Talking to the men

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Words don't stop a man from hitting his wife or shooting his girlfriend. But words spoken publicly can start the gradual process of changing minds and reshaping a culture. South Carolina has a horrible record on domestic violence. State lawmakers passed a bill last year to toughen laws in this area, and Gov. Mark Sanford signed the bill into law.

In last week's State of the State address, Sanford made a small, but important, step toward helping change this state's culture. He challenged "every South Carolina man" to live up "to the gentlemanly tradition of our ancestors" and change this state's "deplorable statistics on the domestic violence front." Those words were needed, and more like them need to follow from more state leaders, pastors, football coaches and other role models.