I Now Pronounce You...

Step 2 in California’s plan to destroy the sacrament of marriage has begun.

Step 1 was California’s highest court ruling that limiting marriage to a man and a woman is unconstitutional. In step 2 all words having a connection to traditional marriage will be cleansed from the state’s books. Just ask Pastor Doug Bird of Abundant Life Fellowship in Roseville, CA.

According to worldnetdaily.com, a couple just married by Pastor Bird made the mistake of signing their marriage license “ ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ next to ‘Party A’ and ‘Party B’ because they wanted to be legally recognized as husband and wife. “

(http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=74768) Not so fast said Placer County. "I received back the license and a letter from the Placer County Clerk/Recorder stating that the license 'does not comply with California State registration laws,'" Bird said in a statement from the Pacific Justice Institute.

California is using an Orwellian method to redefine the definition of marriage. The theory is that if you remove the offending words from people’s vocabularies, over time you will expunge the concepts themselves from people’s minds. Hence, if the younger generations don’t hear “bride” and “groom”, it will never occur to them that they should hear anything other than “Party A” and “Party B”. (Incidentally, if this hasn’t happened already, look for the same approach to be taken with regards to children. The terms “parents”, “mother”, and “father” will be rejected in favor of “guardian” and “caregiver”.)

One other observation: I am surprised that a group such as the polygamists have not tried to capitalize on the California court’s rejection of traditional marriage. If a court has decided that marriage cannot be defined as only between a man and a woman, then why can’t a man justifiably have five or ten wives? Once you’ve removed the restriction from marriage’s definition, you have no moral grounds to ban any other voluntary arrangement.


Donald Tremblay

Big Mac vs The Whopper

Over the past few weeks the American Family Association (AFA)-- http://www.afa.net/-- has been sending e-mail alerts exposing McDonald’s support of the homosexual agenda. The boycott attached to the e-mails specifies that AFA’s objection “is not about hiring homosexuals, or homosexuals eating at McDonald's, or how homosexual employees are treated. It is about McDonald's, as a corporation, choosing to put the full weight of their corporation behind promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage.”

AFA reached out to McDonald’s and asked the corporation for the following:

Remove McDonald's name and logo from the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) Web site listing McDonald's as a "Corporate Partner and Organization Ally" of NGLCC.

Remove the endorsement of NGLCC by Richard Ellis, Vice President of Communications for McDonald's USA, from the NGLCC Web site.

Not only did McDonald’s deny the request, but according to AFA the fast-food chain even “paid $20,000 to become a member of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and to have a seat on the board of directors.”

On August 13 AFA announced that McDonald’s had upped the ante in this cultural poker “game” by sponsoring a group called Out & Equal Workplace Advocates. According to AFA,
“Out & Equal™ Workplace Advocates is a national organization devoted to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the workplace.

One of its primary purposes is to train employees how to aggressively promote homosexuality within the company they work for, all the way to the corporate boardroom. Part of last year’s Out & Equal Summit in Washington, DC, (sponsored by McDonald’s) was an organized march into congressional offices demanding same-sex marriage laws be passed.”

So the next time you crave a hamburger, go with a Whopper.

Donald Tremblay

Cohabitation vs. Marriage

We’ve all heard it before: “Marriage is just a piece of paper. We don’t need a piece of paper to prove our love.” Or, “We’ve lived together for x years. It’s like we’re married.”

Wrong. No, it’s not.

Cohabitation is not marriage. There is a huge difference. Anyone who has stood at the altar and pledged his/her vows under the eyes of God, family and friends, and the Church can tell you that it is a commitment like no other in life.

It’s understandable why young people today would wish cohabitation and marriage were the same. In today’s world the chances of a new marriage ending in divorce are better than the betting odds you’d get from a Vegas Sports Book. And the financial strain on married couples who divorce can leave people in debt for years to come. Plus, theoretically, it seems logical that if you live with someone to confirm compatibility there’s a better chance of your relationship surviving. Well, as with many things in life, theories that sound great on paper often don’t survive the reality test. The New Oxford Review’s website has re-posted an article they ran in Sep 2007 entitled, “Cohabitation: Ten Facts”. (http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=0907-schneider) It was written by Patrick Schneider II, M.D., M.P.H., who holds boards in family and geriatric medicine and who received a Masters in Public Health from Harvard University .

Here are some of the facts listed:

· One in ten [cohabitating couples] survives five or more years

· The rate of divorce among those who cohabit prior to marriage is nearly double (39 percent vs. 21 percent) that of couples who marry without prior cohabitation

· Cohabiting women often end up with the responsibilities of marriage -- particularly when it comes to caring for children -- without the legal protection (ibid.), while contributing more than 70 percent of the relationship's income

· A UCLA survey of 130 published studies found that marriages preceded by cohabitation were more prone to drug and alcohol problems

· Three-fourths of children involved in criminal activity were from cohabiting households


Marriage supporters are not surprised. There is a reason why the family, led by a married man and woman, has been the basic building block of every human society since the dawn of civilization. Why is marriage so much better than cohabitation, with or without the addition of children?

People cohabit because they fear commitment. Both sides enter the living arrangement with a (usually) unspoken agreement that they’ll “try it out”, and if it doesn’t work they’ll go their separate ways, no questions asked. The problem with this plan is that both partners live with one foot pointing to the exit. At the first sign of trouble their thought is, “How do I get out of this?” and not, “How do we get through this?”

Relationships do not work unless both parties are committed to one another. There will be many ups and downs in a relationship, and sometimes the downs can be very down. Standing on the altar and promising to remain “until death do us part” will be the single greatest commitment you will make in your life. I’ve heard cohabitants argue that they’ve bought a house together to show their commitment. It’s not the same thing. A house can be sold, proceeds split, with the partners going their separate ways as if the experience never happened. A “do-over” is not as easy when you’re married. Aside from the legal and financial ramifications of an ended marriage, there are emotional and spiritual ones as well. Even when there are legitimate reasons for a marriage to end, be it through infidelity or physical/mental abuse, both spouses will always remember that there was a time when, in front of God and their loved ones, they promised to stay united till death.

That’s an oath no individual can forget.

Donald Tremblay