Light in the darkness: National Review’s Rich Lowery wrote about marriage and out-of-wedlock births in Time magazine this week. He noticed that most *Murphy Browns –i.e. successful, educated, accomplished, deliberate choice-makers –are, in fact, MARRIED –”a bastion of marital traditionalism. It is left to the poor and the working class to ignore age-old wisdom about how to order our lives and thereby [they] suffer the consequences.”
According to his article, ONLY 8 per cent of women with college degrees are unwed mothers –compared to 70% of high school drop-outs, 51% of high school grads, and 34% for those with some college. I remember when it was 1 out of 40 white girls who had unwed pregnancies –and 2 out of 5 black girls. Now it’s 29 per cent white, 53% latino, and 73 percent blacks –who have out of wedlock births.
Lowry suggested Michelle Obama should use her position to encourage kids to wait for marriage –instead of worrying about their weight.
He said, “The decline of marriage is our most ignored national crisis. As it continues to slide away, our country will become less just –and less mobile. (I assume he meant “upwardly mobile?”)
I can’t think the courts promotion of gay marriage as a right is going to help at all. More and more men are contemplating hedonism with each other instead of making families with women for whom they are designed. Homosexuality is the gift that keeps on giving! from one generation to another and not through parents as much as through gays themselves.
* Murphy Brown was a tv sitcom character 20 years ago who decided to bear a child, accidentally conceived out of wedlock. She figured she could raise it herself when she should have considered adoption. Vice President Dan Quayle was ridiculed (later vindicated) for being so out of touch and old-fashioned about women's rights to bear AND RAISE children, married or not, that he criticized Murphy Brown. He spoke of the importance of fathers to children. Culture war in politics is nothing new. Unfortunately we are at the tipping point where more people are immoral than moral --and want policies to support the immoral.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
Saturday, February 25, 2012
TIME MAG ON RICK SANTORUM'S INCONVENIENT TRUTHS
I was delighted to see a whole page in Time this week given to Rick Santorum's Inconvenient Truths --written by, of all people, Joe Klein (author of Primary Colors, a bio-novel about a couple like the Clintons.) Joe commended Santorum for his "sometimes eloquent," and "vigorous" defense on his controversial personal views. Rather than fumbling around to say "what I really meant was....", Santorum defends himself quite well when given the opportunity to speak.
I don't think Santorum opposes birth control in insurance or government programs --but he doesn't believe in it himself, as a devout Catholic --and he doesn't think Catholic institutions or their insurance should be forced by the state to provide it. He believes also in the right of conscience for individuals. (For sure, abortion is part of Obama's "women's health care" on the slippery slope. Obama twice voted for partial-birth/3rd trimester abortions which are always medically unnecesssary.)
Klein tells about Santorum having a baby born that survived only a couple of hours and how difficult the whole process was for his wife who nearly lost her life. Then he had the baby with the Trisomy 18 genetic defect that will end her life early.
About this child, Klein said he was "haunted by the smiling photos I've seen of Isabella with her father and mother, brothers and sisters. She has been granted three years of unconditional love and the ability to smile and bring joy. Her tenuous survival has given her family a deeper sense of how precious even the frailest of lives are.
Klein says yes, he supposes we should get to make our own choices about handicapped kids through pre-birth testing which Santorum religiously believes causes many abortions of Downs' Syndrome and other imperfect infants, and then Klein writes, "but I also worry that we've become too averse to personal inconvenience as a society --that we're less rigorous parents than we should be, that we've farmed out our responsibilities, especially for the disabled, to the state --and I'm grateful to Santorum for forcing on me the discomfort of having to think about the moral implications of his daughter's smile."
We need to realize a politician can hold beliefs which he doesn't desire to impose on everyone else. This is not an inconsistancy --it's a realization that not all our beliefs need to be public policy. But there are some religious beliefs we hold about culture which have very pragmatic implications for the future. Which should be encoded into law. We have more abortion because it's legal. We shall have more homosexuality, because we are trying to make it equal to heterosexuality as a lifestyle. We are not going to like the culture we get.
Watch for my review of another new Time magazine article I liked by the editor of National Review. On marriage before babies --by Rich Lowry.
_____________
I personally am not politically or religiously opposed to birth control, vasectomies and tubal ligations for those who have made several babies already, or who have health problems --though I wonder if there is any correlation to infertility these days with The Pill. But I understand a religion that thinks we should use natural family planning and otherwise let God give us all the babies he can. I understand their view that our sexuality is for procreation as well as one-flesh intimacy between man and wife. I understand their concerns for the Sovereignty of God.
These are areas about which we Christians agree to disagree. Abortion is taking innocent life for no good enough reasons. Abortion legality should ONLY be for life of mother, or maybe as a choice for the poster-child for abortion, the 12 year old rape victim. I know I would not have wanted my 12 year old daughters to have to experience pregnancy and birth from rape. I favor the rape kit at the hospital that does cleanse the womb of the foreign invasion. But those are my only 2 exceptions for "choice" --and they are really very rare.
I do think that manipulating one's fertility is a matter for the right of conscience --one way or another. We are co-laborers with God in all endeavors --maybe even family planning. But I don't think any insurance company or employer or the taxpayers should be required to cover contraception or abortion against their consciences. Most people will have some insurance choice, and can choose to have contraception coverage or not. Companies which provide pregnancy coverage are probably happy to pay for contraception. Catholic institutions are exceptions, and we hear that Catholics manage to use birth control anyway.
Obama's administration once more creates a controversy by defining "women's health" as having no babies. This controversy is designed to make all women feel abused by religion, abused if their insurance company pays for pregnancy but not contraception, and particularly abused by the GOP candidates who defend the Catholic Church. Media predicts the women's vote for Obama.
Not this woman!
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
I don't think Santorum opposes birth control in insurance or government programs --but he doesn't believe in it himself, as a devout Catholic --and he doesn't think Catholic institutions or their insurance should be forced by the state to provide it. He believes also in the right of conscience for individuals. (For sure, abortion is part of Obama's "women's health care" on the slippery slope. Obama twice voted for partial-birth/3rd trimester abortions which are always medically unnecesssary.)
Klein tells about Santorum having a baby born that survived only a couple of hours and how difficult the whole process was for his wife who nearly lost her life. Then he had the baby with the Trisomy 18 genetic defect that will end her life early.
About this child, Klein said he was "haunted by the smiling photos I've seen of Isabella with her father and mother, brothers and sisters. She has been granted three years of unconditional love and the ability to smile and bring joy. Her tenuous survival has given her family a deeper sense of how precious even the frailest of lives are.
Klein says yes, he supposes we should get to make our own choices about handicapped kids through pre-birth testing which Santorum religiously believes causes many abortions of Downs' Syndrome and other imperfect infants, and then Klein writes, "but I also worry that we've become too averse to personal inconvenience as a society --that we're less rigorous parents than we should be, that we've farmed out our responsibilities, especially for the disabled, to the state --and I'm grateful to Santorum for forcing on me the discomfort of having to think about the moral implications of his daughter's smile."
We need to realize a politician can hold beliefs which he doesn't desire to impose on everyone else. This is not an inconsistancy --it's a realization that not all our beliefs need to be public policy. But there are some religious beliefs we hold about culture which have very pragmatic implications for the future. Which should be encoded into law. We have more abortion because it's legal. We shall have more homosexuality, because we are trying to make it equal to heterosexuality as a lifestyle. We are not going to like the culture we get.
Watch for my review of another new Time magazine article I liked by the editor of National Review. On marriage before babies --by Rich Lowry.
_____________
I personally am not politically or religiously opposed to birth control, vasectomies and tubal ligations for those who have made several babies already, or who have health problems --though I wonder if there is any correlation to infertility these days with The Pill. But I understand a religion that thinks we should use natural family planning and otherwise let God give us all the babies he can. I understand their view that our sexuality is for procreation as well as one-flesh intimacy between man and wife. I understand their concerns for the Sovereignty of God.
These are areas about which we Christians agree to disagree. Abortion is taking innocent life for no good enough reasons. Abortion legality should ONLY be for life of mother, or maybe as a choice for the poster-child for abortion, the 12 year old rape victim. I know I would not have wanted my 12 year old daughters to have to experience pregnancy and birth from rape. I favor the rape kit at the hospital that does cleanse the womb of the foreign invasion. But those are my only 2 exceptions for "choice" --and they are really very rare.
I do think that manipulating one's fertility is a matter for the right of conscience --one way or another. We are co-laborers with God in all endeavors --maybe even family planning. But I don't think any insurance company or employer or the taxpayers should be required to cover contraception or abortion against their consciences. Most people will have some insurance choice, and can choose to have contraception coverage or not. Companies which provide pregnancy coverage are probably happy to pay for contraception. Catholic institutions are exceptions, and we hear that Catholics manage to use birth control anyway.
Obama's administration once more creates a controversy by defining "women's health" as having no babies. This controversy is designed to make all women feel abused by religion, abused if their insurance company pays for pregnancy but not contraception, and particularly abused by the GOP candidates who defend the Catholic Church. Media predicts the women's vote for Obama.
Not this woman!
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
Freedom of Worship or Freedom of Religion?
Source of my comments is Mark Steyn's article in National Review this month, titled The Church of Big Government.
President Obama and Hillary have been using the phrase, "Freedom of Worship," and this is suspected to be significantly different than "Freedom of Religion" or "free exercise." Governments don't care how we worship within the four walls of the church or in our homes, particularly, but they care about what we say and do in public --and what we say about homosexuality and abortion in particular --and whether or not we proselytize, evangelize, and try to influence public policy, etc.
Notice how the media jumped on Santorum's 2008 speech about the Devil and his hold on our nation. He was right --but everybody groaned, "O no --he can't get elected with biblical beliefs like that! a literal Satan? Come on!" It was a speech to a Catholic student audience.
Big Brother is the secular god, and he wants to provide everything for everybody --being "my brother's keeper," Obama said. Only thing is, it's not Obama who provides for his brother. In fact it was noted that his brother lives in Kenya, Africa, in a shack on $12 a year with no apparent help from Obama, his real brother, most powerful man in the world--who is comparatively rich.
Steyn notes that the Catholic Church has supported Obama's healthcare plan, failing to realize that "if you agitate for state health care, the state gets to define what health care is." And in Obamacare, the state defines women's healthcare as abortion, pharmaceutical abortion, condoms and birth control. And the Obama's "compromise" states that insurance companies should provide it free since the conscience of Catholic institutions forbids them to do it.
Steyn suggests Obama thinks we are all too stupid to realize that there is nothing that is free. People need to be paid for their labors and products, and the only money the state has comes from tax-payers --not Obama, our Brother's Keeper. The state makes no money; it only spends ours. So Obama would take our money paid to gov't or insurance companies and use it for his idea of women's healthcare--against the consciences of the taxpayers. It's socialistic redistribution of money from have-mores to have-lesses. Which never seems to work. Look at Europe. According to Steyn, both the EU nurseries and churches are empty; their retirees are 50, their students are 30 (living on the gov't) and the Muslims are bursting out of their ghettos gaining all sorts of respect for their consciences (lest they riot as in Afghanistan.)
E.G. England requires booties on sniff- dogs searching for terrorists in Muslim territory, because dogs are offensively unclean to Muslims. We bend over backward to accommodate their religious sensitivities (which is kind of us) but in the U.S., we are comparatively mean to Christians, fining bakers and photographers around $20,000 for refusing to do gay weddings.
Obama admires Europe's secular, socialist government which Steyn says EU leaders happily refer to as a "post-Christian Europe" --or "future post-Christian Europe." But look what's happening there (besides their financial problems) : a man in England named David Booker worked for a church homeless shelter and said to a colleague in private conversation that he didn't believe church vicars should be allowed to marry their gay partners. The colleague didn't object to his comment, but told on him and he was suspended and the hostel announced that "action has been taken to safeguard both residents and staff" from the dangerous, insulting idea that vicars (pastors) should not have gay partners.
In Canada, Hugh Owens took out an ad in a Canadian newspaper and they were fined $9000 by the government. That case has worked up to Canada's Supreme Court this year. Meanwhile, no newspaper will ever do what this one allowed Owens to do. He posted the scripture references (not the scriptures) to the verses against same-sex relations.
In 2003, the Vatican issued a ruminative document on homosexual unions. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties warned Catholic bishops that "distributing the statement could lead to prosecution under the 1989 incitement to hatred Act, and 6 months in the slammer."
Steyn mentioned the minister Ake Green who preached against homosexuality in Sweden and was convicted of "hate crimes" because, in 2002, Sweden criminalized criticism of homosexuality.
As Steyn says, "The state is willing to intrude on core rights--rights to property, rights of association, and even rights to private conversation."
He quotes Henri de Lubac in 1944 who said concerning WWII and its causes: "It is not true, as is sometimes said, that man cannot organize the world without God. What is true, is that, without God he can only organize it against man." Steyn notes that atheistic humanism became INhumanism in the hands of the Nazis and Communism. What we have in Europe today is "dehumanism" in which a culture is amusing itself to death, he says.
And so it is today that, more and more, the state in the US bullies the churches, the conscientious objectors, the evangelists, the Bible-preachers and believers who would dare try to influence culture and thus the state along the Biblical definitions of morality and life. Even conservative Bible-believers are content to fiddle while Rome burns, buying the church/state separation ideology that squeezes our cultural foundations behind the walls of the church.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
President Obama and Hillary have been using the phrase, "Freedom of Worship," and this is suspected to be significantly different than "Freedom of Religion" or "free exercise." Governments don't care how we worship within the four walls of the church or in our homes, particularly, but they care about what we say and do in public --and what we say about homosexuality and abortion in particular --and whether or not we proselytize, evangelize, and try to influence public policy, etc.
Notice how the media jumped on Santorum's 2008 speech about the Devil and his hold on our nation. He was right --but everybody groaned, "O no --he can't get elected with biblical beliefs like that! a literal Satan? Come on!" It was a speech to a Catholic student audience.
Big Brother is the secular god, and he wants to provide everything for everybody --being "my brother's keeper," Obama said. Only thing is, it's not Obama who provides for his brother. In fact it was noted that his brother lives in Kenya, Africa, in a shack on $12 a year with no apparent help from Obama, his real brother, most powerful man in the world--who is comparatively rich.
Steyn notes that the Catholic Church has supported Obama's healthcare plan, failing to realize that "if you agitate for state health care, the state gets to define what health care is." And in Obamacare, the state defines women's healthcare as abortion, pharmaceutical abortion, condoms and birth control. And the Obama's "compromise" states that insurance companies should provide it free since the conscience of Catholic institutions forbids them to do it.
Steyn suggests Obama thinks we are all too stupid to realize that there is nothing that is free. People need to be paid for their labors and products, and the only money the state has comes from tax-payers --not Obama, our Brother's Keeper. The state makes no money; it only spends ours. So Obama would take our money paid to gov't or insurance companies and use it for his idea of women's healthcare--against the consciences of the taxpayers. It's socialistic redistribution of money from have-mores to have-lesses. Which never seems to work. Look at Europe. According to Steyn, both the EU nurseries and churches are empty; their retirees are 50, their students are 30 (living on the gov't) and the Muslims are bursting out of their ghettos gaining all sorts of respect for their consciences (lest they riot as in Afghanistan.)
E.G. England requires booties on sniff- dogs searching for terrorists in Muslim territory, because dogs are offensively unclean to Muslims. We bend over backward to accommodate their religious sensitivities (which is kind of us) but in the U.S., we are comparatively mean to Christians, fining bakers and photographers around $20,000 for refusing to do gay weddings.
Obama admires Europe's secular, socialist government which Steyn says EU leaders happily refer to as a "post-Christian Europe" --or "future post-Christian Europe." But look what's happening there (besides their financial problems) : a man in England named David Booker worked for a church homeless shelter and said to a colleague in private conversation that he didn't believe church vicars should be allowed to marry their gay partners. The colleague didn't object to his comment, but told on him and he was suspended and the hostel announced that "action has been taken to safeguard both residents and staff" from the dangerous, insulting idea that vicars (pastors) should not have gay partners.
In Canada, Hugh Owens took out an ad in a Canadian newspaper and they were fined $9000 by the government. That case has worked up to Canada's Supreme Court this year. Meanwhile, no newspaper will ever do what this one allowed Owens to do. He posted the scripture references (not the scriptures) to the verses against same-sex relations.
In 2003, the Vatican issued a ruminative document on homosexual unions. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties warned Catholic bishops that "distributing the statement could lead to prosecution under the 1989 incitement to hatred Act, and 6 months in the slammer."
Steyn mentioned the minister Ake Green who preached against homosexuality in Sweden and was convicted of "hate crimes" because, in 2002, Sweden criminalized criticism of homosexuality.
As Steyn says, "The state is willing to intrude on core rights--rights to property, rights of association, and even rights to private conversation."
He quotes Henri de Lubac in 1944 who said concerning WWII and its causes: "It is not true, as is sometimes said, that man cannot organize the world without God. What is true, is that, without God he can only organize it against man." Steyn notes that atheistic humanism became INhumanism in the hands of the Nazis and Communism. What we have in Europe today is "dehumanism" in which a culture is amusing itself to death, he says.
And so it is today that, more and more, the state in the US bullies the churches, the conscientious objectors, the evangelists, the Bible-preachers and believers who would dare try to influence culture and thus the state along the Biblical definitions of morality and life. Even conservative Bible-believers are content to fiddle while Rome burns, buying the church/state separation ideology that squeezes our cultural foundations behind the walls of the church.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
Saturday, February 11, 2012
You Go, Rick! He Didn't Say Women were Emotional!
Santorum's looking better every day.
Watch what even Fox news did to him on what he said about women in front lines --he never said women were too emotional but even Fox headlined it that way. He said that with women in combat, there can be emotions that would interfere with The Mission at hand. He later said he really was thinking more about men's desire to protect women --and their attraction to them--the men's emotions. Same reason gays don't belong in the military either: attraction of polar opposites. Same reason there are always shipboard romances and pregnancies when women are on board.
Sexual attraction interferes with military missions. I'm not saying women shouldn't serve, but they should never be bunked next to the men in a submarine. There is a place for regarding sexual differences (and orientation differences) in various jobs and situations --without being unfair to women.
Watch the late night comedians --always after the republicans.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
Watch what even Fox news did to him on what he said about women in front lines --he never said women were too emotional but even Fox headlined it that way. He said that with women in combat, there can be emotions that would interfere with The Mission at hand. He later said he really was thinking more about men's desire to protect women --and their attraction to them--the men's emotions. Same reason gays don't belong in the military either: attraction of polar opposites. Same reason there are always shipboard romances and pregnancies when women are on board.
Sexual attraction interferes with military missions. I'm not saying women shouldn't serve, but they should never be bunked next to the men in a submarine. There is a place for regarding sexual differences (and orientation differences) in various jobs and situations --without being unfair to women.
Watch the late night comedians --always after the republicans.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
Pres. Obama & The Catholic Church --Women's Health Care???
I am astounded by our president's boldness in dictating new regulations, spending moneys we haven't got, bossing around the churches, insurance companies and banks! All in one week!
He meets with Catholic hierarchy, assures them they won't have to violate their consciences in his healthcare program, turns right around and caters to his ardent left-wing, extremist, feminist base by announcing that religious institutions will have to provide for their employees birth control/abortifacients --not abortion per se --but the chemicals that prevent pregnancy by abortion --and pay huge fines for non-compliance. One commentator noted that it would cost Notre Dame U. 10 million dollars for non-compliance.
There was such an outcry (in conservative media outlets) that he held another press conference and said the insurance companies, nor religious institutions, would have to provide these things --free --to the Catholic institution employee. Again, against the conscience of the employer/the church. As though the insurance company won't raise rates or get it back some way. As though the employee and church employer weren't paying for the insurance. Does he think we're stupid --or is he --that he doesn't know that all his give-away money comes from US and indebts our grandchildren?
Seems he takes on way more authority than he should --even failing to have his justice dep't. defend DOMA, the 1996 federal law in defense of marriage. Since he doesn't agree with the law (he has said both that he does believe marriage is between a man and a woman and that he thinks gays should have "equal rights" --code word for marriage.)
Who is the president to boss around churches and private business? It's all part of his big brother take-over of the health care industry, banking, insurance companies --creating new entitlements and relief programs daily with money we don't have!!!
It's clear he's buying constituents to vote for him with every give-away program, every expansion of entitlements. It's going to take voter fraud, however, and a Democratic turn-out of everyone on the public dole, to get him elected --so irritated are those who know what's going on.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
He meets with Catholic hierarchy, assures them they won't have to violate their consciences in his healthcare program, turns right around and caters to his ardent left-wing, extremist, feminist base by announcing that religious institutions will have to provide for their employees birth control/abortifacients --not abortion per se --but the chemicals that prevent pregnancy by abortion --and pay huge fines for non-compliance. One commentator noted that it would cost Notre Dame U. 10 million dollars for non-compliance.
There was such an outcry (in conservative media outlets) that he held another press conference and said the insurance companies, nor religious institutions, would have to provide these things --free --to the Catholic institution employee. Again, against the conscience of the employer/the church. As though the insurance company won't raise rates or get it back some way. As though the employee and church employer weren't paying for the insurance. Does he think we're stupid --or is he --that he doesn't know that all his give-away money comes from US and indebts our grandchildren?
Seems he takes on way more authority than he should --even failing to have his justice dep't. defend DOMA, the 1996 federal law in defense of marriage. Since he doesn't agree with the law (he has said both that he does believe marriage is between a man and a woman and that he thinks gays should have "equal rights" --code word for marriage.)
Who is the president to boss around churches and private business? It's all part of his big brother take-over of the health care industry, banking, insurance companies --creating new entitlements and relief programs daily with money we don't have!!!
It's clear he's buying constituents to vote for him with every give-away program, every expansion of entitlements. It's going to take voter fraud, however, and a Democratic turn-out of everyone on the public dole, to get him elected --so irritated are those who know what's going on.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
Friday, February 3, 2012
Obama Speaks Out of Both Sides of Mouth
I saw the prayer breakfast in D.C. and heard Obama say great things about faith and prayer.
Then we get this in email from Tony Perkins of Family Research Council:
If Obama is not responsible for military actions above, as FRC believes he is, he should intervene.It's happened again.
In a move that's reflective of the Obama Administration's continuing track-record of hostility toward Christianity, Lt. Gen. William Boykin (USA, Ret.), was recently pressured to withdraw from speaking at the United States Military Academy at West Point. General Boykin had been preparing to speak at the West Point Prayer Breakfast about the importance of prayer in a leader's life. The Academy moved Boykin to pull out of the event when a handful of atheist and Muslim cadets complained about Boykin's beliefs. The message to this elite, three-star warrior was obvious: You and your faith aren't welcome.
General Boykin is an American hero. There are few who would be more qualified to speak at a West Point prayer event. A former Delta Force leader who has faced danger for his country on missions in places like Iran, Somalia, and Grenada, General Boykin is also a man of deep Christian conviction. It is his outspoken faith that has made him a target of groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations, who lodged a complaint with West Point, which led to Boykin not speaking at the event.
This isn't the first time that an outspoken Christian has been booted from military events. Just over a year ago, I was disinvited from an event at Andrews Air Force base because of my biblical views. Before that, evangelist Franklin Graham's invitation to a Pentagon prayer service was rescinded because he too spoke the truth about his faith. These high-profile snubbings of religious expression are only the tip of the iceberg. The Obama Administration is advancing an environment of religious disarmament among the military -- and it must be stopped quickly for the sake of our soldiers' spiritual lives.
You can help the brave men and women of our military. Please join with me in signing our petition that calls on Congress and the Obama Administration to take action to ensure that America's brave warriors have access to free and full expression of their faith.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
IS WHITE AMERICA COMING APART? Read Charles Murray's New Book
Ron Haskins wrote a review titled The Virtue Deficit for Natl Review. Feb. 6, 2012. He was reviewing the book Coming Apart --by Charles Murray (author of The Bell Curve.)
Murray says there are 4 “founding virtues: –marriage, industriousness, honesty and religiousness.” And these are dividing America as the lower socio-economic class declines in commitment to these virtues. He says the lower class has doubled since 1960, “changing national life.” He might've added that the entitlement roles increased accordingly.
This is obvious to me –and it started with removing prayer from classrooms causing a hostile gulf between religion & education–and then the hippies parented the white Americans between age 30 and 49 today -whom Murray analyzes in the book.
By 2010, more than 1/3 of marriages of this age group in the lower class (lower by occupation and education) end in divorce compared to 5 % for the upper class.
By 2010 more than 1/4 of white babies are born out of wedlock –but for college grads, the percentage is 5%. For h.s. drop-outs, unwed births are 60 per cent.
Combine unwed births and divorce rates and the result is that 6 or 7 times as many lower-class children as upper, live with single parent. And more go to jail. (don’t know if he’s still talking only about whites here, or not.) The result is a continually widening gulf between upper and lower classes --as more and more children in the lower classes follow their parents' pattern.
Finally, he refers to upper class (elites) as wimps in the fact that they walk the walk –but don’t talk it. i.e. Elites or upper classes don’t stand up for these "founding virtues" in their own traditions that make for success in life — despite all the evidence in support.
I say that’s because the elite leaders need votes and are afraid of offending or seeming judgmental. And also because they don’t BELIEVE in traditional morality even if they live it publically. They are more committed to moral neutrality and values relativity –just as the education elites taught them in all those values clarification classes of 70's-90's: “No one but you can decide what is right for you –blah blah blah.”
Santorum said recently in debate that 98 % of Americans who do these 3 things are not in poverty; only 2 % are. The 3 things : marriage before child-bearing, h.s. graduation, and work. This is consistent with Murray's findings and theory.
He also noted that Obama administration discouraged ed. programs that promote marriage before sex. The Obama administration took offense and defended their refusal to advocate abstinence in sex education HERE. They say they advocate marriage --but is that the same as "waiting for marriage" --as in the abstinence model of sex ed? I doubt it. It's "Latex and Abortion before Marriage." And many aren't listening to that message either, but do interpret it as adults condoning pre-marital sex as inevitable bio-drive.
Religion still has the best chance of producing life-long marriage --whether or not the couple gets the cart before the horse.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
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