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Listen to Dr. Paul Kengor’s commentary here: Mayor Bloomberg

It’s hard to say who’s the worst mayor in America, though I can certainly name one of the most disappointing: It’s New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

This isn’t the place to list every objection I might have to Mayor Bloomberg’s policies, but most notable is his unwavering stance in favor of abortion. Making it worse is that Bloomberg is a high-profile member of the Republican Party, which has become the pro-life party in America. Bloomberg flies in the face of that trend. He’s a throwback to the days of the liberal/Northeastern, so-called “Rockefeller Republican.” He’s a progressive Republican.

Bloomberg’s latest outrageous overture to the pro-abortion cause came when he stoically stepped forward to send a big, fact personal check to Planned Parenthood. Republican governors and legislatures nationwide have been reducing or ending taxpayer subsidies to Planned Parenthood. This has been a truly blessed development that has placed Margaret Sanger’s organization on the ropes. Apparently, there’s only so-much direct revenue available from killing unborn babies. To stay alive, poor Planned Parenthood needs those desperate taxpayer subsidies that Democrats have faithfully provided. There’s only so much blood money.

Apparently chagrined by Planned Parenthood’s hard-times, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has generously written a personal check for $250,000 to the nation’s largest abortion provider, which, as everyone knows, kills a far higher percentage of unborn black children than unborn white children. Those children are what racial-eugenicist Margaret Sanger referred to as “human weeds.”

Naturally, you won’t read that in the New York Times. Quite the contrary, the Times was elated with what it termed Bloomberg’s “generosity.” The Times’ headline rejoiced: “With Fine Timing, Bloomberg Makes a Financial Pledge That Excites and Engages.” The mayor’s pledge, celebrated the Times, was rejuvenating; it was Bloomberg’s “biggest political coup in years.” The gesture may have even got the mayor re-elected.

The Times was beside itself with joy. Planned Parenthood—propped up by the good mayor.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Republican. He’s doing his part to help keep America’s premier abortion business in business.

For Catholic Exchange dot com and Ave Maria Radio, I’m Paul Kengor.

No doubt you’ve been watching the unfolding drama of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation’s decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood — and then its stunning reversal.

What you saw last week was a concerted, intentional effort by an ideological minority — the radical pro-abortion forces — not just to make their case in public, but to destroy the opposition. Using incendiary language, accusing Komen of endangering the lives of women, they made no pretense to pursue civil discourse.

And it’s a tragedy that Komen for the Cure caved. Because all of the rational arguments were on their side.

First of all, Planned Parenthood does not perform mammograms, its doctors simply provide breast cancer referrals. No wonder Komen for the Cure figured its money could be better spent on organizations that provide direct treatment.

And of course there’s the uncomfortable link between breast cancer and abortion. A 2009 study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center showed “a statistically significant 40% increased risk [of breast cancer] for women who have abortions.”

Second, Komen’s stated policy was not to contribute to organizations under investigation. Well, Planned Parenthood is under Congressional investigation for potentially misusing federal funds — funds that by law may not be used for abortions. In 2010, the organization received fully 46 percent of its funding — 487 million dollars — from government grants.

Yet according to Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, the organization and its many affiliates performed more than 329,000 abortions in 2010 — or a full 91 percent of services rendered to pregnant women.

It sure sounds to me that they’re flouting the law.

Finally, this never was about the money. Komen’s grant was a drop in Planned Parenthood’s bucket. As Tim Stanley of the UK Telegraph pointed out, Komen for the Cure’s annual grant made up a mere .058 percent of Planned Parenthood’s budget!

So what is this all about? Look friends, Komen is the kind of respectable and mainstream partner that Planned Parenthood desperately needs to continue its charade that it is all about “women’s health.” And it and its friends will bully and shout down anybody who dares to disagree with them.

What happened to Komen is a perfect example of the despotism of the modern left. Disagree with them, they vilify you and seek to intimidate you into silence. Tragically, Komen caved.

As I’ve been saying on BreakPoint for the last three or four months, we must break the spiral of silence. That’s why it is so important to speak out, even now. Let Komen know that you appreciated what they did to de-fund Planned Parenthood — come to BreakPoint.org and we’ll link you to their website — and that you are horrified that they didn’t have the courage to stick to their convictions.

Here is the lesson for us in all of this: We must have the courage of our convictions. Remember, courage is the first of the cardinal virtues, the virtue on which all others depend. We must never cave when it comes to defending the Truth, no matter what comes our way.

Just remember, we have no choice but to stand for what is true and just and to oppose evil no matter what the cost.

On January 20, 2012, the Obama administration announced that faith-based institutions must cover free contraception for employees. While mainstream media tries to pass this off as merely covering “the pill,” it also includes sterilization and abortifacients. (See the AP story here.) Regardless, Catholics (and other religious denominations) are being forced to accept insurance coverage for procedures and chemicals that are mortally dangerous, both physically and spiritually. What’s more, we’re being forced to pay for others to accept such coverage also, or go without health care coverage ourselves. Of course, the administration attempted to soften the blow by allowing faith-based entities until August 2013 to make the necessary changes to their insurance packages.

The Obama administration timed the announcement perfectly – right smack in the middle of the United States Bishops ad limina visits with the Holy Father during which the threat to our religious liberty is a primary concern, and just before the March for Life in Washington, DC.

On Thursday, January 19, Pope Benedict XVI remarked about this in his address to Region IV of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB):

“In the light of these considerations, it is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion. Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.” (Read the full text here.)

The Holy Father cited this as a “grave threat” in which we’re being forced to cooperate in “intrinsically evil practices.”

Well, the USCCB isn’t going to take this lying down. They’ve vowed to fight this order as “literally unconscionable.” “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, USCCB president, in a LifeSiteNews interview on January 20. “To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable,” he continued. “It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty.” (Read the entire story here.)

Cardinal-designate also spoke out about the HHS ruling in a web video in which he urged Catholics and the public at large to speak out in protest. “Let your elected leaders know that you want religious liberty and rights of conscience restored and that you want the administration’s contraceptive mandate rescinded,” he said. (View the entire video here.)

Absolutely we have to do that, but we also have to do more. This is both a political and a spiritual battle. We need to educate ourselves about this issue so that we’ll really know what we’re talking about and how to fight it when it rolls out. Even more, we need to prepare ourselves spiritually by receiving the sacraments often and deepening our relationship with the Triune God. We also need to step up our prayer life, praying not only for ourselves and our loved ones, but also for our bishops in their part of the fight. We have to pray for the administration to change its ways, and for a new administration that will be able to undo the harm caused by the current one. Yet, there’s even more we can do. We can fast, make spiritual sacrifices, do works of mercy, increase our self-discipline, and offer it for a moral and acceptable resolution to this crisis because this is just a next step in the persecution of the Catholic faith in our country.

There’s much we can do, and we need to begin now. We simply can’t take this lying down.

I’d like to highlight two pro-life women who give witness to the rights of the unborn.

The first is actress Patricia Heaton, who you may know from her roles on the TV series “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “The Middle.” Heaton learned to articulate her position on abortion when she moved to New York at the start of her career and had to start defending it because she was in the minority. During her interview on “Christopher Closeup,” she told me that the situation forced her to ask herself, “Where are we going to demarcate ‘life starts here’?  If you do it anywhere other than conception…it doesn’t make any sense logically.”

Heaton eventually became honorary chair of the non-profit Feminists for Life (FFL), which advocates that “women deserve better” than abortion. She describes their mission as being “kind and supportive and helping people find a way when they feel that there is no way.” Colleges are a focal point for FFL because that’s where young women often find themselves pregnant without any support system and are referred to abortion providers. FFL is working to change that by building support networks on campuses across the country.

Heaton has spoken on behalf of FFL at colleges and welcomed the students’ candor and challenging questions. She said, “They’re at that point in their lives where they’re questioning everything. Part of that is they like to be in your face a little bit, but it’s kind of refreshing to have someone who will actually listen to your ideas. I believe that they really are open to hearing different views and they’re open to reason.”

Hollywood actors who speak out on pro-life issues are a rarity because it can affect the amount of work they get. Yet Heaton is willing to take attacks against her because she knows she is standing up for truth.

Another impressive pro-life woman is Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, Superior General of the Sisters of Life. Though not as well-known as Patricia Heaton, Mother Donovan is second to none in her efforts to support young women in crisis pregnancies. The Sisters of Life work out of a convent in Manhattan where seven Sisters live with seven guests who are either pregnant or have already given birth. Mother Donovan told me that when the Sisters get a call for help, “We speak to (the woman) and say, ‘What are the desires of your heart?’ Inevitably she’ll say to us, ‘If this wasn’t the situation or that wasn’t the situation, I’d want this child.’…Then we start putting together ways in which we can meet her needs so she can fulfill her heart’s desire…95 percent of the women who call us will bring their child to birth.”

Though abortion is an issue that stirs up a lot of anger, Mother Donovan offers a prescription for the negativity: “We’ve found that the simple alchemy of love – loving those that come to us one heart at a time – that is what changes them…What we see is abortion and those kinds of decisions are fueled by fear. St. John says, ‘Perfect love casts out fear.’ When one is supported and surrounded by love, they see the world and themselves differently.”

The Christophers salute Patricia Heaton, Mother Agnes Mary Donovan, and all the men and women who affirm their pro-life beliefs by lighting a candle instead of cursing the darkness — and demonstrating the difference “the simple alchemy of love” can make.

I heard a fantastic homily awhile back – well, the first part of it, anyway. Father’s initial comments set me on a train of thought. Father asked us to contemplate the incredible gifts that God has given us. He pointed out that we humans are the most complex life form on earth, and that it is our ability to think that gives us that position. He pointed out what a quantum leap human intelligence was. Other animals have “intelligence”; they can be trained. Other animals display emotions; my dog will whimper when he’s denied a treat. But only we human beings have the ability to step back and reflect upon our actions and words – and even our thoughts and emotions! And then Father said something that really jumped out at me: “We have a responsibility to develop our thinking powers, to grow our God-given intelligence. That’s true whether you are in Mensa or a special education classroom.”

Father’s words got me thinking about the downright “spiritual” quality to human intelligence. What do I mean by that? Well, we invest a lot of time thinking about things that are not composed of molecules, that cannot be investigated or confirmed in a laboratory. I’m referring to “things” like fairness and human rights. As my friend Michael Vento likes to point out, “Has someone ever seen a human right? How many inches long is it?” We take other nations, such as China, to task for their human rights violations. We expect a nation, a completely different culture on the far side of the world, to recognize them. We’re absolutely convinced these things exist, constructing our whole legal system upon them; and yet they are non-physical.

Our federal and state governments are convinced that every student, no matter how severe his or her disability, has the right to a “free and appropriate education” (FAPE in educational parlance), “in the least restrictive environment possible” (LRE). Interpretation: School districts must provide whatever staff and materials are necessary to make sure that every child can take part in the education process, and that the child should be educated alongside his/her regular education peers whenever possible. Speech-language, occupational, and physical therapists are there to facilitate that. For some medically fragile students this means hiring a personal nurse to accompany the student throughout his/her day.  Children’s educational rights have to be a substantive reality for the federal and state governments to devote so much money to them, don’t they? The right to an education, like every right, is something immaterial; and yet we fight legal battles based upon our convictions that they are in fact real.

Can’t you hear someone coming at this completely from the outside, though? “Shane, some of the children serviced in special education have conditions that will probably never allow them to progress past the age of three cognitively. Some children have conditions that will prevent them from living to adulthood. You want us to continue allocating millions and millions of dollars to this based upon something called a ‘right?’ I don’t believe there is any such thing; you can’t show it to me! Don’t try to impose your beliefs [you can also read 'spiritual tenets' or 'religion'] on me. We have a separation of church and state in this country.”

And what I would respond with, and I think the federal and state governments would have to as well, are the words Thomas Jefferson placed in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Government does not exist to create laws or legislate morality, but to safeguard people’s rights – the opportunities and treatment to which they are objectively due. “But how do you come up with these rights?” our objector may respond.

Wonderful question – like Jefferson, we are falling back on what at an earlier point in the Western world was called Natural Law. They are the truths that are self-evident to us simply from observation and the use of our reason, our power to reflect upon actions, words, thoughts, and attitudes. How did we arrive at a child who has a severe disability having the right to a “free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment possible?” Because we can see that this is a child, and we know that children have a right to be loved. Part of loving them is giving instruction and welcoming them into the community. And so we must do this.

No one religion is being forced upon people, but there is this implicit understanding that there is an objective order, a standard of right and wrong, to which we human beings are expected to adhere. It doesn’t matter that someone feels an “overwhelming urge” toward a behavior the Natural Law recognizes as “wrong” –ask any person sitting in jail! The Natural Law – and the desire to pretend that it doesn’t exist – is at the root of many of the social battles going on in our country.

Take, for instance, the fight for same-sex marriage. When I voice my opposition to it, I am not trying to cast aspersions on anyone who experiences same-sex attraction. Those are my fellow citizens that I want to see treated with every bit of respect that I hope to be treated. I do not hold, however, that the fact that there are human beings who experience same-sex attraction means that sexual acts between man and man or woman and woman must be approved of by society at large or that same-sex relationships constitute a proper ground for “marriage.” I am not being “homophobic” or “bigoted” when I say that, either. (No one should be mistreated for any reason – place of birth, color of their skin, who they are attracted to, their participation in a same-sex union – no one, ever.) I am simply applying Natural Law, looking at humanity and using my powers of reason to recognize that there is not a “right” to same-sex marriage for the government to secure.

Think about the male and female body. They go together; it is a fact of biology. Both are necessary to create a child. (Even same-sex couples are still dependent upon sperm donors or surrogates.) And as male and female are needed to produce a child, it stands to reason that male and female are the natural pairing to raise the child created by their union. To deviate from this, to try and set up another order and justify it without a foundation in reality, is to set ourselves up for a fall.

And no, the Natural Law objection to same-sex marriage cannot be compared to the bigotry that prevented Caucasians and African-Americans from marrying earlier in our history. Again, Natural Law provided the way past that bigotry: Man and woman are the subjects of marriage. Is he a man? Yes. Is she a woman? Yes. Then by his identity as a man, equal to any other man, and her dignity as a woman, equal to any other woman, there is no obstacle to their union. The same cannot be said of same-sex couples – not because of any lack of human dignity, but of biological complementariness.

It’s not difficult to apply Natural Law to a number of other societal questions, such as abortion or contraception. (The former was legalized by the Supreme Court in 1973, and the latter in 1965.) At present we’re experiencing a kind of cultural schizophrenia. On the negative side our legal system has abandoned the bedrock principles of the Natural Law regarding the dignity of the unborn and sexuality; and it is becoming common place to label people who oppose this abandonment as religious zealots or bigots. On the positive side, we see the application of Natural Law principles, recognition of a non-material objective order, in obtaining an education for children with disabilities, children fortunate enough to have survived the threat of abortion. (See my blog post Down Syndrome, Dignity, and Abortion.)

What is the way out of this mess? I don’t know, but it’s going to call for a whole lot of thinking. Good thing we human beings are equipped for that!

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. As kids, it was our first-line defense against the inevitable “Jerk!” “Spaz!” “Dope!” or other name that came firing out of someone’s mouth. It still comes in handy now that we’re older.

For the last fourteen Octobers, our parish has placed a display on its front lawn. It’s made of about 8,000 sticks first cut to size and then painted white. They’re assembled into almost 4,000 crosses standing in neat rows. The finished display looks like a military cemetery, and that’s the point. The display symbolizes the unborn victims of a raging culture war. Why almost 4,000? It approximates their death toll. Not yearly or monthly. Daily.

This year our local online newspaper reported on the cross display. Unlike most local stories, this one drew over 100 comments, many hostile. “Hypocritical.” “Holier than thou.” “Annoying and unsightly.” The parish should display a cross “for every child ever sexually abused by a priest.” The Catholic Church “supported the Nazis” and “turned its back” on six million Jews. The Crusades were evil. Even Mother Teresa came under fire. One comment was pulled as too offensive. The more respectful comments were still pointedly against the display. God gave women a free will to choose, and “even God is pro-choice.” Life begins when a baby is delivered; a woman is free to choose abortion until that moment. God forgives and may have come to an understanding with a woman. Catholics should be less judgmental and more understanding of experiences. But even though negative, the comments were welcome. They are barometers of attitudes that we must shift.

Contrary to popular myth, pro-life morality is not a Catholic invention. Abortion is not an evil merely because the Catholic Church says so. Abortion is an evil because it violates the most fundamental of all human rights: the right to life. When Cain killed his brother Abel, Cain knew he did wrong even though he did not have the benefit of Catholic moral teaching or even the Ten Commandments. He knew his sin because of the law God had written deep in his heart. It’s the natural law—the moral sense that allows us to discern through reason what is good and evil, truth and lie. It is written in the hearts of all people regardless of religious affiliation, if any. The natural law tells us that it is wrong to kill an innocent human being.

But what of free will and God’s being pro-choice? In God’s love, He has given us a free will so that without compulsion we can choose to seek Him. Freedom is God’s gift by which we choose to seek what is good and holy. But freedom is not an end in itself, a license to do whatever we wish. If it were, then we should repeal not only anti-abortion laws but also all laws restricting us. We should be legally free to steal, cheat, lie, abuse drugs and alcohol, and engage in sexual conduct when, where, how, and with whom we please. Of course, that misguided view leads to anarchy and to oppression, as history readily proves. Was a slaveholder exercising freedom or oppressing slaves? Was Hitler exercising freedom or killing millions? Both were acting within their country’s laws. As to abortion, so are we.

Are Catholics being judgmental towards people whose experiences we do not know? No one is judging the women and men involved in the decisions to abort. That is for God. Instead, we are merely saying that their personal situations do not justify abortion. May out-of-marriage sex justify killing a human being? May we kill in order to improve prospects for a job promotion or to save a job? Is it permissible to kill a developing baby because we have too many other children or too little money? What we judge is the existing attitude that abortion be used to solve a personal problem.

Some say that because God forgives, we have no right to speak about legal abortion. God certainly forgives all sin, even abortion. But we may never use God’s willingness to forgive as a justification for committing sin. When Jesus saved the adulteress from a stoning, He told her to sin no more. Likewise, we are calling women (and men) to make the better choice: life.

That choice helps women. It comes back to the natural law. Almost 40 years ago, six Supreme Court justices erased the country’s abortion laws. But they could not erase God’s law. After two generations of being told that abortion is a right, women still know in their hearts that it is a wrong. Today many post-abortive women lead shattered lives, unable to calm minds and souls filled with the regret and guilt from killing their own children. They face higher suicide rates. Post-abortion depression is common and long lasting. Women become filled with anger and lose trust in people. Abortion is a significant cause of breakdowns in marriages, friendships, and relationships of all kinds. Post-abortive women often resort to drugs and alcohol abuse to mask their pain. Legal abortion has itself been the cause of death or physical injury to countless women. After all, nothing that has death as its object can ever be safe.

We have the truth that will debunk the lie of legal abortion. We must be willing to say it. When we do, we can be assured of stone-throwing in return. There will always be people who don’t understand or don’t want to understand. That must not deter us from speaking the Truth. We need not be perfect in order to do God’s work. Jesus chose twelve nobodies to be the Church’s first leaders. His apostle to the Gentiles had been complicit in the murder of one of his first saints. Yet they succeeded because they remained faithful to Jesus, the One Who died on the real cross. The One born of Mary.

Imperfect though we are, we have been called. Imperfect though we are, we will speak.

Douglas Allen is a Canadian expert on the economics of social institutions. He has discussed same sex marriage from an economic point of view in articles in leading law journals. MercatorNet interviewed him about the consequences of legalising same sex marriage.

Q: You argue that marriage is an institution with its own norms which exists in many different legal systems. So what are the basic characteristics of marriage?

A: I think is important to think of marriage as an “institution” rather than some other metaphor. Perhaps the worst way to think about marriage is “as a contract.” A contract is a legally enforced agreement between two people, and although marriage contains this element, there is much more to marriage than this. An institution is a collection of expectations, norms, and humanly devised constraints that work together towards some social objective. Across cultures and time there are a number of basic institutional characteristics of marriage that are relatively constant.

These characteristics would include the following. First, there is a strong contractual element to marriage. Marriage almost always requires some degree of consent between the husband and wife. Even in arranged marriages, the individuals are almost always involved in some extent and often have veto powers. In modern marriages, the couple determine a number of the details of marriage. For example, how things are to be shared, produced, and monitored are matters left up to the couple.

Second, marriage always has involved third parties. Families are involved in marriages, but so are extended family members, non-blood relations, and third parties like the church, state, or tribe. These third parties often regulate the terms of entry into and exit from marriage. Here is where marriage starts to move beyond mere contract. Whereas contracts can be customized between two people, marriage regulations are common across couples. The meaning of marriage for one couple in British Columbia is the same for another couple. Every couple within a jurisdiction faces the same entry and exit conditions.

Among these third party regulations we see many similarities across time and space. Marriage has always been a life-long arrangement (although recently in Mexico City some politician suggested making marriage a matter of a renewable two-year contract). Marriage has, until very recently, been heterosexual. For the most part marriage has centered on monogamous relations, although there are many instances of polygamous ones. Marriage is always a sharing arrangement. Rather than one spouse “hiring” the other, couples form unions and share in the good and bad times.

Finally, marriage is the institution that all societies have used as their first choice in raising children.

These similarities do not mean that one cannot find exceptions. In the history of mankind all sorts of institutions have been used to regulate sex. What we know is that these isolated cases were unable to grow in numbers and wealth. As a result they either died out or quickly converted when contact was made with other civilizations. In addition, often events in life (such as death) have meant that second-best arrangements have had to be made to accommodate children. Hence, most societies have had to develop welfare systems around marriage that include multiple marriages, adoption, and the like.

Q: Is it possible to create laws which will accommodate both heterosexual and homosexual couples?

A: I think it is, but not without a cost. Let me first say that there are four major categories of costs and benefits of including any type of couple into marriage. There are costs and benefits of including, and there are costs and benefits of excluding. Most of the debate on gay marriage focus on just one or two of these categories, and as a result there is much confusion. Let me spell them out before answering your question:

Inclusion Benefits: These are the private benefits a couple gains from marriage, plus any social benefits. Most believe that the major social benefit of marriage is a sufficient quantity of high-quality children to perpetuate the society.

Inclusion Costs: Any type of couple that is included into marriage that requires a redefinition of marriage imposes a cost on the existing types of couples. Marriage has been designed for monogamous heterosexual couples. Any change to its institutional structure to accommodate others, must impose costs on the existing marriages. This is the argument of my paper in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.

Exclusion Benefits: Every society has values that pass judgement on various types of unions. Some believe that polygamy is moral, others believe it is immoral. Some believe that gay marriage is good, others believe it is bad. When a type of marriage is excluded, those who believe this type of marriage is wrong benefit. These benefits must be included in the decision to allow the type of couple into the franchise of marriage.

Exclusion Costs: When a type of couple is excluded, the benefits they would have achieved in marriage are not realized, and this is a cost. In addition, some clerk somewhere has to be able to tell if a couple should be excluded, and this logistical problem also is a cost.

I have argued that the inclusion benefits of gay marriage are small because (i) there are very few of them in total, and (ii) they produce very few children. In a recent paper examining same sex couples in Canada, I find that gays and lesbians make up on 3/4 of 1 percent of the population, and that across the entire country there are only about 33,000 children living with a gay or lesbian in the household. There are 10 million children in Canada, and almost all of these children come from a previous heterosexual marriage or common law relationship.

I have argued that the inclusion costs of gay marriage are high. The institution of marriage must be fundamentally redefined to accommodate same sex couples. This includes, most notably, the definition of parenthood and the rights associated with that.

The exclusion benefits are changing every day, and this is why same sex marriage is now a debate. Whereas 30 years ago very few people would have considered same sex marriage a legitimate form of marriage, in North America around 50 percent now consider it so.

Finally, the costs of excluding same sex marriage is low. Society forgoes little by excluding them, and the logistics of identifying a same sex couple are low.

Hence, from an economic point of view, same sex marriage should not be allowed. The costs exceed the benefits. Now to your question.

The key element, in my opinion, is that the inclusion costs must be eliminated. Here is the major problem. By having one type of marriage for three different types of unions (and gays and lesbians are very different types of unions), we end up with major costs. If we could eliminate these costs, then same sex couples could enjoy the private benefits of marriage while only hurting those who think it is wrong.

The way to do this is through some type of civil union, or to have two types of marriage co-existing. The former has been tried. The latter has not. The problem with doing the latter is that it does open the door of “marriage as contract.” If same sex couples get to have a customized marriage, then why can other couples not also have customized marriages? If we go down this road, then marriage pretty much loses all meaning.

So, my answer would be: if we can create something called “same-sex marriage” that is not binding on heterosexuals, and which does not open the door for other custom marriages, then this is one way of accommodating everyone.

Q: How are heterosexual, gay and lesbian relationships essentially different?

A: Of course the fundamental difference between opposite and same sex unions is the ability of the former to cheaply procreate. In a recent paper I have examined this difference and found that it alters many behaviors. In particular, same-sex couples, given the higher costs of children, have fewer children. The costs of procreating are higher for gays than lesbians, and gays have many fewer children than lesbians. Because they have fewer children in their households, gays and lesbians partake in behaviors that are not complementary to children. They consume more alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes than heterosexuals. For both gay men and lesbians, they are more likely to have multiple sex partners, both as singles and couples.

Finally, because children are unlikely in a same-sex relationship, gays and lesbians sort on different criteria when seeking a mate. In particular, I find that they are less concerned about the genetic fitness of their partners. This makes sense since heterosexuals have to worry about the genetic traits their spouses will pass on to children, and they want a healthy spouse to be around for the entire duration of child rearing.

All of these factors help explain another factor that has been observed in same-sex unions: they are less stable than opposite-sexed ones. One study done in Norway and Sweden found that lesbians were six times more likely to divorce compared to heterosexuals, and gays were three times more likely to divorce.

It is not so much that children hold marriages together (which they probably do), but that those interested in children are also interested in long-lasting relations. The absence of children means that gays and lesbians are generally getting something out of their relationships that is different (eg, companionship). There’s no particular reason why one should have the same companion or sex partner for life once children are out of the picture.

Q: Do these differences have consequences?

A: They certainly do, as I’ve just pointed out. From an institutional perspective, they also mean that gays and lesbian relationships are likely to require different types of regulations. Even when children are present, they likely arrive by different channels. These different channels require different forms of management. As has become clear in the Netherlands, over time, there are now several different categories of parents with different levels of rights.

Q: How can changing the law to accommodate the demands of same-sex couples possibly harm heterosexual marriages?

A: Let’s take one example. Historically the definition of parent has been “natural parent” which has meant “biological parent.” There can only be two natural parents, and someone who is the biological parent has been given an entire set of rights and responsibilities. These rights and responsibilities have been designed to manage the problems that arise in procreation. Societies have wanted parents to have the proper incentives to remain married and to look after their offspring. It has always been a serious matter to alter these rights and responsibilities.

Well, natural parenthood makes no sense when you introduce same-sex marriage, because if there are children one of the spouses is not biologically connected. In jurisdictions that have same sex marriage there is always some type of redefinition to accommodate this. In Canada we created a concept called “legal parent.” In British Columbia this has meant a birth certificate asks for the mother’s name and the “co-parent’s” name. The concept of “father” has been reduced. More significantly, there can be more than two legal parents. There have been a host of legal cases involving divorce where biology has no standing and non-biological but legally-connected parents have been given custody. This is a dramatic shift in the rights of parents, and affects the way parents behave. The impacts of these are yet to be fully seen.

Q: What has been the experience in Canada, after the definition of marriage was changed?

A: Well, that is a good question. Most of the outrageous cases have not been held up by the courts. So, for example, when BC introduced same-sex marriage there were many couples from the US who came up and got married. They then went back home, and within a few years wanted a divorce. This put them in limbo. The states they resided in did not recognize their marriages, and so would not grant a divorce.

However, BC has a residency requirement and would also not grant the divorce. A lawsuit was launched demanding that BC allow divorces to non-residents. If passed it would have made BC a divorce mill. Fortunately, it was defeated, but this just shows yet another unintended consequence.

One immediate change was the subsequent change of all divorce laws. Of course, the meaning of marriage in the culture has changed. But, the measurable effects are not known yet, and unfortunately it will take some time before they are known.

Q: Many people say that adverse consequences of legalizing same-sex marriage are just social science scaremongering. But you argue that we should learn from the legalization of no-fault divorce.

A: Yes. This gets back to my fundamental point: marriage is an institution designed with a purpose. If you mess with it, there will be consequences.

During the no-fault divorce debate the same arguments were made that are heard today: “marriage is a formalization of love.” Hence, if a couple no longer loves each other, why shouldn’t they be allowed to divorce? The view was that there exists an exogenous number of dead and living marriages, and so the law was only setting free those trapped in a dead marriage.

Well, guess what? Marriage is designed to mitigate bad behavior, and by allowing individuals to unilaterally abandon their marital responsibilities there was a lot of bad behavior.

In the 1960s debate, no one thought the divorce rate would change, but it changed enormously and led to a divorce culture. No one thought there would be changes to labor force participation, hours worked, violence against spouses, suicide rates for children, and on and on. And yet, changes to these thing are linked to no-fault divorce.

The no-fault divorce experiment proves that marriage is an institution designed with a purpose, and therefore, further changes to accommodate same sex couples will also have consequences. As in the 1960s we’re probably unable to predict what they all will be, but they will come nonetheless.

One of the overriding purposes of marriage has been to encourage fertility. Every couple wants to have one baby, but not enough want to have enough to replace or grow a population. This has been a social problem for 3,000 years (ask the Spartans). Over the past 100 years we’ve been able to dodge this bullet through high levels of wealth and immigration, but as we continue to erode the value of marriage, reduced fertility is likely a long-term consequence.

Douglas W. Allen is Burnaby Mountain Professor of Economics at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, British Columbia. His latest book is The Institutional Revolution (U Chicago Press). He is also a member of the Ruth Institute’s Circle of Experts.

For Further Reading
Douglas W. Allen. “An Economic Assessment of Same-Sex Marriage Laws.” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Vol 29, No 3. 2006.
Douglas W. Allen. “Who Should Be Allowed Into the Marriage Franchise?” Drake Law Review. Vol 58, 2010.

Remember the slogan “ethics is playing catch-up with science”? It was one of the trusty clichés of science journalists in the heated debates five or six years ago over embryo research, “therapeutic cloning” and embryonic stem cells.

From a layman’s point of view, the nub of the issue was this: adult stem cells were ethically acceptable but multipotent; embryonic stem cells (hES) were ethically contentious but pluripotent. There is obviously a desperate need for cures for dread diseases, so why operate with a pen knife when you have a Swiss Army knife?

In the hyperventilated language of a 2003 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, “the Promethean prospect of eternal regeneration awaits us.” One of President Obama’s first official acts was to loosen restrictions on the use of hES cells. Reflecting the near-unanimous advice of his scientific advisors, he praised “these tiny cells [which] may have the potential to help us understand, and possibly cure, some of our most devastating diseases and conditions.”

In 2004 in California, voters passed an amendment to the state’s constitution to fund research with human embryonic stem cells and to create the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). They knew that this was going to cost them at least US$3 billion, but it was a good bargain. These cells would lead to treatments for incurable and devastating diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, spinal cord injuries, blindness, ALS, HIV/AIDS, mental health disorders, multiple sclerosis, and Huntington’s disease.

When push came to shove, the consensus was that ethics had to take a back seat to science. At the time, the scientific case for allowing “therapeutic cloning” and research on human embryos was overwhelming. There were politicians and voters who had qualms about the commodification of human life involved in killing embryos, but the experts assured them that the medical potential was dazzling. The loss of a few human embryos was a small price to pay.

In effect, there was an implicit pact between the public and stem cell scientists: we’ll swallow our misgivings and provide the funding; you provide the cures.

But what happens when the pact falls apart? Because this seems to be what is happening. Embryonic stem cell research is looking increasingly like a dead end. Last week, after many false starts and a year after launching a human trial for spinal cord injuries, the California-based biotechnology firm Geron pulled the plug on all of its embryonic stem cell research to focus on cancer drugs. It had to: it was going broke.

This is a landmark moment in the stem cell debate. Geron was the leading company in embryonic stem cell research. It had been the focus of media attention for years. The National Institutes of Health directed readers to its website. A cure for spinal cord injury would have been the ultimate vindication of hES cell research.

But these hopes have crashed and burned. There have been no cures. The main development for therapeutic cloning in the past decade was a gigantic fraud by a Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk who suckerpunched the world’s leading science journals. Nowadays there is only one other company conducting a clinical trial with hES cells.

History seems to have passed this technique by. In 2007 a Japanese scientist, Shinya Yamanaka, published a technique for morphing ordinary skin cells into pluripotent cells. Most of the leaders in embryonic stem cell research jumped ship overnight because the new cells were both pluripotent and ethical. It was like moving from vacuum tubes to semiconductors. The CIRM now looks like a white elephant which cash-strapped Californians can hardly afford.

Most stem cell scientists still argue that human embryo research is needed to understand how organisms develop. But they did not sell their research to the public as blue sky science. They sold it as cures for devastating diseases.

Is there any hope left after the hype?

Yes, said New Scientist, in its response to Geron’s failure. Without a smidgen of remorse or irony, it said: “Treatments based on adult stem cells are undoubtedly in the lead, with some very encouraging results this year… So at the moment, adult cells are leading the way clinically? Absolutely… In terms of sheer numbers and commercial potential, they are way in front.”

Five years ago, some scientists were ridiculed for saying precisely this. Writing in the leading journal Science in 2006, a leading stem cell scientist, William Neaves, sneered: “It’s bad science and bad ethics to misrepresent adult stem cell treatments in an effort to mislead the public about the potential benefits of research with embryonic stem cells.” The object of his scorn, David Prentice, has been vindicated.

What about the implicit pact? Will Nature, Science or the New England Journal of Medicine issue mea culpas for having demanded new ethical standards for dealing with human embryos? Perhaps they are hoping that no one will notice how misplaced their hopes were. But is this the way to keep faith with the public? The Bush Administration lost its credibility over non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Scientists risk something similar over medicines of mass therapeutics.

Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.

A few months back, I told my readers on my blog how to raise eight children without even trying. Today, I’m going to tell you why I never should have had eight children in the first place: had I listened to the devil and modern conventional wisdom, that is.

When I was a happy mother of four, seriously considering and deeply desiring another child, an odd feeling overcame me. Over several days, my excitement at the idea of a new little soul became mixed with feelings of discouragement and fear. It began to dawn on me that I was barely good enough “mommy material” for the four treasures I already had, and that any further parenting would be irresponsible. It came to a head one evening: I remember standing in my kitchen, full of fear and anxiety, telling myself that I had no business – no business! – having another baby. Not now, not ever.

All my shortcomings and sins came to the forefront of my mind, and I stood there reeling from the truth of it:

I can’t cook.
I can’t grocery shop.
I can’t bring the kids out alone without help.
I have nooooo patience.
I am not crafty in the least.
I can’t sew.
I can’t throw a party.
I’m not athletic or outdoorsy.
I don’t know how to make a pretty home.
I don’t know how to make anything fun.
I am lazy and a procrastinator.
I’m used to being served, not serving.
I am sarcastic and cranky.
I am a complainer.
I like to be alone.
I hate to be interrupted or inconvenienced.
I am not particularly good with children.

In that moment, I knew all of these things. And I was discouraged. Any one of these reasons could be enough for a woman to convince herself that it’s imprudent to have another child. In fact, you might just be saying to yourself now, “My gosh, that woman shouldn’t have one child, much less eight!”

But see, there’s the thing: Moms of big families are told constantly by other women that “I couldn’t do what you do!” or “You must have so much patience!” or “You must have a real way with children!” They think we were given a special gift or have a mutant gene that they do not possess. But they have no idea how much we are just like them. In fact, most of the women who say those things to me are better suited to raise a large family than I.

As I stood there in the kitchen that night, a moment of grace overtook the moment of discouragement. How many times had I told others, “Discouragement is not from Christ, as Christ only encourages. Discouragement is from the devil!” I remembered it then, and my fears and anxieties were banished. Only the devil himself, the one who hates human beings to his rotten core, would taunt me with the notion that my lack of gourmet skills should preclude new life in my marriage. I saw the evil of it then, and I called him out. I still cussed a lot back then, and I am pretty sure I told the devil what he could do with his putrid flood of discouraging thoughts. Yeah, that was a good moment.

Since that day, five eternal souls have been created in our family, four of whom my husband and I have the privilege of raising on this earth. And, while I can’t claim to have conquered all the deficiencies and vices on my list (not even close! drat!), the existence of all my children has moved me along the path of holiness. Because that’s how it works: The souls in your life are gifts, each of whom is meant to sanctify you in a particular way. My little sanctifiers are the artisans who change and mold me in all the ways God knows I need, and they are their father’s and their siblings’ artisans, too.

That my family exists as it does is living proof that “with God, all things are possible” – even Leila Miller mothering eight great kids.

Deo gratias.