Thankfully, this is exactly what it looks like’s happening. Regarding out of wedlock births, a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics finds the following:

Steepest Decline Since 1940: Unmarried child-bearing has declined at its steepest and most sustained rate since 1940 over the last few years, both in terms of rate and real numbers. The rate declined 14 percent from its all-time high in 2008.

Cohabiting Births Now Majority: Increasingly, unmarried births are taking place in cohabiting relationships, 58 percent of all out-of-wedlock births today, up from 41 percent in 2002. These are also increasingly intended pregnancies, by 20 percent in 2002 to 29 percent in 2010.

Increases for Ages 35+: Age-wise, non-marital births have declined since 2007 for all women up to age 35, but have increased for those over 35. Specifically…

1. Declined 30 percent for ages 15-17 and 26 percent for ages 18-19.

2. For 20-24 year-olds declined by 19 percent and 13 percent for those aged 25-29.

3. However, they’ve risen 7 percent for women aged 35-39 and a remarkable 29 percent among 40-44 year-olds. (A theory for this curious outlier is presented in the conclusion below.)

Declines for All Races: Race-wise, declines are seen in all groups since 2007.

1. Hispanic women had the highest levels in 2007, but the greatest decline today at 28 percent.

2. Black women had an 11 percent decline.

3. Non-Hispanic White women had a 6 percent decline.

4. Asian and Pacific Islanders have always had the lowest levels in general, having a very minimal recent decline.

In terms of percentage of non-marital births to all births, that number has stayed largely the same at 40.6 percent in 2013 from 41 percent in 2009. (NOTE: This particular number remains unchanged – while all the others have changed dramatically – because it is a percentage of all births, which have been declining faster than non-marital births have.)

Is “The Man Problem” at work here?

No one really knows the reason for this positive turn. But the sharp and continued increase of these births among cohabiting women and those in their later 30s and 40s is very curious.

I believe it has much to do with the difficulty women are having finding marriageable men today. If they cannot find men who they feel good about marrying, they will simply settle for living with them and getting a baby from them as they feel their biological clocks ticking down in these later ages.

And this is exactly what we are seeing in increasing numbers.

This article was originally posted at the GlennStanton.com webstie.

We all know of families and schools that didn’t allow young people to watch TV or go to the movies because of the potentially sinful influence on their souls. I haven’t gone that far myself in bringing up my teenage daughter, but I certainly do monitor what she’s watching.

Well, opposition to media’s often malicious influence is growing in some unlikely quarters. These critics, however, are questioning not the content, but theconveyance, the technology behind the media. Cris Rowan, a pediatric occupational therapist, has written a fascinating article called “10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should Be Banned for Children Under the Age of 12.”

Now, Rowan is no prude. She describes research documenting why even a little use of our culture’s nearly ubiquitous hand-held electronic devices is bad for kids’ social, physical, and psychological development. We’ll provide you with a link to her article when you come to BreakPoint.org, but for now I’ll just summarize.

Citing the American Academy of Pediatrics, Rowan claims these devices hinder a child’s brain development. According to Rowan, “Stimulation to a developing brain caused by overexposure to technologies … has been shown to be associated with executive functioning and attention deficit, cognitive delays, impaired learning, increased impulsivity and decreased ability to self-regulate, e.g. tantrums.”

Which is probably why the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under 2 not be exposed to digital screens at all.

Further, she writes, exposure to technology restricts movement, which delays development, which hurts a child’s literacy and academic achievement. Other problems associated with these devices include obesity, sleep deprivation, mental illness, aggression, addiction, something called—I kid you not—“digital dementia,” and unhealthy exposure to radiation. Other than all that, exposure to digital technology is perfectly safe for kids!

Of course, Rowan doesn’t even get into traditional moral and ethical questions about the messages and meaning of such technology. Writing in The New Yorker, which is hardly your stereotypical uptight conservative rag, Tim Wu expresses concern about the aim of new technologies, which is to satisfy what he calls our insatiable “will-to-comfort.” He writes, “When it comes to technologies, we mainly want to make things easy. Not to be bored. Oh, and maybe to look a bit younger.” Inspiring, huh?

Pope Francis has similar concerns. At a gathering for German altar boys earlier this month at Saint Peter’s Square, the pontiff warned young people to be cautious with technologies such as the internet. He said online social media must be used with discernment, urging an attitude of calm, reflection, and tenderness so that they will be “a network not of wires but of people.”

Clearly, we cannot throw our laptops, smartphones, and electronic games out the window. But we can restrict when and how our kids use them. In other words, a Luddite response is not needed. But a Christian response surely is.

To help you get started, let me suggest a new book, “iGods: How Technology Shapes our Spiritual and Social Lives.” It’s by Craig Detweiler, a communications professor at Pepperdine University. Detweiler’s book will help you begin to forge a “theology of technology,” so that you can use it for good while avoiding the pitfalls. Come to our online book store at BreakPoint.org to get yours.

And here’s one more thought. Set aside daily time with your kids when all the devices are turned off and try something radical: Grab a book and read to them.

Hey, Kid, Put Down that Tablet: Electronic Devices and Childhood Development

Technology is a great tool for us and for our children, but it’s a tool that needs to be employed with thought and care. Check out the resources below for information and suggestions on using electronic devices wisely.

10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should Be Banned for Children Under the Age of 12
Cris Rowan | Huffington Post | May 6, 2014

Children, Adolescents, and the Media, Policy Statement
American Academy of Pediatricians

Social Media and Christian Ministry: Reaching the World for the Kingdom of God 
Ed Stetzer | Christianity Today | February 21, 2014

Stop wasting your life on smartphones, web – Pope Francis
RT.com | August 6, 2014

As Technology Gets Better, Will Society Get Worse?
Tim Wu | The New Yorker | February 6, 2014

This article was originally published at the BreakPoint.org website.

By Phyllis Schlafly

Faulty Ideas About Marriage 

Political junkies will remember how former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was being groomed to run for president in 2012 before he made his foolish statement that the next president should “call a truce on the so-called social issues.” Americans do not want a leader who is unable or unwilling to articulate and lead on important social issues.

Four years after the Daniels misstep, many have failed to learn that lesson. The New York Times has proclaimed the “libertarian moment” has arrived, by which they seem to mean libertarian ideas about marriage and the family.

We hear people say the libertarian view is to “get the government out of marriage.” But where did that slogan come from? There is simply no basis for that notion in the works of classic libertarian writers.

As a Harvard graduate student, I was present for what could be considered the beginning of libertarian thought in America. It was the first American speech by Friedrich Hayek following the worldwide success of “The Road to Serfdom,” which had been read by millions of Americans through its publication in the Reader’s Digest.

The thesis of Hayek’s great book is that government efforts to redistribute the benefits and burdens of economic activity inevitably involve a loss of individual freedoms, which could lead to a totalitarian state, as happened in Germany and Russia. Now, 70 years later, Hayek’s basic idea is part of most Republican stump speeches and forms the basis for Republicans’ adamant opposition to Obamacare.

But nothing in “The Road to Serfdom,” or in any of Hayek’s later works or those of his fellow Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, questioned the value or necessity of civil marriage in a free society. There is nothing to suggest that regulation of marriage was somehow inconsistent with individual freedom.

Mises’ American disciple, the radical libertarian Murray N. Rothbard, once famously proposed selling off lighthouses to private owners who would then be supported by voluntary contributions from passing ships. Rothbard wanted to privatize nearly everything, but he never suggested privatizing marriage.

Another influential libertarian was the Russian-born novelist Ayn Rand, whose novels depict a titanic struggle between the creative geniuses who need maximum freedom to produce, versus the “looters” and “second-handers” who try to regulate them and share their wealth. Ayn Rand attacked Christianity and other conventional beliefs, but never questioned the value and necessity of civil marriage defined by law.

If nothing in Hayek, Mises, Rothbard or Rand supports the abolition, redefinition, or privatization of marriage, then where did those ideas come from? The answer is that they came from writers on the left — most significantly, from the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and published in 1848.

To be sure, Marx did not originate the notion of undermining the family, which had been introduced by the utopian socialists Charles Fourier and Robert Owen, but he eagerly endorsed and propagated it. After Marx’s death, his partner Friedrich Engels wrote a whole book elaborating on Marx’s anti-family ideas.

A major part of the Communist Manifesto is its unrelenting attack on the so-called “bourgeois family,” which Marx believed was responsible for the inequality he despised. If communism was to succeed, he wrote, the bourgeois family had to be done away with.

The bourgeois family is the Marxist term for what modern liberals call the “Ozzie and Harriet” or “nuclear” family. It means a husband and wife who are legally married to each other, using the husband’s name, with the husband as provider and authority figure, and the wife as nurturing homemaker, and with both parents raising and educating their own children within the household.

Marx hated the bourgeois family, not only because it provided the means of transmission and accumulation of private property, but also because the family controlled the formation and education of children. Marx wanted to break the family so that children could be raised and educated communally, free from patriarchal ties and religious beliefs.

With all that history, which should be familiar to every educated American, it’s incredible that we’re now seeing the worst of Marxist ideas, the deconstruction of the family, presented in the name of libertarianism and even conservatism.

Besides marriage, Marx’s ideas on education have influenced too many education reformers on the right, including, unfortunately, the Bush family’s obsession with remaking public education. George H.W. Bush wanted to be the “education president”; George W. Bush wanted to “leave no child behind”; and now Jeb Bush wants to impose the Common Core.

As conservatives seek new leadership for 2016 and beyond, let’s insist on candidates who recognize that marriage and the nuclear family are the essential foundation of a free and prosperous society.

Originally posted at Townhall.com

This is a game-changer. Talk about “an old wives’ tale.” You’ve heard it said that 1) 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce, 2) most marriages that do happen to make it are, nonetheless, unhappy, and 3) Christians are just as likely to divorce as non-believers.

These claims, long understood to be research-based facts, never quite sat right with me. Still, admittedly, while these assertions do swim upstream against the flow of both our common sense and our common experience, we have, nevertheless, accepted them (present company included) as valid because – well, you know, because “social science …”

As it turns out, your gut was right. It’s all nonsense – urban legend of a sort, propagated, most likely, by the same post-moderns who, today, seek to similarly undermine the God-designed institution of legitimate man-woman marriage by redefining it into oblivion.

Shaunti Feldhahn is a Harvard-trained researcher and author. In her recently released book, “The Good News About Marriage: Debunking Discouraging Myths about Marriage and Divorce,” Feldhahn details groundbreaking findings from an extensive eight-year study on marriage and divorce. Among other things, her research found:

• The actual divorce rate has never gotten close to 50 percent.
• Those who attend church regularly have a significantly lower divorce rate than those who don’t.
• Most marriages are happy.
• Simple changes make a big difference in most marriage problems.
• Most remarriages succeed.

In an interview with CBN News, Feldhahn shared that, like most of us, she had swallowed the anti-marriage propaganda hook, line and sinker. She believed, “that most marriages are unhappy and 50 percent of them end in divorce, even in the church.”

The CBN story continues:

“‘I didn’t know. … I’ve stood up on stage and said every one of these wrong statistics.’

“Then eight years ago, she asked assistant Tally Whitehead for specific research on divorce for an article she was writing. After much digging, neither of them could find any real numbers.

“That kicked off a personal, years-long crusade to dig through the tremendously complicated, sometimes contradictory research to find the truth.

“‘First-time marriages: probably 20 to 25 percent have ended in divorce on average,’ the study revealed. ‘Now, OK, that’s still too high, but it’s a whole lot better than what people think it is,’ Feldhahn added.”

CBN noted, “[T]he 50 percent figure came from projections of what researchers thought the divorce rate would become as they watched the divorce numbers rising in the 1970s and early 1980s when states around the nation were passing no-fault divorce laws.”

So, in other words, and I wish I could say I long suspected this, the 50-percent divorce figure is simply a myth based upon decades-old (and woefully inaccurate) speculation. As it turns out, the shelf-life for marriages in the U.S. has taken a sharp turn for the better since the 1970s and ’80s.

“‘But the divorce rate has been dropping,’ Feldhahn said. ‘We’ve never hit those numbers [the 50 percent figure]. We’ve never gotten close.’”

“And it’s even lower among churchgoers, where a couple’s chance of divorcing is more likely in the single digits or teens,” added CBN.

Additionally, the study determined that four-out-of-five marriages are happy. “That number flies in the face of the popular belief that only about 30 percent of marriages are happy.”

“‘Most people think most marriages are just kind of ‘eeh’ … just kind of rolling along,’ observed Feldhahn. ‘And they’re shocked when I tell them that the actual average is 80 percent: 80 percent of marriages are happy. …

“‘The studies show that if they stay married for five years, that almost 80 percent of those will be happy five years later,’ she concluded.”

Still, of the study’s many myth-busting revelations, the fact I found most interesting (and instructive) was this: Of all marriages, Christian marriages prove the most durable.

“‘The Good News About Marriage’ also reveals the divorce rate among those active in their church is 27 to 50 percent lower than among non-churchgoers,” noted the report. “Feldhahn’s hope is that once people learn the truth that they will spread it far and wide.”

“‘This is a great chance,’ she said, ‘to stand up and say. We were all fooled. Not anymore.’”

Indeed, “Fool me once …” and all that.

I’ve covered it before. Here’s what marriage is: the God-ordained, lifelong, covenantal union between man and wife, designed to provide men, women and children optimal stability and overall well-being. Marriage is that biologically, spiritually and morally centered institution calculated to ensure responsible procreation and perpetuate the human race. Marriage, real marriage, represents the fundamental cornerstone of any healthy society (any society that hopes to survive, at least).

Here’s what marriage is not: Anything else.

In short, marriage is what it is.

It’s encouraging to learn that, even under the increasing barrage of no-fault divorce and sin-centric marriage re-definition artillery, this cornerstone institution has, thus far, survived all efforts to destroy it.

It’s even more encouraging to learn that, as with all things, marriages built upon the rock of Christ prove stronger still.

I agree with Shaunti Feldhahn. Let’s spread the good news far and wide.

This week, a three-member panel from the 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio is looking at state marriage laws and voter approved marriage protection amendments in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Later this month a panel of judges from the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago will look at a judge’s overturning of Indiana’s marriage laws as well as Wisconsin’s marriage amendment.

The question seemingly before the court hinges around the advocates of same-sex “marriage” claim to a fundamental right to marry someone of the same-sex.  Dr. Chris Gacek, with the Family Research Council wrote an article for a Cincinnati newspaper, a portion of which I’d like to share to help explain what this means (or should mean) in legal terms.  Gacek writes:

To decide whether a right is “fundamental” under the due process clause, the Supreme Court requires two things. The first is a carefully worded description of the “asserted fundamental liberty interest.” Second, such rights must be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” The right must also be “so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people” that “neither liberty nor justice would exist if [it was] sacrificed.”

A loose definition like “being able to marry the person of one’s choice” is too broad and could include the union of multiple partners and other arrangements. In fact, the plaintiffs in these cases are already permitted to marry: they can marry persons of the opposite sex as can we all. But they want the courts to legitimize a new social-sexual arrangement by declaring a “right” to same-sex marriage.

The next step for the courts requires an inquiry into whether the claimed right to same-sex marriage is deeply rooted in this nation’s history and traditions.

No state contemplated redefining marriage until Hawaii in the mid-1990s, and the first American marriages of this kind took place in Massachusetts in 2004. It seems fair to conclude that any right to same-sex marriage is not deeply rooted in this country’s history and traditions, and thus no such fundamental right exists.

To be clear, the fact that the law does not support allowing courts to change the definition of marriage does not prevent legislatures from enacting statutes that allow for such unions. It merely prevents the due-process clause from being used to thwart citizens’ policy preferences. The Sixth Circuit needs to follow the law and reject the argument that there is a “fundamental” right to same-sex marriage.

The Black Robe Regiment is coming!
Click HERE for times and locations.

Personal Autonomy and Big Government

In most political commentary, libertarians and liberal advocates of an expanded role for government are considered to be on the opposite sides of the political spectrum. Libertarians oppose increased government revenues as an assault on personal freedom, while the people they deride as “big government” supporters argue that these revenues are needed if government is going to perform its proper role.

As it turns out, the reality is not nearly as clear as the theory. There are times when their interests coincide to the detriment of many.

This was the subject of a recent Washington Post op-ed by one-time Chuck Colson colleague and former White House speechwriter Michael Gerson. According to Gerson, both “the growth of payday gambling and the legalization of marijuana” are “justified as the expansion of personal liberty,” and at the same time “they serve the interests of an expanding government.”

The latter is, or should be, obvious: legalizing various forms of gambling allows states to raise revenues “without the political inconvenience of requesting broad tax increases.” For instance, Maryland voters legalized video slot machines in 2008 and approved the addition of a casino just outside Washington, DC in 2012.

As Gerson pointed out, Maryland’s motives had nothing to do with “personal autonomy.” Its motives were the 61 percent tax it collects on video slot machine revenue.

The same is true of every other state with legalized gambling. State-sponsored gambling allows elected officials to provide voters with government services without asking voters to pay for the services if they don’t want to. Instead, they can stick other people, often those who can least afford it, with the tab: between 40 and 60 percent of all video slot revenue comes from problem gamblers. And, as if to reinforce the whole “free lunch” idea, “casinos are often sited to attract working-class” customers.

And as Gerson tells us, history seems poised to repeat itself. My state of Colorado is expected to collect $114 million in its first year of marijuana legalization. Other states are watching, and it’s safe to say that many will follow the money trail. The political logic that drives the spread of legalized gambling also drives legalized drug use.

Of course, no elected official will acknowledge the cynical political calculation at work here. Instead, the preferred rhetoric is that of personal freedom. Thus, as Gerson writes, “libertarians are now, paradoxically, providing ideological cover for irresponsible government.”

Missing in all of this is any consideration of the impact of government’s trafficking in human weakness. Just as there is ample evidence of the damage that problem gambling causes to individuals, families, and communities, there are reasons to be concerned about the impact of legalized marijuana, especially on children.

But all of this takes a back seat to government’s need for revenue and the libertarian desire to maximize personal freedom. As Gerson writes, “the idea of a political community upholding standards, in order to help other institutions (such as families) pass healthy cultural norms between generations, is anathema.”

As Chuck Colson pointed out on this program 15 years ago, it’s as if government were deliberately setting about “to increase crime, divorce, suicide, child abuse, bankruptcy, and domestic violence.”

Come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary. We’ll link you Mike Gerson’s excellent editorial. We’ll also link you to Focus on the Family’s resources on the scourge of gambling—as well as the Family Research Council’s work on marijuana.

As Gerson says, “politicians increasingly benefit when citizens are addicted, exploited, impoverished and stoned.” And, the oddest of political bedfellows—libertarians and the advocates of big government—are calling it the “advance of freedom.” Gerson is correct when he says that a better word is “contemptible.”

Great resources for further reading:

Corrupting citizens for fun and profit
Mike Gerson | Washington Post | July 14, 2014

Gambling: A Focus on the Family Issue Analysis
Focus on the Family

The Effect of Marijuana
Donal O’Mathuna | Family Research Council

Christian Faith and Marijuana Use
Rob Schwarzwalder | Family Research Council

Saying No to Marijuana
Rob Schwarzwalder | Family Research Council

This important article was originally posted at the BreakPoint.org website.

Written by Rachel Lu

Many people are quite amazed to meet a pants-wearing, educated woman who actually favors the contraception-free life. For the curious, here’s an FAQ.

I converted to Roman Catholicism almost a decade ago. At the time, nobody was talking about wars on women, so when I read about Catholic prohibitions on birth control, I naively supposed that most Catholic women actually followed the Church’s teachings on birth control. It’s right there in the Catechism, after all. Reading some books on the subject, I decided there was a lot of merit in this idea about the contraceptive-free life. My husband and I (both Catholic converts) gave it a go.

Imagine how pious I felt when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services demanded that employers pay for employees’ contraception, and the media clued me in to the fact that I was part of an elite squad. The 2 percent. The Catholic Mom Marine Corps. The Barefoot and Pregnant Dream Team.

Now that everyone is talking about contraceptives, I get lots of chances to out myself as a Catholic freak. Many people are quite amazed to meet a pants-wearing, educated woman who actually favors the contraceptive-free life. I get lots of amusing questions. And it’s National NFP Awareness Week, so an opportune time to talk about chemical-free contraception. Here then, for our readers’ benefit, are the FAQ.

1. Are there really Catholics who take this contraceptive rule seriously? Including ones who can read?

Sure. Among committed and orthodox Catholics, the Church’s teachings on sexual ethics are taken very seriously. Of course, we don’t go around searching one another’s medicine cabinets, but in social circles of serious Catholics I find it’s generally taken for granted that married couples will adhere to this teaching. I know many highly educated and accomplished Catholic women who live contraceptive-free. It’s not just a rule for us. It’s a whole different approach to life and sex and marriage.

Of course, there are also lots of lukewarm Catholics who can’t be bothered about what the Church says. Still others think of themselves as faithful Catholics, but get most of their cues from the popular culture, which convinced them that the whole no-contraceptives rule was effectively dead letter. For a long time the clergy mostly went along with this, and lots of people have told me their priest or deacon told them back in the day that artificial contraceptives were “no big deal.”

Those people have recently gotten a bit of a rude awakening. It didn’t come from Rome. It came from progressive liberals who insisted on pressing the point. People who thought they were (mostly) on the side of the angels were suddenly shocked themselves in bed with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. By picking a fight with the Church, progressives inadvertently taught many Catholics, yes, the Church does still care about contraceptives.

2. Do natural methods of delaying pregnancy really work? Or are contraceptive-free couples liable to end up with 15 kids?

The rationale behind natural fertility methods is fairly straightforward. A man’s fertility tends to stay fairly constant from one day to the next, but a woman is typically fertile for just a few days each month. The trick, then, is to figure out which days those are by observing external physiological signs. That information can be used either to achieve a pregnancy or to delay it.

Does this “work” for everyone? As a practicing Catholic I feel honor-bound to say it can, and I think that’s technically true. Realistically though, some people’s physiology reads like an article in The Federalist (Clear prose! Incisive logic!), and others more like an Egyptian hieroglyph or at least a column in the Huffington Post. If you fit into the former category, natural family planning (NFP) is a wonderful tool, and may well save you from years’ worth of artificial hormones and other unpleasant things. If you’re in the latter set, that’s a tougher row to hoe.

One particular frustration relates to the fact that major physiological events (like pregnancy or childbirth) understandably interrupt the body’s natural rhythms. That makes it especially difficult to judge when you might be fertile. The upshot is that it’s hardest to employ the method at precisely the times you most want it.

As someone firmly in the Egyptian-hieroglyph category, I understand how stressful it can be to be constantly wondering whether you are or might be pregnant. Still, nobody’s physiology is a completely closed book. Pretty much any woman can learn to identify at least occasional periods in which she almost certainly is not fertile. After that, it’s your call how much you want to trust to probability (or, if you prefer, Divine Providence).

Let’s not forget, though, that artificial birth control is also less than 100 percent effective. At least we Catholics know when we’re cracking the door for another possible family addition.

3. Doesn’t it bother you to feel that your Church and Catholic community regard you as a “breeder”?

My Church and community see my natural capacity for fostering new life as a wonderful thing. So no, that doesn’t bother me.

I find that most non-contracepting women have similar feelings. They call the contraceptive-free life “empowering” and “freeing.” It pleases them that their womb is regarded as a feature of their body and not a bug. They like it when their pregnancies occasion celebration rather than criticism.

The term “breeder” implies that a fertile woman should be valued (like livestock) more for her physical capacities than for her virtue or rationality or other human excellences. That is indeed offensive. But of course, nobody actually uses that word except progressive liberals. No conservative friend has ever confused me for my reproductive system.

I understand why some women are afraid that a perpetual proclivity to pregnancy might be used as an excuse to prevent them from pursuing other goals. But some of us (call us dreamers!) think it’s possible to stay committed to personal excellence without suppressing our body’s natural rhythms. We can breed without being “breeders,” just as we can eat without being “eaters” and sleep without being fundamentally dormant. All of the body’s natural capacities can be incorporated into a well-lived life.

I would also note that we “breeders” employ our rational faculties quite a lot in understanding and appreciating our fertility, and in using that information for our own and our family’s benefit. Many other people just try to medicate their natural fertility away. I’m not sure we’re the ones who are slave to our physiology.

4. Do friends and family think you’re crazy?

I imagine some of them do. They’re pretty tactful. When we had two babies 15 months apart, we did get some reactions, and that interval once precipitated a hilarious conversation in which an acquaintance told me how well I was handling my “crisis pregnancy.” Oh, modern world.

Once kids are born and named and flashing adorable grins, most people decide it’s all right for them to stay. I don’t lose any sleep over whether people secretly think my husband and I are weird.

5. Doesn’t it stress your marriage to live contraceptive-free?

Of course. Kids will always stress a marriage. So will practically any other worthwhile project that you and your spouse undertake.

However, it’s also true that living without contraceptives constantly underscores our fundamental belief that our married life has a purpose. We didn’t get hitched just in order to make the world stand around cooing over our shared passion for football, Thai food and philosophy. As we see it, we’ve been commissioned as family-builders and transmitters of human life. All the other joys and sorrows and headaches and heartaches that our shared life brings us must be understood in that context.

Contraceptive-free life has its challenges, but it constantly reminds spouses of their mutual commitment to the project. And couples who do it very rarely call it quits.

6. Are you hoping to end up with 15 kids?

As God wills. But also, no.

7. Don’t you sometimes wonder whether you could do something more interesting with your life, rather than having all these babies?

All right, so nobody ever asks me that point-blank.  But it’s sometimes implied in other gently probing questions that people ask, about whether I’m fulfilled, or “really doing what I want” or “adequately using my education”. That sort of thing.

It could be taken as an insult. I’m generally not too bothered. I understand how it might seem like motherhood has taken me off the fast track. Also, I’m not above feeling flattered when people imply that’s where I belong.

However, I don’t feel like I waste very much time. As demanding commitments go, I see the contraceptive-free life as a great value. I’m surprised how rarely people appreciate this. When I reflect on the lives of other people I know, I note how many there are who pour enormous resources into getting degrees they don’t use, or agonizing over that next little promotion, or weathering the heartache of multiple failed relationships as they search relentlessly for their soulmate. What do these people have to show for all their trouble?

I have three healthy children. A happy marriage. A supportive community. Fulfilling outlets as a writer and teacher. I also bake fresh bread, grow lovely tomatoes, and know by name multiple volunteers at our local children’s museum, and I still manage to play Fantasy Football and keep up with the news. Apart from that, I suppose my life is kind of a waste, but I don’t have time to worry about it when dinner’s on the stove and the azaleas need pruning. Check back in 20 years and I’m sure I’ll be more remorseful.

Truthfully, I know that I’m greatly blessed. I couldn’t have such a wonderful life without a supportive husband, family, community, and Church.  If people suggest that I’m unusually blessed, I’ll happily concur. Why then do people imply instead that I’m unusually repressed? These are the mysteries.

Originally Posted at The Federalist 

From time to time, I hear the claim that “the problem with this whole marriage debate raging across America is all because the state is involved in marriage.”  Some will even claim that the only reasons states created marriage licenses and laws were based upon race.  They seem to think that sometime between the Civil War and 1920 states began to regulate marriage through licenses and laws.  Before this, it was solely a religious matter left to churches, and if we only went back to this, this debate would subside and go away. 
 
Last week, a caller to the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show even said that while she was a lesbian who married her partner, she didn’t like the radical gay rights movement’s effort to unravel marriage. Still, she placed the blame at the government getting involved in marriage and taking it away from churches.  She also claimed that this usurpation had happened in recent US history and was counter to our previous customs.
 
Marriage is certainly a private matter with religious roots, but it is also a public concern that is of deep interest to government.  Marriage is a special relationship that benefits society and children like no other. This is why government has an interest in advancing and protecting the institution.
 
Those who hold this notion of government intrusion look to a fictitious history that never really existed.  Government marriage licenses aren’t something that began 100 years ago, or even 150 years ago.  Marriage licenses and laws in America date back 400 years.  We have a marriage license dated May 12, 1621 signed by Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony performed by the local magistrate and published in the town.
 
The “Charters and Laws of Massachusetts Bay” and “Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England” also record various marriage matters. Such things are not easy for us to read in our modern grammar but take note of the government role in each item:

The General Court of Massachusetts Bay passed an act, September 9th, 1639, “for prevention of all unlawful marriages.” which provided :
 
Henceforth no persons shall be joined in marriage, before the intention of the parties proceeding therein hath been three times published, at some time of publick lecture or town meeting, in both the towns where the parties or either of them do ordinarily reside, or be set up in writing upon some post of their meeting house door in public view, there to stand so as it may be easily read, by the space of fourteen days.
 
That no person whatsoever in this jurisdiction shall join any persons together in marriage, but the magistrate, or such other as the general court, or court of assistants, shall authorize in such place, where no magistrate is near. Nor shall any join themselves in marriage but before some magistrate or person authorized as aforesaid. Nor shall any magistrate or other person authorized as afore said, join any persons together in marriage, or suffer them to join together in their presence, before the parties to be married have been published according to law.’

---

“In an act passed June 4, 1645, the General Court defined a lawful contract of marriage (preliminary to the marriage itself) to be u the mutuall consent of two parties w th the consent of parents or guardians (if any there be to be had) and a solemme promise of marriage in due tyme to eich other before two competent witnesses.” 

Note: Other acts provided for the registration of marriages, etc., with the town clerk, – a provision continued in the laws of New Jersey to this day 

(As you can see by the footnote, the phrase “to this day” is  a reference to this state marriage law’s existence from 1645 through the book’s publication date of 1856.)

• Hist, of Plymouth Plantation, by William Bradford, the Second Governor of the Colony. Collections Mass. Hist. Society, Fourth Series, Boston, 1856, III., 101.

One of the common notations often seen in early laws was the requirement that marriages must be in harmony with the Bible. (There was no question about same-sex marriage back then.)  Take for instance, this from William Penn and the “Charter of Liberties of the Providence of Pennsylvania,” and later passed by the Pennsylvania legislature. 

In the Frame of Government or Charter of Liberties of the Province of Pennsylvania, dated April n, 16S2, by William Penn, with alterations agreed upon in England, it was provided : 
—
Nineteenth. That all marriages (not forbidden by the law of God, as to nearness of blood and affinity by marriage) shall be encouraged; but the parents or guardians shall be first consulted, and the marriage shall be published before it be solemnized, and it shall be solemnized by taking one another as husband and wife, before credible witnesses, and a certificate of the whole, under the hands of parties and witnesses, shall be brought to the proper register of that county, and shall be registered in his office.

 There are also many examples of marriage laws in the original thirteen colonies’ state legislatures during the founding era.   One, which was deemed so well written and thoroughly debated, that it remained unchanged on the law books for over 75 years, was New Jersey’s “act to prevent clandestine marriages.”  Enacted in 1719, note also it’s respect for the nuclear family in its opening clause of intent: 

Sect. 1.  WHEREAS of late Years several Young Persons have been, by the Wicked Practices of evil disposed Persons, and their Confederates, inticed, inveigled and deluded, led away and Clandestinely Married, which has often been to the Ruin of the Parties so Married, as well as the great Grief of their Parents and Relations.    In order therefore to prevent the like as much as may be, for the future; Be it Enacted by the Governor, Council and General Assembly of this Province, and it is hereby Enacted by the Authority of the same, That from and after the Publication of this Act, no License shall be given to Marry any Person under the Age of One and Twenty Years, until such Person have had the Consent of his • or her Parent or Parents, Guardian or Guardians, or Person or Persons under whose Care and Government he or she shall be, signified by a Certificate in Writing, under the hand of the Parent or Parents, Guardian or Guardians, of him and her intended to be Married ; or in case any the said Persons intending to be Married have no Parent or Guardian, then by a Certificate in Writing under the hand of the Person or Persons under whose Care and Government the said Person intending to be Married, at that time, shall be ; which Certificate shall be filed in the Secretary’s Office of this Province, and Registered in a Book to be kept for that Purpose; for doing of which it shall be lawful for the Secretary of this Province, or his lawful Deputy, to receive the Sum of TJiree Shillings as a Fee or Reward.  

Suffice it to say, the notion that our battle surrounding the unraveling of marriage in America today is due to a recent involvement of the heavy hand of government in the licensing, or regulating of marriage, is simply a canard often advanced by those who (knowingly or not) call for an unprecedented marital anarchy that ignores the public good which natural marriage provides for societies.

A new study from the University of Melbourne in Australia on how kids from same-sex homes fare is getting a good deal of press. Perhaps you’ve seen the news stories and wondered if this changes the nature of the debate over the importance of the family.

It does not.

This new study gives the same kind of findings we’ve seen before, coming from the same kinds of studies with the same kinds of serious short-comings and method problems. You can read about the weaknesses of those previous studies here, here and here.

But, despite all the fanfare it is receiving, this study tells us nothing about how kids in same-sex homes thrive compared to children being raised by their married mother and father. It doesn’t even address the issue, which is the primary issue in this debate. I explain this and the other major problems with this study in four major points.

1) The authors of the study plainly admit its significant methodology problems, which are the same problems with other such studies with similar findings.

a)    It uses a very small (500 children) non-representative sample.

b)    It is a convenience sample, meaning they used the most convenient sample collection available, by advertising in gay communities/publications/etc. and interested people signed up to participate in the study.

c)    The parents participating in the study knew they were signing up for and participating in a major study on the well-being of same-sex families.

d)    The information was collected via self-reports from the parent on the well-being of their child.

 The authors fail to appreciate that these same-sex parents – knowing they were participating in a significant study on same-sex families that would have very important political and social implications – have strong reason to be more positive in their self-reporting in significant ways on their child’s health relative to the comparison sample group of heterosexual parents whose data came from general, non-partisan public health surveys. This is not a small point.

2) This study compared kids from two-mom and two-dad homes (only 18% were from dad/dad homes) with kids from heterosexual homes. There is no explanation whatsoever of which kinds of homes these comparison group kids were from, which again is a big problem with nearly every such study because different forms of heterosexual homes can be drastically different in terms of child well-being outcomes. Are they all married mother/father families? They were not.  But how many were? How many were from cohabiting, single, divorced or remarried step homes? The authors do not say and never address this question as important which is an incredible and embarrassing oversight.

Given this, the study’s conclusion is useless, as it essentially finds that kids growing up in same-sex homes look like kids that grow up in some kinds of heterosexual homes. This simply is not news.

But how do they compare to children growing up with their own married mothers and fathers? This study has no way of telling us one way or the other, and it didn’t even try, rendering it practically useless on this point because there is no major voice arguing that same-sex parents do worse than children than any of the various kinds of heterosexual homes. Nearly everyone making the case holds that they will not do as well as children growing up with their own married mother and father. The study disproves a thesis that no one is making, ignoring the actual ball that is in play.

3) The study contains drastic and important differences in their heterosexual and same-sex parenting samples, which fall significantly in favor of more positive same-sex family outcomes.

 a)    The same-sex parented kids’ population sample is a highly selective, non-representative sample of only 500 children.

 b)    The comparison population of kids from hetero-homes came from two very different studies with randomly selected samples of 5,335 and 5,025 children each.

c)    The same-sex population sample had parents with dramatically higher incomes and education status than the general population.

1. Income: 406 out of the 500 same-sex parented homes had annual household incomes from 60,000 to 250,000 dollars or higher compared to the average 64,000 annual household income of the more representative heterosexual sample group.
2. Education: At least 384 homes in the 500 same-sex children sample had four-year college degrees or greater, 232 with postgraduate degrees. The same numbers for the general population are not even comparable.

d)    The study does not specify age at first parenthood, but if similar to other such studies, same-sex parents generally have their first child in their early- to mid-thirties.

 Each of these factors mean that the measurements for the kids from same-sex homes have characteristics that strongly favor more positive well-being outcomes compared to the heterosexual-family comparison sample, i.e. more selective, smaller sampling, dramatically higher household income and parental education status, as well as later age, maturity and life-stability at age of having their first child. These are far from anything close to equal measurements and comparisons.

4) Finally, the study curiously contends that children do better in same-sex homes but they are also more likely to suffer serious harm from social stigma regarding their family. While the authors don’t make this connection, nor do any of the mainstream journalists reporting on the study, it would appear that if this apparent debilitating stigma were erased, these kids would be the new super kids, doing markedly better than all other kids right? “Treat us badly and we still do better than you!”

So which is it? Are same-sex homes triumphantly superior or victims? It’s hard to sustain being both. But holding to both is politically expedient, so…

And it would follow from these studies and the widespread and uncritical political trumpeting of they receive that it might actually be stunting children’s health and happiness by letting them be raised by their own mothers and fathers. When I bring this point up to my debate partners, they always answer, “Oh, now no one is saying that!” But they don’t need to because logic leads us directly there. But these last two points are just but two examples of the dramatic over-reach these folks routinely make and which will likely be a major reason for their eventual downfall in the marketplace of ideas.

But rest easy. Nature’s purpose and design in ideally giving every child her own mother and father as parents has not been challenged by any serious studies to date, including this one. And it is unlikely any serious study ever will.

No politically manufactured form of family has ever rivaled or replaced the natural form of family of mother, father and child.

Written by Mark Regnerus

The Australian Study of Child Health in Same-Sex Families has been getting copious positive press coverage. Unfortunately, it has some serious methodological weaknesses—it studies only the lives and experiences of the LGBT elite.

By Josh Bishop

A close friend called to tell me that I had a new brother. After nearly 20 years as four sons and one daughter, my family scratched another tally mark in the ledger column already chock-full of boys. “Have you heard about Jessah?” she asked. “She just announced on Facebook that she’s transgender.”

My new brother, it would seem, is my sister.

Jessah is 19 years old, 12 years younger than I am. I was in the hospital when she was born. I spent my middle-school years changing her diapers. She beamed with pride and excitement when my then-fiancée Becca asked her to be a bridesmaid at our wedding, and during the ceremony she looked just as beautiful and twice as proud as the older girls. Becca offered advice when she was learning to put on makeup, when puberty arrived, when she first started noticing and crushing on boys.

Today, though, Jessah identifies as a man. “I am not female,” she declared in her coming out announcement. She is legally changing her name to Jace and plans to undergo hormone treatment therapy and gender reassignment surgery as soon as possible. In the meantime, she is presenting herself as a male.

What was once a distant and theoretical discussion—How do Christians respond to the transgender issue?—suddenly became immediate and practical. Abstract became concrete; impersonal, personal. This isn’t just the cover of Time magazine, it’s Christmas dinner. It’s e-mails and phone calls, weddings and funerals, kids’ birthday parties and Mother’s Day luncheons. This big question facing me and my wife is wrapped up in a hundred smaller questions:

Do we speak of my sister or my brother? Jessah or Jace? She or he? And what exactly is the Christian witness on gender issues, anyway? How do we affirm a biblical sexual ethic and our love for my sister at the same time? Even more difficult: How do we resolve the tensions between loving my sister on the one hand, and, on the other, training up our children in the way they should go?

As the transgender issue muscles its way into the mainstream, more Christians will struggle with how to respond to friends and family members who identify as a gender different than their biological sex. Here are a few things we have learned along the way.

Begin with love. A Christian response must be rooted in love (Galatians 5:14), and the first step is to affirm that love directly and unconditionally. My immediate response—even before the shock had worn off—was to fire off a quick e-mail: “Heard the news and wanted to let you know I love you.” Later, I told Jessah that whether she identified as a sister or a brother, she would always be family. I assured her that nothing, including disagreements over issues of gender and sexuality, can change my deep love for her. Whatever else would come, it would start from this love.  

Acknowledge that a response is necessary. Thanks in part to the English language, with its unavoidably gendered pronouns (he or she, him or her), there is no neutral ground or convenient third way with the transgender issue. We can’t talk about—no, we can’t even think about—this situation without docking our boat at one pier or the other. With my sister, some people advised us to defer to her wishes and adopt all the trappings of her new identity: name, pronouns, kit and caboodle. Others advised us to hold the line and refuse to budge. In the end, Becca and I decided that out of respect and as an attempt to live peaceably, so far as it depends on us (Romans 12:18), we would call my sister by her new name, Jace. Yet we haven’t transitioned to masculine pronouns, because we can’t refer to her as a man without embracing the claims about sex and gender that make possible her transgender identity. 

Don’t respond only according to personal experience or feelings. Many people “evolve” in their beliefs about gender and sexuality when someone they know and love comes out of the closet. Yet we must be careful to allow God’s revealed truth to shape how we understand our experiences, rather than the other way around. My personal suffering does not change the goodness of God. My sure and certain grasp of elementary arithmetic does not change the glorious mysteries of the Trinity (1 = 3) or the hypostatic union (1 + 1 = 1). And my genuine affection, good will, and belief in the dignity of transgender people can never change what God, the author of gender, has authoritatively revealed in his Word. 

Ground yourself in faithful explication of the Bible. There’s much more to say about this issue, but we can start in Genesis: God has made us in his image, and we reflect that image as gendered creatures—male or female—from the moment of creation (Genesis 1:27). “God did not make us into undifferentiated genderless automatons,” Denny Burk writes in a chapter of Good: The Joy of Christian Manhood and Womanhood. “Gender norms, therefore, have their roots in God’s good creation and are revealed in nature and Scripture.” And so we affirm with the apostle Paul that everything created by God—including these gender norms—is good and should not be rejected (1 Timothy 4:4). Yet my sister is doing just that: rejecting the goodness of her biologically female body and exchanging it for the image of a man.

Confess your own sin and recognize your need for God’s grace. Like my sister, I have experienced, and continue to experience, ways in which my own sexuality and understanding of my gender fall short of what Jesus intends and calls me to. When it comes to our sins and shortcomings, we are the same; she is what I once was, and what I would still be but for the grace of God (1 Corinthians 6:11). There is no room for condemnation or superiority at the foot of the cross. Christians instead respond in humility, extending to our transgender friends and family members a measure of the grace that God has given us in Christ. We were not redeemed in order to point fingers, start fights, and hurl stones (Colossians 3:12).

Involve your local church. It was clear from the get-go that this issue was out of my league, so I contacted my pastor and another elder to discuss practical and theological considerations, and to help guide our response. It was good to have godly, wise counsel double-check our thinking, and it is still a comfort to know that the church was and is praying for us, for my sister, and for my whole family.

Assess your personal situation. Much of how you respond will depend on your own, immediate situation, including the nature of your relationship with the transgender individual, whether he or she is a fellow Christian, and other considerations. For our part, high on our priority list is sheltering our two young sons (ages 1 and 5) from affirmations of alternate visions of gender and sexuality—especially while they’re too young to put language to their perceptions of gender, while they have no concept of sex or sexuality, and while introducing them to ideas like “transgender” will only confuse the truth. We cannot in good conscience tell our boys that their Aunt Jessah is now their Uncle Jace, but my family has made it clear that refusing to do so would be considered offensive, intolerant, and unacceptable. So we made the difficult decision to isolate them from this issue, and from my sister, until they are older and able to navigate questions of gender and sexuality at a more age-appropriate level. 

Respond in love. Through it all, we’re committed to ensuring that our personal relationships with Jessah are characterized by genuine love, which goes out of its way to show affection and honor even as it clings to the truth (Romans 12:9–10). She needs to know—from our words and our actions—that she will never have anything to fear from us. We won’t condemn or hate or mistreat her; we won’t dismiss or snub or intentionally offend her. We will never bully her. Together, we have committed to treating her well. This doesn’t mean things will always be comfortable or easy (they won’t) or that we check our convictions at the door whenever we see her (we don’t), only that we treat her with the same kindness and respect with which we would treat any other family member.

Do your part to keep communication open. Because our boundaries with the boys have implications for holidays and get-togethers, I e-mailed my immediate family in hopes of mitigating any future conflict by addressing the issue up front. I offered to meet for a respectful, face-to-face discussion with anyone who had questions about our decision or our decision-making process. I committed to being as transparent and clear as possible. In the meantime, though, maintaining relationships and communications has meant a lot of small talk. Not every single discussion needs to include a call to repentance. But we must never forget that we’re called to witness to the truth and freedom of the gospel—and it’s hard to talk to someone about Christ when you’re not talking with them at all.

My sister cannot find hope in surgeries and hormone therapy, but in the gospel alone. In the introduction to Good, Owen Strachen reminds us: “The gospel, in short, saves us, remakes us, and helps us understand who we truly are and what we are called to be for God’s glory and our joy.” I pray that I and my family might be instruments of mercy, used by the Holy Spirit to help make my sister whole. I pray that she might come to understand who she truly is, and who she is called to be.

Originally posted by The Gospel Coalition.

The world will soon belong to the men without chests. As it is, many of the first-world nations are already steered by such men, including America herself. Britain, France, Iraq, Spain, and our own United States are all run by men without chests. Looking at Congress, the courts, and the heads of Industry, this epidemic is not confined to the walls of the White House either. Our schools are generating men without chests at a spectacular rate. Masculine traits are eradicated from young boys before they graduate from high school and the mission continues in college where being male is considered a deformity which requires an apology.

I still remember sitting in a Philosophy & Feminism class in college (I was there to pick up chicks, don’t judge…) when the professor embarked on an epic diatribe against manhood in our society. She was halted in her rant when an errant bee found its way to the front of the class, forcing her to shriek and cower behind her lectern. She only emerged after a guy in the front row stood up and escorted the bee out the nearest window. Oblivious to the irony, she stepped forward and continued to rant about the uselessness of all things male.

Pop culture does a great job of watering down masculinity when it affirms that pink is cool, to remain dependent into mid-adulthood is natural, and that parents exist for sponging until one can find a woman from which to sponge. When Maury interviews the (so-called) man who has more Baby Mamas than years of school completed, our society’s reaction is tolerant amusement instead of indignant outrage.

Sadly, women are encouraging this male devolution in many ways, ranging from well-meaning overprotectiveness during child-rearing to actively engaging in relationships with losers who don’t merit affection or attention. Ladies, this has to stop. Quit encouraging juvenility in your dude. Whether you are deliberately attempting to keep him docile and under your control or doing it because that’s what you learned at home about managing a spouse, stop it. God intends for your man to stand tall astride this globe, unashamed of his masculinity, treating you with honor and respect as he conducts a relentless campaign to win your heart and make you his wife. He expects your man to lead his household with integrity, serving as a mentor for children and a protector of financial and physical security. Anything you do to detract or distract him from this mission is detrimental to his identity as a man, your family, the community in which you live, and ultimately the nation itself.

This means no settling for less than is described above. If your fellah isn’t treating you with honor and respect, or isn’t leading his household with integrity, then you are contributing to the problem by continued involvement with a manpubescent. The silver lining is that he’s probably too pathetic to commit to anything longer than a commercial break, so it might just be a question of slotting him into the ex-boyfriend category and seeking more manly pastures. And to be honest, there’s no reason not to do so if he isn’t fulfilling his duty as a man. To think about this situation in economic terms, free market forces are not at work in your relationship because you are deliberately subsidizing a faulty product. If a deodorant gave you body odor, how long would you continue to purchase it? If a restaurant served you melted milkshakes every time you ordered, would you keep paying them for more melted milkshakes? Why would you stay in a relationship with a man-child who is content to shirk the responsibilities given him by God Almighty?  (This assumes that you’ve at least kept the bare minimum of God’s criteria and not allowed yourself to be unequally-yoked to an unbeliever.)

Men, it’s time to fish or cut bait. At the end of the day, regardless of what the women in your life encourage or tolerate, the responsibility for your masculine duty is yours alone. If any of the following statements apply to you, keep reading:

–          I think it’s silly to assert that a man can’t enjoy a day at the spa.

–          I apologize for my male privilege.

–          Yes, that is my pink polo shirt.

–          Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

–          I wouldn’t need to surf porn if she hadn’t let herself go…

It is your duty to handle your household. This means you should run your household finances in order to manage and grow the resources you’ve been given. You are to commit to the development of the children in your home. This is especially important in today’s public school environment where school officials are actively seeking ways to undermine your authority. This also means that Sunday School should be seen as supplemental spiritual education, not the primary source. You should cherish and love your lady. Her well-being (physical/spiritual/moral) is more important than your hormones. A worthwhile woman would never be interested in “hooking up” with you and why would you want to waste your time and attention on a woman who isn’t worthwhile?

Simply put, our standards have slipped. We have allowed the criteria of what constitutes a man to atrophy nearly to the point of androgyny. There are many factors to blame, but primarily this is due to progressive ideology which seeks to erase all gender distinctions. It is up to both men and women to right the ship. As it stands currently, our kids are confused and their kids will be lost. We will not be allowed much longer the luxury of surprise when the boy-men we raise display feckless treachery instead of the honor and virtue we seek. 

Millions of Americans have lost their insurance and many are now learning that the doctors they had are retiring early or moving to specialty practices as a consequence of Obamacare.  Many Americans are also realizing that under Obamacare and the changes made to insurance plans, the drugs they relied upon are no longer covered to the degree they had been before Obamacare, if covered at all.
 
This is why I suspect many people observing the Hobby Lobby case with some thought may have asked why contraceptives are required coverage at all.   Maybe the man with whom the woman slept with should help pay for her contraceptives rather than forcing it upon taxpayers and business owners.
 
Yet, to be clear, in spite of what the media and hysterical liberals are saying this case was not about contraceptives.    The health care law requires companies to pay for 20 different birth control medications or devices.  Hobby Lobby had always covered 16 of those actual contraceptives for their employees.  Where they (logically) drew the line on coverage was with 4 abortifacient drugs that work after conception and may end the life of a child.  Yet, 80 percent compliance is not enough.  In Obamaland abortion is the issue. Not fully supporting abortion and sexual issues exactly as liberals demand is simply not an option.  This is why rather than being given a waiver,  Hobby Lobby faced a business-ending, half a billion dollar, annual fine unless they would ignore their religious convictions and pay for life stopping, abortion-like drugs.
 
The frighteningly narrow 5-4 ruling never really even got to the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment.  When the majority considered the 1993 federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, it became obvious that the abortion mandate in Obamacare was an undue government burden upon the Christian family who created and owns Hobby Lobby.
 
It astonishes me how many liberals have been allowed to go unchallenged with their ridiculous claim that this is Hobby Lobby forcing its religious views upon its employees and customers.  No one is prohibited from buying birth control items on their own. They are cheap and everywhere, unlike life saving heart or cancer drugs.   The force of a moral view here was coming entirely from the Obama Administration.  
 
Even worse, some critics disingenuously claimed that this ruling allows companies to choose which customers to serve, pointing back fifty years to Jim Crow racial laws of the South, as if that was never settled.
 
The Hobby Lobby ruling by the Supreme Court was a victory for religious liberty, business freedom, and a long overdue slap at Obamacare’s abortion mandate.  Though it appears somewhat narrow in scope, it is one all liberty loving Americans can celebrate.  As Justice Alito observed:    “A corporation is simply a form of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends. Protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby … protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies.“

Written by Ryan T. Anderson

This week the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an important ruling on Utah’s marriage amendment. This is the first time a circuit court has ruled on marriage since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) this time last year. In a 2-1 split decision, the 10th circuit ruled that Utah’s marriage amendment defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The majority held that “the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to marry” and that “a state may not deny the issuance of a marriage license to two persons, or refuse to recognize their marriage, based solely upon the sex of the persons in the marriage union.” The decision will almost certainly be appealed.

Of course the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to marry—but the Supreme Court decisions that established a fundamental right to marry understood marriage as the union of a man and a woman. In issuing today’s ruling, the court implicitly supplied its own, new answer to the central question in this debate: what is marriage?

The only way the 10th Circuit could reach its decision today was to smuggle in a view of marriage that sees it as an essentially genderless institution and then declare that the Constitution requires that the States (re)define marriage in such a way.

But our Constitution is silent on what marriage is. And there are good arguments on both sides of this debate. Judges should not insert their own policy preferences about marriage and declare them to be required by the Constitution.

Indeed, this is the message that Judge Paul Kelly delivered in his dissenting opinion in today’s case. Quoting Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, Judge Kelly explains: “‘Same-sex marriage presents a highly emotional and important question of public policy—but not a difficult question of constitutional law,’ at least when it comes to the States’ right to enact laws preserving or altering the traditional composition of marriage.”

Kelly continued:

The Constitution is silent on the regulation of marriage; accordingly, that power is reserved to the States, albeit consistent with federal constitutional guarantees. And while the Court has recognized a fundamental right to marriage, every decision vindicating that right has involved two persons of the opposite gender.

Kelly explained that we need not seek from the courts a single 50-state answer: “If the States are the laboratories of democracy, requiring every state to recognize same-gender unions—contrary to the views of its electorate and representatives—turns the notion of a limited national government on its head.”

In citing Justice Alito, Judge Kelly hit on an important point—that there are competing policy arguments on the definition of marriage and that in a system of limited constitutional self-government, the people and their elected representatives should be making these decisions.

Justice Alito’s opinion on DOMA cited my book, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, as an example of one view of marriage: a “comprehensive, exclusive, permanent union that is intrinsically ordered to producing new life.” And he cited Jonathan Rauch as a proponent of the idea that marriage is a commitment marked by emotional union.

Alito explained that the Constitution is silent on which of these substantive visions of marriage is correct. The Court, he explained, should defer to democratic debate.

Indeed, whatever any individual American thinks about marriage, the courts shouldn’t redefine it. Marriage policy should be worked out through the democratic process, not dictated by unelected judges. The courts should uphold the freedom of the American people and their elected representatives to make marriage policy.

Last summer, when the Supreme Court struck down DOMA, Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized the limits of the majority’s opinion. He made clear that neither the holding nor its logic required redefining state marriage laws. The states remain free to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

If marriage ends up back at the U.S. Supreme Court again next year, the Court will be less likely to usurp the authority of citizens if it is obvious that citizens are engaged in this democratic debate and care about the future of marriage.

We must rally in support of our constitutional authority to pass laws defining marriage. We must make clear that court-imposed same-sex marriage via a Roe v. Wade-style decision will not settle the marriage debate any better than it has settled the abortion debate.

We must insist, with Judge Kelly, that judges “should resist the temptation to become philosopher-kings, imposing [their] views under the guise of constitutional interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Ryan T. Anderson researches and writes about marriage and religious liberty as the William E. Simon Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He also focuses on justice and moral principles in economic thought, health care and education, and has expertise in bioethics and natural law theory.

This article was first published at TheDailySignal.com.

It serves the strategic purposes of the Left to lead the public to believe that there exists no one under 40 who believes marriage is inherently sexually complementary and who believes that volitional homosexual activity is always immoral. Recognizing the human predisposition to follow the crowd and the concomitant discomfort with marginalized non-conformity, the Left also seeks to have people believe that “progressive” assumptions about homoerotic activity are on the “right side of history.” Of course, what is au courant today is often found to be profoundly ignorant and even evil later. Unfortunately, because history is nothing more than the account of the actions of fallen, depraved humans, there exists no uninterrupted historical trajectory in the direction of truth and justice.

Justin Taylor (another youngish person), senior vice president of Crossway Books who blogs at Between Two Worlds, offers some illuminating quotes on “What’s Wrong with the ‘Wrong Side of History’ Argument”:

• Upon inspection, ‘X is on the right side of history’ turns out to be a lazy, hectoring way to declare, ‘X is a good idea,’ by those evading any responsibility to prove it so (William Voegeli).
• “The appeal to history is thus a nifty little piece of rhetorical violence, a ‘performative utterance’ that seeks to bring about the fate that it announces and to excuse the opposition’s loss of agency as the inevitable triumph of justice” (Michael Hanby).
• “We invoke the future’s verdict of guilt precisely because we’d like to smuggle back into our politics the moral force of Divine judgment. But our appeals to progress are a pathetic substitute for the concept of Providence. The former stifles critical reflection about the past. The latter is at least flexible enough to account for the sudden flowering of great evil, even in an age as advanced as ours. What we do know from history is that the future often rejects the past. Political ideals are often abandoned, rarely refuted. And so we are thrown back on ourselves. If your cause is just and good, argue that it is just and good, not just inevitable” (Michael Brendan Dougherty).

And a waggish commenter provided this from Nikita Khrushchev, former leader of the Soviet Union: “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.”

So, in the interest of correcting one of the many misleading cultural “narratives” ( a term I find annoying in its overuse, along “meme” and “winsome”), IFI will be posting writing by bright, well-educated, wise men and women under 40 who articulate counter-cultural truth about homoerotic activity boldly—oh, and winsomely, of course.

Today’s truth-telling comes from pastor, author, and father of six, Kevin DeYoung, who is 37 years old:

“Five Questions for Christians Who Believe the Bible Supports Gay Marriage”

So you’ve become convinced that the Bible supports gay marriage. You’ve studied the issue, read some books, looked at the relevant Bible passages and concluded that Scripture does not prohibit same-sex intercourse so long as it takes place in the context of a loving, monogamous, lifelong covenanted relationship. You still love Jesus. You still believe the Bible. In fact, you would argue that it’s because you love Jesus and because you believe the Bible that you now embrace gay marriage as a God-sanctioned good.

As far as you are concerned, you haven’t rejected your evangelical faith. You haven’t turned your back on God. You haven’t become a moral relativist. You’ve never suggested anything goes when it comes to sexual behavior. In most things, you tend to be quite conservative. You affirm the family, and you believe in the permanence of marriage. But now you’ve simply come to the conclusion that two men or two women should be able to enter into the institution of marriage–both as a legal right and as a biblically faithful expression of one’s sexuality.

Setting aside the issue of biblical interpretation for the moment, let me ask five questions.

1. On what basis do you still insist that marriage must be monogamous?

Presumably, you do not see any normative significance in God creating the first human pair male and female (Gen. 2:23-25; Matt. 19:4-6). Paul’s language about each man having his own wife and each woman her own husband cannot be taken too literally without falling back into the exclusivity of heterosexual marriage (1 Cor. 7:2). The two coming together as one so they might produce godly offspring doesn’t work with gay marriage either (Mal. 2:15). So why monogamy? Jesus never spoke explicitly against polygamy. The New Testament writers only knew of exploitative polygamy, the kind tied to conquest, greed, and subjugation. If they had known of voluntary, committed, loving polyamorous relationships, who’s to think they wouldn’t have approved?

These aren’t merely rhetorical questions. The issue is legitimate: if 3 or 13 or 30 people really love each other, why shouldn’t they have a right to be married? And for that matter, why not a brother and a sister, or two sisters, or a mother and son, or father and son, or any other combination of two or more persons who love each other. Once we’ve accepted the logic that for love to be validated it must be expressed sexually and that those engaged in consensual sexual activity cannot be denied the “right” of marriage, we have opened a Pandora’s box of marital permutations that cannot be shut.

2. Will you maintain the same biblical sexual ethic in the church now that you think the church should solemnize gay marriages?

After assailing the conservative church for ignoring the issue of divorce, will you exercise church discipline when gay marriages fall apart? Will you preach abstinence before marriage for all single persons, no matter their orientation? If nothing has really changed except that you now understand the Bible to be approving of same-sex intercourse in committed lifelong relationships,we should expect loud voices in the near future denouncing the infidelity rampant in homosexual relationships. Surely, those who support gay marriage out of “evangelical” principles, will be quick to find fault with the notion that the male-male marriages most likely to survive are those with a flexible understanding that other partners may come and go. According to one study researched and written by two homosexual authors, of 156 homosexual couples studied, only seven had maintained sexual fidelity, and of the hundred that had been together for more than five years, none had remained faithful (cited by Satinover, 55). In the rush to support committed, lifelong, monogamous same-sex relationships, it’s worth asking whether those supporters–especially the Christians among them–will, in fact, insist on a lifelong, monogamous commitment.

3. Are you prepared to say moms and dads are interchangeable?

It is a safe assumption that those in favor of gay marriage are likely to support gay and lesbian couples adopting children or giving birth to children through artificial insemination. What is sanctioned, therefore, is a family unit where children grow up de facto without one birth parent. This means not simply that some children, through the unfortunate circumstances of life, may grow up with a mom and dad, but that the church will positively bless and encourage the family type that will deprive children of either a mother or a father. So are mothers indispensable? Is another dad the same as a mom? No matter how many decent, capable homosexual couples we may know, are we confident that as a general rule there is nothing significant to be gained by growing up with a mother and a father?

4. What will you say about anal intercourse?

The answer is probably “nothing.” But if you feel strongly about the dangers of tobacco or fuss over the negative affects of carbs, cholesterol, gmo’s, sugar, gluten, trans fats, and hydrogenated soybean oil may have on your health, how can you not speak out about the serious risks associated with male-male intercourse. How is it loving to celebrate what we know to be a singularly unhealthy lifestyle? According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the risk of anal cancer increases 4000 percent among those who engage in anal intercourse. Anal sex increases the risk of a long list of health problems, including “rectal prolapse, perforation that can go septic, chlamydia, cyrptosporidosis, giardiasis, genital herpes, genital warts, isosporiasis, microsporidiosis, gonorrhea, viral hepatitis B and C, and syphilis” (quoted in Reilly, 55). And this is to say nothing of the higher rates of HIV and other health concerns with disproportionate affects on the homosexual community.

5. How have all Christians at all times and in all places interpreted the Bible so wrongly for so long?

Christians misread their Bibles all the time. The church must always be reformed according to the word of God. Sometimes biblical truth rests with a small minority. Sometimes the truth is buried in relative obscurity for generations. But when we must believe that the Bible has been misunderstood by virtually every Christian in every part of the world for the last two thousand years, it ought to give us pause. From the Jewish world in the Old and New Testaments to the early church to the Middle Ages to the Reformation and into the 20th century, the church has understood the Bible to teach that engaging in homosexual activity was among the worst sins a person could commit. As the late Louis Crompton, a gay man and pioneer in queer studies, explained:

Some interpreters, seeking to mitigate Paul’s harshness, have read the passage [in Romans 1] as condemning not homosexuals generally but only heterosexual men and women who experimented with homosexuality. According to this interpretation, Paul’s words were not directed at “bona fide” homosexuals in committed relationships. But such a reading, however well-intentioned, seems strained and unhistorical. Nowhere does Paul or any other Jewish writer of this period imply the least acceptance of same-sex relations under any circumstances. The idea that homosexuals might be redeemed by mutual devotion would have been wholly foreign to Paul or any Jew or early Christian. (Homosexuality and Civilization, 114).

The church has been of one mind on this issue for nearly two millennia. Are you prepared to jeopardize the catholicity of the church and convince yourself that everyone misunderstood the Bible until the 1960s? On such a critical matter, it’s important we think through the implications of our position, especially if it means consigning to the bin of bigotry almost every Christian who has ever lived.

Stand with Illinois Family Institute!