LifeLog - 05.28.06 - A Second Letter to a Senator

This letter is the second of three I've sent to our State's Senators as the Senate prepares to debate the Marriage Protection Amendment. This Amendment states, "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman." I believe that as a messenger of the Lord Jesus I must support this attempt to formally recognize by Constitutional mandate what Jesus himself long ago declared to be the only legitimate form of marriage. "At the beginning," he insisted, "the Creator ‘made them male and female,' and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' So they are no longer two, but one."

Senator, my name is Jim Denison.

This is the second letter I have written urging you to thoughtfully consider supporting the Marriage Protection Amendment to our Constitution. It seems incongruous, to me, that something so obvious needs to be re-established as a value by our society. But it does. As the proposed Amendment states, “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.” And I respectfully ask you to support this Amendment designed to establish as law what has been, since our inception, an unwritten principle of our union. In so doing you will be supporting a relationship that is the very source of the life of the people who are these United States.

In the previous letter I acknowledged my faith in Jesus of Nazareth and my unconditional loyalty to Him. Without question my concerns about marriage spring from my belief that they are His as well. He flatly stated, more than once, that “marriage” as “the union of a man and a woman,” is the Creator’s idea. He insisted that anything other than this is destructive. So, honestly, what I am addressing in this second letter, is rooted in the Judaeo Christian understanding that marriage began, “in the beginning,” that its nature and purpose in human society was defined “in the beginning.” The Creator’s mandate for marriage is found in the Creation story. “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth … .” In the first letter I wrote that “marriage” consisting of the “union of a man and a woman” is the only relationship by which we, are “fruitful and increase in number.” This letter is about “filling the earth.” It is about growing our offspring to maturity until they “fill the earth.” It is about the “nurture” of our offspring. Despite reconstructionist attempts to redefine Family, I insist that the Family, as commonly recognized among those who hold Judaeo Christian values, is the context in which Children develop and grow best.

The fifth of the 10 Commandments Yahweh gave to his people is, “honor your Father and your Mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” This is, as someone else observed long ago, the first Commandment with a “promise.” The promise is simple. Long and good life follows respect for parents, male and female. Given that this is the Creator's Commandment, and his original design for "parents" is the one flesh bond he established, I presume that the promise is contingent on the conditions. Do we want to live well and long? Do we want our fellow Americans to live well and long. Then we must honor our "Father and Mother" and the "union" that made all of this possible. We must encourage them. We must protect their "union." We must give it all the privileges and exclusivity it has enjoyed and more. We must inspire them and all "parents" living in this "union," to remain loyal in their love. We must enable them to maintain and strengthen their bond.

Senator, as I noted in the previous letter, this goes beyond faith and religion. We must see it as metaphysical. It is about our “reality as a whole.” And, because it is about “the real nature of things … it is (among) the most fundamental and most comprehensive of inquiries … .”

Realistically the “traditional Family” is the best environment for the cultivation of love and life. We’ve learned this by trial and error. Like all “good” science, we’ve observed what works and doesn’t. Our laboratory has been real and sometimes very painful life. But we’ve discovered what works. As we’ve gone along we discovered that some things work better than others. With each discovery we’ve improved our efforts to build loving and nurturing Families. To our credit we’ve not given up on the continual quest for even better marriage and parenting habits. Also, to our credit, we’ve never lost sight of the fundamentals; “what brung us here.” We’ve recognized what Steven Covey, in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, calls the “P/PC Balance – the balance between production and production capability.” We’ve not, at any time –‘til now – given even passing consideration to "killing the goose that lays these golden eggs." (Covey's metaphor) We’ve simply assumed that the relationship that’s “gotten us here,” is not to be compromised. Why would we, now, even think of lifting the special status and exclusive benefits we’ve always given to this relationship which nurtures us best?

The evidence is extensive that the “traditional Family” is the best environment for the growing of healthy human beings. You, Senator, may be familiar with the “TESTIMONY OF BARBARA DAFOE WHITEHEAD, PH.D, CO-DIRECTOR, NATIONAL MARRIAGE PROJECT RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY, BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS SUBCOMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND FAMILIES: U.S. SENATE.” Ms. Whitehead, referencing fragments of this “extensive evidence,” testified:

“Today, thanks to resurgent scholarly interest in family structure, we have a large body of social science research on marriage and its effects. Overall, the available research evidence persuasively demonstrates the advantages of marriage for children, adults and the society. Though it is impossible to cover the entire scope of the research in this limited space, let me summarize key findings.”

Summarizing Ms. Whitehead’s testimony even further, for my purposes in this letter, I note her citation of these “benefits to children.”

“Marriage, especially if it is low-conflict and long-lasting, is a source of economic, educational and social advantage for most children. Researchers now agree that, except in cases of high and unremitting parental conflict, children who grow up in households with their married mother and father do better on a wide range of economic, social, educational, and emotional measures than do children in other kinds of family arrangements. According to some researchers, growing up with both married parents in a low-conflict marriage is so important to child wellbeing that it is replacing race, class, and neighborhood as the greatest source of difference in child outcomes.
Children from intact families are far less likely to be poor or to experience persistent economic insecurity. In fact, if it were not for the demographic shift from married parent families to other kinds of family structures in recent decades, the child poverty rate would be significantly lower. For example, according to one study, if family structure had not changed between 1960 and 98, the black child poverty rate in 1998 would have been 28.4 percent rather than 45.6 percent, and the white child poverty rate would have been 11.4 percent rather than 15.4 percent. Children who grow up in married parent families are shielded from the economic effects of parental divorce. Estimates suggest that children experience a 70 percent drop in their household income in the immediate aftermath of divorce and, unless there is a remarriage, the income is still 40 to 45 percent lower six years later than for children in intact families.
Children from intact married parent families are more likely to stay in school. According to a 1994 research review by Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, the risk of high school dropout for children from two-parent biological families is substantially less than that for those from single parent or stepfamilies. Children from married parent families also have fewer behavioral or school attendance problems and higher levels of educational attainment. They are better able to withstand pressures to engage in early sexual activity and to avoid unwed teen parenthood, behaviors that can derail educational achievement and attainment. They are significantly more likely to earn four-year college degrees or better and to do better occupationally than children from divorced or single parent families.
Warm, responsive, firm and fair parenting helps to promote healthy emotional development and to foster emotional resilience in children. Parents, stepparents and grandparents in all kinds of family arrangements can, and do, manage to establish emotionally warm and secure environments, often against daunting odds. However, parents in long-lasting, low-conflict marriages are more likely to have the time, resources, relational and residential stability to coparent effectively. On average, children reared in married parent families are less vulnerable to serious emotional illness, depression and suicide than children in nonintact families. Further, because parental divorce is such a commonplace childhood experience, with close to four out of ten American children going through a parental divorce, it is an advantage to grow up in a low-conflict married parent household undisrupted by divorce. As the American Academy of Pediatrics notes, the effect of divorce on children is more than a set of discrete symptoms. It can be a “long searing experience.”
Finally, in their own future dating and marriage relationships, children benefit from the models set by their married parents. Children from married parent families have more satisfying dating relationships, more positive attitudes toward future marriage and greater success in forming lasting marriages. According to a nationally representative survey of young men, ages 25-34, commissioned by Rutgers’ National Marriage Project in 2004, young men from married parent families are less likely to be divorced and more likely to be married. Among the never-married young men surveyed, those from married parent families were more likely to express readiness to be married than young men from other kinds of family backgrounds. In addition, young men from married parent households have more positive attitudes toward women, children and family life than men who grew up in nonintact families.”

Senator, you are quite likely familiar with this testimony. Unfortunately many Americans are not.

Once again I urge you to accept the responsibility given you and your Colleagues by the Founders. Be the voice of reason in the conversations of government. Tell the people the truth. Given them the opportunity to debate this issue authoritatively. Set in motion the process by which our United States can do their part in the ratification of this necessary Amendment.

LifeLog - 05.25.06 - A Letter to a Senator

This letter is the first of three that I have written and sent to our State Senators in defense of the Marriage Protection Amendment. This proposed Amendment states that, “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.” The Senate will be debating the merits of this Amendment early in June. I believe strongly that Jesus call to me includes a prophetic mandate. To be his faithful witness I must courageously defend what He defended and condemn what He condemned. When questioned about marriage He clearly stated that the conditions the Creator established in the beginning, remain His will for every time and all people.

Senator, my name is Jim Denison. I am writing to ask you to consider thoughtfully the Marriage Protection Amendment which will establish that “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.” As a Senator you represent what our Founders saw as a check to creeping populism. They sought, in the Senate, the seasoned, reasoned, more reserved, more deliberate forum of elite wisdom that represented the state legislatures; a check or balance to the “people’s House.” You are to provide to Congress what the 19th Century Journalist, Walter Bagehot called the “Republics … appeal to understanding.” So I urge you to give long and reasoned thought to this matter.

I am a follower of Jesus of Nazareth; one of myriad beneficiaries of His “Amazing Grace.” Obviously this is the primary reason I believe in the importance of “marriage” as consisting only “of the union of a man and a woman.” Our tradition, the Judaeo-Christian worldview, clearly holds that, “… at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’”

But my concern, though admittedly originating and grounded in faith, is also a matter of reason. This issue is metaphysical. It is about ultimate reality and the role of our race in the shaping of that reality.

Frankly, Senator, our future as a species will be significantly effected by our decision as a society to protect marriage as “the union of a man and a woman.”

There are two reasons why this is so. The first is glaringly obvious. Through this and only this union can our race reproduce. Secondly, the view of growing numbers of privileged people, that population growth is seriously out of control and childbearing must be held in check or at the very least viewed as optional, threatens the progress our civilization has experienced in recent centuries.

The first threat to our species is that we are contemplating removing the special status of marriage as “the union of a man and a woman” and the protections it deserves. We are considering a reconstructionist approach to the only relationship by which we humans reproduce. And what will be undone, if that approach is adopted, will certainly be our undoing.

Please understand that I recognize the checkered history of marriage. It has not always been monogamous. The arrangements that have proliferated across our recorded history are numerous and often denigrating to our once noble race. Even the Judaeo-Christian record, in this regard, is marred by sordid stories of abuse. But always, even in the most uncivilized and barbaric societies, protections, though often primitive, have been provided for mating and safeguards established for the nurturing of offspring. Even the most unsophisticated of us know how necessary it is to construct protections for men and women in their childbearing and parenting years.

There is no question that our own society’s record with regard to marriage protection is far from pristine. But is it wise to point out our failures, throw up our hands in resignation, and abandon the supports necessary for improvement? Any reasonable person knows that, for all our failures, we’ve made remarkable advances in our understanding of what constitutes the optimum environment for reproduction and the nurturing of our children. We know as well as ever in our history what arrangements are best for men and women and children if the advances we’ve enjoyed are to continue. Why would we want to abandon the privileged place we’ve given to such relationships now? Consider another aspect of our life as a society where we’ve achieved great advances. In the relatively short life of our civilization we’ve learned a great deal about what constitutes good health. We’ve devised a health care system that is arguably the best ever. Would we be wise to look at setbacks we’ve experienced and are now experiencing, new challenges from more resistant bacteria, strange recently encountered viruses, and mutations of other diseases, throw up our hands in despair, and abandon all that we’ve achieved for something else?

To abandon the exclusive protection and privilege we’ve provided marriage as “the union of a man and a woman” is regressive. We must recognize that. I urge you, Senator, to support a renewed effort to make this good thing better by making it a part of our Constitution. I further urge you to not only protect and preserve this essential institution by a Constitutional Amendment but provide it with additional support in the form of incentives for pre-marriage training, education in conflict resolution, parent training, and the sharpening of other skills that make for thriving homes and families. Our stability as a society will be shored up immeasurably by such action.

Secondly, we must encourage married couples to reconsider the Judaeo-Christian axiom that “children are GOD’s best gift … the fruit of the womb his generous legacy.”
I am living in America today by choice. Canada is my Homeland. As far back as I can remember I’ve admired American life. This is a superior society. Our world needs more Americans; bright, free, optimistic in their knowledge of what can be achieved, and generous because they’ve seen the power of compassionate, shrewd philanthropy. Society will be deprived of this influence if we fail to acknowledge our shortsightedness and renew our effort to support and protect, with exclusive and ever more diligent attention, the only relationship that can perpetuate it. Mark Steyn, Journalist and Author, has shown just how critical this is in an Op-Ed piece dealing with world population.

“‘Replacement’ fertility rate – i.e., the number you need for merely a stable population – not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller – is 2.1 babies per woman. … Scroll way down to the bottom of the Hot One Hundred top ‘reproducers’ and you'll eventually find the United States, hovering just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. .. Canada's fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate.” He insists that these statistics are, primarily, “about culture. … if one part of your population believes in liberal pluralist democracy and the other doesn't, then it becomes a matter of great importance whether the part that does is 90% of the population or only 60%, 50%, 45%.
“… If a population ‘at odds with the modern world’ is the fastest-breeding group on the planet … how safe a bet is the survival of the ‘modern world’?”

Jennifer Roeback Morse, author, Life Coach, speaker and a Fellow of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, shows how critical the issue of Marriage Protection is if we are to not only replace but multiply ourselves as World shapers.

“Demographic collapse is hardly surprising. Many commentators have observed that children have become a commodity, an extra line on the accomplished woman’s resume. Few have noticed the short, direct line from sex as a commodity, to sex partner as commodity, to babies as commodities.
“Without permanent bonds between parents, having babies is a risky business. Marriage is the healthiest, most reliable environment in which to bring children from helpless infancy to productive adulthood. But our society has become indifferent as to whether parents are married or not. We are even on the verge of becoming indifferent as to whether children have two parents of the opposite sex or of the same sex. Hardly a cultural environment conducive to having a higher than replacement level of fertility.”

Senator, I urge you to accept the responsibility given you by the Founders of this great Nation. Be the voice of reason in the conversations of government. Tell the people the truth. Give them the opportunity to debate this issue authoritatively. Set in motion the process by which our United States can do their part in the ratification of this necessary Amendment.