Posted on 03/19/2013 6:18:04 AM PDT by Kaslin
Last week, Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio announced that he had reversed his position on same-sex marriage. The reason was that his son had come out to him and his wife as gay.
This is not the first such instance. Periodically, we hear about Republican politicians whose child announces that he or she is gay, prompting the parent to change his mind about the man-woman definition of marriage.
As a parent, I understand these parents. We love our children, and we want them to love us.
Nevertheless I differ with their decisions to support the redefinition of marriage.
In order to explain why, let's analyze some of Senator Portman's words:
"I'm announcing today a change of heart ... "
These words are well chosen. Senator Portman's position is indeed "a change of heart." That's why he didn't say "change of mind." His change comes from his heart.
In this regard, Portman speaks for virtually every progressive/left/liberal position on virtually every subject. To understand leftism -- not that the senator has become a leftist, but he has taken the left-wing position on redefining marriage -- one must understand that above all else leftism is rooted in emotion, not reason. That is why left-wing social positions always refer to compassion and fairness -- for blacks, for illegal immigrants, for poorer people and, of course, for gays. Whether a progressive position will improve or harm society is not a progressive question. That is a conservative question. What matters to progressives is whether a position emanates from compassion.
Progressives do not seem to recognize that in life there is always tension between standards and compassion. Standards, by definition, cannot allow for compassion for every individual. If society were to show compassion to every individual, it would have no standards. Speeding laws are not waived for the unfortunate soul who has to catch an important flight. Orchestral standards are not waived for the musician who has devoted his or her life to studying an instrument, is a wonderful person and needs the job to support a family.
It is either right to maintain the man-woman definition of our most important social institution, or is it not. We cannot base our decision on compassion for gays, whether the gay is our child, our sibling, our friend or anyone else.
Yes, societies have changed qualifications for marriage regarding age and number, but no society before the 21st century ever considered redefining the fundamental nature of marriage by changing the sexes. That is why it is not honest to argue that same-sex marriage is just another redefinition. It is the most radical change to the definition of marriage in the history of civilization.
How then should people of compassion deal with this, or any other, issue? By asking whether we maintain standards or whether we change them because of compassion. Do we change universities' academic standards out of compassion for blacks and their history of persecution, or do we maintain college admission standards? Do we change military standards in order to enable women to enter fighting units or do we ask only what is the best policy to maintain military excellence?
The only answer that works -- and no answer is perfect in this imperfect world -- is to maintain standards in the macro and show compassion in the micro.
Every parent owes the same love and support to a gay child as to a straight child. In fact, all of us, parents or not, owe the same respect to gays as individuals as to heterosexual individuals. That does not mean, however, that marriage needs to be redefined. It does not mean that, all things being equal, it is not best for a child to have a male and female parent.
Compassion was the reason Senator Portman raised another issue: "My son," he said, "told us he was gay, and that it was not a choice."
This raises an obvious question. Prior to his son telling him that he did not choose to find men sexually attractive, did Senator Portman believe that gay men did choose to find men rather than women sexually attractive? Unlikely.
So why did he raise this? Because the "gays have no choice" issue tugs at people's hearts. Once again, compassion individual is supposed to trump all other considerations.
Finally, the senator also said:
"During my career in the House and the last couple of years in the Senate, I've taken a position against gay marriage rooted in part in my faith and my faith tradition." But he has been "rethinking my position, talking to my pastor and other religious leaders."
It would be interesting to find out what exactly his Christian pastor said to him. Did the pastor tell him that Christianity looks favorably on man-man marriage? Or that God made men and women essentially interchangeable? If so, why didn't this pastor tell this to the senator the whole time the senator opposed same-sex marriage?
A final note to parents of gays: Parents who believe in the man-woman definition of marriage do not owe it to their gay child to support the same-sex redefinition of marriage -- any more than gay children owe it to these parents to oppose same-sex marriage. Parents and children owe each other love and respect, not abandonment of convictions.
If they are your standards, you should be able to do anything with them, shouldn’t you?
For this reason, God gave them over...
That’s just dumb. Can’t you think for yourself? Just because you may have a change of heart on one thing, certainly doesn’t mean you have a change of heart on everything, does it?
> IMHO, Portman is feeling guilty for not being there for his son and is partly to blame for his son’s same sex attraction. Now he’s trying to make good.
I think you make a good point there.
Last week, Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio announced that he had reversed his position on same-sex marriage. The reason was that his son had come out to him and his wife as gay.
Last week, Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio announced that he had reversed his position on Murder. The reason was that his son had come out to him and his wife as a murderer.
We had concerns that one of my daughters was being influenced by her homosexual friends to become one. She even lived with her female college basketball coach and the coaches femal lover. And she roomed with a homosexual girl that had a crush on her during her last years at the university.
Interestingly, she rebelled against it. In fact, she and I were discussing the “it gets better” videos on you tube and her response was, “no it doesn’t”. This comes from her several years of dealing with these people and their personalities and lifestyles and discovering that the whole thing is seriously, as one might say, f***ed up.
However, coming to grips with what I was seeing, I never changed my position on homosexuality. In fact, it strengthened it. And my position is summed up in my rewording of the original statement above.
They are sexual predators....It’s the only way they can keep their numbers up.
Fags have us so snowed, it isn’t funny. They make up less than three percent of the population, but they practically own pop culture, and have people, even rational, reasonable people, thinking that they’re 20% of the population.
We are all born sinners. Different people have different pet sins. Alcoholics, pedophiles, compulsive firestarters (pyromaniacs), nymphomaniacs, etc., etc. will all tell you they were born that way. That doesn’t make it right or acceptable to act out on those compulsive urges.
If my son was a druggie I wouldn’t want free drugs for druggies, if he was an alcoholic I wouldn’t want free booze for alcoholics.
While I would hate for my son to be homosexual I would still love him but I wouldn’t encourage him and I wouldn’t accept that it was normal and try to make it appear to be normal.
“his environment caused him to be gay,”
Exactly! The environment where another male has his _ _ _ _ up his _ _ _ or in his mouth. First one orifice then the other.
The environment at roadside rest stop bathrooms.
It’s about the erotic perverse SEX! (the “turn on”), it’s not about a normal alternative lifestyle. It’s ABNORMAL. NOT “normal”. It’s a learned behavior. It’s a CHOICE. Is the perpetrator of a rape making a choice or was he born that way? Born a rapist? You say “nonsense”, but being born gay is so believable. Homosexuals are making a choice to sin. That _ _ _ _ didn’t “fall” into your mouth or _ _ _. You put it there or allowed theirs to be. DISGUSTING! And then you kiss your mother.
Great points on all, especially that you would still love him
I doubt it’s the same to a homosexual...you still have a wife to fulfill those needs even if you are attracted to another woman.
Clearly, homosexuality is a perverse CHOICE made by bad people who are attracted to evil. It is the same Satanic impulse that leads people to support Obamacare or other social “welfare” programs. The goal always is the destruction of Christian society. If we are to survive, we need to be true to GOD’S LAW and deal with evil, homosexual perverts in the way God’s word commands us.
Is he ignorant enough to really believe no society ever considered normalization of homosexuality before the 21st century? There is ancient and medieval history that says otherwise.
He writes, "It is either right to maintain the man-woman definition of our most important social institution, or is it not. We cannot base our decision on compassion for gays, whether the gay is our child, our sibling, our friend or anyone else."
Yet he concedes changes in civil marriage have happened regard to race, number and even age but never explains why those were rational, conservative changes. After all those represented changes from tradition. In fact earlier he suggests they may not have been when he says it was done out of progressive claims of fairness. He sabotages his own argument.
Marriage is horribly broken as a social institution and we are wasting far too much time on the gays and spending NO TIME on why the failure rate is so high which is a far more destructive to progeny and societal cohesion than whether a same sex partner can draw on the others Social Security.
As a society, we've just accepted how fractured heterosexual marriage is now and stood idly by as the baby mama / baby daddy culture took root. More people trying to get into committed, legally sanctioned relationships? Bad. Evil. Satan worshipping. People making a mess of their lives and their children's lives? The OK, new normal.
You oversimplify. Most of the gays I know are drama queens and attention whores. It’s less about sex and more about playing the victim.
It’s no wonder they are always so unhappy. I wish I had a dime for every gay person I know that threatens suicide. They treat it like a Valium.
You must be one of those morally ambivalent libertarians.
Homosexual sex is self destructive societally and individually.
Saying, "Meh, I changed my mind." spares Portman that difficult phase of introspection.
I agree, but I just don’t think a homosexual sees it like a heterosexual does.
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