A Family Values Scorecard for the Ozzie and Harriet Crowd

Over at Red County/OCBlog, State Rep. Chuck DeVore is again touting his voting record on famly and social issues from a conservative interest group, the Capitol Resource Family Impact.  The scorecard isbased on how a legislator voted on an assortment of bills favored by conservatives.  And surprise, surprise, Dick Ackerman scored 100 percent and Chuck came in at 92 percent, while Todd Spitzer was 85 percent.

These bills and this group’s notion of what constitutes “pro-family” goes straight back to the days of Ozzie and Harriet.  Traditional nuclear family (pun intended). Mother, Father, kids.  The legislators score points for voting against Rep. Mark Leno’s gay marriage bill (but isn’t marriage a backbone of the family?).

What I have always loved about liberals is that they define “family” in a much different way.  Families can be bound by love as much as by blood.  Is a single parent raising three children with help from one of her parents any less a family than Ozzie and Harriet?  What about three foster kids being raised by Adam and Steve, that nice gay couple up the street?

According to ChildStats.gov, a 2007 report on children shows these statistics:

In 2006, 67 percent of children ages 0–17 lived with two married parents, down from 77 percent in 1980.

The nonmarital birth rate in 2005 increased to 48 per 1,000 unmarried women ages 15–44 years, up from 46 in 2004. The recent increases in nonmarital birth rates have been especially notable among women age 25 and older. Births to unmarried women constituted 37 percent of all U.S. births, the highest level ever reported.

So the traditional family is changing, not eroding. 

From the site, youdebate.com:

All of the research to date has reached the same unequivocal conclusion about gay parenting: the children of lesbian and gay parents grow up as successfully as the children of heterosexual parents. In fact, not a single study has found the children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged because of their parents’ sexual orientation. Other key findings include:

• There is no evidence to suggest that lesbians and gay men are unfit to be parents.
• Home environments with lesbian and gay parents are as likely to successfully support a child’s development as those with heterosexual parents.
• Good parenting is not influenced by sexual orientation. Rather, it is influenced most profoundly by a parent’s ability to create a loving and nurturing home — an ability that does not depend on whether a parent is gay or straight.
• There is no evidence to suggest that the children of lesbian and gay parents are less intelligent, suffer from more problems, are less popular, or have lower self-esteem than children of heterosexual parents.
• The children of lesbian and gay parents grow up as happy, healthy and well-adjusted as the children of heterosexual parents.

Lynne Cheney, the vice president’ wife and mother of a gay daughter in a committed relationship with a partner was on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart this week and said that she did not believe the United States needs a constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between a man and a woman.

As of 2007, California’s domestic partnership law grants couples many of the same rights and responsibilities as a marriage under state law (Cal. Fam. Code §297.5). This includes:

• Making health care decisions for each other in certain circumstances
• Hospital and jail visitation rights that were previously reserved for family members related by blood, adopiton or marriage to the sick, injured or incarcerated person.
• Access to family health insurance plans (Cal. Ins. Code §10121.7)
• Spousal insurace policies (auto, life, homeowners etc..), this applies to all forms of insurance (Cal. Ins. Code §381.5)
• Sick care and similar family leave
• Stepparent adoption procedures
• Presumption that both members of the partnership are the parents of a child born into the partnership
• Suing for wrongful death of a domestic partner
• Rights involving wills, intestate succession, conservatorships and trusts
• The same property tax provisions otherwise available only to married couples (Cal. R&T Code §62p)
• Access to some survivor pension benefits
• Supervision of the Superior Court of California over dissolution and nullity proceedings
• The obligation to file state tax returns as a married couple commencing with the 2007 tax year (Cal R&T Code §18521d)
• The right for either partner to take the other partner’s surname after registration
• Community propery rights and responsibilities previously only availible to married spouses
• The right to request partner support (alimony) upon dissolution of the partnership (divorce)
• The same parental rights and responsibilites granted to and imposed upon spouses in a marriage

However, many federally-administered privileges are not available period. Same-sex couples in marriages, civil unions, or domestic partnerships in the U.S. do not have the 1,138 rights that a married couple has under federal law.  Given what DPs already provide, what is the big objection over the term “gay marriage?”  A vote against Leno’s bill is a vote for exclusion, discrimination, and against liberty and freedom that Republicans always claim they own.  And quite simply, it is a vote against the values of today’s evolving nuclear family.

Please do the right thing Governor; sign the Leno bill into law.