Defenders of marriage at the Family Research Council recently posted a blog entitled “Why Marriage Should Be Privileged in Public Policy.” What follows is a brief excerpt.
Marriage is the most important social act, one that involves much more than just the married couple. To begin with, extended families are merged and renewed through a wedding. It is also through marriage that the community and the nation are renewed. A new home is formed when a couple marries, one open to the creation of new life. These children are the future. Marriage also has beneficial social and health effects for both adults and children, and these gifts benefit the community and the whole society. Conversely, it is through the breakdown of marriage that society is gravely harmed. The future of the nation depends on the creation of good marriages and good homes for children.
Among marriage’s many benefits to society is an increased respect for and protection of human life, since married women are less likely to abort their children than are unmarried women. Married-parent families contribute to safer and better communities with less substance abuse and crime among young people, as well as less poverty and welfare dependency. Also, married parents help prevent young people from engaging in premarital sex and having out-of-wedlock births; they are also likely to produce young adults who view marriage positively and maintain life-long marriages. Marriage brings many health and economic benefits to society and helps citizens to be more involved in communities.
Because marriage serves a public purpose–namely, procreation and the benefit of children and society–government can legitimately privilege marriage and seek to strengthen it in its policies. Other relationships such as cohabitation and homosexuality do not benefit children and society, and, therefore, should not be supported by government. There is no evidence showing that these relationships have the same positive effects as marriage. In fact, there is considerable evidence that they have detrimental effects on both children and adults.
Please read the entire post on FRC’s blog. There are a great many reasons for the government to guard marriage. All of them have to do with the health, welfare and defense of our nation and civilization as a whole.
(Thanks, Bob, for being part of the FRC team!)
Ezerwoman's Blog 
Demi Moore, Abortion & Prostitution
Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Commentaries of others, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged abortion, Breakpoint, children, Chuck Colson, CNN, Demi Moore, feminism, Indian sex trade, Mara Hvistendahl, men, missing women, Nepalese girls, Ross Douthat, sanctity of human life, sex trade, sex traffic, sex-selection abortion, women on July 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Colson, in his Breakpoint commentary of July 8, noted that Moore became emotional during the broadcast. Understandably so. Slavery and bondage as a prostitute should never happen. But the problem, Colson believes, is that we are ignoring the driving force of this “inhumane traffic in innocence.”
The New York Times ran an article following the CNN documentary titled “160 Million and Counting.” It referred to the number of “missing” women in the world. Colson points out “missing” as in “disappeared,” rather, as in “never born in the first place.”
Ross Douthat, author of the Times article, reminded readers that 26 years ago the number of “missing” women was estimated by experts to be 100 million. These experts concluded, after examining skewed sex ratios in China and India, “that something terrible was happening.” Twenty year later, the estimate has grown by 60%. But those concerned about this terrible thing, Douthat notes, remain reluctant to name the cause: abortion.
Colson writes, “Citing the work of social scientist Mara Hvistendahl, Douthat points out an uncomfortable truth: what Times readers would no doubt see as ‘female empowerment’ lies behind the missing women. According to Hvistendahl, in places like India, ‘women use their increased autonomy’ to abort their daughters and ‘select for sons,’ who enhance their social status.”
Sex-selection abortion may have originated among the “affluent,” but now all women can select — or reject — their preborn child based on sexual preference.
What is the impact? Colson notes a 2008 article by two Loyola Law School professors who found that by “reducing the number of potential brides, selective abortion in India increased the demand for sex workers.” And, Colson continues, “one way that ‘demand’ is being filled is through the Nepalese girls featured in the CNN documentary. The ‘lucky’ ones are ‘smuggled and purchased from poor countries like Nepal and Bhutan to be brides for Indian men.’ The more unfortunate are sold into the Indian sex trade.”
India and China have outlawed the practice of sex-selection abortion because of the social ills and suffering. But the practice continues because, says Colson, “cultural norms are hard to overcome.”
Douthat notes that sex-selection abortion puts Western liberals “in a distinctly uncomfortable position.” Colson explains why. “They can’t deny the reality of the practice but, at the same time, their own worldview leaves them hanging in mid-air.”
“After all, they insist ‘that the unborn aren’t human beings yet, and that the right to an abortion is nearly absolute.’ ” But, continues Colson, “160 million missing women and the suffering it radiates in all directions tells you where that kind of thinking inevitably leads.”
Colson concludes, “It’s hard to imagine a better example of the poverty of modern thinking: faced with a great evil and unable to address the answer.”
Slavery and prostitution are great evils. But, the Christian worldview addresses the answer. When we value human life in the womb, we will better value and protect all human life. Including Nepalese girls.
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Breakpoint is published by Prison Fellowship ministries.
For further reading: “Gender Discrimination Fuels Sex Selective Abortions” (Lemoine & Tanagho, Loyola University of Chicago School of Law, 2-23-08); “160 Million and Counting” (Douthat, New York Times, 6-26-11); “It’s Raining Men” (Kim Moreland, Breakpoint blog, 5-24-11)
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