Happily Divorced?

I saw the car in the photo below a few nights ago at a local fast-food restaurant. As tragic and as devastating as same-sex "marriage" is on our culture, the sad consequences of such a marriage perversion pales in comparison to what decades of divorce and sexual promiscuity has given us. I've given the sad sorry statistics many times myself: well over 40% of children born in the U.S. today are born out-of-wedlock.

Combine this with the number of children whose parents ended their marriage, and the number of children who are living in a home with both of their biological parents who are married, is shockingly low. According to recent data from Pew, only 46% of U.S. kids are "living in a home with two married heterosexual parents in their first marriage."

Of course, I realize that many divorces today are necessary and justified, but I suspect that the vast majority are not. More than one generation of American children has had their childhood sacrificed on the altar of their parents' "happiness," lust, greed, pride, or some combination of such. With divorce (and other sexually related sins) as rampant as it now is, I suppose I should not be surprised at the declaration below. Change our hearts oh God!!!

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Tyler Perry Betrays his Faith and his Message

A few days ago, Tyler Perry did what is all too common these days among those who have surrendered themselves to the Hollywood hook-up culture: he proudly and glowingly announced the birth of his child with his long-time on-again, off-again girlfriend, Gelila Bekele, a 28-year-old Ethiopian model.

The 45-year-old Perry, in an interview with EXTRA, said, “We're having a baby. She and I are very excited. I'm happy. I'm really excited about it.” During the interview Perry noted how the pending birth of his son (Perry inadvertently revealed the child’s gender) which “God has allowed” to come into his life—as if the boy just fell from the sky—has already changed his life.

“The greatest gift that I'm being given right now,” Perry declared, “is the opportunity to give the little boy in me everything I never had. So that's what I'm so excited about. This beautiful human being that God has allowed to come into my life, for me to get to know, because they come in their own personalities and who they are, and just shepherd and usher him into whatever the child is supposed to be is what, I'm gonna do.”

Tyler Perry disappoints on so many levels with this news. Perhaps we should not be surprised from an enabler of liberalism, but when Perry burst into the national spotlight about a decade ago, his story and his story-telling seemed to be a refreshing departure from what Hollywood usually presents.

In an interview in 2005, Perry said that “family and faith” were very important to him, adding that “I am a Christian, I am a believer, and I know had I not been a person of faith, I couldn't be here in this place, and I wouldn't be walking the path that I'm on now.” Perry also discussed his efforts of working the themes of faith and family into his films.

Much of Tyler Perry’s story is admirable. He overcame a very rough childhood; he has openly acknowledged being the victim of both physical and sexual abuse. One of the reasons Perry has given for the physical abuse he suffered is that the man who raised him, Emmitt Perry, was not his biological father.

On this, Tyler Perry is probably correct. As I’ve noted before, one of the most dangerous places for a child in America is in a home where the man present is not the biological father (ask Adrian Peterson). Again, this is especially true within the black family. Tyler Perry almost certainly knows this. Yet, his actions have created a scenario where his own child may face such a situation.

After all, how likely is it that Perry and Bekele will marry, commit to one another for life, and give their children both a mom and a dad in the home? I certainly hope this is the case, but Mr. Perry has given no indication that this will happen. Given the culture of Hollywood, it is much more likely that we will soon hear that Perry and Bekele are both in other “relationships.”

As almost any real parent rooted in sound morality knows, marriage and parenting require a great deal of sacrifice and selflessness. And parenting certainly is not about giving the “little boy in you” everything you never had. Career paths and plans may have to be altered, and more time will need to be spent at home. Marriage and parenting are hard work!

Whether we’re talking marriage, money, or monogamy, because of the efforts of the great deceiver, doing the right thing is often difficult. Of course, we all fall short. However, once a Christian recognizes the error of his ways, the proper thing to do is repent, not celebrate. For a highly public figure like Tyler Perry, this repentance should take place somewhat publicly, or at least he should publicly display an attitude of repentance.

This is especially the case given the devastation that out-of-wedlock births have brought to our nation, particularly the black family. It’s one thing to stumble, fall, and then surrender to God and allow Him to pick you back up and place you on that narrow path. It’s quite another to fall and then wallow in the filth with those who say that your faith is a lie and you can do whatever you want as long as it makes you happy.

Tyler Perry spoke at the funeral of Whitney Houston. He also laid hands on and prayed for TD Jakes. He has been open and unapologetic about his faith. He has said that he believes that God has called him to tell his story. This makes it all the more important that he speak and live the truth when it comes to the defining moral issues of our time.

During his 2005 interview, Perry was asked about his reaction to Bill Cosby’s outspoken criticism of the black community. Cosby has been one of the rare bold voices speaking truth when it comes to the breakdown of the black family. Perry noted that “Dr. Cosby and I are saying the exact same things.” Of course, as even most children know, what we say matters little if our actions don’t support our words. In other words, it’s not enough to have fictional tales that reflect the biblical truth on marriage (or any other issue); your personal life should bear such witness as well.

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

The New York Times (of course) "Blows" It Again

In typical morally ignorant liberal fashion, Charles Blow of The New York Times editorialized recently that when it comes to out-of-wedlock births (or “unintended pregnancies” as Blow puts it), “sex is not our problem.” Actually, though quite accidentally, Blow is right. When it comes to out-of-wedlock births, as Uncle Si would put it, sex isn’t our problem, sin is our problem.

That’s right. America’s favorite duck hunting uncle better understands what really plagues our nation than the editorial writers of the nation’s “newspaper of record.” Yeah, I know, Silas was talking about guns, but you get the idea—unless you’re a liberal.

Blow thinks that the problem of out-of-wedlock births is not as “black-and-white” as many claim. Of course he would think this, because “black-and-white” sounds too much like sin, and for a liberal, things simply can’t be about sin.

Blow declares that “We can’t look longingly at the halcyon ideals of yore, where marriage held more primacy and premarital sex was considered more depraved. Those days are gone.” By “halcyon ideals of yore” Blow means ideals rooted in Christian morality. They are disappearing as a result of the efforts of Blow and his liberal friends.

Certainly in much of the U.S.—especially in the circles where Blow and his ilk run—the days of where sin is called sin are gone. Most of today’s liberals, at least those who craft and coach modern progressivism, are little more than present-day pagans. They are fulfilling well what occultist, bisexual, and habitual drug user Aleister Crowley described as the creed of modern paganism: “Do What Thou Wilt.”

Much to the thrill of today’s liberal, the great lure of paganism is that the moral demands are few. Such demands are decided by each individual, and thus we have the chaos that stems from moral relativism. What was once deemed shameful is now celebrated. Tragically, the secularism that is the fruit of modern liberalism has given us a culture that is bereft of shame.  

In addition, what was once immoral and even illegal is redefined as a "right." Thus, abortion is declared a “right;” marriage is a “right” defined by the two (or more) people claiming it; pornography is a matter of “rights;” and, of course, sex between consenting adults is always “right.”

Speaking of sex and sounding like a good (and articulate) pagan, Blow writes that, “Most think young people should delay sexual activity until they are mentally and emotionally capable of reasonably consenting and comprehending the consequences.” He later adds that, “We could…begin teaching young people to value themselves in a way that contextualizes the initiation of sexual activity as a thing fully within their control and not so easily manipulated by peer and societal pressures.”

Finally Blow declares, “Everyone can be affirmed, though, in the fact that they must love themselves enough emotionally to be in control of whom they allow to love them physically, and when.” In other words, as long as one is mentally and emotionally mature, and if we value and love ourselves enough, “Do What Thou Wilt.”

Of course, Blow would not be a very good modern liberal, if, as part of his solution to the significant number of out-of-wedlock births, he failed to mention abortion. He doesn’t disappoint. He laments that “more abortion restrictions were enacted in the last three years than in the previous decade.” And just as reliable as rain in a hurricane, Blow offers up “prophylactics and contraceptives” as a way to curb out-of-wedlock births.

Also, the home and our schools must provide “thorough and unimpeded sex education…about how to engage in sex safely and responsibly.” And don’t worry, today’s liberalism will provide us with the necessary curriculum to accomplish this.

Isn’t it comforting when liberals start telling us what we “must provide” in our homes—especially when it concerns our children? I mean, it’s almost as if liberals are telling us what doctors we have to use, and when we can use them. After all, it’s not as if liberals are going to be data mining our children in the public schools to find out what is going on at home, right?

Continuing his pagan ramblings, Blow goes on to say that we “must respect all family structures (but not polygamy, right libs?)” and that we should avoid “sex shaming” that “inflames the pathology of patriarchy in our culture.” Because, you know, calling sex outside of (biblical—how sad it is that I must clarify here!) marriage sin is all about men oppressing women.

Like so many liberals who peddle their supposed “wisdom” in the pages of the NYT, Blow is a fool. And I mean a fool in the Old Testament book of Proverbs sense of the word. In this sense, liberals like Blow are not feebleminded idiots; instead, they are morally corrupt and despise true wisdom. Being wise in their own eyes, they have rebelled against God and His Word.

Such liberals have knowledge, and they crave power to put it into practice. Sadly, too many Americans have given them this opportunity. Thus, many of us have learned the hard way that, “Knowledge is a deadly friend, when no one sets the rules. The fate of all mankind I see is in the hands of fools.”

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Too Many Trayvons

One of the most dangerous things to be in America today is a young black male. Contrary to what the race pimps and publicity prostitutes (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et al) would have you to believe, this has very little (if anything at all) to do with racism. Permit me an informative illustration.

As I similarly noted years ago, between the years 1882 and 1968 the Tuskegee Institute reports that 3,446 blacks were lynched in the United States. According to FBI data, in 2010 alone there were 6,470 blacks murdered in the U.S. According to the same data, when the race of the homicidal offender is known, over 90% of the time, blacks are victims of blacks.

The vast majority of these victims are young black males. Shockingly, the CDC reveals that, for U.S. black males ages 15 to 34 the leading cause of death is homicide. What’s more, for American black males who die between the ages of 15 and 19, over half of such deaths are the result of homicide. Only 11% of whites in the same age group die due to homicide.

In April of 2012, writing about “black-on-black violence,” liberal black columnist DeWayne Wickham rightly asked, “Where’s the outrage?” He noted that, “More blacks were murdered in the USA in 2009 alone than all the U.S. troops killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to date.”

Wickham concludes, “But this painful truth hasn't produced the kind of sustained national outrage that [Trayvon] Martin's death at the hands of a white Hispanic [oh well, as I said, Wickham is a liberal] has generated. Why such a parsing of contempt? Maybe the people who've taken to the streets to protest Martin's killing don't care as much about the loss of other black lives because those killings don't register on the racial conflict meter.” Exactly.

Too many in America are (literally) invested in keeping the American “racial conflict meter” in perpetual distressed mode. Since Trayvon Martin’s tragic death, nearly 500 blacks have been murdered in Chicago alone. Have you heard the calls for action or justice? Where is the media?

The sad truth is, when one examines the real causes for the dreadful plight of so many young blacks in America, the conclusions don’t fit the preferred liberal narratives (along with racism, it’s guns). When it comes to Chicago, Lee Habeeb of National Review and I almost agree: Chicago doesn’t have a gun problem or a racism problem; it has a father problem.

Of course, the problem of absent fathers is not Chicago’s alone. It is played out all across America. You almost certainly know the numbers by now (I myself have told you several times before.), but here they are again: over 70% of all births among black Americans are out of wedlock. It should be needless to say, but evidently it can’t be said enough: this is a disaster, not only for the black community, but for America itself.

Of course, significant numbers of out of wedlock births among any group of people is a disaster for any community. But given the extremely high rates of homicide and out of wedlock births in the American black community, the relationship between the two dirty deeds goes beyond mere correlation.

What’s worse, the rampant sexuality and violence that has led to such tragic outcomes is not only frequently ignored, but often celebrated. The entertainment industry, peddling misogyny, violence, and crime, has been all too willing to pick up where absent fathers have left off. Thus, many young black males who are without their most significant role model look to emulate the attitudes and actions of those most pleasing to their eyes.

It is noteworthy that Trayvon Martin’s parents had long been divorced. While many accounts point out that Mr. Martin was a significant part of his son’s life and that Trayvon’s mother is a serious follower of Jesus Christ, the statistics bear out what good moral sense already tells us: teenage children without a father at home are, among other things, much more likely to participate in violent activity, and much more likely (4 times) to be victims of violence.

The truth is for children of any skin color, the presence of a loving biological mother and father in the home does more than anything else in the earthly realm to reduce poverty, crime, violence, and sexual promiscuity, along with improving education outcomes.

Until the race pimps decide that the breakdown of the family is a much more serious problem in America than is racism, I’m afraid that the tragedy that befell the Martin family will continue to play out at alarming rates.

P.S. This column was completed prior to President Obama’s July 19 speech on the Martin/Zimmerman case. In his entire speech, in which he often spoke of race, laws, and “programs” (government solutions of course), there was not one mention of the tragic breakdown of the family as the “context” for why “Trayvon Martin was probably statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else.”

Copyright 2013, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Where Is Daddy?

On this Father’s Day, we celebrate a dying role. With all of the problems currently plaguing our culture—crime, violence, promiscuity, poverty, divorce, drug abuse, and so on—the one thing that we as a nation could do to remedy such things most quickly would be to return fathers to their families.

You’ve almost certainly heard the sad statistics when it comes to fatherhood in America. However, the stats continue to shock: as a recent Drudge headline noted, 60% of all families in Richmond VA are led by single parents, with the vast majority being fatherless. For black families in Richmond, a staggering 84% are led by single parents.

The numbers are similar in dozens of large cities (pop. 50,000+) all across America. From Savannah to Atlanta, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Hartford, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Detroit, more than half of all families are led by single parents, with the numbers for minorities—especially blacks, being significantly higher.

The demographics have been trending this way for decades. This begs the question, why? Why are so many American dads not married to and in the home with the mother of their children?

There are two scenarios to consider: the dads who divorce and the dads who never marry. Increasingly, it is the latter that is more common. In December of 2011, Pew Research revealed that, according to U.S. Census data, “Barely half of all adults in the United States—a record low—are currently married, and the median age at first marriage has never been higher for brides (26.5 years) and grooms (28.7)… In 1960, 72% of all adults ages 18 and older were married; today just 51% are.”

What’s more, again according to Pew Research, since 1997 the percentage of men ages 18 to 34 who say that having a successful marriage is important to them dropped from 35% to 29%. While for women in the same age group, the numbers rose from 28% to 37%. According to family and feminism expert Suzanne Venker, many men have decided never to get married because “women aren’t women anymore.”

And neither are men “men” anymore. “Ever since the sexual revolution” adds Venker, “there has been a profound overhaul in the way men and women interact.” With its lies about sex, parenting, and gender roles, the modern feminist movement that “birthed” (pun intended) the sexual revolution has been devastating to men and women alike.

Many men have been deceived into thinking that, among other things, they can have all the sex that they want without any real commitment or other consequences. Thus, it is little wonder that so many men bought into the modern feminist lies. With the explosion of pornography and the hook-up culture, and with little societal stigma to engaging in such behavior, far too many men have allowed themselves and the roles that they were created to fulfill to be cast aside. Ironically, this has led to a “neutering” of the American male. 

Many women have been deceived into thinking that, among other things, they are no different than men and can have careers and children without marriage or devout motherhood. (Certainly not all women with careers are unfit mothers, but being successful at both can be overwhelming.) Thus we end up with women in combat and many attempting or being forced to be the “breadwinners” (the vast majority of whom are poor single mothers) of the family. For the first time in American history, women outnumber men in the workforce and more women than men are obtaining college degrees.

And many women today who do marry are doing so much later and are having one child (or at most two) as they attempt to postpone, or at least “balance,” motherhood with careers. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, in 1970 only 1% of U.S. births were to women 35 and older. Today that rate has increased nearly 10-fold.

Such data is especially true for white women. While the marriage rate in the U.S. is much higher for whites than for other ethnic groups, the childbirth rate is devastatingly low. So much so that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau for the calendar year ending 2012, for the first time in U.S. history more whites died than were born.

Thus, it’s not just fatherhood that is dying, but motherhood as well. And it’s not just the men and women (and the millions of children such relationships produce) who have been deceived into living such lies who suffer. What we are seeing here is the death of the traditional (biblical) family, and when the family dies, that will herald the end of our republic.   

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2013, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

BET is Part of the Problem

Black Entertainment Television (BET) founder Bob Johnson recently angrily lamented the black unemployment rate in the U.S. “This country would never tolerate white unemployment at 14 and 15 percent… somebody’s going to have to pay— 34 million African-Americans are not going to leave this country…Somebody’s going to have to pay for them. Somebody’s going to have to take care of them, and if somebody’s going to have to take care of them that money’s got to come from somebody. And whoever’s paying for it is going to be upset about it, and they’re going to start looking for somebody to blame,” said Johnson.

Johnson recently (late February) commissioned a poll of just over one-thousand black Americans. In spite of lingering high black unemployment, blacks have an overwhelmingly (91%) favorable opinion of President Obama. Though the poll does not ask about democrats in general, blacks, as they have now for decades, continue to vote almost exclusively for democrats.

In other words, in spite of constantly trailing other groups in virtually every economic metric, blacks continue to support a political party and its liberal policies that have significantly contributed to perpetuating poverty within the black community and across the U.S. in general.

The poll also revealed that half of black Americans blamed high black unemployment on the failures of the American education system. While it is good to see blacks acknowledging the failures of America’s public school system, it seems that too many—Bob Johnson included—are blind to the most significant problem within black America: the breakdown of the family.

Today an obscene number—72%—of black children are born to unwed mothers. “The single biggest predictor of poverty is family structure,” wrote Gary Palmer of the Alabama Policy Institute. According to Census data, marriage drops the probability of child poverty by 82%.

Yet what does Bob Johnson’s network glorify and promote? (Though no longer owner or CEO of BET, Johnson is heavily responsible for making BET what it is today.) BET’s programming is replete with sexual, profane, and violent content. BET music videos are especially degrading to women. What’s worse, much of this content is aimed at children and teenagers. Bombarded with such imagery, what are many young black men going to replicate as they mature into adulthood? This is especially true if they don’t have a father in the home to teach (and model for) them the truth.

BET could help fill this void, or, even better, help reduce it. Instead, they are part of the problem.

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2013, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com

The War on the Family Rages On

Following Father’s Day, here is some sobering information concerning dads. According to the U.S. Census, one-third of American children are growing up without their biological fathers, while 40% of newborn babies in the U.S. are delivered to unmarried mothers. This percentage has increased about ten-fold since 1950.

Even more sobering: According to the CDC, over 72% of black children in the U.S. are born out-of-wedlock, along with over 52% of Hispanic children. Thus, while accounting for only about one quarter of the total U.S. population, blacks and Hispanics account for about 57% of the total number of out-of-wedlock births.

The absence of dad is devastating for children in a wide variety of ways. Children from single-parent homes are twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school and are more than twice as likely to be arrested for a juvenile crime. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 85% of children with behavioral disorders don’t have a father at home.

Children living without dad are much more likely to abuse drugs, commit suicide, and run away from home. They are more likely to have lower academic achievement along with lower self-esteem. Children born to unwed mothers are about seven times more likely to live in poverty than children with fathers in the home. The correlation between fatherless homes and the negative effects on the family is irrefutable.

With statistics like these, which have been trending in this negative direction for decades, one would think that no matter a person’s religion, political persuasions, etc., it would be clear to most that it benefits our culture to support traditional marriage.

Yet, in spite of all this, the left continues its march towards the destruction of the family. Led by the homosexual movement and its war on marriage, like-minded liberals in the media, the aiding and abetting by Democrats in Washington, and Feministas like Gloria Steinem (who once declared, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.”) and NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd, author of “Are Men Necessary?” (which has been described as “the manifesto of the man-hating movement”), the varied attacks on the family are well funded, coordinated, and unrelenting.

For example, recently in the U.S. House, a bill introduced by Democrat Pete Stark (CA), called the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, would, according to World magazine, “force any group that receives federal aid to place kids in foster families and adoptive families without regard to the sexual orientation, gender identity or marital status of the prospective parents.”

Stark’s bill currently has 52 co-sponsors in the House (all but one are Democrats). Not to be left out, Democrat Sen. Kristin Gillibrand (NY) plans to introduce similar legislation in the Senate.

Then there’s the case of the Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland, California. According to the Oakland Tribune, last month “children learned more about what gender means, how it's been expressed in different cultures throughout human history, and that it's possible to be both genders -- or neither.”

Recently MSNBC (surprise!) proudly profiled Andrew Viveros as the “first transgender student in the United States to be crowned prom queen at a public school.” Despite being born a boy and having male reproductive organs, Viveros wants to be a girl—thus MSNBC treated him as a girl and permitted no voice in opposition to such behavior on their show. Echoing one of the great lies of the secular left, Andrew said, “it's OK to be who you are, it's OK to do what you want to do.”

Whether we are talking about divorce, out-of-wedlock births, redefining marriage, or disappearing dads, there are profound consequences for everyone in our culture anytime we deviate from the traditional family model. It is amazing that such has to be said in these “enlightened” times—as Mark Alexander wrote in 2006, “What cadre of nescient dolts does not already know (such things)?”

Adoption, education, legal issues such as custody, wills, inheritances and estates, matters concerning health care and retirement benefits—all of these are affected by how a society—and its government—view marriage. President Reagan summed it up well when he noted, “The family has always been the cornerstone of American society…in the family we learn our first lessons of God and man, love and discipline, rights and responsibilities…the strength of our families is vital to the strength of our nation.”

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2011, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com