Once upon a time in America, society demanded civility and honored women and motherhood.

But honor seems to have been tossed by the wayside in this modern era and exchanged for a cheap view of the female sex.

What happened to so utterly change the widespread estimation of the “fairer” sex?

First, we must understand that our nation’s mores were built upon a biblical worldview. We read this in Proverbs:

Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. (Proverbs 31:30)

He who finds a wife finds a good thing,
And obtains favor from the Lord. (Proverbs 18:22)

The Founders — many of whom were devout Christians and the rest of whom believed in a Creator and respected biblical Christianity — envisioned a country of free men and women and families devoted to one another, worshipping freely.

During the years when Americans adhered to the original worldview of the first settlers and Founders, individuals were treated with respect. Each person was acknowledged as created by God and thus intrinsically valuable.

Women were protected and honored. Pregnant women were protected and honored. Mothers were respected and honored.

But with the twentieth century came some wholly destructive changes.

In 1921, Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which became Planned Parenthood in 1942, and ushered in the radical notion that babies in the womb had no intrinsic worth. Their worth was determined by their usefulness to society.

Sanger convinced many women that motherhood was not a blessing and that some people by virtue of their mental abilities or race were not worthy of life. This was a monumental lie based on a Darwinist worldview.

Planned Parenthood’s nefarious founder accepted and promoted the philosophical assumptions of “materialism“:

a theory that physical matter is the only or fundamental reality and that all being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter.

Sanger’s philosophical beliefs contributed to the erosion of the view of mankind as the height of God’s creation, replacing it with a “utilitarian” viewpoint. Utilitarianism deems people worthy of life based on their capacity to contribute to society.

In the span of twenty years many Americans were persuaded that people were not intrinsically valuable because God created them, but rather, a person’s value was dependent upon their utilitarian value.

Next came Hugh Hefner and Second-wave feminists like Helen Gurley Brown and Gloria Steinem who persuaded men and women that sex apart from marriage and procreation was fine and dandy. Throw off the chains of old thinking and embrace your sexuality!

Helen Gurley Brown convinced several generations of women to engage in sex outside the safety of a loving marriage. Ms. Brown taught young women, enamored of Cosmo and the free love mantras of the day, that the sole goal of sex was orgasm and pleasure.

Counter that with God’s wondrous idea: sexual intimacy was to be the height of oneness between a man and wife, and the means of procreation. Marriage was intended to be a safe place, a refuge, where a loving husband and wife could raise children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

But indeed, if humans are not wondrously created by a Creator but, instead, are merely biologic units, then sex is no different than any other biological activity.

Hugh Hefner with his slick Playboy magazine indoctrinated decades of men of all ages with the lie that unrestrained sex is a terrific recreational activity and women’s bodies are the intended venue. Playboy perpetuated the view of women as playmates.

If a man believes that women are good for a thrill, like a ride at Six Flags, he is less likely to consider her character and heart important. He becomes concerned only with her body.

Hefner was a proponent of the “if it feels good do it” movement and convinced millions of men to throw off  archaic, puritanical ideas about womanhood and sex.

It was a very short step from nullifying mankind’s intrinsic value to sex with no restraint.

Add to that horrendous mix of immoral indoctrination the radical feminist movement. If Cosmopolitan magazine was the “bible” of free love, sex and orgasm for the single girl, Gloria Steinem was the prophetess of the sexual revolution.

Steinem founded Ms. magazine in 1969, which happily harmonized with Cosmo, further disseminating the dogma of free love and sex without the tedious tether of marriage.

The devotees of Brown and Steinem–who were once college radicals burning bras, protesting the Vietnam War, rebelling against parental authority, and belittling the institution of marriage–are now ensconced in America’s halls of academia teaching malleable young minds.

We now know what happens when you teach a nation that people have no intrinsic value, that women are mere means to pleasure, that women should want unfettered sex whenever and however, and that humans in utero are disposable.

Women in 2017 are beginning to realize that they’ve been sold a rotten to the core bill of goods.

In 2017, America has been forced to reckon with the consequences of almost a century of humanistic, unbiblical, immoral ideology. Free “love” is neither love nor free. It’s hedonism and it’s costly.

Women are objectified. Sexually transmitted diseases proliferate. Unwanted pregnancies terminated by abortion result in, not only murdered babies, but severe depression in women. Men, being denied their rightful duty and purpose to protect women and children, are emasculated and devalued.

How can we turn this around? How can we once again teach the amazing worth of each man and woman, boy and girl?

How can we teach men that women are not playmates to use but, rather, persons created in the image and likeness of God?

How can we turn back the clock to a time when men honored women–a time when men would stand when a lady entered a room?

America can change only if we as a nation turn to the principles that first made us great: God’s principles.

America can become a safe place once more for women and babies if we teach the transcendent truth that “all men [and women] are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Americans can realize the great heritage of our nation if we repent and acknowledge the words of the Psalmist:

Happy are the people whose God is the Lord!

End-of-Year Challenge

As you may know, IFI has a year-end matching challenge to raise $160,000. That’s right, a great group of IFI supporters are colluding with us to provide an $80,000 matching challenge to help support IFI’s ongoing work to educate, motivate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.

Please consider helping us reach this goal!  Your donation will help us stand strong in 2018!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 876
Tinley Park, Illinois 60477

Feminist writers claim American society is fundamentally flawed because of “patriarchy.” Whether by accident or design, this claim coincides with the Marxist goal to destroy the concept of family. This destruction is needed to implement the theft and redistribution of all property.

Christians believe that God created man and woman, and called them to join in marriage, raising children in families. If these activists are successful Christian families won’t be allowed to parent children in the way we believe.

The activists are educating the American public to reject the roles of husband and wife, to redefine the family as merely “something that takes care of you.” Defending against this assault means re-educating both Christians, and the public, regarding the roles of husband and wife. We also need to re-assert the mother-and-father model of family.

Previous attempts to ban families, such as in Russia, failed horribly. But failures never stopped Marxists before. We need to work, so that these activists don’t get the opportunity to try again, this time with America being the victim.

Why does this document mention Marxism so much?

Socialism and communism are both rooted in the philosophy of Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels. Its proponents believe in Marxism so strongly that you’d think it is a religion. It is the fire behind the intolerant college scene, Bernie Sanders’ political rise, and the “Antifa” rioting. Marxism also drives the assault on the family.

What is this patriarchy that must be destroyed?

Many voices criticize patriarchy and want to replace it with… something. But all these voices come with many definitions. Their ideas of patriarchy might not match up with yours. Let’s discover what exactly we’re supposed to condemn. Here are a few prominent voices on patriarchy.

Gloria Jean Watkins, who writes under the name Bell Hooks [i], says in Understanding Patriarchy that:

“Patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation.” [ii]

She would prefer to call it “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy,” [iii] but can’t stand the resulting laughter. She calls this laughter “a weapon of patriarchal terrorism” [iv] Again,

“Patriarchy is a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence.” [v]

She argues that a society that expects men and women to fulfill roles damages them. Quoting Terrence Real:

“Psychological patriarchy is the dynamic between those qualities deemed ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ in which half of our human traits are exalted while the other half is devalued. Both men and women participate in this tortured value system. Psychological patriarchy is a ‘dance of contempt,’ a perverse form of connection that replaces true intimacy with complex, covert layers of dominance and submission, collusion and manipulation. It is the unacknowledged paradigm of relationships that has suffused Western civilization generation after generation, deforming both sexes, and destroying the passionate bond between them.” [vi]

Video blogging on the site EverydayFeminism.com, Marina Watanabe gives her version of patriarchy:

“In the simplest terms, patriarchy is a social system that values masculinity over femininity. This type of social system dictates that men are entitled to be in charge and dominate women. And it implies that the natural state of gender relations is a dynamic of dominance and submission….This system forces people into strict boxes called gender roles, and gender roles hurt everybody. If someone who is assigned a certain gender at birth doesn’t fit into the social norms expected of that gender, they’re often ostracized by society.” [vii]

From the London Feminist Network (founded by Finn Mackay):

“Patriarchy is the term used to describe the society in which we live today, characterized by current and historic unequal power relations between men and women whereby women are systematically disadvantaged and oppressed. This takes place across almost every sphere of life, but is particularly noticeable in women’s under-representation in key state institutions, in decision-making positions and in employment and industry. Male violence against women is also a key feature of patriarchy. Women in minority groups face multiple oppressions in this society, as race, class and sexuality intersect with sexism for example.” [viii]

Is patriarchy really all of that?

Collecting these definitions, patriarchy is:

1.) A political and social system where strong men dominate women and weak men. Because of their domination, and use of terror and violence, they get to take what they want. It causes male violence against women.

2.) Something that requires men and women to act in society-approved gender roles.

3.) A life-threatening condition, debilitating men’s health and sapping the spirit of the nation.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition is:

“Definition of PATRIARCHY

social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line” [ix]

The activist definitions differ from the dictionary listing mostly through claiming that violence is an integral part of patriarchy. The violence claim might just be there to grab your attention, to convince you that their arguments have urgency. However, the claim can’t be proven because there are no non-patriarchal societies. There is no way to compare two places and show that patriarchy increases or reduces various crimes.

In fact, statistics of property crimes, and of violent crimes against women, vary widely between nations, cities, and even between neighborhoods of the same city. The statistics show that many factors influence crime rates. You can’t blame a patriarchal society structure for crime – unless your intent is slander.

In this study we’ll ignore the sensational claims and accept the dictionary definition of patriarchy. Anyway, for activists these extra claims are just talking points. They don’t want to reform it, but would rather remove patriarchy from America.

“Remove patriarchy!” disguises the real goal: abolishing the family

Suppose we humor our “prominent voices” and contemplate removing patriarchy from American society. How might this be done? Both Bell Hooks and Finn Mackay have advice. (Marina Watanabe is silent here.)

In her Understanding Patriarchy, Bell Hooks uses the language of social revolution. She would remove the roles, behaviors, and expectations that society has of men and women. In illustration, she recounts an episode in the life of a son of Terrence Real, a fellow author. One day the boy dressed up in girls’ clothes, like a Barbie doll. He was quickly set straight by his neighborhood playmates. Boys don’t dress up like girls, right? Apparently Mr. Real didn’t like that result, and neither does Ms. Hooks.

“[Terrence] Real at least offers his boys a choice: they can choose to be themselves or they can choose conformity with patriarchal roles.” [x]

Her “visionary feminist thinking” [xi] would invalidate male and female roles. It would also invalidate parenting roles, because in her world whatever the child invents, or is influenced to believe, is already normal and acceptable, to be immediately acted upon. We already see the results of such thinking every day, such as a 5-yr old being transgendered. [xii]

Bell Hooks’ writings have also been applauded as being Marxist.

“This brand is specifically Marxist, as it primarily consists of a critique of the current ‘racist, sexist, capitalist state’–one of Hooks’ favorite and frequently repeated phrases–and gestures toward the development of a new social order based not on artificial (gender, racial, economic, and political) dualism but on the respect for each individual as an individual, not a politically constructed identity.” [xiii]

Finn Mackay prefers the traditional revolutionary route to change.

“Feminism is one of the oldest and most powerful social movements in history; it is a revolutionary movement, and that means change. There is so much wrong with the present system that we can’t just tinker round the edges, we need to start again; our end point cannot be equality in an unequal world. This is also the reason why feminism is not struggling to simply reverse the present power relationship and put women in charge instead of men (though this is a common myth about feminist politics). Feminism is about change, not a changing of the guard.” [xiv]

The Hooks and Mackay quotes are in line with standard-issue Marxism. It abolishes the concept of private property, giving everything to the State. But people who marry, raise children, and plan their lives around their families, won’t go along with this scheme. So the family must also be abolished.

“With the transfer of the means of production into common ownership, the single family ceases to be the economic unit of society. Private housekeeping is transformed into a social industry. The care and education of the children becomes a public affair; society looks after all children alike, whether they are legitimate or not.” [xv]

“But what will quite certainly disappear from monogamy are all the features stamped upon it through its origin in property relations; these are, in the first place, supremacy of the man, and, secondly, indissolubility. The supremacy of the man in marriage is the simple consequence of his economic supremacy, and with the abolition of the latter will disappear of itself. The indissolubility of marriage is partly a consequence of the economic situation in which monogamy arose, partly tradition from the period when the connection between this economic situation and monogamy was not yet fully understood and was carried to extremes under a religious form. Today it is already broken through at a thousand points. If only the marriage based on love is moral, then also only the marriage in which love continues. But the intense emotion of individual sex-love varies very much in duration from one individual to another, especially among men, and if affection definitely comes to an end or is supplanted by a new passionate love, separation is a benefit for both partners as well as for society – only people will then be spared having to wade through the useless mire of a divorce case.” [xvi]

In summary, remove the roles of the parents. After that the family structure itself is pointless. The concepts of the activists align themselves with classic Marxist thought.

The Bible, gender roles, and the family

Moses, describing the origin of mankind, splits the story into two sections. Genesis 1:26-30 tells the story of the sixth day. God created mankind, both male and female (verse 27). Together they are to “be fruitful and multiply” (verse 28) and rule over all the fish, the birds, the beasts, and over plants of the earth (verse 29). The man and woman together have this task. The second section, Genesis 2:15-25, tells details of creating Adam, then Eve. After instructing Adam that he needed a helper (verse 20) God created Eve, a suitable helper, from a part of Adam.

In Genesis 2:24, marriage is described as the husband and wife becoming one flesh, Adam and Eve style. It isn’t merely a social arrangement, but something much closer. In Matthew 19:6 Jesus repeats this concept to the Pharisees, that “what therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” There is no way around it, God created marriage.

In marriage the husband and wife are equally important but have different roles. The husband is to be the head of the partnership. [xvii] The concept of patriarchy comes from this. This headship is confirmed in the account of the fall (Genesis 3). One of Eve’s consequences was that “yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (verse 16). God also chastised Adam for listening to Eve and eating the forbidden fruit (verse 17), indicating Adam’s existing responsibility over Eve.

After Jesus’ resurrection the marriage pattern, with its roles, is retained. All believers, both male and female, have equal standing in Christ (Galatians 3:28). Yet the husband is to love his wife even as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:25, 28). Putting your life on the line to protect your wife and family is quite a charge, not lording it over them. This charge doesn’t belong in the same world as the claim of “dominating your wife.” [xviii]

American society accepts and builds on the Christian concept of family. There are laws to protect individual family members from physical, financial, or property abuse. Men and women are equal before the law. There is nothing like the sharia law convention that “the man’s testimony in court is always believed more than that of a woman.” (Quran 2:282, Sahih Bukhari (a Hadith book) 6:301) That is, civil law doesn’t put up with the claim of

“…the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence.” [xix]

Abolishing patriarchy and the family has been tried before (it failed)

These activists, Marxist or not, wish to redefine male and female roles, make marriage insignificant, and thereby abolish patriarchy from society. It turns out that this has been tried before, with abject failure.

In 1917, as soon as the Bolsheviks (Communists) gained the upper hand in Russia, even before concluding a peace with Germany, they began implementing their “end private property” and “end marriage” plans.

“To clear the family out of the accumulated dust of the ages we had to give it a good shakeup, and we did,” declared Madame Smidovich, a leading Communist and active participant in the recent discussion. [xx]

The plan was to remove the responsibilities, and thus the roles, of the husband and wife. Without those roles patriarchy would disappear.

“Will the family continue to exist under communism? Will the family remain in the same form? These questions are troubling many women of the working class and worrying their menfolk as well. Life is changing before our very eyes; old habits and customs are dying out, and the whole life of the proletarian family is developing in a way that is new and unfamiliar and, in the eyes of some, ‘bizarre’. No wonder that working women are beginning to think these questions over. Another fact that invites attention is that divorce has been made easier in Soviet Russia. The decree of the Council of People’s Commissars issued on 18 December 1917 means that divorce is, no longer a luxury that only the rich can afford; henceforth, a working woman will not have to petition for months or even for years to secure the right to live separately from a husband who beats her and makes her life a misery with his drunkenness and uncouth behaviour. Divorce by mutual agreement now takes no more than a week or two to obtain. Women who are unhappy in their married life welcome this easy divorce. But others, particularly those who are used to looking upon their husband as ‘breadwinners’, are frightened. They have not yet understood that a woman must accustom herself to seek and find support in the collective and in society, and not from the individual man.” [xxi]

The government promised to remove from women the tasks of keeping house and of raising children. In place of these things the women were expected to do more factory work, what the bureaucrats really valued. Immediately there was a flood of divorces. Because divorce was easy, sometimes obtainable within an hour, men flitted from girl to girl.

“ ‘Some men have twenty wives, living a week with one, a month with another,’ asserted an indignant woman delegate during the sessions of the Tzik. ‘They have children with all of them, and these children are thrown on the street for lack of support!’ (There are three hundred thousand bezprizorni or shelterless children in Russia to-day, who are literally turned out on the streets. They are one of the greatest social dangers of the present time, because they are developing into professional criminals. More than half of them are drug addicts and sex perverts. It is claimed by many Communists that the break-up of the family is responsible for a large percentage of these children.)” [xxii]

“The peasant villages have perhaps suffered most from this revolution in sex relations. An epidemic of marriages and divorces broke out in the country districts. Peasants with a respectable married life of forty years and more behind them suddenly decided to leave their wives and remarry. Peasant boys looked upon marriage as an exciting game and changed wives with the change of seasons. It was not an unusual occurrence for a boy of twenty to have had three or four wives, or for a girl of the same age to have had three or four abortions.” [xxiii]

It also became dangerous not to participate in “free love” (meaning “sexual relations unbounded by moral rules”). As it is said, “everything not forbidden is compulsory.” [xxiv]

“Some members of the League of Communist Youth, an organization which now numbers between a million and a half and two million young men and women, regard the refusal to enter into temporary sex relations as mere bourgeois prejudice, the deadliest sin in the eyes of a Communist.” [xxv]

The Soviet government found that the number of divorces exceeded the number of new marriages. Between the chaos of the new morality and severe losses of men from the Great War and the Russian Civil War, a demographic disaster was looming. By 1936 the Soviet government had rolled back their laws on families and marriage.

“The idea that the state would assume the functions of the family was abandoned,” Goldman wrote. [xxvi] (Wendy Goldman, history professor at Carnegie Mellon University)

In the great Soviet Motherland they abolished marriage roles, parental roles, and any point to having a family. When the populace embraced their new freedoms things fell apart.

Marxism is still alive in America

Communism failed in the Cold War, but so what? Its proponents want to try it again because it just hasn’t been done “right.” [xxvii] Marxists make new proponents every year because we give to them our children.

Marxism is quite alive in our colleges and universities, especially in the humanities. [xxviii] Since getting a teaching degree means passing many humanities classes, teaching candidates spend a lot of time with these Marxist teachers. This discipleship creates the next generation of Marxist teachers. And since practically all university students spend some time taking humanities classes, all students get a dose of Marxist thought.

The continuing infatuation with Marxism helps explain how “multiple genders” and “gender fluidity” came about. If you get people to believe that gender roles are meaningless they will be willing to accept meaningless definitions of family. For example,

Whatever you define family as, family is just a part of belonging to something that takes care of you and nurtures you… [xxix]

The Marxist hope is to move from “gender roles have no meaning” to “when anything can be a family, nothing is a family.” So you see, the apparently obscure argument about patriarchy has society-shaking implications.

Your Call To Action

God created man, woman, and marriage. The married couple are to “be fruitful and multiply”, raising their children in their family. We also see that the husband and wife have different, complementary, and equally valuable roles. But the complaint about patriarchy is intended to break these roles and rebuild society without families.

You have everything at stake in this argument, for “everything not forbidden is compulsory” will come true. Ask that Colorado cake baker: sooner or later, they’ll come for you, too. [xxx] What can you personally do to defend your interests in your family, in your way of life?

First, ask God for understanding. Study the Bible to understand the roles he gave to husbands and wives in families. Also learn how the Bible is a guide for organizing modern society. Sites like the Illinois Family Institute can help you learn.

Second, don’t sacrifice your children’s faith to God-hating indoctrination. It is foolish to pay dear money to send your children to a college, even your own alma mater, if they will learn things only from a Marxist perspective. As an education consumer, with the power of the purse, you have many good alternatives. Refuse to pay for a college education that will ruin your children.

Third, don’t sacrifice your children’s faith to what is going on in your grade schools and high schools. Their staffs will discourage your intervention, claiming that they are the experts. But garbage content dressed up in professional technique is still garbage. [xxxi]

There are still many ways to bring the public schools to task: elect school board candidates not beholden to the unions; deny taxes or bonds for schools; expose the things they teach; encourage spying when they do things behind the parents’ backs. Use your imagination. You can also ask your sons and daughters what they’re being taught, and use your wisdom to correct their understanding.

Fourth, don’t encourage public officials who advocate, or approve of, multiple-gender teaching and other such evil things. All candidates, even a first-time candidate for dog catcher, should be examined on a range of policy and moral issues. Judge them even on issues not immediately pertinent to their intended office. People rise from low offices to higher ones. The longer officials are in office the harder it is to remove them from politics. Prevent bad government through early disqualification of bad candidates.

Join IFI at our Feb. 10th Worldview Conference

We are excited about our fourth annual Worldview Conference featuring world-renowned John Stonestreet on Sat., Feb. 10, 2010 in Medinah. Mr. Stonestreet serves as President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He is a sought-after author and speaker on areas of faith and culture, theology, worldview, education and apologetic.  (Click HERE for a flyer.)

Mr. Stonestreet has co-authored four books: A Practical Guide to Culture (2017), Restoring All Things (2015), Same-Sex Marriage (2014), and Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview (2007).

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture:

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

Footnotes:

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_hooks

[ii] Hooks, Bell, Understanding Patriarchy, 2004, http://imaginenoborders.org/pdf/zines/UnderstandingPatriarchy.pdf

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Real, Terrence, How Can I Get Through To You?, http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/servlet/DCARead?standardNo=0684868776&standardNoType=1&excerpt=true

[vii] Watanabe, Marina, https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/11/what-is-patriarchy/

[viii] What is Patriarchy? http://londonfeministnetwork.org.uk/home/patriarchy
From their home page:

We work closely with other groups in London and elsewhere in the UK, supporting various feminist campaigns in order that we can broaden our movement and work together for women’s rights and against patriarchy in all its forms.

[ix] Merriam-Webster dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patriarchy

[x] Hooks, Bell, Understanding Patriarchy, 2004, referencing an anecdote of Terrence Real

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/kindergarten-celebrates-5-year-old-transgender-transition-kids-traumatized

[xiii] Kindig, Patrick, https://patrickkindigfeministtheory.blogspot.com/2012/02/bell-hooks-and-post-marxism.html

[xiv] Mackay, Finn, The biggest threat to feminism? It’s not just the patriarchy, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/23/threat-feminism-patriarchy-male-supremacy-dating-makeup

[xv] Engels, Frederick, Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Ch II.4, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch02d.htm

[xvi] Ibid. Note that this section is also a justification of “free love”, flitting from partner to partner at a whim.

[xvii] Deffinbaugh, Bob, The Meaning of Man: His Duty and His Delight, https://bible.org/seriespage/3-meaning-man-his-duty-and-his-delight-genesis-126-31-24-25

[xviii] Clark, Tom and Clark, Mary, Role of Men, https://lifehopeandtruth.com/relationships/family/role-of-men/

[xix] Hooks, Bell, Understanding Patriarchy, 2004

[xx] A Woman Resident in Russia, The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage, The Atlantic, July 1926, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1926/07/the-russian-effort-to-abolish-marriage/306295/

[xxi] Kollanti, Alexandra, Communism and the family, Women’s role in production: its effects on the family, 1920, https://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/communism-family.htm

[xxii] A Woman Resident in Russia, The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage

[xxiii] Ibid.

[xxiv] Williamson, Kevin, The Right Not To Be Implicated, National Review, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/374115/right-not-be-implicated-kevin-d-williamson

[xxv] A Woman Resident in Russia, The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage

[xxvi] Svab, Petr, The Failed Soviet Experiment With ‘Free Love’, https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-failed-communist-experiment-with-free-love_2242535.html

[xxvii] Sanders, Perry and Sitar, Dianna, Socialism Hasn’t Failed; It Hasn’t been tried – Yet!, New Unionist, December 1993, http://www.deleonism.org/text/nu931201.htm

[xxviii] Caplan, Bryan, The Prevalence of Marxism in Academia, http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/03/the_prevalence_1.html

[xxix] Snetiker, Marc, Ellen DeGeneres talks Finding Dory, http://ew.com/article/2016/04/18/finding-dory-ellen-degeneres/

[xxx] Henneberger, Melinda, I’d make a cake for a same-sex wedding, but Colorado baker Jack Phillips shouldn’t have to, The Kansas City Star, December 5, 2017, http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/melinda-henneberger/article188235799.html

[xxxi] Higgins, Laurie, Illinois Association of School Boards’ Disturbing Document, https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/education/illinois_association_schools_disturbing_document/

Written by Josh Hetzler

Mississippi has become the latest test case for determining parental rights of same-sex couples where one of the adults has no biological relation to the child. Nationwide, disputes are raging about what the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to impose its redefinition of marriage on all 50 states now means for designations of parenthood, which prior to its opinion, rested on a paradigm that recognized children as the biological creation of a male (i.e. “father”) and female (i.e. “mother”).

But now with the Court’s 2015 same-sex marriage opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, and even more recently with the Court’s decision in Pavan v. Smith (2017) requiring both adults in a same-sex marriage to be listed on birth certificates, that long-standing paradigm has necessarily shifted. The “logical” effects are unavoidable: To dispense with biology in the marital union is to upend it in matters of parenthood too.

Aside from the most glaring harm of intentionally and officially depriving countless children of either their father or their mother for a lifetime, we should not fail to recognize that the further we go down this road of separating parental rights from biological ties, the closer we move towards enabling the State to usurp parental rights altogether. It’s not rocket science. Once having removed the most sacred, significant, and objective measure of parenthood from its nature – biological procreation – the State by default will delegate authority and recognize rights of parenthood however and to whomever it pleases.

This of course means that while some people stand to gain in this newly constructed system of parenthood, many others will lose and lose big, since a biological connection to one’s child can no longer be afforded any special weight for parenthood determinations in a post-Obergefell society.

This also means that children, and therefore all people, will increasingly become subjects of the State rather than citizens in a free society. (Historical Note: We fought a revolution to untether ourselves from that very kind of tyranny.) There is just no way around it; when marriage and parenthood are defined ultimately by the State, the State naturally assumes the ultimate and unrestricted role of parens patriae.

Welcome to the world, little one. Meet your Parents, the State. (who will assign to you your designated “official parents”)

We’ve seen this before (just elsewhere), and we will be no exception unless we decide to reverse course. What we should have learned by now is that the extent to which the government intrudes upon the dominion of the family, we lose in equal measure the opportunity to govern ourselves. And when that happens, we cease to be free.

Even if, in the end, we were all theoretically okay with that arrangement, we should still know that the State can never be an effective parent for any child. Contrary to the oft-quoted adage, it really doesn’t take a village to raise a child. It takes a mom and a dad. Knowing this to be true, as citizens in a free society (who wish to so remain), we owe it to every child and every parent to see that by all means – governmental and nongovernmental – they are ensured that opportunity.

This article was originally published at The Family Foundation blog.

Given the headlines today, lots of secular folks are starting to wonder if they ought to rethink sex. Wow—ya think?

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last few weeks, you’ve heard about the plethora of #MeToo reports of sexual harassment and abuse perpetrated by politicians, actors, and the news media. The accused run the gamut from liberal to conservative, Christian to skeptic. While the stories are different in detail and gravity, there’s a common thread—people in positions of power, mostly men, taking advantage of less powerful people, mostly females, to satiate their sexual whims.

Many secularists and cheerleaders of the sexual revolution are now shocked that so many people are giving free rein to what one writer calls the “brutality of the male libido.”

In surveying the wreckage, it’s hard to miss the bitter irony here. I’m reminded of C. S. Lewis in “The Abolition of Man” in which he writes, “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function.  We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”

But I’m glad that growing numbers are finally beginning to wake up to the ugly results of their secular worldview. A great example is an opinion piece called “Let’s Rethink Sex” by Christine Emba in The Washington Post. Emba, an opinion writer and editor there, correctly notes that the culture got off track in matters sexual by making the dual assumption that we all deserve a certain amount of sex, and that nothing should get in the way of us satisfying our desires—“even,” she says, “when reciprocity is unclear.”

“It’s not that sex in and of itself is the problem,” Emba writes. “But the idea that pursuing one’s sexual imperatives should take precedence over workplace rules, lines of power or even just appropriate social behavior is what allows predators to justify sexual harassment and assault.”

Amazingly, she says that we ought to return to some of the old virtues—including “prudence, temperance, respect and even love.” Well, imagine that! So far, so good.

But Emba, who has started down the path of wisdom, is hesitant to go too far, saying, “It’s unlikely that we’ll return to a society in which sexual encounters outside of marriage are disallowed or even discouraged—that sex train has already left the fornication station, if it was ever properly there to begin with.”

Okay, but why not return? As Lewis also wrote, “We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road.”

So if we’re to rethink sex as Emba and others are beginning to advocate, it makes perfect sense to look to the One who gave us sex in the first place, God Himself, and see what He says about it—and it’s certainly not about satisfying our selfish desires.

Way back in the book of Genesis, we see the two main functions of sex identified by theologians across the spectrum of Christianity—the unitive and the procreative—and they are inseparably linked with marriage.

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” That’s the unitive aspect of sex, bringing husband and wife together for mutual benefit.

“Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain”—that is the procreative aspect, which far too often in our culture has been completely divorced from the sex act—with disastrous results.

So come to BreakPoint.org and I’ll link you to Emba’s article. What a great discussion starter to engage our secular friends and acquaintances—but only under appropriate circumstances, of course.

Let the re-thinking begin.

The deadly Islamic terrorist truck attack in New York City on Halloween exposed a cauldron of issues, from national security to immigration policy.

But it’s about much more than that. The attack and its aftermath have shone a light on the Left’s campaign to radically transform America through cultural Marxism. That’s the revolutionary philosophy that aims to cure inequality by destroying traditional Western culture. This includes massive, unrestricted immigration.

Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old Uzbekistan native living in New Jersey, yelled “Allahu Akbar” while mowing down 20 people, killing at least eight on a bike path in lower Manhattan. He came to the U.S. in 2010 via the “diversity lottery” system created as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. Officials say he was “radicalized” by ISIS after moving to the U.S.

As President Trump rightly noted, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York), was a prime backer of the diversity program, in which 50,000 foreigners are admitted annually in a lottery. It doesn’t matter whether they love America or hate it.

Before the bill’s passage, Schumer explained that America owes all of the countries of the world a certain amount of guaranteed entry into the United States, an extremely odd quota system that only a fool could advance with a straight face. There is no “right” in the Constitution to immigrate to the United States, and no other nation has embraced this wacky idea.

“There are certain countries that have been left out,” Schumer said.

Schumer’s defenders note that, as part of the Gang of Eight in the U.S. Senate in 2013, he proposed ending the diversity lottery. But it was only because he was trying to ram through a liberalized immigration reform bill.

Why do progressives promote diversity over unity, multiculturalism over American heritage, sexual anarchy over marriage, and applaud when people speak languages other than English?

The answer is that it ripens the field for identity politics and is part of the cultural Marxists’ goal to radically transform America. Like Obama’s former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, some appear gleeful each time our country suffers a terrorist attack because “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” We have it coming, right? They actually believe that America is free and prosperous not because of our foundational values but because other countries are a mess and it’s our fault.

Liberals and conservatives used to disagree about means but not so much about ends – a freer, more prosperous society in which character and hard work count more than skin color. But no longer. The hard Left’s cultural Marxism has replaced yesterday’s liberalism. They laugh at equal opportunity and demand racially determined outcomes. Disagree, and you’re a Nazi. Or worse, a Christian.

In Mr. Schumer’s New York City, officials have floated the idea of allowing noncitizens to vote in city elections, just as they do now in at least ten Maryland jurisdictions.

In California, as a recent Washington Times editorial noted, 44.6 percent of residents aged five or older speak no English at home. In Texas, 35.6 percent speak another language at home, and another 14 percent are “English-impaired.” Several states have populations where more than 30 percent do not speak English. In fact, more than one-fifth of the entire U.S. population doesn’t speak English.

Most immigrants are hardworking, here legally, and love America. But unlike earlier immigrants, they are being told by the Left not to assimilate. Can the wholesale rejection of a common language be a good thing? Only if you are sowing the seeds of identity politics and cultural upheaval.

Earlier this month, the Latino Victory Fund unleashed the most vicious political propaganda since the anti-Goldwater spot in 1964 in which a little girl picks daisies as a nuclear bomb goes off.

The ad depicts a driver in a pickup truck with a Confederate flag, a Tea Party license plate and a Gillespie bumper sticker bearing down on minority children. Ed Gillespie was the GOP candidate for Virginia governor. As the truck is about to kill the frightened youngsters, one of them in Muslim garb, a child awakes from the nightmare. Voiceover: “Is this what Ed Gillespie and Donald Trump mean by the American Dream?” The screen says: “Reject Hate.”

This despicable ad that backs Democrat gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam, who is not mentioned but whose campaign listed it as a contribution, does more than slander Mr. Gillespie and President Trump. It’s aimed at any Americans who resist the cultural Marxists’ campaign to turn America into a socialist Babylon.

The anti-Gillespie “murderous trucker” ad was quickly withdrawn after the terrorist truck attack in New York.

I guess they wouldn’t want people to start thinking too hard about how we came to this.

This article was originally posted at Townhall.com

The evidence against the far Left-wing agenda of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is overwhelmingly plain. Yet, this sinister agenda is ignored by many corporations, politicians, academics and the so-called “news” media. With their assistance, the SPLC regularly maligns conservative voices, especially Christian organizations that promote traditional sexual morality.  Illinois Family Institute has been targeted by the SPLC since 2008.

As I point out in the video interview below, the SPLC’s designation of IFI as a hate group is laughable and an outright lie. Yet it continues to be used by partisan activists.

To  put it plainly: the SPLC is a far Left organization of liberal lawyers who raise millions of dollars annually by resorting to name calling. In recent years, their primary goal has been to label organizations that affirm theologically orthodox views of homosexuality (and now gender dysphoria) as “hate groups” in order to advance the radical LGBTQIA (more to come) agenda.

If the Left were honest, they wouldn’t hesitate to identify SPLC’s bigotry against groups that hold to 2000 plus years of a traditional Christian understanding of God’s design for sex.  But they are not honest.

Moreover, the Left isn’t content with redefining sexual morality and the institution of marriage. They are desperately trying to redefine what it means to be a Christ-follower. This is nothing new, of course. There have always been false teachers who sought to add to the Word of God, create their own standards of righteousness, and to diminish God’s view of sin (1 John 5:17) – as merely minor problems with which we that we all deal (Rom: 1:32). Think “white lies.”

Those who mix humanism with a dollop of Christian flavor want to claim the title of “Christianity” but fail to see that they supplant the Gospel truth with feckless human thinking and flawed understanding of compassion. Scripture isn’t silent on this: Isaiah 55:8; Proverbs 3:5-7; Jeremiah 17:9; and Matthew 15:19.

The Christian faith is defined by the Word of God. Once it is mixed with other human philosophies, it ceases being “Christian.”

It’s time for conservatives to fight back!

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to sign the petition now asking corporations to stop funding SPLC.

The Left is working overtime to silence and/or marginalize conservative voices in America
The time to support IFI is now!

Written by Joe Paschen

One could make the argument that the most important documents of the United States, hailing it as the most unique and blessed nation in the world, are The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

However, most Americans are more familiar with and can recite our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. A musical essay of words that reminds us of the love Americans have for this unique country.

The author of those words was Francis Scott Key, a gifted amateur poet and a professional attorney hired to negotiate the release of an American civilian imprisoned by the British at Fort McHenry, that fateful second week of September in 1814, during what many historians refer to as the “Second War of Independence.”

The poem was written while he was stranded on a ship in Chesapeake Bay, witnessing the lengthy British bombardment of the American fort and those defending it.

Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner out of the emotions that welled up from seeing Americans being unjustifiably persecuted, and with every ounce of strength they had, rise up and fight for their freedom and their God-given rights. They knew what was at stake! They stood up and fought back against unsurmountable odds.

They didn’t take a knee.

We stand when The Star Spangled Banner is played because of the freedoms and rights our country offers, but more importantly, we stand to honor those who gave their lives to defend those rights and keep those freedoms intact.

Are we a perfect nation? No! But as important as it is to protect the right to peacefully protest problems that exist in our society, it is equally important to recognize that as others offend us, they lose the opportunity to find solutions to those very problems.

Commissioners and owners of pro sports teams have let this politically incorrect protest spiral out of control.

It is like a parent letting the kids run the house, or animals run the zoo, or yes, inmates run the prison, as Houston Texans owner Robert McNair was quoted as saying recently.

There is a time and place for bringing forth issues in our country that could be improved.

Protesting disapproval is taking a stand, not a knee.

The platform given to those very blessed performers, athletes and politicians comes with an unwritten humble expectation. Do Your Job! Protesting concerns on your own time is on you. Dividing a nation should not be one of those activities.

Some columnists have criticized the use of the National Anthem prior to games as a tool to protest and divide and thus shouldn’t be a part of a sports event.

But where have you ever gone, or ever seen, over a few minutes when small groups (youth sports) and very large groups (college and pro stadiums) of people stand together to honor one nation under God?

The National Anthem above all other poems, songs, documents or moments in American history has stood the test of time as a unifier, not a divider.

That’s exactly why it should be played, to remind us to stand in a unifying moment and remember we live in the greatest country in the world.

You want to protest? Use your First Amendment rights to peacefully protest your concerns. You’re an athlete who makes millions per year? Organize a group that agrees with you. Millions of people before you have fought and died for you to have that right.

David Hildebrand, the director of the Colonial Music Institute has studied the words of The Star Spangled Banner for years.

He calls the lyrics from Mr. Key, a modest churchman, a hymn of redemption. “It’s a hymn of, ‘We’ve been saved! The fact I can see the flag means the fort has not been taken.’ It’s the ultimate statement of relief with a capital R, and that emotion gives the song a really strong appeal.”

In the fourth and final stanza of the finished anthem, Key writes, “Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto- “In God is our Trust.””

Joe Paschen is a born again Christian husband, father of 7, USMC veteran (1973-75), free-lance broadcast-journalist for over 40 years (who has covered all amateur and pro levels of sports), a researcher of history and a veteran bartender for over 40 years.

The Left is working overtime to silence and/or marginalize conservative voices in America
The time to support IFI is now!

The culture of America 2017 seems to be, in the words of stalwart conservative thinker and jurist, Robert Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah.

Our society has become a living metaphor of Israel, circa 200 B.C.:

In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Judges 21:25

And our culture is a vivid picture of Romans 1:

21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31 Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Paul’s letter to the Romans, with a little 21st century language revision, could have been sent to Americans at large.

That’s the ugly news for America and American culture.

But America has also been blessed beyond measure since her inception. Indeed, countless stories speak to God’s intervention even during the Revolutionary War. The U.S. has been a friend to Israel and had an abundance of believers reaching the nation and the world with the Good News of the Gospel, such that we enjoyed providential protection and blessing.

Now, in what many believe to be, barring revival and return to God’s precepts, the sunset of our nation, a new American Culture & Faith Institute survey delivers a mixed bag of good and bad news:

There is good news and bad news for conservatives.

The good news is that conservatives are more likely than liberals to believe there is a culture war underway. The even better news for the Right is that SAGE Cons are the single most attentive and active group when it comes to engaging in that culture war.

Mainstream Media (MSM) is loathe to cover the truth that Conservatives are much more charitable than Liberals. Jeff Jacoby writes at the Boston Globe in his article, “Stingy Liberals“:

Liberals, popular stereotypes notwithstanding, are not more generous and compassionate than conservatives. To an outsider it might seem plausible that Americans whose political rhetoric emphasizes “fairness” and “social justice” would be more charitably inclined than those who stress economic liberty and individual autonomy. But reams of evidence contradict that presumption, as Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks demonstrated in his landmark 2006 book, “Who Really Cares.”

Progressives stroke out when confronted with the evidence that Conservatives, and in particular people of faith, give more, much more, to charity and non-profits than do Leftists and the non-religious

In Jacoby’s words:

For years, academic research and national studies have confirmed that Americans who lean to the left politically tend to be much less charitable than those who tilt rightward.

That’s the good news for America and American culture.

But Conservatives must confront the reality found in that opening paragraph by the American Culture and Faith Institute:

…liberals, overall, are more likely than conservatives to believe that there is a need for significant cultural change in the U.S. these days; they are more likely to describe the need for such change as “urgent;” and they are more likely to participate in a variety of forms of social action.

That’s the bad news for America and American culture.

And why are Conservatives less likely to engage in the culture war, except by giving to churches and organizations that fight in their stead?

Conservatives believe the basic foundation of our society is the nuclear family — one man and one woman in an exclusive, life-long relationship, rearing children (God willing) and inculcating in them their godly precepts and values.

Thus, Conservatives work diligently to support their families, to raise their children, to be independent and not a burden on society. It’s completely understandable that the bulwark of Conservatives’ energy is expended toward those ends.

And Conservative Christians live the biblical exhortation to give back that which rightfully belongs to God, “the first fruits of their labor”:

Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops. Genesis 18:23

A snapshot of “flyover” Americans who espouse a biblical and conservative worldview will show those folks working hard, raising kids, reading their Bibles, paying taxes, tithing, and being good neighbors. Politics and the culture war have taken a back seat by necessity.

But now The Left, Progressives, whose “religion” is government and social activism, with their unrelenting pursuit of radical, social transformation, have pushed our once mostly godly nation to the brink of destruction. Conservatives must awaken and understand it’s past time to “armor up” and engage the culture.

Like the patriarch Abraham who pleaded for Sodom and Gomorrah:

Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare[c] the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?”

Even so we must plead with God and we must act.

Followers of Jesus were instructed in Matthew:

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:13-16

What do Americans, according to the Faith and Culture survey believe? And how does that translate to action?

Seven out of ten Americans (71%) believe there is a culture war taking place in the United States today.

When ten forms of social action were gauged by the national survey, additional patterns emerged, showcasing the heightened commitment to cultural transformation of two competing groups, in particular: SAGE Cons and liberals. Conservatives, in general, were typically no more engaged in transformational activities than were moderates.

The following table illustrates trends in conservative v. liberal engagement:

What’s the solution?

If we as Conservatives truly believe there is a culture war, believe there is a battle between a culture of life and a culture of death, we cannot and must not stand on the sidelines and ONLY give money to worthy organizations and churches. That is a great start, but only a start.

We must, especially as Christian Conservatives, live out our lives as the salt and light God intended. And that means rolling up our sleeves, venturing out of our comfort zones, and engaging a culture in dire need of God’s precepts and God’s people.

It’s high time we allowed the Bad and the Ugly News about America to be a CATALYST for propagating the GOOD NEWS which will heal and preserve and elicit, once again, God’s protection and blessing.

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We now have an IFI mobile app that enables us to deliver great content based on the “Tracks” you choose, including timely legislative alerts, cultural commentaries, upcoming event notifications, links to our podcasts, video reports, and even daily Bible verses to encourage you. This great app is available for Android and iPhones.

Key Features:

• It’s FREE!
• Specific content for serious Christians
• Performs a spiritual assessment
• Sends you daily Scriptures to encourage and equip you
• You determine when and how much content you get

Recall that liberals attacked Chick-Fil-A, the popular fast food chain, in 2012 when the CEO said he opposed same-sex marriage. Yet days later conservatives lined up for more than chicken sandwiches and waffle fries – they sought to express support on “Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day.”

According to the survey, more than a quarter of conservatives and more than a third of liberals are willing to change their shopping habits based on a company’s social stance, says George Barna, executive director of the American Culture and Faith Institute.

“When we look at conservatives,” he says, “they’re most likely to be no longer buying products from Starbucks, or Target, or Wells Fargo, or Disney.”

Liberals, meanwhile, avoid Chick-fil-A, Hobby Lobby, Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America.

“Those were the biggest ones,” he says, citing the survey.

More people are willing to stop shopping somewhere to protest a social stand, Barna learned, than to start shopping somewhere to support a company.

The survey showed, however, that conservatives eat at Chick-Fil-A and shop at Hobby Lobby because of their public stands. Liberals, meanwhile, shop online at Amazon.com and buy Starbucks coffee due to their stands.

“Relatively few companies come out ahead,” Barna advises. “We found that Amazon, Google, Microsoft and PayPal were the four that actually were doing better based on some of the stands that they’ve taken.”

The ones who have been hurt for their stance, or are still being hurt, he says, makes for a “much longer list.”

This article was originally posted at OneNewsNow.com

Written by Gene Mills

The ‘deplorable’ reports keep flowing out of Hollywood, including the sophisticated cover-up which afforded a powerful predator, Harvey Weinstein, to stalk and then silence dozens of victims. One would assume that the “are you kidding me?” response given to Vice President Mike Pence’s personal ethical guidelines earlier this year, regarding his treatment of women other than his wife, might get a more favorable reconsideration in light of the Hollywood ethic. Reporters, academics, entertainers, and art enthusiasts claim to envision a ‘respect women’ ethic. I can only wonder which vision best aligns with their’s – Weinstein or Pence?

Based on a Washington Post article , Pence said “that he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife and that he won’t attend events featuring alcohol without her by his side.” Thought childish by some morality whisperers, Pence, rather, is to be commended for his extremely high esteem for women in general, and specifically for his own wife! 

Actress and producer, Jessica Chastain, had this criticism for her colleagues on the Weinstien ethic: “Oh we’re very quick to point the finger at others and address the issue with social action and fundraising,” then she continued. “Yet there is a clear disconnect between how we practice what we preach in our industry.” 

Jessica, we call that hypocrisy and any response that denies basic human nature is sheer ignorance. Humans can do all kinds of cruel and shameful things. It’s unfortunate, but it’s also true. We call that the depravity of man, remedied only In Christ!

Pence seems to grasp the essence of what is at stake as well as the value of each life encountered. That’s why he takes reasonable precautions – to honor his covenant, his bride, and the women he encounters. Paul wisely warned, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” 1 Cor. 10:12

My hope is that my wife and daughters would be treated to the ‘Pence standard’ and that I would treat the daughters and wives of others with the very same value I desire for the Mills women! Perhaps, we could restore the dependable and durable respect, which every human deserves. As for the deplorability quotient, we should consider that while Hollywood is extremely talented, most of their ranks are not a reliable source for morality, advice or truth. It is Proverbs which teaches, ‘drink water from your own fountain!‘ Excellent advice which could have saved Harvey Weinstein alot of trouble if he had chosen to heed the warning. 

Men, I challenge you to take the Pence Respect pledge. It restores some values we have lost along the way. 

This article was originally published by the Louisiana Family Forum.

Both as a candidate, and now as president, Donald Trump knows how to intensify attention on a topic. Since he launched his presidential campaign two years ago, manufacturing jobs and fair trade have been the focus of a massive debate on the political right.

Is this a topic for the Illinois Family Institute? Here are a few excerpts from an article by John Horvat II titled “Work without Men” that suggests it might well be. He writes that negotiating new trade arrangements, and lowering tax and regulatory burdens are all critical to bringing back jobs.

Such measures will indeed create jobs and open up opportunities, but they alone will not make America great.

America faces a grave moral crisis that needs to be addressed. As Charles Murray and so many other scholars have stressed, America is coming apart. A vast underclass has developed that is the result of broken families, shattered communities, a nonexistent work ethic, substance abuse, and godless education. The mantra of “bringing jobs back” is not going to reverse the downward path of a nation without finding ways to rebuild a strong moral foundation.

So much for the claim that economic issues are separate from moral issues.

“Americans have changed over the decades,” Horvat writes, and many “no longer have stable families.”

Here’s a shocking stat from the Manufacturing Institute I’d never seen before:

[N]early two million U.S. manufacturing jobs will remain vacant over the next decade if current trends continue. The crisis is aggravated by growing numbers of retiring baby boomers while the younger generations are not stepping up to the plate.

The reason for the lack of workers is a great talent gap between what is needed and what is available.

. . .

Thus, the problem is not a lack of jobs but a lack of skilled workers. In fact, one labor study found that the average U.S. manufacturer is losing as much as 11 percent of its annual earnings due to a talent shortage. Another survey concluded that almost half of executives would consider reshoring manufacturing operations back to U.S. yet are also concerned about the need for skilled workers.

The root of these economic problems is a moral problem.

“There are indeed many Americans who are out of the workforce to the point that they are not even looking for employment,” Horvat writes, and refers to Nicholas Eberstadt’s “masterful study,” America’s Invisible Crisis: Men Without Work:

The book documents a disturbing fact that “an invisible army” of ten million idle American men of prime working age, some ten percent of the male workforce, now “spend absolutely no time at a job.” Most don’t want to change their nonemployed status.

Horvat outlines how many of these men prefer to live — and it is not a pretty picture (you can read it here).

“[T]hat is why the focus must be expanded from just the jobs and infrastructure projects that are now all the rage. Unless the new administration concentrates on invigorating the moral fiber of the country, strengthening marriage and the family and limiting the power of the state, America will not recover from its present woes.

With Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania and Michigan voting for Trump because of his “bringing back jobs” promise, Horvat’s close might be a little overstated:

Indeed, when the jobs come back, there is the risk that no one will show up.

The “invigorating the moral fiber of the country, strengthening marriage and the family and limiting the power of the state,” reads a lot like the mission of the Illinois Family Institute and Illinois Family Action.

A few weeks ago, IFI executive director David Smith and I had the pleasure of visiting with John Westberg, a man who helped build the manufacturing powerhouse AutoMeter in Sycamore, Illinois, about sixty miles west of Chicago.

In the meeting, Westberg was vocal about the fact that the moral foundation of the country is the number one challenge facing us all. But he also has an idea of what to do about the problem of jobs being “shipped out of the country.”

John Westberg’s opinions and ideas deserve attention, since he led his family’s business from 25 to 625 employees, filling 3 plants in 2 states. AutoMeter received national honor by being voted “Manufacturer of the Year” in the automotive high-performance aftermarket. “This honor occurred not once but 4 times.”

After he retired and sold the company, Westberg started the New Hope for America foundation (NHFA), and its website has a plethora of materials supporting his proposed solution.

More on that next time.

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Given its prominence in current public discourse, one would think that hate, not love, is a many splendored thing.

The perfectly good word, which oozes out of every media pore, is now so overused that it means next to nothing.  Every time you turn around, someone is accused of “hate” merely for expressing disagreement.

This is not just a matter of semantics. It’s serious. When you cheapen a word, it discourages honest discussion and leads to more confusion and conflict, which is how the devil likes it. We have it on good Authority that the underworld thrives on mayhem.

One large organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center, has made hundreds of millions of dollars trafficking in hate. That is, they hatefully and falsely accuse others of hatred, even those whose only crime is to advocate traditional moral values.

The SPLC once performed a valuable service identifying genuine hate groups, such as neo-Nazis, and alerting the authorities to them. Now, it boasts a kitty of more than $300 million, stashes millions in cash in overseas accounts, and smears anyone opposing its increasingly radical sexual agenda.

In a full-page ad in the Washington Post this past week, the SPLC explained why it continues to label the Family Research Council a “hate group” on its online “hate map.” They quoted from FRC statements that warn that homosexuality is “unnatural,” has “negative physical and psychological health effects,” and is being peddled to children. They don’t bother trying to refute any of this because they can’t. And they don’t mention that a would-be assassin, inspired by SPLC’s hate map, tried to commit mass murder at FRC’s headquarters in 2012, thwarted only by heroic building manager Leo Johnson, who took a bullet.

While the SPLC spins out of control in its hateful obsession to criminalize Christian morality, it has plenty of ideological company that also plays the “hate” card. Name the cause, and if you’re not on the progressive side, you’re – what else? – a “hater.”

If you oppose extreme environmentalism and think Al Gore’s a bit overcooked, you “hate” the planet. And Bambi.

If you think that NFL players should stand out of respect for the flag when the national anthem is played, you “hate” black people and want police to abuse them.

If you believe marriage is as God ordained it – the union of one man and one woman – you “hate” homosexuals, transgenders, bisexuals, and polyamorists.

If you believe that America should defend its borders and have orderly, lawful immigration, you “hate” immigrants.

If you believe that militant Islam poses a serious threat, you “hate” all Muslims.

If you oppose the government takeover of the nation’s health care system, you “hate” poor, sick people.

If you support voter ID laws and other common-sense reforms that discourage voter fraud, you “hate” minorities.

If you oppose more government spending, deeper federal debt and higher taxes, you “hate” poor people.

Conversely, if you don’t hate President Trump, you are a monster. And a bigot. And a hater.

As with any emotion, hate in and of itself is not wrong. In Psalm 119, for example, we’re told to “hate every false way.” There are plenty of other verses where that came from by which we are exhorted to hate evil and favor what is good.

Personally, I hate the evil scheme to geld the Boy Scouts of America. This past week, the Scout leadership, if you can call it that, created the Unisex Scouts of America by eliminating the requirement that Boy Scouts be boys. Actually, they did that earlier when they welcomed girls who think they are boys, right after opening up to boys and even leaders who are sexually attracted to males. It’s hard to believe that the Scout headquarters is in Texas, where most people know cowboys from cowgirls and bulls from heifers.

The whole point of Scouting from its origin in 1910 was to help boys become masculine, virtuous, God-fearing men. The camping, knot-tying, merit badges and civic engagement are important, but they should not be confused with the organization’s raison d’etre – raising boys to be men.

In recent years, radical groups have charged the Scouts with “hate” for maintaining their policies even as the culture slid into decadence. Despite consistent court rulings favoring the Scouts, the pounding obviously took its toll on the weaker sisters at the top of the Scout food chain. So they caved. And caved. And caved.

All this to say, if you hate America, you must love the moral chaos swirling around us.

This article was originally posted at Townhall.com

At a forum at the College of William & Mary on Sept. 27, the ACLU got a sample of what conservatives have been experiencing on campuses for years.

As Claire Gastanaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, began speaking to a small audience, a group of demonstrators marched in with a large banner that said, “Blood on Your Hands.” They lined up in front of the stage, holding placards.

Apparently clueless about what was about to transpire, Ms. Gastaaga said, “Good. I like this. Good.”

She went on to say that she was going to inform the students about their right of protest, “which this illustrates very well.”

No, it didn’t. The students shut her down. They began loudly chanting inane slogans, including “ACLU, you protect Hitler, too!” and “ACLU, free speech for who?” and “The oppressed are not impressed!” The ACLU is also apparently guilty of perpetuating a system of “white supremacy” for not defending jackboot tactics like those seen at Berkeley and Middlebury College against conservative speakers.

What was supposed to be a #blacklivesmatter event was populated almost entirely by white students, presumably many from the W&M’s tony Williamsburg campus. Oppressed, they are not, unless you count the unbearable minutes when they can’t find a parking space for their Audis or Beamers.

For a taste of what Ms. Gastanaga endured for more than an hour and a half, you can see a brief video by an American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) team that filmed the event. It’s strangely satisfying. (See below)

Since the French Revolution, when it was famously observed that “revolutions devour their own,” the progressive left always seems surprised when the forces they have unleashed turn on them. Think back to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, when old-line liberals like Vice President Hubert Humphrey were stunned by the street violence of the extreme left.

More recently, U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had that deer-in-the-headlights look when the antifa crowd, like the Occupy movement a few years ago, turned utterly violent. To her credit, she finally denounced their tactics.

In a more serious venue than campus playpens, the ACLU had another sobering experience this past week. During arguments on Tuesday in Gill v. Whitford, several U.S. Supreme Court justices indicated a reluctance to plunge into what Felix Frankfurter in 1946 called the “political thicket,” which is where the ACLU wants them to go. It’s part of the ACLU’s vision to do away with the state and local powers that still hamstring the federal government’s relentless growth.

A split federal panel had invalidated Wisconsin’s redistricting plan for its state legislature, calling it an unconstitutional gerrymander because the Republican-controlled legislature had drawn districts favoring the Republican Party.

The ACLU filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing essentially that legislatures, being composed of politicians, should not have the authority to create voting districts. It’s time to change the rules of the game since the vast majority of state legislatures are now controlled by Republicans.

The ACLU had no such problem when Maryland’s Democratic legislators in 2011 drew a bizarre district that meandered from the conservative Western part of the state to liberal Montgomery County. This was intended to unseat outspoken conservative Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett. It worked. Mr. Bartlett had won the 6th district by 28 points in 2010, but lost his seat by 21 points to Democrat John Delaney in 2012.

In progressive California, the politically-drawn district maps are so squiggly that they resemble Rorschach blots. But any court-ordered “solution” for redistricting would be an ongoing nightmare, with unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in control.

Who would appoint the “non-political” panels? How would they determine exactly how many voters of either party or no party should be included in each district? Would distinct communities be split for numerical balancing? Would they do this after every election? How much politics is too much politics? Apart from the difficulties, the whole thing would be unconstitutional.

On August 4, the American Civil Rights Union submitted an amicus brief in Gill, noting that the Constitution gives Congress the power to determine the “Times, Places, or Manner” of holding federal elections but leaves to the states the power to determine who votes. Therefore, establishing districts comprising voters is a state function, not a federal one.

Since the 1960s, the courts have variously waded into the issue, solidifying the principle that there is no place for racial bias in districting, but avoiding a sweeping “solution” to political gerrymandering.

On May 22, in a dissent in Cooper v. Harris, Justice Samuel Alito alluded to Frankfurter’s famous statement and warned against making federal courts “weapons of political warfare,” which would “invite the losers in the redistricting process to seek to obtain in court what they could not achieve in the political arena.”

Speaking of losers, as the ACLU ramps up its campaign against voter ID laws, traditional districting methods and other obstacles to its goal of fundamentally transforming America, its unruly children will be out in the streets in black masks, trying to intimidate anyone who disagrees with them.

When the ACLU itself comes under attack for not joining the mob, it’s a sign that the revolution has begun nibbling on its own.

Sociologist Mark Regnerus has a new in-depth study of how our culture’s lack of sexual morality is impacting relationships in ways not seen in previous generations.  There was a fascinating, if not disturbing, review of Regnerus’ new book (Cheap Sex) that contained the following section specifically looking at how the culture is impacting Christians. It also mentions how churches are impacted by these changes and the confusion it is causing.

The review states the following:

Long-standing Christian sexual ethics are making less and less sense to the un-churched — a key market for evangelicals. That’s giving church leadership fits over just how “orthodox” they can be or should be on matters of sex and sexuality. “Meeting people where they’re at” becomes challenging. Congregations are coming face to face with questions of just how central sexual ethics are to their religious life and message.

Levels of uncertainty — that is, neither agreeing nor disagreeing — about various sexual practices and attitudes are elevated among Christians. When we asked more than 15,000 Americans about sexual ethics, many who attended religious services at least once a week were on the fence. How many?

• 23 percent are unsure about the wisdom of cohabiting before marriage

• 14 percent are unsure about marriage being outdated

• 21 percent don’t know what they think about no-strings-attached sex

• 25 percent don’t know if viewing pornography is okay or not

• 10 percent are unsure about whether extramarital sex might ever be permissible

• 17 percent don’t know if consensual polyamorous unions are okay

One can interpret those on the fence as movable — open to being convinced. But if trends in sexual norms hold, most who once claimed neutrality eventually drift toward the more permissive position.

Cheap sex, it seems, has a way of deadening religious impulses. It’s able to poke holes in the “sacred canopy” over the erotic instinct, to borrow the late Peter Berger’s term. Perhaps the increasing lack of religious affiliation among young adults is partly a consequence of widening trends in non-marital sexual behavior among young Americans, in the wake of the expansion of pornography and other tech-enhanced sexual behaviors.

Cohabitation has prompted plenty of soul searching over the purpose, definition and hallmarks of marriage. But we haven’t reflected enough on how cohabitation erodes religious belief.

We overestimate how effectively scientific arguments secularize people. It’s not science that’s secularizing Americans — it’s sex.

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

One can’t help but contemplate the amazing momentum surrounding the national anthem protests in the National Football League. What started as a lone individual—former San Francisco 49ers back-up quarterback Colin Kaepernick—taking a knee during the anthem has become a flashpoint of conflict that has spread to the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball.

In the latest and most unified moment of the movement on Sunday, more than 200 players across the league knelt for the anthem. In London, members of the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens stood for “God Save the Queen” but knelt for the U.S. national anthem. Ironically, the national anthem singer at the Lions-Falcons game took a knee and raised his fist.

Politicians, chief executives, and Hollywood directors have taken sides, with fans and players taking shots at each other through social media. Even pee wee leagues are getting into the act.

Kaepernick, unemployed since opting out of his contract with the 49ers last season, seems to have gotten what he purportedly wanted: a conversation about racism in America:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.’”

To refresh your memory, the “bodies in the street” were black men and the “people getting paid leave and getting away with murder” were, presumably, white law enforcement officers. If we read Kaepernick correctly, the problem here is that people of color are oppressed, white Americans are the oppressors, and deadly encounters with law enforcement are his primary evidence.

Kaepernick’s way of calling attention to the injustice of racism was to kneel during the singing of the national anthem as the entire stadium of fans removed hats, placed hands over hearts, stood facing the American flag, and sang along. His ostensible moral force for doing so was that he would be “selfish” if he didn’t. I infer by that he meant he had made it big and thus had a responsibility to use his platform to call attention to the issue of white cops shooting people of color.

There was immediate blowback from fans, which Kaepernick ignored as he continued kneeling. Other players began doing the same thing, and from there it has spiraled into the full-blown test of wills between players and fans it is today.

The argument seems to go something like this:

NFL players and those defending them argue that the players have a right to protest. That’s what makes this country great.

Fans argue that these multi-millionaire cry-baby players are disrespecting the flag that represents freedom and the men and women in uniform who have bled and died for their right to protest, and that players should protest on their own time because fans just want to enjoy the game.

The protesters’ argument is somewhat disingenuous because Kaepernick and the others who have followed suit aren’t complaining that they’ve been denied a right to protest. They are taking a stand—excuse me, a knee—against racism in this country. That is the claim we should be discussing.

The fans’ argument is only partially correct because, while members of the military have fought, bled, and died defending the flag and the protests are certainly disrespectful of their sacrifice, there’s something else going on.

No reasonable person disputes that some acts of racism occur in some parts of our country. No one disputes that some white people genuinely hate black people. Neither is there any dispute that some lethal police actions involving black men and white officers are possibly influenced by racial bias.

The problem is that Kaepernick and his imitators are imputing racism to the American flag itself, while the majority of white Americans (and many blacks) proudly identify with the stars and stripes. Thus, white Americans in general, and white NFL fans in particular, believe they are being called racist. In other words, it’s personal.

These are the same (white) fans who pay an average of $86 to attend a game to watch large men in armor play a game of catch while they eat $5 hotdogs and drink $5 sodas and $7 beers after paying $49 to park at the stadium. Seriously: the average cost for a family of four to attend an NFL game is $503. Or, if you live where I do, it’s $601.20 to watch the ever-rebuilding Chicago Bears.

And protesters want to know why fans are upset when a 29-year-old, who got wealthy off the very people who made his salary, fame, and product-endorsements possible, shames them as racists?

These players of color fail to appreciate that white fans love them, too. They buy their jerseys, pin their hopes on them, and love being associated with winners and guys at the top of their game. Heck, as a kid I was a huge fan of Mean Joe Green, Franco Harris and (cough) O.J. Simpson. If one of them called me a racist, I’d find someone else to admire.

Players have also failed to appreciate that most of us ordinary Americans are patriotic, and we will choose our country over an ingrate with an overblown sense of self-importance any day. Even more so when you consider that Kaepernick wore socks depicting police as pigs, took questions wearing a t-shirt displaying a photo of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro (73,000 dead under his regime) and radical muslim Malcolm X, and that Kaepernick’s Muslim girlfriend, Nessa Diab, has posted some controversial comments of her own.

But perhaps the biggest oversight of all is this: nobody needs the NFL.

If tomorrow you woke up and the NFL had simply disappeared, your life would continue. “All you need,” my dad used to say, “is a little water, a little food, and some air to breathe.” Believe me, I can drop my support of athletes by simply changing the channel or turning off the TV. I like what the NFL sells, but I don’t need the eleven minutes of actual play I get to see out of a three-hour game (HT: Michael Walsh).

The only thing the NFL and its owners and players understand is what the Bible calls a root of all kinds of evil: the love of money. Money is the lifeblood of the NFL and television ratings are the plasma. NFL attendance is down this season, and TV viewership continues to plummet. The way to their heads is through their bank account, and fans have figured that out.

It didn’t have to be this way. It was immediately apparent that Kaepernick’s initial protest was offending a major portion of the NFL audience. The commissioner, Roger Goodell, could have stepped in and stopped the practice, but he’s chosen to double-down on the off-topic “right to protest.” This will not end well for him, the players, or the league because fans now know how at least 200 players feel about the country and, by extension, them.

Colin Kaepernick had (and still has) the right to protest. If current trends hold, however, he may be remembered not as the hero of racial reconciliation but as the man who single-handedly brought down the NFL. And in that scenario, the losses far outweigh any good he might have done.

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