Dear Bob Chapek: You'll Never Be Woke Enough For the Left

Dear CEO of The Walt Disney Company Bob Chapek:

As you'll see over and over again, you can never be woke enough for the Left.

I'm not talking about liberals. I'm talking about Leftists. There is a difference.

Like many business leaders, you are going to be forced to decide: Attempt to appease the Left (which is futile), or endure their vitriol & hissy fits, and focus on everyone else: liberals, centrists, independents, libertarians, conservatives, the politically disinterested.

Keep in mind the Leftists don't want your company to own anything, create value or payments for shareholders, make decisions about who you hire and how much you pay them, or make profits. No matter how much you try to appease them culturally or politically, they do not believe your company should exist independent of being an arm of centralized government.

The recent battle was over Florida's HB 1557, falsely labeled the "Don't Say Gay" bill by professional liars.

What did the legislation actually say?

• Parents have to be able to access to their child's school records, including health records
• School district staff can't be prohibited from telling parents about their child's health
• Third grade or before, no instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity
• Inform parents at the beginning of the school year what health services are offered and allow the parents to opt their students out of a service
• Third grade or before, any health questionnaire given to students must be approved of by their parent

That's it. What the problem with that? Who objects to that?

Leftists do. They want to be able to use taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate Kindergartners into the Leftist ideologies on sexual orientation and gender identity. So, they want to be able to encourage Kindergarteners to think of their penis as a problem they'll need to remove, and talk with them about sex. And they want to hide from parents that they are doing this. This is evil. This is insanity.

These students shouldn't be subjected to that. They should be learning how to read, write, speak, and understand English; mathematics; and hopefully some geography, history, science, and art.

On one side, you have people who want to be able so sexualize Kindergartners and promote mutilation to them.

On the other side, you have people who want parents to be able to object to this.

This shouldn't be a hard decision.

Yes, there are some very noisy people in your company, on social media, and in media who screech about how this legislation is bad. Perhaps you should do what you can to keep those in your employ from having access to children when they are on your dime? You should definitely not bend over for them.

It's time to stand up to them and say "No, I'm not going to bend over for you."

It is time to stand up to them and tell them the core of your corporation is about family entertainment and you're not going to push the agenda of people who want to sexualize Kindergarteners. If they stop coming to Disneyworld or Disneyland, if they quit working for you, then your company will be better off in the long run.

UPDATE: People who mock your groveling before them because they don't like the medium of presentation are proving my point. There is no appeasing this mob of unstable, unhappy people who are being agitated by people bent on sexualizing children and putting division between children and their parents.

Minor Children Are the Responsibility of Their Parents

Deferring to and respecting parental authority over minor children used to be standard for anyone taken seriously in public life.

Leftism has been chipping away at that.

The Left considers children to be property of the state, as long as they are in control of the state. This must be rejected.

Minor children are the responsibility of their parents (or legal guardians).

Anyone the parent employs, directly or by proxy, to instruct or care for their child should either defer to the parents and respect the will of the parents or shouldn't take the job.

If anyone has reason to believe the parents are abusive, there is already a process for making accusations, providing evidence, and having the parenting investigated.

A parent NOT being a Leftist isn't evidence of abuse.

Children do not belong to the state, including the state schools.

The parents made or legally adopted their child. They get to decide, short of actual abuse, what is best for their child, regardless of what anyone else likes.

Are some parents abusive? Yes. So what? So are some teachers and other state actors. Governments have killed more people than anything else.

When the children reach the age of majority, they still don't belong to the state. They belong to themselves. The people have a government. The government doesn't have a people.

Defeat Leftism. Support parental rights. Defend liberty.

What About an Inhteritance?

If you've been fortunate enough to amass and well-manage enough wealth that you have more than you'll use up at the end of your life, what should you do with it?

First, let's address your end of life.

One of the best gifts you can give your children is to avoid burdening them with your care should you become unable to fully care for yourself. I know some people think it's honorable or otherwise positive to have a son or daughter being the nurse for their declining mother or father, but all things considered, it should be avoided. Please understand, I'm not saying that that the sons/daughters shouldn't be present. They should. They should be present. They should visit. They should sit and talk with their parent. They should take them on outings in so far as it is possible. They should make sure they are being taken care of well. But an elderly parent who is suffering mental dysfunction/memory loss or is otherwise unable to maintain their own health, hygiene, safety, and comfort, needs trained, objective professionals providing that hands-on care. That is there the money should be going before anything else is considered: a good retirement community, in-home care, whatever will work.

OK, assuming plans and insurance have been made for that, what then?

These days, I agree with Dennis Prager's idea: pay for your grandkids to be out of public school.

1. Pay for your grandkids to be OUT of public school. Pay for a good private school, homeschooling, some good alternative. If possible, keep this going through college or trade school. Pay for them to go to a college that isn't a seminary of Leftism. Current examples include Gove City College and Hillsdale.

2. Often tied to the above, fund the ability of one of the parents of your grandchildren (so, your adult child or their spouse) to be a full-time parent. If they truly can't get by without both of them "working outside of the home", then help make it possible for one of them to be home.

3. Create experiences/memories for your descendants to have with you. Group vacations, reunions, whatever. If they live far, pay to fly them to you for visits, or go visit them if you can travel; stay in a hotel so as to not burden them. Memories made with you will be better than them being able to buy a new car with money they didn't earn.

4. Hand down heirlooms as gifts while you're still alive, as possible.

5. If you still have wealth after all of this, well, then, good going! Of course there are worthy causes to which you can donate. But as far as leaving some to your descendants, split it evenly. The exception is that it is morally preferrable to disinherit someone who is evil. Don't be leaving money to a child molester, murderer, etc. But if you have three children and none of them are evil, split it into thirds. Or if they're all living comfortably and you'd prefer to bypass them for the grandchildren, total up the number and split it evenly among them. IMPORTANT: Inheritance isn't community property. You can leave money to your child but not their spouse, if that is your preference. This, however, might cause them marital problems and is one reason why you might want to have it go straight to grandchildren.

Did Dennis Prager Advocate Marital Rape?

 NO.

Trolls who attack Dennis Prager online often say he advocates or advocated marital rape. 

There are two basic possibilities here:

1) Their definition of "rape" is ridiculous and not what most people think of when they see the word.

2) They are bearing false witness. They are libeling Dennis Prager and and lying.

Dennis Prager didn't advocate marital rape. He didn't even defend marital rape. 

The allegation comes from a column or a pair of columns published at the end of 2008. From "When a Woman Isn't in the Mood: Part I":

The subject is one of the most common problems that besets marriages: the wife who is “not in the mood” and the consequently frustrated and hurt husband.

Anyone honest about marriage will recognize that this happens a lot.

A woman who often deprives her husband of her body is guaranteed to injure him and to injure the marriage — no matter what her female friends say, no matter what a sympathetic therapist says, and no matter what her man says.

Emphasis mine.

Caring For the Poor in the USA

Not everyone is poor for the same reason, and I don't automatically dismiss someone as a "failure" or "loser" because they are poor, but nor do I automatically have sympathy for what we call the poor here in the USA.

Our somewhat-free markets have enabled most of the poor of yesterday to be the middle-class or even wealthy of today. Sure, there is some "luck" involved - I do not believe in some spiritual event in which people choose their parents and all that comes with it (genetics, parents' financial status, parenting ability, etc.) However, even being born to poor parents, one is not likely to be poor for very long into their adulthood if they:

Understanding Terms Used by Abortion Promoters

If Roe v. Wade were to be overturned by SCOTUS, abortion law would revert back to the states. SCOTUS doesn't like to reverse itself without unanimity or at least a very strong majority.

Bet let's imagine that somehow, abortion were to become illegal somewhere in our union, with certain exceptions. It will be important to know the vocabulary of Leftist lovers of abortion. You know, like how Leftists call something a marriage even though no bride is involved, or even if no groom is involved?

You are hereby warned that the text below may contain triggers.

Disunited Methodists

I'm not a member if a United Methodist Church, but my family does have multiple ties to the UMC denomination. UMCs vary widely from place to place. For example, my wife grew up in a UMC in California, and she doesn't recall ever hearing presentation or explanation of the core Gospel until she was attending a university and went to a Christian event with a classmate. She was a bit embarrassed that she'd grown up in a church and yet has missed the central point of Christianity: a proper relationship with Jesus Christ.

The LGBTQQAICDEFGHJKMNOPRSUVWXYZ activists within the denomination are trying to move the organization away from applying what has traditionally been understood as the Biblical teachings of there being men and women, marriage uniting a man and a woman, and reserving sex for marriage.

Remember when the activists said that marriage neutering wouldn't have any effect on churches?

There was a conference in February that address this. If you want the bottom line, skip down to my comments at the end.

Here's what Katherine Jackson reported for Reuters, as I found at Yahoo News (which really got crappy after the most recent corporate acquisition).

The United Methodist Church voted on Tuesday to uphold and strengthen its ban on same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy in a move likely to alienate large numbers of followers who had pushed for reform.

Ban. Ban is loaded language. We're not talking about secular law here. This is a supposedly Christian organization. There's no more a van on "same-sex marriage" than a ban on squared circles or kosher shrimp.

Also, as we'll see, there is no ban on LGBT clergy.

Happy Thanksgiving

The midterm election season is behind us, kind of, with the GOP retaining the Senate.

There is so much for which we should be thankful.

Personally, I have so many things for which to be thankful it would take me all day to list them. I thank Jesus Christ for what He did and what He continues to do – He's my Lord and Savior. I thank the saints for persevering in handing down the faith. I thank those brave souls who established this Union. I thank our military men and women for preserving this nation. I thank my ancestors for making the difficult journeys to American soil. I thank my parents for birthing and raising and supporting me. I thank my wife for marrying me and birthing and mothering my children. I could go on and on, but I won't.

Some Leftists go into their theatrics this time of year, braying about how horrible it was for Europeans to bring western civilization to the Americas. It makes me wonder why the ones in the U.S.A. who are European ancestry haven't moved to Europe.

This idea that the native peoples living here (who, by the way, were also newcomers at one time) were all peaceful and noble and that the Europeans who settled here were horrible, evil people who always mistreated the natives is ridiculous. All over the world, people have been overtaken and either killed off or integrated. Yet only in certain parts of the English-speaking world is the integration portrayed as evil and celebrating anything remotely connected to it is stopped.

But notice that the Normans didn't give the Anglo-Saxons any sovereign territory, nor casino operation exemptions. Such concessions are not typical of victorious peoples.

Don't let the Leftists take away Thanksgiving. Celebrate proudly.

It is time for us to pause and consider that there is much for which we should be thankful, and we should thank Him. If you're not inclined to do that, then consider all of the people in your life who have been there along the way, providing emotional support, friendship, guidance, and goods and services.

The modern American Thanksgiving meal is an overly bountiful one, a testament to how somewhat free markets and capitalism have produced plenty. From the farmer to the importer to the grocer, participants in the market have allowed us to splurge.

I bid you a safe, pleasant, and reflective Thanksgiving Day.

Playing Dumb About the Traditional Family

Note: I am reposting entries I made over at The Opine Editorials. This one is from mid-2011...

Under the headline of "How traditional a family?", Michael McGough blogged at LATimes.com...

When conservative politicians talk about the "traditional family," it's usually by way of denouncing same-sex marriage. But former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania (though no supporter of marriage equality) uses the concept for another purpose: to critique contemporary child-rearing practices.

In 2005, Santorum was criticized for suggesting in his book "It Takes a Family" that working women should give up their jobs and stay at home with the kids.

Actually, the offending passage was gender-neutral: "In too many families with young children both parents are working when, if they took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them don't need to, or at least may not need to work as much as they do."

Yes, that silly Santorum thinks that raising children actually means being present to parent, rather than letting hired help be the primary caretakers. Silly him! What's next? Expecting employees to actually work for their paychecks?

The idea that mothers are superior caregivers for young children is politically incorrect these days, but it's widely held by the social conservatives to whom Santorum appeals.

I don't know, I agree with the idea that is generally preferable that mothers do the early primary caretaking, but maybe it is because my breasts did not inflate with milk. Maybe it is different for other men? Seriously, there are many ways women are, literally, naturally more suited -  everything from bone structure to hearing to smell to hormones and so many more. You don't have to be a social conservative to hold such an idea, though when you realize that the social Left's insistence that there's no difference between mothers and fathers is a lie that denies such an obvious reality, it may lead you to social conservatism.

Those who fight against idealizing the traditional family play dumb or act like we can't define a "traditional family" or that only a minority of families were what we call traditional at any given time in history.

The War On Women

Thank Chance I'm a man. I'm so glad I'm a man. And I didn't have to announce to anyone that I was now a man, nor did I have to undergo surgical procedures or get hormone treatments to "become a man". (Somehow I survived circumcision and was still able to have a happy, pleasurable sex life, too.) Why am I glad to be a man? Because there's a war on women, of course. A war! It must suck to be a woman. According to what I see on Facebook, Twitter, and political news coverage, women live in deep, constant, crippling, fear every minute of their lives that a U.S. Senator or perhaps a Vice-President (or every other male who isn’t androgynous or feminine) is going to break into their home, rape them, and then force them to carry a life-threatening pregnancy to term and then they'll be punished with raising a child, even perhaps having to cook for it and clean up after it. And the only way to prevent this is through federal funding, programs, and requirements ensuring that women do not have to pay for their own contraception, and, if they get pregnant, using federal tax dollars to pay for abortion, including a ninth-month partial birth abortion. Should the child somehow be born alive, it is war on women to provide aid to that child to keep it alive. War, I tell you! Can't you see it???

Not Marching in Lockstep

A letter from "Adele":

I am in such a discouraged funk about our culture lately. The argument about birth control versus the freedom of religion was the straw that broke this camel’s back! Any discussions about the subject I hear are always women vs. the big bad everyone else. So, here goes...Hey women’s libbers; Hey Planned Parenthood, Hey liberal media...STOP using me as your ploy!! You never asked my opinion so stop speaking for "women" and start speaking for "some women".


You don't speak for me. I am an American; I am a voter; I am a mother of 5; I am a wife and I am a doctor. I do believe the freedom of religion is more important than the birth control pill. I do believe our constitution and it's amendments, fought for by the blood of our fathers, sons and brothers is vastly more important than an employee being forced to pay for something that will allow our sisters, daughters and friends to continue to perpetuate a "safe sex equals freedom" culture: A culture that has left us with an amoral society where young women think 'shacking up' is an integral part of a relationship. A culture where dismembering a 5, 6, even 9mt old baby in a mother’s womb while alive is considered a choice and not murder.


So, all of you who are fighting for the 'cause of women', who are standing up and banging the podium women must have the freedom of choice...ask me my choice! Stop speaking for me! You have made it so when I hear the words 'women’s health' I cringe because I know I am about to be grouped into some ideal that is against every core of my being. Do not group me with your ideals; do not include me with your rhetoric. If you are so concerned about choice then stop stifling mine!


Personally, I think these groups should held accountable for slander. No where in the media do you hear the words "some women". This means I have to be looked at as agreeing simply because I am a woman. I would like a group to speak for all men and see what happens.

That is one of many great letters you can find at DrLaura.com. Good job, Adele!

[Bumped up due to current events.]

Happy Thanksgiving

The Presidential Election season is behind us, thankfully, and it appears the Left has been stopped, for now, at least in terms of the federal and many state governments.

There is so much for which we should be thankful.

Personally, I have so many things for which to be thankful it would take me all day to list them. I thank Jesus Christ for what He did and what He continues to do – He's my Lord and Savior. I thank the saints for persevering in handing down the faith. I thank those brave souls who established this Union. I thank our military men and women for preserving this nation. I thank my ancestors for making the difficult journeys to American soil. I thank my parents for birthing and raising and supporting me. I thank my wife for marrying me and birthing and mothering my children. I am thankful for the candidates, supporters, and voters who have given the GOP control of both houses of Congress, the Presidency, and so many Governorships. I could go on and on, but I won't.

Some Leftists go into their theatrics this time of year, braying about how horrible it was for Europeans to bring western civilization to the Americas. It makes me wonder why the ones in the U.S.A. who are European ancestry haven't moved to Europe.

This idea that the native peoples living here (who, by the way, were also newcomers at one time) were all peaceful and noble and that the Europeans who settled here were horrible, evil people who always mistreated the natives is ridiculous. All over the world, people have been overtaken and either killed off or integrated. Yet only in certain parts of the English-speaking world is the integration portrayed as evil and celebrating anything remotely connected to it is stopped.

But notice that the Normans didn't give the Anglo-Saxons any sovereign territory, nor casino operation exemptions. Such concessions are not typical of victorious peoples.

Don't let the Leftists take away Thanksgiving. Celebrate proudly.

It is time for us to pause and consider that there is much for which we should be thankful, and we should thank Him. If you're not inclined to do that, then consider all of the people in your life who have been there along the way, providing emotional support, friendship, guidance, and goods and services.

The modern American Thanksgiving meal is an overly bountiful one, a testament to how somewhat free markets and capitalism have produced plenty. From the farmer to the importer to the grocer, participants in the market have allowed us to splurge.

I bid you a safe, pleasant, and reflective Thanksgiving Day.

Brideless or Groomless "Marriage" is a Modern Invention

From that bastion of right-wing ideology, Wikipedia, comes this history of same-sex unions...

While it is a relatively new practice that same-sex couples are being granted the same form of legal marital recognition as commonly used by mixed-sexed couples, there is a long history of recorded same-sex unions around the world.

Emphasis mine. Throughout the entry until we get to the present years, these unions are presented as something other than marriage. It has only been within recent times that any culture, religious system of more than a handful of adherents, or government has started to call brideless or groomless pairings "marriage" and included those "marriages" as the same as the uniting of a bride+groom. The vast majority today still recognize that marriage unites the sexes. Same-sex unions in history were never a widespread and ongoing part of marital systems. If one cleric "married" two men in antiquity, it was an abnormality that wasn't sustained by the culture.

But of course, someone who is willing to deny that the differences between the sexes are significant enough to distinguish marriage from same-sex unions will have no problem spinning history.

The Ideal of Married Mother and Father

All other things being equal, a child is best off being raised by his or her biological father and mother, who are married to each other. Every child naturally has a mother and father.

How did that become such a controversial statement? It used to be taken as an attack on "single mothers" or "fathers" who abandon their children, but that objection has been (temporarily) dropped as most marriage neutering advocates instead focus on objecting by claiming that the ideal is "two parents", including two people of the same gender who are not biologically related to the children. It has become controversial to say "mother and father" are the ideal, because that presents sex-integrating relationships as somehow different and better for parenting than a couple absent one of the sexes.

What used to be accepted and self-evident has been questioned out of political desperation.

Dear Progressives, Socialists, Liberals, Leftists, and Democrats

We're $19,000,000,000,000 in debt, just officially on paper and just on the federal level. This doesn't count obligations that haven't been added to the balance sheets, state debts, local government debts, etc.

Our government can't keep spending more money than we have, especially not at growing rates of the size of deficits.

"Tax the rich" you say?

All of the wealth could be confiscated from "the rich" and the debt and spending would still be a problem. In fact, it would be even more of a problem because in the following years, "the rich" would be generating less economic growth, less tax revenue, and there would be more people "in need".

The cold, hard fact is that at least one of these things must happen if our nation is going to survive:

1. Government spending has to be cut significantly, and the way government budgets going forward has to change. Slashing spending on the military will not satisfy this need.

2. The federal government has to sell off land and other assets and generate more revenue (through oil drilling, for example) on some of the land it doesn't sell.

3. We need to either birth and raise enough children or import enough immigrants (immigrants are people who come to stay, not people who come here for certain benefits and then return home) who'll end up contributing more tax revenue than they'll take. With immigration, it must be taken into account whether or not these individuals either were a net cost in USA tax revenue (through receiving foreign aid) or generated a net in USA tax revenue (through buying goods and services of American businesses) when they were living in other countries. It will be better, on a global scale, to birth our own new Americans rather than moving producing individuals from other countries to here.

I understand that Leftist policies and philosophies are in conflict with those three times in the following ways:

1. Leftism demands increasing government spending. If not directly, by insisting on more and larger government programs.

2. Leftists would rather the federal government increase its land holdings and would rather NO business use such land, especially because Leftists consider such activity an environmental threat.

3. Leftists are fine with immigration, but encourage immigrants to favor larger government. Leftists are more likely to see children as people who should be de facto wards of the state most of the time, as parasites or abusers of the environment (if only through their parents' actions), as burdens, as hindrances to the empowerment of women, as things to be aborted. All one has to do is look at western Europe, which is thoroughly Leftist, to see that the birth rate does not even replace the population.

If you care about the USA having a future the only logical solution is to adopt one, both, or all three of these conservative or traditional & limited government principles:

1. Making government smaller and more limited government.
2. Selling off government/public assets and/or access to land.
3. Making more babies and raising them to avoid consuming as many tax dollars as they generate and who will also vote for smaller, limited government.

Unless we produce it from scratch ourselves, everything we receive, whether goods or services or money, has been generated by someone else. Either we use voluntary transactions to get these things, or we use force, which means government force or crime, to get these things. Even if you are content to increase confiscation for your personal benefit, we, collectively, simply can't function if there is consistently a higher overall consumption than overall production. There will be less production if producers are punished with more confiscation and decreasing freedom to engage in, and benefit from, voluntary transactions.

Happy Thanksgiving

Times have been better. Times have been a lot worse, though, too. Let's not forget that things could be much, much worse here in the U.S.A. Let's pray we don't find out just how bad things can get.

There is so much for which we should be thankful.

Personally, I have so many things for which to be thankful it would take me all day to list them. I thank Jesus Christ for what He did and what He continues to do – He's my Lord and Savior. I thank the saints for persevering in handing down the faith. I thank those brave souls who established this nation. I thank our military men and women for preserving this nation. I thank my ancestors for making the difficult journeys to American soil. I thank my parents for birthing and raising and supporting me. I thank my wife for marrying me and birthing and mothering my children. I am thankful for the candidates, supporters, and voters who have given the GOP control of both houses of Congress. I could go on and on, but I won't.

Some Leftists go into their theatrics this time of year, braying about how horrible it was for Europeans to bring western civilization to the Americas. It makes me wonder why the ones in the U.S.A. who are European ancestry haven't moved to Europe.

This idea that the native peoples living here (who, by the way, were also newcomers at one time) were all peaceful and noble and that the Europeans who settled here were horrible, evil people who always mistreated the natives is ridiculous. All over the world, people have been overtaken and either killed off or integrated. Yet only in certain parts of the English-speaking world is the integration portrayed as evil and celebrating anything remotely connected to it is stopped.

But notice that the Normans didn't give the Anglo-Saxons any sovereign territory, nor casino operation exemptions. Such concessions are not typical of victorious peoples.

Don't let the Leftists take away Thanksgiving. Celebrate proudly.

It is time for us to pause and consider that there is much for which we should be thankful, and we should thank Him. If you're not inclined to do that, then consider all of the people in your life who have been there along the way, providing emotional support, friendship, guidance, and goods and services.

The modern American Thanksgiving meal is an overly bountiful one, a testament to how somewhat free markets and capitalism have produced plenty. From the farmer to the importer to the grocer, participants in the market have allowed us to splurge.

I bid you a safe, pleasant, and reflective Thanksgiving Day.

Neutering Marriage is Not Conservative

Don’t be fooled by marriage neutering advocates who say that neutering marriage is a conservative or limited-government position.

Don’t be fooled by Leftists and other Democrats who say the same thing (Duh… do you think they want to help us?) If it was a conservative or limited-government position, why do you think it was originated and touted by extremists on the Left?

Don’t be fooled by self-identified Republicans and conservatives who have been fooled by the people above.

It isn’t conservative to call a brideless or groomless pairing a marriage. It’s an entirely new concept about 15 years old, in direct conflict with thousands of years of universal human history, legal traditions, and religious practices.

Having it be official government policy that the uniting of a bride and groom is no different than a brideless or groomless pairing is not a limited government position. Rather, it imposes government-enforced social engineering on the people and will lead to further family breakdown and more dependence on the government.

E Pluribus Unum

According to this Associated Press story by Hope Yen, the rate of "interracial" marriage is rising in the USA, but not as fast as it has risen in the past.

As I've written before, I put interracial in quotes because I believe we are all of one race - human.

The growth of interracial marriages is slowing among U.S.-born Hispanics and Asians. Still, blacks are substantially more likely than before to marry whites.

Here's an example of why the racial categories can be a little ridiculous: how are they counting brides or grooms who are themselves the products of "interracial" coupling?

The number of interracial marriages in the U.S. has risen 20 percent since 2000 to about 4.5 million, according to the latest census figures. While still growing, that number is a marked drop-off from the 65 percent increase between 1990 and 2000.

Well of course there has to be a slowdown at some point in something like this. You can say that the obesity rates have stopped rising as fast once everyone is obese already, for example.

About 8 percent of U.S. marriages are mixed-race, up from 7 percent in 2000.

The sustained rates are much higher than brideless or groomless "marriages".

How Exactly Do We Get Government Out of Marriage

After years of saying that marriage was “nothing more than a piece of paper” or “oppressive to women”, the Left’s assault on the family has, as you are certainly aware, temporarily switched to insisting that it is vitally important for two lesbians be able to enter into such oppression by being able to legally “marry” without a groom, and if you don’t agree, it means you want to beat little girls to death for being tomboys.

Some on the Left, many libertarians, and some weary conservatives who mistakenly think it will get the whiny homosexuality advocates to shut up say, “Get government out of marriage!”

Oh, it may sound nice. However, what it really is, in addition to being the Left’s real goal in the matter (after they use neutered “marriage” to beat down anything that depicts heterosexual behavior as qualitatively different from homosexual behavior) is… impossible.

It is impossible to get government out of marriage.

Someone might say that government didn’t get into marriage until only a few hundred years ago, but they are neglecting to mention that before that, churches functioned as government, at least to some extent. With the secularization of government, the government has unavoidably retained involvement in marriage.

From a strictly legal perspective, what exactly is marriage? 



1) First and foremost, it is a financial partnership. Unless (and sometimes even if) there is an extensive, thorough, and valid prenuptial agreement that provides otherwise, marriage involves the mingling of assets and sharing of earnings acquired during the marriage. As such, in determining the amount of child support owed to a child of Spouse A, Spouse B’s income can also be taken into account. This financial partnership can also be evidenced in credit scores, judgments, etc. That marriage is a financial partnership is demonstrated severely in the event of a divorce. 

2) In most places, marriage provides default paternity. This is supposedly to protect children (and their mothers) from abandonment, but it also reduces the likelihood taxpayers will be on the hook to care for needy children and their mothers, and it also aids men who want access to their offspring and to include their offspring as dependents and beneficiaries.

3) Marriage provides default next-of-kin status. For example, absent a directive that says otherwise, if man gets into a car accident and is rushed to a hospital in critical condition, his next-of-kin makes medical decisions for him. If he has a girlfriend, but not a lawful wife, then his parents, siblings, or children will be making the decision, no matter how long he’s been seeing that girlfriend. However, if he’d married that girlfriend the year before, she is now next-of-kin. Our immigration laws also take kinship into account. As such, that same man can’t import his girlfriend as easily as he can import his wife. I frequently take and make calls on behalf of my wife, something I couldn’t do if she was not my wife.

4) Marriage provides default beneficiary status. This is much like the point above. 

5) Marriage is more intimate than a citizen's relation to the state. In certain circumstances, spouses can’t be compelled to testify against each other in court.

Marriage used to be a license to live together and have sex, but that has been almost entirely removed from the legalities of marriage. For the most part, people are now entirely free to associate in these ways without a marriage license.

Given these realities, how is it possible to get government out of marriage? 

Yes, the government can stop issuing and keeping marriage licenses, but all that would do is create more private paperwork and increase the involvement of courts, which are part of government. 

How would assets be split up in the event of a divorce or breakup? The same way as when there is a dispute between roommates - by courts, which are government. Some people will say spouses should not have joint accounts or community property anyway, but is that really the family culture we want to foster?

Yes, government can leave women entirely in control of their newborns, forcing men to sue if they want to be involved or women to sue if the man does not want involvement, and again, that would involve the courts, which are government. 

A lot of people don’t have wills, trusts, advanced directives, and other paperwork they should, and without a state marriage license, courts will have to get involved more. One of the arguments of marriage neutering advocates has been that brideless or groomless couples shouldn’t have to do all of that extra paperwork. Marriage abolitionists want EVERYONE to have to do all of that extra paperwork.

So spouses would no longer be exempt from testifying against each other? Do you want someone to have to walk on eggshells in front of their spouse for fear that the government could compel their spouse to rat them out for even thinking about the most minor offenses, or blowing off steam with figures of speech?

Why should the government “get out of marriage” but not “get out of birth”? Or, why are there government birth certificates? If you say birth certificates help protect a child’s rights, I maintain that a marriage license also does this. The natural process of birth is almost always preceded by a natural joining of a man and a woman, no matter how temporary. The paperwork deals with these realities.

No state in the union created marriage. States have simply recognized and recorded something that already existed, because such unions bring together both sexes, create a new unit that is the basic building block of families and society, usually join two families, and usually create the next generation of citizens. Abandoning state marriage licensing would only “get the government out of” an extremely tiny percentage of marriages - ones that never involve children, last until both spouses die simultaneously, never involve one spouse being unable to make their own medical decisions, etc. In reality, getting rid of state marriage licenses would bring more government into our lives, because marriage licenses are a paperwork shortcut.

Leftists who say “get the the government out of marriage” are like abortion advocates who want to implement King Solomon’s “solution” of cutting the baby in half. Are we, as a society, to say that people who do not want to be married by clergy or are unable to find willing clergy (perhaps Atheists or noncongregants of whatever sort) should not be able to get married? No more marriages by judges, justices of the peace, or other secular officials?

As written by DarwinCatholic:

The state cannot duck the situation, because arbitrating property disputes is one of its most basic purposes, and determining who constitutes a household is one of the basic elements of resolving property disputes.

As James Joyner put it:

Now, I suppose we could replace it with a set of complicated contracts:  wills, powers of attorney, adoptions, and so forth.  But that would be much more burdensome than a single legal act that solves the issues.  And there’s always the chance of sudden death that puts things into legal limbo before the parties would have an opportunity to execute a particular contract.  Say, one parent dies during childbirth or just before.  Now, custody is a non-issue if the couple is married.   If the parents were in a mere business relationship consecrated by a series of contracts, it would be murkier and require legal wrangling at a particularly emotional time.

Presumably, all of that’s solvable.   But, essentially, you’d be re-creating civil marriage under another name.   Which seems rather pointless, since we already have it.

The state gets involved in marriage because it unites a man and a woman in the kind of a relationship that naturally creates new citizens, even if not every single relationship does. The state is involved because of biological realities, not because of claimed attractions or love. The state and society simply do not have the same interest when there is no bride or there is no groom, and that is why brideless or groomless pairings were not considered or recognized as marriage in any culture in history, even ones where homosexual behavior was openly accepted and celebrated. 

Is It Time For Churches to Ignore State "Marriage" Licenses?

I'm bumping up this old entry. I should probably write a new version soon.



As marriage neutering activists have tied up courts across the country and shoehorned their talking points into television shows and other media, some members of the clergy have said they don't mind or even support the neutering of state licenses, because according to them, state marriage licenses have nothing to do with church wedding ceremonies. I have suspected that most clergy making such statements are either full of dung (hey, that’s Biblically appropriate language) or haven't thought through what they’re saying.

How could it be tested?

What it would take is for a couple to approach a such member of the clergy and ask to get married by that person in his or her church. If the clergy agrees, the couple could then explain that this would not be a legally recognized marriage as they would not have a state marriage license, because both of them are still legally married to other people. Those marriages were performed at a county office, by a non-clergy officiant, and that they both consider those marriages dead, perhaps because of infidelity on the part of their partners (a Biblical justification to divorce).

Would the clergy still perform the wedding? If not, then they were not being honest or coherent in their statements that state licenses are a separate matter. If they would perform the wedding, then at least they would be consistent.

What is marriage, according to the Bible?