Volunteers from the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) visited Brown University during their state-wide tour for traditional marriage in Rhode Island. While peacefully demonstrating on the Ivy League campus, their pro-family banner was vandalized and a volunteer was spat upon in the face.
“What we faced at Brown University, an Ivy League university, had the flavor of a religious persecution,” said TFP Student Action Director John Ritchie. “Dozens of pro-homosexual students screamed, spat, taunted, and even attempted to destroy our traditional marriage banner.”
“Suddenly, a loud thud-rip noise was heard. I looked up and saw a pro-homosexual student literally crashing through our traditional marriage banner, attempting to destroy it,” explained Ritchie. “Running at top speed, he flung himself into it and ripped one side loose. Some students watching from a distance approvingly cheered the act of violence,” he said.
“Brown University students recently held a protest against traditional marriage at the same location where we held ours and their signs included the word ‘equality,'” Ritchie said. “However, they clearly wanted to impede our right to equally assemble.”
“One of our youngest volunteers, age 17, was spat upon in the face,” explained Ritchie. During our peaceful demonstration for God’s marriage, he walked over and asked: ‘What do I do with this on my face?’ First, we told him to wipe the spittle off his face and then reported the incident to the police.”
“Seeing the violent attitude of the pro-homosexual students, the police wanted to escort us to our vans after the campaign was over to protect us,” stated Ritchie. “And thank God they did, because when we pulled away from the curb, many pro-homosexual students closed in to hit the sides of our vehicles with their fists or palms. A hard object, maybe a rock, was even thrown against one of the vans.”
I would link to the video, but Youtube has censored it. Youtube is not what you would call a pro-free speech web site.
My seven year old son, Jeremiah, a first grader, was doing some homework the other day and was thinking out loud. “Two plus two equals four”, I overheard him say. This piqued my interest a bit and I decided to throw him a curveball.
“Son, two plus two equals five”, I said, to which he responded, “No it doesn’t.”
I decided to take things a little further and said, “But Son, I truly and sincerely believe that two plus two equals five. Doesn’t that mean I’m right?”
Without missing a beat, his reply was only a simple, “Nope”.
Although I was beginning to become concerned that I might be teaching him that ‘Dad may not always be right’, I decided to sacrifice that myth on the altar of truth and roll with it. I then asked him, “Son, what if me and a whole lot of other people really believe that two plus two equals five, and that it might offend us and hurt our feelings that other people like you might think that we’re wrong; can’t you just let be true for us and let ‘two plus two equal four’ for you?”
Another “Nope”.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because two plus two equals four!” He replied with stern conviction. I was now determined to take it even further.
“Son, what if you were the only person in the world who believed that two plus two equals four? Would you still be right?”
He looked up at me from his seat at the table with his trademark big grin and gave me a very confident, “Yes!”
“How come?” I asked?
“Because two plus two equals four!”, he replied again, but this time in a manner which implied that his patience with my line of questioning was wearing thin.
Again, I asked, “How come?”
To which he replied, “Because it just does!”
He goes on to explain that he is getting his child used to the idea that if something is true, then the people who don’t believe it are wrong, and it doesn’t matter how they feel about it. Since the author knows about apologetics, he will be able to give arguments for thinking that Christianity is true as the child grows up. That’s one way to build up your kids – get them used to the idea that truth doesn’t always make everyone like you. And that truth is more important than feelings or community.
I have a friend Andrew who does a fine job of preparing his children for their future roles as effective, influential Christians. One way he does this is by building up their ability to say no to obvious lies. He sits at the table with his kids and points at a glass of milk and then claims that it is a glass of orange juice. The child denies that it is and a fight ensues, with Andrew trying hard to get the child to just go along with his lies, and the child resisting. It’s very important for children to have the sense that if something is true, then they don’t have to change their view to make anyone feel better. This principle is helpful when dealing with aggressive people or offended people.
I often tease women for being too focused on happiness and feelings, but Dr. J isn’t like that at all. She is all about economics, incentives, and moral boundaries. She thinks about the big issues. She once chastised me in an e-mail for being too emotional. I think she has had it with the feelings-based arguments from the socially-liberal left.
This lecture does not repeat much from her previous lectures.
Keep in mind that this speech was given to Wisconsin Catholic seminarians, so there is a lot of rah-rah Catholic stuff. I’m an evangelical Protestant, so I just smile when she talks about that. At least there was no Mary in it. Yay!
SUMMARY
Contraception:
– contraception does not reduce the abortion rate
– contraception is bad because it makes sex a recreational activity
– contraception fails, which leads to the need for abortion
– 80% of abortions are done on unmarried women
– teenagers do not think that contraceptives will FAIL for them
– they don’t understand that the probabilities is PER ACTION – more actions increases probability
– the more you rely on something that has a small chance of failure, the more chance you will get a failure
– more sex, means more chances for a person to get a failure
– older women are naturally less fertile, so they skew contraceptive effectiveness figures higher
– contraceptives are most likely to fail for the young, the poor and the unmarried
– contraception means that women cannot ask men to promise to marry them before sex
– the pressure for a man to marry if the woman gets pregnant is gone
– the presumption is that the woman will have an abortion
– women who want to get married are at a disadvantage to get male attention now
– because men will prefer women who are willing to have an abortion if they get pregnant
– when people argue for these social changes, they don’t accurately assess consequences
– they think that they can have the happiness-making freedom without damaging anything else
– they think that no incentives will be created so that others start to act differently
– example: no-fault divorce – there were terrible consequences that were minimized by the social engineers
Divorce:
– people who wanted this believed myths in order to get the happiness-making freedom for the adults
– they said that divorce would be less harmful for children than if the parents stayed together
– they argued for no-fault divorce because they wanted happiness and didn’t care about children
– in a low conflict marriage, it is better for children if the parents stay together
– in a high-conflict marriage, it is better for children to divorce
– but for high-conflict divorce, you could have gotten a divorce for cause
– what people pushing no-fault divorce really wanted was to divorce to pursue happiness elsewhere
– there is also a financial incentive to divorce for no reason – alimony, child support, property
– but divorce really disrupts the lives of the children
– the VAST MAJORITY of divorces are in low-conflict situations
– the social norm was that low-level conflict meant that you stayed married for the sake of the kids
– a pregnancy after a re-marriage is devastating to children of the first marriage
– not being able to have a normal relationship with both biological parents is devastating to children
– what often drives people into co-habitation is the fear of screwing up their own marriages
– pro-divorce people want women to re-marry afterwards to provide kids with a “father-figure”
– the presence of a stepfather increases bad behavior in the kids, as well as risk of abuse
– but actually, stepfathers spend little time with kids, and draws mother away from the kids
– biological fathers spend the most time with the children
– disciplining the children is more complex with a non-bio dad
– normally, dads wants the kids to behave, and moms want the children to be happy
– often, the woman will forbid the father from disciplining the children
– the father will just drop out of parenting completely when his authority is not respected
Co-habitation:
– social engineers understate the risks of co-habitation and overstate the risks of marriage
– but research shows that co-habitation makes no positive contribution to marriage
– feminists love to say that marriage is very risky, but without comparing it to alternatives
(feminists don’t like marriage because of the “unequal gender roles”)
– when compared with the alternatives, like co-habitation, marriage is better on every measure
– feminists say that married women do not report abuse in marriage, that’s why marriage LOOKS better
– but murders HAVE TO BE reported, and co-habitation results in NINE TIMES more murders than marriage
– children are killed FIFTY TIMES more with co-habitation with an unrelated adult than with 2 bio-parents
– the live-in boyfriend is the culprit in 85% of these cases
Same-sex marriage:
– alternatives to marriage change rules and incentives, it is NOT the same thing as marriage
– necessarily, one of the parents will not have a close relationship with one bio-parents
– social engineers say that mothers and fathers are interchangeable – but they are different
– SSM undermines the presumption of paternity, and substitutes state-ordered parenting
– the public purpose of marriage is to attach mothers to fathers, and parents to children
– SSM elevates private purposes for marriage over and above the public purpose of marriage
– SSM will lead to fathers being marginalized from the family
– the state will have to force people to equate SSM and natural marriage
Artificial reproductive technology:
– it is the next substitute for marriage
– highly educated career women do not have to prepare for a husband to get a baby
– her behavior through her life changes because she doesn’t have to care about marriage
WINTERY KNIGHT 