Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary

Twenty-one reasons why marriage matters

2 Comments

From the National Marriage Coalition in New Zealand. (H/T Jennifer Roback Morse)

Summary:

FAMILY

1. Marriage increases the likelihood that fathers have good relationships with their children
2. Cohabitation is not the functional equivalent of marriage
3. Growing up outside an intact marriage increases the likelihood that children themselves divorce or become unwed parents
4. Marriage is a virtually universal human institution.

ECONOMICS

5. Divorce and unmarried childbearing increase poverty for both children and mothers
6. Married couples seem to build more wealth on average than singles or cohabiting couples
7. Married men earn more money than do single men with similar education and job histories
8. Parental divorce (or failure to marry) appears to increase children’s risk of school failure
9. Parental divorce reduces the likelihood that children will graduate from college and achieve high-status jobs

PHYSICAL HEALTH AND LONGEVITY

10.Children who live with their own two married parents enjoy better physical health, on average, than do children in other family forms
11.Parental marriage is associated with a sharply lower risk of infant mortality
12.Marriage is associated with reduced rates of alcohol and substance abuse for both adults and teens
13.Married people, especially married men, have longer life expectancies than do otherwise similar singles
14.Marriage is associated with better health and lower rates of injury, illness, and disability for both men and women

MENTAL HEALTH AND EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

15.Children whose parents divorce have higher rates of psychological distress and mental illness
16.Divorce appears significantly to increase the risk of suicide
17.Married mothers have lower rates of depression than do single or cohabiting mothers

CRIME AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

18.Boys raised in single-parent families are more likely to engage in delinquent and criminal behaviour
19.Marriage appear to reduce the risk that adults will be either perpetrators or victims of crime
20.Married women appear to have a lower risk of experiencing domestic violence than do cohabiting or dating women
21.A child who is not living with his or her own two married parents is at greater risk of child abuse

This is fun to read! You can learn to defend marriage, even if you favor lifelong chastity over marriage like I do.

The full PDF is here.

Commentary

Should fundamentalists encourage pro-abortion, pro-public-school and anti-marriage policies?

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Here’s a post from Newsbusters about a group of “patriarchal” Christians that opposed the nomination of Sarah Palin for the post of vice presidency based on their interpretation of the Bible.

Excerpt:

The Los Angeles Times seems to have taken a sudden new interest in biblical study. No, they haven’t become religious or anything close to that. Instead, they are microanalyzing the Bible for passages that they think they can use to slam Sarah Palin for running for vice-president. They are also searching the countryside to dig up the very few strongly religious Christians they can find who think Palin is wrong to run for public office.

Should fundamentalists directly or indirectly support the election of Barack Obama, which caused disastrous effects in society, (increasing abortion, enabling a stronger influence for public schools, and potentially legalizing same-sex marriage, for starters)?

Does Scripture actually justify any of these radically left-wing positions? Won’t these fundamentalist Christians be judged based on the fruits of their opposition to Sarah Palin? Don’t Christians have a responsibility to be educated about the consequences of their positions? Isn’t it important to interpret the Bible correctly?

See my previous post on the need to have an influence in the public square in the most effective ways possible.

Another point of view

A mother of 12 writes:

It is a continual source of amazement to me that some Evangelicals/Protestants raise such a ruckus about Catholics believing in the spiritual authority of the Pope, even while setting up little mini-Popes of their own – and that these leaders disobey God’s imperative to servant leadership in order to revel in their pedestal status.

Often these begin as well-intentioned people seeking righteousness, but then giving into the temptation of spiritual pride. Like the Pharisees Jesus condemned, they become white-washed sepulchers.

Our family’s experience in a legalistic church (mercifully brief 1989-1990) was filled with people bossing us around, telling us that they had a Word for us from God. How dared they presume that God would speak to a stranger rather than guiding us Himself?

And how dare the Vision Forum crowd presume to become the Pope to Sarah Palin?

The truth is that these well-meaning people have become isolated and insulated, building an alternative universe and then judging the outside world by their self-imposed standards rather than by the historical truth of a heavenly Father who throughout the Bible has chosen unlikely leaders and who has warned us about making our own.

Found here.

Commentary

How the irrational left prefers intentions over actual results

5 Comments

Post from Red State. (H/T Babalu Blog via ECM)

Excerpt:

A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.

A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a  year.

So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.

They claim 700,000 vehicles, so that’s 224 million gallons saved per year.

That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.

Five million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.

More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars.

So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.

We spent $8.57 to for every dollar saved.

How good a deal was that ???

They’ll probably do a great job with health care though!!

But at least they’re nice people, and so generous with other people’s money.