A Principled defense of Traditional Marriage; Two Arguments

Kelly O'Connell's recent article raises the above question and provides a number of defenses re: traditional marriage. Being that Western society is becoming increasingly irreligious, I won't even touch upon the religious arguments raised by Ms. O'Connell for the simple fact that in today's world, religious arguments are completely lost upon people who have almost no grounding in Biblical history or study. John Sentamu, the archbishop of York, (above) recently presented a balanced, civil and principled argument against gay marriage (without appealing to religion) in which he basically stated redefining marriage to include same-sex couples 'would benefit nobody'...

"I firmly believe that redefining marriage to embrace same-sex relationships would mean diminishing the meaning of marriage for most people, with very little if anything gained for homosexual people. If I am right, in the long term we would all be losers.

Of course, if someone should ask, "how will my marriage be affected if couples of the same sex can marry?", the answer is: not at all. But let me put the question another way: what sort of a society would we have if we came to see all family relationships primarily in terms of equal rights? The family is designed to meet the different needs of its different members in different ways. It is the model of the just society that responds intelligently to differences rather than treating everyone the same...

Unless one believes that every difference between the sexes is a mere social construct, the question of equality between the sexes cannot be completely addressed by the paradigm of racial equality. Defining marriage as between a man and a woman is not discriminatory against same-sex couples. What I am pressing for is a kind of social pluralism that does not degenerate into a fancy-free individualism."

And how is Archbishop Sentamu treated for daring to differ with the enlightened idealogues of The New World Order? He's advocating 'bigotry' of course. No dissent, no matter how well laid out and completely absent of ill will is allowed being that the more vocal supporters of gay marriage obviously ascribe to the viewpoint of 'gay marriage uber alles'.

Ms. O'Connell meanwhile, cites some statistics in her defense of traditional marriage such as the following...

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  63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census)—5 times the average.



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  90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes—32 times the average.



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  85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes—20 times the average. (Center for Disease Control)
  


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  80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes—14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26)



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  71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes—9 times the average. (National Principals Association Report)



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  70% of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes—9 times the average. (U.S. Dept. of Justice, Sept. 1988)
  
  


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  85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes—20 times the average. (Fulton Co. Georgia, Texas Dept. of Correction)
  
  
  "Now, one can assume that a female playing the male role in a lesbian relationship would erase this problem, if such a dynamic exists. But frankly, why would a female attempting to act masculine take the place of a real man? This assumes that the problem with being fatherless is due entirely to there being only half a couple responsible for the children. It also assumes men and women are utterly interchangeable. And yet we know for a fact that men and women, even when undertaking the same tasks, are still radically different (see here).
  
  
  
  It also assumes that male and female homosexual couples model male and female behavior effectively, which is crucial since young children learn much by mimicking. In fact, many experts are concerned that gay parenting will be brought in with anodyne claims of its harmlessness, and only after it becomes an institution, will we be told it is harmful but its too late to call it off. But what could possibly be done after it is legally and culturally established as a norm if it is found deleterious? For instance, in dealing with cases which came before a court, one author wrote:
  
  
  
  "A systematic analysis of appeals court cases or cases cited in those appeals cases regarding custody of children in which a homosexual parent was involved. Here, 82% of the homosexual vs 18% of the heterosexual parents and 54% of the homosexual’s associates vs 19% of the heterosexuals’ associates were recorded as having poor character in cases involving a homosexual claimant."

When taken as a whole, all of this adds up to criteria in which a reasonable person could say 'Wait a minute, let's put the brakes on this whole 'gay marriage' thing and study the effects of such institutions on a society before rushing forward, pell-mell style, utilizing emotional rather than scientific arguments in this case'. That's if that reasonable person doesn't mind being accussed of hatred for daring lift their head on this subject.

What is Wayne Besen afraid of?

Apparently, media darling and poster child for radical, gay activism, Wayne Besen has a problem with the truth over at Truth Wins Out.org. Last night, he and I got into an interesting discussion over at his blog on the site and I must say, I was shocked at the level of candor exhibited by Besen. During the course of the discussion, I asked the following...

"Question…

Was homosexuality depathologized by the APA in 1973 through any sort of groundbreaking ‘research’ or was it through pressure, threats and intimidation brought about via radical gay activism? If it’s the former, exactly what study changed everyone’s mind in the psychological community?

I’d really like an answer here.
Comment by JD Curtis — February 12, 2012 @ 9:25 pm

JD:
Get with the times. Chambers latest stat is .1%.
http://www.truthwinsout.org/pressreleases/2012/02/21908/
The activists put pressure on the APA to review the research. Once that occurred it was easy to see that homosexuality was not an illness.

You have everything ass backwards.

And, yes, they do pray away the gay. You really don’t know a thing about this topic, do you?
Comment by Wayne Besen — February 12, 2012 @ 9:35 pm

Are you really going to make me listen to over 2 hours of discussion to see the context of the relevant statement by Chambers? I’ll be more specific. Does Chambers imply this in a manner that a recovering alcoholics are exactly 1 weekend-bender away from being an alcoholic again? (If you know the point in the interview where the quote occurs, please tell me and I’ll check it out)

The activists put pressure on the APA to review the research

Thank you for your honesty here. I’m not aware of a specific study.

Once that occurred it was easy to see that homosexuality was not an illness

Let me get this straight. Once gay activists put, quote ‘pressure’ on the psychologists, the truth then became clear? I’m not trying to define your position for you here, so a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would be appreciated.
Comment by JD Curtis — February 12, 2012 @ 9:47 pm"

As the evening wore on, it became apparent that not only was Mr Besen not going to answer my direct question to him, but that he had made a slip-up. The last thing anyone over at Truth Wins Out wants to hear about is the truth, and such an admission by Besen, as refreshingly honest as it was, only served to buttress my earlier point that homosexuality was depathologized "through pressure, threats and intimidation brought about via radical gay activism" rather than by any actual "research". Before turning in for the night, I copied and pasted this exchange between Wayne and I for safekeeping and sure enough, the particular exchange had been scrubbed from that discussion thread by morning.

So anytime somebody mentions the site Truth Wins Out, just refer them to this entry for the actual TRUTH. They cannot win their arguments with facts and instead they resort to censorship.

PS. Earlier today I attempted to give Wayne an opportunity to explain why he deleted the above exchange, but when I asked him why he did so over on his blog, my question was quickly deleted by the resident Thought Police.

The Mainstream Media's Anti-Christian Template: Catholicism

One of the prevailing templates utilized by the drive-by, mainstream media is to portray Catholic priests as largely prone to pederasty and the sexual abuse of minors. If one is in doubt concerning how effective the media's ongoing Jihad against Christianity has been in stigmatizing Catholic priests, simply read this exchange that Archbishop Timothy Dolan had with a man while waiting at an airport. An article out today contains an interview with author Dave Pierre who as written extensively about the acutely uneven coverage in the media concerning priest abuse scandals when compared to similar stories coming from other professions. Here are some of the highlights from the interview...

• "I would frequently look at the Los Angeles Times. A number of years ago, I noticed that the paper published a very large, 3,800-word piece on the front page about decades-old abuses that were alleged to have been committed by Catholic clergy in remote villages of Alaska. Indeed, many of the stories were heart-wrenching, painful, and tragic. However, months later, the shocking story of a Southern California teacher who may have molested as many as 200 children was buried on page B3. I soon began to notice a trend: the Times was often giving front-page coverage to stories about Catholic priests alleged to have committed abuse decades ago. Meanwhile, arrests of public school teachers for abuse happening today were often not reported or buried in the “news briefs” section. The double standard was glaring.
  



• Just a few years back, 13 administrators at the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) received an office memo stating that police had arrested an assistant principal and were “investigating allegations that he had an unlawful sexual relationship with a minor.” Yet a few months later, the district reassigned this principal to another school—where he raped again. None of the 13 administrators whose names were on that memo lost their jobs, and the local media did not seem too interested in reporting this fact. And in another incident at the LAUSD, two administrators pleaded guilty and no contest, respectively, in a court of law to the misdemeanor of failing to report the suspected rape of a 13-year-old girl at their school. Where are they now? They are still working at LAUSD—with promotions. It is not hard to imagine that if these episodes had involved the Catholic Church, the national media would have had quite a field day. Instead, few people outside of Los Angeles are even familiar these stories."
  

These are just a couple of examples and the cited article contains many more. I don't doubt that clergy should be held to a higher standard than many of us, but so should anyone who is entrusted with caring for children. I doubt such anti-Christian bigotry is going away anytime soon, but kudos to Mr. Pierre for shining a light on the practice of unfairly characterizing Catholic priests.