Concepts: Proposition 8 [NOH8] Non-Sequiturs

Published October 6, 2023October 6, 2023 by Papa Giorgio

(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);

2) Native American “gays” (jump);

3) Socrates (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.

Proverbs 21:2

“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:

Jeffrey Satinover in his book, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, deals with this current position and how the APA got there:

A Change of Status

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 Psychological Association—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).

(New England Journal of Medicine)

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.

[20] (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996), 32-35.

[21] Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values (Roseville: Prima, 2003), 90,99.

[22] Rev. Dr. Mel White on Christian Homosexuality, part 3 of 21 Ken Ammi,

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 his tragic 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,…

This is excerpted from The Dialogues of Plato, in 5 vols (Jowett ed.) [387 BC]

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.

(Read more at American Thinker)

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.”

— John Adams

Indeed

Is Marriage Hetero?

Published September 22, 2023October 6, 2023 by Papa Giorgio

Edited this old post a tad today (09/22/2023)

JUMP TO…. QUESTION FROM SON’S FRIEND

This post deals with two questions at separate times asked of me explaining why marriage should be considered in it’s ideal form ~ heterosexual. This post deals only with laws of biology and natural law. It does not deal with states Constitutional opportunity to define marriage, or issues peripheral to what is my response to two honest questions proffered to me.

QUESTION

John, you asked a very constructive question in regards to marriage and sexuality, let me repeat your question here:

“If it doesn’t have to do with being turned on, mentally and physically, and acting upon one’s desires, then what does define our sexuality? What defines us being heterosexual?”

Keep in mind that you have caused me to search out better definitions and understandings with respect to our current conversation, so I am starting to build on past knowledge, and may only be able to answer you thoroughly in the future and not at this immediate time.

However, I believe I have come to terms with what it is that we are discussing, and I believe I can define “sexuality” in a way that you can take away from this conversation and say, “So this is where the crux of the debate lay on their side.”

Okay, let me start this long – arduous – definition of heterosexuality. First of all, the claim that the law ought to be morally neutral about marriage or anything else is itself a moral claim. As such, it is not morally neutral, nor can it rest on an appeal to moral neutrality. We are both debating a subject, and as such, both are using reference points, subject/object distinctions, and the like. We are far from being neutral and must admit we are trying to propose one mortal system over another. I am sure we are both agreed on this.

The CORE of the traditional view and understanding of marriage (remember that homosexuality has long been condemned as immoral by the natural law tradition of moral philosophy, as well as by Jewish and Christian teaching, not only that, it may have been recognized by past cultures, but never authorized… as the gay rights movement is asking for today):

Marriage is a two-in-one-flesh communion of persons that is consummated and actualized by acts that are reproductive in type, whether or not they are reproductive in effect (or motivated, even in part, by a desire to reproduce). The bodily union of spouses in marital acts is the biological matrix of their marriage as a multi-level relationship: that is, a relationship that unites persons at the bodily, emotional, dispositional, and spiritual levels of the being.

Marriage, precisely as such a relationship, is naturally ordered to the good of procreation and to the nurturing and education of children) as well as to the good of spousal unity, and these goods are tightly bound together with a healthy society.

The distinctive unity of spouses is possible because human (like other mammalian) males and females, by mating, unite organically – in other words, they become a single reproductive principle. Although reproduction is a single act, in humans (and other mammals) the reproductive act is performed not by individual members of the species, but by a mated pair as an organic unit. Germaine Grisez has made this point:

“Though a male and a female are complete individuals with respect to other functions – for example, nutrition, sensation, and locomotion – with respect to reproduction they are only potential parts of a mated pair, which is the complete organism capable or reproducing sexually. Even if the mated pair is sterile, intercourse, provided it is the reproductive behavior characteristic of the species, makes the copulating male and female one organism. Masturbatory, sodomitical, or other sexual acts that are not reproductive in type cannot unite persons organically: that is, as a single reproductive principle. Therefore, such acts cannot be intelligibly engaged in for the sake of marital (i.e., one-flesh, bodily) unity as such. They cannot be marital acts!”

Rather, persons who perform such acts must be doing so for the sake of ends or goals that are extrinsic (definitions at the end) to themselves as bodily persons: Sexual satisfaction, or (perhaps) mutual sexual satisfaction, is sought as a means of releasing tension, or obtaining (and, sometimes, sharing) pleasure, either as an end in itself, or as a means to some other end, such as expressing affection, esteem, friendliness, etc. In any case, where one-flesh union cannot (or cannot rightly) be sought as an end-in-itself, sexual activity necessarily involves the instrumentalization of the bodies of those participating in such activity to extrinsic ends.

In marital acts, by contrast, the bodies of persons who unite biologically are not reduced to the status of mere instruments. Rather, the end, goal, and intelligible point of sexual union is the good of marriage itself. On this understanding, such union is not a merely instrumental good, i.e., a reason for action whose intelligibility as a reason depends on the other end. The central and justifying point of sex is not pleasure (or even the sharing of pleasure) per se, however much sexual pleasure is sought – rightly sought – as an aspect of the perfection of marital union; the point of sex, rather, is marriage itself. Considered as a bodily (“one-flesh”) union of persons consummated and actualized by acts that are reproductive in type.

Because in marital acts sex is not instrumentalized, such acts are free of the self-alienating and dis-integrating qualities of masturbatory and sodomitical sex.

Unlike these and other nonmarital sex acts, marital acts effect no practical dualism which volitionally and, thus, existentially separates the body from conscious and desiring aspect of the self which inhabits and uses the body as its instrument. (On person-body dualism, its implications for ethics, and its philosophical untenability, see: John Finnis, Joseph M. Boyle, and Germaine Grisez, Nuclear Deterrence, Morality and Realism [Oxford University Press; 1987], pp. 304-309.)

As John Finnis has observed, marital acts are truly unitive, and in no way self-alienating, because the bodily or biological aspect of human beings is “part of, and not merely an instrument of, their personal reality.”

But, one might ask, what about procreation? On the traditional view, isn’t sexual union of spouses instrumentalized to the goal of having children? It is true that Augustine was an influential proponent of something like this view, and there has always been a certain following for it among Christians. The strict Augustinian position was rejected, however, by the mainstream of philosophical and theological reflection from the late Middle Ages forward, and the understanding of sex and marriage that came to be embodied in the civil law of matrimony does not treat marriage as a merely instrumental good. Matrimonial law has traditionally understood marriage as consummated by, and only by, the reproductive-type acts of spouses; by contrast, the sterility of spouses – so long as they are capable of consummating their marriage by a reproductive-type act (and, thus, of achieving bodily – organic unity! This is why court annul a marriage that hasn’t reached this unity) – has never been treated as an impediment to marriage, even where sterility is certain and even certain to be permanent (as in the case of the marriage of a woman who has been through menopause or has undergone a hysterectomy).

According to the traditional understanding of marriage, then, it is the nature of marital acts as reproductive in type that makes it possible for such acts to be unitive in the distinctively marital way (“one-flesh”). And this type of unity is intrinsic, and not merely instrumental, value.

Thus, the unitive good of marriage provides a noninstrumental (and thus sufficient) reason for spouses to perform sexual acts of a type that consummates and actualizes their marriage. In performing marital acts, the spouses do not reduce themselves as bodily persons (or their marriage) to the status of means or instruments.

At the same time, where marriage is understood as a one-flesh union of persons, children who may be conceived in marital acts are understood not as an ends which are extrinsic to marriage (either in the strict Augustinian sense, or the modern liberal one), but, rather, as gifts which supervene on acts whose central justifying point is precisely the marital unity of the spouses. Such acts have unique meaning, value, and significance, as I have already suggested in this post, because they belong to the class of acts by which children come into being – what I have called “reproductive-type acts.” More precisely, these acts have their unique meaning, value, and significance because they belong to the only class of acts by which children can come into being, not as “products” which their parents choose to “make,” but, rather, as perfective participants in the organic community (i.e., the family) that is established by their parents’ marriage. It is thus that children are properly understood and treated – even in their conception – not as objects of the desire or will of their parents, but as subjects of justice (and inviolable human rights); not as property, but as persons.

Excerpts from Robert P. George, The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis.

Glossary

Extrinsic (Random House Webster CD-Rom) – all are relevant.

1. Not essential or inherent; not a basic part or quality; extraneous: facts that are extrinsic to the matter under discussion.

2. Being outside a thing; outward or external; operating or coming from without: extrinsic influences.

3. Anatomy. (of certain muscles, nerves, etc.) originating outside the anatomical limits of a part.

Intrinsic (Random House Webster CD-Rom) – all are relevant.

1. Belonging to a thing by its very nature: the intrinsic value of a gold ring.

2. Anatomy. (of certain muscles, nerves, etc.) Belonging to or lying within a given part.

A QUESTION POSED TO ME YEARS

AGO BY ONE OF MY SON’S FRIEND:

QUESTION

What is your views on gays? Are they bad? Are they going to hell? Are you born this way?

The homosexual man or woman is just as much a sinner as you or me. We all need Christ. To touch on the hell issue first, I believe hell is a testament to free-will, and dignity as well. C.S. Lewis mentioned that hell is locked from the inside. The only thing separating mankind from God is a belief in the finished work on the Cross. By choice people reject their Creator, they choose their path, God never imposes it. Many who are saved are not immediately pure in action, nor will they ever be. Sometimes people take decades to work through their faults (counseling, prayer, reading God’s Word, etc), so just like the person who may cheat on his wife regularly, when he comes to a saving knowledge of God, he will be challenged to change his ways and seek counseling and prayer and reference from God’s Word. The same with a gay man or woman. If they truly have a saving knowledge of God, they will be challenged by the Holy Spirit to seek biblical guidance in their life, and like many others, they will turn away from their homosexual lifestyles.

“…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”

Also, I do not think it is wholly genetic. I believe choice is involved as well as violence. For instance, take this thought from a pro-choice, lesbian woman, Tammy Bruce:

“…. 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…. I believe this grab for children by the sexually confused adults of the Gay Elite represents the most serious problem facing our culture today…. Here come 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.”

(NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE)

What she is basically saying is that there are emotional reasons, usually trauma, or circumstances that push these young boys into the choices they make in regards to their sexuality. For instance, one of my co-workers is a homosexual man. He is a wonderful guy; I would invite him to my wedding if I could go back in time. He is very open about his past, he was “initiated” into the homosexual lifestyle by a grown black man when he was 14. In other words, he was raped. Whether he feels now that he consented, or the person was a family friend or complete stranger. This act of sex with a minor by a grown man is rape. And this rape, at an age where boys are having surges of hormones and confused about a lot of things is what Tammy Bruce was speaking to. It is a psychological trauma that if not dealt with has traumatic results in one’s life. This sometimes works its way into sexual matters. There are many homosexual people, Al Rantel (790am 6pm to 9pm), to name a more popular one, that believe marriage should be kept between a man and a woman. Tammy Bruce wants it, but she, like most Republicans, want the states to decide, and not the Supreme Court.

Also, in 1993, the biggest march by the “gay” community (Elite gay community) on Washington was held, and they had this as part of their 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.

Obviously the Elite gay community Tammy Bruce spoke of [made up of Leftist Progressives] knows which age is best for “recruiting,” e.g., traumatizing.More can be said on all the above issues, but my book is not yet written. I will post three quotes from Tammy Bruce (a pro-choice lesbian):

The below are two non-Biblical arguments presented in video form.

In the above video just past the 2:38 mark, the below point is made, the strongest point of the video:

Culture has a right to redefine marriage.

Spousal rights and marital traditions have changed. However, marriage has always been between males and females because of the unique function they perform in society.

Marriage can’t be a social construction because cultures emerge when humans reproduce.

This means that cultures cannot be the constructors of the marriages that make culture possible in the first place. Bricks make the building, not the building the bricks. Culture does not construct marriage. Marriage and family construct culture.

The above is a favored video of mine. The point about police work and other jobs in society and later how the government doesn’t discriminate against other professions when it promotes police work. Great, useable point.

And, if this were to be characterized as “Biblical,” so what? This thinking fails to distinguish the reasons for a law from the content of the law:

…Such “exclude religion” arguments are wrong because marriage is not a religion! When voters define marriage, they are not establishing a religion. In the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” the word “religion” refers to the church that people attend and support. “Religion” means being a Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian or Jew. It does not mean being married. These arguments try to make the word “religion” in the Constitution mean something different from what it has always meant.

These arguments also make the logical mistake of failing to distinguish the reasons for a law from the content of the law. There were religious reasons behind many of our laws, but these laws do not “establish” a religion. All major religions have teachings against stealing, but laws against stealing do not “establish a religion.” All religions have laws against murder, but laws against murder do not “establish a religion.” The campaign to abolish slavery in the United States and England was led by many Christians, based on their religious convictions, but laws abolishing slavery do not “establish a religion.” The campaign to end racial discrimination and segregation was led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist pastor, who preached against racial injustice from the Bible. But laws against discrimination and segregation do not “establish a religion.”

If these “exclude religion” arguments succeed in court, they could soon be applied against evangelicals and Catholics who make “religious” arguments against abortion. Majority votes to protect unborn children could then be invalidated by saying these voters are “establishing a religion.” And, by such reasoning, all the votes of religious citizens for almost any issue could be found invalid by court decree! This would be the direct opposite of the kind of country the Founding Fathers established, and the direct opposite of what they meant by “free exercise” of religion in the First Amendment.

Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010], 31.

As well as what legal changes have been wrought by the Judeo-Christian worldview that has been positive for societies all over this world:

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.

Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010], 49-50.

Doug Mainwaring speaks at the “March for Marriage: March 26, 2013”

Another Gay Man That Opposes Same-Sex Marriage #SSM

Published August 20, 2019October 1, 2023 by Papa Giorgio

(Originally posted March 28, 2013)

Here is what Doug Mainwaring has to say on the issue via his article: “Same-Sex Marriage: We’re Playing Chess, Not Checkers” In another article, Ryan Anderson notes the tactics of the Left:

The Left’s Three Techniques on Marriage Redefinition — and How to Counter Them

This week, everyone’s talking about gay marriage. And as the Supreme Court weighs opinions on two, key court battles, both sides of the ongoing debate are on edge and continuing to advance their views on the matter. But among the many voices speaking out against same-sex marriage is one that may shock you: Doug Mainwaring, a conservative activist who is gay.

But the Left also has deployed three distinct tactics: First, they’ve been successful at oversimplifying the issue, personalizing it and refusing to engage the complexities of social reality. Second, they’ve implied that the LGBT community speaks in one voice. And third, they’ve demonized their opponents as “bigots” and “haters.”

We need to better understand the Left’s strategy, for there are lessons here.

Who could be against expanding benefits for more people? That’s the first technique the Left used: Oversimplify the issue while personalizing it. Redefine marriage so more people get health care or tax exemptions or whatever other grab bag of goodies you want to focus on. (Never mind that you don’t have to redefine marriage to solve policy problems.)

Viewed in this light, the marriage debate is like so many other liberal-conservative divides. Take almost any bad social or economic policy. It’s easy to identify the winners—the family getting Obamacare, the corn farmer getting a subsidy, the bank getting bailed out, the worker making an inflated wage. These all can be cast as stories of people getting “stuff.”

[….]

This is hard to counter, but it can be done. And we have to do a better job at it. We need to call out the Left when they oversimplify complex human realities. We also need to effectively communicate complexities using stories and examples.

The Left’s second technique is to disparage dissenters. Marriage revisionists mimic the tactics of abortion advocates. Pro-life women have been demeaned as women-in-name-only. Now gays and lesbians who oppose redefining marriage are described as self-loathing. Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer claim to speak for all women on abortion, while Andrew Sullivan and Zach Wahls are held up to speak for all LGBT families.

It is a strategy expressly devised to marginalize the experiences of folks like Bobby Lopez (see his article “Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Child’s View”) and Doug Mainwaring (who was raising his kids with his partner when he realized they needed a mom—his ex-wife—and wrote “I’m Gay and I Oppose Same-Sex Marriage”).

We need to do more to make heard the voices of such brave people. And in doing so we’ll address that first challenge of demonstrating complexities through real-life examples.

Lastly, the Left has tried to bully us into silence. A principal strategy of the forces that have worked for 20 years to redefine marriage has been cultural intimidation—threatening defenders of marriage with the stigma of being “haters” and “bigots.”

They’ve said anyone who disagrees is the equivalent of a racist. They’ve sent a clear message: Stand up for marriage, and we will, with the help of our media friends, demonize and marginalize you. Just ask Dan Cathy, president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A.

And now this last technique has made its way into a Supreme Court decision. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion that the only reason Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 was to “disparage,” “injure,” “degrade,” “demean” and “humiliate” gay and lesbian Americans.

This kind of grotesque incivility is toxic. The fact that it is part of a majority opinion is not just outrageous but frightening.

[….]

So we marriage advocates must continue speaking out. But we also need to learn how to state our case succinctly and winsomely: Marriage is the way that societies from time immemorial have united a man and woman as husband and wife to be mother and father to any children born of their union. That’s how children are provided with the precious gift of being brought up in the publicly supported bond of the mom and dad whose union gave them life.

Let’s refuse to be cowed into silence. Let’s redouble our efforts to help our fellow citizens to understand what every political community prior to the year 2000 understood.

Catchy slogans can address complicated issues for only so long. Eventually reality prevails. Silencing dissent may be possible at first, but over time more and more people find their voices.

Bullies may intimidate for a season, but in the end truth wins out.

See also THE BLAZE’S post about Doug entitled, “GAY ACTIVIST SHOCKS CRITICS WITH THIS SCATHING OP-ED…AGAINST SAME-SEX MARRIAGE” (Also LIFE SITE NEWS as well as Doug’s PDF)

Don’t know that “nixing” gender comes with these cases that this brave gay man mentioned above when he said, “Same-sex marriage will do the same, depriving children of their right to either a mom or a dad.” Here is part of the bill from Minnesota, Doug’s home state, that attempted just this:

But a look at SF925 reveals that something much more insidious than advocates let on is underway. This bill would strip the words “mother” and “father” of meaning under Minnesota law. Henceforth, the bill states, these words — among the most beloved and culturally freighted in the English language — “must be construed in a neutral manner to refer to a person of either gender.”

For more on this, see my post linked in the picture above, as well as Massachusetts doing the same. This should engender ANY conservative or conservatively minded libertarian (gay or straight) to oppose this movement predominantly guided by the Left and the many low-information (young) voters.

“[The laws of any state rest on] the basis that the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization, the best guaranty of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement.” — Supreme Court, 1885

Here is another gay man talking about what marriage IS:

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.”

Going further he stated that “same sex marriage is a bad idea” …[he] only opposed “gay marriage, not gay relationships.”

“Unfriended” for Judge Judy | Traditional Marriage Now Bigoted

Published April 7, 2013October 18, 2023 by Papa Giorgio

a friends mom’s on Facebook posted this “meme/quote” and tagged me in it. So, I responded to it with what lies below. I wish to note a few things about the “interaction” that followed. Firstly, this action taken by D.N. (friend’s mom) proves yet again that conservatives are much more tolerant than liberals. A study shows that “liberals more likely to block social-media friends over political differences,” here is DAILY CALLER’S take:

According to a new poll from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, self-described liberals are twice as likely than self-described conservatives to block material on social networking websites that they find politically disagreeable.

Thirty-six percent of social media users said they have blocked, “unfriended” or hidden someone because of politics, but left-leaning participants were far more likely to have taken that action to express disagreement about a friend’s political views.

“Liberals are the most likely to have taken … steps to block, unfriend, or hide” disagreeable political messages, Pew concluded. “In all, 28% of liberals have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on SNS [social networking sites] because of one of these reasons, compared with 16% of conservatives and 14% of moderates.”

Sixteen percent of liberal users said they blocked someone who posted something specific that they disagreed with, compared to eight percent of conservative users.

Liberals are also far more likely than conservatives — 11 percent compared with 4 percent — to completely delete friends from social networking sites because they disagree with their politics.

There has been no word — nor will there likely be any — about whether liberals will enjoy reading this story. Many, if the Pew study is to be believed, will just block it from their news feeds.

Which happened, I was “unfriended.” But here is the kicker, the week prior D.N. got onto my FaceBook and essentially called me a small minded racist bigot! And I quote our conversation:

(She said) “Black people and white people weren’t allowed get married years ago either… if small minded, bigoted people had their way it would still be that way. Gay marriage Is NO different…. religious folks who believe and support same sex marriage ?? They must not be real religious people.”

(I Responded) In other words, a discussion to you is calling me and other readers here “bigots,” and impugning the character of religious gays by creating straw-man arguments of what I (we) say/mean? And when I politely point this out by not pointing out how you name call and use “cards” (sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted ~ S.I.X.H.I.R.B.)….

An interesting thought just came to mind as well. In our previous conversation she mentioned that there are religiously left-leaning people, and that I shouldn’t hold back or discount their thinking, but take into account their thinking BECAUSE they are religious. This was not clearly stated by her, but it was implied. Yet, she apparently does not see the self-refuting aspect of the graphic she posted on her own FaceBook and her previous statement to me. How convenient that she doesn’t practice what she expects others to hold to. If you are conservative and religious, you have no right to force your feelings on people. If you are liberal and religious, game-on!

I didn’t unfriend her? She got onto my FaceBook and called me a racist bigot. Yet, I pointed out the flaws in Judge Judy’s quote and for this, I was ex-communicated. Why? Because leftism is the dominant religion of her being. Here is what I wrote, and what I was doing is making two points that the Judge characterized wrongly the debate with:

that this is a solely religious argument, and;
she herself is pushing her morality on others.

Here we go:

This isn’t a religious argument? For instance, here is an atheist gay man explaining why he is against same-sex marriage:

✫ Foster the bonding between men and women
✫ Foster the birth and rearing of children
✫ Foster the bonding between men and children
✫ Foster some form of healthy masculine identity
✫ 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.”

Going further he stated that “same sex marriage is a bad idea” …[he] only opposed “gay marriage, not gay relationships.”

And then I posted this short video of another gay man explaining the importance of marriage and how same-sex marriage will undefine it:

Then I zeroed in on the statement that religious people are “forcing their morality on other.” I quoted the following mock-conversation to make the point clear via an old philosophy paper of mine:

You Shouldn’t Force Your Morality On Me! ^[1]

First Person: “You shouldn’t force your morality on me.”

Second Person: “Why not?”

First Person: “Because I don’t believe in forcing morality.”

Second Person: “If you don’t believe in it, then by all means, don’t do it. Especially don’t force that moral view of yours on me.”

First Person: “You shouldn’t push your morality on me.”

Second Person: “I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that statement. Do you mean I have no right to an opinion?”

First Person: “You have a right to you’re opinion, but you have no right to force it on anyone.”

Second Person: “Is that your opinion?”

First Person: “Yes.”

Second Person: “Then why are you forcing it on me?”

First Person: “But your saying your view is right.”

Second Person: “Am I wrong?”

First Person: “Yes.”

Second Person: “Then your saying only your view is right, which is the very thing you objected to me saying.”

First Person: “You shouldn’t push your morality on me.”

Second Person: “Correct me if I’m misunderstanding you here, but it sounds to me like your telling me I’m wrong.”

First Person: “You are.”

Second Person: “Well, you seem to be saying my personal moral view shouldn’t apply to other people, but that sounds suspiciously like you are applying your moral view to me. Why are you forcing your morality on me?”

SELF-DEFEATING

“Most of the problems with our culture can be summed up in one phrase: ‘Who are you to say?’” – Dennis Prager. So lets unpack this phrase and see how it is self-refuting, or as Tom Morris^[2] put it, self-deleting.

When someone says, “Who are you to say?” answer with, “Who are you to say ‘Who are you to say’?” ^[3]

This person is challenging your right to correct another, yet she is correcting you. Your response to her amounts to “Who are you to correct my correction, if correcting in itself is wrong?” or “If I don’t have the right to challenge your view, then why do you have the right to challenge mine?” Her objection is self-refuting; you’re just pointing it out.

The “Who are you to say?” challenge fails on another account. Taken at face value, the question challenges one’s authority to judge another’s conduct. It says, in effect, “What authorizes you to make a rule for others? Are you in charge?” This challenge miscasts my position. I don’t expect others to obey me simply because I say so. I’m appealing to reason, not asserting my authority. It’s one thing to force beliefs; it’s quite another to state those beliefs and make an appeal for them.

The “Who are you to say?” complaint is a cheap shot. At best it’s self-defeating. It’s an attempt to challenge the legitimacy of your moral judgments, but the statement itself implies a moral judgment. At worst, it legitimizes anarchy!

[1] Francis Beckwith & Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Planted in Mid-Air (Baker Books; 1998), p. 144-146.

[2]Tom Morris, Philosophy for Dummies (IDG Books; 1999), p. 46

[3] Francis Beckwith & Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Planted in Mid-Air (Baker Books; 1998), p. 144-146.”

I ended with the “you aren’t doing this debate/discussion/national dialogue and good by posting un-truths like the above Judge Judy quote” type finisher. As she unfriended me she said I was saying wacko things? Personally, the above is astute, full of knowledge and close to the heart information by gay men.

In a final word to me, D.N. mentioned that one of her sons said this would happen.

I asked “what would happen?”

Did her son say that I WOULD NOT unfriended her for calling me a small minded racist bigot on my own FaceBook?

Did he say to her that SHE WOULD unfriend me after I pointed to gay men themselves speaking the truth about the immutability of the heterosexual union?

Her son said that would happen?

I don’t think so.

And she is one who would say that the right is creating an air of divisiveness. What a crazy, unthinking, low-voter information world we live in.

One last point not included in the original conversation, but that I believe to be salient to the tactic used by Judge Judy and the myriad of other who think such statements make sense.

Use Judge Judy’s own words against them in regards to these other examples where Christianity led the way,

“They have no right to impose their feelings on the rest of us.”

…Such “exclude religion” arguments are wrong because marriage is not a religion! When voters define marriage, they are not establishing a religion. In the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” the word “religion” refers to the church that people attend and support. “Religion” means being a Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian or Jew. It does not mean being married. These arguments try to make the word “religion” in the Constitution mean something different from what it has always meant.

These arguments also make the logical mistake of failing to distinguish the reasons for a law from the content of the law. There were religious reasons behind many of our laws, but these laws do not “establish” a religion. All major religions have teachings against stealing, but laws against stealing do not “establish a religion.” All religions have laws against murder, but laws against murder do not “establish a religion.” The campaign to abolish slavery in the United States and England was led by many Christians, based on their religious convictions, but laws abolishing slavery do not “establish a religion.” The campaign to end racial discrimination and segregation was led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist pastor, who preached against racial injustice from the Bible. But laws against discrimination and segregation do not “establish a religion.”

If these “exclude religion” arguments succeed in court, they could soon be applied against evangelicals and Catholics who make “religious” arguments against abortion. Majority votes to protect unborn children could then be invalidated by saying these voters are “establishing a religion.” And, by such reasoning, all the votes of religious citizens for almost any issue could be found invalid by court decree! This would be the direct opposite of the kind of country the Founding Fathers established, and the direct opposite of what they meant by “free exercise” of religion in the First Amendment.

[….]

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.

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.

Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010], 31, 49-50.

BONUS

This WALL STREET JOURNAL article is a related (to the video/audio) herein. This audio was uploaded March 28, 2013:

NELSON LUND: A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT WITHOUT SCIENCE BEHIND IT

Advocates of same-sex marriages can’t back up claims about positive long-term effects.

By Nelson Lund (March 26, 2013)

The Supreme Court is hearing two cases this week that represent a challenge to one of the oldest and most fundamental institutions of our civilization. In Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor, the court is being asked to rule that constitutional equal protection requires the government to open marriage to same-sex couples.

The claimed right to same-sex marriage is not in the Constitution or in the court’s precedents, so the court must decide whether to impose a new law making marriage into a new and different institution. The justices are unlikely to take so momentous a step unless they are persuaded that granting this new right to same-sex couples will not harm children or ultimately undermine the health of our society.

A significant number of organizations representing social and behavioral scientists have filed briefs promising the court that there is nothing to worry about. These assurances have no scientific foundation. Same-sex marriage is brand new, and child rearing by same-sex couples remains rare. Even if both phenomena were far more common, large amounts of data collected over decades would be required before any responsible researcher could make meaningful scientific estimates of the long-term effects of redefining marriage.

The conclusions in the research literature typically amount at best to claims that a particular study found “no evidence” of bad effects from child rearing by same-sex couples. One could just as easily say that there is no reliable evidence that such child-rearing practices are beneficial or harmless. And that is the conclusion that should be relevant to the court.

Social-science advocacy organizations, however, have promoted the myth that a lack of evidence, so far, of bad effects implies the nonexistence of such effects. This myth is based on conjecture or faith, not science.

Nor is the leap of faith from “no evidence” to “don’t worry” an accident. The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, himself a distinguished social scientist at Harvard, once observed: “Social science is rarely dispassionate, and social scientists are frequently caught up in the politics which their work necessarily involves . . . [T]he pronounced ‘liberal’ orientation of sociology, psychology, political science, and similar fields is well established.”

This orientation has been on rich display in the research on same-sex parenting, which is scientific primarily in the sense that it is typically conducted by people with postgraduate degrees. There are no scientifically reliable studies at all, nor could there be, given the available data. Yet the Supreme Court has been solemnly assured by many scientific organizations, such as the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, that the overwhelming weight of evidence indicates that same-sex couples are every bit the equal of opposite-sex parents in every relevant respect. The number of studies may be overwhelming but the evidence assuredly is not.

The prominent National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, for instance, relied on a sample recruited entirely at lesbian events, in women’s bookstores and through lesbian newspapers. Other studies relied on samples as small as 18 or 33 or 44 cases. The effect of parenting by male homosexual couples remains in the realm of anecdotes. Most research has relied on reports by parents about their children’s well-being while the children were still under the care of those parents. Even a social scientist should be able to recognize that parents’ evaluations of their own success as parents might be a little skewed.

In 2012, sociologist Loren Marks conducted a detailed re-analysis of 59 studies of parenting by gays and lesbians that were cited by the American Psychological Association in a 2005 publication. Mr. Marks, who teaches at Louisiana State University, concluded that the association drew inferences that were not empirically warranted.

There has been only one study using a large randomized sample, objective measures of well-being, and reports of grown children rather than their parents. This research, by Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas Austin, found that children raised in a household where a parent was involved in a same-sex romantic relationship were at a significant disadvantage with respect to a number of indicators of well being—such as depression, educational attainment and criminal behavior—compared with children of intact biological families.

One might expect this work at least to raise a caution flag, but it has been vociferously attacked on methodological grounds by the same organizations that tout the value of politically congenial research that suffers from more severe methodological shortcomings. This is what one expects from activists, not scientists.

As everyone knows, some states have begun to experiment with legalizing same-sex marriage, and public opinion seems to be shifting in favor of the change. Perhaps this will work out well, and the overwhelming majority of states that have been more cautious will eventually catch up. But experiments are never guaranteed to succeed, and one advantage of democracy is that it allows failed experiments to be abandoned. If the Supreme Court constitutionalizes a right to same-sex marriage, however, there will be no going back. The court cannot possibly know that it is safe to take this irrevocable step.

Mr. Lund is a professor at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Va. This article is based on an amicus curiae brief in support of the petitioners in Hollingsworth v. Perry, filed on behalf of Leon R. Kass (University of Chicago), Harvey C. Mansfield (Harvard University), and the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.

`Biology, Not Bigotry` The Left Seems To Want Control over Nature

Published April 6, 2013April 6, 2013 by Papa Giorgio

Some additional notes from a conversation (FaceBook) that shows the perceive ability to control nature/biology:

(Parenthood) What SSM is doing is a) attacking religious institutions [religious adoption agencies and groups like the Boyscout], and b) attacking gender.

▼ “Those of us who fear the consequences of redefining marriage — asking children if they hope to marry a boy or a girl when they get older, banning religious adoption agencies from placing children first with a married man and woman, denying the importance of both sexes in making families, choosing boys to be high-school prom queens and girls to be high-school prom kings,” etc (http://tinyurl.com/8vq29mj).

States that legalize SSM then enter curriculum and change meanings of words. Massachusetts is scrubbing the words “mother,” “father.”

California has new textbook standards that are leading to this same genderless distinctions. What the Left does — and has done for some time (see the liberal professors book on the matter: “The Dark Side of the Left: Illiberal Egalitarianism in America”) is ruin the good for a perceived perfect.

Here is a great example of this being done, and this is not a micro issue, this has to do with truth, and in the SSM debate, deals with a collective wisdom from history, which seemingly you would discount. After example-after-example, Prager ends with this point that is endemic to the left, diversity/mulch-culturalism/political correctness:

▼ Further poisoning musical judgment is the Left-wing value of diversity. In 2011, Anthony Tommasini, music critic of the New York Times, published his list of the ten greatest composers who ever lived. Absent from the list was Haydn, who Tommasini acknowledged was the father of the symphony, father of the string quartet, and father of the piano sonata. Indeed, one of the avant-garde’s most celebrated modern composers (and a justly celebrated conductor), Pierre Boulez, “thinks Haydn a greater composer than Mozart,”” and one of the greatest pianists who ever lived, Glenn Gould, thought Haydn’s piano sonatas were superior to Mozart’s. So, why did the New York Times music critic omit Haydn? Because, he wrote, “If such a list is to be at all diverse and comprehensive, how could 4 of the 10 slots go to composers—Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert—who worked in Vienna during, say, the 75 years from 1750 to 1825?” Diversity, not greatness, helped determine the New York Times list of the greatest ten composers. That is why Bartok, Debussy, and Stravinsky made the list but Haydn (and Handel) didn’t.

One article I love, and I will end with this, talks about this leftist egalitarian bent in society that destroys in order to make fair:

“…you will be like God, knowing good and evil…” ~ Serpent (Gen 3:5)

….Scientists who study the brain say that some abilities develop greatly at the expense of other abilities. Socially as well, some talents are developed by neglecting others. Concert pianists seldom have a college education, because the demands of the two things are just too great. Therefore, for both biological and social reasons, the only way for everyone to be equal would be for them to be equal at a lower level of ability than what some people are capable of in some things and other people are in other things.

In other words, if everyone were equal in their many capabilities, the whole species would be no more capable or insightful or resistant to diseases than one individual. Our chances of surviving or progressing would be a lot less than they are now. Even the enjoyment we get from watching Tiger Woods play golf or Pavarotti sing would be lost, for we would all be mediocrities in golf and singing and a thousand other things.

A recent book on the publishing industry showed that 63 out of 100 best-sellers had been written by just six authors. It is not uncommon in baseball for just two players to hit more than half the home runs hit by the whole team.

[….]

Where the desire for equality turns from a quixotic hope to a dangerous gamble is in politics. To create even the semblance of “equality” [of results] requires a concentration of power in the hands of political leaders. [And it is only possible by unequally protecting individual rights!–Editor] And, as the history of the 20th century has shown repeatedly and tragically, in countries around the world, once concentrated power is put into the hands of political leaders, they can use it for whatever purpose they have in mind — regardless of what others had in mind when they granted them that power.

Becoming the pawns of politicians is a high price to pay for letting demagogues stir up our envy and beguile us with promises to equalize.

(http://tinyurl.com/cs9sje9)

A gay man speaks to this immutable biology between the sexes (see more here):

Religio-Political Talk (RPT)

"I never discuss anything except politics and religion. There is nothing else to discuss." ~ G.K. Chesterton

Doug Mainwaring

Concepts: Proposition 8 [NOH8] Non-Sequiturs

Is Marriage Hetero?

Another Gay Man That Opposes Same-Sex Marriage #SSM

“Unfriended” for Judge Judy | Traditional Marriage Now Bigoted

Here we go:

`Biology, Not Bigotry` The Left Seems To Want Control over Nature