Protecting children from family abuse has become a big story in Britain—especially due to the infamous death of "Baby P," a 17-month-old boy who died after suffering more than 50 injuries, for which his mother, her boyfriend and another man lodging with them were convicted, the mother having pleaded guilty to the charge of causing or allowing his death. With an average of four dying from abuse weekly. abuse of babies and small children is fast becoming an embarrassing problem.

Government agencies monitoring these abusive parents or boyfriends have rightly been blamed for serious misjudgments. But society must also bear blame.

Noted columnist Melanie Phillips has written of these cases: "They are the outcome of a process that has been going on for the past three decades and more, in which the fundamental values of civilised society have been systematically trashed and up-ended. They are the result of the doctrine that all lifestyles must be considered equal and that no one has the right to pass judgment on anyone else. Thus, women had a God-given right to bear babies out of wedlock . . . Disapproval of adultery or elective lone parenthood were dismissed as 'Old Testament fundamentalism'" (Daily Mail, Nov. 17, 2008).

Government policy has tended to penalize marriage and reward biblically illicit lifestyles. Phillips concluded that "the people who really have blood on their hands are the progressive intelligentsia who have simply written orderly, married, normative family life out of the script, enforced the doctrines of multi-culturalism and nonjudgmentalism with the zealotry of the fanatic, and caused Britain to descend into an age of barbarism" (ibid.)