Why Young Adults Both Want and Fear Marriage

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When we interviewed Carly, 31, in the summer of 2010, she had been in an on-again, off-again cohabiting relationship with the father of her child for about 12 years. Never married, she called marriage a “piece of paper.”

One year later, however, she had broken up with her longtime boyfriend and was engaged to a different man.

Why did she accept his marriage proposal?

Contradicting what she said a year before, Carly (not her real name) told us: “Everybody says, ‘Oh, it’s just a piece of paper.’ But that piece of paper is … more binding than just really being together.”

She explained that her experience in a long-term cohabiting relationship had taught her that marriage was indeed different.

As we learned in our interviews with over 100 young adults in a mostly white working-class town in Ohio, most young people are neither adamantly opposed to marriage nor completely supportive: They are conflicted about marriage. They hope to get and stay married, providing for their own children the family stability that many of them did not have growing up.

One national study found that in 2001-2002, more than 80 percent of young adults said that marriage was important in their life plan. But many are also uncertain about how to achieve that aspiration and unsure about whether marriage retains the meaning they believe it should have.

Many of them witnessed the separation or divorce of their parents as children, or barely knew their dad or mom. Others saw their parents stay in marriages marked by abuse, drinking, drugs, or misery. Others admired their parents’ marriage but were shaken by the divorces of relatives or friends, or by hearsay about high divorce rates.

The legacy of the divorce culture is trauma and a crisis of trust. A study conducted in the mid-2000s found that of 122 working–and middle-class young people in cohabiting relationships, more than two-thirds expressed concerns about divorce that were related to their views about marriage. Many respondents said that they were reluctant to marry because they wanted to “do it right,” by which they meant marrying only once.

That legacy of divorce is reinforced by the cultural deregulation of sex and dating. As divorce-weary young people form their own romantic relationships, they hear from the culture that “sex is sex, regardless of who it’s with,” love should be “effortless,” and “you got one life to live, and you got to live it the way you want to live it.”

Those messages undermine their pursuit of a trusting and resilient lifelong relationship.

As a result, many young Americans are left on the outside looking in, admiring marriage but paralyzed with anxiety about becoming another divorce statistic or worried that their boyfriend or girlfriend is not trustworthy. Thus, more Americans are delaying marriage longer, and more (though still the minority) are forgoing marriage altogether.

In other words, the declining marriage rate is not so much a reflection that marriage is no longer desired, but that, in a culture of distrust and divorce, it is fragile.

The bad news is that young Americans have less confidence in marriage than their grandparents did and are carrying profound wounds. The good news is that, as one adult child of divorce said of his peers from fragmented families, “They lived it and they want a change.”

As another adult child of divorce told us, “I think my home life as a kid made me more driven to be like, ‘I’m not gonna have a broken home.’”

Many young people are afraid of marriage, but that does not mean they are giving up on it. If anything, they possess a hard-earned understanding about the suffering wrought by family fragmentation. They want a better life for their own children, and they deserve the support of everyone from cultural leaders to policymakers to business leaders as they seek that better way. (For more from the author of “Why Young Adults Both Want and Fear Marriage” please click HERE)

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I’m a Mom. Here’s What I’m Doing to Fight Obama’s Transgender Agenda.

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Because I’m passionate about our country, I dedicated years of my life to government service. Later, that same passion led me to focus on raising my three young children to become the finest citizens they can be, becoming a stay-at-home mom.

Nevertheless, I have jumped back into the world of politics and policy far earlier than I expected to because President Barack Obama’s school bathroom mandate is endangering the safety, security, and privacy of my children and yours.

I cannot remain silent.

Like many Americans, I was shocked to learn the Obama administration had sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to our nation’s schools threatening them with loss of federal funds unless they adopt radical new gender identity policies. The letter twists Title IX—a law banning sex discrimination in education—and opens the door to a myriad of real dangers to women and girls Title IX was meant to help.

To put it simply, a boy claiming gender confusion must now be allowed in the same shower, bathroom, or locker room with my daughter under the president’s transgender policies. When I learned that predators could abuse these new policies to hurt children in school lockers, shelters, pool showers, or other vulnerable public places like remote bathrooms in national parks, I realized I had to do something.

I instinctively knew that I needed to speak up to protect those who cannot speak for themselves: our children. As I learned more about the issue, I realized that I also needed to speak up for victims of sexual assault who would be re-traumatized by having biological males undress in front of them, women who may now feel themselves powerless to do anything about it, due to legal concerns and fear of being labeled a bigot.

Not wanting to see any policy that would lead to more victims of sexual violence and trauma, I started calling my federal, state, and local representatives to see where they stood on the issue and to urge them to fight against Obama’s edict. I even met with my daughter’s vice principal to express concern.

But what I found dismayed me. People were being bullied into silence by the threats from the federal government and LGBT activists. And I was saddened by how few people in the general public really knew what was really going on today in our nation’s schools.

Through conversations with friends and family, the “United We Stand” campaign was born. Our simple effort to educate parents exploded into a national campaign to tell the White House and Obama “No.”

Our message was that this radical agenda of subjective “gender fluidity” and unrestricted shower and bathroom access actually endangers all.

The “United We Stand” campaign coincides with other efforts to combat Obama’s lawless reinterpretation of Title IX. North Carolina and several other states, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have fought back with lawsuits against the administration’s overreach. Groups advocating boycotting Target, which announced in April that “transgender team members and guests … [may] use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity,” continue to affect the retailer’s bottom line. Church activists are seeking to help ensure our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion aren’t being curtailed so churches would be, for example, free to make their own bathroom policies inside their houses of worship and child care centers. Parents, concerned citizens, and other defenders of freedom are banding together to ensure the safety, security, and privacy of our children.

Because the national edict was approved by the White House, it can be stopped by the White House, so I knew that our outcry had to start there. My plan of response is simple. On Tuesday, July 12 at 1:00 p.m. EST, I and legions of others will inundate the White House comment line to respectfully say “NO” to Obama’s bathroom policies. And we will do so in numbers that will certainly get the White House’s attention.

But we will not stop there.

We will actively engage state and local government lawmakers and officials to inform and persuade them that they shouldn’t give in to the Obama administration’s threats to withhold educational funding from our children. The safety of bathrooms and other intimate facilities must be protected from predators seeking any vulnerability to commit heinous criminal acts.

Let me be clear: It is not transgender persons who I am concerned about hurting my children. Instead, I’m concerned about those who will abuse these new policies.

Some might consider me just a mom, but it’s a title I wear with pride: I believe it’s the most important job I will ever have. But that title also gives me a certain credibility when it comes to protecting children, because I know the dreams and fears that only parents can have for their kids.

As parents, we have the privilege and duty to educate and protect our children so that they can lead our nation on to further greatness when it’s their turn to do so. Until that time, I will boldly stand up to ensure the safety, security, and privacy of my children and yours so that together we all can stand united, safe, and free. (For more from the author of “I’m a Mom. Here’s What I’m Doing to Fight Obama’s Transgender Agenda.” please click HERE)

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Liberals Rip George Takei for Not Liking His Star Trek Character Being Made Gay

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In a moment of supreme irony, progressives on social media are sharply criticizing former Star Trek actor George Takei for disapproving of the decision to make the character “Sulu” gay in the upcoming Star Trek movie.

Takei played “Hikaru Sulu” in the original Star Trek television series. He came out as gay in 2005 and has since been a very high-profile advocate for gay rights, with a very active presence on social media.

In tribute to both Takei and the progressive politics of series creator Gene Roddenberry, the creators of Star Trek Beyond revealed that the rebooted Star Trek’s version of Sulu is a gay man raising a young daughter with his husband.

Takei, though, surprised many by revealing he disapproves of the move. He said it was disrespectful to Roddenberry to suddenly reveal “Sulu” as gay when the show’s creator always viewed him as a straight man.

“I’m delighted that there’s a gay character,” Takei told The Hollywood Reporter. “Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Gene’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate.”

“Sulu” never had a romantic interest in the original Star Trek, but he did have a daughter named “Demora” who first appeared in the movie Star Trek: Generations. Takei told The Hollywood Reporter that “Demora” was born from a fling with “a very athletic, powerful and stunningly gorgeous woman.”

Takei said he learned of Sulu’s planned outing last year, and urged filmmakers to make a new character gay instead.

“I said, ‘This movie is going to be coming out on the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, the 50th anniversary of paying tribute to Gene Roddenberry, the man whose vision it was carried us through half a century,’” Takei said. “Honor him and create a new character, I urged them. [Director Justin Lin] left me feeling that that was going to happen.”

Takei’s sentiments have appalled many of his fellow progressives, who bashed him for not being fully on-board the progress train. Said one representative tweet:

I’m so mad @GeorgeTakei. How dare you wish to take away what little positive movement we have in LGBTQ representation! You, of all people.

(For more from the author of “Liberals Rip George Takei for Not Liking His Star Trek Character Being Made Gay” please click HERE)

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Billionaire Child Sex Offender Epstein Co-Founded Clinton Foundation per Alan Dershowitz Letter

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Attorneys for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein touted his close friendship with Bill Clinton and even claimed the billionaire helped start Clinton’s controversial family foundation in a 2007 letter aimed at boosting his image during plea negotiations, FoxNews.com has learned.

The 23-page letter, written by high-powered lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Gerald Lefcourt, was apparently part of an ultimately successful bid to negotiate a plea deal before Epstein could be tried for using underage girls in a sex ring based in Palm Beach, Fla., and his private island estate on the 72-acre Virgin Islands home dubbed “Orgy Island.” Epstein spent 13 months in prison and home detention after agreeing to a plea deal in which he admitted to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.

“Mr. Epstein was part of the original group that conceived the Clinton Global Initiative, which is described as a project ‘bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” read the July 2007 letter to the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida. “Focuses of this initiative include poverty, climate change, global health, and religious and ethnic conflicts.”

The hedge fund magnate’s true role in creating the foundation could not be confirmed. Whether Epstein was an actual founder of the foundation or exaggerated his role in a phony effort to appear altruistic is not clear.

Epstein is not cited in official paperwork filed by the Clinton Global Initiative as a founder or director. Neither The Clinton Foundation nor Dershowitz responded to FoxNews.com’s inquiry as to the extent of Epstein’s involvement. FoxNews.com first reported that flight logs show the former president flew on Epstein’s private plane dozens of times. But Clinton has publicly credited longtime assistant Doug Band, now counselor and director of the foundation, as conceiving of the idea. (Read more from “Billionaire Sex Offender Epstein Once Claimed He Co-Founded Clinton Foundation” HERE)

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Pastor Says State Law Threatens His Right to Teach the Bible in His Church

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An Iowa pastor, saying the government needs to stop “meddling in religious affairs,” is at odds with the state over a law focused on sexual orientation and gender identity that he says hinders his First Amendment right to teach on matters of sexuality.

“The state of Iowa is not the self-appointed pope of all churches,” Cary Gordon, pastor of Cornerstone World Outreach, a nondenominational church with around 900 members in Sioux City, Iowa, told The Daily Signal.

An Iowa Civil Rights Commission brochure on sexual orientation and gender identity says churches are places of public accommodation and generally are not exempt from the law, according to First Liberty Institute, a legal organization that defends religious freedom and represents Gordon’s church.

The brochure says the Iowa Civil Rights Act, Iowa Code Chapter 216, “was expanded to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected classes.” The change took effect in July 2007.

“It is now illegal in Iowa to discriminate against a person because of his/her sexual orientation or gender identity,” the brochure says.

Gordon told The Daily Signal:

As it reads, according to their interpretation of the Iowa code, if you discuss anything out of the Scripture that relates to sexuality or marriage … you’re not in compliance with the law and you can be sort of treated like a criminal.

Gordon, senior pastor of his church for over 21 years, said his greatest concern with the issue is the “flagrant disrespect for the First Amendment of the Constitution, where the state retains the power to correct or control what I say and teach out of the Bible.”

“It’s fundamentally wrong and I can’t comply with that,” Gordon added. “I’ve taken an oath to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I obey the Bible above all men. … I have to obey God, and that puts me in a precarious position.”

The state Civil Rights Commission’s brochure “also indicates that the government has the authority to force churches to allow men in women’s restrooms,” First Liberty Institute says in a case summary.

“The Iowa Civil Rights Commission has not made any changes in its interpretation of the law, nor does it intend to ignore the exemption for religious institutions when applicable,” Kristin Johnson, the commission’s executive director, wrote in an email to The Daily Signal. Johnson wrote:

The Iowa Civil Rights Commission enforces Chapter 216 of the Iowa Code, which in part prohibits discrimination by public accommodations. The code also provides for an exemption for ‘Any bona fide religious institution with respect to any qualifications the institution may impose based on religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity when such qualifications are related to a bona fide religious purpose.’ This law was enacted in 2007 and has been consistently enforced, and the exemption consistently applied, since its enactment.

First Liberty Institute’s letter requests that the civil rights panel publically acknowledge that Gordon’s church will be exempt from enforcement action.

“I would hate to see a day when a pastor for doing his duties is arrested or something and taken to jail,” Gordon said, adding:

What we’re facing right now is quite literally a pastor being drug into court and having to spend a lot of church money to defend himself for doing something that pastors have been doing faithfully for hundreds of years and that’s teaching orthodox, Christian doctrine.

“I think this is really important that we stay true to our founding principles,” he said.

A federal lawsuit was filed July 4 on behalf of Fort Des Moines Church of Christ in Des Moines, Iowa, against members of the state Civil Rights Commission over concerns similar to those expressed by Cornerstone World Outreach.

Gordon, the father of three girls and two boys, said the state doesn’t “have any right to tell us what to teach or how to teach it or how to apply our beliefs in real life.”

“The state needs to stay out of our business,” he said.

Over the long term, the pastor said, this issue should affect all Christians:

The Bible teaches us to be modest and it teaches us certain roles that are honorable and beautiful about both sexes, male and female. You have to try to survive in a world that seems more and more hostile to what you believe whether you’re at church or at the shopping center.

Chelsey Youman, chief of staff and counsel for First Liberty Institute, told The Daily Signal it is hoping to avoid litigation.

“We … wanted to give the state commission a chance to do the right thing here,” Youman said.

The Iowa Civil Rights Commission has by 10 a.m. Aug. 5 to respond.

“We think it’s an absolute wake-up call to churches across America that we’re now having a state government say what you can and cannot say about your own doctrinal beliefs within the confines of your church, let alone having to open your facilities up in a way that is against your doctrine,” Youman said. (For more from the author of “Pastor Says State Law Threatens His Right to Teach the Bible in His Church” please click HERE)

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Survey Finds Excess Health Problems in Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals

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Gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals reported more health problems than straight men and women, in a large U.S. survey.

For the first time since its launch in 1957, the National Health Interview Survey in 2013 and 2014 included a question about sexual orientation.

With nearly 69,000 participants, the survey revealed that lesbian, gay and bisexual adults “were more likely to report impaired physical and mental health, heavy alcohol consumption, and heavy cigarette use, potentially due to the stressors that (they) experience as a result of interpersonal and structural discrimination,” researchers wrote online June 28 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Overall, 67,150 survey respondents were heterosexual, 525 lesbian, 624 gay and 515 bisexual. The average age was about 47.

Gilbert Gonzales of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville and colleagues found that compared to heterosexual women, lesbians were 91 percent more likely to report poor or fair health. Lesbians were 51 percent more likely, and bisexual women were more than twice as likely, to report multiple chronic conditions, compared to straight women. (Read more from “Survey Finds Excess Health Problems in Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals” HERE)

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Tim Tebow Does Something Kind. Some People Think It Shows How Awful He Is

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[Recently], Tim Tebow helped a woman whose husband suffered a heart attack on a flight from Atlanta to Phoenix. Although Tebow said nothing about it, a passenger’s Facebook post went viral, being shared 19,000 times and picked up by outlets like Sports Illustrated and US Weekly.

Richad V. Gotti wrote that on the flight an older man got sick and then fell unconscious. “Strangers from all over the world and every ethnicity [came] to the help of this man for over an hour!” he wrote.

Whether it was chest compressions, starting an IV, helping breathe life into this man, or praying everyone helped! I listened to shock after shock from the AED machine and still no pulse. No one gave up.

The Delta Airlines staff were “amazing,” he said. Then, “all of a sudden, I observed a guy walking down the aisle. That guy was Tim Tebow. He met with the family as they cried on his shoulder! I watched Tim pray with the entire section of the plane for this man.” The picture with his post shows Tebow with his arm around the woman’s shoulder comforting her.

When the plane finally landed in Phoenix, Tebow got the woman’s luggage and used the car waiting for him to take her to the hospital. He stayed with her until the doctors told her that her husband had died. And never said a word about it.

The Sports Illustrated story began “You already knew Tim Tebow was a good guy, but here’s even more evidence to prove it.” A Star News reporter wrote “Tebow’s unselfishness speaks volumes about his character. A lot of professional athletes are criticized for staying away from people. Tebow didn’t think twice about giving up his entire day for a stranger.”

TDS Sufferers Disagree

Hard to disagree, you would think. But not everyone thinks so.

Orlando Sentinel reporter David Whitley is annoyed with those who have what he calls “Tebow Derangement Syndrome,” or TDS.

The malady triggers foaming at the mouth among two groups. One believes Tebow would be a great pro quarterback if only the anti-Christian NFL hadn’t blackballed him. That has waned a bit as Tebow has drifted into other ventures.

The other group just hates him. That strain of TDS, he writes, “appears to have no cure.” He read the comments on the stories in the mainline media and found, apparently to his surprise, that while about 60% praised Tebow, 40% criticized him. Tebow critics hit at him with comments like “Tebow is the male equivalent of a Kardashian. Maybe he ought to change his name to Kim” and “Prayed? Give me a break. Get out of the way and let modern medicine take care of the sick. Idiot.”

Whitley was, as we said, annoyed. “Something tells me if that person had been Rob Gronkowski [the New England Patriot’s star tight end] the commenter would have been fine with the story,” he writes, and concludes the article: If Tebow’s actions make “you want to throw up, it says a lot more about you than it does Tim Tebow.”

It says you have a bad case of TDS and made you write mean, foolish comments on newspaper articles. Worse, it’s blinded you to kindness and stories that should make you a little happier — if you didn’t hate Tim Tebow so much. (For more from the author of “Tim Tebow Does Something Kind. Some People Think It Shows How Awful He Is” please click HERE)

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Now Even Breasts Become Part of the Political Debate

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Is breastfeeding natural? Yes and no, says a paper in the prestigious journal Pediatrics.

It may be “natural” to breastfeed, concludes the treatise, but the authors warn against use of the term by government officials or doctors because it might inadvertently support biologically deterministic arguments about the roles of men and women in the family, for example, that women should be the primary caretakers of children.

Ironically, one of the authors of the paper in the peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, previously wrote a book titled, “Back to the Breast: Natural Motherhood and Breastfeeding in America.”

No word on whether she has forgone accepting royalties on the title released only last year.

The paper, “Unintended Consequences of Invoking the ‘Natural’ in Breastfeeding Promotion,” was authored by Anne Barnhill, a Ph.D and assistant professor in the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and Jessica Martucci, a fellow (no apology for the gender-oriented title) in the same department who describes herself as a “feminist” historian of “sci/tech/med” and a “twitterstorian.” (Read more from “Now Even Breasts Become Part of the Political Debate” HERE)

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Elite NYC School Teaching Kindergartners About ‘White Privilege’

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An elite Manhattan school is teaching white students as young as 6 that they’re born racist and should feel guilty benefiting from “white privilege,” while heaping praise and cupcakes on their black peers.

Administrators at the Bank Street School for Children on the Upper West Side claim it’s a novel approach to fighting discrimination, and that several other private New York schools are doing it, but even liberal parents aren’t buying it . . .

Bank Street has created a “dedicated space” in the school for “kids of color,” where they’re “embraced” by minority instructors and encouraged to “voice their feelings” and “share experiences about being a kid of color,” according to school presentation slides obtained by The Post.

Meanwhile, white kids are herded into separate classrooms and taught to raise their “awareness of the prevalence of Whiteness and privilege,” challenge “notions of colorblindness (and) assumptions of ‘normal,’ ‘good,’ and ‘American’” and “understand and own European ancestry and see the tie to privilege.” (Read more from “Elite NYC School Teaching Kindergartners About ‘White Privilege'” HERE)

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Marine Corps Gives Women the Option of Ditching Pullups for Pushups Instead

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The Marine Corps has rolled out a series of physical fitness changes Friday, saying women can simply do pushups as an alternative to pullups and admitting the service lowered standards to keep women from failing.

Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller has called this physical fitness standards update the most dramatic since 1972.

Brian McGuire, deputy force fitness branch head for the standards division of Marine Corps Training and Education Command, told Marine Corps that the pushups were implemented to make sure that the Marine Corps didn’t “create a manpower problem by having some female Marines failing.”

In other words, pushups constitute lowered physical standards in an effort to make sure that more women don’t wash out of the service.

In November, the Marine Corps launched a review of physical fitness standards (PFT) and finalized the changes as of Friday. The new standards, which come as a final solution to the problem of women failing at pullups, will kick in January 1, 2017, Military.com reports.

Instead of the previously offered flexed-arm hang as a substitute for doing pullups, the new substitute is a set of pushups — for both men and women. But with pushups, the maximum PFT score achievable is lower than the maximum PFT score for pullups.

For example, women can reach the highest PFT score of 100 if they complete seven to ten pullups, whereas if they opt for pushups, their max score is 70, which limits opportunities for upward mobility in the service.

If women choose for the pushups option, they’ll have to complete anywhere from 40-50. For men who choose to do pushups over pullups, they’ll have to complete 70-80, depending on age.

“Push-ups become an option on the PFT, but Marines are incentivized toward pull-ups, as these are a better test of functional, dynamic upper body strength and correlate stronger to physically demanding tasks,” Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller told troops Friday, according to Military.com. “Push-ups are also a valid exercise and good test; however maximum points can only be earned by executing pull-ups.”

Although the service previously relied on flexed-arm hangs as a substitute for pullups, it became clear that it was a poor substitute, and so Marine leadership eliminated the option in 2012. Instead, the plan was to mandate that women perform at least three pullups. But that plan of mandating three pullups never really saw implementation, as leadership delayed it repeatedly because it turns out that more than 50 percent of women in boot camp couldn’t pass even that low of a standard. (For more from the author of “Marine Corps Gives Women the Option of Ditching Pullups for Pushups Instead” please click HERE)

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