I just read an awful news story in the LA Times about how Los Angeles County shelters brim with families.
The economic crisis and cold weather have created a larger than usual influx of families to shelters in Los Angeles County this year, according to shelter officials and other service providers.
On Wednesday, officials at the Union Rescue Mission, which runs the county’s cold-weather shelters, held an emergency meeting to figure out what to do when they run out of hotel vouchers for families, which could happen this month. The numbers, said Chief Executive Andy Bales, are sobering: The region’s winter shelters and the skid row mission have seen 86 families in the last three weeks.
By comparison, last year the agency took in 20 families at its emergency shelters over the entire cold weather season from Dec. 1 to March 15, with 15 to 20 more at its downtown mission. Two weeks ago, the mission downtown opened up its fifth floor to two-parent families and single fathers with children, something it has never had to do before. It may also convert its chapel to sleeping quarters.
“This is, as far as I am concerned, a disaster of Katrina-esque proportions,” said Tanya Tull, chief executive of the nonprofit Beyond Shelter. A variety of negative economic forces are contributing, she said, from job losses to an uptick in foreclosures.
Carmelita Robertson, for example, lived in a motel room for weeks with her 2-year-old daughter, Jaira. But after she ran out of vouchers, she wound up sharing a room with three other single mothers on the fourth floor of the Union Rescue Mission.
I believe that the breakdown of the family is the root cause for many of the terrible problems that we see in society today. If it’s not the root cause, it’s likely a contributing factor. And even if it’s not the reason or a contributing reason to the cause of a particular problem, the breakdown of the family makes it more difficult for society to deal with these problems.
This story of homelessness is the perfect example of a problem in society and what happens to families when children are not being raised in a traditional two parent family.
In part I, I gave my opinion about why it is that government does have the right to define marriage. I hadn’t written part II which I said would deal with why government should define marriage as between a man and a woman. Well, this L.A. Times article does just as good of a job as any blog I could write. If marriage wasn’t being debased, demeaned and imitated in society but instead was viewed as a sacred trust and obligation between a man and a woman for the creation of the family unit and the rearing of children, these social tragedies like homelessness would be far less prevalent! As I was reading this article, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Where is the father?” In one case, the fact that he was sent to jail put the mother (apparently unmarried) and their kids out on the street! And what about the other mother who couldn’t find a job?! She moved all the way out to Virginia to try and stay with her mother! Again, where is the father? How can a single Mom properly raise children, especially in today’s economic upheaval? Let’s be clear, my hat is off to them for trying their best but it’s not right. The closing remarks of the article sum it up well:
Her son was born while she was homeless, she said, and she is glad he is too young to understand what is happening.
Children don’t deserve that. They deserve a loving mother and father. The fact that traditional marriage is being eroded in our society is a direct factor in problems like this. It’s not right. The breakdown of the family is just one more indicator that the zombies are coming.
I agree with you…to a point. I agree with you that our society is seeing a tremendous breakdown of the family unit. The strong loving ties and relationships that should exist among all families is dwindling in many cases. I believe a lot of this stems for an emerging culture of both greed and laziness. An increasing number of people want more and more things and feel they should have to do less and less work to obtain their “happiness” and all of their wants and needs. There has been this emergence of a false sense of entitlement that truly does not exist.
I disagree with you that this comes from the breakdown of marriage. I strongly believe that marriage and family are two entirely separate concepts. I have always felt that family is much stronger and much more binding then something as superficial as marriage. Marriage can help develop a family, however I do not feel that it defines it. It should not matter who makes up the family…as long as there is love and caring, that is what creates the true bonds between people. Not some piece of paper with two names on it or the silly title. Marriage is, and often does, play an important role in the family structure. However it should not be misrepresented as the foundation of family and therefore the primary cause of the problems mentioned in this post.
Thanks for the comment!
Let me ask, if marriage isn’t the foundation of family, what is? How do families get created? Strictly speaking, it’s because two people of the opposite gender procreated. Now anybody can do this, but if you are talking about developing a loving and caring family, there is a mountain of evidence that goes to show that the foundation to do this is a long-term, committed, loving relationship between the individuals who started the family. And for millenia how has this relationship been represented? By marriage.
So how do children, the future of our society, learn to have ideal relationships? The answer to that is that children learn it from their parents. They have the best chance of learning that by example when their parents are living in a committed and caring relationship.
So why does it matter if this long-term, committed relationship for the raising and teaching of children is called marriage and endorsed by the state? The state’s involvement in providing “a piece of paper” is to protect the rights of the children from infringement by the state by establishing the married couple as their parents.
So, to a degree you are right in that it doesn’t matter if there is a piece of paper calling two people married for a loving and caring family to exist. However, that piece of paper ensures that the childrens rights are established and protected. And it also ensures that the parents are deemed responsible for raising the children. Children are very seriously affected when their parent’s marriage breaks down. They are also very seriously affected when they are not raised by both a mother and father living in a loving relationship. Since children learn their life skills from their parents, then as marriage breaks down, the ability for children to learn good societal morals deteriorates.
And I don’t think marriage is superficial in anyway. The idea that some people think that it is, and as that idea manifests itself into people’s actions, will mean that the ability of children to learn how to live in successful, long-term, caring relationships will continue to erode. And it is only getting worse. Maybe the worst part about it is that the breakdown of marriage and the family isn’t happening out of happenstance. This has been a concerted effort funded by corporations and organizations that have a vested interest in seeing the American family destroyed. So rather than try to fight for an ideal that is more and more common in our politically correct world — that marriage isn’t the foundation of family — I will choose to fight for what I believe to be the ideal standard of raising children in a loving and committed marriage so that they learn to do the same.
So I urge anybody who thinks that marriage isn’t important to do serious research into studies and statistics showing what kind of relationship is optimal for the future of our society — our children. So while we want to support non-traditional, single parent families for the best chance of success for the children raised in them, we certainly should endorse and encourage the ideal family relationship — one started with a foundation of marriage.
Firstly, I entirely agree that marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman but not for the reasons cited in this argument and I think that this argument adds fuel to the fire of the opposition to traditional marriages.
What do single parents have to do with defining marriage as being between a man and a woman? Do you think that magically overnight if the government defines marriage as between a man and a woman that people will only have children in wedlock? No. They will continue to do as they have always done. Children will be born out of wedlock. Parents will divorce. Parents will die. Single parents will continue to struggle to raise their children irrespective of what the law says two parents should be doing. Homeless shelters will continue to deal with single mothers like they have always done; business as usual.
If the law dictates that marriage should be defined as being between a man and a woman how does that solve our homeless problem? How does that remove the existence of single mothers struggling to feed their kids? What changes? There are benefits that society can yield from traditional marriage but your argument doesn’t adequately address what the benefits are to the homeless community. It’s somewhat of an assumption that these women would want to be married to the father of these children and we all know that marriage isn’t the be all and end all solution. A ring on each finger aint gonna be the quick fix everyone needs. If slick Joe is holed up in the slammer how is a ring on her finger gonna get her through the night? Fact is, some traditional families are as jacked up as the non-traditional ones and some non-traditional ones are as stand up as the Waltons.
There are two very distinct ideals here: Marriage between a man and a woman and a child’s right to be born to a married couple. They are different however. I can see where you were trying to go with this argument but those in the other camp may see this as outrageous. I’d use another argument.
First, I don’t care whether anybody in any camp sees this as outrageous. I hold to everything I wrote. Let’s clarify what I DID and DID NOT write.
I did NOT say that the act of marriage between a man and woman alone prevents all social problems and I did NOT say that NOT defining marriage as between a man and a woman is THE direct cause of all of these problems. But I do strongly believe that changing the definition of marriage debases, demeans and imitates it. That may sound outrageous. It may be offensive to some. But that’s what I believe. And as marriages are debased, demeaned and imitated, I believe they are more likely to break down. And I do not think it’s a stretch in any way to say that it makes societal problems like homelessness more prevalent. I do not believe that the argument you present about “business as usual” is valid because business is NOT as usual. We haven’t seen the same pattern of divorce, kids born out of wedlock, etc. These trends have increased dramatically over the last 50 years.
In addition, I DID say that IF marriage “was viewed as a sacred trust and obligation between a man and a woman for the creation of the family unit and the rearing of children, these social tragedies like homelessness would be far less prevalent!” I hold to that. I don’t know the circumstances of the man who went to jail, but generally speaking, if someone views their marriage and children as a sacred trust and obligation, they will not do something that will get them sent to jail leaving their wife and children in such a serious circumstance. So, is defining marriage as between a man and a woman a societal cure all? No. Did I say that it was? No. I said that IF marriage was held sacred THEN social problems would be less prevalent.
I stand to my original argument.
Neither did I say that “the act of marriage between a man and woman alone prevents all social problems”. Nor did I say “NOT defining marriage as between a man and a woman is THE direct cause of all of these problems”. So we stand in agreement.
I also agree that the trends such as divorce, children born out of wedlock, homelessness, the blatant and continued rise of Celine Dion’s career have all been prevalent over the past 50 years but let’s be clear here. What was the question again? Whether defining marriage as between a man and a woman had any correlation to homelessness. These societal problems have all been on the rise for the past 50 years, but then again for the past 50 years (minus a few months) the law already stipulated marriage as being between a man and a woman. So, if the law changed would the homeless shelters suddenly or even over a period of time see less business? “I stand to my original argument”.
I think we both agree about a principle here. The breakdown of the family over the last 50 years, or however long you want to look at it, has had disastrous effects on society, homelessness being but one of them. What form has this breakdown taken? The redefinition of marriage is just the latest in a long string of attacks that alone is threatening the sanctity of the institution but combined with other forces is playing a vital and viral role. It is true that those things that also imitate the traditional family are virulent and destructive. Alcoholism, drug abuse, other addictions, child and spousal abuse, debt, living beyond your means, and a whole host of other societal draws are strains on the traditional family.
When the family is weaker or is broken other lesser institutions need to take the slack. The government; the homeless shelter; the churches; the non-profits; the kindness of strangers at freeway off ramps. Take any of these people aside, learn their story, and in many cases, not all, the family somewere suffered tragedy.