Equal Rites?

Advocates of gay marriage are fond of comparing it to racial intermarriage, as I discussed here last spring in noting that this claim made the Congressional Black Caucus and others uncomfortable. As an example, I quoted Rep. Artur Davis, a black Democrat representing Birmingham:

Say What? (9)

  1. Stephen December 29, 2004 at 10:33 am | | Reply

    Sexual behavior is action. People can choose to act or not to act. In fact, throughout Christian history, priests and nuns have chosen to be celibate. Catholicism, in fact, posits a life of sexual inaction (except for procreation) as the ideal for heterosexuals.

    So, the traditional Christian opposition to homosexuality is based on moral opposition to actions. This is not discrimination or bigotry. People can be attracted to the same sex, and not act upon that attraction.

    Case closed. The notion that homosexuality is innate is pretty bogus to begin with, and the innate theory does not cross out the reality that gay behavior is chosen. One can choose not to act, not matter how attracted to the act.

    The gay activist agenda is rooted on quicksand. The innate argument is phony. Even phonier is the purported history of oppression and violence directed at gays. It’s a lie.

    And I will have nothing more to say as this discussion veers into the inevitable insanity. This is a spoiled brat issue. Opposition to spoiled brats inevitably provokes a tantrum. Hold onto your hats while the spoiled brats wail!

  2. bonehead December 29, 2004 at 2:53 pm | | Reply

    I must disagree with Stephen regarding the non-innateness of homosexuality. Based on decades of acquaintance with gays of many personality types, I’m sure that there are indeed those who choose to live a homosexual lifestyle because they simply cannot cope with the opposite sex on a personal level (I have personally know several women for whom this is true.) But I think there is also enough evidence at this point to make a fairly convincing case that somewhere between 2% and 5% of every generation will be born innately homosexual.

    Personally, I don’t particularly have a problem with the idea of gays being able to enjoy all the benefits of marriage, along with suffering all of it’s burdens…that’s actually just fine with me. What does bother me, however, is the gay activists who loudly insist that anyone who does not thoroughly and enthusiastically embrace every element of their agenda is a bigot and a homophobe. Those are the people I really do have a problem with. Besides, the whole gay marriage issue is something of a red-herring, what Hitchcock would call a “MacGuffin”. The real issue is gay parenthood.

    It seems to me that the lines of reasoning that gay activists use in favor of gay parenthood typically combine that question with issues other than sexual orientation, to produce “hey, look over there!” arguments that are intellectually dishonest.

    It is not adequate, for example, to simply argue that gays should be entitled to all the rights that straights have, including parenthood. This is partially because, when it comes to any issue involving kids, the proper framework for the issue is not what’s best for grownups, but rather what is best for children. But it’s also because one could just as easily make an argument that parenthood should not even be discussed as an “entitlement” in the first place. After all, like Steve Martin said, “You have to have a license to have a dog…”

    It is also not enough to argue that there are a lot of lousy, messed-up straight parents out there, because it is just as valid to say that it is every bit as likely that there are also a lot of lousy, messed-up gay parents out there, so the argument cancels itself out.

    In the same manner, it is not enough to say that there are a lot of kids out there who would probably be a lot better off with a good set of gay parents than they are in whatever circumstances they are presently in, because it is also just as valid to say that there are a lot of kids presently living with lousy gay parents who would probably be better off in some other circumstance.

    It is also not enough to say that there are a lot of terrific, even heroic, single parents out there, because that argument isn’t, either by itself, or in combination with any of the above described arguments, sufficient to demonstrate that terrific single-parents are *just as good* for kids as terrific couple-parents, and therefore doesn’t really support the issue of gay parenthood.

    Such arguments are not really about gays raising kids, they are about other things, and most of these arguments cancel themselves out. Moreover, I’m pretty sure that the people who make such arguments already understand that, and are therefore being intellectually dishonest.

    It seems to me that the only intellectually honest argument (and, not coincidentally, the one that activists typically avoid making), is the one that eliminates all factors other than sexual orientation. If you truly believe in gay parenthood, you have to be willing to make a comparison between the most terrific possible example of a gay couple, and the most terrific possible example of a straight couple. You have to be willing to place those two couples side-by-side and say that no child would ever miss out on anything that really matters by being raised with that gay couple instead of that straight couple.

    And you can’t really make that argument unless you’re also willing to say that children don’t really need a “mother” or a “father”, per se. And you can’t really make *that* argument unless you’re *also* willing to say that men and women don’t really need each other *at all*. And you can’t really make *that* argument unless you’re *also* willing to say that the very concept of “gender” is an almost entirely arbitrary, outmoded social construct that isn’t really needed at all any more, if it ever was. And that is a line of argument that I seriously doubt more than about 5% of the American public will ever be willing to agree with.

    And no, that does not mean that there is something desperately backward or bigoted or repressive or oppressive about 95% of the American population (unless, of course, your natural inclination is to disparage the American population in the first place.) If, for example, you’re a gay person who really believes in that entire line of reasoning, all it really means is that the social practices of millenia of civilizations actually do mean something and actually do have some value, and that the belief system that *you* have constructed for *yourself*, to support *your* sexual orientation, is at variance with what 95% of the American public believes.

    Societies which seek to be just, do indeed have an obligation to reconcile themselves to the fact that gay people always have and always will live among them. But that obligation, like all obligations, is a two-way street. Gays also have an obligation to reconcile themselves to the fact that they live in a straight society which is already the product of millennia of evolution and change, yet where traditional gender roles and male-female parenting are practices which have withstood the test of time for very good reasons.

  3. Alessandra January 3, 2005 at 3:39 pm | | Reply

    But I think there is also enough evidence at this point to make a fairly convincing case that somewhere between 2% and 5% of every generation will be born innately homosexual.

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    The gay gene myth is a myth. People are not born inately homosexual, pedophile-sexual, necrophie-sexual, SM-sexual, etc. Sexuality is the result of individual development (even if in dysfunctional ways).

  4. Alessandra January 3, 2005 at 3:50 pm | | Reply

    Societies which seek to be just, do indeed have an obligation to reconcile themselves to the fact that gay people always have and always will live among them.

    ==============================

    People who want to legitimize pedophilia, prostitution, SM, and other sexualities, can affirm the same. Just because something has existed for a long time does not make it good, healthy, right, desirable, neither does it mean it will have to continue on existing.

    All major civilizations are highly dysfunctional in many ways (and violent) and spawn a great different number of dysfunctional people constantly, specially in the sexuality arena.

    To say that because most of psycho professionals are incapable at treating pedophiles presently and changing their orientation is no argument to say therefore, pedophiles should not change and should be pedophiles and society should glamorize and approve pedophilia, as it is doing with homo and bisexuality.

  5. Alessandra January 3, 2005 at 4:03 pm | | Reply

    Even phonier is the purported history of oppression and violence directed at gays. It’s a lie.

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    Have you noticed that homos are practically the only group that has individuals faking “hate” attacks on themselves? Like that l-sbian in California and others. I don

  6. Alessandra January 3, 2005 at 4:13 pm | | Reply

    Another very important point:

    The issue of gay marriage is not about individual rights. What the activists are seeking is official social approval of their lifestyle. But this is the antithesis of equal rights.

  7. Alessandra January 3, 2005 at 4:20 pm | | Reply

    (for some reason, the system didn

  8. Alessandra January 3, 2005 at 4:23 pm | | Reply

    You cannot say that what “c-nsenting ad-lts” do in private is nobody else’s business

    and then turn around and say that others are bound to put their seal of approval on it.

  9. Alessandra January 3, 2005 at 4:25 pm | | Reply

    See full article for the above at Human Events.

    http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=6184

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