"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Meehan and Dysarz met in California in 1998. By 2000, they were busy building a hair-salon business, but their home seemed empty, and they decided to pursue fatherhood.
Last fall, a 23-year-old woman came into the salon with three children. Dysarz thought the children were adorable. He kidded the woman about taking them home. Then he heard her say she felt as if she had been given a calling: to become a surrogate mother.
She agreed to help Meehan and Dysarz. Working through a Lexington fertility clinic, she became pregnant in January.
The men said they are following Kentucky law in paying her only for medical and living expenses. Those costs run $1,000 each month.
"Michael will be 'Dad,' because he's the biological father," Dysarz said. "I'll be 'Thomas.'"
Meantime, in the Massachusetts governor's race…
Reich backs gay civil marriage, calls it civil rights issue
BOSTON (AP) – Democratic gubernatorial candidate Robert Reich supports the rights of gays and lesbians to marry, saying it is a civil rights issue.
Reich, like the four other Democratic candidates, had previously supported civil unions, which provide the benefits of marriage for gay couples under a separate legal structure. However, gay marriage would draw no distinction between same-sex and opposite sex marriages.
Reich said he wanted to give same-sex couples the right to marry under civil law, and did not want to address the policies and rights of religious groups.
In addition to recognizing the equality of gay and lesbian couples, a "gay civil marriage" will also allow same-sex couples legal standing to challenge federal and state laws defining marriage as the union of two people of opposite sex, Reich said.
Reich's position may slow the momentum of the two Democratic front-runners, state Treasurer Shannon O'Brien and Senate President Thomas Birmingham, observers said.
"It's staking out the liberal territory and saying this is mine and reminding people 'I'm the true liberal in this race,"' said Jeffrey Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University. "He's trying to stand out in a very crowded field."
Mitt Romney, the only Republican running for governor, opposes gay marriage but supports domestic partnership laws, which would give some benefits to gay couples.
Reich does not see the issue as liberal vs. conservative issue, and said he would use the "bully pulpit" of the governor's office to push for the measure.
"Ultimately, it's a matter of educating the public, because nothing gets done unless the public understands and accepts and wants it," he said.
Reich, a former Labor Secretary under President Clinton, said he had taken some lessons from that administration's handling of the gays in the military issue.
"Once you begin to try to satisfy everyone you sometimes end up satisfying no one," he said. "I think on issues of principle such as this you have to be very clear and state your position."
Has Massachusetts really gone so far down the road toward Scandinavian-style social nannyism that all the Democratic candidates should readily embrace civil unions, that the Green and Libertarian candidates should support marriage rights for gays, and even the Republican candidate should back domestic-partnership benefits?
Do these positions actually reflect mainstream opinion in Massachusetts? I'm not convinced – not convinced at all. In today's political climate in the Bay State, appealing to common sense with a defense of the traditional family is a sure way to get accused of intolerance – but someone ought to have the fortitude to stand up and do it. Why are the leftist social engineers simply ceded the field? They can't speak for everyone in Massachusetts. They don’t.
One more reason to be dismayed at the collapse of the moral authority of the Catholic hierarchy in Massachusetts.
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