The New York Times recently published an article noting the significant increase of divorce in rural America.  Their polls revealed that, for the first time in history, rural Americans are “just as likely to be divorced as city dwellers.”

The rural Americans of Sioux County, Iowa, ponder the causes of this cultural shift in their town and cite education, class, and women in the workforce as reasons for the changes in values and the town’s culture.

As county residents told their stories and viewpoints, higher education was blamed for one couple’s rift and eventual separation.  Upon receiving more education than her husband, a wife claimed, “I grew more confident.  We were totally different people.”

As that attitude — we became totally different people than we were when we married — justifies divorce, we must understand that it has huge ramifications not only for the individual but for families and society as well.  Education itself is not the root of divorce, of course; it is simply a means by which women feel more empowered and confident.  As wives become more self-sufficient (and sadly, therefore, sometimes become overly assertive, opinionated, and have less respect for their mates), many husbands, who traditionally have been the provider and the head of the household, are sometimes at a loss about their role and how to be the leader of the family, thus leading to divorce.

Maria Kefalas, a sociology professor at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia told the New York Times, “It has hit the whitest, most married, most idyllic heart of America — Iowa.  The cultural narrative about marriage — you get a job, you marry your sweetheart, you buy a house, you educate your kids — has been torn to shreds.”

Though overall divorce rates remain relatively stable; they are too high.  The facts surrounding divorce are sobering with “121 million married adults and 26 million divorced people in 2009, compared with about 100 million married and 11 million divorced people in 1980.”

These findings and observations on divorce reflect a dramatic attitude shift: The traditional view of marriage — divorce is not an option, a black-and-white perspective that the commitment is for “better or worse” for a lifetime — has faded to a wide swath of gray, where numerous causes, including “no fault,” can rationalize a divorce.

Click here to view the New York Times article.

Instapundit cites further evidence that President Obama is avoiding leadership and merely voting “present.”

“In the U.S., Obama has made it clear he wants no part of any leadership role in Libya.”

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368693/Libya-war-Germans-pull-forces-NATO-Libyan-coalition-falls-apart.html#ixzz1HRR617HB

“Mr Obama has not directly discussed the military action with British Prime Minister David Cameron since it began on Saturday — an omission that would have been unthinkable under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.”

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368693/Libya-war-Germans-pull-forces-NATO-Libyan-coalition-falls-apart.html#ixzz1HRQMRC4A

Writing in the Southern Baptist Texan, Glenn T. Stanton reports on the popular myth, “Christians divorce at roughly the same rate as the world!”  Not so, claim several sociologists, including W. Bradford Wilcox from the University of Virginia, who directs the National Marriage Project.  The research is clear: those who “seriously practice a traditional religious faith — be it Christian or other — have a divorce rate markedly lower than the general population.”  The factors that ensure a long and happy marriage are clearly delineated — attend church nearly every week, read the Bible and/or spiritual materials regularly, pray privately and together, take your faith seriously, and live as a serious disciple.

Stanton quotes sociologist Bradley Wright, who found that the divorce rate among those who self-identify as Christian but do not practice their faith is 60 percent, while the rate among those who attend church regularly is only 38 percent.  Wilcox’s research found that church attendees are 35 percent less likely to divorce, compared to nominal churchgoers, who are 20 percent more likely to divorce than secular Americans.

The Oklahoma Marriage Study, led by University of Denver sociologist Scott Stanley, found the positive result of church attendance and active faith held consistent across the variables of income, education, and age at first marriage.  Stanley found, “those who report more frequent attendance at religious services were significantly less likely to have been divorced.”

As Stanton wrote, “Faith does matter and the leading sociologists of family and religion tell us so.”

You can read the entire article at:  http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=34656

March is Women’s History Month, and pro-life congresswomen took to the floor of the House to echo the warnings of the early feminists — that abortion damages women.  How right they were.  These quick clips of the congresswomen’s speeches highlight why many women today reject abortion:

Rep. Jean Schmidt Excerpt

Rep. Renee Ellmers Excerpt

Rep. Virginia Foxx Excerpt

Two distinguished journalists — Michael Barone and John Podhoretz — wrote today about an increasingly obvious problem related to our President: when it comes to the big issues and conflicts of our day, Barack Obama votes “present” instead of taking leadership.  More and more often, the administration takes a “wait and see how others respond” approach to the world’s crises.  The President is voting “present” on the world stage regarding Gadhafi’s attempts to crush the Libyan revolt.  There’s barely even a rhetorical response to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami that threaten catastrophe for that country and the world.  Closer to home, the budget crises is being “solved” with yet another “Continuing Resolution.”

This President is making the United States appear irrelevant on the world stage and disengaged on the domestic front.  Some reporters are speculating that he is more interested in the NCAA brackets than in leading the nation.  Worse, he plans a family vacation to Brazil during his daughters’ Spring Break from Sidwell Friends School — March 18-28.  In response to open-jawed astonishment at this development, his staff responded that “it is possible” that he might give an address while he is gone.

Run that past me again, slowly: The leader of the free world is running off for yet another vacation in the midst of world-changing crises both at home and abroad?

More and more close observers are speculating that the president is incapable of rising to the challenges of leadership.

There is one area of his performance where this president is fully capable of seizing the reins of power.  When it comes to taking action on issues that touch on his central ideology, he is very decisive and determined.  However, it seems, sadly, that he is engaged only when it comes to his radical agenda.  Obama’s ideological priorities and his single-minded focus on his radical agenda are not new developments.  While the major media didn’t notice or report on it at the time, some people observed that then-Senator Barack Obama voted “present” 129 times in the Illinois legislature. 

He has continued the practice of voting “present” except when it comes to appointing personnel and enacting legislation that will implement his ideology: this he summed up quite succinctly to Joe the Plumber saying that “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

Obama campaigned on a slogan of “hope and change.”  He appears to just be “hoping” that things will “change” without him having to get involved.  The silver lining is that the more distracted he is, the less time he may devote to his radical agenda.  But are we really better off with an unfocused president who, when he does finally focus, tends to do so only on the most radical of priorities?  People of goodwill would say no.

Earlier this month, we heard the good news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that today’s trends indicate more sexual abstinence by teens and college students, as well as a decrease in teen pregnancy (a trend that began in the ‘90s).  Among 15- to 24-year olds, just under 30 percent report no sexual contact ever — the current percentages (29 percent for females and 27 percent for males) are a significant increase of abstinent young people from 2002, when the percentage was 22 percent.  Other recent trends indicate less sexual activity, fewer teen pregnancies and births, and lower abortion rates.

Note my earlier blog about the research from two Notre Dame professors, Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, who note how sex has increasingly been separated from marriage and how 70 percent of contemporary young adults regret their first sexual encounter.  Regnerus and Uecker document some of the realities that are prompting today’s young people to be abstinent.

The trend back to abstinence is good news indeed and certainly substantiates our claims that providing better information leads to better decision-making by adolescents and young adults.  All these new, more positive trends mean a brighter future for the nation’s young people.

I need to add, however, that the rising proportion of unwed births (41 percent in 2009) for women continues to be problematic.  And it’s not, as it used to be in the 1960s and 1970s, primarily a problem of raging teen hormones.  In 1973, teens’ share of unwed birth was 53 percent of all unwed births.  However, in 2009 it had declined to only 21; it is now the 20-something women who are driving the share of out-of-wedlock births higher and higher.  Among today’s young women, “baby bumps” are not just culturally acceptable, but glamorized in the media, which has filtered down to the high school level and spread throughout American culture.

During an event recently acknowledging Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Attorney General Eric Holder made false assertions about “intimate partner abuse.”  He claimed that “intimate partner homicide” (IPV) is the leading cause of death for black women ages 15-45.  A simple fact check that any low-level intern could complete in five minutes would prove Attorney General Holder’s statement false.

Keep in mind that Mr. Holder heads the Department of Justice and that his distortions of fact are cited as authoritative by the media and appear as official fact in a wide variety of government publications and academic studies.  In spite of wide dissemination of the myth, the truth clearly refutes Holder’s claims: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) list the leading causes of death for African-American women (Mr. Holder’s Department of Justice figures agree with the CDC), and homicides from intimate partner violence don’t even make the list:

1. Cancer (2,192)
2. Heart Disease (1,769)
3. Accidents (1,528)
4. HIV (1,261)

False information that appears to be “official” is very troubling because that information is used to determine priorities in spending for law enforcement, limits the grant funding for legitimate services to victims, and is influential in court cases.  Research conducted by Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) “shows that 60 percent of domestic violence allegations are unnecessary or false.”

Remember the campaign promises of President Obama that “the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over”?  Forget about that!!  The falsity of Holder’s ideological statement was noted by Christina Hoff Sommers, who called on Holder to correct his statement.  Others were equally outraged — including the Examiner and PajamasMedia — at the misrepresentation that distorts the public’s perceptions, slants official reports about abuse of women, and ends up causing men to be falsely accused and even arrested.  SAVE research indicates that 60 percent of domestic violence allegations are proven false; further SAVE’s research reveals that training programs prompted by such reports are costing taxpayers $76 million annually.  Columnist Paul Elam, in an article on “A Voice for Men,” wrote, “The danger here, of course, is that by telling African-American women that the leading cause of their death is IPV, we are minimizing and helping them ignore the things that really are killing them.”

In conclusion, we must warn women that the domestic situation that is most perilous to them and their children is an unmarried household.  My own research, published in Children at Risk, notes that aggressive behavior is twice as common among cohabiting partners as among married couples.  A United States Justice Department Victimization Study found that 65 percent of violent crimes against women were committed by a boyfriend or ex-husband, while only nine percent were committed by husbands (Children at Risk, pp. 62-63).

Abortion advocates at the United Nations (U.N.) were embarrassed in their latest attempt to hijack efforts to decrease pregnancy-related deaths.  At a high-level panel on maternal deaths chaired by the head of U.N. Women, a new agency on women’s issues, Chile — a country where abortion is not legal — announced that it has received an award for achieving the lowest maternal mortality rate in Latin America.

The International Protect Life Award was presented to Chile a few days before by 30 organizations, including Concerned Women for America.  The award celebrates that more Chilean women have safely delivered their babies than ever before.

Chile protects unborn children in their Constitution and through programs, including an ad campaign that promotes awareness that unborn children are members of the family.  Chile’s representative told the U.N. panel that this campaign was begun under the administration of former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, the current head of U.N. Women and the moderator of the panel.

At least one panelist and several countries brashly declared abortion is a human right and a means to reduce maternal mortality.  Yet none provided evidence that abortion reduces maternal deaths.

Chile’s representative pointed out that its success comes from promoting safe pregnancies, not abortion.

The U.N. has named reducing maternal mortality (the death of women during pregnancy or childbirth) as a top priority since 2000.  Funding is channeled to eight priorities, known as the Millennium Development Goals.  Abortion groups have pushed the U.N. and individual countries to adopt abortion as a means to reduce maternal mortality in order to gain legitimacy for the deadly procedure and channel development funds to their groups.

The CEDAW Committee (which implements the U.N.’s women’s rights treaty) criticized Chile in 1999 for prohibiting abortion, claiming the law increases maternal mortality.

Chile proves that protecting life and promoting women’s health go hand-in-hand.  Sacrificing unborn children by legalizing abortion does not improve maternal health or a nation’s development.

The latest Rasmussen poll indicates it is not 1995 all over again and that this time around a solid majority, 58 percent of the American public, prefers a government shutdown over continued business as usual.  Voters are demanding that Congress to do something about the fiscal crisis by cutting the budget, ending out-of-control spending, and reducing the nation’s mountain of debt — even if it means shutting down the government to force the President and Congressional Democrats to “get it” and get on with the business of scaling back government.

• How is it that the average American understands that record spending is unsustainable, but the Democrats do not understand?
• How can business leaders and economists warn against government overspending and speak out vehemently about the current threats and inevitable crisis without the President and the Democrats in Congress hearing their message?
• How can the experts point out that the fiscal crisis is hurting private sector job growth without the President and Democrats facing up to the fact that the stimulus didn’t work and unemployment must be addressed?
• How can millions of Americans lose their jobs and millions lose their homes without the President and the Democrats understanding that they are destroying middle-class America?
• How can the voters in 2010 have sent such a loud and clear message that they will no longer put up with reckless spending without that message being heard on Capitol Hill and in the White House?

This needs to be the year when the federal budget is smaller, not just frozen at last year’s bloated level.  This needs to be the year when last year’s outrageous level of spending gets deflated.  This needs to be year when we stop making larger and larger additions to the national debt and roll back the tide of red ink that gushes and sloshes through the budget projections.  This MUST be the year when we soundly reject the foolish notion that it is okay to spend more money than we have.

As Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) said, “When you add it all up, the [national debt] numbers are staggering.”

As House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, “We’re broke!”

And just as Maggie Thatcher warned about socialism: We’ve reached the point where we’ve “run out of other people’s money.”