A few points I would like to make about the speech itself before I begin discussing CNN's commentary on the issue. While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints(LDS Church) does not own SVU, the University is over 90% LDS presided over by a former general authority of the LDS church. His speech was centered around religious thought it is true, as he was speaking to a religious audience. The portion of the speech that CNN used was quoting from a verse from Psalms 127:3-5:
"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate."
What was Romney advocating? He was advocating for good people to get married and have kids, something he has experience in, and has found joy in. Later in his speech Romney also said “I don’t think God cares whether you get rich…life on this Earth is about learning to live and work in a place where God does not make everything work out for good people,” he said. “The best advice I know is to give those worldly things your best but never your all.”
To paraphrase his speech his message was that as graduates-men and women we need to launch out into the deep, and that by launching deep we are challenged greatly and have the possibility, if we persevere, to have extremely rewarding experiences. He stated that being a husband and a father have been the most challenging and rewarding parts of his life. That by facing these challenges we would grow like no other opportunity would allow us.
It is interesting that CNN was so quick to call this religious fanaticism. That encouraging getting married and having children is now considered to mean a person is a fanatic. Let's do a little symantic study into the idea of what the word fanatic means: "A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause." What they are implying is "this is extreme religious thought that Romney is advocating, and that this is why he lost the election."
I do agree with them on one point though-this is the real Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney is a man that is dedicated to his family, supporting and loving his wife, his 5 sons and his many grandchildren. He spent many years as a lay clergyman serving others. His religion is part of who he is and he has never denied that.
If I get this right; if I speak from my heart on matters of both home and religion in to a religious audience, that now labels me as a religious fanatic? Such extremism and absolutism seems to me a bit extreme myself.
My point is mostly this: I feel that there has been an unusually high bias against religious thought in popular culture and that any appeal to the bible or religious doctrine to support good policy is somehow "radical" or "fanatical" thought. Romney was not suggesting we get married at 16 or that we marry goats which would be extreme. He was talking to college graduates and those who would be finishing in the next few years and telling them that they should get married and have kids because that is what he did and that it has made his own life better.
On a personal note, my own marriage has been the best thing in my life and I haven't regretted it once. It has been challenging and has driven me to be better, and the rewards have been enormous for me. For most of the general population this is true. The benefits of marriage for the general public have been studied at length and are far reaching from health to wealth.
Some of these benefits include:
1. Increasing Your Pay
A Virginia Commonwealth University study found that married men earn 22 percent more than their similarly experienced but single colleagues.
2. Speed Up Your Next Promotion
Married men receive higher performance ratings and faster promotions than bachelors, a 2005 study of U.S. Navy officers reported.
3. Keep You Out of Trouble
According to a recent U.S. Department of Justice report, male victims of violent crime are nearly four times more likely to be single than married. You may remember this as Mitt Romney mentioned that one way we could decrease crime is to have two parents and for men to marry.
4. Help You Beat Cancer
In a Norwegian study, divorced and never-married male cancer patients had 11 and 16 percent higher mortality rates, respectively, than their married counterparts.
5. Help You Live Longer
A UCLA study found that people were 88 percent more likely to die over the 8-year study period than if they were single. To quote from the study:
"Virtually every study of mortality and marital status shows the unmarried of both sexes have higher death rates, whether by accident, disease, or self-inflicted wounds, and this is found in every country that maintains accurate health statistics.”
6. It is Likely to Help You Remain Sane and Happier
Several studies have shown that men who are married have lower instance of mental health issues than the general public and generally remain happier throughout their life
Not all of popular media took the same view as CNN though, an article from the Atlantic said this about Romney's speech:
"In this passage, Romney articulates the so-called "cornerstone" theory of marriage: that marriage is an institution worth building life on, not something to enter into once you're already established in life. This vision of marriage is countercultural at the moment, of course: As the National Marriage Project's "Knot Yet" report shows, people are getting married later and later, and more and more people are seeing marriage as a "capstone" to life's achievements rather than a foundation for those achievements (and inevitable disappointments)."
The article continues:
"More remarkable, in my view, is how he holds in tension two ideas that often drown each other out in discussions of marriage: that marriage is both 'tremendously challenging' and 'enormously rewarding.' As I've written about before, people today tend to have an unrealistically rosy view of marriage—that it'll be an endlessly fun, sex-filled slumber party—or an unnecessarily negative one—that the institution is so broken it's not worth entering into. Both of those perceptions of marriage are too extreme. Marriage is good, but hard. Marriage is hard, but good."
I am glad that one organization was willing to view what Romney had said and look for the positive in it rather than belittling and condescending the man. I am glad they analyzed it and adapted it to their own perspective, and then reported what they learned, rather than attack the man without considering what he was saying.
To CNN and the other news outlets that had negative things to say about Romney I ask this: So if it is counterculture to tell men and women to get married is this really a bad thing? Mitt Romney was not glorifying marriage as the end-all be-all of life or this blissful happily ever after thing. He said that it is "tremendously challenging" and "enormously rewarding." He said that by doing so you would be stretching and learning and that you would find great rewards from doing so based upon his own familial and religious experience.
I find it a little disturbing CNN's coverage had no defense for Romney's speech, not one person stood up for his point of view, and said "hey this guy was really saying..." but instead they shrunk to hitting a man for his religious beliefs. This kind of incivility in the media is both shameful and saddening to me. I hope that in the future we can learn to disagree with a person's beliefs without shrinking to attacks on their person.
To watch his full speech see the video below.
