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Writing recently in National Review Online, Wade Horn, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), describes the huge social costs of family breakdown and the benefits to children and society of marriage. He also points out that his agency spends $46 billion each year on programs "the need for [which] is either created or exacerbated by the breakup of families and marriages." He rightly argues that we need to address this costly "family breakdown" problem. In fact, one could look beyond his Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and even HHS and make a similar point about virtually all...

The Outrage in Outrage August 20, 2004 by Roger F. Gay Professor Stephen Baskerville once again provides a cutting edge analysis of the changing political landscape of marriage and family. His comments in "A Primer Against Gay Marriage," (current issue of HumanEvents.org : Social Issues In the News) on Peter Sprigg's new book on same-sex marriage, Outrage, sets an otherwise rather superficial and reactionary political debate in a deeper and more realistic context. Peter Sprigg, as Professor Baskerville points out, is Director of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies at the Family Research Council (FRC). Socially conservative groups...

Peter Sprigg begins his new book on same-sex marriage, Outrage, with a paradox: Most Americans oppose it, "yet in terms of political action, the pro-family, pro-marriage majority has been strangely muted." Sprigg attributes this to a lack of intellectual ammunition and aims to remedy that deficiency with this book. He is certainly qualified to do so. Director of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies at the Family Research Council (FRC), Sprigg has also co-authored a more scholarly book published by FRC that assembles the scientific research on homosexuality. Some highlights of that research provide the factual foundation for...

I've been blocked from re-posting an article entitled "DIVORCE AS REVOLUTION" By Professor Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D. on the stated grounds that it was sourced from NewsWithViews.com Is there a listing of "not welcome" sources available, hopefully citing reasons why, anywhere on this site? As for the particular article in question, I can see no logical cause as to why the opinions expressed by its author wouldn't be welcome on FreeRepublic. Blocking posts because of their source without either a pre-warning and (or) a subsequent expanation seems rather Stalinist to say the least. Even if it's only a copyright issue, surely...

In the debate over gay marriage, strikingly little attention has been paid to the impact on children. Some question the wisdom of having children raised by two homosexuals, but the best they can seem to argue is that serious flaws vitiate the literature defending it. Almost no attention has been devoted to what may be the more serious political question of who will supply the children of gay "parents," since obviously they cannot produce children themselves. A few will come from sperm donors and surrogate mothers, but very few. The vast majority will come, because they already do come,...

Thursday, July 1, 2004 Could your kids be given to 'gay' parents? Posted: July 1, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Stephen Baskerville © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com In the debate over gay marriage, strikingly little attention has been paid to the impact on children. Some question the wisdom of having children raised by two homosexuals, but the best they can seem to argue is that serious flaws vitiate the literature defending it. Almost no attention has been devoted to what may be the more serious political question of who will supply the children of gay "parents," since obviously they cannot produce children...

*Stephen Baskerville holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and teaches political science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. As the battle over same-sex marriage heats up, we may wish to consider other ways to defend and strengthen marriage as an institution.  Any comprehensive strategy for restoring marriage must address its nemesis: divorce.  Of all the threats to marriage and the family today, divorce is clearly the most direct.  Yet it is also the least understood and most neglected.Confronting divorce can strengthen the campaign for marriage by restoring a more constructive and proactive balance to issues where traditional...

During the past decade, family issues such as marriage and fatherhood have rocketed to the top of the domestic-policy agenda. The past two presidential administrations, along with numerous local governments, have responded to the continuing crisis of the family by devising measures to involve governmental machinery directly in the management of what had previously been considered private family life. The Bush administration has proposed $300 million annually to “promote responsible fatherhood” and for federal promotion of “healthy marriages.” Earlier, President Bill Clinton created a “Presidential Fatherhood Initiative,” and Vice President Al Gore chaired a federal staff conference on “nurturing fatherhood.”...

Reason magazine has published the letter below in its March issue. This letter is in response to Cathy Young's article in the December issue: http://www.reason.com/0312/co.cy.divorcees.shtml . They also published, in the February issue, an article on paternity fraud, "Injustice by Default: How the effort to catch 'deadbeat dads' ruins innocent men's lives," by Matt Welch: http://www.reason.com/0402/fe.mw.injustice.shtml . This article does not question the claim that there is a serious problem of "real" deadbeat dads. My more extended response to Young was published in LewRockwell.com (a site with over 24 million hits monthly) in December: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/baskerville3.html . Reason seems to realize...

Libertarian named president of fathers' rights group Dr. Stephen Baskerville, a member of the Libertarian Party of Virginia, was recently named president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. The coalition encourages a new system of law to put an end to the governmental practice of "taking children away from their fathers and criminalizing fathers for situations they can often do nothing about," Baskerville said. Baskerville, professor of political science at Howard University, is widely known for striving to end what he calls a "reign of terror on fathers" being perpetrated by the federal government. "The government is...

From the American Coalition for Fathers and Children For Immediate Release January 5, 2004   Dr. Stephen Baskerville to head ACFC Fathers' Group Names New President Washington, DC (Jan. 5, 2004) – The American Coalition for Fathers and Children (ACFC) announced today that Dr. Stephen Baskerville, professor of political science at Howard University, will become President effective January 5, 2004. Dr. Baskerville is internationally known for groundbreaking commentary in both academic and news publications on the dismal state of family courts in America and the national tragedy of court manufactured fatherless children. His incisive commentary, ACFC believes, is setting the...

The Anti-Father Police State December 23, 2003 by Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D. Columnist Cathy Young is known for her even-handed attempts to cut through the pretensions of both the left and right. She has also shown considerable courage by delving into what for many journalists is a no-go zone: divorce and fathers' rights. So it is a little awkward to find myself cast as one of her combatants, with my own views and others' whom I typify characterized as "extreme." In the December issue of Reason magazine, Young sorts out, with her customary balance, a debate between proponents of Clinton-Bush family...

The Politics of Family DestructionBy Stephen BaskervilleThe debate on the family is becoming increasingly politicized. President George W. Bush proposes federal programs to promote marriage and fatherhood and to enlist churches. Liberals respond that government does not belong in the family but then advocate federal programs of their own.Yet the more polarized the issues become the less willing we are to look at the hard politics of the family crisis. Family policy is still discussed in terms set by therapists and social scientists: the rate of divorce and unwed motherhood, the level of poverty, the impact on children, the...

Government as Family Therapist A dangerous cycle. By Stephen Baskerville Something's gone wrong when liberals can criticize a conservative administration for imposing big government on the family. Something's especially gone wrong when the administration is then defended — by other liberals. Bush administration proposals to promote "healthy marriages" have generally met with derision from the left, but a PBS documentary has already lent a sympathetic ear, and many Democrats are certain to go along. Government as family therapy was an idea that in fact originated with the Clintons, who saw it as an opportunity for politicizing children and extending government...

In Government as Family Therapist, Stephen Baskerville writes that something's gone wrong when moderate liberals defend President Bush's Healthy Marriage Initiative. Baskerville is one of the most prominent spokesmen for fathers' rights activists, divorced men who believe they are victimized by ex-wives and family courts. They are a small but vocal group. Write something they don't like and you'll be flooded with angry e-mails. But I'll take that risk, because Baskerville is wrong. Bipartisan support for promoting healthy marriages and responsible fatherhood suggests that something's gone especially right. That something is grounded in the growing recognition that marriage matters for...

Something gone wrong when liberals can criticize a conservative administration for imposing big government on the family. Something's especially gone wrong when the administration is then defended — by other liberals. Bush administration proposals to promote "healthy marriages" have generally met with derision from the left, but a PBS documentary has already lent a sympathetic ear, and many Democrats are certain to go along. Government as family therapy was an idea that in fact originated with the Clintons, who saw it as an opportunity for politicizing children and extending government into the deepest recesses of private life. "Children have been...