The threat to family and marriage [Jay Bookman alert]

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 7/7/03 | Jay Bookman

[madprof98]

One of the more peculiar claims in today's political debate is the contention that gay marriage will undermine heterosexual marriage. I'm sorry; any logical connection between the two escapes me. I don't understand the mechanism by which one can possibly affect the other.

But that's not surprising. Logic has its limitations in explaining human behavior. In this case, a lot of people are concerned about the decline of family and marriage as social institutions, and I guess it's just human nature to blame whatever seems new and threatening.

In this case, gay marriage.

The problem itself is very real, of course. To their credit, social conservatives have been trying to draw attention to the decline of the family for a long time, and the rest of us are just now catching on. Recent numbers and research back up what many on the right have been saying for years about the consequences of that decline.

However, if there's general agreement now on the problem, there's no agreement whatsoever on what caused it and how to fix it.

Conservatives almost always trace the problem back to the rebelliousness of the '60s, arguing that the era's sexual permissiveness, decline of community standards and "if it feels good, do it" attitude have weakened marriage and parenthood. There's undoubtedly some truth to that assertion.

But that alone doesn't explain it. When I look around this country, I certainly have a hard time believing that it's been taken over by hippies.

What really gave that attitude true staying power, I suspect, was its embrace by corporate business, which saw in that ethos a way to sell a lot more goodies. Sex sells. Greed sells. Greed, after all, is just a monetized version of "if it feels good, do it." Both sentiments free the individual to pursue his or her desire without concern for the impact on others.

There has always been a tension in this country between freedom and responsibility, between the rights of the individual and the individual's obligation to the community. Our genius as a people has been our ability to find a balance between those two competing ideals, to pursue individual freedom while keeping social institutions intact.

But now that balance is disappearing, and it's got us all worried whether we realize it or not. The decline of morals and responsibility decried by social conservatives is the mirror image of the culture of greed and money decried by the left. They share the same root.

Over the past few decades, we have evolved into a culture that celebrates the individual and denigrates the group -- and responsibility to the group -- as a drag on the individual's autonomy. It's naive to think that family and marriage as institutions could somehow be immune to that corrosive trend, that we can abandon and discredit every other sense of obligation to each other while preserving family obligations intact.

However, it's important to keep this in perspective. The desire of many gay Americans to join in a union recognized by the community at large, for example, is itself a touching testimony to the deep human need for company through this life, and for validation and acceptance from the larger group.

I also got a kick out of a recent interview with Dee Snider, the lead singer for the '80s heavy metal group "Twisted Sister." The bad-boy band had initially rejected offers to play over the Fourth of July weekend at two New Jersey amusement parks, in part because they had to agree to clean up their act. They didn't want to play for some stroller-pushing, clean-living crowd, they told their agents. They wanted to play to Twisted Sister fans.

"And they said, 'Dee, your fans are in their 30s; where do you think they are on the Fourth of July weekend? They're out with their families at the amusement parks or the Jersey shore.' And that was like a real rude awakening."

In other words, family and marriage are resilient institutions. With a little bit more attention and respect, I suspect they'll play a central role for quite a few more generations.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Mondays and Thursdays.

[madprof98]

There is just the tiniest grain of truth here, but then comes the standard PC line: Big business is responsible for . . . whatever, in this case the crisis of the American family, but creating new and interesting combinations of people to replace it will make the problem go away. (Jay wins the Cynthia Tucker award for logic.)

[MHGinTN]

The dehumanization process of womb-bound human beings is where to locate the primary corrosive influence on marriage and family. But that's not a simple notion that lends itself to a sound-byte, and we know our citizenry has been trained to assimilate nothing more complex than what may be conveyed in a sound byte. Add that to greed and selfish 'feel good, do it' thinking and you have all that is necessary to destroy the central institution of civilization.

As to 'state approved' marriage between homosexuals, if it can be done without forcing religious institutions to respond likewise, there appears to the article writer, Mr. Bookkman, little to warrant opposing the practice ... and you know the damned lawyers will simply love the increase in divorce business! Does the state sponsoring homosexual marriages bring with it the approval of homosexual adoption into 'untested stability' homes? Does state sponsorship of homosexual marriages bring with it the influence to force any employer to hire even a raving faggot to work in a family oriented or religiously oriented business? Does state sponsorship of homosexual marriages make yet a further mockery of the institution, given the promiscuity (statistics show it rages far worse than heterosexual promiscuity) and degenerate lifestyle of a majority of homosexuals? Where the author of the article cannot find reason to oppose state sponsorship of marriage for degenerates, some might find ample reason to not institutionalize degeneracy ... degeneracy that less than thirty years ago was defined as dangerous aberrant behavior!

[MHGinTN]

The dehumanization process of womb-bound human beings is where to locate the primary corrosive influence on marriage and family. But that's not a simple notion that lends itself to a sound-byte, and we know our citizenry has been trained to assimilate nothing more complex than what may be conveyed in a sound byte. Add that to greed and selfish 'feel good, do it' thinking and you have all that is necessary to destroy the central institution of civilization.

As to 'state approved' marriage between homosexuals, if it can be done without forcing religious institutions to respond likewise, there appears to the article writer, Mr. Bookkman, little to warrant opposing the practice ... and you know the damned lawyers will simply love the increase in divorce business!

Does the state sponsoring homosexual marriages bring with it the approval of homosexual adoption into 'untested stability' homes? Does state sponsorship of homosexual marriages bring with it the influence to force any employer to hire even a raving faggot to work in a family oriented or religiously oriented business? Does state sponsorship of homosexual marriages make yet a further mockery of the institution, given the promiscuity (statistics show it rages far worse than heterosexual promiscuity) and degenerate lifestyle of a majority of homosexuals?

Where the author of the article cannot find reason to oppose state sponsorship of marriage for degenerates, some might find ample reason to not institutionalize degeneracy ... degeneracy that less than thirty years ago was defined as dangerous aberrant behavior!

[Question_Assumptions]

I think the absence of some form of gay civil union is having its own corrosive effect on marriage. As companies provide benefits for domestic partners and such, they are giving heterosexual couples less and less incentive to get married.

[DonQ]

I must admit that I cannot see how regular ("normal") hetero marriage is threatened by permitting or recognizing same-sex unions. Until now, many gay people have gone through the motions of marrying people of the opposite sex, sometimes for the financial and social safety net or some other form of protection, sometimes so they could have a child - even if it was with someone they didn't really love. Plenty of times (judging from ads in the gay tabloids) there will be marriages of convenience between a gay man and a lesbian - they might be nothing more than "good friends" but the pretence of a "normal" hetero marriage gets them social acceptability and advancement.

At least by allowing same-sex unions we can avoid a lot of those sham marriages (and the pain of a hetero who discovers that the spouse didn't really feel an attraction but had an ulterior motive for the marriage).

[GovernmentShrinker]

And the infamous marriage tax penalty -- which everybody agrees is unjust, but nobody can seem to get rid of -- provides plenty of incentive not to get married. It's amazing how much energy "conservatives" can muster over the gay marriage issue, while meekly allowing the idiot tax penalty to continue decade after decade.

[MHGinTN]

Democrats created that obscenity. Now that Pubbies could fix that, they appear to like the tax revenues more than the fundamental institution of civilization, marriage.

[reborn22]

Obviously homosexual "marriage" makes a mockery of real marriage between a man and a woman. It degrades a sacred union blessed by God. In any case, at a time when Christians should be endeavoring to find ways to prevent homosexual persons from giving in to temptation, the last thing we should be supporting is a ceremony that endorses homosexual behavior by a perverted form of "marriage."