‎“Christians divorce at the same rate as everyone else.” Have you ever heard this? I get this comment all the time when I’m doing speaking engagements or radio interviews. People treat it as an established fact, not even a question. The short answer is: NO THEY DON’T! The long answer is: It depends on what you mean by Christians. If you’re talking about everyone who describes themselves as Christian or Catholic, maybe you’ve got something. But sociologists have verified many times that regular religious practice is a huge protective factor against divorce.

Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family helpfully collects a bunch of this information here.

For instance, nominal Catholics are 5 percent less likely, active Catholics 31 percent less likely, and “average Catholics” 18 percent less likely to divorce than is the general population. Among Protestants, nominal Protestants are 20 percent more likely to divorce than the average person. Conservative Protestants are 10 percent less likely to divorce, and active Conservative Protestants are 35 percent less likely to divorce than the population at large. 

This false belief is harmful because: 

• it contributes to a general sense that divorce is inevitable. 
• it demoralizes people both at the personal level (everyone gets divorced anyway, even the Christians) and at the policy level (we might as well make peace with divorce, even Christians get divorced). 
• it makes Christians appear to be hypocrites.
• people can’t see that religious practice has resources that help stabilize marriages. 

— Jennifer Roback Morse, is the founder and president of the Ruth Institute, which promotes an understanding of lifelong married love to college students. Sign up for the Ruth Institute’s free newsletter here. 

Parents magazine published my latest article today:

When I dropped my daughter off at an inner city Philadelphia School for kindergarten, I tried to keep my emotions in check. It was the first time in five years I’d been separated from my daughter, but I didn’t want to cry in front of the other latte-sipping parents. After all, the school looked welcoming enough, and the teachers were kind. But I really got a lump in my throat when they divided up the kids by class, and I counted the little heads in my daughter’s first kindergarten class.

40.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of helplessness a mom feels when sending a child into a less than ideal situation. But mothers all across the nation feel that trepidation every single day, because American public schools are failing in almost every measurable way. This was dramatically demonstrated when Chicago teachers — who make on average $74,839 per year — demanded more pay, refused to lengthen their already short school day, and didn’t want evaluations tied to performance.  And this when 80 percent of Chicago eighth graders don’t meet reading or math grade level requirement and 40 percent drop out before graduating.Some parents have given up on public school for the greener (and more expensive) grass of private schools. Others have opted for homeschooling.

But a new movie called “Won’t Back Down,” explores what parents and teachers at public schools can do to help change the public schools from within.  The film, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis, definitely makes moviegoers feel –- in the gut –- what we know in our heads: far too many schools aren’t teaching subjects, delivering reasonable results, or prioritizing students.

Read the rest here.

What do you call it when someone believes something in spite of the evidence?

As Nancy already noted, NYC high schools are giving out emergency contraception without the consent or even knowledge of the parents. Their justification is that “emergency contraception reduces pregnancy and abortion.” It sounds reasonable, but it turns out not to be true. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops in-house researcher summarized the results of numerous studies in this fact sheet. “According to every one of the 23 studies from 10 countries, published between 1998 and 2006, easier access to EC fails to achieve any statistically significant reduction in rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion.”

Here is a sampling of conclusions from some of these studies:

• “It is possible that the effect of increased access on pregnancy rates is truly negligible because EC is not as effective as found in the single-use clinical trials, or because women at highest risk do not use EC frequently enough or at all.” — a 2005 study of 2,000 women in the San Francisco Bay area. 
•  “This study adds to the growing literature casting doubt on the increased use of EC as a quick fix for rising abortion rates. That is not to say that EC will not prevent pregnancy for some women, sometimes, but rather that it may not make much difference to public health.” — a 2005 study of 2,000 postpartum women in Shanghai, China (who would have a strong incentive not to become pregnant within a year of giving birth because this is forbidden by the government).
• “The EBC [emergency birth control] scheme had no impact on conception rates.” However, “the presence of a pharmacy EBC scheme in a local authority is associated with an increase in the rate of STI diagnoses amongst teenagers of about 5%. The equivalent figure for [children under-16] is even larger at 12%.” This “is consistent with the hypothesis that greater access to EBC induces an increase in adolescent risky sexual behavior.” — a 2011 study in England.

A superstition is something we believe in spite of the evidence, because we like the way it makes us feel. I will leave it to the reader to decide who is being reasonable and who is being superstitious with respect to this issue.

— Jennifer Roback Morse, is the founder and president of the Ruth Institute, which promotes an understanding of lifelong married love to college students. Sign up for the Ruth Institute’s free newsletter here. 

. . . after an argument over their cat.

Well, at least it was something important.

No more mothers and fathers in France in any public document: only generic “parents.” No more husband and wife: only generic “partner.” Thus saith the Lord. Whoops. I mean, thus saith French justice minister, Christiane Taubirathe. This change in all the official documents of the country is part of the proposed law that would change marriage from the union of a man and a woman to the “union of any two people, of different or the same gender.” 

But wait: “gay” means a man who is same sex attracted. “Lesbian” means a woman who is same sex attracted.  Why should they be the only ones who get to keep gendered language?  Why not just call them both “generic same sex attracted persons?”

— Jennifer Roback Morse, is the founder and president of the Ruth Institute, which promotes an understanding of lifelong married love to college students. Sign up for the Ruth Institute’s free newsletter here. 

Yesterday, I wrote about how the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now recommends IUDs and hormonal implants as the most effective method of pregnancy prevention for teens. Well, if that doesn’t work, the NYC public schools will give your kids the morning-after pill:

The New York City Department of Education is providing morning-after pills and other birth control drugs to students at 13 city high schools.

School nurse offices supplied with the contraceptives can reportedly dispense “Plan B” emergency contraception and other oral or injectable birth control to girls as young as 14 without telling their parents — unless the parents opt out of the program after receiving a school letter informing them of the new policy.

Read more here.

The recent news that the Cranston, Rhode Island, school district cancelled its father-daughter dance deserves more attention. It may appear to be a trivial thing — one dance in one school district. But this policy is evidence of the ideological war against nature waged by the ACLU and their allies in the life-style Left.

You think I’m exaggerating? Here’s the ACLU in its own defense:

The school district recognized that in the 21st Century, public schools have no business fostering the notion that girls prefer to go to formal dances while boys prefer baseball games. This type of gender stereotyping only perpetuates outdated notions of ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ activities and is contrary to federal law.

They label any differences between male and female as unlawful stereotyping. Differences in preferences, in activities, in behavior, whether chosen by the children or by the adults, are all automatically stigmatized and marginalized. Why does the ACLU commit itself to such a policy?

The ACLU and its allies resent the fact that men and women are different. In their view, male/female differences are evidence of cosmic injustice which must be corrected, not accommodated.

News flash: men and women are different. XX or XY chromosomes are in every cell of the body. Little boys will be little boys; little girls will be little girls. Differences between men and women, and girls and boys keep popping up. The attempt to wipe out all sexual differentiation is an attempt to bring about an outcome that is impossible, in principle, to achieve. And it is this ideological view that any recognition of sex differences should be unlawful that gives the Left its justification to regulate parts of civil society and private life that would otherwise be unthinkable.

That is why cancelling the father-daughter dance in Cranston, Rhode Island, is no small thing.

— Jennifer Roback Morse, is the founder and president of the Ruth Institute, which promotes an understanding of lifelong married love to college students. Sign up for the Ruth Institute’s free newsletter here.

In an ideal world, no one would have extramarital sex, and all children would have moms and dads tuck them into bed at night. However, teen pregnancy is so common that some high schools now have been forced to open daycare centers to allow teen moms to continue their education. So what do we do?

Recently, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists updated its guide for teen sexuality; it now recommends IUDs and hormonal implants as the most effective method of pregnancy prevention for teens. The Washington Post explained the new position of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and laid out the differences between the two recommended methods:

An IUD, or intrauterine device, is a small, T-shaped piece of plastic inserted in the uterus that can prevent pregnancy for up to 10 years. An implant is a matchstick-size plastic rod that releases hormones. It is placed under the skin of the upper arm and usually lasts three years. 

I’m a conservative Christian who believes in encouraging teens not to have sex until marriage, but my idealism doesn’t change the fact that many teens are having sex. However, all women should be able to agree that this new approach is unnecessarily psychologically and physically damaging. That’s why a comment under the WashPo article got my attention. Laura Wershler, executive director of Sexual Health Access Alberta (formerly Planned Parenthood Alberta), commented, “That the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecolgists now recommends IUDs and implants as the best methods of birth control for teenage girls horrifies me.”

In an interview on a different site, she explained more fully why she’s opposed to these being presented as “just another option:”

I think there is concern with suggesting there may be problematic issues with menstrual suppression — whether in the way women are encouraged to consider this, or our readiness to understand it as just another option — and this concern comes out of a fear of having our pro-choice values challenged. It is very difficult for a pro-choice organization to say there are problems associated with menstrual suppression through long-term hormonal birth control use.#…#Ultimately our inability to present the downside of hormonal contraception and champion the growing research on the benefits of healthy, continuous ovulation comes from a belief that our pro-choice stance will be questioned.

She goes on to advocate something called “slow contraception.”

We have got so used to this easy ‘fast-food’ approach to birth control — take a pill, put in a ring, slap on a patch — that we are not recognizing that if we want to look at alternatives it will require a certain analysis and introspective look at our sexual lives. It will require a different mindset. It won’t be about 24/7 availability for sex whether you feel like having it or not.

Kudos to Ms. Wershler for speaking out against these new suggestions from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and for having the courage to suggest that people should think before having sexual intercourse. Yes, even teens.

And I would add, especially teens!

Kelly Ripa recently interviewed Mitt and Ann Romney and did a series of rapid-fire questions, which I’m sure are incredibly hard to answer.  However, when Kelly asked Mrs. Romney about her most embarrassing moment, I doubt she expected her to admit to snooping around the White House and seeing President Bush in a towel. 

The full interview will air on ABC next Tuesday.

“Hello, are you married?  No, I’m not trying to pick you up… I’m trying to determine which candidate you support!” 

According to a new study released today by Gallup, marriage is a significant indicator of party affiliation:

Married registered voters prefer Republican challenger Mitt Romney over Democratic President Barack Obama by 54% to 39%, according to Gallup data collected from June to August. On the other hand, nonmarried voters break strongly for the president over Romney, 56% to 35%. Marriage is a significant predictor of presidential vote choice even after income, age, race, gender, education, religiosity, region, and having minor children are statistically controlled for.

Read the rest here, though the article — sadly — doesn’t contain advice for single Republicans trying to find other conservatives to marry.

As parents settle their kids into a new school year, they might feel good about allowing their children to participate in the new and “improved” school-lunch program. After all, $4.5 billion was pumped into the program a few years ago, thanks to the Healthy and Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 — a bill personally shepherded through Congress by first lady Michelle Obama.

Ostensibly, this new funding, as well as strict new regulations on what food schools can serve, ensures the delivery of healthier meals to the 31 million kids who daily participate in the program. The First Lady often bragged that the bill would end the days of soggy pizza, spongy chicken nuggets, mystery-meat sandwiches, and gray vegetables. This is a new era in school feeding; we will now see lunch trays filled with fresh fruit, leafy greens, lean meats, and whole grain breads.

Indeed what’s served in the school cafeteria is changing, but in ways you might not expect. It turns out that this year some schools will actually be serving less healthy, higher fat beef while other schools will pay higher prices for leaner beef. Parents who hear their kids got sirloin for lunch should ask themselves if this was really the best use of the school’s money, or if that money might have been better spent teaching kids to read and write, or for a music program or a physical-education class.

Keep in mind that the rush to dedicate more dollars to beef was fueled by a series of factually inaccurate news reports that sent Americans into a full panic about meat production in this country. If you don’t remember the incident, maybe these two words will jog your memory: “pink slime”.

In March 2012, ABC News ran a series by reporter Jim Avila on “pink slime,” also known as “lean finely textured beef” (LFTB). Avila’s reporting was standard dramatic bluster short on facts featuring fake whistleblowers, unappetizing pictures of the beef product, and the coup-de-grace — false claims of a kickback for a former USDA official by the beef industry. It was a doozy of a story that generated dozens of copycat reports and calls for action from food advocacy organizations and concerned parents nationwide. Demand to end the use of LFTB was swift. Schools began lobbying to purchase LFTB-free beef, grocery chains whipped up marketing strategies, and fast food and other big restaurant chains promised not to use the product. Meanwhile, the beef industry was on the defensive and people were losing their jobs by the thousands.

Last year, nearly 112 million pounds of beef containing LFTB was purchased by the USDA to be sent to schools nationwide. Minus this major purchaser, as well as the purchases from major grocery store and restaurant chains, LFTB plants were forced to shut down and over a thousand workers were laid off in the Midwest.

Was all this really necessary? No. The truth is LFTB is perfectly safe. In fact, even Obama administration appointee Elisabeth Hagan, the USDA’s Undersecretary for Food Safety (who also happens to be a physician and mother), endorsed the product, saying, “LFTB is safe and has been used for a very long time. And adding LFTB to ground beef does not make that ground beef any less safe to consume.”

Another notable voice, Nancy Donley, president and chief spokesperson for food safety nonprofit STOP Foodborne Illness has defended the product. Donley, who tragically lost her six-year old son Alex to E. coli-contaminated ground beef in 1993, is no corporate hack. She’s dedicated her life to food safety and has voiced her concern over the “misinformation swirling around the Internet and TV about lean beef produced by Beef Products, Inc. [a LFTB manufacturer].” She goes on to say:

[BLOVK] . . . I have personally visited their plant and the categorization of calling their product “pink slime:” is completely false and incendiary. Consumers need to understand that this product is meat, period, and that the use of ammonia hydroxide in minute amounts during processing improves the safety of the product and is routinely used throughout the food industry. [BLOCK]

It’s interesting that ABC Reporter Jim Avila failed to interview one of the nation’s foremost experts on food safety for his report. But then, such facts can be a nuisance when trying to cause a panic.

To understand LFTB in layman’s terms, consider how you trim a steak before putting it on the grill. While cutting away the fat, sometimes small pieces of lean meat are removed along with the fat. That’s a waste of perfectly good lean beef. If one were truly frugal, one might retrieve those small pieces of lean beef by further trimming them off the fat scraps, maybe to use in a soup or stew. The production of LFTB really isn’t any different; the lean beef is simply retrieved from larger scraps that have been removed from the meat and then treated with ammonia hydroxide gas to kill bacteria. The final product is 98 percent fat free and bacteria free. While it might not be pretty, the fact is LFTB is a healthy, safe and extremely lean protein source.

The reaction to Avila’s reporting is understandable. Otto von Bismarck had it right when he suggested sausage lovers avoid watching it being made. The same is true of LFTB and meat processing in general. But to suggest this product is dangerous is simply journalistic malpractice (which of course means Avila is sure to enter his work for a journalism prize).

Hagan’s support helped to quell some of the hysterics about LFTB, but she understated the product’s usefulness — because not only is the product safe and a healthy source of lean protein, it can be used to lower the fat content in lower-priced, higher-fat beef (the very beef often purchased by schools). By incorporating LFTB into a higher fat (say, 30 percent fat content) grind, the final product’s fat content is lowered without hiking the price. This is especially important today when the country is facing a major drought which has led to record high prices on beef and other food products.

Following Avila’s series, the USDA announced it would allow school districts to decide whether to purchase beef that does not contain LFTB. This resulted in a tough decision for schools. If they elected to go LFTB-free, they were left with two undesirable choices: cheap and high fat beef, or expensive and low fat beef.

So what are schools likely to do?

Most schools will take the cost saving route — which is what more Americans are doing these days. According to USDA data, last year 37 percent of beef sold was the lower-priced fattier ground beef. Today, that figure has risen to 48 percent. There are two reasons for this increase: First, lean ground beef now costs 50 cents more per pound; second, there’s simply less lean ground beef on the market. In fact, the U.S. cattle herd is at its lowest level since the 1950s. And according to the Congressional Research Service, these price hikes are expected to continue and note that “the decisions made by many retailers to halt the use of LFTB will result in even higher priced . . . ”

The First Lady has made school lunches and obesity her signature issues. One wonders why she has remained silent on the LFTB issue. A nod from her on LFTB’s value would go far not only with critics of the beef industry but to quell the concerns of moms and dads who trust her on this issue.

As parents peruse the weekly lunch menu provided to them by their child’s school, they might consider the beef’s fat content in their child’s taco and cheeseburger; they might wonder just how much that low-fat beef cost their child’s school and wonder what those dollars might have purchased instead.

And hopefully they will see through the next round of media-hype about a food product, which rarely makes us healthier, but does make us poorer.

— Julie Gunlock is a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.

My new article in Parents magazine gives some insight into the character of Mitt and Ann Romney, who showed me kindness when my husband was deployed.

In 2007, I was in Boston playing a very small part in trying to help Mitt win the GOP primary. My husband, a constitutional attorney and captain in the U.S. Army Reserves, and I had started Evangelicals for Mitt the year before and — through a series of coincidences and opportunities — I ended up helping Ann Romney on a writing project.

In my normal life, I was a work-from-home mother of two, so life consisted of car lines, lunchboxes, and afternoon volleyball games. But during the 2008 presidential campaign, I spent time with Mitt and Ann, rode on their campaign bus, heard dozens of speeches, and saw the machinery of a modern presidential campaign from the inside. Once, the dissonance between my normal life and my campaign existence was vividly illustrated when we were driving down the interstate in a bus, while CNN sped right beside us, a cameraman hanging out the window trying to get a shot of Ann as we drove about 70 mph.

That’s when I got a call from my husband, who had just opened a letter from the Army. “You need to come home,” he said, with an edge in his voice. He had just learned he was going to Iraq with the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment and would be stationed about ten miles from Iran.

Read the rest here.

Because my husband and I have moved a great deal, we’ve bought and sold our fair share of homes.  Usually, we’ve let behind odds and ends — the leg to an old Barbie or a DVD we’d rented from Blockbuster three years prior which had gotten stuck behind an appliance. 

In 2009, Hal and Corinne Prewitt bought Mitt and Ann Romney’s home in Utah, in a deal which included much of the home’s content. According to the Prewitts, Gov. Romney used no professional movers — he rented, packed, and drove a U-Haul from his old home in Utah to his new one in California.

What Mitt left behind, the Prewitts believe, tells an interesting story about the man who might be our next President.

Read their story here.

As we brace ourselves for the Democratic National Convention, which started today, I’m still reveling in the memories of last week’s Republican Convention. My husband David and I drove to Tampa, sweated through several business suits in the humid weather, and had many poignant moments as we watched the Romney/Ryan ticket put their best foot forward. Here’s the wrap up of our convention commentary, if you need something to do instead of watching the DNC tonight!

My Sign Made It Onto CBS News!

A Video You Should Watch and Share

Four Takeaways from RNC Day One: Ann Romney’s Night

Three Takeaways from RNC Day Two: Paul Ryan Has Some Jimmy Stewart in Him

Two Quick Takeaways from RNC Day Three: Mitt’s Modesty

Did the RNC Make You More Enthused about Mitt?  We Want to Hear from You!

Remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Well, they are apparently making a comeback. In fact, Nickelodeon recently hired American Pie star Jason Biggs to voice a character in the new cartoon version of the show, and is sending kids to his Twitter feed.

What’s wrong with that? Well, Jason is not a fan of Republicans, Christianity, or even common courtesy. During the RNC, he tweeted about Chris Christie’s weight, sexually assaulting Janna Ryan, and Ann Romney’s anatomy (which I will not reprint.) He also made the observation that Clint Eastwood talking to a non-responsive stool “kind of sums up Christianity in a nutshell, huh Republicans?”

(The worst of his Tweets have disappeared, probably as a result of the attention sites like Twitchy.)

Does he sound like the kind of actor you’d want your teens to follow on Twitter?

The managing editor of Breitbart News e-mailed Nickelodeon’s Vice President Ariana Urbont, and asked if Jason’s comments didn’t actually constitute the “cyber bullying” the channel has encouraged their young viewers to resist. If you’d like to get more information about how to contact the channel, please click here.

This is yet another reminder that parents need to stay vigilant — by monitoring their kids’ media consumption and by having tough conversations about issues like faith and politics. After all, if being a fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles can lead your kids to tweets about the sexual assault of the future vice president’s wife, then we must equip our kids to deal with these harsh realities of modern political discourse.

Sooner, sadly, rather than later.

New York City. What a shocker!

My husband David and I ran to be Romney delegates in our home state of Tennessee in the fourth congressional district.  After a long campaign, the voters of our district voted . . . and David earned 216 more votes than I did.  (I blame the negative campaign ads he ran against me!) 

That means that David is a delegate to the GOP convention, and I’m an alternate delegate. We are thrilled to be here representing both our wonderful home state as well as the candidate  we’ve been advocating for since 2006.

If you are interested in what’s going on here, please visit our blog for the latest from the convention.  

You might enjoy:

This Week in Tampa, They Said It Couldn’t Happen

Bob Corker, Frank Luntz, and Hurricane Isaac

A Call to Prayer

Tonight, Ann Romney May Discuss Miscarriage

When we lived in Philadelphia, one of my daughter’s acquaintances was being raised by two women in a lesbian relationship. My friend explained the girl had two mothers– and, due to the circumstances surrounding the insemination, “two” fathers. It was a bit much for a kindergartner to properly process, so I didn’t address the issue with my daughter. After all, I wasn’t going to tell her that “all families are the same,” which was the message the public schools in Philadelphia were pushing. My family’s Christian faith informs how we view sex, marriage, and parenthood, and I figured I’d answer questions only as they came up. At the time, I wasn’t ready to talk to her about heterosexual romance and definitely wasn’t ready to explain our position on homosexual relationships.

When we moved from Center City to Tennessee, we didn’t encounter similar family situations at Zion Christian Academy, a private Christian school near our house. This allowed us to discuss our beliefs about sex and marriage with the children when the kids were mature enough to understand it. We currently have three children — a teenager, a pre-teen, and a four-year-old. We’ve had “the talk” with the older two, but the pre-schooler is still asking probing questions about the etiquette of spitting and hair-pulling at school. (Our family is anti-spitting and anti-hair-pulling, we keep reminding her.)

However, parents who take children to the new movie ParaNorman might have to answer unwanted questions about sex and homosexuality on the way home from the movie theater.

This might not be the first time a kids’ movie had a gay character, but it’s the first subplot I remember. Read about it here, if you don’t mind spoilers.

CBS:

Three daycare employees were arrested on Monday for watching and encouraging toddlers to fight each other while under their care.

According to Dover Police, three employees from the Hands of Our Future Daycare in Delaware were arrested after a cell phone video showed employees watching and encouraging two 3-year-olds fight each other.

Tiana Harris, 19, Lisa Parker, 47, and Estefania Myers, 21, were charged with Assault, Endangering the Welfare of a Child, Reckless Endangering and Conspiracy for the incident, which occurred in March of 2012 and was captured on cell phone video.

In the video police says one child can be heard crying and yelling, ‘He’s pinching me,’ while a daycare worker responds, ‘No pinching, only punching.’

“Clearly one of the children is crying and does not want o continue on and he is pushed back into the fray by one of the adults,” Dover Police Captain Tim Stump said.

The rest here.

ABC News:

“Honey, get me a beer,” might be said more by women than previously thought.

A study presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association on Saturday found that married women drink more than previously married women, but married men drink less than previously married men.

Additionally, several women in the study said they did not drink alcohol at all until they met or married their husbands.

Lead researcher Corinne Reczek, assistant professor in sociology at the University of Cincinnati, and her team looked at data collected from surveys of a random sample of 5,000 Wisconsin high school graduates of the class of 1957. Researchers conducting the study contacted each of the subjects four times over a 47-year period. Reczek and her team examined survey responses from this group, after which they conducted in-depth interviews with 120 of the to determine why their drinking habits changed.

Given the long time frame of the study, there were too few people who remained single for that entire time period to compare them directly to those who were married. Instead, the researchers examined the drinking habits of those whose marriages had ended.

Sociological and psychological experts not involved with the research said the findings illustrate how individual behaviors tend to adjust in order to match those of people with whom they spend a great deal of time.

The rest here.