For the newer visitors, I am going thru some of my favorite posts and posting them in blocks of 12…. so you may see some similar topic posts in my first few pages. For instance, I just refurbished 12 posts I have written on homosexuality in the past. Across the top of my page is the black back bar, I have added a “12” to it, and if you hover over it you see:
I have done this for a couple reasons. First, they are good posts that should be catalogued both for the reader to learn responses or countering ideas cultural “currents,” as well as being able to find responses to such things as:
Have historical religious founders and ethical leaders ever supported same-sex marriage”? “If not, when i am told my position of ‘traditional marriage’ is extreme, is it really?” “Rather, since every world religious leader, and major ethical theorist do not support it… isn’t the very recent push to redefine male/female relations the radical position.?”
Or,
“How do I argue the idea that marriage is heterosexual? Yes, I am Christian, and I lover the Bible, but is there a way for me to broach the subject or respond to a challenge that deflates the skeptics idea that I immediately start with a book they believe to be fairy tales?” After I deal on equal footing of my opponents secular view and show that he is in a battle with himself, and not the Good Book, how do I then ease into God’s Word?”
How bout “FASCISM”? How many times have we heard the right is fascist. Is there a response to it? If you click on a “12” you are brought to 12-posts that are on one page. This makes it easy to try and see if links or media are dead in what I view as important posts/topics. And it makes it easier for me to guide someone I am talking to to go to a particular post.
I plan on in the future,
12 Cult Posts
12 Apologetic Posts
12 Theology Posts
12 Economic Posts
12 Communist Posts
12 Science Posts
12 Trans Posts…
ETC.
And maybe a couple others.
So when I begin work on a topic, expect to see my front page loaded up with that topic. Newer people may think all I write on is homosexual issues. Lol. No, but I just added that topic to my 12.
There is a lot to learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—and that’s why we have DOZENS of 5-Minute Videos devoted to the topic. We’ve split this playlist into two parts, and here is the first.
PART 1
There is a lot to learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—and that’s why we have DOZENS of 5-Minute Videos devoted to the topic. We’ve split this playlist into two parts, and here is the second.
During the past week, I found that even most well informed Americans know very little about the causes of the war between Jews and Arabs in Israel. Here is a summary of 13 basic facts I think every American should know:
Until 1964, the word “Palestinian” rarely described Arabs who once lived in Israel. That was when KGB Agents of Communist Russia created and funded a terrorist group called the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Its leader, Yasser Arafat, was born and raised in Egypt. The PLO was as artificial as other effective and deadly groups communists used during the Cold War to take over Algeria, South Africa, Kenya, Vietnam, and Cuba. During this time, the KGB even gave money, weapons, and training to the IRA in Ireland.
“Palestine” was never an Arab nation. Until the Roman Empire crushed a Jewish revolt there in the year 132, the land was known as Israel, Judah, or Judea. The Romans renamed the province Palestine to punish the Jews. The Arabs and the Turks kept that name when they conquered and occupied the province. However, they ruled it from distant Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, or Istanbul.
Israel or Palestine was ruined and mostly empty after the Jewish revolt. The Arabs and Turks did little to rebuild its cities or irrigation canals. The goats and camels of Arab nomads or Bedouins stripped the land of trees, vegetation, and topsoil. Once rich farmland became malaria-infested swamp or dry wilderness. Less than 10% of the previous population remained. Many were Jews.
Starting in the mid-1800s, Jews from Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East began moving back. They bought land from Arab and Turkish absentee owners who had no interest in living there. For the next 90 years, Jews rebuilt cities, roads, and irrigation canals. They drained swamps, watered deserts, and planted trees and crops. As Jews made the land prosperous again, thousands of Arabs from Egypt, Syria, and other nearby countries moved there.
After World War One, the British and French carved new nations out of the defeated Ottoman Empire. In 1920, they created Lebanon for persecuted Christians. In 1921, they divided the Turkish province of Palestine. Eastern or “Transjordan” Palestine became an Arab kingdom. Palestine west of the Jordan River was set aside for settlement by Jews. More Jews bought empty land and moved there. Their prosperity encouraged more Arabs to move there. By 1948, there were roughly one million Arabs, 600,000 Jews, and 160,000 Christians and Druze living in that part of Palestine.
In 1947, the British granted independence to India. British India was mostly Hindu but had a large Muslim minority. To avoid conflict, the British allowed regions with Muslim majorities to form the new Muslim-majority nation of Pakistan, which included what is now Bangladesh. Millions of Hindus and Buddhists in Muslim Pakistan and Bangladesh moved to India. Millions of Muslims in Hindu India moved to Pakistan and Bangladesh. Everybody who moved permanently settled in his new country. There were no refugees or refugee camps. Nobody claimed a “right of return.”
In 1948, the United Nations equally divided the “Jewish National Home” part of Palestine between Jews and Arabs. The Jews accepted what they were given as their State of Israel. The Arabs in Palestine rejected statehood. They instead invaded Israel with the help of armies from five neighboring Arab countries. After a year of bitter fighting, Jews had control of roughly three fourths of western Palestine. In 1949, all parties agreed to a ceasefire. The lines where the fighting stopped became the “Green Line” borders of Israel.
During and after that 1948 war, there was a population transfer for Israel like that of India. Roughly 700,000 Arabs moved from mostly Jewish Israel to Arab parts of Palestine and other Arab countries. Roughly 700,000 Jews left Arab Palestine and other Arab countries and moved to Jewish Israel.
The original 1948 “partition” boundaries between Jews and Arabs could work only if there were peace and cooperation between the two. When the Arabs chose war, Jews needed a nation with “defensible borders.” In 1939, Germany invaded and easily defeated Poland and Czechoslovakia. That was partly because those nations’ borders were almost impossible to defend. When Germany was defeated, the United Nations took land from Germany so both Poland and Czechoslovakia had “defensible borders.” The Germans who lived there had to move to a smaller Germany. That was the price for invading neighbors.
The war in Gaza is part of a global war between an alliance of militant Islam and communists on one side, and Judeo-Christian Western civilization on the other.
Islam began as an aggressive warrior religion 1,400 years ago. In just 50 years, Mohammed and his followers destroyed and occupied the powerful Persian Empire. They also occupied most of the Greek Byzantine Empire. Then they took North Africa and Spain away from what was left of the Roman Empire. The Koran, the holy book of Islam, has many contradictions and is difficult to understand. However, it clearly declares that Mohammed was God’s final prophet and that his words (hadith) and deeds (sunna) must be followed. Many Muslim scholars teach that Mohammed allowed peace and respect for non-believers. However, three influential sects do not. They are the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, the Deoband school in India that inspired the Taliban, and the ayatollahs of Iran. Followers of those three branches are behind most attacks and murders of Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists today. We need an information campaign to push back against them.
Communists worked closely with militant Muslims for many years. At first, this seems odd. Militant Islam seems opposed to the political and economic theories of Karl Marx. However, most communists gave up those theories soon after Vladimir Lenin took control of Russia in 1918. Lenin and his followers quickly saw that Marxism was unpopular and didn’t work. They replaced it with Marxist-Leninism. This was faith only in an elite “revolutionary vanguard” that had to keep and expand its power “by any means necessary.” This included propaganda, bribes, bullying, political manipulation, and arresting and murdering opponents. In 1919, Lenin formed the Communist International to expand his power worldwide. In 1920, he invited and recruited radical Islamists to a congress in Baku. That was featured in the 1981 Hollywood movie Reds, starring Warren Beatty. We need to again recognize and fight the evil of communists.
Finally, Israel, America, and the West all made many strategic and tactical military mistakes during the past 40 years. However, our moral sins are more troubling. We abandoned and betrayed countless friends who tried to help us. They included most of the people in Iran who love both America and Israel. They included pro-American Shias in Iraq like Ayatollah Sayyid Abdul Majid Al-Khoei, who was murdered in 2003. Israel also shamefully abandoned and betrayed its friends and allies. They include its Christian and Shia allies in Lebanon and thousands of Arabs in Gaza who risked their lives to warn Jews of planned attacks. We must quickly repent and change our ways.
….. 1400 years has proven that Islam is not a religion of peace. ISIS is in keeping with Islamic tradition. Of course there are Muslims who ascribe to living peaceably among non-Muslims, but this is not in accordance with normative Islam. As loathsome as Andrew Tate is, he is correct in stating that members of ISIS “are the real Muslims.” Muslims who support peace first need to admit the obvious problem within their religion and stop deceiving infidels.
This is the reason why Muslims also kill their fellow Muslims in droves: because the people who are being murdered are not considered to be the correct kind of Muslim, or are not Islamic enough. The ideas of wanting to live peaceably with infidels and of honoring the principle of equality of rights for all people are not found the history and practice of normative Islam. Christian persecution, the jihad against Israel, Muslims killing other Muslims, Muslim rape gangs, forced conversions, child marriage, the beating of women, full female coverings, the “Islamophobia” battering ram which aims to shut down the freedom of speech, Islamic blasphemy laws, forced conversions, female genital mutilation, the fear that has been struck into Westerners if they dare to insult Muhammad (Samuel Paty is an example of what can happen), and more are all founded upon normative Islamic teaching. All of it is backed by Islamic texts and history, as has been explained in detail at this site innumerable times over the last two decades. What more do infidels need to be convinced of this?…..
Here we are at the beginning of our series to investigate what we mean by “Political Islam”.
In this episode, Bill Warner and Al Fadi find that the majority of the Quran (51%) is focused on the non-Muslim/outsider.
This raises the question “why does the Quran, a religious text for Muslim’s to follow, focus more on the outsider than the Muslim?”
Moving forward we find that the early Quran (also known as the Meccan Quran) is more religious and poetic in its presentation whereas the later Quran (also known as the Medinan Quran) is more narrative based with less coherency.
Updating this old post a bit. Finding media taht works, fixing some links. It was originally posted in June of 2015. I am not updating the list of percentages below, so they are dated a tad — but the practice will never change to Muhammad’s followers.
In fact, cousins are not even considered blood relatives in the Islamic tradition because the Qur’an does not forbid or condemn marriage between cousins. Here is what is said in chapter 4, verse 23 of the religious text:
“Prohibited to you (For marriage) are:- Your mothers, daughters, sisters; father’s sisters, Mother’s sisters; brother’s daughters, sister’s daughters; foster-mothers (Who gave you suck), foster-sisters; your wives’ mothers; your step-daughters under your guardianship, born of your wives to whom ye have gone in,- no prohibition if ye have not gone in;- (Those who have been) wives of your sons proceeding from your loins; and two sisters in wedlock at one and the same time, except for what is past; for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.”
As a result of this long religious tradition, convincing Muslims to stop the practice of inbreeding has proven difficult.
Video Description for the Below:
Do an experiment for yourself, go to your computer and google Islam inbreeding. I think you’ll be stunned at the results. You’ll find that in the Arab world, 40 to 50% of all marriages are inbred. In Egypt, 40% of the marriages are to a first cousin. In Saudi Arabia, 2/3 of the people who marry, marry a close relative. In Britain, the Pakistani refugees, 55% of their marriages are to first cousins.
Now, the result of inbreeding is genetic damage, you get increased diseases, mental retardation, and lower intelligence. I call inbreeding a crime against the next generation. Now why is there so much inbreeding in Islam? Well, if you think about it you know the answer. Because of Mohammed, he married his first cousin, so that makes that process sunnah.
The Koran lays out rules of marriage, but it allows first cousins to marry. Half of Muslims are inbred. Lower intelligence and insanity rates are higher with inbred people, and the closer you are in blood relation, the more schizophrenia there is.
In Denmark, three times as many Muslims fail the military intelligence test as the average Dane. 2/3 of all the Muslims in Denmark are illiterate. And in Denmark, education for slow children, slow learners, accounts for 1/3 of their educational budget. It’s expensive to have such people.
Sharia is evil, since it dictates the suffering of people is Allah’s wish. Now think about this – Islam says it is destined to rule the world, and if it does, inbreeding will be everywhere, and humanity will actually devolve. And this can’t be changed, because the Sharia is Allah’s law. But why are we silent about Sharia, suffering? Why can’t we educate about this harm?
An interesting study showing we may be dealing with — in general — a very unstable [mentally] part of the world:
A Danish psychologist warns that 1,400 years of inbreeding, marrying first cousins, may be wreaking havoc on Muslim intelligence, health and sanity.
A large part of inbred Muslims are born from parents who are themselves inbred, which increase the risks of negative mental and physical consequences greatly, says Nicolai Sennels, author of the book Among Criminal Muslims and articles on the psychology of Islam and Muslims….
Combining his own research and several studies, Sennels says the genetic damage of such intermarriage, which is part of Islamic religion and culture since their prophet, Mohammad, allowed it, is causing lower intelligence (IQs), increased physical defects and greater incident of mental illness.
Almost half of Muslims worldwide are estimated to be inbred, with 70 percent of marriages in Pakistan, 67 percent in Saudi Arabia and 80 percent in Nubia in southern Egypt in consanguineous (blood-related) marriages to first cousins, to name just a few of the countries, he cites….
Dr. Nicolai Sennels original post preserved as a PDF, some links fixed.
Mood Disorders More Common In Children Of First-Cousin Parents, Study Finds(GENETIC LITERACY PROJECT)
Relationship Between Consanguinity And Depression In A South Indian Population (PUBMED)
Consanguinity Effects on Intelligence Quotient and Neonatal Behaviours of nsari Muslim Children(BHALGALPUR UNIVERSITY – PDF)
Effect Of Inbreeding On IQ And Mental Retardation (PUBMED)
And this older story via AMERICAN THINKERon the issue with some figures. Keep in mind these are recent statistics and do not — obviously — include the historical trend:
…. Everywhere in the western world, people look at the savage violence that is a daily occurrence in the Muslim world and shake their heads in stunned disbelief. A pastor of a very small Christian flock in Florida burns a Koran. Weeks later at literally the global antipode, Muslim imams drive through neighborhoods in a vehicle with loudspeakers attached, calling the townsfolk to riot. The townsfolk respond, and before it is all over, at least 22 innocent people are dead at the hands of these townsfolk, with at least two of them beheaded. How is this possible? How can this be? How can human behavior and culture be so monstrously different? Is this difference attributable to nothing more than environmental nurture theory?
No. There is something else. There is a catalyst — absent in every other culture on earth — that has poisoned the cultural soil, thus yielding the fruit of bad harvest for nearly 1,400 years. That catalyst is inbreeding. As a direct result, the Muslim population is mentally developmentally disabled on a mass scale.
All human cultures display strict prohibitions against inbreeding and consanguineous marriage. Incest is a universal taboo. This is a transcendent anthropological fact. As a Roman Catholic, I attribute this to what is called “The Natural Law.” Every human person without exception is created by God with a deep, innate knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong. Stabbing someone in the neck for no reason whatsoever is just as wrong here in Lone Tree, Colorado as it is in the Amazon basin, as it is on the high plateaus of Mongolia.
But there is one culture, one faux “religion,” that expressly condones and encourages consanguineous marriage and breeding. That system is Islam, and the document that explicitly ratifies incest is the Koran, specifically Sura 4 verse 23:
Prohibited for you (in marriage) are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, the sisters of your fathers, the sisters of your mothers, the daughters of your brother, the daughters of your sister, your nursing mothers, the girls who nursed from the same woman as you, the mothers of your wives, the daughters of your wives with whom you have consummated the marriage — if the marriage has not been consummated, you may marry the daughter. Also prohibited for you are the women who were married to your genetic sons. Also, you shall not be married to two sisters at the same time — but do not break up existing marriages.
Sounds like an exhaustive list — but it is not. It is the most lax incest prohibition in all of human culture. There is a massive omission: cousins only once removed. In the Muslim culture, marriage and breeding between first cousins has existed since day one. Mohammed himself married Zaynab, who was his father’s sister’s daughter. Mohammed and Zaynab were direct first cousins.
Marrying your first cousin is the genetic equivalent of marrying your half-sibling. Think of your own family. Let’s say your dad has a sister, who is “Aunt Linda” to you. Your dad and Aunt Linda, being full siblings, have exactly the same genetic constitution. Their family trees prior to their generation are identical. Therefore, if Aunt Linda has any children, who are your first cousins, they are, in genetic terms, 50% identical to you. You share one of your two genetic constituencies with your cousins, thus making them genetically the same as a half-sibling would be.
First cousin marriage for just one generation is extremely risky in and of itself. This is why virtually every other culture on earth prohibits it, and treats it as a cultural taboo. When two people come together who carry so many similar genetic alleles, the chance of an undesirable recessive trait expressing itself in their offspring soars. Now, understanding that single-generational risk, understand that Muslims have been marrying their first cousins over and over again for 1,400 years. Sit in stillness for a moment with the full, terrifying gravity of this.
The Reproductive Health Journal reports the following rates on consanguinity in Muslim countries. Where a statistical range has been recorded, I have used the lower parameter:
Algeria: 22.6%
Bahrain: 39.4%
Egypt (North): 20.9%
Egypt (Nubia-South): 60.5%
Iraq: 47.0%
Jordan: 28.5%
Kuwait: 22.5%
Lebanon: 12.8%
Libya: 48.4%
Mauritania: 47.2%
Morocco: 19.9%
Oman: 56.3%
Palestine: 17.5%
Qatar: 54.0%
Saudi Arabia: 42.1%
Sudan: 44.2%
Syria: 30.3%
Tunisia: 20.1%
United Arab Emirates: 40.0%
Yemen: 40.0%
Muslim men are never, ever allowed to be around, see, converse with or otherwise interact with any females outside of their families. However, they are permitted to act as chaperones for their female first cousins. If your first cousin is the only person of the opposite sex you ever get to interact with, is it any surprise that Muslims are marrying their first cousins more as the rule than as the exception?
According to the BBC, 55% of Pakistani-Britons are married to a first cousin, and as a corollary to that produce “just under a third” of all children in the UK with genetic illnesses, despite being only 3% of the total births.
As a direct result of inbreeding, the Muslim population is the only population on earth that is mentally and physically devolving. ….
FAITH AND FREEDOM notes this in a post titled, “Inbreeding And The Effects On Islam”
Family marriages and inbreeding has led to mental illness among Muslim communities throughout the world.
A few years ago a pilot with the Lockheed Corporation, an American aircraft manufacturer, was given the task of training Saudi pilots to fly their new fleet of planes.
He was given three assignments and, for a while, became part of the military & civilian community in the region and the report made for interesting reading.
‘During the pilot transition program with the KV-107 and C-130 with Lockheed, we found that most Saudi pilot trainees had very limited night vision, even on the brightest of moonlit nights.
Their training retention rate was minimal including maintenance personnel. Some had dim memories and had to be constantly reminded of things that were told to them the day before. An American, British or any other western instructor is burned out pretty quick.
It actually took Muslim C-130 pilots years before they could fly in the dark safely and then would be reluctant to leave the lights of a city.
Ask any Marine, Air Force or Army guy who has been trying to train Iraqis, and especially Afghans. The phrase they use is, ‘Yep, dumber than homemade dodo.’
Recently the academic journal, Mankind Quarterly, presented research revealing the average IQ score across the Arab world to be 81.
This, of course, is significantly lower than the European average of 100 and possible explanations offered by the journal are ‘hybridization with sub-Saharan Africans, an increase in the more educated Muslims employing birth control and the Muslim religion not fostering critical thinking.’
However, there is a better explanation.
Nikolai Sennels is a Danish psychologist who has carried out extensive research into a little-known problem in the Muslim world, which is the disastrous results of Muslim inbreeding brought about by the marriage of first cousins.
This practice, which has been banned in the Judeo-Christian tradition since the days of Moses, was sanctioned by Muhammad and has been going on now for 50 generations (1,400 years) in the Muslim world.
Systematic inbreeding throughout the Muslim world, encouraging cousin to marry cousin and uncle to impregnate niece, is considered by science to have done irreversible damage to the Muslim gene pool and is affecting the sanity, health and intelligence of recent generations.
Nikolai Sennels estimates that close to half of all Muslims in the world today are inbred. In some countries, such as Pakistan, that figure is closer to 70%. In both the United Kingdom and Denmark the number of immigrants who are married to their cousins is around half. Half of the Muslim population are inbred.
The numbers are equally devastating in other important Muslim countries: 67% in Saudi Arabia, 64% in Jordan, and Kuwait, 63% in Sudan, 60% in Iraq, and 54% in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
BBC research has concluded that the Pakistani/Muslim inbreeding is the reason a British Pakistani family is thirteen times more likely to produce children with a genetic disorder. Figure show that whilst Pakistanis are responsible for only 3% of British births they account for 33% of genetic birth defects.
Lowered intellectual capacity is another devastating consequence of Muslim marriage patterns. Sennels believes that children of consanguineous marriages lose 10-16 points off their IQ and that social abilities develop much more slowly in inbred babies.
The risk of having an IQ lower than 70, which is the official score for being classified as retarded, increases by an incredible 400 percent among children of cousin marriages. By the way, similar effects were seen in the British Royal Family, where inbreeding was normal practice for a very long time.
In 1,200 years of Islam only 100,000 books have been translated into Arabic. In contrast Spain, for example, translates 100,000 books into Spanish every year. 70% of Turks have never read any book and only nine Muslims have ever won a Nobel prize. And five of those were for peace and nothing to do with academia, science or literature.
Sennels pointed out, ‘The ability to enjoy and produce knowledge and abstract thinking is simply lower in the Islamic world. A lower IQ, coupled with a religion that prevents critical thinking, surely makes it harder for many Muslims to have any success in our high-tech knowledge societies.’
Muslim children across Europe dominate the numbers who are regarded to have special needs. One third of the entire education budget in Denmark is allocated to special needs and 70% of the children benefiting are Muslim. 64% of Muslim children in the Danish school system remain unable to read or write after ten-years of education.
Mental illness is also a major issue. Research has revealed that the closer the blood relative the higher the chance of producing schizophrenic children. 40% of patients in Denmark’s largest ward for the clinically insane are Muslim.
In America, the land of the brave and the free, the majority of Muslims have lower IQ’s, less education, lower incomes and are in menial jobs. Way below average on every score.
Sennels concludes: There is no doubt that the wide spread tradition of first cousin marriages among Muslims has harmed the gene pool throughout the community…..
The Amish have a similar issue, but they do get outside immediate family and have much less “breeding-time” under their belt (INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES).
MORE MEDIA
We explore the unique mindsets of Muslim criminals in Denmark, an exploration of the violence prescribed in Islamic texts, immigration policies, and Islamic reform, among other topics. (Correction: At the 46 minute, 44 seconds mark, I misspoke. Mushriqun refers to idolaters and polytheists whereas Munafiqun refers to hypocrites.)
This powerful documentary reveals the tragic health problems suffered by children born within first cousin marriages and explores the controversy surrounding this cultural phenomenon. A disproportionate number of rare recessive genetic disorders occur amongst those of South Asian and especially Pakistani descent and the programme investigates the science, political and social consequences of marrying your first cousin.
Hamas’s 10/7 attack is something like Israel’s 9/11, only worse. Israel’s death toll has hit more than 350. Adjusting for population and measuring by the deaths inflicted so far, Israel has suffered (is suffering) an attack that is something like three times more damaging than 9/11.
Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization. It is waging war by atrocity, as it always does. The fire this time should be its last.
As I write on 10/8, Hamas’s attack continues and deaths mount. Israel seems not yet to have concluded the fighting on its own territory.
The Israeli intelligence, defense, and political establishments were caught napping. The complete failure of intelligence is comparable to the one that preceded the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago.
Speaking of the Yom Kippur war, we can infer that the attack was timed to coincide with its 50th anniversary. Given the planning and preparation that preceded the attack, disruption of Israel’s possible peace with Saudi Arabia must constitute an added benefit rather than its immediate object.
By comparison with the Yom Kippur War, it seems to me that the consequences of this war are more dire and the effects more difficult to contemplate. Last night Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that Hamas would be destroy Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities. What happens next?
Hamas has taken numerous hostages and removed them to Gaza. The Israeli embassy to the United States is reporting that 100 soldiers and civilians have been kidnapped. So long as Hamas holds these hostages, it will necessarily constrain Israel’s freedom of action to achieve its stated objectives, as does Israel’s meticulous compliance with the laws of war. The IDF is not free to combat savagery with savagery.
As Elliott Abrams puts it at NRO: “There is no way around the fact that Hamas has new assets and that future negotiations over the captured Israelis will be excruciating. That is one reason a government of national unity is called for — to stop opposition parties from politicizing tough decisions by making them partly responsible for Israeli policy in the coming months.”
Hezbollah aggravates Israel’s military challenge at present. Their forces and their arsenal exceed Hamas and hold Lebanon in thrall.
The intelligence and readiness failures underlying Yom Kippur War brought down the government of Prime Minister Golda Meir. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces the same after a commission of inquiry does its work.
Iran is of course behind this war: Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad tells the BBC that Iran gave its support to the Palestinian terror group to launch its surprise multi-front attack on Israel on Saturday. Yet the Biden administration remains in doubt about that.
Which raises the question of our own failure of intelligence. Thus spake National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan only a few days ago. This didn’t age well. Unfortunately, these people are incapable of shame.
When a country is attacked, the only appropriate course is to respond with massively disproportionate force, as we did against the Japanese in World War II. Israel should treat Gaza as the Allies treated Dresden and other German and Japanese cities to end that war. Israel made a mistake in withdrawing from Gaza, and Gaza has been a thorn in its side ever since. This should be the last time.
…. the FEDERALIST discusses overwhelming power to unconditional surrender. Here is a good addition by them:
What does unconditional surrender look like? Let history be our guide. As Allied forces swept into Germany in 1945, tin plates bearing this proclamation from Gen. Eisenhower were nailed to posts and walls in both English and German:
I, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, do hereby proclaim as follows:
The Allied forces serving under my command have now entered Germany. We come as conquerors, but not as oppressors. In the area of Germany occupied by the forces under my command we shall obliterate nazism and German militarism. We shall overthrow the Nazi rule, dissolve the Nazi party and abolish the cruel, oppressive and discriminatory laws and institutions which the party has created. We shall eradicate that German militarism which has so often disrupted the peace of the world. Military and party leaders, the Gestapo and others suspected of crimes and atrocities will be tried and, if guilty, punished as they deserve.
Supreme legislative, judicial and executive authority and powers within the occupied territory are vested in me as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces and as military governor, and the military government is established to exercise these powers under my direction. All persons in the occupied territory will obey immediately and without question all the enactments and orders of the military government. Military government courts will be established for punishment of offenders. Resistance to the Allied forces will be ruthlessly stamped out. Other serious offenses will be dealt with severely.
All German courts and educational institutions within the occupied territory are suspended. The Volksgerichtshof, the Sondergerichte, the SS police courts and other special courts are deprived of authority throughout the occupied territory. Reopening of the criminal and civil courts and educational institutions will be authorized when conditions permit. All officials are charged with the duty of remaining at their posts until further orders and obeying and enforcing all orders or directions of military government or the Allied authorities addressed to the German Government or the German people. This applies also to officials, employees and workers of all public undertakings and utilities and to all other persons engaged in essential work.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, General, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force
Not only that, but you know there are non-thinking Lefties in the Biden administration’s Office of Palestinian Affairs when they deleted a post advising Israel not to retaliate after Saturday’s massive attack by the Islamist group Hamas, according to multiple reports.
The United States’ Office for Palestinian Affairs has deleted a post from their X account that called for Israelis to “refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks” in response to Hamas attacking Israel.
The post on X had said “We unequivocally condemn the attack of Hamas terrorists and the loss of life that has incurred. We urge all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”
Of course the anti-Israel schills on the media (MSNBC, CNN) are saying the quite part out load. But the DEMOCRAT SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA take the cake (BREITBART):
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will host an “All Out for Palestine” rally in New York’s Times Square on Sunday, gathering in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that has claimed more than 500 lives and left several thousand more injured.
[….]
“The NYC-DSA is revealing itself for what it truly is: an antisemitic stain on the soul of America’s largest city.”
THE NEW YORK POST notes that the organizers are telling people “Wear a mask so you’re not recognized.” Kinda like the KKK. They go on to rightly note that “The DSA is the party of Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, Rashida Talib — and oh yes, New York’s very own Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal ‘Fire Alarm’ Bowman.” RED STATE has a good post on this, and put the onus on these far-Left Democrats in office:
In case that isn’t clear, they’re not advising wearing a mask for COVID protection; they’re advising masks and not posting pictures so they can’t be identified by the police when the “action” starts to go potentially criminal.
So here’s a good question for reporters: Ask AOC and her other DSA-associated brethren in Congress their opinion on this “action” by the DSA. Put them on the spot and hold them accountable for such actions. Ask if they will renounce this group that is now explicitly supporting such attacks. I doubt you will get any kind of honest response. Many people called out the association with the Democrats and called out this “protest.”
Hamas Fires 5,000 rockets Into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel declares ‘state of war’ — More than 100 Israelis are dead and 900 Israelis have been injured in the Hamas rocket and terror assault from Beersheba to Jerusalem, the Health Ministry said.
Israel Declared War…
“Since this morning, the State of Israel has been at war. Our first objective is to clear out the hostile forces that infiltrated our territory and restore the security and quiet to the communities that have been attacked.
The second objective, at the same time, is to exact an immense price from the enemy, within the Gaza Strip as well. The third objective is to reinforce other fronts so that nobody should mistakenly join this war.
We are at war. In war, one needs to be level-headed. I call on all citizens of Israel to unite in order to achieve our highest goal – victory in the war.”
Israel is now under attack by Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists. Iran has helped fund this war against Israel and Joe Biden’s policies that have gone easy on Iran have helped fill their coffers.
We are going to stand with Israel as they root out Hamas and we need to stand up to… pic.twitter.com/FENQtAxiDE
I want to preface this paper with the challenge from one of the board members to “prove” that homosexuality is immoral. In today’s pluralistic society, controversial public policy questions, such as homosexuality, must be decided on evidence rather than on sectarian religious belief. For what one person may find sinful according to his or her religious perspective, others may find perfectly appropriate according to theirs. However, our common morality – The Moral Law/Natural Law – tells us not to harm others or ourselves. Therefore, the best way of finding common ground and a sensible policy is to investigate the objective data (of which I will only briefly touch on. If you want a good chapter on the subject, I suggest the book Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is It Legal? Is It Possible?) on the healthfulness of the homosexual lifestyle. Just what does the evidence show? Is it really harmless, or is it actually harmful? [Take note that although I deal with the 1972 homosexual platform, I will show, as well, briefly the 1993 march on Washington’s demands.]
The 1972 gay rights platform contained the following:
Amend all federal Civil Rights Acts, other legislation and government controls to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and public services.
A presidential order prohibiting the military from excluding for reasons of their sexual orientation, persons who of their own volition desire entrance into Armed Services; and from issuing less than fully-honorable discharges for homosexuality; and the upgrading of fully honorable all such discharges previously issued, with retroactive benefits.
A presidential order prohibiting discrimination in the federal civil service because of sexual orientation, in hiring and promoting; and prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals in security clearances.
Elimination of tax inadequacies [favoring traditional families].
Elimination of bars to the entry, immigration and naturalization of homosexual aliens.
Federal encouragement and support for sex education courses, prepared and taught by [homosexuals], presenting homosexuality as valid, healthy preference and… a viable alternative to heterosexuality.
Federal funding of aid programs of [homosexual] organizations designed to alleviate the problems encountered by [homosexuals].
The document made similar demands of states, including:
Repeal of all state laws prohibiting solicitation for private voluntary sexual liaisons; and laws prohibiting prostitution, both male and female.
Legislation prohibiting insurance companies and any other state-regulated enterprises from discrimination because of sexual orientation, in insurance and in bonding or any other prerequisite to employment or control of one’s personal demesne.
Legislation so that child adoption, visitation rights, foster parenting, and the like shall not be denied because of sexual orientation or marital status.
Repeal of all laws prohibiting transvestitism and cross dressing.
Repeal of all laws governing the age of sexual consent.
Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex of the number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex.
Now the 1993 platform:
The implications of homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered curriculum at all levels of education.
The lowering of the age [12 years old to be exact] of consent for homosexual and heterosexual sex.
The legalization of homosexual marriages.
Custody, adoption, and foster-care rights for homosexuals, lesbians, and transgendered people.
the redefinition of the family to include the full diversity of all family structures.
The access to all programs of the Boy Scouts of America.
Affirmative action for homosexuals.
The inclusion of sex-change operations under a universal health-care plan.
As of today, most of these demands have been met. Nor do signs look good for a quick reversal of this trend: The descriptive word “homosexual” has been replaced by the perfectly nondescriptive word “gay.” Opponents of homosexuality are said to be afflicted with “homophobia.” “The love that dare not speak its name” is fast becoming “the love that no one dare question.”
Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) have been rising among gay and bisexual men, with increases in syphilis being seen across the country. In 2014, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men accounted for 83% of primary and secondary syphilis cases where sex of sex partner was known in the United States. Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men often get other STDs, including chlamydia and gonorrhea infections. HPV (Human papillomavirus), the most common STD in the United States, is also a concern for gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men. Some types of HPV can cause genital and anal warts and some can lead to the development of anal and oral cancers. Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men are 17 times more likely to get anal cancer than heterosexual men. Men who are HIV-positive are even more likely than those who do not have HIV to get anal cancer. (CDC)
While AIDS has destroyed the lives of non-homosexuals through intravenous drug use, blood transfusions, or promiscuity, until recently the disease has been primarily spread among homosexuals. The U.S. Department of Health of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control Reports that 65 percent of all adult/adolescent AIDS cases and 79 percent of AIDS cases among Caucasians in the U.S. were acquired through homosexual contact. Ninety-one percent of American AIDS cases have been traced to homosexual sex, intravenous drug use, or some combination of the two (Centers for Disease Control report, “HIV/AIDS Surveillance”; Also, “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome – 1991,” Journal of the American Medical Association; and the book, The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS).
Homosexuals also continue to contract and spread other diseases at rates significantly higher that the community at large. These include syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis A and B, a variety of intestinal parasites including amebiases and giardiasis, and even typhoid fever (David G. Ostrow, Terry Alan Sandholzer, and Yehudi M. Felman, eds., Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Homosexual Men; see also, Sevgi O. Aral and King K. Holmes, “Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the AIDS Era,” Scientific American). This is because rectal intercourse or sodomy, typically practiced by homosexuals, is one of the most efficient methods of transmitting disease. Why? Because nature designed the human rectum for a single purpose: expelling waste from the body. It is built of a thin layer of columnar cells, different in structure than the plate cells that line the female reproductive tract. Because the wall of the rectum is so thin, it is easily ruptured during intercourse, allowing semen, blood, feces, and saliva to directly enter the bloodstream. The chances for infection increases further when multiple partners are involved, as is frequently the case: Surveys indicate that American male homosexuals average between 10 and 110 sex partners per year (L. Corey and K. K. Holmes, “Sexual Transmission of Hepatitis A in Homosexual Men,” New England Journal of Medicine; and, Paul Cameron et al., “Sexual Orientation and Sexually Transmitted Disease,” Nebraska Medical Journal).
Not surprisingly, these diseases shorten life expectancy. Social psychologist Paul Cameron compared over 6,200 obituaries from homosexual magazines and tabloids to a comparable number of obituaries from major American Newspapers. He found that while the median age of death of married American males was 75, for sexually active homosexual American males it is 42. For homosexual males infected with the AIDS virus, it was 39. While 80 percent of married American men lived to 65 or older, less than two percent of the homosexual men covered in the survey lived as long (Omega Study and Social Origins of Sexuality Study). To add to this problem of health, monogamous homosexual men tend to die earlier. Why? They feel that the exchange of fluids is the most compassionate act in the relationship. Ironically, this is the same act – (unprotected sex) – that infects their partner at a higher rate than “single” counterpart. The exact opposite is true for heterosexual men who are single. They tend to average 57 years old. But the monogamous American male, as stated above, lives a much healthier life.
In the face of these facts, it is reprehensible that Americans, and especially American schoolchildren are being told today that homosexual behavior can be safe (as a parent, I am furious!). Because smokers don’t live as long as nonsmokers, society considers smoking harmful and discourages the use of tabacco. By the same logic, aren’t homosexual practices deserving of social disapproval (considering that tax payers are footing the health bill that is considerably higher than that 75 year old American male getting ill and passing on?).
The gay rights movement’s main rhetorical ploy is to liken itself to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s. the extent to which is successful reflects a confusion about the meaning of “rights” in the public mind.
The charter of the American liberty, the Declaration of Independence, explains that human beings are born with “certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (not the pursuit of hedonism mind you). These rights belong to people equally. No human being is so superior to another that he may treat the other as he would treat an irrational beast. This is the argument that Abraham Lincoln hearkened back to during the Civil War, and Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1960s. Unlike people in most countries, Americans have been able to enjoy these rights, because the American Constitution sets up a government that is limited in what it can do (this is itself a subject of controversy, and demands attention elsewhere).
Consider the claimed comparison between the gay rights movement and the civil rights movement in light of this. An obvious difference is that the former is centered around type of behaviors, namely sodomy. Is there a constitutional right to sodomy such as there is, say, to practice our religion or speak our mind? No.
At the time of the American founding, and following the tradition of English common law, sodomy was a criminal or common law offense in each of the 13 states. Until 1961, all 50 states considered sodomy a punishable offense. It remains illegal today in 23 states and the District of Columbia, and in many of these stands as a felony offense. At the federal level, the question was dealt with in the Supreme Court’s 1986 decision, Bowers v. Hardwick. The defendants in the case had asked the Court to proclaim, in effect, “a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy.” “This,” wrote Justice Byron White in developing the Court’s decision, “we are quite unwilling to do.”
More deeply, sodomy is unnatural and, as such, incompatible with any notion of natural rights. We know that human beings are entitled to their liberty because they are, by nature, capable of reasoning and choosing. This is precisely the faculty that identifies a human being, among all other beings in nature. We are entitled to civil rights, because we are the one creature equipped by nature to exercise them.
Human beings also have other aspects to their nature, aspects that are not such noble features of their makeup. One is their method of sexual reproduction. And make no mistake: despite astonishing denials of organized homosexuality, human beings, as surely as deer or elephants, come equipped with a natural method of reproduction. Unlike in other species, however, these lower aspects in man share in man’s higher aspect, reason. The result is the virtue of temperance or self-control. The Founders of America understood that our rights stem from this capacity, the capacity for moral virtue.
Homosexuals like to argue that, since people are by nature free to choose, the choice of sodomy should be protected, at least as much as any other choice. However, the fact that people are free by nature to make choices does not mean that any choice they make is good or that all choices should be equal before the law. Some people choose to steal and lie. Some abandon their children or their wives or husbands. Some sink into the grip of drugs. Some evade the draft at their country’s need, or abandon their duty in the face of battle. These are bad choices, and when they are made, the rest of us must bear part of the cost. These things are wrong in a constitutional democracy, as much as they are wrong anywhere else.
On the other hand, liberal societies recognize that all sins cannot be, and must not be, punished under the law. A state powerful enough to do that is too powerful to control. That is why we are cautious in a free country, about telling others what to do. That is why Presidents often appeal to us to be upright, moral citizens, but they do not bring charges against us unless we break the law.
Still, we must not forget that democracies have the greatest in the practice of virtue by citizens, because in democracy the citizens themselves are the rulers. So it is that George Washington, one of the greatest moral examples in history, said in his First Inaugural Address: “There is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness…”
A liberal society might, then, find it prudent to ignore homosexuality. It might well deem it unwise to peer into private bedrooms. However, this is not the issue before us. Today the demand is that homosexuality be endorsed and promoted with the full power of the law. This would require us to abandon the standard of nature, the one standard that can teach us the difference between freedom and slavery, between right and wrong.
Once we abandon the standard of nature, what is to forbid us from resorting to any violation of nature that we please? Why should we not return to slavery, if we find it convenient? Or the practice of incest or adultery or cannibalism? Without an understanding that there is a higher law that limits human will – whether divine law or the “law of Nature or Nature’s God” which we can grasp through our reason – there is no basis to prohibit any activity. Anything becomes possible (which is why some [me included] refer to murder and homosexuality in the same stroke of the pen/keyboard, this analogy is now detailed in a more exhaustive manner above).
In fact, the rights sought by homosexual activists are not natural or constitutional rights (for the best chapter on this subject – why homosexuals should be fighting to keep the traditional definition of family – I suggest the book Relativism: Feet Planted Firmly in Mid-Air). They are the special rights granted ethnic minorities by affirmative action policies. These special rights would force businesses, schools, and virtually every institution in the land, public and private, to open their doors to homosexuals, and allow lawsuits to be brought against those that refuse.
To be considered a specially protected minority under the law, a group must meet several tests, as determined by a series of Supreme Court decisions. Its members must be identifiable by an unchanging physical condition (I’ve known ex-gays, but I have never met an ex-black… well, maybe except for Michael Jackson) – e.g., skin color, gender, handicap. They must be able to demonstrate that they suffered discrimination to the extent that they are unable to earn an average income, receive an adequate education, or enjoy a fulfilling cultural life (see appendix).In addition, they must show that their members are politically powerless to change their predicament. [The gay lobby was one of the most powerful in Washington for the 1992 elections, giving multiple millions to the Democratic National Committee and having homosexual[s] put into key positions in the Clinton Cabinet.]
To date, the homosexual lobby has been unable to prove that its members meet these requirements. There is no evidence – statistical or otherwise – that homosexuals are suffering any practical or political disadvantages. They have never been denied the right to vote or other constitutional rights, nor have they suffered segregation under the law, nor have they been denied access to public facilities. Several U.S. Congressman, Senators, and prominent state legislators are openly homosexual, as are high-level members of recent presidential administrations. Statistically, homosexuals enjoy higher economic status than average Americans do. Any claim to political powerlessness is belied by how politicians today – especially Democratic politicians – court the “homosexual vote.”
It is easy to see the difference between civil and constitutional rights and the special rights sought by homosexuals by considering the controversy over “gays” in the military. People are refused entrance for numerous reasons, e.g., age, intelligence, physical handicap, criminal record [me! And broken bones in my past, broken neck and fractured back!]. Second: the racial integration of the armed forces (to which proponents of “sexual preference integration” like to point) was part of the proper expansion of constitutional rights because race was an irrational (hence unconstitutional) basis of discrimination. Those who thought blacks were different in behavior were simply prejudiced – they were wrong. Those who think homosexuals behave differently are self-evidently right. The word “homosexual,” unlike the words “black” or “brown” or “yellow,” denotes precisely a different behavior. In this case, those who deny a difference are being irrational.
As summed up by a veteran of the civil rights movement: “The road to Selma was not the road to Sodom.”
Conclusion
The case against organized homosexuality is twofold. First, nature rewards healthy living habits with good health. It is abundantly clear that homosexuals behavior is unnatural and unhealthy. Secondly, Americans are exceedingly tolerant. They are not as a rule inclined to dig around in each other’s private lives. Nevertheless, they reject the absurd claim that the Constitutional principle of equality before the law means that all behavior, no matter how heinous, is equally okay. And on no basis of this distinction [e.g., I could claim to be gay at my next job interview and they would have to accept my testimony, but a black person is evidently black], they can be mobilized against laws that give homosexuals special legal standing to bully the rest of us, thus forcing their moral position on us, which is the claim they make against us.
Some recommended reading (* means source material for paper, you can find in-depth references in these two texts):
*Legislating Morality: Is It Wise? Is It Legal? Is It Possible?, by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek.
Are Gay Rights Right?: Making Sense of the Controversy, by Roger Magnuson.
*Do the Right Thing: A Philosophical Dialogue on the Moral and Social Issues of Our Time, Francis Beckwith, editor. (Part of this paper is from a chapter from this book, however, the entire chapter can be found on the Internet if you use a good search engine.)
Gays in the Military: The Moral and Strategic Crisis, George Grant, editor.
Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, Jeffrey Satinover.
Relativism: Feet Planted Firmly in Mid-Air, by Francis Beckwith.
The number of cases of syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease treatable with antibiotics, nearly doubled, from 8,724 to 16,663 between 2005 and 2013, according to the CDC summary of state health department data.
The report from the CDC found that majority of these cases were documented among gay and bisexual men. In 2012, 84% cases of syphilis were reported among gay and bisexual men.
The CDC team says that the increase in syphilis among MSM is a major public health concern, particularly because syphilis and the behaviors associated with acquiring it increase the likelihood of acquiring and transmitting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)…
Scientist Sacked for Linking Gay Sex to HIV Transmission (site defunct)
In the Central American country of Belize, there is a political debate going on whether to repeal the country’s laws against Anal Sodomy. (a.k.a Buttsecks, for those of you in Rio Linda.) In 2013, the Supreme Court of Belize solicited a report from Dr. Brendan Bain… a renowned AIDS researcher and director of the Regional Coordinating Unit of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training (CHART), an organization he helped create as part of his pioneering work studying HIV transmission. Dr. Bain, unfortunately, provided a scientifically accurate but politically incorrect report.
This report shows that the relative risk of contracting HIV is significantly higher among men who have sex with other men (MSM) in Belize than in the general population. This is also true in several other countries for which data are available, including countries that have repealed the law that criminalizes anal sex and countries where the law still applies.
Because of this report, some 35 “advocacy groups” banded together and demanded that Dr. Bain be sacked from CHART, because his report hurt the delicate feelers of gays and lesbians.
I have come to the conclusion that love and concern for the well-being of the same-sex partner resides mostly with couples SS couples who are conservative. Why? Because they ask what is better for societies continued cohesion, and what is better for my partner. The Left destroys most things it touches, yes, even truth bows to their feelings:
Gonorrhea and syphilis are on the rise in the U.S., mostly in men who have sex with men, a trend the government said is linked to inadequate testing among people stymied by homophobia and limited access to health care.
And since the social left has been using every tool in its arsenal… entertainment media, news media, public school indoctrination, and heavy-handed Government… to normalize and celebrate homosexuality for the last twenty years or more; isn’t it admitting failure to claim that homophobia exists?
And here is an excerpt from my cumalative caseagainst making marriage between same-sex couples the same-as hetero marriages:
➋ GENERAL HEALTH — To explain why I end a couple of points with “THIS is the loving thing to do,” is because I was challenged with Scripture to “love my neighbor.” The person was equating acceptance of same-sex marriage with love. So I responded with the really loving thing to do.
If one of my boys came up to me and mentioned they were gay, my first concern would be their physical health. The death rate and the passing of bacteria directly into the blood stream in the gay relationship is very high. The CDC, to use one example, says that In 2008, “men who have sex with men (MSM) accounted for 63% of primary and secondary syphilis cases in the United States.” The gay population of men is about 1.6% of the U.S. population. “… [N]ature designed the human rectum for a single purpose: expelling waste from the body. It is built of a thin layer of columnar cells, different in structure than the plate cells that line the female reproductive tract. Because the wall of the rectum is so thin, it is easily ruptured during intercourse, allowing semen, blood, feces, and saliva to directly enter the bloodstream. The chances for infection increases further when multiple partners are involved, as is frequently the case: Surveys indicate that American male homosexuals average between 10 and 110 sex partners per year (L. Corey and K. K. Holmes, ‘Sexual Transmission of Hepatitis A in Homosexual Men,’ New England Journal of Medicine; and, Paul Cameron et al., ‘Sexual Orientation and Sexually Transmitted Disease,’ Nebraska Medical Journal). Not surprisingly, these diseases shorten life expectancy” (http://tinyurl.com/8jr3tt2). (Other diseases of course include HIV, and also: gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis A and B, a variety of intestinal parasites including amebiases and giardiasis, and even typhoid fever at much higher rates.)
Damning Graphs
The chasm between the obvious and extreme health risks associated with “gay” male sex and the CDC’s politically correct, pro-homosexuality mindset reflects public policy malpractice on an Orwellian scale. “Gay” activist ideology and assumptions — including intrinsic (many would claim innate) “gay”/bi/transgender identities — go unquestioned at the CDC. Ironically, the most direct answer to the HIV-youth crisis — teaching young people NOT to practice unhealthy homosexual sex — is the one thing that is essentially forbidden. (CCV)
An in-depth study by a large insurance company which provides quotes from more than 200 insurers to people across the US, pointed out that gay men have a life expectancy 20 years shorter than heterosexual men (http://tinyurl.com/bnuspjv). An ALL POINTS BULLETIN going out to the Left: the gay lifestyle takes more years off of one’s life than smoking. Where are all the campaigns trying to save lives? Do you not care about gay men and women?
“Trend data available for the first time this year [speaking about the updated 2012 CDC report] show that primary and secondary syphilis cases – the most infectious stages of the disease — are increasing among gay and other men who have sex with men, who now account for more than 70 percent of all infections. If not adequately treated, syphilis can lead to paralysis, dementia and death. Syphilis infection can also place a person at increased risk for HIV infection. Given the high prevalence of HIV in the gay community, increasing syphilis infections among gay and bisexual men are particularly troubling.” (CDC)
Some more stats and studies:
1) …Gay and bisexual men are at significant risk for developing anal cancer, and testing them for the disease would save many lives, says a new study in the American Journal of Medicine.Anal cancer in gay men is as common as cervical cancer was in women before the use of the Pap smear…. (WebMD)
2) …An in-depth study by a large insurance company which provides quotes from more than 200 insurers to people across the US, pointed out that gay men have a life expectancy 20 years shorter than heterosexual men (life insurance). An ALL POINTS BULLETIN going out to the Left: the gay lifestyle takes more years off of one’s life than smoking. Where are all the campaigns trying to save lives? Do you not care about gay men and women?
3)…primary and secondary syphilis cases – the most infectious stages of the disease — are increasing among gay and other men who have sex with men, who now account for more than 70 percent of all infections. (CDC) [That is less than 1.7% of the population that accounts for this LARGE percentage]
4) The nation’s HIV rate has fallen by a third in the last decade, the federal researchers said in a new report released Saturday. While many population groups shared in this welcome decline in new HIV cases, one group — young gay or bisexual men — saw a 133 percent increase over the time period….. Around 62 percent of HIV cases in the United States are due to MSM [men who have sex with men] sexual contact, the report’s data showed. (Washington Times)
5) Table 2 compares the life expectancy and loss in expectation of life attributable to HIV/AIDS at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men versus all men. Life expectancy at age 20 for gay and bisexual men ranged from 34.0 to 46.3 years for the three scenarios. The lowest figure was for the 3% scenario and highest when 9% of the total male population was assumed to be gay and bisexual. Figures for all three scenarios of gay and bisexual men were considerably lower than the life expectancy for all men of 54.3 years. The loss in life expectancy due to HIV/AIDS for gay and bisexual men ranged from 21.3 years to 9.0 years for the 3% and 9% scenarios respectively. (Oxford Journal)
Take note the number changes per the percentage of gay/bi-sexual men and women. The high percentage of gay is 2.8% ~ the low is 1.4% ~ but is most likely 1.7% — that is total gay men and women as well as bi-sexual. Gay men make up a small percentage of this total and the majority of HIV/AIDS, Syphilis, Hepatitis, anal cancer, and the like ~ which would even increase the mortality rat shown in the study.
All of the above [and much more not cited] lends to the following being confirmed:
WASHINGTON, DC, June 6, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new study which analyzed tens of thousands of gay obituaries and compared them with AIDS deaths data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has shown that the life expectancy for homosexuals is about twenty years shorter than that of the general public. The study, entitled “Gay obituaries closely track officially reported deaths from AIDS”, has been published in Psychological Reports (2005;96:693-697).
In an interview with lifesitenews.com, Dr. Paul Cameron, the President of the Family Research Institute and the scientist who headed the study, indicated that he was not at all surprised by the findings. Rather he said that it only served as further confirmation for what had long been known and other studies have already shown.
One such study was conducted in Vancouver British Columbia and published in 1997 in the International Journal of Epidemiology (Vol. 26, 657-61). It almost exactly mirrors the findings of Cameron’s research.
The Vancouver study was conducted by a team of pro-gay researchers, who, upon finding that pro-family advocates were using the results of their research as confirmation for their beliefs about the risks of the homosexual lifestyle, issued a statement trying to curb this unintended after-effect. “The aim of our work,” said the research team, “was to assist health planners with the means of estimating the impact of HIV infection on groups, like gay and bisexual men, not necessarily captured by vital statistics data and not to hinder the rights of these groups worldwide. Overall, we do not condone the use of our research in a manner that restricts the political or human rights of gay and bisexual men or any other group.”…. (LifeSite News)
UPDATE!
MOONBATTERY notes the following:
In a Center for Disease Control fact sheet that was put out in November 2015 with studies from 2014, which outlined the national data for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in America, it was “particularly gay and bisexual men” who are at greatest risk for syphilis as rates of syphilis are increasing at an alarming rate. …
According to the fact sheet, “Trend data show rates of syphilis are increasing at an alarming rate (15.1 percent in 2014). While rates have increased among both men and women, men account for more than 90 percent of all primary and secondary syphilis cases. Men who have sex with men (MSM) account for 83 percent of male cases where the sex of the sex partner is known. Primary and secondary syphilis are the most infectious stages of the disease, and if not adequately treated, can lead to long-term infection which can cause visual impairment and stroke. Syphilis infection can also place a person at increased risk for acquiring or transmitting HIV infection. Available surveillance data indicate that an average of half of MSM who have syphilis are also infected with HIV.”
When the leftist social engineers in charge of most everything promote homosexuality, they are not just promoting decadence and degeneracy; they are promoting disease.
So if a homosexual male truly loved his partner, he would abstain from any sodomy type acts (this included hetero as well). If someone has a true friend who happens to be gay, they will in moments of friendship, counsel them to do the same — that is, curb gay sexual acts. In other words, society allows people to smoke, but it doesn’t encourage the action. I grew up in an era where “Marlborough” was on Formula One cars, TV shows had smoking, etc No more, and the truth about the consequences of smoking is passed on to young people. The homosexual lifestyle is not a healthy choice, and it isn’t an alternative lifestyle. And it shouldn’t be held up to young minds as being equal — talking health wise — to the hetero lifestyle. While showing my son love, I would challenge him to curb his desires, as society should as well.
THIS is the LOVING thing to do.
From a previous post
Since marriage is no longer about creating a stable environment for children, and has become (and this mainly the fault of heterosexual liberals [e.g., liberalism]) about personal fulfillment, validation, and access to social benefits, there literally is no constraint on how much more broadly it can be redefined. — GAY PATRIOT
Gay Patriotbravely steps out on this subject and accepts the challenge… as any rational thinking conservatarianwould:
Anyway, the Times, perhaps after failing to find a celebrity to comment on the issue, goes to the next best source for information on epidemiology and behavioral psychology… an English professor from SUNY-Buffalo. Who provides this analysis:
What I learned in my research is that gay men are pursuing bareback sex not just for the thrill of it, but also as a way to experience intimacy, vulnerability and connection. Emotional connection may be symbolized in the idea that something tangible is being exchanged. A desire for connection outweighs adherence to the rules of disease prevention.
And some guys are apparently getting intimate, tangible, emotional connections 10-20 times a night in bathhouses.
It also seems that the readers of the NY Times, based on the comments, are in complete denial that this phenomenon exists, and think the author is just making it up to attack the gay community. Liberals choose to blame the recent dramatic increases in HIV infection rates on “the stigma attached to HIV.” Um, excuse me, but don’t stigmas usually make people avoid those things to which stigmas are attached?
In the real world, stigmatizing a behavior results in less of it: Which is why people don’t use the N-word in public any more and smoking has declined as a social activity. When the social stigma is removed … as with HIV infection and teenage pregnancy … you get more of those things.
…READ MORE…
Bravo. I just wish to mention that this area of the body is not made for sex. And many will read the following and think that this is an attack on the humanity of the gay lifestyle/choice. It is not, it is a cry for gay men to become monogamous and cease having relations with the people they purport to love in that area. It is out of compassion, not hatred the following is pointed out:
Homosexuals also continue to contract and spread other diseases at rates significantly higher that the community at large. These include syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis A and B, a variety of intestinal parasites including amebiases and giardiasis, and even typhoid fever (David G. Ostrow, Terry Alan Sandholzer, and Yehudi M. Felman, eds., Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Homosexual Men; see also, Sevgi O. Aral and King K. Holmes, “Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the AIDS Era,” Scientific American). This is because rectal intercourse or sodomy, typically practiced by homosexuals, is one of the most efficient methods of transmitting disease. Why? Because nature designed the human rectum for a single purpose: expelling waste from the body. It is built of a thin layer of columnar cells, different in structure than the plate cells that line the female reproductive tract. Because the wall of the rectum is so thin, it is easily ruptured during intercourse, allowing semen, blood, feces, and saliva to directly enter the bloodstream. The chances for infection increases further when multiple partners are involved, as is frequently the case: Surveys indicate that American male homosexuals average between 10 and 110 sex partners per year (L. Corey and K. K. Holmes, “Sexual Transmission of Hepatitis A in Homosexual Men,” New England Journal of Medicine; and, Paul Cameron et al., “Sexual Orientation and Sexually Transmitted Disease,” Nebraska Medical Journal).
Not surprisingly, these diseases shorten life expectancy. Social psychologist Paul Cameron compared over 6,200 obituaries from homosexual magazines and tabloids to a comparable number of obituaries from major American Newspapers. He found that while the median age of death of married American males was 75, for sexually active homosexual American males it is 42. For homosexual males infected with the AIDS virus, it was 39. While 80 percent of married American men lived to 65 or older, less than two percent of the homosexual men covered in the survey lived as long
…these problems don’t remain personal and private. The drive, especially since this issue is associated with the word “gay rights,” is to make sure your worldview reflects theirs. To counter this effort, we must demand that the medical and psychiatric community take off their PC blinders and treat these people responsibly. If we don’t, the next thing you know, your child will be taking a “tolerance” class explaining how “transexuality” is just another “lifestyle choice”…. After all, it is the only way malignant narcissists will ever feel normal, healthy, and acceptable: by remaking society – children – in their image
In the black community, for example, one of the major factors in the degradation of that sub-culture is fatherlessness. In order to stop the devolving of young men into criminals, the black community would have to step up to the plate and accept responsibility for their own actions and change behavior… not blaming outside forces. Similarly, the gay community will have to battle their demons as well to help their subculture. See my Cumulative Case for some ideas of what these demons are.
Many years ago, Tammy Bruce reemphasized this dangerous, self-destructive notion and action:
….What a difference treatment makes! As researchers succeeded in developing ever more effective drugs, AIDS became—like gonorrhea, syphilis, and hepatitis B before it—what many if consider to be a simple “chronic disease.” And many of the gay men who had heeded the initial warning went right back to having promiscuous unprotected sex here is now even a movement—the “bareback” movement—that encourages sex without condoms. The infamous bathhouses are opening up again; drug use, sex parties, and hundreds of sex partners a year are all once again a feature of the “gay lifestyle.” In fact, “sexual liberation” has simply become a code phrase for the abandonment of personal responsibility, respect, and integrity.
In his column for Salon.com, David Horowitz discussed gay radicals like the writer Edmund White. During the 1960s and beyond, White addressed audiences in the New York gay community on the subject of sexual liberation. He told one such audience that “gay men should wear their sexually transmitted diseases like red badges of courage in a war against a sex-negative society.” And did they ever. Then, getting gonorrhea was the so-called courageous act. Today, the stakes are much higher. That red badge is now one of AIDS suffering and death, and not just for gay men themselves. In their effort to transform society, the perpetrators are taking women and children and straight men with them.
Even Camille Paglia, a woman whom I do not often praise, astutely commented some years ago, “Everyone who preached free love in the Sixties is responsible for AIDS. This idea that it was somehow an accident, a microbe that sort of fell from heaven—absurd. We must face what we did.”
The moral vacuum did rear its ugly head during the 1960s with the blurring of the lines of right and wrong (remember “situational ethics”?), the sexual revolution, and the consequent emergence of the feminist and gay civil-rights movements. It’s not the original ideas of these movements, mind you, that caused and have perpetuated the problems we’re discussing. It was and remains the few in power who project their destructive sense of themselves onto the innocent landscape, all the while influencing and conditioning others. Today, not only is the blight not being faced, but in our Looking-Glass world, AIDS is romanticized and sought after….
And take note I talk about the nihilistic culture in the gay community [infected by liberalism] in a more philosophical and religious sense than most places, from my chapter in my book:
…Foucault looked at truth as an object to be constructed by those whom wielded the power to define facts. “Madness, abnormal sex, and criminality were not objective categories but rather social constructs.”[73]He embraced what mainstream society had rejected, which was sadomasochism and drug use. In 1984 Foucault died from contracting AIDS. One should take note that Foucault so enjoyed his hope of dying “of an overdose of pleasure” that he frequented gay bathhouses and sex clubs even after knowing of his communicable disease. Many people were infected because of Foucault and Foucault’s post-modern views.[74] On a lighter note, Dinesh D’Souza tells of a contest about the time Foucault was dying. The story is fitting for those who view hell as a real option:
People were debating whether AIDS victims should be quarantined as syphilis victims had been in the past. [William F.] Buckley said no. The solution was to have a small tattoo on their rear ends to warn potential partners. Buckley’s suggestion caused a bit of a public stir, but the folks at National Review were animated by a different question: What should the tattoo say? A contest was held, and when the entries were reviewed, the winner by unanimous consent was Hart.[75] He [Hart] suggested the lines emblazoned on the gates to Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”[76]
You see, in order to have one’s alternative lifestyle accepted, one must attack “what truth is” in its absolute (Judeo-Christian) sense. Truth is whatever the powerful decided it was, or so Foucault proposed. This is the attack. “We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth.”[77] Foucault, sadly, never repented from violating God’s natural order and truth. He was a living example in his death of what Paul said was naturally to follow in their rejection of God’s gracious revelation of Himself to humanity,[78]Romans 1:26-32 reads:
Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.… And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best! [79]
Foucault said that “sex was worth dying for,”[80] but is it?…
NOTES:
[73] Ibid. [74] Ibid. [75] Jeffrey Hart, a professor many years ago at Dartmouth Univ. [76] Dinesh D’ Souza, Letters to a Young Conservative: The Art of Mentoring (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 20. [77]Flynn, 235-237. [78] Walter A Elwell, Evangelical Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), Romans 1:21 [79] Eugene H Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002), Romans 1:26-27, 30-32. [80]Ibid., 235.
Keep in mind that monogamous gay-male relationships ARE A MYTHfor the most part.
(Originally posted April 2013 | November 2014 | Today: October 2023)
Just a quick note on when John says (see below) that he doubts “the origin of homosexuality will be discussed,” he does not discuss it either (if there is even an “origin” to be discussed). And while I admit to not following John’s every contribution to mankind, I doubt John has ever talked about it either, or, if he has, he proffered internally contradictory points. Okay, diving right in… some points I will be working on throughout the post found in the article:
1) Classification by the leading psychiatric group in America (jump);
4) Some final thoughts on the immutability of marriage and our culture (jump).
Okay, while trying to be understanding to John Van Huizum’s allotted space given to write within, he shows a lack of depth in his looking into the matter with anything other than his “prejudicial” view. While he tried to be non-prejudicial, he just cannot. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, we are all prejudicial in our views.
That is why knowing about worldviews is soo emphasized in Christian apologetics. A clear understanding of the prejudice in origins, for instance, can open up many avenues to learn about reality and you place in the universe. So while John may say he is trying to be more neutral, I doubt he has done the serious work to examine his own life outside of his prejudicial outlook.
“You may believe you are doing right [ Every person’s path seems right/straight in their own eyes], but the Lord judges your reasons [weighs your heart].”
But I ingress. Moving on.
POINT #1
This is taken from a LARGE RESPONSE to the Reverend Mel White, a gay man who tries to justify the practice of homosexuality via Christianity. (This distinction is important, the “person” is made in the image of God, as fallen as they are [we were/are], they deserve the same respect and love shown us from our Savior.) He uses the same tact that it is — homosexuality — is not considered a “malady” as well. Here is my response:
The APA vote to normalize homosexuality was driven by politics, not science. Even sympathizers acknowledged this. Ronald Bayer was then a Fellow at the Hastings Institute in New York. He reported how in 1970 the leadership of a homosexual faction within the APA planned a “systematic effort to disrupt the annual meetings of the American Psychiatric Association” [R. Bayer, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 102.]They defended this method of “influence” on the grounds that the APA represented “psychiatry as a social institution” rather than a scientific body or professional guild.
At the 1970 meetings, Irving Bieber, an eminent psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, was presenting a paper on “homosexuality and transsexualism.” He was abruptly challenged:
[Bieber’s] efforts to explain his position … were met with derisive laughter. . . . [One] protester to call him a . “I’ve read your book, Dr. Bieber, and if that book talked about black people the way it talks about homosexuals, you’d be drawn and quartered and you’d deserve it.” [102-103]
The tactics worked. Acceding to pressure, the organizers of the following APA conference in 1971 agreed to sponsor a special panel—not on homosexuality, but by homosexuals. If the panel was not approved, the program chairman had been warned, “They’re [the homosexual activists] not going to break up just one section” [104].
But the panel was not enough. Bayer continues:
Despite the agreement to allow homosexuals to conduct their own panel discussion at the 1971 convention, gay activists in Washington felt that they had to provide yet another jolt to the psychiatric profession. . . . Too smooth a transition . . . would have deprived the movement of its most important weapon—the threat of disorder…. [They] turned to a Gay Liberation Front collective in Washington to plan the May 1971 demonstration. Together with the collective [they] developed a detailed strategy for disruption, paying attention to the most intricate logistical details.[104-105]
On May 3, 1971, the protesting psychiatrists broke into a meeting of distinguished members of the profession. They grabbed the microphone and turned it over to an outside activist, who declared:
Psychiatry is the enemy incarnate. Psychiatry has waged a relentless war of extermination against us. You may take this as a declaration of war against you. . . . We’re rejecting you all as our owners.[105-106]
No one raised an objection. The activists then secured an appearance before the APA’s Committee on Nomenclature. Its chairman allowed that perhaps homosexual behavior was not a sign of psychiatric disorder, and that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) should probably therefore reflect this new understanding.
When the committee met formally to consider the issue in 1973 the outcome had already been arranged behind closed doors. No new data was introduced, and objectors were given only fifteen minutes to present a rebuttal that summarized seventy years of psychiatric and psychoanalytic opinion. When the committee voted as planned, a few voices formally appealed to the membership at large, which can overrule committee decisions even on “scientific” matters.
The activists responded swiftly and effectively. They drafted a letter and sent it to the over thirty thousand members of the APA, urging them “to vote to retain the nomenclature change” [145]. How could the activists afford such a mailing? They purchased the APA membership mailing list after the National Gay Task Force (NGTF) sent out a fund-raising appeal to their membership.
Bayer comments:
Though the NGTF played a central role in this effort, a decision was made not to indicate on the letter that it was written, at least in part, by the Gay Task Force, nor to reveal that its distribution was funded by contributions the Task Force had raised. Indeed, the letter gave every indication of having been conceived and mailed by those [psychiatrists] who [originally] signed it. . . . Though each signer publicly denied any role in the dissimulation, at least one signer had warned privately that to acknowledge the organizational role of the gay community would have been the “kiss of death.”
There is no question however about the extent to which the officers of the APA were aware of both the letter’s origins and the mechanics of its distribution. They, as well as the National Gay Task Force, understood the letter as performing a vital role in the effort to turn back the challenge.[146]
Because a majority of the APA members who responded voted to support the change in the classification of homosexuality, the decision of the Board of Trustees was allowed to stand. But in fact only one-third of the membership did respond. (Four years later the journal Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality reported on a survey it conducted. The survey showed that 69 percent of psychiatrists disagreed with the vote and still considered homosexuality a disorder.) Bayer remarks:
The result was not a conclusion based upon an approximation of the scientific truth as dictated by reason, but was instead an action demanded by the ideological temper of the times. [3-4]
Two years later the American PsychologicalAssociation—the professional psychology guild that is three times larger than the APA—voted to follow suit.
How much the 1973 APA decision was motivated by politics is only becoming clear even now While attending a conference in England in 1994, I met a man who told me an account that he had told no one else. He had been in the gay life for years but had left the lifestyle. He recounted how after the 1973 APA decision he and his lover, along with a certain very highly placed officer of the APA Board of Trustees and his lover, all sat around the officer’s apartment celebrating their victory. For among the gay activists placed high in the APA who maneuvered to ensure a victory was this man—suborning from the top what was presented to both the membership and the public as a disinterested search for truth.
So this graphic by the Reverend White means nothing. Most women I know who are lesbians who have intimated family members of mine their past have all said they were abused by a man in the family. Likewise, the two homosexual men I know well enough to ask, both had a sexual encounter with an older man when they were 14 years old and younger. Lesbian author Tammy Bruce intimates this story in her book:
… and now all manner of sexual perversion enjoys the protection and support of once what was a legitimate civil-rights effort for decent people. The real slippery slope has been the one leading into the Left’s moral vacuum. It is a singular attitude that prohibits any judgment about obvious moral decay because of the paranoid belief that judgment of any sort would destroy the gay lifestyle, whatever that is…. Here come[s] the elephant again: Almost without exception, the gay men I know (and that’s too many to count) have a story of some kind of sexual trauma or abuse in their childhood — molestation by a parent or an authority figure, or seduction as an adolescent at the hands of an adult. The gay community must face the truth and see sexual molestation* of an adolescent for the abuse it is, instead of the ‘coming-of-age’ experience many [gays] regard it as being. Until then, the Gay Elite will continue to promote a culture of alcohol and drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and suicide by AIDS.[21]
* By the age of 18 or 19 years, three quarters of American youth, regardless of their sexual orientation, have had sexual relations with another person. Gay males are more likely than heterosexual males to become sexually active at a younger age (12.7 vs. 15.7 years) and to have had multiple sexual partners. The ages at the time of the first sexual experience with another person are closer for lesbians and heterosexual females (15.4 vs. 16.2 years).
Do you think… I am asking you… do you think this is psychological in nature? I mean, raping of boys and these boys growing into men confused, hurt, traumatized (often by a close family confidant) and expressing this confusion in unhealthy lifestyle choices? These men and women are hurting and need counseling, compassion, care, and understanding. But the best way to get this to them is not to normalize the actions done to them and they do to themselves. One author mentions the timing this “reclassification came about:
…it may be just a coincidence that just about at the height of the “sexual revolution” (or devolution) the “evidence from science” changed. Keep in mind that psychiatry and psychology are soft sciences and that secular counseling and education is largely based on the societal trends de jour.[22]
Which brings me to a point I left off with in premise four. Homosexuals make up one to three percent of the population, yet, almost 70% of serial killers are homosexuals… this non-diagnosis in lieu of political correctness and the sexual revolution seems a bit quick and non-scientific, considering the abuse that leads to this lifestyle and crime stemming from this lifestyle.
I have shared in the past the story of Walt Haeyer, a man who through an operation “became a woman,” lived as such for 8-years, while getting a counseling degree dealt with histragic childhood (as well as becoming a Christian), now lives as a man and is married with kids. Another touching story is by this young man that touched Ravi Zacharias during a Q&A portion of one of his talks:
Now, to be clear, my point is NOT TO POINT fingers at my gay friends and tell them to change. I cannot do that, nor, outside of loving advice, have the authority to do so. That is between them and their God. My point is that the “malady” may not be as immutable as some would have us think. Which then, in my minds eye, translates into harming more the gay man or woman if this reaction to trauma is accepted as completely normalized (given a rubber stamp of approval) by society. I deal with the loving ways to come at this in my official “Cumulative Case” on the topic. But the “bible” of psychiatry is defining new “illnesses” with each publication, and for homosexuality to be stricken from any analysis is harmful when the internet, grief, even thinking about anxiety are all being classified as an illness… but these often times traumatic experiences many face as children and the twisting of their sexual expression since this experience is not a malady. Something is up… and its called politics. I will let Tammy Bruce (a gay woman) take us out:
…these problems don’t remain personal and private. The drive, especially since this issue is associated with the word “gay rights,” is to make sure your worldview reflects theirs. To counter this effort, we must demand that the medical and psychiatric community take off their PC blinders and treat these people responsibly. If we don’t, the next thing you know, your child will be taking a “tolerance” class explaining how “transexuality” is just another “lifestyle choice”…. After all, it is the only way malignant narcissists will ever feel normal, healthy, and acceptable: by remaking society – children – in their image.
(Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values [Roseville: Prima, 2003], 92, 206.)
POINT #2
Some acquaintances I have followed for a couple of years [their work], and have a meal or two with, make a great point about the Native-American dealing with homosexuality that is quite different than many in today’s culture care to admit into the dialogue, and that is: gender differences. The fine gentlemen at Gay Patriot (gaypatriot . net – now defunct, sadly), the afore mentioned acquaintances, mentioned his own research into the Native-American (NA) “two-spirits” designation, and I found this very enlightening:
In my grad school paper for my Native American class, I researched the legends of the berdache, or two-spirit. Many cite the berdacge tradition as an example of cultures which accept and embrace homosexuality and same-sex relationships. And while many American Indian tribes recognized same-sex marriages, they all required one partner in such a union to live in the guise of the other sex. Thus, if one man married another man, one would wear men’s clothes and go hunting with the “braves” while the other would have to wear women’s clothes and live as a “squaw.” The one who lived as a woman could not go hunting with his same-sex peers nor could he participate in activities, rituals etc reserved for his biological sex.
California, Massachusetts, and other liberal states are not only pushing for same-sex marriage as a societal equal to hetero marriage, but in the process doing away with gender distinctions. This is a travesty, and in agreement with me are many gay men and women.
I have a larger point though, that will tie into Socrates a bit, and it is this: just because NA’s had gay persons in their society does not answer the very real possibility of abuse of young persons in that society that may be the bedrock of this behavior. In other words, we know today that many people who consider themselves gay had “coming out” experiences when they were young. In fact, one person I know posted in a gay group this question based on one of my posts (see the discussion that ensued here) and ended up proving my point. This will lead into and combine with…
POINT #3
Very bluntly and plainly, Socrates was not “gay,” per se. He was a pedophile, most pedophiles in Grecian days slept with young boys, a homosexual act. Pedophilia became common practice for the well-ta-do, and it took the Judeo-Christian worldview to shake this “habit” from the world in outlawing such actions. “Many men in Ancient Greece had relations with young teens,” however, “being outright gay and having an equal relationship with a same-sex partner was not something that was socially approved of at all.” Plato speaks to the “mean state” that creates the best “by far the safest and most moderate” a society should promote to enhance its quality of life. One should take note that even Plato’s detractor in the end agrees:
Now, what lives are they, and how many in which, having searched out and beheld the objects of will and desire and their opposites, and making of them a law, choosing, I say, the dear and the pleasant and the best and noblest, a man may live in the happiest way possible…
[….]
Speaking generally, our glory is to follow the better and improve the inferior, which is susceptible of improvement, as far as this is possible. And of all human possessions, the soul is by nature most inclined to avoid the evil, and track out and find the chief good; which when a man has found, he should take up his abode with it during the remainder of his life…. every one will perceive, comes the honour of the body in natural order. Having determined this, we have next to consider that there is a natural honour of the body, and that of honours some are true and some are counterfeit…. but the mean states of all these habits are by far the safest and most moderate;
[….]
…but they will not wholly extirpate [root out]the unnatural loves which have been the destruction of states; and against this evil what remedy can be devised?…
[….]
Either men may learn to abstain wholly from any loves, natural or unnatural, except of their wedded wives; or, at least, they may give up unnatural loves; or, if detected, they shall be punished with loss of citizenship, as aliens from the state in their morals. ‘I entirely agree with you,’ said Megillus,…
Another piece to the puzzle comes from an excellent apologetic about this very subject. In it we find this:
Aeschines (390-314? BC), in his work Against Timarchus, acknowledged that there were laws on the books that prohibited sexual harassment or assault of young boys.5
1. He further records that Greek law prohibited male prostitutes from holding office in civic affairs, or participating in religious observances.
2. He recognized that laws that regulate moral conduct are the best means of establishing and maintaining an orderly society.
3. This work indicates that there were laws prohibiting these things, and that the punishment was fine or death, depending on the severity of the offense.
So, even in Greece, you had a behavior that was rejected as unnatural, and never accepted in a moral category as “the norm.” So nothing John cites or references would support Prop 8 or the peoples will in California to keep marriage what it has been, a relation between a man and woman (specifically, one man and one woman).
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Per John’s usual modus operandi, he has connected ideas that have no relation or equal to the current issue, and are by themselves arguments against his position. But I wanted to end with a recent response to a friend that deals with this “mean” that Plato references, the “good” that any society should strive towards. And while I am a Christian and think that theism gives the most powerful “mean” to the “best and noblest, a man may live in the happiest way possible,” one should keep in mind that one can do the same even as an atheist. Here is my response:
(Nature Uncaring) True. Dawkins for instance says rape being morally wrong in our current culture is as inconsequential as us evolving 5 rather than 4 fingers. So morally speaking nature is cruel, without — that is — a matrix placed on it that is above nature. Something only the theistic worldview can offer. That being said, we can access the “book of nature,” if you will, to codify things that exist, like: the “law of gravity,” the “law of conservation,” the “law of thermodynamics,” the “law of motion.” These have always existed, but at some point were “discovered,” or codified. Similarly the “laws of thought” (logic) have always existed, but Aristotle codified many of them.
Nature (if that is all you believe in) has created a “way,” an “institution” that mankind has always accessed, and was codified in the cultural sense throughout mankind’s history. So much like Calvin Coolidge saying the “men do not make laws – they do but discover them,” making laws an “ought” should be grounded in something larger than man (like the judges did in the Nuremberg Trials). But you can also merely describe, which I did in a series of questions from you many years ago (from one of my earliest posts: Marriage: Is It Hetero?):
However, there is a “created order,” or, even a natural order (if you do not believe in God). My argument for heterosexual (between a man and a woman) unions is usable both by the atheist (non believer in God) and the theist (a believer in God – in the Judeo-Christian sense). Here is the crux of the matter in regards to “nature’s order:”
“…take gold as an example, it has inherent in its nature intrinsic qualities that make it expensive: good conductor of electricity, rare, never tarnishes, ease of use (moldability), and the like. The male and female have the potential to become a single biological organism, or single organic unit, or principle. Two essentially becoming one. The male and female, then, have inherent to their nature intrinsic qualities that two mated males or two mated females never actualize in their courtship… nor can they ever. The potential stays just that, potential, never being realized…..
“….Think of a being or animal or even an insect that reproduces, not by mating, but by some act performed by individuals. Imagine that for these same beings, movement and digestion is performed not by individuals, but only by the complementary pairs that unite for this purpose. Would anyone acquainted with such beings have difficulty understanding that in respect to movement and digestion, the organism is a united pair, or an organic unity? They thus become an entirely new organism when joined together — fulfilling what was only ‘potential’ when apart”
So you see, the two heterosexual organisms that join in a sexual union cease being two separate organisms for a short time and become one organism capable of reproduction. This is what the state and the church are sealing in a marriage, this intrinsic union. The homosexual couple can never achieve this union, so “natures order” has endowed the heterosexual union with an intrinsic quality that other relationships do not have or could never attain. Both the atheist and theist can argue from this point, because either we were created this way or we evolved this way. Either way, nature has imposed on the sexual union being discussed.
I will make the point as well, that as society moves away from the matrix our Founding documents are overlay’ed with, the human (the gay man/women specifically) will have his humanity threatened. You see, in the Judeo-Christian matrix, the homosexual has intrinsic worth. (The authors of the book “Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air” make this point in deeper philosophical argument than I.) And as people move further away from nature’s order, a form of “worth” anarchy will break out. Two people that saw this first hand comment well on the matter. The first is the author of “The Gulag Archipelago,” by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn. He says this in his Templeton Address:
More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.
Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.
What is more, the events of the Russian Revolution can only be understood now, at the end of the century, against the background of what has since occurred in the rest of the world. What emerges here is a process of universal significance. And if I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God.
The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century. The first of these was World War I, and much of our present predicament can be traced back to it. It was a war (the memory of which seems to be fading) when Europe, bursting with health and abundance, fell into a rage of self-mutilation which could not but sap its strength for a century or more, and perhaps forever. The only possible explanation for this war is a mental eclipse among the leaders of Europe due to their lost awareness of a Supreme Power above them….
Men have forgotten God.
Tammy Bruce, a lesbian, notes our current culture:
Even if one does not necessarily accept the institutional structure of “organized religion,” the “Judeo-Christian ethic and the personal standards it encourages do not impinge on the quality of life, but enhance it. They also give one a basic moral template that is not relative,” which is why the legal positivists of the Left are so threatened by the Natural Law aspect of the Judeo-Christian ethic.”
[….]
The moral vacuum did rear its ugly head during the 1960s with the blurring of the lines of right and wrong (remember “situational ethics”?), the sexual revolution, and the consequent emergence of the feminist and gay civil-rights movements. It’s not the original ideas of these movements, mind you, that caused and have perpetuated the problems we’re discussing. It was and remains the few in power who project their destructive sense of themselves onto the innocent landscape, all the while influencing and conditioning others. Today, not only is the blight not being faced, but in our Looking-Glass world, AIDS is romanticized and sought after…
Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values (Roseville: Prima, 2003), 35, 97.
CHANGE OF DIRECTION AND QUESTION:
SO, LET US MOVE to what “matrix” you see as being the most beneficial to human worth [especially to the gay man/woman] out of the only available to mankind. The seven world views. But out of the biggies (pantheism, theism, and atheism), which do you see the one lifting mankind up to the pinnacle of an ontological worth not found in nature?
And this is key, which direction will afford the American experiment the maximum liberty COUPLED WITH what Nature and Nature’s Laws/Author has wrought for the happiest “mean” we can attain? This is the battle and question before mankind right now… however, as Gay Patriot pointed out in the post titled, Silencing And Slurring Those With Politically Incorrect Views, much of the voting population are “low-info” (non-thinking) people who have lost the art to do anything other than “resort to name-calling and ostracism of individuals who oppose their cause.”
A liberal professor takes umbrage with this new wave of non-thinking, and even says it harms the intellectual “mean,” if you will, of the liberal person this thinking infects. And as you can see in two discussions I was in recently (here, and here— same person) any semblance of maturity in dialogue and learning and admitting, maybe, just maybe, the positions taken are in fact not a tenable position. but in our society where people elevate opinion as truth, and pride in Narcissism is the prevailing guide… you will never get much beyond being called sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted (S.I.X.H.I.R.B.). Or as Doug Mainwaring says in his article that Gay Patriot(gaypatriot . net – now defunct, sadly) linked to, “anti-science, homophobic, misogynist, racist, xenophobic, Neanderthal.”
Political correctness seeks to silence all opposition to the advancement of progressive ideology. Those who manipulate the power of political correctness appear on the surface to be the good-hearted, the vulnerable, and the victimized. Whether as individuals, as organizations, or as cultural groups, they present a picture of innocence and goodness, of unparalleled magnanimity and empathy. Yet like Anthony, their appearance is deceiving. They demand total fealty. And if you don’t think the “happy thoughts” they want you to, their outward appearance gives way to vindictiveness and the same swift, disproportionate punishments that little Anthony meted out.
They want to be constantly affirmed, never challenged, never questioned, never judged. If they sense you don’t agree with them, you are immediately judged to be a “bad person, with bad thoughts.” They intimidate you into silence, until outwardly you only express happy thoughts, i.e., expressions of vigorous agreement with and the moral goodness of their will. For individuals and organizations who do not bend to their will, like Anthony, they wish their detractors out to the cornfield. Their version of the cornfield is the constant threat of social isolation, of being unloved and disrespected.
Pick any issue currently being advanced by progressives — same-sex marriage, state-mandated free contraception, abortion, man-made global warming and strict gun control, to name a few. Publicly question or resist any of these and be prepared to be judged as an anti-science, homophobic, misogynist, racist, xenophobic, Neanderthal.
Until people begin to inform themselves on how to think, we will never have good legislation in most states. States that have the “perfect storm” of rational thinking and dialogue (like New Hampshire LINK IS DEAD) come up with the greatest liberty and “good” for their citizens in this experiment we call the States… however, John is far from this experiment’s stated goals by the authors of supporting the New Government and the Constitution:
“…we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
(Originally Posted June 2015 – Some Links and Media Updated)
This post was a response to a person asking why I post stuff by gays? (like Gay Patriot – a conservative/libertarian site with many gay bloggers. Now, sadly, defunct.) This person noted that homosexual acts are deviant acts, therefore, intimating that my posting or supporting of such Conservatarian gays would thus be myself supporting deviant acts. (A Rough quote of the question posed to me at my “Hit Pause on SSM” FaceBook Group)
A fair question by a fellow believer. And an important one, as, it leads to some issues conservative Christians shy away from. So I will respond in some depth here.
One should note as well that I post videos by atheists like Pat Condell, who hates all religions (Christianity as well).
“Atheism is a disease of the soul before it is an error of the mind.” ~ Plato
That being said, Pat has great insights put in well-pieced together “rants” against Islamo-Fascism that I think expand the importance in understanding and confronting this stark reality. In other words, Pat’s voice is needed! Not only that, but I would have a few beers with the guy to get to know him personally.
I use Reagan’s 80% Rule:
“The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.”
Similarly, I do not think or believe Larry Elder is a Christian, and so, in his relations with women I would assume he may participate in “devient” acts. By posting audio of his show and believing him to be unsaved… am I participating in these acts? By posting Dennis Prager’s insights on culture am I also supporting his multiple divorces or his views on Noah’s flood being allegorical?
The answer to these rhetorical question is “of course not.”
Mind you, I am all for good -solid- sermon that calls the guilty sinner [ALL sinners] to repent before their angry Judge. I am thinking here of Jonathan Edwards sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Those types of sermons are always… will always… be needed.
I have mentioned for the audience of my old blog, but will again mention it here for any new readers: this is not meant to be an explicitly Christian blog. While I hold to and vehemently defend a particular worldview, I do not intend this site to be “rosy cheeked” — “pure as the driven snow” depot for faith. This site is meant for men and women who are confident enough in themselves, their faith, and their culture to know that the “holier-than-thou” lifestyle is best adhered to by those other than ourselves. So expect language and raw thoughts at times, in a respectful or satirical manner. In other words… CAUTION…
Religio-Poltical Apologetics ahead!
When Gay Patriot (GP) makes points that progress understanding of the American experiment [the Constitution and our Republic], I support their work. Especially in such a liberal sub-culture/environment that they find themselves in… they need all the support they can get.
I also know and have met some of these guys/gals that post on GP’s Twitteror Blog(or use to in times past. Some have stopped posting, others are newer to the blog. For instance, I have not met V the K in person, but would have some beers with him). Dinner was somewhat a regular [monthly] event. At least the ” West-Coast faction” of GP.
Dinner was based on two restaurants that supported Mitt Romney for President (The Outback and Sizzler), and was always on a Monday b-e-c-a-u-s-e the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution saying that in order to help save the planet from anthropogenic global warming people should not eat meat on Mondays. Obviously then the meal included meat.
Bruce, GP’s founder, even came out once to see this “Motley Crew.”
One gentleman that is part of this “Motley Crew” works at 870AM: The Answer and knows Prager. So when you hear Prager mention gay family members, co-workers, and friends he knows… one of those guys are in the mix.
What many do not realize is that the Constitution allows for the States to define — legally — what “marriage” can be defined as. In other words, what isn’t expressly enumerated in the Constitution as what the Federal Government can-and-cannot do are left for the states to decide.
And every time the states have decided they have decided on the issue, they have voted for heterosexual marriage. Gay Patriot notes and loves this understanding of the Constitution. As do I.
Some gay men-and-women as well support the idea that heterosexual marriage has a benefit for society that gay-marriage does not ~ intrinsically. But this is true of all liberalism… not “gayness.” For instance I love this truth mentioned by GP (VtheK) ~ I will highlight the most important portion:
“Don’t be ridiculous,” they said. “No way does same sex marriage lead to legalized polygamy. The slippery slope argument is a complete fallacy, because enactment of one liberal social policy has never, ever led to the subsequent enactment of the logical extension of that liberal social policy. Ever!”
Well, they may have been wrong about the coefficient of friction on that particular incline. Commenter Richard Bell notes the following: Judge Cites Same-Sex Marriage in Declaring Polygamy Ban Unconstitutional.
[….]
Since marriage is no longer about creating a stable environment for children, and has become (and this mainly the fault of heterosexual liberals) about personal fulfillment, validation, and access to social benefits, there literally is no constraint on how much more broadly it can be redefined.
You see? Liberalism infects all aspects of life… political, religious, or common sense aspects of our lives. These men and women deserve the best in grace and love from us. Galatians 6:9-10 reads:
So we must not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, we must work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.
These two verses speak explicitly to “Christians” as they are the ones of the household of faith: “especially for those who belong to the household of faith.” Applying this general Biblical principle to the political realm… we end up back at what Reagan was getting at. Conservatives want to help all people [never tire doing “good”], and we think that conservative principles do this best in contradistinction to what liberalism offers people.
In this political realm we especially work with those of the same political “faith” (i.e., conservatives) ~ Gay or Straight!
Here is an example from a lesbian’s blog I visit here-and-there, called, “Gay, Conservative, and Proud” — this comes from the “about me” section to the right:
Things I care about: School choice and reform, free markets, Ronald Reagan, Ann Coulter, small government, conservative ideals, and snarky comebacks.
Before you ask, I’m probably supporting either Marco Rubio and Scott Walker in the 2016 primaries….
Right On! That “right-on” aside, I disagree with her viewpoint on marriage: “I truly think that marriage needs to be abolished from government and civil unions should take that place of them. Gay, straight, polygamous, etc….” This is a legitimate view, and shows the more libertarian viewpoint on it. But Christians need to be prepared to talk about why, polygamy [for instance], is bad for society as a whole as well as the individuals involved.
One last thought as well. Often times Christians get too use to applying Romans chapter one to “others.” When in fact it is a Declaration [of-sort] of all humanity, which includes us as well. We know this laundry list of pride and putting things before our God. As well as our proclivity to rebel against God.
Above Audio Description
In 2004, Ravi Zacharias was the first evangelical Christian to speak at the Mormon Tabernacle since D. L. Moody did so in 1899. In this excerpt Ravi paints a picture of just how sinful we are, and if you think Romans 1:18-32 is just for fallen people — those verses describe our default. That Scripture is meant to show US how seperated we are from God’s will. This audio or video is either recovered from an old Vimeo account or my MRCTV account, and in fact may be quite dated (old).
And God doesn’t just give over gays alone to their worshiping of the creature rather than the… He gives over ALL sinners who are not called because of their rebellion and only calls the elect because of their heeding the Holy Spirit. ALL those who practice rebellious acts of selfish-will against Him who are not forgiven and covered in the Lambs righteousness.
I know how easy it is for one to rebel with selfidh-pride and one’s own will… and how easy it is to delude oneself into thinking your choices are the right ones (speaking as a three-time convicted felon).
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool” ~ Richard P. Feynman (atheist).
Self-delusion is the easiest and quickest action the sinner makes… and the serpent in Eden knew this proclivity well. And to be salt-and-light as well as everything to everybody.
I am aware that many of these “gay-patriots” know my position on homosexual acts. I also know that typically those I consider compatriots in the body-politic are adults and take these views with how I mean them, with care and concern for them as individuals.
My hope is that like them influencing me in small ways on liberty and our nations founding document, that my views may rub off them a bit and they truly consider what Christ is calling them to. I doubt someone who removes themselves fully from gay people can do so… and there are examples of persons living a Godly lifestyle who are gay. But if our position is correct… then a missing ingredient from these person’s lives is love… and how else to introduce the person to True Love (Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for them) than to rub shoulders with wonderful gay men and women?
Above Audio Description
An Ex-Homosexual Talks About His Change in Christ from Papa Giorgio on RUMBLE.
During a Q&A with Ravi Zacharias and RZIM at Oxford, a homosexual man asks a question but really ends up encouraging those in the faith of the miraculous work of God in peoples changed lives.
Something said during this exchange that really clicks with my understanding of this very important issue. Love. Most often — as I note often in my debates and posts on this topic (see below) — there is abuse or some family issue that drives these young men and women into this lifestyle. While I am more of a political-animal/armchair-philosopher and I deal with this issue in a “cut-n-dry” fashion, love is the motivating factor of change.
Usually the Christian [at the time of conversion] has this immense connection with their Creator and what He has done for him/her and the depths of their depravity that has been covered. Dorothy Sayers says it best:
“None of us feels the true love of God till we realize how wicked we are. But you can’t teach people that — they have to learn by experience.”
There is love and change available to those who seek it. the problem has become a society that perpetuates the PC status quo (YouTube). To keep the quoting of Mrs. Sayers going, she comments well on tolerance:
“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”
I also let people know (as loving as possible) that while society dissuades in schools, media, and lawsuits the lifestyle choices of smoking because it takes off [on average] of a person’s life about 10-years… so too do I think that society should dissuade the lifestyle that chooses same-sex. I am not saying making the choice illegal.
No. (For instance, smoking is not illegal)
BUT, what I am saying is do not teach that it is an exact carbon copy of heterosexual marriages in it’s benefits for society as a whole — or — for the individuals involved.
Telling a friend who is gay that if they have a partner whom they truly love and want to see live a long and healthy life, suggesting that they find other ways to be intimate IS the loving thing to do. If they are using their partner as a means to their end (a “tool” in other words… I discuss this in my chapter on the matter), then they do not truly love said person.
I go to some length to explain that I am approaching the issue with grace and love in my SSM-Page… but also that our countries ideals are leading the way. Dennis Prager has a good way in noting this struggle between the two (see Appendix). I also note that as Christians we should support the law as it is enumerated in the Constitution while still trying to change hearts and minds. I hope my site does this not only for the straight community, but for the “not so straight” community as well.
…Proponents and opponents [of same-sex marriage] ask two different questions.
Proponents of same-sex marriage ask: Is keeping the definition of marriage as man-woman fair to gays? Opponents of same-sex marriage ask: Is same-sex marriage good for society?
Few on either side honestly address the question of the other side. Opponents of same-sex marriage rarely acknowledge how unfair the age-old man-woman definition is to gay couples. And proponents rarely, if ever, acknowledge that this unprecedented redefinition of marriage may not be good for society.
That is why proponents have it much easier. All they need to do is to focus the public’s attention on individual gay people, show wonderful gay individuals who love each other, and ask the American public: Is it fair to continue to deprive these people of the right to marry one another?
When added to Americans’ aversion to discrimination, to the elevation of compassion to perhaps the highest national value, and to the equating of opposition to same-sex marriage with opposition to interracial marriage, it is no wonder that many Americans have been persuaded that opposition to same-sex marriage is hateful, backwards and the moral equivalent of racism.
Is there any argument that can compete with the emotionally compelling fairness argument?
The answer is that one can — namely, the answer to the second question, Is it good for society?
Before answering that question, however, it is necessary to respond to the charge that opposition to same-sex marriage is morally equivalent to opposition to interracial marriage and, therefore, the moral equivalent of racism.
There are two responses:
First, this charge is predicated on the profoundly false premise that race and sex (or “gender” as it is now referred to) are analogous.
They are not.
While there are no differences between black and white human beings, there are enormous differences between male and female human beings. That is why sports events, clothing, public restrooms, and (often) schools are routinely divided by sex. But black sporting events and white sporting events, black restrooms and white restrooms, black schools and white schools, or black clothing stores and white clothing stores would be considered immoral.
Because racial differences are insignificant and gender differences are hugely significant, there is no moral equivalence between opposition to interracial marriage and opposition to same-sex marriage.
Second, if opposition to same-sex marriage is as immoral as racism, why did no great moral thinker, in all of history, ever advocate male-male or female-female marriage? Opposition to racism was advocated by every great moral thinker. Moses, for example, married a black woman, the very definition of Catholic is “universal” and therefore diverse and has always included every race, and the equality of human beings of every race was a central tenet of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other world religions. But no one – not Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Aquinas, Gandhi, not the Bible or the Koran or any other sacred text, nor even a single anti-religious secular thinker of the Enlightenment — ever advocated redefining marriage to include members of the same sex.
To argue that opposition to same-sex marriage is immoral is to argue that every moral thinker, and every religion and social movement in the history of mankind prior to the last 20 years in America and Europe was immoral. About no other issue could this be said. Every moral advance has been rooted in prior moral thinking. The anti-slavery movement was based on the Bible. Martin Luther King, Jr. was first and foremost the “Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.” and he regularly appealed to the moral authority of the scriptures when making his appeals on behalf of racial equality. Same-sex marriage is the only social movement to break entirely with the past, to create a moral ideal never before conceived. It might be right, but it might also be an example of the moral hubris of the present generation, the generation that created the self-esteem movement: After all, you need a lot of self-esteem to hold yourself morally superior to all those who preceded you.
We now return to our two primary questions.
Is the man-woman definition of marriage fair to gays who wish to marry? No, it isn’t. And those of us opposed to same-sex marriage need to be honest about this, to confront the human price paid by some people through no fault of their own and figure out ways to offer gay couples basic rights associated with marriage.
But whether a policy is fair to every individual can never be the only question society asks in establishing social policy. Eyesight standards for pilots are unfair to some terrifically capable individuals. Orchestra standards are unfair to many talented musicians. A mandatory retirement age is unfair to many people. Wherever there are standards, there will be unfairness to individuals.
So, the question is whether redefining in the most radical way ever conceived — indeed completely changing its intended meaning — is good for society….
[….]
It is not enough to mean well in life. One must also do well. And the two are frequently not the same thing.
There are reasons no moral thinker in history ever advocated same-sex marriage.
For additional information on this last portion, see:
…“Monogamy seems to direct male motivations in ways that create lower crime rates, greater wealth (GDP) per capita and better outcomes for children,” Henrich concludes. But what’s more surprising than his conclusions is his speculation that monogamy is at the root of democracy and equality.”…. ~ Canadian scholar Joseph Henrich
In talking to a few people, I have noticed that they simply assume that polygamy is a valid lifestyle… that no harm, when compared to the ideal of one-man-and-one-woman in a marriage raising children. They do not know any history and why empires and countries have devolved in the past, nor do they follow logical arguments to their conclusions. (Here is the TinyURL for this post: http://tinyurl.com/k3o247o)
For instance, I had a conversation with a man I know (he is a man, but speaks on topics of importance as a boy) who simply stated, “I see no problem with it [being legalized], it doesn’t harm me personally.” He then asked what would “harm him.
A liberal society might, then, find it prudent to ignore homosexuality. It might well deem it unwise to peer into private bedrooms. However, this is not the issue before us. Today the demand is that homosexuality be endorsed and promoted with the full power of the law. This would require us to abandon the standard of nature, the one standard that can teach us the difference between freedom and slavery, between right and wrong…. (Read More)…. In Reynolds v. United States (1878) the Court rejected the Mormons’ free exercise argument on the grounds that even though “Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion,… [it] was left free to reach actions [such as polygamy] which were in violation of social duties or subversive to the public good.” What the Court meant by this is that certain institutions and ways of life, such as marriage and the family, are essential to the preservation of civil society. (Read More)
I made multiple points throughout the conversation that many things he does “harms him” that he would not think do. For instance, he knows people personally affected by legislating laws via a vote towards a specific party. He knows two people, personally, that he works with that because of Obamacare lost their policies. One can afford to pay substantially more for his new coverage (thus, having less capital to invest in the company), and the other cannot afford a new policy. The point being that any change in legislation (small or large) has direct consequences to many.
Let us say that single-motherhood brought on by the father walking out on his responsibility and is rewarded for this action by being subsidized for his choice (seeThomas Sowell’sclassic 1980 debate about the dynamics of welfare with Pennsylvania Secretary of Welfare, Helen O’Banion). Now, we KNOW the many consequences of fatherless homes (crime, delinquency, drug use, not finishing education, etc), even Obama admits this… higher tax rates and land taxes are incurred to pay for the jails, these persons also creating at a higher rate fatherless homes, and the like. Our co-worker in the shop had his biological father killed at an ATM… any bets on the murderers family structure? The statistics are on my side. So the question becomes this: “which of the two should government support in order to have a society that is best for the safety, well being, productivity, of its citizens?”
Another legislative act talked about in the shop after this conversation about polygamy took place, are politicians listening to environmental activists and legislating the regular light-bulb illegal. In January it will be officially against the law to sell most forms of the standard — incandescent — light-bulb (BREITBART). The idea is that if we use higher efficiency bulbs we will “save the planet” from thoseevil* fossil fuel emissions. (*I picture blood dripping from the word as well as evil laughter off in the distance somewhere.)
The problem? In every bulb that researchers tested they found that the protective coating around the light creating ‘phosphor’ was cracked, allowing dangerous ultraviolet rays to escape (RPT). You got it… through legislation, the power of government has made many people, in their own homes mind you, at a far greater risk for skin-cancer. A risk that this Irish-man knows all too well. What sounded good and altruistic, “saving the planet,” ironically has deadly consequences.
The question[s] coming from this event that made my home more dangerous is this: “Is a government big enough to tell me, the consumer, what light-bulb I can-and-cannot buy… is this good for liberty, or bad for liberty?”; “Is this a threat to or a bolstering of this experiment in freedom and self-governance the Founders started?”
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — CS Lewis
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’.” — Ronald Reagan
I pointed out as well that society, while not outlawing same-sex relationships (see quote to the right), should not raise these relationships to the status of the ideal, that is, heterosexual, monogamous, marriages. Whether you believe in evolution or creation… the best environment for children to be raised is the hetero one[all things being equal]. This doesn’t mean there are not great single or gay parents… but there is an ideal that we know works… and was honed throughout mankind’s time on earth (naturally or Divinely inspired). We know. for instance, that polygamy increases “crime, prostitution and anti-social behavior. Greater inequality between men and women. Less parental investment in children. And, a general driving down of the age of marriage for all women” (Canadian study used in court, quoted more further below).
So the question becomes this: “which of the two should government support in order to have a society that is best for the safety, well being, productivity, of its citizens?” In other words, when society puts its stamp of approval on something, making other forms of “marriage” equal in worth to society as the hetero one, is that a net benefit to the health of society, or a net detraction from it?
I made a few points as found in my Cumalative Case against same-sex marriage which likewise apply to polygamy. In other words, we can see some detrimental aspects to relationships that are “less than” the ideal, and the results have different effects on society.
The conservative asks three questions the liberal, as we will see, does not ask:
1) compared to what? 2) at what cost? 3) what hard-evidence do you have?
I mentioned statistics of the jail population being from a less than ideal family structure, the jealousies in polygamous marriages and broken families. I asked as well if he (this person I know) knew about what philosophical/family structures the liberty he enjoys came from. After all this, I think he missed the point, because he told me, “this is MY belief… you can’t laugh [fault me] at my beliefs.” And the point is this:
A person may think polygamy (or other legislative rulings/laws) do not affect them, but when given evidence on how it can or does effect them AND the people involved — more negatively than the traditional family structure… you cannot then substitute your opinion in the place of facts. Society should support that structure that is best to raise children in, period. Same-sex “marriages,” single-motherhood/fatherhood, show devolution when compared to [everything being equal] the nuclear family structure.
Honesty is sometimes the best policy. One could say have said, “you know what, I never heard that before, let me think this over.” Or one can even say, “You are right… it does affect me, and it harms specifically the people involved… I don’t care.” So my friend should really have said this entering into to adults talking about a recent ruling in our United States:
“I see no problem with it [being legalized], it doesn’t harm me personally… and no matter what evidence you can show me of how the less than ideal family structure [traditional marriage] causes more incarceration, drug use, torn families, stresses on liberty, and the like… I am firm in ‘my opinion that opinion‘ trumps reality. MY reality IS fact. I do not wish to participate in possibly being wrong on a position [based only in my immediate understanding with no input from history, social scientists, statistics, or the like], or being mature enough to enter adulthood by taking in previously unknown evidence and testing it against my opinion, thus evolving or changing/challenging my previously held [actually — newly found] position based on evidence or differing points of conclusions based on others knowledge of history, social scientists, statistics, the cults, or the like.”
Or, put another way: “These are my unfounded, unassailable thoughts that I am sharing with you.” To engage in this type of conversation with a person who holds to this form of firm-absolutism is more a commentary on said person than the topic brought up in the shop.
...Politically Correct Emoting
Political correctness is the invention of Western intellectuals who feel guilty about the universal triumph of Western values and economic prosperity…. “In the long run of history, political correctness will be seen as an aberration in Western thought. The product of the uniquely unchallenged position of the West and unrivalled affluence, the comparative decline of the West compared to the East is likely to spell its demise. Finally, Western minds may be free again to reason rather than just emote, to pursue objective truth rather than subjective virtue.” — The Retreat of Reason, page 87
A person who practices this way of thinking is like a child telling the group of adults they like chocolate cake (or turtles). It is a form of emoting oneself to others. To which I would simply respond,
➯“thank-you for sharing [emote, act-out] your unassailable position with us, but please, in the future abstain from adult conversation.”
Alternatively, if you do wish to emote, be prepared to not be taken seriously, ignored… or even derided a bit.
What advice do I have? Cut down on video games and pick up a goddamn book! “…growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of pop-culture and shallow thinking…” (Ephesians 4;14, PapaG’s version).
An adult would formulate Sowell’s questions something like this:
1) How do polygamous marriages compare to traditional marriages? 2) What are the costs incurred by such choices? Are there any harmful effects to the
a.) persons involved as well as to the b.) society and c.) societies founding principles that have given us the freedoms we currently enjoy?
Is there a loss of or a gain in freedom in this indigenous structure? Are young girls more or less protected from predators or exploitation or used to gain affluence? 3) I have come to a firm conclusion on a subject I just heard of, HOW have I come to my conclusion? Is this new to mankind, or have past cultures practiced this? What were their outcomes?
The above is just an example of where “Stage-Two“ thinking can get you.
This thinking ~ thank God! ~is the keystone to a healthy/well-balanced faith that is separate from but that interacts and can even change the culture it finds itself in (link in pic).
Lets see if we can shed some light on the history behind many freedoms assumed or freedoms not realized today, under-girded by the family structure via this “ethos” we speak of, Christianity:
Paul, who often gets a bad rap for his perceived low view of women, considered at least twelve women coworkers in his ministry.* Paul clearly had a high view of women: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The earliest Christians recited these remarkable, countercultural words as a baptismal confession. Widows, far from being abandoned, were cared for, and older women were given a place of honor. In light of all of this, is it any wonder “the ancient sources and modern historians agree that primary conversion to Christianity was far more prevalent among females than males”?
In recent history, Christians were responsible for the banning of three despicable practices inflicted upon women around the world. Christian missionaries pressured the Chinese government to abolish foot binding in 1912. This practice was done for the sole reason of pleasing men— “it made a woman with her feet bound in an arch walk tiptoe and sway seductively.” In 1829 the English outlawed the Indian practice of suttee, in which widows were burned alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands, because of Christianity’s teaching regarding widows and women. Finally, Western countries influenced by a Christian view of women and sexuality have condemned clitoridectomy (female genital mutilation), a gruesome practice that is still common in Muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East.
AGAIN:
“But what’s more surprising than his conclusions is his speculation that monogamy is at the root of democracy and equality” — Canadian scholarJoseph Henrich
Historian Alvin Schmidt points out how the spread of Christianity and Christian influence on government was primarily responsible for outlawing infanticide, child abandonment, and abortion in the Roman Empire (in AD 374); outlawing the brutal battles-to-the-death in which thousands of gladiators had died (in 404); outlawing the cruel punishment of branding the faces of criminals (in 315); instituting prison reforms such as the segregating of male and female prisoners (by 361); stopping the practice of human sacrifice among the Irish, the Prussians, and the Lithuanians as well as among other nations; outlawing pedophilia; granting of property rights and other protections to women; banning polygamy (which is still practiced in some Muslim nations today); prohibiting the burning alive of widows in India (in 1829); outlawing the painful and crippling practice of binding young women’s feet in China (in 1912); persuading government officials to begin a system of public schools in Germany (in the sixteenth century); and advancing the idea of compulsory education of all children in a number of European countries.
During the history of the church, Christians have had a decisive influence in opposing and often abolishing slavery in the Roman Empire, in Ireland, and in most of Europe (though Schmidt frankly notes that a minority of “erring” Christian teachers have supported slavery in various centuries). In England, William Wilberforce, a devout Christian, led the successful effort to abolish the slave trade and then slavery itself throughout the British Empire by 1840.
In the United States, though there were vocal defenders of slavery among Christians in the South, they were vastly outnumbered by the many Christians who were ardent abolitionists, speaking, writing, and agitating constantly for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Schmidt notes that two-thirds of the American abolitionists in the mid-1830s were Christian clergymen, and he gives numerous examples of the strong Christian commitment of several of the most influential of the antislavery crusaders, including Elijah Lovejoy (the first abolitionist martyr), Lyman Beecher, Edward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin), Charles Finney, Charles T. Torrey, Theodore Weld, William Lloyd Garrison, “and others too numerous to mention.” The American civil rights movement that resulted in the outlawing of racial segregation and discrimination was led by Martin Luther King Jr., a Christian pastor, and supported by many Christian churches and groups.
There was also strong influence from Christian ideas and influential Christians in the formulation of the Magna Carta in England (1215) and of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787) in the United States. These are three of the most significant documents in the history of governments on the earth, and all three show the marks of significant Christian influence in the foundational ideas of how governments should function.
Social commentator and radio show host, Dennis Prager, takes note that males tend to be “rule oriented.” The implication being that Western culture is heavily influenced in the Judeo-Christian standards of moral code — this, he says, is ironic… that, in the name of feminism women are attempting to emasculate the God of Western religious morality. “For if their goal is achieved, it is women who will suffer most from lawless males.”[1] This is seen in the history of pagan cultures and their tendency to crumble under the weight of licentiousness and the lowly place women had in it. Christianity raised women out of these “pagan cultures in which polygamy, arranged marriages, and oppression of women predominated, the church promoted the idea of monogamous marriage by free consent of both spouses.”[2]
…what [if any] are the negative affects of polygamy on society? Are there any secular, progressive, arguments against it? We will explore this a bit here as the main topic of this post. To wit, the later point is the first I wish to deal with right now… and it shows a lack of asking the above three questions any conservatively minded libertarian would. Take note that equality is the guiding force in this short — honest — look by a group of decidedly progressive persons:
That’s right. Trying to argue against something as arbitrary as a number (e.g., marriage is between two people) once you have argued against a clear delineation that nature has honed, such as gender… is useless. Gay Patriot eruditely explains that is one, then the other (take note the emphasized portion near the end):
Interestingly, the judge’s 91-page opinion cites a series of legal precedents that have gradually redefined marriage, and limited the ability of the state to define it. Almost as though there had been some kind of negative gradient, and the law had been gravitationally drawn to the lower end of the gradient as a result of the lack of adhesion on that gradient.
(Breitbart) In his 91-page opinion in Brown v. Buhman, on Dec. 13, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups struck down Utah’s law making polygamy a crime. In so doing, he may have opened Pandora’s Box.
As a condition for becoming a state in 1896, Congress required Utah to outlaw polygamy, which is marriage between three or more persons. This case involved a family of fundamentalist offshoots of nineteenth-century Mormonism. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints disavowed polygamy in 1890, and again in 1904, but some splinter groups continue the practice.
Waddoups’ opinion would not only cover such groups, however, but also Muslims or anyone else who claims a right—religious or otherwise—to have multiple-person marriages. He notes that the Supreme Court ruled against polygamy in its 1878 case Reynolds v. U.S., but said he cannot simply rest upon that decision “without seriously addressing the much developed constitutional jurisprudence that now protects individuals from the criminal consequences intended by legislatures to apply to certain personal choices.” (read more)
Since marriage is no longer about creating a stable environment for children, and has become (and this mainly the fault of heterosexual liberals) about personal fulfillment, validation, and access to social benefits, there literally is no constraint on how much more broadly it can be redefined.
Take note that religious freedom IS enumerated specifically in the Constitution, whereas… marriage between same genders and multiple partners is not. Why mention this? Because in order to get “equality” as the progressive left sees it, religious positions will need to be expunged. In doing so, one ends without liberty, freedom, and the like.
The American Trinity:
“Socialism values equality more than liberty” ~ Prager
Here you find agreement between people who you would assume would be at odds with each-other, but share a love for both:
✂ tradition of [all] cultures (“tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead” ~ G.K. Chesterton) [even Grecian thinkers argued for heterosexual unions]; ✂ what made societies collapse in the past (our Founders were students of history); ✂ and what is the best ideal for our experiment in freedom.
This next great commentary comes from two people who you would never think would be in such agreement… a conservative evangelical apologist, and a libertarian gay-man. The commentary is about a different case, but is similar in many ways. Here is conservative apologist, Frank Turek, making a point about a similar case:
“…imagine a homosexual videographer being forced to video a speech that a conservative makes against homosexual behavior and same sex marriage. Should that homosexual videographer be forced to do so? Of course not! Then why Elane Photography?….”
Now, here is the libertarian, conservative, guy[s] I know who blogs — GayPatriot:
“…it’s a bad law, a law that violates natural human rights to freedom of association and to freely-chosen work. It is not good for gays; picture a gay photographer being required by law to serve the wedding of some social conservative whom he or she despises.”
Again, if “for ‘a’,” it must be applied to “b.” What comes from this ILLIBERAL EGALITARIANISM is a TOTALITARIAN view that all must think alike. But lets get to some of the harms this does to our society. Lets start with a well-known Canadian [gay] sociologist who is against raising same-sex marriage to that of equal status of heterosexual marriage. I am not here arguing against same-sex marriage, I do that elsewhere… but we are taking Paul Nathanson’s premise and applying it to polygamy:
One of the most respected Canadian sociologist/scholar/homosexual, Paul Nathanson, writes that there are at least five functions that marriage serves–things that every culture must do in order to survive and thrive. They are:
1. Foster the bonding between men and women 2. Foster the birth and rearing of children 3. Foster the bonding between men and children 4. Foster some form of healthy masculine identity 5. Foster the transformation of adolescents into sexually responsible adults
Note that Nathanson considers these points critical to the continued survival of any culture. He continues “Because heterosexuality is directly related to both reproduction and survival, … every human societ[y] has had to promote it actively . … Heterosexuality is always fostered by a cultural norm” that limits marriage to unions of men and women. He adds that people “are wrong in assuming that any society can do without it.”
Polygamy, likewise, breaks down this OH-SO-IMPORTANT aspect that is crucial to a healthy society.
Unmentioned Boys:
This is from the documentary “Banking on Heaven: Polygamy in Heartland of the American West,” and is a small portion that talks about the harm of polygamy to boys. We know of the harm to women and girls… but this aspect is often not realized. Boys who have no fathers because the men need less boys to get more wives.
We know about the damages to women in these polygamous families (see some resources below), but these family structures have consequences for men as well. This “trickle up” negative affect, then, brings us to this larger question involved in this “rubber stamp of approval” by society on “less than” the ideal:
➯ “is polygamy good or bad for the liberty, freedom [and the like], for the following generations?”
There are many resources showing the deleterious effects of polygamy on men and women. Two resources not pictured in my resources are Sons of Perdition(which is a digital download and follows the lives of three boys) and a movie(YouTube) from a ministry I highly recommend, Sacred Groves. What is pictured above are:
(For the above video) This is a combination of excerpts, both audio and video from the following sources:
NPR: Talk of the Nation | “’Sons Of Perdition,’ Exiles From Jeffs’ Church” (June 24, 2010)
LAW & CRIME | Sexy Darling: Polygamist Cult Leader Allegedly Had Phone Sex with Underage Wives in Jail (March 8, 2023)
LAW & CRIME | Polygamist Cult ‘Prophet’ Faces Kidnapping Charges for Towing Underage Girls in Trailer with Wives (February 1, 2023)
Here is a great interview with a woman who was in a polygamous community for many years, it is long, but to understand why something is or may be bad to society’s “net goals,” one needs to spend time reading, watching, reflecting, and the like (see more interviews of people personally impacted by polygamy and the cults, here):
In a recent dealing with this in our neighbor to the north, well known Canadian scholar Joseph Henrich pointed out the following facts about this “net benefit” in regards to the traditional understanding of hetero marriages involving one-man-and-one-woman:
POLYGAMY IS HARMFUL TO SOCIETY, SCHOLAR FINDS
…Increased crime, prostitution and anti-social behaviour. Greater inequality between men and women. Less parental investment in children. And, a general driving down of the age of marriage for all women.
These are some of the harms of polygamy (or more correctly, polygyny, since it is almost always men marrying more than once) that are outlined in a 45-page research paper by noted Canadian scholar Joseph Henrich, filed Friday in B.C. Supreme Court.
Henrich is uniquely qualified to look at polygamy’s harm. He’s a member of the departments of economics, psychology and anthropology at the University of British Columbia and holds the Canada Research Chair in Culture, Cognition and Coevolution.
But he’d never really thought about it until this year when Craig Jones approached him. Jones is the lead lawyer in the B.C. government’s constitutional reference case, which will be heard in November by B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman.
[….]
Another social harm that Henrich says is consistent regardless of whether researchers use data from 19th-century Mormon communities or contemporary African societies is that children from polygynous families have considerably lower survival rates. It seems polygynous men, rather than investing in their offspring, use their money to add wives.
“Monogamy seems to direct male motivations in ways that create lower crime rates, greater wealth (GDP) per capita and better outcomes for children,” Henrich concludes.
But what’s more surprising than his conclusions is his speculation that monogamy is at the root of democracy and equality.
He argues that as the idea of monogamy spread through Europe during the 15th century, king and peasant alike had the same rules and the idea of equality gained a foothold — at least among men.
With reduced competition for women, men began loosening their tight control over wives and daughters.
And with fewer unmarried men, the pool of soldiers that had previously been harnessed by warring rulers was reduced.
Even though this compelling argument goes far beyond the scope of the trial, it may make it even harder for polygamy’s advocates to convince the judge that its practice is benign.
When the above debate was happening in Canada, our radio talk-shows here in the states discussed the matter in-depth. Here is one such show from Michael Medved on the topic This is either from 2009 or 2011’ish:
(Updated! This post is now married — ha — to this post of dietary laws in Leviticus. Also, posted some excerpts from a book at bottom.) After posting the above graphic, Jonathan Lewis [I believe Jonathan closed his FB down since last checked] said this in response to a friends post.
Here is his initial post.
The point of this, for me, is that marriage has been something that changes. I hate when people use the bibles example to deny my friends the right to get married when marriage today is nothing like marriage was in the bible. On top of all this, almost all marriages where arranged. Just as it used to be illegal for a black man to marry a white women. That had to change and it did. And people used the bible to try to stop it from changing. It’s just here to show that marriage has changed. And needs to change again to allow the LGBT community rights.
There are a few things wrong with how Jonathan has come at this issue. The first is how one should approach any historical document, this is called Hermeneutics. This way of approaching any document of antiquity pre-dates Christ [by about 500-years] and can be summed up in the “eight rules.”
Rule of Definition. Define the term or words being considered and then adhere to the defined meanings.
Rule of Usage. Don’t add meaning to established words and terms. What was the common usage in the cultural and time period when the passage was written?
Rule of Context. Avoid using words out of context. Context must define terms and how words are used.
Rule of Historical Background. Don’t separate interpretation and historical investigation.
Rule of Logic. Be certain that words as interpreted agree with the overall premise.
Rule of Precedent. Use the known and commonly accepted meanings of words, not obscure meanings for which their is no precedent.
Rule of Unity. Even though many documents may be used there must be a general unity among them.
Rule of Inference. Base conclusions on what is already known and proven or can be reasonably implied from all known facts.
Another important term that is often missed in a post like Jonathan’s to engender emotional responses and not critical thinking, is Etymology:
“the study of the origins of words or parts of words and how they have arrived at their current form and meaning” (Encarta Dictionary).
So, what does a historical thinker say about the above?
They [the critics] start with some improbable presumption; and having so decreed it themselves, proceed to draw inferences, and censure the poet as though he had actually said whatever they happen to believe, if his statement conflicts with their notion of things…. Whenever a word seems to imply some contradiction, it is necessary to reflect how many ways there may be of understanding it in the passage in question…. So it is probably the mistake of the critics that has given rise to the Problem…. See whether he [the author] means the same thing, in the same relation, and in the same sense, before admitting that he has contradicted something he has said himself or what a man of sound sense assumes as true…. The objections, then, of critics start with faults of five kinds: the allegation is always that something is either (1) impossible, (2) improbable, (3) corrupting, (4) contradictory, or (5) against technical correctness. The answers to these objections must be sought under one or other of the above–mentioned heads, which are twelve in number.
So taking the above from Aristotle and applying this thinking to one area, say, language, will afford us a great deal of help:
LANGUAGE GAP
…Consider how confused a foreigner must be when he reads in a daily newspaper: “The prospectors made a strike yesterday up in the mountains.” “The union went on strike this morning.” “The batter made his third strike and was called out by the umpire.” “Strike up with the Star Spangled Banner.” “The fisherman got a good strike in the middle of the lake.” Presumably each of these completely different uses of the same word go back to the parent and have the same etymology. But complete confusion may result from misunderstanding how the speaker meant the word to be used…. We must engage in careful exegesis in order to find out what he meant in light of contemporary conditions and usage.
So these are just some quick, higher educational deep-thinking skills/points, to apply to the graph. There is a history gap not mentioned in the graph or following conversations about the graph. For instance, King David in the Old Testament had many wives. Why would someone take this event (fact) and rip it from its historical context and apply modern day thinking to it? If this is done then there is another purpose behind doing so, an agenda. Sure, the Bible states that God “gave David Saul’s wives” (2 Samuel 12:8),but that is just a figure of speech. In ancient times, it was commonplace for a new king to take possession of everything owned by the former king, including his wives. So let’s take the “cultural gap” here and open it up a bit:
8. I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives-The phraseology means nothing more than that God in His providence had given David, as king of Israel, everything that was Saul’s. The history furnishes conclusive evidence that he never actually married any of the wives of Saul. But the harem of the preceding king belongs, according to Oriental notions, as a part of the regalia to his successor.
Knowing now that culturally speaking (using the understanding of idioms and ideas as known in a particular time-period) that it was commonplace for a new king to take possession of everything owned by the former king, including his wives, is not the same as God saying go out and take many wives to fulfill the lust of man. In-other-words, just because a great man in the Bible had more than one wife does not mean we should. The Bible faithfully records — as a true history book would — both the advances and the failures of people. Not only that (e.g., ripping something from its historical, cultural, geographic, etymological, and theological understanding), but context is important as well, context in a book recording evil deeds done along side righteous ones, and how to regulate man’s inhibitions.
The only direct command against polygamy is given to the kings that were to rule Israel, as they are told not to “multiply wives” to themselves (Deuteronomy 17:17). It is also interesting to note that polygamous relationships seem to be regulated in the commands Moses gave to the nation of Israel. Leviticus 18:18 instructs that a man should not marry sisters, and Deuteronomy 21:15 talks of assigning an heir to a man with two wives. Many commentators suggest that the passages do not endorse polygamy but rather prohibit it. Deuteronomy 21:15 may also be translated as “has had two wives” in succession rather than at the same time. The sisters in Leviticus 18:18 are understood by some to be any Israelite women. Regardless of the interpretation of these passages, the taking of multiple wives is not in accord with God’s design from the beginning.
An analogous understanding is that the Bible gives commands on how to treat slaves, even having an entire New Testament book written with regards to this understanding. Does this mean the Bible supports slavery? Of course not, however, slavery was an institution around almost as long as man, so the Bible treats the reality of this institution in a way that will create the most fair actions of “owners” of slaves towards the humanity of current affairs. The Bible was the first historical document to say such a radical thing as “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). And this radical change in direction led to women and slavery being defeated (see my chapter in my book on Feminism, and, Listen to Thomas Sowell’s chapter from his book on slavery).
Now, in Christian thinking, Christ is understood to be God, bringing something new to man. He taught on many aspects of this “something new,” and even dealt with this topic – marriage.
In Matthew 19:4 (and Mark 10:2) we find the Pharisees challenging Him by asking if it is lawful for a man to put away his wife:
(vv. 3-8) Some Pharisees came to him. In order to test him, they said, “Does the Law allow a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?” Jesus answered, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the creator made them male and female? And God said, ‘Because of this a man should leave his father and mother and be joined together with his wife, and the two will be one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, humans must not pull apart what God has put together.” The Pharisees said to him, “Then why did Moses command us to give a divorce certificate and divorce her?” Jesus replied, “Moses allowed you to divorce your wives because your hearts are unyielding. But it wasn’t that way from the beginning. I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Christ took it back to Adam and Eve one man one woman as did Paul in 1st Corinthians 7:1-2 ~
(vv 1-2) Now, about what you wrote: “It’s good for a man not to have sex with a woman.” Each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband because of sexual immorality.
Oneness is clear here as is it here Malachi 2:14 ~
But you say, “Why?” Because the LORD testifies about you and the wife of your youth against whom you cheated. She is your partner, the wife of your covenant.
Notice how the practice of many wives just does not fit into the passage? Context. We know that God intended for one man, one woman and that this relationship was to be for the duration (Matthew 19:4) the only allowable cause for divorce is fornication God then sought to regulate the polygamous practice (Exodus 21:10). So, again I reference my thinking on the matter of regulating versus abolishing institutions:
In Scripture, God sometimes allowed what was less than ideal because people’s hard hearts made the ideal unattainable (e.g., Ex 13:17; 1 Sam 12:12-13). To be able to exercise some degree of restraint over human injustice, Moses’ civil laws regulated some institutions rather than seeking to abolish them altogether: divorce, polygyny, the avengers of blood, and slavery (Keener 1992: 192-96). Jewish lawyers in fact recognized that God had allowed some behavior (marrying a Gentile captive in Deut 21:11-13; according to some, slavery) as a concession to human weakness (Daube 1959); some of their own rulings, such as the prosbul, conceded human weakness in hopes of improving the situation of justice (Daube 1959: 10). Nevertheless, Jesus’ opponents here assume that whatever the law addressed it permitted (19:7; cf. ARN 24, §49B); Jesus responds that Moses permitted this merely as a concession to Israel’s hard hearts.14 That his questioners exploit this concession thereby implies their own hardness of hearts, a charge ancients would easily enough apply to those deficient in love toward family members (Epict. Disc. 3.3.5). Thus in Matthew (in contrast to Mark), the Pharisees even exploit Moses’ concession as a command (Gundry 1982: 380). Jesus, by contrast, uses Scripture differently (cf. 12:7), here probably seeking to protect an innocent Jewish wife from her husband wrongfully divorcing her….
Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rpids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2009), 465.
I wish also to posit another idea completely missed by this chart, or the conversation that insued, and that is “is it wrong?” For instance, Christopher Wolfe makes the point that “arguments about whether homosexuality is biological or inherited are secondary to arguments about whether or not it is moral.” He continues,
Dallas declares that “even if it can be proven that genetic or biological influences predispose people toward homosexuality, that will never prove that homosexuality is in and of itself normal.” I have argued elsewhere that “it is an epistemological error to base value decisions on empirical data alone. For example, parents may reject dishonesty or homosexual behavior on moral grounds, regardless of what percentage of the population happily engages in those behaviors.”
Christopher Wolfe, ed., Homosexuality and American Public Life (Dallas, TX: Spence Publishing, 1999), 83-84.
Not only this, but the chart points out another fact, that is, no where in the Bible or in all religious history and cultural history, that homosexuality was never normalized. Therefore, the radical change is coming from those who support this idea. that is, that homosexuality should be normalized via marriage “rights.” In fact, this is one of the main strains of thought in comparing political worldviews. In the book A Conflict of Visions, Thomas Sowell makes this point in comparing the two models for coming to decisions:
While the constrained vision sees human nature as essentially unchanged across the ages and around the world, the particular cultural expressions of human needs peculiar to specific societies are not seen as being readily and beneficially changeable by forcible intervention. By contrast, those with the unconstrained vision tend to view human nature as beneficially changeable and social customs as expendable holdovers from the past. Ideals are weighed against the cost of achieving them, in the unconstrained vision. But in the unconstrained vision, every closer approximation to the ideal should be preferred….
Continuing Dr. Sowell quotes Hayek and then makes his point:
The growth of knowledge and the growth of civilization are the same only if we interpret knowledge to include all the human adaptations to environment in which past experience has been incorporated. Not all knowledge in this sense is part of our intellect, nor is our intellect the whole of our knowledge. Our habits and skills, our emotional attitudes, our tools, and our institutions— all are in this sense adaptations to past experience which have grown up by selective elimination of less suitable conduct. They are as much an indispensable foundation of successful action as is our conscious knowledge.
In this vision, it is not simply that individuals rationally choose what works from what does not work, but also — and more fundamentally — that the competition of institutions and whole societies leads to a general survival of more effective collections of cultural traits, even if neither the winners nor the losers rationally understand what was better or worse about one set or the other. Values which may be effective at the tribal level will tend to be overwhelmed by values that permit or promote the functioning of larger aggregations of people. From this perspective, “man has certainly more often learnt to do the right thing without comprehending why it was the right thing, and he still is better served by ‘ custom than understanding.” There is thus “more ‘intelligence’ incorporated in the system of rules of conduct than in man’s thoughts about his surroundings.”
Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles (New York, NY: basic Books, 2007), 28, 37-38.
Which explains the almost elitist “knowing better than all of human history” — mentality:
The following are excerpts are from the following book, click to enlarge:
