FW: a huge favor (from Maggie Gallagher)

This came in email today from Maggie Gallagher. Passing it on for those interested.

God bless!


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: FW: a huge favor
From: "Maggie Gallagher" <maggieiav@aol.com>
Date: Fri, December 15, 2006 11:05 am

I received the following note from Glenn Stanton at
Focus on the Family, I'm forwarding it, in case you
want to join the debate at Time magazine on
whether or not there is ANY scientific evidence that
children do best raised by their own married mother
and father. My own response is below the message
from Glenn.
Maggie

**************************
All:

Dr. Dobson wrote a piece in this week's Time
magazine on Mary Cheney and Heather Poe.

Time is also publishing a rebuttal from Cheryl Jacques'
(ex-HRC leader) signficant other, Jennifer Chrisler. It
will be in Monday's edition.

She says that Dr. Dobson is flat out lying by saying
that 30 years of research indicates that children do
best when raised by a mom and dad.

What we are asking is for folks like you to consider
weighing in by writing a letter to the editor of Time.
We are seeking key luminaries like you to do this by
simply submitting a short LTE in reponse to
Chrisler.

The two articles are....

Two Mommies Is One Too Many by James
Dobson,
PhD

Two Mommies or Two Daddies Will Do Fine, Thank
You by Jennifer Chrisler

You can submit a letter to Time at:

Time Magazine

E-mail: letters@time.com


***************************

The Editors of Time:


Jennifer Chrisler accuses Dr. James Dobson of
simply "lying" when he argues scientific evidence
shows "children do best" when "raised by their
married mother and father." Here is how Child Trends
summed up the research on family structure in
2002:

“Research clearly demonstrates that family
structure matters for children . . . the family
structure that helps children the most is a family
headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict
marriage."

The Child Trends brief did not look directly at children
raised by gay parents, which is the source of the
disagreement here. Gay parenting studies show good
results, but few if any are based on the large,
nationally representative samples used to analyze
other family structures. Without probability sampling,
we cannot say with any scientific certainty how the
typical child raised from birth by a same-sex couple
fares.

But the scientific debate aside, here's the larger
point:

the 'nuclear family' is an expression for the
idea that the man and woman who make a baby
should love and care for one another, and their baby
too.

Jennifer Chrisler does no service to her cause in
belittling this idea. Her vitriol affirms the worst fears
of many Americans: gay marriage is not about helping
a small number of families who don't fit the norm: it's
about destroying the norm itself.

Maggie Gallagher, President

Institute for Marriage and Public Policy


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
email: maggieiav@aol.com
web: http://www.marriagedebate.com

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