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4A ♦ SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2006 Mansion ® ailg djtrurrctl OPINION Daniel F. Evans Editor and Publisher Don Moncrief Managing Editor Voter ID law works OK The Voter ID law did not turn out to be so bad, after all. The first test of the Georgia law was in Twiggs County this week and everything went well. Opponents of the law have predicted dire results when a election was held under the law, which requires that voters produce a picture ID card. Anyone interested in protecting the integrity of voting in Georgia has to believe that the Voter ID law is a good one. We have con cern about the motives of opponents of the law. It certainly does not deprive anyone of a right to vote. It cer tainly is not a poll tax, as some opponents claim, since the state will provide a picture ID card free to anyone without one. Georgia has a history in the past of seeing tombstones vote and seeing one person vote several times under different names. The Voter ID law prohibits these abuses. We look forward to future elections to ver ify the importance and validity of this law. Perdue hits a home run Gov. Sonny Perdue struck a popular note this week when he said that the first thing he will do when reelected is get rid of the state income tax on retirees. We assume that he was referring to seniors who are in retirement. This message from the governor as he seeks a second term offers financial relief to a large segment of Georgians who are find ing it hard to make ends meet. Being able to keep the six percent of their retirement income that now goes to the state will be a big boost to the standard of living of millions in this state. • It is not uncommon for candidates for pub lic office to make big promises. This could be construed as “just politics” if it did not come from the mouth of Sonny Perdue. We know him as a man of honor who will do his very best to live up to every promise that he makes. This promise certainly gives him a leg up in his reelectipn campaign. Worth Repeating “The first nine pages of the Internal Revenue Code define income; the remaining 1,100 pages spin the web of exceptions and preferences.” Warren Magnuson U. S. Congressman & U. S. Senator (Democrat, WA) HOW TO SUBMIT LETTERS We encourage readers to submit letters to the editor. Letters should not exceed 350 words and must include the writer’s name, address and telephone number. All letters printed in The Daily Journal will appear with the writer’s name and hometown - we do not publish anonymous letters. The newspaper reserves the right to edit or reject letters for reasons of grammar, punctuation, taste and brevity. Letter writers are asked to submit no more than one letter per person per week. We cannot guarantee that a letter will be printed on a specific date. The Home Journal prefers that letters be typed. Letters to the editor are published in the order they are received as space permits. A Journal employee will call to verify the author of each letter. There are three ways to submit a letter to the edi tor: E-mail it to hhj@evansnewspapers.com, mail it to The Houston Daily Journal at P.O. Box 1910, Perry, GA 31069, or drop it off at 1210 Washington St. in Perry - between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Julie B. Evans Vice President Foy S. Evans Editor Emeritus We have concern about the motives of opponents of the law. It certainly does not deprive anyone of a right to vote. It certainly is not a poll tax, as some opponents claim, since the state wHI provide a picture ID card free to anyone without one. No Butts about it—SL John worthy I got satisfaction when I learned that the Houston County Board of Education was naming the Perry High School football stadium in honor of Herb St. John. I first became aware of him when he played football for the Georgia Bulldogs. I was a student in the School of Law in 1946. Herb played for the one and only Wally Butts. Today’s breed of football players could not have played for Wally Butts. He was tough. He was a great disciplinarian. He put up with no fool ishness. And, for the record, Wally Butts could not coach today’s players. They are too spoiled to be a Wally Butts Bulldog. He does not get credit for one of his most important contributions to college football. At the time he began coaching, teams depended almost sole ly on the run. Butts was an innovator who made passing a part of his offen sive game and other colleges soon fol lowed suit. Wally was one of a kind and a friend from pre-World War days, when I first covered the Bulldogs for the Macon newspaper. While I was a student after the war Wally made it easy for me to sell numerous sports articles to nation al magazines about himself and a team that included John Donaldson, Charlie Trippi, Johnny Rauch, and, of course, Herb StJohn. Herb StJohn was named All- American at Georgia in 1946, at a time when there were only 11 All-Americans on the team named by Grantland Rice. He returned home to coach in Perry and became a legend in his own right. ■ ■■ If you have any doubts how irrel evant the United Nations is, just con sider that actor George Clooney, hardly a heavyweight on international affairs, was invited to speak before the Security ceooe CREATORS ATE iHC "Test-driving" may damage your relationship Most people shopping for a new car want to test drive the vehi cle they’re considering before writing the check. It just makes sense to ensure that we’re getting the right vehicle, that it will meet our needs and fit our lifestyle. But transferring that thinking to choosing a mate does not result in the same assurance. In fact, test driving a marriage by living together first is actually the equivalent of putting sugar in your gas tank before you drive it off the lot. And the result can be just as damaging. Many who “test-drive” potential spouses by living with them before marriage don’t realize that there is a strong link between cohabitation and the wreck of that relationship later on, decreased safety for both them and their future children, and less satisfaction and contentment with the relationship. Research suggests that rather than ensuring against marital difficulty and divorce by giving couples a chance to test each other out, cohabi tation has a negative impact on those relationships that later progress to marriage. While six out of 10 high school seniors surveyed believe that cohabiting will better prepare them for marriage, cou ples who live together before marriage are 46 percent more likely to divorce than those who do not. In fact, the preponderance of data showing that cohabitation increases the likelihood of divorce has caused Glenn T. Stanton, analyst and author on the topics of marriage and sexuality, to conclude, “There is really no debate in the social science literature on whether premari tal cohabitation increases a couple’s risk of divorce. It does.” Some people who live together before getting married do so with what they would consider to be noble reasons. They hope not to repeat the errors of their divorcing parents. But the deck seems to be stacked against them from the start, and an abundance of research bears this out. Cohabiting couples do not feel as secure in their partner’s love as mar ried couples - for good reason. In any given year, men are four times and women eight times more likely to cheat on their partner in a cohabiting rela- OPINION Foy Evans Columnist loyevansl9@cox.net Council. ■ ■■ The Air Force is spending millions of dollars on development of non-lethal weapons, and the general in charge of the project wants to test them on Americans first, so as not to offend an enemy. Why not develop more lethal weapons and use them without politi cians setting rules of engagement that are favorable to the enemy? ■ ■■ Though it speaks poorly for Americans, millions of them get most or all of their national and interna tional news from the Evening News on NBC, CBS and ABC. How much hard news do they really get? An analysis of last week’s news programs on those networks shows that CBS aired 18 minutes of hard news, ABC 46 minutes and NBC 44 minutes. Getting by on that little information, it is no wonder that so many in this country cannot name the vice-president, secretary of defense or secretary of state, among other government officials. ■ ■■ I’m going to stop buying any prod uct that has a mail-in rebate to get the price down to its advertised price. For some reason I receive checks for only about half of the rebates I send off for. The largest rebate that I never tionship than in a marriage. Possibly as a result of increased feelings of instability, cohabiting men and women are more depressed than married cou ples. They also report less overall sat isfaction with their relationship and sex life. Another troubling statistic for cohab iting couples is the link between cohab itation and violence against women and children. Cohabiting couples are three times as likely to become physi cally aggressive than married couples. Children who live with parents in a cohabiting relationship are more likely to be physically abused, have behavior al and emotional problems, live in pov erty, and struggle academically than children of married parents. If one of the partners is not the child’s bio logical parent, the child is 33 percent more likely to suffer severe abuse and has a 73 percent higher risk of dying from abuse than a child with married parents. These statistics are particularly trou bling because nearly half of cohabiting couples between ages 25 and 34 have children - and 70 percent of those children are biologically related to only one partner. I’ve been asked, “How can this be true? Doesn’t it make sense to live as if we’re married to see if our chemis try is right, whether our values and priorities line up, to ensure I’m really in love?” Actually, no. In the end, it doesn’t work that way, as the evidence clearly indicates. Why are couples who live together more likely to divorce once they do marry? One possible reason is that cohabiting couples develop an “escape route” mindset: if the relationship isn’t working, they can walk out. After marriage, that mindset remains. They tell themselves, “If it’s not working for Bin /ME jgi -fa / ' Randy Hicks Columnist Georgia Family Council HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL received happened this way: I was required to send the original bar code for the product and a receipt from the store, which I did. About two months later I received a letter advising me that the only was I could get the rebate was to send them the original bar code, which they already had. My best efforts were futile. I have suspected for a long time that rebates are a way that many manufacturers make an extra profit on items they sell. ■ ■■ Talk about turning fire protection in unincorporated Houston County north of Highway 96 over to the city of Warner Robins is meeting with luke warm acceptance by some of the people who will be affected. Some county resi dents are downright hostile to the idea and the possibility of paying for it. Some opponents say they do not need consolidated fire service because, even though they live in the county, “the fire department will come if needed.” That is true, with the agreement between the city and county that exists today. In a sense, it passes on to city residents the responsibility of funding and providing a certain amount of pro tection to county residents. There was a time when a line was drawn between areas that were served and firefighters were not permitted to respond do a fire outside the city limits. During this time, at least one mayor forbade his firefighters to go beyond the city limits, and at least one home I know of adjacent to the city limits burned quite a while before county firefighters got there. The city firemen could have mini mized the damage but didn’t. This probably led to the mutual agreement that exists today, which, in effect, extends Warner Robins’ expensive fire protection into the unincorporated area without any offsetting compensation. me, I’ll leave,” rather than, “If it’s not working, I must do whatever necessary to make it work.” Generally speaking, it seems that the cohabiting person is asking a ques tion that is ill-suited for marriage. The nature of cohabitation prompts the partners to ask, “Is this working for me? Is he or she giving me everything I need?” When the relationship stops centering on them, they start looking for an exit. Marriage demands something total ly different from us. While this isn’t always easy to do in a marriage, the questions we need to be asking are, “Is my spouse satisfied in this relation ship? Am I providing my spouse with what he or she needs to be fulfilled, success ful, and joyful?” The wonder of marriage comes from seeing your spouse live out their love and commitment. As a couple focuses on the other person’s happiness and fulfillment, standing on the foundation of a marriage commitment, their rela tionship is much more likely to grow, deepen and mature into the stable, rewarding partnership most people hope for but don’t find by cohabiting. It’s true that couples should test their compatibility before marriage, but they can accomplish that purpose without increasing their risk of mari tal difficulty and divorce. Pre-marital counseling is a proven and risk-free method to determine potential person ality clashes and conflict areas without compromising couples’ attitudes about commitment to each other. Committing to your partner and dem onstrating your commitment through marriage is harder - and, at first, scarier - than cohabiting. But it is ulti mately one of the most important steps you can take to make your relationship lasting and satisfying. And it’s a deci sion much more likely to stand the test of time. Georgia Family Council is a non-prof it organization that works to strength en and defend the family in Georgia by impacting communities, shaping laws and influencing culture. For more information, go to www.georgiafamily. org, (770) 242-0001 and gregg@gafam. org.