Our greeting cards betray us. According to Hallmark, Americans gave approximately 103 million Father’s Day cards this past weekend, but only half of those were given to fathers.

Writing in The Weekly Standard, Andrew Ferguson makes an important point. Everyone, it seems, has a moral cause. The virtue of Ferguson’s article is that it makes the point so clearly.

David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, takes on the issue of same-sex marriage in The Future of Marriage, soon to be released by Encounter Books. Blankenhorn brings a wealth of insight to the book, arguing that Western nations have been “deinstitutionalizing” marriage for decades.

Kenneth Lowe is a young man with a message — and a rather stark message at that. He has written a powerful essay that serves as an indictment of his parents’ generation. The issue is divorce and the emotion is intense.

“The bottom line is that a heavily married society is a whole lot better off than one that’s not,” says David Popenoe, a professor of sociology at Rutger’s University and co-director of the National Marriage Project.
Popenoe’s statement should be read in light of sensationalistic media reports about the demise of marriage. Those reports were sparked by a U.S. Census Bureau report released just weeks ago. [See previous article here.]
Reporter John Johnson of The Cincinnati Enquirer took a look at the data in a front -page aricle published Sunday. His article is, in general, a fair overrview of the current status of marriage.
First he states the problem:
The National Marriage Project says the median age at first marriage went from 20 for females and 23 for males in 1960 to about 26 and 27, respectively, in 2005, the Marriage Project says.
Other reasons the National Marriage Project cites for declining marriage rates: the growing acceptance of unmarried cohabitation; a small decrease in the tendency of divorced people to remarry; and “some increase” in lifelong singlehood, although the actual amount of the latter won’t be known until the lives of young and middle-age adults run their course.
Unmarried cohabitation is particularly popular among people who’ve come from divorced-parent homes, says David Popenoe, a professor of sociology at Rutgers and co-director of the National Marriage Project.
Why would the children of divorce be more inclined to co-habitation? Johnson answers: “They’ve seen their parents divorce, and that’s the last thing they want to go through themselves.”
The most interesting part of the article is the statement by Popenoe to the effect that “a heavily married society is a whole lot better off than one that’s not. That is a fascinating argument, and one that can be related to so many different fronts of the marriage question. A “heavily married society” should be a goal of social policy and cultural expectation. The alternative is a society in which marriage is effectively marginalized.

The Ford Motor Corporation has decided that divorce just might sell cars and trucks. This bizarre conclusion is the only explanation for a new television “Bold Moves” advertising series the company has undertaken.

By now, any observer with a modicum of moral insight is aware that marriage is an institution in crisis. Nevertheless, one of the most significant factors contributing to this crisis is often overlooked, and that one factor has led to the breakup of more marriages than any other–no-fault divorce. Today, Dr. Albert Mohler considers no-fault divorce laws and their effect on the institution of marriage.

Jamie Dean of WORLD magazine makes an important point in a powerful way in “Putting Asunder,” published in the June 10, 2006 edition. Protecting marriage means confronting the evil of divorce. Consider this:

This week, The Christian Century features an interview with Elizabeth Marquardt, author of Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce. Marquardt’s research helps to document the fact that there is no such thing as the “good divorce,” as is often claimed by those who support the divorce industry.