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Cheryl Wetzstein

Cheryl Wetzstein, a Washington Times staff member since 1985, is manager of special sections in The Washington Times' Advertising and Marketing Department.
Previously, she spent 30 years as a Washington Times news reporter, covering national domestic policy, in addition to being a features writer, environmental and consumer affairs reporter, and assistant business editor.
Beginning in 1994, Mrs. Wetzstein worked exclusively on welfare and family issues such as child support enforcement, abstinence and sex education, child welfare, sexually transmitted diseases, marriage, divorce, cohabiting and gay marriage.
She has won several newspaper awards, including 1977 Cub Reporter of the Year and 1983 Heart of New York award, both from the New York Press Club.

Articles by Cheryl Wetzstein

WETZSTEIN: Gay marriage issue still simmers

With Election Day here, it's time to assess the status of gay marriage issues.

November 1, 2010

Mississippi voters can decide ‘personhood’

A traditional-values group is jubilant at the renewed likelihood that Mississippi voters — among the most pro-life in the nation — will have a "personhood" measure on their 2011 ballots.

October 27, 2010

WETZSTEIN: Women’s roles in films flimsy

There is growing criticism about how too many actresses in family films are princesses or "eye candy."

October 25, 2010

Pro-choice activist spoiling for a fight

Pro-choice advocates have been "forced … into a corner" by legislative maneuvering and should fight to "regain momentum," a Guttmacher Institute official says in a rally-the-troops article.

October 24, 2010

WETZSTEIN: Fighting trafficking for the family

How is human trafficking a family issue? And what does this nation have to do with such a heinous activity?

October 18, 2010

MTV’s ‘16 and Pregnant’ sobering for many teens, poll says

A poll found that out of more than 1,000 teens, six in 10 had seen the show. Of those teens, 82 percent thought the show helped teens understand the challenges of childbearing much better, while only 15 percent thought it glamorized having a baby in high school.

October 12, 2010

WETZSTEIN: ‘Lack’ of sex ed is exaggerated

Today's observation is about the so-called lack of formal education about birth control for teens. If U.S. teens didn't know about birth control, they wouldn't use it, right? Well, according to another federal report, 28 percent of 10.4 million teen girls, ages 15 to 19, use a birth-control method.

October 11, 2010

College-educated now more likely to get married

A review of 60 years of census data finds that college-educated men and women are now more likely to be married by age 30 than their peers who didn't attend or finish college, "a reversal of long-standing marital patterns," the Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic Trends project said Thursday.

October 7, 2010

WETZSTEIN: Unlocking the secrets of the womb

With renewed interest in "fetal origins" science, women should soon receive even better answers to their questions.

October 4, 2010

HHS ramps up funding to fight teen pregnancy

The Obama administration announced last week a major step in its effort to marshal the forces of the federal government to prevent teen pregnancies — and gave sex-education programs their biggest funding boost in 14 years.

October 1, 2010

WETZSTEIN: Poverty study’s flip side is telling

The annual poverty numbers came out recently, and with them the annual onslaught of explanations and political posturing.

September 27, 2010

Maelstrom erupts over pedophile laws

Oregon lawmakers carefully crafted two laws to prevent pedophiles from using sexually explicit materials to lure and "groom" their child victims. But a panel of three appeals court judges struck down the laws as "overbroad." What will the laws' defenders — Oregon's attorney general and 36 district attorneys — do next?

September 26, 2010

More unmarrieds are living together amid tough times

The federal government doesn't know all the ways people are pinching pennies during the "Great Recession," but it thinks it has found at least one: More unmarried couples are living together.

September 23, 2010

WETZSTEIN: A misguided prescription on abstinence

Parents are already crying out in vain against the hypersexualized messages spewing at their children day and night. But they expect their doctors to be on their side when it comes to promoting sexual sanity in their children — especially when most support abstinence for themselves, too.

September 20, 2010

U.S. poverty rate hits 15-year high

Government figures released Thursday provided a new window on the deep pain inflicted by the recession, with the U.S. poverty rate rising to its highest level in 15 years in 2009 and a record 43.6 million Americans officially labeled poor.

September 16, 2010

Census Bureau: Poverty rate highest in 16 years

American households held the line on income in 2009, bringing in $49,777, statistically the same as the previous year, the Census Bureau said Thursday, even as the national poverty rate rose to its highest level in 16 years and the actual number of Americans officially designated as poor was the largest since statistics were first compiled a half-century ago.

September 16, 2010

School reforms, Rhee in limbo after D.C. vote

Michelle A. Rhee wasn't on the ballot in Tuesday's primary, but the hard-charging D.C. schools chancellor - and the cause of overhauling one of the nation's most troubled public school systems - took a major hit when the votes were counted.

September 15, 2010

Teens report high exposure to sex education

More than 95 percent of U.S. teenagers report that they have had "formal instruction" in sex education in school or other venues outside the home, the federal government said in a survey released Tuesday, but only about two-thirds have been taught about birth-control methods.