Get the State Out of Marriage

Jerry Salcido, a trial and appellate lawyer and legal chair for the HomeSchool Association of California, nails it:

Thanks to the state, marriage is no longer a covenant between two people or between two people and God. No, marriage is a state classification, which connotes state-provided benefits or detriments. Marriage is married to the state imposed tax structure and the state created probate system, and in many instances marriage defines the powers of the state over the married individuals.

This unholy union between the state and marriage has transformed marriage from an inalienable or natural right in which government's only place was as protector of that right, to a civil right in which the state became the creator of the right. ...

... By transitioning away from a protector of rights to a provider of rights, the state has laid the groundwork for the problems that are so evident in the same sex marriage issue. If the government were to take its proper place as a protector of rights then a private union between a same sex couple which the couple calls "marriage" would be inconsequential to same sex marriage opponents, even though it may be morally repugnant to some and nonsensical to others. Likewise, refusal to recognize a private same sex union as "marriage" would be inconsequential to gays and lesbians, even though such refusal may personally offend the practitioners of same sex unions. In a free society any individual could "marry" whomever he wants by whatever procedure he desires, and the government's only role would be to make sure that in doing so he does not violate the natural rights of others. ...

... Until we divorce marriage from the state, the right to marry will never be protected and the problems associated with Proposition 8 will be repeated throughout the world. Both sides of the Proposition, therefore, should agree to truly protect their natural rights by removing the state from the equation. In the meantime the world will wait to see how California protects its interests in the Proposition 8 lawsuits.

Papa Don't Preach

The British government is encouraging parents to, well, not parent.
From Times Online:

Parents should avoid trying to convince their teenage children of the difference between right and wrong when talking to them about sex, a new government leaflet is to advise.

Instead, any discussion of values should be kept "light" to encourage teenagers to form their own views, according to the brochure, which one critic has called "amoral".

Talking to Your Teenager About Sex and Relationships will be distributed in pharmacies from next month as part of an initiative led by Beverley Hughes, the children's minister.

The leaflet comes in the wake of the case of Alfie Patten, the 13-year-old boy from East Sussex who fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl and sparked a debate about how to cut rates of teenage parenthood.

It advises: "Discussing your values with your teenagers will help them to form their own. Remember, though, that trying to convince them of what's right and wrong may discourage them from being open."

You know it's a bad idea when the so-called "experts" start weighing in with their support:

Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist, said educating older children and teenagers about sex had to be a process of negotiation. "We do not know what is right and wrong; right and wrong is relative, although your child does need clear guidelines," she said.

So, if you hate your children, go ahead and heed their advice and refuse to teach them right from wrong. It really is the least you could do.

Scotland the Gay

Want to know what it's like to live in a country whose government is willing to break up families in order to make a sociopolitical statement? Just take a look at this story from Scotland:

Social services have removed two young children from the care of their grandparents and arranged for them to be adopted by a homosexual couple.

The five-year-old boy and his four-year-old sister were being looked after by their grandparents because their mother, a recovering drug addict, was not considered capable.

But social workers stepped in after allegedly deciding that the couple, who are aged 59 and 46, were "too old" to look after the children.

They were allegedly stripped of their carer's rights and informed they would be barred from seeing the children altogether unless they agreed to the same-sex adoption. ...

... The case raises fears about state interference in family arrangements, and concerns about the practice of adoption by same-sex couples.

Social workers at the City of Edinburgh Council have been accused of waging a "two-year campaign" through the courts to strip the grandparents of their legal rights as carers of the children.

The reason we should pay close attention to what goes on in the U.K. is because it gives us a glimpse of what's in store for us here in the near future.

Remembering My Grandmother

My grandmother, Loraine Shelton, passed away suddenly the morning after Christmas. The last time Dawn and I saw her was the day after Thanksgiving, and we were planning on seeing her again, along with other members of my immediate family, on New Year's Day.

This came as quite a surprise since she seemed to be in relatively good health. She will be buried alongside her husband in Pensacola, Florida.

I was blessed to have had her as a grandmother for nearly 40 years. She was a kind and gentle woman who always put others first. She was always there to care for my grandfather, who battled numerous health problems throughout his life. She was a great example of a loving, faithful wife, and you could tell how much she adored her husband even after 60 years of marriage.

My father (you can read his tribute here) always talked about the three important things he learned from his parents: that they loved God, loved each other, and loved their children. That has been something I have always wanted to pass along to our own kids.

She will be missed. We remain saddened at her departure from this world, but I know that one day we will see her again.

Carol Paul in ICU

From the Victoria Advocate:

Congressman Ron Paul canceled his Monday trip to Victoria to stay with his wife, who was in a Houston hospital intensive care unit after being hospitalized Thursday, a Paul spokesperson reported.

Spokeswoman Rachel Mills would not provide further information on Carol Paul’s condition, saying the family wished to keep it a private affair.

Carol Paul, known for her support and interest in Paul's campaigns, was hospitalized for a pre-existing heart condition on Aug. 11, 2007. Doctors implanted a pacemaker, and she recovered without complications.

Please pray for the Paul family during this time.

Abortion: Weeding out the Undesirables

Eugenics is the study of the possibility that the quality of the human race can be improved by encouraging people with "desirable" traits to reproduce while at the same time discouraging reproduction among those with "undesirable" traits. It was practiced by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s and continues to this day.

The link between eugenics and the modern abortion movement is no conincidence. Margaret Sanger, founder of the American Birth Control League (which eventually became Planned Parenthood), was a huge fan of eugenics. In 1932, she wrote an essay entitled "A Plan for Peace," in which she called on Congress to create a Parliament of Population. The objective would be to "direct and control the population through birth rates and immigration, and to direct its distribution over the country according to national needs consistent with taste, fitness and interest of the individuals." One of the methods for accomplishing this goal was "to apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring."

Today, eugenics carries with it such a negative connotation. We're more enlightened, so we call it "reproductive freedom."

Abortion is already being used to "filter out" undesirable kids. Last year, the LA Times ran an opinion piece entitled "The Abortion Debate Brought Home." The author, Dan Neil, boasts about the decision he and his wife made to selectively murder two of their four children. They did so because the in-vitro fertilization process resulted in four babies: two girls and two boys. And since no one in the history of civilization has ever given birth to more than two children at once, they concluded that two of them had to go.

So, they did what any concerned parent would do: they had genetic testing done to see which of their kids would be less of a hassle to raise. In the end, they decided to off the boys. As Neil explains, "Some studies show offspring of older fathers (I'm 47) run a higher risk of autism, and males are four times as likely to be autistic." What a brave and loving father!

Oh, but the decision wasn't all that easy. Neil "had reservations about bringing girls into the world now, when forces seemed to be aligning to disenfranchise them (nine of 10 GOP presidential candidates favor reversing Roe vs. Wade)." He wasn't too keen on the idea that his daughters would "have to fight the battles their mothers and grandmothers fought." (Come on. I'm sure Mom would be more than happy to teach them how to burn their training bras.)

Neil wishes there were more doctors out there willing to murder children and that those of us who have a problem with infanticide should just lighten up. He goes on to express his gratitude to the Hippocratic Oath-breaker who butchered his two sons -- withholding her name, of course, "for fear that she might be terrorized by some gun-toting antiabortion extremist." He concludes, "For our part, we are grateful that she was out there. Without her, we wouldn't have been able to have a family. When Roz and Viv grow up, I hope one day I can introduce them to her. I think she'd be proud."

You're quite a guy, Mr. Neil. I suppose the rest of us should be on our knees, thanking you for not bringing two potential freaks into the world. Who knows? Those boys could have turned out to be just as sick and twisted as their father. I don't know about your anonymous "doctor" friend, but I am certain that Margaret Sanger would be proud.

The Importance of Family

Chuck Baldwin on marriage and parenting:

Greedy, power-mad politicians are no match for a generation of strong marriages. Young people with character and courage trump purveyors of pretension any day. One principled champion -- trained and equipped by strong, stalwart parents -- will put a thousand moral weaklings to flight.

While Pharaoh built his monuments, a humble Hebrew mother taught and nurtured her son, a little boy miraculously drawn forth from the watery reeds. That little boy became the deliverer of his people. It was a Godly mother and father that produced the prophet who would anoint the greatest king of Israel. It was a Spirit-filled mother and father who produced the forerunner of the Messiah. And it was a virtuous, principled mother -- not a government agency, educational institution, or commercial enterprise -- whom God chose to bring the Savior of mankind into the world.

Do you want real change? Don't look to politicians. Strengthen the family.

The State Owns Your Children

When California's Second District Court of Appeal declared that "parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children," they were simply confirming what many of us have known all along: The state thinks it owns your children. This alone is reason enough to keep your kids out of government indoctrination centers.

Judge H. Walter Croskey, who presided over the case, reached a chilling conclusion -- which, again, came as no surprise. He ruled that a "primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism, and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare." There is nothing implied here. Judge Croskey is telling California parents that the state's interests come first.

The saddest part of it is that the vast majority of parents see nothing wrong with the concept of public schools. Sure, they will throw the obligatory hissy fit when free condoms are given out to students, or when evolution is taught in lieu of intelligent design, but most of them just can't pass up the opportunity to give their kids a "free education." As a result, virtually all of them fail to address the real problem.

In essence, those in political power believe that they are the true benefactors (as well as beneficiaries) of our children and will raise them in the manner they see fit. After all, that which the state funds, it also controls. Do you really think that you as fathers and mothers matter to them? No. You are nothing more than foster parents for wards of the state.

Now, you can either get used to that idea, or you can choose to do something about it. What's it going to be?

Abortion Is a "Motherly Act"?

I ran across Caitlin Moran's latest column at TimesOnline entitled "Abortion: Why It's the Ultimate Motherly Act." If you want to get at the heart of the evil of abortion, then read this article. It is by far the most unashamedly selfish argument I have ever seen in favor of murdering one's own children:

My belief in the ultimate sociological, emotional and practical necessity for abortion did, as I have mentioned before, become even stronger after I had my two children. It is only after you have had a nine-month pregnancy, laboured to get the child out, fed it, cared for it, sat with it until 3am, risen with it at 6am, swooned with love for it and been reduced to furious tears by it that you really understand just how important it is for a child to be wanted. And, possibly even more importantly, to be wanted by a reasonably sane, stable mother. Last year I had an abortion, and I can honestly say it was one of the least difficult decisions of my life. I'm not being flippant when I say it took me longer to decide what work-tops to have in the kitchen than whether I was prepared to spend the rest of my life being responsible for a further human being. I knew I would see my existing two daughters less, my husband less, my career would be hamstrung and, most importantly of all, I was just too tired to do it all again. I didn't want another child, in the same way that I don't suddenly want to move to Canada or buy a horse. While there was, of course, every chance that I might eventually be thankful for the arrival of a third child, I am, personally, not a gambler. I won't spend £1 on the lottery, let alone take a punt on a pregnancy. The stakes are far, far too high. ...

... However, what I do believe to be sacred - and, indeed, more useful to the earth as a whole - is trying to ensure that there are as few unbalanced, destructive people as possible. By whatever rationale you use, ending a pregnancy 12 weeks into gestation is incalculably more moral than bringing an unwanted child into this world. Or a child that, through no fault of its own, would be the destructor of a marriage, a family, a parent. It's fairly inarguable to say that unhappy children, who then grew into very angry adults, have caused the great majority of mankind's miseries. If psychoanalysis has, somewhat brutally, laid the responsibility for mental disorders at parents' doors, the least we can do is to tip our hats to women aware enough not to create those troubled people in the first place.

Sure. This is the kind of B.S. you want to read after finding out that your own adoption process will most likely take three times as long as you once thought.

I can't help but wonder: if Ms. Moran really wanted to ease "mankind's miseries," then why not make more of a personal sacrifice? Couldn't she just as easily abstain from sex? It's 100 percent effective. No sex, no unwanted children. Oh, but that would mean exercising a little self-control and assuming personal responsibility - and those are exactly the kinds of burdens abortion on demand is supposed to alleviate.

Compare Moran's reasoning with that of Miranda Sawyer, who detailed how she came to "rethink" abortion in a recent article for The Observer:

Like most women - at least most British women - I have always been firmly in the pro-choice camp because I've spent nearly all of my sexually active life trying not to get pregnant. Throughout my twenties and the better part of my thirties, I did everything that was required for me not to have a child (other than, you know, not having sex). I wasn't always safe - I've necked morning-after pills like vitamin tablets - but I was lucky enough not to end up in a situation where I was pregnant and didn't want to be. I've never had an abortion, though I am mighty glad that legal abortion exists.

When I got pregnant so soon after my Granny's death, it felt weird. My mind kept returning to the pregnancy test. If my reaction to those fateful double lines that said 'baby ahead' had been horror instead of hurrah - and, to be honest, it wasn't unalloyed joy that I felt when I saw them; I was scared, too - then I would have had little hesitation in having an abortion. But it was that very fact that was confusing me. I was calling the life inside me a baby because I wanted it. Yet if I hadn't, I would think of it just as a group of cells that it was OK to kill. It was the same entity. It was merely my response to it that determined whether it would live or die. That seemed irrational to me. Maybe even immoral.

Ms. Sawyer still thinks women should be allowed to have an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy. However, she believes that "once an embryo has developed enough to feel pain, or begin a personality, then it has moved from cell life into the first stages of being a human," so, for her, "ending that life is wrong." I guess that's at least a step in the right direction.

But she points out the inherent fallacy of the pro-abortion argument. It isn't about determining whether what's being killed is a human life or not. If a woman wants it, it's a baby; if she doesn't, then it's just a blob of tissue. That's why I have never bought into the notion that having an abortion is a "tough decision" for a woman to make. It's the easy way out of a difficult situation. Deciding what's best for the child - whether to keep it or give it up for adoption - that's a tough decision. But that's also one that doesn't have to be made alone.

Ask anyone who has adopted, or is trying to adopt, and they will tell you that there is no such thing as an "unwanted child." That's a lie perpetuated by those whose bloodlust and selfishness get in the way of reason.

When Marriage Vows Meant Something

Here's a rather uplifting and encouraging story from across the Pond:

U.K. Couple Marks 80th Wedding Anniversary

LONDON - A British husband and wife revealed the secrets of the longest marriage of any living couple on Wednesday as they celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary--don't sleep on an argument, always share a kiss and hold hands before going to bed.

Percy Arrowsmith, 105, and his 100-year-old wife Florence, were married on June 1, 1925, after meeting at their local church in Hereford, western England, where he sang in the choir and she was a Sunday school teacher.

Queen Elizabeth II sent her congratulations to the Arrowsmiths, who celebrated their anniversary Wednesday with coffee and nibbles at home with family and friends.

"What a splendid achievement. I send you my warm congratulations and best wishes for your 80th wedding anniversary," the Queen wrote in a card to the couple.

The Arrowsmiths, who have three children, six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, claim the key to their long marriage is not to go to sleep on an argument. They say they always kiss each other and hold hands each night before going to bed.

"He can't settle down if I'm not holding his hand," Mrs. Arrowsmith was quoted as saying last month.

The couple's daughter Jane Woolley said her parents were both "very perky."

"She (Mrs. Arrowsmith) says she can't dance any longer but it feels good to have been married for 80 years. She says she can still have a drink," Woolley said.

Guinness World Records said the pair held records for the longest marriage for a living couple and the oldest aggregate age of a married couple.

It seems to me a generation that's obsessed with the romantic exploits of Hollywood celebrities could stand to learn a thing or two from this couple.

"If it's all the same to you, Mom, I think I'll stick around for awhile"

What does the pro-choice instruction manual have to say regarding those rare instances when a woman's freedom of choice is thwarted by the very child she tries to murder?:

Boy Is Aborted 3 Times and Lives

A baby survived at least three attempts to abort it from the womb and was born alive at 24 weeks old.

The boy was delivered in hospital after his 24- year-old mother changed her mind about wanting the child after feeling it move on the way home from an abortion clinic.

Although the clinic had told her an ultrasound scan had confirmed the child was dead, she went into labour that afternoon and the boy was born alive.

Now two years old and healthy, he is the first long-term abortion survivor to have been born so prematurely. His remarkable entrance into the world is documented in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. ...

Should this boy be told that his mother's right to choose still outweighs his right to life? Is there any self-respecting abortion advocate who will tell this child that he isn't supposed to be here? That he's a mistake? A freak of nature? Will anyone inform him that his very existence is an insult to everything the pro-death cult stands for?

I didn't think so.

Yes, Interracial Marriage Is Ordained by God

Believe it or not, there are quite a few professing Christians who think that interracial marriage is a sin. Exactly why is anyone's guess since no condemnation of it can be found in scripture. To the contrary, the only biblical position is that interracial marriage is ordained by God.

John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minn., recently preached a sermon entitled Racial Harmony and Interracial Marriage. He summarizes his position with four main points:

1. All races have one ancestor in the image of God and all humans are in God's image.
   
2. The Bible forbids intermarriage between unbeliever and believer, but not between races.
   
3. In Christ our oneness is profound and transforms racial and social differences from barriers to blessings.
   
4. Criticizing one interracial marriage was severely disciplined by God.
   

I encourage you to read the entire sermon. Understanding what the Bible has to say regarding this issue can only help in the edification of the church. Conversely, denouncing interracial marriage as a sin only serves to divide the body of Christ.

Dying to Kill

It seems some doctors just can't wait to send their youngest patients off to an early grave. This just in from the moral nether regions:

Netherlands Hospital Euthanizes Babies

(AP) - A hospital in the Netherlands—the first nation to permit euthanasia—recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives.

So much for the Hippocratic Oath.

Can someone tell me just what the hell happened to the medical profession? Has healing become a lost art? Many of us have been saying for years that this is exactly what we could expect from a society that no longer values the sanctity of life. First, it was unborn babies. Next came the sick and the elderly. Now we're performing post-natal abortions in the name of mercy.

What can we expect in the years to come? If we can justify killing other human beings because we think we are somehow relieving their suffering, what's to stop us from getting rid of those who become a burden on the rest of us? If the suffering of society at large can be eased by eliminating a few undesirables...

You'd think people wouldn't want to go through that again.

A Mother's Gruesome Reminder

Take time to read this brief account of a woman's act of murder coming back to haunt her in a rather disturbing way:

Aborted Baby's Head Left Inside Woman

A British hospital is now investigating the case of a woman who had an abortion, but then was shocked to find out the head of her unborn baby had been left inside her. ...

It's a matter of personal choice. It's just another surgical procedure. Abortion is no big deal, right? Try telling that to someone who is going crazy after literally coming face-to-face with the consequences of her actions.

"Conservatives" Are Wrong on the Pro-Marriage Amendment

Joseph Sobran rightly criticizes the "conservative" solution to gay marriage in an article entitled The Amendment Strategy:

Nobody ever construed the Constitution to mandate sodomatrimony before, simply because, for openers, marriage has always meant a union of two people of different sexes. The Massachusetts court wasn't reading the text dispassionately, as judges are supposed to do, but acting under the impetus of a current fad to impose its own will - just as the U.S. Supreme Court has often done, most notably in its 1973 abortion rulings.

So the problem isn't the Constitution; it's the judiciary, which has gone beyond usurping legislative powers to usurp powers even the legislative branch was never meant to have, such as redefining some of the most basic terms in the English language - human life, and now marriage. ...

... But proposing constitutional amendments has become something of a conservative hobby. It feels so good! So conservatives in our time have offered a series of needless amendments - to ban abortion, to ban flag-burning, and now to ban same-sex "marriage" - and every one of them has failed miserably, leaving the Constitution’s meaning the plaything of the liberal judiciary.

What I have never quite understood is the willingness of the American people - conservatives in particular - to submit to the arbitrary rulings of judges who lack an understanding of the moral foundation of the law and who have exceeded their constitutional authority. Such rulings are, by definition, immoral and unlawful and should be ignored.

What this country needs more than a pro-marriage amendment is a judiciary that actually respects the law of the land rather than reinterprets it. Conservatives, however, fail to grasp that fact. They are, as Sobran points out, more interested in party politics:

But the latest failed amendment, as one news report immediately noted, "has given President Bush a campaign issue." That's why Bush supported it - not because it had any chance of passing, but because its inevitable defeat would produce a conservative frustration helpful to his bid for reelection.

Republican politicians have learned to excite and exploit conservative passions without satisfying them. Conservatives, the GOP's own useful idiots, fall for it every time. Bush can get away with violating just about every conservative principle as long as he gives lip service on a few hot-button issues that shouldn't even be issues. Pushing an amendment that's going nowhere is one way to do this.

What conservatives need to do is set politics aside for a moment and stop trying to treat the symptom while ignoring the disease. Forget altering the Constitution and put that zeal and fervor to good use by attacking those judges who are making a mockery of our legal system. Besides, conservatives wouldn't want defining marriage added to the growing list of federal powers...would they?

Unholy Matrimony

Thanks to four social liberals on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, "gay marriage" is well on its way to becoming part of mainstream society. While this is an insult to those who believe in the sanctity of marriage, all hope is not lost. Read my latest column for EverVigilant.net, "Legitimizing 'Gay Marriage': a Sign of the Times."

The Episcopal Church

Ever Vigilant columnist Jeff Adams asks the question, "Is the Episcopal Church a Christian Church Anymore?"