Action Group Forms in Seattle: Parents and Teachers for Responsible Schools

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The Relationship Between Father Involvement and Father-Role Confidence for Fathers of Gay Sons

This nonexperimental quantitative study of 70 participants explored how father involvement during their gay sons’ childhood and adolescence was impacted by their levels of father-role confidence (FRC) and past father involvement experiences (PFIE). As hypothesized, the results indicated that participants’ past involvement with their fathers, and reported levels of father-role confidence, predicted father-gay son involvement (FGSI). Participants in this study predominately exhibited indirect, non-nurturing, or low-engagement types of father involvement activities with their gay sons rather than direct, nurturing, or high-engagement activities. Implications from the results of this study may be used to inform existing therapeutic approaches for fathers of gay sons, increase father-gay son engagement, and promote relationship reconciliation efforts between adult gay men and their fathers.
Keywords: gay sons, father involvement, parents, sexual minority, homosexuality

A Review of Same-Sex Marriage and Children: A Tale of History, Social Science, and Law

Same-Sex Marriage and Children is a history of how both the law and social science culminated in court cases that ultimately led to the success of marital equality in Obergefell. Professor Carlos A. Ball, Distinguished Professor of Law & Judge Frederick Lacey Scholar at Rutgers University Law School, has law degrees from both Cambridge University (UK, 1995) and the Columbia University School of Law (1990). He states that the purpose of his book was to “bring together historical, social science, and legal considerations and analyses to explore the role that procreative and child welfare claims have played in
policy and legal debates involving same-sex marriage” (p. 6). In chapter one, the book reviews conservative attempts to derail a number of past legal challenges to traditional assumptions about the nature and role of marriage and parenting. Chapters two and three delve into some of the false arguments about the alleged procreational function of marriage that would have (allegedly) been damaged by legal acceptance of same-sex marriage or other false arguments that marital status per se, parent’s gender, or a parent’s biological relationship to a child had material effects on child outcomes.

A Review of The Un-affirmed Core: Understanding the Factors behind and around Homosexuality

At 138 pages, this book by a professional counselor from Singapore distills many years of experience working with men who grapple with same-sex erotic attraction. Shen gets it as he dedicates his book to those who he continues to serve with this quote: “while the rest of the world tries to remember that ‘to err is human, to forgive is divine’, they have a guillotine consciousness that ‘to err is unforgivable’.” Shen aims to change the views of leaders—whether they be religious, social, political, or cultural—in regard to those affected by homosexuality. With a forward by the president of the Singapore Counseling Association, Shen is respected among the helping professionals in Southeast Asia. With a brief review by a doctoral
candidate priest at the Catholic University of America, Shen’s Catholic worldview is revealed; however, this book is by no means a religious approach to this topic, and Shen brings insight from not only the Christian viewpoint but also Muslim and Hindu viewpoints with whom he frequently interacts.