US President Obama's public endorsement of homosexualisation of marriage -- with implication of the gradual censoring and criminalisation of Bible-believing Christian faith as "bigotry" -- as was expected and already warned against, is having further polarising consequences, and is triggering further endorsements that should be of concern to us here in the Caribbean.
For, this seems to be yet another surge of the tidal wave from the north that is adversely affecting our region:
According to a news report:
According to a news report:
The NAACP voted on Saturday to endorse same-sex marriage, placing the nation’s most influential black civil rights organization on a collision course with many African-American church leaders.
The decision by the group's board of directors was seen as a boon to President Barack Obama who announced his own support of same sex unions earlier this month.
“Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law,” NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous said in a statement after the vote. “The NAACP’s support for marriage equality is deeply rooted in the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution and equal protection of all people,” he added saying people who try to split African Americans on the subject “will not succeed.” . . . .
A Washington Post poll in November found that 58 percent of blacks found gay marriage unacceptable, with only 35 percent saying it is acceptable. Support for the position in the general population is roughly 50/50, other polls have shown. ["NAACP Votes to Support Gay Marriage" Newsmax, May 19, 2012]
The flaws in the proffered rationale should be clear: marriage is rooted in the manifest creation order complementarity of the sexes, the inextricable prime purpose of the act of marital union, and the requisites of sound child nurture, which requires stable families rooted in the heterosexual bond. (This is both obvious and well-supported by research.)
In the teeth of such evidence, we see a push to further destabilise marriage and family by suggesting that as a "right" the hitherto "excluded" same sex couples "should" have "equality" . . .
. . . and so, it is brazenly asserted that unnatural couplings should be allowed to be "married" in the eyes of civil law, on pain of false accusation of bigotry.
In fact, instead, this is a case of destruction by willfully false attempted redefinition in defiance of the evident creation order nature of marriage, opening the door to all sorts of arrangements across time that can claim much the same affection and wanting to be recognised in mutual commitment and legal privileges.
If you doubt me on my concerns, observe this remark by someone who has stood up in defence of civility in the debate initiated by the homosexualist attempt to redefine marriage in law:
-- but, blatantly, this is a lie: unnatural acts, some of which are warning-label deadly, are obviously not "equal" to the creation-order purpose of the act of marital union, and two men and two women (or, in future one shudders to think, what) are not "equal" to husband and wife in a lifelong covenant as joined by God, which "let not man put asunder" --
. . . and so, it is brazenly asserted that unnatural couplings should be allowed to be "married" in the eyes of civil law, on pain of false accusation of bigotry.
In fact, instead, this is a case of destruction by willfully false attempted redefinition in defiance of the evident creation order nature of marriage, opening the door to all sorts of arrangements across time that can claim much the same affection and wanting to be recognised in mutual commitment and legal privileges.
If you doubt me on my concerns, observe this remark by someone who has stood up in defence of civility in the debate initiated by the homosexualist attempt to redefine marriage in law:
In briefly rehearsing well-known defenses of conjugal marriage that others have elaborated elsewhere, I noted in the Post that marriage “has always existed in order to bring men and women together so that children will have mothers and fathers” and that same-sex unions are “not an expansion but a dismantling of the institution.” The response of some readers was not merely that I had not fully fleshed out this argument (which I could readily admit) but that such statements did not even bear the marks of rationality—that they were so obviously wrong that only those in the grip of unreasoning hatred or bigotry could put them forward.
Some of our high public officials, unfortunately, have encouraged this kind of flattening and coarsening of our public discussion. Judge Joseph Tauro, of the federal district court in Boston, in ruling against the constitutionality of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (which defines marriage as between one man and one woman for the purposes of federal law), said last July that the difference between same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples is a “distinction without meaning.” How he claimed to know this, since he did not explain it, is anyone’s guess, but it was enough for him to conclude that Congress, in passing DOMA, had acted on an “animus” that “targets” people on the basis of a “sexual orientation” of which Congress “disapproves.” But DOMA was passed by overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress, and signed by a Democratic president, for the express purpose of defending the right of the people in each state to govern themselves on the question of marriage . . . .
Not long after Judge Tauro’s decision last summer came the ruling of Judge Vaughn Walker, of the federal district court in San Francisco, striking down California’s Proposition 8, itself a defensive measure passed by a majority of the state’s voters in 2008 after the state’s supreme court invented a right of same-sex marriage under the California constitution. Judge Walker declared that there was no “rational basis” for Prop. 8. “Tradition alone,” he wrote, “cannot form a rational basis for a law.” Tradition normally has a presumption in its favor in such inquiries, but not for Judge Walker. He sniffed out what was really going on, declaring that “moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples.” The law unavoidably speaks in the name of a community’s moral vision, so to what did the judge really object? He called opposition to same-sex marriage a “private moral choice,” with “private” meaning it was not entitled to enactment as public morality. Clearly, for Judge Walker, the reason for this conclusion lay in the second term of the phrase of his, “moral and religious views.” In the most telling passage of his opinion, he claimed—as a “finding of fact,” no less—that “religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful . . . harm gays and lesbians.”
There we have it. Marriage only between a man and a woman is a mere “tradition” with no claim on our attention when a claim of “discrimination” is made on the other side. All that this tradition has going for it is the “moral and religious views” of its supporters. But the law embodies moral choices, so why is this moral viewpoint illegitimate as the basis of a law? The problem is that it is driven too much by the religious commitments of those who hold it—and so it must be dismissed from public life and relegated to the realm of “private moral choice,” disallowed from enactment as the view of the majority in a democratic society. So toxic is it to hold certain religious views that merely believing them works a “harm” to other people. Those who hold these views must not only be prevented from enacting those views as the will of the democratic majority; they must, to the extent possible, be silenced in the public square. They must . . . shut up.
[Matthew Franck, "Religion, Reason, and Same-Sex Marriage," First Things, May 2011.]
The absurdities and irreconcilable contentions that are being injected into the fabric of thought, public policy and law should be quite evident.
*So, in warning, I find myself constrained to again note that what is at stake today is the destruction or survival of marriage, the foundational institution of stable families and communities alike; and with it, the premise that law is based on that which is right and wrong, that which fulfills a built-in purpose, vs. that which frustrates or perverts it; and, in the end, whether there is more to right, wrong and justice than the horrible nihilist motto: might makes 'right.'
Our civilisation is at a fundamental divide and in our day, and we will have to decide which of two ways it will go, on what basis.
As Girgit, George and Anderson observe in the just linked Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy paper:
*So, in warning, I find myself constrained to again note that what is at stake today is the destruction or survival of marriage, the foundational institution of stable families and communities alike; and with it, the premise that law is based on that which is right and wrong, that which fulfills a built-in purpose, vs. that which frustrates or perverts it; and, in the end, whether there is more to right, wrong and justice than the horrible nihilist motto: might makes 'right.'
Our civilisation is at a fundamental divide and in our day, and we will have to decide which of two ways it will go, on what basis.
As Girgit, George and Anderson observe in the just linked Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy paper:
[T]he current debate is precisely over whether it is possible for the kind of union that has marriage’s essential fea‐tures to exist between two people of the same sex. Revisionists do not propose leaving intact the historic definition of marriage and simply expanding the pool of people eligible to marry. Their goal is to abolish the conjugal conception of marriage in our law 10 and replace it with the revisionist [--> i.e. homosexualised] conception . . .
----------
F/N 10: Throughout history, no society’s laws have explicitly forbidden gay mar‐riage. They have not explicitly forbidden it because, until recently, it has not been thought possible . . . [T]raditional marriage laws were not devised to oppress those with same‐sex attractions. The comparison [to racist anti-miscegenation laws that forbade inter-racial marriages] is offensive, and puzzling to many—not least to the nearly two‐thirds of black vot‐ers who voted to uphold conjugal marriage under California Proposition Eight. See Cara Mia DiMassa & Jessica Garrison, Why Gays, Blacks are Divided on Prop. 8, L.A. TIMES, Nov. 8, 2008, at A1.
[Sherif Girgis, Robert P. George, & Ryan T. Anderson, "What is Marriage?" Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol 34, No. 1, p. 250 of 245 - 287.]
Already, though, the force of the homosexualist civilisational divide is at
work, driving people on opposite sides of the issue farther and farther
apart on the watershed issue, and creating the perception that has already been embedded in court decisions in the UK that those who stand up in defence of
marriage as it has historically been established and endorsed in Scripture are little better than
hateful, racist bigots.
Which, is obscenely slanderous, but is increasingly routine.
Which, is obscenely slanderous, but is increasingly routine.
And, sadly, that is exactly the slander that the NAACP Board announcement further enables.
However, in a climate of thought where political polarisation prevails and the self-refuting and amoral worldview of evolutionary materialism dresses itself up in the holy lab coat and demands genuflection, we will easily fall under the dynamic of radical relativisation of values and the implications of the notion that might and manipulation make 'right,' that stem from this view, leading to the rise of factions that will seek to manipulate our moral sensibilities. For, to such groups, such sensibilities are in the end all there is to morality.
Since many of those who most need to heed Rom 1:18 - 32, 1 Cor 6:9 - 11and Eph 4:17 - 24 on this subject will not listen to it, let us pause and listen to the pagan philosopher Plato's warning along the lines of the destructive nature of evolutionary materialism and the radically relativist, divisive and ruthlessly nihilistic factions it opens the door to. (Notice, I am not saying that all who adhere to such a view become like this, but that because such evolutionary materialism has no grounding for ought, it disarms society in the face of such factions.)
Plato warns:
[The avant garde philosophers, teachers and artists c. 400 BC say that] The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only . . . .
[[T]hese
people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by
the laws of states, which are different in different places, according
to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke's views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic "every man does what is right in his own eyes" chaos leading to tyranny.)] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[
Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in
this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods
are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions
[[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to
continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny; here, too, Plato hints at the career of Alcibiades], and not in legal subjection to them . . .
In direct contrast, we can listen to John Locke in his second essay on civil government, in Ch 2 sect 5, when he set out to ground liberty and justice in civil society on a stabler foundation. He did so by citing "the judicious [Anglican Canon Richard] Hooker" in his Ecclesiastical Polity of 1594 on:
.
. . if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's
hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have
any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to
satisfy the like desire which is undoubtedly in other men . . . my
desire, therefore, to be loved of my equals in Nature, as much as
possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to themward
fully the like affection. From which
relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves,
what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn for direction of
life no man is ignorant . . . [[Hooker then continues, citing Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics, Bk 8:] as namely, That
because we would take no harm, we must therefore do none; That since we
would not be in any thing extremely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid
all extremity in our dealings; That from all violence and wrong we are
utterly to abstain, with such-like . . . ] [[Eccl. Polity,preface, Bk I, "ch." 8, p.80, cf. here. Emphasis added.]
So, now, we must decide: whose report will we believe, why? And -- given what is now on the table for our civilisation -- to what result? END
_________
F/N: I again invite onlookers to read the book, My Genes Made Me Do It, here to gain a more balanced view of the matter of homosexuality than will be picked up from the major media and typical pundits. In addition, I again list the following highly useful sources for further reading, courtesy Manhattan Declaration:
What is Marriage?
by Sherif Girgis, Robert George, and Ryan T. Anderson
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1722155
Why I'm Optimistic About Natural Marriage
by Andrew Walker
http://www.mereorthodoxy.com/why-im-optimistic-about-natural-marriage/
Why Is Marriage Important? (video)
by John Piper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd3AmKexugM
Who Needs Marriage?
by Chuck Colson
http://www.breakpoint.org/the-center/columns/colson-files/17606-who-needs-marriage
Marriage in Society: The Generation Clash (pps. 47-57)
by Matthew Lee Anderson
http://issuu.com/thecity/docs/thecitywinter2009/47?mode=embed&layout=http://skin.issuu.com/v/light/layout.xml&showFlipBtn=true
What Would Bonhoeffer Do?
by Eric Metaxas
http://www.breakpoint.org/the-center/columns/call-response/15129-metaxas-what-would-bonhoeffer-do
Dennis Prager Debates Perez Hilton on Same-Sex Marriage (Warning: YouTube contains objectionable content)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTE9zWaQc_Y
Religion, Reason, and Same-Sex Marriage
by Matthew J. Franck
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/05/religion-reason-and-same-sex-marriage
A Marriage in Full
by Gary A. Anderson
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/04/003-a-marriage-in-full-3
On Marriage and the Moral Limits of Human Sexuality
by Metropolitan Jonah
http://orthocath.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/metropolitan-jonah-on-marriage-and-the-moral-limits-of-human-sexuality/
