We Need Marriage Like We Need Yachts

“to a state-sponsored economic policy of redistributing wealth upwards”

There is an old saying that it is better to remain quiet and be perceived a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. I think our friend Laurie ought to stop exposing her economic ignorance. Just what policy redistributes wealth upwards? It cannot be our progressive income tax because the tip 1% already pays 38% of our total personal income tax collections. So then what is our policy that redistributes income upward?

Laurie Essig wrote:

“That Americans who have suffered the most in the ‘new’ economy have retreated from marriage and that Americans who have benefited the most have embraced it should not be seen as a moral failing, but a human response to what is necessary and what isn’t.”

Or maybe our columnist needs to realize that correlation is not the same as causation. (I see that problem a lot in this column.) Essig notably believes that this is a “human response to what is necessary and what isn’t.” She also wrote about the paramount importance of “food security, access to a reasonable public education and medical care are to the well-being of children.” I see no argument here that marriage does not help parents provide this for their children? I do think that the correlation between income and marriage rates deserves more investigation, but what we have here is pure speculation.

If the decline in marriage in Middle America were a “human response to what is necessary and what isn’t,” don’t you think the unmarried would have found a better way to provide for themselves and their children? Where an alternative might have been proposed, there is a gaping vacuum. I don’t think marriage is necessary for all people, but circumstances seem to make it highly beneficial to many individuals.

And I’m pretty sure our culture does not subscribe to “Marriage is good, always. Having children without being married is bad, always.” Where has our columnist been since Dan Quayle got ridiculed for the Murphy Brown debacle?

“And let’s not forget that these poor folks in the 1% were being taxed at rates far higher than they are now just 20 years ago. And let us not forget that same 1% OWNS almost 40% of the wealth in this country. Shouldn’t they pay taxes on that?

That said, the discussion with you probably won’t go very much farther, as I’m sure you are morally opposed to progressive taxation (as in those that have the most should give back the most).”

Actually, if you bother to look at the statistics, back in 1986 the top 1% of taxpayers paid about 26% of all personal income tax receipts, today it is almost 40%. That is quite a significant jump. The real question is what percent is enough? Would you accept a smaller marginal rate at the top in exchange the the richest paying a larger percent of the total?

I am not necessarily opposed to a progressive income tax, but I think our whole system needs to be overhauled. For example, we need to eliminate most itemized deductions, such as the mortgage interest deduction. The wealthy disparately benefits from this deduction and it funnels investment into the nonproductive sector of the economy.

While it took me years of contemplation, I can no longer justify arguments that would continue to use the law to ban gay marriages. The bottom line, how are the most strident homophobe’s daily lives affected if two committed individuals chose to form a life long bond?

The real social issue is casual sex resulting in children (especially for young teenage mothers — the younger the more dangerous). Parenting is the ultimate responsibility, and children are best served by two loving parents where mothers and fathers each serve a unique roll in the child’s upbringing.

A myriad of social disasters have born-out-of-wedlock children at the heart of the issue. Young women, committed to children, find their growth in education and career preparation cut short, often reducing their earning power, and thus raising children in poverty. How much of gang culture and the young man’s pursuit of male bonding, in essence, the alpha-male persona and more, are the result of young men with no real fatherly influence.

Talk to teachers who teach these kids and hear their war stories if they’ll drop the veneer of political correctness and “Who are we to judge” nonsense.

We live in a society where people seem to believe anything they can do and want to do, they should be allowed to do so, and curses on anyone who would criticize their behavior. The critic becomes the “blanky-blanky phobic.” The irresponsible self indulgent person who has children out of wedlock or out of a context which provides TWO parents is enobled.

Yes, some single mothers deserve sainthood status. They do succeed at the duties remarkably well and make sacrifices beyond belief to give their kids the best of everything one person can provide.

Whether you accept God made us a certain way — two sexes wih some unique qualities for a reason or you accept certain aspects of growing up and maturing and human beings has us hardwired to have certain needs, the institution of marriage is the fundemental building block of our culture and when that stucture doesn’t exist, all that builds upon it — families, communities, towns and cities, states, and even the national government who wind up inventing all kinds of social programs to address the consequences, the secular notion of anything goes that doesn’t criticize our twisted secular ideology is just fine.

Surely, my weighing in on this subject apart from supporting same-sex marriage will have some labelling me as sexist, reactionary, bigotted, a religious nut (though I professed no alliance with any specific religion), or just a good old conservative nut case or hater. Fine — I’ll put the doctrine of personal responsibility up against political correctness and contempt for he well-to-do any day.

Abstinance is a responsible (though very difficult) pursuit. Having children without regard to awesome responsibility it repreents is STUPID. People should be held accountable for the consequences of their decisions. Part of education must be demonstrating the consequences of certain choices and not sustaining an anything goes ethos.

None of these issues can be fully understood without taking into consideration the consequences of one’s decision.

Chosing not to marry and have children anyway might not be “evil” but there are plenty of young ladies who chose to have babies or engage in unprotected sex who could be making the most idiotic decisions of their lives. Can we not any longer tell young people that they would be absolute nutcases to have children without finishing high school, without considering how the father can be actively engaged in the child’s life, any many other issues?

We’ve heard the excuses, “I had a baby because I wanted somebody I knew would love me.” “I know if I have a child I won’t be lonely.” Some notions would be just as stupid as if someone were deciding to have a dog, a cat, or even a gold fish, but one can flush a gold fish down the toilet with no fault. There animal shelters for dogs or cats — oops, we have a lot of stray animals because people made stupid decisions and then just abandon their pets. The way some treat their children isn’t that much better and society can see the results.

Go ahead, make my day, rip my warped ideas to pieces.

Re pocvecem:

Believe it or not, I wasn’t trying to make a point, generally, I was just trying to throw some unmentioned and underattended-to things into the mix.

But, yes, there was one point. Correlation is not necessarily causation. We all learn that in Whatever 101. Sometimes, though, when combined with a little common sense, everyday experience and just a soupçon of imagination (not “Inception,” just “Yeah, I could see that”) correlation does seem to provide the best answer as to cause. When the economy tanks and jobs are hard to find, more young men enlist in the military. The tanked economy and lack of jobs correlates with military enlistments. Sure, there could be other factors: a sudden fashion for patriotism, or enlistment commercials on UFC telecasts. And lengthy, precise interviews with enlistees could tweak the result some. But the tanked economy and lack of jobs and increased military enlistments are just coincidence?

@ amnirov,

“All I know is that I’m a top ten percent wage earner and I am sick and tired of paying disproportionately excessive taxes to support people who lack education or employable skills and yet who have children they cannot afford. In this climate, we should cut welfare programs and funnel money to students and active job seekers. Let’s focus efforts on people who show promise of productivity.”

You should define some things for readers here with these statements:

First, tell us why your wage earning status is relevant to your own personal feelings of paying taxes (where wage and asset disparities have worsened to 70 year high). When things are well, you don’t mind? Or is it that you want off the tax paying ship, when the weather is choppy?

Second, why are you so sick and tired now (as if this is a new feeling and you have at one point in time believed that we Americans are in this together)?

Third, please discuss disproportionately excessive taxes. Educate us about what these terms mean as well as account for the rising costs in healthcare, education and commodities prices and who should take on their burden (at a time when corporate taxes are at an all time low).

Fourth, illuminate us on your understanding of where your tax dollars go (local, state and federal). Its not enough to say you pay too much in taxes and then blame under performing individuals when we know that graft and fraud takes place at many local and state levels (see Birmingham Alabama) as well as kickbacks to corporations.

Fifth, so your idea is cut off the deadwood in the economy and double down support to those who seem the most promising (the ones who already have resources). How does this help move our country along without creating an even more bifurcated and risky investment.

* What are the test scores for schoolchildren in Sweden, compared to those in the US?

* Does the Government being “Mommy and Daddy” include having public schools at all?

* “…even though [income levels] are important.” How important?

* “…no amount of spending-per-pupil can TOTALLY overcome that disadvantage.” [Emphasis mine]

* Does the state actually “substitute” itself for parents in Sweden? (Kibbutzes are a comparatively tiny phenomenon, and there practically no really “communist countries” left other than Cuba and North Korea. And those communist countries that fell, fell for reasons other than their parenting policies.)

* “If the child lives in a chaotic home environment with no stable caregivers where learning is denigrated or ignored…” Chaotic home environments are often caused by poverty–constant moving, living in shelters, both parents working a couple of bad jobs, latch-key kids. “Learning…ignored” often owes to poverty, too: no books, no homework help from overworked parents, no tools such as laptops, etc.

* “…parenting and the cultural encouragement of learning (or lack of it) are more important for academic success than income levels…” So if these things are lacking in a kid’s life, and the Government shouldn’t become “Mommy and Daddy” by trying to help out, who’s going to do it–the free market? Or do we just let those kids sink?

gypsyboots,

“In fact, recent studies of the poor academic performance of low-income black males are finally beginning to acknowledge what many have long known: parenting and the cultural encouragement of learning (or lack of it) are more important for academic success than income levels, even though those are important.”

You make a distinction into distinct and separate categories (parenting and cultural encouragement) and (income levels)…. However, you are missing the inter-connectivity between how money and culture interact… Income is just one measure of financial health, but lets’ stick to it since you seem so sure of the findings you refer to.

Healthcare costs, commodities, college tuition and housing (circa 1995-2006)were all significantly higher the inflation rate. The loss of many skilled job opportunities means that many have to worker longer for less or find alternative employment. The trans-generational resources (family babysitting, emergency $$$ and role models/personal contacts connected to power) are not plentiful for working class families. At the precise same time, public money is being converted into privatized pockets of wealth affecting public resources like (YMCA, Libraries, Schools, Community Agencies etc). Not having enough time, money or resources is intimately connected to parental encouragement or oversight of the educational process. It would be hard to separate these into categories and draw these conclusion in a culture that espouses time is money. Explain yourself!

Second there are so many more measures than just income affecting family support of student education just in a financial sense. How about assets or liabilities? How about trans-generational wealth affecting academic success? How about their FICO score (ability to access cheap credit)? How about their family patterns around money (addiction, debt, & investing in the future)….. Since we don’t have a national financial literacy program, why do we expect people to figure it out on their own while we have banks, hedge funds and corporations guilty of defrauding average families across the country? I wonder if your the conclusions deviates from reality looking for one essential aspect of the N for black males in this society when there are more obvious explanations…..

Please list some of the recent studies and authors so that we may assess the compartmentalization of one construct (income) and compare it to such a large theme of parental encouragement of academic success….

Re 22097984:

Thanks for the answers. I’m sure that gypsyboots is grateful.

Some follow-up:

* I wasn’t asking if in Sweden there’s a strong correlation between family structure and pupils’ test scores. (I was asking if the state by being, according to gypsyboots, a “substitute parent” on a magnitude not seen in the U.S., had driven its kids’ test scores below ours.

* Would 22097984′s voucher system consists of Government, taxpayer-financed vouchers for the full tuition of any school that the kid can get into? Or is it the usual $3,000 – $6,000 toward, say, a $25,000 tuition at a private school? (That’s nice if you’ve got the $19,000 – $22,000 rest.) One of the criticisms of voucher systems is that they amount to subsidies for the relatively affluent that will make the schools for those who can afford to pay little or no tuition even worse. Is this the education front in the war to “starve the beast”?

* The “official government policy” in Sweden in 22097984′s description seems to have to do with how things are done in school, not at home. In my experience, the experience of my kids and my friends and their kids is that some kind of government entity determines how things are done in public schools. Also, a “very large and long civics section” is something usually advocated by education conservatives i this country.

* I take it that 22097984 means to indicate that income levels below $85,000 annual family income don’t have much of an effect on ACT scores–only about a tenth of a point or a little more on an average total score of 25 per $10,000 increment. Or was 22097984 talking percentages in “.25-.35″? Side note: If one parent has a minimum-wage job (and a lot do–what does one think Mom gets as a cashier at the dollar store?), an $85,000 family income isn’t–gosh–all that easy to come by. Another side note: I’m educated (yes, really) and I didn’t know these stats. “A[n] educated person should know this” is gratuitious.

* “TOTALLY” and “Conclude what?” I thought I could leave it at implication: That increased per-pupil-spending (or making everybody take Latin, or suspending pupils for three flunked tests, or corporeal punishment, or school uniforms, or…) will not, of course, TOTALLY “overcome that disadvantage.”

* Asking the question whether the Government policy will encourage more of what it’s trying to alleviate is indeed fair. But so is the question of, “Is the Government going to say, ‘We could help you out, but to do so would only encourage others to need help, so we’re not going to”? The old saw about poverty, “If you want more of something, subsidize it,” plays a nice trick on the word “subsidize.” “Subsidizing” poverty isn’t done by making poverty less than absolutely unbearable; it’s done by making people poor. And Government policies other than about welfare (e.g., outsourcing, creating a service and FIRE economy, credit-card usury, race-to-the-bottom wage policies, etc.) have a lot to do with that.

Still waiting to hear back from rbannist–who’s possibly in shock from not having his “warped ideas” “rip[ped] to pieces”–on abortion.

Experience and imagination are among the bases for knowledge. Not the only ones, but bases. And yes, there’s a consider-the-source element at work…just as there is with, oh, stats from the Cato Institute.

Would that there were a cause-and-effect relation to pocvecem’s reciting “correlation is not causation” and people not forgetting it. Right now, there’s not even a correlation.

And I’m glad rbannist has friends who have his back.

First, rbannist’s saying, “Having children without regard to awesome responsibility it represents is STUPID. People should be held accountable for the consequences of their decisions,” and “there are plenty of young ladies who chose to have babies or engage in unprotected sex who could be making the most idiotic decisions of their lives…Can we not any longer tell young people that they would be absolute nutcases to have children without finishing high school,” and “The way some treat their children isn’t that much better and society can see the results” seem to me–and, I would aver, to most reasonable people–a regarding with repugnance and disgust (two definitions of “abhor”) the phenomenon of young people having babies out of wedlock and the kids’ being raised by “single moms.” “Abhor” is not only not an “incredibly strong” word to describe rbannist’s expressed regard, it’s not even merely “strong.” It’s accurate, that’s what it is.

And if, as, pocvecem suspects (ah, there’s that ol’ imagination at work!), rbannist would agree with him that abortion is substantially worse than single parenthood, then there’s got to be an even stronger word than “abhor” for that particular opinion.

Yes, I’ve heard of adoption, and unless one wants to make it as easy as buying Canadian drugs on the Internet, it’s a complicated process. Certainly, single moms can give up their newborns for adoption. But not a lot want to. Biology, bonding, etc., stuff that predates most American social conventions. (I suppose if there were no public assistance and the choice were between the baby actually starving or freezing and giving it up for adoption, we could kick up the supply a little to reduce the wait. Or maybe even have the authorities confiscate the babies for adoption, with poor single motherhood in itself constituting de facto “abuse.”) In short, adoption may be a solution for individual cases, but it can’t be made widespread enough to really put a dent in the problem rbannist abhors.

But I’d like to hear from the real rbannist.

The findings in the Time article don’t really square with my experience. I would have guessed that the decline in marriage rates would have been significant in upper-class, educated groups who seem to be eschewing marriage in favor of co-habitation and having children without a marriage license. What was once “living in sin” and often a marker of social class has now become socially progressive and acceptable. Moreover, successful female professionals are less likely to need to be married as they are likely to outearn potential male mates, so that has removed some pressure to marry. My general observation is that marriage is no longer a prerequisite to social respectability among educated, affluent people, but it looks like Time’s data is proving me wrong . . .

Further response: That the “horse is out of the barn” as far as pervasive receational sex is concerned, maybe things are out of control right now, but this isn’t the kind of social phenomenon which presents the “you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube” situation.

I would like to see those responsible for raising young people to first set good examples avoiding “do as I say not as I do” conduct. Further I believe from the earliest time when children are first beginning to develop moral and cultural values, the sanctity of human life, the positive virtues of the family, and the consequences of at risk behavior are reinforced. This is by no means arguing for some kind of fundementalist upbringing. It’s not. It’s a doctrine of individual responsibility and respect for others. I assure the reader, if the family as a basic unit is threatened, then so are the larger structures that maintain our society.

On another note, I would like to see the numbers or percentages on failed owner-yacht relationships (trade ins, sales, wreckage, foreclosure etc)….

Some words I don’t spell correctly, and don’t realize it. Some words I have a hunch I might be spelling incorrectly, but am in too much of a hurry to use spell-check or a dictionary. And some misspellings, such as “pegnant” are obviously typos. But a) I don’t misspell so egregiously that the points of my comments fail to come across, b) what I post on these threads aren’t article manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals; they’re not even paid content as are the OPs, and c) typo gotchas are–consensus on all “Brainstorm” threads almost since the site’s inception–held to be the lowest, most petty form of criticism. (But since t_paine effectively says in closing that even if I spelled absolutely correctly, he wouldn’t think that I can think, his raising of the spelling issue is gratuitous, just like typo gotchas.)

The most conspicuous “tinfoil-hat crowd” I see these days are wearing tricorns.

And now, back to the substance of the OP and the other comments…

Rbannist’s comment is reasonable and thoughtful. Marriage–in the sense of a couple (same-sex, opposite-sexes, makes no difference to me) legally bound in the raising of children–is generally a good idea. And monogamy–the remains of “The Playboy Philosophy,” “dude”culture, and the alleged empowerment of the female version of dude culture notwithstanding–isn’t all that bad for the right people. (I’m one of them: married for a long time and quite happy with it.)

But the institution has lots and lots of problems. The first is divorce. We well know the consequences of making divorce difficult or disgraceful; those consequences are even worse in a highly urban and mobile, industrial and postindustrial society. On the other hand, making divorce as simple as returning a purchased item to a department store renders it fairly meaningless. Then there’s the religious aspect, which gets us all kinds of baggage as to who can or cannot be married. (Not to mention the intrusion of clergy into legal matters, but I concede that’s a minor problem that grates only on nonbelievers such as I.) And finally, on this abbreviated list, is the huge improbability of, say, a 26-year-old male actually having sex with only one woman for the remainder of his sexually active life, likely about 45 years. (I hear tell that fidelity is less and less likely for women, too.) <> “an understanding,” or an “open marriage” work a lot better in theory than in practice.

“Promoting the value of marriage”? How? The carrot (removing the tax code’s “marriage penalty,” Government-enforced maternity and paternity leave as in some of those awful “socialist” European countries, a public-service ad campaign, more TV shows like “Bridezillas,” de facto acceptability of the Victorian practice of husbands having mistresses or going to prostitutes on the side)? Or the stick (reviving the stigma of “shacking up” and “living in sin,” reviving the disgrace of being an “unwed mother” and having “illegitimate” children, reviving anti-fornication laws)?

The paradox is, of course, that in concrete fact marriage is more popular among well-heeled preppy liberals who might get married in the midtown Episcopal church, the one with the female minister, than it is among struggle working-class couples who might be joined by a Baptist preacher in a “family values” red state.

If a way could be found to make the reproductive act just slightly painful, or if people could be default infertile until they passed a couple of tests, as for a driver’s license, the incidence of defenseless children being raised in bad circumstances might be reduced. But neither of those things is likely to happen.

Re pocvecem:

Adoption is a nice thing, and it does somewhat mitigate the problem unwanted children. But even if the complications, frustrations, and long waits attendant to trying to adopt–which have mostly to do with screening and the selectivity of people wanting to adopt–were mostly eliminated, the number of adoptions would still be a small fraction of the number of unwanted children. Couples tend to want to have their own biological children and if they can’t will as often as not do without rather than adopt somebody else’s. And if abortion were outlawed, that would mean another million children per year being born, which would further outstrip the country’s ability and willingness to adopt.

Way back in rbannist’s first comment (I’m a grizzled ol’ male, BTW, so one needn’t waste the “his or hers” on me), rbannist said:

“We’ve heard the excuses, ‘I had a baby because I wanted somebody I knew would love me.’ ‘I know if I have a child I won’t be lonely.’ Some notions would be just as stupid as if someone were deciding to have a dog, a cat, or even a gold fish, but one can flush a gold fish down the toilet with no fault. There animal shelters for dogs or cats — oops, we have a lot of stray animals because people made stupid decisions and then just abandon their pets. The way some treat their children isn’t that much better and society can see the results.”

Rbannist is clearly referring to single mothers. He equates their decisions to have children (in the cases where they do decide) as being as lightly taken as deciding to get a pet, and he compares the consequences with abandoning pets. In essence, rbannist makes poor single women having kids and trying to raise them alone a kind of child abuse. I may be overstating a bit, but I think this is a fair summation. I’m giving rbannist the benefit of the doubt in thinking that the concern is not solely for the mothers’ cutting short their educations, and that rbannist has some concern for the fate of their children.

Finally, in speculating about “mak[ing] the reproductive act just slightly painful” and people default infertile, I must say there’s a big “Duh!” about pocvecem’s reply to it. STDs don’t make the reproductive act (known in scientific circles as schtuping) painful at the time of the act. And males aren’t default infertile on account of condoms, unless they wear them 24/7, adhered with Cra-Z-Glu or duct tape. (Did granddad ever explain these things to pocvecem?)

Why can’t we accept that one should reach a certain level of maturity before it is responsible to have a child? Having thought kids unable to attend regular day school relegated to night classes which are also where the kids expelled for drugs, weapons, and other nasty behavior atteneded, and seeing how quickly the allure of motherhood was wearing off and causing real suffering, how can our cultural institutions not work tirelessly to help get kids on the right path and avoid premature parenthood?

Not mentioned is the foster care system that deals with many of these children. These systems are often spread so thin, not properly funded, poorly managed, but thank God some foster parents should be candidates for sainthood for what they do for some kids from some very difficult situations.

Even the brightest kids from the most advantaged backgrounds are still so impressionable in their mid-teens. Remove the advantages they are blessed with and the situation can be tragic.

Can we not get back to where adults express concrete expectations of children, and that there absolutely are “rights” and “wrongs” that there are some core values that if observed will lead to a much more satisfying, responsible and successful life?

We live in a world of instant gratification — if it feels good do it — consequences be damned. Social behavior has become subject to such extreme relativism and the “who are we to judge” ethos.

I’m certainly not advocating an “Ozzie and Harriet” world but kids will be as responsible as their parents are and their parents expect them to be. Sure, many things have changed. While there still is racism and sexism in society, the roll of women and minorities in society has changed tremendously. The birth control pill has changed a lot of sexual expectations. We’re finally beginning to accept alternative sexual preferences.

None of these argue against promoting the highest degres of responsibility nor does it make marriage any less of a desirable lifestyle for a large majority of the public.

We’ve gone through tremendous technological and social change that our ability to define morality and responsiblity has lagged behind. That doesn’t make the pursuit unworthy. It also doesn’t justify the extremist backlash of the extreme religious right with their “one size fits all” moral prescriptions for all.

I’m not sure the stats on “unintended” births are valid, but let’s say they are. A child born in a stable family unit will enjoy so many benefits a child out of wedlock would be extremely fortunate to realize.

While it might deviate from typical conservative points-of-view, I don’t see our society in as much a state of moral decline as I do a state of redefinition. As such, I will use my little voice to advocate those things I would hope would continue to be the fabric of our society in the future.

What goes on between consenting adults is largely their business but adults also must be mature enough to realize all behavior has consequences. That we allow the consumption of liquor but don’t legalize marijuana seems insanely hypocritical. Why not legalize pot. Tax it. Then go head on against the hard drug trade who’s entre into the market will be destroyed. Unfortunately, the conservative “drug free America” crowd cannot accept that marijuana is no more a gateway drug than drinking water is to alcohol abuse. Drugs being illegal puts the user in touch with those who market the nasty stuff. When kids realize they lied to them about pot, hmm, maybe smack and crack aren’t so bad are they?

Oh yes they are, but we don’t have the moral authority to define the issue because marijuana is not that nasty and who wouldn’t rather be around someone who smoked too much pot than someone who drank too much?

While we look at changes in sexual morality, in the meantime, there are strong efforts now to encourage nutrition, exercise, and wellness.

We as citizens need to define our moral standards, live by them, and serve as modest models for others. Let’s keep the government out of it as much as possible. However, the media and entertainment industry need to clean up their acts. We need more responsible journalism. We need huge improvement in how schools deal with behavior where some rather mild behaviors can get serious punishment under “Zero tolerance” while other absolutely rotten forms of conduct go unchecked. Kids have to divine the right way to act in that kind of environment?

Recognizing the virtues of marriage is one of the building blocks of a responsible American society.

Goxewu -

I think I wouldn’t know how to react if a homosexual were to call a partner and me “breeders.” I guess a part of me would love the uninhibited straight talk and irony in the comment, but furthermore, it has a creepy way of putting a lot of things into perspective. Sexual morality through the ages has been grounded so deeply in the perpetuation of the human species in the best ways conceivable at any particular point in time. Clearly, since the 1960′s, we’re going through an era of moral redefinition. We’re sorting out the keepers versus those notions that are outmoded.

While some things might be against our better judgment, those behaviors are no place for the law to step in or for society to brand someone. The traditional concept of “sinner” has become, thankfully, quite distasteful in most contexts.

We seem to have a moral commitment to help the defenseless and provide the best possibilities for the next generation (how our elected leaders are failing us in that regard loading them with trillions of debt they will pay for because of our excesses), so it it with this understanding that I defend the nuclear family as an essential building block of society and that in most circumstances, the willing decision to become a single parent is not responsible. It doesn’t make such a person, a bad person, but that person has made a choice that will have ENORMOUS consequences that are extremely difficult to realize for the well-being of the child.

I hate the business of prescribing morality aside from the absolute most obvious. Most are way too judgmental and often give the believer a false sense of superiority over others. Still, I think our schools, churches, and social institutions should defend traditional marriage as the right choice for raising children.