The main reason for the West’s embrace of self-destructive ideologies is the erosion of religion, specifically, belief in the Jewish and Christian ethics that lie at the very core of the civilization. Melanie Phillips

Intact opposite-sex marriage ensures children of the persistent presence of their joint biological parents; same-sex marriage ensures the opposite. Melanie Phillips

In 1997, the US Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency reported that the most reliable indicator of violent crime in a community was the proportion of fatherless families. Melanie Phillips

In 2021, more babies in England and Wales were born outside marriage than to wedded couples. Official statistics show that 48.7 percent of babies that year were born to a legal couple, falling below the 50 percent threshold for the first time since records began in 1845. Melanie Phillips

Since cohabitations break down far more frequently than marriages, particularly when cohabiting couples have children, the growth of cohabitation has served as an engine of mass fatherlessness. Melanie Phillips

The most important target of these radicals was the most fundamental building block of Western society—the institution of lifelong monogamous marriage. Melanie Phillips

Owing their genesis to the Marxist doctrine that all human relationships consist of a struggle for power, these ideologies set group against group in a struggle for cultural supremacy and an unending spiral of ever-more extreme positions. Melanie Phillips

Ancient Israel provided the model for thinkers who shaped both kingship in the UK and governance in the US. Biblical Israel, notes David Nirenberg, had always provided a model for Christian politics. Melanie Phillips

The Torah was the world’s first blueprint for social and religious order that sought to reduce the concept of hierarchy. It placed unprecedented emphasis instead on well-being and the dignity of the common person. Melanie Phillips

The Mosaic laws were not enforced by despotic authority but were voluntarily adopted through individual self-discipline. This gave the world the concept of individual accountability. Melanie Phillips