Marriage, Family, and the Chicken Sandwich

~ Evan Lenow

“Eat More Chicken.” That’s what former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee wants you to do today. Gov. Huckabee has declared August 1 to be “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” in response to the negative firestorm surrounding Dan Cathy’s recent declaration of support for the biblical model of marriage. Cathy is the president and chief operating officer of the Atlanta-based restaurant chain.

Should we support Chick-fil-A today? Should we affirm Mr. Cathy’s statements? Does Mr. Cathy have the right to say such things? The answers to these questions are yes, yes, and yes, but let’s take a look at why.

Biblically, we need to be reminded to stand together with fellow believers as they try to do the right thing. In Hebrews 10:24, we read, “Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” The Cathy family has worked long and hard to build a business on principles derived from the Bible. They keep their doors closed on Sundays so their employees can spend the day in worship. They train their staff to treat everyone with respect and kindness. They have even created foundations to fund college scholarships and other educational opportunities for employees. They are working diligently to do good—investing in their people and their communities. In an age where business is marked with greed and fraud, Chick-fil-A is running things the right way.

In addition, fellow believers should stand for what Dan Cathy has affirmed—a biblical understanding of marriage. In an interview with Allan Blume of the Biblical Recorder, Cathy said, “We are very much supportive of the family—the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”

Cathy’s statement is much broader than the media has reported. Certainly, his words exclude a vision of marriage beyond heterosexual union. However, he more specifically affirms marriage between one man and one woman for a lifetime. His concern is not simply with same-sex marriage. His statement expresses concern for rampant divorce in our culture, cohabitation before marriage, and the fringe elements of polygamous and polyamorous relationships that are becoming more mainstream.

Marriage as the Bible describes it is a covenantal relationship between a man and a woman that lasts until death. Genesis 2:24 declares, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” This relationship is then a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:31–32). I applaud Mr. Cathy for supporting this vision of marriage.

Socially, not only should we affirm Mr. Cathy’s words, but we should support his work that in turn strengthens marriages. The company uses its profits to support a number of causes, one of which is its own WinShape Foundation. One of the focal points of the foundation is helping people prepare for, strengthen, and save their marriages. In our society today, over 60% of marriages are preceded by cohabitation; more than a third of all American adults experience at least one divorce; and 34% of all children under 18 live in households without two married parents. These numbers are staggering. Marriage is on the decline, and we need to do all we can to support it. When a company like Chick-fil-A and the Cathy family have made it possible for us to be a part of preserving marriage in our society, we need to vote with our mouths and our money.

Politically, we need to stand up for Mr. Cathy’s right to speak his opinion boldly and without threat of retaliation by the government. The First Amendment to the Constitution reads in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech. . . .” Threats of retaliation by the city governments of Boston and Chicago constitute a violation of Mr. Cathy’s first amendment rights. Mr. Cathy has clearly stated that his position is based upon his religious beliefs. Therefore, blocking a company’s ability to operate in a city for the religious beliefs of its president amounts to the prohibition of his free exercise of religion. If that were not enough, Mr. Cathy has a first amendment right to speak his opinion under the protection of freedom of speech. Governments cannot discriminate against him or his company simply because he chose to speak. In fact, Mayor Menino of Boston and Mayor Emanuel of Chicago have both backtracked on their threats to ban the restaurant after facing the reality that such actions would be unconstitutional.

So what should Christians do? When we find businesses that promote biblical values, frequent them. Tell the company that you support the stands they take. Use your words and your money to demonstrate support. What about Chick-fil-A today? I say, go to Chick-fil-A. Buy a meal. Drink some lemonade. Eat more chicken.

*Originally posted at www.theologicalmatters.com.

Holding Penn State Responsible

~ Evan Lenow

Back in November, I posted this article about the lost ideas of personal and corporate responsibility at Penn State University. This morning, the NCAA held a press conference announcing the sanctions against the university (and particularly the football program). In light of what I wrote 8 months ago, I want to evaluate the actions of the NCAA to see if they will actually serve the purpose of reinstating the ideas of personal and corporate responsibility.

Here are the sanctions imposed by the governing board of college athletics:

  • $60 million fine, roughly equivalent to one year’s gross football revenue, to be placed in an endowment for “external programs preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims and may not be used to fund such programs at the university.”
  • 4 year ban on postseason appearances
  • Reduction of scholarships from 25 to 15 per year for 4 years
  • Vacating all wins from 1998-2011 (111 total wins)

The NCAA also put in place measures to change the culture of the university. The university must create a compliance committee and have quarterly reports from an independent monitor to make sure that athletics do not overwhelm the priority of academics at the university.

Let me recount the major faults that I saw in November. First, the university (and the individuals involved) lacked a respect for the dignity of the victims. There seemed to have been a concern for the personal interests of the perpetrator and those with knowledge of the crime, but there was no concern for the dignity of the boys. As each person up the chain of command refused to take personal responsibility for alerting the authorities, they diminished the opportunity for the university to take corporate responsibility.

The fine and intended use of the funds goes a long way to help address this problem. The NCAA acknowledges that the endowment cannot correct what has happened in the past, but they are at least attempting to recognize the dignity of the victims and their families.

Second, the problem at Penn State is that the university saw its own “family” interests as more important than protecting the institution of the family. These boys have been assaulted, abused, and scarred for life. Their family structure has been permanently altered because they have been subjected to a version of sexuality that is distorted far outside God’s design. There was absolutely no respect for the institution of the family on the perpetrator’s part, and there was indifference to the institution of the family on the part of the university.

On some levels, the punitive actions taken by the NCAA address this problem. With the reduction of scholarships, postseason ban, and vacated wins, the NCAA put Penn State and other universities on notice that their “family” cultures were not more important than society’s family culture. While it is not a clear admonition for supporting the family, the underlying problem is being addressed.

Finally, a fair and effective system of law and government is crucial to a healthy society. In this case, that system was in place to handle the problem, but no one alerted the proper authorities.

I believe this is the issue addressed in vacating wins, particularly as it has a huge impact on the record books. 111 wins will be removed from the record books. Perhaps more significantly, 111 of 409 wins will be removed from Joe Paterno’s record of the most wins in college football history. Coach Paterno will no longer hold that record. His failure to act in properly reporting the accusations against one of his assistant coaches to the police have tarnished his legacy on many levels. Now future generations will not even see his name near the top of the list of coaches with the most wins. The system of law and government has spoken in the case of Jerry Sandusky, who will now spend the rest of his life in prison. The NCAA has spoken regarding the failure to use that system on the part of the university.

The actions of those involved in the scandal at Penn State University are reprehensible. When given the opportunity to stop the perpetrator, the university failed to act and failed to take responsibility. Only after the egregious behavior was allowed to continue for 13 years has the university been held responsible. I applaud the NCAA for their actions, but I only wish they had not been necessary. I wish the university has stepped up in 1998 to stop the problem. Responsibility is best taken on one’s own initiative rather than forced by the governing authorities.

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Evan Lenow, “Penn State and the Lost Idea of Personal Responsibility,” November 10, 2011.

“Penn State sanctions: $60M, bowl ban,” ESPN, July 23, 2012.

Good Reading: Robert George on Marriage and Religious Liberty

~ Evan Lenow

Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, offers an insightful look at the tension between religious liberty and the redefinition of marriage. Here are a couple of highlights:

It was only yesterday, was it not, that we were being assured that the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex partnerships would have no impact on persons and institutions that hold to the traditional view of marriage as a conjugal union? Such persons and institutions would simply be untouched by the change. It won’t affect your marriage or your life, we were told, if the law recognizes Henry and Herman or Sally and Sheila as “married.”

Those offering these assurances were also claiming that the redefinition of marriage would have no impact on the public understanding of marriage as a monogamous and sexually exclusive partnership. No one, they insisted, wanted to alter those traditional marital norms. On the contrary, the redefinition of marriage would promote and spread those norms more broadly.

George then shows how those “assurances” were false and questions why those supporting traditional marriage ever bought into such assurances. He continues:

I must say, though, that I still can’t fathom why anybody believed any of it—even then. The whole argument was and is that the idea of marriage as the union of husband and wife lacks a rational basis and amounts to nothing more than “bigotry.” Therefore, no reasonable person of goodwill can dissent from the liberal position on sex and marriage, any more than a reasonable person of goodwill could support racial segregation and subordination. And this, because marriage, according to the redefiners, consists principally of the emotional union of people committed to mutual affection and care. Any distinctions beyond this one they condemn as baseless.

Since most liberals and even some conservatives, it seems, apparently have no understanding at all of the conjugal conception of marriage as a one-flesh union—not even enough of a grasp to consciously consider and reject it—they uncritically conceive marriage as sexual-romantic domestic partnership, as if it just couldn’t possibly be anything else. This is despite the fact that the conjugal conception has historically been embodied in our marriage laws, and explains their content (not just the requirement of spousal sexual complementarity, but also rules concerning consummation and annulability, norms of monogamy and sexual exclusivity, and the pledge of permanence of commitment) in ways that the sexual-romantic domestic partnership conception simply cannot. Still, having adopted the sexual-romantic domestic partnership idea, and seeing no alternative possible conception of marriage, they assume—and it is just that, an assumption, and a gratuitous one—that no actual reason exists for regarding sexual reproductive complementarity as integral to marriage. After all, two men or two women can have a romantic interest in each other, live together in a sexual partnership, care for each other, and so forth. So why can’t they be married? Those who think otherwise, having no rational basis, discriminate invidiously. By the same token, if two men or two women can be married, why can’t three or more people, irrespective of sex, in polyamorous “triads,” “quadrads,” etc.? Since no reason supports the idea of marriage as a male-female union or a partnership of two persons and not more, the motive of those insisting on these other “traditional” norms must also be a dark and irrational one.

This article is worth your time, especially in light of the current public discussion of Chick-fil-a’s support of traditional marriage. George lends credence to the Cathy family’s stance but explains why they are taking a beating in the media and social “elite.”

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Robert P. George, “Marriage, Religious Liberty, and the ‘Grand Bargain,'” The Public Discourse, July 19, 2012.

The Impact of Marriage on Income Inequality

~ Evan Lenow
Source: Vital Statistics Birth Data, 1990 and 2009, Via ChildTrends.org

An article ran in The New York Times over the weekend about the impact of marriage on income inequality. The journalist followed the lives of two mothers who work at the same company—one is married and the other is a single mother. What he found, along with conclusions from research, was that marriage plays a significant role in determining on what side of the income inequality divide a family will be.

With a presidential election upon us in a few months and the political machines in full swing lobbing ad hominem attacks back and forth, one of the major issues is income inequality. While both political parties blame one another, research has demonstrated that there may be other causes at play than just the tax code.

The NYT reports:

Estimates vary widely, but scholars have said that changes in marriage patterns—as opposed to changes in individual earnings—may account for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of inequality. Long a nation of economic extremes, the United States is also becoming a society of family haves and family have-nots, with marriage and its rewards evermore confined to the fortunate classes.

There are a number of factors that play a role in the discussion of marriage, family, and child-rearing on a societal level. For instance, the education level of the mother influences the likelihood that she will have a child out of wedlock. Even though the national numbers across educational levels show that 41% of all children are born to unwed mothers, only 8% of births to college-educated mothers are outside of marriage. The numbers for mothers with high school education or less are around 60%. In addition, these trends transcend racial lines.

The staggering changes in family structures witnessed in the United States in the last few decades have impacted people dramatically during the recent recession. The article notes:

Economic woes speed marital decline, as women see fewer “marriageable men.” The opposite also holds true: marital decline compounds economic woes, since it leaves the needy to struggle alone.

“The people who need to stick together for economic reasons don’t,” said Christopher Jencks, a Harvard sociologist. “And the people who least need to stick together do.”

Changes in family structure do not explain the gains of the very rich—the much-discussed “1 percent” and the richest among them. That story largely spills from Wall Street trading floors and corporate boardrooms.

But for inequality more broadly, Mr. Western found that the growth in single parenthood in recent decades accounted for 15 percent to 25 percent of the widening income gaps. (Estimates depend on the time period, the income tiers and the definition of inequality.) Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution found it to account for 21 percent. Robert Lerman of the Urban Institute, comparing lower-middle- and upper-middle-income families, found that single parenthood explained about 40 percent of inequality’s growth.

There are other intangible, non-economic factors in marriage that contribute to the stability of the family. Having two parents in the home means that there are more people to spend time with the children. While single parents find themselves pulled between jobs and children’s school and activities, two-parent families can “divide and conquer” when necessary. This lowers stress levels and promotes working together in the family.

In addition, the presence of both parents in the home brings a positive influence for the entire family. Brad Wilcox and Carlos Cavallé report:

For children, marriage matters. Children reared outside of an intact family are significantly less likely to acquire the human and social capital they need to become well-adjusted, productive workers. Those from intact, married families are more likely to succeed in school, graduate from college, and be gainfully employed as adults. And men who get and stay married work harder, smarter, and longer hours, and they earn between 10 and 24 percent more money. This is the case in countries as varied as Israel, Italy, Mexico, and the United States. For men and women alike, marriage fosters financially prudent behavior, including higher rates of savings and greater accumulation of assets. In these ways and many more, marriage is an important generator of social, human, and financial capital for economies around the world, and countries that enjoy a comparatively strong marriage culture—such as China, India, and Malaysia—are likely to reap long-term economic dividends.

It is always fulfilling to see when secular social science confirms God’s intentions for the family—even when they don’t set out to do so. In Genesis 2:24 we read, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” From this point forward, God clearly communicates that his design for the family is one man married to one woman for a lifetime. They work together to rear their children and provide lasting stability to their family that will hopefully be reproduced in the next generation.

Of course we encounter the fall of mankind in Genesis 3 that creates new difficulties for subsequent generations to fulfill this God-given design. However, we can even see in this article that God’s design is the best plan for marriage, family, and economic well-being.

As we endure the burdensome political process leading up to the election in November, we will hear politicians proclaiming they have the answers to our society’s economic woes. Most of their “solutions” will revolve around taxes, job creation, and government programs. Perhaps they should look at something else—the intact family.

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Jason DeParle, “Two Classes, Divided by ‘I Do,’” The New York Times, July 14, 2012.

W. Bradford Wilcox and Carlos Cavallé, “The Sustainable Demographic Dividend,” in What Do Marriage & Fertility Have to Do with the Economy? (National Marriage Project, 2011).

Why I Won’t Be Able to Tweet at Tonight’s Rangers Game

~ Evan Lenow

It’s not a shock to anyone who knows me that I am a Texas Rangers fan. However, this post is a little off the beaten path for me.

I noticed for the first time during last season’s MLB playoffs that I could not log in to Twitter or Facebook during the Rangers game. I blamed it on my 3 year old iPhone. Well now I know the real answer with data to back it up.

CNN Money posted an article about why you can’t get wireless service at sports games. With help from app maker SwayMarkets, we now have research showing the best and worst times to access your cellular data service during a Major League Baseball game.

Here’s some research from the article:

The company’s founders went to Fenway Park on May 31 to catch a Red Sox-Tigers baseball game, armed with iPhones on three different wireless phone networks: AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Using SwayMarkets’ CarrierCompare software, they constantly pinged the various providers’ networks to measure their speed and response times.

The results were revealing. And very, very bad.

Sprint (S, Fortune 500) and especially Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) became so overwhelmed that their wireless networks were practically unusable throughout most of the game. Verizon actually had several network failures during the game, meaning download requests simply weren’t able to go through.

AT&T’s (T, Fortune 500) network was the only one that worked from start to finish, but its performance was still dreadful. Download speeds during the baseball game dropped to a third of what they were just minutes before and after the game. Refreshing Twitter or Facebook, which took about 6 seconds before the game’s start, took more than 20 seconds at the worst points and sometimes failed outright.

The most interesting information in the article relates to the times that service became the most dreadful. Since the researchers went to a Red Sox-Tigers game at Fenway Park, much of it had to do with how well the Red Sox were playing.

Network performance on all three carriers fell through the floor as people filed into their seats just before the 7:10 p.m. start time. They were texting, calling, uploading photos to social networks — everything you’d expect people to do when there’s not much going on.

Then, as people got into the game, they used their phones less and service got progressively better. The Red Sox quickly took the lead in the second, and lost it in the third. (That’s not surprising if you’ve been following the Sox this year).

In the bottom of the third inning, just after the Red Sox tied it up again, Tigers catcher Alex Avila took a foul tip off his facemask, knocking him out of the game.

During the extended injury timeout, people flocked to their phones, and service slowed to a crawl. The speeds on AT&T’s network plummeted to less than half its gametime average. Verizon and Sprint’s networks virtually crashed, with speeds sometimes falling below 100 kilobits per second. If you’re older than 25, think about dial-up modem speeds. That’ll give you an idea of how slow the wireless networks were.

As play resumed, network quality quickly bounced back from “dreadful” to “poor.”

But when the seventh inning stretch hit, people went right back to their phones, and wireless service quality plunged. A pitching change one batter into the bottom of the seventh led to another short bout of degraded service.

Detroit scored another run in the top of the eighth, gaining a two-run edge over the Sox, and many of the Fenway faithful started to lose hope. As they filed out, service dramatically improved.

After the Tigers scored another two runs in the top of the ninth inning, taking a 7-3 lead and thoroughly dispiriting the remaining fans, service almost returned to normal.

Tonight I’ll be spending a few hours with 45,000 of my closest friends at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get a tweet or text out a time or two, but it might be touch and go, especially if Josh Hamilton crushes his 27th homer into the upper homerun porch. Since Rangers fans are more loyal than BoSox fans, we won’t leave the stands early no matter what the score. However, I fully expect to see the Rangers win, and I’ll tweet once I am safely back at the house.

Go Rangers!