This ad is currently running in California. The ad shows an attractive young woman trying to get to the alter, where her handsome, chivalrous husband-to-be waits to marry her. Various obstacles have been placed in her way, and after squeezing between cars in the parking lot, losing a heel and her veil, and being tripped up by a clumsy, elderly guest, she gives up and sits in the aisle just a few feet short of her destination. The minister then restrains her fiance from coming to her aid. The following words then apear on the screen: "What if you couldn't marry the person you love."
The ad is disingenuous on so many levels. To name just a few:
(1) The couple trying to get married consists of one man and one woman. No same-sex couples, polygamous couples, or any other groups of people trying to marry the people they love appear anywhere in the ad. The imagery is intentional, of course, and extremely dishonest. A single image of a same-sex couple approaching the alter would belie the myth underlying the ad.
(2) The message is predicated upon a lie. Nothing prevents any person -- heterosexual or homosexual -- from getting married. Everyone has equal access to marriage under traditional laws. But homosexuality lobbyists don't want equal access. They want the law's special and particlar endorsement of homosexual intimacy.
(3) An unmistakable, if veiled, implication of the ad is that various people have thrown up (legal) obstacles to prevent homosexuals from reaching the alter. Of course this also is untrue. But the implication betrays a more subtle presupposition: anti-gay traditionalists are obsessed with keeping harmless homosexuals from attaining marital bliss.
The traditionalists-are-obsessed-with-same-sex-marriage slander, commonly recited by sexual liberationists, is particularly galling because it is a classic example of psychological projection. Before the homosexuality lobby shoved this issue into the national consciousness by litigating it before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and every other judicial forum they thought might be receptive, I and most people like me though about same-same marriage as often as we thought of platinum ice cream (that is to say, not at all) and for exactly the same reasons.
Showing posts with label gay agenda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gay agenda. Show all posts
Friday, August 15, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Fathers need not apply
In their same-sex marriage decisions, the high courts of California, Massachusetts, and Canada proclaimed the moral lesson that gender doesn't matter. A man may choose to marry a woman or a man. A woman may choose to marry a man or a woman. It doesn't matter. Whatever the individual's gender preference, the law must endorse the morality of the individual's choice.
The UK Parliament has learned the lesson well. Last night the House of Commons voted to do away with the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child's need for a male role model before providing fertility treatment to women. A child has neither an interest nor a right to have a father because men are obsolete. That is the claim.
The war against fathers and their children is real. Studies show time and again that fatherlessness is a root cause of a host of social ills, including career criminality, poverty, psychological disorders, and drug use. Yet enlightened social engineers continue to chip away at the legal supports for fatherhood. First no-fault divorce, then same-sex marriage, now this. Must we Westerners pretend that we have no enemies without, all the while destroying ourselves from within?
The UK Parliament has learned the lesson well. Last night the House of Commons voted to do away with the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child's need for a male role model before providing fertility treatment to women. A child has neither an interest nor a right to have a father because men are obsolete. That is the claim.
The war against fathers and their children is real. Studies show time and again that fatherlessness is a root cause of a host of social ills, including career criminality, poverty, psychological disorders, and drug use. Yet enlightened social engineers continue to chip away at the legal supports for fatherhood. First no-fault divorce, then same-sex marriage, now this. Must we Westerners pretend that we have no enemies without, all the while destroying ourselves from within?
Friday, April 4, 2008
A little loss of liberty
Yesterday's decision by the Ninth Circuit in Fair Housing Council v. Roommates.com illustrates one of the many ways in which promotion of the homosexuality agenda and judicial activism both infringe upon the liberty of all. For a fair treatment of the decision and its legal analysis, see this post by Eugene Volokh. In short, the court decided that Roommates.com does not enjoy immunity under the federal Communications Decency Act where it requires applicants for its roommate matching service to disclose their sex, sexual orientation, and whether they would bring children into the residence. Immunity is important to Roommates.com because the Federal Fair Housing Act forbids advertisement for housing that discriminates on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin (but not sexual orientation) and California law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexial orientation and marital status, among other factors.
Volokh thinks the decision is correct for the reasons stated in the majority opinion. I, not surprisingly, think the decision incorrect for the reasons stated in the dissent. The key to understanding why this case was wrongly decided is to note that interactive service providers such as Roommates.com (and Facebook, Google, etc.) simply sort and deliver information provided by third parties. Congress expressly immunized this activity in the Communications Decency Act. Roommates.com is not alleged to have communicated any discriminatory information in violation of the Federal Fair Housing Act. Instead, the majority assumed for the sake of its decision that the content of Roommates.com is discriminatory and illegal. That Roommates.com requires its users to identify their sex and sexual orientation is problematic only if solicitation of that information itself violates the FHA. The dissent is thus surely right that the majority has conflated the issue of liability under the FHA with the issue of immunity under the CDA.
In short, the court overreached. Overreaching has become commonplace in the Ninth Circuit. But the ubiquity of liberal activism in that circuit does not make the activism right.
The majority's reasoning defies both common sense and the text of the Fair Housing Act. Judge Kozinski, writing for the majority yesterday in Roommates.com, asserted that asking roommate candidates to disclose their sex and sexual orientation "is no different from a real estate broker in real life saying, 'Tell me whether you’re Jewish or you can find yourself another broker.'" This claim is risible. Of course there is no rational reason to refuse to live with or rent to a Jew. However, there are obvious reasons why a straight male might not want to share his intimate living quarters with a woman, a homosexual male, or a married couple.
For this reason, the Federal Fair Housing exempts from its reach landlords who live in the same dwelling as their tenants. In other words, the FHA exempts roommates. But the Ninth Circuit has now re-written the FHA, extending it into the private residences of those who wish to lease residential space. That California has chosen to prohibit housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation adds to the tyranny of the Ninth Circuit's decision.
Volokh thinks the decision is correct for the reasons stated in the majority opinion. I, not surprisingly, think the decision incorrect for the reasons stated in the dissent. The key to understanding why this case was wrongly decided is to note that interactive service providers such as Roommates.com (and Facebook, Google, etc.) simply sort and deliver information provided by third parties. Congress expressly immunized this activity in the Communications Decency Act. Roommates.com is not alleged to have communicated any discriminatory information in violation of the Federal Fair Housing Act. Instead, the majority assumed for the sake of its decision that the content of Roommates.com is discriminatory and illegal. That Roommates.com requires its users to identify their sex and sexual orientation is problematic only if solicitation of that information itself violates the FHA. The dissent is thus surely right that the majority has conflated the issue of liability under the FHA with the issue of immunity under the CDA.
In short, the court overreached. Overreaching has become commonplace in the Ninth Circuit. But the ubiquity of liberal activism in that circuit does not make the activism right.
The majority's reasoning defies both common sense and the text of the Fair Housing Act. Judge Kozinski, writing for the majority yesterday in Roommates.com, asserted that asking roommate candidates to disclose their sex and sexual orientation "is no different from a real estate broker in real life saying, 'Tell me whether you’re Jewish or you can find yourself another broker.'" This claim is risible. Of course there is no rational reason to refuse to live with or rent to a Jew. However, there are obvious reasons why a straight male might not want to share his intimate living quarters with a woman, a homosexual male, or a married couple.
For this reason, the Federal Fair Housing exempts from its reach landlords who live in the same dwelling as their tenants. In other words, the FHA exempts roommates. But the Ninth Circuit has now re-written the FHA, extending it into the private residences of those who wish to lease residential space. That California has chosen to prohibit housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation adds to the tyranny of the Ninth Circuit's decision.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Gender binaries are so last semester
The Boston Globe reports on the increasing use of mixed-gender student housing, allowing men and women to room together in the same bedrooms on college campuses. The usual suspects -- feminists, homosexuality advocates, confused, transgendered souls -- are behind the trend. Particularly striking is the rhetoric of mixed housing advocates. Some choice samples follow.
You think I'm being facetious? Dartmouth doesn't. Its housing form, according to the Boston Globe, "asks students their personal gender identity and if students have a third-person pronoun they wish to be addressed by." It? Other? Does the student get to make one up?
I know I am not the first (nor the last) to marvel at the pedagogical irresponsibility of America's colleges and universities, but I really do wonder whether students who get to define realty any way they like have any incentive to learn what the world really is.
Denise Darrigrand, dean of students at Clark: "It's a new world, and gender has taken on all kinds of new definitions. It's about being more inclusive, and it's about keeping pace with the times."Gender has new definitions? Does it mean something more than male and female? But as long as we're being inclusive and keeping pace with the times, why bother having bedrooms at all? Why not just throw all the students into a common bunkhouse? Wouldn't that be more in keeping with modern notions of discretion?
James Baumann of the Association of College and University Housing Officers: "Among Millennial students, whether it's race, gender, or nationality, the borders are coming down. The lines just aren't there anymore."To what borders is he referring and where have they gone? Does he mean "walls"? Those borders? But the walls are still there. They haven't gone anywhere. They now merely separate one set of post-gender roommates from another set of post-gender roommates. Or am I missing something?
Dartmouth housing applicatin form: "[Dartmouth] seeks to provide a living environment welcoming to all gender identities; one not limited by the traditional gender binary."If gender is no longer binary, what it is? Are there three variants? Eight? One hundred? Does anyone know? Are not even transgendered variations defined relative to the binary models of "male" and "female." But I suppose that's oppressive. Much like the English language. And biology. Why not throw those out, too? No reason to let oppressive and outdated ideas about language and science impede inclusion. We need to keep pace with the times, after all.
Jeffrey Chang, Clark student: Separate housing policies "needlessly reinforce an oppressive gender binary"
You think I'm being facetious? Dartmouth doesn't. Its housing form, according to the Boston Globe, "asks students their personal gender identity and if students have a third-person pronoun they wish to be addressed by." It? Other? Does the student get to make one up?
I know I am not the first (nor the last) to marvel at the pedagogical irresponsibility of America's colleges and universities, but I really do wonder whether students who get to define realty any way they like have any incentive to learn what the world really is.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Why the social conservative platform benefits homosexuals
Titus' post below calls to mind a canard commonly traded among homosexuality advocates, academics, and the mainstream media, that those of us who defend conjugal (monogamous, opposite-sex) marriage and oppose special rights for homosexuals are motivated by some anti-gay animus. We here in the Cloakroom have recently expressed our opposition to same-sex marriage (here, here, and here) and to Ted Kennedy's so-called "Employment Non-discrimination Act." It behooves us, I think, to explain why our positions are borne not out of antipathy toward homosexuals but rather out of principles of universally-accessible practical reason.
The case for conjugal marriage and the case against distinguishing homosexuals as a suspect class under the Equal Protection clause and federal employment discrimination laws both begin with the observation that not all sexual acts are equally good. That is to say, not all sexual acts fulfill a basic human good. In fact, only monogamous, conjugal, marital sex draws a person into the two-in-one-flesh communion that integrates the human person. Unless one adopts the view that sex is something less than what it self-evidently is, one cannot argue that all sex acts are equally constitutive of, and fulfilling of, the instrinsic good of marriage.
Sexual acts performed outside the intrinsically-valuable relationship of conjugal monogamy disintegrate the human person by objectifying the human body. This is true of fornication, adultery, pornography, and homosexual acts. The institution of conjugal marriage promotes the integration of human persons by directing sexuality into the channel in which it instantiates a basic, human good. And it disincentivizes disintegrating, non-marital sex acts.
Homosexuality advocates respond that, while conjugal marriage may be well and good for heterosexuals, homosexuals want no part in it. Homosexuals, they argue, are fulfilled by pursuing their preference for same-sex intimacy. The autonomous choice of same-sex intimacy enables homosexuals to express their true identities.
The fundamental problem with this response is its failure to distinguish between proclivity and choice. As the Vatican has affirmed in recent years, homosexuality is a tendency and not an identity. That a person struggles with homosexual temptation does not entail that he should succumb to that temptation. I have known men (perhaps I have also known women in this category, though they have not so identified themselves to me) overcome the temptation to homosexual acts and lead healthy, fulfilling lives in their victory.
When Gene Robinson, the Episcopal priest who abandoned his wife for a homosexual lover and whom the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire nevertheless elected as Bishop in 2003, called alcoholism a "disease," he was on to something. However, he failed to see the implications of that fitting appellation. The parallels between alcoholism and homosexuality are many. Both disorders stem from a compulsive proclivity. Both take something that is essentially good -- the fruit of the vine in one case, human sexuality in the other -- and pervert the goodness beyond recognition. Both destroy. Though neither proclivity is a sin, both drive people to indulge in unhealthy, disintegrating acts.
Laws creating a special class for homosexuals encourage homosexuals to identify themselves as homosexuals. We would never create a special class in employment discrimination law for alcoholics, because such a classification would encourage people who tend to drink too much to identify themselves as alcoholics. Such a law would cause moral, and perhaps physical and psychological, harm to those persons.
Homosexuality activists claim, dishonestly, that they want equality with heterosexuals. When subjected to the same rules as everyone else -- uniform pre-requisites for marriage, anti-discrimination laws that permit discrimination based upon tendencies -- they demand special treatment. Special treatment means legal approbation for choices that harm. That is why we here in the Cloakroom oppose creation of special classes for homosexuals.
The Christian perspective takes this one step further. If, as Christians like myself believe, all sexual activity outside of monogamous, conjugal marriage disintegrates human persons and relationships, then we are doing homosexuals no favor by giving the approbation of the state to choices that harm them. In fact, we are discriminating against them by denying the same grace -- truth about the sinfulness of their actions and the sufficiency of Christ's atonement, and forgiveness and restoration to the way God made them -- that we Christians are to extend to all sinners, whether homosexual or heterosexual.
On a personal note, I invite anyone who considers me antipathetic to homosexuals or a homophobe to consider these facts. I shared an apartment with a homosexual in college. I have two openly gay cousins. I have other close friends who have struggled with, and overcome, homosexual temptation. I want the best for these friends. That is why I am so firm on these issues.
The case for conjugal marriage and the case against distinguishing homosexuals as a suspect class under the Equal Protection clause and federal employment discrimination laws both begin with the observation that not all sexual acts are equally good. That is to say, not all sexual acts fulfill a basic human good. In fact, only monogamous, conjugal, marital sex draws a person into the two-in-one-flesh communion that integrates the human person. Unless one adopts the view that sex is something less than what it self-evidently is, one cannot argue that all sex acts are equally constitutive of, and fulfilling of, the instrinsic good of marriage.
Sexual acts performed outside the intrinsically-valuable relationship of conjugal monogamy disintegrate the human person by objectifying the human body. This is true of fornication, adultery, pornography, and homosexual acts. The institution of conjugal marriage promotes the integration of human persons by directing sexuality into the channel in which it instantiates a basic, human good. And it disincentivizes disintegrating, non-marital sex acts.
Homosexuality advocates respond that, while conjugal marriage may be well and good for heterosexuals, homosexuals want no part in it. Homosexuals, they argue, are fulfilled by pursuing their preference for same-sex intimacy. The autonomous choice of same-sex intimacy enables homosexuals to express their true identities.
The fundamental problem with this response is its failure to distinguish between proclivity and choice. As the Vatican has affirmed in recent years, homosexuality is a tendency and not an identity. That a person struggles with homosexual temptation does not entail that he should succumb to that temptation. I have known men (perhaps I have also known women in this category, though they have not so identified themselves to me) overcome the temptation to homosexual acts and lead healthy, fulfilling lives in their victory.
When Gene Robinson, the Episcopal priest who abandoned his wife for a homosexual lover and whom the Episcopal Church in New Hampshire nevertheless elected as Bishop in 2003, called alcoholism a "disease," he was on to something. However, he failed to see the implications of that fitting appellation. The parallels between alcoholism and homosexuality are many. Both disorders stem from a compulsive proclivity. Both take something that is essentially good -- the fruit of the vine in one case, human sexuality in the other -- and pervert the goodness beyond recognition. Both destroy. Though neither proclivity is a sin, both drive people to indulge in unhealthy, disintegrating acts.
Laws creating a special class for homosexuals encourage homosexuals to identify themselves as homosexuals. We would never create a special class in employment discrimination law for alcoholics, because such a classification would encourage people who tend to drink too much to identify themselves as alcoholics. Such a law would cause moral, and perhaps physical and psychological, harm to those persons.
Homosexuality activists claim, dishonestly, that they want equality with heterosexuals. When subjected to the same rules as everyone else -- uniform pre-requisites for marriage, anti-discrimination laws that permit discrimination based upon tendencies -- they demand special treatment. Special treatment means legal approbation for choices that harm. That is why we here in the Cloakroom oppose creation of special classes for homosexuals.
The Christian perspective takes this one step further. If, as Christians like myself believe, all sexual activity outside of monogamous, conjugal marriage disintegrates human persons and relationships, then we are doing homosexuals no favor by giving the approbation of the state to choices that harm them. In fact, we are discriminating against them by denying the same grace -- truth about the sinfulness of their actions and the sufficiency of Christ's atonement, and forgiveness and restoration to the way God made them -- that we Christians are to extend to all sinners, whether homosexual or heterosexual.
On a personal note, I invite anyone who considers me antipathetic to homosexuals or a homophobe to consider these facts. I shared an apartment with a homosexual in college. I have two openly gay cousins. I have other close friends who have struggled with, and overcome, homosexual temptation. I want the best for these friends. That is why I am so firm on these issues.
Kennedy bill to ignite social debate
Ever the progressive darling, Ted Kennedy continues to push his so-called Employment Non-Discrimination Act in the Senate. The AP reports:When even your supporters don't support the bill you are indeed headed for defeat. President Bush will veto the bill if it manages to pass the 60 vote Senate threshold, but it is likely that it will not.WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is jumping into the middle of an uproar within the gay community whose causes he has long championed.
The Massachusetts Democrat is leading a push in the Senate for a federal ban on job bias against gays, lesbians and bisexuals — but not transsexuals, cross-dressers and others whose outward appearance doesn't match their gender at birth.
"We will strongly oppose it," said Roberta Sklar of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "Leaving transgender people out makes that a flawed movement."
The House in November approved the bill, written by openly gay Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., despite strong protests from many gay rights advocates that it didn't cover transgender workers.
"It was made very clear in the fall that most LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) organizations, the vast majority of LGBT organizations, do not want Congress to shove a civil rights bill down our throat that we don't want," said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
This bill would discriminate against religious business owners. It creates special protections for certain people. It would create precedent for future pieces of legislation that would enshrine in statute even more ridiculous requirements for employers. The fact that the LGBT community is not happy with it because it is not expansive enough is evidence aplenty that it is one step on the way to massive regulation of the rights of employers to run their businesses as they see fit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
