Posted on 05/20/2004 12:56:33 PM PDT by NYer
Cultural tsunamis, like those that begin under oceans, are caused by something deep within. When high water hits the shore, it is the result of a subterranean earthquake. When the state of Massachusetts last Monday began offering marriage to people of the same sex, this ‘‘wave’’ was preceded by a seismic shift in the moral tectonic plates.
The Old Testament Book of Judges — part of a wisdom and truth long discarded by the ‘‘In Dow Jones we trust’’ crowd — said it best: ‘‘In those days there were no kings and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.’’ Once that shift has taken place in sufficient numbers, once we become indifferent to immutable truths, the floodtide is not a matter of if but when.
Legally, the shift began in 1993 when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that barring same-sex couples from ‘‘marrying’’ might violate the state constitution’s prohibition on sexual discrimination and must be justified by a compelling reason. Morally, the earthquake occurred much earlier.
The shift from personal responsibility, accountability, putting the greater good before personal pleasure, affluence and ‘‘feelings,’’ and what once was known as ‘‘the fear of God’’ began following World War II. Consumption and pleasure replaced self-control and acting on behalf of the general welfare. Trying to remind us of the benefits of restraint in 1979 (when it was already too late), the late Bishop Fulton J. Sheen delivered an address in Washington in which he asked how a football field is defined. ‘‘By its boundaries,’’ he said. There are now no boundaries in America. Any rule is potentially viewed as oppressive and any law — whether legal or moral — is up for debate, negotiation and overturning if it impedes a single individual from fulfilling his or her desire.
A Utah polygamist challenged his conviction before the state supreme court, employing the ‘‘reasoning’’ behind the same-sex ‘‘marriage’’ law in Massachusetts in arguing his ‘‘rights’’ have been denied.
Who is to say the polygamist, Tom Green, is wrong when the boundaries have been removed? On what legal or moral basis will people who wish to marry more than one person, or a close relative, be denied their wish?
The former governor of Oregon, Neil Goldschmidt, admits to having had sex with a 14-year-old girl when he was mayor of Portland. In most places that’s called statutory rape, but the Oregonian newspaper at first chose to categorize it as adultery. Even adultery and statutory rape might soon be up for elimination as ‘‘stigmas’’ because the concepts will be found to be biblically based and, thus, deemed unconstitutional by activist judges who see themselves as demigods.
Does that idea outrage you? Perhaps you think that will never happen. It goes too far. That was once said of same-sex marriage. The International Olympic Committee last Monday cleared transsexuals to compete in the Olympics for the first time providing their new gender has been legally recognized and they have gone through a minimum two-year period of postoperative hormone therapy. Thank goodness some standard remains.
‘‘Pro-family’’ groups have given it their best shot, but this debate is over. They would do better to spend their energy and resources building up their side of the cultural divide and demonstrating how their own precepts are supposed to work. Divorce remains a great threat to family stability, and there are far more heterosexuals divorcing and cohabiting than homosexuals wishing to ‘‘marry.’’ If conservative religious people wish to exert maximum influence on culture, they will redirect their attention to repairing their own cracked foundation. An improved heterosexual family structure will do more for those families and the greater good than attempts to halt the inevitable. A topical solution does not cure a skin disease whose source is far deeper.
Paul the Apostle long ago saw what happens when people remove boundaries: ‘‘For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.’’ (2 Timothy 4:3).
That day has arrived like a tsunami in Massachusetts and soon in the other 49 states. It’s because of the earthquake that cracked our foundation.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist and a host on Fox News Channel. Readers may also leave e-mail at www.calthomas.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Thursday.
The same arguments that homosexuals have used to justify allowing same-sex marriages can now be used by polygamists to justify polygamous marriages. Homosexuals claim that it is discriminatory to not allow homosexuals to marry, and that it is wrong to prevent people who love each other and commit themselves to each other from marrying. I can very easily imagine these very same words coming out of the mouth of polygamists as they argue their case in the courts and in front of the media. As far as making the argument that the tradition of marriage should be only between two people, for thousands of years the tradition of marriage had only been between a man and a women. I would hate to see polygamous marriages become legal, just as I hate to see same-sex marriages become legal. But once you give one special interest group a certain right or privilege, it will be difficult to keep other special interest groups from demanding that same right or privilege.
"we can thank the heteros for demolishing the union such that homosexuals were in a position to claim equivalency in the first place."
This, I agree with. Sex is way more important than our sex-obsessed culture gives it credit for. Contraception, once accepted, is what makes gay "marriage" even "thinkable" in our wildest dreams. Not that most contracepting couples would think that their choice justifies homosexual sexual acts; and indeed, it does not; but it does lay the groundwork for the logic of it. Abortion does the same thing. I.E. sexual pleasure can he had without the possibility of reproduction . . .
I do, however, respectfully disagree with your point that homosexuals can enjoy the unitive perogatives of sexual giving. You can not truly unify things which are physically and even ontologically unsuited for union . . .
The need for tenderness and physical closeness aside, anal sex is only a sad (and unhealthy) imitation of sexual union. It is NOT sexual union. The anus is NOT a sex organ, for one thing.
==== Do you believe all married couples, regardless of their financial and/or emotional situations, should be having and continuously having children until they are no longer physiologically able?
What's your Modest Proposal?
Kids for only those with sufficient Cash?
Abort the progeny of the Unfit?
And who decides?
"she will lose. End of story"
Quite: even if she were the best woman (DNA-wise) in the Universe -- she would lose to a man (DNA-wise), in sports where muscle and bone structure make a difference.
To be fair, they would have to have competition between DNA-women; between DNA-men; between DNA-women who have been redefined as men; and between DNA-men who have been redefined as women. (Four groupings instead of two; and it would be quite easy to get a medal in two of those, it seems to me.) Otherwise, you cannot control for the sexual influences upon the growth and development of the body. OR we will have to just throw everyone in the same pot . . . and women will lose the capability to excel among their own.
"continuously having children "
Not at all; merely that one does not use artificial means to block the natural reproductive potential of the marital act.
=== I do, however, respectfully disagree with your point that homosexuals can enjoy the unitive perogatives of sexual giving
I don't think the tightest and longest lasting of the unions actually end up revolving around sex even if they started out that way.
However disordered at its essence, the bond is there. I'm not going to defend homosexuality but neither am I going to pretend "equivalence" where these 8, 16, 34, 50 year monogamous relationships and the "no fault" divorce crowd are concerned.
Their hearts are not for me to judge.
Thomas appears to concede the debate is over, and I can't say I disagree with him. FMA is an election year ploy by the president and will never become a part of the constitution. The momentum for gay marriage will continue to accelerate.
Better to "build up our side of the cultural divide," as Thomas suggests. Walk the walk. Keep your family intact and love your spouse and kids like you really mean it. In time the kids/guinea pigs who are raised in gay families are going to have a lot to say about the gay marriage experiment, mostly about identity crisis, trauma, confusion and pain. Their testimony might help open people's eyes to the absurdity of having two daddies or two mommies. But until they are present in society in great enough numbers to make an impact, something that probably won't happen for another twenty years minimum, the gay train will be whistling down the tracks, and there's not really a whole helluva lot conservatives can do about it.
How true!
Don't count me among the "no fault" divorce crowd, either. How many marriages would have stayed intact with more perseverence, were the "no fault" option not lurking ominously on the horizon?
However, the emotional need to be "one" with another does not make sexual exercises unitive, where sexual union is physically impossible. Human beings feel the need for unitive love; it cannot be had outside heterosexual marriage. Anything else is wishful thinking. And I totally agree that we are not to judge others' hearts. We can, however, look at the overal situation from a logical perspective.
>>Thus self-destructs the idea of meaningful competition. How can a woman compete with someone who grew to full stature under the influence of male hormones (bone and muscle structure, etc) even if he has been taking female hormones for the past two years?!?
I am really not worried at all about this. Nobody pathetic enough to try to change their sex in the first place will have the patience and will to be an olympic athelete. It will be many years, if ever, before any transexual (meaning somebody who has actually had the operations, not just some male athlete dressed as a female) can beat the finest female atheletes in the world. In fact, I look forward to watching the female athletes kick transexual butt all over Athens.
I'm as concerned as you are about the US acceptance of depravity considered normal by our court system. I live in MASS, and had the issue of homosexual marriage been put to a vote, it would have been defeated soundly. Our courts systems, and to a lesser degree, our legislators, have been compromised by homosexual activists. They've been infiltrated by staffers that have promoting the homosexual agenda as their number one issue. We need to use the same strategy: take back the legislators; remove the activist judges.
Bump.
Carpet samples?
Can you say, Rene Richards?
LAMDA and ACTUP could all be ON STAGE with EfnK, and his news media propaganda machine would make sure that no American sheeple ever sees it on television. In short, he has no worries. What the commies don't want us to see, we will not see.
I believe that was already tabled. (public outcry) It keeps circulating like an urban legend.
Blame the ABA. This lawyers leftist guild created a model divorce code that SPECIFICALLY sought to remove children from marriage and push children as an "accessory" to couples.
I believe the next legal step should be to pass laws which alow children to have only ONE mother and ONE father. This happens all the time in divorce court where parties put in writing that the child will not be taught or conditioned to call anyone else mother or father.
This will terminate the whole heather has two mentally ill mothers.
Geez that is a fake. It is not being done. It is BS.
The homosexual went into the courts BECAUSE the courts are NOT democratic, they are not there to be the will of the people.
The next step is to hang this around the democrat parties neck like a noose and use it to hang them into oblivion. There must never again be a viable democrat party candidate ANYWHERE.
Ping.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.