Robert George sets the record straight:
So there is a debate about whether Christians are obsessed with homosexuality and abortion. Well, some people seem to be obsessed with homosexuality and abortion, but is it Christians? I don’t think so. For heaven’s sake, just tune in to network TV for a few hours, or watch the Academy Awards broadcast, or visit a university, or talk to people in Hollywood or San Francisco or Hyde Park or on the Upper West Side. Is there a cause more fashionable in the elite sector of the culture than “gay rights”? Many universities have a half dozen or more LGBTQ, etc. organizations and support groups (not to mention official university offices to provide support and even academic departments); few have support groups for morally conservative students wishing to live chaste lives. Dissent from the campus orthodoxy is scarcely tolerated in some universities and not tolerated at all in others. And who is it, by the way, who is insisting on their views about homosexuality (and sexuality generally) being taught to children in public schools—even over parental objections? Christians? Ha.
April 6th, 2011 | 9:11 am
I’m a 50 year old Catholic, and in all my years attending Mass, I have NEVER heard a single sermon on homosexuality.
Have I heard sermons on abortion? Yes- since 1973, once a year, right around the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, I have heard a perfunctory pro-life sermon.
That’s it. That’s one reason it doesn’t surprise me that so many Catholics are pro-choice and support gay marriage. Their pastors sure never made much of an effort to teach them what the Church’s position.
April 6th, 2011 | 10:28 am
You’re probably right that Catholics aren’t obsessed with homosexuality. That, unfortunately, is not the case among the Fundamentalist Protestant crowd, which has no shortage of people crying from the rooftops that “the homosexual agenda” (whatever that is) is bringing about the decline and fall of Western civilization. The American Family Association, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) and Concerned Women for America come to mind. Check their websites; unfortunately they’re making Christianity synonymous with bigotry.
April 6th, 2011 | 10:31 am
I’m with astorian. Pro-life homilies about once a year around Roe v. Wade time. I heard sermons in which homosexuality was condemned, periodically until about the late 1990s. Then, not at all – and never since. Oh, by the way, I left evangelical/reformed churches in 2000 – and entered the Roman Catholic Church …
April 6th, 2011 | 10:35 am
I’ve often thought that for modern secular liberals to accuse Christians of being obsessed with sex is rather like an arsonist accusing the FDNY of being obsessed with putting out fires.
April 6th, 2011 | 11:27 am
[...] Obsessed with Homosexuality? Who is? – Robert P. George demolishes the red herring often thrown at us. The reality is not what they accuse. In fact, the opposite is true. Love his concluding thought (which, I think he’d agree, you could strike “Catholic” for “protestant” and “priest” for “pastor” and the conclusion is the same): If you are a Catholic who sometimes watches network television, ask yourself these two questions: How often have you heard your priest preach on homosexuality and abortion? How often have you watched a preachy TV show or movie (or an interview with an actor or singer or other celebrity) pushing a liberal line about sex or abortion? (H/T: Joe Carter) [...]
April 6th, 2011 | 11:57 am
which has no shortage of people crying from the rooftops that “the homosexual agenda” (whatever that is)
The “homosexual agenda” is believed to be a concerted effort to defeat “family values” by redefining “family” in a way that excludes biological kinship.
Biological kinship is an essential component in traditional families. If the definition is changed so that people can cherry-pick who is and is not a member of their family (the way the same crowd cherry-picks their spirituality and their morality), there will inevitably be a shift from the family unit as the basic social unit.
Those who like having the family as a basic social unit should want to see the definition of “family” remain intact.
Those who want to see the government as the basic social unit – the entity that nurtures us from birth to death, bears primary responsibility for raising and providing for children and old age, etc. (and in return can demand total control over who and what we are, what we can think/feel/say/etc.), should vote for a redefinition of “family”, because the idea that your family is anyone you “choose” is inherently unstable, and the government will be the ones in charge of deciding who is related to whom anyway.
April 6th, 2011 | 12:58 pm
I was just emailed the following announcement:
http://www.indiana.edu/~gender/postposttranssexual-conference.html
Anne Enke: “Telling Cis-Stories: Historical Narratives and the Reiteration of Opposing Bodies”
Steven Davis: “Hopeful Monsters: Pulp Feminism and Transgender Studies in C. L. Moore”
Aren Aizura: “Feminine Transformations: Gender Reassignment Surgical Tourism in Thailand”
Yu-Ying Hu will give a talk that explores an intriguing phenomenon in which binary gender identities captured by the language of T and Po have defined female same-sex eroticism in Taiwanese female queer scene.
Lisa Downing: “From Acts to Identity: Gender Norms, Trans*, and Misogyny in the History of the ‘Paraphilia’ Diagnosis”
Film Lecture by Eliza Steinbock: “Investigation and Touch: Groping Images of Trans-Eroticism”
Film: Dandy Dust (Hans Scheirl)
Film: Flaming Ears (Hans Scheirl)
Plus, all you have to do is mention names like Freud and Kinsey to realize how aberrant sexuality has been placed at the very center and foundation of human nature by secularists. Besides, I thought Christians are repressed when it comes to sex? This conference itinerary doesn’t exactly resemble what we talk about in our Sunday School classes.
April 6th, 2011 | 1:24 pm
For an edited book project, I recently examined 40 years of articles in Christian Scholar’s Review, a major evangelical academic journal. I do not remember one article on either subject.
April 6th, 2011 | 2:16 pm
No, I’d say it’s more accurate to say that many people andmany groups in American society are obsessed with sex. Some Catholics are among these, but others are not.
With Joe, we could look at the number of posts he provides that deal with sex (or abortion, or any topic) compared to other bloggers here or on other sites.
“The “homosexual agenda” is believed to be a concerted effort to defeat “family values” by redefining “family” in a way that excludes biological kinship.
Biological kinship is an essential component in traditional families.”
Blake, this is just plain wrong on a few levels. Homosexual persons are not looking for converts to their sexual expression. They want, in one legal step rather than several, what other families enjoy.
Biological kinship is important for animals and plants. It may have been important for royalty or aristocracy when children inherited the family business.
But it is an insult on the deepest level, not to mention unchristian, to suggest that because my wife and I made a choice to adopt a daughter nobody wanted, that our kinship is somehow less than that of a person who stuck a ***** into a woman and made a baby without any sort of conscious thought.
As human beings, we are able to participate in the generative, creative, and relational aspects of God, because of the grace of Christ. We are not mere animals, rutting about for a place to deposit our genetic heritage. The sooner some conservatives realize it, the more seriously people will take their input.
Jeez.
April 6th, 2011 | 3:54 pm
I don’t know to whom Robert George is addressing himself, but his post boils down to, “WE’RE not obsessed. YOU’RE obsessed!” It seems a little less than the kind of thing one expects in a reasoned, civil debate, and I expect whomever he feels he is answering might just as well have been ignored.
Some Christian groups, publications, denominations, and so on devote a great deal of their time to abortion and homosexuality, and some don’t. George himself has written a book about abortion, a much-touted paper in the battle against same-sex marriage, and deals with both issues in his Manhattan Declaration. As with other culture warriors, he has spent a nontrivial amount of time on anti-abortion and anti-homosexual pursuits.
As for Hollywood and all the other supporters of gay rights he names, they will never, ever be as obsessed with homosexuality as they are with heterosexuality. Heterosexuals just see movies and television shows with heterosexual characters, romance, graphic sex scenes, and so on as “normal,” but feel their noses are being rubbed in homosexuality if two men or two women kiss.
Also, whatever one thinks of it, there is a battle going on right now for gay rights. It is not surprising it is getting attention, especially in liberal circles. The same thing was true about civil rights in the 1960s, and I don’t recall many people claiming supporters of civil rights were obsessed with black people. (And those who did no doubt were racists.)
April 6th, 2011 | 4:40 pm
Todd: you really need to read the “What is Marriage?” essay by George, et al. We adopted, too, and they address your concern.
April 6th, 2011 | 6:45 pm
Todd,Just because there are exceptions to the primacy of the biological family, such as adoption, doesn’t imply that the biological family is simply a vestige of an earlier evolutionary period. I think we can all agree that certain ties, such adoption and close friendships, are on par with biological ties. Yet I don’t see why that would be any reason to disparage the biological family. If, as you suggest, it is merely a primitive anachronism, then would you be ok with the government (likely through a team of “experts” like social workers) simply assigning parents as it sees fit?
The family is not merely a holdover from feudalism, but rather the basic organizational unit in every society throughout history. It might at times be oppressive and does occasionally need correction. However I would argue that the risks of experimentation with the most basic principles of human organization greatly outweigh any real or predicted rewards.
April 6th, 2011 | 7:09 pm
If Mr George actually believed whatever he wrote about marriage, then he would choose his words more carefully. Fact is, as he phrased it, he made a big blunder. Can he man up and correct himself?
Patrick, a little more reading comprehension. I’m far from suggesting that biological kinship is dead. It’s certainly not a factor for sacramental marriages between two people. What I am saying is that human beings are not driven exclusively by biology. Pregnancy and childbirth are terrific. I’m sure. But it wasn’t enough for my daughter’s biological family. Another family superceded that, a family already founded in a sacramental reality, and one that expresses itself in no less a sacrificial way through love, commitment, permanence, etc..
I’m not hearing anybody on the SSA end disparaging the biological family. Certainly nobody on this thread has brought it up, except to toss it out there as a red herring.
April 6th, 2011 | 8:10 pm
Patrick,
You say: “The family is not merely a holdover from feudalism, but rather the basic organizational unit in every society throughout history.”
If by “the family” you mean the nuclear (or conjugal) family (father, mother, children), then I don’t think you are at all correct. The extended family has been the rule throughout most of history and in most societies.
April 6th, 2011 | 10:21 pm
I believe as Christians we should be concerned with truth, and I have two concerns with the homosexual movement about truth.
I believe two key messages from that movement are a) homosexual behavior is “acceptable” and b) is unchangeable.
Based on public health data on increased risk of early death among male homosexuals due to HIV and other causes, I would argue that homosexual behavior is on the same order of risk as cigarette smoking and we as a society do discourage that and consider it “unacceptable.”
I believe this behavior is changeable. There are numerous Christian ministries working in that area. I recommend the testimony of Sy Rogers in this regard.
Gays are unfortunately saddled with desires and temptations which are dangerous to them. Neither they or anyone else is responsible for having such temptations but we are all responsible for how we respond to them.
April 7th, 2011 | 7:44 am
I’m far from suggesting that biological kinship is dead. It’s certainly not a factor for sacramental marriages between two people.
Actually, homosexual marriage would break the bond between “family” “biological kinship”, because the reason why marriage has to be recognized by the state (while lovers and friends do not need any recognition) is because a marriage license establishes the right to found a family.
If you are willing to grant that gays who marry should be explicitly barred from the specifically procreative benefits of marriage, that’d be different.
If you are arguing in favor of a form of gay marriage that is complimentary with explicit protections against attempts to blur or deface the bonds of kinship, then I’d be willing to hear it, at least.
Specific protections should include:
- Recognizing that the presumption of paternity – the right to be presumed the father of your spouse’s child – is linked with an obligation: to not make children with anyone but your spouse.
Enforcement idea: Criminalizing (as fraud) the act of passing yourself off as the “parent” of a child you’re not actually related to.
- Recognizing that adoption is meant for crisis situations, not meant to make things easy for people who want to make, sell, buy, or trade babies that were created specifically for the purpose.
Enforcement idea: improved guarantees of a child’s already-established right to have a relationship with both biological mother and father; recognize attempts to circumvent this basic human right; prosecute it as trafficking in human flesh (which is what it is).
- Recognizing that children have reason to value both their same-sex parent relationship and their opposite-sex parent relationship.
Enforcement idea: A national law establishing that in all custody cases – including adoption law – the child’s best interest should be prioritized before the desires and whims of the adults.
- Recognizing that any child who is severed from either his natural mother or his natural father has reason and right to grieve, regardless of whether he loves his stepparents, adoptive parents, or foster parents.
Enforcement idea: revise child abuse codes to recognize “parentification”, and also to recognize as abusive gay community attempts to pressure kids into pretending that parent loss isn’t a loss. Make parents who do that to their kids attend parenting classes. Identify the way gay community activists use Christian “bogeyman” figures to scare their kids into feeling obliged to pretend to be “happy” to be motherless or fatherless. Etc.
So – for those who say that biological kinship is a red herring – would you be willing to vote for “gay marriage” if it included such restraints on gay aspirations?
April 7th, 2011 | 8:16 am
Robert Campbell –
This argument falls flat on its face when dealing with lesbianism. The number of documented cases of female-to-female transmission of HIV is literally in the single digits. Indeed, from a woman’s health perspective, sex with men is far riskier.
Note that – whatever social sanctions there might be – the legal sanctions regarding smoking are based on arguments about risks to others like ‘secondhand smoke’. To the extent that smoking does not pose any significant risk to others (e.g. in private, or outdoors) it’s perfectly acceptable to the law.
Indeed, parents are allowed to smoke around their children if they choose to.
If you want to make an analogy between smoking and homosexual behavior, then it would seem you’d be okay with behavior that doesn’t pose a risk to other non-consenting adults, and people could ‘be gay’ around their children, no?
April 7th, 2011 | 10:13 am
Regarding Robert Campbell’s argument that homosexual behavior is like smoking, there is a real problem in that by “homosexual behavior” he seems to be talking about the so-called “homosexual lifestyle,” which includes promiscuity, risky sex, drugs, and so on. How many gay people actually lead that lifestyle I can’t pretend to know, but surely there are some. However, if heterosexuals lived the same lifestyle, they would have the same health problems. And as Ray Ingles points out, lesbians are homosexual persons, too, and they do not have the problems Robert Campbell mentions.
So it seems to me the answer to the problems of some gay males is not to convert them to heterosexuals (which is probably not possible), but to encourage them to live a healthier lifestyle. One approach would be to promote same-sex marriage.
April 7th, 2011 | 3:35 pm
So it seems to me the answer to the problems of some gay males is not to convert them to heterosexuals (which is probably not possible), but to encourage them to live a healthier lifestyle. One approach would be to promote same-sex marriage.
No, it wouldn’t.
Lying isn’t healthy. Denial isn’t healthy. Truth is the correct answer. If it is true that they will never be heterosexual, then either they should not marry or they should only marry with full disclosure and with both partners aware of the consequences.
If they have a legitimate need for some form of state recognition (and it’s not clear to me why they do, other than that they want to be classified as “the same as” heterosexuals precisely because they are not the same as heterosexuals, and want to override that pesky little detail?) – but if they do have a legitimate need for some form of state recognition, then it needs to be an institution that is appropriate for what they are and what they genuinely need – for instance, gays could make a credible case in favor of an institution that recognizes that their life partner and their child’s other parent cannot be the same person, and so divides the benefits granted by traditional marriage such that the same-sex life partner gets the benefits appropriate to a life partner, while the procreative benefits are appropriately shared between the parents of the child in question.
However, even if such an arrangement did exist, it must be recognized that people are entirely within their rights to believe that it is important – sacred even – for one’s life partner and one’s “family co-founder” (child’s other parent, “baby-mama”, whatever) – to be the same person.
April 7th, 2011 | 3:50 pm
The homosexual behavior analogy to smoking fails for a number of reasons. Does smoking violate the natural law? More than a few good natural law believing Roman Catholics (Justice Scalia for example) smoke and I doubt they repent or confess it as a sin.
Has the church taken an official position on smoking.
Voluntary homosexual acts violate the natural law just like voluntary acts of masturbation do. But I don’t think any evidence shows masturbation to be an “unsafe” form of sex. Whether it really does violate the natural law, it’s also arguably the safest form of sex.
To make some kind of non-sectarian argument against homosexuality some have argued “risk” or “public health” case. Whatever the validity of government or society nannying people against taking risks, there is no strong normative relationship between risks on the one hand and serious “oughts” on the other. Driving a car, working in a coal mine, going to war, skiing, skidiving, rock-climbing, playing football, NASCAR, venturing off into strange waters to be a missionary; all of these pose potentially life shortening health risks.
April 7th, 2011 | 4:02 pm
“I believe this behavior is changeable. There are numerous Christian ministries working in that area. I recommend the testimony of Sy Rogers in this regard.”
And I would also recommend watching a video of Sy Rogers and seriously considering whether a great deal of homosexuality — notably his — is congenital. I have no idea what causes homosexuality and I know a great deal of gays are not at all gender non-conforming in their mannerisms, the Rock Hudson types etc. But more than a nominal number ARE gender non-conforming to the point where it seems a part of their apparent biology. And converting to “ex-gay” status doesn’t change this. Sy Rogers is perfect example. The “ex-gay” Sy Rogers is just as androgynous as the “gay” one. When I first encountered the “ex gay” Sy Rogers, I honestly could not tell the gender of this person. Some folks — a great deal of them homosexuals — naturally do not conform to rigid gender categories. Let a thousand flowers bloom.
April 8th, 2011 | 5:51 pm
And I would also recommend watching a video of Sy Rogers and seriously considering whether a great deal of homosexuality — notably his — is congenital. I have no idea what causes homosexuality and I know a great deal of gays are not at all gender non-conforming in their mannerisms, the Rock Hudson types etc. But more than a nominal number ARE gender non-conforming to the point where it seems a part of their apparent biology. And converting to “ex-gay” status doesn’t change this.
So what if science proved that every form of sexual deviance had a genetic component?
Necrophilia? Incest?
Would we be required to normalize anything that has a genetic component?
Would it become our responsibility to reconcile the conflict between society’s interests vs. the “right” to a satisfying sex life, in cases where the sexual deviancy is harmful (for instance pedophilia)?
What about non-sexual disorders?
We know that having an extra Y chromosome causes aggression; should we simply accept that men with extra Y chromosomes can’t be held to the same standards of behavior as other people?
Where does it end?
April 9th, 2011 | 9:50 am
I never said the fact that homosexuality may have a genetic or biological component settles this issue. My own view is if it’s two consenting adults it’s okay, regardless of what causes the orientation or if people are just experimenting. A corpse can’t love you back. Incest is usually connected to abuse of a minor child and if not, seems to me a bad idea in the “she will always be your sister” sense. I don’t think there is any kind of exclusive incest orientation, though some folks do have genetic sexual attraction (that is the incest aversion taboo doesn’t take affect in them). Although I think consensual adult incest is no worse in this sense than divorce where there are minor children. You can divorce your wife or husband if you have no kids and go on and get on with your life with out that big a deal. But if you have kids your former spouse will always be your kids mother or father and you can never get away from that.
April 9th, 2011 | 10:40 pm
I never said the fact that homosexuality may have a genetic or biological component settles this issue. My own view is if it’s two consenting adults it’s okay, regardless of what causes the orientation or if people are just experimenting. A corpse can’t love you back.
But it isn’t “two consenting adults”. Homosexual marriage also involves taking rights away from children.
Great pressure is currently being put on the children of gays. They are expected to testify publicly that they aren’t experiencing any sense of loss at all from not having a mother or father. They are expected to witness to how wonderful their family situation is. Psychologists are bending over backward to try to minimize what is being done to them, to establish that they are “well adjusted” and “happy”.
But a person has reason to value having a relationship with their same-sex parent, and a person has reason to value having a relationship with their opposite-sex parent. Taking either one away is taking away something valuable.
And a person has reason to value their biological ties. That is why the laws guarding the interests of children specify that children have the right to a relationship (and to be supported by) both natural parents, and the only legitimate exception is when these rights are severed because something has gone wrong. Gay marriage would change a situation that currently consists of gays misusing and abusing a set of laws that was supposed to protect children in crisis – exploiting a loophole – into the right to exploit children, changing adoption law into the right to manufacture custom-built children to meet demand, treating parenting as an “experience” that one has a right to purchase, instead of recognizing parenting as a responsibility.
And the only reason gays are allowed to adopt children in crisis (that is, children that have been given up rather than children that were factory-customized to spec) is because the ordinary custodial standard, “the child’s best interest”, has been deemed less important than “gay rights” – because the child’s interests are routinely underemphasized in courts of law, because children have no powerful, loud, obnoxious lobby to protect them.
Also, just because you are okay with “any two consenting adults”, does not mean that’s a good standard. That’s your standard – and it’s mine too, in terms of what sexual behavior should be legal (vs. criminalized) – but we are not talking about criminalizing, we are talking about forcing people to socially recognize and accept behavior. We are talking about not only granting the right to sexual behavior, but also taking away the right to choose not associate with and recognize and “affirm” people who engage in the behavior.
To say that incest involves minors is irrelevant, because there are already public cases of adult incest and there is no reason at all to doubt that, once a “right” to sexual satisfaction is established, we will be establishing the legal precedent that establishes that all “victimless” sexual deviancies will be equally protected. This is the equal protection clause: an objection like “but dead people don’t love back” is absolutely irrelevant.
If an open sexual identity is a basic human right, then it’s a basic human right for everyone.
If sexuality is not linked to procreation, then “good” and “bad” sexuality is purely arbitrary.
If the right to “be who you really are” is defined in ways that embrace not only states of being, but also states of doing, then there is really no difference in kind between forcing a conservative Christian to “affirm” homosexual behavior forcing you or me to “affirm” a father-daughter sexual relationship.
April 10th, 2011 | 11:38 am
I won’t assert with the confidence that some pro-gay marriage supporters do that the genders are interchangeable to the child’s developmental needs.
Rather, I don’t see recognizing gay marriage as anything like a watershed moment, but rather the horse has already left the barn and the anti-gay marriage movements puts the cart ahead of that horse.
1. Gays already are adopting and raising children in same sex households, without same sex marriage being recognized.
2. Society already deals with something far worse for children’s developmental needs than same sex: Young uneducated single motherhood. The three criteria for avoiding poverty: 1. Don’t have a kid before you are married; 2. Don’t have a kid before you finish highschool; and 3. Don’t have a kid before you are 20. If you do all three things, it’s very unlikely you will be in poverty. Yet, some kids are born into all three of these. Likewise divorce is horrible for children. There is no “right” that children have to be born into an intact married mother and father family where the parents will not divorce. Rather children are subject to arbitrary circumstances of birth.
Re the gay parenting issue in particular, and where it sharply contrasts with out of wedlock births, it’s precisely because homosexuality is not procreative. Gay couples raising kids — unless they conceive their children in heterosexual relationships — do not just “have” kids unplanned and not ready for it. There is so much i dotting and t crossing that needs to be done, every single gay couple I know who brings children into a same sex household are yuppie types who give their children LOTs of opportunities (good neighborhoods, good schools, good healthcare, etc.) such that I’m really not worried about the outcomes. It could also be one reason the studies so far reflect SO positive on same sex households raising children: They tend to be more responsible parents, precisely because the precautions they need to take to bring children into their households.
April 10th, 2011 | 12:12 pm
So let me get this ‘straight’.
The Orthodox Catholic anti-Gays believe that being Gay promiscuity is unhealthy, presumably because of higher AIDS exposure, so their response is the following:
1) Make Gay monogamy illegal.
2) Fight ALL common sense safe sex campaigns that target the 99.999999999% of Gay men (who like 99.9999999% of straight men) are not lifelong celibates, thereby fostering the spread of HIV/AIDS in the Gay community
3) Encourage Anti-Gay discrimination, which causes Gay men to not be honest with their health care providers. You can be fired for being openly gay in many states in the USA. These discrimination advocates, who include the USCCB, encourage lying.
4) Advocate as a ‘solution’ the use of public policy as a weapon to punish Gay men who do not submit to thoroughly discredited ‘conversion therapies’ that require a conversion to a religious belief.
Please don’t wonder why Gay men and many Catholics think the leadership of the Catholic Church hates Gays. And don’t be surprised when people make the Catholic Church ‘own its position’.
As far as the ‘argument’ that openly Gay men and lesbians are not fit to be around children:
1) The Catholic Church appears to be looking ‘protect children’ from married lesbians and Gay men. I’m sorry, but the Catholic Church, including Pope Benedict, has shown its complete moral bankruptcy in protecting children. And the USCCB has as well by its’ brazen attempts to avoid penalties and settlements to those that it has harmed.
2) Who are you to condemn children to live in foster care when there are loving Gay couples waiting to adopt? It seems to me to be an attack on the children by the Catholic Church. Especially by Mr. Chuput of Denver, who punishes children of Gays but not of divorcees. And what about Gay children? Should they have to live with hateful Orthodox Catholics or evangelicals. Adoptive parents should be SUPPORTIVE unconditionally, whether the child chooses to be evangelical or openly Gay. If the adoptive parents are seeking a child to make the same choices that the parents did, then they aren’t fit to be adoptive parents
April 11th, 2011 | 12:39 am
Jon Rowe,
Your last post was very nicely put. Thank you.
April 11th, 2011 | 7:21 am
Encourage Anti-Gay discrimination, which causes Gay men to not be honest with their health care providers.
Let’s be clear about cause and effect.
Making something illegal does not cause someone to lie.
The argument that a given law should be created around what will or make a dishonest person behave honestly is an inherently flawed argument.
You might as well say our failure to give out free candy bars is what makes children steal.
April 11th, 2011 | 7:29 am
Who are you to condemn children to live in foster care when there are loving Gay couples waiting to adopt?
If you want to take responsibility for a child, you should provide for its well-being.
Children need both mother and father.
If you aren’t willing to commit to providing for the child (I do not care if you are actually sleeping with the child’s other parent or not), then you must not be all that committed, so what makes you entitled to describe yourself as “loving”?
April 11th, 2011 | 7:34 am
Please don’t wonder why Gay men and many Catholics think the leadership of the Catholic Church hates Gays.
I don’t wonder.
It is because gays cannot “live and let live”, but is actively trying to force every group in the USA to embrace the beliefs of Unitarian Universalism (aka humanism, aka secularism, which includes but is not limited to the “New Atheism”.
Unitarian Universalism allows you the right to believe whatever you want as long as your beliefs are subordinate to humanistic beliefs.
April 11th, 2011 | 7:58 am
Rather, I don’t see recognizing gay marriage as anything like a watershed moment, but rather the horse has already left the barn and the anti-gay marriage movements puts the cart ahead of that horse.
We are at a deciding point. Social scientists have already established the causative link between broken or absent wedlock and poverty.
So either we recognize the role that wedlock plays, or we turn wedlock into something purely ceremonial and recognize the state as our “family” (as the unit that will provide for us).
Those are the only two options. If our families are too broken to care for us, then we all become peasants and the government is our feudal lord.
But there’s no need for the argument assuming inevitability. There’s nothing inevitable about the choice.
Broken families all originate from a single source – the same “sexual revolution” that gives us the out of wedlock births and “no fault” divorce, is the same “sexual revolution” that gives us the ideas that are at the heart of “gay marriage”: that children can be swapped around casually and without regard for their genetic heritage, that children don’t need a mother and father, that children don’t mind being treated this way, that the adult’s sexual pleasure is more important or a “greater good” than a child’s stability, etc.
These beliefs are neither established nor rejected yet. They are still in play. So it is too soon to speak of what is and is not “inevitable”.
April 11th, 2011 | 10:28 am
Blake posts four times in a row to get his points across, but they still miss.
“Children need both mother and father.”
If this is really about children, then why don’t conservatives go full tilt on a mission to see that the US’s half-million kids in foster care are adopted into families?
“It is because gays cannot “live and let live”, but is actively trying to force every group in the USA to embrace the beliefs …”
No. Blake is not being forced to marry a man. Neither am I.
Regarding your 7:58 post,
- For too many people, “wedlock” is already ceremonial and lacking in depth of meaning. Clamping down on SSA monogamy won’t help it at all.
- Corporations have already proven themselves more powerful than government. If anyone is exercising feudal lordship, it would be corporate CEO’s.
- Broken families happen because people are broken, flawed, and sinful. Passing the blame to the “sexual revolution” is one of the oldest self-deceptions: refusing to accept blame and trying to avoid the consequences for one’s own actions.
April 11th, 2011 | 12:52 pm
“Children need both mother and father.”
If this is really about children, then why don’t conservatives go full tilt on a mission to see that the US’s half-million kids in foster care are adopted into families?
Seems to me the gay rights side are the ones who are using the kids as props.
But that doesn’t change the reality that children who are born into a family where the mother and father are married to each other are less likely to be abandoned by one or both parents.
(Of course, gay marriage relies on kids being abandoned by one or both parents. They actually want to make it a right – the right to parasitize other peoples’ families, so that they can use other peoples’ kids as props)
“It is because gays cannot “live and let live”, but is actively trying to force every group in the USA to embrace the beliefs …”
No. Blake is not being forced to marry a man. Neither am I.
I guess you didn’t actually read my argument.
I’ll add another complaint to the ones you already didn’t read: what gives you the right to force me to pretend that people who buy and sell babies are “parents”?
Adoption is a procedure that is ruled, start to finish, by a standard known as the “child’s best interest”.
By putting the desires of the parents (who want to buy a baby) over the best interests of the child, they have turned their “adoption” into a sales transaction.
People who buy babies are traffickers, not parents.
For too many people, “wedlock” is already ceremonial and lacking in depth of meaning. Clamping down on SSA monogamy won’t help it at all.
On the contrary: after a few decades of seeing exactly what the sexual revolution has wrought, sensible people have recognized that it must be deemed a failure – and the institution of marriage must be recovered.
Either that, or we must simply recognize that family is a purely ceremonial role, with no meaning at all. In which case we will be like Europe: our government will tell us what we can and can’t think or say or believe, and in return will give us our daily rations. (Until the cash runs out; then we’ll just do without daily rations.)
April 11th, 2011 | 12:53 pm
moderator: sorry – I did it again – could you pls turn off the bold type after “abandoned by one or both parents”?
April 11th, 2011 | 2:25 pm
“Seems to me the gay rights side are the ones who are using the kids as props.”
No. Parenting is too demanding a responsibility for it to be a real prop.
Nurturing children and raising them is an independent virtue from marital love. That’s not to say there’s not a biological and cultural overlap. But at the very least, SSA parents are in the same ballpark as coaches, teachers, and mentors. Likely the lived-in element and the day-to-day commitment is as deep as any parent. Certainly a widowed person loses nothing of the ontology of parenthood. No doubt the parenting is potentially less effective than a full team of two. But orphaned and abandoned children don’t have the luxury of choice in that regard, do they?
“(W)hat gives you the right to force me to pretend that people who buy and sell babies are “parents”?”
That’s a dysfunction of society, not of homosexuality. That’s the essence of most international adoptions. SSA parents are also noted for taking more of the hardcore troubled kids in the foster care system. My hat’s off to anyone with that priority.
That said, I’ve known people who “paid off” others to facilitate their international adoption, and who are fine parents. Some parents will do whatever it takes for their kids, and sometimes even commite crimes for the sake of family. That might speak to their moral formation in other areas, not necessarily to their ability as parents.
April 11th, 2011 | 3:23 pm
Todd, I am not saying gay people are bad parents.
I’m saying anyone who would deliberately force a child to be motherless or fatherless is a bad parent.
I’m saying anyone who does not understand that children have reason to value their genetic legacy is a bad parent.
I know for a fact there are gay parents there who do not want to do that to their child. They are both gay and loving.
I also know hetero parents who believe that children are just things to be bought and sold, “experiences” to be had.
The problem is not that gay people are gay. It’s that if we grant them the right to do what they want, it will have a destructive effect on not just their own children, but on every family in the US.
April 11th, 2011 | 4:08 pm
Blake,
I could take your opinions more seriously if you were expanding “bad parents” into society and culture at large, government and corporate polcies that separate families, and in effect deny children a mother or father for long periods of their lives.
“It’s that if we grant them the right to do what they want, it will have a destructive effect on not just their own children, but on every family in the US.”
And yet you are willing to permit government and business to persist in destructive practices without criticism.
It is possible for an adopted child to have parent(s) of one sex and mentors of another. Healthy people exist who have lost one or both parents in childhood.
My point would be that a pernament family with only one parent is superior in every conceivable way to the impermanence of foster care. If gay people are adopting needy kids nobody else wants, that is a constructive contribution to society.
If people of any orientation or number who want children and are willing to purchase them, like you I’m deeply skeptical of the value of that. I recognize, however, that such persons still parent lovingly and effectively.
The family-destructive factors in American society today are undeniably present, but I don’t see homosexuals as being part of that. At worst, they just do what rich heterosexual couples do.
April 11th, 2011 | 4:58 pm
I could take your opinions more seriously if you were expanding “bad parents” into society and culture at large, government and corporate polcies that separate families, and in effect deny children a mother or father for long periods of their lives.
I’ve spent plenty and plenty of hours working with real kids – both as a volunteer and as a legal guardian, in my own home.
So what is the basis of your assumptions that my argument must be null and void because I’m obviously not really concerned about kids?
Aside from the obvious fact that you just don’t want to address the actual points I make (probably because you can’t).
So instead you just retreat back into justifying exploitation by throwing around words like “loving”.
Except that “loving” parents are parents who prioritize the child’s well-being.
April 11th, 2011 | 10:59 pm
Blake, I didn’t say you were unconcerned about kids. I’m willing to keep the discussion going if you want to go back and reconsider what I did write.
I agree with you that one female and one male parent are optimal for a child. We live in a fallen world, however, and many things about parenting are less than optimal even if your basic premise is universally adopted.
As for your points, they fail because it is impossible to legislate the ideal. Plus, I don’t think you spread your criticism widely enough.
As for the original title of this thread, I reiterate that some people on both sides of the issue are obsessed with sex–as is much of Western culture. Do you want to restart from there, or reread my other posts …?
April 12th, 2011 | 6:30 am
It is because we live in a fallen world that we have legal standards to protect the child.
Out of recognition that there are often conflicts of interest between what is best for a child vs. what some adults want to do to, for, or with a child.
What you are arguing for constitutes a huge reduction re: the number of protections we offer to children.
That is the opposite of what has happened. You are suggesting we should provide more of what has already proven harmful.
“Because other people hurt and exploit kids too” is just not an adequate justification for why we should change the law to make it easier for people to do things that are not good for children.
If gays want to have families, I’m all for that. But being gay is not, in itself, adequate excuse for being excused from the obligation to honor, respect, and care for the family you make – including both the child whose needs should now be your first priority (above your own selfish desires for status, prestige, political statement-making, and convenience), and also including the man or woman you made the child with, who is your child’s mother or father, and part of your family, and having a rightful claim on you.
If you look at a family tree, you see what a family is and is not. If gays cannot love their baby-mama in the way that a man loves a woman, then they need to find a solution to their problem. But simply demanding that we change the rules so that you can use the other members of your real family in selfish ways is not an acceptable solution for three reasons:
1. because it violates the child’s human right to be free from exploitation – a right that demands that all custody decisions affecting the child be governed with the child’s well-being as the first priority (a requirement that is clearly in conflict with gay marriage which would eliminate the child’s presumed right to have a relationship with both biological parents until and unless a judge severs that relationship based on evidence that doing so is in a child’s best interest).
2. Because it redefines the entire family unit – not just for your family but for all families – in ways that destabilize the family.
Removing the most stable of the three familial bonds (the biological bond, leaving only the two weaker bonds of “legal recognition” and “affection”) would do to the American family what removing the stronger bond from a chemical structure would do to that chemical structure: it would turn something solid into something that oozes.
3. Because it’s a violation of the basic human dignity of the man or woman who is used to make the baby. This may currently be viewed as a voluntary choice on the part of the “donor”, but already the lines have become blurred, and exploitation is already a concern. Lesbians can and do use men in unethical ways, while gay men would have a strong incentive to exploit third world women as surrogates. These concerns must be addressed and resolved before we as a society undertake to support legislation that will contribute to the situation.
April 12th, 2011 | 6:32 am
- Broken families happen because people are broken, flawed, and sinful. Passing the blame to the “sexual revolution” is one of the oldest self-deceptions:
If you are seriously suggesting that the “sexual revolution” is not causally linked to the problem, then you are the one who is deceiving yourself.
April 12th, 2011 | 9:30 am
Blake,
You might be more successful in the next discussion if you addressed the issue with positive arguments, rather than your consistent misinterpretation of what others say or write. I recognize very little in what I wrote from your posts above.
Two clues: I agree with you that surrogacy is not a societal good. Try to minimize “you” language and use more “I” language and have more confidence in your own arguments.
Chew on those for a bit and see you in the next thread.
April 12th, 2011 | 9:59 am
You might be more successful in the next discussion if you addressed the issue with positive arguments
Successful at what?
You have not demonstrated that you can rebut any of the points I have made.
The more you rely on changing the subject, ignoring what I have actually written in favor of analyzing or critiquing me as a person, the more confident I feel that, in fact, you do not have any rebuttals to my points – and I even suspect that you know it as well as I do.
My goal here is not to persuade you or anyone else. It is to allow you the opportunity to persuade me that I am wrong. My interest is the pursuit of truth. I was once pro-gay marriage; I now no longer believe the gay marriage position is the better argument – and you have only reinforced that belief.
April 12th, 2011 | 11:52 am
Republican men may have invented the sex scandal, but, Democratic men invented sex scandals with women.
Max Blumenthal talks about it in his new book:
http://fora.tv/2009/09/29/Republican_Gomorrah_Max_Blumenthal
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