Posted on 07/18/2006 4:20:39 PM PDT by sionnsar
My article “How To Stop Gay Activism In The Episcopal Church” brought an astonishing confession from a gay Episcopal “Reverend” evidencing the true goal of false acolytes now conquering major religious institutions: Spirituality and the Bible itself are to be replaced with gay and lesbian street philosophy.
The vast majority of individuals who oppose same-sex marriage and the feminist take-over of religious institutions bear no grudge towards gays or lesbians. Dispassionate discernment does not constitute discrimination or derision. From an ecclesiastical perspective, homosexuality and same-sex marriage are subjects for healing of the afflicted and are not valid sources for liturgical teaching.
Robert Semes, a retired Episcopal Reverend and Director of the Jefferson Center For Religion and Philosophy, does not understand this, and replied to my article as follows:
I have just finished reading your hateful article “How to Stop Homosexual Activism in the Episcopal Church.” As an out gay Episcopal priest partnered for over thirty years with another gay Episcopal priest, I found your article offensive and oppressive. You and those who hold the asinine views you hold about GLBT persons are the ones the homosexual community can proudly say “We will bury you!” Bigotry has a terminus ad quem beyond which civilized people in this world will not go, and you and your f[deleted] up colleagues will find that point sooner than later. I suppose that white fascist bigots in the 19th and 20th century South felt the same way about the “colored people” ramming civil rights and freedom down their throats” as you allude to the GLBT community doing. Shame on you and your ilk. Why don’t you grow up?
The Rev. Robert Semes
Diocese of OregonTEC
Such vulgarity, profanity, and hate is are not the words a spiritual person whose life is devoted to living and teaching scripture. These are the words of a secular humanist hiding behind a Robe and a closed Bible. And, Semes is apparently teaching this to children in Teens Encounter Christ under the auspices of the Diocese of Oregon.
These words exemplify the methodology of same-sex marriage advocates when they noisily invade churches: They call everyone who does not agree with them horrendous names, such as “patriarchal”, “gay hater”, “woman hater”, or “bigot”. In the feminist tradition, they are “in your face” and all over you. Most nice churchgoers do not know how to handle these hardball political street tactics within the realm of church decorum. To keep the peace, they sit by meekly while radicals take their church over one board seat at a time, and finally appoint a revisionist Minister or Reverend feminist-advocate.
Semes’s statement “We will bury you” is precisely what Nikita Kruschev bellowed at United States representatives to the United Nations in 1956, while banging his shoe on his desk, during a speech by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
Semes again expresses aggressive hegemonist intent in a U.K. Times debate:
“As an Episcopal priest living in a thirty year partnered relationship with another Episcopal priest, denied a civil union or marriage benefits by the Episcopal Church (USA) I must respond to the Anglican Primates communique of 25 February 2005 by stating that I believe that making peace with bigotry (those who have condemned the actions of both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada in extending the episcopate to an openly gay man and the blessing of same-gender relationships and unions), to preserve the unity of the Anglican Communion is not only not a virtue, but also unethical and should be totally rejected. Robert Semes, Oregon, USA”
A further examination of the Jefferson reveals Semes’s “sunny faced” goal: to entirely replace religion and liturgy with contemporary subjective philosophy:
“The Center does not support, encourage, subscribe to, or identify with any specific religious tradition, group, or organization. We get our inspiration from the best of the world’s wisdom traditions. We promote thinking that is not dogmatic, institutional, or authoritarian. Religion, if we really understand the word from its Latin root means “to bind together.” As I see it, religion is whatever gives one’s life meaning. But, we don’t even have to call it religion. Our principal focus here at The Center is on promoting critical thinking and intellectual honesty in all religion and philosophy.”
In 1969, Carol Hanisch wrote an essay that became the feminist model for political activism: “The personal is the political” (at the time, there were no personal solutions). Semes is applying the newer parallel feminist concept: “The personal is the Religious”. Of course, Scripture is an objective moral yardstick and model for harmonious human survival, not an empty vessel to be filled with the personal objectives of those who might not want to study it.
All religions must clean house of feminist same-sex marriage muckrakers immediately. The danger to religion, family and marriage is immediately immense. Feminist advocates are building a supremacist secular institution within churches, modeled after the High Commission Henry VIII created to sieze control of the Church of England. Where the Boy Scouts do not allow gay activists to teach young men, there is no doubt that religious institutions cannot permit them to teach entire families. It is not too late to expunge this dangerous institution.
Religion is the foundation of patriarchy, which is the only institution that provides men standing in family — and therefore legitimate society. In the late 1970’s, radical feminists realized they must destroy all patriarchal institutions, particularly its foundations in Religion. Countless feminist treatises over the years have called for the destruction of patriarchy, marriage, and ultimately — men.
With the adoption of same-sex marriage agenda in the late 1980’s, feminists found the perfect devise to create the ultimate matriarchal end-state: when any two women can “marry” each other, men will have no legitimate place in family, society, or religion. Every legal mechanism is already in place to make this happen, except for same-sex marriage.
Roe v. Wade means that childbearing and the social arrangement under which it occurs is solely a woman’s choice. By extension, children – and therefore the institution of family — are chattel of women as well. Everything about men is optional, except the taking of their incomes.
Anti-family entitlements based on Roe, such as welfare and child support, health-care, and other predatory social supports are insidious drivers that have already aborted half of marriages in America, and today cause 40% of children to be born outside the nurture and protection of heterosexual marriage. These entitlements are collectively the majority of our ballooning federal budget.
Marriage is the healthy exchange of abilities, resources, needs, and wants between men and women. Where men and women bring vastly different resources and abilities to the marriage table, it is quite evident that heterosexual marriage is the only institution that engenders true equality between the sexes. Heterosexual marriage is the “great equalizer”: all physical, economic, social, and culturally-imposed differences are erased and affirmatively settled. In contrast, same-sex marriage would magnify these differences to form a class-society consisting of legitimate members, and men who are not.
Feminists have long claimed that patriarchy and marriage are traps that ab origine constitute domination and enslavement of women. While this may be true in some Taliban and other tyrannical militaristic cultures, it has never been such in America and most modern western civilizations, or found in their religious beliefs or practices.
Modern feminists conveniently lobbied the dictionary meaning of the word “patriarchy” to suit their agenda. In 1947, patriarchy was defined by Miriam-Webster as “A state of social development characterized by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family”. (note the use of the word “development”). The control agenda of modern feminism is reflected in today’s Webster’s definition: “social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power”.
There is no reason for anyone to run from reasonable patriarchal values when feminists hurl false declarations about the (nearly obliterated) western-patriarchal model.
In fact, acquiescence to radical feminism has brought on many of the greatest social, cultural, and economic problems we now face. In his article, The Return of Patriarchy, Phillip Longman expresses the true and benevolent nature of civilized patriarchy:
Patriarchy does not simply mean that men rule. Indeed, it is a particular value system that not only requires men to marry but to marry a woman of proper station. It competes with many other male visions of the good life, and for that reason alone is prone to come in cycles. Yet before it degenerates, it is a cultural regime that serves to keep birthrates high among the affluent, while also maximizing parents’ investments in their children. No advanced civilization has yet learned how to endure without it. ……
Patriarchal societies come in many varieties and evolve through different stages. What they have in common are customs and attitudes that collectively serve to maximize fertility and parental investment in the next generation. Of these, among the most important is the stigmatization of “illegitimate” children. One measure of the degree to which patriarchy has diminished in advanced societies is the growing acceptance of out-of-wedlock births, which have now become the norm in Scandinavian countries, for example.
In practice, the existence of patriarchy in western religious societies not only ensures the greatest degree of equality between men and women, it also engenders the greatest levels of freedom, personal power, happiness, and economic progress.
We can say decisively that America’s addiction to feminism has enslaved about half of men to families without giving them anything in return, left more women and children in poverty than at any other time in American history, and forced women to “do it all” as full-time mothers and workers.
In-effect, we have done to over half of American men what the Taliban do to women: created an arbitrary, forceful system of family laws and policies that gives tremendous power to one sex, while leaving the other at the mercy of a tyrannical and punitive government.
Restoration of patriarchy in Western cultures must begin within the major religions. We can predict America’s future if churches fail to remove radical feminist activists from positions of authority. We are only one law away from creating the feminist equivalent of a Talibanic state. Let everyone who believes in salvation begin this great healing task now.
————————————————-
David R. Usher is Senior Policy Analyst for the True Equality Network, and President of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition
Mr. Usher is a co-founder and former Secretary of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children (5 years). He served as Secretary of the National Congress for Fathers and Children for five years. He was quoted in the October, 10 1996 issue of Time Magazine as an editor of "The Liberator", the oldest Men's Movement publication founded by Richard Doyle. Mr. Usher organized the three largest protests in the history of the men's movement, including the First Wives Club protests (1996 - 25 cities across America), and the "Bridges for Children" protest (2001 - 225 cities around the world). He drove many legislative reforms, including the first state law requiring downward support modifications for military reservists called into active duty [MO-1991], and the nation's toughest move-away law [MO-1998]. His slogan, "We must now grant to fathers the same right to be in the family as we have granted to women in the workplace", has become an often-quoted standard of the pro-marriage reform movement.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. I gather that this twit doesn't know what a 'fascist' is.
It goes much deeper than that. It's radical liberalism. I saw this very same stuff at my first (and last) Episcopal diocesan convention, ca. 1980. It was very, very ugly.
An interesting perspective from the author. The dismantling of social norms for family life ends in "gay marriage" and other perversions - it doesn't start there.
Indeed it does not start there, which is why the remaining faithful within the Episcopal Church are fighting a losing rear-guard action.
I like the quotation: "Patriarchal societies come in many varieties and evolve through different stages. What they have in common are customs and attitudes that collectively serve to maximize fertility and parental investment in the next generation. Of these, among the most important is the stigmatization of “illegitimate” children."
I am reminded of what my wife does when she is teaching college history courses. When the inevitable feminist student starts to go on about how wonderful it is that the patriarchal society has been destroyed, she then slyly questions that person about the specifics of what life is like for the average modern woman who is not in a "patriarchal" relationship, in terms of financial security, poverty, successful child-rearing, health, being treated with respect by men, not being sexually or physically abused by men, not being taken advantage of by men, men taking responsibility for the children they "father", etc...
It's all very innocent -- she just wants to make sure that she understands the feminist correctly -- namely that women are better off now than they were 50 years ago in what for most non-affluent women (and most affluent women as well) are basic quality of life factors.
Of course, everyone in the class but the doctrinaire feminists know the answers to those questions. Many are living the harsh realities of life for women in a non-patriarchal society. Even the feminists say that women have it worse today overall -- and then in the same sentence say (because it is a feminist truth) that women are better off in our non-patriarchal society.
A fascinating cognitive dissonance.
Yes, it is.
A different form is prevalent among many who are opposed to the public agenda of homosexuality, but seem to think that it appeared out of nowhere, rather than at the tail end of almost 100 years of the destruction of heterosexual moral norms.
I am sure this guy doesn't believe in moral absolutes, yet there needs to be some sort of moral absolute to define who the bigot is.
Perhaps he ought to start with the mirror. Homosexuality is a behavior, idiot, not an inanimate skin hue. Why arbitrarily recognize homosexuality if it is part of a person's character and not say there is nothing wrong with kleptomania and legalize their thefts?
Homosexuals are the consummate narcissists, and their values amount to chronic hedonism, self-absorption and emotional immaturity. Hardly values we need spread in our society.
Homosexual activists are Stalinists, ever intolerant of those who dissent from their POV.
For the life of me, I cannot understand the GLBT group in the ECUSA. I shudder to think of what will become of Sunday schools and youth groups and fear a round of lawsuits similiar to what the RCs went through...
"...you and your f[deleted] up colleagues..."
Whoa, nice talk, Rev. Bob. Do you you eat with that mouth? Wait, don't answer that.....
So what if ignorance trumps enlightenment and reason, and the Anglican Communion as we know it breaks up, or tries to “expel” ECUSA. To me, the Anglican Communion isn’t much more than a remnant of the old imperialist and colonial empire that the UK established in the nineteenth century anyway. If it goes, or ECUSA goes, so what?
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