Tag Archives: Children’s Rights

Videos

MUST-SEE: Jennifer Roback Morse lectures on marriage and family

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I am sure you will all LOVE this lecture delivered by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse at Houston Baptist University. (60 minutes, start listening at 11:15 though!)

Topics:

  • what is the purpose of marriage in society?
  • do children really need a mother and a father?
  • is each child entitled to a relationship with their 2 bio-parents?
  • how is the purpose of marriage being re-defined today?
  • how does same-sex marriage redefine traditional marriage?
  • should the state be able to determine who counts as a parent?
  • are mothers and fathers interchangeable?
  • how did no-fault divorce redefine marriage?
  • does the government provide an incentive to divorce?
  • are men interchangeable with women?
  • where did feminism come from? how did it start?
  • how does the Marxist worldview view marriage and family?
  • who do feminists believe should be raising the children?
  • how Christianity conflicts with Utopian views
  • what can a Christian university do to turn the tide?

This is a fun lecture to watch, because she’s very articulate, informed, and passionate. She’s an excellent speaker, because she taught economics at Yale University and George Mason University. You can’t help but follow what she’s saying because she keeps your attention. I am also a huge fan of women who are concerned about threats to the marriage, fathers and children. I like when women put marriage first. I like it when women think that fathers are important. I like it when women want to protect children. She’s very funny in this video, as well.

I’ve learned a ton about marriage and economics by listening to Jennifer Roback Morse. I thought she was kind of slacking off lately, but this video more than makes up for it. I like to complain a lot about women today not thinking much about love, marriage and parenting. But Dr. J knows everything about those topics. Everything! I remember chastising her once by e-mail that she had never taken clear sides on no-fault divorce and she MAILED ME a hardcover book of essays where she wrote an essay on that very topic! Naturally she took the pro-marriage, pro-father, pro-children side.

Podcasts

Oklahoma considers legislation to reduce divorce rate

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She makes marriage sensible
She makes marriage sensible

A podcast with Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse.

The MP3 file is here.

Topics:

  • do governments have an interest in preserving marriage? Why?
  • when a divorce occurs, what does the government decide for you?
  • why preserving marriage helps to preserve your liberty
  • how every child has an interest in the stability of their parents’ union
  • how every child has a right to care from each biological parent
  • how justice requires us to care about the needs of vulnerable children
  • the government should legislate to protect the rights of children
  • how much does a divorce cost the couple?
  • how much does a divorce cost taxpayers (i.e. – government services)
  • how can government protect marriages
  • is mandatory counseling before a divorce a good idea?
  • is a mandatory waiting period before a divorce a good idea?
  • how can changes to custody rules discourage divorce?
  • is fault-based divorce a good idea?
  • should fault be considered when splitting up property after a divorce?

For such a short podcast, this really rocks. Every sentence is brilliant.

I have tons of ideas of how the government could prevent divorce and encourage marriage. I would cut off all subsidies for failure, and replace them with vouchers for counseling, tax credits for getting married, and tax credits for staying married. I also like covenant marriages. I think I would be way more likely to marry if I could get a covenant marriage. It’s a really fun thing to think about, because you want to preserve liberty while still encouraging people to be careful who they marry and how they related to their children. What’s your idea to preserve marriage?

Podcasts

Jennifer Roback Morse answers the best argument for same-sex marriage

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Cloning her would solve the marriage problem
She'll show you how to defend marriage

Jennifer Roback Morse likes to debate, and she’s very good at it. So good, that you can learn how to debate about marriage too, just by listening to her debates.

The audio of her recent debate in Manhattan just came out.

The MP3 file is here. (46 minutes lecture, 27 minutes of Q&A)

The main case that she makes is similar to the case she made in the debate she had at Columbia University, which I blogged about before. But the Q&A is new, and very interesting. It starts at 46:00 and goes until the end. But one of the difficult questions she was asked really stood out.

The argument

Opposition to same-sex marriage is the same as opposition to inter-racial marriage.

The answer

There are two ways to respond:

1) Race has nothing to do with the central purpose of marriage as being the natural way of binding children to parents, and parents to each other. Race doesn’t affect those goals. But gender is relevant to the the purpose of marriage, because if a baby is formed from opposite sex parents then both parents have a biological link to the child, which is a stronger bond than a non-biological link. This improves the chances that the child will be raised in a stable environment.

2) A better historical analogy to opposing same-sex marriage is opposition to no-fault divorce (unilateral divorce). No-fault marriage started in California. They also argued that only a few people would be affected, that the children would not be harmed, studies show that it will be OK, etc. But in hindsight, we now know that it was a disaster for the family, and especially for children.

You can visit Dr. J’s blog here.

Those of you who are into Christian apologetics need to understand that atheism is embraced for a whole host of non-rational causes. One of them is growing up in a fatherless household. It has a profound impact on a child’s worldview when the child’s father is defective or absent. That means that every Christian apologist who knows the standard arguments also needs to know how to defend marriage. Insofar as socialism attacks marriage, the Christian apologist needs to be able to defend marriage on fiscal grounds, as well.

I’ve written before about no-fault divorce, pre/extra-marital sex, single-mother parenting and same-sex marriage. Here is my post that cites research in order to explain why people oppose same-sex marriage.