‘The Sky Is Not Falling’

Now that the media have shared with us their joy over the advent of homosexual “marriage” in California, here’s the other shoe that will drop in the next few weeks.

Get used to this term: “The sky is not falling.” It will be used by pro-gay spokespeople that the media showcase to make the point that nobody will be substantially affected.

Shortly after May 17, 2004, when Mitt Romney’s administration began handing out same-sex marriage licenses in Massachusetts despite no legislative action on the law, which was required under the Massachusetts Constitution, the media eagerly showcased gay activists who said, on cue, “See, the sky is not falling.”

I was debating the marriage issue on college campuses with former Human Rights Campaign leader Elizabeth Birch that spring and summer, and I recall her beginning one presentation by noting that the natural elements had remained intact in the Bay State following the beginning of “gay marriage.”

She assured the young audience, which soaked up her utterly illogical argument, that the “sun still came out, the birds still chirped and the flowers still bloomed,” or something to that effect.

Well, the birds chirped and the flowers bloomed in Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941, as the American fleet lay smoldering.

Yes, sometimes it takes a few years before radical social changes wreak havoc, such as the fallout from the sexual revolution and the rise of the welfare state, which shattered families and led to epidemic levels of promiscuity, divorce, STDs and unwanted pregnancies.

But the “see, nothing has changed?” argument is persuasive for “me-now” minds trained to see only the immediate and to look neither to the past nor the future as important reference points.

But gay activists are under no such illusions as to whether “gay marriage” will have social impact. Here are a few quotes that bear repeating, from my paper “The Case for Marriage,” which I wrote as director of the Culture & Family Institute at Concerned Women for America:

"A middle ground might be to fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society's moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution."

-Michelangelo Signorile, “Bridal Wave,” OUT magazine, December/January 1994, p. 161.

* * *

"[E]nlarging the concept to embrace same-sex couples would necessarily transform it into something new....Extending the right to marry to gay people -- that is, abolishing the traditional gender requirements of marriage -- can be one of the means, perhaps the principal one, through which the institution divests itself of the sexist trappings of the past."

-Tom Stoddard, quoted in Roberta Achtenberg, et al, “Approaching 2000: Meeting the Challenges to San Francisco's Families,” The Final Report of the Mayor’s Task Force on Family Policy, City and County of San Francisco, June 13, 1990, p.1.

* * *

"It is also a chance to wholly transform the definition of family in American culture. It is the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statutes, get education about homosexuality and AIDS into public schools, and, in short, usher in a sea change in how society views and treats us."

- Michelangelo Signorile, “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,” OUT magazine, May 1996, p. 30.

* * *

"Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so. … Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. … As a lesbian, I am fundamentally different from non-lesbian women. …In arguing for the right to legal marriage, lesbians and gay men would be forced to claim that we are just like heterosexual couples, have the same goals and purposes, and vow to structure our lives similarly. … We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society's view of reality."

-Paula Ettelbrick, “Since When Is Marriage a Path to Liberation?,” in William Rubenstein, ed., Lesbians, Gay Men and the Law (New York: The New Press, 1993), pp. 401-405.

And there’s this from pro-homosexual and pro-pedophile author Judith Levine:

"Because American marriage is inextricable from Christianity, it admits participants as Noah let animals onto the ark. But it doesn't have to be that way. In 1972 the National Coalition of Gay Organizations demanded the ‘repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex or numbers.’ Would polygamy invite abuse of child brides, as feminists in Muslim countries and prosecutors in Mormon Utah charge? No. Group marriage could comprise any combination of genders."

- Judith Levine, “Stop the Wedding!: Why Gay Marriage Isn’t Radical Enough,” The Village Voice, July 23-29, 2003. Levine declines to mention that the 1972 Gay Rights Platform also called for abolishing age of consent laws. This is a curious omission since Levine herself has written in favor of lowering the age of consent to 12 for sex between children and adults in her book Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (p. 88).

Remember these statements as you see the media bring the folks on who will assure us all that, “The sky is not falling.”

Robert Knight is director of the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the Media Research Center.

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