Getting to Know Dean Malik....

Pennsylvania Representatives Scott Petri (R) and Steve Santarsiero (D) are both co-sponsors of Pa House Bill 1510.  Paired with Pa Senate Bill 974, the Pa Catholic Conference calls this legislation "intolerant and prejudiced against people of faith."  Along with Shaughnessy Naughton, Petri and Santarsiero are among those looking to succeed Mike Fitzpatrick in Congress.  Like Petri and Santarsiero, Naughton has indicated positions counter to authentic Catholic teaching about marriage/family.  "Doylestown attorney Dean Malik [also] plans to run for the Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District seat, he announced Monday" (Bucks County Courier Times, 12/7/15).  Some of Malik's published writings should leave us hopeful....

• "Contrary to the already stale claim that conservatives are waging a 'war on women,' there is instead a war against the traditional American family, and it is being waged by the left. Many Americans may not realize the multiple ways in which the traditional family construct has been under attack because so much of the attack is by now the unquestioned status quo:....Unrestricted access to abortion renders the incredibly serious business of human sexual behavior seemingly inconsequential. And it renders marriage superfluous....if it becomes the norm it [same sex "marriage"] will violently dilute the very essence of matrimony and serve only to weaken the institution of marriage itself.....Requiring people to embrace the solemnization of denominational marriage is the best guarantor or future marital success and a healthy environment for children. Secular marriage circumvents these protections and allows a couple to blithely enter into a relationship with enormous personal, legal and economic consequences, the failure of which leads to poverty, illegitimacy in future generations, drug abuse, depression and myriad social and emotional problems for all involved....In contemporary society, little contemplation is occasioned either by the act of marriage or now, also the act of divorce....Alimony as it now exists is simply one more legal fiction bolstering the false impression that divorce can be consequence-free....the child custody process lends itself to manipulation by angry and vindictive parents, aided and abetted by lawyers, and provides no clear incentives for couples to stay married or consequences for culpability in destructive, faithless and selfish behavior causing marriages to end....Perhaps it is time for us to recognize that family is the bedrock of society. If enough Americans make the realization that the status quo does not have to be accepted, and use our collective determination and political will to change things for the better, and place family first, perhaps we will succeed.  Don’t our children and future generations deserve that?" (Top Ten Weapons in the Left's War on the Family, 5/4/12)