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When I wake up each morning, chances are it is to the sound of one of my sons. Whether it’s the voice of my 3-year-old or my 4-month-old that breaks my slumber, I find out when I come to. But they’re earlier risers than I am, and more to the point, they live under my roof. Four decades ago, six in seven kids could say the same thing. Today, it’s five in seven. At current trends, when my boys are my age, perhaps half of American children will live with their dads. It won’t be only on Father’s Day when...

As two men pleaded guilty Tuesday to beating a gay man outside a southwest Atlanta convenience store earlier this year, the attorney for one of them disclosed his client would be prosecuted under a federal hate crime statute. The lawyer for Dorian Moragne, one of four men charged in the Feb. 4 videotaped assault, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that his client would face a federal charge in the incident. Moragne, 19, and co-defendant Dareal Demare Williams, 18, accepted non-negotiated plea deals Tuesday in Fulton County Superior Court on charges of aggravated assault, robbery and participation in gang activity. They could...

A Maryland teen is charging his high school with discrimination after he was suspended for wearing a skirt to class. Warren Evans told NBC 4 Washington in an interview broadcast Friday that teachers at Calvert High in southern Maryland sent him home for dressing like a girl earlier this month. "I feel annoyed that they would go out of their way to make it a problem just with me wearing a skirt," the teen, who says he is openly bisexual, told the station." School officials wouldn't comment on the suspension, but the district's dress code policy said it's up to...

Mitt Romney stated today that he wanted marriage defined on the federal level as being between a man and woman only, but also noted that he backs gay adoption. “Let me make it very clear, which is that my preference would be to have a national standard that defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman,” Romney told Fox Business Network’s Neil Cavuto. Referring to domestic partnership benefits, Romney added, “That would then allow states to determine what rights would be provided for people of the same gender that wanted to have a relationship.” “I believe that...

The evangelical pastor who President Barack Obama calls his spiritual adviser says he's disappointed in the president's decision to endorse same-sex marriage. The Rev. Joel Hunter of Florida told The Associated Press that Obama called him before ABC News broadcast the announcement Wednesday. Hunter says he told the president he disagreed with his interpretation of what the Bible says about marriage. Hunter says the president reassured him he would protect the religious freedom of churches who oppose gay marriage. Hunter says the announcement makes it harder for him to support Obama, but he will continue to do so

CBS/AP) BOSTON - President John F. Kennedy's only surviving child is celebrating what would have been his 95th birthday this month by honoring three Iowa judges who were ousted after the court unanimously decided to legalize same-sex marriages. . . . The three judges will receive a sterling silver ship's lantern symbolizing a beacon of hope. The award, which was designed by Kennedy's husband, Edwin Schlossberg, and crafted by Tiffany & Co., resembles one belonging to the U.S. Navy's oldest commissioned warship, the USS Constitution, or "Old Ironsides."

O’HARA, Pa. – Tagg Romney, the eldest son of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, announced via Twitter that he and his wife Jen have new twin boys, delivered by a surrogate today. “Happy 2 announce birth of twin boys David Mitt and William Ryder. Big thanks to our surrogate. Life is a miracle,” Tagg tweeting, linking to a photo of himself and one of his new sons. This the second time that Tagg, 42, and his wife, Jen,39, have used a surrogate. The same surrogate was used for the twins carried their youngest son Jonathan, who was born in August of...

A couple days ago, Kevin Williamson blogged here that there is nothing of interest in the fact that Richard Grenell, a former Bush administration staffer at the U.N. mission and now appointed foreign-policy spokesman for the Romney campaign, is gay. Kevin also blandly remarks on reports that “Mr. Grenell supports gay marriage, while Mr. Romney does not,” and he adds: “Unnoted is that Barack Obama, who also has gay staffers, also opposes gay marriage.” Well . . . so Obama says. If actions speak louder than words, the president’s actual position might be described rather differently. I agree that Grenell’s...

An Alpharetta student has filed a federal lawsuit against Fulton County school alleging the district violated his First Amendment right to disagree with the process of selecting prom kings and queens. The student, Reuben Lack,18, was student body president at Alpharetta High School until last month. He wanted the selection of prom kings and queens to be more inclusive of gay students. He was removed from his post by faculty advisers shortly after his proposal. He filed the lawsuit this week in U.S. District Court asking a judge to issue an injunction reinstating him as student body president. Lack believes...

President Barack Obama is leading all of the Republican presidential candidates in head-to-head match-ups, according to a poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. A national survey taken March 7-11 showed Obama leading Romney by 12 percentage points (54-42) and even further ahead of Santorum with 57 percent of support to Santorum's 29 percent. Those numbers are likely to shift as Republicans rally around a single candidate in the coming months, but as a snapshot, the data suggest a brighter scenario for Obama than in previous polls. Here are more nuggets from the...

TROY, Ohio -- A 10-year-old boy shook when asked about being prostituted to two other men by an adoptive father who regularly sexually assaulted him, according to police, who said the boy was fearful of talking because he didn't want to be taken from his home or separated from his new siblings. The adoptive father has been charged with raping three boys in his care and compelling prostitution by hiring the 10-year-old out for sex. He and two other men remained in jail Thursday on rape charges. Federal and local law enforcement officials said they're widening the investigation into child...

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The son of one of the greatest defenders of Canadian unity, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, has stirred up a hornets' nest by speculating about backing Quebec separatism if the country moves too far right. Trudeau's 40-year-old son, Justin, now a Liberal member of Parliament, said in an interview with the French-language service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp on Sunday that he was enormously saddened by the direction of the country under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He said that at some point he might even back independence for his home province, French-speaking Quebec. Referendums in Quebec...

Chattahoochee High School principal Timothy Duncan returns to work Friday with his record cleared. State Court Judge Victoria D. Moran on Thursday dismissed simple battery charges against Duncan after he was accused of slamming a middle school student against a wall in anger last September. Moran, after listening to testimony and watching a video of the incident, ruled that Duncan had immunity, which would allow him to touch a student to maintain order. “I am not sure she thought a battery occurred,” said Vic Reynolds, Duncan’s attorney. “She cited the immunity statute that he was acting in good faith. He...

Tolerance equals ideological submission for those who are encouraging a boycott of the Salvation Army for its opposition to redefining marriage and its religious beliefs about homosexuality.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — There were many missed opportunities to prevent the murder of a 15-year-old gay student at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard. Teachers and students saw a simmering feud between Brandon McInerney and Larry King but said they were either ignored by administrators or did little or nothing to intervene. King's mother said she pleaded with school officials to help tone down her son's increasingly flamboyant behavior. One teacher encouraged King to explore his sexuality and gave him a dress. Nearly four years after McInerney, then 14, shot King in the head before stunned classmates, plenty...

Wow. With Brandon McInerney's retrial announcement bringing the story of murdered gay teen Larry King back into the media focus, jurors from the original mistrial are coming forward to support the murderer. One, who identified herself to the L.A. Times as Lisa S. while wearing "Free Brandon" bracelet, says it was actually victim Larry King who was the bully. Reports the L.A. Times: One juror, identified only as Lisa S. because she did not want her whole name used, said many jurors came to believe that King was bullying McInerney by making unwanted sexual advances "This wasn't about him being...

SAN FRANCISCO — Transgender inmates who did not begin treatment prior to entering federal custody can now receive hormones, specialized mental health counseling and possibly gender reassignment surgery while they are in prison, according to new rules adopted by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons as part of a court settlement. A May 31 memo issued to wardens at the nation's 116 federal prisons and made public by gay rights groups in announcing the settlement Friday states, "current, accepted standards of care" will be applied to inmates who believe they are the wrong gender. Under the bureau's previous policy, issued in...

Very high rates of family breakdown in the United States are subtracting from what very large numbers of students are learning in school -- besides holding them back in many other ways. This in turn is damaging the country economically, by making us less hospitable to innovation while also leaving millions of Americans less competitive in an increasingly demanding worldwide marketplace. All of which is leading -- and can only lead -- to deepening class divisions. Family fragmentation (which has eclipsed "family breakdown" as the preferred term of art) is certainly not the only cause of diminished social and economic...

A judge declared a mistrial Thursday in the case of an Oxnard teenager accused of killing a gay classmate. The vote was 7 to 5 in favor of finding Brandon McInerney guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Jurors in the case, in which McInerney fatally shot 15-year-old Larry King in a junior high school computer lab, were ordered earlier Thursday to continue deliberating despite failed vote. The mistrial brings to a close a trial that has been followed closely by gay-rights groups that have fought hard to protect gay and transgendered students from campus bullying.

TABOR CITY, NC (WWAY) -- Even Hurricane Irene cannot stop another chapter in the strange story of a teen with ties to former state Sen. R.C. Soles. Law enforcement in Columbus County are on the hunt for Allen "Frog" Strickland. Yesterday the 19-year-old cut off his GPS bracelet, but that's just the beginning. Tabor City Police say around 5 p.m. Thursday Strickland showed up at Soles's home. The teen allegedly threw a bottle at Soles's car, but police say the vehicle was not damaged. For a week now, Strickland has been on GPS tracking, a court order he received as...