The Gay Battle for Social Reorganization of America

Over the last 50 years gay activist groups have organized to construct a social reorganization of America. Although a comprehensive survey of sexuality conducted in 1992 at the Unversity of Chicago documented that 2.8 percent of men identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual and 1.4 percent of women defined themselves as lesbian or bisexual,(1) the gay culture, influenced by the civil rights and women's movements, rapidly influenced the American culture with gay liberation.

The movement to bring homosexual behavior into social acceptance is challenging every social institution with fundamental change, including the government and legal systems, educational systems, the professional health industry, corporations, religious organizations, and the institution of marriage and family, the media, and the military.

As the gay movements gained momentum, particularly in the media, the schools and churches, powerful counter-movements and organizations developed to challenge the changing expectations of sexual behavior as being personally and socially destructive. Battles ensured as groups within education and health systems, religious organizations and the military claimed adverse impacts on societal outcomes.

The normalization of homosexuality within society will create profound changes in social organization, especially in the areas of social integration, social reproduction, social health and the intergenerational transfer of cultural values. The social discourse has been rampant with charges of bigotry, homophobia and hate mongering. However, neither intimidation, tolerance nor back slapping love fests are appropriate means to bring about change in social behavior that has wide reaching consequences. These foundational social issues deserve serious and thorough consideration.

"The concept of externalities helps define situations that justify government intervention and identify appropriate policy solutions to the problem. Externalities exist when an individual's actions impose costs on or provide benefits to others who are not parties to the decision... This approach provides criteria for when government should act and the type of policies it should use...Positive externalities provide gains for society, while negative externalities produce losses..." (2)

In 2003, Melik Kaylan called for caution in discussing the growing changes in society. "Libertarians, now both on the left and right, say that relations between consenting adults should not be regulated if no participant is hurt, which includes the freedom to marry anyone you please. Here, there's no concern for the aggregate effect on society of cumulative individual choices...Gay marriage...alarms many Americans precisely because it contends blurry unknowable enormities. We will be, after all, the first society ever to pursue the experiment fully... What will be the ultimate human cost, and who will have the courage then to identify the cause?"(3)



REFERENCES

1.Laumann, Edward O., John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels. The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL,1994.
2. Steinacker, Annette. "Externalities, Prospect Theory, and Social Construction: When Will Government Act, What Will Government Do?" Social Science Quarterly,Vol.87, No 3. September 2006:459-476.
3. Kaylan, Melik. "The Way We Live Now." The Wall Street Juornal. Fri. Aug. 8, 2003: Opinion Page.

When Organizations and Families Collide

Most Americans continue to find their greatest sources of nurture, support, and meaning within their family experiences.

In our modern society, however, we are spending an increasing amount of time in bureaucratic organizational involvements, away from our families.

Organizations, while offering support and services for families and individuals, may challenge and compete with family involvements. Organizations may view members as commodities to expand and increase the organizational program, with little thought or concern about how the involvements may affect relationships within the family unit.

Social analyst, Eugene Litwak, contends that both organizations and strong family relationships are essential for the maintenance of an industrial society. He notes that organizations provide efficient, objective, transitory, and specialized services, while the family and kinship units provide the personal, emotional, diffuse, and permanent support and guidance necessary for personal development. 1.

THE FAMILY REALM IS DIFFERENT

The family realm differs from relationships in bureaucratic organizations. The expectations for interactions within these two realms are usually quite different.

Researchers in the Department of Family Sciences of Brigham Young University identified seven characteristics that distinguish the 'ideal' family realm from organizational experiences. 2.

1. Family relationships are generational and permanent.

* Organizations have specific goals of interest for a limited time period.

2. Family relationships involve 'whole persons' for better and worse with respect for the unique qualities of the members.

* Organizations involve people in a 'role' relationship, structured to avoid
contradictions.

3. Family relationships are multidimensional. Many processes are occurring at once, often becoming irrational and disordered. Actions and feelings must be juggled simultaneously.

* Organizational activities are focused, sequential, ordered, and temporary.

4. Families develop emotional intensity that includes not only feelings of love, but also feelings of concern worry, and anger.

* Feelings toward organizational colleagues are less intense and holistic.

5. Family relationships focus on measures of the quality of 'being' in an ongoing process of nurture.

* Organizations focus on quantity measures of achievement, profit, performance,
ratings, and rankings.

6. Family relationships include a sense of sacred responsibility and duty to other family members.

* Organizations include agreements and contracts for mutual advantage.

7. Family relationships are based on processes of caring, nurturing, persuading, and training to foster the growth and development of the members.

* Organizations treat members as commodities where people are hired, fired,
managed and manipulated.


LEARNING HOW TO LOVE FOREVER - EDUCATION FOR HEALTHY MARRIAGES AND FAMILIES

Our social education programs are failing to educate citizens in the skills necessary for the success of healthy marriage and family relationships. Without the ability to care and share, listen and communicate, manage anger, resolve conflicts and forgive, relationships within families become destructive and broken.

In 1995, the Council on Families, which includes prominent social researchers and proponents of religious and social policy, issued a report entitled Marriage in America: A Report to the Nation. They contend that "The divorce revolution...has failed. It has created terrible hardships for children, incurred unsupportable social costs, and failed to deliver on its promise of greater adult happiness... Making marriage in America stronger will require a fundamental shift in cultural values and public policy. No one sector of society is responsible for the decline in marriage... We are all part of the problem, and therefore we all must be part of the solution." 3.

The Council on Families concludes that educational, religious, civic, business, political, and health organizations must all work together to regain the personal
and social value of marriage and family relationships.

In light of the importance of continuing family relationships for personal support, and concerns for the tragic breakdown of family relationships and social cost to individuals and society, it is essential that our educational organizations, including our schools, churches and other community support groups, offer training in the unique processes that support marriage and family nurture and enrichment.

WE CAN LEARN TO LOVE FOREVER! It's time to move forward and make it happen!


REFERENCES:
1. Litwak, Eugene. "Extended kin relations in an industrial society." In
Social Structure and the Family: Generational Relations.E. Shanas and B.F. Streib. Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice Hall. 1965:290-323.

2. Beutler, Ivan R., Wesley R. Burr and Kathleen S. Bahr. "The family realm: theoretical contributions for understanding its uniqueness." Journal of Marriage and the Family. Vol.51(August)1989:805-816.

3. Council on Families. Marriage in America: A Report to the Nation. 1995.
www.americanvalues.org/html/r-marriage_in_america.

The High Cost of Marriage Breakdown in America

The breakdown of marriage in America has become our most critical social problem.

Since the beginning of recorded history, marriage has been a universal human institution. Marriage creates kinship obligations, resource pooling, and the reproduction of children, families and society. Marriage offers an expectation of sexual fidelity and lifelong commitment which supports happier, healthier and less violent relationships. 1.

Over the last 40 years we have moved away from support and expectation of marriage in America. Divorce, out-of-wedlock childbearing, and co-habiting have become normalized as alternative lifestyles.

A report released in 2005 entitled, Why Marriage Matters, Second Edition: Twenty-Six Conclusions from the Social Sciences states, "In 1960, more than 67percent of adults were married, whereas today fewer than 56 percent are married...These trends are even more dramatic in minority and lower income communities." 2.

Increases in divorce, single-parent families and children born out-of-wedlock are creating expensive personal and social tragedies as commitment to family as a social institution is replaced by self-orientation.

COST TO TAXPAYERS - $112 BILLION A YEAR

On April 15th, 2008 a landmark scholarly study was released entitled The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-ever Estimates for the Nation and All 50 States. This report quantifies a minimum $112 billion annual taxpayer cost from high rates of divorce and unmarried childbearing. 3.

Ben Scafidi,Ph.D., the principle investigator of the study and economics professor at Georgia College & State University states, "These costs are due to increased taxpayer expenditures for anti-poverty, criminal justice and education programs, and through lower levels of taxes paid by individuals whose adult productivity has been negatively affected..."

Dr. David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, notes, "Even a small improvement in the health of marriage in America would result in enormous savings...a 1 percent reduction in rates of family fragmentation would save taxpayers $1.1 billion."

DIVORCE

Divorce was once considered a last resort. It is now viewed as a liberating even creative experience, a means of finding oneself. However, we've seriously underestimated the long-term impact of divorce on children.

By almost every measure, children of divorce fare worse than their peers in intact families. The supportive network of family and friends is shattered. 4.

Millions of Americans have experienced the tragedies of divorce.

BORN OUT-OF-WEDLOCK

In 1960, 5 percent of children were born out-of-wedlock. In 2005, 34 percent of children were born outside of marriage. 5.

More and more American children are growing up with little experience of married life and little confidence that they could or want to be in satisfying marriage relationships.

WHERE'S DAD?

On June 15th (2008), many Americans honored their fathers on Father's Day. Fatherhood privileges children by providing physical protection, material resources, paternal cultural transmission, and day-to-day nurturing. 6.

However, 40 percent of children now live in a home without a father present. Men are increasingly leaving or being left out of family relationships. Fatherhood, the most socializing and civilizing role for men, is now often defined as a check in the mail, a weekend visit, or 'no dad at all'. This is a tragedy for both the fathers and the children.

Married men have lower rates of alcohol consumption and drug use, longer life expectancy, better health, and lower rates of injury, illness and disability. 7.

CONCLUSIONS FROM SOCIAL RESEARCH 8.

Research underscores time and again that one man and one woman joining together in a
permanent loving union is the best environment for raising healthy productive children.

The two parent home is a strong predictor of who will escape poverty.
Increases in child poverty since 1970 can be attributed to divorce and non-marital childbearing. (pg.19)

Cohabiting unions are much less stable than married unions. Cohabiting parents spend, on average, more income on alcohol and tobacco. (pg 13)

Children of unwed parents are more likely to have lower grades and to drop out of high school. (pg.22)

Children of divorced parents have higher rates of psychological distress, mental illness and increased rates of suicide. (pg 27)

Single or cohabiting mothers have higher rates of depression. Single mothers are overburdened by parenting alone. Cohabiting mothers are less confident that their relationship will last. (pg. 28)

Boys raised in single-parent families are more likely to engage in delinquent and criminal behaviors. (pg. 29)

Children not living with their two married parents are at greater risk for child abuse. (pg. 31)

MARRIAGE MATTERS

Marriage is more than a personal decision or an emotional relationship. Leading scholars from across the human sciences and across political perspectives who make up the Institute for American Values concur that "a healthy marriage culture is clearly a matter of legitimate public concern". In their report, Marriage Matters, they outline three fundamental conclusions. 9.

1. Marriage is an important social good, associated with...positive
outcomes for children and adults alike.

2. Marriage is an important public good, associated with a range
of economic, health, educational, and safety benefits...

3. The benefits of marriage extend to poor and minority communities,
even though marriage is fragile there.


A VISION FOR MARRIAGE RENEWAL

The weakening of marriage as an institution has been a fundamental factor contributing to the deteriorating well-being of adults and children and to an increase in poverty, especially for women and children.

As a society we need to move into a pro-active direction toward marriage support, marriage enrichment and family nurture. Joining hands, we can create a vision to strenthen and nurture family relationships, build stronger marriages and equip parents to raise their children surrounded by enduring love and support.

Let's start today!
We can do this!
YES WE CAN!


REFERENCES:

1. Institute for American Values. Why Marriage Matters, Second Edition: Twenty-six
Conclusions from the Social Sciences. New York, NY. 2005:pg. 15. www.americanvalues.org.
2. Ibid. pg. 5.
3. Weber, Sheila, Director of Communication, Institute for American Values.
"Marriage Breakdown Cost Taxpayers at Least $112 Billion a Year". April 15,
2008. Sheila@americanvalues.org.
4. "Divorce: The Pain That Doesn't Go Away". Family Voice. July/August, 2001, pg 1.
5. Institute for American Values. pg. 5.
6. Blankenhorn, David. Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social
Problem. NY: Harper Perennial. 1996.
7. Institute for American Values. pgs. 24-25.
8. Institute for American Values. Why Marriage Matters...
9. Institute for American Values. pg. 9.