PrintHow the NFL Should Fight Domestic Violence
I almost feel sorry for the NFL. You know things are not going your way when the Feminazis feel as if they can give advice on how your league should be run, and with the 2014 season barely underway, you’ve already become a topic on "The View". I suppose things could get worse: NFL commissioner Roger Goodell could decide to outlaw tackling.
I’ve been a fan of football and the NFL since I was old enough to spell “Cowboys.” I remember once in elementary school, during an art class, we were supposed to draw what we wanted to be when we grew up. My little hands were not skilled enough to draw men in football uniforms, so I had the bright idea of diagramming plays. That’s right, somewhere around the third grade, my idea of high art was a page full of x’s and o’s accompanied by plenty of lines and arrows.
Along with being a fan of the NFL -- and football in general -- I’m an even bigger fan of the family. After coaching middle school and high school football for five years in the mid-1990s, I met my wife Michelle. I knew then that those long Sunday afternoons and evenings spent cooped up with a bunch of other men trying to decide things like whether our guards were quick enough to pull and pick up the opponent’s defensive end, were not for me.
After nearly 17 years of marriage (as I’ve noted before), Michelle and I are the parents of four children, including three boys. None of my boys yet play football (karate is their current sport of choice -- for my girl as well!), and I’m not sure that they ever will. One thing I am sure of, unlike Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, most of Adrian Peterson’s half-dozen children, and far too many others like them, our children are being raised in a home by a mother and father who are married and committed to marriage.
As Jack Cashill has already pointed out, both Rice and Peterson lacked such a home. And as has often been chronicled, they are far from alone. What’s more, to borrow from Mr. Cashill, as most sentient beings are aware, this is especially true among American blacks. If the NFL really wanted to hit hard against domestic violence, it would not seek the advice and counsel of liberals but would look to (biblical) marriage.
When it comes to domestic violence, there is hardly a situation more dangerous for women or children than when mom and dad (or step-dad or boyfriend) are merely “shacking up.” As was noted years ago, and as Forbes Magazine just recently alluded to, it is far more dangerous for a child to be reared in a home without his or her married biological parents than otherwise.
According to a 2010 federal study, children living with their mother and her boyfriend are about 11 times more likely to be sexually, physically, or emotionally abused than children living with their married biological parents. Additionally, children living with their mother and her boyfriend are six times more likely to be physically, emotionally, or educationally neglected than children living with their married biological parents.
In other words, as W. Bradford Wilcox put it, “one of the most dangerous places for a child in America to find himself is in a home that includes an unrelated male boyfriend -- especially when that boyfriend is left to care for a child by himself.”
Likewise, shacking up is much more dangerous for women than is marriage. Compared to married women, women who cohabitate are three times more likely to experience physical aggression and nine times more likely to be murdered. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, never-married mothers are more than twice as likely to suffer domestic violence.
Thus, as anyone who really wants to can see, the real issue when it comes to domestic violence is not the NFL (domestic violence rates are much lower among NFL players than in the general population), but a breakdown of the traditional family. Whether we’re talking about the NFL, kids’ karate, or the myth of man-made global warming, this has been clear for years. Of course the liberal-led media would rather bash the made-for-men-only NFL than surrender one of the tenets of liberalism -- that the traditional family doesn’t matter.
I said at the beginning of this that I “almost feel sorry for the NFL.” This is because the NFL is a privately-held organization that is responsible for one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the world and can do pretty much whatever it wants when it comes to things like domestic violence among a few of its members. Yet, what does the NFL choose to do? It uses the “playbook” written by the National Organization for Women.
This is in addition to the NFL bending over backwards (sorry!) to accommodate the homosexual agenda. Somebody needs to tell Roger Goodell that liberalism is no friend of football -- especially professional football. Like almost everything else concerning liberals, this matter is a means to a political end. Make no mistake about it, the left will attempt to use this moment to increase the power and influence of liberalism.
After a night of heavy drinking by both Ray Rice and his then fiancée Janay Palmer, when Rice later knocked out his soon-to-be-wife in an elevator, soon afterward both Rice and Palmer reportedly became born-again Christians. The now married couple were both baptized in March and are receiving “religious mentoring” (read: Christian counseling) from other married couples, including NFL players and their wives.
This is the kind of solution to domestic violence that the NFL should openly embrace and support, as it is the only way that real change can occur. There’s no reason that the most popular sport in the country can’t take such steps. In fact, it would probably increase league popularity. Whether owners and league officials decide to take such steps or not, the players and coaches who know the real solutions in such matters (and there are plenty) need to lead the way.
Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
