. No one counted as a graduate, for example, unless he got a job. Naturally, the graduates did better than the control group. Anything that selects out from a group of ex-inmates those who hold jobs is going to look like a miracle cure, because getting a job is among the very best predictors of staying out of trouble. And inmates who stick with a demanding program of self-improvement through 16 months probably have more inner resources, and a stronger determination to turn their lives around, than the average inmate.

The InnerChange cheerleaders simply ignored the other 102 participants who dropped out, were kicked out, or got early parole and didn't finish. Naturally, the non-graduates did worse than the control group. If you select out the winners, you leave mostly losers.

Overall, the 177 entrants did a little bit worse than the controls. That result ought to discourage InnerChange's advocates, but it doesn't because they have just ignored the failure of the failures and focused on the success of the successes.
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The poor result of InnerChange doesn't mean that no faith-based prison program could work, but it does mean that this one hasn't, at least not yet. ... But that's why you do evaluations; they tell you things you didn't want to hear. If you're honest, you listen to them.

And if you're smart, you don't listen the political advocates of "faith-based" this and that when they say they're only asking us to support programs that have been "proven" to work.

I am responding to Tom Sylvester's comment on my article in Men's News Daily with a challenge to a public (internet) debate. The suggested topic is Fathers' Rights and the Marriage Movement. The style and process planned for such a debate is patterned after the round table discussions in The Atlantic Monthly. Four participants are suggested, so we should pick two more. Men's News Daily has offered free promotion and web site sponsorship. Apart from whatever group stereotypes are thrown around, I have a personal reputation for bluntness and occassional sarcasm (sort of a sense of humor). But then Tom - let's be honest. So do you!

KUALA TERENGGANU: PAS has blamed television stations for airing dramas, which it claims has created an unconducive family environment leading to marriage break-ups.

Even though more than half of couples now do it, compared with only 10 percent 30 years ago, living together before marriage still is linked to higher rates of troubled unions, divorce and separation, Penn State researchers have found. The Penn State team compared data on 1425 people married between 1964 and 1980 when cohabitation was less common and between 1981 and 1997 when cohabitation was more common. They found that, in both groups, cohabiters reported less happiness and more marital conflict than noncohabiters. Also, in both groups, couples who lived together before marriage were more likely to divorce.

But it strikes me as intriguing, instructive and poignant that gay couples so determinedly seek what so many of us scorn, are so ready to take the risk many of us refuse, find such value in an institution we have essentially declared valueless. There's something oddly inspiring in their struggle to achieve the social sanction whose importance many of us long ago dismissed.

In "Hounding Baskerville," Tom Sylvester demonstrates the deepest divisions between activist social conservatism and core American political values. � Like their far left counterparts, [activist social conservatives] abandon individual rights when embracing social causes.
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Mr. Sylvester's article is a response to "Government as Family Therapist," by Stephen Baskerville. Dr. Baskerville is a political science professor and well-known fathers' rights advocate who called into question the efforts of activist social conservatives to strengthen fatherhood and preserve the family. Mr. Sylvester answered by relegating Dr. Baskerville to an unworthy social class and calling upon the spirits of bureaucrats, special interest confidants, and New York Times reporters to defend his own.

[An upcoming Supreme Court] case will determine whether the battle for family rights has been won or lost. Under question is whether family rights are constitutionally protected or merely political constructions to be modified at the whim of legislators. �
�One of the specific objectives of fathers' rights advocacy is recognition of constitutional limits to state power that would constrain courts to ordering reasonable and appropriate child support amounts. The argument would be easily won on the basis of facts and logic. The battle however, must be fought against approximately $4 billion a year in federal funding that holds child support in a realm of public policy where individual rights do not exist.
�There are two broad questions that stand out in the [court] decisions. The first is whether family rights are fundamental. That is, are family rights protected under the Constitution? ...

Their challenge, they believe, is to deflect the religious arguments about gay marriage and instead emphasize the fairness issue of gaining legal benefits. Such benefits include insurance for partners, automatic inheritance rights, decision-making for an incapacitated spouse, hospital visitation rights, joint credit and property rights.