Show script:
In case you didn’t hear the news, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged – to be married.
Yes – suddenly in a world where marriage isn’t supposed to matter, even Taylor Swift thinks marriage matters. And that’s because it does.
In the US, it’s like a royal wedding – the closest they have to royalty – perhaps Taylor Swift will be slightly more congenial than Megan Markle (?) and even the sceptical media who are usually only interested in marriage when they want to redefine it are suddenly very excited.
Here’s Fox News’ coverage – although it’s probably not surprising that they see the bright side
But let me just share some of the commentary on the news website also
Let’s get one thing straight: pop music superstar Taylor Swift is not a conservative role model. For years, she has happily played the poster child for the cultural left, endorsing Democrats, attacking conservatives and using her massive platform to lecture millions of Americans about politics she doesn’t fully understand. But her recent engagement to Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce isn’t about her politics or her persona. It’s about something far more significant: the enduring supremacy of marriage, family and tradition in the face of decades of liberal attempts to tear them down.
For years, the left has worked overtime to convince young Americans that marriage is passé, that commitment is optional and that independence means embracing loneliness as “empowerment.” We’ve been told that tradition is “oppressive,” that masculinity is “toxic” and that the nuclear family is outdated.
They’ve tried to normalize brokenness and sell chaos as freedom. But here’s the reality check: When the most famous pop star on earth announces her engagement—when she embraces the institution of marriage in front of the entire world—it sends a message no amount of leftist propaganda can drown out.
This engagement isn’t a cultural win for Swift. It’s a cultural win for conservatives. It proves that no matter how loudly the left rages against tradition, it cannot erase its fundamental place in human life.
Marriage matters. Family matters. Stability matters. And the very people who mock those values eventually find themselves drawn back to them.
Swift’s engagement to Kelce symbolizes something the left fears most: the pull of reality. Kelce embodies strength, masculinity and rootedness — everything progressives have spent years trying to demonize. Yet here he is, not just in a relationship with the left’s biggest cultural darling but bringing her into the fold of tradition by putting a ring on her finger.
This isn’t just a relationship milestone, it’s a cultural earthquake.
Think about it: Swift’s fan base has long been filled with young women told by progressive elites that marriage is unnecessary, even undesirable. They’ve been told to embrace a life of fleeting hookups, endless self-obsession and rejection of anything resembling stability.
Yet, millions of those same fans are now celebrating her engagement — sharing, liking, posting and swooning over a traditional marriage announcement. In other words, the very demographic the left thought it had locked down is now cheering for an institution conservatives have defended for generations.
And that’s why this moment matters — because culture is upstream of politics. When young women idolize a celebrity who chooses tradition, it normalizes tradition.
When the biggest name in pop culture doesn’t flaunt some radical lifestyle but instead embraces marriage, it forces even the most liberal fans to confront a truth they can’t ignore: Marriage is beautiful, desirable and timeless.
Make no mistake: Swift hasn’t suddenly become a conservative. But what her engagement represents is bigger than her, bigger than Kelce, bigger than celebrity gossip. It represents the undeniable endurance of conservative values. It represents the failure of the left’s decades-long project to erase marriage from our cultural imagination. And it represents yet another reminder that, when the dust settles, tradition always wins.
So let the left stew. Let it grit its teeth as its cultural icon embraces the very institution it has spent years mocking.
Conservatives don’t need Swift on their side to celebrate this victory. Because this moment isn’t about her. It’s about what she can’t escape: the truth that marriage, family and tradition will always outlast the fads, the narratives and the lies of the left.
And that truth is worth celebrating.
It’s exactly what I said when Jacinda Ardern and Clark Gayford got married.
Marriage still matters.
Meanwhile, back in dear old New Zealand, the news is grim.
From 1News
The number of couples getting married or entering into civil unions dropped in 2024, according to Stats NZ, continuing a downward trend in those tying the knot. In 2024, a total of 18,033 couples living in New Zealand got married or entered into a civil union — a 4% drop from 2023, when there were 18,744…
Stats NZ population estimates, projections, and coverage spokesperson Rebekah Hennessey said the rates of marriage had fallen from one generation to the next. She said a range of causes were behind the falling statistics, including changed views on marriage and economic factors.
“Marriage is no longer seen as the only or necessary path for a committed relationship – there are higher proportions of people in de facto relationships than a decade ago, and more recently, around half of babies born have parents that are not married,” Hennessey said.
Here’s their coverage on 1News at 6pm
Note that they don’t ask anyone about the possible impact of declining marriage rates – which I’ll come back to.
And they can’t even find a marriage celebrant. It’s the word we must not say. It’s an “elopement” celebrant.
And apparently we now have “choice”. Apparently we never had that choice before. We all just complied and were all in forced arranged marriages. Our parents never had a choice. Who knew?
Taxpayer funded Radio NZ weren’t interested in the implications of our plummeting marriage rates. Nope.
They were too busy celebrating same-sex so-called “marriages” – which actually increased by 29 over the last year’s figures, and still represent only about 3% of all NZ resident marriages.
StatsNZ insights analyst Rebekah Hennessey told RNZ that same-sex unions as a portion of overall unions were growing strongly.
“… what is particularly interesting is for people who are coming overseas to marry in New Zealand, nine percent of them are same-sex marriages.”
LGBTQIA+ couples across the world were increasingly seeing Aotearoa as the right place to have their wedding, Hennessey said.
Even though it means they still don’t have a legally recognised marriage in their own country.
But small legal practical matters like that aren’t important eh. Virtue signalling is what matters most.
“… Nearly a third of people that came here to marry for a same-sex marriage were from China.” In 2024, 30.9 percent of same-sex unions were between overseas residents.
Oh – so that same sex stuff is actually overseas people bumping up the numbers. Good to know.
Interestingly, just like state broadcaster 1News, taxpayer funded Radio NZ also found a celebrant who wanted to promote “elopements”
The agreed media narrative is clearly that we must not use the word “marriage”.
Although, elopement has always had a slightly negative connotation. According to Wikipedia
Elopement is a marriage which is conducted in a sudden and secretive fashion, sometimes involving a hurried flight away from one’s place of residence together with one’s beloved with the intention of getting married without parental approval.
Family are such a pain eh – apparently. Who needs their blessing?
In fact, just recently, Radio NZ featured an article on hook up culture which made this outlandish statement
“[Marriage is] also very trapping for a woman in a marriage, and studies have shown that the most dangerous man in a woman’s life is her husband.”
This idiotic statement is based on a UN report that actually doesn’t refer to marriage or husbands and wives
Don’t tell Radio NZ that a Government report said that the safest place to be for a woman from domestic violence is in a married relationship.
Or that the safest place for a child from abuse is with their biological father and mother who are married.
Here’s the problem – and this is the viewpoint that the news media will never ask for.
But we’ll say it anyway.
The declining marriage and fertility rates and high family breakdown rates are setting up a ‘perfect storm’ for negative social consequences in New Zealand.
According to the latest stats from Stats NZ, the general marriage rate has plummeted from over 45 per 1,000 eligible people to just 8. That’s almost one-sixth of the peak in 1971.
New Zealanders are also marrying about eight years later in life on average. In 1971, when marriage rates peaked, the median age at first marriage was approximately 21 years for women and 23 years for men. In 2023, the median age of females marrying was 32 years and 33 years for males.
For the first time, the number of children born to unmarried parents has surpassed the number of children born to married parents. In 1961, it was 95% born to married parents.
For Maori, the rate has dropped from 72% to just 20% – 1 in 5 Maori children born to married parents.
And because of the falling marriage rate, we’re having less babies. Our fertility rate is just 1.58. It needs to be 2.2 – but because it’s so low, we have to rely on immigration to boost our workforce.
What happened to “go forth and multiply”
It’s a rejection of life – both the unborn, the end of life with euthanasia, and now even the prospect of having children at all.
Does marriage matter?
The weakening of marriage is one of the most important social issues we are facing.
A 2016 report on child abuse and its causes argued that the ‘elephant in the room’ is family structure, and that the growth of child abuse has accompanied a reduction in marriage and an increase in cohabiting and single-parent families.
The report follows on from an earlier report on child poverty and its similar link to family structure,
and a report on imprisonment rates (released in June 2018). That report stated that if the government doesn’t want to keep building more prisons, it needs to look to the children who are potentially tomorrow’s offenders and acknowledge the role family stability plays.
Our plummeting birth rate should also be sounding alarm bells for politicians and policymakers in New Zealand. With a declining fertility rate comes a reliance on migration to provide for an aging population – but all countries around the world will be competing for that migration, because most countries are facing the same dilemma. We need a younger population to provide a workforce for economic growth. An aging population will also place a burden on the economy through increasing health care, aged care, and other fiscal costs such as the government pension.
Let me just close with two examples of why marriage matters – from two sources that are complete opposites.
Despite the challenges of marriage and motherhood, a new report from the Institute of Family Studies suggests that married mothers are happier than their childless and unmarried counterparts for several reasons, including more regular opportunities for “kissing, hugging and snuggling.”
“Married women are more likely than their unmarried counterparts to report feeling deep connection and meaning in their relationships,” San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge, Brigham Young University professor Jenet Erickson and IFS researchers Wendy Wang and Brad Wilcox conclude in the report released this month titled “In Pursuit: Marriage, Motherhood, and Women’s Well-Being.”
“They are also less likely to be lonely and more likely to receive physical affection — both strong predictors of happiness. Mothers are also more likely to find meaning and purpose in life.”
Even though raising a family comes with many challenges, such as increased stress and reduced personal time, researchers contend that there is “no question that marriage and motherhood are linked to greater female flourishing on many other fronts.”
“Moreover, marriage shapes and magnifies the experience of motherhood,” the researchers wrote.
The findings were derived from responses provided by 3,000 U.S. women, aged 25 to 55, in the Women’s Well-Being Survey conducted by YouGov between March 1 and 12. The data suggests nearly twice as many married mothers, compared to unmarried women without children, reported being “very happy.”
And then from Stats NZ themselves in 2020
Sole parents of dependent children report lower levels of wellbeing across a range of measures, Stats NZ said today.
“The lower life satisfaction ratings illustrate the difficulties many sole parents face across a number of measures that are key to a person’s subjective wellbeing,” wellbeing and housing statistics manager Dr Claire Bretherton said. “Historically, people’s experience in income, health, loneliness, and housing quality had a strong relationship with overall life satisfaction, and sole parents fared poorly across a number of these areas.”
They also reported
- One-third of sole parents experienced poor mental wellbeing
- Housing quality was also more of an issue for sole parents, with the proportions reporting a major problem with dampness or mould and with heating or keeping their house warm in winter around three times those of other New Zealanders.
- Nearly one-fifth of sole parents do not have enough money for everyday needs
Golly, Stats NZ sound like a bunch of right wing bigots, don’t they.
It has always been understood that there is a stability that marriage brings which is not so easily replicated in other partnership arrangements, and which can create the best environment possible for children.
Research is persuasive; children raised by their married biological parents are by far the safest from violence, abuse, poverty, and from prison – and so too are the adults.
Not always – but the exception actually reinforces the norm.
A child’s deepest desire is for their mum and dad to stay together. It’s not always possible – and that’s why divorce and separation and breakdown of family can be so devastating for children.
But often when marriage is promoted, it is interpreted as an attack on solo or divorced parents.
That prevents us from recognising the benefits of marriage supported by decades of research.
In virtually every category that social science has measured, children and adults do better when parents get married and stay married – provided there is no presence of high conflict or violence.
This is not a criticism of solo parents. They deserve to be honoured for their hard work and sacrifice.
It simply acknowledges the benefits of the institution of marriage.
Radio NZ and 1News don’t seem to want to tell you, but even Taetae thinks marriage is cool.
