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Shmuley and Rick in a Public Discussion
Shmuley and Rick in a Public Discussion
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Focus on Divorce, Not Gays, to Fix the Family
The Jewish community has an opportunity to lead the country in a true values renewal by shifting the focus away from the country’s obsession over gay marriage and onto marital decline and divorce.
Whatever your views on gay marriage – whether you are a supporter who believes that gays should have the same rights as heterosexuals or whether you are more religiously inclined and object to gay marriage on Biblical grounds – one things is for sure: this has absolutely nothing to do with rescuing the institution of marriage.
We straight people don’t need help from gays in destroying marriage, having done an admirable job of it ourselves, thank you very much. And the reason that marriages continue to decline in the United States is that rather than ever discussing how we can shore up this most vital of all social institutions we have instead chosen to focus on a convenient scapegoat, gays.
The facts are straightforward. Not even ten percent of the American population is gay but more than fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. And this was happening years before gays came out in significant number, let alone demanded the right to marry. In fact, the only men who seem to still want to get married in America are gays. While they are petitioning the United States Supreme Court to tie the knot, the straight guys are breaking into a rash and running to the hills every time their live-in girlfriends of fives years push for a ring on their finger.
The real cause of marital breakdown in our time is the redefinition of success to encompass only the professional and almost never the personal sphere. We Americans are an ambitious lot. We want to succeed in everything we do. What we fear most in this country is being a failure, a loser. But being a winner has come to mean having money, power, and being famous. In Hollywood you can be on your fourth marriage and have all your kids in rehab. But so long as people are still paying ten bucks to see your movies you’re a success. On Wall Street you can be a thirty-something trader who takes the American tax-payer to the cleaners and pursue a life of endless womanizing, all fueled by gargantuan, government facilitated bonuses. But as long as you still drive a Ferrari and live in that $25 million Hampton Estate, you’ll be invited to every cocktail party around.
Who then has a real incentive to be a good man? We are all encouraged today to have a career rather than a calling, a focus on our own ambition rather than a cultivation of gifts for the benefit of others. And success is defined not by quality of your relationships but by the quantity in your bank accounts.
Marital decay these days begins with the easy hook-up culture of teen-hood where young people are trained to see the opposite sex as a commodity to be exploited and reaches dizzying heights with the positively rancid culture of male womanizing and female drunkenness that has become so common on the American University campus. In essence young men and women learn how to master business and how to write a legal brief. But the only thing they learn about selfless love is that it is subordinate to selfish sexual pleasure and is an old-fashioned idea strangely out of place in a culture where you are always number one.
Is it really surprising, then, that the youth have delayed marriage well into their thirties and even then marry only when forced to ‘settle down.’ They see nothing exciting in the domestication of marriage or the energy it takes to raise children. And living in a disposable society, as soon as marriage hits a snag or two, it is so much easier to discard the institution than work to save the relationship.
Donald Trump summed it up best when he said of his current marriage that it’s happy because, unlike his previous attempts, this one requires no work. The poor man works at the office, where the real success is found. Why would he want to work at home? And who says that any woman is worth the effort?
Now, are we really going to blame all this rot on gays? And if we stopped gay men and women from even having civil unions, would the astronomical American divorce rate suddenly drop?
Here is where Jewish values and a Jewish voice can come to the rescue. As many of Christian evangelical brothers and sisters have largely led the California effort on behalf of proposition 8 and have, for twenty years, identified opposition to gay marriage as the foremost American family value, how many Rabbis – even the most orthodox – have followed suit? How many Jewish leaders have given sermons saying that gays rather than divorce are the real culprit behind the disintegration of the American family?
While the Torah’s teachings on homosexuality are clear, the Jewish community has wisely told gay men and women to come to Synagogue, keep a kosher home, honor the Sabbath, affix a mezuzah, and come to classes on Judaism as clear equals to everyone else. Even if we cannot agree with the lifestyle choices of every member of our community, we do not make this a laser-like focus to the exclusion of overall Jewish responsibility, inclusion, and commitment.
My parents divorced when I was eight. I feel the pain of every divorced man and woman which Judaism, unlike Catholicism, allows because, though we always try and save a marriage, the institution is not a prison. I know that the men and women who divorce are good people, loving parents, and would have wished the marriage to have continued. But they are immersed in a culture where the lie of professional achievement being more important than personal success is beamed at them from every broadcast medium twenty-four hours a day.
But more than the parents, my heart goes out to children of divorce who are deeply affected by the turbulence of two parents who no longer love each other. And if we really cared about the American family we would cease talking about gays and instead push a measure through Congress making marital counseling tax-deductible so that families who are hard-pressed can get the help they need to try and keep the family intact.
I run an organization devoted entirely toward the dissemination of Jewish values in the culture. You can assist us by signing up for our ‘Turn Friday Night Family Night’ campaign (http://www.fridayisfamily.com) and by getting in touch to offer your support (http://www.thisworld.us). Together we can show our children that love is not fiction but something tangible and real.
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Comments
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Grizzly Bear Mom
I believe the problem is that people don’t think accept responsibility for the part they play in the demise of marriage. For example the demise of heterosexual marriage leads to the broken heartedness of fornication, sexually transmitted diseases and their related infertility, illegitimacy, abortion, adultery, children neglected by their parents’ search for lovers, and the related miseries. Additionally, we say “don’t judge”, ordain the immoral, and purchase the products they endorse. We even punish those who speak against immorality.
Western culture’s current system of dating seems to be little more than slicing off pieces of one’s heart for distribution, and training in non monogomy. I admire what Shmuley wrote about encouraging his children to court and not date.
Why do we behave like we do? Because we don’t trust that “We are made for (G.d) and our hearts will not rest until they rest in (him)”-St Augustine. Because we don’t trust G.do we wouldn’t deign to deny ourselves the tiniest thing, and run around attempting to satiate our pleasures, passions and power, not knowing that we are insatiable.
A small but vocal percentage of society looks at Gays as the problem. Because it is so hard to think when we are investing all our energies in satiating ourselves, and rebelling against and alienating G.od’s love, wisdom and courage in the process, we don’t question ?preachers? who say that approving marriage for gays weakens heterosexual marriage. I don’t see that. In fact homosexual immorality doesn’t damage society like heterosexual immorality does. If that is so we wouldn’t G.d want us to invest our energies in correcting heterosexuality’s vices?
If marriage is good for heterosexual society than it should also be good for homosexual society; and society in general. -
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
kats101
A question-
In orthodox Judiasm, would the rabbi perform a ceremony of marriage between 2 persons of the same sex, assuming that this is legal under the state?
Your article misrepresents the Christian “evangelical” argument against marriage
between 2 individuals of the same sex (although I’m sure there are those for who this article is spot-on). Obviously, marriage in America is already in challenge mode. And of course other issues which significanly affect the Christian community (ie, premarital sex, adultry, divorce) should have more attention paid rather than one group being time and again singled out. That being said, if laws are passed, then if a conservative Christian minister who holds to the values presented in the Bible will eventually be challenged (and you KNOW this will happen) if this person refuses to marry 2 persons of the same sex if this pastor has been willing to marry persons of opposite sex. In various countries if a person preaches from passages in the Bible regarding what has been written concerning homosexuality, this can be considered hate speech and can lead to the pastor’s imprisonment. I have read that in Massachsetts that the Catholic charities no longer participate in adoptions because under Massachusettes law the agencies are not allowed to discrimanate between homosexual and heterosexual couples (I do not live in Massachusettes, I don’t know what the full story is concerning this).
You seem to have a lot of observations of persons who have focussed on money and material wealth and secular success. I am sorry you have not had more observations and experiences of persons who know that there is a greater integrity and purpose to life on earth that goes well beyond earthly riches. I do know men who are happy to get married, women who are happy to live modestly,and people who know the living God and live by the Spirit, not by mean spirited rules and regulations which attack the individual rather than the behavior in question.
That being said, it is wise to remember that God is the Eternal One, the Great “I AM” who is beyond the limits and dimensions of time as we know it. And He is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow, always and forever. -
Monday, January 18, 2010
Grizzly Bear Mom
Shmuley can demonstrate his Jewish acceptance of gay marriage to his faith and famliy by performing gay marriages.
Gays are already challenging private business and church rights to refuse to “serve” their weddings by suing. They are successful.
Gay marriage just passed the DC city council. According to the Washington Post 3% of Gays plan to marry over the next 3 years. What is the point of the gay marriage push other than to force instituions to “dance at their weddings” or be sued?
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Tuesday, February 08, 2011
ruhmanb6a1r
It is a very good topic to discuss it in a coursework small crew or just in a big company of people!
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Monday, February 21, 2011
faith6
I’ve heard a lot about gays destroying some strong families cv writing. This is awful.
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Monday, May 16, 2011
Eltohn John
Can I use part of your article in my custom research papers with your sourcing?
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Tuesday, May 24, 2011
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