Soul Mates or Sole Mates?

The idea that there's just one person out there who completes you, is your other half, and with whom a close and intimate relationship is easy and effortless is a secular idea (and a false one), not a Biblical one. Too many people are looking for a soul mate instead of putting the hard work into making the relationship they have work.

Don't worry about whether you and your spouse are soul mates. When you get married, that person becomes your sole mate, and it is God's will that you make that relationship the best it can be.

Of course, some couples find it easier than others to understand one another and get along. And it can be easy to think that someone else has the perfect marriage when they seem to make it work so effortlessly. In some cases, this is due to personality types that are low drama. In most cases, however, it is because those people who seem to have it so good have merely developed good character and habits that make marriage easier and make good communication a regular part of their everyday routine. They figured out behaviors that make life smoother and worked to make them habits.

Here are some good habits to develop in your marriage:

• Show gratitude for everyday things like taking out the trash, going to work, doing laundry, or making meals

• Express physical affection (hugs, cuddling, kisses, holding hands) every day and not just during sex or date nights

• Take time to talk regularly about something that isn't logistics like doctor's appointments or what the kids are doing in school

• Write love notes or call to say hi throughout the day

• Do little things for each other like getting a glass of water or making a favorite meal without being asked, and do them frequently

• Consult with each other before making changes, inviting people over, or making large purchases

• Be careful to speak positively, both to the spouse and about the spouse to others

• Take the time to regularly connect through sex, even if you don't feel like it at first

• Assume the best of your spouse instead of jumping to conclusions

• Learn to communicate effectively by listening well and speaking respectfully

• Resolve conflict calmly and rationally, without arguing or accusations or manipulation

• See yourselves as teammates and have each other's back

So, whether your marriage is an easy or hard one, whether you finish each other’s sentences or can hardly understand each other, you can make your marriage a close and happy and God-glorifying one. You don’t have to instantly and effortlessly click to build a great marriage.

The Problem with "Values-Free" Sex-Ed

One of the common talking points of the left is that abstinence-only sexual education “doesn’t work.” This is their justification for the current sex-ed programs in public schools. But are they right? Is abstinence-only sex-ed ineffective? Should we be teaching kids more about sex? Are there problems with the current system?

If your idea of abstinence-only education is to only tell kids "don't have sex" and that's it, then that’s a poor plan. But if you follow up teaching abstinence with reasons why abstinence is good (like protecting yourself from heartbreak, disease, and unexpected pregnancy, making your future marriage more likely to succeed, reducing your chances of living in poverty, pleasing God, etc.) and strategies for refraining from sex (like not spending time alone with your boyfriend or girlfriend near a bed, seeking accountability, etc.), then abstinence education can be very effective.

For the most part, people who belittle teaching kids abstinence assume that it’s going to be the first case where you just tell them to say no. But that is (mostly) a strawman. Very few people believe we should leave sex-ed at just the instruction to avoid it until marriage. Most agree that children should be taught more and expect that reasons and strategies will be included in the discussion. So the criticism of abstinence-only education is flawed. It's really a good choice if it is done right.

If the alternative to abstinence-only education was merely teaching them about different forms of protection and contraception, but still holding up abstinence before marriage as the norm and the goal to strive for, then I wouldn't necessarily be against it.

However, the sex-ed given in most schools these days is known as "values-free" sex-ed, which means they don't place any value on morality at all, even though sexuality is inherently a moral topic. On top of that, they blatantly teach that having sex as a teen (or even a pre-teen) is completely normal and fine, and don't teach the dangers inherent in having sex outside marriage (which go far beyond STDs and pregnancy). There is no condom that will protect against a broken heart. There is no way to have sex without making an emotional connection, despite the common teaching to the contrary. There is no protective measure to prevent premarital sex from causing fallout in future relationships and marriages. So even if you're teaching kids to use a condom every time, you're not really keeping them safe.

What's more, the emphasis on how to have sex "safely" (which is a misnomer when applied to sex outside marriage) and on making it cool and normal teaches kids that if they aren't having sex, there must be something wrong with them. And thus they're getting pressure from the school system, in addition to their boyfriend or girlfriend and peers, to have sex before they are prepared for it. And even for those already inclined to have sex, telling them it's perfectly okay isn't doing them any favors. They ought to be learning to develop self-control - the kind of thing that will help them out in their future life and marriage - rather than being told to just give in to their urges.

So, no, just telling them not to have sex isn't sufficient. But "values-free" sex-ed is even worse. The kind of sex-ed that teaches children to be promiscuous, to see sex as something to be "safe" from, to see babies as a danger to avoid, and to consider unexpected pregnancies as a crisis to be fixed by killing their unborn children is not only immoral, but it's not best for our children by any measure.

An education that is lacking in a moral foundation is inherently flawed and incomplete. And anyway, how exactly can you teach about a subject like sex, that is inherently bound up with morality (in pretty much every religion, by the way), without discussing morals?

If you teach that sex should be saved for marriage, everyone realizes that such a position involves morality. But the thing is, if you teach that when to have sex is up to each individual child to decide when they feel ready for it and give no other conditions for engaging in sex, that's a moral stance too (an immoral position, to be precise). It's not neutral! That’s not values-free sex-ed. It’s sex-ed that teaches the wrong values.

So if we're going to say that public schools should take no stance on the morality of sex, it should be completely silent on the topic and give only the biological details of human reproduction in science class. Teaching kids how to put on a condom or how to perform oral sex or teaching that sex is fine whenever they feel ready for it is not keeping morals and values out of the classroom.

I should also point out that if we're going to make schools the realm of facts, as has been suggested, then it is only right to include all the facts. And the fact is that sex places children in danger of a number of things beyond STDs and pregnancy.

Children should, at the very least, be given all of the information if we're going to turn them loose with no moral guidance. They should be told about the effects of oxytocin that will emotionally bond them to their sex partners. They should be told about the heartache that comes from having sex with someone who leaves you. They should be told that having multiple sex partners makes their future relationships and marriages prone to breaking up. They should be told that they can become jaded and unable to love freely due to being hurt too many times by having sex without a marriage commitment. They should be told that having a baby before they get married greatly increases their chances of living in poverty and that contraception fails regularly. They should be told that using porn can interfere with their ability to make love to a real person. They should be told that having anonymous sex can lead to depression and suicidal thoughts.

But with all the current rage for giving kids all the facts about how to perform all kinds of sexual acts and how to take pills and wear devices to protect them from disease and pregnancy, no one is telling them about the risks involved to their emotions and relationships and mental health, much less to their eternal soul.

So what is really happening when we tell children to have sex whenever they feel like it without telling them all of the facts is that we aren't actually educating them at all. We're indoctrinating them. We're actively teaching them promiscuity with no regard for the damage we are doing. That’s what modern “values-free” sex-ed does. And it’s not okay. We can do better for our children.

Here's What's Wrong with the Kim Davis Incarceration

There are so many things wrong with the Kim Davis incarceration that it is mind-boggling.

1) There shouldn't have been a Supreme Court ruling for same-sex marriage in the first place because the Constitution simply does not say anything at all about marriage. The 5 justices in the majority opinion just made it up because they wanted it to be true. Everybody knows that, including the leftists.

2) Just because 5 justices on the Supreme Court say something is Constitutional doesn't make it Constitutional. We all need to get away from the idea that they are the final authority on what is and is not Constitutional. The Founding Fathers would be ashamed of us.

Here is what Thomas Jefferson had to say about the matter:

"You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps....

Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."

3) Even if marriage were a matter that mankind could decide for themselves (instead of a God-ordained institution), the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to decide marriage policy for the states since that power has never been granted to the federal government. The Constitution clearly states that all powers not granted specifically to the federal government are held by the states or by the people. The people grant government its power. The real power lies with the people. And until the people formally and specifically grant a power to the federal government, the federal government has no power in that area. This is definitely the case with marriage. The federal government has never been granted the power to define marriage by the people and thus it has no jurisdiction. For the federal government to try to seize that power by judicial fiat is unconstitutional and tyrannical.

4) Because the Supreme Court cannot legislate, no ruling of theirs is a law. Thus, Kim Davis has broken no law by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. On the contrary, she has upheld the actual law, which in her case is the Constitution of Kentucky, which defines marriage as the union of a man and woman. Even the people who agree with Kim are saying she broke the law for good reason. Pay attention, people. She didn't break any laws. She followed the law. It's all the other county clerks in the state who are not following the law out of a misguided belief that the Supreme Court has the right to make law and to dictate to the states what they will do in a matter on which the federal government has no jurisdiction.

5) So, for the reasons above, Kim Davis should be lauded as the one person actually following the law. She certainly shouldn't be punished in any way. But even if she were failing in her duties as a public servant, putting her in jail is not the proper response. The proper response is to impeach her. She is an elected official, and when elected officials fail to uphold their duties, the people should impeach them or vote them out. It's not like she broke some actual law by stealing or murdering that has written law against it that defines the penalty for the crime. So by what statute is she being placed in jail? None whatsoever. Her only "crime" if there was one, was in being bad at her job and that is something that would properly be corrected (if there were a flaw) by removing her from office. There is no basis whatsoever for imprisoning her.

6) Even if Kim Davis had broken a law and was rightfully imprisoned, there is absolutely no reason to deny her bail. She's not accused of any kind of violence. And even suspected murderers and rapists get out on bail. It's not like she's so wealthy or well-connected that they fear she's a flight risk and will go somewhere she can't be extradited. So there's no reason whatsoever to deny bail. It's pure animus. It's persecution of one society sees as unworthy of equal rights solely for her unpopular views.

The points above are just some of the more blatant problems with the case. If any one of the items above had been properly understood and properly handled, this wouldn't be happening. The fact that it is happening is evidence that we have greatly lost our way as a country, that we the people are not holding government properly accountable, that most people do not understand the basis for just government, and that we have allowed persecution of an individual and violation of her rights because her views and actions are not politically-correct. May God have mercy on us. And may the people learn from this case, rise up, and never let it happen again.

The Backwards Thinking of Reverse Injustice

Our society is infected with the idea that past injustices or unfairness must be made up for by being unjust in reverse - to the group that was "privileged" before. They apply special treatment to blacks, to women, and even to poor people under the belief that they will somehow right the universe by being discriminatory to all the right groups.

In race relations, the application of this viewpoint is to punish whites and to give special treatment to minorities, but especially blacks since they had it the worst in the past. So bad behavior, including criminal behavior, by blacks is overlooked or excused, whites are assumed guilty until proven innocent (assuming you could ever prove it to everyone's satisfaction), and everyone is encouraged to give preferential treatment to blacks. This is the guiding principle of Affirmative Action. This is why white cop against black criminal is always viewed as bad white cop against innocent black citizen. Regardless of the actual facts of any individual situation, the important thing is to penalize whites and reward blacks to make up for the evils of the past.

Radical feminism is just the application of this principle to gender. Men must be treated as second class and women must be given special advantages and special power to make up for the past. If women in the past were consigned to the home, with little or no choice on the matter, then women must right the world by all leaving the home and working like men in the workforce. If women in the past had very little say over sex and had to give it up to their husbands on command, then women now must always hold control over sex and have it only when they feel like it. Liberation, they call it. If women in the past rarely went to college, then colleges today must actively recruit women and give more degrees to them. If men are graduating from college less and less now and holding fewer and fewer high-paying jobs, it isn't a sign of a problem; it's a sign of progress now that that those awful men are finally getting what they deserve. This is the radical feminist viewpoint and it's all about revenge for the past (or the perceived past).

The no-fault divorce laws came from this idea too. Most women had little or no option to divorce back in the day. So no fault-divorce laws, which are used far more often by women than men, allowed women to throw off unwanted marriages whenever they wanted. It's all about equality, you see. But by "equality" they mean injustice the other way.

This is also the real justification for abortion as well. Since women in the past were sometimes used as breeders, forced to bear the children of their husbands or rapists, then women today must have recourse to avoid bearing children they do not want - even at the price of the unborn child's life. Abortion is thought to be a right - not because there is actually any right to kill unwanted children, but because the idea that pregnancy will "force" women to have to bear a child is unthinkable to them.

Unilateral divorce and abortion are tools of the radical feminist movement because the alternative to these things is that women might be still tied to the roles of the past - roles like "wife" or "mother." In order to make up for the fact that some women were tied to these things against their will, they want to do away with these norms altogether.

The same sort of backwards "justice" happens with respect to socioeconomic status in our society. Much of the wealth redistribution mindset owes to the erroneous idea that economic wealth has been unfairly distributed and thus that the world must be righted by punishing the wealthy and giving special treatment to the poor. They even call it "social justice." It's not about what people earn through their hard work. That's irrelevant, they say. It's all about the inequality of outcome and how unfair it is. They don't really want to do away with poverty. What they really want is for the rich to be in poverty and for the poor to be made wealthy - for the wealthy to work and work and get nothing while the poor sit back and receive all the benefits of the work of others. When that happens, they will finally feel that it is all evened out and the universe is balanced.

This mindset of injustice to the "privileged" to make up for the past really sums up much of the liberal position and its individual stances on different issues. However, people with this faulty mindset would do well to remember that two wrongs don't make a right. More discrimination and unfairness won't undo the past or make up for it and only serve to further the evil. Reverse injustice is still injustice.

What we should be striving for is real equality and justice, not an unbalance back in the opposite direction. The liberal mindset just creates a whole new group of oppressors and furthers the vicious cycle of injustice. Let's not become the evil we decry in the past. Let's advocate true fairness and justice for everyone equally.

For the Trump Supporters

For those defending Trump, I fully realize that the gender card is overplayed and I hate that so many people use the "war on women" nonsense to criticize pro-lifers and republicans. I'm opposed to political correctness. I'm opposed to apologizing every time someone gets offended. I'm opposed to the cowardly and shameful use of slogans and euphemisms instead of articulate, factual arguments that is so prevalent among liberals and even many supposed conservatives. I'm sick of it too. Boy, am I sick of it!

However, there are people who do actually show real disrespect toward others, who run roughshod over everyone who disagrees with them, who are crass and rude and vulgar, who are self-serving and self-absorbed. We used to call people like this boors. It's a useful word. It ought not to be used where it doesn't fit and it ought not to be used against people we merely disagree with. However, there are times when it does actually fit. Donald Trump is a prime example.

In our distaste for political correctness and spin and tiptoeing around the issues, let's not go to the other extreme of accepting and applauding boorish behavior. In our search for truth and honesty, let us not excuse those who "speak their minds" in a hurtful and demeaning way that is simply not necessary or praiseworthy. It is quite possible to speak truth with kindness and tact and boldness too. Let's support people who do that, even if they don't get quite as much of the spotlight for doing it.

Of course, all that assumes that Donald Trump IS speaking truth. That is true in a couple cases. However, more often it is not. Trump has taken just about every position there is at some point in time, so he's bound to have said a couple things that were correct once or twice. Let's not get too excited that someone who changes positions so frequently actually hit on the right answer a couple of times. That's not really such an accomplishment. Guessing will get you a few right answers, but it doesn't mean you'll pass the test. And when it comes to showing consistency, integrity, and an understanding of conservative principles, Trump fails miserably.

So don't fall for the hype and the hair and the showboating. Don't pick a candidate on style over substance, as the Obama voters did. Evaluate candidates on their proven record, their consistency, and their principles, not on their ability to sling insults and not back down. It's better for our country and our children if you pick a candidate with your brain and not your emotions.