Posted on 03/09/2010 12:18:39 PM PST by Kaslin
March 9, 2010, is the first day that same-sex couples in District of Columbia (D.C.) will be able to have legal marriage ceremonies. More than 100 couples — some coming from nearby states — have licenses for ceremonies. So-called same-sex “marriages” are legal in five other states — Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont — where the words “bride and groom” are replaced with the names of the individuals, who are each called “spouse” or “Person A” and “Person B.”
Those who oppose same-sex “marriage” are called by derogatory labels: bigot, narrow-minded, hate-filled among the nicest. Such name-calling obscures the very real problems associated with watering down and denigrating traditional marriage.
Let’s begin with the basic argument that people are “born gay.” Apparently, activists are operating under the assumption that if they say this long enough, people will believe it. Yet the science is not there to substantiate their oft-stated premise that homosexuality is genetic and is immutable. The studies that purport to support the idea have not been replicated; instead, they have been repudiated or considered inconclusive. The generally accepted theory is that some people may be predisposed to emotional vulnerabilities that can be exacerbated by external factors, such as parental approval, social acceptance and gender affirmation. Indeed, a growing number of individuals have chosen to reject the homosexual lifestyle. In addition, there is an acknowledgement, even among homosexuals, that persons can “choose” their sexuality (be bisexual or not).
Let’s look at five other myths associated with same-sex “marriage.”
Myth #1: Having same-sex couples celebrate their love does nothing to harm anybody else’s marriage or damage the institution of marriage.
The argument that “what I do is my business and doesn’t hurt anybody but me” is an old argument that has been refuted in numerous ways. The institution of marriage has existed throughout history in almost every culture to protect women and children. Marriage is already under attack from a promiscuous, me-centered culture that derides any male who “gives up” his rights for altruistic reasons and labels him a “powerless wimp.” Likewise, women who “hold out” for marriage are called “prudes” and worse. These cultural changes are bad enough. Society opens the floodgates of cultural destruction if marriage becomes meaningless. Counterfeits always devalue the real thing. Counterfeit marriage will lead to “anything goes” unions. There will be no legal reason to deny anyone the umbrella of “marriage.” The age of those seeking unions will be irrelevant; their blood relationship won’t matter; the number of partners seeking the ceremony or any other characteristic will become meaningless. The whole institution of marriage will be rendered irrelevant. Just look at Scandinavia: they legalized “same-sex marriage;” now, cohabitation rather than marriage is the prevalent household arrangement.
Myth #2: Same-sex “marriage” is an “equal rights” issue.
Activists argue that same-sex “marriage” is like the civil rights issue of racial equality, that homosexuals “deserve” the right to “marry” and have the same benefits and protections of marriage that heterosexuals enjoy. Any denial of that “right,” they say, violates their “equal rights.” The reality is that the same-sex “marriage” effort is more about getting society’s approval for behavior; it is not about benefits or protections. All American citizens have the right to marriage, and all the protections that homosexuals seek are already embedded in American law. Anyone can legally designate beneficiaries and establish who can or cannot visit them in hospitals. Clearly the push is for approval, mainstreaming an aberrant set of values and condoning certain behaviors; it is not for establishing “rights” that already exist. Marriage is more than a “legal” institution; it is an institution supported by society as a haven for children, the foundation of the family, and the well-spring of civility and national strength. The homosexual activists are seeking a special right, one that denies the human truth that male and female are designed to be “one” and are created as the natural means for propagating the human race.
Myth #3: Any group of people — including homosexual couples — can contribute to the well-being of children and form a productive unit of society.
Conveying marital status to any group of people gives them societal affirmation and establishes them as an essential element of society when the research indicates they are not capable of performing those functions. Social science research sends a clear and unequivocal message: the married couple, mom-and-dad family is best for children — not just good, but best in comparison to any other household arrangement. Other households (headed by anyone other than the married mother and father) are far inferior and damaging to children’s well-being and their futures. Already our children are at risk from the increase in cohabitation and the decline in marriage. If we add same-sex “marriage” into the mix, we are disregarding the best interests of our nation’s children. American children are at risk in carefully-documented ways when they are raised in any household but a married mom-and-dad family: They make worse grades, are likely to drop out of school, more prone to getting into trouble, have greater health problems, are more likely to experiment with drugs and/or alcohol, and will likely engage in early sexual activity and thus be more likely to contract a sexually-transmitted disease, have an abortion(s) and/or teen pregnancy.
Myth #4: Same-sex “marriage” is a matter of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion.
This is one of the more insidious myths related to “same-sex marriage.” There is no way to ignore the fact that same-sex “marriage” violates the deeply-held beliefs of millions of Christian, Jewish and Muslim citizens whose opposition to same-sex “marriage” is founded on central tenets of their faith. Knowing this, the homosexual activists are working through indoctrination programs for the nation’s children. Our public schools are becoming the means through which activists plan to change public opinion and the rule of law. Curriculum programs are instilling the idea that there is no legitimate opposition to homosexuality; instead, any opposition is bigoted and hate-filled. Laws are being changed to force innkeepers, businesses and even our social services to celebrate homosexuality.
More to the point, same-sex “marriage” is already used as a bludgeon to destroy the religious liberties and drive out Christian social services. One recent example: Massachusetts and the District of Columbia have both driven out Catholic adoption agencies, whose moral stand is unacceptable to the homosexual agenda. The radical politics of homosexuality requires orphans to remain without parents at all rather than to allow a Christian agency the religious liberty to find them a home.
Myth #5: “Same-Sex Marriages” are just like heterosexual marriages.
This last myth is probably the one furthest from the truth. In actuality, homosexual unions have a very short lifespan; many of the same-sex “marriages” in Massachusetts are already being dissolved. Further, the health risks associated with homosexual practice are very real and very much in evidence in the emergency rooms of hospitals. There is no denying: Homosexual sex is dangerous and destructive to the human body. Both HIV and HPV are epidemic among homosexual men. Domestic violence is a common problem — twice as prevalent among homosexual couples as in heterosexual ones. Indeed, legally creating a union does not enable two men or two women to become “one flesh,” nor does a legal ceremony give the union sanctity. Instead, the ceremony creates a sham that will devalue all marriages. The government establishes “standards” for measurement and value; to declare a sham union equal to marriage would devalue the “standard” and render all unions worthless and irrelevant. If the U.S. government establishes same-sex “marriages” under law, it will be redefining marriage — completely and irrevocably. Such a powerful statement will contradict the prevailing social science research: There is a big difference between 1) a family created and sanctioned by society when a man and a woman commit to each other and thus form a cohesive unit, and 2) a couple or group of people who live together to form a household in defiance of the prevailing moral codes to render meaningless an institution that has been the bulwark of the family and society throughout history.
Conclusion: The bottom line is that this social issue is a defining moment for mankind, not just this nation. What the homosexual activists are seeking is not a minor shift in the law, but a radical change in the fundamental institution that forms the basis for society. Will we protect marriage as the primary institution protecting women and children, or will we surrender to the forces that claim no one has obligations to others and that adults can do anything they want in their sexual lives regardless of how those actions affect society, especially children, and undermine the public good?
The same way it worked in the centuries of this country's westward expansion.
What do you think? That people moving away from extended family is a new concept?
You still have extended family, no matter what their geographic location. Just because you move, doesn't mean that your cousins, aunts, and uncles are no longer your cousins, aunts, and uncles.
No, it wasn't misunderstood.
By anybody.
You've been granted mercy is all.
A difference without distinction.
Even supposed moral absolutists complete change their supposed moral absolutes from generation to generation.
Actually, they don't.
I'm not saying "let's all sing kumbayah and love each other",
No, you are promoting something far more dangerous.
I'm wondering what a modern conservativism that meaningfully advocated family values would look like.
Conservatives are the only ones that do advocate family values.
We have a clear positive agenda. It's pro marriage, pro-life, pro-God, pro-natural two parent heterosexual parent family.
It's perfectly fine to know what you don't like, but at the same time you have to know what you *like*.
We do know what we like and we've been telling you that and you haven't been listening.
Too much of modern conservative is focused on opposition and too little on coming up with a concrete vision for what an ideal society looks like and how to attain it.
Wrong again. Conservatives are fighting the good fight in maintaining traditional family values that have been shown to work for thousands of years.
This new values stuff you're pushing is what's not going to work and it won't be until it fails miserably and lives are ruined that you will figure it out. It's not an option for some social experiment to see what we can come up with for *new* conservatism. It will take decades to determine if it works and if it doesn't you've just screwed up millions of lives.
We need to get back to what worked for our grandparents and back beyond.
I think one of aspects of conservatism that seems to escape you is that it is up to individuals to decide what is “ideal” and then their individual responsibility to make it happen, personally.It's not that simple. Modern conservatism has mutated considerably(you don't see many temperance leagues these days).Remember the “pursuit” of happiness. As long as there is life and liberty, the pursuit of happiness is each person’s kuleana. (responsibility, area etc).
I do not want any “manifesto” whether socialist, communist, fascist, utopian, Fabian or so-called “conservative”, telling me what ideal is.
Social structure founded on strong (aka “natural”) families, with the eternal spiritual values that are universal (note my Thos. Jefferson quote) is what is needed, along with government doing what it is Constitutionally mandated, and NOT A SPECK MORE.
No new manifestos needed or wanted.
What I'm advocating is organizing political conservatism is a positive way as well as a negative one. Conservatism tends to argue that the church is the primary social element outside of the family for maintaining a stable and just society, but that's cold comfort to someone having to survive going past an inner-city "corner" every day.
It boils down to this, conservatism advocates a strong, cohesive society. That society is breaking apart and *modern conservatism* doesn't offer a coherent vision on how to solve those problems. I think it might be interesting to have a coherent *voluntary* view of what sort of activities would make society stronger given modern day problems.
“Marriage licensing has been a function of government in England (where nearly all American common law derives from) for nearly 800 years. NOBODY was suggesting otherwise until the libertarians decided to side with militant homosexuals a few years back.”
Gubberment involvement in marriage, at least in modern times, has been awful for the institution, it has taught people that gubberment defines marriage and that it’s just another lousy gubberment contract that can be broken and resumed as long as gubberments says so. Well, there’s a reason folks don’t respect their welfare checks too.
But the gays WANT gubberment involvement, because to most people gubberment really does define marriage, and can force people to treat their “marriages” as legit. But in reality two people of the same sex who say they are married and two people who have a piece of paper from the gubberment saying they are married are equally married, which is to say not at all.
Freegards
*Modern* conservatism DOES offer a coherent vision of how to solve those problems.
Get back to stable two parent HETEROSEXUAL parent families and absolute moral values.
This modern stuff, which you are simultaneously condemning as a failure and advocating as the answer is going nowhere.
*Modern conservatism* of the kind you are advocating is NOT conservatism, it’s liberalism. And it’s NOT conservative.
There is no way one can honestly say that a male-female relationship which would have been recognized in almost every society throughout history is the same as a male-male or female-female relationship which would hardly have been recognized in any. The difference is not a result of governmental or religious edict. It is far more fundamental, and no government edict can change it.
Read what metmom has been posting and answer what she says. It’s very simple. Just to re-state, here goes:
Society based on the natural family, already figured out and described.
Check.
Traditional, universal moral principles, as described above various places, and my Thos. Jefferson quote, none of which you acknowledged.
Check.
Local charities, churches, private organizations, etc to help those in need.
Check.
Government doing ONLY what it is Constitutionally mandated to do and NOTHING MORE.
Check.
What more could you possibly want to solve the problem? There is no “new, improved” truth needed.
Marriage predates government and religion. Prior to the existence of government, if I married a woman, the rules were pretty simple. You (bleep) my wife--I kill you.
Such rules no longer work when governments forbid people from killing other people without a governmentally-recognized reason. It thus becomes necessary for government to provide some recognition of a marriage, so as to restore the check on adultery which government itself had removed. What's important to note, however, is that while the marriage has both governmental and religious significance, its real significance is far more fundamental. Government must recognize it, but does not create it.
“Too much of modern conservative is focused on opposition”
The problem is that there is so much we *must* oppose. If we don’t oppose evil,we have ourselves to blame when it wins. The reality of pro *and* con won’t go away. We must stand for what’s right and oppose what’s wrong.
There are alot of people these days who don’t know what evil is.
“Government must recognize it, but does not create it.”
Relying on gubberment to defend something as important as marriage hasn’t worked, at least in my opinion.
Freegards
Excellent......
True. There are also people who deny that evil even exists. But the Bible tells us that good and evil are very real.
No, but if "You (bleep) my wife--I kill you" is no longer allowed, what alternative is there? IMHO, a big part of the problem is that marriage is often seen as being a creation of government and/or religion, and thus being amenable to their terms. Conservatives need to take up the argument that since neither government nor religion created marriage, neither can change its fundamental nature. It is what it is.
While that is true, that is no excuse or justification for not trying to have government defend it.
Government used to defend it when there were laws restricting the attacks on it, but thanks to special interest groups and the libertarian mindset, it isn't any more and would be prohibited from it if they had their way.
Well said!
That’s often because they like evil and think it is “good”. They also think good is “evil”.
I also believe that good and evil are absolute, that it is possible to definitively state “this is wrong”.
Unfortunately, those ‘in power’ think this is an outdated ‘quaint’ notion.
We’re gonna need lots of luck and prayer to get those guys out of office.
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