The slogan on the white T-shirts for kids is short and bittersweet.<\/p>\n
The simple blue letters declare, “My daddy’s name is Donor.” You can buy a baby bib with the same proclamation.<\/p>\n
For a self-proclaimed “marriage nut” like David Blankenhorn, it’s hard to see this consumer product as a positive statement about modern family life. Of course, America has been evolving for several decades after the cultural revolutions that changed how millions of people live together, break up, get married, get divorced, have children or some combination of all the above.<\/p>\n
Thus, the president of the Institute for American Values keeps hearing this big question: “What is the future of marriage?” It’s a logical question, since his most recent book is called “The Future of Marriage.”<\/p>\n
There is no easy answer, however, other than stating the fact that elite opinion makers and academics are convinced that old-fashioned, especially religious, traditions about marriage are fading.<\/p>\n
“The smart money says, ‘Down the tubes,’ ” said Blankenhorn, speaking recently at Gordon College, an evangelical Protestant campus near Boston.<\/p>\n
“The big word is ‘deinstitutionalization.’ … It’s this notion of redefining marriage into just being a kind of Hallmark greeting card that says, ‘We’re in love, we have a commitment, oh special us.’ That’s what marriage is.”<\/p>\n