In the Summer of 2006 the U.S. Congress considered a Marriage Protection Amendment. In the months leading up to the debate and vote I wrote 3 letters to our Senators.
Now, over 2 years later, our Senators and Representatives having failed us in this matter, and Judges acting like inconsiderate demagogues, disregarding the will of the people, and legislating rather than applying the work of the legislatures, “we the people” are faced with the grim reality that if this critical work is to be done we must do it. We must pass Constitutional Amendments in State after State that establish once-and-for-all “Marriage,” as consisting of “ the union of a man and a woman.”
Because I recognize the magnitude of what is before us now in California and ultimately across the nation I’ve chosen to re-post the 3 letters originally posted in May and June of 2006.
My highest hope, of course, is that an Amendment to the Constitution of the united States will ultimately be achieved. But for now the Amendment of our State’s Constitution is the challenge we face. May God grant us courage, determination, and success!
Senator, I am writing, yet again, to urge you to thoughtfully consider supporting the Marriage Protection Amendment to our Constitution. In the two previous letters I’ve written I have openly acknowledged the influence my faith has in this matter. As a follower of Jesus of Nazareth I am deeply convinced that the understanding of Marriage as exclusively “the union of a man and a woman,” is a Divinely established absolute. Any attempt to redefine it will prove destructive to our nation and our race.
Even as I acknowledge my beliefs as the foundation of my conviction on this matter I must also insist, again, that reason moves me just as strongly. The Judaeo Christian worldview presumes that its tenets are more than religious matters. They are ultimate and final revelations of what is. They are metaphysical. It is reasonable, then, for us to conclude that our existence as a race; the quality of our existence; the “nature” of things “human;” is highly dependent on “the union of a man and a woman.” I’ve already stated how obvious this is in previous correspondences.
This union alone is the means by which we reproduce. To suggest that the petrie dish can be the new reproductive theatre is to reveal how utterly shallow our thinking has become. It is no less vacuous – and presumptive – than the notion that when we use pre-existent material to produce what appears to be new life forms we’ve “created life.”
I’ve also shown, previously, that the “union of a man and a woman,” when it is healthy, provides the best environment for the growing of robust offspring.
To deprive this “union” of its exclusive and protected status in our society because it is sometimes found to be unhealthy is no less foolish than to abandon our advances in medical science and throw open the door to every form of alternative medicine because our system has failed to provide us with perfect health. We have a good thing. Let’s expend our resources to make IT better.
These glaringly obvious reasons for protecting Marriage, as we’ve traditionally understood it, are not the only rationale for such action. We must also accept the importance of gender to our race and to the very essence of life as we know it. Gender matters.
The Judaeo Christian story of creation contains an often understated – if not overlooked – view of humankind. The Creator, in His musings, says, “Let us make man, in our image, like ourselves… .” Note the plural pronouns. The Creator is talking to Himself as if He were “Them” selves. It is, in this conversation, that Christians find the first glimpse of the Trinitarian nature of God; a perfect union of three quite distinct persons; Father, Son, and Spirit. This plurality within the unity of the Creator has to be addressed if we want to fully understand how much gender matters to us. The story continues. “So God created man in His own image,” we’re told. But one telling isn’t enough. It’s repeated. “In the image of God He created him,” Then it is repeated again. In the second repetition we encounter the gender factor. “Male and female He created them.” Man, like the Creator, is plural. “In His own image … He created THEM.” Like the Creator, man has distinctive components; two distinct persons in perfect unity. There is something about Woman that is godlike. There is something about man that is godlike. Unique, distinct in their individuality, they are designed to be one; united; together reflecting completely the “image” of their Creator.
Having completed this masterpiece of His creative work God gave “man” as “male and female” their mandate. We’ve already seen the command to reproduce in that imperative. We’ve also considered his instruction to “fill the earth” with their kind. Still there remains another critical aspect to the assignment. It is “rule.” The Creator gave authority to both the man and the woman in a single imperative. Authority, as God originally established it, was to be exercised by man and woman in perfect union; like the union within God himself.
This is profoundly significant to our discussion of Marriage. Not only is Man – as Male and Female – to carry on the creative work of their Creator through reproduction and nurture. They are to exercise His authority over all that he has made and continues to make. In each aspect of their assignment their distinctives emerge. In reproducing themselves men and women play an undeniably distinct role. Likewise their role in the nurture of offspring is unique. As we might expect, in their fulfillment of the command to “rule,” they demonstrate unique understanding and exercise different yet equally valuable capabilities. These distinctives stand out and are essential in parenting. But, just as importantly, they are seen in the loving, knowing, and managing that goes on in all of life.
You don’t have to be a genius to see that what was intended originally has long ago fallen into disrepair. As someone said, “there is … a sword between the sexes.” Much of the disagreement about Marriage today is the result of the immense difficulty men and women have understanding and relating to each other. But, again, we would be foolish to abandon, without further effort, the quest to recover what might have been and may yet be.
In her review of a 1991 book on “Men and Women in Conversation,” Ruthe Stein, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle says, “This book – written by a linguistics expert so you have to believe she knows what she’s talking about – could be the Rosetta Stone that at last deciphers the miscommunication between the sexes.” She is reviewing Deborah Tannen’s, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. In the Preface to her book, Dr. Tannen, Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University, writes, “Recognizing gender differences frees individuals from the burden of individual pathology. ... If we recognize and understand the differences between us, we can take them into account, adjust to, and learn from each other’s styles.” Later, she cites, Erving Goffman, whose career in the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, the National Institute of Mental Health, the University of California, Berkley, and the University of Pennsylvania, spanned three decades from 1952 to 1982.
“In our society in all classes the tenderest expression of affection involves displays that are politically questionable, the place taken up in them by the female being differentiated from and reciprocal to the place taken up by the male. Cross-sex affectional gestures choreograph protector and protected, embracer and embraced, comforter and comforted, supporter and supported, extender of affection and recipient thereof; and it is defined as only natural that the male encompass and the female be encompassed. And this can only remind us that male domination is a very special kind, a domination that can be carried right into the gentlest, most loving moment without apparently causing strain - indeed, these moments can hardly be conceived of apart from these asymmetries.’
Gender is a category that will not go away. ... it is ‘one of the most deeply seated traits of man’. We create masculinity and femininity in our ways of behaving, all the while believing we are simply acting ‘naturally’. But our sense of what is natural is different for women and men.”
These behavioral scientists are telling us that gender is here to stay. There are significant distinctives. These distinctives when understood; encouraged to fully develop; and mutually respected and valued can make humans better together than they will ever be in isolation from one another. Even in our interactions and associations outside the Marriage “bond” our unique “sense of what is natural” sets the stage for complementary partnerships that make for more complete fulfillment of ourselves and our life purpose than we could ever realize independently.
In the University Of Utah’s S. J. QUINNEY COLLEGE OF LAW, Journal Of Law & Family Studies VOLUME 6 NUMBER 2, A. Dean Byrd, Ph.D., MBA, MPH, writes about Gender Complementarity and Child-rearing: Where Tradition and Science Agree. (Dr. Byrd is President of the Thrasher Research Fund and Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine with appointments in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine and in the Department of Psychiatry. In addition, Dr. Byrd has an adjunct appointment in the Department of Family Studies.) His choice of the term “Complementarity,” is especially significant to my purpose here. It stresses our interdependence as Male and Female and shows how our influence, in partnership with one another, can be so much more profound than when we try to keep the Creator’s mandate alone, or in a partnership that ignores our need of both male and female.
“… Complementarity,” Dean notes, “is readily observable in differing parenting styles of mothers and fathers. Not only are fathers' styles highly complementary to the styles of mothers, but research indicates that the fathers' involvement in the lives of children is essential for optimal child-rearing. For example, complementarity is provided by mothers who are flexible, warm and sympathetic, and fathers who are more directive, predictable and consistent. Rossi's research (1987) noted that mothers are better able to read an infant's facial expressions, handle with tactile gentleness, and soothe with the use of voice (p. 113). Fathers tend to emphasize overt play more than caretaking. This play in various forms among the young appears critical for later development. (Yogman, 1982).
A study authored by Marissa Diener, (2002) at the University of Utah, demonstrated that babies (12 months old) who had a close relationship with their fathers seemed more stress resistant than those who did not. Babies who had secure relationships with their fathers used more coping strategies than those who did not. Her conclusion has fascinating implications: ‘there may be something unique to fathers that provides children with different opportunities to regulate their emotions’ (Broughton, 2002 p. Al).
Male and female differences emerge in ways in which infants are held and … in which mothers and fathers use touch with their children. Mothers more frequently use touch to calm, soothe, or comfort infants. When a mother lifts her child, she brings the child toward her breasts providing warmth, comfort, security and protection. Fathers more often use touch to stimulate or to excite the child. Fathers tend to hold infants at arms length in front of them, make eye contact, toss the infant in the air, or embrace the child in such a way that the child is looking over the father's shoulder. Shapiro notes that each of these "daddy holds" underscores a sense of freedom (1994).
Clarke-Stewart (1980) reported differences in mothers' and fathers' play. Mothers tend to play more at the child's level. Mothers provide an opportunity to direct the play, to be in charge, to proceed at the child's pace. Fathers' play resembles a teacher-student relationship--apprenticeship of sorts. Fathers' play is more rough-and-tumble. In fact, the lack of this rough-and-tumble play emerges disproportionately in the backgrounds of boys who experience gender disorders. Additionally, Clarke-Stewart notes, the benefits of this rough-and-tumble play have appeared in child development areas extending from the management of emotions to intellectual and academic achievement. Interestingly enough, fathers' play is related to the development of socially acceptable forms of behaviors and does not positively correlate with violence and aggression, but rather correlates with self-control. Children who ‘roughhouse’ with their fathers quickly learn that biting, kicking and other forms of physical violence are not acceptable. Children learn how to recognize and manage highly charged emotions in the context of playing with their fathers, and such play provides children with opportunities to recognize and respond appropriately to emotions (Cromwell & Leper, 1994).
There are gender differences in parental approaches to discipline. The disciplinary approaches of fathers tend toward firmness, relying on rules and principles. The approaches of mothers tend toward more responsiveness, involving more bargaining, more adjustment toward the child's mood and context, and are more often based on an intuitive understanding of the child's needs and emotions of the moment. Gilligan (1982) concluded that the differences between paternal and maternal approaches to discipline are rooted in the fundamental differences between men and women in their moral senses. Men stress justice, fairness and duty based on rules, while women stress understanding, sympathy, care and helping based on relationships.
The critical contributions of mothers to the healthy development of children have been long recognized. No reputable psychological theory or empirical study that denies the critical importance of mothers in the normal development of children could be found. Recent research validates the importance of fathers in the parenting process, as well. Studies such as that conducted by Pruett (1987) concluded that six-month old infants whose fathers actively played with them had higher scores on the Bailey Test of Mental and Motor Development. Parke (1981) noted that infants whose fathers spent more time with them were more socially responsive and better able to withstand stressful situations than infants relatively deprived of substantial interaction with their fathers. A second female cannot provide fathering. In fact, McLanahan and Sandefur (1994) found that children living with a mother and grandmother fared worse as teenagers than did those adolescents living with just a single parent. Biller (1993) concluded that men who were father-deprived in life were more likely to engage in rigid, over compensatory, masculine, aggressive behaviors later. His research, based on more than 1,000 separate sources, demonstrated repeatedly the positive effect of fathers on children.
Pruett (1993) summarized the highly acclaimed work of Erik Erikson, one of the most esteemed developmental psychologists in the world, who noted that mothers and fathers love differently. A fathers' love is characterized by instrumentality and more expectancies, whereas a mother's love is more nurturing, expressive, and integrative. Mothers care for their young. Fathers baby sit. Mothers nurture. Fathers negotiate. Fathers focus on extra-familial relationships, social skills and developing friendships. Adolescents who have affectionate relationships with their fathers have better social skills, exude more confidence, and are more secure in their own competencies.”
( Complimentarity Source http://www.narth.com/docs/gendercomplementarity.html )
Senator, gender matters. Whether in the home; the neighborhood; at play or at work; in educating or in governing we, men and women, are better together than we are apart. The best parent, the finest mentor, the most beneficent leader is a Team. Partners, male and female, reflecting the nature of their loving, wise, and powerful Creator, complementarily loving, enlightening, and guiding.
Please accept the responsibility given you by the Founders. Be the voice of reason in the conversations of government. Tell the people this truth. Give them the opportunity to debate the issue of Marriage Protection authoritatively. Set in motion the process by which our United States can do their part in the ratification of this necessary Amendment.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Thursday, October 02, 2008
For the Sake of Marriage - A Second Letter to a Senator
In the Summer of 2006 the U.S. Congress considered a Marriage Protection Amendment. In the months leading up to the debate and vote I wrote 3 letters to our Senators.
Now, over 2 years later, our Senators and Representatives having failed us in this matter, and Judges acting like inconsiderate demagogues, disregarding the will of the people, and legislating rather than applying the work of the legislatures, “we the people” are faced with the grim reality that if this critical work is to be done we must do it. We must pass Constitutional Amendments in State after State that establish once-and-for-all “Marriage,” as consisting of “on the union of a man and a woman.”
Because I recognize the magnitude of what is before us now in California and ultimately across the nation I’ve chosen to re-post the 3 letters originally posted in May and June of 2006.
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. And I respectfully ask you to support this Amendment – “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.” – since our Nation’s inception, an unwritten principle of our union. In so doing you will be emphatically affirming the exclusive place of an institution from which people who make up these United States derive their very lives.
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, by our Creator.
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’s about the duplication of ourselves until the earth is filled with quality people, like ourselves, God’s creative masterpiece. It’s about growing people capable of keeping the next mandate – “subdue the earth and rule over everything in it.” Despite Reconstructionist attempts to redefine Family, I insist that the “union of a man and woman,” is the only relationship in which our kind can be reproduced, and the best environment for the nurture and training of people capable of fulfilling our specie’s mandate.
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 condition for "parenting" is the one flesh bond He established, I presume that the promise is contingent on the condition. 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 exclusivity and privilege it has enjoyed and more. We must inspire our parents and all parents living in this "union," to remain loyal in their love. We must enable them to maintain and strengthen their bond in ways that will empower them to grow Children of high character, and inspire their Children to honor them by accepting their training and following their examples.
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 that some things work better than others. With each discovery we’ve improved our efforts to build loving and nurturing Families. To our credit, despite improvements, we’ve not given up on the continual quest for even better marriage and parenting practices. 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?
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 …
--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 co-parent effectively.
On average, children reared in married parent families are …
--less vulnerable to serious emotional illness, depression and suicide than children in non-intact 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.”
As I previously noted, 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. 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.
Now, over 2 years later, our Senators and Representatives having failed us in this matter, and Judges acting like inconsiderate demagogues, disregarding the will of the people, and legislating rather than applying the work of the legislatures, “we the people” are faced with the grim reality that if this critical work is to be done we must do it. We must pass Constitutional Amendments in State after State that establish once-and-for-all “Marriage,” as consisting of “on the union of a man and a woman.”
Because I recognize the magnitude of what is before us now in California and ultimately across the nation I’ve chosen to re-post the 3 letters originally posted in May and June of 2006.
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. And I respectfully ask you to support this Amendment – “Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.” – since our Nation’s inception, an unwritten principle of our union. In so doing you will be emphatically affirming the exclusive place of an institution from which people who make up these United States derive their very lives.
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, by our Creator.
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’s about the duplication of ourselves until the earth is filled with quality people, like ourselves, God’s creative masterpiece. It’s about growing people capable of keeping the next mandate – “subdue the earth and rule over everything in it.” Despite Reconstructionist attempts to redefine Family, I insist that the “union of a man and woman,” is the only relationship in which our kind can be reproduced, and the best environment for the nurture and training of people capable of fulfilling our specie’s mandate.
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 condition for "parenting" is the one flesh bond He established, I presume that the promise is contingent on the condition. 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 exclusivity and privilege it has enjoyed and more. We must inspire our parents and all parents living in this "union," to remain loyal in their love. We must enable them to maintain and strengthen their bond in ways that will empower them to grow Children of high character, and inspire their Children to honor them by accepting their training and following their examples.
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 that some things work better than others. With each discovery we’ve improved our efforts to build loving and nurturing Families. To our credit, despite improvements, we’ve not given up on the continual quest for even better marriage and parenting practices. 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?
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 …
--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 co-parent effectively.
On average, children reared in married parent families are …
--less vulnerable to serious emotional illness, depression and suicide than children in non-intact 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.”
As I previously noted, 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. 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.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
For the Sake of Marriage: A Letter to a Senator
In the Summer of 2006 the U.S. Congress considered a Marriage Protection Amendment. In the months leading up to the debate and vote I wrote 3 letters to our Senators.
Now, over 2 years later, our Senators and Representatives having failed us in this matter, and Judges acting like inconsiderate demagogues, disregarding the will of the people, and legislating rather than applying the work of the legislatures, “we the people” are faced with the grim reality that if this critical work is to be done we must do it. We must pass Constitutional Amendments in State after State that establish once-and-for-all “Marriage,” as consisting of “the union of a man and a woman.”
Because I recognize the magnitude of what is before us now in California and ultimately across the nation I’ve chosen to re-post the 3 letters originally posted in May and June of 2006. My highest hope, of course, is that an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States will ultimately be achieved. But for now the Amendment of our State's Consitution is the challenge we face. May God grant us courage, determination, and success!
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 compromised, if that approach is adopted, is the lofty – for some sacred – esteem that has been given to that union.
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 sometimes primitive, have been provided for mating and safeguarding the nurture 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 care of our children. 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 among the best in the world. 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 relinquish 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 writing it into 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.
Now, over 2 years later, our Senators and Representatives having failed us in this matter, and Judges acting like inconsiderate demagogues, disregarding the will of the people, and legislating rather than applying the work of the legislatures, “we the people” are faced with the grim reality that if this critical work is to be done we must do it. We must pass Constitutional Amendments in State after State that establish once-and-for-all “Marriage,” as consisting of “the union of a man and a woman.”
Because I recognize the magnitude of what is before us now in California and ultimately across the nation I’ve chosen to re-post the 3 letters originally posted in May and June of 2006. My highest hope, of course, is that an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States will ultimately be achieved. But for now the Amendment of our State's Consitution is the challenge we face. May God grant us courage, determination, and success!
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 compromised, if that approach is adopted, is the lofty – for some sacred – esteem that has been given to that union.
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 sometimes primitive, have been provided for mating and safeguarding the nurture 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 care of our children. 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 among the best in the world. 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 relinquish 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 writing it into 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.
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