Free Republic

The issue of "who's minding the kids" is now taking back seat to "who is having the kids." The just-released Census Bureau Report, "Social and Economic Characteristics of Currently Unmarried Women With a Recent Birth, 2011," (SECCUM) describes for the first time the demographic details of non-marital childbearing -- and it is not a pretty picture. The report reveals dramatic increases in non-marital births and is the first Census Bureau report showing the relationship of non-marital births to geographic variations and educational attainment. It is depressing yet unsurprising that with median age of women at first marriage approaching 27 years...

Some philosophers have promoted the idea that it is impossible for human beings to invent new sins. Any "new" sin that may seem shocking to you, is a sin that was practiced in ancient civilizations that have gone before us. In order for a nation or civilization to be strong, families must be strong. When families die, civilizations die along with them. I refer you to this quote from this website http://constitutionschool.com/2012/09/27/first-time-ever-majority-of-american-households-unmarried/ "For the first time, households made up of married couples with and without children dropped below 50 percent of all households, Jacobsen noted. At the peak in 1960,...

Revolutions are often sparked by an unexpected shock to an already-weakened regime. As commentators in France remark not only on the crisis engulfing François Hollande’s government but also on the apparent death rattle of the country’s entire political system, it could be that his flagship policy of legalizing gay marriage—or rather, the gigantic public reaction against it, unique in Europe—will be the last straw that breaks the Fifth Republic’s back. … (T)he deeper explanation for the strength of feeling lies in the fact that, in French law, marriage is indissociable from the right to start a family. There is currently...

Our nation is going broke, and now is not the time to increase burdens on American families.The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744)—commonly called the “Gang of Eight bill� after the eight Senators who came up with it, Charles Schumer (D-NY), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Michael Bennet (D-CO), John McCain (R-AZ), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC)—includes amnesty for some 11 million unlawful immigrants. That amnesty would further burden taxpayers and weaken our fiscal situation. Congress should not rush to pass the bill without understanding the cost to the American...

In Emma Lazarus’s 1883 poem The New Colossus, the United States offers a “world-wide welcome” to the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” One suspects that, were the poem written today, it would be rather more prosaic. “The golden door,” Lazarus might surmise, is open principally to those who happen to have a family member in the country or are fortunate at lotteries. When discussing any aspect of immigration policy, politicians shrewdly chatter on about “skills.” An immigrant “inventor” — of which there is an apparently unlimited supply — will create manufacturing jobs for the natives; a STEM graduate...

The Boy Scouts of America called to end a long-standing ban on openly gay members, a spokesman said on Friday, but the organization's board must still vote in May on whether to ratify the resolution. If the vote is approved, "no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone," Deron Smith, the organization's spokesman, told Reuters. Smith noted that the decision drew from three months of research, surveys and discussions and was "among the most complex and challenging issues facing the BSA and society today." The deliberations over...

NEW HAVEN, CT, April 17, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – An Enfield, CT man who pleaded guilty to sending hundreds of threatening letters to the head of a pro-life, pro-family group in Hartford was sentenced Tuesday to five years’ probation by a federal judge. Daniel Sarno, 54, who is homosexual, admitted to sending over 300 letters to Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, expressing his anger over the Family Institute’s opposition to same-sex “marriage.” The letters he sent were uniformly abusive. Many contained death threats. “No mercy for homophobes,” one letter read. “I suggest you make your funeral...

The family of the woman Kermit Gosnell killed in a botched legal abortion testified today at his murder trial. They were questioned about the death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, who is sometimes forgotten amid the national controversy that has erupted over Gosnell’s abortion business. Mongar died November 20, 2009, after overdosing on anesthetics prescribed by the abortion practitioner. A political refugee from the country of Bhutan, Mongar went to Gosnell on Nov. 19, 2009 for the abortion and, prior to it, was given numerous doses of pain and sedation drugs by an individual who was not a licensed medical practitioner....

The discouraging March employment report, with a job increase of only 88,000, raises questions well beyond the dreary state of today’s labor market. Prolonged high unemployment may be silently shredding the social fabric in ways that last for decades. Even before the Great Recession, men with a high school diploma or less faced lower wages and a harder time finding work. This made them less attractive as husbands, contributing to the growth of single-parent families. Stubbornly high unemployment almost certainly aggravates these destructive trends. It’s hard to overstate the breakdown of marriage and the rise of single-parent families. Consider out-of-wedlock...

(CNSNews.com) – If you sell a gun to your son, “there’s something wrong with your family," says New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In a radio appearance on Friday, Bloomberg, a gun control activist and co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, praised the legislation that is now moving forward in the Senate. The bill would require universal background checks for most sales of firearms, including those online and at gun shows. “The only thing it would not cover is if you sold a gun to your son, for example,” Bloomberg told radio host John Gambling. “Number one, I don't know...

George W. Bush Becomes a Grandfather By Arlette Saenz | ABC OTUS News – 19 mins ago WASHINGTON - Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura became new grandparents Saturday when their daughter, Jenna Hager, gave birth to a baby girl named Mila. "Laura and I are thrilled to announce the birth of our grandchild, Margaret Laura 'Mila' Hager. Mila, daughter of Jenna and Henry Hager, is named for her grandmothers," Bush said in a statement. "We met our beautiful granddaughter today. Jenna and Mila are healthy. And our family is elated." Mila, the Bush couple's first grandchild,...

PARIS, April 11, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ignoring fierce protests that have attracted up to 1.4 million demonstrators in favor of the traditional family, the French Senate voted on Wednesday to approve legislation permitting homosexual couples to adopt children, following its decision Tuesday to approve the creation of "homosexual marriage," according to reports in the local media. The so-called Taubira Law, named after the bill's author, Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, will soon pass back to the nation's lower legislative house, the National Assembly, to receive a second vote before it becomes law. Legislators from the more conservative Union for a Popular...

STORY HIGHLIGHTS Joseph and Summer McStay and their two children haven't been seen since 2010 The FBI is taking over the investigation from San Diego County authorities The family's abandoned SUV was found near the Mexican border A surveillance video shows what appears to be them crossing the border (CNN) -- The family -- mom, dad and two kids -- left their home looking like they meant to be back in a few minutes. But surveillance video caught what appears to be the four of them walking across the border into Mexico. There's been no word of them since. Now...

Delusion and parochialism about marriage. Gay marriage? It came up at dinner Down Under this time last year, and the prominent Aussie politician on my right said matter-of-factly, “It’s not about expanding marriage, it’s about destroying marriage.” That would be the most obvious explanation as to why the same societal groups who assured us in the Seventies that marriage was either (a) a “meaningless piece of paper” or (b) institutionalized rape are now insisting it’s a universal human right. They’ve figured out what, say, terrorist-turned-educator Bill Ayers did — that, when it comes to destroying core civilizational institutions, trying to...

Almost exactly 20 years ago, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead wrote a controversial essay for The Atlantic titled “Dan Quayle Was Right.” In case you’ve forgotten (or never knew), let me fill you in on what Quayle was right about. There once was a popular sitcom called Murphy Brown. The title character, played by Candice Bergen, was a news anchor. The show had its moments, but it was also insufferably pleased with itself and its liberalism. At least until the arrival of the Aaron Sorkin oeuvre (The West Wing, The Newsroom), it set the standard for such things. Murphy Brown was rich,...

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – A local family is accused of beating up a bar security guard, after a DJ wouldn’t play the song they had requested. It happened at the bar Savoy in the Strip District, this past weekend. Police say 29-year-old Dion Daye Jr. ,who requested the song, was arrested, in addition to two family members, 50-year-old Dion Daye Sr. and 25-year-old Dorian Daye, after they all teamed up and attacked a security guard. The DJ’s refusal to play their song allegedly upset the trio which was asked to leave. Then Dion Daye Jr. allegedly punched the security guard. The...

WASHINGTON — The decline of two-parent households may be a significant reason for the divergent fortunes of male workers, whose earnings generally declined in recent decades, and female workers, whose earnings generally increased, a prominent labor economist argues in a new survey of existing research. David H. Autor, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that the difference between men and women, at least in part, may have roots in childhood. Only 63 percent of children lived in a household with two parents in 2010, down from 82 percent in 1970. The single parents raising the rest of...

A pervasive anti-boy culture is wrecking our nation’s very future. As I look at my 5-year old son, I hope that I am helping to mold a young man who lives his life with integrity and self-reliance, understanding the value of hard work and good manners and the true self-esteem that only these things can create within a productive life. I think my wife and I are doing well, being conscious of these things, but as I look around us, what is happening — what has happened — to a generation of boys and young men in America is saddening...

The Colombian Constitutional Court on Monday reasserted its support for gay rights in response to a reactionary appeal raised by the Inspector General. In May of 2012, Colombia’s inspector general sought to annul the court’s 2011 decision which established survivor pension rights for couples of the same sex. The court on Monday reasserted the stance it took in 2011, which was that couples of the same sex constitute family before the law. An official ruling on the Inspector General’s appeal has yet to be provided by the court. …

Most readers are aware of the concepts of compounding interest & compounding growth rates; concepts fundamental to analysis of portfolio formation, economic growth & capital building. . . . But that is only an illustration of a dynamic concept--the long term effect of a compounding trend, feeding upon itself--which is our subject. This is not about thrift, frugality, providence & positive investment. It is about the absolute antithesis of provident behavior; the consistent, even accelerating, trends that are dismantling the social infra-structure, which once enabled thrift, frugality, providence & constructive behavior, to build an ever better & more satisfying life...

Just four years ago, candidate Barack Obama said he believed that marriage was between a man and a woman. "And God is in the mix." Who moved? Say what you will about President Barack Obama's policies, millions of Americans voted for the man in no small part because his family represents a much yearned-for ideal. How much happier Americans would be if all our children lived in a stable, loving, married family with a mom and a dad--like the Obama family. Many writers expressed the hope that having these real-life Huxtables in the White House would turn around many devastating...

DOJ: Children Do Not Need—and Have No Right to--Mothers March 3, 2013 By Terence P. Jeffrey Georgetown Law School. (AP Photo/Haraz Ghanbari) (CNSNews.com) - The Obama Justice Department is arguing in the United States Supreme Court that children do not need mothers. The Justice Department’s argument on the superfluity of motherhood is presented in a brief the Obama administration filed in the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenges the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that amended California’s Constitution to say that marriage involves only one man and one woman. The Justice Department presented its conclusions about...

See what research reveals is best indicator of the future of youth Barack Obama called during his State of the Union for taxpayer-funded universal preschool f or children, which would yank them out of their homes at an even earlier age. But a new study shows the opposite – family cohesion, is the No. 1 determinant of a healthy home and a healthy society. When asked about the message from the study, which showed only 45 percent of 15-17-year-old teens in America live with both married parents, Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin said such cohesion is as important in the...

Accessible Pudding By: A. H. Pinley On my soap box. Remember the days of America’s past when those that lived life only to go against the grain? The graining being living a life with high moral standards, principles. Well in todays society, going against the grain has taken on a whole new meaning. Going against the grain today would require man and woman to live their lives with high moral standards and yes, even raise their kids with the same standards in this world saturated with sex and violence. If there were a good old wholesome television show promoting abstinence,...

For most of human history the family was the basic social unit of the species. Family was a way of passing down genes, beliefs and wealth. It was a retirement plan that you paid into by keeping your children alive long enough for them to grow up and support you. It allowed the individual to pass on his ideas to people who would care about them because they were part of their heritage. Family was a collective endeavor, small enough to reflect the individual. It was a practical and philosophical aim that made life beautiful and meaningful. But who really...

1) Starting in the sixties there was an explosion of children born out-of-wedlock and kids who don't grow up in two parent families fare more poorly percentage wise on just about any and every scale imaginable including substance abuse, teenage pregnancies, suicide rates, criminality and homelessness. 2) Many people are becoming so childlike in their dependence on the government that they can't save for their own retirement, escape from an oncoming hurricane, or even purchase their own birth control without the government handling it for them. 3) Our legal system encourages frivolous lawsuits, is punitively expensive and because of the...

MIAMI, February 8, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) - In what could become a landmark decision, a Florida judge has ruled that a 23-month-old girl can have three people listed on her birth certificate as her parents. Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Antonio Marin approved a settlement between a lesbian couple, Maria Italiano and Cher Filippazzo, who were legally "married" in Connecticut, and Massimiliano Gerina, a homosexual who donated sperm for Italiano to become pregnant. Under Florida law, a sperm donor for artificial insemination has no paternity rights. However, Gerina claimed that in the verbal agreement he entered into with the lesbian couple...

Speaking about outgoing Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, President Obama reminded reporters that the family of the former U.S. Senator from Colorado was of Spanish descendent – dating back to the 16th century. “His ancestors were living here before the Mayflower set sail,” Obama said. “As he explains it — and relevant, as we are working to get immigration reform passed — his family did not cross the border, the border crossed them. And that’s why, when I needed somebody to lead Interior, I didn’t have to look very far.”

Christians throughout the West are dismayed at plummeting church attendance figures. They blame video games, or left-wing teachers, or Richard Dawkins. But perhaps the real answer is closer to home -- their own families. Divorce, single motherhood and cohabitation have been destabilising family life in America and other developed countries for decades. About one million children in the US each year experience the divorce of their parents, and more than half the children born to women under 30 are now born outside marriage. Reproductive technologies are also adding ambiguity -- and potential fault lines -- to family relationships. Christians as...

Is there a master plan for the subjugation of the human race? If so, it must perforce include a strategy for the removal of the single most influential figure in history—the Father....But who would desire such a purge? [big snip] Statistics: •85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes, 20 times the average. •Adolescents from single-parent families engage in greater and earlier sexual activity. •Fatherless children are at much higher risk of drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, suicide, poor educational performance, teen pregnancy, and criminality. •Most abused children come from fatherless homes; only 1/3 abused kids lived...

On the morning of the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling, I felt a chill, and it wasn't the bitter cold. After Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, some 500 or so New Yorkers walked through the streets of Midtown Manhattan, in front of God, man and Grand Central Station, praying for life, love and mercy. Our prayers were not in judgment of others but that humanity may do better: that women and men may see better options than abortion and that God may forgive us for letting anyone think that she is alone and has no...

Page 17 "...b. Liability for shared responsibility payment i. Liability for dependents Under section 5000A(b)(3)(A), if an individual with respect to whom the shared responsibility payment is imposed for a month is another individual's dependent (as defined in section 152) for the taxable year including that month, the other individual is liable for the shared responsibility payment for the dependent. The proposed regulations clarify that a taxpayer is liable for the shared responsibility payment imposed with respect to any individual for a month in a taxable year for which the taxpayer may claim a personal exemption deduction for the individual...

Confession: I plucked the inspiration for this piece from my father. Given the premise, perhaps that’s appropriate. The common underlying current to the progressivism which has saturated America’s social, political and economic firmament is an erosion of America’s multigenerational purpose. The federal apparatus has supplanted families as our primary support mechanism. Families provide the sure foundation undergirding Western Civilization. No laws or economic remedy can arrest social breakdown if the family structure fractures. Yet, progressives have commandeered the political realm to overhaul culture. Marriage withers under easy divorce, subsidized illegitimacy, and the desire among progressives to make it anything and...

And the Hillary press corps that exclaimed: “Memorable!” “A vivid impression!’” “A riveting performance”? They can gush. They can’t blush. Maybe she’ll reprise it as a one-woman show on Broadway. Already, they are talking her up for 2016. Why not? With her incredible lightness of being, what could stop her? Recall that famous political ad she ran in 2008. It’s the spot they called “3 AM.” It shows a red telephone ringing urgently. The announcer talks about the call that might come into the White House at that hour. You and your family need to have a tested leader...

The progressive cultural elite has long perpetuated prejudices against the family that, unchallenged, lead to its ruin. Among several I cite three: (1) the assertion that marriage makes men and women less free; (2) the assumption that children are a burden; and (3) the insistence that sexual differentiation is a fiction. These three ideas represent, as it were, three waves of the anti-family movement of the past 150 years. The first is the Marxist contribution; the second is the eugenicist; the third is the fruit of recent gender theorists. Social conservatives too often play a battle of catch-up with the...

Am I the only one who thinks it is immoral to bring children into the world if you don't have the means to support them? I must be one of the few. I rarely see anyone else make the point. Before anyone objects, let me concede up front that a lot of things in life are unpredictable. Women become pregnant despite their best efforts to avoid it. Women can lose their husbands from accidents, war and even homicide. Few of us have a tenured job. Few of us are safe from the economic reversal that would attend the loss of...

'You have got to fix yourself up - look pretty, look alert:' Christian conservative T.V. host Pat Robertson blames 'awful-looking' women for failed marriagesIf your husband isn't paying attention to you, it's probably because you don't look 'pretty' and 'alert,' according to evangelical talk show host Pat Robertson. At least that's what Robertson told his viewers recently, using an anecdote from a fellow preacher to illustrate his point. 'A woman came to a preacher I know — it’s so funny,' said Robertson, host of the 700 Club. 'She was awful-looking. Her hair was all torn up, she was overweight and...

The United States of America was the greatest nation in the history of the world, bar none, and just about every American school kid knew why http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/when-i-was-a-kid-reflections-of-a-50-year-old-american?f=must_reads

Do We Love Kids? Five years ago, on a quiet, leisurely Thursday night, my husband and I sat at the dining room table with a yellow notepad, discussing when we should start having kids. "See, here's how it works," he said, drawing a graph. "With a dog, you put in a medium amount of work, and you get a medium amount of reward. If you were to, say, purchase a lion, you'd put in a lot of work, but you'd get pretty much no reward - and you might even get eaten. Horrible deal." He paused, drawing a straight...

The Pope Was Right All Along by Russell Shaw on January 11, 2013 ·  The disruptive results for individuals and society spawned by the revolution in attitudes and behavior regarding sex, marriage, family, and childbearing that erupted a half-century ago have become too obvious to ignore. These things were predictable–in fact, some people actually predicted them from the start–but by now their impact has grown so painfully apparent that even secular voices are being raised in alarm.The problems are increasingly visible in the United States. They include an aging population with fewer young workers to support the elderly, along...

The birthrate in the United States has fallen to record lows, according to a new study published by the Pew Research Center. What’s more, the report says the most dramatic drop has been among foreign-born Hispanic women.We have been content for some time that the U.S.-born Caucasian birth rate was below replacement but that the Hispanics had been making up for it by having births higher than replacement, and that this made us unique in the industrialized west.Pew reports, “The overall U.S. birthrate, which is the annual number of births per 1,000 women in the prime childbearing ages of 15-44,...

Oklahoma football: Sooners' David King a product of a promise kept between two mothers On Friday, David King will lead the Sooner defense one last time when OU faces Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl. King got to this point thanks to the love of his two mothers: the one who kept him off the streets and the other who kept a promise. By Stephanie Kuzydym | Published: January 2, 2013 As David King ran onto Owen Field one last time, Stacy McVaney sat on the bleachers, surrounded by players' parents, and wept. Stacy is a crier. Balled up in...

At some point, sooner or later, all new parents experience that moment when they realize that this new little life is their unique responsibility. It can be a bit surreal. Holding your little one, it strikes you that a tremendous gift has been given to you, a gift that brings with it significant and life-altering responsibilities. I, who am a bit slow on the uptake, took some weeks to realize that I was not only able but also allowed to bundle up my tiny son in his car seat and take him out of the house to run errands....

Here in the middle of the Christmas Octave, the Church bids us to celebrate the feast of the Holy Family. On the old calendar, the feast of the Holy Family falls on the Sunday after Epiphany, which makes some sense. For it is a bit odd to read a gospel portraying Jesus as 12 years of age, a mere 5 days after his birth. And then, next week, we revert back to a Gospel where he is an infant, on the Feast of Epiphany.Click here to hear a recording of this sermon Nevertheless, here we are. Perhaps, it is a...

--SNIP-- The property is 6,000 square feet with 5 bedrooms, 6 baths and an contemporary Asian theme. Supposedly it was to be listed after the Obamas vacationed there last year for $7.9 million. It’s unknown if plans changed to sell the house or if the property just never sold. Either way, the Obamas are sure to have had a good time in this luxury beachfront home.

Nicole Hawkins‘ three daughters have matching glittery boots, but none has the same father. Each has uniquely colored ties in her hair, but none has a dad present in her life. As another single mother on Sumner Road decked her row-house stoop with Christmas lights and a plastic Santa, Ms. Hawkins recalled that her middle child’s father has never spent a holiday or birthday with her. In her neighborhood in Southeast Washington, 1 in 10 children live with both parents, and 84 percent live with only their mother. In every state, the portion of families where children have two parents,...

...the message of Bereshith is the obvious one of family and its importance. The Torah purposely and in minute detail describes for us how difficult it truly is to create and maintain a cohesive family structure. Every one of the generations described in Bereshith from Kayin and Hevel till Yosef and his brothers is engaged in the difficult and often heartbreaking task of family building. There are no smooth and trouble free familial relationships described in the book of Bereshith. Sibling rivalry, violence, different traits of personality, and marital and domestic strife are the stuff of the biblical narrative of...

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Tammy Wilson is referencing scripture, 1 Samuel Chapter 16, Verse 7, and looking through her purse to find her Bible. Turns out it's in her work bag, which just means she'll go from memory. "It's not the countenance of a man nor the height," she begins. "But the heart." And then Russell Wilson's mother begins to speak of the difference between fact and truth. The fact that her son, the Seahawks' quarterback, stands short of 6 feet does not define the truth of his abilities. And the fact her husband was once feared brain dead did not...

In 1992, six Jewish people from Los Angeles decided to go to the Republican National Convention in Houston. It was the first such convention for all of us thus we were novices about the whole affair. We went to see the speeches, but these events are more about the parties. One of the gang got a flyer about a group called the National Jewish Coalition (now the Republican Jewish Coalition) which we felt was right up our alley. We went to the event and our story begins. I met the person hosting the event and we became instant friends....

Once a week Tim Ralston and his wife Marie take their three teenage kids to a secluded cabin in the Northern Arizona desert. Surrounded by wildlife and the cows, sheep and chickens they raise it looks like a perfect eco-friendly family retreat. But the Ralstons are not there for an American version of The Good Life. On arrival Marie heads straight to the pantry to check the 15 years worth of tinned and freeze-dried food they’ve stockpiled, the kids test out their survival gear, first aid kits and water purifying tablets and Tim gets in some self-defence practice with his...