This year two Alaska Supreme Court justices, Joel Bolger and Peter Maasan, are on the ballot. Earlier this year Bolger and Maasan voted to strike down, as unconstitutional, a law providing for parental notification for a minor’s abortion enacted as an initiative by the people in 2010 with 90,000 Alaskan voters approving the initiative, a 56% majority.
Today, I will look at marriage as a case study involving huge social attitude changes over the past few years and the task we face in the future. I will look at mistakes that have been made, the impact that rapid changes in the social order have had on society and individuals and I will suggest an approach for preaching on marriage when it is “out of season.”
While the judges have taken over the game on marriage, it is only at the 11th hour. For the past 40 years the old norms have been under relentless attack. Marriage has declined; divorce and cohabitation have climbed; and out-of-wedlock pregnancy has skyrocketed. The old deviancies have become the new norm, and the old morality the new deviancy. The children have suffered the worse, and because of that the future looks bleak.