A "Cult of Well-Being"?

Are you following the Synod on the Family?  There was testimony from a Brazilian couple, Arturo and Hermelinda As Zambeline, at the Synod on October 9th.  They head up something called Our Lady's Team or the Equipe Notre-Dame Movement in Brazil.  They spoke about the role of sexuality in marriage, but they ended by calling on the bishops and priests to better educate the Catholic laity on contraception.  They said:

Holy Father, Synodal Fathers, ladies and gentlemen, if at least married couples found light and support with the clergy it would already be a great encouragement! Many times contradictory advice aggravates their confusion. We ask, the Magisterium to give the Fathers and faithful the great lines of a pastoral pedagogy, which helps to adopt and observe the principles agreed by Humanae Vitae.

Here is the text of their remarks.

In contrast to the Catholic view of marriage expressed in Arturo and Hermelinda's concern for "openness to life"  and the way in which marriage serves to "sanctify," here's another take on marriage from this human interest piece that was up on AOL the other day.  I read it against my better judgment and then spent way too much time wondering why I had bothered to read it, but it got a lot of comments. Families and marriages must be important to people.

To save you the possible misery of actually reading this piece, one Kama Shockey, a military wife, decided to move herself and her young daughter out of their remote location in southern California, where her often-deployed husband was posted, to go to Flagstaff, Arizona 400 miles away.  This was so she could be in a "thriving community" rather than be sad on post.  That I'm aware, this isn't such a highly unusual decision nor is it a particularly bad one. What struck me as weird was not the decision itself, but what this young wife and mother understood a family to be.

Kama talks about her family as if they're a casual affiliation of two adult people with separate lives running on different tracks. These two people are entitled to be happy, to "feel right."  These two adults happen to have a daughter who is also entitled to be happy.  Curiously, the daughter's path to happiness sounds an awful lot like her mother's path to happiness, despite what must be a significant age difference.   Kama fancies herself quite the post-modern, liberated and empowered woman, very wrapped up in her own feminine fulfillment.  She says:

I was teaching my daughter that no matter what her partner does in life, she can support him (or her) while also making her own goals, her own career, her own life a true priority. She will never be too old, too settled, too domestic to start over if what she's doing doesn't feel right. She was learning to define her own life, and realizing her mom isn't obligated to stay in a community of women whose only thing in common is the fact that their husbands were all gone at the same time.

Arturo and Hermelinda, our Brazilian Catholic couple testifying about marriage at the Synod on the Family, have been married for 41 years.  I hope Ben and Kama last even half that long, but I doubt it. Kama seems a bit too happy that Ben is sitting alone on his half of the matching furniture watching "bad DVDs" while she's doing what feels right. According to Kama, Ben knows this is all okay because he's a man.  Really. Hopefully, as a man, Ben will wake up soon enough to discover his unique role as provider, protector and male in the marriage.

I console myself with the possibility that Kama and Ben are not real people, that their tale is just a made-for-internet story.  But even if Kama and Ben aren't real, there are so many other married couples just like them who are: single women who labor under the illusion that they can raise a child alone, that their children don't need fathers; young couples who first have a baby, then move in together and then, maybe, marry "later;"  men whose manly roles in the family have been denigrated and shredded to the point of unrecognizable;  already-married couples whose commitment flags when they decide they're no longer "happy;" and those who view marriage not as mutual fulfillment with sacrifices but as individual fulfillment that's fun and easy.   Kama and Ben are, lamentably, poster children for the current state of marriage and the family.  They depict only too well what one of the Synod's cardinals has called the "momentary cult of well-being."  ( read  here and here).

I have to admire the likes of Arturo and Hermelinda as they and other couples testify at the Synod and articulate to the bishops and other assembled some of the specific ways in which Church teaching might help the laity to understand and talk to others about the truth of marriage and family so we might work to correct some of the distortions the culture imposes upon us.

Adrian Peterson and his "fraternity of brothers"

It could be that professional football and the media that covers the sport might be breathing a collective sigh of relief that 1) Adrian Peterson, Vikings running back, seems to have pulled through his "private matter" and can play ball today and,  2) the sports media doesn't have to report that it was one of the NFL's own being charged with beating his 2-year old son to death.

Peterson  recently learned that he was the father of a little boy in Sioux Falls, Minnesota and he was planning to go out and visit his newly-discovered son when the child met a violent end at the hands of his mother's boyfriend.  Most of the news coverage is about the boyfriend and his past history of domestic and child abuse.  Some of the news is about the fact the two year-old who died on Friday is not Peterson's other two-year old son, Adrian Jr.  Some of the news mentions that  Peterson also has a daughter.  Not much of the media mentions that Peterson isn't married but a while back they did report that Peterson enjoyed reading about marriage while at training camp this summer.   Some reports comment on the "world of pain" Peterson is experiencing.

Peterson himself  is tweeting blessings to his fans and expressing his thanks to his "fraternity of brothers" in the NFL. He's thanking the Vikings organization.  He has explained that he's always used sports to get through the tough times. Peterson says that he'll play today because God "wants good" to come from his son's death.  (Good like a Vikings football game maybe.)  Peterson says that he's at peace because his son got the "baddest" welcoming party in heaven.  Peterson feels "joy" because his loved ones are in a "better place."   Peterson, it looks like, has decided that everything is okay.   Whew.  Back to being a pro athlete.  

But in Peterson's "private matter," there is a dead child to think of.  Or ignore.  There's also the fact that at 28, Peterson is the father of three children, one of whom he didn't know existed until a few months ago,  and that he is apparently married to neither or none of the mothers whoever those women might be. What do the fans, the Vikings organization, the media and all Peterson's fraternity brothers think about that part of Peterson's private matter. 

Quite obviously they think it's not worth mentioning and they have the tacit consent of the popular culture to go on thinking that.  Peterson's children are among the 40% of children born to unmarried mothers--make that 72% in the black community as of 2008.   Since Peterson probably makes a hefty salary his children will most likely not have to worry about joining the ranks of those 70% of poor families headed by single-parents. That is, if his children know who their father is and live long enough.  And, as for the stability and continuity afforded by marriage, Peterson is no different from a majority of Americans for whom marriage is important, but not a priority.

The Sioux Falls Police Department is quoted here as saying that the identity of the dead toddler's father is not important.  But perhaps if Peterson had been married to the mother of the little boy, living with her and his son, being a father and husband to his family, things would be different.  The identity of the father does matter and in this case it's Adrian Peterson.  Can't help but wonder if Peterson and his NFL frat brothers ever stop to think about that.  That's where I think God wants the good to come out of this tragedy. 

Supreme Court Weighs Marriage

This is a good explanation of the two marriage cases before the Supreme Court.  The article is from New Yorker's Family Research Foundation

Parent, Child, Marriage

The same-sex marriage movement is presented innocently as nothing more than endorsing the 'right' of same-sex couples to marry just as heterosexual couples marry.  Supporters of same-sex marriage are quick to label any opposition to their view as bigoted, homophobic, hateful and just plain old stupid.  Those of us on the other side of the aisle look upon same-sex 'marriage' first as an oxymoron, but moreover as a move to re-define marriage, to toss out the traditional notion of marriage and to reduce the uniqueness of (heterosexual) marriage to naught, to profoundly change what is natural and normal. 

This slightly dry and tedious article illustrates how same-sex unions and same-sex 'marriage' include re-defining the relationship between parent and child.  Better to start at the end of this article with this quote,

As the sociological bonds between parent and child are perverted through a redefinition of marriage, it seems the resistance to breaking the biological bonds wanes as well. Replacing the marital act with various assisted reproductive technologies dehumanizes children and treats them as commodities to be manufactured and marketed for the pleasure of adults.

and read backwards.

At The Bottom of the Slippery Slope

I wouldn't have come across this article except for the fact that I'm a Family Research  Council (FRC)reader---oh yes, they're the "hate group"--and so I was able to get Jillian Keenan's perspective on why social change shouldn't stop with same-sex marriage.    Jillian Keenan is she who had the "courage" to write about her spanking fetish published in the paper of record.  That's news.  In this article, Keenan writes that legalized polygamy would be good for women, good for immigrants and good for shoring up our constitutional right to religious freedom.

Keenan takes the following line to try to defend her enthusiasm for legalizing polygamy.  Since heterosexual marriage has its flaws and two-parent families are no longer the norm for Americans anyway, why penalize those who want the choice of being married to multiple men or women.  And, since we've already opened the door to everything else why not add legalized polygamy as well?  As she says:   "Divorce, remarriage, surrogate parents, extended relatives, and other diverse family arrangements mean families already come in all sizes—why not recognize that legally?"   Ideology obviously trumps reason here.  And it can also create strange bedfellows.  Keenan favors legalized polygamy because she wants to defend the rights of her Mormon fundamentalist friends.  I'm guessing she voted for Mitt Romney? 

By her way of thinking, Keenan also keeps company with her opposition,  those who argue that same-sex marriage will open the door to polygamy and other types of sexual relationships regarded as harmful to society.  We're right!

Having Two Mothers

This account of growing up as the son of two lesbians takes an unexpected turn or two.  Usually one expects to read either that the son is excessively normal and had a home life just like everyone else or that the son is a basket case whose life was ruined by not having a father.

Mr. Lopez says neither, but does say that he is weird, different, an outsider who fits none of the gender stereotypes or categories. He would seem to be a heterosexual since he is now married to a woman and has a child, however, Mr. Lopez calls himself bisexual.

He thanks Mark Regnerus for Regnerus's controversial study and seems to be saying that the very reason for which the Regnerus study was criticized--he compared children in stable heterosexual marriages to children of parents who may have had both heterosexual and homosexual relationships after having children--is the reason it is accurate and valuable. Lopez asks:

Where do children of LGBT parents come from? If the parents are 100-percent gay or lesbian, then the chances are that the children were conceived through surrogacy or insemination, or else adopted. Those cases are such a tiny percentage of LGBT parents, however, that it would be virtually impossible to find more than a half-dozen in a random sampling of tens of thousands of adults.

Most LGBT parents are, like me, and technically like my mother, “bisexual”—the forgotten B. We conceived our children because we engaged in heterosexual intercourse. Social complications naturally arise if you conceive a child with the opposite sex but still have attractions to the same sex. Sherkat [a critic of the Regnerus study] calls these complications disqualifiable, as they are corrupting the purity of a homosexual model of parenting.

I would have thought the Mr. Lopezes would be the exception when it comes to children of same sex parents and that the former category--children of what he calls 100% same sex parents would be the more prevalent type.  Lopez seems to be saying otherwise and praises the Regnerus study, I guess because it looks at the more common (and more difficult?) case of children raised by bisexual parents.  Lopez says this about "100 %" homosexuals vs. bisexuals: 

Those who are 100-percent gay may view bisexuals with a mix of disgust and envy. Bisexual parents threaten the core of the LGBT parenting narrative—we do have a choice to live as gay or straight, and we do have to decide the gender configuration of the household in which our children will grow up. 

Yes, but so do the "100-percent gay" parents.  They could decide that the gender configuration in their household would be unnatural with two men or two women raising children and decide not to have children.   
Mr. Lopez also writes about the opposition to same sex marriage in France and the homosexual men who oppose it.

West Point "Wedding"'s Honor

Brenda Sue Fulton's nuptials at the United States Military Academy at West Point made the news in grand style.

At last reading in July of 2011, Brenda Fulton was appointed by President Obama to USMA's Board of Visitors and she describes herself as having many "informal allies" at West Point. She is also a self-described homosexual (and lesbian and trans-gender) activist and she has major roles in the organizations Knights Out and OutServe. The same-sex ceremony held a week or so earlier at West Point involved friends of Fulton. 

Consequently, these ceremonies look less like a case of West Point grads who just wanted to be married at their alma mater and more like a political ploy on the part of homosexual activists who used West Point's prestige and prominence as the backdrop for showing us how the military will behave in Obama's second term. 

Though the legal facts may be arguable if not downright abstruse, it appears that the United States Military Academy at West Point, which is on federal property, did not have to agree to host Brenda Fulton's lesbian ceremony had West Point chosen to honor DOMA which is still the law regarding marriage as approved by Congress.    Family Research Council (FRC) says,    According to Johnson, decisions about military facilities should be made on a "sexual-orientation neutral basis." And while the "wedding" may have been consistent with Johnson's memo, the DOD's general counsel is no substitute for the 427 elected members of Congress who voted to define marriage as the union of a man and woman for the government's purposes. That means it affects federal employees (which Fulton is) and federal property (where West Point resides). The President may vehemently disagree with the law--but until the Supreme Court overturns it or Congress rejects it, DOMA is still the law of the land.

Earlier in the article FRC characterizes West Point as moving away from the rule of law which seems accurate even though technically the so-called wedding may not have been illegal.  However, as pointed out here,  LGBT Think Progress reports that DOMA merely says that  as pertaining to any federal regulation,  the word 'marriage' refers to the union of one man and one woman.  The article says that it is an " incredible stretch to interpret this language such that a same-sex wedding is somehow illegal merely because the resulting union is not recognized by the federal government."

 

Not so it seems to me.  In fact, seems to me that's the crux of the matter for Fulton and those she represents--to have same sex "marriages" recognized to be on the exact same plane as traditional marriages defined as being between one man and one woman.  If the federal government doesn't recognize Fulton's union as a marriage, what did she actually accomplish at West Point's Cadet Chapel?

 

Duty, Honor, Country.  West Point graduates do not behave honorably when they opportunistically exploit their alma mater  as a way to force others to cave to their demands.

 

Same Sex Marriage, Compromise or Surrender

Going through a few back issues of Imprimis, I came across this one by Midge Decter on same-sex marriage, a talk she gave in 2004.   

After giving a brief history of how we've gotten to our present situation as regards same-sex marriage, she goes on to make still-timely observations.  She makes a distinction between 'gay' activists and those who share that lifestyle but are not activists, an important distinction to remember I think. 

It goes without saying that there are homosexuals who are not and have never been activists, who do not storm the streets, who do not frequent the bathhouses, and who keep their sex lives— as most of the rest of us do—to themselves. But in the current debate these homosexuals are, alas, irrelevant. They are neither the stuff of which movements and flamboyant public gestures are made, nor are they people whose ambition is to overturn the conditions of ordinary, everyday life. 

She makes the politically incorrect observation that, despite claims to the contrary, homosexual men tend to act much like heterosexual men with the same true of lesbian vs. heterosexual women. 

By the way, and not surprisingly, it seems that a number of the male couples admitted they had no intention of getting married—it was merely their having won the battle that they were there to celebrate—while every one of the female couples declared their intention to marry. I say not surprisingly because—some might think it impolite of me to point out—homosexual men are essentially no more like lesbians than heterosexual men are like the women whom they either merely pursue or marry. In short, men are men and women are women, whatever their sexual proclivities.  

That is why the right to marriage, fought for with every weapon at their command by homosexual men, would—or must I say will—be largely acted on by lesbians.Why, then, are these men fighting so hard for it?
 

But to the heart of the matter, Decter says that same sex marriage is about changing society, proclaiming radicalism as the norm and spitting in the eye of anyone who won't bow down to that.  In her words:

The answer is, the right to legal marriage that they are demanding is not about them—it is about the rest of us. It is, and is meant to be, a spit in the eye of the way we live. And whatever the variety of efforts to oppose it— another law or even a whole set of laws, let’s say, or a constitutional amendment—none of it will matter unless and until all the nice and decent people in America begin to understand that we are in a crisis, and it must be up to them to sustain, and with all good cheer defend, the way they lead their lives. 

 

That last refers to those of us who support traditional marriage.  It also refers to those who think that homosexual marriage, indeed the homosexual movement,  will have no effect on them---or their children.   Anyone who expects traditional marriage and the family to survive the same-sex marriage onslaught might be, with good cheer,  called gullible. 

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

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

.

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.

Retrouvaille Your Marriage

Here's an interesting article on the perils of divorce among older couples.  While the overall divorce rate has remained stable since 1980 (apparently at about 40-50 % for first marriages but higher for second and third marriages), the divorce rate among couples over 50 has doubled.  Some reasons?

Health problems, medications, and menopause can sour moods and wither the libido. Once reliable social circles may disband as children graduate and spouses approach retirement. Crises may arise with elderly parents or with grown children.

Author Mary Jo Pedersen has a noteworthy comment about marriage:

 “Marriage isn’t supposed to make you happy, it’s supposed to make you married. Marriage creates an environment in which you can choose happiness and you can create a wonderful home and friendship that will bring you happiness. But the institution itself—like everything, it’s what you do with it.”

This is a readable article that makes some good points and has a funny anecdote at the end about how one couple, on the brink of breaking up, went to Retrouvaille, a Catholic marriage program that offers retreats and counseling.

Children From Different Families

A study came out a while ago called Children From Different Families.  I haven't read it in its entirety, only summaries.  It was conducted by Dr. Mark Regnerus at the University of Texas, Austin.
For an idea of how the study was done, here's a short excerpt from the introduction to the study:

The NFSS [New Family Structures Study]drew from a large, nationally representative, random sample of the U.S. population of young adults, ages 18–39, who were raised in diverse family arrangements, screening 15,000 persons and interviewing 2,988 respondents, making it the second-largest probability sample of children of gay and lesbian parents. 

 As the debate on same-sex 'marriage' has unfolded, the advocates of such have chosen to talk about marriage equality.  By using this phrase, those advocates are leaping over a few considerations to the contrary and are claiming, without any discussion or evidence other than anecdotal, that marriage between a homosexual couple is the same as marriage between a heterosexual couple.  Since married people typically have children, what follows of course is that homosexual couples should have children because their union through marriage is no different from that of a heterosexual couple.  Thus, children of  homosexual couples, these advocates of 'equality' must claim, are no different from the children of heterosexual couples. And so on down the garden path. 

This study addresses that assumption and shows that that isn't the case.   Interestingly, the study is not being well-received by advocates of same-sex 'marriage,'  as you can read here.   As this article asks, where is the tolerance for a study that challenges the views of the marriage equality advocates?   Note that no one on the 'marriage equality' side of the issue chose to support this study.

 "To avoid political partisanship, donors who support same-sex marriage rights as well as those that don’t were invited to participate equally. Regrettably no donors who support same-sex marriage rights accepted the invitation; four were approached, all declined."  (NFSS)  

Critics of the NFSS are saying that Regnerus compared children in stable heterosexual families with children from unstable homosexual unions.  In this article, the author says of the Regnerus study:

The study compares how children fare [under] stable parents to how children fare under divorce or infidelity. We call that “comparing apples to oranges.” Of course the oranges don’t have black seeds. They’re oranges. If he had compared how children did in heterosexual stepfamilies or heterosexual single-parent families with the lesbian or gay stepfamilies or single-parent homes, we might learn something.  

Could be accurate, but, frankly, I think if that study were made, the result would still be that children of heterosexual broken families fared better than those from homosexual unions.  Anyway, I wonder how Graff feels about the effects of divorce and infidelity on children?  Usually, advocates for the do-what's-good-for-you style of living claim that divorce doesn't harm children. Divorce, blended families, affairs, menages-a-trois, lesbian couples, male-male couples, it's all just variations on a theme.  No big deal.   Furthermore, the homosexual life-style itself is marked by a fair degree of infidelity that we are apparently supposed to accept--and even condone--as healthy and just one more 'choice.'

The problem begins with being told that we all must accept what is utterly contrary to common sense--that homosexuality is no different from heterosexuality. 

The Pope on Marriage and Family

Trying to catch up here after a long hiatus.  The post below, written about 6 weeks ago, refers to the then recently-concluded meeting of June 1st.  I decided to leave the post as is. 
At the recently-concluded VII World Meeting of Families in Milan, Pope Benedict delivered the homily at the final Mass.  Here are a couple excerpts.  About marriage:

God created us male and female, equal in dignity, but also with respective and complementary characteristics, so that the two might be a gift for each other, might value each other and might bring into being a community of love and life 

“Dear married couples, in living out your marriage you are not giving each other any particular thing or activity, but your whole lives. And your love is fruitful first and foremost for yourselves, because you desire and accomplish one another’s good, you experience the joy of receiving and giving,”  

And about the family:    " . . . family life is the first and irreplaceable school of social virtues, such as respect for persons, gratuitousness, trust, responsibility, solidarity, cooperation.”  

The VIII World Meeting of Families is going to be in, of all places,  the U.S. of A.---Philadelphia!

Gallup's Values and Beliefs Poll, Catholics and Same Sex Marriage

Several Catholic friends have pointed out in recent days that our fellow Catholics continue to cave to the popular culture on the issue of same-sex 'marriage.'  They cite these statistics from the Pew Research group: 

Catholic respondents were slightly less likely than other Americans to oppose same-sex marriage. In 2004, 55% of Catholics were opposed, and 28% strongly. By 2012 those figures had dropped to 42% and 17%. 

As a rejoinder, however, there is the result of yesterday's marriage amendment vote in North Carolina as well as this recent Gallup Poll which says that more people are opposed to same-sex 'marriage' this year than last (48% vs. 46% respectively) or, conversely that there is slightly less support this year with 50% of Americans supporting same-sex 'marriage' as opposed to 53% supporting it last year.   And, read here.

I realize this doesn't address the Catholic problem per se, but at this late date why expect Catholics to behave any differently than the general voting public?  Catholics have succumbed to the sexual and social revolution of the 60s just as nicely as everyone else. Secularized and relativized, they voted handily for Obama in 2008, and, anecdotally, I know plenty of Catholics who will vote for him again. 

I read somewhere that Americans are great believers in fairness (just maybe something to do with our founding principles?), and I think that a good percentage of the so-called support for same-sex marriage comes from a desire we Americans have to be fair to our neighbors.  Notice that Gallup asked participants if same-sex couples should have the same "rights" as those in traditional marriages.  Rights?  Not only fairness, but political correctness dictates that we deny no one their "rights!"  And, actually, some of the things same-sex couples want could and should be handled with changes to the tax code.  By phrasing their question in terms of rights, Gallup is being just a little disingenuous with this poll.

If, as Gallup says, this poll is part of its annual Values and Beliefs poll, why didn't they poll people as to what they believe about traditional marriage and what they believe about same-sex 'marriage?' Why didn't they ask people if they are teaching their children that same-sex 'marriage' is the same as traditional marriage?  Why didn't they ask people if they believe sex education in the schools should teach that homosexuality is normal? Why didn't they ask people how they would feel about having a daughter-in-law who is a husband or a wife to their daughter? 

Gallup headlines the article, that half of Americans support 'gay' marriage.  That also means that half don't support it, a little detail that could just as easily have been the headline of the article.

Dump Starbucks

Starbucks has taken a public position supporting same-sex "marriage" as 'core' to who they are as a corporation.  You can read about it here and sign the petition should you choose.  It remains a mystery to me why a retail enterprise would take a stand on a controversial moral issue, but they have and perhaps they are right to do so if they feel strongly about it. 

Closer to home, my home that is, Mumbles Restaurant on 2nd Avenue and 17th Street, NYC,  did something similar last June when the same-sex "marriage" bill passed in New York state.  Their street-side chalk board which usually carries the menu or the specials of the day instead carried a message saying "Congratulations to all on marriage equality."  I guess one has to expect that sort of thing in New York City, but I take some small comfort in the fact that, after writing a letter to the owner of the restaurant (he did understand my point),  my family and I haven't been back to Mumbles since,  just as I feel some small satisfaction in 'dumping Starbucks' though I've never really liked their coffee anyway!

Gay Marriage Explained

Nonmarital Births Among Young Women

In this article, the New York Times is basically reporting on one of the themes of Charles Murray's new book, Coming Apart, although there's no mention of Murray until almost halfway through the article!  Oh well.  The Times leads off with the fact that among women under 30, more than half of births are outside of marriage,  'nonmarital births' as Murray calls them. 

The Times puts an objective, neutral, non-judgmental, well, their own spin on it with  phrases like "the transforming family" and "rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education."   Ideological mumbo jumbo on the part of the Times journalist!  Here's more mumbo jumbo:  "Money helps explain why well-educated Americans still marry at high rates: they can offer each other more financial support, and hire others to do chores that prompt conflict."

It's exactly the other way around of course.  Marriage is one of the major factors in leading people out of poverty!  Read this article by Robert Rector  and this one on married fathers also by Mr. Rector.  For a lighter treatment of the same issue, see this article.   

What particularly chafes is that this development is another example of the unabashed hypocrisy and deception of feminist ideology.  Unfortunately, young women still seem to be taking the bait--hook, line and sinker---that they'll be able to do it all.  In this case that includes raising children without the benefit of a father and husband while simultaneously bringing home the income necessary to support themselves and their children.  All this while somehow managing to maintain a reasonable standard of living and quality of life for themselves and their children.  If a young woman is thrust into this situation through the vagaries of life, that's one thing.  But for young women to make a choice to be husbandless and for their children to be fatherless is a sad thing for these women, their children and our society.  Unnecessary also.

162 Reasons To Marry

From Family Research Council, read them here.

More on Same Sex "Marriage" in New York State

Several sources are reporting on the four New York state senators who delivered the vote on same sex 'marriage' for Governor Cuomo here in New York state.  It seems that they're receiving some handsome campaign funding from Republicans who want to send the message that the Republican party supports same-sex 'marriage.'

The four wayward senators are Mark J. Grisanti of Buffalo, James S. Alesi of Rochester, Stephen M. Saland of Poughkeepsie and Roy J. McDonald of Saratoga County.  Their mentors in the Republican party are gay rights activist Tim Gill along with Paul E. Singer,  Daniel S. Loeb and our own Mayor Bloomberg.