Yes, we’ve certainly come a long way, baby.

Why Marriage Matters

by Regis Martin

It was, not so very long ago, widely regarded in this country as morally wrong and, not infrequently, socially ruinous, for a man to walk out on his wife and children.  In 1961, for example, Nelson Rockefeller, who was then Governor of New York, decided to divorce his wife of more than twenty years, for a much younger woman (who thereupon divorced her husband, leaving him with custody of their four children).  The result?  Despite every prediction that Rockefeller would easily become the Republican Party’s nominee for President in 1964, the scandal of divorce so undermined his credibility at the convention that he finally withdrew from the race.  (Of course, his squishy republicanism was not exactly helpful, either.)  In addition to committing political suicide, Rockefeller’s defiance of society’s mores earned him the opprobrium of vast swaths of ordinary Americans.

Now fast forward to the recent presidential sweepstakes and observe, in lurid contrast, the approval rating of Republican stalwart Newt Gingrich, who has compiled an impressive number of conjugal conquests (four so far).  Has that seriously impeded his standing among voters?  Not at all.  Even ardent conservatives appear undisturbed by the obvious disconnect between his repeated failures to remain faithful to the covenant of marriage alongside his eagerness to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

But take another look back at that halcyon age.  What other aberrations did people in that quaint and distant time find abhorrent?  How approving were Americans of, say, abortion?  Or pornography?  And what about homosexuality?  Were these hot-button issues back in 1961?  Hardly.  Had anyone back then dared to propose the legalization of abortion-on-demand, a porn-fed reading public, and same-sex marriage, not only would people find their ideas incomprehensible, but their morals reprehensible.   And yet today these are issues around which fashionable opinion has rallied in the most robust and shameful way.  

Pornography, for example, has gone totally viral ..........

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