Share the good news of marriage with your friends by forwarding this newsletter to them!

Action Item: Go to the Ruth Institute Facebook page and “like” it! And tell your friends to do the same!

Talking Point: Less than four tenths of a percent (that’s .4%) of American children live with same sex couples. Such a small number of people can be handled through exceptions to existing law, rather than changing the law of marriage for everyone.

What Sex? Butt sex. Dr. J and Todd Wilken meet on Issues, Etc. to discuss the recent "butt play" expo at Texas A&M. This podcast starts off with a graphic example of what was taught at the conference--not suitable for young ears. (Click the POD icon.)

Subscribe to the complete Ruth Institute podcasts with iTunes!

Lutheran Public Radio: Dr. J is usually on live on Tuesdays from 2-2:15 p.m. Pacific Time (Click the link to listen live or find a station near you.)

June--Phoeniz, AZ. Alliance Defense Fund, Blackstone Legal Fellowship speaker (closed event)

June 14-17--Grand Rapids, MI Acton University speaker

June 22--Dr. Todd Hartch, newest member of the Ruth Institute Board of Advisors, to appear on the radio show "Religion, Politics & the Culture" with Dennis O'Donovan in Southern Florida, WLVJ. 8-9:00 p.m. EDT. Listen on-line worldwide.

June 27--Hosting 1000 AM, KCEO in San Diego 6-7 p.m. PST, "From the Frontlines of the Culture Wars." Dr. J interviews Jennifer Lahl, President for the Center of Bioethics and Culture Network, on artificial reproductive technology.

July 28-31--Point Loma, CA. "It Takes a Family" Conference 2011.

August 28 & 31--"Promoting Marriage on Campus," an interview with Dr. J being aired on EWTN's show, “Faith & Culture.” Click here for air times and viewing information.

Miss an issue of the newsletter? Check out the archives here.

Do you need advice on how to improve your marriage or relationship, or on how to find the right person for you? Expert Dr. J is here for you. Click here to ask your question, which may be featured anonymously in this newsletter for the benefit of all.

Read past questions and answers here.

Need help with your marriage? You can also check out Dr. J's "101 Tips for a Happier Marriage!"

• To prevent mailbox filters from deleting mailings from The Ruth Institute, add jmorse@ruthinstitute.org to your address book

Welcome New Subscribers from Hong Kong!

Our Latest Quiz: What percentage of US children lives in households headed by same sex couples?

The correct answer was D. Less than 4 tenths of one percent, or .4%.

All these numbers come from combing information about gays and lesbians from Census Snapshot, US, 2007, ¹ with information from the US Census Bureau, American Community Survey,² describing the general population.

As of 2005, an estimated 270,313 of the U.S.’s children are living in households headed by same-sex couples. According to the American Community Survey, there were a total of 73,131,688 persons under the age of 18 in the US in 2005. (Calculated by subtracting total number of persons over 18 (215,246,449 from total population of 288,378,137.) Dividing the 270,313 children in households headed by same sex couples by the total number of children under 18 in the US, yields a figure of .00369, which is the less than 4 tenths of one percent figure given as the correct answer. This number is not reported by the pro-gay Williams Institute.

They do say that “20% of same-sex couples in the U.S. are raising children under the age of 18,” so if you had read their report, but not too carefully, you might have picked that 20% number, answer A.

You might have chosen 10%, since this is the figure given by Alfred Kinsey as the percentage of the population that is gay. However, this number has never been replicated in any large scale statistically representative sample of the population. The Williams Institute study shows that about 3% of the population is gay or lesbian. They do not report this percentage in this particular study, however. You have to do some math: they report that there were roughly 8.8 million self-identified gays, lesbians and bisexuals in the US in 2005. And the overall population of the US in 2005 was roughly 288 million. Dividing gives 3% of the population is gay, lesbian or bisexual. By the way, this is roughly consistent with the results reported more recently by the Williams Institute.

Given that less than four tenths of one percent of children is being raised in same sex households, it hardly seems unkind to say that this represents an exceptional situation. The law might justly treat this as an exception.

1 Census Snapshot, US, by Adam P. Romero, Amanda K. Baumle, M.V. Lee Badgett, and Gary J. Gates, (Los Angeles: Williams Institute, UCLA, 2007). The Williams Institute specializes in demographic and economic research on gay and lesbian populations.

2  American Community Survey, “General Demographic Characteristics, 2005”

by Robert W. Patterson, editor of "The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy" and an adjunct professor of government at Patrick Henry College. Previously he served as a speechwriter in the George W. Bush Administration.

While boasting the know-how to fix the health care system and rebuild the economy, the political class claims a curious impotence when it comes to family breakdown.

From the retreat from marriage to rising cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth rates, policymakers of both parties echo sociologist James Q. Wilson’s dictum: “If you believe, as I do, in the power of culture, you will realize that there is very little one can do.”

Such fatalism, however, is merely an excuse to duck responsibility for indicting the legal and policy experiments of the 1960s and 1970s that departed radically from American ideals, history, and law.

By giving aid and comfort to the sexual revolution, these changes deconstructed America’s family system that flourished in the middle decades of the 20th century, leaving the country less free, less equal, less fair, and less prosperous.

Consequently, declining family demographics are not endogenous factors but phenomena that could be reversed, if Congress were willing to repeal the policy excesses of that earlier era.

That means taking on the Supreme Court, which has led the pernicious assault on the family by gutting state laws that had — since the founding — either privileged matrimony or stigmatized behaviors that weakened the marital bond.

In particular, Congress should nullify Roe v. Wade, the 1973 edict that spearheaded the retreat from marriage by eroding the custom of the shotgun wedding, the conventional response to “unintended” pregnancies for generations of Americans.

As economist John Mueller observes, the court’s elevation of abortion to a legally protected “choice” for unmarried pregnant women not only elevated abortion rates and sent birthrates into a tailspin but also prompted a precipitous drop in marriage rates.

It’s also time to bring down the no-fault divorce regime. In addition to triggering an immediate and permanent boost in divorce rates, no-fault divorce put the government on the side of family breakup, not family preservation.

And by undermining the idea of marital permanence, no-fault has caused couples — fearing easy divorce — to pull back from the robust commitment that makes lifelong marriage an economic bargain for both sexes.

Many in Congress argue they can’t interfere with state prerogatives related to family law — whether no-fault or the latest aberration, same-sex marriage. Yet that didn’t stop the federal government from taking over child-support enforcement in the 1970s, an intervention that turbocharged the no-fault machine.

In effect, Congress incentivized family breakup by creating a child-support system that virtually guarantees divorcing mothers and their children an income stream without requiring those women, who initiate two-thirds of marital disruptions, to demonstrate any wrongdoing on the part of the father.

Keep reading.

Comment on this article

Support Ruth