Maggie Gallagher is a United States writer and commentator who has written a syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate since 1995. Her most recent book is The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially (Doubleday, 2000), which she co-authored with Linda J. Waite, a professor at the University of Chicago. Gallagher is widely known as a strong social conservative. Her opposition to pornography led her to give a surprisingly positive statement about radical feminist Andrea Dworkin when she died. She has also been actively opposed to assisted suicide. Hence she wrote editorials in defense of the position of Terri Schiavo's parents. She is also among America's foremost opponents of same-sex marriage. Many of these elements may relate to her Roman Catholic faith.
Note: Maggie Gallagher is also the name for an Irish dancer.[1]
Life history
Maggie Gallager is from Portland, Oregon and graduated from Yale University in 1982. A former single mother, she is married with two kids and currently lives in Westchester County, New York.[2]
Needs expansion
Pay scandal
On January 26, 2005, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post uncovered records of Gallagher receiving payments of tens of thousands of dollars from the Department of Health and Human Services from 2002-2003. The payments were to help the Bush administration promote the President's "healthy marriage" initiative. During this time Gallagher wrote articles for National Review and other publications, and testified before Congress, repeatedly testifying in favor of "healthy marriage" but never disclosing her position on the White House payroll. When confronted by Kurtz, Gallagher claimed she was "vaguely aware" some of the programs were funded by the government, and that she would have disclosed her status but since no one ever called her on the matter, she didn't see the need. She also claimed she was no Armstrong Williams, another socially conservative columnist who was paid $241,000 by the Bush administration to promote various causes, primarily the No Child Left Behind Act. Michael McManus, the third socially conservative columnist to show up on the White House payroll, has a glowing review of Gallagher's book The Case For Marriage on his Marriage Savers website, and has repeatedly endorsed Gallagher's work and cited her work in his figures.
Quotations
On Euthanasia
"Legal approval of suicide amounts to a declaration to the old, sick and vulnerable that others consider their lives worthless." June 2, 2004[3]
On Polygamy
- "Polygamy is not worse than gay marriage, it is better. At least polygamy, for all its ugly defects, is an attempt to secure stable mother-father families for children."
Bigotry
- Judges and politicians like that imply that the 60 percent of black Americans and 60 percent of white Americans in a November Pew poll who say they oppose gay marriage must be motivated by "animus." Translation? You're a bigot. March 3, 2004[4]
- "In the America that Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) dreams of, the idea that children deserve mothers and fathers will become the legal and moral equivalent of racism. Their logic leads not to live-and-let-live tolerance, but to an ugly culture war, using the law to root out public expression of such 'prejudices'."
On Islam
"To suggest that in order to modernize, Muslim societies need to embrace the worst of the trashy commercialism of Western culture is not true..." November 13, 2002[5]
On Discrimination
- "Same-sex marriage advocates are saying there is no difference between two men being intimate and a husband and wife, even when it comes to raising children. They are saying that the opposite idea, that mothers and fathers both matter, is a form of hate, ignorance, animus, bias. That's why they claim that the normal definition of marriage is 'discrimination'." [6]
Ethics violation
- "Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it? I don't know. You tell me."
- "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." [7]
On Andrea Dworkin
On Andrea Dworkin: "According to Reuters, 'Dworkin is survived by her husband, John Stoltenberg, also a feminist activist and author.'Maybe in the end, she found that kind of love, too. I hope so. Rest in peace, Andrea."[8]
April 18, 2005, 9:26PM
Selected Book
- The Abolition of Marriage: How We Destroy Lasting Love(1996) ISBN 0895264641