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Rick Santorum on Families & ChildrenRepublican Jr Senator (PA) |
SANTORUM: I was talking about a society with an increasing number of children being born out of wedlock, and teens who are sexually active. What we're seeing is a problem in our culture with respect to children being raised by children, children being raised out of wedlock, and the impact on society economically, the impact on society with respect to drug use and a host of other things when children have children. The family is fracturing. Over 40% of children born in America are born out of wedlock. How can a country survive if children are being raised in homes where it's so much harder to succeed economically? The left gets all upset. "Oh, look at him talking about these things." You know, here's the difference between me and the left, and they don't get this. Just because I'm talking about it doesn't mean I want a government program to fix it.
SANTORUM: I haven't written a lot of books, I've written one: in response to a book written by Hillary Clinton called, "It Takes a Village." I didn't agree with that. I believe it takes a family, and that's what I wrote. And I believe that there's one thing that is undermining this country, and it is the breakdown of the American family. It's undermining our economy, and you see the higher rates of poverty among single parent families. We know there's certain things that work in America. If you graduate from high school, and if you work, and if you marry before you have children, you have a 2% chance of being in poverty in America. And to be above the median income, if you do those three things, 77% chance of being above the median income. Why isn't the president talking about that and trying to formulate policy to help people do those things?
SANTORUM: Well, this isn't a federal issue. It's a state issue, number one. The states can make that determination. I believe the issue of marriage itself is a federal issue. If we don't have a federal law [on marriage], I'm certainly not going to have a federal law that bans adoption for gay couples when there are only gay couples in certain states. So this is a state issue, not a federal issue.
Unfortunately, we see the family continuing to break down. And with that, the economic status of those families. Single-parent households in America now have poverty levels approaching 40%. What we can do as a federal government, [is] to try to promote this institution of marriage. Try to promote the family and make sure that families are elevated and supported and fathers and mothers are there to take care of their families and be there for their children. That's the most important luxury, is a mom and a dad.
A: There's more to it than that. The biggest problem with poverty in America we don't talk about in an economic discussion. And that is the breakdown of the American family. You want to look at the poverty rate among families that have a husband and wife working in them? It's 5% today. A family that's headed by one person? It's 30% today. We need to do something. We need to talk about economics: the word "home" in Greek is the basis of the word "economy." It is the foundation of our country. We need to have a policy that supports families; that encourages marriage; that has fathers take responsibility for their children. You can't have limited government, you can't have a wealthy society, if the family breaks down that basic unit of society.
Believers of No-Fault Freedom turn a blind eye to the damage such a notion of freedom causes not to this or that individual but to society as a whole. We have sexual freedom: and the resulting debasement of women, mental illness, and an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases causing infertility, cancer, and death. Adults have freedom to divorce (No-Fault) when it suits them: and too many children end up being scarred for life. This is but a taste of the collateral damage inflicted on society, families, and individuals by No-Fault Freedom.
The problem is that the myth that living together leads to better marriages is wrong. The opposite is true. One study found that marriages preceded by cohabitation have nearly a 50 percent greater chance of ending in divorce than marriages that we not preceded by cohabitation. Furthermore, children born to parents who are just living together instead of married do not fare very well.
"We do solemnly declare that marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman who agree to live together for so long as they both may live. We have chosen each other carefully and disclosed to one another everything which could adversely affect the decision to enter into this marriage. We have received premarital counseling on the nature, purposes & responsibilities of marriage. We understand that a Covenant marriage is for life. If we experience marital difficulties, we commit ourselves to take all reasonable efforts to preserve our marriage, including marital counseling."
There are many fathers out there who do not take an active role in their children's lives, but who are sadly barred from doing so by courts and mothers. Many fatherhood groups rightly complain that the family courts automatically award custody of childre to mothers, irrespective of the circumstances. It is one of the few places in our culture where sexism is not only condoned but virtually celebrated. This can lead to devastating consequences for the whole family.
A: : You have the problem within the church. Again, it goes back to this moral relativism, which is very accepting of a variety of different lifestyles. And if you make the case that if you can do whatever you want to do, as long as it's in the privacy of your own home, this "right to privacy," then why be surprised that people are doing things that are deviant within their own home?
Q: The right to privacy lifestyle?
A: The right to privacy lifestyle.
Q: What's the alternative?
A: In this case, priests were having sexual relations with post-pubescent men. We're not talking about priests with 5-year-olds. We're talking about a basic homosexual relationship. Which, again, according to the world view sense is a perfectly fine relationship as long as it's consensual between people. If you view the world that way, and you say that's fine, you would assume that you would see more of it.
The Christian Coalition was founded in 1989 by Dr. Pat Robertson to give Christians a voice in government. We represent millions of people of faith and enable them to have a strong, unified voice in the conversation we call democracy.