It will. You are correct.

Re contraception: Even the most hard-core traditional Catholic theologian will admit that contraception and abortion are different kinds of sins. On the other hand, there is much sense in lumping them together under the heading of "reproductive rights," because both of them are intended to allow people to enjoy sex without the natural consequence of doing so. Until the 1930's, Protestants were as opposed to artificial contraception as the Pope is today. Then the Anglicans were the first to break ranks. At the time, some of the most eloquent predictions that this would ultimately lead to the destruction of all sexual restraint came from Protestants. As it turned out, they were absolutely correct.

The defense, such as it is, amounts to this: "Marriage is obsolete, along with all the old prudery. Nowadays, I can can laid a lot, on a first date if I am lucky, possibly by the second, and certainly by the third. If one girl won't give, there are lots of others who will. No promises or commitments are required, so it is easy to get out of a relationship and into another one. It's all fine with me. I'm having fun. What can possibly be the problem?"

Laws, courts, etc. can help ensure that marginal phenomena stay marginal. The use of such instruments against behaviors that have become mainstreamed is hopeless. The most that can perhaps be accomplished is to get the government to stop subsidizing deviancy and to stop penalizing the use of social stigma. Freedom for all? Yes, that works well as long as political freedom is balanced by personal self-control. Today, it is not, which is at least one of the reasons why we are rapidly losing our republic. Oh, well... Two hundred and fifty years was a pretty good historical run.

coach: I remember not one, but three or four, priests or ministers saying or writing that the post-9/11 upswing in religious observance lasted all of three or four weeks. Then things returned to "normal" and "their forgotten and abandoned faiths" were once again forgotten and abandoned. Something much more severe and long-lasting in its effects than 9/11 will be needed.

...us be. And let us not have any excuses that fornication, divorce, etc. have always been with us. Yes, they have been. They were socially tolerable and had little effect, except on those directly involved, as long as they were marginal phenomena, rather than being "mainstreamed," as they are now.

A word of warning is in order to those of you who defend or positively like the trends which the columnist condemns. I cannot appeal to your non-existent religious sense. I do tell you, however, that you cannot have the consequences unless you adopt the necessary means. You cannot base a free (and prosperous) republic on the mores and morals of the black ghetto. With more and more or the middle class adopting those mores and morals, and with the day coming when those mores and morals are going to be held by the majority of our society, any remaining vestiges of the free republic that we received from the Founders will also disappear. Even if the words on parchment remain, we will be as "transformed" as Obama and his kind would have...

I am familiar with the Augustan marriage laws. And, no, they did not seem to work very well. On the other hand, there have been shifts in culture and morals, in one direction or the other, which have had little to do with legislation.

Thanks for bringing up the point. I have heard it said before that fornication is now accepted by society because people marry so late. On the other hand, one could equally well argue that people marry so late today because the prevalence and approval of fornication means that they can get their jollies without having to marry. Thus, "youth" has become artificially extended into the 20's or even 30's. The fact that primary and secondary education has become so dumbed down that people have to go to college and grad school to learn what they should have learned by the time they were 18 has not helped either, nor has the positive promotion, for commercial reasons, of the "youth culture."

I would maintain that there is no correlation between an expanded franchise and our ability to be secure in our life, liberty, and property, so I would not dismiss the pre-1965 era as a Golden Age for the specific reason that you gave. That said, your larger point is correct: there was never a Golden Age, certainly not one to which, in all its particulars, we should want to return. On the third hand (if there is such a thing), the triumph of the counterculture amounted to a DISCONTINUITY in our history. A return to something resembling the old cultural norms would be a change for the better.