Commentary: No, Ladies, We Cannot Have It All

Woman Stressed out at work

The phrase “having it all” came from the title of a 1982 book written by Helen Gurley Brown, then editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine. As Antoinette Lattouf, writing in The Guardian in early 2023, put it, this self-help book for women focused on “money, sex, diet, exercise, and appearance.” Notably, it made no mention of children or family.

Since then, of course, the phrase has come to take on an even broader meaning. Today, “having it all” is touted as a woman’s reaching her full potential by having an education, lucrative formal career, rewarding marriage, happy children, and an active social life. Of course, this ideal is vague at best and destructive at worst.

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Commentary: ‘To Have and to Hold’: Marrying Young and Making It Last

Marriage

Kate Z. works in childcare and as a part-time barista in my local coffee shop. She’s the oldest of 10 children, with seven brothers and two sisters. Home-educated during elementary school, Kate then entered Padre Pio Academy here in Front Royal, Virginia, a hybrid school which combines homeschooling with three days a week in the classroom. She graduated in 2021 and currently lives in an apartment.

Jesse R. is adopted and the youngest of three siblings. For the most part, he was homeschooled before entering Padre Pio. He also graduated in 2021 and works as a chef de partie in the restaurant of a retirement community. He shares a house with a friend.

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Commentary: The Bad Faith Arguments Against Marriage Defenders

It would be an interesting investigation to reverse the names of every major bill passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, and then see whether that does not better describe the result of the law, if not the intent of the lawmakers. Names, in our day, are advertisements, and advertisements, as we well know, appeal very rarely and only glancingly to reason, but mainly to passions, and among those usually to the most powerful prompts to hasty action, such as lust, fear, avarice, and vanity.

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Tennessee Investigation Found Madison County Commissioner Unlawfully Charged $115K in ‘Gratuities’ for Officiating Marriages

A Madison County commissioner was found to have collected more than $115,000 in fees from 1,970 marriages unlawfully, according to an investigation from the state of Tennessee’s Comptroller office.

The commissioner would charge a $60 fee for marriages even though commissioners “may not charge a fee or demand any other form of compensation.”

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Despite the Supreme Court’s Ruling on Gay Marriage, Almost Two-Thirds of States Define Marriage as Union of One Man, One Woman

The Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage across the nation is in the news again with the House’s passage last week of legislation codifying that 2015 ruling as part of U.S. law.

In the years before the high court ruled in the case known as Obergefell v. Hodges, 38 states defined marriage by law as an exclusive union between one man and one woman.

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Taliban Claims They’ve Changed, Declares Men Need Women’s Consent to Marry Them

Young Muslim Couple with Toddler at Masjid al-Haram

The Taliban banned forced marriages in a Friday decree, saying that women are free persons and not property.

“Both (women and men) should be equal,” the decree said, according to ABC News. “No one can force women to marry by coercion or pressure.”

The Taliban ordered courts to allow widows to seek the inheritance of their families and to choose who they marry after their husbands die rather than being forced to marry an in-law, ABC News reported. The Taliban reportedly seeks an end to the practice of forcing women into marriage for money or to settle disputes.

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Commentary: The Destruction of Marriage and Family is the Destruction of Civilization

Marriage and families are the cornerstone of not only civilization but of nature itself, without which humans would have never survived as wandering nomads and early farmers, let alone building cities, an economy and governments to represent the people in state-to-state relations.

Without families as a basic building block, children are not nurtured, educated and empowered to raise and sustain families themselves, and the human race could not continue, always being but one generation away from extinction.

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Dean Phillips Challenger Says Single-Parent Homes ‘Chief Barrier’ to African-American Advancement

Republican congressional candidate Kendall Qualls said the “chief barrier to the advancement of the African-American community is the rise of single-parent households,” not “racism, police brutality or white privilege.”

Qualls is running against Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN-03), a first-term Democrat who unseated former Republican Congressman Erik Paulsen in 2018.

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Commentary: The Destruction of Marriage and Family-Building Is the Destruction of Civilization Itself

Marriage and families are the cornerstone of not only civilization but of nature itself, without which humans would have never survived as wandering nomads and early farmers, let alone building cities, an economy and governments to represent the people in state-to-state relations.

Without families as a basic building block, children are not nurtured, educated and empowered to raise and sustain families themselves, and the human race could not continue, always being but one generation away from extinction.

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Hidden Clue On Website Belonging To Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Sister Adds To Evidence About Marriage History

by Luke Rosiak   Rep. Ilhan Omar swore under oath in a 2017 divorce filing that she hadn’t seen her husband Ahmed N. Elmi in six years and didn’t know anyone who might be able to locate him — yet he appears to have designed a website for Omar’s sister this year, according to data hidden in the source code of that website. The Democratic Minnesota congresswoman swore that she had not been able to locate the man she married — who the Minneapolis Star Tribune says may or may not be her brother — since 2011. She swore she didn’t know the names of anyone in her husband’s family and that the two had no mutual acquaintances who might know how to contact him. According to Elmi’s Facebook profile, after attending college in North Dakota he moved to England and then to Nairobi, Kenya — the same city where Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor, lives and works as CEO of Grit Partners. Grit Partners’ website code contains data that indicates Elmi was involved in the creation of either the company’s website or its Instagram account. The ties between Omar’s supposedly long-lost ex-husband and Omar’s sister appear to contradict Omar’s sworn…

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Opponents of Gay Marriage Try Again in Court to Argue Tennessee’s Marriage Laws Are Invalid

A motion was filed Monday in the Chancery Court in Williamson County asking the court to set aside its earlier judgment dismissing the claims of five Williamson County residents who say Tennessee should not issue marriage licenses until a new statute is passed. The Motion for Relief from Judgment asks the court to set aside its earlier judgment on June 14, 2016, dismissing the claims of five Williamson County residents related to the administration of Tennessee’s marriage licensing statutes by the Williamson County clerk following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Former State Sen. David Fowler said in a press release that he filed the motion as attorney for the Constitutional Government Defense Fund, the legal arm of the Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT). At least three of the plaintiffs are ministers at Middle Tennessee churches who say that Obergefell means Tennessee should not issue marriage licenses until a new statute is passed, according to Courthouse News Service. George Grant, Larry Tomczak and Lyndon Allen filed a lawsuit on Jan. 21, 2016 against Elaine Anderson, clerk of Williamson County. The other plaintiffs are Lyndon Allen and Tim McCorkle. The U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision overturned…

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Ohio Legislation Sets Age Requirement for Marriage

On Thursday, the Ohio Senate unanimously passed a bill that would effectively end child marriage in the state of Ohio. House Bill 511 (HB 511), introduced on February 14th, 2018, would establish eighteen as the minimum age to get married, regardless of gender, with few exceptions. As the law currently stand, under Ohio Revised Code 3101.01, the minimum age of marriage is eighteen for men and sixteen for women. However, if certain conditions are met, marriage can be legal at almost any age, should the parent and judge consent. In addition, Ohio is one of only seven states that permits the minimum age to be lowered when a woman is pregnant. The other six are Arkansas, Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oklahoma. In early September 2017, the Dayton Daily News published their findings of an investigation into the practice of child marriage in the state of Ohio. The report revealed a shocking litany of statistics, most notably that: 4,443 girls age 17 or younger were married in Ohio between 2000 and 2015, including 59 who were 15 or younger. Ohio saw statewide, bipartisan, outrage over the practice and two bills were introduced addressing the issue, one in the Senate and…

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Improving Economy In US Could Predict Next Baby Boom

family

by Jessica Kramer   The U.S. saw a 30-year record low for birth rates in 2017, but the country’s increasingly prosperous economy could soon lead to a surge in childbirth. A Gallup poll showed 70 percent of American adults on average preferred having three or more children between 1938 and 1968, according to the New York Post. But starting in the 1970s — largely due to changes in family roles, divorce and out-of-wedlock births — the number of Americans who want at least three children has wavered between 32 and 42 percent. Fertility rates hit a 30-year record low in 2017, according to NPR. One explanation for the decrease in fertility rates could be an increase in wealth and quality of life, according to The New York Times. As people become richer, live longer lives and reside in metropolitan areas, their desire and likelihood to have babies tends to decrease, George Mason University professor Philip Auerswald and author Joon Yun wrote in TheNYT article. Birth rates typically reflect economic situations, including depressions, recessions and even periods of economic growth. Birth rates dropped during the financial crisis between 2007 and 2009, but despite record-low unemployment and continuous economic growth, the latest data published in a July Gallup poll shows 41 percent…

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