Posted on 07/08/2004 9:43:39 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
In "De-Lovely," the new film about songwriter Cole Porter’s life, Porter tells his wife, Linda, about his homosexuality. Linda, who is the inspiration behind his genius, tells him that his music comes from his talent not from his destructive behavior. But she does beg Porter to give up his scandalous behavior so as “not to put us at jeopardy,” a promise Porter isn’t prepared to make.
The prospect of a marriage where children, permanence, and fidelity are in doubt is supposed to make us pity Linda Porter, even if she was complicit in her own plight. After all, who would opt for such an arrangement? Well, according to one scholar, many Americans have. And understanding how and why this is the case is crucial to understanding the push for same-sex “marriages.”
According to Bryce Christensen of Southern Utah University, homosexuals don’t want marriage, at least not marriage as understood for most of the past two millennia. They want what “marriage has become” as a result of cultural changes and bad policy choices.
Historically speaking, marriage was an institution “defined by religious doctrine, moral tradition, home-centered commitments to child rearing, and gender complementarity . . . ” Today, it is a “highly individualistic and egalitarian institution.” Marriage no longer “[implies] commitment to home, to Church, to childbearing, to traditional gender duties, or even (permanently) to spouse,” so writes Christensen.
Traditionally, the “husband-wife bond” was defined by “mutual sacrifice and cooperative labor.” But that has been replaced by “dual-careerist vistas of self-fulfillment and consumer satisfaction.”
According to Christensen, no one should be surprised that homosexuals want “the strange new thing marriage has become.” After all, “contemporary marriage . . . certifies a certain legitimacy in the mainstream of American culture.” In addition, it “delivers tax, insurance, life-style, and governmental benefits.”
And, best of all, from the homosexual’s perspective, it does all of these things “without imposing any of the obligations of traditional marriage.” If childbearing, sexual fidelity, and permanence are no longer central to our culture’s understanding of marriage, but the benefits are the same, why not agitate for marriage?
Christensen says that it would be a mockery to issue marriage license to couples who, by definition, “can never have children,” “will not resist the temptations to extramarital affairs, and will not preserve their union for a lifetime.”
But, as he reminds us, this mockery of wedlock started “decades ago.” It started when hundreds of thousands of heterosexual couples started “buying basset hounds rather than bassinets; started indulging in extramarital affairs; and started fulfilling divorce attorneys’ dreams of avarice.” The result was marriages that more closely resembled the one depicted in De-Lovely than the traditional model.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t fight the attempt to extend the marriage franchise to same-sex couples. It’s still a mockery of a sacred institution. But it does mean that our efforts should be part of what Christensen calls a “broader effort to restore moral and religious integrity to marriage as a heterosexual institution.”
Until that happens, marriage, regardless of who gets a marriage license, will remain an institution in jeopardy.
Gay Marriage? What could it hurt?
Results of gay marriage in Scandinavia.
Results of gay marriage in Holland
Where it will lead sociologically.
Let's be nice, live-and-let-live libertarian types, just like in Canada.
BreakPoint/Chuck Colson Ping!
If anyone wants on or off my BreakPoint Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
Had I not seen this on FR, I would never have known, from the mainstream review clips, that this film covered homosexuality.
me too. kevin kline has now done two or three movies about being gay. do you think he has become obsessed? I never go see him any more.
I assume, usually correctly, that it is mostly crap.
I think your term is appropriate, since the leader of the SA (the "brown shirts") and many other top Nazis were homosexuals.
It's all part of a gradual process.
1965 - Griswold vs. Connecticut legitimizes contraception.
1969 - California introduces no-fault divorce.
1973 - Roe vs. Wade legalizes murdering children.
If marriage meant an indissoluble bond in which a couple accepts as many children as God wants to give them, then sodomites wouldn't want anything to do with it.
But thanks to the cultural long march against chastity, sacramental marriage and children, it is debased enough to be extended to perverts.
Homosexual Agenda Ping - More on marriage and its "gay" imposter.
Please note Mr. Silverback's links in post #1 - everything anyone needs to know about the truth of "gay" marriage and what it does to society. Of course, "gay" marriage is part of a continuum of societal desctruction. But it may well prove to be one of the final nails in the coffin, unless we can turn this thing around.
We should never give up hope, never give up fighting for the sacred institution of marriage and the eternal moral absolutes it is based on. It is the very foundation of civilized human society, and we allow it to be destroyed with great peril.
Let me know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.
I enjoyed Kevin Kline's role in French Kiss. I was kind of surprised about his gay roles, too. And not just about being gay, about gay being embraced as the better choice. I don't know what's up with that (okay, maybe a little). I saw him (with my son) in Wild Wild West a few years ago. But I haven't gone to see him otherwise, either.
Bears repeating.
Shalom.
Thanks for the ping, lj. This is one of the best, most succinct articles I've seen on the subject.
yea I liked the prodigal son told as a modern love story. too bad he hasn't done anything like Big Chill or French Kiss lately.
i'm not sure if you are looking for the sarcasm section or a good screaming match. your post no way reflects ANYTHING I WROTE.
Neither would I. In the few brief clips on TV I saw, they said the movie costumes (from the 1920's-40's?) would influence fashion design. I guess I won't see this movie, either.
Bump.
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