Civilization Watch: Humpty-Dumpty Logic (Orson Scott Card on Gay Marriage)

The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC / The Ornery American ^ | February 15, 2004 | Orson Scott Card

[Tolik]

I finally got to read the whole article, and is swept in awe. It's deep, insightful, balanced, straightforward. Absolutely brilliant.

I paged people to OSC without having time to read the article, completely sure that I won't be embarrassed. He exceeded my very high expectations of him. BRAVO.

[gobucks]

Tolik, OSC words are indeed insightful ... and yes, please add me to your OSC ping list. To the others I have pinged, I wanted to share OSC's marriage thoughts, and my response, for I thought his article was slightly incomplete.

He didn't mention the wisdom of a man raising a puppy to a dog, for example. (And please, just ignore this ping if you find it annoying ... it isn't meant to be).

It's that desire for normality, that discontent with perpetual adolescent sexuality, that is at least partly behind this hunger for homosexual "marriage."

This statement greatly captures the central theme of the article. But, what OSC doesn't do, along with most articles about this subject, is this: show the way to a 'normal' marriage. This article like so many others points the way of what NOT to do, instead of visualizing the way out.

However, though imitating a 'normal' marriage is what so many married people want, few are satisfied with their experience. And b/c their own marriage is a mess, they feel like they don't have the moral standing to complain regarding the inroads the gays are making on 'gay' marriage.

For Pete's sake, the NY, SF, and Mass stories are simply surreal on TV. Even the gloomiest conservative back in the 1960's wasn't predicting this. But this TV surrealness is real, because of this collective lack of moral standing.

OSC has a great marriage evidently ... it shines behind his own words. However, there are so many marrieds who read these words and yet don't have the faintest clue about what he's experiencing. If you've never tasted chocolate, you can't rave about it, even if you live and work in a chocolate factory.

A huge number of marrieds live like this, but endure nonetheless. They figure the institution will come thru for them some day. And so the feeling of hope helps them endure. They figure entering the marriage institution will help with the pursuit of their personal Holy Grail - feeling grown up, thus tasting the chocolate.

That's why so many of them remain silent regarding the wave of gays seeking to marry (I mean, seeking to grow up); they can empathize with them. As a result, the real marrieds are blindsided by action of the gays, but worse, the inaction of the 'let's play' marrieds. Gay marriage is in truth a Trojan horse, like so many of the other societal ills plaguing us.

And so, from a man who is really married (though not perfectly so, Mrs. GoBucks can testify), here I will add to OSC's statements, and show how to be married from a man's perspective.

Being a married man is like raising a puppy to a dog. It's just far more complicated and humbling. You can't own your wife, of course. But if you walk up the wedding aisle with the correct frame of mind, you understand that re-naming her on her wedding day is very, very much like what happens when you bring your puppy home and give it a name.

Ideally, the father giving away his daughter will make way for the groom to conduct himself in this manner so that his daughter will indeed end up a happy wife. The father named her first, after all, using his own surname.

The sheer number of humans in the USA that can't even bring themselves to acquire, name, and raise a puppy to a dog, and properly care for it.....it's just a tragedy.

The USA is mostly a nation of cat people. Cats, with a litter box, a big bowl of water and a big bowl of food can be left alone for a long, long, time with no ill effects .... they even like it.

But, leave a dog home alone for more than 24 hours and what happens? Oh boy, will your dog make you pay. You dog owners out there get this - but most of the cat people (who voluntarily choose cat-like lives) avoid thinking about this.

To their credit, the cat people at least know better than to risk imposing intense misery on a dog they might bring home, by tormenting it via emotional neglect.

As a married man, I've discovered, with owning two dogs and having a wife, that my wife and my dogs share something in common: I'll regret leaving any of them alone more than 24 hours.

True, these are hyper-politically incorrect statements, and perhaps gross oversimplifications of a complex and sensitive subject.

But, put aside the shock or disgust if you will for a moment, and consider all the dog owners you have ever known. The ones who have well-behaved dogs - where the dog doesn't run the show. Where, just like the well-bahaved kids of the house, they won't jump all over a visitor. It's eye-opening. Think of the number of dogs that jump all over visitors, but the kids wouldn't dream to do that.

Extending this back in time, a woman on her wedding day who seeks to limit or downplay the 'naming' privilege, and responsibility, of her husband is a woman who fails to understand that she's making a terrible mistake.

If she fails to foster this 'responsibility-taking' role, by encouraging her husband-to-be to take the critical 'naming' step, she unintentionally encourages him to adopt within the marriage an attitude of avoiding responsibility. Years of hoping thus begin to pass.

Consider our God in both the Old and New Testaments ... and all the stories of boys who lived destructive lives, but then God interceded, and renamed them. Jacob becomes Israel. Saul becomes Paul. Naming is utterly a spiritual activity. Loving a woman is a physical and emotional activity, but loving your wife is a spiritual activity.

Thus marriage is as much a naming ceremony as anything else (sort of like a baptism ceremony). But too many men don't know how to name their dog, much less anything else. And then, they feel gratitude when 'mom' picks up the slack, and cleans the dog crap from the floor and makes sure it gets fed and cared for.

Gays, thus, are not just harming marriage as OSC rightly states. Gays are attempting to steal how we, the men, name anything. Gays are attempting to turn government officials into the new priests of all 'families', and thus take from us men that privilege. Their agenda is evil, but we men are letting it become fulfilled.

The spiritually secular leftists are only too eager to don the robes. OSC should have somehow added this to his essay, and then the message would have been a bit more complete.

((To all you freepers who patiently read this far, I've noticed so many links to so many subjects (Israel, abortion, leftists, homosexual agenda, God, etc., but a standard FR endorsed set of links to 'how to be married, FREEPER style, are few and far between ... would welcome any links to this effect.

BTW, I said gay marriage is a Trojan horse. The Greeks inside are the polygamists, specifically, the islamic clerics who know what chaos polygamy will visit on christian churches, and how it will stengthen American mosques. The Leftists 'get' this, and welcome the implications to the American system of government.))).

[Paul C. Jesup]

Do not ping me with propaganda. At the social level, it is NOT homosexuality that is the problem, it is the lack of personal responsiblity in one's actions in their day to day lives that is the problem, this goes for BOTH conservatives and liberals.

[gobucks]

Very well ... I'll not do so again. ..."it is the lack of personal responsiblity in one's actions in their day to day lives that is the problem".

Your comment shows what's missing - my comments were a how-to offering to supplant the 'what's missing'.

All I'm looking for here in Freeper land, aside from joining the huge chorus from all who are so well situated to identify what's missing and what's wrong, are how folks here are showing the 'how to do it right' to other folks.

Too often, words here are used to simply silence. To me, this is the primary vacuum liberals see and rush to fill.

[Paul C. Jesup]

The problem with society today is lack of personal responsiblity. This is what is missing. Ofcourse, that is to simple for you to understand.

[gobucks]

Ok, say I accept what you state, and at minimum, I'll accept that I am simple. How is it that you teach someone to shoulder 'personal' responsibility?

How do you, PCJ, work to replace that which is 'missing'?

[.30Carbine]

Dear gobucks, you got me to read the whole thing, which is saying quite a bit considering our history. ( ;

Though I'm not prepared on this thread to enter into a full discussion of it - I haven't even read the lead article yet - I would answer your question about how to lead others to personal resonsibility/wholeness thus: scatter the seeds of the Gospel of Christ.

[.30Carbine]

I really like the Humpty Dumpty quote!

[nopardons]

All in all, a good post, with which I have a small quibble. I am a cat person. My lovely cat (now deceased)would have a fit, when left alone b( when we went out for the evening ) and as Mr.nopardons would quip,our cat would meet us at the door with a rolling pin and give us what-for. This is NOT all that uncommon, since our daughter's cat reacts the same way.

Women, who refuse to take their husband's name,when they marry, are an affront to the whole concept of marriage. Yes, I can understand using one's maiden name, for business purposes, to some extent,but not taking on the husband's name or hyphenating it and making the man use that hyphenated name too, is just too ridiculous and pretentious! The English hyphenating, of the upper classes, was because many of those marriages were NOT love matches, but mergers and the wife's family had produced no male heirs. It was a way of perpetuation the name of a dying out family and the acknowledgment of the wealth and stature, that the wife brought to the marriage.None, NONE, of that is relevant to the recent,feminazi melding and hyphenating of today's American marriage name game!

Children learn by precept and example, what marriage is, or is supposed to be. When they had bad examples at home, the movies, radio shows, and then T.V. programs held out exemplar/idealized versions.This has more or less all gone by the wayside; unfortunately.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Ok, say I accept what you state, and at minimum, I'll accept that I am simple. How is it that you teach someone to shoulder 'personal' responsibility?

Well since, government is the organization that has done the most to destroy personal responsibility and independent thought, I would start there.

[gobucks]

"Well since, government is the organization that has done the most to destroy personal responsibility and independent thought, I would start there."

First, I would state that aetheistic biologists as a group lead the list of organizations who are most responsible.

That said, I think what you mean is that we vote into office the right people, and throw out the bums - given good guys in office, the governed will become 'better'. (PCJ, that's sounds awful lot like leftist thinking, but nevermind.)

Anyway, that presupposes a first cause: unselfish, personal responsibility acceptors who actually do that voting. However, I think we would be in agreement if we stated Congress is a very accurate reflection of just who is taking personal responsibility.

So, you're not really answering my original question, but I'll hazard I'm not being specific enough. So ....

PCJ, how did you, personally, begin to 'take' personal responsibility - why did you stop selfish living, and start unselfish living? Who 'showed' you how to do this?

PCJ, how do you 'show' your kids how to be unselfish, i.e., take personal responsibility (or, what plan would you follow for you future kids, assuming you're not a parent)?

[Paul C. Jesup]

So, you're not really answering my original question,

You asked where to start. I anwsered, so quit with this BS.

Anyway, that presupposes a first cause: unselfish, personal responsibility acceptors who actually do that voting.

Most of those types of people will NOT support a HMB, for example Judge Moore for AL.

I would state that aetheistic biologists as a group lead the list of organizations who are most responsible.

Actually aetheistic socialist/communist politicans and political groups who have replaced God with Government are most responsible. But I don't except you to actually read history.

[Checkers]

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