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Afternoon De-LiceThe lousy education of your kids.

Compiled by Geoffrey Andersen
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2007, at 3:01 AM ET

(Continued from page 2)

Arguing that single-parent families are unfairly maligned, plusgurl thinks their rise has burnished the luster of the nuclear unit:

I was happy to see this piece until I stumbled onto the portion that states how we all know that 2 parents are always better than one. Is this a neo-con agenda? [...]

Men continue to do diddly squat on the domestic front, forcing many progressive mothers to put these evolutionary relics out to pasture. Children are better in families with one functional person who is not being exploited by a man - especially if she is raising a son and this is his primary role model. [...] One committed and loving parent is preferable to the "thing on the couch" role modeling sexist dysfunctionality.

RMLReturns takes feckless straights to task for enabling "alternative families":

Gay parents have been welcomed with open arms by state child custody services because these people work hard at being parents and will often take kids other parents will not-handicapped or abused or unstable kids. My wife is heavily involved with adoption issues and knows many cases of gay parents taking on the challenge of being parents to kids their own parents wouldn't keep because of serious disabilities. Just imagine being a paraplegic or having some other awful disabling condition and your own mom and dad give you up for adoption......

Olcott_Beach shares a harrowing tale of life as a stepchild:

I was born into what would have been considered a normal family; the youngest of three and I know, initially, that we were all wanted. [...] My mother passed away one-week before my fifth birthday and my father married the women he had been keeping company with while my mother was on her death bed.

By today's standards; his second wife would have been diagnosed as psychotic. Being the youngest, and not altogether the brightest, I became the family punching bag with the daily mind games and taunts.

This woman's entertainment—mind games with a six-year old, was dismissed as "just joking" but the hate was born like a spreading cancer. I have no "family values" and the word "father" and "mother" really has no meaning.

As I read this story I could not help but wonder what it would have been like to have two, loving parents. Or even one who would have provided a single word of encouragement.

So far, the only party escaping blame appears to be the children (although, blame for what isn't very clear). If you'd like to add some balance to the debate, or simply take a closer look, please direct your attention to the Human Nature Fray. GA … 1:37am PST

Saturday, Dec. 23, 2006

Jacob Weisberg's assertion that the strangeness of Mormon beliefs should and will give the American electorate pause in considering Mitt Romney's 2008 candidacy for president revealed the familiar fault lines of religion and politics.

CalLawyer thinks we should take all claims of religious belief by politicians with a grain of salt: "Sure, most politicians and public figures claim to believe in their religion. But this is a charade, and an extremely elaborate one."

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Moira Redmond is a freelance writer and a former Slatester. You can e-mail her at .
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