A Primer Against Gay Marriage

Human Events Online ^ | 11AUG04 | Stephen Baskerville

[familyop]

Peter Sprigg begins his new book on same-sex marriage, Outrage, with a paradox: Most Americans oppose it, "yet in terms of political action, the pro-family, pro-marriage majority has been strangely muted." Sprigg attributes this to a lack of intellectual ammunition and aims to remedy that deficiency with this book.

He is certainly qualified to do so. Director of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies at the Family Research Council (FRC), Sprigg has also co-authored a more scholarly book published by FRC that assembles the scientific research on homosexuality. Some highlights of that research provide the factual foundation for the present book. So while this is avowedly a polemical work, it is based on solid evidence. The result is a concise, clear, and readable book that provides an excellent introduction to where we now stand on perhaps the most emotional issue on the national agenda.

Sprigg briefly but effectively surveys the major arguments in the controversy. He counters what he regards as his opponents' strongest argument: that gay marriage is a "civil right," a suggestion he says is positively insulting to those who have experienced the brutal denial of true civil rights. He shows that the African-American community, where acute family deterioration precludes the luxury of indulging in fashionable social experiments, opposes same-sex marriage by a larger margin than whites.

Sprigg also confronts the false comparison with anti-miscegenation laws, the allegedly unfair denial of financial benefits to gay partners, and the disingenuous federalist argument. On the other hand, he invokes research showing the impact on children of being raised in homosexual households, the unanswered "slippery slope" argument that same-sex marriage must open the door to further redefinitions of marriage (such as polygamy), and the disturbing extent of promiscuity and even pedophilia within gay culture.

His appeal to libertarians is especially valuable. A superficial libertarianism relegates marriage to private life. But the issue is what marriages the state recognizes. More largely, the erosion of family cohesion may be the single most important factor driving the expansion of government power over private life.

Likewise, his brief note on how official recognition of homosexuality, combined with "hate crime" laws, is already curtailing freedom of worship and speech is of interest not only to Christians and might have been worth expanding.

The larger question concerns the assumption on which he predicates the book: Is opposition to same-sex marriage not only widespread but determined enough to be mobilized by providing the right arguments?

Some evidence suggests it is. Citizens recently shut down the congressional voice mail system with calls opposing homosexual marriage. This campaign has certainly had the merit of placing family policy on the front pages and in the election campaign.

But the potential to actually mobilize sustained opposition may be limited. Indeed, some who agree with Sprigg's position oppose his proffered solution, the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, which Congress recently rejected.

There are various reasons for weak public mobilization, but the most significant may relate to the one argument Sprigg does not refute: that "Heterosexuals severing the link between marriage and sexual activity, and marriage and childrearing, has done the most damage to the institution of marriage."

This is the central conundrum that activists on both sides of the issue repeatedly point out: that divorce and out-of-wedlock births pose a more serious threat to marriage than do gay unions. Sprigg does not avoid this argument; he embraces it. Moreover, the book seems to recognize that, sooner or later, it must be confronted squarely. The introduction by FRC President Tony Perkins, sponsor of the nation's first covenant marriage law in Louisiana, begins disarmingly by likening same-sex marriage to no-fault divorce and describes the damage no-fault laws have done to families and children.

Indeed, evidence indicates that the real "redefinition" of marriage took place 30 years ago and today's controversy is merely the logical culmination. As scholar Bryce Christensen argues, gay marriage would probably not be an issue were it not for the weakening of marriage through no-fault divorce laws.

This is a huge can of worms, and it is hardly fair to fault Sprigg for not wishing to open it in a short book with a limited purpose. Just tipping the lid as he and Perkins do sends a bold message.

But if family advocates are to take and keep the moral high ground, and maintain the momentum they have developed over gay marriage, they will eventually have to move beyond these arguments to a more comprehensive defense of the family by challenging the larger policy failures that have eviscerated it. This is a nettle to be grasped, not avoided, and the same-sex marriage controversy could be the critical turning point, presenting an opportunity that may not come again.

Sprigg does mention efforts to roll back no-fault divorce, but these have not been pursued with remotely the same determination as opposition to same-sex marriage or abortion. The divorce laws have smoldered too long on the back burner, awaiting changes in the "culture." But no one ignores same-sex marriage or abortion by waiting for cultural change; they are confronted as public policy issues.

This might activate the forces Sprigg finds perplexingly passive. He argues that gay parenting erodes the status of both mothers and fathers. Yet the status of parents has already been seriously eroded. Ask homeschoolers, victims of spurious child-abuse accusations, or non-custodial parents. (The only error I detected throughout the book was an aside on how "deadbeat dads abandon their kids"--not only an unnecessary concession that has been roundly refuted by recent research but one that extracts the marriage controversy from its larger context: government policy weakening parent-child bonds.) Is it likely that a citizens' revolt against the erosion of parental authority will be motivated by a desire to defend motherhood or fatherhood in the abstract or from parents who need to defend their own motherhood and fatherhood in the concrete?

Sprigg points out that it is the proponents, not the opponents, of redefining marriage who are the public policy innovators. He and his allies are simply responding in defense of traditional marriage. True enough. But having disposed of these issues, Sprigg might consider writing another book, one that widens the debate and takes a morally proactive, rather than reactive, stance.

One might easily be lulled into the illusion that such a fine book puts an end to the conversation. In fact, it is only the beginning.

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Copyright © 2004 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.

[familyop]

Here's a

Ping!

for you!
...good strategy and background info on the homosexual agenda, FMA and all. Human Events is the conservative publication of conservative publications, by the way.

[familyop]

Ping!
Dr. Stephen Baskerville is the President of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children.

[shrinkermd]

One thing left out. Few homosexuals actually want to marry. What they want is to be considered "normal" in spite of biologically and statistically being abnormal. By far more male homosexuals are prone to visit "bath houses" than will ever visit a venue for becoming "married."

To secure the label "normal" they are ready and willing to convince others by assuming the accouterments of normality. In a certain sense they have perverted the concept of "tolerance" to include eliciting coerced, cooperative behavior of heterosexuals by forcing heterosexuals to recognize their marriages. It is a tricky psychological maneuver, but the idea is that they are surely "normal" if they can co-opt the sacrament of marriage.

[squarebarb]

Is the book on Amazon?

[concerned about politics]

He shows that the African-American community, where acute family deterioration precludes the luxury of indulging in fashionable social experiments, opposes same-sex marriage by a larger margin than whites.

But....but...the homosexual sodomites say the blacks are just like them! How can this be?

[familyop]

"Is the book on Amazon?"

You can get a copy here

http://www.hebookservice.com/BookPage.asp?prod_cd=c6537&sour_cd=HEB002901

or here, at Amazon, as you asked.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895260212/qid=1092528858/br=1-2/ref=br_lf_b_2//002-7201021-5906430?v=glance&s=books&n=10705

[John Lenin]

I'm beginning to think that Brittney Spears 2 day marriage was thought up by some lesbo to further tarnish the image of marriage. The deviants will stop at nothing to attain their goals.

[risk]

The review seems a bit incomplete. I'm looking for some better ones. The first one one at Amazon.COM adds some clarity.

Editorial Reviews
From the Inside Flap
Judicial tyranny is enshrining "gay marriage" as law.

For all of recorded history, marriage has meant the uniting of a man and a woman for purposes of raising a family. That's a bedrock American value, and bedrock American law-and has been for the entire history of our country.

But now liberal judges are cooperating with homosexual activists to overturn existing law on marriage, to deny the power of elected legislatures to regulate marriage, and to forbid the will of the people on defining marriage.

That's an outrage. But the American silent majority doesn't know what to do about it. But, finally, in this crucially important new book-Outrage: How Gay Activists and Liberal Judges are Trashing Democracy to Redefine Marriage-Peter Sprigg, director of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies at the Family Research Council, makes sense of the debate over same-sex "marriage" and shows what needs to be done to preserve the most important institution we have, the traditional "natural" family.

Along the way, he demolishes stereotypes, showing why homosexual marriage should be opposed (and often is) by libertarians, Democrats, and even homosexuals themselves.

In Outrage, Sprigg reveals:

* Who started and aggressively pursues the "culture war"-not conservatives, who are continually playing defense, but homosexual activists and radical judges
* Why same-sex marriage is not a "civil right"
* Why marriage is part of civil law in the first place
* The shocking medical and scientific data on homosexual behavior
* How federal and state law has acted in the past to preserve traditional marriage (including requiring Utah to ban polygamy in exchange for statehood)
* How children could pay the price for "gay marriage"
* Why religion-that is, morality-has a legitimate role in the debate
* Why a constitutional amendment is necessary

Sprigg argues that the U.S. Constitution will be amended-either by the U.S. Supreme Court to require homosexual marriage or by the people to forbid it. Only the passage of a Federal Marriage Amendment can preserve and protect our most basic social institution-the marriage of a man and a woman-and push back the judicial tyranny that is trying to undo the will of the people.

Outrage is required reading on the most important domestic issue of our time.

[Huber]

Anyone read this yet?

(PS: My "Unfit for Command" just arrived today from Amazon. My wife, meanwhile looked for it at B&N, where the clerk thought that it would not be out for a few months!)

[ItsOurTimeNow]

- Homosexual Agenda PING -

One more for your Required Reading lists!

(If you want on or off this ping list, please Freepmail me.)

[Stellar Dendrite]

bump

[Trillian]

Ping.

[RonHolzwarth]

"the sacrament of marriage."???

Your Roman Catholicism is showing!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Most Protestants believe that sacraments are an "outward sign of an inward grace", or symbolic of what is taking place or has taken place invisibly. What Protestants consider to be a sacrament differs from the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox positions. Most Protestants consider only baptism and Communion, the usual Protestant term for the Eucharist, to be sacraments. They believe that the other five rites considered to be sacraments are not made sacraments by the New Testament; so while almost all Protestant churches have marriage ceremonies, and many have an ordained clergy and a ceremony conferring their version of holy orders, they do not consider these rites to be sacraments.

[TaxRelief]

Wikipedia is wrong (or shallow, as usual).

Marriage is (or recently was) considered a Sacrament and/or a Covenant in nearly every Christian Church. Though some Christian churches have recently changed their doctrines, this is only because they have caved into pressure from homosexual activists, abandoning their committment to scripture. Even the Unitarian Church referred to marriage as a sacrament until quite recently.

The Muslim religion and the Hindu religion also consider it a Sacrament.

Covenant, Sacrament, Solemn Vow,Solemn Oath- These are just semantic games used to distract from the issue at hand. The anti-family forces will use the differences in the traditional religions to destroy classic family structures and to get what they want.

[shrinkermd]

"Your Roman Catholicism is showing!

I am not a Roman Catholic; however, I fail to see the point. TaxRelief differs from your interpretation of the issue.

[tuesday afternoon]

In a certain sense they have perverted the concept of "tolerance" to include eliciting coerced, cooperative behavior of heterosexuals by forcing heterosexuals to recognize their marriages. It is a tricky psychological maneuver, but the idea is that they are surely "normal" if they can co-opt the sacrament of marriage.

Not to mention they then have more ammo to homosexualize public education.

[Badray]

Thanks for the ping.

I heard from one person who read it that the book is a must read.