Fighting the Culture Wars in the New York Times

This morning, a two-page advertisement against same-sex marriage appeared in the New York Times , the Los Angeles Times , and the Washington Times . Purchased by an organization called “Tradition, Family, Property,” the ad is text heavy, putting an argument about the orgins and results of the campaign to legalize such marriages:

Same-sex “marriage” is now being imposed upon the nation by government fiat . . . . Few issues illustrate the divergence between the secularist and the Christian worldviews as does today’s cultural battle over marriage. Secularists accept same-sex “marriage,” while denying the specific reality of marriage, rooted in nature. They deny that the self-evident biological, physiological and psychological differences between men and women find their complementarity in marriage, just as they deny that the specific primary purpose of marriage is the perpetuation of the human race and the raising of children . . . .

History is a great teacher. In the twentieth century, Nazism and communism showed the world that, when society loses its moorings in the natural order and gives itself over to utopias, the inevitable result is dictatorship. This dictatorship can take many forms and be exercised from the halls of government, party headquarters, judicial chambers, or media outlets . . . .

In any situation where marriage affects society, the State will expect Christians and all people of good will to betray their consciences by condoning, through silence or act, an attack on Divine law and the natural order. Left unchecked, this anti-Christian trend will become an unprecedented assault on the First Amendment and our American way of life that we do not hesitate to call persecution.

Over-the-top? A likely prediction? An unnecessary provocation? A timely warning?

It’s hard to say. The American group is one of several Tradition, Family, Property organizations around the world, all inspired by the twentieth-century Brazilian writer Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira. Very conservative, they have protested films they deem blasphemous and fought hard on culture-war issues. The results of their ad today will be interesting to watch.