Posted on 05/19/2008 9:44:34 PM PDT by goldstategop
Americans seem mesmerized by the word "change." And, by golly, they sure got it last week from the California Supreme Court. It is difficult to imagine a single social change greater than redefining marriage from opposite sex to include members of the same sex.
Nothing imaginable -- leftward or rightward -- would constitute as radical a change in the way society is structured as this redefining of marriage for the first time in history: Not another Prohibition, not government taking over all health care, not changing all public education to private schools, not America leaving the United Nations, not rescinding the income tax and replacing it with a consumption tax. Nothing.
Unless California voters amend the California Constitution or Congress amends the U.S. Constitution, four justices of the California Supreme Court will have changed American society more than any four individuals since Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Madison.
And what is particularly amazing is that virtually none of those who support this decision -- let alone the four compassionate justices -- acknowledge this. The mantra of the supporters of this sea change in society is that it's no big deal. Hey, it doesn't affect any heterosexuals' marriage, so what's the problem?
This lack of acknowledgment -- or even awareness -- of how society-changing is this redefinition of marriage is one reason the decision was made. To the four compassionate ones -- and their millions of compassionate supporters -- allowing same-sex marriage is nothing more than what courts did to end legal bans on interracial marriage. The justices and their supporters know not what they did. They think that all they did was extend a "right" that had been unfairly denied to gays.
Another reason for this decision is arrogance. First, the arrogance of four individuals to impose their understanding of what is right and wrong on the rest of society. And second is the arrogance of the four compassionate ones in assuming that all thinkers, theologians, philosophers, religions and moral systems in history were wrong, while they and their supporters have seen a moral light never seen before. Not a single religion or moral philosophical system -- East or West -- since antiquity ever defined marriage as between members of the same sex.
That is one reason the argument that this decision is the same as courts undoing legal bans on marriages between races is false. No major religion -- not Judaism, not Christianity, not Islam, not Buddhism -- ever banned interracial marriage. Some religions have banned marriages with members of other religions. But since these religions allowed anyone of any race to convert, i.e., become a member of that religion, the race or ethnicity of individuals never mattered with regard to marriage. American bans on interracial marriages were not supported by any major religious or moral system; those bans were immoral aberrations, no matter how many religious individuals may have supported them. Justices who overthrew bans on interracial marriages, therefore, had virtually every moral and religious value system since ancient times on their side. But justices who overthrow the ban on same-sex marriage have nothing other their hubris and their notions of compassion on their side.
Since the secular age began, the notion that one should look to religion -- or to any past wisdom -- for one's values has died. Thus, the modern attempts to undo the Judeo-Christian value system as the basis of America's values, and to disparage the Founders as essentially morally flawed individuals (They allowed slavery, didn't they?). The modern secular liberal knows that he is not only morally superior to conservatives; he is morally superior to virtually everyone who ever lived before him.
Which leads to a third reason such a sea change could be so cavalierly imposed by four individuals -- the modern supplanting of wisdom with compassion as the supreme guide in forming society's values and laws. Just as for religious fundamentalists, "the Bible says" ends discussion, for liberal fundamentalists, "compassion says" ends discussion.
If this verdict stands, society as we have known it will change. The California Supreme Court and its millions of supporters are playing with fire. And it will eventually burn future generations in ways we can only begin to imagine.
Outside of the privacy of their homes, young girls will be discouraged from imagining one day marrying their prince charming -- to do so would be declared "heterosexist," morally equivalent to racist. Rather, they will be told to imagine a prince or a princess. Schoolbooks will not be allowed to describe marriage in male-female ways alone. Little girls will be asked by other girls and by teachers if they want one day to marry a man or a woman.
The sexual confusion that same-sex marriage will create among young people is not fully measurable. Suffice it to say that, contrary to the sexual know-nothings who believe that sexual orientation is fixed from birth and permanent, the fact is that sexual orientation is more of a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality. Much of humanity -- especially females -- can enjoy homosexual sex. It is up to society to channel polymorphous human sexuality into an exclusively heterosexual direction -- until now, accomplished through marriage. But that of course is "heterosexism," a bigoted preference for man-woman erotic love, and therefore to be extirpated from society.
Any advocacy of man-woman marriage alone will be regarded morally as hate speech, and shortly thereafter it will be deemed so in law.
Companies that advertise engagement rings will have to show a man putting a ring on a man's finger -- if they show only women fingers, they will be boycotted just as a company having racist ads would be now.
Films that only show man-woman married couples will be regarded as antisocial and as morally irresponsible as films that show people smoking have become.
Traditional Jews and Christians -- i.e. those who believe in a divine scripture -- will be marginalized. Already Catholic groups in Massachusetts have abandoned adoption work since they will only allow a child to be adopted by a married couple as the Bible defines it -- a man and a woman.
Anyone who advocates marriage between a man and a woman will be morally regarded the same as racist. And soon it will be a hate crime.
Indeed -- and this is the ultimate goal of many of the same-sex marriage activists -- the terms "male" and "female," "man" and "woman" will gradually lose their significance. They already are. On the intellectual and cultural left, "male" and "female" are deemed social constructs that have little meaning. That is why same-sex marriage advocates argue that children have no need for both a mother and a father -- the sexes are interchangeable. Whatever a father can do a second mother can do. Whatever a mother can do, a second father can do. Genitalia are the only real differences between the sexes, and even they can be switched at will.
And what will happen after divorce -- which presumably will occur at the same rates as heterosexual divorce? A boy raised by two lesbian mothers who divorce and remarry will then have four mothers and no father.
We have entered something beyond Huxley's "Brave New World." All thanks to the hubris of four individuals. But such hubris never goes unanswered. Our children and their children will pay the price.
Anticipating reactions to this column -- as to all defenses of man-woman marriage -- that it or its author are "homophobic," i.e., bigoted and unworthy of respectful rejoinder, it is important to reaffirm that nothing written here is implicitly, let alone explicitly, anti-gay. I take it as axiomatic that a gay man or woman is created in God's image and as precious as any other human being. And I readily acknowledge that it is unfair when an adult is not allowed to marry the love of his or her choice. But social policy cannot be made solely on the basis of eradicating all of life's unfairness. Thus, we must love the gay person -- and his and or her partner as well. But we must never change the definition of marriage. The price to society and succeeding generations will be too great.
That is why Californians must amend their state's Constitution.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Was there anything worth more fighting for?
It’s the “deconstruction” of marriage, that is the destruction of marriage. The only thing left to say is that, “marriage deserved what it got.”
“Same sex marriage is a newly-coined right that has never existed in all of human history.”
And I bet everything I own that this was not what the Founders of this country had in mind when they wrote the Constitution.
Whatever standing the law forces others to convey to me is not their damn business!</satire>
These liberals want to bring society down to their level, down to their deviancy. With the lawyers on their side, they have amassed quite a team to deficate all over the foundation set by our founding fathers.
The quotation is not strictly accurate, The Roman Caesar Nero, "married" a castratie by taking the role of the husband in one of his unions and in a later "marriage" took the effeminate role. Roman society in his day also had child prostitution, open incest, bestiality, gladiator contests, entertainment consisting of watching people being burned or tortured to dead or killed and eaten by animals etc. Christians and Jews were especially the objects of this barbarism.
Self indulgent depravity is not compassion.
I suspect the founding fathers, who were well versed in classical history, if they had this in mind at all, wrote the constitution with a view to preventing it, as you point out.
People seem to not make a connection that change in and of itself is not inherently good. You can have change, and have it be terrible. The Russian revolution is one of them. The Chinese communist revolution is another.
The Gospel. And the right to tell others about it.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
When can violence be used it that fight?
Was there anything worth more fighting for?
I am not sure that Americans have the stomach to fight for this. I don’t sense the outrage among most people except for on this great site. Day to day people don’t even mention it among those I see. Does anyone else encounter this? It seems to me most don’t care or think it was inevitable anyway.
True, paganism at the time of Nero could hardly be called a moral philosophy.
The problem is the California judges have grown up in a culture that has had a religious and moral framework. Their ruling was an overt act of repudiation of it, a direct assault upon it, and a thumbing their nose at the people all at the same time.
In a sense that makes them more morally degraded than Nero, certainly as to judgment and justice.
I had an argument on YouTube with a couple homosexuals, one of whom is in the military and is fighting don’t ask don’t tell. They are determined to destroy the institution of marriage. gaymilitaryman would not admit that the ideal is for a mom and dad to raise a child. He wants to see the data. This battle is monumental.
On the YouTube I maintained that, once the definition of marriage is changed, anything goes. Ultimately, there will be a guy who will bring a lawsuit to marry his goat. Why not? All you have to do is change marriage again so it can be interspecies. If judges so proclaim it, that is what it will be. Right now, consent and the ability to contract is required. So what. Change that.
Go enjoy the discussion and participate if you wish — http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ov35-fAOyP8
Thank you for posting this excellent essay.
A friend once told me how eager couples were to start families after WWII and how cherished children were at that time.
Marriage and family was sacrosanct.
Buxom women were the ideal.
Gradually, the ideal of woman went from curvy, child bearing hips to flat chested, boyish looking nymphs.
As children became more devalued, so did womanly women.
It’s no wonder society has become so numb to the assault on marriage.
Are there any real men left in California?
And, don't forget that every poll had McClintock beating Bustamante easily in a head-to-head matchup. But geniuses like Sean Hannity decided that the lesser-of-two-liberals strategy was a good idea and used the full weight of his show to support Schwarzenegger.
Given that Founders all believed homosexuality was a serious crime, you'd be right.
It's hard not to feel that way when dictatorial judges essentially are in control of the nation. Making matters worse is the fact the Republican party -- both RINOS and conservative beltway types -- either wish social issues would go away or want to deemphasize them.
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