Biography
A daughter of William Walter Gallagher Sr. and his wife, the former Darrilyn Doris Stenz, Maggie Gallagher is originally from Lake Oswego, Oregon, where she attended Lakeridge High School. She has three siblings: Kathleen, William Jr., and Colleen.
In 1982, she earned a B.A. in Religious Studies from Yale University, where she belonged to the Party of the Right in the Yale Political Union. On October 6, 2010, she returned to the Union to debate against same-sex marriage with opponent Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry. Gallagher married Raman Srivastav in 1993 and they have one son together. Gallagher also has a son born out of wedlock from a previous relationship.
Career
Gallagher has written a number of books, including with co-author Linda J. Waite, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. Gallagher serves as president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, a conservative think tank whose slogan is "strengthening marriage for a new generation." She was also President of the National Organization for Marriage from its founding until 16 April 2010, when Brian S. Brown took over that role. She maintains a position on NOM's executive committee.
Social views
Gallagher is a Roman Catholic and a social conservative. She is a signatory of the Manhattan Declaration, a November 2009 ecumenical statement calling on evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage and other matters that go against their religious consciences.
Views on abortion
All about: Abortion
Gallagher is against abortion and believes that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. She believes that most people who support legal abortion do so reluctantly because they think it is a necessary evil.
Views on assisted suicide
Gallagher is opposed to the legalization of assisted suicide, the Death with Dignity Act or voluntary euthanasia. Currently assisted suicide is legal in the states of Oregon, Montana and Washington. There have been cases in other states which were decided by federal circuit judges, such as the Terri Schiavo case in Florida. Gallagher was particularly troubled by the Terri Schiavo case and was a vocal opponent to the decision to remove Schiavo from life support. She believes that state approved suicide diminishes the value of life, especially for the elderly, sick or vulnerable.
Views on marriage
Gallagher is a strong opponent of the legal recognition of same-sex unions, and has written books toward that end. She believes one of the purposes of marriage is always procreation and rearing children exclusively by heterosexual parents, and alleges that same-sex unions diminish the value of heterosexual marriages. Gallagher has compared winning the fight to ban same-sex marriage with the fall of communism and believes that if samesex marriage is made legal, it will mean "losing American civilization".
Gallagher advocates litigation against spouses who commit adultery and opposes laws which facilitate no-fault divorce.
Gallagher has written that "we need a social institution, endowed with public authority, that teaches young men and women...that they need to come together in love to raise the children their bodies make together. If this is a core purpose of marriage, then same-sex unions are not marriages. If gay unions are marriages, then this is no longer what marriage is about."
Views on same-sex relationships
Gallagher believes that many people in the LGBT community, specifically gay men, choose to oppose what they label as the "heteronormative" constraints of a monogamous relationship, with reference to Eric Erbelding's assertion that the married gay couples he knows are "for the most part monogamous, but for maybe a casual three-way".
Gallagher also opposes legal recognition of domestic partnerships and civil unions, and she believes that domestic partner benefits "erode the status" of heterosexual marriage. She has stated that same-sex marriage is worse than polygamy, which, "for all its ugly defects, is an attempt to secure stable mother-father families for children". Gallagher believes that same-sex attraction is not a choice but that the decision to act on that desire and to incorporate it into one’s identity is a choice that bears moral reflection. She believes that "sexual desire is not its own justification" for acceptance or legal recognition of same-sex relationships. She has also written that "once the principle [of same-sex marriage] is in the law, the next step will be to use the law to stigmatize, marginalize, and repress those who disagree with the government’s new views on marriage and sexual orientation", and as an example she has cited efforts by LGBT advocates to revoke the tax-exempt status of churches who politically oppose same-sex marriage.
Views on sex education
Gallagher believes that teaching abstinence (encouraging celibacy until legally married) should be the sole curriculum. She does not believe in instructing students in birth control or how to prevent STDs through use of condoms or safe-sex techniques. She has advocated discontinuing all safer-sex education in public schools.
Views on single parenting
When Dan Quayle criticized the fictional television character Murphy Brown for being an unwed mother, Gallagher wrote an op-ed for The New York Times, "An Unwed Mother for Quayle", in his defense.
Controversies
Federal contracts
Gallagher received tens of thousands of dollars from the Department of Health and Human Services during 2002 and 2003 for helping the George W. Bush administration promote the President's Healthy Marriage Initiative. During this time, Gallagher testified before Congress in favor of "healthy marriage" programs, but never disclosed the payments. When asked about that situation, she replied "Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it? I don't know. You tell me. ...frankly, it never occurred to me".
After the Washington Post revealed this information on January 26, 2005, Gallagher claimed significant differences between her situation and that of conservative columnist Armstrong Williams, going on to add that "I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it. My apologies to my readers."
Gallagher received an additional $20,000 from the Bush administration for writing a report, titled "Can Government Strengthen Marriage?", for the National Fatherhood Initiative, a private organization.
Bibliography
The Abolition of Marriage: How We Destroy Lasting Love (1996) ISBN 0-89526-464-1.
Enemies of Eros: How the Sexual Revolution Is Killing Family, Marriage, and Sex and What We Can Do About It (1989) ISBN 0-929387-00-7.
The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially with Linda J. Waite (2001) ISBN 0-7679-0632-2.
The Case for Staying Married with Linda J. Waite (2005) ISBN 0-19-516929-8.
The Age of Unwed Mothers: Is Teen Pregnancy the Problem? : A Report to the Nation (1999) ISBN 0-9659841-5-X.
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