Chinese “Bride Price”

Partly as a result of China’s gender gap (we have blogged about this before) the “bride price” in many parts of China is putting people off marrying. What is a “bride price”? Well according to the Quartz website, it’s “a kind of reverse-dowry in which men pay a woman and her family in order to marry her”.  This tradition is making it difficult for Chinese couples to marry:

“Because it’s difficult for men of normal means to meet the expected bride prices, many of them simply cannot afford wives. Though Shanghai had the highest bride price [typically $16,300], in most provinces it fell in the range of $9,780 to $13,000 range, and many online commenters said the map underestimated the standard bride price (link in Chinese). The average annual income, by contrast, is about $9,300.”

Why do parts of China have this tradition?

“The tradition was originally conceived to provide for the bride’s aging parents, since she would presumably be caring for her husband’s parents as they aged. But though that’s no longer a worry, many brides and their families still expect suitors to shell out, viewing male income as a barometer of marriageability.

Even beyond stated bride prices, to be considered eligible for marriage, men are usually expected to buy a house—”build a nest to attract a phoenix,” as the saying goes. China’s skyrocketing real estate prices make that an increasingly burdensome requirement: a 100 square-meter apartment in Shanghai costs around $400,000 these days.”

Read more at Mercator.Net

Antigones: an antidote to breast-baring ‘terrorist’ group FEMEN

June 10, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The breast-baring, self-styled female “terrorist” group FEMEN, which has become known the world over for its provocative, often violent protests against “patriarchy”, fascism, prostitution and religion, seems to have met its match.

The Antigones, named after the woman of Greek mythology who in Sophocles’ play was sentenced to death for choosing to follow “Divine Law” in opposition to the “man-made laws” of a tyrant, consists of a group of 25 or so attractive French women clad in virginal white dresses. On their website they quote Antigones declaring “I was born to join in love, not hate,” a clear reference to their opposition to FEMEN’s breasts-and-placard, spittle-flecked protest style.

Seeming inversions of their infamous adversaries, but employing similar guerrilla marketing tactics, the Antigones scored a media coup when their de facto leader, 21-year-old Iseul Turan, announced through a video interview released on YouTube on June 1st that she had infiltrated the France division of FEMEN for a period of two months.

On the 30 minute video, Turan describes how what “frightened” her most about the Femen was the ideological “vacuum” behind the movement. “The only thing behind Femen is three words, and as for the rest you can do what you want– it’s an abyss, a vacuum.”

Read more on Life Site News.

How the French debate destroyed the two top myths about gay marriage

June 10, 2013 (thePublicDiscourse) - If the recent French mobilizations against same-sex marriage have taught us anything, it’s this: The LGBT lobby has misrepresented its cause’s relationship to time and history. Illinois Democrat Greg Harris stated in a National Public Radio piece what the lobby has been claiming for years:

Folks know this will be a vote that history will remember . . . And I think a lot of folks are deciding they’re going to want to be remembered on the right side of history.

The proponents of same-sex marriage like polls. A Gallup poll published in mid-May showed public support for their cause rising from 27 percent in 1996 to 53 percent this year. Pew’s survey data reflect a more modest rise, from 35 percent in 2001 to 49 percent in 2013, but the upward march is still clear. In April 2013, the Williams Institute published a state-by-state analysis that reflected a steady growth in the number of states, such as New York, in which more than 50 percent of respondents supported same-sex marriage.

Less often mentioned are certain caveats in all these polls. For instance, in Gallup’s poll respondents were asked to choose between supporting or opposing same-sex marriage, without being offered a third option such as civil unions. The data from the Williams Institute show that liberal California is still only at 50 percent for same-sex marriage, perhaps because the state has domestic partnerships already. Minnesota residents only supported same-sex marriage by 43 percent, despite their popular vote to reject a constitutional ban in 2012 and despite the legislature’s hurried process of legalizing it in the state.

Nevertheless, two assumptions have determined the way pundits have interpreted these data.

One assumption is that the increase in support will be consistent over time rather than fickle. We can name this the Inevitability Assumption, a quasi-Marxian or at least Hegelian view that History is beckoning in one direction and there will be no turning back.

The second assumption is that more people accept same-sex marriage because they have more reliable information about what it entails. This is the Enlightenment Assumption, the notion that there is a transcendental benevolence in same-sex marriage, which can rely on the good and the true, if not the beautiful, to be vindicated by the diffusion of knowledge.

A recent piece in the Los Angeles Times offers a digestible version of the Enlightenment Assumption: “Knowing a gay person is a key factor in rising support of gay marriage.” The example of Ohio Senator Rob Portman is Exhibit A for this line of reasoning: All Portman had to do was put a face on the issue, in the form of his gay son’s visage, to be persuaded to the cause.

Read more at Life Site News

40,000 march against abortion bill in Dublin: largest pro-life march in Irish history

Photo: Prolife Campaign

DUBLIN, June 10, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Forty thousand people marched in opposition to the Irish government’s abortion bill at the National Vigil for Life this Saturday in the centre of Dublin. According to organizers this made the Vigil for Life the largest pro-life gathering in Ireland’s history.

Carrying a huge banner reading, “Pro-woman, Pro-baby, Pro-life,” the marchers said they wanted to send a message to Prime Minister Enda Kenny and the coalition government that public opposition to proposed abortion legislation will not “simply go away.”

The government intends to vote in proposed abortion legislation, called the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, in July.

Rebecca Roughneen of Youth Defence told LifeSiteNews.com that Saturday’s rally was a sign that the fight against the bill has been broadly successful, at least as far as generating public antipathy. 

“[Prime Minister] Enda Kenny is saying it’s the ‘protection of life,’ bill, about saving lives, but in reality it’s about killing babies,” Roughneen said. “Irish women are already safe here. The fact is, he’s trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes, and they’re not being deceived.”

Read more at Life Site News

Keep up battle against same-sex marriage, urges Catholic leader

Protesters against same-sex marriage in Paris last month (AP)

A French Catholic campaigner has urged Church leaders not to give up opposition to same-sex marriage, despite the spread of laws allowing the practice across Europe.

Antoine Renard, president of the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe, said: “The message from France is the campaign isn’t over – these laws rely on a big lie, and no lie can survive.

“Our own government has succeeded in its goal of dividing opinion in the Catholic Church, so the Church’s authorities need to be prudent. But there’s a lot of teaching to be done, and I hope our pastors will provide it,” he told the American Catholic News Service.

France’s same-sex marriage law, which allows gay and lesbian couples to marry and adopt children, was signed by French president François Hollande on May 18.

Mr Renard said Catholic groups would step up their campaign against the law before municipal and European Parliament elections in early 2014 and would try to block the government’s “gender-based reforms” in education and family life.

“Although this law has been adopted, we can still fight against its application and pressure political parties to show stronger commitment,” he said. “Although it will be difficult to repeal or revise it, we’re determined to try and will be encouraging campaigners in other countries to do the same.”

The Catholic La Croix daily has reported that France is seeing a “multiplication of initiatives” against the law, with new groups springing up nationwide.

Read more at Catholic Herald

Boys against Girls in Sports

One of our middle-school-aged daughters was on the girls’ basketball team at school this past winter.  At 5’9″ she was one of the tallest girls on the team, but she’s lacking in that aggressiveness that makes a good athlete, so she was no star player; still it was fun and good exercise.  The season ended at the end of March, so I was surprised last week when she told me she needed to stay after school for basketball practice...

It’s also unfair for the boys because this is a contest that is all shame and no glory.  If they lose, they will be shamed for losing to girls.  What, aren’t they real boys?  Are they a bunch of girly boys?  But if they win, there’s no glory.  Yeah, big deal, you beat a bunch of girls, so what?

Pushing girls to compete against boys in athletics is simply more feminist fantasy supplanting common sense as the driving force behind public policy.  It’s bad for girls, it’s bad for boys, but it sure is good for professional feminist activists, lawyers, and academics, isn’t it?

Read more at Sunshine Mary Wordpress.

Gay 'Marriage' is Anything but 'Inevitable'

June 8, 2013 (Heritage Foundation) - A new Pew opinion poll shows that a majority of Americans believe the redefinition of marriage is “inevitable.”

We’ve heard “inevitable” language before, particularly from statists of all stripes. History is filled with supposedly “inevitable” causes that turned out not to be so. Nothing in life is inevitable except death and taxes—and at The Heritage Foundation we’re doing what we can about taxes.

So, too, on marriage. Consider some facts about the polls that matter most: elections. Citizens have gone to the polls to vote about marriage in 35 states. The truth about marriage has prevailed 32 of those 35 times. In only three states have citizens voted to redefine marriage—all in the 2012 election—and in each state the truth about marriage far outperformed the Republican presidential candidate. For example, in liberal Maryland, Mitt Romney received 36 percent of the vote, while marriage received 48 percent.

All this in a campaign in which proponents of redefinition had a 4:1 financial advantage and the backing of national figures: President Obama, Vice President Biden, governors, and a host of business, sports, and entertainment leaders.

Just last week, citizens in deep-blue Illinois prevented their legislature from voting to redefine marriage—and they did this despite a Democratic supermajority in the statehouse—and despite President Obama, Governor Pat Quinn (D), and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) allurging passage of the bill.

And just last year at this time, marriage won in a landslide—61 percent to 39 percent—in a referendum in the swing state of North Carolina, a state Obama had carried in 2008 and lost narrowly in 2012.

Still, no one can deny that Americans’ support for marriage is not what it once was. This is largely because we have done an insufficient job of explaining what marriage is, why marriage matters, and what the consequences will be if we redefine marriage.

Read more at Life Site News.