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Red families v. blue families revisited

By June Carbone and Naomi Cahn
The 2012 presidential election may turn on marriage. Not marriage equality, though President Obama may garner campaign contributions and enthusiasm from his endorsement of same-sex marriage, and Mitt Romney may garner financial support and emotional resonance from his opposition. And not concern about family instability, though the GOP’s grip on those concerned about family values is unlikely to loosen. Instead, this election may turn on the changing balance between the married and the unmarried.

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Networked politics in 2008 and 2012

By Daniel Kreiss
A recent Pew study on the presidential candidates’ use of social media described Barack Obama as having a “substantial lead” over Mitt Romney. The metrics for the study were the amounts of content these candidates post, the number of platforms the campaigns are active on, and the differential responses of the public.

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Stonewalling Progress

By Mark McCormack
Leading British gay rights charity, Stonewall, have produced a new report into the extent of homophobia in British schools. Surveying 1,600 sexual minority youth, it finds that 55% of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) students experience homophobic bullying, 96% hear “homophobic remarks” and that homophobia frequently goes unchallenged. This builds on their 2007 report, which argued that homophobia was “endemic” and “almost epidemic” in British schools. These are harrowing findings, but they obscure rather than reveal the social dynamics of many British schools today.

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Are crimes morally wrong?

By Hyman Gross
Are crimes morally wrong? Yes and no; it depends. It’s easy to think we know what we’re talking about when we ask this question. But do we? We need to know what we mean by ‘crimes’. And we need to know what we mean by ‘morally wrong’. This turns out to be trickier than we may at first think.

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Arne Kalleberg reflects on 90 years of Social Forces

Sociology has adopted much more sophisticated methods and theories over the last one hundred years. The growth in specialization has made it difficult for many scholars to have a good sense of what is happening in areas in which they are not specialists. But Social Forces, a leading international social science research journal, has grown and changed along with it. We sat down with Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Social Forces editor Arne Kalleberg to discuss the past, present, and future of sociology, social sciences, and the journal.

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World Humanitarian Day

By John Gittings
Cynical observers, of the kind who always scoff at the UN and its aims, may regard World Humanitarian Day (19 August) as just another high-minded but meaningless annual event. Yet the day has a very specific origin, which should remind us that humanitarianism is not just a fine principle but a hard struggle against the opposing forces of violence and war.

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AIDS in 2012

By Richard Giannone
The International Conference on AIDS is announcing the details about Trudeva, the new drug from Gilead Science, that has shown to be effective in lowering the risk of HIV infection. It’s a single pill that in Brazilian trials reduces the rate of infection. The drug is expensive, about $12,000 a year. With 15,000 new infections a year and 1.2 million already infected with HIV, the drug is well worth the price.

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Are One Direction redefining masculinity?

By Mark McCormack
With One Direction topping the US music chart, and David Beckham to be the first man featured on Elle’s front cover, images of men have changed dramatically in recent years. The softening of masculinity is a good thing, and shows no sign of abating.

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National HIV Testing Day and the history of HIV testing

By Richard Giannone
National HIV Testing Day brings the past alive into the present. It was not until 2 March 1985 that the FDA approved the first antibody-screening test for use in donated blood and plasma. The test came three years after Luc Montagnier at the Pasteur Institute in Paris identified the suspect virus in 1983. Later that year Anthony Gallo at the National Cancer Institute in Washington cultivated the virus for further investigation and human testing. HIV testing arose in a culture of fear. The history of the test’s accuracy and efficiency is a story of dread.

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Most older pedestrians are unable to cross the road in time

By Dr Laura Asher
The ability to cross the road safely is important for the health of older people. Those who cannot cross the road safely are less able to access to the shops, health services and social contacts they need to stay healthy. The feeling that they will not be able to reach the other side of the road in time can deter older adults from even going out at all.

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World Refugee Day: holding up the mirror?

By Alison Kesby
You may be aware that today, 20 June 2012, is World Refugee Day. At one level, World Refugee Day is a time to pause and take stock of the state of international protection – to examine anew the myriad causes of refugee flows and the strengths and weaknesses of the international protection system. It is a time to reaffirm the importance of the 1951 Refugee Convention but also to ask afresh important questions: who today is in need of protection, and why?

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Why are we rejecting parents?

By Adam Pertman
Politicians love to say it. Child-welfare professionals work mightily to practice it. American laws and practices promote its essential truth: every boy and girl deserves to live in a permanent, loving family.

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How New York Beat Crime

By Franklin E. Zimring
For the past two decades New Yorkers have been the beneficiaries of the ‘argest and longest sustained drop in street crime ever experienced by a big city in the developed world. In less than a generation, rates of several common crimes that inspire public fear — homicide, robbery and burglary — dropped by more than 80 percent. By 2009 the homicide rate was lower than it had been in I961. The risk of being robbed was less than one sixth of its 1990 level, and the risk of car theft had declined to one sixteenth.

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Titanic Street

One of the intriguing aspects of the Titanic story is the way it offers insights into particular locations. A particularly good example is Oxford Street in Southampton. Southampton became established as England’s main passenger port following the transfer, from 1907, of the White Star Line’s transatlantic express service from Liverpool. By 1912, the city was home to steamship companies that included the Royal Mail, Union Castle, and American Lines.

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Marriage equality and the dustbin of history

By Gary Alan Fine
Marriage season is now upon us and in year 2012 there are stirrings. Perhaps not in heteronormative quarters, where divorce remains a spectator sport, but infecund passion is blooming where moral fences and rocky laws abound. Just recently our president, commander-in-chief of the bully pulpit, revealed that he has evolved his views. He is no longer uncomfortable with what was once termed (with slight derision) gay marriage, now known as “marriage equality.”

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The anxiety of AIDS recognition

By Richard Giannone
Thirty-one years after AIDS was first officially documented, the anguish for gay men who lived through the horrible assault of stealth diseases remains vivid. The news was seismic on impact, glacial in outcome. The public recognition of the cluster of diseases was at once a relief and a terror yet to be endured. I’m seventy-seven and recall that 1981 hinge moment in gay life with an abiding sense of its damaging effects.