Written by Janice Shaw Crouse

More Millennial mothers are single than married

In pre-modern times, the disparity in men’s and women’s higher education opportunities was often defended by the view that women’s education would be wasted because they’d end up “just being mothers.” Of course, we now recognize that a mother’s education plays a vital role in the education of her children and, thus, in the welfare of the community and society as a whole.

Today, when women comprise 57 percent of all undergraduates (as compared to only 42 percent in 1970), there is a new twist on inequality, and it shows up prominently among Millennial women. More Millennial mothers (ages 26-31) are single than married. Only a third of all mothers in their late twenties and early thirties are married, and the determining factor has been known by scholars and researchers for quite a while. Now the difference between single motherhood and married moms is becoming more widely recognized: the less education a young woman has, the higher the likelihood that she will have a child outside of marriage, which is pretty much a one-way ticket to poverty (the poverty rate of children under five years of age living in female-headed households is 57 percent). The other side of this equation is that those moms who are educated have a much higher probability of being married before having a child.

By now, everyone should know the realities that single parenthood is disastrous financially for young women and has predictable, well-known risks for children of single mothers. Yet public discourse continues to focus on “inequality” as the nebulous concept “polarizing” the nation and can only be reversed by expanding government programs and increasing entitlements. Hardly anyone escapes the abundant evidence of the failures of single parenting all around us —— from unruly and unprepared children in the school classrooms to belligerent fatherless boys terrorizing neighborhoods to abused and neglected children in emergency rooms to harried moms and wild kids at the local Walmart. Single mothers are the first ones to say that they can’t do the 24/7 job of parenting all alone, and while many are heroic, even more have given up and “go with the flow.”

A new Johns Hopkins study was just popularized in Time magazine. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (widely known as the NLSY97 — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2005), the study found that among those who were in their teens and twenties in 1997, 81 percent of all births reported by women and 87 percent of births reported by men occurred to non-college graduates and that 57 percent of those births were outside of marriage. In addition, 64 percent of those women and 63 percent of those men had at least one child outside of marriage. Among those without a four-year college degree, the figure rose to 74 percent among women and 70 percent among men. “It is now unusual,” the report stated, “for non-college-graduates who have children in their teens and twenties to have all of them within marriage.” The implications of that fact are profound for American culture and society; they are highly significant regarding the “growing social class inequalities in family patterns.”

The original scholarly article is quite clear: this “distinctive fertility regime in early adulthood reinforces the growing social class differences in American family life.” The authors are unequivocal about the fact that “nonmarital fertility is associated with greater relationship instability and family complexity… [that] reinforces family inequalities between the non-college graduate and college-graduate populations.”

The evidence regarding the effects of the ongoing dismantling of the traditional family structure for alternative arrangements since the 1960s sexual revolution pervades the social science research, yet public policy lags behind, and the nation’s leaders continue to pretend that the decline in marriage is not the primary cause of social and financial inequality. As the Time article put it, “Motherhood is beginning to show the fissures along income and education lines that have already appeared in other aspects of U.S. society, with a small cluster of wealthy well educated people at one end (married with kids), a large cluster of struggling people at the other (kids, not married) and a thinning middle.”

The bottom line of the Johns Hopkins study is that those unmarried parents who live together tend to break up during the very stressful first years of parenting; the enormous growth in this choice by today’s young adults gives sad validity to what the sociologists call the “multi-partner fertility” and the popular culture calls multiple “baby mamas.” It is long past time for America’s opinion leaders to face up to a harsh reality: the liberals’ myth that all types of families are equally viable (if only we pour enough money into government programs to support them) has produced a toxic brew of family instability, complex family dynamics, and constant changing household structure leading “to the calcification of social inequality.”

Governor Mike Pence (R-IN) recently hosted a long overdue conference on the importance of marriage in Indiana.  The outstanding event featured scholars from the National Marriage Project, The Brookings Institute, American University, The Urban Institute, and parenting experts and program administrators from the Oklahoma Marriage Project.
 
The presentations described what scores of researchers, demographers, and sociologists have been warning about with the decline of marriage in America.  Children living apart from their married biological mother and father are at significant social and economic risks. The state often must come in to pick up those pieces due to the increases in poverty, abuse, drug abuse, mental and physical health risks, employment, and educational disadvantages.
 
The day was chock full of the mountain of data which shows why marriage matters to society, and why there is no equally beneficial substitute (like cohabitation).  For example:

•  Forty percent of children raised by a single mom live in poverty, compared to only 8 percent of children raised by a married mother and father.
 
•  Married couples with children have an average income of $80,000, compared with $24,000 for single mothers.
 
• College kids from single-parent, or divorced homes are 31 percent less likely to graduate from college than their peers from intact homes.
 
•  Teens in a home where mom (or dad) is cohabiting (living together outside of marriage) are 116% more likely to use marijuana.
 
•  Domestic violence is more than twice as high in single or cohabiting homes than in married intact families.
 
•  Mothers who have never married–including those who are single and living either alone or with a boyfriend and those who are cohabiting with their child’s father–are more than twice as likely to be victims of a violent crime than married mothers.
 
•  Children aged 3 to 12 who live in intact families have higher average math scores than peers whose mothers live in cohabiting relationships.
 
•  Middle school and high school students who experience a parental divorce tend to suffer declines in their grade point averages and are more likely to fail a course one year later compared to peers of married parents.
 
•  Adolescents living in intact families are less likely to engage in delinquency than their peers living in non-intact families.
 
•  Thirty-three percent of children from intact married homes ranked as high academic achievers, compared with just 17 percent of children from single-parent homes.

All this is not to say that so many single parents do heroic work and millions of children will succeed and defy these risks, particularly when religious faith is a part of their home.  Yet, public policy must consider the vital role marriage plays in the well being of children and adults, and therefore in society.

For decades, researchers have warned of the societal price we all pay with the decline of marriage, rise in divorce, single parenting, and out-of-wedlock births. Marriage is in decline, and devalued, in many segments of society.  The devaluing of marriage is no longer predominantly among lower economic classes. It is unraveling among the middle class as well.  Yet, in the upper income classes of the college educated, marriage has stabilized.  Divorce has declined and out-of-wedlock births are only about 8%.  This has created what scholars yesterday warned is a very stark “separate and unequal family devolution” between the upper class and middle and lower economic classes. 
 
One in three US children (15 million) today lives without their biological father in their home.  (Five million children live without a mother.)  In 1960, only 1 in 10 US children lived in homes without their fathers.  The growth in poverty is largely due to our societal retreat from marriage.  One study found that if Indiana’s marriage rates were simply what they were in 1970, our poverty rate would be a full third lower than it is now.  
 
If President Barack Obama were truly concerned about real income inequality, he would look at the marriage gap and the huge role marriage plays in economic advancement. The median income of married men living with their spouses is 64 percent greater than that of married men whose spouses are absent, 109 percent greater than never-married men, and 33 percent greater than divorced men.
 
Marriage matters to society and to Indiana. It is why the Governor’s summit was so important.  As President Lyndon Johnson said in 1965, “Unless we work to strengthen the family, to create conditions under which most parents will stay together – all the rest, schools, playgrounds and public assistance, and private concern, will never be enough to completely cut the circle of despair and deprivation.”

John Avlon’s dishonest column on the cop-killers in Las Vegas should be studied by journalism students as an example of how to exploit a tragedy for political purposes. It is a shame he gets on CNN as an “analyst,” which gives him undeserved authority and prestige, when he deliberately confuses and misleads people.

In this case, he tried to blame conservatives for the murders of two policemen.

His Daily Beast column carried two titles, one of them being, “The Bonnie and Clyde of Ultra-Right Hate.”

He said Jerad and Amanda Miller killed two metro cops while shouting, “This is a revolution!,” and then they “flung the Tea Party’s favorite coiled snake Gadsden flag and a swastika on the still-warm corpses and then moved to a nearby Walmart to murder a shopper before turning the guns on themselves.”

The reference to the Gadsden flag being “the Tea Party’s favorite” was an obvious effort to link the Tea Party to the murders. The flag dates back to the American Revolution and is used by various groups and people to protest Big Government.

Miller’s notion of “Big Government” was a government that interfered with his marijuana smoking. A simple search of stories about his background revealed a series of confrontations with law enforcement over his drug habits.

Avlon wrote that Miller’s Facebook pages “detail a descent into a murderous rage, railing against a tyrannical government and parroting talking points from fright-wing radio hosts such as Alex Jones and militia movement groups such as the Three Percenters while ‘liking’ the pages of conservative activist groups ranging from the Heritage Foundation to FreedomWorks and the NRA. Miller’s profile picture was a skull wearing an American flag bandana against a backdrop of crossed knives over the word ‘Patriot.’”

Avlon somehow missed the numerous pro-marijuana groups on Miller’s Facebook page, including:

• Marijuana Policy Project
• Drug Policy Alliance
• Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform
• Marijuanna (sic) fans
• Legalize weed, outlaw corporate greed
• Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)
• Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Miller was a doper whose “anti-government” philosophy stemmed from his hatred of the police for arresting him for violating the drug laws. You don’t need to be a forensic scientist to figure this case out.

Is there any evidence that Miller was a conservative activist or followed the philosophy of the Heritage Foundation or other conservative groups? Absolutely not. In fact, the Heritage Foundation opposes legalization of marijuana.

“Jerad Miller’s anti-government frenzy was whipped up by the extreme right-wing echo chamber,” Avlon claimed. Then why do the “likes” on his Facebook page include so many pro-marijuana groups? Legal dope has been accepted by some libertarians, most notably at the Cato Institute, but it has been a left-wing cause for decades, mostly funded for the last decade or so by hedge-fund operator George Soros.

Avlon stumbled into the truth, without understanding its significance, when he wrote, “Miller’s anti-government rants ramped up after he served seven days in jail for a pot-related conviction.” But he failed to grasp the significance of this fact, preferring instead to blame conservatives for his violence.

Avlon’s CNN performance was even worse. He said, “the rhetoric he [Miller] is parroting really did echo a lot of what we hear on far right-wing talk radio, things like ‘The Alex Jones Show’…”

Jones is not a right-wing talk-radio host. He is a marijuana enthusiast who promoted a movie called “Guns and Weed: The Road to Freedom.” We noted in the past that this combustible combination of drugs and firearms, as preached by Jones, is dangerous for our country.

The liberals would prefer to focus on the guns, not the drugs.

Miller is a classic case of a pothead, possibly with paranoid or psychotic tendencies. In a post on an Alex Jones website, Miller wrote, “I stand at a point in my life where I am on probation for selling marijuana. I take urine screens frequently and I am forced to take drug classes I do not need. Before I got arrested I had 2 jobs and was selling weed to my friends and family on the side. Now I cannot find a job.”

He had only himself to blame.

Miller wrote a post on May 13, 2013, after having to answer for a drug violation.

“Mark one up for freedom today,” he said. “I stood before a fascist judge today and implied that he was a Nazi. I told him I did not recognize his authority over me and reminded him that 2 states now have legalized weed for recreational use. I also informed him that now, since the fast and furious scandal, that continuing the war on drugs is treason. He said to me ‘I may not agree with the law, but it is my duty to enforce it.’ To which I replied ‘Nazis during the war criminal trials stated that they, were just following orders and enforcing the law, and we hung those people.’”

Hence, he was completely in favor of legalizing marijuana and perhaps other drugs. This puts him firmly on the “progressive” side of the political spectrum.

“In 2010 and 2007 he was convicted of drug dealing and possession charges related to marijuana,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal said.

The paper said that Garry Frick, the owner of a bookstore, got caught in a short but dramatic debate with Jerad Miller, in which the pothead “covered everything from Bundy to the Declaration of Independence to the morality of pornography, guns and drugs in a span of less than 15 minutes. He kept misquoting things and incorrectly using words, Frick said, all the while sounding very sure of himself.”

It sounds like marijuana took its psychological toll on him.

Miller was from Lafayette, Indiana. In the local paper, Ron Wilkins & Steven Porter noted that it “appears from Jerad Miller’s rants on Facebook and YouTube, he was angry at the government because of his repeated arrests and convictions for using drugs.” This is precisely the case, based on what we know about him.

They added, “He had a trail of marijuana arrests and convictions in Tippecanoe County [Indiana] stretching back to 2007.”

Miller’s landlord was quoted as saying, “Jerad was nothing but a drug-addict loser.”

KLAS-TV in Las Vegas said his marijuana convictions included:

• Being charged in Anderson, Indiana city court in July 2003 with misdemeanor possession of marijuana/hashish, a charge for which he pleaded guilty that November.

• Miller was charged in Tippecanoe County with misdemeanor criminal recklessness with risk of bodily injury by pointing a firearm, possession of marijuana, hash oil or hashish with a prior conviction, and possession of paraphernalia.

• In December 2010 Miller was charged in Tippecanoe County with felony dealing in and possession of marijuana, hash oil or hashish, and felony possession of a controlled substance.

Avlon mentioned how the political left was once the source of much terrorism, even mentioning the Weather Underground. “In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, the anti-government violence in the United States was primarily on the left with groups like The Weathermen…” he told CNN.

But he failed to connect the dots to cases like that of Miller, falsely labeled a right-winger by Avlon.

It was communist Weather Underground terrorist Bernardine Dohrn who declared, “We fight in many ways. Dope is one of our weapons. The laws against marijuana mean that millions of us are outlaws long before we actually split. Guns and grass are united in the youth underground.”

This puts Miller’s cry of “revolution” in the necessary context. It’s too bad Avlon doesn’t understand what he’s talking about.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

Political writer Damon Linker posted an article recently on the future of same-sex “marriage.” He offered a grudging mini-compliment to the new website Discussing Marriage that addresses the marriage debate thoughtfully, civilly, and in Linker’s view, unpersuasively.

Linker believes that the fate of true marriage is sealed, and he attributes the cause not to presumptuous judges, de facto censorship in public schools and Hollywood, ad hominem attacks on dissenters, or the destructive work of Satan in the world. No, the fate of true marriage has been sealed by what Linker deems not “commendable” arguments.

In Linker’s view commendable arguments in favor of the view that the central constituent feature of marriage is sexual differentiation must not do the following:

• Must not appeal to religious faith
  
  Linker: “The distinctive strength of natural law arguments (at least as [Robert] George and the “Discussing Marriage” website deploy them) is that they typically make no reference to religious faith, scriptural authority, or the dogmas, doctrines, or traditions of any church.” 

• Must not rely on “intuitions as premises for syllogisms”
  
  Linker: “As one might expect, the distinctive vulnerability of natural law arguments lies in the intuitions that serve as the premises of those syllogisms. If the intuitions are genuinely incontestable, then the moral ‘law’ that gets spit out at the end of the argument may well be ‘natural.’ But if the intuitions aren’t universally accepted, then the conclusion of the argument will appear arbitrary and unjustified.” 

• Must not address the moral status of homoerotic activity because moral disapproval of homoerotic activity is inherently disrespectful
  
  Linker: “Perhaps the most notable thing about the website is how far it goes in making the case for treating opponents — including gay couples — with respect. Whereas the mainstream of the anti-gay-marriage movement has recently gathered under the banner of religious freedom, arguing that they should continue to be permitted to argue and preach that homosexual relationships are intrinsically immoral, ‘Discussing Marriage’ takes a very different tack, asserting that the marriage debate should not ‘center on issues of sexual morality or the moral status of homosexual persons.’”

On religious motivations

Here are some people whose arguments for public policy changes Linker must also find not “commendable”:

• Member of Parliament William Wilberforce who fought tenaciously to end the slave trade in England because of his religious faith.
• Abolitionist, pastor, and first president of Wheaton College, Jonathan Blanchard who fought to free slaves because of his faith.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller opposed the Nazi regime in Germany because of their faith.
• Trappist monk Thomas Merton and the Berrigan brothers opposed the Vietnam War because of their religious faith.
• In the midst of the struggle for civil rights for blacks, Martin Luther King Jr., who was motivated by his Baptist faith, wrote this in “Letter from Birmingham Jail”: “How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.”
• Many “progressive” church members claim that their pro-“gay” theology informs their motives for embracing same-sex “marriage.”
• Homosexual NBA player Jason Collins appealed to his faith to defend his embrace of a homosexual “identity” (another rhetorical invention of the Left, created to transform one’s feelings and desires into something more substantive and to silence criticism).
• (Vicky) Gene Robinson, retired Episcopal bishop, has relentlessly campaigned for the redefinition of marriage, citing his faith as central to his political views.
• President Barack Obama appealed to his faith when defending his “evolution” (no giggling) on marriage, saying that, “[Michelle and I] we are both practicing Christians and…when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule…”

On intuitions

Here are some questions regarding intuitions for Linker:

• Is the “progressive” intuition that marriage has no inherent connection to sexual differentiation incontestable?
• Is the “progressive” intuition that affirming non-reproductive types of erotic love is a government purpose incontestable?
• Is it the “progressive” intuition that the number of partners that constitutes a marriage is essential while the sex of partners is irrelevant incontestable?
• Is it the “progressive” intuition that marriage is merely a social construction with no inherent nature incontestable? (Of course, this is intellectually inconsistent with the previous intuition.)
• Is Linker’s intuition that judgments on the moral status of actions constitutes disrespect of those who engage in them incontestable?”
• Is Linker’s intuition that marriage is a “romantic union” incontestable?
• Is the “progressive” intuition that equality demands treating unlike things as if they’re alike incontestable?
• Is the “progressive” intuition that a union constituted by sexual differentiation is identical to a same-sex union incontestable?

On morality

When “progressives” argue that the criterion regarding sexual difference in legal definitions of marriage should be jettisoned while the criteria that prohibit two brothers and an uncle from marrying should be retained, are they appealing to uncommendable, disrespectful arguments regarding the morality of polyamory and incest?

Is there anything knowable and incontestable about marriage?

Before discussing which legal regulations the government should put in place regarding marriage, society must start with a definition of marriage. In other words, what is marriage? Do we recognize and regulate a type of relationship that exists, or are we creating out of whole cloth a thing that we have decided to call “marriage”?

Linker seems to dismiss the notion that in regard to marriage there exist “intuitions” that are incontestable and accessible to human reason, but then goes on to posit two: He declares that marriage is “a romantic relationship involving a publicly declared lifetime commitment between two people.” Why a romantic relationship, and why two people?

Why not expand the definition of marriage to allow three bachelor brothers or BFF’s to marry?

And why not allow close blood relatives to marry?

Why restrict marriage, as Linker does, to two adults in erotic/romantic relationships? Why not conceive of marriage as a union between any number of persons in any type of relationship characterized by any type of feelings or no feelings? Marriage will then become oh so marvelously expansive.

Maybe, however, there are some intuitions—or first principles—that even Linker accepts as incontestable, accessible givens.

Stand with Illinois Family Institute! 

Twenty years ago in a horrific accident on I-94, Pastor Scott Willis and his wife Janet lost their six youngest children in a fiery inferno. This accident exposed a scandalous case of corruption that sent former governor George Ryan to prison.  Most Illinoisans know this heartbreaking story.

What most Illinoisans don’t know is that God has blessed the Willis family in suprising ways. One of the older three Willis children who was not in the van now has twelve (home-schooled) children who are currently appearing on America’s Got Talent. If you need a respite from the toils and troubles of the world, please spend six joyful minutes watching the Willis Clan delight the judges and audience on America’s Got Talent: 

Those who are unfamiliar with the tragic Willis accident and their inspiring grace and faith in the ensuing weeks, months, and years can read about it here.

God has blessed the Willis family in other ways: From the Willis’ three children who were not in the van that fateful day, Scott and Janet now have 32 grandchildren. 

As of Sunday, June 1, 2014,  counties throughout the Land of Lincoln are now legally required to redefine the institution of marriage by opening it up to homosexual partners, thanks to highly controversial legislation that was signed into law late last year by Governor Patrick Quinn.  Only time will tell how this new law will erode the religious conscience rights of business owners who are involved in the wedding industry and when churches and pastors will be forced to solemnize behavior that the Bible identifies as sinful.

A quick look at what has transpired in the first state to have same-sex “marriage” mandated on them from the judiciary gives us a frightening look at what we can expect to happen in Illinois.  Please read this short report: What same-sex “marriage” has done to Massachusetts.

So what’s next?  Please watch the video report below which includes an interview with attorney Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society.

Stand with Illinois Family Institute! 

A pro-family lawyer says the new president of the board of the Boy Scouts is wrong in saying the organization won’t revisit the ban on homosexual leaders. 

The statement comes from former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who says he supports openly homosexual adults in the Scouts but will oppose reopening the subject.

Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel Action, and founder of Barbwire.com, says Gates should have seen the impact of repeal of the ban on open homosexuals in the military.

“With homosexual assaults on men in the armed forces particularly skyrocketing,” says Barber. “Since ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was lifted, upwards of more than a third increase in sexual assaults – male on male.”

Echoing those allegations, The Washington Times reported on male-on-male assaults in a May 20 story, citing a Pentagon survey of service members. 

But Gates’ open support of homosexual troop leaders has an influence irrespective of his vow because, according to Barber, it puts political pressure on the scouts to surrender to homosexual activists. 

“I have said all along that they will eventually cave,” says Barber, “because the homosexual activist juggernaut simply will not be daunted. And they are demanding nothing less than absolute affirmation and allowing fully, openly out and proud homosexual men to take your boys on overnight camping trips.”

While Gates says he will oppose reopening the issue of homosexual leaders, he represents only one vote on the board.

When the Scouts last year voted to allow homosexuals, alternative scouting organization Trail Life USA was founded as a boys organization based on biblical truth. 

This article was originally posted at the OneNewsNow.com website.

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), SJRCA 75, has reared its ugly head once again in Illinois. SJRCA 75 passed the State Senate on May 22^nd, 2014, with a vote of 39 – 11 – 6. It could be called in the House during the fall veto session (Nov. 19th, 20th, 21st and Dec. 2nd, 3rd and 4^th.)

No one is opposed to “equal rights,” but that’s not what the ERA is about.

“Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article. This Amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.”[Emphasis added)

The ERA will remove all legal distinctions between sexes.

In other words, all federal, state and local laws, policies and regulations favoring either males or females would be unconstitutional under ERA. Laws including marriage, divorce, family-property law, child custody, adoptions, abortions, alimony, some criminal laws, age limits for marriage and the age of consent, public and private schools, prison regulations, and insurance rates, veterans benefits, boy and girl scouts, tax exemptions for single-sex schools would be challenged if ERA is passed.

Resources:

Nine Reasons to Reject the Equal Rights Amendment

The ERA, Abortion & Same-Sex Marriage

The ERA and the War on Women [Brochure]

The ERA Resurrected

The Far Reaching Effects of the ERA

Equal Rights Amendment and the War on Women by Laurie Higgins

The Resurrected ERA Must be Defeated by Laurie Higgins

Video: Interview with Elise Bouc of Stop ERA Illinois  [Shortened Version]

Eagle Forum Resources

The hubris and dishonesty of “progressives” continue to astound. They proclaim through their sycophantic mouthpieces in the mainstream press that conservatives are waging war on women when in reality, it is “progressives” who pursue policies that hurt women and their children.

Their newest assault on women is the resurrection of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that has nothing to do with helping women and everything to do with the unencumbered “right” to kill babies while in utero—including girl babies.

Oh, and let’s not forget who else loves the ERA: those who pretend they are members of the opposite sex and want the entire country to play along.

The ERA never once mentions women and is wholly unnecessary to protect women’s treatment in the work place, which is protected by the Equal Pay Act.

The pernicious goals at the center of the push for the ERA include the following:

1. to win government subsidization of abortion
2. to eliminate all state restrictions on abortions
3. to eliminate recognition of the real differences between men and women in all laws and policies

So, for example, the ERA could jeopardize the tax-exempt status of churches that do not permit women to serve as pastors or priests, and it could be used to compel places of public accommodation to allow men who wish they were women to use women’s facilities.

When you next hear the odious phrase “Republican war on women” uttered ominously by melodramatic talking heads on MSNBC or CNN, remember these facts from the American cultural landscape and ask yourself, who’s really at war with women?:

• Liberals have given us abortion on demand, including morally incomprehensible partial-birth abortion. Abortion has destroyed the lives of almost 57 million pre-born babies since liberals discovered a previously unheard of right in the U.S. Constitution to murder the unborn. Over 28 million of those dead babies are female. Abortion has also resulted in crushing grief and guilt among women who later realize the enormity of their acts. And increasing numbers of studies are confirming the abortion-breast cancer link.
• Liberals have given us no-fault, unilateral divorce which has been responsible for an increase in divorce rates, decrease in marriage rates, the impoverishment of women and children, and untold suffering of children whose lives are marred by instability and loss.
• Efforts to legalize prostitution are pushed by liberals.
• Liberals rule Hollywood where an industry that exploits women both in front of and behind the camera makes the stories that shape American culture.
• Liberals seek to lower the age of consent, often with jaw-dropping reasons. A “bioethicist” writing on Huffington Post judgmentally condemns what he calls the conservative “full-blown war on teenage sexuality”:

If a 16-year-old can enjoy sex responsibly…and he or she wishes to add sexual pleasure to the rich tapestry of adolescent life, why shouldn’t we encourage that individual to do so?…The purpose of “age of consent” statues is presumably to prevent the exploitation of children who are not yet mature enough to make wise decisions or who do not understand the implications and consequences of sex. (Of course, one could apply that same reasoning to many other potentially-corrupting activities—attending church or synagogue, for example. Yet nobody argues we should shield children from religion until they reach 18 and are thus old enough to understand the implications and consequences of religious practice.)…Teenagers are smart. They understand that sex can be pleasurable and that it can enhance the intimacy of their relationships….That is not to say that some teenagers won’t choose to remain celibate. I cannot imagine why they would, by [sic] I respect their right to do so. However, those 16- and 17-year-olds who want to indulge in one of life’s great pleasures should not have to worry about the long arm of the law coming after them or their partners. [emphasis added]

• Liberals fight for the “right” to access Internet pornography at public libraries.
• Liberals expose public school students to novels that include graphic depictions of sexuality, including perverse sexuality.
• Liberals seek to expose children as young as pre-school to positive images of homosexuality.
• Liberals fight to prohibit parents from having the right to opt their children out of activities that involve positive presentations of homosexuality.
• Forbes Magazine reports that “80 percent of the time, mothers choose their children’s doctors, in addition to their own.” ObamaCare will lead to the loss of existing health coverage, forcing families into plans with fewer physician choices. Women will lose the doctors they have chosen for themselves and their children.
• Forbes further reports that “Obamacare actively accelerates the implosion of Medicare, a program in which more than half of all beneficiaries are women; among the oldest old (ages 85 and older), 70 percent are women.”

These are just a few of the ways in which “progressives” wage war on all women, from the very youngest to the very oldest.

Make no mistake, the ERA like so many other “progressive” cultural endeavors will do nothing but harm women and their offspring—that is if their offspring can survive the womb. Finding sanctuary from the vast liberal battlefields bloodied by the torn bodies of babies and exploited bodies of women is increasingly difficult.

Finally, if liberals claim that the ERA ratification deadline is not legally binding, then those five states that sought to rescind their ratification of the ERA should be allowed to continue to pursue their rescission efforts. The only reason their requests to rescind their approval of the ERA ceased was that the U.S. Supreme Court held that it was moot once the deadline passed. If liberals now claim that the deadline for them is moot, then it’s moot for conservatives as well.

Take ACTION: Please CLICK HERE to contact your state senator and state representative to ask them to vote AGAINST the ERA, SJRCA 4. It’s essential for us to let our lawmakers know that this amendment harms women, their families, and our society, because many still believe the lie that it’s all about equal rights. Your calls and emails are vital tools for fighting this destructive proposal.

You can also call your state representative to ask him/her to vote NO to SJRCA 4 by calling the Capitol switchboard number at: (217) 782-2000. CLICK HERE to access their name and contact information. Your state rep and senator will appear as the last two names listed.

Stand with Illinois Family Institute! 

Late yesterday afternoon, the House Judiciary Committee voted to pass SJRCA 75, the bill know as the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).  With four days left before the General Assembly adjourns for the summer, this bill may move very fast.  It may come up for a vote of the full House at any time, so please act today! 

For more information about the ERA, please watch the video report below and the interview with Elise Bouc of Illinois Stop ERA.

Take ACTION: Please CLICK HERE to contact your state representative to ask him/her to vote AGAINST the ERA, SJRCA 75. It’s essential for us to let our state representatives know that this amendment harms women, their families and our society. Your calls and emails are vital tools for fighting this outrageous proposal.

You can also call your state representative to ask him/her to vote NO to SJRCA 75 by calling the Capitol switchboard number at: (217) 782-2000. 

Stand with Illinois Family Institute! 

Written by Ryan T. Anderson

We’re all familiar with the old adage that the only two things certain in life are death and taxes. Yet, one major difference between the two is that for death, there are never any increases per capita and everyone has a flat rate. That certainly can’t be said for the taxes, particularly in Illinois. 

According to recent statistics, Illinois ranks lower among all states in nearly every economic category than five years ago, including a bleak 49th in the nation in job growth.

Despite these depressing indicators, Illinois lawmakers continue to propose new legislative projects and programs that would siphon more money from hard working citizens for various pet projects, including a proposition from House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) to spend $100 million taxpayer dollars on a Barack Obama Presidential Library.

It seems everywhere you turn, there are new taxes and/or additional taxes being proposed. Here are a few examples:

Earlier this year, retiring State Representative Naomi Jakobsson (D-Champaign) introduced legislation for a graduated income tax to replace the flat income tax in Illinois.  The bill is currently tabled for the session. Nevertheless, support among Democrats is rising; this legislative proposal had collected 38 co-sponsors. 

A group called the Transportation for Illinois Coalition is calling for a .04 per gallon increased tax hike on gasoline.

State Senator Mattie Hunter (D-Chicago) recently sponsored legislation to impose an additional tax on soda.

Chicago Alderman Bob Fioretti (D-2^nd Ward) is calling for a new commuter tax for those suburban residents who work in the City.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently withdrew his proposal to raise the property taxes in the City.

And when Governor Pat Quinn gave his annual budget address to the General Assembly in March, he didn’t mince words about making permanent the “temporary” income tax increase they had burdened Illinois’ families and businesses with three years ago. 

To justify the continuation, Gov. Quinn proposed a $200 million increase in funding for education, all part of his plan for a $6 billion increase in education funding over the next 6 years. Few can criticize spending money on children, but are they really the beneficiaries?

According to the Illinois Policy Institute, 70 percent of new education spending has been spent on teacher pensions. And even if all the money was spent directly on the classroom those positive impacts may be countered by harm caused by continuous taxation. Consider that one of the most vital factors in a child’s environment is the stability of a family. Study after study tells us that a family environment that is financially stable and has parents actively involved in a child’s life is critical to a child’s success in school, even more important than the total amount of time in the classroom.

Yet increasing taxes only add to the financial burdens of parents and families.  Taking a greater percentage of income from working families often require parents to work longer hours and results in greater financial stress, lower disposable incomes and ultimately less time for parents to spend with their children. We are taking needed revenue away from a child’s primary care givers and giving it to a much less effective secondary source. The guise that “It’s for the children” is a suspicious justification for increasing tax burdens.

Illinois is expected to generate $36.66 billion in revenues for the 2014 fiscal year, $588 million more than previously expected. These are record setting amounts, yet the current financial crisis is not expected to improve. According to the Illinois Policy Institute, since the tax increases there has been $18 billion in new state revenue, yet state pension debt has increased by $17 billion, along with increases in the aggregate amount of unpaid bills and the interest the state must pay on those overdue bills. Furthermore, the state’s bond rating has been downgraded five times. And yet there is no sign from Springfield that there is any change of course in the future.

It seems that our elected officials have been something less than good stewards with the state’s finances and yet they are again asking for more. Is there any reason to believe that there will be different results? Until proven otherwise, it is time for the citizens of Illinois to say enough to the government bloat, waste, and incompetence. To our elected officials, read our lips and count our votes: no new taxes.

TAKE ACTION: Click HERE to send an email or a fax to your state representative and state senator to let them know what you think of the effort to make the “temporary” income tax hike permanent.  The voters of Illinois expect their elected officials to keep their promises. Let them know that you oppose any new tax increases when they refuse to cut government waste and bloat. 

You can also call your lawmakers through the Capitol Switchboard at (217) 782-2000. 

 Stand with Illinois Family Institute!

Thanks to Illinois Senators Heather Steans (D-Chicago), Mattie Hunter (D-Chicago), David Koehler (D-Peoria), Iris Martinez (D-Chicago), and Pat McGuire (D-Joliet), the Equal Rights Amendments (SJRCA 75) is rearing its ugly, genderless head again. These lawmakers, at the urging of Governor Patrick Quinn, have re-introduced a proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to eradicate sex as a legitimate characteristic on which to base reasonable distinctions. In other words, these “progressive” lawmakers would like it to be impermissible for any organization, policy, or law to take into account the very real and important differences between men and women.

This amendment would add these words to the U.S. Constitution: “Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex.” Of course, no one wants the rights of men or women to be denied or abridged, but that’s not really what concerns the proponents of the ERA. What they really want to do is promote their assumption that differences between men and women are irrelevant accidents of birth and that in all contexts men and women should be treated as not merely equal in value but identical in nature. While proponents claim this bill is needed to protect women, note that nowhere in the text of the bill is the word “woman” or “women” even mentioned.

Like all ambiguously written laws, the ERA sounds reasonable enough. “Progressives” toss in a reference to equality to bills designed to serve a host of troubling Leftist goals and hope non-thinking constituents will ignore the future applications of the bill.

But before patriotic visions of suffragettes begin dancing in your heads, spend a moment ruminating on these future applications of the ERA—the ones that Leftists don’t mention:

1. Abortion–The ERA could be used to effectively nullify or invalidate laws that restrict tax-funded abortion. The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) explains that multiple legal experts, including state supreme courts, have argued that the language of the ERA “makes it unconstitutional for…Medicaid programs to refuse to fund ‘medically necessary’ abortions (which just means, abortions performed by licensed medical professionals) if procedures sought by men (e.g., prostate surgery) are funded.”

 A New Mexico Supreme Court judge wrote that “there is no comparable restriction on medically necessary services relating to physical characteristics or conditions that are unique to men. Indeed, we can find no provision in the Department’s regulations that disfavor any comparable, medically necessary procedure unique to the male anatomy… [the restriction on funding abortions] undoubtedly singles out for less favorable treatment a gender-linked condition that is unique to women.” This judge neglected to mention the inconvenient presence of preborn babies that render abortion wholly different from any “medical procedure unique to the male anatomy.”

Further, the NRLC writes that “This same analysis—that limits on abortion are by definition a form of sex discrimination and therefore impermissible under ERA—will be used to invalidate laws requiring parental notification or consent for minors’ abortions; any federal or state restrictions even on partial-birth abortions or third-trimester abortions; and federal and state ‘conscience laws,’ which allow government-supported medical facilities and personnel—including religiously affiliated hospitals—to refuse to participate in abortions.”

The ACLU writes, “Hundreds of bills that place limitations and restrictions on vital reproductive health care services [i.e., abortion] have been passed by Congress and state legislatures. The Equal Rights Amendment would provide another important weapon in the battle to resist this legislative onslaught aimed at destroying women’s rights to make their own reproductive decisions.”  

2. Homosexualilty— The ERA would effectively integrate so-called “rights” based on same-sex attraction (i.e., “gay rights”) into the U.S. Constitution.  The ERA would most certainly be used to invalidate state laws and constitutional amendments establishing marriage as a sexually complementary union.

3. Gender confusion/Gender Identity Disorder–The ERA would be used to invalidate any laws or policies that prohibit gender-confused men and women from using restrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms designated for the opposite sex.  

4. Education–The ERA could affect education in the following ways:

The ERA could be used to compel single-sex schools and colleges to be coeducational.

It could be used to compel public middle and high school and college single-sex athletic programs to be coed.

The ERA could be used to compel fraternities, sororities, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA, YWCA, and even mother-daughter and father-son school events to be open to the opposite sex.

Since the ERA seeks to apply the same rules to sex that apply to race, the ERA jeopardizes the tax-exempt status of even private religious schools and colleges that in some contexts treat males and females differently. For example, if a Christian college is not permitted to house different races separately, it wouldn’t be permitted to house men and women separately without risking its tax-exempt status.  In this context, the comparison of race to biological sex fails in that while there are no substantive differences in nature between people of different races, there are significant differences in nature between men and women.

5. Military–The ERA could be used to invalidate the exemption for women from draft registration and conscription.

6. Government power–Section II of the ERA states that “The Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article.” Eagle Forum explains that “Section II of ERA would give enormous new powers to the Federal Government that now belong to the states. ERA would give Congress the power to legislate on all those areas of law which include traditional differences of treatment on account of sex: marriage, property laws, divorce and alimony, child custody, adoptions, abortion, homosexual laws, sex crimes, private and public schools, prison regulations, and insurance. ERA would thus result in the massive redistribution of powers in our Federal system.”

To ratify this proposed amendment, “progressives” are attempting to circumvent deadlines that expired over three decades ago on the supposedly moribund ERA. The ERA, first introduced in 1972, had a seven-year deadline for ratification, which, by a Congressional resolution was extended another three years. 

The proposed ERA amendment needs 38 states for passage. By its final deadline in 1982, it had the approval of only 35 states, so supporters developed the “three-state strategy” which seeks to avoid returning the issue to all 50 states.  In effect, Quinn and his legislative accomplices are claiming that since the ERA was extended once, deadlines can be extended in perpetuity. In other words, deadlines, like Obamacare regulations, can be ignored at the whim of “progressives.”

Quinn’s pals defend their strategy to pass the ERA by comparing it to the passage of the twenty-seventh amendment to the U.S. Constitution 203 years after it was proposed. They fail to mention, however, that the twenty-seventh Amendment, unlike the ERA, did not have a ratification deadline.

Proponents of the ERA also argue that because the ERA ratification deadline was in the preamble rather than the body of the ERA, it’s essentially irrelevant and non-binding. But the Congressional Research Service explains the following:

In the case of the 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd Amendments, the “sunset” ratification provision was incorporated in the body of the amendment itself. For subsequent amendments, however, Congress determined that inclusion of the time limit within its body “cluttered up” the proposal. Consequently, all but one of the subsequently proposed amendments proposed later (the 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th, and the ERA) placed the limit in the preamble, rather than in the body of the amendment itself.

It’s important to note that prior to the ratification deadline, five states had sought to rescind their approval of the ERA. The Supreme Court of the United States was poised to take up their cases when the deadline took effect at which point the Court held that their cases were moot. If the deadline is now rendered moot by liberal lawmakers, one would assume that those states that sought to rescind their approval would be able to proceed with their pursuit of “rescission of acts of ratification.” In other words, it would seem that those states that wished to rescind their approval of the ERA would be able to pursue that effort because their pursuit ended based on the legal legitimacy of the ratification deadline.

Oh, what tangled webs, “progressives” weave…

Take ACTION: Please CLICK HERE to contact your state senator to ask them to vote AGAINST the Equal Rights Amendment, SJRCA 75. The ERA will not help women. Instead, it will harm women, their families, and our society.

You can also call your state senator and ask him/her to vote NO to SJRCA 75 by calling the Capitol switchboard number at: (217) 782-2000.

 Stand with Illinois Family Institute!

I’m not a Progressive. At all. I don’t favor censorship. I believe that the principles of free-market capitalism are so intrinsic to this world that they can even be applied to non-economic areas of social interaction. I support liberty and always will… BUT, I think it’s time we eradicate a couple of phrases from the English lexicon, permanently.

Language is the barometer of a civilization’s intellect. The more creative, industrious, and intellectual a civilization is, the richer its language. Conversely, the more menial and banal the civilization becomes, its changing language becomes a reflection of that.

Imagine yourself, a lonely Sherpa from the mountains of Nepal. Aside from the occasional rich Yankee who hires you to schlep his bags from base camp to peak and back, you might not have much exposure to American culture. Now imagine that you save up your rupees for years until you can afford to buy a television with Chromecast. While you’re catching up on your favorite American television shows and sports events, what would become readily apparent is that we are a nation of idiots who all say the same things.

One of the first things you’d hear is the phrase, “It is what it is.” Has there ever, in the history of the spoken word, been a more idiotic phrase than this? It conveys zero information. I don’t know 1 iota more than I did before I heard these words and yet this phrase is parroted far and wide. The funny thing is that whenever these wise words are spoken, the listener often nods thoughtfully, as if contemplating some existential truth.

I know that “It is what it is” is meant to suggest a zen-like stoicism in the face of adversity, but it doesn’t. It makes you sound like a dillweed and indicates you would have trouble in a mental tug-of-war with The Situation from Jersey Shore.

The second cultural indicator with which you would be barraged in your Sherpa-Pad is “YOLO”. It has nothing to do with the Smothers Brothers or a green Jedi Master. The acronym stands for You Only Live Once and much like “It is what it is”, this phrase is legion. You’ll find it everywhere from Twitter, to clothing, to restaurants. Not only is this meme annoying, but it is foolish.

The same mentality which seizes YOLO as a transformational motto is the same mentality which is drawn to technological entities like SnapChat, which is a messaging application which allows you to send a temporary message that is deleted permanently after a few seconds.

The recurrent theme with these two rabidly-popular cultural phenomena is the jettisoning of inhibition. The underlying message really is, ‘The future doesn’t matter and there is nothing beyond this existence’. This is nothing new, just new packaging. The call to ignore your conscience in favor of immediate gratification is as old as dirt. It’s just been given a sheen of romantic fatalism and main-lined into the social media hivemind via #YOLO.

The troubling aspect of this virulent meme is its glorification of impulsivity. Given the downward trending development of the average American teenager, the lionization of YOLO should serve both as a troubling bellwether of hazards ahead as well as a confirmation of damage already done. Generations of Americans are being deliberately stripped of the ability to recognize or utilize logic, thanks to Big Education.

At the same time, rapacious ad agencies and media moguls are filling their minds with insatiable, materialist lust. Along comes YOLO and Snapchat to offer the penultimate justification: “Not only should you rid yourself of outdated moral parameters, but it’s time to eat and drink for tomorrow we die.”