Religion & Marriage, The Abortion Governor – American Family Association of Indiana
A Long Process
Last week the Indiana Court of Appeals rejected a request from the Indiana Attorney General to expedite the legal battle over the state’s new abortion law. AG Rokita also asked that a temporary injunction on the law be removed. That too was denied.
This means that the legal battles over SB 1 will go on for many months before it is likely settled by the Indiana Supreme Court.
The Growing Marriage Divide
There is no more important social institution to society than marriage. It has a host of social benefits for adults and children. The breakdown of the family is directly linked to all sorts of societal problems including crime, poverty, public health, and educational challenges. This is a reality that has been well documented for decades by social science.
The decline of marriage is also a primary contributor to the growth of government. It is hard to think of a social program that has not grown dramatically because of the breakdown of the traditional family. From just 1965 to 1999 the federal government spent $7.9 trillion on poverty programs as out-of-wedlock births quadrupled.
I should first note that most single parents do heroic work to successfully raise children. This is not a personal knock against any parent or condemnation of any child’s chance to succeed. Yet, in the big social picture, data is important for public policy considerations.
Growing up in a single-parent home can have both short and long-lasting effects. For example, 37% of single-parent families lack self-sufficiency (and are officially poor) compared with only 7 percent of married-couple families. Children living in single-parent homes are 50% more likely to experience poverty as children and even later as adults when compared with children from intact married homes. Welfare dependency is 1,700% more likely for children born outside of marriage than children born to a married mother and father according to the Heritage Foundation.
Marriage numbers are declining in America and in many parts of the world. There is now a very noticeable divide in the likelihood of marriage among the young. Increasingly in America, it is the devoutly religious who are the most likely to marry. This is largely due to shifts among the young in their views of marriage. (Many warned that one of the dangers of redefining marriage would be a devaluing of the institution.) While young people still desire marriage, the proportion of Millennials (those aged 22-40) who do marry has been declining as they prioritize other life goals such as education and career over marriage.
As for the religious divide, a 16-year recent longitudinal study found that 97% of highly religious men were likely to be married by their mid-40s, compared to only 65% of non-religious men.
This creates a social divide as reported by the Institute for Family Values. They found that married Millennials:
· were more likely to report satisfying and stable relationships compared to Millennials in other types of committed relationships;
· were more likely to have better access to health care, retirement benefits, and insurance compared to unmarried Millennials;
· reported better health and more regular exercise than those who weren’t married;
· were significantly less likely to report depression than single Millennials.
You can read more about this here.
Empower Parents in a Big Tech World
There is a good article about how to protect children from the influences of “big tech” by empowering parents regarding their children and social media. You can read its policy suggestions here.
Popular Author to Speak in Indy
Our friends at First Principles Forum are hosting their next speaking event on October 28th at the Woodstock Country Club in Indianapolis. Their speaker is commentator, speaker, and business leader Vivek Ramaswamy author of the best-selling book Woke, Inc. Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, a book about the rapid swing of big business into far-left politics. Vivek has just released his new book: Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence.
The 7:30 pm event is located at Woodstock Country Club, 1301 W 38th St, Indianapolis, IN 46208. Tickets start at $45. For more information click here.
A Sleeping Giant Awakens
Pastor John MacArthur is without a doubt one of the most prominent ministers in America today. I admire him very much as a great teacher. There are few ministers who teach God’s word better than he.
I do have one slight issue with Dr. MacArthur in that I believe he has given up on political action, but when you live in California, political action may often look like a losing game. (It’s not a losing game in Indiana.) He has always made God’s word number 1 and he’s exactly right. Politics should never even equal, let alone supplant the teaching of the Bible, but even Dr. MacArthur has his limits.
Recently Dr. MacArthur went after California Governor Gavin Newsome because the Governor has purchased billboards across the nation advertising his state’s abortion industry. To make matters worse these billboards quote Jesus’ words. That crossed a line and MacArthur has spoken up with a letter to the governor and a short message to his church and followers that is worth viewing.
You can see his statement here.
Dr. MacArthur is not asleep as per my headline’s common historic phrase. He believes and makes a compelling case that God’s divine judgment from Romans 1 is now upon America and there’s no stopping it. I don’t really disagree, but I believe we have a duty to speak and act in the political arena, nevertheless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0_lV8Afznw
In Their Own Words:
Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence. – Governor Ronald Reagan, Jan. 7, 1970
