The govt must remain in control of marriage given its stellar record.
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But I don't think this process is some sort of conspiracy wrought from on high by a cabal of conspirators as the essayist implies.
What we are seeing unfold is what, unfortunately, a growing majority want to see happen.
People by and large like it that the government now acts as a middleman between parents and their children when it comes to retirement. The children pay their social security taxes, the government receives the taxes and doles them out as payments. The parents and children are no longer tied together monetarily. Lots of people think this has made relationships healthier because they are no longer based on money. Parents don't have to pretend to like their children in order to afford a place to stay and food to eat.
Making divorce easier at first seemed to have mostly good effects. There were cases where men went off to other cities to find work and not return for years. Their wives could improve their lives and those of their children if they could divorce their husbands and marry anew. But then of course that slowly morphed into people getting married by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas on a Friday night, and divorced the following Sunday at a Justice of the Peace in Tijuana.
There was a time when you absolutely, positively had to be married with children if you hoped to rise within the corporate hierarchy. Single men were just not trusted. So there was a time when the so-called powers that be strongly encouraged family formation even if they didn't care about the religious traditions or the concept of freedom of association.
Also, it seems that marriage and weddings are good for business. Why would the elites want to stifle marriage when it generates so much spending on weddings, receptions, bachelor & bachelorette parties, houses, furnishings, infant & childrens' products, college educations, etc.?
Also, will US citizens ever give up the right of spouses not to testify against one another?
Also, what about all those countries that are now bending over backward to provide all sorts of financial incentives so that their women give birth? Countries like France and Sweden provide paid family leave to try and get their birthrates above replacement.
I think there are myriad forces acting in different ways. Marriage will be weakened, but not eliminated. The Christian perspective will have a smaller and smaller influence on the preponderance and nature of marriage.
Over the very long term, Christianity may make a comeback due to most of the children being born to Christians, and not so many being born to Atheists and Agnostics, but that's way off in the future.
In the short run we will see acceptance of polygamy. There will be a constant battle between those who believe families should have more autonomy and those who believe otherwise. Good cases will be made for both sides of the debate, and some of those cases on both sides will be made by Christians and non-Christians. Over time, though, I do believe that those who favor less autonomy will win most of the battles.
And if parents can't to some extent tell their kids what to do, and if their kids end up having more power over their parents by threatening to call in the Feds whenever they don't get their way, then fewer and fewer people are going to want to have children.
Whether the government decides it needs more warm bodies to keep Social Security afloat and creates massive orphanages a la Brave New World is something to watch for. But again, that's way off in the future in my opinion.
Brave New World is around the corner.
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He roams the earth seeking whom he can devour...
Surely the married legislators who have gotten behind sodomite “marriage” don’t have the abolition of marriage in mind. Married people generally like marriage. The drivers of this are single people, particularly well-financed homosexuals who are supported by young unmarried single people, many of whom nowadays come from divorced and/or unmarried households. Fewer and fewer children know what a good marriage and areal family is.
It won’t end even with the destruction of marriage and the family. The eternal enemy of the sexual anarchist is God himself, and those who are called by his name. They want to destroy every vestige of the image of God in society, and those who He calls his own with it.
Bump
This Fineman woman is delusional.
Long but thought-provoking. I see that everything I first thought after the decision may be wrong, because getting the state out of marriage is exactly what these maniacs perceive as their next step.
It isn’t only Rand Paul who says the state should get out of the marriage business but also the pastor of the most conservative Baptist church in the city. Good reply at #5. I need to give it more reading and thought, and possibly so do they.