The Soul-Crushing Scorched-Earth Battle for Gay Marriage

American Thinker ^ | Aug 11 2012 | Robert Oscar Lopez

[scottjewell]

How much is victory worth? And after you win, if you win, what do you have to show for it?

As these principles go with warfare, so they go with propaganda. The Greek word polemos, "war," led not to the English word "war," but rather to the English word "polemics."

The gay movement is not a random assortment of motley rebels. It is highly organized, with major nerve centers in places like the Human Rights Coalition. The movement has its prominent generals, such as Dan Savage and Wayne Besen.

In other words, this is a movement equipped to pick its battles. In 1999, history was made because Vermont's high court legalized same-sex civil unions. The battle plan then could have been to focus on civil unions, forging a new model of romantic commitment in a nation where the old notion of "marriage" had long suffered from stasis.

The war could have been won and over by now. In polls that break down three choices for respondents -- (1) no recognition of same-sex couples, (2) civil unions, or (3) marriage -- civil unions tend to get the highest support.

By using civil unions as the framework, gays and lesbians could have redefined the concept of gay family to encompass new forms of cooperative foster care, for instance, rather than trying to erase the role of biological fatherhood and motherhood.

[scottjewell]

This piece is excellent and should be read straight through.

It was the pure greed of gay advocacy (and their liberal advisers) that wouldn't stop at civil unions, and I hope they have a wave of electoral defeat this fall. They are hubris personified.

[livius]

It is excellent. Throughout history, children have been brought up by people who weren’t their biological parents, or by single women, sisters or friends who had somehow ended up having these children in their care, or even occasionally by single men who had somehow inherited them from a sibling or even a friend, and sometimes even in institutions of better or worse quality. While it would no doubt have been better for them to have been brought up by a stable loving couple (a man and a woman), most of them turned out just fine.

We also have to remember that the image of mother and father at home around the dinner table every night is a pretty new one. Men went to sea for years, they were conscripted and were gone for years, there was a much higher death rate among young women, particularly in childbirth, and in any case children left home, either for school or for work or sometimes for marriage, by the time they were 14.

But making the whole thing ideological, which is what the professional gays have done, and trying, as the author says, to erase biological parenthood, is harmful beyond belief. And as he points out, completely unnecessary.

I don’t know why gays are doing this, but as he says, it is a scorched earth policy and they don’t care who they destroy, including other gays (because he’s right, being “married” will not make them happier or solve their problems).

I think they are being used and encouraged by the Marxists who want to destroy the whole concept of family or even biological reality and have the state take over the rearing of children and, someday, even their “production.”

[scottjewell]

Thanks for your excellent comments.

I would agree that in addition to the over-reaching tendency of gay advocacy itself, there is a quasi-Marxist strain backing the same sex marriage movement, who are seeking nothing less than the disastrous transformation of society.

[Pollster1]

The left is big on changing names in the hope that the connotations of a respected word will somehow transfer to their pet causes. My guess is that they will eventually win on “marriage” too, and that word will lose any positive connotations it used to have. If we’re smart, we’ll fight as much as possible, but if we lose we’ll respond by abandoning the tainted word “marriage” and using a Greek or Latin version of the word to refer to real marriages. It’s not the syllables that are sacred, it’s the meaning that God gave us for the relationship that we used to describe with that word.

[scottjewell]

Yes, and in a sense this means that the gays cannot really win, in the end, on marriage. As you note even if “marriage” would come to include same sex couples in the mind of the public, this would not magically elevate it ontologically. Nor would it negate the actual religious meaning.

I still hope there is a strong push back against gay marriage, though, because the advocates are self-deluded enough to believe in their hollow victory and to flaunt it.

[TalBlack]

“...most of them turned out just fine.”

According to a study done a few years ago those children who turned out just fine knew the difference between uncontrollable circumstance situations versus deliberate (selfish, to say nothing of deviant)circumstances.

[Phlyer]

While it would no doubt have been better for them to have been brought up by a stable loving couple (a man and a woman), most of them turned out just fine.

In the sense that 51% is 'most' of them, then perhaps. But the results in a culture where the majority of children are raised in that situation are terrible - crime, and a cycle of despair. If 5 out of 100 children raised in an intact family turn out to have problems, and 49 out of 100 raised in a broken family have problems, then there is still a problem - and a big one.

We also have to remember that the image of mother and father at home around the dinner table every night is a pretty new one.

No, it's a very prevalent, very long-standing one. Even at the time Thomas Jefferson was president, 19 out of 20 people in the US lived and worked on farms. The father would be gone during the day in the fields, but he'd be home for supper. And while there were a lot of women who died in childbirth, it was not 'most of' them. In fact, you typically had multi-generational dinners, showing a strong continuity and sense of responsibility for the family - role models for every child growing up.

Yes, some children did leave home earlier, but through the 1800's, over 90% of the people had never lived more than 15 miles from where they were born - and only about half had even travelled that far from home.

The breakdown of the family is the greatest tragedy in the US since 1900. It is the direct source for the explosion in welfare dependency and all the other breakdowns in personal responsibility. And anything that undermines the importance and sanctity of an enduring union of a man and a woman in an institution that can provide and provide for children is an acceleration of our downward slide.

Unfortunately, I agree with the writer who says that homosexual marriage is coming.

[StonyBurk]

Read t’s dilution Stupid by Dr. Kelly Hollowell,J.D., Ph.D. published in WND (2/23/2011(original @2004) ; Marriage and the Constitution by Ken Blackwell AUg.8,2010; American College of Pediatricians (ACPEDS) on the Dec.21,2005 open letter to Congress on Defense of Marriage Amendment;and The Family under Siege; chapter on Unnatural Affections ,George Grant PHD editor and especially the excerpt from the 1987 Sept issue of the Advocate Article p.29 by Steve Warren of ACTUP Warning to the Homophobes (demanding same sex marriage the same year the supreme Court redefined Marriage calling it a relationship that”can receive benefits including property and Government benefits.”;1788 Edward Gibbon the
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire included one causual
aspect was the rapid increase of divorce,undermining the dignity and sanctity of the home ,the basis of human society; higher and higher taxes; Mad craze for pleasure; building of gigantic armaments -when the real enemy was the decadence of the people; and #5 the decay of religion.See also Toynbee and his 1960’s warning of American decline —and Jim Black— When Nations Die :Ten warning signs of a nation in decline— Then as we so often said in the public school drill Bend over, place your head between your legs —and Kiss your A— goodby.”Fasten your seatbelts it’s about to get a little dicey.

[livius]

That’s my point. Just because children are not brought up in a long-term two-parent (male and female) household doesn’t condemn them to a miserable life...unless the reason they are brought up that way is ideological (that is, rejection of the concept of that type of family).

And with the gays, this has nothing to do with children or parenting: it’s all ideological, to force not only acceptance but adherence to their strange cult of their private parts.

[livius]

I’m not talking about amoral single parents in a welfare culture. I was referring to the fact that throughout history, children have been brought up by people who weren’t their parents or in non-family circumstances, and this alone is not enough to create a dysfunctional child. Nor does having two parents at home automatically guarantee that a child will turn out well. They might be two completely dysfunctional parents, child abusers, neglectful, etc.: in other words, it is the behavior of the person taking care of the child that counts.

The author’s whole point is that it is the ideology that does this, and the whole goal of the “professional gays” is to force this ideology on everybody. They already had legal rights to visit each other in the hospital, name anybody they wanted in their wills and even their living wills, etc. But what they want to do is force not only a new definition of marriage, but a new definition of being. So it’s all ideology, although I think the driving force behind it goes beyond the gays themselves (well, leaving aside Satan).

If you think gay marriage is bad, wait until you see what’s coming: I read that there is an EU bill that would prevent any identification of a child’s biological sex on his or her birth certificate - until an age when the child can “choose” what sex he or she wants.

Marriage involves a man and a woman, and two men or two women cannot be “married,” but I’m nonetheless sure the impossible will soon be not only legal but required (that is, churches will have to perform these travesties).

Just in the same way, you’d think that a biological fact cannot be “chosen.” But since we have cut loose from natural law, the foundation of the US Constitution, and are subject now only to positive law (that is, man- or state-made law), the state wants to prove that it can do whatever it wants: including redefining biology and created nature.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Every marriage is a civil union in the eyes of the state.

Therefore, the mistake was ever yielding to gays on civil unions at all.

I have no problem with individually negotiated partnerships defining the rights to each other (hospital visitations, division of personal property) among any number of people.

But I oppose any kind of union that confers public benefits or rights respecting children on gay relationships because that’s not the purpose for which those benefits were designed and financed.

[AustinBill]

What is important to realize, and which few note, is that *all* of the various modern "rights" groups are simply branch offices of the same radical left. It's the common thread which unites them. While they may have been started with the best of intentions, they've all long been co-opted.

When communism "died" it didn't go away, it simply went underground and took over all of the various "rights" groups so it could continue the age-old Marxist "class struggle" in another guise, for it is "victimhood" which is the life-blood of Marxist ideology. This article is simply an illustration of this with regards to the so-called "gay rights" movement.

With regard to the agenda, no appeasement is possible. Concession in one area will only fuel further demands in another. Because there is no coherent positive message here, only a visceral desire to tear down the current order. Because the goal is always the same: Anarchy which leads inevitably back to oligarchic rule to "restore order".

On this point history is quite clear. The only choice is Rule of Law or Rule of the Strong, with the latter being the dominant form of government for most of human history. Marxists are very good students of history while the "useful idiots" they enlist to their "cause" (knowingly or more often unknowingly) are not. In this Marxist ideology itself is just a "flag of convenience" for the goal is always the same: Rule of the Strong. The "genius" of Marxism is how easily it recruits the naive to assist in their own enslavement. And nowhere is that more true than in the modern "gay rights" movement.

[Nervous Tick]

>>livius: I don’t know why gays are doing this
>>scottjewel: I think they are being used and encouraged by the Marxists who want to destroy the whole concept of family or even biological reality and have the state take over the rearing of children and, someday, even their “production.”

The Marxists and their concepts are just a tool in the fight.

Look to the root cause. Satan is every bit as real as God, and as the old song goes, “on earth is not his equal”. This fight for the very identity of mankind has Satan’s fingerprints all over it.

[scottjewell]

Well, well said.

[Caipirabob]

My guess is that they will eventually win on “marriage” too, and that word will lose any positive connotations it used to have.

I can just see the future (from my front door):

My son and his lady are talking about their future plans. She suggests "Marriage". He responds "Get married? Like GAY people? Uhg, no way!..."

[scottjewell]

That is an excellent point re civil unions.

[scottjewell]

Yes, in the end all moral battles do divide into good versus evil. Ontologically, these concepts are always at the root of all movements.

[chesley]

Amen to that!!!

[Stegall Tx]

I’ve said this before, but homosexuals will one day regret this “marriage” fight. Once the insurance companies have the ability to easily identify a person as homosexual (as they will when two “spouses” are of the same gender in a family), then they will be able to easily track and record the actual cost of insuring homosexuals. And the actual cost of insurance for homosexuals will skyrocket.

Even if the government intervenes and forces them to provide insurance at artificially low rates, then the facts of how dangerous homosexuality is will finally be documented.

[Pollster1]

My son and his lady are talking about their future plans. She suggests "Marriage". He responds "Get married? Like GAY people? Uhg, no way!..."

Maybe we can call it a "civil union", with all the legal benefits of marriage but none of the negative connotations that will be associated with "marriage" as redefined by the far left fringe.