One of the reasons that I am not married today is because I tried to set spiritual and moral boundaries with women I wanted marry, but those boundaries were rejected. The purpose of the boundaries was to get the woman to be suitable for a marriage designed to serve God. In every case, the relationships ended. And this is actually becoming more common, under the influence of feminism.

Here is an article from The Federalist, written by Kylee Griswold.

She writes:

Who would have thought perpetual adolescent Jonah Hill would be good at grown-up relationships? Well, he is, judging by some apparent texts his surfer ex-girlfriend Sarah Brady shared to Instagram over the weekend — despite the out-of-control media screeching to the contrary.

[…]According to Brady and the TikTokkers, self-proclaimed therapists, media, and fellow thirst-trappers who came to her defense, Hill is a controlling narcissist and misogynist — all for the crime of allegedly asking his then-girlfriend to please put on some clothes.

So, a man told a woman that he was interested in that he proposed certain rules in the relationship, rules that would allow him to get serious, and point the relationship towards commitment (as you’ll see). But the woman, and all of her supportive allies, from the secular left to the religious right, all agreed with her that a man setting boundaries on a woman to make her safe for a marriage commitment is “emotional abuse”.

More:

Specifically, Hill laid down some boundaries for his partner:

[…]Plain and simple: If you need: Surfing with men[,] Boundaryless inappropriate friendships with men[,] to model[,] to post pictures of yourself in a bathing suit[,] to post sexual pictures[,] friendships with women who are in unstable places and from your wild recent past beyond getting a lunch or coffee or something respectful[,] I am not the right partner for you. If these things bring you to a place of happiness I support it and there will be no hard feelings. These are my boundaries for romantic partnership.

Hill’s detractors say this is “emotional abuse.” But can something really be described as “abuse” if the alleged perpetrator tells you “no hard feelings” if you’d rather walk away than agree to the terms?

Feminism has made it a lot harder for men to set boundaries that will orient women towards marriage. No matter how wise the man, and how good the advice, it must all be rejected. But the demands for men to get married to rebels remain. Especially when the feminists are hitting 35, and their friends are all getting married. They feel entitled to marriage, and how dare men tell them no? Many women today don’t want to hear a man talk about the Bible or hear a man talk about right and wrong, they just want weddings, wedding rings, vacations, and things to be fixed around the house. It would be better if men were just walking ATMs that didn’t talk at all.

More:

To protect the health and integrity of his relationship, Hill established reasonable and respectable parameters for how his girlfriend was to behave toward him through how she acted toward other men. Don’t sexualize yourself for other guys or engage in other relationship-compromising behaviors. And he made clear how he would respond if she didn’t respect those limits. I’m not the right man for you.

In my cases, my boundaries were always things that were clearly good for the women, and also good for commitment. For example, I might say “stop spending money on travel, get a private sector job in your field, and pay off your student loans”. But these conditions were rejected. Later on, when the woman reached her early 30s, I would get e-mails about wanting to get back together. But the student loans had only increased, and the resumes now had huge gaps. I can only assume that the body counts had also increased from all the “traveling”. No thanks, I said. No thank you. I can do something more productive than bail women out. I especially don’t want to bail women out who have no respect for men who know how to lead.

This behavior of calling moral and spiritual leadership “emotional abuse” and “controlling” is common – even in Christian circles – because of feminism. In general, the only acceptable male roles are “protect and provide”. Men are supposed to take on all the accountability, but with none of the authority to defend the truth, or to defend morality. On any topic. For example, if you try to tell a single woman in her late 20s about infertility, it’s “emotional abuse”. No amount of evidence can ever beat “follow your heart”. And she has legions of supporters who will shame you for trying to argue from scientific studies.

If you think I am mean, then read Kylee:

Enter feminism, which loves female autonomy and sold women lots of lies about it. Feminism said love yourself. If that means wreaking all kinds of havoc, your second “X” chromosome trumps the consequences. Unrestrained sex and unintended pregnancy? Abort the baby. Not happy in your marriage? Divorce him. Unfulfilled at home? Leave the kids with an underpaid immigrant and climb that corporate ladder. No boundaries. No bonds. No bras.

But news flash: Relationships take two. And sadly, thanks to that third-wave wrecking ball, some dating women need to be told some obvious things when it comes to romantic fidelity, even if those things have to come from their partners: Seeking the approval of other men for how you look is a bad idea. Worse, it communicates lots of bad things about your priorities and desires.

Frankly, a man who’s willing to say that tough thing is probably a man worth holding onto. Thanks in part to “toxic masculinity” messaging and the militant feminization of America, a man who shoots for commitment and faithfulness, and communicates those aims in a straightforward way while proposing an amicable split as the alternative, is a rarity.

Oh, how I love those words.

Sadly, Kylee’s view is in the minority today, thanks to feminism. And if men are not allowed to lead a relationship, then the marriage rate will continue to decline. Neither shaming of men nor blaming of men will cause men to accept marriage without leadership.

For more on this topic, I recommend this excellent article by Mark McDonald, M.D., entitled “Why American Women Are Undatable” The subtitle is “No One Wants to Play with a Porcupine”. Indeed not.

I saw an interesting article over at Daily Wire that talks about the most dangerous country in the world for Christians: Nigeria. I thought Nigeria has Boko Haram running around kidnapping people, but the article says that “roughly 90% of all martyrs in 2022 — over 5,000 Christians murdered for their faith — were from Nigeria.” The author of the article is from ADF, so it’s reliable.

The article is paywalled, but here’s an archived copy.

Excerpt:

Northern Nigeria is a place where the Church faces some of the worst persecution on earth. According to Open Doors, roughly 90% of all martyrs in 2022 — over 5,000 Christians murdered for their faith — were from Nigeria.

One of those martyrs was Deborah Emmanuel Yakubu, a Christian student at a university in Sokoto State, who in May 2022 was stoned to death and burnt by her Muslim classmates because of her faith in Jesus. Another Christian woman, Rhoda Jatau, faced a mob and was arrested for blasphemy after the mob accused her of sharing a video that insulted Islam because it condemned the lynching of Deborah.
Rhoda sat in a jail in Bauchi State, Nigeria, for over 18 months because of the accusations. She only saw her family and lawyers at court hearings.

But through her witness to the injustice of the treatment of Christians in Northern Nigeria, both by extremist Islamist mobs and baseless prosecutions, her case caused national outrage.
Earlier this month, after enormous national outcry, Rhoda was finally released on bail, able to spend Christmas this year with her family in safety. While the charges against her are still pending, many within Nigeria and internationally are pushing for them to be dropped fully.

There are a couple of signs that things are improving in the article, here’s one:

As with many places where Christians are a religious minority, converts to Christianity, particularly from Islam, often find it extremely dangerous to practice their faith. Daniel Kefee* was an evangelist in Northern Nigeria who brought a young Muslim woman, Hafsatu*, to Christ. But when her family found out, members of her family threatened to kill her. She sought out help from Daniel, who found a Christian residential school that could care for her.

For helping Hafsatu, Daniel was charged by Nigerian authorities with kidnapping. Yet Daniel and his lawyers bravely presented to the court the reality of what had happened. In an astonishing result given the region, the judge not only acquitted Daniel, but prodded the prosecutors, asking them, “should the defendant have left the girl, what would have happened with her?”

And another one:

Also this year, in another state in Northern Nigeria, a young woman named Mary Olowe* similarly converted to Christianity and faced death threats from her family. She was able to flee and filed for a restraining order against those who threatened her. Once again, the court issued a remarkable decision, granting the order and explicitly recognizing as a fundamental right Mary’s ability to change her religion from Islam to Christianity without facing any threat of violence.

If you like to pray for Christians in other countries, Nigeria should probably be your first pick. The Muslims there are clearly out gunning for Christians. It would be nice if our elected officials in the Biden administration were doing something about this, but I don’t think they care. They have other priorities.

The GOP primary is about to begin in Iowa, and it’s a contest between a man who talks about himself, and a man who solves problems. One BIG problem in this country is teacher unions. Teacher unions collect mandatory dues from teachers, and they use those to advocate for far-left policies. But in Florida, DeSantis made a plan, and he executed that plan. And now the results are here.

Here’s the latest from Florida Voice:

As much as 60% of Miami-Dade public school educators could be withheld from representation after the state’s largest teachers union failed to meet membership requirements under state law.

United Teachers of Dade, the largest union in the country, reportedly did not meet the required threshold after some teachers opted out of paying membership dues.

[…]Signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, SB 256 mandates a union must apply for recertification if its membership dues fail to reach 60%. According to a report, UTD’s membership dues reached 58.4%.

[…]Under the law, unions are barred from directly withdrawing funds from public employee paychecks. An employee, such as a teacher, also must opt into a union to send payments.

SB 256 is a DeSantis bill. Passed by the legislators he helped to elect. And so when it got to his desk, he signed it.

“If United Teachers of Dade spent half as much time paying attention to their members’ interests as they have been pushing a political agenda with Randi Weingarten and running for office with Charlie Crist, they probably wouldn’t even be in this position,” Freedom Foundation Director or Labor Relations Allison Beattie said.

[…]“We were approached this summer by a number of teachers in Miami-Dade County who were unhappy seeing their hard-earned paychecks going into the pockets of union officers while those same officers have consistently negotiated away pay and benefits,” Beattie said.

[…]“We’re not surprised UTD couldn’t make the 60 percent threshold, because they’ve lost focus of their mission – representing rank and file teachers,” Beattie continued. “The union sends 46 percent of its budget to unions like the AFL-CIO, National Education Association, and Randi Weingarten.”

This is a historic win for conservatives:

According to the Freedom Foundation, United Teachers of Dade’s fracture is the largest decertified vote in American history.

How did DeSantis get the teachers to want to opt out of paying union dues? Well, Florida is a right-to-work state, so workers don’t have to join a union in order to work. They have the freedom to work without having to join a union. If they think that the union provides value worth their dues, then they can join and pay the dues. Traditionally, labor unions have pressured employers for higher pay. And that’s where the genius of Ron DeSantis can be seen. He has been taking away the need for teacher unions by paying teachers very well. That’s why the enrollment in unions has come down in Florida. This is wonderful for conservatives, because teacher unions are major proponents of every secular left policy you can imagine. Not just on fiscal issues, but on social issues, and foreign policy.

This article from Fox News explains why teacher unions are bad:

Universal school choice made significant gains in 2023 when a wave of red states passed legislation. Now, more states are looking to join the fold next year, a phenomenon called a “school choice revolution.”

American Federation For Children Senior Fellow Corey DeAngelis told Fox News Digital recently to look out for more states passing universal school choice legislation because a sea change is underway.

[…]DeAngelis added that school choice is difficult to pass in traditionally blue states like California, Illinois, and New York because the Democratic Party is “owned by the teachers union.”

“You look at Randi Weingarten, the American Federation of Teachers, in 2022, according to Open Secrets, 99.97% of the contributions from Randi’s AFT went to Democrats as opposed to independents or Republicans,” DeAngelis said.

He explained further, “It’s basically an elaborate money laundering scheme where the Democrats funnel the money to the government schools and then the teachers unions take that money and they give it back to the Democratic Party. It’s a nonstop wash, rinse, repeat money laundering scheme where the teachers unions are basically an arm of the Democratic Party at this point.”

When Donald Trump was president for four years, he did absolutely nothing to take on teacher unions. Ron DeSantis is doing it now. If he loses the GOP primary, he’ll keep on fighting teacher unions. But if he wins, he’ll be fighting teacher unions at the federal level, in all 50 states. We can have that, if we vote wisely.