Thirteen million unmarried, heterosexual couples live together (2008 U.S. Census data), and researchers believe nearly 60% of couples getting married cohabitate prior to tying the knot.

However, the majority reason given for cohabitation differs from prevailing conception. Although surveys reveal that young people believe cohabitation is a good way to test out a relationship, only 9% of men and 5% of women say that they are cohabiting for that precise reason.

By contrast, nearly half the respondents cited “spending more time together” as the reason for their living under the same roof.

An article in USA Today provides a sampling of data from a new federal study of unmarried young adults, showing that “49% of dating couples and 30% of cohabitors surveyed agree that ‘my religious beliefs suggest that it is wrong for people to live together without being married,’ and “Of those cohabiting, 66% moved in before making plans to marry; 23% planned to marry but weren’t engaged, and 11% moved in when they got engaged.”

I find it fascinating that half of young adults indicate the presence of a religious belief compelling them not to cohabitate. Do we see 50% of the young adult characters in television and movies wrestling with the moral dimension of cohabitation?  By popular depiction of this age-demographic in entertainment, you might think that it is an absolute foregone conclusion that there is no reason not to cohabitate.

As the article also notes, earlier research data released this year in the Journal of Family Psychology “suggests cohabiting before engagement is associated with lower marital satisfaction.”

Thinking with gospel eyes, 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 comes to mind: “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

Whether for the reason of “trying out the relationship,” or for “spending more time together,” cohabitation is a gospel issue in that our bodies are not our own, they belong to another, and we are to glorify the owner with them.

Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said at a press conference in the Senate press gallery on Wednesday afternoon that the Democrats’ summer timetable on health care reform is not attainable. His prediction is a dramatic contrast to Senate Democrats’ hopes of completing a health care reform package in the next three weeks before their long August break.

“The Senate will not pass a [health care] bill before the August recess,” Gregg said. He explained that the Finance Committee, which already slowed down their version of the bill, may not even be done with its own mark ups by that point, and then it will take two or three weeks to debate the bill on the Senate floor.

Democrats are accusing Republicans of slowing down the process and defending a status quo that is in desperate need of health care reform, while Republicans say they cannot support a government-run health care system and they have not even seen a complete bill in committee yet.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Wednesday morning that Democrats will lower the costs of health care, make sure every American has access to quality, affordable care, and give people the power to choose their own doctors, hospitals, and health plans.

Gregg said the Democrats’ bill in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee all boil down to a single-payer system, where bureaucrats come between the patient and the doctor. Republicans have a few counter-proposals, but none of the Republican proposals are being considered in the HELP committee.

Obama has appointed Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, to head the National Institutes of Health.

Collins, once an atheist, eventually found “that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds.”

I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God’s majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

He also began the BioLogos Foundation (highlighted previously on WMB), which drew controversy from both atheists and theists alike, for advocating the compatibility between theism and evolution.

So what is the extent of the ethics pressure that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is under? The Associated Press compiled a list of the ethics complaints filed against Palin, who will step down as governor soon saying she is a victim of “the politics of personal destruction.” Palin said the ethics investigations are unnecessarily consuming state resources.

In all, state officials say they have spent $1,963,840 to answer records requests from the ethics filings and to respond in other ways to them. Records show that since January 1, 2008, the state has spent $296,043 on such investigations.

Since Palin took office, 19 complaints have been filed, with a new one filed since the AP compiled its list at the end of June. Four of the resolved complaints have to do with “Troopergate.” Palin also reimbursed the state over $8,000 for travel with her children.

One of the more bizarre complaints:

Jan. 12: Complaint alleging interference in a job hiring was filed under the name of Edna Birch, a busybody character on the British soap opera Emmerdale. Palin’s attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said no one by that name could be found living in Alaska and the filer refused to use a real name, so the complaint was dismissed Feb. 20.

Palin was also charged with a conflict of interest for wearing gear with the Arctic Cat logo at her husband’s snowmobile race – the company sponsors Todd Palin.

All of these have been dismissed or resolved; four, including the one filed days ago, are pending. The cases allege that Palin has misused the state office for personal or political gain.

Update: TIME magazine’s cover story on Palin this week has this comment about what one of her advisers sees as the source of the trouble:

“A lot of this comes from Washington, D.C. The trail is pretty direct and pretty obvious to us,” says Meg Stapleton, a close Palin adviser in Alaska. Awaiting a flight back to Anchorage from distant Dillingham, Stapleton adds that the anti-Palin offensive seems lifted straight from The Thumpin’, which describes the political strategies of Rahm Emanuel, who is now the White House chief of staff. “It’s the Sarah Palin playbook. It’s how they operate,” Stapleton says.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal just signed a bill expanding conscience protection beyond abortion. Now, physicians and health care workers in Louisiana also have conscience protection for abortion, dispensing the morning-after pill, participating in embryonic stem cell research or embryo cloning, euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.

Just as this new protection comes into law, researchers now say that abortion pills now account for about one quarter of the total abortions. The widespread use of the abortion pill seems to mean that pro-lifers need to adjust their methods for reaching abortion-minded women. Instead of going to a clinic, women are just going to a pharmacy and taking a pill. How can pro-lifers reach these women? Expanding conscience protection can only go so far.

Always the trailblazer, Massachusetts has become the first state to challenge the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). (Back in 2003, Massachusetts made history as the nation’s first state to legalize same-sex marriage.) In a lawsuit lodged against the U.S. government yesterday, the state argues that DOMA interferes with its right to define and regulate marriage as it desires, alleging that DOMA ”constitutes an overreaching and discriminatory federal law.” No response yet from the Justice Department, which has declined to comment until it has had a chance to review the complaint.

In a controversial breakthrough, British scientists at the Northeast England Stem Cell Institute claim to have used embryonic stem cells to create human sperm for the first time.

In the technique developed at Newcastle University, stem cells with XY chromosomes – containing both male and female characteristics – were developed.

A laser was used to separate and isolate the male stem cells and they were then grown in a dish. Researchers saw the cells split and divide, then eventually push out a tail and head and begin to move.

These were shown to produce fully mature, functional sperm, they say.

Although the research, which was published in the Stem Cells and Development journal, has the potential to perhaps one day help infertile men father children, some experts are questioning the validity of the results. Earlier research in mice found that while the technique enabled the test subjects to produce offspring, the progeny all died shortly after they were born.

Good morning!

Today’s quote is from an American president:

“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”

Welcome to our daily (except Sundays) open thread, where you, the commenters, choose the topics of conversation.

About 4.2 billion hours per year are wasted during traffic congestion, according to the Texas Transportation Institute’s new Urban Mobility Report. That is the equivalent of almost one week of work for every commuter.

The report determined how many extra hours drivers spend in their car every year just because of heavy traffic.  Los Angeles is ranked number one in the most recent update, with 70 hours burned every year in congestion; Washington, D.C. ranked 2nd, with 62 hours wasted; and Atlanta was third, with 57 hours spent alternating between the gas and brake pedals.

On the other end, Indianapolis was one of five urban areas to rack up only 39 hours of horn honking, useless lane changing, beard trimming, nail polishing, newspaper reading, or anything else that drivers do while sitting in traffic.

If you are wondering how many hours you waste sitting in traffic every year, you can look for your city here, and see the how much traffic has grown around you over 25 years.  And don’t forget to tell us how you find ways to be productive during all that gridlock.

Over close to my neighborhood, the Prospect Park Y.M.C.A. is changing the name of a class to make fathers more welcome. It used to be “Mommy and Baby.” Now it’s “Parent and Baby.” Maybe not quite the same ring, but the teacher said more and more dads are coming — from just a couple uncomfortable dads at the end of last year to about a third of the class.

The change appears to be the result of several factors: the economic downturn, a generational attitude shift concerning fathering, and a neighborhood where many residents have jobs with flexible schedules, some of which allow work from home.

It reminded me of another column I read a couple weeks ago, in which a young father argued that we need to start changing the language of parenthood. He actually describes going to a “Mommy and Me” class as the only dad, the “Daddy Day Care” jokes, and the realization that, “As a society, we often talk about fathers as less than full partners in the parental relationship.”

The roles that a mother plays in the lives of her children are so integral that to refer to her using language that suggests an occasional, casual participant in the child’s rearing would be, at best, dismissive, and, at worst, offensive. So why isn’t the same true for fathers? Our lexicon for describing what fathers actually do is limited at best: “mothering” is the standard description of what we need when we want to be comforted; “fathering” is a word, just not one I’ve ever heard anyone actually use. …

Despite its obviousness, it bears mention: language matters. Language not only reflects our attitudes and our cultural mores, but it also shapes them. All too often, the language we use to describe fathers and the roles they play suggests bit players in our children’s lives. From we way that we talk about them, it’s clear that fathers aren’t yet entirely welcome in the spaces and communities where we congregate as parents, whether in the real world or online.

Have you seen the recession prompting dads to take a more active role in childcare? And what do you make of this parenting language that seems to diminish a dad’s role?