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We were sitting around at a meeting of the Lawrence Conservatives Club the other day. The whole membership was there. All three of us. We unanimously agreed to this proclaimation: Sin makes you stupid. We came to this realization when someone observed that the liberal agenda seems to consist mainly in irradicating the consequences of choices. Especially My choices. Especially My choices regarding sex.

Case in point: there has been a lot of talk lately about mandatory vaccination of pre-pubescent girls against HPV - a sexually transmitted disease linked to cervical cancer. Our local paper carried a big article about the issue, complete with opinions and quotes from several people who think its a great idea. One doctor called it a no-brainer, like the flag and apple pie. The article mentioned that some people have moral concerns, but it didn’t explain what those concerns might be, nor did it quote anyone who held those concerns.

When one of our members pointed out in a letter to the editor that some people were not at risk for STDs, he was vehemently and personally attacked in the newspaper’s on-line forum. These anonymous attackers went so far as to find out his wife’s name and use that in their diatribe. “You call that a culture of life?” they screamed. Well, yes we do. And if you weren’t blinded by your liberal agenda, you might be able to recognize it for what it is.

Now we learn, in a recent story in the Dallas Morning News, that there are reasons why we are suddenly hearing so much about making HPV vaccination mandatory. Millions of reasons, actually. The manufacutrer of the vaccine has been financing an aggressive lobbying campaign for the purpose of boosting sales. But they are backing down now due to a backlash among parents, physicians and consumer advocates. The conservative position has some economic traction for a change.

Have you ever heard the claim that Christians are about as likely to divorce as the U.S. population at large? I think we church-goers tend to quote this statistic to shame ourselves into taking our marriage vows, and our faith, more seriously.

However, a new study indicates this common wisdom is not true, once you factor in church attendance that is.  In “What’s Love Got to Do with It? Equality, Equity, Commitment, and Women’s Marital Quality,” University of Virginia sociologists Steven L. Nock and W. Bradford Wilcox examine what makes women content in marriage.  In a recent article about this study in Christianity Today, the authors note “churchgoing evangelical Protestants, churchgoing Catholics, and churchgoing mainline Protestants are all significantly less likely to divorce . . . (than the general population) . . . between 35 and 50 percent less likely than Americans who attend church just nominally, just once or twice a year, or who don’t attend church at all. It is true that people who say they’ve had a born-again experience are about as likely to divorce as people who are completely secular.  But if you look at this through the lens of church attendance, you see a very different story.”

So, if you want to boost your chances for marital bliss, go to church. Often.

Actually they call today Black Friday. Sounds like a stock market crash or something. I never heard the term until I got into retail. It is supposed to indicate that the day after Thanksgiving is the day when retailers go into the black for the year. Because everybody knows its the biggest retail day of the year, right? Well, sorta. It’s the biggest day of the year for the biggest retailers. The big box stores and big mall stores do pretty well today. But your local independent retailers have to wait until shoppers get fed up with big crowds and indifferent service. Then they come back to stores like Signs of Life where you get reasonable prices and great service from people who care. We’re getting harder and harder to find. I wonder why that is?