Is George W Bush experiencing a renaissance in time for his brother’s possible presidential campaign? For those of you who missed it, check out his paintings.
Are today’s ministries too focused on the family?
Gay marriage does not, in my view, weaken the institution. Some proposals, I believe, would.
Mark Kleiman writes up a potential hole in the lead-crime theory.
One way to reduce drunk driving may be to elongate pub hours.
Baylen Linnekin looks in on bans on sharing food with the homeless.
The Verge doesn’t let it’s writers look at the traffic numbers for fear that it will taint the process.
According to Matt Asay, more companies are using open source, and not because it’s free.
West German Chancellor Willy Brandt famously knelt at a Polish memorial and helped repair FRG/Polish relations. Should Japan’s Abe do the same? Alexander Lanoszka says not.
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Queenland
Greetings from Stonebridge a fictitious city in a fictitious state located in a tri-state area in the interior Mid-Atlantic region. We're in western Queenland, which is really a state unto itself, and not to be confused with Queensland in Australia.
Nothing written on this site should be taken as strictly true, though if the author were making it all up rest assured the main character and his life would be a lot less unremarkable.
Regarding the OnFaith article on Christian singles: while I would agree that the church fails to appreciate the difficulties singles face today in their efforts to get married, this particular writer is consistent in a couple of ways.
First, it isn’t true that churches ignore singles. On the contrary, most churches of any size maintain thriving singles ministries, with Sunday school classes, Bible studies, and social events. But then Gina turns around and complains that singles are kept in a ghetto within the church. Even if this is true — she doesn’t specify what exactly she means — it’s not the same thing as not having ministries for singles. If the charge has any merit, it is that families in smaller churches without singles ministries often fail to appreciate how lonely it is for single people to have to go home from church to an empty apartment.
Second, the author complains that “various cultural factors and trends” impede marriage today (which is true enough, though I would have liked to hear hear be more specific), but that’s not what Rev. Moehler was addressing when he discouraged people from intentionally postponing marriage. (It is significant that the criticism he received for this statement came exclusively from women.) It seems to me that Gina wants to have it both ways: exempt women from criticism for postponing marriage through age 29, and then demand sympathy for their diminished prospects from 31 on.
These are fair criticisms.
I’m not sure I understood your comment about the Family Studies article, which addressed both the extension of the rights and responsibilities of marriage to mere cohabitation, and the simplifying of divorce procedures for childless couples. Which of these would/would not weaken marriage?
I think that both venues would. For better or worse, anything that makes divorce easier weakens marriage (though when there are no kids involved, I’m not as enthusiastic on the issue).
On the “expansion of rights” it weakens the distinction between married and not married in a way that encourages more relationship coasting. Removing yet another of the incentives of marriage. Providing yet another argument that “Our [unmarried] relationship is the same as yours [married one].”
Regarding the article on food truck regulations: whatever their merits, this was not a ban on “sharing food with the homeless,” and it was dishonest of Reason to characterize it that way. Further, the article applauds and/or demands that federal courts declare these regulations as unconstitutional without specifying the grounds on which they would be, especially in light of the broad latitude given to government regulation in general.
I don’t think that sharing food from a van should qualify someone as operating a “food truck”… the latter being justified on the basis that food trucks are a business making money from their activities. I don’t personally think that food trucks should be regulated to the same degree that restaurants are, but I would still regulate food trucks… and I would exempt a churchman or Samaritan in a vehicle giving food away from said regulations.
I think there is a pretty solid argument on unconstitutionality. The pastor isn’t running a business, isn’t making a profit, and unlike a Hobby Lobby there is virtually no argument to be made that he has sacrificed religious freedom by putting food in a church vehicle to distribute.