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American Power: The Gay Marriage Fantasy
It turns out there's some backlash on the secular left in response to the National Organization for Marriage's new ad compaign, "The Gathering Storm."
Turns out there's some backlash on the wingnut right to the many replies to their dishonest campaign, too...
The Human Rights Campaign, a radical gay rights pressure group,
"Radical gay rights pressure group?" Really? What makes Donald Douglas call it radical, other than the fact that HRC disagrees with Professor Douglas' position? (But then, what ever does? His "radical," "nihilist," "Stalinist" namecalling is so pervasive as to render his use of such labels meaningless.)
...has launched a counter-offensive, attacking "The Gathering Storm" as "lies about marriage for lesbian and gay couples." The Human Rights Campaign has released a video allegedly countering the claims of the National Organization for Marriage, which is available here. (My blog post from yesterday - Wingnuts & Moonbats: The Gathering Storm: Get out the waders, because it's getting deep, or just watch below.)
I think it counters NOM's dishonest claims quite well, myself.
The National Organization for Marriage can defend their own advertisement, but when the actors in the video suggest that advocates for same-sex marriage "want to change the way I live," there's no question as to that statement's accuracy.
Well, it does mean that more folks will read some of Donald's rants against gay marriage as bigoted nonsense, but that's happening already... Change is hard. And yes, Donald and those who believe as he does may be uncomfortable having a gay couple living next door, or having the child of a gay couple playing soccer with their children. But professor Douglas' comfort isn't a reason to keep homosexuals from being legally wed.
Indeed, as William Murchison demonstrates at RealClearPolitics, the gathering storm of gay marriage radicalism seeks indeed to hijack the very identity of traditional American culture, abducting it for themselves in a campaign of vile licentiousness and excoriation of those of moral faith and values:
Before we get to the words of Mr. Murchison, note all the scare words in the previous paragraph, and note how many of them you're just supposed to accept without proof. This is professor Douglas at his best, asserting "facts" with nothing more than his own ideology to back them. Classic.
The very identity of traditional American values is still open to those who wish to live under them. Indeed, we have many groups of people who choose to eschew the mainstream to practice their own social, religious, or political beliefs. In fact, a whole lot of people will still marry just as they always have, and will not be the least bit troubled by the fact that Adam and Steve down the block did, too.
I'm not sure what Donald is calling vile licentiousness, but I am pretty certain that any given person can be vilely licentious--even straight people--and that licentiousness, vile or otherwise, is often in the eye of the beholder... There are those who might feel Donald commits vilely licentious acts, but that doesn't make him, or the folks Donald is judging here, guilty of actually doing so.
As far as moral faith and values, professor Douglas neglects to realize that many gay people too, have moral faith and values, and I'm sure at least a few of them--and the rest of us--wonder whether his accusing them of vile licentiousness might be considered excoriating them of their common humanity, even just a little.
Back to a taste of William M. (Donald Douglas cut and pasted the whole essay, but I feel no similar need. The links are above, should anyone wish to read it in full.):
You really can't have "gay marriage," you know, irrespective of what a court or a legislature may say.
You can have something some people call gay marriage because to them the idea sounds worthy and necessary, but to say a thing is other than it is, is to stand reality on its head, hoping to shake out its pockets.
Such is the supposed effect of the Iowa Supreme Court's declaration last week that gays and heterosexuals enjoy equal rights to marital bliss. Nope. They don't and won't, even if liberal Vermont follows Iowa's lead.
The human race -- sorry ladies, sorry gents -- understands marriage as a compact reinforcing social survival and projection. It has always been so. It will always be so, even if every state Supreme Court pretended to declare that what isn't suddenly is. Life does not work in this manner.
This is the same old semantic problem about which I so often rant. Marriage never should've been a term of law, because using it as one leads to silly claims like the ones Donald and this man William are making.
First off, the meanings of words are not cast in concrete. They do change, based on common usage and understanding. Some change slowly: If you were to ask Brigham Young or Joseph Smith about marriage, they wouldn't define it as William and Donald do today, because the meaning has changed. Were you to go back further and ask a member of royalty in the middle ages, it would be different again. I have a co-worker from India who is in an arranged marriage.
Gay doesn't have the same meaning it once did. Neither does fag.
Some change pretty quickly, too: If you were to ask a person in NYC on April 9th, 2001 where Ground Zero was, they'd probably think you were talking about some hot new dance club. 911 was nothing more than the number you dialed in an emergency.
The meaning of words change all the time, and William Murchison would be naive to think otherwise. (In fact, I'm willing to bet he isn't, and knows full well that words can and do adjust their definitions based on usage, and that's why he wrote his piece in the first place.)
That said, I do believe marriage should be defined by one's religious faith, rather than by the state. Homosexuals don't necessarily deserve the spiritual benefits of marriage; that is for their place of worship to decide. But they do deserve the benefits and rights afforded to "married" people by the state.
A marriage -- a real one -- brings together man and woman for mutual society and comfort, but also, more deeply, for the long generational journey to the future. Marriage, as historically defined, across all religious and non-religious demarcations, is about children -- which is why a marriage in which the couple deliberately repudiates childbearing is so odd a thing, to put the matter as generously as possible.
A gay "marriage" (never mind whether or not the couple tries to adopt) is definitionally sterile -- barren for the purpose of extending the generations for purposes vaster than any two people, (including people of opposite sexes), can envision.
While Mr. Murchison may find my intentionally childless marriage odd--and he's welcome to believe whatever the hell he likes--it is legal. And that is where much of his rant falls flat. No one is asking him to change his beliefs or to accept anything he finds unacceptable. But legally, people who cannot or choose not to procreate can/will be able to civilly unite, no matter how "odd" he believes such a thing to be. His permission or approval are not required.
Current legal prohibitions pertaining to something called "gay marriage" don't address the condition called homosexuality or lesbianism. A lesbian or homosexual couple is free to do pretty much as they like, so long as it doesn't "like" too much the notion of remaking other, older ideas about institutions made, conspicuously, for others. Marriage, for instance.
Again, religiously, I agree... Legally, not so much. William cannot continue to straddle that fence, intentionally confounding one with the other.
True, marriage isn't the only way to get at childbirth and propagation. There's also the ancient practice called illegitimacy -- in which trap, by recent count, 40 percent of American babies are caught. It's a lousy, defective means of propagation, with its widely recognized potential for enhancing child abuse and psychological disorientation.
Far, far better is marriage, with all those imperfections that flow from the participation of imperfect humans. Hence the necessity of shooing away traditional marriage's derogators and outright enemies -- who include, accidentally or otherwise, the seven justices of Iowa's Supreme Court. These learned folk tell us earnestly that the right to "equal protection of the law" necessitates a makeover of marriage. And so, by golly, get with it, you cretins! Be it ordered that.
I always wonder when I read such things why the people who spout it don't try to prohibit single parenthood, instead. I would think that divorce and single parenthood are both bigger threats to traditional marriage and to children than the gay folks... Funny, that they never do...
And tell me... Are children better off with a single parent, or with a gay couple? What are the statistics regarding child abuse and psychological disorientation there? (And what does illegitimacy have to do with gay marriage, anyway?)
I snipped the rest, as it said even less than the parts I posted...
For the radical left's campaign of demonizing those of faith, see Pam Spaulding, "National Organization for Marriage's new tactic: fear-mongering without using the word 'religion'."
Oh that radical left... Do read Pam's piece, if you're looking for some more truth...
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