Why Government Is Interested In Marriage

This is a good explanation of why government sanctions traditional marriage and why government would have little interest in sanctioning other kinds of unions, such as same sex marriage. 

This article comes at the same sex marriage controversy from the same perspective as the video below.  Rather than begin with why same-sex marriage is wrong or an impossibility, the argument more logically begins with why opposite sex unions and traditional marriage are necessary and beneficial to societies in ways that same-sex unions can't be either necessary or beneficial.    A few quotes: 

Governments assign legal responsibilities and benefits to marriage, rather than to other relationships, to help mitigate the potentially destructive and tragic consequences of irresponsible procreation. 

Since civil marriage wouldn’t originally arise in response to desires or demands of individuals in diverse relationships, the first move must have been made by governments. Why, then, would governments want to create something like civil marriage?
 

While many relationships don’t cause any consequences that we might see as potentially problematic for society if left unregulated, one sort of relationship clearly does: sexually intimate opposite-sex relationships.


Left unregulated by the government, most consequences of relationships—such as warm, fuzzy feelings, mutual goodwill, and trust—will not become socially destructive; procreation, on the other hand, is an entirely different story.

Same Sex Marriage - Another Look

Al Smith Dinner in New York City

So Barack Obama did attend the Al Smith dinner last night as did candidate Mitt Romney.  While it's customary for both candidates to attend the dinner---Cardinal Dolan explains how the event works in this blog post--some of us were put off by Obama's attendance given that his position on most everything is diametrically opposed to Catholic teaching.    Despite Michael Voris's last ditch effort to persuade Cardinal Dolan to make a statement by dis-inviting the president, the dinner proceeded apace.  More liberal media outlets considered the evening a slam-dunk for the Catholic Church while this article lists some of the objections that many have had to Cardinal Dolan's position on having the president attend.  And, here's another negative take on the guest list.

Here is Cardinal Dolan in his own words at the dinner.  The only "un" mentioned by Cardinal Dolan that could have even remotely ruffled Obama's feathers was the mention of the unborn.  Otherwise, Obama must have sat there nodding to himself that he really is every Catholic's best friend because he too cares about the "uns".   I thought Cardinal Dolan might have had something up his sleeve for last night's dinner, perhaps a public rosary like those being said around town,  with the president leading one of the decades or at least some pithier remarks from the cardinal. But, it seems that this was a night just to have fun, to get along and all be friends.  I understand about civility as the cardinal expresses it in his blog (above link), but these are fightin' times and it's disappointing to hear the call to arms from the bishops only to have our head bishop then fraternize merrily at a political event with our opposition.

Now, on a lighter note, it should be duly noted that Ann Romney's gown (with godets) was very pretty and she looked lovely, the picture of good taste.  And it is curious that, as this blogger notes,  "Mooch" wasn't at the dinner.   Wonder why. 

Stealth Population Control?

From this article,   "the  American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists updated its guidelines for teenagers to say that IUDs and hormonal implants should be “first-line contraceptive options” that are discussed at each doctor’s visit."   I'm reminded of what a doctor told me 20 years ago.  He commented that 'government programs' and 'clinics'  favor the IUD as a method of birth control because its success doesn't require much skill or vigilance on the part of the user.  The user whom a government program is targeting is probably not the educated, white, middle or upper middle class female who will get whatever birth control she may or may not wish to have.  The user is probably a less educated, younger female from a lower socio-economic class, possibly with a good chance of being black or hispanic.  

 Why does a government program want a quick and easy solution to pregnancy?  To control the number of births resulting, perhaps?  Population control.   Throwing easy solutions at what are perceived to be problem pregnancies presumes that  the population in question is both sexually active and too irresponsible--too, uh, dumb?-- to control its sexual activity.  That in and of itself is the  soft bigotry of low expectations.  Secondly, there must be a presumption that the children resulting from these sexual unions are not wanted, either by their parents or by the society.  More bigotry and not so soft.  By advocating for 'easy' forms of contraception, society promotes a libertine attitude toward sex at the expense of the health and well-being of women in particular and our society in general.  The article points out the health problems associated with IUDs and the increased availability they will have under Obama's health care.  More wonderful things for liberated girls and women, brought to us by liberated women, with the support of  liberated men. 

Not to be outdone, New York City public schools are also into the population control business with the insidious CATCH program.   Cardinal Dolan notes the tragic irony and comments here that parental consent is needed in New York state for piercings, tattos and tanning salons, but the CATCH program makes hormonal injections and contraceptive drugs available to teen-agers without parental consent.

Women Speak For Themselves

More on Marriage as Cure For. . . .

. . . . . any number of ills, but this study from the Heritage Foundation focuses on marriage as the best cure for child poverty. 

Approximately 41% of children are born out of wedlock.  That's a precipitous increase from the 70s when only 10% of children were born to unmarried women.  

A few quotes from the article:

Since the early 1960s, single-parent families have roughly tripled as a share of all families with children. As noted, in the U.S. in 2009, single parents were nearly six times more likely to be poor than were married couples.

Overall, single-parent families comprise one-third of all families with children, but as Chart 6 shows, 71 percent of poor families with children are headed by single parents. By contrast, 73 percent of all non-poor families with children are headed by married couples.

These [out of wedlock birth] rates remained relatively low until the onset of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in the early 1960s. Then the black out-of-wedlock birth rate skyrocketed, doubling in little more than a decade from 24.5 percent in 1964 to 50.3 percent in 1976. It continued to rise rapidly, reaching 70.7 percent in 1994. Over the next decade, it declined slightly but then began to rise again, reaching 72.3 percent in 2008.

The report elucidates on the matter of out-of-wedlock births.  The majority do not occur among teens, but rather among young adults over the age of 18, people who generally have a favorable attitude toward marriage and children and who desire children.  The study refers to the interesting book on this subject,   Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Mothers Put Motherhood Before Marriage by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas.  As the study explains it,

A major obstacle is that most low-income women plan to marry after having children, not before. Their life plan is the exact opposite of the normal sequence in the upper middle class. In the upper middle class, men and women still follow the traditional pattern: A man and woman become attracted to each other; a relationship develops; the couple assess each other and at some point deliberately choose to become lifetime partners; emotional bonds deepen; they marry and after a few years have children.

In the lowest-income third of the U.S. population, this traditional sequence of family formation and childbearing is now explicitly reversed. Women first have children and then seek to find or build a stable relationship that will eventually lead to marriage. Typically, low-income single mothers do not see marriage either as an important part of childrearing or as an important element of financial security or upward social mobility. Instead, marriage is seen as a symbolic event that should occur later in adult life. Marriage is regarded as an important ceremony that will celebrate one’s eventual arrival in the middle class rather than as a vital pathway that leads upward to the attainment of middle-class status

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My opinion is based on anecdotal evidence only, but I don't think this mentality is limited to the lower-class.  It's becoming increasingly adopted by young middle-class women up to about age 30.   Lower-income women describe having children as fulfilling, giving purpose to their lives and they may do so in lieu of not having many other opportunities.  But middle-class gals who do have opportunities seem to be latching onto having children as simply something else to do, some other experience to have.  I believe these Generation Y-ers are so steeped in the culture of the feminized society (post 60s sexual revolution) that they have no awareness of the value of a father in their child's life or a husband in their own life.