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07/21/2011
Tom Minnery, you were wrong
When it comes to yesterday's DOMA testimony, Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery is predictably defiant:
Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., focused on Minnery’s written testimony, targeting one of more than 60 academic citations concerning the positive impact when children have a married mother and father in the home. Franken said he interprets one study’s definition of “nuclear family” as one that would include same-sex married couples with children.
Minnery replied after the hearing, “A careful reading of the study gives no indication that same-sex couples were included; it’s simply silent on the subject. Based on the actual text of the report, a realistic assessment is that silence means absence. This study is one small part the mountain of solid data that demonstrates kids do best with a married mother and father.”
Senate Hearing Focuses on Repealing Marriage Law [Focus on the Family]
Fortunately, the American public is probably going to side with someone who has little more firsthand insight. Some like, maybe, oh, I don't know -- the study's author:
“Sen. Franken is right,” the lead author of the study told POLITICO. The survey did not exclude same-sex couples, said Debra L. Blackwell, Ph.D., nor did it exclude them from the “nuclear family” category provided their family met the study’s definition.
The study’s definition of nuclear family is: “one or more children living with two parents who are married to one another and are each biological or adoptive parents of all the children in the family.”
That means the study does not provide evidence that straight couples’ children necessarily fare better than same-sex couples’ kids, as Minnery claimed.
Al Franken clashes with Focus on the Family executive [Politico]
The truth is that Tom Minnery got called out publicly. For years, those of us who follow this silly "culture war" have picked apart and pushed back, our jaws dropping over the "values" crowd's willingness to say whatever they think will best serve their own agenda, paired with a deeply-ingrained unwillingness to ever admit they got something wrong. Yesterday was one of the first times (if not the first time) we've seen a sitting Senator bring this duplicity front and center. It was a beautiful thing, frankly. And not for just this one incident, but for the years of false facts that have defined the anti-gay advocacy of groups like Focus on the Family.
*SEE ALSO: Lawrence O'Donnell's take
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