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That's true. Some like to describe the Constitution as a "living, breathing" document with no certain meaning, which they use as cover for their shameless twisting and distortion of our nation's founding legal document.

For the concerns I expressed to be irrational paranoia, they would have to be baseless. And if you think I'm talking exclusively about Obamacare, you have misread me. As I observed in my last post, some are constantly trying to throw off the restraints that our founders placed on government and there is always some excuse for ignoring the rule of law embodied in our Constitution. Obamacare is just one of the most recent and most sweeping examples of that. BTW, I would be just as opposed to Obamacare or any semblance of it had Republicans cooked it up. The issue with Obamacare is fundamentally constitutional, not partisan.

Some of us have a very short attention span and forget, or perhaps never knew, that the current high rates of pregnancies and births outside of marriage are a recent development in our nation. Both were actually quite low before birth control pills were introduced and became widely used. The advent of the pill facilitated recreational sex which began to grip singles in our society at progressively earlier ages. (I lived through that transition and witnessed it.) Now artificial means of birth control are incongruously being touted as the humanistic cure to the problem they helped create. But they are not the cure. Christ is. And he is the only cure. Offering birth control as a solution to pregnancies outside of marriage ignores the fact that a moral failure is at the root of that problem and only serves to facilitate continuing immorality.

Advocates of artificial birth control for women also continually overlook the fact that most of those modalities are abortifacient. Nor do they ever want to talk about the myriad health risks to women that are associated with pharmaceutical birth control. IMO, this continuous push for women's birth control, like the closely related push for abortion, is a major factor in the now pervasive objectification and abuse of women. Sadly, many women are themselves oblivious to that connection or even to the reality of how our culture has dehumanized them.

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indeed

what do you suggest they do?

surviving war has zero to do with surviving Obamacare -- it's apples & oranges & the wrong Q -- should the gov't be in the healthcare business? -- NO

clearly it's an issue for all but holiness is more important than economics

why do we promote sinful behavior?

"help the poor" is very vague -- what exactly do you think they need? -- compared to the rest of the planet, these people are rich

to improve education, kill the Dept. of Educ & the teacher's union for starters -- why pump billions into failed programs? -- is it wrong to expect results for our $? -- we've made administrators rich & unions dominant yet many kids suffer -- the system is the problem, not the funding

Acknowledging this phenomenon would be a good start. It would be splendid to see some sort of correlation between the amount of attention and publicity directed towards a particular agent working against family stability and the amount of influence it actually has on the family. IOW, shout loudest about the most significant things, not the things that get you the most money.



Then you missed my point. The statement made was that the republic was at risk because people were too loose with their interpretation of the Constitution. There is nothing going on today that is any worse than anything we've faced in the past.



But preaching holiness isn't effective public policy. I'd argue it's not even all that proper given that "no sex before marriage" is a decidedly religious moral code that not everyone shares.



I'm not promoting it, but that doesn't mean it's the harbinger of doom for the family that the Christian Right has made it out to be. They're lying about it, because it helps them sell books.



Sure, there are systemic problems, but blaming it on teachers unions or the DOE is just more of the right-wing nonsense that I'm talking about. Talk to a teacher: funding is a big problem.

-Dan.

The article points out that a considerably number of marriages back in the "good old days" were due to a pregnancy and an attempt to "maintain honor."

I find absolutely no honor in that. ZERO. It's legalism. It's piety. It's hypocrisy. There is nothing virtuous or Godly about coercing two people into compounding their problems by marrying when they ought not.



Mankind always has been immoral and always will be. If you're going to develop an effective public policy, you need something more than preaching morality at people, because when it comes from the government, that approach won't work.

-Dan.

yes, i'm sure Jesus will follow your approach during the Milennial Kingdom

i've talked to a bunch & they don't see things the way you do

as for the rest of your arguments, we simply disagree -- it doesn't seem an efficient use of my time this morning to delve into why -- just about every post you've ever writtten i've disagreed with -- not a big deal -- just try not to get so frustrated with those who disagree with your clearly superior view

I don't think people have changed all that much. The decision to have sex for the first time, particularly for girls, is a complicated one, and is rarely spurred on by the knowledge that she will not get pregnant! A lot more of them than you think wait until they feel they are in a committed relationship. This is in large part because of AIDS. Because please don't forget that many of these out-of-wedlock births are being produced by monogamous relationships. In many instances, the baby's father has been the girl's long-time boyfriend.

Getting rid of birth control doesn't change behavior if you understand young girls, who are in the driver's seat in these relationships. If she says "No," the guy will either find someone else, or wait until she is ready. If the guy is in love, he must and will wait.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

I correct the above post to say, that "there is nothing new under the sun," because before there was AIDS there was chlamydia, gonorrhea, and the one everyone was afraid of before AIDS - syphylis! There was always something to be afraid of, so not even AIDS changed people's behavior all that much.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

As a nation we've done some very foolish things in the past. I'm not arguing that Obamacare is the worst or that it will be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. What I'm saying is that when policymakers ignore the Constitution and act contrary to it, they are practicing lawlessness. And lawlessness, if left unchecked, incrementally and progressively destroys the rule of law without which our republic cannot exist. Whether it is Obamacare or something else, there will finally be a "last straw." Surely you can see that. Should we therefore be unconcerned about incremental lawlessness in public policy? Only in retrospect will we be able to look back and say "that" was what finally did us in. But we can see what's happening and reason tells us where it will end. Proverbs tells us that a prudent person foresees evil and acts to protect himself from what he sees coming (Prov 22:3; 27:12).

The prophets did not agree. Nor did our forefathers. They openly declared that morality was essential to the health and continuance of the nation. Truth remains truth whether or not everyone agrees with it. And virtuous morality among our leaders, our laws, and our policies do have a salubrious effect on society, while their absence has a grievous effect (Prov 29:2).

Dan, do you doubt the destructive effects of sin? Don't you agree that both scripture and experience tell us that sexual sin is especially destructive? And don't you agree that it's especially destructive to the family?

First, what article are you talking about? I don't recall reading that in any of the articles introduced here. What are the "good old days"? What time period is in view? And what does "a considerable number" mean? Two per cent? Five per cent? Is it quantified in any way at all? Did what you describe happen? Sure it did. Was it typical? Certainly not when I was growing up. As for your commentary, I will just say that 50 years ago most Americans had a certain sensibility for doing the right thing when it came to children.

I don't know how old you are, Assured, but I have witnessed a dramatic change in our culture and our mores. Behavior that is commonly accepted today would have been scandalous when I was a boy. Lifestyles that are publicly advocated today as a matter of policy were unthinkable. Maybe people haven't changed all that much, but I assure you their behavior has.

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I am over 35 and not yet 50.

And I have already concluded that I am definitely "south" of your age group, sir!

I respect your observations, and no doubt they are true regarding how The Pill changed sexual mores.

I am merely suggesting that in my own lifetime, the pendulum may have swung back to where it was before The Pill, because HIV is pretty lethal when compared to the other STD's, but also that PRUDENT women have always been careful because of the potential for horrendous and potentially embarrassing STD's.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

Gideon, I've thought about this a little more, and you know what? It takes a great deal of commitment and discipline to remain completely celibate. IMO only a Christian has been given grace, from God Himself, to do this. The other people are going to fornicate, and it is wise public policy to mitigate the inevitable damage as much as possible. Proverbs was written for a reason. It's because we are "fools." Making The Pill illegal won't change this behavior IMO (for what it's worth in this case - LOL!)

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

I don't believe this claim.

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Not all those who wander are lost.

May you enjoy your youth and use your strength for Christ and his kingdom!

To be clear, I don't attribute changing sexual mores entirely to the pill. IMO, it has been only one of many contributing factors.

Although now slightly dated, a 1991 study conducted at UC Berkeley found that 46% of sexually active co-eds were infected with HPV. Another study from about the same time found that 38% of sexually active females between the ages 13 to 21 undergoing routine cervical cytologic screening were infected with HPV. More recently the Centers for Disease Control estimated there are 19 million new incidences of STD infection every year in the U.S., and half of those are among adolescents and young adults (ages 15-24). Data gathered by the Medical Institute for Sexual Health out of Austin, Texas indicates that age group accounts for 63% of such infections. Also according to the CDC, HPV infection has become the number one reason that American women visit a gynecologist. Clearly we still have a problem. And I would submit that "prudent" women refrain from sex outside of marriage. To do otherwise, according to God, is foolish.

I don't think anyone has suggested making birth control pills illegal. If so, I missed it. And I don't object in principle to public policy that will mitigate the destructive effects of sinful behavior, but I think it's a huge mistake to concede that such behavior is inevitable or to assume that only Christians can be celibate outside of marriage. I suspect that a lot of Muslim women do precisely that. And IMO it used to be the case that most young women in the United States did that. I haven't objected to the so-called birth control mandate on the grounds of sexual morality. I have pointed out that it won't solve the underlying problem, but I object to it on the grounds that it is both unconstitutional (and therefore unlawful) and unethical to require people to facilitate something which they find morally abhorrent and which would require them to act in violation of their faith. I have additional objections under the Constitution, but I don't think I've articulated them here.

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Fair enough. But I say the same thing to you that I said to Paco and Strider - this issue pre-dates President Obama. It's just that no one chose to say anything about it before. I am not sure what to make of that. But it is clear to me that this is NOT an "Obama" policy that is being labasted here, regardless of people's opinions on this matter.

Gideon, we are both in California - have you looked up who was responsible for California's birth control insurance coverage mandate? If not, I'll try to post that info tomorrow.

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Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine

Oh what a foretaste of glory divine!

When you say "this issue," what specifically are you referring to?

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Jesus wouldn't be running a secular government, would he? I fail to see how the two are remotely comparable. Care to explain?



Whose morality? Which virtues? As a policy maker, how do you decide?



The article to which Serendipity linked. (2nd page, 3rd paragraph)



According to the article, "50 years ago," and "as many as a third."




Define "doing the right thing."



Nice little bat & switch you tried there. Is sexual sin destructive? Sure. But to whom? Your cheating on your wife or getting married is not destructive to my marriage. You marrying your gay lover does not erode my family in any way.



Has the behavior changed or are people just more open about it now?

-Dan.