Morality
An Actress, A Governor, and the Culture War
I remember when I first saw Natalie Portman’s picture. Our oldest son, Nathan, had just graduated from high school in 1999 and received his high school yearbook. As a joke, he pasted a photo of her next to his in the South Kitsap annual– as if she was in his graduating class!
He liked her then. She was a rising star.
In 2011, her stardom hit paydirt when she won her first Oscar as Best Actress for her performance in Black Swan. Her acceptance speech was short and seemed sincere–but one little sentence in it caused an old debate to re-surface:
How important is marriage to having children?
The answer to that question determines the overall happiness and stability of societies.
I hope we choose well in the 21st century.
Here are the actual words of Natalie Portman on February 27 at the Academy Awards:
“So many people helped me prepare for this role. Mary Helen Bowers spent a year with me, training me, Michelle Rodriguez and Kurt Froman and Olga Kostritzky, Marina Stavitskaya, and my beautiful love Benjamin Millepied, who choreographed the film and has now given me my most important role of my life.”
“Given me the most important role of my life.”
She was referring to the role of motherhood.
Natalie was clearly pregnant on stage–and also unmarried. She’s had sex (or was in some type of “relationship”) with Black Swan’s choreographer, Benjamin Millipied, and together they’d produced a baby.
In all thirteen generations of American history–except the last two–that reality would have been looked down upon as not ideal or desirable. Children were supposed to be born into marriages where both the presence of a mother and father was necessary and vital to to their nurture and future success.
But Natalie Portman is a part of a generation that no longer believes in the ideal–God’s order of things. She believes that sex or “love” is all that’s required to bring a child into the world.
Enter the Governor–former Governor Mike Huckabee–who is considered one of the leading presidential contenders for 2012. On a March 3rd talk show hosted by Jewish commentator and film critic, Michael Medved, Governor Huckabee shared his perspective on Ms. Portman’s example:
”You know, one of the things that’s troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, ‘Hey look, you know, we’re having children, we’re not married, but we’re having these children, and they’re doing just fine.’ But there aren’t really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie.”
It’s true that Natalie Portman has more resources than most to raise her child out of wedlock. The Governor was right on that point. But he went on to say:
”Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing.”
That is also a sobering truth. The largest single cause of poverty in America is single parent homes–children being born out of wedlock.
Then the Governor-and-possibly-presidential-candidate-Huckabee–shared some down right scary statistics:
“You know, right now, 75 percent of black kids in this country are born out of wedlock. 61 percent of Hispanic kids — across the board, 41 percent of all live births in America are out of wedlock births. And the cost of that is simply staggering.”
Let those stats sink in for a moment.
- Three out of four African-Americans that you know were born missing a dad or mom.
- Six out of ten Latinos are victims of single-parent homes.
- And nearly four-in-ten of all live births in the United States are children that will not grow up “normally” in the loving nurture and more-successful structure of a two parent home.
That’s a huge problem–for any society.
The Heritage Foundation rightly points out that:
“Couples who are married have a higher average household income, more assets, and better health than many of their single or cohabitating counterparts. Conversely, families that are headed by unmarried females make up more than half of all families living in poverty. And paychecks are not the only reason two parents are better. Research shows that ‘improvements in child well-being that are associated with marriage persist even after adjusting for differences in family income.’ With four of every 10 U.S. children now born outside of marriage and welfare spending skyrocketing—especially on single-parent households—policymakers and taxpayers can no longer afford to overlook the effects of family and marriage on civil society.”
This is an important discussion. And it’s not just about abstract statistics.
I am personally close to a situation right now where a young teenager is devastated and hurting. She lives with her mother but they don’t get along because of the brokenness of the home. She spends weekends at her father’s place–and cries. She goes back home to her mother–and doesn’t feel loved and protected.
She’s missing security and blessing because the nuclear family is not valued and encouraged.
But back to Mike Huckabee’s analysis. Governor Huckabee was not singling out Natalie Portman for ridicule or disrespect–just commenting on a national problem that she had brought to the forefront by her words at the Oscars. A few days after, he clarified his remarks:
“In a recent media interview about my new book, A Simple Government, I discussed the first chapter, ‘The Most Important Form of Government Is a Father, Mother, and Children.’ I was asked about Oscar-winner Natalie Portman’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Natalie is an extraordinary actor, very deserving of her recent Oscar and I am glad she will marry her baby’s father. However, contrary to what the Hollywood media reported, I did not ‘slam’ or ‘attack’ Natalie Portman, nor did I criticize the hardworking single mothers in our country. My comments were about the statistical reality that most single moms are very poor, under-educated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death. That’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that society often glorifies and glamorizes the idea of having children out of wedlock.”
For the past week Natalie Portman’s words and Mike Huckabee’s response have dominated the social media. One side has said that what Natalie Portman has done is okay–it’s modern, individualistic, and is nobody else’s business. The other side has retorted that it is not helpful to our society to popularize or condone having children outside of marriage. It only hurts the kids–and the entire society in which they live.
During my lifetime, this is the second major national discussion we’ve had on out-of-wedlock births. The first occured in 1992 when Vice President Dan Quayle made his famous remarks about ficticious TV single mom Murphy Brown–and the media escoriated him for it. At the time, Quayle was tarred and feathered as prudish, out-of touch, and bigoted for his criticism of single motherhood.
Years later, the press quietly admitted that Quayle had been right–and that the growing epidemic of single parent homes was a major problem in our nation.
Apparently we have short memories.
So I welcome the debate again in 2011. Because here’s the simple truth: Sex outside of marriage is not good for people; Having children out-of-wedlock hurts kids and increases poverty; We should not glamorize or condone single parenting; We should work hard to keep our marriages intact–a gift of love, security, and prosperity to our children and their children.
That’s the bottom line.
Elevate marriage and family–discourage its counterfeits.
We are in a culture war over the future of marriage and family. Natalie Portman currently represents the secular side that wants to minimize the importance of the nuclear family. I hear a “demonic echo” coming from that direction. Satan wants to destroy kids and inflict poverty and despair upon people. One of his greatest strategies is to bend and break the traditional family.
I ask you to pray for Natalie Portman and many others like her.
Mike Huckabee represents the other side–the Judeo-Christian consensus that believes that God has something vital to say on this subject. He loves all human beings–especially vulnerable children–and created the family structure to nurture, protect, and defend them. Governor Huckabee wants families and children to be strong, productive, and fruitful.
And now you know the real reason that this story hit the front pages. Mike Huckabee might run for president of the United States in 2012, just as Dan Quayle ran for Vice President in 1992. The secular media, who do not believe in the importance of marriage and family, saw this as a great opportunity to try and cut him down to size.
Let’s not let them succeed.
Mike Huckabee is right on marriage, single parenting, and out-of-wedlock births. I asked my wife to order his book, A Simple Goverment, for my birthday.
Maybe he’s right on a few other important ideas that are vital to America’s future.
We Must Not Give Up the Fight for Life
It’s easy to be discouraged over the fight against abortion in America. Since our nation made it legal on January 22, 1973, some fifty million Americans have died on the altar of sexual liberation.
That’s a horrific number–and after a decade of a declining abortion rate, the most recent statistics show that the trend is ticking up. We are cruelly killing, in the name of choice, 1.2 million of the most vulnerable among us.
Many of you–like our family–have prayed, participated in marches for life, or gotten involved in crisis counseling and adoption ministries. Yet, after almost forty years, we have very little to show for it. I feel like those who fought against the evil of slavery for many decades, and didn’t see a change.
But then something happened in the 1860s, and the slaves were set free.
In 2011, is there hope on the horizon for ending the abortion holocaust?
When I was in our nation’s capital a week ago, I met with some leaders that are on the forefront of the abortion fight. One of them participated in 24/7 prayer near the Supreme Court for months leading up to the 2008 election. They, like me, were believing that a John McCain election could possibly tip the balance of our highest court in the direction of reversing Roe. vs. Wade.
They were agonizingly disappointed when Barack Obama was elected president. He brought into office the most blatantly pro-abortion Administration that the United States has ever seen.
The prayer warriors were dejected.
Had God not heard their prayers?
It’s easy for all of us to be dejected–especially if you live on the Left Coast (west coast). California is the number one abortion-friendly state in the nation and Washington is number two. Oregon clocks in at number six and Hawaii is number four. It’s very sobering to look at the chart of where states rank in their support of abortion. I encourage you to open this page, find your state, and use it in your prayers. On the chart, “A” is bad (pro-abortion) and “F” is good (pro-life).
But on to the good news.
Then a year went by and an interesting poll came out. At the end of 2009, the national consensus on abortion had changed seven percentage points–across all demographic lines. For the first time in history, more than fifty percent of Americans believed that abortion was morally wrong.
Their prayers had not been in vain. They hadn’t influenced the election, but God had used them to change the hearts of millions of Americans.
My pro-life friends now tell me that victory in the abortion holocaust could be on the horizon. More people are praying than ever before. The tide has changed on the issue. Most Americans now see that we must go back to a culture of life in this nation.
That’s why I marched in Olympia, Washington this morning in our state’s pro-life event. There were nearly 10,000 people. It’s also why hundreds of thousands will march this week in Washington, D.C. as well–as I did with my family back in the 1980s. Just like the anti-slavery movements of the 19th century, we must have the determination and faith to never quit fighting for truth and the unborn.
I don’t know if it will take another Civil War to get this issue right (as it did slavery), but if it does, it will be worth it. On the other hand, because American opinions are changing, it might only take one more election and then one more appointment of a Supreme Court justice.
That’s how close we are to victory.
My dedicated friends believe that by 2013, that victory could be achieved.
We must not give up the fight for life.
This year a new book on the evil of abortion called Unplanned will hit the book shelves of America. It’s written by former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson and explains her conversion from pro-choice activist to pro-life advocate as she watched an abortion being performed live on an ultrasound.
Here’s the chilling scene in the book that changed Abby’s life. It’s one of the most powerful statements for life that I have ever read:
“At first, the baby didn’t seem aware of the cannula (the suction tube that will eventually rip the bay to pieces). It gently probed the baby’s side, and for a quick second I felt relief. Of course, I thought. The fetus doesn’t feel pain. I had reassured countless women of this as I’d been taught by Planned Parenthood. The fetal tissue feels nothing as it is removed. Get a grip, Abby. This is a simple, quick medical procedure. My head was working hard to control my responses, but I couldn’t shake an inner disquiet that was quickly mounting to horror as I watched the screen.”
“The next movement was the sudden jerk of a tiny foot as the baby started kicking, as if it were trying to move away from the probing invader. As the cannula pressed its side, the baby began struggling to turn and twist away. It seemed clear to me that it could feel the cannula, and it did not like what it was feeling. And then the doctor’s voice broke through, startling me.”
“’Beam me up, Scotty,’ he said lightheartedly to the nurse. He was telling her to turn on the suction — in an abortion the suction isn’t turned on until the doctor feels he has the cannula in exactly the right place.”
“I had a sudden urge to yell, “Stop!” To shake the woman and say, ‘Look at what is happening to your baby! Wake up! Hurry! Stop them!'”
“But even as I thought those words, I looked at my own hand holding the probe. I was one of “them” performing this act. My eyes shot back to the screen again. The cannula was already being rotated by the doctor, and now I could see the tiny body violently twisting with it. For the briefest moment the baby looked as if it were being wrung like a dishcloth, twirled and squeezed. And then it crumpled and began disappearing into the cannula before my eyes. The last thing I saw was the tiny, perfectly formed backbone sucked into the tube, and then it was gone. And the uterus was empty. Totally empty.”
One book reviewer made these observations about the liiterary power of Unplanned:
“If you are able, I encourage you to read the whole thing. I have to confess to you that I almost was not. The horror that Johnson describes is almost unfathomable, accentuated by the cruelty and insensitivity of the conscienceless monsters cracking jokes as they watched the death of a tiny human unfold live before them.”
“Perversely, the most shocking aspect of this particular story is its mundanity. It occurs every single day in the United States, over three thousand times a day, and has for almost four decades. The only thing that sets this particular abortion apart is that a person possessed of a conscience and some measure of writing skill happened to be present and witness it on ultrasound. Every day, including today, probably several dozen times during the course of the time it takes you to read this article, this horror is repeated in America and no one is present who cares to chronicle it in a book about the way it changed their life. Tens of millions of times since 1973 this has occurred in this country under the color and protection of law.”
“The only way to ensure justice in a society is for the law to recognize that all humans are humans, and therefore entitled to equal protection under the law. Whenever the law takes the position that certain humans (be it slaves or those physically located within a womb) are not in fact humans at all, it is certain that moral outrages will follow, and that other moral outrages will be perpetrated to protect the unjust status quo, and that sooner or later, the conscience of America, however long dormant, will collide with those moral outrages.”
“It is at these times we remember why it is that we participate in this fight even though it wears on us from day to day; why it is that we continue to watch news shows that infuriate us, donate money to candidates that would otherwise be put towards our own retirements, and take time away from our families to pound the pavements, man the phone banks, and get out the word. This is why we ”fight,” if it is still permissible to use such terms to describe battles fought with the ballot box. And it is also why we reject the empty calls for “truce” and silence from those who have hardened their heart to the ugliness, for we know that there can be no truce with unrepentant evil – there can only be victory or defeat. And for the sake of the country we love, we refuse to accept defeat.”
To these words of courage and outrage, I heartily say AMEN.
Please pray that Abby Johnson’s Unplanned will convince more Americans to alter their view on abortion. Pray that mothers and fathers who killed their own children will become broken and repentant; Pray that the churches of America will not become complacent or silent about the number one moral issue of the 20th and 21st centuries.
I believe that victory is at hand in the abortion battle.
We must not give up the fight for life.
A Sad Day for Freedom From Sin
December 18, 2010 was a sad day for the cause of liberty. The United States Senate voted 65-31 to rescind the seventeen-year “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy in the American forces. On the heels of a 250-175 vote in the House of Representatives, largely along party lines, homosexuality is now “free” to openly flourish in the barracks or foxhole.
By this infamous vote, The United States government now openly condones and encourages homosexual behavior among our fighting men and women. The last bastion of discipline and moral order in the United States has been breached, not by an invading army, but by a destructive Lame Duck Congress.
Maybe the pen is mightier than the sword.
With the stroke of President Obama signing this grievous bill, the military, as we have known it for two hundred and thirty-four years, will be crippled.
This is a sad day for real liberty–which is freedom from sin.
We’ll get to the true definition of freedom in a moment, but first the disturbing facts about the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) rescission.
Liberal Democrats, many of whom lost in the Nov 2 election, were the greatest culprits in this homosexualization of the armed forces. Both of my Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, voted for the repeal. But eight Republicans also joined them in the tragic vote: Richard Burr of North Carolina, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, George Voinovich of Ohio, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, John Ensign of Nevada, and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine.
As Family Research Research Council points out, our fighters were treated like pawns by those meant to support and defend them. (Read their excellent article here.) Here’s how Gary Randall of the Faith & Freedom Network described the tragedy:
“Congress has said ‘yes’ to open homosexuality in the military. Over the loud and passionate pleas from Senator John McCain, and concerns expressed by military leaders who serve in combat, the Senate caved to homosexual activists, joined President Obama in his attempt to appease the activists and retain their vote, and said yes to a social experiment that will have both ‘intended’ and ‘unintended’ consequences.”
“The homosexual victory was aided by a number of Republicans. McCain was not one of them. He said of our fighting men and women, ‘They will do what is ask of them, but don’t think there won’t be consequences.'”
“You have witnessed another step down a slippery moral decline. And there will be consequences.
The Alliance Defense Fund issued a statement following the vote saying, ‘The Senate’s cave-in to pressure from activists to impose homosexual behavior on our military will place troops’ religious liberties in unprecedented jeopardy.’ They say the first casualty will likely be the religious freedom of chaplains.”
This is the “great freedom” that Congress gave us on December 18.
Incredible.
Abraham Lincoln, a founder and champion of the modern-day Republican Party, would also be appalled. One of his most famous quotes, which has been a clarion principle of our Christian-based republic for the past 150 years is this:
“No man has a right to do wrong.”
Let that truth sink into you deeply. It will change your view of how to define “civil” rights.
Of course, the liberal media doesn’t share Lincoln’s view. Led by secular cheerleaders such as the New York Times and the Associated Press, numerous papers, blogs, and e-letters hailed the the news of the defeat of DADT as a great triumph for civil rights. Quoting Senator Joe Liebermann, a staunch supporter of doing away with the ban on homosexual behavior,” the gleeful networks proclaimed:
“We righted a wrong. Today we’ve done justice.”
The New York Times openly stated their end-game purpose, that “integrating openly gay troops within the military will lead to greater acceptance in the civilian world.”
The progressives want a secular, not a godly America.
Barack Obama went even further when he said, “It’s time to close this chapter in our history. It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed.”
Sounds good–but it’s nonsense. You don’t choose race or gender, and religion and creeds should be protected areas of conscience.
Not homosexuality. For all of history, and in all religions, homosexual behavior has been viewed as a perversion of the normal sexual relationship with graphic and destructive consequences. It’s just as hurtful as incest, fornication, adultery, pedophilia, and bestiality.
All of these sexual perversions distort God’s moral standards and hurt human beings. They should be discouraged by any just and compassionate society that really cares for its people
And no sexual deviancy should be tolerated when you’re fighting for your country.
We’ve got it backwards–and Congress just forced it on the military.
Isaiah is considered Israel’s greatest prophet, and his book is the second longest in the Bible next to the Psalms. In chapter five, Isaiah goes to great lengths to discuss how God blessed and planted the ancient Hebrew nation in good moral and spiritual soil. But over time, they rejected his laws and principles. “What more could I have done?” agonizes the heart of God over a nation that turned away from his standards of right and wrong (Isaiah 5:4).
Nothing, really.
They just didn’t listen.
Here is the end result that Isaiah describes for those who pervert God’s justice: “Destruction is certain for those who say that evil is good and good is evil; that dark is light and light is dark…Destruction is certain for those who think they are wise and consider themselves to be clever…Their roots will rot and their flowers wither, for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty. They have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 5:20-24).
Israel was severely judged when it turned God’s standards of right and wrong or its head. Do you think it will be any different for us?
I don’t think so.
Wrong was made right through Saturday’s vote. Vast injustice was perpetrated on the US military–even against the wishes of those who fight in close quarters on the front lines (58% of Marines are strongly opposed to changing the policy.)
But the politicians don’t care for them or this country. They are committed to the secularization of America via social experimentation i.e. trashing all aspects of Judeo-Christian standards.
One of the things we learn from this vote and the cultural battle in which we are engaged is that there are two different visions of “freedom” that are being fought for in America today. These two contrasting philosophies go back to the two beings behind them–God on the side of righteousness, and Satan on the side of darkness.
Satan’s concept of liberty is pretty simple. He wants people to be “free from God and his standards.” Satan Himself rebelled against God’s created order and has been encouraging other moral beings to reject God’s ways ever since. Through the worldview of secularism, here’s how Satan markets his deceptive brand of “freedom:”
- Begin by questioning the rightness or wrongness of sexual choices. Make it a matter of “personal preferences” or “lifestyle choices.” All sin begins when we follow Satan’s lead in setting ourselves up as “God” in our moral choices.
- Draw people into immorality in all its forms. Start with the warm-ups of pornography and mental fantasy, then encourage them to “experiment” for themselves with sex outside of marriage and in whatever form or with whatever partners “they” desire.
- Convince them through darkening their minds that none of these actions are immoral. They’re just choices that all human beings are allowed to make.
- Once trapped in immorality, the heart of the Satanic strategy manifests itself. Jesus said that Satan’s clear purpose is “to kill and destroy” (John 10:10). All forms of immorality, especially the unnaturalness of homosexuality, destroys human dignity, proper relationships, family, health, relationship with God, and ultimately leads to eternal destruction.
- But that’s not all. Satan’s next step is to ridicule those who are moral and adhering to God’s standards. Make them look like the prudes and the bigots.
- Finally, the goal is to persecute the godly, beginning with “hate speech” and even imprisonment.
Notice Gary Randall’s warning of the consequences of repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” in the US military: “The first casualty will likely be the religious freedom of chaplains.”
Silence Christian chaplains. Then Christians in general. Or even imprison them for speaking out against homosexuality.
Satan’s “freedom from God” destroys those who do it and those who resist it.
Doesn’t sound like liberty to me.
It’s not.
Real freedom, the one that America was founded on, was not freedom from God and his wise standards for living. It’s freedom to live for God.
Freedom is not doing what you want; It’s having the wisdom and power to do what you ought.
In the realm of sexuality it’s being smart and humble enough to do things the way God designed them, for our good, others’ good, and for his honor and glory. It means:
- Staying away from pornography which corrupts the mind.
- Not sleeping with your boy friend, girlfriend or fiance before marrying them.
- Not having sex with a close relative.
- Not having same gender sex with anyone.
- Marrying God’s choice from the opposite sex–a conjugal joining in relationship which is both natural, beautiful, and produces children (to read a great new paper on marriage published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, click here.)
- Being faithful to the one you marry for a lifetime.
- Having children in God’s way and time and raising them in the fear and love of God.
This is true sexual freedom because it is freedom from destructive self autonomy and sin.
Jesus said truly that “Everyone who sins is a slave of sin. A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is a part of the family forever. So is the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:34-36).
True freedom is freedom from sin, not from God.
By rescinding the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, our Congressional leaders are doing nothing less than encouraging homosexuals to stay in their sin, bringing tension and sexual lust into the intimate quarters of our fighting forces, and promoting the armed forces social destruction.
On December 18 we lost an important battle. But we must continue to fight because we love God and we love people. Let’s pray that this action will be overturned in the 112th Congress because it breaks the bond of trust that must exist between the military and those who oversee the armed forces in the Pentagon and Congress.
Let’s ask the new House in January to defund the repeal of DADT. Then we will work to get fresh voices in the Senate and move to reinstate the law.
A pillar of America’s exceptional past is freedom from sin through Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray during this Christmas season that God’s Son will lead us back to true liberty.