Ted Haggard

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by brianwspencer

absolutely does not make the message necessarily bad-- that's another debate we've had

however, the big point of what I was saying is gentlemen like these two are the main reason that people are very uncomfortable when talking about fixing the moral breakdown in this country. how do we fix it? we listen to our role models...our pastors and congressmen? and then they betray us by being hypocrites.

these examples of people who can't practice what they preach make people uneasy about ANYONE with a moral agenda.

morality starts at home and it is parents who need to instill a moral upbringing in their children. we can disagree over how to define that morality, but i know we can all agree on most of the things (ie we don't teach our kids to have sex at age 12, we don't teach them to get drunk and high in 8th grade, we teach them that killing people and stealing is wrong...things like that). it's depressing, it almost seems like there is no way to fix it. how do we start to fix it when the family is the core teacher of morality and values, but the family is breaking down at unprecedented rates and our families are outsourcing their parenting to day care centers so that we can go to work to keep up in the rat race of debt we're in and not get evicted from the house that the family spends a total of one hour a day together in?

i agree that it all starts at home. problem comes in when too many parents are too 'busy' to take care of their kids..want to be the kids best friend, rather than a parent and do their job. don't wanna make your kids follow rules (and children are very much creatures of habit and routine--whether they follow a good or bad routine) and set limits, don't want to be the bad guy? don't have kids. kids can make plenty of friends at school, they only get one set of parents.